In the Roar of the Sea

Now, Miss Trevisa cannot be said to have belonged to either of these classes. To the latter she had pertained till suddenly, from a quarter quite unregarded, there came down on her a very satisfactory little splash. Of relatives that were rich she had none, because she had no relatives at all. Of bosom friends she had none, for her bosom was of that unyielding nature, that no one would like to be taken to it. But, before the marriage of her brother, and before he became rector of S. Enodoc, when he was but a poor curate, she had been companion to a spinster lady, Miss Ceely, near S. Austell. Now the companion is supposed to be a person without an opinion of her own, always standing in a cringing position to receive the opinion of her mistress, then to turn it over and give it forth as her own. She is, if she be a proper companion, a mere echo of the sentiments of her employer. Moreover, she is expected to be amiable, never to resent a rude word, never to take umbrage at neglect, always to be ready to dance attendance on her mistress, and with enthusiasm of devotion, real or simulated, to carry out her most absurd wishes, unreasoningly. But Miss Trevisa had been, as a companion, all that a companion ought not to be. She had argued with Miss Ceely, invariably, had crossed her opinions, had grumbled at her when she asked that anything might be done, raised difficulties, piled up objections, blocked the way to whatever Miss Ceely particularly set the heart on having executed. The two ladies were always quarrelling, always calling each other names, and it was a marvel to the relatives of Miss Ceely that she and her companion hung together for longer than a month. Nevertheless they did. Miss Trevisa left the old lady when Mr. Peter Trevisa became rector of S. Enodoc, and then Miss Ceely obtained in her place quite an ideal companion, a very mirror – she had but to look on her face, smile, and a smile was repeated, weep, and tears came in the mirror. The new companion grovelled at her feet, licked the dust off her shoes, fawned on her hand, ran herself off her legs to serve her, grew gray under the misery of enduring Miss Ceely’s jibes and sneers and insults, finally sacrificed her health in nursing her. When Miss Ceely’s will was opened it was found that she had left nothing – not a farthing to this obsequious attendant, but had bequeathed fifteen hundred pounds, free of legacy duty, and all her furniture and her house to Miss Trevisa, with whom she had not kept up correspondence for twenty-three years. It really seemed as if leathery, rusty Aunt Dionysia, from being a dry Gideon’s fleece, were about to be turned into a wet and wringable fleece. No one was more astounded than herself.

It was now necessary that Miss Trevisa should go to S. Austell and see after what had come to her thus unsolicited and unexpectedly. All need for her to remain at Pentyre was at an end.

Before she departed – not finally, but to see about the furniture that was now hers, and to make up her mind whether to keep or to sell it – she called Judith to her.

That day, the events of which were given in last chapter, had produced a profound impression on Jamie. He had become gloomy, timid, and silent. His old idle chatter ceased. He clung to his sister, and accompanied her wherever she went; he could not endure to be with Coppinger. When he heard his voice, caught a glimpse of him, he ran away and hid. Jamie had been humored as a child, never beaten, scolded, put in a corner, sent to bed, cut off his pudding, but the rod had now been applied to his back and his first experience of corporal punishment was the cruel and vindictive hiding administered, not for any fault he had committed but because he had done his sister’s bidding. He was filled with hatred of Coppinger, mingled with fear, and when alone with Judith would break out into exclamations of entreaty that she would run away with him, and of detestation of the man who held them there, as it were prisoners.

“Ju,” said he, “I wish he were dead. I hate him. Why doesn’t God kill him and set us free!”

At another time he said, “Ju, dear! You do not love him. I wish I were a big strong man like Oliver, and I would do what Captain Cruel did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Captain Cruel shot at Oliver.”

This was the first tidings Judith had heard of the attempt on Oliver’s life.

“He is a mean coward,” said Jamie. “He hid behind a hedge and shot at him. But he did not hurt him.”

“God preserved him,” said Judith.

“Why does not God preserve us! Why did God let that beast – ”

“Hush, Jamie!”

“I will not – that wretch – beat me? Why did He not send lightning and strike him dead?”

“I cannot tell you, darling. We must wait and trust.”

“I am tired of waiting and trusting. If I had a gun I would not shoot birds, I would go behind a hedge and shoot Captain Coppinger. There would be nothing wrong in that, Ju?”

“Yes there would. It would be a sin.”

“Not after he did that to Oliver.”

“I would never – never love you, if you did that.”

“You would always love me whatever I did,” said Jamie. He spoke the truth, Judith knew it. Her eyes filled, she drew the boy to her passionately and kissed his golden head.

Then came Aunt Dionysia and summoned her into her own room. Jamie followed.

“Judith,” began Aunt Dunes, in her usual hard tones, and with the same frozen face, “I wish you particularly to understand. Look here! You have caused me annoyance enough while I have been here. Now I shall have a house of my own at S. Austell, and if I choose to live in it I can. If I do not, I can let it, and live at Othello Cottage. I have not made up my mind what to do. Fifteen hundred pounds is a dirty little sum, and not half as much as ought to have been left me for all I had to bear from that old woman. I am glad for one thing that she has left me something, though not much. I should have despaired of her salvation had she not. However her heart was touched at the last, though not touched enough. Now what I want you to understand is this – it entirely depends on your conduct whether after my death this sum of fifteen hundred pounds and a beggarly sum of about five hundred I have of my own, comes to you or not. As long as this nonsense goes on between you and Captain Coppinger – you pretending you are not married, when you are, there is no security for me that you and Jamie may not come tumbling in upon me and become a burden to me. Captain Coppinger will not endure this fooling much longer. He can take advantage of your mistake. He can say – I am not married. Where is the evidence? Produce proof of the marriage having been solemnized – and then he may send you out of his house upon the downs in the cold. What would you be then, eh? All the world holds you to be Mrs. Coppinger. A nice state of affairs, if it wakes up one morning to hear that Mrs. Coppinger has been kicked out of the Glaze, that she never was the wife. What will the world say, eh? What sort of name will the world give you, when you have lived here as his wife.”

“That I have not.”

“Lived here, gone to balls as his wife when you were not. What will the world call you, eh?”

Judith was silent, holding both her hands, open against her bosom. Jamie beside her, looking up in her face, not understanding what his aunt was saying.

“Very well – or rather very ill!” continued Miss Trevisa. “And then you and this boy here will come to me to take you in, come and saddle yourselves on me, and eat up my little fund. That is what will be the end of it, if you remain in your folly. Go at once to the rector, and put your name where it should have been two months ago, and your position is secure, he cannot drive you away, disgusted at your stubbornness, and you will relieve me of a constant source of uneasiness. It is not that only, but I must care for the good name of Trevisa, which you happen to bear, that that name may not be trailed in the dust. The common sense of the matter is precisely what you cannot see. If you are not Coppinger’s wife you should not be here. If you are Coppinger’s wife, then your name should be in the register. Now here you have come. You have appeared in public with him. You have but one course open to you, and that is to secure your position and your name and honor. You cannot undo what is done, but you can complete what is done insufficiently. The choice between alternatives is no longer before you. If you had purposed to withdraw from marriage, break off the engagement, then you should not have come on to Pentyre, and remained here. As, however, you did this, there is absolutely nothing else to be done, but to sign the register. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“And you will obey?”

“No.”

“Pig-headed fool,” said Miss Trevisa. “Not one penny will I leave you. That I swear, if you remain obstinate.”

“Do not let us say anything more about that, aunt. Now you are going away, is there anything connected with the house you wish me to attend to? That I will do readily.”

“Yes, there are several things,” growled Miss Trevisa, “and, first of all, are you disposed to do anything, any common little kindness for the man whose bread you eat, whose roof covers you?”

“Yes, aunt.”

“Very well, then. Captain Coppinger has his bowl of porridge every morning. I suppose he was accustomed to it before he came into these parts, and he cannot breakfast without it. He says that our Cornish maids cannot make porridge properly, and I have been accustomed to see to it. Either it is lumpy, or it is watery, or it is saltless. Will you see to that?”

“Yes, aunt, willingly.”

“You ought to know how to make porridge, as you are more than half Scottish.”

“I certainly can make it. Dear papa always liked it.”

“Then you will attend to that. If you are too high and too great a lady to put your hand to it yourself, you can see that the cook manages it aright. There is a new girl in now, who is a fool.”

“I will make it myself. I will do all I can do.”

“Then take the keys. Now that I go, you must be mistress of the house. But for your folly, I might have been from here, and in my own house, or rather in that given me for my use, Othello Cottage. I was to have gone there directly after your marriage, I had furnished it, and made it comfortable, and then you took to your fantastic notions, and hung back, and refused to allow that you were married, and so I had to stick on here two months. Here, take the keys.” Miss Trevisa almost flung them at her niece. “Now I have two thousand pounds of my own, and a house at S. Austell, it does not become me to be doing menial service. Take the keys. I will never have them back.”

When Miss Trevisa was gone, and Judith was by herself at night, Jamie being asleep, she was able to think over calmly what her aunt had said. She concerned herself not the least, relative to the promise her aunt had made of leaving her two thousand pounds, were she submissive, and her threat of disinheriting her, should she continue recalcitrant, but she did feel that there was truth in her aunt’s words when she said that she, Judith, had placed herself in a wrong position – but it was a wrong position into which she had been forced, she had not voluntarily entered it. She had, indeed, consented to become Coppinger’s wife, but when she found that Coppinger had employed Jamie to give signals that might mislead a vessel to its ruin she could not go further to meet him. Although he had endeavored to clear himself in her eyes, she did not believe him. She was convinced that he was guilty, though at moments she hoped, and tried to persuade herself that he was not. Then came the matter of the diamonds. There, again, the gravest suspicion rested on him. Again he had endeavored to exculpate himself, yet she could not believe that he was innocent. Till full confidence that he was blameless in these matters was restored, an insuperable wall divided them. Never would she belong to a man who was a wrecker, who belonged to that class of criminals her father had regarded with the utmost horror.

Before she retired to bed, she picked up from under the fender the scrap of paper on which Oliver’s message had been written. It had lain there unobserved where Coppinger had flung it, now, as she tidied her room, and arranged the fire-rug, she observed it. She smoothed it out, folded it, and went to her workbox to replace it where it had been before.

She raised the lid, and was about to put the note among some other papers she had there, a letter of her mother’s, a piece of her father’s writing, some little accounts she had kept, when she was startled to see that the packet of arsenic Mr. Menaida had given her was missing.

She turned out the contents of her workbox. It was nowhere to be found, either there, or in her drawers. Her aunt must have been prying into the box, have found and removed it, so Judith thought, and with this thought appeased her alarm. Perhaps, considering the danger of having arsenic about, Aunt Dionysia had done right in removing it. She had done wrong in doing so without speaking to Judith.

CHAPTER XLVI

A SECOND LIE

Next day, Miss Trevisa being gone, Judith had to attend to the work of the house. It was her manifest duty to do so. Hitherto she had shrunk from the responsibility, because she shrank from assuming a position in the house to which she refused to consider that she had a right. Judith was perfectly competent to manage an establishment, she had a clear head, a love of order, and a power of exacting obedience of servants without incessant reproof. Moreover, she had that faculty possessed by few of directing others in their work so that each moved along his or her own line and fulfilled the allotted work with ease. She had managed her father’s house, and managed it admirably. She knew that, as the king’s government must be carried on, so the routine of a household must be kept going. Judith had sufficient acquaintance also with servants to be aware that the wheel would stop or move spasmodically, unless an authoritative hand were applied to it to keep it in even revolution. She knew also that whatever happened in a house – a birth, a death, a wedding, an uproar – the round of common duties must be discharged, the meals prepared, the bread baked, the milk skimmed, the beds made, the carpets swept, the furniture dusted, the windows opened, the blinds drawn down, the table laid, the silver and glass burnished. Nothing save a fire which gutted a house must interfere with all this routine. Miss Trevisa was one of those ladies who, in their own opinion, are condemned by Providence never to have good servants. A benign Providence sheds good domestics into every other house, save that which she rules. She is born under a star which inexorably sends the scum and dregs of servantdom under her sceptre. Miss Trevisa regarded a servant as a cat regards a mouse, a dog regards a fox, and a dolphin a flying-fish, as something to be run after, snapped at, clawed, leaped upon, worried perpetually. She was incapable of believing that there could be any good in a servant, that there was any other side to a domestic save a seamy side. She could make no allowance for ignorance, for weakness, for lightheartedness. A servant in her eyes must be a drudge ever working, never speaking, smiling, taking a hand off the duster, without a mind above flue and tea-leaves, and unable to soar above a cobweb; with a temper perfect in endurance of daily, hourly fault-finding, nagging, grumbling, a mind unambitious also of commendation. Miss Trevisa held that every servant that a malign Providence had sent her was clumsy, insolent, slatternly, unmethodical, idle, wasteful, a gossip, a gadabout, a liar, a thief, was dainty, greedy, one of a cursed generation; and when in the Psalms, David launched out in denunciation of the enemies of the Lord, Miss Trevisa, when she heard or read these Psalms, thought of servantdom. Servants were referred to when David said, “Hide me from the insurrection of the wicked doers, who have whet their tongues like a sword, that they may privily shoot at him that is perfect,” i. e., me, was Miss Trevisa’s comment. “They encourage themselves in mischief; and commune among themselves how they may lay snares, and say, that no man shall see them.” “And how,” said Miss Trevisa, “can men be so blind as not to believe that the Bible is inspired when David hits the character of servants off to the life!”

And not the Psalms only, but the Prophets were full of servants’ delinquencies. What were Tyre and Egypt but figures of servantdom shadowed before. What else did Isaiah lift up his testimony about, and Jeremiah lament over, but the iniquities of the kitchen and the servants’ hall. Miss Trevisa read her Bible, and great comfort did it afford her, because it did denounce the servant maids so unsparingly and prepared brimstone and outer darkness for them.

Now Judith had seen and heard much of the way in which Miss Trevisa managed Captain Coppinger’s house. Her room adjoined that of her aunt, and she knew that if her aunt were engaged on – it mattered not what absorbing work, embroidery, darning a stocking, reading a novel, saying her prayers, studying the cookery book – if a servant sneezed within a hundred yards, or upset a drop of water, or clanked a dust-pan, or clicked a door-handle, Miss Trevisa would be distracted from her work and rush out of her room, just as a spider darts from its recess, and sweep down on the luckless servant to worry and abuse her.

Judith, knowing this, knew also that the day of Miss Trevisa’s departure would be marked with white chalk, and lead to a general relaxation of discipline, to an inhaling of long breaths, and a general stretching and taking of ease. It was necessary, therefore, that she should go round and see that the wheel was kept turning.

To her surprise, on entering the hall, she found Captain Coppinger there.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, “I thought you were out.”

She looked at him and was struck with his appearance, the clay-like color of his face, the dark lines in it, the faded look in his eyes.

“Are you unwell?” she asked; “you really look ill.”

“I am ill.”

“Ill – what is the matter?”

“A burning in my throat. Cramp and pains – but what is that to you?”

“When did it come on?”

“But recently.”

“Will you not have a doctor to see you?”

“A doctor! – no.”

“Was the porridge as you liked it this morning? I made it.”

“It was good enough.”

“Would you like more now?”

“No.”

“And to-morrow morning, will you have the same?”

“Yes – the same.”

“I will make it again. Aunt said the new cook did not understand how to mix and boil it to your liking.”

Coppinger nodded.

Judith remained standing and observing him. Some faces when touched by pain and sickness are softened and sweetened. The hand of suffering passes over the countenance and brushes away all that is frivolous, sordid, vulgar; it gives dignity, purity, refinement, and shows what the inner soul might be were it not entangled and degraded by base association and pursuit. It is different with other faces, the hand of suffering films away the assumed expression of good nature, honesty, straightforwardness, and unmasks the evil inner man. The touch of pain had not improved the expression of Cruel Coppinger. It cannot, however, with justice be said that the gentler aspect of the man, which Judith had at one time seen, was an assumption. He was a man in whom there was a certain element of good, but it was mixed up with headlong wilfulness, utter selfishness, and resolution to have his own way at any cost.

Judith could see, now that his face was pain-struck, how much of evil there was in the soul that had been disguised by a certain dash of masculine overbearing and brusqueness.

“What are you looking at?” asked Coppinger, glancing up.

“I was thinking,” answered Judith.

“Of what?”

“Of you – of Wyvill, of the wreck on Doom Bar, of the jewels of Lady Knighton, and last of all of Jamie’s maltreatment.”

“And what of all that?” he said in irritable scorn.

“That I need not say. I have drawn my own conclusions.”

“You torment me, you – when I am ill? They call me Cruel, but it is you who are cruel.”

Judith did not wish to be drawn into discussion that must be fruitless. She said, quietly, in altered tone, “Can I get you anything to comfort you?”

“No – go your way. This will pass. Besides, it is naught to you. Go; I would be left alone.”

Judith obeyed, but she was uneasy. She had never seen Coppinger look as he looked now. It was other, altogether, after he had broken his arm. Other, also, when for a day he was crippled with bruises, after the wreck. She looked into the hall several times during the day. In the afternoon he was easier, and went out; his mouth had been parched and burning, and he had been drinking milk. The empty glass was on the table. He would eat nothing at mid-day. He turned from food, and left the room for his own chamber.

Judith was anxious. She more than once endeavored to draw Coppinger into conversation relative to himself, but he would not speak of what affected him. He was annoyed and ashamed at being out of his usual rude health.

“It is naught,” he said, “but a bilious attack, and will pass. Leave me alone.”

She had been so busy all day, that she had seen little of Jamie. He had taken advantage of Captain Coppinger not being about, to give himself more license to roam than he had of late, and to go with his donkey on the cliffs. Anyhow Judith on this day did not have him hanging to her skirts. She was glad of it, for, though she loved him, he would have been an encumbrance when she was so busy.

The last thing at night she did was to go to Coppinger to inquire what he would take. He desired nothing but spirits and milk. He thought that a milk-punch would give him ease and make him sleep. That he was weak and had suffered pain she saw, and she was full of pity for him. But this she did not like to exhibit, partly because he might misunderstand her feelings, and partly because he seemed irritated at being unwell, and at loss of power; irritated, at all events, at it being observed that he was not in his usual plenitude of strength and health.

That night the Atlantic was troubled, and the wind carried the billows against the cliffs in a succession of rhythmic roars that filled the air with sound and made the earth quiver. Judith could not sleep, she listened to the thud of the water-heaps flung against the rocks; there was a clock on the stairs and in her wakefulness she listened to the tick of the clock, and the boom of the waves, now coming together, then one behind the other, now the wave-beat catching up the clock-tick, then falling in arrear, the ocean getting angry and making up its pace by a double beat. Moreover flakes of foam were carried on the wind and came, like snow, against her window that looked seaward striking the glass and adhering to it.

As Judith lay watchful in the night her mind again recurred to the packet of arsenic that had been abstracted from her workbox. It was inconsiderate of her to have left it there; she ought to have locked her box. But who could have supposed that anyone would have gone to the box, raised the tray and searched the contents of the compartment beneath? Judith had been unaccustomed to lock up anything, because she had never had any secrets to hide from any eye. She again considered the probability of her aunt having removed it, and then it occurred to her that perhaps Miss Trevisa might have supposed that she – Judith – in a fit of revolt against the wretchedness of her life might be induced to take the poison herself and finish her miseries. “It was absurd if Aunt Dunes thought that,” said Judith to herself; “she can little have known how my dear Papa’s teaching has sunk into my heart, to suppose me capable of such a thing – and then – to run away like a coward and leave Jamie unprotected. It was too absurd.”

Next morning Judith was in her room getting a large needle with which to hem a bit of carpet edge that had been fraying for the last five years, and which no one had thought of putting a thread to, and so arresting the disintegration. Jamie was in the room. Judith said to him:

“My dear, you have not been skinning and stuffing any birds lately, have you?”

“No, Ju.”

“Because I have missed – but, Jamie, I hope you have not been at my workbox?”

“What about your workbox, Ju?”

She knew the boy so well, that her suspicions were at once aroused by this answer. When he had nothing to hide he replied with a direct negative or affirmative, but when he had done what his conscience would not quite allow was right, he fell into equivocation, and shuffled awkwardly.