A Singer from the Sea - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (books for students to read .TXT) 📗

not easily supposable, and Denasia did not suppose it. She knew from Roland's report that her appearance as a public singer had caused her parents great sorrow and anger, and she could only imagine a still deeper anger when she added the sin of dancing to other causes of offence. But this alienation from her own people was the bitter drop in all her success and in all her pleasure. For now that the illusions and selfishness of her bride-days were past, the faithful home affection that never wounded and never deceived resumed its importance, and she longed for her father's kiss and her mother's breast.

But every day the day's work is to face, and Denasia's days were fully occupied by their obvious duties. So week after week and month after month wore on in alternations of hope and despair, happiness and vexation, loving and quarrelling. Roland certainly, with his discontent and abiding sense of wrong, threw a perpetual shadow over life. She did not even dare to take, with any show of pleasure, such poor satisfaction as her passing fame awarded. A man may be jealous of the praise given to his own wife, and there were times when Roland could not understand Denasia's success and his own failure--bitter hours in which the poor girl felt that whether she pleased her audience or did not please them, her husband was sure to be offended and angry.

She was almost glad when, at the close of the season, the company disbanded and she was at liberty to retire. She had saved money and was resolved to resume her studies. There was at least nothing in that to irritate her husband, and she had a strong desire to improve her talent in every direction. One evening Roland entered their sitting-room in that hurry of hope and satisfaction once common enough to him, but of which he had shown little during the past winter. Denasia looked up from her writing with a smile, to meet his smile.

"Denasia," he cried impulsively, "what do you think? We are going to America! The United States is the place for me. How soon can you be ready?"

"But, Roland? What?"

"It is true, dear. Whom are you writing to?"

"I was writing to Mr. Harrison and to madame. I want to know if they are going to Broadstairs this summer, for where they go I wish to go also; that is, if they can give me lessons."

"A waste of money, Denasia. I have had a long talk with some of the men who are here with the American company. Splendid fellows! They tell me that my Shakespearian ideas will set New York agog. New Yorkers give every one a fair hearing; at least 'there's nothing beats a trial!' That is a New York motto, and these people are sure I would have a fair trial there. And the country is so big! So big, Denasia, that the parts you know will last you for years. There is not a bit of need for you to study new songs and dances. Sing the old ones in new places. Why, you may travel thousands of miles in all directions--big cities everywhere, little ones scattered thick as blackberries on all the railroad routes, and railroad routes are spread like spider-webs all over the United States! That is the country for us! New York first of all, then Chicago, St. Louis, Salt Lake, San Francisco, New Orleans--oh, hundreds of cities! And money, my dear! Money for the picking up--that is, for the singing for."

"I do not believe a word of it, Roland. It is all talk. I am going to Broadstairs to spend the summer in study."

Roland looked a moment at the handsome, resolute woman who had resumed her writing, and he wondered how this Denasia had sprung from the sweetly obedient little maid he had once manipulated to his will with a look or a word. However, he could not spare her. It was not only her earnings he required; her beauty and talent gave him a kind of reflected importance, and he expected great things from their united efforts in the wonderful new world of which he had just begun to think.

So he set himself to win what it was evident he could not command, and, Denasia's womanly instincts being stronger than her artistic instincts, the husband conquered. The sweet words and kisses, the frank acknowledgment of his faults, the declaration that his whole future hung now on her support and interest in his American scheme, moved Denasia to concede where she felt sure she ought to have refused. But when a man finds all other arguments fail with a woman, he has only to throw himself upon her unselfishness. To prove it, she will ruin her own life. Denasia was sure she was going a wrong road, but then Roland asked her to take it for his sake, and to show her love for him she offered up her own hopes and desires, and offered them with smiles and kind words and an affected belief that the change might be as good for her reputation as for her husband's. She did indeed--as good women do a kindness--surrender herself entirely, and pretended that the surrender was her own desire and her husband's complaisance a thing he deserved praise for.

However, Roland's enthusiasms were undoubtedly partly contagious. Even Denasia, who had so often been deceived, was partly under their influence. His words had caught something of the vastness of the land of his hopes, and he talked so ambitiously and with so much certainty that the untravelled woman caught his fever once more. Then she also suffered the idea of America to fascinate her, and she permitted Roland to bring his new friends to see her, for she desired to be entirely possessed by the idea which was now to be the ruling motive of their lives. It was decided that they should sail about the middle of June. "We shall then have time to become familiar with the country, and we need not be in a hurry to decide about engagements. Hurry is such a mistake," said Roland with oracular wisdom. And Denasia hoped and smiled, and then turned away to hide the sudden frown and sigh. For the heart is difficult to deceive, and Denasia's heart warned her morning, noon, and night. But to what purpose? Who heeds the warning from their higher selves? Though one rose from the dead to point out a fatal mistake, how many would heed the messenger? For when love says, "This is the way," wisdom, fate, death itself may speak in vain.

About a week before the voyage, Roland said one night: "I think now, Denasia, that we have everything packed, I shall run down to St. Penfer and see my sister. I may never come back from America. Indeed, I do not think I shall ever want to come back, and I really ought to bid Elizabeth good-bye. She will doubtless also remember me in money matters, and in a strange country money is always a good friend. Is it not, dear? What do you think, Denasia?"

"I have been thinking a great deal of St. Penfer. My heart is like to break when I think of it. I do want to see my father and mother so much."

"You would only get a heart-break, my love. They would have no end of reproaches for you. I shall never forget your mother. Her temper was awful!"

"You must have said something awful to aggravate her, Roland. Mother has a quick temper, but it is also noble and generous. I do want to see her. I must see her once more. Let us go together."

"To St. Penfer? What a foolish idea! You would only give yourself a wretched memory to carry through your whole life."

"Never mind! I want to go to St. Penfer."

"How can you? I cannot take you to Burrell Court, Denasia."

"I would not put my foot inside Burrell Court."

"Then if I went there and you went to your father's house, that would look very bad. People would say all kinds of wicked things."

"We could stop together at the Black Lion. From there you could call upon Elizabeth. From there I could go to my father and mother. Even if they should be cruel to me, I want to see them. I want to see them. If father should strike me--well, I deserve it. I will kiss his hand for the blow! That is how I feel, Roland."

"I shall not permit my wife to go to any place where she expects to be struck. That is how I feel, Denasia."

"You are ashamed to take me to St. Penfer as your wife. And yet you owe me this reparation."

"There is no use discussing such a foolish statement. I do not think I owe you anything, Denasia. I have given you my name; at this very moment I am considering your welfare. You know that money is necessary, and as much of it as we can get; but Elizabeth will give me nothing if you are tagging after me."

"If you are going begging, Roland, that alters the question. I have no desire to 'tag' after you on that errand. As for Elizabeth, I hate her."

"Why should you hate her? She was always good to you."

"Good! Do not name the woman. If you want to go to her, go. I hope you will carry her nothing but sorrow and ill-luck. I do! I do! I hate her as the sailor hates the sunken reef. I have not asked myself why. I only know that I have plenty of reason."

"Do not be so excessive, Denasia. I shall leave for the West to-night. Would you like me to see your father? Your mother I decline to see."

"Leave my father alone. You would not dare to go near him. If you do I will never speak to you again--never!"

Roland laughed lightly at her passion and answered with a provoking pleasantry: "You feel too, too, too furiously, Denasia. It is not ladylike. Your emotions will wear away your beauty."

So Roland went by the night train to St. Penfer, and Denasia took the train after his for the same place. She was determined to see her parents once more, and all their habits were so familiar to her that she had no fear of accomplishing her desire unknown to them. She timed her movements so well that she arrived at a small wayside station near St. Penfer about dusk. No one noticed her, and she sped swiftly across the cliff-path, until it touched the path leading downward to her own home.

The little village was quite still. The children had gone to bed. The men were at sea. The women were doing their last daily duties. Denasia kept well in the shadow of the trees till she was opposite her home. A few steps across the shingle would bring her to the door. She tried to remember what her mother might be doing just at that hour, and while thus employed Joan came to the door, stood a moment on the threshold, and then went slowly to the next cottage. She had her knitting in her hand, and she was likely going to sit an hour with Ann Trewillow. When Joan's footsteps no longer crunched the shingle there was no sound but the ocean beating on the shore and the wind stirring the tree-tops, and when Joan and Ann Trewillow went inside Ann's cottage there was not another human creature visible.

Swiftly, then, Denasia crossed the shingle. She was at the door of