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

But as she was following out this plan she came to a famous theatre, and the name at the entrance attracted her. "I will be my own judge," she said. "I will see, and hear, and be more unmerciful to myself than any other could be."

So she entered the place and sat throughout three scenes. She did not wait for the final act. There was no necessity. She had arrived at her verdict. It was in her eyes and attitude when she left the building, but she gave it no voice until she sat weary and sad before the glimmering fire in her room.

"I could be Queen of England as easily as I could be a prima donna," she said mournfully. "There was perhaps a time--perhaps--perhaps, when youth and beauty and love could have helped me, but that time has gone for ever."

She said the words slowly, and the weight of despair was on each one. For she realised that in her case effort had brought forth no lasting fruit and that endurance had been without avail, and she was exceedingly sorrowful. For there is a singular vitality in the idea of public singing or acting when once it has taken root in any nature, and Denasia had been subject that night to one of its periods of revival. She had told herself that "she would probably have a thousand pounds; that she could go to Italy and pay for the best teachers; that it would please Roland if he knew, if he remembered, for her to do so; that it would annoy Elizabeth in many ways if she became a singer; that she would show the world it was possible to sing and act and yet be in every respect womanly, pure-hearted, and blameless before God and man."

These and many such ideas had filled her mind at intervals all the way across the Atlantic, and her passionate renunciation of the stage, made that miserable day when Roland deserted her, began to lose its reasonableness and therefore its sense of obligation. After her interview with Elizabeth, the question of money to carry out such intentions was practically settled, and she had, therefore, only to arrive at a positive personal conclusion. Once or twice in her public career she had received what her heart told her was a just criticism. It had not been a very flattering one, and Roland had passionately denied its justice. But she felt that the hour had now come when she must have the truth and accept the truth.

So she had tested herself by the natural and acquired abilities of the greatest singer of the day. It was, perhaps, a pitiless standard, but she felt that her safety demanded its extremity. Her comparisons made her burn with shame at her own shortcomings. She wondered how Roland could have been so deceived, how he could have hoped or believed in her at all. She forgot that circumstances had quite altered Roland's first intentions, and that in following out his secondary ones less distinctive talent was sufficient. On their marriage if he had taken her, as he proposed, to Italy; if the three last restless, miserable years had been spent in repose, in a favourable climate under fine instructors, with a happy, satisfied, hopeful affection to stimulate and support her ambition--ah, then all of Roland's hopes might have been fulfilled. But lack of patience as much as lack of money had brought final failure. The blossom had been gathered and worn with but small eclat, and there was now no hope of fruit.

Full of such sombre thoughts, she turned up the lights and looked at herself. Gone was her radiant beauty, her splendid youth; gone also her buoyant spirit and invincible courage. That night as she sat there alone she buried for ever this hope of a life for which she was not destined. Yet it was while sitting on that very hearth together Roland and she had felt the joy of her first triumph at Willis Hall. She could remember every incident of her return home the night of her brilliant debut. How Roland had praised her and loved her. Neither of them then thought the temporary success to be the first downward step from their original grander ideal; the first step toward a miserable failure. Now it was clear enough. Alas! alas! Why cannot joy, as well as sorrow, open the eyes? Why are they only washed clear-seeing with tears?

When the hopeless ceremony was over and she had fully accepted the lot before her, she rose and with tear-filled eyes looked around the place of her renunciation. She felt as if her husband ought to have some consciousness of her disappointment; as if the longing in her heart should bring him to her side. Where was he? Where had he gone to? "Roland! Roland!" she whispered, and the silence beat upon her heart like the blows of a hammer. Was he present? Did he hear her? She felt until she reached the very rim of conscious feeling, and then? Alas! nothing but a mighty mystery looming beyond.

Weary and exhausted with emotion, she lay down and slept, and in the morning the courage born of a resolved mind was with her. When she had finished her business with Elizabeth, then there was her father and her mother and her real life again. She must go back and take it up just where she had thrown it down. And this humiliating duty was all that her own way had brought her. Never again would she take her destiny out of the keeping of the good God who orders all things well. On this resolution she stayed her heart, and somehow in her sleep there had come to her a conviction that the time of smiles would surely come back to her once more. For God giveth His children in their sleep, and the sorrowful wake up comforted, and the weak strong, because some angel has visited them and "they knew it not."

Elizabeth was quite prepared for her visitor. She was, indeed, anxious to get the affair settled and to dismiss Denasia from her life for ever. Her lawyer and appraiser were busy when Denasia arrived, and without ceremony each article specified in Roland's list was examined and valued. Elizabeth offered her sister-in-law no courtesy; she barely bowed in response to her greeting, and there was a final very severe struggle as to values. Mrs. Burrell had certainly hoped to satisfy Denasia with a thousand pounds, but the official adjustment was sixteen hundred pounds, and for this sum Roland's widow, who was irritated by her sister-in-law's evident scorn and dislike, stubbornly stood firm.

It is probable that Elizabeth would also have turned stubborn and have suffered the articles to go to the auction-room had not her personal pride and interests demanded the sacrifice. But she had already introduced Lord Sudleigh to these family treasures, and she could not endure to go to Sudleigh Castle and take with her no heirlooms to be surety for her respectability. So that, after all, Denasia won her rights easily, because a man whom she had never seen and never even heard of pleaded her case for her. But she had no exceptional favour. It is the people whom we do not know that are often our helpers. It is the people who seem to have no possible connection with us that are often the tools used by fate for our fortune.

When the transaction was fully over and Denasia had Elizabeth's cheque in her pocket the day was nearly over. The business agents left hurriedly and Denasia was going with them, when Elizabeth said: "Return a moment, if you please, Mrs. Tresham. I have heard nothing from you about my brother. I think it is your duty to give me some information. I am very miserable," and she sat down and covered her face. Her sobs, hardly restrained, touched Denasia. She was sorry for the weeping woman, for she knew that if Elizabeth had loved any human creature truly and unselfishly, it was her brother Roland.

"What can I tell you?" she asked.

"Something to comfort me, if you are not utterly heartless. Had he doctors? help? comforts of any kind?"

"He had everything that money and love could procure. He died in Mr. Lanhearne's house. I was at his side. Whatever could be done by human skill to save his life was done."

"Did he name me often?"

"Yes."

"And you never said a word--never would have done--you were going away without telling me. How could you be so cruel?"

"It was wrong. I should have told you. He spoke often about you. In his delirium he believed himself with you. He called your name three times just before he died; it was only a whisper then, he was so weak."

Elizabeth wept bitterly, and Denasia, moved by many memories, could not watch her unmoved. After a wretched pause she said:

"Good-bye! You are Roland's sister and he loved you. So then I cannot really hate you. I forgive you all."

But Elizabeth did not answer. The loss of her brother, the loss of her money--she was feeling that this woman had been the cause of all her sorrows. Grief and anger swelled within her heart; she felt it to be an intolerable wrong to be forgiven. She was silent until Denasia was closing the door, then she rose hastily and followed her.

"Go!" she cried, "and never cross my path again. You have brought me nothing but misery."

"It is quite just that I should bring you misery. Remember, now, that if you do a wrong you will have to pay the price of it."

Trembling with anger and emotion, she clasped her purse tightly and called a cab to take her to her lodging. The money was money, at any rate. A poor exchange for love, certainly, but still Roland's last gift to her. It proved that in his dying hours he loved her best of all. He had put his family pride beneath her feet. He had put his sister's interest second to her interest. She felt that every pound represented to her so much of Roland's consideration and affection. It was, too, a large sum of money. It made her in her own station a very rich woman. If she put it in the St. Penfer bank it would insure her a great deal of respect. That was one side of the question. The other was less satisfactory. People would speculate as to how she had become possessed of such a sum. Many would not scruple to say, "It was sinful money, won in the devil's service." All who wished to be unkind to her could find in it an occasion for hard sayings. In small communities everything but prosperity is forgiven; that is never really forgiven to anyone; and though Denasia did not find words for this feeling, she was aware of it, because she was desirous to avoid unnecessary ill-will.

She sat with the cheque in her hand a long time, considering what to do with it. Her natural vanity and pride, her sense of superior intelligence, education, travel, and experience urged her to take whatever good it might bring her. And she went to sleep resolving to do so. But she awoke in the midnight with a strange sense of humiliation. In that time of questions she was troubled by soul-inquiries that came one upon another close as the blows of a lash. She was then shocked at the intentions with which she had fallen asleep. The little vanities, and condescensions, and generosities which she had planned for her own glory--how contemptible they appeared! And in the darkness she could see