No sooner had Oliver thrown the stone with note tied round it into Judith’s room through the window, than he descended from a position which he esteemed too conspicuous should anyone happen to be about in the night near the house. He ensconced himself beneath the cow-shed wall in the shadow, where concealed, but was ready should the casement open to step forth and show himself.
He had not been there many minutes before he heard steps and voices, one of which he immediately recognized as that of Cruel Coppinger. Oliver had not been sufficiently long in the neighborhood to know the men in it by their voices, but looking round the corner of the wall he saw two figures against the horizon, one with hands in his pockets, and by the general slouch, he thought that he recognized the sexton of S. Enodoc.
“The Black Prince will be in before long,” said Coppinger. “I mean next week or fortnight, and I must have the goods shored here, this time. She will stand off Porth-leze, and mind you get information conveyed to the captain of the coast-guard that she will run her cargo there. Remember that. We must have a clear coast here. The stores are empty and must be refilled.”
“Yes, your honor.”
“You have furnished him with the key to the signals?”
“Yes, Cap’n.”
“And from Porth-leze there are to be signals to the Black Prince to come on here—but so that they may be read the other way—you understand?”
“Yes, Cap’n.”
“And what do they give you every time you carry them a bit of information?”
“A shilling.”
“A munificent government payment! and what did they give you for the false code of signals?”
“Half a crown.”
“Then here is half a guinea—and a crown for every lie you impose on them.”
Then Coppinger and the sexton went further. As soon as Oliver thought he could escape unobserved he withdrew and returned to Polzeath.
Next day he had a talk with his father.
“I have had opinions, in Bristol,” said he, “relative to the position of Judith.”
“From whom?”
“From lawyers.”
“Well—and what did they say?”
“One said one thing and one another. I stated the case of her marriage, its incompletion, the unsigned register, and one opinion was that nevertheless she was Mrs. Coppinger. But another opinion was that, in consequence of the incompleteness of the marriage, it was none—she was Miss Trevisa. Father, before I went to the barristers and obtained their opinions, I was as wise as I am now, for I knew then, what I know now, that she is either Mrs. Coppinger, or else that she is Miss Trevisa.”
“I could have told you as much.”
“It seems to me—but I may be uncharitable,” said Oliver, grimly, “that the opinion given was this way or that way according as I showed myself interested for the legality or against the legality of the marriage. Both of those to whom I applied regarded the case as interesting and deserving of being thrashed out in a court of law, and gave their opinions so as to induce me to embark in a suit. You understand what I mean, father? When I seemed urgent that the marriage should be pronounced none at all, then the verdict of the consulting barrister was that it was no marriage at all, and very good reasons he was able to produce to show that. But when I let it be supposed that my object was to get this marriage established against certain parties keenly interested in disputing it, I got an opinion that it was a good and legal marriage, and very good reasons were produced to sustain this conclusion.”
“I could have told you as much—and this has cost you money?”
“And left you without any satisfaction?”
“Yes.”
“No satisfaction is to be got out of law—that is why I took to stuffing birds.”
“What is that noise at the door?” asked Oliver.
“There is some one trying to come in, and fumbling at the hasp,” said his father.
Oliver went to the door and opened it—to find Jamie there, trembling, white, and apparently about to faint. He could not speak, but he held out a note to Oliver.
“What is the matter with you?” asked the young man.
The boy, however, did not answer, but ran to Mr. Menaida, and crouched behind him.
“He has been frightened,” said the old man. “Leave him alone. He will come round presently and I will give him a drop of spirits to rouse him up. What letter is that?”
Oliver looked at the little note given him. It had been sealed, but torn open afterward. It was addressed to him, and across the address was written in bold, coarse letters with a pencil, “Seen and passed. C. C.” Oliver opened the letter and read as follows:
“I pray you leave me. Do not trouble yourself about me. Nothing can now be done for me. My great concern is for Jamie. But I entreat you to be very cautious about yourself where you go. You are in danger. Your life is threatened, and you do not know it. I must not explain myself, but I warn you. Go out of the country—that would be best. Go back to Portugal. I shall not be at ease in my mind till I know that you are gone, and gone unhurt. My dear love to Mr. Menaida—Judith.”
The hand that had written this letter had shaken, the letters were hastily and imperfectly formed. Was this the hand of Judith who had taught Jamie caligraphy, had written out his copies as neatly and beautifully as copper-plate?
Judith had sent him this answer by her brother, and Jamie had been stopped, forced to deliver up the missive, which Coppinger had opened and read. Oliver did not for a moment doubt whence the danger sprang with which he was menaced. Coppinger had suffered the warning to be conveyed to him with contemptuous indifference—it was as though he had scored across the letter—“Be forewarned, take what precautions you will—you shall not escape me.”
The first challenge had come from old Menaida, but Coppinger passed over that as undeserving of attention, but he proclaimed his readiness to cross swords with the young man. And Oliver could not deny that he had given occasion for this. Without counting the cost, without considering the risk; nay, further, without weighing the right and wrong in the matter, Oliver had allowed himself to slip into terms of some familiarity with Judith, harmless enough were she unmarried, but hardly calculated to be so regarded by a husband. They had come to consider each other as cousins, or they had pretended so to consider each other, so as to justify a half-affectionate, half-intimate association, and before he was aware of it Oliver had lost his heart. He could not and he would not regard Judith as the wife of Coppinger, because he knew that she absolutely refused to be so regarded by him, by herself, by his father, though by appearing at the ball with Coppinger, by living in his house, she allowed the world to so consider her. Was she his wife? He could not suppose it when she had refused to conclude the marriage ceremony, when there was no documentary evidence for the marriage. Let the question be mooted in a court of law; what could the witnesses say, but that she had fainted, and that all the latter portion of the ceremony had been performed over her when unconscious, and that on her recovery of her faculties she had resolutely persisted in resistance to the affixing of her signature to the register.
With respect to Judith’s feelings toward himself Oliver was ignorant. She had taken pleasure in his society, because he had made himself agreeable to her, and his company was a relief to her after the solitude of Pentyre and the association there with persons with whom she was wholly out of sympathy.
His quarrel with Coppinger had shifted ground. At first he had resolved, should occasion offer, to conclude with him the contest begun on the wreck, and to chastise him for his conduct on that night. Now, he thought little of that cause of resentment, he desired to punish him for having been the occasion of so much misery to Judith. He could not now drive from his head the scene of the girl’s wan face at the window, looking up at the moon.
Oliver would shrink from doing anything dishonorable, but it did not seem to him that there could be aught wrong and unbecoming a gentleman in endeavoring to snatch this hapless child from the claws of the wild beast that had struck it down.
“No, father,” said he hastily, as the old fellow was pouring out a pretty strong dose of his great specific and about to administer it to Jamie, “no father, it is not that the boy wants; and remember how strongly Judith objects to his being given spirits.”
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle Zachie, “to be sure she does, and she made me promise not to give him any. But this is an exceptional case.”
“Let him come to me, I will soothe him. The child is frightened, or stay, get him to help you with that kittiwake. Jamie, father can’t get the bird to look natural; his head does not seem to me to be right. Did you ever see a kittiwake turn his neck in that fashion? I wish you would put your fingers to the throat, and bend it about, and set the wadding where it ought to be. Father and I can’t agree about it.”
“It is wrong,” said Jamie. “Look, this is the way.” His mind was diverted. Always volatile, always ready to be turned from one thing to another, Oliver had succeeded in interesting him, and had made him forget for a moment the terrors that had shaken him.
After Jamie had been in the house for half an hour, Oliver advised him to return to the Glaze. He would give him no message, verbal or written. But the thought of having to return renewed the poor child’s fears, and Oliver could hardly allay them by promising to accompany him part of the way.
Oliver was careful not to speak to him on the subject of his alarm, but he gathered from his disjointed talk that Judith had given him the note and impressed on him that it was to be delivered as secretly as possible; that Coppinger had intercepted him, and suspecting something, had threatened and frightened him into divulging the truth. Then Captain Cruel had read the letter, scored over it some words in pencil, given it back to him, and ordered him to fulfil his commission, to deliver the note.
“Look you here, Jamie,” was Mr. Menaida’s parting injunction to the lad as he left the house, “there’s no reason for you to be idle when at Pentyre. You can make friends with some of the men and get birds shot. I don’t advise your having a gun, you are not careful enough. But if they shoot birds you may amuse your leisure in skinning them, and I gave Judith arsenic for you. She keeps it in her workbox, and will let you have sufficient for your purpose as you need it. I would not give it to you, as it might be dangerous in your hands as a gun. It is a deadly poison, and with carelessness you might kill a man. But go to Judith when you have a skin ready to dress and she will see that you have sufficient for the dressing. There, good-by, and bring me some skins shortly.”
Oliver accompanied the boy as far as the gate that led into the lane between the walls enclosing the fields of the Pentyre estate. Jamie pressed him to come farther, but this the young man would not do. He bade the poor lad farewell, bid him divert himself as his father had advised, with bird stuffing, and remained at the gate watching him depart. The boy’s face and feebleness touched and stirred the heart of Oliver. The face reminded him so strongly of his twin sister, but it was the shadow, the pale shadow of Judith only, without the intelligence, the character, and the force. And the helplessness of the child, his desolation, his condition of nervous alarm roused the young man’s pity. He was startled by a shot, that struck his gray hat simultaneously with the report.
In a moment he sprang over the hedge in the direction whence the smoke rose, and came upon Cruel Coppinger with a gun.
“Oh, you!” said the latter, with a sneer, “I thought I was shooting a rabbit.”
“This is the second time,” said Oliver.
“The first,” was Coppinger’s correction.
“Not so—the second time you have levelled at me. The first was on the wreck when I struck up your hand.”
Coppinger shrugged his shoulders. “It is immaterial. The third time is lucky, folks say.”
The two men looked at each other with hostility.
“Your father has insulted me,” said Coppinger. “Are you ready to take up his cause? I will not fight an old fool.”
“I am ready to take up his cause, mine also, and that of——” Oliver checked himself.
“And that of whom?” asked Coppinger, white with rage, and in a quivering voice.
“The cause of my father and mine own will suffice,” said Oliver.
“And when shall we meet?” asked Captain Cruel, leaning on his gun and glaring at his young antagonist over it.
“When and where suits me,” answered Oliver, coldly.
“And when and where may that be?”
“When and where!—when and where I can come suddenly on you as you came on me upon the wreck. With such as you—one does not observe the ordinary rules.”
“Very well,” shouted Coppinger. “When and where suits you, and when and where suits me—that is, whenever we meet again—we meet finally.”
Then each turned and strode away.
For many days Judith had been as a prisoner in the house, in her room. Some one had spoken to Coppinger and had roused his suspicions, excited his jealousy. He had forbidden her visits to Polzeath; and to prevent communication between her and the Menaidas, father and son, he had removed Jamie to Pentyre Glaze.
Angry and jealous he was. Time had passed, and still he had not advanced a step, rather he had lost ground. Judith’s hopes that he was not what he had been represented, were dashed. However plausible might be his story to account for the jewels, she did not believe it.
Why was Judith not submissive? Coppinger could now only conclude that she had formed an attachment for Oliver Menaida—for that young man whom she singled out, greeted with a smile, and called by his Christian name. He had heard of how she had made daily visits to the house of his father, how Oliver had been seen attending her home, and his heart foamed with rage and jealousy.
She had no desire to go anywhere, now that she was forbidden to go to Polzeath, and when she knew that she was watched. She would not descend to the hall and mix with the company often assembled there, and though she occasionally went there when Coppinger was alone, took her knitting and sat by the fire, and attempted to make conversation about ordinary matters, yet his temper, his outbursts of rancor, his impatience of every other topic save their relations to each other, and his hatred of the Menaidas, made it intolerable for her to be with him alone, and she desisted from seeking the hall. This incensed him, and he occasionally went up-stairs, sought her out and insisted on her coming down. She would obey, but some outbreak would speedily drive her from his presence again.
Their relations were more strained than ever. His love for her had lost the complexion of love and had assumed that of jealousy. His tenderness and gentleness toward her had been fed by hope, and when hope died they vanished. Even that reverence for her innocence and the respect for her character that he had shown was dissipated by the stormy gusts of jealousy.
Miss Trevisa was no more a help and stay to the poor girl than she had been previously. She was soured and embittered, for her ambition to be out of the house and in Othello Cottage had been frustrated. Coppinger would not let her go till he and his wife had come to more friendly terms. On her chimney-piece were two bunches of lavender, old lavender from the rectory garden of the preceding year. They had become so dry that the seeds fell out, and they no longer exhaled scent unless pressed.
Judith stood at her chimney-piece pressing her finger on the dropped seeds, and picking them up by this means to throw them into the small fire that smouldered in the grate. At first she went on listlessly picking up a seed and casting it into the fire, actuated by her innate love of order, without much thought—rather without any thought—for her mind was engaged over the letter of Oliver and his visit the previous night outside. But after a while, while thus gathering the grains of lavender, she came to associate them with her trouble, and as she thought—“Is there any escape for me, any happiness in store?”—she picked up a seed and cast it into the fire. Then she asked: “Is there any other escape for me than to die—to die and be with dear papa again, now not in S. Enodoc Rectory garden, but in the garden of Paradise?” And again she picked up and cast away a grain. Then, as she touched her fingertip with her tongue and applied it to another lavender seed, she said: “Or must this go on—this nightmare of wretchedness, of persecution, of weariness to death without dying, for years?” And she cast away the seed shudderingly. “Or”—and again, now without touching her finger with her tongue, as though the last thought had contaminated it—“or will he finally break and subdue me, destroy me and Jamie, soul and body?” Shivering at the thought she hardly dare to touch a seed, but forced herself to do so, raised one, and hastily shook it from her.
Thus she continued ringing the change, never formulating any scheme of happiness for herself—certainly, in her white, guileless mind, not in any way associating Oliver with happiness, save as one who might by some means effect her discharge from this bondage—but he was not linked, not woven up with any thought of the future.
The wind clickered at the casement. She had a window toward the sea; another, opposite, toward the land. Hers was a transparent chamber, and her mind had been transparent. Only now, timidly, doubtfully, not knowing herself why, did she draw a blind down over her soul, as though there were something there that she would not have all the world see, and yet which was in itself innocent. Then a new fear woke up in her, lest she should go mad. Day after day, night after night, was spent in the same revolution of distressing thought, in the same bringing up and reconsidering of old difficulties, questions concerning Coppinger, questions concerning Jamie, questions concerning her own power of endurance and resistance. Was it possible that this could go on without driving her mad?
“One thing I see,” murmured she; “all steps are broken away under me on the stair, and one thing alone remains for me to cling to—one only thing—my understanding. That”—she put her hands to her head—“that is all I have left. My name is gone from me. My friends I am separated from. My brother may not be with me. My happiness is all gone. My health may break down, but to a clear understanding I must hold; if that fails me I am lost—lost indeed.”
“Lost indeed!” exclaimed Coppinger, entering abruptly. He had caught her last words. He came in in white rage, blinded and forgetful in his passion, and with his hat on. There was a day when he entered the boudoir with his head covered, and Judith, without a word, by the mere force of her character shining out of her clear eyes, had made him retreat and uncover. It was not so now. She was careless whether he wore the hat or not when he entered her room. “So!” said he, in a voice that foamed out of his mouth, “letters pass between you! Letters—I have read that you sent. I stayed your messenger.”
“Well,” answered Judith, with such composure as she could muster. She had already passed through several stormy scenes with him, and knew that her only security lay in self-restraint. “There was naught in it that you might not read. What did I say? That my condition was fixed—that none could alter it; that is true. That my great care and sorrow of heart is for Jamie; that is true. That Oliver Menaida has been threatened; that also is true. I have heard you speak words against him of no good.”
“I will make good my words.”
“I wrote, and hoped to save him from a danger, and you from a crime.”
Coppinger laughed. “I have sent on the letter. Let him take what precautions he will. I will chastise him. No man ever crossed me yet but was brought to bite the dust.”
“He has not harmed you, Captain Coppinger.”
“He! Can I endure that you should call him by his Christian name, while I am but Captain Coppinger? That you should seek him out, laugh, and talk, and flirt with him—”
“Captain Coppinger!”
“Yes,” raged he, “always Captain Coppinger, or Captain Cruel, and he is dear Oliver! sweet Oliver!” He well-nigh suffocated in his fury.
Judith drew herself up and folded her arms. She had in one hand a sprig of lavender from which she had been shaking the over-ripe grains. She turned deadly white.
“Give me up his letter. Yours was an answer!”
“I will give it to you,” answered Judith, and she went to her workbox, raised the lid, then the little tray containing reels, and from beneath it extracted a crumpled scrap of paper. She handed it calmly, haughtily to Coppinger, then folded her arms again, one hand still holding the bunch of lavender.
The letter was short. Coppinger’s hand shook with passion so that he could hardly hold it with sufficient steadiness to read it. It ran as follows:
“I must know your wishes, dear Judith. Do you intend to remain in that den of wreckers and cut-throats? or do you desire that your friends should bestir themselves to obtain your release? Tell us, in one word, what to do, or rather what are your wishes, and we will do what we can.”
“Well!” said Coppinger, looking up. “And your answer is to the point—you wish to stay.”
“I did not answer thus. I said—leave me.”
“And never intended that he should leave you,” raged Coppinger. He came close up to her with his eyes glittering, his nostrils distended and snorting and his hands clinched.
Judith loosened her arms, and with her right hand swept a space before her with the bunch of lavender. He should not approach her within arm’s length; the lavender marked the limit beyond which he might not draw near.
“Now, hear me!” said Coppinger. “I have been too indulgent. I have humored you as a spoilt child. Because you willed this or that, I have submitted. But the time for humoring is over. I can endure this suspense no longer. Either you are my wife or you are not. I will suffer no trifling over this any longer. You have as it were put your lips to mine, and then sharply drawn them away—and now offer them to another.”
“Silence!” exclaimed Judith. “You insult me.”
“You insult and outrage me!” said Coppinger, “when you run from your home to chatter with and walk with this Oliver, and never deign to speak to me. When he is your dear Oliver, and I am only Captain Coppinger; when you have smiles for him you have black looks for me. Is not that insulting, galling, stinging, maddening?”
Judith was silent. Her throat swelled. There was some truth in what he said; but, in the sight of heaven, she was guiltless of ever having thought of wrong, of having supposed for a moment that what she had allowed herself had not been harmless.
“You are silent,” said Coppinger. “Now hearken! With this moment I turn over the page of humoring your fancies and yielding to your follies. I have never pressed you to sign that register—I have trusted to your good sense and good feeling. You cannot go back. Even if you desire it, you cannot undo what has been done. Mine you are, mine you shall be—mine wholly and always. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
“And agree?”
“No.”
He was silent a moment, with clinched teeth and hands looking at her, with eyes that smote her, as though they were bullets.
“Very well,” said he. “Your answer is no.”
“My answer is no, so help me God.”
“Very well,” said he, between his teeth. “Then we open a new chapter.”
“What chapter is that?”
“It is that of compulsion. That of solicitation is closed.”
“You cannot, whilst I have my senses. What!” She saw that he had a great riding-whip in his hand. “What—the old story again! You will strike me?”
“No—not you. I will lash you into submission—through Jamie.”
She uttered a cry, dropped the lavender, that became scattered before her, and held up her hands in mute entreaty.
“I owe him chastisement. I have owed it him for many a day—and to-day above all—as a go-between.”
Judith could not speak. She remained as one frozen—in one attitude, in one spot, speechless. She could not stir, she could not utter a word of entreaty, as Coppinger left the room.
In another minute a loud and shrill cry reached her ears from the court into which one of her windows looked. She knew the cry. It was that of her twin brother, and it thrilled through her heart, quivered in every nerve of her whole frame.
She could hear what followed; but she could not stir. She was rooted by her feet to the floor, but she writhed there. It was as though every blow dealt the boy outside fell on her: she bent, she quivered, her lips parted, but cry she could not, the sweat rolled off her brow; she beat with her hands in the air. Now she thrilled up with uplifted arms, on tip-toe, then sank—it was like a flame flickering in a socket before it expires: it dances, it curls, it shoots up in a tongue, it sinks into a bead of light, it rolls on one side, it sways to the other, it leaps from the wick high into the air, and drops again. It was so with Judith—every stroke dealt, every scream of the tortured boy, every toss of his suffering frame, was repeated in her room, by her—in supreme, unspeaking anguish, too intense for sound to issue from her contracted throat.
Then all was still, and Judith had sunk to her knees on the scattered lavender, extending her arms, clasping her hands, spreading them again, again beating her palms together, in a vague, unconscious way, as if in breathing she could not gain breath enough without this expansion and stretching forth of her arms.
But, all at once, before her stood Coppinger, the whip in his hands.
“Well! what now is your answer?”
She breathed fast for some moments, laboring for expression. Then she reared herself up and tried to speak, but could not. Before her, threshed out on the floor, were the lavender seeds. They lay thick in a film over the boards in one place. She put her finger among them and drew No.
There are persons, they are not many, on whom Luck smiles and showers gold. Not a steady daily downpour of money but, whenever a little cloud darkens their sky, that same little cloud, which to others would be mere gloom, opens and discharges on them a sprinkling of gold pieces.
It is not always the case that those who have rich relatives come in for good things from them. In many cases there are such on whom Luck turns her back, but to those of whom we speak the rain of gold, and the snow of scrip and bonds come unexpectedly, but inevitably. Just as Pilatus catches every cloud that drifts over Switzerland, so do they by some fatality catch something out of every trouble, that tends materially to solace their feelings, lacerated by that trouble. But not so only. These little showers fall to them from relatives they have taken no trouble to keep on good terms with, from acquaintances whom they have cut, admirers whose good opinion they have not concerned themselves to cultivate, friends with whom they have quarrelled. Gideon’s fleece, on one occasion, gathered to itself all the dew that fell, and left the grass of the field around quite dry. So do these fortunate persons concentrate on themselves, fortuitively it seems, the dew of richness that descends and might have, ought to have, dropped elsewhere; at all events, ought to have been more evenly and impartially distributed. Gideon’s fleece, on another occasion was dry, when all the glebe was dripping. So is it with certain unfortunates, Luck never favors them. What they have expected and counted on they do not get, it is diverted, it drops round about them on every side, only on them it never falls.
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.
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.
“Jamie,” said Judith, looking him straight in the face, “have you been to my box?”
“Only just looked in.”
Then he ran to the window. “Oh, do see, Ju, how patched the glass is with foam!—and is it not dirty?”
“Jamie, come back. I want an answer.”
He had opened the casement and put his hand out and was wiping off the patches of froth.
“What a lot of it there is, Ju.”
“Come here, instantly, Jamie, and shut the window.”
The boy obeyed, creeping toward her sideways, with his head down.
“Jamie, did you lift the tray?”
“Only on one side, just a little bit.”
“Did you take anything from under the tray?”
He did not answer immediately. She looked at him searchingly and in suspense. He never could endure this questioning look of hers, and he ran to her, put his arms round her waist, and clasped to her side, hid his face in her gown.
“Only a little.”
“A little what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jamie, no lies. There was a blue paper there containing poison, that you were not to have unless there were occasion for it—some bird skin to be preserved and dressed with it. Now, did you take that?”
“Yes.”
“Go and bring it back to me immediately.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Where is it?”
The boy fidgeted, looked up in his sister’s face to see what expression it bore, buried his head again, and said:
“Ju! he is rightly called Cruel. I hate him, and so do you, don’t you, Ju? I have put the arsenic into his oatmeal, and we will get rid of him and be free and go away. It will be jolly.”
“Jamie!” with a cry of horror.
“He won’t whip me and scold you any more.”
“Jamie! Oh, my Lord, have pity on him! have pity on us!”
She clasped her hands to her head, rushed from the room, and flew down the stairs.
But ten minutes before that Judith had given Coppinger his bowl of porridge. He had risen late that morning. He was better, he said, and he looked more himself than the preceding day. He was now seated at the table in the hall, and had poured the fresh milk into the bowl, had dipped the spoon, put some of the porridge to his mouth, tasted, and was looking curiously into the spoon, when the door was flung open, Judith entered, and without a word of explanation, caught the bowl from him and dashed it on the floor.
Coppinger looked at her with his boring, dark eyes intently, and said: “What is the meaning of this?”
“It is poisoned.”
Judith was breathless. She drew back relieved at having cast away the fatal mess.
Coppinger rose to his feet, and glared at her across the table, leaning with his knuckles on the board. He did not speak for a moment, his face became livid, and his hands resting on the table shook as though he were shivering in an ague.
“There is arsenic in the porridge,” gasped Judith.
She had not time to weigh what she should say, how explain her conduct; but one thought had held her—to save Coppinger’s life while there was yet time.
The Captain’s dog that had been lying at his master’s feet rose, went to the spilt porridge, and began to lap the milk and devour the paste. Neither Judith nor Coppinger regarded him.
“It was an accident,” faltered Judith.
“You lie,” said Coppinger, in thrilling tones, “you lie, you murderess! You sought to kill me.”
Judith did not answer for a moment. She also was trembling. She had to resolve what course to pursue. She could not, she would not, betray her brother, and subject him to the worst brutality of treatment from the infuriated man whose life he had sought.
It were better for her to take the blame on herself.
“I made the porridge—I and no one else.”
“You told me so, yesterday.” He maintained his composure marvellously, but he was stunned by the sudden discovery of treachery in the woman he had loved and worshipped.
“You maddened me by your treatment, but I did not desire that you should die. I repented and have saved your life.”
As Judith spoke she felt as though the flesh of her face stiffened, and the skin became as parchment. She could hardly open her mouth to speak and stir her tongue.
“Go!” said Coppinger, pointing to the door. “Go, you and your brother. Othello cottage is empty. Go, murderess, poisoner of your husband, there and wait till you hear from me. Under one roof, to eat off one board, is henceforth impossible. Go!” he remained pointing, and a sulphurous fire flickered in his eyes.
Then the hound began to howl, threw itself down, its limbs were contracted, it foamed at the mouth, and howled again.
To the howlings of the poisoned and dying dog Judith and Jamie left Pentyre.