S. Baring-Gould

“ THE WHITE CLIFF In the dead of night, Jane Marley came to the side of her daughter's bed, and asked: 'Why are you tossing so unceasingly?'
'I cannot sleep.'
'What disturbs you?'
'O mother! I have done wrong. I was desirous of procuring a pair of choughs. No one would trouble himself, and risk his neck to get them for me but Jack Rattenbury, and he will go over the White Cliff in search for them. If anything were to happen to him——' she choked.
'Nothing will happen to him,' said her mother. 'Compose yourself. He would not risk himself for either of us. He hates us too heartily. ”

“ Then with a hoarse voice Jane Marley said, as she held her child with a firmer grasp, 'Why, then, we shall not feel the wind and the cold and the rain and our weariness, we shall say good-bye to a stony world. There is no other refuge for us outcasts. Locked in each other's arms, mother and child must die.'
For a moment Winefred was petrified with horror. For a moment she was unresisting as the powerful woman gathered her up and strode with her to the verge, the water oozing about her from the soaked garments under the pressure. ”

“ Marley's eyes a fit residence for a princess.
'O mother,' exclaimed Winefred, 'this must have cost a great deal of money. How did you get it?' And when Jane hesitated, then the girl answered herself, 'I know: Mrs. Jose told me that it came from my father. But, O mother, the people do not believe this. They are wicked and cruel. They say that you stole the money from Captain Rattenbury when he was sick. It is shameful. As if my own dear mother could do such a thing!' And with a sudden impulse of affection, she threw her arms about her mother's neck, and kissed her passionately. ”

“ He clambered after gulls' eggs, fell over the cliffs, and was dashed to pieces. Thenceforth she is no more a woman, she is a moving image. She has no soul, no heart, no life more, nothing in the world to hope for, nothing in the world to love, nothing even to fear. All her life died out in her when she lost her son. I have a daughter. She lives. I may not be with her always. I am content for her sake that it shall be so. But not to see her, never to hear her speak, not again to feel her arms round me, and to rock her head on my bosom!—I could not bear it. ”

“ Let me smoulder away where she can breathe on the spark; it will only flame into more love for her. I ask no more. I will be speechless in your house if you will—but see her I must. I must look on her, as she moves, like a lady that she is—but I will not approach her to soil her with my touch. Only now and then, when there be none to see, let me kiss the tip of her fingers. I will go down on my knees to ask for this—but I will take nothing less.' Her voice was hoarse with emotion. 'Part from her I will not.'
'Mother,' interposed Winefred, 'I have a word to say. ”

“ Winefred is sent to us, not that we may pick holes in her pedigree, but patch up gaps in her education. What does society care about her mother? Not a rush. It is solely those who are disappointed and soured who go about with the muck-rake scraping in the gutters for dirty, inconsidered, and castaway trifles, and rejoice in the foulest find the fork brings up. Society does not ask these questions, does not care about the mothers of those whom it admires. Society does recognise in Winefred a wholesome mind, a fresh nature, and a sound heart. ”

“ It is a hard thing for one who has land and home, an income and kindred, to enter into the feeling of desolation and hopelessness that possesses the heart of one who is absolutely adrift in life, without a single attachment, without a single point in the outlook, on which to fix the eye and to which aim.
Jane Marley's life had been broken at an early period—made purposeless by no fault of her own. If she staggered, it was not that her head was light, but that the ground gave way under her feet. ”

“ You do not know what my mother has been to me. But that is not all. O Jack, I do indeed love you, love you with every scrap of my heart. I would do anything for you that was possible. But do you not see that there are other impossibilities than those which can be beat down by brute force? I do not want to be a lady, to have stripes painted on me': she laughed and cried at once. ”

“ He hates mother, and he dislikes me. If he has dared to speak against her, he shall be called to account. There is one whom I can trust'—she held up her head—'one who will take him by the throat and make him unsay every word.'
Mr. Holwood knew that she did not refer to himself, and he was humbled at the thought that his child should look to another to vindicate her mother's good name.
'No,' said Winefred, with heightened colour and sparkling eyes, and speaking with vehemence, 'my dear mother has done nothing to forfeit your esteem, nothing to dishonour your name. ”

“ She uttered a cry and strove to turn about.
'Ay! scream with all your lungs! None will help you now. At last I have found out what I long wanted to know!'
The voice was familiar. It was that of Olver Dench—a conviction by no means reassuring. Jane's first impulse was to shut the drawer, but her hands were fast. She thrust at it with her head.
Olver contemptuously laughed, and threw her from the stool, and still gripping her arms above the elbows, with hands like vices, hard and sinuous with working the oars, till their strength was irresistible, he looked into the receptacle. ”

“ A barbed past can never be cut out of the memory; it leaves behind its fangs, its canker. It may be covered over, and forgotten, but it reasserts itself inevitably, excruciatingly, and the fester begins to ooze forth and the wound to gape.
It was so now. On this piece of chalk he had put his arm round Jane's waist and spoken his love into her ear. There where now lay pebbles and a ribbon of torn weed, there in a crystal pool he had seen her frightened face reflected—and into it her tears had fallen. ”

“ He hurried away, not by the path, lest he should encounter the girl or her mother, but through the bushes, and he stumbled over stones, and caught his foot in briars. He came upon the open space which he had been wont to regard as his garden, and where he had had a brush with Winefred. He stood still there and shook himself, but he could not shake off the thoughts of that girl. The air there was charged with the smell of decayed leaves and mouldering twigs. Every step was upon dead vegetation, and every tread brought out an exhalation of death. ”

“ You are greedy after compassion, and so you represent us as rogues, and when every one points at us and screams out "Thieves!" you come sneaking up to see the effect, and how we bear it, and burst into laughter if we wince. Mother has no deadlier enemy than the ferryman; you know it, and you go lodge with him, and together you two men contrive schemes against us defenceless women. There is not a child but looks at us with fear, as monsters of wickedness; not a woman who does not think we infect the neighbourhood. ”

“ Then down came a hail of dislodged flints and a snow shower of chalk, as Jack slipped.
Next moment a scud of vapour swept past and blotted out the summit of the cliff.
Winefred had her knuckles pressed into her mouth to check the cry that she could not otherwise restrain, or the gasp that accompanied every venturesome movement of the climber.
When the fog passed away she saw him again. He had reached a green ledge where grew samphire. She wondered what he was about. She could see that he was shaking the cord. This was passed over projecting ribs of rock overhead. ”

“ Jane nodded. She was choking. But she said hoarsely, 'Go on!' and pointed with her knitting-pin.
Mrs. Jose read, '"Mr. Holwood is resolved that the connection between his daughter and that woman shall cease entirely."'
'Shall cease entirely—that connection,' muttered Jane. Then she looked up and laughed bitterly. 'Can any man make that connection cease entirely—that—the connection between mother and child? She is my daughter; she is more mine than she is his. She has drunk her young life at my bosom. She has lived all that life with me. ”

“ Let every man toss off a full flowing bumper,
Let every man toss off a full flowing bowl,
For we'll drink and be jolly, and drown melancholy,
So here is a health to each true-hearted soul.'
Rattenbury's face glowed with pleasure. He continued for a while playing variations on the theme, as again in memory he came up the Channel, and smelt the breeze, and heard the hiss of the water, and saw the twinkle of the lights succeeding each other.
Then he laid down his violin and said, 'Ah, Winefred! you tangle up my kerchief into a knot on the floor. ”

“ If she failed—the goods would be confiscated, the band [75] broken up, and the captain imprisoned for a lengthy period. At his age he might not live till his term expired.
The stars twinkled, a crescent moon shone, there was frost in the air.
Winefred had formed her plan, and she knew her way. She had to ascend from the undercliff to the down, and the chalky path lay before her as though phosphorescent.
There would have been complete stillness but for the mutter and fret of the sea and the piping of the wind. ”

“ Suddenly the mother halted.
The wind lashed her hair, and flapped her sodden gown. She gripped Winefred now with both hands, and turning her back to the blast and splashing rain, said, 'Child! you shall know all now, now that there is no place whatever left for us. Your father has deserted you, he has abandoned me. He did this nineteen years ago. Not a word, not a shilling has he sent me. I know neither where he is, nor what he has been doing. He may be rich, he may be poor. He may be in blustering health, he may be sick or dead. ”

“ There is nothing they can say or do that will either lift me up or cast me down. I must bear my woes.'
'Are you really unhappy, mother?'
'I am what I am. Do not concern yourself about me. I have my sorrows and my shame. You are free. What they say falls on me, not on you, and I wish that you should be away from their chatter and their fangs. You have a future, I have none. Me they are welcome to tread and knead into the dirt if only you go unspotted. My life has not been so happy that I care what befalls me in what remains of it. ”

“ As the threads that connect man with his early career break, those that remain are clung to with intense tenacity.
Rattenbury did not like Dench, he even regarded him with repugnance; yet, as there were none other in the place who had been in any way linked with his early life, he endured him as one with whom he could converse with pleasure.
But it would be a misconception to suppose that Job Rattenbury lived for the past alone, and that he was without an eye for the future. As far as his own future was concerned he was indifferent, but his ambition with regard to Jack had a forward look. ”