Denas

“ If you cannot trust your little maid, father, then do not let her go at all. If people could hear you talk they would say, ‘What a bad girl John Penelles has! He dare not let her go to see her friend if there be a young man in the house.’ ’Tis a shame, isn’t it, mother?”
“I think it be, Denas. Father isn’t so cruel suspicious as that, my dear. Are you, father?”
And what could John answer? Though sorely against his feeling and his judgment, he was induced to agree that Denas ought perhaps to call once on the bride. ”

“ Denas at this time pitied herself greatly, and taking women as they are, and not as they ought to be, she deserved some pity. For though it may not be a lofty ambition to long after a finely appointed house, and delicate food delicately served, and elegant clothing and refined society, and, with all and above all, a lover who fits into such externals, yet Denas did long for these things ”

“ To be sure, after a fashion, a 80 kind of Hy-to-everybody fashion. But a good business temper, Denas, be a different thing; it be steady, patient, civil, quiet, hard-to-work temper, and the young man has not got it. No, nor the shadow of it. If he was worth thousands this year he wouldn’t have a farthing next year unless he had a guider and a withholder by his side constantly.”
“You ought not to speak of Mr. Roland at all, father, you hate him that badly.”
“Right you be, Denas. I ought not to speak of the young man. I will let him alone. ”

“ At eight o’clock Roland was with her. He came with his most irresistible manner, came prepared to carry his own desires in an enthusiasm of that supreme selfishness which he chose to designate as “love for Denas.”
117
“You have only to learn how to manage that wonderful voice of yours, Denas,” he said, “and a steady flow of money will be the result. You must have read of the enormous sums singers receive, but we will be modest at first and suppose you only make a few hundreds a year. In the long run that will be nothing; and you will be a very rich woman.” ”

“ Hope has a long reach, and yet it holds fast. So, though Roland’s return was far enough away, Denas possessed it in anticipation. The belief that he would come, that he would give her sympathy and assistance, helped her through the long sameness of uneventful days by the witching promise, “Anon––anon!”
There was little to vary life in that quiet hamlet. The pilchard season went, as it had come, in a day; men counted their gains and returned to their usual life. Denas tried to accept it cheerfully ”

“ He drank his tea and ate plentifully of his favourite pie, of fresh fish and cream and young parsley, and then said:
“Joan, my dear, I have an over-mind to light my pipe and saunter up the cliff-breast. I may meet Denas.”
“I wish you wouldn’t go, father. It do look as if you had lost trust in Denas––misdoubting one’s own is a whist poor business and not worth the following.”
“Aw, my dear, I just want to talk a few words to her quiet-like. If Denas is companying with Roland Tresham she oughtn’t to do it, and I must tell her so, that I must. My dear girl, right is right in the devil’s teeth.” ”

“ Willis offered Denas twelve pounds a week, and if she proved a favourite the sum was to be gradually increased. The sum, though but a pittance of Roland’s dreams, was at least a livelihood and an earnest of advance, and it was readily accepted. Then the little company sat down upon the empty stage and discussed the special songs and costumes in which Denas was to make her début. ”

“ Penfer by the Sea.
295 CHAPTER XV. ONLY FRIENDS. Only those who have experienced the sensation can tell how strange and sad is the feeling with which the soul turns away from a destiny accomplished. When Denas had deposited her money in the Clydesdale Bank and made the few purchases she thought proper and prudent, she felt that one room of the house of life was barred for ever against her return to it. ”

“ I shall lace your white satin boots, and fasten your white satin dress, and drape the lace, and clasp the gems, and make your bride-bouquet. I shall stay upstairs while you are at church and lay ready your travelling costume and see that Adèle packs your trunks properly; and when you go away I shall fasten your cloak, and tie your bonnet, and button your gloves, and then go away myself; for there will be no one here then that likes me and nothing at all for me to do.”
And this programme, made with a little heartache and sense of love’s failure, Denas faithfully carried out. ”

“ But a really good work never falls through; there is always someone to carry it on, and one day Denas was visited among her pupils by the Wesleyan preacher from St. Penfer. He was astonished at her methods and her success, and he represented the claims of such a school with so much force to the next district meeting that they gladly appointed a teacher to fill the place of Denas. It cost her a little pang to resign her authority; but her marriage was drawing near, and it would necessarily be followed by her removal to St. Clair, and it was important that the children should be provided for. ”

“ Penfer again until the wedding. I assure you of this, Mr. Penelles.”
“Then your word for it, Miss Tresham. Take my little maid with you. She be my life, miss. If Denas was hurt any way ’twould be like I got a shot in my backbone; ’twould be as bad for her mother, likewise for poor Tris Penrose.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I am glad to hear there is a lover; Denas never told me of him. Is he good and brave, and handsome and young, and well-to-do?”
“He be all these, and more too; for he do love the ground Denas treads on––he do for sure.” ”

“ Poor girl! it is too bad that you are obliged to bear the whole weight of such a movement yourself!”
So Denas looked at her mother, and felt aggrieved by the strict creed which ruled her life. Methodists were so very narrow. She remembered her father’s anger at a mere proposal of Miss Tresham 127 to take Denas to a theatre with her. She knew that he believed a theatre to be the open door to hell; and that the mere idea of men and women, either with souls saved or souls to be saved, dancing, filled him with shame and anger. Yet she was going to sing in a theatre if possible ”

“ She lifted her knitting, but she did not lift a stitch. Where there is no positive compulsion the hand is only handmaid to the heart, and it does the work only which the heart wishes. At this hour Denas hated her knitting, and there being no necessity on her to perform it, her hands lay idle upon her lap. After a few minutes’ conversation John went out with Tris Penrose, and then Denas began to cry with anger and disappointment. ”

“ Roland told Denas she must not dare to remember anyone but him; he would feel it and know it if she did. She promised this readily. She must not tell Elizabeth. Elizabeth was unreasonable, she was even jealous of everything concerning her brother; she would have a hundred objections; she would influence his father unfavourably; she would do all she could to prevent their seeing each other, etc., etc. And where a man pleads, one woman is readily persuaded against another. But Denas was much harder to persuade where the article of secrecy touched her father and mother. ”

“ Never before in all his life had Roland found business so interesting. He said to Denas, as they talked over the affair at their own fireside, that he thought he also had found his vocation. He felt at home on the stage. He never had felt at home in a bank or in a business office. He was determined to study, and create a few great characters, and become an actor. He felt the power; it was in him, he said complacently. “Now,” he added, “Denas, if you become a great singer and I a great actor, we shall have the world at our feet. And I like actors and those kind of people. ”

“ The beauty of Joan Penelles was the beauty of fitness in every part, of health, of good temper, of a certain spiritual perception. Penelles loved her with a sure affection; he trusted in her. In every strait of his life he went to her for comfort or advice. He could not have imagined a single day without Joan to direct it.
For his daughter Denas he had a love perhaps not stronger, but quite different in kind. Denas was his only living child. Denas loved the sea. Penelles could remember her small pink feet in the tide, when they were baby feet scarce able to stand alone. ”

“ You can do it––a little word––a little look from you––he will understand.”
“Aw, then, Denas, a smile is enough. I can lift my eyelids, and he’ll see the light under them and 310 catch it in his heart. John isn’t a woman. Thank God, he can be happy and ask no questions––trusting all. Your father be a good man to trust and hope.”
Then the day, that had seemed to stretch itself out so long and wearily, was all too short for Joan and Denas. They talked about the money freely and happily, and Denas could now tell her mother all the circumstances of her visit to Elizabeth. ”

“ There is the dislike rich girls have for low amours, and, worse still, the dreadfully Cornish habit fishers have of standing together. If you offend John Penelles or wrong him in the least, you offend and wrong every man in St. Penfer fishing quarter. Do not snap your fingers so scornfully, Roland; you would be no match for a banded enmity like that.”
“All this about Denas?” ”

“ And when death or sorrow tears from life the mask of daily custom, then, without regard to the accidents of birth, we behold ourselves, all alike sad seekers among the shadows after light and peace.
And undoubtedly sympathy is like mercy; it blesses those who give it as well as those who receive. As Ada and Denas talked of the great mysteries of life and death, their souls felt the thrill of comradeship. ”

“ It had been arranged that Denas was to open 174 with Neil Gow’s matchless song of “Caller Herrin’!” and her dress was of course that of an idealized Newhaven fisher-girl. Her short, many-coloured skirts, her trig latched shoon, her open throat, and beautiful bare arms lifted to the basket upon her head was a costume which suited her to admiration. When she came stepping down the stage to the immortal notes, and her voice thrilled the house with the ringing musical “cry” that none hear and ever forget ”

“ She had also her full share of that all-pervading spirit of caste which divides English society into innumerable circles, and though she did not dislike the tacit offence she gave to the St. Penfer young ladies by selecting a companion not in their ranks, she was always ready to defend her friendship for Denas by an exaggerated description of her many fine qualities. On this subject she could air the extreme social views which she heard from Roland, and which she always passionately 12 opposed when Roland advocated them ”

“ But however his angry thoughts wandered, they always came back to the slight of himself personally––to the failure of Penelles to appreciate the honour he was doing him in wooing his daughter. And if the devil wishes to enter easily a man or a woman, he finds no door so wide and so easy of access as the door of wounded vanity and wounded self-esteem.
Roland’s first impulse was to make Denas pay her father’s debt. “I will never speak to her again. Common little fisher-girl! I will teach her that gentlemen are to be used like gentlemen. ”

“ And it is in such holy, exalted atmospheres that love reaches its sweetest, fairest strength and bloom. Tris had no need of words. Words would have blundered, and hampered, and darkened all he had to say. One look at Denas as they closed the book together––one look as he held her hand on the door-step, and she knew more than words could ever have said. She saw through his eyes to the bottom of his clear, honest soul, and she knew that he loved her as men love who find in one woman only the song of life, the master-key of all their being. ”

“ And when a girl has set her face toward a wrong road, nothing is sadder in life than the general certainty there is that every small event will urge her forward on it. Usually the home-coming of Denas was watched for and seen afar off, and some special dainty was simmering on the hob for her refreshment. There was all the pleasant flurry that belongs to love’s warm welcome. But she had delayed her return in order to spend the evening with Roland, and the environments of the morning had not the same air of easy happiness that attaches itself to the evening hours. ”

“ She could not bear to contemplate the prosaic, commonplace method of sending John to buy his own boat when it was within the power of Denas and herself to be an unseen gracious providence to him. So after a moment’s thought she said: “There be Tris Penrose. It will be busy all and happy all for him to be about such a job.”
“I have not seen Tris since I came home. He is the only one who has not come to say welcome to me.”
“Aw, then, ’twas only yesterday he got home himself. He has been away with Mr. Arundel on his yacht.” ”

“ She thought of Herodias dancing the Baptist’s head off, and she said solemnly to Roland, and with the utmost sincerity, that she dared not dance. It was the broad road to perdition. Roland had not cared to argue with such a prejudice. He knew well that the dancing would follow the public singing, as naturally as the singing followed the professional orchestra. But he said then, as he said frequently afterward: “It is such a pity, Denas, you have not a mother you can advise with and who could help and encourage you. It just locks a girl up in a box to be born a Methodist!” ”

“ About the end of March she had a letter from Tris. The yacht was then at Gibraltar on its return passage, and Tris might be looked for within a few days. But the house was nearly ready and all her personal preparations were made. Such as pertained to the ceremony and their future life they would make together when Tris returned home. Never had father, and mother, and daughter, been so happy and so closely one. Joan had grown young again. John sang from morning to night. Denas had the loveliness of love transfiguring the loveliness of mere physical beauty. ”