Lying Prophets Part 21

She suffered the holy water to flow over every inch of her body, and then, rubbing her white self red and glowing with the dead brake fern of last year and squeezing the water out of her hair, Joan quickly dressed again and prepared to depart. She was about to leave a fragment torn from her skirt hanging by the chapel, but changed her mind, and getting a splinter of granite, rough-edged, she began to chip away a tress of her own bright hair, sawing it off upon the stone table as best she could. Like a fallen star it presently glimmered in the thorn bush above St. Madron's altar where she wound the little lock, presently to bring gold to the nests and joy to the heart of small feathered folk.

Joan walked home with the warm blood racing in her veins, roses on her cheeks and the glory of hope in her eyes. Already she felt her prayers were being heard; already she was thanking G.o.d for heeding her cry, and St Madron for the life-giving waters of his holy stream. Thee, where finches chattered and fluttered forward, breakfasting together in pleasant company, a shadow and a swift, strong wing flashed across Joan's sight--and a hawk struck. The little people shrieked, a few gray feathers puffed here and there, and one spark of life was blown out that other sparks might s.h.i.+ne the brighter. For presently Joan's kind "Mother o' the flowers" watched the beaks of fledgeling hawks grow red, and the parent bird of prey's cold eyes brightened with satisfaction; as will every parent eye brighten at the spectacle of baby things eating wholesome food with hearty appet.i.te.

The death of the small fowl clouded the pilgrim's thoughts, but only for a moment. Sentiment and emotion had pa.s.sed; now she was eager with delicious physical hunger and longing for her breakfast. The girl had not felt so well or so happy for a considerable time. Half her prayer, she told herself, was answered already; and the other half, relating to "Mister Jan," would doubtless meet with similar merciful response ere many hours had flown.

So joyfully homeward out of dreamland into a world of facts Joan hastened.

CHAPTER FOUR

A THOUSAND POUNDS

A glad heart shortens the longest road, and Joan, whose return journey from the holy well was for the most part downhill, soon found herself back again in Penzance. The fire of devotion still actuated her movements, and she walked fearlessly, doubting nothing, to the post-office. There would be a letter to-day; she knew it; she felt it in her consciousness, as a certainty. And when she asked for it and mentioned her name, she put her hand out and waited until the sleepy-eyed clerk rummaged through a little pile of letters standing together and tied with a separate string. She watched him slowly untie them and scan the addresses, grumbling as he did so. Then he came to the last of all and read out:

"'Miss Joan Tregenza, Post-Office, Penzance. To be left until called for.'"

"Mine, mine, sir! I knawed 'e'd have it! I knawed as the kind, good--"

Then she stopped and grew red, while the clerk looked at her curiously and then yawned. "What's a draggle-tailed chit like her got to do with such a thing?" he wondered, and then spoke to Joan:

"Here you are; and you must sign this paper--it's a registered letter."

Joan, her hand shaking with excitement, printed her name where he directed, thanked the man with a smile that softened him, and then hastened away.

The girl was faint with hunger and happiness before she reached home. She did not dare to open the letter just then, but took it from her pocket a dozen times before she reached Newlyn and feasted her eyes on her own name, very beautifully and legibly printed. He had written it! His precious hand had held the pen and formed each letter.

Deep, wordless thanks welled up in Joan's heart, for G.o.d was not very far away, after all. He had heard her prayer already, and answered it within an hour. No doubt it was easy for Him to grant such a little prayer. It could be nothing much to G.o.d that one small creature should enjoy such happiness; but what seemed wonderful was that He should have any time to listen at all, that He should have been able to turn from the mighty business of the great awakening world and give a thought to her.

"Sure 'twas the lil lark as the good Lard heard, an' my asking as went up-long wi' en," said Joan to herself.

She found her father at home and the family just about to take breakfast.

Gray Michael had returned somewhat unexpectedly, with a fine catch, and did not intend sailing again before the evening tide. A somewhat ominous silence greeted the girl, a silence which her father was the first to break.

"Ayte your food, my la.s.s, an' then come in the garden 'long with me," he said. "I do want a word with 'e, an' things must be said which I've put off the sayin' of tu long. So be quick's you can."

But this sauce did not spoil the girl's enjoyment of her porridge and treacle. She ate heartily, and her happy humor seemed catching, at least so far as Tom was concerned. A bright color warmed Joan's cheek; the cloud that had dimmed her eyes was there no longer; and more than once Mr.

Tregenza looked at his wife inquiringly, for the tale she had been telling of Joan's recent moods and disorder was at variance with her present spirits and appet.i.te. After breakfast she went to her room while her father waited; and then it was that Joan s.n.a.t.c.hed a moment to open John Barron's letter. There would be no time to read it then, she knew: that delicious task must take many hours of loving labor; but she wanted to count the pages and see "Mister Jan's" name at the end. She knew that crosses meant kisses, too. There might be crosses somewhere. So she opened the envelope in a fever of joyous excitement, being careful, however, not to tear a letter of the superscription. And from it there came a fat, folded pile of tissue paper. Joan knew it was money, and flung it on her bed and fumbled with sinking heart for something better. But there was nothing else--only ten pieces of tissue-paper. She remembered seeing her father with similar pieces; and her mother saying there was nothing like Bank of England notes.

But they had been crumpled and dirty, these were snowy white. Each had a hundred pounds marked upon it; and Joan was aware that ten times a hundred is a thousand. But a thousand pounds possessed no more real meaning for her than a million of money does for the average man. She could not estimate its significance in the least or gauge its possibilities. Only she knew that she would far rather have had a few words from "Mister Jan" than all the money in the world.

Mr. Tregenza's voice below broke in upon the girl's disappointment, and, hastily hiding the money under some linen in a little chest of drawers, where the picture of Joe's s.h.i.+p was also concealed, she hurried to join her father. But the empty envelope, with her name printed on it, she put into her pocket that it might be near her.

Joan did not for an instant gather what meaning lay under this great gift of money, and to her the absence of a letter was no more than a pa.s.sing sorrow. She read nothing between the lines of this silence; she only saw that he had not forgotten, and only thought that he perhaps imagined such vast sums of money would give her pleasure and make the waiting easier.

What were banknotes to Joan? What was life to her away from him? She sighed, and fell back upon the thought of his wisdom and knowledge. He must be in the right to delay, because he was always in the right. A letter would presently come to explain why he had sent the money and to treat of his return. The girl felt that she had much to thank G.o.d for, after all. He had sent her the letter; He had answered her prayer in His own way. It ill became her, she thought, to question more deeply. She must wait and be patient, however hard the waiting.

So thinking, she joined her father. Tom was away up the village, Mrs.

Tregenza found plenty to occupy her mind and body indoors; Joan and Mr.

Tregenza had the garden to themselves. He was silent until they reached the wicket, then, going through it, he led the way slowly up a hill which wound above the neighboring stone quarry; and as he walked he addressed Joan.

She, weary enough already, prayed that her parent intended going no further than the summit of the hill; but when he spoke she forgot physical fatigue, for his manner was short and stern.

"Theer's things bein' hid 'twixt you an' me, darter, an' 'tis time you spoke up. Every parent's got some responsibility in the matter of his cheel's sawl, an', if theer's aught to knaw, 'tis I must hear it. 'The faither waketh for the darter when no man knaweth,' sez the Preacher, an'

he never wrote nothin' truer. I've waked for you, Joan. 'Keep a sure watch over a shameless darter,' sez the Preacher agin; but G.o.d forbid you'm that.

Awnly you'm allus wool-gatherin', an' roamin', an' wastin' time. An' time wance squandered do never come agin. I hear tell this has been gwaine forrard since Joe went to sea. What's the matter with 'e? Say it out plain an' straight an' now this minute."

Joan had particularly prayed by the Madron altar that the Everlasting would keep her from lying. She remembered the fact as her father put his question; and she also recollected that John Barron had told her to say nothing about their union until he returned to her. So she lied again, and that the more readily because Gray Michael's manner of asking his question put a reasonable answer into her head.

"I s'pose as it might be I'm wisht 'cause o' Joe Noy, faither."

"Then look 'e to it an' let it cease. Joe's in the hand o' the Lard same as we be. He's got to work out his salvation in fear an' tremblin' same as us.

Some do the Lard's work ash.o.r.e, some afloat, some--sich as me--do it by land an' sea both. You doan't work Joe no good trapsing 'bout inland, here, theer, an' everywheers; an' you do yourself harm, 'cause it makes 'e oneasy an' restless. Mendin' holes an' was.h.i.+n' clothes an' prayin' to the Lard to 'a' mercy on your sinful sawl's what you got to do. Also learnin' to cook 'gainst the time you'm a wife an' the mother o' childern, if G.o.d so wills.

But this ban't no right way o' life for any wan, gentle or simple, so mend it. A gad-about, lazy female's h.e.l.l-meat in any station. Theer's enough of 'em as 'tis, wi'in the edge o' Carnwall tu. What was you doin' this marnin'? Mother sez 'er heard you stirrin' 'fore the birds."

"I went out a long walk to think, faither."

"What 'e want to think 'bout? Your plaace is to du, not to think. G.o.d'll think for 'e if 'e ax; an' the sooner you mind that an' call 'pon the A'mighty the better; 'cause the Devil's ready an' willin' to think for 'e tu. Read the Book more an' look about 'e less. Man's eyes, an' likewise maid's, is best 'pon the ground most time. Theer's no evil writ theer. The brain of man an' woman imagineth ill nearly allus, for why? 'Cause they looks about an' sees it. Evil comes in through the eyes of 'em; evil's pasted large 'pon every dead wall in Newlyn. Read the Book--'tis all summed up in that. You've gotten a power o' your mother in 'e yet. Not but you've bin a good darter thus far, save for back-slidin' in the past; but I saved your sawl then, thanks be to the voice o' G.o.d in me, an' I saved your mother's sawl, though theer was tidy wraslin' for her; an' I'll save yourn yet if you'll do your paart."

Here Gray Michael paused and turned homeward, while Joan congratulated herself upon the fact that a conversation which promised to be difficult had ended so speedily and without misfortune. Then her father asked her another question.

"An' what's this I hear tell 'bout you bein' poorly? You do look so well as ever I knawed 'e, but mother sez you'm that cranky with vittles as you never was afore, an' wrong inside likewise."

"Ban't nothin', faither. 'Tis awver an' done. I ate tu much or some sich thing an' I be bonny well agin now."

"Doan't be thinkin' then. 'Tis all brain-sickness, I'll lay. I doan't want no doctor's traade in my 'ouse if us can keep it outside. The Lard's my doctor. Keep your sawl clean, an' the Lard'll watch your body. 'E's said as much. 'E knaws we'm poor trashy worms an' even a breath o' foul air'll take our lives onless 'E be by to filter it. Faith's the awnly medicine worth usin'."

Joan remembered her morning bath and felt comforted by this last reflection. Had she not already found the magic result? For a moment she thought of telling her father what she had done, but she changed her mind.

Such faith as that would have brought nothing but wrath upon her.

While Mr. Tregenza improved the hour and uttered various precepts for his daughter's help and guidance, Thomasin was occupied at home with grave thoughts respecting Joan. She more than suspected the truth from signs of indisposition full of meaning to a mother; but while duly mentioning the girl's illness, Mrs. Tregenza did not dare to breathe the color of her own explanation. She prayed to G.o.d in all honesty to prove her wrong, but her lynx eyes waited to read the truth she feared. If things were really so with Joan, then they could not be hid from her eyes much longer; and in the event of her suspicions proving correct, Mrs. Tregenza told herself, as a right Luke Gospeler, she must proclaim her horrid discovery and let the perdition of her husband's daughter be generally made manifest. She knew so many were called, so few chosen. No girl had ever been more surely called than Joan: her father's trumpet tongue had thundered the ways of righteousness into her ears from her birth; but, after all, it began to look as though she was not chosen. The circ.u.mstance, of course, if proved, would rob her of every Luke Gospeler's regard. No weak pandering with sentiment and sin was permitted in that fold. And Mrs. Tregenza had little pity herself for unfortunate or mistaken women. Let a girl lose her character and Thomasin usually refused to hear any plea of mercy from any source. Only once did she find extenuating circ.u.mstances: in a case where a ruined farmer's daughter brought an action for breach of promise and won it, with heavy damages. But money acted in a peculiar way with this woman.

It put her conscience and her judgment out of focus, softened the outlines of events, furnished excuses for unusual practices, gilded with a bright lining even the blackest cloud of wrongdoing. Where Mrs. Tregenza could see money she could see light. Money made her charitable, broad-minded, even tolerant. She knew she loved it, and was careful to keep the fact out of Gray Michael's sight as far as possible. She held the purse, and he felt that it was in good hands, but cautioned her from time to time against the awful danger of letting a l.u.s.t for this world's wealth come between the soul and G.o.d.

And now a course long indicated in Thomasin's mind was being by her pursued. Having convinced herself that under the present circ.u.mstances any step to found or dispel her fears concerning Joan would be just and proper, she took the exceptional one of searching the girl's little room while her stepdaughter was out with Michael. Even as Mr. Tregenza turned to go homeward again, his wife stood in the midst of Joan's small sanctuary, and cast keen, inquiring eyes about her. She rarely visited the apartment, and had not been in it for six months. Now she came to set doubt at rest if possible, or confirm it. Her own secret opinion was that Joan had come to serious trouble with her superiors. In that case letters, presents or tokens had probably pa.s.sed into her hands; and, if such existed, in this room they would be.

"G.o.d send as I'm makin' a mistake an' shaan't find nothin' 'tall," said Mrs. Tregenza to herself. And then she began her scrutiny.

CHAPTER FIVE THE TRUTH

Thomasin saw that all things about Joan's room were neat, spotless, and in order. For one brief moment a sense of disquiet at the action before her touched the woman's heart and head; but duty alike to her husband and her stepdaughter demanded the search in her opinion. Should there be nothing to find, so much the better; if, on the other hand, matters affecting Joan's temporal and eternal welfare were here hidden, then they could not be uncovered too quickly. She looked first through the girl's little wooden trunk, the key of which was in the lock, but nothing save a childish treasure or two rewarded Mrs. Tregenza here. In a broken desk, which had belonged to her mother, Joan kept a few Christmas cards, and two silhouettes: one of Uncle Thomas, of Drift, one of Mary Chirgwin. Here were also some cooking recipes copied in her mother's writing, an agate marble which Joan had found on Penzance beach, lavender tied up in a bag, and an odd toy that softened Thomasin's heart not a little as she picked it up and looked at it. The thing brought back to her memory a time four years earlier. It was a small, grotesque figure on wires, built up of chestnuts and acorns with a hazel-nut for its head and black pins stuck in for the eyes. She remembered Tom making it and giving it to Joan on her birthday.

Then the memory of Joan's love for Tom from the time he was born came like a glow of suns.h.i.+ne into the mother's heart, and for a moment she was minded to relinquish her unpleasant task upon the spot; but she changed her intention again and proceeded. The box held little else save a parcel of old clothes tied up with rosemary in brown paper. These the woman surveyed curiously, and knew, without being told, that they had belonged to Joan's mother. For some reason the spectacle killed sentiment and changed her mood. She shut down the box, and then, going to the chest of drawers, pulled out each compartment in turn. Nothing but Joan's apparel and her few brooches and trinkets appeared here. The history of each and all was familiar to Mrs. Tregenza. But on reaching the bottom drawer of the chest, she found it locked and the key absent. To continue her search, however, was not difficult. Nothing separated the drawers, and by removing that above the last, the contents of the lowest lay at her mercy, It was full of linen for the most part, but hidden at the bottom, Thomasin made a discovery, and found certain matters which at once spoke of tremendous mystery, and, to her mind, indicated the nature of it. First she came upon the little picture of Joe's s.h.i.+p in its rough gilded frame. This might be an innocent gift from some of the young men who had asked in the past to be allowed to paint Joan and received a curt negative from Gray Michael. But the other discovery meant more. Pus.h.i.+ng her hand about the drawer she found a pile of paper, felt the crackle of it, and pulled it eagerly to the light. Then, and before she learned the grandeur of the sum, she was seized with a sudden palpitation and sat down on Joan's bed. Her mouth grew full as a hungry man's before a feast, her lips were wet, her hand shook as she opened and spread the notes. Then she counted them and sat gasping like a landed fish. Thomasin had never seen so much money before in her life. A thousand pounds! Unlike Joan, to whom the sum conveyed no significance, Mrs. Tregenza could estimate it. Her mind reached that far, and the bank-notes, for her, lay just within the estimation of avarice. Every snowy fragment meant a hundred pounds--a hundred sovereigns--two hundred ten-s.h.i.+lling pieces. The first shock overpast, and long before she grew sufficiently calm to a.s.sociate the treasure with its possessor, Mrs.

Tregenza began spending in her mind's eye. The points in house and garden, outhouse and sty, whereon money might be advantageously expended, rose up one after the other. Then she put aside eight hundred and fifty out of the grand total and pictured herself taking it to the bank. She thought of a nest-egg that would "goody" against the time Tom should grow into a man; she saw herself among the neighbors, pointed at, whispered of as a woman with hundreds and hundreds of pounds put by; she saw the rows of men sitting basking about in Newlyn, as their custom is when off the sea; and she heard them drop words of admiration at the sight of her. Presently, however, this gilded vision vanished, and she began to connect the money with Joan. She solved the mystery then with a brutal directness which hit the mark in one direction; as to the source of the money, but went wide of it in some measure upon the subject of the girl. Thomasin held briefly that her stepdaughter had fallen, and now, knowing her condition, had informed some man of it, with the result that from him came this unutterable gift.

That the money made an enormous difference to Mrs. Tregenza's mental att.i.tude must be confessed. She found herself fas.h.i.+oning absolute excuses for Joan. Girls so often came to ill through no fault of their own. The man must at least have been a gentleman to pay for his pleasure in four figures. Four figures! Here she stopped thinking in order to picture the vision of a unit followed by three ciphers. Then she marveled as to what manner of man he was who could send a girl like Joan a thousand pounds. She never heard of such a price for the value received. Her respect for Joan began to increase when she realized that the money was hers. Probably there was even more where that came from. "Anyway," she reflected, "it ban't no use cryin' ower spilt milk. What's done's done. An' a thousand pounds'll go long ways to softenin' the road. She might travel up-long to Truro to my cousin an' bide quiet theer till arter, an' no harm done, poor la.s.s. When all's said, us knaws the Lard Hissel weer mighty easy wi' the like o' she, an' worser wenches tu. But Michael--G.o.d A'mighty knaws he won't be easy.

She'm a d.a.m.ned wummon, I s'pose, but she's got to live through 'er life here--d.a.m.ned or saved; an' she's got a thousand pound to do't with. A terrible braave dollop o' money, sure 'nough. To think 'ow 'ard a man's got to work 'fore he earns five of 'em!" But her imagination centered upon Gray Michael now, and she almost forgot the banknotes for a moment. She thought of his agony and trembled for the result. He might strike Joan down and kill her. The man's anger against evil-doers was always a terrific thing; and he had no idea of the value of money. She hazarded guesses at the course he would pursue, and each idea was blacker than the last. Then Thomasin fell to wondering what Michael would be likely to do with the money. She sighed at this thought, and then she grew pale at the imaginary spectacle of her husband tearing the devil-sent notes to pieces and scattering them over the cliff to the sea. This horrible possibility stung her to another train of ideas. Might it be within her power to win Joan's secret, share it, and keep it from the father? Her pluck, however, gave way when she looked a little deeper into the future. She would have done most things in her power for a thousand pounds, but she would not have dared any treachery to Michael. The woman put the notes together and stroked them and listened to the rustle of them and rubbed her hard cheek with them. Then, looking from the little window of Joan's garret, she saw the girl herself approaching with Mr. Tregenza. They were nearly home again, so Thomasin returned the money and the picture to their places in the chest of drawers, smoothed the bed, where she had been sitting for half an hour, and went downstairs still undetermined as to a course of action.

Before dinner was eaten, however, she had decided that her husband must know the truth. Even her desire toward the money cooled before the prospect of treachery to him. Fear had something to do with this decision, but the woman's own principles were strong. It is unlikely that in any case they would have broken down. She sent Joan on an errand to the village after the meal was ended; and upon her departure addressed her husband hurriedly.