Penelope's Postscripts Part 8

Somehow, in the days that followed, Tommy was always with his particular friends, the fishermen, on the beach, at the Red Lion, or in the shop of a certain boat-builder, learning the use of the calking-iron. Mr. and Mrs. Jack, Aunt Celia, and I unexpectedly found ourselves a quartette for hours together, while Egeria and Atlas walked in the churchyard, in the beautiful grounds of Clovelly Court, or in the deer park, where one finds as perfect a union of marine and woodland scenery as any in England.

Atlas may have taken her there because he could discuss single tax more eloquently when he was walking over the entailed estates of the English landed gentry, but I suspect that single tax had taken off its hat, and bowing profoundly to Egeria, had said, "After you, Madam!" and retired to its proper place in the universe; for not even the most blatant economist would affirm that any other problem can be so important as that which confronts a man when he enters that land of Beulah, which is upon the borders of Heaven and within sight of the City of Love.

Atlas was young, warm of heart, high of mind, and generous of soul.

All the necessary chords, therefore, were in him, ready to be set in vibration. No one could do this more cunningly than Egeria; the only question was whether love would "run out to meet love," as it should, "with open arms."

We simply waited to see. Mrs. Jack, with that fine lack of logic that distinguished her, disclaimed all responsibility. "He is awake, at least," she said, "and that is a great comfort; and now and then he observes a few very plain facts, mostly relating to Egeria, it is true. If it does come to anything, I hope he won't ask her to live in a college settlement the year round, though I haven't the slightest doubt that she would like it. If there were ever two beings created expressly for each other, it is these two, and for that reason I have my doubts about the matter. Almost all marriages are made between two people who haven't the least thing in common, so far as outsiders can judge. Egeria and Atlas are almost too well suited for marriage."

The progress of the affair had thus far certainly been astonis.h.i.+ngly rapid, but it might mean nothing. Egeria's mind and heart were so easy of access up to a certain point that the traveller sometimes overestimated the distance covered and the distance still to cover. Atlas quoted something about her at the end of the very first day, that described her charmingly: "Ordinarily, the sweetest ladies will make us pa.s.s through cold mist and cross a stile or two, or a broken bridge, before the formalities are cleared away, to grant us rights of citizens.h.i.+p.

She is like those frank lands where we have not to hand out a pa.s.sport at the frontier and wait for dubious inspection." But the description is incomplete. Egeria, indeed, made no one wait at the frontier for a dubious inspection of his pa.s.sport; but once in the new domain, while he would be cordially welcomed to parks, gardens, lakes, and pleasure grounds, he would find unexpected difficulty in entering the queen's private apartments, a fact that occasioned surprise to some of the travellers.

We all took the greatest interest, too, in the romance of Phoebe and Jem, for the course of true love did not run at all smooth for this young couple. Jack wrote a ballad about her, and Egeria made a tune to it, and sang it to the tinkling, old-fas.h.i.+oned piano of an evening:-

"Have you e'er seen the street of Clovelly?

The quaint, rambling street of Clovelly, With its staircase of stone leading down to the sea, To the harbour so sleepy, so old, and so wee, The queer, crooked street of Clovelly.

"Have you e'er seen the la.s.s of Clovelly?

The sweet little la.s.s of Clovelly, With kirtle of grey reaching just to her knee, And ankles as neat as ankles may be, The yellow-haired la.s.s of Clovelly.

"There's a good honest lad in Clovelly, A bold, fisher lad of Clovelly, With purpose as straight and swagger as free As the course of his boat when breasting a sea, The brave sailor lad of Clovelly.

"Have you e'er seen the church at Clovelly?

Have you heard the sweet bells of Clovelly?

The lad and the la.s.sie will hear them, maybe, And join hand in hand to sail over life's sea From the little stone church at Clovelly."

When the nights were cool or damp we crowded into Mrs. Jack's tiny china-laden sitting-room, and had a blaze in the grate with a bit of driftwood burning blue and green and violet on top of the coals.

Tommy sometimes smelled of herring to such a degree that we were obliged to keep the door open; but his society was so precious that we endured the odours.

But there were other evenings out of doors, when we sat in a sheltered corner down on the pier, watching the line of limestone cliffs running westward to the revolving light at Hartland Point that sent us alternate flashes of ruby and white across the water.

Clovelly lamps made glittering disks in the quay pool, s.h.i.+ning there side by side with the reflected star-beams. We could hear the regular swish-swash of the waves on the rocks, and to the eastward the dripping of a stream that came tumbling over the cliff.

Such was our last evening in Clovelly; a very quiet one, for the charm of the place lay upon us and we were loath to leave it. It was warm and balmy, and the moonlight lay upon the beach. Egeria leaned against the parapet, the serge of her dress showing white against the background of rock. The hood of her dark blue yachting-cape was slipping off her head, and her eyes were as deep and clear as crystal pools.

Presently she began to sing,--first, "The Sands o' Dee," then,--

"Three fishers went sailing out into the west, Out into the west as the sun went down; Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town."

Egeria is one of the few women who can sing well without an accompaniment. She has a thrilling voice, and what with the scene, the hour, and the pathos of Kingsley's verses, tears rushed into my eyes, and Bill Marks' words came back to me--"Two-and-twenty men drowned; that's what it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown."

Atlas gazed at her with eyes that no longer cared to keep their secret. Mrs. Jack was still uncertain; for me, I was sure. Love had rushed past him like a galloping horseman, and shooting an arrow almost without aim, had struck him full in the heart, that citadel that had withstood a dozen deliberate sieges.

It was midnight, and our few belongings were packed. Egeria had come to the Inn to sleep, and stole into my room to warm her toes before the blaze in my grate, for I was chilly and had ordered a sixpenny fire. When I say that she came in to warm her toes, I am asking you to accept her statement, not mine; it is my opinion that she came in for no other purpose than to tell me something that was in her mind and heart pleading for utterance.

I didn't help her by leading up to the subject, because I thought her fib so flagrant and unnecessary; accordingly, we talked over a mult.i.tude of things,--Phoebe and Jem and their hard-hearted parents, our visit to Cardiff and Ilfracombe, Bill Marks and his wife, the service at the church, and finally her walk with Atlas in the churchyard.

"We went inside," said Egeria, "and I copied the inscription on the bronze tablet that Atlas liked so much on Sunday: 'Her grateful and affectionate husband's last and proudest wish will be that whenever Divine Providence shall call him hence, his name may be engraved on the same tablet that is sacred in perpetuating as much virtue and goodness as could adorn human nature.'" Then she went on, with apparent lack of sequence: "Penelope, don't you think it is always perfectly safe to obey a Scriptural command, because I have done it?"

"Did you find it in the Old or the New Testament?"

"The Old."

"I should say that if you found some remarks about breaking the bones of your enemy, and have twisted it out of its connection, it would be particularly bad advice to follow."

"It is nothing of that sort."

"What is it, then?"

She took out a tortoise-sh.e.l.l dagger just here, and gave her head an absent-minded shake so that her l.u.s.trous coil of hair uncoiled itself and fell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to induce covetousness, but one couldn't be envious of Egeria. She charmed one by her lack of consciousness.

"The happy lot Be his to follow Those threads through lovely curve and hollow, And muse a lifetime how they got Into that wild, mysterious knot," -

quoted I, as I gave her head an insinuating pat. "Come, Egeria, stand and deliver! What is the Scriptural command, that having first obeyed, you ask my advice about afterwards?"

"Have you a Bible?"

"You might not think it, but I have, and it is here on my table."

"Then I am going into my room, to lock the door, and call the verse through the keyhole. But you must promise not to say a word to me till to-morrow morning."

I was not in a position to dictate terms, so I promised. The door closed, the bolt shot into the socket, and Egeria's voice came so faintly through the keyhole that I had to stoop to catch the words:-

"Deuteronomy, 10:19."

I flew to my Bible. Genesis--Exodus--Leviticus--Numbers-- Deuteronomy--Deut-er-on-omy--Ten--Nineteen -

"Love ye therefore the stranger--"

PENELOPE AT HOME

"'Tis good when you have crossed the sea and back To find the sit-fast acres where you left them."

Emerson.

Beresford Broadacres, April 15, 19-.

Penelope, in the old sense, is no more! No mound of gra.s.s and daisies covers her; no shaft of granite or marble marks the place where she rests;--as a matter of fact she never does rest; she walks and runs and sits and stands, but her travelling days are over. For the present, in a word, the reason that she is no longer "Penelope," with dozens of portraits and three volumes of "Experiences" to her credit, is, that she is Mrs. William Hunt Beresford.

As for Himself, he is just as much William Hunt Beresford as ever he was, for marriage has not staled, nor fatherhood withered, his infinite variety. There may be, indeed, a difference, ever so slight; a new dignity, and an air of responsibility that harmonizes well with the inch of added girth at his waist-line and the grey thread or two that becomingly sprinkle his dark hair.

And where is Herself, the vanished Penelope, you ask; the companion of Salemina and Francesca; the traveller in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; the wanderer in Switzerland and Italy? Well, if she is a thought less irresponsible, merry, and loquacious, she is happier and wiser. If her easel and her palette are not in daily evidence, neither are they altogether banished from the scene; and whatever measure of cunning Penelope's hand possessed in other days, Mrs. Beresford has contrived to preserve.