Part 9

In the Established Church there are two schools differing in their tendencies. The tendency of the extreme of the High Church is towards plunging into pecuniary difficulties; the tendency of the extreme of the Low Church is towards lapses into amatory difficulties. If this be the case in the Established Church--if this be done in the green tree, what goes on in the dry?--in the nonconformist churches, where the ministers are not independent of their congregations--where the mercury of their salary rises and falls with their popularity. It is natural that in such circumstances there should be developed a tendency towards fawning on and fondling of pious ladies with money. A little coaxing retains a sheep that inclines to err into another fold. The pressing of the hand changes a shilling subscription into a guinea, and an arm round the waist elevates it to five pounds. When the habit has been acquired of showing these tendernesses to the well-to-do, old and ugly ladies, it sometimes extends also to those who are good-looking and young, and becomes at last wholly indiscriminate.

Now the Reverend Israel Flamank was a sincere and good man, and he drew the line, with singular moderation, at kisses. These were scriptural--the Apostle Paul had a fancy for them, and recommended them wholesale. But the arm round the waist he did not allow. He found no warranty for it in Holy Writ. But he would take a lady's hand in one of his, and stroke it with the other, and read and expound to her the Song of Solomon. There was no harm in that; and it was really remarkable how these innocent attentions told on his income and his acceptableness to his congregation.

Mrs. Flamank did not like these familiarities. Though she knew they were as harmless as the love-making of actors and actresses on the stage, and were inseparable from the position of a minister in an Unestablished Church, she objected to them. She was very determined, if she received Mrs. Trampleasure, Orange, and Mirelle into her house, she would permit none of these Pauline caressings under her eyes. But it is easier for a resolution to be taken than to enforce it. Mr. Flamank was very discreet for a week or ten days, but after that he began to soften towards the ladies. Mirelle kept him at a distance from the outset. He had been highly pleased at the prospect of getting a daughter of the Scarlet Woman into his house. He looked on her as an erring sheep, one who erred through ignorance; and he hoped to enlighten her, and lead her into the paths of truth. He was, however, somewhat puzzled how to set about it. Mirelle withdrew from family devotion, and declined to assist at his scriptural readings. She would not attend his chapel. She allowed him no opportunity of opening a conversation with her on religious topics. She was cold, reserved, and silent. Mrs. Flamank rather liked her: there was no fear of Israel patting her hand.

The pastor attempted to dazzle her with his evangelical talk, much in the same way that young Sampson had attempted to impress her with his brag of feats performed with dogs and horses. On one or two occasions he had the temerity to attack her, but he came off with falls which damped his ardour. Once, when he assailed her on the subject of belief, she cut him short with the observation, 'We do not speak the same language. When I say, I believe, I mean that I hold as certain, but I notice that you use the word differently, as synonymous with I suppose. We look at different objects and through different instruments; I through a telescope at constant verities, you through a kaleidoscope at vari-coloured and ever-varying opinions.'

With Orange it was not the same. She was in trouble. Mortified pride and wounded love brought frequent tears into her eyes. She looked very handsome in her mourning suit. What is the first duty of a pastor, but to comfort the sorrowful, to soothe the ruffled soul, to apply the balm of Gilead to open wounds? So Mr. Israel Flamank was assiduous in his comforting and soothing, and dabbing on of balm,--more assiduous than Betsy Delilah liked. Orange was coarse of grit, and did not object to the little attentions of the pastor which would have been insufferable to Mirelle. She accepted them with indifference; she was without religious instincts, and the words of the shepherd fell empty on her ear. But there was something flattering in his efforts to console her, and at the present time, when her pride was hurt, any flattery was pleasing. Captain Trecarrel was not there to staunch her tears, to cheer her and give her assurance of a future; any one who could afford her some alleviation to her humiliation, and encourage her with a hope of better things, was acceptable, even though he were a dissenting minister.

Flamank was perfectly sincere. His heart was full of kindness and devoid of guile. He was troubled at her distress, and unhappy at his inability to help her. It was unfortunate that his mode of expressing these justifiable feelings did not meet with the approval of Betsy Delilah. They irritated her, and she determined to shake herself free of her guests at the first opportunity.

Captain Trecarrel had returned to the neighbourhood. Orange heard of it, and waited several days in expectation of a visit. But he neither called nor sent to inquire after her and her mother. She brooded over this neglect. Did he really mean to desert her? He could not behave so cruelly, so unworthily. Her hot blood raced through her veins. She resolved that she would go herself to Trecarrel. She would go alone; no one should know of the visit. She would speak to Harry face to face. When he had her before him, and saw her in her black, her face--her beautiful face, wet with tears, his love would blaze up, his manly pity and generosity would force him to assert his right to protect her.

He was staying away only because of the scandal about Ophir. He was waiting for that to blow away, and then he would return to her. She felt sure of that; she measured his love by her own. Would she have forsaken him had ruin overtaken him? A thousand times no--no--no! She must know his intentions for certain. Her future depended on knowing this. She was unable to endure the thought that she should be seen going to seek him, and therefore she resolved to go by herself after dark. She would not tell Mrs. or Mr. Flamank, nor her mother, nor, of course, Mirelle. The thing could be done with ease. The drawing-room had French windows, through which the little garden could be entered. The drawing-room was rarely sat in; it was used for company occasions. The family occupied the dining-room, in which they had their meals, and in which they worked and talked afterwards, amidst the fumes of meat, cabbage, and cheese. This was economical; it saved carpets and furniture, and an extra fire.

Orange waited till all had gone to bed. They were early risers, and retired early in that house. Then she softly descended the stairs, her shoes in her hand, and entered the drawing-room. She easily unclosed the shutters, without making any noise, unlocked and unbolted the French window, opened it, put on her shoes, and stepped forth on the gravel.

The street was deserted; only a low tavern at the end had the door open, and a light shone forth into the road. In that gleam, a young woman, adorned with gay ribands, was laughing and romping with two nearly tipsy young men. The language, the gestures, were gross and disgusting.

'Have another nip of gin, Polly.'

'No, you shan't have none of his, Polly, I'll give you some, my duck. You be my sweetheart, and not his.'

'Who goes there?' screamed the girl, and made a rush at Orange. 'Here's a girl for you, Tom, and then you let me alone with Joe.'

Orange flung her off with scorn, and ran along the road. A burst of laughter and jeers followed her.

'She be going after her young man down to the lane end,' cried the girl.

Orange's cheek burned. That was true--hatefully true. She was going to seek her lover, but only because he did not come to see her. After this incident she was unmolested. She met no one else on her long walk to Trecarrel.

Would she find the Captain up? She hoped so, she supposed so, for she knew that he sat up late; he had often told her as much. It was as she had conjectured and hoped. When she reached the house, she saw a light from his smoking-room, a comfortable room, where he kept his whips and guns; a room ornamented with stuffed foxes' heads and their tails, and with the antlers of red deer. A door from this little room opened on to the lawn. Orange went to the window, but the blind was down and she could not see in; but she heard Trecarrel within whistling an air; it was an operatic air he had recently heard in Exeter, and which had caught his fancy. How splendidly La Fontana had sung! What schooling her voice had gone through, and what quality was in it! How graceful she was, and what passionate action she showed. 'You never get that sort of a thing out of an Englishwoman,' he mused. 'Our countrywomen cannot act; they have no fire, no passion, they are dolls, and move mechanically. Their voices, moreover---- Good heavens! Who is that?'

He started up. The door opened, and Orange came in. He had been seated over his fire, with his cravat off, a bottle of claret and a glass on the table at his side; he had just finished a pipe.

'No fire, no passion in an English girl!'

There were both before him, flaming in Orange's eye, and heaving in her bosom.

'Bless my soul, Orange, what on earth has brought you here?'

'You, Harry, you!' She was out of breath, and choking with emotion. 'Oh, Harry, dear Harry, why have you not been to see me?'

'Come over to the fire. You must be cold.'

'I--I, cold!' she laughed bitterly. 'I am burning; feel my hand. I have run; but it is not that. The flame is here.' She touched her heart. 'It is eating its way, it is consuming me. Oh, Harry, why have you not been to see me? You do not know what I have suffered.'

'We have both suffered,' he answered: but there was not much token of pain in his blue eyes, nor tone in his voice. 'Come over here; I am sure you must be damp with the night air. This is most indiscreet of you, Orange; I hope you have come attended.'

'I am alone.'

'You ought not to have come. It is wrong--it is indelicate.' He was fitting on his cravat as he spoke. 'Good heavens, what would be said had you been seen?'

'No one has seen me; no one knows where I am.'

'This is madness,' he said. He twirled his moustache; he was greatly discomposed. 'I wish you had been more reasonable, Orange.' Then to himself, 'I wish I had remained in Exeter, or gone to bed.'

'I dare say it is madness and unreasonable,' she said; 'I am mad. Do you know, Harry, all that has happened? Do you know that my mother and I are beggars? We have nothing left to us.'

'My good Orange, I have been myself on the verge of that same condition all my life, and so can sympathise with you.'

'You have a house of your own, we have none. You have land that no man can take from you, and you can at least dig that and live on its produce. But my mother and I have nothing; no house, no land, no money. We eat the bread of charity, and how long is it to last? Harry, I ask you?'

He was silent, engaged on his cravat. It offended his delicacy to be seen and to converse with a lady without his cravat.

'You do not answer me, Harry; you are not going to desert me now I am down. If you had been poor and an outcast, would not I have taken you, though I were wealthy?'

'But there is the rub,' said the Captain, interrupting her. 'If I were rich I would share it with you and welcome, but I am not rich; I am miserably poor, hardly able to keep my head out of a debtor's prison.'

'Harry, I do not mind that. You are bound to me; you cannot desert me in my misery. No, I know you too well. You are too good, too noble, too true a gentleman. I cannot, I will not believe it. Take me as I am. We can but be poor together, and I will work as your slave. With love labour is light, and poverty is made rich.'

'That is rather a pretty sentiment, Orange, but it is impracticable.'

'It is not impracticable. Try me.'

'That is absurd. I cannot try you, and, if the experiment fails, dissolve the partnership.'

She was silent, and looked him full in the face. Then her feelings overcame her. She stretched out her arms to him. 'Harry,' she gasped, 'Harry, I love you!'

He did not put out his arms to encircle her, to take her to his heart; but he put his hand to his pipe and began to scrape out the ashes with a bit of stick--a toothpick that was on the mantelpiece.

'Be reasonable, Orange; it is impossible for us to marry now. There is this terrible scandal about Ophir barring it for one thing; there is my poverty for another. We must wait.'

'I knew it,' she said, relieved; 'I knew the delay was for a time only. But, Harry, in the meanwhile I have no home. Where am I to live? What roof is to cover me from the rain and the snow? Where am I to get food to put in my mouth, whence the clothes to cover me? Whilst you are waiting for Ophir to be forgotten, I am starving.'

'This calls for consideration,' he said, still cleaning his pipe; and now he blew through it, to assure himself that the passage was clear.

'Harry, you have an aunt at Penzance, take me to her. I will live with her a few years, till this trouble about Ophir is passed, and then you shall marry me from her house.'

'That is not possible, Orange. My aunt strongly disapproved of my engagement. She is a most bigoted Catholic, and could not endure the thought of my taking a Protestant to wife.'

'I will be a Catholic; I do not care.'

'But,' said he, coldly, 'that is not all. Our families are so wide apart in the social scale. My aunt is very proud of her race, and you know your stock is not--well, neither ancient nor gentle. You may change your creed, but not your blood. I think nothing of this. If I had considered it, I would not have sought to marry you, but my aunt--you see we are speaking of her, and you propose that I should take you to her--my aunt is very stiff in these matters. I cannot force you into her house. So you see this scheme is impracticable also.'

'Where am I to go?' asked Orange, desperately; 'I must live somewhere. You are my proper protector, to whom I fly. I ask you, find me, give me a home. See, Harry, I am poor now, but it may not always be so. The directors of Ophir have left us some thousands of pounds in Patagonian bonds.'

'Oh! I know them. They were left because worthless.'

'They are worthless now, but they may become valuable hereafter. Let us wait till then; I will be patient, and in time you will marry me.'

'Oh, certainly, when the Patagonians are at par.'

'But in the meantime, Harry, what is to become of me?'

'Really, I am at a loss to know. I am at my wits' end what to propose.'

Then her cheek and brow became crimson.

'Harry! I am sunk so low that I care not what the world says, and what becomes of me. I will stay here; you shall not send me away. I have no pride left. Let me be a poor serving maid, a kitchen-wench in the house, and work for you. If the world talks, let it--I defy it.'

Trecarrel sprang back. This was indeed madness. She must be cured.

'Orange!' he said, 'I am too honourable to listen to such words with composure. Go back whence you came. Here! I will accompany you. You must not be alone.'

'No, I came alone, and I can go alone. But--what is to become of me?'

'You think only of yourself, Orange; you are selfish. Poor Mirelle! how she must suffer also. What is to become of that sweet and fragile flower?'

Orange looked him full in the eyes. A light flickered and flashed in hers, a terrible light. She stood as a statue before him for a moment. Fierce thoughts, wild, dark, like smoke from the bottomless pit, rose, and rolled over and obscured her brain.

'Poor Mirelle! Sweet and fragile flower!' At that moment, with her, Orange, pleading before him, with her in an agony and in abasement before him, he could think of Mirelle, and throw Mirelle in her teeth.

Then she turned to the door. All hope was gone.

'Let me attend you home,' he said.

'I have no home,' she answered hoarsely.

'Let me go with you to where you are lodging.'

'I came alone, I will return alone,' she said, and left the room.

She hurried into the road. When there, however, she stood and waited. Would he come after her? She waited on; the light in his smoking-room disappeared, it reappeared at another window, and travelled upwards, then shone out of an upstair room. Captain Trecarrel was going to bed.

Then Orange ran back to Launceston.

As she passed the low public-house, she stumbled over something. It was the young woman, drunk, lying in the road. She reached the house of the Flamanks, and thrust open the drawing-room window and went in.

'Hah!' exclaimed Mrs. Flamank, standing there, with Mrs. Trampleasure trembling and sniffling behind her; 'this is fine goings on in my house. Out to one o'clock in the morning, cutting about, heaven knows where, and with whom. This is a Christian habitation. Out of my house you go to-morrow.'

'Betsy Delilah!' remonstrated Mr. Flamank from the door, 'the poor souls have no house to go to.'

'She,' exclaimed Mrs. Flamank, indicating Orange--'she don't want one. She likes the street at night, apparently.'

'Madam,' said Mirelle, stepping forward, and speaking with composure, 'give us but two days' shelter, and then we will trouble you no more, I undertake. I have a friend to whom I will appeal.'

Then she went upstairs, and wrote:--

'Mr. Herring!--Come to us. Help us!--MIRELLE.'

*CHAPTER XXXIII.*

*TRANSFORMATION.*

Grizzly Cobbledick and Joyce carried John Herring to the Giant's Table. Joyce had not the smallest intention of surrendering her charge to Cicely. She had feared lest the farmer should accompany the waggon, and insist on the injured man being conveyed to West Wyke House. Fortunately, the chance of making a bargain with the Squire had arrested him at Bridestowe, and the young lout who acted as driver was easily managed.

Grizzly consented to receive Herring into his den, not because he felt gratitude to him for having saved him from imprisonment, and for having cured Joyce of her injuries, but because he thought that 'backie' might be extracted from him.

Gratitude is not a savage virtue; but then, is gratitude to be found anywhere? It is a figment of the poet and moralist, like the unicorn and the mermaid. A simulation of this ideal virtue is assumed by those who are cultured, but the genuine plant grows on no human soil and under no known climate.

Grizzly bore Herring no ill-will, and he thought it possible that the tobacco which was lost to him through the insolvency of Tramplara might be made up to him by the indebtedness of Herring. He would see to that; he would hold Herring in captivity till as much 'backie' was produced as could be counted on the toes and fingers, with the head thrown in. If he died, he died. Speculations succeed or fail; there are blanks and prizes in the lottery, disappointments and luck in life.

'Cut off,' said Grizzly to his daughter, 'and go and wire a rabbit. The young maister, if he comes round, will want some'ut to eat, sure.'

'But what if he wakes up whilst I be gone?'

'Then he wakes--that be all.'

'You'll be good and kind to 'n, vaither,' entreated Joyce.

'Why not? He ain't done me no hurt,' answered Grizzly.

It took a little persuading and threatening on Grizzly's part before Joyce could be induced to relinquish her place. She would not have gone, but have sat on in unreasoning jealousy and fear of losing Herring, unless her father had insisted on her giving him proper food.

'What'll the likes o' he say to turnips, eh? He ain't one to eat num. The quality eat nort but meat. You may give a horse the best beef-steak, and you may set before a man the choicest hay, and neither will begin to bite. You must give mun what them likes, not what you think best. So wi' the maister; he be quality, and, when you offers 'n your turnip and cabbidge, that be there a biling over the turves, he'll turn his head away. It be all the same to he as giving 'n hay or a horse beef. You must give to ivery creeter its proper food.'

When Joyce was gone, old Cobbledick surveyed Herring carefully and examined his bones. No bones were broken. His head was suffering from concussion, not from fracture. The old fellow had wit enough to ascertain this. Then he proceeded to partly undress him. It was not the custom of the Cobbledick tribe to unclothe themselves when they retired to rest; but then they were hardly clothed when about by day. If Cobbledick now stripped Herring it was not in the interest of the patient, but in his own. Having removed a portion of the garments of the still unconscious man, he proceeded to vest himself in them. Inexperience made him put on the clothes clumsily, and neither in their traditional order nor in their proper manner. Still, the general effect was one of transformation. He tried on Herring's boots, but was unable to compress his great flat feet into them; so he flung them aside; but he laboriously removed the spurs, and buckled them on his own heels. The stockings he left on Herring's legs; he knew he would be unable to wear them. His own limbs, from the knees downwards, were swathed in hay-bands. He assumed the waistcoat, but not the shirt, and was careful to set the watch in the pocket--the wrong pocket, of course--and let the seals dangle from the fob. The waistcoat was open, and his brown, dirty skin showed dark against the nankin. The coat was rather tight, high-collared, with a roll; Cobbledick was mightily pleased with it. He jumped and swung the tails from side to side, and ran after them, round and round, like a kitten pursuing its own tail. He sallied forth to a pond and contemplated himself in it. The effect was not perfect. He went back and deprived Herring of his cravat, which till now he had left about his neck. This he wrapped about his own throat, making it very stiff, and holding his chin high in the air. Herring's hat was there; it had not been left in the road; Farmer Facey had picked it up and tossed it into the waggon as it departed. Cobbledick put the beaver on, somewhat on one side, as he had seen Sampson Tramplara cock his hat when tipsy; and he took up the hunting-whip Joyce had brought with her, and, so accoutred, he lounged in the door of his den. But Grizzly was not satisfied with himself. His hay-swathings were not in character. He proceeded to divest himself of these. Then his bare legs looked incongruous with the remainder of his equipment. Now Herring had worn cloth gaiters over his stockings. Grizzly had unbuttoned these with much difficulty. Indeed, it can hardly be said that he had unbuttoned them; he had rather torn them off, sending the buttons flying. To button them on his own calves was a feat beyond his powers. His fingers were incapable of performing such work as passing a button through a hole. He tried, and abandoned the attempt in despair.

He flung his own rags over Herring, and went forth to examine himself again in the pool. The brown shins and calves did not please him. He sat down and thought.

Then he remembered that the masons engaged at Ophir had been mixing lime for whitewashing. What if he stole down there and whitewashed his legs! That would complete his transformation. The old man was as conceited as a young buck newly accoutred by a fashionable tailor.