Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

She stopped, and it seemed as if for the evening she had run down; but Armorel stimulated her again, and she went on, looking more and more at the face of the stranger that was in their gates.

'While he lay ill and was like to die, father was uneasy – I know why. He wanted him to die, because then he could keep the treasure with a quiet mind. "All's ours that comes ashore," that's what we used to say. He never confessed his thoughts – but I, who knew what was in the bag, guessed them very well.

'The stranger began to recover, and father fell into a gloomy fit, and would go and sit by himself for hours. Nobody dared ask him – for he was a man of short temper and rough in his speech – what was the matter with him, but I knew very well. He was gloomy because he didn't want to lose that bag. But the man got better, and at last quite well, and one morning he came down dressed in clothes that father lent him, because his own were ruined in the washing of him ashore, and he bade us all farewell. "Captain Rosevean," he said, very earnestly, "when I left India I was rich: I was carrying all my fortune home with me in a small compass, for safety, as I thought. I was going to be a rich man, and work no more. Well – I have escaped with my life, and that is all. If I were not a beggar I would offer you half my fortune for saving my life. As it is, I can offer you nothing but my gratitude."

'So he shook hands with father, who stood as white as a sheet, for all he was a ruddy-faced man and inclined to brandy. "And farewell, Mistress Ursula," he said. "Farewell, my kind nurse." So he kissed me, being a courteous gentleman. "I shall come back again to see you," he said; "I shall surely come back. Look to see me some day, when you least expect me." So he went away, and they rowed him over to the Port, and he sailed to Penzance. Father went to his own room, where the treasure was. And my heart sank heavy as lead. The more I thought of the wickedness, the heavier fell my heart. There was father and his son, my husband, and myself and my own son not yet born. The Hand of the Lord would be upon us for that wickedness. I ought to have cried out to the stranger before he went away that his treasure was safe and that we were keeping it for him. But I didn't. Then I tried to comfort myself. I said that when he came again I would give him back the bag, even if I had to steal it from father's chest.

'It was a long time ago – they are all gone, swallowed up by the sea – which was right, because we stole the treasure from the sea. He never came back. I looked for him to come after my husband was drowned, and after my son went too, and my grandson – but he never came again as he promised. And at last, at last' – her voice rose almost to a shriek, and everybody jumped in his chair; but Armorel continued to play the Saraband slowly and with much expression – 'at last he has come back, and we are saved. All that are left of us are saved. Armorel, my child, you are saved. Your bones shall not lie rotting among the sea-weed: your flesh shall not be devoured by crabs and conger-eels: you may sail without fear among the islands. For he has kept his promise and has come back.

Then she rose – she, who had not stood upon her feet for three years – actually rose and stood up, or seemed to stand: the red light, playing on her face, made her eyes shine like two balls of fire. 'You,' she cried, pointing her long, skinny, finger at Roland. 'You! oh! you have come at last. You have suffered all that innocent blood to be shed: but you have come at last.' She sank back among her pillows, but her finger still pointed at the stranger. 'Sir,' she said now, with tremulous voice, 'you are welcome. Late though it is, Mr. Fletcher, you are welcome. When you came a day or two ago I wondered, being now very old and foolish, if it was really you. Now I know. I remember, though it is nearly eighty years ago. You are welcome again to Samson, Mr. Fletcher. You find me changed, no doubt. I knew you would keep your promise and come again, some time or other. As for you, I see little change. You are dressed differently, and when you were here last your hair was worn in another fashion. But you are no older to look at. You are not changed at all by time. You would not know me again. How should you? I suppose you knew – somebody told you, perhaps – that the bag was safe after all. That knowledge has kept you young. Nothing short of that knowledge could have kept you young. I assure you, Sir, had I known where to find you I would have taken the bag and its contents to you long, long ago. And now you are come back in search of it.'

'It was eighty years ago!' Dorcas whispered to Chessun, shuddering. 'He must be more than a hundred!'

'A hundred years!' returned her daughter, with pallid cheeks. 'It isn't in nature. He looks no more than twenty. Mother, is he a man and alive?'

'Pretend that you are Mr. Fletcher,' whispered Armorel. 'Do not contradict her. Say something.'

'It is a long time ago,' said Roland. 'I should have kept my promise much sooner. And as for that bag – you saved my life, you know. Pray keep the bag. It has long been forgotten.'

'Keep the bag? Do you know what is in it? Do you know what it is worth? That, Mr. Fletcher, is your politeness. We, who have suffered so much from the possession of the bag, cannot believe that you have forgotten it, because if we have suffered for our guilt you must have suffered through that guilt. Else there would be no justice. No justice at all unless you have suffered too. Else all those lives have been wasted and thrown away.'

The old lady spoke with the voice and firmness of a woman of fifty. She looked strong: she sat up erect. Armorel played on, now softly, now loudly. The serving-folk looked on open-mouthed: the women with terror undisguised. Was this gentleman, so young and so pleasant, none other than the man whose injury had brought all these drownings upon the family? Nearly eighty years ago that happened. Then, he must be a ghost! What else could he be? No human creature could come back after eighty years still so young.

'When I said, Madam,' Roland explained, 'that I had forgotten the bag, what I meant was that after losing it so long I had quite abandoned all hope of finding it again. I assure you that I have not come here in search of it. In fact, I thought it was lying at the bottom of the sea, where so many other treasures lie.'

'It is not at the bottom of the sea, Mr. Fletcher. You shall have it again, to-morrow. You are still so young that you can enjoy your fortune. Make good use of it, Sir, and do not forget the poor. I have counted the contents again and again. They are not things that wear out and rust, are they? No, no. You must often have laughed to think that the moth and the worm cannot destroy that treasure. You will be very pleased to have it back.'

'I shall be very pleased indeed,' he echoed, 'to have my treasure again.'

'Face and voice unchanged.' The old lady shook her head. 'And after eighty years. It is a miracle, yet not a greater miracle than the Vengeance which has pursued this house so long. This single crime has been visited upon the third and fourth generation. 'Tis time that punishment should cease at last – cease at last! I must tell you, Mr. Fletcher,' she went on, 'that when my husband was drowned and my father-in-law died, I took possession of the bag and everything else. I said nothing to my son. Why? Because, until the owner of the stolen bag came back, the curse was on him and his children. No – no; I would not let him know. But I knew very well what would happen to all of them. Oh! yes; I knew, and I waited. But he was happy, and his son and his grandson and his great-grandson, until they were drowned, one after the other. And still you stayed away.'

'Madam, had I known, I would have returned fifty years ago and more, in time to have saved them all.'

'You might have come sooner, Sir, permit me to say, and so have saved some.' It was wonderful how erect the old lady held herself, and with what firmness and precision she spoke.

'There is now only one left – the child Armorel. To-morrow, Sir, you shall have your bag again. Once more you are our guest: this time, I hope you will leave a blessing instead of a curse upon the house.'

At this moment Armorel ceased playing. Then this ancient lady stopped talking. She looked round: her eyes lost their fire: her face its expression: her mouth its firmness: she fell back in her pillows, and her head dropped.

Dorcas and Chessun rose and carried her to her own room. The old man got up, too, and shambled out. Armorel pushed the table into its place, and lit the candles. The incident was closed. In the morning the old lady had forgotten everything.

'Almost,' said Roland, 'she has made me believe that my name is Fletcher. Shall I to-morrow morning ask her for the bag? Where is that bag? Armorel, it is a true story. I am quite certain of it.'

'Oh, yes, it is true. Justinian knows about the wreck, though it happened before he was born. Mr. Fletcher was the only man saved of all the ship and company – captain, officers, crew, and passengers – the only one. He was rescued by Captain Rosevean himself and brought here. He had the bedroom where you sleep – the bedroom which was my brother Emanuel's room. Here he lay ill a long time, but recovered and went away.'

'And the bag?'

'I know nothing about the bag. That has gone long ago, I suppose, with all the money that my people made by smuggling and by piloting. I have seen her watching you for some days past: I thought she would speak to you last night. To-morrow she will have forgotten everything.'

'I suppose I have some kind of resemblance to Mr. Robert Fletcher, presumably deceased. Well – but, Armorel, this is a fortunate evening. The family luck has come back – I have brought it back. The Ancient one said so, and you are saved. She may call me Fletcher – call me Tryeth – call me any name that flyeth – if she only calls me him who arrived in time to save you, Armorel.'

CHAPTER XI

ROLAND'S LETTER

Roland went away. Like Mr. Robert Fletcher, he promised to return, and, like her great-great-grandmother, but for other reasons, Armorel treasured this promise. Also like Mr. Robert Fletcher, now presumably deceased, Roland went away with the sense of having left something behind him. Not his heart, dear reader. A young man of twenty-one does not give away his heart in the old-fashioned way any longer: he carries it about with him, carefully kept in its proper place: what Roland had left behind him, for awhile, was a part of himself. It would perhaps come back to him in good time, but for the present it remained on Samson, and discoursed to the rest of him in London whenever he would listen, on the beauties of that archipelago and the graces of the child Armorel. And this part of himself, which haunted Samson, made him sit down and write a letter. It would have been a tender, a sorrowful, an affectionate letter had it not been for that other part of him – the greater part – which went to London. That other part of him remonstrated. 'She is but a simple country girl,' it said. 'Her future will be to marry a simple Scillonian. Why disturb her mind? Why seek to plant the seeds of discontent under the guise of culture? Leave her – leave her to herself. Forget those dark eyes, in whose depths there seemed to lie so sweet, so great a soul. Believe me, there was nothing at all behind those eyes but ignorance and curiosity. How could there be anything? Leave her in peace. Or, since you must write, let it be a cold letter – friendly, but fatherly – and let her understand clearly that the visit can produce no further consequences whatever.' Thus the London half of him – the bigger half. Perhaps his friend Dick Stephenson remonstrated in the same strain. But the lesser half insisted on writing a letter of some kind – and had his way.

He wrote a letter, and sent it off.

It was the very first letter that had ever been sent to Samson. Of that I am quite sure. No letters ever reached that island. If people had business with Samson, they transacted it at the Port with Justinian or Peter. Of course it was the first letter that had ever been received by Armorel. Peter brought it across for her. He had wrapped the unaccustomed thing in brown paper for fear the spray should fall upon it. Armorel drew it forth from its covering and gazed upon it with the wonder of a child who gets an unexpected toy. She read over the address a dozen times: '"Miss Rosevean" – look at it, Dorcas. What a pity you cannot read! "Miss Rosevean" – he might have written "Armorel" – "Island of Samson, Scilly." Of course, it is from Roland. No one else would write to me.' Then she opened it carefully, so as not to injure any part of the writing – indeed, Roland possessed that desirable, but very rare, gift of a very beautiful hand. No Penman of the monastery: no scrivener of a later age: no Arab or Persian scribe, could write a more beautiful hand. It was a hand in which every letter was clearly formed, as if it made a picture of itself, and every word was a Group, like the Eastern Isles of Scilly, to be admired by the whole world.

The letter began – the London portion conceding so much – with a pen-and-ink sketch of the writer's head: if it was just a little idealised, who shall blame the limner? This was delightful. Armorel had no portrait of her friend. What would follow after such a beautiful beginning? Then the writing began, and Armorel addressed herself seriously to the mastering of and the meaning of the letter. I blush to record the fact, but Armorel read handwriting slowly. Consider. Since she left school she had seen none: while at school she had seen little. People easily forget such a simple thing, though we who write all day long cannot understand how a man can forget how to write. Yet there are many working-men who cannot read handwriting, nor can they themselves write. They have had no occasion, all their lives, to use either accomplishment, and so have readily forgotten it – a fact which shows the profound wisdom of the School Boards in teaching spelling. Armorel could read the letter, but she read it slowly.

It seemed, when she read it first, sentence by sentence, a really beautiful letter – regarded as a letter in the abstract. After she had read it two or three times over, and had mastered the whole document, she began to understand that the writer of it was not the man she remembered, not the man whose memory she loved and cherished, not at all her friend Roland Lee. All the old camaraderie was gone. It was the letter of another man altogether. It was cold and stiff. The coldness went to the girl's heart. She had never known Roland to be cold. Where was the sympathy which formerly flowed in magnetic currents from one to the other? Where was the brotherly interest? – she called it brotherly. The writer spoke, it is true, with gratitude overwhelming, of his stay on the island, and her hospitality. But, good gracious! Armorel wanted no thanks. His visit had made her happy: he knew that. Why should he take up a page and a half in returning thanks to her, when her own heart was full of gratitude to him? He said that the three weeks he had spent among the islands had been a holiday which he could never forget – this was very good, so far; but then he spoiled all by adding that he should not readily forget – 'readily forget' he wrote – his fair companion and guide among those labyrinthine waters. 'Fair companion!' What had fairness to do with it? Armorel had been his pupil: he taught her all day long. She did not want to be called his 'fair companion': that was mockery. She wanted to be called 'his dear friend' or 'his dear sister': that would have gone straight to her heart. She expected at least so much when she opened the letter. But worse – far worse – was to follow. He actually spoke of the possibilities of their never meeting again, the world (outside Scilly) being so very wide. Never to meet again! And he had promised to return: he had faithfully promised. Why, he had only to take the steamer from Penzance: Samson Island would not sail away. Why did he not rather say when he was to be expected? Worst of all, he spoke of her forgetting him. Oh! how could she forget him? As for the rest of the letter, the paternal advice to continue in the path of industry, and so forth, no clergyman in the pulpit could speak more wisely: but these things touched not the girl. Woman wants affection rather than wisdom, even though she understands, or has, at least, been told, that Wisdom delivereth from the way of the Evil Man.

Armorel at length laid the letter down with a sigh and a tear. She kept it in her pocket for some days, and read it every day: but with increasing sadness. Finally, she laid it in a drawer where were all the sketches, fragments of illustration, and outline drawings which Roland had given her. She would read it no longer. She would wait till Roland came back, and she would ask him what it meant. Perhaps it was the way of the world to be so cold and so constrained in letter-writing.

There came a box with the letter. It contained books – quite a large number of books – selected by Roland with the view of suiting the case of one who dwells upon a desert island. It was just as if Captain Woodes Rogers had left Alexander alone upon Juan Fernandez, and gone home to make up for him a parcel of books intended to show him what went on in the wider world. There were also drawing materials, colours, brushes, pencils, books of instruction, and books of music. Roland the fatherly – the London part of Roland – neglected nothing that might be solidly serviceable to the young Person. Observe, here, one of those black gaps of ignorance already spoken of in this girl of the Lonely Isles. She did not know that an answer to the letter was absolutely necessary. In the London studio the writer sat wondering why no answer came. He had been so careful, too: not a word which could be misunderstood: he had been so truly fatherly. And yet no reply.

Nobody was at hand to tell Armorel that she must sit down and write some kind of an answer. She tried, in fact: she made several attempts. But she could not write anything that satisfied her. The coldness of the letter chilled her. She wanted to write as she had talked with him – all out of the fulness of her heart. How could she write to this frigid creature? The writer of such a letter could not be her dear companion who laughed and made her laugh, sang and made her sing, made pictures for her, told her all about his own private ambitions, and had no secrets from her: it was a strange man who wrote to her and signed the name of Roland Lee. The real Roland would never have hinted at the possibility of her forgetting him, or at the chance of their never meeting again. The real Roland would have written to say when he was coming again. She could not reply to this impostor.

Therefore, she never answered that letter at all; and so she got no more letters. It was a pity, because, had she written what was in her mind, for very pity the real Roland would have returned to her. Once, and once only, the voice of Roland came to her across the sea – and then it was a changed voice. He spoke no more. But he would come again: he said he would come again. Every day she sat on the hill beside the barrow, and gazed across the Road. She could see the pier of Hugh Town and the vessels in the port: perhaps Roland had come over from Penzance by the morning steamer, and would shortly sail across the Road, and leap out upon the beach, and run to meet and greet her, with both hands outstretched, the light of affection in his eyes, and the laugh of welcome in his voice. She was graver and more silent than before: she did not sing so often as she walked among the ferns: she did not prattle to Chessun and Dorcas while she made her cakes and puddings. But nobody noticed any change in her: the serving-women, if they observed any, would have said only that Armorel was growing into a woman already.

The autumn changed to winter. Roland would not come in winter, when the sea is stormy and there is little sunshine. She must wait now until spring. Meantime, on Samson, where are no trees except those wizened and crooked little trees of the orchard, there is not much to mark the winter except the cold wind and the short days. Here there is never frost or snow, hail or ice. The brown turf is much the same in December as in August; the dead fern is not so yellow; the dead and dying leaves of the bramble are not so splendid. The wind is colder, the sky is more grey; otherwise winter makes little difference in the external aspect of this archipelago. When the short days begin, the brown fields of the flower-farms clothe themselves with the verdure of spring: before the New Year has fairly set in, some of the fresh delicate flowers have been already cut and laid in the hothouse to be sent across to Covent Garden. The harvest of the year begins with its first day, and they reap it from January to May.

There are plenty of things on such a farm for a girl to do. Armorel did not, if you please, sit down to weep. But she daily recalled with tender regret every one of the pleasant days of that companionship. She kept her promise, too: she read something every morning in the books which Roland had sent her: every afternoon she attempted to carry on the drawing lesson by herself: she practised her violin diligently: and every evening she played the old tunes to the old lady, and awakened her once more to life and memory. There was no change, except that everything now was coloured by what he had said. She was to grow to her full height – he had told her how – but at present she hardly saw her way to carrying out those instructions. Her full height! Ignorant of the truth – since such a girl grown to her full height would be so tall as to be out of all proportion, not only to Samson, but even to St. Mary's itself.

Sometimes one falls into the habit of associating a single person with an idea, a thought, an anticipation, a place. Whenever the mind turns to this thought, the person is present. For example, there is a street in London which I have learned, from long habit, to associate with a second-hand bookseller. He was a gentle creature, full of reading, who had known many men. I sometimes sat at the back of his shop conversing with him. Sometimes a twelve-month would pass without my seeing him at all. But always when I think of this street I think of this old gentleman. The other day I passed through it. Alas! the shutters were up: the house was to let: my gentle friend was gone. Armorel associated her future – the unknown future – with Roland. Suppose that when that future should be the present she should find the shutters up, the house deserted, the tenant dead!

The harvest of flowers was well begun: the boxes piled in the hold of the steamer merrily danced in the roll of the Atlantic waves as the Lady of the Isles made her way to Penzance: in London the delicate narcissus and the jonquil returned to the dinner-tables, and stood about in glasses. Roland Lee bought them and took them home to his studio, where he sat looking at them, reminded of Armorel – who had never even answered his letter. Perhaps the flowers came from Samson. Why did the girl send him no answer to his letter? Then his memory went back to that little island with its two hills, and its barrows, and the quiet house – and to the girl who lived there. On what rock of Samson was she sitting? Where was she at that moment? Gazing somewhere over the wild waste of waters, the wind blowing about her curls, and the beating of the waves in her ears. She had forgotten him. Why not? He was only a visitor of a week or two. She was nothing but a child – and an ignorant farmer-girl living in a desert island. Ignorant? No; that was not the word. He saw her once more standing in the middle of the room, the ruddy firelight in her eyes and on her cheeks, playing 'Singleton's Slip' and 'Prince Rupert's March,' while the Ancient Lady mopped and mowed and discoursed of other days. And again: he saw her standing on the beach when he said farewell, the tears in her eyes, her voice choked. Then he longed again, as he had longed then, to take her in his arms, even in the presence of Peter the boy, to soothe and kiss her and bid her weep no more, because he would never, never leave her.

So strong was the impression made upon this young man by this child of fifteen, that after six months spent in the society of many other girls, of charms more matured, he still remembered her, and thought of her with that kind of yearning regret which is perilously akin to love. An untaught, ignorant girl – whose charm lay in her innocent confidence, her soft black eyes, and the beauty of the maiden emerging from the child – could hardly make a permanent impression on a man of the world, even a young man of only twenty-one. The time would go on, and the girl would be forgotten, except as a pleasant memory associated with a delightful holiday. An artist is, perhaps, above his fellows, liable to swift and sudden changes; his mind dwells continually on beauty. All lovely girls have not black hair and black eyes. Apollo, himself, the god of artists, loved not only all the nine Muses and all the three Graces, but a good many nymphs and princesses as well – such is the artistic temperament, so catholic is its admiration of beauty.