Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

'I have a fancy,' he said, 'to sail out to Round Island and to see Camber Rock again, this first day of my return. Shall we have time? We can let the sun go down: there will be light enough yet for an hour. You can steer the craft in the dark, Armorel. You are captain of this boat, and I am your crew. You can steer me safely home, even on the darkest night – in the blackest time,' he added, with a deeper meaning than lay in his simple words.

The sail caught the breeze, and the boat heeled over. Roland sat holding the rope while Armorel steered. Neither spoke. They sailed up New Grinsey Channel between Tresco and Bryher, past Hangman's Island, past Cromwell's Castle. They sailed right through beyond the rocks and ledges outlying Tresco, outside Menovawr, the great triple rock, with his two narrow channels, and so to the north of Round Island. The sky was aflame: the waters were splendid with the colours of the west. They rounded the island. Then Roland lowered the sail and put out the oars. 'We must row now,' he said. 'How glorious it all is! I am back again. Nine short months ago – you remember, Armorel? – how could I have hoped to come here again – to sail with you in your boat?'

'Yet you are here,' she said simply.

'I have so much to say, and I could not say it, except in the boat.'

'Yes, Roland.'

'First of all, I have sold that picture. It is not a great price that I have taken. But I have sold it. You will be pleased to hear that. Next, I have two commissions, at a better price. Don't believe, Armorel, that I am thinking about nothing but money. The first step towards success, remember, is to be self-supporting. Well – I have taken that first step. I have also obtained some work on an illustrated paper. That keeps me going. I have regained my lost position – and more – more, Armorel. The way is open to me at last: everything is open to me now if I can force myself to the front.'

'No man can ask for more, can he?'

'No. He cannot. As for the time, Armorel, the horrible, shameful time – '

'Roland, you said you would not come here until the shame of that time belonged altogether to the past.'

'It does: it does: yet the memory lingers – sometimes, at night, I think of it – and I am abased.'

'We cannot forget – I suppose we can never forget. That is the burden which we lay upon ourselves. Oh! we must all walk humbly, because we have all fallen so far short of the best, and because we cannot forget.'

'But – to be forgiven. That also is so hard.'

'Oh! Roland, you mistake. We can always forgive those we love – yes – everything – everything – until seventy times seven. How can we love if we cannot forgive? The difficulty is to forgive ourselves. We shall do that when we have risen high enough to understand how great a thing is the soul – I don't know how to put what I wish to say. Once I read in a book that there was a soul who wished – who would not? – to enter into heaven. The doors were wide open: the hands of the angels were held out in love and welcome: but the soul shrank back. "I cannot enter," he said, "I cannot forgive myself." You must learn to forgive yourself, Roland. As for those who love you, they ask for nothing more than to see your foot upon the upward slope.'

'It is there, Armorel. Twice you have saved me: once from death by drowning: once from a worse death still – the second death. Twice your arms have been stretched out to save me from destruction.'

They were silent again. The boat rocked gently in the water: the setting sun upon Armorel's face lent her cheek a warmer, softer glow, and lit her eyes, which were suffused with tears. Roland, sitting in his place, started up and dipped the oars again.

'It is nearly half-tide now,' he said. 'Let us row through the Camber Pass. I want to see that dark ravine again. It is the place I painted with you – you of the present, not of the past – in it. I have sold the picture, but I have a copy. Now I have two paintings, with you in each. One hangs in the studio, and the other in my own room, so that by night as well as by day I feel that my guardian angel is always with me.'

Through the narrow ravine between Camber Rock and Round Island the water races and boils and roars when the tide runs strongly. Now, it was flowing gently – almost still. The sun was so low that the rock on the east side was obscured by the great mass of Round Island: the channel was quite dark. The dipping of the oars echoed along the black walls of rock; but overhead there was the soft and glowing sky, and in the light blue already appeared two or three stars.

'A strange thing has happened to me, Armorel,' Roland said, speaking low, as if in a church – 'a very strange and wonderful thing. It is a thing which connects me with you and with your people and with the Island of Samson. You remember the story told us one evening – the evening before I left you – by the Ancient Lady?'

'Of course. She told that story so often, and I used to suffer such agonies of shame that my ancestor should act so basely, and such terrors in thinking of the fate of his soul, that I am not likely to forget the story.'

'You remember that she mistook me for Robert Fletcher?'

'Yes; I remember.'

'She was not so very far wrong, Armorel; because, you see, I am Robert Fletcher's great-grandson.'

'Oh! Roland! Is it possible?'

'I suppose that there may have been some resemblance. She forgot the present, and was carried back in imagination to the past, eighty years ago.'

'Oh! And you did not know?'

'If you think of it, Armorel, very few middle-class people are able to tell the maiden name of their grandmother. We do not keep our genealogies, as we should.'

'Then how did you find it out?'

'Mr. Jagenal, your lawyer, found it out. He sent for me and proved it quite clearly. Robert Fletcher left three daughters. The eldest died unmarried: the second and third married. I am the grandson of the second daughter who went to Australia. Now, which is very odd, the only grandson of the third daughter is a man whose name you may remember. They call him Alec Feilding. He is at once a painter, a poet, a novelist, and is about to become, I hear, a dramatist. He is my own cousin. This is strange, is it not?'

'Oh! It is wonderful.'

'Mr. Jagenal, at the same time, made me a communication. He was instructed, he said, by you. Therefore, you know the nature of the communication.'

'He gave you the rubies.'

'Yes. He gave them to me. I have brought them back. They are in my pocket. I restore them to you, Armorel.' He drew forth the packet – the case of shagreen – and laid it in Armorel's lap.

'Keep them. I will not have them. Let me never see them.' She gave them back to him quickly. 'Keep them out of my sight, Roland. They are horrible things. They bring disaster and destruction.'

'You will not have them? You positively refuse to have them? Then I can keep them to myself. Why – that is brave!' He opened the case and unrolled the silken wrapper.

'See, Armorel, the pretty things! They sparkle in the dying light. Do you know that they are worth many thousands? You have given me a fortune. I am rich at last. What is there in the world to compare with being rich? Now I can buy anything I want. The Way of Wealth is the Way of Pleasure. What did I tell you? My feet were dragged into that way as if with ropes: now they can go dancing of their own accord – no need to drag them. They fly – they trip – they have wings. What is art? – what is work? – what is the soul? – nothing! Here' – he took up a handful of the stones and dropped them back again – 'here, Armorel, is what will purchase pleasure – solid comfort! I shall live in ease and sloth: I shall do nothing: I shall feast every day: everybody will call me a great painter because I am rich. Oh, I have a splendid vision of the days to come, when I have turned these glittering things into cash! Farewell drudgery – I am rich! Farewell disappointment – I am rich! Farewell servitude – I am rich! Farewell work and struggle – I am rich! Why should I care any more for Art? I am rich, Armorel! I am rich!'

'That is not all you are going to say about the rubies, Roland. Come to the conclusion.'

'Not quite all. In the old days I flung away everything for the Way of Wealth and the Way of Pleasure – as I thought. Good Heavens! What Wealth came to me? What Pleasure? Well, Armorel, in your presence I now throw away the wealth. Since you will not have it, I will not.'

He seized the case as if he would throw it overboard. She leaned forward eagerly and stopped him.

'Will you really do this, Roland? Stop a moment. Think. It is a great sacrifice. You might use that wealth for all kinds of good and useful things. You could command the making of beautiful things: you could help yourself in your Art: you could travel and study – you could do a great deal, you know, with all this money. Think, before you do what can never be undone.'

Roland, for reply, laid the rubies again in her lap. It was as if one should bring a Trespass offering and lay it upon the altar. The case was open, and the light was still strong enough overhead for the rubies to be seen in a glittering heap.

He took them up again. 'Do you consent, Armorel?'

She bowed her head.

He took a handful of the stones and dropped them in the water. There was a little splash, and the precious stones, the fortune of Robert Fletcher, the gems of the Burmah mines, dropped like a shower upon the surface. They were, as we know, nothing but bits of paste and glass, but this he did not know. And therefore the Trespass offering was rich and precious. Then he took the silken kerchief which had wrapped them and threw the rest away, as one throws into the sea a handful of pebbles picked up on the beach.

'So,' he said, 'that is done. And now I am poor again. You shall keep the empty case, Armorel, if you like.'

'No – no. I do not want even the case. I want never to be reminded again of the rubies and the story of Robert Fletcher.' Roland dipped the oars again, and with two or three vigorous strokes pulled the boat out of the dark channel – the tomb of his wealth – into the open water beyond. There in the dying light the puffins swam and dived, and the sea-gulls screamed as they flew overhead, and on the edge of the rocks the shags stood in meditative rows.

Far away in the studio of the poet-painter – the cleverest man in London – sat two who were uneasy with the same gnawing anxiety. Roland Lee – they knew by this time – had the rubies. When would the discovery be made? When would there be an inquiry? What would come out? As the time goes on this anxiety will grow less, but it will never wholly vanish. It will change perhaps into curiosity as to what has been done with those bits of glass and paste. Why has not Roland found out? He must have given them to his wife, and she must have kept them locked up. Some day it will be discovered that they are valueless. But then it will be far too late for any inquiry. As yet they do not speak to each other of the thing. It is too recent. Roland Lee has but just acquired his fortune: he is still gloating over the stones: he is building castles in the air: he is planning his future. When he finds out the truth about them – what will happen then?

'I have had a bad dream of temptation with rubies, Armorel. Temptation harder than you would believe. How calm is the sea to-night! How warm the air! The last light of the west lies on your cheek, and – Armorel! Oh! Armorel!'

It was nearly six o'clock, long after dark, when the two came home. They walked over the hill hand in hand. They entered the room hand in hand, their faces grave and solemn. I know not what things had been said between them, but they were things quite sacred. Only the lighter things – the things of the surface – the things that everybody expects – can be set down concerning love. The tears stood in Armorel's eyes. And, as if Effie had not been in the room at all, she held out both her hands for her lover to take, and when he bent his head she raised her face to meet his lips.

'You have come back to me, Roland,' she said. 'You have grown so tall – so tall – grown to your full height. Welcome home!'

At seven the door opened and the serving-folk came in. First marched Justinian, bowed and bent, but still active. Then Dorcas, also bowed and bent, but active. Then Chessun. Effie turned down the lamp.

Dorcas stood for a moment, while Chessun placed the chairs, gazing upon Roland, who stood erect as a soldier surveyed by his captain.

'You have got a good face,' she said, 'if a loving face is a good face. If you love her you will make her happy. If she loves you your lot is happy. If you deserve her, you are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.'

'Your words, Dorcas,' he replied, 'are of good omen.'

'Chessun shall make a posset to-night,' she said. 'If ever a posset was made, one shall be made to-night – a sherry posset! I remember the posset for your mother, Armorel, and for your grandmother, the first day she came here with her sweetheart. A sherry posset you shall have – hot and strong!'

The old man sat down and threw small lumps of coal upon the fire. Then the flames leaped up, and the red light played about the room and showed the golden torque round Armorel's neck and played upon her glowing face as she took her fiddle and stood up in the old place to play to them in the old fashion.

Dorcas sat opposite her husband. At her left hand, Chessun with her spinning-wheel. It was all – except for the Ancient Lady and the hooded chair – all exactly as Roland remembered it nearly six years before. Yet, as Armorel said, though outside there was the music of the waves and within the music of her violin – the music was set to other words and arranged for another key. Between himself of that time and of the present, how great a gulf!

Armorel finished tuning, and looked towards her master.

'"Dissembling Love"!' he commanded. ''Tis a moving piece, and you play it rarely, "Dissembling Love"!'