Читать книгу Tregarthen's Wife - Fred M. White - Страница 4

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THERE are no poppies in the garden of sleep, though, if you come there in the season of the year, there are many flowers. And these flowers are born when you and I talk of yesterday's snowstorm, and the children's twelfthcake is still a fleeting, unstable joy. Then Tregarthen Island is gay with flowers, great beds of them. There are daffodils and narcissus knee deep, and violets fragrant and richly purple under the cactus hedges. And they nod and droop and flourish to the booming plunge of the Atlantic surges.

Where is it? What matters it? Not so many leagues from Tintagel, for they tell tales of King Arthur, and there is a deep apple orchard in the heart of the island where Lancelot slew the dragon whose teeth were flaming swords. And the gladioli flourish there in scarlet profusion.

The island of Tregarthen is a long, green, luscious slice from the mainland, some eight miles long by five in width. It is sheltered from the east and north by granite walls rising sheer and grim for a thousand feet and its music is the Atlantic thunder and the scream of innumerable sea-fowl. There are gardens in the sea-pools, there are wide stretches of sands golden as Aphrodite's hair, and the sky is fused into a blue so clear and ambient that the eye turns from it with an ecstasy of pure delight. You shall see presently what manner of place this kingdom by the sea is.

"Miriam," the princess said, "Miriam, this is paradise."

Miriam hoped that no harm had come to the small, black box. The remark was inconsequent, as the princess pointed out in her clear high voice. What did it matter if the Trevose fisherman who had brought them across was a little clumsy? Had Miriam noticed what a splendid torso he had, and what a picture he made with his blue eyes and brown skin, seared and tanned, and his white beard?

The princess stood watching the landing of her boxes. She could not have been anything else but a princess, of course, she was dressed so beautifully. Nobody in these parts had ever seen such dresses before, not even the travelled ones who had known great cities like Plymouth and Exeter.

She was tall and fair, with eyes as blue as the bounding sea, and hair as golden as the sands she trod. She carried herself imperiously as the daughter of a conquering race, and there were diamonds on her fingers and in the coral of her ears. A woman learned in the mysteries of the toilette would have told you that that heather-mixture coat and skirt, engirt by a silver buckled belt, could only have come from Paris. The same wise woman would have added that the princess was American and very rich. In which the wise woman would have been absolutely correct. To mortals she was known as Mary Blenkiron, only daughter of the late Cyrus K. Blenkiron of Pittsburg, Pa., who, as all the world knows, died two years ago—in 1885—after a heartbreaking financial duel with Zeus Z. Duncknew, in which he lost four million dollars, dying a comparative pauper with a mere ten million dollars or so. Thus do some men make failures of their lives.

Mary was something more than an heiress and an exceedingly beautiful girl. She was good, she was clever, headstrong of course, and fond of her own way. Other girls besides heiresses have been known to show the same weakness. And what manner of girl Mary Blenkiron was, you will see for yourself presently.

Between the girl and her companion there was contrast enough. Miriam Murch owned to fifty, to save the trouble of explaining that she was ten years less; and though she was thin and gaunt and brown, her skin was unwrinkled and healthy. There was a suspicion of down on her upper lip; her mouth was wide and humorous; and it was only when you came to look into those wonderful brown eyes of hers that you forgot to feel that here was a woman who ought to have been born a man.

Here was a girl who had started twenty years ago, with one of the first typewriters, to carve her way to fortune. At forty she was the absolute owner of three flourishing daily papers, all of which she had built up for herself. A busy, happy, shrewd, kindly, hard-working woman whose only grievance was that she could not enter Congress, and run for the Presidency. But this calumny might have been, and probably was, a libel of Mary Blenkiron's.

Michael Hawkes, the boatman, was staring in blank astonishment at a crisp piece of paper Mary had placed in the desert of his huge brown palm.

"I'm no scholar," he said defiantly. "What's a man want with book learning so long as he can count the cod and mackerel?"

"It's a five pound note for your trouble," Mary explained sweetly. "The only literature I know that meets with no adverse criticism."

Hawkes regarded the paper suspiciously with his head on one side. He had heard of banks and kindred institutions. James Trefarthen up to Tretire had lost all his money in one.

"You couldn't make it half a crown?" he asked, tentatively.

Mary laughed, and Hawkes so far forgot himself as to smile. Your Cornish fisherman, joking with difficulty even more than a Scotchman, is not given to levity of this kind, but the man who could hear Mary Blenkiron laugh unmoved, would have been mentally or morally deficient.

"You are corrupting the native, my dear," Miss Murch said. "Give him talents of silver and let him depart in peace."

Hawkes went off with three half-crowns, having scornfully refused half a sovereign, as savouring of lustfulness, and departed with the suggestion that he would come and take the ladies off again presently, Mary's insinuation that they intended to remain being received with scorn.

"Tregarthen won't let you stay," he said. "No visitors are allowed on the island. Seeing you would come, you had to come—being a woman."

With this Parthian shot, Hawkes climbed into his boat, and slowly pulled for the mainland. Nobody ever did anything in a hurry there. Energy would have been resented as an outrage on the feelings of the community, except at such times as the sea rose in its wrath and the trail of the rockets smote the reeling sky over beyond Tregenna Sand.

Miss Murch sat down on the little black box, which had been carried from the boat by Hawkes, and looked calmly around her. It was a February afternoon, and yet it was possible to sit in the sun without the smallest personal discomfort. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers, outside, the sea was getting up, a long ground-swell was rolling in from the Atlantic. When this ground-swell ran for days together, even in the finest weather, it was impossible for boats to land on Tregarthen. Hawkes had mentioned this, but Mary had regarded it more as an advantage than otherwise. Even Tregarthen could not control the elements.

"I think, my dear," Miss Murch said, in her clear, incisive tones, "I think it is time that you and I came to an understanding. As a hard business woman I am entitled to an understanding. To please you I have come four thousand miles. To please a girl who takes advantage of my weakness——"

"And the love you have for me," Mary said parenthetically.

Miss Murch put on her pince-nez—this when she was going to be terrible. Strong men, even unscrupulous financiers, had trembled before the flash of those glasses. Mary laughed.

"I don't care," she said—"I really don't care. I came here because the founder of our family was originally a wanderer from Tregarthen. He was persecuted for his religion, and he fled to New England. He was one of the original Pilgrims who came over in the Mayflower."

"According to statistics," Miss Murch observed, "there are at the present time no less than 250,000 American families claiming direct descent from the original Pilgrim Fathers. I met one in New York the week before we sailed. He had a nose like a scimitar, which nose he used largely for the purpose of articulation. His name was Vansleydon."

"An impostor," Mary said calmly. "But you know that what I say is true, because you have seen my ancestress Marcia Blenkiron's diary. And that diary was actually written on this very island. All those delightfully quaint phrases were actually penned here. Think of it, my dear, think of the delight of exploring the island! I want to see the place where Amyas Blenkiron saved the life of his rival, and where Marcia found the dying Spaniard after the Spanish galleon, Santa Maria, was wrecked here. And I believe you are as interested as I am."

Miss Murch candidly admitted the weakness. As a matter of fact, Marcia Blenkiron's precious diary was in the little black box with the rest of Mary's diamonds, and hence the anxiety.

"I'm an American, and proud of the fact," Miriam said. "But I wish my country was a trifle older. I wish we had a history, a past, as the people have here. That is why I can enter into your longing to see the place. But shall we be allowed to see it? The island belongs to Tregarthen—not Mr., or Sir, or Lord anything, but simply Tregarthen. It sounds delightfully feudal. The island belongs to Tregarthen, who makes all the laws, pays neither taxes nor excise, and you have heard them say what a peculiar man he is. The people here are a form of Christian Commonwealth, a self-supporting community, who pay no rent or dues of any kind and who hold communication with nobody. Tourists who have heard of the place and tried to get a footing here have been rigidly excluded. And I don't fancy that Mary Blenkiron, beauty and heiress, will care to be shot off the island like a common trespasser."

Mary was bending over a sea-pool, clear as the ambient air and filled with the most brilliant pictures in many hues. The reflection of her exquisite face was smiling back at her.

"Miriam, where is your boasted friendship? Did you ever know a man who could refuse me anything? You will see what you will see. Let me once smile on that man and he is lost. Then you shall fix your glasses and glare at him, and we will walk over his prostrate body."

She waved her wet jewelled hands lightly towards a floating grey gull.

"I am not going to be expelled from the land of my ancestors," she said. Then she lay back, filled with the pure delight of being.

And surely all the joys of life were bound up in that one slim young person with the diamonds on her fingers, and the diamonds, too, in her sparkling eyes. Health, wealth, beauty, and a volume of fresh sensations—new, and with the leaves uncut—before her; what more could the heart wish for?

She grew grave in the contemplation of the perfect things about her. Though it was but February, the sun was full of grateful warmth, and the breeze, blowing in from the wide Atlantic fields, was crisp and clear. Behind lay the island, with the flowers and orchards and green meadows, while against the granite cliffs of the mainland the long ground-swell was thundering. Each long-crested wave broke with a booming plunge, millions of yards of creamy white lace seemed to be creeping ribbon fashion along the cliffs. Almost at Mary's feet an old dog-seal gravely disclosed his grizzled moustache and wide speculative eyes ere he sank like a stone again.

"This is going to be absolutely delightful," the girl cried. "Miriam, we will stay here till we get tired of it."

Miss Murch murmured something relevant to the policy of her papers, and the shortcomings of a certain managing editor of hers. Nevertheless the charms of the place were not lost upon her.

It would be good to stay here, pleasant to explore all the scenes disclosed in that quaint old diary. What would Tregarthen say when Mary stood confessed as a relative of his? For Marcia Blenkiron of the diary had once been Marcia Tregarthen in the days of old.

"I fear we shall have trouble with him," she said, à propos of nothing.

"With Tregarthen, you mean?" Mary replied. "Not at all, my dear. We shall manage him entirely by kindness. And if he discloses Napoleonic leanings we must bring up our Guards and spring the Great Secret upon him. There may perhaps be no occasion to use the Great Secret at all. But if the worst comes to the worst we hold the key to the position."

"True," Miriam murmured. "I had forgotten that. Still, it is time we made a move of some kind. Here comes a native."

A man lurched down to the beach. He was dressed like a sailor, with a red stocking-cap on the back of his splendid head. A young man, lean-flanked, broad-chested, full of life and vigour. Burnt to a deep mahogany was his clear grained skin, his dark gipsy eyes met Mary's blue ones fearlessly. There was curiosity and frank admiration in his glance.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

A fisherman beyond question, a fine type of a young Cornish fisherman, fearless, frank, meeting every man—and woman—on terms of absolute equality. Your fisherman has been lord of himself for many generations, and knows nothing of the slimy by-paths to wealth, and calls no man master. The gaoler of dubious millions was no greater autocrat than these Phoenician-descended fisher-folk.

But Mary was slightly annoyed. She came on one side of her family from a humble stock, therefore she was disposed to take her present exalted station seriously. Miriam smiled. She would have loved Mary less but for her little weaknesses.

"That magnificent creature has not properly appraised you," she said. "He is in darkness as to your millions. Your diamonds convey nothing to his eye. Tell him what you are worth, tell him about those Chicago tramway shares. Your beauty he evidently appreciates."

Mary laughed; her displeasure was as elusive as breath on a mirror.

"Will you tell us where we can find Mr.—I mean Tregarthen?" she asked.

"Tregarthen has sent me for you," the man replied. "I am Gervase Tretire. Who are you, and what is that woman's name?"

Mary explained faintly. For the first time in her life she wanted an ally. She glanced at Miriam, who was silently enjoying the situation. To see Mary getting the worst of an encounter with a mere man was delightful.

"It is kind of Tregarthen, very kind," Mary said, with a thin sarcasm utterly lost on one listener. "And when Tregarthen gets us, what do you suppose he will do with us, Mr. Tretire?"

"Eh?" Tretire demanded. "What's that?"

Mary repeated the question. The man had never been addressed as Mr. in the whole course of his life, and possibly hardly recognized his patronymic from the lips of another. Slowly he comprehended.

"Send you back again," he said promptly. "Pack you off to the mainland soon as the swell runs down. We have no strangers here."

"He says 'strangers' out of politeness," Miriam murmured. "But his tone plainly denotes that he means tramps. We are suspicious characters, Mary."

"Well, sir, and meanwhile what can we do?"

"You can go to the Sanctuary," Tretire explained.

"The Sanctuary!" Mary echoed. "Delightful! Do we do penance there?"

"I don't know about penance," Tretire said dubiously; "but you clean out your own cell and cook your own food."

Mary listened entranced. There was a mediaevalism about this far beyond her most sanguine expectations. Tretire was obviously melting. No man is insensible to the flattery of an interested audience. Even as he spoke a figure came down to the beach towards the little group, a tall thin man, with a refined dreamy face and eyes like the sea. In years he could have been no more than forty, but his hair was quite white. The contrast was not displeasing; in fact, it was exceedingly fascinating.

Tretire turned to him easily, yet not without deference.

"Tregarthen," he said, "these are the women you spoke of—Miriam Murch and Mary Blenkiron. Mary Blenkiron is the pretty one."