Lying Prophets Part 22

"You said I was 'mazed to dinner, an' so I was. I've gotten bad news for 'e, Michael, touchin' Joan."

"No more o' that, mother," he answered, "I've talked wi' she an' said a word in season. She'm well in body an' be gwaine to turn a new leaf, so theer's an end o' the matter."

"'Tedn' so," she declared, "I've bin in the gal's room an' I've found--but you bide here an' I'll bring 'em to 'e. Hold yourself back, Michael, for us caan't say nothin' sure till us knaws the truth from Joan."

"She've tawld me the truth out a walkin' an' I've shawed her the narrer path. What should you find?"

"Money--no lil come-by-chance neither; more money than ever you or me seed in our born days afore or shall agin."

"You'm dreamin', wummon!" he said.

"G.o.d knaws I wishes it weer so," she answered, and went once more to Joan's room.

Gray Michael was walking up and down the kitchen when she returned, and Thomasin said nothing, but put money and picture upon the table. Her husband fought with himself a moment, as it appeared, then seemed to pray a while, standing still with his hand pressed over his eyes, and finally sat himself down beside the things which Thomasin had brought.

"I'd no choice but to tell 'e," she said.

Gray Michael's eyes were on the picture and utter astonishment appeared in them.

"Why! 'tis Joe Noy's s.h.i.+p. Us seed her off the islands, outward bound! He might 'a' gived it her hisself surely?"

"But t'other thing; the money. Count them notes. Noy never gived Joan them."

He spread the parcel, counted the money, and sat back thunderstruck.

"G.o.d in heaven! A thousan' pound, an' notes as never went through no dirty hands neither! What do it mean?"

"How should I tell what it means? I found the whole fortune hid beneath her smickets. Lard knaws how she comed by it. What have the likes o' she to give for money?"

"What do 'e mean by that?" he blazed out, rising to his feet and clinching his fists.

"Ax your darter. Do 'e think I'd dare to say a word onless I was sartain sure? You'd smash me, your own wife, if I weer wrong, like enough. I ban't wrong. Joan's wi' cheel or I never was. Maybe that thraws light on the money, maybe it doan't. I did pray as it might 'a' comed out to be her man at sea. But you'll find it weern't. G.o.d help 'e, Michael, my heart do bleed for 'e. Can 'e find it in 'e to be merciful same as the Lard in like case, or--?"

He raised his hand to stop her. He was sitting back in his chair with a face that had grown gray even to the skin, with eyes that looked out at nothing. There was a moment's silence save for the tall clock in the corner; then Tregenza brushed beads of water off his forehead and dried his hand on his trousers. He raised his eyes to the roof and gripped his hands together on his chest and slowly spoke a text which his wife had heard upon his lips before, but only at times of deep concern or emotion.

"'The Lard is king, be the people never so impatient; He sitteth between the cherubims, be the airth never so unquiet.'"

Few saw any particular meaning in this quotation applied in moments of stress, as Michael usually employed it; but to the man it was a supreme utterance, the last word to be spoken in the face of all the evil and wickedness of the world. Come what might, G.o.d still reigned in heaven.

He spoke aloud thus far, and afterward, by the movement of his beard and lip, Thomasin could see he was still talking or praying.

"Let the Lard lead 'e, husband, in this hard pa.s.s," she said. "'Vengeance is Mine,' the Book sez."

He turned his eyes upon her. His brows were dragged down upon them; he had brushed his gray hair like bristles upright on his head; across the mighty wall of his forehead jagged cross-lines were stamped, like the broken strata over a cliff-face.

"Ay, you say it. Vengeance be G.o.d's awn, an' mercy be G.o.d's awn. 'Tedn' for no man to meddle wi' them. Us caan't be aught but just. She'll have justice from me--no more'n that. 'Tis all wan now. Wanton or no wanton, she've flummoxed me this day. The giglot lied an' said the thing that was not.

She'm not o' the Kingdom--the fust Tregenza as ever lied--the fust."

"G.o.d send it edn' as bad as it do look, master. 'Er caracter belike ban't gone. S'pose as she'm married?"

"Hould your clack, wummon. I be thinkin'."

He was thinking, indeed. In the face of this discovery, the ghost of an idea, which had haunted Gray Michael's mind more than once during the upbringing of Joan, returned a greater and more p.r.o.nounced shadow than ever before. The conviction carried truth stamped upon it from the standpoint of his present horrid knowledge. To an outsider his thought had appeared absolutely devilish, to the man himself it was as a buoy thrown to one drowning. The belief flooded his mind, swept him away, convinced him. Its nature presently appeared as he answered Thomasin. She was still thinking of the thousand pounds.

"Theer's no word in the Book agin mercy, Michael. Joan's your awn darter--froward or not froward."

"You'm wrong theer," he said. He was now cool and quiet. "I did think so wance; I did tell her so when us walked not two hour agone. Now I sees differ'nt. She'm none o' mine. She'm no Tregenza. Be Nature, as made us G.o.d-fearin' to a man, to a wummon, to a cheel, gwaine to lie after generations 'pon generations? Look back at them as bred me, an' them as bred them--back, an' back, an' back. All Tregenzas was o' the Lard's harvest; an' should I, as feared G.o.d more'n any o' 'em, an' fought for the Lard of Hosts 'fore I was higher'n this table--should I--Michael Tregenza, breed a d.a.m.ned sawl? The thot's comed black an' terrible 'pon my mind 'fore to-day; an' I've put en away from me, judgin' 'twas the devil. Now I knaw 'twas G.o.d spoke; now I knaw that her's none o' my gettin'. 'Who honoreth his faither shall 'a' joy o' his awn childern.' Shall I, as weer a pattern son, be cussed wi' a strumpet for a darter?"

"You'm speakin' a hard thing o' dead bones, then. The Chirgwins is upland folks o' long standin', knawn so far as the Land's End, an' up Drift an'

down Lizard likewise."

"She've lied to me," was his answer; "she've lied oftentimes; she'm false to whatever I did teach her; she've sawld herself--she've--no more on it--no more on it but awnly this: I call 'pon G.o.d A'mighty to bear witness she'm no Tregenza--never--never."

"'Tweer her mother in the gal; but doan't 'e say more 'bout that, Michael.

Poor dear sawl, she'm dead an' gone, an' she loved 'e wi' all her 'eart, as I, what knawed her, can testify to."

"No more o' that," he said, "the gal's comin'. Thank G.o.d she ban't no cheel o' mine--thank G.o.d, as 'ave tawld me 'tedn' so. He whispered it, an' I put it away an' away. Now I knaws. You bide here, Thomasin Tregenza, and I'll speak what's fittin'."

Thus in one moment this hideous conviction was stamped upon the man's soul for life. He judged the dead mother by the daughter and visited the child's sin upon the parent's memory. Any conclusion more monstrous, more directly opposed to every natural instinct, can hardly be conceived, but the man had been strangling natural instincts for fifty years. Only pride of family remained. There were but few Tregenzas left and soon there would be none unless Tom carried on the name. Michael was the quintessence of the Tregenza spirit, the fruit of generations, the high-water mark. He stood on that giddy pinnacle which has religious mania for its precipice. To d.a.m.n a dead woman was easier than to accept a wanton daughter. Better an unfaithful wife than that any soul born of Tregenza blood should be lost.

So he washed his hands of both, thanking G.o.d, who had launched the truth into his mind at last; and then he rose to his feet as Joan entered the room.

She stood for a moment in the doorway with her blue eyes fixed in amazement upon the kitchen table. Then she grew very red to the roots of her hair and came forward. There was almost a joy in her mind that the long story of falsehood must end at last. She did not fear her father now and looked up into his face quite calmly as she approached the table.

"These be mine," she said. "Was it you, faither, as took 'em from wheer they was?"

"'Twas me, Joan," answered Mrs. Tregenza; "an' I judge the Lard led me."

The girl stood erect and scornful.

"I'm glad you found them; now I can tell the truth."

"Truth!" thundered Michael. "Truth--what do you knaw 'bout Truth, darter o'

Baal? Your life's a lie, your tongue's rotten in your mouth wi' lyin'.

Never look in no honest faace agin!"

"You'd do best to bide still while I tell 'e what this here means," said Joan quietly. The man's anger alarmed her no more than the squeak of a caged rat. "I ban't no darter o' Baal, an' the money's come by honest. I've lied afore, but never shall again. An' I've let Joe go 'is ways thinkin' I loved en, which I doan't. I be tokened to a furriner from London, an' he's took me for his awn, an' he be gwaine to come down-long mighty soon an'

take me away. But I couldn't tell 'e nothin' of that 'cause he bid me keep my mouth shut. So theer."

"'Took 'e for 'is awn'! Wheer is he, then? Why be you here?"

"He'm comin', I tell 'e. He'm a true man, an' he shawed me what 'tis to love."

"Bought you, you d.a.m.ned harlot!"

She knew the word was vile, but a shred of John Barron's philosophy supported her.

"My awnly sin is I've lied to you, faither; an' you've no right to call me evil names."