In the Roar of the Sea Part 71

"This miserable condition of affairs has reached its climax, and there has been a turn."

Judith sighed. "It has taken a turn, indeed."

"Now that Captain Coppinger has been brought to his senses, and he sees that your resolve is not to be shaken, and he releases you, or you have released yourself from the thraldom you have been in. I do not suppose the popular account of the matter is true, wholly."

"It is not at all true."

"That matters not. The fact remains that you are out of Pentyre Glaze and your own mistress. The snare is broken and you are delivered."

Again Judith sighed, and she shook her head despondingly.

"You are free," persisted Oliver, "just consider. You were hurried through a marriage when insensible, and when you came to consciousness you did what was the only thing you could do--you absolutely refused your signature that would validate what had taken place. That was conclusive. That ceremony was as worthless as this sea-foam that blows by. No court in the world would hold that you were bound by it. The consent, the free consent, of each party in such a convention is essential. As to your being at Pentyre, nothing against that can be alleged; Miss Trevisa was your aunt and const.i.tuted your guardian by your father. Your place was by her. To her you went when my father's house was no longer at your service through my return. At Pentyre you remained as long as Miss Trevisa was there. She went, and at once you left the house."

"You do not understand."

"Excuse me, I think I do. But no matter as to details. When your aunt went, you went also--as was proper under the circ.u.mstances. We have heard, I do not know whether it be true, that your aunt has come in for a good property."

"For a little something."

"Then, shall you go to her and reside with her?"

"No; she will not have Jamie and me."

"So we supposed. Now my father has a proposal to make. The firm to which I belong has been good enough to take me into partners.h.i.+p, esteeming my services far higher than they deserve, and I am to live at Oporto, and act for them there. As my income will now be far larger than my humble requirements, I have resolved to allow my dear father sufficient for him to live upon comfortably where he wills, and he has elected to follow me, and take up his abode in Portugal. Now what he has commissioned me to say is--will you go with him? Will you continue to regard him as Uncle Zachie, and be to him as his dear little niece, and keep house for him in the sunny southern land?"

Judith's eyes filled with tears.

"And Jamie is included in the invitation. He is to come also, and help my father to stuff the birds of Portugal. A new ornithological field is opening before him, he says and he must have help in it."

"I cannot," said Judith, in a low tone, with her head sunk on her breast. "I cannot leave here till Captain Coppinger gives me leave."

"But, surely, you are no longer bound to him?"

"He holds me faster than before."

"I cannot understand this."

"No; because you do not know all."

"Tell me the whole truth. Let me help you. Let my father help you. You little know how we both have our hearts in your service."

"Well, I will tell you."

But she hesitated and trembled. She fixed her eyes on the wild, foaming, leaden sea, and pressed her bosom with both hands.

"I poisoned him."

"Judith!"

"It is true, I gave him a.r.s.enic, once; that your father had let me have for Jamie. If he had taken it the second time, when I offered it him in his bowl of porridge, he would be dead now. Do you see--he holds me in his hands and I cannot stir. I could not escape till I know what he intends to do with me. Now go--leave me to my fate."

"Judith--it is not true! Though I hear this from your lips I will not believe it. No; you need my father's, you need my help more than ever." He put her hand to his lips. "It is white--innocent. I _know_ it, in spite of your words."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

TWO ALTERNATIVES.

When Judith returned to Oth.e.l.lo Cottage, she was surprised to see a man promenading around it, flattening his nose at the window, so as to bring his eyes against the gla.s.s, then, finding that the breath from his nostrils dimmed the pane, wiping the gla.s.s and again flattening his nose. At first he held his hands on the window-ledge, but being incommoded by the refraction of the light, put his open hands against the pane, one on each side of his face. Having satisfied himself at one cas.e.m.e.nt, he went to another, and made the same desperate efforts to see in at that.

Judith coming up to the door, and putting the key in, disturbed him, he started, turned, and with a nose much like putty, but rapidly purpling with returned circulation, disclosed the features of Mr.

Scantlebray, Senior.

"Ah, ha!" said that gentleman, in no way disconcerted; "here I have you, after having been looking for my orphing charmer in every direction but the right one. With your favor I will come inside and have a chat."

"Excuse me," said Judith, "but I do not desire to admit visitors."

"But I am an exception. I'm the man who should have looked after your interests, and would have done it a deal better than others. And so there has been a rumpus, eh? What about?"

"I really beg your pardon, Mr. Scantlebray, but I am engaged and cannot ask you to enter, nor delay conversing with you on the doorstep."

"Oh, Jimminy! don't consider me. I'll stand on the doorstep and talk with you inside. Don't consider me; go on with what you have to do and let me amuse you. It must be dull and solitary here, but I will enliven you, though I have not my brother's gifts. Now, Obadiah is a man with a genius for entertaining people. He missed his way when he started in life; he would have made a comic actor. Bless your simple heart, had that man appeared on the boards, he would have brought the house down--"

"I have no doubt whatever he missed his way when he took to keeping an asylum," said Judith.

"We have all our gifts," said Scantlebray. "Mine is architecture, and 'pon my honor as a gentleman, I do admire the structure of Oth.e.l.lo Cottage, uncommon. You won't object to my pulling out my tape and taking the plan of the edifice, will you?"

"The house belongs to Captain Coppinger; consult him."

"My dear orphing, not a bit. I'm not on the best terms with that gent.

There lies a tract of ruffled water between us. Not that I have given him cause for offence, but that he is not sweet upon me. He took off my hands the management of your affairs in the valuation business, and let me tell you--between me and you and that post yonder"--he walked in and laid his hand on a beam--"that he mismanaged it confoundedly.

He is your husband, I am well aware, and I ought not to say this to you. He took the job into his hands because he had an eye to you, I knew that well enough. But he hadn't the gift--the faculty. Now I have made all that sort of thing my specialty. How many rooms have you in this house? What does that door lead to?"

"Really, Mr. Scantlebray, you must excuse me; I am busy."

"O, yes--vastly busy. Walking on the cliffs, eh! Alone, eh? Well, mum is the word. Come, make me your friend and tell me all about it. How came you here? There are all kind of stories afloat about the quarrel between you and your husband, and he is an Eolus, a Bl.u.s.tering Boreas, all the winds in one box. Not surprised. He blew up a gale against me once. Domestic felicity is a fable of the poets. Home is a region of cyclones, tornadoes, hurricanes--what you like; anything but a Pacific Ocean. Now, you won't mind my throwing an eye round this house, will you--a scientific eye? Architecture is my pa.s.sion."

"Mr. Scantlebray, that is my bedroom; I forbid you touching the handle. Excuse me--but I must request you to leave me in peace."

"My dear creature," said Scantlebray, "scientific thirst before all.

It is unslakable save by the acquisition of what it desires. The structure of this house, as well as its object, has always been a puzzle to me. So your aunt was to have lived here--the divine, the fascinating Dionysia, as I remember her years ago. It wasn't built for the lovely Dionysia, was it? No. Then for what object was it built?

And why so long untenanted? These are nuts for you to crack."

"I do not trouble myself about these questions. I must pray you to depart."

"In half the twinkle of an eye," said Scantlebray. Then he seated himself. "Come, you haven't a superabundance of friends. Make me one and unburden your soul to me. What is it all about? Why are you here?