In the Roar of the Sea
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“Jamie,” said Judith, looking him straight in the face, “have you been to my box?”
“Only just looked in.”
Then he ran to the window. “Oh, do see, Ju, how patched the glass is with foam! – and is it not dirty?”
“Jamie, come back. I want an answer.”
He had opened the casement and put his hand out and was wiping off the patches of froth.
“What a lot of it there is, Ju.”
“Come here, instantly, Jamie, and shut the window.”
The boy obeyed, creeping toward her sideways, with his head down.
“Jamie, did you lift the tray?”
“Only on one side, just a little bit.”
“Did you take anything from under the tray?”
He did not answer immediately. She looked at him searchingly and in suspense. He never could endure this questioning look of hers, and he ran to her, put his arms round her waist, and clasped to her side, hid his face in her gown.
“Only a little.”
“A little what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jamie, no lies. There was a blue paper there containing poison, that you were not to have unless there were occasion for it – some bird skin to be preserved and dressed with it. Now, did you take that?”
“Yes.”
“Go and bring it back to me immediately.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Where is it?”
The boy fidgeted, looked up in his sister’s face to see what expression it bore, buried his head again, and said:
“Ju! he is rightly called Cruel. I hate him, and so do you, don’t you, Ju? I have put the arsenic into his oatmeal, and we will get rid of him and be free and go away. It will be jolly.”
“Jamie!” with a cry of horror.
“He won’t whip me and scold you any more.”
“Jamie! Oh, my Lord, have pity on him! have pity on us!”
She clasped her hands to her head, rushed from the room, and flew down the stairs.
But ten minutes before that Judith had given Coppinger his bowl of porridge. He had risen late that morning. He was better, he said, and he looked more himself than the preceding day. He was now seated at the table in the hall, and had poured the fresh milk into the bowl, had dipped the spoon, put some of the porridge to his mouth, tasted, and was looking curiously into the spoon, when the door was flung open, Judith entered, and without a word of explanation, caught the bowl from him and dashed it on the floor.
Coppinger looked at her with his boring, dark eyes intently, and said: “What is the meaning of this?”
“It is poisoned.”
Judith was breathless. She drew back relieved at having cast away the fatal mess.
Coppinger rose to his feet, and glared at her across the table, leaning with his knuckles on the board. He did not speak for a moment, his face became livid, and his hands resting on the table shook as though he were shivering in an ague.
“There is arsenic in the porridge,” gasped Judith.
She had not time to weigh what she should say, how explain her conduct; but one thought had held her – to save Coppinger’s life while there was yet time.
The Captain’s dog that had been lying at his master’s feet rose, went to the spilt porridge, and began to lap the milk and devour the paste. Neither Judith nor Coppinger regarded him.
“It was an accident,” faltered Judith.
“You lie,” said Coppinger, in thrilling tones, “you lie, you murderess! You sought to kill me.”
Judith did not answer for a moment. She also was trembling. She had to resolve what course to pursue. She could not, she would not, betray her brother, and subject him to the worst brutality of treatment from the infuriated man whose life he had sought.
It were better for her to take the blame on herself.
“I made the porridge – I and no one else.”
“You told me so, yesterday.” He maintained his composure marvellously, but he was stunned by the sudden discovery of treachery in the woman he had loved and worshipped.
“You maddened me by your treatment, but I did not desire that you should die. I repented and have saved your life.”
As Judith spoke she felt as though the flesh of her face stiffened, and the skin became as parchment. She could hardly open her mouth to speak and stir her tongue.
“Go!” said Coppinger, pointing to the door. “Go, you and your brother. Othello cottage is empty. Go, murderess, poisoner of your husband, there and wait till you hear from me. Under one roof, to eat off one board, is henceforth impossible. Go!” he remained pointing, and a sulphurous fire flickered in his eyes.
Then the hound began to howl, threw itself down, its limbs were contracted, it foamed at the mouth, and howled again.
To the howlings of the poisoned and dying dog Judith and Jamie left Pentyre.
CHAPTER XLVII
FAST IN HIS HANDS
Judith and Jamie were together in Othello Cottage – banished from Pentyre with a dark and threatening shadow over them, but this, however, gave the boy but little concern; he was delighted to be away from a house where he had been in incessant terror, and where he was under restraint; moreover, it was joy to him to be now where he need not meet Coppinger at every turn.
Judith forbade his going to Polzeath to see Uncle Zachie and Oliver Menaida, as she thought it advisable, under the circumstances, to keep themselves to themselves, and above all not to give further occasion for the suspicions and jealousy of Coppinger. This was to her, under the present condition of affairs, specially distressing, as she needed some counsel as to what she should do. Uncle Zachie at his best was a poor adviser, but on no account now would she appeal to his son. She was embarrassed and alarmed. And she had excuse for embarrassment and alarm. She had taken upon herself the attempt that had been made on the life of Coppinger, and he would, she supposed, believe her to be guilty.
What would he do? Would he proceed against her for attempted murder? If so, the case against her was very complete. It could be shown that Mr. Menaida had given her this arsenic, that she had kept it by her in her workbox while at the Glaze, that she had been on the most unsatisfactory terms with Captain Coppinger, and that she had refused to complete her marriage with him by appending her signature to the register. She was now aware – and the thought made her feel sick at heart and faint – that her association with the Menaidas had been most injudicious and had been capable of misinterpretation. It had been misinterpreted by Coppinger, and probably also by the gossips of Polzeath. It could be shown that a secret correspondence had been carried on between her and Oliver, which had been intercepted by her husband. This was followed immediately by the attempt to poison Coppinger. The arsenic had been given him in the porridge her own hands had mixed, and which had been touched by no one else. It was natural to conclude that she had deliberately purposed to destroy her husband, that she might be free to marry Oliver Menaida.
If she were prosecuted on the criminal charge of attempted murder, the case could be made so conclusive against her that her conviction was certain.
Her only chance of escape lay in two directions – one that she should tell the truth, and allow Jamie to suffer the consequences of what he had done, which would be prison or a lunatic asylum. The other was that she should continue to screen him and trust that Coppinger would not prosecute her. He might hesitate about proceeding with such a case, which would attract attention to himself, to his household, and lay bare to the public eye much that he would reasonably be supposed to wish to keep concealed. If, for instance, the case were brought into court the story of the enforced marriage must come out, and that would rake up once more the mystery of the wreckers on Doom Bar, and of Lady Knighton’s jewels. Coppinger might and probably would grasp at the other alternative – take advantage of the incompletion of the marriage, repudiate her, and let the matter of the poisoned porridge remain untouched.
The more Judith turned the matter over in her head the more sure she became that the best course, indeed the only one in which safety lay, was for her to continue to assume to herself the guilt of the attempt on Coppinger’s life. He would see by her interference the second time, and prevention of his taking a second portion of the arsenic, that she did not really seek his life, but sought to force him, through personal fear, to drive her from his house and break the bond by which he bound her to him. For the sake of this going back from a purpose of murder, or from thinking that she had never intended to do more than drive him to a separation by alarm for his own safety; for the sake of the old love he had borne her, he might forbear pressing this matter to its bitter consequences, and accept what she desired – their separation.
But if Judith allowed the truth to come out, then her husband would have no such compunction. It would be an opportunity for him to get rid of the boy he detested, and even if he did not have him consigned to jail, then it would be only because he would send him to an asylum.
Judith went out on the cliffs. The sea was troubled, far as the horizon, strewn with white horses shaking their manes, pawing and prancing in their gallop landward. There was no blue, no greenness in the ocean now. The dull tinctures of winter were in it. The Atlantic wore its scowl, was leaden and impatient. The foam on the rocks was driven up in spouts into the air and carried over the downs, it caught in the thorn bushes like flocks of wool, and was no cleaner. It lay with the thin melting snow and melted with it into a dirty slush. It plastered the face of Othello Cottage as though, in brutal insolence, Ocean had been spitting at the house that was built of the wreck he had failed to gulp down, though he had chewed the life out of it. The foam rested in flakes on the rushes where it hung and fluttered like tufts of cotton-grass. It was dropped about by the wind for miles inland as though the wind were running in a paper chase. It was as though sky and sea were contending in a game of pelting the land, the one with snow, the other with foam, the one sweet, the other salt. Judith walked where, near the edge of the cliffs, there was no snow, and looked out at the angry ocean. All without was cold, rugged, ruffled, wretched; and within her heart burned a fire of apprehension, distress, almost of despair. All at once she came upon Mr. Desiderius Mules, walking in an opposite direction, engaged in wiping the foam-flakes out of his eyes.
“Halloo! you here Mrs. Coppinger?” exclaimed the rector; “glad to see you. I’m not here like S. Anthony preaching to the fishes, because I am a practical man. In the first place, in such a disturbed sea the fishes would have enough to do to look after themselves and would be ill-disposed to lend me an ear. In the next place the wind is on shore, and they would not hear me were I to lift up my voice. So I don’t waste words and over-strain my larynx. If the bishop were a mile or a mile and a half inland, it might be different, he might admire my zeal. And what brings you here?”
“Oh, Mr. Mules!” exclaimed Judith, with a leap of hope in her heart – here was someone who might if he would be a help to her. She had indeed made up her own mind as to what was the safest road on which to set her feet, but she was timid, shrank from falsehood, and earnestly craved for someone to whom she could speak, and from whom she could obtain advice.
“Oh, Mr. Mules! will you give me some advice and assistance?”
“Advice, by all means,” said the rector. “I’ll turn and walk your way, the froth is blown into my face and stings it. My skin is sensitive, so are my eyes. Upon my word, when I get home my face will be as salt as if I had flooded it with tears – fancy me crying. What did you say you wanted – advice?”
“Advice and assistance.”
“Advice you shall have, it is my profession to give it. I mix it with pepper and salt and serve it out in soup plates every week – am ready with it every day, Mrs. Coppinger. I have buckets of it at your disposal, bring your tureen and I’ll tip in as much of the broth as you want, and may you like it. As to assistance, that is another matter. Pecuniary assistance I never give. I am unable to do so. My principles stand in the way. I have set up a high standard for myself and I stick to it. I never render pecuniary assistance to any one, as it demoralizes the receiver. I hope and trust it was not pecuniary assistance you wanted.”
“No, Mr. Mules – not that, only guidance.”
“Oh, guidance! I’m your sign-post, where do you want to go!”
“It is this, sir. I have given poison to Mr. Coppinger.”
“Mercy on me!” the rector jumped back and turned much the tinge of the foam plasters that were on his face.
“That is to say, I gave him arsenic mixed with his porridge the day before yesterday, and it made him very ill. Yesterday – ”
“Hush, hush!” said Mr. Mules, “no more of this. This is ghastly. Let us say it is hallucination on your part. You are either not right in your head or are very wicked. If you please – don’t come nearer to me. I can hear you quite well, hear a great deal more than pleases me. You ask my advice, and I give it: Sign the register, that will set me square, and put me in an unassailable position with the public, and also, secondarily, it will be to your advantage. You are now a nondescript, and a nondescript is objectionable. If you please – you will excuse me – I should prefer not standing between you and the cliff. There is no knowing what a person who confesses to poisoning her husband might do. If it be a case of lunacy – well, more reason that I should use precautions. My life is valuable. Come, there is only one thing you can do to make me comfortable – sign the register.”
“You will not mention what I have told you to anyone?”
“Save and defend us! I speak of it! – I! Come, come, be rational. Sign the register and set my mind at ease, that is all I want and ask for, and then I wash my hands of you.”
Then away went Mr. Desiderius Mules, with the wind catching his coat tails, twisting them, throwing them up against his back, parting them, and driving them one on each of him, taking and cutting them and sending them between his legs.
Judith stood mournfully looking after him. The sign-post, as he had called himself was flying from the traveller whom it was his duty to direct.
Then a hand was laid on her arm. She started, turned and saw Oliver Menaida, flushed with rapid walking and with the fresh air he had encountered.
“I have come to see you,” he said. “I have come to offer you my father’s and my assistance. We have just heard – ”
“What?”
“That Captain Coppinger has turned you and Jamie out of his house.”
“Have you heard any reason assigned?”
“Because – so it is said – he had beaten the boy, and you were incensed, angry words passed – and it ended in a rupture.”
“That, then, is the common explanation?”
“Everyone is talking about it. Everyone says that. And now, what will you do?”
“Thank you. Jamie and I are at Othello Cottage, where we are comfortable. My aunt had furnished it intending to reside in it herself. As for our food, we receive that from the Glaze.”
“But this cannot continue.”
“It must continue for a while.”
“And then?”
“The future is not open to my eyes.”
“Judith, that has taken place at length which I have been long expecting.”
“What do you mean?”
“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 constituted 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 circumstances. 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 partnership, 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 arsenic, 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 Othello 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 glass, then, finding that the breath from his nostrils dimmed the pane, wiping the glass 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 casement, 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 Othello 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 Blustering 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 passion.”
“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? What has caused this squabble? I have a brother a solicitor at Bodmin. Let me jot down the items, and we’ll get a case out of it. Trust me as a friend, and I’ll have you righted. I hear Miss Trevisa has come in for a fortune. Be a good girl, set your back against her and show fight.”
“I will thank you to leave the house,” said Judith, haughtily. “A moment ago you made reference to your honor as a gentleman. I must appeal to that same honor which you pride yourself on possessing, and, by virtue of that, request you to depart.”