A SINGER FROM THE SEA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 270, 14 November 1893, Page 6

A SINGER FROM THE SEA.

ar Amelia ' _ay.s_i_.__.'

«The Bdada of Tasmar.'r'TH^ 'Hbte oi the "Easter Bell,'" 'The House-

hold of McNeU,' • Friend Olivia,' Etc., Etc., Etc

CHAPTER XI. (Continued.) FATHERLY AND MOTHERLY.

•The winter was a profitable one though not us happy as Denasia had hoped it would be. "They had no debts and were able to indulge *n many luxuries, and yeb Roland was irritable, gloomy and full of unpleasant reminiscences and comparisons. He thoughb ib outrageous for Moss to refuse the payment of his wife's salary to him. Also Denasia .had a disagreeable habit, of leaving a large .portion of her income with the Treasurer of **the company, and then sending her costumier and other creditors to bhe theatre for Indeed, she was developing an .independence in money matters that was annoying to Roland. He felt that) his applications bo Elizabebh were perpetual offences to Denasia ; and if he had f.een a thoughtful man he would have understood thab this separation of their interests in financial matters was the precursor of a much wider and more dangerous one.

Roland had other unpleasant experiences i) 0 encounter. Ib seemed mci edible bhab ""the handsome, Wibty, faecinabing Mr Tresham could possibly be a bore, and yeb tbe authorities in various greenrooms either said so in plain English or made bim aware of the fact through every other sense bub hearing. He felt himself bo be politely or .sarcastically quizzed. Stars ignored him ; meaner lights gave him a bare tolerance. A ifew inquired if his grand relabives had yeb .'forgiven him. One or bwo aflected to have Iheard he bad an offer from Henry Irving or some other histrionic luminary ; in fact, he was made to understand thab Roland Tresham was by no means a name "to conjure with.

He did nob tell Denasia of these humiliast.Toiiß, and she believed his chagrin and 111----temper to arise from his continual disappointments. He could geb no ' chance' •worbhy of hia efforbs, for a trial of his new Shakespearean interpretations. Ho felb sure that there was a coalition against him. * .Let a man have a little more beauty or talent bhen the 'crowd, and the crowd are -determined to rnin him—naturally,' he said, and he believed his own dictum thoroughly. Toward the end of the season, however, he did obtain a hearing under what were undoubtedly favourable circumstances ; and then the press was his enemy. And he knew positively that the adverse criticisms were the results of venality or ignorance or wont of taste or of thab brutal conservatism which makes Englishmen suspicious of everything not endorsed by centuries of use and wont.

Ib may be easily seen how these poreonal irritations made an unhappy atmosphere in which to dwell. And Roland had another disappointment also, which he hardly liked to admib to himself * Denasia was changing bo rapidly. The society into which he himself had brought her forced the simple, trustful, ignorant girl into observations and calculations which lifted her unconsciously to a level —perhaps in some respects to a plane above her husband. She was naturally clever, and she learnt how to dress herself, how to take care of herself, how to look oub for ber own interest. Roland,had intended to dictate to her, and she began to emile at his dictations and to take her own way, which she charmingly declared was the only reasonable way for her to take. During this interval Roland wrote often to Elizabeth. He wanted some one to complain to, and Elizabeth was the only person ne knew who was willing to listen to his complaints. , She perceived very early the little rif b between husband and wife, which might be bridged by love or might become an abyss in which love would be forever loab. Ib must, however, be noted to her credit that she avoided any word likely to widen it. She did not like Denasia, but she had a controlling sense of honour. She had also a lofty ideal of the sacredness of the marriage tie. To have made trouble between a man and his wife would, in Elizabeth's opinion, have been as wicked a thing as to break into a church vestry and steal the sacramental silver. Buc she did sympathise with her brother and advise bim and send him money; and, naturally, Denasia w bo thought badlyof Elizabeth—resented her interference in her life at all, so that there was usually a * coolness' between Roland and Denasia after the arrival of a letter from Burrell Court.

In truth, any letter from St. Penfer, ab this period of Denasia's life, hurt her. She longed for her own people ; she felb heartsick for a word from them. In some momenb of confidence or ill-temper, Roland had given his wife his own version of the visib to his mother-in-law; and, whatever elee he remeimbered or forgot, he was clear ond positive aboub Joan's message to ber daughter. She had broken her good father's life in two, and her mothor waa sorry she had ever given her suck. Denasia knew her mobher's passionate nature, and she could understand thabsome powerful aggravation had mado hor speak so strongly ; but bbc words after all allowances, were terrible words. They haunted her in the midsb of her professional excitemenbg, and sbill mo^e in bho solitude of her frequently resblesa nights. And if Joan had felb thus a year ago, Denasia knew thab she now felt much more bitterly; for, in one of her letters to Roland, Elizabeth had written freely ot tho passionate anger of John Penelles when he had learned that his daughter had become a public dancer. Indeed, Elizabeth affected to think it very cruel of Denasia to send to her old, ignorant parents tbe illustrated paper which contained her picture in bhe dance acb. She thought Denasia's vanity had overstepped all bounds and become positive cruelty, etc., etc. And Denasia, in a passion which matched any outbreak ot her father's, vowed nob only bhat she had never sent such a paper to Sb. Penfor, but that Elizabebh herself must have been the perpetrator of the cruelty, unless—and then Bhe gave Roland a glance which made him wonder where his willing and obedient Denasia of former days had gone to. In all essential points this story was a false one. It was indeed true tbab some Deraon had senb to the Penelles cottage a London paper, in which there was a large picture of Denasia and the admiral dancing the famous hornpipe. Bub the manner of its reception was a mabber of speculation only, and the speculative had founded their tala upea the known hastiness of John and Joan's tempers, withoub taking into consideration the presence o*_^unknown influences. . As ib happened, the pictured girl was received in the Sb. Penfer post-office during apstorm. John had been called in the grey dawn to the life-boat, and Joan, in spite of ■wind and rain, went down to the beach with him. *|*Vibh a prayer in ber heart, she Baw him buckle on his buoyanb armour and set hia pale-blue oars, like lances, athwart his resb, and thon straight out into tho breakers that dashed and surged around. Joan saw the boat's swift forward leaping ; its downward plungo into the trough of the sea; its perilous uplifting ; its perpendicular rearing ; its dread descent. And John felt ita human reel and shudder, its desperate striving and leaping and plunging und its cad submission when the waters halt filled its hollow, and tho quivering men clung for very life under the deluge pouring over them. So for three hours John was face to face frith awful death, and Joan on her knees

praying for his safety ; and John had but just gob back bo his home and the cry of thanksgiving for her old dear's return was yet on Joan's lips, when the postman brought the fateful newspaper. Fortunately they did not open ib ab once. Joan laid ib carefully fside and brought on their belated breakfast. And as they ate it, they talked y ot the lives that were losb and saved. Then 3ohn smoked his pipe and Joan tidied up her house and sat down beside him, with her knibbing in her hands. Both their hearta were solemn and tender. John felt as if his life was a new gift bo him, Joan as it her husband's love had some miraculous sweebness never known before. They spoke seldom and sotbly, finding in bheir responsive silence a language beyond words. Ib was bhen, in this gentle mood, John reached to the shelf above his head and took down the paper. He opened ib, and Denas, in her pretty danoing-dress, wibh her bare arms lifted above her head, looked her fabher full in bhe face. She was laughing ; she was the incarnation of merriment and of consciously graceful, captivating vivacity and gaiete de cceur. The miserable father was, however, fascinated; he gazed and gazed until his eyes overflowed and his hands brombled, and the paper fell with a rustle bo the floor.

Joan lifted it and looked at her husband. His eyes were shut; he wag sobbing inwardly as punished children sob in sleep. She spoke to him and he opened his syes and pointed to tho paper. Then Joan met the same well-beloved face. The mother's cheeks burned red and redder ; her eyes flashed; she straightened out every crease as if the pictured satin and lace had been real; and then, turning to the printed page, she read aloud every word of adulation.

They had talked together of the men and women drowned within sighb of land thab morning; bub here was bheir only child dancing in sighb of eternal death, and they conld nob say a word to each other aboub her. For ib musb be remembered thab theso simple, God-fearing fisher-folk had been sbrictly and sbraighblyreared in a creed which regarded dancing at one of bhe deadly sins. They honesbly believed that thero was bub a step bebween their darling ancl eternal death, and if she should take that step while dancing I To have known thab she was on bhe ship which had jusb gone bo pieces on bhe rocks would nob have made bhem so hearb-sick. Their very souls shivered as bhey thoughb of her. As for John, he could find only these bwo words bhab spring instinctively to every soul in trouble : ' 0 God !'

Bnb he motioned Joan to take the paper away ; and Joan took it into the room which was still called Deuas's room. She kissed the pictured face, the huir and eyes and mouth, the lifted arms, the slender throat. She could not bear to crush the paper together: she opened a drawer .*; t laid ib as gently within as if she had been putting her baby in its coffin. At this hour there was no anger in her heart. There was even a little motherly pride in her child's beauty and grace and cleverness. And at this extremity of ill doing she did not altogether blame Denas. She was certain, beforo Donas danced, some one had somehow persuaded the girl it waa not wicked to dance.

' Denas do have principles,' sho said stiffly ; ' and the man do nob live who can make her do wickedly if she thinks it be wicked.'

She looked with a sad affection round the littlo room. How lonely it was ! Yea, it is the living who desert us, that make lonely rooms and not the dead. Wo know the dead will never come back ; but, oh, how long it seems bo wait for the living ! Month after month to keep the room ready for one who does not come for our longing ! Month after month to dress the bed and the tab'e and lay out the books they loved, and the little treasures thab may tell they were unforgotbeo. Joan looked at the small dresßing-table holding the shell-box and the satin pin-cushion and the alabaster vase which Denas had once thoughb beautiful beyond pries. Tho snowy quilt and pillows, the carefully kopt floor and chairs, the clothing washed and laid with sprigs of lavender in tho tidy drawers—oh, what poetry ana eloquence of untiring, undespairing mother-love were in these things. Bub bhis patient, loving pity for bheir erring child was an attitude not easily ?upposable, and Denasia did not suppose it. She knew from Roland's reporb that hor appearance as a public singer had produced in her parents great sorrow and anger, and Bhe could only imagine a still deeper anger when she added tho sin of dancing to other cauees of offence. Bub this alienation from her own people was the bitter drop in all her success and in all her pleasure. For now that tho illusions and selfishness of her bride days were past the faithful home affection, that never wounded and never deceived, resumed its importance, and she longed for her father's kiss and her mother's breast.

But every day the day's work is to face ; and Denasia's days were fully occupied by their obvious duties. So weok after week and month after month wore on in alternations of hope and Jdespair,! happiness and vexations, loving and quarreling. P^oland, certainly, with his discontent and abiding sense of wrong, threw a perpetual shadow over life. She did nob even daro to take, with any show of pleasure, such poor satisfaction as her passing fame awarded. A man may be jealous of the praise given to his own wife, and there were times when Roland could not endure Denasia's success —and his own failure —bitter hours in which the poor girl understood thab whether she pleased hor audience or did not please them, her husband was sure to be offended and angry.

(To be Continued.)