Arminell, Vol. 1

Thousands of years have rolled their course, and love has remained unchanged, like the rose and the nightingale, neither developing forward to some higher form of activity, nor degenerating to one less generous.

The diseases pass through endless modifications, varying in phenomena with every generation, changing their symptoms, disguising their nature, but the fever of love is always one and runs the identical course. Enthusiasts have sought to stifle it in hair-cloth, and reduce its virulence by vaccination with foreign matter, but it resists every effort to subdue it. Society has attempted to discipline it and turn it to practical ends. But love is a fire which will consume all bonds and snap them, and is only finally extinguished with a handful of clay, when the breast in which it has burnt is reduced, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

Unexpectedly, unaccountably, the fever laid hold of Stephen Saltren. He lost his heart to Marianne Welsh, who had been servant at the park, a handsome girl, with refinement of manner beyond her class.

He courted her for a month. She had left the great house for some unexplained reason, some folks said she was a liar, and had been dismissed because found out to be unreliable: others said she left because she was so good-looking that the rest of the maids were jealous of her and worried her out of her situation.

Whilst courting Marianne, Saltren was a charmed man. His vision of the spiritual world became clouded, and he was not sensible of the loss. A new world of unutterable delight, and of ideal beauty, clothed in rainbow colours and bathed in brilliant light, had unfurled before him and now occupied his perspective.

The acquaintanceship led at once to marriage. There was no delay. There was no occasion for delay. Saltren possessed his own house and land, and was in receipt of a good salary. The marriage ensued; and then another change came over Saltren. The new world of love and beauty, so real, faded as the mirage of the desert, disclosing desert and dead bones.

Seven months after the marriage, Marianne became the mother of a boy, and only Stephen knew that the son was not his own. A cruel act of treachery had been committed. Marianne had taken his name, not because she loved him, but to hide her own dishonour.

When he knew how he had been deceived, a barb entered Stephen’s heart, and he was never after free from its rankle. A fire was kindled in his veins that smouldered and gnawed its way outwards, certain eventually to flare forth in some sudden and unexpected outbreak. He became more reserved, more dreamy, more fantastic than before his marriage, and more of an enigma to those with whom he associated.

“Let the babe be christened Giles Inglett,” said Marianne, “that has a distinguished sound, none of your vulgar Jacks, and Harrys, and Bills – besides, it will be taken as a compliment at the park, and may be of benefit to the little fellow afterwards.”

Saltren shrugged his shoulders.

“It is your child, call it what you will.”

The boy was brought up by Stephen as his son, none doubted the paternity. But Saltren never kissed the infant, never showed the child love, took no interest in the welfare of the youth. To his wife he was cold, stern and formal. He allowed her to see that he could never forgive the wrong that had been done him.

So much for the past of Captain Stephen Saltren. Now, on this spring Sunday morning, Arminell Inglett watched the man at his devotions on the raft. She allowed him to proceed with them undisturbed for some time; but she could not spend the whole day in the owl’s nest. Saltren must be roused from his spiritual exercises and raptures. He must assist her – he must surely have ropes at his disposal, and could call men to help in her release.

She called him by name.

Her call was re-echoed from the rocky walls of the quarry. Saltren looked up, looked about, and remained expectant, with uplifted hands and eyes.

Then, half impatiently, half angrily, Arminell flung the crimson-covered novel of Gaboriau far out into the air, to fall on or near Saltren, in the hopes of directing his attention to her position.

He saw the fluttering book in the air, and stretched forth his hands to receive it. The book whirled about, expanded, turned over, shut, and shot down into the pond, where it floated one moment with its red cover upwards. Captain Saltren was engrossed in interest to see and to secure the book, he sculled towards it, stooped over the water to grasp it, lost balance, and fell forward, and in his effort to recover the volume and save himself from immersion, touched it, and the book went under the raft and disappeared.

The attempt to attract attention to herself had failed, and Arminell uttered an exclamation of vexation.

CHAPTER V

INFECTION

A touch on Arminell’s shoulder made her turn with a start. She saw behind her an old woman who had approached along the ledge, unobserved, supporting herself by the strands of ivy in the same manner as herself. Arminell had been standing leaning against the rock, her eyes and attention occupied with Captain Saltren, and so had not noticed the stealthy progress of the woman.

“See here, miss,” said the new arrival, “I have come to help you in the proper way. Lord love y’ what’s the good o’ calling to that half mazed man there? By the road you came, by that you must return. Here be ivy bands enough for both. Take half yourself and follow me, or if you’d rather, go on before. Don’t look at your feet, look ahead.”

“Who are you?” asked Arminell in surprise.

“Won’t you accept help till you know who she is that offers it?” asked the woman with a laugh. “Do you object to lean on a stick till you know the name of the tree whence it was cut? I’m not ashamed of what I’m called, I’m Patience Kite, that lives in the thatched cottage under the wood at the end of the quarry. I saw how you came to this place, and how you have thrown your book at the captain, because he looked every way but the right one when he was called. There’s perversity in all things, miss, as you’ll discover when you’re a bit older. Them as we call to come to us don’t look our way, and them as we ain’t thinking about offer us the helping hand.”

Arminell took the proffered ivy ropes, and began to retrace her steps along the face of the precipice, but was unable, whilst so doing, to resist the temptation to look and see if Captain Saltren had as yet observed her, but she saw that he was still diving his arms into the water after the sunken volume, and was unconscious that any one watched him.

“Hold to my gown, it is coarse, but the better to stay you with,” said the woman. “Do not look round, keep fast with the right hand to the ivy, and clutch me with your left. What a comical bringing together of them whom God has put asunder that would be if you and I were to be found in death grappled together in the quarry pond!”

Slowly, cautiously, Arminell followed her guide and finally reached the firm bank.

“Now then,” said Patience, “you can come and rest in my cottage. It is hard by. I’ll wipe a chair for you. As you wanted to see the owl’s nest, perhaps you mayn’t object to visit the house of the white witch.”

Arminell hesitated. She was inclined to return home, but felt that it would seem ungracious to decline the offer of the woman who had assisted her out of her difficulties.

“Look yonder,” mocked Patience, pointing to the water, “the captain is at his prayers again. I wonder, now, what he took that book to be you throwed at him, and your voice to be that called him? He’ll make a maze o’ queer fancies out of all, I reckon.”

“Does Mr. Saltren often come here?”

“When the shoe pinches.”

“I do not understand you, Mrs. Kite.”

“No, I’ll be bound you do not. How can you understand the pinching and pain o’ others, when you’ve never felt pinch or pain yourself? Such as lie a-bed in swans’ down wonder what keeps them awake that couches on nettles.”

“But what has this to do with Captain Saltren and his prayers?”

“Everything,” answered the woman; “you don’t ask for apples when your lap is full. Those that suffer and are in need open their mouths. But whether aught comes to them for opening their mouths is another matter. The cuckoo in my clock called, and as none answered, he gave it up – so did I.”

There was a savagery in the woman’s tone that startled Arminell, and withal a strangeness in her manner that attracted her curiosity.

“I will go with you to the cottage for a moment,” she said.

“This is the way,” answered Patience, leading through the brake of fern under the oaks.

Patience Kite was a tall woman, with black hair just turning grey, a wrinkled face, and a pointed chin. She had lost most of her teeth, and mouthed her words, but spoke distinctly. Her nose was like the beak of a hawk; her eyes were grey, and wild under heavy dark brows. When she spoke to Arminell she curtsied, and the curtsey of the gaunt creature was grotesque. The girl could not read whether it were intended as respectful, or done in mockery. Her dress was tidy, but of the poorest materials, much patched. She wore no cap; her abundant hair was heaped on her head, but was less tidy than her clothing; it was scattered about her face and shoulders.

Her cottage was close at hand, very small, built of quarry-stone that corroded rapidly with exposure – the air reduced it to black dust. The chimney threatened to fall; it was gnawed into on the south-west side like a bit of mice-eaten cheese. The thatch was rotten, the rafters were exposed and decayed. The walls, bulged out by the thrust of the bedroom floor-joists, were full of rents and out of the perpendicular.

The place looked so ruinous, so unsafe, that Arminell hesitated to enter.

The door had fallen, because the frame had rotted away. Patience led her guest over it into the room. There everything was tidy and clean. Tidiness and cleanliness were strangely combined with ruin and decay. In the window was a raven in a cage.

“This house is dangerous to live in,” said Arminell. “Does Mr. Macduff not see that repairs are done? It is unfit for human habitation.”

“Macduff!” scoffed Mrs. Kite. “Do y’ think that this house belongs to his lordship? It is mine, and because it is mine they cannot force me to leave it, and to go into the workhouse.”

“But you are in peril of your life here, the chimney might fall and bury you any windy night. The roof might crash in.”

“So the sanitary officer says. He has condemned the house.”

“Then you are leaving?”

“No. He has done his duty. But I am not going to turn out.”

“Yet surely, Mrs. Kite, if the place is dangerous, you will not be allowed to remain?”