The St. Cadix Case

Chapter I

" YOU go on with the basket, Pete. I'll follow you presently." " Aren't 'ee comin' home, then ? " " I want to go down to the sea for a while." " The sun's gettin' low, Paula." " I shall be in by supper-time." The boy, a tall, slim lad of eighteen, with vacant blue eyes, and a long, foolish chin, shifted the basket he carried to the other arm, nodded, and walked on up the white road which wound over the hill ; the girl, left alone, sped through a gap in the hedge, and followed a sheep track over the downs towards the rock-bound Cornish coast. Her steps grew swifter and swifter, and she hurried at last as if the fiend were behind ; but her haste was vain, for she was trying to escape from herself, from the life which was hers ; and from memory there is no escape. When she came presently to a sandy cove she sank on to a boulder, and huddled herself together like a hunted animal, with her elbows resting on her knees, and her brow on her hands.

Her lashes were long and black and silky, like the hair which her run had tumbled in wavy strands upon her forehead ; her pale complexion was as clear as ivory, her lips were soft and red. She was twenty-two, and she was beautiful, and the tragic intensity of youth, with its keen emotions, was in her attitude, and the fixed gaze of her great sombre eyes upon the sea. A woman with a temperament this — imaginative, sensitive, highly-strung, capable of a grand passion, weak and strong too, never uninteresting or common place : a passionate pilgrim made to love and to be loved, to suffer and rebel, perhaps to conquer, per haps to fall. Lately her father's death had thrown her, penniless, upon the charity of relatives far below her in social status, whom hitherto she had never seen ; and she was wretched.

She was the daughter of a University man, a clergyman, who had married beneath him ; she was used to refinement and culture, and the society of gentlefolks, and now her refuge was a Cornish farm. This half-sister of her mother's was a woman of the people — illiterate, narrow ; the younger son was half-witted, and the elder a boor, and the poor girl's life was becoming more than she could bear. For an hour she crouched there, immovable, starino at the waves as they shattered on the shore. The sinking sun painted her rigid profile and the line of her white throat with flame, and flung strange, lurid lights on her blue-black hair ; from the hills above floated the tinkle-tinkle of a sheep-bell, and the receding tide flung a shower of spray over her and touched her lips with brine. She stirred then in a long shiver, although the spring air was still and warm, and rose and climbed the rocky path up the face of the cliff whence she had come, and struck across the downs in the direction of a square, weather-beaten church tower which peeped above the down half a mile away.

In the hollow, opposite the church, was the farm of St. Cadix ; the rest of the sparsely populated parish was scattered here and there for miles around. It was a desolate place, in truth ; not a house nor a human being was in sight. The old grey stone farm house stood among its hayricks, looking over at the old grey church, and the old grey church stood among its tombstones, looking back at the farm, as they had done for three hundred years. And around them were the desolate, bleak, wind-swept downs, rising and falling like the billows of a mighty sea, and beyond them the waves beat everlastingly against the inhospitable coast. A dog barked as the girl let the gate fall back against the solid granite post ; the sound seemed, if possible, to intensify the stillness of the evening, and she shivered again as she went on into the house and along the tiled passage to the large kitchen, with its oaken roof and brick floor.

Here, at least, was cheerfulness. A bright blaze from the open grate shone upon copper pots and pans, and a largeframed woman of fifty, with a determined face, looked up from the table, where she was kneading dough, her red arms whitened with flour, and a gleam of temper in her cold, grey eyes. " So you've come back, have you ? " she said. " Pete ate half the candied peel, an' broke the new cream dish. Next time I send 'ee to town shoppin', I'll thank 'ee to bring the things back yoursel', 'stead o' trustin' a softy. I dessay you think you are too fine to be useful, because you are Paul Thome's daughter. But ministers who forget that ' charity begins at home,' an' feed their flocks at the expense of their children, can't expect other folks to keep 'em a-playing on the parlour piano. Blood's thicker than water, I say, although your mother married a gentleman, an' turned her back on her family ; an' when you was left a pauper, we didn't forget — my son, James, an' me — that you was sister Emily's child.

An' what thanks do we get ? " she asked shrilly. " Fine lady airs ! Let them as has the money have the airs, that's what I say ! An' let them that's paupers go down on their knees in gratitude for what's offered 'em ! " The girl stood pale and mute under the tirade ; she had heard it all before ; she knew the real grievance it coarsely veiled. The boy Pete slunk out of the door, frightened at the raised voice. A big, thick-set man of thirty, with coarse features and a heavy jaw, who was cleaning a gun by the fading light at the window, interposed sharply. "That'll do, mother. Let the girl alone. You're always at her." " You needn't complain," retorted the woman. "Who am I standin' up for, I should like to know ? " " I tell 'ee I won't have it ! " said Jim Hendra, bringing his great fist down like a hammer on the window-sill.

" I'm master at St. Cadix, an' / won't have it. I can stand up for mysel'." " You're a fool ! " replied Mrs. Hendra, with a compression of her thin lips. " I've no patience with 'ee!" " That's as it may be," muttered her son sulkily. He bent over the gun again ; Mrs. Hendra went on mixing her cake tempestuously ; Paula stole upstairs to her bare little room, and took off her hat, and washed her hands, and smoothed her hair. It was getting dark by this time, and she had no light ; but she did not go down again. Her days were passed in taking refuge from the sharp tongue of the mother, the even more terrible kindness of the son. It was this avoidance, she knew, which rankled in her aunt's breast, for she was not lazy ; Mrs. Hendra could not justly complain of her in this respect. But she was not one of themselves ; she could not conceal her distaste for this man, who smoked his strong tobacco in her face and sat down to table Ln boots reeking of the farmyard.

The mother was hard, but she was not a man, and the girl shrank from the son, who never spoke a rough word to her, with an instinctive, uncontrollable terror, which no harshness of her aunt's could excite. And Mrs. Hendra saw and resented it, bitterly, passionately, unremittingly, fighting for her own with tooth and nail, as it was in her fierce nature to do. Paula sat on the edge of the bed in the dark, as she had sat on the rock by the sea, glaring into the night like some wild thing caught in a snare. Once or twice her breast heaved, and tears welled over and ran down her cheeks. She made no sound. There was Italian blood in her veins, besides that slower stream which allied her to the Hendras, and perhaps it was these conflicting currents that made her what she was, which gave the fascination of the unusual to her beauty, the anomalous flash and softness to her eyes, the supple slimness to her limbs.

She coiled as gracefully as a serpent, and her heart was a woman's, and her white soul as spotless as a child's. When the gong sounded she went down into the lamp-lit parlour, and took her place silently at the supper-table. Mrs. Hendra, who was cutting bread and butter, glanced at her resentfully, as though about to speak, but changed her mind, and snapped her lips like a trap. Pete hastened to pass her the jug of cider ; it was his way of showing sympathy, and he saw she was in trouble. His mother, the virile daughter of a virile race, was ashamed of the sickly, foolish lad ; his elder brother scoffed at and ill-used him, finding the amusement of brute strength in tormenting a weaker. Paula alone was kind to the boy, and pitied him, and from the day she came to St. Cadix Pete had shown her the passionate attachment of a dog.

"Will 'ee have mutton or pie, Paula?" asked Hendra, flourishing the carving-knife. " I won't have either, thank you, Jim," she answered. " I'm not hungry to-night. I only want some bread and butter." " You've been crying. Mother, once again, I won't have it ! " Mrs. Hendra laughed, " Oh, it wasn' me that made her cry ! I don't flatter mysel'." " I'm blest if I know what you mean ! " he grumbled, with a note of passion, as though he would convince himself. " Who else said a word to her ? " " She knows what I mean," sneered Mrs. Hendra. " Ask her, if you can't guess." Paula felt his eyes on her again, but she would not look up to meet them, and her cheeks went hot, and then cold again. What a miserable meal it was ! She always dreaded meal-time, but this particular supper seemed endless. Every mouthful she ate stuck in her throat, and seemed to come near choking her.

All day her nerves had been on the rack, for sundry indications had warned her that a crisis was at hand — an event which she had watched grow nearer and nearer, with her heart beating wildly, and fear sapping the young life in her limbs. When at last the table was cleared, she knew that her suspicion was right. Mrs. Hendra sent Pete to the kitchen on an errand, and then followed him herself. Paula was left alone with her cousin Jim. Only to escape, to get away from him, to postpone, if it were but for a few hours ! In the one craving instinct of flight, the girl threw down her work, and rose. He stopped her. " Sit down, Paula ; I want to talk to 'ee." She sank into her chair again, helpless, mute, inert. Hendra crossed the room, and sat down on the table by her side. There could have been no greater contrast than these two — the man with his massive figure and coarse, ruddy skin ; the girl, slender, refined, dainty even in her cheap black dress.

" I think you know what I am going to say to you," he added. " I love you, Paula. I want you to marry me." He was very close to her ; she could feel his breath on her cheek. She dare not move her chair, but she shrank from him perceptibly, and bowed her head, and her fingers twined within each other, writhing, in her lap. " I can't Jim," she said, with a little jerk. " It's very kind of you to ask me, but I can't." The man's hand gripped the table edge ; she heard the wood creak " What do 'ee mean by ' can't ' ? " he asked hoarsely. " I don't love you. You have been very good to me ; you have given me a home, and — I am very grateful. But I— I— can't— pay— like— that." " You must ! " he said, and he leant over her suddenly, and grasped her shoulders. " Look at me ! Do 'ee hear? Don't turn your eyes away, as if I was a toad !

Look up ! " She obeyed, and his eyes blazed into hers. " You must marry me ! Do you think I shall take ' No ' for an answer ? I want you. I made up my mind to have you before you had been here a week, an' you'll have to give in. I dessay you think I'm not good enough for you, but you are not in a position to choose. You've no one else to go to ; you've got no money, an' you weren't brought up to help yoursel'. I've got the upper hand, and I'm not such a fool as my mother says. I won't have her naggin' 'ee, but I will have my own way. I tell you again, you must!" The colour had faded from her very lips ; her hands were cold ; there was no strength in her to move, scarcely to speak. " You can't force me to marry you," she whispered. " I can turn you out," he said, " to starve ! Come to the window.

Look ! " He half lifted, half dragged her to her leet, and tore open the shutters. The weather had changed since a few hours ago, when she was sitting on the rocks. The sky had clouded, and the wind risen with the moon, and now gusts were shaking the apple trees, and shrieking in the chimneys, heavy raindrops were spattering the old-fashioned leaded panes, and great, ragged, black clouds chasing each other across the sky. " How do you like the looks of it ? " asked Hendra harshly. " Who's to prevent me bundlin' you out as you are, an' barrin' the door in your face ? " The girl shivered and moaned. " You wouldn't do it, Jim ! No, no, you couldn't be so cruel ! " She turned to the passionate brute and begged of him, with clinging hands and terror-stricken face — inflaming him the more, unconsciously, because she looked so beautiful in her grief.

"You won't press me. Say you'll let me be ! It would be wicked — the wickedest thing a man ever did. Jim, oh, Jim ! " " As God hears me," he swore, " I'll turn you out into that rain if you don't promise to marry me in a month ! Talking's no use ; save your breath. I tell 'ee I've made up my mind. Promise ! " She had some spirit. " No ! " she said, between her teeth. " I hate you I would rather starve!" Hendra's face by this time was almost as bloodless as hers. Her visible disgust of him drove him frantic. The man was in a white heat of rage and excitement, and baffled desire ; perhaps, in a cooler moment, he would not have gone the length of taking such an oath ; it was a poor excuse, and the only one for what he did. He was as strong as a horse. He took Paula in his arms bodily, and strode down the passage with her, and flung open the door in the teeth of the wind and rain.

" Go, then ! " he cried thickly. " Go ! On your own head be it ! " and thrust her out. It was a wild night, and all round her lay the wet, lonely downs, and the sky, and the sea. Through a rift in the clouds fell a ray of pale moonlight, and it whitened the mouldering lichen-grown church, and the tombstones in the grass, and accentuated the desolation. It was at least three miles to Treneglos town, and a mile or more to the nearest house. And even if she knocked, who would let her in ? The wind and rain and darkness struck cold terror to the girl's soul. Her courage failed her. Perhaps she had hoped, despite her knowledge of him, that he would not be such an utter brute. She came back a step, and held out her hands to him, and spoke his name with a wail of despair. "Jim!" He stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the light.

" What does that mean ? " " I'll marry you. Oh, take me in ! " He came to her, and lifted her over the threshold, and her head fell back upon his shoulder, and her eyes closed. He kissed her on the mouth as she lay unconscious in his arms, and put her on the parlour sofa, and called his mother. " Come to Paula," he said. " She has fainted. It's all right. We are to be married this day month."

Chapter II

If the night of her betrothal were like a nightmare in its hideous unreality, the next morning, when she awoke out of the sleep of exhaustion to memory, was no less terrible. Her fear and loathing of this man who was to be her husband had culminated now ; she could not breathe freely in his presence, she was in constant dread that he would want to kiss her, his very touch made her feel sick. And she would have to live all her life with him ! She was only twenty two ; in the ordinary course of nature she had fifty years to pass by his side in this desolate farm among the downs, with the sheep and kine for company, the gales for music, the churchyard for a reminder that only there she could find release. There was to be no honeymoon, Hendra could not leave the farm, and no wedding-guests. He would bring his bride straight home, and the four would jog on in the old monotonous fashion, except that she would be his wife, and that perhaps his mother would be kinder to her now that she had given way.

The walls of the house stifled her. She could not face the maids, knowing they would notice her heavy eyes, and whisper among themselves ; she panted to be alone in the open air, to feel the breath of heaven on her face. " Can you spare me this morning ? " she asked her aunt. " My head aches. I should like to go out." " Oh, you can go," said Mrs. Hendra ungraciously. It is probable that her son had told her the story of his conquest, and had bidden her not to refer to it in Paula's hearing, for, although there was no softening in her manner towards the girl, it was evident that she was forcing herself to some show of consideration. Paula put on her hat, and went out. It was a grey, airless day, after the rain, and the prospect looked scarcely less desolate, if less wild, than on the previous night.

The long grass in the churchyard lay dank and still ; the sheep, branded with a big red " H.," dotted the dull hills with white ; a raven, flapping inky wings, settled on the porch of the church. " I shall be married in that church," thought Paula. The household at St. Cadix attended there every Sunday, and she knew the inside of it well enough ; but a grim fascination drew the girl now through the paintless gate, up the path, to the porch. It seemed a suitable edifice for such a marriage as hers. The parish was scattered, the living poor, and the church might have stood for an emblem of deser tion and decay. Ferns sprouted high up the damp walls, the windows were dirty and broken, the roof gaped and showered plaster on the crumbling oak of the high old pews. Here and there a brass tablet, green with damp, or an emblazoned coat-of-arms, the colours faded and half effaced, showed that, once upon a time, St. Cadix had known great families ; but now the Hendras, of the farm, were probably as well to do as any members of the scanty flock.

Ruin, damp, desolation ; the cold smell of it struck a chill to the girl's anguished soul ; her eyes distended suddenly, her hands clenched. A gasping sob heaved her breast. " I wish I were dead ! " she cried. " I wish I were dead ! " " You shouldn't say that at your age." A man was sitting behind a pillar, with a pencil and sketchbook in his hand. He had been so quiet that she had not noticed him before. Now he was looking up at her with an expression half com passionate, half humorous — a man of, perhaps, thirty five, neither fair nor dark, with a keen, handsome face, clean-shaven, the brow of intellect, the mouth of refinement and self-control, the voice of a gentle man, the ease of a man of the world. Paula had never seen him before ; he was probably a visitor from Treneglos, three miles away.

She coloured and hung her head. " I didn't know any one was here," she stammered. " I — I beg your pardon," and turned towards the door. " Pray don't let me drive you away," he said courteously. "It was inconsiderate, rude of me to startle you like that." " Thank you," she answered, shivering. " I don't want to stay. It's like a vault ! " The raven still perched on the porch when she came out again, pruning its black plumage, like an omen of evil, just over the old sundial. " Watch and pray — time hastes away." The motto and the grim bird impressed the girl's imagination at once ; they seemed to her like an embodied curse — the symbol of her approaching marriage. The man inside the church had left off sketching the aisle to transfer to paper the outline of a girl's face. When he had worked for a minute or two he tore out the page and destroyed it.

" The pencil of a Whistler could not do her justice," he said, "and I am not a Whistler, only an overworked Londoner, in search of health and rest. I never saw such a face in my life. Who is she, I wonder ? Where does she live ? " " Watch and pray — time hastes away." The raven had flown off by now, the stranger gone his way, Paula was at home again ; the old sundial stared at the meeting of sky and downs, changeless, immovable, though generations came, and sorrowed, and passed away, with the message of man's doom on its timeworn face. Before the night of the storm the days had dragged along slowly at St. Cadix ; now, to Paula, they seemed to fly, because she would have held them back. As an accepted lover, Jim Hendra was terrible enough ; as a husband, she dare not think of him, lest she should be tempted to fling the life God gave her from the cliffs to the sea.

The man scarcely opened his lips, or stirred, without disgusting her ; she dreaded to see him enter the door. To do justice to him and the woman who was her mother's kin, it was probable they had no idea how repulsive he seemed to her, and thought her aversion a girlish fancy, which time would overcome. He was a prosperous and well set-up young fellow ; St. Cadix was a comfortable home, where there was no stint of good food and drink. What more could a sensible woman ask for ? Moreover, he meant to be kind to her, now he had obtained his way ; he paid her attentions of a kind. What he could not understand was that they were of a different species ; that she had no more in common with him than if she had been born on another planet ; that her ways were not his ways, and that habits and customs, which were a matter of course to him, made her delicate flesh creep.

But she had given her word, and there was no escape, and the weeks passed by. Violent fits of weeping shook the girl at first ; by and by, however, she settled down into the dull apathy of despair, and never laughed and scarcely spoke. The lad, Pete, was the only member of the household who sym pathised with her ; he used to follow her about wist fully, and fondle her hand, and perhaps the Providence which made him a child when he was grown gave him the child's gentleness and power to please, for he was never offensive to Paula as his brother was ; he was the one person at St. Cadix for whom she felt the tie of blood. The affection between her and the boy did not please Jim ; she knew that. He said nothing, but he would watch them together with lowering brows and lurid eyes. He was a passionate man.

One day he caught the lad by the collar, and flung him across the room. " You are always worryin' Paula," he said. " She don't want you. Take yoursel' off." Paula's pale cheeks flamed at the injustice, and her crushed spirit woke again. " You coward ! " she flashed. " You are always ill-treating the boy ! He does no harm. I am fond of him ! " "Yes, fonder of him than you are of me," said Hendra. "Why should I deny it?" she replied. "You know I loathe you." Hendra said nothing ; it was not his way ; but he turned savagely on his brother, and struck him a blow across the face, so that the weakly lad reeled against the door. " I should like to kill you, you big brute ! " he shrieked, livid with hate and rage. " You keep out of my sight for a while," muttered Jim stormily, " or it'll be the worse for you."

Paula stood white and silent and contemptuous, quivering with a mixture of emotions, in which fear at the moment took no part. The man raised his eyes to her face, half sullenly, half sheepishly ; perhaps he was a little ashamed of his childish outburst. "Why don't you say something?" he asked at last. " It's on the tip of your tongue. Have it out. I don't care ! " " I wonder if you'll beat me," she said, " when we are married." " By God, you'll make me feel inclined to do it now," he cried, " if you look at me like that ! " He flung out his hand in sudden entreaty. " Paula, Paula, why will 'ee never give me a fair word ! I love you, an' you drive me to make a beast of mysel' before you." " You love me ! " she repeated, with a little low laugh, an indescribable intonation of scorn, and turned away.

Anger and indignation at his treatment of the lad had ousted personal fear, and raised her briefly to that mental exaltation which comes at times to women with highly-strung temperaments such as hers. She could have walked to the stake just then without a sound. This is only a sample of the amenities of her relationship to Hendra ; such scenes took place every day. Sometimes her tact saved Pete from his brother's temper ; more often her interference was in vain. Her heart ached for the wretched boy, whose trivial faults and mistakes were made the excuse for savage brutality, almost as much as for herself ; but she had to look on and steel herself — she would have to see it all her life. And meanwhile the weeks flew round, and the wedding drew near. It came at last — this day she dreaded as the con demned wretch in his cell dreads the hangman's rope ; dawned with a moaning of wind and dismal, dripping skies — a fit accompaniment to such a marriage.

The family had an early breakfast together as usual, and then, at ten o'clock, the Rev. Arthur Noble rode up on his ancient cob, and the party, accompanied by a few of the farm hands and the maids, walked over to the church, with umbrellas spread. The mind in tension is curiously observant of small things ; in after years Paula could always remember that there was a pool of water in the aisle where a slate was off the roof, and that she felt so cold, so very cold, in her home-made white dress, although it was July. When she wrote her maiden name, too, for the last time in the mouldering vestry, a flake of plaster fell from the roof and smudged the words as though with a tear. But her eyes were dry ; she had never felt less like crying in her life. She was frozen, numbed. She drank wine afterwards in the best parlour, and crumbled a piece of wedding-cake, and it might have been ashes in her mouth.

The Rev. Arthur Noble partook of some refresh ment after his damp ride, congratulated the new-made pair with singular infelicity and short-sightedness, and then mounted his pony and ambled away. " I'm glad it's over," said Hendra. " I hate cere monies ! " His wife said nothing. She was looking out of the window and across the road with a hungry expression at the tombstones in the grass. "You'd better change your dress," observed Mrs. Hendra, who was an economical woman. " Every spot marks that white meriner. It'll serve 'ee for Sundays all through the summer if you are careful of it." " Hang her dress ! " retorted Jim. " If she spoils it I suppose I can afford to buy her another ? I am not a beggar ! " Mrs. Hendra shrugged her shoulders and went out of the room, carrying the tray of wine and cake with her.