Chapter VII: ‘where Is Thy Brother?’

‘Father,’ said Naomi at supper-time, ‘Captain Pentreath has come home, and wants to see you to-morrow.’

‘Captain Pentreath!’ echoed Joshua, staring at her blankly; ‘who’s he?’

‘Oswald’s brother.’

‘O, Arnold, the younger son, the boy who ran away to sea? He’s come home, has he, to take possession of the estate? That’s a good thing.’

‘Not to take possession, father; to take care of the old place, perhaps. He has no right to take possession in his brother’s lifetime.’

‘Not unless he had stayed away seven years without being heard of,’ interjected Jim, the English mind having a firm grip upon this idea of seven years.

‘Why should any one suppose him dead?’ asked Naomi, with a look that was half indignant, half apprehensive; ‘he has only been away a little more than six months. His brother has come home to look for him. He is determined to find him.’

‘What’s the use of looking for him at Combhaven, when everybody knows he’s gone to America?’ cried Jim.

‘I mean that Captain Pentreath is going to find out all about his brother--when and how he left England.’

‘Poor worm!’ exclaimed Joshua, with lofty scorn. ‘His brother’s fate is in the hands of God. As if he could make or mend it!’

‘But he has a right to know, father, and it is natural he should be anxious.’

‘That shows he belongs to the unregenerate,’ said Jim, glad to have a fling at the creed which had been forced upon him before he was able to form his own estimate of its merits, like vaccination. ‘If he were sure of his own election, he needn’t care a toss what became of his brother--’

‘In time, perhaps not,’ said Joshua, with an awful look; ‘but how dreadful to know him lost in eternity! Better to remain for ever ignorant of the fate of those we love than to be sure of their condemnation.’

‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’ said Naomi, for the first time in her life daring to lift up her voice against her father. ‘Who can be sure of another’s condemnation? It is blasphemy to say such a thing.’

‘What new Daniel is this?’ exclaimed Joshua scornfully. ‘Is my daughter going to be my teacher? I tell you, Naomi, there are some sins which cannot be repented of. There is a guiltiness which seals the sinner’s doom, and sends him self-convicted to receive his Maker’s sentence.’

‘I have no fear that Oswald would be such a sinner,’ answered Naomi, meeting her father’s dark look with defiant eyes. ‘Weak, erring, led astray by one more erring than himself--yes, he might be these; but not a deliberate offender, not obstinately guilty.’

What was this new feeling which made her talk to her father as if she was arguing with an adversary? She felt a thrill of horror at her own audacity. But she was not mistress of herself when her father spoke harsh words of Oswald Pentreath. Reason grew clouded and the voice of passion cried aloud in defence of her lost lover. He was weak, and she would not let the strong man spurn him. He was absent, and she would not hear him condemned.

Cynthia sat silent, and heard them talk of the man who had loved her too well, whose only sin was to have let his heart go out to her as a young bird flies from its nest into the glad new world. He had loved her, and that love had darkened his life. She could see him looking down at her, as on that last day, passion-pale breathing his eternal farewell. What a dream it had been--so fair, so sweet, so unreal! She had suffered herself to be beloved, and to love again, and in this dreaming half-unconscious state had tasted an ineffable happiness. She did not regret this lost dream-world; she would not have recalled its vanished sweetness; she was honestly repentant of her sin against the husband she honoured; but the past was ineffaceable--a part of her being.

‘I cannot but remember such things were
That were most precious to me.’

Though full of anxious thoughts, Arnold Pentreath brought brightness and pleasant days to the old Grange and all who came within his influence. His candid intelligent face, the frank heartiness of his manners, with just a dash of the seaman’s bluntness, and that firm straightforwardness which comes from the habit of commanding others and restraining oneself--all these things gave him immediate mastery over the simple folks at Combhaven. The old servants worshipped him. In boyhood he had been the more daring and mischievous of the two brothers, and naturally the more popular. He had defied his old father, and had won golden opinions from the household by his juvenile mutinies. He came back a man, broad-shouldered and strongly built, bronzed by tropical suns and hard weather, but all the handsomer, in the eyes of a sea-loving population, for his sunburnt cheek and the stubborn crispness of his hair. He was fonder of his fellow-men than Oswald had been, and, instead of dreaming over _Childe Harold_ in Pentreath Wood, was out and about all day, tramping along the lanes, making acquaintance with every hind who worked upon his land, tossing cottage children in his strong arms, with a kindly word for every one he met.

He had not been three days at the Grange before the fact of his return was known far and wide, and brought all manner of applicants to the old house to ask favours which no agent would grant. He heard all complaints with an equable good-nature, and lent his attention to the smallest detail: the slates blown off the homestead in ‘they high winds--now do ’ee see what ’ee can do for us, Squire.’ The granary thatch which had ‘cotched fire’ in such a mysterious way after last midsummer’s thunderstorm, that old Farmer Westall was firmly convinced it was the work of Nancy Dowben, the witch.

‘For she be a witch, Squire,’ said the farmer, ‘that’s well beknownst. And I do say as it ain’t right a spiteful old ’ooman like she should be allowed to have the handling of forked lightning.’

‘Well, farmer, if it was witchcraft fired the barn, you can’t expect me to pay for new thatching it?’ argued Arnold.

‘But look ’ee now, Squire. It was the ould gentleman, your feyther, brought it on us. All they witches bore an evil eye towards him. He were so hard upon ’em, and that screwy, never a drop of milk or a fagot to give ’em.’

‘Wasn’t it you, now, that refused old Nancy the fagots, Farmer Westall?’ suggested Arnold.

‘Well, now, you’re a bit of a conjuror yourself, Squire. There was one day as the ould ’ooman come for some wood to bile her kittle, and I wasn’t in the best of tempers, for our ould sow had etten up seven pegs, and I thowt it was some o’ Nancy’s work; so I calls out, “Now jist look yere, Nancy; you had a fagot yesterday, and another the day afore that, and I didn’t make that stack o’ wood o’ purpose for you, old lady.” So she gives a sniff and a grunt, and off she goes; and it wasn’t a week from that when the lightning caught the thatch of my biggest barn. And I’m a man with a long fambly, Squire, and I’ve had the roof covered up anyhow some old boards and a bit of tarpaulin ever since, because Bill Stowell, the thatcher, asks a mort o’ money before he’ll make a good job of it.’

‘We’ll see what can be done, farmer. Perhaps I might go halves in the expense, if the barn was roofed in to my satisfaction. I’m only a steward, you see--a kind of deputy for my brother.’

Farmer Westall sighed and looked glum. Old Nicholas, the butler, had infected most of his acquaintance with his own dismal ideas about the absent lord of the manor. It was a general opinion that the vessel in which Oswald had sailed for America had gone to the bottom.

‘There are some folks that’ll never get no luck out o’ the sea,’ said the voice of public opinion as represented by the fishermen of Combhaven. ‘Remember that storm, and the way the Dolphin went to pieces. The two sailors was saved easy enough, but the Squire would have been drownded or knocked to pieces on they rocks but for Joshua Haggard. And what were the use of saving him? He never did no good to the Haggards; and here he is gone down to the bottom, as sure as fate. It was what were meant from the fust, and there’s never no good in flying in the face of Providence. You may save a ship’s cargo--that’s man’s business--and an honest way of purvidin’ for a fambly; but they as is aboard the ship is in the care o’ Providence, and it’s clean blasphemy to risk your life in fishing of ’em out of the water!’

Captain Pentreath had exhausted his resources, and had found no clue to his brother’s proceedings after that August noontide in which he had left the Grange, with the avowed intention of going to Exeter--on his way to London--by the evening coach. Arnold had gone back to London, and had seen the solicitor again, and had made his inquiries in every likely and unlikely direction, but he had learned nothing. The London lawyer did not know the name of the vessel in which Oswald had booked his passage to New York. His client had told him nothing, except that he had made up his mind to go to America, and that he wanted his affairs administered in his absence. The household at the Grange was to suffer no alteration, and when Arnold came he was to be master.

‘Until your return!’ the lawyer had said to him.

‘My return is an event of the remote future,’ Oswald had replied; ‘I may never return.’

Arnold went to Liverpool, and the result of his researches there convinced him that Oswald had not left that port in any vessel bound for America, unless he had sailed under an assumed name. From Liverpool he went to Cork--from Cork he went by water to Bristol--from Bristol westward to Plymouth; and the most searching inquiries at these places resulted as his inquiries had resulted at Liverpool. There was no trace of Oswald Pentreath’s passage to America to be found in any shipping office. He went back to the Grange sorely depressed, for his brother’s fate was beginning to assume a hue of mystery which gave room for the darkest fears.

His conversation with Joshua Haggard had told him nothing more than he had already learned from Naomi. The minister had received him with a chilling reserve. The frank outspoken sailor wondered that his brother could have written to him so warmly in praise of such a man.

He called on Joshua again on the day after his return from his round of inquiry.

‘This is a bad business, Mr. Haggard,’ he began, plunging at once into the subject nearest his heart; ‘I have found out enough to feel very sure that my brother has not gone to America.’

Joshua’s grave countenance betrayed no surprise. ‘Why, the fellow is not a man but a machine!’ Arnold thought indignantly.

‘You don’t seem to understand what a serious question this is,’ said Arnold. ‘If my brother did not go to America last August, what has become of him?’

‘That is a question which I cannot be expected to answer, Captain Pentreath. We are all in God’s hands. In life or in death He deals with us as seemeth best to Him. He may have appointed your brother for an evil end. You had best be content to leave all to Him.’

‘Do you mean that if my brother has come to an evil end I am to let his murderer go scot-free?’ cried Arnold indignantly. ‘Do you think that I shall fold my hands and wait for Providence to avenge my brother? Why, if I did, God would have the right to ask of me as he did of Cain, “Where is thy brother?” You do not know how dearly we two loved each other, Mr. Haggard.’

‘“Vengeance is mine; I will repay,”’ quoted Joshua solemnly; ‘be sure that if your brother has been murdered, an idea I do not for a moment entertain, his assassin has suffered or will suffer as heavy a punishment as any vengeance of yours could inflict.’

‘May God make conscience an undying worm to feed upon his soul!’ said Arnold. ‘But it shall be my business to bring his body to the gallows.’

Joshua heard him in silence. He sat with folded hands, and a countenance as mysterious in its solemn thoughtfulness as the head of Memnon.

‘Come, Mr. Haggard, you must be able to give me some help in this matter, if you choose,’ urged Arnold passionately; ‘my brother was your daughter’s lover--her affianced husband, till you, for some motive of your own, forbade their marriage. There is a story underlying that act of yours--a story that might cast some light upon my poor brother’s fate. You must have had strong reasons for such a step. A man of your principles would hardly be governed by caprice. Tell me honestly what that reason was. Remember I have a right to ask.’

‘I can give you no details upon that point,’ answered Joshua, after some moments of profound thought, ‘but I will tell you broadly that I had reason to disapprove of your brother’s conduct in relation to another woman. I had reason to know that his heart had gone away from my daughter. He would have kept his promise, and married her, and would have believed that he was acting as a man of honour; but he would have lied at God’s altar, and his marriage would have offended Heaven.’

‘You believe that my brother’s heart had gone astray?’

‘I know it.’

‘Then, for Heaven’s sake, tell me all you know. This love-affair may throw light upon his after conduct--may give us the clue to his present whereabouts. There would be a false delicacy--an absolute cruelty--in hiding anything from me--from me, his brother, who am distracted by the most hideous apprehensions.’

‘I can tell you nothing more,’ answered Joshua, with a stern resoluteness which chilled Arnold to the heart. ‘I am withholding no knowledge which could help you in the smallest degree. Your brother sinned--and is gone. You must be content to know no more than that.’

‘I will not be content!’ cried the sailor vehemently. ‘You are juggling with me--you, a preacher of God’s Word, who ought to be truthful as the day! But I forgot--the prophets were dark of speech, and God taught His chosen people by dreams and allegories, and you seek to imitate those mysterious ways. Have you no human pity--as a man and a Christian--for a brother’s grief for a lost brother? You could tell me something that would make this mystery clear; and you lock your lips, and abandon me to the agony of uncertainty. My brother respected, admired--nay, loved you, Mr. Haggard.’

This wrung a sigh from a breast which Arnold had deemed marble.

‘I tell you I am withholding nothing that could give you comfort,’ said Joshua, looking downward with gloomy brow. ‘I deplore your brother’s fate, and the mystery which surrounds it. Yet for your sake--for the sake of my daughter who loved him--I say, May the veil never be lifted!’

‘Why?’

‘Because I fear he came to a bad end.’

‘You must have some reason for that fear. You know something!’ exclaimed Arnold breathlessly.

‘I am guided by my knowledge of his character--of his condition of mind last summer.’

‘You think he destroyed himself?’

‘I do.’

Arnold bowed his face upon his clasped hands; his strong frame was shaken by the agony of that moment. To have stayed away from his brother all the days of his youth--to come home full of hope and pleasure--and to be told this! The cup was bitter.

When Arnold looked up, Joshua Haggard was gone.

He stayed in the empty room, looking out into the windy street--where one old woman was tightening a three-cornered shawl across her skinny shoulders--with eyes that saw not, and thinking over Joshua’s words.

What did they mean? How much, or how little? Was this idea of Oswald’s suicide a mere speculation on the minister’s part, or had he sound evidence on which to found his conclusions?

‘It is too bad of him to leave me in the dark,’ mused Arnold. ‘I have a right to know everything that can be said or thought about my brother. He is a hard-hearted scoundrel. These over-pious men are adamant. And yet he saved my brother’s life at the risk of his own. Oswald told me the story, and the fishermen here are never tired of talking about it. Don’t let me forget that. The man is better than his speech. And he tells me he is keeping nothing back. But to think that my brother took his own life--that he was wretched enough to find the coward’s last release from difficulty! I will not believe it.’

He rose to depart; but before he got to the door, Naomi came in, and they stood face to face, both startled, both agitated by this sudden meeting, natural as it was.

‘O Naomi, I want you,’ cried the sailor, taking both her hands, and looking into the pale face with beseeching earnestness. ‘I want you to advise, to comfort, to enlighten me. I have been talking to your father, and he has almost broken my heart. Tell me, for pity’s sake, the truth, dear, as sister to brother. Say that you do not believe Oswald killed himself.’

‘Killed himself?’ she echoed, growing very white. ‘No. Who says so--who thinks so?’

‘Your father.’

‘My father says that--my father believes that?’

‘Yes, dear. He told me so five minutes ago. Only say that you don’t believe it.’

‘I do not!’ she answered, with flashing eyes. ‘I know that he was unhappy, but I cannot believe--I will not believe--that he could be so weak--so guilty. No, there was no such thought in his mind. He had made his plans for beginning a new life; he had taken his passage for America.’

‘You know that from himself?’ cried Arnold eagerly.

Naomi bowed her head in assent.

‘God bless you, sister!’ said the sailor. ‘You have comforted me more than I can say. You knew him--you loved him.’

‘With all my heart and soul--too much for duty, or peace, or righteousness.’

‘And you think he really did go to America?’

Naomi’s troubled face took a still deeper shadow.

‘I know he meant to go.’

‘Yet it was strange that he should not have left by the coach, after telling Nicholas that he meant to go that way. Very strange that he should leave those trunks behind him after packing them.’

‘He may have changed his mind at the last. He was troubled in mind, and might be careless about things which people in an ordinary state of mind would consider important.’

‘True, my dear. How clearly you see everything! Yes, that was so. And he sailed from some small port, perhaps--or from the other side of the Channel, Havre or Brest. The fact that I cannot trace him signifies nothing. We will wait and hope, Naomi; hope for your husband and my brother’s return.’

‘For our brother’s return,’ answered Naomi, with a tender gravity. ‘He can never again be more to me than a brother: and to the end of my life I shall love him with a sister’s love.’

‘Poor fellow!’ said Arnold dreamily; ‘he threw away a jewel above all price when he lost you.’