Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August, 1880. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
exclaimed Eve, flaming up with indignation and entirely forgetting that but a little time before she had held an exactly similar opinion, "do you forget that you're speaking of my own father's blood-relations—people who're called by the same name I am?"
"No, I don't forget it, Eve; and I don't forget, neither, that if I didn't think that down here you would soon become ruined, body and soul, I'd rather cut my tongue out than it should give utterance to a word that could cause you pain. You speak of your father, but think of your mother, Eve—think if she could rise up before you could you ask her blessing on what you're going to do?"
Eve's face quivered with emotion, and Reuben, seizing his advantage, continued: "Perhaps you think I'm saying this because I'm wanting you for myself, but, as God will judge us, 'tisn't that that's making me speak, Eve;" and he held out his hand toward her. "You've known me for many a long year now—my heart's been laid more bare to you than to any living creature: do you believe what I'm saying to you?"
"Yes, Reuben, I do," she answered firmly, though the tears, no longer restrained, came streaming from her eyes; "and you must also believe what I say to you—that my cousin is a man as honest and upright as yourself, that he wouldn't defraud any one of the value of a pin's point, nor take a thing that he didn't think himself he'd got a proper right to."
"Good God, Eve! is it possible that you can speak like this of one who gets his living by smuggling?" and a spasm of positive agony passed over Reuben's face as he tried to realize the change of thought and feeling which could induce a calm defence of such iniquity. "What's the difference whether a man robs me or he robs the king? Isn't he stealing just the same?"
"No, certainly not," said Eve, quickly. "I can't explain it all to you, but I know this—that what they bring over they buy and pay for, and certainly, therefore, have some right to."
"Have a right to?" repeated Reuben. "Well, that's good! So men have a right to smuggle, have they? and smuggling isn't stealing? Come! I should just like this cousin of yours to give me half an hour of his company to argue out that matter in."
"My cousin isn't at home," said Eve, filled with a sudden horror of what might be expected from an argument between two such tempers as Reuben and Adam possessed. "And if you've only come here to argue, whether 'tis with me or with them, Reuben, 'tis a waste of time that'll do no good to you nor any of us."
Reuben did not speak. He stood and for a few moments looked fixedly at her: then he turned away and hid his face in his hands. The sudden change from anger to sorrow came upon Eve unexpectedly: anything like a display of emotion was so foreign to Reuben that she could not help being affected by it, and after a minute's struggle with herself she laid her hand on his arm, saying gently, "Reuben, don't let me think you've come all this long way only to quarrel and say bitter things to me: let me believe 'tis as you said—because you weren't satisfied, and felt, for mother's sake, you wanted to be a friend to me still. I feel now as if I ought to have told you when I wrote that I was going to marry my cousin Adam, but I didn't do it because I thought you'd write to me, and then 'twould be easier to speak; and when you didn't take no notice I thought you meant to let me go altogether, and I can't tell you how hurt I felt. I couldn't help saying to myself over and over again (though I was so angry with you I didn't know what to do), 'I shall never have another such friend as Reuben—never.'"
Eve's words had their effect, and when Reuben turned his pale face to her again his whole mood was softened. "'Tis to be the same friend I always was that I've come, Eve," he said; "only you know me, and how I can never keep from blurting out all at once things that I ought to bring round bit by bit, so that they might do good and not give offence."
"You haven't offended me yet," she said—"at least," she added, smiling in her old way at him, "not beyond what I can look over; and so far as I can and it will ease your mind, Reuben, I'll try to tell you all you care to know about uncle and—the rest of them. I'm sure if you knew them you'd like them: you couldn't help it—more particularly Joan and Adam, if you once saw those two."
"And why can't I see them, Eve? It wouldn't seem so very strange, being your friend—for that's all I claim to be—going there to see you, would it?"
"No, I don't know that it would; only," and here she hesitated, "whatever you saw that you didn't like, Reuben, you'd only speak to me about. You wouldn't begin arguing with them, would you?"
Reuben shook his head. Then with a sudden impulse, he said, "And have you really given all your love to this man, Eve?"
"Yes," she said, not averting her eyes, although her face was covered with a quick blush.
"And whatever comes you mean to be his wife?"
"I don't mean to be anybody else's wife," she said.
"And he—he cares for you?"
"If he didn't be sure I should have never cared for him."
Reuben sighed. "Well," he said, "I'll go and see him. I'll have a talk with him, and try and find out what sort of stuff he's made of. If I could go away certain that things ain't as bad as I feared to find them, I should take back a lighter heart with me. You say he isn't home now. Is he at sea, then?"
"No, not at sea: he's close by."
"Then you expect him back soon?"
"Yes: we expect him back to-night."
"To-night? Then I think I'll change my plan. I meant to go back to Plymouth and see what Triggs is about to do, for I'm going round to London with him when he goes; but if you're expecting your cousin so soon, why shouldn't I stop here till I've seen him?"
"Oh, but he mightn't come," said Eve, who in any case had no wish that Reuben should appear until she had paved the way for his reception, and above all things desired his absence on this particular occasion.
"Well, I must take my chance of that—unless," he added, catching sight of her face, "there's any reason against my stopping?"
Eve colored. "Well," she said, "perhaps they mightn't care, as they don't know you, about your being here. You see," she added by way of excuse, "they have been away a long while now."
"Been to France, I s'pose?" said Reuben in a tone which conveyed his suspicions.
"No," replied Eve, determined not to seem ashamed of their occupation: "I think they've been to Guernsey."
"Oh, well, all the same, so far as what they went to fetch. Then they're going to try and land their cargo, I s'pose?"
"I don't know what they may be going to try and do"—and Eve endeavored to imitate the sneer with which Reuben had emphasized the word—"but I know that trying with them means doing. There's nobody about here," she added with a borrowed spice of Joan's manner, "would care to put themselves in the way of trying to hinder the Lottery."
"'Tis strange, then, that they shouldn't choose to come in open daylight, rather than be sneaking in under cover of a dark night," said Reuben aggravatingly.
"As it happens," retorted Eve, with an assumption of superior nautical knowledge, "the dark night suits them best, by reason that at high tide they can come in close to Down End. Oh, you needn't try to think you can hurt me by your sneers at them," she said, inwardly smarting under the contempt she knew Reuben felt. "I feel hurt at your wanting to say such things, but not at all at what you say. That can't touch me."
"No, so I see," said Reuben hopelessly. Then, after a minute's pause, he burst out with a passionate, "Oh, Eve, I feel as if I could take and jump into the sea with you, so as I might feel you'd be safe from the life I'm certain you're goin' to be dragged down to. You may think fair now of this man, because he's only showed you his fair side; but they who know him know him for what he is—bloodthirsty, violent, a drunkard, never sober, with his neck in a noose and the gallows swinging over his head. What hold will you have over one who fears neither God nor devil? Yes, but I will speak. You shall listen to the truth from me," for she had tried to interrupt him. "It isn't too late, and 'tis but fit that you know what others say of him."
Eve's anger had risen until she seemed turned into a fury, and her voice, usually low and full, now sounded hard and sharp as she cried, "If they said a hundred times worse of him I would still marry him; and if he stood on