Part 35 (1/2)
Above all things she desired to consult with Peter Benny. In this there was nothing surprising, for everyone in trouble went to Peter Benny.
He himself--honest man--had to admit that the number of confidences which came his way were, no doubt, extraordinary. He explained it on the simple ground that he wrote letters for seamen and made it a rule never to divulge their secrets. ”Not that anyone would dream of it,” he added; ”but my secrecy, happening to be professional, gets its credit advertised.”
It appeared that these professional duties were heavier than usual to-night. At any rate, when Hester reached the little cottage by the quayside, it was to find that he had made a hasty tea and departed for the office. In her urgency, after merely telling Mrs. Benny that she would be back in a few minutes, Hester ran down the court to the office, tapped hurriedly at the door, and pushed it open.
Within, with his back towards her, erect and naked to the waist under the rays of an oil lamp swinging from the beam, stood a young man. The light falling on his firm shoulders and the muscles along his spine showed the gleaming flesh tattooed with interwoven patterns, delicate as lacework; and in the midst, reaching from shoulder-blade to shoulder-blade, a bright blue tree with a cross above, and beneath it, the figures of Adam and Eve.
As she drew back, Mr. Benny, on the far side of the office, raised his eyes from a table over which he bent to dip a needle in a saucer of Indian ink; and at the same moment the young man under the lamp, suddenly aware of a visitor, faced about with a shy laugh. It was Tom Trevarthen.
Hester, with a short cry of dismay, backed into the darkness, shutting the door as she retreated. When Mr. Benny returned to supper he forbore from alluding to the incident until Hester--her trouble still unconfided--shook hands with him for the night.
”I've heard,” he said, ”folks laugh at sailors for tattooing themselves.
But 'tis done in case they're drowned, that their bodies may be known; and, if you look at that, 'tis a sacrament surely.”
That night Hester awoke from a terrifying dream; and still, as she dreamed again, she saw a lash descending on a child's naked back, leaving at each stroke the mark of a cross interwoven with a strange and delicate pattern; and at each stroke heard a girl's voice which screamed, ”It is a sacrament!”
CHAPTER XXI.
MR. BENNY GETS PROMOTION.
Early next morning, having bound Mr. Benny to secrecy, she told him the whole story. At first his face merely expressed horror; but by and by his forehead lost its puckers. When she had done, his first comment took her fairly aback.
”Ay,” said he, ”I'd half guessed it a'ready. The poor creature's afflicted. It don't stand in nature for a man to deal around cruelty as he's been doing unless his brain is touched.”
”Afflicted is he?” Hester answered indignantly. ”I'm afraid I keep all my pity for those he afflicts.”
”Then you do wrong,” replied Mr. Benny, with much gravity. ”That man wants help if ever a man did.”
”He will get none from me, then,” she said, and flushed, remembering the proposal in her pocket. ”I won't endure the sight of him, after yesterday's work. I have written a letter resigning my teachers.h.i.+p.”
”That isn't like you, somehow.” Mr. Benny stood musing.
”Of course,” she went on hastily, ”I don't give my real reasons.
The letter is addressed to you as Clerk, and you will have to read it to the Board. I am ready to fill the post until another teacher can be found.”
”It seemed to me, some while ago, that Mr. Samuel had a fancy for you.
Maybe I'm wrong, my dear; but you won't mind my speaking frankly.
And if I'm right, and he has begun pestering you, I can't blame you for resigning. The man isn't safe.”
His look carried interrogation at once shy and fatherly. She forced herself to meet his eyes and nod the answer which her cheeks already published.
”It is hateful,” she murmured. ”Yes, he asked me to marry him.”
”I _told_ you he was afflicted,” said Mr. Benny, still with simple seriousness; then, catching a sudden twinkle in her eyes, ”Eh? What did I say? My dear, I didn't mean it that way!”
Mr. Benny had judged at once more charitably and more correctly than Hester. Had she looked up yesterday when she pa.s.sed Mr. Sam at the foot of the stairs, she might have guessed the truth from his face.
The man was afflicted, and knew it; had suddenly discovered it, and was afraid of himself--for the moment, abjectly afraid. All his life he had been nursing a devil, feeding it on religion, clothing it in self-righteousness, so carefully touching up its toilet that it pa.s.sed for saint rather than devil--especially in his own eyes, trained as they were in self-deception. For every action, mean or illiberal or tricky or downright cruel, he had a justificatory text; for his few defeats a constant salve in the thought that his vanquishers were carnal men, sons of Belial, and would find, themselves in h.e.l.l some day. He was Dives or Lazarus as occasion served. If a plan miscarried, the Lord was chastening him; if, as oftener happened, it went prosperously, the Lord was looking after His own; but always the plan itself, being _his_ plan, was certainly righteous, because he was a righteous man. A good tree could not bring forth evil fruit.