Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 237
What her father had said of the girl had revealed her life to her in the light of her relation to Philip. The thought of the possible contingency which she had foreseen with so much joy, as so much power, had awakened the consciousness of her moral position. She was a fallen woman! What else was she? And if the contingency befell, what would become of her? In the intensity of her father’s pietistic views the very shadow of shame would overwhelm his household, overthrow his sect, and uproot his religious pretensions. Kate trembled at the possibility of such a disaster coming through her. She saw herself being driven from house and home. Where could she fly? And though she fled away, would she not still be the cause of sorrow and disgrace to all whom she left behind — her mother, her father, Pete, everybody?
If she could only tear out the past, at least she could stop this marriage. Or if she had been a man she could stop it, for a man may sin and still look to the future with a firm face. But she was a woman, and a woman’s acts may be her own, but their consequences are beyond her. Oh, the misery of being a woman! She asked herself what she could do, and there was no answer. She could not break the web of circumstances. Her situation might be false, it might be dishonourable, but there was no escape from it. There was no gleam of hope anywhere.
Late that night — Sunday night — they were sitting together in the kitchen, Kate in the fire-seat as usual, Pete on the stool by the turf closet, smoking up the chimney, Cæsar reading aloud, Grannie listening, and Nancy cooking the supper, when the porch door burst open and somebody entered. Kate rose to her feet with a startled cry of joy, looked round eagerly, and then sat down again covered with confusion.
It was the girl Christian Killip, a pale, weak, frightened creature, with the mouth and eyes of a hare.
“Is Mr. Quilliam here?” she asked.
“Here’s the man himself, Christian,” said Grannie. “What do you want with him?”
“Oh, God bless you, sir,” said the girl to Pete, “God bless you for ever and ever.”
Then turning back to Grannie, she explained in woman’s fashion, with many words, that somebody unknown had sent her twenty pounds, for the child, by post, the day before, and she had only now guessed who it must be when John the Clerk had told her what Pete had said a week before.
Pete grunted and glimed, smoked up the chimney, and said, “That’ll do, ma’am, that’ll do. Don’t believe all you hear. John says more than his Amens, anyway.”
“I’m axing your pardon, miss,” said the girl to Kate, “but I couldn’t help coming — I couldn’t really — no, I couldn’t,” and then she began to cry.
“Where’s that child?” said Pete, heaving up to his feet with a ferocious look. “What! you mane to say you’ve left the lil thing alone, asleep? Go back to it then immajent. Good night!”
“Good night, sir, and God bless you, and when you’re married to-morrow, God bless your wife as well!”
“That’ll do — that’ll do,” said Pete, backing her to the porch.
“You desarve a good woman, sir, and may the Lord be good to you both.”
“Tut! tut!” said Pete, and he tut-tutted her out of the house.
She smoothed her baby’s hair more tenderly than ever that night, and kissed it again and again.
Kate could scarcely breathe, she could barely see. Her pride and her will had broken down utterly. This greathearted man loved her. He would lay down his life if need be to save her. To morrow he would marry her. Here, then, was her rock of refuge — this strong man by her side.
She could struggle against fate no longer. It’s invisible hand was pushing her on. It’s blind power was dragging her. If Philip would not come to claim her she must marry Pete.
And Pete? She meant no harm to Pete. She had not yet thought of things from Pete’s point of view. He was like the camel-bag in the desert to the terrified wayfarer when the sand-cloud breaks oyer him. He flies to it. It shelters him. But what of the camel itself, with its head in the storm? Until the storm is over he does not think of that.
XIX.
Meantime Philip himself was in the throes of his own agony. At the news of Kate’s illness he was overwhelmed with remorse, and when he inquired if she had been delirious, he was oppressed with a sense of meanness never felt before. At his meeting with Pete he realised for the first time to what depths his duplicity had degraded him. He had prided himself on being a man of honour, and he was suddenly thrown out of the paths in which he could walk honourably.
When the first shock of Kate’s disaster was over, he remembered the interview with the Governor. The Deemstership burnt in his mind with a growing fever of desire, but he did not apply for it. He did not even mention it to Auntie Nan. She heard of his prospects from Peter Christian Balla-whaine, who first set foot in her house on this errand of congratulation. The sweet old soul was wildly excited. All the hopes of her life were about to be realised, the visions and the dreams were coming true. Philip was going to regain what his father had lost. Had he made his application yet? No? He would, though; it was his duty.
But Philip could not apply for the Deemstership. To sit down in cold blood and write to the Home Secretary while Kate was lying sick in bed would be too much like asking the devil’s wages for sacrificing her. Then came Pete with his talk of the wedding. That did not really alarm him. It was only the last revolution of the old wheel that had been set spinning before Pete went away. Kate would not consent. They had taken her consent for granted. He felt easy, calm, and secure.
Next came his old master, the college friend of his father, now promoted to the position of Clerk of the Polls. He was proud of his pupil, and had learnt that Philip was first favourite with the Governor.
“I always knew it,” he said. “I did, ma’am, I did. The first time I set eyes on him, thinks I, ‘Here comes the makings of the best lawyer in the island,’ and by —— — he’s not going to disappoint me either.”
The good fellow was a noisy, hearty, robustious creature, a bachelor, and when talking of the late Deemster, he said women were usually the chief obstacles in a man’s career. Then he begged Auntie Nan’s pardon, but the old lady showed no anger. She agreed that it had been so in some cases. Young men should be careful what stumbling-blocks they set up in the way of their own progress.
Philip listened in silence, and was conscious, through all the unselfish counselling, of a certain cynical bitterness. Still he did not make application for the Deemstership. Then came Cæsar’s letter announcing the marriage, and even fixing a date for it. This threw him into a fit of towering indignation. He was certain of undue pressure. They were forcing the girl. It was his duty to stop the marriage. But how? There was one clear course, but that course he could not take. He could not go back on his settled determination that he must not, should not marry the girl himself. Only one thing was left — to rely on Kate. She would never consent. Not being able to marry him, she would marry no man. She would do as he was doing — she would suffer and stand alone.
By this time Philip’s love, which, in spite of himself, had grown cool since the Melliah, and in his fierce battle with his worldly aims, suddenly awakened to fresh violence at the approach of another man. But his ambition fought with his love, and he began to ask himself if it made, any difference after all in this matter of Kate whether he took the Deemstership or left it. Kate was recovering; he had nothing to reproach himself with, and it would be folly to sacrifice the ambition of a lifetime to the love of a woman who could never be his, a woman he could never marry. At that he wrote his letter to the Home Secretary. It was a brilliant letter of its kind, simple, natural, strong, and judicious. He had a calm assurance that nothing so good would leave the island, yet he could not bring himself to post it. Some quiverings of the old tenderness came back as he held it in his hand, some visions of Kate, with her twitching lips, her passionate eyes, some whisperings of their smothered love.
Then came Pete again with the decisive blow. Kate had consented. There was no longer any room for doubt. His former indignation seemed almost comic, his confidence absurd. Kate was willing to marry Pete, and after all, what right had he to blame her? What right had he to stop the marriage? He had wronged the girl enough already. A good man came and offered her his love. She was going to take it. How should he dare to stop her from marrying another, being unable to marry her himself?
That night he posted his letter to the Home Secretary, and calmed the gnawings of his love with dreams of ambition. He would regain the place of his father; he would revive the traditions of his grandfather; the Christians should resume their ancient standing in the Isle of Man; the last of their race should be a strong man and a just one. No, he would never marry; he would live alone, a quiet life, a peaceful one, slightly tinged with melancholy, yet not altogether unhappy, not without cheer.
Under all other emotions, strengthening and supporting him, was a secret bitterness towards Kate — a certain contempt of her fickleness, her lightness, her shallow love, her readiness to be off with the old love and on with the new. There was a sort of pride in his own higher type of devotion, his sterner passion. Pete invited him to the wedding, but he would not go, he would invent some excuse.
Then came the change of the day to suit his supposed convenience, and also Kate’s own invitation. Very well, be it so. Kate was defying him. Her invitation was a challenge. He would take it; he would go to the wedding. And if their eyes should meet, he knew whose eyes must fall.
XX.
Early next day the sleeping morning was awakened by the sound of a horn. It began somewhere in the village, wandered down the glen, crossed the bridge, plodded over the fields, and finally coiled round the house of the bride in thickening groans of discord. This restless spirit in the grey light was meant as herald of the approaching wedding. It came from the husky lungs of Mr. Jonaique Jelly.
Before daylight “The Manx Fairy” was already astir. Somewhere in the early reaches of the dawn the house had its last dusting down at the hands of Nancy Joe. Then Grannie finished, on hearth and griddle, the baking of her cakes. After that, some of the neighbours came and carried off to their own fires the beef, mutton, chickens, and ducks intended for the day’s dinner. It was woman’s work that was to the fore, and all idle men were hustled out of the way.
Towards nine o’clock breakfast was swallowed standing. Then everybody began to think of dressing. In this matter the men had to be finished off before the women could begin. Already they were heard bellowing for help from unseen regions upstairs. Grannie took Cæsar in hand. Pete was in charge of Nancy Joe.
It was found at the last moment that Pete had forgotten to provide himself with a white shirt. He had nothing to be married in except the flannel one in which he came home from Africa. This would never do. It wasn’t proper, it wasn’t respectable. There was no choice but to borrow a shirt of Cæsar’s. Cæsar’s shirt was of ancient pattern, and Pete was shy of taking it. “Take it, or you’ll have none,” said Nancy, and she pushed him back into his room. When he emerged from it he walked with a stiff neck down the stairs in a collar that reached to his ears at either side, and stood out at his cheeks like the wings of a white bat, with two long sharp points on the level of his eyes, which he seemed to be watching warily to avoid the stab of their ironed starch. At the same moment Cæsar appeared in duck trousers, a flowered waistcoat, a swallow-tail coat, and a tall hat of rough black beaver.
The kitchen was full of men and women by this time, and groups of young fellows were gathered on the road outside, some with horses, saddled and bridled for the bride’s race home after the ceremony; others with guns ready loaded for firing as the procession appeared; and others again with lines of print handkerchiefs, which, as substitutes for flags, they were hanging from tree to tree.
At every moment the crowd became greater outside, and the company inside more dense. John the Clerk called on his way to church, and whispered Pete that everything was ready, and they were going to sing a beautiful psalm.
“It isn’t many a man’s wedding I would be taking the same trouble with,” said John. “When you are coming down the alley give a sight up, sir, and you’ll see me.”
“He’s only a poor thing,” said Mr. Jelly in Pete’s ear as John the Clerk went off. “No more music in the man than my ould sow. Did you hear the horn this morning, sir? Never got up so early for a wedding before. I’ll be giving you ‘the Black and the Grey’ going into the church.”
Grannie came down in a gigantic bonnet like a half-moon, with her white cap visible beneath it; and Nancy Joe appeared behind her, be-ribboned out of all recognition, and taller by many inches for the turret of feathers and flowers on the head that was usually bare.
Then the church bells began to peal, and Cæsar made a prolonged A — hm! and said in a large way, “Has the carriage arrived?”
“It’s coming over by the bridge now,” said somebody at the door, and at the next moment a covered wagonette drew up at the porch.
“All ready?” asked Cæsar.
“Stop, sir,” said Pete, and then, turning to Nancy Joe, “Is it glad a man should be on his wedding-day, Nancy?”
“Why, of coorse, you goose. What else?” she answered.
“Well, no man can be glad in a shirt like this,” said Pete; “I’m going back to take it off.”
Two minutes afterwards he reappeared in his flannel one, under his suit of blue pilot, looking simple and natural, and a man every inch of him.
“Now call the bride,” said Cæsar.
XXI.
Kate had been kept awake during the dark hours with a sound in her ears that was like the measured ringing of far-off bells. When the daylight came she slept a troubled sleep, and when she awoke she had a sense of stupefaction, as if she had taken a drug, and was not yet recovered from the effects of it. Nancy came bouncing into her room and crying, “It’s your wedding-day, Kitty!” She answered by repeating mechanically, “It’s your wedding day, Kitty.”
There was an expression of serenity on her face; she even smiled a little. A sort of vague gaiety came over her, such as comes to one who has watched long in agony and suspense by the bed of a sick person and the person is dead. Nancy drew the little window curtain aside, stooped down, and looked out and said, “‘Happy the bride the sun shines on’ they’re saying, and look! the sun is shining.”
“Oh, but the sun is an old sly-boots,” she answered.
They came up to dress her. She kept stumbling against things, and then laughing in a faint way. The dress was the new one, and when they had put it on they stood back from her and shouted with delight. She took up the little broken hand-glass to look at herself. Her great eyes sparkled piteously.
The church bells began to ring her wedding-peal. She had to listen hard to hear it. All sounds seemed to be very far away; everything looked a long way off. She was living in a sort of dead white dawn of thought and feeling.
At last they came to say the coach was ready and everything was waiting for the bride. She repeated their message like a machine, made a slow gesture, and followed them downstairs. When she got near to the bottom, she looked around on the faces below as if expecting to see somebody. Just then her father was saying, “Mr. Christian is to meet us at the church.”
She smiled faintly and answered the people’s greetings in an indistinct tone. There was some indulgent whispering at sight of her pale face. “Pale but genteel,” said some one, and then Nancy reached over and drew the bride’s veil down over her face.
At the next minute she was outside the house, standing at the back of the wagonette. The coachman, with his white rosette, was holding the door open on one side, and her father was elevating her hand on the other.
“Am I to go, then?” she asked in a helpless voice.
“Well, what do you think?” said Cæsar. “Shall the man slip off and get married to himself, think you?”
There was laughter among the people standing round, and she laughed also and stepped into the coach. Her mother followed her, crinkling in noisy old silk, and Nancy Joe came next, smelling of lavender and hair-oil. Then her father got in, and then Pete, with his great warm presence.
A salute of six guns was fired straight up by the coach-windows. The horses pranced, Nancy screamed, and Grannie started, but Kate gave no sign. People were closing round the coach-door and shouting altogether as at a fair. “Good luck to you, boy. Good luck! Good luck!” Pete was answering in a rolling voice that seemed to be lifting the low roof off, and at the same time flinging money out in handfuls as the horses moved away.
They were going slowly down the road. From somewhere in front came the sound of a clarionet. It was playing “the Black and the Grey.” Immediately behind there was the tramp of people walking with an even step, and on either side the rustle of an irregular crowd. The morning was warm and beautiful. Here and there the last of the golden cushag glistened on the hedges with the first of the autumn gorse. They passed two or three houses that had been made roofless by the recent storm, and once or twice they came on a fallen tree-trunk with its thin leaves yellowing on the fading grass.
Kate was floating vaguely through these sights and sounds. It was all like a dream to her — a waking dream in shadow-land. She knew where she was and where she was going. Some glimmering of hope was left yet. She was half expecting a miracle of some sort. Philip would be at the church. Something supernatural would occur.
They drew up sharply, the glass of the windows rattled, and the talk that had been going on in the carriage ceased. “Here we are,” cried Cæsar; there were voices outside, and then the others inside stepped down. She saw a hand held out to her and knew whose it was before her eyes had risen to the face. Philip was there. He was helping her to alight.
“Am I to get down too?” she asked in a helpless way.
Cæsar said something that made the people laugh again, and then she smiled like faded sunshine and took the hand of Philip. She held it a moment as if expecting him to say something, but he only raised his hat. His face was white as marble. He will speak yet, she thought.
