Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 568
“Get up, stupid! What are you lying there for?” cried the girl, and then came another swish of the twig and a further thudding of the feet of the heifers.
“The devil must be in that girl,” thought Victor, and he would have given something to look up, but dare not, so he lay still and listened, telling himself that never before had two poor men been in such an unfair and ridiculous predicament.
At length the feet of the cattle sounded faint over the rippling of the river, and the girl’s voice thin through the pattering of the leaves. And then the two sons of Adam rose cautiously from the grass, slithered down the glen-side and slipped into the essential part of their garments.
Half-an-hour later, the lark being loud in the sky, and the world astir and decent, they were cooking their breakfast, Gell holding a frying-pan over a crackling gorse fire, and Stowell, in his Wellington boots, striding about with a tea-pot) when they heard the girl coming back. And being now encased in the close armour of their clothes they felt that the offensive had changed its front and stepped boldly forward to face her.
She was a strapping girl of three or four and twenty, full-blooded and full-bosomed, with coal-black hair and gleaming black eyes under her sun-bonnet, which was turned back from her forehead, showing a comely face of a fresh complexion, with eager mouth and warm red lips. Her sleeves were rolled back above her elbows, leaving her round arms bare and sun-brown; her woollen petticoat was tucked up, at one side, into her waist, and as she came swinging down the glen with a jaunty step, her hips moved, with her whole body, to a rhythm of health and happiness.
“Attractive young person, eh?” said Victor.
But Gell, after a first glance, went back without a word to his frying-pan, leaving his comrade, who was still carrying his tea-pot, to meet the girl, who came on with an unconcerned and unconscious air, humming to herself at intervals, as if totally unaware of the presence of either of them.
“Nice morning, miss,” said Victor, stepping out into the path.
The girl made a start of surprise, looked him over from head to foot, glanced at his companion, whose face was to the fire, recognised both, smiled and answered:
“Yes, Sir, nice, very nice.”
Then followed a little fencing, which was intended by Victor to find out if the girl had seen them.
Came up this way a while ago, didn’t she? Aw, yes, she did, to take last year’s heifers to graze on the mountains. Seen anything hereabouts that is to say on the tops? Aw, no, nothing at all had he? Well, yes, he thought he’d seen something running on the ridge just over the waterfall.
The girl gave him a deliberate glance from her dark eyes, then dropped them demurely and said, with an innocent air, “Must have been some of the young colts broken out of the top field, I suppose.”
“That’s all right,” thought Victor, not knowing the ways of women though he thought himself so wise in them.
After that, feeling braver, he began to make play with the girl, asking her how far she had come, and if she wouldn’t be lonesome going back without company.
She looked at him quizzically for a moment, and then said, with her eyes full of merriment, “What sort of company, sir?”
“Well, mine for instance,” he answered.
She laughed, a fresh and merry laugh from her throat, and said, “You daren’t come home with me, Sir.”
“Why daren’t I?”
“You’d be afraid of father. He’s not used of young men coming about the place, and he’d frighten the life out of you.”
Victor put down his tea-pot and made a stride forward. “Come on where is he?”
But the girl swung away, with another laugh, crying over her shoulder, “Aw, no, no, plaze, plaze!”
“Ah, then it’s you that are afraid, eh?” said Victor.
“It’s not that,” replied the girl.
“What is it?” said Victor.
She gave him another deliberate glance from her dark eyes he thought he could feel the warm glow of her body across the distance dividing them and said, “The old man might be sending somebody else up with the heifers next time, and then....”
“What then?”
She laughed again with eyes full of mischief, and seemed to prepare to fly.
“Then maybe I’d be missing seeing something,” she said, and shot away at a bound.
Victor stood for a moment looking down the glen.
“God, what a girl!” he said. “I’ve a good mind to go after her.”
“I shouldn’t if I were you,” said Gell. “You know who she is?”
“Who?”
“Bessie Collister.”
“The little thing who was in Castletown.”
“Yes.”
“Then I suppose she belongs to you?”
“Not a bit. I haven’t spoken to her from that day to this,” said Gell, and then he told of the promise he had made to his father.
“But Lord alive, that was when you were a lad.”
“Maybe so, but ‘as long as you live’ that was the word, and I mean to keep it. Besides, there’s Dan Baldromma.”
“That blatherskite?” said Victor.
“He’d be an ugly customer if anything went wrong, you know.”
“But, good Lord, man, what is going to go wrong?”
When they had finished breakfast and Gell was washing up at the water’s edge, Victor was on a boulder, looking down the glen again, and saying, as if to himself, “My God, what a girl, though! Such lips, such flesh, such....”
“I say, old fellow!” cried Gell.
Victor leapt down and laughed to cover his confusion.
“Well, why not? We’re all creatures of earth, aren’t we?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DAY OF TEMPTATION
FENELLA STANLEY had been two and a half years at the head of the Women’s Settlement. Her work as Lady Warden had been successful. It had been a great, human, palpitating experience. There were days, and even weeks, when she felt that it had brought her a little nearer to the soul of the universe and helped her to touch hands across the ages with the great women who had walked through Gethsemane for the poor, despoiled and despairing victims of their own sex.
But nevertheless it had left her with a certain restlessness which at first she found it hard to understand. Only little by little did she come to realise that nature, with its almighty voice, was calling to her, and that under all the thrill of self -sacrifice she was suffering from the gnawing hunger of an underfed heart.
The seven years that had passed since her last visit to the island had produced their physical effects. From a slim and beautiful school-girl she had developed into a full and splendid woman. When the ladies of her Committee (matrons chiefly) saw the swing of her free step and the untamed glance of her eye they would say, “She’s a fine worker, but we shall never be able to keep her you’ll see we shall not.”
And as often as the men of the Committee (clergymen generally, but manly persons, for the most part, not too remote from the facts of life) came within range of the glow and flame of her womanhood, they would think, “That splendid girl ought to become the mother of children.”
During the first year of her wardenship her chief touch with home (her father being estranged) had been through correspondence with his housekeeper. Miss Green’s letters were principally about the Governor, but they contained a good deal about Victor Stowell also. Victor had been called to the Bar, but for some reason which nobody could fathom he seemed to have lost heart and hope and the Deemster had sent him round the world.
Fenella found herself tingling with a kind of secret joy at this news. She was utterly ashamed of the impulse to smile at the thought of Victor’s sufferings, yet do what she would she could not conquer it.
Her tours abroad with her father had ceased by this tune, but in her second year at the Settlement she took holiday with a girl friend, going through Switzerland and Italy and as far afield as Egypt. During that journey fate played some tantalizing pranks with her.
The first of them was at Cairo, where, going into Cook’s, to enter her name for a passage to Italy, her breath was almost smitten out of her body by the sight of Victor’s name, in his own bold hand-writing, in the book above her own he had that day sailed for Naples.
The second was at Naples itself (she would have died rather than admit to herself that she was following him), where she saw his name again, with Alick Gell’s, in the Visitors’ List, and being a young woman of independent character, marched up to his hotel to ask for him he had gone on to Home.
The third, and most trying, was in the railway station at Zurich, where stepping out of the train from Florence she collided on the crowded platform with the Attorney- General and his comfortable old wife from the Isle of Man, and was told that young Stowell and young Gell had that moment left by train for Paris.
But back in London she found her correspondence with Bliss Green even more intoxicating than before, and every new letter seemed like a hawser drawing her home. Victor Stowell had returned to the island, but he was not showing much sign of settling to work. He seemed to have no aim, no object, no ambition. In fact it was the common opinion that the young man was going steadily to the dogs.
“So if you ever had any thoughts in that direction, dear,” said Miss Green, “what a lucky escape you had (though we didn’t think so at the time) when you signed on at the Settlement!”
But the conquering pull of the hawser that was dragging her home came hi the letters of Isabella Gell, with whom she had always kept up a desultory correspondence.
The Deemster was failing fast (“and no wonder!”); and Janet Curphey, who had been such a bustling body, was always falling asleep over her needles; and the Speaker (after a violent altercation in the Keys) had had a profuse bleeding at the nose, which Dr. Clucas said was to be taken as a warning.
But the only exciting news in the island just now was about Victor Stowell. Really, he was becoming impossible! Not content with making her brother Alick the scapegoat of his own misdoings in a disgraceful affair of some sort (her father had forbidden Alick the house ever since, and her mother was always moping with her feet inside the fender), he was behaving scandalously. A good-looking woman couldn’t pass him on the road without his eyes following her! Any common thing out of a thatched cottage, if she only had a pretty face, was good enough for him now! The simpletons!! Perhaps they expected him to marry them, and give them his name and position? But not he!! Indeed no!! And heaven pity the poor girl of a better class who ever took him for a husband!!!
Fenella laughed seeing through the feminine spitefulness of these letters as the sun sees through glass. So mistress Isabella herself had been casting eyes in that direction! What fun! She had visions of the Gell girls having differences among themselves about Victor Stowell. The idea of his marrying any of them, and keeping step for the rest of his life with the conventions of the Gell family, was too funny for anything.
But those Manx country girls, with their black eyes and eager mouths, were quite a different proposition. Fenella had visions of them also, fresh as milk and warm as young heifers, watching for Victor at their dairy doors or from the shade of the apple trees in the orchards, and before she was aware of what was happening to her she was aflame with jealousy.
That Isabella Gell was a dunce! It was nonsense to say that the Manx country girls out of the thatched cottages expected Victor to marry them. Of course they didn’t, and neither did they want his name or his position. What they really wanted was Victor himself, to flirt with and flatter them and make love to them, perhaps. But good gracious, what a shocking thing! That should never happen never while she was about!
Of course this meant that she must go back to save Victor. Naturally she could not expect to do so over a blind distance of three hundred miles, while those Manx country girls in their new Whitsuntide hats were shooting glances at him every Sunday in Church, or perhaps hanging about for him on week-evenings, in their wicked sun-bonnets, and even putting up their chins to be kissed in those shady lanes at the back of Ballamoar, when the sun would be softening, and the wood-pigeons would be cooing, and things would be coming together for the night.
That settled matters! Her womanhood was awake by this time. Seven years of self-sacrifice had not been sufficient to quell it. After a certain struggle, and perhaps a certain shame, she put in her resignation.
Her Committee did not express as much surprise as she had expected. The ladies hoped her native island would provide a little world, a little microcosm, in which she could still carry on her work for women, (she had given that as one of her excuses), and the gentlemen had no doubt her father,” and others,” would receive her back” with open arms.”
She was to leave the Settlement at the close of the half year, that is to say at the end of July, but she decided to say nothing, either to her father or to Miss Green, about her return to the island until the time came for it at the beginning of August.
She was thinking of Victor again, and cherishing a secret hope of taking him unawares somewhere of giving him another surprise, such as she gave him that day in the glen, when he came down bareheaded, with the sea wind in his dark hair, and then stopped suddenly at the sight of her, with that entrancing look of surprise and wonder.
And if any of those Manx country girls were about him when that happened …. Well, they would disappear like a shot. Of course they would I
II
Meantime, another woman was hearing black stories about Victor, and that was Janet. She believed them, she disbelieved them, she dreaded them as possibilities and resented them as slanders. But finally she concluded that, whether they were true or false, she must tell Victor all about them.
Yet how was she to do so? How put a name to the evil things that were being said of him she who bad been the same as a mother to him all the way up since he was a child, and held him in her arms for his christening?
For weeks her soft heart fought with her maidenly modesty, but at length her heart prevailed. She could not see her dear boy walk blindfold into danger. Whatever the consequences she must speak to him, warn him, stop him if necessary.
But where and when and how was she to do so? To write was impossible (nobody knew what might become of a letter) and Victor had long discontinued his week-end visits to Ballamoar.
One day the Deemster told her to prepare a room for the Governor who was coming to visit him, and seizing her opportunity she said, “And wouldn’t it be nice to ask Victor to meet him, your Honour?”
The Deemster paused for a moment, then bowed his head and answered, “Do as you please, Miss Curphey.”
Five minutes afterwards Janet was writing in hot haste to Ramsey.
“He is to come on Saturday, dear, but mind you come on Friday, so that I may have you all to myself for a while before the great men take you from me.”
Victor came on Friday evening and found Janet alone, the Deemster being away for an important Court and likely to sleep the night in Douglas. She was in her own little sitting-room a soft, cushiony chamber full of embroidered screens and pictures of himself as a child worked out in coloured silk. A tea-tray, ready laid, was on a table by her side, and she rose with a trembling cry as he bounded in and kissed her.
Tea was a long but tremulous joy to her, and by the time it was over the darkness was gathering. The maid removed the tray and was about to bring in a lamp, but Janet, being artful, said:
“No, Jane, not yet. It would be a pity to shut out this lovely twilight. Don’t you think so, dear?”
Victor agreed, not knowing what was coming, and for an hour longer they sat at opposite sides of the table, with their faces to the lawn, while the rooks cawed out their last congress, and the thrush sang its last song, and Janet talked on indifferent matters whether Mrs. Quayle (his sleeping-out housekeeper) was making him comfortable at Ramsey, and if Bobbie Creer should not be told to leave butter and fresh eggs for him on market-day.
But when, the darkness having deepened, there was no longer any danger that Victor could see her face, Janet (trembling with fear of her nursling now that he had grown to be a man) plunged into her tragic subject.
People were talking and talking. The Manx ones were terrible for talking. Really, it ought to be possible to put the law on people who talked and talked.
“Who are they talking about now, Janet? Is it about me?” said Victor.
“Well, yes …. yes, it’s about you, dear.”
Oh, nothing serious, not to say serious! Just a few flighty girls boasting about the attentions he was paying them. And then older people, who ought to know better, gibble-gabbling about the dangers to young women as if the dangers to young men were not greater, sometimes far greater.
“Not that I don’t sympathise with the girls,” said Janet, “living here, poor things, on this sandy headland, while the best of the Manx boys are going away to America, year after year, and never a man creature younger than their fathers and grandfathers about to pass the time of day with, except the heavy-footed omathauns that are left.”
What wonder that when a young man of another sort came about, and showed them the courtesy a man always shows to a woman, whatever she is, when he is a gentleman born just a smile, or a nod, or a kind word on the road, or the lifting of his hat, or a hand over a stile perhaps what wonder if the poor foolish young things began to dream dreams and see visions.
“But that’s just where the danger comes in, dear,” said Janet. “Oh, I’m a woman myself, and I was young once, you know, and perhaps I remember how the heavens seem to open for a girl when she thinks two eyes look at her with love, and she feels as if she could give herself away, with everything she is or will be, and care nothing for the future. But only think what a terrible thing it would be if some simple girl of that sort got into trouble on your account.”
“Don’t be afraid of that, Janet,” said Victor in a low voice. “No girl in the island, or in the world either, has ever come to any harm through me or ever will do.”
There came the sound of a faint gasp in the darkness, and then Janet cried:.
