Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 584
There were husky cheers and some clapping of hands when Stowell sat down, but most of the men were clearing their throats and wiping the mist off their spectacles, and nearly all of the women were coughing and drying their eyes.
Others were to have spoken but the Governor closed up the proceedings quickly, and then there was a general conversazione.
The officials were talking in groups: “Wonderful! The Governor and the old Attorney were grand, but the young man was wonderful!”
“We might go farther and fare worse.”
“Lake his father, you say?” (it was the Attorney- General)” so like what his father was at his age that sometimes when I look at him I think I’m a young man myself again, and then it’s a shock to go home and see an old man’s face in the glass.”
A group of old ladies had gathered about Fenella, whose great eyes were ablaze.
“It was beautiful, my dear, but there was just one other person who ought to have been here to hear it.”
“Who?”
“The old Deemster himself, dear.”
“But he was,” said Fenella.
The Governor drew Stowell aside.” It’s all right, my boy! Must have been instinct, but you touched your people on their tenderest place. Pretty hard on you, perhaps, but I knew what I was doing. The opposition in the island is as dead as a door nail already. Get into the saddle in London and you’ll never hear another word about it.”
There were only two dissentients.
“Aw well, we’ll see, we’ll see,” said the Speaker he was going out of the Castle (head down and his big beard on his breast), with old Hudgeon the advocate.
As he passed through the outer gate his son Alick came running hotfoot up to it.
It was a cruel moment.
II
Victor Stowell left the island for London at nine o’clock next morning. The first bell of the steamer had been rung, the mails were aboard, and the more tardy of the passengers were hurrying to the gangway, with their porters behind them, when the Governor’s, carriage drew up and Stowell leapt out of it.
A large company of the younger advocates (all former member of the “Ellan Vannin”) were waiting for him.
“Come to see me off? Yes? Jolly good of you,” said Stowell, and he stood talking to them at the top of the pier steps till the second bell had been rung.
Down to that moment nobody had said a word about the object of his journey, although every eye betrayed knowledge of it. But just as he was crossing the gangway to the steamer one of the advocates (a little fat man with the reputation of a wag) cried, with a broad smatch of the Anglo-Manx, “Bring it back in your bres’ pockat, boy” meaning the King’s commission for the Deemstership.
“You go bail,” said Stowell, and there was general laughter.
He was settling himself with his portmanteau in the deck cabin that had been reserved for him when somebody darkened the doorway.
“Helloa!”
It was Gell. His cheeks were white, his face looked troubled, and he was breathing rapidly as if he had been running.
“What’s amiss?” said Stowell. “Something has happened to you. What is it?”
Gell stepped into the cabin, and with a suspicion of tears both in his eyes and voice, told his story.
It was Bessie again. He didn’t know what had come over the girl. She had been holding off all winter. First one excuse, then another.
“I’ve done all I can think of. Taken a house in Athol Street and furnished it beautifully (thanks to you, old fellow), but it’s no use, seemingly.”
“When did you see her last?”
“Yesterday, and I thought I had settled everything at last. She wouldn’t be called in church, so I arranged that I was to go down to Derby Haven this morning, as soon as your boat sailed, and we were to come up to the Registrar’s to sign for a Bishop’s license. And now, by the first post... this.”
With a trembling hand Gell took out of his pocket the letter which Bessie had written the night before and handed it to Stowell.
With a momentary uneasiness Stowell read the letter.
“Reason? What is it likely to be, think you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t say. It’s a mystery. I’ve racked my brains and can only think of one thing now.”
“And what’s that?”
“That she finds out at last that she doesn’t care enough for me to marry me.”
“Nonsense, old fellow.”
“What else can it be? There can be nothing else, can there?”
Stowell’s uneasiness increased. “What do you intend to do?”
“Go down just the same. I’ve been telegraphing saying I’m coming. That’s why I’m late getting down to the boat.”
“And if she persists?”
“Give her up and clear out, I suppose.”
“You mean leave the island?”
“Why shouldn’t I? I’ve only been a stick-in-the-mud here and couldn’t do much worse anywhere else, could I? Besides –” (his voice was breaking) “there’s my father. You remember what he said. I couldn’t face it out if the girl threw me over.”
“She’s not well, is she?”
“Not very.”
“Nothing serious?”
“No nothing, the Miss Browns think, that we might not expect after such a change in her life and condition.”
“Then that’s it! Cheer up, old man! It will all come right yet. Women suffer from so many things that we men know nothing about.”
“If I could only think that …”
“You may of course you may.”
“Victor,” said Cell, taking Stowell’s hand, “will you do one thing more for me?”
“Certainly what is it?”
“Nobody can read a woman as you can everybody says that. If Bessie gives me the same answer to-day will you go down to Derby Haven with me when you come back, and find out what’s amiss with her?”
“Assuredly I will... that is to say … if you think....”
“Is it a promise?”
“Undoubtedly. It shall be the first thing I do when I return to the island.”
“All ashore! All ashore!”
A sailor was shouting on the deck outside the cabin door, and the third bell was ringing.
Gell was the last to cross the gangway.
“Good-bye and God bless you, and good luck in London! You deserve every bit of it!”
At the next moment the gangway was pulled in, the ropes were thrown aboard, and the steamer was gliding away.
The young advocates on the pier-head were beginning to make a demonstration. One of them (the wag of course) was singing a sentimental farewell in a doleful voice and the others were joining in the chorus:
“Better lo’ed ye canna be, Will ye no come back again?”
Some of the other passengers (English commercial travellers apparently) were looking on, so to turn the edge of the joke Stowell sang also, and when his deep baritone was heard above the rest there was a burst of laughter.
“Good-bye! Good-luck! Bring it back, boy!”
Gell was standing at the sea-end of the pier, waving his cap and struggling to smile. At sight of his face Stowell felt ashamed of his own happiness. A vague shadow of something that had come to him before came again, with a shudder such as one feels when a bat strikes one in the dusk.
At the next moment it was gone. The steamer was swinging round the breakwater and opening the bay, and he was looking for a long white house (Government House) which stood on the heights above the town. He had slept there last night, and this morning Fenella, parting from him in the porch, while the Governor’s high-stepping horses were champing on the gravel outside, had promised to signal to him when she saw the steamer clearing the harbour.
Ah, there she was, waving a white scarf from an upper window. Stowell stood by the rail at the stern and waved back his handkerchief. Fenella! He could see nothing but her dark eyes and beaming smile, and Gell’s sad face was forgotten.
It was a fine fresh morning, with the sun filtering through a veil of haze and the world answering to the call of Spring. As the boat sailed on, the island seemed to recede and shrink and then sink into the sea until only the tops of the mountains were visible looking like a dim grey ghost that was lying at full stretch in the sky.
At length it was gone; the sea-gulls which had followed the steamer out had made their last swirl round and turned towards the land, but Stowell was still looking back from the rail at the stern.
The dear little island! How good it had been to him! How eager he would be to return to it!
The sun broke clear, the waters widened and widened, the glistening blue waves rolled on and on, the ship rose and fell to the rhythm of the flowing tide, the throb of the engines beat time to the deep surge of the sea, and the still deeper surge of youth and love and health and hope within him.
Dear God, how happy he was! What had he done to deserve such happiness?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MOTHER’S LAW OR JUDGE’S LAW?
BESSIE had passed a miserable night. Having been awake until after five in the morning she was asleep at nine when somebody knocked at her bedroom door. It was old Miss Ethel with a telegram. Bessie opened it with trembling fingers.
“Nonsense dear am coming up as arranged Alick.”
With fingers that trembled still more noticeably Bessie returned the telegram to its envelope and slid it under her pillow, saying (with a twitching of the mouth which always came when she was telling an untruth), “It’s from Mr. Gell. He wants me to meet him in Douglas. I am to go up immediately.”
“That’s nice,” said Miss Ethel. “The change will do you a world of good, dear. I’ll run down and hurry your breakfast, so that you can catch the ten-thirty.”
Bessie dressed hastily, put a few things into a little handbag, and then sat down to write her promised letter.- It was a terrible ordeal. What could she say that would not betray her secret? At length she wrote:
“DEAR ALICK, Do forgive me. I must go away for a little while. It is all my health. I have been ill all winter and suffered more than anybody can know. But God is good, and I will get my health and strength back soon, and then I will return and we can be married and everything will be alright. Do not think I do not love you because I am leaving you like this. I have never loved you so dear as now. But I am depressed, and I cannot get away from my thoughts. And please, Alick dear, don’t try to find me. I shall be quite alright, and I shall think of you every night before I go to sleep, and every morning when I awake. So now I must close with all my love and kisses. BESSIE, xxxxx.”
Having written her letter, and blotted it with many tears, she pinned it to the top of her pillow, without remembering that the telegram lay underneath. Then she hurried downstairs, swallowed a mouthful of breakfast standing, said good-bye to her old house-mates with an effort at gaiety, and set off as for the railway station.
She had no intention of going there. The morning haze was thick on the edge of the sea, and as soon as she was out of sight of the house she slipped across the fields to a winding lane which led to the open country.
During the night, crying a good deal and stifling her sobs under the bed-clothes, she had thought out all her plans. It was still two months before her time, and to be separated from Alick as long as that was too painful to think about. It was also too dangerous. Long before the end of that time he would search for her and find her, and then her secret would become known, and that would be the end of everything.
She had been to blame, but what had she done to be so unhappy? Why should Nature be so cruel to a girl? Was there no way of escape from it?
At length a light had dawned on her. Remembering what she had heard of women doing (wives as well as unmarried girls) to get rid of children who were not wanted, she determined that her own child should be still-born. Why not? It threatened to separate her from Alick to turn his love for her into hatred. Why should it come into the world to ruin her life, and his also?
Yes, she would tire herself out, expose herself to some great -strain, some fearful exhaustion, and thereby bring on a sudden and serious illness. Instead of taking the train she would walk all the way home to her mother’s house twenty odd miles, fifteen of them over a steep and rugged mountain road. It would be dangerous to a girl in her condition, but not half so dangerous as marrying Alick now, and running the risk of an end like that of the poor young wife of the Peel fisherman.
And then it would be so much fairer. If her fault, her misfortune, could be wiped out before she married Alick, nobody could say she had deceived her husband.
Such was the wild gamble with life and death which Bessie had decided upon at the prompting of love and shame and fear. The consequences were not long in coming.
The winding lane had to cross the railway line near to a village station before it reached the open country, and coming sharply upon the level-crossing at a quick turning she found the gates closed and a train drawing up at the platform.
She knew at once that this must be the train from Douglas which Alick Gell was to travel by, and in a moment she saw him. He was sitting alone in a first-class carriage, looking pale and troubled. In the next compartment were four or five young advocates from the south side of the island, who had been up to see Stowell off by the steamer. They were smoking and laughing, and one of them, who appeared to have been drinking also, seeing Bessie coming up to the gate, dropped his window and swung off his hat to her.
Bessie dropped back to the partial cover of the fence. Only her fear of attracting attention restrained her from flying off altogether. Alick had not yet seen her. It tore her terribly to see how ill he looked. He was only three or four yards away from her. His head was down. At one moment he took off his cap and ran his fingers through his fair hair as if his head were aching. She could scarcely resist an impulse to pass through the turnstile and hurry up to him. One look, one smile, one word, and she would have thrown everything to the winds even yet.
But no, the guard waved his flag, the engine whistled, the train jerked backward, then forward, and at the next instant it had slid out of the station. Alick had not seen her. He was gone. It had been like a stab at her heart to see him go.
II
Half an hour later she was on the rugged mountain road that led to her mother’s house in the north of the island. Her first fear was the fear of being overtaken and carried back. At Silverburn, where a deep river gurgles under the shadow of a dark bridge, she heard the crack of whips, the clatter of horses’ hoofs and the whoop of loud voices.
It was nothing. Only two farm shandries, the first containing a couple of full-blooded farm girls, and the second a couple of lusty farm lads, racing home after market, laughing wildly and shouting to each in the free language of the countryside. It was like something out of her former life one of the outbreaks of animal instinct that had brought her to where she was.
But no matter! She would be a proud and happy woman yet the Sheean ny Feaynid had said so.
After the fear of being pursued came the fear of being lost becoming an outcast and a wanderer. She had toiled up to the Black Fort on the breast of the hill. The morning haze had vanished by this time, the sun had come out, the larks were singing in the cloudless sky, the smell of spring was rising from the young grass in the fields, the roadsides were yellow with primroses and daffodils, and the whole world was looking glad with the promise of the beautiful new year that was already on the wing. It was heart-breaking.
Feeling hot and tired after her climb, she sat on a stone. The sea was open from that point, and on the farthest rim of it she could see a red-funnelled steamer and two black shafts of smoke. Stowell! Never before had she thought bitterly of him. But he was there, going up to London in comfort, in luxury, while she...
It was cruel. But crueller than her bitter thoughts of Stowell were her tender thoughts of Gell. He would be at Derby Haven now, reading (with that twitching of the lower lip which she knew so well) the letter she had left behind for him, while she was here, running away from the arms of the man who loved her. But no matter about that, either! One day, two days, three days, a week perhaps, and she would return to him. She was to be a proud and happy woman yet the Sheean ny Feaynid had said so.
Hours passed. The road stretched out and out, became steeper and steeper. Bessie felt more and more tired. She was often compelled to sit by the wayside, and sometimes, being worn out by the want of sleep, she fell into a dose. The sky darkened and dropped; the sun went down behind the mountains to the west with a straight black bar across its face that was like a heavy lid over a sullen eye. Would she be able to reach home that night? She would! She must! Alick was waiting for her to come back. She dare not keep him long.
Evening had closed in before she reached the top of the hill. It was a long waste of bracken and black rock, with no farms anywhere, and only a few thatched cottages that crouched in the sheltered places like frightened cattle in a storm. Feeling weak and faint from long climbing and want of food, she was about to sit down again and cry, having lost hope of reaching her mother’s house that night, when she came upon a little lamb, scarcely a month old, which had strayed away from the flock and was too tired to go farther.
The poor creature bleated piteously into her face, and she lifted it up in her arms and carried it a long half mile (the lost carrying the lost, the desolate comforting the desolate) until she came to a high gate at which a mother sheep was plunging furiously in her efforts to get out to them. Bessie put the lamb to its feet, and it clambered through the bars, plucked at the teat, and then there was peace and silence.
This strengthened her and she went on for some time longer with a cheerful heart. Yes, she must reach home that night. And if it was as late as midnight before she got there, so much the better! Nobody must see her come, and then her mother would be able to conceal everything.
Night fell. It began to rain and the wind to rise. She had never been afraid of darkness or bad weather, but now she took a wild delight in them. Remembering what other women had done, she took off her shoes and walked on the wet roads in her stockings. It was risky but she cared nothing about that.
