Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 633
“Too late,” repeated Davy, more loudly.
“Just time to do it by the skin of your teeth, Capt’n,” shouted the ferryman.
“Too late, I tell you,” thundered Davy, sternly.
Meanwhile there was a great commotion on the other side of the harbor.
“Out of the way there!” “All ashore!” “Ready?” “Ready!” “Steam up — slow!” The last bell rang. The first stroke of nine was struck by the clock of the tower; one echoing blast came from the steam whistle, and the “Snaefell” began to move slowly from the quay. Then there were shouts from the deck and adieus from the shore. “Good-by!” “Good-by!” “Farewell, little Mona!” “Good-by, dear Elian Vannin!” Handkerchiefs waving on the steamer; handkerchiefs waving on the quay; seagulls wheeling over the stern; white churning water in the wake; flag down; and harbor empty.
“She’s gone!”
Lovibond smiled behind a handkerchief, with which he pretended to wipe his big mustache. Willie Quarrie looked helplessly up the ferry steps. Davy gnashed his teeth at the top of them.
After a moment Davy said, “No matter; we can take the Irish packet at nine, and catch the Pacific boat at Belfast. Willie,” he shouted, “put the luggage in the shed for the Belfast steamer. We’ll sail to-night instead.”
Then the three parted company, each with his own reflections.
“The Capt’n done that a-purpose,” thought Willie.
“He’ll keep my engagement for me at eight o’clock,” thought Lovibond.
“I wouldn’t have believed it of her if the Dempster himself had swore to it,” thought Davy.
CHAPTER IX.
At half-past seven that night the iron pier was a varied and animated scene. A band was playing a waltz on the circle at the end; young people were dancing, other young people of both sexes were promenading, lines of yet younger people, chiefly girls in short frocks, but with the wagging heads and sparkling eyes of one type of budding maidenhood, were skipping along arm-in-arm, singing snatches of the words set to the waltz, and beating a half-dancing time with an alternate scrape and stroke of the soles of their shoes upon the wood floor on which they walked. The odor of the brine came up from below and mingled with the whiffs of Mona Bouquet that swept after the young girls as they passed, and with the puffs of tobacco smoke that enveloped the young men as they dawdled on. Sometimes the revolving light of the lightship in the channel could be seen above the flash and flare of the pier lamps, and sometimes the dark water under foot gleamed and glinted between the open timbers of the pier pavement, and sometimes the deep rumble of the sea could be heard over the clash and clang of the pier band.
Lovibond was there, walking to and fro, feeling himself for the first time to be an old fellow among so many younger folks, watching the clock, counting the minutes, and scanning every female form that came alone with the crink-crank-crick through the round stile of the pay-gate.
Not until five minutes to eight did the right one appear, but she made up for the tardiness of her coming by the animation of her spirits.
“I couldn’t get away sooner,” whispered Jenny. “She watched me like a cat. She’ll be out in the grounds by this time. It’s delicious! But is he coming!”
“Trust him,” said Lovibond.
“O, dear, what a meeting it will be!” said Jenny.
“I’d love to be there,” said Lovibond.
“Umph! Would you? Two’s company, three’s none — you’re just as well where you are,” said Jenny.
“Better,” said Lovibond.
The clock struck eight in the tower.
“Eight o’clock,” said Lovibond, “They’ll be flying at each other’s eyes by this time.”
“Eight o’clock, twenty seconds!” said Jenny. “And they’ll be lying in each other’s arms by now.”
“Did she suspect?” said Lovibond.
“Of course she did!” said Jenny. “Did he?”
“Certainly!” said Lovibond.
“O dear, O dear!” said Jenny. “It’s wonderful how far you can fool people when it’s to their interest to be fooled.”
“Wonderful!” said Lovibond.
They had walked to the end of the pier; the band was playing —
“Ben-my-chree!
Sweet Ben-my-chree,
I love but thee, sweet Mona.”
“So our little drama is over, eh?” said. Jenny.
“Yes; it’s over,” said Lovibond.
Jenny sighed; Lovibond sighed; they looked at each other and sighed together.
“And these good people have no further use for us,” said Jenny.
“None,” said Lovibond.
“Then I suppose we’ve no further use for each other?” moaned Jenny.
“Eh?” said Lovibond.
“Tut!” said Jenny, and she swung aside.
“Mona, sweet Mona,
I love but thee, sweet Mona.’
“There’s only one thing I regret,” said Lovibond, inclining his head toward Jenny’s averted face.
“And pray, what’s that?” said Jenny, without turning about.
“Didn’t I tell you that Capt’n Davy had taken two berths in the Pacific steamer to the west coast?” said Lovibond.
“Well?” said Jenny.
“That’s ninety pounds wasted,” said Lovibond.
“What a pity!” sighed Jenny.
“Isn’t it?” said Lovibond — his left hand was fumbling for her right.
“If she were any other woman, she might be glad to go still,” said Jenny.
“And if he were any other man he would be proud to take her,” said Lovibond.
“Some woman without kith or kin to miss her—” began Jenny.
“Yes, or some man without anybody in the world—” began Lovibond.
“Now, if it had been my case—” said Jenny, wearily.
“Or mine,” said Lovibond, sadly.
Each drew a long breath.
“Do you know, if I disappeared tonight, there’s not a soul—” said Jenny, sorrowfully.
“That’s just my case, too,” interrupted Lovibond.
“Ah!” they said together.
They looked into each other’s eyes with a mournful expression, and sighed again. Also their hands touched as their arms hung by their sides.
“Ninety pounds! Did you say ninety? Two berths?” said Jenny. “What a shocking waste! Couldn’t somebody else use them?”
“Just what I was thinking,” said Lovibond; and he linked the lady’s arm through his own.
“Hadn’t you better get the tickets from Capt’n Davy, and — and give them to somebody before it is too late?” said Jenny.
“I’ve got them already — his boy Quarrie was keeping them,” said Lovibond.
“How thoughtful of you, Jona — I mean, Mr. Lovi—”
“Je — Jen—”
“Ben-my-chree! Sweet Ben-my-chree, I love but thee—”
“O, Jonathan!” whispered Jenny.
“O, Jenny!” gasped Jonathan.
They were on the dark side of the round house; the band was playing behind them, the sea was rumbling in front; there was a shuffle of feet, a sudden rustle of a dress; the lady glanced to the right, the gentleman looked to the left, and then for a fraction of an instant they were locked in each other’s arms.
“Will you go back with me, Jenny?”
“Well,” whispered Jenny. “Just to keep the tickets from wasting—”
“Just that,” whispered Lovibond.
Three quarters of an hour later they were sailing out of Douglas harbor on board the Irish packet that was to overtake the Pacific steamship next morning at Belfast. The lights of Castle Mona lay low on the water’s edge, and from the iron pier as they passed came the faint sound of the music of the band:
“Mona, sweet Mona,
Fairest isle beneath the sky,
Mona, sweet Mona,
We bid thee now good-by.”
CHAPTER X.
The life that Davy had led that day-was infernal At the first shaft of Lovi-bond’s insinuation against Mrs. Quiggin’s fidelity he had turned sick at heart. “When he said it,” Davy had thought, “the blood went from me like the tide out of the Ragged Mouth, where the ships lie wrecked and rotten.”
He had baffled with his bemuddled brain, to recall the conversation he had held with his wife since his return home to marry her, and every innocent word she had uttered in jest had seemed guilty and foul. “You’ve been nothing but a fool, Davy,” he told himself. “You’ve been tooken in.”
Then he had reproached himself for his hasty judgment. “Hould hard, boy, hould hard; aisy for all, though, aisy, aisy!” He had remembered how modest his wife had been in the old days — how simple and how natural. “She was as pure as the mountain turf,” he had thought, “and quiet extraordinary.” Yet there was the ugly fact that she had appointed to meet a strange man in the gardens of Castle Mona, that night, alone. “Some charm is put on her — some charm or the like,” he had thought again.
That had been the utmost and best he could make of it, and he had suffered the torments of the damned. During the earlier part of the day he had rambled through the town, drinking freely, and his face had been a piteous sight to see. Toward nightfall he had drifted past Castle Mona toward Onchan Head, and stretched himself on the beach before Derby Castle. There he had reviewed the case afresh, and asked himself what he ought to do.
“It’s not for me to go sneaking after her,” he had thought. “She’s true, I’ll swear to it. The man’s lying... Very well, then, Davy, boy, don’t you take rest till you’re proving it.”
The autumn day had begun to close in, and the first stars to come out. “Other women are like yonder,” he had thought; “just common stars in the sky, where there’s millions and millions of them. But Nelly is like the moon — the moon, bless her—”
At that thought Davy had leaped to his feet, in disgust of his own simplicity. “I’m a fool,” he had muttered, “a reg’lar ould bleating billygoat; talking pieces of poethry to myself, like a stupid, gawky Tommy Big Eyes.”
He had looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eight o’clock. Unconsciously he had begun to walk toward Castle Mona. “I’m not for misdoubting my wife, not me; but then a man may be over certain. I’ll find out for myself; and if it’s true, if she’s there, if she meets him.... Well, well, be aisy for all, Davy; be aisy, boy, be aisy! If the worst comes to the worst, and you’ve got to cut your stick, you’ll be doing it without a heart-ache anyway. She’ll not be worth it, and you’ll be selling yourself to the Divil with a clane conscience. So it’s all serene either way, Davy, my man, and here goes for it.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Quiggin had been going through similar torments. “I don’t blame him,” she had thought. “It’s that mischief-making huzzy. Why did I ask her? I wonder what in the world I ever saw in her. If I were not going away myself she should pack out of the house in the morning. The sly thing! How clever she thinks herself, too! But she’ll be surprised when I come down on her. I’ll watch her; she sha’n’t escape me. And as for him — well, we’ll see, Mr. David, we’ll see!”
As the clock in the hall in Castle Mona was striking eight these good souls in these wise humors were making their several ways to the waterfall under the cliff, in the darkest part of the hotel grounds.
Davy got there first, going in by the gate at the Onchan end. It struck him with astonishment that Lovibond was not there already. “The man bragged of coming, but I don’t see him,” he thought. He felt half inclined to be wroth with Lovibond for daring to run the risk of being late. “I know someone who would have been early enough if he had been coming to meet with somebody,” he thought.
Presently he saw a female form approaching from the thick darkness at the Douglas end of the house. It was a tall figure in a long cloak, with the hood drawn over the head. Through the opening of the cloak in front a light dress beneath gleamed and glinted in the brightening starlight. “It’s herself,” Davy muttered, under his breath. “She’s like the silvery fir tree with her little dark head agen the sky. Trust me for knowing her! I’d be doing that if I was blind. Yes, would I though, if I was only the grass under her feet, and she walked on me. She’s coming! My God, then, it’s true! It’s true, Davy! Hould hard, boy! She’s a woman for all! She’s here! She sees me! She thinks I’m the man?”
In the strange mood of the moment he was half sorry to take her by surprise.
Davy was right that Mrs. Quiggin saw him. While still in the shadow of the house she recognized his dark figure among the trees. “But he’s alone,” she thought. “Then the huzzy must have gone back to her room when I thought she slipped out at the porch. He’s waiting for her. Should I wait, too? No! That he is there is enough. He sees me. He is coming. He thinks I am she. Umph! Now to astonish him!”
Thus thinking, and both trembling with rage and indignation, and both quivering with love and fear, the two came face to face.
But neither betrayed the least surprise.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, if I’m not the man —— —” faltered Davy.
“It’s a pity, sir, if I’m not the woman —— —” stammered Nelly.
“Hope I don’t interrupt any terterta-tie,” continued Davy.
“I trust you won’t allow me — —” began Nelly.
And then, having launched these shafts of impotent irony in vain, they came to a stand with an uneasy feeling that something unlooked for was amiss.
“What d’ye mane, ma’am?” said Davy.
“What do you mean, sir?” said Nelly.
“I mane, that you’re here to meet with a man,” said Davy.
“I!” cried Nelly. “I? Did you say that I was here to meet — —”
“Don’t go to deny it, ma’am,” said Davy.
“I do deny it,” said Nelly. “And what’s more, sir, I know why you are here. You are here to meet with a woman.”
“Me! To meet with a woman! Me?” cried Davy.
“Oh, you needn’t deny it, sir,” said Nelly. “Your presence here is proof enough against you.”
“And your presence here is proof enough agen you,” said Davy.
“You had to meet her at eight,” said Nelly.
“That’s a reg’lar bluff, ma’am,” said Davy, “for it was at eight you had to meet with him?
“How dare you say so?” cried Nelly.
“I had it from the man himself,” said Davy.
“It’s false, sir, for there is no man; but I had it from the woman,” said Nelly.
“And did you believe her?” said Davy.
“Did you believe him?” said Nelly. “Were you simple enough to trust a man who told you that he was going to meet your own wife?”
“He wasn’t for knowing it was my own wife,” said Davy. “But were you simple enough to trust the woman who was telling you she was going to meet your own husband?”
“She didn’t know it was my own husband,” said Nelly. “But that wasn’t the only thing she told me.”
“And it wasn’t the only thing he tould me.” said Davy. “He tould me all your secrets — that your husband had deserted you because he was a brute and a blackguard.”
“I have never said so,” cried Nelly. “Who dares to say I have? I have never opened my lips to any living man against you. But you are measuring me by your own yard, sir; for you led her to believe that I was a cat and a shrew and a nagger, and a thankless wretch who ought to be put down by the law just as it puts down biting dogs.”
“Now, begging you pardon, ma’am,” said Davy; “but that’s a damned lie, whoever made it.”
After this burst there was a pause and a hush, and then Nelly said, “It’s easy to say that when she isn’t here to contradict you; but wait, sir, only wait.”
“And it’s aisy for you to say yonder,” said Davy, “when he isn’t come to deny it — but take your time, ma’am, take your time.”
“Who is it?” said Nelly.
“No matter,” said Davy.
“Who is the man,” demanded Nelly.
“My friend Lovibond,” answered Davy.
“Lovibond!” cried Nelly.
“The same,” groaned Davy.
“Mr. Lovibond!” cried Nelly again.
“Aw — keep it up, ma’am; keep it up!” said Davy. “And, manewhile, if you plaze, who is the woman?”
“My friend Jenny Crow,” said Nelly.
Then there was another pause.
“And did she tell you that I had agreed to meet her?” said Davy.
“She did,” said Nelly. “And did he tell you that I had appointed to meet him?”
“Yes, did he,” said Davy. “At eight o’clock, did she say?”
“Yes, eight o’clock,” said Nelly. “Did he say eight?”
“He did,” said Davy.
The loud voices of a moment before had suddenly dropped to broken whispers. Davy made a prolonged whistle.
“Stop,” said he; “haven’t you been in the habit of meeting him?”
“I have never seen him but once,” said Nelly. “But haven’t you been in the habit of meeting her?”
“Never set eyes on the little skute but twice altogether,” said Davy. “But didn’t he see you first in St. Thomas’s, and didn’t you speak with him on the shore—”
“I’ve never been in St. Thomas’s in my life!” said Nelly. “But didn’t you meet her first on the Head above Port Soderick, and to go to Laxey, and come home with her in the coach?”
“Not I,” said Davy.
“Then the stories she told me of the Manx sailor were all imagination, were they?” said Nelly.
“And the yarns he tould me of the girl in the church were all make-ups, eh?” said Davy.
“Dear me, what a pair of deceitful people!” said Nelly.
“My gough! what a couple of cuffers!” said Davy.
There was another pause, and then Davy began to laugh. First came a low gurgle like that of suppressed bubbles in a fountain, then a sharp, crackling breaker of sound, and then a long, deep roar of liberated mirth that seemed to shake and heave the whole man, and to convulse the very air around him.
Davy’s laughter was contagious. As the truth began to dawn on her Mrs. Quiggin first chuckled, then tittered, then laughed outright; and at last her voice rose behind her husband’s in clear trills of uncontrollable merriment.
