Читать книгу The Master of Man - Hall Sir Caine - Страница 9

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Fenella Stanley had not awakened early, as Janet had supposed—she had never been to sleep. Her bedroom had been to the north-east, and she, too, had seen the moonlight creep across her floor; and when it was gone, and all else was dark, she had felt the revolving light from the stony neck of the Point of Ayre passing every other minute over her closed eyelids.

She was too much of a woman not to know what was happening to her, but none the less she was confused and startled. Do what she would to compose herself she could not lie quiet for more than a moment. Her blood was alternately flowing through her veins like soft milk and bounding to her heart like a geyser.

As soon as the daylight came and the rooks began to caw she got up and dressed, and went through the sleeping house, with its drawn blinds, and let herself out by the glass door to the piazza.

Of course she turned towards the shore. It was glorious to be down there alone, on the ribbed sand, with the salt air on her lips and the odour of the seaweed in her nostrils and the rising sun glistening in her eyes over the shimmering and murmuring sea. But it was still sweeter to return by the sandy road, past the chancel of the old church (how silly to have been afraid of it!) and to see footsteps here and there—his and hers.

The world was astir by this time, with the sun riding high and the earth smoking from its night-long draughts of dew, the sheep munching the wet grass in the fields on either side, and the cattle lowing in the closed-up byres, waiting to be milked. But the white blind of Victor's room (she was sure it was Victor's) was still down, like a closed eyelid, and she had half a mind to throw a handful of gravel at it and then dart indoors.

Back in the house there were some embarrassing moments. Breakfast was rather a trying time after Victor came down, looking a little sheepish, and that last moment on the path was difficult, when he was holding the carriage door open and saying good-bye to her; but she could not deny herself that wave of the hand as they turned the corner of the drive—she was perfectly sure he must be looking after them.

After that—misery! Every day at Government House seemed to bring her an increasing heartache, and when she returned to College a fortnight later, and fell back into the swing of her former life there (the glowing and thrilling life she had described to Victor) a bitter struggle with herself began.

It was a struggle between the mysterious new-born desires of her awakening womanhood and the task she had supposed to be her duty—to consecrate her whole life to the liberation of her sex, giving up, like a nun if need be, all the joys that were for ever whispering in the ears of women, that she might devote herself body and soul to the salvation of her suffering sisters.

Three months passed in which Fenella believed herself to be the unhappiest girl in the world. Moments of guilty joy and defiance mingled with hours of self-reproach. And then dear, good people were sometimes so cruel! Miss Green, her father's housekeeper, never wrote without saying something about Victor Stowell. He was a student-at-law now, and was getting along wonderfully.

Once Miss Green enclosed a letter from Janet asking Fenella for her photograph. For nearly a week that was a frightful ordeal, but in the end the woman triumphed over the nun and she sent the picture.

"Dear Janet," she wrote, "it was very sweet of you to wish for my photograph to remind you of that dear and charming day I spent at Ballamoar, so I have been into Cambridge and had one specially taken for you, in the dress I wore on that lovely August afternoon which I shall never forget...."

It had been a tingling delight to write that letter, but the moment she had posted it, with the new Cambridge photograph, she could have died of vexation and shame—it must be so utterly obvious whom she had sent them to.

As the Christmas vacation approached she began to be afraid of herself. If she returned to the island she would be sure to see Victor Stowell (he must be in Douglas now) and that would be the end of everything.

After a tragic struggle, and many secret tears, she wrote to her father to say what numbers of the Newnham girls were going to Italy for the holidays and how she would love to see the pictures at Florence. To her consternation the Governor answered immediately, saying,

"Excellent idea! It will do you good, and I shall be happy to get away from 'the Kays' for a month or two, so I am writing at once to engage rooms at the Washington."

She could have cried aloud after reading this letter, but there was no help for it now.

Truly, the heart of a girl is a deep riddle and only He Who made can read it.

II

In the Attorney-General's office Victor Stowell was going from strength to strength. There was a vast deal of ordinary drudgery in his probationary stage, but he was bearing it with amazing patience. His natural talents were recognised as astonishing and he was being promoted by rapid degrees. After a few months the Attorney wrote to the Deemster:

"Unless I am mistaken your boy is going to be a great lawyer—the root of the matter seems to be in him."

Not content with the routine work of the office he took up (by help of some scheme of University extension) the higher education which had been cut short by his dismissal from King William's, and in due course obtained degrees. One day, after talking with Victor, the Bishop of the island was heard to say:

"If that young fellow had been sent up to Oxford, as he ought to have been, he might have taken a first-class in Literae Humaniores and became the most brilliant man of his year."

The Attorney-General's office was a large one, and it contained several other students-at-law. Among them now was Alick Gell, who had prevailed upon his mother to prevail upon his father to permit him to follow Stowell.

"God's sake, woman," the Speaker had said, "let him go then, and make one more rascally Manx lawyer."

But neither Alick's industrious idleness, nor the distractions of a little holiday town in its season, could tempt Stowell from his studies. His successes seemed lightly won, but Alick, who lodged with him in Athol Street, knew that he was a hard worker. He worked early and late as if inspired by a great hope, a great ideal.

His only recreation was to spend his week-ends at home. When he arrived on the Saturday afternoons he usually found his father, who was looking younger every day, humming to himself as he worked in an old coat among the flowers in the conservatory. At night they dined together, and after dinner, if the evenings were cool, the Deemster would call on him to stir the peats and draw up to the fire, and then the old man would talk.

It was wonderful talking, but nearly always on the same subject—the great Manx trials, the great crimes (often led up to by great temptations), the great advocates and the great Deemsters. Victor noticed that whatever the Deemster began with he usually came round to the same conclusion—the power and sanctity of Justice. After an hour, or more, he would rise in his stately way, to go to the blue law-papers for his next Court which his clerk, old Joshua Scarf, had laid out under the lamp on the library table, saying:

"That's how it is, you see. Justice is the strongest and most sacred thing in the world, and in the end it must prevail."

But Victor's greatest joy in his weekly visits to Ballamoar was to light his candle at ten o'clock on the mahogany table on the landing under the clock and fly off to his bedroom, for Janet would be there at that hour, blowing up his fire, turning down his bed, opening his bag to take out his night-gear and ready to talk on a still greater subject.

With the clairvoyance of the heart of a woman who had never had a lover of her own ("not exactly a real lover," she used to say) she had penetrated the mystery of the change in Victor. She loved to dream about the glories of his future career (even her devotion to the Deemster was in danger of being eclipsed by that) but above everything else, about the woman who was to be his wife.

In some deep womanlike way, unknown to man, she identified herself with Fenella Stanley and courted Victor for her in her absence. She had visions of their marriage day, and particularly of the day after it, when they would come home, that lovely and beloved pair, to this very house, this very room, this very bed, and she would spread the sheets for them.

"Is that you, dear?" she would say, down on her knees at the fire, as he came in with his candle.

And then he, too, would play his little part, asking about the servants, the tenants, Robbie Creer, and his son Robin (now a big fellow and the Deemster's coachman) and Alice and "Auntie Kitty," and even the Manx cat with her six tailless kittens, and then, as if casually, about Fenella.

"Any news from Miss Green lately, Janet?"

One night Janet had something better than news—a letter and a photograph.

"There! What do you think of that, now?"

Victor read the letter in its bold, clear, unaffected handwriting, and then holding the photograph under the lamp in his trembling fingers (Janet was sure they were trembling) he said, in a voice that was also trembling:

"Don't you think she's like my mother—just a little like?"

"'Deed she is, dear," said Janet. "You've put the very name to it. And that's to say she's like the loveliest woman that ever walked the world—in this island anyway."

Victor could never trust his voice too soon after Janet said things like that (she was often saying them), but after a while he laughed and answered:

"I notice she doesn't walk the island too often, though. She hasn't come here for ages."

"Oh, but she will, boy, she will," said Janet, and then she left him, for he was almost undressed by this time, to get into bed and dream.

III

At length, Victor Stowell's term as a student-at-law came to an end and he was examined for the Manx bar. The examiner was the junior Deemster of the island—Deemster Taubman, an elderly man with a yellow and wrinkled face which put you in mind of sour cream. He was a bachelor, notoriously hard on the offences of women, having been jilted, so rumor said, by one of them (a well-to-do widow), on whose person or fortune he had set his heart or expectations.

Stowell and Gell went up together, being students of the same year, and Deemster Taubman received them at his home, two mornings running, in his dressing-gown and slippers. Stowell's fame had gone before him, so he got off lightly; but Gell came in for a double dose of the examiner's severity.

"Mr. Gell," said Deemster Taubman, "if somebody consulted you in the circumstance that he had lent five hundred pounds on a promissory note, payable upon demand, but without security, to a rascal (say a widow woman) who refused to pay and declared her intention of leaving the island to-morrow and living abroad, what would you advise your client to do for the recovery of his money?"

Alick had not the ghost of an idea, but knowing Deemster Taubman was vain, and thinking to flatter him, he said,

"I should advise my client, your Honour, to lay the facts, in an ex parte petition before your Honour at your Honour's next Court" (it was to be held a fortnight later) "and be perfectly satisfied with your Honour's judgment."

"Dunce!" said Deemster Taubman, and sitting down to his desk, he advised the Governor to admit Mr. Stowell but remand Mr. Gell for three months' further study.

Victor telegraphed the good news to his father, packed up his belongings in his lodging at Athol Street, and took the next train back to Ballamoar. Young Robbie Creer met him at the station with the dog-cart, and took up his luggage, but Victor was too excited to ride further, so he walked home by a short cut across the Curragh.

His spirits were high, for after many a sickening heartache from hope deferred (the harder to bear because it had to be concealed) he had done something to justify himself. It wasn't much, it was only a beginning, but he saw himself going to Government House one day soon on a thrilling errand that would bring somebody back to the island who had been too long away from it.

Of course he must speak to his own father first, and naturally he must tell Janet. But seeing no difficulties in these quarters he went swinging along the Curragh lane, with the bees humming in the gold of the gorse on either side of him and the sea singing under a silver haze beyond, until he came to the wicket gate on the west of the tall elms and passed through to the silence inside of them.

He found the Deemster in the conservatory, re-potting geraniums, and when he came up behind with a merry shout, his father turned with glad eyes, a little moist, wiped his soiled fingers on his old coat and shook hands with him (for the first time in his life) saying, in a thick voice,

"Good—very good!"

They dined together, as usual, and when they had drawn up at opposite cheeks of the hearth, with the peat fire between them, the Deemster talked as Victor thought he had never heard him talk before.

It was the proper aspiration of every young advocate to become a Judge, and there was no position of more dignity and authority. Diplomatists, statesmen, prime ministers and even presidents might be influenced in their conduct by fears or hopes, or questions of policy, but the Judge alone of all men was free to do the right, as God gave him to see the right, no matter if the sky should fall.

"But if the position of the Judge is high," said the Deemster, "still higher is his responsibility. Woe to the Judge who permits personal interests to pervert his judgment and thrice woe to him who commits a crime against Justice."

Victor found it impossible to break in on that high theme with mention of his personal matter, so, as soon as the clock on the landing began to warn for ten he leapt up, snatched his candle, and flew off to his bedroom in the hope of talk of quite another kind with Janet.

But Janet was not there, and neither was his bed turned down as usual, nor his night-gear laid out, nor his lamp lighted. He had asked for her soon after his arrival and been told that she had gone to her room early in the afternoon, and had not since been heard of.

"Headache," thought Victor, remembering that she was subject to this malady, and without more thought of the matter, he tumbled into bed and fell asleep.

But the first sight that met his eyes when he opened them in the morning was Janet, with a face dissolved in tears, and the tray in her hand, asking him in a muffled voice to sit up to his breakfast.

"Lord alive, Janet, what's amiss?" he asked, but she only shook her head and called on him to eat.

"Tell me what's happened," he said, but not a word would she say until he had taken his breakfast.

He gulped down some of the food, under protest, Janet standing over him, and then came a tide of lamentation.

"God comfort you, my boy! God strengthen and comfort you!" said Janet.

In the whirl of his stunned senses, Victor caught at the first subject of his thoughts.

"Is it about Fenella?" he asked, and Janet nodded and-wiped her eyes.

"Is she—dead?"

Janet threw up her hands. "Thank the Lord, no, not that, anyway."

"Is she ill?"

"Not that either."

"Then why make all this fuss? What does it matter to me?"

"It matters more to you than to anybody else in the world, dear," said Janet.

Victor took her by the shoulders as she stood by his bed. "In the name of goodness, Janet, what is it?" he said.

It came at last, a broken story, through many gusts of breath, all pretences down between them now and their hearts naked before each other.

Fenella Stanley, who, since she left Newnham, had been working (as he knew) as a voluntary assistant at some Women's Settlement in London, had just been offered and had accepted the position of its resident Lady Warden, and signed on for seven years.

"Seven years, you say?"

"Seven years, dear."

The Governor had prayed and protested, saying he had only one daughter, and asking if she meant that he was to live the rest of his life alone, but Fenella, who had written heart-breaking letters, had held to her purpose. It was like taking the veil, like going into a nunnery; the girl was lost to them, they had seen the last of her.

"I had it all from Catherine Green," said Janet.

Willie Killip, the postman, had given her the letter just when she was standing at the porch, looking down the Curragh lane for Victor, and seeing him coming along with his high step and the sunset behind him, swishing the heads off the cushags with his cane.

"I couldn't find it in my heart to tell you last night, and you looking so happy, so I ran away to my room, and it's a sorrowful woman I am to tell you this morning."

She knew it would be bitter hard to him—as hard as it must have been to Jacob to serve seven years for Rachel and then lose her, and that was the saddest story in the old Book, she thought.

"But we must bear it as well as we can, dear, and—who knows?—it may all be for the best some day."

Victor, resting on his elbow, had listened with mouth agape. The flaming light which had crimsoned his sky for five long years, sustaining him, inspiring him, had died out in an instant. For some moments he did not speak, and in the intervals of Janet's lamentations nothing was audible but the cry of some sea-gulls who had come up from the sea, where a storm was rising. Then he began to laugh. It was wild, unnatural laughter, beginning thick in his throat and ending with a scream.

"Lord, what a joke!" he cried. "What a damned funny joke!"

But at the next moment he broke into a stifling sob, and fell face down on to the pillow and soaked it with his tears.

Janet hung over him like a mother-bird over a broken nest, her wrinkled face working hard with many emotions—sorrow for her boy and even anger with Fenella.

"Aw, dear! aw, dear!" she moaned, "many a time I've wished I had been your real mother, dear; but never so much as now that I might have a right to comfort you."

At that word, though sadly spoken, Victor raised himself from his pillow, brushed his eyes fiercely and said, in a firm, decided voice,

"That's all right, mother. I've been a fool. But it shall never happen again—never!"