A month after their marriage a man came through the gate with the air of one who was doing a degrading thing. The dog, which had been spread out lazily in the sun before the porch, leapt up and barked furiously.
“Who's this coming up the path with his eyes all round him like a scallop?” said Pete.
Kate looked. “It's Ross Christian,” she said, with a catch in her breathing.
Ross came up, and Pete met him at the door. His face was puffy and pale, his speech was soft and lisping, yet there lurked about the man an air of levity and irony.
“Your dog doesn't easily make friends, Peter,” he said.
“He's like his master, sir; it's against the principles of his life,” said Pete.
Ross laughed a little. “Wants to be approached with consideration, does he, Capt'n?”
“You see, he's lived such a long time in the world and seen such a dale,” said Pete.
Ross looked up sharply and said in another tone, “I've just dropped in to congratulate you on your return home in safety and health and prosperity, Mr. Quilliam.”
“You're welcome, sir,” said Pete.
Pete led the way indoors. Ross followed, bowed distantly to Kate, who was unpicking a dress, and took a chair.
“I must not conceal from you, however, that I have another object—in fact, a private matter,” said Ross, glancing at Kate.
The dress rustled in Kate's fingers, her scissors dropped on to the table, and she rose to go.
Pete raised his hand. “My wife knows all my business,” he said.
Ross gave out another little chirp of laughter. “You'll remember what they say of a secret, Captain—too big for one, right for two, tight for three.”
“A man and his wife are one, sir—so that's two altogether,” said Pete.
Kate took up the scissors and went on with her work uneasily. Ross twisted on his seat and said, “Well, I feel Imusttell you, Peter.”
“Quilliam, sir,” said Pete, charging a pipe; but Ross pretended not to hear.
“Only natural, perhaps, for it—in fact, it's about our father.”
“Tongue with me, tongue with thee,” thought Pete, lighting up.
“Five years ago he made me an allowance, and sent me up to London to study law. He believes I've been called to the English bar, and, in view of this vacant Deemstership, he wants me admitted to the Manx one.”
Pete's pipe stopped in its puffing. “Well?”
“That's impossible,” said Ross.
“Things haven't come with you, eh?”
“To tell you the truth, Captain, on first going up I fell into extravagant company. I thought my friends were rich men, and I was never a niggard. There was Monty, the patron of the Fancy”—the scissors in Kate's hand clicked and stopped—and Ross blurted out, “In fact, I'venotbeen called, and I've never studied at all.”
Ross squirmed in his chair, glancing under his brows at Kate. Pete leaned forward and puffed up the chimney without speaking.
“You see I speak freely, Peter—something compels me. Well, if a man can't reveal his little failings to his own brother, Peter——”
“Don't let's talk about brothers,” said Pete. “What am I to do for you?”
“Lend me enough to help me to do what our father thinks I've done already,” said Ross, and then he added, hastily, “Oh, I'll give you my note of hand for it.”
“They're telling me, sir,” said Pete, “your notes of hand are as cheap as cowries.”
“Some one has belied me to you, Captain. But for our father's sake—he has set his heart on this Deemstership—there may still be time for it.”
“Yes,” said Pete, striking his open hand on the table, “and better men to fill it.”
Ross glanced at Kate, and a smile that was half a sneer crossed his evil face. “How nice,” he said, “when the great friends of the wife are also the great friends of the husband.”
“Just so,” said Pete, and then Ross laughed a little, and the clicking of Kate's scissors stopped again. “As to you, sir,” said Pete, rising, “if it's no disrespect, you're like the cormorant that chokes itself swallowing its fish head-ways up. The gills are sticking in your gizzard, sir, only,” touching Ross's shoulder with something between a pat and push, “you shouldn't be coming to your father's son to help you to ram it down.”
As Ross went out Cæsar came in. “That wastrel's been wanting something,” said Cæsar.
“The tide's down on him,” said Pete.
“Always was, and always will be. He was born at low water, and he'll die on the rocks. Borrowing money, eh?” said Cæsar, with a searching glance.
“Trying to,” said Pete indifferently.
“Then lend it, sir,” said Cæsar promptly. “He's not to trust, but lend it on his heirship. Or lend it the ould man at mortgage on Ballawhaine. He's the besom of fire—it'll come to you, sir, at the father's death, and who has more right?”
The shank of Pete's pipe came down from his mouth as he sat for some moments beating out the ash on the jockey bar. “Something in that, though,” he said mechanically. “But there's another has first claim for all. He'd be having the place now if every one had his own. I must be thinking of it—I must be thinking of it.”
Philip had left the island on the morning after the marriage. He had gone abroad, and when they heard from him first he was at Cairo. The voyage out had done him good—the long, steady nights going down the Mediterranean—walking the deck alone—the soft air—the far-off lights—thought he was feeling better—calmer anyway. He hoped they were settled in their new home, and well—and happy. Kate had to read the letter aloud. It was like a throb of Philip's heart made faint, feeble, and hardly to be felt by the great distance. Then she had to reply to it on behalf of Pete.
“Tell him to be quick and come out of the land of Egypt and the house of bondage,” said Pete. “Say there's no manner of sense of a handsome young man living in a country where there isn't a pretty face to be seen on the sunny side of a blanket. Write that Kirry joins with her love and best respects and she's busy whitewashing, and he'd better have no truck with Pharaoh's daughters.”
The next time they heard from Philip he was at Rome. He had suffered from sleeplessness, but was not otherwise unwell. Living in that city was like an existence after death—all the real life was behind you. But it was not unpleasant to walk under the big moon amid the wrecks of the past. He congratulated Mrs. Quilliam on her active occupation—work was the same as suffering—it was strength and power. Kate had to read this letter also. It was like a sob coming over the sea.
“Give him a merry touch to keep up his pecker,” said Pete. “Tell him the Romans are ter'ble jealous chaps, and, if he gets into a public house for a cup of tay, he's to mind and not take the girls on his knee—the Romans don't like it.”
The last time they heard from Philip he was in London. His old pain had given way; he thought he was nearly well again, but he had come through a sharp fire. The Governor had been very good—kept open the Deemstership by some means—also surrounded him with London friends—he was out every night. Nevertheless, an unseen force was drawing him home—they might see him soon, or it might be later he had been six months away, but he felt that it had not been all waste and interruption—he would return with a new sustaining power.
This letter could not be answered, for it bore no address. It came by the night-mail with the same day's steamer from England. Two hours later Mrs. Gorry ran in from an errand to the town saying—
“I believe in my heart I saw Mr. Philip Christian going by on the road.”
“When?” said Pete.
“This minute,” she answered.
“Chut! woman,” said Pete; “the man's in London. Look, here's his letter”—running his forefinger along the headline—'"London, January 21st—that's yesterday. See!”
Mrs. Gorry was perplexed. But the next night she was out at the same hour on the same errand, and came flying into the house with a scared look, making the same announcement.
“See for yourself, then,” she cried, “he's going up the lane by the garden.”
“Nonsense! it's browning you're ateing with your barley,” said Pete; and then to Kate, behind his hand, he whispered, “Whisht! It's sights she's seeing, poor thing—and no wonder, with her husband laving her so lately.”
But the third night also Mrs. Gorry returned from a similar errand, at the same hour, with the same statement.
“I'm sure of it,” she panted. She was now in terror. An idea of the supernatural had taken hold of her.
“The woman manes it,” said Pete, and he began to cross-question her. How was Mr. Christian dressed? She hadn't noticed that night, but the first night he had worn a coat like an old Manx cape. Which way was he going? She couldn't be certain which way to-night but the night before he had gone up the lane between the chapel and the garden. Had she seen his face at all? The first time she had seen it, and it was very thin and pale.
“Oh, I wouldn't deceave you, sir,” said Mrs. Gorry, and she fell to crying.
“Gough bless me, but this is mortal strange, though,” said Pete.
“What time was it exactly, Jane?” asked Kate.
“On the minute of ten every night,” answered Mrs. Gorry.
“Is there any difference in time, now,” said Pete, “between the Isle of Man and London, Kitty?”
“Nothing to speak of,” said Kate.
Pete scratched his head. “I must be putting a sight up on Black Tom. A dirty old trouss, God forgive me, if he is my grandfather, but he knows the Manx yarns about right. If it had been Midsummer day now, and Philip had been in bed somewhere, it might have been his spirit coming home while he was sleeping to where his heart is—they're telling of the like, anyway.”
Kate read the mystery after her own manner, and on the following night, at the approach of ten o'clock, she went into the parlour of the hall, whence a window looked out on to the road. The day had been dull and the night was misty. A heavy white hand seemed to have come down on to the face of sea and land. Everything lay still and dead and ghostly. Kate was in the dark room, trembling, but not with fear. Presently a form that was like a shadow passed under a lamp that glimmered opposite. She could see only the outlines of a Spanish cape. But she listened for the footsteps, and she knew them. They came on and paused, came up and paused again, and then they went past and deadened off and died in the dense night-air.
Kate's eyes were red and swollen when she came back to supper. She had promised herself enjoyment of Philip's sufferings. There was no enjoyment, but only a cry of yearning from the deep place where love calls to love. She tried afresh to make the thought of Philip sink to the lowest depth of her being. It was hard—it was impossible; Pete was for ever strengthening the recollection of him—of his ways, his look, his voice, his laugh. What he said was only the echo of her own thoughts; but it was pain and torment, nevertheless. She felt like crying, “Let me alone—let me alone!”
People in the town began to talk of Mrs. Gorry's mysterious stories.
“Philip will be forced to come now,” thought Kate; and he came. Kate was alone. It was afternoon; dinner was over, the hearth was swept, the fire was heaped up, and the rug was down. He entered the porch quietly, tapped lightly at the door, and stepped into the house. He hoped she was well. She answered mechanically. He asked after Pete. She replied vacantly that he had been gone since morning on some fishing business to Peel. It was a commonplace conversation—brief, cold, almost trivial. He spoke softly, and stood in the middle of the floor, swinging his soft hat against his leg. She was standing by the fire, with one hand on the mantelpiece and her head half aside, looking sideways towards his feet; but she noticed that his eyes looked larger than before, and that his voice, though so soft, had a deeper tone. At first she did not remember to ask him to sit, and when she thought of it she could not do so. The poor little words would have been a formal recognition of all that had happened so terribly—that she was mistress in that house, and the wife of Pete.
They were standing so, in a silence hard to break, harder still to keep up, when Pete himself came back, like a rush of wind, and welcomed Philip with both hands.
“Sit, boy, sit,” he cried; “not that one—this aisy one. Mine? Well, if it's mine, it's yours. Not had dinner, have you? Neither have I. Any cold mate left, Kitty? No? Fry us a chop, then, darling.”
Kate had recovered herself by this time, and she went out on this errand. While she was away, Pete rattled on like a mill-race—asked about the travels, laughed about the girls, and roared about Mrs. Gorry and her ghost of Philip.
“Been buying a Nickey at Peel to-day, Phil,” he said; “good little boat—a reg'lar clipper. Aw, I'm going to start on the herrings myself next sayson sir, and what for shouldn't I? Too many of the Manx ones are giving the fishing the goby. There's life in the ould dog yet, though. Would be, anyway, if them rusty Kays would be doing anything for the industry. They're building piers enough for the trippers, but never a breakwater the size of a tooth-brush for the fishermen. That's reminding me, Phil—the boys are at me to get you to petition the Tynwald Court for better harbours. They're losing many a pound by not getting out all weathers. But if the child doesn't cry, the mother will be giving it no breast. So we mane to squall till they think in Douglas we've got spavined wind or population of the heart, or something. The men are looking to you, Phil. 'That's the boy for us,' says they. 'He's stood our friend before, and he'll do it again,' they're saying.”
Philip promised to draw up the petition, and then Mrs. Gorry came in and laid the cloth.
Kate, meanwhile, had been telling herself that she had not done well. Where was the satisfaction she had promised herself on the night of her wedding-day, when she had seen Philip from the height of a great revenge, if she allowed him to think that she also was suffering? She must be bright, she must be gay, she must seem to be happy and in love with her husband.
She returned to the hall-parlour with a smoking dish, and a face all sunshine.
“I'm afraid they're not very good, dear,” she said.
“Chut!” said Pete; “we're not particular. Phil and I have roughed it before to-day.”
She laughed merrily, and, under pretext of giving orders, disappeared again. But she had not belied the food she had set on the table. The mutton was badly fed, badly killed, badly cut, and, above all, badly cooked. To eat it was an ordeal. Philip tried hard not to let Pete see how he struggled. Pete fought valiantly to conceal his own efforts. The perspiration began to break out on their foreheads. Pete stopped in the midst of some wild talk to glance up at Philip. Philip tore away with knife and fork and answered vaguely. Then Pete looked searchingly around, rose on tiptoe, went stealthily to the kitchen door, came back, caught up a piece of yellow paper from the sideboard, whipped the chops into it from his own plate and then from Philip's, and crammed them into his jacket pocket.
“No good hurting anybody's feelings,” said he; and then Kate reappeared smiling.
“Finished already?” she said with an elevation of pitch.
“Ha! ha!” laughed Pete. “Two hungry men, Kate! You'd rather keep us a week than a fortnight, eh?”
Kate stood over the empty dish with a look of surprise. Pete winked furiously at Philip. Philip's eyes wandered about the tablecloth.
“Sheisn't knowing much about a hungry man's appetite, is she, Phil?”
“But,” said Kate—“but,” she stammered—“what's become of the bones?”
Pete scratched his chin through his beard. “The bones? Oh, the bones? Aw, no, we're not ateing the bones, at all.” Then with a rush, as his eyes kindled, “But the dog, you see—coorse we always give the bones to the dog—Dempster's dead on bones.”
Dempster was lying at the moment full length under the table, snoring audibly. Mrs. Gorry cleared the cloth, and Kate took up her sewing and turned towards the sideboard.
“Has any one seen my pattern?” she asked.
“Pattern?” said Pete, diving into his jacket-pocket. “D'ye say pattern,” he muttered, rummaging at his side. “Is this it?” and out came the yellow paper, crumpled and greasy, which had gone in with the chops. “Bless me, the stupid a man is now—I took it for a pipe-light.”
Kate's smile vanished, and she fled out to hide her face. Then Pete whispered to Philip, “Let's take a slieu round to the 'Plough.'”
They were leaving the house on that errand when Kate came back to the hall. “Just taking a lil walk, Kirry,” said Pete. “They're telling me it's good wonderful after dinner for a wake digestion of the chest,” and he coughed repeatedly and smote his resounding breast.
“Wait a moment and I'll go with you,” said Kate.
There was no help for it. Kate's shopping took them in the direction of the “Plough.” Old Mrs. Beatty, the innkeeper, was at the door as they passed, and when she saw Pete approaching on the inside of the three, she said aloud—meaning no mischief—“Your bread and cheese and porter are ready, as usual, Capt'n.”
The man was killing her. To be his spoiled and adored wife, knowing she was unworthy of his love and tenderness, was not happiness—it was grinding misery, bringing death into her soul. If he had blamed her for her incompetence; if he had scolded her for making his home cheerless; nay, if he had beaten her, she could have borne with life, and taken her outward sufferings for her inward punishment.
She fell into fits of hysteria, sat whole hours listless, with her feet on the fender. Pete's conduct exasperated her. As time went on and developed the sweetness of Pete, the man grew more and more distasteful to her, and she broke into fits of shrewishness. Pete hung his head and reproached himself. She wasn't to mind if he said things—he was only a rough fellow. Then she burst into tears and asked him to forgive her, and he was all cock-a-hoop in a moment, like a dog that is coaxed after it has been beaten.
Her sufferings reached a climax—she became conscious that she was about to become a mother. This affected her with terrible fears. She went back to that thought of a possible contingency which had torn her with conflicting feelings on the eve of her marriage. It was impossible to be sure. The idea might be no more than a morbid fancy, born of her un-happiness, of her secret love for Philip, of her secret repugnance for Pete (the inadequate, the uncouth, the uncongenial) but nevertheless it possessed her with the force of an overpowering conviction, it grew upon her day by day, it sat on her heart like a nightmare—the child that was to be born to her was not the child of her husband.
In spite of Pete's invitations, Philip came rarely. He was full of excuses—work—fresh studies—the Governor—his aunt. Pete said “Coorse,” and “Sartenly,” and “Wouldn't trust,” until Philip began to be ashamed, and one evening he came, looking stronger than usual, with a more sustaining cheerfulness, and plumped into the house with the words, “I've come at last!”
“To stay the night?” said Pete.
“Well, yes,” said Philip.
“That's lucky and unlucky too, for I'm this minute for Peel with two of the boys to fetch round my Nickey by the night-tide. But youll stay and keep the wife company, and I'll be back first tide in the morning. You'll be obliged to him, won't you, Kate?” he cried, pitching his voice over his shoulder; and then, in a whisper, “She's a bit down at whiles, and what wonder, and her so near—but you'll see, you'll see,” and he winked and nodded knowingly.
There was no harking back, no sheering off on the score of modesty before Pete's large faith. Kate looked as if she would cry “Mercy, mercy!” but when she saw the same appeal on Philip's face she was stung.
Pete went off, and then Kate and Philip sat down to tea. While tea lasted it was not hard to fill the silences with commonplaces. After it was over she brought him a pipe, and they lapsed into difficult pauses. Philip puffed vigorously and tried to look happy. Kate struggled not to let Philip see that she was ill at ease. Every moment their imagination took a new turn. He began to read a book, and while they sat without speaking she thought it was hardly nice of him to treat her with indifference. When he spoke she thought he was behaving with less politeness than before. He went over to the piano and they sang a part song, “Oh, who will o'er the downs so free?” Their voices went well enough together, but they broke down. The more they tried to forget the past the more they remembered it. He twiddled the backs of his fingertips over the keyboard; she swung on one foot and held to the candle-bracket while they talked of Pete. That name seemed to fortify them against the scouts of passion. Pete was their bulwark. It was the old theme, but played as a tragedy, not as a comedy, now.
“It is delightful to see you settled in this beautiful home,” he said.
“Isn'tit beautiful?” she answered.
“You ought to be very happy.”
“Why should I not be happy?” with a little laugh.
“Why, indeed? A home like a nest and a husband that worships you——-”
She laughed again because she could not speak. Speech was thin gauze, laughter was rolling smoke; so she laughed and laughed.
“What a fine hearty creature he is!” said Philip.
“Isn't he?” said Kate.
“Education and intellect don't always go together.”
“Any wife might love such a husband,” said Kate.
“So simple, so natural, so unsuspicious——-”
But that was coming to quarters too close, so they fell back on silence. The silence was awful; the power of it was pitiless. If they could have spoken the poorest commonplaces, the spell might have dissolved. Philip thought he would rise, but he could not do so. Kate tried to turn away, but felt herself rooted to the spot. With faces aside, they remained some moments where they were, as if a spirit had passed between them.
Mrs. Gorry came in to lay the supper, and then Kate recovered herself. She got back her power of laughter, and laughed at everything. He was not deceived. “She loves me still,” said the voice of his heart. He hated himself for the thought, but it haunted him with a merciless persistence. He remembered the evening of the wedding-day, and the imploring look she gave him on going away with Pete; and he returned to the idea that she had been married under the compulsion of her father, Cæsar, the avaricious hypocrite. He told himself it would be easy to kindle a new fire on the warm hearth. As she laughed and he looked into her beautiful eyes and caught the nervous twitch of her mouth, he felt something of the old thrill, the old passion, the old unconditioned love of her who loved him in spite of all, and merely because she must. But no! Had he spent six months abroad for nothing? He would be strong; he would be loyal. If need be he would save this woman from herself.
At last Kate lit a candle and said, “I must show you to your room.”
She talked cheerily going upstairs. On the landing she opened the door of the room above the hall, and went into it, and drew down the blind. She was still full of good spirits, said perhaps he had no night-shirt, so she had left out one of Pete's, hoped he would find it big enough, and laughed again. He took the candle from her at the threshold, and kissed the hand that had held it. She stood a moment quivering like a colt, then she bounded away; there was the clash of a door somewhere beyond, and Kate was in her own room, kneeling before the bed with her face buried in the counterpane to stifle the sobs that might break through the walls.
Under all her lightness, in spite of all her laughter, the old tormenting thought had been with her still. Should she tell him? Could he understand? Would he believe? If he realised the gravity of the awful position in which she was soon to be placed, would he make an effort to extricate her? And if he did not, would not, could not, should not she hate him for ever after? Then the old simple love, the pure passion, came hack upon her at the sight of his face, at the touch of his hand, at the sound of his voice? Oh, for what might have been—what might have been!
Pete's Nickey came into harbour with the morning tide, and the three breakfasted together. As Kate moved heavily in front of the fire, Pete crowed, cooed, and scattered wise winks round the table.
“More milk, mammy,” he whimpered, and then he imitated all kinds of baby prattle.
After breakfast the men smoked, and Kate took up her sewing. She was occupying herself with the little labours, so pretty, so full of delicate humour and delicious joy, which usually open a new avenue for a woman's tenderness. Philip's eyes fell on her, and she dropped below into her lap the tiny piece of white linen she was working on. Pete saw this, stole to the back of her chair, reached over her shoulder, snatched the white thing out of her fingers, held it outstretched in his ponderous hands, and roared like a smithy bellows. It was a baby's shirt.
“Never mind, darling,” he coaxed, as the colour leapt to Kate's face. “Philip must be a sort of a father to the boy some day—a godfather, anyway—so he won't mind seeing his lil shiff. We must be calling him Philip, too. What do you say, Kirry—Philip, is it agreed?”
As her time drew near, the conviction deepened upon her that she could not be confined in her husband's house. Being there at such a crisis was like living in a volcanic land. One false step, one passionate impulse, and the very earth under her feet would split. “I must go home for awhile, Pete,” she said.
“Coorse you must,” said Pete. “Nobody like the ould angel when a girl's that way.”
Pete took her back to her mother's in the gig, driving very slowly, and lifting her up and down as tenderly as if she had been a child. She breathed freely when she left Elm Cottage, but when she was settled in her own bedroom at “The Manx Fairy” she realised that she had only stepped from misery to misery. So many memories lived like ghosts there—memories of innocent slumbers, and of gleeful awakenings amid the twittering of birds and the rattling of gravel. The old familiar place, the little room with the poor little window looking out on the orchard, the poor little bed with its pink curtains like a tent, the sweet old blankets, the wash-basin, the press, the blind with the same old pattern, the sheepskin rug underfoot, the whitewashed scraas overhead—everything the same, but, O God! how different!
“Let me look at myself in the glass, Nancy,” she said, and Nancy gave her the handglass which had been cracked the morning after the Melliah.
She pushed it away peevishly. “What's the use of a thing like that?” she said.
Pete haunted the house day and night. There was no bed for him there, and he was supposed to go home to sleep. But he wandered away in the darkness over the Curragh to the shore, and in the grey of morning he was at the door again, bringing the cold breath of the dawn into the house with the long whisper round the door ajar. “How's she going on now?”
The women bundled him out bodily, and then he hung about the roads like a dog disowned. If he heard a sigh from the dairy loft, he sat down against the gable and groaned. Grannie tried to comfort him. “Don't be taking on so, boy. It'll be all joy soon,” said she, “and you'll be having the child to shew for it.”
But Pete was bitter and rebellious. “Who's wanting the child anyway?” said he. “It's only herself I'm wanting; and she's laving me; O Lord, she's laving me. God forgive me!” he muttered. “O good God, forgive me!” he groaned: “It isn't fair, though. Lord knows it isn't fair,” he mumbled hoarsely.
At last Nancy Joe came out and took him in hand in earnest.
“Look here, Pete,” she said. “If you're wanting to kill the woman, and middling quick too, you'll go on the way you're going. But if you don't, you'll be taking to the road, and you won't be coming back till you're wanted.”
This settled Pete's restlessness. The fishing had begun early that season, and he went off for a night to the herrings.
Kate waited long, and the women watched her with trembling. “It's a week or two early,” said one. “The weather's warm,” said another. “The boghee millish! She's a bit soon,” said Grannie.
There was less of fear in Kate's own feelings.
“Do women often die?” she asked.
“The proportion is small,” said the doctor.
Half an hour afterwards she spoke again.
“Does the child sometimes die?”
“Well, I've known it to happen, but only when the mother has had a shock—lost her husband, for example.”
She lay tossing on the bed, wishing for her own death, hoping for the death of the unborn child, dreading its coming lest she should hate and loathe it. At last came the child's first cry—that cry out of silence that had never broken on the air before, but was henceforth to be one of the world's voices for laughter and for weeping, for joy and for sorrow, to her who had borne it into life. Then she called to them to show her the baby, and when they did so, bringing it up with soft cooings and foolish words, she searched the little wrinkled face with a frightened look, then put up her arms to shut out the sight, and cried “Take it away,” and turned to the wall. Her vague fear was a certainty now; the child was the child of her sin—she was a bad woman.
Yet there is no shame, no fear, no horror, but the pleading of a new-born babe can drown its clamour. The child cried again, and the cruel battle of love and dread was won for motherhood. The mother heart awoke and swelled. She had got her baby, at all events. It was all she had for all she had suffered; but it was enough, and a dear and precious prize.
“Are you sure it is well?” she asked. “Quite, quite well? Doesn't its little face look as if its mammy had been crying—no?”
“'Deed no,” said Grannie, “but as bonny a baby as ever was born.”
The women were scurrying up and down, giggling on the landings, laughing on the stairs, and sayinghushat their own noises as they crept into the room. In a fretful whimper the child was still crying, and Grannie was telling it, with many wags of the head and in a mighty stern voice, that they were going to have none of its complaining now that ithadcome at last; and Kate Herself, with hands clasped together, was saying in a soft murmur like a prayer, “God is very good, and the doctor is good too. God is good to give us doctors.”
“Lie quiet, and I'll come back in an hour or two,” said Dr. Mylechreest from half-way through the door.
“Dear heart alive, what will the father say?” cried Grannie, and then the whole place broke into that smile of surprise which comes to every house after the twin angels of Life and Death have brooded long over its roof-tree, and are gone at length before the face of a little child.
When Pete came up to the quay in the raw sunshine of early morning, John the Clerk, mounted on a barrel, was selling by auction the night's take of the boats.
“I've news for you, Mr. Quilliam,” he cried, as Pete's boat, with half sail set, dropped down the harbour. Pete brought to, leapt ashore, and went up to where John, at the end of the jetty, surrounded by a crowd of buyers in little spring-carts, was taking bids for the fish.
“One moment, Capt'n,” he cried, across his outstretched arm, at the end whereof was a herring with gills still opening and closing. “Ten maise of this sort for the last lot, well fed, alive and kicking—how much for them? Five shillings? Thank you—and three, Five and three. It's in it yet, boys—only five and three—and six, thankyou. It'll do no harm at five and six—six shillings? All done at six—and six?All done at six and six?” “Seven shillings,” shouted somebody with a voice like a foghorn. “They're Annie the Cadger's,” said John, dropping to the ground. “And now, Capt'n Quilliam, we'll go and wet the youngster's head.”
Pete went up to Sulby like an avalanche, shouting his greetings to everybody on the way. But when he got near to the “Fairy,” he wiped his steaming forehead and held his panting breath, and pretended not to have heard the news.
“How's the poor girl now?” he said in a meek voice, trying to look powerfully miserable, and playing his part splendidly for thirty seconds.
Then the women made eyes at each other and looked wondrous knowing, and nodded sideways at Pete, and clucked and chuckled, saying, “Look at him,—hedoesn't know anything, does he?” “Coorse not, woman—these men creatures are no use for nothing.”
“Out of a man's way,” cried Pete, with a roar, and he made a rush for the stairs.
Nancy blocked him at the foot of them with both hands on his shoulders. “You'll be quiet, then,” she whispered. “You were always a rasonable man, Pete, and she's wonderful wake—promise you'll be quiet.”
“TO be like a mouse,” said Pete, and he whipped off his long sea-boots and crept on tiptoe into the room.
There she lay with the morning light on her, and a face as white as the quilt that she was plucking with her long fingers.
“Thank God for a living mother and a living child,” said Pete, in a broken gurgle, and then he drew down the bedclothes a very little, and there, too, was the child on the pillow of her other arm.
Then do what he would to be quiet, he could not help but make a shout.
“He's there! Yes, he is! He is, though! Joy! Joy!”
The women were down on him like a flock of geese. “Out of this, sir, if you can't behave better!'
“Excuse me, ladies,” said Pete humbly, “I'm not in the habit of babies. A bit excited, you see, Mistress Nancy, ma'am. Couldn't help putting a bull of a roar out, not being used of the like.” Then, turning back to the bed, “Aw, Kitty, the beauty it is, though! And the big! As big as my fist already. And the fat! It's as fat as a bluebottle. And the straight! Well, not soverystraight, neither, but the complexion at him now! Give him to me, Kitty I give him to me, the young rascal. Let me have a hould of him, anyway.”
“Him, indeed! Listen to the man,” said Nancy.
“It's a girl, Pete,” said Grannie, lifting the child out of the bed.
“A girl, is it?” said Pete doubtfully. “Well,” he said, with a wag of the head, “thank God for a girl.” Then, with another and more resolute wag, “Yes, thank God for a living mother and a living child, if it is a girl,” and he stretched out his arms to take the baby.
“Aisy, now, Pete—aisy,” said Grannie, holding it out to him.
“Is it aisy broke they are, Grannie?” said Pete. A good spirit looked out of his great boyish face. “Come to your ould daddie, you lil sandpiper. Gough bless me, Kitty, the weight of him, though! This child's a quarter of a hundred if he's an ounce. He is, I'll go bail he is. Look at him! Guy heng, Grannie, did ye ever see the like, now! It's absolute perfection. Kitty, I couldn't have had a better one if I'd chiced it. Where's that Tom Hommy now? The bleating little billygoat, he was bragging outrageous about his new baby—saying he wouldn't part with it for two of the best cows in his cow-house. This'll floor him, I'm thinking. What's that you're saying, Mistress Nancy, ma'am? No good for nothing, am I? You were right, Grannie. 'It'll be all joy soon,' you were saying, and haven't we the child to show for it? I put on my stocking inside out on Monday, ma'am. 'I'm in luck,' says I, and so I was. Look at that, now! He's shaking his lil fist at his father. He is, though. This child knows me. Aw, you're clever, Nancy, but—no nonsense at all, Mistress Nancy, ma'am. Nothing will persuade me but this child knows me.”
“Do you hear the man?” said Nancy. “Heandhe, andheandhe!It's a girl, I'm telling you; a girl—a girl—a girl.”
“Well, well, a girl, then—a girl we'll make it,” said Pete, with determined resignation.
“He's deceaved,” said Grannie. “It was a boy he was wanting, poor fellow!”
But Pete scoffed at the idea. “A boy? Never! No, no—a girl for your life. I'm all for girls myself, eh, Kitty? Always was, and now I've got two of them.”
The child began to cry, and Grannie took it back and rocked it, face downwards, across her knees.
“Goodness me, the voice at him!” said Pete. “It's a skipper he's born for—a harbour-master, anyway.”
The child slept, and Grannie put it on the pillow turned lengthwise at Kate's side.
“Quiet as a Jenny Wren, now,” said Pete. “Look at the bogh smiling in his sleep. Just like a baby mermaid on the egg of a dogfish. But where's the ould man at all? Has he seen it? We must have it in the papers. TheTimes?Yes, and the 'Tiser too. 'The beloved wife of Mr. Capt'n Peter Quilliam, of a boy—a girl,' I mane. Aw, the wonder there'll be all the island over—everybody getting to know. Newspapers are like women—ter'ble bad for keeping sacrets. What'll Philip say? But haven't you a toothful of anything, Grannie? Gin for the ladies, Nancy. Goodness me, the house is handy. What time was it? Wait, don't tell me! It was five o'clock this morning, wasn't it? Yes? Gough bless me, I knew it! High water to the very minute—aw, he'll rise in the world, and die at the top of the tide. How did I know when the child was born, ma'am? As aisy as aisy. We were lying adrift of Cronk ny Irrey Lhaa, looking up for daylight by the fisherman's clock. Only light enough to see the black of your nail, ma'am. All at once I heard a baby's cry on the waters. 'It's the nameless child of Earey Cushin,' sings out one of the boys. 'Up with the clout,' says I. And when we were hauling the nets and down on our knees saying a bit of a prayer, as usual, 'God bless my new-born child,' says I, 'and God bless my child's mother, too,' I says, and God love and protect them always, and keep and presarve myself as well.'” There was a low moaning from the bed.
“Air! Give me air! Open the door!” Kate gasped.
“The room is getting too hot for her,” said Grannie.
“Come, there's one too many of us here,” said Nancy. “Out of it,” and she swept Pete from the bedroom with her apron as if he had been a drove of ducks.
Pete glanced backward from the door, and a cloak that was hanging on the inside of it brushed his face.
“God bless her!” he said in a low tone. “God bless and reward her for going through this for me!”
Then he touched the cloak with his lips and disappeared. A moment later his curly black poll came stealing round the door jamb, half-way down, like the head of a big boy.
“Nancy,” in a whisper, “put the tongs over the cradle; it's a pity to tempt the fairies. And, Grannie, I wouldn't lave it alone to go out to the cow-house—the lil people are shocking bad for changing.”
Kate, with her face to the wall, listened to him with an aching heart. As Pete went down the doctor returned.
“She's hardly so well,” said the doctor. “Better not let her nurse the child. Bring it up by hand. It will be best for both.”
So it was arranged that Nancy should be made nurse and go to Elm Cottage, and that Mrs. Gorry should come in her place to Sulby.
Throughout four-and-twenty hours thereafter, Kate tried her utmost to shut her heart to the child. At the end of that time, being left some minutes alone with the little one, she was heard singing to it in a sweet, low tone. Nancy paused with the long brush in her hand in the kitchen, and Granny stopped at her knitting in the bar.
“That's something like, now,” said Nancy.
“Poor thing, poor Kirry! What wonder if she was a bit out of her head, the bogh, and her not well since her wedding?”
They crept upstairs together at the unaccustomed sounds, and found Pete, whom they had missed, outside the bedroom door, half doubled up and holding his breath to listen.
“Hush!” said he, less with his tongue than with his mouth, which he pursed out to represent the sound. Then he whispered, “She's filling all the room with music. Listen! It's as good as fairy music in Glentrammon. And it's the little fairy itself that's 'ticing it out of her.”
Next day Philip came, and nothing would serve for Pete but that he should go up to see the child.
“It's only Phil,” he said, through the doorway, dragging Philip into Kate's room after him, for the familiarity that a great joy permits breaks down conventions. Kate did not look up, and Philip tried to escape.
“He's got good news for himself, too” said Pete. “They're to be making him Dempster a month to-morrow.”
Then Kate lifted her eyes to Philip's face, and all the glory of success withered under her gaze. He stumbled downstairs, and hurried away. There was the old persistent thought, “She loves me still,” but it was working now, in the presence of the child, with how great a difference! When he looked at the little, downy face, a new feeling took possession of him. Her child—hers—that might have been his also! Had his bargain been worth having? Was any promotion in the world to be set against one throb of Pete's simple joy, one gleam of the auroral radiance that lights up a poor man's home when he is first a father, one moment of divine partnership in the babe that is fresh from God?
Three weeks later, Pete took his wife home in Cæsar's gig. Everything was the same, as when he brought her, save that within the shawls with which she was wrapped about the child now lay with its pink eyelids to the sky, and its fiat white bottle against her breast. It was a beautiful spring morning, and the young sunlight was on the sallies of the Curragh and the gold of the roadside gorse. Pete was as silly as a boy, and he chirped and croaked all the way home like every bird and beast of heaven and earth. When they got to Elm Cottage, he lifted his wife down as tenderly as if she had been the babe she had in her arms. He was strong and she was light, and he half helped, half carried her to the porch door. Nancy was there to take the child out of her hands, and, as she did so, Pete, back at the horse's head, cried, “That's the last bit of furniture the house was waiting for, Nancy. What's a house without a child? Just a room without a clock.”
“Clock, indeed,” said Nancy; “clocks are stopping, but this one's for going like a mill.”
“Don't be tempting the Nightman, Nancy,” cried Pete; but he was full of childlike delight.
Kate stepped inside. The fire burned in the hall parlour, the fire-irons shone like glass, there were sprigs of fuchsia-bud in the ornaments on the chimneypiece—everything was warm and cheerful and homelike. She sat down without taking off her hat. “Why can't I be quiet and happy?” she thought. “Why can't I make myself love him and forget?”
But she was like one who traversed a desert under the sea—a vast submerged Sahara. Over her head was all her life, with all her love and all her happiness, and the things around her were only the ghostly shadows cast by them.