Early the next morning Pete visited Kate in prison. He had something to say to her, something to ask; but he intended to keep back his own feelings, to bear himself bravely, to sustain the poor girl's courage. The light was cold and ashen within the prison walls, and as he followed the sergeant into the cell, he could not help but think of Kate as he had first known her, so bright, so merry, so full of life and gaiety. He found her now doubled up on a settle by a newly-kindled fire in the sergeant's own apartment. She lifted her head, with a terrified look, as he entered, and she saw his hollow cheeks and deep eyes and ragged beard.
“I'm not coming to trouble you,” he said. “I've forgivenhim, and I'm forgiving you, too.”
“You are very good,” she answered nervously.
“Good?” He gave a crack of bitter laughter. “I meant to kill him—that's how good I am. And it's the same as if all the devils out of hell had been at me the night through to do it still. Maybe I hadn't much to forgive. I'm like a bat in the light—I'm not knowing where I am ezactly. Daresay the people will laugh at me when they're getting to know. Wouldn't trust, but they'll think me a poor-spirited cur, anyway. Let them—there's never much pity for the dog that's licked.”
His voice shook, although so hard and so husky. “That's not what I came to say, though. You'll be laving this place soon, and I'm wanting to ask—I'm wanting to know——”
She had covered her face, and now she said through her hands, “Do as you like with me, Pete. You are my husband, and I must obey.”
He looked down at her for a moment. “But you cannot love me?”
“I have deceived you, and whatever you tell me to do I will do it.”
“But you cannot love me?”
“I'll be a good wife for the future* Pete—I will, indeed, indeed I will.”
“But you cannot love me?”
She began to cry. “That's enough,” he said. “I'll not force you.”
“You are very good,” she said again.
He laughed more bitterly than before. “Dou yo think I'm wanting your body while another man has your heart? That's a game I've played about long enough, I'm thinking. Good? Not me, missis.”
His eyes, which had been fixed on the fire, wandered to his wife, and then his lips quivered and his manner changed.
“I'm hard—I'll cut it short. Fact is, I've detarmined to do something, but I've a question to ask first. You've suffered since you left me, Kate. He has dragged you down a dale—but tell me, do you love him still?”
She shuddered and crept closer to the wall.
“Don't be freckened. It's a woman's way to love the man that's done wrong by her. Being good to her is nothing—sarvice is nothing—kindness is nothing. Maybe there's some ones that cry shame on her for that—but not me. Giving herself, body and soul, and thinking nothing what she gets for it—that's the glory of a woman when she cares for anybody. Spake up, Kate—do you love him in spite of all?”
The answer came in a whisper that was like a breath—“Yes.”
“That'll do,” said Pete.
He pressed his hand against the place of his old wound. “I might have known you could never care for me—I might have known that,” he said with difficulty. “But don't think I can't stand my rackups, as the saying is. I know my course now—I know my job.”
She was sobbing into her hands, and he was breathing fast and loud.
“One word more—only one—about the child.”
“Little Katherine!”
“Have I a right to her?”
She gasped audibly, but did not answer, and he tried a second time.
“Does she belong to me, Kate?”
Her confusion increased. He tried a third time, speaking more gently than before.
“If I should lave the island, Kate, could I—must I—may I take the child along with me?”
At that her fear got the better of her shame, and she cried, “Don't take her away. Oh, don't, don't!”
“Ah!”
He pressed his hand hard at his side again.
“But maybe that's only mother's love, and what mother——”
He broke off and then began once more, in a voice so low that it was scarcely to be heard. “Tell me, when the time comes—and it will come, Kate, have no fear about that——”
He was breaking down, he was struggling hard. “When the time comes for himself and you to be together, will you be afraid to have the little one with you—will it seem wrong, Kate—you two and little Katherine—one household—one family—no?—n—o?”
“No.”
“That's enough.”
The words seemed to come out of the depths of his throat. “I've nothing more to think about.Hemust think of all the rest.”
“And you, Pete?”
“What matter about me? D'ye think there's anything worse coming? D'ye think I'm caring what I ate, and what I drink, and what becomes of me?”
He was laughing again, and her sobs broke out afresh.
“God is good,” he said more quietly. “He'll take care of the likes of me.”
His motionless eyes were on the crackling fire, and he stood in the light that flashed from it with a face like stone. “I've no child now,” he muttered, as though speaking to himself.
She slid to her knees at his feet, took the hand that hung by his side and began to cover it with kisses. “Forgive me,” she said; “I have been very weak and very guilty.”
“What's the use of talking like that?” he answered. “What's past is past,” and he drew his hand away. “No child now, no child now,” he muttered again, as though his dispair cried out to God.
He was feeling like a man wrecked in mid-ocean. A spar came floating towards him. It was all he could lay hold of from the foundering ship, in which he had sailed, and sung, and laughed, and slept. He had thought to save his life by it, but another man was clinging to it, and he had to drop it and go down.
She could not look into his face again; she could not touch his hand; she could not ask for his forgiveness. He stood over her for a moment without speaking, and then, with his hollow cheeks, and deep eyes, and ragged heard, he went away in the morning sunlight.
Phillip fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, he saw, as in a mirror, a solution to the tumultuous drama of his life. It was a glorious solution, a liberating and redeeming end, an end bringing freedom from the bonds which had beset him. What matter if it was hard; if it was difficult; if it was bitter as Marah and steep as Calvary? He was ready, he was eager. Oh, blessed sleep! Oh, wise and soothing sleep I It had rent the dark cloud of his past and given the flash of light that illumined the path before him.
He opened his eyes and saw Auntie Nan seated by his side, reading a volume of sermons. At the change in his breathing the old dove looked round, dropped the book, and began to flutter about. “Hush, dearest, hush!” she whispered.
There was a heavy, monotonous sound, like the beating of a distant drum or the throb of an engine under the earth.
“Auntie!”—“Yes, dearest.”
“What day is it?”
“Sunday. Oh, you've had a long, long sleep, Philip. You slept all day yesterday.”
“Is that the church-bell ringing?”
“Yes, dear, and a fine morning, too—so soft and springlike. I'll open the window.”
“Then my hearing must be injured.”
“Ah! they muffled the bell—that's it. 'The church is so near,' they said, 'it might trouble him.'”
A carriage was coming down the road. It rattled on the paved way; then the rattling ceased, and there was a dull rumble as of a cart sliding on to a wooden bridge. “That horse has fallen,” said Philip, trying to rise.
“It's only the straw on the street,” said Auntie Nan. “The people brought it from all parts. 'We must deaden the traffic by the house,' they said. Oh, you couldn't think how good they've been. Yesterday was market-day, but there was no business done. Couldn't have been; they were coming and going the whole day long. 'And how's the Deemster now?' 'And how's he now?' It was fit to make you cry. I believe in my heart, Philip, nobody in Ramsey went to bed the first night at all. Everybody waiting and waiting to see if there wasn't something to fetch, and the kettle kept boiling in every kitchen round about. But hush, dearest, hush! Not so much talking all at once. Hush, now!”
“Where is Pete?” asked Philip, his face to the wall.
“Oiling the hinges of the door, dearest. He was laying carpets on the stairs all day yesterday. But never the sound of a hammer. The man's wonderful. He must have hands like iron. His heart's soft enough, though. But then everybody is so kind—everybody, everybody! The doctor, and the vicar, and the newspapers—oh, it's beautiful! It's just as Pete was saying.”
“What was Pete saying, Auntie?”
“He was saying the angels must think there's somebody sick in every house in the island.”
A sound of singing came through the open window, above the whisper of young leaves and the twitter of birds. It was the psalm that was being sung in church—
“Blessed is the man that considereth the poor and needy;The Lord shall deliver him in time of trouble.”
“Listen, Philip. That must be a special psalm. I'm sure they're singing it for you. How sweet of them! But we are talking too much, dear. The doctor will scold. I must leave you now, Philip. Only for a little, though, while I go back to Bal lure, and I'll send up Cottier.”
“Yes, send up Cottier,” said Philip.
“My darling,” said the old soul, looking down as she tied her bonnet strings. “You'll lie quiet now? You're sure you'll lie quiet? Well, good bye! good-bye!”
As Philip lay alone the soar and swell of the psalm filled the room. Oh, the irony of it all! The frantic, hideous, awful irony! He was lying there, he, the guilty one, with the whole island watching at his bedside, pitying him, sorrowing for him, holding its breath until he should breathe, and she, his partner, his victim, his innocent victim, was in jail, in disgrace, in a degradation more deep than death. Still the psalm soared and swelled. He tried to bury his head in the pillows that he might not hear.
Jem-y-Lord came in hurriedly and Philip beckoned him close. “Where is she?” he whispered.
“They removed her to Castle Rushen late last night, your Honour,” said Jemmy softly.
“Write immediately to the Clerk of the Bolls,” said Philip. “Say she must be lodged on the debtors' side and have patients' diet and every comfort. My Kate! my Kate!” he kept saying, “it shall not be for long, not for long, my love, not for long!”
The convalescence was slow and Philip was impatient. “I feel better to-day, doctor,” he would say, “don't you think I may get out of bed?”
“Traa dy liooar(time enough), Deemster,” the doctor would answer. “Let us see what a few more days will do.”
“I have a great task before me, doctor,” he would say again. “I must begin immediately.”
“You have a life's work before you, Deemster, and you must begin soon, but not just yet.”
“I have something particular to do, doctor,” he said at last. “I must lose no time.”
“You must lose no time indeed, that's why you must stay where you are a little longer.”
One morning his impatience overcame him, and he got out of bed. But, being on his feet, his head reeled, his limbs trembled, he clutched at the bed-post, and had to clamber back. “Oh God, bear me witness, this delay is not my fault,” he murmured.
Throughout the day he longed for the night, that he might close his eyes in the darkness and think of Kate. He tried to think of her as she used to be—bright, happy, winsome, full of joy, of love, of passion, dangling her feet from the apple-tree, or tripping along the tree-trunk in the glen, teasing him? tempting him. It was impossible. He could only think of her in, the gloom of the prison. That filled his mind with terrors. Sometimes in the dark hours his enfeebled body beset his brain with fantastic hallucinations. Calling for paper and pens, he would make show of writing a letter, producing no words or intelligible signs, but only a mass of scrawls and blotches. This he would fold and refold with great elaboration, and give to Jem y-Lord with an air of gravity and mystery, saying in a whisper, “For her!” Thus night brought no solace, and the dawn found him waiting for the day, that he might open his eyes in the sunlight and think, “She is better where she is; God will comfort her.”
A fortnight went by and he saw nothing of Pete. At length he made a call on his courage and said, “Auntie, why does Pete never come?”
“He does, dearest. Only when you're asleep, though. He stands there in the doorway in his stockings. I nod to him and he comes in and looks down at you. Then he goes away without a word.”
“What is he doing now?”
“Going to Douglas a good deal seemingly. Indeed, they're saying—but then people are so fond of talking.”
“What are people saying, Auntie?”
“It's about a divorce, dearest!”
Philip groaned and turned away his face.
He opened his eyes one day from a doze, and saw the plain face of Nancy Joe, framed in a red print handkerchief. The simple creature was talking with Auntie Nan, holding council, and making common cause with the dainty old lady as unmarried women and old maids both of them.
“'Why don't you keep your word true?' says I. 'Wasn't you saying you'd take her back,' says I, 'whatever she'd done and whatever she was, so help you God?' says I. 'Isn't she shamed enough already, poor thing, without you going shaming her more? Have you no bowels at all? Are you only another of the gutted herrings on a stick?' says I. 'Why don't you keep your word true?' 'Because,' says he, 'I want to be even with the other one,' says he, and then away he went wandering down by the tide.”
“It's unchristian, Nancy,” said Auntie Nan, “but it's human; for although he forgives the woman, he can hardly be expected to forgive the man, and he can't punish one without punishing both.”
“Much good it'll do to punish either, say I. What for should he put up his fins now the hook's in his gizzard? But that's the way with the men still. Talking and talking of love and love; but when trouble is coming, no better than a churn of sour cream on a thundery day. We're best off that never had no truck with them—I don't know what you think, Miss Christian, ma'am. They may talk about having no chances—I don't mind if they do—do you? I had chance enough once, though—I don't know what you've had, ma'am. I had one sweetheart, anyway—a sort of a sweetheart, as you might say; but he was sweeter on the money than on me. Always asking how much I had got saved in the stocking. And when he heard I had three new dresses done, 'Nancy,' says he, 'we had better be putting a sight up on the parzon now, before they're all wore out at you.'”
The Governor, who was still in London, wrote a letter full of tender solicitude and graceful compliment. The Clerk of the Rolls had arranged from the first that two telegrams should be sent to him daily, giving accounts of Philip's condition. At last the Clerk came in person, and threw Auntie Nan into tremors of nervousness by his noise and robustious-ness. He roared as he came along the path, roared himself through the hall, up the stairs, and into the bedroom, roared again as he set eyes on Philip, protesting that the sick man was worth five hundred dead men yet, and vowing with an oath (and a tear trickling down his nose) that he would like to give “time” to the fools who frightened good people with bad reports. Then he cleared the room for a private consultation. “Out you go, Cottier. Look slippy, man!”
Auntie Nan fled in terror. When she had summoned resolution to invade afresh the place of the bear that had possession of her lamb, the Clerk of the Rolls was rising from the foot of the bed and saying—
“We'll leave it at that then, Christian. These d——— thingswillhappen; but don't you bother your head about it. I'll make it all serene. Besides, it's nothing—nothing in a lifetime. I'll have to send you the summons, though. You needn't trouble about that; just toss it into the fire.”
Philip's head was down, his eyes were on the counterpane, and a faint tinge of colour overspread his wasted face.
“Ah! you're back, Miss Christian? I must be going, though. Good-bye, old fellow! Take care of yourself—good men are scarce. Good-bye, Miss Christian! Good-bye, all! Good-bye, Phil! God bless you!”
With that he went roaring down the stairs, but came thunging up again in a moment, put his head round the doorpost, and said—
“Lord bless my soul, if I wasn't forgetting an important bit of news—very important news, too! It hasn't got into the papers yet, but I've had the official wrinkle. What d'ye think?—the Governor has resigned! True as gospel. Sent in his resignation to the Home Office the night before last. I saw it coming. He hasn't been at home since Tynwald. Look sharp and get better now. Good-bye!”
Philip got up for the first time the day following. The weather was soft and full of whispers of spring; the window was open and Philip sat with his face in the direction of the sea. Auntie Nan was knitting by his side and running on with homely gossip. The familiar and genial talk was floating over the surface of his mind as a sea-bird floats over the surface of the sea, sometimes reflected in it, sometimes skimming it, sometimes dipping into it and being lost.
“Poor Pete! The good woman here thinks he's hard. Perhaps he is; but I'm sure he is much to be pitied. Ross has behaved badly and deserves all that can come to him. 'He's the same to me as you are, dear—in blood, I mean—but somehow I can't be sorry.... Ah! you're too tender-hearted, Philip, indeed you are. You'd find excuses for anybody. The doctor says overwork, dearest; butIsay the shock of seeing that poor creature in that awful position. And what a shock you gave me, too! To tell you the truth, Philip, I thought it was a fate. Never heard of it? No? Never heard that grandfather fainted on the bench? He did, though, and he didn't recover either. How well I remember it! Word broke over the town like a clap of thunder, 'The Deemster has fallen in the Court-house.' Father heard it up at Ballure and ran down bareheaded. Grandfather's carriage was at the Courthouse door, and they brought him up to Ballawhaine. I remember I was coming downstairs when I saw the carriage draw up at the gate. The next minute your father, with his wild eyes and his bare head, was lifting something out of the inside. Poor Tom! He had never set foot in the house since grandfather had driven him out of it. And little did grandfather think in whose arms he was to travel the last stage of his life's journey.”
Philip had fallen asleep. Jem-y-Lord entered with a letter. It was in a large envelope and had come by the insular post.
“Shall I open it?” thought Auntie Nan. She had been opening and replying to Philip's letters during the time of his illness, but this one bore an official seal, and so she hesitated. “Shall I?” she thought, with the knitting needle to her lip. “I will. I may save him some worry.”
She fixed her glasses and drew out the letter. It was a summons from the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice—a petition for divorce. The petitioner's name was Peter Quilliam; the respondent——, the co respondent——.
As Philip awoke from his doze, with the salt breath of the sea in his nostrils and the songs of spring in his ears, Auntie Nan was fumbling with the paper to get it back into the envelope. Her hands trembled, and when she spoke her voice quivered. Philip saw in a moment what had happened. She had stumbled into the pit where the secret of his life lay buried.
The doctor came in at that instant. He looked attentively at Auntie Nan, and said significantly, “You have been nursing too long, Miss Christian, you must go home for a while.”
“I will go home at once,” she faltered, in a feeble inward voice.
Philip's head was on his breast. Such was the first step on the Calvary he intended to ascend. O God, help him! God support him! God bear up his sinking feet that he might not fall from weakness, or fear, or shame.
Cæsar visited Kate at Castle Rushen. He found her lodged in a large and light apartment (once the dining-room of the Lords of Man), indulged with every comfort, and short of nothing but her liberty. As the turnkey pulled the door behind him, Cæsar lifted both hands and cried, “The Lord is my refuge and my strength; a very present help in trouble.” Then he inquired if Pete had been there before him, and being answered “No,” he said, “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” After that he fell to the praise of the Deemster, who had not only given Kate these mercies, comfortable to her carnal body, if dangerous to her soul, but had striven to lighten the burden of her people at the time when he had circulated the report of her death, knowing she was dead indeed, dead in trespasses and sins, and choosing rather that they should mourn her as one who was already dead in fact, than feel shame for her as one that was yet alive in iniquity.
Finally, he dropped his handkerchief on to the slate floor,-went down on one knee by the side of his tall hat, and called on her in prayer to cast in her lot afresh with the people of God. “May her lightness be rebuked, O Lord!” he cried. “Give her to know that until she repents she hath no place among Thy children. And, Lord, succour Thy servant in his hour of tribulation. Let him be well girt up with Christian armour. Help him to cry aloud, amid his tears and his lamentations, 'Though my heart and hers should break, Thy name shall not be dishonoured, my Lord and my God!'”
Rising from his knee and dusting it, Cæsar took up his tall hat, and left Kate as he had found her, crouching by the fire inside the wide ingle of the old hall, covering her face and saying nothing.
He was in this mood of spiritual exaltation as he descended the steps into the Keep, and came upon a man in the dress of a prisoner sweeping with a besom. It was Black Tom. Cæsar stopped in front of him, moved his lips, lifted his face to the sky, shut both eyes, then opened them again, and said in a voice of deep sorrow, “Aw, Thomas! Thomas Quilliam! I'm taking grief to see thee, man. An ould friend, whose hand has rested in my hand, and swilling the floor of a prison! Well, I warned thee often. But thou wast ever stony ground, Thomas. And now thou must see for thyself whether was I right that honesty is the better policy. Look at thee, and look at me. The Lord has delivered me, and prospered me even in temporal things. I have lands and I have houses. And what hast thou thyself? Nothing but thy conscience and thy disgrace. Even thy very clothes they have taken away from thee, and they would take thy hair itself if thou had any.”
Black Tom stood with feet flatly planted apart, rested himself on the shank of his besom, and said, “Don't be playing cammag (shindy) with me, Mr. Holy Ghoster. It isn't honesty that's making the diff'rance between us at all—it's luck. You've won and I've lost, you've succeeded and I've failed, you're wearing your chapel hat and I'm in this bit of a saucepan lid, but you're only a reg'lar ould Pharisee, anyway.”
Cæsar waved his hand. “I can't take the anger with thee, Thomas,” he said, backing himself out. “I thought the devil had been chained since our last camp-meeting, but I was wrong seemingly. He goeth about still like a raging lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
“Don't be trying to knock me down with your tex'es,” said Thomas, shouldering his besom. “Any cock can crow on his own midden.”
“You can't help it, Thomas,” said Cæsar, edging away. “It isn't my ould friend that's blaspheming at all. It's the devil that has entered into his heart and is rending him. But cast the devil out, man, or hell will be thy portion.”
“I was there last night in my dreams, Cæsar,” said Black Tom, following him up. “'Oh, Lord Devil, let me in,' says I. 'Where d'ye come from?' says he. 'The Isle of Man,' says I. 'I'm not taking any more from there till my Bishop comes,' says he. 'Who's that?' says I. 'Bishop Cæsar, the publican—who else?' says he.”
“I marvel at thee, Thomas,” said Cæsar, half through the small door of the portcullis, “but the sons of Belial have to fight hard for his throne. I'll pray for thee, though, that it be not remembered against thee when(D.V.) there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
That night Cæsar visited the Deemster at Elm Cottage. His eyes glittered, and there was a look of frenzy in his face. He was still in his mood of spiritual pride, and when he spoke it was always with the thees and the thous and in the high pitch of the preacher.
“The Ballawhaine is dead, your Honour,” he cried, “They wouldn't have me tell thee before because of thy body's weakness, but now they suffer it. Groanings and moanings and 'stericks of torment! Ter'ble sir, ter'ble! Took a notion he would have water poured out for him at the last. It couldn't wash him clane, though. And shouting with his dying voice, 'I've sinned, O God, I've sinned!' Oh, I delivered my soul, sir; he can clear me of that, anyway. 'Lay hould of a free salvation,' says I. 'I've not lived a right life,' says he. 'Truth enough,' says I; 'you've lived a life of carnal freedom, but now is the appointed time. Say, “Lord, I belaive; help thou my unbelaife.”' 'Too late, Mr. Cregeen, too late,' says he, and the word was scarce out of his mouth when he was key-cold in a minute, and gone into the night of all flesh that's lost. Well, it was his own son that killed him, sir; robbed him of every silver sixpence and ruined him. The last mortgage he raised was to keep the young man out of prison for forgery. Bad, sir, bad! To indulge a child to its own damnation is bad. A human infirmity, though; and I'm feeling for the poor sinner myself being tempted—that is to say inclining—but thank the Lord for his strengthening arm——”
“Is he buried?” asked Philip.
“Buried enough, and a poor funeral too, sir,” said Cæsar, walking the room with a proud step, the legs straightened, the toes conspicuously turned out. “Driving rain and sleet, sir, the wind in the trees, the grass wet to your calf, and the parson in his white smock under the umbrella. Nobody there to spake of, neither; only myself and the tenants mostly.”
“Where was Ross?”
“Gone, sir, without waiting to see his foolish ould father pushed under the sod. Well, there was not much to wait for neither. The young man has been a besom of fire and burnt up everything. Not so much left as would buy a rope to hang him. And Ballawhaine is mine, sir; mine in a way of spak-ing—my son-in-law's, anyway—and he has given me the right to have and to hould it. Aw, a Sabbath time, sir; a Sabbath time. I made up my mind to have it the night the man struck me in my own house in Sulby. He betrayed my daughter at last, sir, and took her from her home, and then her husband lent six thousand pounds on mortgage. 'Do what you like with it,' said he, and I said to myself, 'The man shall starve; he shall be a beggar; he shall have neither bread to eat, nor water to drink, nor a roof to cover him.' And the moment the breath was out of the ould man's body I foreclosed.”
Philip was trembling from head to foot. “Do you mean,” he faltered, “that that was your reason?”
“It is the Lord's hand on a rascal,” said Cæsar, “and proud am I to be the instrument of his vengeance. 'God moves in a mysterious way,' sir. Oh, the Lord is opening His word more and more. And I have more to tell thee, too. Balla-whaine would belong to thyself, sir, if every one had his rights. It was thy grandfather's inheritance, and it should have been thy father's, and it ought to be thine. Take it, sir, take it on thy own terms; it is worth a matter of twelve thousand, but thou shalt have it for nine, and pay for it when the Lord gives thee substance. Thou hast been good to me and to mine, and especially to the poor lost lamb who lies in the Castle to-night in her shame and disgrace. Little did I think I should ever repay thee, though. But it is the Lord's doings. It is marvellous in our eyes. 'Deep in unfathomable mines'——”
Cæsar was pacing the room and speaking in tones of rapture. Philip, who was sitting at the table, rose from it with a look of fear.
“Frightful! frightful!” he muttered. “A mistake! a mistake!”
“The Lord God makes no mistakes, sir,” cried Cæsar.
“But what if it was not Ross——” began Philip. Cæsar paid no heed.
“What if it was not Ross——” Cæsar glanced over his shoulder.
“What if it was some one else——” said Philip. Cæsar stopped in front of him.
“Some one you have never thought of—some one you have respected and even held in honour——”
“Who, then?” said Cæsar huskily.
“Mr. Cregeen,” said Philip, “it is hard for me to speak. I had not intended to speak yet; but I should hold myself in horror if I were silent now. You have been living in awful error. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequences, you must not remain in that error a moment longer. It was not Ross who took away your daughter.”
“Who was it?” cried Cæsar. His voice had the sound of a cracked bell.
Philip struggled hard. He tried to confess. His eyes wandered about the walls. “As you have cherished a mistaken resentment,” he faltered, “so you have nourished a mistaken gratitude.”
“Who? who?” cried Cæsar, looking fixedly into Philip's face.
Philip's rigid fingers were crawling over the papers on the table like the claws of crabs. They touched the summons from the Chancery Court, and he picked it up.
“Read this,” he said, and held it out to Cæsar.
Cæsar took it, but continued to look at Philip with eyes that were threatening in their wildness. Philip felt that in a moment their positions had been changed. He was the judge no longer, but only a criminal at the bar of this old man, this grim fanatic, half-mad already with religious mania.
“The Lord of Hosts is mighty,” muttered Cæsar; and then Philip heard the paper crinkle in his hand.
Cæsar was feeling for his spectacles. When he had liberated them from the sheath, he put them on the bridge of his nose upside down. With the two glasses against the wrinkles of his forehead and his eyes still uncovered, he held the paper at arm's length and tried to read it. Then he took out his red print handkerchief to dust the spectacles. Fumbling spectacles and sheath and handkerchief and paper in his trembling hands together, he muttered again in a quavering voice, as if to fortify himself against what he was to see, “The Lord of Hosts is mighty.”
He read the paper at length, and there was no mistaking it. “Quilliam v. Quilliam and Christian (Philip).”
He laid the summons on the table, and returned his spectacles to their sheath. His breathing made noises in his nostrils. “Ugh cha nee!” (woe is me), he muttered. “Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!”
Then he looked helplessly around and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
The vengeance that he had built up day by day had fallen in a moment into ruins. His hypocrisy was stripped naked. “I see how it is,” he said in a hoarse voice. “The Lord has de-ceaved me to punish me. It is the public-house. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. What's gained on the devil's back is lost under his belly. I thought I was a child of God, but the deceitfulness of riches has choked the word.Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!My prosperity has been like the quails, only given with the intent of choking me.Ugh cha nee!”
His spiritual pride was broken down. The Almighty had refused to be made a tool of. He took up his hat and rolled his arm over it the wrong way of the nap. Half-way to the door he paused. “Well, I'll be laving you; good-day, sir,” he said, nodding his head slowly. “The Lord's been knowing what you were all the time seemingly. But what's the use of His knowing—He never tells on nobody. And I've been calling on sinners to flee from the wrath, and He's been letting the devils make a mock at myself!Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!”
Philip had slipped back in his chair, and his head had fallen forward' on the table. He heard the old man go out; he heard his heavy step drop slowly down the stairs; he heard his foot dragging on the path outside. “Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!” The word rang in his heart like a knell.
Jem-y-Lord, who had been out in the town, came back in great excitement.
“Such news, your Honour! Such splendid news!”
“What is it?” said Philip, without lifting his head.
“They're signing petitions all over the island, asking the Queen to make you Governor.”
“God in heaven!” said Philip; “that would be frightful.”
When Philip was fit to go out, they brought up a carriage and drove him round the bay. The town had awakened from its winter sleep, and the harbour was a busy and cheerful scene. More than a hundred men had come from their crofts in the country, and were making their boats ready for the mackerel-fishing at Kinsale. There was a forest of masts where the flat hulls had been, the taffrails and companions were touched up with paint, and the newly-barked nets were being hauled over the quay.
“Good morning, Dempster,” cried the men.
They all saluted him, and some of them, after their Manx fashion, drew up at the carriage-door, lifted their caps with their tarry hands, and said—
“Taking joy to see you out again, Dempster. When a man's getting over an attack like that, it's middling clear the Lord's got work for him.”
Philip answered with smiles and bows and cheerful words, but the kindness oppressed him. He was thinking of Kate. She was the victim of his success. For all that he received she had paid the penalty. He thought of her dreams, her golden dreams, her dreams of going up side by side and hand in hand with the man she loved. “Oh, my love, my love!” he murmured. “Only a little longer.”
The doctor was waiting for him when he reached home.
“I have something to say to you, Deemster,” he said, with averted face. “It's about your aunt.”
“Is she ill?” said Philip.—“Very ill.”
“But I've inquired daily.”
“By her express desire the truth has been kept back from you.”
“The carriage is still at the door——” began Philip.
“I've never seen any one sink so rapidly. She's all nerve. No doubt the nursing exhausted her.”
“It's not that—I'll go up immediately.”
“She was to expect you at five.”
“I cannot wait,” said Philip, and in a moment he was on the road. “O God!” he thought, “how steep is the path I have to tread.”
On getting to Ballure, he pushed through the hall and stepped upstairs. At the door of Auntie Nan's bedroom he was met by Martha, the housemaid, now the nurse. She looked surprised, and made some nervous show of shutting him out. Before she could dc so he was already in the room. The air was heavy with the smell of medicines and vinegar and the odours of sick life.
“Hush!” said Martha, with a movement of lips and eyebrows.
Auntie Nan was asleep in a half-sitting position on the bed. It was a shock to see the change in her. The beautiful old face was white and drawn with pain; the chin was hanging heavily; the eyes were half open; there was no cap on her head; her hair was straggling loosely and was dull as tow.
“She must be very ill,” said Philip under his breath.
“Very,” said Martha. “She wasn't expecting you until five, sir.”
“Has the doctor told her? Does she know?”
“Yes, sir; but she doesn't mind that. She knows she's dying, and is quite resigned—quite—and quite cheerful—but she fears if you knew—hush!”
There was a movement on the bed.
“She'll be shocked if she—and she's not ready to receive—in here, sir,” whispered Martha, and she motioned to the back of a screen that stood between the door and the bed.
There was a deep sigh, a sound as of the moistening of dry lips, and then the voice of Auntie Nan—not her own familiar voice, but a sort of vanishing echo of it. “What is the time, Martha?”
“Twenty minutes wanting five, ma'am.”
“So late! It wasn't nice of you to let me sleep so long, Martha. I'm expecting the Governor at five. What a mercy he hasn't come earlier. It wouldn't be right to keep him waiting, and then—bring me the sponge, girl. Moisten it first. Now the towel. The comb next. That's better. How lifeless my hair is, though. Oil, you say? I wonder! I've never used it in my life: but at a time like this—well, just a little, then—there, that will do. Bring me a cap—the one with the pink bow in it. My face is so pale—it will give me a little colour. That will do. You couldn't tell I had been ill, could you? Not very ill, anyway? Now side everything away. The medicines too—put them in the cupboard. So many bottles. 'How ill she must have been!' he would say. And now open the drawer on the left, Martha, the one with the key in it, and bring me the paper on the top. Yes, the white paper. The folded one with the endorsement. Endorsement means writing on the back, Martha. Ah! I've lived all my life among lawyers. Lay it on the counterpane. The keys? Lay them beside it. No, put them behind my pillow, just at my back. Yes, there—lower, though, deeper still—that's right. Now set a chair, so that he can sit beside me. This side of the bed—no, this side. Then the light will be on him, and I will be able to see his face—my eyes are not so good as they were, you know. A little farther back—not quite so much, neither—that will do. Ah!”
There was a long breath of satisfaction, and then Auntie Nan said—
“I suppose it's——what time is it now, Martha?”
“Ten minutes wanting five, ma'am.”
“Did you tell Jane about the cutlets? He likes them with bread-crumbs, you know. I hope she won't forget to say 'Your Excellency.' I shall hear his voice the moment he comes into the hall. My ears are no worse, if my eyes are. Perhaps he won't speak, though, 'She's been so ill,' he'll think. Martha, I think you had better open the door. Jane is so forgetful. She might say things, too. If he asks, 'How is she to-day, Martha'' you must answer quite brightly, 'Better to-day, your Excellency.'”
There was an exclamation of pain.
“Oh! Ugh—Oo! Oh, blessed Lord Jesus!”
“Are you sure you are well enough, ma'am? Hadn't I better tell him——”
“No, I'll be worse to-morrow, and the next day worse still. Give me a dose of medicine, Martha—the morning medicine—the one that makes me cheerful. Thank you, Martha. If I feel the pain when he is here, I'll bear it as long as I can, and then I'll say, 'I'm finding myself drowsy, Philip; you had better go and lie down.' Will you understand that, Martha?”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Martha.
“I'm afraid we must be a little deceitful, Martha. But we can't help that, can we? You see he has to be installed yet, and that is always a great excitement. If he thought I was very ill, now—very, very ill, you know—yes, I really think he would wish to postpone it, and I wouldn't have that for worlds and worlds. He has always been so fond of his old auntie. Well, it's the way with these boys. I daresay people wonder why he has never married, being so great and so prosperous. That was for my sake. He knew I should——”
Philip was breathing heavily. Auntie Nan listened. “I'm sure there's somebody in the hall, Martha. Is it——? Yes, it's——; Go down to him quick——”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Martha, making a noise with the screen to cover Philip's escape on tiptoe. Then she came to him on the landing, wiping her eyes with her apron, and pretended to lead Philip back to the room.
“My boy! my boy!” cried Auntie Nan, and she folded him in her arms.
The transformation was wonderful. She had a look of youth now, almost a look of gaiety. “I've heard the great, great news,” she whispered, taking his hand.
“That's only a rumour, Auntie,” said Philip. “Are you better?”
“Oh, but it will come true. Yes, yes, I'm better. I'm sure it will come true. And, dear heart, what a triumph! I dreamt it all the night before I heard of it. You were on the top of the Tynwald, and there was a great crowd. But come and sit down and tell me everything. So you are better yourself? Quite strong again, dear? Oh, yes, any where, Philip-sit anywhere. Here, this chair will do—this one by my side. Ah! How well you look!”
She was carried away by her own gaiety. Leaning back on the pillow, but still keeping his hand in hers, she said, “Do you know, Philip Christian, who is the happiest person in the world? I'm sure you don't, for all you're so clever. So I'll tell you. Perhaps you think it's a beautiful young wife just married to a husband who worships her. Well, you're quite, quite wrong, sir. It's an old, old lady, very, very old, and very feeble, just tottering on, and not expecting to live a great while longer, but with her sons about her, grown up, and big, and strong, and having all the world before them. That's the happiest person on earth. And I'm the next thing to it, for my boy—my own boy's boy—-”
She broke off, and then, with a far-off look, she said, “I wonder will he think I've done my duty!”
“Who?” asked Philip.
“Your father,” she answered.
Then she turned to the maid and said, quite gaily, “You needn't wait, Martha. His Excellency will call you when I want my medicine. Won't you, your Excellency?”
Philip could not find it in his heart to correct her again. The girl left the room. Auntie Nan glanced at the closing door, then reached over to Philip with an air of great mystery, and whispered—
“You mustn't be shocked, Philip, or surprised, or fancy I'm very ill, or that I'm going to die; but what do you think I've done?”
“Nay, what?”
“I've made my will! Is that very terrible?”
“You've done right, Auntie,” said Philip.
“Yes, the High Bailiff has been up and everything is in order, every little thing. See,” and she lifted the paper that the maid had laid on the counterpane. “Let me tell you.” She nodded her head as she ran over the items. “Some little legacies first, you know. There's Martha, such a good girl—I've left her my silk dresses. Then old Mary, the housemaid at Ballawhaine. Poor old thing! she's been down with rheumatism three years, and flock beds get so lumpy—I've left her my feather one. I thought at first I should like you to have my little income. Do you know, your old auntie is quite an old miser. I've grown so fond of my little money. And it seemed so sweet to think—but then you don't want it now, Philip. It would be nothing to you, would it? I've been thinking, though—now, what do you think I've been thinking of doing with my little fortune?”
Philip stroked the wrinkled fingers with his other hand.
“What's right, I'm sure, Auntie. What is it?”
“You would never guess.”—“No?”
“I've been thinking,” with sudden gravity. “Philip, there's nobody in the world so unhappy as a poor gentlewoman who has slipped and fallen. Then this one's father, he has turned his back on her, they're telling me, and of course she can't expect anything from her husband. I've been thinking, now——”
“Yes?” said Philip, with his eyes down.
“To tell you the truth, I've been thinking it would be so nice——”
And then, nervously, faltering, in a quavering voice, with many excuses, out came the great secret, the mighty strategy. Auntie Nan had willed her fortune to Kate.
“You're an angel, Auntie,” said Philip in a thick voice.
But he saw through her artifice. She was talking of Kate, but she was thinking of himself. She was trying to relieve him of an embarrassment; to remove an impediment that lay in his path; to liberate his conscience; to cover up his fault; to conceal everything.
“And then this house, dear,” said Auntie Nan. “It's yours, but you'll never want it. It's been a dear little harbour of refuge, but the storm is over now. Would you—do you see any objection—perhaps you might—could you not let the poor soul come and live here with her little one, after I—when all is over, I mean—and she is—eh?”
Philip could not speak. He took the wrinkled hand and drew it up to his lips.
The old soul was beside herself with joy. “Then you're sure I've done right? Quite sure? Lock it up in the drawer again, dearest The top one on the left. Oh, the keys? Dear me, yes; where are the keys? How tiresome! I remember now. They're at the back of my pillow. Will you call Martha? Or perhaps you would yourself—will you?” (very artfully)—“you don't mind then? Yes, that's it; more this way, though, a little more—ah! My boy! my boy!”
The old dove's second strategy had succeeded also. In fumbling behind her pillow for the keys, Philip had to put his arms about her again, and she was kissing him on the forehead and on the cheeks.
Then came a spasm of pain. It dragged at her features, but her smile struggled through it. She fetched a difficult breath, and said—
“And now—dear—I'm finding myself—a little drowsy—how selfish of me—your cutlets—browned—nicely browned—breadcrumbs, you know——”
Philip fled from the room and summoned Martha. He wandered aimlessly about the house for hours that night. At one moment he found himself in the blue room, Auntie Nan's workroom, so full of her familiar things—the spinning-wheel, the frame of the sampler, the old-fashioned piano, the scent of lavender—all the little evidences of her presence, so dainty, so orderly, so sweet A lamp was burning for the convenience of the doctor, but there was no fire.
The doctor came again towards ten o'clock. There was nothing to be done; nothing to be hoped; still she might live until morning, if——
At midnight Philip crept noiselessly to the bedroom. The condition was unaltered. He was going to lie down, but wished to be awakened if there was any change.
It was long before he dropped off, and he seemed to have slept only a moment when there was a knocking at his door. He heard it while he was still sleeping. The dawn had broken, the streamers of the sun were rising out of the sea. A sparrow in the garden was hacking the air with its monotonous chirp.
Auntie Nan was far spent, yet the dragging expression of pain was gone, and a serenity almost angelic overspread her face. When she recognised Philip she felt for his hand, guided it to her heart, and kept it there. Only a few words did she speak, for her breath was short. She commended her soul to God. Then, with a look of pallid sunshine, she beckoned to Philip. He stooped his ear to her lips, and she whispered, “Hush, dearest! Never tell any one, for nobody ever knew—ever dreamt—but I loved your father—and—God gave him to me in you.”
The dear old dove had delivered herself of her last great secret. Philip put his lips to her cheek, iced already over the damps and chills of death. Then the eyes closed, the sweet old head slid back, the lips changed their colour, but still lay open as with a smile. Thus died Auntie Nan, peacefully, hopefully, trustfully, almost joyfully, in the fulness of her love and of her pride.
“O God,” thought Philip, “let me go on with my task. Give me strength to withstand the temptation of love like this.”
Her love had tempted him all his life His father had been twenty years dead, but she had kept his spirit alive—his aims, his ambitions, his fears, and the lessons of his life. There lay the beginnings of his ruin, his degradation, and the first cause of his deep duplicity. He had recovered everything that had been lost; he had gained all that his little world could give; and what was the worth of it? What was the price he had paid for it? “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
Philip put his lips to the cold forehead. “Sweet soul, forgive me! God strengthen me! Let me not fail at this last moment.”