The Manxman Part 38

Philip could not help it--he gave a little crack of laughter.

"To be sure," said the Governor hastily, "you are in no danger of his excesses; but you will not be a safe candidate to recommend until you have placed yourself to all appearances out of the reach of them.

'Beware of these Christians,' said the great Derby to his son; and pardon me if I revive the warning to a Christian himself."

The colour came strong into Philip's face. Even at that moment he felt angry at so coa.r.s.e a version of his father's fault.

"You mean," said he, "that we are apt to marry unwisely."

"I do that," said the Governor.

"There's no telling," said Philip, with a faint crack of his fingers; and the Governor frowned a little--the pock-marks seemed to spread.

"Of course, all this is outside my duty, Mr. Christian--I needn't tell you that; but I feel an interest in you, and I've done you some services already, though naturally a young man will think he has done everything for himself. Ah!" he said, rising from his seat at the sound of a gong, "luncheon is ready. Let us join the ladies." Then, with one hand on Philip's shoulder familiarly, "only a word more, Mr. Christian. Send in your application immediately, and--take the advice of an old fiddler--marry as soon afterwards as may be. But with your prospects it would be a sin not to walk carefully. If she's English, so much the better; but if she's Manx--take care."

Philip lunched with the Governor's wife, who told him she remembered his grandfather; also with his unmarried daughter, who said she had heard him speak for the fishermen at Peel. An official "At home," the last of the summer, was to be held in the garden that afternoon, and Philip was invited to remain. He did so, and thereby witnessed the a.s.saults of the wasps at the glue-pot. They buzzed about the Governor, they buzzed about his wife, they buzzed about his dog and about a tame deer, which took grapes from the hands of the guests.

An elderly gentleman, sitting alone in a carriage, drove up to the lawn.

It was Peter Christian Ballawhaine, looking feebler, whiter, and more splay-footed than before. Philip stepped up to his uncle and offered his arm to alight by. But the Ballawhaine brushed it aside and pushed through to the Governor, to whom he talked incessantly for some minutes of his son Ross, saying he had sent for him and would like to present him to his Excellency.

If Philip lacked enjoyment of the scene, if his face lacked heart and happiness, it was not the fault of his host. "Will you not take Lady So-and-so to have tea?" the Governor would say; and presently Philip found himself in a circle of official wifedom, whose husbands had been made Knights by the Queen, and themselves made Ladies by--G.o.d knows whom. The talk was of the late Deemster.

"Such a life! It's a mercy he lasted so long!"

"A pity, you mean, my dear, not to be hard on him either."

"Poor thing! He ought to have married. Such a man wants a wife to look after him. Don't you think so, Mr. Christian?"

"Why," said a white-haired dame, "have you never heard of his great romance?"

"Ah! tell us of that. Who was the lady?"

"The lady----" there was a pause; the white-haired dame coughed, smiled, closed her little ferret eyes, dropped her voice, and said with mock gravity, "The lady was the blacksmith's daughter, dearest." And then there was a merry trill of laughter.

Philip felt sick, bowed to his hosts, and left. As he was going off, his uncle intercepted him, holding out both hands.

"How's this, Philip? You never come to Ballawhaine now. I see! Oh, I see! Too busy with the women to remember an old man. They're all talking of you. Putting the comather on them, eh? I know, I know; don't tell me."

III.

Philip's way home lay through the town, but he made a circuit of the country, across Onchan, so heartsick was he, so utterly choked with bitter feelings. He felt as if all the angels and devils together must be making a mock at him. The thing he had worked for through five heavy years, the end he had aimed at, the goal he had fought for, was his already--his for the stretching out of his hand. Yet now that it was his, he could not have it. Oh, the mockery of his fate! Oh, the irony of his life! It was shrieking, it was frantic!

Then his bolder spirit seemed to say, "What is all this childish fuming about? Fortune comes to you with both hands full. Be bold, and you may have both the wish of your soul and the desire of your heart--both the Deemster-ship and Kate."

It was impossible to believe that. If he married Kate, the Governor would not recommend him as Deemster. Had he not admitted that he stood in some fear of the public opinion of the island? And was it not conceivable that, besides the unselfish interest which the Governor had shown in him, there was even a personal one that would operate more powerfully than fear of the old-fashioned Manx conventions to prevent any recommendation of the husband of the wrong woman? At one moment a vague memory rose before Philip, as he crossed the fields, of the lunch at Government House, of the Governor's wife and daughter, of their courtesy and boundless graciousness. At the next moment he had drawn up sharply, with pangs of self-contempt, hating himself, loathing himself, swearing at himself for a mean-souled ingrate, as he kicked up the gra.s.s and the turf beneath it But the idea had taken root. He could not help it; the Governor's interest went for nothing in his reckoning.

"What a fool you are, Philip," something seemed to whisper out of the darkest corner of his conscience; "take the Deemstership first, and marry Kate afterwards." But it was impossible to think of that either.

Say it could be done by any arts of cunning or duplicity, what then?

Then there were the high walls of custom and prejudice to surmount.

Philip remembered the garden-party, and saw that they could never be surmounted. The Deemster who slapped the conventions in the face would suffer for it. He would be taboo to half the life of the island--in public an official, in private a recluse. An icy picture rose before his mind's eye of the woman who would be his wife in her relations with the ladies he had just left. She might be their superior in education, certainly in all true manners, and in natural grace and beauty, in sweetness and charm, their mistress beyond a dream of comparison.

But they would never forget that she was the daughter of a country innkeeper, and every little cobble in the rickety pyramid, even from the daughter of the innkeeper in the town, would look down on her as from a throne.

He could see them leaving their cards at his door and driving hurriedly off. They must do that much. It was the bitter pill which the Deemster's doings made them swallow. Then he could see his wife sitting alone, a miserable woman, despised envied, isolated, shut off from her own cla.s.s by her marriage with the Deemster, and from his cla.s.s by the Deemster's marriage with her. Again, he could see himself too powerful to offend, too dangerous to ignore, going out on his duties without cheer, and returning to his wife without company. Finally, he remembered his father and his mother, and he could not help but picture himself sitting at home with Kate five years after their marriage, when the first happiness of each other's society had faded, had staled, had turned to the wretchedness of starvation in its state of siege. Or perhaps going out for walks with her, just themselves, always themselves only, they two together, this evening, last evening, and to-morrow evening; through the streets crowded by visitors, down the harbour where the fishermen congregate, across the bridge and over the head between sea and sky; people bowing to them respectfully, rigidly, freezingly; people nudging and whispering and looking their way. Oh, G.o.d, what end could come of such an abject life but that, beginning by being unhappy, they should descend to being bad as well?

"What a fuss you are making of things," said the voice again, but more loudly. "This hubbub only means that you can't have your cake and eat it. Very well, take Kate, and let the Deemstership go to perdition."

There was not much comfort in that counsel, for it made no reckoning with the certainty that, if marriage with Kate would prevent him from being Deemster, it would prevent him from being anything in the Isle of Man. As it had happened with his father, so it would happen with him--there would be no standing ground in the island for the man who had deliberately put himself outside the pale.

"Don't worry me with silly efforts to draw a line so straight. If you can't have Kate and the Deemstership together, and if you can't have Kate without the Deemstership, there is only one thing left--the Deemstership without Kate. You must take the office and forego the girl.

It is your duty, your necessity."

This was how Philip put it to himself at length, and the daylight had gone by that time, and he was walking in the dark. But the voice which had been pleading on his side now protested on hers.

"Don't prate of duty and necessity. You mean self-love and self-interest. Man, be honest. Because this woman is an obstacle in your career, you would sacrifice her. It is boundless, pitiless selfishness.

Suppose you abandon her, dare you think of her without shame! She loves you, she trusts you, and she has given you proof of her love and trust.

Hold your tongue. Don't dare to whisper that n.o.body knows it but you and heir--that you will be silent, that she will have no temptation to speak. She loves you. She has given you all. G.o.d bless her!"

Affectionate pity swept down the selfish man in him. As the lights of the town appeared on his path, he was saying to himself boldly, "Since either way there is trouble, I'll do as I said last night--I'll leave Heaven to decide whether I'm to be a great man or a little man, and decide for myself whether I'm to be a true man or a happy man. I'll take my heart in my hand and go right forward."

In this temper he returned to his chambers. The rooms fronted to Athol Street, but backed on to the churchyard of St. George's. They were quiet, and not overlooked. His lamp was lit. The servant was laying the cloth.

"Lay covers for two, Jemmy," said Philip. Then he began to hum something.

Presently, in feeling for his keys, his fingers touched an unfamiliar substance in his pocket. He remembered what it was. It was the cracked medallion of his father. He could not bear to look at it. Unlocking a chest, he buried it at the bottom under a pile of winter clothing.

This recalled a possession yet more painful, and going to a desk, he drew out the packet of his father's letters and proceeded to hide them away with the medallion. As he did so his hand trembled, his limbs shook, he felt giddy, and he thought the voice that had tormented him with conflicting taunts was ringing in his ears again. "Bury him deep!

Bury your father out of all sight and all remembrance. Bury his love of you, his hopes of you, his expectations and dreams of you. Bury and forget him for ever."

Philip hesitated a moment, and then banged down the lid of the chest, and relocked it as his servant returned to the room. The man was a solemn, dignified, and reticent person, who had been groom to the late Bishop. His gravity he had acquired from his horses, his dignity from his master; but his reticence he had created for himself, being a thing beyond nature in creature or man. His proper name was Cottier; he had always been known as Jemy-Lord.

"Company not arrived, sir," he said. "Wait or serve?"

"What is the time?" said Philip.

"Struck eight; but clock two minutes soon."

"Serve the supper at once," said Philip.

When the dishes had been brought in and the man dismissed, Philip, taking his place at the table, drew from his b.u.t.ton-hole a flower which he had picked out of his water-bowl at lunch, and, first putting it to his lips, he tossed it on to the empty place before the chair which had been drawn up opposite. Then he sat down to eat.

He ate little; and, do what he would, he could not keep his mind from wandering. He thought of his aunt, and how hurt she had been the previous night; of his uncle, and how he had snubbed and then slavered over him; of the Governor, and how strange the interest he had shown in him; and finally, he thought of Pete, and how lately he was dead, and how soon forgotten.

In the midst of these memories, all sad and some bitter, suddenly he remembered again that he was supping with Kate. Then he struggled to be bright and even a little gay. He knew that she would be taking her supper at Sulby at that moment, thinking of him and making believe that he was with her. So he tried to think that she was with him, sitting in the chair opposite, looking across the table between the white cloth and the blue lamp-shade, out of her beaming eyes, with her rings of dark hair dancing on her forehead, and her ripe mouth twitching merrily. Then the air of the room seemed to be filled with a sweet presence. He could have fancied there was a perfume of lace and dainty things.

"Sweetheart!" He laughed--he hardly knew if it was himself that had spoken. It was dear, delicious fooling.

But his eyes fell on the chest wherein he had buried the letters and the medallion, and his mind wandered again. He thought of his father, of his grandfather, of his lost inheritance, and how nearly he had reclaimed the better part of it, and then once more of Pete, crying aloud at last in the coil of his trouble, "Oh, if Pete had only lived!"