It was then that the lady housekeeper took service at Ballamoar.
Janet Curphey was the last relic of a decayed Manx family that had
fallen on evil times, and having lost all she had come for life. She
quickly developed an almost slave-like devotion to the Deemster
(during her first twenty years she would never allow anybody else to
wait on him at table) as well as a motherly love for his motherless
little one. The child called her his mother, nobody corrected him,
and for years he knew nothing to the contrary.
He grew to be a braw and bright little man, and was idolized by
everybody. Having no relations of his own, except "mother," and the
Deemster, he annexed everybody else's. Bobbie, the young son of the
Ballamoar farmer (there was a farm between the mansion-house and the
sea) called his father "Dad," so Robbie Creer was "Dad" to Victor
too. The old widow in the village who kept the post-office-grocer's
shop was "Auntie Kitty" to her orphan niece, Alice, so she was
"Auntie Kitty" to Victor also.
"Everybody loves that child," said Janet. It was true. As far back
as that, under God knows what guidance, he was laying his anchor deep
for the days of storm and tempest.
During his earlier years he saw little of his father, but every
evening after his bath he was taken into the Library to bid
Good-night to him, and then the Deemster would lift him up to the
picture to bid Good-night to his mother also.
"You must love and worship her all your life, darling. I'll tell you
why, some day."
He was a born gipsy, often being lost in the broad plantations about
the house, and then turning up with astonishing stories of the
distances he had travelled.
"I didn't went no farther nor Ramsey to-day, mother"--seven miles as
the crow flies.
He was born a poet too, and after the Deemster had made a "Limerick"
on his Christian name, he learnt to rhyme to the same measure, making
quatrains almost as rapidly as he could speak, though often with
strange words of his own compounding. Thus he celebrated his pet
lamb, his kid, his rabbits, the rooks on the lawn, and particularly a
naughty young pony his father had given him, who "lived in the fiel'"
and whom he "wanted to go to Peel," but whenever he went out to fetch
her she "always kicked up her heel." Janet thought this marvellous,
miraculous. It was a gift! The little prophet Samuel might have
been more saintly but he couldn't have been more wonderful.
Janet was not the only one to be impressed. It is known now that day
by day the Deemster copied the boy's rhymes, with much similar
matter, into a leather-bound book which he had labelled strangely
enough, "Isabel's Diary." He kept this secret volume under lock and
key, and it was never seen by anyone else until years afterwards,
when, in a tragic hour, the childish jingles in the Judge's sober
handwriting, under the eyes that looked at them, burnt like flame and
cut like a knife.
It was remarked by Janet that the Deemster's affection for the child
grew greater, while the expression of it became less as the years
went on. "Is the boy up yet?" would be the first word he would say
when she took his early tea to him in the morning; and if a long day
in the Courts kept him from home until after the child had been put
to bed, he would never sit down until he had gone upstairs to look at
the little one in his cot.
In common with other imaginative children brought up alone the boy
invented a playmate, but contrary to custom his invisible comrade was
of the opposite sex, not that of the little dreamer. He called her
"Sadie," nobody knew why, or how he had come by the name, for it was
quite unknown in the island. "Sadie" lived with her mother, "Mrs.
Corlett," in the lodge of Ballamoar, which had been empty and shut up
since "the Stranger" died, when the coachman, who had occupied it,
was no longer needed. On returning from some of his runaway jaunts
the boy accounted for his absence by saying he had been down to the
gate to see "Sadie." He filled the empty house with an entire scheme
of domestic economy, and could tell you all that happened there.
"Sadie was peeling the potatoes this morning and Mrs. Corlett was
washing up, mamma."
His pony's name was Molly and by six years of age he had learnt to
ride her with such ease and confidence that to see them cantering up
the drive was to think that boy and pony must be a single creature.
Molly developed a foal, called Derry, which always wanted to be
trotting after its mother. That suited the boy perfectly. Derry had
to carry "Sadie"--a rare device which enabled his invisible comrade
to be nearly always with him.
But at length came a dire event which destroyed "Sadie." The master
of Ballamoar was rising seven when a distant relative of the Derby
family (formerly the Lords of Man) was appointed Lieutenant-Governor
of the island. This was Sir John Stanley, an ex-Indian officer--a
man in middle life, not brilliant, but the incarnation of
commonsense, essentially a product of his time, firm of will,
conservative in opinions, impatient of all forms of romantic
sentiment, but kindly, genial and capable of constant friendship.
The Deemster and the new Governor, though their qualities had points
of difference, became good friends instantly. They met first at the
swearing-in at Castle Rushen where, as senior Judge of the island,
the Deemster administered the oath. But their friendship was sealed
by an experience in common--the Governor having also lost a beloved
wife, who had died in childbirth, leaving him with an only child.
This was a girl called Fenella, a year and a half younger than
Victor, a beautiful little fairy, but a little woman, too, with a
will of her own also.
The children came together at Ballamoar, the Governor having brought
his little daughter, with her French governess, on his first call.
There was the usual ceremonious meeting of the little people, the
usual eyeing of each other from afar, the usual shy aloofness. Then
came swift comradeship, gurgling laughter, a frantic romping round
the rooms, and out on to the lawn, and then--a wild quarrel, with
shrill voices in fierce dispute. The two fathers rose from their
seats in the Library and looked out of the windows. The girl was
running towards the house with screams of terror, and the boy was
stoning her off the premises.
"You mustn't think as this is your house, 'cause it isn't."
Janet made peace between them, and the children kissed at parting,
but going home in the carriage Fenella confided to the French
governess her fixed resolve to "marry to a girl," not a boy, when her
time came to take a husband.
The effect on Victor was of another kind but no less serious. It was
remarked that the visit of little Fenella Stanley had in some
mysterious way banished his invisible playmate. Sadie was
dead--stone dead and buried. No more was ever heard of her, and Mrs.
Corlett's cottage returned to its former condition as a closed-up
gate-lodge. When Derry trotted by Molly's side there was apparently
somebody else astride of her now. But--strange whispering of
sex--whoever she was the boy never helped her to mount, and when she
dismounted he always looked another way.