Four years passed, and boy and girl met again. This time it was at
Government House and the boot was on the other leg. Fenella, a tall
girl for her age, well-grown, spirited, a little spoiled, was playing
tennis with the three young Gell girls--daughters of a Manx family of
some pretensions. When Victor, in his straw hat and Eton jacket,
appeared in the tennis court (having driven over with his father and
been sent out to the girls by the Governor) the French governess told
Fenella to let him join in the game. She did so, taking a racquet
from one of the Gell girls and giving it to the boy. But though
Victor, who was now at the Ramsey Grammar School, could play cricket
and football with any boy of his age on the island, he knew nothing
about tennis, and again and again, in spite of repeated protests,
sent the balls flying out of the court.
The Gells tittered and sniffed, and at length Fenella, calling him a
booby, snatched the racquet out of his hand and gave it back to the
girl. At this humiliation his eyes flashed and his cheeks coloured,
and after a moment he marched moodily back to the open window of the
drawing-room. There the Governor and the Deemster were sitting, and
the Governor said,
"Helloa! What's amiss? Why aren't you playing with the girls?"
"Because I'm not," said the boy.
"Victor!" said the Deemster, but the boy's eyes had began to fill, so
the matter ended.
There was a show of peace when the girls came in to tea, but on
returning to Ballamoar the boy communicated to Janet in "open Court"
his settled conviction that "girls were no good anyway."
Boy and girl did not meet again for yet another four years and then
the boot had changed its leg once more. By that time Victor had made
his boy-friendship. It was with Alick Gell, brother of the three
Gell girls and only son of Archibald Gell, a big man in Manxland,
Speaker of the House of Keys, the representative branch of the little
Manx Parliament. Archibald Gell's lands, which were considerable,
made boundary with the Deemster's, and his mansion house was the next
on the Ramsey Road, but his principal activities were those of a
speculative builder. In this capacity he had put up vast numbers of
boarding-houses all over the island to meet the needs of the visiting
industry, borrowing from English Insurance Companies enormous sums on
mortgage, which could only be repaid by the thrift and forethought of
a second generation.
Alick knew what was expected of him, but down to date he had shown no
promise of capacity to fulfil his destiny. He had less of his
father's fiery energy than of the comfortable contentment of his
mother, who came of a line of Manx parsons, always shockingly
ill-paid, generally thriftless and sometimes threadbare. Yet he was
a lovable boy, not too bright of brain but with a heart of gold and a
genuine gift of friendship.
At the Ramsey Grammar School he had attached himself to Victor,
fetching and carrying for him, and looking up to him with worshipful
devotion. Now they were together at King William's College, the
public school of the island, fine lads both, but neither of them
doing much good there.
It was the morning of the annual prize day at the end of the summer
term. The Governor had come to present the prizes, and he was
surrounded by all the officials of Man, except the Deemster, who
rarely attended such functions. The boys were on platforms on either
side of the hall, and the parents were in the body of it, with the
wives and sisters of the big people in the front row, and Fenella,
the Governor's daughter, now a tall girl in white, with her French
governess, in the midst of them.
At this ceremony Gell played no part, and even Stowell did not shine.
One boy after another went down to a tumult of hand-clapping and
climbed back with books piled up to his chin. When Stowell's turn
came, the Principal, who had been calling out the names of the
prize-winners, and making little speeches in their praise, tried to
improve the occasion with a moral homily.
"Now here," he said, making one of his bird-like steps forward, "is a
boy of extraordinary talents--quite extraordinary. Yet he has only
one prize to receive. Why? Want of application! If boys of such
great natural gifts .... yes, I might almost say genius, would only
apply themselves, there is nothing whatever, at school or in after
life...."
P'shew! During this astonishing speech Stowell was already on the
platform, only a pace back from the Principal, in full view of
everybody, with face aflame and a burning sense of injustice. And,
although, when the interlude was over, and he stepped forward to
receive his Horace (he had won the prize for Classics) the Governor
rose and shook hands with him and said he was sure the son of his old
friend, the Deemster, would justify himself yet, and make his father
proud of him, he was perfectly certain that Fenella Stanley's eyes
were on him and she was thinking him a "booby."
But his revenge came later. In the afternoon he captained in the
cricket match, with fifteen of the junior house against the school
eleven. Things went badly for the big fellows from the moment he
took his place at the wicket, so they put on their best and fastest
bowlers. But he scored all round the wicket for nearly an hour,
driving the ball three times over the roof of the school chapel and
twice into the ruins beyond the Darby-Haven road, and carrying his
bat for more than sixty runs. Then, as he came in, the little
fellows who had been frantic, and Gell, who had been turning
cart-wheels in delirious excitement, and the big fellows, who had
been beaten, stood up together and cheered him lustily.
But at that moment he wasn't thinking about any of them. He
knew--although, of course, he did not look--that in the middle of the
people in the pavilion, who were all on their feet and waving their
handkerchiefs, there was Fenella Stanley, with glistening eyes and
cheeks aglow. Perhaps she thought he would salute her now, or even
stop and speak. But no, not likely! He doffed his cap to the
Governor as he ran past, but took no more notice of the Governor's
winsome daughter than if she had been a crow.