The winter passed, the spring came and nothing was done for Victor.
His father made no effort to provide for his future, whether at
another school, at college, or in a profession.
"I wonder at the Dempster, I really do," said Auntie Kitty.
"Leave him alone," said Janet--it would all come right some day.
Left to himself, Victor became the great practical joker of the
countryside. Every prank for which no other author could be found
was attributed to him. If any pretentious person fell into a
ridiculous mare's nest people would say,
"But where was young Stowell while that was going on?"
In this dubious occupation of "putting the fun" on folks he soon
found the powerful assistance of Alick Gell. That young gentleman,
for his training on the land, had been handed over to the charge of
old Tom Kermode, the Speaker's steward. But Tom, good man, foresaw
the possibility of being supplanted in his position if the Speaker's
son acquired sufficient knowledge to take it, and therefore he put no
unnecessary obstacles in the way of the boy's industrious efforts not
to do so. On the contrary he encouraged them, with the result that
Alick and Victor foregathered again, and having nothing better to do
than to make mischief, they proceeded to make it.
How much the Deemster heard of his son's doings nobody knew. Twice a
day he sat at meat with him without speaking a word of reproof. But
Janet saw that when report was loudest he wrote longer than usual in
his leather-bound book before going to bed, and that his head was
lower than ever in the morning.
At length Janet entered into a secret scheme with herself for lifting
it up again. This consisted in prompting her dear boy to do
something, to make an effort, to justify himself. So making excuse
of the Deemster's business she would take Victor's breakfast to his
bedroom before he had time to get up to it.
It was a bright room to the north-east, flooded with sunshine at that
season after she had drawn the blind, and fresh, after she had thrown
up the sash, with morning air that smacked of the blue sea (which
came humming down from the dim ghost of Galloway), and relished of
the sandy soil of Man, with its yellowing crops of rustling oats,
over which the larks and the linnets tumbled and sang.
Victor was always asleep when she went in at eight o'clock, for he
slept like a top, and after she had scolded him for lying late, he
would sit up in bed, with his sleepy eyes and tousled hair, to eat
his breakfast, while she turned his stockings, shook out his shirt,
gathered up his clothes (they were usually distributed all over the
room) and talked.
Victor noticed whatever she began upon she always ended with the same
subject. It was Fenella Stanley. That girl was splendid, and she
was getting on marvellously. Still at college "across"? Yes,
Newnham they were calling it, and she was carrying everything before
her--prizes, scholarships, honours--goodness knows what.
The island was ringing with her praise but Janet was hearing
everything direct from Miss Green, the Governor's housekeeper, with
whom she kept up a constant correspondence. That woman worshipped
the girl--you never saw the like, never! As for the Governor, it was
enough to bring tears into a woman's eyes to see how proud he was of
his daughter. When he had news that she had taken a new honour it
was like new life to the old man. You would think the sun was
shining all over the house, and that was saying something there--the
Keys being so troublesome. Of course he was "longing" for his
daughter to come home to him, and that was only natural, but knowing
how hard she was working now--six in the morning until six in the
evening, Catherine Green was saying--he was waiting patiently.
"Aw, yes, yes, that's the way with fathers," said Janet. "Big men as
they may be themselves, they are prouder of their children's
successes than of their own--far prouder."
The effect of Janet's scheme was the reverse of what she had
expected. By a law of the heart of a boy, which the good soul knew
nothing of, Victor resented the industry, success and reputation of
Fenella Stanley. It was a kind of rebuke to his own idleness. The
girl was a bookworm and would develop into a blue-stocking! He had
not seen her for years and did not want to see her, but in his mind's
eye he pictured her as she must be now--a pale-faced young person in
a short blue skirt and big boots, with cropped hair and perhaps
spectacles!
Describing this vision to Alick Gell, as they were drying themselves
on the shore after a swim, Victor said with emphasis that if there
was one thing he hated it was a woman who was half a man.
"Same here," said Alick, who had had liberal doses of the same
medicine at home, less delicately administered by his sister Isabella.
But where Janet failed, a greater advocate, nature itself, was soon
to succeed. The boys were then in their nineteenth year, a pair of
full-grown, healthy, handsome lads as ever trod the heather, or
stripped to the sea, but there was a great world which had not yet
been revealed to either of them--the world of woman. That world was
to be revealed to one of them now.