Fenella Stanley had not awakened early, as Janet had supposed--she
had never been to sleep. Her bedroom had been to the north-east, and
she, too, had seen the moonlight creep across her floor; and when it
was gone, and all else was dark, she had felt the revolving light
from the stony neck of the Point of Ayre passing every other minute
over her closed eyelids.
She was too much of a woman not to know what was happening to her,
but none the less she was confused and startled. Do what she would
to compose herself she could not lie quiet for more than a moment.
Her blood was alternately flowing through her veins like soft milk
and bounding to her heart like a geyser.
As soon as the daylight came and the rooks began to caw she got up
and dressed, and went through the sleeping house, with its drawn
blinds, and let herself out by the glass door to the piazza.
Of course she turned towards the shore. It was glorious to be down
there alone, on the ribbed sand, with the salt air on her lips and
the odour of the seaweed in her nostrils and the rising sun
glistening in her eyes over the shimmering and murmuring sea. But it
was still sweeter to return by the sandy road, past the chancel of
the old church (how silly to have been afraid of it!) and to see
footsteps here and there--his and hers.
The world was astir by this time, with the sun riding high and the
earth smoking from its night-long draughts of dew, the sheep munching
the wet grass in the fields on either side, and the cattle lowing in
the closed-up byres, waiting to be milked. But the white blind of
Victor's room (she was sure it was Victor's) was still down, like a
closed eyelid, and she had half a mind to throw a handful of gravel
at it and then dart indoors.
Back in the house there were some embarrassing moments. Breakfast
was rather a trying time after Victor came down, looking a little
sheepish, and that last moment on the path was difficult, when he was
holding the carriage door open and saying good-bye to her; but she
could not deny herself that wave of the hand as they turned the
corner of the drive--she was perfectly sure he must be looking after
them.
After that--misery! Every day at Government House seemed to bring
her an increasing heartache, and when she returned to College a
fortnight later, and fell back into the swing of her former life
there (the glowing and thrilling life she had described to Victor) a
bitter struggle with herself began.
It was a struggle between the mysterious new-born desires of her
awakening womanhood and the task she had supposed to be her duty--to
consecrate her whole life to the liberation of her sex, giving up,
like a nun if need be, all the joys that were for ever whispering in
the ears of women, that she might devote herself body and soul to the
salvation of her suffering sisters.
Three months passed in which Fenella believed herself to be the
unhappiest girl in the world. Moments of guilty joy and defiance
mingled with hours of self-reproach. And then dear, good people were
sometimes so cruel! Miss Green, her father's housekeeper, never
wrote without saying something about Victor Stowell. He was a
student-at-law now, and was getting along wonderfully.
Once Miss Green enclosed a letter from Janet asking Fenella for her
photograph. For nearly a week that was a frightful ordeal, but in
the end the woman triumphed over the nun and she sent the picture.
"Dear Janet," she wrote, "it was very sweet of you to wish for my
photograph to remind you of that dear and charming day I spent at
Ballamoar, so I have been into Cambridge and had one specially taken
for you, in the dress I wore on that lovely August afternoon which I
shall never forget...."
It had been a tingling delight to write that letter, but the moment
she had posted it, with the new Cambridge photograph, she could have
died of vexation and shame--it must be so utterly obvious whom she
had sent them to.
As the Christmas vacation approached she began to be afraid of
herself. If she returned to the island she would be sure to see
Victor Stowell (he must be in Douglas now) and that would be the end
of everything.
After a tragic struggle, and many secret tears, she wrote to her
father to say what numbers of the Newnham girls were going to Italy
for the holidays and how she would love to see the pictures at
Florence. To her consternation the Governor answered immediately,
saying,
"Excellent idea! It will do you good, and I shall be happy to get
away from 'the Kays' for a month or two, so I am writing at once to
engage rooms at the Washington."
She could have cried aloud after reading this letter, but there was
no help for it now.
Truly, the heart of a girl is a deep riddle and only He Who made can
read it.