In the Attorney-General's office Victor Stowell was going from
strength to strength. There was a vast deal of ordinary drudgery in
his probationary stage, but he was bearing it with amazing patience.
His natural talents were recognised as astonishing and he was being
promoted by rapid degrees. After a few months the Attorney wrote to
the Deemster:
"Unless I am mistaken your boy is going to be a great lawyer--the
root of the matter seems to be in him."
Not content with the routine work of the office he took up (by help
of some scheme of University extension) the higher education which
had been cut short by his dismissal from King William's, and in due
course obtained degrees. One day, after talking with Victor, the
Bishop of the island was heard to say:
"If that young fellow had been sent up to Oxford, as he ought to have
been, he might have taken a first-class in _Literae Humaniores_ and
became the most brilliant man of his year."
The Attorney-General's office was a large one, and it contained
several other students-at-law. Among them now was Alick Gell, who
had prevailed upon his mother to prevail upon his father to permit
him to follow Stowell.
"God's sake, woman," the Speaker had said, "let him go then, and make
one more rascally Manx lawyer."
But neither Alick's industrious idleness, nor the distractions of a
little holiday town in its season, could tempt Stowell from his
studies. His successes seemed lightly won, but Alick, who lodged
with him in Athol Street, knew that he was a hard worker. He worked
early and late as if inspired by a great hope, a great ideal.
His only recreation was to spend his week-ends at home. When he
arrived on the Saturday afternoons he usually found his father, who
was looking younger every day, humming to himself as he worked in an
old coat among the flowers in the conservatory. At night they dined
together, and after dinner, if the evenings were cool, the Deemster
would call on him to stir the peats and draw up to the fire, and then
the old man would talk.
It was wonderful talking, but nearly always on the same subject--the
great Manx trials, the great crimes (often led up to by great
temptations), the great advocates and the great Deemsters. Victor
noticed that whatever the Deemster began with he usually came round
to the same conclusion--the power and sanctity of Justice. After an
hour, or more, he would rise in his stately way, to go to the blue
law-papers for his next Court which his clerk, old Joshua Scarf, had
laid out under the lamp on the library table, saying:
"That's how it is, you see. Justice is the strongest and most sacred
thing in the world, and in the end it must prevail."
But Victor's greatest joy in his weekly visits to Ballamoar was to
light his candle at ten o'clock on the mahogany table on the landing
under the clock and fly off to his bedroom, for Janet would be there
at that hour, blowing up his fire, turning down his bed, opening his
bag to take out his night-gear and ready to talk on a still greater
subject.
With the clairvoyance of the heart of a woman who had never had a
lover of her own ("not exactly a real lover," she used to say) she
had penetrated the mystery of the change in Victor. She loved to
dream about the glories of his future career (even her devotion to
the Deemster was in danger of being eclipsed by that) but above
everything else, about the woman who was to be his wife.
In some deep womanlike way, unknown to man, she identified herself
with Fenella Stanley and courted Victor for her in her absence. She
had visions of their marriage day, and particularly of the day after
it, when they would come home, that lovely and beloved pair, to this
very house, this very room, this very bed, and she would spread the
sheets for them.
"Is that you, dear?" she would say, down on her knees at the fire, as
he came in with his candle.
And then he, too, would play his little part, asking about the
servants, the tenants, Robbie Creer, and his son Robin (now a big
fellow and the Deemster's coachman) and Alice and "Auntie Kitty," and
even the Manx cat with her six tailless kittens, and then, as if
casually, about Fenella.
"Any news from Miss Green lately, Janet?"
One night Janet had something better than news--a letter and a
photograph.
"There! What do you think of that, now?"
Victor read the letter in its bold, clear, unaffected handwriting,
and then holding the photograph under the lamp in his trembling
fingers (Janet was sure they were trembling) he said, in a voice that
was also trembling:
"Don't you think she's like my mother--just a little like?"
"'Deed she is, dear," said Janet. "You've put the very name to it.
And that's to say she's like the loveliest woman that ever walked the
world--in this island anyway."
Victor could never trust his voice too soon after Janet said things
like that (she was often saying them), but after a while he laughed
and answered:
"I notice she doesn't walk the island too often, though. She hasn't
come here for ages."
"Oh, but she will, boy, she will," said Janet, and then she left him,
for he was almost undressed by this time, to get into bed and dream.