Meantime, another woman was hearing black stories about Victor, and
that was Janet. She believed them, she disbelieved them, she dreaded
them as possibilities and resented them as slanders. But finally she
concluded that, whether they were true or false, she must tell Victor
all about them.
Yet how was she to do so? How put a name to the evil things that
were being said of him--she who had been the same as a mother to him
all the way up since he was a child, and held him in her arms for his
christening?
For weeks her soft heart fought with her maidenly modesty, but at
length her heart prevailed. She could not see her dear boy walk
blindfold into danger. Whatever the consequences she must speak to
him, warn him, stop him if necessary.
But where and when and how was she to do so? To write was impossible
(nobody knew what might become of a letter) and Victor had long
discontinued his week-end visits to Ballamoar.
One day the Deemster told her to prepare a room for the Governor who
was coming to visit him, and seizing her opportunity she said,
"And wouldn't it be nice to ask Victor to meet him, your Honour?"
The Deemster paused for a moment, then bowed his head and answered,
"Do as you please, Miss Curphey."
Five minutes afterwards Janet was writing in hot haste to Ramsey.
"He is to come on Saturday, dear, but mind you come on Friday, so
that I may have you all to myself for a while before the great men
take you from me."
Victor came on Friday evening and found Janet alone, the Deemster
being away for an important Court and likely to sleep the night in
Douglas. She was in her own little sitting-room--a soft, cushiony
chamber full of embroidered screens and pictures of himself as a
child worked out in coloured silk. A tea-tray, ready laid, was on a
table by her side, and she rose with a trembling cry as he bounded in
and kissed her.
Tea was a long but tremulous joy to her, and by the time it was over
the darkness was gathering. The maid removed the tray and was about
to bring in a lamp, but Janet, being artful, said:
"No, Jane, not yet. It would be a pity to shut out this lovely
twilight. Don't you think so, dear?"
Victor agreed, not knowing what was coming, and for an hour longer
they sat at opposite sides of the table, with their faces to the
lawn, while the rooks cawed out their last congress, and the thrush
sang its last song, and Janet talked on indifferent matters--whether
Mrs. Quayle (his sleeping-out housekeeper) was making him comfortable
at Ramsey, and if Robbie Creer should not be told to leave butter and
fresh eggs for him on market-day.
But when, the darkness having deepened, there was no longer any
danger that Victor could see her face, Janet (trembling with fear of
her nursling now that he had grown to be a man) plunged into her
tragic subject.
People were talking and talking. The Manx ones were terrible for
talking. Really, it ought to be possible to put the law on people
who talked and talked.
"Who are they talking about now, Janet? Is it about me?" said Victor.
"Well, yes .... yes, it's about you, dear."
Oh, nothing serious, not to say serious! Just a few flighty girls
boasting about the attentions he was paying them. And then older
people, who ought to know better, gibble-gabbling about the dangers
to young women--as if the dangers to young men were not greater,
sometimes far greater.
"Not that I don't sympathise with the girls," said Janet, "living
here, poor things, on this sandy headland, while the best of the Manx
boys are going away to America, year after year, and never a man
creature younger than their fathers and grandfathers about to pass
the time of day with, except the heavy-footed omathauns that are
left."
What wonder that when a young man of another sort came about, and
showed them the courtesy a man always shows to a woman, whatever she
is, when he is a gentleman born--just a smile, or a nod, or a kind
word on the road, or the lifting of his hat, or a hand over a stile
perhaps--what wonder if the poor foolish young things began to dream
dreams and see visions.
"But that's just where the danger comes in, dear," said Janet. "Oh,
I'm a woman myself, and I was young once, you know, and perhaps I
remember how the heavens seem to open for a girl when she thinks two
eyes look at her with love, and she feels as if she could give
herself away, with everything she is or will be, and care nothing for
the future. But only think what a terrible thing it would be if some
simple girl of that sort got into trouble on your account."
"Don't be afraid of that, Janet," said Victor in a low voice. "No
girl in the island, or in the world either, has ever come to any harm
through me--or ever will do."
There came the sound of a faint gasp in the darkness, and then Janet
cried:
"God bless you for saying that, dear! I knew you would! And don't
think your silly old Janet believed the lying stories they told of
you. 'Deed no, that she didn't and never will do, never! But all
the same a young man can't be too careful!"
There were bad girls about also--real scheming, designing huzzies!
Some of them were good-looking young vixens too, for it wasn't the
good ones only that God made beautiful. And when a man was young and
handsome and clever and charming and well-off and had all the world
before him, they threw themselves in his way, and didn't mind what
disgrace they got into if they could only compel him to marry them.
"But think of a slut like that coming to live as mistress here--here
in the house of Isobel Stowell!"
Then the men folk of such women were as bad as they were. There was
a wicked, lying, evil spirit abroad these days that Jack was as good
as his master, and if you were up you had to be pulled down, and if
you were big you had to be made little.
"Only think what a cry these people would make if anything happened,"
said Janet, "wrecking your career perhaps, and making promotion
impossible."
"Don't be afraid of that either, Janet. I can take care of myself,
you know."
"So you can, dear," said Janet, "but then think of your father.
Forty years a judge, and not a breath of scandal has ever touched
him! But that's just why some of these dirts would like to destroy
him, calling to him in the Courts themselves, perhaps, with all the
dirty tongues at them, to come down from the judgment-seat and set
his own house in order."
"My father can take care of himself, too, Janet," said Victor.
"I know, dear, I know," said Janet. "But think what he'll suffer if
any sort of trouble falls on his son! More, far more, than if it
fell on himself. That's the way with fathers, isn't it? Always has
been, I suppose, since the days of David. Do you remember his
lamentations over his son Absalom? I declare I feel fit enough to
cry in Church itself whenever the Vicar reads it: 'O my son Absalom!
Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son.'"
There was silence for a moment, for Victor found it difficult to
speak, and then Janet began to plead with him in the name of his
family also.
"The Deemster is seventy years old now," she said, "and he has four
hundred years of the Ballamoars behind him, and there has never been
a stain on the name of any of them. That's always been a kind of
religion in your family, hasn't it--that if a man belongs to the
breed of the Ballamoars he will do the right--he can be trusted?
That's something to be born to, isn't it? It seems to me it is more
worth having than all the jewels and gold and titles and honours the
world has in it. Oh, my dear, my dear, you know what your father is;
he'll say nothing, and you haven't a mother to speak to you; so don't
be vexed with your old Janet who loves you, and would die for you, if
she could save you from trouble and disgrace; but think what a
terrible, fearful, shocking thing it would be for you, and for your
father, and for your family, and .... yes, for the island itself if
anything should happen now."
"Nothing _shall_ happen--I give you my word for that, Janet," said
Victor.
"God bless you!" said Janet, and rising and reaching over in the
darkness she kissed him--her face was wet.
After that she laughed, in a nervous way, and said she wasn't a
Puritan either, like some of the people in those parts whom she saw
on Sunday mornings, walking from chapel in their chapel hats, after
preaching and praying against "carnal transgression" and "bodily
indulgence" and "giving way to the temptations of the flesh"--as if
they hadn't as many children at home as there were chickens in a
good-sized hen-roost.
"Young men are young men and girls are girls," said Janet, "and some
of these Manx girls are that pretty and smart that they are enough to
tempt a saint. And if David was tempted by the beauty of
Bathsheba--and we're told he was a man after God's own heart--what
better can the Lord expect of poor lads these days who are making no
such pretensions?"
She was only an old maid herself, but she supposed it was natural for
a young man to be tempted by the beauty of a young woman, or the Lord
wouldn't have allowed it to go on so long. But the moral of that was
that it was better for a man to marry.
"So find a good woman and marry her, dear. The Deemster will be
delighted, having only yourself to follow him yet. And as for you,"
she added (her voice was breaking again), "you may not think it now,
being so young and strong, but when you are as old as I am .... and
feeling feebler every year .... and you are looking to the dark day
that is coming .... and no one of your own to close your eyes for you
.... only hired servants, or strangers, perhaps...."
It was Victor's turn to rise now, and to stop her speaking by taking
her in his arms. After a moment, not without a tremor in his own
voice also, he said,
"I shall never marry, and you know why, Janet. But neither will I
bring shame on my father, or stain my name, as God is my help and
witness."
The rooks were silent in the elms by this time, but the gong was
sounding in the hall, so, laughing and crying together, and with all
her trouble gone like chased clouds, Janet ran off to her room to
wipe her eyes and fix her cap before showing her face at supper.