"I must not go to Ballamoar while she's there. It would be madness,"
thought Stowell.
To escape from the temptation he made a still deeper plunge into the
cauldron of work, going to Courts all over the island and winning his
cases everywhere.
Twice he went to Castle Rushen to see the young wife in her cell.
What happened there was made known to the frequenters of the "Manx
Arms" by Tommy Vondy, the gaoler. Tommy, who had been coachman at
Ballamoar in the "Stranger's" days, and appointed to his present post
by the Deemster's influence, was accustomed to scenes of loud
lamentation. But having listened outside the cell door, and even
taken a peep or two through the grill, he was "free to confess" that
"the young Master" could not get a word out of the prisoner.
As the week of Fenella's visit to Ballamoar was coming to a close,
Stowell's nervousness became feverish. One day, as he was walking
down the street, a dog-cart drew up by his side and a voice called,
"Mr. Stowell!"
It was Dr. Clucas, a jovial, rubicund full-bearded man of middle age,
not liable to alarms.
"I've just been out to Ballamoar to see the Deemster, and I think
perhaps you ought to keep in touch with him."
"Is my father....?"
"Oh no, nothing serious, no immediate danger. Still, at his age, you
know...."
"I'll go home to-morrow," said Stowell.
On the following afternoon he walked to Ballamoar. It was a bright
day in early September. There was a hot hum of bees on the gorse
hedges and the light rattle of the reaper in the fields, but inside
the tall elms there was the usual silence, unbroken even by the
cawing of the rooks.
The house, too, when he reached it, seemed to be deserted. The front
door was open but the rooms were empty.
"Janet!" he cried, but there came no answer. Then he heard a burst
of laughter from the back, and going through the dining-room to the
piazza, he saw what was happening.
The yellow corn field which had been waving to a light breeze when he
was there a fortnight before, was now bare save for the stooks which
were dotted over part of it, and in the corner nearest to the mansion
house a group of persons stood waiting for the cutting of the last
armful of the crop--the Deemster, leaning on his stick; the Governor
smoking his briar-root pipe; Parson Cowley, with his round red face;
Janet in her lace cap; the house servants in their white aprons;
Robbie Creer, in his sleeve waistcoat; young Robbie, stripped to the
shirt; a large company of farm lads and farm girls, and--Fenella, in
a sunbonnet and with a sickle in her hand. It was the Melliah--the
harvest home.
"Now for it," cried Robbie, "strike them from their legs, miss." And
at a stroke from her sickle Fenella brought the last sheaf to the
ground.
Then there was a shout of "Hurrah for the Melliah!" and at the next
moment Robbie was dipping mugs into a pail and handing them round to
the males of the company, saying, when he came to the Parson,
"The Parson was the first man that ever threw water in my face"
(meaning his baptism), "but there's a jug of good Manx ale for his
own."
The rough jest was received with laughter, and then the Deemster,
being called for, spoke a few words with his calm dignity, leaning
both hands on his stick:
"'Custom must be indulged with custom, or custom will weep.' So says
our old Manx proverb. The sun is going west on me, and I cannot hope
to see many more Melliahs. But I trust my dear son, when he comes
after me, will encourage you to keep up all that is good in our old
traditions."
Then there was another shout, followed by some wild horseplay, with
the farm-boys vaulting the stocks and the girls stretching straw
ropes to trip them up, while the Deemster and his company turned back
to the house.
Fenella, coming along in her sun bonnet (a little awry) and with her
sheaf over her arm, was the first to see Victor, and she cried,
"At last! The Stranger has come at last!"
Janet was in raptures, and the Deemster said, while his slow eyes
smiled,
"You are sleeping at home to-night, Victor?"
"Yes, father."
"Good!"
After saluting everybody Victor found himself walking by Fenella's
side, and she was saying in a low voice, with a side-long glance,
"And how do you like me in a sun bonnet, sir? You rather fancy sun
bonnets, I believe." But at that moment a wasp had settled on her
arm and he was too busy removing it to reply.
At dinner that night Stowell found himself drawn into the home
atmosphere as never before since his days as a student-at-law. The
dining-table was bright with silver and many candles, and the wood
fire, crackling on the hearth, filled the low-ceiled room with the
resinous odour of the pine.
Everybody except himself and the doctor (who had arrived as they were
sitting down) had dressed. The beauty of Fenella, who came in with
the Deemster, seemed to be softened and heightened by her pale pink
evening gown--like the beauty of a flower-bud when it opens and
becomes a rose.
With Janet's complete approval Fenella had taken control of
everything, and as Victor entered she said,
"That's your place, Mr. Stranger," putting him at the end of the
table, with Janet and the doctor on either side.
She herself sat by the Deemster, whose powerful face wore an
expression of suffering, although, as often as she spoke to him, he
turned to her and smiled.
"She's lovelier than ever, really," whispered Janet, and then (with
that clairvoyance in the heart of a woman which enables her to read
mysteries without knowing it), "What a pity she ever went away!"
As a sequel to the Melliah the talk during dinner was of the ancient
customs and old life of the island. The Deemster, who could have
told most, said little, but the Governor spoke of the riots of the
Manx people (especially the copper riot when they wanted to burn down
Government House), and Janet of the roysterers and haffsters of the
Athols who kept racehorses and fought duels--her mother in her
girlhood had seen the blue mark of the bullet on the dead forehead of
one of them.
Such sweetness, such nobility, the men, the women, and the manners!
Fenella joined in the talk with great animation, but Stowell was
silent and in pain. Here they were, his family and friends, without
a suspicion that some day, perhaps soon, he would bring quite another
atmosphere into this house, this room. Visions of the mill, the
miller, his wife and his daughter rose before him, and he felt like a
traitor.
But it was not until they went into the library (it was library and
drawing-room combined) that he knew the full depth of his
humiliation. The Deemster, who was by the fire, asked Fenella to
sing to them, and she did so, sitting at the piano, with Doctor
Clucas (who in his youth had been the best dancer in the island)
tripping about her with old-fashioned gallantry to find the music and
turn over the leaves.
"This is for the Stranger," she said (cutting deeper than she knew),
and then followed a series of old Manx ballads, some of them like the
wailing of the wind among the rushes on the Curraghs, and some like
the dancing of the water in the harbour before a fresh breeze on a
summer day.
Then the doctor brought out from a cupboard a few faded sheets
inscribed "Isobel Stowell," and Fenella sang "Allan Water" and "Annie
Laurie." And then the Deemster closed his eyes, and it seemed to
Victor who sat on a hassock by his side, that his father's
blue-veined hands trembled on his knees.
"And this is for myself," said Fenella, dropping into a deeper tone
as she sang:
_Less than the weed that grows beside thy door....
Even less am I._"
Victor wanted to fly out of the room and burst into tears. But just
then the clock on the landing struck, and Fenella rose from the piano.
"Ten o'clock! Time to go upstairs, Deemster."
The old man seemed to like to be controlled by the young woman, and
leaning on her arm, he bowed all around in his stately way, and
permitted himself to be led from the room.
Then the Governor (being a privileged person) lit his pipe with a
piece of red turf from the fire, and Janet whispered to the maid who
had come back for the coffee-tray,
"See that Mr. Victor's night-things are laid out, Jane."
But Victor himself was in the hall, helping the Doctor with his
overcoat, and saying,
"Can you take me back to town with you?"
"Certainly, if you'll wait at the lodge while I look in on the
cowman's wife."
"Why, what's this mischief you are plotting?" It was Fenella coming
downstairs.
The doctor explained, and Victor said,
"There's that case. It comes on soon. I must see the poor woman
again in the morning."
"Well, if you must, you must, and I'll go down to the gate with you,"
said Fenella. And putting something over her head she walked by his
side (the doctor having gone on), taking his arm unasked and keeping
step with him.
"I was just wanting a word with you."
"Yes?"
"It's about your father. You must really come back to live with him."
"Has he asked...."
"Not to say asked! 'Victor doesn't come to see me very
often'--that's all."
"After this case is over I'll...."
"Do. You can't think how much it will mean to him."
On the way back to Ramsey, with the lamps of the dog-cart opening up
the dark road in front of them, Stowell was silent, but the doctor
talked continuously, and always on the same subject.
"I've seen something of the ladies in my time, Mr. Stowell, sir, but
I really think .... yes, sir I really do think...." and then
rapturous praises of Fenella. They rang like joy-bells in Stowell's
ear but struck like minute-bells also.
When he closed the street door to his chambers he found a large
envelope in the letter-box behind it. Bessie's photograph! As he
held it under the gas globe in his cold room the pictured face gave
him a shock. Beautiful? Yes, but there was something common in its
beauty which he had never observed before.
His first impulse was to hide the photograph out of sight. But at
the next moment he tore open the cedar-wood frame on the mantelpiece,
removed the portrait it contained, inserted Bessie's in its place,
and then put it to stand on the table by the side of his bed.
"There! That shall be the last face I see at night and the first I
see in the morning!"
But oh vain and foolish thought! With the first sleep of the night
another face was in his dream.