Two days later, Gell was stepping into the train for Castletown on
his way to Derby Haven.
"Give me up because my income is gone? Not Bessie! Not Bessie
Collister!"
But Bessie had gone through deep waters since he had seen her last.
From the first Victor Stowell had disappointed her. To live in the
dark--hidden away, unrecognised, suppressed--it had not been
according to her expectations. Her pride, too, had been wounded by
being sent back to school. It was true that without being asked, Mr.
Stowell had promised to marry her at some future time, but perhaps
that was only because he was the son of the Deemster and therefore
afraid of her step-father and of the cry there would be all over the
island if anything became known.
If it had only been Alick! Alick would not have been ashamed of her.
He would have taken her just as she was and never seen any
shortcomings.
After the first days at Derby Haven she had found herself looking
forward to Alick's visits. When she knew he was coming everything
brightened up in her eyes and even her tiresome lessons became
delightful. Before long she felt her heart leap up whenever the
Misses Brown called, "Bessie, a gentleman to see you!"
It is easy to kindle a fire on a warm hearth. Alick had been
Bessie's first sweetheart, perhaps her only one. Suddenly a
wonderful thing happened to her. She found herself in love. She had
thought she had always been in love with somebody, but now she
realized that she had never been in love before. She was in love
with Alick Gell. And she wished to become his wife.
That altered everything. She began to see how ignorant she was
compared with Alick and how much she was beneath him. She remembered
his three tall sisters who held their heads so high at anniversaries
and bazaars, and thought what a shocking thing it would be if they
were able to look down on her. How she worked to be worthy of him!
She had no qualms about Stowell. Her only anxiety was about Alick.
She was certain that he loved her, yet what a fight she had for him!
He was always talking about Stowell, and praising him up to her.
When he excused his friend for not coming to see her she was quite
sure it was all nonsense. And when he gave her presents and said
they were from Stowell she knew where they came from.
One day he brought a wrist-watch with the usual message, and after he
had put it on (how his hands were trembling!) she tried to thank him,
but didn't know how to do so.
At last an idea occurred to her. They were walking on the Langness,
just by the ruin of a windmill, whose walls and roof had been carried
away by a gale.
"Alick," she said, "I wonder if my new watch is right by the clock at
Castle Rushen?"
Alick put his hands to his eyes like blinkers (for the sun was
setting) and looked across the bay. While he did so, Bessie slipped
off on tiptoe and hid behind the walls of the windmill. As soon as
she was missed there was a laugh and a shout and then a chase.
Bessie dodged and Alick doubled, Bessie dodged again, but at length
she slipped into a hole, and at the next moment Alick caught her up
and kissed her.
"Now, what have you done?" she said, and her face was suffused with
blushes.
After that there could be no disguise between them. Bessie felt no
shame, and it never occurred to her that she had been guilty of
treason. But Gell talked about disloyalty and said he would never be
at ease until she had made a clean breast of it to Stowell.
"Then go and tell him we couldn't help loving each other," she said.
When he was gone she was very happy. Mr. Stowell would give her up.
Of course he would. What had happened between them was dead and
buried. Whatever else he was Victor Stowell was a gentleman. He
would say nothing to Alick.
Then came a shock. On the following morning she felt unwell. She
had often felt unwell since she came to Derby Haven, and the Misses
Brown, simple old maids, seeing no cause except the change in the
girl's way of life, wanted to send for a doctor. But doctors were
associated in Bessie's mind with death. If you saw a doctor going
into a farmhouse one day you saw a coffin going in the next.
Chemists were not open to the same objection. Often on market days,
after she had sold out her basket of butter and eggs, she had called
at the chemist's at Ramsey for medicine for her mother. So, saying
nothing to her housemates, she slipped round to the chemist's at
Castletown and asked for a bottle of mixture.
The chemist, an elderly man with a fatherly face, smiled at her, and
said:
"But what is it for, miss?"
Bessie described her symptoms, and then the smiling face was grave.
"Are you a married woman, ma'am?" asked the chemist.
Bessie caught her breath, stared at the man for a moment with eyes
full of fear, and then turned and fled out of the shop.
All that day she felt dizzy and deaf. The earth seemed to be
slipping from under her. Memories of what she had heard from older
women came springing to the surface of her mind, and she asked
herself why she had not thought of this before. For a long time she
struggled to persuade herself that the chemist was wrong, but
conviction forced itself upon her at last.
Then she asked herself what she was to do, and remembering what she
had learned as a child at home of her mother's miserable life before
her marriage, she found only one answer to that question. She must
ask Mr. Stowell to marry her. The thought of parting from Alick was
heart-breaking. But the most terrible thing was that she found
herself hoping that Stowell would refuse to release her.
It had been a wretched day, dark and cheerless, with driving mist and
drizzling rain. Towards nightfall the old maids lighted a fire for
her in the sitting-room, which was full of quaint nicknacks and old
glass and china. The tide, which was at the bottom of the ebb, was
sobbing against the unseen breakwater, and the gulls on the cobbles
of the shore were calling continually.
Bessie was crouching over the fire with her chin in her hand when she
heard the sneck of the garden gate, a quick step on the gravel, a
light knock at the front door, a familiar voice in the lobby, and
then old Miss Ethel saying behind her:
"A gentleman to see you, Bessie."
Her heart did not leap up as before, and she did not rise with her
former alacrity, but Alick Gell came into the room like a rush of
wind.
"What's this--unwell?" he cried.
"It's nothing! I shall be better in the morning," she said.
"Of course you will."
And then, after a kiss, Gell sat on a low stool at Bessie's feet,
stretched his long legs towards the fire, and began to pour out his
story.
He had seen Stowell and the matter had turned out just as she had
expected. Splendid fellow! Best chap in the world, bar none!
"But what do you think, Bess? The most extraordinary coincidence!
Dear old Vic, he has been busy falling in love, too! Fact! Fenella
Stanley, daughter of the Governor! Magnificent girl, and Vic is
madly in love with her! So there's to be no heart-breaking on either
side, and that's the best of it. Makes one think there must be
something in Providence, doesn't it?"
He was laughing so loud that the china in the room rang, but Bessie
was turning cold with terror.
"And .... what about your father?" she faltered.
"My father?"
"Well .... to tell you the truth there was a bit of a breeze there,"
he said, and then followed the story of the scene at the Speaker's.
"But no matter! I'm not without money, so we can be married at once,
and the sooner the better."
"But Alick," she said (he was stroking her hand and she was trying to
draw it away), "do you think it's best?"
"Best? Why, of course I think it's best. Don't you?"
She did not reply.
"Don't you?" he said again, and then, getting no answer, he became
aware that she, who had been so eager for their marriage before he
went to Ballamoar, was now holding back.
"Bessie," he said, "has anything happened while I've been away?"
"No! Oh no!"
"You're .... you're not thinking of the loss of the income, are you?"
"No, no; 'deed!, no!"
"I knew you wouldn't. When my father taunted me with that, saying
you would give me up as soon as you knew my allowance was gone, I
said, 'Not Bessie! I'll trust her for that, Sir.'"
Bessie began to cry. Alick was bewildered.
"What is it, then? Tell me! Are you .... are you thinking of
Stowell?"
At that name she was seized by the mad impulse which comes to people
on dizzy heights when they wish to throw themselves over--she wanted
to blurt out the truth, to confess everything. But before she could
speak Alick was saying,
"I shouldn't blame you if you were. I'm not his equal--I know that,
Bessie. But even if he were free I shouldn't give you up to him now.
No, by God, not to him or to anyone."
His voice was breaking. She looked at him. There were tears in his
eyes. She could bear up no longer. With the cry of a drowning soul
she flung her arms about him and sobbed on his breast.
An hour later, having comforted and quietened her, Gell was going off
with swinging strides through the mist to catch the last train back
to Douglas.
"She was thinking of me--that was it," he was telling himself.
"Thought I would come to regret the sacrifice and wanted to save me
from being cut off by my family. So unselfish! Never thinking of
herself, bless her!"
And Bessie, in her bedroom was saying to herself, "He's that fond of
me that he'll forgive me, whatever happens."
She lay a long time awake, with her arms under her head, looking up
at the ceiling.
"Yes, Alick will forgive me, whatever happens," she thought.
And then she blew out her candle, buried her head in her pillow, and
fell asleep.