"MY DEAR VICTOR,--You cannot imagine what a joy your letter was. Do
you know it was my first love-letter? Of course I behaved like a
dairymaid--took it up to bed, put it on my pillow and said, 'You are
Victor, you know,' and laid my cheek on it.
"Whatever have you done to make me so foolish? Was it only half of
you (the physical half) that went away, leaving the spirit half with
me? I want the other half, though, the substantial half, so tell
your Home Secretary (I like him) to hurry up and send you home.
"You do wrong not to see the beautiful women, dear. The woman who is
afraid of her husband looking at other women is building her house on
the sand. I should like to say to myself, 'He has seen the loveliest
women in the world, yet he comes back to me.'
"All the same I love you for looking at the darker side of woman's
life. It is more apparent in the greater communities, but it is
here, too, and that is why I am looking eagerly forward to your
appointment as Deemster, which will make you a creator of the law as
well as an administrator of it. You must have no misgivings, though.
Why should you? A man who has a stainless scutcheon is just what
women want for their champion. And if I may help you how happy I
shall be!
"You ask what is happening in the island. Well, apart from politics
(of which I know nothing except that they seem to be always the same
story) the only thing of consequence is the case of a young woman
charged with the murder of her illegitimate child.
"She is a country girl who, having run away from home some months
ago, returned recently very ill and was put to bed, and remained
there until arrested. But in the meantime the body of a new-born
infant was found under a large stone half a mile away, and it is said
to have been hers.
"She denies all knowledge of the child, but the medical testimony
seems to be sadly against her, and there is some direct evidence
also, though it is not above the suspicion of being tainted by malice.
"She has been up before the High Bailiff and committed to the next
sitting of the General Gaol Delivery, so you are likely to hear more
of the case. Poor thing, whatever her sin, she has already had a
fearful punishment, for she is very ill, having apparently exposed
herself to dreadful sufferings in the hope of preventing her baby
from being born alive.
"She is now in the prison hospital, and this morning I drove over to
see her. A good-looking girl, almost beautiful (with the sort of
beauty which attracts the less worthy side of a certain type of man),
but her cheeks are now terribly thin and pale, and her big black eyes
(her finest feature) have that wild look which one sees in a captured
animal that gazes and gazes.
"I liked the girl, but she did not seem to like me. In fact she
shrank from me (the only girl who ever did so) and when I tried to be
nice to her, and asked her to trust me, and to tell me who was
responsible for her condition, so that I might find him and fetch him
to her, she broke into a flood of fierce denial.
"Either the girl is a great story-teller or she is a great heroine,
and I am half inclined to think she may be both. My guess would be
that she is trying to shield the guilty man. The clothes she had
worn were better than a farm girl could afford to buy, and that
suggests that her fellow-sinner belongs to a class above her.
"Isn't it shocking that the law provides no punishment for the man
who ruins a girl's life--ruining her soul at the same time, for that
is what it often comes to. But, please God, you will be on the
bench, so she is sure to have justice.
"Our Society has decided to undertake her defence, but we are at a
loss whom to employ. We cannot afford a high fee either--ten or
fifteen guineas at the outside. Can you suggest anybody?
"I intend to be present at the trial, and to stand by the girl's
side, for she will have nobody else, poor creature. But oh, how I
wish I might plead for her! Although her fellow-sinner will not
stand for judgment, how I should like to tear the mask from his face
and cry in open court, 'Thou art the man!'
"Good-night, dear! It's 10 p.m., and such delicious dreams are
waiting for me upstairs. Bring your motor-car back, and when the
time comes (I shall not keep you long) you may carry me off to
wherever you please.
"Listen, I am going to say something. There is not much in the heart
of a woman that you don't know already, but I am about to let you
into a secret. The woman who does not want her husband (if only he
loves her) to control her, command her, and do anything and
everything he likes with her, isn't really a woman at all--she's only
a mistake for a man!
"Victor, after that burst of nonsense I cannot conclude without
telling you again how much I love you. I love you for yourself, just
yourself alone, quite apart from anything you may do or have done,
whether good or bad, right or wrong, and I shall go on loving you
whatever may happen to you in the future, whether you become Deemster
or not, go up or go down.
"But when I think of the life that is so surely before you, and that
I shall walk through it by your side, perfectly united with you,
sharing the same hopes and aims and desires, enjoying the same
sunshine and weathering the same storms, I have a vision of happiness
that makes me cry for joy.
"Come back to me soon, dearest. The spring is here in all her
youthful beauty; the daffodils are nodding; the gorse on the hedges
is a blaze of gold; the sky is blue; the sea is lying asleep under a
divine shimmer of sunshine, and your island--your island that is
going to be so proud of you--is waiting to clasp you to her heart.
"And so am I, my Victor!
"FENELLA."