"Addio! See you at supper!"
Fenella was waving to the Governor and the Attorney, and laughing at
their slow speed, as she and Stowell shot past them before they had
left the town.
The morning was beautiful, the sky blue, the sea glistening under a
fresh breeze. They were running, bounding, leaping along the roads,
and talking loudly above the hum of the car. Stowell had caught the
contagion of Fenella's high spirits and awakened from his long trance.
"Well, what did you think of it?"
"The ceremony? Lovely!"
"But you were crying all the time!"
"It must have been through looking at you, then. There was everybody
doing you honour, and you looked like a man going to execution."
He laughed; she laughed; they laughed together, but they had their
serious moments for all that. One of them came when she spoke of the
Oath, saying how quaint and amusing it was.
"A little frightening, though," said Stowell.
"Frightening?"
"Well, yes, I thought so. Made one feel as if old Job had had
something to say for himself. Who was I to judge others, having done
wrong myself?"
"Really! You wicked fellow! I wasn't aware you had so many sins to
answer for. But _I_ know!"
And then, in flash after flash, each sparkling like a diamond, came
pictures of his predecessors. The solemn judge; the jesting judge;
the judge who suspected all men of lying; the judge who believed
everybody told the truth; the sour, dour, swearing and hanging judge,
who served Justice as if she had been a Juggernaut, and the gay Judge
who bought and sold her as he did his mistresses.
"What a procession! And the question was, which kind were you going
to belong to--eh?"
Again he laughed; they both laughed; and the car flew on. Another
serious moment came. He mentioned the Book of Oaths, saying that
while turning over its leaves with their faded ink he had been seized
with a sudden fear of writing his name, whereupon Fenella, with a
mischievous look of gravity, cried again,
"_I_ know. You thought you were signing your death-warrant."
Yet another serious moment came when she asked him if he had not been
proud of the send-off his countrymen had given him at the Castle
gate. He replied that he would have been so but for the wretched
thought that if anything happened to him their love would as suddenly
turn to hate, and they would howl as loudly as they had cheered.
"But what nonsense!" cried Fenella. "Love--what I call love--is not
like that. It never dies and never changes."
"Never?"
"Never! If I loved anybody and anything happened, I should fight the
world for him."
"Even if he were in the wrong?"
"Goodness yes! Where would be the merit of fighting for him if he
were in the right?"
"Darling!" cried Stowell, and, the road being clear, and nobody in
sight, he had to slow down the car to kiss her.
After that he threw off the solemnity of the ceremony and gave
himself up to the intoxication of love. With Fenella by his side,
looking up at him with her beaming eyes, and laughing with her gay
raillery, what else could he think about? A few miles out of
Castletown he said,
"Let us take the old road back--it's longer."
"Yes, it's longer."
Every fresh mile was a fresh delight. How the Spring was coming on!
Look at the gorse, already in its glory! And the lambs just born and
still trembling on their doddering limbs! And the tragic old hens
with their fluffy yellow broods! And then the cottages, half buried
in their big fuchsias! And the farmers whitewashing their farmhouses
to wipe out the stains of winter!
"What a jolly old world it is, isn't it?" he cried.
"Isn't it?" she answered, and without looking to see if the way was
clear, he had to slow down the car and kiss her again.
A few miles south of Douglas they turned into a road that ran like a
shelf along the edge of the cliffs, with the sea surging on the grey
rocks below, and nothing but its round rim against the sky. The
breeze was stronger out there, but every gust was a joy. Stowell
took off his hat and threw it to the bottom of the car. Fenella
unpinned hers and held it on her knee. His black hair tumbled over
his forehead, and her bronze-brown hair, loosened from its knot, flew
about her head like a flag.
More than ever now they had the sense of flying. The sun danced on
the breakers; the foam floated in trembling flakes into the blue sky;
the sea-fowl screamed about them. With the taste of the brine on
their lips, and the sting of it in their blood, they shouted at every
sight and sound.
"Look at that white horse down there! See how he rears his head and
plunges forward. Ah, he has had enough! No, he's coming on again
with a roar!"
"But look at the sea-holly and the wild thyme! And the rabbits
scuttling into their holes! And the goats on the peaks of the
cliffs!"
"Lord! What a jolly old world it is, though!"
"Didn't you say that before, Victor?"
"Did I? Well, I'm going to say it every blessed day of my life to
come."
"No, no! Take care! We're on the edge of the cliff. We'll be over!"
"No matter--another kiss!"
The wind was from the south, and the sea, breaking along the broken
line of the coast, was making a sound like that of the ringing of
bells. It was the phenomenon of nature which gave rise to the
tradition that a town lies buried under the sea at that point, so
that Manx fishermen, coming back from their fishing-ground at
sunrise, will sometimes say, "The wedding bells are ringing!"
Stowell heard them now, over the roar of the waves in their mad
welter, and he cried,
"Listen to the bells!"
"What bells?"
"Our bells!" he cried.
And then at the full power of their lungs, over the hum of the engine
and the boom of the breakers, they sang a verse of the song of the
submerged city:
"_Here where the ocean is whitened with foam,
Here stood a city, an altar, a home.
Hark to the bells that ring under the sea,
Salve Regina! Salve Regina!
Love is the Queen for you and for me,
Salve, Salve Regina!_"
After that they laughed again, and in sheer gaiety of heart, sang
every nonsensical thing they could think about, until, being
breathless and hoarse and compelled to stop, Fenella said,
"I wonder what those people in the Court-house would think if they
could see their great man now! But I suppose there has never been a
great man since the beginning of the world but some woman has known
him for what he really is--just a big boy!"
At three o'clock in the afternoon luncheon was over at Government
House; the Governor and the Attorney-General had gone off to smoke;
Miss Green, like a wise woman, had betaken herself to her room, and
Fenella and Stowell were alone.
"Now you must get away to Ballamoar. I promised Janet to send you
back in time. Some kind of welcome home, you know."
But Stowell stood over her (she was at the piano) and whispered,
"When?"
She pretended not to understand him, and again, and in a more
emphatic voice, he demanded,
"When?"
She was compelled to comprehend at last, and said that if all went
well, and he behaved himself, and her father approved, a month that
day, perhaps .... no, two months....
"Done!"
A few minutes later they were in the porch for their last parting.
He was holding her in a long embrace. He felt like Jacob who had
waited so long for Rachel. He would never be entirely happy until
she was wholly his.
She laughed--a nervous and palpitating laugh.
"Rachel indeed? Take care it isn't Leah in the morning, Sir."
But seeing the cloud that crossed his face at that word, she kissed
him of herself, saying they belonged to each other already and
nothing could ever separate them.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing!"
And then a long tremulous kiss and he was gone.