From the day of the trial, when Victor had returned home with a white
face and said, "It doesn't matter now," Janet had known what had
occurred.
That Collister girl had corrupted Victor. She had always feared it
would be so since "Auntie Kitty" had whispered over her counter that
that "forward thing" of Liza Corteen's was boasting that Mr. Stowell
had been "sooreying" with her in the glen. And now she had brought
him under the very shadow of shame itself, just when life looked so
bright and joyful.
Then came the insular newspaper with an account of Fenella's outburst
at the trial. That was the cruellest blow of all. She had loved
Fenella, and had always thought there would be nothing so sweet as to
spread her wedding-bed for her, but now that she had taken sides
against Victor and publicly denounced him, Janet's blood boiled. She
would go up to Government House and give Fenella a piece of her mind.
Why shouldn't she?
It was a dull afternoon when she set off for Douglas, and as she
drove along the coast road she rehearsed to herself the sharp things
she was going to say.
But when Fenella came into the drawing-room, looking so pale as to be
scarcely recognisable as the radiant girl she used to be, and kissed
her and sat by her side, Janet could scarcely say anything.
At length (Miss Green, who had been sitting at tea with her, having
gone) Janet braced herself, and said, not without a tremor,
"I've come about Victor."
"Then he has told you?" said Fenella.
"'Deed he hasn't, and you needn't either, because I know."
Fenella drew her hand away and dropped her head.
"I don't say he hasn't done wrong," said Janet, "but you seem to
think he's the only one who is to blame."
"Oh no! I see now that the girl in Castle Rushen...."
"The girl? I'm not thinking about the girl. Of course she is to
blame. But is there nobody else to blame also?"
"Who else?"
"Yourself."
"Janet!"
"Oh, I'm telling you the truth, dear. That's what I've come for."
"But it all happened before I returned to the Island."
"That's why. If you hadn't stayed away so long it wouldn't have
happened at all."
Then up from the sweet and sorrowful places of Janet's memory came
the story of Stowell's love for Fenella--how he had worked for her
and waited for her through all his long years as a student-at-law.
"It's me to know, my dear. He used to come home every week-end, and
his poor father thought it was to see him, but I knew better. 'Any
fresh news?' he would say, and I knew what news he wanted. When your
photo came he held it under the lamp and said, 'Don't you think she's
like my mother, Janet--just a little like?' And I told him yes, and
that was to say you were like the loveliest woman that ever walked
the world--in this island anyway."
Fenella was struggling to control herself.
"Poor boy, how he worked and worked for you! Jacob never worked
harder or waited longer for Rachel. And what was his reward? You
signed on at your ridiculous Settlement for seven years and sent word
you would never marry. I had it from Catharine Green and it was a
sorrowful woman I was to break the news to him. He looked at me with
his mother's eyes, and it was fit enough to break my heart to see how
he cried with his face on the pillow. But it was with his father's
eyes he rose and said, 'It shall never happen again, mother.' He
called me mother too, God bless him!"
Fenella was smothering her mouth in her handkerchief.
"If he went wrong after that, was it any wonder? Young men are young
men, and the Lord won't be too hard on them for being what He has
made them. Some people seem to think when trouble comes between a
young man and a young woman that the young woman is the only one to
be pitied. Well, I'm a woman and I don't. And when a young man has
been cut off from the love that would have kept him right and the
heavens have gone dark on him...."
"But I loved him all the time, Janet."
"Then why didn't you come back, instead of leaving him to the mercy
of these good-looking young vixens who will run any risks with a
young man if they can only get him to marry them?"
Fenella's eyes were down again.
"But that's not all. Not content with deserting him for so many
years, you must try to disgrace him also."
"Janet!"
"Oh, I saw what you said at the trial."
"But nobody knows whom I...."
"Don't they indeed! The men may not--most of them are so stupid.
They may even think you meant somebody else. But you can't deceive
the women like that. And then he knew that you intended it for him.
Just when you were about to become his wife, too, and you were the
only woman in the world to him!"
"I was so shocked. I thought he wasn't the man I had taken him for."
"Perhaps he wasn't, perhaps he was, but thousands of women have lost
faith in their men and clung to them for all that, and they're the
salt of the earth, I say. I'm only an old maid myself, but to stand
up for your husband, right or wrong, that's what _I_ call being a
wife, if you ask me."
Fenella could bear up no longer. She flung her arms about Janet's
neck and buried her face in her breast.
The darkness was gathering before they broke from their embrace and
then it was time for Janet to smooth out her silvery hair and go.
Fenella saw her to the carriage and whispered as she kissed her,
"Tell him to come back to me."
And then Janet went home with shining eyes.