Complete works of hall c.., p.249
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 249
Facing this, and hanging over the side of the bed, was a portrait of his father. The eyes were full of light, the lines of the cheek were round; the mouth seemed to quiver with a tender smile. But Philip could not see it as it was. He saw it with straggling hair, damp and long as reeds, the cheeks pallid and drawn, the eyes like lamps in a mist, the throat bare of the shirt, and the lips kept apart by laboured breathing.
Near the window stood the cot where he had once slept with Pete, and leaped up in the morning and laughed. On every hand, wherever his eye could rest, there rose a phantom of his lost and buried life. And Auntie Nannie’s love and pride had brought him to this chamber of torture!
The night was calm enough outside; but it seemed to lie dead within that room, so quiet was it and so still. There was a clock, but it did not go; and there was a cage for a bird, but no bird pecked in it, Philip thought he heard a knocking at the door of the house. Nobody answered it, so he rang for the maid. She came upstairs with a smile.
“Didn’t you hear a knock at the front door, Martha?”
“No, sir,” said the girl.
“Strange! Very strange! I could have sworn it was the knock of Mr. Quilliam.”
“Perhaps it was, sir. Ill go and look.”
“No matter. I’ve a singing in my ears to-night. It must be that.”
The girl left him. He threw off his boots and began to creep about the room as if he were doing something in which he feared detection. Every time his eyes fell on the portrait of his father he dropped his head and turned aside. Presently he heard voices in the room below. This time the sound in his ears was no dreaming. He opened the door noiselessly and listened. It was Pete. Martha was answering him. Auntie Nan was calling from the dining-room, and Pete was saying “No, no,” in a light way and moving off. The gate of the garden clicked and the front door was closed quietly. Then Philip shut the door of his own room without a sound.
A moment later Auntie Nan re-opened it. She was carrying a lighted candle.
“Such an extraordinary thing, Philip. Martha says you thought you heard Peter knocking, and, do you know, he must have been coming up the hill at that very moment. He was so strange, too, and looked so wild. Asked if anybody had been here inquiring for him; as if anybody should. Wouldn’t have me call to you, and went off laughing about nothing. Really, if I hadn’t known him for a sober man — —”
Philip felt sick-and chill, and-he began to shiver. An irresistible impulse took hold of him. It was like the half-smothered fear which makes guilty men go to sit at the inquests on their murdered victims.
“Something wrong,” he said. “Where are my boots?”
“Going to Elm Cottage, Philip? Pity the coachman drove back to Douglas. Hadn’t you better send Martha? Besides, it may be only my fancy. Why worry in any case? You’re too tender-hearted — indeed you are.”
Philip fled downstairs like one who flies from torture. While dragging on his coat in the hall, he began to foresee what was before him. He was to go to Pete, pretending to know nothing; he was to hear Pete’s story, and show surprise; he was to comfort Pete — perhaps to help him in his search, for he dared not appear not to help — he was to walk by Pete’s side, looking for what he knew they should not find. He saw himself crawling along the streets like a snake, and the part he had to play revolted him. He went upstairs again.
“On second thoughts, you must be right, auntie.”
“I’m sure I am.”
“If not, he’ll come again.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“If there’s anything amiss with Pete, he’ll come first to me.”
“There can be nothing amiss except what I say. Just a glass too much maybe and no great sin either, considering the day, and how proud he is, for your sake, Philip. I believe in my heart that young man couldn’t be prouder and happier if he stood in your own shoes instead.”
“Good-night, Auntie,” said Philip, in a thick gurgle.
“Good-night, dear. I’m going to bed, and mind you go yourself.”
Being alone, Philip found himself leaning against the mantelpiece and looking across at his father’s picture. He began to contrast his father with himself. He was a success, his father had been a failure. At seven-and-twenty he was Deemster at all events; at thirty his father had died a broken man. He had got what he had worked for; he had recovered the place of his people; and yet how mean a man he was compared to him who had done nothing and lost all.
Failure was all that his father had had to reproach himself with; but he had to accuse himself of dishonour as well. His father’s offence had been a fault; his own was a crime. If his father had been willing to betray love and friendship, he might have succeeded. Because he himself had been true to neither, he had not failed. The very excess of his father’s virtues had kept him down. Every act of his own selfishness had pushed him up. His father had thought first of love and truth and an upright life, and last of money and rank and applause. The world had renounced his father because his father had first renounced the world. But it had opened its arms to him, and followed him with shouts and cheers, and loaded him with honours. And yet, miserable man, better be down in the ooze and slime of a broken life, better be dead and in the grave — for the dead in his grave must despise him.
An awful picture rose before Philip. It was a picture of himself in the time to come. An old man — great, powerful, perhaps even beloved, maybe worshipped, but heart-dead, tottering on to the grave, and the mockery of a gorgeous funeral, with crowds and drums and solemn music. Then suddenly a great silence, as if the snow had begun to fall, and a great white light, and an awful voice crying, “Who is this that comes with dust for a bleeding heart, and ashes for a living soul?”
Philip screamed aloud at the vision, as piece by piece he put it together. His cry died off with a tingle in the china ornaments of the mantelpiece, and he remembered where he was. Then two gentle taps came to the door of his room. He composed himself a little, snatched up a book, and cried “Come in!”
It was Auntie Nan. She was in her night-dress and night-cap. A candle was in her hand, and the flame was shaking.
“Whatever’s to do, my child?” she said.
“Only reading aloud, Auntie. Did I awaken you?”
“But you screamed, Philip.”
“Macbeth, Auntie. See, the banquet scene. He has become king, you know, but his conscience — —”
He stopped. The little lady looked at him dubiously and made a pull at the string of her night-cap, causing it to fall aside and give a grotesque appearance to her troubled old face.
“Take a little brandy, dear. I left it here on the dressing-table.”
“Don’t trouble about me, Auntie. Good-night again. There! go back to bed.”
Half coaxing, half forcing her, he drew her to the door, and she went out slowly, reluctantly, doubtfully, the wandering strings of her cap trailing on her shoulders, and her bare feet nipping up the bottom of the night-dress behind her.
Philip looked at the book he had snatched up in his haste. What had put that book of all books into his hand? What had brought him to that room of all rooms? And on that night of all nights? What devil out of hell had tempted Auntie Nan to torture him? He would not stay; he would go back to his own bed.
Out on the landing he heard a low voice. It came from Auntie Nan’s room. A spear of candle-light shot from her door, which was ajar. He paused and looked in. The white night-dress was by the bedside, the night-cap was buried in the counterpane. A cat had established itself beside it, and was purring softly. Auntie Nan was on her knees. Philip heard his own name ——
“God bless my Philip in the great place to which he has been called this day. Give him wisdom and strength and peace!”
Holy woman, with angels hovering over you, who dared to think of devils tempting your innocence and love?
Philip went back to his father’s room. He began to reconcile himself to his position. Though he had been extolling his father at his own expense, what had he done but realise his father’s hopes. And, after all, he could not have acted differently. At no point could he have behaved otherwise than he had. What had he to accuse himself for? If there had been sin, he had been dragged into it by blind powers which he could not command. And what was true of himself was also true of Kate.
Ah! he could see her now. She was gone where he had sent her. There were tears in her beautiful eyes, but time would wipe them away. The duplicity of her old life was over; the corroding deceit, the daily torment, the hourly infidelity — all were left behind. If there was remorse, it was the fault of destiny; and if she was suffering the pangs of shame, she was a woman, and she would bear it cheerfully for the sake of the man she loved. She was going through everything for him. Heaven bless her! In spite of man and man’s law, she was his love, his darling, his wife — yes, his wife — by right of nature and of God; and, come what would, he should cling to her to the last.
Suddenly a thick voice cut through the still air of the night.
“Philip!”
It was Pete at last He was calling up at the window from the path below. Philip groaned and covered his face with his hands.
“Philip!”
With rigid steps Philip walked to the window and threw up the sash. It was starlight, and the branches were bending in the night air.
“Is it you, Pete?”
“Yes, it’s me. I was seeing the lamp, so I knew you war’n in bed at all. Studdying a bit, it’s like, eh? I thought I wouldn’t waken the house, but just shout up and tell you.”
“What is it, Pete?” said Philip. His voice shivered like a sail at tacking.
“Nothing much at all. Only the wife’s gone to England over by the night’s steamer.”
“To England?”
“Aw, time for it too, I’m thinking; the wake and narvous she’s been lately. You remember what the doctor was saying yonder everin,’ when we christened the child? ‘Send her out of the island,’ says he, ‘and she’ll be coming home another woman.’ Wasn’t for going, though. Crying and shouting she wouldn’t be laving the lil one. So I had to put out a bit of authority. Of course, a husband’s got the right to do that, Philip, eh? Well, I’ll be taking the road again. Doing a fine night, isn’t it? Make’s a man unwilling to go to bed.”
Philip trembled and felt sick. He tried to speak, but could utter nothing except an inarticulate noise. As Pete went off, an owl screeched in the glen. Philip drew down the sash, pulled the blind, tugged the curtains across, stumbled into the middle of the floor, and leaned against the bed.
“Such is the beginning of the end,” he thought.
The duplicity, the deceit, the daily torment which Kate had left behind, were henceforward to be his own! At one flash, as of lightning, he saw the path before him. It was over cliffs and chasms and quagmires, where his foot might slip at any step.
His head began to reel. He took the brandy bottle from the dressing-table, poured out half a tumbler, and drained it at one draught. As he did so, his eyes above the rim of the glass rested on the portrait of his mother over the fireplace. The face as he saw it then was no longer the face of the winsome bride. It was the living face as he remembered it — bleared, bloated, gross, and drunken. She smiled on him, she beckoned to him.
It was the beginning of the end indeed. He was his mother’s son as well as his father’s. The father had ruled down to that day, but it was the turn of the mother now. He could not resist her. She was alive in his blood, and he was hers.
Never before had he touched raw spirits, and the brandy mastered him instantly. Feeling dizzy, he made an effort to undress and get into bed. He dragged off his coat and his waistcoat, and threw his braces over his shoulders. Then he stumbled, and he had to lay hold of the bedpost. His hand grew chill and relaxed its hold. Stupor came over him. He slipped, he slid, he fell, and rolled with outstretched arms on to the floor. The fire went out and the lamp died down.
Then the sun came up over the sea. It was a beautiful morning. The town awoke; people hailed each other cheerfully in the streets, and joy-bells rang from the big church tower for the first court-day of the new Deemster. But the Deemster himself still lay on the floor, with damp forehead and matted hair, behind the blind of the darkened room.
PART V. MAN AND MAN.
I.
It was Saturday, and the market-place was covered with the carts and stalls of the country people. After some feint of eating breakfast, Pete lit his pipe, called for a basket, and announced his intention of doing the marketing.
“Coming for the mistress, are you, Capt’n?”
“I’m a sort of a grass-widow, ma’am. What’s your eggs to-day, Mistress Cowley?”
“Sixteen this morning, sir, and right ones too. They were telling me you’ve been losing her.”
“Give me a shilling’s worth, then. Any news over your side, Mag?”
“Two — four — eight — sixteen — it’s every appearance we’ll be getting a early harvest, Capt’n.”
“Is it yourself, Liza? And how’s your butter to-day?”
“Bad to bate to-day, sir, and only thirteen pence ha’penny. Is the lil one longing for the mistress, Capt’n?”
“I’ll take a couple of pounds, then. What for longing at all when it’s going bringing up by hand it is? Put it in a cabbage leaf, Liza.”
Thus, with his basket on his arm and his pipe in his mouth, Pete passed from stall to stall, chatting, laughing, bargaining, buying, shouting his salutations over the general hum and hubbub, as he ploughed his way through the crowd, but listening intently watching eagerly, casting out grapples to catch the anchor he had lost, and feeling all the time that if any eye showed sign of knowledge, if any one began with “Capt’n, I can tell you where she is,” he must leap on the man like a tiger, and strangle the revelation in his throat.
Next day, Sunday, his friends from Sulby came to quiz and to question. He was lounging in his shirt-sleeves on a deck-chair in his ship’s cabin, smoking a long pipe, and pretending to be at ease and at peace with all the world.
“Fine morning, Capt’n,” said John the Clerk.
“It is doing a fine morning, John,” said Pete.
“Fine on the sea, too,” said Jonaique.
“Wonderful fine on the sea, Mr. Jelly.”
“A nice fair wind, though, if anybody was going by the packet to Liverpool. Was it as good, think you, for the mistress on Friday night, Mr. Quilliam?”
“I’ll gallantee,” said Pete.
“Plucky, though — I wouldn’t have thought it of the same woman — I wouldn’t raelly,” said Jonaique.
“Alone, too, and landing on the other side so early in the morning,” said John the Clerk.
“Smart, uncommon! It isn’t every woman would have done it,” said Kelly the Postman.
“Aw, we’ve mighty boys of women deese days — we have dough,” snuffled the constable, and then they all laughed together.
Pete watched their wheedling, fawning, and whisking of the tail, and then he said, “Chut! What’s there so wonderful about a woman going by herself to Liverpool when she’s got somebody waiting at the stage to meet her?”
The laughing faces lengthened suddenly. “And had she, then,” said John the Clerk.
Pete puffed furiously, rolled in his seat, laughed like a man with a mouth full of water, and said, “Why, sartenly — my uncle, of coorse.”
Jonaique wrinkled his forehead. “Uncle,” he said, with a click in his throat.
“Yes, my Uncle Joe,” said Pete.
Jonaique looked helplessly across at John the Clerk. John the Clerk puckered up his mouth as if about to whistle, and then said, in a faltering way, “Well, I can’t really say I’ve ever heard tell of your Uncle Joe before, Capt’n.”
“No?” said Pete, with a look of astonishment. “Not my Uncle Joseph? The one that left the island forty years ago and started in the coach and cab line? Well, that’s curious. Where’s he living? Bless me, where’s this it is, now? Chut! it’s clane forgot at me. But I saw him myself coming home from Kimberley, and since then he’s been writing constant. ‘Send her across,’ says he; ‘she’ll be her own woman again like winking.’ And you never heard tell of him? Not Uncle Joey with the bald head? Well, well! A smart ould man, though. Man alive, the lively he is, too, and the laughable, and the good company. To look at that man’s face you’d say the sun was shining reg’lar. Aw, it’s fine times she’ll be having with Uncle Joe. No woman could be ill with yonder ould man about. He’d break your face with laughing if it was bursting itself with a squinsey. And you never heard tell of my Uncle Joe, of Scotland Road, down Clarence Dock way? To think of that now!”
They went off with looks of perplexity, and Pete turned into the house. “They’re trying to catch me; they’re wanting to shame my poor lil Kirry. I must keep her name sweet,” he thought.
The church bells had begun to ring, and he was telling himself that, heavy though his heart might be, he must behave as usual.
“She’ll be going walking to church herself this morning, Nancy,” he said, putting on his coat, “so I’ll just slip across to chapel.”
He was swinging up the path on his return home to dinner, when he heard voices inside the house.
“It’s shocking to see the man bittending this and bittending that.” It was Nancy; she was laying the table; there was a rattle of knives and forks. “Bittending to ate, but only pecking like a robin; bittending to sleep, but never a wink on the night; bittending to laugh and to joke and wink, and a face at him like a ghose’s, and his hair all through-others. Walking about from river to quay, and going on with all that rubbish — it’s shocking, ma’am, it’s shocking!”
“Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye!” It was the voice of Grannie, low and quavery; she was rocking the cradle.
“You can’t spake to him neither but he’s scolding you scandalous. ‘I’m not used of being cursed at,’ I’m saying, ‘and is it myself that has to be tould to respect my own Kitty?’ But cry shame on her I must when I look at the lil bogh there, and it so helpless and so beautiful. ‘Stericks, you say? Yes, indeed, ma’am, and if I stay here much longer, it’s losing myself I will be, too, with his bittending and bittending.”
