Complete works of hall c.., p.562
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 562
The Deemster was sixty years of age at that time. A large, spare man with an almost Jovian white head, clean-shaven face, powerful yet melancholy eyes, bold yet sensitive features and long yet delicate hands a strong, silent, dignified, rather solemn personality.
He was a man of the highest integrity. Occupying an office too often associated, in his time, with various forms of corruption, the breath of scandal never touched him. He was a legislator, as well as a Judge, being ex officio a member of the little Manx Parliament, but in his double capacity (so liable to abuse) nobody with a doubtful scheme would have dared to approach him.
“What does the old Deemster say?” the answer to that question often settled a dispute, for nobody thought of appealing against his judgment.
“Justice is the strongest and most sacred thing on earth” that was his motto, and he lived up to it.
His private life had been saddened by a great sorrow. He married, rather late in life, a young Englishwoman, out of Cumberland a gentle creature with a kind of moonlight beauty. She died four or five years afterwards and the Manx people knew little about her. To the last they called her the “Stranger.”
The Deemster bore his loss in characteristic silence. Nobody intruded on his sorrow, or even entered his house, but on the day Of the funeral half “the north” lined the long grass-grown road from the back gates of Ballamoar to the little wind-swept churchyard over against the sea. He thanked none of them and saluted none, but his head was low as his coach passed through.
Next day he took his Court as usual, and from that day onward nobody saw any difference in him. But long afterwards, Janet Curphey, the lady housekeeper at Ballamoar, was heard to say in the village post-office, which was also the grocer’s shop, that every morning after breakfast the Deemster had put a vase of fresh-cut flowers on the writing-desk in his library under his young wife’s portrait, until it was now a white-haired man who was making his daily offering to the picture of a young woman.
“Aw, yes, Mrs. Clucas, yes! And what did it matter to the woman to be a stranger when she was loved like that?”
The “Stranger.” had left a child, and this had been at once the tragedy and the triumph of her existence. Although an ancient family of exceptional longevity the Stowells had carried on their race by a very thin line. One child, rarely two, never three, and only one son at any time that had been all that had stood from generation to generation between the family name and extinction. After three years of childlessness the Deemster’s wife had realised the peril, and, for her husband’s sake, begun to pray for a son. With all her soul she prayed for him. The fervour of her prayers made her a devoutly religious woman. When her hope looked like a certainty her joy was that of an angel rejoicing in the goodness and greatness and glory of God. But by that time the sword had almost worn out its scabbard. She had fought a great fight and under the fire of her spirit her body had begun to fail.
The Deemster had sent for famous physicians and some of them had shaken their heads.
“She may get through it; but we must take care, your Honour, we must take care.”
Beneath his calm exterior the Deemster had been torn by the red strife of conflicting hopes, but his wife had only had one desire. When her dread hour came she met it with a shining face. Her son was born and he was to live, but she was dying. At the last moment she asked for her husband, and drew his head down to her.
“Call him Victor,” she said she had conquered.
II
It was then that the lady housekeeper took service at Ballamoar. Janet Curphey was the last relic of a decayed Manx family that had fallen on evil times, and having lost all she had come for life. She quickly developed an almost slave-like devotion to the Deemster (during her first twenty years she would never allow anybody else to wait on him at table) as well as a motherly love for his motherless little one. The child called her his mother, nobody corrected him, and for years he knew nothing to the contrary.
He grew to be a braw and bright little man, and was idolized by everybody. Having no relations of his own, except “mother,” and the Deemster, he annexed everybody else’s. Bobbie, the young son of the Ballamoar farmer (there was a farm between the mansion-house and the sea) called his father” Dad,” so Robbie Creer was “Dad” to Victor too. The old widow in the village who kept the post-office-grocer’s shop was” Auntie Kitty” to her orphan niece, Alice, so she was” Auntie Kitty” to Victor also.
“Everybody loves that child,” said Janet. It was true. As far back as that, under God knows what guidance, he was laying his anchor deep for the days of storm and tempest.
During his earlier years he saw little of his father, but every evening after his bath he was taken into the Library to bid Good-night to him, and then the Deemster would lift him up to the picture to bid Good-night to his mother also.
“You must love and worship her all your life, darling. I’ll tell you why, some day.”
He was a born gipsy, often being lost in the broad plantations about the house, and then turning up with astonishing stories of the distances he had travelled.
“I didn’t went no farther nor Ramsey to-day, mother” seven miles as the crow flies.
He was born a poet too, and after the Deemster had made a “Limerick” on his Christian name, he learnt to rhyme to the same measure, making quatrains almost as rapidly as he could speak, though often with strange words of his own compounding. Thus he celebrated his pet lamb, his kid, his rabbits, the rooks on the lawn, and particularly a naughty young pony his father had given him, who “lived in the fiel’” and whom he “wanted to go to Peel,” but whenever he went out to fetch her she “always kicked up her heel.” Janet thought this marvellous, miraculous. It was a gift! The little prophet Samuel might have been more saintly but he couldn’t have been more wonderful.
Janet was not the only one to be impressed. It is known now that day by day the Deemster copied the boy’s rhymes, with much similar matter, into a leather-bound book which he had labelled strangely enough, “Isobells Diary.” He kept this secret volume under lock and key, and it was never seen by anyone else until years afterwards, when, in a tragic hour, the childish jingles hi the Judge’s sober handwriting, under the eyes that looked at them, burnt like flame and cut like a knife.
It was remarked by Janet that the Deemster’s affection for the child grew greater, while the expression of it became less as the years went on. “Is the boy up yet?” would be the first word he would say when she took his early tea to him in the morning; and if a long day in the Courts kept him from home until after the child had been put to bed, he would never sit down until he had gone upstairs to look at the little one in his cot.
In common with other imaginative children brought up alone the boy invented a playmate, but contrary to custom his invisible comrade was of the opposite sex, not that of the little dreamer. He called her” Sadie,” nobody knew why, or how he had come by the name, for it was quite unknown ha the island. “Sadie” lived with her mother, “Mrs. Corlett,” in the lodge of Ballamoar, which had been empty and shut up since “the stranger” died, when the coachman, who had occupied it, was no longer needed. On returning from some of his runaway jaunts the boy accounted for his absence by saying he had been down to the gate to see” Sadie.” He filled the empty house with an entire scheme of domestic economy, and could tell you all that happened there.
“Sadie was peeling the potatoes this morning and Mrs. Corlett was washing up, mamma.”
His pony’s name was Molly and by six years of age he had learnt to ride her with such ease and confidence that to see them cantering up the drive was to think that boy and pony must be a single creature. Molly developed a foal, called Derry, which always wanted to be trotting after its mother. That suited the boy perfectly. Derry had to carry “Sadie” a rare device which enabled his invisible comrade to be nearly always with him.
But at length came a dire event which destroyed “Sadie.” The master of Ballamoar was rising seven when a distant relative of the Derby family (formerly the Lords of Man) was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the island. This was Sir John Stanley, an ex-Indian officer a man in middle life, not brilliant, but the incarnation of commonsense, essentially a product of his time, firm of will, conservative in opinions, impatient of all forms of romantic sentiment, but kindly, genial and capable of constant friendship.
The Deemster and the new Governor, though their qualities had points of difference, became good friends instantly. They met first at the swearing-in at Castle Rushen where, as senior Judge of the island, the Deemster administered the oath. But then friendship was sealed by an experience in common the Governor having also lost a beloved wife, who had died in childbirth, leaving him with an only child. This was a girl called Fenella, a year and a half younger than Victor, a beautiful little fairy, but a little woman, too, with a will of her own also.
The children came together at Ballamoar, the Governor having brought his little daughter, with her French governess, on his first call. There was the usual ceremonious meeting of the little people, the usual eyeing of each other from afar, the usual shy aloofness. Then came swift comradeship, gurgling laughter, a frantic romping round the rooms, and out on to the lawn, and then a wild quarrel, with shrill voices in fierce dispute. The two fathers rose from their seats in the Library and looked out of the windows. The girl was running towards the house with screams of terror, and the boy was stoning her off the premises.
“You mustn’t think as this is your house, ‘cause it isn’t.”
Janet made peace between them, and the children kissed at parting, but going home in the carriage Fenella confided to the French governess her fixed resolve to “marry to a girl,” not a boy, when her time came to take a husband.
The effect on Victor was of another kind but no less serious. It was remarked that the visit of little Fenella Stanley had in some mysterious way banished his invisible playmate. Sadie was dead stone dead and buried. No more was ever heard of her, and Mrs. Corlett’s cottage returned to its former condition as a closed-up gate – lodge. When Derry trotted by Molly’s side there was apparently somebody else astride of her now. But strange whispering of sex whoever she was the boy never helped her to mount, and when she dismounted he always looked another way.
III
Four years passed, and boy and girl met again. This time it was at Government House and the boot was on the other leg. Fenella, a tall girl for her age, well-grown, spirited, a little spoiled, was playing tennis with the three young Gell girls daughters of a Manx family of some* pretensions. When Victor, in his straw hat and Eton jacket, appeared in the tennis court (having driven over with his father and been sent out to the girls by the Governor) the French governess told Fenella to let him join in the game. ‘She did so, taking a racquet from one of the Gell girls and giving it to the boy. But though Victor, who was now at the Ramsey Grammar School, could play cricket and football with any boy of his age on the island, he knew nothing about tennis, and again and again, in spite of repeated protests, sent the balls flying out of the court.
The Cells tittered and sniffed, and at length Fenella, calling him a booby, snatched the racquet out of his hand and gave it back to the girl. At this humiliation his eyes flashed and his cheeks coloured, and after a moment he marched moodily back to the open window of the drawing-room. There the Governor and the Deemster were sitting, and the Governor said, “Helloa! What’s amiss? Why aren’t you playing with the girls?”
“Because I’m not,” said the boy.
“Victor!” said the Deemster, but the boy’s eyes had begun to fill, so the matter ended.
There was a show of peace when the girls came into tea, but on returning to Ballamoar the boy communicated to Janet in “open Court” his settled conviction that “girls were no good anyway.”
Boy and girl did not meet again for yet another four years and then the boot had changed its leg once more. By that time Victor had made his first boy-friendship. It was with Alick Gell, brother of the three Gell girls and only son of Archibald Gell, a big man in Manxland, Speaker of the House of Keys, the representative branch of the little Manx Parliament. Archibald Gell’s lands, which were considerable, made boundary with the Deemster’s, and his mansion house was the next on the Ramsey Road, but his principal activities were those of a speculative builder. In this capacity he had put up vast numbers of boarding-houses all over the island to meet the needs of the visiting industry, borrowing from English Insurance Companies enormous sums on mortgage, which could only be repaid by the thrift and forethought of a second generation.
Alick knew what was expected of him, but down to date he had shown no promise of capacity to fulfil his destiny. He had less of his father’s fiery energy than of the comfortable contentment of his mother, who came of a line of Manx parsons, always shockingly ill-paid, generally thriftless and sometimes threadbare. Yet he was a lovable boy, not too bright of brain but with a heart of gold and a genuine gift of friendship.
At the Ramsey Grammar School he had attached himself to Victor, fetching and carrying for him, and looking up to him with worshipful devotion. Now they were together at King William’s College, the public school of the island, fine lads both, but neither of them doing much good there.
It was the morning of the annual prize day at the end of the summer term. The Governor had come to present the prizes, and he was surrounded by all the officials of Man, except the Deemster, who rarely attended such functions. The boys were on platforms on either side of the hall, and the parents were in the body of it, with the wives and sisters of the big people in the front row, and Fenella, the Governor’s daughter, now a tall girl in white, with her French governess, in the midst of them.
At this ceremony Gell played no part, and even Stowell did not shine. One boy after another went down to a tumult of hand-clap-ping and climbed back with books piled up to his chin. When Stowell’s turn came, the Principal, who had been calling out the names of the prize-winners, and making little speeches in their praise, tried to improve the occasion with a moral homily.
“Now here,” he said, making one of his bird-like steps forward, “is a boy of extraordinary talents quite extraordinary. Yet he has only one prize to receive. Why? Want of application! If boys of such great natural gifts …. yes, I might almost say genius, would only apply themselves, there is nothing whatever, at school or in after life. …”
P’shew! During this astonishing speech Stowell was already on the platform, only a pace back from the Principal, in full view of everybody, with face aflame and a burning sense of injustice. And, although, when the interlude was over, and he stepped forward to receive his Horace (he had won the prize for Classics) the Governor rose and shook hands with him and said he was sure the son of his old friend, the Deemster, would justify himself yet, and make his father proud of him, he was perfectly certain that Fenella Stanley’s eyes were on him and she was thinking him a “booby.”
But his revenge came later. In the afternoon he captained in the cricket match, with fifteen of the junior house against the school eleven. Things went badly for the big fellows from the moment he took his place at the wicket, so they put on their best and fastest bowlers. But he scored all round the wicket for ( nearly an hour, driving the ball three times over the roof of the school chapel and twice into the ruins beyond the Darby-Haven road, and carrying his bat for more than sixty runs. Then, as he came ha, the little fellows who had been frantic, and Gell, who had been turning cart-wheels in delirious excitement, and the big fellows, who had been beaten, stood up together and cheered him lustily.
But at that moment he wasn’t thinking about any of them. He knew although, of course, he did not look that in the middle of the people in the pavilion, who were all on their feet and waving their handkerchiefs, there was Fenella Stanley, with glistening eyes and cheeks aglow. Perhaps she thought he would salute her now, or even stop and speak. But no, not likely! He doffed his cap to the Governor as he ran past, but took no more notice of the Governor’s winsome daughter than if she had been a crow.
IV
After that nothing! Neither of the boys distinguished himself at college. This was a matter of no surprise to the masters in Gells case, but in Stowell’s it was a perpetual problem. Their favourite solution was that the David-and-Jonathan friendship between two boys of widely differing capacity was at the root of the trouble Gell being slow and Stowell unwilling to shame him.
As year followed year without tangible results the rumour came home to Ballamoar that the son of the Deemster was not fulfilling expectations. “Traa de liooar” (time enough) said Robbie Creer of the farm; but Dan Baldromma, of the mill-farm in the glen, who prided himself on being no respecter of persons, and made speeches in the market-place denouncing the “aristocraks” of the island, and predicting the downfall of the old order, was heard to say he wasn’t sorry.
“If these young cubs of the Spaker and the Dempster,” said Dan, “hadn’t been born with the silver spoon in their mouths we should be hearing another story. When the young birds get their wings push them out of the nest, I say. It’s what I done with my own daughter my wife’s, I mane. Immajetly she was fifteen I packed her off to sarvice at the High Bailiff’s at Castletown, and now she may shift for herself for me.”
The effect on the two fathers was hardly less conflicting. The Speaker stormed at his son, cabled him a “poop” (Anglo- Manx for numskull), wondered why he had troubled to bring a lad into the world who would only scatter his substance, and talked about making a new will to protect his daughters and to save the real estate which the law gave his son by heirship.
The Deemster was silent. Term by term he read, without comment, the Principal’s unfavourable reports, with the “ifs” and “buts” and “althoughs,” which were intended to soften the hard facts with indications of what might have been. And he said not a word of remonstrance or reproach when the boy came home without prizes, though he wrote in his leather-bound book that he felt sometimes as if he could have given its weight in gold for the least of them.
