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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 3. Man And Woman - Chapter 17 |
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_ PART III. MAN AND WOMAN CHAPTER XVII There was no help for it after all--she must go on as she had begun, with the old scheme, the old chance, the old gambling hazard. Heart-sick and ashamed, waiting for Philip, and listening to every step, she kept her room two days longer. Then Caesar came and rallied her. "Gough bless me, but nobody will credit it," he said. "The marriage for Monday, and the bride in bed a Wednesday. People will say it isn't coming off at all." This alarmed her. It partly explained why Philip did not come. If he thought there was no danger of the marriage, he would be in no hurry to intervene. Next day (Thursday) she struggled up and dressed in a light wrapper, feeling weak and nervous, and looking pale and white like apple-blossom nipped by frost. Pete would have carried her downstairs, but she would not have it. They established her among a pile of cushions before a fire in the parlour, with its bowl of sea-birds' eggs that had the faint, unfamiliar smell--its tables of old china that shook and rang slightly with every step and sound. The kitchen was covered with the litter of dressmakers preparing for the wedding. There were bodices to try on, and decisions to give on points of style. Kate agreed to everything. In a weak and toneless voice she kept on telling them to do as they thought hest. Only when she heard that Pete was to pay did she assert her will, and that was to limit the dresses to one. "Sakes alive now, Kirry," cried Nancy, "that's what I call ruining a good husband--the man was willing to buy frocks for a boarding-school." Pete came, sat on a stool at her feet, and told stories. They were funny stories of his life abroad, and now and again there came bursts of laughter from the kitchen, where they were straining their necks to catch his words through the doors, which they kept ajar. But Kate hardly listened. She showed signs of impatience sometimes, and made quick glances around when the door opened, as if expecting somebody. On recovering herself at these moments, she found Pete looking up at her with the big, serious, moist eyes of a dog. He began to tell of the house he had taken, to excuse himself for not consulting her, and to describe the progress of the furnishing. "I've put it all in the hands of Cannell & Quayle, Kitty," he said, "and they're doing it beautiful. Marble slabs, bless you, like a butcher's counter; carpets as soft as daisies, and looking-glasses as tall as a man." Kate had not heard him. She was trying to remember all she knew of the courts of the island--where they were held, and on what days. "Have you seen Philip lately?" she asked. "Not since Monday," said Pete. "He's in Douglas, working like mad to be here on Monday, God bless him!" "What did he say when he heard we had changed the day?" "Wanted to get out of it first. 'I'm sailing on Tuesday,' said he." "Did you tell him that _I_ proposed it?" "Trust me for not forgetting that at all. 'Aw, then,' says he, 'there's no choice left,' he says." Kate's pale face became paler, the dark circles about her eyes grew yet more dark. "I think I'll go back to bed, mother," she said in the same toneless voice. Pete helped her to the foot of the stairs. The big, moist eyes were looking at her constantly. She found it hard to keep an equal countenance. "But will you be fit for it, darling?" said Pete. "Why, of course she'll be fit, sir," said Caesar. "What girl is ever more than middling the week before she's married?" Next day she persuaded her father to take her to Douglas. She had little errands there that could not be done in Ramsey. The morning was fine but cold. Pete helped her up in the gig, and they drove away. If only she could see Philip, if only Philip could see her, he would know by the look of her face that the marriage was not of her making--that compulsion of some sort was being put on her. She spent four hours going from shop to shop, lingering in the streets, but seeing nothing of Philip. Her step was slow and weary, her features were pinched and starved, but Caesar could scarcely get her out of the town. At length the daylight began to fail, and then she yielded to his importunities. "How short the days are now," she said with a sigh, as they ran into the country. "Yes, they are a cock's stride shorter in September," said Caesar; "but when a woman once gets shopping, Midsummer day itself won't do--she's wanting the land of the midnight sun." Pete lifted her out of the gig in darkness at the door of the "Fairy," and, his great arms being about her, he carried her into the house and set her down in the fire-seat. She would have struggled to her feet if she had been able; she felt something like repulsion at his touch; but he looked at her with the mute eloquence of love, and she was ashamed. The house was full of gossips that night. They talked of the marriage customs of old times. One described the "pay-weddings," where the hat went round, and every guest gave something towards the cost of the breakfast and the expenses of beginning housekeeping--rude forefather of the practice of the modern wedding present. Another pictured the irregular marriages made in public-houses in the days when the island had three breweries and thirty drinking shops to every thousand of its inhabitants. The publican laid two sticks crosswise on the floor, and said to the bride and bridegroom-- "Hop over the sticks and lie crossed on the floor, And you're man and wife for nevermore." There was some laughter at this, but Kate sat in the fire-seat and sipped her tea in silence, and Pete said quietly, "Nothing to laugh at, though. I remember a girl over Foxal way that was married to a man like that, and then he went off to Kinsale, and got kept for the herring riots--d'ye mind them? She was a strapping girl, though, and when the man was gone the boys came bothering her, first one and then another, and good ones among them too. And honour bright for all, they were for taking her to the parzon about right But no! Did they think she was for committing beggamy? She was married to one man, and wasn't that enough for a dacent girl anyway. And so she wouldn't and she didn't, and last of all her own boy came back, and they lived together man and wife, and what for shouldn't they?" This question from the man who was on the point of going to church was received with shouts of laughter, through which the voice of Grannie rose in affectionate remonstrance, saying, "Aw, Pete, it's ter'ble to hear you, bogh." "What's there ter'ble about that, Grannie?" said Pete. "Isn't it the Almighty and not the parzon that makes the marriage?" "Aw, boy veen, boy veen," cried Grannie, "you was used to be a good man, but you have fell off very bad." Kate was in a fever of eagerness. She wanted to open her heart to Pete, to beg him to spare her, to tell him that it was impossible that they should ever marry. Pete would see that Philip was her husband by every true law, human and divine. In this mood she lived through much of the following day, Friday, tossing and turning in bed, for the exhaustion of the day in Douglas had confined her to her room again. In the evening she came downstairs, and was established in the fire-seat as before. There were four or five old women in the kitchen spinning yarn for a set of blankets which Grannie intended for a wedding present. "When the day's work was nearly done, two or three old men, the old husbands of the old women, came to carry their wheels home again. Then, as the wheels whirred for the last of the twist, Pete set the old crones to tell stories of old times. "Tell us of the days when you were young, Anne," said Pete to an ancient dame of eighty. Her husband of eighty-four sat sucking his pipe by her side. "Well," said old Anne, stretching her arms to the yarn, "I was as near going foreign, same as yourself, sir, just as near, now, as makes no matter. It was the very day I married this man, and his brother was making a start for Austrillya. Jemmy was my ould sweetheart, only I had given him up because he was always stealing my pocket-handkerchers. But he came that morning and tapped at my window, and 'Will you come, Anne?' says he, and I whipped on my perricut and stole out and down to the quay with him. But my heart was losing me when I saw the white horses on the water, and home I came and went to church with this one instead." While old Anne told her story her old husband opened his mouth wider and wider, until the pipe-shank dropped out of his toothless gums on to his waistcoat. Then he stretched his left arm and brought down his clenched hand with a bang on to her shoulder. "And have you been living with me better than sixty years," said he, "and never telling me that before?" Pete tried to pacify his ancient jealousy, but it was not to be appeased, and he shouldered the wheel and hobbled off, saying, "And I sent out two pound five to put a stone on the man's grave!" There was loud laughter when the old couple were gone, but Pete said, nevertheless, "A sacret's a sacret, though, and the ould lady had no right to tell it. It was the dead man's sacret too, and she's fouled the ould man's memory. If a person's done wrong, the best thing he can do next is to say darned little about it." Kate rose and went off to bed. Another door had been barred to her, and she felt sick and faint. _ |
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