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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 6. Man And God - Chapter 18 |
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_ PART VI. MAN AND GOD CHAPTER XVIII The proclamation of Philip's appointment as Governor of the Isle of Man had been read in the churches, and nailed up on the doors of the Court-houses, and the Clerk of the Rolls was pushing on the arrangements for the installation.
"P. S.--Private. And if you think that soft-voiced girl has been long enough 'At Her Majesty's pleasure,' I will release her. Not that she is taking any harm at all, but we had better get these little accounts squared off before your great day comes. Meantime you may wish to provide for her future. Be liberal, Christian; you can afford to treat her liberally. But what am I saying? Don't I know that you will be ridiculously over-generous?"
Philip's correspondence was now plentiful, and he had enough work to cope with it The four towns of the island vied with each other in efforts to show him honour. Douglas, as the scene of his career, wished to entertain him at a banquet; Ramsey, as his birthplace, wanted to follow him in procession. He declined all invitations. "I am in mourning," he wrote. "And besides, I am not well." "Ah! no," he thought, "nobody shall reproach me when the times comes." There was no pause, no pity, no relenting rest in the world's kindness. It began to take shapes of almost fiendish cruelty in his mind, as if the devil's own laughter was behind it. He inquired about Pete. Hardly anybody knew anything; hardly anybody cared. The spendthrift had come down to his last shilling, and sold up the remainder of his furniture. The broker was to empty the house on Easter Tuesday. That was all. Not a word about the divorce. The poor neglected victim, forgotten in the turmoil of his wrongdoer's glory, had that last strength of a strong man--the strength to be silent and to forgive. Philip asked about the child. She was still at Elm Cottage in the care of the woman with the upturned nose and the shrill voice. Every night he devised plans for getting possession of Kate's little one, and every morning he abandoned them, as difficult or cruel or likely to be spurned. On Easter Monday he was busy in his room at Ballure, with a mounted messenger riding constantly between his gate and Government offices. He had spent the morning on two important letters. Both were to the Home Secretary. One was sealed with his seal as Deemster; the other was written on the official paper of Government House. He was instructing the messenger to register these letters when, through the open door, he heard a formidable voice in the hall. It was Pete's voice. A moment afterwards Jem-y-Lord came up with a startled face. "He's here himself, your Excellency. Whatever _am_ I to do with him?" "Bring him up," said Philip. Jem began to stammer. "But--but--and then the Bishop may be here any minute." "Ask the Bishop to wait in the room below." Pete was heard coming upstairs. "Aisy all, aisy! Stoop your lil head, bogh. That's the ticket!" Philip had not spoken to Pete since the night of the drinking of the brandy and water in the bedroom. He could not help it--his hand shook. There would be a painful scene. "Stoop again, darling. There you are." And then Pete was in the room. He was carrying the child on one shoulder; they were both in their best clothes. Pete looked older and somewhat thinner; the tan of his cheeks was fretted out in pale patches under the eyes, which were nevertheless bright. He had the face of a man who had fought a brave fight with life and been beaten, yet bore the world no grudge. Jem-y-Lord and the messenger were gone from the room in a moment, and the door was closed. "What d'ye think of that, Phil? Isn't she a lil beauty?" Pete was dancing the child on his knee and looking sideways down at it with eyes of rapture. "She's as sweet as an angel," said Philip in a low tone. "Isn't she now?" said Pete, and then he rattled on as if he were the happiest man alive. "You've been wanting something like this yourself this long time, Phil. 'Deed you have, though. It would be diverting you wonderful. Ter'ble the fun there is in babies. Talk about play-actorers! They're only funeral mutes where babies come. Bittending this and bittending that--it's mortal amusing they are. You'd be getting up from your books, tired shocking, and ready for a bit of fun, and going to the stair-head and shouting down, 'Where's my lil woman?' Then up she'd be coming, step by step, houlding on to the bannisters, dot and carry one. And my gracious, the dust there'd be here in the study! You down on the carpet on all fours, and the lil one straddled across your back and slipping down to your neck. Same for all the world as the man in the picture with the world atop of his shoulders. And your own lil world would be up there, too, laughing and crowing mortal. And then at night, Phil, at night--getting up from your summonses and your warrantees, and going creeping to the lil one's room tippie-toe, tippie-toe, and 'Is she sleeping comfor'bly?' thinks you; and listening at the crack of the door, and hearing her breathing, and slipping in to look, and everything quiet, and the red fire on her lil face, and 'Grod bless her, the darling!' says you, and then back to your desk content. Aw, you'll have to be having a lil one of your own one of these days, Phil." "He has come to say something," thought Philip. The child wriggled off Pete's knee and began to creep about the floor. Philip tried to command himself and to talk easily. "And how have you been yourself, Pete?" he asked. "Well," said Pete, meddling with his hair, "only middling, somehow." He looked down at the carpet, and faltered, "You'll be wondering at me, Phil, but, you see "--he hesitated--"not to tell you a word of a lie----" then, with a rush, "I'm going foreign again; that's the fact." "Again?" "Well, I am," said Pete, looking ashamed. "Yes, truth enough, that's what I'm thinking of doing. You see," with a persuasive air, "when a man's bitten by travel it's like the hydrophobia ezactly, he can't rest no time in one bed at all. Must be running here and running there--and running reg'lar. It's the way with me, anyway. Used to think the ould island would be big enough for the rest of my days. But, no! I'm longing shocking for the mines again, and the compound, and the niggers, and the wild life out yonder. 'The sea's calling me,' you know." And then he laughed. Philip understood him--Pete meant to take himself out of the way. "Shall you stay long?" he faltered. "Well, yes, I was thinking so," said Pete. "You see, the stuff isn't panning out now same as it used to, and fortunes aren't made as fast as they were in my time. Not that I'm wanting a fortune, neither--is it likely now? But, still and for all--well, I'll be away a good spell, anyway." Philip tried to ask if he intended to go soon. "To-morrow, sir, by the packet to Liverpool, for the sailing on Wednesday. I've been going the rounds saying 'goodbye' to the ould chums--Jonaique, and John the Widow, and Niplightly, and Kelly the postman. Not much heart at some of them; just a bit of a something stowed away in their giblets; but it isn't right to be expecting too much at all. This is the only one that doesn't seem willing to part with me." Pete's dog had followed him into the room, and was sitting soberly by the side of his chair. "There's no shaking him off, poor ould chap." The dog got up and wagged his stump. "Well, we've tramped the world together, haven't we, Dempster? He doesn't seem tired of me yet neither." Pete's face lengthened. "But there's Grannie, now. The ould angel is going about like a bit of a thunder-cloud, and doesn't know in the world whether to burst on me or not. Thinks I've been cruel, seemingly. I can't be explaining to her neither. Maybe you'll set it right for me when I'm gone, sir. It's you for a job like that, you know. Don't want her to be thinking hard of me, poor ould thing." Pete whistled at the child, and halloed to it, and then, in a lower tone, he continued, "Not been to Castletown, sir. Got as far as Ballasalla, and saw the castle tower. Then my heart was losing me, and I turned back. You'll say good-bye for me, Phil Tell her I forgave--no, not that, though. Say I left her my love--that won't do neither. _You'll_ know best what to say when the time comes, Phil, so I lave it with you. Maybe you'll tell her I went away cheerful and content, and, well, happy--why not? No harm in saying that at all. Not breaking my heart, anyway, for when a man's a man--H'm!" clearing his throat, "I'm bad dreadful these days wanting a smook in the mornings. May I smook here? I may? You're good, too." He cut his tobacco with his discoloured knife, rolled it, charged his pipe, and lit it. "Sorry to be going away just before your own great day, Phil. I'll get the skipper to fire a round as we're steaming by Castletown, and if there's a band aboord I'll tip them a trifle to play 'Myle Charaine.' That'll spake to you like the blackbird's whistle, as the saying is. Looks like deserting you, though. But, chut! it would be no surprise to me at all. I've seen it coming these years and years. 'You'll be the first Manxman living,' says I the day I sailed before. You've not deceaved me neither. D'ye remember the morning on the quay, and the oath between the pair of us? Me swearing you same as a high bailiff--nothing and nobody to come between us--d'ye mind it, Phil? And nothing has, and nothing shall." He puffed at his pipe, and said significantly, "You'll be getting married soon. Aw, you will, I know you will, I'm sarten sure you will." Philip could not look into his face. He felt little and mean. "You're a wise man, sir, and a great man, but if a plain common chap may give you a bit of advice--aw, but you'll be losing no time, though, I'll not be here myself to see it. I'll be on the water, maybe, with the waves washing agen the gun'ale, and the wind rattling in the rigging, and the ship burrowing into the darkness of the sea. But I'll be knowing it's morning at home, and the sun shining, and a sort of a warm quietness everywhere, and you and her at the ould church together." The pipe was puffing audibly. "Tell her I lave her my blessing. Tell her--but the way I'm smooking, it's shocking. Your curtains will be smelling thick twist for a century." Philip's moist eyes were following the child along the floor. "What about the little one?" he asked with difficulty. "Ah I tell you the truth, Phil, that's the for I came. Well, mostly, anyway. You see, a child isn't fit for a compound ezactly. Not but they're thinking diamonds of a lil thing out there, specially if it's a girl. But still and for all, with niggers about and chaps as rough as a thornbush and no manners to spake of----" Philip interrupted eagerly--"Will you leave her with Grannie!" "Well, no, that wasn't what I was thinking. Grannie's a bit ould getting and she's had her whack. Wanting aisement in her ould days, anyway. Then she'll be knocking under before the lil one's up--that's only to be expected. No, I was thinking--what d'ye think I was thinking now?" "What?" said Philip with quick-coming breath. He did not raise his head. "I was thinking--well, yes, I was, then--it's a fact, though--I was thinking maybe yourself, now----" "Pete!" Philip had started up and grasped Pete by the hand, but he could say no more, he felt crushed by Pete's magnanimity. And Pete went on as if he were asking a great favour. "'She's been your heart's blood to you, Pete,' thinks I to my-. self, 'and there isn't nobody but himself you could trust her with--nobody else you would give her up to. He'll love her,'. thinks I; 'he'll cherish her; he'll rear her as if she was his own; he'll be same thing as a father itself to her'----" Philip was struggling to keep up. "I've been laving something for her too," said Pete. "No, no!" "Yes, though, one of the first Manx estates going. Caesar had the deeds, but I've been taking them to the High Bailiff, and doing everything regular. When I'm gone, sir----" Philip tried to protest. "Aw, but a man can lave what he likes to his own, sir, can't he?" Philip was silent. He could say nothing. The make-believe was to be kept up to the last tragic moment. "And out yonder, lying on my hunk in the sheds--good mattresses and thick blankets, Phil, nothing to complain of at all--I'll be watching her growing up, year by year, same as if she was under my eye constant. 'She's in pinafores now' thinks I. 'Now she's in long frocks, and is doing up her hair.' 'She's as straight as an osier now, and red as a rose, and the best looking girl in the island, and the spitting picture of what her mother used to be.' Aw, I'll be seeing her in my mind's eye, sir, plainer nor any potegraph." Pete puffed furiously at his pipe. "And the mother, I'll be seeing herself, too. A woman every inch of her, God bless her. Wherever there's a poor girl lying in her shame she'll be there, I'll go bail on that. And yourself--I'll be seeing yourself, sir, whiter, maybe, and the sun going down on you, but strong for all. And when any poor fellow has had a knock-down blow, and the world is darkening round him, he'll be coming to you for light and for strength, and you'll be houlding out the right hand to him, because you're knowing yourself what it is to fall and get up again, and because you're a man, and Grod has made friends with you." Pete rammed his thumb into his pipe, and stuffed it, still smoking, into his waistcoat pocket. "Chut!" he said huskily. "The talk a man'll be putting out when he's going away foreign! All for poethry then, or something of that spacious. H'm! h'm!" clearing his throat, "must be giving up the pipe, though. Not much worth for the voice at all." Philip could not speak. The strength and grandeur of the man overwhelmed him. It cut him to the heart that Pete could never see, could never hear, how he would wash away his shame. The child had crawled across the room to an open cabinet that stood in one corner, and there possessed herself of a shell, which she was making show of holding to her ear. "Well, did you ever?" cried Pete. "Look at that child now. She's knowing it's a shell. 'Deed she is, though. Aw, crawling reg'lar, sir, morning to night. Would you like to see the prettiest sight in the world, Phil?" He went down on his knees and held out his arms. "Come here, you lil sandpiper. Fix that chair a piece nearer, sir--that's the ticket. Good thing Nancy isn't here. She'd be on to us like the mischief. Wonderful handy with babies, though, and if anybody was wanting a nurse now--a stepmother's breath is cold--but Nancy! My gough, you daren't look over the hedge at her lammie but she's shouting fit for an earth wake. Stand nice, now, Kitty, stand nice, bogh! The woman's about right, too--the lil one's legs are like bits of qualebone. 'Come, now, bogh, come?" Pete put the child to stand with its back to the chair, and then leaned towards it with his arms outspread. The child staggered a step in the sea of one yard's space that lay between, looked back at the irrecoverable chair, looked down on the distant ground, and then plunged forward with a nervous laugh, and fell into Pete's arms. "Bravo! Wasn't that nice, Phil? Ever see anything prettier than a child's first step? Again, Kitty, bogh! But go to your _new_ father this time. Aisy, now, aisy!" (in a thick voice). "Grive me a kiss first!" (with a choking gurgle). "One more, darling!" (with a broken laugh). "Now face the _other_ way. One--two--are you ready, Phil?" Phil held out his long white trembling hands. "Yes," with a smothered sob. "Three--four--and away!" The child's fingers slipped into Philip's palm; there was another halt, another plunge, another nervous laugh, and then the child was in Philip's arms, his head was over it, and he was clasping it to his heart. After a moment, Philip, without raising his eyes, said, "Pete!" But Pete had stolen softly from the room. "Pete! where are you?" Where was he? He was on the road outside, crying like a boy--no, like a man--at thought of the happiness he had left upstairs. _ |
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