The Manxman

"Here," whispered Nancy, "take the redyng comb and lash your hair out, it's all through-others. And listen--you've got to be quiet. Promise me you'll be quiet. She's wake and low and nervous, so no kissing. D'ye hear me now, no kissing."

"Aw, kissing makes no noise to spake of, woman," whispered Pete; and then he was in the room.

Kate saw him come, a towering dark figure between her and the door. He did not speak at first, but slid down to the chair at the foot of the bed, modestly, meekly, reverently, as if he had entered a sanctuary. His hand rested on his knee, and she noticed that the wrist was hairy and tattooed with the three legs of Man.

"Is it you, Pete?" she asked; and then he said in a low tone, almost in a whisper, as if speaking to himself in a hush of awe--

"It's her own voice again! I've heard it in my drames these five years."

He looked helplessly about him for a moment, fixed his watery eyes on Nancy as if he wanted to burst into sobs but dare not for fear of the noise, then turned on his chair and seemed on the point of taking to flight. But just at that instant his dog, which had followed him into the room, planted its forelegs on the counterpane and looked impudently into Kate's face.

"Down, Dempster, down!" cried Pete; and after that, the ice being broken by the sound of his voice, Pete was his own man once more.

"Is that your dog, Pete?" said Kate.

"Aw, no, Kate, but I'm his man," said Pete. "He does what he likes with me, anyway. Caught me out in Kimber-ley and fetched me home."

"Is he old?"

"Old, d'ye say? He's one of the lost ten tribes of dogs, and behaves as if he'd got to inherit the earth."

She felt Pete's big black eyes s.h.i.+ning on her.

"My gracious, Kitty, what a woman you're growing, though!" he said.

"Am I so much changed?" she asked.

"Changed, is it?" he cried. "Gough bless me heart! the nice little thing you were when we used to play fishermen together down at Cornaa Harbour--d'ye remember? The ould kipper-box rolling on a block for a boat at sea--do you mind it? Yourself houlding a bit of a broken broomstick in the rope handle for a mast, and me working the potato-dibber on the ground, first port and then starboard, for rudder and wind and oar and tide. 'Mortal dirty weather this, cap'n?' 'Aw, yes, woman, big sea extraordinary'--d'ye mind it, Kirry!"

Kate tried to laugh a little and to say what a long time ago it was since then. But Pete, being started, laughed uproariously, slapped his knee, and rattled on.

"Up at the mill, too--d'ye remember that now? Yourself with the top of a barrel for a flower basket, holding it 'kimbo at your lil hip and shouting, 'Violets! Swate violets! Fresh violets!'" (He mocked her silvery treble in his l.u.s.ty baritone and roared with laughter.)

"And then me, woman, d'ye mind me?--me, with the pig-stye gate atop of my head for a fish-board, yelling, 'Mackerel! Fine ladies, fresh ladies, and bellies as big as bishops--Mack-er-el!' Aw, Kirry, Kirry! Aw, the dear ould times gone by! Aw, the changes, the changes!... Did I _know_ you then? Are you asking me did I know you when I found you in the glen?

Did I know I was alive, Kitty? Did I know the wind was howling? Did I know my head was going round like a compa.s.s, and my heart thumping a hundred and twenty pound to the square inch? Did I kiss you and kiss you while you were lying there useless, and lift you up and hitch your poor limp arms around my neck, and carry you out of the dirty ould tholthan that was going to be the death of you--the first job I was doing on the island, too, coming back to it.... Lord save us,

Kate had dropped back on the pillow, and was sobbing as if her heart would break, and seeing this, Nancy fell on Pete with loud reproaches, took the man by the shoulders and his dog by the neck, and pushed both out of the room.

"Out of it," cried Nancy. "Didn't I tell you to be quiet? You great blethering omathaun, you shall come no more."

Abashed, ashamed, humiliated, and quiet enough now, Pete went slowly down the stairs.

XIII.

Late that night Kate heard Caesar and her mother talking together as they were going to bed. Caesar was saying--

"I got him on the track of a good house, and he went off to Ramsey this morning to put a sight on it."

"Dear heart alive, father!" Grannie answered, "Pete isn't home till a week come Sat.u.r.day."

"The young man is warm on the wedding," said Caesar, "and he has money, and store is no sore."

"But the girl's not fit for it, 'deed she isn't," said Grannie.

"If she's wake," said Caesar, "sh.e.l.l be no worse for saying 'I will,' and when she's said it she'll have time enough to get better."

Kate trembled with fear. The matter of her marriage with Pete was going on without her. A sort of supernatural power seemed to be pus.h.i.+ng it along. n.o.body asked if she wished it, n.o.body questioned that she did so.

It was taken for granted that the old relations would stand. As soon as she could go about she would be expected to marry Pete. Pete himself would expect it, because he believed he had her promise; her mother would expect it, because she had always thought of it as a thing understood; her father would expect it, because Pete's prosperity had given him a new view of Pete's piety and pedigree; and Nancy Joe would expect it, too, if only because she was still haunted by her old bugbear, the dark shadow of Ross Christian. There was only one way to break down these expectations, and that was to speak out. But how was a girl to speak? What was she to say?

Kate pretended to be ill. Three days longer she lay, like a hunted wolf in its hole, keeping her bed from sheer dread of the consequences of leaving it. The fourth day was Sunday. It was morning, and the church bells were ringing. Caesar had shouted from his bedroom for some one to tie his bow, then for some one to b.u.t.ton his black gloves. He had gone off at length with the footsteps of the people stepping round to chapel.

The first hymn had been started, and its doleful notes were trailing through the mill walls. Kate was propped up in bed, and the window of her room was open. Over the droning of the hymn she caught the sound of a horse's hoofs on the road. They stopped at a little distance, and then came on again, with the same two voices as before.

Pete was talking with great eagerness. "Plenty of house, aw plenty, plenty," he was saying. "Elm Cottage they're calling it--the slate one with the ould fir-tree behind the Coort House and by the lane to Claughbane. Dry as a bone and clane as a gull's wing. You could lie with your back to the wall and ate off the floor. Taps inside and water as white as gin. I've been buying the cabin of the 'Mona's Isle' for a summer-house in the garden. Got a figurehead for the porch too, and I'll have an anchor for the gate before I'm done. Aw, I'm bound to have everything nice for her."

There was a short silence, in which nothing was heard but the step of the horse, and then Philip said in a faltering voice, "But isn't this being rather in a hurry, Pete?"

"Short coorting's the best coorting, and ours has been long enough anyway," said Pete. They had drawn up at the porch, and Pete's laugh came in at the window.

"But think how weak she is," said Philip. "She hasn't even-left her bed yet, has she?"

"Well, yes, of coorse, sartenly," said Pete, in a steadier voice, "if the girl isn't fit----"

"It's so sudden, you see," said Philip. "Has she--has she--consented?"

"Not to say consented----" began Pete; and Philip took him up and said quickly, eagerly, hotly--

"She can't--I'm sure she can't."

There was silence again, broken only by the horse's impatient pawing, and then Philip said more calmly, "Let Dr. Mylechreest see her first, at all events."

"I'm not a man for skinning the meadow to the sod, no----" said Pete, in a doleful tone; but Kate heard no more.

She was trembling with a new thought. It was only a shadowy suggestion as yet, and at first she tried to beat it back. But it came again, it forced itself upon her, it mastered her, she could not resist it.

The way to break the fate that was pursuing her was to make _Philip_ speak out! The way to stop the marriage with Pete was to compel Philip to marry her! He thought she would never consent to marry Pete--what if he were given to understand that she had consented. That was the way to gain the victory over Philip, the way to punish him!

He would not blame her--he would lay the blame at the door of chance, of fate, of her people. He would think they were forcing this marriage upon her--the mother out of love of Pete, the father out of love of Pete's money, and Nancy out of fear of Ross Christian. He would know that she could not struggle because she could not speak. He would believe she was yielding against her will, in spite of her love, in the teeth of their intention. He would think of her as a victim, as a martyr, as a sacrifice.

It was a deceit--a small deceit; it looked so harmless, too--so innocent, almost humorous, half ridiculous; and she was a woman, and she could not put it away. Love, love, love! It would be her excuse and her forgiveness. She had appealed to Philip himself and in vain. Now she would pretend to go on with her old relations. It was so little to do, and the effects were so certain. In jealousy and in terror Philip would step out of himself and claim her.

She had craft--all hungry things have craft. She had inklings of ambition, a certain love of luxury, and desire to be a lady. To get Philip was to get everything. Love would be satisfied, ambition fulfilled, the aims of refinement reached. Why not risk the great stake?

Nancy came to tidy the room, and Kate said, "Where's Pete all this time, I wonder?"

"Sitting in the fire-seat this half-hour," said Nancy. "I don't know in the world what's come over the man. He's rocking and moaning there like a cow licking a dead calf."