The Manxman Part 17

"He's the centre of the Fancy."

"The Fancy!"

"Ornaments of the Ring, you know. Come now, surely you know the Ring, my dear. His rooms in St. James's Street are full of them every night. All sorts, you know--featherweights, and heavy-weights, and greyhounds. And the faces! My goodness, you should see them. Such worn-out old images.

Knowledge boxes all awry, mouths crooked, and noses that have had the upper-cut. But good men all; good to take their gruel, you know. Monty will have nothing else about him. He was Tom Spring's packer. Never heard of Tom Spring? Tom of Bedford, the incorruptible, you know, only he fought cross that day. Monty lost a thousand, and Tom keeps a public in Holborn now with pictures of the Fancy round the walls."

Then Kate, with a laugh, said something which Philip did not catch, because Caesar was rustling the newspaper he was reading.

"Ladies come?" said Ross. "Girls at Monty's suppers? Rather! what should you think? Cleopatra--but you ought to be there. I must be getting off myself very soon. There's a supper coming off next week at Handsome Honey's. Who's Honey? Proprietor of a night-house in the Haymarket.

Night-house? You come and see, my dear."

Caesar dropped the newspaper and looked across at Philip. The gaze was long and embarra.s.sing, and, for want of better conversation, Philip asked Caesar if he was thinking.

"Aw, thinking, thinking, and thinking again, sir," said Caesar. Then, drawing his chair nearer to Philip's, he added, in a half whisper, "I'm getting a bit of a skute into something, though. See yonder? They're calling his father a miser. The man's racking his tenants and starving his land. But I believe enough the young bra.s.s lagh (a weed) is choking the ould grain."

Caesar, as he spoke, tipped his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Ross, and, seeing this, Ross interrupted his conversation with Kate to address himself to her father.

"So you've been reading the paper, Mr. Cregeen?"

"Aw, reading and reading," said Caesar grumpily. Then in another tone, "You're home again from London, sir? Great doings yonder, they're telling me. Battles, sir, great battles."

Ross elevated his eyebrows. "Have you heard of them then?" he asked.

"Aw, heard enough," said Caesar, "meetings, and conferences, and conventions, and I don't know what."

"Oh, oh, I see," said Ross, with a look at Kate.

"They're doing without h.e.l.l in England now-a-days--that's a quare thing, sir. Conditional immorality they're calling it--the singlerest thing I know. Taking h.e.l.l away drops the tailboard out of a man's religion, eh?"

The time for closing came, and Philip had waited in vain. Only one cut had come his way, and that had not been his own. As he rose to go, Kate had said, "We didn't expect to see you again for six months, Mr.

Christian."

"So it seems," said Philip, and Kate laughed a little, and that was all the work of his evening, and the whole result of his errand.

Caesar was waiting for him in the porch. His face was white, and it twitched visibly. It was plain to see that the natural man was fighting in Caesar. "Mr. Christian, sir," said he, "are you the gentleman that came here to speak to me for Peter Quilliam?"

"I am," said Philip.

"Then do you remember the ould Manx saying, 'Perhaps the last dog may be catching the hare?'"

"Leave it to me, Mr. Cregeen," said Philip through his teeth.

Half a minute afterwards he was swinging down the dark road homewards, by the side of Ross, who was drawling along with his cold voice.

"So you've started on your light-weight handicap, Philip. Father was monstrous unreasonable that day. Seemed to think I was coming back here to put my shoulder out for your high bailiffs.h.i.+ps and b.u.m-bailiffs.h.i.+ps and heaven knows what. You're welcome to the lot for me, Philip. That girl's wonderful, though. It's positively miraculous, too; she's the living picture of a girl of my friend Montague's. Eyes, hair, that nervous movement of the mouth--everything. Old man looked glum enough, though. Poor little woman. I suppose she's past praying for. The old hypocrite will hold her like a dove in the claws of a buzzard hawk till she throws herself away on some Manx omathaun. It's the way with half these pretty creatures--they're wasted."

Philip's blood was boiling. "Do you call it being wasted when a good girl is married to an honest man?" he asked.

"I do; because a girl like this can never marry the right man. The man who is worthy of her cannot marry her, and the man who marries her isn't worthy of her. It's like this, Philip. She's young, she's pretty, perhaps beautiful, has manners and taste, and some refinement. The man of her own cla.s.s is clumsy and ignorant, and stupid and poor.

She doesn't want him, and the man she does want the man she's fit for--daren't marry her; it would be social suicide."

"And so," said Philip bitterly, "to save the man above from social suicide, the girl beneath must choose moral death--is that it?"

Ross laughed. "Do you know I thought old Jeremiah was at you in the corner there, Philip. But look at it straight. Here's a girl like that.

Two things are open to her--two only. Say she marries your Manx fellow, what follows? A thatched cottage three fields back from the mountain road, two rooms, a cowhouse, a crock, a dresser, a press, a form, a three-legged stool, an armchair, and a clock with a dirty face, hanging on a nail in the wall. Milking, weeding, digging, ninepence a day, and a can of b.u.t.termilk, with a lump of b.u.t.ter thrown in. Potatoes, herrings, and barley bonnag. Year one, a baby, a boy; year two, another baby, a girl; year three, twins; year four, barefooted children squalling, dirty house, man grumbling, woman distracted, measles, hooping-cough; a journey at the tail of a cart to the bottom of the valley, and the awful words 'I am the----'"

"Hush man!" said Philip. They were pa.s.sing Lezayre churchyard. When they had left it behind, he added, with a grim curl of the lip, which was lost in the darkness, "Well, that's one side. What's the other?"

"Life," said Ross. "Short and sweet, perhaps. Everything she wants, everything she can wish for--five years, four years, three years--what matter?"

"And then?"

"Every one for himself and G.o.d for us all, my boy. She's as happy as the day while it lasts, lifts her head like a rosebud in the sun----"

"Then drops it, I suppose, like a rose-leaf in the mud." Ross laughed again. "Yes, it's a fact, old Jeremiah _has_ been at you, Philip. Poor little Kitty----"

"Keep the girl's name out of it, if you please."

Ross gave a long whistle. "I was only saying the poor little woman----"

"It's d.a.m.nable, and I'll have no more of it."

"There's no duty on speech, I hope, in your precious Isle of Man."

"There is, though," said Philip, "a duty of decency and honour, and to name that girl, foolish as she is, in the same breath with your women--But here, listen to me. Best tell you now, so there may be no mistake and no excuse. Miss Cregeen is to be married to a friend of mine. I needn't say who he is--he comes close enough to you at all events. When he's at home, he's able to take care of his own affairs; but while he's abroad I've got to see that no harm comes to his promised wife. I mean to do it, too. Do you understand me, Ross? I mean to do it.

Good night!"

They were at the gate of Ballawhaine by this time, and Ross went through it giggling.

IV.

The following evening found Philip at "The Manx Fairy" again. Ross was there as usual, and he was laughing and talking in a low tone with Kate.

This made Philip squirm on his chair, but Kate's behaviour tortured him. Her enjoyment of the man's jests was almost uproarious. She was signalling to him and peering up at him gaily. Her conduct disgusted Philip. It seemed to him an aggravation of her offence that as often as he caught the look of her face there was a roguish twinkle in the eye on his side, and a deliberate cast in his direction. This open disregard of the sanct.i.ty of a pledged word, this barefaced indifference to the presence of him who stood to represent it, was positively indecent. This was what women were! Deceit was bred in their bones.

It added to Philip's gathering wrath that Caesar, who sat in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves making up his milling accounts from slates ciphered with crosses, and triangles, and circles, and half circles, was lifting his eyes from time to time to look first at them and then at him, with an expression of contempt.

At a burst of fresh laughter and a shot of the bright eyes, Philip surged up to his feet, thrust himself between Ross and Kate, turned his back on him and his face to her, and said in a peremptory voice, "Come into the parlour instantly--I have something to say to you."

"Oh, indeed!" said Kate.

But she came, looking mischievous and yet demure, with her head down but her eyes peering under their long upper lashes.

"Why don't you send this fellow about his business?" said Philip.

Kate looked up in blank surprise. "What fellow?" she said.