Part 38 (1/2)

Philip could not help it--he gave a little crack of laughter.

”To be sure,” said the Governor hastily, ”you are in no danger of his excesses; but you will not be a safe candidate to recommend until you have placed yourself to all appearances out of the reach of them.

'Beware of these Christians,' said the great Derby to his son; and pardon me if I revive the warning to a Christian himself.”

The colour came strong into Philip's face. Even at that moment he felt angry at so coa.r.s.e a version of his father's fault.

”You mean,” said he, ”that we are apt to marry unwisely.”

”I do that,” said the Governor.

”There's no telling,” said Philip, with a faint crack of his fingers; and the Governor frowned a little--the pock-marks seemed to spread.

”Of course, all this is outside my duty, Mr. Christian--I needn't tell you that; but I feel an interest in you, and I've done you some services already, though naturally a young man will think he has done everything for himself. Ah!” he said, rising from his seat at the sound of a gong, ”luncheon is ready. Let us join the ladies.” Then, with one hand on Philip's shoulder familiarly, ”only a word more, Mr. Christian. Send in your application immediately, and--take the advice of an old fiddler--marry as soon afterwards as may be. But with your prospects it would be a sin not to walk carefully. If she's English, so much the better; but if she's Manx--take care.”

Philip lunched with the Governor's wife, who told him she remembered his grandfather; also with his unmarried daughter, who said she had heard him speak for the fishermen at Peel. An official ”At home,” the last of the summer, was to be held in the garden that afternoon, and Philip was invited to remain. He did so, and thereby witnessed the a.s.saults of the wasps at the glue-pot. They buzzed about the Governor, they buzzed about his wife, they buzzed about his dog and about a tame deer, which took grapes from the hands of the guests.

An elderly gentleman, sitting alone in a carriage, drove up to the lawn.

It was Peter Christian Ballawhaine, looking feebler, whiter, and more splay-footed than before. Philip stepped up to his uncle and offered his arm to alight by. But the Ballawhaine brushed it aside and pushed through to the Governor, to whom he talked incessantly for some minutes of his son Ross, saying he had sent for him and would like to present him to his Excellency.

If Philip lacked enjoyment of the scene, if his face lacked heart and happiness, it was not the fault of his host. ”Will you not take Lady So-and-so to have tea?” the Governor would say; and presently Philip found himself in a circle of official wifedom, whose husbands had been made Knights by the Queen, and themselves made Ladies by--G.o.d knows whom. The talk was of the late Deemster.

”Such a life! It's a mercy he lasted so long!”

”A pity, you mean, my dear, not to be hard on him either.”

”Poor thing! He ought to have married. Such a man wants a wife to look after him. Don't you think so, Mr. Christian?”

”Why,” said a white-haired dame, ”have you never heard of his great romance?”

”Ah! tell us of that. Who was the lady?”

”The lady----” there was a pause; the white-haired dame coughed, smiled, closed her little ferret eyes, dropped her voice, and said with mock gravity, ”The lady was the blacksmith's daughter, dearest.” And then there was a merry trill of laughter.

Philip felt sick, bowed to his hosts, and left. As he was going off, his uncle intercepted him, holding out both hands.

”How's this, Philip? You never come to Ballawhaine now. I see! Oh, I see! Too busy with the women to remember an old man. They're all talking of you. Putting the comather on them, eh? I know, I know; don't tell me.”

III.

Philip's way home lay through the town, but he made a circuit of the country, across Onchan, so heartsick was he, so utterly choked with bitter feelings. He felt as if all the angels and devils together must be making a mock at him. The thing he had worked for through five heavy years, the end he had aimed at, the goal he had fought for, was his already--his for the stretching out of his hand. Yet now that it was his, he could not have it. Oh, the mockery of his fate! Oh, the irony of his life! It was shrieking, it was frantic!

Then his bolder spirit seemed to say, ”What is all this childish fuming about? Fortune comes to you with both hands full. Be bold, and you may have both the wish of your soul and the desire of your heart--both the Deemster-s.h.i.+p and Kate.”

It was impossible to believe that. If he married Kate, the Governor would not recommend him as Deemster. Had he not admitted that he stood in some fear of the public opinion of the island? And was it not conceivable that, besides the unselfish interest which the Governor had shown in him, there was even a personal one that would operate more powerfully than fear of the old-fas.h.i.+oned Manx conventions to prevent any recommendation of the husband of the wrong woman? At one moment a vague memory rose before Philip, as he crossed the fields, of the lunch at Government House, of the Governor's wife and daughter, of their courtesy and boundless graciousness. At the next moment he had drawn up sharply, with pangs of self-contempt, hating himself, loathing himself, swearing at himself for a mean-souled ingrate, as he kicked up the gra.s.s and the turf beneath it But the idea had taken root. He could not help it; the Governor's interest went for nothing in his reckoning.

”What a fool you are, Philip,” something seemed to whisper out of the darkest corner of his conscience; ”take the Deemsters.h.i.+p first, and marry Kate afterwards.” But it was impossible to think of that either.

Say it could be done by any arts of cunning or duplicity, what then?

Then there were the high walls of custom and prejudice to surmount.

Philip remembered the garden-party, and saw that they could never be surmounted. The Deemster who slapped the conventions in the face would suffer for it. He would be taboo to half the life of the island--in public an official, in private a recluse. An icy picture rose before his mind's eye of the woman who would be his wife in her relations with the ladies he had just left. She might be their superior in education, certainly in all true manners, and in natural grace and beauty, in sweetness and charm, their mistress beyond a dream of comparison.