Part 61 (2/2)

Kate read the mystery after her own manner, and on the following night, at the approach of ten o'clock, she went into the parlour of the hall, whence a window looked out on to the road. The day had been dull and the night was misty. A heavy white hand seemed to have come down on to the face of sea and land. Everything lay still and dead and ghostly. Kate was in the dark room, trembling, but not with fear. Presently a form that was like a shadow pa.s.sed under a lamp that glimmered opposite. She could see only the outlines of a Spanish cape. But she listened for the footsteps, and she knew them. They came on and paused, came up and paused again, and then they went past and deadened off and died in the dense night-air.

Kate's eyes were red and swollen when she came back to supper. She had promised herself enjoyment of Philip's sufferings. There was no enjoyment, but only a cry of yearning from the deep place where love calls to love. She tried afresh to make the thought of Philip sink to the lowest depth of her being. It was hard--it was impossible; Pete was for ever strengthening the recollection of him--of his ways, his look, his voice, his laugh. What he said was only the echo of her own thoughts; but it was pain and torment, nevertheless. She felt like crying, ”Let me alone--let me alone!”

People in the town began to talk of Mrs. Gorry's mysterious stories.

”Philip will be forced to come now,” thought Kate; and he came. Kate was alone. It was afternoon; dinner was over, the hearth was swept, the fire was heaped up, and the rug was down. He entered the porch quietly, tapped lightly at the door, and stepped into the house. He hoped she was well. She answered mechanically. He asked after Pete. She replied vacantly that he had been gone since morning on some fis.h.i.+ng business to Peel. It was a commonplace conversation--brief, cold, almost trivial.

He spoke softly, and stood in the middle of the floor, swinging his soft hat against his leg. She was standing by the fire, with one hand on the mantelpiece and her head half aside, looking sideways towards his feet; but she noticed that his eyes looked larger than before, and that his voice, though so soft, had a deeper tone. At first she did not remember to ask him to sit, and when she thought of it she could not do so. The poor little words would have been a formal recognition of all that had happened so terribly--that she was mistress in that house, and the wife of Pete.

IV.

They were standing so, in a silence hard to break, harder still to keep up, when Pete himself came back, like a rush of wind, and welcomed Philip with both hands.

”Sit, boy, sit,” he cried; ”not that one--this aisy one. Mine? Well, if it's mine, it's yours. Not had dinner, have you? Neither have I. Any cold mate left, Kitty? No? Fry us a chop, then, darling.”

Kate had recovered herself by this time, and she went out on this errand. While she was away, Pete rattled on like a mill-race--asked about the travels, laughed about the girls, and roared about Mrs. Gorry and her ghost of Philip.

”Been buying a Nickey at Peel to-day, Phil,” he said; ”good little boat--a reg'lar clipper. Aw, I'm going to start on the herrings myself next sayson sir, and what for shouldn't I? Too many of the Manx ones are giving the fis.h.i.+ng the goby. There's life in the ould dog yet, though. Would be, anyway, if them rusty Kays would be doing anything for the industry. They're building piers enough for the trippers, but never a breakwater the size of a tooth-brush for the fishermen. That's reminding me, Phil--the boys are at me to get you to pet.i.tion the Tynwald Court for better harbours. They're losing many a pound by not getting out all weathers. But if the child doesn't cry, the mother will be giving it no breast. So we mane to squall till they think in Douglas we've got spavined wind or population of the heart, or something. The men are looking to you, Phil. 'That's the boy for us,' says they. 'He's stood our friend before, and he'll do it again,' they're saying.”

Philip promised to draw up the pet.i.tion, and then Mrs. Gorry came in and laid the cloth.

Kate, meanwhile, had been telling herself that she had not done well.

Where was the satisfaction she had promised herself on the night of her wedding-day, when she had seen Philip from the height of a great revenge, if she allowed him to think that she also was suffering? She must be bright, she must be gay, she must seem to be happy and in love with her husband.

She returned to the hall-parlour with a smoking dish, and a face all suns.h.i.+ne.

”I'm afraid they're not very good, dear,” she said.

”Chut!” said Pete; ”we're not particular. Phil and I have roughed it before to-day.”

She laughed merrily, and, under pretext of giving orders, disappeared again. But she had not belied the food she had set on the table. The mutton was badly fed, badly killed, badly cut, and, above all, badly cooked. To eat it was an ordeal. Philip tried hard not to let Pete see how he struggled. Pete fought valiantly to conceal his own efforts. The perspiration began to break out on their foreheads. Pete stopped in the midst of some wild talk to glance up at Philip. Philip tore away with knife and fork and answered vaguely. Then Pete looked searchingly around, rose on tiptoe, went stealthily to the kitchen door, came back, caught up a piece of yellow paper from the sideboard, whipped the chops into it from his own plate and then from Philip's, and crammed them into his jacket pocket.

”No good hurting anybody's feelings,” said he; and then Kate reappeared smiling.

”Finished already?” she said with an elevation of pitch.

”Ha! ha!” laughed Pete. ”Two hungry men, Kate! You'd rather keep us a week than a fortnight, eh?”

Kate stood over the empty dish with a look of surprise. Pete winked furiously at Philip. Philip's eyes wandered about the tablecloth.

”_She_ isn't knowing much about a hungry man's appet.i.te, is she, Phil?”

”But,” said Kate--”but,” she stammered--”what's become of the bones?”

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