Chapter TWENTY-ONE: Mother's Law or Judge's Law?

Bessie had passed a miserable night. Having been awake until after five in the morning she was asleep at nine when somebody knocked at her bedroom door. It was old Miss Ethel with a telegram. Bessie opened it with trembling fingers.

"_Nonsense dear am coming up as arranged Alick._"

With fingers that trembled still more noticeably Bessie returned the telegram to its envelope and slid it under her pillow, saying (with a twitching of the mouth which always came when she was telling an untruth),

"It's from Mr. Gell. He wants me to meet him in Douglas. I am to go up immediately."

"That's nice," said Miss Ethel. "The change will do you a world of good, dear. I'll run down and hurry your breakfast, so that you can catch the ten-thirty."

Bessie dressed hastily, put a few things into a little handbag, and then sat down to write her promised letter. It was a terrible ordeal. What could she say that would not betray her secret? At length she wrote:

"DEAR ALICK,--Do forgive me. I must go away for a little while.
It is all my health. I have been ill all winter and suffered
more than anybody can know. But God is good, and I will get my
health and strength back soon, and then I will return and we can
be married and everything will be alright. Do not think I do not
love you because I am leaving you like this. I have never loved
you so dear as now. But I am depressed, and I cannot get away
from my thoughts. And please, Alick dear, don't try to find me.
I shall be quite alright, and I shall think of you every night
before I go to sleep, and every morning when I awake. So now I
must close with all my love and kisses.

--BESSIE, xxxxx"

Having written her letter, and blotted it with many tears, she pinned it to the top of her pillow, without remembering that the telegram lay underneath. Then she hurried downstairs, swallowed a mouthful of breakfast standing, said good-bye to her old housemates with an effort at gaiety, and set off as for the railway station.

She had no intention of going there. The morning haze was thick on the edge of the sea, and as soon as she was out of sight of the house she slipped across the fields to a winding lane which led to the open country.

During the night, crying a good deal and stifling her sobs under the bed-clothes, she had thought out all her plans. It was still two months before her time, and to be separated from Alick as long as that was too painful to think about. It was also too dangerous. Long before the end of that time he would search for her and find her, and then her secret would become known, and that would be the end of everything.

She had been to blame, but what had she done to be so unhappy? Why should Nature be so cruel to a girl? Was there no way of escape from it?

At length a light had dawned on her. Remembering what she had heard of women doing (wives as well as unmarried girls) to get rid of children who were not wanted, she determined that her own child should be still-born. Why not? It threatened to separate her from Alick--to turn his love for her into hatred. Why should it come into the world to ruin her life, and his also?

Yes, she would tire herself out, expose herself to some great strain, some fearful exhaustion, and thereby bring on a sudden and serious illness. Instead of taking the train she would walk all the way home to her mother's house--twenty odd miles, fifteen of them over a steep and rugged mountain road. It would be dangerous to a girl in her condition, but not half so dangerous as marrying Alick now, and running the risk of an end like that of the poor young wife of the Peel fisherman.

And then it would be so much fairer. If her fault, her misfortune, could be wiped out before she married Alick, nobody could say she had deceived her husband.

Such was the wild gamble with life and death which Bessie had decided upon at the prompting of love and shame and fear. The consequences were not long in coming.

The winding lane had to cross the railway line near to a village station before it reached the open country, and coming sharply upon the level-crossing at a quick turning she found the gates closed and a train drawing up at the platform.

She knew at once that this must be the train from Douglas which Alick Gell was to travel by, and in a moment she saw him. He was sitting alone in a first-class carriage, looking pale and troubled. In the next compartment were four or five young advocates from the south side of the island, who had been up to see Stowell off by the steamer. They were smoking and laughing, and one of them, who appeared to have been drinking also, seeing Bessie coming up to the gate, dropped his window and swung off his hat to her.

Bessie dropped back to the partial cover of the fence. Only her fear of attracting attention restrained her from flying off altogether. Alick had not yet seen her. It tore her terribly to see how ill he looked. He was only three or four yards away from her. His head was down. At one moment he took off his cap and ran his fingers through his fair hair as if his head were aching. She could scarcely resist an impulse to pass through the turnstile and hurry up to him. One look, one smile, one word, and she would have thrown everything to the winds even yet.

But no, the guard waved his flag, the engine whistled, the train jerked backward, then forward, and at the next instant it had slid out of the station. Alick had not seen her. He was gone. It had been like a stab at her heart to see him go.

II

Half an hour later she was on the rugged mountain road that led to her mother's house in the north of the island. Her first fear was the fear of being overtaken and carried back. At Silverburn, where a deep river gurgles under the shadow of a dark bridge, she heard the crack of whips, the clatter of horses' hoofs and the whoop of loud voices.

It was nothing. Only two farm shandries, the first containing a couple of full-blooded farm girls, and the second a couple of lusty farm lads, racing home after market, laughing wildly and shouting to each in the free language of the countryside. It was like something out of her former life--one of the outbreaks of animal instinct that had brought her to where she was.

But no matter! She would be a proud and happy woman yet--the _Sheean ny Feaynid_ had said so.

After the fear of being pursued came the fear of being lost--becoming an outcast and a wanderer. She had toiled up to the Black Fort on the breast of the hill. The morning haze had vanished by this time, the sun had come out, the larks were singing in the cloudless sky, the smell of spring was rising from the young grass in the fields, the roadsides were yellow with primroses and daffodils, and the whole world was looking glad with the promise of the beautiful new year that was already on the wing. It was heart-breaking.

Feeling hot and tired after her climb, she sat on a stone. The sea was open from that point, and on the farthest rim of it she could see a red-funnelled steamer and two black shafts of smoke. Stowell! Never before had she thought bitterly of him. But he was there, going up to London in comfort, in luxury, while she....

It was cruel. But crueller than her bitter thoughts of Stowell were her tender thoughts of Gell. He would be at Derby Haven now, reading (with that twitching of the lower lip which she knew so well) the letter she had left behind for him, while she was here, running away from the arms of the man who loved her. But no matter about that, either! One day, two days, three days, a week perhaps, and she would return to him. She was to be a proud and happy woman yet--the _Sheean ny Feaynid_ had said so.

Hours passed. The road stretched out and out, became steeper and steeper. Bessie felt more and more tired. She was often compelled to sit by the wayside, and sometimes, being worn out by the want of sleep, she fell into a doze. The sky darkened and dropped; the sun went down behind the mountains to the west with a straight black bar across its face that was like a heavy lid over a sullen eye. Would she be able to reach home that night? She would! She must! Alick was waiting for her to come back. She dare not keep him long.

Evening had closed in before she reached the top of the hill. It was a long waste of bracken and black rock, with no farms anywhere, and only a few thatched cottages that crouched in the sheltered places like frightened cattle in a storm. Feeling weak and faint from long climbing and want of food, she was about to sit down again and cry, having lost hope of reaching her mother's house that night, when she came upon a little lamb, scarcely a month old, which had strayed away from the flock and was too tired to go farther.

The poor creature bleated piteously into her face, and she lifted it up in her arms and carried it a long half mile (the lost carrying the lost, the desolate comforting the desolate) until she came to a high gate at which a mother sheep was plunging furiously in her efforts to get out to them. Bessie put the lamb to its feet, and it clambered through the bars, plucked at the teat, and then there was peace and silence.

This strengthened her and she went on for some time longer with a cheerful heart. Yes, she must reach home that night. And if it was as late as midnight before she got there, so much the better! Nobody must see her come, and then her mother would be able to conceal everything.

Night fell. It began to rain and the wind to rise. She had never been afraid of darkness or bad weather, but now she took a wild delight in them. Remembering what other women had done, she took off her shoes and walked on the wet roads in her stockings. It was risky but she cared nothing about that. It might bring on a fever, but she was strong--she would soon get over it.

Farmers returning empty from market offered her a lift, but she declined and toiled on. The lighted windows of the farmhouses, gleaming through the darkness, called her into warmth and shelter, but she struggled along. The soles of her stockings were soon worn to shreds and the stones of the roads were beginning to cut her feet, but she would not put on her shoes. In her frenzy she hardly felt the pain. And besides, what she was suffering for Alick was as nothing compared to what Alick had suffered for her. Only one night! It would soon be over.

She had walked at her slow pace down a deep descent and through a long valley when she came upon an inn and a big barn that was a scene of great festivity. She knew what it was. It was one of the "Bachelors' Balls" which, beginning with _Oiel Thomase Dhoo_ (the Eve of Black Thomas) and going on through the spring of the year, the unmarried men in remote places gave to the unmarried girls of the parish.

The rain was now falling in torrents and the wind had risen to the strength of a gale, but it must have been close and hot inside the barn, for as Bessie passed on the other side of the way, the doors were thrown open. The rude place was densely crowded. Stable lamps hung from the rough-hewn rafters. At one end the musicians sat on a platform raised on barrels; at the other end girls in white blouses were serving tea from a long plank covered with a table-cloth and resting on trestles. In the space between, a dense group of young men and women were dancing with furious energy.

This, too, was like something out of her own life. Ah, if somebody had only told her ....

But what matter! She would be a proud and happy woman yet--the _Sheean ny Feaynid_ had said so.

It was now midnight by the wrist-watch that Alick had given her, and she had still another hill to climb, steeper than the last if shorter. While she was going up the rain flogged her face as with whipcord, and, when she reached the top, the wind, sweeping across the low-lying lands from the sea, tore at her skirts as if it were trying to strip her naked. At one moment it brought her to her knees, and she thought she would never be able to rise to her feet again. It was very dark. She was feeling weak and helpless.

Once more she remembered Stowell. He would be on his way to London now. She could see him (Alick had often painted such pictures) sitting in a brightly-lit first-class railway carriage, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee.

At this thought her whole soul rose in revolt. Why was he there while she was here? She had never loved him; he had never loved her; they had both done wrong. But why for the same fault should there be such different punishment?

People who went to churches and chapels talked of nature and God. They said God was good and He was the God of nature. It was a lie--a deception! If God was good He was not the God of nature. If He was the God of nature He was not good. Nature was cruel and pitiless. Only to a man was it kind. If you were a woman it had no mercy on you. It never forgot you; it never forgave you. Therefore a woman had a right to fight it, and when it threatened to destroy her happiness, and the happiness of those who loved her, she had a right to kill it.

That was what she was doing now. Perhaps she had done it already. The heavy burden that had been lying so long under her heart had given no sign of life for hours. So much the better! That passage in her life must be dead and buried. Victor Stowell must be wiped out for ever. Then she could marry Alick Gell with a clean heart and conscience.

Therefore, courage, courage! She would be a proud and happy woman yet--the _Sheean ny Feaynid_ had said so.

Only the great thing was to get home before daybreak, so that nobody might see her until all was over.

Somewhere in the dead and vacant dawn a pale, forlorn-looking woman, whom nobody could have known for Bessie Collister, was approaching the village of the glen. She had been eighteen hours on her journey, most of the time on her feet. Her fur-lined cloak was sodden and heavy. Her black hair had been torn from its knot and was hanging dank over her neck and shoulders. Her feet, in her dry boots, were cold and bleeding. A silk scarf which had been tied over her closely-fitting fur cap was dripping, and a little bag on her arms was wet through with all that was contained in it.

She had expected to arrive before break of day, but nobody in the village was yet stirring. In the long street of whitewashed houses all the window blinds were still down and looking like closed eye-lids.

She tied up her hair, removed the scarf and put on a veil from her handbag, drew it closely over her face, and then walked with head down and a step as light as she could make it, through the sleeping village.

She met nobody. Not a door was opened; not a blind was drawn aside; she had not been seen. She drew a long breath of relief. But suddenly, with the first sight of the mill, came a stab of memory,

Dan Baldromma!

Since the witch-doctor had told her that though Dan might rage and tear he could do no harm to her or to Alick she had ceased to think of him. But why had she not thought of the harm he might do to her mother? All the way up since she was a child she had seen the tyrannies he had inflicted upon her mother through her. What fresh tyranny would he inflict on her now?--now that she was coming home like this to be a burden to....

For a moment Bessie told herself she must go back even yet. But she was too weak and too ill to go one step farther. All the same she could not face her step-father in her present condition. If she could only get upstairs to her bedroom and sleep--sleep, sleep!

She listened for the mill-wheel--it was not working. She looked at the mill-door--it had not yet been opened. It was impossible that Dan could be in bed--he was such an early riser. He must have gone up the brews to look at the heifers in the top fields.

With a slow step she went over to the dwelling-house. The door was shut, but she could hear sounds from the kitchen. There was the shuffling of slow feet, accompanied by the tap of a walking-stick; then the blowing and coughing of bellows and the crackling of burning gorse; and then the measured beating of a foot on the hearthstone, keeping time to a husky and tremulous voice that was singing--

"_Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe in His tender care._"

With a palpitating heart Bessie lifted the latch, pushed the door open and took one step into the kitchen. Her mother, who was still wearing her night-cap, was sitting on the three-legged stool in the choillagh, stirring porridge in the oven-pot that hung from the slowrie. She had heard the click of the latch and was looking round.

There was silence for a moment. Bessie tried to speak and could not. The old woman rose on rigid limbs and her hand on the handle of her stick was trembling. It was just as if the spirit of someone she had been thinking about had suddenly appeared before her.

"Is it thyself, girl?" she said, in a breathless whisper.

"Mother!" cried Bessie, and she took another step forward.

Again there was a moment of silence. With her heart at her lips Bessie saw that her mother's eyes were wandering over her figure. Then the stick dropped from the old woman's hand to the floor and she stretched out her arms, and her thin hands shook like withered leaves.

"Bolla veen! bolla veen!" she cried, in a low voice that was a sob. "It's my own case over again."

And then the girl fell into her mother's arms and buried her head in her breast and cried, as only a suffering child can cry, helplessly, piteously.

A moment later, there was a heavy footstep outside, and the ring of an iron tool thrown down on the "street." The old woman raised her face with a look of fear.

"It's thy father," she whispered.

III

Dan Baldromma had risen earlier than usual that morning. For more than a week there had not been water enough to his mill-wheel for his liking, and suspecting the cause of the shortage he had put a pick over his shoulder and walked up the glen.

There was a little croft on the top of the brews half a mile nearer to the mountain. It was called Baldromma-beg (the little Baldromma) and its occupants (sub-tenants of Dan Baldromma) were a quaint old couple--Will Skillicorne, a long, slow-eyed, slow-legged person who was a class-leader among the "Primitives," and his wife, Bridget, a typical little Manxwoman of her class, keen-eyed, quick-tongued, illiterate and superstitious.

Their croft was thirsty land, though water in abundance was so near, and to every request that it should be laid on in pipes from the glen, Dan had said, "Let your wife carry it---what else is the woman there for?"

Bridget had carried it for ten years. Then her anger getting the better of her, she put on a pair of her husband's big boots and rolled two great boulders into a neck of the river, with the result that a deep stream of sweet water came flowing down to her house and fields.

This was just what Dan had suspected, and coming upon the new-made dam, he stretched his legs across it, swung his pick and sent the boulders tumbling down the glen, with a torrent of water from Baldromma-beg at the back of them.

But Bridget, also, had risen earlier than usual that morning, and, hearing the sound of Dan's pick, she went out to him at his bad work and fell on him with hot reproaches.

"Was there nothing doing down at the mill, Dan Collister," she cried, "that thou must be coming up here to put thy evil eye on other people's places?"

"Get thee indoors, woman," growled Dan, "and put thy house in order."

"My house in order? Mine? And what about thine? Thine that is a disgrace to the parish and the talk of the island."

"Keep a civil tongue in thy head, Mrs. Skillicorne, or maybe I'll be showing thee the road at Hollantide."

"Turn me out of the croft, will thou? Do it and welcome! I give thee lave. It would be middling aisy to find a better farm, and Satan himself couldn't find a worse landlord. But set thou one foot on this land until my year is over and if there's a bucket of dirty water on the cowhouse floor I'll throw it over thee. Put my house in order indeed! Where's thy daughter, eh? Where's thy daughter, I say?"

"I've got no daughter, woman, and well thou knows it," said Dan.

"'Deed I do. No wonder the Lord wouldn't trust thee with a daughter of thy own, the way thou's brought up this one. The slut! The strumpet! Away with thee and look for her--it will become thee better."

But Dan having finished his work was now plunging down the glen and old Will Skillicorne had come out of his house half dressed, with his braces hanging behind him.

"Come in, woman--lave the man to God," said Will.

"God indeed! The dirt! The ugly black toad! God wouldn't bemane Himself talking to the like."

"Thou's done it this time, though, I'm thinking. Thou heard what he said about Hollantide?"

"Chut! Get thee back to bed. What's thou putting thy mouth in for? Who knows where the man himself will be by that time?"

With a face like a black cloud after this encounter, Dan threw down his pick on the cobbles of the street and went into the kitchen to work off his anger on his wife.

"That's what thou's done for me, ma'am! There's not a trollop in the parish that isn't throwing thy daughter's bad doings in my face."

The kitchen was full of smoke, for the porridge in the oven-pot had been allowed to burn, and it was not until he was standing back to the fire, putting his pipe in the pocket of his open waistcoat, that Dan saw Bessie where she had seated herself, after breaking out of her mother's arms, by the table and in the darkest corner.

He took in the girl's situation at a glance, but after the manner of the man he pretended not to do so.

"God bless my soul," he cried. "Back, is she? Well, well! But what did I say, mother? 'No need to send the Cross Vustha (the fiery cross) after her, she'll come home.' And my goodness the grand woman's she's grown! Fur caps and fur-lined cloaks and I don't know the what! Just come to put a sight on the mother and the ould man, I suppose. No pride at all at all! I wouldn't trust but there's a grand carriage waiting for her at the corner of the road."

"Aisy, man, aisy," said Mrs. Collister, picking up her stick, "don't thou see the girl has walked?"

"Walked, has she?" said Dan, raising his thick eyebrows in pretended astonishment. "You don't say! All the way from Castletown? Well, well! So that's how it is, is it? The young waistrel has thrown her over, has he?"

Bessie had to put her hand to her throat to keep back the cry that was bubbling up.

"Aisy, man, aisy with the like," said the old woman. But Dan was for showing no mercy.

"Goodness me, the airs she gave herself going away! I might shut my door on her, but there would be others to open theirs. And now they have opened them, and shut them too, I'm thinking."

Bessie, crushed and silent, was clutching the end of the table. Dan stepped over to her, laid hold of her left hand, lifted it up, as if looking for her wedding ring, and then flung it away.

"Nothing!" he said. "She's got nothing for it neither. I might have followed her to Castletown, but I didn't. 'I'll lave her to it,' I thought. 'Maybe the girl's cleverer than we thought, and will come home mistress of Baldromma and a thousand good acres besides.' But no, not a ha'porth! And now she has come back to ate us up for the rest of our lives! The toot! The boght! The booby!"

"Dan Collister," said the old woman, "don't thou see the girl is ill?"

"Ill, is she?" said Dan. "I wouldn't trust but she is, ma'am. So it's worse than I thought, and maybe before long there'll be another mouth to feed."

Bessie dropped her head on the table.

"But not in this house, if you plaze, miss. It happened here once before, and the island would be having a fine laugh at me if it happened again."

Once more Dan stepped over to Bessie and touched her arm.

"You're like a dead letter, you've come to the wrong address, mistress. It wasn't Dan Baldromma's thatched cottage you were wanting, but the big slate house down the road where the paycocks are scraming. I'll trouble you to go there."

"Sakes alive, man," cried the old woman, "thou'rt not for turning the girl out of doors?"

"I am that, ma'am," said Dan, going over to the door. "No trollop shall be telling me again that my house is the disgrace of the parish and the talk of the island."

Then throwing the door wide and rattling the catch of it, he said,

"Out of my house, miss! Out of it! Out of it!"

Bessie, who had been sitting motionless, raised her head and rose to go, although scarcely able to take a step forward, when she felt a hand that was trembling like a leaf laid on her shoulder.

"Stay thou there, and leave this to me."

It was the old woman who had been crouching over the fire on the three-legged stool and had now risen, thrown her stick away as if she had no longer any need of it, and was facing her husband with blazing eyes.

"Thou talks and talks of this house as thine and thine," she said. "What made it thine?"

"The law, if thou wants to know, woman," said Dan.

"Then the law is a robber and a thief."

Dan looked at his wife in astonishment, and then burst into a fit of forced laughter.

"Well, that's good! That's rich! That's wonderful! What next, I wonder?"

"Do you want me to tell thee the truth, Dan Collister? Before the girl, too? Then there's not a stick or a stone in the place that in the eyes of heaven does not belong to me."

"What?"

"Not a stick or a stone, except the landlord's, that wasn't bought with my father's money--John Corteen, a man of God, if ever there was one."

"Pity his daughter didn't take after him, then."

"Pity enough, Dan Collister. But when I brought shame into his house he forgave me. And when the finger of death was on the man the only trouble he had in life was what was to become of his girl when he was gone."

"Truth enough, ma'am, he had to find thee a husband, hadn't he?"

"He hadn't far to look, though. And if thou had nothing in thy pocket and not much on thy back thou had plenty in thy mouth to make up for it. Thou were not afraid of scandal! Thou didn't mind marrying a girl who had been talked of with another man!"

"And I did, didn't I?"

"Thou did, God forgive thee! But not till the man's trembling hand had reached up to the hole in the thatch over his bed for his stocking purse and counted the money out to thee. Three hundred good Manx pounds he had worked thirty years for and saved up for his daughter. And then thou swore on the Holy Book to be good to his girl and her baby, and the man's dying eyes on thee. And now--now thou talks of turning my girl out of the house--this house that would have been her house some day if thou had not come between us. But no! Thou shan't do that."

"Shan't I?"

"'Deed thou shan't! She may have done wrong, but if she has it's no more than her mother did before her, and if _I_ daren't turn her out for it thou shalt not."

"We'll see, ma'am, we'll see," said Dan. He was buttoning up his waistcoat and putting on his coat.

"It's no use talking to a woman. There's not much sense to be got out of the like anyway. But when a man marries, the property of the wife becomes the property of the husband--that's Dempster's law, isn't it? And standing up for your legal rights, and not being forced by your wife, or anybody else, to find maintenance for another man's offspring when it comes--that's Dempster's law too, I belave."

"Yes," said the old woman, "and standing up for your own flesh and blood when she's sick and weak and the world is going cold on her and she has nowhere else to lay her head in her trouble--that's Mother's law, Dan Collister, and it's older than the Dempster's, I'm thinking."

"Do as you plaze, ma'am," said Dan. "If you want more noising about the bad doings of your daughter it's all as one to me."

He took his billycock hat down from the "lath" under the ceiling and continued,

"I'll hear what the Speaker has to say about this, though. His wife wasn't for doing much for thee when the honour of this house was in question, but maybe she'll alter her tune now that it's the honour of her own."

He drew his whip from its nail over the fireplace and stepped to the door.

"And if this matter ends as I expect I'll be hearing what the Coorts have to say about it, too. Young Mr. Sto'll is to be made Dempster they're telling me. They're putting him in for it, anyway, and he is bosom friend to the Spaker's son. But friend or no friend," he said, with his hand on the hasp, and ready to go, "maybe his first job when he comes back to the island will be to send his Coroner to this house to turn the man's mistress and her by-child into the road."

"Tell him to send her coffin at the same time, then," cried the old woman, almost screaming. "Mine too, Dan Collister. That's the only way he'll turn my daughter out of this house, I promise thee."

But the old woman collapsed the moment her husband had gone, and staggering to the rocking-chair she dropped into it and cried. Then Bessie, who had not yet spoken, rose and said, crying herself,

"Don't cry, I'll go away myself, mother."

But the old woman was up again in a moment.

"No, thou'll not," she said. "Thou'll go up to thy bedroom in the dairy loft--the one thou had in the innocent old times gone by. Come, take my arm--my good arm, girl. Lean on me, woman-bogh."