Chapter THIRTY-NINE: The Birth of a Lie

Awakening in the "George" in the early hours of morning, Fenella heard a noise outside her window that was like the running of a shallow river over a bed of small stones. She knew what it was. It was the sound of the feet of the people who were coming in crowds to stand outside the Castle walls and watch the slow-moving fingers of the clock, until the hoisting of the black flag over the tower should tell them that the invisible presence of Death had come and gone.

When, as the clock was striking six, she crossed the market-place on her way to the Castle, she found this crowd in great commotion, hurrying to and fro and calling to each other in agitated voices.

"Is it true?"

"So they're saying."

"God bless my soul!"

The Castle gate was open and people had penetrated as far as the Portcullis. An Inspector of Police, coming out hurriedly, commanded them to go back.

"Away with you! Is it play-acting you've come to look at? Smoking your pipes, too!"

But without waiting to see his orders obeyed he hastened away himself, shouting to somebody that he was going to knock up the telegraph office.

The court-yard, when Fenella reached it, though less crowded was as full of agitation. A blear-eyed man, who looked as if he had just awakened from a fit of intoxication, was walking aimlessly to and fro. It was Shimmin, the turnkey, but when Fenella asked him what had happened, he stared vacantly and made no answer. A very tall man, wearing a cloth cap over his head and ears and carrying a carpet-bag, was standing by the scaffold. This must be "long Duggie Taggart" and when Fenella, shuddering at sight of the man, asked him the same question, he shrugged his shoulders and turned away. At the foot of the draw-bridge the High Bailiff and the jailer were in fierce altercation.

"I know nothing about it, I tell thee, Sir."

"Then you are a blockhead and a fool!"

At length two elderly men, the Chaplain and the Doctor, came down the Deemster's stairs, and then the truth, which Fenella had partly surmised, became fully known to her. The condemned woman had escaped during the night. There would be no execution that day.

Through a tumult of mixed feelings, Fenella was conscious of a sense of immense relief. Her first thought was of Bessie's mother, and she turned back to take the news to her.

The little house in Quay Lane had its door still closed, but through the kitchen window, whereof the upper sash was partly down, came the singing of a hymn in tired and husky voices,

"_Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly._"

It was not immediately that Fenella could get an answer to her knocking, but at length the man of the house, in his ganzie and long sea boots, opened the door, still singing.

The little low-ceiled kitchen was full of people, and the close air of the place seemed to say that they had kept up their prayer-meeting the night through.

On a chair bedstead against the opposite wall, Mrs. Collister in her cotton nightcap, from which long thin locks of her grey hair were escaping, was rocking her body to the tune, while fumbling with bony fingers a Methodist hymn-book which lay open before her on the patchwork counterpane.

Fenella, with a warm heart for the old mother in her trouble, pushed through to the foot of the bed, but Mrs. Collister was terrified at the sight of her, thinking she was bringing bad tidings,

"Have they deceived me?" she cried. "Seven o'clock they said. Is it all over?"

"Be calm," said Fenella, and then she delivered her message. Bessie had gone from Castle Rushen. She was not to die that day.

A moment of vacant silence fell upon the room, such as seems to fall on the world when the tide is at the bottom of the ebb. With difficulty the old woman grasped what Fenella had said. Her watery eyes looked round at her people as if asking them to help her to understand. At length one of these cried,

"Glory to God! It's the answer to our prayers."

And then the truth seemed to descend on the poor broken brain like a healing breath from heaven. Stretching out her match-like arms, she seized Fenella's hands and said,

"I know who thou art. Thou art the Governor's daughter. Is it the truth thou'rt telling me?"

"Indeed it is."

"My Bessie is out of prison?"

"Yes, and nobody knows what has become of her."

A wild cry of joy burst from the old woman's throat.

"Liza! Liza Killey, wilt thou believe me now? Didn't I tell thee it was the old Dempster himself that the Lord had sent to take my child out of prison?"

A wave of new life seemed to come to her, and throwing back the clothes she struggled out of bed (her blue-veined legs and feet showing bare under her cotton nightdress) and went down on her knees to pray. But her prayer was drowned by the husky voices of her companions, who had by this time raised a hymn of thanksgiving.

Fenella turned to go, and the man and woman of the house followed her to the door.

"What was that she said about the Deemster?"

They told her what had happened the night before--how the old woman had escaped into the streets and the Deemster had brought her back to the house.

"Are you sure it was the Deemster?"

"We thought so then, but she thrept us out it was his father who is dead and buried, and now we don't know in the world if it was or wasn't."

The singers were singing in triumphant tones--

"_God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform._"

Fenella, who had begun to tremble, turned back to the hotel. The market-place was full of people, who were pouring into it from every thoroughfare. On reaching her room she locked the door, pulled down the window-blind, sat on the bed, covered her eyes, and tried to think out what had happened.

The noise outside was like the surge of the sea, and like the surge of the sea was the tumult in her heart and brain.

Could it be possible that Victor Stowell had helped Bessie Collister to escape? She remembered what he had said to her father--that if any attempt were made to carry out the sentence he would prevent it. She remembered what she had said to him--that never could there be anything between them while that girl lay in prison. He had been in Castletown the night before, and he was the only man in the island who could have access to the Castle without an order from the Governor or the Chief Constable.

But a Judge to break prison! What would be the end of it? Why had he done this incredible thing, risking everything? Was it solely because he could not allow that unhappy girl, who had suffered so much for him already, to go to the gallows? Or was it, perhaps, because she herself had said....

Suddenly a great quickening of her love for Stowell came over her. If she had stumbled upon his secret she would protect it.

"But what can I do?" she asked herself.

At one moment it occurred to her to run back to Quay Lane and warn the good people there to say nothing more about the Deemster. But no, that might awaken suspicion. They thought Bessie's escape was due to supernatural agencies, that it had come as an answer to their prayers--let them continue to think so.

At seven o'clock she was in the train for Douglas and the telegraph poles were flying by. She must know what the Governor was doing. But whatever her father might do her own course was clear.

She must stand by Victor now, whatever happened.

II

In the cool sunshine of the early May morning Government House lay asleep. The gardener was mowing a distant part of the lawn when he saw a carriage drive rapidly up to the porch. Two gentlemen got out of it, and in less time than it took him to empty his grass-pan into his wheelbarrow they rang three times at the door.

Inside the house nobody was yet stirring except old John, the watchman, who was drawing the curtains and opening the windows. He heard the bell and thought the postman had brought a registered letter. In his cloth shoes he was shuffling to the vestibule when the bell rang again and yet again.

"_Traa de looiar_" ("Time enough"), he growled, but his voice fell to a more deferential tone when he opened the door, and saw who was there.

"Our apologies to His Excellency, and say the Attorney-General and the Chief Constable wish to see him immediately on urgent business."

The two men stepped into the smoking-room, which was still dark with the blinds down and rank with last night's tobacco smoke.

A few minutes later, the Governor entered in his dressing-gown over his pyjamas and with his bare feet in his heelless slippers. And then the Attorney told him--the young woman who was to have been executed that morning had escaped.

"Good God, no!"

"Only too true, Sir. Colonel Farrell has had an urgent telegram from his Inspector at Castletown."

"When did it happen?"

"During the night. The jailer says he locked her up at eleven and when he opened the cell at five the prisoner was gone."

"Where is the jailer?"

"At the Castle still," said the Chief Constable, "but I've told the police to send him up immediately."

The Governor rose from the seat into which he had dropped and walked to and fro.

"Such a blow to the authority of the law--the escape of a prisoner on the eve of her execution!" said the Attorney.

"Such a handle to the disorderly elements, too!" said the Chief Constable.

"Good Lord, don't I know? Let me think! Let me think!"

The Governor drew up one of the window blinds and his eyes fell on a steamer lying by the pier with smoke rising lazily from her black and red funnels.

"If the woman escaped only a few hours ago," he said, "she cannot have left the island yet. Have you given orders that the passengers by the morning steamer shall be watched?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Do so at once. If that fails, telegraph to your police in every town and parish. Good gracious, in this pocket-handkerchief of an island it ought to be possible to re-capture an escaped prisoner in a day, even if she lies like a toad under a stone."

"We'll leave no stone unturned, sir."

"A woman! A mere girl! Unless the jailer or his people deliberately opened the doors for her she must have had assistance."

"That's what _I_ say, your Excellency."

"Have you any idea who helped her?"

"No .... that is to say...."

"Where's young Gell, the Advocate?"

"In his rooms in Athol-street .... I presume."

"Find out for certain. Come back at four this afternoon and bring that blockhead of a jailer with you. And listen" (the men were leaving the room), "try to keep this ridiculous thing quiet. If it gets into the papers across the water all England will be laughing at us."

The Governor was again at the window, watching the Attorney-General's carriage going rapidly down the drive, when he saw a hackney car, containing Fenella, coming up to the house.

That sight started a new order of ideas. He remembered Stowell's threat--"If you order that girl's execution, it shall never be carried out, because I shall prevent it." For three days he had understood this to mean that the Deemster would appeal over his head to the Imperial authorities. But Stowell had not done so--he wasn't such a fool, he had remembered the bedevilments of his own position. So the Governor had dismissed the thought, and his anger at the son of his old friend had subsided. But now the threat came back on him with a new interpretation. Could it be possible? Such an unheard-of thing?

As soon as Fenella entered the house he called her into his room and shut the door behind her.

"You have just come from Castletown?"

"Yes, father."

"Then you know what has happened?"

"Yes."

"Can you throw any light on it?"

"Light on it?"

"I mean .... have you seen anything of Stowell since we spoke of him last?"

"Nothing."

"Nor heard from him?"

"No."

"Do you think it likely that .... But it is impossible. No responsible person in his sense could do such a thing. It must be the other one."

"What other, father?"

"Young Gell, of course. He is the only man in the island who could wish that girl to escape--the only one who would be fool enough to help her to do so."

Fenella went to her room with a heart at ease. She was sorry for Gell, very sorry, but in the consuming selfishness of her love for Stowell she found a secret joy in the thought that suspicion was being diverted from the real culprit.

Victor was safe thus far. But what would he do himself? What was he now doing?

III

It was near to noon when Stowell awoke at Ballamoar. His bedroom (formerly his father's) faced to the south and flashes of sunshine from the chinks of the window curtains were crossing the bed on which he lay with his head on his arm.

It was a startling moment.

His long sleep had washed his brain as in a spiritual bath, and with the awakening of his body his conscience had awakened also. The events of the previous night rolled back on him like a flood, and now, for the first time, he saw what he had done.

To prevent the law from committing a crime he had committed a crime against the law! He, the Judge, sworn to uphold Justice, had deliberately betrayed it! Had anything so monstrous ever been heard of before?

After a while, through the deafening buzzing of his brain, he became aware of the droning sound of voices in the room below, and then of their sharp clack as the speakers (they were Janet and Joshua Scarff) stepped out of the house to the gravel path in front of it.

"No, don't waken his Honour, Miss Curphey. He hasn't been well lately, and sleep does no harm to anyone. Besides he'll hear the bad news soon enough."

"'Deed he will, Mr. Scarff."

"It will be a terrible shock to him--especially if my suspicions about a certain person prove to be justified. But that's the way, you see--one act of wrong-doing leads to another. Pity! Great pity!"

It was out! Stowell felt as if the bed under him were rocking from the first tremor of an earthquake.

Half-an-hour later he was at breakfast downstairs. For a long time, Janet was trying to break the news to him. At last it came. The young woman who was to have been executed that morning had escaped. Joshua Scarff had had it from the Inspector at Ramsey--it was being telegraphed all over the island.

For the sake of appearances Stowell made an exclamation of surprise, despising himself for doing so and feeling as if the toast in his mouth were choking him.

"It's impossible not to be glad," said Janet, "that the poor guilty creature has escaped the gallows, but Joshua thinks things are not likely to end there."

"And what does he say?...."

"He says she must have had an accomplice, and when the man is found out it will be the worse for both of them."

"And who .... who does Joshua think...."

"Alick Gell. It seems he put appearances against himself at the trial, poor boy!"

Instead of going to town that day, as he had intended to do, Stowell rambled through the trackless Curraghs. He was trying to be alone with the melancholy swish of the sally bushes and the mournful cry of the curlews. But his anxiety to know what was being done brought him back to the house. Hearing nothing there, he walked to the village for a copy of the insular newspaper. He found some excuse for speaking to everybody he met on the road--on other subjects, though, always on other subjects.

At the door of the little general store, with its mixed odour of many condiments coming out to him, he stopped and called,

"How's the rheumatism this morning, Auntie Kitty?"

"Aw, better, your Honour, a taste better to-day. But it's moral sorry I am to hear the bad newses you've had yourself, Sir. It's feeling it terrible you'll be, your Honour--you and the young man being the same as brothers. It will kill his mother--and her such a proud stomach. The woman couldn't see the sun for the boy, and she's been fighting the father all his life for him."

On his way back he met Cain, the constable, looking large and important.

"I'm sarching for them two runaways," he said, with his short asthmatical breathing, "and the Chief Constable is telling me I'll have to be finding them if they're lying like a toad under a stone."

Gell again! The report of the escape had passed over the island with the swift flight of a bird of prey--everywhere he could hear the flapping of its wings. And to the question of who could have assisted the young woman to escape from a place like Castle Rushen there was only one answer--Gell.

Towards nightfall Joshua Scarff called at Ballamoar on his way home from town. Things had turned out as he had expected--suspicion had fastened on Mr. Gell, and the Governor had ordered the police to scour the island for him.

"But everybody is sorry for your Honour. His friend! His bosom friend! Pity! Great pity!"

Gell! Always Gell! Again Stowell felt as if the earth were rocking beneath him. Where had his head been that he had not thought of this before--that in helping Alick Gell to go away with Bessie Collister he had put him into the position of the guilty man--guilty not only of the prison-breaking, but also of the earlier and uglier offence of being the girl's fellow-sinner?

He had thought he had buried his sin in the sea--had he only cast the burden of it upon Gell?

He recalled Alick's gratitude on going away, the undeserved praises which had cut to the heart, and then thought of Gell (far away in a foreign country) coming to hear of the evil name he had left behind.

What was Alick to think of him then? That what he had done had not been at the call of friendship, but of mere self-protection--to divert suspicion from himself, to remove the only witnesses against him, and thus to build his future life on the unprotected name of an innocent man?

"Must I let that lie run on without saying a word against it?"

And then Fenella! He had seen himself going to her and saying, "Now that the girl is no longer in prison the barrier between us is broken down." He had seen himself marrying her, and then rising higher and higher in the esteem of his people, with that brave woman by his side.

But now--what now?

Fenella would find him out! It was impossible that she could live long with a man who carried such a corroding secret without discovering it sooner or later. And when she had done so what would she think of him? A traitor to his friend and to the law! A Judge who had broken his oath! A wrong-doer, not a righter of the wronged, sitting in judgment upon others, yet himself a criminal! A man of honour to the outer world, a hypocrite in his own house; a pillar of the island in the eyes of his people, a liar in the eyes of his wife!

"No, God forbid it! I cannot let that lie run on. I cannot allow myself to be pilloried in life-long hypocrisy."

All the same he would wait to see what the Governor might do next. It was no good acting hastily.