"She took his money, you say, Jenny?"
"Indeed she did, Nelly, and is living on it now."
"And then turned him out of doors?"
"Well, so to speak, she made it impossible for him to live with her."
"What a cat she must be!" said Mrs. Quiggin.
"She must," said Jenny. "And, would you believe it, though she has treated him so shamefully yet he loves her still."
"Why do you think so, Jenny," said Mrs. Quiggin.
"Because," said Jenny, "though he is always sober when I see him I suspect that he is drinking himself to death. He said as much."
"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Quiggin. "But men should not take these things so much to heart. Such women are not worth it."
"No, are they?" said Jenny.
"They have hardly a right to live," said Mrs. Quiggin.
"No, have they?" said Jenny.
"There should be a law to put down nagging wives the same as biting dogs," said Mrs. Quiggin.
"Yes, shouldn"t there?" said Jenny.
"Once on a time men took their wives like their horses on trial for a year and a day, and really with some women there would be something to say for the old custom."
"Yes, wouldn"t there?" said Jenny.
"The woman who is nothing of herself apart from her husband, and has no claim to his consideration, except on the score of his love, and yet uses him only to abuse him, and takes his very "money, having none of her own, and still----"
"Did I say she took his money, Nelly?" said Jenny. "Well of course--not to be unfair--some men are such generous fools, you know--he may have given it to her."
"No matter; taken or given, she has got it, I suppose, and is living on it now."
"Oh, yes, certainly, that"s very sure," said Jenny; "but then she"s his wife, you see, and naturally her maintenance----"
"Maintenance!" cried Mrs. Quig-gin. "How many children has she got?"
"None," said Jenny. "At least I haven"t heard of any."
"Then she ought to be ashamed of herself for thinking of such a thing."
"I quite agree with you, Nelly," said Jenny.
"If I were a man," said Mrs. Quiggin, "and my wife turned me out of doors----"
"Did I say that, Nelly? Well not exactly that--no, not turned him out of doors exactly, Nelly."
"It"s all one, Jenny. If a woman behaves so that her husband can not live with her what is she doing but turning him out of doors?"
"But, Nelly!" cried Jenny, rising suddenly. "What about Captain Davy?"
Then there was a blank silence. Mrs. Quiggin had been borne along on the torrent of her indignation, brooking no objection, and sweeping down every obstacle, until brought up sharply by Jenny"s question--like a river that flows fastest and makes most noise where the bowlders in its course are biggest, but breaks itself at last against the brant sides of some impa.s.sable rock. She drew her breath in one silent spasm, turned from feverish red to deadly pale, quivered about the mouth, twitched about the eyelids, rose stiffly on her half-rigid limbs, and then fell on Jenny with loud and hot reproaches.
"How dare you, Jenny Crow?" she cried.
"Dare what, my dear?" said Jenny.
"Say that I"ve turned my husband out of doors, and that I"ve taken his money, and that I am a cat and shrew, and a nagger, and that there ought to be a law to put me down."
"My dear Nelly," said Jenny, "it was yourself that said so. I was speaking of the wife of the Manx sailor."
"Yes, but you were thinking of me," said Mrs. Quiggin.
"I was thinking of her," said Jenny.
"You were thinking of me as well," said Mrs. Quiggin.
"I tell you that I was only thinking of her," said Jenny.
"You were thinking of me, Jenny Crow--you know you were; and you meant that I was as bad as she was. But circ.u.mstances alter cases, and my case is different. My husband is turning _me_ out of doors: and, as for his money, I didn"t ask for it and I don"t want it. I"ll go back home to-morrow morning. I will--indeed, I will. I"ll bear this torment no longer."
So saying, with many gasps and gulps, breaking at last into a burst of weeping, she covered her face with both hands and flounced out of the room. Jenny watched her go, then listened to the sobs that came from the other side of the door, and said beneath her breath, "Let her cry, poor girl. The crying has to be done by somebody, and it might as well be she. Crying is good for a woman sometimes, but when a man cries it hurts so much."
Half an hour later, as Jenny was leaving the room for dinner, she heard Mrs. Quiggin telling Peggy Quine to ask at the office for her bill, and to order a carriage to be ready at the door for her at eleven o"clock in the morning.
When the first burst of her vexation was spent Mrs. Quiggin made a secret and startling discovery. The man whom Jenny Crow had stumbled upon, first on the Head and afterward on the Laxey coach, could be no one in the world but her own husband. A certain shadowy suspicion of this had floated hazily before her mind at the beginning, but she had dismissed the idea and forgotten it. Now she felt so sure of it that it was beyond contempt of question. So the Manx sailor in whom Jenny had found so much to admire--the simple, brave, manly, generous, natural soul, all fresh air and by rights all sunshine--was no other than Capt"n Davy Quiggin! That thought brought the hot blood tingling to Mrs.
Quiggin"s cheeks with sensations of exquisite delight, and never before had her husband seemed so fine in her own eyes as now, when she saw him so n.o.ble in the eyes of another. But close behind this delicious reflection, like the green blight at the back of the apple blossom, lay a withering and cankering thought. The Manx sailor"s wife--she who had so behaved that it was impossible for him to live with her--she who was a cat, a shrew, a nagger, a thankless wretch, a piece of human flint, a creature that should be put down by the law as it puts down biting dogs--she whose whole selfish body was not worth the tip of his little finger--was no one else than herself!
Then came another burst of weeping, but this time the tears were of shame, not of vexation, and they washed away every remaining evil humor and left the vision clear. She had been in the wrong, she was judged out of her own mouth; but she had no intention of fitting on the cap of the unknown woman. Why should she? Jenny did not know who the woman was--that was as plain as a pickle. Then where was the good of confessing?
CHAPTER VI.
While Jenny Crow was doing her easy duty at Castle Mona, Lovibond was engaged in a task of yet more simplicity at Fort Ann. On returning from Laxey he found Captain Davey occupied with Willie Quarrie in preparations for a farewell supper to be given that night to the cronies who had helped him to spend his fortune. These worthies had deserted his company since Lovibond had begun to take all the winnings, including some of their own earlier ones; and hence the necessity to invite them.
"There"s ould Billy, the carrier--ask him," Davy was saying, as he lay stretched on the sofa, puffing whorls of gray smoke from a pipe of thick twist. "And then there"s Kerruish, the churchwarden, and Kewley, the crier, and Hugh Corlett, the blacksmith, and Tommy Tubman, the brewer, and Willie Qualtrough, that keeps the lodging-house contagious, and the fat man that bosses the Sick and Indignant society, and the long, lanky shanks that is the headpiece of the Friendly and Malevolent a.s.sociation--got them all down, boy?"
"They"re all through there in my head already, Capt"n," groaned Willie Quarrie in despair, as he struggled at the table to keep pace with his slow pen to Davy"s impetuous tongue.
"Then ask whosomever you plaze, boy," said Davy. "What"s it saying in the ould Book: "Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in." Only it"s the back-courts and the public-houses this time, and you"ll be wanting no grappling hooks to fetch them. Just whip a whisky bottle under your arm, and they"ll be asking for no other invitation.
Reminds me, sir," he added, looking up as Lovibond entered, "reminds me of little Jimmy Quayle"s aisy way of fetching poor Hughie Collister from the bottom of Ramsey harbor. Himself and Hughie were same as brothers--that thick--and they"d been middling hard on the drink together, and one night Hughie, going home to Andreas, tumbled over the bridge by the sandy road and got hisself washed away and drowned. So the boys fetched grapplings and went out immadient to drag for the body, but Jimmy took another notion. He rigged up a tremenjous long pole, like your mawther"s clothes" prop on washing day and tied a string to the top of it, and baited the end of the string with an empty bottle of Ould Tom, and then sat hisself down on the end of the jetty, same as a man that"s going fishing. "Lord-a-ma.s.sy, Jemmy," says the boys, looking up out of the boat; "whatever in the name of goodness are you doing there?"
"They"re telling me," says Jemmy, bobbing the gin-bottle up and down constant, flip-a-flop, flip-a-flop atop of the water; "they"re telling me," says he, "that poor ould Hughie is down yonder, and I"m thinking there isn"t nothing in the island that"ll fetch him up quicker till this.""
"But what is going on here, Capt"n?" said Lovibond, with an inclination of his head toward the table where Willie Quarrie was still laboring with his invitations.