From the pile of her letters one morning a month or so later, Lady O'Gara picked out one and eyed it with distaste. It looked mean. The envelope of flimsy paper was dirty. Some emanation came from the thing like a warning of evil: she laid it on one side, away from her honest respectable letters.
While she read through one or two of these the disreputable letter awaiting her attention worried her. It was something importunate, disagreeable, like a debased face thrust in at her door. With a sigh she turned to it, to get it out of the way before she opened Terry's letter, clean and dandyish, written on the delicate paper the Regiment affected.
She held the thing gingerly by the edge, and, going away from the table, she stood by the fire while she opened it. A smell of turf-smoke came out of it,—nothing worse than that. Perhaps, after all, it was only one of the many appeals for help which came to her pretty constantly.
"HONOURED MADAM,—This is from one who wishes you no harm, but onley good. There is a woman lives in the Waterfall Cottage your husband goes to see often. Such doins ought not to be Aloud.
"From your sinceer Well-Wisher,XXX."
If it had been a longer letter she would not have read it. It was so short and written so legibly that the whole disgraceful thing leaped at her in a single glance.
As though it had been a noxious reptile which had bitten her she flung it from her into the heart of the brightly burning fire of wood and turf. A little flame sprang up and it was gone, just as Sir Shawn came into the room.
They had the breakfast room to themselves now that there were no visitors, but Lady O'Gara hesitated to speak. She had no intention of keeping the matter of the anonymous letter from her husband, but she wanted to let him eat his breakfast in peace, and to talk later on, secure from possible interruptions.
She gave him scraps of news from her letters, and fromThe Timesof the preceding day, which reached them at their breakfast table. She felt disturbed and agitated, but only as one does who has received an insult. She would be better when she had told Shawn about the horrid thing.
Her restlessness, so unlike her usual benign placidity, at last attracted her husband's notice.
"Any disturbing news, Mary?" he asked.
"Nothing." Her hand hovered over Terry's letter. "Terry thinks he can get a few days' leave next week for the pheasants and bring a couple of brother-officers with him."
"H'm!" Sir Shawn said, a little grimly. "He hasn't been away very long. I suppose Eileen is coming back."
"She comes on Monday."
"I expect he knows it."
"Perhaps he does. Have you finished, Shawn? Another cup of tea? No?I want to talk to you, dear. Will you come out to the Robin's Seat.It is really a beautiful morning."
"Let me get my pipe."
Unsuspiciously he found his pipe and tobacco pouch and followed her. The Robin's Seat was a wooden seat below a little hooded arch, under a high wall over which had grown all manner of climbing wall-plants. The arbour and the seat were on the edge of a path which formed the uppermost of three terraces: below the lowest the country swept away to the bog. The wall, made to copy one in a famous Roman garden, was beautiful at all times of the year, with its strange clinging and climbing plants that flourished so well in this mild soft air. In Autumn it was particularly beautiful with its deep reds and golds and purples and bronzes. The Robin's Seat was a favourite resting-place of these two married lovers, who fed the robins that came strutting about their feet, and even perched on their knees, asking a crumb.
Despite the disturbance of her mind Lady O'Gara had not forgotten her feathered pensioners. She threw crumbs to them as she talked, and the robins picked them up and flirted their little heads and bodies daintily, turning a bright inquiring eye on her when the supply ceased.
"Well, Mary?"
"I hate to tell you, Shawn." She brushed away the last crumbs from her lap. "I did not tell you the truth when I said there was nothing disturbing among my letters."
"I knew there was something. We have not lived so long together for me not to know you through and through. And you are as open as the day."
"It was a horrid thing, a creeping, lying thing."
"An anonymous letter." His eyes fluttered nervously under the droop of the long lashes. "You should have put it in the fire, darling."
"I did. There was so little of it that unfortunately I saw it all at a glance. It is horrid to think that any one about here could do such a thing."
Suddenly she laughed. She had a peculiarly joyous laugh.
"They,—whoever wrote it—should have said something more likely to be believed. They said—I beg your pardon for telling you, Shawn—that you were visiting a lady at the Waterfall Cottage."
She was looking at him and suddenly she saw the shadows come in his face which had had the power to disturb her before: or she thought she did. The upper part of his face was in shadow from the balsam that dropped its trails like a fringe over the arch.
"You did not believe it, Mary?"
"What do you think? Would you believe such a story of me?"
"Don't!" he said, and there was something sharp, like a cry, in the protest. "No reptile would be base enough to spit at you."
They were alone together. Below them the terraces fell to the coloured bogs. A river winding through the bog showed as a darkly blue ribbon, reflecting the cloud of indigo which hung above the bog. Beyond was the Wood of the Echoes, the trees apparently with their feet in the water in which other trees showed inverted. Not a creature to see them, but the robins.
Suddenly he put his head down on her shoulder, with the air of a tired child.
"Your correspondent was not a liar, Mary," he said. "I have visited Mrs. Wade at Waterfall Cottage, at night too, and only not by stealth because I thought that Hercules' ghost—" he shivered a little—"would have kept spies and onlookers from that place."
Lady O'Gara shifted his head slightly with the greatest gentleness, so that she might caress him, stroking his hair with her fingers.
"Well, and why not?" she asked, with her air of gaiety.
"There never was such a wife as you, Mary," he said. "Go on stroking my hair. It draws the pain out."
"You have neuralgia?" she asked with quick alarm.
"No: it is a duller pain than that. It is a sort of congestion caused by keeping secrets from you."
"Secrets!" Her voice was quite unsuspicious. "You could not keep them long."
He sat up and looked at her, and she saw that there was pain in his eyes.
"I have been keeping secrets from you all our wedded life together,Mary."
She uttered a little sound of dismay—of grief. Then she said, with an assumption of an easy manner:
"And if you have, Shawn, well—they must be things I had no right to know. There are reticences I can respect. Other people's secrets might be involved…."
"That was it," he said eagerly. "There was another person's secret involved. I kept it back when it would have rested my heart to tell you."
"I shall not ask you to tell me now unless the time has come to tell.I can trust you, Shawn."
"The time may have come," he answered, drawing down her caressing hand to kiss it. "Another man might have told it to win you the more completely, Mary. He might have found justification for betraying his friend. I thought at one time you must have cared for Terence Comerford and not for me. It was the strangest thing in the world that you should have cared for me. Terence was so splendid, so big, so handsome and pleasant with every one. How could you have preferred me before him? And I knew he wasn't fit for you, Mary. I knew there was another girl,—yet I held my peace. It tortured me, to keep silence. And there was the other girl to be thought of. He owed reparation to the other girl. But his mother had her heart set on you for a daughter-in-law. I believe he would have done the right thing if he had lived,—in spite of all it would have meant to his mother. He had a good heart,—but—oh, my God!—he should not have lifted his eyes to you when there was that other poor girl!"
He spoke in a voice as though he were being tortured, and her caressing hand felt the cold sweat ooze out on his forehead. How sensitive he was! How he grieved for his friend after all those years!
"He did not really lift his eyes to me as you say," she said. "His mother wanted it. He never did. A woman is not deceived."
"But you cared for him—to some extent?" he asked jealously.
"I never cared for any man but one," she answered. "I used to think you would never ask me. Perhaps you never would have only that I came to you when you were so broken down after your illness; and you had not strength enough to resist me."
She finished with a certain pathetic gaiety. With all his deep love for her she had not brought him joyfulness. Many people had noticed it. Her own well-spring of Joy had never run dry. It had survived even his sadness, and had made the house bright for their one child, but there had been moments, hours, when she had felt oddly exhausted, as though she had to bear a double strain of living.
"You saved me from utter despair,—'an angel beautiful and bright.'That is what you seemed to me when you showed me your exquisite pity."
"Poor Terence!" she said softly. "Do you know, Shawn, I believe he was often on the edge of telling me his secret. Over and over again he began and was interrupted, or he drew back."
"Hardly, Mary. Men do not tell such things to the ladies of their family."
"Oh!" She coloured like a girl. "It was,—that. I thought it was … a lady … some one he knew in Dublin perhaps."
"It was a girl in Killesky. Her grandmother kept a little public-house. She looked like an old Gipsy-Queen, the grandmother. And the girl—the girl was like a dark rose. All the men in the county raved about her—the gentlemen, I mean. It was extraordinary how many roads led through Killesky. The girl was as modest as she was beautiful. Terence was mad about her. He knocked down a Connaught Ranger man who made a joke about her. That last leave—before he was killed—he was never out of the place. She had been at a convent school—the old woman had brought her up well—and she used to go on visits to school friends in Dublin. Terence told me he met her in Dublin when we were at the Royal Barracks. I implored him to let her alone, but he was angry and told me to mind my own business. That last time it was more serious. Poor little Bridyeen! I told him he ought to marry her. I think he knew it. It made him short-tempered with me. But … I hope … I hope…—" the strange anguish came back to his voice—"that he would have married her."
"I remember now," Lady O'Gara said. "I remember the girl. Aunt Grace thought very well of her; she told the old woman she ought not to have Bridyeen serving in the bar. She was a beautiful little creature, like a moss rosebud, such dark hair and the beautiful colour and the ardent look in her eyes. Old Mrs. Dowd answered Aunt Grace with a haughtiness equal to her own. Aunt Grace was very angry: she said the old woman was insolent. I did not learn exactly what Mrs. Dowd had said, but I gathered that she said she knew how to keep her girl as well as Aunt Grace did."
"I sometimes thought the old woman was ambitious," Sir Shawn went on, dreamily. "She used to watch Bridyeen while all those fellows were hanging about her and paying her compliments. I have sometimes thought she meant Bridyeen to marry a gentleman. Several were infatuated enough for that. The old woman was always about watching and listening. I don't think any of them was ever rude to the little girl. She was so innocent to look at. If any man had forgotten himself so far he would have had to answer to the others."
"What became of them—afterwards? Killesky seldom came in my path. I did not know that the picturesque old woman and the little granddaughter had gone till after we were married, when I drove that way and saw the garish new shop going up.
"It was like the old woman to carry off poor Bridyeen from all the scandal and the talk. You remember how ill I was. I thought that as soon as I was well enough I would go and see them—the old woman and the poor child. I would have done what I could. They were gone. No one knew what had become of them. They had gone away quietly and mysteriously. The little place was shut up one morning. You remember how pretty it was, the little thatched house behind its long garden. They had gone to America. Fortunately the people had not begun to talk."
"That poor little thing!" Lady O'Gara said softly. "She looked as shy as a fawn. I wonder what became of her."
"Don't you understand, Mary? She has come back. She is … Mrs. Wade."
"Oh! She married then? Of course you would want to be kind to her. I suppose she is a widow!"
"I don't think she married. I don't know what brings her back here, unless it is the desire to return which afflicts the Irish wherever they go. She has fixed herself in such a lonely spot. After all, she is my tenant. It is my business to see that she wants for nothing. I recognized her one night I came that way—when I was late and had to take that road. I saw her through the unshuttered window with a strong light on her face. I went back there in daylight and came upon her drawing water from the well. She was frightened at first, but afterwards she seemed glad to see me. She is very lonely. No one goes to see her but Mrs. Horridge,—a good creature—but Bridyeen is a natural lady. I must not go there again though she is a grey-haired woman older than her years—it was strange that I recognized her after twenty years; there are beasts who will talk."
"I shall come with you, Shawn," said Lady O'Gara. "That will be the best way to prevent their talking."
A friendship had sprung up between Mrs. Horridge and Mrs. Wade, as Sir Shawn had said—a curious friendship, not altogether equal, for Mrs. Wade had a certain amount of education and was curiously refined—America had not altered her even to the extent of affecting her speech; and that was a very exceptional thing, for the returned Americans usually came with a speech altered out of all recognition.
When Lady O'Gara came into the little sitting-room at the cottage, having knocked with her knuckles and obtained no answer, she found Susan Horridge there. Susan stood up, making a little dip, took the boy's garment she had been mending and went away, while Mrs. Wade received her visitor with a curious air of equality. It was not such an equality as she might have learnt in the United States. There was nothing assertive about it. It was quite unconscious.
She seemed profoundly agitated by Lady O'Gara's visit, her colour coming and going, her eyes dilated. She had put out a hand as Susan Horridge went away, almost as though she would have detained her by force.
"Please forgive my coming in like this," Lady O'Gara said. "I was knocking for some time, but you did not hear me. My husband, Sir Shawn O'Gara, has told me about his tenant, and I thought I would like to come and see you."
"Thank you very much, Lady O'Gara. I am sorry you had to wait at the door. Won't you sit down?"
"May I sit here? I don't like facing the light. My eyes are not over-strong."
"Dear me. They look so beautiful too."
The naïve compliment seemed to ease the strain in the situation. Lady O'Gara laughed. She had sometimes said that she laughed when she felt like to die with trouble. People had taken it for an exaggerated statement. What cause could Mary O'Gara have to feel like dying with trouble? Even though Shawn O'Gara was a melancholy gentleman, Mary seemed very well able to enjoy life.
"How kind of you!" she said merrily. "I might return the compliment.What a pretty place you have made of this!"
"I brought a few little things with me. I knew nothing was to be bought here. And the things I found here already were good."
"It is a damp place down here under the trees. Now that you have made it so pretty it would be hard to leave it. Else I should suggest another cottage. There is a nice dry one on the upper road."
"Oh! I shouldn't think of leaving this," Mrs. Wade said, nervously. Still her colour kept coming and going. America had not yellowed her as it usually had therevenants. Her dark skin was smooth and richly coloured: her eyes soft and still brilliant. Only the greying of her hair told that she was well on towards middle age.
"But it is very lonely. You are not nervous?"
"I like the loneliness."
"You should have a dog."
Her tongue had nearly slipped into saying that a dog was the kind of company that did not ask questions.
"I should have to exercise a dog."
A queer look of fear came into her eyes. Lady O'Gara could have imagined that she looked stealthily from one side to another.
"But you must go out sometimes," she said.
Again the look of fear cowered away from her. What was it that Mrs.Wade was afraid of?
"I was never one for walking," she said, lamely.
"You don't like to tear yourself from this pretty room?"
It was very pretty. The walls had been thickly whitewashed and the curtains at the window were of a deep rose-colour. A few cushions in the white chairs and sofa repeated the rose-colour. The room seemed to glow within the shadow of the many trees, overhanging too heavily outside.
"You have too many trees here," Lady O'Gara went on. "It must be pitchy towards nightfall. I shall ask my husband to cut down some of them."
She was wondering at her own way with this woman. Gentle and kindly as she was, she had approached the visit with something of shrinking, the unconscious, uncontrollable shrinking of the woman whose ways have always been honourable and tenderly guarded, from the woman who has slipped on the way, however pitiable and forgivable her fault. It is the feeling with which the nun, however much a lover of her kind, approaches the penitent committed to her care.
She suddenly realized that in this case she did not shrink. Whatever difference there might be between her and Mrs. Wade there was notthatdifference. They met as one honourable woman meets another. Lady O'Gara was glad that she had forgotten to shrink.
"Thank you very much," said Mrs. Wade. "It is kind of you to think of it. But—I like the trees. You are very kind, Lady O'Gara. About the dog,—if I had a little gentle one, who would stay with me while I gardened and not want too much exercise, I should like it."
"I believe I can get you such a one. My cousin, Mrs. Comerford, or rather her adopted daughter, has Poms. There is a little one, rather lame, in the last litter. His leg got hurt somehow. I am sure I can have him. You will be good to him."
Mrs. Wade had drawn back into the shadow. The one window lit the space across by the fireside to the door and the other portion of the room was rather dark. But Lady O'Gara had an idea that the woman's eyes leaped at her.
"I saw the young lady," she said. "She came to Mrs. Horridge's lodge one day I was there. She was so pretty, and the little dogs with her were jumping upon her. Little goldy-coloured dogs they were."
"Yes, that would be Stella. She loves her dogs: I know she would be so glad to give you one, because you would be good to it."
"Maybe she'd bring it to me one day? She's a pretty thing. It would be nice to see her in this house."
The voice was low, but there was something hurried and eager about it.Lady O'Gara imagined that she could see the heave of the woman's breast.
"Certainly. We shall bring the puppy together. I shall tell Stella."
A sudden misgiving came to her when she had said it. Perhaps she ought to be too careful of Stella to bring her into touch with a woman who had slipped from virtue, however innocently and pitiably. It was a scruple which might not have troubled her if Stella had been her own child. There was another thing. Would Grace Comerford, if she knew all, be willing that her adopted daughter should be friends with Mrs. Wade?
Again something leaped at her from the woman's eyes, something of a gratitude which took Lady O'Gara's breath away.
"It will be nice to have a little dog of my own," she said. "It will be great company in the house at night. A little dog like that would be almost like a child. And in the daytime he'd give me word if any one was coming."
Suddenly she seemed to have a new thought. She leant forward and said in the same agitated way:
"You wouldn't be bringing Mrs. Comerford?"
"No, no," said Lady O'Gara. "I shall not bring Mrs. Comerford."
"I knew her long ago. She was kind, but she was very proud," Mrs. Wade said, dropping back into the shadow from which she had emerged.
So it was of Mrs. Comerford she was afraid! What was it? Conscience? Did she think Terence Comerford's mother could have heard anything in that far away time?
"I shall not bring Mrs. Comerford," she said. "Stella is much with me at Castle Talbot."
Again she wondered why she had said "Stella." It would have been "MissStella" to another woman of Mrs. Wade's class.
"Might I be making you a cup of tea, Lady O'Gara?" Mrs. Wade asked with a curiously brightening face. "I had put on the kettle in the kitchen for Mrs. Horridge. It will be boiling by this time."
Lady O'Gara was about to refuse. Then she changed her mind. A refusal might hurt Mrs. Wade. Beyond that she had a sudden curiosity,—her husband had often said that she had a touch of thegamin—as to how Mrs. Wade would give her tea. Would she sit down with her in the equality of an afternoon call? There was a little twitch at the corners of her lips as she answered that she would like tea. Sir Shawn was away shooting wild duck, and she would be alone at tea if she went home.
While she waited, still with that half-delighted feeling of curiosity, she went and stood before the old-fashioned bookcase which contained Mrs. Wade's library. Very good, she said to herself. There were odd volumes of Thackeray and Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell and Charlotte Brontë. Her dimples came and were reflected as she turned about in the convex glass, with an eagle atop, over the fireplace. Outside a couple of stone eagles perched on the low roof, after the fashion of a bygone day. Far away in the silvery distance of the convex mirror a miniature Lady O'Gara dimpled.
She was remembering a pretentious lady who had called on her a few days earlier—the wife of a newly rich man who had taken Ardnavalley, a place in the neighbourhood, for the shooting. Sir Robert Smith, the multi-millionaire, was very simple. Not so Lady Smith, who had remarked that Bront was always readable.
There were also a few volumes of poetry, not very exacting,—Tennyson,Adelaide Procter, Longfellow, and some Irish books—"The Spirit of theNation," "Lady Wilde's Poems," Davis, Moore: a few devotional books.
Ah well, it was very good—gentle and innocent reading. And there was Mrs. Wade's prayer-book—The Key of Heaven,—on a small table, the "Imitation of Christ" beside it. By these lay one or two oddly bound books in garish colourings, Lady O'Gara opened one. She saw it was in French—an innocuous French romance suitable for the reading of convent-school girls.
Mechanically she looked at the flyleaf. It bore an inscription; Miss Bride Sweeney, Enfant de Marie, had received this book for proficiency in Italian, some twenty-two years earlier at St. Mary's Convent.
She held the book in her hand when Mrs. Wade appeared, carrying a little tray of unpainted wood, on which was set out a tea for one person, all very dainty, from the small china cup and saucer on its white damask napkin to the thinly cut bread and butter.
Lady O'Gara had been thinking that if Mrs. Wade did not wish to be identified with Bride Sweeney, she should not leave her school-prizes about.
"Ah, you are looking at that old book," Mrs. Wade said, setting down her little tray, while she spread a tea-cloth on the table. "They are very dull stories. Even a convent-school girl could not extract much from them. I'm sorry it's so plain a tea. If I'd known your Ladyship was coming I'd have had some cakes made."
"This home-made bread is delicious," Lady O'Gara said. "But, won't you have some tea too?"
"No, thank you. I am not one for tea at every hour of the day like Mrs. Horridge. I take my tea when you are taking your dinner. You wouldn't like a boiled egg now? I've one little hen laying."
Her voice was coaxing. Now that Lady O'Gara could see the face in full light she thought it an innocent and gentle face. The eyes still looked upward with a kind of passion in their depths. She remembered her husband's epithet,—"ardent." It well described Mrs. Wade's eyes. Just now the ardour was for herself. She wondered why.
"Thank you so very much," she said sweetly. "I don't think I could eat an egg, though. Your tea is delicious."
"The cream is from your own Kerries. Mrs. Horridge arranged it for me that I could get the milk from your dairy. It would make any tea good. She brings me the milk twice daily, or her little lad does."
"Susan seldom ventures out, I think," Lady O'Gara said, while she sipped her tea. "I am glad you get her beyond her own gate."
"She's a scared creature. She dreads the road. Mr. Kenny gets her all she wants from the village. She comes to me across the Mount. She doesn't mind that way even in the dark, though the people about here wouldn't take it on any account. Perhaps she doesn't know the stories. Perhaps, like myself, she thinks a ghost is better company than humans sometimes."
"Ah; you are not afraid of ghosts!"
"If I was," Mrs. Wade's eyes suddenly filled with tears,—"would I be settled here? It's not thinking of the Admiral's ghost I'd be. Maybe there's some you'd welcome back from the grave, if you loved them well enough. I can't imagine any one not wanting the dead back, if so be that you loved them."
Her voice died off in a wail, and suddenly it came to Lady O'Gara that just outside, where the water fell over the weir, Terence Comerford had met with his death.
"No," she said softly, "I cannot imagine any one being afraid of the dear dead."
As she said it she remembered the shadows about her husband's face and her heart was cold.
It was only later that she wondered if Mrs. Wade had chosen that lonely spot to return to because there Terence Comerford's handsome head had lain in its blood. It occurred to her at the same time that not one word had passed between them which could indicate that she knew anything of Mrs. Wade beyond that she had been a dweller in these parts long before she had come to be a tenant of Sir Shawn O'Gara at the Waterfall Cottage.
A curious thing that there should be there side by side, thrown into an odd companionship, two women who had reason to be afraid and had chosen these lonely places to hide. Poor Susan! The reason for her hiding was obvious. With Mrs. Wade it was another matter. Why need she have come back if she so dreaded her past? Or was it the memory of Terence Comerford that drew her, the thought of the old tragedy and the old passion?
Castle Talbot took on new lightness and brightness when Terry came home. His mother said fondly that it was like the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty where life hung in suspense between his goings and comings. The mere presence of this one young man seemed to put all the servants on their mettle. The cook sent up such meals as she did not at any other time. "Sure Sir Shawn and her Ladyship never minded what they would be atin," she said. The gardener, a gruff old cynic usually, gave his best grapes and peaches for "Master Terry"; even the small sewing maid who sat in a slip of a room at a remote corner of the house, mending the house-linen under the supervision of the housekeeper, was known to have said that though she neversawMaster Terry shefelthe was there.
The dogs were aware of his coming before he came. They had their own intuitions of the joyful expectancy in the house and what it meant. Shot would take to lying in the hall, with one wistful eye fixed on the open hall door, while Lady O'Gara's two Poms became quite hysterical, rushing out when there was no one at all or some one they were well accustomed to, assailing them with foolish shrieks.
"It is all right when Terence is coming home," Lady O'Gara said, smiling. "I can forgive Chloë and Cupid for yapping. It is when he is gone and they rush out at every sound that I find it unbearable."
"You will kill the fatted calf for Terry," Sir Shawn grumbled, "as though he had been a year away. The youngster does nothing but amuse himself. When I was his age we got in some hard work at soldiering."
"Every generation says the same of the one that comes after it," Lady O'Gara rejoined. "Terry loves his work, though he manages to enjoy himself."
"Too much of a golden youth," grumbled his father. "You spoil the boy, Mary!" But his eyes were glad all the time, and the grumbling was only a pretence.
"You'll see what the golden boys are capable of if the war they are always talking about comes in our time," Lady O'Gara said, and a swift shadow passed over her face. "I hope there will be no more wars, even to vindicate them. I suffered enough in those years of the South African War when you were out and Terry and I were alone."
Eileen arrived a few hours earlier than Terry. She clapped her hands to her ears when she arrived, and the Poms broke out into shrill chorus. Shot, who began already to be very dim-sighted, came to the door to see what the clamour was about, and with the most indifferent movement of his tail returned to his place on the rug before the fire.
"Little beasts!" said Eileen, poking viciously at the Poms with her umbrella. "I don't know how you endure them, Cousin Mary; I can hardly tell which is the worst, Chloë or Cupid."
Eileen had never liked the dogs any more than she liked the horses. She was fond of cats and had a favourite smoke-blue Persian, between whom and the Poms there was an armed neutrality. The cat's name was Cleopatra, and she deserved it. Her green eyes shone like emeralds when she curled boa-fashion about her mistress's white neck and looked down at the Poms.
Lady O'Gara had come out on the steps to meet Eileen and had kissed her on each cold satin cheek, making a tender fuss about removing her wraps. Her coldnesses were easily dispelled.
"Come right in, darling, and have some tea," she said fondly. "Why, you are perished! It is very cold. We shall have a frost to-night. And how are all at home?"
"Oh, much the same as usual. Mother has rheumatism. Dad is grumbling over his large and expensive family and the bad year it has been for everything. It is always a bad year with farmers, isn't it? The house is tight-packed, as usual. They always have visitors. Iwasglad to escape to this delicious roominess. They are all outrageously well and hungry, as Dad says. And some of them will love to come after Christmas, if you canreallyhave them. Theymustbe at home for Christmas, they say. I am sure some of them could well be spared."
A momentary vision passed before Lady O'Gara's inner eyes. It was of Mrs. Anthony Creagh and the quiverful, three boys and five girls then, to be increased later. Mrs. Anthony sat in her armchair, one child on her lap, a second with its face buried in her trailing, somewhat shabby silk skirt, two others peeping from behind her chair. The boys were at a table with books open before them. Eileen, aged eight, and already the beauty of the family, stood by her mother's knee, eating an apple.
"Cousin Mary wants one of my little girls to go home with her," Mrs. Creagh had said, rather tearfully. She was an incurably motherly person, whose heart expanded with the quiver—"She wants one of my little girls to play with her Terry. Who will go?"
The boys had looked indifferent. The child whose face was buried in her mother's skirts seemed to burrow a little further in, while the two standing behind the chair disappeared. The baby on its mother's knee only gurgled cheerfully, as though at the best joke in the world.
Then Eileen had laid down her half-eaten apple, and turning, had thrust her moist little hand into Lady O'Gara's, warm from her muff. Dear friendly thing! Lady O'Gara had brought her back in triumph to Castle Talbot, feeling that she could never do enough to make up to the child for forsaking for her that long family, happy and happy-go-lucky. Eileen had become conventional in her growing-up, not much like the others, who frolicked like puppies and grew up pretty well at their own sweet will.
"I told Mother she should not fill the house with visitors in addition to her long family, if Dad had had a bad year," said Eileen, putting off her furs in the hall. "She said that what people ate never counted. Isn't it just like Mother? What a jolly fire, darling Cousin Mary! And how sweet to see you again!"
She took up Lady O'Gara's hand and kissed it. She had done the same thing that evening long ago when she had come for the first time to Castle Talbot, and had snuggled against Lady O'Gara in the brougham, warming her heart, which was chilly because in a very short time Terry was to go off to his preparatory school for Eton. It was his father's will and she had not grumbled, but she had often felt in her own heart that she had had very little of Terry since he was eight years old.
"Come and eat something," she said, leading the girl into the drawing-room, where the lamps had been lit and the tea-table drawn near the fire. "I told Cook to send up an extra good tea, knowing you would be cold and hungry after your journey."
"How delicious!" Miss Creagh said, lifting off one cover after another. "I haven't had a decent tea since I went away. We are such a hungry family, to say nothing of the visitors."
"Terry will be here in time for dinner," Lady O'Gara said, her eyes joyful. "So put on your best bib-and-tucker. We don't get many occasions to wear our finery. I shall wear my Limerick lace and emeralds."
"And Terry won't see them because he will be thinking only of yourself," Eileen said, devouring sandwiches and hot cakes. For a girl of her slender delicacy she had a very good appetite and usually indulged it, although there were moments when she tried to hold it in check, having detected, as she said, a tendency toembonpoint.
"I can really afford to be greedy, Cousin Mary," she said, with a laughing apology. "I've beenstarvedat Inver. How thestacksof food went! They have such healthy appetites. Icouldn'teat potato-cakes, soaked in butter, nor doorsteps as the boys called them, of bread and jam and honey. Fearfully fattening food."
"You remind me of when you came to me and started to grow out of your clothes with such alarming rapidity. When your white satin, long-waisted frock grew too small for you, you said, for you did not like giving it up, 'I can really get into it if I hold myself in likethis. And anyhow I've given up pudding!'"
"Ah, that was the worst of me," said Eileen mournfully. "I could never continue long doing without pudding."
She came down to dinner wearing a pale green frock with a prim fichu of chiffon and lace. Terry had already arrived and was in the drawing-room, standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire.
"Hullo, Eileen!" he shouted, "How stunning you look! You grow prettier every day!"
The compliment was too brotherly in its easy candour to please her altogether: but she knew very well she was "stunning." She could see herself in a long old-fashioned mirror on the wall. Her hair was like gold floss. There was no sign of the embonpoint she feared in the slender grace of her figure. The pearls about her neck became her mightily, as did the green ribbon, the same shade as her dress, snooded in her hair.
She lifted her eyes to the boy's frank gaze in a way which she had usually found very effective. She had been able to do anything with Terry when she looked at him like that, and she had tried the same allurement on others than Terry.
"You're only just back," he went on. "Jolly nice of you to come for me. The mater must have missed you."
"They insist on my presence at Inver now and again. I don't know why.It is very unreasonable of them!"
She put out a satin slipper and stirred Shot with it.
"The only drawback to this dear house," she said, "is that there are dogs everywhere."
Shot growled in his sleep. Perhaps she had not touched him in quite the right way. She withdrew her foot in alarm, more alarm that she felt, and turned eyes of a child-like fear upon Terry. "Oh! Shot is cross," she said innocently. The man in Terry answered. He bent towards her as though drawn irresistibly.
There was a flutter of feminine garments in the doorway of the room. Some one looked in and withdrew. Sir Shawn, coming down the stairs, did not notice the small figure by the fire in the hall, fast fading to ashes, the centre of a circle of adoring dogs, who had withdrawn themselves from Miss Creagh's unfriendliness.
He went on to the drawing-room door. He too was attracted by the tableau. Nothing could have been prettier than the boy's bold advance, the girl's withdrawal. They were too engrossed in each other, or appeared to be, to notice his face in the doorway.
With a deep sigh, as of relief, he turned away. Then he caught sight of the pink blob by the fireplace in the hall. Stella was down on her knees feeding the dying fire with sods of turf. Her rose geranium frock made what the children call a "cheese" about her. Her golden brown head was charming against the audacious colour of her frock. The dogs had taken advantage of her position to press about her. Now and again she pushed off Cupid, who was the bold one, with the sod of turf in her hand.
Sir Shawn felt particularly kind towards the girl.
"Hullo, Stella," he said: "I didn't know you had come."
"Some little time ago," she replied. "Grannie is with Lady O'Gara. Do you mind my making up the fire?"
"Not a bit." His heart was light within him, almost to the extent of taking Stella into his confidence. Discreet little thing! She, too, had surprised the pretty picture in the drawing-room, and had withdrawn, leaving the lovers to themselves.
"The lovers." He said the words over to himself, mouthing them as though they were sweet. He had been unnecessarily alarmed. Things were arranging themselves beautifully. He believed in early marriages. The happiness of the youngsters would keep him young. He would get away from his shadows. After a while Terry must come home and settle down somewhere near. A few years of soldiering in these piping times of peace were as much as the boy need do.
So his mind ran on into the happy future while he sat on the arm of one of the red-leather chairs and beamed at Stella, who had always been rather alarmed of Sir Shawn, and came out now as prettily as a flower in the warm sun.
He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eight. Dinner-time. A pity the youngsters had not more time to settle their pretty affair. He began to think of what gift he would give Eileen. His mother's pearl cross—large pearls seten cabochon. Mary had so many things. She would not grudge that to Terry's wife.
There were Mary and Grace Comerford coming down the staircase, talking as though they did not see each other constantly. How well Mary looked in the brown silk! It brought out the dear shades of red in her hair and eyes.
He went over and joined the two ladies.
"Onlyjustin time!" he said, in rather a loud voice, as he opened the drawing-room door.
He intended it as a warning, but it was apparently not necessary. Terry was sitting in a chair at one side of the fireplace with Shot's head on his knee. Miss Creagh, a cloud on her face, was in the opposite chair, caressing Cleopatra. Sir Shawn's heart sank. Had they been quarrelling, silly children? He began to tremble for his dream.
"Cleopatra scratched Shot's nose," said Terry, holding up the liver-coloured nose for inspection. "See, it has bled. Eileen will have it that it was Shot's fault. Of course it was not. Shot is so gentle."
He stood up to meet the ladies and, swift as an arrow from the bow, he went to Stella's side.
Poor Sir Shawn! Poor gentleman! The fabric of his rosy dreams had faded to ashes. He looked almost piteously towards Eileen: and, unreasonably, was angry with her because with that sullenness of expression her beauty had departed: she was almost plain. Under his breath he damned Cleopatra.
Somehow or other Lady O'Gara found it difficult to get Stella to herself in the days that followed. There were times when she almost thought that Stella deliberately kept away. Sir Shawn had often said, rallying his wife, that Mary never saw further than her own nose. She was a little bewildered about the young people. Terry and Eileen seemed to have quarrelled. Eileen found occupations that kept her in her own room. She had suddenly developed a desire to make herself a coat and skirt, and Lady O'Gara had gone in many times, to find her pinning and fitting on the lay-figure which occupied the centre of the room, surrounded by all manner of snippets and pieces.
This ridiculous pre-occupation of Eileen's gave Lady O'Gara something she did not complain of. She had more of her son than otherwise she would have had. Terry had never looked for better companionship than his mother's, but he grumbled about Eileen nevertheless.
"She used to be always ready to come anywhere," he said. "I know I can't always have you, because Father needs you so much. We have always torn you in pieces between the two of us. I asked Eileen to come out shooting on the bog with me and she wouldn't. She just opened her door and I saw a horrid thing, an indecent thing that pretended to look like a woman's body, taking up the middle of her room."
"It's for fitting dresses on, you ridiculous boy!" Lady O'Gara said laughing.
"It gave me a shock. A horrid, stuffed thing. I shall not be able to look at Eileen again without seeing that. Why does she want to make her dresses? Can't your maid do it? Industry in Eileen is quite a new thing. Not that she's half as good a companion on the bog as you are, darling. I've always had to carry her over the pools. She said she couldn't jump."
Lady O'Gara's face at this frankness was a study.
"She's so helpless. Not like a country girl, at all. You remember that day with the bull. She left Stella to be gored by the bull and expected to be admired for it."
There was certainly a change in Terry's attitude towards Eileen. Lady O'Gara sighed, because of what she knew was in her husband's mind rather than for any disappointment in herself. Eileen was not her ideal wife for Terry.
"Eileen will go with you all right," she said. They were standing in front of the house on the gravel-sweep. "I've just told her she was injuring her complexion by staying indoors. She has gone to put on her hat. I did not like to tell her that Margaret McKeon lamented to me that Eileen was cutting out that beautiful Foxford tweed so badly. We'll go and rout out Stella. She has not been over here for five days."
Terry's face lit up.
"I don't know why Stella's out with me," he said. "She is always hiding behind your skirts or Mrs. Comerford's when I am about and want to talk to her."
His mother looked at him, with the yearning tenderness of the woman who would give all the world to her beloved man if she only might.
"You like Stella?"
"Yes: she's a little darling. Don't you?"
"I am very fond of Stella. Perhaps … she thinks … You like Eileen very much?"
After all, if her boy wanted Stella, why should even his father's preferences prevail? She had surprised a glance in Stella's eyes when they rested on Terry for a brief moment before they quickly veiled themselves. The child had something Southern in her. So, for the matter of that, had Terry. She was fond of Eileen, but, simple as she was, she had not had Eileen with her pretty constantly for many years without being aware of a certain shallowness in the girl. The blood under the fair skin ran thinly, coldly.
His face lit up with such a light that she was alarmed at what she had done. What would Shawn say if he knew? But, after all, Shawn had married where he loved. Why should not the boy have the same felicity? Stella had been pushing her small soft way into Mary O'Gara's heart. She knew now that Eileen could never have been the little daughter she wanted.
"You think she would mind that?" His eyes leaped at her.
She felt like one who had burnt her boats. She would not look before or behind. Shawn was wrong, she said vehemently to herself. Eileen was not the girl for Terry.
"I will tell you a secret, Terry," she said. "The first evening you came back, in the drawing-room before dinner, there was something that might have passed for a love-scene between you and Eileen. Your father opened the door and withdrew. Then he discovered that Stella had come downstairs before him and was playing with the dogs in the hall by the dying fire. He supposed that she had surprised that scene before he did."
Oh, poor Shawn! What a use she was making of his confidence! But men never knew about their sons as mothers did. She would give anything, except her own soul, to procure Terry the joy he desired. And it was a good joy. She loved Stella. Of course, she would be very good to Eileen, but she did not want Eileen for a daughter-in-law. Shawn did not look very deeply. He had hardly considered Eileen except as something pretty and gentle, who was pleasant in the house and sang him Moore's Melodies of evenings in a small sweet voice. He missed her when she returned to her own people.
"I was an idiot for a second," the boy said, shamefacedly. "I don't suppose you understand, Mother, but men are like that. Eileen can be very alluring when she likes and…"
"Don't tell me any more. I can imagine," Lady O'Gara said and laughed, a laugh which had a certain shyness in it.
"Then we fell out over the cat and dog," he said. "Eileen was rather rude. Perhaps I was a little rough with Cleopatra, but she had scratched Shot's nose. You know what Shot is! It was an entirely unprovoked attack. I believe I did say that Cleopatra should be sent to the Cats' Home."
Eileen appeared at this point, coming with an unwilling air. It was true that her staying within-doors so much had not improved her looks. She had not a very good circulation at any time. That, or her mood, had given her rose and white a dull, leaden look. Her discontented little face was lifted towards the dappled sky. It was really a beautiful day of Autumn. There was a little wind, and the last yellow leaves on the branches tinkled like so many small golden cymbals. A pale gold sun was going low amid oceans of amber touched with rose, and above dappled clouds were floating as though the day was February.
"It is so cold," said Eileen, and shivered. "I don't see how Margaret can get on without fitting me. She had made up such a nice fire in my room. I cannot see why any one wants to go out in such weather."
"Oh, come along, you little grumbler!" Lady O'Gara said with her infectious gaiety. "Come for a good trot. I know what will happen to you: you'll get chilblains if you sit by the fire in cold weather. Your hands will be dreadful to look at, and your feet will be a torture."
Eileen looked down at her feet and then at her hands, childishly. She had very pretty feet and hands.
"They are all right so far," she said.
"You and Terry had better race each other to the bridge," Lady O'Gara said. "I want to see the colour in your face, child."
"Come along," said Terry, and caught at Eileen's hand. Half-unwillingly she ran with him, but when Lady O'Gara caught up with them, Eileen was laughing and panting.
"This wretched son of yours," she said, "has run me off my feet."
"And you look the better for it," Lady O'Gara answered, her brown eyes merry and her cheeks dimpling like a girl's. "We are going for Stella, to bring her back to tea. She has not been near us for some days."
"Oh!" Eileen had gone back to the chilly voice. "She doesn't want to come. She finds us rather dull, I think."
Lady O'Gara laughed.
"I don't believe any one could find us dull," she said merrily, "least of all Stella."
"Oh well, I suppose I'm not telling the truth," Eileen said huffily. "All I know is she asked me the last time I saw her if Terry ever brought any of his brother-officers home with him."
Terry's candid face clouded over ever so slightly; while his mother remarked that, of course, three was an awkward number for games. They wanted another man. She believed she had been talking about it.
"You might ask Major Evelyn," she said to Terry. "It is still possible to have golf when there is fine weather."
"I wonder if he would come?" Terry said ingenuously. "Think of a second-lieutenant like me asking a swell like Evelyn! Why, his decorations make a perfect breastplate when he chooses to put them on. Not that it is a matter of choice. He only does it when he can't help it. He did so splendidly in South Africa."
"I dare say he'd condescend to come," Lady O'Gara said. "Few sportsmen can resist the Castle Talbot duck-shooting."
"Do ask him," said Eileen, becoming animated. "Two's company, three's none. Everything is lop-sided without a second man."
"I'll ask him, of course," Terry said. "But I don't suppose he'll come. It is like a kid in the Lower School asking a prefect to tea. He may come—for the grub. On the other hand he may give the kid a kicking for his impudence."
After all, they had not to go as far as Inch. They met Stella exercising her dogs about half a mile from her own gates. She would like to come to tea if she might first take the dogs home and leave word as to where she had gone.
To Lady O'Gara's mind she looked small and unhappy as soon as the flush had faded which came when she saw them. She clung to Lady O'Gara, and could not be detached from her. The dogs, surrounding her, made a barrier between her and Terry, who, at first, kept as close to her as he could, leaving Eileen to walk the other side of Lady O'Gara.
But Stella did not seem to have much to say to him. She was too engrossed with the dogs and with his mother to spare him a word. The eager light which had come to his eyes when he had first caught sight of her faded. His candid face was overcast. She had been keeping him at arms-length ever since he had come back.
His mother watched him with a comprehension which was half tender amusement, half compassion. He was becoming a little sullen over Stella's persistent disregard of him. She watched the set boyish mouth, the pucker of his forehead—her baby. Terry had always had that pucker for perplexity or disappointment. Why, he had had it when the first down was on his baby head, as soft as a duckling's.
The road grew narrow. He began to lag behind, to veer towards Eileen.
"Is it worth while for us all to go on to Inch?" he asked in his discontented young voice. "Supposing Eileen and I go on by the river, while you and Stella take back the dogs! They wouldn't follow me or I'd offer to go home with them. It must be nearly a mile to the house from the gate."
"I've a better way than that," Lady O'Gara said on a sudden impulse. She had taken Stella's cold little hand in hers, and it made a mute appeal. She was sure Stella was unhappy, poor little motherless child. The two poor children, fretting and worrying each other about nothing at all! Her comprehending, merry, pitiful gaze went from one to the other young face.
"Suppose Eileen and I walk back. You'll overtake us before we get home. You two are such quick walkers."
Eileen's lips opened as though to protest. Her face had brightened atTerry's suggestion. She closed them again in a tight snap.
"I nevercansee the good of walking about wet roads," she said crossly. "It must be nice to live in a town, where there are dry pavements, and people, and shops."
A robin rained out his little song from a bough above her head, and behind the trees the sky broke up into magnificence—the sun looking from under a great dun cloud suffused with his rays, while all below him was a cool greenish bluish wash of sky, tender and delicate.
"You would not find that in a city, Eileen," Lady O'Gara said, pushing away gently Stella's cold little hand that seemed to cling to hers.
"Make her trot, Terry," she said. "Her hands are cold as little frogs, like the child's hands in Herrick's 'Grace for a Child.'
"Cold as paddocks though they be,Still I lift them up to theeFor a benison to fallOn our meat and on us all."
She saw the sudden rush of joy to her son's face and she was a little lonely. She felt that she was no longer first with Terry.
Sir Shawn was still out when they got back, after a brisk walk. The laggard young people made no appearance for tea, though they waited a while. Eileen grumbled discontentedly over everything being cold and suggested a carelessness in Stella about other people's convenience. The tea-cakes had been kept warm over a spirit-lamp, but she was in a captious mood. Lady O'Gara wondered at the girl, who had sometimes been embarrassingly effusive in the display of her affection. Had she spoilt Eileen? or was the girl feeling sore and a little out of it?
The suggestion that Eileen might be feeling Terry's desertion of her was enough to soften his mother's heart towards the captious girl, who as soon as she had finished her tea,—and a very good tea she made—went off to see how Margaret McKeon was progressing with her skirt.
At the door she turned about.
"Do you think I might have a new evening frock, Cousin Mary?" she asked. "My pink has gone out of fashion. There are such beautiful blues in some patterns I have got from Liberty's: I could make it myself, with Margaret's help. It would only need a little lace to trim it, or some of that pearl trimming Liberty's use so much."
"Certainly, my dear child. Let me know what it will cost. I have a piece of Carrickmacross lace somewhere which would make a fichu. You must remind me, Eileen. We live so quietly here that I do not remember how the fashions change."
"I've hardly noticed, either," said Eileen, with a hand on the door handle. "The pink does very well for home-wear. But if Terry is going to have friends, I should want something a little smarter."
Lady O'Gara smiled. So Eileen was interested in the coming of Major Evelyn! And she had made so good a tea that any one less ethereal-looking than Eileen might have been considered greedy! She had left very little of the abundant tea to be removed.
"We'll have a turning-out one of these days," she said. "I noticed your wardrobe was very full the other day when I was in your-room. We can send off what you don't want to Inver, and I shall add a few lengths of that Liberty silk. Brigid and Nora are so clever with that little sewing machine I gave them last Christmas that they'll turn out something very pretty for themselves."
"They've no occasion for pretty things," said Eileen. "There never was any young man there but Robin Gillespie, the doctor's son. He is in India in the R.A.M.C. Brigid liked him, I think, but he was not thinking of Brigid."
Then she closed the door on her departing footsteps, leaving LadyO'Gara to her thoughts.
She put the consideration of Eileen from her a little impatiently. She was afraid Eileen was selfish. She did not seem to have any desire to share her good things with her family, not even with her mother, yet Mrs. Creagh was a very sweet mother; Mrs. Comerford who had a cynical way sometimes had remarked one day when Eileen had been very caressing with Lady O'Gara: "If your mother is like what I remember her you need not go further for some one to love."
It was the day on which Lady O'Gara had given Eileen her necklet of amethysts and seed-pearls—a beautiful antique thing, of no great intrinsic value beyond its workmanship.
It suddenly came to her that, for a good while past, she had got into a way of propitiating Eileen with gifts. It had not occurred to her exactly as propitiation, but she had learnt that when Eileen was out of sorts the gift of some pretty thing worked wonders. Had she been spoiling the girl? Was she herself responsible for the whims and fancies which Eileen took so often nowadays? In the old days it had not been so. Eileen had been sweet-tempered and placidly selfish. There was a change in her of late. It was quite unlike the old Eileen to go away and leave her sitting alone in the drawing-room with only two watchful Poms, each with a bright eye upon her from their respective chairs, and Shot stretched at her feet, to keep her company.
She acquitted herself. Love and generosity ought not to spoil any one: they ought to lift up, to awake their like. Was Eileen in love with Terry and resenting his desertion? No; she said emphatically in her thoughts. She would have known if Eileen cared. If it had beenthatshe could have been very tolerant.
Her thoughts went back to the first beginnings of difficulty with Eileen, and she fixed them at the date of her return from her visit home during the preceding summer. The fatted calf had been killed for the girl's return. Lady O'Gara remembered how she had anticipated it, and had thought of what Eileen liked, the special food and sweets, and so on. She had kept Margaret McKeon busy with the new chintz curtains and cushions for Miss Eileen's room, and when it was all finished had fussed about doing one little thing and another till the privileged maid had been moved to protest.
"Hasn't Miss Eileen had everything she wanted from the lucky day for her that she came here? Don't be robbin' yourself, m'lady."
Lady O'Gara had taken some of her own pretty things, a crystal clock, a silver and tortoiseshell box for the toilet table—things Eileen particularly admired—and had added them to the other pretty things, her gifts, of which the room had many. She had brought an armful of her dearest books: and she had insisted on pink roses because Eileen particularly liked pink.
After all Eileen had been cold when she came. It had been like a douch of cold water. She had not recovered her sweet placidity since that time. Lady O'Gara had commented on the change to her husband, but he had not seen it. He was fond of Eileen, in a superficial way. Indeed his devotion to and absorption in his wife were such that almost all other affection in him must be superficial by contrast. To two people his love had been given passionately, to Terence Comerford and to his wife. He never spoke of the dead friend. It was a well-understood thing in the circle that Terence Comerford was not to be spoken of carelessly, when Sir Shawn was within hearing.
Sitting alone in the firelight, except for the adoring dogs, Lady O'Gara let her thoughts wander on away from Eileen. How deep and passionate was Shawn's love when it was given. He had shrunk from that first meeting with Mrs. Comerford after all those years. He had turned pale when she had taken his hand in hers, looking at him with a long gaze that asked pardon for her past unreason and remembered that he and her dead son had been dearer than brothers. After all those years that touch with the past had opened the floodgates of grief in Shawn O'Gara. Only his wife knew the anguish, the disturbed nights and the weary days that followed. Grief in him was like a sharp physical suffering.
Dear Shawn! How glad she was that she was so strong and healthy and had such good spirits always, so as to be able to cheer and comfort him. She smiled to herself, remembering how some of her friends had pitied her because she must always be uplifting his mood. She had never wearied nor found it an irksome effort. A serious sad thought came to her; when the hour of the inevitable parting came she prayed it might be her lot to be left desolate rather than his.
She looked at her little watch, a delicate French thing, with a tiny painted picture on the back framed within pearls ending in a true-lovers'-knot, one of Shawn's many gifts. Six o'clock. It was time Shawn was home. She was very glad he had not ridden Mustapha, as he had wanted to. Patsy Kenny had dissuaded him. Terry must have stayed on at Inch for tea. It had been a cold bright day, and it must be turning to frost, for the fire was burning so redly. The cold was on the floor too, for the little dogs had left their baskets and taken to the chairs, a thing supposed to be strictly forbidden, although as a matter of fact Chloë and Cupid were always cheerfully disobedient. She wished Shawn was home. He had gone up the mountains to a shooting-lodge, where was a party of men gathered to shoot red deer. He had been out overnight and he would be very tired when he came home after a long drive on an outside car. Well, after all, it was better than Mustapha. Patsy's unwillingness to see Sir Shawn go out on Mustapha had infected her, little nervous as she was where horse-flesh was concerned.
She comforted herself. It was not like those dreadful days when there had been trouble with the tenants, and she had sat in this very room, listening in anguish for the sound of the horse's hoofs coming fast. Terry had been away at his preparatory school then. She had never told any one her terrors. Perhaps some of the servants had guessed them. She remembered the night of the Big Wind, when Shawn had been out, and the house had shaken in the first onslaught of the hurricane, before he came.
There was a butler's pantry close to the drawing-room door which had always an open window. She had often stolen in there in the dark to listen for the sound of the mare's trot. Fatima had been Shawn's favourite mount in those days, and no one could mistake the sound of her delicate feet in the distance. There, with her ear to the night, Mary O'Gara had listened and listened, her heart thumping so fast sometimes that she could not be sure if she heard the horse's hoofs. Only, as she used to say joyously afterwards, there was really no mistaking Fatima's trot when shewascoming.
Once, Rafferty, the old butler, who was dead now, had opened the pantry door suddenly, and had all but let the tray of Waterford glass he was carrying fall, for the fright she had given him.
She remembered how on that night of the Big Wind, when her terror was at its worst. Patsy Kenny had asked to see her about something or other; how she had gone into the office to talk to him; how he had talked gently about Fatima, how sure-footed she was and how wise, and how little likely to be frightened as long as she was carrying her master. He had wandered off into simple homely talk, about the supply of turf, how the fair had gone, the price the people were getting for their beasts; now and again leaving off to say, when the moan of the wind came and the house shook: "Glory be to God, it's goin' to be a wild night, so it is!" Or "That was a smart little clap o' win'. It's a great blessin' to be on dry land to-night."
Patsy's way with the dumb beasts was well known; and Lady O'Gara had said afterwards, when she had her husband warm and dry by the fire, and she too happy, being relieved of her terrors, to mind the storm which had not yet reached anything like its height, that Patsy had soothed her as though she were a nervous horse.
Shawn had been younger and stronger then. He had laughed at her fears and had insisted on making a night of it, keeping a roaring fire and lamplight all through the terrifying din, while the servants in the kitchen said their Rosary and prayed for the night to be over. Sometime in the wild late dawn, when the wind was subsiding, Shawn had made her go to bed, saying he would follow. But he had not come for a long time, and she had dropped asleep and wakened to his weary face beside her bed, and to hear him saying that, thank God, they had got out the horses, although the stables were all but in ruins.
As she thought over these things the fulness of her love for her husband swept her heart like a Springtide. It was sweet yet poignant, for she had the pity beyond all telling in her love for Shawn. Suddenly she began to be a little in dread because she had been going against what she knew were his wishes. Would he mind very much if Terry's choice were Stella and not Eileen? She hoped he would not—at first. Later on, when he knew little Stella better, with her soft appealing ways, he would be glad. Eileen would never be such a dear little daughter. Stella had not those ardent eyes for nothing.