"Oh, the poor boy!" said Lady O'Gara again, with the soft illogicality that her lovers loved in her. "But, Stella, love, you cannot stay here. Think how people would talk. Come home with me. You can wait just as well at Castle Talbot. Every day you shall come and see if she has returned. It would be better, of course, for you to go back to Inch…"
"But Granny will lock me in my room. I cannot go to Castle Talbot, forSir Shawn would look coldly at me and I should not like that."
Lady O'Gara was suddenly decided. "You cannot stay here, Stella," she said. "It is quite out of the question."
In her own mind was a whirl of doubt and fear. Who was going to tell Stella? Who was going to tell her? Apparently Stella suspected no worse than that she was peasant-born. She had not yet arrived at the point of asking for her father. At any moment she might ask. What was any one to answer?
"Come with me, dear child," she said. "My husband comes homedead-tired these hunting days, has some food and stumbles off to bed.I am all alone. We can have the days together. I will write to yourGranny that you are paying me a visit. Let us lock up here."
Some one paused in the road outside the window to look in, leaning impudently on the green paling. It was a ragged tramp bearded like the pard.
As he shuffled on his way Lady O'Gara said with a rather nervous laugh.
"There, Stella! You see the impossibility of your being here alone. I wonder where that creature came from! We don't get many of his sort here. Think of the night in this place! We could not possibly allow it. Mrs. Wade is sure to come back. She would not have gone away leaving all her things here. Was the door open when you came to it?"
"It was locked. I found the key where she used to put it if she went out. She sometimes walked over there across the Mount, where the people do not walk because they are afraid of the O'Hart ghosts. I thought I would wait for her till she came back."
"Let us lock up and put the key where she left it. She is sure to return. The place does not look as if she were not coming back."
"Everything is in order," said Stella, a light of hope coming to her face. "I have been in her bedroom. The lamp is burning on her altar. There is a purse lying on her bed with money in it."
"She will come back," said Lady O'Gara.
There was a sound of carriage wheels which made two pairs of eyes turn towards the window.
"It is Granny," said Stella, drawing back into the shade of the window curtains. "And she is very angry. She is sitting up so straight and tall. When she is like that I am afraid of her. Is she coming here?"
"Do not be afraid; I will stay with you," said Lady O'Gara.
The carriage re-passed the window, going slowly and without its occupant. Almost immediately came the sound of the knocker on the little hall-door.
Lady O'Gara met Mrs. Comerford in the hall. Despite the shadows of all the greenery outside flung through the fanlight across the White Horse of Hanover, which stands in so many Irish fanlights, she could see that the lady was in one of the towering rages she remembered and had dreaded in her youth. Looking at her, with a stammering apology on her lips, she had a wandering memory of the day at Inch long ago when Terry had broken a reproduction of the Portland Vase. He had been a big boy of sixteen then and he had flatly refused to meet his mother, going away and layingperduin a stable loft for two or three days till she had forgotten her anger in her fear for him.
"Stella is here, I suppose," said the icy voice. That suggestion of holding herself in check, which accompanied Mrs. Comerford's worst anger, had been a terrifying thing in Mary Creagh's experience of her.
"I believe it is you I have to thank for introducing her to her mother. What a fool I was to have come back. I thought that shame was covered up long ago. What a mother for Stella!"
She spoke with a fierce scorn. She had not troubled to lower her voice.
Lady O'Gara lifted her hand in a warning gesture, glancing fearfully back over her shoulder. But the angry woman did not heed her.
"Have you told her what her mother is, whatsheis?" she demanded furiously. "Did you understand what you were doing, Mary O'Gara? It was your husband who told me Bride Sweeney had come back, who urged me to get Stella away. I was mad ever to have come home."
"Hush, hush!" said Lady O'Gara, wringing her hands and whispering."Stella is in there; she will hear you…"
"Perhaps I mean her to hear me. She shall know what sort of woman it is who has crept back here to disgrace her and me and to ruin her life."
There came out into the hall a little figure gliding like a ghost,Stella, her eyes wide and piteous, her pretty colour blanched.
"My mother is a good woman," she said, facing Mrs. Comerford. "You must never say a word against her. I would follow her through the world. I have had more happiness with her in those stolen meetings than you could ever give me."
A pale shaft of Winter sunshine stole through the low hall window, filtered through red dead leaves that gave it the colour of a dying sunset. It fell on Stella's hair, bringing out its bronzes. She had the warm bronze hair of her father's people. It came to Lady O'Gara suddenly that she and Stella had much the same colouring. In Terence Comerford it had been ruddier. Why, any one might have known that Stella was a Comerford by that colour; not the child of some dark Frenchman.
"You stand up to me better than your father ever did," said Mrs. Comerford in white and gasping fury. Had she no pity, Mary O'Gara asked herself; and remembered that Grace Comerford's anger was sheer madness while it lasted. She had always known it. She had a memory of how she and Terence had tried to screen each other when they were children together.
"You dare to tell me that your shameful mother is more to you than I am!" the enraged woman went on. "It shows the class you have sprung from. I took you out of the gutter. I should have left you there."
"Oh, hush! hush!" cried Lady O'Gara in deep distress. "You do not know what you are saying, Grace. For Heaven's sake, be silent."
Mrs. Comerford pushed her away with a force that hurt. A terrible thing about her anger was that while she said appalling things her voice had hardly lifted.
Stella looked at her in a bewildered way. "I do not understand," she said. "You always told me my father was a gentleman. You said little about my mother. What have you against my mother except that she was a poor governess?"
"All that was fiction," said Grace Comerford, with a terrible laugh. "Very poor fiction. I often wondered that any one believed it. Your father was my son, Terence Comerford. He disgraced himself." She was as white as a sheet by this time. "Your mother was the granddaughter of the woman who kept the public-house in Killesky."
"Then I am your granddaughter?"
"In nature, not in law. My son did not marry your mother."
Stella groped in the air with her hands. They were taken and pressed against Mary O'Gara's heart. Mary O'Gara's arms drew the stricken child close to her.
"Go," she said to the pale, evil-looking woman, in whom she hardly recognized Mrs. Comerford—"Go!—and ask God to forgive you and deliver you from your wicked temper. It has blighted your own life as well as your son's and your granddaughter's. Go!"
Mrs. Comerford put her hand to her throat. Her face darkened. She seemed as if she were going to fall. Then she controlled herself as by a mighty effort, turned and went out of the house. The bang of the hall-door as she went shook the little house. A second or two later her carriage passed the window, she sitting upright in it, her curious stateliness of demeanour unaltered.
Mary O'Gara did not look through the window to see her go. Her eyes were blind with tears as she bent over the child who was the innocent victim of others.
All her life afterwards she could never forget the anguish of poor Stella, who was like a thing demented. She could remember the objects that met her eyes as she held the two hot trembling hands to her with one hand while the other stroked Stella's ruffled hair. She felt as though she were holding the girl back by main force from the borderland beyond which lay total darkness. She could remember afterwards just the look of things—the Autumn leaves and berries in the blue jars on the chimney-piece; the convex glass leaning forward with its outspread eagle, mirroring her and Stella; Shot lying on his side on the hearthrug, now and again heaving a deep sigh. How pretty the room was, she kept thinking! What a quiet background for this human tragedy.
She knew that her heart was gabbling prayers for help, eagerly, insistently, while her lips only said over and over: "Hush, Stella! Be still, darling child!" and such tender foolish phrases.
At last the heart-broken crying was over. The girl was exhausted. Now and again a quiver passed through her where she sat with her face turned away from Lady O'Gara—but the terrible weeping was done.
"Come," Lady O'Gara said, at last. "We must find some water to bathe your face, you poor child. You are coming back with me to Castle Talbot. You are mine now. I shall not give you up again."
Stella shook her head; she stooped and kissed Lady O'Gara's hand as though she asked pardon. The swift dipping gesture like a bird's was too painful, recalling as it did the bright Stella of yesterday. Her hair was roughened like the feathers of a sick bird. Lady O'Gara, her hand passing softly over it, had felt the roughness with a pang.
"I am not yours, dear Lady O'Gara," she said. "I am no one's but my mother's. I am not going to Castle Talbot. I shall stay here for the present. If she does not come back I will go to look for her. All that other life is done with."
With a gesture of her little hands she put away all that had been hers till to-day, including Terry. His mother's heart began to ache anew with the thought of Terry. What would he say when he knew that Stella knew? Poor boy, he had a very gentle and faithful heart. Oh, what a tangle it all was, what a coil of things!
"But you can't stay here, darling child," she said tenderly. "How can you stay in this lonely little house by yourself? I will take you away somewhere where you do not know people, if you think that would be better. There are griefs that are more easily borne under the eyes of strangers. Let me see! There is a convent I know where you could be quiet for a little time, and I could trust the Reverend Mother—Mary Benedicta is her name; she is a cousin of mine and a dear friend—to be as loving to you as myself."
"She would be my … father's cousin," said Stella; and a shudder ran through her. Then she said piteously:
"I never thought of my father as wicked."
Oh, poor Terence! How was she going to explain to the child to whom he had done this hideous wrong? Was it any use saying that Terence had always been good-natured? She remembered oddly after many years a day when he had turned away from the glazing eyes of a wood-pigeon he had shot. What use to tell such things to his daughter, whose life was laid in ruins by that sin of his youth? Those tragical eyes would confute her in the midst of her excuses. She could not yet make any plea for forgiveness for the dead man.
"Mother Mary Benedicta would be gentle with you," she said, "if you will not come to Castle Talbot. But, dear, no one need know. You shall take Eileen's place with me. You shall be my little daughter."
Her loving heart was running away with her. Shawn would never forgive her if she brought Stella to Castle Talbot, to which Terry might return at any time. Mary Benedicta would know how to tend the wounded spirit, if poor little Stella would but consent.
"It is getting late," said Stella, breaking in on the confusion of her thoughts. Her voice, which seemed drained of tears, was suddenly composed. "You will be late for lunch."
"And you, Stella, what aboutyourlunch?"
She could have cried out on the futility of this talk of lunches.
Stella shook her head.
"There is food here if I want it. My mother had taken to storing dainty food for me, since I have been so much with her, as though her food was not good enough for me. I shall not starve, Lady O'Gara."
"Stella, I tell you it is impossible for you to stay here alone."
Lady O'Gara spoke almost sharply. She had a foreboding that Stella's will would be too strong for her.
"She will come back. She has left everything behind; even her purse with money in it. She must find me here when she comes home. We can go away together."
Lady O'Gara looked at the little face in despair. It was so set that it was not easy to recognize the soft Stella who had crept into all their hearts. Even Shawn had felt her charm though he had locked the door of his heart against her. A thought came to Lady O'Gara's mind. Stella's remaining at the cottage for the present would at least give time. Prudence whispered to her that she must not bring Stella to Castle Talbot. She might have felt equal to opposing Shawn, but, perhaps, she was relieved by the chance of escape. Shawn was not well—those dark shadows were more and more noticeable in his face. Other people had begun to see them and to ask her if Sir Shawn was not well. Presently Stella might be more amenable to reason, and go to Mother Mary Benedicta at St. Scholastua's Abbey. Benedicta was like her name. She, if any one, could salve the poor child's wound. She was as tolerant as she was tender, and she had been fond of Terence Comerford in the old days. No fear that she would be shocked at the story, as some women—cloistered or otherwise—might have been! Benedicta was perfect, Mary O'Gara said to herself and heaved a sigh of relief because there was Benedicta to turn to.
She felt tired out with her emotions, almost too tired to think. Suddenly she had a happy inspiration. She and Stella should eat together. The girl looked worn out. If she left her she was tolerably sure Stella would not think of food.
"No one will be alarmed if I do not come back for lunch," she said. "I often do not trouble about lunch when I am alone. They will expect me in for tea. Sir Shawn will not be home till late. Do you think you could give me some food, Stella?"
"Oh, yes, it will be a pleasure," Stella said, getting up with an air of anxious politeness. "I am sure there are eggs. You will not mind eggs for lunch, with tea and bread and butter. I am afraid the kitchen fire may be out—but the turf keeps a spark so long. It is alight when you think it is out."
She took the poker and stirred the grey fire to a blaze, then put on turf, building it as she had seen others do in the narrow grate.
"There are hearths in Connaught on which the fire has not gone out for fifty years," said Lady O'Gara, watching the shower of sparks that rose and fell as Stella struck the black sods with the poker.
Neither of them ate very much when the meal was prepared, though Stella drank the tea almost greedily. She had begun to look a little furtively at Lady O'Gara before the meal was finished as though she wished her to be gone. It hurt Mary O'Gara's kind heart; though she understood that the girl was aching for solitude. But how was she going to leave her in this haunted place alone—a child like her—in such terrible trouble?
Suddenly she found a solution of her difficulties. It would serve for the moment, if Stella would but consent.
"Would you have Mrs. Horridge to stay with you?" she asked. "You know you cannot stay here quite alone. She is a gentle creature, and very unobtrusive. I shall feel happy about you if she is here."
To her immense relief Stella consented readily.
"She has been very good to my mother," she said; "and they are both victims of men's cruelty."
Lady O'Gara, who was looking at Stella at the moment, noticed that her eyes fell on something outside the window and a quick shudder passed through the slight body. She went to Stella's side and saw only a heap of stones for road-mending. They must have been newly flung down there, for she did not remember to have seen them when last she passed this way.
Was it possible that Stella knew? That her eyes saw another heap of stones, and upon them a dead man lying, his blood turning the sharp stones red?
The sun was low, almost out of sight, as Lady O'Gara climbed up the hill from Waterfall Cottage to her own South lodge. Through the bars of the gate she caught a glimpse of a red ball going low, criss-crossed with the bare branches of the trees. The air nipped. There was going to be frost. Before she left she had seen the lamps lit at Waterfall Cottage and bidden Stella lock herself in and only open to a voice she knew.
She had delayed, washing up the tea-cups with Stella, trying to distract the girl from her grief to the natural simple things of life: and all the time she had felt that Stella longed for her to be gone.
She had narrowly escaped being caught in the dusk—without the flashlight Terry had given her, which she usually carried when she went out these short afternoons. Was she growing as stupid as the villagers? She had glanced nervously at the heap of stones as she passed them by where the water made a loud roaring noise hurrying over the weir. She had to remind herself that it was not really dark but only dusk, and that she had never been afraid of the dark. Rather she had loved the kind night, the mantle with which God covers His restless earth that she may sleep. As she went up the hill she thought uneasily of the tramp who had passed the window of Waterfall Cottage a few hours earlier. The shambling figure had a menace for her. She could not keep from glancing over her shoulder and was glad to come to her own gate.
She called through the bars and Patsy Kenny came to open for her. Seeing him she sighed. More complications. Her mind was too weary to tackle the matter of Patsy's unfortunate attachment to Susan Horridge. Not that she doubted Patsy. She had a queer confidence that Patsy would not hurt the woman he loved. People would talk, were talking in all probability. What a world it was! What a world!
Of late Patsy had refrained from visiting the South lodge so far as she knew. Sir Shawn had said to her only a day or two before that Patsy had taken up the fiddle again—Patsy was a great fiddler—that he could hear him playing his old tunes night after night. There had been an interval during which the fiddle had been silent. She thought that, with the simple craft of his class, Patsy might have played the fiddle to let possible gossips know that he was at home in the solitude which in the old times before Susan came he had never seemed to find solitary.
"Is that you, m'lady?" said Patsy. "The dark was near comin' up wid ye. I'd like if you'd the time you'd come in and see Susan. She's frightened like in herself an' she won't listen to rayson."
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Lady O'Gara, turning towards the lodge, while Patsy re-padlocked the gate. She did not wait for his answer, which was slow of coming. Patsy was always deliberate.
In the quiet and cheerful interior of the lodge she found a terrified Susan. Michael lay on the hearth-rug before a bright fire, Georgie sat by the white, well-scrubbed table, his cheek on his hand, the lamplight on his pale fine hair, watching his mother anxiously; the lesson book on top of a pile of others, was plainly forgotten.
Susan seemed desperately frightened. She got out the reason why at last, with some help from Patsy Kenny. She shook as she told the tale. She had been washing, outside the lodge, earlier in the day, fortunately out of view of the gate, when some one had shaken it and cursed at finding it locked. Susan had seen his hand, a coarse hairy hand, thrust through the gate in an attempt to force the lock. The man, whoever he was, had gone on his way, seeing the futility of trying to enter by the strongly padlocked gate. Susan had locked herself in the lodge till Georgie had come home from school, when the two of them had fled to Patsy Kenny for protection.
"The poor girl will have it that Baker has come back," said Patsy, scratching his head. "She says she knew his voice an' the wicked-looking hand of him. If it was to be him itself—but I had the Master's word for it he had gone to America—he wouldn't know she was here. I keep on tellin' her that, but she won't listen."
Lady O'Gara had a passing wonder about Shawn's having known that Susan's husband was gone to America—she had not associated the person who had saved Shawn from accident at Ashbridge Park with Susan's graceless husband.
"He might find out by asking questions," said Susan. "He's only got to ask. There's many a one to tell him."
"I was goin' to your Ladyship," said Patsy. "The two frightened things can't be left their lone in this little place. The heart would jump out of her. Can't I see it flutterin' there in her side like a bird caught in your hand."
"I came to ask Susan if she would go down to Waterfall Cottage to look after Miss Stella Comerford, who is there alone."
Lady O'Gara's eyes fluttered nervously. She was aware of the strangeness of the thing she said, and she felt shy about the effect of it on her listeners. She hastened to make some kind of explanation.
"Miss Stella has had a disagreement with Mrs. Comerford and will not return to her—for the present. She wishes to stay at Waterfall Cottage, but, of course, she cannot stay alone."
"The poor young lady," said Susan, looking up; she added hopefully: "Baker would never look for me there. The people would think I was gone away out of this place. Few pass Waterfall Cottage, and we could keep the gate locked."
"Where at all is Mrs. Wade gone to?" asked Patsy; not seeming to find it strange that Miss Stella should be at Waterfall Cottage.
"Could Georgie be very wise and silent?" asked Lady O'Gara.
Georgie flushed under her look and sent her a worshipping glance.
"Georgie would be silent enough if it was likely his father would find us," said Susan. "Not but what he's quiet by nature. Baker used to say that Georgie would run into a mouse-hole from him. Not that I let him knock my Georgie about. I told him if he laid a hand on Georgie I'd do him a mischief, and he believed me. He knocked me about after that."
"God help the two o' ye," said Patsy with sharp anguish in his voice."If I was to see the rascal I couldn't keep my hands off him."
"He might doyoua harm. The hands of him are dangerous strong. He used to say he'd choked a man once. It isn't likely I wouldn't know the wicked hands of him when I saw them."
"I'd take my chance," said Patsy with a baleful light in his eyes. "The one time I seen him I was mad to kill him. I never felt the like before for any man. 'Twas like a dog I seen when the Master an' me was in South Africay. He'd found a nest of vipers, and I never seen anything like the rage o' that dog whin he wint tearin' them to tatters. I felt the same way with that blackguard that owns you, Susan, my girl."
Patsy was pale, and in the lamplight little drops of perspiration showed on his forehead and about his lips.
"Very probably the man who frightened Susan was not her husband at all," Lady O'Gara put in. "But in the remote case of its being Baker, Susan will be better away for the present. She can have Georgie with her, or perhaps he could stay with you, Patsy?"
"I'd like to have Georgie with me, if he didn't mind keepin' to the house in the daytime," said Patsy with a fatherly look at the boy. "He'd have the run o' the books, what he's always cravin' for."
"Georgie can go to Mr. Penny's," said Susan. "He'll be safe there an' my mind'll be easy about him."
"I'll leave you then, Susan, to put out the fire here and lock the door," Lady O'Gara said. "Be as quick as you can. I don't like to think of Miss Stella in that lonely place. Here is the key of the gate. I locked it when I came through. Miss Stella will let you in when you knock. Patsy will take you down there. You won't be afraid with him?"
"Not with Mr. Kenny, m'lady," said Susan with a flattering fervour.
Lady O'Gara went on her way, refusing the offer of Georgie as an escort. She was quite safe with Shot, she said; adding that she was not at all a nervous person. She was a bit puzzled now about her panic coming up the dark road, under the trees, from Waterfall Cottage to the South lodge.
She stepped out briskly. It was nearly a mile from the South lodge to the house. The darkness increased as she went. She was quite pleased to see the light shining from the window of the room Sir Shawn called his office, through the bay trees and laurestinus and Portugal laurels which lay between her and it. She was glad Shawn was at home. She had forgotten for once to ask Patsy if the Master was at home. After all the years of their life together her heart always lifted for Shawn's coming home before the dark night settled down upon the world.
She had only to tap on the French window and he would open it and let her in, as he had done so many times before.
She took the path by the side of the house, between the ivied wall and the shrubbery.
As she approached the window Shot uttered a low growl. At the same moment she became aware that her husband was not alone. Some one had crossed between the light and the window. For a second a huge shadow was flung across the gravel path almost at her feet.
With a sigh she went back again, entering by the hall-door way. She was sorry Shawn had one of his troublesome visitors. She wanted so much to talk to him, to tell him of all the trouble about Stella. She felt chilled that he was not ready to listen to her when she needed to talk to him so much.
"Sir Shawn has returned, m'lady," said Reilly, the new butler, the possessor of a flat large face with side whiskers which always made her want to laugh. Reilly's manners, she had said, would befit a ducal household, and it had been no surprise to her to learn that he had lived with an old gentleman who had a Duke for a grandfather, and that a part of his duties had been to recite family prayers, understudying his master.
"Yes," she said, "has he had tea, Reilly?"
"No, m'lady. He did not wish for tea."
"He has a visitor? Has this person been long with him?"
"I don't know, m'lady. No one came in this way. I went a while ago to see if the fire was burning, and I found the door locked, m'lady, I concluded Sir Shawn did not wish to be disturbed."
"Sir Shawn's visitors on business come in by the window that opens on the lawn. The handle of the office door is rather stiff. I don't think it could have been locked."
She went on down the passage to the office door. She heard voices the other side of the door. Sir Shawn was speaking in a fatigued voice. She had hardly ever known him to speak angrily. She listened for a second or two. The other voice answered; it was thick and coarse: she could not hear what was said. She went back to the drawing-room, where a little later Sir Shawn joined her.
Even when they were alone she always dressed in her most beautiful garments for her husband's eyes. To-night she had chosen a pink satin dress, close-fitting and trailing heavily, with her garnets.
She was sitting by the fire when Sir Shawn came in and his eyes lighted as they fell upon her.
"You look like your own daughter, Mary," he said, "only so much more beautiful than the girl I married. What a wonderful colour your gown is! It makes you like a beautiful open rose."
She laughed. His compliments were never stale to her.
"Where were you when I came in?" he asked. "'I looked in your chamber, 'twas lonely?'"
She evaded the question for a moment. "I made an attempt to enter by your window as I came back, but you had a visitor."
He was standing with his back to the fire, looking down at her, and she saw the ominous shadows come in the hollows of his cheeks.
"A troublesome visitor, Mary," he said. "When I come to you you exorcise all my troubles. You are the angel before whom the blue devils flee away."
She did not ask him further about his visitor. So many of them were troublesome. She often wondered at Shawn's patience with the people. The family quarrels over land were apt to be the worst of all: but there were other things hardly less disagreeable.
"Poor Shawn!" she said tenderly. "Sit down by me and let me smoothe that line out of your forehead! It threatens to become permanent."
She stooped, half playfully, to him as he sat down beside her leaning his head back against a cushion, and touched his forehead with her finger-tips gently.
"Go on doing that, Mary," he said. "It seems to smoothe a tangle out of my brain. I cannot tell you how restful it is. I saw Terry off—and the others. The boy looked rather down in the mouth. What have you been doing all day?"
It was a quiet hour. She had dressed early on purpose to have this hour. No one had business in the room till the dressing bell rang. She had learnt by long use to watch his moods. She knew her own power over him, to soothe, to assuage. The moment was propitious. So she told him the tale of the day's happenings, in a quiet easy flow, now and again patting his hand or stroking his forehead with her delicate finger-tips.
"Good Lord, what a kettle of fish!" he groaned when she had finished. "And you take it so easily, Mary! I wish to the Lord, Grace Comerford had never come back. It was an ill day."
She almost echoed the wish. Then she found herself, to her amazement, setting Stella against all the trouble, putting her in the balance against all that had happened and might happen. To her amazement Stella counted against all the rest. She was just the little daughter she had wanted all her days—to stay with her when the insistent world snatched her boy from her. She acknowledged to herself that she was jealous of the woman who was Stella's real mother, whom the girl had chosen before everything, every one else.
She sought in her own mind, with what her husband called her incurable optimism, for a bright side to this dark trouble and could find none. She must leave it where she left everything, at the foot of the altar. God could unpick the black knot of Stella's fate. He could smooth out the tangle. She must only pray and hope.
She had meant to talk the matter out thoroughly with Shawn. She had so often found that light and comfort came that way. But Shawn would not discuss things thoroughly. He would only say that it was a pretty kettle of fish; that he wished Grace Comerford had never come back, that he wished they could send Terry somewhere out of harm's way. And presently he fell asleep with his head against her shoulder. He had had a hard day and a tiring one. Of late he had taken to dropping asleep in the evenings.
She let him sleep, remaining as motionless as she could so as not to disturb him. When he awoke he was full of repentance. She had not even had a book to solace her watch. That which she had been reading was out of reach.
"You are the perfect woman, Mary," he said gratefully, "and I am an unworthy fellow. I don't know how I came to be so sleepy. You make me too comfortable."
Her face lit up. Shawn was often unreasonable in these latter days.Indeed he had not been the easiest of men to live with since TerenceComerford's tragic death. But when he was like this his wife thoughtthat all was worth while.
A few days passed by and Mrs. Wade had not returned. Mrs. Comerford had written an icy message to Mary O'Gara.
"When Stella comes to her right mind this house is open to her. I have said to my servants that she is with you. I was once a truthful woman."
Reading this brief epistle Mary O'Gara had said to herself that it was lucky there was distance enough between Inch and Castle Talbot; also that thoughsheconsidered herself a truthful woman there was nothing she would not say in order to shield Stella from gossiping tongues. She was bitterly angry with Grace Comerford for the cruel and evil temper which had done so much hurt to an innocent thing.
"Does she think," she asked herself hotly, "that so easily Stella will forget her cruelty? I do not believe the child will ever go back to her."
She had written to Mary Benedicta about the case, giving her a cautious account of poor Stella's plight, abstaining from mentioning Terence Comerford's part in the story. She could have told that: she could not write it. Mary Benedicta would think that Stella's trouble came from the fictitious French father. There was little or no communication between the nun and Mrs. Comerford, who had quarrelled with her over her choice of a conventual life long ago.
Mary Benedicta had answered the letter with another full of the milk and honey of a compassionate tenderness.
The best solution of the problem Lady O'Gara could find was that Stella should go for a time at least to the Convent. Terry had not written. Terry would have his say in the matter presently. He had gone off chilled for the time by Stella's disinclination towards him: but he would come back. If he only knew Stella's plight at this moment he would surely break all the barriers to get back to her.
Poor Stella's plight was indeed a sad one. Susan Horridge, watching her like a faithful dog, reported that she ate little, that she walked up and down her room at night when she ought to have been sleeping, that she started when spoken to, that she spent long hours staring before her piteously, doing nothing.
"If Mrs. Wade don't come back soon the young lady will either go after her or she'll have a breakdown," Susan said.
Sometimes Lady O'Gara wondered how much Susan knew or suspected, but there was in her manner an entire absence of curiosity, of a sense that anything out of the way was happening, that was invaluable in a crisis like this. Lady O'Gara thought more highly of Susan every day. The weather had turned very wet, but Waterfall Cottage glowed with brightness and roaring fires of turf and wood. The rain and darkness were shut out. Stella could not have been in better hands.
About the fifth day came a hunting morning. The meet was fixed for a distant part of the country. Lady O'Gara got up in the dark of the morning to superintend her husband's cup of tea, to see that his flask was filled and his sandwiches to his liking.
"I wish you had been coming out too, Mary," he said wistfully as he stood on the steps drawing on his gloves. "You are growing lazy, old lady."
"I'll come out with you on Saturday," she said, and patted his shoulder.
Patsy was late in bringing round Black Prince, the beautiful spirited horse which was Sir Shawn's favourite hunter that season. It was unlike Patsy to be late. The first grey dawn was coming lividly over the sky. Standing in the lamplit hall Mary O'Gara looked out and caught the shiver of the little wind which brings the day.
"I'll be late at the Wood of the Hare," Sir Shawn said, fuming a little. "I don't want to press the Prince with a hard day before him."
Still Patsy did not come.
"Good-bye, darling," Sir Shawn said at last. "Go back to bed and have a good sleep before breakfast. I'll see what's up with Patsy."
She had gone upstairs before she heard her husband ride out of the stable yard. So Patsy had been late. Was it possible he had overslept? It would be so unlike Patsy, who, especially of a hunting morning, had always slept the fox's sleep.
She had a long day before her, with many things to do. She ought to write to Terry, but she knew the things Terry expected to hear. There had been a letter from him, asking roundly for news of Stella.
"Why don't you write?" it asked. "Are you going to treat me like a child as Father does? I've made up my mind about Stella. I will marry her, if she will have me; and she shall never know anything from me. Are you looking after her, keeping her happy? For Heaven's sake don't take Father's view of it! That would be ruin to everything, but I warn you, that if you do, it will not alter me. Tell me what she says, how she looks. Has her colour come back? Does she speak of me? There are a thousand things I want to know."
There had been a postscript to the letter.
"By the way, Evelyn has discovered that the man who got the lakh of rupees,—you remember?—had been rather badly treated by Eileen, or so Evelyn's informant said. It is a she—a cousin of Evelyn's who is married to somebody up there. Evelyn says he will come again to Castle Talbot if you ask him. He says the duck-shooting was splendid—and he congratulated me on you—darling. I did myself proud. Just imagine,—Evelyn!"
She did not know how to answer his letter. It was not in her to put off the boy with a letter which should disappoint him. She imagined him running through it with a blank face, looking for what she had not written. No: she could not write without telling him the truth: and the truth would make the boy miserable. She supposed it would have to be told—presently, but she would wait till then. She was not one to deal in half-truths and subterfuges.
She went forth after breakfast with an intention of seeing Stella, and afterwards going on to old Lizzie Brennan, who required some looking after, in cold weather especially. She had rather mad fits of wandering over the country, from which she would return soaked through with rain, hungry and exhausted. More than once Lady O'Gara had discovered her after these expeditions, choking with bronchitis, in a fireless room, too weak to light a fire or prepare food for herself. Lady Conyers, a neighbour of Castle Talbot at Mount Esker, had tried to induce Lizzie to go into the workhouse, with many arguments as to the comfort which awaited her there. But Lizzie was about as much inclined for the workhouse as the free bird for the cage, and, rather to Lady Conyers' indignation, Lady O'Gara had abetted the culprit, saying that she would look after her.
There was not much to be done with Stella, who had begun to look sharpened in the face and her eyes very bright. Susan repeated that her charge did not sleep. She had gone in to her half a dozen times during the night and found her wide-eyed on the pillow, staring at the ceiling.
"I never see any one take on so," Susan said. "Seems to me if Missie don't get what she wants she won't be long wantin' anything."
Stella had shown no inclination to get up and Susan had left her in bed.
"Seems like as if gettin' up was more than she could a-bear," said Susan. "I did try to coax her out when the day were sunny, but 'twas no use. That poor old fly-away Miss Brennan came to the door this mornin' with a bunch of leaves and berries. I asked her into my kitchen, and gave her a cup o' cocoa. There, she were grateful, poor soul!"
"You must have the four-leaved shamrock, Susan," Lady O'Gara said."Lizzie is so very stand-off with most people."
"So Mr. Kenny was tellin' me. He used your Ladyship's words. I never 'eard of the four-leaved shamrock before. She has a kind heart. There, I'd never have thought it. She was fair put out over the poor young lady. She talked about a decline in a way that giv me a turn. But people don't go into a decline sudding like that. It's something on Miss Stella's mind. Take that away and she'll be as bright as bright. So I said to the old person, an' she took a fit o' bobbin' to me, and then she ran off a-talkin' to herself."
Lady O'Gara went up to the pretty bedroom which had been Mrs. Wade's. It was in the gable and was lit from the roof and by a tiny slit of a window high up in the wall through which one saw the bare boughs across the road, with a few fluttering leaves still on them. A similar window on the other side had a picture of the wet country, the distant woods of Mount Esker, and the sapphire sky just above the sapphire line of hills.
The little windows were open and a soft wet wind blew into the room. When Lady O'Gara had climbed up the corkscrewy staircase and stepped into the room she was horrified to find the ravages one more day's suspense had wrought in Stella's looks. Her eyes were heavy and there were dark red spots in her cheeks.
"Is that you, Lady O'Gara?" she asked in a low voice, "I've been asleep, and I've only just wakened up. You are very good to come to see me, but now you need not trouble about me any more. I am going away from here. I do not think she will come back. She must have got a long way on her road in these endless seven days of time. I should have followed her at first and not wasted time waiting for her here."
"But, my poor child, where would you have gone?" Lady O'Gara asked, sitting down beside the bed and capturing one of the restless hands.
"I think that old woman, Lizzie Brennan, knows something about where she is. She was here yesterday, and she looked in at me and seemed frightened. 'God help you, child,' she said. 'Don't you be wearin' your heart out. She'll come back fast enough as soon as she knows you want her. You see, mavourneen, it's a long time since she was anything but a trouble to people.' I thought she was only talking in her mad way. But since I've wakened up I've been thinking that maybe she knows something."
"Oh, I wouldn't build on it, child. Lizzie often talks nonsense, though she's not as mad as people think."
"I was just going to get up when I heard your foot on the stairs. I feel stronger this morning, and I want to get out-of-doors. The house is stifling me. I have been listening so hard for the sound of her foot or her voice that when I try to listen I can't hear for the thumping of my heart in my ears. I want to be with her. I too am only a trouble to people. She and I will not be a trouble to each other."
Lady O'Gara had a thought.
"If you will get up and dress and eat your breakfast to my satisfaction I shall go with you to Lizzie Brennan's lodge. It is only about half a mile down the road. You have been too much in the house."
She went away downstairs, leaving Stella to get up and dress. There was a dainty little breakfast ready for her when she came down, but she did it little justice. Lady O'Gara had to be content with her trying to eat. She seemed tired even after the slight exertion of dressing, but she was very eager to go to Lizzie Brennan.
"If only I knew I should find my mother I should not be so troublesome to you kind people," she said with a quivering smile, which Lady O'Gara found terribly pathetic.
She said to herself that Grace Comerford must have lacked a good deal in her relation towards Stella to have left the child so hungry for mother-love. Again there was something that puzzled her. Stella seemed to have forgotten everything except the fact of her mother's disappearance. Did she understand the facts of her birth, all that they meant to her and how the world regarded them? Or was it that these things were swallowed up in the girl's passion of love and loss?
Stella started out at a great pace, but lagged after a little while, and turned with an apology to Lady O'Gara.
"I feel as though I had had influenza," she said. "I suppose it's being in the house so much and not eating or sleeping well. Oh, I must not get ill, Lady O'Gara; for I cannot stay here unless my mother comes back…"
"I thought you liked us all, Stella," Lady O'Gara said, rather sadly."You seemed very happy with us always."
"That was before my mother came, before I knew that she and I belonged to each other and were only a trouble to people."
She harped on old Lizzie's phrase.
"My poor little mother!" she said. "All that time I was living in luxury my mother was working. Her poor hands are the hands of a working woman. I cannot bear to look at them."
"She was in America, was she not?" Lady O'Gara asked, by way of saying something.
"She never spoke of America. I do not think she was there. She was housekeeper somewhere—to a priest. She said he was such a good old man, innocent and simple. He had a garden with bee-hives, and a poodle dog she was very fond of. She said it had been a refuge to her for many years; and she did not like leaving the good old man, but something drew her back. She was hungry for news of me."
The child was not ashamed of her mother. Perhaps she did not understand. Lady O'Gara was glad. She remembered how Shawn had always said that Bridyeen was innocent and simple.
They had arrived at the gate, one half of it swinging loose from the hinges; the stone balls, once a-top of the gate-posts, were down on the ground, having brought a portion of the gate-post with them.
Lady O'Gara glanced at the lodge. It had been a pretty place once, with diamond-paned windows and a small green trellised porch, over which woodbine and roses had trailed. There were still one or two golden spikes of the woodbine, and a pale monthly rose climbed to the top of the porch to the roof; but the creepers which grew round the windows had been torn down and were lying on the grass-green gravel path.
"Lizzie is out," Lady O'Gara said, glancing at the door hasped and padlocked. "We shall have to come another time."
There was always a good deal of interest for Lady O'Gara in the affairs of Castle Talbot. She went out after her solitary lunch to look for Patsy Kenny. She wanted to talk to him about the turf and wood to be given away to the poor people for Christmas. Little by little Patsy had slid from being stud-groom into being general overlooker of the business of the place.
Having found him she went with him into the stables where the light was just failing, going from one to the other of the horses, talking to them, fondling them, discussing them with Patsy in the knowledgable way of a person accustomed to horses and loving them all her days.
Suddenly she caught sight of Black Prince, wrapped up in a horse-cloth, hanging his long intelligent nose over his stall and looking at her wistfully.
"Why," she said, "I thought Sir Shawn was riding the Prince!" She put out her hand to fondle the delicate nose and Black Prince whinnied.
"No, m'lady. The Prince was coughin' this mornin': and Tartar was a bit lame. You might notice I was late comin' round. I didn't want the master to ride Mustapha. Not but what he's come on finely and the master has a beautiful pair of hands. You'll remember Vixen that broke her back at the double ditch at Punchestown, how she was a lamb with the master though a greater divil than Mustapha to the rest of the world?"
She knew that way Patsy had of talking a lot about a subject when he was really keeping something essential back. It was quite true that Mustapha had been coming to his senses of late—and Shawn had a beautiful pair of hands, gentle yet as strong as steel. She had thought Patsy's anxiety about Mustapha's being ridden by any one but himself unnecessary, perhaps even with an unconscious spice of vanity underlying it. Patsy had conquered Mustapha. Perhaps he would not be altogether pleased that the horse should be amenable to some one else, yet Mustapha had taken a lump of sugar from her hand, only yesterday, as daintily as her own Chloë, his muzzle moving over her hands afterwards with silken softness.
"I hope Mustapha will repay all the time and care you have spent on him, Patsy," she said, and would not acknowledge that her heart had turned cold for a second.
She hoped Shawn would be home early, before she had time to feel alarmed. Of course there was no cause for alarm. Patsy himself said that Mustapha had come to be that kind that a lamb or a child could play with him. It was absurd of Patsy not to be satisfied about Shawn's riding the horse.
There were some things Patsy needed—a bandage for Tartar, some cough-balls for Black Prince, which could be procured at the general shop in Killesky.
She went into Sir Shawn's office to write the order. Patsy would come for it presently.
After she had written it she went out by the open French window and climbed the rising ground at the back of the house. Very often she went up there of afternoons to look at the sunset. She had always loved sunsets.
The afternoon had been grey, but at the top of the hill she was rewarded for her climb. On one side the sloping valley was filled with a dun-coloured mist. Over it leant the dun-coloured cloud which was a part of the grey heavens. To the other side were the hills, coloured the deep blue which is only seen in the West of Ireland. Behind them were long washes of light, silver and pale gold. The dun cloud above had caught the sapphire as though in a mirror. Round the Southern and Western horizon ran the broad belt of light under the sapphire cloud, while to North and East the dun sky met the dun-coloured mist.
She went back after a while, her sense of beauty satisfied. From that hill one could hear anything, horse or vehicle, coming from a long way off. The sound ascended and was not lost in the winding and twisting roads. But she would not acknowledge disappointment to herself. She had gone up to look at the evening sky and it had been beautiful with one of the strange kaleidoscopic effects which makes those Western skies for ever new and beautiful.
The tea had been brought in and the lamps lit when a visitor was announced—Sir Felix Conyers. She was glad she had not heard the noise of his arrival and mistaken it for Shawn's.
Sir Felix was an old soldier who had held an important command inIndia. He was a rather fussy but very kind-hearted person whom MaryO'Gara liked better than his handsome cold wife with her organizedsystem of charities.
"This is kind, Sir Felix," she said. "Shawn is not home yet. They metat the Wood of the Hare this morning. The scent must have lain well.We were a little anxious about the frost before the wind went to theSouth-West."
Then she discovered that Sir Felix, a transparently simple person, was labouring under some curious form of excitement. He stammered as he tried to answer, and looked at her furtively. He dropped his riding whip, which he was carrying in his hands, stooped to look for it and came up rather apologetic and more nervous than before.
"The fact is … I came over, Lady O'Gara … to … to …"
"Is anything the matter, Sir Felix?"
Down went her heart like a plummet of lead.Shawn!Had anything happened to Shawn? Had this stammering, purple-faced gentleman come to prepare her? Her heart gave a cry of anguish, while her eyes rested with apparent calmness on Sir Felix's unhappy face. Of course it was Mustapha. Would he never speak? Why could they not have found a better messenger than this unready inarticulate gentleman?
At last the cry was wrung from her: "Has anything happened to my husband?"
"No! God bless my soul,—no!"
Her heart lifted slightly with the relief and fell again. She had been frightened and had not got over the shock.
"It is a perfectly absurd business, Lady O'Gara. Your husband will—I have no doubt"—he emitted a perfectly unnatural chuckle—"be immensely amused. I should not have mentioned it … I should have shown the ruffian the door, only that new District Inspector … Fury … a very good name for him … mad as a hatter, I should say … brought the fellow to me."
"What is it all about, Sir Felix?" asked Lady O'Gara, in a voice of despair.
"My dear lady, have I been trying you? I'm sorry." Sir Felix pulled himself together by a manifest effort.
"I apologize for even telling you such a thing, though I don't believe one word of it. The fellow was obviously drunk and so I told D.I. Fury. I absolutely refused to swear him, but I had to issue a summons. Yes, yes, I'm coming to it now! Don't be impatient, my dear lady. A low drunken tramp went to the police with a ridiculous story that your husband was privy to the death of young Terence Comerford, poor fellow! Ridiculous! when every one knows there was the love of brothers between them. The ruffian maintains that he was on the spot,—that your husband and Comerford were quarrelling, that your husband struck him repeatedly, he not being in a way to defend himself, finally that he lashed the horse, a young and very spirited horse who would not take the whip, saying: 'You'll never reach home alive, Terence Comerford! You've forced me to do it.' My dear lady, don't look so terrified. Of course there's nothing in it. Your husband will have to answer the charge at Petty Sessions. It won't go any further. If it were true itself they couldn't bring it in more than manslaughter. Indeed, I doubt if any charge would lie after so many years."
He stopped, panting after the long speech.
"It was very kind of you to ride over this dark night to tell us. Of course it is a ridiculous tale. But the mere suggestion will upset my husband. As you say, they were so devoted, dearer than brothers. Why should this person come with such a tale at this time of day?"
"That is exactly what I asked, my dear lady. Trumped up, every bit of it, I haven't the smallest doubt. Only for Fury it would end where it began. The fellow says—I beg your pardon, Lady O'Gara,—that Sir Shawn paid him to keep silence—that he has grown tired of being bled and told him to do his worst. As I said to Fury, you had only to look at the fellow to see that the truth wasn't in him."
Lady O'Gara was very pale.
"Would you mind waiting a second, Sir Felix?" she said gently. "You were not here at the time of the dreadful accident. The one who really all but witnessed it is here, close at hand. You might like to hear his version of what happened."
She rang the bell and asked the servant who came in answer if Mr. Kenny was waiting. Patsy was Mr. Kenny even to the new butler.
Patsy came in, small, neat, in his gaiters and riding breeches, his cap in his hand. He stood blinking in the lamplight, looking from Lady O'Gara to Sir Felix Conyers.
"Sir Felix would like to hear from your lips, Patsy, the story of what you saw the night Mr. Terence Comerford was killed."
There was a wild surmise in Patsy's eyes. Not for many a year had that tragedy been spoken of in his hearing.
"I would not recall it," Lady O'Gara went on in her gentle voice, "only that Sir Felix tells me some man has been saying that Sir Shawn flogged Mr. Comerford's horse, using words as he did so which proved that he knew the horse would not take the whip and that he had it in his mind to kill Mr. Comerford."
"Who was the man said the likes of that?" asked Patsy, his eyes suddenly red.
"It was a sort of … tramping person," said Sir Felix, putting on his pince-nez the better to see Patsy. "He has been in these parts before. A most unprepossessing person. Quite a bad lot, I should say."
"A foxy man with a hanging jowl," said Patsy. "Not Irish by his speech. Seems like as if he'd curse you if you come his way. No whiskers,—a bare-faced man."
"That would be his description."
"It's a quare thing," said Patsy in a slow ruminating voice, "that for all the rage I felt agin him, so that I wanted to throttle him wid me two hands, I never thought of him with the man that was there the night Mr. Terence Comerford was killed. Did you notice the big hairy hands of him? They all but choked me that night. I thought I'd cause enough to hate him when he came my way again because o' the poor girl and the child. I could scarce keep my hands off him. The villain! I'd rather kill him than a rat in the stable yard."
"You seem to have a very accurate idea about the person who has made this grotesque charge against your master," Sir Felix said in his pompous way. "Your feelings do you credit, but still … I should not proceed to violence."
"Please tell Sir Felix what happened that night, Patsy," Lady O'Gara said. She had stood up and gone a little way towards the window. She spoke in a quiet voice. Only one who was devoted to her, as Patsy was, could have guessed the control she was exercising over herself. Patsy's eyes, in the shadow of the lamp, sent her a look of mute protecting pity and tenderness.
"'Tis, sir, that I was in the ditch that night." Patsy turned his cap about in his hands. "I was lookin' for the goat an' she draggin' her chain an' the life frightened out of me betwixt the black night and the ghosts and the terrible cross ould patch I had of a grandfather, that said he'd flog me alive if I was to come home without the goat. I was blowin' on me hands for the cowld an' shakin' wid fright o' bein' me lone there; an' not a hundred yards between me an' that place where the ould Admiral's ghost walks. When I heard the horses' feet comin' my heart lifted up, once I was sure it wasn't ghosts they was. They passed me whin I was sittin' in the ditch. No sooner was they gone by than I let a bawl out o' me, an' I ran after them for company, for it come over me how I was me lone in that dark place. You see, your Honour, I was only a bit of a lad, an' th' ould grandfather had made me nervous-like. Just then I caught the bleat of the goat an' I was overjoyed, for I thought I'd ketch her an' creep home behind Sir Shawn an' the walkin' horse. They parted company where the roads met, an' I heard Sir Shawn trottin' his horse up the road in front o' me, an' Spitfire—that was Mr. Comerford's horse—was unaisy an' refusin' the dark road under the trees. You couldn't tell what the crathur saw, God help us all! No horse liked that road. Thin I heard Spitfire clatterin' away in the dark an' I ran, draggin' the little goat after me to get past the place where the unchancy ould road dips down. Somewan cannoned into me runnin' out o' the dark road. I couldn't see his face, but he cursed me, an' I felt his hairy hands round me neck and me scratchin' and tearin' at them. It was that villain that's comin' here to annoy the master, or I think it was. Mind you, I never seen him. But he took me up be me little coat an' he dashed me down on the road an' nigh knocked the life out o' me. The next thing I knew I was lying in the bed at home an' me sore from head to foot, an' able to see only out o' wan eye be rayson of a bandage across the other: an' me grandfather an' the neighbours wor sayin' that Mr. Terence Comerford was kilt, and that Sir Shawn O'Gara was distracted with grief. But the quarest thing at all was hearin' the ould man sayin' that I was a good little boy, after all the divils and villains he'd called me, as long as I could remember."
Patsy stopped, still turning his hat about in his hands, his velvety eyes fixed on Lady O'Gara, where she stood leaning by the mantelpiece, her face turned away, one slender foot resting on the marble kerb. If Sir Felix had been aware of the expression of the eyes he might have been startled, but even the pince-nez were not equal to that.
"Thank you very much," he said. "That story should knock the bottom out of our friend's statement. Merely vexatious; I said so to D.I. Fury. Sir Shawn and Mr. Comerford parted in perfect amity?"
"Like brothers," said Patsy with emphasis, "as they wor ever an' always. Sure the master was never the same man since. I often heard the people sayin' how it was the love of brothers was betwixt them, an' more, for many a blood brother doesn't fret for his brother as the master fretted for Master Terence. He was never the same man since."