Dyck Calhoun’s letter was never ended. It was only a relic of the years spent in Jamaica, only a sign of his well-being, though it gave no real picture of himself. He did not know how like a tyrant he had become in some small ways, while in the large things he remained generous, urbane, and resourceful. He was in appearance thin, dark-favoured, buoyant in manner, and stern of face, with splendid eyes. Had he dwelt on Olympus, he might have been summoned to judge and chastise the sons of men.
When Michael Clones came to the doorway, Dyck laid down his quill-pen and eyed the flushed servant in disapproval.
“What is it, Michael? Wherefore this starkness? Is some one come from heaven?”
“Not precisely from heaven, y’r honour, but—”
“But—yes, Michael! Have done with but-ing, and come to the real matter.”
“Well, sir, they’ve come from Virginia.”
Dyck Calhoun slowly got to his feet, his face paling, his body stiffening. From Virginia! Who should be come from Virginia, save she to whom he had just been writing?
“Who has come from Virginia?” He knew, but he wanted it said.
“Sure, you knew a vessel came from America last night. Well, in her was one that was called the Queen of Ireland long ago.”
“Queen of Ireland—well, what then?” Dyck’s voice was tuneless, his manner rigid, his eyes burning. “Well, she—Miss Sheila Llyn and her mother are going to the Salem Plantation, down by the Essex Valley Mountain. It is her plantation now. It belonged to her uncle, Bryan Llyn. He got it in payment of a debt. He’s dead now, and all his lands and wealth have come to her. Her mother, Mrs. Llyn, is with her, and they start to-morrow or the next day for Salem. There’ll be different doings at Salem henceforward, y’r honour. She’s not the woman to see slaves treated as the manager at Salem treated ‘em.”
Dyck Calhoun made an impatient gesture at this last remark.
“Yes, yes, Michael. Where are they now?”
“They’re at Charlotte Bedford’s lodgings in Spanish Town. The governor waited on them this morning. The governor sent them flowers and—”
“Flowers—Lord Mallow sent them flowers! Hell’s fiend, man, suppose he did?”
“There are better flowers here than in any Spanish Town.”
“Well, take them, Michael; but if you do, come here again no more while you live, for I’ll have none of you. Do you think I’m entering the lists against the king’s governor?”
“You’ve done it before, sir, and there’s no harm in doing it again. One good turn deserves another. I’ve also to tell you, sir, that Lord Mallow has asked them to stay at King’s House.”
“Lord Mallow has asked Americans to stay at King’s House!”
“But they’re Irish, and he knew them in Ireland, y ‘r honour.”
“Well, he knew me in Ireland, and I’m proscribed!”
“Ah, that’s different, as you know. There’s no war on now, and they’re only good American citizens who own land in this dominion of the king; so why shouldn’t he give them courtesy?”
“From whom do you get your information?” asked Dyck Calhoun with an air of suspicion.
“From Darius Boland, y’r honour,” answered Michael, with a smile. “Who is Darius Boland, you’re askin’ in y’r mind? Well, he’s the new manager come from the Llyn plantations in Virginia; and right good stuff he is, with a tongue that’s as dry as cut-wheat in August. And there’s humour in him, plenty-aye, plenty. When did I see him, and how? Well, I saw him this mornin’, on the quay at Kingston. He was orderin’ the porters about with an air—oh, bedad, an air! I saw the name upon the parcels—Miss Sheila Llyn, of Moira, Virginia, and so I spoke to him. The rest was aisy. He looked me up and down in a flash, like a searchlight playin’ on an enemy ship, and then he smiled. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘who might you be? For there’s queer folks in Jamaica, I’m told.’ So I said I was Michael Clones, and at that he doffed his hat and held out a hand. ‘Well, here’s luck,’ said he. ‘Luck at the very start! I’ve heard of you from my mistress. You’re servant to Mr. Dyck Calhoun—ain’t that it?’ And I nodded, and he smiled again—a smile that’d cost money anywhere else than in Jamaica. He smiled again, and give a slow hitch to his breeches as though they was fallin’ down. Why, sir, he’s the longest bit of man you ever saw, with a pointed beard, and a nose that’s as long as a midshipman’s tongue-dry, lean, and elastic. He’s quick and slow all at once. His small eyes twinkle like stars beatin’ up against bad weather, and his skin’s the colour of Scots grass in the dead of summer-yaller, he’d call it if he called it anything, and yaller was what he called the look of the sky above the hills. Queer way of talk he has, that man, as queer as—”
“I understand, Michael. But what else? How did you come to talk about the affairs of Mrs. and Miss Llyn? He didn’t just spit it out, did he?”
“Sure, not so quick and free as spittin’, y’r honour; but when he’d sorted me out, as it were, he said Miss Llyn had come out here to take charge of Salem; her own estate in Virginia bein’ in such good runnin’ order, and her mind bein’ active. Word had come of the trouble with the manager here, and one of the provost-marshal’s deputies had written accounts of the flogging and ill-treatment of slaves, and that’s why she come—to put things right at Salem!”
“To put things wrong in Jamaica, Michael, that’s why she’s come. To loose the ball of confusion and free the flood of tragedy—that’s why she’s come! Man, Michael, you know her history—who she was and what happened to her father. Well, do you think there’s no tragedy in her coming here? I killed her father, they say, Michael. I was punished for it. I came here to be free of all those things—lifted out and away from them all. I longed to forget the past, which is only shame and torture; and here it is all spread out at my door again like a mat, which I must see as I go in and out. Essex Valley—why, it’s less than a day’s ride from here, far less than a day’s ride! It can be ridden in four or five hours at a trot. Michael, it’s all a damnable business. And here she is in Jamaica with her Darius Boland! There was no talk on Boland’s part of their coming here, was there Michael?”
“None at all, sir, but there was that in the man’s eye, and that in his tone, which made me sure he thought Miss Llyn and you would meet.”
“That would be strange, wouldn’t it, in this immense continent!” Dyck remarked cynically.
“She knew I was here before she came?”
“Aye, she knew. She had seen your name in the papers—English and Jamaican. She knew you had regained your life and place, and was a man of mark here.”
“A marked man, you mean, Michael—a man whom the king has had to pardon of a crime because of an act done that served the State. I am forbidden to return to the British Isles or to the land of my birth, forbidden free traffic as a citizen, hammered out of recognition by the strokes of enmity. A man of mark, indeed! Aye, with the broad arrow on me, with the shame of prison and mutiny on my name!”
“But if she don’t believe?”
“If she don’t believe! Well, she must be told the truth at last. I wonder her mother let her come here. Her mother knew part of the truth. She hid it all from the girl—and now they are here! I must see it through, but it’s a wretched fate, Michael.”
“Perhaps her mother didn’t know you were here, sir.”
Dyck laughed grimly. “Michael, you’ve a lawyer’s mind. Perhaps you’re right. The girl may have hid from her mother all newspapers referring to me. That may well be; but it’s not the way that will bring understanding.”
“I think it’s the truth, sir, for Darius Boland spoke naught of the mother—indeed, he said only what would make me think the girl came with her own ends in view. Faith, I’m sure the mother did not know.”
“She will know now. Your Darius Boland will tell her.”
“By St. Peter, it doesn’t matter who tells her, sir. The business must be faced.”
“Michael, order my horse, and I will go to Spanish Town. This matter must be brought to a head. The truth must be told. Order my horse!”
“It is the very heat of the day, sir.”
“Then at five o’clock, after dinner, have my horse here.”
“Am I to ride with you, sir?”
Dyck nodded. “Yes, Michael. There’s only one thing to do—face all the facts with all the evidence, and you are fact and evidence too. You know more of the truth than any one else.”
Several hours later, when the sun was abating its force a little, after travelling the burning roads through yams and cocoa, grenadillas and all kinds of herbs and roots and vagrant trees, Dyck Calhoun and Michael Clones came into Spanish Town. Dyck rode the unpaved streets on his horse with its high demipicque Spanish saddle, with its silver stirrups and heavy bit, and made his way towards Charlotte Bedford’s lodgings.
Dyck looked round upon the town with new eyes. He saw it like one for the first time visiting it. He saw the people passing through the wide verandahs of the houses, like a vast colonnade, down the street, to be happily sheltered from the fierce sun. As he had come down from the hills he thought he had never seen the houses look more beautiful in their gardens of wild tamarinds, kennips, cocoa-nuts, pimentos, and palms, backed by negro huts. He had seen all sorts of people at the draw-wells of the houses-British, Spanish, French, South American, Creoles, and here and there a Maroon, and the everlasting negro who sang as he worked:
“Come along o’ me, my buccra brave,You see de shild de Lord he gave:You drink de sangaree,I make de frichassee—”
Here a face peeped out from the glazed sash of the jalousies of the balconies above—a face that could never be said to be white, though it had only a tinge of black in its coaxing beauty. There a workman with long hair and shag trousers painted the prevailing two-storied house the prevailing colour, white and green. There was a young naval officer in full dress, gold-buckled shoes, white trousers, short jacket with gold swab on shoulders, dress-sword and smart gait making for supper at King’s House.
A long-legged “son of a gun” of a Yankee had a “clapper-claw,” or handshake, with a planting attorney in a kind of four-posted gig, canopied in leather and curtained clumsily. The Yankee laughed at the heavy straight shafts and the mule that drew the volante, as the gig was called, and the vehicle creaked and cried as it rolled along over the road, which was like a dry river-bed. There a French officer in Hessian boots, white trousers, blue uniform, and much-embroidered scarlet cuffs watched with amusement a slave carrying a goglet, or earthen jar, upon his head like an Egyptian, untouched by the hand, so adding dignity to carriage. He was holding a “round-aboutation” with an old hag who was telling his fortune.
As they passed King’s House, they saw troops of the viceroy’s guests issuing from the palace-officers of the king’s navy and army, officers and men of the Jamaica militia, pale-faced, big-eyed men of the Creole class, mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons, Samboes with their wives in loose skirts, white stockings, and pinnacle hats. There also passed, in the streets, black servants with tin cases on their heads, or carrying parcels in their arms, and here and there processions of servants, each with something that belonged to their mistresses, who would presently be attending the king’s ball.
Snatches of song were heard, and voices of men who had had a full meal and had “taken observations”—as looking through the bottom of a glass of liquor was called by people with naval spirit—were mixed in careless carousal.
All this jarred on Dyck Calhoun and gave revolt to his senses. Yet he was only half-conscious of the great sensuousness of the scene as he passed through it. Now and then some one doffed a hat to him, and very occasionally some half-drunken citizen tossed at him a remark meant to wound; but he took no notice, and let things pleasant and provocative pass down the long ranges of indifference.
All was brought to focus at last, however, by their arrival at Charlotte Bedford’s lodgings, which, like most houses in the town, had a lookout or belfry fitted with green blinds and a telescope, and had a green-painted wooden railing round it.
At the very entrance, inside the gate, in the garden, they saw Sheila Llyn, her mother, and Darius Boland, who seemed to be enduring from the mother some sharp reprimand, to the amusement of the daughter. As the gate closed behind Dyck and Michael, the three from Virginia turned round and faced them. As Dyck came forward, Sheila flushed and trembled. She was no longer a young girl, but her slim straightness and the soft lines of her figure, gave her a dignity and charm which made her young womanhood distinguished—for she was now twenty-five, and had a carriage of which a princess might have been proud. Yet it was plain that the entrance of Dyck at this moment was disturbing. It was not what she had foreseen.
She showed no hesitation, however, but came forward to meet her visitor, while Michael fell back, as also did Darius Boland. Both these seemed to realize that the less they saw and heard the better; and they presently got together in another part of the garden, as Dyck Calhoun came near enough almost to touch Sheila.
Surely, he thought, she was supreme in appearance and design. She was like some rare flower of the field, alert, gentle, strong, intrepid, with buoyant face, brown hair, blue eyes and cream-like skin. She was touched by a rose on each cheek and made womanly by firm and yet generous breasts, tenderly imprisoned by the white chiffon of her blouse in which was one bright sprig of the buds of a cherry-tree-a touch of modest luxuriance on a person sparsely ornamented. It was not tropical, this picture of Sheila Llyn; it was a flick of northern life in a summer sky. It was at once cheerful and apart. It had no August in it; no oil and wine. It was the little twig that grew by a running spring. It was fresh, dominant and serene. It was Connemara on the Amazon! It was Sheila herself, whom time had enriched with far more than years and experience. It was a personality which would anywhere have taken place and held it. It was undefeatable, persistent and permanent; it was the spirit of Ireland loose in a world that was as far apart from Ireland as she was from her dead, dishonoured father.
And Dyck? At first she felt she must fly to him—yes, in spite of the fact that he had suffered prison for manslaughter. But a nearer look at him stopped the impulse at its birth. Here was the Dyck Calhoun she had known in days gone by, but not the Dyck she had looked to see; for this man was like one who had come from a hanging, who had seen his dearest swinging at the end of a rope. His face was set in coldness; his hair was streaked with grey; his forehead had a line in the middle; his manner was rigid, almost frigid, indeed. Only in his eyes was there that which denied all that his face and manner said—a hungry, absorbing, hopeless look, the look of one who searches for a friend in the denying desert.
Somehow, when he bowed low to her, and looked her in the eyes as no one in all her life had ever done, she had an almost agonized understanding of what a man feels who has been imprisoned—that is, never the same again. He was an ex-convict, and yet she did not feel repelled by him. She did not believe he had killed Erris Boyne. As for the later crime of mutiny, that did not concern her much. She was Irish; but, more than that, she was in sympathy with the mutineers. She understood why Dyck Calhoun, enlisting as a common sailor, should take up their cause and run risk to advance it. That he had advanced it was known to all the world; that he had paid the price of his mutiny by saving the king’s navy with a stolen ship had brought him pardon for his theft of a ship and mutiny; and that he had won wealth was but another proof of the man’s power.
“You would not come to America, so I came here, and—” She paused, her voice trembling slightly. “There is much to do at Salem,” he added calmly, and yet with his heart beating, as it had not beaten since the day he had first met her at Playmore.
“You would not take the money I sent to Dublin for you—the gift of a believing friend, and you would not come to America!”
“I shall have to tell you why one day,” he answered slowly, “but I’ll pay my respects to your mother now.” So saying he went forward and bowed low to Mrs. Llyn. Unlike her daughter, Mrs. Llyn did not offer her hand. She was pale, distraught, troubled—and vexed. She, however, murmured his name and bowed. “You did not expect to see me here in Jamaica,” he said boldly.
“Frankly, I did not, Mr. Calhoun,” she said.
“You resent my coming here to see you? You think it bold, at least.”
She looked at him closely and firmly. “You know why I cannot welcome you.”
“Yet I have paid the account demanded by the law. And you had no regard for him. You divorced him.”
Sheila had drawn near, and Dyck made a gesture in her direction. “She does not know,” he said, “and she should not hear what we say now?”
Mrs. Llyn nodded, and in a low tone told Sheila that she wished to be alone with Dyck for a little while. In Dyck’s eyes, as he watched Sheila go, was a thing deeper than he had ever known or shown before. In her white gown, and with her light step, Sheila seemed to float away—a picture graceful, stately, buoyant, “keen and small.” As she was about to pass beyond a clump of pimento bushes, she turned her head towards the two, and there was that in her eyes which few ever see and seeing are afterwards the same. It was a look of inquiry, or revelation, of emotion which went to Dyck’s heart.
“No, she does not know the truth,” Mrs. Llyn said. “But it has been hard hiding it from her. One never knew whether some chance remark, some allusion in the papers, would tell her you had killed her father.”
“Did I kill her father?” asked Dyck helplessly. “Did I? I was found guilty of it, but on my honour, Mrs. Llyn, I do not know, and I do not think I did. I have no memory of it. We quarrelled. I drew my sword on him, then he made an explanation and I madly, stupidly drank drugged wine in reconciliation with him, and then I remember nothing more—nothing at all.”
“What was the cause of your quarrel?”
Dyck looked at her long before answering. “I hid that from my father even, and hid it from the world—did not even mention it in court at the trial. If I had, perhaps I should not have gone to jail. If I had, perhaps I should not be here in Jamaica. If I had—” He paused, a flood of reflection drowning his face, making his eyes shine with black sorrow.
“Well, if you had!... Why did you not? Wasn’t it your duty to save yourself and save your friends, if you could? Wasn’t that your plain duty?”
“Yes, and that was why I did not tell what the quarrel was. If I had, even had I killed Erris Boyne, the jury would not have convicted me. Of that I am sure. It was a loyalist jury.”
“Then why did you not?”
“Isn’t it strange that now after all these years, when I have settled the account with judge and jury, with state and law—that now I feel I must tell you the truth. Madam, your ex-husband, Erris Boyne, was a traitor. He was an officer in the French army, and he offered to make me an officer also and pay me well in French Government money, if I would break my allegiance and serve the French cause—Ah, don’t start! He knew I was on my last legs financially. He knew I had acquaintance with young rebel leaders like Emmet, and he felt I could be won. So he made his proposal. Because of your daughter I held my peace, for she could bear it less than you. I did not tell the cause of the quarrel. If I had, there would have been for her the double shame. That was why I held my peace—a fool, but so it was!”
The woman seemed almost robbed of understanding. His story overwhelmed her. Yet what the man had done was so quixotic, so Celtic, that her senses were almost paralysed.
“So mad—so mad and bad and wild you were,” she said. “Could you not see it was your duty to tell all, no matter what the consequences. The man was a villain. But what madness you were guilty of, what cruel madness! Only you could have done a thing like that. Erris Boyne deserved death—I care not who killed him—you or another. He deserved death, and it was right he should die. But that you should kill him, apart from all else—why, indeed, oh, indeed, it is a tragedy, for you loved my daughter, and the killing made a gulf between you! There could be no marriage in such a case. She could not bear it, nor could you. But please know this, Mr. Calhoun, that she never believed you killed Erris Boyne. She has said so again and again. You are the only man who has ever touched her mind or her senses, though many have sought her. Wherever she goes men try to win her, but she has no thought for any. Her mind goes back to you. Just when you entered the garden I learned—and only then-that you were here. She hid it from me, but Darius Boland knew, and he had seen your man, Michael Clones, and she had then made him tell me. I was incensed. I was her mother, and yet she had hid the thing from me. I thought she came to this island for the sake of Salem, and I found that she came not for Salem, but for you.... Ah, Mr. Calhoun, she deserves what you did to save her, but you should not have done it.”
“She deserves all that any better man might do. Why don’t you marry her to some great man in your Republic? It would settle my trouble for me and free her mind from anxiety. Mrs. Llyn, we are not children, you and I. You know life, and so do I, and—”
She interrupted him. “Be sure of this, Mr. Calhoun, she knows life even better than either of us. She is, and has always been, a girl of sense and judgment. When she was a child she was my master, even in Ireland. Yet she was obedient and faithful, and kept her head in all vexed things. She will have her way, and she will have it as she wants it, and in no other manner. She is one of the world’s great women. She is unique. Child as she is, she still understands all that men do, and does it. Under her hands the estates in Virginia have developed even more than under the hands of my brother. She controls like another Elizabeth. She has made those estates run like a spool of thread, and she will do the same here with Salem. Be sure of that.”
“Why does she not marry? Is there no man she can bear? She could have the highest, that’s sure.” He spoke with passion and insistence. If she were married his trouble would be over. The worst would have come to him—like death. His eyes were only two dark fires in a face that was as near to tragic pain crystallized as any the world has seen. Yet there was in it some big commanding thing, that gave it a ghastly handsomeness almost; that bathed his look in dignity and power, albeit a reckless power, a thing that would not be stayed by any blandishments. He had the look of a lost angel, one who fell with Belial in the first days of sin.
“There is no man she can bear—except here in Jamaica. It is no use. Your governor, Lord Mallow, whom she knew in Ireland, who is distant kin of mine, he has already made advances here to her, as he did in Ireland—you did not know that. Even before we left for Virginia he came to see us, and brought her books and flowers, and here, on our arrival, he brought her choicest blooms of his garden. She is rich, and he would be glad of an estate that brings in scores of thousands of pounds yearly. He has asked us to stay at King’s House, but we have declined. We start for Salem in a few hours. She wants her hand on the wheel.”
“Lord Mallow—he courts her, does he?” His face grew grimmer. “Well, she might do worse, though if she were one of my family I would rather see her in her grave than wedded to him. For he is selfish—aye, as few men are! He would eat and keep his apple too. His theory is that life is but a game, and it must be played with steel. He would squeeze the life out of a flower, and give the flower to his dog to eat. He thinks first and always of himself. He would—but there, he would make a good husband as husbands go for some women, but not for this woman! It is not because he is my enemy I say this. It is because there is only one woman like your daughter, and that is herself; and I would rather see her married to a hedger that really loved her than to Lord Mallow, who loves only one being on earth—himself. But see, Mrs. Llyn, now that you know all, now that we three have met again, and this island is small and tragedy is at our doors, don’t you think your daughter should be told the truth. It will end everything for me. But it would be better so. It is now only cruelty to hide the truth, harsh to continue a friendship which will only appal her in the end. If we had not met again like this, then silence might have been best; but as she is not cured of her tender friendship made upon the hills at Playmore, isn’t it well to end it all? Your conscience will be clearer, and so will mine. We shall have done the right thing at last. Why did you not tell her who her father was? Then why blame me! You held your peace to save your daughter, as you thought. I held my tongue for the same reason; but she is so much a woman now, that she will understand, as she could not have understood years ago in Limerick. In God’s name, let us speak. One of us should tell her, and I think it should be you. And see, though I know I did right in withholding the facts about the quarrel with Erris Boyne, yet I favour telling her that he was a traitor. The whole truth now, or nothing. That is my view.”
He saw how lined and sunken was her face, he noted the weakness of her carriage, he realized the task he was putting on her, and his heart relented. “No, I will do it,” he added, with sudden will, “and I will do it now, if I may.”
“Oh, not to-day-not to-day!” she said with a piteous look. “Let it not be to-day. It is our first day here, and we are due at King’s House to-night, even in an hour from now.”
“You want her at her glorious best, is that it?” It seemed too strange that the pure feminine should show at a time of crisis like this, but there it was. It was this woman’s way. But he added presently: “When she asks you what we have talked about, what will you say?”
“Is it not easy? I am a mother,” she said meaningly.
“And I am an ex-convict, and a mutineer—is that it?”
She inclined her head. “It should not be difficult to explain. When you came I was speaking as I felt, and she will not think it strange if I give that as my reason.”
“But is it wise? Isn’t it better to end it all now? Suppose Lord Mallow tells her.”
“He did not before. He is not likely now,” was the vexed reply. “Is it a thing a gentleman will speak of to a lady?”
“But you do not know Mallow. If he thought she had seen me to-day, he would not hesitate. What would you do if you were Lord Mallow?”
“No, not to-day,” she persisted. “It is all so many years ago. It can hurt naught to wait a little longer.”
“When and where shall it be?” he asked gloomily. “At Salem—at Salem. We shall be settled then—and steady. There is every reason why you should consider me. I have suffered as few women have suffered, and I do not hate you. I am only sorry.”
Far down at the other end of the garden he saw Sheila. Her face was in profile—an exquisite silhouette. She moved slowly among the pimento bushes.
“As you wish,” he said with a heavy sigh. The sight of the girl anguished his soul.
The plantation of Salem was in a region below the Pedro Plains in the parish of St. Elizabeth, where grow the aloe, and torch-thistle, and clumps of wood which alter the appearance of the plain from the South Downs of England, but where thousands of cattle and horses even in those days were maintained. The air of the district was dry and elastic, and it filtered down to the valleys near like that where Salem was with its clusters of negro huts and offices, its mills and distilleries where sugar and rum were made. Salem was situated on the Black River, accessible by boats and canoes. The huts of negro slaves were near the sugar mills, without regard to order, but in clusters of banana, avocado-pear, limes and oranges, and with the cultivated land round their huts made an effective picture.
One day every fortnight was allowed the negroes to cultivate their crops, and give them a chance to manufacture mats for beds, bark-ropes, wicker-chairs and baskets, earthen jars, pans, and that kind of thing. The huts themselves were primitive to a degree, the floor being earth, the roof, of palm-thatch or the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, the sides hard-posts driven in the ground and interlaced with wattle and plaster, and inside scarcely high enough for its owner to walk upright. The furniture was scant—a quatre, or bed, made of a platform of boards, with a mat and a blanket, some low stools, a small table, an earthen water-jar, and some smaller ones, a pail and an iron pot, and calabashes which did duty for plates, dishes and bowls. In one of the two rooms making the hut, there were always the ashes of the night-fire, without which negroes could not sleep in comfort.
These were the huts of the lowest grade of negro-slaves of the fields. The small merchants and the domestics had larger houses with boarded floors, some even with linen sheets and mosquito nets, and shelves with plates and dishes of good ware. Every negro received a yearly allowance of Osnaburgh linen, woollen, baize and checks for clothes, and some planters also gave them hats and handkerchiefs, knives, needles and thread, and so on.
Every plantation had a surgeon who received a small sum for attendance on every slave, while special cases of midwifery, inoculation, etc., had a particular allowance. The surgeon had to attend to about four hundred to five hundred negroes, on an income of L150 per annum, and board and lodging and washing, besides what he made from his practice with the whites.
Salem was no worse than some other plantations on the island, but it was far behind such plantations as that owned by Dyck Calhoun, and had been notorious for the cruelties committed on it. To such an estate a lady like Sheila Llyn would be a boon. She was not on the place a day before she started reforms which would turn the plantation into a model scheme. Houses, food, treatment of the negroes, became at once a study to her, and her experience in Virginia was invaluable. She had learned there not to work the slaves too hard in the warm period of the day; and she showed her interest by having served at her own table the favourite olio the slaves made of plantains, bananas, yams, calalue, eddoes, cassavi, and sweet potatoes boiled with salt fish and flavoured with cayenne pepper. This, with the unripe roasted plantain as bread, was a native relish and health-giving food.
Ever since the day when she had seen Dyck Calhoun at Spanish Town she had been disturbed in mind. Dyck had shown a reserve which she felt was not wholly due to his having been imprisoned for manslaughter. In one way he looked little older. His physique was as good, or better than when she first saw him on the hills of Playmore. It was athletic, strenuous, elastic. Yet there was about it the abandonment of despair—at least of recklessness. The face was older, the head more powerful, the hair slightly touched with grey-rather there was one spot in the hair almost pure white; a strand of winter in the foliage of summer. It gave a touch of the bizarre to a distinguished head, it lent an air of the singular to a personality which had flare and force—an almost devilish force. That much was to be said for him, that he had not sought to influence her to his own advantage. She was so surrounded in America by men who knew her wealth and prized her beauty, she was so much a figure in Virginia, that any reserve with regard to herself was noticeable. She was enough feminine to have pleasure in the fact that she was thought desirable by men; yet it played an insignificant part in her life.
It did not give her conceit. It was only like a frill on the skirts of life. It did not play any part in her character. Certainly Dyck Calhoun had not flattered her. That one to whom she had written, as she had done, should remove himself so from the place of the deserving friend, one whom she had not deserted while he was in jail as a criminal—that he should treat her so, gave every nerve a thrill of protest. Sometimes she trembled in indignation, and then afterwards gave herself to the work on the estate or in the household—its reform and its rearrangement; though the house was like most in Jamaica, had adequate plate, linen, glass and furniture. At the lodgings in Spanish Town, after Dyck Calhoun had left, her mother had briefly said that she had told Dyck he could not expect the conditions of the Playmore friendship should be renewed; that, in effect, she had warned him off. To this Sheila had said that the killing of a man whose life was bad might be punishable. In any case, that was in another land, under abnormal conditions; and, with lack of logic, she saw no reason why he should be socially punished in Jamaica for what he had been legally punished for in Ireland. As for the mutiny, he had done what any honest man of spirit would do; also, he had by great bravery and skill brought victory to the king’s fleet in West Indian waters.
Then it was she told her mother how she had always disobeyed her commands where Dyck was concerned, that she had written to him while he was in jail; that she had come to Jamaica more to see him than to reform Salem; that she had the old Celtic spirit of brotherhood, and she would not be driven from it. In a sudden burst of anger her mother had charged her with deceit; but the girl said she had followed her conscience, and she dismissed it all with a gesture as emphatic as her mother’s anger.
That night they had dined with Lord Mallow, and she saw that his attentions had behind them the deep purpose of marriage. She had not been overcome by the splendour of his retinue and table, or by the magnificence of his guests; though the military commander-in-chief and the temporary admiral on the station did their utmost to entertain her, and some of the local big-wigs were pompous. Lord Mallow had ability and knew how to use it; and he was never so brilliant as on this afternoon, for they dined while it was still daylight and hardly evening. He told her of the customs of the country, of the people; and slyly and effectively he satirized some of his grandiloquent guests. Not unduly, for one of them, the most renowned in the island, came to him after dinner as he sat talking to Sheila, and said: “I’m very sorry, your honour, but good Almighty God, I must go home and cool coppers.” Then he gave Sheila a hot yet clammy hand, and bade her welcome as a citizen to the island, “alien but respected, beautiful but capable!” Sheila had seen a few of the Creole ladies present at their best-large-eyed, simple, not to say primitive in speech, and very unaffected in manner. She had learned also that the way to the Jamaican heart was by a full table and a little flattery.
One incident at dinner had impressed her greatly. Not far away from her was a young lady, beautiful in face and person, and she had seen a scorpion suddenly shoot into her sleeve and ruthlessly strike and strike the arm of the girl, who gave one cry only and then was still. Sheila saw the man next to the girl—he was a native officer—secure the scorpion, and then whip from his pocket a little bag of indigo, dip it in water, and apply the bag to the wounded arm, immediately easing the wound. This had all been done so quickly that it was over before the table had been upset, almost.
“That is the kind of thing we have here,” said Lord Mallow. “There is a lady present who has seen in one day a favourite black child bitten by a congereel, a large centipede in her nursery, a snake crawl from under her child’s pillow, and her son nearly die from a bite of the black spider with the red spot on its tail. It is a life that has its trials—and its compensations.”
“I saw a man’s head on a pole on my way to King’s House. You have to use firm methods here,” Sheila said in reply. “It is not all a rose-garden. You have to apply force.”
Lord Mallow smiled grimly. “C’est la force morale toujours.”
“Ah, I should not have thought it was moral force always,” was the ironical reply.
“We have criminals here,” declared the governor with aplomb, “and they need some handling, I assure you. We have in this island one of the worst criminals in the British Empire.”
“Ah, I thought he was in the United States!” answered the girl sedately.
“You mean General George Washington,” remarked the governor. “No, it is one who was a friend and fellow-countryman of yours before he took to killing unarmed men.”
“You refer to Mr. Dyck Calhoun, I doubt not, sir? Well, he is still a friend of mine, and I saw him today—this afternoon, before I came here. I understood that the Crown had pardoned his mutiny.”
The governor started. He was plainly annoyed.
“The crime is there just the same,” he replied. “He mutinied, and he stole a king’s ship, and took command of it, and brought it out here.”
“And saved you and your island, I understand.”
“Ah, he said that, did he?”
“He said nothing at all to me about it. I have been reading the Jamaica Cornwall Chronicle the last three years.”
“He is ever a source of anxiety to me,” declared the governor.
“I knew he was once in Phoenix Park years ago,” was the demure yet sharp reply, “but I thought he was a good citizen here—a good and well-to-do citizen.”
Lord Mallow flushed slightly. “Phoenix Park—ah, he was a capable fellow with the sword! I said so always, and I’d back him now against a champion; but many a bad man has been a good swordsman.”
“So, that’s what good swordsmanship does, is it? I wondered what it was that did it. I hear you fight him still—but with a bludgeon, and he dodges it.”
“I do not understand,” declared Lord Mallow tartly. “Ah, wasn’t there some difference over his going for the treasure to Haiti? Some one told me, I think, that you were not in favour of his getting his ticket-of-leave, or whatever it is called, and that the provost-marshal gave it to him, as he had the right to do.”
“You have wide sources of information in this case. I wonder—”
“No, your honour need not wonder. I was told that by a gentleman on the steamer coming here. He was a native of the island, I think—or perhaps it was the captain, or the mate, or the boatswain. I can’t recall. Or maybe it came to me from my manager, Darius Boland, who hears things wherever he is, one doesn’t know how; but he hears them. He is to me what your aide-de-camp is to you,” she nodded towards a young man near by at the table.
“And do you dress your Darius Boland as I dress my aide in scarlet, with blue facings and golden embroidery, and put a stiff hat with a feather on his head?”
“But no, he does not need such things. I am a Republican now. I am a citizen of the United States, where men have no need of uniform to tell the world what they are. You shall see my Darius Boland—indeed, you have seen him. He was there to-day when you gave me the distinction of your presence.”
“That dry, lean, cartridge of a fellow, that pair of pincers with a face!”
“And a tongue, your honour. If you did not hear it yet, you will hear it. He is to be my manager here. So he will be under your control—if I permit him.”
“If you permit him, mistress?”
“If I permit him, yes. You are a power, but you are not stronger than the laws and rules you make. For instance, there was the case of Mr. Dyck Calhoun. When he came, you were for tying him up in one little corner of this island—the hottest part, I know, near to Kingston, where it averages ninety degrees in the shade at any time of the year. But the King you represent had not restricted his liberties so, and you being the King, that is, yourself, were forced to abide by your own regulations. So it may be the same with Darius Boland. He may want something, and you, high up, looking down, will say, ‘What devilry is here!’ and decline. He will then turn to your chief-justice or provost-marshal-general, or a deputy of the provost-marshal, and they will say that Darius Boland shall have what he wants, because it is the will of the will you represent.”
Almost the last words the governor used to her were these: “Those only live at peace here who are at peace with me”; and her reply had been: “But Mr. Dyck Calhoun lives at peace, does he not, your honour?”
To that he had replied: “No man is at peace while he has yet desires.” He paused a minute and then added: “That Erris Boyne killed by Dyck Calhoun—did you ever see him that you remember?”
“Not that I remember,” she replied quickly. “I never lived in Dublin.”
“That may be. But did you never know his history?” She shook her head in negation. His eyes searched her face carefully, and he was astonished when he saw no sign of confusion there. “Good God, she doesn’t know. She’s never been told!” he said to himself. “This is too startling. I’ll speak to the mother.”
A little later he turned from the mother with astonishment. “It’s madness,” he remarked to himself. “She will find out. Some one will tell her.... By heaven, I’ll tell her first,” he hastily said. “When she knows the truth, Calhoun will have no chance on earth. Yes, I’ll tell her myself. But I’ll tell no one else,” he added; for he felt that Sheila, once she knew the truth, would resent his having told abroad the true story of the Erris Boyne affair.
So Sheila and her mother had gone to their lodgings with depression, but each with a clear purpose in her mind. Mrs. Llyn was determined to tell her daughter what she ought to have known long before; and Sheila was firm to make the one man who had ever interested her understand that he was losing much that was worth while keeping.
Then had followed the journey to Salem. Yet all the while for Sheila one dark thought kept hovering over everything. Why should life be so complicated? Why should this one man who seemed capable and had the temperament of the Irish hills and vales be the victim of punishment and shame—why should he shame her?
Suddenly, without her mother’s knowledge, she sent Darius Boland through the hills in the early morning to Enniskillen, Dyck Calhoun’s place, with a letter which said only this: “Is it not time that you came to wish us well in our new home? We shall expect you to-morrow.”
When Dyck read this note he thought it was written by Sheila, but inspired by the mother; and he lost no time in making his way down across the country to Salem, which he reached a few hours after sunrise. At the doorway of the house he met Mrs. Llyn.
“Have you told her?” he asked in anxiety. Astonished at his presence she could make no reply for a moment. “I have told her nothing,” she answered. “I meant to do so this morning. I meant to do it—I must.”
“She sent me a letter asking if it was not time I came to wish you well in your house, and you and she would expect me to-day.”
“I knew naught of her writing you,” was the reply—“naught at all. But now that you are here, will you not tell her all?”
Dyck smiled grimly. “Where is she?” he asked. “I will tell her.”
The mother pointed down the garden. “Yonder by the clump of palms I saw her a moment ago. If you go that way you will find her.”
In another moment Dyck Calhoun was on his way to the clump of palms, and before he reached it, the girl came out into the path. She was dressed in a black silk skirt with a white bodice and lace, as he had seen her on her arrival in Kingston, and at her throat was a sprig of the wild pear-tree. When she saw him, she gave a slight start, then stood still, and he came to her.
“I have your letter,” he said, “and I came to say what I ought to say about your living here: you will bring blessings to the place.”
She looked at him steadfastly. “Shall we talk here,” she said, “or inside the house? There is a little shelter here in the trees”—pointing to the right—“a shelter built by the late manager. It has the covering of a hut, but it is open at two sides. Will you come?” As she went on ahead, he could not fail to notice how slim and trim she was, how perfectly her figure seemed to fit her gown-as though she had been poured into it; and yet the folds of her skirt waved and floated like silky clouds around her! Under cover of the shelter, she turned and smiled at him.
“You have seen my mother?”
“I have just come from her,” he answered. “She bade me tell you what ought to have been told long ago, and you were not, for there seemed no reason that you should. You were young and ignorant and happy. You had no cares, no sorrows. The sorrows that had come to your mother belonged to days when you were scarce out of the cradle. But you did not know. You were not aware that your mother had divorced your father for crime against marital fidelity and great cruelty. You did not know even who that father was. Well, I must tell you. Your father was a handsome man, a friend of mine until I knew the truth about him, and then he died—I killed him, so the court said.”
Her face became ghastly pale. After a moment of anguished bewilderment, she said: “You mean that Erris Boyne was my father?”
“Yes, I mean that. They say I killed him. They say that he was found with no sword drawn, but that my open sword lay on the table beside me while I was asleep, and that it had let out his life-blood.”
“Why was he killed?” she asked, horror-stricken and with pale lips.
“I do not know, but if I killed him, it was because I revolted from the proposals he made to me. I—” He paused, for the look on her face was painful to see, and her body was as that of one who had been struck by lightning. It had a crumpled, stricken look, and all force seemed to be driven from it. It had the look of crushed vitality. Her face was set in paleness, her eyes were frightened, her whole person was, as it were, in ghastly captivity. His heart smote him, and he pulled himself together to tell her all.
“Go on,” she said. “I want to hear. I want—to know all. I ought to have known—long ago; but that can’t be helped now. Continue—please.”
Her words had come slowly, in gasps almost, and her voice was so frayed he could scarcely recognize it. All the pride of her nature seemed shattered.
“If I killed him,” he said presently, “it was because he tried to tempt me from my allegiance to the Crown to become a servant of France, to—”
He stopped short, for a cry came from her lips which appalled him.
“My God—my God!” she said with bloodless lips, her eyes fastened on his face, her every look and motion the inflection of despair. “Go on—tell all,” she added presently with more composure.
Swiftly he described what happened in the little room at the traitor’s tavern, of the momentary reconciliation and the wine that he drank, drugged wine poured out but not drunk by Erris Boyne, and of his later unconsciousness. At last he paused.
“Why did these things not come out at the trial?” she asked in hushed tones.
He made a helpless gesture. “I did not speak of them because I thought of you. I hid it—I did not want you to know what your father was.”
Something like a smile gathered at her pale lips. “You saved me for the moment, and condemned yourself for ever,” she said in a voice of torture. “If you had told what he was—if you had told that, the jury would not have condemned you, they would not have sent you to prison.”
“I believe I did the right thing,” he said. “If I killed your father, prison was my proper punishment. But I can’t remember. There was no other clue, no other guide to judgment. So the law said I killed him, and—he had evidently not drawn his sword. It was clear he was killed defenceless.”
“You killed a defenceless man!” Her voice was sharp with agony. “That was mentioned at the trial—but I did not believe it then—in that long ago.” She trembled to her feet from the bench where she was sitting. “And I do not believe it now—no, on my soul, I do not.”
“But it makes no difference, you see. I was condemned for killing your father, and the world knows that Erris Boyne was your father, and here Lord Mallow, the governor, knows it; and there is no chance of friendship between you and me. Since the day he was found dead in the room, there was no hope for our friendship, for anything at all between us that I had wished to be there. You dare not be friends with me—”
Her face suddenly suffused and she held herself upright with an effort. She was about to say, “I dare, Dyck—I do dare!” but he stopped her with a reproving gesture.
“No, no, you dare not, and I would not let you if you would. I am an ex-convict. They say I killed your father, and the way to understanding between us is closed.”
She made a protesting gesture. “Closed! Closed!—But is it closed? No, no, some one else killed him, not you. You couldn’t have done it. You would have fought him—fought him as you did Lord Mallow, and in fighting you might have killed him, but your sword never let out his life when he was defenceless—never.”
A look of intense relief, almost of happiness, came to Dyck’s face. “That is like you, Sheila, but it does not cure the trouble. You and I are as far apart as noon and midnight. The law has said the only thing that can be said upon it.”
She sank down again upon the wooden bench. “Oh, how mad you were, not to tell the whole truth long ago! You would not have been condemned, and then—”
She paused overcome, and his self-control almost deserted him. With strong feeling he burst out: “And then, we might have come together? No, your mother—your friends, myself, could not have let that be. See, Sheila, I will tell you the whole truth now—aye, the whole absolute truth. I have loved you since the first day I saw you on the hills when you and I rescued Christopher Dogan. Not a day has passed since then when you were not more to me than any other woman in all the world.”
A new light came into her face, the shadows left her eyes, and the pallor fled from her lips. “You loved me?” she said in a voice grown soft-husky still, but soft as the light in a summer heaven. “You loved me—and have always loved me since we first met?”
Her look was so appealing, so passionate and so womanly, that he longed to reach out his arms to her, and say, “Come—come home, Sheila,” but the situation did not permit that, and only his eyes told the story of what was in his mind.
“I have always loved you, Sheila, and shall do so while I have breath and life. I have always given you the best that is in me, tried to do what was good for us both, since my misfortune—crime, Lord Mallow calls it, as does the world. Never a sunrise that does not find you in the forefront of all the lighted world; never a flower have I seen that does not seem sweeter—it brings thoughts of you; never a crime that does not deepen its shame because you are in the world. In prison, when I used to mop my floor and clean down the walls; when I swept the dust from the corners; when I folded up my convict clothes; when I ate the prison food and sang the prison hymns; when I placed myself beside the bench in the workshop to make things that would bring cash to my fellow-prisoners in their need; when I saw a minister of religion or heard the Litany; when I counted up the days, first that I had spent in jail and then the days I had still to spend in jail; when I read the books from the prison library of the land where you had gone, and of the struggle there; when I saw you, in my mind’s eye, in the cotton-fields or on the verandah of your house in Virginia—I had but one thought, and that was the look in your face at Playmore and Limerick, the sound of your voice as you came singing up the hill just before I first met you, the joyous beauty of your body.”
“And at sea?” she whispered with a gesture at once beautiful and pathetic, for it had the motion of helplessness and hopelessness. What she had heard had stirred her soul, and she wanted to hear more—or was it that she wished to drain the cup now that it was held to her lips?-drain it to the last drop of feeling.
“At sea,” he answered, with his eyes full of intense feeling—“at sea, I was free at last, doomed as I thought, anguished in spirit, and yet with a wild hope that out of it would come deliverance. I expected to lose my life, and I lived each day as though it would be my last. I was chief rogue in a shipful of rogues, chief sinner in a hell of sinners, and yet I had no remorse and no regret. I had done all with an honest purpose, with the good of the sailors in my mind; and so I lived in daily touch with death, honour, and dishonour. Yet I never saw a sailor in the shrouds, or heard the night watch call ‘All’s well!’ in the midst of night and mutiny, that I did not long for a word from you that would take away the sting of death. Those days at sea for ten long weeks were never free from anxiety, not anxiety for myself, only for the men who had put me where I was, had given me captain’s rank, had—”
Suddenly he stopped, and took from his pocket the letter he was writing on the very day she landed in Jamaica. He opened it and studied it for a moment with a dark look in his face.
“This I wrote even as you were landing in Jamaica, and I knew naught of your coming. It was an outbreak of my soul. It was the truth written to you and for you, and yet with the feeling that you would never see it. I was still writing it when Michael Clones came up the drive to tell me you and your mother were here. Now, I know not what Christopher Dogan would say of it, but I say it is amazing that in the hour you were first come to this land I should be moved to tell you the story of my life since I left prison; since, on receiving your letter in London, forwarded from Dublin, I joined the navy. But here it is with all the truth and terror in it.—Aye, there was terror, for it gave the soul of my life to one I never thought to see again; and, if seeing, should be compelled to do what I have done—tell her the whole truth at once and so have it over.
“But do not think that in telling it now I repent of my secrecy. I repent of nothing; I would not alter anything. What was to be is, and what is has its place in the book of destiny. No, I repent nothing, yet here now I give you this to read while still my story of the days of which you know is in your ears. Here it is. It will tell the whole story; for when you have read it and do understand, then we part to meet no more as friends. You will go back to Virginia, and I will stay here. You will forgive the unwilling wrong I have done you, but you will make your place in life without thought of me. You will marry some one—not worthy of you, for that could not be; but you will take to yourself some man from among the men of this world. You will set him apart from all other men as yours, and he will be happy, having been blessed beyond deserving. You will not regret coming here; but you will desire our friendship to cease; and what has been to be no more, while the tincture of life is in your veins. Sheila, read this thing, for it is the rest of the story until now.”
He handed her the papers, and she took them with an inclination of the head which said: “Give it to me. I will read it now while my eyes can still bear to read it. I have laid on my heart the nettle of shame, and while it is still burning there I will read all that you have to teach me.”
“I will go out in the garden while you read it,” he said. “In a half-hour I will come back, and then we can say good-bye,” he added, with pain in his voice, but firmly.
“No, do not go,” she urged. “Sit here on the bench—at the end of it here,” she said, motioning with her hand.
He shook his head in negation. “No, I will go and say to your mother that I have told you, and ease her mind, for I know she herself meant to tell you.”
As he went he looked at her face closely. It was so young, so pathetic, so pale, yet so strangely beautiful, and her forehead was serene. That was one of her characteristics. In all her life, her forehead remained untroubled and unlined. Only at her mouth and in her eyes did misery or sorrow show. He looked into her eyes now, and he was pleased with what he saw; for they had in them the glow of understanding and the note of will which said: “You and I are parted, but I believe in you, and I will not show I am a weak woman by futile horror. We shall meet no more, but I shall remember you.”
That was what he saw, and it was what he wished to see. He knew her character would stand the test of any trial, and it had done so. Horror had struck her, but had not overwhelmed her. She had cried out in her agony, but she had not been swept out into chaos. She had no weak passions and no futilities. But as he turned away now, it was with the sharp conviction that he had dealt a blow from which the girl would recover, but would never be the same again. She was rich “beyond the dreams of avarice,” but that would not console her. She had resources within herself, had what would keep her steady. Her real power and force, her real hope, were in her regnant soul which was not to be cajoled by life’s subterfuges. Her lips opened now, as though she would say something, but nothing came from them. She only shook her head sadly, as if to say: “You understand. Go, and when you come again, it will be for us to part in peace—at least in peace.”
Out in the garden he found her mother. After the first agitated greeting-agitated on her part, he said: “The story has been told, and she is now reading—”
He told her the story of the manuscript, and added that Sheila had carried herself with courage. Presently the woman said to him: “She never believed you killed Erris Boyne. Well, it may not help the situation, but I say too, that I do not believe you did. I cannot understand why you did not deny having killed him.”
“I could not deny. In any case, the law punished me for it, and the book is closed for ever.”
“Have you never thought that some one—”
“Yes, I have thought, but who is there? The crowd at the Dublin hotel where the thing was done were secret, and they would lie the apron off a bishop. No, there is no light, and, to tell the truth, I care not now.”
“But if you are not guilty—it is not too late; there is my girl! If the real criminal should appear—can you not see?”
The poor woman, distressedly pale, her hair still abundant, her eyes still bright, her pulses aglow, as they had ever been, made a gesture of appeal with hands that were worn and thin. She had charm still, in a way as great as her daughter’s.
“I can see—but, Mrs. Llyn, I have no hope. I am a man whom some men fear—”
“Lord Mallow!” she interjected.
“He does not fear me. Why do you say that?”
“I speak with a woman’s intuition. I don’t know what he fears, but he does fear you. You are a son of history; you had a duel with him, and beat him; you have always beaten him, even here where he has been supreme as governor—from first to last, you have beaten him.”
“I hope I shall be even with him at the last—at the very last,” was Dyck Calhoun’s reply. “We were made to be foes. We were from the first. I felt it when I saw him at Playmore. Nothing has changed since then. He will try to destroy me here, but I will see it through. I will try and turn his rapier-points. I will not be the target of his arrows without making some play against him. The man is a fool. I could help him here, but he will have none of it, and he is running great risks. He has been warned that the Maroons are restive, that the black slaves will rise if the Maroons have any initial success, and he will listen to no advice. He would not listen to me, but, knowing that, I got the provost-marshal to approach him, and when he knew my hand was in it, he stiffened. He would have naught to do with it, and so no preparations are made. And up there”—he turned and pointed—“up there in Trelawney the Maroons are plotting and planning, and any day an explosion may occur. If it occurs no one will be safe, especially if the blacks rise too—I mean the black slaves. There will be no safety then for any one.”
“For us as well, you mean?”
“For you as well as all others, and you are nearer to Trelawney than most others. You are in their path. So be wise, Mrs. Llyn, and get back to Virginia as soon as may be. It is a better place than this.”
“My daughter is mistress here,” was the sorrowful reply. “She will have her own way.”
“Your daughter will not care to stay here now,” he answered firmly.
“She will do what she thinks her duty in spite of her own feelings, or yours, or mine. It is her way, and it has always been her way.”
“I will tell her what I fear, and she may change her mind.”
“But the governor may want her to stay,” answered Mrs. Llyn none too sagely, but with that in her mind which seemed to justify her.
“Lord Mallow—oh, if you think there is any influence in him to keep her, that is another question,” said Dyck with a grim smile. “But, nevertheless, I think you should leave here and go back to Virginia. It is no safe place for two ladies, in all senses. Whatever Lord Mallow thinks or does, this is no place for you. This place is your daughter’s for her to do what she chooses with it, and I think she ought to sell it. There would be no trouble in getting a purchaser. It is a fine property.”
“But the governor might not think as you do; he might not wish it sold.”
Mrs. Llyn was playing a bold, indeed a reckless game. She wanted to show Dyck there were others who would interest themselves in Sheila even if he, Dyck, were blotted from the equation; that the girl could look high, if her mind turned towards marriage. Also she felt that Dyck should know the facts before any one else, so that he would not be shocked in the future, if anything happened. Yet in her deepest heart she wished him well. She liked him as she had never liked any of Sheila’s admirers, and if the problem of Erris Boyne had been solved, she would gladly have seen him wedded to Sheila.
“What has the governor to do with it!” he declared. “It is your daughter’s own property, and she is free to hold or to part with it. There is no Crown consent to ask, no vice-regal approval needed.”
Suddenly he became angry, almost excited. His blood pounded in his veins. Was this man, Mallow, to come between his and her fate always, come into his problem at the most critical moment? “God in heaven!” he said in a burst of passion, “is this a land of the British Empire or is it not? Why should that man break in on every crisis? Why should he do this or that—say yea or nay, give or take away! He is the king’s representative, but he is bound by laws as rigid as any that bind you or me. What has he to do with your daughter or what concerns her? Is there not enough trouble in the world without bringing in Lord Mallow? If he—”
He stopped short, for he saw coming from the summerhouse, Sheila with his paper in her hand. She walked slowly and with dignity. She carried her head high and firmly, and the skin of her face was shining with light as she came on. Dyck noticed how her wide skirts flicked against the flowers that bordered the path, and how her feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground as she walked—a spirit, a regnant spirit of summer she seemed. But in her face there was no summer, there was only autumn and winter, only the bright frost of purpose. As she came, her mother turned as though to leave Dyck Calhoun. She called to her to wait, and Mrs. Llyn stood still, anxious. As Sheila came near she kept her eyes fixed on Dyck. When she reached them, she held out the paper to him.