The afternoon passed in weary, monotonous waiting. Half an hour after the conversation in the yard, Clodagh appeared in her father's room. She was pale and subdued, and her eyelids looked suspiciously red, but she took her place quietly at the foot of the bed. She sat very still, her eyes fixed on Asshlin's face, apparently heedless of both the nurse's deft movements and Milbanke's silent, unobtrusive presence. At three o'clock the acute pains that had tormented the patient at intervals ever since the accident had occurred, returned with a violence that seemed accentuated by the respite he had obtained during the morning. For an hour or more he writhed and groaned in unspeakable agony, while those about him suffered a reflected torment, and chafed impotently at the distance that cut off Carrigmore and the possibility of any fresh medical relief. The nurse was unceasingly vigilant; but the mild and cautious remedies ordered by Gallagher were powerless to soothe the violent pain. At last Nature mercifully intervened, and the exhausted sufferer fell into a sleep that lasted for several hours.
At seven o'clock there was a stir of excitement through the house, as the whisper passed from one to another that the Dublin surgeon had arrived. When the news reached the sick-room, Milbanke drew a breath of intense relief; but Clodagh's pale face went a shade whiter.
The great man arrived attended by Gallagher, and was shown directly to the patient's room. There was a confused moment of introduction; then Milbanke and Clodagh slipped quietly into the passage, leaving the doctors and nurse to their work.
During a long interval of indescribable suspense Molyneaux made his examination. Then, without a word, he and Gallagher emerged from the room and descended solemnly into the dining-room.
While this final conference lasted Clodagh—who had returned to her vigil immediately the doctors had left the sick-room—sat silent and motionless beside the bed; outside in the corridor, Mrs. Asshlin wandered to and fro, weakly tearful and agitated, while Nance stood beside her father's door, afraid to enter and yet reluctant to remain outside. Downstairs in the hall, Milbanke paced up and down in nervous perturbation, awaiting his summons to the conclave.
At last the door opened, and Gallagher looked out.
"Mr. Milbanke," he said, "Doctor Molyneaux would like to see you."
With a little start of agitation Milbanke went forward.
In the dining-room a great peat fire was burning as usual, lighting up the faces of Asshlin's ancestors; but the candles in the silver sconces were unlighted and the window curtains had not been drawn. In the dull light from the three long windows the large, placid face of Molyneaux looked preternaturally long and solemn. Milbanke felt his heart sink.
In formal silence the great man rose and motioned him forward, and the three sat down at the centre table.
"Mr. Milbanke," he began in slow and unctuous tones, "I suppose you would like me to come to the point with as little delay as possible? Professional details will not interest you."
Milbanke nodded mechanically.
Molyneaux hesitated, studying his well-kept hands; then he looked up with the decorous reserve proper to the occasion.
"I regret to inform you, Mr. Milbanke," he said softly, "that my visit is of little—I might say of no—avail. Doctor—er—Gallagher's diagnosis of the case is satisfactory—perfectly satisfactory. Beyond mitigating his sufferings, I fear we can do nothing for our poor friend."
"Nothing!" Milbanke felt a sudden dryness in his throat.
Molyneaux shook his head with becoming gravity.
"Nothing, Mr. Milbanke. The injuries to the ribs and hip we might have coped with, but the seat of the trouble lies deeper. The internal——"
But Milbanke held up his hand.
"I beg you to give me no details," he said weakly. "This—this is a great shock to me."
He covered his face with his hands and sat silent for a few seconds.
Molyneaux tapped lightly upon the table with his finger-tips.
"It was merely that your mind might be fully satisfied, Mr. Milbanke——" he said a trifle pompously.
Milbanke started.
"Forgive me! I understand—I fully understand. It is only the thought of what lies before us—the thought of his children's grief——"
Molyneaux made a gracious gesture of comprehension.
"Ah, yes," he murmured. "Very distressing! Most distressing!"
He looked vaguely round the room; and Gallagher, as if anticipating his thought, pulled out his watch.
Milbanke rose quickly.
"I thank you very much, Doctor Molyneaux," he said, "for your—your valuable opinion. I think Miss Asshlin wishes to know if your train will permit you to partake of some dinner before you leave us?"
Molyneaux smiled with the air of a man who has put an unpleasant duty aside.
"Ah, thank you!" he said suavely. "Thank you! If Doctor—Gallagher gives me permission I shall be charmed. He understands your local time-tables, and has promised that I shall catch the night mail to Dublin."
He smiled again and glanced genially round the firelit room.
"What interesting family portraits our poor friend possesses!" he added with pleasant affability.
But Milbanke did not seem to hear.
"If you will excuse me for a moment," he said hastily, "I will see that you are caused no unnecessary delay. You can understand that we—that we are a somewhat demoralised household."
His voice was agitated, his step uneven as he crossed the room and passed into the hall.
Molyneaux followed him with a conventional glance of sympathy; then his eyes turned again to the pictures with the gratified glance of a dilettante.
"Do you happen to know if this is a Reynolds?" he said to Gallagher, rising and crossing the room.
CHAPTER IV
To the last day of his life, that evening, with its horde of harassing and unfamiliar sensations, remained stamped upon Milbanke's mind; and not least among the unpleasant recollections was the visit of Molyneaux, and the dinner at which he himself unwillingly played host.
It may have been that his usually placid susceptibilities had undergone a strain that rendered him over sensitive; but whatever the cause, the atmosphere diffused by the great man jarred upon him. In his eyes, it seemed little short of callous that one who had just passed sentence of death upon his patient could so far remain unmoved as to partake with relish of the dinner set before him, and comment with affable appreciation upon the quality of the patient's wines.
Milbanke spoke little during the course of that meal. Try as he might to enact the part entrusted to him, his thoughts persistently wandered to the room upstairs, with its doomed sufferer and its anxious watchers, as yet mercifully ignorant of the verdict that had been pronounced. But if the host was silent, the guests made conversation. Gallagher was assiduous in his attentions to the man who, in his eyes, stood for the attainment of all ambition; and Molyneaux—under the unlooked-for stimulus of good, if homely food and wines that even as an epicure he admitted to be remarkable—was graciously pleased to accept the homage of his humble colleague, and to display a suave glimpse of the polished wit for which he was noted in society.
His expressions of regret were perfectly genuine when at last the sound of wheels on the gravel of the drive broke in upon his discourse, and Gallagher deprecatingly drew out his watch.
"The way of the world, Mr. Milbanke!" he murmured as he rose. "Our pleasantest acquaintances end the soonest. I must wish you good-bye—with many thanks for your delightful hospitality. So far as our poor friend is concerned," he added, in a correctly altered tone, "Doctor Gallagher may be relied upon to do everything. In a case like this, where physical pain is recurrent and violent, we can only have recourse to narcotics. We have already allayed the suffering consequent on my examination and you may rely upon some hours of calm; for any subsequent contingency Doctor Gallagher has my instructions. Of course, if you wish me to have one more glimpse at him before I go——"
But Milbanke, who had also risen, held out his hand mechanically.
"Oh no," he said quietly. "No, thank you! I don't think we will trouble you any further. It has been a great satisfaction to have obtained your—your opinion."
Molyneaux waved his hand magnanimously.
"Do not mention it!" he murmured. "My regret is deep that I have been of so little avail. Good-bye again, Mr. Milbanke! It has been an honour as well as a pleasure to meet you."
He smiled blandly, and added the last remark as Gallagher solicitously helped him into his furlined travelling coat. Then, still suavely genial, he passed out of the dining-room towards the hall door.
Gallagher hurried after him, but, in passing Milbanke, he paused.
"I'll be back in an hour, Mr. Milbanke," he said. "I'm just going as far as Carrigmore with Doctor Molyneaux to get an additional supply of morphia."
Milbanke nodded silently, and in his turn stepped into the hall.
When the two men had entered the waiting vehicle, when Molyneaux had waved a courtly farewell and the coachman had gathered up the reins, he turned and slowly began to mount the stairs.
Instantly his foot touched the landing, Mrs. Asshlin darted from the shadowy corridor.
"What news?" she asked agitatedly. "Oh, Mr. Milbanke, what news? The suspense has been dreadful."
Her voice trembled. Tears came very easily to Mrs. Asshlin, and her habitual attitude of mourning had heretofore irritated Milbanke. But now her thin face and faded black garments came as a curiously welcome contrast to the bland affluence, the genial, complacent superiority of Molyneaux. He turned to her with a feeling of warmth.
"Forgive my delay, Mrs. Asshlin!" he said gently. "One is never in a hurry to impart bad news. Doctor Molyneaux holds out no hope—not a shadow of hope."
There was a pause; then Mrs. Asshlin made a tragic gesture.
"Oh, the children!" she murmured. "The poor, poor children! What will become of them?"
"The children will be provided for," Milbanke said hastily. Then, without giving her time for question or astonishment, he went on again:
"Don't say anything of this to Clodagh," he enjoined. "She must have these last hours in peace."
"Certainly—certainly! Poor Denis! Poor Denis! I always said he would have an unfortunate end. But go in and see him, Mr. Milbanke. Clodagh is in the room."
Milbanke silently acquiesced, and moved slowly down the corridor.
At the door of her father's room, he found Nance still patiently watchful. He paused, arrested by his new sense of obligation, and looked down into the upturned, wistful little face.
"What are you doing here, Nance?" he asked kindly.
She made a valiant attempt to conjure up her pretty, winning smile, but her lips began to tremble.
"I don't know!" she said shyly and softly; then in a sudden burst of confidence she stepped close to him. "Clo doesn't like me to go in," she murmured. "She thinks it makes me sad to see father; and I don't know where to go. I'd be in Hannah's way in the kitchen, and I don't like being with Aunt Fan, and—and I'm frightened to be by myself. There's a horrid sort of feel in the house."
Her dark blue eyes searched Milbanke's face appealingly; and with a sensation of pity and protection, he stooped and took one of her cold, limp hands.
"You may come in," he said gently. "It is very lonely out here. I think we can make Clodagh understand."
Without hesitation her fingers closed round his in a movement of confidence and gratitude, and together they passed into the room where Asshlin lay peacefully under the influence of the narcotic administered by Molyneaux. By Gallagher's orders the nurse—who had been deprived of her necessary rest in the morning—had retired to her room again in preparation for the night, and only Clodagh was in attendance. Having quietly closed the door, Milbanke halted hesitatingly, expecting a flood of questions. But to his intense surprise she did not even glance in his direction. She sat motionless and pale, her eyes on her father's face, her attitude stiff and almost defiant. He wondered for a moment whether, by the power of instinct, she had divined Molyneaux's verdict, or whether, through some source unknown to him, the news of it had already reached her. With a sense of trepidation, he tightened his fingers round Nance's small hand, and drew her silently into a corner of the room.
For more than an hour the three watchers sat regarding their patient. No one attempted to speak—no one appeared to have anything to say. Once or twice Mrs. Asshlin flitted agitatedly in and out of the room, but none of them took heed of her presence. Occasionally a clock struck in the silent house or a cinder fell from the fire, causing them all to start nervously. But, except for these interruptions, the quiet was preternatural.
It was with a throb of relief at his heart that Milbanke at last caught the sound of Gallagher's horse trotting up the avenue, and knew by the shutting of the hall door that the doctor had entered the house.
He walked into the sick-room a few minutes later, and with a casual nod to all present, moved at once to the bed.
Bending over Asshlin, he felt his pulse, then glanced significantly at Milbanke, who had risen on his entrance.
"I think we must inject a stimulant," he said. "The pulse is a little weak."
With a faint sound of consternation Clodagh stood up.
"Oh, he's not worse?" she said. "Doctor Gallagher, he's not worse?"
Gallagher looked at her, and his expression changed. The distress of a pretty girl is always difficult to resist.
"No, Miss Asshlin," he said kindly. "No. You see, he has gone through a lot. We must expect him to be weak."
Clodagh looked relieved, though the alarm still lingered in her eyes.
"Of course," she said. "Yes, of course. Is there anything I can do?"
Gallagher glanced at her again.
"Well," he said quietly, "perhaps you will call the nurse for me? There's no real need for her, but it is just as well we should have her on the spot."
Again Clodagh's eyes darkened with apprehension, but she made no remark. Signalling to Nance to follow her, she left the room.
As the two girls disappeared, Gallagher bent again over Asshlin, making another rapid examination; then once more he glanced up at Milbanke.
"He may not last the night," he said below his breath. "Molyneaux expected that it wouldn't be a long business, but we didn't look for the change so soon as this."
Milbanke did not alter his position.
"You'll stay on, of course?" he said mechanically.
"Yes. Oh yes, I'll stay on!"
As he said the last word Clodagh reappeared.
"The nurse will be here in a minute," she said in a steady voice.
The unrelaxed, monotonous vigil lasted until two o'clock; then, as Asshlin showed a disposition to rally, the doctor asserted his authority, and dismissed Mrs. Asshlin, Nance, and Milbanke for a much-needed rest—Clodagh alone refusing to leave the room.
Though he would not have admitted it, the command came as a boon to Milbanke. His long and arduous journey, coupled with the strain and excitement of the day and evening, had culminated in intense weariness; and when Gallagher's order came, it would have been a superhuman effort to offer any protest.
Reaching his room, he took off his boots, and, partially undressing, threw himself upon his bed.
How many hours he slept the deep sleep of utter exhaustion he did not know. His first effort at awaking consciousness was a thrill of nervous fright that made him sit up in bed, aware with a sudden shock that some one was knocking imperatively on his door and calling him by name in low, agitated tones.
"Mr. Milbanke! Mr. Milbanke! Wake, please! Quick! Mr. Milbanke!"
He stared into the darkness for an instant in dazed apprehension; then he slid out of bed, fumbling blindly for his dressing-gown.
"Coming!" he called. "Coming!"
Having found the garment, he crossed the room stumblingly, thrusting his arms into the sleeves as he went.
Opening the door, he realised the situation with a sick sinking of the heart. Clodagh stood in the corridor with a blanched face, holding a candle in her shaking hand.
"Oh, come, please!" she exclaimed. "Come quick!"
Without a word he stepped forward, and the two hurried down the passage.
In the sick-room the fire was glowing and additional candles had been lighted. For a second Milbanke paused at the door; then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the access of light, the scene became clear to him. On the bed lay Asshlin, his head partly propped up by pillows, his eyes wide, his breath coming in slow, difficult gasps; Gallagher was moving about the room with more quickness and deftness than the Englishman could have believed possible; Mrs. Asshlin, unnerved, and yet fascinated, leaned upon the end of the bed; while Nance—crying silently—followed the nurse to and fro in dazed, half-comprehending fear; and Hannah, the household factotum, crouched behind the door, weeping and murmuring inarticulate prayers.
The picture turned Milbanke cold. With an instinctive gesture he paused, with the intention of shielding it from Clodagh's sight. But at the very moment that he turned towards her, a convulsion shook the dying man. He half-lifted himself in bed, his eyes staring wildly; as Gallagher rushed forward, a faint sound escaped him, his head fell forward, and his body collapsed in the doctor's arms.
There was a breathless, appalled silence—a silence that seemed to extend over years. At last Gallagher looked up.
"It's all over," he said in a hushed voice.
For a minute no one spoke, no one moved. It seemed as if the whole room was petrified. Then Gallagher quietly laid the body back upon the pillows, and as though the action broke the spell, Clodagh gave a sudden sharp cry and ran forward to the bed.
CHAPTER V
The three days that followed Asshlin's death resolved themselves into so many hours of gloom and confusion, that found their culmination in the funeral ceremony.
To Irishmen of every class, a funeral is invested with an almost symbolic importance, and a solemn consideration is bestowed upon its most minute details. And Milbanke, deeply imbued with the horror and suddenness of the whole disaster, was filled with a growing astonishment at the numberless preliminaries—the amount of precedence and prestige requiring consideration—before one poor human body could be hidden away. But he rose dutifully to the occasion and proved himself unfailingly patient and conscientious in every emergency, from the first repugnant interview with the undertaker to the woeful breakfast, partaken of in the early hours of the funeral morning, with the curtains drawn across the dining-room windows and the candles in the massive silver sconces shedding an unnatural light upon the table laden with eatables.
The guests who partook of this meal were men of varied and interesting types; but whatever their characteristic differences, it was remarkable that the same air of responsibility and solemnity inspired them all. It did not matter that many of them had been personal enemies of the dead man; that many, with that jealous distrust of unconventionality that reigns in Ireland, had markedly drawn away from him in the last ten years of his life; death had obliterated everything. Asshlin's eccentricities, his lawlessness, his contempt for the little world in which he lived were all forgotten. He was one of themselves—deserving, in death at least, the same consideration that the county had bestowed upon his father, his grandfather, and those who had gone before them.
The faces of these men were unfamiliar to Milbanke, though each on entering the dining-room shook him cordially and sympathetically by the hand. The meal was partaken of almost in silence; and it was with obvious relief that, one after another, the members of the party rose from table and passed into the darkened hall, and from thence to the sweep of gravelled drive that fronted the house, where the less privileged of those who had come to do Asshlin honour lounged singly or in groups.
The funeral was timed to start at nine; but the concourse of mourners—well accustomed to the delays inevitable on such an occasion—evinced no sigh of impatience when half-past nine, and then ten arrived, and no move had yet been made.
But all things come to those who understand the art of patience. At a quarter past ten a thrill galvanised the lethargic crowd; and with the recognition of the great moment for which they waited, the men began to jostle each other and push forward towards the house, while all hats were respectively removed.
A faint murmur of admiration and awe went up from the gathering as the great brass-bound coffin was borne solemnly through the door and laid upon the open bier. In silence Milbanke and young Laurence Asshlin took their places as chief mourners, and with the inevitable confusion and uncertainty of such a moment, the crowd of men and vehicles formed up behind them, the horses under the bier moved slowly forward, and the body of Denis Asshlin passed for the last time down the avenue and through the gates of Orristown.
The funeral over, Milbanke walked back from Carrigmore alone. The servants, who had followed their master to his resting-place in the old graveyard, had remained in the village to enjoy the importance that the occasion lent them; young Asshlin had disappeared at the conclusion of the burial service; while the daughters and sister-in-law of the dead man—in accordance with the custom of the country—had remained secluded in their own rooms at Orristown, appearing neither at the breakfast nor the funeral.
In a house of death, the hours that succeed the burial are, if possible, even more melancholy than those that precede it. The sensations of awe and responsibility have been dispersed, but as yet it is impossible to resume the commonplace routine of life. As Milbanke passed through the gateway and walked up the drive, ploughed into new furrows by the long procession of cars that had followed the coffin, he was deeply sensitive to this impression; and it fell upon him afresh with a chill of desolation as he entered the door, still standing open, and moved slowly across the deserted hall.
In the dining-room the curtains had been drawn back and the candles extinguished; but the daylight seemed to fall tardily and unnaturally upon the room after its three days' exclusion. He stood for a moment looking at the débris of the breakfast that had not yet been removed, at the disarray of the chairs that had been hurriedly vacated; then, with a fresh and poignant sense of loss and loneliness, he turned hastily and walked out of the room.
In the hall he attempted to pause afresh; but the sound of muffled sobbing from the upper portion of the house sent him incontinently forth into the open. With an overwhelming desire for human fellowship—for any companionship in this abode of desolation, he passed without consideration of his dignity round the corner of the house in the direction of the stable-yard.
He walked calmly, but there was a pucker of anxiety on his usually placid brow—an expression of concern, apart from actual sorrow, in his tightly set lips. To the most casual observer it would have been obvious that something weighed upon his mind.
Still moving with his habitual precision, he entered the yard by the arched gateway, picking his way between the scattered array of rubbish, food, and implements that encumbered the ground.
When he appeared, a dozen rough or glossy heads were thrust out of kennels or outhouses, as the dogs accorded him a noisy welcome; but paying only partial heed to their demonstrations, he passed on to the vast coach-house, with the vague hope that some labourer connected with the farm or stables might possibly have been left behind in the general exodus. But here again he was doomed to disappointment. The coach-house, with its walls festooned with rotting harness, its ghostly row of cumbersome antiquated vehicles, was as empty of human presence as the yard itself.
Conscious of the isolation that hung over the place—disproportionately aware of his own aimlessness, he stood uncertain in what direction to turn. For the moment, the household had no need of him; there were no legal formalities to succeed the funeral, Asshlin having left no will; and of personal duties he had none to claim his attention.
He stood by the coach-house door woefully undecided as to his next move, when all at once relief came to him from the most unexpected quarter of the outbuildings. One of the dairy windows was opened sharply, and a head was thrust through the aperture.
"Wisha, what is it you're doin' there, sir?" a voice demanded kindly. "Sure that ould yard is no fit place for you!"
Turning hastily, Milbanke saw the broad, plain face of Hannah; her small eyes red, her rough cheeks stained with weeping.
"Why, Hannah!" he exclaimed, "what are you doing here? I thought you were at the funeral."
Hannah passed the back of her hand across her eyes.
"Wisha, what would I be doin' at it?" she demanded huskily. "Sure I don't know what they do be seein' in funerals at all."
Milbanke glanced up with interest, recognising the originality of the remark.
"Why, you and I are of the same opinion," he said. "The Celtic delight in the obsequies of a friend has been puzzling me for the last three days——" Then he paused suddenly, conscious of Hannah's fixed regard. "That is," he substituted quickly—"that is, I have been wondering, like you, what they see in it."
Hannah's small, observant eyes did not waver in their scrutiny.
"You've been wonderin' about somethin', sure enough!" she said. "I seen it meself every time I'd be carryin' in the dinner or doin' a turn for the poor corpse. God be good to him this holy and blessed day!" Again she wiped her eyes. "But 'tisn't wonderin' alone that's at you," she added more briskly. "'Tis some other thing that's lyin' heavy on your mind. I seen it meself at every hand's turn."
Milbanke started. This sympathetic onslaught was as disconcerting as it was unexpected.
"I—I won't contradict you, Hannah," he said waveringly. "No doubt you are right."
For the space of a minute Hannah was profoundly silent; then she broached the subject that had been filling her mind for a day and a half.
"Wisha, now, is it thrue what they do be tellin' me?" she asked softly and warily—"that you're goin' to be father and mother an' all to thim two poor children?"
Again Milbanke started almost guiltily; then the personal anxiety that mingled with and almost dominated his grief for Asshlin rose irrepressibly in response to the persuasive tones, the kindly human interest and curiosity.
"Yes, Hannah," he said quickly. "Yes, it is my intention to try and fill my poor friend's place."
The tears welled suddenly into Hannah's eyes, and with an awkward movement she wiped her rough hand in her apron and held it out.
"God Almighty will give it back to you, sir!" she exclaimed, with impulsive fervour.
Strangely touched by the expression of understanding and appreciation, he responded to the gesture and took her hand.
But instantly she withdrew it.
"Don't be mindin' an ould woman like me, sir," she said deprecatingly. "'Twas the thought of the children that come over me. I couldn't help it. I had the both of thim in me arms before they could cry. Small wonder me heart would be in thim! Many's the sad day I put over me, thinkin' what would become of them, wid the poor masther goin' to the bad. God forgive me for sayin' it! And sure now 'tis all settled and done for—and the heavth of it off of our minds. Praise be to God!"
She paused to dry her tears.
"And what would you be thinkin' to do wid thim?" she asked presently in a new and more personal tone.
Milbanke did not answer at once. His eyes strayed uneasily from one object in the yard to another, while the frown of perplexity that had puckered his brow since Asshlin's death reappeared more prominently than before. At last, with a certain expression of puzzled resolution, he looked up and met Hannah's attentive gaze.
"To tell you the truth, Hannah," he said, "that is the precise question I have been asking myself ever since your poor master died."
There was a wait of some seconds while his listener digested the information; then she nodded her head with slow impressiveness.
"I seen it meself," she said again. "Sure, I seen it as plain as daylight. 'There's somethin' on his mind,' I says to meself. An' if it isn't the poor masther's death,' I says, 'thin it's nothin' more nor less than the natural feelin's of a single gentleman that finds himself wid two grown daughters.'"
It was characteristic of Milbanke that he did not smile. He recognised only one fact in the old servant's words—the fact that the state of affairs over which he had been worrying in lonely perplexity had suddenly been accurately, if roughly, voiced by some one else. He glanced up with quick relief into the round, red face framed in the dairy window.
"Hannah," he said honestly, "your surmise was perfectly correct."
For the first time a smile broke over her tear-stained face.
"I was right thin? 'Tis the children was troublin' you?"
A sharp gleam of inquiry shot from her eyes.
"Yes," he answered simply.
"An' why, now?" Again her tone changed, the irrepressible undercurrent of native humour, native inquisitiveness and familiarity welling out unconsciously. "Sure, they're good children."
"I do not doubt it. I do not doubt it for one moment."
"But they're troublin' you all the same?"
"Well, yes. Yes, I confess they are troubling me."
"Both of thim?" she asked innocently.
He hesitated.
"Well, no," he replied artlessly. "No, not both of them."
"Ah, I thought that same!" Hannah gave a nod of understanding. "Sure, 'twas to be tormentin' men she was brought into the world for. I said so meself the first day I took her into me arms."
"But—but I haven't said anything. How do you know that it is——?"
"How do I know that it's Miss Clodagh that's botherin' you? Sure, how do I know that you're standin' before me? Faith, by the use of me eyesight! Haven't I seen you lookin' at her and ponderin'—and lookin' at her agin?"
Milbanke's lips tightened, and he drew himself up.
"I should be sorry if any thought I have bestowed on your young mistress——" he began coldly; then suddenly the intense need of help and sympathetic counsel over-balanced dignity. "Hannah," he said abruptly, "I'm in a terribly awkward position, and that is the simple truth. My mind is quite at rest about the younger girl. She is a child—and will be a child for years. A good school is all she needs. But with the other it's different—with Clodagh it's different. Clodagh is no longer a child."
Hannah remained discreetly silent.
"If I had a sister," he went on, "or any friend to whom I could entrust her. But I have none."
Again Hannah shook her head.
"Why, thin, that's a pity!" she murmured. "Sure, 'tis lonesome for a gintleman to be by himself."
"It is a pity—a great pity. You do not know how it is weighing upon me. Of course, there is her aunt——"
Hannah made an exclamation of horror.
"Is it Mrs. Laurence?" she cried. "Is it tie her to Mrs. Laurence you would? Sure, you may as well put her in the grave and be done wid it."
Milbanke's harassed face grew more perplexed.
"No," he said hurriedly—"no; I understand that that arrangement is impossible. I was merely wondering whether there is any other—any more distant relative with whom she might be happy——"
He looked anxiously into her broad, shrewd face.
For a moment the small eyes met his seriously, then involuntarily they twinkled.
"Faith, when I was a young woman, sir," she said slowly, "men wasn't so sat on findin' relations for a girl like Miss Clodagh—unless maybe 'twas a relation of their own makin'!"
Milbanke suddenly looked away.
"What—what do you mean?" he asked confusedly.
"Why, that 'tisn't aunts and cousins that a girl like Miss Clodagh wants, but a good husband."
"A—a husband?"
"Why, thin, what else? Instid of throublin' yourself and frettin' yourself till your heart is scalded out of you, why don't you marry her? That's whatI'vebeen askin' meself ever since the poor masther died. It's out now, if I'm to be killed for it!"
She eyed him almost defiantly.
But Milbanke stood stammering and confused, his gaze fixed nervously on the ground, an unaccustomed flush on his worn cheeks.
"But—but, Hannah, I—I am an old man!"
His tone was deprecating and meant to be ironic; but unconsciously it had an undernote of question; unconsciously, as he raised his eyes to his mentor's face, he straightened the shoulders that age and study had combined to bend.
"I am an old man!" he said again. "Why—why, I am five years older than her father——"
Hannah continued to search his face.
"An' sure what harm is that?" she said. "Wasn't me own poor man as ould as me grandfather?—an' no woman ever buried a finer husband—God rest him!"
Milbanke's lack of humorous imagination stood him in good stead.
"But she's a child," he stammered—"a child——"
For answer, Hannah leant out of the window until her face was close to his.
"Listen here to me!" she said softly. "Child or no child, you thought about marryin' her before ever I said it. But you'd never riz the courage to do it. You're not like the Asshlins, that would tear down the walls of hell if they wanted to be gettin' at the divil; you'd like somebody to take him be the hand and draw him out nice and aisy for you——
"There she is up in that lonesome house, frettin' her heart an' cryin' her eyes out. Why can't you go up an' take her, before somebody else does?"
As she came to the last words her rough voice dropped. Her loyalty to her dead master, her anxiety to see his child in a place of safety poured from her in crude eloquence. To her primitive mind Milbanke appeared as the ideal husband—a man of dependable years, of wealth, of good social position; and all her affections, all her energies yearned to make the marriage. She could not have framed the fear that possessed her; but her instinct, her acute native intuition warned her unanswerably that the daughter of Denis Asshlin would need protection, and would need it before long. With an impulsive gesture she stretched out her hand, and, touching Milbanke's shoulder, pushed him gently forward into the yard.
"Go on, sir!" she urged softly. "Go on up an' take her, before somebody else does!"
CHAPTER VI
It may be surmised without fear of misconception that never during the smooth course of his uneventful existence had Milbanke been so rudely shaken into self-comprehension as by Hannah's unlooked-for onslaught. Left to the placid guidance of unaided instinct, it is almost certain that he would have left Orristown whenever the hour of departure arrived, innocently unconscious that any parting pangs could be attributed to a personal cause. It is possible that, with the passage of time, he might have acknowledged that somewhere in the inner recesses of his mind there was a shrine where one face, more changeful and alluring than any other he had known, reigned in solitary state; but beyond that tardy acknowledgment he would not have dared to venture. Later still, perhaps, if circumstances had compelled him to resign his guardianship over Clodagh in favour of some possible husband, it is within the bounds of reason to conjecture that understanding of his feelings might have come to him when, having said good-bye to the young girl just crossing the threshold of life, he returned to his home, newly and bitterly alive to his age and loneliness. But now, in the light of present events, all such suppositions had become valueless. As if by some powerful outside pressure, his eyes had been opened, and he stood dazed and elated before the new road that opened upon his vision.
His brain felt light and unsteady, his limbs were imbued with a sensation of unaccustomed buoyancy as he turned, impelled by Hannah's words, and moved across the yard towards the arched gateway. A half-admitted, intoxicating sense of imminent action possessed him; and as he walked forward it seemed that he scarcely felt the ground beneath his feet.
Almost without volition, he passed from the stone-paved courtyard into the sweep of gravelled pathway that fronted the house. For the first time in his existence he was conscious of being borne forward on the tide of his emotions; and the knowledge had an exhilarating, unbalanced daring that suggested youth.
As though he feared the evaporation of his mood, he made no pause on gaining the pathway, but went straight forward towards the house with a haste and impetuosity very foreign to his formal nature. On his second entry into the hall, he paid no heed to the chill desolation of the place, but crossing the intervening space, began immediately to mount the stairs.
Scarcely had he reached the highest step, however, than he halted incontinently. For, as though in direct response to the thoughts that were filling his mind, a door on the corridor opened, and Clodagh appeared.
Seeing him, she too paused; and in the moment of mutual hesitation he had opportunity to study her.
In her new black dress, she looked slighter and more immature than he had expected; and the pathetic effect of her appearance was enhanced by the paleness of her face and the heavy, purple shadows that sleeplessness and tears had traced below her eyes. As the impression obtruded itself upon him, his own nervous excitement dropped from him suddenly.
"My poor child!" he said involuntarily.
At the words and the tone, she turned to him impulsively.
"Oh! Mr. Milbanke——" she began.
Then her loneliness, her sense of bereavement and desolation, inundated her mind. With a short sob, she moved abruptly away, and turning her face to the wall, broke into a passion of tears.
The action was the action of a child; and without hesitation Milbanke responded to it. Stepping across the corridor, he put his arm about her shoulder and drew her gently towards the stairs.
"Come!" he said soothingly—"come! The house is quite quiet, and you are badly in want of a little daylight and fresh air. Come! Let me take you out."
Clodagh sobbed on; but she suffered herself to be led down the stairs and across the hall towards the open door. There, however, she paused, newly arrested by her grief.
"Oh, Mr. Milbanke," she cried, "I can't believe it! I can't believe that we'll never see him again. Poor father! Oh, poor father!"
But Milbanke was equal to the situation.
"You must be brave," he said kindly. "You must remember that he would like you to be brave."
The words were an inspiration; with marvellous efficacy they checked the torrent of Clodagh's tears. For a moment she stood looking at him in a dazed, uncertain way; then she lifted her head in a pathetic attempt at decisive action.
"You are right," she said unevenly. "Hewouldlike to know that I was brave."
The declaration seemed to cost her an immense effort; for instantly it was made, she turned away from Milbanke, freeing herself from his detaining arm. And as though fearing to trust herself to any further onrush of emotion, she stepped through the open door and walked quickly forward to where the gravelled drive merged into the long and narrow glen in which the Orristown woods met the sea.
Down the wide track leading to this glen she walked, with head rigidly erect and with resolutely set lips, while Milbanke followed. Now that the immediate need for his protection had been removed, his mind involuntarily reverted to his earlier and more tumultuous thoughts. With a strange, half-timid excitement, he acknowledged the personal element in his surroundings, and exulted with a certain tremulous joy in the keen air that blew inland from the sea; in the pleasant earthy smell of the moss that clothed the rough stones of the boundary wall skirting the path; in the promise of spring, suggested by the hardy green of the wild violet plants clustering at the roots of the beech trees. And with his eyes fixed upon Clodagh's slim black figure, he walked forward in a vaguely intoxicating dream.
For the full course of the path she went on steadily; but reaching the glen, she paused; and there, as if by a pre-arrangement of destiny, Milbanke overtook her.
With a quiet, unostentatious movement he stepped to her side, and stood looking upon the scene that spread before them.
The view was not imposing, but it was beautiful with the brooding, solemn beauty that emanates from Ireland. Upon one hand, the sea stretched away green, invincible, and cold as it so often looks in early spring; upon the other, the woods lay a mass of leafless, interlacing boughs that formed a clean, brown silhouette against the grey sky; while directly in front, the first undulation of the rugged Orristown cliffs stood up, an impregnable rampart against the outer world.
For a long silent moment Clodagh surveyed the picture; then with one of the impulsive, unstudied gestures that were so characteristic of her, she looked round; and for the first time since they had left the house, her eyes rested on Milbanke's face.
"You are very kind to me," she said suddenly. "Why are you so kind?"
The words, spoken with complete ingenuousness, came at a singularly appropriate moment. To Milbanke, nervously conscious of his own emotions, they seemed inspired. With a quick, unsteady gesture he wheeled round, and putting out his hand, caught hers.
"It—it is easy to be kind to some people," he said, almost inarticulately.
Clodagh looked at him in some surprise; but it did not occur to her to withdraw her hand. She stood perfectly calm and unembarrassed; and presently, as he made no attempt at further speech, her glance wandered back to the cool stretch of green water.
"Yes," she said slowly, "I suppose it is easy to be nice to some people; but not to selfish people like me."
At her words, Milbanke's hand tightened abruptly.
"You must not say that," he murmured. "I have never seen any faults in your character. And even—even if I had"—his voice quickened confusedly—"even if I had seen them, you would still be the—the child of my oldest friend."
He spoke disjointedly and agitatedly; but at his words, Clodagh turned to him afresh with a grateful, impulsive movement.
"Ah, then I understand!" she said warmly. "You are very kind—you are very good——"
At her movement and her tone, a mental giddiness seized upon Milbanke. A flush rose to his temples.
"Clodagh," he said suddenly, "let me be kind to you always! Let—let me marry you—and be kind to you always!"
The appeal came forth with volcanic suddenness. He had not meant to be precipitate; it was entirely alien to his slow, methodical nature to plunge headlong into any situation. But the occasion was unprecedented; circumstances overwhelmed him. For a long space he stood as if transfixed, his eyes straining to catch the expression on Clodagh's face, his pale, ascetic features puckered with anxiety.
The pause was long—preternaturally long. Clodagh stood as motionless as he, her hand still resting passive in his clasp, her clear eyes staring into his in stupefied amazement. It was plainly evident that no realisation of the declaration just made had penetrated her understanding. To her mind—unattuned, even vaguely, to the idea of love, and temporarily numbed by her grief—the thought that her father's friend could consider her in any light but that of a child was too preposterous, too unreal to come spontaneously. The belief that Milbanke's extraordinary words but needed some explanatory addition held her attentive and expectant. And under this conviction, she stood unconscious of his close regard and unembarrassed by the pressure of his hand.
At last, as some shadowy perception of her thoughts obtruded itself upon him, he stirred nervously, and the flush upon his face deepened.
"Clodagh," he said, "have I made myself plain? Do you understand that I—that I wish to marry you? That I want you for my—my wife?"
The final word with its intense incongruity cut suddenly through the mist of her bewilderment. In a flash of comprehension the meaning of his declaration sprang to her mind. Her face turned red, then pale; with a sharp movement she drew away her hand.
"You want to marry me?" she said in a slow, amazed voice.
Before the note of blank, undisguised incredulity, Milbanke shrank into himself.
"Yes," he said hurriedly—"yes; that is my desire. I know that perhaps it may—may seem incongruous. You are very young; and I——"
He hesitated with a painful touch of embarrassment. At the hesitation, Clodagh's voice broke forth.
"But I don't want to marry," she cried; "I don't want to marry—any one."
There was a sharp, half-frightened note audible in her voice. For the moment, her whole attitude was that of the inexperienced being who clings instinctively to the rock of present things, and obstinately refuses to be cast into the sea of future possibilities. For the moment, she was blind to the instrument that was forcing her towards those possibilities. To her immature mind it was the choice between the known and the unknown. Then suddenly and accidentally her eyes came back to Milbanke's face, and the personal element in the choice assailed her abruptly.
"Oh, I couldn't!" she cried involuntarily—"I couldn't!—I couldn't!"
She did not intend to hurt him; but cruelty is the prerogative of the young, and she failed to see that he winced before the decisive honesty of her words.
"Am I so—so very distasteful?" he asked in a low, unsteady voice.
She looked at him in silence. It was the inevitable clash of youth and age. She was warm-hearted, she was capable of generous action; but before all else, she was young—the triumphant inheritor of the ages. Life stretched before her, while it lay behind him. She looked at him; and as she looked a wave of revolt—a strong, sudden sense of her individual right to happiness—surged through her.
"Oh, I couldn't!" she cried again—"I couldn't!"
And before Milbanke could reply—before he had time to comprehend the purport of her words—she had turned and fled in the direction of the house, leaving him standing as he was, dazed and petrified.