CHAPTER XIII"This," remarked Psyche, opening the hall door very wide, "is the loveliest place that I have ever been in."Miss Delorme looked through the gap in the trees at the quiet gun-metal sea, surging between the cliffs. She sniffed up the soft air with its tang of salt and peat. There was in her young mind the desire to dance and run from sheer lightness of spirits. Crabbit sat upon the doorstep and eyed her with grave curiosity. He had twice endured being caught up and called a dear darling.A well-ordered villa on the outskirts of Folkestone seemed to belong to another world, with its orthodox morning slits of open window airing the rooms, its neat and congested garden, where calceolarias, geraniums and lobelia were replaced by spring bulbs each year, in the same week, on the same day, if it did not rain. Where rooms were turned out on their appointed day and the bitter cold of leafy June never could call a fire into existence once the grate was ornamented with a plant mausoleum in chequered pottery. Here, at Castle Freyne, the asters still lingered, with here and there a flower upon them. Thomas, the old gardener, was declaring the Missus 'd ate the face off him if he delayed lashin' in thim bulbs a day longer; but what could he do when he could not lay his hand to them in any place—an' he knowin' he put them away careful.The thought of Miss Eva Delorme with spring bulbs which would not be found brought a bubble of laughter to Psyche's lips.Phil was bringing the hunters out for a mouthful of sweet grass, placidly letting them graze between the flower-beds."Destroyin' the lawn before the masheen, Phil!""Won't the blast of the roller flatten it!" returned Phil cheerily. "And it is the sweetest taste in the place, Thomas—like nuts, it is."From some unseen abyss fat Anne's voice thundered to Phil that his breakfast was waitin' on him, an' if he didn't come to it there were dogs in plenty, as she would not be disorganized with the table led all night."Wasn't I in ten minnits ago an' not a sign of it?" replied Phil pleasantly. "So I to run out with these two, Anne; put me bit of bacon on the range, Anne Macree, till I gits in to it."Anne Macree replied fierily in a voice of complete good-humour that it was Cragsbread his likes should be gettin', same as the Germans, and that there was a few cakes in the oven for the upstairs breakfast which he could have if he'd hurry up, himself an' his Macrees.A shaft of light came through the grey clouds, making a bar of silver on the steely sea; the sky, travelling quickly, now showed little flecks of blue and flaws of pearly white. Yesterday's cold wind had gone."It's heavenly," Psyche whispered. "It is nearly ten, and at the Larches Miss Eva would now be seeing which fish was the cheapest, and ordering a warm joint which would go out to the kitchen for luncheon. And it would be batter-pudding day.""You love it, Sprite!" Gheena came running round from the stables, her clear brown skin flushed, her bare head ruffled."I want to live here." The English girl looked out with her pale bluey-green eyes. "I want never to leave. I want to learn the difference between squirrels and foxes, and how to sit on at jumps, and why the hounds yowl for a time and then don't say anything.""And I"—Gheena looked out—"I want to live here sometimes, but I want to travel, and to see France and Italy and further away still, and hunt somewhere else where it's flat going, and just be here in the summer or in the autumn, but not always."Dearest George, who came from hermetically-sealed rooms, and was consequently very chilly in the mornings, now called out that Mona would catch a bad chill if she did not at once come in.A roaring fire mocked at economy in the long dining-room. Anne's preparations for a visitor smoked in various forms. She had what she called loosed her hand at hot bread and produced three varieties.Psyche ate an unsprite-like breakfast, listening thoughtfully to her host's prophetic warnings of financial downfall and the general muddle of England at war."At present," said Mr. Freyne, coquetting between cold game-pie and hot kidneys on toast, "we are like candles alight at both ends. Everything costs more and we have less money to pay for it with.""Why not go back to the pie, Dearest George?" advised his wife affectionately, "and not think of the kidneys, because they'll get cold."Mr. Freyne, saying pettishly that by now Matilda might remember how delicate his appetite was, took kidneys and returned to his seat.Gheena was creaming and sugaring her cousin Lancelot's tea. The wounded hero was growing puffy and taking on a greenish hue from constant food and no exercise.He wished to know pettishly—it is an invalid's privilege to be pettish—if Gheena would drive him to the village in the pony cart to see if his new socks had come to the shop.Psyche, thrusting this aside, said quickly that Gheena had promised to go over to the kennels, so that the names of the hounds could be learnt."You can't call these things hounds," said Lancelot, "terriers and boar-hounds; and my leg won't fit in the trap with three other people." The complete absence of sadness at this announcement caused a fretful outburst—how when a fellow couldn't wash no one wanted him, and if he hadn't gone to fight——"The wagon would never have rolled over your toe," said Gheena absently. Things leaked out curiously in Ireland. "To-morrow, Lance, the car is going to the station and we take tea with Mrs. Keane. Here are your sticks.""Your arm," was what Lancelot whispered amorously, as he extended a well-covered hand.With a welcome opening of the door, Miss O'Toole came in, apologizing for an early intrusion; but it was on the important subject of a concert for the Belgians which they wanted Mrs. Freyne to help with."We have been mapping it out," said the young lady vigorously. "Miss Freyne will sing the recruiting song, and Mr. Freyne, I hear, is inimitable as John Peel and the Meynill Hunt."George Freyne made modest mention of advancing years and a declining voice. His wife, who was a musician and played his accompaniments, wondered mildly what key he would commence in.He generally tried two or three before he rushed away on a fourth, so flat that to follow melodiously was a difficulty."And we thought if our wounded hero would recite—his khaki and the crutches, you know—something quite simple, of course—cheery."Lancelot, swaying on his sticks, dived in the recesses of his mind, and remembered that he had done the "Burial of Sir John Moore" in red velvet and a lace collar at home when he was ten.When Psyche said that she was interested in such a burial, Mrs. Freyne explained at some length that, of course, Lance did not mean Sir John Moore had put on a red velvet frock to be interred in, but that was what Lancelot had worn to show off in."The seven-thirty from Cortra will be in time," said Miss O'Toole eagerly, "and we'll have crowds. Then light refreshments, sandwiches and so on given, and charged a shilling each for it; they'll catch the eleven-thirty back—the people I mean—or have a special, or perhaps everyone will motor."Mrs. Freyne thought it would be dreadful if the concert dragged on and people had to run away in the middle of God Save the King or a sandwich.The glittering brightness of the morning was increasing. It was almost summerlike when they opened the door again and stood in the soft air."You might drive me in for those stockings, Gheena," said Lancelot. "Any day will do for old hounds, and I may have twinges to-morrow.""You'll open with the Marseillaise, and Mrs. Brady is learning the Russian anthem on the harmonium. It will be magnificent! I'll put you down to help with the supper, Mrs. Freyne—cake and sandwiches and anything else. And—I'll drive you to the village, Mr. Freyne. It will only do the stubborn pony good."Gheena said "Splendid!" in relieved tones. Lancelot had hobbled in; he disliked too much fresh air."Lancelot, you can go to the village," called his aunt loudly.Lancelot appeared again with Naylour behind him adjusting a British warm—a Balaclava helmet under his cap, and thick gloves completing his entrenchment against the advance of a chill. Gheena's pony came rattling wickedly round at the moment, poking out its stubborn head while responding gleefully to whacks from Phil with thuds of iron against the floor of the trap.Lancelot advanced dubiously,"Oh, it's Miss O'Toole who is going to take you," said Gheena. "She says she won't mind the extra work for her pony, and you can talk about the recitation. Don't bury Sir John Moore."With a glance which Anne from the kitchen reported to be as bither as weasels, Lancelot got into the inside trap.The two girls drove off behind Topsy and turned inland, crawling along the narrow fuchsia-bordered road which led to Dillon's Court."You can only see the sea from the hills there," Gheena said; "but it's a dear old home."The long, dull red house stood against a background of dark wood and mountain. The wide lawn was dotted with big trees, walnuts, oaks, huge beeches; one could hear the hoarse splutter and gurgle of the trout stream which tore on to commit suicide in the lake. In summer, to the left of the house, a mass of copper beeches passed to tender tinted pinky green, to sullen splendour of coppery crimson, glowing in every gleam of sun.The wide hall door, standing open, was of panelled oak."You can see the sea from the gardens, Psyche. There's poor Darby!"Hobbling down the four shallow steps before the door, a cripple, the last perhaps of a long line of sportsmen, the old place which he loved round him, a glorious frame, enclosing a defaced portrait. It was bitter to remember how he had leapt the sunk fence there so lightly once, swung up those copper beeches up to the topmost boughs, until he looked through a red cloud up to spatches of blue, shining down. Whole-limbed, disregarding torn clothes, jumping on the ponies' backs, looking forward to life spelt with a capital L, as his father's had been, a man's life with his son to follow him. And now—he shuffled agilely up to meet the two—brown-skinned Gheena and the white stranger, whose eyes were full of something which he had forgotten—admiration. To Psyche he was the magician who made the hounds go."It is even more beautiful than Castle Freyne," she said, as she jumped from the trap lightly, her eight stone of humanity perfectly balanced. "Oh, what a dear old place!" she almost whispered. "You can see the ghosts of other days here.""I can," said Darby drearily, his face changing."And see the spirits of days to come," she said gently."Days I shall go dot and go one through—yes—alone!" His eyes were on Gheena, who was romping with two sprawling joyous terrier pups."And the place cries for company." As lightly as the sprite they had nicknamed her after, Psyche stepped up the shallow step wall into the dim cool hall.The hideous furniture of Victoria's reign had not been put into it by the Dillon bride of that period. It was full of mellow satinwood and darker mahogany of earlier days. Fine priceless china jostled collections of shells in a large cabinet, and a moulting flight of stuffed birds flaunted gaudily in another."My grandmother put the Worcester in the pantry to make two shelves for her shells," grinned Darby, his stick strafing the polished floor. "My mother then worked her artistic will in the drawing-room. She enamelled the mantel-shelf."A wide room, with big windows looking on the lake, with exquisite pieces of old furniture here and there, but overshadowed by stiff strips of fancy-work wrought on black satin, by red plush triangles hung with china, by plates and dishes gone to ground in red velvet mounts, by black and gold cabinets, almost smiling because they took places of honour, while precious pieces of Chippendale were stowed into corners."I never altered it"—Darby looked at the big room in its ugliness—"but there are enough old things about to make it a treasure house if anyone bothered. I believe the marble can be cleaned. My father, I am told, regretted there being no divorce obtainable in Ireland, and wished himself an American citizen, when he came in and saw the Aspinall's enamel pot. Come into my den," he said. "I never sit here."A low room, oaken beams, the ceiling and the walls hung with old pictures and sporting prints, tobacco and turf smoke a reminiscence in the present.Man's deep chairs of comfort, thick rugs for dogs to doze on and bow-wow spectrally in pursuit of dream-rats; and here among them Darby dreamt awake, as his terriers and big Scotch deerhound basked. Dreamt of what he had been, and of some wondrous bone-setters who could straighten twisted muscles, patch up broken bones, and send one Darby Dillon out again walking evenly, no longer a shuffling cripple, but a man who would have the right to go to the girl he cared for and offer himself to her.Here, alone, he saw pictures in the fire and felt the ache and throb of hopelessness.Psyche flitted round, looking at the pictured likenesses of men who had once sat in the room—from silken-clad cavaliers to the men painted in the present-day tweeds."This boy"—Psyche swung round—"your brother?"It was Darby, painted on the steps, a great hound by his side."Oh, no—myself!" he said."Oh, then it was an accident; you weren't born——"Psyche stopped and became a lively poppy colour."I thought Gheena would have told you. It was at polo, a bad smash-up, two ponies all rolling together with Mr. Dillon as a pivot. Don't look distressed; that hurts. Come and see the pack."They went out a back way, along cavernous passages, through which in bygone days huge dishes of roasts and boiled had had to be galloped up to the big dining-room. Darby showed a kitchen in which a range lurked coyly in the vastness, and through which all the draughts of the world seemed to rush.The yards were also built for giants, from the neat square where the coach-houses showed great black mouths, to the second stable yard, with its endless range of boxes, a few of them modernized, and again the cow yards full of buildings and lofts and barns.Here Gheena, the puppies in her arms and Crabbit at her heels, joined them.The scratch pack were getting used to the cleanliness and internment by now. Grandjer had abandoned as almost hopeless his desire to dig his way out, but he still howled unmelodiously, remembering happy days of freedom at the farm. Home Ruler had lost weight, and in consequence could go farther. She was a vast feeder.Psyche almost leapt through the door on to the flags as she endeavoured to master the hounds' names."Grandjer, him with no tail, Miss," said little Andy. "Ye can call that to mind. He is Beauty's son. An' Daisy here with the two sphots near his axther."Psyche took her hat off."An' Spinsther, him with one ear yelly and one white, an' Home Ruler he is the big dog, an' Greatness that's all black one side. An' Beauty he is nearly all yally. He is Grandjer's mother, didn't I tell ye, Miss?""It isn't quite as easy as playing Bridge," said Darby, listening. "There, Andy, not any more now."Miss Delorme was persistent. She did not leave the kennels until she had got four hounds off by heart as she said. "So that I can call up any of those lot," she said contentedly, "if they are near me.""That being, of course, the usual procedure for the Field," observed Darby with unabated gravity, "to call the hounds to them. Now there are the nags."Psyche revelled in a sight of sleek coats and gentle snuggling heads, of soft muzzles nibbling at her hands. Legs Miss Delorme looked upon as merely things which were necessary to a horse to travel on; but heads and necks were to pet.She tore herself away to eat mutton chops and cold pheasant off a little table drawn close to the fire in the big dining-room, after which she showed a distinct desire to return to the kennels and learn more about hounds.Instead she was driven home, leaving Darby alone on his steps, his eyes wistful as the pony galloped off.The silence of the big house seemed to sob to him as he went in to the fire, his dogs at his heels, the loneliness to become something tangible and almost evil and alive, until he got out the car and followed the two girls to Castle Freyne.Castle Freyne was occupied by the committee of the concert, headed by Miss O'Toole, with Lancelot drooping sulkily alone in the library, his foot full of twinges.He was only a poor wounded creature, and, of course, they were right to leave him alone and not bother about him, and he was going home next day, he said.Gheena's easily-pricked conscience felt the pangs of remorse; she fetched Lancelot his tea herself, ministering to his growing weight with honey sandwiches and heavily-buttered potato scones and chocolate cakes."Where he do put it all an' he never to give it a shake down with a minnit's walk even, 'd make ye wondther," Naylour had muttered once audibly in the door.This was after an invalid's luncheon of beef-tea, a chop, a partridge, and a sponge pudding, had completely disappeared from the tray. Lancelot's foot held twinges which only nourishment could assuage.When the subject of songs had been fully discussed and a selection, marked by tepid affection and absence of much air, chosen by several singers, the war, of course, swept aside even the discussion of the music which its stern necessity was to evoke.None of the people were really anxious about it, but they quoted prophecies to make them thrill, fears of invasion, of submarines, tales of spies."You know it really brought it home to us when dear Mrs. De Burgho Keane was attacked by them—no, by the bees which Philip had put ready for them. That was a dreadful scare. It is all owing, no doubt, to Mr. Keefe's promptness"—Mrs. Brady flashed a smile which blended appreciation with the respect due to the official in authority upon Mr. Keefe—"that we are all sleeping in our beds now."Darby looked at the large sofa and coughed thoughtfully.Mr. Keefe, who was wrangling with Miss O'Toole because she thought "Violets" rather an old song, and he was determined to sing it, looked round nervously."He warned the Germans by wireless," said Darby earnestly, "that if they dared to come here he'd be waiting on the Seals Rock with his sword on.... He had time to gallop home for it ... and they put the Fleet's head nor'-east-south-south-west immediately."Mrs. Brady replied absently that it must be nice to know exactly how they would alter things, and really now with this wireless to send messages by—they were regularly up to date at Kildrellan."If it's illness," said Darby, looking severely at Psyche, who was choking and weeping close by, "we also have a doctor, and if you're good, I'll tell you about the bees and Dearest's nose."Miss O'Toole's spectacles glimmered severely at Mr. Keefe."I say sing something new," she said, "something from an opera. 'Violets' is full of sickly sentimentality—tarity—tallity—that's it, tallity. Now, say, 'The Honeysuckle and the Bee.'""They died of frostbite when I was a boy," said Darby. "Try forrard, Miss O'Toole.""Well, something from, say,BettyorBric-à-Brac—'They never believe Me' or 'My Old Pal.'"Mr. Keefe's underlip looked faintly obstinate, and he hummed 'Violets' in an apologetic tenor. He meant to sing it.George Freyne trilled the "Meynell Hunt" over the tea-cups blithely, and with variety as to keys.Mrs. Brady would, of course, give "The Harp that Once" in the faint echo of a one-time tuneful little voice, and the Vicar would recite "The Bells.""We can put those two just about train time, can't we?" said Miss O'Toole, "when everyone's fussy. And Mrs. Weston?"Mrs. Weston said that she would sell programmes and violets. She was not musical. "Unless a fiddle," she said lightly; "if anyone's got one, I can play that."Miss O'Toole thought that one might be found. It would be a variety, as no one fiddled, except in the village at weddings. And the Vicar, of course, remarked upon one being at the conflagration of Rome and waited for his laugh expectantly."He has made the same jokes for years," whispered Psyche, hysterically. "You can kind of fancy that it's always the same here, with no one growing older or changing."Darby looked down at his stick, stifling a quiet sigh. Lancelot Freyne was duly taken home next day, his expression one of puffy peevishness. Even the wielding of the sword in France had not taught him how to advance his suit with Gheena. He left a gap which let in sunshine behind him, but with this clearness came frost.Dearest George grew openly disagreeable. He growled over money. He hinted at the complete suppression of hunting.Gheena was twenty. Five long years of dependence stretched before her—five years, during which the horses she loved would grow stout and shapeless upon grass, and she would fret and fume under the burden of authority. The two-seater which she had hoped for was out of the question now.Mr. Freyne could be disagreeable. He could look over his wife's accounts and growl over Gheena's new clothes. He had not the greatness of any open aggression. To have fired off a big gun and borne the recoil would have been beyond him. He was one of the small bird shooters, peppering with No. 10, firing from behind hedges, nagging with a patient smile.Sympathetic friends learnt, from reasons which a kind stepfather suppressed, how difficult Gheena was to get on with. She went to bed in a room where the grate would have gleamed with cold blacklead if she had not gone out and cut up branches and lighted a fire of wood and turf—the turf smuggled by Phil up the back stairs.As the English held on grimly in their ditches of frozen mud, Mr. Freyne saw no reason to believe in the end of the war, so anticipated a poverty which he was never likely to see. He reproved Anne's limitless kitchen hospitality, the stout old cook sending away blind Barney ostentatiously, and then garnishing a humble piece of cod with several expensive things out of bottles.Barney went no further than the harness-room, where a meal concealed in a stable bucket was carried to him."The war is above in the Masther's head," said Anne pleasantly. "An' I have all them trifles that he's so sot on emptied out over the cod, that he hates too, but me Darby loves thim.""He has taken to ordering me about," said Gheena a little bleakly to Darby and Psyche—"to making things disagreeable for me. He wants to know my plans for the day, and tells me he wants Topsy himself so as to spare the car, and then he offers to drive me to see Lance. He wants me"—Gheena lifted a mutinous face—"to marry Lance. He hints at it with the subterfuge of a—a——""A charging bull," suggested Darby, "or a liner coming out of harbour." His eyes watched Gheena wistfully."If he is not careful," said Gheena, "I'll marry just to have the place. I'll marry——""Mr. Stafford, Miss," said old Naylour, opening the door.Gheena's look of gloom deepened as she eyed the offender's grey tweed suit."I came to tell you news," Stafford said. "A submarine sighted off Cortra harbour last night, and again not far from here.""Someone here is supplying them with petrol," said Gheena—"someone.""There are tales of strange motor-cars seen about at night," said Darby thoughtfully.Psyche's grey was a little lame; she remembered it now, jumping up to drag Darby out to know what was wrong. "Because there will be a meet to-morrow and I want to go," she whispered.Gheena, left alone with Stafford, remarked intelligently that the evening was chilly."You are very down on me, Miss Freyne"—he looked down at her, his arm on the old marble mantelshelf—"because I don't join the army."Gheena said "Then why don't you?" her cheeks fiery."Well, at present I can't. There are the drains, and other reasons.""To prepare potato ground for Germans," said Gheena, "ought not to be one. As for other reasons——" Her eyes flashed."That's one way of referring to the drains," he said good-humouredly, his eyes twinkling. "And I run messages to the Wireless Station and up to the coastguards, and take out Mrs. Weston to drive. It's not all drains."Gheena sat silent, pulling Crabbit's ears. Her suspicions were deepening; she grew suddenly white."You can't even forgive me for being a slacker, I suppose?" Basil Stafford's eyes lost their twinkle. "Perhaps I don't approve of fighting?""Of fighting Germans," snapped Gheena.Mr. Stafford feared that she would never be taken on as a diplomatist. He walked to the window and added that no lights were to be used now at night near the sea; the coastguards were on the alert for offenders."So if the pups stray you are not to look for them with the stable lantern," he advised."Or with an electric torch," said Gheena, her cheeks fiery again."Miss Freyne," he said gravely, rather angrily, "if a man can't help himself——" He stopped suddenly, came back from the window, and said irrelevantly that he was changing his car for a new one, or perhaps he would keep both.Psyche returned at a run to shout out that the grey horse could hunt and they'd got the second post.It included a letter from Miss Eva Delorme, who wrote a firmly-pointed hand and could fill two sheets of notepaper with ease."A Mr. Stafford, you say, on the drainage works," she wrote. "I knew Staffords of Old Hall in Worcestershire, very poor people, had lost everything. Don't judge hastily; these drains may be for home defence."Psyche gave Gheena the letter; Miss Freyne read it carefully."And the new car is coming—when?" she said to Basil Stafford."Next week, I think. What's that, Miss Delorme? Did we live at Old Hall in Worcester? Yes, that was our place. It's let. My mother's in London. She was in a sky-scraping flat before her operation, but now I've taken a nice house for her, and she won't leave for any Zeps. It's so hard to get a chauffeur, two of hers have gone. I gave her a car last June."Gheena's lips came together. Riches had sprung up swiftly for this young man.Basil Stafford left, looking tired, lines round his pleasant mouth.The scratch pack hunted a fox with leisurely determination next day from Green Gorse Hill and through a nice hunt. Psyche rode close to Darby. She got in his way several times; she chattered at moments when she should have been silent; but the small face was so rapturously happy that he said nothing. Dearest George remonstrated fussily with his guest."You must keep quiet at the checks, Mona," he said, "and let Darby alone. He is my colleague, remember, a Master, as I am.""He rides in front, and do you stay behind to make the lazy dogs keep up?" asked Psyche with interest. "Is that why there are two Masters?"Amid a clarity of silence, broken only by Darby choking, George Freyne rode away."My! but that was the bither remark ye threw at him," murmured Rourke softly, "an' he always tryin' to conceal the way he lies back. My! but——" Mr. Rourke suddenly abandoned himself to uncontrolled laughter while Pysche mentally pigeon-holed this new piece of knowledge. She nearly fell off over a piece of timber; she rode straight on top of Darby at a drop into the road, all with serene joy. They closed on their fox, pace improved, and as they ran fast over a fair country the glow on the girl's face was as of moonlight. The small hands clenched on the reins, her little body swaying to the gallop; the extreme pleasure of it was almost pain.They put the fox to ground at the outskirts of Longfield Wood, Darby getting off to see what the hole was like."To think of being you," gasped Miss Delorme, holding Darby's horse insecurely, "to direct it all, and make those cooing noises, and to have people get out of your way, and to whistle to them with that lovely hunting-horn! And oh, would you change with anybody on earth?""With heaps of 'em," said Darby, looking into her pale face—"the bodies, not the men. Here is my rear-guard fellow-Master coming now, looking malignant.""I shall hunt all my life," announced Psyche earnestly, "and over here. I want to stay here always."They rode down through the long wood. Darby's servants were sufficiently Irish to produce hot cakes almost as soon as everyone got in. The old library was warm and homelike, and Darby's dogs politely allowed guests to occupy the hearth-rug.Admiration is a pleasant medicine. Darby felt less lonely and out of life than he had for months. He seemed to step from his horse with scarcely any difficulty, and he only used his riding-whip to steady him as he went into the house. He even forgot to look grimly at the scarred side of his face in the glass. The stir of the gallop was still in his blood—his horse's jumping, the movement of perfect shoulders, the keenness of a good hunter, unfaltering, how seldom visibly tired. And how well Grandjer, Beauty and Daisy, and the rest of them had hunted, plodding along on relentless foes."It's fun, anyhow," he said gaily, watching with man's carelessness precious Crown Derby cups being put out for tea.Mrs. De Burgho Keane took off her gloves to pour out graciously. The tea-table was such an excellent stronghold to hear all news from. People had to wait for cream and sugar, and could not run away.But it was the two girls who made tea, recklessly giving cream to everyone, splashing in water much too late, and looking dubiously at the straw-coloured second cups which were the result. Lancelot's mother and sister, who had driven to-day in a pony cart, stood close to Gheena, both looking unhappy, and presenting the expression of people who expect to be questioned, so that Gheena hoped politely that Lance was out walking as he was not driving.To which his mother replied that Lance was either in bed or on the library sofa, she could not say which, suffering from depression and twinges."He does not pick up," said Lancelot's mother. "Gheena, that is only hot water; ring for more tea. Now yesterday we had to coax him to take a second meringue, and the roast beef he began with was not half eaten. He is unhappy, dear Gheena, my poor wounded boy, and for a remedy...""Soda mints," said Gheena absently. "I see, I must keep on filling up with hot water and not wait till it's only tea leaves. I never pour out at home. Yes, try soda mints. It's never moving about and such a lot to eat. I'll come to see him soon, I'll promise."Mrs. Freyne got up, telling her daughter that Gheena was impossible and rather rude.Miss O'Toole worked hard at her concert. She was a person of high ambitions, so flags of various nationalities had to be produced to festoon above the raised stage in the schoolhouse. The walls she decorated with anything which she could get, and the platform was such a nest of greenery that performers had to dive in amongst it to get into full view, and even then were hemmed in by palms and boughs. The harmonium, clasped in the Union Jack, crouched among a nest of palms in one corner; the piano, its back covered with the Tricolour, and a toy lion and a bear on the top, stood out below the platform.The performers, when finished, fell off steep wooden steps at the back, generally noisily, so that the encores were marred by sundry rubbings of injured limbs, Dearest George, in pink, handing the singers on and off vaguely.A congested house sat in intense heat to listen to the first important item. They had opened with a piece on the piano, the doctor's daughter clawing out concerted airs of the nations, and quite forgetting to omit Germany's which was somewhere in the middle, so that the General commanding in Cortra entered to the strains of the "Watch on the Rhine" and sat down extremely surprised as it changed to "Deutschland über Alles." Joan Flynne could not in any case read German, and had learnt the piece at school. The first song was then given by Mr. O'Gorman, its opening bars being interfered with by his nervous wonder as to what on earth was crawling down the back of his neck."'Steadily, shoulder to shoulder'"—Mr. O'Gorman moved and a second palm spike tickled his ear—"'Steadily'"—he caught at the ear, dropped his music and missed a bar—"'blade—by——' We're out, Miss O'Toole. What!" Miss O'Toole was looking up and almost wailing "Palm fronds"—"'blade—by——' Damn the things!"Mr. O'Gorman wheeled and clutched."Palm fronds!" shrieked Miss O'Toole.Mr. O'Gorman nodded happily, the bars were successfully adjusted, and the "Old Brigade" marched to a tuneful ending.When everyone encored and a response was being made, Mr. O'Hara could be heard at the side."Right! I'll give 'em 'Toreador.' 'Toreador,' Miss O'Toole. Sorry I put you out, but in a place like this no one knows, does one? A sash on? Good gracious! why should I dress up like a bull?""Get on with it. Now then."Mr. O'Gorman was nervous but a favourite. He swayed a stout body energetically, and his last magnificent effort of "a-do-or" was faintly marred by an audible "Damn!" and a clasp at his ear as a palm frond got him again.Certain young ladies then warbled of loves and kisses, sweetly and fairly audibly.Gheena sang the "Recruiting Song" with extreme energy, fixing her eyes alternately upon Mr. Stafford and a local butcher, who sometimes spoke vaguely of "giving them Germans a 'slice' with his chopper, th' ould divils."The General commanding the district was still upset by his musical reception, and sat by his pretty wife listening absently, even to Gheena's appeal for recruits, her hands outstretched as if to gather up men.There was a pause after this, Miss Freyne fleeing from an encore. The stage was empty until the thrilling strains of the Russian National Anthem were beaten from the harmonium, and some of the audience who recognized it shot to their feet because they thought they ought to, the rest following suit and wondering why.To this massed enthusiasm Lancelot Freyne, upon crutches, made entry alone, bowing gracefully to an outburst of cheers and honours. Miss O'Toole pounded more anthem, everyone sat down, and George Freyne, with a whisky and soda in his hand, rushed in tardily to announce the item—"The Charge of the Light Brigade.""'Half a league, half a league,'" said Lancelot casually, then proceeding with the "Charge of the Light Brigade."The General commanding the district rubbed his head hard."But why—for this—the Russian anthem?" he whispered. "For this!""'Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre's stroke—shattered and sundered,'" said Lancelot pleasantly, Miss O'Toole continuing the music with the soft pedal down, and just a boom when big drums were mentioned."Why?" remarked the General hopelessly. "And the beginning when I came in!" Then—he had a sense of humour—he looked at his wife, and the rest of his evening was spent in laudable endeavours to check unseemly laughter and to subdue his wife's."'Into the valley of Hell, into the mouth of Death,'" said Lancelot, and paused to look for his sister at the wings—"that is—'mouth of Hell.'" She was prompting.Boom! went chords in the bass."It's the damn piano puts one out!" murmured Lancelot over his shoulder to his sister. "What's next?""Make some action," hissed his prompter.The General buried his face in his pocket-handkerchief, overcome, as Mrs. De Burgho Keane said."'They rode back again, but not—not the six hundred,'" remarked Lancelot casually, and waved one crutch swiftly. The principal effect of the belated action was to upset the lion on to Miss O'Toole and make her last piece of Russian anthem a discord.Lancelot hobbled off amid loud clapping of hands, and his mother thought with rapture of how he would look if he did it in London.Mr. Keefe and Mrs. Keane were both upset by the fall of the lion, considering it to be a bad omen for the war.The interval for sandwiches and liquid refreshment proved a brilliant success. Mrs. Weston showed a bag full of silver collected for programmes. She had charged all the men a shilling for programmes."And it was worth it," said Darby, "with such a lot thrown in—the 'Watch on the Rhine' and Lancelot's recitation.""I would not," observed the General, "have missed it for a fiver, especially if the second half is as good and as funny and as er ... patriotic as to tunes."Lancelot's mother wandered up and down for plaudits for her boy, discussing the "Charge.""No exaggerations," she said, "no undue emphasizing, just the beauty of the thing—the one swing of the crutch when they were all killed, and my wounded boy doing it."Sir Abel replied that he had never in his life been so touched by a recitation.Just then Mrs. Freyne took off her gloves and made nervous way to the piano.She played the prelude to "John Peel" loudly, lifting her hands then to endeavour to follow her husband on his devious paths.He had put on his velvet cap."'D'ye ken John Peel?'" roared Dearest George, and found it was too high."'D'ye ken John Peel?'" he boomed loudly.Mrs. Freyne struck a chord softly, and without hope. The General, who was musical, grew quite anxious.But by the time he had got to the "Break of day," George Freyne was, so to speak, in his stride, with his wife following delicately, afraid to show marked preference to any key.Having been loudly encored, Mr. Freyne asked his wife to play the tune and give him some help, and gave the "Meynell Hunt" with as much variety, as Darby said, as if the pack was in full cry.A song and dance by Miss Delorme made the audience wonder if it was quite right for them to be there, for Psyche in costume gave them a song about the moon, and her dancing was as if a sprite floated over earth. By this time all the men were yelling "Encore!" and Mrs. Keane wished audibly that she had left Estelle and Maria at home.Psyche was back again to give "A Little Bit of String," out of theCircus Girl, and another dance of fairy-like lightness. Then Mr. Keefe, pink and moist, was bustled on after his song had been given out.Miss O'Toole played a prelude emphatically, unnoticed by the nervous performer."'Every morning I bring thee violets,'" trilled Mr. Keefe, with the piano vamping "My Old Pal" loudly."'Every morning I bring thee'—— Oh, look here, hang it!" said Mr. Keefe. "I can't bring them to that music, Miss O'Toole. I told you so. I said——"Mrs. Weston threw a bunch on to the stage.When there was a possibility of hearing him, and Miss O'Toole had changed her music gloomily, Mr. Keefe brought violets very irately, and flounced off in obvious ill-humour, declining his encore."To start like that when I told her time after time," he said, as he sought solace in a whisky and soda.Then, fetched by the M.C., Violet Weston went on to the platform; very brilliant stockings gleamed under her white skirt. She was somewhat garishly handsome as she stood in the light; but as she took up the violin her expression changed. She cuddled it down, her fingers loving on the strings; she bent to Miss O'Toole, who shook her head hopelessly, as she looked at the score.Matilda Freyne was called on; she listened, and took up the music.Next moment the violin was rippling out wild Hungarian dances, spirits of elves, patter of breathless witches, rustle of feet on dead leaves, on polished boards, evil in merriment—they were all in the elfish music. Only two people in the audience realized what a master hand played to them—the General from Cortra leaning forward entranced, and another listener, the old Professor, sitting hidden in a corner.With a sigh as of tired dancers it ended.The Professor leaned forward listening. He leant back frowning, searching for something half forgotten. When had he heard this rendered before, with the same skill, the same feeling? The memory brought with it recollection of crowds, of a town.He left his corner to waddle to the platform where Mrs. Weston was giving now a selection of Irish airs to vociferous applause."I have to thank you," he said simply, holding out his hand. "Music—music is all to me. But ... somewhere ... once I have heard someone else play that just as you do.""Everyone plays it much the same, I should think," said Violet Weston, a little abruptly, moving away.Miss O'Toole made seven pounds clear and had given, as she said, a wonderful musical treat to everyone. In fact Sir Abel Huntley had assured her that if it was a choice between another concert in Kildrellan and one at the Queen's Hall, he would come to hers.
CHAPTER XIII
"This," remarked Psyche, opening the hall door very wide, "is the loveliest place that I have ever been in."
Miss Delorme looked through the gap in the trees at the quiet gun-metal sea, surging between the cliffs. She sniffed up the soft air with its tang of salt and peat. There was in her young mind the desire to dance and run from sheer lightness of spirits. Crabbit sat upon the doorstep and eyed her with grave curiosity. He had twice endured being caught up and called a dear darling.
A well-ordered villa on the outskirts of Folkestone seemed to belong to another world, with its orthodox morning slits of open window airing the rooms, its neat and congested garden, where calceolarias, geraniums and lobelia were replaced by spring bulbs each year, in the same week, on the same day, if it did not rain. Where rooms were turned out on their appointed day and the bitter cold of leafy June never could call a fire into existence once the grate was ornamented with a plant mausoleum in chequered pottery. Here, at Castle Freyne, the asters still lingered, with here and there a flower upon them. Thomas, the old gardener, was declaring the Missus 'd ate the face off him if he delayed lashin' in thim bulbs a day longer; but what could he do when he could not lay his hand to them in any place—an' he knowin' he put them away careful.
The thought of Miss Eva Delorme with spring bulbs which would not be found brought a bubble of laughter to Psyche's lips.
Phil was bringing the hunters out for a mouthful of sweet grass, placidly letting them graze between the flower-beds.
"Destroyin' the lawn before the masheen, Phil!"
"Won't the blast of the roller flatten it!" returned Phil cheerily. "And it is the sweetest taste in the place, Thomas—like nuts, it is."
From some unseen abyss fat Anne's voice thundered to Phil that his breakfast was waitin' on him, an' if he didn't come to it there were dogs in plenty, as she would not be disorganized with the table led all night.
"Wasn't I in ten minnits ago an' not a sign of it?" replied Phil pleasantly. "So I to run out with these two, Anne; put me bit of bacon on the range, Anne Macree, till I gits in to it."
Anne Macree replied fierily in a voice of complete good-humour that it was Cragsbread his likes should be gettin', same as the Germans, and that there was a few cakes in the oven for the upstairs breakfast which he could have if he'd hurry up, himself an' his Macrees.
A shaft of light came through the grey clouds, making a bar of silver on the steely sea; the sky, travelling quickly, now showed little flecks of blue and flaws of pearly white. Yesterday's cold wind had gone.
"It's heavenly," Psyche whispered. "It is nearly ten, and at the Larches Miss Eva would now be seeing which fish was the cheapest, and ordering a warm joint which would go out to the kitchen for luncheon. And it would be batter-pudding day."
"You love it, Sprite!" Gheena came running round from the stables, her clear brown skin flushed, her bare head ruffled.
"I want to live here." The English girl looked out with her pale bluey-green eyes. "I want never to leave. I want to learn the difference between squirrels and foxes, and how to sit on at jumps, and why the hounds yowl for a time and then don't say anything."
"And I"—Gheena looked out—"I want to live here sometimes, but I want to travel, and to see France and Italy and further away still, and hunt somewhere else where it's flat going, and just be here in the summer or in the autumn, but not always."
Dearest George, who came from hermetically-sealed rooms, and was consequently very chilly in the mornings, now called out that Mona would catch a bad chill if she did not at once come in.
A roaring fire mocked at economy in the long dining-room. Anne's preparations for a visitor smoked in various forms. She had what she called loosed her hand at hot bread and produced three varieties.
Psyche ate an unsprite-like breakfast, listening thoughtfully to her host's prophetic warnings of financial downfall and the general muddle of England at war.
"At present," said Mr. Freyne, coquetting between cold game-pie and hot kidneys on toast, "we are like candles alight at both ends. Everything costs more and we have less money to pay for it with."
"Why not go back to the pie, Dearest George?" advised his wife affectionately, "and not think of the kidneys, because they'll get cold."
Mr. Freyne, saying pettishly that by now Matilda might remember how delicate his appetite was, took kidneys and returned to his seat.
Gheena was creaming and sugaring her cousin Lancelot's tea. The wounded hero was growing puffy and taking on a greenish hue from constant food and no exercise.
He wished to know pettishly—it is an invalid's privilege to be pettish—if Gheena would drive him to the village in the pony cart to see if his new socks had come to the shop.
Psyche, thrusting this aside, said quickly that Gheena had promised to go over to the kennels, so that the names of the hounds could be learnt.
"You can't call these things hounds," said Lancelot, "terriers and boar-hounds; and my leg won't fit in the trap with three other people." The complete absence of sadness at this announcement caused a fretful outburst—how when a fellow couldn't wash no one wanted him, and if he hadn't gone to fight——
"The wagon would never have rolled over your toe," said Gheena absently. Things leaked out curiously in Ireland. "To-morrow, Lance, the car is going to the station and we take tea with Mrs. Keane. Here are your sticks."
"Your arm," was what Lancelot whispered amorously, as he extended a well-covered hand.
With a welcome opening of the door, Miss O'Toole came in, apologizing for an early intrusion; but it was on the important subject of a concert for the Belgians which they wanted Mrs. Freyne to help with.
"We have been mapping it out," said the young lady vigorously. "Miss Freyne will sing the recruiting song, and Mr. Freyne, I hear, is inimitable as John Peel and the Meynill Hunt."
George Freyne made modest mention of advancing years and a declining voice. His wife, who was a musician and played his accompaniments, wondered mildly what key he would commence in.
He generally tried two or three before he rushed away on a fourth, so flat that to follow melodiously was a difficulty.
"And we thought if our wounded hero would recite—his khaki and the crutches, you know—something quite simple, of course—cheery."
Lancelot, swaying on his sticks, dived in the recesses of his mind, and remembered that he had done the "Burial of Sir John Moore" in red velvet and a lace collar at home when he was ten.
When Psyche said that she was interested in such a burial, Mrs. Freyne explained at some length that, of course, Lance did not mean Sir John Moore had put on a red velvet frock to be interred in, but that was what Lancelot had worn to show off in.
"The seven-thirty from Cortra will be in time," said Miss O'Toole eagerly, "and we'll have crowds. Then light refreshments, sandwiches and so on given, and charged a shilling each for it; they'll catch the eleven-thirty back—the people I mean—or have a special, or perhaps everyone will motor."
Mrs. Freyne thought it would be dreadful if the concert dragged on and people had to run away in the middle of God Save the King or a sandwich.
The glittering brightness of the morning was increasing. It was almost summerlike when they opened the door again and stood in the soft air.
"You might drive me in for those stockings, Gheena," said Lancelot. "Any day will do for old hounds, and I may have twinges to-morrow."
"You'll open with the Marseillaise, and Mrs. Brady is learning the Russian anthem on the harmonium. It will be magnificent! I'll put you down to help with the supper, Mrs. Freyne—cake and sandwiches and anything else. And—I'll drive you to the village, Mr. Freyne. It will only do the stubborn pony good."
Gheena said "Splendid!" in relieved tones. Lancelot had hobbled in; he disliked too much fresh air.
"Lancelot, you can go to the village," called his aunt loudly.
Lancelot appeared again with Naylour behind him adjusting a British warm—a Balaclava helmet under his cap, and thick gloves completing his entrenchment against the advance of a chill. Gheena's pony came rattling wickedly round at the moment, poking out its stubborn head while responding gleefully to whacks from Phil with thuds of iron against the floor of the trap.
Lancelot advanced dubiously,
"Oh, it's Miss O'Toole who is going to take you," said Gheena. "She says she won't mind the extra work for her pony, and you can talk about the recitation. Don't bury Sir John Moore."
With a glance which Anne from the kitchen reported to be as bither as weasels, Lancelot got into the inside trap.
The two girls drove off behind Topsy and turned inland, crawling along the narrow fuchsia-bordered road which led to Dillon's Court.
"You can only see the sea from the hills there," Gheena said; "but it's a dear old home."
The long, dull red house stood against a background of dark wood and mountain. The wide lawn was dotted with big trees, walnuts, oaks, huge beeches; one could hear the hoarse splutter and gurgle of the trout stream which tore on to commit suicide in the lake. In summer, to the left of the house, a mass of copper beeches passed to tender tinted pinky green, to sullen splendour of coppery crimson, glowing in every gleam of sun.
The wide hall door, standing open, was of panelled oak.
"You can see the sea from the gardens, Psyche. There's poor Darby!"
Hobbling down the four shallow steps before the door, a cripple, the last perhaps of a long line of sportsmen, the old place which he loved round him, a glorious frame, enclosing a defaced portrait. It was bitter to remember how he had leapt the sunk fence there so lightly once, swung up those copper beeches up to the topmost boughs, until he looked through a red cloud up to spatches of blue, shining down. Whole-limbed, disregarding torn clothes, jumping on the ponies' backs, looking forward to life spelt with a capital L, as his father's had been, a man's life with his son to follow him. And now—he shuffled agilely up to meet the two—brown-skinned Gheena and the white stranger, whose eyes were full of something which he had forgotten—admiration. To Psyche he was the magician who made the hounds go.
"It is even more beautiful than Castle Freyne," she said, as she jumped from the trap lightly, her eight stone of humanity perfectly balanced. "Oh, what a dear old place!" she almost whispered. "You can see the ghosts of other days here."
"I can," said Darby drearily, his face changing.
"And see the spirits of days to come," she said gently.
"Days I shall go dot and go one through—yes—alone!" His eyes were on Gheena, who was romping with two sprawling joyous terrier pups.
"And the place cries for company." As lightly as the sprite they had nicknamed her after, Psyche stepped up the shallow step wall into the dim cool hall.
The hideous furniture of Victoria's reign had not been put into it by the Dillon bride of that period. It was full of mellow satinwood and darker mahogany of earlier days. Fine priceless china jostled collections of shells in a large cabinet, and a moulting flight of stuffed birds flaunted gaudily in another.
"My grandmother put the Worcester in the pantry to make two shelves for her shells," grinned Darby, his stick strafing the polished floor. "My mother then worked her artistic will in the drawing-room. She enamelled the mantel-shelf."
A wide room, with big windows looking on the lake, with exquisite pieces of old furniture here and there, but overshadowed by stiff strips of fancy-work wrought on black satin, by red plush triangles hung with china, by plates and dishes gone to ground in red velvet mounts, by black and gold cabinets, almost smiling because they took places of honour, while precious pieces of Chippendale were stowed into corners.
"I never altered it"—Darby looked at the big room in its ugliness—"but there are enough old things about to make it a treasure house if anyone bothered. I believe the marble can be cleaned. My father, I am told, regretted there being no divorce obtainable in Ireland, and wished himself an American citizen, when he came in and saw the Aspinall's enamel pot. Come into my den," he said. "I never sit here."
A low room, oaken beams, the ceiling and the walls hung with old pictures and sporting prints, tobacco and turf smoke a reminiscence in the present.
Man's deep chairs of comfort, thick rugs for dogs to doze on and bow-wow spectrally in pursuit of dream-rats; and here among them Darby dreamt awake, as his terriers and big Scotch deerhound basked. Dreamt of what he had been, and of some wondrous bone-setters who could straighten twisted muscles, patch up broken bones, and send one Darby Dillon out again walking evenly, no longer a shuffling cripple, but a man who would have the right to go to the girl he cared for and offer himself to her.
Here, alone, he saw pictures in the fire and felt the ache and throb of hopelessness.
Psyche flitted round, looking at the pictured likenesses of men who had once sat in the room—from silken-clad cavaliers to the men painted in the present-day tweeds.
"This boy"—Psyche swung round—"your brother?"
It was Darby, painted on the steps, a great hound by his side.
"Oh, no—myself!" he said.
"Oh, then it was an accident; you weren't born——"
Psyche stopped and became a lively poppy colour.
"I thought Gheena would have told you. It was at polo, a bad smash-up, two ponies all rolling together with Mr. Dillon as a pivot. Don't look distressed; that hurts. Come and see the pack."
They went out a back way, along cavernous passages, through which in bygone days huge dishes of roasts and boiled had had to be galloped up to the big dining-room. Darby showed a kitchen in which a range lurked coyly in the vastness, and through which all the draughts of the world seemed to rush.
The yards were also built for giants, from the neat square where the coach-houses showed great black mouths, to the second stable yard, with its endless range of boxes, a few of them modernized, and again the cow yards full of buildings and lofts and barns.
Here Gheena, the puppies in her arms and Crabbit at her heels, joined them.
The scratch pack were getting used to the cleanliness and internment by now. Grandjer had abandoned as almost hopeless his desire to dig his way out, but he still howled unmelodiously, remembering happy days of freedom at the farm. Home Ruler had lost weight, and in consequence could go farther. She was a vast feeder.
Psyche almost leapt through the door on to the flags as she endeavoured to master the hounds' names.
"Grandjer, him with no tail, Miss," said little Andy. "Ye can call that to mind. He is Beauty's son. An' Daisy here with the two sphots near his axther."
Psyche took her hat off.
"An' Spinsther, him with one ear yelly and one white, an' Home Ruler he is the big dog, an' Greatness that's all black one side. An' Beauty he is nearly all yally. He is Grandjer's mother, didn't I tell ye, Miss?"
"It isn't quite as easy as playing Bridge," said Darby, listening. "There, Andy, not any more now."
Miss Delorme was persistent. She did not leave the kennels until she had got four hounds off by heart as she said. "So that I can call up any of those lot," she said contentedly, "if they are near me."
"That being, of course, the usual procedure for the Field," observed Darby with unabated gravity, "to call the hounds to them. Now there are the nags."
Psyche revelled in a sight of sleek coats and gentle snuggling heads, of soft muzzles nibbling at her hands. Legs Miss Delorme looked upon as merely things which were necessary to a horse to travel on; but heads and necks were to pet.
She tore herself away to eat mutton chops and cold pheasant off a little table drawn close to the fire in the big dining-room, after which she showed a distinct desire to return to the kennels and learn more about hounds.
Instead she was driven home, leaving Darby alone on his steps, his eyes wistful as the pony galloped off.
The silence of the big house seemed to sob to him as he went in to the fire, his dogs at his heels, the loneliness to become something tangible and almost evil and alive, until he got out the car and followed the two girls to Castle Freyne.
Castle Freyne was occupied by the committee of the concert, headed by Miss O'Toole, with Lancelot drooping sulkily alone in the library, his foot full of twinges.
He was only a poor wounded creature, and, of course, they were right to leave him alone and not bother about him, and he was going home next day, he said.
Gheena's easily-pricked conscience felt the pangs of remorse; she fetched Lancelot his tea herself, ministering to his growing weight with honey sandwiches and heavily-buttered potato scones and chocolate cakes.
"Where he do put it all an' he never to give it a shake down with a minnit's walk even, 'd make ye wondther," Naylour had muttered once audibly in the door.
This was after an invalid's luncheon of beef-tea, a chop, a partridge, and a sponge pudding, had completely disappeared from the tray. Lancelot's foot held twinges which only nourishment could assuage.
When the subject of songs had been fully discussed and a selection, marked by tepid affection and absence of much air, chosen by several singers, the war, of course, swept aside even the discussion of the music which its stern necessity was to evoke.
None of the people were really anxious about it, but they quoted prophecies to make them thrill, fears of invasion, of submarines, tales of spies.
"You know it really brought it home to us when dear Mrs. De Burgho Keane was attacked by them—no, by the bees which Philip had put ready for them. That was a dreadful scare. It is all owing, no doubt, to Mr. Keefe's promptness"—Mrs. Brady flashed a smile which blended appreciation with the respect due to the official in authority upon Mr. Keefe—"that we are all sleeping in our beds now."
Darby looked at the large sofa and coughed thoughtfully.
Mr. Keefe, who was wrangling with Miss O'Toole because she thought "Violets" rather an old song, and he was determined to sing it, looked round nervously.
"He warned the Germans by wireless," said Darby earnestly, "that if they dared to come here he'd be waiting on the Seals Rock with his sword on.... He had time to gallop home for it ... and they put the Fleet's head nor'-east-south-south-west immediately."
Mrs. Brady replied absently that it must be nice to know exactly how they would alter things, and really now with this wireless to send messages by—they were regularly up to date at Kildrellan.
"If it's illness," said Darby, looking severely at Psyche, who was choking and weeping close by, "we also have a doctor, and if you're good, I'll tell you about the bees and Dearest's nose."
Miss O'Toole's spectacles glimmered severely at Mr. Keefe.
"I say sing something new," she said, "something from an opera. 'Violets' is full of sickly sentimentality—tarity—tallity—that's it, tallity. Now, say, 'The Honeysuckle and the Bee.'"
"They died of frostbite when I was a boy," said Darby. "Try forrard, Miss O'Toole."
"Well, something from, say,BettyorBric-à-Brac—'They never believe Me' or 'My Old Pal.'"
Mr. Keefe's underlip looked faintly obstinate, and he hummed 'Violets' in an apologetic tenor. He meant to sing it.
George Freyne trilled the "Meynell Hunt" over the tea-cups blithely, and with variety as to keys.
Mrs. Brady would, of course, give "The Harp that Once" in the faint echo of a one-time tuneful little voice, and the Vicar would recite "The Bells."
"We can put those two just about train time, can't we?" said Miss O'Toole, "when everyone's fussy. And Mrs. Weston?"
Mrs. Weston said that she would sell programmes and violets. She was not musical. "Unless a fiddle," she said lightly; "if anyone's got one, I can play that."
Miss O'Toole thought that one might be found. It would be a variety, as no one fiddled, except in the village at weddings. And the Vicar, of course, remarked upon one being at the conflagration of Rome and waited for his laugh expectantly.
"He has made the same jokes for years," whispered Psyche, hysterically. "You can kind of fancy that it's always the same here, with no one growing older or changing."
Darby looked down at his stick, stifling a quiet sigh. Lancelot Freyne was duly taken home next day, his expression one of puffy peevishness. Even the wielding of the sword in France had not taught him how to advance his suit with Gheena. He left a gap which let in sunshine behind him, but with this clearness came frost.
Dearest George grew openly disagreeable. He growled over money. He hinted at the complete suppression of hunting.
Gheena was twenty. Five long years of dependence stretched before her—five years, during which the horses she loved would grow stout and shapeless upon grass, and she would fret and fume under the burden of authority. The two-seater which she had hoped for was out of the question now.
Mr. Freyne could be disagreeable. He could look over his wife's accounts and growl over Gheena's new clothes. He had not the greatness of any open aggression. To have fired off a big gun and borne the recoil would have been beyond him. He was one of the small bird shooters, peppering with No. 10, firing from behind hedges, nagging with a patient smile.
Sympathetic friends learnt, from reasons which a kind stepfather suppressed, how difficult Gheena was to get on with. She went to bed in a room where the grate would have gleamed with cold blacklead if she had not gone out and cut up branches and lighted a fire of wood and turf—the turf smuggled by Phil up the back stairs.
As the English held on grimly in their ditches of frozen mud, Mr. Freyne saw no reason to believe in the end of the war, so anticipated a poverty which he was never likely to see. He reproved Anne's limitless kitchen hospitality, the stout old cook sending away blind Barney ostentatiously, and then garnishing a humble piece of cod with several expensive things out of bottles.
Barney went no further than the harness-room, where a meal concealed in a stable bucket was carried to him.
"The war is above in the Masther's head," said Anne pleasantly. "An' I have all them trifles that he's so sot on emptied out over the cod, that he hates too, but me Darby loves thim."
"He has taken to ordering me about," said Gheena a little bleakly to Darby and Psyche—"to making things disagreeable for me. He wants to know my plans for the day, and tells me he wants Topsy himself so as to spare the car, and then he offers to drive me to see Lance. He wants me"—Gheena lifted a mutinous face—"to marry Lance. He hints at it with the subterfuge of a—a——"
"A charging bull," suggested Darby, "or a liner coming out of harbour." His eyes watched Gheena wistfully.
"If he is not careful," said Gheena, "I'll marry just to have the place. I'll marry——"
"Mr. Stafford, Miss," said old Naylour, opening the door.
Gheena's look of gloom deepened as she eyed the offender's grey tweed suit.
"I came to tell you news," Stafford said. "A submarine sighted off Cortra harbour last night, and again not far from here."
"Someone here is supplying them with petrol," said Gheena—"someone."
"There are tales of strange motor-cars seen about at night," said Darby thoughtfully.
Psyche's grey was a little lame; she remembered it now, jumping up to drag Darby out to know what was wrong. "Because there will be a meet to-morrow and I want to go," she whispered.
Gheena, left alone with Stafford, remarked intelligently that the evening was chilly.
"You are very down on me, Miss Freyne"—he looked down at her, his arm on the old marble mantelshelf—"because I don't join the army."
Gheena said "Then why don't you?" her cheeks fiery.
"Well, at present I can't. There are the drains, and other reasons."
"To prepare potato ground for Germans," said Gheena, "ought not to be one. As for other reasons——" Her eyes flashed.
"That's one way of referring to the drains," he said good-humouredly, his eyes twinkling. "And I run messages to the Wireless Station and up to the coastguards, and take out Mrs. Weston to drive. It's not all drains."
Gheena sat silent, pulling Crabbit's ears. Her suspicions were deepening; she grew suddenly white.
"You can't even forgive me for being a slacker, I suppose?" Basil Stafford's eyes lost their twinkle. "Perhaps I don't approve of fighting?"
"Of fighting Germans," snapped Gheena.
Mr. Stafford feared that she would never be taken on as a diplomatist. He walked to the window and added that no lights were to be used now at night near the sea; the coastguards were on the alert for offenders.
"So if the pups stray you are not to look for them with the stable lantern," he advised.
"Or with an electric torch," said Gheena, her cheeks fiery again.
"Miss Freyne," he said gravely, rather angrily, "if a man can't help himself——" He stopped suddenly, came back from the window, and said irrelevantly that he was changing his car for a new one, or perhaps he would keep both.
Psyche returned at a run to shout out that the grey horse could hunt and they'd got the second post.
It included a letter from Miss Eva Delorme, who wrote a firmly-pointed hand and could fill two sheets of notepaper with ease.
"A Mr. Stafford, you say, on the drainage works," she wrote. "I knew Staffords of Old Hall in Worcestershire, very poor people, had lost everything. Don't judge hastily; these drains may be for home defence."
Psyche gave Gheena the letter; Miss Freyne read it carefully.
"And the new car is coming—when?" she said to Basil Stafford.
"Next week, I think. What's that, Miss Delorme? Did we live at Old Hall in Worcester? Yes, that was our place. It's let. My mother's in London. She was in a sky-scraping flat before her operation, but now I've taken a nice house for her, and she won't leave for any Zeps. It's so hard to get a chauffeur, two of hers have gone. I gave her a car last June."
Gheena's lips came together. Riches had sprung up swiftly for this young man.
Basil Stafford left, looking tired, lines round his pleasant mouth.
The scratch pack hunted a fox with leisurely determination next day from Green Gorse Hill and through a nice hunt. Psyche rode close to Darby. She got in his way several times; she chattered at moments when she should have been silent; but the small face was so rapturously happy that he said nothing. Dearest George remonstrated fussily with his guest.
"You must keep quiet at the checks, Mona," he said, "and let Darby alone. He is my colleague, remember, a Master, as I am."
"He rides in front, and do you stay behind to make the lazy dogs keep up?" asked Psyche with interest. "Is that why there are two Masters?"
Amid a clarity of silence, broken only by Darby choking, George Freyne rode away.
"My! but that was the bither remark ye threw at him," murmured Rourke softly, "an' he always tryin' to conceal the way he lies back. My! but——" Mr. Rourke suddenly abandoned himself to uncontrolled laughter while Pysche mentally pigeon-holed this new piece of knowledge. She nearly fell off over a piece of timber; she rode straight on top of Darby at a drop into the road, all with serene joy. They closed on their fox, pace improved, and as they ran fast over a fair country the glow on the girl's face was as of moonlight. The small hands clenched on the reins, her little body swaying to the gallop; the extreme pleasure of it was almost pain.
They put the fox to ground at the outskirts of Longfield Wood, Darby getting off to see what the hole was like.
"To think of being you," gasped Miss Delorme, holding Darby's horse insecurely, "to direct it all, and make those cooing noises, and to have people get out of your way, and to whistle to them with that lovely hunting-horn! And oh, would you change with anybody on earth?"
"With heaps of 'em," said Darby, looking into her pale face—"the bodies, not the men. Here is my rear-guard fellow-Master coming now, looking malignant."
"I shall hunt all my life," announced Psyche earnestly, "and over here. I want to stay here always."
They rode down through the long wood. Darby's servants were sufficiently Irish to produce hot cakes almost as soon as everyone got in. The old library was warm and homelike, and Darby's dogs politely allowed guests to occupy the hearth-rug.
Admiration is a pleasant medicine. Darby felt less lonely and out of life than he had for months. He seemed to step from his horse with scarcely any difficulty, and he only used his riding-whip to steady him as he went into the house. He even forgot to look grimly at the scarred side of his face in the glass. The stir of the gallop was still in his blood—his horse's jumping, the movement of perfect shoulders, the keenness of a good hunter, unfaltering, how seldom visibly tired. And how well Grandjer, Beauty and Daisy, and the rest of them had hunted, plodding along on relentless foes.
"It's fun, anyhow," he said gaily, watching with man's carelessness precious Crown Derby cups being put out for tea.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane took off her gloves to pour out graciously. The tea-table was such an excellent stronghold to hear all news from. People had to wait for cream and sugar, and could not run away.
But it was the two girls who made tea, recklessly giving cream to everyone, splashing in water much too late, and looking dubiously at the straw-coloured second cups which were the result. Lancelot's mother and sister, who had driven to-day in a pony cart, stood close to Gheena, both looking unhappy, and presenting the expression of people who expect to be questioned, so that Gheena hoped politely that Lance was out walking as he was not driving.
To which his mother replied that Lance was either in bed or on the library sofa, she could not say which, suffering from depression and twinges.
"He does not pick up," said Lancelot's mother. "Gheena, that is only hot water; ring for more tea. Now yesterday we had to coax him to take a second meringue, and the roast beef he began with was not half eaten. He is unhappy, dear Gheena, my poor wounded boy, and for a remedy..."
"Soda mints," said Gheena absently. "I see, I must keep on filling up with hot water and not wait till it's only tea leaves. I never pour out at home. Yes, try soda mints. It's never moving about and such a lot to eat. I'll come to see him soon, I'll promise."
Mrs. Freyne got up, telling her daughter that Gheena was impossible and rather rude.
Miss O'Toole worked hard at her concert. She was a person of high ambitions, so flags of various nationalities had to be produced to festoon above the raised stage in the schoolhouse. The walls she decorated with anything which she could get, and the platform was such a nest of greenery that performers had to dive in amongst it to get into full view, and even then were hemmed in by palms and boughs. The harmonium, clasped in the Union Jack, crouched among a nest of palms in one corner; the piano, its back covered with the Tricolour, and a toy lion and a bear on the top, stood out below the platform.
The performers, when finished, fell off steep wooden steps at the back, generally noisily, so that the encores were marred by sundry rubbings of injured limbs, Dearest George, in pink, handing the singers on and off vaguely.
A congested house sat in intense heat to listen to the first important item. They had opened with a piece on the piano, the doctor's daughter clawing out concerted airs of the nations, and quite forgetting to omit Germany's which was somewhere in the middle, so that the General commanding in Cortra entered to the strains of the "Watch on the Rhine" and sat down extremely surprised as it changed to "Deutschland über Alles." Joan Flynne could not in any case read German, and had learnt the piece at school. The first song was then given by Mr. O'Gorman, its opening bars being interfered with by his nervous wonder as to what on earth was crawling down the back of his neck.
"'Steadily, shoulder to shoulder'"—Mr. O'Gorman moved and a second palm spike tickled his ear—"'Steadily'"—he caught at the ear, dropped his music and missed a bar—"'blade—by——' We're out, Miss O'Toole. What!" Miss O'Toole was looking up and almost wailing "Palm fronds"—"'blade—by——' Damn the things!"
Mr. O'Gorman wheeled and clutched.
"Palm fronds!" shrieked Miss O'Toole.
Mr. O'Gorman nodded happily, the bars were successfully adjusted, and the "Old Brigade" marched to a tuneful ending.
When everyone encored and a response was being made, Mr. O'Hara could be heard at the side.
"Right! I'll give 'em 'Toreador.' 'Toreador,' Miss O'Toole. Sorry I put you out, but in a place like this no one knows, does one? A sash on? Good gracious! why should I dress up like a bull?"
"Get on with it. Now then."
Mr. O'Gorman was nervous but a favourite. He swayed a stout body energetically, and his last magnificent effort of "a-do-or" was faintly marred by an audible "Damn!" and a clasp at his ear as a palm frond got him again.
Certain young ladies then warbled of loves and kisses, sweetly and fairly audibly.
Gheena sang the "Recruiting Song" with extreme energy, fixing her eyes alternately upon Mr. Stafford and a local butcher, who sometimes spoke vaguely of "giving them Germans a 'slice' with his chopper, th' ould divils."
The General commanding the district was still upset by his musical reception, and sat by his pretty wife listening absently, even to Gheena's appeal for recruits, her hands outstretched as if to gather up men.
There was a pause after this, Miss Freyne fleeing from an encore. The stage was empty until the thrilling strains of the Russian National Anthem were beaten from the harmonium, and some of the audience who recognized it shot to their feet because they thought they ought to, the rest following suit and wondering why.
To this massed enthusiasm Lancelot Freyne, upon crutches, made entry alone, bowing gracefully to an outburst of cheers and honours. Miss O'Toole pounded more anthem, everyone sat down, and George Freyne, with a whisky and soda in his hand, rushed in tardily to announce the item—"The Charge of the Light Brigade."
"'Half a league, half a league,'" said Lancelot casually, then proceeding with the "Charge of the Light Brigade."
The General commanding the district rubbed his head hard.
"But why—for this—the Russian anthem?" he whispered. "For this!"
"'Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre's stroke—shattered and sundered,'" said Lancelot pleasantly, Miss O'Toole continuing the music with the soft pedal down, and just a boom when big drums were mentioned.
"Why?" remarked the General hopelessly. "And the beginning when I came in!" Then—he had a sense of humour—he looked at his wife, and the rest of his evening was spent in laudable endeavours to check unseemly laughter and to subdue his wife's.
"'Into the valley of Hell, into the mouth of Death,'" said Lancelot, and paused to look for his sister at the wings—"that is—'mouth of Hell.'" She was prompting.
Boom! went chords in the bass.
"It's the damn piano puts one out!" murmured Lancelot over his shoulder to his sister. "What's next?"
"Make some action," hissed his prompter.
The General buried his face in his pocket-handkerchief, overcome, as Mrs. De Burgho Keane said.
"'They rode back again, but not—not the six hundred,'" remarked Lancelot casually, and waved one crutch swiftly. The principal effect of the belated action was to upset the lion on to Miss O'Toole and make her last piece of Russian anthem a discord.
Lancelot hobbled off amid loud clapping of hands, and his mother thought with rapture of how he would look if he did it in London.
Mr. Keefe and Mrs. Keane were both upset by the fall of the lion, considering it to be a bad omen for the war.
The interval for sandwiches and liquid refreshment proved a brilliant success. Mrs. Weston showed a bag full of silver collected for programmes. She had charged all the men a shilling for programmes.
"And it was worth it," said Darby, "with such a lot thrown in—the 'Watch on the Rhine' and Lancelot's recitation."
"I would not," observed the General, "have missed it for a fiver, especially if the second half is as good and as funny and as er ... patriotic as to tunes."
Lancelot's mother wandered up and down for plaudits for her boy, discussing the "Charge."
"No exaggerations," she said, "no undue emphasizing, just the beauty of the thing—the one swing of the crutch when they were all killed, and my wounded boy doing it."
Sir Abel replied that he had never in his life been so touched by a recitation.
Just then Mrs. Freyne took off her gloves and made nervous way to the piano.
She played the prelude to "John Peel" loudly, lifting her hands then to endeavour to follow her husband on his devious paths.
He had put on his velvet cap.
"'D'ye ken John Peel?'" roared Dearest George, and found it was too high.
"'D'ye ken John Peel?'" he boomed loudly.
Mrs. Freyne struck a chord softly, and without hope. The General, who was musical, grew quite anxious.
But by the time he had got to the "Break of day," George Freyne was, so to speak, in his stride, with his wife following delicately, afraid to show marked preference to any key.
Having been loudly encored, Mr. Freyne asked his wife to play the tune and give him some help, and gave the "Meynell Hunt" with as much variety, as Darby said, as if the pack was in full cry.
A song and dance by Miss Delorme made the audience wonder if it was quite right for them to be there, for Psyche in costume gave them a song about the moon, and her dancing was as if a sprite floated over earth. By this time all the men were yelling "Encore!" and Mrs. Keane wished audibly that she had left Estelle and Maria at home.
Psyche was back again to give "A Little Bit of String," out of theCircus Girl, and another dance of fairy-like lightness. Then Mr. Keefe, pink and moist, was bustled on after his song had been given out.
Miss O'Toole played a prelude emphatically, unnoticed by the nervous performer.
"'Every morning I bring thee violets,'" trilled Mr. Keefe, with the piano vamping "My Old Pal" loudly.
"'Every morning I bring thee'—— Oh, look here, hang it!" said Mr. Keefe. "I can't bring them to that music, Miss O'Toole. I told you so. I said——"
Mrs. Weston threw a bunch on to the stage.
When there was a possibility of hearing him, and Miss O'Toole had changed her music gloomily, Mr. Keefe brought violets very irately, and flounced off in obvious ill-humour, declining his encore.
"To start like that when I told her time after time," he said, as he sought solace in a whisky and soda.
Then, fetched by the M.C., Violet Weston went on to the platform; very brilliant stockings gleamed under her white skirt. She was somewhat garishly handsome as she stood in the light; but as she took up the violin her expression changed. She cuddled it down, her fingers loving on the strings; she bent to Miss O'Toole, who shook her head hopelessly, as she looked at the score.
Matilda Freyne was called on; she listened, and took up the music.
Next moment the violin was rippling out wild Hungarian dances, spirits of elves, patter of breathless witches, rustle of feet on dead leaves, on polished boards, evil in merriment—they were all in the elfish music. Only two people in the audience realized what a master hand played to them—the General from Cortra leaning forward entranced, and another listener, the old Professor, sitting hidden in a corner.
With a sigh as of tired dancers it ended.
The Professor leaned forward listening. He leant back frowning, searching for something half forgotten. When had he heard this rendered before, with the same skill, the same feeling? The memory brought with it recollection of crowds, of a town.
He left his corner to waddle to the platform where Mrs. Weston was giving now a selection of Irish airs to vociferous applause.
"I have to thank you," he said simply, holding out his hand. "Music—music is all to me. But ... somewhere ... once I have heard someone else play that just as you do."
"Everyone plays it much the same, I should think," said Violet Weston, a little abruptly, moving away.
Miss O'Toole made seven pounds clear and had given, as she said, a wonderful musical treat to everyone. In fact Sir Abel Huntley had assured her that if it was a choice between another concert in Kildrellan and one at the Queen's Hall, he would come to hers.