CHAPTER XIV"Not tired again, Violet?" said Gheena reproachfully. "And we began a mile on to-day?"Mrs. Weston explained that she had twisted her ankle coming down the stony little lane, and she really could not go on. She said acidly that they had come miles, and one could see all the caves on the shore, and she did not believe anyone could hide things in them."There are one or two ledges," said Gheena thoughtfully, "and I've heard the water gurgling inside the rocks. I shall go on looking with Crabbit if you can't come."They were close to the little fishing village of Leeshane. It crouched in the hollow of a shingly bay with the rocks poking out on either side, the cliffs gradually rising to the point, where ships swung into the calm water of the harbour.They had been along the cliffs quite often, searching through the gorse bushes and trails of bramble and stunted fuchsias, until Violet Weston grew tired; high-heeled shoes soon caused twinges of pain on the rough ground.March had come in weeping to brighten to a promise of spring. Primroses shone pale gold in more than one sheltered hollow; the wild anemones were blue in the woods; green grass was nosing through the rusty fronds of yesteryear. The catkins danced over the banks of the little trout stream.In France, men wearying of bitter cold, welcomed the first warmth of the spring, for there they had frost in their very bones, and the cold chill of mud had clung to them as day by day they held on doggedly and waited for the advance which they were told was to be. The wild interest in the day's papers had died to a dull endurance. People got fewer wires.While the great monster War went on drinking blood and swelling hideously, March would see the end of the hunting, and a dreary summer only enlivened by constant hopes that something must happen to end it all would be before them.Gheena generally went away from home. This year her friends were fighting or in mourning, and she meant to stay at Castle Freyne."Well, if you can't go any further," said Gheena, "I'll come out myself.""When?"Gheena said that she did not know, because she meant to search by herself or with Psyche the sprite."I'll look down here now," said Gheena, dropping over the cliff.Mrs. Weston, left alone, kicked off one shoe and rubbed her brilliant foot ill-humouredly. Then she sketched idly on a small block, a neat little sketch absolutely devoid of any claim except that of neatness; and she put that away and yawned and moved her released toes.Gheena and Crabbit were scrambling in and out of caves, swinging along the cliff, with the tide nosing in sluggishly close to high-water mark. The sea was silvery grey under a silver sky, lapping and gurgling calmly. When a voice close by remarked that it was "airly to be lookin' for, say, birds' eggs," she turned to see Guinane, a particularly intelligent-looking youth, with bright blue eyes and a cunning mouth.Gheena said briefly that it was. "But you never know in war times what a bird might do. It must upset them greatly, Mike, when they find they're roosting on a submarine instead of swimming," she said gravely.Mike Guinane observed that he saw a submarine above in the big harbour, and it looked like a ship and nothin' else. Himself he doubted their powers of running down undther the wather, and thought it was mostly chat.In fact, after a brief pause, he thought that all the war was mostly newspaper chat entirely, and got up too, to make labour scarce and dear.Mr. Mike Guinane, Gheena noticed, was dressed in a new and completely unsuitable bewaisted blue serge suit, and sported a watch and silver chain. Evidently he was paid well."Supposing you stay here for a bit, Violet?" Gheena saw Mrs. Weston hobbling on over the rough ground. "I'll get on past the village."Mrs. Weston looked at her feet and sighed."If I was not so dreadfully vain!" she said cheerfully. "Let's look at the Dower House instead, Gheena."Gheena immediately thought of something brilliant. The neglected gardens of the Dower House stretched in melancholy confusion down to the water's edge. Box trees endeavoured to look forest-like as they stretched in unclipped luxuriance; spring bulbs made patches of colour here and there on the edges of the walks. The shuttered windows blinked blindly at the sunshiny world. They would have tea at Girtnamurragh—send Guinane to the village for provisions and have a picnic."I told Dearest that I could not be back to entertain Lance, because I was obliged to attend a meeting at the school-house," said Gheena thoughtfully. "He'll never know. And Psyche said that she was coming with me, and she slipped out the back avenue for a ride. Dearest is so cross nowadays. Then we might get a car somehow to take us home."Mrs. Weston considered it an excellent plan. She begged Gheena to come back from the cliffs. It would take ages to get beyond the village, and if they went up to the road they might find a boy to take a message to Darby or Mr. Keefe—or even see someone.Gheena paused irresolutely on the cliffs, which in summer would be fragrant with wild thyme and bright with trailing trefoil and sea-pinks. Now the gorse bushes dotted them and the air blew chilly.The little fishing village crouched in the hollow, men shaking out nets to dry, tarring boats and getting ready for the summer.War seemed a vague thing, far off and almost impossible.They went in to the flat garden with its high hedges of fuchsia planted for shelter. It was a gloomy place. A thick belt of yew trees looking down at the drawing-room windows, had been planted for further shelter; the house was squat and inornate and built of weeping stone, oozing clammily in damp weather.Stone men, battered and peevish from neglect, guarded either side of the wide entire garden walk, their faces pimpled with green patches.At the back the usual vastness of old yards stood grass-grown and half ruinous.A short avenue ran to the twisty lane coming down to Girtnamurragh, a lane bordered by low banks and gorse bushes, sprinkled with gold and sweetness.Up this, abandoning her quest for caves, Gheena walked. Mrs. Weston hobbled, abusing the ruts and stones.They reached the narrow ribbon of the coast road, to find its only occupants at the moment Looney Rooney and his ass car, and an old man going to the village for provisions.Looney Rooney stopped to listen while Gheena spoke to Flaherty, who was pleased to talk of the sad state of affairs."Sugar risin', Miss, an' flour. All cakes, I suppose, the soldjers ates beyant near Mons, an' it terrible hard to live, but gran' times for shops. Hasn't Guinane taken over Rooney's old house next to this own to store all the supplies he brings in? Faix, the aisy time he has with yourself, Ma'am.""Not looking after my cabbages," said Violet, sitting down and again kicking off one shoe."A big slhated house for all his supplies, no less. God save us, Mr. Stafford, but you were there as silent as a Roosian!"Basil Stafford had appeared suddenly, coming over a gap on to the road."A slated house he's taken, has he?" he said to old Flaherty. "Are you hunting for submarines, Miss Freyne?"Violet Weston said that she was, personally, hunting for a drive home, and must get it somehow, as her shoes were hurting her.She grew radiant when Stafford pointed out the long grey nose of his new car, standing in the shelter of the hedge some way down the road. Return being made simple, they must ask Stafford to the picnic tea, and Gheena did so lamely just as hoofs sounded and Miss Delorme took a narrow bank on to the road with complete confidence and loose reins."Over ye'll be, Miss, if ye will not lay a howlt to his head," said Phil's voice warningly."Also, if Looney Rooney had been at his own side of the road, you would have jumped upon him and his ass," said Darby mildly.Mrs. Weston remarked that it was quite a party now, and someone must get more bread and butter from the village. Rooney volunteered obligingly for a bribe of sixpence.Psyche jumped off; she was riding in her everyday tweed skirt, having been afraid to put on a habit, and Phil led the horses down the lane, receiving promises of rugs from Stafford.The wind was cold; they were all gathered in the shelter of the hedges when the clip-clop of a horse sounded coming down from Castle Freyne.The bright sunshine flickered on a white horse's coat."It's Dearest!" Gheena leapt through the gap off the road. "He's coming here. He must see us if he passes before we have time to hide behind that gorse, and he'll never forgive me. Hide the horses. Darby, get up; call back Phil!"Darby said hastily that Mr. Freyne might be going to the village. "And, in any case, he can see over the low bank, and there's no time to get to the yard," he added hopefully.They all crouched closely in the warm spring sunshine, Gheena leaning against the bank, peeping over."And I told him I could not come to look over trout-flies, because I had business," said Darby. "And he's here, so I'm caught too."Dearest George rode along airily, at peace with the world and secure in a good track, the white horse walking quickly."My horse," said Psyche."You couldn't flash a foot at him and blind him, I suppose?" suggested Darby, looking at Mrs. Weston's green stockings.Gheena raised her head. Mr. Freyne was not going to the village, he was turning down to the Dower House to see how many stalls must be replaced after the winter's wind. Shrilly and decidedly Gheena whistled the quick "One—two—three" which Whitebird had learnt so thoroughly.He cocked his ears and turned his big docile head. The whistle rang again.Then just on the edge of the turn where it was muddy, the white horse folded up and died obediently, pinning his rider's foot quite securely under him.The yell which reft the air did not disturb him in the least. He died, got up again, and saluted at his own time.With a rush on hands and knees, Gheena explaining as they fled, the crouchers scrambled past the open gap, and round behind a thick clump of gorse on the hill in the field, from which they could get through a gate and into the yard, or be hidden where they were."You—something—something brute! You German!" came in staccato from the road."Do you think he's hurt?" whispered Stafford in Gheena's ear. They were crouched close together under the prickly shelter.Gheena replied briefly that she was not going to see."He's up," hissed Darby, "and quite annoyed."The white horse arose and saluted, looked for a rewarding carrot, and saw instead a threatening whip, so backed faster towards home, wondering what he had done wrong."You Hun! You Hindenburg!" foamed Dearest George, scraping off the mud. "You stand still, will you?"The white horse retreated solemnly at a jog, now pursued by a lame and irate man."He'll go home in any case now to Mumsie," said Gheena composedly. "He's all muddy. It was the only thing I could think of. Now we'll have tea.""Resourceful but heartless," said Stafford quietly. "Supposing he'd been hurt?""He folds up so gently, that horse," replied Gheena equably.The getting into Girtnamurragh by opening a window—there were heaps of panes broken—proved quite simple. The long dark room gushed damp at them, so that they moved hurriedly to the kitchen, where turf and wood soon blazed hotly and the usual difficulties of pioneering commenced.The pump would not pump for ages—they had forgotten to send for a teapot. But the afternoon was long, and they all laughed over rebuffs, until mounds of buttered toast and well-smoked tea stood ready on the wooden table."I thought of smugglers," said the Professor mildly, peeping in, "so I came up.""You were out along the cliffs, Professor," said Stafford a little sharply."Upon the rocks. I saw you upon the cliffs," said the Professor affably. "Now that one may see a periscope on the sea, it is interesting."Mike Guinane and Phil hung upon the outskirts of the tea-party, getting fresh water and toasting more bread, until Phil declared the horses 'd get their deaths and almost ordered a start."I am going out again in a day or two," Gheena remarked, as they drove home—"off far away on the cliffs.""Keep off the cliffs"—Stafford had packed them both in his two-seater and Gheena was close to him—"keep off them." There was a ring of authority in his voice."Oh, no doubt you'd like me to," said Gheena icily.She felt rather than heard a quick sharp sigh and the new car swerved a little.They found Mr. Freyne, immersed in ill-humour, resting in the library with one foot in an old slipper.With voluble anger he poured out his story—the horse tripping and falling quite suddenly and running away for a mile and more, and the mud, and his severe pain. Lancelot, pale and unsympathized with, was sitting in a corner without even a cushion for his foot."Someone whistled just as I fell," stormed Mr. Freyne, "but no one came to my assistance. Oh, doubtless some ruffian using the stables at Girtnamurragh and whistling warning.""Horrid trick to play you!" said Stafford sympathetically.At the word "trick" Dearest George looked thoughtful."It is just possible," he said, "but he only does that old trick for a signal. Gheena knows it. But she was at the school-house this afternoon."Gheena and Mrs. Weston stood together in the doorway, talking earnestly."Why is he always upon those cliffs?" said Gheena. "Why always out alone?""These are things which make one thoughtful," said Violet. "But I can't believe in much real mischief down here. It's so out of the way."The spring slipped on before Gheena went out again to the cliffs. She hurt her foot out hunting, knocking it against a gate, and was too lame to scramble over rough ground.Psyche had learnt to sit on at her jumps now, but custom brought no abatement of her joy in the chase.She still glowed and cried out, and still as a shadow followed the Master.He got used to the little white face close behind him, to shining eyes filled with admiration."It's so wonderful! You just blew the horn and squiggled them along and they bow-wowed again," was one of Psyche's happy remarks."Gave tongue," said Darby politely.Psyche replied unabashed that it was all the same noise, and glowed again.She had learnt how to steady her horse at a fence, how to hold him together galloping."And I want to hunt ever and always," she said—"always. I'll never live in Kent again."There had been unguarded moments when Darby, riding home with his never-weary follower, had even told her how he felt his crippling."I had dreamt," he said one evening, "of a different life, little sprite, of someone that I cared for being with me—through it."Psyche knew—the white glow faded a little and her eyes darkened."If one cared," she began, "nothing would matter.""But that is it. She was too young, too. And now it's not my place to try to make her care. Go alone for all time, Psyche. I've thought that Stafford——" he added after a long pause."She thinks him a spy," said Psyche slowly, "and despises him for not joining.""In the name of God, Grandjer—the foxy Tom that I lambasted ye for this morning—Grandjer, howld on!"Little Andy darted after the disappearing Grandjer, cracking a whip, as a comet-like streak of red dashed through the hedge."The Widow Casey's Tom," said Andy, returning, "an' I only just to save the craythur. There is some sort of a purry sthrain in him, an' she sets the divil's sthore by him for it."Psyche suggested Persian, and Andy replied that it was maybe "Purry Shan," and patted the erring Grandjer fondly.Confidences were broken off, and crippled Darby said good-bye at the next cross-roads.To ride on with the pain of his loneliness biting him hard—his way was to the emptiness of his big house, to the long dull evening, with the paper to read over and over and the fire to stare into, with the pictured Dillon men, vigorous and whole-limbed, staring down at him contemptuously. There were girls, perhaps, who might marry him for his place and his income, but Darby knew that he would never ask them.Directly her foot mended, Gheena asked Darby to drive her to the cliffs beyond the village."I don't want to take Violet any more," she said decidedly. "Her shoes begin to pinch after a mile or so, and I want to explore for holes and caves. You can wait for me," she said, seeing him look at his leg. "It's quite warm, and we'll get tea from old Maria Delaney."Darby came obediently, waiting outside the gates, because Gheena found that it was better to do all things secretly and not get scolded. Hints of Lancelot coming to spend the afternoon or of being driven to see him made her rush blithely through the wood, Crabbit at her heels. Fast as she went, lighter feet pursued and caught her—Psyche Delorme, hatless and breathless."Gheena, Dearest is looking for you, and your mother is asking his advice as to where you are likely to be, and I don't want to drive in the car with them."Gheena looked hard at the blue wash of waves seen through the tree-trunks, then she swore Psyche to silence and they ran on together."The sprite followed me," Gheena explained to Darby. "She has got no hat. Do drive on, Darby, because Dearest has got the car at the door, and he might come down to see if I'd walked to Cassidy's."The car swept along the narrow road, bordered by a screen of fuchsias along the edge of the cliffs. They tore down the slope into Leeshane, scattering dogs and hens, took the steep ascent, and were out on the exposed road, which wound round eventually by the open sea.It ran between low banks, never going down close to the cliffs, but Darby knew of a tortuous lane, which he dived into fearlessly, scraping the sides with his mudguards, bumping and crawling, until he reached an open close-turfed plateau with the sea growling just beyond it.Gheena swung away, diving in and out among the clumps of gorse, peering behind boulders, looking down rabbit holes.She noticed how in one spot the ground was trampled, and a path led away towards the road, then slipped over the verge and climbed among the rocks. The cliffs were honeycombed by caves—then irregular cavities, their mouths choked by fern and fuchsia, a reek of fox coming from them, showed high up, dark fuchsias below them. Some of them, narrow-mouthed, forbade entrance; others could be climbed into and explored.They were damp places, barely innocent of concealed petrol. Gheena clambered on until Psyche grew tired and went back to where Darby sat in a sheltered nook, warm in the spring sunshine, his pipe between his teeth. He looked desolate then, his eyes following the active figure flying over the rocks."Petrol on the brain," he said patiently to Psyche.Presently Gheena came to a deep channel running up to a rather large cave. The tide was flowing and the water lapping up at the big slimy boulders in the mouth of the dark place.To go in might mean getting wet, but Gheena risked it, slipping and sliding over the stormy rocks. Crabbit grew excited, barking and growling, sniffing at the walls.Something kept Gheena lingering until she had to take off her shoes and stockings and wade out. Outside a deep fissure led into another cave, an opening with a black sense of hollowness behind it, but no room for a man to pass in.Crabbit was into the blackness in a moment. Gheena could hear him snuffling inside and even growling, then leaping up, trying to get out.Sudden fear gripped Gheena, her dog might be entombed in there with walls too slippery for him to scramble up. He appeared quite suddenly, hooking on with his strong paws and coming out looking ruffled. There was a strip of shale just beyond this and no dark cave mouths showing. It was not far from the opening of the harbour. So Gheena scrambled up to the top of the cliff to find it thick with gorse, some of it cut down and piled up to dry for firewood, and shook her head sadly.It was quite hot in the shelter of the cliffs, with the sun shining. The air was full of the scent of the gorse and the tang of salt.Leaping down on to a little shingly beach, Gheena all but fell over the Professor basking in the sun, his hammer in his hand. Crabbit wagged his tail. He liked the Professor, and Gheena said it was a long way to walk from Dunkillen.The Professor, blinking sleepily, asked if Gheena was out for birds' eggs or submarines, and Gheena hovered close to confidence before she thought better of it."Exploring caves," she said with strict truth, then inviting him to Mrs. Maloney's tea.As they climbed to the verge and stood on the short sweet grass, they saw a dark figure some way off swinging along the edge of the open sea."It is Mr. Stafford. He walks that way to get to the Wireless Station. Exercise is good for the young," said the Professor dryly. "Perhaps he, too, is looking for submarines. I will follow you, Miss Freyne."Gheena sat down for a few minutes in the nook which Darby had chosen for himself."I was not much help, Gheena," Darby said a little drearily.Something in his voice touched Gheena. She remembered how years before Darby had scrambled with her over the rocks, and not sat looking on crutches by his side."But you're always a help, Darby," she said quickly.Little Psyche, her hands round her knees, bunched into a bundle, said nothing."Always someone who wants help," he answered laughingly."Not out hunting," snapped Psyche resentfully.They took tea in Mrs. Maloney's cottage. Its complete absence of windows flavoured the meal with turf smoke, which oozed out of one of the two doors ventilating the house, one facing to the sea where a land breeze blew, one to the land where the wind roared in from the sea.But the little place was spotless despite the smoke, the brass candlesticks shining, the blue china on the dresser polished—a big home-baked cake appearing, delightfully indigestible, from the three-legged oven, and Maria's half a pound of butter used recklessly.Boiled eggs and whisky were also proffered but refused."I couldn't get any butter from Anne to bring out," said Gheena, when they were coming away. "So I must tell Maria to get some at Guinanes'. That's the way we manage. She gives me her things and I return them. She wouldn't take money. Dearest counts the pounds of butter now when the churning is done, so Anne is going to put away cream, because she says 'It's orkard on her, an' people comin' to tay, an' the Masther axin' where the butter do be goin' to.' You must stop at Guinanes', Darby; I've told Maria to get a parcel from them."As they bumped out of the lane, the whining purr of a high-powered car sounded outside it, and the long grey nose of Stafford's Daimler swung aside to avoid them. He had left his car evidently on the road."We found the Professor out rocking, and we are taking him home," said Darby."Oh!" said Basil Stafford quietly. He looked worried and out of humour."News—up there?" queried Darby."Not pretty news," Stafford answered grimly. "The submarines will do some harm in time." He sighed a little. "And you were all out on the cliffs," he added, staring at nothing."Miss Freyne was out upon the cliffs," said Darby, "I was not.""Let those cliffs alone," said Stafford sharply. "I wish you would, Miss Freyne, in war times."He laughed a little bitterly as Gheena looked at him.It was still early, and a complete distaste for her own home made Gheena say that she would go to see Mrs. Weston.They stopped at Guinanes' on their way back to order a parcel for their old hostess.A stout woman at the counter was making complaint as to damp flour."Soggen and weighty, Mrs. Guinane, an' it near to swheep the life from Thomas Martin with the pain it gev him. 'The centher of me is on fire, Ma,' he cried out, an' it twelve at night—'an' I will surely die.'"Mrs. Guinane, apologizing profusely, looked darkly towards the door which led to the kitchen."Mike, are ye there? He was there a minnit ago. I towlt him not to take the flour out of where 'twas always, to put it in that new house he has, for flour, says I, will not do unless there is a fire, says I, an' not one of us will he let in to put a fire there, but in an' out for himself always. Mikey, will ye bring back the flour ye have destroyed with ye're obstinacy, an' not be spilin' good food?"Mrs. Weston's man put his shrewd blue-eyed face round the edge of the door and muttered something half aloud."Or will Mary Kate folly ye now with an apern full of turf," said his mother, conciliating him, "till we airs that new sthore ye have?"Mike said "She will not" shortly, merely promising to bring back the flour bags to dry quarters."An', Mike, we are out of washin' soda. An' it locked up with him inside."Mrs. Guinane then announced hotly that she was scalded from the new store, and turned to Gheena."Thim Germans has the poor ruined, Miss," she said, as she took the order. "Heapin' pince on everythin'."Mrs. Weston, yawning profusely, was at home in a tobacco-scented atmosphere. Ends of cigarettes were littered about and feet cased in green silk were hurriedly removed from a comfortable rest on the mantelpiece and thrust into tight shoes. The old Swiss maid hobbled past the visitors out of the oven-hot room, curtsying as she met them.Gheena only left a message from her mother. She could not have stayed long in the close room. But before she went she whispered one or two things to her friend. Mrs. Weston was not pleased to hear that Gheena had gone alone to the cliffs."Even if my shoes were too tight," she said. "And you found nothing?""Nothing at all," said Gheena absently, because at the moment she was thinking of the curious cave with the channel running into it, and of some sound which had not struck her at the time, but which came back to her now.They found George Freyne accumulating chill and bad-humour upon the doorstep, looking out for his step-daughter."If you had told me that you actually wanted me to go for a drive," said Gheena patiently; "but you were not sure, Dearest, so I went for a walk and Darby drove us home. I—I wasn't spending money on anything, driving the car or being extravagant.""Dearest has been quite put out," Mrs. Freyne confided. "Lancelot was driven over, lying back on cushions, Gheena, and looking as if he thought he was ill; he's very stout. And you were not there, and they asked us all back to dinner, which would have meant, Dearest said, no dinner here, so he's put out, Gheena darling, and says he'll sell another horse.""If—he—dares to sell mine!" said Gheena with a queer little gulp.CHAPTER XVDarby Dillon refused emphatically to believe "a word of it." He listened to Gheena and his expression leant towards rudeness."Not one word," he said. "He's too good a——"He stopped quite suddenly. If Gheena looked on Basil Stafford as a slacker and perhaps worse, she would never get to care for him, and hope is so strong a thing that there was always at the back of Darby's mind some vague thought of getting much better, and then in his fairy dreamland he would think that he might try to make a girl care for him. If she was gone, that dreamland would close its doors.Then honesty came first. "He's too good a sort," said Darby gruffly, and observed also that Carrigeen Freyne, in this instance, had not Grandjer's nose.Gheena said that Darby was very rude, and took up her gloves. They had come in to tea with Darby after a hunt. Hunting was just over now, even though here on the edge of the sea they sometimes killed a May fox. Still meadows were being closed up and fences mended, and it was only possible to hunt in the woodlands or on the mountains.It was April now, treacherously fine, blue-skied and finely white-clouded, with all the birds singing, and spring holding out hands to early summer. Horses looked stale and dry-coated, but Darby held on. His year was over when hunting stopped, and he must hobble while Dearest George and Mr. Keefe melted opposite each other on mossy tennis lawns, and stood bravely up at the net until someone hit them."Mr. Freyne is so wonderful at the net," was a quotation made with bated breath by the country tennis-players."Just because I won't let you run away with things, you," said Darby—"you want to go without tea. I say Stafford's a good sort, Gheena, even if he won't fight or can't."Gheena kicked the turf fire vigorously as she railed out fresh indictment. Money so suddenly obtained here, etc."I would write to the admirals if I knew them," said Gheena with dignity, "about—well, about things. And I did write to someone, who isn't stupid." Here she withered Darby with a glance.Darby repeated equably that he refused to believe it. Stafford was a good sort, and he offered tea just as Psyche, a sprite even in her severe habit, came in, Dearest George, severely aloof, following her gloomily.As he drank strong tea and ate several eggs, he spoke with feeling of his nephew Lancelot's health, and the complete arresting of his convalescence. He also talked of economy and the awful future of Great Britain's finances."Money," said Dearest, "being a thing which people cannot go on finding for ever; and as for horses, no one would be able to afford them, even if the war dragged on."Darby saw Gheena's face cloud and assume an expression of one who had heard this particular form of foreboding too often.The two girls jumped into the back of the car when they were starting, leaving Mr. Freyne to sit alone, wondering as he let in his clutch what petrol would go to and how long he would keep the car going."And if we were poor," stormed Gheena—"if we were, but we're not; and it's all mine, or it will be when I——"She nodded icily to Stafford who was jogging home alone, riding rather close to Mrs. Weston and Mr. Keefe, who, with their heads almost touching, ambled in front of him through the opal twilight.The sweetness of a spring morning was broken next day by the arrival of the motor from Cahercalla, with an urgent message saying that Mr. Lancelot was not well, and wished Miss Gheena to come over.Gheena went without enthusiasm. It was a sunny morning, and she knew that she would find Lancelot lying down and basking in a huge arm-chair in the morning room, with an enormous fire and all the windows shut. There would be a smell of beef-tea and toast, coupled with that of a variety of tonics and cotton-wool, and Lancelot would betray the peevishness engendered by lack of exercise and too much heat.As she had thought, she was engulfed in the pale brown morning room. Mrs. Freyne was winding wool of a lank variety, rasping it off a chair-back with dexterous fingers, Evelyn was stitching flannel night-dresses, and Lancelot was drinking Bovril and eating toast. He brightened up when Gheena, holding the door open for as long as she could, greeted him, and he at once told her how ill he felt. Mrs. Freyne went on for a time with her winding, and remarked after a time, apropos of nothing, that she had just heard from Geoffery, her second son, and that Lancelot never seemed really happy at Cahercalla, and that Geoffery would love to live there. Here she left the room to see the cook, followed in a moment by Evelyn.Gheena found herself alone with her puffily fat cousin, who suddenly showed some interest in life.He said it was good of her to come over. He blushed and upset his mother's work-basket, and then asked Gheena if she had been listening. Gheena asked to what, with restrained impotence in her voice.At this point Lancelot sat up and possessed himself of Gheena's hand and asked her to marry him. It took Gheena some little time, sitting with crumpled brows, to realize what he was talking about.Lancelot was not lacking in humbleness, nor yet in certainty of acceptance. He explained to Gheena the suitability of the matter—how he would come to live at Castle Freyne, and being such a friend of his uncle's, no changes need be made in existing arrangements. Of course, he might be again employed in the Army, even if not on active service, but war would not last for ever. And then he sat quite up and sighed with the satisfied air of a child who has repeated a lesson correctly; his next glance was at the clock.Gheena's firm removal of her hand did not trouble him at all."Shall we call back mother," said Lancelot, "as it's time for my tonic, and she'd like to know?""Oh, she went away on purpose," said Gheena. Then with extreme candour Miss Freyne explained that she was very sorry, but she had no intention of marrying at present, and certainly not her distant cousin Lancelot.Lancelot replied peevishly that he understood that Gheena wanted to be independent, and that why not now instead of later. Complete refusal he evidently did not understand.Gheena looked at his plump cheeks; she conquered an intense desire to laugh heartily and she fell into thought. If she were engaged to Lancelot the wheels of everyday would no doubt be oiled, and the fever of economy be cured. But Gheena had no meanness in her.Quite decisively this time, she told Lancelot that an engagement was as far away from her thoughts as matrimony, and that he could put the whole thing out of his head.Lancelot plumped his cushions and quoted Uncle George feverishly. He produced a pearl ring bought for him at Cortra, and then his pocket-handkerchief. With tears of sheer temper in his eyes, he said a great many things which could not possibly further his suit.Gheena rang the bell, a haughty look in her face. She remarked that Lancelot wanted his tonic, and endeavoured to look vacant when Lancelot made tearful mention of Prussic acid, and it was plain that his mother took in the whole situation at a glance.The tonic, irony and bitter, was brought up solemnly to be rejected by the invalid, who even upset the bottle, declaring that health was no use to him now. After this everything was even plainer.Luncheon with Lancelot glaring furiously at her over the hot chickens, which he wanted to eat and would not, was not a pleasant meal. When her son refused apple meringue and shook his head at afoie gras, Mrs. Freyne grew almost frantic, and the only conversation was a spasmodic one between Gheena and Eva.Castle Freyne was eight miles away. Gheena had to wait to be called for by her stepfather, and the afternoon stretched hot and interminable before her.Lancelot did not wish to go out. The prospect of sitting in the morning-room, seeing his aggrieved face outlined against the red cushions, until five or six o'clock seemed almost unendurable.Making some vague excuse about a message, she slipped out; even a short respite was something, and once in the fresh air she considered the eight miles of road between her and home.The avenue was a short one. She got to the gate and looked out. Her shoes were not thick and showers were coming up from the sea. Gheena wavered between the thought of hours dragged out under accusing eyes or of a two and a half hours' tramp, which would include a meeting with her stepfather.At that moment the long grey nose of Basil Stafford's car swung round the bend in the road, and was pulled up beside her. In this she could be home in twenty minutes, get up the back avenue, and take refuge in the school-room for tea.Very jerkily she asked to be taken home, murmuring something about offence given.It did not take a far-seeing wit to discern the reason. A flicker of laughter curved Mr. Stafford's lips and he opened the door at the side.Gheena flung propriety on one side. She drove back to the door and told Evelyn that she was going home, as she had forgotten to do something particular, and whispered "Go on" to the willing driver. The pace at which a high-powered car can go, even on narrow roads, was demonstrated to her in the next ten minutes, for to meet the Castle Freyne people would mean disaster. They reached the back gate safely, and Gheena, who had sat silent, could only ask her rescuer to tea, which, she explained, must be taken in the school-room, and that they must hide.Basil Stafford accepted readily. Together they ran up the rough avenue until they reached the shelter of the large hay-barn, from which they could see if the coast was clear. Scrambling up into the fragrant hay, peering out across the wall, and then dodging quickly into the haven of the inner yard, to hear a familiar voice asking for Phil.A variety of men grinned softly as Gheena dashed into a stable and went up the ladder to the loft at the double, followed by Stafford. Here among piled-up oats they crept forward and looked through the window down into the yard.Mr. Freyne had come out to speak seriously to Phil—that morning traces of white oats had been observed in the mangers while Phil was out exercising. Black, and black alone, were to be used."And black it was," lied Phil pleasantly, "with maybe a grain or two of white getting mixed in."Mr. Freyne looked upwards. He said that he knew exactly the quantity up there and would see if it had been depleted. Gheena drew a long breath, and remarked that she must face it, unless she went under the oats."And have a care of the ladder, sir," said Phil's voice below. "I was up lasht when turnin' the heaps an' two rungs broke on me. I just slipped them in somewheres, I'd say middleways."Dearest George, checked, raved hotly at Phil for thus replacing rungs which might give way and kill a man."Well, I was afther meanin' to," observed Phil guilelessly; "but knowin' I would not be goin' up to the white oats maybe agin before May or June, I thought to put in a fresh laddther, that same bein' pure rotten. Would I put down a sop of hay in case ye meet the two, sir, an' they gives?"When Dearest George spoke again it was in the yard. He told Phil several things then, as he gloomily awaited the arrival of his wife, who ambled out from the kitchen, a basket in her hands."Just a few things for Dayly's sick wife," she said. "I won't keep you a minute there, Dearest, because it's scarlet fever, and I'm sure you'd advise me not to and Gheena will want to come home. She always does from Cahercalla.""This time," said Mr. Freyne, "Gheena will not wish to come home.""If you mean she'll be engaged to Lancelot," said Matilda Freyne. "Of course, Dearest, if you think so, but I do not. He's so young and so stout, and she never liked fat men, and I'd much rather it was Darby."Dearest ensconced himself behind the wheel and swore softly."He's saying 'Damn it! I should know best,'" whispered Stafford."At this distance you can't hear," said Gheena.They were squeezed up together in the window, safe behind a veil of cobwebs, a friendliness unknown before between them. Gheena had forgotten war and spying. She was with someone who was protecting her."Shall we go out the back avenue? it's shorter," said Mr. Freyne.Instantly Gheena's hand went out and caught Stafford's arm. They remembered the car down there."Mike Dundon put new sthones upon it only yesterday," said Phil stolidly. "And the off tyre is shaky, sir."Basil Stafford felt that no half-crown had been so well earned as that which he put into Phil's hand when the car had hummed away out the front gate.Gheena, a little shaken and upset, gave him tea in the school-room. One cannot snub a man who has hidden with you in an oat-loft. They talked and laughed with the same new friendliness, Stafford telling her of his years abroad, of Italy, of France, and then of Germany. The cloud came suddenly into Gheena's eyes."You were there for years, weren't you?" she said."For some months," he answered absently; "in Berlin. I knew some nice men there too.""Whom you would not care to fight against now, I suppose?" Gheena muttered half to herself. "Oh, if there was only no war!" she flashed out, "and no economy, and no black oats, and wounded people and things!"Basil said gravely that it would be a far better arrangement. He saw the cloud which had risen up."And—there being a war—we cannot be friends," he said slowly, coming to the mantelshelf, looking hard at Gheena.Gheena felt a very hot flush being succeeded by pallor as she replied that one could not be friends with someone one could not understand.Mr. Stafford said, "Or—anything else except friends," still keeping close to her."Gheena, a little bird whispered to me that you were home. They saw you coming, and I've news for you. Oh, Mr. Stafford!" Violet Weston pushed open the door, her golden head gleaming, her shoes of purple suede pinching her so that she limped."And the news?" Basil asked softly.Violet replied, "Private news," lightly. Mrs. Weston sent Stafford out. He went to fetch his car, and she broke into excited whispers of how she'd heard that there was news of some spy about, and several other things, which could only have come from Mr. Keefe.She sat on the edge of Gheena's chair, and was still there, one arm round the girl's shoulders, when Stafford came back to say good-bye. Gheena had already made doleful confession concerning Lancelot's proposal and the scoldings it was likely to involve her in.Darby and Psyche had been out riding. They were just in when the unwelcome sound of a motor heralded the early return of Dearest George.He came in quite slowly—happiness, of course, makes tripping feet, and sorrow heavy ones—and took off his motor gloves with tragic intensity.When Darby remarked that they were back early, Mr. Freyne returned that he could not stay to watch sorrow, and particularly wounded sorrow."He even refused scones for tea," said Gheena's mother; "but I saw a tray on the writing-table, and he'd been having Benger's food—don't you think so, Dearest?—and plum cakes.""He seemed quite annoyed by that question," observed Mrs. Freyne a moment later, when her spouse had quitted the room noisily.Gheena, taken to task presently for girlish caprice, spoke out with complete honesty. She would never marry Lancelot. In her eyes he was a mere fat youth, and she had never been able to fix the halo of wounded hero about his head.After this the hours marched to bedtime through a mental atmosphere of Cimmerian gloom.When Darby made a cheeky remark, Dearest George quoted the casualty lists. If Psyche broke out about hunting, he said that all horses were now munitions of war. The taunting reproach in his eyes made a game of Bridge into a species ofKriegspiel, for, of course, Gheena cut her stepfather, and went "No trumps" after his repeated "Nos," because she said she thought he was only no-ing from bad spirits, the result of several lost shillings not improving matters.But next morning, as Gheena and Crabbit forgot troubles among the daffodils under the trees, with the wind making the flowers as a sea of silvery gold, floating on spears of green, Mr. Freyne showed that he was in earnest.Coming across the grass, he nodded good morning and called to his wife. Unsoftened by sheen of gold, by glimpse of blue restless sea, he scanned futurity with mental field-glasses and mapped out the following winter's campaign with precision.He regretted it, but except Mrs. Freyne's cob—she was afraid of her weight and must ride—there would be no horses at Castle Freyne."And mine?" Gheena cried. "My horses, Dearest?"Gheena's stepfather observed that there would not be anybody's horses. He reminded her coldly that until she came of age or married, she had not even an allowance.Redbird, Whitebird, Blackbird—friends true and tried—to go to France as troopers; Redbird, little Redbird, with her fretful temper; Blackbird, fretful and excitable. Gheena heard the words pour on, catching one here and there, realizing vaguely their tone of threatening anger rather than their full sense. Then she recovered. It was nonsense! In four years she would have too much in her power. Even in war-times her stepfather would not dare to sell her horses. But four years! Forty-eight months! how many hundred days?—an age interminable!"You don't mean it really, Dearest?" she said, smiling bravely. "Now, do you? And poverty is nonsense."Mr. Freyne had delivered himself of much oratory; this retort snapped the thin thread of his patience.His dark look at his stepdaughter worried her far more than any outburst of rage would have done."If you marry," he said smoothly, "the power will be in your own hands."Gheena flew to her mother, who was bedewing socks with facile tears. Matilda Freyne explained that a wife must take her husband's advice, and that Dearest George had fully explained the urgency of everything."If you married Lancelot, darling Gheena," she said hopefully, "you could ask him about things. You see, the difficulty with you is that you are always asking yourself—and now I have dropped three stitches, and I must call Mary Anne."Gheena refrained from bitter retort. So far the unending battle between her and her stepfather had been one of manoeuvring, firing blank shells; they had pulled in different directions, Gheena always sublimely certain of ultimate success. Now she was faced suddenly by a mobilized foe and was frightened."Your Dearest—that is, Dearest George—means it," said Mrs. Freyne tearfully. "And I——""I won't vex you, Mumsie," said Gheena gently, just as a messenger rode up with a message from Cahercalla.It stated in the long pointed writing of Lancelot's mother that the boy was fretting and ill."He has had a complete set-back and refused even meringues and golden plover for dinner," wrote Mrs. Freyne. "He is now still in bed suffering from the shock of this unforeseen upset. Why, when everything was so absolutely suitable, Gheena could not. She had better come over at once before Lancelot's luncheon is due."Gheena backed towards the door, listening to the reading of the letter. Then as Dearest was called for, she swung out hatless and raced into the wood with Crabbit at her heels, and slipped through the gardens into the stables. The swift saddling of Greybird was followed by her escape down the back avenue at a gallop and a reckless school across country until she dropped on to the road close to Darby's house.He was out, limping among the horses, his dark face lighting as the girl rode in.Gheena explained fully. Darby had always heard her troubles. She came into the warm old library and sat there muttering her forebodings."Psyche will find me," she said, looking out. "I left a note." She forgot trouble in the quiet old house. Darby talked of cheery things, of a speedy ending to the great war and of Dearest's seeing the error of his ways.By the time the cook had, in her own language, slapped up a sweet, and lashed the phisint that was raggety-lookin' into a fricassey, Psyche had arrived upon a bicycle.It was, of course, unfortunate that Gheena should have chosen one of the bones of contention to escape on, and that George Freyne should have, after some angry questioning, driven to Dillonscourt, looked for his lost step-daughter, and captured her out upon the lawn.He was merely reproachful as he drove her on to Cahercalla, where Lancelot wilted in fiery heat, with untouched beef-tea, greasily tragic, by his side.He explained very gently that he merely felt tired, but his poor mother was worried, and Doctor Malone said...Here the old doctor upset the atmosphere of gentle pity by bursting to say he thought something must be very wrong if Lancelot couldn't eat as much as three; but with the help of a few liver pills, please God ... and then he told Lancelot to keep quiet. The memory of that visit was not a pleasant one to harassed Gheena. She was young and soft-hearted. By the time Lancelot's mother had talked to her feelingly in the vast chill drawing-room, and his sister had carried her off to the seclusion of a neat bedroom to clinch the matter, Gheena felt like a criminal, who ought to show repentance by immediately accepting the wounded hero downstairs, but she went away, leaving him sorrowful.Two weeks of soft spring weather brought April almost to an end. It was weather almost summer-like, the sun turning it into summer and sheltered corners. The water was even warm enough for Gheena to take to swimming.But through the woof of sunshine ran the warp of trouble. Lancelot languished. He really grew thinner and weak from hot, airless rooms and want of exercise.The tale of his woes was told by degrees to all Dunkillen. Mrs. Keefe came to ask Gheena to change her mind because the boy was a wounded soldier. Mrs. De Burgho Keane called to say that any girl ought to be glad to find a husband now that all the men were being killed. At the end of a fortnight Mr. Freyne read the war news, and decided that the German tactics of attack were the best he could use, but he said nothing.Gheena had had a swim. She came in glowing to dress warmly, and bask in the hot sunshine right in under the shelter of the cliffs. There was not a breath of air in her nook. The rocks caught the sun and flung it back, and in front the sea plashed calmly.She saw Guinane's boat being pulled towards the village; it was heavily laden with stores. Another boat dashed out from the rocks, showing for a moment and then disappearing. Gheena knew it for Stafford's. She shrugged her shoulders, and felt the world in an elusive spring sunshine was not the place which it had been. The tide crept higher, bringing a cold breath with it, but Gheena could scramble out of her nook, even at high-water.She was going to move when a snow shower of torn paper obstructed the view, falling in little scraps, some upon the water, some upon the shingle.Crabbit cocked his ears and Gheena grew curious; steps died away on the cliff, and with quick fingers she took up most of the scraps of paper and put them in her pocket.Stamp paper and toil helped away at least two hours in the house, until with great difficulty she read some of the letter. "Undoubtedly ... Submarines ... coast ... wait. Ba. Get the supply." Gheena raised her head. A few minutes before the note had fallen Basil Stafford's boat had shot in to shore; her eyes grew heavy.Hunting was almost over, Darby still pursuing in big woodlands which were useless in winter, going out early, as if for cubbing. The horses, with rusty coats and looking far too fine, going with fire or spirit after their long winter. But it was something to do, and little Miss Delorme did not see why they should not hunt all summer in the mornings. She never missed a meet.The attack meditated by George Freyne was carried out one day, and revealed by Phil, who went tearing to the shore to find Gheena."Save an' bless us, Miss Gheena, but Hartigan is afther bein' below in the yard an' all the horses soult! When he clapped his eyes on them, 'How much,' says he, 'for we have too many,' an' the Masther says 'Lump them,' says he, 'for a quiet sale.' An'——"Gheena said "My horses?" very slowly."Redbird an' all." Phil was sobbing openly. "The craythur I reared from a foal to g'out to be run afther by thim haythens, and where will we all be, Miss Gheena? And God save us, don't get a wakeness, Miss!"Gheena had not moved. She stood dreary, stricken; they were using their power. She was to live a virtual prisoner in her own home—no horses, no next season to dream of directly this one was dead."An' when he sighted the grey over the half door, 'He has the head of a rogue,' says he; 'lave him there;' but he come around an' said there was weddin's always, an' so he'd take him too. So Miss Mona's horse as well. And, Miss Gheena——"For Gheena, abandoning all dignity, sat down and wept hopelessly, with Crabbit walking round, deeply upset."You next," said Gheena, feeling the dog's cold nose."You next." Phil went away back, crying himself, through the budding wood, with its sheen of blue anemones and tender green of growing moss. He clambered heavily over the sunk fence to meet Darby on the avenue—Darby, riding, whistling as he came, some touch of the spring making him happy."It is Miss Gheena," said Phil, answering Darby's look. "The horses soult from undther her feet, an' she cryin' the eyes out of her head. The Masther an' his wars. Isn't it enough that there is a war in France?" burst out Phil, "not to be colloging with it in Castle Freyne. Black oats was bad enough; sure we always took a grain of white, but when there's use for neither white nor black—""Who bought them?" Darby bent down."Hartigan of Guntreen. He is within yet, atin' beef."Darby turned and rode away down the road.When Gheena, shaken and exhausted, her grief being rapidly burnt up by anger, came through the wood, she saw a motor at the door. This carefully-planned-out visit by Lancelot was a clumsy effort of diplomacy. Dearest George had mapped it out.With the horses still there, Gheena was to cry out that she would obey her people's wishes, and an afternoon radiant with joy was to be spent by the family.Instead Miss Freyne eyed her cousin with distant rancour, and came in to luncheon in a dangerous mood.She congratulated him on having improved his figure, and warned him against baked potatoes, and hoped his indigestion was quite gone. The horses she ignored completely.The failure of the plan made Mr. Freyne visibly ill-humoured. He came majestically to the drawing-room, where he shut all the windows, and helped his sister to lecture Gheena. It was disconcerting when Gheena excused herself as she had an engagement."We are taking tea with Violet," she said politely. "We are walking," she said hurriedly, when Lancelot began to get up, "and you could not come."George Freyne said, "Of all the obstinate, ill-mannered—" when Gheena had closed the door. "But if she thought she is going to have her own way——"As they walked to the village they met Basil Stafford in his car, and Gheena remembered the letter, and with her eyes completely devoid of cunning she told the story of the scraps, watching him closely.His quick reply was that he would give a great deal to see the scraps. Gheena remarked that she was going to show it to someone, and she remarked it malevolently.Mr. Stafford became eloquent. He said that scraps of information might be valuable in war-times, and if there was anything in the letter, he would see that it went to the proper people."The people who would like to see it," said Gheena meaningly.Finding Mrs. Weston out, they invaded the Professor, who made toast for them himself, and sent to the shops for strawberry jam and barley sugar, which he smashed into neat pieces and piled on a plate in tiers. Gheena told him also of the letter."AndHein! You could read it." He dropped a spoonful of jam into his tea, fishing for it patiently. "You read the scraps. You were there, then—a little sea bird. Will you show me the letter, Miss Gheena, if it is with you? It is not good, this syrup that I have made. No, you have not got the letter. Well, later."The girl's return to Castle Freyne was as marching from sunshine into a pea-soupy London fog, in the centre of which sat Dearest George, and Lancelot, frail and fretful, resenting the sorrow which he had immersed in.The sea kissed the feet of an opal sky. The air was soft and fresh. Gheena sat, white-faced, with ill-concealed impatience, listening to fresh arguments as to her future and her folly in not agreeing with everyone else."Eleven more obstinate men I never saw," remarked Gheena to the fire, and referring to the one juryman who upset the verdict for hours. Psyche, stepping in and out of the close library, now whispered of a hunt on the morrow—a meet at Mount Beresford at ten in the morning.The word "meet" sounded like a knell. Gheena meant to stop the horses going, to appeal to her mother."And even if it's woods the hounds will yowl and we shall gallop," said Psyche.Here Mr. Freyne, rising, assumed the attitude before the fire so dear to man, and remarked that the hounds might, but no one from Castle Freyne would.Gheena stood up also; she stared."Because I have done my duty towards my country," went on Dearest George heavily, "and retrenched. If Gheena had been back an hour ago"—his stepdaughter's face frightened him a little—"they might have been. But now—the Army.""You have—sold all my horses," Gheena heard a strange hoarse voice whispering—"Redbird, which I loved. Not—you dared——"Mr. Freyne a little nervously replied that he had acted as he thought best and Lancelot hurriedly asked for the car.Without a word Gheena went out, out into the opal-tinted evening to the yards."Oh, Dearest, do you think it was wise?" said Mrs. Freyne tearfully.Mr. Freyne said testily, "Lancelot will now represent independence, and she has left the door open."There were open doors in the yard, many of them—fresh yellow straw ready for feet which could never trample on it, Phil, sitting on the pump trough, weeping unashamed. There were no eager eyes and solemnizing heads thrust out, no muzzles ready to nose for carrots.Quite quietly Gheena went from box to box, Phil tramping after her, entreating her not to be fretting."When it is your own, Miss Gheena, you can have horses in the coal sheds—above in the farmyard, when it is ye're own."Four years, nearly five, and the pets she had seen grow up were gone. Crabbit, deeply dejected, wailed at her heels. Four years ... they seemed as eternity.
CHAPTER XIV
"Not tired again, Violet?" said Gheena reproachfully. "And we began a mile on to-day?"
Mrs. Weston explained that she had twisted her ankle coming down the stony little lane, and she really could not go on. She said acidly that they had come miles, and one could see all the caves on the shore, and she did not believe anyone could hide things in them.
"There are one or two ledges," said Gheena thoughtfully, "and I've heard the water gurgling inside the rocks. I shall go on looking with Crabbit if you can't come."
They were close to the little fishing village of Leeshane. It crouched in the hollow of a shingly bay with the rocks poking out on either side, the cliffs gradually rising to the point, where ships swung into the calm water of the harbour.
They had been along the cliffs quite often, searching through the gorse bushes and trails of bramble and stunted fuchsias, until Violet Weston grew tired; high-heeled shoes soon caused twinges of pain on the rough ground.
March had come in weeping to brighten to a promise of spring. Primroses shone pale gold in more than one sheltered hollow; the wild anemones were blue in the woods; green grass was nosing through the rusty fronds of yesteryear. The catkins danced over the banks of the little trout stream.
In France, men wearying of bitter cold, welcomed the first warmth of the spring, for there they had frost in their very bones, and the cold chill of mud had clung to them as day by day they held on doggedly and waited for the advance which they were told was to be. The wild interest in the day's papers had died to a dull endurance. People got fewer wires.
While the great monster War went on drinking blood and swelling hideously, March would see the end of the hunting, and a dreary summer only enlivened by constant hopes that something must happen to end it all would be before them.
Gheena generally went away from home. This year her friends were fighting or in mourning, and she meant to stay at Castle Freyne.
"Well, if you can't go any further," said Gheena, "I'll come out myself."
"When?"
Gheena said that she did not know, because she meant to search by herself or with Psyche the sprite.
"I'll look down here now," said Gheena, dropping over the cliff.
Mrs. Weston, left alone, kicked off one shoe and rubbed her brilliant foot ill-humouredly. Then she sketched idly on a small block, a neat little sketch absolutely devoid of any claim except that of neatness; and she put that away and yawned and moved her released toes.
Gheena and Crabbit were scrambling in and out of caves, swinging along the cliff, with the tide nosing in sluggishly close to high-water mark. The sea was silvery grey under a silver sky, lapping and gurgling calmly. When a voice close by remarked that it was "airly to be lookin' for, say, birds' eggs," she turned to see Guinane, a particularly intelligent-looking youth, with bright blue eyes and a cunning mouth.
Gheena said briefly that it was. "But you never know in war times what a bird might do. It must upset them greatly, Mike, when they find they're roosting on a submarine instead of swimming," she said gravely.
Mike Guinane observed that he saw a submarine above in the big harbour, and it looked like a ship and nothin' else. Himself he doubted their powers of running down undther the wather, and thought it was mostly chat.
In fact, after a brief pause, he thought that all the war was mostly newspaper chat entirely, and got up too, to make labour scarce and dear.
Mr. Mike Guinane, Gheena noticed, was dressed in a new and completely unsuitable bewaisted blue serge suit, and sported a watch and silver chain. Evidently he was paid well.
"Supposing you stay here for a bit, Violet?" Gheena saw Mrs. Weston hobbling on over the rough ground. "I'll get on past the village."
Mrs. Weston looked at her feet and sighed.
"If I was not so dreadfully vain!" she said cheerfully. "Let's look at the Dower House instead, Gheena."
Gheena immediately thought of something brilliant. The neglected gardens of the Dower House stretched in melancholy confusion down to the water's edge. Box trees endeavoured to look forest-like as they stretched in unclipped luxuriance; spring bulbs made patches of colour here and there on the edges of the walks. The shuttered windows blinked blindly at the sunshiny world. They would have tea at Girtnamurragh—send Guinane to the village for provisions and have a picnic.
"I told Dearest that I could not be back to entertain Lance, because I was obliged to attend a meeting at the school-house," said Gheena thoughtfully. "He'll never know. And Psyche said that she was coming with me, and she slipped out the back avenue for a ride. Dearest is so cross nowadays. Then we might get a car somehow to take us home."
Mrs. Weston considered it an excellent plan. She begged Gheena to come back from the cliffs. It would take ages to get beyond the village, and if they went up to the road they might find a boy to take a message to Darby or Mr. Keefe—or even see someone.
Gheena paused irresolutely on the cliffs, which in summer would be fragrant with wild thyme and bright with trailing trefoil and sea-pinks. Now the gorse bushes dotted them and the air blew chilly.
The little fishing village crouched in the hollow, men shaking out nets to dry, tarring boats and getting ready for the summer.
War seemed a vague thing, far off and almost impossible.
They went in to the flat garden with its high hedges of fuchsia planted for shelter. It was a gloomy place. A thick belt of yew trees looking down at the drawing-room windows, had been planted for further shelter; the house was squat and inornate and built of weeping stone, oozing clammily in damp weather.
Stone men, battered and peevish from neglect, guarded either side of the wide entire garden walk, their faces pimpled with green patches.
At the back the usual vastness of old yards stood grass-grown and half ruinous.
A short avenue ran to the twisty lane coming down to Girtnamurragh, a lane bordered by low banks and gorse bushes, sprinkled with gold and sweetness.
Up this, abandoning her quest for caves, Gheena walked. Mrs. Weston hobbled, abusing the ruts and stones.
They reached the narrow ribbon of the coast road, to find its only occupants at the moment Looney Rooney and his ass car, and an old man going to the village for provisions.
Looney Rooney stopped to listen while Gheena spoke to Flaherty, who was pleased to talk of the sad state of affairs.
"Sugar risin', Miss, an' flour. All cakes, I suppose, the soldjers ates beyant near Mons, an' it terrible hard to live, but gran' times for shops. Hasn't Guinane taken over Rooney's old house next to this own to store all the supplies he brings in? Faix, the aisy time he has with yourself, Ma'am."
"Not looking after my cabbages," said Violet, sitting down and again kicking off one shoe.
"A big slhated house for all his supplies, no less. God save us, Mr. Stafford, but you were there as silent as a Roosian!"
Basil Stafford had appeared suddenly, coming over a gap on to the road.
"A slated house he's taken, has he?" he said to old Flaherty. "Are you hunting for submarines, Miss Freyne?"
Violet Weston said that she was, personally, hunting for a drive home, and must get it somehow, as her shoes were hurting her.
She grew radiant when Stafford pointed out the long grey nose of his new car, standing in the shelter of the hedge some way down the road. Return being made simple, they must ask Stafford to the picnic tea, and Gheena did so lamely just as hoofs sounded and Miss Delorme took a narrow bank on to the road with complete confidence and loose reins.
"Over ye'll be, Miss, if ye will not lay a howlt to his head," said Phil's voice warningly.
"Also, if Looney Rooney had been at his own side of the road, you would have jumped upon him and his ass," said Darby mildly.
Mrs. Weston remarked that it was quite a party now, and someone must get more bread and butter from the village. Rooney volunteered obligingly for a bribe of sixpence.
Psyche jumped off; she was riding in her everyday tweed skirt, having been afraid to put on a habit, and Phil led the horses down the lane, receiving promises of rugs from Stafford.
The wind was cold; they were all gathered in the shelter of the hedges when the clip-clop of a horse sounded coming down from Castle Freyne.
The bright sunshine flickered on a white horse's coat.
"It's Dearest!" Gheena leapt through the gap off the road. "He's coming here. He must see us if he passes before we have time to hide behind that gorse, and he'll never forgive me. Hide the horses. Darby, get up; call back Phil!"
Darby said hastily that Mr. Freyne might be going to the village. "And, in any case, he can see over the low bank, and there's no time to get to the yard," he added hopefully.
They all crouched closely in the warm spring sunshine, Gheena leaning against the bank, peeping over.
"And I told him I could not come to look over trout-flies, because I had business," said Darby. "And he's here, so I'm caught too."
Dearest George rode along airily, at peace with the world and secure in a good track, the white horse walking quickly.
"My horse," said Psyche.
"You couldn't flash a foot at him and blind him, I suppose?" suggested Darby, looking at Mrs. Weston's green stockings.
Gheena raised her head. Mr. Freyne was not going to the village, he was turning down to the Dower House to see how many stalls must be replaced after the winter's wind. Shrilly and decidedly Gheena whistled the quick "One—two—three" which Whitebird had learnt so thoroughly.
He cocked his ears and turned his big docile head. The whistle rang again.
Then just on the edge of the turn where it was muddy, the white horse folded up and died obediently, pinning his rider's foot quite securely under him.
The yell which reft the air did not disturb him in the least. He died, got up again, and saluted at his own time.
With a rush on hands and knees, Gheena explaining as they fled, the crouchers scrambled past the open gap, and round behind a thick clump of gorse on the hill in the field, from which they could get through a gate and into the yard, or be hidden where they were.
"You—something—something brute! You German!" came in staccato from the road.
"Do you think he's hurt?" whispered Stafford in Gheena's ear. They were crouched close together under the prickly shelter.
Gheena replied briefly that she was not going to see.
"He's up," hissed Darby, "and quite annoyed."
The white horse arose and saluted, looked for a rewarding carrot, and saw instead a threatening whip, so backed faster towards home, wondering what he had done wrong.
"You Hun! You Hindenburg!" foamed Dearest George, scraping off the mud. "You stand still, will you?"
The white horse retreated solemnly at a jog, now pursued by a lame and irate man.
"He'll go home in any case now to Mumsie," said Gheena composedly. "He's all muddy. It was the only thing I could think of. Now we'll have tea."
"Resourceful but heartless," said Stafford quietly. "Supposing he'd been hurt?"
"He folds up so gently, that horse," replied Gheena equably.
The getting into Girtnamurragh by opening a window—there were heaps of panes broken—proved quite simple. The long dark room gushed damp at them, so that they moved hurriedly to the kitchen, where turf and wood soon blazed hotly and the usual difficulties of pioneering commenced.
The pump would not pump for ages—they had forgotten to send for a teapot. But the afternoon was long, and they all laughed over rebuffs, until mounds of buttered toast and well-smoked tea stood ready on the wooden table.
"I thought of smugglers," said the Professor mildly, peeping in, "so I came up."
"You were out along the cliffs, Professor," said Stafford a little sharply.
"Upon the rocks. I saw you upon the cliffs," said the Professor affably. "Now that one may see a periscope on the sea, it is interesting."
Mike Guinane and Phil hung upon the outskirts of the tea-party, getting fresh water and toasting more bread, until Phil declared the horses 'd get their deaths and almost ordered a start.
"I am going out again in a day or two," Gheena remarked, as they drove home—"off far away on the cliffs."
"Keep off the cliffs"—Stafford had packed them both in his two-seater and Gheena was close to him—"keep off them." There was a ring of authority in his voice.
"Oh, no doubt you'd like me to," said Gheena icily.
She felt rather than heard a quick sharp sigh and the new car swerved a little.
They found Mr. Freyne, immersed in ill-humour, resting in the library with one foot in an old slipper.
With voluble anger he poured out his story—the horse tripping and falling quite suddenly and running away for a mile and more, and the mud, and his severe pain. Lancelot, pale and unsympathized with, was sitting in a corner without even a cushion for his foot.
"Someone whistled just as I fell," stormed Mr. Freyne, "but no one came to my assistance. Oh, doubtless some ruffian using the stables at Girtnamurragh and whistling warning."
"Horrid trick to play you!" said Stafford sympathetically.
At the word "trick" Dearest George looked thoughtful.
"It is just possible," he said, "but he only does that old trick for a signal. Gheena knows it. But she was at the school-house this afternoon."
Gheena and Mrs. Weston stood together in the doorway, talking earnestly.
"Why is he always upon those cliffs?" said Gheena. "Why always out alone?"
"These are things which make one thoughtful," said Violet. "But I can't believe in much real mischief down here. It's so out of the way."
The spring slipped on before Gheena went out again to the cliffs. She hurt her foot out hunting, knocking it against a gate, and was too lame to scramble over rough ground.
Psyche had learnt to sit on at her jumps now, but custom brought no abatement of her joy in the chase.
She still glowed and cried out, and still as a shadow followed the Master.
He got used to the little white face close behind him, to shining eyes filled with admiration.
"It's so wonderful! You just blew the horn and squiggled them along and they bow-wowed again," was one of Psyche's happy remarks.
"Gave tongue," said Darby politely.
Psyche replied unabashed that it was all the same noise, and glowed again.
She had learnt how to steady her horse at a fence, how to hold him together galloping.
"And I want to hunt ever and always," she said—"always. I'll never live in Kent again."
There had been unguarded moments when Darby, riding home with his never-weary follower, had even told her how he felt his crippling.
"I had dreamt," he said one evening, "of a different life, little sprite, of someone that I cared for being with me—through it."
Psyche knew—the white glow faded a little and her eyes darkened.
"If one cared," she began, "nothing would matter."
"But that is it. She was too young, too. And now it's not my place to try to make her care. Go alone for all time, Psyche. I've thought that Stafford——" he added after a long pause.
"She thinks him a spy," said Psyche slowly, "and despises him for not joining."
"In the name of God, Grandjer—the foxy Tom that I lambasted ye for this morning—Grandjer, howld on!"
Little Andy darted after the disappearing Grandjer, cracking a whip, as a comet-like streak of red dashed through the hedge.
"The Widow Casey's Tom," said Andy, returning, "an' I only just to save the craythur. There is some sort of a purry sthrain in him, an' she sets the divil's sthore by him for it."
Psyche suggested Persian, and Andy replied that it was maybe "Purry Shan," and patted the erring Grandjer fondly.
Confidences were broken off, and crippled Darby said good-bye at the next cross-roads.
To ride on with the pain of his loneliness biting him hard—his way was to the emptiness of his big house, to the long dull evening, with the paper to read over and over and the fire to stare into, with the pictured Dillon men, vigorous and whole-limbed, staring down at him contemptuously. There were girls, perhaps, who might marry him for his place and his income, but Darby knew that he would never ask them.
Directly her foot mended, Gheena asked Darby to drive her to the cliffs beyond the village.
"I don't want to take Violet any more," she said decidedly. "Her shoes begin to pinch after a mile or so, and I want to explore for holes and caves. You can wait for me," she said, seeing him look at his leg. "It's quite warm, and we'll get tea from old Maria Delaney."
Darby came obediently, waiting outside the gates, because Gheena found that it was better to do all things secretly and not get scolded. Hints of Lancelot coming to spend the afternoon or of being driven to see him made her rush blithely through the wood, Crabbit at her heels. Fast as she went, lighter feet pursued and caught her—Psyche Delorme, hatless and breathless.
"Gheena, Dearest is looking for you, and your mother is asking his advice as to where you are likely to be, and I don't want to drive in the car with them."
Gheena looked hard at the blue wash of waves seen through the tree-trunks, then she swore Psyche to silence and they ran on together.
"The sprite followed me," Gheena explained to Darby. "She has got no hat. Do drive on, Darby, because Dearest has got the car at the door, and he might come down to see if I'd walked to Cassidy's."
The car swept along the narrow road, bordered by a screen of fuchsias along the edge of the cliffs. They tore down the slope into Leeshane, scattering dogs and hens, took the steep ascent, and were out on the exposed road, which wound round eventually by the open sea.
It ran between low banks, never going down close to the cliffs, but Darby knew of a tortuous lane, which he dived into fearlessly, scraping the sides with his mudguards, bumping and crawling, until he reached an open close-turfed plateau with the sea growling just beyond it.
Gheena swung away, diving in and out among the clumps of gorse, peering behind boulders, looking down rabbit holes.
She noticed how in one spot the ground was trampled, and a path led away towards the road, then slipped over the verge and climbed among the rocks. The cliffs were honeycombed by caves—then irregular cavities, their mouths choked by fern and fuchsia, a reek of fox coming from them, showed high up, dark fuchsias below them. Some of them, narrow-mouthed, forbade entrance; others could be climbed into and explored.
They were damp places, barely innocent of concealed petrol. Gheena clambered on until Psyche grew tired and went back to where Darby sat in a sheltered nook, warm in the spring sunshine, his pipe between his teeth. He looked desolate then, his eyes following the active figure flying over the rocks.
"Petrol on the brain," he said patiently to Psyche.
Presently Gheena came to a deep channel running up to a rather large cave. The tide was flowing and the water lapping up at the big slimy boulders in the mouth of the dark place.
To go in might mean getting wet, but Gheena risked it, slipping and sliding over the stormy rocks. Crabbit grew excited, barking and growling, sniffing at the walls.
Something kept Gheena lingering until she had to take off her shoes and stockings and wade out. Outside a deep fissure led into another cave, an opening with a black sense of hollowness behind it, but no room for a man to pass in.
Crabbit was into the blackness in a moment. Gheena could hear him snuffling inside and even growling, then leaping up, trying to get out.
Sudden fear gripped Gheena, her dog might be entombed in there with walls too slippery for him to scramble up. He appeared quite suddenly, hooking on with his strong paws and coming out looking ruffled. There was a strip of shale just beyond this and no dark cave mouths showing. It was not far from the opening of the harbour. So Gheena scrambled up to the top of the cliff to find it thick with gorse, some of it cut down and piled up to dry for firewood, and shook her head sadly.
It was quite hot in the shelter of the cliffs, with the sun shining. The air was full of the scent of the gorse and the tang of salt.
Leaping down on to a little shingly beach, Gheena all but fell over the Professor basking in the sun, his hammer in his hand. Crabbit wagged his tail. He liked the Professor, and Gheena said it was a long way to walk from Dunkillen.
The Professor, blinking sleepily, asked if Gheena was out for birds' eggs or submarines, and Gheena hovered close to confidence before she thought better of it.
"Exploring caves," she said with strict truth, then inviting him to Mrs. Maloney's tea.
As they climbed to the verge and stood on the short sweet grass, they saw a dark figure some way off swinging along the edge of the open sea.
"It is Mr. Stafford. He walks that way to get to the Wireless Station. Exercise is good for the young," said the Professor dryly. "Perhaps he, too, is looking for submarines. I will follow you, Miss Freyne."
Gheena sat down for a few minutes in the nook which Darby had chosen for himself.
"I was not much help, Gheena," Darby said a little drearily.
Something in his voice touched Gheena. She remembered how years before Darby had scrambled with her over the rocks, and not sat looking on crutches by his side.
"But you're always a help, Darby," she said quickly.
Little Psyche, her hands round her knees, bunched into a bundle, said nothing.
"Always someone who wants help," he answered laughingly.
"Not out hunting," snapped Psyche resentfully.
They took tea in Mrs. Maloney's cottage. Its complete absence of windows flavoured the meal with turf smoke, which oozed out of one of the two doors ventilating the house, one facing to the sea where a land breeze blew, one to the land where the wind roared in from the sea.
But the little place was spotless despite the smoke, the brass candlesticks shining, the blue china on the dresser polished—a big home-baked cake appearing, delightfully indigestible, from the three-legged oven, and Maria's half a pound of butter used recklessly.
Boiled eggs and whisky were also proffered but refused.
"I couldn't get any butter from Anne to bring out," said Gheena, when they were coming away. "So I must tell Maria to get some at Guinanes'. That's the way we manage. She gives me her things and I return them. She wouldn't take money. Dearest counts the pounds of butter now when the churning is done, so Anne is going to put away cream, because she says 'It's orkard on her, an' people comin' to tay, an' the Masther axin' where the butter do be goin' to.' You must stop at Guinanes', Darby; I've told Maria to get a parcel from them."
As they bumped out of the lane, the whining purr of a high-powered car sounded outside it, and the long grey nose of Stafford's Daimler swung aside to avoid them. He had left his car evidently on the road.
"We found the Professor out rocking, and we are taking him home," said Darby.
"Oh!" said Basil Stafford quietly. He looked worried and out of humour.
"News—up there?" queried Darby.
"Not pretty news," Stafford answered grimly. "The submarines will do some harm in time." He sighed a little. "And you were all out on the cliffs," he added, staring at nothing.
"Miss Freyne was out upon the cliffs," said Darby, "I was not."
"Let those cliffs alone," said Stafford sharply. "I wish you would, Miss Freyne, in war times."
He laughed a little bitterly as Gheena looked at him.
It was still early, and a complete distaste for her own home made Gheena say that she would go to see Mrs. Weston.
They stopped at Guinanes' on their way back to order a parcel for their old hostess.
A stout woman at the counter was making complaint as to damp flour.
"Soggen and weighty, Mrs. Guinane, an' it near to swheep the life from Thomas Martin with the pain it gev him. 'The centher of me is on fire, Ma,' he cried out, an' it twelve at night—'an' I will surely die.'"
Mrs. Guinane, apologizing profusely, looked darkly towards the door which led to the kitchen.
"Mike, are ye there? He was there a minnit ago. I towlt him not to take the flour out of where 'twas always, to put it in that new house he has, for flour, says I, will not do unless there is a fire, says I, an' not one of us will he let in to put a fire there, but in an' out for himself always. Mikey, will ye bring back the flour ye have destroyed with ye're obstinacy, an' not be spilin' good food?"
Mrs. Weston's man put his shrewd blue-eyed face round the edge of the door and muttered something half aloud.
"Or will Mary Kate folly ye now with an apern full of turf," said his mother, conciliating him, "till we airs that new sthore ye have?"
Mike said "She will not" shortly, merely promising to bring back the flour bags to dry quarters.
"An', Mike, we are out of washin' soda. An' it locked up with him inside."
Mrs. Guinane then announced hotly that she was scalded from the new store, and turned to Gheena.
"Thim Germans has the poor ruined, Miss," she said, as she took the order. "Heapin' pince on everythin'."
Mrs. Weston, yawning profusely, was at home in a tobacco-scented atmosphere. Ends of cigarettes were littered about and feet cased in green silk were hurriedly removed from a comfortable rest on the mantelpiece and thrust into tight shoes. The old Swiss maid hobbled past the visitors out of the oven-hot room, curtsying as she met them.
Gheena only left a message from her mother. She could not have stayed long in the close room. But before she went she whispered one or two things to her friend. Mrs. Weston was not pleased to hear that Gheena had gone alone to the cliffs.
"Even if my shoes were too tight," she said. "And you found nothing?"
"Nothing at all," said Gheena absently, because at the moment she was thinking of the curious cave with the channel running into it, and of some sound which had not struck her at the time, but which came back to her now.
They found George Freyne accumulating chill and bad-humour upon the doorstep, looking out for his step-daughter.
"If you had told me that you actually wanted me to go for a drive," said Gheena patiently; "but you were not sure, Dearest, so I went for a walk and Darby drove us home. I—I wasn't spending money on anything, driving the car or being extravagant."
"Dearest has been quite put out," Mrs. Freyne confided. "Lancelot was driven over, lying back on cushions, Gheena, and looking as if he thought he was ill; he's very stout. And you were not there, and they asked us all back to dinner, which would have meant, Dearest said, no dinner here, so he's put out, Gheena darling, and says he'll sell another horse."
"If—he—dares to sell mine!" said Gheena with a queer little gulp.
CHAPTER XV
Darby Dillon refused emphatically to believe "a word of it." He listened to Gheena and his expression leant towards rudeness.
"Not one word," he said. "He's too good a——"
He stopped quite suddenly. If Gheena looked on Basil Stafford as a slacker and perhaps worse, she would never get to care for him, and hope is so strong a thing that there was always at the back of Darby's mind some vague thought of getting much better, and then in his fairy dreamland he would think that he might try to make a girl care for him. If she was gone, that dreamland would close its doors.
Then honesty came first. "He's too good a sort," said Darby gruffly, and observed also that Carrigeen Freyne, in this instance, had not Grandjer's nose.
Gheena said that Darby was very rude, and took up her gloves. They had come in to tea with Darby after a hunt. Hunting was just over now, even though here on the edge of the sea they sometimes killed a May fox. Still meadows were being closed up and fences mended, and it was only possible to hunt in the woodlands or on the mountains.
It was April now, treacherously fine, blue-skied and finely white-clouded, with all the birds singing, and spring holding out hands to early summer. Horses looked stale and dry-coated, but Darby held on. His year was over when hunting stopped, and he must hobble while Dearest George and Mr. Keefe melted opposite each other on mossy tennis lawns, and stood bravely up at the net until someone hit them.
"Mr. Freyne is so wonderful at the net," was a quotation made with bated breath by the country tennis-players.
"Just because I won't let you run away with things, you," said Darby—"you want to go without tea. I say Stafford's a good sort, Gheena, even if he won't fight or can't."
Gheena kicked the turf fire vigorously as she railed out fresh indictment. Money so suddenly obtained here, etc.
"I would write to the admirals if I knew them," said Gheena with dignity, "about—well, about things. And I did write to someone, who isn't stupid." Here she withered Darby with a glance.
Darby repeated equably that he refused to believe it. Stafford was a good sort, and he offered tea just as Psyche, a sprite even in her severe habit, came in, Dearest George, severely aloof, following her gloomily.
As he drank strong tea and ate several eggs, he spoke with feeling of his nephew Lancelot's health, and the complete arresting of his convalescence. He also talked of economy and the awful future of Great Britain's finances.
"Money," said Dearest, "being a thing which people cannot go on finding for ever; and as for horses, no one would be able to afford them, even if the war dragged on."
Darby saw Gheena's face cloud and assume an expression of one who had heard this particular form of foreboding too often.
The two girls jumped into the back of the car when they were starting, leaving Mr. Freyne to sit alone, wondering as he let in his clutch what petrol would go to and how long he would keep the car going.
"And if we were poor," stormed Gheena—"if we were, but we're not; and it's all mine, or it will be when I——"
She nodded icily to Stafford who was jogging home alone, riding rather close to Mrs. Weston and Mr. Keefe, who, with their heads almost touching, ambled in front of him through the opal twilight.
The sweetness of a spring morning was broken next day by the arrival of the motor from Cahercalla, with an urgent message saying that Mr. Lancelot was not well, and wished Miss Gheena to come over.
Gheena went without enthusiasm. It was a sunny morning, and she knew that she would find Lancelot lying down and basking in a huge arm-chair in the morning room, with an enormous fire and all the windows shut. There would be a smell of beef-tea and toast, coupled with that of a variety of tonics and cotton-wool, and Lancelot would betray the peevishness engendered by lack of exercise and too much heat.
As she had thought, she was engulfed in the pale brown morning room. Mrs. Freyne was winding wool of a lank variety, rasping it off a chair-back with dexterous fingers, Evelyn was stitching flannel night-dresses, and Lancelot was drinking Bovril and eating toast. He brightened up when Gheena, holding the door open for as long as she could, greeted him, and he at once told her how ill he felt. Mrs. Freyne went on for a time with her winding, and remarked after a time, apropos of nothing, that she had just heard from Geoffery, her second son, and that Lancelot never seemed really happy at Cahercalla, and that Geoffery would love to live there. Here she left the room to see the cook, followed in a moment by Evelyn.
Gheena found herself alone with her puffily fat cousin, who suddenly showed some interest in life.
He said it was good of her to come over. He blushed and upset his mother's work-basket, and then asked Gheena if she had been listening. Gheena asked to what, with restrained impotence in her voice.
At this point Lancelot sat up and possessed himself of Gheena's hand and asked her to marry him. It took Gheena some little time, sitting with crumpled brows, to realize what he was talking about.
Lancelot was not lacking in humbleness, nor yet in certainty of acceptance. He explained to Gheena the suitability of the matter—how he would come to live at Castle Freyne, and being such a friend of his uncle's, no changes need be made in existing arrangements. Of course, he might be again employed in the Army, even if not on active service, but war would not last for ever. And then he sat quite up and sighed with the satisfied air of a child who has repeated a lesson correctly; his next glance was at the clock.
Gheena's firm removal of her hand did not trouble him at all.
"Shall we call back mother," said Lancelot, "as it's time for my tonic, and she'd like to know?"
"Oh, she went away on purpose," said Gheena. Then with extreme candour Miss Freyne explained that she was very sorry, but she had no intention of marrying at present, and certainly not her distant cousin Lancelot.
Lancelot replied peevishly that he understood that Gheena wanted to be independent, and that why not now instead of later. Complete refusal he evidently did not understand.
Gheena looked at his plump cheeks; she conquered an intense desire to laugh heartily and she fell into thought. If she were engaged to Lancelot the wheels of everyday would no doubt be oiled, and the fever of economy be cured. But Gheena had no meanness in her.
Quite decisively this time, she told Lancelot that an engagement was as far away from her thoughts as matrimony, and that he could put the whole thing out of his head.
Lancelot plumped his cushions and quoted Uncle George feverishly. He produced a pearl ring bought for him at Cortra, and then his pocket-handkerchief. With tears of sheer temper in his eyes, he said a great many things which could not possibly further his suit.
Gheena rang the bell, a haughty look in her face. She remarked that Lancelot wanted his tonic, and endeavoured to look vacant when Lancelot made tearful mention of Prussic acid, and it was plain that his mother took in the whole situation at a glance.
The tonic, irony and bitter, was brought up solemnly to be rejected by the invalid, who even upset the bottle, declaring that health was no use to him now. After this everything was even plainer.
Luncheon with Lancelot glaring furiously at her over the hot chickens, which he wanted to eat and would not, was not a pleasant meal. When her son refused apple meringue and shook his head at afoie gras, Mrs. Freyne grew almost frantic, and the only conversation was a spasmodic one between Gheena and Eva.
Castle Freyne was eight miles away. Gheena had to wait to be called for by her stepfather, and the afternoon stretched hot and interminable before her.
Lancelot did not wish to go out. The prospect of sitting in the morning-room, seeing his aggrieved face outlined against the red cushions, until five or six o'clock seemed almost unendurable.
Making some vague excuse about a message, she slipped out; even a short respite was something, and once in the fresh air she considered the eight miles of road between her and home.
The avenue was a short one. She got to the gate and looked out. Her shoes were not thick and showers were coming up from the sea. Gheena wavered between the thought of hours dragged out under accusing eyes or of a two and a half hours' tramp, which would include a meeting with her stepfather.
At that moment the long grey nose of Basil Stafford's car swung round the bend in the road, and was pulled up beside her. In this she could be home in twenty minutes, get up the back avenue, and take refuge in the school-room for tea.
Very jerkily she asked to be taken home, murmuring something about offence given.
It did not take a far-seeing wit to discern the reason. A flicker of laughter curved Mr. Stafford's lips and he opened the door at the side.
Gheena flung propriety on one side. She drove back to the door and told Evelyn that she was going home, as she had forgotten to do something particular, and whispered "Go on" to the willing driver. The pace at which a high-powered car can go, even on narrow roads, was demonstrated to her in the next ten minutes, for to meet the Castle Freyne people would mean disaster. They reached the back gate safely, and Gheena, who had sat silent, could only ask her rescuer to tea, which, she explained, must be taken in the school-room, and that they must hide.
Basil Stafford accepted readily. Together they ran up the rough avenue until they reached the shelter of the large hay-barn, from which they could see if the coast was clear. Scrambling up into the fragrant hay, peering out across the wall, and then dodging quickly into the haven of the inner yard, to hear a familiar voice asking for Phil.
A variety of men grinned softly as Gheena dashed into a stable and went up the ladder to the loft at the double, followed by Stafford. Here among piled-up oats they crept forward and looked through the window down into the yard.
Mr. Freyne had come out to speak seriously to Phil—that morning traces of white oats had been observed in the mangers while Phil was out exercising. Black, and black alone, were to be used.
"And black it was," lied Phil pleasantly, "with maybe a grain or two of white getting mixed in."
Mr. Freyne looked upwards. He said that he knew exactly the quantity up there and would see if it had been depleted. Gheena drew a long breath, and remarked that she must face it, unless she went under the oats.
"And have a care of the ladder, sir," said Phil's voice below. "I was up lasht when turnin' the heaps an' two rungs broke on me. I just slipped them in somewheres, I'd say middleways."
Dearest George, checked, raved hotly at Phil for thus replacing rungs which might give way and kill a man.
"Well, I was afther meanin' to," observed Phil guilelessly; "but knowin' I would not be goin' up to the white oats maybe agin before May or June, I thought to put in a fresh laddther, that same bein' pure rotten. Would I put down a sop of hay in case ye meet the two, sir, an' they gives?"
When Dearest George spoke again it was in the yard. He told Phil several things then, as he gloomily awaited the arrival of his wife, who ambled out from the kitchen, a basket in her hands.
"Just a few things for Dayly's sick wife," she said. "I won't keep you a minute there, Dearest, because it's scarlet fever, and I'm sure you'd advise me not to and Gheena will want to come home. She always does from Cahercalla."
"This time," said Mr. Freyne, "Gheena will not wish to come home."
"If you mean she'll be engaged to Lancelot," said Matilda Freyne. "Of course, Dearest, if you think so, but I do not. He's so young and so stout, and she never liked fat men, and I'd much rather it was Darby."
Dearest ensconced himself behind the wheel and swore softly.
"He's saying 'Damn it! I should know best,'" whispered Stafford.
"At this distance you can't hear," said Gheena.
They were squeezed up together in the window, safe behind a veil of cobwebs, a friendliness unknown before between them. Gheena had forgotten war and spying. She was with someone who was protecting her.
"Shall we go out the back avenue? it's shorter," said Mr. Freyne.
Instantly Gheena's hand went out and caught Stafford's arm. They remembered the car down there.
"Mike Dundon put new sthones upon it only yesterday," said Phil stolidly. "And the off tyre is shaky, sir."
Basil Stafford felt that no half-crown had been so well earned as that which he put into Phil's hand when the car had hummed away out the front gate.
Gheena, a little shaken and upset, gave him tea in the school-room. One cannot snub a man who has hidden with you in an oat-loft. They talked and laughed with the same new friendliness, Stafford telling her of his years abroad, of Italy, of France, and then of Germany. The cloud came suddenly into Gheena's eyes.
"You were there for years, weren't you?" she said.
"For some months," he answered absently; "in Berlin. I knew some nice men there too."
"Whom you would not care to fight against now, I suppose?" Gheena muttered half to herself. "Oh, if there was only no war!" she flashed out, "and no economy, and no black oats, and wounded people and things!"
Basil said gravely that it would be a far better arrangement. He saw the cloud which had risen up.
"And—there being a war—we cannot be friends," he said slowly, coming to the mantelshelf, looking hard at Gheena.
Gheena felt a very hot flush being succeeded by pallor as she replied that one could not be friends with someone one could not understand.
Mr. Stafford said, "Or—anything else except friends," still keeping close to her.
"Gheena, a little bird whispered to me that you were home. They saw you coming, and I've news for you. Oh, Mr. Stafford!" Violet Weston pushed open the door, her golden head gleaming, her shoes of purple suede pinching her so that she limped.
"And the news?" Basil asked softly.
Violet replied, "Private news," lightly. Mrs. Weston sent Stafford out. He went to fetch his car, and she broke into excited whispers of how she'd heard that there was news of some spy about, and several other things, which could only have come from Mr. Keefe.
She sat on the edge of Gheena's chair, and was still there, one arm round the girl's shoulders, when Stafford came back to say good-bye. Gheena had already made doleful confession concerning Lancelot's proposal and the scoldings it was likely to involve her in.
Darby and Psyche had been out riding. They were just in when the unwelcome sound of a motor heralded the early return of Dearest George.
He came in quite slowly—happiness, of course, makes tripping feet, and sorrow heavy ones—and took off his motor gloves with tragic intensity.
When Darby remarked that they were back early, Mr. Freyne returned that he could not stay to watch sorrow, and particularly wounded sorrow.
"He even refused scones for tea," said Gheena's mother; "but I saw a tray on the writing-table, and he'd been having Benger's food—don't you think so, Dearest?—and plum cakes."
"He seemed quite annoyed by that question," observed Mrs. Freyne a moment later, when her spouse had quitted the room noisily.
Gheena, taken to task presently for girlish caprice, spoke out with complete honesty. She would never marry Lancelot. In her eyes he was a mere fat youth, and she had never been able to fix the halo of wounded hero about his head.
After this the hours marched to bedtime through a mental atmosphere of Cimmerian gloom.
When Darby made a cheeky remark, Dearest George quoted the casualty lists. If Psyche broke out about hunting, he said that all horses were now munitions of war. The taunting reproach in his eyes made a game of Bridge into a species ofKriegspiel, for, of course, Gheena cut her stepfather, and went "No trumps" after his repeated "Nos," because she said she thought he was only no-ing from bad spirits, the result of several lost shillings not improving matters.
But next morning, as Gheena and Crabbit forgot troubles among the daffodils under the trees, with the wind making the flowers as a sea of silvery gold, floating on spears of green, Mr. Freyne showed that he was in earnest.
Coming across the grass, he nodded good morning and called to his wife. Unsoftened by sheen of gold, by glimpse of blue restless sea, he scanned futurity with mental field-glasses and mapped out the following winter's campaign with precision.
He regretted it, but except Mrs. Freyne's cob—she was afraid of her weight and must ride—there would be no horses at Castle Freyne.
"And mine?" Gheena cried. "My horses, Dearest?"
Gheena's stepfather observed that there would not be anybody's horses. He reminded her coldly that until she came of age or married, she had not even an allowance.
Redbird, Whitebird, Blackbird—friends true and tried—to go to France as troopers; Redbird, little Redbird, with her fretful temper; Blackbird, fretful and excitable. Gheena heard the words pour on, catching one here and there, realizing vaguely their tone of threatening anger rather than their full sense. Then she recovered. It was nonsense! In four years she would have too much in her power. Even in war-times her stepfather would not dare to sell her horses. But four years! Forty-eight months! how many hundred days?—an age interminable!
"You don't mean it really, Dearest?" she said, smiling bravely. "Now, do you? And poverty is nonsense."
Mr. Freyne had delivered himself of much oratory; this retort snapped the thin thread of his patience.
His dark look at his stepdaughter worried her far more than any outburst of rage would have done.
"If you marry," he said smoothly, "the power will be in your own hands."
Gheena flew to her mother, who was bedewing socks with facile tears. Matilda Freyne explained that a wife must take her husband's advice, and that Dearest George had fully explained the urgency of everything.
"If you married Lancelot, darling Gheena," she said hopefully, "you could ask him about things. You see, the difficulty with you is that you are always asking yourself—and now I have dropped three stitches, and I must call Mary Anne."
Gheena refrained from bitter retort. So far the unending battle between her and her stepfather had been one of manoeuvring, firing blank shells; they had pulled in different directions, Gheena always sublimely certain of ultimate success. Now she was faced suddenly by a mobilized foe and was frightened.
"Your Dearest—that is, Dearest George—means it," said Mrs. Freyne tearfully. "And I——"
"I won't vex you, Mumsie," said Gheena gently, just as a messenger rode up with a message from Cahercalla.
It stated in the long pointed writing of Lancelot's mother that the boy was fretting and ill.
"He has had a complete set-back and refused even meringues and golden plover for dinner," wrote Mrs. Freyne. "He is now still in bed suffering from the shock of this unforeseen upset. Why, when everything was so absolutely suitable, Gheena could not. She had better come over at once before Lancelot's luncheon is due."
Gheena backed towards the door, listening to the reading of the letter. Then as Dearest was called for, she swung out hatless and raced into the wood with Crabbit at her heels, and slipped through the gardens into the stables. The swift saddling of Greybird was followed by her escape down the back avenue at a gallop and a reckless school across country until she dropped on to the road close to Darby's house.
He was out, limping among the horses, his dark face lighting as the girl rode in.
Gheena explained fully. Darby had always heard her troubles. She came into the warm old library and sat there muttering her forebodings.
"Psyche will find me," she said, looking out. "I left a note." She forgot trouble in the quiet old house. Darby talked of cheery things, of a speedy ending to the great war and of Dearest's seeing the error of his ways.
By the time the cook had, in her own language, slapped up a sweet, and lashed the phisint that was raggety-lookin' into a fricassey, Psyche had arrived upon a bicycle.
It was, of course, unfortunate that Gheena should have chosen one of the bones of contention to escape on, and that George Freyne should have, after some angry questioning, driven to Dillonscourt, looked for his lost step-daughter, and captured her out upon the lawn.
He was merely reproachful as he drove her on to Cahercalla, where Lancelot wilted in fiery heat, with untouched beef-tea, greasily tragic, by his side.
He explained very gently that he merely felt tired, but his poor mother was worried, and Doctor Malone said...
Here the old doctor upset the atmosphere of gentle pity by bursting to say he thought something must be very wrong if Lancelot couldn't eat as much as three; but with the help of a few liver pills, please God ... and then he told Lancelot to keep quiet. The memory of that visit was not a pleasant one to harassed Gheena. She was young and soft-hearted. By the time Lancelot's mother had talked to her feelingly in the vast chill drawing-room, and his sister had carried her off to the seclusion of a neat bedroom to clinch the matter, Gheena felt like a criminal, who ought to show repentance by immediately accepting the wounded hero downstairs, but she went away, leaving him sorrowful.
Two weeks of soft spring weather brought April almost to an end. It was weather almost summer-like, the sun turning it into summer and sheltered corners. The water was even warm enough for Gheena to take to swimming.
But through the woof of sunshine ran the warp of trouble. Lancelot languished. He really grew thinner and weak from hot, airless rooms and want of exercise.
The tale of his woes was told by degrees to all Dunkillen. Mrs. Keefe came to ask Gheena to change her mind because the boy was a wounded soldier. Mrs. De Burgho Keane called to say that any girl ought to be glad to find a husband now that all the men were being killed. At the end of a fortnight Mr. Freyne read the war news, and decided that the German tactics of attack were the best he could use, but he said nothing.
Gheena had had a swim. She came in glowing to dress warmly, and bask in the hot sunshine right in under the shelter of the cliffs. There was not a breath of air in her nook. The rocks caught the sun and flung it back, and in front the sea plashed calmly.
She saw Guinane's boat being pulled towards the village; it was heavily laden with stores. Another boat dashed out from the rocks, showing for a moment and then disappearing. Gheena knew it for Stafford's. She shrugged her shoulders, and felt the world in an elusive spring sunshine was not the place which it had been. The tide crept higher, bringing a cold breath with it, but Gheena could scramble out of her nook, even at high-water.
She was going to move when a snow shower of torn paper obstructed the view, falling in little scraps, some upon the water, some upon the shingle.
Crabbit cocked his ears and Gheena grew curious; steps died away on the cliff, and with quick fingers she took up most of the scraps of paper and put them in her pocket.
Stamp paper and toil helped away at least two hours in the house, until with great difficulty she read some of the letter. "Undoubtedly ... Submarines ... coast ... wait. Ba. Get the supply." Gheena raised her head. A few minutes before the note had fallen Basil Stafford's boat had shot in to shore; her eyes grew heavy.
Hunting was almost over, Darby still pursuing in big woodlands which were useless in winter, going out early, as if for cubbing. The horses, with rusty coats and looking far too fine, going with fire or spirit after their long winter. But it was something to do, and little Miss Delorme did not see why they should not hunt all summer in the mornings. She never missed a meet.
The attack meditated by George Freyne was carried out one day, and revealed by Phil, who went tearing to the shore to find Gheena.
"Save an' bless us, Miss Gheena, but Hartigan is afther bein' below in the yard an' all the horses soult! When he clapped his eyes on them, 'How much,' says he, 'for we have too many,' an' the Masther says 'Lump them,' says he, 'for a quiet sale.' An'——"
Gheena said "My horses?" very slowly.
"Redbird an' all." Phil was sobbing openly. "The craythur I reared from a foal to g'out to be run afther by thim haythens, and where will we all be, Miss Gheena? And God save us, don't get a wakeness, Miss!"
Gheena had not moved. She stood dreary, stricken; they were using their power. She was to live a virtual prisoner in her own home—no horses, no next season to dream of directly this one was dead.
"An' when he sighted the grey over the half door, 'He has the head of a rogue,' says he; 'lave him there;' but he come around an' said there was weddin's always, an' so he'd take him too. So Miss Mona's horse as well. And, Miss Gheena——"
For Gheena, abandoning all dignity, sat down and wept hopelessly, with Crabbit walking round, deeply upset.
"You next," said Gheena, feeling the dog's cold nose.
"You next." Phil went away back, crying himself, through the budding wood, with its sheen of blue anemones and tender green of growing moss. He clambered heavily over the sunk fence to meet Darby on the avenue—Darby, riding, whistling as he came, some touch of the spring making him happy.
"It is Miss Gheena," said Phil, answering Darby's look. "The horses soult from undther her feet, an' she cryin' the eyes out of her head. The Masther an' his wars. Isn't it enough that there is a war in France?" burst out Phil, "not to be colloging with it in Castle Freyne. Black oats was bad enough; sure we always took a grain of white, but when there's use for neither white nor black—"
"Who bought them?" Darby bent down.
"Hartigan of Guntreen. He is within yet, atin' beef."
Darby turned and rode away down the road.
When Gheena, shaken and exhausted, her grief being rapidly burnt up by anger, came through the wood, she saw a motor at the door. This carefully-planned-out visit by Lancelot was a clumsy effort of diplomacy. Dearest George had mapped it out.
With the horses still there, Gheena was to cry out that she would obey her people's wishes, and an afternoon radiant with joy was to be spent by the family.
Instead Miss Freyne eyed her cousin with distant rancour, and came in to luncheon in a dangerous mood.
She congratulated him on having improved his figure, and warned him against baked potatoes, and hoped his indigestion was quite gone. The horses she ignored completely.
The failure of the plan made Mr. Freyne visibly ill-humoured. He came majestically to the drawing-room, where he shut all the windows, and helped his sister to lecture Gheena. It was disconcerting when Gheena excused herself as she had an engagement.
"We are taking tea with Violet," she said politely. "We are walking," she said hurriedly, when Lancelot began to get up, "and you could not come."
George Freyne said, "Of all the obstinate, ill-mannered—" when Gheena had closed the door. "But if she thought she is going to have her own way——"
As they walked to the village they met Basil Stafford in his car, and Gheena remembered the letter, and with her eyes completely devoid of cunning she told the story of the scraps, watching him closely.
His quick reply was that he would give a great deal to see the scraps. Gheena remarked that she was going to show it to someone, and she remarked it malevolently.
Mr. Stafford became eloquent. He said that scraps of information might be valuable in war-times, and if there was anything in the letter, he would see that it went to the proper people.
"The people who would like to see it," said Gheena meaningly.
Finding Mrs. Weston out, they invaded the Professor, who made toast for them himself, and sent to the shops for strawberry jam and barley sugar, which he smashed into neat pieces and piled on a plate in tiers. Gheena told him also of the letter.
"AndHein! You could read it." He dropped a spoonful of jam into his tea, fishing for it patiently. "You read the scraps. You were there, then—a little sea bird. Will you show me the letter, Miss Gheena, if it is with you? It is not good, this syrup that I have made. No, you have not got the letter. Well, later."
The girl's return to Castle Freyne was as marching from sunshine into a pea-soupy London fog, in the centre of which sat Dearest George, and Lancelot, frail and fretful, resenting the sorrow which he had immersed in.
The sea kissed the feet of an opal sky. The air was soft and fresh. Gheena sat, white-faced, with ill-concealed impatience, listening to fresh arguments as to her future and her folly in not agreeing with everyone else.
"Eleven more obstinate men I never saw," remarked Gheena to the fire, and referring to the one juryman who upset the verdict for hours. Psyche, stepping in and out of the close library, now whispered of a hunt on the morrow—a meet at Mount Beresford at ten in the morning.
The word "meet" sounded like a knell. Gheena meant to stop the horses going, to appeal to her mother.
"And even if it's woods the hounds will yowl and we shall gallop," said Psyche.
Here Mr. Freyne, rising, assumed the attitude before the fire so dear to man, and remarked that the hounds might, but no one from Castle Freyne would.
Gheena stood up also; she stared.
"Because I have done my duty towards my country," went on Dearest George heavily, "and retrenched. If Gheena had been back an hour ago"—his stepdaughter's face frightened him a little—"they might have been. But now—the Army."
"You have—sold all my horses," Gheena heard a strange hoarse voice whispering—"Redbird, which I loved. Not—you dared——"
Mr. Freyne a little nervously replied that he had acted as he thought best and Lancelot hurriedly asked for the car.
Without a word Gheena went out, out into the opal-tinted evening to the yards.
"Oh, Dearest, do you think it was wise?" said Mrs. Freyne tearfully.
Mr. Freyne said testily, "Lancelot will now represent independence, and she has left the door open."
There were open doors in the yard, many of them—fresh yellow straw ready for feet which could never trample on it, Phil, sitting on the pump trough, weeping unashamed. There were no eager eyes and solemnizing heads thrust out, no muzzles ready to nose for carrots.
Quite quietly Gheena went from box to box, Phil tramping after her, entreating her not to be fretting.
"When it is your own, Miss Gheena, you can have horses in the coal sheds—above in the farmyard, when it is ye're own."
Four years, nearly five, and the pets she had seen grow up were gone. Crabbit, deeply dejected, wailed at her heels. Four years ... they seemed as eternity.