CHAPTER XI.
‘I wept in my dream, for I fanciedThat you had forsaken me;I woke, and all night I lay weepingTill morning, bitterly.’
‘I wept in my dream, for I fanciedThat you had forsaken me;I woke, and all night I lay weepingTill morning, bitterly.’
‘I wept in my dream, for I fanciedThat you had forsaken me;I woke, and all night I lay weepingTill morning, bitterly.’
‘I wept in my dream, for I fancied
That you had forsaken me;
I woke, and all night I lay weeping
Till morning, bitterly.’
Wyndham lifts his brows.
‘Pray do not distress yourself,’ says he. ‘It is a free country; you can speak or be silent, just as you wish. It had merely occurred to me that there might be friends of yours naturally very anxious about you, and that I might convey to them a message from you.’
The unsympathetic nature of his tone has restored the girl to her usual manner more than anything else could have done. She glances at him.
‘Friends!’ says she bitterly.
‘At all events,’ says Wyndham, who has now begun to acknowledge his curiosity with regard to her even to himself, and is determined on pushing the matter as far as possible, ‘there must be someone on the look-out for you.’
At this she turns as white as death.
‘Is there? Have you seen—have you’—she looks as though she is about to faint—‘heard anything?’
‘Nothing—nothing at all!’ exclaims he quickly, a little shocked at her agitation, that seems excessive. ‘Do not be frightened; I assure you I know as little of anyone connected with you as I know of yourself.’
Here again he gives her an opening, if she wishes to make a declaration of any sort, and again she remains mute. There is something even obstinately silent in her whole air.
Her hands in her lap are tightly clasped, as though to help her to keep her secret to all eternity.
‘You will not confide in me, I see,’ sayshe, with a little contemptuous shrug; ‘and, after all, there is no earthly reason why you should. I am as great a stranger to you as you are to me, and if I spoke at all it was, believe me, because I fancied I might be of some assistance to you. But women nowadays have taken the reins into their own hands, and I have no doubt that you will be able to manage your own affairs to perfection. In the meantime, however, if I can be of the slightest use to you in looking out for a suitable home, for instance, I hope you understand I shall be delighted to do all I can.’
The girl has drawn nearer during this speech, and is now standing before him, the frightened eyes uplifted and her breath coming short and fast. ‘You mean—but here—can I not—might I not—a home, you said——’
‘Well, yes,’ says Wyndham. ‘A home where you might have a companion and be very comfortable; but not here, you know.’
‘But——’
‘You can’t stay here, I’m afraid,’ says Wyndham, who, between his anger and hissuspicions of her, is beginning to wish he had never been born.
The girl turns away from him, in so far that only her profile now can be seen, whilst her right hand has caught hold of the back of a chair near her, as if for support.
‘But why?’ asks she, in a low tone. ‘Mrs. Moriarty likes me to be here.’
‘But, you see,’ says Wyndham gravely, ‘it is my house, and not Mrs. Moriarty’s.’
‘Yes.’ She looks at him as if hardly understanding, but presently an expression grows upon her face that gives him to know that she thinks him churlish.
‘It is quite a big house,’ says she.
There is a pause—a pause in which he tells himself that evidently up to this she had been accustomed to houses of very cramped limits. The Circular Road in Dublin would supply such houses, built for respectable artisans and clerks in commercial places, and the best of the decent strata that cover the earth and are of the earth earthy. The Circular Road, or some other road, has no doubt supplied thekind of house to which the girl has been accustomed—this girl, with her pale patrician face and her singular strength of mind. It is she who at last breaks the silence. ‘There is plenty of room for me,’ says she.
‘I know—of course I know that,’ says Wyndham hurriedly. ‘But then, you see, it—it wouldn’t do, you see.’
He looks deliberately at her, as if to explain his meaning, but, nothing coming of the look, he falls back once more upon facts.
‘I come here sometimes,’ says he.
‘Yes; Mrs. Denis told me that,’ says the girl. ‘But’—eagerly—‘I shouldn’t be in the way at all. I could stay in that little room belonging to Mrs. Denis—that little room off the kitchen.’
‘Oh, that isn’t it,’ says Wyndham, frowning in his embarrassment. How the deuce is one to say it plainly to a girl who can’t, or won’t, or doesn’t understand! ‘The fact is——’ He has begun with the greatest bravery, determined to explain the situation at all hazards; but, happening to meet hereyes, this clever barrister, who has faced many a barefaced criminal victoriously, breaks down. The eyes he has looked into are full of tears.
‘Look here,’ says he almost savagely, ‘it’s out of the question! Do you hear?’ His tone is so terribly abrupt that it strikes cold to the heart of the poor girl looking at him. If he is going to turn her out of this house, this haven of refuge, where—where can she go?
She struggles with herself, some touch of dignity that belongs to her—wherever she came from or whoever she is—giving her a certain strength.
‘Of course—I see——’ She is beginning to stammer dreadfully. ‘I am sorry about it; but I thought—I fancied I could stay here. But now I can go—I can go somewhere. There must be other places, and, indeed, just now you told me there were other places, and that I could go to——’
She struggles with the word ‘them,’ the last of her sad sentence, but can’t speak it; and now all her hard-found dignity givesway, to her everlasting shame, and to Wyndham’s terrible discomfiture she bursts into a passion of tears.
‘Don’t do that,’ says Wyndham gruffly. It is impossible to conceal from himself the fact that he is frightened out of his life. Fear because of her tears is nothing, but it is with ever-increasing self-contempt that he knows that he is going even so far as to give in and let her stay at the Cottage. After all, there are many other places for him in this big world, but for her, perhaps, not so many; and she seems to have set her heart on this little spot, and, hang it all! why can’t she stop crying?
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ says she at last, trying passionately to stifle her sobs. She has turned away from him to the window, and there is something in her whole attitude so descriptive of despair, and fear, and shame, that, in spite of his anger, pity for her rises in his heart. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying; I don’t often cry. But if I leave this, where shall I go? where shall I hide myself?’
What on earth has she done? Her words denote fear—a guilty fear. What if he should be about to take as a tenant for the Cottage a well known and hardened criminal, for whom, perhaps, the police are even now on the look-out? Her face, however, belies her tone; and, for the rest, he has not the courage to face again a flow of those pitiful tears. Stay she must.
One last protest, however, he makes as a salve to his conscience.
‘What do you see in this place that so attracts you?’ asks he, with ever-increasing grumpiness. The girl turns to him a flushed and tearful face.
‘I never knew what a home could be like till I came here,’ says she. ‘Never, never! You have had one—all the world has had one except me. It means new life to me. Oh’—bitterly—‘it is the only life I have ever known—the only happiness. If, sir’—she comes towards him and with a little impulsive action holds out her hands—‘if I might stay——’
‘Well, you can,’ says he ungraciously.
He gives in so suddenly, and she is naturally so unprepared for so quick a surrender, that for a moment she says nothing. Her eyes are fixed on him, however, as if trying to read him through; they are beautiful eyes, and Wyndham, his professional instincts on the alert, finds himself wondering what lies behind them in that brain of hers.
‘Do you mean it?’ says she at last breathlessly; if you do, I cannot thank you enough. Oh, to stay here within these lovely walls!’ Instinctively she glances out of the window to the ivy-clad walls, as if in their protection she finds great comfort. A moment later a cloud gathers on her forehead. ‘But you don’t like me to stay,’ she says.
‘It doesn’t matter what I like,’ says Wyndham, who certainly does not shine on this occasion. ‘The arrangement we have come to now is that you are to rent this cottage from me, at what sum we can agree about later on.’
‘To rent it? I shall, then, be—— It’—she tries to hide the joy in her eyes, feeling it to be indecent—‘it will belong to me?’
‘Yes,’ says Wyndham. At this moment he feels very little more will make him positively hate her.
‘It will no longer be yours?’ Her voice is trembling.
‘In a sense, no.’ He turns and takes up his hat; this interview is getting too much for him. There will be an explosion shortly if she goes on like this.
‘It seems very selfish,’ says the girl. She is looking at him, though for the last three minutes he has refused to look at her. ‘I am taking your house away from you.’
‘There are other houses.’ He is now putting on his gloves.
‘Ah! that is as true for me as for you.’
‘We have come to an agreement, I think’—grimly. ‘Let us keep to it.’ He turns to the door.
‘You are going?’ says she nervously. She follows him. ‘You——’ She stops,and courtesy compels him to look back. Two troubled eyes meet his.
‘When——’ stammers she.
‘I shall come down some day next week to make final arrangements,’ says he impatiently, and again takes a step or two away, getting so far this time as to turn the handle of the door. Here, however, again he glances back. She is standing where he last saw her, her young face looking troubled, frightened, and uncertain.
‘Next week,’ repeats he jerkily. It is disagreeable to him to think that it is through his fault that the nervous anxiety has crept into her eyes. ‘And—er—good-bye.’ He certainly had not meant to do it, but he now holds out his hand to her, and with a little swift, eager movement she comes to him and slips her own into it.
A slim little hand, and beautifully shaped, but brown, and looking a little as though it had done some hard work in its time, yet the grace with which she gives it to him is exquisite.
Just at the gate he meets Mrs. Denis again.
‘This young lady,’ says he abruptly, ‘seems to have set her heart upon living here. It is extremely unpleasant for me, but she appears to have no other place to go to. She will therefore become my tenant. She will, you understand, take the Cottage from me.’
‘Bless us an’ save us!’ says Mrs. Denis. ‘An’ yer honour—what will you do?’
‘Keep out of it,’ says Wyndham coldly. ‘I suppose she will arrange to keep you on. She——What’s her name?’—sharply.
‘I don’t know, sir; she don’t seem to like to spake about it. Miss Ella I calls her.’
‘Ella? Did you say her Christian name was Ella?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ah!’—thoughtfully. ‘Well, good-bye.’
‘But, sir, you’ll be coming again?’
‘Yes, next week, to arrange about the rent; not after that.’
He strides through the gate and up the road.
‘Faix, and I’m thinkin’ ye will,’ says Mrs. Denis, watching him with her arms akimbo till he disappears round the corner. ‘’Tis mighty purty eyes she’s got in that mighty purty head of hers. An’ so he’s not goin’ to turn her out, after all! Didn’t I tell you, Bridget Moriarty,’ rubbing her chin, on which a very handsome beard is growing, ‘that he’d soften whin he put his glance upon her?’