from the pile of her letters one morning a month or so later, lady o'gara picked out one and eyed it with distaste. it looked mean. the envelope of flimsy paper was dirty. some emanation came from the thing like a warning of evil: she laid it on one side, away from her honest respectable letters.
while she read through one or two of these the disreputable letter awaiting her attention worried her. it was something importunate, disagreeable, like a debased face thrust in at her door. with a sigh she turned to it, to get it out of the way before she opened terry's letter, clean and dandyish, written on the delicate paper the regiment affected.
she held the thing gingerly by the edge, and, going away from the table, she stood by the fire while she opened it. a smell of turf-smoke came out of it,—nothing worse than that. perhaps, after all, it was only one of the many appeals for help which came to her pretty constantly.
"honoured madam,—this is from one who wishes you no harm, but onley good. there is a woman lives in the waterfall cottage your husband goes to see often. such doins ought not to be aloud.
"from your sinceer well-wisher,
xxx."
if it had been a longer letter she would not have read it. it was so short and written so legibly that the whole disgraceful thing leaped at her in a single glance.
as though it had been a noxious reptile which had bitten her she flung it from her into the heart of the brightly burning fire of wood and turf. a little flame sprang up and it was gone, just as sir shawn came into the room.
they had the breakfast room to themselves now that there were no visitors, but lady o'gara hesitated to speak. she had no intention of keeping the matter of the anonymous letter from her husband, but she wanted to let him eat his breakfast in peace, and to talk later on, secure from possible interruptions.
she gave him scraps of news from her letters, and from the times of the preceding day, which reached them at their breakfast table. she felt disturbed and agitated, but only as one does who has received an insult. she would be better when she had told shawn about the horrid thing.
her restlessness, so unlike her usual benign placidity, at last attracted her husband's notice.
"any disturbing news, mary?" he asked.
"nothing." her hand hovered over terry's letter. "terry thinks he can get a few days' leave next week for the pheasants and bring a couple of brother-officers with him."
"h'm!" sir shawn said, a little grimly. "he hasn't been away very long. i suppose eileen is coming back."
"she comes on monday."
"i expect he knows it."
"perhaps he does. have you finished, shawn? another cup of tea? no?
i want to talk to you, dear. will you come out to the robin's seat.
it is really a beautiful morning."
"let me get my pipe."
unsuspiciously he found his pipe and tobacco pouch and followed her. the robin's seat was a wooden seat below a little hooded arch, under a high wall over which had grown all manner of climbing wall-plants. the arbour and the seat were on the edge of a path which formed the uppermost of three terraces: below the lowest the country swept away to the bog. the wall, made to copy one in a famous roman garden, was beautiful at all times of the year, with its strange clinging and climbing plants that flourished so well in this mild soft air. in autumn it was particularly beautiful with its deep reds and golds and purples and bronzes. the robin's seat was a favourite resting-place of these two married lovers, who fed the robins that came strutting about their feet, and even perched on their knees, asking a crumb.
despite the disturbance of her mind lady o'gara had not forgotten her feathered pensioners. she threw crumbs to them as she talked, and the robins picked them up and flirted their little heads and bodies daintily, turning a bright inquiring eye on her when the supply ceased.
"well, mary?"
"i hate to tell you, shawn." she brushed away the last crumbs from her lap. "i did not tell you the truth when i said there was nothing disturbing among my letters."
"i knew there was something. we have not lived so long together for me not to know you through and through. and you are as open as the day."
"it was a horrid thing, a creeping, lying thing."
"an anonymous letter." his eyes fluttered nervously under the droop of the long lashes. "you should have put it in the fire, darling."
"i did. there was so little of it that unfortunately i saw it all at a glance. it is horrid to think that any one about here could do such a thing."
suddenly she laughed. she had a peculiarly joyous laugh.
"they,—whoever wrote it—should have said something more likely to be believed. they said—i beg your pardon for telling you, shawn—that you were visiting a lady at the waterfall cottage."
she was looking at him and suddenly she saw the shadows come in his face which had had the power to disturb her before: or she thought she did. the upper part of his face was in shadow from the balsam that dropped its trails like a fringe over the arch.
"you did not believe it, mary?"
"what do you think? would you believe such a story of me?"
"don't!" he said, and there was something sharp, like a cry, in the protest. "no reptile would be base enough to spit at you."
they were alone together. below them the terraces fell to the coloured bogs. a river winding through the bog showed as a darkly blue ribbon, reflecting the cloud of indigo which hung above the bog. beyond was the wood of the echoes, the trees apparently with their feet in the water in which other trees showed inverted. not a creature to see them, but the robins.
suddenly he put his head down on her shoulder, with the air of a tired child.
"your correspondent was not a liar, mary," he said. "i have visited mrs. wade at waterfall cottage, at night too, and only not by stealth because i thought that hercules' ghost—" he shivered a little—"would have kept spies and onlookers from that place."
lady o'gara shifted his head slightly with the greatest gentleness, so that she might caress him, stroking his hair with her fingers.
"well, and why not?" she asked, with her air of gaiety.
"there never was such a wife as you, mary," he said. "go on stroking my hair. it draws the pain out."
"you have neuralgia?" she asked with quick alarm.
"no: it is a duller pain than that. it is a sort of congestion caused by keeping secrets from you."
"secrets!" her voice was quite unsuspicious. "you could not keep them long."
he sat up and looked at her, and she saw that there was pain in his eyes.
"i have been keeping secrets from you all our wedded life together,
mary."
she uttered a little sound of dismay—of grief. then she said, with an assumption of an easy manner:
"and if you have, shawn, well—they must be things i had no right to know. there are reticences i can respect. other people's secrets might be involved…."
"that was it," he said eagerly. "there was another person's secret involved. i kept it back when it would have rested my heart to tell you."
"i shall not ask you to tell me now unless the time has come to tell.
i can trust you, shawn."
"the time may have come," he answered, drawing down her caressing hand to kiss it. "another man might have told it to win you the more completely, mary. he might have found justification for betraying his friend. i thought at one time you must have cared for terence comerford and not for me. it was the strangest thing in the world that you should have cared for me. terence was so splendid, so big, so handsome and pleasant with every one. how could you have preferred me before him? and i knew he wasn't fit for you, mary. i knew there was another girl,—yet i held my peace. it tortured me, to keep silence. and there was the other girl to be thought of. he owed reparation to the other girl. but his mother had her heart set on you for a daughter-in-law. i believe he would have done the right thing if he had lived,—in spite of all it would have meant to his mother. he had a good heart,—but—oh, my god!—he should not have lifted his eyes to you when there was that other poor girl!"
he spoke in a voice as though he were being tortured, and her caressing hand felt the cold sweat ooze out on his forehead. how sensitive he was! how he grieved for his friend after all those years!
"he did not really lift his eyes to me as you say," she said. "his mother wanted it. he never did. a woman is not deceived."
"but you cared for him—to some extent?" he asked jealously.
"i never cared for any man but one," she answered. "i used to think you would never ask me. perhaps you never would have only that i came to you when you were so broken down after your illness; and you had not strength enough to resist me."
she finished with a certain pathetic gaiety. with all his deep love for her she had not brought him joyfulness. many people had noticed it. her own well-spring of joy had never run dry. it had survived even his sadness, and had made the house bright for their one child, but there had been moments, hours, when she had felt oddly exhausted, as though she had to bear a double strain of living.
"you saved me from utter despair,—'an angel beautiful and bright.'
that is what you seemed to me when you showed me your exquisite pity."
"poor terence!" she said softly. "do you know, shawn, i believe he was often on the edge of telling me his secret. over and over again he began and was interrupted, or he drew back."
"hardly, mary. men do not tell such things to the ladies of their family."
"oh!" she coloured like a girl. "it was,—that. i thought it was … a lady … some one he knew in dublin perhaps."
"it was a girl in killesky. her grandmother kept a little public-house. she looked like an old gipsy-queen, the grandmother. and the girl—the girl was like a dark rose. all the men in the county raved about her—the gentlemen, i mean. it was extraordinary how many roads led through killesky. the girl was as modest as she was beautiful. terence was mad about her. he knocked down a connaught ranger man who made a joke about her. that last leave—before he was killed—he was never out of the place. she had been at a convent school—the old woman had brought her up well—and she used to go on visits to school friends in dublin. terence told me he met her in dublin when we were at the royal barracks. i implored him to let her alone, but he was angry and told me to mind my own business. that last time it was more serious. poor little bridyeen! i told him he ought to marry her. i think he knew it. it made him short-tempered with me. but … i hope … i hope…—" the strange anguish came back to his voice—"that he would have married her."
"i remember now," lady o'gara said. "i remember the girl. aunt grace thought very well of her; she told the old woman she ought not to have bridyeen serving in the bar. she was a beautiful little creature, like a moss rosebud, such dark hair and the beautiful colour and the ardent look in her eyes. old mrs. dowd answered aunt grace with a haughtiness equal to her own. aunt grace was very angry: she said the old woman was insolent. i did not learn exactly what mrs. dowd had said, but i gathered that she said she knew how to keep her girl as well as aunt grace did."
"i sometimes thought the old woman was ambitious," sir shawn went on, dreamily. "she used to watch bridyeen while all those fellows were hanging about her and paying her compliments. i have sometimes thought she meant bridyeen to marry a gentleman. several were infatuated enough for that. the old woman was always about watching and listening. i don't think any of them was ever rude to the little girl. she was so innocent to look at. if any man had forgotten himself so far he would have had to answer to the others."
"what became of them—afterwards? killesky seldom came in my path. i did not know that the picturesque old woman and the little granddaughter had gone till after we were married, when i drove that way and saw the garish new shop going up.
"it was like the old woman to carry off poor bridyeen from all the scandal and the talk. you remember how ill i was. i thought that as soon as i was well enough i would go and see them—the old woman and the poor child. i would have done what i could. they were gone. no one knew what had become of them. they had gone away quietly and mysteriously. the little place was shut up one morning. you remember how pretty it was, the little thatched house behind its long garden. they had gone to america. fortunately the people had not begun to talk."
"that poor little thing!" lady o'gara said softly. "she looked as shy as a fawn. i wonder what became of her."
"don't you understand, mary? she has come back. she is … mrs. wade."
"oh! she married then? of course you would want to be kind to her. i suppose she is a widow!"
"i don't think she married. i don't know what brings her back here, unless it is the desire to return which afflicts the irish wherever they go. she has fixed herself in such a lonely spot. after all, she is my tenant. it is my business to see that she wants for nothing. i recognized her one night i came that way—when i was late and had to take that road. i saw her through the unshuttered window with a strong light on her face. i went back there in daylight and came upon her drawing water from the well. she was frightened at first, but afterwards she seemed glad to see me. she is very lonely. no one goes to see her but mrs. horridge,—a good creature—but bridyeen is a natural lady. i must not go there again though she is a grey-haired woman older than her years—it was strange that i recognized her after twenty years; there are beasts who will talk."
"i shall come with you, shawn," said lady o'gara. "that will be the best way to prevent their talking."
