a friendship had sprung up between mrs. horridge and mrs. wade, as sir shawn had said—a curious friendship, not altogether equal, for mrs. wade had a certain amount of education and was curiously refined—america had not altered her even to the extent of affecting her speech; and that was a very exceptional thing, for the returned americans usually came with a speech altered out of all recognition.
when lady o'gara came into the little sitting-room at the cottage, having knocked with her knuckles and obtained no answer, she found susan horridge there. susan stood up, making a little dip, took the boy's garment she had been mending and went away, while mrs. wade received her visitor with a curious air of equality. it was not such an equality as she might have learnt in the united states. there was nothing assertive about it. it was quite unconscious.
she seemed profoundly agitated by lady o'gara's visit, her colour coming and going, her eyes dilated. she had put out a hand as susan horridge went away, almost as though she would have detained her by force.
"please forgive my coming in like this," lady o'gara said. "i was knocking for some time, but you did not hear me. my husband, sir shawn o'gara, has told me about his tenant, and i thought i would like to come and see you."
"thank you very much, lady o'gara. i am sorry you had to wait at the door. won't you sit down?"
"may i sit here? i don't like facing the light. my eyes are not over-strong."
"dear me. they look so beautiful too."
the na?ve compliment seemed to ease the strain in the situation. lady o'gara laughed. she had sometimes said that she laughed when she felt like to die with trouble. people had taken it for an exaggerated statement. what cause could mary o'gara have to feel like dying with trouble? even though shawn o'gara was a melancholy gentleman, mary seemed very well able to enjoy life.
"how kind of you!" she said merrily. "i might return the compliment.
what a pretty place you have made of this!"
"i brought a few little things with me. i knew nothing was to be bought here. and the things i found here already were good."
"it is a damp place down here under the trees. now that you have made it so pretty it would be hard to leave it. else i should suggest another cottage. there is a nice dry one on the upper road."
"oh! i shouldn't think of leaving this," mrs. wade said, nervously. still her colour kept coming and going. america had not yellowed her as it usually had the revenants. her dark skin was smooth and richly coloured: her eyes soft and still brilliant. only the greying of her hair told that she was well on towards middle age.
"but it is very lonely. you are not nervous?"
"i like the loneliness."
"you should have a dog."
her tongue had nearly slipped into saying that a dog was the kind of company that did not ask questions.
"i should have to exercise a dog."
a queer look of fear came into her eyes. lady o'gara could have imagined that she looked stealthily from one side to another.
"but you must go out sometimes," she said.
again the look of fear cowered away from her. what was it that mrs.
wade was afraid of?
"i was never one for walking," she said, lamely.
"you don't like to tear yourself from this pretty room?"
it was very pretty. the walls had been thickly whitewashed and the curtains at the window were of a deep rose-colour. a few cushions in the white chairs and sofa repeated the rose-colour. the room seemed to glow within the shadow of the many trees, overhanging too heavily outside.
"you have too many trees here," lady o'gara went on. "it must be pitchy towards nightfall. i shall ask my husband to cut down some of them."
she was wondering at her own way with this woman. gentle and kindly as she was, she had approached the visit with something of shrinking, the unconscious, uncontrollable shrinking of the woman whose ways have always been honourable and tenderly guarded, from the woman who has slipped on the way, however pitiable and forgivable her fault. it is the feeling with which the nun, however much a lover of her kind, approaches the penitent committed to her care.
she suddenly realized that in this case she did not shrink. whatever difference there might be between her and mrs. wade there was not that difference. they met as one honourable woman meets another. lady o'gara was glad that she had forgotten to shrink.
"thank you very much," said mrs. wade. "it is kind of you to think of it. but—i like the trees. you are very kind, lady o'gara. about the dog,—if i had a little gentle one, who would stay with me while i gardened and not want too much exercise, i should like it."
"i believe i can get you such a one. my cousin, mrs. comerford, or rather her adopted daughter, has poms. there is a little one, rather lame, in the last litter. his leg got hurt somehow. i am sure i can have him. you will be good to him."
mrs. wade had drawn back into the shadow. the one window lit the space across by the fireside to the door and the other portion of the room was rather dark. but lady o'gara had an idea that the woman's eyes leaped at her.
"i saw the young lady," she said. "she came to mrs. horridge's lodge one day i was there. she was so pretty, and the little dogs with her were jumping upon her. little goldy-coloured dogs they were."
"yes, that would be stella. she loves her dogs: i know she would be so glad to give you one, because you would be good to it."
"maybe she'd bring it to me one day? she's a pretty thing. it would be nice to see her in this house."
the voice was low, but there was something hurried and eager about it.
lady o'gara imagined that she could see the heave of the woman's breast.
"certainly. we shall bring the puppy together. i shall tell stella."
a sudden misgiving came to her when she had said it. perhaps she ought to be too careful of stella to bring her into touch with a woman who had slipped from virtue, however innocently and pitiably. it was a scruple which might not have troubled her if stella had been her own child. there was another thing. would grace comerford, if she knew all, be willing that her adopted daughter should be friends with mrs. wade?
again something leaped at her from the woman's eyes, something of a gratitude which took lady o'gara's breath away.
"it will be nice to have a little dog of my own," she said. "it will be great company in the house at night. a little dog like that would be almost like a child. and in the daytime he'd give me word if any one was coming."
suddenly she seemed to have a new thought. she leant forward and said in the same agitated way:
"you wouldn't be bringing mrs. comerford?"
"no, no," said lady o'gara. "i shall not bring mrs. comerford."
"i knew her long ago. she was kind, but she was very proud," mrs. wade said, dropping back into the shadow from which she had emerged.
so it was of mrs. comerford she was afraid! what was it? conscience? did she think terence comerford's mother could have heard anything in that far away time?
"i shall not bring mrs. comerford," she said. "stella is much with me at castle talbot."
again she wondered why she had said "stella." it would have been "miss
stella" to another woman of mrs. wade's class.
"might i be making you a cup of tea, lady o'gara?" mrs. wade asked with a curiously brightening face. "i had put on the kettle in the kitchen for mrs. horridge. it will be boiling by this time."
lady o'gara was about to refuse. then she changed her mind. a refusal might hurt mrs. wade. beyond that she had a sudden curiosity,—her husband had often said that she had a touch of the gamin—as to how mrs. wade would give her tea. would she sit down with her in the equality of an afternoon call? there was a little twitch at the corners of her lips as she answered that she would like tea. sir shawn was away shooting wild duck, and she would be alone at tea if she went home.
while she waited, still with that half-delighted feeling of curiosity, she went and stood before the old-fashioned bookcase which contained mrs. wade's library. very good, she said to herself. there were odd volumes of thackeray and dickens, mrs. gaskell and charlotte bront?. her dimples came and were reflected as she turned about in the convex glass, with an eagle atop, over the fireplace. outside a couple of stone eagles perched on the low roof, after the fashion of a bygone day. far away in the silvery distance of the convex mirror a miniature lady o'gara dimpled.
she was remembering a pretentious lady who had called on her a few days earlier—the wife of a newly rich man who had taken ardnavalley, a place in the neighbourhood, for the shooting. sir robert smith, the multi-millionaire, was very simple. not so lady smith, who had remarked that bront was always readable.
there were also a few volumes of poetry, not very exacting,—tennyson,
adelaide procter, longfellow, and some irish books—"the spirit of the
nation," "lady wilde's poems," davis, moore: a few devotional books.
ah well, it was very good—gentle and innocent reading. and there was mrs. wade's prayer-book—the key of heaven,—on a small table, the "imitation of christ" beside it. by these lay one or two oddly bound books in garish colourings, lady o'gara opened one. she saw it was in french—an innocuous french romance suitable for the reading of convent-school girls.
mechanically she looked at the flyleaf. it bore an inscription; miss bride sweeney, enfant de marie, had received this book for proficiency in italian, some twenty-two years earlier at st. mary's convent.
she held the book in her hand when mrs. wade appeared, carrying a little tray of unpainted wood, on which was set out a tea for one person, all very dainty, from the small china cup and saucer on its white damask napkin to the thinly cut bread and butter.
lady o'gara had been thinking that if mrs. wade did not wish to be identified with bride sweeney, she should not leave her school-prizes about.
"ah, you are looking at that old book," mrs. wade said, setting down her little tray, while she spread a tea-cloth on the table. "they are very dull stories. even a convent-school girl could not extract much from them. i'm sorry it's so plain a tea. if i'd known your ladyship was coming i'd have had some cakes made."
"this home-made bread is delicious," lady o'gara said. "but, won't you have some tea too?"
"no, thank you. i am not one for tea at every hour of the day like mrs. horridge. i take my tea when you are taking your dinner. you wouldn't like a boiled egg now? i've one little hen laying."
her voice was coaxing. now that lady o'gara could see the face in full light she thought it an innocent and gentle face. the eyes still looked upward with a kind of passion in their depths. she remembered her husband's epithet,—"ardent." it well described mrs. wade's eyes. just now the ardour was for herself. she wondered why.
"thank you so very much," she said sweetly. "i don't think i could eat an egg, though. your tea is delicious."
"the cream is from your own kerries. mrs. horridge arranged it for me that i could get the milk from your dairy. it would make any tea good. she brings me the milk twice daily, or her little lad does."
"susan seldom ventures out, i think," lady o'gara said, while she sipped her tea. "i am glad you get her beyond her own gate."
"she's a scared creature. she dreads the road. mr. kenny gets her all she wants from the village. she comes to me across the mount. she doesn't mind that way even in the dark, though the people about here wouldn't take it on any account. perhaps she doesn't know the stories. perhaps, like myself, she thinks a ghost is better company than humans sometimes."
"ah; you are not afraid of ghosts!"
"if i was," mrs. wade's eyes suddenly filled with tears,—"would i be settled here? it's not thinking of the admiral's ghost i'd be. maybe there's some you'd welcome back from the grave, if you loved them well enough. i can't imagine any one not wanting the dead back, if so be that you loved them."
her voice died off in a wail, and suddenly it came to lady o'gara that just outside, where the water fell over the weir, terence comerford had met with his death.
"no," she said softly, "i cannot imagine any one being afraid of the dear dead."
as she said it she remembered the shadows about her husband's face and her heart was cold.
it was only later that she wondered if mrs. wade had chosen that lonely spot to return to because there terence comerford's handsome head had lain in its blood. it occurred to her at the same time that not one word had passed between them which could indicate that she knew anything of mrs. wade beyond that she had been a dweller in these parts long before she had come to be a tenant of sir shawn o'gara at the waterfall cottage.
a curious thing that there should be there side by side, thrown into an odd companionship, two women who had reason to be afraid and had chosen these lonely places to hide. poor susan! the reason for her hiding was obvious. with mrs. wade it was another matter. why need she have come back if she so dreaded her past? or was it the memory of terence comerford that drew her, the thought of the old tragedy and the old passion?
