sir shawn was still out when they got back, after a brisk walk. the laggard young people made no appearance for tea, though they waited a while. eileen grumbled discontentedly over everything being cold and suggested a carelessness in stella about other people's convenience. the tea-cakes had been kept warm over a spirit-lamp, but she was in a captious mood. lady o'gara wondered at the girl, who had sometimes been embarrassingly effusive in the display of her affection. had she spoilt eileen? or was the girl feeling sore and a little out of it?
the suggestion that eileen might be feeling terry's desertion of her was enough to soften his mother's heart towards the captious girl, who as soon as she had finished her tea,—and a very good tea she made—went off to see how margaret mckeon was progressing with her skirt.
at the door she turned about.
"do you think i might have a new evening frock, cousin mary?" she asked. "my pink has gone out of fashion. there are such beautiful blues in some patterns i have got from liberty's: i could make it myself, with margaret's help. it would only need a little lace to trim it, or some of that pearl trimming liberty's use so much."
"certainly, my dear child. let me know what it will cost. i have a piece of carrickmacross lace somewhere which would make a fichu. you must remind me, eileen. we live so quietly here that i do not remember how the fashions change."
"i've hardly noticed, either," said eileen, with a hand on the door handle. "the pink does very well for home-wear. but if terry is going to have friends, i should want something a little smarter."
lady o'gara smiled. so eileen was interested in the coming of major evelyn! and she had made so good a tea that any one less ethereal-looking than eileen might have been considered greedy! she had left very little of the abundant tea to be removed.
"we'll have a turning-out one of these days," she said. "i noticed your wardrobe was very full the other day when i was in your-room. we can send off what you don't want to inver, and i shall add a few lengths of that liberty silk. brigid and nora are so clever with that little sewing machine i gave them last christmas that they'll turn out something very pretty for themselves."
"they've no occasion for pretty things," said eileen. "there never was any young man there but robin gillespie, the doctor's son. he is in india in the r.a.m.c. brigid liked him, i think, but he was not thinking of brigid."
then she closed the door on her departing footsteps, leaving lady
o'gara to her thoughts.
she put the consideration of eileen from her a little impatiently. she was afraid eileen was selfish. she did not seem to have any desire to share her good things with her family, not even with her mother, yet mrs. creagh was a very sweet mother; mrs. comerford who had a cynical way sometimes had remarked one day when eileen had been very caressing with lady o'gara: "if your mother is like what i remember her you need not go further for some one to love."
it was the day on which lady o'gara had given eileen her necklet of amethysts and seed-pearls—a beautiful antique thing, of no great intrinsic value beyond its workmanship.
it suddenly came to her that, for a good while past, she had got into a way of propitiating eileen with gifts. it had not occurred to her exactly as propitiation, but she had learnt that when eileen was out of sorts the gift of some pretty thing worked wonders. had she been spoiling the girl? was she herself responsible for the whims and fancies which eileen took so often nowadays? in the old days it had not been so. eileen had been sweet-tempered and placidly selfish. there was a change in her of late. it was quite unlike the old eileen to go away and leave her sitting alone in the drawing-room with only two watchful poms, each with a bright eye upon her from their respective chairs, and shot stretched at her feet, to keep her company.
she acquitted herself. love and generosity ought not to spoil any one: they ought to lift up, to awake their like. was eileen in love with terry and resenting his desertion? no; she said emphatically in her thoughts. she would have known if eileen cared. if it had been that she could have been very tolerant.
her thoughts went back to the first beginnings of difficulty with eileen, and she fixed them at the date of her return from her visit home during the preceding summer. the fatted calf had been killed for the girl's return. lady o'gara remembered how she had anticipated it, and had thought of what eileen liked, the special food and sweets, and so on. she had kept margaret mckeon busy with the new chintz curtains and cushions for miss eileen's room, and when it was all finished had fussed about doing one little thing and another till the privileged maid had been moved to protest.
"hasn't miss eileen had everything she wanted from the lucky day for her that she came here? don't be robbin' yourself, m'lady."
lady o'gara had taken some of her own pretty things, a crystal clock, a silver and tortoiseshell box for the toilet table—things eileen particularly admired—and had added them to the other pretty things, her gifts, of which the room had many. she had brought an armful of her dearest books: and she had insisted on pink roses because eileen particularly liked pink.
after all eileen had been cold when she came. it had been like a douch of cold water. she had not recovered her sweet placidity since that time. lady o'gara had commented on the change to her husband, but he had not seen it. he was fond of eileen, in a superficial way. indeed his devotion to and absorption in his wife were such that almost all other affection in him must be superficial by contrast. to two people his love had been given passionately, to terence comerford and to his wife. he never spoke of the dead friend. it was a well-understood thing in the circle that terence comerford was not to be spoken of carelessly, when sir shawn was within hearing.
sitting alone in the firelight, except for the adoring dogs, lady o'gara let her thoughts wander on away from eileen. how deep and passionate was shawn's love when it was given. he had shrunk from that first meeting with mrs. comerford after all those years. he had turned pale when she had taken his hand in hers, looking at him with a long gaze that asked pardon for her past unreason and remembered that he and her dead son had been dearer than brothers. after all those years that touch with the past had opened the floodgates of grief in shawn o'gara. only his wife knew the anguish, the disturbed nights and the weary days that followed. grief in him was like a sharp physical suffering.
dear shawn! how glad she was that she was so strong and healthy and had such good spirits always, so as to be able to cheer and comfort him. she smiled to herself, remembering how some of her friends had pitied her because she must always be uplifting his mood. she had never wearied nor found it an irksome effort. a serious sad thought came to her; when the hour of the inevitable parting came she prayed it might be her lot to be left desolate rather than his.
she looked at her little watch, a delicate french thing, with a tiny painted picture on the back framed within pearls ending in a true-lovers'-knot, one of shawn's many gifts. six o'clock. it was time shawn was home. she was very glad he had not ridden mustapha, as he had wanted to. patsy kenny had dissuaded him. terry must have stayed on at inch for tea. it had been a cold bright day, and it must be turning to frost, for the fire was burning so redly. the cold was on the floor too, for the little dogs had left their baskets and taken to the chairs, a thing supposed to be strictly forbidden, although as a matter of fact chlo? and cupid were always cheerfully disobedient. she wished shawn was home. he had gone up the mountains to a shooting-lodge, where was a party of men gathered to shoot red deer. he had been out overnight and he would be very tired when he came home after a long drive on an outside car. well, after all, it was better than mustapha. patsy's unwillingness to see sir shawn go out on mustapha had infected her, little nervous as she was where horse-flesh was concerned.
she comforted herself. it was not like those dreadful days when there had been trouble with the tenants, and she had sat in this very room, listening in anguish for the sound of the horse's hoofs coming fast. terry had been away at his preparatory school then. she had never told any one her terrors. perhaps some of the servants had guessed them. she remembered the night of the big wind, when shawn had been out, and the house had shaken in the first onslaught of the hurricane, before he came.
there was a butler's pantry close to the drawing-room door which had always an open window. she had often stolen in there in the dark to listen for the sound of the mare's trot. fatima had been shawn's favourite mount in those days, and no one could mistake the sound of her delicate feet in the distance. there, with her ear to the night, mary o'gara had listened and listened, her heart thumping so fast sometimes that she could not be sure if she heard the horse's hoofs. only, as she used to say joyously afterwards, there was really no mistaking fatima's trot when she was coming.
once, rafferty, the old butler, who was dead now, had opened the pantry door suddenly, and had all but let the tray of waterford glass he was carrying fall, for the fright she had given him.
she remembered how on that night of the big wind, when her terror was at its worst. patsy kenny had asked to see her about something or other; how she had gone into the office to talk to him; how he had talked gently about fatima, how sure-footed she was and how wise, and how little likely to be frightened as long as she was carrying her master. he had wandered off into simple homely talk, about the supply of turf, how the fair had gone, the price the people were getting for their beasts; now and again leaving off to say, when the moan of the wind came and the house shook: "glory be to god, it's goin' to be a wild night, so it is!" or "that was a smart little clap o' win'. it's a great blessin' to be on dry land to-night."
patsy's way with the dumb beasts was well known; and lady o'gara had said afterwards, when she had her husband warm and dry by the fire, and she too happy, being relieved of her terrors, to mind the storm which had not yet reached anything like its height, that patsy had soothed her as though she were a nervous horse.
shawn had been younger and stronger then. he had laughed at her fears and had insisted on making a night of it, keeping a roaring fire and lamplight all through the terrifying din, while the servants in the kitchen said their rosary and prayed for the night to be over. sometime in the wild late dawn, when the wind was subsiding, shawn had made her go to bed, saying he would follow. but he had not come for a long time, and she had dropped asleep and wakened to his weary face beside her bed, and to hear him saying that, thank god, they had got out the horses, although the stables were all but in ruins.
as she thought over these things the fulness of her love for her husband swept her heart like a springtide. it was sweet yet poignant, for she had the pity beyond all telling in her love for shawn. suddenly she began to be a little in dread because she had been going against what she knew were his wishes. would he mind very much if terry's choice were stella and not eileen? she hoped he would not—at first. later on, when he knew little stella better, with her soft appealing ways, he would be glad. eileen would never be such a dear little daughter. stella had not those ardent eyes for nothing.
her disinclination to let the winds of heaven blow too roughly on the men she loved, for whom she had always the maternal pity, brought a sharp revulsion of feeling. after all, the world was for the young. they had never refused terry anything. in a detached way the father was very fond of his boy. he was not necessary to him. no one was that except his wife: but he had been a kind, indulgent father. why should not terry wait a little till his father came to know stella better? things would be all right then. shawn had seemed to avoid stella, perhaps because he avoided mrs. comerford.
at last there was terry's ringing step in the hall. there could be little doubt to the mother's mind of what tidings he brought. there was triumph in the step.
he burst in on his mother like a young wind.
"darling," he said, "i'm so very sorry not to have come home for tea. i simply couldn't induce stella to: she's so dreadfully shy, but she adores you. congratulate me!"
he placed his two young firm hands on his mother's shoulders, and stooping, he kissed her.
"i shall never love you any less, you know," he said boyishly. "you angel, how you helped us! not many mothers of an only boy would have done it."
to their ears came the sound of wheels, approaching the house, now near, now far, as the long avenue turned and twisted.
"it is your father," said lady o'gara. "he will be very tired. don't tell him yet, terry. he hardly knows stella. you are very young. it will have to be something of a long engagement."
"oh!" he said, but less disappointedly than she had feared, "you too! mrs. comerford said we must wait. i don't want to wait. i want to shout out to the whole world that stella is mine, but, of course, i know. father would rather have had eileen. i have known eileen since i was eight years old. love does not come that way."
he was repeating her own words, her own thought. she was relieved that he was so amenable.
"after all," she said roguishly, "there have been moments when you seemed on the edge of falling in love with eileen. last june we thought it was all but settled, your father and i."
"oh," he said shamelessly, "when the true gods come the half-gods go."
sir shawn came into the room. he was pale and tired and the shadows crept in the hollows of his cheeks. she was glad he was not to be disturbed by terry's love-story to-night. she wondered if he would notice the shining radiance of the boy's face. joy—the triumphant joy of the accepted lover—dazzled there to her eyes. she was relieved when the boy went away and left them alone. when shawn was tired he was irresistible to her tenderness. for the moment even terry was out of it.
