one evening some ten days later lady o'gara, who had been out, arrived home with the dressing-bell. hurrying upstairs, she found her husband in his dressing-room. he had had his bath: she noticed that his hair was wet as he stood in front of the glass, knotting his white cravat. he wore hunting things in the winter evenings, and the scarlet coat, with the little facing of blue, became his dark skin and eyes.
"is it you, mary?" he asked, without turning round. "what kept you so late?"
"i forgot the time. i went to see mrs. wade, and found stella there. i did not know she had been there since we brought mrs. wade a puppy to keep her company. stella was on her way here. she had sent on her luggage, meaning to follow."
sir shawn turned about completely and stared at her. she saw that his face was disturbed.
"i wonder if it was wise to take stella there!" he said. "poor woman! one would not deny her any happiness. but—i warn you, grace comerford will not like it. there is another thing, mary. come in and shut the door. in a few minutes we shall have to go downstairs and talk platitudes. i could wish we were alone once more."
"why, what is the matter, shawn!" lady o'gara asked, coming forward in some alarm. "you don't feel ill?"
"i feel as well as ever i feel. but i've been infernally disturbed. evelyn, quite gaily, and showing his white teeth, as he does when he laughs—i've nothing against evelyn—frightened me by talking about terry and stella. he said it was delightful to see children so thoroughly in love. i pulled him up, rather short. he turned it off with a half apology, but i could see he did not believe me when i said there was nothing. 'oh, they haven't told him.' i could see by his eyes that he thought that. i felt infernally frightened, i can tell you!"
"oh, but why, shawn?" lady o'gara's eyes fluttered nervously in the candlelight. she was frightened at her own complicity, really frightened for the first time. "why shouldn't the poor children be happy? i know you like eileen better than stella. still it is not a question of our choice."
she had been strangely, implicitly obedient to her husband during their married life, even when she might well have departed from obedience.
"what in god's name are you talking about, mary?" he asked and she felt vaguely shocked. shawn had always been reverent in using the name of his creator. "it is not a question of my likes or dislikes. why, for the matter of that, i can see little stella with the poor lad's eyes well enough. but this thing simply cannot go on. it must be killed. god knows i don't want to hurt the boy. i'd give my life to make him happy, although i don't show him affection as you do, as you can. is it possible you did not understand? was i stupid about explaining to you? don't you know that stella is terence's daughter?"
no; she had not known. that was plain enough in her face.
"oh, no," she said in a bewildered way. "stella is the daughter of
gaston de st. maur…."
"grace comerford said so, or she allowed people to believe it. did she ever say so? stella is the daughter of terence comerford and bridyeen sweeney, whom you know as mrs. wade. don't you see now how impossible it is? i wish to heaven grace comerford had not come back."
a sense of the piteousness, the pitilessness, of it all came
overwhelmingly to mary o'gara. she had been learning to love stella.
the fond, ardent little creature had pushed herself into her heart.
what was to happen to them all, to terry, to stella, to herself?
"you are sure, shawn?" she asked, rubbing her hands together as though she were cold. but while she asked the certainty was borne in upon her. it was the starved mother-love that had burned in mrs. wade's eyes as they rested on the girl. it was the unconscious daughterly tenderness, the mysterious attraction which had made stella chatter on the homeward way of mrs. wade and how she pitied her, she knew not for what.
she threw out her hands in a gesture of despair.
"it seems we are all going to be hurt," she said. "i would not mind if it were not for the children. why did grace comerford bring stella where she and terry were certain to meet? the boy was bound to find her irresistible?"
she remembered suddenly that the dinner bell might ring at any moment and that the patient margaret mackeon was waiting to help her to dress. she sighed. it was one of the moments when one finds the social demands hard to endure.
"one of us will have to tell terry," she said. "it is not a pretty story. poor little stella!"
no one would have thought from lady o'gara's demeanour at the dinner table that black care pressed hard on her white shoulders. sir shawn had often said that when his wife chose she could put the young girls in the shade.
she put them in the shade to-night. she had a deep, brilliant spot of colour in either cheek. her dress of leaf brown matched her eyes and hair. she had laid aside her other jewels for a close-fitting antique collar of garnets, the deep ruby of which suggested a like colour in the gown as it did in her eyes.
eileen was out of it with major evelyn and pouted. terry was tired and happy after his day of tramping over the bogs. he seemed content to watch stella across the bowl of growing violets which was between them. young earnshaw talked nonsense and stella dimpled and smiled. she had gained the colour of the moss rose-bud since she had come back to ireland. there was a daintiness, a delicacy in her little face with the softly moulded, yet firm features, the grey-brown eyes with dark lashes, the arched fine brows, which would have made a plain face distinguished. her head as she moved it about in the lamplight—she had bird-like gestures—showed a sheen like a pheasant's breast. watching her miserably sir shawn o'gara said to himself that terence comerford's red hair had come out as golden bronze on his daughter's pretty head.
he had a girl at either hand, as lady o'gara had the two male visitors. terry, the odd man, had come round and slipped in between his father and eileen, moving her table-napkin so that she sat between him and major evelyn. he and his father were almost equally silent from different reasons.
eileen at first had been crumbling her bread, sending her food away untasted or only just tasted. she was vexed about something. it was not like eileen to be capricious over her food.
perhaps lady o'gara noticed the dissatisfaction and ascribed it to the fact that eileen was not having the attention she desired, so she drew gently out of a very interesting discussion she was having with major evelyn and turned to little earnshaw, an agreeably impudent boy, with cheeks like a winter apple and an irresistibly jolly smile. he seemed to have got over his first shyness with stella and was conducting his veiled love-making with a rather charming audacity. lady o'gara had glanced a little anxiously once or twice at terry, but there was obviously only amusement at young earnshaw's way in terry's face. he must be very sure of stella.
"don't mind him," he said across the table while she watched. "he's very young and he's apt to get excited when he stays up for dinner. very often the mess has to pack him off to bed."
mary o'gara smiled at the banter between the two boys. now and again she inclined an ear to the conversation of major evelyn and eileen. the big, handsome, jovial man of the world, whom his subalterns, while evidently deeply admiring him, called "cecil," did not find much to interest him in eileen, though he was too well-bred to show it.
stella, laughing, put down her head with one of her bird-like movements. her hair was parted in the centre and the thick masses of it, so much like plumage, went off in silken waves and curls and was looped behind her little ears where it was combed up from her white neck. she was wearing green tonight, a vivid emerald green which would have tried a less beautiful complexion.
the movement, the close fine ripple of the hair, were like mrs. wade's; there was no reason to doubt the relationship. would others see it? but mrs. wade hardly ever walked abroad. she seemed as much afraid of her fellow-creatures as any one could wish her to be.
lady o'gara found herself seeking for another likeness. no; except for that slight redness in the hair there was nothing she could discover of terence comerford. she wondered vaguely whether grace comerford had looked for such a likeness and been disappointed.
she let her thoughts slip away from things around her. she asked herself whether in the circumstance mrs. wade was a fit companion for her daughter, and answered herself, with a little scorn, that there was nothing to fear from the mother's influence. she remembered something she had caught sight of at the end of a little cross-passage in waterfall cottage. there was a statue, a throbbing rosy lamp in the darkness. mrs. wade was at 7 o'clock mass at the convent every morning despite her recluse habits. she was a good woman, whatever there was in her past.
lady o'gara recalled herself with a start to the things about her. how long had her thoughts been straying? not very long, for the plates were being taken away that had been full when last she was aware of them.
her eyes rested on eileen's face. a name caught her ear—robin gillespie. oh, that was the doctor's son of whom eileen had spoken with a certain consciousness. eileen's manner had suggested that robin gillespie was in love with her, while she said: "of course he has not a penny and never will have."
eileen was listening now, absorbed in what major evelyn was saying. her lips were parted, her eyes and colour bright. the air of slackness which so often dulled her beauty had disappeared. for once she was animated.
major evelyn perceived that his hostess was listening and turned to her with a courteous intention to include her in the conversation. he was charming to all women, this big man, with the irresistible gaiety. poor eileen, she had been playing off all her little charms upon him, and in vain. he showed openly his preference for an old woman, as mary o'gara called herself in her thoughts, wincing a little.
"i've discovered that miss creagh knows gillespie, the young doctor who has defied all the army regulations. it was quite an excitement in india. the rajah of bundelpore had a very bad attack of indian cholera one night. his own doctors could do nothing for him. some one—the rajah's heir who had been at harrow, probably—sent over for the regimental doctor, who happened to be gillespie. he found all sorts of devilry going on while the rajah writhed and turned black and green. gillespie took him in hand—i heard his treatment was nearly as weird as that of the native doctors. there was something about blackberry jam stirred in boiling water for an astringent drink. anyhow the rajah pulled through. he's got a constitution like a horse. and as soon as he was well he presented gillespie with a horse that was the very kohinoor of horses—gillespie sold him, for a preposterous sum i believe, to lord nutwood—magnificent jewels and a lakh of rupees."
"how much is a lakh of rupees?" eileen asked with breathless interest.
"oh, a big sum—somewhere about fifty thousand pounds. the jewels are worth as much. then came in the indian government and the army regulations. they ordered gillespie to return the rajah's gifts. gillespie, who hadn't a penny to bless himself with—it was understood that all he could squeeze out of his pay went home to his people in ireland—snapped his fingers at them. they bid him choose between leaving the service and giving up the rajah's gifts. gillespie quite unhesitatingly—i believe they really thought there could be a question of choice—gave up the service. i hear he's come home and means to set up as a specialist in cavendish square. they said there was a girl in the case, some girl who wouldn't have him, and that took the savour even out of the lakh of rupees. i don't suppose it's true. do you happen to know him, miss creagh? he is from your part of the world, donegal way."
"my people know him quite well," said eileen, her breath coming and going fast. "just fancy, i never heard of it. you'd have thought some one would have written to me."
she frowned, looking down at her plate.
at bed-time when lady o'gara, putting her own preoccupations aside, went to say good-night to eileen she found her in tears.
"my dear, what is it?" she asked in dismay.
"oh, cousin mary—you know that story major evelyn told us about robin gillespie. well—isn't it awful?" she broke into sobbing. "i wouldn't listen to him when he asked me to be engaged to him. he said he knew he was a poor … poor … beggar, but … with that to spur him on … he could do anything. i was … horrid. i told him to ask … brigid. he said it wasn't brigid he wanted … it was me. he got … angry at last … and now… i know i loved him … all the time."
lady o'gara troubled as she was, could not refrain from smiling, but as eileen's tears apparently had overtaken her during the process of brushing her hair, and the long mantle of greenish grey, silver-gold hair hung about her face, lady o'gara's smile passed unnoticed.
"do you think … it would seem … very forward of me to write to him?" asked eileen; and then looked from the curtain of her hair with wet eyes but a new hopefulness.
"i should ask brigid. he may have acted on your advice."
"oh, but he hadn't time," said eileen, whose strong point was not humour. "he went away at once, broken-hearted. besides, i should have known if he had made any advance to brigid. cousin mary, would you mind very much if i went home for a little visit? i know that i have only just come back—but still…"
"certainly not, eileen." lady o'gara had a feeling that just at present eileen might be a jarring element. "make your own arrangements, my dear. i am very glad if it will make you happier."
"oh, thank you," said eileen, with effusion. "you are always so sympathetic and understanding, darling cousin mary. you see, if robin has come back as major evelyn says, he might be with his people just at this moment."
