lady o'gara went away quickly from the rusty gate overhung by ivy, not looking back to see how miss brennan watched her out of sight. she had not indeed heard one word of what the old woman had been saying about the o'harts. she was dreadfully perturbed. the fair placidity of her face was broken up. in either cheek two spots of vivid colour pulsed. seeing them one would have said she was in pain.
she hastened back along the tree-overhung road, over the dead leaves where the fine silver veining of last night's frost was yielding to a sodden dampness, to the gate of waterfall cottage.
she had half-expected to find it locked, but it was open. there was a thick carpet of dead leaves on the gravel sweep. between the boughs sparsely clothed with leaves and the slender tree-trunks she caught a glimpse of the bronze and amber river running over its stones, or winding about the big dripping boulders that were in the bed of the stream. a damp, rheumatic place, she said to herself, although she loved the river; and its backwaters, full of wild duck and dabchick and the moorhens, were enchanting places.
the grounds which she remembered as neglected and overgrown had become orderly. the little beds cut in the turf were neat in their winter bareness, despite a few dead leaves which had fluttered on to them. her eyes fell on a pair of gardening gloves and a trowel lying on the grass by one of the beds. from the open mouth of a brown paper bag a bulb had partly rolled before it became stationary. there was a hole dug in the turf. some one had been planting bulbs and had gone away leaving the task unfinished.
from the house-wall hung a branch of clematis torn down by the rough wind. a ladder stood close by. some one had had the intention of nailing up the branch, and had not carried it into effect.
she lifted her hand to the knocker and found that the door yielded to her slight touch. it was open. for a second she had a wild thought that miss brennan might have been wandering in her wits—that mrs. wade, or bridyeen sweeney—she had come to calling her that in her mind—was still in the house.
she looked into the little hall. it was bright with a long ray from the white sun that peered below a cloud, seeming to her dazzled eyes surrounded by a coruscation of coloured rays. the white sun portended rain to come, probably in the afternoon.
shot had pushed his way before her into the hall. she had almost forgotten that shot had come with her when she had left the poms at home because of the muddy roads. he had disappeared into mrs. wade's little parlour. the plume of his fine tail caught a flash from the sun's rays on its burnished bronze. she heard the dog whine.
no one answered her knock nor did shot return, so, after a second's hesitation, she followed the dog.
she was not prepared for what she saw. the only occupant of the room beside the dog, who had dropped on to the hearthrug, and lay with his nose between his paws and his melancholy eyes watching, was stella—stella kneeling by a chair in an abandonment of grief, her face hidden.
the little figure kept its grace even in the huddled-up attitude. the face hidden in the chair, childishly, as though a child suffered pain, was lifted as lady o'gara touched the bronze-brown head. the misery of stella's wide eyes shocked her. stella's face was stained and disfigured by tears. the soft close hair, which she had taken to wearing plaited about her head, was ruffled and disordered.
"stella, darling child!" lady o'gara said, with a gasp of consternation. she had never seen stella before without brightness, the brightness of a bird. now the small ivory pale face had lost the golden tints of its underlying brownness. the child was wan under the disfigurement of her tears.
she got up with a groping motion as though tears obscured her sight. she came to meet lady o'gara and held out her hands with a piteous gesture of grief.
"she has gone away," she said.
her hands were chill in mary o'gara's warm clasp. the woman drew the girl to her, holding the cold hands against her breast with a soft motherliness.
"now, tell me what is the matter?" she said, while her voice shook in the effort to be composed. "where has mrs. wade gone to?"
"that is what i do not know, lady o'gara," stella answered, with a catch of the breath. "i came to her as i have come every day of late. she was gone. i thought she would come back at first; but she has not come. while i stood looking out of the gate watching for her an old woman came by picking up sticks for her fire. she said"—something like a spasm shook the slender body and her face quivered—"that she, mrs. wade, was gone away. do you know what she called her, lady o'gara? she called her my mother—my mother."
the suffering eyes were full upon her. lady o'gara found nothing to say that could serve any useful purpose.
"yes, i know," she said aimlessly. "it was old lizzie brennan. she lives at that gate-lodge a little way down the road."
"she said my mother."
the eyes, grey in one light, brown in another; made a piteous appeal.
"how could mrs. wade be my mother?" stella asked, with a quiver of the lip, clasping and unclasping her hands. "my mother died long ago. i am stella de st. maur, although granny will have me called by her name. but i love mrs. wade; i love her. i have never loved any one in the same way."
lady o'gara took the bewildered head into her arms and stroked it with tender touches as though it was the head of a frightened bird, one of those birds that sometimes came in at her windows, and nearly killed themselves trying to escape before she could give them their liberty. she sought in a frightened way for something to say to the girl and could find nothing.
"granny is so angry with me," stella went on. "she has found out that i came here. she said she would not have me keep low company, that she was shocked to find i could slip away from her to a person not in my own class of life. she had noticed that i was always slipping away. she talked about throwbacks. what did she mean by that? she was very angry when she said it."
"oh, i am sorry you made her angry, stella." mary o'gara had found her tongue at last. she had no idea of the inadequacy of what she said. her thoughts had gone swiftly back to the days when she had trembled before grace comerford's cold rages. her thoughts, as though they were too tired to consider the situation of the moment, went on to terence. poor terence! she remembered him red and white before his mother's anger, her tongue that stung like a whip, the more bitter where she roved.
"i ran away from her," stella went on. "she told me to go to my room, as though i was a child. i went, but i got out of the window: it is not far from the ground. i came here only to find her gone. i had been running all the way thinking of how she would comfort me. she has taken nothing with her but keep. i expect keep followed her. i would not have minded anything if she had been here. the old woman called her my mother. is she mad, cousin mary? how could mrs. wade be my mother?"
her eyes asked an insistent question. lady o'gara was a truthful woman. the candour of her face did not belie her. she tried to avoid the eyes, lest they should drag the truth from her.
"she is only very old," she answered, haltingly. "not mad, but perhaps…"
"the odd thing is,"—stella put by what she had been about to say as a trivial thing,—"that i wish what the old woman said was true. i wish it with all my heart. she was like what i think a mother must be to me. i have always been running away to her, ever since you brought me first. she comforted me. i have always felt there was something i did not know. granny would never tell me about my father and mother. if she is not my mother why should i feel all that about her? she made up to me for everything. and sir shawn was cold. he used to like me, but now he does not. he is afraid,"—a little colour came to her cheek,—"that i will marry terry. he need not be afraid. if mrs. wade is my mother i shall not marry terry. he can marry eileen creagh and please his father! do not tell me she is not my mother."
was the mother, the nameless mother, worth all that to her child? it seemed so.
"oh, the poor boy!" lady o'gara said, with sudden tears, clasping her hands together. "is he to have no word in it?"
"not if i am mrs. wade's daughter. she told me how she lived with her grandmother who kept a shop in the village long ago. of course sir shawn would not like it. i see that quite well, and i am not thinking of marrying terry or any one. i am only thinking that mrs. wade may be my mother. i've always wanted a mother. how i used to envy the italian children when i was little. they had such soft warm, dark-eyed mothers. and i had only granny—and miss searle. miss searle was fond of me but she was often cross with me. granny never loved me as a mother would have. i was sometimes afraid of her though she was good to me"—her cheeks were scarlet by this time,—"i am going to stay here and wait for mrs. wade to return. if she does not come i must go to look for her. terry need not trouble about me, nor sir shawn…."
"oh, the poor boy!" said lady o'gara again, with the soft illogicality that her lovers loved in her. "but, stella, love, you cannot stay here. think how people would talk. come home with me. you can wait just as well at castle talbot. every day you shall come and see if she has returned. it would be better, of course, for you to go back to inch…"
"but granny will lock me in my room. i cannot go to castle talbot, for
sir shawn would look coldly at me and i should not like that."
lady o'gara was suddenly decided. "you cannot stay here, stella," she said. "it is quite out of the question."
in her own mind was a whirl of doubt and fear. who was going to tell stella? who was going to tell her? apparently stella suspected no worse than that she was peasant-born. she had not yet arrived at the point of asking for her father. at any moment she might ask. what was any one to answer?
"come with me, dear child," she said. "my husband comes home
dead-tired these hunting days, has some food and stumbles off to bed.
i am all alone. we can have the days together. i will write to your
granny that you are paying me a visit. let us lock up here."
some one paused in the road outside the window to look in, leaning impudently on the green paling. it was a ragged tramp bearded like the pard.
as he shuffled on his way lady o'gara said with a rather nervous laugh.
"there, stella! you see the impossibility of your being here alone. i wonder where that creature came from! we don't get many of his sort here. think of the night in this place! we could not possibly allow it. mrs. wade is sure to come back. she would not have gone away leaving all her things here. was the door open when you came to it?"
"it was locked. i found the key where she used to put it if she went out. she sometimes walked over there across the mount, where the people do not walk because they are afraid of the o'hart ghosts. i thought i would wait for her till she came back."
"let us lock up and put the key where she left it. she is sure to return. the place does not look as if she were not coming back."
"everything is in order," said stella, a light of hope coming to her face. "i have been in her bedroom. the lamp is burning on her altar. there is a purse lying on her bed with money in it."
"she will come back," said lady o'gara.
there was a sound of carriage wheels which made two pairs of eyes turn towards the window.
"it is granny," said stella, drawing back into the shade of the window curtains. "and she is very angry. she is sitting up so straight and tall. when she is like that i am afraid of her. is she coming here?"
"do not be afraid; i will stay with you," said lady o'gara.
the carriage re-passed the window, going slowly and without its occupant. almost immediately came the sound of the knocker on the little hall-door.
