lady o'gara met mrs. comerford in the hall. despite the shadows of all the greenery outside flung through the fanlight across the white horse of hanover, which stands in so many irish fanlights, she could see that the lady was in one of the towering rages she remembered and had dreaded in her youth. looking at her, with a stammering apology on her lips, she had a wandering memory of the day at inch long ago when terry had broken a reproduction of the portland vase. he had been a big boy of sixteen then and he had flatly refused to meet his mother, going away and laying perdu in a stable loft for two or three days till she had forgotten her anger in her fear for him.
"stella is here, i suppose," said the icy voice. that suggestion of holding herself in check, which accompanied mrs. comerford's worst anger, had been a terrifying thing in mary creagh's experience of her.
"i believe it is you i have to thank for introducing her to her mother. what a fool i was to have come back. i thought that shame was covered up long ago. what a mother for stella!"
she spoke with a fierce scorn. she had not troubled to lower her voice.
lady o'gara lifted her hand in a warning gesture, glancing fearfully back over her shoulder. but the angry woman did not heed her.
"have you told her what her mother is, what she is?" she demanded furiously. "did you understand what you were doing, mary o'gara? it was your husband who told me bride sweeney had come back, who urged me to get stella away. i was mad ever to have come home."
"hush, hush!" said lady o'gara, wringing her hands and whispering.
"stella is in there; she will hear you…"
"perhaps i mean her to hear me. she shall know what sort of woman it is who has crept back here to disgrace her and me and to ruin her life."
there came out into the hall a little figure gliding like a ghost,
stella, her eyes wide and piteous, her pretty colour blanched.
"my mother is a good woman," she said, facing mrs. comerford. "you must never say a word against her. i would follow her through the world. i have had more happiness with her in those stolen meetings than you could ever give me."
a pale shaft of winter sunshine stole through the low hall window, filtered through red dead leaves that gave it the colour of a dying sunset. it fell on stella's hair, bringing out its bronzes. she had the warm bronze hair of her father's people. it came to lady o'gara suddenly that she and stella had much the same colouring. in terence comerford it had been ruddier. why, any one might have known that stella was a comerford by that colour; not the child of some dark frenchman.
"you stand up to me better than your father ever did," said mrs. comerford in white and gasping fury. had she no pity, mary o'gara asked herself; and remembered that grace comerford's anger was sheer madness while it lasted. she had always known it. she had a memory of how she and terence had tried to screen each other when they were children together.
"you dare to tell me that your shameful mother is more to you than i am!" the enraged woman went on. "it shows the class you have sprung from. i took you out of the gutter. i should have left you there."
"oh, hush! hush!" cried lady o'gara in deep distress. "you do not know what you are saying, grace. for heaven's sake, be silent."
mrs. comerford pushed her away with a force that hurt. a terrible thing about her anger was that while she said appalling things her voice had hardly lifted.
stella looked at her in a bewildered way. "i do not understand," she said. "you always told me my father was a gentleman. you said little about my mother. what have you against my mother except that she was a poor governess?"
"all that was fiction," said grace comerford, with a terrible laugh. "very poor fiction. i often wondered that any one believed it. your father was my son, terence comerford. he disgraced himself." she was as white as a sheet by this time. "your mother was the granddaughter of the woman who kept the public-house in killesky."
"then i am your granddaughter?"
"in nature, not in law. my son did not marry your mother."
stella groped in the air with her hands. they were taken and pressed against mary o'gara's heart. mary o'gara's arms drew the stricken child close to her.
"go," she said to the pale, evil-looking woman, in whom she hardly recognized mrs. comerford—"go!—and ask god to forgive you and deliver you from your wicked temper. it has blighted your own life as well as your son's and your granddaughter's. go!"
mrs. comerford put her hand to her throat. her face darkened. she seemed as if she were going to fall. then she controlled herself as by a mighty effort, turned and went out of the house. the bang of the hall-door as she went shook the little house. a second or two later her carriage passed the window, she sitting upright in it, her curious stateliness of demeanour unaltered.
mary o'gara did not look through the window to see her go. her eyes were blind with tears as she bent over the child who was the innocent victim of others.
all her life afterwards she could never forget the anguish of poor stella, who was like a thing demented. she could remember the objects that met her eyes as she held the two hot trembling hands to her with one hand while the other stroked stella's ruffled hair. she felt as though she were holding the girl back by main force from the borderland beyond which lay total darkness. she could remember afterwards just the look of things—the autumn leaves and berries in the blue jars on the chimney-piece; the convex glass leaning forward with its outspread eagle, mirroring her and stella; shot lying on his side on the hearthrug, now and again heaving a deep sigh. how pretty the room was, she kept thinking! what a quiet background for this human tragedy.
she knew that her heart was gabbling prayers for help, eagerly, insistently, while her lips only said over and over: "hush, stella! be still, darling child!" and such tender foolish phrases.
at last the heart-broken crying was over. the girl was exhausted. now and again a quiver passed through her where she sat with her face turned away from lady o'gara—but the terrible weeping was done.
"come," lady o'gara said, at last. "we must find some water to bathe your face, you poor child. you are coming back with me to castle talbot. you are mine now. i shall not give you up again."
stella shook her head; she stooped and kissed lady o'gara's hand as though she asked pardon. the swift dipping gesture like a bird's was too painful, recalling as it did the bright stella of yesterday. her hair was roughened like the feathers of a sick bird. lady o'gara, her hand passing softly over it, had felt the roughness with a pang.
"i am not yours, dear lady o'gara," she said. "i am no one's but my mother's. i am not going to castle talbot. i shall stay here for the present. if she does not come back i will go to look for her. all that other life is done with."
with a gesture of her little hands she put away all that had been hers till to-day, including terry. his mother's heart began to ache anew with the thought of terry. what would he say when he knew that stella knew? poor boy, he had a very gentle and faithful heart. oh, what a tangle it all was, what a coil of things!
"but you can't stay here, darling child," she said tenderly. "how can you stay in this lonely little house by yourself? i will take you away somewhere where you do not know people, if you think that would be better. there are griefs that are more easily borne under the eyes of strangers. let me see! there is a convent i know where you could be quiet for a little time, and i could trust the reverend mother—mary benedicta is her name; she is a cousin of mine and a dear friend—to be as loving to you as myself."
"she would be my … father's cousin," said stella; and a shudder ran through her. then she said piteously:
"i never thought of my father as wicked."
oh, poor terence! how was she going to explain to the child to whom he had done this hideous wrong? was it any use saying that terence had always been good-natured? she remembered oddly after many years a day when he had turned away from the glazing eyes of a wood-pigeon he had shot. what use to tell such things to his daughter, whose life was laid in ruins by that sin of his youth? those tragical eyes would confute her in the midst of her excuses. she could not yet make any plea for forgiveness for the dead man.
"mother mary benedicta would be gentle with you," she said, "if you will not come to castle talbot. but, dear, no one need know. you shall take eileen's place with me. you shall be my little daughter."
her loving heart was running away with her. shawn would never forgive her if she brought stella to castle talbot, to which terry might return at any time. mary benedicta would know how to tend the wounded spirit, if poor little stella would but consent.
"it is getting late," said stella, breaking in on the confusion of her thoughts. her voice, which seemed drained of tears, was suddenly composed. "you will be late for lunch."
"and you, stella, what about your lunch?"
she could have cried out on the futility of this talk of lunches.
stella shook her head.
"there is food here if i want it. my mother had taken to storing dainty food for me, since i have been so much with her, as though her food was not good enough for me. i shall not starve, lady o'gara."
"stella, i tell you it is impossible for you to stay here alone."
lady o'gara spoke almost sharply. she had a foreboding that stella's will would be too strong for her.
"she will come back. she has left everything behind; even her purse with money in it. she must find me here when she comes home. we can go away together."
lady o'gara looked at the little face in despair. it was so set that it was not easy to recognize the soft stella who had crept into all their hearts. even shawn had felt her charm though he had locked the door of his heart against her. a thought came to lady o'gara's mind. stella's remaining at the cottage for the present would at least give time. prudence whispered to her that she must not bring stella to castle talbot. she might have felt equal to opposing shawn, but, perhaps, she was relieved by the chance of escape. shawn was not well—those dark shadows were more and more noticeable in his face. other people had begun to see them and to ask her if sir shawn was not well. presently stella might be more amenable to reason, and go to mother mary benedicta at st. scholastua's abbey. benedicta was like her name. she, if any one, could salve the poor child's wound. she was as tolerant as she was tender, and she had been fond of terence comerford in the old days. no fear that she would be shocked at the story, as some women—cloistered or otherwise—might have been! benedicta was perfect, mary o'gara said to herself and heaved a sigh of relief because there was benedicta to turn to.
she felt tired out with her emotions, almost too tired to think. suddenly she had a happy inspiration. she and stella should eat together. the girl looked worn out. if she left her she was tolerably sure stella would not think of food.
"no one will be alarmed if i do not come back for lunch," she said. "i often do not trouble about lunch when i am alone. they will expect me in for tea. sir shawn will not be home till late. do you think you could give me some food, stella?"
"oh, yes, it will be a pleasure," stella said, getting up with an air of anxious politeness. "i am sure there are eggs. you will not mind eggs for lunch, with tea and bread and butter. i am afraid the kitchen fire may be out—but the turf keeps a spark so long. it is alight when you think it is out."
she took the poker and stirred the grey fire to a blaze, then put on turf, building it as she had seen others do in the narrow grate.
"there are hearths in connaught on which the fire has not gone out for fifty years," said lady o'gara, watching the shower of sparks that rose and fell as stella struck the black sods with the poker.
neither of them ate very much when the meal was prepared, though stella drank the tea almost greedily. she had begun to look a little furtively at lady o'gara before the meal was finished as though she wished her to be gone. it hurt mary o'gara's kind heart; though she understood that the girl was aching for solitude. but how was she going to leave her in this haunted place alone—a child like her—in such terrible trouble?
suddenly she found a solution of her difficulties. it would serve for the moment, if stella would but consent.
"would you have mrs. horridge to stay with you?" she asked. "you know you cannot stay here quite alone. she is a gentle creature, and very unobtrusive. i shall feel happy about you if she is here."
to her immense relief stella consented readily.
"she has been very good to my mother," she said; "and they are both victims of men's cruelty."
lady o'gara, who was looking at stella at the moment, noticed that her eyes fell on something outside the window and a quick shudder passed through the slight body. she went to stella's side and saw only a heap of stones for road-mending. they must have been newly flung down there, for she did not remember to have seen them when last she passed this way.
was it possible that stella knew? that her eyes saw another heap of stones, and upon them a dead man lying, his blood turning the sharp stones red?
