the sun was low, almost out of sight, as lady o'gara climbed up the hill from waterfall cottage to her own south lodge. through the bars of the gate she caught a glimpse of a red ball going low, criss-crossed with the bare branches of the trees. the air nipped. there was going to be frost. before she left she had seen the lamps lit at waterfall cottage and bidden stella lock herself in and only open to a voice she knew.
she had delayed, washing up the tea-cups with stella, trying to distract the girl from her grief to the natural simple things of life: and all the time she had felt that stella longed for her to be gone.
she had narrowly escaped being caught in the dusk—without the flashlight terry had given her, which she usually carried when she went out these short afternoons. was she growing as stupid as the villagers? she had glanced nervously at the heap of stones as she passed them by where the water made a loud roaring noise hurrying over the weir. she had to remind herself that it was not really dark but only dusk, and that she had never been afraid of the dark. rather she had loved the kind night, the mantle with which god covers his restless earth that she may sleep. as she went up the hill she thought uneasily of the tramp who had passed the window of waterfall cottage a few hours earlier. the shambling figure had a menace for her. she could not keep from glancing over her shoulder and was glad to come to her own gate.
she called through the bars and patsy kenny came to open for her. seeing him she sighed. more complications. her mind was too weary to tackle the matter of patsy's unfortunate attachment to susan horridge. not that she doubted patsy. she had a queer confidence that patsy would not hurt the woman he loved. people would talk, were talking in all probability. what a world it was! what a world!
of late patsy had refrained from visiting the south lodge so far as she knew. sir shawn had said to her only a day or two before that patsy had taken up the fiddle again—patsy was a great fiddler—that he could hear him playing his old tunes night after night. there had been an interval during which the fiddle had been silent. she thought that, with the simple craft of his class, patsy might have played the fiddle to let possible gossips know that he was at home in the solitude which in the old times before susan came he had never seemed to find solitary.
"is that you, m'lady?" said patsy. "the dark was near comin' up wid ye. i'd like if you'd the time you'd come in and see susan. she's frightened like in herself an' she won't listen to rayson."
"why, what's the matter?" asked lady o'gara, turning towards the lodge, while patsy re-padlocked the gate. she did not wait for his answer, which was slow of coming. patsy was always deliberate.
in the quiet and cheerful interior of the lodge she found a terrified susan. michael lay on the hearth-rug before a bright fire, georgie sat by the white, well-scrubbed table, his cheek on his hand, the lamplight on his pale fine hair, watching his mother anxiously; the lesson book on top of a pile of others, was plainly forgotten.
susan seemed desperately frightened. she got out the reason why at last, with some help from patsy kenny. she shook as she told the tale. she had been washing, outside the lodge, earlier in the day, fortunately out of view of the gate, when some one had shaken it and cursed at finding it locked. susan had seen his hand, a coarse hairy hand, thrust through the gate in an attempt to force the lock. the man, whoever he was, had gone on his way, seeing the futility of trying to enter by the strongly padlocked gate. susan had locked herself in the lodge till georgie had come home from school, when the two of them had fled to patsy kenny for protection.
"the poor girl will have it that baker has come back," said patsy, scratching his head. "she says she knew his voice an' the wicked-looking hand of him. if it was to be him itself—but i had the master's word for it he had gone to america—he wouldn't know she was here. i keep on tellin' her that, but she won't listen."
lady o'gara had a passing wonder about shawn's having known that susan's husband was gone to america—she had not associated the person who had saved shawn from accident at ashbridge park with susan's graceless husband.
"he might find out by asking questions," said susan. "he's only got to ask. there's many a one to tell him."
"i was goin' to your ladyship," said patsy. "the two frightened things can't be left their lone in this little place. the heart would jump out of her. can't i see it flutterin' there in her side like a bird caught in your hand."
"i came to ask susan if she would go down to waterfall cottage to look after miss stella comerford, who is there alone."
lady o'gara's eyes fluttered nervously. she was aware of the strangeness of the thing she said, and she felt shy about the effect of it on her listeners. she hastened to make some kind of explanation.
"miss stella has had a disagreement with mrs. comerford and will not return to her—for the present. she wishes to stay at waterfall cottage, but, of course, she cannot stay alone."
"the poor young lady," said susan, looking up; she added hopefully: "baker would never look for me there. the people would think i was gone away out of this place. few pass waterfall cottage, and we could keep the gate locked."
"where at all is mrs. wade gone to?" asked patsy; not seeming to find it strange that miss stella should be at waterfall cottage.
"could georgie be very wise and silent?" asked lady o'gara.
georgie flushed under her look and sent her a worshipping glance.
"georgie would be silent enough if it was likely his father would find us," said susan. "not but what he's quiet by nature. baker used to say that georgie would run into a mouse-hole from him. not that i let him knock my georgie about. i told him if he laid a hand on georgie i'd do him a mischief, and he believed me. he knocked me about after that."
"god help the two o' ye," said patsy with sharp anguish in his voice.
"if i was to see the rascal i couldn't keep my hands off him."
"he might do you a harm. the hands of him are dangerous strong. he used to say he'd choked a man once. it isn't likely i wouldn't know the wicked hands of him when i saw them."
"i'd take my chance," said patsy with a baleful light in his eyes. "the one time i seen him i was mad to kill him. i never felt the like before for any man. 'twas like a dog i seen when the master an' me was in south africay. he'd found a nest of vipers, and i never seen anything like the rage o' that dog whin he wint tearin' them to tatters. i felt the same way with that blackguard that owns you, susan, my girl."
patsy was pale, and in the lamplight little drops of perspiration showed on his forehead and about his lips.
"very probably the man who frightened susan was not her husband at all," lady o'gara put in. "but in the remote case of its being baker, susan will be better away for the present. she can have georgie with her, or perhaps he could stay with you, patsy?"
"i'd like to have georgie with me, if he didn't mind keepin' to the house in the daytime," said patsy with a fatherly look at the boy. "he'd have the run o' the books, what he's always cravin' for."
"georgie can go to mr. penny's," said susan. "he'll be safe there an' my mind'll be easy about him."
"i'll leave you then, susan, to put out the fire here and lock the door," lady o'gara said. "be as quick as you can. i don't like to think of miss stella in that lonely place. here is the key of the gate. i locked it when i came through. miss stella will let you in when you knock. patsy will take you down there. you won't be afraid with him?"
"not with mr. kenny, m'lady," said susan with a flattering fervour.
lady o'gara went on her way, refusing the offer of georgie as an escort. she was quite safe with shot, she said; adding that she was not at all a nervous person. she was a bit puzzled now about her panic coming up the dark road, under the trees, from waterfall cottage to the south lodge.
she stepped out briskly. it was nearly a mile from the south lodge to the house. the darkness increased as she went. she was quite pleased to see the light shining from the window of the room sir shawn called his office, through the bay trees and laurestinus and portugal laurels which lay between her and it. she was glad shawn was at home. she had forgotten for once to ask patsy if the master was at home. after all the years of their life together her heart always lifted for shawn's coming home before the dark night settled down upon the world.
she had only to tap on the french window and he would open it and let her in, as he had done so many times before.
she took the path by the side of the house, between the ivied wall and the shrubbery.
as she approached the window shot uttered a low growl. at the same moment she became aware that her husband was not alone. some one had crossed between the light and the window. for a second a huge shadow was flung across the gravel path almost at her feet.
with a sigh she went back again, entering by the hall-door way. she was sorry shawn had one of his troublesome visitors. she wanted so much to talk to him, to tell him of all the trouble about stella. she felt chilled that he was not ready to listen to her when she needed to talk to him so much.
"sir shawn has returned, m'lady," said reilly, the new butler, the possessor of a flat large face with side whiskers which always made her want to laugh. reilly's manners, she had said, would befit a ducal household, and it had been no surprise to her to learn that he had lived with an old gentleman who had a duke for a grandfather, and that a part of his duties had been to recite family prayers, understudying his master.
"yes," she said, "has he had tea, reilly?"
"no, m'lady. he did not wish for tea."
"he has a visitor? has this person been long with him?"
"i don't know, m'lady. no one came in this way. i went a while ago to see if the fire was burning, and i found the door locked, m'lady, i concluded sir shawn did not wish to be disturbed."
"sir shawn's visitors on business come in by the window that opens on the lawn. the handle of the office door is rather stiff. i don't think it could have been locked."
she went on down the passage to the office door. she heard voices the other side of the door. sir shawn was speaking in a fatigued voice. she had hardly ever known him to speak angrily. she listened for a second or two. the other voice answered; it was thick and coarse: she could not hear what was said. she went back to the drawing-room, where a little later sir shawn joined her.
even when they were alone she always dressed in her most beautiful garments for her husband's eyes. to-night she had chosen a pink satin dress, close-fitting and trailing heavily, with her garnets.
she was sitting by the fire when sir shawn came in and his eyes lighted as they fell upon her.
"you look like your own daughter, mary," he said, "only so much more beautiful than the girl i married. what a wonderful colour your gown is! it makes you like a beautiful open rose."
she laughed. his compliments were never stale to her.
"where were you when i came in?" he asked. "'i looked in your chamber, 'twas lonely?'"
she evaded the question for a moment. "i made an attempt to enter by your window as i came back, but you had a visitor."
he was standing with his back to the fire, looking down at her, and she saw the ominous shadows come in the hollows of his cheeks.
"a troublesome visitor, mary," he said. "when i come to you you exorcise all my troubles. you are the angel before whom the blue devils flee away."
she did not ask him further about his visitor. so many of them were troublesome. she often wondered at shawn's patience with the people. the family quarrels over land were apt to be the worst of all: but there were other things hardly less disagreeable.
"poor shawn!" she said tenderly. "sit down by me and let me smoothe that line out of your forehead! it threatens to become permanent."
she stooped, half playfully, to him as he sat down beside her leaning his head back against a cushion, and touched his forehead with her finger-tips gently.
"go on doing that, mary," he said. "it seems to smoothe a tangle out of my brain. i cannot tell you how restful it is. i saw terry off—and the others. the boy looked rather down in the mouth. what have you been doing all day?"
it was a quiet hour. she had dressed early on purpose to have this hour. no one had business in the room till the dressing bell rang. she had learnt by long use to watch his moods. she knew her own power over him, to soothe, to assuage. the moment was propitious. so she told him the tale of the day's happenings, in a quiet easy flow, now and again patting his hand or stroking his forehead with her delicate finger-tips.
"good lord, what a kettle of fish!" he groaned when she had finished. "and you take it so easily, mary! i wish to the lord, grace comerford had never come back. it was an ill day."
she almost echoed the wish. then she found herself, to her amazement, setting stella against all the trouble, putting her in the balance against all that had happened and might happen. to her amazement stella counted against all the rest. she was just the little daughter she had wanted all her days—to stay with her when the insistent world snatched her boy from her. she acknowledged to herself that she was jealous of the woman who was stella's real mother, whom the girl had chosen before everything, every one else.
she sought in her own mind, with what her husband called her incurable optimism, for a bright side to this dark trouble and could find none. she must leave it where she left everything, at the foot of the altar. god could unpick the black knot of stella's fate. he could smooth out the tangle. she must only pray and hope.
she had meant to talk the matter out thoroughly with shawn. she had so often found that light and comfort came that way. but shawn would not discuss things thoroughly. he would only say that it was a pretty kettle of fish; that he wished grace comerford had never come back, that he wished they could send terry somewhere out of harm's way. and presently he fell asleep with his head against her shoulder. he had had a hard day and a tiring one. of late he had taken to dropping asleep in the evenings.
she let him sleep, remaining as motionless as she could so as not to disturb him. when he awoke he was full of repentance. she had not even had a book to solace her watch. that which she had been reading was out of reach.
"you are the perfect woman, mary," he said gratefully, "and i am an unworthy fellow. i don't know how i came to be so sleepy. you make me too comfortable."
her face lit up. shawn was often unreasonable in these latter days.
indeed he had not been the easiest of men to live with since terence
comerford's tragic death. but when he was like this his wife thought
that all was worth while.
