lady o'gara came in by way of a little-used gate a few days later. she had been to inch, where the house was being turned out of doors and everything aired and swept and dusted and repolished, for a home-coming so long delayed that people had forgotten to look for it. castle talbot had six entrance gates, each with its lodge: and this one was rarely used.
susan—as mrs. baker preferred to be called, susan horridge: she seemed to wish to drop the "mrs. baker"—came out with a key to open the gate, which was padlocked.
such a different susan! the old susan might have been dropped with "mrs. baker." she had been just ten days at the south lodge, and now, in her neat print dress, her silken hair braided tidily, her small face filling out, she looked as she dropped a curtsey just as might the susan horridge of a score years earlier.
"you keep the gate padlocked, susan?" lady o'gara asked, with a little surprise. "this is a quiet, honest place. i hardly think you need fear any disagreeable visitors."
"oh, but, m'lady, you never know." susan had admitted her by this time. "a lone woman and a little boy, and him that nervous through being frightened!" she hurried on as though she did not wish to make any reference to the cause of georgie's fright. "i heard men singin' along the road the night before last it was. it fair gave me the jumps. glad i was to have that gate between me and them and the strong padlock on it."
"this lodge is perhaps a little lonely for you. it's a very quiet road. the people don't use it much. it runs down to a road where they think there's a ghost. you're not afraid of ghosts?"
"no, m'lady. if but they'd keep the people from the road."
"ah! you will find the people friendly and kindly after a time. you're new to the place."
"maybe so, m'lady. i always was one for keeping myself to myself. my
granny brought me up strict. i wish i hadn't lost her when i did."
she heaved a deep sigh. "we had a sweet little place at home in
warwickshire. such a pretty cottage, and an orchard, and the roses
climbin' about my window."
what matter that she said "winder"! her eyes, the pale large eyes, had light in them as though she beheld a vision.
"'twere all peace with my granny and me," she went on. "and her ladyship at the court,—mr. neville was our squire and her ladyship was lady frances neville—used to drop in to see granny, and she used to say what a good girl i was, always busy with my needle and my book. and our rector's wife, mrs. farmiloe, she gave me a silver thimble when i was nine—a prize for needlework. lady frances used to say, 'don't you keep her too close to work, mrs. horridge. a child must play with other children.' but my granny she'd up and say: 'she's all i have, and i'd rather bury her than see her trapesin' about with boys like some i know.' and there was miss sylvia peepin' at me from behind her ladyship and me peepin' at her from behind my granny. i went to the court at sixteen as sewing maid, and at twenty i was miss sylvia's own maid. she married lord southwater, and i'd have gone with her only i couldn't leave my granny. she was failin', poor old soul!"
she paused and again she heaved the deepest of sighs.
"beggin' your pardon, m'lady, for talkin' so much. you'd maybe take a look at the little place?" she said.
lady o'gara turned aside. she was in no great hurry home and she was interested in susan. susan had padlocked the gate again and held the key swinging from her finger, while she looked up at lady o'gara as though her saying "yes" or "no" meant a great deal to her.
"i wonder what would happen if we wanted to get in or out by that gate at night time," lady o'gara said. "we don't use it much. still we might want to and you might be in bed."
"i'd get up at any hour, m'lady," susan said eagerly. "i'm a light sleeper: and it would only be to throw on something in a hurry."
she looked scared, as though her peace of mind was threatened, and lady o'gara felt a pity for such manifest nervousness. susan would forget her terror presently as she got further and further away from the bad days. obviously she was very nervous. her eyes dilated and her breath came and went as she gazed imploringly at lady o'gara.
"don't look like that, susan," lady o'gara said, almost sharply. "you look as though i were judge and executioner. you shall keep your padlocked gate. after all it is a bad road, i don't think sir shawn will want to take it, though it is the shortest way to inch. you did not find the gate padlocked when you came?"
"no, m'lady. 'twas mr. kenny. he guessed i'd be frightened, so he brought the padlock and put it on himself."
the finest little line showed itself in lady o'gara's smooth forehead. her skin was extraordinarily unfretted for her forty-five years of life. but now the little crease came, deepened and extended itself to a line, where its presence had been unsuspected.
"patsy is very kind," she said, with a penetrating glance at susan. what a pretty girl susan must have been, so soft and pale and appealing, a little human wood-anemone! she would be very pretty again when she had got over the scared look and the thinness which was almost emaciation. and how well that print suited her! lady o'gara had sent down a bundle of things to the south lodge, so that susan might not appear as a scarecrow to the people. the print had pale green leaves sprinkled over a white surface. it suggested a snowdrop, perished by the winter, as a comparison for susan rather than the wood-anemone one.
"indeed he's very kind," said susan; and dropped a curtsey. "the clothes fitted georgie as though they were made for him. i'll be able to use all you sent, m'lady, i'm such a good needlewoman. i hope i may mend your ladyship's lace or any fine embroideries. once we're settled—with georgie away at school all day—i'll have a deal o' time on my hands. i'd like to do something for you, m'lady."
"so you shall, susan. margaret mckeon, who has been with me since i was a child, is no longer able for work that tries the eyes. i promise i'll keep you busy as soon as you get settled in here."
"oh, m'lady! thank you, m'lady!" said susan, colouring as though lady o'gara had promised her something very delightful. "i do love fine needle-work, m'lady. any fine damask cloths or the like i'll darn so you'd hardly know. i'm never happier than when i'm sewin' an' my georgie reads a bit to me. he's a good scholar, is my georgie, although he's but nine."
"you've made a pretty place of it," lady o'gara said, looking round the lodge with satisfaction. "i was afraid it was going to be a grimy place for you, for it had been empty since old mrs. veldon died. you see we didn't know you were coming. you've had it whitewashed."
"yes, m'lady. mr. kenny came and whitewashed it. he was very good, better than ever i can repay. he cleaned out the little place for me. the pots and pans turned in well. and he lent me a few things till,—maybe—i could earn a bit, washin' or mendin' or sewin'; i'm a good dressmaker. maybe i could get work that way."
"there hasn't been a dressmaker in the village since the last one went to america. i'll ask the parish priest and the nuns to tell the women you can dressmake. you'll have your hands full."
again susan flushed delicately.
"i'm never so happy as when i've no time for thinkin'," she said. "any work pleases me, but fine work best of all. i can do lovely work tuckin' and veinin'. when i'm at it i'm happy. 'tis like what drink is to some people; it makes me forget."
the lodge was indeed altered from what lady o'gara remembered it, when mrs. veldon lived there. mrs. veldon had been so piteously sure than any washing or whitewashing would kill her with rheumatism that she had been left to her murky gloom. now, with a few gaily coloured pictures of the saints and irish patriots on the walls, the dresser filled with bright crockery, including a whole shelf of lustre jugs, the pots and pans set out to advantage, to say nothing of the cans, a clean scrubbed table, a few chairs, a strip of matting in front of the fireplace, flowers in a jug on the table which also bore susan's few implements of sewing and a pile of white stuff, the place was homelike and pretty.
lady o'gara decided that susan was one of the women who have the gift of creating a home wherever they may be. so much the worse, she added in her own mind, not particularizing what it was that was so much the worse. round susan, standing meekly by the table while her ladyship sat, floated the mysterious aura which draws men and children as to a warm hearth-fire.
so much the worse, thought lady o'gara, and commented to herself that patsy must have stripped his own house bare. those jugs were his, the gay crockery, and the pictures of the saints and patriots—she wondered what appeal these might have for susan—and that shelf of books in the corner. patsy had a taste, laughed at by his fellows, for book-buying, whenever the occasion arose. he was well-known at auctions round about the country, where he bought miscellaneous lots of books, with some few ornaments as well. she could see the backs of two books patsy had a great admiration for, "fardarougha the miser" and "charles o'malley"; and, on the chimney-piece, there were two large pink shells and a weather house which she had often seen on patsy's chimney-piece. the more solid pieces of furniture and some of the plain crockery had been sent down from castle talbot.
"i see patsy's been lending you his treasures," she said.
"yes, indeed, m'lady. i asked him not to, but he wouldn't take any notice of me. he said he'd no use for the things. he's stripped himself bare, m'lady. i didn't know men were like that. small wonder the dumb beasts love him. i wonder he has anything left to give."
she spoke with such fervour that lady o'gara was touched.
"you've had a sad experience of men, my poor susan," she said. "but you are quite right about patsy. there are few men as gentle as he is. we all look on patsy as a dear and valued friend. i must find him some other things to keep him from missing these. not books—i know his house is piled with books. he won't miss those, though he has given you the ones he like best. i wonder whether i could find pictures like those. i think i have seen that robert emmet, or something like it, in a shop-window in galway."
"i don't know who the gentlemen are," susan said, looking from one patriot to another, "and i didn't want to have them taken from his walls. i expect they've left a mark on the wall-paper where they were taken down, for he said he'd got to do some papering for himself."
it was on lady o'gara's tongue to utter a gentle warning that patsy must not be too much about the south lodge, but the warning remained unspoken.
"he's the best man i ever knew," said susan, "i didn't know there was his like in the world. it's a strange thing, m'lady, that men can be so different. listen, m'lady,—if baker was to come back—you wouldn't let him claim me? the master wouldn't let him claim me? i'd drown myself and the child before we'd go back to him. he did knock us about something cruel. and my georgie, so gentle that he'd move a heart of stone. i frightened baker from laying a hand on georgie; i told him i'd kill him if i was to be hanged for it."
the woman's eyes, no longer gentle, blazed at lady o'gara.
"hush! hush!" she said. "he shall not trouble you. if he should come back…"
"he's found us out no matter where we've been. even good christians got tired at last of baker comin' and askin' for his wife and son and makin' a row and the police fetched, and it gettin' in the papers. they give us up. oh, lord, if they knew what they was givin' us up to! they'd better have shot us."
"if he comes back he will be prosecuted for deserting you. we shall not give you up to him. you may be sure of that. here is my hand on it."
she held out a firm white hand which showed a couple of beautiful rings. susan looked at it for a moment in amazement before she took it. the colour flooded back into her face. her eyes became quieter. then she took the hand and kissed it, hard.
"thank you, m'lady," she said. "i trust you."
lady o'gara walked to the door and paused to ask for news of georgie, who was already at school. he was doing very well. it was so easy for him to reach the school by this gate, and he was beginning to get on well with the boys; and mr. mcgroarty, mr. o'connell's successor, gave a very favourable report of him.
"we feel so safe inside the big wall, me and georgie," said susan horridge. "it isn't likely he'd come on us from the park." she looked a little apprehensively over the beautiful prospect of trees in their early summer beauty, and the shining greensward; with the hills beyond. through an opening in the trees there was a glimpse of a deer feeding.
"no one here associates you with that man. patsy and i have taken care of that," lady o'gara assured her. "if he came back looking for you no one could tell him where you were. would you like a dog for company? there is a litter of puppies of shot's breed in the stable-yard. you shall have one, if you like it."
"is it like it?" asked susan, her face lighting up,—"i should be very pleased to have it. so would georgie. that boy's fair gone on animals."
"those dogs make very good watch-dogs, though they are so gentle. you should see how shot keeps walking before and behind me if he thinks he sees a suspicious character when we are out walking! i shall send down a puppy, then."
susan horridge stood in her doorway shading her eyes with her hand, as she looked after lady o'gara. there were tears in her eyes. "the lord didn't forget us," she said to herself.
"i shall have to speak to patsy," lady o'gara was thinking as she hurried along. she was a little late for lunch. "poor patsy! it would be a thousand pities if his heart should open to that poor creature for the first time."
