she was grateful to the exigencies of the service which made it absolutely necessary for terry to be back in barracks next day. he had gone off after breakfast with major evelyn and mr. earnshaw, forbidding her to come to see him off. sir shawn, who was high sheriff for the year and had to be in the county town for the opening of the assizes, took the party to the station on his way. she was left with the morning on her hands.
how to use it? oh, she had been impatient for them to be gone! the hope which had seemed so frail in the night had strengthened and failed, strengthened and failed many times since. this morning it was strong within her. it was founded on so little. terry had called terence comerford hard names last night. a villain. she did not think terence was a villain. he had been a kindly, affectionate fellow, very quick to be angry about a cruelty to any helpless thing. a good heart: oh, yes, terence had had a good heart: but, even to her had come the dreary knowledge that good-hearted people can be very cruel in their sins.
she had looked at it from many points of view. supposing terence had meant to marry the girl and been prevented by his sudden death! something came into her mind, dreary and terrible. "the way to hell is paved with good intentions." poor terence, who had laid this coil for their feet, tangling their lives and happiness in the meshes of his passion, had he been paving hell, just paving hell, with good intentions never to be realized?
early as they had started she had found time to speak to her husband about the possibility of there having been a marriage. he had found her beside his bed full-dressed when he opened his eyes on the grey morning.
"shawn," she had said, "could terence have married bridyeen sweeney?"
the maze of sleep was still in his eyes. for a moment he stared at her as though she had given him a new idea. then he turned away fretfully.
"no," he said, "no. put that out of your head. if it was so would he have let me go on suffering as i did? it was the whiskey was at the root of the trouble. he would never have spoken to me as he did if it had not been for the whiskey."
she passed over the irrelevancy. shawn was not yet all awake.
"would he have righted her if he had lived, do you think, shawn?"
"my god, mary, how can i tell? why do you torture me with such senseless questions? you know how that old tragedy has power to upset me.
"i'm sorry, shawn," she said humbly. "it was for the boy's sake."
she left him, his face turned to the wall, her heart heavy because the hope had failed. but a little later she had the house to herself, and the hope came back again and asked the insistent question.
she was going to see mrs. wade for herself and discover if there was hope for terry and stella. common sense whispered at her ear, that it was not likely mrs. wade would choose to be mrs. wade all those years if she might have been mrs. terence comerford, living at inch, honoured and with the love of her child. she would not listen to that chilling whisper. she had known many strange things in life, quite contrary to common sense. it would not be common sense now for terry to want to marry a girl born out of wedlock. it would not be common sense that the girl should be kept in ignorance of the stain on her birth. but these things happened.—a wryness came to mary o'gara's sweet mouth with the thought that if terry married stella his children would be born of a nameless mother. so the world was so strong in her! scornfully in her own mind she defied the world.
she took a roundabout way to waterfall cottage, because she did not want the slight interruption of speaking to susan horridge if she went out by the south lodge, the nearest way. by a détour through her own park she entered o'hart property, which had been in chancery since she remembered it, the house going to rack and ruin. her way led her round by the mount in which was the tomb of old hercules.
the earth was warmly beautiful, covered with the rust-coloured autumn leaves.
under the trees overlooking the river there were many strangely coloured fungi pushing in rows and ranks from the damp earth on which the foot slid, for it was covered thickly by a moss that exuded slimy stuff when trodden upon as though it was seaweed.
she was just by the vault where the admiral's coffin stood on its shelf, plain to be seen by any one who had the temerity to peep through the barred grating in the iron door. suddenly a little figure dipped in front of her and she recognized miss brennan, who had once been a lady's maid to a mrs. o'hart and had survived the provision made for her before the o'harts were off the face of the earth. she had come to live in one of the dilapidated lodges on the place, with very little between her and starvation beyond the old-age pension, supplemented by contributions from charity. the old woman was nearer ninety than eighty, but was still lively and intelligent, despite her eccentricity. the big apron she was wearing was full of sticks and she had a bundle in her arms as well.
"good morning, my lady," she said, with her little dip. she always prided herself on her superior manners and her traditions, and the neighbours good-naturedly acknowledged her pretensions by addressing her always as miss brennan.
"good morning, lizzie," returned lady o'gara, who was one of the privileged ones to call the old woman by her name. "how are you keeping? it is very rheumatic weather, i'm afraid."
"i'm as well as can be since your ladyship gave me the beautiful boarded floor to my little place, may the lord reward you! squealin' and scurryin' i do hear the rats under the floor, but i'm not afraid now that they'll bite my nose off when i fall asleep."
"i wish i could make it more comfortable for you. lizzie. i'll see that you get a couple of cribs of turf. your lodge is damp under the trees."
"thank your ladyship," said the old woman with another dip. "i'm wonderful souple in my limbs, considerin' everythin'; for the same house would give a snipe a cowld. the blankets are a great comfort. they're as warm as injia."
"oh, i'm glad of that."
she was about to go on her way when miss brennan jerked her thumb backward in the direction of waterfall cottage.
"she's gone," she said.
"who is gone?"
"mrs. wade, she calls herself. i knew as soon as ever i laid eyes on her she was little bride sweeney, old judy dowd's granddaughter. she kep' out of the way o' the people that might ha' known her. she stopped to spake to me one day i was pickin' sticks an' brought me in an' made me a lovely cup o' tay. she thought i was too old to remember. the little lady that's at inch now would be her little girl. i've seen them together when they didn't know any wan was lookin'. them beautiful pink curtains don't meet well. i've seen little missie on a footstool before the fire an' the mother adorin' her."
lady o'gara was overwhelmed. what had been happening during the days—there were not twenty of them—since she had first taken stella to see mrs. wade.
"when little missie wasn't there bridyeen would be huggin' the dog the same as if he was a babby. some people make too much o' dogs. i kep' my old shep tied up till he died. he was wicked and i wasn't afraid o' tinkers with him about. i saw her once when she didn't think any wan was peepin' in. she was cryin' on the dog's head an' him standin' patient, lickin' her now and again with his tongue. i never could bear the lick of a dog."
lizzie looked at lady o'gara with the most cunning eyes. apparently she expected contradiction, but she met with none. lady o'gara was in fact too dumbfounded to answer.
"many's the time i took notice of bridyeen," the old woman went on. "she was well brought up. she respected ould people. when she wint away out of the place i said nothin', whatever i guessed. i said nothin' all those years. it was to me she kem when mr. terence comerford was kilt. 'tisn't likely i wouldn't know her when i seen her agin. what's twinty years when you're my age? she didn't say i'd made a mistake when i called her bridyeen. she's gone now, an' i'll miss her. 'tis a lonesome road without a friend on it, for i'm too ould to take to an englishwoman, though yon's a quiet crathur at the lodge."
lady o'gara was recovering her power of speech. still she did not feel able to contradict this terrible old woman of the bright piercing eyes, with whom it seemed useless to have any subterfuges.
"you don't be afeard i'll tell, me lady. i keep meself to meself, away from the commonality round about here. she needn't have gone for me. i'd have held my tongue. 'twasn't likely i'd want to set tongues clackin' about her that was good to me. as i sez to the little lady…."
terror seized upon lady o'gara. what had the old woman said to stella?
"you didn't tell the young lady anything?" she said, very gently, remembering not to frighten the frail old creature before her.
"not me. i said no more than 'your mamma's left.'" she looked with a peering anxiety into lady o'gara's face, as though she had just begun to doubt her own wisdom. "i didn't do any harm sayin' them words, did i? didn't i know they was that to each other, seein' them through the chink in the curtain lovin' an' kissin'?"
was it possible that stella knew? anyhow it was no use frightening old
lizzie.
"no, no," lady o'gara said. "you did nothing wrong. only remember, i depend on you for silence. the people are so fond of gossip about here like all country-people."
"i let them go their own ways an' i go mine," miss brennan said, and looked down at the sticks which she had dropped. "i don't know who's goin' to pick them up," she said plaintively. "i've picked them up wance an' me ould knees are goin' under me. i don't consider i could do it twicet."
"i'll pick them up and carry them for you," lady o'gara said. "it is not far to your lodge. indeed you ought not to be picking up sticks or carrying them. i'll speak to patsy kenny. he'll see that some dry wood is sent down to you, as much as you want. you have only to ask for it to have it any time. that is, if i forget."
"thank your ladyship kindly," miss brennan said with one of the dips which perhaps kept her limbs "souple" as she said. "i'll be glad o' the dry sticks. the green do be makin' me cry. all the same i like to pick up sticks. isn't it what the lord sends us, what matter if they're green itself. 'tis the chancey things i love havin'—the musharoons and the blackberries,—straight from god, i call them. but i couldn't let your ladyship carry sticks for the like o' me. i hope i know me place better. if your ladyship was to give me a hoosh up wid them? my back's not too bent if only they was to be tied in a bundle."
she performed a series of little dips which would have made lady o'gara smile at another time.
"the sticks are very light," she said. "supposing we share the burden? then we can talk as we go along. i suppose there never will be any news of mr. florence o'hart, who went to australia and was lost sight of?"
it was enough for miss brennan, who forgot even to protest when lady o'gara took the big bundle of sticks and gave her a few light ones to carry. she could always be set off chattering on the topic of the o'hart who might have survived the family debacle and might come home one day to restore the fallen splendours of the place. lady o'gara walked as far as the lodge with the old woman, and laid the sticks away in the corner by the fireplace. it was a very short distance, though it counted as long to miss brennan.
as she went back along the road, the old woman, watching her disappear through the arch of orange and scarlet and pale fluttering gold, for the trees were not yet bare, talked to herself.
"there she goes!" she said, "an' she's proud to the proud an' humble to the humble. 'tis the great day for you, lizzie brennan, to have the likes o' lady o'gara carryin' home your bits o' sticks. i hope i wasn't wrong sayin' what i did to the little lady. it seemed to get on her mind, for she wasn't listenin' to what i was sayin' for all she kep' her head towards me. still an' all little missie couldn't be without knowin' the light in a mother's eyes whin she seen it."
