Love of Brothers Part 17

"Then we fell out over the cat and dog," he said. "Eileen was rather rude. Perhaps I was a little rough with Cleopatra, but she had scratched Shot's nose. You know what Shot is! It was an entirely unprovoked attack. I believe I did say that Cleopatra should be sent to the Cats' Home."

Eileen appeared at this point, coming with an unwilling air. It was true that her staying within-doors so much had not improved her looks.

She had not a very good circulation at any time. That, or her mood, had given her rose and white a dull, leaden look. Her discontented little face was lifted towards the dappled sky. It was really a beautiful day of Autumn. There was a little wind, and the last yellow leaves on the branches tinkled like so many small golden cymbals. A pale gold sun was going low amid oceans of amber touched with rose, and above dappled clouds were floating as though the day was February.

"It is so cold," said Eileen, and shivered. "I don't see how Margaret can get on without fitting me. She had made up such a nice fire in my room. I cannot see why any one wants to go out in such weather."

"Oh, come along, you little grumbler!" Lady O'Gara said with her infectious gaiety. "Come for a good trot. I know what will happen to you: you'll get chilblains if you sit by the fire in cold weather.

Your hands will be dreadful to look at, and your feet will be a torture."

Eileen looked down at her feet and then at her hands, childishly. She had very pretty feet and hands.

"They are all right so far," she said.

"You and Terry had better race each other to the bridge," Lady O'Gara said. "I want to see the colour in your face, child."

"Come along," said Terry, and caught at Eileen's hand.

Half-unwillingly she ran with him, but when Lady O'Gara caught up with them, Eileen was laughing and panting.

"This wretched son of yours," she said, "has run me off my feet."

"And you look the better for it," Lady O'Gara answered, her brown eyes merry and her cheeks dimpling like a girl's. "We are going for Stella, to bring her back to tea. She has not been near us for some days."

"Oh!" Eileen had gone back to the chilly voice. "She doesn't want to come. She finds us rather dull, I think."

Lady O'Gara laughed.

"I don't believe any one could find us dull," she said merrily, "least of all Stella."

"Oh well, I suppose I'm not telling the truth," Eileen said huffily.

"All I know is she asked me the last time I saw her if Terry ever brought any of his brother-officers home with him."

Terry's candid face clouded over ever so slightly; while his mother remarked that, of course, three was an awkward number for games. They wanted another man. She believed she had been talking about it.

"You might ask Major Evelyn," she said to Terry. "It is still possible to have golf when there is fine weather."

"I wonder if he would come?" Terry said ingenuously. "Think of a second-lieutenant like me asking a swell like Evelyn! Why, his decorations make a perfect breastplate when he chooses to put them on.

Not that it is a matter of choice. He only does it when he can't help it. He did so splendidly in South Africa."

"I dare say he'd condescend to come," Lady O'Gara said. "Few sportsmen can resist the Castle Talbot duck-shooting."

"Do ask him," said Eileen, becoming animated. "Two's company, three's none. Everything is lop-sided without a second man."

"I'll ask him, of course," Terry said. "But I don't suppose he'll come. It is like a kid in the Lower School asking a prefect to tea.

He may come--for the grub. On the other hand he may give the kid a kicking for his impudence."

After all, they had not to go as far as Inch. They met Stella exercising her dogs about half a mile from her own gates. She would like to come to tea if she might first take the dogs home and leave word as to where she had gone.

To Lady O'Gara's mind she looked small and unhappy as soon as the flush had faded which came when she saw them. She clung to Lady O'Gara, and could not be detached from her. The dogs, surrounding her, made a barrier between her and Terry, who, at first, kept as close to her as he could, leaving Eileen to walk the other side of Lady O'Gara.

But Stella did not seem to have much to say to him. She was too engrossed with the dogs and with his mother to spare him a word. The eager light which had come to his eyes when he had first caught sight of her faded. His candid face was overcast. She had been keeping him at arms-length ever since he had come back.

His mother watched him with a comprehension which was half tender amus.e.m.e.nt, half compa.s.sion. He was becoming a little sullen over Stella's persistent disregard of him. She watched the set boyish mouth, the pucker of his forehead--her baby. Terry had always had that pucker for perplexity or disappointment. Why, he had had it when the first down was on his baby head, as soft as a duckling's.

The road grew narrow. He began to lag behind, to veer towards Eileen.

"Is it worth while for us all to go on to Inch?" he asked in his discontented young voice. "Supposing Eileen and I go on by the river, while you and Stella take back the dogs! They wouldn't follow me or I'd offer to go home with them. It must be nearly a mile to the house from the gate."

"I've a better way than that," Lady O'Gara said on a sudden impulse.

She had taken Stella's cold little hand in hers, and it made a mute appeal. She was sure Stella was unhappy, poor little motherless child.

The two poor children, fretting and worrying each other about nothing at all! Her comprehending, merry, pitiful gaze went from one to the other young face.

"Suppose Eileen and I walk back. You'll overtake us before we get home. You two are such quick walkers."

Eileen's lips opened as though to protest. Her face had brightened at Terry's suggestion. She closed them again in a tight snap.

"I never _can_ see the good of walking about wet roads," she said crossly. "It must be nice to live in a town, where there are dry pavements, and people, and shops."

A robin rained out his little song from a bough above her head, and behind the trees the sky broke up into magnificence--the sun looking from under a great dun cloud suffused with his rays, while all below him was a cool greenish bluish wash of sky, tender and delicate.

"You would not find that in a city, Eileen," Lady O'Gara said, pushing away gently Stella's cold little hand that seemed to cling to hers.

"Make her trot, Terry," she said. "Her hands are cold as little frogs, like the child's hands in Herrick's 'Grace for a Child.'

"Cold as paddocks though they be, Still I lift them up to thee For a benison to fall On our meat and on us all."

She saw the sudden rush of joy to her son's face and she was a little lonely. She felt that she was no longer first with Terry.

CHAPTER XIII

THE OLD LOVE

Sir Shawn was still out when they got back, after a brisk walk. The laggard young people made no appearance for tea, though they waited a while. Eileen grumbled discontentedly over everything being cold and suggested a carelessness in Stella about other people's convenience.

The tea-cakes had been kept warm over a spirit-lamp, but she was in a captious mood. Lady O'Gara wondered at the girl, who had sometimes been embarra.s.singly effusive in the display of her affection. Had she spoilt Eileen? or was the girl feeling sore and a little out of it?

The suggestion that Eileen might be feeling Terry's desertion of her was enough to soften his mother's heart towards the captious girl, who as soon as she had finished her tea,--and a very good tea she made--went off to see how Margaret McKeon was progressing with her skirt.

At the door she turned about.

"Do you think I might have a new evening frock, Cousin Mary?" she asked. "My pink has gone out of fashion. There are such beautiful blues in some patterns I have got from Liberty's: I could make it myself, with Margaret's help. It would only need a little lace to trim it, or some of that pearl tr.i.m.m.i.n.g Liberty's use so much."

"Certainly, my dear child. Let me know what it will cost. I have a piece of Carrickmacross lace somewhere which would make a fichu. You must remind me, Eileen. We live so quietly here that I do not remember how the fashions change."

"I've hardly noticed, either," said Eileen, with a hand on the door handle. "The pink does very well for home-wear. But if Terry is going to have friends, I should want something a little smarter."

Lady O'Gara smiled. So Eileen was interested in the coming of Major Evelyn! And she had made so good a tea that any one less ethereal-looking than Eileen might have been considered greedy! She had left very little of the abundant tea to be removed.