Love of Brothers Part 26

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 b.u.t.ter. 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 un.o.btrusive. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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?

CHAPTER XX

SIR SHAWN HAS A VISITOR

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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d covers His restless earth that she may sleep. As she went up the hill she thought uneasily of the tramp who had pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s, 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 coa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sing wonder about Shawn's having known that Susan's husband was gone to America--she had not a.s.sociated 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 pa.s.s 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."

"G.o.d 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.