Love of Brothers Part 28

Reading this brief epistle Mary O'Gara had said to herself that it was lucky there was distance enough between Inch and Castle Talbot; also that though _she_ considered herself a truthful woman there was nothing she would not say in order to shield Stella from gossiping tongues.

She was bitterly angry with Grace Comerford for the cruel and evil temper which had done so much hurt to an innocent thing.

"Does she think," she asked herself hotly, "that so easily Stella will forget her cruelty? I do not believe the child will ever go back to her."

She had written to Mary Benedicta about the case, giving her a cautious account of poor Stella's plight, abstaining from mentioning Terence Comerford's part in the story. She could have told that: she could not write it. Mary Benedicta would think that Stella's trouble came from the fict.i.tious French father. There was little or no communication between the nun and Mrs. Comerford, who had quarrelled with her over her choice of a conventual life long ago.

Mary Benedicta had answered the letter with another full of the milk and honey of a compa.s.sionate tenderness.

The best solution of the problem Lady O'Gara could find was that Stella should go for a time at least to the Convent. Terry had not written.

Terry would have his say in the matter presently. He had gone off chilled for the time by Stella's disinclination towards him: but he would come back. If he only knew Stella's plight at this moment he would surely break all the barriers to get back to her.

Poor Stella's plight was indeed a sad one. Susan Horridge, watching her like a faithful dog, reported that she ate little, that she walked up and down her room at night when she ought to have been sleeping, that she started when spoken to, that she spent long hours staring before her piteously, doing nothing.

"If Mrs. Wade don't come back soon the young lady will either go after her or she'll have a breakdown," Susan said.

Sometimes Lady O'Gara wondered how much Susan knew or suspected, but there was in her manner an entire absence of curiosity, of a sense that anything out of the way was happening, that was invaluable in a crisis like this. Lady O'Gara thought more highly of Susan every day. The weather had turned very wet, but Waterfall Cottage glowed with brightness and roaring fires of turf and wood. The rain and darkness were shut out. Stella could not have been in better hands.

About the fifth day came a hunting morning. The meet was fixed for a distant part of the country. Lady O'Gara got up in the dark of the morning to superintend her husband's cup of tea, to see that his flask was filled and his sandwiches to his liking.

"I wish you had been coming out too, Mary," he said wistfully as he stood on the steps drawing on his gloves. "You are growing lazy, old lady."

"I'll come out with you on Sat.u.r.day," she said, and patted his shoulder.

Patsy was late in bringing round Black Prince, the beautiful spirited horse which was Sir Shawn's favourite hunter that season. It was unlike Patsy to be late. The first grey dawn was coming lividly over the sky. Standing in the lamplit hall Mary O'Gara looked out and caught the shiver of the little wind which brings the day.

"I'll be late at the Wood of the Hare," Sir Shawn said, fuming a little. "I don't want to press the Prince with a hard day before him."

Still Patsy did not come.

"Good-bye, darling," Sir Shawn said at last. "Go back to bed and have a good sleep before breakfast. I'll see what's up with Patsy."

She had gone upstairs before she heard her husband ride out of the stable yard. So Patsy had been late. Was it possible he had overslept? It would be so unlike Patsy, who, especially of a hunting morning, had always slept the fox's sleep.

She had a long day before her, with many things to do. She ought to write to Terry, but she knew the things Terry expected to hear. There had been a letter from him, asking roundly for news of Stella.

"Why don't you write?" it asked. "Are you going to treat me like a child as Father does? I've made up my mind about Stella. I will marry her, if she will have me; and she shall never know anything from me.

Are you looking after her, keeping her happy? For Heaven's sake don't take Father's view of it! That would be ruin to everything, but I warn you, that if you do, it will not alter me. Tell me what she says, how she looks. Has her colour come back? Does she speak of me? There are a thousand things I want to know."

There had been a postscript to the letter.

"By the way, Evelyn has discovered that the man who got the lakh of rupees,--you remember?--had been rather badly treated by Eileen, or so Evelyn's informant said. It is a she--a cousin of Evelyn's who is married to somebody up there. Evelyn says he will come again to Castle Talbot if you ask him. He says the duck-shooting was splendid--and he congratulated me on you--darling. I did myself proud. Just imagine,--Evelyn!"

She did not know how to answer his letter. It was not in her to put off the boy with a letter which should disappoint him. She imagined him running through it with a blank face, looking for what she had not written. No: she could not write without telling him the truth: and the truth would make the boy miserable. She supposed it would have to be told--presently, but she would wait till then. She was not one to deal in half-truths and subterfuges.

She went forth after breakfast with an intention of seeing Stella, and afterwards going on to old Lizzie Brennan, who required some looking after, in cold weather especially. She had rather mad fits of wandering over the country, from which she would return soaked through with rain, hungry and exhausted. More than once Lady O'Gara had discovered her after these expeditions, choking with bronchitis, in a fireless room, too weak to light a fire or prepare food for herself.

Lady Conyers, a neighbour of Castle Talbot at Mount Esker, had tried to induce Lizzie to go into the workhouse, with many arguments as to the comfort which awaited her there. But Lizzie was about as much inclined for the workhouse as the free bird for the cage, and, rather to Lady Conyers' indignation, Lady O'Gara had abetted the culprit, saying that she would look after her.

There was not much to be done with Stella, who had begun to look sharpened in the face and her eyes very bright. Susan repeated that her charge did not sleep. She had gone in to her half a dozen times during the night and found her wide-eyed on the pillow, staring at the ceiling.

"I never see any one take on so," Susan said. "Seems to me if Missie don't get what she wants she won't be long wantin' anything."

Stella had shown no inclination to get up and Susan had left her in bed.

"Seems like as if gettin' up was more than she could a-bear," said Susan. "I did try to coax her out when the day were sunny, but 'twas no use. That poor old fly-away Miss Brennan came to the door this mornin' with a bunch of leaves and berries. I asked her into my kitchen, and gave her a cup o' cocoa. There, she were grateful, poor soul!"

"You must have the four-leaved shamrock, Susan," Lady O'Gara said.

"Lizzie is so very stand-off with most people."

"So Mr. Kenny was tellin' me. He used your Ladyship's words. I never 'eard of the four-leaved shamrock before. She has a kind heart.

There, I'd never have thought it. She was fair put out over the poor young lady. She talked about a decline in a way that giv me a turn.

But people don't go into a decline sudding like that. It's something on Miss Stella's mind. Take that away and she'll be as bright as bright. So I said to the old person, an' she took a fit o' bobbin' to me, and then she ran off a-talkin' to herself."

Lady O'Gara went up to the pretty bedroom which had been Mrs. Wade's.

It was in the gable and was lit from the roof and by a tiny slit of a window high up in the wall through which one saw the bare boughs across the road, with a few fluttering leaves still on them. A similar window on the other side had a picture of the wet country, the distant woods of Mount Esker, and the sapphire sky just above the sapphire line of hills.

The little windows were open and a soft wet wind blew into the room.

When Lady O'Gara had climbed up the corkscrewy staircase and stepped into the room she was horrified to find the ravages one more day's suspense had wrought in Stella's looks. Her eyes were heavy and there were dark red spots in her cheeks.

"Is that you, Lady O'Gara?" she asked in a low voice, "I've been asleep, and I've only just wakened up. You are very good to come to see me, but now you need not trouble about me any more. I am going away from here. I do not think she will come back. She must have got a long way on her road in these endless seven days of time. I should have followed her at first and not wasted time waiting for her here."

"But, my poor child, where would you have gone?" Lady O'Gara asked, sitting down beside the bed and capturing one of the restless hands.

"I think that old woman, Lizzie Brennan, knows something about where she is. She was here yesterday, and she looked in at me and seemed frightened. 'G.o.d help you, child,' she said. 'Don't you be wearin'

your heart out. She'll come back fast enough as soon as she knows you want her. You see, mavourneen, it's a long time since she was anything but a trouble to people.' I thought she was only talking in her mad way. But since I've wakened up I've been thinking that maybe she knows something."

"Oh, I wouldn't build on it, child. Lizzie often talks nonsense, though she's not as mad as people think."

"I was just going to get up when I heard your foot on the stairs. I feel stronger this morning, and I want to get out-of-doors. The house is stifling me. I have been listening so hard for the sound of her foot or her voice that when I try to listen I can't hear for the thumping of my heart in my ears. I want to be with her. I too am only a trouble to people. She and I will not be a trouble to each other."

Lady O'Gara had a thought.

"If you will get up and dress and eat your breakfast to my satisfaction I shall go with you to Lizzie Brennan's lodge. It is only about half a mile down the road. You have been too much in the house."

She went away downstairs, leaving Stella to get up and dress. There was a dainty little breakfast ready for her when she came down, but she did it little justice. Lady O'Gara had to be content with her trying to eat. She seemed tired even after the slight exertion of dressing, but she was very eager to go to Lizzie Brennan.

"If only I knew I should find my mother I should not be so troublesome to you kind people," she said with a quivering smile, which Lady O'Gara found terribly pathetic.

She said to herself that Grace Comerford must have lacked a good deal in her relation towards Stella to have left the child so hungry for mother-love. Again there was something that puzzled her. Stella seemed to have forgotten everything except the fact of her mother's disappearance. Did she understand the facts of her birth, all that they meant to her and how the world regarded them? Or was it that these things were swallowed up in the girl's pa.s.sion of love and loss?

Stella started out at a great pace, but lagged after a little while, and turned with an apology to Lady O'Gara.

"I feel as though I had had influenza," she said. "I suppose it's being in the house so much and not eating or sleeping well. Oh, I must not get ill, Lady O'Gara; for I cannot stay here unless my mother comes back..."

"I thought you liked us all, Stella," Lady O'Gara said, rather sadly.

"You seemed very happy with us always."