There was "a blast of talk" even about trifles among the country-people, from whom Patsy kept his distance with an abhorrence1 of gossip and curiosity about other people's business. Many a one had tried to pump Patsy,—the people had an inordinate2 curiosity about their "betters"—and of late tongues had been very busy with the return of Mrs. Comerford and the reconciliation3 with Lady O'Gara: also with Miss Stella and her parentage. Those who tried to pump Patsy Kenny about these matters embarked4, and they knew it, on perilous5 seas. Patsy's stiff face as he repelled6 the gossips was a sight to see. He had also to keep at bay many questions about Susan Horridge and her boy, in doing which he showed some asperity7 and thereby8 gave a handle to the gossips.
"I should have thought the cottage by the waterfall a damp place," said Sir Shawn, indifferently. He was not much interested in the petty happenings of the neighbourhood.
"She won't stay," Patsy went on with a shake of his head. "They'll get at her about ould Hercules. A lone9 woman like that will be scared out of her life. I saw her in Dunphy's shop buyin' her little bits of food. She's not the common sort. She was all in black, with a veil about her face. She'll have no truck with them long-tongued people about here."
"Oh, a superior class?" said Sir Shawn, now faintly interested. The Waterfall Cottage was his property. He supposed Norman, who lived in the town and did his legal business, had let it.
"Not to say a lady," said Patsy, "but nigh hand one. She have the little place rale snug11 and comfortable. She'll keep herself to herself. There's two lone women in it now, herself and Mrs. Horridge. Mrs. Horridge do be drawin' the water from the well behind the Waterfall Cottage, and this Mrs. Wade12 kem out an' spoke13 to her. She took great notice of Georgie. The schoolmaster's well contint with Georgie. He takes to the Irish like a duck to water. The master do be sayin' he's better at the language nor them that should be spakin' it be rights. He'll have him doin' a trifle o' poetry in it by the Christmas holidays."
"Oh! So the two lonesome women have made friends with each other. Between them they'll be a match for Hercules' ghost," Sir Shawn said, faintly smiling.
By this time Terry had joined his regiment14, and Eileen had gone for a time to her parents. She usually went home rather unwillingly16, complaining of the discomfort17 of the tightly packed house. Apparently18 she did not add to the joy of her family during those periodic visits and she made no pretence19 of eagerness about going. But this time, for some reason, she was quite pleased to go. She even set about refurbishing her wardrobe, and was not above accepting help from Stella, who was very quick with her needle and possessed20 a Frenchwoman's art in making excellent use of what materials came her way. These preparations somewhat mystified Lady O'Gara, for usually Eileen took only her less reputable garments when she went home, because she had to live in her trunk, or share a wardrobe with two sisters, who would hang their roughest garments over her evening frocks if she were to bring them.
Lady O'Gara sometimes wondered if she had chosen wisely in selecting Eileen from Anthony Creagh's quiverful to be her companion during the years Terry was at school and college. The others had been tumbling over each other like frolicsome21 young puppies when the choice was made; Eileen had been sitting placidly22 eating bread and honey. She remembered that Anne Creagh had said that Eileen would always get the best of things! To Lady O'Gara's eyes, the demure23 little girl, with a golden plait hanging down each side of her face, and the large blue eyes, had looked like a little Blessed Mary in the Temple of Albrecht Dürer.
Perhaps she had not chosen. Perhaps Eileen had chosen her, when she said to Anne Creagh, "Dear Anne, you have so many girls. Lend me one for company. I shall be very good to her and shall only keep her during your pleasure."
Eileen had heard the speech, and had seized on Lady O'Gara, not to be detached. When it had come to longer and longer visits, so that Eileen was oftener at Castle Talbot than at home, Anne Creagh had said, "Ah, well, Eileen knows what is good for her. The others don't. They've no worldly wisdom. There is Hilary, who runs away from every school we send him to. They are all like Hilary, except Eileen. She's a changeling."
With Terry gone, Eileen had put off her sulkiness. Lady O'Gara came on the two girls one day at work on a pink billowy stuff, which was evidently going to be an evening-frock. At least Stella was at work, and Eileen was looking on. Eileen usually commandeered some one to her service when any sewing was to be done. She had confessed that she could not endure to have her forefinger24 pricked25 by the needle.
"You are going to be very smart, Eileen," Lady O'Gara said. "This looks like gaieties at Inver."
"There may be some," answered Eileen, colouring slightly. "There are some soldiers under canvas at Inver Hill."
Lady O'Gara referred to Eileen's preparations a little later in talking with her husband. Sir Shawn had got a bee in his bonnet26 about Terry and Eileen. For the first time during all their years of love he had been irritable27 with his wife about Terry—Terry, who had given them so little trouble in his twenty years of life.
"I am glad she has the spirit," he said. "A pretty girl like Eileen need not go wasting her charms on a young ass10 who doesn't know his own mind."
"Oh, Shawn! Poor Terry!"
"Terry has been playing fast and loose with Eileen."
"He would not like to hear you say so," Lady O'Gara said, with a proud and wounded air.
"There you go, Mary, getting your back up! Your one son can do no wrong. Do you deny that he was philandering28 after Eileen before Stella came, and that he has been philandering after Stella since?"
"Do you know, Shawn," Lady O'Gara said, with sudden energy, "that, fond as I am of Eileen, I think she has not the stuff in her to hold a boy like Terry. There is something lethargic29 in her. I'm afraid she is a little selfish. She can be very sweet when she likes, but I think at heart she is cold."
"This is a late discovery, Mary."
Lady O'Gara laughed, a little ruefully.
"I think it is a very old discovery," she said. "Anne said to me once—she never pretended that she loved Eileen as well as some of the others—that Eileen had a way of looking at her when she was in high spirits or something of the sort that was like a douche of cold water. I have had the lame30 experience myself. Eileen said something the other day about 'at your age.' I felt ninety, all of a sudden."
"Nonsense, Mary! Eileen adores you."
Lady O'Gara said no more. She let pass, with a shrug31 of her shoulders, her husband's accusation32 that she was fickle33 like Terry, putting away the old love for the new.
Suddenly Sir Shawn asked a direct question.
"Are you quite certain about Stella's parentage, Mary? She is the child of that French soldier, St. Maur, was it? and the Irish governess?"
"Of course, Shawn."
It had never occurred to Lady O'Gara to doubt it.
She looked at her husband with wondering eyes. The lights in her brown eyes were as deep and quiet now as when she was in her young beauty. She had a sudden illumination. Was that the bee in Shawn's bonnet? There had been a certain silence about Stella's parentage. She thought she understood it. Mrs. Comerford had always been jealous of her loves. She did not wish it recalled that Stella, whom she adored, had not belonged to her by any tie of blood. Shawn must have got it into his head that the mystery might cover something disgraceful.
"You may be quite sure, Shawn," she said, her candid34 eyes fixed35 on him:
"There was nothing to conceal36. Aunt Grace has told me everything."
His face cleared. "Then I confess," he said almost gaily37, "that Stella is a young angel. Perhaps I was too hard on Terry."
The evenings began to draw in. Sir Shawn missed his boy. The hunting season was at hand. The opening meet was to be at Dunmara Cross-Roads in a fortnight's time. Lady O'Gara went out perhaps once a week. The other days Sir Shawn would miss Terry jogging along beside him, on the way to the meet in the morning, full of cheerful anticipation38; riding homewards, tired and happy, in the dusk. Stella had never ridden to hounds. She had done little riding, indeed, since the days at the advanced Roman Convent when the girls went out on the Campagna in a flock, in charge of a discreet39 riding master, of unimpeachable40 age and plainness.
He was thinking as he rode home one evening, with the dusk closing in, that it would be pleasant to have Stella with him when Mary was not available. It was one tangible41 thing against Eileen that she did not like horses. Anthony Creagh's daughter! It seemed incredible to Sir Shawn, as it did to Patsy Kenny, that any one should not like horses.
There was a little mare42 not quite up to racing43 standard which he thought would just do for Stella. Indeed, though he did not know it, Patsy Kenny had put the idea into his head.
"That wan44 'ud carry a lady in less than no time," Patsy had said, "A lady about the size of Miss Stella. She'd take the ditches like a bird."
But Patsy was always talking in his slow way, and Sir Shawn was not always listening to him, or he seemed not to listen. He had a way of forgetting his surroundings and travelling off to a distance where even she who loved him best could not follow. But sometimes he heard when he did not seem to hear and was unconscious of having heard. He was going to ride Mustapha this Winter as soon, he said with his slow smile, as Patsy Kenny would permit it. Mustapha, although a beautiful creature to look at, had not yet been "whispered" by Patsy. He had still an uncommonly45 nasty temper, and indeed most of the tricks a horse could possess. Sir Shawn thought some hard work would improve Mustapha's temper, but Patsy remained oddly unwilling15. "Give me a week or two longer to get over him," he would say when Sir Shawn proposed to ride Mustapha.
He had lunched one day with Sir James Dillon, fourteen miles off, and had waited for tea, and on the way home his horse had lost a shoe. He hoped Mary would not be anxious. He had said he would be home by five, and had meant it; but Lady Dillon, who was, her friends said, the wittiest46 woman in Ireland, had so beguiled47 the time in the billiard-room after lunch that he had not noticed it passing. And, since he was not the man to ride a horse who had lost a shoe, he had walked the last six Irish miles of the road.
Very seldom did he take the road on which Terence Comerford had been killed, more than twenty years back. One could avoid it by a détour, so he had only taken it when necessity called for the short road, and he had always found it an ordeal48. But he was not going to put an extra mile on to the tired horse because of his own feelings.
He had come near the dreaded49 spot where Terence Comerford had been flung on to the convenient heap of shingle50. Already he could hear the roar of the water where it tumbled over the weir51 like long green hair. Above it on either side the banks of the river rose steeply. On the side nearest to him was the Mount, in the heart of which Admiral Hercules O'Hart had chosen to be buried. It was covered thickly with trees. In Spring it was beautiful with primroses53 which showed not a leaf between, a primrose52 sea which seemed in places as though a wave had run forward into the lower slopes of green grass and retreated leaving a foam54 of primroses behind.
The horse pulled up sharply at the sound of the waterfall and stood quivering in the darkness. There was a glimmer55 of light overhead, but because of the thick trees this road was very dark.
"It is only the water falling over the weir, you foolish thing!" he said, caressing56 the long brown nose of the little horse.
The horse answered with a whinny and, talking to him to distract his attention, Sir Shawn got him along. Perhaps the horse knew that his master's heart was cold. It was a well-nigh unendurable pain to Sir Shawn to pass the place where the friend of his youth and boyhood had been killed.
Suddenly the horse jibbed again. A long ray of light had streamed out on to the darkness of the road. At first Sir Shawn thought it was a hooded57 lantern. Few came this road, unless it might be a stranger who did not know the countryside traditions. But the light was steady; it did not move as a lantern carried in the hand would have done.
It flashed upon him what it was. The woman in the Waterfall Cottage must have lit her lamp, forgetting to shutter58 her window which looked upon the road. The cottage turned a gable to the road, from which a paling divided it. Otherwise the little place was hidden away behind a wall, approached by a short avenue from a gate some distance away. A pretty place, with a garden that looked on to the fields, but very lonely for one woman, and too near the water.
The light remained steady. As though it gave him confidence, the horse went on quietly, feeling his master's hand upon him. Just opposite the gable of the cottage a wall of loose stones led into the O'Hart park. The house had been long derelict and was going to be pulled down, now that the Congested Board, as the people called it, had acquired the O'Hart property.
Any one who wanted to go that way knocked down a stone from the wall.
There was a little cairn there always, though the employees of the
Board were constantly putting back the stones.
The light from the cottage fell full on the cairn. Sir Shawn's eyes rested on it and were quickly averted59. There the heap of stones for mending the road had lain that night long ago when Spitfire, had run away with Terence Comerford and thrown him. There had been blood on the stones—blood and … and … brains. Horrible!
Sir Shawn had come level now with the long ray of light. At the edge of it he paused. He could see plainly the interior of the room. The unshaded lamp threw its bright light into every corner of the room. It was comfortable and homelike. The furniture had belonged to the previous tenant60 of the cottage and had been taken over by the estate. It was good, old-fashioned furniture of a certain dignity. The grandfather clock by the wall, the tall mahogany bookcase, the sofa and chairs covered in red damask, were all good. There was a round convex mirror above the fireplace and some pictures on the wall. The fire burned brightly, toning down somewhat the hard unshaded lamplight.
A woman was sitting by the fire. She was in black with a white collar and cuffs61. Her hair was braided about her head. She sat with her cheek resting in her hand, a pensive62 figure.
As though she knew she was being watched she started, turning her face sharply towards the window. Evidently she had forgotten to pull down the blind. As she turned, her face was in the full lamplight.
"My God!" Sir Shawn said to himself. "My God!"
He stood for a few seconds as though in pain, leaning against the horse's side, before he went on. When he lifted his head darkness had come again. The window had been shuttered.
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1
abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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asperity
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| n.粗鲁，艰苦 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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14
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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15
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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frolicsome
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| adj.嬉戏的，闹着玩的 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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philandering
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| v.调戏，玩弄女性( philander的现在分词 ) | |
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lethargic
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| adj.昏睡的，懒洋洋的 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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unimpeachable
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| adj.无可指责的；adv.无可怀疑地 | |
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41
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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42
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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43
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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44
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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45
uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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46
wittiest
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| 机智的，言辞巧妙的，情趣横生的( witty的最高级 ) | |
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47
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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48
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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49
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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50
shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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51
weir
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| n.堰堤，拦河坝 | |
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52
primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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53
primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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54
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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55
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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56
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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57
hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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58
shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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59
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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61
cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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