She hastened back along the tree-overhung road, over the dead leaves where the fine silver veining5 of last night's frost was yielding to a sodden6 dampness, to the gate of Waterfall Cottage.
She had half-expected to find it locked, but it was open. There was a thick carpet of dead leaves on the gravel7 sweep. Between the boughs8 sparsely9 clothed with leaves and the slender tree-trunks she caught a glimpse of the bronze and amber10 river running over its stones, or winding11 about the big dripping boulders12 that were in the bed of the stream. A damp, rheumatic place, she said to herself, although she loved the river; and its backwaters, full of wild duck and dabchick and the moorhens, were enchanting13 places.
The grounds which she remembered as neglected and overgrown had become orderly. The little beds cut in the turf were neat in their Winter bareness, despite a few dead leaves which had fluttered on to them. Her eyes fell on a pair of gardening gloves and a trowel lying on the grass by one of the beds. From the open mouth of a brown paper bag a bulb had partly rolled before it became stationary14. There was a hole dug in the turf. Some one had been planting bulbs and had gone away leaving the task unfinished.
From the house-wall hung a branch of clematis torn down by the rough wind. A ladder stood close by. Some one had had the intention of nailing up the branch, and had not carried it into effect.
She lifted her hand to the knocker and found that the door yielded to her slight touch. It was open. For a second she had a wild thought that Miss Brennan might have been wandering in her wits—that Mrs. Wade16, or Bridyeen Sweeney—she had come to calling her that in her mind—was still in the house.
She looked into the little hall. It was bright with a long ray from the white sun that peered below a cloud, seeming to her dazzled eyes surrounded by a coruscation17 of coloured rays. The white sun portended18 rain to come, probably in the afternoon.
Shot had pushed his way before her into the hall. She had almost forgotten that Shot had come with her when she had left the Poms at home because of the muddy roads. He had disappeared into Mrs. Wade's little parlour. The plume19 of his fine tail caught a flash from the sun's rays on its burnished20 bronze. She heard the dog whine21.
No one answered her knock nor did Shot return, so, after a second's hesitation22, she followed the dog.
She was not prepared for what she saw. The only occupant of the room beside the dog, who had dropped on to the hearthrug, and lay with his nose between his paws and his melancholy23 eyes watching, was Stella—Stella kneeling by a chair in an abandonment of grief, her face hidden.
The little figure kept its grace even in the huddled-up attitude. The face hidden in the chair, childishly, as though a child suffered pain, was lifted as Lady O'Gara touched the bronze-brown head. The misery24 of Stella's wide eyes shocked her. Stella's face was stained and disfigured by tears. The soft close hair, which she had taken to wearing plaited about her head, was ruffled25 and disordered.
"Stella, darling child!" Lady O'Gara said, with a gasp26 of consternation27. She had never seen Stella before without brightness, the brightness of a bird. Now the small ivory pale face had lost the golden tints28 of its underlying29 brownness. The child was wan15 under the disfigurement of her tears.
She got up with a groping motion as though tears obscured her sight. She came to meet Lady O'Gara and held out her hands with a piteous gesture of grief.
"She has gone away," she said.
Her hands were chill in Mary O'Gara's warm clasp. The woman drew the girl to her, holding the cold hands against her breast with a soft motherliness.
"Now, tell me what is the matter?" she said, while her voice shook in the effort to be composed. "Where has Mrs. Wade gone to?"
"That is what I do not know, Lady O'Gara," Stella answered, with a catch of the breath. "I came to her as I have come every day of late. She was gone. I thought she would come back at first; but she has not come. While I stood looking out of the gate watching for her an old woman came by picking up sticks for her fire. She said"—something like a spasm30 shook the slender body and her face quivered—"that she, Mrs. Wade, was gone away. Do you know what she called her, Lady O'Gara? She called her my mother—my mother."
The suffering eyes were full upon her. Lady O'Gara found nothing to say that could serve any useful purpose.
"Yes, I know," she said aimlessly. "It was old Lizzie Brennan. She lives at that gate-lodge a little way down the road."
"She said my mother."
The eyes, grey in one light, brown in another; made a piteous appeal.
"How could Mrs. Wade be my mother?" Stella asked, with a quiver of the lip, clasping and unclasping her hands. "My mother died long ago. I am Stella de St. Maur, although Granny will have me called by her name. But I love Mrs. Wade; I love her. I have never loved any one in the same way."
Lady O'Gara took the bewildered head into her arms and stroked it with tender touches as though it was the head of a frightened bird, one of those birds that sometimes came in at her windows, and nearly killed themselves trying to escape before she could give them their liberty. She sought in a frightened way for something to say to the girl and could find nothing.
"Granny is so angry with me," Stella went on. "She has found out that I came here. She said she would not have me keep low company, that she was shocked to find I could slip away from her to a person not in my own class of life. She had noticed that I was always slipping away. She talked about throwbacks. What did she mean by that? She was very angry when she said it."
"Oh, I am sorry you made her angry, Stella." Mary O'Gara had found her tongue at last. She had no idea of the inadequacy31 of what she said. Her thoughts had gone swiftly back to the days when she had trembled before Grace Comerford's cold rages. Her thoughts, as though they were too tired to consider the situation of the moment, went on to Terence. Poor Terence! She remembered him red and white before his mother's anger, her tongue that stung like a whip, the more bitter where she roved.
"I ran away from her," Stella went on. "She told me to go to my room, as though I was a child. I went, but I got out of the window: it is not far from the ground. I came here only to find her gone. I had been running all the way thinking of how she would comfort me. She has taken nothing with her but Keep. I expect Keep followed her. I would not have minded anything if she had been here. The old woman called her my mother. Is she mad, Cousin Mary? How could Mrs. Wade be my mother?"
Her eyes asked an insistent32 question. Lady O'Gara was a truthful33 woman. The candour of her face did not belie34 her. She tried to avoid the eyes, lest they should drag the truth from her.
"She is only very old," she answered, haltingly. "Not mad, but perhaps…"
"The odd thing is,"—Stella put by what she had been about to say as a trivial thing,—"that I wish what the old woman said was true. I wish it with all my heart. She was like what I think a mother must be to me. I have always been running away to her, ever since you brought me first. She comforted me. I have always felt there was something I did not know. Granny would never tell me about my father and mother. If she is not my mother why should I feel all that about her? She made up to me for everything. And Sir Shawn was cold. He used to like me, but now he does not. He is afraid,"—a little colour came to her cheek,—"that I will marry Terry. He need not be afraid. If Mrs. Wade is my mother I shall not marry Terry. He can marry Eileen Creagh and please his father! Do not tell me she is not my mother."
Was the mother, the nameless mother, worth all that to her child? It seemed so.
"Oh, the poor boy!" Lady O'Gara said, with sudden tears, clasping her hands together. "Is he to have no word in it?"
"Not if I am Mrs. Wade's daughter. She told me how she lived with her grandmother who kept a shop in the village long ago. Of course Sir Shawn would not like it. I see that quite well, and I am not thinking of marrying Terry or any one. I am only thinking that Mrs. Wade may be my mother. I've always wanted a mother. How I used to envy the Italian children when I was little. They had such soft warm, dark-eyed mothers. And I had only Granny—and Miss Searle. Miss Searle was fond of me but she was often cross with me. Granny never loved me as a mother would have. I was sometimes afraid of her though she was good to me"—her cheeks were scarlet35 by this time,—"I am going to stay here and wait for Mrs. Wade to return. If she does not come I must go to look for her. Terry need not trouble about me, nor Sir Shawn…."
"Oh, the poor boy!" said Lady O'Gara again, with the soft illogicality that her lovers loved in her. "But, Stella, love, you cannot stay here. Think how people would talk. Come home with me. You can wait just as well at Castle Talbot. Every day you shall come and see if she has returned. It would be better, of course, for you to go back to Inch…"
"But Granny will lock me in my room. I cannot go to Castle Talbot, for
Sir Shawn would look coldly at me and I should not like that."
Lady O'Gara was suddenly decided36. "You cannot stay here, Stella," she said. "It is quite out of the question."
In her own mind was a whirl of doubt and fear. Who was going to tell Stella? Who was going to tell her? Apparently37 Stella suspected no worse than that she was peasant-born. She had not yet arrived at the point of asking for her father. At any moment she might ask. What was any one to answer?
"Come with me, dear child," she said. "My husband comes home
dead-tired these hunting days, has some food and stumbles off to bed.
I am all alone. We can have the days together. I will write to your
Granny that you are paying me a visit. Let us lock up here."
Some one paused in the road outside the window to look in, leaning impudently38 on the green paling. It was a ragged39 tramp bearded like the pard.
As he shuffled40 on his way Lady O'Gara said with a rather nervous laugh.
"There, Stella! You see the impossibility of your being here alone. I wonder where that creature came from! We don't get many of his sort here. Think of the night in this place! We could not possibly allow it. Mrs. Wade is sure to come back. She would not have gone away leaving all her things here. Was the door open when you came to it?"
"It was locked. I found the key where she used to put it if she went out. She sometimes walked over there across the Mount, where the people do not walk because they are afraid of the O'Hart ghosts. I thought I would wait for her till she came back."
"Let us lock up and put the key where she left it. She is sure to return. The place does not look as if she were not coming back."
"Everything is in order," said Stella, a light of hope coming to her face. "I have been in her bedroom. The lamp is burning on her altar. There is a purse lying on her bed with money in it."
"She will come back," said Lady O'Gara.
There was a sound of carriage wheels which made two pairs of eyes turn towards the window.
"It is Granny," said Stella, drawing back into the shade of the window curtains. "And she is very angry. She is sitting up so straight and tall. When she is like that I am afraid of her. Is she coming here?"
"Do not be afraid; I will stay with you," said Lady O'Gara.
The carriage re-passed the window, going slowly and without its occupant. Almost immediately came the sound of the knocker on the little hall-door.
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1
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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veining
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| n.脉络分布；矿脉 | |
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sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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sparsely
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| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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13
enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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15
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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coruscation
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| n.闪光，焕发 | |
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portended
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| v.预示( portend的过去式和过去分词 )；预兆；给…以警告；预告 | |
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plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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20
burnished
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| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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32
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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belie
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| v.掩饰，证明为假 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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impudently
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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