Myles Shannon had ever borne a passionate grudge against Mrs. Brennan.
He had loved his brother Henry, and he felt that she, of all people,
had had the most powerful hand in instituting the remorse which had
hurried him to his doom. Mrs. Brennan, on the other hand, believed
firmly that Henry Shannon would have married her, and made of her
a decent woman, but for the intervention of his brother Myles.
Furthermore, she believed darkly in her heart that the subtle plan
of the disastrous "honeymoon" had originated in the brain of Myles,
although in this she was wrong. She thought of Henry as being never of
that sort. He was wild and mad, with nothing too hot or too heavy for
him, but he was not one to concoct schemes. So, when Henry died, Mrs.
Brennan had thought well to transmit her hatred of the Shannon family
to his brother Myles.
Myles Shannon lived a quiet life there in his big house among the trees
upon the side of Scarden, one of the hills which overlooked the valley.
In lonely, silent moments he often thought of his brother Henry and of
the strange manner in which he had burned out his life. With the end
of his brother before him always as a deterrent example, he did not
interest himself in women. He interested himself in the business of
his cattle and sheep all through each and every day of the year. He
did not feel the years slipping past him as he went about his easy,
contented life, watching, with great interest, his beef and mutton grow
up in the fields.
The cattle in particular stood for the absorbing interest and the one
excitement of his life. He looked upon his goings and comings to and
from the markets at Dublin and at Wakefield in England as holiday
excursions of great enjoyment.
It was during one of his trips to England that he had met Helena Cooper
at some hotel in Manchester. He was one to whom the powers of Romance
had remained strangers, yet now, when they at last came into his life,
it was with a force that carried away all the protection of his mind.
He wanted some one to fill the loneliness of the big house on Scarden
Hill, and so he set his heart upon Helena Cooper.
He returned to the valley a different man. Quite suddenly he began to
have a greater interest in his appearance, and it was noticed that
he grew sentimental and became easy in his dealings. It began to be
whispered around that, even so late in life, almost at the close of
the middle period which surely marks the end of a man's prime, Myles
Shannon had fallen in love and was about to be married.
It was a notable rumor, and although it was fifteen years since the
death of Henry Shannon, Mrs. Brennan, as one having a good reason to be
interested in the affairs of the Shannon family, became excited.
"Indeed it was high time for him to think of it," she said to a
neighbor one Sunday morning, "before he turned into a real ould
blackguard of a bachelor--and who d'ye say the girl is?"
"Why, then, they say she's an English lady, and that she's grand and
young."
Mrs. Brennan was a great one for "ferreting-out" things. Once she
had set her mind upon knowing a thing, there was little possibility
of preventing her. And now she was most anxious to know whom Myles
Shannon was about to marry. So when she saw the old bent postmistress
taking the air upon the valley road later on in the day she brought her
into the sewing-room and, over a cup of tea, proceeded to satisfy her
curiosity.
"There must be letters?" she said after they had come round to a
discussion of the rumored marriage.
"Oh, yes, indeed. There's letters coming and going, coming and going,"
the old lady wheezed. "A nice-looking ould codger, isn't he, to be
writing letters to a young girl?"
"And how d'ye know she's young?"
"How do I know, is it, how do I know? Well, well, isn't that my
business? To know and to mind."
"You're a great woman."
"I do my duty, that's all, Mrs. Brennan, as sure as you're there. And
d'ye imagine for a moment I was going to let Myles Shannon pass, for
all he's such a great swank of a farmer? She _is_ a young girl."
"Well, well?"
"There's no reason to misdoubt me in the least, for I saw her photo and
it coming through the post."
"A big, enlarged photo, I suppose?"
"Aye, the photo of a young girl in her bloom."
"I suppose she's very nice?"
"She's lovely, and 'tis what I said to myself as I looked upon her
face, that it would be the pity of the world to see her married to a
middling ould fellow like Myles Shannon."
"And I suppose, now, that she has a nice name?"
"Aye. It is that. And what you might call a grand name."
A long pause now fell between the two women, as if both were
endeavoring to form in their minds some great resolve to which their
hearts were prompting them. The old postmistress delivered her next
speech in a whisper:
"Her name is Helena Cooper, and her address is 15 Medway Avenue,
Manchester!"
The two women now nudged one another in simultaneous delight. Mrs.
Brennan ran the direction over and over in her mind as if suddenly
fearful that some dreadful stroke of forgetfulness might come to
overthrow her chance of revenge upon her false, dead lover through the
great injury she now contemplated doing to his brother.... She made
an excuse of going to the kitchen to put more water upon the teapot
and, when she went there, scribbled the name and address upon the wall
beside the fireplace.
When she returned to the sewing-room the old postmistress was using
her handkerchief to hide the smile of satisfaction which was dancing
around her mouth. She knew what was just presently running through
Mrs. Brennan's mind, and she was glad and thankful that she herself
was about to be saved the trouble of writing to Miss Cooper.... Her
hand was beginning to be quavery and incapable of writing a hard,
vindictive letter. Besides that Mr. Shannon was an influential man in
the district, and the Post Office was not above suspicion. She was
thankful to Mrs. Brennan now, and said the tea was nice, very nice.
Yet, immediately that the information, for which she had hungered since
the rumor of Myles Shannon's marriage began to go the rounds, was in
her keeping, Mrs. Brennan ceased to display any unusual interest in
the old, bespectacled maid. Nor did the postmistress continue to be
excited by the friendly presence of Mrs. Brennan, for she, on her part,
was immensely pleased and considered that the afternoon had attained
to a remarkable degree of success.... From what she had read of her
productions passing through the post, she knew that Mrs. Brennan was
the woman who could write the strong, poisonous letter. Besides, who
had a better right to be writing it--about one of the Shannon family?
Soon she was going out the door and down the white road towards
Garradrimna.... Now wasn't Mrs. Brennan the anxious and the prompt
woman; she would be writing to Miss Cooper this very evening?... As
she went she met young couples on bicycles passing to distant places
through the fragrant evening. The glamor of Romance seemed to hang
around them.
"Now isn't that the quare way for them to be spending the Sabbath?" she
said to herself as she hobbled along.
The Angelus was just beginning to ring out across the waving fields
with its sweet, clear sound as Mrs. Brennan regained the sewing-room
after having seen her visitor to the door, but, good woman though she
was, she did not stop to answer its holy summons. Her mind was driving
her relentlessly towards the achievement of her intention. The pen
was already in her hand, and she was beginning to scratch out "a full
account," as she termed it, of Mr. Myles Shannon for the benefit of
Miss Helena Cooper, whoever she might be. Through page after page she
continued her attack while the fire of her hate was still burning
brightly through her will.
It had been her immemorial custom to send full accounts abroad whenever
one of the valley dwellers made attempts at assertion, but not one of
the Shannons had so far offered her such a golden opportunity. For the
moment she was in her glory.
She announced herself as a good friend of this girl, whose name she
had only heard just now. She wrote that she would not like to see Miss
Cooper deceived by a man she had no opportunity of knowing in his real
character, such as Mr. Shannon.
Now it was a fact that Myles, unlike his brother Henry, had not been
a notable antagonist of the Commandments. It was true, of course,
that he was not distinguished for the purity of his ways when he went
adventuring about the bye-ways of Dublin after a day at the cattle
market, and people from the valley, cropping up most unexpectedly, had
witnessed some of his exploits and had sent magnified stories winging
afar. But he had ruined no girl, and was even admirable in his habits
when at home in his lonely house among the trees.
This, however, was not the Mr. Shannon that Mrs. Brennan set down in
her letter to Helena Cooper. It was rather the portrait of his brother
Henry, the wild libertine, that she painted, for, in the high moments
of her hate, she was as one blinded by the ecstasy that had come upon
her. The name of Shannon held for her only one significance, and, for
the moment, it was an abysmal vision which dazzled her eyes.
Soon there came a communication from Miss Cooper to Mr. Shannon
which had the effect of nipping his green romance while it was still
young.... It asked him was this true and was that true?... The easy,
sentimental way he had looked upon the matter was suddenly kindled
into a deeper feeling, and he thought of having the girl now at all
costs.... He wrote a fine reply in justification. It was a clear,
straight piece of writing, and, although it pained him greatly, he was
compelled to admit that the statements about which Miss Cooper wished
to be satisfied were no more than the truth in relation to a certain
member of the Shannon family. But they related to his dead brother
Henry and not to him.... He prayed the forgiveness of forgetfulness
for the dead.... He volunteered the production of convincing proof for
every statement here made in regard to himself.
But the old lady at the Post Office had something to say in the matter.
She had read Miss Cooper's letter, and as she now read the letter of
Mr. Shannon she knew that should it reach her this girl must be fully
satisfied as to his character, for his was a fine piece of pleading....
But she could not let Mrs. Brennan have all the secret satisfaction for
the destruction of his love-affair. The bitter woman in the valley had
done the ugly, obvious part of the work, but she was in a position to
hurry it to secret, deadly completion.... So that evening the letter,
which it had given Myles Shannon such torture to write, was burned at
the fire in the kitchen behind the Post Office.... He wrote to Helena
Cooper again and yet again, but the same thing happened.... His third
letter had turned purely pathetic in its tone. The old lady said to
herself that it made her laugh like anything.
At last he fell to considering that her affection for him could not
have been very deep seeing that she had allowed it to be so strongly
influenced by some poisonous letter from an anonymous enemy.... Yet
there were moments when he knew that he could never forget her nor
escape, through all the years he might live, from the grand dream her
first tenderness had raised up in his heart. In its immediate aspect
he was a little angry that the rumor of a contemplated marriage on his
part should have gone abroad. But he had almost triumphed over this
slight feeling of annoyance when there came to him, some month later,
the "account" that had been written about him to Miss Cooper without
a word of comment enclosed.... The old lady at the office had seen to
that, for the letter accompanying it as far as Garradrimna had gone the
way of Mr. Shannon's letters.... This had made her laugh also with its
note of wonder as to why he had made no attempt to explain.... If only
he would say that the statements made against him were all mere lies.
Of course she did not believe a word of them, but she wished him to say
so in a letter to her.... The Post Office was saved from suspicion by
this second bit of destruction, although it had done its work well.
The bare, scurrilous note caused a blaze of indignation turning to
hatred to take possession of his soul which had hitherto been largely
distinguished by kindly influences. He had his suspicions at once that
it was the work of Mrs. Brennan.
There was a letter of hers locked in a bureau in the parlor with other
things which had been the property of his dead brother Henry. They were
all sad things which related intimately to the queer life he had led.
This old faded letter from Nan Byrne was the one she had written asking
him for Christ's sake to marry her, now that she felt her misfortune
coming upon her.... A hard look came into his eyes as he began to
compare the weak handwriting. Yes, it was hers surely, beyond a shadow
of doubt.... He locked this thing which had so changed the course of
his life with the things of his brother.
It was queer, he thought, that she, of all people, who should be prone
to silence, had thought fit, after the passage of so many years, to
meddle with dead things in the hope of ending other dreams which,
until now, had lived brightly. He continued to brood himself into
bitter determinations. He resolved that, as no other girl had come
greatly into his life before the coming of Helena Cooper, no other one
must enter now that she was gone. She was gone, and must the final
disaster of his affections narrow down to a mere piece of sentimental
renunciation? Strange, contradictory attitudes built themselves up in
his mind.
Out of his brooding there grew before him the structure of a plan. This
woman had besmirched his brother, helping him towards the destruction
of his life, for it was in this light, as a brother, he had viewed the
matter always; and now, in her attempt to besmirch himself, she had
spoiled his dream. He had grown angry after the slow fashion which was
the way of his thought, but his resolve was now sure and deliberate.
There was her son! He had just gone to some kind of college in England
to prepare for the priesthood, and the antecedents of a priest must be
without blemish. It was not the youth's fault, but his mother was Nan
Byrne, and some one must pay.... And why should she desire to bring
punishment of any kind upon him for his brother's sin with her? He had
loved his brother, and it was only natural to think that she loved her
son. And through that love might come the desolation of her heart. To
allow the blossom to brighten in her eye and then, suddenly, to wither
it at a blast. To permit this John Brennan to approach the sacred
portals of the priesthood and then to cause him to be cast adrift.
The thought of how he might put a more delicate turn to the execution
of his plan had come to him as he journeyed down from Dublin with John
Brennan. He knew that his nephew, Ulick, had lived the rather reckless
student life of Dublin. Just recently he had been drawing him out. But
he was no weakling, and it was not possible that any of those ways
might yet submerge him. However, his influence acting upon a weaker
mind might have effect and produce again the degenerate that had not
fully leaped to life in him. If he were brought into contact with John
Brennan it might be the means of effecting, in a less direct way, the
result which must be obtained.
It was with this thought simmering in his brain that Myles Shannon had
invited John Brennan to the friendship and company of his nephew. When
he had spoken of the Great War it was the condition of his own mind
that had prompted the thought, for it was filled with the impulse of
destruction.