MRS. WADE
A friendship had sprung up between Mrs. Horridge and Mrs. Wade, as Sir
Shawn had said--a curious friendship, not altogether equal, for Mrs.
Wade had a certain amount of education and was curiously
refined--America had not altered her even to the extent of affecting
her speech; and that was a very exceptional thing, for the returned
Americans usually came with a speech altered out of all recognition.
When Lady O'Gara came into the little sitting-room at the cottage,
having knocked with her knuckles and obtained no answer, she found
Susan Horridge there. Susan stood up, making a little dip, took the
boy's garment she had been mending and went away, while Mrs. Wade
received her visitor with a curious air of equality. It was not such
an equality as she might have learnt in the United States. There was
nothing assertive about it. It was quite unconscious.
She seemed profoundly agitated by Lady O'Gara's visit, her colour
coming and going, her eyes dilated. She had put out a hand as Susan
Horridge went away, almost as though she would have detained her by
force.
"Please forgive my coming in like this," Lady O'Gara said. "I was
knocking for some time, but you did not hear me. My husband, Sir Shawn
O'Gara, has told me about his tenant, and I thought I would like to
come and see you."
"Thank you very much, Lady O'Gara. I am sorry you had to wait at the
door. Won't you sit down?"
"May I sit here? I don't like facing the light. My eyes are not
over-strong."
"Dear me. They look so beautiful too."
The naïve compliment seemed to ease the strain in the situation. Lady
O'Gara laughed. She had sometimes said that she laughed when she felt
like to die with trouble. People had taken it for an exaggerated
statement. What cause could Mary O'Gara have to feel like dying with
trouble? Even though Shawn O'Gara was a melancholy gentleman, Mary
seemed very well able to enjoy life.
"How kind of you!" she said merrily. "I might return the compliment.
What a pretty place you have made of this!"
"I brought a few little things with me. I knew nothing was to be
bought here. And the things I found here already were good."
"It is a damp place down here under the trees. Now that you have made
it so pretty it would be hard to leave it. Else I should suggest
another cottage. There is a nice dry one on the upper road."
"Oh! I shouldn't think of leaving this," Mrs. Wade said, nervously.
Still her colour kept coming and going. America had not yellowed her
as it usually had the _revenants_. Her dark skin was smooth and richly
coloured: her eyes soft and still brilliant. Only the greying of her
hair told that she was well on towards middle age.
"But it is very lonely. You are not nervous?"
"I like the loneliness."
"You should have a dog."
Her tongue had nearly slipped into saying that a dog was the kind of
company that did not ask questions.
"I should have to exercise a dog."
A queer look of fear came into her eyes. Lady O'Gara could have
imagined that she looked stealthily from one side to another.
"But you must go out sometimes," she said.
Again the look of fear cowered away from her. What was it that Mrs.
Wade was afraid of?
"I was never one for walking," she said, lamely.
"You don't like to tear yourself from this pretty room?"
It was very pretty. The walls had been thickly whitewashed and the
curtains at the window were of a deep rose-colour. A few cushions in
the white chairs and sofa repeated the rose-colour. The room seemed to
glow within the shadow of the many trees, overhanging too heavily
outside.
"You have too many trees here," Lady O'Gara went on. "It must be
pitchy towards nightfall. I shall ask my husband to cut down some of
them."
She was wondering at her own way with this woman. Gentle and kindly as
she was, she had approached the visit with something of shrinking, the
unconscious, uncontrollable shrinking of the woman whose ways have
always been honourable and tenderly guarded, from the woman who has
slipped on the way, however pitiable and forgivable her fault. It is
the feeling with which the nun, however much a lover of her kind,
approaches the penitent committed to her care.
She suddenly realized that in this case she did not shrink. Whatever
difference there might be between her and Mrs. Wade there was not
_that_ difference. They met as one honourable woman meets another.
Lady O'Gara was glad that she had forgotten to shrink.
"Thank you very much," said Mrs. Wade. "It is kind of you to think of
it. But--I like the trees. You are very kind, Lady O'Gara. About the
dog,--if I had a little gentle one, who would stay with me while I
gardened and not want too much exercise, I should like it."
"I believe I can get you such a one. My cousin, Mrs. Comerford, or
rather her adopted daughter, has Poms. There is a little one, rather
lame, in the last litter. His leg got hurt somehow. I am sure I can
have him. You will be good to him."
Mrs. Wade had drawn back into the shadow. The one window lit the space
across by the fireside to the door and the other portion of the room
was rather dark. But Lady O'Gara had an idea that the woman's eyes
leaped at her.
"I saw the young lady," she said. "She came to Mrs. Horridge's lodge
one day I was there. She was so pretty, and the little dogs with her
were jumping upon her. Little goldy-coloured dogs they were."
"Yes, that would be Stella. She loves her dogs: I know she would be so
glad to give you one, because you would be good to it."
"Maybe she'd bring it to me one day? She's a pretty thing. It would
be nice to see her in this house."
The voice was low, but there was something hurried and eager about it.
Lady O'Gara imagined that she could see the heave of the woman's breast.
"Certainly. We shall bring the puppy together. I shall tell Stella."
A sudden misgiving came to her when she had said it. Perhaps she ought
to be too careful of Stella to bring her into touch with a woman who
had slipped from virtue, however innocently and pitiably. It was a
scruple which might not have troubled her if Stella had been her own
child. There was another thing. Would Grace Comerford, if she knew
all, be willing that her adopted daughter should be friends with Mrs.
Wade?
Again something leaped at her from the woman's eyes, something of a
gratitude which took Lady O'Gara's breath away.
"It will be nice to have a little dog of my own," she said. "It will
be great company in the house at night. A little dog like that would
be almost like a child. And in the daytime he'd give me word if any
one was coming."
Suddenly she seemed to have a new thought. She leant forward and said
in the same agitated way:
"You wouldn't be bringing Mrs. Comerford?"
"No, no," said Lady O'Gara. "I shall not bring Mrs. Comerford."
"I knew her long ago. She was kind, but she was very proud," Mrs. Wade
said, dropping back into the shadow from which she had emerged.
So it was of Mrs. Comerford she was afraid! What was it? Conscience?
Did she think Terence Comerford's mother could have heard anything in
that far away time?
"I shall not bring Mrs. Comerford," she said. "Stella is much with me
at Castle Talbot."
Again she wondered why she had said "Stella." It would have been "Miss
Stella" to another woman of Mrs. Wade's class.
"Might I be making you a cup of tea, Lady O'Gara?" Mrs. Wade asked with
a curiously brightening face. "I had put on the kettle in the kitchen
for Mrs. Horridge. It will be boiling by this time."
Lady O'Gara was about to refuse. Then she changed her mind. A refusal
might hurt Mrs. Wade. Beyond that she had a sudden curiosity,--her
husband had often said that she had a touch of the _gamin_--as to how
Mrs. Wade would give her tea. Would she sit down with her in the
equality of an afternoon call? There was a little twitch at the
corners of her lips as she answered that she would like tea. Sir Shawn
was away shooting wild duck, and she would be alone at tea if she went
home.
While she waited, still with that half-delighted feeling of curiosity,
she went and stood before the old-fashioned bookcase which contained
Mrs. Wade's library. Very good, she said to herself. There were odd
volumes of Thackeray and Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell and Charlotte Brontë.
Her dimples came and were reflected as she turned about in the convex
glass, with an eagle atop, over the fireplace. Outside a couple of
stone eagles perched on the low roof, after the fashion of a bygone
day. Far away in the silvery distance of the convex mirror a miniature
Lady O'Gara dimpled.
She was remembering a pretentious lady who had called on her a few days
earlier--the wife of a newly rich man who had taken Ardnavalley, a
place in the neighbourhood, for the shooting. Sir Robert Smith, the
multi-millionaire, was very simple. Not so Lady Smith, who had
remarked that Bront was always readable.
There were also a few volumes of poetry, not very exacting,--Tennyson,
Adelaide Procter, Longfellow, and some Irish books--"The Spirit of the
Nation," "Lady Wilde's Poems," Davis, Moore: a few devotional books.
Ah well, it was very good--gentle and innocent reading. And there was
Mrs. Wade's prayer-book--The Key of Heaven,--on a small table, the
"Imitation of Christ" beside it. By these lay one or two oddly bound
books in garish colourings, Lady O'Gara opened one. She saw it was in
French--an innocuous French romance suitable for the reading of
convent-school girls.
Mechanically she looked at the flyleaf. It bore an inscription; Miss
Bride Sweeney, Enfant de Marie, had received this book for proficiency
in Italian, some twenty-two years earlier at St. Mary's Convent.
She held the book in her hand when Mrs. Wade appeared, carrying a
little tray of unpainted wood, on which was set out a tea for one
person, all very dainty, from the small china cup and saucer on its
white damask napkin to the thinly cut bread and butter.
Lady O'Gara had been thinking that if Mrs. Wade did not wish to be
identified with Bride Sweeney, she should not leave her school-prizes
about.
"Ah, you are looking at that old book," Mrs. Wade said, setting down
her little tray, while she spread a tea-cloth on the table. "They are
very dull stories. Even a convent-school girl could not extract much
from them. I'm sorry it's so plain a tea. If I'd known your Ladyship
was coming I'd have had some cakes made."
"This home-made bread is delicious," Lady O'Gara said. "But, won't you
have some tea too?"
"No, thank you. I am not one for tea at every hour of the day like
Mrs. Horridge. I take my tea when you are taking your dinner. You
wouldn't like a boiled egg now? I've one little hen laying."
Her voice was coaxing. Now that Lady O'Gara could see the face in full
light she thought it an innocent and gentle face. The eyes still
looked upward with a kind of passion in their depths. She remembered
her husband's epithet,--"ardent." It well described Mrs. Wade's eyes.
Just now the ardour was for herself. She wondered why.
"Thank you so very much," she said sweetly. "I don't think I could eat
an egg, though. Your tea is delicious."
"The cream is from your own Kerries. Mrs. Horridge arranged it for me
that I could get the milk from your dairy. It would make any tea good.
She brings me the milk twice daily, or her little lad does."
"Susan seldom ventures out, I think," Lady O'Gara said, while she
sipped her tea. "I am glad you get her beyond her own gate."
"She's a scared creature. She dreads the road. Mr. Kenny gets her all
she wants from the village. She comes to me across the Mount. She
doesn't mind that way even in the dark, though the people about here
wouldn't take it on any account. Perhaps she doesn't know the stories.
Perhaps, like myself, she thinks a ghost is better company than humans
sometimes."
"Ah; you are not afraid of ghosts!"
"If I was," Mrs. Wade's eyes suddenly filled with tears,--"would I be
settled here? It's not thinking of the Admiral's ghost I'd be. Maybe
there's some you'd welcome back from the grave, if you loved them well
enough. I can't imagine any one not wanting the dead back, if so be
that you loved them."
Her voice died off in a wail, and suddenly it came to Lady O'Gara that
just outside, where the water fell over the weir, Terence Comerford had
met with his death.
"No," she said softly, "I cannot imagine any one being afraid of the
dear dead."
As she said it she remembered the shadows about her husband's face and
her heart was cold.
It was only later that she wondered if Mrs. Wade had chosen that lonely
spot to return to because there Terence Comerford's handsome head had
lain in its blood. It occurred to her at the same time that not one
word had passed between them which could indicate that she knew
anything of Mrs. Wade beyond that she had been a dweller in these parts
long before she had come to be a tenant of Sir Shawn O'Gara at the
Waterfall Cottage.
A curious thing that there should be there side by side, thrown into an
odd companionship, two women who had reason to be afraid and had chosen
these lonely places to hide. Poor Susan! The reason for her hiding
was obvious. With Mrs. Wade it was another matter. Why need she have
come back if she so dreaded her past? Or was it the memory of Terence
Comerford that drew her, the thought of the old tragedy and the old
passion?