to the emptiness of his big house, to the long dull evening, with the
paper to read over and over and the fire to stare into, with the
pictured Dillon men, vigorous and whole-limbed, staring down at him
contemptuously. There were girls, perhaps, who might marry him for his
place and his income, but Darby knew that he would never ask them.
Directly her foot mended, Gheena asked Darby to drive her to the cliffs
beyond the village.
"I don't want to take Violet any more," she said decidedly. "Her shoes
begin to pinch after a mile or so, and I want to explore for holes and
caves. You can wait for me," she said, seeing him look at his leg.
"It's quite warm, and we'll get tea from old Maria Delaney."
Darby came obediently, waiting outside the gates, because Gheena found
that it was better to do all things secretly and not get scolded. Hints
of Lancelot coming to spend the afternoon or of being driven to see him
made her rush blithely through the wood, Crabbit at her heels. Fast as
she went, lighter feet pursued and caught her--Psyche Delorme, hatless
and breathless.
"Gheena, Dearest is looking for you, and your mother is asking his
advice as to where you are likely to be, and I don't want to drive in
the car with them."
Gheena looked hard at the blue wash of waves seen through the
tree-trunks, then she swore Psyche to silence and they ran on together.
"The sprite followed me," Gheena explained to Darby. "She has got no
hat. Do drive on, Darby, because Dearest has got the car at the door,
and he might come down to see if I'd walked to Cassidy's."
The car swept along the narrow road, bordered by a screen of fuchsias
along the edge of the cliffs. They tore down the slope into Leeshane,
scattering dogs and hens, took the steep ascent, and were out on the
exposed road, which wound round eventually by the open sea.
It ran between low banks, never going down close to the cliffs, but
Darby knew of a tortuous lane, which he dived into fearlessly, scraping
the sides with his mudguards, bumping and crawling, until he reached an
open close-turfed plateau with the sea growling just beyond it.
Gheena swung away, diving in and out among the clumps of gorse, peering
behind boulders, looking down rabbit holes.
She noticed how in one spot the ground was trampled, and a path led away
towards the road, then slipped over the verge and climbed among the
rocks. The cliffs were honeycombed by caves--then irregular cavities,
their mouths choked by fern and fuchsia, a reek of fox coming from them,
showed high up, dark fuchsias below them. Some of them, narrow-mouthed,
forbade entrance; others could be climbed into and explored.
They were damp places, barely innocent of concealed petrol. Gheena
clambered on until Psyche grew tired and went back to where Darby sat in
a sheltered nook, warm in the spring sunshine, his pipe between his
teeth. He looked desolate then, his eyes following the active figure
flying over the rocks.
"Petrol on the brain," he said patiently to Psyche.
Presently Gheena came to a deep channel running up to a rather large
cave. The tide was flowing and the water lapping up at the big slimy
boulders in the mouth of the dark place.
To go in might mean getting wet, but Gheena risked it, slipping and
sliding over the stormy rocks. Crabbit grew excited, barking and
growling, sniffing at the walls.
Something kept Gheena lingering until she had to take off her shoes and
stockings and wade out. Outside a deep fissure led into another cave,
an opening with a black sense of hollowness behind it, but no room for a
man to pass in.
Crabbit was into the blackness in a moment. Gheena could hear him
snuffling inside and even growling, then leaping up, trying to get out.
Sudden fear gripped Gheena, her dog might be entombed in there with
walls too slippery for him to scramble up. He appeared quite suddenly,
hooking on with his strong paws and coming out looking ruffled. There
was a strip of shale just beyond this and no dark cave mouths showing.
It was not far from the opening of the harbour. So Gheena scrambled up
to the top of the cliff to find it thick with gorse, some of it cut down
and piled up to dry for firewood, and shook her head sadly.
It was quite hot in the shelter of the cliffs, with the sun shining.
The air was full of the scent of the gorse and the tang of salt.
Leaping down on to a little shingly beach, Gheena all but fell over the
Professor basking in the sun, his hammer in his hand. Crabbit wagged
his tail. He liked the Professor, and Gheena said it was a long way to
walk from Dunkillen.
The Professor, blinking sleepily, asked if Gheena was out for birds'
eggs or submarines, and Gheena hovered close to confidence before she
thought better of it.
"Exploring caves," she said with strict truth, then inviting him to Mrs.
Maloney's tea.
As they climbed to the verge and stood on the short sweet grass, they
saw a dark figure some way off swinging along the edge of the open sea.
"It is Mr. Stafford. He walks that way to get to the Wireless Station.
Exercise is good for the young," said the Professor dryly. "Perhaps he,
too, is looking for submarines. I will follow you, Miss Freyne."
Gheena sat down for a few minutes in the nook which Darby had chosen for
himself.
"I was not much help, Gheena," Darby said a little drearily.
Something in his voice touched Gheena. She remembered how years before
Darby had scrambled with her over the rocks, and not sat looking on
crutches by his side.
"But you're always a help, Darby," she said quickly.
Little Psyche, her hands round her knees, bunched into a bundle, said
nothing.
"Always someone who wants help," he answered laughingly.
"Not out hunting," snapped Psyche resentfully.
They took tea in Mrs. Maloney's cottage. Its complete absence of
windows flavoured the meal with turf smoke, which oozed out of one of
the two doors ventilating the house, one facing to the sea where a land
breeze blew, one to the land where the wind roared in from the sea.
But the little place was spotless despite the smoke, the brass
candlesticks shining, the blue china on the dresser polished--a big
home-baked cake appearing, delightfully indigestible, from the
three-legged oven, and Maria's half a pound of butter used recklessly.
Boiled eggs and whisky were also proffered but refused.
"I couldn't get any butter from Anne to bring out," said Gheena, when
they were coming away. "So I must tell Maria to get some at Guinanes'.
That's the way we manage. She gives me her things and I return them.
She wouldn't take money. Dearest counts the pounds of butter now when
the churning is done, so Anne is going to put away cream, because she
says 'It's orkard on her, an' people comin' to tay, an' the Masther
axin' where the butter do be goin' to.' You must stop at Guinanes',
Darby; I've told Maria to get a parcel from them."
As they bumped out of the lane, the whining purr of a high-powered car
sounded outside it, and the long grey nose of Stafford's Daimler swung
aside to avoid them. He had left his car evidently on the road.
"We found the Professor out rocking, and we are taking him home," said
Darby.
"Oh!" said Basil Stafford quietly. He looked worried and out of humour.
"News--up there?" queried Darby.
"Not pretty news," Stafford answered grimly. "The submarines will do
some harm in time." He sighed a little. "And you were all out on the
cliffs," he added, staring at nothing.
"Miss Freyne was out upon the cliffs," said Darby, "I was not."
"Let those cliffs alone," said Stafford sharply. "I wish you would,
Miss Freyne, in war times."
He laughed a little bitterly as Gheena looked at him.
It was still early, and a complete distaste for her own home made Gheena
say that she would go to see Mrs. Weston.
They stopped at Guinanes' on their way back to order a parcel for their
old hostess.
A stout woman at the counter was making complaint as to damp flour.
"Soggen and weighty, Mrs. Guinane, an' it near to swheep the life from
Thomas Martin with the pain it gev him. 'The centher of me is on fire,
Ma,' he cried out, an' it twelve at night--'an' I will surely die.'"
Mrs. Guinane, apologizing profusely, looked darkly towards the door
which led to the kitchen.
"Mike, are ye there? He was there a minnit ago. I towlt him not to
take the flour out of where 'twas always, to put it in that new house he
has, for flour, says I, will not do unless there is a fire, says I, an'
not one of us will he let in to put a fire there, but in an' out for
himself always. Mikey, will ye bring back the flour ye have destroyed
with ye're obstinacy, an' not be spilin' good food?"
Mrs. Weston's man put his shrewd blue-eyed face round the edge of the
door and muttered something half aloud.
"Or will Mary Kate folly ye now with an apern full of turf," said his
mother, conciliating him, "till we airs that new sthore ye have?"
Mike said "She will not" shortly, merely promising to bring back the
flour bags to dry quarters.
"An', Mike, we are out of washin' soda. An' it locked up with him
inside."
Mrs. Guinane then announced hotly that she was scalded from the new
store, and turned to Gheena.
"Thim Germans has the poor ruined, Miss," she said, as she took the
order. "Heapin' pince on everythin'."
Mrs. Weston, yawning profusely, was at home in a tobacco-scented
atmosphere. Ends of cigarettes were littered about and feet cased in
green silk were hurriedly removed from a comfortable rest on the
mantelpiece and thrust into tight shoes. The old Swiss maid hobbled
past the visitors out of the oven-hot room, curtsying as she met them.
Gheena only left a message from her mother. She could not have stayed
long in the close room. But before she went she whispered one or two
things to her friend. Mrs. Weston was not pleased to hear that Gheena
had gone alone to the cliffs.
"Even if my shoes were too tight," she said. "And you found nothing?"
"Nothing at all," said Gheena absently, because at the moment she was
thinking of the curious cave with the channel running into it, and of
some sound which had not struck her at the time, but which came back to
her now.
They found George Freyne accumulating chill and bad-humour upon the
doorstep, looking out for his step-daughter.
"If you had told me that you actually wanted me to go for a drive," said
Gheena patiently; "but you were not sure, Dearest, so I went for a walk
and Darby drove us home. I--I wasn't spending money on anything,
driving the car or being extravagant."
"Dearest has been quite put out," Mrs. Freyne confided. "Lancelot was
driven over, lying back on cushions, Gheena, and looking as if he
thought he was ill; he's very stout. And you were not there, and they
asked us all back to dinner, which would have meant, Dearest said, no
dinner here, so he's put out, Gheena darling, and says he'll sell
another horse."
"If--he--dares to sell mine!" said Gheena with a queer little gulp.
*CHAPTER XV*
Darby Dillon refused emphatically to believe "a word of it." He
listened to Gheena and his expression leant towards rudeness.
"Not one word," he said. "He's too good a----"
He stopped quite suddenly. If Gheena looked on Basil Stafford as a
slacker and perhaps worse, she would never get to care for him, and hope
is so strong a thing that there was always at the back of Darby's mind
some vague thought of getting much better, and then in his fairy
dreamland he would think that he might try to make a girl care for him.
If she was gone, that dreamland would close its doors.
Then honesty came first. "He's too good a sort," said Darby gruffly,
and observed also that Carrigeen Freyne, in this instance, had not
Grandjer's nose.
Gheena said that Darby was very rude, and took up her gloves. They had
come in to tea with Darby after a hunt. Hunting was just over now, even
though here on the edge of the sea they sometimes killed a May fox.
Still meadows were being closed up and fences mended, and it was only
possible to hunt in the woodlands or on the mountains.
It was April now, treacherously fine, blue-skied and finely
white-clouded, with all the birds singing, and spring holding out hands
to early summer. Horses looked stale and dry-coated, but Darby held on.
His year was over when hunting stopped, and he must hobble while Dearest
George and Mr. Keefe melted opposite each other on mossy tennis lawns,
and stood bravely up at the net until someone hit them.
"Mr. Freyne is so wonderful at the net," was a quotation made with bated
breath by the country tennis-players.
"Just because I won't let you run away with things, you," said
Darby--"you want to go without tea. I say Stafford's a good sort,
Gheena, even if he won't fight or can't."
Gheena kicked the turf fire vigorously as she railed out fresh
indictment. Money so suddenly obtained here, etc.
"I would write to the admirals if I knew them," said Gheena with
dignity, "about--well, about things. And I did write to someone, who
isn't stupid." Here she withered Darby with a glance.
Darby repeated equably that he refused to believe it. Stafford was a
good sort, and he offered tea just as Psyche, a sprite even in her
severe habit, came in, Dearest George, severely aloof, following her
gloomily.
As he drank strong tea and ate several eggs, he spoke with feeling of
his nephew Lancelot's health, and the complete arresting of his
convalescence. He also talked of economy and the awful future of Great
Britain's finances.
"Money," said Dearest, "being a thing which people cannot go on finding
for ever; and as for horses, no one would be able to afford them, even
if the war dragged on."
Darby saw Gheena's face cloud and assume an expression of one who had
heard this particular form of foreboding too often.
The two girls jumped into the back of the car when they were starting,
leaving Mr. Freyne to sit alone, wondering as he let in his clutch what
petrol would go to and how long he would keep the car going.
"And if we were poor," stormed Gheena--"if we were, but we're not; and
it's all mine, or it will be when I----"
She nodded icily to Stafford who was jogging home alone, riding rather
close to Mrs. Weston and Mr. Keefe, who, with their heads almost
touching, ambled in front of him through the opal twilight.
The sweetness of a spring morning was broken next day by the arrival of
the motor from Cahercalla, with an urgent message saying that Mr.
Lancelot was not well, and wished Miss Gheena to come over.
Gheena went without enthusiasm. It was a sunny morning, and she knew
that she would find Lancelot lying down and basking in a huge arm-chair
in the morning room, with an enormous fire and all the windows shut.
There would be a smell of beef-tea and toast, coupled with that of a
variety of tonics and cotton-wool, and Lancelot would betray the
peevishness engendered by lack of exercise and too much heat.
As she had thought, she was engulfed in the pale brown morning room.
Mrs. Freyne was winding wool of a lank variety, rasping it off a
chair-back with dexterous fingers, Evelyn was stitching flannel
night-dresses, and Lancelot was drinking Bovril and eating toast. He
brightened up when Gheena, holding the door open for as long as she
could, greeted him, and he at once told her how ill he felt. Mrs. Freyne
went on for a time with her winding, and remarked after a time, apropos
of nothing, that she had just heard from Geoffery, her second son, and
that Lancelot never seemed really happy at Cahercalla, and that Geoffery
would love to live there. Here she left the room to see the cook,
followed in a moment by Evelyn.
Gheena found herself alone with her puffily fat cousin, who suddenly
showed some interest in life.
He said it was good of her to come over. He blushed and upset his
mother's work-basket, and then asked Gheena if she had been listening.
Gheena asked to what, with restrained impotence in her voice.
At this point Lancelot sat up and possessed himself of Gheena's hand and
asked her to marry him. It took Gheena some little time, sitting with
crumpled brows, to realize what he was talking about.
Lancelot was not lacking in humbleness, nor yet in certainty of
acceptance. He explained to Gheena the suitability of the matter--how
he would come to live at Castle Freyne, and being such a friend of his
uncle's, no changes need be made in existing arrangements. Of course,
he might be again employed in the Army, even if not on active service,
but war would not last for ever. And then he sat quite up and sighed
with the satisfied air of a child who has repeated a lesson correctly;
his next glance was at the clock.
Gheena's firm removal of her hand did not trouble him at all.
"Shall we call back mother," said Lancelot, "as it's time for my tonic,
and she'd like to know?"
"Oh, she went away on purpose," said Gheena. Then with extreme candour
Miss Freyne explained that she was very sorry, but she had no intention
of marrying at present, and certainly not her distant cousin Lancelot.
Lancelot replied peevishly that he understood that Gheena wanted to be
independent, and that why not now instead of later. Complete refusal he
evidently did not understand.
Gheena looked at his plump cheeks; she conquered an intense desire to
laugh heartily and she fell into thought. If she were engaged to
Lancelot the wheels of everyday would no doubt be oiled, and the fever
of economy be cured. But Gheena had no meanness in her.
Quite decisively this time, she told Lancelot that an engagement was as
far away from her thoughts as matrimony, and that he could put the whole
thing out of his head.
Lancelot plumped his cushions and quoted Uncle George feverishly. He
produced a pearl ring bought for him at Cortra, and then his
pocket-handkerchief. With tears of sheer temper in his eyes, he said a
great many things which could not possibly further his suit.
Gheena rang the bell, a haughty look in her face. She remarked that
Lancelot wanted his tonic, and endeavoured to look vacant when Lancelot
made tearful mention of Prussic acid, and it was plain that his mother
took in the whole situation at a glance.
The tonic, irony and bitter, was brought up solemnly to be rejected by
the invalid, who even upset the bottle, declaring that health was no use
to him now. After this everything was even plainer.
Luncheon with Lancelot glaring furiously at her over the hot chickens,
which he wanted to eat and would not, was not a pleasant meal. When her
son refused apple meringue and shook his head at a _foie gras_, Mrs.
Freyne grew almost frantic, and the only conversation was a spasmodic
one between Gheena and Eva.
Castle Freyne was eight miles away. Gheena had to wait to be called for
by her stepfather, and the afternoon stretched hot and interminable
before her.
Lancelot did not wish to go out. The prospect of sitting in the
morning-room, seeing his aggrieved face outlined against the red
cushions, until five or six o'clock seemed almost unendurable.
Making some vague excuse about a message, she slipped out; even a short
respite was something, and once in the fresh air she considered the
eight miles of road between her and home.
The avenue was a short one. She got to the gate and looked out. Her
shoes were not thick and showers were coming up from the sea. Gheena
wavered between the thought of hours dragged out under accusing eyes or
of a two and a half hours' tramp, which would include a meeting with her
stepfather.
At that moment the long grey nose of Basil Stafford's car swung round
the bend in the road, and was pulled up beside her. In this she could
be home in twenty minutes, get up the back avenue, and take refuge in
the school-room for tea.
Very jerkily she asked to be taken home, murmuring something about
offence given.
It did not take a far-seeing wit to discern the reason. A flicker of
laughter curved Mr. Stafford's lips and he opened the door at the side.
Gheena flung propriety on one side. She drove back to the door and told
Evelyn that she was going home, as she had forgotten to do something
particular, and whispered "Go on" to the willing driver. The pace at
which a high-powered car can go, even on narrow roads, was demonstrated
to her in the next ten minutes, for to meet the Castle Freyne people
would mean disaster. They reached the back gate safely, and Gheena, who
had sat silent, could only ask her rescuer to tea, which, she explained,
must be taken in the school-room, and that they must hide.
Basil Stafford accepted readily. Together they ran up the rough avenue
until they reached the shelter of the large hay-barn, from which they
could see if the coast was clear. Scrambling up into the fragrant hay,
peering out across the wall, and then dodging quickly into the haven of
the inner yard, to hear a familiar voice asking for Phil.
A variety of men grinned softly as Gheena dashed into a stable and went
up the ladder to the loft at the double, followed by Stafford. Here
among piled-up oats they crept forward and looked through the window
down into the yard.
Mr. Freyne had come out to speak seriously to Phil--that morning traces
of white oats had been observed in the mangers while Phil was out
exercising. Black, and black alone, were to be used.
"And black it was," lied Phil pleasantly, "with maybe a grain or two of
white getting mixed in."
Mr. Freyne looked upwards. He said that he knew exactly the quantity up
there and would see if it had been depleted. Gheena drew a long breath,
and remarked that she must face it, unless she went under the oats.
"And have a care of the ladder, sir," said Phil's voice below. "I was
up lasht when turnin' the heaps an' two rungs broke on me. I just
slipped them in somewheres, I'd say middleways."
Dearest George, checked, raved hotly at Phil for thus replacing rungs
which might give way and kill a man.
"Well, I was afther meanin' to," observed Phil guilelessly; "but knowin'
I would not be goin' up to the white oats maybe agin before May or June,
I thought to put in a fresh laddther, that same bein' pure rotten. Would
I put down a sop of hay in case ye meet the two, sir, an' they gives?"
When Dearest George spoke again it was in the yard. He told Phil several
things then, as he gloomily awaited the arrival of his wife, who ambled
out from the kitchen, a basket in her hands.
"Just a few things for Dayly's sick wife," she said. "I won't keep you a
minute there, Dearest, because it's scarlet fever, and I'm sure you'd
advise me not to and Gheena will want to come home. She always does
from Cahercalla."
"This time," said Mr. Freyne, "Gheena will not wish to come home."
"If you mean she'll be engaged to Lancelot," said Matilda Freyne. "Of
course, Dearest, if you think so, but I do not. He's so young and so
stout, and she never liked fat men, and I'd much rather it was Darby."
Dearest ensconced himself behind the wheel and swore softly.
"He's saying 'Damn it! I should know best,'" whispered Stafford.
"At this distance you can't hear," said Gheena.
They were squeezed up together in the window, safe behind a veil of
cobwebs, a friendliness unknown before between them. Gheena had
forgotten war and spying. She was with someone who was protecting her.
"Shall we go out the back avenue? it's shorter," said Mr. Freyne.
Instantly Gheena's hand went out and caught Stafford's arm. They
remembered the car down there.
"Mike Dundon put new sthones upon it only yesterday," said Phil
stolidly. "And the off tyre is shaky, sir."
Basil Stafford felt that no half-crown had been so well earned as that
which he put into Phil's hand when the car had hummed away out the front
gate.
Gheena, a little shaken and upset, gave him tea in the school-room. One
cannot snub a man who has hidden with you in an oat-loft. They talked
and laughed with the same new friendliness, Stafford telling her of his
years abroad, of Italy, of France, and then of Germany. The cloud came
suddenly into Gheena's eyes.
"You were there for years, weren't you?" she said.
"For some months," he answered absently; "in Berlin. I knew some nice
men there too."
"Whom you would not care to fight against now, I suppose?" Gheena
muttered half to herself. "Oh, if there was only no war!" she flashed
out, "and no economy, and no black oats, and wounded people and things!"
Basil said gravely that it would be a far better arrangement. He saw
the cloud which had risen up.
"And--there being a war--we cannot be friends," he said slowly, coming
to the mantelshelf, looking hard at Gheena.