that one could not be friends with someone one could not understand.
Mr. Stafford said, "Or--anything else except friends," still keeping
close to her.
"Gheena, a little bird whispered to me that you were home. They saw you
coming, and I've news for you. Oh, Mr. Stafford!" Violet Weston pushed
open the door, her golden head gleaming, her shoes of purple suede
pinching her so that she limped.
"And the news?" Basil asked softly.
Violet replied, "Private news," lightly. Mrs. Weston sent Stafford out.
He went to fetch his car, and she broke into excited whispers of how
she'd heard that there was news of some spy about, and several other
things, which could only have come from Mr. Keefe.
She sat on the edge of Gheena's chair, and was still there, one arm
round the girl's shoulders, when Stafford came back to say good-bye.
Gheena had already made doleful confession concerning Lancelot's
proposal and the scoldings it was likely to involve her in.
Darby and Psyche had been out riding. They were just in when the
unwelcome sound of a motor heralded the early return of Dearest George.
He came in quite slowly--happiness, of course, makes tripping feet, and
sorrow heavy ones--and took off his motor gloves with tragic intensity.
When Darby remarked that they were back early, Mr. Freyne returned that
he could not stay to watch sorrow, and particularly wounded sorrow.
"He even refused scones for tea," said Gheena's mother; "but I saw a
tray on the writing-table, and he'd been having Benger's food--don't you
think so, Dearest?--and plum cakes."
"He seemed quite annoyed by that question," observed Mrs. Freyne a
moment later, when her spouse had quitted the room noisily.
Gheena, taken to task presently for girlish caprice, spoke out with
complete honesty. She would never marry Lancelot. In her eyes he was a
mere fat youth, and she had never been able to fix the halo of wounded
hero about his head.
After this the hours marched to bedtime through a mental atmosphere of
Cimmerian gloom.
When Darby made a cheeky remark, Dearest George quoted the casualty
lists. If Psyche broke out about hunting, he said that all horses were
now munitions of war. The taunting reproach in his eyes made a game of
Bridge into a species of _Kriegspiel_, for, of course, Gheena cut her
stepfather, and went "No trumps" after his repeated "Nos," because she
said she thought he was only no-ing from bad spirits, the result of
several lost shillings not improving matters.
But next morning, as Gheena and Crabbit forgot troubles among the
daffodils under the trees, with the wind making the flowers as a sea of
silvery gold, floating on spears of green, Mr. Freyne showed that he was
in earnest.
Coming across the grass, he nodded good morning and called to his wife.
Unsoftened by sheen of gold, by glimpse of blue restless sea, he scanned
futurity with mental field-glasses and mapped out the following winter's
campaign with precision.
He regretted it, but except Mrs. Freyne's cob--she was afraid of her
weight and must ride--there would be no horses at Castle Freyne.
"And mine?" Gheena cried. "My horses, Dearest?"
Gheena's stepfather observed that there would not be anybody's horses.
He reminded her coldly that until she came of age or married, she had
not even an allowance.
Redbird, Whitebird, Blackbird--friends true and tried--to go to France
as troopers; Redbird, little Redbird, with her fretful temper;
Blackbird, fretful and excitable. Gheena heard the words pour on,
catching one here and there, realizing vaguely their tone of threatening
anger rather than their full sense. Then she recovered. It was
nonsense! In four years she would have too much in her power. Even in
war-times her stepfather would not dare to sell her horses. But four
years! Forty-eight months! how many hundred days?--an age interminable!
"You don't mean it really, Dearest?" she said, smiling bravely. "Now,
do you? And poverty is nonsense."
Mr. Freyne had delivered himself of much oratory; this retort snapped
the thin thread of his patience.
His dark look at his stepdaughter worried her far more than any outburst
of rage would have done.
"If you marry," he said smoothly, "the power will be in your own hands."
Gheena flew to her mother, who was bedewing socks with facile tears.
Matilda Freyne explained that a wife must take her husband's advice, and
that Dearest George had fully explained the urgency of everything.
"If you married Lancelot, darling Gheena," she said hopefully, "you
could ask him about things. You see, the difficulty with you is that
you are always asking yourself--and now I have dropped three stitches,
and I must call Mary Anne."
Gheena refrained from bitter retort. So far the unending battle between
her and her stepfather had been one of manoeuvring, firing blank shells;
they had pulled in different directions, Gheena always sublimely certain
of ultimate success. Now she was faced suddenly by a mobilized foe and
was frightened.
"Your Dearest--that is, Dearest George--means it," said Mrs. Freyne
tearfully. "And I----"
"I won't vex you, Mumsie," said Gheena gently, just as a messenger rode
up with a message from Cahercalla.
It stated in the long pointed writing of Lancelot's mother that the boy
was fretting and ill.
"He has had a complete set-back and refused even meringues and golden
plover for dinner," wrote Mrs. Freyne. "He is now still in bed suffering
from the shock of this unforeseen upset. Why, when everything was so
absolutely suitable, Gheena could not. She had better come over at once
before Lancelot's luncheon is due."
Gheena backed towards the door, listening to the reading of the letter.
Then as Dearest was called for, she swung out hatless and raced into the
wood with Crabbit at her heels, and slipped through the gardens into the
stables. The swift saddling of Greybird was followed by her escape down
the back avenue at a gallop and a reckless school across country until
she dropped on to the road close to Darby's house.
He was out, limping among the horses, his dark face lighting as the girl
rode in.
Gheena explained fully. Darby had always heard her troubles. She came
into the warm old library and sat there muttering her forebodings.
"Psyche will find me," she said, looking out. "I left a note." She
forgot trouble in the quiet old house. Darby talked of cheery things, of
a speedy ending to the great war and of Dearest's seeing the error of
his ways.
By the time the cook had, in her own language, slapped up a sweet, and
lashed the phisint that was raggety-lookin' into a fricassey, Psyche had
arrived upon a bicycle.
It was, of course, unfortunate that Gheena should have chosen one of the
bones of contention to escape on, and that George Freyne should have,
after some angry questioning, driven to Dillonscourt, looked for his
lost step-daughter, and captured her out upon the lawn.
He was merely reproachful as he drove her on to Cahercalla, where
Lancelot wilted in fiery heat, with untouched beef-tea, greasily tragic,
by his side.
He explained very gently that he merely felt tired, but his poor mother
was worried, and Doctor Malone said...
Here the old doctor upset the atmosphere of gentle pity by bursting to
say he thought something must be very wrong if Lancelot couldn't eat as
much as three; but with the help of a few liver pills, please God ...
and then he told Lancelot to keep quiet. The memory of that visit was
not a pleasant one to harassed Gheena. She was young and soft-hearted.
By the time Lancelot's mother had talked to her feelingly in the vast
chill drawing-room, and his sister had carried her off to the seclusion
of a neat bedroom to clinch the matter, Gheena felt like a criminal, who
ought to show repentance by immediately accepting the wounded hero
downstairs, but she went away, leaving him sorrowful.
Two weeks of soft spring weather brought April almost to an end. It was
weather almost summer-like, the sun turning it into summer and sheltered
corners. The water was even warm enough for Gheena to take to swimming.
But through the woof of sunshine ran the warp of trouble. Lancelot
languished. He really grew thinner and weak from hot, airless rooms and
want of exercise.
The tale of his woes was told by degrees to all Dunkillen. Mrs. Keefe
came to ask Gheena to change her mind because the boy was a wounded
soldier. Mrs. De Burgho Keane called to say that any girl ought to be
glad to find a husband now that all the men were being killed. At the
end of a fortnight Mr. Freyne read the war news, and decided that the
German tactics of attack were the best he could use, but he said
nothing.
Gheena had had a swim. She came in glowing to dress warmly, and bask in
the hot sunshine right in under the shelter of the cliffs. There was
not a breath of air in her nook. The rocks caught the sun and flung it
back, and in front the sea plashed calmly.
She saw Guinane's boat being pulled towards the village; it was heavily
laden with stores. Another boat dashed out from the rocks, showing for
a moment and then disappearing. Gheena knew it for Stafford's. She
shrugged her shoulders, and felt the world in an elusive spring sunshine
was not the place which it had been. The tide crept higher, bringing a
cold breath with it, but Gheena could scramble out of her nook, even at
high-water.
She was going to move when a snow shower of torn paper obstructed the
view, falling in little scraps, some upon the water, some upon the
shingle.
Crabbit cocked his ears and Gheena grew curious; steps died away on the
cliff, and with quick fingers she took up most of the scraps of paper
and put them in her pocket.
Stamp paper and toil helped away at least two hours in the house, until
with great difficulty she read some of the letter. "Undoubtedly ...
Submarines ... coast ... wait. Ba. Get the supply." Gheena raised her
head. A few minutes before the note had fallen Basil Stafford's boat
had shot in to shore; her eyes grew heavy.
Hunting was almost over, Darby still pursuing in big woodlands which
were useless in winter, going out early, as if for cubbing. The horses,
with rusty coats and looking far too fine, going with fire or spirit
after their long winter. But it was something to do, and little Miss
Delorme did not see why they should not hunt all summer in the mornings.
She never missed a meet.
The attack meditated by George Freyne was carried out one day, and
revealed by Phil, who went tearing to the shore to find Gheena.
"Save an' bless us, Miss Gheena, but Hartigan is afther bein' below in
the yard an' all the horses soult! When he clapped his eyes on them,
'How much,' says he, 'for we have too many,' an' the Masther says 'Lump
them,' says he, 'for a quiet sale.' An'----"
Gheena said "My horses?" very slowly.
"Redbird an' all." Phil was sobbing openly. "The craythur I reared
from a foal to g'out to be run afther by thim haythens, and where will
we all be, Miss Gheena? And God save us, don't get a wakeness, Miss!"
Gheena had not moved. She stood dreary, stricken; they were using their
power. She was to live a virtual prisoner in her own home--no horses,
no next season to dream of directly this one was dead.
"An' when he sighted the grey over the half door, 'He has the head of a
rogue,' says he; 'lave him there;' but he come around an' said there was
weddin's always, an' so he'd take him too. So Miss Mona's horse as
well. And, Miss Gheena----"
For Gheena, abandoning all dignity, sat down and wept hopelessly, with
Crabbit walking round, deeply upset.
"You next," said Gheena, feeling the dog's cold nose.
"You next." Phil went away back, crying himself, through the budding
wood, with its sheen of blue anemones and tender green of growing moss.
He clambered heavily over the sunk fence to meet Darby on the
avenue--Darby, riding, whistling as he came, some touch of the spring
making him happy.
"It is Miss Gheena," said Phil, answering Darby's look. "The horses
soult from undther her feet, an' she cryin' the eyes out of her head.
The Masther an' his wars. Isn't it enough that there is a war in
France?" burst out Phil, "not to be colloging with it in Castle Freyne.
Black oats was bad enough; sure we always took a grain of white, but
when there's use for neither white nor black--"
"Who bought them?" Darby bent down.
"Hartigan of Guntreen. He is within yet, atin' beef."
Darby turned and rode away down the road.
When Gheena, shaken and exhausted, her grief being rapidly burnt up by
anger, came through the wood, she saw a motor at the door. This
carefully-planned-out visit by Lancelot was a clumsy effort of
diplomacy. Dearest George had mapped it out.
With the horses still there, Gheena was to cry out that she would obey
her people's wishes, and an afternoon radiant with joy was to be spent
by the family.
Instead Miss Freyne eyed her cousin with distant rancour, and came in to
luncheon in a dangerous mood.
She congratulated him on having improved his figure, and warned him
against baked potatoes, and hoped his indigestion was quite gone. The
horses she ignored completely.
The failure of the plan made Mr. Freyne visibly ill-humoured. He came
majestically to the drawing-room, where he shut all the windows, and
helped his sister to lecture Gheena. It was disconcerting when Gheena
excused herself as she had an engagement.
"We are taking tea with Violet," she said politely. "We are walking,"
she said hurriedly, when Lancelot began to get up, "and you could not
come."
George Freyne said, "Of all the obstinate, ill-mannered--" when Gheena
had closed the door. "But if she thought she is going to have her own
way----"
As they walked to the village they met Basil Stafford in his car, and
Gheena remembered the letter, and with her eyes completely devoid of
cunning she told the story of the scraps, watching him closely.
His quick reply was that he would give a great deal to see the scraps.
Gheena remarked that she was going to show it to someone, and she
remarked it malevolently.
Mr. Stafford became eloquent. He said that scraps of information might
be valuable in war-times, and if there was anything in the letter, he
would see that it went to the proper people.
"The people who would like to see it," said Gheena meaningly.
Finding Mrs. Weston out, they invaded the Professor, who made toast for
them himself, and sent to the shops for strawberry jam and barley sugar,
which he smashed into neat pieces and piled on a plate in tiers. Gheena
told him also of the letter.
"And _Hein_! You could read it." He dropped a spoonful of jam into his
tea, fishing for it patiently. "You read the scraps. You were there,
then--a little sea bird. Will you show me the letter, Miss Gheena, if
it is with you? It is not good, this syrup that I have made. No, you
have not got the letter. Well, later."
The girl's return to Castle Freyne was as marching from sunshine into a
pea-soupy London fog, in the centre of which sat Dearest George, and
Lancelot, frail and fretful, resenting the sorrow which he had immersed
in.
The sea kissed the feet of an opal sky. The air was soft and fresh.
Gheena sat, white-faced, with ill-concealed impatience, listening to
fresh arguments as to her future and her folly in not agreeing with
everyone else.
"Eleven more obstinate men I never saw," remarked Gheena to the fire,
and referring to the one juryman who upset the verdict for hours.
Psyche, stepping in and out of the close library, now whispered of a
hunt on the morrow--a meet at Mount Beresford at ten in the morning.
The word "meet" sounded like a knell. Gheena meant to stop the horses
going, to appeal to her mother.
"And even if it's woods the hounds will yowl and we shall gallop," said
Psyche.
Here Mr. Freyne, rising, assumed the attitude before the fire so dear to
man, and remarked that the hounds might, but no one from Castle Freyne
would.
Gheena stood up also; she stared.
"Because I have done my duty towards my country," went on Dearest George
heavily, "and retrenched. If Gheena had been back an hour ago"--his
stepdaughter's face frightened him a little--"they might have been. But
now--the Army."
"You have--sold all my horses," Gheena heard a strange hoarse voice
whispering--"Redbird, which I loved. Not--you dared----"
Mr. Freyne a little nervously replied that he had acted as he thought
best and Lancelot hurriedly asked for the car.
Without a word Gheena went out, out into the opal-tinted evening to the
yards.
"Oh, Dearest, do you think it was wise?" said Mrs. Freyne tearfully.
Mr. Freyne said testily, "Lancelot will now represent independence, and
she has left the door open."
There were open doors in the yard, many of them--fresh yellow straw
ready for feet which could never trample on it, Phil, sitting on the
pump trough, weeping unashamed. There were no eager eyes and
solemnizing heads thrust out, no muzzles ready to nose for carrots.
Quite quietly Gheena went from box to box, Phil tramping after her,
entreating her not to be fretting.
"When it is your own, Miss Gheena, you can have horses in the coal
sheds--above in the farmyard, when it is ye're own."
Four years, nearly five, and the pets she had seen grow up were gone.
Crabbit, deeply dejected, wailed at her heels. Four years ... they
seemed as eternity.
If she married Lancelot it would be her own, or if she married anyone
she could have her horses.
"An' I clane forgot that Mr. Darby sent two notes,"--Phil produced a
letter---"to be givin' immaydiate; but when I seen the horses go----"
Phil wept afresh.
For one moment Gheena had looked at the car which the chauffeur was
winding up, then she opened the letter.
"Don't worry, little girl, I've bought the lot. They're here for you to
hunt to-morrow, and at any time."
"God save us! couldn't he lave you alone?" said Phil, as Gheena leant
against a manger, sobbing openly again.
Darby, always her friend, kind, crippled Darby--Darby, whose eyes
followed her. If--if----
The housemaid's bicycle was at the kitchen door. Gheena looked at it.
Voices sounded across the yard. A cart was coming in.
"An' God help us! I niver got the pison the Masther sent for, an' he
will ate the face off me now. Prussian acid he wanted, an' I declare I
forgot it. Sure I can tell him they're stockin' none of thim German
affairs now."
Gheena looked at her red cur. In a moment she was on the bicycle, which
was far too short for her, and with her knees stuck up in unpleasant
publicity, was tearing down the avenue.
"Light in her head to be makin' afther them now," said Phil bitterly.
"An' it all the Masther's fault."
The opal glow faded to a silver dusk with little mist wraiths in the
hollows, and light glint of damp on the budding leaves. Darby was alone
in his library before a glowing peat fire, his dogs at his feet, when
they got up growling quite politely as the door was flung open and
Gheena came in.
She was white, rings showed round her eyes, her breath coming short.
"It was the length of Maria's legs which made me so tired," she said.
"Don't stare, Darby. Oh, Darby!"
She came across, holding out cold trembling hands.
Darby rang the bell sharply, ordering strong coffee.
"I came, Darby"--she knelt down, the glow of the fire-light turning her
hair to bronze--"I came, because you've always helped me, to know if
you'd--marry me, Darby?"
He held the cold hands more closely, he hid the bitter pain which leapt
into his eyes. She had come to offer herself to the man who had loved
her so long, simply that she might be free.
"It would be a poor thing to do," he said slowly; "there is something
more than freedom and paying out Dearest George in matrimony, Gheena,
something more."
Gheena showed no surprise. It seemed to her natural that her reasons
should be so plain.
"But you like me, Darby, and if you won't, I'll ask the Professor, or
someone."
He looked for one glimpse of love in her eyes, for anything except the
complete trust and the weariness of the overstrained face, as she
explained that she would not endure for four years, and that she wanted
a friend.
"Four years, or for ever?" he said. "Gheena, it hurts just a bit."
Then he dropped her hands, putting his on her head. It came to him that
he was strong enough to bear an engagement, to see her through her
troubles, until he stepped back with just a little more pain to bear,
and left her happy. And--perhaps--the strongest of men dream--cripple
as he was.
So Darby said "Right." He said it quite cheerfully. "And here's coffee.
You are just worn out, dear, from that ride."
"It was Maria's legs," said Gheena. "Darby, you'll drive me back, and
how tired you look! But aren't you glad?"
He got up, limping, to look for matches. A cripple, a maimed, scarred
thing, to whom this light offering of what never could be love had hurt
worse than his injuries. Gheena would never care for him. He was just
old Darby to her. She came to him to help her as she had done all her
life. She could probably even marry him just as old Darby, and drag out
her life cheerily, hurting him, never knowing happiness herself.
"I couldn't do much walking with you, Gheena," he said.
"But you're so much better," she answered. "And I shouldn't know you if
you could walk fast now, Darby. And you can let your sister have this
house; she always wants it and it's splendid!"
The awful presence of Dearest George, enduring the night air, was on the
doorstep when they drove up to Castle Freyne.
He said icily that old friend as Darby was, he could not have his
stepdaughter disappearing in this fashion, and that some change in
discipline must be made.
"And all my muscles are stiff from the length of Maria's legs," said
Gheena cheerily. "And you'd better see about the Dower House, Dearest,
because I am going to be married."
"You've persuaded her," gasped Dearest George.
"To Darby," said Gheena, lifting Crabbit. "To Darby Dillon, Dearest, so
don't buy the Prussic acid now. Let me alone."
"To Darby Dillon!" repeated Dearest George, sitting down on the damp
steps.
*CHAPTER XVI*
Basil Stafford offered his congratulations on almost the same spot where
the three had stood in the autumn.
It was fair spring now, nearly May, with a blue glint on the water. But
Gheena had been out for a swim and had come in glowing, while Crabbit
still pursued gulls and hoped to catch one.
Darby sat in a sheltered nook. His face had grown thinner; some inward
war had drawn lines round his mouth. A lithe figure sat beside
him--Psyche, with some of her light gaiety gone too. Basil remarked
that he had come to congratulate, and he also looked quiet and subdued.
"Oh, thank you very much," said Gheena. "Lancelot had three helpings of
beefsteak pie yesterday, and Dearest is glooming at the Dower House over
the expense of putting in radiators. I'll never let mother go there, of
course, but the radiators won't matter."
"Even in war time," said Basil thoughtfully. "Mr. Freyne looks quite
thin."
"He says we shall lose the war now and nothing will matter," said
Psyche, "and he's going out to drive a motor ambulance if they'll take
him."
"Everyone," said Gheena, "is doing something now."
Basil Stafford sat down in the shelter.
"And perhaps I am too," he said a little impatiently, "even if it's not
what people think."
There was open hostility in Gheena's eyes when she replied that perhaps
he was.
She climbed the cliff lightly, slow Darby left behind then jumped back
again and slipped, Stafford springing up to help her, both young and
strong and whole-limbed. Darby's sticks went slowly and heavily as he
toiled up.
"Just here," he said, "we thought of the scratch pack. I have not sent
them back yet, they amuse me; but they must go next week, after one more
hunt."
"It will be so awful when one can't see you hunting hounds." Little
Psyche's eyes were full of the admiration which Darby never saw in
anyone else's.
"Which you think I do well," he said, laughing.