‘I wept in my dream, for I fancied
That you had forsaken me;
I woke, and all night I lay weeping
Till morning, bitterly.’
Wyndham lifts his brows.
‘Pray do not distress yourself,’ says he. ‘It is a free country; you can
speak or be silent, just as you wish. It had merely occurred to me that
there might be friends of yours naturally very anxious about you, and
that I might convey to them a message from you.’
The unsympathetic nature of his tone has restored the girl to her usual
manner more than anything else could have done. She glances at him.
‘Friends!’ says she bitterly.
‘At all events,’ says Wyndham, who has now begun to acknowledge his
curiosity with regard to her even to himself, and is determined on
pushing the matter as far as possible, ‘there must be someone on the
look-out for you.’
At this she turns as white as death.
‘Is there? Have you seen—have you’—she looks as though she is about to
faint—‘heard anything?’
‘Nothing—nothing at all!’ exclaims he quickly, a little shocked at her
agitation, that seems excessive. ‘Do not be frightened; I assure you I
know as little of anyone connected with you as I know of yourself.’
Here again he gives her an opening, if she wishes to make a declaration
of any sort, and again she remains mute. There is something even
obstinately silent in her whole air.
Her hands in her lap are tightly clasped, as though to help her to keep
her secret to all eternity.
‘You will not confide in me, I see,’ says he, with a little contemptuous
shrug; ‘and, after all, there is no earthly reason why you should. I am
as great a stranger to you as you are to me, and if I spoke at all it
was, believe me, because I fancied I might be of some assistance to you.
But women nowadays have taken the reins into their own hands, and I have
no doubt that you will be able to manage your own affairs to perfection.
In the meantime, however, if I can be of the slightest use to you in
looking out for a suitable home, for instance, I hope you understand I
shall be delighted to do all I can.’
The girl has drawn nearer during this speech, and is now standing before
him, the frightened eyes uplifted and her breath coming short and fast.
‘You mean—but here—can I not—might I not—a home, you said——’
‘Well, yes,’ says Wyndham. ‘A home where you might have a companion and
be very comfortable; but not here, you know.’
‘But——’
‘You can’t stay here, I’m afraid,’ says Wyndham, who, between his anger
and his suspicions of her, is beginning to wish he had never been born.
The girl turns away from him, in so far that only her profile now can be
seen, whilst her right hand has caught hold of the back of a chair near
her, as if for support.
‘But why?’ asks she, in a low tone. ‘Mrs. Moriarty likes me to be here.’
‘But, you see,’ says Wyndham gravely, ‘it is my house, and not Mrs.
Moriarty’s.’
‘Yes.’ She looks at him as if hardly understanding, but presently an
expression grows upon her face that gives him to know that she thinks
him churlish.
‘It is quite a big house,’ says she.
There is a pause—a pause in which he tells himself that evidently up to
this she had been accustomed to houses of very cramped limits. The
Circular Road in Dublin would supply such houses, built for respectable
artisans and clerks in commercial places, and the best of the decent
strata that cover the earth and are of the earth earthy. The Circular
Road, or some other road, has no doubt supplied the kind of house to
which the girl has been accustomed—this girl, with her pale patrician
face and her singular strength of mind. It is she who at last breaks the
silence. ‘There is plenty of room for me,’ says she.
‘I know—of course I know that,’ says Wyndham hurriedly. ‘But then, you
see, it—it wouldn’t do, you see.’
He looks deliberately at her, as if to explain his meaning, but, nothing
coming of the look, he falls back once more upon facts.
‘I come here sometimes,’ says he.
‘Yes; Mrs. Denis told me that,’ says the girl. ‘But’—eagerly—‘I
shouldn’t be in the way at all. I could stay in that little room
belonging to Mrs. Denis—that little room off the kitchen.’
‘Oh, that isn’t it,’ says Wyndham, frowning in his embarrassment. How
the deuce is one to say it plainly to a girl who can’t, or won’t, or
doesn’t understand! ‘The fact is——’ He has begun with the greatest
bravery, determined to explain the situation at all hazards; but,
happening to meet her eyes, this clever barrister, who has faced many a
barefaced criminal victoriously, breaks down. The eyes he has looked
into are full of tears.
‘Look here,’ says he almost savagely, ‘it’s out of the question! Do you
hear?’ His tone is so terribly abrupt that it strikes cold to the heart
of the poor girl looking at him. If he is going to turn her out of this
house, this haven of refuge, where—where can she go?
She struggles with herself, some touch of dignity that belongs to
her—wherever she came from or whoever she is—giving her a certain
strength.
‘Of course—I see——’ She is beginning to stammer dreadfully. ‘I am sorry
about it; but I thought—I fancied I could stay here. But now I can go—I
can go somewhere. There must be other places, and, indeed, just now you
told me there were other places, and that I could go to——’
She struggles with the word ‘them,’ the last of her sad sentence, but
can’t speak it; and now all her hard-found dignity gives way, to her
everlasting shame, and to Wyndham’s terrible discomfiture she bursts
into a passion of tears.
‘Don’t do that,’ says Wyndham gruffly. It is impossible to conceal from
himself the fact that he is frightened out of his life. Fear because of
her tears is nothing, but it is with ever-increasing self-contempt that
he knows that he is going even so far as to give in and let her stay at
the Cottage. After all, there are many other places for him in this big
world, but for her, perhaps, not so many; and she seems to have set her
heart on this little spot, and, hang it all! why can’t she stop crying?
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ says she at last, trying passionately to stifle her
sobs. She has turned away from him to the window, and there is something
in her whole attitude so descriptive of despair, and fear, and shame,
that, in spite of his anger, pity for her rises in his heart. ‘I don’t
know why I’m crying; I don’t often cry. But if I leave this, where shall
I go? where shall I hide myself?’
What on earth has she done? Her words denote fear—a guilty fear. What if
he should be about to take as a tenant for the Cottage a well known and
hardened criminal, for whom, perhaps, the police are even now on the
look-out? Her face, however, belies her tone; and, for the rest, he has
not the courage to face again a flow of those pitiful tears. Stay she
must.
One last protest, however, he makes as a salve to his conscience.
‘What do you see in this place that so attracts you?’ asks he, with
ever-increasing grumpiness. The girl turns to him a flushed and tearful
face.
‘I never knew what a home could be like till I came here,’ says she.
‘Never, never! You have had one—all the world has had one except me. It
means new life to me. Oh’—bitterly—‘it is the only life I have ever
known—the only happiness. If, sir’—she comes towards him and with a
little impulsive action holds out her hands—‘if I might stay——’
‘Well, you can,’ says he ungraciously.
He gives in so suddenly, and she is naturally so unprepared for so quick
a surrender, that for a moment she says nothing. Her eyes are fixed on
him, however, as if trying to read him through; they are beautiful eyes,
and Wyndham, his professional instincts on the alert, finds himself
wondering what lies behind them in that brain of hers.
‘Do you mean it?’ says she at last breathlessly; if you do, I cannot
thank you enough. Oh, to stay here within these lovely walls!’
Instinctively she glances out of the window to the ivy-clad walls, as if
in their protection she finds great comfort. A moment later a cloud
gathers on her forehead. ‘But you don’t like me to stay,’ she says.
‘It doesn’t matter what I like,’ says Wyndham, who certainly does not
shine on this occasion. ‘The arrangement we have come to now is that you
are to rent this cottage from me, at what sum we can agree about later
on.’
‘To rent it? I shall, then, be—— It’— she tries to hide the joy in her
eyes, feeling it to be indecent—‘it will belong to me?’
‘Yes,’ says Wyndham. At this moment he feels very little more will make
him positively hate her.
‘It will no longer be yours?’ Her voice is trembling.
‘In a sense, no.’ He turns and takes up his hat; this interview is
getting too much for him. There will be an explosion shortly if she goes
on like this.
‘It seems very selfish,’ says the girl. She is looking at him, though
for the last three minutes he has refused to look at her. ‘I am taking
your house away from you.’
‘There are other houses.’ He is now putting on his gloves.
‘Ah! that is as true for me as for you.’
‘We have come to an agreement, I think’—grimly. ‘Let us keep to it.’ He
turns to the door.
‘You are going?’ says she nervously. She follows him. ‘You——’ She stops,
and courtesy compels him to look back. Two troubled eyes meet his.
‘When——’ stammers she.
‘I shall come down some day next week to make final arrangements,’ says
he impatiently, and again takes a step or two away, getting so far this
time as to turn the handle of the door. Here, however, again he glances
back. She is standing where he last saw her, her young face looking
troubled, frightened, and uncertain.
‘Next week,’ repeats he jerkily. It is disagreeable to him to think that
it is through his fault that the nervous anxiety has crept into her
eyes. ‘And—er—good-bye.’ He certainly had not meant to do it, but he now
holds out his hand to her, and with a little swift, eager movement she
comes to him and slips her own into it.
A slim little hand, and beautifully shaped, but brown, and looking a
little as though it had done some hard work in its time, yet the grace
with which she gives it to him is exquisite.
* * * * *
Just at the gate he meets Mrs. Denis again.
‘This young lady,’ says he abruptly, ‘seems to have set her heart upon
living here. It is extremely unpleasant for me, but she appears to have
no other place to go to. She will therefore become my tenant. She will,
you understand, take the Cottage from me.’
‘Bless us an’ save us!’ says Mrs. Denis. ‘An’ yer honour—what will you
do?’
‘Keep out of it,’ says Wyndham coldly. ‘I suppose she will arrange to
keep you on. She——What’s her name?’—sharply.
‘I don’t know, sir; she don’t seem to like to spake about it. Miss Ella
I calls her.’
‘Ella? Did you say her Christian name was Ella?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ah!’—thoughtfully. ‘Well, good-bye.’
‘But, sir, you’ll be coming again?’
‘Yes, next week, to arrange about the rent; not after that.’
He strides through the gate and up the road.
‘Faix, and I’m thinkin’ ye will,’ says Mrs. Denis, watching him with her
arms akimbo till he disappears round the corner. ‘’Tis mighty purty eyes
she’s got in that mighty purty head of hers. An’ so he’s not goin’ to
turn her out, after all! Didn’t I tell you, Bridget Moriarty,’ rubbing
her chin, on which a very handsome beard is growing, ‘that he’d soften
whin he put his glance upon her?’