THE SCENE IN THE PASSAGE
Asgill saw himself in the position of a commander whose force has been
outflanked, and who has to decide on the instant how he may best
re-form it on a new front. Flavia and Colonel Sullivan, Flavia and
Payton, Payton and Colonel Sullivan--each of these conjunctions had for
him a separate menace; each threatened either his suit for Flavia, or
his standing in the house through which, and through which alone, he
could hope to win her. In addition, the absence of James McMurrough at
this critical moment left Asgill in the most painful perplexity. If
James knew what had happened, why was he wanting at this moment, when
it behoved them to decide, and to decide quickly, what line they would
take?
Under the shadow of the great peat-stack at the back of the house,
whither he had retired that he might make up his mind before he faced
the three, Asgill bit his nails and cursed The McMurrough with all his
heart, calling him a score of names, each worse than the other. It was,
it must be, through his folly and mismanagement that the thing had
befallen, that the prisoner had been released, that Payton had been let
into the secret. The volley of oaths that flew from Asgill expressed no
more than a tithe of his rage and his bewilderment.
How was he to get rid of Payton? How prevent Colonel John from resuming
that sway in the house which he had exercised before? How nip in the
bud that nascent sympathy, that feeling for him which Flavia's outbreak
the night before had suggested? Or how, short of all this, was he to
face either Payton or the Colonel?
Again a volley of oaths flew from him.
In council with James McMurrough he might have arranged a plan of
action; at least, he would have learned from him what Payton knew. But
James's absence ruined all. In the end, after waiting some time in the
vain hope that he would appear, Asgill went in to supper.
Colonel Sullivan was not there; he was in no condition to descend. Nor
was Flavia; whereon Asgill reflected, with chagrin, that probably she
was attending upon the invalid. Payton was at table, with the two
O'Beirnes, and three other buckeens. The Englishman, amused and
uplifted by the discovery he had made, was openly disdainful of his
companions; while the Irishmen, sullen and suspicious, were not aware
how much he knew, nor all of them how much there was to know. If The
McMurrough chose to imprison his strange and unpopular kinsman, it was
nothing to them; nor a matter into which gentlemen eating at his table
and drinking his potheen and claret were called upon to peer too
closely.
The position was singular; for the English officer, partly by virtue of
his mission and partly by reason of the knowledge he had gained,
carried himself as if he held that ascendency in the house which
Colonel Sullivan had enjoyed--an ascendency, like his, grudged and
precarious, as the men's savage and furtive glances proved. But for his
repute as a duellist they would have picked a quarrel with the visitor
there and then. And but for the presence of his four troopers in the
background they might have fallen upon him in some less regular
fashion. As it was, they sat, eating slowly and eyeing him askance;
and, without shame, were relieved when Asgill entered. They looked to
him to clear up the situation and put the interloper in his right
place. At any rate, the burden was now lifted from their shoulders.
"I'm fearing I'm late," Asgill said, as he took his seat. "Where'll The
McMurrough be, I wonder?"
"Gone to meet your friend, I should think," Payton replied with a
sneer.
Asgill maintained a steady face. "My friend?" he repeated. "Oh, Colonel
Sullivan?"
"Yes, your friend who was to return to-day," the other retorted. "Have
you seen anything of him?" he continued, with a grin.
Asgill fixed his eyes steadily on Payton's face. "I'm fancying you have
the advantage of me," he said. "More by token, I'm thinking, Major, you
have seen that same friend already."
"Maybe I have."
"And had a bout with him?"
"Eh?"
"And, faith, had the best of the bout, too!" Asgill continued coolly,
and with his eyes fixed on the other's features, as if his one aim was
to see if he had hit the mark. "So much the best that I'll be chancing
a guess he's upstairs at this moment, and wounded! Leastwise, I hear
you and the young lady brought him to the house between you, and him
scarcely able to use his ten toes."
Payton, with his mouth open, glared at the speaker in a manner that at
another time must have provoked him to laughter.
"Isn't that the fact?" Asgill asked coldly.
"The fact!" the other burst forth. "No, I'm cursed if it is! And you
know it is not! You know as well as I do----" And with that he poured
forth a version of the events of the afternoon, and of those leading up
to them, which included not only the Colonel's release, but the
treatment to which he had been subjected and the motive for it.
When he had done, "That's a strange story," Asgill said quietly, "if
it's true."
"True?" Payton rejoined, laying his hand on a glass and speaking in a
towering rage. "Damn you, you know it's true!"
"I know nothing about it," Asgill replied, with the utmost coolness.
"Nothing?"
"And for a good reason. Sure, and I'm the last person they would be
likely to tell it to!"
"And you were not a party to it?" Payton cried.
"Why should I be?" Asgill rejoined, calmly cutting a slice of bread.
"What have I to gain by robbing the young lady of her inheritance? I'd
be more likely to lose by it than gain."
"Lose by it? Why?"
"That is my affair," Asgill answered. And he hummed:
They tried put the comether on Judy McBain:
One, two, three, one, two, three!
Cotter and crowder and Paddy O'Hea;
For who but she's owner of Ballymacshane?
He made his meaning so clear, and pointed it so audaciously before them
all, that Payton, after scowling at him for some seconds with his hand
on a glass as if he meant to throw it, dropped his eyes and his hand
and fell into a gloomy study. He could not but own the weight of the
other's argument. If Asgill was a pretender to the heiress's hand--and
Payton did not doubt this--the last thought in his mind would be to
divest her of her property.
Asgill read his thoughts, and presently, "I hope the wound is not
serious?" he said.
"He is not wounded," the Major answered curtly. A few minutes before he
would have flown out at the other; now he took the thrust quietly. He
was thinking. Meanwhile the O'Beirnes and their fellows grinned their
open-mouthed admiration of the bear-tamer; and by-and-by, concluding
the fun was at an end, they went out one by one, until the two men were
left together.
They sat some way apart, Payton brooding savagely, with his eyes on the
table, Asgill toying with the things before him and from time to time
glancing at the other. Each saw the prize clear before him; each saw
the other in the way and wondered how he could best brush him from it.
Payton cared for the girl herself, only as a toy that had caught his
fancy; but he was sunk in debt, and his mouth watered for her
possessions. Asgill cared, as has been said, little or nothing for the
inheritance, but he swore that the other man should never live to
possess the woman. "It is a pity," Payton meditated, "for, with his
aid, I could take the girl, willing or unwilling. She'd not be the
first Irish girl who has gone to her marriage across the pommel!" While
Asgill reflected that if he could find Payton alone on a dark night it
would not be his small-sword would help him or his four troopers would
find him! But it must not be at Morristown.
Each owned, with reluctance, that the other had advantages. Asgill was
Irish, and known to Flavia, and had come to be favoured by her. But
Payton, though English, was the younger, the handsomer, the better
born, and, in his braggart fashion, the better bred. Both were
Protestants; but if Asgill was the cleverer, Payton was an officer and
a gentleman. The latter flattered himself that, given a little time, he
would win, if not by favour, still by force or fraud. But, could he
have looked into Asgill's heart, he would have trembled, perhaps he
would have drawn back. For he would have known that, while Irish bogs
were deep and Irish pikes were sharp, his life would not be worth one
week's purchase if he wronged this girl. Bad man as Asgill was, his
love was of no common kind, even as the man was no common man.
And he suspected the other; and he shook--ay, so that the table against
which he leant trembled--with rage at the thought that Payton might
offer the girl some rudeness. The suspicion weighed so heavily on him
that he was fixed to see the other to his room that night. When Payton
rose to go, he rose also; and when, by chance, Payton sat down again,
he sat down also, with a look that betrayed his thoughts. At once the
Englishman understood; and thenceforth they sat with frowning faces,
each thinking more intently than before how he might thrust the other
from his path; each more certain, with every moment, that, the other
removed, his path to the goal was clear and open. Neither gave a
thought to Colonel Sullivan, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion upstairs:
Payton, because the Colonel seemed to him a middle-aged man, plain and
grey; and Asgill, because a more immediate and pressing jealousy had
thrust his mistrust of the Colonel from his mind.
There was claret on the table, and the Major, dull and bored, and
resenting the other's vigilance, did not spare it. When he rose to his
feet to retire he was heated and flushed, but not drunk. "Where's that
young cub?" he asked, breaking the silence.
Asgill shrugged his shoulders. "I can't hope to fill his place," he
said with a smooth smile. "But I will be doing the honours as well as I
can.'
"You are d----d officious, it seems to me," Payton growled. And then,
more loudly, "I am going to bed," he said.
"In his absence," Asgill answered, with mock politeness, "I will have
the honour of lighting you."
"You needn't trouble."
"Faith, and it's no trouble at all," Asgill replied in the same tone.
And, taking two of the candles from the table, he preceded the
Englishman up the stairs.
The gradual ascent of the lights and the men's mounting footsteps
should have given Flavia warning of their coming. But either she
disdained concealment or she was thinking of other things, for when
they entered the passage beyond the landing they espied the girl
standing, in what had been darkness, outside the Colonel's door. A pang
shot through Asgill's heart, and he drew in his breath.
She raised her hand. "Ah," she said, "he has been crying out! But I
think it was in his sleep. Will you be making as little noise as you
can?"
Asgill did not answer, but Payton did. "Happy man!" he said. And, being
in his cups, he said it in such a tone and with such a look that a deep
blush crimsoned the girl's face.
Her eyes snapped. "Good-night," she said coldly.
Asgill continued to keep silence. Unfortunately Payton did not. "Wish
I'd such a guardian!" he said with a chuckle. "I'd be a happy man
then!" And, without thinking what he did, having Asgill's air in his
head, he hummed, with his head on one side and a grin on his face:
"They tried put the comether on Judy McBain:
One, two, three, one, two, three!
Cotter and crowder and Paddy O'Hea;
For who but she's owner of Ballymacshane?"
Asgill's face was dark with passion, but "Goodnight" Flavia repeated
coldly. And this time the displeasure in her tone silenced the Major.
The two men went on to their rooms, though Asgill's hands itched to be
at the other's throat. A moment later two doors closed sharply.
Flavia remained in the darkness of the passage, but she no longer
listened--she thought. Presently she went back to her room.
There, when the door had closed upon her, she continued to stand and to
think. And the blush which the Major's insinuation had brought to her
cheek still burned there. It was natural that Payton's words should
direct her thoughts more closely and more intimately to the man outside
whose door he had found her; nor less natural that she should institute
a comparison between the two, should picture the manner of the one and
the manner of the other, should consider how the one had treated her in
an abnormal crisis, when he had held her struggling in his arms, when
in her despair she had beaten his face with her hands, when, after her
attempt on his life, he had subdued her by sheer force; and how the
other had treated her in the few hours he had known her! And so
comparing, she could not but find in the one a nobility, in the other
a--a dreadfulness. For, looking back, and having Payton's words and
manner fresh in her mind, she had to own that, in all his treatment of
her, Colonel Sullivan, while opposing and thwarting her, had still, and
always, respected her.
Strange to say, she could not now understand, much less could she
sustain, that rage against him which had before carried her to such
lengths. What had he done? How had he wronged her? She could find no
sufficing answer. A curtain had fallen between the past and the
present. Long years, it seemed to her, had elapsed, so that she could
now see things in their due proportions and with a clear sight. The
rising? It stood on a sudden very distant, very dim, a thing of the
past, an enterprise lofty and romantic, but hopeless. She supposed that
he had seen it in that light all through, and that for acting on what
he saw she had hated him. The contemptuous words in which he had
denounced it rang again in her ears, but they no longer kindled her
resentment; they convinced. As one recovering from sickness looks back
on the delusions of fever, Flavia reviewed the hopes and aspirations of
the past month. She saw now that it was not in that remote corner, it
was not with such forces as they could command, it was not with a
handful of cotters and peasants, that Ireland could be saved, or the
true faith restored!
She was still standing a pace within her door, and thinking such
thoughts when a foot stumbled heavily on the stairs. She recognised it
for James's footstep--she had heard him stumble on those stairs
before--and she laid her hand on the latch. She had never had a real
quarrel with him until now, and, bitterly as he had disappointed her,
ruthlessly as he had destroyed her illusions about him, outrageously as
he had treated her, she could not bear to sleep without making an
attempt to heal the breach. She opened the door, and stepped out.
James's light was travelling up the stairs, but he had not himself
reached the landing. She had just noted this when a door between her
and the stairs opened, and Payton looked out. He saw her, and, still
flushed with claret, he misunderstood her presence and her purpose. He
stepped towards her.
"Thought so!" he chuckled. "Still listening, eh? Why not listen at my
door? Then it would be a pretty man and a pretty maid. But I've caught
you." He shot out his arm and tried to draw her towards him. "There's
no one to see, and the least you can do is to give me a kiss for a
forfeit!"
The girl recoiled, outraged and angry. But, knowing her brother was at
hand, and seeing in a flash what might happen in the event of a
collision, she did so in silence, hoping to escape before he came upon
them. Unfortunately Payton misread her silence and took her movement
for a show of feigned modesty. With a movement as quick as hers, he
grasped her roughly, dragged her towards him and kissed her.
She screamed then in sheer rage--screamed with such passion and such
unmistakable earnestness that Payton let her go and stepped back with
an oath. As he did so he turned, and the turn brought him face to face
with James McMurrough.
The young man, tipsy and smarting with his wrongs, saw what was before
his eyes--his sister in Payton's arms--but he saw something more. He
saw the man who had thwarted him that day, and whom he had not at the
time dared to beard. What he might have done had he been sober, matters
not. Drink and vindictiveness gave him more than the courage he needed,
and, with a roar of anger, he dashed the glass he was carrying--and its
contents--into Payton's face.
The Englishman dropped where he was, and James stood over him,
swearing, while the grease guttered from the tilted candle in his right
hand. Flavia gasped, and, horror-struck, clutched James's arm as he
lifted the candlestick, and made as if he would beat in the man's
brains.
Fortunately a stronger hand than hers interfered. Asgill dragged the
young man back. "Haven't you done enough?" he cried. "Would you murder
the man, and his troopers in the house?"
"Ah, didn't you see, curse you, he----"
"I know, I know!" Asgill answered hoarsely. "But not now! Not now! Let
him rise if he can! Let him rise, I say! Payton! Major!"
The moment James stood back the fallen man staggered to his feet, and
though the blood was running down his face from a cut on the
cheek-bone, he showed that he was less hurt than startled. "You'll give
me satisfaction for this!" he muttered. "You'll give me satisfaction
for this," he repeated, between his teeth.
"Ah, by G--d, I will!" James McMurrough answered furiously. "And kill
you, too!"
"At eight to-morrow! Do you hear? At eight to-morrow! Not an hour
later!"
"I'll not keep you waiting," James retorted.
Flavia leant almost fainting against her door. She tried to speak,
tried to say something. But her voice failed her.
And Payton's livid, scowling, bleeding face was hate itself. "Behind
the yews in the garden?" he said, disregarding her presence.
"Ah, I'll meet you there!" The McMurrough answered, pot-valiant. "And,
more by token, order your coffin, for you'll need it!" Drink and rage
left no place in his brain for fear.
"That will be seen--to-morrow," the Englishman answered, in a tone that
chilled the girl's marrow. Then, with his kerchief pressed to his cheek
to staunch the blood, he retreated into his room, and slammed the door.
They heard him turn the key in it.
Flavia found her voice. She looked at her brother. "Ah, God!" she
cried. "Why did I open my door?"
James, still pot-valiant, returned her look. "Because you were a fool,
you slut!" he said. "But I'll spit him, never fear! Faith, and I'll
spit him like a fowl!" In his turn he went on unsteadily to his room,
disappeared within it, and closed the door. He took the candle with
him, but from Asgill's open door, and from Flavia's, which stood ajar,
enough light issued to illumine the passage faintly.
Flavia and Asgill remained together. Her eyes met his. "Ah, why did I
open my door?" she cried. "Why did I open my door? Why did I?"
He had no comfort for her. He shook his head, but did not speak.
"He will kill him!" she said.
Asgill reflected in a heavy silence. "I will think what can be done,"
he muttered at last. "I will think! Do you go to bed!"
"To bed?" she cried.
"There is naught to be done to-night," he answered, in a low tone. "If
the troopers were not with him--then indeed; but that is useless.
And--his door is locked. Do you go to bed, and I will think what we can
do!"
"To save James?" She laid her hand on Asgill's arm, and he quivered.
"Ah, you will save him!" She had forgotten her brother's treatment of
her earlier in the day.
"If I can," he said slowly. His face was damp and very pale. "If I
can," he repeated. "But it will not be easy to save him honourably."
"What do you mean?" she whispered.
"He'll save himself, I fancy. But his honour----"
"Ah!" The word came from her in a cry of pain.