Miss Grimshaw's room was situated at the back of the house, overlooking
the kitchen garden. Any sound from the stable-yard would reach it, and
she determined to lie awake and listen. Moriarty's description of the
expected desperado, "over six fut and as black as a flue-brush," seemed
to promise developments. Like most women, she had a horror of fighting,
and, like most women, fighting had a fascination for her. She had no
fear of the result. Mr. French, Mr. Dashwood, Moriarty, and the stable
helper, not to mention Andy, formed a combination bad to beat, even
against a dozen Black Larrys.
All the same, there was a certain heart-catching excitement about the
business not altogether unpleasurable, and never did the silence of the
great old house seem more freighted with the voices of the past, never
did the ticking of the huge old clock on the landing outside seem more
pronounced than just now as, lying in bed with a candle burning on the
table by her side and "Tartarin of Tarascon" open in her hand, she
listened.
The bed she was lying in was the bed that once had supported Dan
O'Connell's portly person. The tent-like curtains had been removed, so
that one could breathe in it, but the pillars remained, and the
headpiece and the carvings. It was less a bed than a coign of history,
and more conducive to thought than sleep.
From this bed and its suggestions, from Drumgool, from Ireland, the
delightful Tartarin led Miss Grimshaw to the land of plane-trees and
blue sky. Mock heroics are the finest antidote for tragic thoughts, and
they fitted the situation now, had she known it, to a charm.
Now she was at Tarascon. Tartarin, leaving his house in the moonlight,
armed to the teeth against imaginary foes, led her down the white road,
past the little gardens, odorous as bouquets, to the house of Mme.
Bézuguet, whence issued the voices of Costecalde, the gunmaker, and the
tinkling of the Nimes piano.
Now she was seated beside him, and his guns and implements of the chase,
in the old dusty African stage coach, bound for Blidah, listening to the
old coach's complaining voice.
"Ah! my good Monsieur Tartarin, I did not come out here of my own free
will, I assure you. Once the railway to Beaucaire was finished, I was of
no more use there, and they packed me off to Africa."
Miss Grimshaw paused in her reading. Was that a shout from the night
outside? The clock on the landing, gathering itself up for the business
of striking with a deep humming sound, began to strike. It struck
twelve, and at the last leisurely and sledge-hammer stroke resumed its
monotonous ticking. The faint boom of the sea filled the night, but all
else was silence, and the old stage-coach continued her complaint.
"And now I have to sleep in the open air, in the courtyard of a
caravanserai, exposed to all the winds of heaven. At night jackals and
hyenas come sniffing round my boxes, and tramps, who fear the evening
dew, seek refuge in my compartments. Such is the life I lead, my worthy
friend, and I suppose it will continue till the day when, blistered by
the sun and rotted by the damp, I shall fall to pieces, a useless heap,
on some bit of road, when the Arabs will make use of the remains of my
old carcase to boil their kousskouss."
"Blidah! Blidah!" shouted the conductor as he opened the door.
* * * * *
Miss Grimshaw awoke. The candle had burnt itself out, and a ray of early
morning sunlight was peeping in through the blinds.
She could still hear the clank of the old stage-coach--or was it
imagination? She rubbed her eyes.
Yes, there it came again. The window was half open, and the sound came
from the kitchen garden below--a metallic sound that had broken through
her sleep, filling her dreams with pictures of the Blidah coach and the
illustrious Tartarin, with his guns, hunting-knives, and powder-horns.
She sprang out of bed, went to the window, pulled aside the curtains,
and looked out.
In the kitchen garden down below she saw an object that had once been a
man--more desperate even than the immortal Tartarin. The once-man was on
all-fours; he could not get on his feet because his ankles were hobbled
together with a piece of rope. He could not untie the rope because on
each of his hands was firmly tied a boxing-glove. Try to untie a knot
with your hands encased in boxing-gloves, if you wish to realise
nightmare helplessness in its acutest form. A tin stable bucket was tied
down over the head of the figure, and, as a last artistic touch one of
old Ryan's cow's tails was tied to a band round the waist and hung down
behind.
The creature was trying to get out of the kitchen garden. Miss Grimshaw
could not help thinking of the blind and hopeless antics of an insect
imprisoned under a wine-glass as she watched. The garden, strongly
railed in, formed a sort of pound hopelessly ungetoutable.
The whole thing seemed so like a joke that the girl at the window for a
moment did not connect it with the obvious. Opening the window more, she
leaned further out.
"Hi!" cried Miss Grimshaw. "What are you doing there?"
The thing rose up on its knees, the boxing-gloves, like great paws,
seized the bucket on either side, in a frantic endeavour to wrench it
off, failed, and then from the bucket broke a volume of language that
caused the listener to draw hastily in and shut the window.
She guessed.
At this moment eight o'clock struck from the landing, and Norah knocked
at the door with hot water.
For a moment she thought of asking the servant the meaning of it all.
Then she decided not.
Half an hour later she entered the dining-room, where breakfast was
laid. Mr. French and Mr. Dashwood were already there, both spick and
span and looking like people who had enjoyed an undisturbed night's
rest. But there was a jubilant look in Mr. Dashwood's face and a twinkle
in Mr. French's eye such as seldom appears on the face or in the eye of
man before breakfast.
During the meal the conversation turned upon indifferent matters. Mr.
Dashwood had several attacks of choking, but Mr. French seemed quite
unmoved.
When the meal was over, and cigarettes were lit, Mr. French, who had
been scanning through his letters, stretched out his hand to the
bell-pull which was close to him.
"Norah," said Mr. French when that damsel appeared, "go down to the
stable and send up Moriarty."
He lit a cigarette, and Miss Grimshaw, who had been preparing to leave
the room, waited.
A few minutes passed; then came a knock at the door, and Moriarty, cap
in hand, stood before his master.
"Moriarty," said Mr. French, "there's a pig got into the kitchen
garden."
"A pig, sorr!"
"Yes, it's escaped down here from Cloyne. At least I'm going to send it
back to Cloyne. Get the cart."
"Yes, sorr."
"And a pig-net. Get it into the cart with the net over it and take it to
Cloyne. I don't know who it belongs to, so just dump it in the
market-place. This is market-day, so there'll be some one to claim it,
or it will find its way home."
"Yes, sorr."
"And, see here, bring the cart round to the door before you start."
"Yes, sorr."
Moriarty departed.
"Now," said Mr. French, "let's talk business. Miss Grimshaw, we're
leaving Ireland to-morrow--you and I and Effie and Garryowen, the
servants, and all. I've got a place----"
"To train Garryowen?"
"Yes, and here's the man that's got me it. It's in Sussex, down at a
place called Crowsnest. There are too many pigs in Ireland, poking their
noses into my affairs, to do any good with the business here."
"Good!" said Miss Grimshaw, with a rising colour. To escape from the
rain, and the awful loneliness of Drumgool had been the chief desire of
her heart for days past. She knew Sussex, and loved the country, and a
great feeling of gratitude towards Mr. Dashwood, the provider of this
means of escape, welled up in her heart.
"So," said Mr. French, "we'll find our work cut out to pack and all
before eleven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'm sending Andy and the horses
on by this night's train to Dublin; he'll put up with them at Bourke's
livery stables. I'm leaving only Buck Slane and Doolan behind to look
after the house. Janes, my agent, will pay them their wages. I'm not
even telling Janes where I'm going. I want to make a clean sweep. I'm
safe till the debt to Lewis becomes due. If that beast of a Giveen knew
my address he'd put Lewis' man on to me the minute he came here claiming
the money. I must cut myself off as completely from the place as if I
were dead."
"Well, there's one thing," said the girl. "If you can get away from here
without any one knowing where you are going to, they'll never dream of
looking for you in Sussex. I shouldn't think they know the name of the
place here. But can you?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, you must take tickets at the station here. You must take tickets
to Dublin, first of all. Well, that's a clue to where you are going."
"I've thought of that," said Mr. French, with a chuckle. "I'm going to
take our tickets to Tullagh; that's half way. The express stops at
Tullagh, and I'll hop out of the train there and book on to Dublin. Mr.
Dashwood here is going on with the horses to-night, and then on to
Crowsnest to have the house ready. Faith, I never can thank him for what
he's done or what he's going to do."
"Bless my soul!" said Dashwood, "I don't want thanks. It's the greatest
lark I ever came across. I wouldn't have lost last night for a thousand
pounds. I mean, you know, it's tremendous fun; beats a comic opera to
fits."
"Please, sir," came Norah's voice at the door, "the cart's round and
waiting."
Mr. French rose to his feet and led the way from the room, followed by
the others.
At the hall door steps a manure cart was drawn up. In the cart was
something covered with a pig-net. Doolan, whip in hand, was standing at
the horse's head.
"Let up!" came a voice from the cart. "What are yiz doin' wid me? Where
am I, at all, at all? Oh, but I'll pay yiz out for this! I'll have the
laa on yiz--and--and--yer sowls!"
"Shut your ears," said Mr. French to the girl; then he took Doolan's
whip, and with the butt of it prodded the thing in the cart. What seemed
a great tin snout resented this treatment. Then the cart moved off,
Doolan at the horse's head, and disappeared down the drive.
"Did you see what was in the cart?" asked Mr. French when Miss Grimshaw
uncovered her ears.
"Yes," she replied, "and I saw it in the garden this morning, and I
spoke to it, and asked it what it was doing, and--well, I don't wonder
at your wanting to leave Ireland."
"Not while there's things like that in it," said the master of Drumgool,
following Doolan and his charge with his eyes till they disappeared from
sight. "And now, let's get to work."
The sunlight of the early morning had vanished, and almost as the cart
and its contents turned from the avenue drive into the road the rain
began to come down again in great sheets--thunderous pourings, as if to
make up for lost time. But it was a merry rain, at least in the ears of
the girl. "You're going, you're going!" The rain beat a tattoo to the
words on the zinc roof of outhouse and window-pane. "To-morrow,"
slobbered the overflowing water-butts, and "Sussex" hissed the
schoolroom fire, as the raindrops down the chimney hit the burning
coals.
No one but a woman knows the things to be done in a sudden disruption
of a household like this. "Everything must be covered up, and everything
must be turned over," is a broad axiom that only just covers the
situation when a house is to be left uninhabited for a number of months.
That is to say, carpets must be taken up, beaten, and folded, pictures
and looking-glasses taken down, covered in brown paper, and placed on
the floor. A sort of spring cleaning, petrified half-way through and
left in a state of suspension, is the ideal aimed at by the careful
housewife.
Miss Grimshaw never had possessed a house of her own, but she was
descended from long generations of careful housewives, and she had an
instinct for what ought to be done. But she had also a clear brain that
recognised the impossible when it came before her. To put Drumgool in
order in twelve working hours, and with a handful of disorganised
domestics, was impossible, and she recognised the fact.
So the carpets were to be left unbeaten, the pictures still hanging.
Doolan had orders to light fires in the rooms every week, and to be sure
to take care not to burn the house down.
At four o'clock, in a burst of sunset which lit up the heaving Atlantic,
the rain-stricken land, and the great hills unveiled for a moment of
clouds, Mr. Dashwood departed for the station. Andy and the horses had
left at three.
"I'll have the bungalow jolly and comfortable for you," said Mr.
Dashwood. "You'll be there day after to-morrow evening, if you stay in
London for a few hours' rest. Send me a wire when you reach Euston.
Well, good luck!"
"Good luck!" said Mr. French.
"Good-bye!" said the girl.
They watched the car driving down the avenue, the wheel-spokes flashing
in the sunlight. Then they turned back into the house.
"To-morrow!" thought Miss Grimshaw, as she lay in bed that night
listening to the rain that had resumed business and the ticking of the
clock in the corridor making answer to the rain. "Oh, to-morrow!"
Then she fell to thinking. What was the matter with the two men? When
she and they were gathered together they were as jolly as possible, but
the instant she found herself alone with one of them, that one
wilted--at least, became subdued, lost his sprightliness and gaiety.
More than that, each, when alone with her, became, if the subject turned
that way, the trumpeter of the other's praises. Yet when they were all
together they would try as much as they could to outshine each other,
Mr. French setting up his wit against Mr. Dashwood, Mr. Dashwood
retaliating. Just as two male birds before a hen strut and spread their
tails, so these two gentlemen would show off their mental feathers when
together. Parted they drooped.
A bell-man could not have told her the fact that they had lost their
hearts more plainly than intuition stated the fact when, all three
together at afternoon tea, just before Mr. Dashwood's departure for the
station, that young gentleman with a plate of toast in his hand, had
dallied attendance upon her, while Mr. French had urged the dubious
charm of crumpets. Yet, behold! on the departure of the younger man the
elder had presumably found his heart again, and at supper had become
almost tiresome in his almost fulsome praise of Dashwood.
It was horribly perplexing.
A woman's intuitive knowledge teaches her how to act in every situation
love can place her in, from the first glance to the last embrace; her
male and female ancestors whisper to her what to do down the long
whispering gallery of the past. They whispered nothing now. Miss
Grimshaw had relatives long dead, who, fur-covered, tailed, and living
in trees, had dropped cocoanuts on the heads of rivals; these gentlemen
and ladies could give her no advice. Cave-dwelling ancestors, whose
propositions were urged with stone clubs, were equally dumb. Even her
more near and cultivated forebears had nothing to say.
It was an entirely new situation in love. Two men "playing the game,"
and determined to take no mean advantage one of the other--even Love
himself found the situation strange, and had no suggestions to offer.
The next morning was dull, but fine. The sky had lifted, thinned, and
become mackerelled. Between the ribs of cloud a faint, bluish tinge here
and there told of the blue above. The mountains sat calm and grey upon
the horizon. They had drawn a great way off as if to make way for the
coming sunshine. Fine weather was at hand.
In the hall of Drumgool the luggage was piled, waiting for Doolan and
the wagonette. The servants and the luggage were to go in the wagonette,
and so carefully had Mr. French thought out the problem before him that
he had hired the horses and the wagonette the day before, not from
Cloyne, but from Inchkilin, a small town twelve miles south of Drumgool.
The Dancing Mistress and the outside car were to be sold off by his
agent, and the money held till his return.
The train started at eleven. At eight o'clock the wagonette and its
contents drove away from the house, and at ten minutes to nine the car,
with Mr. French, Miss Grimshaw, and Effie followed. Doolan was driving,
and just as they were turning out of the avenue the whole east side of
Drumgool House lit up to a burst of sunshine from over the hills.
It seemed a lucky omen. That and the lovely winter's morning through
which they were driving put the party in good spirits, and Doolan's
deafness allowed them to talk as freely as they liked about their
affairs.
"I hope Dick Giveen hasn't seen the wagonette," said French. "If he has,
he'll be following to the station to find out what's up. If he sees us,
it won't so much matter, for he'll think, maybe, we are only going for a
drive, but the servants and the luggage would give the whole show away."
"Has he any sort of trap to follow us in?" asked Miss Grimshaw.
"He has an old shandrydan of a basket pony-carriage. Maybe he's not up
yet, for he's not an early riser. Anyhow, we'll see when we pass the
bungalow."
They were drawing near Drumboyne now; the bungalow inhabited by Mr.
Giveen lay at the other end of the tiny village. It was a green-painted
affair, with an outhouse for the pony and trap; a green-painted
palisading, about five feet high, surrounded house and garden, and as
the car passed through the village and approached the danger zone, Miss
Grimshaw felt a not unpleasant constriction about the heart. Effie
seemed to feel it, too, for she clasped "Mrs. Brown's 'Oliday Outin's,"
which she had brought to read in the train, closer under her arm, and
clasped Miss Grimshaw's hand.
There was no sign of the ogre, however, in the front garden, and the
girl heaved a sigh of relief, till French, who had stood half up to get
a better view of the premises, suddenly sat down again, with a look of
alarm on his face, and cried to Doolan to whip up.
"What is it?" asked Miss Grimshaw.
"The blackguard's putting the old pony to," said Mr. French. "I caught a
glimpse of him in the back yard. He's got wind of our going, and he's
after us. Whip up, Doolan."
"There's not much use whipping up," said Miss Grimshaw, "for the train
won't go till eleven. The question now is, Can his old pony get him to
the station by eleven?"
"If it does," cried French, now in a towering passion,
"I'll--I'll--b'Heaven, I'll shoot him!"
"You haven't anything to shoot him with. Let's think of what's best to
be done."
"Doolan!" shouted French into the hairy ear of the driver, "do you know
Mr. Giveen's old pony?"
"Do I know Misther Giveen's ould pony?" creaked Doolan. "Sure, who'd
know her better? Do I know Misther Giveen's ould pony? Sure, I knew her
mother before she was born. An ould skewbal', she was, till Micky Meehan
battered her to death dhrivin' roun' the counthryside, wid that ould
cart he got from Buck Sheelan of the inn, before he died of the dhrink,
and dhrunk he was when he sould it."
"Bother Buck Sheelan! Can the old pony get Mr. Giveen to the station by
eleven?"
"D'you mane, can it get him from his house to the station, sorr?"
"Yes."
"Well, sorr, it all dipinds. She's a rockit to go if she's in the mind
for it; but if she's set aginst goin', you may lather the lights out of
her, and she'll only land you in the ditch. But if she's aisy in her
mind and agrayable, faith! I wouldn't wonder if she could, for that ould
clothesbasket of Misther Giveen's doesn't weigh more'n a feather."
"Curse him and his clothesbasket!" cried French. "Whip up!"
To be opposed by a villain is not nearly so vexing as to be thwarted by
a fool, and the vision of Dick Giveen in his basket carriage, soft,
malevolent and pursuing, filled French with such a depth of rage that
had he possessed a gun his better nature would certainly have made him
fling his ammunition away over the nearest hedge so as to be out of the
way of temptation.
"Look!" said Miss Grimshaw, "isn't that smoke away over there--Cloyne!
We'll soon be there now, and there is no use in worrying. If he does
follow us, we'll manage to give him the slip at Tullagh."
"That'll mean the whole lot of us, servants and all, will have to get
out at Tullagh, and lose the train and stay the night; and then we're
not sure of escaping him. He'll stick to us like a burr. You don't know
Dick Giveen. Who the divil ever invented relations?"
Miss Grimshaw could not answer Mr. French's question as to who invented
relations which many a man has, no doubt, asked, and no more was said
till the long, dreary street of Cloyne, destitute of life and colour,
lay before them.
It was fifteen minutes to eleven when they reached the station. The
train was drawn up at the platform. Mrs. Driscoll and Norah had taken
their seats in a third-class carriage, and Moriarty was seeing the
luggage stowed in the van.
French took the tickets, chose a first-class compartment, and the
hand-bags and wraps having been stowed in it, they walked up and down
the platform, waiting and watching.
There was one point in their favour. Mr. Giveen's meanness amounted with
this gentleman almost to a monomania. He would do incredible things to
save a half-penny. Would he incur the expense of pursuit? Cannibalism
among the passions is a law in the mental world. One vice often devours
another vice, if the other vice stands between the devourer and its
objective. Were the jaws of Mr. Giveen's spite wide enough to engulf his
meanness? This was a question that Mr. French was debating vaguely in
his mind as he paced the platform with Miss Grimshaw and Effie.
A regiment of live Christmas turkeys were being entrained, not in
silence; the engine was blowing off steam; the rattle of barrows, the
clank of milk-cans--all these noises made it impossible to hear the
approach of wheels on the station road.
"I believe we'll do it," said Mr. French, looking at his watch, which
pointed to five minutes to the hour. "Anyhow, we'll be off in five
minutes, and I'll break the beast's head at Tullagh if he does follow
us."
He walked down the train to the third-class carriage where the servants
were, and at the door of which Moriarty was colloguing with Norah.
He told Moriarty in a few words of the pursuit, and then returned to his
own compartment.
"Take your sates, take your sates for Tullagh, Kildare, and Dublin!"
The van door was shut on the turkeys, the last of the luggage was in the
train, the last door was banged to, and the train was just beginning to
move, when out of the ticket-office entrance rushed Mr. Giveen with a
ticket in his hand. He had asked the ticket-collector where Mr. French
had booked to, and, being told Tullagh, had done likewise.
He had just time to reach the nearest carriage and jump in when
Moriarty, who had been observing everything, interposed.
"Mr. Giveen, sorr," cried Moriarty, protruding his head and shoulders
from the window of the third-class carriage, which was now in motion.
"Mr. Giveen, sorr, here's the shillin' I owe you."
A shilling fell on the platform at Mr. Giveen's feet. He stooped to grab
it as it rolled in a leisurely manner towards the booking-office door,
missed it, pursued it, and was lost.
At least he lost the train.
Moriarty's profound knowledge of the psychology of the horse often stood
him in good stead when dealing with higher animals--or lower.