THROUGH THE FRENCH WINDOW.
“Remorse she ne’er forsakes us;
A bloodhound staunch, she tracks our rapid step.”
“A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire.”
When Maggie came into my room next morning, she told me that Dr. Kelly
had been sent for.
“The masther was very bad all the night, and it wasn’t daylight when
Misther Roche come down and said Mick should go for the docthor.”
I dressed as quickly as I could, and, when I came downstairs, found
that Dr. Kelly was already with my uncle. I rang the bell, and, after an
unusual delay, Roche answered it.
“You had better ask Dr. Kelly to come in to breakfast,” I said.
“Very well, miss; he’ll be going now in a minute. He’s with the masther
in the little study.”
“In the little study?”
“Yes, indeed, miss. At four o’clock this morning he lepped out of his
bed, and nothing would do him only to go downstairs; first he was for
going away out of the house down to the bog, or the like o’ that, an’
when I was thrying to stop him, he says, ‘Let go,’ says he,
‘Poul-na-coppal is the only place,’ says he; ‘we’ll be late if we don’t
go now!’ and I was put to me thrumps to howld him.”
“Did you tell Dr. Kelly all this?”
“Oh, bedad, I did, miss!” said Roche, with modest pride, “and more too.
There he is now in the hall. I’ll go tell him you want to spake to him.”
The little doctor’s vulgar authoritative voice and complacent manner
inspired me with a certain confidence in him, though what he said about
Uncle Dominick was not very reassuring.
“It’s hard enough to say how it’ll go with him,” he said, sitting down
opposite to me at the breakfast-table. “Yes, thank you, I take three
lumps; I’ve a very sweet tooth. Of course, he’s not as young as he was,
y’ know; it’s a nasty attack, and his constitution’s greatly pulled down
since I saw him last.”
Beyond this he did not seem inclined to give an opinion, and began to
tell me about some Shakespeare recitations, in which, it appeared, he
was to take a prominent part. But I reverted to the subject of my
uncle’s illness at the first opportunity.
“Oh, never fear, he’ll pull round; but we’ll have to be very careful of
him,” he said, hurrying through his breakfast with practised rapidity.
“He was wandering in his head last night,” I said tentatively.
“Oh, I know that, I know that,” he replied, rubbing his truculent red
moustache violently with his napkin; “Roche told me all about that.”
“Because,” I went on, “if you thought there was anything serious, I
would not go over to Garden Hill to-day. Miss Burke asked me to spend a
few days with her,” I explained.
“Well, why not?” broke in Dr. Kelly, brusquely. “Now, if you don’t mind
me telling you so, it would be the best thing you could do”--screwing
up one small intelligent eye and looking at me observantly. “You just
want a little change, and Roche is well able to mind your uncle”--he
gave his tea-cup a swing to collect what remained of the three lumps
before swallowing its contents. “Well, I must be off now. I’ll be at
Miss Burke’s meself this afternoon, and I’ll call in here again on my
way home. Good morning.”
Roche was waiting in the hall, and I heard Dr. Kelly’s last words.
“Mind, now, you keep a good eye on him. I’ll send over the medicine.”
Up to this I had not been able to examine the contents of the post-bag,
and I now went over to the sideboard and shook them out. There was
nothing in it but a circular or two, and a small flat parcel. I turned
over the latter, and saw with a start my own name in Willy’s cramped
boyish handwriting. Cutting the string quickly, I found inside another
wrapping of paper, carefully tied up, and sealed with his
well-remembered signet-ring. Under the string a half-sheet of
note-paper, folded in two, had been slipped. There were only a very few
words written in pencil on it.
“I think you have a right to this, and some day I would like you to see
it, but please don’t open it till my father is dead. Yours ever, W.”
I turned the parcel over and over. It felt like a book with a soft
cover; but why Willy, of all people in the world, should send me a book,
and what it could have to say to Uncle Dominick was more than I could
fathom.
It was no use trying to think about it. Everything lately had gone
beyond my powers of comprehension. I was sick of conjectures, and
exhausted by unexplainable disasters. I would not let myself think of
Willy; it did not bear thinking of, that he was now turning his back on
his own home, for no apparent reason, except the contradictory one that
he had married, contrary to his father’s wishes, a girl whom he did not
love. One comfort was, that I also was soon to leave Durrus behind me,
and in my case it would certainly be for ever. Even if Uncle Dominick
had meant anything by his threat of leaving me his property, it did not
make any difference to me. Nothing would induce me to have anything to
say to it. Willy would have to come home and take possession when the
time came, and I would go on living my peaceful uneventful life in the
house in Charles Street with Aunt Jane. That was what it was going to
be, I determined--a placid, unexciting existence; an occasional
classical concert; a literary tea or two; no more dances or
frivolities--I had in the last two or three months grown too old for
them.
I went up to my room and began to get through some preliminary packing
before lunch, and as with a heavy heart I folded up and laid in my trunk
the dresses which I had bought in Boston with such pleasant
anticipations, Aunt Jane’s words came back to me with humiliating
force--“I trust you will not have cause to regret the headstrong
self-will which has made you unable to content yourself in a quiet and
God-fearing household.”
The morning went quickly by, and, when I had finished packing, I sat
down by the window with an aching back and a hot head, but nevertheless
with satisfaction in the thought that the big trunk which I had just
filled and locked need not be opened again until it had once more taken
up its quarters in the house in Charles Street. Some irrational
sentiment had made me defer the packing of my habit till the last
moment, and when I did at last lay it on the top of my dresses, I
slipped the parcel Willy had sent me into its folds.
I raised the window, and looked out into the mild still air. By this
time next week, Willy and I would both be on the sea, being carried to
opposite ends of the earth, without anything to connect us for the
future, except this parcel, which he had forbidden me to open. It seemed
to me, as I looked out at the woods of Durrus, the place that I was so
fond of, and that yet I almost hated, that it was a true saying--
“Life is a tale told by an idiot, ...
... signifying nothing.”
The sky was dark and sullen, with layers of overlapping clouds roofing
it down to the horizon, and on the lonely sea-stretches there was not so
much as a fishing-boat to be seen. The place was unusually deserted, and
in nothing was Willy’s absence more clearly shown than in the fact that
the fallen sycamore was still lying across the bend of the avenue, no
attempt having even been made to cut away the branches. I looked away
from it with a shudder, remembering Uncle Dominick’s dreadful
confidences about it the night before, and I wondered how I should
summon up courage enough to go into his room to say good-bye to him. It
seemed unnatural to leave him when he was ill; but I knew very well that
I could be of no real use to him, and the mere thought of another scene
such as that of last night actually made my blood run cold.
A sound of the snapping of twigs made me again look in the direction of
the fallen tree, and I saw that a woman, whom I soon recognized as being
Moll Hourihane, was breaking away some of the smaller branches, and
making them into a bundle for firewood. It was the first time I had ever
seen her occupy herself rationally, or that I had been able to watch her
in unobserved security, and my eyes followed her movements with a
fascinated curiosity as she made herself a large bundle, and, having
hoisted it on to her back with surprising ease, crossed the grass
between the house and the drive, and walked along close under the
windows until she reached the end one, which was the French window of my
uncle’s study. She stood for a moment or two outside, looking in, and
then drew her hand once or twice down the glass.
I had leaned as far out of my window as was possible, and I now called
out to her, “Go away! You will disturb the master. Go away at once!”
She drew back from the window, and looked up, shading her eyes with her
hand, to see where my voice had come from. She soon saw me, and I again
motioned to her to go away. Instead, however, of doing so, she stood
quite still, and throwing back her head, she fell into a sort of
paroxysm of voiceless laughter, pointing at me, and rolling her head
from shoulder to shoulder. Seeing that she paid no attention to what I
said to her, I was on the point of leaving the window to go and look for
Roche, when the French window was opened, and Roche himself came out,
and with a torrent of abuse, delivered in voluble Irish, he drove her
away.
“The divil’s cure to her!” I heard him say to himself as she retreated,
“coming frightening the masther like that!”
“Roche,” I called, “how is the master?”
“Oh, a dale betther, miss,” he replied, coming under my window. “He was
quite aisy till that owld one came with her ugly face at the window. But
sure you can see him to-day before you go; he’s quite composed in his
mind. He was asking for yourself just now.”
In order to be quite sure of missing most of Miss Burke’s friends, I had
not ordered the trap till half-past four, and I put off going to see
Uncle Dominick until about a quarter of an hour before the time I was to
start. At the door of his study I met Roche coming out.
“Go in, miss; he’s getting on first-class. I’ll have a cup of tay ready
for you agin you’re coming out,” he said, opening the door for me.
My uncle was standing by the window, with a book in his hand. He gave a
quick glance at me as I came in.
“Yes, they are capital prints,” he said, as if in continuance of a
conversation. “I am glad you have come. There is very little light left;
but if you will come to the window, I will show them to you.”
He had on the long Paisley shawl dressing-gown which he had worn the
night before; his figure looked immensely tall against the dull light;
and his high bowed shoulders, with his head sunk on his chest, gave him
the appearance of some forlorn sick raven.
“I have come to say good-bye to you for a day or two,” I said, going
over to the window. “I am going over to the Burkes’.”
“Well, you will have time to look at this book before you go,” he
answered, turning over its leaves with a sort of suppressed eagerness.
“This now, do you remember showing me this?” He held the book towards
me, and I saw that it was the old volume of “The Turf, the Chase, and
the Road,” which my father had given him, and he and I had once before
looked over together. “That is a long time ago now.”
“Yes,” I replied, glad to find that he was so easy to talk to; “I can
hardly believe that it is only three months since I came.”
He looked fearfully ill and wasted; he was shaking from head to foot,
and his restless, bloodshot eyes kept wandering from the book to the
trees outside. Whatever Dr. Kelly might say, I was certain that he was
much worse than he had even been last night. I could not pretend to
myself that I was fond of him; but after all, now that Willy was gone,
I was practically the only relation he had left in the world, and I felt
more and more that it would be heartless of me to go away and leave him
in such a state.
He did not appear to notice what I had said, and I went on--
“I don’t really care about going to the Burkes’ in the least, Uncle
Dominick. I would quite as soon stay with you, if you would like me to.”
“Stay with me! What do you mean?” he said, with some surprise, slipping
the book into the wide pocket of his dressing-gown. “You only came last
night--or was it the night before?--and, of course, you must stay. You
will have to attend the old man’s funeral. You know”--with a low
laugh--“they all think that you were buried in Cork; but you’re not, you
know--you’re not.”
He had laid his trembling hand on my wrist to emphasize what he said,
and I was afraid to move.
“No, do not go,” he went on, his voice getting more and more hurried. “I
want you to see about that fallen tree. They cannot possibly get the
hearse up to the door while it is there. Why are you looking so
frightened, Owen? She is not here. You know, you were very ill when you
came, and I _had_ to get her to look after you. She was looking in
through the window a little time ago; but Roche hunted her away, and she
can’t do you any harm now.”
I was almost too terrified by this time to be able to conceal my fear;
but I said, as calmly as I could--
“I am not afraid of her. I think it is time for me to go now; let me
send Roche to you.”
“No, no!” he whispered anxiously, clutching my wrist more tightly, “he
knows nothing about it; he wasn’t here. No one knows but Mary Hourihane,
and it was all her fault. Owen!” he cried, his voice rising
hysterically, “don’t stare at me! I declare to God I never did anything
to you until she came in and asked me to help her to take
you--there--out through that window--out to Poul-na-coppal.” He dragged
me from the window into the dark corner by the fireplace. “Hide there!
Be quick! lest she should see you!” he panted, his teeth chattering, and
the perspiration breaking out on his forehead. “I hear her coming. There
she is!” fixing frenzied eyes on the wall opposite. “Look at the
bog-mould on her hands. She says she did it for my sake! Don’t let her
come near me; she will put her arms round my neck, and I shall die!” He
let go my hand, and made a rush to the window. “She is out there too!”
he said, with an awful cry, turning back and cowering again in the
corner by the fireplace; “and there--and there; she is everywhere! Don’t
leave me, Owen!”
But his appeal did not stop me in my flight from the room for help.
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