‘“Mark ye,” he sings, “in modest maiden guise
The red rose peeping from her leafy nest;
Half opening, now half closed, the jewel lies:
More bright her beauty seems, the more represt.”’
Wyndham pauses in the gateway, and then comes forward. His astonishment
at seeing the two Barrys here is unbounded, so unbounded, indeed, that
Ella, who has been the first to see him, and who therefore naturally has
been the first to notice it, is quite frightened. She goes quickly to
him.
‘It was my fault. I asked them to come in. Do you mind?’
‘I mind? I quite understood that it was you who would mind,’ says he.
There is no time for any more. Susan has come forward.
‘How d’ye do, Mr. Wyndham?’ says she.
Wyndham gives her his hand mechanically, murmuring the usual
meaningless, but courteous, words of greeting that are expected of one,
no matter what worries lie on the heart, troubling and mystifying it.
And Wyndham, in spite of his reputation of being one of the smartest
barristers in Dublin, has, to tell the truth, been considerably
mystified of late.
The day after he left Ella, he had gone to that part of Dublin described
by her as the place where the man Moore lived. A squalid place, though
still with an air of broken respectability about it, and with quite an
extraordinary number of ill-dressed urchins playing about the hall
doorsteps. They were of that class, that though their garments were
almost in rags they had still shoes and stockings, of sorts, on their
feet, and an attempt at a frayed collar round their necks. It gave
Wyndham a sense of disgust to think that the girl who was now living in
his dainty cottage had once lived in such an atmosphere as this; and
when he had gone down the hideous road twenty yards or so, the certainty
that had begun at the first yard—that she could never have lived
there—had deepened. But this idea gave him little comfort. If she had
ever lived here, it was only, to say the least of it, deplorable. If she
had not lived here, she had lied to him, and was an impostor. And if the
latter supposition was true, he had rented his cottage to an impostor,
and a clever one, too. She had taken him in, beyond all doubt. And he
was looked upon as rather a bright and shining light amongst his
_confrères_ at the Bar and at the University Club, and in the various
other resorts for rising young men in Dublin.
When he knocked at the door of the house mentioned by her, he told
himself that of course he had come on a fool’s errand; yet, when the
woman who answered the door—a highly respectable person, and frightfully
dirty, in a respectable way—told him ‘that no Moores lived here,’ he
felt as though someone had struck him. He must have looked extremely
taken back, because the respectably-dirty lady roused herself
sufficiently from the dignity that seemed to cling to her as closely as
her grime, and condescended to say she had only been there a short time,
‘an’ p’raps Mrs. Morgan, nex’ door, could give him the information he
was lookin’ for.’
Wyndham had taken the hint—he scarcely knew why—and had gone ‘nex’
door,’ to receive, as he honestly believed, the same answer. But no!
Mrs. Morgan, in a tight-fitting gown, draggled at the tail, and with her
sparse front locks in curl-papers (she said ‘curling-tongs an’
methylated spirit played the very juice wid your hair’), gave him a very
handsome amount of news about the missing Moore.
She was a very genial person, in spite of the curl-papers—or perhaps
because of them—and she invited Wyndham into her ‘best front’ in the
most cordial way—even though she knew he was not going to take it.
Yes; of course she had known Mr. Moore. He used to live next door, but
some months ago his wife died, and he had seemed a little unsettled like
since.
‘There was a girl?’
‘Oh yes—Ella Moore.’
‘Their daughter?’
‘Law, no, sir! Her niece, poor Mrs. Moore would call her at times, but I
don’t think she was even that. I don’t know the truth of it rightly; but
that girl was “quite the lady,” sir, round here. An’ she found some
people who took her up an’ had her as governess for their children—big
people out in some o’ the squares. Mrs. Moore had her with her when she
took the house nex’ door. Ella was a little creature then, an’ used to
be cryin’ always for someone—her mother, I used to say. But Mrs. Moore
was very dark, entirely, an’ never let out. Is it about Ella you’re
comin’, sir? I’d be glad to hear good of her. But I suppose you know she
fled out of Moore’s house one night, an’ was never seen again? Some said
as how Moore wanted to murder her, or did murder her; but he wasn’t a
man for that, I say. Any way, up he sticks, and disappears after a bit.
The police looked into it for a while, but nothin’ came of it. They do
say’—mysteriously—‘that Moore wanted to marry her, and that she’d have
nothin’ to do with him. But, law, some people would say anythin’! An’,
of course, he was old enough to be her father. You wouldn’t be likely to
know anythin’ of her, sir?’—in the wheedling tone of the confirmed
gossip.
‘No,’ says Wyndham calmly. ‘What I want is the man Moore. You can tell
me nothing, then?’
‘No, sir.... Get out!’—to two or three little children who have appeared
on the threshold, anxious, no doubt, for their dinner, and wondering
what is keeping their mammy. ‘But if you did hear of Miss Ella—we all
used to call her “Miss Ella,” though she was, as it might be, one of
ourselves—I’d be glad to get a word from you. She was very good to my
little Katie, an’ she would come in of an evenin’ an’ give her a lesson,
just as if I could pay for it. There was very few like her, sir, an’
that I tell you,’ says Mrs. Morgan, whose eyes, in spite of her
wonderful dirtiness, are handsome now because of the honest, kindly
tears that shine in them. ‘An’ it’s me own opinion,’ goes on the grimy
woman, ‘that she never belonged to them Moores at all—that she was
stolen like by Mr. Moore.’
‘Or by his wife?’ suggests Wyndham.
‘Oh no, poor soul!’ says Mrs. Morgan. ‘She’—with delicate
phraseology—‘hadn’t a kick in her. But we often said—my husband and
I—that perhaps Mrs. Moore had been a servant in some great family, an’
had taken a—a child, that—beggin’ yer pardon, sir—mightn’t be altogether
wanted.’
This view of Mrs. Morgan’s takes root in Wyndham’s mind. An illegitimate
child! An unacknowledged scion of some good family! Poor, poor child!
poor Ella!
‘You may be right,’ he said. The interview was at an end. Seeing two of
Mrs. Morgan’s children peeping in again, hungry and disconsolate, he
beckons them to him, and after awhile they slowly, and with open
distrust, creep towards him. Was that the Katie—that little dark-eyed,
handsome child—that she used to teach? Wyndham caught her and drew her
towards him, and pressed half-a-sovereign into her hand, and then caught
the little boy hanging on her scanty skirts, and pressed another little
yellow piece into his soft but unwashed palm, after which he bid the
grateful Mrs. Morgan adieu, and walked out of their lives for ever.
But what she had told him went with him. Who is this girl Ella
Moore—this girl who is now his tenant? He had insisted on her being his
tenant, on her paying him rent. That was as much to satisfy her as to
satisfy some scruples of his own. She was really, of course, no more to
him than any other tenant might be—and yet—
For one thing, who is she? One does not, as a rule, rent one’s houses to
people, not only unknown and without a reference, but actually without a
name.
* * * * *
‘I quite understood it was you who would mind.’ There was rancour in the
voice that had spoken those few words, and the rancour had gone to
Ella’s heart. Was he angry with her?—displeased? Should she not have
asked the Barrys to come in? She loses her colour and shrinks back a
little, and Carew, glancing from her to Wyndham, whilst the latter is
murmuring his greetings to Susan, tells himself that Wyndham is a brute,
with a big, big B, and that in some way this mysterious girl—this lovely
girl—has her life made miserable by him. This is, as we know, manifestly
unfair, as it is really Wyndham whose life is being made distinctly
uncomfortable by this ‘lovely, mysterious girl.’ But Carew is too young
to see a second side to any question that has his sympathy.
‘I think we must go now,’ says Susan, holding out her hand to her new
acquaintance. ‘It is very late—too late’—smiling—‘for a formal visit.’
Wyndham winces. Is his informal? ‘But we shall pay that soon, now that
we know we may come. And, of course, you and your—’
She pauses, the thought coming to her that she really does not know if
Mr. Wyndham is actually this pretty girl’s landlord. And, besides, ‘your
landlord’—how badly it sounds! ‘You and your landlord!’ Oh, impossible!
She had been very near making a great mistake.
So she hesitates, and Wyndham misinterprets her pause. He feels furious.
What was the word she was going to use? ‘Lover,’ no doubt, in the
innocence of her young and abominably stupid heart. He feels brutal even
towards the unconscious Susan just now. Yes, that is what all the small
world round here will think. His colour rises, and he feels all at once
guilty, as though the very worst facts could be laid to his charge,
whilst all the time he is innocent. Innocent! Oh, confound it! the
situation is absolutely maddening ... and if it comes to the old man’s
ears! Lord Shangarry is not one to be easily entreated, or to be
convinced, either.... An obstinate old man, who, if he once caught an
idea into his old brain, would find it very hard to let it go again.
‘And, of course, you and Mr. Wyndham,’ says Susan now, hastily, not
understanding Wyndham’s frown, ‘have many matters to discuss.’
The speech is wound up very satisfactorily, after all.
‘Certainly not. I beg you won’t go on my account,’ says Wyndham stiffly.
‘Not for that,’ says Susan gaily, ‘but because father will be wondering
where we are.’ Wyndham, who has already heard a little of the gossip
that is beginning to circulate around the Cottage, almost groans aloud
here. Father would be wondering indeed if he only knew. ‘By-the-by, Mr.
Wyndham, now that’—she looks at Ella and holds out her hand to her—‘she
tells us she would like to see us here sometimes, we can come, can’t
we?’
She smiles delightfully at Wyndham, and the wretched man smiles back at
her in a way that should have moved her to tears had she seen him, but,
providentially, after a mere passing glance at him, she has given her
attention to Ella, who pleases her imagination immensely.
‘Certainly, if Miss Moore wishes it,’ says he. ‘You know this place is
no longer mine. Miss Moore is my tenant now. She is, therefore, at
liberty to do what she likes with it. You must not ask me what she can
or cannot do. I am that most disagreeable of all things, a
landlord—nothing more.’
His tone is even colder than he means it to be. The Rector—what will he
say when he hears of this visit of Susan’s? The Rector, who is so
ultra-particular, and this girl without a name—so almost certainly
illegitimate! Fancy the Rector’s face when he hears of this thoughtless
visit of Susan’s! Mr. Barry is a good man, and charitable in his own
line, but to give his countenance to a friendship between his daughter
and a girl nameless—unknown!
‘We are telling her,’ goes on Susan sweetly, ‘that she must come and see
us sometimes, too—just across the road, you know. But she says she will
not. Can’t you persuade her, Mr. Wyndham, though you are only her
landlord, as you say?’ Is there meaning in her tone? Does she think?
Wyndham glances at her suspiciously, and then knows he ought to be
ashamed of himself. ‘Still, landlords have weight, and you know father
would be so pleased if she would come to us sometimes.’
‘I dare say,’ says Wyndham, who can almost see Mr. Barry’s face when the
idea is suggested to him. The Rector, with his aristocratic tendencies,
that the very depths of poverty have not been able to subdue, would
think it monstrous, Susan’s being here at all with a girl so wrapped in
mystery—a girl so enveloped in the base gossip that already is arising
about her in the neighbourhood, because of her strange tenancy of the
Cottage—a gossip that must inevitably include him, Wyndham, too. How is
her coming here to be accounted for? Who will hold him guiltless of the
knowledge of her coming?
‘If you are going,’ says he, turning suddenly to Susan, ‘I shall go with
you; I wish to speak to your father.’ He has made up his mind on the
moment to lay the whole affair open to the Rector. It seems the only
thing to be done, if his tenant has decided on knowing the Barrys. ‘You
tell me Miss Moore is anxious—’
‘Your name is Moore, then?’ says Susan gently, going a step towards her.
‘It is not!’ says the girl almost passionately.
There is a silence; Wyndham, feeling the water closing over him more and
more still, with the girl’s troubled eyes upon him, comes to the rescue.
‘It is, at all events, the only name by which she is known at present,’
says he to Susan. ‘I am looking into her affairs, and hope in time to be
able to unravel them. That is the good of being a barrister, you see.
And now—if you are ready?’
Susan bids good-bye again to Ella, who is looking a little subdued and
uncertain now; Carew does the same, holding her hand lingeringly, as if
wishing to say something sympathetic to her, but finding words fail him.
Wyndham, following him and Susan, would have passed through the gate
into the road outside, but that Ella, with a quick, softly-spoken word,
full of emotion, stops him.
‘I have done something wrong,’ says she, in a breathless whisper.
‘Wait—do wait—one moment, and tell me, tell me—’ Tears are standing
thick within her eyes.
‘There is much to tell you,’ says he impatiently. ‘But no time in which
to tell it.’
‘About—’ Her face pales, and she looks eagerly at him, laying even a
restraining hand upon his arm in her growing fear.
‘Yes—about that fellow.’
‘Mr. Moore?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, you will stay—you will tell me!’ cries she, in low but panting
tones. ‘Oh, don’t leave me in suspense. Even if you can’t stay now, you
can come back again, if only for five minutes! Oh, do! You will? He—’
She looks as if she were going to faint.
‘There is no need for fear of that sort,’ says he quickly. ‘He knows
nothing of you, or where you are. Yes, if I can’—reluctantly—‘I will
come back.’
He follows the others now, and as he reaches Susan and Carew, they all
three distinctly hear the click of the lock of the garden-gate behind
them.
Susan looks at Wyndham in a startled way.
‘I—I think someone must have been very unkind to her,’ says she; ‘don’t
you? To lock herself up like that, and never to want to see anybody. Mr.
Wyndham, why don’t you try to find out her enemies?’
‘I am trying,’ says Wyndham, looking into the calm, earnest, intelligent
eyes raised to his.
‘Father would help you,’ says Susan. ‘Was it because of that you wanted
to see him to-day?’
‘Yes,’ says Wyndham.
There is no time for more.
Mr. Barry is coming up the road. He had evidently seen them all come out
of the green gate of the Cottage. His face is grave and stern.