‘Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow,
I have enough on even, and on morrow.’
Ella is inside, waiting for him, when he returns. She has heard his
step, and has opened the little gate to let him in.
‘Oh, you have come! How long you have been! I thought you would never
come!’ cries she, in her agitation. Then, frightened at her own
impatience: ‘I—I thought perhaps you had gone away—and forgotten.’
‘There were certain things that had to be said to Mr. Barry,’ says
Wyndham. He slams the gate carelessly behind him, but Ella, passing
rapidly by him, turns the key in the lock.
‘It is very stupid of me, I know,’ says she, reddening at his glance of
surprise. ‘But the other day I thought’—paling—‘that I saw him.’
‘Moore?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where could you see him, as you never leave this?’ He is still feeling
a little sore about her determination to hold herself aloof from
everyone.
‘I’—reddening—‘was up in that tree over there’—pointing to the sycamore.
‘Up there! What on earth for?’
‘I wanted’—here poor Ella hangs her head—‘to see into the Rectory
garden. They—they were all laughing there, and I could hear them, and—’
She stops short in her somewhat dismal confession.
‘I see,’ says Wyndham quickly, all his coldness suddenly dying away.
Poor child! this little picture of her climbing with difficulty into
that great tree to catch even a glimpse of the gaiety of others goes to
his heart. ‘Was it there that—’
‘Yes; it was there I thought I saw him. I may—I must’—anxiously—‘have
been mistaken—don’t you think I must have been mistaken?—but I did see a
man just like him turning up the corner of the road that leads to the
village street.’
‘I am sure you were mistaken,’ says Wyndham. ‘As a fact, I know he has
disappeared altogether. If he wanted to spy upon you here, if he thought
you were in the country anywhere, what would be more likely than that he
should live in his old house, and make expeditions round about Dublin
with a view to coming upon you sooner or later? But I have heard from
the woman who lived next door to him that—’
‘Mrs. Morgan?’ says Ella eagerly.
‘Yes; Mrs. Morgan.’ He pauses, and is quite conscious of a glow of
satisfaction at her words. They are, indeed, ‘confirmation strong’ of
the truth of her story all through. She had known this Mrs. Morgan and
been known by her. ‘And,’ cries Ella eagerly, ‘she said—’
‘That he had left his house immediately after your disappearance. That
looks as if your going had frightened him, as if he thought he might be
made answerable to the law for your safety, as if he feared you had—that
is—’ He stammers here a little.
‘I know,’ says the girl, interrupting him gently. ‘As if he feared—I had
put an end to my life. And’—painfully—‘as you know—I was willing to risk
the chance of losing it, at all events.’
‘Oh, there was no risk,’ says Wyndham hastily. ‘But what I want to say
is that I believe Moore fancied himself liable to prosecution if he
could not say what had become of you. He had treated you abominably, and
no doubt the neighbours were talking, and—’ He himself is talking quite
at random now. He has not yet got over his late ‘slip.’ ‘Any way, his
not being seen since points to the fact that he has gone abroad.’
‘No, no,’ says the girl, shaking her head with conviction. She is very
pale now. ‘To me it seems that he has left home to look for me. I know—I
know’—affrightedly—‘that he is looking for me.’
‘Just because you saw a fancied resemblance to him in a man going down
the road?’
‘Not that altogether, though that did give me a shock, and I still
fancy—’
‘Come, that is being absolutely morbid,’ says Wyndham, with a touch of
impatience. ‘The man is gone, believe me. And even if not, what claim
has he on you?’
‘That I don’t know, but he said he had a “hold on me” until I was
twenty-one, and I am only eighteen’—with a sigh that is evidently full
of a desire to wish away three good years of her young life.
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ says Wyndham promptly. ‘And in the
meantime, now that in my opinion he is well out of the way, why don’t
you try to enjoy your life—to see people, to—’
‘I am enjoying life. Oh’—with a sudden, quick, happy smile—‘if you only
knew how much!’
‘Yet you confess to loneliness—to a desire to see those around you.’
‘Yes.’ She colours and taps her foot on the ground, then laughs. ‘And
now I have seen them,’ says she, with a swift upward glance at him that
lasts only for a moment.
‘The Barrys, yes; but there are others, and now you know the Barrys you
can easily know everyone else down here; you can make friends for
yourself, and go out, and pay visits, and—’
‘Oh no!’ cries she quickly, with a sudden terror, indeed; ‘no,
no’—putting up her hands—‘I can’t—I won’t—I’ll never go out. Mr.
Wyndham, don’t—don’t ask me to do that.’
It is in Wyndham’s mind to say to her that it would be of considerable
benefit to his social look-out if she would only consent to know people,
and make herself known, and break through this deplorable attitude of
secrecy that she has taken up; but a glance at her young frightened face
deters him. He shrugs his shoulders over his own ill-luck, and bears it.
‘I—you are angry with me again,’ says Ella nervously; ‘but I can’t go
out of this place. I can’t, indeed, unless you could send me somewhere
across the sea where he could never find me. But to leave this!’ Her
lips quiver, and she turns aside.
‘Nonsense! Who wants you to leave this?’ says Wyndham roughly. ‘But I
think you ought to have some common-sense about you. You have no one to
give you advice of any sort, and you are about the most headstrong girl
I ever met.’
‘I have taken your advice,’ says she, ‘always—always.’ Her face is still
turned away, and her voice sounds stifled.
‘Always when it suited you; but not now, when it might be of some use.
Of course, I can see quite plainly that that old idiot Mrs. Moriarty is
backing you up in all your nonsensical fears, but there will soon be an
end to that. I have engaged a lady to come and live with you, and give
you lessons, and knock some sense into your head, I hope.’
‘A lady to live with me? You have found her, then? You meant it?’
‘Naturally I meant it, and I only hope she will be able to show you the
folly of your ways—a matter in which I have most signally failed.’
Wyndham has worked himself into quite a righteous fever of wrath against
her. Good heavens! what a row there is bound to be shortly with his aunt
about this obstinate recluse! He has gone a little too far. The girl
turns upon him, gently indeed, but with a certain dignity in her air.
‘As I have told you, I can always leave this,’ says she; ‘but it will be
for a place where I can live alone, and where I shall never have to
leave my home, even though it be a garret. I—I have thought of a
convent’—her voice faltering—‘but I am a Protestant, and—’ She sighs
heavily. ‘Mr. Wyndham,’ cries she suddenly, ‘why do you want me to go
out—to know people? Why?’
Wyndham, who could have given one very excellent reason for his wish,
remains determinedly silent.
‘You see,’ cries she triumphantly, ‘you have no reason at all, and I am
ever so much happier by myself! I don’t say but that, if I were somebody
else, I should not like to go into that garden there’—pointing towards
the Rectory—‘but as it is, it would frighten me to step outside the
gate.’
‘And how long is this state of things to go on?’ asks Wyndham—‘until you
are ninety?’
‘Ah, he can’t live till then,’ says she; ‘and, besides, long before that
I shall be old and ugly, and he won’t care. You know’—growing
crimson—‘what I told you.’
‘Yes.’ Wyndham frowns. ‘You told me enough to know he was a most
infernal scoundrel.’
‘I suppose he is that,’ says she thoughtfully. ‘Though I don’t think
really he would ever murder anybody. You see, he didn’t even murder me.
He only wanted to marry me! That was what made me so angry. If he had
made me marry him’—turning to Wyndham with a quick, sharp movement—‘you
think that would mean that I should have to live with him always?’
She pauses as if eager for an answer, and when he does not speak, she
says imperatively:
‘Well?’
Wyndham nods his head.
‘It wouldn’t, however,’ says she with angry emphasis. ‘I’d have run away
after I was married, just the same. Only I thought it better to do it
before.’
There is so much force, so much girlish venom, in her tone, that Wyndham
feels inclined to laugh; but the little air mutin she has taken sits so
curiously, and with such an unexpected charm, upon her, that somehow his
laughter dies within him. Something about her now, too, as she stands
there flushed and defiant, strikes him as familiar. Who is she like?
‘For a young lady so very valiant, I wonder you are so afraid to face
the world,’ says he gravely.
‘Ah, I am not afraid of the world, but of him!’ says she. ‘And’—she
draws closer to him, and now all her bravery has died away from her, and
she looks as greatly in want of courage as a mouse—‘I’m afraid of this
new lady, too! Is she—kind—nice? will she—be angry with me sometimes?’
‘Very likely,’ says Wyndham. He softens this disagreeable answer,
however, by a smile. ‘No—you must not be afraid of her. She is an old
friend of mine, and very charming. And she is quite prepared to love
you.’
‘Ah! Then you have said—’
‘The very prettiest things of you, of course’—sardonically—‘so keep up
your courage.’
‘She will come?’—nervously.
‘On Thursday.’
‘And you?’
‘When you and she have reached the point of open war, I dare say she
will drop me a line, to come to her rescue.’
‘It will be to mine,’ says she, smiling, but very faintly. Tears are in
her eyes. ‘You—you will come with her, won’t you? Don’t let me have to
see her alone at first. You know her, and I don’t. And you—’
‘Very well, I’ll bring her,’ says Wyndham, with an inward groan. What
the deuce is going to be the end of it all?
He does not leave by the little green gate this time, but going down at
a swinging pace (that has a good deal of temper in it) to the principal
entrance, meets there with Mrs. Moriarty, who has been on the look-out
for him for the past half-hour.
‘An’ did ye hear what happened to Denis, yer honour?’
‘To Denis?’—abstractedly. Then, recovering himself, and with a good deal
of his late temper still upon him: ‘Of course I’ve been wondering all
day where he was. Not a soul to attend to me. He was drunk, as usual, I
suppose.’
‘Fegs, you’ve guessed it,’ says Mrs. Moriarty, clapping her hands with
unbounded admiration. ‘Dhrunk he was—the ould reprobate!’
‘Well, I hope he’ll turn up this evening, at all events,’ says Wyndham.
‘It is extremely uncomfortable, going on like this. If he can’t attend
to me, I’ll have to get another man. I have borne a good deal already,
and I hope you will let him fully understand that if he isn’t at my
rooms at seven I shall dismiss him.’
‘An’ who’d blame ye?’ says Mrs. Moriarty. ‘Faith, I’ve often thought of
dismissing him meself. But’—slowly—‘he can’t be at yer rooms at seven,
yer honour.’
‘And why not?’—angrily.
‘He’s bruk his arm, sir.’
‘Broke his arm?’
‘Just that, sir, bad scran to him! An’ the docther says he never saw a
worse compound fraction in his life. ’Twas all through Timsey Mooney.
Timsey and him’s at war for a long time, an’ yestherday Timsey said he’d
break his head, an’ with that Denis said he’d have the life ov him; and
’twas the divil’s own row they had afther that, only’—with a regretful
air—‘it was Denis’s arm that got bruk, an’ not Timsey’s head.’
‘So Denis got his arm broken?’
‘Yes, sir. An’ that Timsey Mooney as sound as iver! Not a scratch on
him. I’ve alwas tould ye that there’s nayther luck nor grace wid Denis.
But what am I wastin’ words on him at all for? ’Tis about the young lady
I’m curious. She’s to stay, sir?’
‘Yes—yes. I told you that before. And I have arranged with a friend of
mine, a very accomplished lady, to come down here and live with her as a
companion.’
‘A companion is it?’ Mrs. Moriarty strokes her beard. ‘She’s been very
continted wid me,’ says she.
‘I dare say. But this lady, Miss Manning, is to be a governess to her,
to teach her—to see to her manners, and—’
‘To tache her her manners is it? She’s got the purtiest manners I ever
yet see,’ says Mrs. Moriarty, with a smothered indignation. ‘Tache her,
indeed!’
It is plain that Mrs. Moriarty is already consumed with the pangs of
jealousy.
‘She is coming, at all events,’ says Wyndham shortly. ‘And I request you
will treat her with every respect, as one of my oldest friends.’
‘She’s ould, thin?’—anxiously.
‘She is not young.’
Mrs. Moriarty shakes her head with the air of one who would say: ‘We all
know what that means.’
‘Is she kind-hearted, sir? Miss Ella is terrible timid-like.’
‘Certainly she is kind. But, of course, she will expect “Miss Ella,” as
you call her, to follow her lead in most ways. I’—with meaning—‘shall
take care she is not interfered with in any way. I hope you quite
understand all this.’
‘I understhand, yer honour. She’s ould an’ cross, an’ Miss Ella is to
follow her about everywhere. But’—with a last lingering remnant of
hope—‘she won’t be comin’ for a while, sir, will she?’
‘She is coming on Thursday.’
‘Oh, murther!’ says Mrs. Moriarty _sotto voce_, as he shuts the gate
behind him.