'BE-N EIRINN I!
Barres senior rose with the sun. Also with determination, which took
the form of a note slipped under his wife's door as he was leaving the
house:
"DARLING:
"I lost last night's fishing and I'm hanged if I lose it to-night!
So don't ask me to fritter away a perfectly good evening at the
Gerhardt's party, because the sun is up; I'm off to the woods; and
I shall remain there until the last trout breaks.
"Tell the little Soane girl that I left a rod for her in the
work-room, if she cares to join me at the second lake. Garry can
bring her over and leave her if he doesn't wish to fish. Don't
send a man over with a lot of food and shawls. I've a creel full
of provisions, and I am sufficiently clad, and I hate to be
disturbed and I am never grateful to people who try to be good to
me. However, I love you very dearly.
"Your husband,
"REGINALD BARRES."
At half past seven trays were sent to Mrs. Barres and to Lee; and at
eight-thirty they were in the saddle and their horses fetlock deep in
morning dew.
Dulcie, sipping her chocolate in bed, marked their departure with
sleepy eyes. For the emotions of the night before had told on her, and
when a maid came to remove the tray she settled down among her
pillows again, blinking unresponsively at the invitation of the sun,
which cast over her a fairy net of gold.
Thessalie, in negligee, came in later and sat down on the edge of her
bed.
"You sleepy little thing," she said, "the men have breakfasted and are
waiting for us on the tennis court."
"I don't know how to play," said Dulcie. "I don't know how to do
anything."
"You soon will, if you get up, you sweet little lazy-bones!"
"Do you think I'll ever learn to play tennis and golf and to ride?"
inquired Dulcie. "You know how to do everything so well, Thessa."
"Dear child, it's all locked up in you--the ability to do everything--be
anything! The only difference between us is that I had the chance to
try."
"But I can't even stand on my head," said Dulcie wistfully.
"Did you ever try?"
"N-no."
"It's easy. Do you want to see me do it?"
"Oh, please, Thessa!"
So Thessalie, calmly smiling, rose, cast herself lightly upon her
hands, straightened her lithe figure leisurely, until, amid a cataract
of tumbling silk and chiffon, her rose silk slippers pointed toward
the ceiling. Then, always with graceful deliberation, she brought her
feet to the floor, forming an arc with her body; held it a moment, and
slowly rose upright, her flushed face half-buried in her loosened
hair.
Dulcie, in raptures, climbed out of bed and insisted on immediate
instruction. Down on the tennis court, Garry and Westmore heard their
peals of laughter and came across the lawn under the window to
remonstrate.
"Aren't you ever going to get dressed!" called up Westmore. "If you're
going to play doubles with us you'd better get busy, because it's
going to be a hot day!"
So Thessalie went away to dress and Dulcie tiptoed into her bath,
which the maid had already drawn.
But it was an hour before they appeared on the lawn, cool and fresh in
their white skirts and shoes, and found Westmore and Barres, red and
drenched, hammering each other across the net in their second furious
set.
So Dulcie took her first lesson under Garry's auspices; and she took
to it naturally, her instinct being sound, but her technique as
charmingly awkward as a young bird's in its first essay at flying.
To see her all in white, with sleeves tucked up, throat bare, and the
sun brilliant on her ruddy, rippling hair, produced a curious
impression on Barres. As far as the East is from the West, so far was
this Dulcie of the tennis court separated from the wistful, shabby
child behind the desk at Dragon Court.
Could they possibly be the same--this lithe, fresh, laughing girl,
with white feet flashing and snowy skirts awhirl?--and the pale,
grey-eyed slip of a thing that had come one day to his threshold with
a faltering request for admittance to that wonderland wherein dwelt
only such as he?
Now, those grey eyes had turned violet, tinged with the beauty of the
open sky; the loosened hair had become a net entangling the very
sunlight; and the frail body, now but one smooth, soft symmetry,
seemed fairly lustrous with the shining soul it masked within it.
* * * * *
She came over to the net, breathless, laughing, to shake hands with
her victorious opponents.
"I'm so sorry, Garry," she said, turning penitently to him, "but I
need such a lot of help in the world before I'm worth anything to
anybody."
"You're all right as you are. You always have been all right," he said
in a low voice. "You never were worth less than you are worth now;
you'll never be worth more than you are worth to me at this moment."
They were walking slowly across the lawn toward the northern veranda.
She halted a moment on the grass and cast a questioning glance at
him:
"Doesn't it please you to have me learn things?"
"You always please me."
"I'm so glad.... I try.... But don't you think you'd like me better if
I were not so ignorant?"
He looked at her absently, shook his head:
"No ... I couldn't like you better.... I couldn't care more--for any
girl--than I care for you.... Did you suspect that, Dulcie?"
"No."
"Well, it's true."
They moved slowly forward across the grass--he distrait, his handsome
head lowered, swinging his tennis-bat as he walked; she very still and
lithe and slender, moving beside him with lowered eyes fixed on their
mingled shadows on the grass.
"When are you to see Mr. Skeel?" he asked abruptly.
"This afternoon.... He asked if he might hope to find me alone.... I
didn't know exactly what to say. So I told him about the rose
arbour.... He said he would pay his respects to your mother and sister
and then ask their permission to see me there alone."
They came to the veranda; Dulcie seated herself on the steps and he
remained standing on the grass in front of her.
"Remember," he said quietly, "that I can never care less for you than
I do at this moment.... Don't forget what I say, Dulcie."
She looked up at him, happy, wondering, even perhaps a little
apprehensive in her uncertainty as to his meaning.
He did not seem to care to enlighten her further. His mood changed,
too, even as she looked at him, and she saw the troubled gravity fade
and the old gaiety glimmering in his eyes:
"I've a mind to put you on a horse, Sweetness, and see what happens,"
he remarked.
"Oh, Garry! I don't want to tumble off before _you_!"
"Before whom had you rather land on that red head of yours?" he
inquired. "I'd be more sympathetic than many."
"I'd rather have Thessa watch me break my neck. Do you mind? It's
horrid to be so sensitive, I suppose. But, Garry, I couldn't bear to
have you see me so shamefully awkward and demoralised."
"Fancy your being awkward! Well, all right----"
He looked across the lawn, where Thessalie and Westmore sat together,
just outside the tennis court, under a brilliant lawn umbrella.
Oddly enough, the spectacle caused him no subtle pang, although their
heads were pretty close together and their mutual absorption in
whatever they were saying appeared evident enough.
"Let 'em chatter," he said after an instant's hesitation. "Thessa or
my sister can ride with you this afternoon when it's cooler. I suppose
you'll take to the saddle as though born there."
"Oh, I hope so!"
"Sure thing. All Irish girls--of your quality--take to it."
"My--quality?"
"Yours.... It's merely happened so," he added irrelevantly, "--but the
contrary couldn't have mattered ... as long as you are _you_! Nothing
else matters one way or another. You _are_ you: that answers all
questions, fulfils all requirements----"
"I _don't_ quite understand what you say, Garry!"
"Don't you, Sweetness? Don't you understand why you've always been
exactly what you appear like at this moment?"
She looked at him with her lovely, uncertain smile:
"I've always been myself, I suppose. You are teasing me dreadfully!"
He laughed in a nervous, excited way, not like himself:
"You bet you have always been yourself, Sweetness!--in spite of
everything you've always been _yourself_. I am very slow in
discovering it. But I think I realise it now."
"Please," she remonstrated, "you are laughing at me and I don't know
why. I think you've been talking nonsense and expecting me to pretend
to understand.... If you don't stop laughing at me I shall retire to
my room and--and----"
"What, Sweetness?" he demanded, still laughing.
"Change to a cooler gown," she said, humorously vexed at her own
inability to threaten or punish him for his gaiety at her expense.
"All right; I'll change too, and we'll meet in the music-room!"
She considered him askance:
"Will you be more respectful to me, Garry?"
"Respectful? I don't know."
"Very well, then, I'm not coming back."
But when he entered the music-room half an hour later, Dulcie was
seated demurely before the piano, and when he came and stood behind
her she dropped her head straight back and looked up at him.
"I had a wonderful icy bath," she said, "and I'm ready for anything.
Are you?"
"Almost," he said, looking down at her.
She straightened up, gazed silently at the piano for a few moments;
sounded a few chords. Then her fingers wandered uncertainly, as though
groping for something that eluded them--something that they delicately
sought to interpret. But apparently she did not discover it; and her
search among the keys ended in a soft chord like a sigh. Only her lips
could have spoken more plainly.
At that moment Westmore and Thessalie came in breezily and remained to
gossip a few minutes before bathing and changing.
"Play something jolly!" said Westmore. "One of those gay Irish things,
you know, like 'The Honourable Michael Dunn,' or 'Finnigan's Wake,'
or----"
"I don't know any," said Dulcie, smiling. "There's a song called
'Asthore.' My mother wrote it----"
"Can you sing it?"
The girl ran her fingers over the keys musingly:
"I'll remember it presently. I know one or two old songs like
'Irishmen All.' Do you know that song?"
And she sang it in her gay, unembarrassed way:
"Warm is our love for the island that bore us,
Ready are we as our fathers before us,
Genial and gallant men,
Fearless and valiant men,
Faithful to Erin we answer her call.
Ulster men, Munster men,
Connaught men, Leinster men,
Irishmen all we answer her call!"
"Fine!" cried Westmore. "Try it again, Dulcie!"
"Maybe you'll like this better," she said:
"Our Irish girls are beautiful,
As all the world will own;
An Irish smile in Irish eyes
Would melt a heart of stone;
But all their smiles and all their wiles
Will quickly turn to sneers
If you fail to fight for Erin
In the Irish Volunteers!"
"Hurrah!" cried Westmore, beating time and picking up the chorus of
the "Irish Volunteers," which Dulcie played to a thunderous finish
amid frantic applause.
She sang for them "The West's Awake!", "The Risin' of the Moon,"
"Clare's Dragoons," and "Paddy Get Up!" And after Westmore had
exercised his lungs sufficiently in every chorus, he and Thessalie
went off to their respective quarters, leaving Barres leaning on the
piano beside Dulcie.
"Your people are a splendid lot--given half a chance," he said.
"My people?"
"Certainly. After all, Sweetness, you're Irish, you know."
"Oh."
"Aren't you?"
"I don't know what I am," she murmured half to herself.
"Whoever you are it's the same to me, Dulcie." ... He took a few
short, nervous turns across the room; walked slowly back to her: "Has
it come back to you yet--that song of your mother's you were trying to
remember?"
Even while he was speaking the song came back to her memory--her
mother's song called "Asthore"--startling her with its poignant
significance to herself.
"Do you recollect it?" he asked again.
"Y-yes ... I can't sing it."
"Why?"
"I don't wish to sing 'Asthore'----" She bent her head and gazed at
the keyboard, the painful colour dyeing her neck and cheeks.
When at length she looked up at him out of lovely, distressed eyes,
something in his face--something--some new expression which she dared
not interpret--set her heart flying. And, scarcely knowing what she
was saying in her swift and exquisite confusion:
"The words of my mother's song would mean nothing to you, Garry," she
faltered. "You could not understand them----"
"Why not?"
"B-because you could not be in sympathy with them."
"How do you know? Try!"
"I can't----"
"Please, dear!"
The smile edging her lips glimmered in her eyes now--a reckless little
glint of humour, almost defiant.
"Do you insist that I sing 'Asthore'?"
"Yes."
He seemed conscious of a latent excitement in her to which something
within himself was already responsive.
"It's about a lover," she said, "--one of the old-fashioned, head-long,
hot-headed sort--Irish, of course!--you'd not understand--such
things----" Her tongue and colour were running random riot; her words
outstripped her thoughts and tripped up her tongue, scaring her a
little. She drummed on the keys a rollicking trill or two, hesitated,
stole a swift, uncertain glance at him.
A delicate intoxication enveloped her, stimulating, frightening her a
little, yet hurrying her into speech again:
"I'll sing it for you, Garry asthore! And if I were a lad I'd be
singing my own gay credo!--if I were the lad--and you but a lass,
asthore!"
Then, though her gray eyes winced and her flying colour betrayed her
trepidation, she looked straight at him, laughingly, and her clear,
childish voice continued the little prelude to "Asthore":
I
"I long for her, who e'er she be--
The lass that Fate decrees for me;
Or dark or white and fair to see,
My heart is hers _'be n-Eirinn i_!
I care not, I,
Who ever she be,
I could not love her more!
_'Be n-Eirin i--
'Be n-Eirinn i--
'Be n-Eirinn i Asthore!_[1]