Now when the last Lord Kyteler died, there was very little fuss made.
Another poverty-stricken Irish peer gone. He had n't been rich enough
to own an estate large enough for tenants to squabble on. A few farms
here and there through the country, Mount Kyteler itself, not worth a
tremendous amount. He was the last lord of one of these very, very old
families who had been lost in the back-wash of Irish history. Once
Kytelers had fought in the Holy Land under Richard the Lion-Hearted and
had fought later under Irish viceroys against the O'Bernes and O'Tooles
and O'Moores of the Wicklow hills; and antiquarians remembered that
Dame Alice Kyteler was the most sinister witch of all Ireland, and was
burned at the stake in Kilkenny many centuries before. But it was a
matter of politics more than demonology, though undoubtedly Dame Alice
was second only to Gilles de Rais, murderer and Marshal of France, in
worship of evil idols and in sinister sacrifice....
It was one of these old names that should have died out, when the
medieval chivalry of Europe died, Knights Templar and sporting Norman
bishops and morbid medieval ladies. But it existed, as many things
exist in Ireland and are forgotten in Europe and never known in
America,--strange Christian customs, strange pagan beliefs,--and "It"
the most horrible of all horrible ghosts.
They were a poor family, as poor is understood in Ireland. That is,
they had money enough for all necessities and many luxuries. They had
money enough for food, for clothes, for a few good horses for
conveyance and hunting, and they could go to the viceregal court at
Dublin Castle and be decent figures there. But they could not keep
racehorses, which is really a great hardship if you are Irish, and they
could not afford to live in London as an Irish nobleman should live,
which should be as a very great nobleman indeed. They were as well off
as a rich farmer, and they had a title, and they were not intolerably
proud.
If you were to meet a very red-faced man in tweeds and with a heavy
stick, at the Curragh races, betting modest sovereigns, and were told
that he was the Earl of Mount Kyteler, you would feel that there was
something wrong. He had not that terrible courtesy of the earls and
better sort of dukes which makes you feel like a clodhopper, no matter
from which particular Irish king you claim direct descent. He was too
human, too decent an old skate; you chuckled when you thought of a
coronet cocked rakishly over that red, weather-beaten face.
Oh, but Lady Margery! that was different!
Her appearance I could describe to you: the close-bound black hair, the
face like some rain-washed flower, the dark luminous eyes and laughing
lips, the balanced neck, the body that was half boy's and half young
woman's. All that means nothing, but if I say that when she appeared
there was a chime like an old silver bell, such antique sweetness came
upon the air ... the feet that never seemed to touch the ground, her
long, white, quiet hands. How that old-world title fitted her,
described her! Not demure miss, not buxom mistress, but the Lady
Margery Kyteler.
How important it is for me to bring her back, to have her real for an
instant in the clear air! But not as a necromancer under the
glittering stars, with circle and acolyte, fire, sword, and crown,
saying terrible words--Here be the symbols of secret things, the flags
and banners of God the Conqueror, the weapons to compel the aerial
potencies--and have that sweet face come white and fearful in the gray
dawn. I would have her seen with her merry smile, her feet that moved
lightly, as to hidden music, her long quiet hands. For all her boyish
strong body, there was such harmony and light, one knew that beyond the
body was something that would not die with the years--no more than the
sun dies when it drops into the sea, or the sweet, friendly moon. To
see her was more than miracles; she convinced better than the fathers
of the church.
Very unconsciously she did all this. And very embarrassed she would
have been and a little mad she would have thought one, had she been
told she was an argument for eternity. Know her to be eternal, but see
her playing with a terrier, pulling its tail, its ears, and clipping it
deftly under the jaw as it snapped playfully. Or stroking the sleek
neck of a horse, and talking to it as horses love to be talked to, or
kneeling to comfort some crying child of the people, and wooing it back
to happiness by being very happy herself....