Love of Brothers Part 33

There came a knocking at the door. The doctor. In a few seconds Dr.

Costello was in the room with his invaluable air of never being flurried, of there being no need for flurry. He did not even express surprise, though he must have felt it, at seeing Stella there, nor at the state in which he found her.

"I shall explain to you presently," Lady O'Gara said, "why she is here instead of at Inch. Mrs. Comerford has quarrelled with her."

"Ah," said the doctor, getting out his clinical thermometer. "It has been her bane, poor lady, that difficult temper. Years have not softened it apparently."

"But for all that she has a n.o.ble nature," Lady O'Gara said. "This will be a terrible grief to her."

"If they have fallen out I should not recommend her presence here when Miss Stella returns to herself," the doctor said quietly. "She must be kept very quiet. Evidently she has had a bad shock of some kind, following on a strained condition of the nerves."

After his examination Lady O'Gara told him something of Stella's case.

He did not ask for more than he was told. He did not even show surprise at hearing that Stella had a mother living.

"Ah," he said, "if her mother's face could be the first thing for her eyes to rest upon when she comes out of that bad dream, it would do a good deal to restore her sanity."

"Unfortunately we do not know where the mother is," Lady O'Gara said sorrowfully.

"I will give the patient something to keep her quiet to-night," the doctor went on. "Perhaps you could send some one over to my house for the medicine."

"Patsy Kenny will go."

"Now let me take you back to the house. It is growing dusk. Is there any one you could send to stay with Mrs. ... Mrs. ...?"

"Susan Horridge. Oh, yes. I can send Margaret McKeon, my maid. She never talks."

The doctor gave no indication of any curiosity as to why no talking made Margaret McKeon a suitable person for this emergency. The world was full of odd things, even such a remote bit of it as lay about Killesky. The place buzzed with gossip. Every one in it knew already the story of the charge made by the drunken tramp against Sir Shawn O'Gara. It had reached Dr. Costello at an early stage in its progress.

He remembered the death of Terence Comerford and the gossip of that time. In his own mind he was piecing the story together: but he was discretion itself. No one should be the wiser for him.

He was on his way home, having left Lady O'Gara safely at her own door, when he did something that very nearly ran the bicycle with the side-car into the bog. Patsy, his pa.s.senger, merely remarked calmly: "A horse 'ud have more sinse than this hijeous thing."

The doctor, piecing together the details of the old tragedy to explain the new, had had an illumination as blinding as the flash of lightning widen reveals a whole countryside for a moment before it falls again to impenetrable blackness.

"By Jove," he had said to himself, "Stella is Terry's daughter. And the woman at Waterfall Cottage--they will talk even though I don't encourage them--is Bridyeen Sweeney that was. I wonder some of them didn't chance on that."

He murmured excuses to Patsy for the peril he had narrowly escaped.

"She answers to my hand like a horse," he said. "That time I was dreaming and I pulled her a bit too suddenly."

As he got out at his own door he said something half aloud; being a solitary bachelor man he had got into a trick of talking to himself.

"I did hear that boy of the O'Garas' was sweet on her," he said. "My word, what a pretty kettle of fis.h.!.+"

"I beg your pardon, doctor?" said Patsy.

"Oh nothing, nothing. I was wool-gathering. Come in and wait; I'll have the medicine ready in less than no time."

CHAPTER XXV

IN WHICH TERRY FINDS A DEAD MAN

Terry arrived a little before midnight, having made the difficult cross-country journey from the Curragh, looking so troubled and unhappy that his mother's heart was soft over him as when he was the little boy she remembered.

He bent his six foot of height to kiss her, and his voice was husky as he asked how his father was.

"He is asleep, thank G.o.d," she answered. "He came to himself for a little time while I was out this afternoon. Reilly, who is invaluable, a real staff, tells me it is healthy sleep now, not unconsciousness."

"Imagine Reilly!" said Terry, with a sigh of immense relief. "You poor darling! to think of your having to bear it alone! The Colonel was so decent about leave. He told me not to come back till you could do without me. A son's not as good as a daughter. Still, I'm better than nothing, aren't I, darling?"

"You are better than any one," his mother said, caressing his smooth young cheeks.

"You should have wired for Eileen. What's that selfish minx doing?

Making up with the lakh of rupees, I suppose?"

"Do you know I never remembered Eileen," she said, and laughed for the first time since the accident. Her heart had lifted suddenly with an irrational, joyful hope.

She wanted to get Terry to bed and a night's sleep before he knew anything about Stella's illness. In the morning the girl might be better. Terry looked very weary. He explained to her with a half-shy laugh what terrible imaginings had been his companions on the railway journey.

"By Jove, darling," he said, "I never want an experience like it again.

And how the train dragged! I felt like trying to push it along with something inside me all the time till I was as tired as though I had been really pus.h.i.+ng it. At one place the train stopped in the middle of a bog--some one had pulled the communication cord--and the guard and the fireman ran along the carriages, using frightful language, only to pull out seven drunken men going home from a fair, in charge of one small boy who was sober. He was explaining that he couldn't wake them up at the last station, and that as soon as they came awake they pulled the cord. 'Go on out o' that now, ye ould divil!' said the guard giving a kick to the last of them. I a.s.sure you I didn't feel inclined to laugh, even then, darling, though it was so ridiculous!"

She pressed him to eat, but he was too weary to eat much; and she vetoed his seeing his father before morning, being afraid that the strange pallor on the face of the sick man would frighten the boy.

She got him off at last, unwillingly, but out of consideration for her weariness. She was going to bed, she said; Reilly was taking the night watch. She had not slept all the preceding night. He had not asked about Stella, although several times she had thought he was about to ask. She hoped he would not ask. How was she to answer him if he did?

She said good-night to him in his warm fire-lit room, feeling the sweetness and comfort of having him there again despite all the trouble: and, half-way to the door, she was stopped by the question she had dreaded.

"Mother, have you seen Stella?"

"You shall see her to-morrow," she answered, and hurried away, feeling dreadfully guilty because she imagined the light of joy in his young face.

Despite all her troubles she slept soundly, the sleep of dead-tiredness: and when she awoke it was half-past seven. She could hear the maid in the drawing-room below her lighting the fire. It was still grey, but there were indications of a beautiful sunrise in the long golden-yellow light that was breaking in the sky: and a robin was singing.

She did not feel inclined to lie on. She was refreshed and strengthened for the many difficulties of the day before her. She got up, dressed and went down to the sick-room. Reilly was just coming out with a scuttle-full of ashes: he had been "doing" the grate and lighting the fire. He had expressed a wish that there might be as few intruders in the sick-room as possible.

"The thing is to keep him quiet, m'lady," he had said. "They are well-meaning girls"--referring to the maids--"but as like as not they'd drop the fire-irons just when he was in a beautiful sleep."

Reilly looked quite cheerful; and Lady O'Gara began to think that the flat side-whiskered face had something very pleasant about it after all. He did not wait for her to make inquiries.

"He's doing nicely, m'lady," he said. "He's been awake and asked for your ladys.h.i.+p."

"Oh!" she said with a catch of the breath, "you should have called me."

"He'd have been asleep before your ladys.h.i.+p could have come. Sleep's the best of all medicine."

She had her breakfast and relieved Reilly. Somewhere about ten o'clock Terry opened the door and peeped in.