Love of Brothers Part 34

"Come!" she beckoned to him.

He came and stood beside her looking down at the bandaged head and pale unconscious face. The deadly pallor of yesterday had pa.s.sed. A slight colour had come to the cheeks, driving away the blue shadows.

Tears filled the boy's eyes as he looked, and his mother loved him for the sensibility.

She went out with him into the corridor to speak. There was so much she had to tell him that could not be told in a moment or two.

"I shall be off duty by three o'clock," she said. "Can you wait till then?"

"I suppose I couldn't ... they wouldn't want me at Inch? I have written to Stella and she has not answered."

"She has not been very well. I will tell you about it. Only be patient, dear boy. I must not stay away from your father too long."

"Very well," he said resignedly. "I'll take out Shot and we'll pot at rabbits--a long way from the house, darling. It's good to be here, anyhow."

"It's good to have you," she said gratefully.

He had not taken up what she said about Stella's not being well, and she was glad of that. Stella had not been at her best when he left.

She might have alarmed him and set him to asking questions which she would have found it difficult to parry.

Twice during the morning hours, while she sat in the clean well-ordered room, with its bright fire and its sudden transformation to a sick-room, she was called to the door. Once it was to interview Patsy Kenny. He had brought word that Susan had spoken to him from the window of Waterfall Cottage and had said that Miss Stella was no worse.

Patsy was to watch by Sir Shawn for the afternoon and evening: so much had been conceded to him.

She was expecting the doctor when another summons came--this time it was Sir Felix Conyers, who came tip-toeing along the corridor since she could not go downstairs to him.

"I'm terribly sorry for this dreadful accident, Lady O'Gara," he said.

She noticed with a wondering grat.i.tude that Sir Felix was quite pale.

"I've only just heard it. The whole countryside will be shocked. Such a popular man as Sir Shawn, such a good landlord and fine specimen of a country gentleman. Upon my word, I'm sorry."

She saw that he was, and she put out her fair be-ringed hand and took his, pressing it softly.

"Thank you, Sir Felix," she said. "I know you feel for us and I am very grateful. Thank G.o.d, it is not as bad as it might have been. My husband is sleeping quietly. The doctor is quite pleased."

"Thank G.o.d for that," said Sir Felix, echoing her. "He'll be back amongst us again in no time. I came to tell you as soon as I could that the ruffian Fury brought to me the other night has disappeared.

The effects of the drink worn off, I said to Fury, and gave him a sharp touch-up about too much zeal. The fellow walks like a dancing-master, and talks picking his words to conceal want of education. I pity the men under him, I do indeed. I'm really sorry, Lady O'Gara, that I troubled you with that c.o.c.k and bull story the other night. I don't antic.i.p.ate that we'll hear any more about it."

"I'm glad my husband was not troubled with it," she said, and left her hand in the kind gentleman's: he was wringing it hard, so that the rings hurt her, but she would not have betrayed it for worlds.

A few more expressions of sympathy and of a desire to help and Sir Felix was gone. She was left to her watch once more.

The house seemed extraordinarily quiet. The clock in the corridor ticked away, marking the flight of time. Now and again a coal fell from the fire on to the hearth, or some one came to know if anything was wanted. Mary O'Gara, usually so full of energy, was content to sit watching her husband's face on the pillow. Sir Felix's visit had brought her a certain relief. She could put that worry away from her--for the time. If the man had disappeared he had probably good reasons for disappearing. Perhaps he would not come back. He might be frightened of the thing he had done. Anyhow, she was grateful for so much relief; and if Shawn was going to live she felt that she could endure all other troubles.

After a time she remembered something--something that must be done.

Mrs. Comerford must be told about Stella. Perhaps the anger had died down in her by this time, leaving her chilled and miserable, as Mary O'Gara remembered her in the old days after some violent scene with Terence.

She went to the writing-table in the room and wrote a note. She had just placed it in its envelope when the doctor came and she gave it to the servant who showed him up; bidding her give it to Patsy Kenny to be sent to Inch by a special messenger.

The doctor was well satisfied with Sir Shawn's condition. While he examined him the patient opened his eyes. How dark they looked in the white face! They rested on the doctor with recognition, then pa.s.sed on to his wife, and he smiled.

"Have I ... been very troublesome?" he asked. "I remember ... now ...

that brute, Spitfire ... always was a brute...."

The eyes grew vague again and closed, but the lips kept their faint smile.

"He'll sleep a lot," said the doctor. "Much the best thing for him too. He had run himself down even before the accident. He'll be able to talk more presently."

He had taken her out to the corridor before he told the latest, most sensational news.

"I found a new nurse by the little girl's bedside this morning," he said. "Apparently she is the lady who occupied the Cottage--Mrs. Wade.

The patient seems wonderfully improved. Hardly any fever; she kept watching her new nurse as though she dreaded letting her out of her sight."

"Ah--that is good!"

There was another lightening of the heaviness of Lady O'Gara's heart.

Some mothers in her place might have had an unacknowledged feeling that Stella's death would not be altogether the worst solution of a difficult situation. It would have been easy to think with a kindly pity of how much better it would be for the poor child without a name to drift quietly out on the great sea. Not so Lady O'Gara. Her whole being had been in suffering for the suffering of this young thing who had crept into her heart. Now she was lifted up with the thought of Stella coming back to life and health. For the rest it was in the future. With G.o.d be the future!

Terry was late for lunch. Patsy Kenny had begged and prayed to be allowed to help in "lookin' after the master," so he took the afternoon watch, setting Lady O'Gara free to be with her son. It was not like Terry to be late for lunch. He was a very good trencherman and had always been the first to laugh at his own appet.i.te. But to-day he did not come. His mother waited, turning over the newspapers which came late to Castle Talbot. He must have gone farther afield than he had intended. She was not nervous. What was there to be nervous about?

Terry had forgotten in the joy of rabbiting that the luncheon hour was gone by: that was all.

At last he came, almost simultaneously with a wild idea in his mother's head that he might have wandered towards Waterfall Cottage and somehow discovered that Stella was there.

She got up quite cheerfully when she saw him.

"You are late, dear boy," she said. Her heart had gone up because so many good things had happened this morning. Shawn was better and had recognized her. The wretch who would have hurt him in the secret places of his heart had gone on farther. Stella was doing well. It was always the way with her to be irrationally hopeful. Many and many a time she had had to ask herself why, on some particular day, she was feeling particularly happy, and had had to trace back the cause to something so small that even she had forgotten it. The founts of happiness in her were very quick to flow.

"There is a cold game pie here," she said, "and there is some curry which I have sent down to keep warm. Also there is pressed beef and a cold pheasant on the sideboard. I suggest that you begin with the curry and go on to the other things."

He did not answer her, but sat down with a weary air. She looked at him in quick alarm. He was not looking well.

"What is the matter, Terry?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, nothing, darling, to make you look so frightened. Only I have had a rather gruesome experience. I found a dead man, and such an ugly one!"

"A dead man!"

"Yes--just by old Hercules O'Hart's tomb. The place will have twice as bad a name now."

"What sort of a man?"

"Oh, a tramp, apparently. He appeared to have fallen from the Mount.

He might have been running in the dark and shot out violently over the edge. From the look of him I should say he had broken his neck. You know how thick the moss is there under the trees. You would not think the fall could have hurt him, but he is stone-dead. I didn't want him brought here so I ran off and got some men who are building a Congested Districts Board house on the Tubber road to lift him. The body is in the stable belonging to the pub. There will have to be an inquest, I suppose, and I shall have to give evidence. A beastly bore." He began to cut himself a slab out of the game pie absent-mindedly.

"Terry," she said, "I think I know the man. He has been about here lately. Patsy would know. If he is the man I think, he is the husband of Susan Horridge, the little woman at the South lodge."

"Oh--that Patsy's so sweet on! He was a bad lot, wasn't he? A brute to that poor little woman and the delicate child. He didn't look a nice person."

He gave a fastidious little shudder.

"We're too squeamish," he said. "It comes of the long Peace. I've sent word to Costello. I suppose I'll have to appear at the inquest.