Love of Brothers Part 35

They say a wise man never found a dead man. No one would accuse me of being wise."

A queer thought came to her. If Shawn had not been lying as he was, helpless, might not he have been suspected of a hand in the death of the man who had made such charges against him?

CHAPTER XXVI

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

Lady O'Gara left Terry eating his curry--the Castle Talbot cook made a particularly good and hot curry--with a quickly recovered appet.i.te, and went upstairs to where Patsy Kenny was sitting by the fire in the sick-room.

"He woke up an' took his milk," said Patsy in an ecstatic whisper, "an'

he knew me! 'Is that you, Patsy, ye ould divil?' says he. Sorra a word o' lie in it! An' Shot had twisted himself in unbeknownst to me, an' when he heard the master spakin' he up an' licked his hand."

"I've asked Reilly to come on duty now, Patsy. I shall be up to-night, so he has taken a short sleep."

"You think I'm not fit to be wid him," said Patsy mournfully. "Maybe there's the smell o' the stables about me, though I put on me Sunday clothes and claned me boots."

"No, no; Sir Shawn wouldn't mind the stable smell. Nor should I. I want you to do something for me. I'll tell you in the office. Here's Reilly now."

Reilly came in, cat-footed. Lady O'Gara delayed to tell him what had happened during her watch. Then she followed Patsy downstairs, Shot going with her.

In the office where Patsy stood, turning about his unprofessional bowler in his hands, and looking quite unlike the smart Patsy she knew in his slop-suit of tweeds, she told him how Terry had found a dead man.

"Murdered?" asked Patsy. "Sure it was no sight for a little young boy like him!"

"No; not murdered, fortunately. He was lying huddled up by the Admiral's tomb. Just as though in the dark he had stepped out over the edge of the Mount, not knowing there was a sharp drop below. Mr. Terry thought his neck was broken by the way he was lying."

She had a thought that but for Terry's rabbiting, which had led him anywhere without thought of trespa.s.s, the body might have lain there a long time undiscovered. Very few people cared, even in daylight, to go close up to the tomb.

"What sort of a man?" asked Patsy, beetling his brows at her.

"A tramp, Mr. Terry thought."

"It wouldn't be that villain."

"That is just what I thought of. The police have the key of the stable where the body is. They would let you see it if you asked."

"It would be a pity if it was some harmless poor man," said Patsy, with fire in his brown eyes.

He went towards the door and came back.

"It might be the hand of G.o.d," he said. "I had a word with Susan this mornin'. She was tellin' me Miss Stella does be cryin' out not to let some one ketch her, an' screamin' like a mad thing that she's ketched.

Supposin' that villain was to have put the heart across in the poor child, an' she out wanderin' in the night! Wouldn't it be a quare thing for him to tumble down there an' break his dirty neck before he was let lay hold on her?"

It gave Lady O'Gara fresh food for thought, this hypothesis of Patsy's.

She put away the thoughts with a shudder. To what danger had poor fevered Stella been exposed, wandering in the night? And what vengeful Angel had interposed to save her?

She went back to Terry. He had made a very good lunch, she was glad to see, and was just lighting a cigarette.

He looked up expectantly as she came in.

"You said I should see Stella if she would see me. It did not seem like it last time."

A shade fell over his face as he concluded.

She sat down by him and told him of Stella's illness, of the disappearance of her mother and her return. Of Patsy's suggestion she did not speak. It would be too much for the poor boy, who sat, knitting his brows over her tale, his face changing as he looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. He had interjected one breathless question. Was Stella better? Was she in any danger? And his mother had answered that Dr. Costello was satisfied that the girl would mend now.

"I suppose I must wait till she is better before seeing her," he said, when his mother paused. "Poor little darling! I may tell you, Mother, my mind is not shaken. I shall marry Stella if she will have me."

"You can walk with me if you like to the Waterfall Cottage," she said, "and wait for me. There is something about the place that makes a coward of me. It will be worse than ever now after your discovery."

She laughed nervously.

"Poor mother, you have too many troubles to bear!" he said with loving compa.s.sion. "You carry all our burdens."

"I have sent Patsy to identify your dead man. I think he can do it."

She was saying to herself that never, never must Terry know the charges that had been brought against his father. They might become a country tale--but the whole countryside might ring with the story without any one having the cruelty to repeat it to Terry.

The night was closing down--Christmas was close at hand, and it was already the first day of the Shortest Days--when they started. A few dry flakes of snow came in the wind as they crossed the park to the South lodge, silent now and empty. Under the trees as they went down the road it was already dark.

The window of the little sitting-room of the Waterfall Cottage threw its cheerful rosy light out over the road. The bedroom window above showed a dimmer light.

"Perhaps, after all," she said, "you might come in and wait for me. I see Susan has lit the fire downstairs. She has not been lighting it since Stella's illness--I have got a second key for the padlock, so we shall not have to wait, rattling at the gate."

"You think I may come in?" he asked eagerly.

"We shall consult Mrs. Wade."

Susan received them with a great unbolting and unlocking of the door.

She apologized for her slowness.

"It isn't that lonesome now Mrs. Wade's come," she said. "Yet I've had a fear on me this while back. Maybe it's the poor child upstairs and her thinkin' somethink's after her. It fair gave me the creeps to hear her. She's stopped that since Mrs. Wade's come back. She takes her for her Ma. Now she's got her she doesn't seem scared any more."

Susan had curtseyed to Terry.

"I've that poor old soul, Miss Brennan, a-sittin' in my kitching, as warm as warm," she went on. "Didn't you know, m'lady? 'Twas 'er as went to look for Mrs. Wade. How she knew as Mrs. Wade would content a child callin' for 'er Ma, pa.s.ses me."

"Oh, I am glad you have poor Lizzie. I never liked to think of her alone in that wretched place. Yet when we talked of her leaving it she always seemed so afraid her liberty would be interfered with. She is really too old to be running all over the country as she does, coming back cold and wet to that wretched place, where she might die any night all alone."

"She do seem to have taken a fancy to me," Mrs. Horridge said placidly.

"I might take her for a lodger, maybe. Georgie's not one to annoy an old lady like some boys might. I'd love humourin' her little fancies; I could always do anythink for an old person or a child."

"I am going up to see Miss Stella," Lady O'Gara said. "Do you think Mr. Terry may wait by the fire? I shall tell Mrs. Wade."

"He'll be as welcome as the flowers in May, as the sayin' is," Mrs.

Horridge said, briskly pus.h.i.+ng a chair for Terry nearer the fire and lamplight. "An' plenty o' books to amuse you, sir, while your Ma's upstairs."