Love of Brothers Part 39

"'A matter of a couple of miles, your honour,' said he. I saw then that he was a little innocent-looking old man like a child, and I remembered Patsy's description of the one he'd bought Mustapha from in the fair of Keele.

"'The horse seems to know you,' said I.

"'It's a foal of me own rarin',' said he, 'an' more betoken he was out of a mare that kilt a man, an' a fine man--poor Mr. Terence Comerford, Lord rest him! She was a beauty, an' I could do anything with her.

She was sent to the fair to be sold and no one 'ud touch her. I got her for a twinty-pound note. Only for her foals the roof wouldn't be over me head. This wan was the last o' them.'"

Sir Shawn's voice failed and died away.

"Give me a little more of that stuff, Mary," he said weakly. "I want to finish, and then I can sleep. You don't know how it has oppressed me."

She obeyed him, and, after an interval, he went on again.

"So that was where Spitfire went. I never could make out. And there was I riding a colt of hers, and a worse one than Spitfire to manage.

I had great difficulty in getting Mustapha away from his old master, but at last I succeeded, and we jogged along: as he covered the long road he seemed to become quieter. I think I dozed in the saddle. I know I thought it was Spitfire I was riding and not Mustapha. I remember calling him Spitfire as I woke up and encouraged him.

"The night was as dark as I expected, but there was some glimmer from overhead and I could see the bog-pools either side of us as we crossed the bog. It wasn't much guidance to keep us to the road, but we'd crossed the railway bridge, and I could see the lights of Castle Talbot; I was lifting my heart towards you, Mary, as I've always done at that point when--something ran across the road--it might have been only a rabbit--just under Mustapha's feet. Then he was out of control.

He reared backwards towards the bog, trying to throw me. I had a struggle with him. It could hardly have lasted a minute, but it seemed a long time. There did not seem any chance for either of us; all I could think of was that I was riding Spitfire's son and that he was going to kill me, and that, maybe, it was a sort of reparation I had to make. Besides, I should be free of Baker and his threats, and he could never harm you through me. But all the time the instinct to live was strong, and I'd got my feet clear of the stirrups, for I didn't want to go with him into the bog. Then he threw me and I heard his hoofs tearing at the stones of the road as he went over, and he squealed.

It's horrible to hear a horse squeal, Mary."

He ended with a long sigh of exhaustion.

"Now you are not to talk any more," she said. "The doctor would be angry with me if he knew I had let you talk so much."

"I had to get it off," he said. "I am going to sleep till morning now.

Dear Terence! He would have forgiven me if he knew how I suffered."

"He has forgiven you," she said steadily. "I want to tell you, before you sleep, that Terence had married Bride Sweeney secretly. He swore her to silence, because he dreaded his mother's anger; and, poor girl, she bore all that unmerited shame and the loss of her child to keep faith with him."

"He had married her after all!"

Sir Shawn, by an immense effort lifted his head from the pillows.

There was a strange light on his face.

"I thought I had cut Terence off in his sins, I who loved him. I said he would wake up in h.e.l.l. Terence has been in Heaven all these years.

It has been h.e.l.l to me that I had sent Terence to h.e.l.l. Now I can sleep."

He slept quietly all through the morning hours, till Reilly came to relieve her.

"He looks a deal better, m'lady," said Reilly, looking at him curiously. "I thought yesterday, if you'll excuse me, m'lady, that you were going to lose him. He has taken a new lease of life."

Later on Dr. Costello corroborated Reilly's verdict.

"Something has worked a miracle," he said, patting Lady O'Gara's hand kindly. "I should have said yesterday that we could not keep him very long. There is a marked change for the better. I've been watching Sir Shawn these many years back and I was never satisfied with him."

"There! there!" he said as the joy broke out over her face. "Don't be too glad, my dear lady. I was afraid the spine might have been injured, or something internal. I have made a thorough examination this morning. He is not seriously injured in any way. His thinness and lightness must have saved him when he was thrown. He is very thin.

We must fatten him. But, my dear lady, he is going to be more or less of an invalid. There is heart-trouble. No more strenuous days for him! He will have to live with great care. You will be tied to him, Lady O'Gara. I can see he depends on you for everything. He will be more dependent than ever."

He said to himself, looking at her wonderfully fresh beauty--the beauty of a clear soul--that it would be hard on her to be tied up to a sick man. But her face, which had been changing during his speech, was now uplifted.

"If I can only keep him," she said, "all the rest will be nothing. He is going to be so happy with me."

She said it as though she made a vow.

CHAPTER XXIX, AND LAST

THE LAKH OF RUPEES

Mrs. Comerford acted with characteristic thoroughness. Perhaps she felt that she had much to atone for.

It was Christmas Day by the time Stella could be moved to Inch, where amazement reigned. Mrs. Comerford had given her orders. Miss Stella's room was to be prepared. She was coming back again, with her mother.

The Bride's Room, which was the finest bedroom at Inch, was to be prepared for Mrs. Terence Comerford.

Mrs. Clinch, to whom the order was given, gasped.

"Mrs. Terence Comerford, ma'am?" she repeated.

"Yes: I hope you're not becoming deaf. My son was married, and Miss Stella is his daughter. He chose to keep his marriage a secret. I have only just learnt that his wife is living."

No more than that. Mrs. Comerford was not a person to ask questions of. She went her way serenely, with a queer air of happiness about her while Inch was swept and garnished. Of course Clinch and Mrs. Clinch debated these amazing happenings with each other; of course the servants buzzed and the news spread to the village and about the countryside with amazing swiftness.

Christmas morning saw the transference from the Waterfall Cottage to Inch accomplished. Stella was by this time able to sit up for the journey, and since there could be no proper Christmas festivity at Castle Talbot Terry O'Gara was to lunch at Inch. He was witness of the strange ceremonial air with which Mrs. Comerford laid down her seals of office, so to speak.

"Mrs. Terence Comerford will take the head of the table," she said.

Then she pa.s.sed to the foot of the table while Mrs. Terence, flushed and half tearful, took the vacated place.

Terry was in the seventh heaven. There was no longer anything between him and Stella, who had accepted him as though their happiness had never been threatened. Stella, with that air of illness yet about her which made her many times more dear and precious to her lover, looked with s.h.i.+ning eyes from her mother to her grandmother.

In the drawing-room afterwards, while Stella rested in her own pretty room, and her mother, rather overwhelmed by her new estate, sat by her, Mrs. Comerford talked to Terry.

"It is a long Winter here," she said. "I remember frost and snow in January when it was dangerous to walk across your own lawn because of the drifts. If the snow does not come it will be wild and wet. Stella was brought up in Italy. I should hurry up the marriage, young man, and take her away. Now that your father is going on so well there is no reason for delay. Besides, we want to get it out of her head that she was pursued by some ruffian the night she wandered and fell by the empty lodge at Athvara."

"Poor little angel," said Terry, "I am only too anxious, Mrs.

Comerford. I shall be the happiest man alive if she will consent."

"Of course she will consent. She is an obedient child," said Mrs.

Comerford, with an entire oblivion of Stella's marked disobedience in the not very remote past.

"It is adorably unselfish of you to be willing to part with her," said Terry, his face s.h.i.+ning with happiness.

"For the matter of that I shall have my daughter-in-law," said Mrs.

Comerford superbly. "She has never travelled. We shall probably do some travelling together. You had better resign your commission."

"Oh, must I? I might get a year's leave because of my ... Stella's health. I am very fond of the Regiment. But of course I should not put it before her."