Chapter VI

It may be surmised without fear of misconception that never during the smooth course of his uneventful existence had Milbanke been so rudely shaken into self-comprehension as by Hannah's unlooked-for onslaught. Left to the placid guidance of unaided instinct, it is almost certain that he would have left Orristown whenever the hour of departure arrived, innocently unconscious that any parting pangs could be attributed to a personal cause. It is possible that, with the passage of time, he might have acknowledged that somewhere in the inner recesses of his mind there was a shrine where one face, more changeful and alluring than any other he had known, reigned in solitary state; but beyond that tardy acknowledgment he would not have dared to venture. Later still, perhaps, if circumstances had compelled him to resign his guardianship over Clodagh in favour of some possible husband, it is within the bounds of reason to conjecture that understanding of his feelings might have come to him when, having said good-bye to the young girl just crossing the threshold of life, he returned to his home, newly and bitterly alive to his age and loneliness. But now, in the light of present events, all such suppositions had become valueless. As if by some powerful outside pressure, his eyes had been opened, and he stood dazed and elated before the new road that opened upon his vision.

His brain felt light and unsteady, his limbs were imbued with a sensation of unaccustomed buoyancy as he turned, impelled by Hannah's words, and moved across the yard towards the arched gateway. A half-admitted, intoxicating sense of imminent action possessed him; and as he walked forward it seemed that he scarcely felt the ground beneath his feet.

Almost without volition, he passed from the stone-paved courtyard into the sweep of gravelled pathway that fronted the house. For the first time in his existence he was conscious of being borne forward on the tide of his emotions; and the knowledge had an exhilarating, unbalanced daring that suggested youth.

As though he feared the evaporation of his mood, he made no pause on gaining the pathway, but went straight forward towards the house with a haste and impetuosity very foreign to his formal nature. On his second entry into the hall, he paid no heed to the chill desolation of the place, but crossing the intervening space, began immediately to mount the stairs.

Scarcely had he reached the highest step, however, than he halted incontinently. For, as though in direct response to the thoughts that were filling his mind, a door on the corridor opened, and Clodagh appeared.

Seeing him, she too paused; and in the moment of mutual hesitation he had opportunity to study her.

In her new black dress, she looked slighter and more immature than he had expected; and the pathetic effect of her appearance was enhanced by the paleness of her face and the heavy, purple shadows that sleeplessness and tears had traced below her eyes. As the impression obtruded itself upon him, his own nervous excitement dropped from him suddenly.

"My poor child!" he said involuntarily.

At the words and the tone, she turned to him impulsively.

"Oh! Mr. Milbanke----" she began.

Then her loneliness, her sense of bereavement and desolation, inundated her mind. With a short sob, she moved abruptly away, and turning her face to the wall, broke into a passion of tears.

The action was the action of a child; and without hesitation Milbanke responded to it. Stepping across the corridor, he put his arm about her shoulder and drew her gently towards the stairs.

"Come!" he said soothingly--"come! The house is quite quiet, and you are badly in want of a little daylight and fresh air. Come! Let me take you out."

Clodagh sobbed on; but she suffered herself to be led down the stairs and across the hall towards the open door. There, however, she paused, newly arrested by her grief.

"Oh, Mr. Milbanke," she cried, "I can't believe it! I can't believe that we'll never see him again. Poor father! Oh, poor father!"

But Milbanke was equal to the situation.

"You must be brave," he said kindly. "You must remember that he would like you to be brave."

The words were an inspiration; with marvellous efficacy they checked the torrent of Clodagh's tears. For a moment she stood looking at him in a dazed, uncertain way; then she lifted her head in a pathetic attempt at decisive action.

"You are right," she said unevenly. "He _would_ like to know that I was brave."

The declaration seemed to cost her an immense effort; for instantly it was made, she turned away from Milbanke, freeing herself from his detaining arm. And as though fearing to trust herself to any further onrush of emotion, she stepped through the open door and walked quickly forward to where the gravelled drive merged into the long and narrow glen in which the Orristown woods met the sea.

Down the wide track leading to this glen she walked, with head rigidly erect and with resolutely set lips, while Milbanke followed. Now that the immediate need for his protection had been removed, his mind involuntarily reverted to his earlier and more tumultuous thoughts. With a strange, half-timid excitement, he acknowledged the personal element in his surroundings, and exulted with a certain tremulous joy in the keen air that blew inland from the sea; in the pleasant earthy smell of the moss that clothed the rough stones of the boundary wall skirting the path; in the promise of spring, suggested by the hardy green of the wild violet plants clustering at the roots of the beech trees. And with his eyes fixed upon Clodagh's slim black figure, he walked forward in a vaguely intoxicating dream.

For the full course of the path she went on steadily; but reaching the glen, she paused; and there, as if by a pre-arrangement of destiny, Milbanke overtook her.

With a quiet, unostentatious movement he stepped to her side, and stood looking upon the scene that spread before them.

The view was not imposing, but it was beautiful with the brooding, solemn beauty that emanates from Ireland. Upon one hand, the sea stretched away green, invincible, and cold as it so often looks in early spring; upon the other, the woods lay a mass of leafless, interlacing boughs that formed a clean, brown silhouette against the grey sky; while directly in front, the first undulation of the rugged Orristown cliffs stood up, an impregnable rampart against the outer world.

For a long silent moment Clodagh surveyed the picture; then with one of the impulsive, unstudied gestures that were so characteristic of her, she looked round; and for the first time since they had left the house, her eyes rested on Milbanke's face.

"You are very kind to me," she said suddenly. "Why are you so kind?"

The words, spoken with complete ingenuousness, came at a singularly appropriate moment. To Milbanke, nervously conscious of his own emotions, they seemed inspired. With a quick, unsteady gesture he wheeled round, and putting out his hand, caught hers.

"It--it is easy to be kind to some people," he said, almost inarticulately.

Clodagh looked at him in some surprise; but it did not occur to her to withdraw her hand. She stood perfectly calm and unembarrassed; and presently, as he made no attempt at further speech, her glance wandered back to the cool stretch of green water.

"Yes," she said slowly, "I suppose it is easy to be nice to some people; but not to selfish people like me."

At her words, Milbanke's hand tightened abruptly.

"You must not say that," he murmured. "I have never seen any faults in your character. And even--even if I had"--his voice quickened confusedly--"even if I had seen them, you would still be the--the child of my oldest friend."

He spoke disjointedly and agitatedly; but at his words, Clodagh turned to him afresh with a grateful, impulsive movement.

"Ah, then I understand!" she said warmly. "You are very kind--you are very good----"

At her movement and her tone, a mental giddiness seized upon Milbanke. A flush rose to his temples.

"Clodagh," he said suddenly, "let me be kind to you always! Let--let me marry you--and be kind to you always!"

The appeal came forth with volcanic suddenness. He had not meant to be precipitate; it was entirely alien to his slow, methodical nature to plunge headlong into any situation. But the occasion was unprecedented; circumstances overwhelmed him. For a long space he stood as if transfixed, his eyes straining to catch the expression on Clodagh's face, his pale, ascetic features puckered with anxiety.

The pause was long--preternaturally long. Clodagh stood as motionless as he, her hand still resting passive in his clasp, her clear eyes staring into his in stupefied amazement. It was plainly evident that no realisation of the declaration just made had penetrated her understanding. To her mind--unattuned, even vaguely, to the idea of love, and temporarily numbed by her grief--the thought that her father's friend could consider her in any light but that of a child was too preposterous, too unreal to come spontaneously. The belief that Milbanke's extraordinary words but needed some explanatory addition held her attentive and expectant. And under this conviction, she stood unconscious of his close regard and unembarrassed by the pressure of his hand.

At last, as some shadowy perception of her thoughts obtruded itself upon him, he stirred nervously, and the flush upon his face deepened.

"Clodagh," he said, "have I made myself plain? Do you understand that I--that I wish to marry you? That I want you for my--my wife?"

The final word with its intense incongruity cut suddenly through the mist of her bewilderment. In a flash of comprehension the meaning of his declaration sprang to her mind. Her face turned red, then pale; with a sharp movement she drew away her hand.

"You want to marry me?" she said in a slow, amazed voice.

Before the note of blank, undisguised incredulity, Milbanke shrank into himself.

"Yes," he said hurriedly--"yes; that is my desire. I know that perhaps it may--may seem incongruous. You are very young; and I----"

He hesitated with a painful touch of embarrassment. At the hesitation, Clodagh's voice broke forth.

"But I don't want to marry," she cried; "I don't want to marry--any one."

There was a sharp, half-frightened note audible in her voice. For the moment, her whole attitude was that of the inexperienced being who clings instinctively to the rock of present things, and obstinately refuses to be cast into the sea of future possibilities. For the moment, she was blind to the instrument that was forcing her towards those possibilities. To her immature mind it was the choice between the known and the unknown. Then suddenly and accidentally her eyes came back to Milbanke's face, and the personal element in the choice assailed her abruptly.

"Oh, I couldn't!" she cried involuntarily--"I couldn't!--I couldn't!"

She did not intend to hurt him; but cruelty is the prerogative of the young, and she failed to see that he winced before the decisive honesty of her words.

"Am I so--so very distasteful?" he asked in a low, unsteady voice.

She looked at him in silence. It was the inevitable clash of youth and age. She was warm-hearted, she was capable of generous action; but before all else, she was young--the triumphant inheritor of the ages. Life stretched before her, while it lay behind him. She looked at him; and as she looked a wave of revolt--a strong, sudden sense of her individual right to happiness--surged through her.

"Oh, I couldn't!" she cried again--"I couldn't!"

And before Milbanke could reply--before he had time to comprehend the purport of her words--she had turned and fled in the direction of the house, leaving him standing as he was, dazed and petrified.

Upward along the path, Clodagh ran. Her impulse towards flight had been childish, and her thoughts as she sped forward were as unreasonable and confused as a child's. She was vaguely, blindly filled with a desire to escape--from she knew not what; to evade--she knew not what. Her one clear thought was that the prop upon which she had leaned in these days of sorrow and despair had unaccountably and suddenly been withdrawn; and that she stood woefully alone and unprotected.

On she ran, until the archway of the courtyard broke into view; then, without a moment's hesitation, she swerved to the left, sped across the yard, and burst unceremoniously into the kitchen.

In the kitchen Hannah was busying herself over the fire that, in the confusion of the morning's event, had been suffered to die down. At the tempestuous opening of the door she turned sharply round, and for a second stood staring at the disturbed face of her young mistress; then, with the intuitive tact of her race, she suddenly opened her ample arms, and with a sob Clodagh rushed towards her.

For a long moment Hannah held her as if she had been a baby, patting her shoulder and smoothing her ruffled hair, while she cried out her grief and bewilderment. At last, with a slow sobbing breath, she raised her head.

"Oh, Hannah, I want father!" she said--"I want father!"

Hannah drew her closer to her broad shoulder.

"Whisht, now!" she murmured tenderly--"whisht, now! Sure, he's betther off--sure, he's betther off."

But Clodagh's mind was too agitated to take comfort. With a change of mental attitude, she altered her physical position--freeing herself abruptly from Hannah's embrace.

"Hannah," she cried suddenly, "Mr. Milbanke wants me to marry him. And I won't! I can't! I won't!"

Hannah's eyes narrowed sharply. But whatever her emotion, she checked it, and bent over her charge with another caress.

"Sure you won't, of course, my lamb. Who'd be askin' you?"

"No one."

"Thin why would you be frettin' yourself?"

"I'm not fretting myself. Only----"

"Only what?"

"Only---- Oh! nothing, nothing." With a distressed movement Clodagh pushed back her hair from her forehead. Then she turned to the old servant afresh. "Hannah," she demanded, "why does he want to marry me? Why does he want to?"

Hannah was silent for a space; then her shrewd, ugly face puckered into an expression of profound wisdom.

"Men are quare," she said oracularly. "The oulder, the quarer. Maybe he's thinkin' of himself in the matther; but maybe"--her voice dropped impressively--"maybe, Miss Clodagh, 'tis the way he's thinkin' of you----"

She paused with deep significance.

The effort after effect was not wasted. Clodagh looked up sharply.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Mane?" Hannah turned away, and, picking up a poker, began softly to rake the ashes from the fire. "Sure, what would I be manin'?"

"But you do mean something. What is it?"

Hannah went on with her task.

Clodagh stamped her foot.

"Hannah, what is it?"

"Nothin'. Sure, nothin' at all. I'm only sayin' what quare notions men takes."

"But you mean something else. What is it?"

Hannah stolidly continued to rake out the remnants of the fire.

"I know nothin'," she said obstinately. "Ask Mrs. Laurence."

"But you do. I know by your voice. What is it?"

An alert, unconscious note of apprehension had crept into Clodagh's tone. Her lips suddenly tightened, her eyes became wide.

"What is it, Hannah?" she exclaimed. "What's the reason he wants to marry me?"

"Sure no rason at all."

"Oh!"

Clodagh made a gesture of anger and disgust. Then she made a fresh appeal.

"Hannah, please----"

But Hannah went on with her work. Years of shrewd observation had taught her the power of silence.

"Then you won't tell me?"

There was no response.

"Hannah!"

At last the old servant turned, as though pressed beyond endurance.

"Well," she said, with seeming reluctance, "maybe he'd be thinkin' 'twould be aisier for wan of the Asshlins to be drawin' out of her husband's pocket than to be----"

But Clodagh interrupted. She turned suddenly, her cheeks burning, her eyes ablaze.

"Hannah!" she cried in sharp, pained alarm.

But Hannah had said her say. With her old, imperturbable gesture she turned once more to her task.

"I know nothin'," she murmured obstinately. "If you're wantin' more, ask Mrs. Laurence."

For a while Clodagh stood, transfixed by the idea presented to her mind. Then, action and certainty becoming suddenly indispensable, she turned on her heel. "Very well!" she said tersely--"very well! I will ask Aunt Fan."

And with as scant ceremony as she had entered it, she swept out of the kitchen.

As the door banged, Hannah glanced over her shoulder, her red face brimming with tenderness.

"Wisha, 'tis all for the best!" she murmured aloud--"'tis all for the best. But God forgive me for hurtin' a hair of her head!"

With feet that scarcely felt the ground beneath them, Clodagh sped along the stone passages that led to the hall, and from thence ascended to the bedrooms. Her senses were acutely alive, her mind alert with an unbearable apprehension. A new dread that, by the power of intuition, had almost become a certainty impelled her forward without the conscious action of her will. Without any hesitancy or indecision, she traversed the long corridor, and, pausing before the room occupied by her aunt, knocked peremptorily upon the door.

After a moment's wait Mrs. Asshlin's querulous voice was raised in response.

"Well?" she asked. "What is it? Who's there?"

"Clodagh."

There was an audible sigh. And the usual "Come in!" followed somewhat tardily.

Clodagh instantly turned the handle and opened the door.

In this room the blinds had not yet been drawn up, and only a yellowish light filtered in from outside; in the grate a fire burned unevenly; and close beside sat Mrs. Asshlin, a cup of tea in her hand, a black woollen shawl wrapped about her shoulders. As her niece entered, she glanced round irritably, drawing the wrap more closely round her.

"Shut the door, Clodagh!" she said. "I hate these big, draughty houses."

Clodagh obeyed in silence; then walking deliberately across the room, paused by her aunt's chair. Her face was still burning, her heart was beating unpleasantly fast.

"Aunt Fan," she said, "I want to ask you something. Why should Mr. Milbanke bother about me--about us?"

Mrs. Asshlin, startled by the suddenness of the unlooked-for attack, turned in her seat and peered through the yellow twilight into her niece's excited face.

"What on earth is the matter with you, child?" she demanded.

"Nothing. But I want to know."

Mrs. Asshlin made a gesture tantamount to shrugging her shoulders.

"It is quite natural that Mr. Milbanke should be interested in you. He was your father's oldest friend."

"Yes, yes." Clodagh bent forward uncontrollably. "And, Aunt Fan, has father died poor? Has--has he left debts? That's what I want to know."

Mrs. Asshlin moved nervously in her chair.

"My dear child----" she began weakly.

"Has he? Oh! Aunt Fan, has he left debts?"

Mrs. Asshlin was taken at a disadvantage.

"Well," she stammered--"well----"

"He has left debts?"

"Well, yes. If you must know--he has."

Clodagh caught her breath.

"Of course, as I often said," Mrs. Asshlin continued, "poor Denis was a terribly improvident man----"

But Clodagh checked her.

"Don't!" she said faintly. "I couldn't bear it--just to-day. Are the debts big?"

"Immense."

Mrs. Asshlin made the reply sharply. She was not an ill-natured woman, but her sense of dignity had been hurt.

As the word was spoken, Clodagh swayed a little. The black cloud of vague liabilities that hangs over so many Irish houses had suddenly descended upon her. And in the consequent shock, it seemed that the ground rocked under her feet. After a moment she steadied herself.

"Must the place go?" she asked in an intensely quiet voice.

"Yes. At least----"

"What?"

"It would have had to go, only----"

"Only for what?" In her keen anxiety Clodagh stooped forward and laid her hand on her aunt's shoulder. "Only for what, Aunt Fan?"

Shaken and unnerved at the interrogation, Mrs. Asshlin sat up with a start.

"Why do you do that, Clodagh?" she cried--"why do you do that? You gave me a palpitation of the heart."

But Clodagh's eyes still burned with inquiry.

"Why won't the place have to go?" she demanded. "How will the debts be paid?"

Mrs. Asshlin freed herself nervously from her niece's hand.

"Mr. Milbanke will pay them," she said impulsively; then instantly she checked herself. "Oh! what have I said?" she exclaimed. "Don't pretend that I told you, Clodagh. He is so particular that you shouldn't know."

But Clodagh scarcely heard. Her hand had dropped to her side, and she stood staring blankly at her aunt.

"You mean to say that he's going to pay father's debts--our debts?"

"Yes. He even wants to put the place into good repair. Poor Denis seems to have cast a perfect spell over him."

"Then we'll owe him something we can never possibly repay!"

Mrs. Asshlin drew herself up.

"Not exactly owe," she corrected. "It is an--an act of friendship. The Asshlins have never been indebted to any one for a favour. Of course Mr. Milbanke is a wealthy man; and it's easy to be generous when you have money----"

She heaved a sigh.

But Clodagh stood staring vacantly at the opposite wall.

"It's a debt all the same," she said, after a long pause. "I suppose it is what father used to call a debt of honour."

She spoke in a slow, mechanical voice; then, as if moved to action by her train of thought, she turned without waiting for her aunt's comment, and walked out of the room.

Traversing the corridor, she descended the stairs and passed straight to the hall door. Once in the open, she wheeled to the right with a steady deliberate movement and began slowly to retrace the steps she had taken nearly half an hour earlier.

Steadily and unemotionally she went forward, skirting the courtyard, until, at the dip of the path, the glen came into view, and with it Milbanke's precise, black figure, standing exactly as she had seen it last.

The fact caused her no surprise. That he should still be there seemed the natural--the anticipated thing; and without any pause--any moment of hesitation or delay--she moved directly towards him.

As she reached his side, her cheeks were hot, her heart was still beating unevenly; and, absorbed by her own emotion, she failed to see the dejected droop of his shoulders, the slight, pathetic suggestion of age in his bent back.

Her footsteps were scarcely audible on the damp earth, and she was close beside him before he became conscious of her presence; as he did so, however, he started violently, and the blood rushed incontinently over his forehead and cheeks.

"Clodagh!" he stammered.

But Clodagh checked him, laying her hand quickly on his arm.

"Mr. Milbanke," she said hurriedly, "will you forgive me for what I said? I want to take it back. I want to say that, if you still like, I--I will marry you."