Chapter XVIII

Late on the afternoon that followed her arrival, Clodagh--with Larry in attendance--climbed up the uneven path that led from the Orristown boat-cove to the house. A considerable change had taken place in the weather since the previous evening. The sky no longer hung low and motionless above the horizon line; the sea no longer shone white and polished as a mirror. A gale had sprung up, breaking the clouds and whipping the sea into small green waves; and more than once, as the cousins clambered up the rugged track, Asshlin paused to look back at his small boat, lying with furled sail and shipped oars on the shingle.

"I hope I've beached her high enough," he said. "There will be a big sea to-night."

Clodagh laughed. The prospect of a storm stirred her. She felt boundlessly happy, boundlessly confident in this free, open life.

The night before, after Larry had left her, and the first tinge of twilight had fallen across the old house, there had been a moment in which the ghosts of memory had threatened to assail her--to come trooping up the gaunt staircase, and through the great, bare rooms. But her will had conquered; she had dispelled the phantoms, and had slept dreamlessly in the big four-post bed.

In the morning she had awakened, as James Milbanke had awakened long ago, to a world of light and joy. But with this difference, that to him the world had been a thing to speculate upon and study, while to her it was a thing familiar--understood--possessed. While she partook of breakfast and while she visited the stables, she kept Hannah by her side, learning from her the vicissitudes of the many humble lives around Orristown that had been known to her since childhood; then, before the tales had been half recounted, Larry had arrived in his boat; and the two cousins, like children playing at a long-loved game, had gone down together to the boat-cove to where the little craft flashed its white sail like a seagull in the sun, and danced with impatience to be off across the crisp green waves.

Clodagh's first act on landing, at Carrigmore, had been to visit the little ivy-covered post-office, in the hope that the Orristown letters might possibly be intercepted. But the postman had already left the village, and she had no choice but to wait patiently for Gore's first letter until her return in the evening. But the postponement had not been sufficient to damp her spirits; and she had started on her various expeditions with a very light heart. Last of all, had come the visit to Mrs. Asshlin, who now rarely left her room, but lay all day in the semi-light made by drawn blinds, drinking numerous cups of strong tea and keeping up a fitful murmur of complaint.

With senses that rebelled against the depressing atmosphere, Clodagh had entered the bedroom and had sat for nearly an hour beside her aunt's couch, listening with all the patience she could muster to the oft-repeated tale of discontent and ill-health. Then at last, feeling that duty could demand no more, she had risen and kissed Mrs. Asshlin's worn cheek.

"We must have you over in London, Aunt Fan," she said cheerfully. "We must take you to a really good doctor, and have you made quite well."

But Mrs. Asshlin had shaken her head dubiously.

"I never had faith in really good doctors since Molyneaux came down to see your poor father."

To this, there seemed no possible response; so Clodagh had kissed her aunt once more, and, with a promise that she would return the next day, had slipped silently out of the gloomy room followed by Larry. Outside, in the vivid daylight, the cousins had looked at each other involuntarily.

"Sometimes life seems awful, Clo!" Asshlin had said, in a despondent voice. And with a momentary shock, Clodagh had caught a gleam of the restlessness, the brooding gloom, that used long ago to settle on the face of her father.

"Why don't you leave Carrigmore, Larry?" she had said quickly. "It's a wonderful place to rest in, but it's not the place for the whole of a man's life."

Asshlin had made a descriptive gesture, indicating the house behind him; then, with a sudden impulse of confidence, he had thrust his hand into his pocket, and had drawn out six five-pound notes.

"When this represents the whole exchequer of the next three months, there isn't much question of foreign travel--or fortune-seeking," he had said. "Come along! The gale is freshening!"

And Clodagh had obeyed, depressed for the moment by contact with that hidden poverty of the proud and well-born, that is one of the most pathetic factors in the scheme of Irish social life. She had longed ardently to make some suggestion, some offer of help, to this bright, spirited boy, who was wasting the best years God had given him in coping with an estate that could never be made to pay, and attending upon an invalid who hovered perpetually on the borderland of shadows; but a native comprehension of the position held her dumb. An offer of help made on the moment of his confidence would set an irrevocable barrier between them in the very dawning of their renewed friendship.

So she had talked to him of the crops, of the fishing, of the Orristown live-stock, while the boat carried them back across the bay. And the sail homeward under the scudding clouds, while the little boat danced and dipped to the buffeting of the waves, had erased the passing gloom; and now, as they climbed the steep pathway and passed across the fields to the house, Clodagh's heart was beating high in her own egotistical joy at the mere fact of life.

She laughed out of sheer pleasure, as they passed round the house and four or five dogs rushed forth from the hall to greet them; and stooping impulsively, she drew Mick close to her and kissed his rough head.

"Larry, do you remember how you won him from me long ago, and how nobly you gave him back? I have never forgotten it." She smiled affectionately at her tall young cousin; and, freeing Mick, led the way into the house.

On the shabby hall table, where the silver sconces stood as of old, lay a small heap of letters; and with an exclamation of pleasure, Clodagh ran forward and picked them up, passing them hastily in review.

There was a thick, important-looking one from Nance. And--yes! the first letter from Gore--the letter she had been waiting for!

For an instant her face fell. It felt thin and disappointing, as she held the envelope between her fingers. But almost at once her face cleared. After all, men had not as much time as women for the writing of letters! And this had been written on the day of her departure! She looked at the postmark: "London--10.30." Of course he had only had time to scribble a line. How good and thoughtful of him even to have sent that line! She turned and looked at Larry, her face radiant once more.

"Larry," she said, "will you tell Burke that we'll dine in half an hour, if Hannah has everything ready? And tell them to have candles in all the sconces. It is to be a dinner party, you know!" She gave a pleasant little laugh and turned towards the stairs, closing her fingers over her letters in a delightful, secret sense of anticipation and possession.

Her own room was filled with a cold grey light as she entered it--a peculiar light drawn from the wind-swept sky and the pale, agitated waters; and she noticed, as she crossed the threshold, that the wind roared draughtily down the wide chimney, in a way that suggested autumn and autumnal gales. But the circumstance made little impression; she carried her own world in her heart--and here, in the letter Gore had written.

In a second impulse of love, she laid the others aside, and opened Gore's envelope. Drawing out the letter, she held it for a moment against her face. On this paper his hand had rested when he wrote to her! There was a sense of personal contact in the mere thought. Then, at last, with a smile at her own sentiment, she opened it slowly and smoothed out the pages.

The written lines--scarcely more than a dozen in number--danced for an instant before her eyes; then focused themselves with terrible distinctness.

There was no formal beginning to the letter; it was merely a statement made in sharp, uneven characters, as though the sender had written under great stress--great emotion or resolve.

"I find," it began, "that you have treated me with an unpardonable
want of honour and want of truth on a matter that concerned me very
deeply--the matter of Deerehurst; and it seems to me, under the
circumstances, only just and right that our engagement should come
to an end. A marriage built upon such a basis could only have one
termination. If this seems hard or abrupt, I can only say that the
knowledge of my mistake has come hardly to me. I shall go abroad
again as soon as I can make my plans. I am glad to think that, as
no one but your sister knew of our engagement, my action can cause
no public comment or unpleasantness for you.

"WALTER GORE."

Clodagh read the lines--read and re-read them. For the first time in her life, her quick brain failed to respond to a first suggestion; then, at last, as though the cloud that obscured her mind had been rent asunder, conception of all that the letter conveyed sprang to her understanding.

Walter had written this letter! Walter had given her up! Her face became very white; she swayed a little, looking about her vaguely, as if for some physical aid; then suddenly revolt took the place of panic. It was all some horrible mistake. She must go to him--rend the web of doubt that had divided them--if need be, humble herself, show him the greatness of her love, until he must condone--must forgive--must reinstate her in his heart!

Moving swiftly, she crossed the room to the fireplace, drawing out her watch as she went. With a good horse, she might still catch the last train from Muskeere--take the night mail from Cork to Dublin--cross to Holyhead in the morning, and be back in London to-morrow!

She lifted her hand to the frayed and tasselled bell-rope that hung from the ceiling: then, by a strange impulse, her arm dropped to her side.

When her journey was accomplished--when she met Gore, what had she to explain? what had she to confess? The tassel of the bell-rope slipped from between her fingers.

The vision of herself pleading with him rose vividly before her,--she, with her passionate impulsiveness; he, with his grave dignity, his uncompromising integrity. She recalled the peculiar words he had made use of on the day he had discovered Deerehurst's gift of flowers. "I should either believe in you--or disbelieve in you!" His critical attitude in their first acquaintance started to life at the remembrance of the words. He, who expected of others what he himself performed--he who, as Nance had said, was "so honourable himself"--how would he receive the poor, lame story she had to offer? A horrible, confusing dread closed in about her. A week ago, she would have gone forth confidently, to make her confession; but now her faith was less. On the night in Deerehurst's study she had tasted of the tree of knowledge--had seen things as men see them; and her fearlessness had been shaken.

She looked helplessly round the bare room filled with cold grey light.

No; Walter would never believe!--Walter would never believe! The knowledge that she had lied to him even once would stand between them, condemning her hopelessly. An appalling weight seemed to press her to the earth. She was cut adrift. She was separated for ever from all safe, sheltering human things; somewhere in the dim, far regions where the decrees of fate are made, a knell had been sounded!

She glanced once more round the bare, familiar room, from the great four-post bedstead to the long window, beyond which lay the green fields, the wind-swept sky, and the livid line of the sea; then suddenly she turned, and fled through the open door and out into the empty corridor.

Asshlin was still standing in the hall, as she came downstairs; at the sound of her approach he looked up, but in the falling twilight he noticed nothing unusual in her appearance.

"We've made a great illumination!" he said--"quite a blaze of light!"

Clodagh made no answer; but descending the stairs quickly, passed into the dining-room.

As on the night years ago, when Milbanke had come to Orristown, the old room was prepared to do honour to a guest. The tablecloth was laid, places were set for two, and the great silver sconces were filled with candles that glowed so brightly that even the dark portraits on the walls were thrown into relief. But no fire blazed in the wide grate as on the former occasion, and the curtains of the three long windows were drawn back, admitting the light from the stormy evening sky.

Clodagh's first glance, as she entered the room, was for these windows, and her first words concerned them.

"Larry, draw the curtains!" she said.

To her own ears, her voice seemed to come from some distant place--to sound infinitely thin and far away; but Asshlin seemed to observe nothing. He went forward obediently and drew the six long curtains.

As the last was pulled into place Burke entered, and carefully laid two dishes upon the table. A moment later Clodagh took her seat.

"What will you eat, Larry?" she said hurriedly. "Chicken? Ham?"

Asshlin turned to her, as he in his turn took his place.

"What will _you_ have?" he said.

"I? Oh--anything! But talk, Larry! Tell me things! Let's--let's be gay!"

Asshlin was busy cutting up the chicken. He did not hear the faintly hysterical note that underran her voice--the note of warning from a mind trying with panic-stricken haste to evade itself.

He helped her to some chicken; and Burke, laying the plate before her, went in search of wine.

She toyed for a moment or two with the food, making pretence to eat.

At last Larry looked at her.

"You're eating nothing. Aren't you hungry?"

She started nervously.

"No; I'm not hungry. I--I had a glass of milk in my room. I couldn't wait for dinner." She tried to laugh, as she told the falsehood.

He accepted the explanation.

"Then you must have a glass of wine now!" he said genially, as Burke re-entered with a dusty bottle of port. "Give me the bottle, Burke!"

He took it from the old man's hands, and poured some wine into Clodagh's glass; and as he leant forward, he suddenly saw by the light of the candles that her eyes were wide and black, her face very white.

"Clo, you're not feeling ill?" he asked, in quick concern.

Clodagh put her hand to her face with a startled gesture.

"No! Do I look ill? It's the storm. The storm has got on my nerves. We develop nerves in London, you know!" Again she attempted to laugh.

Once more Asshlin accepted her explanation, as something he had no authority to question.

"I want you to talk, Larry!" she added hurriedly. "I want you to talk. Say anything! Take me out of myself!"

She raised her glass to her lips and drank some of the wine. It brought a faint tinge of colour to her cheeks, but only increased the bright darkness of her eyes.

While Asshlin consumed his dinner, she sat very upright in her chair, sipping her wine from time to time or breaking small mouthfuls from her bread.

At last, having hovered anxiously about her, Burke made bold to speak his thoughts.

"Is it the way the chicken isn't nice, ma'am?" he ventured.

She started, as she had started each time she had been directly addressed.

"No, Burke! Oh no!" she said hastily. "The chicken is very nice. It's only that the storm has--has given me a headache."

Burke shook his head sympathetically, as a sudden gale swept round the house.

"'Tis lookin' for a bad night, sure enough!" he said, as he passed round the table with the next course.

When the pudding had been served and partaken of by Asshlin, Clodagh at last pushed back her chair, and with a curiously unstrung movement walked across the room to the fireplace.

"Larry," she said suddenly, "will you play cards with me when Burke takes the things away?"

Asshlin looked up with interest.

"By Jove!" he said, "what a good idea!"

When Burke reappeared, solemnly carrying some cheese, Clodagh turned to him quickly.

"Is there a pack of cards in the house, Tim?" she asked.

He glanced at her white face and upright figure, but his expression betrayed nothing.

"I do be thinkin' there's a deck some place, if I could lay me mind on it."

Asshlin leant across the table.

"There's a pack in the drawer of the side-board."

Burke crossed the room, but not over-eagerly; and, opening the drawer, produced the cards.

"'Tis the deck poor Misther Dinis got from Cork the self-same day----" he began. Then he stopped considerately; and added under his breath, "The Almighty God be good to us all!"

Clodagh took the cards from him, and stood very still, fingering them nervously. At any other time, the thought of playing with cards that belonged to the dead would have filled her with repugnance; but to-night all ordinary standards had been lost--all the world was chaos. She was like one who is slipping down into a bottomless abyss, and stretches desperate hands towards any straw that might offer respite.

She never changed her position while the table was being cleared; her only sign of emotion still being shown by the spasmodic way in which she passed the cards between her fingers. When at last the cloth had been removed and the candles replaced, she came quickly across the room and stood looking down upon her cousin.

She still mechanically shuffled the cards; but her glance, as it rested on Asshlin, was unconscious and absorbed, seeing only its own mental pictures.

"What shall we play, Larry? What game can two people play?"

Asshlin looked up.

"Piquet," he said, "or euchre."

She nodded.

"Euchre! Yes, euchre!" She drew a chair up to the table and sat down. "What stakes?"

Asshlin looked uncertain.

"You say!" he suggested a little diffidently.

She gave a nervous start, as a fresh gale shook the windows.

"Thirty shillings a game? Twenty shillings a game?"

For an instant he looked at her amazed; but seeing the unconsciousness of her expression, his breeding forbade him to offer any objection. With a reckless excitement he had never before had opportunity to feel, he leant back in his chair, and taking up the glass Burke had set beside him, poured out some port and drank it.

"Thirty shillings a game!" he said magnificently.

Clodagh did not seem to hear; certainly she saw nothing of his scruple and his yielding. Her own thoughts rode and spurred her, pressing her forward in a wild, panic-stricken search for oblivion.

"Come, Larry! Play!--play! I feel"--she paused and laughed hysterically--"I feel that, if I were a man to-night, I should drink all the port in that bottle! I want to forget everything. Play!--play!"

Asshlin picked up the cards that she had laid upon the table. He could not understand her in this new mood; but he was satisfied not to understand her. He felt stimulated--lifted above himself--as he had never been before.

For two hours they played, with luck evenly balanced; then Asshlin made a reluctant attempt to draw out his watch.

"Did you hear that?" he said, as the wind roared up from the sea like an invading army. "I ought to be getting home. She'll be worrying about me."

He spoke firmly enough, but his eyes wandered back to the cards.

Clodagh rose, and, crossing to the sideboard, poured some water into a glass and drank it.

"No! no!" she said eagerly. "It's quite early. It's only eleven. She won't expect you yet."

He put his watch back into his pocket; Clodagh returned to her place at the table; and the play went on.

By twelve o'clock a change had come in their positions. Fortune was no longer impartial; and Clodagh stood the winner by several games. Again Asshlin made a movement towards departure. His face was flushed now, and a look of alarm had begun to mingle with his excitement.

"I--I ought to be going now, Clo," he said a little huskily.

Clodagh gave a sharp laugh. At last it seemed to her that she was drowning thought--holding at bay the black sense of loss and agony that threatened to inundate her soul. She threw up her head, and her eyes challenged her cousin's.

"You are a coward if you go now, Larry! You are afraid to take your revenge!"

He coloured like a girl, and gave a half-angry, half-embarrassed laugh.

"Don't say that, Clo!"

"Then will you play?"

"I--I oughtn't to."

Again Clodagh laughed--a laugh so nervous and high-pitched that it rang almost harshly across the room.

"Then you're not an Asshlin!"

"Am I not?" He tilted his chair forward, and leaned upon the table. "Let's see! Come along! I'm game for anything after that!"

There was a new note in his voice--a fiery note, that seemed to challenge fate and throw reason to the winds.

It stirred some latent power in Clodagh's brain. A faint colour crossed the pallor of her face; she half rose from her seat.

"Shall we 'play like the devil,' as father used to say?"

Asshlin threw up his head. It was as if flint and steel had struck--the spark followed inevitably.

"Yes!" he cried; "we'll play like the devil!"

At one o'clock they rose from the table. Clodagh's face was white again; but Asshlin's was deeply flushed; and as he stood up, confronting his cousin, it almost seemed that he had drunk more than the two glasses of port to which the bottle testified.

"I must go now, Clo," he said. "May I ring for Burke to get me a lantern?"

Clodagh took a step forward.

"Stay the night, Larry? You can have father's room."

He shook his head and crossed to the fireplace.

"I owe you forty pounds," he said in an unsteady voice. "I'll leave thirty here"--he drew out the notes he had shown her at Carrigmore, and laid them under the clock on the mantelpiece--"the other ten I'll--I'll give you to-morrow."

But Clodagh scarcely heard.

"Do stay! Oh, do stay!"

Again he shook his head, and pulled the bell-rope.

"I've put the notes here--under the clock."

"All right!--all right! But, Larry, can't you stay? It's a horrible night."

"I can't!" Then, as the door opened and Burke appeared, he turned to him hastily: "Burke, bring me a lantern. I want to get the boat out."

At last Clodagh's mind was torn from its own concerns.

"The boat! You're not going to cross the bay on a night like this?"

Old Burke came forward, looking from one to the other.

"Wisha, Masther Larry, is it crazy you are?"

Asshlin turned his flushed face on the old servant.

"We're all a bit crazy now and then, Tim. But I was never afraid of the sea. Get me the lantern!"

Still Burke hesitated. But suddenly Asshlin stepped forward, with a look so full of pride and domination, that by instinct he succumbed.

"As quick as you can, Burke!"

And the old man hobbled off.

There was silence between the cousins after he had gone. Asshlin leaned upon the mantelpiece, with his face averted; Clodagh walked nervously about the room, changing the arrangement of the silver on the sideboard, snuffing the candles that had begun to gutter, doing any aimless and unnecessary thing that could blur her sense of impending solitude. At last she paused in the middle of the room.

"Larry----" she began desperately.

But at the same instant Burke's step sounded in the hall, and his voice came to them through the open door.

"The lanthern is here, Masther Larry!"

Asshlin started.

"All right! I'm coming!" he called. "Good-night, Clo!" He walked forward almost awkwardly, and took her cold hand.

She looked up into his face, her own misery blotting out all other things.

"Larry! can't you stay?"

Asshlin passed his hand across his forehead.

"Don't ask me, Clo! Good-night!"

An instant later he was gone.

She ran out into the hall on the moment that she realised her desertion.

"Larry!" she called--"Larry!"

But her voice was drowned in the gale, as Burke opened the hall door and the wind rushed in, filling the wide black hall. There was a confused suggestion of storm and lantern-light; a vague silhouetted vision of Burke, bent and small, and of Asshlin, straight, lithe, and tall. Then the door closed with a thud. Lantern, figures, and storm were alike shut out from her knowledge. She was alone in the great house.