CHAPTER XX
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR
A little before sunset on that same day--almost precisely indeed at themoment at which Flavia's shadow darkened the splayed flank of thewindow in the Tower--two men stood beside the entrance at Morristown,whence the one's whip had just chased the beggars. They were staring ata third, who, seated nonchalantly upon the horse-block, slapped hisboot with his riding switch, and made as poor a show of hiding hisamusement as they of masking their disgust. The man who slapped his legand shaped his lips to a silent whistle, was Major Payton of the --th.The men who looked at him, and cursed the unlucky star which hadbrought him thither, were Luke Asgill and The McMurrough.
"Faith, and I should have thought," Asgill said, with a clouded face,"that my presence here, Major, and I, a Justice----"
"True for you!" Payton said, with a grin.
"Should have been enough by itself, and the least taste more thanenough, to prove the absurdity of the Castle's story."
"True for you again," Payton replied. "And ain't I saying that but foryour presence here, and a friend at court that I'll not name, it's notyour humble servant this gentleman would be entertaining"--he turned toThe McMurrough--"but half a company and a sergeant's guard!"
"I'm allowing it."
"You've no cause to do other."
"Devil a bit I'm denying it," Asgill replied more amicably; and, as faras he could, he cleared his face. "It's not that you're not welcome.Not at all, Major! Sure, and I'll answer for it, my friend, TheMcMurrough is glad to welcome any English gentleman, much more one ofyour reputation."
"Truth, and I am," The McMurrough assented. But he had not Asgill'sself-control, and his sulky tone belied his words.
"Still--I come at an awkward time, perhaps?" Payton answered, lookingwith a grin from one to the other.
For the first time it struck him that the suspicions at headquartersmight be well-founded; in that case he had been rash to put his head inthe lion's mouth. For it had been wholly his own notion. Partly totease Asgill, whom he did not love the more because he owed him money,and partly to see the rustic beauty whom, rumour had it, Asgill wascourting in the wilds--a little, too, because life at Tralee was dull,he had volunteered to do with three or four troopers what otherwise ahalf-company would have been sent to do. That he could at the same timeput his creditor under an obligation, and annoy him, had not been theleast part of the temptation; while no one at Tralee believed the storysent down from Dublin.
He did not credit it even now for more than two seconds. Then commonsense, and his knowledge of Luke Asgill reassured him. "Eh! An awkwardtime, perhaps?" he repeated, looking at The McMurrough. "Sorry, I'msure, but----"
"I'd have entertained you better, I'm thinking," James McMurrough said,"if I'd known you were coming before you came."
"Devil a doubt of it!" said Asgill, whose subtle brain had been atwork. "Not that it matters, bedad, for an Irish gentleman will do hisbest. And to-morrow Colonel Sullivan, that's more knowledge of the modeand foreign ways, will be back, and he'll be helping his cousin. Moreby token," he added, in a different tone, "you know him of old?"
Payton, who had frowned at the name, reddened at the question. "Isthat," he asked, "the Colonel Sullivan who----"
"Who tried the foils with Lemoine at Tralee?" Asgill cried heartily."The same and no other! He is away to-day, but he'll be returningtomorrow, and he'll be delighted to see you! And by good luck, thereare foils in the house, and he'll pass the time pleasantly with you!It's he's the hospitable creature!"
Payton was far from pleased. He was anything but anxious to see the manwhose skill had turned the joke against him; and his face betokened hisfeelings. Had he foreseen the meeting he would certainly have remainedin Tralee, and left the job to a subaltern. "Hang it!" he exclaimed,vexed by the recollection, "a fine mess you led me into there, Asgill!"
"I did not know him then," Asgill replied lightly. "And, pho! Take myword for it, he's no man to bear malice!"
"Malice, begad!" Payton answered, ill-humouredly; "I think it's I----"
"Ah, you are right again, to be sure!" Asgill agreed, laughingsilently. For already he had formed a hope that the guest might bemanoeuvred out of the house on the morrow. Not that he thought Paytonwas likely either to discover the Colonel's plight, or to interfere ifhe did. But Asgill had another, and a stronger motive for wishing theintruder away. He knew Payton. He knew the man's arrogance andinsolence, the contempt in which he held the Irish, his view of them asan inferior race. And he was sure that, if he saw Flavia and fanciedher--and who that saw her would not fancy her?--he was capable of anyrudeness, any outrage; or, if he learned her position in regard to theestate, he might prove a formidable, if an honourable, competitor. Ineither case, to hasten the man's departure, and to induce Flavia toremain in the background in the meantime, became Asgill's chief aim.
James McMurrough, on the other hand, saw in the unwelcome intruder anEnglish officer; and, troubled by his guilty conscience, he dreadedabove all things what he might discover. True, the past was past, theplot spent, the Spanish ship gone. But the Colonel remained, and indurance. And if by any chance the Englishman stumbled on him, releasedhim and heard his story, and lived to carry it back to Tralee--theconsequences might be such that a cold sweat broke out on the youngman's brow at the thought of them. To add to his alarm, Payton, whosemind was secretly occupied with the Colonel, sought to evince hisindifference by changing the subject, and in doing so, hit on onesingularly unfortunate.
"A pretty fair piece of water," he said, rising with an affected yawn,and pointing over the lake with his riding-switch. "The tower at thehead of it--it's grown too dark to see it--is it inhabited?"
The McMurrough started guiltily. "The tower?" he stammered. Could it bethat the man knew all, and was here to expose him? His heart stoodstill, then raced.
"The Major'll be meaning the tower on the rock," Asgill said smoothly,but with a warning look. "Ah, sure, it'll be used at times, Major, fora prison, you understand."
"Oh!"
"But we'll be better to be moving inside, I'm thinking," he continued.
Payton assented. He was still brooding on his enemy, the Colonel, andhis probable arrival on the morrow. Curse the man, he was thinking. Whycouldn't he keep out of his way?
"Take the Major in, McMurrough," Asgill said, who on his side was ontenter-hooks lest Flavia and Morty O'Beirne should arrive from theTower. "You'll like to get rid of your boots before supper, Major?" hewent on. "Bid Darby send the Major's man to him, McMurrough; or,better, I'll be going to the stables myself and I'll be telling him!"
As the others went in, Asgill strolled on this pretext towards thestables. But when they had passed out of sight he turned and walkedalong the lake to meet the girl and her companion. As he walked he hadtime to think, and to decide how he might best deal with Flavia, andhow much and what he should tell her. When he met them, therefore--bythis time the night was falling--his first question related to theirerrand, and to that which an hour before had been the onepre-occupation of all their minds.
"Well," he said, "he'll not have yielded yet, I am thinking?"
Dark as it was, the girl averted her face to hide the trouble in hereyes. She shook her head. "No," she said, "he has not."
"I did not count on it," Asgill replied cheerfully. "But time--time andhunger and patience--devil a doubt he'll give in presently."
She did not answer, but he fancied--she kept her face averted--that sheshivered.
"While you have been away, something has happened," he continued. Afterall, it was perhaps as well, he reflected, that Payton had come. Hiscoming, even if Flavia did not encounter him, would divert herthoughts, would suggest an external peril, would prevent her dwellingtoo long or too fancifully on that room in the Tower, and on the manwho famished there. She hated the Colonel, Asgill believed. She hadhated him, he was sure. But how long would she continue to hate him inthese circumstances? How long if she learned what were the Colonel'sfeelings towards
her? "An unwelcome guest has come," he continuedglibly, "and one that'll be giving trouble, I'm fearing."
"A guest?" Flavia repeated in astonishment. She halted. What time forguests was this? "And unwelcome?" she added. "Who is it?"
"An English officer," Asgill explained, "from Tralee. He is saying thatthe Castle has heard something, and has sent him here to look abouthim."
Naturally the danger seemed greater to the two than to Asgill, who knewhis man. Words of dismay broke from Flavia and O'Beirne. "From Tralee?"she cried. "And an English officer? Good heavens! Do you know him?"
"I do," Asgill answered confidently. "And, believe me or no, I canmanage him." He began to appreciate this opportunity of showing himselfthe master of the position. "I hold him, like that, not the least doubtof it; but the less we'll be doing for him the sooner he'll be going,and the safer we'll be! I would not be so bold as to advise," hecontinued diffidently, "but I'm thinking it would be no worse if youleft him to be entertained by the men."
"I will!" she cried, embracing the idea. "Why should I be wanting tosee him?"
"Then I think he'll be ordering his horse to-morrow!"
"I wish he were gone now!" she cried.
"Ah, so do I!" he replied, from his heart.
"I will go in through the garden," she said.
He assented; it was to that point he had been moving. She turned aside,and for a moment he bent to the temptation to go with her. Since theday on which he had voluntarily left the house at the Colonel'sdictation he had made progress in her favour. He was sure that he hadcome closer to her--that she had begun not only to suffer his company,but to suffer it willingly. And here, as she passed through thedarkling garden under the solid blackness of the yews, was anopportunity of making a further advance. She would have to grope herway, a reason for taking her hand might offer, and--his head grew hotat the thought.
But he thrust the temptation from him. He knew that it was not only thestranger's presence that weighed her down, but her recollection of theman in the Tower and his miserable plight. This was not the time, norwas she in the mood for such advances; and, putting pressure onhimself, Asgill turned from her, satisfied with what he had done.
As he went on with Morty, he gave him a hint to say as little inPayton's presence as possible, and to leave the management to him. "Iknow the man," he explained, "and where he's weak. I'm for seeing theback of him as soon as we can, but without noise."
"There's always the bog," grumbled Morty. He did not love Asgillovermuch, and the interview with the Colonel had left him in a restivemood.
"And the garrison at Tralee," Asgill rejoined drily, "to ask where heis! And his troopers to answer the question."
Morty fell back on sullenness, and bade him manage it his own way."Only I'll trouble you not to blame me," he added, "if the Englishsoger finds the Colonel, and ruins us entirely!"
"I'll not," Asgill answered pithily, "if so be you'll hold yourtongue."
So at supper that night Payton looked in vain for the Kerry beautywhose charms the warmer wits of the mess had more than once painted inhues rather florid than fit. Lacking her, he found that theconversation lay wholly between Asgill and himself. Nor did thissurprise him, when he had surmounted his annoyance at the young lady'sabsence; for the contempt in which he held the natives disposed him toexpect nothing from them. On the contrary, he found it natural thatthese savages should sit silent before a man of the world, and, likethe clowns they were, find nothing to say fit for a gentleman to hear.Under such circumstances he was not unwilling to pose before them in anindolent, insolent fashion, to show them what a great person he was,and to speak of things beyond their ken. Playing this part, he wouldhave enjoyed himself tolerably--nor the less because now and again helet his contempt for the company peep from under his complaisance--butfor the obtuseness, or the malice of his friend; who, as if he had onlyone man and one idea in his head, let fall with every moment somemention of Colonel John. Now, it was the happy certainty of theColonel's return next day that inspired his eloquence; now, thepleasure with which the Colonel would meet Payton again; now, the luckychance that found a pair of new foils on the window ledge among thefishing-tackle, the old fowling-pieces, and the ragged copies of_Armida_ and _The Don_.
"For he's ruined entirely and no one to play with him!" Asgillcontinued, a twinkle, which he made no attempt to hide, in his eye. "Noone, I'm meaning, Major, of his sort of force at all! Begad, boys,you'll see some fine fencing for once! Ye'll think ye've never seen anybefore I'm doubting!"
"I'm not sure that I can remain to-morrow," Payton said in a surlytone. For he began to suspect that Asgill was quizzing him. He noticedthat every time the Justice named Colonel Sullivan, whether he referredto his return, or exalted his prowess, a sensation, a something thatwas almost a physical stir passed round the table. Men looked furtivelyat one another, or looked straight before them, as if they were in adesign. If that were so, the design could only be to pit ColonelSullivan against him, or in some way to provoke a quarrel between them.He felt a qualm of distrust and apprehension, for he remembered thewords the Colonel had used in reference to their next meeting; and hewas confirmed in the plan he had already formed--to be gone next day.But in the meantime his temper moved him to carry the war into theenemy's country.
"I didn't know," he snarled, taking Asgill up in the middle of a eulogyof Colonel John's skill, "that he was so great a favourite of yours."
"He was not," Asgill replied drily.
"He is now, it seems!" in the same sneering tone.
"We know him better. Don't we, boys?"
They murmured assent.
"And the lady whose horse I sheltered for you," the Major continued,spitefully watching for an opening--"confound you, little you thankedme for it!--she must be still more in his interest than you. And howdoes that suit your book?"
Asgill had great self-control, and the Major was not, except where hismalice was roused, a close observer. But the thrust was so unexpectedthat on the instant Payton read the other's secret in his eyes--knewthat he loved, and knew that he was jealous. Jealous of Sullivan!Jealous of the man whom he was for some reason praising. Then why notjealous of a younger, a more proper, a more fashionable rival? Asgill'scunningly reared plans began to sink, and even while he answered heknew it.
"She likes him," he said, "as we all do."
"Some more, some less," Payton answered with a grin.
"Just so," the Irishman returned, controlling himself. "Some more, someless. And why not, I'm asking."
"I think I must stay over to-morrow," Payton remarked, smiling at theceiling. "There must be a good deal to be seen here."
"Ah, there is," Asgill answered in apparent good humour.
"Worth seeing, too, I'll be sworn!" the Englishman replied, smilingmore broadly.
"And that's true, too!" the other rejoined.
He had himself in hand; and it was not from him that the proposal tobreak up the party came. The Major it was who at last pleaded fatigue.Englishmen's heads, he said, were stronger than their stomachs; theywere a match for port but not for claret. "Too much Bordeaux," hecontinued, with careless contempt, "gives me the vapours next day. It'sa d--d sour drink, I call it! Here's a health to Methuen and soundOporto!"
"You should correct it, Major, with a little cognac," The McMurroughsuggested politely.
"Not to-night; and, by your leave, I'll have my man called and go tobed."
"It's early," James McMurrough said, playing the host.
"It is, but I'll have my man and go to bed," Payton answered, with trueBritish obstinacy. "No offence to any gentleman."
"There's none will take it here," Asgill answered. "An Irishman's houseis his guest's castle." But, knowing that Payton liked his glass, hewondered; until it occurred to him that the other wished to have hishand steady for the sword-play next day. He meant to stay, then! "Hanghim! Hang him!" he repeated in his mind.
The McMurrough, who had risen, took a light and attended his guest tohis room
. Asgill and the O'Beirnes--the smaller folk had withdrawnearlier--remained seated at the table, the young men scoffing at theEnglishman's weak head, and his stiffness and conceit of himself,Asgill silent and downcast. His scheme for ridding himself of Paytonhad failed; it remained to face the situation. He did not distrustFlavia; no Englishman, he was sure, would find favour with her. But hedistrusted Payton, his insolence, his violence, and the privilegedposition which his duellist's skill gave him. And then there wasColonel John. If Payton learned what was afoot at the Tower, and sawhis way to make use of it, the worst might happen to all concerned.
He looked up at a touch from Morty, and to his astonishment he sawFlavia standing at the end of the table. There was a hasty scramblingto the feet, for the men had not drunk deep, and by all in the house,except her brother, the girl was treated with respect. After a fashion,they were to a man in love with her.
"I was thinking," Asgill said, foreseeing trouble, "that you were inbed and asleep." Her hair was tied back negligently and her dresshalf-fastened at the throat.
"I cannot sleep," she answered. And then she stood a moment drummingwith her slender fingers on the table, and the men noticed that she wasunusually pale. "I cannot sleep," she repeated, a tremor in her voice."I keep thinking of him. I want some one--to go to him."
"Now?"
"Now!"
"But," Asgill said slowly, "I'm thinking that to do that were to givehim hopes. It were to spoil all. Once in twenty-four hours--that wasagreed, and he was told. And it is not four hours since you were there.If there is one thing needful, not the least doubt of it!--it is toleave him thinking that we're meaning it."
He spoke gently and reasonably. But the girl laboured, it was plain,under a weight of agitation that did not suffer her to reason, muchless to answer him reasonably. She was as one who wakes in the darknight, with the terror of an evil dream upon him, and cannot for a timeshake it off. "But if he dies?" she cried in a woeful tone. "If he diesof hunger? Oh, my God, of hunger! What have we done then? I tell you,"she continued, struggling with overwhelming emotion, "I cannot bear it!I cannot bear it!" She looked from one to the other as appealing toeach in turn to share her horror, and to act. "It is wicked, it iswicked!" she continued, in a shriller tone and with a note of defiancein her voice, "and who will answer for it? Who will answer for it, ifhe dies? I, not you! I, who tricked him, who lied to him, who lured himthere!"
For a moment there was a stricken silence in the room. Then, "And whathad he done to you?" Asgill retorted with spirit--for he saw that if hedid not meet her on her own plane she was capable of any act, howeverruinous. "Or, if not to you, to Ireland, to your King, to your Country,to your hopes?" He flung into his voice all the indignation of which hewas master. "A trick, you say? Was it not by a trick he ruined all? Thefairest prospect, the brightest day that ever dawned for Ireland! Theday of freedom, of liberty, of----"
She twisted her fingers feverishly together. "Yes," she said, "yes!Yes, but--I can't bear it! I can't! I can't! It is no use talking," shecontinued with a violent shudder. "You are here--look!" she pointed tothe table strewn with the remains of the meal, with flasks and glassesand tall silver-edged horns. "But he is--starving! Starving!" sherepeated, as if the physical pain touched herself.
"You shall go to him to-morrow! Go, yourself!" he replied in a soothingtone.
"I!" she cried. "Never!"
"Oh, but----" Asgill began, perplexed but not surprised by herattitude--"But here's your brother," he continued, relieved. "He willtell you--he'll tell you, I'm sure, that nothing can be so harmful asto change now. Your sister," he went on, addressing The McMurrough, whohad just descended the stairs, "she's wishing some one will go to theColonel, and see if he's down a peg. But I'm telling her----"
"It's folly entirely, you should be telling her!" James McMurroughreplied, curtly and roughly. Intercourse with Payton had not left himin the best of tempers. "To-morrow at sunset, and not an hour earlier,he'll be visited. And then it'll be you, Flavvy, that'll speak to him!What more is it you're wanting?"
"I speak to him?" she cried. "I couldn't!"
"But it'll be you'll have to!" he replied roughly. "Wasn't it soarranged?"
"I couldn't," she replied, in the same tone of trouble. "Some oneelse--if you like!"
"But it's not some one else will do," James retorted.
"But why should I be the one--to go?" she wailed. She had ColonelJohn's face before her, haggard, sunken, famished, as, peering into thegloomy, firelit room, she had seen it that afternoon, ay, and as shehad seen it later against the darkness of her bedroom. "Why should I,"she repeated, "be the one to go?"
"For a very good reason," her brother retorted with a sneer. And helooked at Asgill and laughed.
That look, which she saw, and the laugh which went with it, startledher as a flash of light startles a traveller groping through darkness."Why?" she repeated in a different tone. "Why?"
But neither her tone nor Asgill's warning glance put James McMurroughon his guard; he was in one of his brutal humours. "Why?" he replied."Because he's a silly fool, as I'm thinking some others are, and has afancy for you, Flavvy! Faith, you're not blind!"--he continued,forgetting that he had only learned the fact from Asgill a few daysbefore, and that it was news to the younger men--"and know it, I'll besworn, as well as I do! Any way, I've a notion that if you let him seethat there is no one in the house wishes him worse than you, or wouldsee him starve, the stupid fool, with a lighter heart--I'm thinking itwill be for bringing him down, if anything will!"
She did not answer. And outwardly she was not much moved. But inwardly,the horror of herself and her part in the matter, which she had felt asshe lay upstairs in the darkness, thinking of the starving man, whelmedup and choked her. They were using her for this! They were using herbecause the man--loved her! Because hard words, cruel treatment,brutality from her would be ten times more hard, more cruel, morebrutal than from others! Because such treatment at her hands would bemore likely to break his spirit and crush his heart! To what viler use,to what lower end could a woman be used, or human feeling beprostituted?
Nor was this all. On the tide of this loathing of herself rose another,a newer and a stranger feeling. The man loved her. She did not doubtthe statement. Its truth came home to her at once, although, occupiedwith other views of him, she had never suspected the fact. And becauseit placed him in a different light, because it placed him in a light inwhich she had never viewed him before, because it recalled a hundredthings, acts, words on his part which she had barely noted at the time,but which now took on another aspect, it showed him, too, as one whomshe had never seen. Had he been free at this moment, prosperous,triumphant, the knowledge that he loved her, that he, her enemy, lovedher, might have revolted her--she might have hated him the more for it.But now that he lay a prisoner, famished, starving, the fact that heloved her touched her heart, transfixed her with an almost poignantfeeling, choked her with a rising flood of pity and self-reproach.
"So there you have it, Flavvy!" James cried complacently. "And sure,you'll not be making a fool of yourself at this time of day!"
She stood as one stunned; looking at him with strange eyes, thinking,not answering. Asgill, and Asgill only, saw a burning blush dye for aninstant the whiteness of her face. He, and he only, discovered, withthe subtle insight of one who loved, a part of what she was thinking.He wished James McMurrough in the depth of hell. But it was too late,or he feared so.
Great was his relief, therefore, when she spoke. "Then you'll not--begoing now?" she said.
"Now?" James retorted contemptuously. "Haven't I told you, you'll goto-morrow?"
"If I must," she said slowly, "I will--if I must."
"Then what's the good of talking, I'm thinking?" The McMurroughanswered. And he was going on--being in a bullying mood--to say more inthe same strain, when the opportunity was taken from him. One of theO'Beirnes, who happened to avert his eyes from the girl, discoveredPayton standing at the foot of the stairs. Phelim's exclamati
onapprised the others that something was amiss, and they turned.
"I left my snuff-box on the table," Payton said, with a sly grin. Howmuch he had heard they could not tell. "Ha! there it is! Thank you.Sorry! Sorry, I am sure! Hope I don't trespass. Will you present me toyour sister, Mr. McMurrough?"
James McMurrough had no option but to do so--looking foolish; whileLuke Asgill stood by with rage in his heart, cursing the evil chancewhich had brought Flavia downstairs.
"I assure you," Payton said, bowing low before her, but not so low thatthe insolence of his smile was hidden from all, "I think myself happy.My friend Asgill's picture of you, warmly as he painted it, fellinfinitely--infinitely below the reality!"