CHAPTER XXII
THE SCENE IN THE PASSAGE
Asgill saw himself in the position of a commander whose force has beenoutflanked, and who has to decide on the instant how he may bestre-form it on a new front. Flavia and Colonel Sullivan, Flavia andPayton, Payton and Colonel Sullivan--each of these conjunctions had forhim a separate menace; each threatened either his suit for Flavia, orhis standing in the house through which, and through which alone, hecould hope to win her. In addition, the absence of James McMurrough atthis critical moment left Asgill in the most painful perplexity. IfJames knew what had happened, why was he wanting at this moment, whenit behoved them to decide, and to decide quickly, what line they wouldtake?
Under the shadow of the great peat-stack at the back of the house,whither he had retired that he might make up his mind before he facedthe three, Asgill bit his nails and cursed The McMurrough with all hisheart, calling him a score of names, each worse than the other. It was,it must be, through his folly and mismanagement that the thing hadbefallen, that the prisoner had been released, that Payton had been letinto the secret. The volley of oaths that flew from Asgill expressed nomore than a tithe of his rage and his bewilderment.
How was he to get rid of Payton? How prevent Colonel John from resumingthat sway in the house which he had exercised before? How nip in thebud that nascent sympathy, that feeling for him which Flavia's outbreakthe night before had suggested? Or how, short of all this, was he toface either Payton or the Colonel?
Again a volley of oaths flew from him.
In council with James McMurrough he might have arranged a plan ofaction; at least, he would have learned from him what Payton knew. ButJames's absence ruined all. In the end, after waiting some time in thevain hope that he would appear, Asgill went in to supper.
Colonel Sullivan was not there; he was in no condition to descend. Norwas Flavia; whereon Asgill reflected, with chagrin, that probably shewas attending upon the invalid. Payton was at table, with the twoO'Beirnes, and three other buckeens. The Englishman, amused anduplifted by the discovery he had made, was openly disdainful of hiscompanions; while the Irishmen, sullen and suspicious, were not awarehow much he knew, nor all of them how much there was to know. If TheMcMurrough chose to imprison his strange and unpopular kinsman, it wasnothing to them; nor a matter into which gentlemen eating at his tableand drinking his potheen and claret were called upon to peer tooclosely.
The position was singular; for the English officer, partly by virtue ofhis mission and partly by reason of the knowledge he had gained,carried himself as if he held that ascendency in the house whichColonel Sullivan had enjoyed--an ascendency, like his, grudged andprecarious, as the men's savage and furtive glances proved. But for hisrepute as a duellist they would have picked a quarrel with the visitorthere and then. And but for the presence of his four troopers in thebackground they might have fallen upon him in some less regularfashion. As it was, they sat, eating slowly and eyeing him askance;and, without shame, were relieved when Asgill entered. They looked tohim to clear up the situation and put the interloper in his rightplace. At any rate, the burden was now lifted from their shoulders.
"I'm fearing I'm late," Asgill said, as he took his seat. "Where'll TheMcMurrough be, I wonder?"
"Gone to meet your friend, I should think," Payton replied with asneer.
Asgill maintained a steady face. "My friend?" he repeated. "Oh, ColonelSullivan?"
"Yes, your friend who was to return to-day," the other retorted. "Haveyou seen anything of him?" he continued, with a grin.
Asgill fixed his eyes steadily on Payton's face. "I'm fancying you havethe advantage of me," he said. "More by token, I'm thinking, Major, youhave seen that same friend already."
"Maybe I have."
"And had a bout with him?"
"Eh?"
"And, faith, had the best of the bout, too!" Asgill continued coolly,and with his eyes fixed on the other's features, as if his one aim wasto see if he had hit the mark. "So much the best that I'll be chancinga guess he's upstairs at this moment, and wounded! Leastwise, I hearyou and the young lady brought him to the house between you, and himscarcely able to use his ten toes."
Payton, with his mouth open, glared at the speaker in a manner that atanother time must have provoked him to laughter.
"Isn't that the fact?" Asgill asked coldly.
"The fact!" the other burst forth. "No, I'm cursed if it is! And youknow it is not! You know as well as I do----" And with that he pouredforth a version of the events of the afternoon, and of those leading upto them, which included not only the Colonel's release, but thetreatment to which he had been subjected and the motive for it.
When he had done, "That's a strange story," Asgill said quietly, "ifit's true."
"True?" Payton rejoined, laying his hand on a glass and speaking in atowering rage. "Damn you, you know it's true!"
"I know nothing about it," Asgill replied, with the utmost coolness.
"Nothing?"
"And for a good reason. Sure, and I'm the last person they would belikely to tell it to!"
"And you were not a party to it?" Payton cried.
"Why should I be?" Asgill rejoined, calmly cutting a slice of bread."What have I to gain by robbing the young lady of her inheritance? I'dbe more likely to lose by it than gain."
"Lose by it? Why?"
"That is my affair," Asgill answered. And he hummed:
They tried put the comether on Judy McBain: One, two, three, one, two, three! Cotter and crowder and Paddy O'Hea; For who but she's owner of Ballymacshane?
He made his meaning so clear, and pointed it so audaciously before themall, that Payton, after scowling at him for some seconds with his handon a glass as if he meant to throw it, dropped his eyes and his handand fell into a gloomy study. He could not but own the weight of theother's argument. If Asgill was a pretender to the heiress's hand--andPayton did not doubt this--the last thought in his mind would be todivest her of her property.
Asgill read his thoughts, and presently, "I hope the wound is notserious?" he said.
"He is not wounded," the Major answered curtly. A few minutes before hewould have flown out at the other; now he took the thrust quietly. Hewas thinking. Meanwhile the O'Beirnes and their fellows grinned theiropen-mouthed admiration of the bear-tamer; and by-and-by, concludingthe fun was at an end, they went out one by one, until the two men wereleft together.
They sat some way apart, Payton brooding savagely, with his eyes on thetable, Asgill toying with the things before him and from time to timeglancing at the other. Each saw the prize clear before him; each sawthe other in the way and wondered how he could best brush him from it.Payton cared for the girl herself, only as a toy that had caught hisfancy; but he was sunk in debt, and his mouth watered for herpossessions. Asgill cared, as has been said, little or nothing for theinheritance, but he swore that the other man should never live topossess the woman. "It is a pity," Payton meditated, "for, with hisaid, I could take the girl, willing or unwilling. She'd not be thefirst Irish girl who has gone to her marriage across the pommel!" WhileAsgill reflected that if he could find Payton alone on a dark night itwould not be his small-sword would help him or his four troopers wouldfind him! But it must not be at Morristown.
Each owned, with reluctance, that the other had advantages. Asgill wasIrish, and known to Flavia, and had come to be favoured by her. ButPayton, though English, was the younger, the handsomer, the betterborn, and, in his braggart fashion, the better bred. Both wereProtestants; but if Asgill was the cleverer, Payton was an officer anda gentleman. The latter flattered himself that, given a little time, hewould win, if not by favour, still by force or fraud. But, could hehave looked into Asgill's heart, he would have trembled, perhaps hewould have drawn back. For he would have known that, while Irish bogswere deep and Irish pikes were sharp, his life would not be worth oneweek's purchase if he wronged this girl. Bad man as Asgill was, hislove was of no common kind, even as the man was no common man.
And he suspected the other; and he shook--ay, so that the table againstwhich he leant trembled--with rage at the thought that Payton mightoffer the girl some rudeness. The suspicion weighed so heavily on himthat he was fixed to see the other to his room that night. When Paytonrose to go, he rose also; and when, by chance, Payton sat down again,he sat down also, with a look that betrayed his thoughts. At once theEnglishman understood; and thenceforth they sat with frowning faces,each thinking more intently than before how he might thrust the otherfrom his path; each more certain, with every moment, that, the otherremoved, his path to the goal was clear and open. Neither gave athought to Colonel Sullivan, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion upstairs:Payton, because the Colonel seemed to him a middle-aged man, plain andgrey; and Asgill, because a more immediate and pressing jealousy hadthrust his mistrust of the Colonel from his mind.
There was claret on the table, and the Major, dull and bored, andresenting the other's vigilance, did not spare it. When he rose to hisfeet to retire he was heated and flushed, but not drunk. "Where's thatyoung cub?" he asked, breaking the silence.
Asgill shrugged his shoulders. "I can't hope to fill his place," hesaid with a smooth smile. "But I will be doing the honours as well as Ican.'
"You are d----d officious, it seems to me," Payton growled. And then,more loudly, "I am going to bed," he said.
"In his absence," Asgill answered, with mock politeness, "I will havethe honour of lighting you."
"You needn't trouble."
"Faith, and it's no trouble at all," Asgill replied in the same tone.And, taking two of the candles from the table, he preceded theEnglishman up the stairs.
The gradual ascent of the lights and the men's mounting footstepsshould have given Flavia warning of their coming. But either shedisdained concealment or she was thinking of other things, for whenthey entered the passage beyond the landing they espied the girlstanding, in what had been darkness, outside the Colonel's door. A pangshot through Asgill's heart, and he drew in his breath.
She raised her hand. "Ah," she said, "he has been crying out! But Ithink it was in his sleep. Will you be making as little noise as youcan?"
Asgill did not answer, but Payton did. "Happy man!" he said. And, beingin his cups, he said it in such a tone and with such a look that a deepblush crimsoned the girl's face.
Her eyes snapped. "Good-night," she said coldly.
Asgill continued to keep silence. Unfortunately Payton did not. "WishI'd such a guardian!" he said with a chuckle. "I'd be a happy manthen!" And, without thinking what he did, having Asgill's air in hishead, he hummed, with his head on one side and a grin on his face:
"They tried put the comether on Judy McBain: One, two, three, one, two, three! Cotter and crowder and Paddy O'Hea; For who but she's owner of Ballymacshane?"
Asgill's face was dark with passion, but "Goodnight" Flavia repeatedcoldly. And this time the displeasure in her tone silenced the Major.The two men went on to their rooms, though Asgill's hands itched to beat the other's throat. A moment later two doors closed sharply.
Flavia remained in the darkness of the passage, but she no longerlistened--she thought. Presently she went back to her room.
There, when the door had closed upon her, she continued to stand and tothink. And the blush which the Major's insinuation had brought to hercheek still burned there. It was natural that Payton's words shoulddirect her thoughts more closely and more intimately to the man outsidewhose door he had found her; nor less natural that she should institutea comparison between the two, should picture the manner of the one andthe manner of the other, should consider how the one had treated her inan abnormal crisis, when he had held her struggling in his arms, whenin her despair she had beaten his face with her hands, when, after herattempt on his life, he had subdued her by sheer force; and how theother had treated her in the few hours he had known her! And socomparing, she could not but find in the one a nobility, in the othera--a dreadfulness. For, looking back, and having Payton's words andmanner fresh in her mind, she had to own that, in all his treatment ofher, Colonel Sullivan, while opposing and thwarting her, had still, andalways, respected her.
Strange to say, she could not now understand, much less could shesustain, that rage against him which had before carried her to suchlengths. What had he done? How had he wronged her? She could find nosufficing answer. A curtain had fallen between the past and thepresent. Long years, it seemed to her, had elapsed, so that she couldnow see things in their due proportions and with a clear sight. Therising? It stood on a sudden very distant, very dim, a thing of thepast, an enterprise lofty and romantic, but hopeless. She supposed thathe had seen it in that light all through, and that for acting on whathe saw she had hated him. The contemptuous words in which he haddenounced it rang again in her ears, but they no longer kindled herresentment; they convinced. As one recovering from sickness looks backon the delusions of fever, Flavia reviewed the hopes and aspirations ofthe past month. She saw now that it was not in that remote corner, itwas not with such forces as they could command, it was not with ahandful of cotters and peasants, that Ireland could be saved, or thetrue faith restored!
She was still standing a pace within her door, and thinking suchthoughts when a foot stumbled heavily on the stairs. She recognised itfor James's footstep--she had heard him stumble on those stairsbefore--and she laid her hand on the latch. She had never had a realquarrel with him until now, and, bitterly as he had disappointed her,ruthlessly as he had destroyed her illusions about him, outrageously ashe had treated her, she could not bear to sleep without making anattempt to heal the breach. She opened the door, and stepped out.
James's light was travelling up the stairs, but he had not himselfreached the landing. She had just noted this when a door between herand the stairs opened, and Payton looked out. He saw her, and, stillflushed with claret, he misunderstood her presence and her purpose. Hestepped towards her.
"Thought so!" he chuckled. "Still listening, eh? Why not listen at mydoor? Then it would be a pretty man and a pretty maid. But I've caughtyou." He shot out his arm and tried to draw her towards him. "There'sno one to see, and the least you can do is to give me a kiss for aforfeit!"
The girl recoiled, outraged and angry. But, knowing her brother was athand, and seeing in a flash what might happen in the event of acollision, she did so in silence, hoping to escape before he came uponthem. Unfortunately Payton misread her silence and took her movementfor a show of feigned modesty. With a movement as quick as hers, hegrasped her roughly, dragged her towards him and kissed her.
She screamed then in sheer rage--screamed with such passion and suchunmistakable earnestness that Payton let her go and stepped back withan oath. As he did so he turned, and the turn brought him face to facewith James McMurrough.
The young man, tipsy and smarting with his wrongs, saw what was beforehis eyes--his sister in Payton's arms--but he saw something more. Hesaw the man who had thwarted him that day, and whom he had not at thetime dared to beard. What he might have done had he been sober, mattersnot. Drink and vindictiveness gave him more than the courage he needed,and, with a roar of anger, he dashed the glass he was carrying--and itscontents--into Payton's face.
The Englishman dropped where he was, and James stood over him,swearing, while the grease guttered from the tilted candle in his righthand. Flavia gasped, and, horror-struck, clutched James's arm as helifted the candlestick, and made as if he would beat in the man'sbrains.
Fortunately a stronger hand than hers interfered. Asgill dragged theyoung man back. "Haven't you done enough?" he cried. "Would you murderthe man, and his troopers in the house?"
"Ah, didn't you see, curse you, he----"
"I know, I know!" Asgill answered hoarsely. "But not now! Not now! Lethim rise if he can! Let him rise, I say! Payton! Major!"
The moment James stood back the fallen man staggered to his feet, andthough the blood was running down his face from a cut on thecheek-bone, he showed that he was less hurt than
startled. "You'll giveme satisfaction for this!" he muttered. "You'll give me satisfactionfor this," he repeated, between his teeth.
"Ah, by G--d, I will!" James McMurrough answered furiously. "And killyou, too!"
"At eight to-morrow! Do you hear? At eight to-morrow! Not an hourlater!"
"I'll not keep you waiting," James retorted.
Flavia leant almost fainting against her door. She tried to speak,tried to say something. But her voice failed her.
And Payton's livid, scowling, bleeding face was hate itself. "Behindthe yews in the garden?" he said, disregarding her presence.
"Ah, I'll meet you there!" The McMurrough answered, pot-valiant. "And,more by token, order your coffin, for you'll need it!" Drink and rageleft no place in his brain for fear.
"That will be seen--to-morrow," the Englishman answered, in a tone thatchilled the girl's marrow. Then, with his kerchief pressed to his cheekto staunch the blood, he retreated into his room, and slammed the door.They heard him turn the key in it.
Flavia found her voice. She looked at her brother. "Ah, God!" shecried. "Why did I open my door?"
James, still pot-valiant, returned her look. "Because you were a fool,you slut!" he said. "But I'll spit him, never fear! Faith, and I'llspit him like a fowl!" In his turn he went on unsteadily to his room,disappeared within it, and closed the door. He took the candle withhim, but from Asgill's open door, and from Flavia's, which stood ajar,enough light issued to illumine the passage faintly.
Flavia and Asgill remained together. Her eyes met his. "Ah, why did Iopen my door?" she cried. "Why did I open my door? Why did I?"
He had no comfort for her. He shook his head, but did not speak.
"He will kill him!" she said.
Asgill reflected in a heavy silence. "I will think what can be done,"he muttered at last. "I will think! Do you go to bed!"
"To bed?" she cried.
"There is naught to be done to-night," he answered, in a low tone. "Ifthe troopers were not with him--then indeed; but that is useless.And--his door is locked. Do you go to bed, and I will think what we cando!"
"To save James?" She laid her hand on Asgill's arm, and he quivered."Ah, you will save him!" She had forgotten her brother's treatment ofher earlier in the day.
"If I can," he said slowly. His face was damp and very pale. "If Ican," he repeated. "But it will not be easy to save him honourably."
"What do you mean?" she whispered.
"He'll save himself, I fancy. But his honour----"
"Ah!" The word came from her in a cry of pain.