Part 41 (1/2)
When he had done, ”That's a strange story,” Asgill said quietly, ”if it's true.”
”True?” Payton rejoined, laying his hand on a gla.s.s and speaking in a towering rage. ”d.a.m.n 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 be likely 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'd be 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 them all, that Payton, after scowling at him for some seconds with his hand on a gla.s.s as if he meant to throw it, dropped his eyes and his hand and fell into a gloomy study. He could not but own the weight of the other's argument. If Asgill was a pretender to the heiress's hand--and Payton did not doubt this--the last thought in his mind would be to divest her of her property.
Asgill read his thoughts, and presently, ”I hope the wound is not serious?” he said.
”He is not wounded,” the Major answered curtly. A few minutes before he would have flown out at the other; now he took the thrust quietly. He was thinking. Meanwhile the O'Beirnes and their fellows grinned their open-mouthed admiration of the bear-tamer; and by-and-by, concluding the fun was at an end, they went out one by one, until the two men were left together.
They sat some way apart, Payton brooding savagely, with his eyes on the table, Asgill toying with the things before him and from time to time glancing at the other. Each saw the prize clear before him; each saw the 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 his fancy; but he was sunk in debt, and his mouth watered for her possessions. Asgill cared, as has been said, little or nothing for the inheritance, but he swore that the other man should never live to possess the woman. ”It is a pity,” Payton meditated, ”for, with his aid, I could take the girl, willing or unwilling. She'd not be the first Irish girl who has gone to her marriage across the pommel!” While Asgill reflected that if he could find Payton alone on a dark night it would not be his small-sword would help him or his four troopers would find him! But it must not be at Morristown.
Each owned, with reluctance, that the other had advantages. Asgill was Irish, and known to Flavia, and had come to be favoured by her. But Payton, though English, was the younger, the handsomer, the better born, and, in his braggart fas.h.i.+on, the better bred. Both were Protestants; but if Asgill was the cleverer, Payton was an officer and a gentleman. The latter flattered himself that, given a little time, he would win, if not by favour, still by force or fraud. But, could he have looked into Asgill's heart, he would have trembled, perhaps he would have drawn back. For he would have known that, while Irish bogs were deep and Irish pikes were sharp, his life would not be worth one week's purchase if he wronged this girl. Bad man as Asgill was, his love 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 against which he leant trembled--with rage at the thought that Payton might offer the girl some rudeness. The suspicion weighed so heavily on him that he was fixed to see the other to his room that night. When Payton rose 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 the Englishman understood; and thenceforth they sat with frowning faces, each thinking more intently than before how he might thrust the other from his path; each more certain, with every moment, that, the other removed, his path to the goal was clear and open. Neither gave a thought to Colonel Sullivan, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion upstairs: Payton, because the Colonel seemed to him a middle-aged man, plain and grey; and Asgill, because a more immediate and pressing jealousy had thrust his mistrust of the Colonel from his mind.
There was claret on the table, and the Major, dull and bored, and resenting the other's vigilance, did not spare it. When he rose to his feet to retire he was heated and flushed, but not drunk. ”Where's that young cub?” he asked, breaking the silence.
Asgill shrugged his shoulders. ”I can't hope to fill his place,” he said with a smooth smile. ”But I will be doing the honours as well as I can.'
”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 have the 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 the Englishman up the stairs.
The gradual ascent of the lights and the men's mounting footsteps should have given Flavia warning of their coming. But either she disdained concealment or she was thinking of other things, for when they entered the pa.s.sage beyond the landing they espied the girl standing, in what had been darkness, outside the Colonel's door. A pang shot through Asgill's heart, and he drew in his breath.