Part 3 (1/2)
She plucks a spray of roses from the open window behind her, as she sits on the great oak dresser, and shreds the delicate red petals all over the lap of her gown.
”Listen to me, Miss Honor, and cease your funning! This is no time to laugh and jest at a warning that comes from the saints themselves! That the masther is in danger of his life I know as well as if I saw the very bullet that was to shoot him. The grave was dug deep and broad--and deep and broad it would need to be, save us!--out there on yer own lawn, just forenent the drawing-room windies!”
She has left her ironing-table and come close up to the girl, her face--a delicate-featured face, peasant as she is--rigid with intense feeling, her eyes s.h.i.+ning, her upraised hand tremulous.
”Oh, Miss Honor darlint, shure he'd follow you to the ends of the world! Take him away from this till the bad feeling has time to cool down. Things will right themselves, never fear--the old times will come round again; but, if the masther stays on at Donaghmore, he'll never live to enjoy them.”
”But if he will not go away?” says Honor, a tone of anxiety in her voice. ”You know how obstinate he is; and that letter from Dublin about landlords running away from their posts has upset him dreadfully. Oh, no, Aileen, he'll never leave Donaghmore!”
”Then the saints purtect him!” Aileen answers tremulously. ”But as sure as my name is Aileen Walsh harm will come of it!”
CHAPTER III.
”As sure as my name is Aileen Walsh harm will come of it!”
The words haunt Honor. They ring in her ears night and day, and spoil many hour's innocent pleasure for her.
But what harm can come? she asks herself. The country is quiet enough now to all appearance, though more than once, in the dusk, she has heard the shrill signal whistle pealing from hill to hill or dying away over the melancholy bog.
Of Power Magill she sees but little. He is now cold and absent, and so unlike himself that it is more a pain than a pleasure to be with him.
Brian Beresford she does not see at all. He has written to her father more than once since his abrupt departure, but she has not even seen his letters.
The squire blames her openly for snubbing ”as decent a fellow as ever stepped in shoe-leather,” and Launce stings her with covert hints to the same effect. It is all very miserable, but the girl bears it bravely. She must suffer, but she need make no sign. Even Launce's keen eyes are deceived at last, and he tells Belle Delorme that they have been on the wrong scent altogether.
”Honor never cared a b.u.t.ton for the fellow--she never cared for any one but Power Magill, and never will, and that's the truth! So you see what a faithful family you are marrying into, my dear!”
But Belle only shakes her pretty head.
”She takes it a deal too easy to please me. I'd rather she would fret a bit. Sure it would only be natural! But the loss of a man like that out of a dull country house is something worth fretting about.”
”You don't know Honor,” Launce answers oracularly. ”She's not the girl to lose her heart in a fortnight or three weeks' time to the best man breathing.”
”I'm not saying a word about her heart, Launce; but I do say he took a mighty strong hold on her fancy.”
”You think that she loves him, then?”
”I think she would if he'd give her the chance,” the girl answers, smiling.
”What a queer little creature you are!” her lover says, looking at her with amused yet wondering eyes. ”How on earth did you find it all out?
I'll vow Honor never spoke a word to you about it.”
”How do I know that the sun is s.h.i.+ning or that there is clover in that meadow? Haven't I my senses like other people?”
So they pa.s.s on their way, laughing and happy; and the man coming out from the shelter of the larch-wood, which here borders the high-road, looks after them with a frown, and a word that is certainly not a blessing on his bearded lips.
”It's not your fault,” he says to himself bitterly, as he watches the two sauntering along in the yellow sunlight, ”that she cares for Power Magill, or that she ever cared for him, for that matter.”
As he stands there in his well-worn shooting-coat, although he is dressed little better than one of his own keepers, no one could mistake him for other than a gentleman. He is a handsome man, with keen hazel eyes set far back under brows as dark as a Spaniard's, but his face, for all its comeliness, is almost forbidding in its sternness.