Part 57 (2/2)

Eileen was sleeping with her mother, and Jack at the inn, so that she had his little room all to herself, and as soon as she was alone she flung herself down on the bed and burst into tears, overstrained nature finding no other mode of relief.

When she had had her cry out, she lay quite still and tried to think-- tried to understand how it was that the question she had meant to settle once for all in the afternoon was more unsettled than ever. Why was it more unsettled? There could not possibly be any temptation of giving in. Giving in meant only one solution. It meant that she, Patricia Adair, would marry Lawrence Blake.

Oh! it was impossible--impossible!--the man she had over and over again a.s.serted that she hated, and declared she would kill.

Then why was there any difficulty? Why this growing sense of a problem she could not solve?

Supposing Patricia Adair did marry Lawrence Blake. What of it?

But she tore the thought out of her mind. She would not suppose it.

It came back in another form--a series of mental pictures cruelly contrasting Shepherd's Bush and the dispensary with Mourne Lodge. For Paddy knew well enough that under no circ.u.mstances would she accept a home from Jack and her sister--under no circ.u.mstances give up her work and her independence, to be dependent on any one's bounty. No, she would go back to her work alone, and they would live at The Ghan House without her.

But how it hurt to think of it!

The dingy suburb, the grey street, her aunt's everlasting plat.i.tudes, for of course she would live again at the doctor's house--just grey, lifeless monotony, instead of the lake and the mountains.

And how he had understood!

”_Mavourneen, mavourneen, bears have understanding when they love as I love you_.”

She tried to crush out the recollection, conscious that her soul was sounding indefinable warnings as a far-off accompaniment. Oh, of course, he was fascinating--had she not always known it--known all her life that there were two Lawrence Blakes, and one as alluring as the other was repellant. Resolutely, she turned her thoughts to the unpleasing one; she who had somehow had special opportunities of clear sight. She remembered the old rumours of excess and extravagance. Had not her own father shaken his head gravely long ago, and said things he imagined she would not understand. Perhaps she did not then--but now!

Unprincipled, unscrupulous, fast, wild, a gambler. ”Wild oats,” she told herself--”Wild oats.” It was not that that built the barrier--this barrier that was as a grim spectre, waving ghostly arms between them.

Could anything, even mercifully, write ”wild oats” over his heartlessness? When she thought of those locked hands in the boat on the loch, her blood still boiled--of how very nearly Eileen's delicate const.i.tution had broken down altogether under her silent fretting--of how her mother had grieved and fretted likewise. She thought of his moods at home. How often--oh, how often--she had longed to strike him for the tone in which he sometimes spoke to his mother and sisters. For his selfishness, his coldness, his sneers. How often she had gone home pitying the girls such a brother, hating him with all her young enthusiasm. And then, further complicating everything, flashed again the recollection, even in those days, of his charm, if he happened to be in the right mood. Why, even Doreen and Kathleen were influenced by it; every one was. If Lawrence were in his charming mood, the whole house was sunny and gay, and Paddy had quickly enough forgotten old feuds, and immensely enjoyed a good-natured, wordy battle with him. When she hated him most, he had still had a lurking attraction for her, or she would not have bothered to cross swords. Only a lurking attraction is not love. The old spectre still stood firm, waving ghostly arms between them. And even if it were love, the feud still stood. Eileen might have forgiven and found other happiness. She might have trampled down all bitterness, but did that make the wrong less wrong--did it affect her, Paddy's, view of the case? A personal wrong may be forgiven by the sufferer without in any way affecting an outside judgment. There is still the wrong in the abstract. True, vengeance is unchristian--but it was not vengeance she wanted any longer; could she--dare she--fly in the face of her own pa.s.sionate sense of Loyalty? It seemed to Paddy that if she yielded to the wave that seemed like to sweep her off her feet, she not only let go her watchword of Loyalty, but she compromised with her half-formed, dimly seen ideal of Love. Always before her mind, if she thought of love in the future, had been the image of such men as the grand old General--the gentle, kindly doctor--the simple, manly, open-hearted Jack. Among such as these, how could she give such as Lawrence the place of honour? It was incredible that she should think of it. To do so, she must surely be disloyal to the past and disloyal to herself. But how resist him? Who could help her? She got up at last and went to the window. In the light of the stars, glimmering faintly across the garden, were the headstones--”where the dead people wait till G.o.d calls.”

Feeling suffocated by the four walls of the little room, she hastily threw a shawl round her head, slipped into a big coat, and crept noiselessly out of the house, down the little path, and through the wicket-gate into the churchyard, where a beautiful Maltese cross marked the spot where the brave old soldier was taking his well-earned rest.

”Daddy,” she whispered, ”daddy, try and help me now. There isn't any one else who would understand.”

She leaned her face against the cold granite. It was comforting to be there. ”What shall I do, daddy? I know you understand all about it, and how it is so difficult. Daddy--darling old daddy--what would an Irish Fusilier do?”

She clung against the cross yearningly, and in the night air, with the calm stars looking down, the waves whispering on the beach, and her beloved mountains all around, she grew calmer and stronger. It pleased her to whisper her thoughts to the night, as if the unseen spirit of her beloved dead listened near.

”Ought I to run away, daddy? I remember how often you have said only a selfish, vain-glorious officer will risk his men against desperate odds, rather than retreat. 'Retreat, if wiser, and take up a better position--never mind the dispatches home--save your men and win the glory as well; it is sometimes n.o.bler to retreat than to go on.' Is that what I must do, daddy? I feel there are desperate odds against me.

Would it be braver to retreat? Is that what an Irish Fusilier would do? You, at least, will understand that I was not a coward.”

She pressed her lips against the granite for love of the grand and simple soul it stood to commemorate.

”Daddy,” she whispered, and there was a tiny, wistful smile on the fascinating mouth. ”I'm not an Irish Fusilier, but, perhaps, I'm the-next-best-thing.”

Then she went quietly back to bed, with her mind made up.

But the next morning, it was only by a great physical and mental effort that she was able to appear at all like herself at the breakfast-table, and when the meal was finished she was glad to slip away un.o.bserved.

Eileen's suspicions, however, had been previously roused in the night by a light step in the pa.s.sage, and, afterward, a dim figure crossing the garden. She was tactful enough to say nothing of this, but at the same time determined to try and find out if anything was wrong, and how she could help. In this Paddy had cause to be grateful, because her plans could scarcely he carried out without Eileen's help.

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