Tempest-Driven: A Romance (Vol. 2 of 3)

CHAPTER XXIX

DULWICH AGAIN

When Jerry O'Brien reached Kilbarry that afternoon, he drove straight to O'Hanlon's office, and briefly recounted to the astonished solicitor what he and Jim Phelan had seen at the Black Rock the day before. O'Hanlon was for a few moments speechless with amazement. When his amazement wore off a little, he found himself bound in on all sides with perplexities. He told himself a hundred times that here was evidence enough to satisfy the most sceptical of judges and juries; and yet he, a mere solicitor, could not make up his mind to believe. O'Brien, Phelan, and himself had seen something they would swear was the figure of a man, and Phelan and himself would swear that what they had seen was in the likeness of that Mike Fahey who had committed suicide years ago by throwing himself into the Puffing Hole while, in respect of a groundless charge, pursued by the police. It was distracting-it was incredible; but it must be believed.

He remembered when he was told at school that if a penny had been put out at five per cent, compound interest in the year 1 A.D., it would then equal in value a mass of gold containing a globe as big as the earth for every second of time since the beginning of the Christian era. At first he had said this astounding statement was not true, but when it was plainly demonstrated that it was even a ridiculous understatement, he did not say it was not true, but he could not believe it, although the figures were irrefutable.

This history of the reappearance of Fahey, or some shade or likeness of him, was now above question. It stood on as firm a basis as testimony could desire, and yet it was naught to him but myth. Many of the greatest truths are unbelievable. This was a little truth, but in its integrity was impenetrable.

The one great consolation was that he, O'Hanlon, need no longer fear his brain was playing him false.

Like O'Brien, he came to the conclusion that impossible ghost or still more impossible man, the affair was none of his. He wasn't going mad; that was the great thing.

That day the two friends chatted the matter over while they sat before O'Hanlon's fire after dinner, and they both agreed that they would then and there say good-bye to Mr. Michael Fahey, whether he was matter or spirit.

The solicitor had no more certain news of the beastly Fishery Commissioners. They were still hovering about the neighbourhood; but no one alive, themselves included, could tell what they were going to do, or were not going to do, but they were still deucedly hard on weirs. And-no; it would not be at all safe for Jerry to go to London-just at present.

The two friends separated early, Jerry going back to "The Munster." He had no desire for a further time in Kilcash. Alfred Paulton would be soon fit to travel, and then once more he should go back to the village; but he now had business to watch in Kilbarry. Certificates, and memorials, and declarations, and so on, had to be obtained or attended to, and although O'Hanlon did all the business in connection with the weirs and the Commissioners, both men deemed Jerry's presence advisable. He was extremely popular in the town, and the request of a principal is always more efficacious than that of an agent.

He had been only a few days at "The Munster," when a letter put into his hand one morning caused him an agreeable surprise. The envelope bore the London postmark, and the superscription, shaky though it happened to be, was unmistakably in the handwriting of Alfred himself.

Jerry broke the cover hastily, and read the brief pencil note with pleasure, until he came to the last two sentences-"I do not know where she is. They will not tell me anything about her."

"Not cured, by Jove!" said Jerry to himself, with disappointment. "One would think his illness and relapse would have put some sense into his head, or knocked some nonsense out of it. But, after all, what is there wrong in it? Why shouldn't he fall in love with whom he likes? She is older than he, and I am sure she would not marry him, even if a sleepy Government would only have the good sense and good taste to hang Blake instead of worrying honest folk about weirs and other things. Alfred is the best fellow in the world. Who could associate with Madge and not be good-except, of course, myself? But Alfred is dull; there's no denying that. He's more than a trifle mutton-headed. Madge has all the brains of the family, and the best heart, too, only she's going to throw that away. Is she? Wait till you see, Madge. My darling!"

He crooked his arm and held it out from him, and looked at the sleeve of his coat tenderly, as though a head rested there.

"I'll spoil you with love when I get you. Spoil you with love! No woman ever yet was spoiled with love. It's the flattery and foolishness which spring from a desire to win a woman any way, no matter how, so long as you win, that spoil women. I'd like to see a Fishery Commissioner spooning. By Jove, it would be a fine thing if a fellow had a sister a Commissioner was spooning! First you could get him to allow you to do anything you liked, and the moment he turned crusty, you would only have to ask your sister to poison him. I'm sorry I haven't a sister. But, stay, I will have one soon. Edith must marry a Commissioner. When Madge and I are settled, I will ask Edith to stay with us, and fill the house from garret to basement with Commissioners. (I wonder how many of the beasts there are?) But I must not say anything to Madge about this scheme until we are married. If I mentioned it now she might object to the poison-there is no depending on women, until they are married. But once a woman is married you may count on her for anything. Look at Lady Macbeth! What a wife she was to have at a fellow's elbow! Why, she wasn't merely a wife-she was a spouse. What the difference is I don't know; but I'm sure she was a spouse more than a wife-just as an awful father or mother is a parent. But what is it I was thinking of?"

Jerry could be cool and collected and coherent when he liked, but he did not like it now.

Days passed by uneventfully with Jerry at Kilbarry. He answered Alfred's letter, but made no reference to Mrs. Davenport. He thought it safer not. He was quite sure neither Mr. nor Mrs. Paulton would look with favour on their son taking a continued interest in the widow. To him there was something grotesque in Alfred falling in love with a widow. Beyond doubt Alfred was in love with this strange and beautiful woman. Jerry did not wonder at his young friend's enthusiasm. He would have been a cold-blooded man under thirty who could see her without feeling profound admiration. But Alfred would have to get over this infatuation. It could never come to anything. Of course time would cure him. Up to this, time had apparently been losing its opportunity. When a man is in love with the sister of a friend, it makes matters pleasanter if the girl's brother is involved in a similar enterprise. But Jerry would rather forego such an advantage in his case than that matters should become serious between Alfred and the beautiful widow.

Daily Jerry saw O'Hanlon, and daily urged upon him the desirability of despatch. So importunate was the younger man, that his friend and adviser at length became suspicious and finally certain of the cause from which Jerry's anxiety for haste sprang. "When the weirs are out of danger," said the solicitor, "I know the next job you'll give me to do."

"What is it?" said Jerry, colouring slightly, and looking his companion defiantly in the face.

"A settlement-a settlement! A marriage settlement, I mean!" – with a wink.

"Don't be a fool, O'Hanlon. I wish you'd get a settlement about the weirs."

At length the day came on which Jerry set out for London for the purpose of bringing over his friend for change of air and scene. In two senses of the phrase, the weirs were still where they had been five weeks ago. One of these senses was satisfactory: the weirs had not been pulled down by the ruthless Commissioners. The other sense was discouraging: the Commissioners had not yet done with the weirs, and the weirs were still in danger of being pulled down, as engines which obstructed the free navigation of the river Bawn. Notwithstanding this, Jerry made the journey in the best of humours, and having arrived without adventure or accident at Euston, drove to his old lodgings and renewed his acquaintance with the civil landlady and the odious table-cover.

His first call next morning was at Dulwich. He had not written to say the hour at which he would reach Carlingford House, and when he arrived and asked the servants after each member of the family, he found they were all out with the exception of the invalid. At first this rather chilled Jerry, but upon a moment's consideration he thought that after all it was best Alfred and he should have a few moments together alone. There was no reason, as far as he knew, for precautions of any kind; but Alfred might be excitable, and it was desirable that Mrs. Davenport's name should occur but sparingly, or not at all.

He was shown into a little back drawing-room, where he found Alfred sitting in an easy-chair at the window. Alfred rose with eager alacrity. The two friends held one another by the hand for some time in silence. Then Jerry spoke and thanked heaven Alfred looked so well, quite well, better than ever he had seen him before-thinner no doubt, but better. "Why, you have got a colour like a bashful girl in a little fix!"

"I-I have just heard surprising news."

"What is it?" asked Jerry, looking keenly at his friend.

"First, tell me when are we to go to Ireland-to Kilcash?"

"Whenever you like, my dearest Alfred."

"But how soon?" he asked eagerly.

"Whenever you like, my dear boy, I am at your disposal. But do not run any risk-do not hasten away for my sake."

Jerry was thinking of how little it would cost him in the way of self-denial if he were obliged to pass a month under this roof.

"But will you hurry away for mine?"

"For yours, my dear Alfred! Of course I'll do anything you wish. But how hurry away for yours?"

"Then we can start to-morrow for Kilcash?"

"To-morrow! Why, what's the matter, Alfred?"

"Ah, I know it is too late for to-day. But to-morrow we set out for Kilcash."

"If you wish it. But why this excitement? It's the dullest place in the world."

"Dull-dull! Why, she's there by this time!"

"Who, in the name of mercy?"

"Mrs. Davenport."

CHAPTER XXX

ANOTHER VISITOR

O'Brien was struck dumb. "Mrs. Davenport," he thought, in a dazed, unbelieving way-"Mrs. Davenport at Kilcash! It can't be possible. There is some mistake." Here was a complication on which he had never counted-which it would have been idle to anticipate. The position in which he found himself was perplexing, absurd. It was useless to hope any longer that Alfred was not desperately in love with this woman, who had recently been the central figure in a most notorious and unpleasant inquiry. Alfred had seen her only a few times, and could not have exchanged a word with her since that awful night. It was absurd.

"Mrs. Davenport," said Jerry, slowly, "had, I thought, gone away by this time. How do you know she is in Ireland, or on her way there? Who told you?"

Alfred smiled and sat down.

"A friend found it out for me. She did go to France for a week, but she came back the day before yesterday, and is in Ireland now. I am most anxious to see her again. Poor woman! – she must have suffered horribly."

He had observed a look of anxiety, if not disapproval, on Jerry's face, and tried to make it seem as though he took no more than a friendly interest in the widow.

"Alfred," said Jerry, slowly and seriously, "it won't do. I can see you are hard hit."

"Nonsense!" cried Alfred, gaily.

Jerry directed the conversation far afield from the subject to which Alfred would willingly have confined it.

But Alfred was not to be baffled or denied. The moment a pause occurred he broke in with:

"Jerry, you have not told me yet whether we shall start for Ireland tomorrow or not?"

"Alfred, have you ever been in love?"

"Never!" – with a laugh, a slight increase of colour, and a dull, dim kind of pride in some feeling he had, he knew not what-a feeling of comfort and exaltation.

"Because, you know, it's an awfully stupid and miserable feeling. It's not good enough to cry over or to curse over. Sighing is despicable."

"How on earth do you know anything about it, Jerry? I thought you were a woman-hater."

"Ay," said Jerry, vaguely. "Do you know of all people in the world whom I should most like to be?"

"No."

"One of Shakespeare's clowns. What digestions these clowns had! They are the only perfect all-round men I know. Mind you, they are no more fools than they choose to be. If they pleased, they could all be Chief Justices, or Archbishops, or Fishery Commissioners, or anything else fearfully intellectual they liked; but they preferred to be clowns, and kept their superb digestions, and made jokes at lovers and such-like human rubbish. Motley's the only wear."

"What on earth is the matter with you, Jerry? I never knew until now that you had a leaning towards poetry!" Alfred was gratified to find O'Brien thus bordering on the sentimental. He would have embraced with delight any chance of breaking into the most extravagant sentimentality himself. To think of O'Brien countenancing sentiment was too delicious. He added: "I don't know much about Shakespeare; but, for my part, I think his fools are awful fools."

"Why, Alfred-why?"

"Because they are so desperately wise."

"Ay," said O'Brien, in a still more desponding tone. "A fool must be a fool indeed when he chooses to be wise.

"'Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!

O any thing, of nothing first create!

O heavy lightness! – serious vanity!

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

Dost thou not laugh?'"

"No," answered Alfred: "I don't see anything to laugh at. That seems a very wise speech. Is it spoken by a fool?"

"By an amateur fool, and a bad amateur fool, too. It is one of the silliest speeches in all Shakespeare. Whenever Shakespeare wanted to have a little sneer up his sleeve, and to his own self, he put the thing in rhyming couplets. Nearly all his rhyming couplets are jokes for his own delight, and for the vexation and contempt of all other men. Shakespeare did penance for his sins in his puns, and revenged his injuries on mankind in his rhyming couplets… That's your mother's voice."

"Yes," said Alfred, going to the door and opening it, "that's my mother and the girls. Come here, mother; here's Jerry O'Brien."

"Your mother and my girl," said Jerry, down low in his heart. "'Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is.' Romeo is the most contemptible figure in all history, and Juliet the most adorable." Aloud he said at that moment: "And you, Miss Paulton-how are you?"

"Quite well, thank you."

"What a low blackguard," he thought, "Shakespeare was to kill Juliet! But he killed Romeo, too, and that may have justified him in the eyes of heaven. I'd forgive him even his rhyming couplets if he'd only turn his tragic attention to those accursed Commissioners. Just fancy a lot of apoplectic fools, bursting, so to speak, with the want of knowledge of anything, and standing between that darling and me! May the maledictions of-" To Madge he said aloud, in answer to her question: "Yes, I had a very good passage across-not a ripple on the water. You have never been across?"

"No, never. I should very much like to go," she said, as she sat down on a chair, adjusted her mantle, and looked up in his face.

"Oh, you ought to go over," he said; "the scenery is romantic."

He thought "romantic" might be too strong for Mrs. Paulton, so he added hastily:

"And the garden produce-owing," he added, in explanation, "to the humidity of the climate."

He felt rather foolish, and that he had been saying very foolish things. But then he didn't care. He did not want to shine before her: she was the beacon of his hope.

"Perhaps," she said, looking up, "father might take us over next summer, or the summer after."

She looked up in his face again. It was desperately provoking.

"Or the summer after," thought Jerry, with a pang. "Does that girl sitting there, three feet away from me, and who doesn't think I care for her a bit, imagine for a moment that I am going to let her wander about all the earth with that respectable old gentleman, her father, till the crack of doom? Nonsense! She isn't a bit good-looking," he thought, looking down into her eyes, and when she lowered her eyes, gazing devoutly at her hat-"she isn't a bit good-looking-not half as good-looking as Edith, and Edith is no beauty. But still, I think, I'd feel excellently comfortable if the others would go away, and I might put my arm round her and try to persuade her that she was happy because I did so."

"You find Alfred almost quite well again?" asked Mrs. Paulton genially of Jerry.

"Oh, yes. He is almost as well as ever, and of course will be better than ever in a little while."

"A few whiffs of sea air will put me on my legs once more," said Alfred, with abounding cheerfulness. "I feel as if the very look of the sea would set me all right."

"You unfortunate devil!" thought Jerry. "Are you so bad as that? Oh, for the mind of one of those plaguey clowns! Falstaff was the only man who ever enjoyed life thoroughly-Falstaff and Raffaelle. What was the burden of flesh carried by Falstaff compared to this 'feather of lead!' What were all the jealousies which surrounded Raffaelle's career compared to my jealousy of the hat that touches her hair, or the glove that touches her cheek!"

"You will of course stay with us while you are in London," said Mrs. Paulton. "I told Alfred to be sure to say that we insisted upon your doing so, and the silly boy forgot it."

"Oh, he'll stay, mother," answered Alfred. "He'll stay with us while he's in London."

The invalid gave a glance at Jerry. The latter understood it to be an appeal for a very brief respite indeed from travelling. Jerry was in no small difficulty as to what he should say or how he should act. He would like to stop at Carlingford House a month, a year. Even a month was out of the question. But it was too bad that Alfred should be in such a violent hurry to go away. He believed Madge's brother had no suspicion that Madge was particularly dear to him. Still, common hospitality would scarcely allow a man to hurry a guest away from under his own roof after twenty-four hours' stay, particularly when that friend had come several hundred miles to do his host a good turn. No, hospitality would not allow a man to do it, but love would. He, Jerry, could not plead fatigue. That would be grotesque in a healthy young man. He would not lie and say he had business in London which would keep him a few days there, and yet it was shameful and ridiculous that after a whole month of separation he should be obliged to fly from her almost before he had time to get accustomed to the music of her voice. What delicious music it did make in his hungry ears! He would ask Alfred, without any explanation, if the day after to-morrow would not suit him quite as well as tomorrow.

He made a sign to Alfred, and the two young men passed through the folding doors into the front drawing-room. Here a bright fire burned. Alfred went to the fire-Jerry to the window. The latter looked out, started, and said slowly:

"Alfred, there's a visitor coming up the garden."

"All right," said Alfred without interest.

"And it's a woman."

"All right."

"And it's Mrs. Davenport."

"What!"

In a second Alfred was by Jerry's side.

Jerry laughed softly.

"All right?" he repeated in an interrogative voice.

Alfred's face blazed, but he did not speak or move.

CHAPTER XXXI

"I HAVE BEEN ALWAYS ALONE."

Mrs. Davenport knocked at the front door, and was shown into the back drawing-room, where the ladies were sitting.

"I have come, Mrs. Paulton," she said, "to thank you and Mr. Paulton and your family for the great kindness you showed me in my trouble. I am afraid that at the time I was too intent on my own misfortunes to say as fully as I ought what I should have felt. Indeed, to be quite candid, I do not know exactly what I said to you or your husband, or exactly how I felt."

Mrs. Paulton went over to her, and took the hand of the widow. O'Brien and Paulton could hear and see everything going on in the back drawing-room, as they approached the folding-doors slowly.

"My dear Mrs. Davenport," said Mrs. Paulton gently, as she pressed the visitor's hand, "you must not think of the matter. We were, and are, deeply sorry for you, and our only feeling in the matter was one of regret at not having had an opportunity of being more useful."

This was true now. Both William Paulton and his wife were by the inquest perfectly satisfied Mrs. Davenport had for a while suffered from ugly suspicions because a crazy old husband had made away with his life in a perfectly mad manner, and without being in the least induced to the act by any fault of his wife. Every one agreed with the jury that it had been a case of suicide while suffering from temporary insanity.

Another thing greatly helped Mrs. Davenport into the good graces of the Paultons. After Blake's release he stayed in London, although Mrs. Davenport was away in France. Since the trial young Pringle had kept Alfred informed on all matters connected with the widow.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Paulton now felt as though they had done an absolute wrong to this woman, and Mrs. Paulton knew that her husband would be delighted to show her any civility or kindness he could. The husband and wife were, as their son had said, two of the kindest and most generous people in England.

Alfred and Jerry entered the back room. She held out her hand to the former, and thanked him for what he had done. She gave her hand to Jerry, and said, with a wan smile:

"I owe you an apology, Mr. O'Brien, for my rudeness to you when last we met."

"Rudeness! Mrs. Davenport! – your rudeness to me! I am shocked to hear you say such a thing. I am shocked to think you should have for a moment rested under so unpleasant an idea. Believe me, you were never anything but most polite and considerate to me."

Madge admired this speech of Jerry's, for it seemed to her very generous. She did not greatly admire Mrs. Davenport. She thought her too grand and cold and reserved. But she did not go as far as Edith, who positively disliked their visitor.

"I am quite clear as to my bad conduct," insisted Mrs. Davenport, with her wan smile. "When I met you in this house the day after the-the dreadful event, I did not speak to you, although I recognised you instantly."

"But, Mrs. Davenport, you don't for a moment imagine I did not realise how terribly you were tried just then?"

"It is very good of you to make such liberal allowances for my conduct, but I fear I did not deserve your generosity; and I am more than afraid, if you knew exactly how I felt, you would not be able to forgive me so readily. I suppose it was owing to the state of excitement I was in at the time that the moment I set eyes on you, Mr. O'Brien, I looked upon you as an enemy."