Duchess - Only an Irish Girl

"No, no!" the girl says, laughing. "I am not troubled about anything, only hot and thirsty, and – yes, Aileen, I may as well own it – cross."

She laughs again, but her voice is tremulous, and she keeps her face well turned from the light.

"I wish it was only cross that I was, darlint!" the old woman says with the peculiar solemnity of her class. "But it's sore and heavy-hearted I am, and that's the blessed truth. I've done nothing but drame since ever I saw you last, and every night it's the same thing over and over again, till my brain is almost turned wid it, and I rise up in the morning all in a cold perspoiration."

"Dear old Aileen," the girl says tenderly, "poor Rooney's awful death has upset you? It has upset us all for that matter! And then it must be so dreadful for you alone on that great bleak bog."

"Miss Honor, do ye mind my drame?"

"Every word of it, Aileen."

"Ye mind how I dramed that the boys dug the grave out on the moss, and hid it out of sight wid green branches!"

"I do surely."

"Well, Miss Honor, ever and always in my drame that grave is there still. I watch the boys dig it deep in the black earth, and cover the gaping mouth of it; and me shaking and trembling all the time. But these past three nights – the saints be above us! – there's been another grave, alanna."

"Another grave!" The girl laughs. "Why, that is getting too dreadful!" 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 shining, 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!"

"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 button 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 shining or that there is clover in that meadow? Haven't I my senses like other people?"

So they pass 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.

Turning off the road now, he makes his way across a field and down some rude stone steps to the bank of the river.

A little house stands here, nestling against the rocky bank. The old door hangs off its hinges, the one small-paned window is stuffed with rags.

Power Magill stoops as he enters the poor place, and his eyes, dazzled by the sunlight outside, look round the room in a vain search. He can see no one; a girl rises from a low stool by the hearth, where she has been coaxing a smoldering turf to light, and comes forward.

"Is your father in, Patsy?"

"He is not, your honor. He went to Derry to-day with one of Neil's foals, and he will not be home till the morning!"

"And your brother – where is he?"

"I can't rightly say, your honor! Maybe he is gone to the bog to – "

But he stops her, frowning impatiently.

"Tell them both that I came here for them. Say no more than that – they will understand."

Then he strikes out, glad to breathe the fresh air after that tainted atmosphere. The girl walks cautiously to the door and looks after him. She is barefooted, and on the earth floor her tread makes no sound.

"Heaven forgive yez!" she says almost fiercely. "The innocent creatures never hurt man nor beast till yez came with your foine tongue and your yellow guineas, tempting and ruining 'em! But I'll be even with yez yet!"

From this fetid little cabin on the river's side a brisk walk of ten minutes brings Power Magill to the gates of Donaghmore. As he passes up the drive he stops and turns aside for an instant to look at the ruins of the old Abbey, standing grim and cold and gray in the yellow sunshine.

The refectory is still standing, its three windows looking toward the stone house on the hill. There is a low arched gateway, but the gate is gone, and beyond in the great quadrangle the stones lie as they have fallen.

"What asses we are, the best of us!" Power Magill says grimly, as he looks at this relic of a dead man's wealth and power.