Part 20

The attack meditated by George Freyne was carried out one day, and revealed by Phil, who went tearing to the shore to find Gheena.

"Save an' bless us, Miss Gheena, but Hartigan is afther bein' below in the yard an' all the horses soult! When he clapped his eyes on them, 'How much,' says he, 'for we have too many,' an' the Masther says 'Lump them,' says he, 'for a quiet sale.' An'----"

Gheena said "My horses?" very slowly.

"Redbird an' all." Phil was sobbing openly. "The craythur I reared from a foal to g'out to be run afther by thim haythens, and where will we all be, Miss Gheena? And God save us, don't get a wakeness, Miss!"

Gheena had not moved. She stood dreary, stricken; they were using their power. She was to live a virtual prisoner in her own home--no horses, no next season to dream of directly this one was dead.

"An' when he sighted the grey over the half door, 'He has the head of a rogue,' says he; 'lave him there;' but he come around an' said there was weddin's always, an' so he'd take him too. So Miss Mona's horse as well. And, Miss Gheena----"

For Gheena, abandoning all dignity, sat down and wept hopelessly, with Crabbit walking round, deeply upset.

"You next," said Gheena, feeling the dog's cold nose.

"You next." Phil went away back, crying himself, through the budding wood, with its sheen of blue anemones and tender green of growing moss. He clambered heavily over the sunk fence to meet Darby on the avenue--Darby, riding, whistling as he came, some touch of the spring making him happy.

"It is Miss Gheena," said Phil, answering Darby's look. "The horses soult from undther her feet, an' she cryin' the eyes out of her head. The Masther an' his wars. Isn't it enough that there is a war in France?" burst out Phil, "not to be colloging with it in Castle Freyne. Black oats was bad enough; sure we always took a grain of white, but when there's use for neither white nor black--"

"Who bought them?" Darby bent down.

"Hartigan of Guntreen. He is within yet, atin' beef."

Darby turned and rode away down the road.

When Gheena, shaken and exhausted, her grief being rapidly burnt up by anger, came through the wood, she saw a motor at the door. This carefully-planned-out visit by Lancelot was a clumsy effort of diplomacy. Dearest George had mapped it out.

With the horses still there, Gheena was to cry out that she would obey her people's wishes, and an afternoon radiant with joy was to be spent by the family.

Instead Miss Freyne eyed her cousin with distant rancour, and came in to luncheon in a dangerous mood.

She congratulated him on having improved his figure, and warned him against baked potatoes, and hoped his indigestion was quite gone. The horses she ignored completely.

The failure of the plan made Mr. Freyne visibly ill-humoured. He came majestically to the drawing-room, where he shut all the windows, and helped his sister to lecture Gheena. It was disconcerting when Gheena excused herself as she had an engagement.

"We are taking tea with Violet," she said politely. "We are walking," she said hurriedly, when Lancelot began to get up, "and you could not come."

George Freyne said, "Of all the obstinate, ill-mannered--" when Gheena had closed the door. "But if she thought she is going to have her own way----"

As they walked to the village they met Basil Stafford in his car, and Gheena remembered the letter, and with her eyes completely devoid of cunning she told the story of the scraps, watching him closely.

His quick reply was that he would give a great deal to see the scraps. Gheena remarked that she was going to show it to someone, and she remarked it malevolently.

Mr. Stafford became eloquent. He said that scraps of information might be valuable in war-times, and if there was anything in the letter, he would see that it went to the proper people.

"The people who would like to see it," said Gheena meaningly.

Finding Mrs. Weston out, they invaded the Professor, who made toast for them himself, and sent to the shops for strawberry jam and barley sugar, which he smashed into neat pieces and piled on a plate in tiers. Gheena told him also of the letter.

"And _Hein_! You could read it." He dropped a spoonful of jam into his tea, fishing for it patiently. "You read the scraps. You were there, then--a little sea bird. Will you show me the letter, Miss Gheena, if it is with you? It is not good, this syrup that I have made. No, you have not got the letter. Well, later."

The girl's return to Castle Freyne was as marching from sunshine into a pea-soupy London fog, in the centre of which sat Dearest George, and Lancelot, frail and fretful, resenting the sorrow which he had immersed in.

The sea kissed the feet of an opal sky. The air was soft and fresh. Gheena sat, white-faced, with ill-concealed impatience, listening to fresh arguments as to her future and her folly in not agreeing with everyone else.

"Eleven more obstinate men I never saw," remarked Gheena to the fire, and referring to the one juryman who upset the verdict for hours. Psyche, stepping in and out of the close library, now whispered of a hunt on the morrow--a meet at Mount Beresford at ten in the morning.

The word "meet" sounded like a knell. Gheena meant to stop the horses going, to appeal to her mother.

"And even if it's woods the hounds will yowl and we shall gallop," said Psyche.

Here Mr. Freyne, rising, assumed the attitude before the fire so dear to man, and remarked that the hounds might, but no one from Castle Freyne would.

Gheena stood up also; she stared.

"Because I have done my duty towards my country," went on Dearest George heavily, "and retrenched. If Gheena had been back an hour ago"--his stepdaughter's face frightened him a little--"they might have been. But now--the Army."

"You have--sold all my horses," Gheena heard a strange hoarse voice whispering--"Redbird, which I loved. Not--you dared----"

Mr. Freyne a little nervously replied that he had acted as he thought best and Lancelot hurriedly asked for the car.

Without a word Gheena went out, out into the opal-tinted evening to the yards.

"Oh, Dearest, do you think it was wise?" said Mrs. Freyne tearfully.

Mr. Freyne said testily, "Lancelot will now represent independence, and she has left the door open."

There were open doors in the yard, many of them--fresh yellow straw ready for feet which could never trample on it, Phil, sitting on the pump trough, weeping unashamed. There were no eager eyes and solemnizing heads thrust out, no muzzles ready to nose for carrots.

Quite quietly Gheena went from box to box, Phil tramping after her, entreating her not to be fretting.

"When it is your own, Miss Gheena, you can have horses in the coal sheds--above in the farmyard, when it is ye're own."

Four years, nearly five, and the pets she had seen grow up were gone. Crabbit, deeply dejected, wailed at her heels. Four years ... they seemed as eternity.

If she married Lancelot it would be her own, or if she married anyone she could have her horses.

"An' I clane forgot that Mr. Darby sent two notes,"--Phil produced a letter---"to be givin' immaydiate; but when I seen the horses go----" Phil wept afresh.

For one moment Gheena had looked at the car which the chauffeur was winding up, then she opened the letter.

"Don't worry, little girl, I've bought the lot. They're here for you to hunt to-morrow, and at any time."

"God save us! couldn't he lave you alone?" said Phil, as Gheena leant against a manger, sobbing openly again.

Darby, always her friend, kind, crippled Darby--Darby, whose eyes followed her. If--if----

The housemaid's bicycle was at the kitchen door. Gheena looked at it.

Voices sounded across the yard. A cart was coming in.

"An' God help us! I niver got the pison the Masther sent for, an' he will ate the face off me now. Prussian acid he wanted, an' I declare I forgot it. Sure I can tell him they're stockin' none of thim German affairs now."

Gheena looked at her red cur. In a moment she was on the bicycle, which was far too short for her, and with her knees stuck up in unpleasant publicity, was tearing down the avenue.

"Light in her head to be makin' afther them now," said Phil bitterly. "An' it all the Masther's fault."

The opal glow faded to a silver dusk with little mist wraiths in the hollows, and light glint of damp on the budding leaves. Darby was alone in his library before a glowing peat fire, his dogs at his feet, when they got up growling quite politely as the door was flung open and Gheena came in.

She was white, rings showed round her eyes, her breath coming short.

"It was the length of Maria's legs which made me so tired," she said. "Don't stare, Darby. Oh, Darby!"

She came across, holding out cold trembling hands.

Darby rang the bell sharply, ordering strong coffee.

"I came, Darby"--she knelt down, the glow of the fire-light turning her hair to bronze--"I came, because you've always helped me, to know if you'd--marry me, Darby?"

He held the cold hands more closely, he hid the bitter pain which leapt into his eyes. She had come to offer herself to the man who had loved her so long, simply that she might be free.

"It would be a poor thing to do," he said slowly; "there is something more than freedom and paying out Dearest George in matrimony, Gheena, something more."

Gheena showed no surprise. It seemed to her natural that her reasons should be so plain.

"But you like me, Darby, and if you won't, I'll ask the Professor, or someone."

He looked for one glimpse of love in her eyes, for anything except the complete trust and the weariness of the overstrained face, as she explained that she would not endure for four years, and that she wanted a friend.

"Four years, or for ever?" he said. "Gheena, it hurts just a bit." Then he dropped her hands, putting his on her head. It came to him that he was strong enough to bear an engagement, to see her through her troubles, until he stepped back with just a little more pain to bear, and left her happy. And--perhaps--the strongest of men dream--cripple as he was.

So Darby said "Right." He said it quite cheerfully. "And here's coffee. You are just worn out, dear, from that ride."

"It was Maria's legs," said Gheena. "Darby, you'll drive me back, and how tired you look! But aren't you glad?"

He got up, limping, to look for matches. A cripple, a maimed, scarred thing, to whom this light offering of what never could be love had hurt worse than his injuries. Gheena would never care for him. He was just old Darby to her. She came to him to help her as she had done all her life. She could probably even marry him just as old Darby, and drag out her life cheerily, hurting him, never knowing happiness herself.

"I couldn't do much walking with you, Gheena," he said.

"But you're so much better," she answered. "And I shouldn't know you if you could walk fast now, Darby. And you can let your sister have this house; she always wants it and it's splendid!"

The awful presence of Dearest George, enduring the night air, was on the doorstep when they drove up to Castle Freyne.

He said icily that old friend as Darby was, he could not have his stepdaughter disappearing in this fashion, and that some change in discipline must be made.

"And all my muscles are stiff from the length of Maria's legs," said Gheena cheerily. "And you'd better see about the Dower House, Dearest, because I am going to be married."

"You've persuaded her," gasped Dearest George.

"To Darby," said Gheena, lifting Crabbit. "To Darby Dillon, Dearest, so don't buy the Prussic acid now. Let me alone."

"To Darby Dillon!" repeated Dearest George, sitting down on the damp steps.

*CHAPTER XVI*

Basil Stafford offered his congratulations on almost the same spot where the three had stood in the autumn.

It was fair spring now, nearly May, with a blue glint on the water. But Gheena had been out for a swim and had come in glowing, while Crabbit still pursued gulls and hoped to catch one.

Darby sat in a sheltered nook. His face had grown thinner; some inward war had drawn lines round his mouth. A lithe figure sat beside him--Psyche, with some of her light gaiety gone too. Basil remarked that he had come to congratulate, and he also looked quiet and subdued.

"Oh, thank you very much," said Gheena. "Lancelot had three helpings of beefsteak pie yesterday, and Dearest is glooming at the Dower House over the expense of putting in radiators. I'll never let mother go there, of course, but the radiators won't matter."

"Even in war time," said Basil thoughtfully. "Mr. Freyne looks quite thin."

"He says we shall lose the war now and nothing will matter," said Psyche, "and he's going out to drive a motor ambulance if they'll take him."

"Everyone," said Gheena, "is doing something now."

Basil Stafford sat down in the shelter.

"And perhaps I am too," he said a little impatiently, "even if it's not what people think."

There was open hostility in Gheena's eyes when she replied that perhaps he was.

She climbed the cliff lightly, slow Darby left behind then jumped back again and slipped, Stafford springing up to help her, both young and strong and whole-limbed. Darby's sticks went slowly and heavily as he toiled up.

"Just here," he said, "we thought of the scratch pack. I have not sent them back yet, they amuse me; but they must go next week, after one more hunt."

"It will be so awful when one can't see you hunting hounds." Little Psyche's eyes were full of the admiration which Darby never saw in anyone else's.

"Which you think I do well," he said, laughing.

Psyche replied that he did everything well, and Gheena came up the cliffs again, kindness in her eyes, friendship; but as he limped on, Darby had seen her look at Basil Stafford. The lines of pain deepened in Darby's face; then he laughed again. He was no worse off than he had been six months before, and he had helped Gheena on. Now that she was engaged, with the prospect of taking over her inheritance when she chose, Dearest George was perpetually apologetic and almost wistfully anxious to please. He had referred to the engagement to his wife as being in the nature of a trench mortar--something hurled at him when he slept.

"Look here, Miss Freyne," Stafford stopped Gheena--"I want you not to wait on the cliffs at night, or go out in your boat, but especially at night. The submarines are blockading and they've been seen near here."

Gheena said cheerfully that they were not likely to waste a torpedo upon her.

"Supposing someone saw you out alone. It's possible. I heard you were off near the point two nights ago."

"I am looking for the base," said Gheena composedly. "I shall find it too."

Here Mr. Stafford made the grievous mistake of telling her hotly that no one wanted her to look for it, and, in fact, that she was not to. The fewer people on the cliff the better, and certain people would be pleased if she did not wander there.

"That I can understand," said Miss Freyne, adding that she would go out when and where she chose, and after this haughty outburst her face clouding and growing sad.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane was at the house to offer congratulations. She did it quite gracefully, suggesting that Darby's injuries would keep Gheena from gadding about quite as much as most young women did, once that she knew they would be happy.

"Poor Lancelot, of course, will never go back to be killed," she added pleasantly. "He was too young for you, Gheena."

Gheena jumped up to kiss Violet Weston, and to remove her to the far end of the room, where they whispered together impolitely. A fresh expedition along the coast was planned, but before it came off Gheena went off alone in her new two-seater, going down the same narrow lane which she had last driven down with Darby, and pulling up only just in time on the plateau.

The beauty and chill of spring lay on the sea; a silver shade touched the brightest cold blue; little speckles of white, steel edged, rimmed the tiny waves. The illusiveness of girlhood was in the mood of the day, fair and yet too bright for warmth. Rock roses crouched in the clefts of the stones: little yellow flowers, and here and there a rare blue gentian brilliant against the green. Fern prongs were pushing up, and the white gulls sailed happily on the water, mocking Crabbit's barks.

And on the water and in it, mischief--lurking demons down below; machines oiled by human relentlessness, dealing swift death gladly to the toilers of the sea.

Amid the sheen and the glitter Gheena almost brought herself to believe that she saw the black rim of a periscope.

It was only a floating piece of wood dipping up and down, but it made the girl spring forward and over the edge of the cliff down on to the black rocks bared by the tide--a low one. There was only one cave which she wanted to see, the cave close by the hidden one which Crabbit had gone into. "Hi, Crabbit, leave these gulls!" said Gheena; "I want you." She peered into the hole which Crabbit had leapt through, wrinkled her nostrils, wrinkled them again, her heart thumping. She scrambled into the open cave as if she were Grandjer hot on a fox, her eyes sparkling and yet full of fear. It was a slimy cave, with a wide creek leading into it when the tide was high. A large boulder in the cavern stood in a pool of cold dank water. Gheena removed her shoes and splashed into the pool, squeezing between the brown boulder and the wall; the pool deepened, but next moment, with a scream, she felt a hole leading into the next cave. Switch went her small electric torch, and she saw the dark gap, completely invisible from the far side of the boulder. Beyond it was a kind of open ledge quite wide enough for a man to pass through comfortably. Next moment Gheena and Crabbit were peering into the further cave, the torch making an elusive glimmer, and still her heart thumped heavily.

The lower half was damp where the tide poured in, but the torch glimmered.... The upper and dry range of irregular ledges was covered with tins of petrol.

It was so easy to see that Gheena knew some light must come from above, and then saw a little tunnel going to the outer world, enough to put a little light and air into the place.

The easiness of rowing stores up the creek and putting them through was now completely apparent; and, at the same time, with a crisp chill not caused by the atmosphere, Gheena remembered that this meant war, and that the man who had put the petrol there would probably add Miss Freyne and Crabbit to his store if he found them. Which man? She slipped out of the cave, splashed through the pool, noticed how an overhanging rock almost completely hid the aperture, and bolted for sunlight with her shoes in her hands. She put them on her numbed feet outside, and then going back to the car, absolutely sat down to think.

The elusive quarry of her chase stood before her with bared teeth, and, never having expected to catch it, Gheena Freyne backed away. This was grave. It was war. Something outside light confidences to Violet Weston, or the Professor. The trouble grew deeper in her eyes. It was something to watch for herself.

A boat in the shadows outside by the point would see the submarine run and _see who supplied it_. Gheena shivered, and Crabbit went down to catch a gull.

Yes, who supplied it? Her eyes were heavy. If she went to the coastguards, their clumsy zeal would be sure to muddle everything. "They would sit about the rocks like a lot of puffins," said Gheena aloud, "and pretend they were looking for shrimps in May." General Brownlow must be written to, but ... Behind it all lurked a fear deeper than she had felt in the cold cave. The fear of whom she might see rowing out in the boat ... the betrayer ... a paid German agent and, doubtless, spy.

It was a very long way to row round from Castle Freyne, but no great distance from the Dower House, and no comment would be made if she took a boat over there, left it and walked back. Phil must paint both grey to match the night ... and then ... _Who did it_?

Crabbit sat on the car when he was whistled for; he was blighted and put out. These gulls were afraid of him, and barking from pinnacles of rock was not amusing.

Gheena pressed her self-starter, wheeled round perilously and bumped up the lane, her discovery weighing her down. Who supplied the petrol? Whose face would she see when she watched from the shadows?

She saw Mr. Basil Stafford's at that moment, and nearly ran into him, when he failed to put his long-nosed car out of her way.

"If you don't keep off those cliffs," he said irritably, "we shall have to make them forbidden ground, Miss Freyne. It's just getting serious now, you see."

She stared at him moodily. Basil Stafford's eyes flashed. "You've ... found something?" he burst out, leaning across.

Gheena saw a sullen-looking little revolver lying beside him.

"I found a new cave full of rocks," she said nervously; "that--that was all."

"You'll tell me if you do--promise," he said earnestly.

"When I tell anyone it will probably be you," said Gheena drearily. "And do get out of the way.... I'm cold."

Even Dearest George's complete depression, because he had already caught a chill in the garden at Girtnamurragh, failed to cheer Gheena. The one-time tyrant humbly asked her where she had been, and himself helping her to her favourite omelette could not make Gheena smile.

The magnitude of her discovery frightened her. They were really at war, and there was really someone paid by an enemy--the real enemy ... and this close to her own home....

The loss of a small and favourite bangle also worried her. If the spies found it they would probably track her. They would know someone had been there.

Darby, with the sadness deepening in his kind eyes, wondered what was the matter when she sat on the arm of his chair, and, with her hand in his, was palpably almost unaware of his presence in the world. He dropped the slight brown little hand and Gheena stroked Crabbit with it. She sat close to him, without a trace of self-consciousness. He was Darby, the friend who had helped her, and marriage was a thing they could talk of some day.

Psyche, sitting on the fender stool, had seen the dropped hand go absently to Crabbit's head, and her eyes darkened.

Violet Weston's coming to tea roused Gheena up, but she looked nervous instead of pleased.

"Gheena," said Darby, "has been submarine hunting and is feeling the effects of failure; she is depressed."

Mrs. Weston said lightly that she believed it was all nonsense. They might find out something--she nudged Gheena--but it would not be petrol bases on the coast.

"Despair and tight shoes," said Mrs. Weston, "stopped me looking; but, of course, I'll go with you again, Gheena dear."

"I'm not going to look any more," said Gheena heavily.

Violet Weston smiled as she admired her mauve suede shoes. She said that mysterious motor-cyclists passed through the village when all respectable motor-cyclists ought to be in bed, and wondered who they could be. She had heard them twice or three times, and had told Mr. Keefe about them.

Just then Mr. Keefe, trying to look as if his visit was accidental, blushed behind Naylour, and explained a lengthy drive and the tempting vicinity of Castle Freyne. When Mrs. Weston, who made room for him beside her on the sofa, continued to talk about the motor-bicycles, he grew pinker and looked embarrassed.

It seemed to Mr. Keefe that a great deal of nonsense was talked about bases and so forth.

"But the fact remains," said Darby, "that someone supplies the beggars, or they would not attempt this blockade they are so cock-sure of...." Then he muttered "The O'Tooles" in tones of depression.