Part 9

"I ordered that," said Gheena, getting up, "and my horses shall not cat black oats, Dearest, even if the heat has upset you."

"The heat?" said George Freyne, glaring at the blurred atmosphere outside.

"And I'm going down to see Hennessy. He is sure to be at tea with Anne," said Gheena, going out. "He got that oats for me."

The hoot of a motor-horn roused Dearest George from sombre chewing of bitter mental cud.

Darby Dillon took his car round to the shelter of the archway and then let himself in.

He came lumping across the polished hall and into the hot drawing-room.

George Freyne stared at him and grunted before he burst into the song of his grievances, which were tea, sugar, oats, and two women without mental balance.

"We had to come home from the meet," said Darby, having duly listened without comment. "Too wild to keep hounds out and no one there but ourselves.--I'm not listening! But I was, George. But a man may do what he likes with his own, mayn't he? And Gheena is an heiress. It will all be hers."

"Except a thousand a year and a cave," burst out George Freyne--"a sea cave on the shore."

"Don't make short cuts to it, then," said Darby gravely.

Gheena, her colour still high, returned, Crabbit at her heels.

"I've sent the car to ask Mrs. Weston to tea," she said. "Dillon can drive, and it will mean Mr. Keefe also, no doubt."

"And Stafford," said Darby. "He's the latest."

Gheena sniffed haughtily.

"Why he stays on here," she burst out--"as if drains mattered. A nice thing if the Germans found them ready just to make their potato grounds good for them."

Darby held his hands to the blaze, as he said quietly that all men knew their own affairs best.

"The man may have something wrong with him," he said. "Heart disease or heaven knows what!"

"A man who rides and shoots," said Gheena contemptuously. "I have my eye----" Then she stopped abruptly.

Dearest George, feeling himself neglected, remarked that he would not have the car sent on futile errands. It was a dear car, and just because it was a wet day, and to send it with a man who might be able to drive, or might be in the bay by noon under water, car and all. He appealed to his wife, who came in unperturbed by bad weather, her curiously fresh comeliness outlined in girlish blue.

"Of course, Dearest George, it will get wet as it is wet," said Matilda Freyne sympathetically, "the tyres especially; but it is so very wet that it won't be bad, and as old Dillon is there, it may amuse him to wash it, and Gheena said she wanted company."

"I'll buy a small car now I've Dillon," said Gheena shortly, "one for myself. They are back now; the wetting's over."

"These two men were going to have tea with me," giggled Violet Weston as she came in, "so I brought them along. We were just getting the Professor to play Bridge, so I brought him too."

"The last time I came there were the bees," said the Professor amicably, "and the poor lady so much alarmed."

"Any news?" Darby looked at Stafford.

"The usual deadlock in mud and ice." Stafford pulled out a telegram. "I get weary of wires nowadays. Christmas is so near, and some of us dreamt of them having Christmas at home, and some of Christmas in Berlin, and here we are."

Violet Weston, somewhat flauntily dressed in mauve, with expensive white furs and shoes with diamond buckles, peeped at the wire anxiously.

"Why do you have the things in Greek?" she asked.

"One word does for three, you see," he said smiling, as he dropped the flimsy paper into the fire.

"They are talking now of a great submarine blockade," said Darby, "cutting off all our supplies."

"And they say there are supply bases along this very coast," puffed Dearest George. "Matilda, why is tea late?"

"Perhaps if we asked Naylour?" Mrs. Freyne was not disposed to reply to a direct question. "What do you think, Dearest? Perhaps that new bad coal----"

"I beg your pardon," said Naylour at the door, "but there is two coastguards here to have speech with the Masther."

The importance of his country's defence wiped the thoughts of tea from Dearest George's mind; he rushed to the door and Gheena opened the window widely.

"I have to perish you all to change the atmosphere," she said apologetically. "What is it, Professor?"

"It is my handkerchief a silken," said the Professor anxiously. "I had him out in the hall and with a cold in the nose----" He ambled out.

"Gheena," said Violet Weston, "I've something to say to you."

Gheena trailed her wool across the carpet to the far end of the long room.

"Some one said--they saw submarines about," whispered Violet; "one of the coastguards told me--a periscope just outside the bay. And also that they're all on the watch for supplies going out from here--and that they are afraid of people signalling. Gheena--_what_ is that Stafford man doing here--idling?"

"He is not a German," said Gheena stoutly.

"Go on knitting, he's watching us. If a German is brought up altogether in England he has no accent--nothing. He goes out late at night. How do I know? I went into the garden one night to look for a cat I heard mewing there, and he went down the next steps; they do for the Professor's home and mine, you know. I heard him crunching off across the beach beyond the pier."

"We'll watch him," said Gheena through clenched teeth. "I have been watching him myself. Now you can too, and Crabbit and I will find out where the petrol is stored."

"I've spoke to you three times," said Darby to Stafford, "and you've never answered. Now you come out of the catalepsy with a lep."

"Why was tea late, Naylour?" Mrs. Freyne asked. "Oh, dear, here is Mrs. Keane!"

"Naylour," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, flapping into the room, "was never in time. He used to commence to clean his silver at four o'clock, and when it was half-past the tea-pot would be all pink paste."

"Asking your pardon, Ma'am, but that same was only on days when I had jobs given me," said Naylour firmly, "all the coats to brush and all throusers to press."

"Naylour!" said Mrs. Keane haughtily.

"An' tay is not afther bein' late, Ma'am, but the Masther's watch is on. He sot it on this mornin', thinkin' he'd be huntin', so as to get all out, an' he forgot to sot it back."

"Four kinds of cake!" groaned Mrs. Keane. "I allowance them to a spoon of sugar to each cup now in the kitchen and four cups of tea a day."

"I remember noticing the cake for the concert tea wasn't sweet," said Gheena absently. "We made five pounds, and we'll have another for the Red Cross--with the recruiting song."

"So dreadfully immodest!" said Mrs. Keane. "Just think how the soldiers would hate it, too, if everyone who had sung that song ran to kiss them on platforms on their return. I should insist on its being altered to greet."

"Darby said that wouldn't do for Scotch regiments, because 'greet' was Gaelic for 'cry.'"

"I found him," said the Professor, returning, "but so also had Crabbit."

He held up a large bandanna rent across by sharp teeth. Stafford stared at the pocket-handkerchief thoughtfully, and Crabbit wagged his tail pleasantly.

"War is a dreadful thing!" said Dearest George, rushing back. "Too many complications. Confound it, Gheena, it's your wool again!" His plunge into space was checked by the Professor's plump shoulder. "Several suspicious characters hanging round the wireless. Two cars puncturing on the road just outside and taking an unreasonable time to repair. Oh, yes, they took their numbers quite cleverly. And people asking the way, and they've seen a submarine outside the bay. English or German? Oh, German, of course, Matilda! What foolish questions you do ask! And they are afraid----"

"Here--my friend, was all this for publication?" said the Professor softly--"all?"

"There's nothing private in a sighted submarine," snapped George Freyne peevishly; "the fishermen saw her from the point. The Guinanes say they did not, although they were out at the time, but they never like to agree with anyone. Mary Talty did and Con Talty."

"What I came to tell you," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, raising her voice and looking importantly, "was that----"

"You've dropped your hot bun," said Mrs. Freyne absently, "the butterest bit. Please, Crabbit."

"--Was that Lancelot Freyne is wounded," concluded Mrs. Keane irately. "I met his mother and Annette both in tears because the wire did not say how much though it mentioned a foot."

"Just think of Lancelot wounded! Somehow one never realized that he had really gone out," said Mrs. Freyne.

"He was at the base looking after embarkations," said Gheena. "He must have got run over. They did not send him up, I know, because his letters were all Boulogne, and how cleverly he could talk French."

"Still, he's wounded," said Mrs. Keane. "And you might think more of your cousin, Gheena. He will probably come home to recuperate."

"If General French can spare him," said Gheena sweetly. "You see, someone who might be of use will have to replace him now at the base."

Dearest George broke in hotly to remark that Gheena was very heartless talking in that fashion about a gallant boy who had gone to fight for his country, and decided that he would drive over to Cahercalla to find out the news. He thought it over as a fresh blast of rain drove against the window and a boom of wind shook the trees outside.

Stafford, seated in a dark corner, was absently breaking up pieces of plum cake and feeding Crabbit with them. He seemed lost in thought.

"The extravagance--in war-time!" said Mrs. Keane, seeing him. "I am astonished! with plums in it too!"

"To say nothing of its making him sick," said George Freyne. "I think all dogs should be got rid of with food so dear."

Gheena's cheeks lost some of their colour. Her stepfather could do nasty things when he was put out.

"If anything were to happen to Crabbit I'd get married next day to replace him," she said, a note of cold warning in her voice. "To anyone! You might take me, Professor."

The old Professor spilt his fourth cup of tea as the remark reached him; then recovering, he observed that the marriage of a maid to her grandfather was forbidden in the prayer-books, and asked for more tea placidly.

"Well, someone," said Gheena. "Darby, how many wild things did the pack do to-day in the rain?"

"They just clung to the horses' heels," said Darby gruffly, his voice sounding hoarse and strained; "that was all, Gheena. By the time the war is over they will be a model pack. If one could breed a fox-hound with Grandjer's nose!"

"They were two hours and a half hunting that fox on Tuesday," said Gheena, "but they caught him in the end. He looked absolutely blighted with astonishment going up the last field, considering how many times he'd left them behind. Oh, dear! what a Christmas it's going to be--all wool and war!"

"Your chauffeur sent in to say, Ma'am, that if the wind arises any more, he'll scarcely get the big car across the long hill beyant the bache," announced Naylour respectfully, "an' will he come arround before it does?"

"How you can allow Ma'am, Matilda," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane coldly. "I had trained him into Madam so completely."

It was unfortunate that Naylour's "She had so, Madam," remarked completely to himself, should have been audible to Gheena and Darby, who burst into the insane giggles induced by attempts at suppression of open laughter.

"His silver wants cleaning," also said Mrs. Keane. "You should make him do at least what he can do."

"An' what he could not," came murmuring from the open door.

"If you can't get across the hill, come back," said Matilda Freyne, ignoring the comments placidly. "There are plenty of spare rooms and a turkey as well. That's for dinner, of course. Gheena, what is amusing you and Darby?"

"Retrospection," said Darby solemnly; "nothing else."

The bad day gave its wildness to the night, which stormed and raged through a wind-tormented darkness, to grow ashamed before a murky dawn and threatening to hide in the caves of storm, leaving a still world and pallid, washed-out sky, with an apologetic sun wintering in its cloudless expanse. Far out on the point the spray was lashing up silver bright; caught in the sheltered bay the caged waves heaved sullenly.

Gheena came down to breakfast in reflective mood. She was completely at her mother's mercy as to money until she married or came of age, and her mother's money meant Dearest George's. Vexed by the falling off of his savings, George Freyne had spent a long evening carping at his stepdaughter, and forbidden a fire in her own small sitting-room when she wanted to go there to play cards.

George Freyne objected to Gheena's keeping her three horses, although there was no real hunting. He objected to a three-year-old bay brought in to train. He was, in fact, in the humour to object to everything, and he talked gloomily, of putting down the motor and taking again to the outside car, which languished in the coach-house.

"As that young horse has been brought in, he could be trained to harness," he said unpleasantly; "and Bluebird was bought for a cart; she would do."

Gheena's blue roan mare was a precious possession. Miss Freyne eyed the breakfast table with unalloyed gloom, and helped herself to eggs simply as an everyday duty and not because she wanted one.

"Dearest George said we were to have them poached or plain boiled in future," remarked Mrs. Freyne, coming in. "He said it would save the frying butter, you know."

Gheena rapped a brown shell and remarked she wished that it was in futurity.

"As it's our money----" she began.

"But you could not hint that to a sensitive man, Gheena dear, and an egg is just the same--isn't it, dear? There is always the yolk and the other part, isn't there, Darby?"

Darby had stayed the night.

"And the shell," said Gheena, talking again. "I'll have ham, I'm not hungry, and they're quite hard. I've battered all round without a dinge coming."

She ate ham more cheerily. Dearest was extremely particular as to boiled eggs. At one time he had hung lovingly on a patent boiler, his watch in his hand. But the boiler had the determination of all such affairs, namely, to hand out the egg either quite hard or glutinously raw, and to decline to say which until the shell was cracked, when it would chuckle softly over its blue flame of spirit. It could even spoil two put in at the same time, relying on a current of air to one side the flame to help in this.

Matilda Freyne, after a weary week of being told it was all her fault for not taking the time, took to being late for breakfast, and Mr. Freyne boiled eggs for himself until incidentally the lamp blew up and singed off his moustache. So Anne the cook now endeavoured to plaze th' ould grumbler, as she tersely put it.

Gheena tapped two other egg-shells with complete dissatisfaction, and went to the window to see Mr. Keefe in uniform, trotting up the drive.

"He's rising to the trot," impatiently said Gheena. "Is it the invasion? Crabbit has gone out and nearly upset him, and now he can't open the swing gate. Here is Dearest."

"Hard again," announced George Freyne tragically, rapping pathetically. "Why the simple matter of three minutes in boiling water cannot be attended to! Gheena, you must pay for that white oats out of your quarter's allowance, as you ordered it against my wishes."

Gheena flushed painfully. Her quarter's allowance was represented by the unpleasant little line which denotes minus--she had given it all away to various war funds, and the man was coming to be paid for the oats.

Harold Keefe, pink and fussy, marched in in his dark uniform, and agreed to a second breakfast; he had had his first one at seven.

He came with orders which roused them all. In case of invasion, horses were to be removed; motors destroyed or taken away; hay burnt. He read out the notice sonorously and with effect.

"There's really a chance of their landing." George Freyne touched the silver tea-pot anxiously. "We could hide all this in the cellar and cover it with slack, but there's the question of the horses again. How can we possibly get them all away if anything does happen? It makes it quite clear, Gheena, that one of your old ones and the youngster must be got rid of at once. Bluebird would make a charger."

"To be frozen and ill-used and shot at, with his bad leg and his delicate skin!" shot out Gheena peevishly.

But though they laughed at the little man in uniform eating ham with appetite, the orders which he had brought made something real of that terrible war across the seas. Germans might come to Ireland--grey-green uniforms, spiked helmets, fierce dull faces might be seen on the edge of the low cliffs. What scurry and flutter there would be if it ever came to pass!

This little man, never quite at his ease, represented the struggle of a mighty nation, pouring out blood and gold for the cause of freedom.

Gheena recovered from depression to see a vision of the flight of the family, with her mother packing carefully, and a string of horses being led off inland.

"I should certainly destroy all the jam," observed Mrs. Freyne, also waking up; "they are so fond of sweets."

"Our navy," said Mr. Freyne pettishly, "is paid to see to things of this class. They will never reach us. But, of course, one must be prepared--and, talking of it, can your cook boil eggs, Keefe?" he asked gloomily.

Mr. Keefe, starting at the change of subject, thought that anyone could--just water and a saucepan.

"And bullets," said Dearest George. "Talking of invasion made me remember the eggs. Bullets--with a delicate digestion."

Keefe picked up an egg and said absently that he liked them hard, because they slipped into a pocket so handily, and with bread and butter one was never at a loss. But when you get a kind of squashy thing-- "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Freyne! I'd love to take these two, I've miles to go!"

The master of the house murmured "Savouries" into his empty tea-cup; the desire to economize was strong upon him just then.

"I shall go out to warn all the men," he said, "and just show them that we are at war."

He strode into the yard, followed by his womenkind. Dillon, a very old man, was polishing the brasses on the car and crooning "Kathleen Mavourneen" as he did so. He had looked the possibility of the Union in the face a day or two before.

"Mr. Keefe has just called to say there is a possibility, a probability of a German invasion," said Dearest George loudly, "and I must give orders accordingly."

"They'll niver swhim the say," observed Dillon without emotion. "Have ye another tin of Brasso handy, Phil? This is out."

"Phil--Hennessy, you are to be ready at a moment's notice to fire the hay and be off inland with all the horses, and----"

Phil scratched his head dubiously.

"An' if they calls in an' ye out, sir, would we do the same?" he inquired cautiously, "or wait to ax the Germin officers?"

"John Guinane says if they come here they'll come paycable," remarked Hennessy, as he laboured at a broken oats crusher. "With no waypons, but frindly. An' he says, too, there'll be no more money to go to the Government. We'll be let off paymint for our land."

"God bless and save us! Is the haythens comin' here?" remarked Anne the fat cook nervously. "An' the coffee near out, Ma'am--but a pound in the house."

Darby leant upon his crutch, laughing silently, and Dearest George tried to take off the hat he had not put on, missed it, and wiped his forehead.

"Nothing would make them realize anything," he stormed, as he sat down on a box--"nothing."

"Father Pat says the ships is patrollin' the say and they'll niver let them over," said Anne more happily. "An' what is it, Phil?"

"It is the box we put a lick of paint on yestherday; makin' it sweet to hold the crushed oats. He won't be best plazed if it isn't dry," whispered Phil. "An' not much drying in yestherday, aither."

Mr. Freyne got up, removing a film of brown paint with him, and without noticing it, continued his oration.

He was interrupted this time by Matilda, asking him if he'd remembered to write for the salt for the dairy, and left hurriedly, saying more to himself than it was seemly to utter aloud.

"His throuser bein' brown, ye could not see," said Phil anxiously. "God save us! look at the print of himself on it, an' there'll be pure murther whin he claps an eye on his throuser. Hurry in to Naylour, Anne, and tell him to rub on turps whin the Masther changes his clothes."

"Dearest George will be angry," said Gheena thoughtfully; "it is quite sticky."

Mr. Freyne was sorely puzzled later on to find smudges of brown paint on the red leather library chair, and another smudge on the drawing-room sofa, where he had sat down to ruminate over the crass stupidity of the Irish.

When both the housemaids took "their Bible oath" that they were innocent of using fresh paint, there was nothing for it but to harangue his wife and Gheena. When Gheena offered a sporting bet that he had done it himself, he got really angry, and unwisely accused her of impertinence to her elders.

Phil knocked at the library door.

"I'm carrying the horses to the forge, sir, to be looked after against they take the road," he said pleasantly. "An' James is up to know who'll lead the prize bull, for he'll go with no one but himself, an' _he_ can't walk five mile. An' where will he go to? he says."

When the locality mentioned by Mr. Freyne was a very hot one, Phil said "Yes, sir," and returned, murmuring that the Germans made the Masther terrible peevish.

"I am going on to Cahercalla, Gheena; you would probably like to come."

Gheena said "No" absently. She was watching a distant figure on the edge of the cliff. It looked like the Professor.

"Then Matilda must."

"Oh, Dearest George," said Matilda weakly, "I thought of taking a little ride; but if you think I'd better---- Of course, they are upset about Lancelot."

A second figure appeared on the cliffs, someone tall and active. Gheena flung the French windows open, omitted to close them, and slipped into the wood which went down to the edge of the sea.

"Gheena gets rougher every day," said Freyne angrily--"every day, and more thoughtless."

Darby, on his stick, hobbled out and went slowly down the lawn, his eyes fixed sadly on the trees that held the girl. How quickly she had slipped out, leapt over the sunk fence and disappeared! It was good to be young and strong and active. The measure of strength which had returned to him could not content him. Always with one side which would drag, always slow and crippled. He would be better, people told him. His crushed limb would improve by degrees, but he could never know the fullness of life again. He saw Gheena come dodging across the carpet of dead leaves and peep at the fretted, still blue sea. She leant out cautiously, then came into full view, and stood as if listening. Two people were talking just below the verge of the cliff.

"Are you looking for Germans?" said Darby politely.

"Oh, hush, Darby; do hush! You don't know"--Gheena came close to him--"you don't know the kind of things I think," she whispered.

"If there was any use in those blamed bits of rock," said Basil Stafford's voice.

"My friend, is there any use in dead butterflies, in used postage stamps, or an array of foxes' heads and tails? The rocks are my hobby to collect and ascertain the stratum. _Himmel_!" This exclamation was caused by Crabbit rolling a completely unwashed small rock on to the Professor's neck.

"Rabbits," said the Professor, "excavating. In time stuffed. Shall I not have a complete report of every coast in Britain?"

Stafford said "Oh! add a 'c,'" rather dubiously. "You'd be paid a bit for that just now," he added grimly.