ESTABLISHED 1842. LI M ITED.' 3O TO 34. NEW OXFORD ST I 241 , BROMPTON ROAD BRANCH OFFICES -,' 148. QUEEN VICTORIA S T . E.C SUBSCRI PTION , HALF A GUINEA PER ANNUM & UPWARDS. UNIVERSITY OF C THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY BY DORA SIGERSON SHORTER LONDON HODDER AND STOUGHTON 27 PATERNOSTER ROW 1905 Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY IN the smoking-room of Dean Manor the guests were sitting in silence, the comfortable after-dinner quiet so blessed in its restfulness. Patrick Davison, standing before the fire, sur- veyed them with a kindly eye. Macarthy, Hayden, Macdonald, West, and Steward, five of his old friends, lying back in their chairs look- ing content, and watching with careless gaze the smoke curling upward from their pipes. His eyes travelled to the two women present, pretty Mrs. Barnes, shading her face from the flames with a pink fan, and Deborah Hayden, the only active person in the room, who sat writ- ing by the soft light of a lamp near the window. On the whole it seemed to Davison that they helped the picture of happy idleness. He smiled at a thought, for of all of them, Deborah Hayden, he knew, thought herself the one who had no time for idleness. 2 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY As if in answer to his smile, Deborah pushed back her chair from the little writing-table, and picking up the loose sheets of her manuscript, heaved a very audible sigh of relief. Then the room rustled. Her husband looked upon her with a quizzical eye ; Major Macdonald beat the ashes from his cigar, and looked up ; some of the others clapped hands ; while pretty Mrs. Barnes went to lean upon her friend's shoulder. ' Finished, Mrs. Hayden ? ' asked a chorus of voices. 'Just a little story,' she answered, smiling upon them, ' for next week's Clarion. I hope I did not keep you all silent, but the inspiration came to me. And I thought I would not go to my room, but write it here.' ' I am so glad you did so,' pleaded Mrs. Barnes, raising her big eyes with an entreating glance. ' I just love literary people, and only meet them at Mrs. Davison's delightful house-parties. It was so good of you to let me see you write. Please read us the story.' * It is so late,' said Mrs. Hayden, much grati- fied. ' It was very good of you to wait for me, dear. I think we had better retire now, for I am THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 3 sure the gentlemen are longing to be left to themselves. You know it is only the new woman who would have dared to beard them in their own smoking-den.' * It is I who should apologise for bringing you here,' replied her host, rising and going to her side. ' But my wife begged me to take care of you after dinner, for her headache was so bad she had to lie down. Will you show that you forgive me by reading the story to us before you go ? ' ' Yes, yes,' cried several voices ; { please do.' ' Forgive you ? Why, you have inspired me,' laughed Deborah Hayden. * It's just the time for stories,' whispered Mrs. Barnes, looking round the cosy room and its lazy members. ' I hope it 's a gruesome one ; I just love horrors.' ' It 's not specially gruesome or horrible, neither has it a moral, I am afraid. I wanted to try and prove that a woman should not give up every- thing and become a household drudge, just be- cause affection binds her to her home. I wished to urge that she should live sometimes the life she craves for, whatever it may be, and fling duty aside duty, which women so frequently 4 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY mistake for love ; that she might fling aside love itself, if love proved too exacting and pre- vented her soul expanding to that sunshine which was intended for it. Men seldom know the narrow horizon that binds a woman's world ! ' continued Mrs. Hayden, with a reproachful glance at her husband, ' nor how weary they get of the eternal monotony of it. Men do not recognise how justified we should be were we to throw off the yoke before our day is over. I meant to show something of this when I began my story, but I found in the end I could not do it. The old voice of the soul, that whispers to every woman, cried to Hanna Drummond, and her freedom was but a troubled dream. Here is the story, if you care to listen. I call it " The Dream of Hanna Drummond " ' :- Hanna Drummond walked heavily upstairs and threw her mantle aside. She loosed the strings of her bonnet, and lifting it from her head, gazed long into the glass. ' So that 's the end of Hanna Drummond,' she said, looking at the fading hair that so softly framed a face not yet grown old ; a face whose THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 5 principal lines told of a life without interest, of an outlook that was dull, and held no hope. ' The end of Hanna Drummond at forty-six,' she said, and put her hand suddenly to her side. ' So you would fail me so early, poor heart, and yet you have had no very heavy duty. A year . . . two years . . . to-day . . . any time . . . what did the doctor say ? Does it matter ? My life will flow on just as grey, just as uneventful ; nothing will happen in a year, or in two years, to change its current.' She put her bonnet on a shelf, and turned wearily to the door, as a servant entered. They discussed household matters for some minutes. When the maid had gone, Hanna Drummond seated herself in a low chair by the window. She drew to her side a little box, and from it she took a thimble, also a needle and thread. Then, draw- ing a coat that lay upon the back of the chair to her lap, she inspected it closely, to find two buttons missing. She turned the pockets out to look for holes, and came upon a folded railway guide. Her eyes fell upon the gaudy illustrations of travel, the attractive advertisements * Colorado ! It is summer with us. It is winter with you. 6 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY Come and hear the birds sing ! ' She turned a page on the other side. A picture of winter life : there were people on skis, on sledges, racing in the white beauty of the unpolluted snow. She looked at it long, and thought it the more attrac- tive. * After all, we do get a little sunshine, and can sometimes hear the birds. But how wonder- ful to stand in the midst of the snow hills, trees, everything covered with the beautiful white and the silence of the snow-covered earth. That was most wonderful of all. She could imagine it even from what she knew of the brief winter that had passed.' She had always longed for a sight of those great peaks, snow-covered always longed, too, for that sunny clime, where the blue waters rippled at your feet, bidding you not hurry, but rest and listen. Never had she been away from the dull English summers, and even these she had not seen at their best had seldom been outside the gloomy haze of that great dark city. Yet in the face that returned her discontented gaze from the glass, there surely was a mould cast in some other land than this. The curling hair, the quick impassionate nature that looked from the dark eyes that met hers, the face that spoke of THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 7 constant rebellion against the surrounding dul- ness, these were no English traits. Some ancestor had robbed her of her birthright, some malcontent had grown tired of the sunshine and the clear air, and so she was born in this city. Now she would never see that splendid spirit who called to her from the snow, or from the golden sunshine of some far-off country. John had promised that on the honeymoon he would show her something of the wider world, but John had changed his mind, saying home was the dearest place to spend their happiest days in, so they had come to this little house and stayed for more than twenty years. It is true, that at the end of the first year John had intended to take her out of England when his holidays came, but little James had arrived by that time, and put a stop to their plans. For eight years little James played the tyrant to his devoted parents, till John said, ' He is getting spoiled, and must go to school. We will send him to a boarding-school, and have that little holiday we planned so long ago.' When they had quite made up their minds to this, James decided it otherwise ; he fell sick, and, slowly recovering, remained delicate for years. 8 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY They nursed him through various illnesses, one of which nearly cost him his life. After this, they watched his every movement, always believ- ing they were destined to lose him. At eighteen James declared himself a man, and shook off the caressing hands that almost stifled him. ' A fellow can't always be tied to his mother's apron-strings,' he would say ; and broke from everything, save the conveniences of home, a place where he was fed and housed and cared for. Otherwise his life was outside, in his office and among his friends. Now was the time for John to carry his wife away to the snow hills of Switzerland, or the fruit-laden land of Italy, but John had grown every year more contented, and Margate was good enough for him. She took up the coat again, looking for damages, and remembered she had a hundred pounds in the bank, a hundred pounds of her own, saved by good management out of the small income John could allow her for house- hold expenses. That had been laid by for James. She had done without many a little thing for James, to give him this little nest-egg THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 9 on his twenty-first birthday. But James was making a sufficient income of his own now : he was working in a merchant's office, and was she growing selfish ? James did not seem to hold so big a claim upon her as he did when he was not strong. Her own desire for happiness was rising between her and James, now that her days were numbered. The money would mean little to James, in contrast to what it would mean to her. Even if he travelled, he would never see what she would see, never look into the soul of Nature and be one with her. But James would not travel with the money ; he would bank it, or only draw enough to go to Margate like John. James, too, was going to marry soon. He was courting some one, judging from several things she had noticed. He would marry and have his children about him, so would easily forget her. She would be dead in a year, and only a memory to James. She could imagine him quoting ' poor mother ' to his wife * As poor mother used to do,' or * as poor mother used to say.' James was a dutiful son, he never caused her a pang of sorrow for a sin of his. Why did she keep thinking she would have liked him better if he was not quite io THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY so good. She could imagine another son, a brave, headstrong fellow, coming with his scrapes as a little child to be kissed and pardoned, coming as a boy to confide in her and pray for her forgiveness for a sin, coming as a man to bid her bless some madcap girl and help him tame her. She could feel that woman's arms about her neck even now. . . . She would pretend to chide her, but love all the time her wild fun. ' Give me a girl who can laugh, not one that titters,' she said aloud ; she was thinking of James. James had brought a tradesman's daughter to see her yesterday. She was pale and sandy-haired. She had kissed Mrs. Drummond on the cheek, and tittered. It was an ominous titter, the titter of the middle-class woman who is embarrassed, of the woman who cannot laugh, who titters when she is shy, and giggles when amused. It was a sound that told Mrs. Drummond as plain as words that James had proposed, that James had been accepted ; but the fact was not yet to be made public property. She kissed the tradesman's daughter a little more warmly, because she understood James would not tell her anything until all was arranged. It was his way, and James was always sure to be right. As a child he had THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY n accepted her kisses as one forgiving, not one being forgiven. He told no tales of his lawlessness as a youth. * I have done nothing I would be ashamed to tell my own mother,' he was fond of saying when discussing some other youth's escapade. As a man, he had not fallen in love with the first pretty girl he met, but carefully picked out the one he felt would suit him best. He had spoken of the tradesman's daughter to his mother after she had left. * There 's a good wife for a man. She is not pretty enough to be vain, or wild. She is a good, careful daughter, very economical and reliable. I believe she can cook well, and she makes all her own clothes. She has a little money of her own too, and is very good-tempered.' ' Has she a long character from her last place ? ' his mother answered dreamily, to be confronted by his indignant eyes. She begged him to pardon her absent-mindedness, excusing herself by her worry about servants a new one was coming in next week. She had gushed over the tradesman's daughter to cover her confusion, and so James had forgiven her generous James ! 12 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY No, James should not have that hundred pounds after all. She had spent twenty years sewing on his buttons, mending for him, and thinking of him and his comforts, during which time James had never said, ' Mother, come, let us go away. You must be tired of all this monotony.' She had packed his bag and unpacked it for his various holidays, but he had never asked her to accompany him even for a few days. Now her sands were almost run, and James knew it ; but James was young, and thought it natural that his elders should die out. He was very kind in his way during these days, and said often, that it was well he was at home, so as to be beside her when the end came. That would always be his duty, he said. He had hinted about the tradesman's daughter. It must be a comfort to a mother to know her son was settled before she left him. ' But oh, James,' she murmured aloud, c if you only knew : I don't care for any one just now but myself. I am selfish : I only want to think about my own short life, to live it my own way for my last year. Indeed, my last year will be my real life, for I have only existed up to this. I shall throw care to the winds and live every minute of THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 13 it. There will be no trouble about the future in my year, no fretting for old age, no fear of poverty. I shall live all, spend all, in my great year.' She began to think what would happen if she went away. Would the servant get up in the morning in time to get breakfast ready, so that John and James would go to their offices early ? No, the maid would never have the place dusted before they got down. But then, they would never notice that ; it was only a woman who would worry about such matters. Who would mend their things ? She took up the coat and began sewing. Who would be there when James would rush in with, ' Mother, is that ready ? ' or 4 Mother, I wish you would do this ! ' After all, she had little more of James now than that. His clothes in her hands, his face to look on for a few hours each day, just while he was hurrying through his breakfast, or in the evenings, when he was studying after dinner, if he did not go out. James was a good boy, always reading, always trying to educate himself, working for a future. And John, after all John was of her own time. There was nothing more for John. He had no 1 4 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY further ambitions for himself. He was fifty- eight, and quite satisfied to rise every morning with the same prospect before him : to rush to his office always a little late, to come back and spend the remaining hours of daylight in his little strip of garden. Perhaps John saw many changing wonders in the world of flowers he so carefully tended, saw life and romance in the flutter of the bee and the floating pollen of the blossoms ; who knows if in his commonplace body there were not a poet's thoughts, which he could not utter or express. Anyway, he was content to find his pleasure in digging and planting and pruning. He would leave his wife in the morning with a kiss, and ' Bless you, my girl,' and on his home- coming greet her by crying, ' Well, dear, and how have you been enjoying yourself? ' At first she thought it pretty and sweet, but as the years went by it began to pall, and soon grew unbear- able. Once she hinted he might try a new en- dearment, so he changed it to ' Bless you, little mother ' after James arrived. Further than that he seemed unable to originate. His evening greeting he never changed, though once she tried to forestall him by remarking, with some THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 15 sarcasm, that she had helped the maid tidy up, ordered his dinner, sewn his clothes, and gone through the ordinary routine of the usual ordinary day. But he only smiled and called her * his good little mother ' proud John ! and again asked her how she had been enjoying her- self. And every day, and always, he still left the house and returned to it with the same tender remarks, until she could often have screamed at him, ' Rage, John ! Storm, John ! Be anything but so monotonous. I am so fond of you, my John, but you bore me, oh ! you bore me beyond words ! ' They would miss her when she went away, principally because she meant a certain measure of domestic comfort to them. But they would have to do without her soon, if the doctor's words were true. Why not now? Why not now, so that she could have a little while to live her own life as she wished a life of action. * A short life in the saddle, Lord, Not a long one by the fire/ Where had she seen lines that read something like that ? They were written by a woman, too 1 6 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY perhaps one who, like her, had the heart of a rover. She had begged John to take her away when she just learned her days were numbered. ' Let us travel, John ; let us roam till I die on the road. We will go into the sunshine till the clay is warm beneath our feet, and I can look upon it without horror. Or let us go up amongst the snows till our spirits are one with the Great White God who sits upon the peaks so I shall fear not the death of my body ! ' John had soothed her almost with tears. ' My dear, my dear,' he had said, all distressed, ' you are excited and not well, or you would never think of such a thing. What should I do if any- thing happened to you far away from home, where we have been together so long, and where I hope to end my days, and follow you, if you should go first, so that we can lie together in my father's family vault ; and where I hope James, and James's children, will come after us when they are called.' Did she not feel in her heart of hearts that this was the greatest dread of all, to rest there in that gloomy vault, in company with John's father and THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 17 mother ? She could remember them. Had they not reared her, an orphaned child ? so good they were, so respectable, such Christian people. To lie with the weight of dutiful, good James, and his sandy-haired, domesticated wife, and their very perfect dull children, pressing her down, keeping her in place, as it were. And John, poor John, beside her, bidding her lie still, because this was a highly respectable tomb, and no one in all the crumbling coffins that were around and beneath them had ever murmured in his long sleep. She wished to be burnt like Shelley, and her dust cast to the breeze, to be blown hither and thither, settling never, going up with the dead leaves in the whirlwind, and roaming with the winds over the earth she had loved but not known in life. She smiled as she thought of all this which she had not dared to breathe to John. She could see his poor face pale and aghast at the idea ! What ! Not be buried in the family vault ! She could almost hear his Christian parents turn in their graves to clutch her and chain her down lest she escape. ' But I won't go there, John ! I '11 let the waves B 1 8 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY cover me, or the snow, but I won't lie weighed down by James and the tradesman's daughter and their children, not even to be beside you, my John, who would call it a loving burthen ! ' She loved them, of course, her husband, her son. It would hurt her to leave them, and if her life had not been limited to, at the most, a twelve- month, she would have gone on as usual, always hoping some day to break the monotony, always knowing in her heart that she never would while the grave was a vague and unthinkable end. She would hesitate no longer. She had made up her mind at last. Even this morning she had bid them good-bye with more than usual fondness. She had left everything comfortable, even the buttons were fixed on James's coat for him to- night ; she knew he wanted it to pay a particular call on the tradesman's daughter. He would fix up everything this evening with the girl's father, and return to tell his mother all that she knew already but his mother would not be there when he returned. She rose now and hastily put some things to- gether. Her mind was made up. She went through the house with feverish haste, giving her THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 19 last commands to the servant. Then she went out, closing the door with tenderness that shut monotony and boredom behind her. Her days seemed a whirl and an amazement after that she hardly knew how they passed ; she seemed to be just hurrying on and on. Upon the white heights her heart cried for summer, and she sped across the world to seek it. She could not tell anything that happened in those days, they were like the first wild rush of the bird, who, finding his cage door unguarded, dashes into freedom, nor pauses until all the intoxication of his rapture is over, and he rests in quiet happiness to sing. It was in a quiet valley somewhere in America she stopped at last in her flight, and there, standing beside a wide river, opened her lips in song. As she sang, a man came out of the wood behind her and stood. ' You ! ' he said. And she, without surprise, echoed, * You ! ' He had a dark fierce face, and looked into her eyes with a bold gaze. ' You have not changed a bit,' she said, * since the long ago.' ' And you,' he answered, ' are more beautiful 20 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY than ever.' She laughed uneasily, ashamed of her years. Yet time had not touched him ; he was just the same handsome youth she had known long ago, the same lad who had courted her under the trees in a London park, the lover who had left her without a word to wonder at his going, when he must have known she loved him. It was strange that time had not touched him ! It was strange he could call her beautiful at her age. It was strange she should meet him of all people, and yet no, nothing of this was strange. This was as it should be, for them to be together, the sun kissing their olive cheeks, dancing in their black eyes, blessing their brown curly hair. It was as it should be, that they were together with the day at morning, the free earth at their feet, and they young ! Oh ! it was true. She looked at herself in the calm waters of a little pool, a gipsy face smiled back and nodded dark curls in the affirmative. But what was strange was to think of that far-off country, where John and James were wondering at her absence. What was strange was to think of herself as with them, middle-aged, dull, going a weary round day after day, in joy, in pain, in deadly monotony, till she THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 21 reached the grave, till she was laid by the side of John's father and mother to await the coming of John and James and those who followed them. No, it was not strange to be young ; it was strange to be old, strange and impossible ! It was strange to have married John John who was never her mate. She never saw him with- out thinking that, without feeling a shock of surprise at seeing him come up the path, a little, bald, commonplace man, beaming on her in the complete satisfaction of his choice. Yes, she had satisfied John, but so would any woman who had done all she had done looked to his home and made all comfortable, reared his child, and sat seemingly content beside his fire. How could John know what he had married when her sense of duty and her knowledge of his limitations made her silent ? He never heard the torrent of unrest that roared in her ears, and flowed through her heart, till sometimes it seemed as though it must break its way through. She was like a green field, placid and restful to the eyes, while underneath, deep down, crept a fierce stream never seen, but threatening always disaster to the fair pasture above. 22 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY Yes, it was strange she was wed to John, when Nature had intended this man who stood smiling upon her to be her mate. Why had he left her without a word ? ' I am going to make my fortune,' was all he had said, and smiling, had left her as he met her now. ' Have you made it ? ' she inquired, and he seemed to know what she meant. ' No,' he answered rather sadly. Then this, she thought, was the reason he never wrote. She felt his eyes resting on her with the old look, one she had known. She tried to think of John, of James, of the dull life that she had chosen, but her mind would not rest on it ; all seemed so far away. * Do you know you are more beautiful than ever? ' he said. And she shook her head, but he bid her look into the still water, where she saw her face. * Why, I thought I was old,' she whispered ; ' but that was when I was a slave.' ' A slave ? ' he questioned. Then she, confused and afraid, spoke of John. * John ! ' he said, his strange eyes upon her. ' There is no John.' THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 23 ' No John ! ' she stammered. ' No John ! Then he is dead ! ' John dead, lying with his father and mother in the family vault, where she was to have gone. ' But I I was the one who was to die,' she said. ' Oh ! ' she put her hand on her head : ' this is a dream. John cannot have died.' The other looked upon her and laughed. ' There never was a John who called himself your husband ! That is a dream. You are mine. I chose you because you were my mate. I bid you come, and you have followed me across the world. John, what of John ? Dull John Drummond did you dream you had taken him ? Do you remember under the trees in the Park, when I said I loved you. You cried, and spoke of John Drummond. You told me you owed him much, because his people had taken you, the orphan child of a friend, and reared you. You said he loved you. But you did not owe him a life's devotion ; that you owe me, for I called you and you have come.' * What have I dreamt ? ' she murmured, strangely happy. f I thought I married John.' She stretched out her hand with a great sigh of 24 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY relief. ' I thought I married John, and had grown old.' * You could not, you were not made for John,' the other answered. ' He is like the quiet sheep who browse in the valley, and we are as the wild goats that leap upon the hills.' * I dreamt you had gone from me without a sign. I dreamt you were but a light lover, prone to forget, and John, so faithful and so kind, had at last won the promise you did not care to ask. I dreamt I worked for him and for his home, sewing and cooking and cleaning for more than twenty dull years. Let me forget, if it was a dream.' She looked upon her finger-tips for the signs of the needle-pricks. They were pink and smooth. * Why, what a dream ! ' she laughed ; ' what a dream ! He would have made a good husband, poor John, but he would have bored me beyond words, beyond all words ! ' She looked at the strong youth before her, and saw the shadows of the changing day flit across his brow. f I must return,' she said wistfully, ' to the THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 25 town. I must say good-bye if you will not come.' He loosed her two hands and turned from her eyes. ' I do not browse in the valley/ he said, * I am one of the wild goats of the mountains.' She looked upon his averted face. ' You are afraid of men ? ' she said. ' Afraid ! ' He drew himself to his fine height, then laughed. * Even a lion will run when the enemy is too numerous.' She looked at him more closely. She saw his clothes were tossed and stained by earth, torn here and there by thorns, and in his hair a withered leaf stayed, brown as the curls it clung to. ' What have you done ? not murder ! ' ' Nay, yet had I helped the devil to his own you could hardly have given me blame. I came to this country at the bidding of my uncle, and because I was too poor to ask your love. The brother of my father took me to his side as a son, and enslaved me. He held me a captive because I was young and gentle and friendless. He did not kill me. On the contrary, he made a man of 26 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY me. He forced me by his cruelty to awake a spirit I had not known I possessed, a savage that became a power. He had driven his daughter from the house and his young son to his grave before my time. Upon me, with whom he thought his grasp was strongest, he held a grip that made me throw my last breath into the struggle. ' I rose one day and faced him. He told me of my father, boasting he had displaced him in his inheritance, bragged that by his skill he had taken all, and that my father had gone a beggar from his own gates. He told me how he had re- turned one day to beg, to beg for bread to give his young wife, and then had come no more. How, later, my mother had come, a widow, to pray for help for her young son. How, when she was gone, he had bidden the son come, and he had come, to slave without hope of a reward like a beaten dog ! ' " There," he added, " under your mother's picture you shall sit day in and day out, till I crush your heart and soul, who are my brother's son." I looked up at his words, and saw gazing down upon me the sad face of a young girl. She THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 27 had no beauty, so weary was the gaze. Every day he had kept it there to jeer at and deride, to insult and shame. Why ? Because she had dared to reject his advances, and preferred his brother's love, in the long ago that he would not forgive. She seemed to stand behind me, so small and weak. She called on me as her son to defend her, as a man to revenge her insults. 'A crimson rage leaped into my eyes. I seized the heavy silver candlestick that stood on the table before me, and without a word flung it at the old face that jeered at me. It did but touch his arm most lightly, but his face changed in an instant to a cruel anger. Growling like a beast, he drew from his vest a pistol, and aimed it at my head. I did not stir as he fired, but a strange thing happened : my mother's picture, perhaps shaken by the movement of our violence, broke its string and fell. It fell, and flung me aside in its falling. The shot meant for me struck the frame aslant, and rebounding in a curious manner, made for its billet the white head of the would-be murderer. My mother had her revenge, and she had saved her son. A fierce anger still burnt in my breast against the old 28 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY man. I left him as he lay, and going to his safe, rifled it of its contents. ' " These are mine," I said to him. * I took the pistol from his fast stiffening grasp, and looked down its dark mouth. " There are five bullets left ; one you have already given me ; these also are mine." As J stood a loud shout came at the door, and many hands pushed it open. The room was full of people. With a glance they gave their verdict, for my uncle was a rich man. * " Murder ! " they cried. " There stands the murderer lynch him, lynch him ! " ' I saw outside the fair sky and sweet summer, and at the door my uncle's horse ready for a journey. I sprang through the open French window, and was off. I struck the frightened groom's hands from the bridle, and springing to the saddle, bid the steed go. * I had not gone a mile when the thunder of horses behind showed I was pursued. I emptied the revolver in the crowd, and flung the weapon at the head of a man who dared to stand in my path. So I was weaponless. But I had my horse. THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 29 ' I outrode my pursuers, but my horse gave up on. the edge of this wood. He's there now, stiff and cold, poor beast, but I had still my treasure taken from my uncle's safe. * I lay with my head upon my wallet, worn with sleep, and in the night a slim rogue drew it away ; but I had still my life. Then I sought this river, for by it I can go to safety ; and there I have found the woman I love ! ' He took her hands, and laid them on his breast. * But if the woman I love will have none of me, my life is then at an end, and I have lost all. I will not any longer evade my pursuers.' He bent a listening ear towards the dark recesses of the wood, and far away the woman could hear the cries of men and the baying of dogs. * They are coming,' she cried, and trembled. ' How shall I save you ? ' * By coming with me,' he said softly, and went his way to the river. A little boat rocked softly beside the shore. Without a word she entered it, and bade him row. She took the steering gear in her hands, and watched with anxiety his preparations for progress. 30 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY She admired the muscles that twisted in his arms, as he pulled the light boat upstream. ' We are safe/ she said, wondering at the stern lines that crept into his face. She looked back, and saw, in the place they had left, dogs and men running to and fro. She could hear the baying of the hounds as they tried to follow along the wooded bank, and were entangled or engulfed in little natural chasms. As she looked it seemed to her hot eyes as if the men had flung them- selves into the water, for the crowd came swarm- ing out into the river like water-spiders, and began to speed after them. The man smiled at her bewilderment. ' They have little canoes, and are following. They mean to have me ! ' She cried out in her helpless rage, ' They shall not ! they shall not ! ' And all the time with every backward glance she beheld the canoes coming nearer, and yet more near. t Oh, speed more quickly ! ' she cried, and see- ing the mottled arms and dripping brow of the rower, knew how useless it was to ask more of him. ' I shall fling myself into the river and let you THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 31 have a chance. They will save me, being a woman.' * Do not dare,' he said, and set his teeth. * I would only spring after you, and die.' ' Why did you not go with the water ? ' she wailed. ' You would have been helped by the flow.' ' The river runs into the heart of a town. We should have been lost indeed then. It laps the very walls of the house I have made notorious. Better to die here.' He rested his hands on his oars, and said gently to her : ' Come, come to me, for it is useless to struggle longer. Let us go down into the green waters ; and since we go together, death is best of all.' She looked into the water and shuddered. 'It is so strange,' she said. ' Look ! like a great glittering serpent, full of weird colours, waiting to crush us.' He looked the way her fingers pointed, and eagerly dipped his hand into the flow. < Oil ! ' he muttered ; < oil ! ' Then lifted his voice into a wild laugh. She gazed upon him, wondering. Behind came an answering shout from their pursuers, savage and eager for blood. 32 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY ' What is it ? ' she questioned. ' Oh, act quickly. What would you do ? ' He put his hand into his pocket with a strange smile. 'What is it?' he said. 'Only a chance for life. A main oil-pipe has burst, and the oil is pumping itself over the river. Look at it gleaming and glistening from bank to bank.' 'And what of it?' she whispered hoarsely. ' Look ! They will soon be upon us. Oh, be quick, be quick ! ' ' Only this,' he said, and handed her a box of matches. ' Lean far out, and light the river.' ' Light the river ! ' She paused and gasped. She drew a match from the box, and turned, half afraid. * It is a cruel thing,' she said, and looked behind at the fast-approaching boats. She saw their savage faces fixed eagerly upon the prey they believed theirs. Then she met the dear eyes of her lover fixed upon her. ' It is in your hands,' he answered, and bent to the oars again. What ! could she send this man from her life again ? How she had missed him THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 33 through the dull years that were. Was she to deliver him up ? All that young strength, that wonderful manhood ... to close those loving eyes and bring death to that pulsing body so full of force and energy ! She turned again over the waters, and laid upon them a lighted match. In a little time a slow flame crept up and spread. The fire drifted down with the current, coming fast upon the canoes that followed. The men, seeing their danger, turned their frail crafts and tried to get away. The great flame, still spreading, came down upon them like a river of fire. It roared like some great fire god, and flung wide arms from bank to bank. It licked the fences even a hundred feet from the water, and the ground was burnt bare along each shore. As the woman leaned from the boat the flame raised itself between her and their pursuers. She could no longer see them ; she did not know if the fearful thing had yet leaped upon them. Suddenly out of the flames came wild cries, and she began to tremble at her deed. ' Murder ! Murder ! ' This was the cry that came to her loudest of all, and she could not say c 34 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY if it was from the seething fire before her, or out of her own heart. ' Do you hear ? ' she wept ; f I have committed murder. Do you hear ? ' But the man leaned to her and whispered : ' Come to me, and do not listen. With me there will be joy. Do not listen ! ' ' Do you hear ? ' she said. ' Hark ! is it in my own heart ? Who is it cries so loud ? ' The man tried to take her hand. ' Come to me,' he said ; ' come to me and forget.' ' It is not " Murder." She drew away from him. It is "Mother" they cry. It is "Mother" ... it is "Mother," "Mother." It is some child.' She half rose. ' "Mother" ! " Mother " ! How he cries. It is the voice of a child I have known and loved one I have sent to his death, one who was coming to seek me.' The man spoke to her again, but his voice was faint. Yet she did not raise her head from her hands where she wept. ' Do not go back to that grey life ; come with me, and I will make your every hour a joy. Come to me.' But the loud crying of the child THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 35 deafened her. ' Mother, Mother,' it cried, c I want you, Mother.' ' Come to me, come to me,' the voice was fading away. 4 Mother, Mother.' She turned herself in the rocking boat. * It is my son James,' she said, and lifting her head found herself alone. She opened her eyes and saw the heaving water a moment, and then more clearly the green carpet of her bedroom, and the red face of her son at the door. ' I am tired of calling you,' he said. ' And have you my coat done ? You know I am on a rush to-night to go out for an appointment.' She rose and passed her hand across her eyes. ' It 's ready,' she said. * I 've sewn on all the buttons ; you may take it at once.' She rose and followed him to the door. There she met John. * Well, little mother,' he smiled, kissing her, 1 and how have you been enjoying yourself to-day ? ' ' Now, I won't wait for a word of criticism,' said Deborah Hayden, as she rose and folded her 36 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY manuscript. ' I know what you men think, that Hanna Drummond meaning women in general should have been content with her lot. That had she gone away in earnest it would have been wrong. Yet, tremble for your thrones. More often than you imagine, we women go in dreams to meet the lovers whose faces you once had, and we wander with them in the lands we once dreamt home was like, until we are called back to our duties by some dull familiar voice. No, I won't listen to a word, because I am a woman and intend to have the last one, and that is Good-night.' ' And if you could not have the last one you would soon make us understand by some other means, like the widow O'Dwyer,' said a voice from a corner of the room. * Who was she, Mr. Macarthy ? Do tell us about her,' cried Deborah Hayden, forgetting her resolution not to stop a moment longer, and sinking into a chair. ' Well, it was told me by an old man named M'Loughlin in Limerick years ago, and I will tell it as he told it to me sitting in his big chair pulling at his pipe.' THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 37 * Those were the queer times,' said old Dan M'Loughlin, filling his pipe and drawing a long pull at it. * I Ve seen a man myself hanged for stealing a bit of a sheep. And now you might kill a man, and it 's ten chances to one you would get off easy. Ay, I '11 tell you about it if you like, when I get a good draw on my pipe. ' He was a lad named Mike O'Dwyer, and was an out-and-out poacher. Anything he could steal tasted sweeter to him than what was honestly come by. There was a great suspicion about the countryside that he did not stop at rabbits and hares. Sheep were missing now and again, and dis- appeared as if the ground had opened and swallowed them. Suspicion was flitting here and there, like an ill bird, and often settled by honest men's doors. ' Well, it flew to the right man at last. One morning, as I was out in my father's fields driving the plough, I saw my laddo running like a hare down the long boreen beside Clonleigh Hill, and I guessed what had happened. The soldiers were stalking him. When they seen him running they sprang from their hiding, and there was the hunt, I can tell you. They nigh caught him at the end of the boreen, but he slipped by them 38 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY and out into the open like a hare. He went across three ploughed fields before they took up on him. Then he headed for the hill like a fool, and I knew all was over with him, for I could see he was dead beat, and not fit for the climb. The others were trained running men, being soldiers,' said old Dan, with a sly glance at my uniform. * They should be. Well, I shouted to him and waved my hands. But it was no use. He rushed on, and discovered his fault when it was too late ; then he turned and ran right back amongst his enemies. What possessed him I can- not tell. He may have thought to get through them, or went blindly, like a hare does, into the mouths of the dogs. And like a hare among dogs they tossed him, and left him for dead. So there was nothing for me to do but to go and tell his widow. ' I stood before the door for a long time trying to find pluck enough to go inside, for you never can tell how a woman will take a thing. She was a big woman with a tongue that was never easy. She and Mike, I often heard, led a cat-and-dog life. They had never done argufying and scold- ing at one another. You would think she would THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 39 be lepping at the news I had to tell her, if you had heard them fighting. But I knew better than to depend on a woman. So I stood at the door looking at her without saying a word, but all the time I was thinking what I would say to break the bad news. * I need not have minded thinking, for the minute she saw me she began as if I had been in the middle of a conversation with her. ' " It 's an ill day for a woman when she marries," said she, " what with mending, and feeding, and looking after himself all day, it 's no life at all, at all. Look at me now," she says, turning herself, so I could see what a fine healthy woman she was ; " would you ever think I was Moll D'Arcy, the gayest girl in the town ? Sure, who would know me ? Isn't it the desolation he has made of me ? " * " I 'm thinking," I said slowly, when she stopped for breath, " he will give you no more trouble now." ' " Is it no more trouble ? " she cried. " While there 's a gasp in him he will give me trouble. In the house or out of it, it 's all the same, trouble will follow him home and roost beside him." 40 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY ' " He has gone on a long journey," I said softly, putting a fill of tobacco into my pipe, and pretend- ing to smoke, for I was uneasy how to get her to understand. "I'm thinking " but the words were not out of my mouth before she commenced again, too full of her own grievances to see that I was trying to tell her something. Her face was red with temper, and she kept cleaning all the plates and pans she had already done hours before, and which were so clean and shining I could see her angry face in them as she took them up one by one. * " So he 's gone off with himself," she cried, " without a good-bye to me, and I getting the dinner for him : the grandeur of him, walking in and out without a word to throw to a dog." And when she said that the old Irish terrier looked up from his seat by the fire for sympathy at her ; " never a word to throw to a dog," says she. " I suppose the police or the soldiers are after him. I expect he has been poaching again, stealing honest men's rabbits, the thief ! He '11 get strung up for it one of these fine days. Mark my words." 1 1 saw there was no use in trying to hint to the woman any longer. I put no hold on women's THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 41 wits at any time, but Moll 'Dwyer was the dullest to take a wink I ever saw. So as Mike was more used to her than myself, I thought I would let him do the telling. I just rose to my feet and took a long pull of the pipe. ' " Come out, and 1 11 take you to him," I said. " He 's beyont on the hill." ' " And is that the long journey he has gone to, Dan M'Loughlin ? " she cried, turning on me like a flash ; but something she saw in my face at last stopped her. She stood, her mouth open with the last shrill word, till it shut on her gasp of dead ! " " Dead as a dog," I said, and the old terrier looked at me and banged the floor with his tail. So before I thought I changed my words, and said, " Dead as mutton." And when I said it the word seemed to tell her all. ' " For sheep-stealing ? " ' I nodded, for I was sorry, she got so white. She stopped a moment without saying a word, and then fell to screeching and crying so the neighbours came in crowds to the door to see what had happened. " Vo, vo," she cried " he never gave me an hour of trouble since I married 42 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY him seven years ago: as good a man as ever stepped the earth. To be strung up now for a dirty old sheep." She threw her apron over her head and began to cry softly behind it. * " There was no harm in the man," said I to comfort her. " With his bits of nets and traps, they should not have minded him. Sure, he never caught anything, the creature." * But that did not please her either, women are so contrary. * " Is it not catch anything ? " she said. " God rest him, sure, I never spent a shilling on meat since I married him, he was that clever with his hands. Ochone ! ochone ! we never had a cross word between us, and now he is gone for ever." * " Come out and bring him home," I said, think- ing it would comfort her to see his body and deck it out for the wake. " The soldiers will be gone, and some of the boys of the town will be bringing him here by this " ; so they all followed me outside and down the long road, till we got to the turn where the hill was in sight. ' There the women let a screech and went down on their knees praying, for they could see poor Mike swinging, and the boys around him trying THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 43 to get him down. It was not long before he was on his way home, carried by four big lads, and they looking all about to keep the tears from falling from their eyes, for Mike O'Dwyer was well liked in spite of his wild ways. But the women raised a keen over him that well might have awakened the dead, and it did that same sure enough ; for when Mike was laid down gently on his bed, and Moll on her knees beside him crying, he raised his head and spoke. ' " That 's an ill tune," says he, " you are all singing." ' Well, the row there was then you may be sure, the women nearly fainting and the men looking as if they had seen a ghost. Moll O'Dwyer was the first to recover herself, and if she didn't give it to him then and there. ' " Oh," says she, " the disgrace to a decent woman, to have a husband who was hanged, mo vrone ; but this is the worst of all your bad acts, Mike O'Dwyer. Oh, but it 's the trouble I have with you always, and the black disgrace. To come into my house, and you just off the gallows. Oh, you robber ! What would my poor father say r May the heavens be his bed if he knew." 44 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY ' Then Mike O'Dwyer sat up on his couch and looked round on us all quite calm, as if he had never been hanged. ' " And who is this woman at all ? " said he, looking at me in such a way that I thought he was a bit mad after his adventure, poor chap. ' " Why, your wife," said she, patting him on the shoulder to give him courage. " Mrs. O'Dwyer and no one else." ' " Oh ! the widow O'Dwyer," says he, giving me a wink. " And what is she hectoring me for ? The widow O'Dwyer," says he again. ' With that she grew very mad with him, and I thought her tongue would never stop ; but in every pause she made for breath he just said calmly, " The widow O'Dwyer, poor soul," till she grew frightened at last and spoke to him softly. ' " Mike," she said, " don't you know your- self? Mike O'Dwyer." ' " I 'm not Mike O'Dwyer," says he. " Mike was hanged this morning ; and I 'm sorry for you, ma'm, you being a widow and your husband dying as he did," says he. * " I 'm your true wife," she sobbed, laying her hand on his. THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 45 1 " You 're the widow O'Dwyer, ma'm," says he, pushing her away, " and I '11 thank you not to put your hand on me, for you have no call on me, at all, at all. For shame on you, ma'm, and your husband not cold, or waked yet, and him hanged on the gallows this day." With that he rose from the bed and strode to the door, leaving us all amazed and laughing, all but the poor wife. * " I 'm a free man," he says, stretching his arms as if to throw off a yoke, and he added with a grin, " I '11 be hanged if I marry ; it 's a dog's life," says he, stepping outside, and the old Irish terrier rose and followed him. " A dog's life, and I 'm done with it," and with that the two of them walked off. ' Poor Mrs. O'Dwyer, seeing her man dis- appear, ran to the door like one demented. " Mike, Mike, come back, mavourneen," says she. " It 's breaking my heart you are with your joking." ' He was a soft man was Mike O'Dwyer, and I suppose he had a weakness for a woman ; at her cry he turned and came to the door. ' " If I was resurrected and came home to you again, widow O'Dwyer," said he, " you would 46 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY never be done nagging at me for getting hanged." ' " I 'd not breathe a word about it," she cried, going down on her knees before him. " Don't leave me, Mike." * " Would you ever cast it up to me that I was only half hanged, or ought to have been hanged, or talk of the gallows to me at all, making my life a misery ? " says he, his eyes growing soft and he looking like a man who had won a hurley match. * " Never," says she, " never as long as sun has light and earth has graves, I swear it you before them all, never a word will I say about what happened to you to-day." ' Well, the end of it was we left them there coo- ing and courting as if it was their wedding day. I had no business their side of the town for a month or so, and saw nothing of the O'Dwyers till then. ' One evening I slipped into their cottage un- beknownst to them, or if they saw they were too busy quarrelling to pay any attention to me. ' " It was a bad day for me when I met you," said he ; " if I could work as fast as you talk," says he, " I 'd be a rich man this day." THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 47 * " Work ! " said she. " I wonder the word does not choke you, you don't know the meaning of it ; you never did a day's work in your life, nor never will." * " It's hard enough work for any man sitting here listening to you," says he, puffing away at his pipe, and enjoying himself, as I could see by the gleam in his eye. " It 's a dog's life I am leading," he said, bending to caress the terrier that lifted its head and slowly winked at him. " Never a cow did you bring to me or a bit of land : I wonder what I saw in you at all, at all?" Mrs. O'Dwyer grew red at that and began to raise her voice. ' " And is it my father's daughter that is not good enough for you, Mike O'Dwyer ? one of the oldest families in Connaught. John D'Arcy of D'Arcy's town. He was none of your common Darcys. He was Mr. D. with an apos- trophy Darcy." ' " He may have been all that," says Mike, " but I 'd as soon he had given me a woman with a cow, or two or three acres of land, and I 'd never have said a word about wanting the apostrophy." ' " And who are you, anyhow," says she in a white rage, " that 's talking? Hav'n't I worn my 48 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY fingers to the bone working for you ? " she held a fat fist into his face. " Hav'n't I done for you this seven year, slaving and toiling, and not a thank-you ? Who are you making allegations on my father's daughter ? A thief, a poacher, a but here she stopped. I could see she remem- bered her promise, and her face grew red with her desire to fling his hanging in his teeth. ' She looked at him where he sat smoking, his eyes daring her to break her word. * " And I took that," says he, nodding at her when she hesitated, " without a gold piece, or even a couple of hens, to cover the expense." ' But this was too much. Without a word Moll slipped off her apron, and snatching a piece of turf from beside the fire, she tied the string of her apron across the middle of the sod ; then using a chair as a mimic gallows, she threw the turf over the back. ' " See here, Mickie," she said, swinging it up and down ; " see here." ' " I thought she 'd get the better of me," said Mick with a roar of mirth as he heard me laugh- ing in the corner. " Trust a woman. Without saying a word too. Come over, acushla," he said, THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 49 putting his hand in his pocket, " till I show what I got you at the fair." * " And is it yourself that 's there, Dan M'Loughlin ? " she said to me softly, " and a lone man still. Why don't you get married and have a home to yourself, like me and Mike here, who never had an angry word between us, and we married this seven years ? " Deborah Hayden laughed as Macarthy finished his story, with a droll turn of his eyes in her direction. ' Now,' said she, ' you are making fun of my sex, so I shall certainly leave you. Mrs. Barnes shall come with me, for I see you do not properly appreciate us. Come, Jenny dear. But where is Mrs. Barnes ? ' A curtain was drawn back from the window, and pretty Jenny Barnes entered the room, her eyes very bright. c I have been sitting on the balcony with Major Macdonald. It is so hot in the room. Your story was just sweet, dear Mrs. Hayden. Are we going to bed ? Well, good-night all.' Major Macdonald bowed them through the 50 THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY door. His eyes were very full of sympathy as they followed the little figure of Mrs. Barnes from the room. When she had gone he sat down, pull- ing his grey moustache, and evidently meditating deeply. ' Poor little thing,' he said softly. Mr. Davi- son looked up from the pipe he was hastily lighting he was glad the women were gone. ' Who ? ' ' That little Mrs. Barnes.' ' Why on earth is she to be pitied ? ' ' What a tragedy her life has been, and what a story for a frail little soul like hers to carry about.' ' And pray what is the story ? ' Mr. Davison laughed softly. ' Do tell us, for I was under the impression she was one of the happiest of women.' Major Macdonald paused for a moment, then began to speak quietly. ' Well, I suppose I may tell it, as it was not told to me in confidence. I was sitting just here watching her as Mrs. Hayden read her manuscript. ' Somehow I seemed to see something very THE COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY 51 pathetic in the turn of the little woman's lips. She looked so pale and forlorn that I thought I would take her out on the balcony and try to cheer her up.' ' Good old major, always soft-hearted/ said some one. The major turned on him an indig- nant look. ' 1 see,' he said, ' you have little sympathy with her : you think her a rather foolish little flirt. I confess I thought so myself for a moment. But now that I know her story, I apologise to her with all my heart.' ' What is that story ? ' Davison asked again. ' Just a moment I thought her a flirt,' con- tinued the major, taking no notice of him : ' when she looked up at me with her big eyes and fumbled at the fastening of the cloak I had put about her.