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The Woman Thou Gavest Me: Being the Story of Mary O'Neill, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 4. I Fall In Love - Chapter 56 |
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_ FOURTH PART. I FALL IN LOVE FIFTY-SIXTH CHAPTER
Two motor-cars were waiting for us at the pier, and in a little while we were driving out of Blackwater through congested masses of people who were rambling aimlessly through the principal streets. Our way was across a stone bridge that crossed the harbour at its inner end, and then up a hill that led to a headland overlooking the sea. Within half an hour we drew up at a pair of large gate posts which were much decayed and leaning heavily out of the perpendicular. The chauffeur of the first of our ears got down to open the gate, and after it had clashed to behind us, we began to ascend a very steep drive that was bordered by tall elm trees. It was now almost dark, and the rooks, which had not yet gone off to the mountains, were making their evening clamour. "Well, my dear, you're at home at last, and much good may it do you," said my husband. I made no answer to this ungracious speech, but Alma was all excitement. "So this is Castle Raa! What a fascinating old place!" she said, and as we drove through the park she reached out of the car to catch a first glimpse of the broad terraces and winding ways to the sea which had been reflected in her memory since she was a child. I felt no such anxiety. Never did a young bride approach the home of her husband with less curiosity, but as our motor-car toiled up the drive I could not help seeing the neglected condition of the land, with boughs of trees lying where they had fallen in the storms, as well as broken gates half off their hinges and swinging to the wind. The house itself, when we came in sight of it, was a large castellated building with many lesser turrets and one lofty octagonal tower, covered entirely with ivy, which, being apparently unshorn for years, hung in long trailers down the walls, and gave the whole pile the appearance of a huge moss-covered rock of the sea planted on a promontory of the land. As our car went thundering up to the great hall door nearly the whole of the servants and some of the tenant farmers (under the direction of the tall, sallow man who had been my husband's guardian in former days, and was now his steward) were waiting to welcome us, as well as Lady Margaret Anselm, who was still reserved and haughty in her manner, though pleasant enough with me. My husband nodded to all, shook hands with some, presented Alma to his aunt as "one of Mary's old school friends," (a designation which, as I could see, had gone ahead of her) and then we passed into the house. I found the inside corresponded with the outside in its appearance of neglect and decay, the big square hall having rusty and disjointed armour on its wainscotted walls and the mark of water on the floor, which had come from a glass dome over the well of the stairs, for it had rained while we were on the sea. The drawing-room had faded curtains over the windows, faded velvet on the square sofa and stiff chairs, faded carpets, faded samplers, and faded embroidery on faded screens. The dining-room (the sedate original of my father's rather garish copy) was a panelled chamber, hung round with rubicund portraits of the male O'Neills from the early ones of the family who had been Lords of Ellan down to the "bad Lord Raa," who had sworn at my grandmother on the high road. I felt as if no woman could have made her home here for at least a hundred years, and I thought the general atmosphere of the house was that of the days when spendthrift noblemen, making the island a refuge from debt, spent their days in gambling and their nights in drinking bumpers from bowls of whiskey punch to the nameless beauties they had left "in town." They were all gone, all dead as the wood of the worm-eaten wainscotting, but the sound of their noisy merry-making seemed to cling to the rafters still, and as I went up to my rooms the broad oaken staircase seemed to be creaking under their drunken footsteps. My own apartments, to which Lady Margaret conducted me, were on the southern side of the house--a rather stuffy bedroom with walls covered by a kind of pleated chintz, and a boudoir with a stone balcony that had a flight of steps going down to a terrace of the garden, which overlooked a glen and had a far view of the sea. On the opposite side of the landing outside (which was not immediately off the great staircase though open to the view of it) there was a similar suite of rooms which I thought might be my husband's, but I was told they were kept for a guest. Being left alone I had taken off my outer things and was standing on my balcony, listening to the dull hum of the water in the glen, the rustle of the trees above it, the surge of the sea on the rocks below, the creaking of a rusty weathercock and the striking of a court-yard clock, when I also heard the toot and throb of another motor-car, and as soon as it came up I saw that it contained Aunt Bridget in the half-moon bonnet and Betsy Beauty, who was looking more than ever like a country belle. When I went down to the drawing-room Lady Margaret was pouring out tea for them, and at sight of me Aunt Bridget cried, "Sakes alive, here she is herself!" "But how pale and pinched and thin!" said Betsy Beauty. "Nonsense, girl, that's only natural," said my Aunt Bridget, with something like a wink; and then she went on to say that she had just been telling her ladyship that if I felt lonely and a little helpless on first coming home Betsy would be pleased to visit me. Before I could reply my husband came in, followed shortly by Alma, who was presented as before, as "Mary's old school-fellow"; and then, while Betsy talked to Alma and my husband to his kinswoman, Aunt Bridget, in an undertone, addressed herself to me. "You're that way, aren't you? . . . No? Goodness me, girl, your father _will_ be disappointed!" Just then a third motor-car came throbbing up to the house, and Betsy who was standing by the window cried: "It's Uncle Daniel with Mr. Curphy and Nessy." "Nessy, of course," said Aunt Bridget grumpily, and then she told me in a confidential whisper that she was a much-injured woman in regard to "that ungrateful step-daughter," who was making her understand the words of Scripture about the pang that was sharper than a serpent's tooth. As the new-comers entered I saw that Nessy had developed an old maid's idea of smartness, and that my father's lawyer was more than ever like an over-fatted fish; but my father himself (except that his hair was whiter) was the same man still, with the same heavy step, the same loud voice and the same tempestuous gaiety. "All here? Good! Glad to be home, I guess! Strong and well and hearty, I suppose? . . . Yes, sir, yes! I'm middling myself, sir. Middling, sir, middling!" During these rugged salutations I saw that Alma, with the bad manners of a certain type of society woman, looked on with a slightly impertinent air of amused superiority, until she encountered my father's masterful eyes, which nobody in the world could withstand. After a moment my father addressed himself to me. "Well, gel," he said, taking me by the shoulders, as he did in Rome, "you must have cut a dash in Egypt, I guess. Made the money fly, didn't you? No matter! My gold was as good as anybody else's, and I didn't grudge it. You'll clear me of that, anyway." Then there was some general talk about our travels, about affairs on the island (Mr. Curphy saying, with a laugh and a glance in my direction, that things were going so well with my father that if all his schemes matured he would have no need to wait for a descendant to become the "uncrowned King of Ellan"), and finally about Martin Conrad, whose great exploits had become known even in his native country. "Extraordinary! Extraordinary!" said my father. "I wouldn't have believed it of him. I wouldn't really. Just a neighbour lad without a penny at him. And now the world's trusting him with fifty thousand pounds, they're telling me!" "Well, many are called but few are chosen," said Mr. Curphy with another laugh. After that, and some broken conversation, Aunt Bridget expressed a desire to see the house, as the evening was closing in and they must soon be going back. Lady Margaret thereupon took her, followed by the rest of us, over the principal rooms of the Castle; and it was interesting to see the awe with which she looked upon everything--her voice dropping to a whisper in the dining-room. I remember, as if the scene of carousing of the old roysterers had been a sort of sanctuary. My father, less impressed, saw nothing but a house in bad repair, and turning to my husband, who had been obviously ill at ease, he said: "Go on like this much longer, son-in-law, and you'll be charging two-pence a head to look at your ruins. Guess I must send my architect over to see what he can do for you." Then taking me aside he made his loud voice as low as he could and said: "What's this your Aunt Bridget tells me? Nine months married and no sign yet? Tut, tut! That won't do, gel, that won't do." I tried to tell him not to spend money on the Castle if he intended to do so in expectation of an heir, but my heart was in my mouth and what I really said I do not know. I only know that my father looked at me for a moment as if perplexed, and then burst into laughter. "I see! I see!" he said. "It's a doctor you want. I must send Conrad to put a sight on you. It'll be all right, gel, it'll be all right! Your mother was like that when you were coming." As we returned to the hall Betsy Beauty whispered that she was surprised Mr. Eastcliff had married, but she heard from Madame that we were to have a house-party soon, and she hoped I would not forget her. Then Aunt Bridget, who had been eyeing Alma darkly, asked me who and what she was and where she came from, whereupon I (trying to put the best face on things) explained that she was the daughter of a rich New York banker. After that Aunt Bridget's countenance cleared perceptibly and she said: "Ah, yes, of course! I thought she had a quality toss with her." The two motor-cars had been drawn up to the door, and the two parties had taken their seats in them when my father, looking about him, said to my husband: "Your garden is as rough as a thornbush, son-in-law. I must send Tommy the Mate to smarten it up a bit. So long! So long!" At the next moment they were gone, and I was looking longingly after them. God knows my father's house had never been more than a stepmother's home to me, but at that moment I yearned to return to it and felt like a child who was being left behind at school. What had I gained, by running away from London? Nothing at all. Already I knew I had brought my hopeless passion with me. And now I was alone. _ |
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