"He is not," said the woman, gazing at him suspiciously.
"Oh, I am sorry for that," said John. "I came down to speak to him most particularly."
The woman made no reply, and after waiting a moment, John turned away. Perhaps he had bungled the business after all. He heard the child whisper to her mother, and then she ran out on to the quay.
"My father is staying with my uncle Denny, on account of the sickness," she said. "If you want to speak to him you will find him there. Mother and I have not seen him these two weeks."
John thanked the child, and went back along the quay. Having come down to Doonhaven for the purpose, it was something of an anti-climax to find Sam was not at home, and his good effort made for nothing. The church clock struck four. It was too late to join the others for their picnic. No, he had set himself to the task, and the task might as well be done. He would walk over to Denny Donovan's, and see both brothers at the same time. There was nothing like doing the business thoroughly, now he had made up his mind to it. It was an ideal day for a walk too, the air up on the road to Denmare would be grand after the village.
Once again he left Doonhaven behind him, and the gate-house, and the park, and struck up westward on the road across the moors. His father had won his way, and the road had been widened in places, and now ran straight through to the Denmare river, but John did not notice that much good had been done by it, only that more people came down from the country to Doonhaven on market days and Saints' days. Denny Donovan's public-house-it was hardly more than a shack-was some three miles along the road, a dirty, tumbled-down place, with a few bedraggled hens scratching in the yard behind. Denny's cart was put up in the shed beside the house, and his pony was turned loose on the moor beside the road.
"At any rate," thought John, "he is at home, if Sam is not."
He saw the figure of a woman looking down at him from behind a blind in the upstairs bedroom, and believed that he recognised Mary Kelly, the widow of the unfortunate man who had been shot. His courage began to fail him. Perhaps it was nothing but quixotic foolishness after all that had led him here.
The door of the public entrance was shut, with a bar across it, and John went round the yard to the back. It was odd of Denny Donovan to close his door against possible customers. More likely than not he had run out of liquor, and had been unable to go into Mundy to replenish his store.
John knocked on the door, and, gaining no response, boldly lifted the latch and walked in. There was nobody below, but he could hear sounds of movement overhead in the bedroom. The public bar had a grey, neglected air about it. There was dust everywhere, and on the bar itself two or three unwashed glasses that looked as if they had stood there for days. He thumped on the bar with his fist, and after a moment or two he heard footsteps coming down the rickety stairs, and Sam Donovan stood before him. He was wearing a night-shirt stuffed into a pair of breeches, and was unshaven. He stood staring at his visitor, and began scratching his ear and half smiling in the old fawning way that was his mannerism.
"Good-day, Sam," said John, holding out his hand, which the other took, after a moment's hesitation.
"I've thought for some time I should like a talk with you, and so I went down to your shop this afternoon, but your wife sent me on here. I gathered you had not been well."
"Ah, it's nothing much that ails me, Mr.
Brodrick, it's Denny that has had the sickness, and Mary and I came out here to nurse him, They say he caught it from drinking bad water up at Mundy, when we were witnessing there at the Assizes."
"I'm sorry for that."
"Would you come up and speak to him? Sure, he's in bed, but that's no matter, and he can speak now the fever has left him."
John followed Sam Donovan upstairs, and was shown into a small, stuffy bedroom, the same at which Mary Kelly had been standing when he arrived. The windows were tightly closed, and the air was appalling.
Sam's brother Denny was lying in bed, and his widowed sister was sitting beside him. She had a black lace cap on her head, which John could swear she was not wearing when he saw her at the window. Denny Donovan looked thin and wretched. Whatever was the truth of the story about the bad water of Mundy, at least he had drunk something that had not agreed with him.
"You're in a poor way, I hear, Denny," said John.
"I'm easier now than I was, Mr.
John," said the man, watching him over the bed-clothes, "but the fever had me racked for days and it's a surprise to me that I am here at all, after what I have suffered. And poor Mary here, having just put her dear husband in the grave, thinks nothing of the infection, nor Sam either, but both of them come out here to tend me. There is affection for you, between brother and brother."
"Yes, indeed," said John, remembering how some few years ago he had seen Sam belabouring Denny on New Year's Day, calling him a rogue and a devil, both brothers having celebrated too freely the passing of the year. "And since we are on the subject of affection, I must tell you what I have come to see you about. First of all, I am sorry for that wretched accident where your husband was killed, Mrs. Kelly, and I want you to believe it."
"He was a fine man," said the widow. "You would not see another the same, not this side of Paradise."
"It was a sad business," said Sam. "Here's poor Mary likely to starve, and she with no sons to support her. It's little Denny or I can do for her either, being poor men, with families of Our own. It's what we were saying only this afternoon, that it would be a saintly act if some kind gentleman should befriend her, but where is one to be found in the country?"
"I would never have given the blunderbuss to Thomas Dowding to carry had I thought he would use it," said John.
"It was for ornamental purposes," said Denny.
"He liked to parade it before people. That's what I said to you at the time, Sam."
"If Mrs. Kelly is really in need of help, I will willingly give it," said John.
"And don't you think the time has come when we might forget the old quarrel between our families, and make it up? I am the first to admit that much of the provocation has been on our side. We have been lucky, through one circumstance or another, and you have been unfortunate. Shall we say no more about it, and all four of us shake hands?"
There was a moment's silence. The widow sighed deeply, and San? Donovan scratched his ear.
"How much would you be willing to allow my sister?" he said.
"It depends what she's worth to both of you,"
John replied, and getting up, he went and stood by the window and opened it, breathing in the scented moorland air.
He had been an idiot to come after all. They had not understood his gesture. They thought that he wanted to buy them off from making further disturbances. It served him right. How his father would scorn him if he knew what he had done. A fool and his money are soon parted… Meanwhile the brothers had been conferring with their sister.
"Mary thinks she could manage on five shillings a week," said Sam.
"Very well," said John, "I will see that she gets it." He put his hand in his pocket, and drew out some coins. "This is the first instalment," he said.
"You had better open an account at the Post Office; the money will be safer there."
"Fetch Mr. John a drink, Sam," said the sick brother, "to celebrate the occasion. There's a bottle of whisky in the cupboard, and here is a glass for him. I'd join you but for this fever; when the spirit goes down me you would say it was molten lead, so swollen is my throat."
This is, thought John, the most senseless moment of my very senseless life, to be drinking whisky with the Donovans, and preparing to keep Mary Kelly for life. I don't think I shall have the courage even to tell Fanny-Rosa.
The widow appeared to have recovered her spirits, and, joining John in his glass of whisky, asked after the children.