Katherine would wear the white gown she had worn that night at Clonmere, and before leaving the house she would look into the drawing-room a moment to see that the lamps had been turned down and that the guard was before the fire. He could see her standing there by the door, the light in the hall shining in her hair, her cloak about her shoulders, and she would leave behind her something of herself, fragrant, indefinable, the blessed peace of her presence that he felt now, as he sat there, in the chair that was not his… But it was not any use sitting there, because he had to go away, he had to go to the ship and across the water and not return again, perhaps, for months, for years. It was no use sitting there in this house that did not belong to him.
He got up, and looked for the last time about the room. He touched the piano that was hers, the keys where her fingers had rested. He went over to her desk and saw the neatness of it, the stack of smooth white paper, the little scarlet pen. He wanted something of hers to take with him, and on a sudden impulse he picked up the small black leather volume that was lying on the top of the desk. It was a copy of the New Testament. He put it in his pocket, and going out into the hall, he lifted his coat and his hat from the chair where Thomas had placed them. The hall was deserted. Thomas had gone back to the kitchen.
The grandfather clock ticked slowly in its corner.
It was five minutes to nine. Two hours before the pilot boat would return to the ship. Johnnie opened the front door and again stood looking up and down the empty street. There were other places in Slane where there would be warmth and comfort, places where he might forget the dark, dreary cabin of the Princess Victoria and the grim finality of the labels on his luggage, "Captain John Brodrick. Destination London." A little wind blew round the corner of the street, and the door of Henry's house shut behind him with a slam. Farewell to Slane. Farewell to his country. Johnnie laughed, thinking once more of Aunt Eliza's letter, and turning his coat collar up against the wind, and pulling his hat over his eyes, he began to walk up the street towards the city.
It was to East Grove that the police came, two days afterwards. They arrived while Henry and Katherine were having breakfast, and the inspector asked to speak privately to Mr. Brodrick. Henry came out into the hall immediately, leaving Katherine in the dining-room.
"You are a relative, I believe, sir, of Captain Brodrick?" said the man.
"I am his brother," said Henry. "Is anything the matter?"
The inspector explained to him, in brief words, what had happened. Henry went with him at once.
They were narrow and dark and not of great attraction, the back streets of Slane, and the house to which the inspector brought him was grey, with a cheap, garish look about the beaded curtains at the window. A frightened-faced woman was waiting for them in the hall.
"It's not my fault," she began, on sight of Henry. "I've never had anything happen in my house like this before, and you know it, Mr. Sweeny. You can't get me into trouble about it."
Her voice was shrill and nervous. The inspector bade her hold her tongue. He led Henry upstairs to a bedroom on the second floor, and taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door. The room was in disorder. Johnnie's boots were in one corner, his clothes in another. There were some half-dozen empty whisky bottles, balanced with great nicety, one on top of the other, in the middle of the floor, and round the neck of the highest was a woman's garter, crimson in colour, made of shabby silk. Johnnie himself lay on the bed, half-dressed. He looked in death more peaceful than he had ever done in life. The sullen, angry expression had gone for ever. His eyes were closed, as though he slept, and his black hair was thick and tumbled like a little boy's.
In one hand he clutched an empty bottle, and in the other the New Testament.
BOOK FOUR
Henry, 1858–1874
IT WAS WINTER AGAIN at Clonmere, and the cap of Hungry Hill was white with snow. The sun shone brightly, and there was a crisp, fine tang about the air, a sense of lightness, as though the old, wet melancholy of autumn was laid aside forever and forgotten, while this new cold clarity heralded the spring. The fallen leaves in the park were dry, and crinkled with the frost. The naked trees lifted black branches to the blue sky, and the short grass before the castle was dusted with silver. The tide ebbed swiftly from the creek, the surface of the water shipped with a lively ripple, and the thin smoke from the castle chimneys rose straight in the air like a column.
Tim the coachman drove the carriage round to the front door, and climbing from his seat, stamped up and down before the horses, blowing upon his fingers. It was Sunday, and he was to drive Mr. and Mrs. Henry to the little church at Ardmore, as was their custom. It was a pleasant thing, thought Tim, as he waited for his master and mistress, to have the life about the place natural and normal once more, almost as though the old gentleman himself was alive again, and the first Mr.
Henry and Mr. John and poor Miss Barbara and Miss Jane all back again and living, instead of being, some of them, these thirty years in their graves.
The intervening years seemed to have slipped away, and Tim, who would be sixty next birthday, would often find himself casting his mind back to his early days as stable-boy under old Baird. He would find himself confusing the present generation with the one that had gone before, and he would shake his head and sigh, and bid "Mr.
Henry" guard against the cold air for fear it should bring back his cough, confusing him with the uncle who had been dead for thirty years.
Here he came now, Mr. Henry, his master, dressed for church, with his tall hat in his hand, and his gloves and his stick, looking for all the world as his uncle Henry had looked, all those years ago. And hadn't he the same way with him too, the same winning smile, the laugh, the friendly touch on the shoulder? And he would walk around the place on a Sunday afternoon, with his hands behind his back, in consultation with the agent, just as the old gentleman had done, when he was alive. He rode every morning to the mines too, and drove into Slane once a week, and indeed there was a fixed routine of living that pleased the coachman after so long a spate of muddle and disorder.
How different Mrs. Henry was in every way from the other Mrs. Brodrick, Mr. Henry's mother.
No pride here, no wild temper, no driving of her servants to distraction with the changing orders and the demands she put upon them, but a quiet, sweet reasonableness with every request she made, and a firmness of purpose that made the silly chatterers in the kitchen know their place.
There was peace "at the back" at Clonmere, where there had been nothing but strife and grumbles and discontent for years. She put her touch upon every room in the castle, did Mrs. Henry, and the room was lighter for it.
"You'd say," said the cook, "that she had a healing hand."
Gone was the accumulation of dust and disorder, of litter and rubbish, that Fanny-Rosa had allowed; vanished was the chill discomfort, the grey misery that Wild Johnnie had accepted. The rooms were swept, the fires were lit, the windows flung open to the air. Once more flowers and fruit were brought in to the house, once more the grass was cut, the paths were weeded, the shrubs were pruned, as they had been when Barbara, as eldest daughter of the house, kept Clonmere for her father. The house "belonged" once more.
The mistress stood now on the doorstep beside the master, bidding Tim good-morning, and they looked, thought the coachman, the handsomest couple in the country.