"What?"
"Your precious German arms. A whole shipload of them. Now they"re at the bottom of Queenstown harbour. Oh, you idiots, you dolts-But tomorrow-Pat, you"re mad."
"What"s this about German arms?"
"You didn"t know? A ship crammed with arms for you from Germany-G.o.d knows how they did it-I heard it all from MacNeill-got through the blockade-they were disguised as Norwegian fishermen or something-got as far as Tralee harbour-and there they sat for nearly two days waiting for some of your people to pay some attention to them! G.o.d, how can you have been so stupid? The Germans do this absolutely marvellous thing for you and you have to m.u.f.f it. Why, why, why didn"t somebody get those arms ash.o.r.e? But no one seems even to have noticed the wretched Germans! G.o.d, what were your people thinking of? And then they felt they had to move and they sailed a bit along the coast and ran smack into a British sloop which took them into Queenstown harbour. Even then the Germans were beautiful, beautiful-the captain got everyone off and blew his ship up under the nose of the Royal Navy! My G.o.d, the Germans know how to do things. But they might have known the Irish would mess up their end of it. All that stuff sitting in Tralee bay and no one there to land it! G.o.d, what a nation of dunces!"
Pat turned away. He was silent for a moment. "Well, that"s gone."
"Yes, it"s gone all right! And they"ve got Cas.e.m.e.nt."
"Cas.e.m.e.nt? But Cas.e.m.e.nt isn"t in Ireland."
"He is now. He"s in the R.I.C. barracks at Tralee. The Germans landed him from a submarine and he walked straight into the arms of the police."
"Oh G.o.d," said Pat. "Cas.e.m.e.nt." He sat down heavily in a chair. "They"ll hang him." He covered his face with his hands.
Christopher was in a state of intense excitement which he hardly himself understood. He had comforted Kathleen, but after she had gone he had suddenly felt quite certain that she was right. MacNeill evidently knew nothing of it, but it now seemed to him obvious that if violence was planned MacNeill would know nothing of it. Something was going to happen. The certainty came upon him not as a thought-out conclusion but more like a physical visitation, making him leap to his feet and gasp and tremble; and like a man for whom an ambiguous picture has abruptly shifted he saw only the new shape and could not now recapture the old.
Christopher had always played the cynic in political discussions. But in fact, though this would not have led him to lift a finger himself, he felt a strong romantic sympathy with the whole tradition of rebellion in Ireland and with the Sinn Feiners as the present representatives of that tradition. He loved the history of Ireland as if it were a personal possession; and although he freely mocked the person of the "tragic woman", there was more than a touch of heated gallantry in his reaction to the whole miserable story. He enjoyed here an indignation which he kept entirely private. Like many scholars who ostentatiously eschew the field of action, he had a strongly developed sense of the heroic. While with the sensibility of an artist he apprehended an epic splendour always latent in the tragedy of Ireland.
Now he felt in the most terrible confusion. His misery, his fury at learning the news about the German arms, made him realize how utterly he identified himself with the rebels. He was desolated too by the plight of Cas.e.m.e.nt, a man whom he greatly admired. His heart was already in revolt. Yet he knew too that whatever happened now could only be another miserable failure. He had lightly agreed to Kathleen"s request to "use logic" with Pat; but now that he saw the boy in front of him, illuminated in Christopher"s sensitive vision by the bright light of history, he could not think what to say, nor what to do with the sudden tumult of energy with which the new situation had filled him.
"Yes, they"ll hang Cas.e.m.e.nt," he said to Pat. "They"ll hang you all. If you want to end your young life on an English gallows, you"re certainly going the right way about it."
Pat lifted his head and smiled slightly. "Don"t worry. They won"t hang us, they"ll shoot us. After all, we are soldiers."
"They won"t treat you as soldiers. They"ll treat you as murderers. They"ll treat you as rats."
"They"ll soon find out we"re soldiers. Where did you hear this about Cas.e.m.e.nt? I suppose it"s true?"
"I heard it at MacNeill"s. I"m very sorry about Cas.e.m.e.nt. But, oh, that you should have m.u.f.fed those arms-!"
"I don"t understand about the arms ship," said Pat, "but our men in Tralee will rescue Cas.e.m.e.nt."
"You won"t have time. You"ll all be disarmed by tonight."
"Then we"ll all be fighting by tonight. You"ll keep your mouth shut about what my mother said just now?"
"Yes, I will, G.o.d forgive me, but I think you"re insane."
"I don"t think they will jump on us before tomorrow. We may be stupid, but they"re stupider. What is it, Mother?"
Kathleen had opened the door. She went up to her son and struck him fiercely upon the arm. "Someone has just seen Cathal going away down the road with a rifle-"
Pat put her aside and left the room at a run.
Chapter Eighteen.
PAT had put off solving the problem, had put it off because he could see no solution. In a way he simply could not think about Cathal at all, could not treat him as an object of rational reflection, could not put to himself questions of the form would this or that be "advantageous" to Cathal. His brother had always been as close and as connected to him as his own hand. He had always a.s.sociated Cathal with his view of his own life as if they looked out through the same eyes; and his long tyranny over him had been a form of self-discipline, and experience of living in two bodies. There would be, at moments, the sudden apprehension of the boy"s separateness, making him gasp with surprise as at a felicitous audacity. Then as they returned again into each other Pat would feel, in an easing and enlargement of time, his own childhood not only preserved and continued, but perfected.
Would he not have risked Cathal if they were to climb a mountain together or swim a flooded river together? He had indeed so risked him. But this was simply a way of risking himself, and in those open solitudes their joint strength and their youth had seemed invincible. Pat had always so closely a.s.sociated Cathal in his mind with all his decisions, they had seemed to exist together in perfect unity at a level only a little below that at which they constantly bickered. Pat had indeed been aware of this unity simply as a sense of including his brother. So it was that even in this thing he had seemed to bring Cathal along with him, to bring him absolutely to the threshold over which he was now so determined not to take him.
Pat had of course asked himself if it were not really best after all to keep Cathal with him, to have him, in whatever ensued, positively beside him and under his eye. Then at least he could be sure the boy would do nothing insane: which if left uncontrolled he would be certain to do. But Pat knew at once how unrealistic this idea was. He could not help seeing the coming events in a heroic light; but he also knew, though not with his heart, that when these events arrived they would be incoherent and terrible. He would simply not be able to keep an eye on Cathal or to protect him. And to be less than single-minded would be a gross failure of duty.
Pat was well aware that he himself, at Cathal"s age, would have reacted in exactly the same way, and he asked himself whether, in trying to keep him out of the conflict, he were not somehow tampering with the boy"s honour. But he could not sufficiently make sense of this idea or see Cathal as having, in this respect, separate rights. If the boy had been a little older, even two years older, even perhaps one year older, the sacrifice would have had to be consented to, it would have had to be accepted as part of the ordinary world. Where he was together with his brother was still the sacred land of childhood.
It was not exactly that he wanted Cathal to survive him, that he wanted to keep that most precious piece of himself out of danger; nor did he care at all about his mother"s need for sons. He had a deeper, more physical, sensation of being, where Cathal was, entirely exposed and naked, and his instinct was to hide and cherish this unprotected part. He wanted to stand entirely in front of Cathal, to shield him completely, to press him back behind him into a place of safety. He was ready to expose himself to the English bullets, he had thought about them often enough, and it was as if he were already physically hardened, a veteran of the imagination. But the idea that any harm might come to his brother made him writhe and shrink. It made an utter coward of him.
When Pat emerged into Blessington Street there was no sign of Cathal anywhere and Pat began to run down the hill into a light misty rain which was materializing softly out of the warm air. It occurred to him that Cathal might have gone to confession at Saint Joseph"s Church in Berkeley Road. It was a time when confessions were heard there. And that day all over Dublin, as intimations of the morrow spread wider through all ranks of the movement, men in green uniforms were to be seen queuing up outside the confessionals. Pat himself had been to confess that morning; and it was possible that Cathal, apeing here his brother, or whichever of Connolly"s men was his latest mentor, had had the same idea.
Pat shouldered his way through the door into the stale incense-laden darkness of the church and peered about him. The East window glimmered faintly, bleakly, above the Lenten simplicity of the high altar, and between vegetable pillars the many lights of adoration flickered, blue before the Queen of Heaven, red for Saint Joseph, and yellow for the Little Flower. A few old women, black murmuring bundles, crouched or trotted here and there, but the body of the church was full of men, and there was a deep buzz of men"s voices, only just quiet enough for reverence. Looking about him, Pat saw everywhere the uniforms of the I.C.A. and the Volunteers. The interior of the church seemed like a busy encampment. The chairs, which had been moved out of their neat rows, stood higgledy-piggledy, piled with knapsacks, with rifles leaning up against them; and the men waited in long patient lines beside the confessionals, or knelt among the chairs or out in the open aisles. The gathering seemed impromptu, unorganized, yet strangely solemn. The men bowed their heads low, or when they lifted them threw them back in a free way and their faces were clear and relaxed and seemed to shine in the darkness. The men smiled at each other as they pa.s.sed, took hands in silence, or spoke briefly, holding each other"s shoulders. There was a sense of happiness in the church, a sense of all sins forgiven.
Pat pushed his way forward, brushing against people that he knew. As he pa.s.sed the confessionals he scanned the army boots of various types whose soles were displayed while their owners murmured quietly to the priest. But in fact the queues were so long that Cathal would not have had time to get to the front. He pa.s.sed through into the side chapel where innumerable candles, dazzling not illuminating, mingled with the dark without dispelling it, and G.o.d"s Blessed Mother, m.u.f.fled from head to foot in purple cloth, leaned over him as he scanned the kneeling figures. Eyes which did not see him were lifted in the darkness and rosaries clicked, b.u.mped on wooden chairs or trailed upon the floor as hands fell to sides in unconscious gestures of self-surrender. Cathal was not there.
Pat pushed his way back again through the murmuring shifting crowd, reached the door, and jostled out again, shading his eyes, into the very pale clear light of the late afternoon. The rain had just stopped and there was a diffused sunny atmosphere, thick and low, over Dublin, which made the pavements shine cruelly and outlined every brick in the facades of the houses. Pat started to run down the hill toward Rutland Square. Now he must go to Liberty Hall.
Thick and huge, gross with imperial confidence, the Pillar rose above Sackville Street, and from its summit Nelson gazed thoughtfully over the head of the Liberator to the Liffey and the masts of the ships and the open sea. The street was full of people, the usual Sat.u.r.day crowds, ambling the pavements with deliberate slowness and trailing in slow mobs to and from the trams. Under the low ceiling of sunny light the voices of women and children were mainly heard, producing a continuous animated clacking. As Pat forced himself along, the surge of cheerful faces resisted him, clear detailed little human surfaces, glowing in the brightening air, thrust close up against him and jerked past. Frantic now with need and fear, Pat struggled on through the herd of happy people. He hated them all. Tomorrow this cackling would be put to silence and he would be separated from the like of these by a line of English soldiers. As he came to the middle of the street he looked quickly across at the Post Office.
Near to the Liffey the crowds were less dense and Pat turned to the left along the quay. The sun was coming out properly now, patterning the pavements with reflections and shadows, and there was a sky of the faintest feeblest blue above the glistening wet dome of the Customs House. As Pat approached Beresford Place he saw the gaping doorway of the b.u.t.t Bar and heard the sound within of drunken men singing the Soldier"s Song. Groups of men in Citizen Army uniform were standing about in the roadway. On the facade of Liberty Hall the dripping banner still proclaimed We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.
Then Pat saw Cathal, standing on the pavement opposite, underneath the shadow of the Loop Line railway, talking to one of Connolly"s men. He was holding the rifle awkwardly, like an acolyte holding a very large candle, and conversed with the man with a solemn air, nodding his head in an exaggerated way. As Pat drew near the Citizen Army man turned away, leaving Cathal, and made for the main entrance of Liberty Hall. Cathal stood still for a moment looking down at the rifle, hesitating whether to rest the b.u.t.t of it upon the wet pavement. Pat recognized the gun as his own crack Italian rifle which Cathal had evidently purloined from his room. Pat crossed the road at a run and almost cannoned into his brother. He took the rifle lightly out of his hand and struck Cathal hard across the side of the face. Then he took Cathal"s wrist in a firm grip and began to pull him back in the direction of the quay. Cathal resisted him and began to sob.
As Pat forced him along, ignoring the sobs, a large group of uniformed men were seen approaching Liberty Hall at the double. They thrust Pat and Cathal back against the wall as they pa.s.sed, and Pat saw the figure of James Connolly in the midst of them. As the bright light fell upon Connolly Pat felt a sudden shock of apprehension. Connolly"s face expressed an appalled shocked grief.
Following the group of men with Connolly came three Volunteer officers, all known to Pat and senior to himself. As he pressed forward now, still automatically dragging Cathal with him by the wrist, one of these, a man called Owen Magillivray, saw Pat and at once beckoned to him. Magillivray"s face expressed the same misery and shock. Pat and Cathal followed the Volunteer officers in through the door of Liberty Hall and on into a dark office where a number of men were talking in low agitated voices. Magillivray, shouldering the others aside, half pushed Pat into a corner of the room. He said nothing to him, but thrust a folded piece of paper into his hand. Pat fumbled it open and read. Owing to the very critical position, all orders given to Irish Volunteers for tomorrow, Easter Sunday, are hereby rescinded and no parades, marches or other movements of Irish Volunteers will take place. Each individual Volunteer will obey the order strictly in every particular. The signatures were those of MacNeill, MacDonagh and de Valera. The rising had been cancelled.
Chapter Nineteen.
PAT DUMAY propped his bicycle against the wall and looked up at the darkened house. The moon, shining through a brown haze, was a large vague blur of light, seeming to move rapidly through the disturbed night sky. In this faint illumination Rathblane looked thicker, squatter, more like a fortress than a country house. Its shadow, an indeterminate hump or blot of darkness hanging from the walls, contained half of the expanse of rough gra.s.s, while on the other half, just fading into visibility, the sheep, grouped near the steps, were motionless, fuzzy, seemingly spherical. The windows of the house, very lightly smirched by the moon, bore upon their blackness little streaks and drips of light, as if some liquid silver had been thrown upon them and almost all washed away. Although it was not yet midnight the house and the countryside were deep, not exactly in sleep, but in trance. There was a profound silence in which the wall, the trees, the great black and grey block of the house, seemed submerged, more completely full and present than by daylight, as if the night and the stillness had filled them to the brim and weighted them with a quieter, denser element. The plantation beyond, faintly animate, seemed to breathe without moving, not exactly visible, but perceived in some further solidifying of murky air. Pat fingered the key in his pocket like a man fingering a weapon.
What had happened in the last two days in Dublin Pat had by now largely discovered. On Thursday a rumour had reached Bulmer Hobson that an armed rising was planned for Easter Sunday. He went at once to MacNeill, who was still of course the nominal head of the Volunteers, and in the early hours of Good Friday morning he and MacNeill visited Pea.r.s.e, who admitted to them that the rumour was true. MacNeill said, "I will do everything I can to stop it, except ringing up Dublin Castle." There was a violent and inconclusive dispute after which MacNeill went home. A little later Pea.r.s.e went with MacDermott and MacDonagh to MacNeill"s house to argue with him again. MacNeill refused to see Pea.r.s.e and MacDonagh, but allowed MacDermott to come in. MacDermott told MacNeill that the rising was now unavoidable and that the real command of the Volunteers was no longer in MacNeill"s hands. He also told him of the German arms which were about to be landed in Kerry, and pointed out that after the arrival of the arms the British were certain to attempt to disarm the Volunteers, and this would mean a fight anyway. So it was better to strike first. MacNeill gave in and agreed to sanction the rising.
On Sat.u.r.day morning came the news of the catastrophe to the German arms ship. MacNeill began to waver. He was visited by the O"Rahilly and other officers who were opposed to the rising. At last he went to Saint Enda"s to see Pea.r.s.e and there was bitter argument. After that MacNeill went home and wrote out countermanding orders which were dispatched with couriers to the Volunteer organization throughout the country. He prepared a statement, cancelling all "manoeuvres", which was to be published in the Sunday Independent next day, and cycled personally to the office to deliver it. Finally he ordered MacDonagh, as commandant of the Dublin Brigade, to inform all his men officially of the cancellation. MacDonagh, who judged that by now the plan was irrevocably spoilt, agreed, and sent out a Brigade Order over his own signature and that of his adjutant de Valera. It was the end of the enterprise.
"If we don"t fight now, all we have left to hope and pray for is that an earthquake will come and swallow Ireland up, and our shame." These words of James Connolly expressed what Pat felt, what they all felt, in those amazed and disappointed hours. Pat went back to Blessington Street. He sent Cathal on ahead to tell his mother. He could not have endured her happy relieved face. He climbed to his room and shut the door and fell face downwards on his bed.
It seemed that life was over. He had only, ever, had but one purpose and now that had been quite suddenly twisted away from him. It was s.n.a.t.c.hed, gone, quickly, meanly, quietly, and without remedy. Pat knew that what was lost here could not be retrieved. If they did not act at once they could not act at all. The impetus would be spent, the movement discredited, the moment missed. There was to have been martyred blood, but now everything would collapse into absurdity and those who had called them shirkers and dreamers would have been proved right. The English would disarm them. Pat, who had felt that he would surrender his weapons with his life, now felt that it no longer mattered whether he kept his gun or not. Everything had been betrayed.
He cursed the leaders, he cursed Pea.r.s.e. He grieved unutterably for Cas.e.m.e.nt. MacNeill ought to have been arrested days ago. Why could the Irish get nothing right? Such dunces deserved their slavery. But it was no use cursing and grieving. There was the rest of the day to be got through, there was the rest of his life to be got through, without a plan or purpose. He sat up and stared about him. He felt as if he had been pushed through a very small aperture into a completely other world. He felt giddy and unable to focus his eyes upon the little room which had become an entirely different place. He had nodded for a moment and awakened in prison. The rush of time in his ears had ceased and there was empty s.p.a.ce and idleness and silence. Leaning his head forward in his hands Pat felt that he could hardly bear to go on being conscious. He wanted death.
How and when the idea of Millie came into his mind he was not sure. Somewhere in the flashing centre of his unfocused gaze her image had come to be, like a deity seen by a saint in an ellipse of light. The wretchedness of his body demanded violence, the whip, the brand. Thought, even consciousness, must be choked in feeling, drowned in pain. He recalled how Millie had offered herself, and the disgust he had felt for her, and yet also, as it seemed to him now, how in a totally horrible way she had attracted him. She was a s.l.u.t, not exactly a woman, but a kind of degraded boy. He pictured her as dirty, sallow, dishevelled, stinking. She had said that she would be waiting for him in her bed, and he pictured her bed. Could he force himself to that?
He sat very quiet now. If this was despair it was a deeper pit than any he had ever dreamed of. And then it seemed to him almost like a duty to go there, to perform this, as it appeared quite final, act of will. There would be an action and an ending after all, not this well-lighted idleness but a swift rush into the dark. This would be the last triumph of his will over his fastidious mind, and over the foul animal of his body, for although he now desired Millie he knew that it was only by pure volition that he could so degrade himself. He went downstairs and found his bicycle.
Now that he had reached Rathblane, desire and cool intent had fused into a single thrust. He wanted Millie as an enemy, a victim, a quarry. What she had asked for she would get. He moved forward through the wet gra.s.s toward the steps, bringing out the key. It was fortunate that he had provided himself with a key to Rathblane. He did not want to be seen by the servants, not because of any discretion, he was far beyond discretion, but because he did not wish the momentum of his action to be checked. He edged the big key into the lock and the door gave quietly in front of him.
Pat was fairly familiar with the interior of Rathblane but he did not know which was Millie"s bedroom. He did not want any apparitions of screaming housemaids. He guessed that it would be safe to try the big bow-windowed room above the drawing-room. He began very cautiously to mount the stairs which creaked at every step. It was extremely dark and the darkness seemed to be getting inside his eyes and mouth. For a moment he felt stifled as if the black air were foul with soot. He paused on the landing trying hard to see and made out the window with difficulty. The moon must be obscured now, and there was a soft hissing sound of rain. Something white glimmered near by, and reaching out his hand Pat touched the cold smooth globe of an oil lamp. He struck a match and lit the lamp, still breathing hard, and turned it up slowly. Furniture, flowers, pictures and the half-curtained window with its rainy whisper, came into shadowy being about him.
He had no qualms about waking Millie suddenly. She was not the kind of woman who would scream. In fact, he was so dazed with his own purposes that he hardly conceived that he would surprise her. He moved across the landing carrying the lamp and very quietly opened a door. He leaned through, holding the light above him, and saw a small empty room, perhaps a dressing-room, with the low embers of a fire in the grate. There was a smell of turf and a slight smell of whiskey. Some clothes lay untidily upon a sofa beside the fire. At the far side of the room there was another door.
Pat closed the first door carefully behind him and crossed the room. He was gasping for breath as his hand touched the handle of the second door. As the door moved and the dark aperture widened before him he lifted the lamp high and tried to murmur Millie"s name. At once, in the sudden wavering light, he discovered a bed. And a second later he saw that there were two people in it. Millie was not alone.
Pat closed the door abruptly and stepped back. He put the lamp down on a table. He covered his eyes and shook his head to and fro. He felt shocked, ashamed and stupid, and intensely hurt, though whether this was pain for damage he had received or damage he had done he was not sure. Stupidity had come upon him like a physical condition, like an a.s.s"s head. He could have taken hold of Millie without a thought for her mind or her heart. But now he was suddenly related to her differently, shocked into some more childish puritanism. He thought, I have been made an utter fool of. He had not conceived of a rival, that a rival could exist. When Millie had said that she would be waiting for him he had believed her quite simply, quite naively. He had imagined her like a helpless quarry, like a victim tied to a post. Now in an instant he had been robbed of his active role, reduced to a gaping spectator, a shameful watcher. He had expected, he had wanted, violence and pain, not muddle.
He wondered if he should not just go away straight out of the house, and he pictured himself going, but his body stood there stiff and paralysed. Then as he still stood, almost at attention, and uncovered his eyes, the door of the bedroom opened and Millie came out, wearing a white frilled dressing-gown.
The appearance of Millie, the movement of the door, made Pat suddenly aware of his rival as an individual. Who was in there with her? But he could not feel angry. He felt humiliated and utterly, primitively, shocked. That another should do that was simply something horrible.
Millie, not looking at him, moved to the lamp and turned it up. The white scalloped frills of the silky gown dragged slowly upon the carpet. She leaned over the fire, thrust a long spill into the embers, and lit another lamp. Then she faced him.
Millie looked unfamiliar. Her hair, which he had never seen undone, fell in thin dark sheets about the shoulders of her gown and down on to her breast, making her look like a young girl, vulnerable, caught. Her plump face wore an expression of rueful, quizzical sadness. With the conscious dignity of a youthful princess facing her executioner, she seemed perfectly calm.
"What a pity, what a very great pity. If I had known you might come I would have been more than ready. I despaired of you too soon." She spoke in a detached way, as if to herself, as if knowing the words could not have much significance for him.
Pat stared at her and then looked down at the floor. One bare foot, half emerged beneath the frilly hem, seemed to clutch the carpet like a clenching hand. He had no way of dealing with her now, he felt like a child. He was almost ready to say that he was sorry.
"How did you get in, Pat?"
"I had a key of the place," he said in a hoa.r.s.e low voice.
"Ah well. I know this can never be mended or forgiven or even explained. But I think I regret it more than anything that has ever happened to me. I did not conceive that you might come. If you had given me the least hint I would have been eternally patient. I most bitterly regret not having been alone when you came, and I shall regret it forever." Millie spoke softly, but very slowly and clearly.
"Sure I-" Pat started. He could not face her. He could not feel angry. He felt the hurt confused ashamed resentment of a child who, without understanding, has spoilt some grown-up plan. He half turned as if to go.
"I don"t want to act stupidly now," said Millie, speaking more quickly. "I know we can"t talk now. But your having come, it"s so important. If there was any satisfaction I could give you I would undergo anything. I suppose it"s hopeless, but I can"t help saying-"
"Who"s that in there?" said Pat. Even this question, which should have been brutal, was broken, hang-dog. He stared at the closed bedroom door.
Millie hesitated. Then she said, "Well, I"ll give you this, and remember that I gave it to you." She walked over to the door and opened it wide: "Come out, Andrew."
Andrew Chase-White, clad in shirt and breeches, emerged from the bedroom and leaned against the jamb of the door. He was very pale and shuddering slightly. He too appeared entirely different. He stared Pat full in the face with a look of dazed bleak misery.
Millie said, "I"m sorry, Andrew. I"m sorry, Pat. There"s nothing more I can say." Then she added, "All the same, it"s quite an achievement, isn"t it," and gave a short laugh.
The two young men gazed at each other. Then Pat turned abruptly and left the room. He half fell down the stairs in the dark and found the front door and the moist night air. The rain had stopped and the moon shone clearly through a jagged gap in the clouds. The figure of a man materialized close in front of him upon the steps. Pat thrust the man violently aside and heard him fall with an exclamation into the long gra.s.s. Without looking back, Pat reached his bicycle where it stood against the wall. He now saw, revealed by the brighter moon, two other bicycles near it. He swung his left hand hard against the wall, and swung it again and then a third time, until the moonlight showed a dark stain upon the stone.
Chapter Twenty.
CHRISTOPHER BELLMAN had suddenly decided that he absolutely must see Millie. After her wonderful "yes" to him, he had felt happy and at peace and quite content not to see her for a while. He had felt her to be delightfully stored up and safe, a prize reserved and labelled, a perfume sealed, and he had returned to his work and felt more serene, he thought, than ever in his life. This serenity had been disturbed by two things. First, he had been extremely excited and upset by the news of the projected rebellion, which had been followed so soon by the news of its cancellation. This sudden glimpse of another Ireland, so close and yet so hidden, filled him with a distress which seemed like guilt. For a second he had felt the warm quick movement of Irish history risen out of books alive, alive-o. He was stirred, magnetized, then disappointed, relieved. The second thing was that Frances, later that afternoon, had told him that she was not going to marry Andrew. Then it became essential to see Millie.
He set off on his bicycle and would have arrived at Rathblane earlier in the evening, only just as he was beginning to get into the mountains he had a puncture. He left the bicycle and walked on, imagining that the distance was shorter than it was. Then it became dark and he missed his way. When, very tired and drenched with rain he at last reached Millie"s front door he was extremely startled at being jumped upon by a man suddenly issuing from the doorway. As he picked himself up it seemed that the man, who had now faded into the moonlight, was Pat Dumay. He went in through the open door.
The hall was very dark and as soon as he came in it seemed to him that someone who was standing in the darkness moved away, with a soundless displacement of air, into one of the rooms. Almost at once a moving light was seen up above and Millie appeared, wearing a white gown. She began to glide quickly down the stairs carrying the lamp, her gown flowing out behind her, her loose hair lifted. When she was halfway down the lamp light showed her Christopher and she stopped abruptly.
"Millie, what on earth"s happening? Somebody rushed out at me. I thought it was-"
"h.e.l.lo, Christopher", said Millie. "Good evening." She put the lamp down on the stairs and sat down beside it. Then she began to laugh helplessly. She rocked quietly to and fro moaning with laughter.
"I"m sorry I"ve come so late," said Christopher. "I"d have got here much earlier only I got a puncture and had to walk the last bit. But, Millie, what-"
Millie stopped laughing. "Please, Christopher, would you go into the drawing-room and wait there? I"ll put on some clothes and join you in a few minutes." She went back up the stairs taking the lamp with her and leaving Christopher in darkness.
Christopher fumbled his way to the drawing-room door and fell through it, knocking his head on the big Chinese screen whose position just inside the door he had forgotten. There was no fire and the room smelt of damp textile and turf ash. He stood still until he could discern the squares of the windows and shuffled towards them. There was a sound of scuffling overhead and he thought he heard voices.
Christopher was feeling very confused. During his long walk along the dark mountain road he had been all the time anxious simply to arrive. He disliked walking. The mountains were frightening at night, there were sounds, presences. He had hurried on, looking forward to finding Millie up, a blazing fire, a welcoming gla.s.s of whiskey. But the uphill walk had taken such a long time. And now here he was, hustled away, left in the dark and the cold, not looked after in the least. And who was that person who had rushed out of the door and knocked him down? He realized that his arm was hurting from the fall and his head was aching from the encounter with the Chinese screen. Was it Pat Dumay? What was he doing bursting out of the house as if the devil was after him? And who was the mysterious moving figure in the hallway? And what was all that curious scuffling going on in the room above? Christopher felt very puzzled and very ill-used. He pawed several tables looking for matches but only succeeded in overturning something which fell on to the floor with a crash. It sounded as if it was broken. He began to feel his way back to the door.
Before he could reach it Millie came in with the lamp. She was wearing her plainest grey walking-dress with a red woollen shawl over her head. She put the lamp down, carefully pulled the curtains, and then lit another lamp.
"Please sit down, Christopher."
"I"m so sorry, I"ve broken that vase. I was looking for the matches."
"It doesn"t matter. It"s only Ming or something. For G.o.d"s sake, Christopher, sit down."
"My dear Millie, I"m only too anxious to sit down once you"ve given me time to take off this extremely damp mackintosh. And I think you might give me some whiskey. I"ve had a very long walk."
"Oh yes, of course, whiskey, there"s some in the cupboard. Wait a moment. Here you are."
"Millie, is something funny going on here? Was that Pat Dumay? And is there somebody else in the house? I thought I saw someone in the hall as I came in."
"No, there"s no one here but me. The maids all sleep in the annexe."