A reckless Puritan

Chapter I

Eustace Clint stared through the window of a first-class carriage of the Great Southern and Western Railway, and decided that Ireland was a fine country, and that there was comparatively little wire in the landscape. He appreciated scenery from the point of view of a hunting man and, after the fashion of all true huntsmen, watched the fences as he sped along, riding a phantom hunt, with his feet on the cushions of the seat opposite.

He was on his way to Ardclare, where he was to stay for a few weeks with Lord and Lady Duncarrig, and though the Morning Post informed him that the country was in a highly dangerous state, the people who lived in Ireland seemed to go on much as usual.

Duncarrig and he had been in the same regiment in Erance, and comrades in the Great War, and now that war was over, they continued to be friends, and out of this the invitation had arisen. Clint had never been in Ireland, and Duncarrig, who though he spoke very harshly of the Irish liked Ardclare by far the best of his various “places,” said that he must come over. He could give Eustace a good time in a quiet way, and the stables offered a plentiful supply of hunters, so that Clint, who was only coming for a fortnight, had no need to fall back upon local hirelings.

Eustace was a good-looking young man of thirty, with rather inexpressive, deep blue eyes, smooth soft hair and nearly Grecian features. He was quite well off, had a thoroughly modem and comfortable house in Buckinghamshire, and his father was dead. His reputation for affairs of the non-matrimonial sort, in no way damaged his character in the eyes of the world in which he lived, and to which Lady Duncarrig belonged. She realized that if a man had escaped a war marriage he must have some character, and dozens of girls had certainly tried to marry Clint.

IO

War had done its best or its worst, and still Eustace was free, and therefore, entirely eligible for a suitable peace alliance.

The idea took shape originally in London, and Lady Duncarrig decided that Veronica Stuart, her own cousin, was exactly the right girl for Clint. She was young, well connected, had four hundred a year of her own, and since the Armistice had travelled Europe in the wake of international Conferences. No Conference could be complete without Veronica; and she was really extremely well informed. No word of any ulterior intention, however, had been actually exchanged between Lord Duncarrig and his wife. It happened, as it were, quite accidentally, and Veronica had arrived a good week before Clint was due at Ardclare.

Clint watched the changing sky and gradually grew sleepy. He did not strain his mind by thinking profoundly. All he knew was, that there seemed to be plenty of room in Ireland. It wasn’t “cluttered up” with villas or gardens, and the women he had seen at the various stations at which the train had stopped, were quite charming to look at. He was a thoroughly good judge, and it saddened him a little to notice how badly most of them were dressed. He met with no black looks from the Irish themselves; they did not shake fists in his face, or accuse him of being a “Sassenach” (whatever a Sassenach really was) and he had a general feeling that they were maligned in the Press.

The journey was frightfully long, and the train was slow. His grand isolation implied that few of the Irish travelled first class, and in the end he slept until the train arrived at Mallow Junction and he changed to a branch line which was to take him to Ardclare station. The change proved considerably for the worse, the small train taking over an hour to complete the distance, which was ridiculous. However, Eustace made the best of it; he usually made the best of things, and though he had almost no sense of humour, he had a rag-time love of fun, which endeared him to all his friends. An oil lamp winked over his head like a weary drunkard and threw only a vicarious light around, and from somewhere in the back of the train there came a sound of slightly intoxicated song; rather a mournful and dirge-like sound, the words of which he could not understand.

Dusk was falling when he arrived at Ardclare station, and stood on the platform to look around him at a wide sweep of mountains, the colour of lapis lazuli against a cold primrose ii sky. A faint line of shining gold to the west marked the departing sunset, and some pine trees behind the low white station buildings, sighed gently. There was a strong smell of burning peat in the air, and the restful sense of having come to a place where no one was in any hurry. Even Duncarrig was unpunctual though the train was well behind time, and Eustace watched the fire-lit smoke from the engine soar slowly upwards, as the train proceeded on its way along the faintly glimmering metals.

When his luggage had been piled on the platform, Clint turned to find Lord Duncarrig hurrying to greet him. He had been detained by a Vestry meeting, which was his excuse, and they walked together through the white gate in the paling. Duncarrig was genuinely glad to see his friend, and he talked in snatches as he drove him through the village to Ardclare House.

“The roads are damnably bad,” he said as the car bumped through the wide, gaunt street. “This is the village, a ruin, of course, like everything else over here.”

“It’s a nice country,” Clint said cheerfully.

“By Gad ! And the people ... a perfect sink of disaffection.” Lord Duncarrig said something strong about “Republicans and Publicans,” and they ran clear of Ardclare and began to climb a tree-bordered hill, where stars showed in a darkening sky.

The entrance gates of Ardclare House were only a short distance from the village, and Duncarrig explained that they would be in time for tea. “A few people staying,” he said as the car came in sight of the lighted windows of the house. “D’you know the Sydney Marlands? Friends of Alicia’s. She talks about vegetables.”

“A gardener?” Clint suggested.

“No, a vegetarian,” Duncarrig laughed. “That’s good, Eustace! A gardener! By jove! But what I meant to say, was that the stable is ours. Veronica Stuart brought her own mare.”

“Oh, she is here?” Clint’s voice was neither enthusiastic nor the reverse. He merely noted the fact.

Ardclare House was a large solid building, devoid of fantasy. It might even have been a good hotel, and stood squarely in front of fine gardens, where the land dropped suddenly away in a steep descent to the river. A heavy porch, supported by strong pillars stood on top of a flight of half a dozen steps. Since the days of the first Lord Duncarrig, it had remained almost unchanged, and the succeeding generations had done very little to alter it.

The large drawing-room appeared to be full of people, and he was led to a place near a fine roaring fire, with the pleasantly puzzled sense of having been swept back into some quiet eorner of life, whither nothing new ever penetrated.

Lady Dunearrig was a slightly petulant edition of her own grandmother. She was unimpressive in appearance, and had an eager glance and all the right ideas about everything. You never met at Ardclare, in their house in London, or the other house in Scotland, or even at the villa at Hyeres, anyone about whom there had been the smallest breath of scandal — that is to say, among the women. With regard to men, her views were different, and she was more liberal.

On the whole, she was conscientious and fussy, and her life was a pattern of virtue to those who studied it. She had married Dunearrig when they were both quite young people, and they, or rather she, had weathered the storm and come into the flat waters of middle age without disaster.

Dunearrig was a hearty mannered man of well over forty, who was sure that he must always be right. He did everything a little — rode a little, shot, still danced a little, and even drank a little more than was good for him. He read the lessons in Ardclare Church on Sundays, and was interested in the parish, so that he was also a little religious. He was a good Conservative; regarded Home Rule as a stale joke in decidedly bad taste, and the very mention of the words “Irish Republic” made him almost eloquent.

The feeling of the house was dense, solid and intensely respectable. There was permanency about it, and it implied that it would endure like the goodness of God — for ever.

After a little, Eustace began to distinguish between the guests staying in the house, and the handful of agitated callers, who had come out of the grey, whispering world outside, and were showing their sense of appreciation that Lord and Lady Duncarrig were in residence at Ardclare. Towards these Lady Duncarrig showed spasms of intense and bored politeness, and then again ignored them for a time, leaving them finally to their own devices from the moment when Clint arrived.

He was then given to understand that he was a welcome guest and Veronica Stuart disentangled herself from her talk with a red faced and noisy-voiced young man, and joined the inner circle by the fire. She was a thin, intense girl, with a clear toneless voice and dark eyes. Her clothes were perfectly chosen and emphasised a vague distinction about her, which was her trump card. Probably she had already guessed the plan which Alicia had made for her and Eustace, and was not averse to it, for her manner of greeting him was easy and even intimate. Mrs. Sydney Marland also made herself one of the group, so that the disconsolate guests were left, looking considerably out of it, until Lord Duncarrig made his way towards them with great friendliness and aplomb.

Clint glanced at them, from the sacred circle round the fire, and his eyes lingered a little on a distant corner where an elderly clergyman was finishing his tea. A girl was sitting near him, looking about her restlessly, and as she encountered Clint’s look she gave him an unmistakable glad eye. It surprised and amused him, but he was immediately conscious that Veronica was watching him obliquely, and he caught up the dropped thread of the conversation.

The girl, who was abominably dressed, had a piquante face, and the air of a schoolboy who has been up to mischief. She was small, and Eustace decided that her figure was exceptionally good. He wished that she was not so far away from where he sat, and he indulged himself in another covert glance in her direction.

The other callers looked to him all just the same except for the noisy young man who had grabbed Lord Duncarrig and was talking to him in raucous tones.

After a time, Lord Duncarrig moved onward again as though he were playing chess with himself, and paused before a deep arm chair where an elderly and handsome woman was sitting, looking like a Cassandra on the eve of battle. Her dignity had been affronted by Lady Duncarrig and she sat and brooded wrathfully until her host spoke to her.

“How are you. Miss White?” he said with great enthusiasm. He believed that he liked Miss White, and, indeed, that he liked nearly anyone who came to call, provided that they knew when to go.

Miss White smiled, and turned her back more pronouncedly upon Mrs. Francis Dykes, with whom she had fought some fifteen years before, and to whom she had never spoken since. Whenever they met they cut one another deliberately, and kept the quarrel up with unflagging animation, though the cause i 4 A RECKLESS PURITAN

which had originally been clear was now lost in the fog of time.

“And how is your father ?” Lord Duncarrig continued breezily. “You must remember me to him.”

Miss White flushed heavily. “He died four years ago, Lord Duncarrig,” she said in a thin, petulant voice. “You attended his funeral during your leave from France.”

For a moment, Lord Duncarrig’s belief in himself faltered, but he recovered quickly.

“Ah, the war,” he said, apologetically. “It has made me forget so many things,” and he hurried on to the next group of forlornlooking visitors, hastening towards the Rev. Mr. Desmond, with whom he could discuss the recent Vestry meeting.

From the direction of the tea table, Veronica could be heard talking of her experiences in Paris, and how, from thence she had wangled a permission to go to Warsaw. She talked intimately about celebrities, and alluded to her own reputation for tact, but her recollections of the places in which she had been, were oddly featureless, and Clint did not take the smallest interest in what she was saying, though Lady Duncarrig gave an attentive ear, and smiled with an air of considerable approval. Veronica was stepping up well, and showing her paces to admiration.

Eustace was also a talker, and he resented being reduced to the status of the mere audience. At first he had waited for a chance to plunge in, and insist upon being listened to, but at length he gave up the idea and looked again at the girl in the corner. She would have listened to him, he felt sure, and he felt slightly annoyed that she was so obviously ostracised.

At last the callers began to depart, led by Mrs. Francis Dykes, a pale, sharp featured woman with a bitter tongue. She was thoroughly disgusted by her reception, but did not dare to show fight. Once every year she dined at Ardclare and as this was a special favour accorded to her because her late husband had attended Lord Duncarrig’s father in his last illness, she clung to it desperately, so that she was outwardly amiable and gracious.

“Oh, good-bye,” Lady Duncarrig said absently, “I hope it isn’t raining. The one thing one can always count upon in Ireland, is rain,” and Mrs. Dykes got herself out of the large room, accompanied by Milson Rogers who clamoured as he grasped Lady Duncarrig’s hand and seemed to make a lot of unnecessary tumult over the simple act of farewell. Close upon his heels followed Miss White who insisted upon herself with heavy deliberation and discussed the prospects of a work guild with Lady Duncarrig, until at last she too left; Lord Duncarrig seeing her to the door. He was repentant when he recollected his faux pas , and wished her to understand that he meant nothing unkind.

The circle around the fire re-seated themselves. As for Clint, he remained silent, and Mr. Desmond and his daughter stood doubtfully at a little distance, no one taking the smallest notice of them.

After a moment Mr. Desmond moved forward, holding the arm of the attractive looking girl in the ill-fitting, cheaply made coat and skirt, and like a reluctant swimmer he approached Lady Duncarrig.

“I fear we must be going,” he said, holding out his hand nervously. “Yes, I fear we must.”

Once again Lady Duncarrig rose.

“Good-bye, Mr. Desmond. Good-bye” she remarked, and held out her hand towards the girl, looking over the top of the gay and obviously “Sunday” hat, which had been put on in her honour.

Eustace watched the proceedings, standing stiffly by his chair. Obviously, Miss Desmond was not a favourite with Lady Duncarrig, and she made no secret of her feelings.

Once more their eyes met, and Clint knew that Veronica was watching satirically. He repressed his natural impulse, which had been — awful as such a thought was — to wink, just to cheer her up a bit. Instead, he only looked self-conscious. It would have been like winking in a Cathedral during service, with the Bishop’s eye on you.

She was pretty. As she followed her father out of the room with a jaunty step, he repeated to himself that she was pretty. Her nose had an engaging little tilt to it, and her face was freckled. The colour in her cheeks was a clear, faint pink, and her restless eyes, which somehow were not in accurate keeping with the rest of her, were a strong pansy blue. Decently dressed, and given half a chance, Eustace felt that Miss Desmond might be a huge success, for there was something of the darling about her . . . just what Veronica Stuart was not, and never could be ; but the dim-eyed old gentleman with stooping shoulders and his daughter must be people who did not count; they had been bundled out of Ardclare with the scantiest courtesy.

i6

Clint was well accustomed to autocratically bad manners, but some little feeling awoke in him at that moment, which made him antagonistic to Lady Duncarrig, and he felt that she was really a specious sham. She had over-dosed him with her tinkling effusion, and he sat down again, irritated and inclined to criticise.

Lord Duncarrig returned at that moment, and joined them, asking for a second cup of tea, and his wife relaxed her shoulders and lay back in her chair with the air of one who has come honourably through a trying ordeal.

“Poor Mr. Desmond,” she remarked.

“I like old Desmond,” Lord Duncarrig said with his unfailing heartiness. “He was very sound at the vestry meeting. The, churchwardens were giving trouble.”

“Oh?” Lady Duncarrig raised her light eyebrows; she was not interested in the least.

“No reason to pity him,” Duncarrig went on. “A nice rectory, nothing to do, and a good garden.”

“I referred to his daughter,” she replied frigidly.

“Georgie? Oh, come now, Alicia, Georgie has no harm in her. A wild little thing,” he said broad-mindedly.

“What has she been up to?” Clint asked, with a revival of interest in the conversation. “Is she a Republican?”

“I don’t know what her political views may be,” Lady Duncarrig replied, screwing up her mouth, “but she is hopeless, so unsuitable.”

“Quite,” Clint replied. “Oh, quite. I rather noticed it myself.”

“You are always down on Georgie,” Lord Duncarrig said, warming his hands at the fire. “If she does flirt I’m sure I don’t blame her, and I like her brogue. It’s charming.”

Veronica for once made no effort to grab the conversation, nor did she commit herself to any criticism of Miss Desmond. The inference was that she did not consider her worth it.

“ ‘Georgie Porgie, puddingy pie,’ ” Lord Duncarrig quoted with a good resounding laugh, “kissed the boys, but, by Gad, I don’t think they’d cry.”

“Veronica, dear,” Lady Duncarrig said quietly, “how long will it take you to dress ?”

Lord Duncarrig telegraphed to Clint that he was in disgrace for the moment ; but he didn’t mind. He had a kind heart, and he liked Georgie. Alicia was frightfully particular. He being a man of the world was less critical, but all the same, Alicia was right as to principle.

“Here in a place like this if a girl has any dash about her she gets a black mark,” he said pleasantly. “Alicia thinks, and mind you I’m not saying she isn’t right, that a clergyman’a daughter ought to be a kind of Miss Prim. Butter not melting in her mouth and so forth. Georgie is all right; don’t believe all you hear of her, Eustace.”

Clint went up to his room and his thoughts still occupied themselves with Georgie Desmond. He felt that she had shown a distinct wish to know him. Her method had been simple, like that of a child who had pinched his arm, cried “tig” and ran away, waiting to be caught and possibly kissed, to an accompaniment of laughter and slapping.

In spite of her vile clothes, he much preferred Georgie to Veronica, though he had not even heard her speak. She could not possibly dart about the map of Europe, for he suspected that she knew nothing about it, and that was a blessing. Eustace had a simple way of dividing women into two classes ; those who were “his style,” and those who were not. And on sight he had recognised that Georgie Desmond was “his style.”

He prepared to resign himself once more to Veronica Stuart. It looked almost as though she were going to spoil his visit to Ardclare.

CHAPTEK H

The first meet of hounds took place in Ardclare village two days later, and the main street suddenly became as gay as a fair, with a good smattering of pink coats, and a crowd of lesser followers in ordinary clothing. Wild-looking boys on mounts which knew very little of the curry-comb, and keen-faced dealers who kept their eyes open and moved about appraising the points of young ’uns, with a view to subsequent barter.

The village street was wide and draughty, leading up to where a grey church stood at the parting of two roads, the chestnut trees around it still in scanty yellow leaf. An exquisite blue sky, rain-washed and clear, shone overhead, and the country blazed with strong colour, for there had been very little frost, and the woods were bright with the glory of the sweet decadence of late autumn. The air was as soft as silk and a light westerly wind scurried through the fallen leaves on the roadsides and whispered in the tussocky grasses. Everything promised well in the sporting world ; the cobwebs along the thorn hedges glittered with diamond drops, clinging to the hard dark interlacement of fine branches, between lemon yellow leaves and clusters of red berries.

With a wild blue sky over his head, and a fabulously green world around him, Clint decided at once that it would be folly to allow Veronica to interfere with his pleasure in the day. He felt sure that for all her talk she probably was not much of a horsewoman, though he admitted that she looked extremely well when she joined him and Duncarrig on the avenue outside Ardclare. She was riding a bright bay, and her whipcord breeches and long coat were perfectly cut. No one could have found fault with her boots, which were perfection, and her hard wide-brimmed hat suited her admirably.

Lady Duncarrig drove the pony trap, and they started off down the avenue through the brilliant morning light, arriving at the main street just as the hounds came along another road, and a general move was made towards the first covert.

It was some time before Clint spotted Georgie Desmond, who was riding close behind the hounds, talking to the master, David Cleary, and evidently amusing him, for bursts of laughter came backwards to Eustace Clint.

She was riding a rakish-looking iron-grey which required a great deal of managing, but Georgie appeared to be well able for l\im, and kept under his obvious inclination to buck. She was wearing a blue habit of ancient cut, and looked like a picture out of an old Christmas number of the Graphic or Sporting and Dramatic. Her habit skirt bunched up around her like a petticoat, and now and then she tugged it down over her boots, when she could spare a hand. Eustace was distressed by the effect, and glanced again at Veronica.

“Isn’t that the funny little object who was calling at Ardclare the other day?” Veronica asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Clint agreed.

“Her habit is a survival. I suppose she keeps along the roads,” Miss Stuart said, with a touch of consideration, and as she spoke the horses in front slowed up, and David Cleary turned his hunter at the bank at the left of the road and jumped into the field. The hounds followed, and directly after they were clear, Miss Desmond’s grey shot wildly over, and she cantered away up the headland.

“That doesn’t look like keeping on the roads,” Clint remarked ns he rammed his horse at a likely-looking place a little farther down. Some one else had opened a gate leading into a lane running towards a wood covert an the hillside, and presently the whole field were jogging along between the hedges ; but Eustace had got clear of them, and continued to follow Georgie, whose grey progressed in a series of rocket-like bounds, towards a sheltered corner a little distance from the crowd. He might have spoken to her then, and had sotne intention of pretending that they had already been introduced, but once again Veronica intervened and there was no time for him to manoeuvre a meeting. Then hoarse shouts were heard from the opposite side of the covert ; in a second, the hounds streamed out, and he forgot everything else in the realisation that it would take him all his time to keep up with the fierce pace at which they were running.

After a time he realised that there were now very few people in front of him. David Cleary, one of the whips, and half a dozen others were scattered widely in a broken line, and Georgie Desmond was going well, just ahead. It annoyed him to think that he could not catch her up, but he had ample opportunity to realise that she was a really fine rider; and still the pace slackened very little, until they left the grass country behind and began to travel over poor, heather-tufted land, where a considerable rise of ground faced them. Again the numbers had thinned out, and instead of wide banks with deep ditches on either side, they were into a mountainy place where the* small cultivated patches were separated by loose stone walls. The horse Clint was riding laboured heavily, and it looked as though he would have to pull up, when the whole tension snapped suddenly like a broken thread, and David Cleary, who had reached the top of the hill, swung off his horse and looked around him, putting his horn to his lips, and blowing breathlessly. All the gorgeous excitement of the run, with its swinging ups and downs through the valley, was over, and already the day had changed and there was evidence of that fatal state of affairs for a huntsman, “rain overhead.”

Even the face of the country was changed, and the soft green land lay away below them, for they had run into low hills, and the air blew keen and cold. A group of stunted firs held the summit like a lonely outpost, and the wide view was magnificent, traced by the gleaming line of a wide river. Above the valley all was fierce and melancholy, and hugh granite boulders were scattered through the meagre grass. One or two small cottages, surrounded by potato patches, showed that human life made an effort to support itself in spite of hardship, but the effect was curiously solitary and remote. A sleety rain began to fall from the fringes of a heavy cloud, and Clint turned up the collar of his coat and made his way towards Georgie Desmond.

Her face was flushed and wind-beaten, and wild straggles of hair came down over the wreckage of her ill-tied stock ; the grey had had enough, and, coated deep with mud, was ridden to a standstill. Miss Desmond presented, indeed, rather a battered appearance, for her hat had been dinged in as she crossed a fence under a low-branched tree, and her skirt Was wisped to a degree which suggested that she was now wearing it back to front.

Eustace intended to introduce himself, but it proved to be unnecessary, and she greeted him at once. “Will you catch Garryowen by the head,” she said, “and I’ll slip off. He’s lost for good.” Slle evidently alluded to the fox. “There’s more holes in Knockmore than in my stockings, and we’ve said farewell to him.”

Clint dismounted and limped towards her; he was very stiff, as he had not ridden for some time, and they heard the distant sound of the horn coming faintly to them from the far side of the hill.

“David’s at it again,” Miss Desmond remarked with a giggle. “But it’s no kind of use. The day is over.”

Clint suggested that they should shelter under the lee of the hill, where the fir trees offered some protection from the coming storm. He was amused to find himself alone with Miss Desmond in this wild, new land, and, as she said, the day really was over, even if his hunter could have stood any more, which he doubted. They were a long distance from Ardclare, there was plenty of time before them, and leading the horses, he made his way to where a landfall had made a red scar in the heather grass, forming a deep, gorse-grown hollow, with trees on the sky-line, now straining and creaking against the wind.

“I’ve got some sandwiches,” he said, having fastened the horses up to a couple of sheltered stumps, “so we can have a picnic ; and there is something or other in my flask.”

Miss Desmond perched herself on a mossy stone, and looked at him with her blue, speculative eyes. Her eyes attracted him, but he felt again, that they were unexpected in such a round, impertinent little face.

“I’ll have a mouthful of ‘something or other’ first,” she said, taking his flask and tilting back her head, “and then,” she handed it back to him, “I’ll have a cigarette.”

Clint offered her his cigarette-case, and she helped herself. “Now, can you crack a match for me?” she asked, and he watched her absorbed look as she bent towards the tiny flame imprisoned in his hands.