The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (69 page)

“That shows how short your ladyship’s memory is,” said I with some irritation. “Father Donovan used to tell me that the shortest thing in the world was the interval between an insult and a blow in Ireland, but I think a lady’s memory is shorter still. ‘Turn the key and come in,’ says you. What is that, I would like to know, but an invitation.”

It appeared to me that she softened a bit, but she continued her walk up and down the room and was seemingly in great agitation. The cries outside had stopped, but whether they had murdered both Jem Bottles and Paddy I had no means at that moment of knowing, and I hope the two will forgive me when I say that my thoughts were far from them.

“You will understand,” said Lady Mary, speaking still with resentment in her voice, “that the papers you held are the key to the situation. Have you no more sense than to trust them to the care of a red-headed clown from whom they can be taken as easy as if they were picked up off the street?”

“Indeed, believe me, Lady Mary, that no red-headed clown has any papers of mine.”

“Indeed, and I think you speak the true word there. The papers are now in my father’s possession, and he will know how to take care of them.”

“Well, he didn’t know that the last time he had them,” I cried, feeling angry at these unjust accusations, and not being able to bear the compliment to the old man, even if he was an Earl. “The papers,” said I, “are as easily picked from me as from the street, like you were saying just now; but it isn’t a pack of overfed flunkeys that will lift them from me. Lady Mary, on a previous occasion I placed the papers in your hands; now, with your kind permission, I lay them at your feet,” — and, saying this with the most courteous obeisance, I knelt with one knee on the floor and placed the packet of papers where I said I would place them.

Now, ever since that, the Lady Mary denies that she kicked them to the other end of the room. She says that as she was walking to and fro the toe of her foot touched the packet and sent it spinning; and, as no real Irishman ever yet contradicted a lady, all I will say is that the precious bundle went hurtling to the other end of the room, and it is very likely that Lady Mary thought the gesture of her foot a trifle too much resembled an action of her mother, the Countess, for her manner changed in the twinkling of an eye, and she laughed like her old self again.

“Mr. O’Ruddy,” she said, “you put me out of all patience. You’re as simple as if you came out of Ireland yesterday.”

“It’s tolerably well known,” said I, “by some of your expert swordsmen, that I came out the day before.”

Again Lady Mary laughed.

“You’re not very wise in the choice of your friends,” she said.

“I am, if I can count you as one of them,” I returned.

She made no direct reply to this, but continued:

“Can’t you see that that little Doctor Chord is a traitor? He has been telling my father all you have been doing and all you have been planning, and he says you are almost simple enough to have given the papers into his own keeping no longer ago than last night.”

“Now, look you, Lady Mary, how much you misjudged me. The little villain asked for the papers, but he didn’t get them; then he advised me to give them to a man I could trust, and when I said the only man I could trust was red-headed Paddy out yonder, he was delighted to think I was to leave them in his custody. But you can see for yourself I did nothing of the kind, and if your people thought they could get anything out of Paddy by bad language and heroic kicks they were mistaken.”

At that moment we had an interruption that brought our conversation to a standstill and Lady Mary to the door, outside which her mother was crying, —

“Mary, Mary! where’s the key?”

“Where should it be?” said Lady Mary, “but in the door.”

“It is not in the door,” said the Countess wrathfully, shaking it as if she would tear it down.

“It is in the door,” said Lady Mary positively; and quite right she was, for both of us were looking at it.

“It is not in the door,” shouted her mother. “Some of the servants have taken it away.”

Then we heard her calling over the banisters to find out who had taken away the key of Lady Mary’s room. There was a twinkle in Mary’s eye, and a quiver in the corners of her pretty mouth that made me feel she would burst out laughing, and indeed I had some ado to keep silence myself.

“What have you done with those two poor wretches you were maltreating out in the garden?” asked Lady Mary.

“Oh, don’t speak of them,” cried the Countess, evidently in no good humour. “It was all a scandal for nothing. The red-headed beast did not have the papers. That little fool, Chord, has misled both your father and me. I could wring his neck for him, and now he is palavering your father in the library and saying he will get the papers himself or die in the attempt. It serves us right for paying attention to a babbling idiot like him. I said in the first place that that Irish baboon of an O’Ruddy was not likely to give them to the ape that follows him.”

“Tare-an-ounds!” I cried, clenching my fists and making for the door; but Lady Mary rattled it so I could not be heard, and the next instant she placed her snow-flake hand across my mouth, which was as pleasant a way of stopping an injudicious utterance as ever I had been acquainted with.

“Mary,” said the Countess, “your father is very much agitated and disappointed, so I’m taking him out for a drive. I have told the butler to look out for the key, and when he finds it he will let you out. You’ve only yourself to blame for being locked in, because we expected the baboon himself and couldn’t trust you in his presence.”

It was now Lady Mary’s turn to show confusion at the old termagant’s talk, and she coloured as red as a sunset on the coast of Kerry. I forgave the old hag her discourteous appellation of “baboon” because of the joyful intimation she gave me through the door that Lady Mary was not to be trusted when I was near by. My father used to say that if you are present when an embarrassment comes to a lady it is well not to notice it, else the embarrassment will be transferred to yourself. Remembering this, I pretended not to see Lady Mary’s flaming cheeks, and, begging her pardon, walked up the room and picked from the corner the bundle of papers which had, somehow or other come there, whether kicked or not. I came back to where she was standing and offered them to her most respectfully, as if they, and not herself, were the subject of discussion.

“Hush,” said Lady Mary in a whisper; “sit down yonder and see how long you can keep quiet.”

She pointed to a chair that stood beside a beautifully polished table of foreign wood, the like of which I had never seen before, and I, wishing very much to please her, sat down where she told me and placed the bundle of papers on the table. Lady Mary tiptoed over, as light-footed as a canary-bird, and sat down on the opposite side of the table, resting her elbows on the polished wood, and, with her chin in her hands, gazed across at me, and a most bewildering scrutiny I found it, rendering it difficult for me to keep quiet and seated, as she had requested. In a minute or two we heard the crunch of wheels on the gravel in front, then the carriage drove off, and the big gates clanked together.

Still Lady Mary poured the sunshine of her eyes upon me, and I hope and trust she found me a presentable young man, for under the warmth of her look my heart began to bubble up like a pot of potatoes on a strong fire.

“You make me a present of the papers, then?” said Lady Mary at last.

“Indeed and I do, and of myself as well, if you’ll have me. And this latter is a thing I’ve been trying to say to you every time I met you, Mary acushla, and no sooner do the words come to my lips than some doddering fool interrupts us; but now, my darling, we are alone together, in that lover’s paradise which is always typified by a locked door, and at last I can say the things—”

Just here, as I mentioned the word “door,” there came a rap at it, and Lady Mary started as if some one had fired a gun.

“Your ladyship,” said the butler, “I cannot find the key. Shall I send for a locksmith?”

“Oh, no,” said Lady Mary, “do not take the trouble. I have letters to write, and do not wish to be disturbed until my mother returns.”

“Very good, your ladyship,” returned the butler, and he walked away.

“A locksmith!” said Lady Mary, looking across the table at me.

“Love laughs at them,” said I.

Lady Mary smiled very sweetly, but shook her head.

“This is not a time for laughter,” she said, “but for seriousness. Now, I cannot risk your staying here longer, so will tell you what I have to say as quickly as possible. Your repeatedly interrupted declaration I take for truth, because the course of true love never did run smooth. Therefore, if you want me, you must keep the papers.”

At this I hastily took the bundle from the table and thrust it in my pocket, which action made Lady Mary smile again.

“Have you read them?” she asked.

“I have not.”

“Do you mean to say you have carried these papers about for so long and have not read them?”

“I had no curiosity concerning them,” I replied. “I have something better to look at,” I went on, gazing across at her; “and when that is not with me the memory of it is, and it’s little I care for a pack of musty papers and what’s in them.”

“Then I will tell you what they are,” said Lady Mary. “There are in that packet the title-deeds to great estates, the fairest length of land that lies under the sun in Sussex. There is also a letter written by my father’s own hand, giving the property to your father.”

“But he did not mean my father to keep it,” said I.

“No, he did not. He feared capture, and knew the ransom would be heavy if they found evidence of property upon him. Now all these years he has been saying nothing, but collecting the revenues of this estate and using them, while another man had the legal right to it.”

“Still he has but taken what was his own,” said I, “and my father never disputed that, always intending to come over to England and return the papers to the Earl; but he got lazy-like, by sitting at his own fireside, and seldom went farther abroad than to the house of the priest; but his last injunctions to me were to see that the Earl got his papers, and indeed he would have had them long since if he had but treated me like the son of an old friend.”

“Did your father mention that the Earl would give you any reward for returning his property to him?”

“He did not,” I replied with indignation. “In Ireland, when a friend does a friend’s part, he doesn’t expect to be paid for it.”

“But don’t you expect a reward for returning them?”

“Lady Mary,” said I, “do you mean to be after insulting me? These papers are not mine, but the Earl of Westport’s, and he can have them without saying as much as ‘Thank you kindly’ for them.”

Lady Mary leaned back in her chair and looked at me with half-closed eyes, then she stretched forth her hand and said: