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.
She was nearly as tall as himself, andwiththe warm cape wrapped round her, and her smooth, dark hair showing from her bonnet, she might have been a queen.
"How are we for time, Tim?" asked Mr.
Henry.
"It's just turned the quarter, sir," replied the coachman, holding open the door of the carriage.
The master was a great stickler for time, like the old gentleman. It would never do to be late for church.
But he had a graciousness about him and a courtesy, quite different from his grandfather.
And now the mistress was seated in her corner of the carriage and the master was tucking the rug round her, putting her feet in the foot-warmer, the whole done with such a loving care and so much gentleness that Tim remembered the talk at "the back" of how there was another baby expected before many months. The nurse was standing in the open doorway, holding little Miss Molly in her arms, the child Waving a plump hand to her father and mother. And then Tim climbed up to his seat and gathered the reins in his hands, and the carriage bowled away down the drive, under the archway past the rhododendrons, and swept round beside the creek and through the woods to the park.
Henry held Katherine's hand under the rug and wondered, for the five hundredth time, perhaps, what she was thinking about; so detached, so remote, her calm, quiet manner different in every way from his own eager impetuosity.
"Are you warm enough?" he said anxiously, peering into her face. "Are you sure you feel equal to the drive?"
"Yes, of course," she answered, warming his heart with her smile. "I feel very well indeed.
And I could not bear to miss the weekly drive to Ardmore, you know that."
He leant back again in the carriage, reassured.
Uncle Willie Armstrong had impressed upon him to be careful with her.
"Your mother," Uncle Willie had told him, "gave birth to all you boys without turning a hair in the process. She had all the toughness of old Simon Flower. But if you're going to follow your father's example and rear a large family, I advise you to do it rather more slowly than he did. Your Katherine is a much more delicate plant than Fanny-Rosa Flower."
And here they were, with young Molly barely a year old and another one already on the way. But perhaps Uncle Willie Armstrong was inclined to fuss…
Henry gazed out of the carriage window. The trees at the far end of the park, close to the road, were looking a bit shorn after their lopping in the autumn. Still, they would be all the better for it, and would be well enough in two or three years' time.
Katherine was bowing and smiling at Mrs. Mahoney at the gate-house. Henry purposely turned his head away. The gate-house brought unpleasant thoughts, reminders of something that was best forgotten.
Jack Donovan and his sister had left the country and gone to America, no trace of them remained in the little lodge at the entrance to the drive, and yet whenever Henry passed through the gates he would remember, for all his wishes to forget, the insolent, familiar manner of the fellow when his fare was paid to him, the furtive, crafty expression of his sister, and through them both the helpless, tragic eyes of poor Johnnie the last time he had seen him at Clonmere. No, those things were not the best food for thought on a Sunday morning, and Henry, once more caressing Katherine's hand under the carriage rug, began to chatter lightly and gaily about nothing at all, of the shooting party the week before, of Petty Sessions the following Tuesday in Mundy, of a letter received from his mother Fanny-Rosa from Nice the day before.
"You noticed," he said to Katherine, laughingly, "that it was full of the usual extravagances. I believe she is having the time of her life."
"I wonder," said Katherine.
"Oh, dearest, you don't know my mother sufficiently well to judge. I quite thought poor Johnnie's death would break her completely, but I am inclined to think, after the first shock of it wore off, she dismissed the matter from her mind and poor Johnnie too."
"Your mother is not so superficial as she would have everyone believe," said Katherine. "She pretends to other people, and to herself as well."
"My mother pretends to no one," said Henry, "you can rest assured about that. No, she has her little villa, and her foreign counts, and her casino, and is very well content. Look, there is that disagreeable Mrs. Kelly actually curtseying to you. What have you done to the people of Doonhaven? I have never known anyone of that family smile at a Brodrick before, unless it was to do something very dirty afterwards."
"Perhaps," said Katherine, looking sideways under her bonnet, "the Brodricks never smiled at the people of Doonhaven."
"I am quite certain they did not," said Henry, "and that is why the first of them was shot in the back. What do you think of the new road out to the mine? The new surface is a capital affair, quite different from the old gravel that became almost impassable in winter.
Grandfather would have been pleased with it."
"I think, with you, that it is a great improvement, but I should like it better if the miners' houses had been taken in hand at the same time. S
ome of those huts are a disgrace. I cannot bear to think of little children being obliged to live in them."
"Are they really so bad?" asked Henry. "I'm afraid I have never been through them, and have only concerned myself with the efficiency of the mine. I can easily give orders to have the wood strengthened, and the worst places painted. That should keep out the cold and damp."
"Why not give orders to have them pulled down altogether, and brick houses built instead?" said Katherine.
"Dear heart, that would cost a lot of money."
"I thought the mines made such an enormous profit last year."
"So they did, but if we once start pulling down the miners' huts and building them small palaces, there will be no profit at all."
"Now who is exaggerating?" smiled Katherine.
"The miners don't ask for palaces, Henry love. They only ask for a bit of warmth and comfort, which, considering how hard they work for you, I think they deserve."
Henry pulled a face.
"Now you make me feel a worm," he said.
"Very well then, I shall go into the matter, and see what can be done. But I warn you they won't be grateful.
They will say, in all probability, that they prefer the old wooden cabins."
"Never mind about gratitude," said Katherine, "at least those little children will be warm… Hungry Hill has a smiling face today. Do you see the sun on the ridge? It looks like a crown of gold."
"Hungry Hill has too many moods for my liking," said Henry. "The bad weather before Christmas interfered with the work, and a whole shipment of copper was held up."
"Nature works slowly, in her own time," said Katherine, "and if you become impatient she gets angry. Why, there is Tom Callaghan walking to church. His horse must be lame. I wonder he did not wait for us to pick him up in Doonhaven.
Tell Tim to stop the horses, dear."
Laughing, Henry climbed out of the carriage, and called out to the curate, who was walking ahead of them, covering the ground with immense long strides.
"Tom, you madman," he shouted, "what do you mean by not waiting for us? Come and take a seat beside Katherine. We are seriously affronted."
The young curate turned, and smiled. He was a great big fellow, with a fine handsome face and a brown beard.
"The morning was so lovely," he protested, "and Prince wanting a shoe, so I promised myself the treat of a walk. The first few miles were delightful, but I was just beginning to think myself a martyour."
"You can make the sermon shorter in consequence," said Henry, "Come, jump in and bury your pride.
Katherine is quite disgusted with you."
"I have never known Katherine disgusted with anyone," said the curate.
Tom Callaghan was an Oxford friend of Henry's who, with a very small amount of persuasion, had accepted the appointment of curate to the living at Doonhaven, and whose weekly duty was to take the service at the furthermost church in the parish, the little church by the sea at Ardmore. He could have done much better for himself across the water, but his affection for Henry was such that he preferred to bury himself in isolation, to be near his friend, rather than win esteem and prosperity in a large town.
"What do you think is her latest whim?" said Henry. "Nothing more than that I should pull down the miners' huts and build them brick cottages instead. I shall be ruined."
"An excellent plan," said Tom decisively. "First, because those huts are a disgrace. And secondly, because you have more money than you know what to do with."
"That," agreed Katherine, "is what I am always telling him."
"The trouble is," said Henry, "that you both have Noncomformist consciences. And you try to give me one too. My grandfather would not have listened to you."
"From what I hear of your grandfather," said Tom, "he was a godless man. At least you do not work the mines on Sundays, as he used to do."
"And that also was Katherine's doing," smiled Henry. "I tell you, Tom, I have married into a family which has so many principles that they quite bewilder a fellow. Take my advice, and avoid 'em like the plague."
"I would rather be good like the Eyres than clever like you Brodricks," said Tom Callaghan. "The only reason you are not as hard a man as your grandfather is because you had the sense to marry Katherine. Here we are at church, and there will be three other people in the congregation besides yourselves, I have no doubt."
The little church stood quite alone, windswept and solitary, looking out over the wide waters of Mundy Bay. But for all its stark position, exposed to the four winds and the rains of winter, there was something comforting and strong in its grey solidity, something ageless in the lichen that clung about its walls.
Inside all was peaceful, all was quiet, as though no evil thought, no hard memory, could penetrate the still serenity. The gales might blow, the floods might come, but the church of Ardmore would withstand them all, a small bastion in eternity.
Henry, kneeling beside Katherine, watched her calm profile, her dark eyes turned to the altar, and he thought how no man but himself would ever know how beautiful she was, how true, how tender. Was Tom Callaghan right? Would he be as hard a man as his grandfather but for Katherine? The thought was an uncomfortable one, and, like all uncomfortable thoughts, he dismissed it as absurd. He was not hard. Tom must have been joking. He had always, as far back as he could remember, thought about other people before himself. Put duty before pleasure, right before wrong. He could say, in all good conscience, that he had never done a low, foul, or evil thing. True, he had been lucky, successful and happy in his work and his friends; but luck, after all, was a gift from the Almighty, and anyway he was grateful for it. No, Johnnie had been the hard member of the family. Johnnie had been the selfish, ruthless one, spreading misery, poor devil, wherever he went. Tom Callaghan ought to have known him.
And Henry, making the General Confession in a loud, clear voice as was his custom, "We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep," thought, as he always did, that really the words did not apply to him, or any other normal law-abiding fellow who lived an honest life and did his duty to God and the Queen. They applied to the thieves, and the adulterers, and the drunkards, who never even bothered to come inside a church.
When the service was over, and Tom Callaghan was changing in the vestry, Henry and Katherine went and stood in the churchyard and looked down upon the sea.
The long rollers from the Atlantic swept past them up the bay. A robin was singing from a gorse bush beneath them, his song plaintive yet sweet, strangely nostalgic in the cold, clean winter air.
"I am glad we had Molly christened here," said Katherine. "We will do the same with the next baby, and with all our children. And when the time comes for us to go, I should like you and me to lie here, dearest, together."
"Don't be morbid," said Henry, drawing her to him. "I hate discussions about death. Kiss me instead. There goes the Emma Mary, bound for Bronsea. They must be taking advantage of this weather, otherwise they would not have sailed on a Sunday. She's well laden, isn't she?
Nearly one hundred tons of copper there, my girl."
"Never mind the copper," said Katherine. "Will you remember my wish about this little churchyard?"
"I refuse to commit myself about anything so damnable," said Henry, "and don't let's stand about any longer, you will catch cold. Look, there is old Tom waiting for us by the carriage. What a dear fellow he is, and how glad I am he has come to live down here. In fact," he continued happily, drawing Katherine's arm through his, "I can think of nothing more delightful than to have all one's best friends in the neighbourhood. Tom, old boy, you preached a capital sermon, just what I might have said myself if I were in Orders, and to show my appreciation I propose to build you a house. You can't possibly go on living in that miserable cottage in the village."
"Indeed I can."
"Indeed you can do nothing of the sort. Don't argue, I dislike argument before lunch. And to convince you that I mean business I will show you the site I
have in mind. It came to me when we were singing "Rock of Ages." Just after you turn out of Doonhaven, before you come to the rise in the road and the Oakmount cottages, there is a fine piece of ground nearly level that will make an excellent foundation. We will call it Heathmount, and as soon as the old rector dies you shall have the living, and make Heathmount the Rectory."
"And Tom shall marry, and settle down, and his children will be able to play with ours," said Katherine.
"It certainly saves a lot of trouble when one's friends arrange the future," said Tom Callaghan.
"Why not go to even greater lengths and write my sermons for me too?"
"I will do so," said Henry, "on condition that I preach them as well.
It would give me great pleasure to use the text "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," with reference, of course, to the usual arrears of rent."
The site of Tom's future home was duly pointed out and appreciated, and then the carriage turned in at the gates and down the drive to Clonmere, with hot luncheon awaiting them in the dining-room, the setters barking a chorus from the steps, the smoky tang of the piled turf fire filling the hall, the warm, familiar atmosphere of home, dearly loved, rising to greet them.
Little Molly, beribboned and in white, was brought down to dessert to sit upon her mother's knee, and Henry, pushing back his chair and stretching his legs, cracked walnuts to make her laugh. And, himself well filled with roast mutton and apple tart, he felt all the pleasing, drowsy contentment of a man whose idle afternoon stretches before him, to make it what he will.
"I think," said Tom, watching his friend with a smile, "that you ought to consider yourself the luckiest of men. You have a fine property, a vast fortune, a flourishing business, a distinguished career up to date, an angel of a wife, a delightful baby daughter, and, in fact- nothing in the world you lack.