XII
Old Martha and Joy were bending over a tremendous pile of newspapers,cables, and telegrams that had just been brought in by special messengerfrom the nearest village in the outside world.
The messenger, a rosy old man, kept explaining why he had come.
"I know it's not my day to come in and that he don't want us hangin'about where he can see us, but the missus, she says, don't you dare tokeep back this news from him even if he shoots you down in yourtracks."
The newspapers said that the Poor Boy had been wrongfully accused,wrongfully convicted, wrongfully imprisoned, and that his 'scutcheon wasclear in the eyes of all men.
Martha took it upon herself to open some of the telegrams. They werefrom old friends who wished to be the first, etc., etc.
"Oh!" cried Martha, "the bastes. Why couldn't they have come forwardwith their great hearts when his trouble was heavy upon him, when a wordof belief would have strengthened him for what he had to go through?"
She wept. She raved. She talked pure Irish, and there was no one presentwho could understand her, and there were only seven people in Irelandwho could have understood.
"Please!" said Miss Joy to the messenger, "God bless you, and go away."
He went slowly, his fingers inching their way continually around thebattered circumference of the straw hat. He drove off, after a while, asone in a trance. The last thing that would have occurred to him was thathis good-hearted impulse had made a rich man of him.
"We must find him," said Miss Joy, "and tell him--at once. You must findhim. It's your duty and your privilege. He must hear the good news fromyou."
But Martha shook her head, and talked through her apron which she hadthrown over it. When sense began to mingle with her words she pulleddown this flag of distress, and showed a face red with emotion andtears.
"Full well I know his heart," she said. "'Tis an open book to me."
Then she laughed aloud.
"'Tis better than an open book, for I read like a snail and cannot writeat all.... 'Tis you must bear him the glad tidings--you alone--with yourbright hair the color of the old sideboards in the dining-room. Take thefront page of a newspaper and run to him. 'Tis for you to do."
There was a wonderful light in Miss Joy's eyes. Martha mocked it:"Yea,'" said she, "'Tho' we sang as angels in her ear, she would nothear!' Be off!"
"How shall I find him?"
"If you don't know that then I am wrong. And it's me that should go. Ifyour heart cannot take you to him, 'tis not the heart I've thought it."
But Miss Joy, clutching the front page of a newspaper, was gone,bareheaded, running, in the dusk.
As for old Martha, she wailed all alone in the kitchen. No one wouldever know what it had cost her to send forth another on that errand ofglad tidings.
* * * * *
The Poor Boy looked up calmly. What was possible in broad sunlight wasno matter even of difficulty in the dusk. And yet it seemed to him thateven for a creature of _his_ brain she was preternaturally natural andsolid-looking. Nor was he in the habit of letting her look quite so paleor breathe so hard. But when she spoke he was troubled; not because thesound of her voice was an unusual sound for him to hear, but because inthe present instance it was accompanied with distinct vibrations. Andthat had never happened since she came to stay with Lord Harrow'sdaughter.
"Balking," she said, "has confessed!"
"Yes--yes," said the Poor Boy, "I always knew he _did it_. But Icouldn't very well say so, _could_ I? I had to take the _gaff_."
"There are telegrams and cables from all your friends to say how gladthey are."
A shadow of bitterness came over the Poor Boy's face, but went swiftly.
"It can never be the same about _them_," he said. "They all believed.But now they are sorry."
He sighed deeply, and then smiled like sunshine.
"It was like you to bring me the news. Dear child, where is your hat,and why did you run so fast? You might have fallen and hurt yourself. Doyou remember the day you turned your ankle and wouldn't let me carryyou?"
"I'm not such a little fool as I used to be," she said. Her face wasgetting whiter and whiter.
"You _are_ hurt!" he exclaimed.
"Yes," she said, "it's that same blessed ankle. I was so excited overthe good news that I didn't mind at first, but now--I--I think I'll haveto sit down and rest it."
The Poor Boy knew better than to give her a helping hand. _When youtouch them, they vanish._
She sank down with a little moan.
"How am I going to get back to the house?" she said. "I'm sure I don'tknow."
"I'll send for a motor."
A motor? Was he crazy?
"A motor couldn't get in here," she said; "the trees are too closetogether."
"I'll have them down," said the Poor Boy; "it's only a matter ofinstants," and he smiled gently. "But you know as well as I do how thesethings are done."
"Here's the paper," she said. "Don't you want to read for yourself?" Sheheld it out to him. But he shook his head.
"I can see the headlines from here," he said. "_Balking confesses_--yes,it's all there."
And then suddenly the Poor Boy turned his face heavenward and cried witha great bitterness:
"Oh, God! oh, God!--if it only was true!"
She thought he was mad. But she was not afraid. She wanted to go to him,to comfort him, to share with him her own fine, young sanity. But theturned ankle would not do any work, and she could not get up. He heardher moan. And looked at her once more, his eyes round with wonder.
"But I have just taken you to Lord Harrow's in a motor," he said; "andyet here you are--and in pain."
"I think I can walk," she said. "If you don't mind helping me a little."
"Of course I don't mind," said the Poor Boy cautiously. "But you knowas well as I do that when you touch them,--they vanish."
There was a pained silence. She was bitterly disappointed. The Poor Boywas thoroughly bewildered. His imagination was playing him anextraordinary trick.
"That's the reason," he went on, "that we can never tell each other thatwe love each other, you know. 'Cause if we did, we'd have to kiss andhold hands--and that would be the end of everything--better you thisway--than the other way and _no you_."
Her pain was becoming greater than she could bear.
"_Any_ man would help me," she began; and then came the tears in atorrent.
The Poor Boy could not stand it.
"It is better," he said, "that she should vanish!"
He stepped swiftly forward.
The realness of her almost dazed him. In his happiest day-dreams in LordHarrow's rose-garden by the lake there had never been quite so vivid amaterialization. Furthermore, she had violets in her dress, and as hebent to lift her (and resolve her into the stuff o' dreams) thesweetness of them was strong in his nostrils.
And then carrying her swiftly home, he proceeded to goquite mad.]
"Well--well," he thought, "people with too much imagination always doend by going mad. And now it's happened to me."
And it was just what did happen to him a moment later, only he was to gomad with a different kind of madness--a sane and wonderful madness.
He touched her and she did not vanish.
He made a sound that was half moan, half pity, and he lifted her in hisstrong arms. And then carrying her swiftly home, he proceeded, as I haveforewarned the reader, to go quite mad. So did she, bless her, untilthere was no longer any pain in her ankle or in her heart.
"Well--well," said old Martha; "what's all this?"
She stood in the door of the house lighting them with a lamp.
"This," said the Poor Boy in his ecstasy, "is a new and wonderfulthing."
He laughed aloud for joy.
"And the more you kiss her--the less she vanishes!"
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