CHAPTER XLIV

I happened on the thing by the merest accident. My father had been going through the papers in his desk the night before, tying up old letters in bundles, and burning many in the grate. He had been quite absorbed in this dusty task when Owen and I had come in from our walk, and he had been still absorbed in it when we had left him and gone up to bed. This afternoon we were to call for the Dales, and Owen was waiting for me now in the garden, sitting on the wall, nibbling nasturtium leaves, whistling, and swinging his legs to and fro, while I, having broken my shoe-lace, was in the parlour replacing it. And as I bent down, through the tail of my eye I caught a glimpse of something white between the desk and the wall. I laced up my shoe, and then, pushing the desk further to one side, with the help of the poker I fished out an envelope. There was no writing on this envelope, and the flap was loose, but inside I felt something stiff and flat, like a card or a photograph. I pulled it out. It was a photograph, considerably faded, and certainly most astonishing if it had fallen from my father’s desk, as I supposed it must have. For it represented a person very much like the ladies in the chorus at the Christmas pantomime I had gone to see with George――better looking, possibly, than most of them, but similarly clad, in doublet and tights, and with a velvet cap, with a cock’s feather stuck in it, set rakishly at the side of a curly head. The face wore the conventional simper such faces seem naturally to assume in the presence of photographers, displaying an admirable set of teeth. A sword dangled from the waist, a short cloak hung from the shoulders, and the right hand was raised to the cap in a dashing and coquettish salute. There was something so comical in the idea of my father, of all persons in the world, having treasured up this souvenir of what I took to be a youthful flight of fancy, that I laughed aloud, and was on the point of calling in Owen to show it to him, when I turned the photograph round and on the back read, in a sprawling feminine hand, “From Milly.”

I stopped short. Owen was still kicking his heels against the whitewashed wall, still whistling, but I did not disturb him. I heard my father coming downstairs, and my first impulse was to cram both envelope and photograph into my pocket. I heard him in the hall, I heard him turn the handle of the parlour door, and then I went to meet him.

“I found this,” I said, “on the floor.” And I held it out to him.

My father glanced at it indifferently, but when he saw what it was a faint flush crept into his face. It was the first time I had ever seen him change colour. He took it from me without a word, and, putting it back in its envelope, unlocked the desk. He opened a drawer somewhere, and I saw him, still without speaking, slip in the envelope. Then he pulled down the lid of the desk, which shut with a sharp click, and turned to me.

“Do you know who it was?” he asked, abruptly.

I stammered and blushed. “I’m not sure――I think―― Wasn’t it mamma?”

He turned away without answering. “Owen is waiting for you,” he said, as I still hung about nervously. “I suppose you won’t be in for tea?”

“No,” I replied, and went out to my friend.

“I’m sorry for keeping you,” I apologized; and as we walked round to Derryaghy I half thought of telling him of the incident.

And my mother? I had known vaguely that she had been on the stage in some not particularly brilliant capacity, but somehow the real thing, in all its callous actuality, to have that suddenly thrust upon one, was very different. I did not like it.

Visions of the girls I had seen in the pantomime kept rising before me with a disagreeable relevancy. They strutted before my mind’s eye just as they had strutted, jaunty and assured, about the stage, their eyes boldly seeking the male occupants of boxes. They swaggered by me with a peculiar movement of the hips, a perfect self-confidence; one of them even winked as she passed. And I saw their fat legs, their bold eyes; I heard them laugh, and sing idiotic songs, in shrill falsetto, about Bertie, and Charlie, and latch-keys, and staying out till three.

I wished I had never found my mother’s portrait, though I tried to persuade myself that she only looked like that because she was dressed up for the theatre, and that in ordinary dress she must have been quite different. But my attempts to _see_ her as different failed. I had nothing to go upon, no memories, no other portrait; for me tights and doublet would remain her perpetual garb. I was not disillusioned, for I had had no illusions――that is to say, I had thought very little about the matter――but I was certainly shocked. I remembered Mrs. Carroll’s reserve on the few occasions when I had questioned her. Mrs. Carroll must have known, and so must Miss Dick.

It was, doubtless, fortunate that I had never built up any imaginary and sentimental picture of my mother, as I might easily have done. Mrs. Carroll’s presence in my life probably had prevented this.

“Here we are,” cried Owen, catching me by the arm. “Wake up. I suppose you don’t know that you’ve been fast asleep all the way!”

We found Katherine at the lodge, talking to the gardener’s wife, a stout, ruddy young woman, with a flaxen-headed little fellow clutching her by the skirts, one of my father’s youthful scholars, or, more likely, one of Miss McWaters’, since he was still at the age when problems connected with “twice times” awaken bewildering difficulties.

We stopped and joined in the conversation.

“Isn’t your brother coming?” Owen asked, after a minute or two.

“He said he was. He’s up at the house; he’s got some new music.” Katherine smiled at me. “Do you mind hurrying him up? It’s a shame to bother you, but if nobody fetches him he’ll never come.”

I complied with an extremely bad grace. It seemed to me I was always chosen for these messages. If Gerald didn’t like to come himself, why couldn’t he be left behind? I knew the others wouldn’t even wait for us; in fact, when I turned round, they had already begun to walk on slowly.

I found Gerald busy with his music, and not looking in the least as if he intended to be anything else but busy with it all the afternoon. “The others are waiting,” I said, with sulky abruptness. “Are you ready?”

He raised his head and his brown eyes rested on mine curiously. “They won’t wait very long,” he replied. “Do you really want to climb that ridiculous mountain?”

I looked down sullenly. “Why not? We arranged to do so, didn’t we? Owen wants to.”

“Let them go alone, then. They’ve begun to study botany. Katherine was examining things through a little lens all yesterday evening.”

His drawling irony made me furious. “We must go,” I said, shortly. I knew well enough that he knew what was passing in my mind, and that I had been fighting against it for the last fortnight. He was the only one, I fondly imagined, who _did_ know, and I had begun to think that the spectacle of my jealousy was pleasing to him, and that he had his own delicate ways of encouraging it. He did not like Owen, yet, for some reason I could not fathom, he appeared to regard favourably his friendship with Katherine. That friendship had made astonishing strides in the past week or two. When we went anywhere together now, it was invariably Owen who was Katherine’s escort. Things seemed to arrange themselves naturally in that way, and this afternoon was no exception.

It was not till I told him I would follow the others, and was leaving the room, that Gerald made up his mind to accompany me, and even then, about a quarter way up Slieve Donard, he announced that he had gone far enough and would wait here till they came down. Owen and Katherine were not in sight, for Gerald had made the ascent at the pace of the pilgrims in “Tannhäuser,” and I had had to keep with him. He stretched himself full length on the grass, and, as if it were an amusing question, asked me what I proposed doing. I did not know myself whether to wait with him here or to finish the climb. I stood hesitating, with a face like a thunder-cloud.

“I suppose they’re at the top by this time,” said Gerald, casually, and his supposition decided me.

I climbed up alone and full of bitter thoughts. Presently I saw Owen and Katherine far above me, but they never once looked back. I remembered that day, long ago it now seemed when Katherine and I had climbed the hill from the Bloody Bridge Valley, and how I had helped her over rough places, as I supposed Owen was helping her now, and walked hand in hand with her.

When I reached the summit I saw them standing together under the lee of a huge gray rock, gazing seaward. They heard my approach and turned round.

“Where did you leave Gerald?” Katherine asked, amused. “I didn’t think he would get very far!”

“You might have waited for me then,” I answered gruffly. “You were in a mighty hurry to start.”

It gave me a sort of stupid pleasure to think I was showing by my manner that I considered myself neglected, so I proceeded deliberately to be as unpleasant as possible. That I had joined them had obviously not annoyed them in the least――Katherine had certainly shown no annoyance when she had greeted me――yet I told myself that this was only pretence, and that they wished me away. And then, as I thought how there might have been some secret understanding between them, and that perhaps Katherine had arranged to be down at the lodge when we arrived so that she might send me back to the house for Gerald, I felt――though I really did not believe in any such scheming――a violent anger against them both. When she saw the kind of humour I was in, Katherine ceased to take any notice of me, and this made me worse. I had not sense enough to leave them. A kind of perversity seemed to force me to do everything I could to make myself objectionable. I had an insane desire to quarrel with Owen, and presently I contradicted him flatly when he said something I knew to be perfectly true. He flushed and his eyes brightened angrily, but he controlled himself. “What is the matter with you, Peter?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I muttered.

I bounded away from them. I ran down the mountain-side at the risk of breaking an ankle, leaping from one point to another. I did not pause when I came to where Gerald lay in the grass, but continued my headlong descent till I reached the woods. I had come down in an incredibly short time, and the violence of my flight had relieved me. I walked now at an ordinary pace, wondering what the others would think, conscious that I had made a fool of myself, yet laying all the blame on Katherine.

The woods were silent save for the occasional note of a robin or the low twitter of a swallow. I stopped by a marshy hollow to look at a vivid splash of yellow irises, and I gathered an armful of them for Mrs. Carroll.