It will be remembered that Father John had promised to take upon himself all the trouble attendant upon the preparation for Thady’s trial; and with the view of redeeming this promise he went up to Dublin and spent a week among the lawyers who were to be engaged for the young man’s defence. The chief among these was one Mr. O’Malley, and the priest strove hard to imbue that gentleman with his own views of the whole matter. The day after that on which Father John returned, he saw both Mr. McKeon and the Counsellor, and explained to them as nearly as he could all that had passed between himself and O’Malley. Though they were both greatly interested on Thady’s account, they did not feel the same intense, constant anxiety, which now quite oppressed the priest; and, moreover, trusting more to their own judgment than he did, they were not so inclined to alter their preconceived opinion. They both, therefore, assured Father John that they were still quite sanguine as to Thady’s acquittal. This raised his hopes again a little, but nevertheless, from that time till the trial, he was so absorbed by his strong feeling on the subject, that he was almost totally unable to attend to the usual duties and employment of his life. It was decided that Mr. Webb should use all his endeavours to obtain tidings of Corney Dolan, and ascertain whether, in the event of his being summoned, he would be able to give any evidence respecting the meeting at Mrs. Mehan’s, which would be of use to Thady at the trial. In this he was successful, and he learnt from that respectable individual that he could swear that Ussher’s name was not mentioned at all.
It must be owned that Mr. Dolan’s manner was not such as to inspire the Counsellor with any great admiration for his veracity, and his opinion in this respect was strengthened when the witness added “that by Garra, av his honor thought it’d be any use in life to Mr. Thady, he’d swear as how he was asleep all the time; or for the matther of that, that he was out along wid de gals dancing the livelong night.” It was with difficulty that Mr. Webb made him understand that he was only to swear to what he believed to be the truth, and that if he told a single lie in answer to the numerous questions which would be asked him, he would only be endangering Mr. Macdermot’s life.
Father John undertook the more difficult task of explaining to Feemy what it was she was expected to do at the trial, and of making her understand that her brother’s life depended on her making an effort to give her evidence in the court clearly and firmly. On reaching Drumsna he was much distressed to find that she was no longer at Mrs. McKeon’s. For two days after the conversation which had passed between that lady and her charge, in which she declared her suspicions that Feemy was enceinte, the latter had made a great effort to recover her health, or at any rate the appearance of health. She left her bed earlier in the morning than she had ever done for the last five months; she dressed herself with great care, and — for alas, Mrs. McKeon’s suspicion was but too true — fastened her dress with a most dangerous determination to prove that the charge was unfounded. Patiently she endured all the agonies which this occasioned her during the first day and during the whole evening, till the house was at rest and she was secure from being again visited. On the next morning she went so far as to come down to breakfast, and to undergo Tony’s somewhat rough congratulation as to her convalescence, without betraying her sufferings. After breakfast, when he was gone out, she again opened the subject of her return home, and begged Mrs. McKeon to allow her to have the car to return to Ballycloran. Mrs. McKeon again put her off, telling her that it would be necessary first to consult the doctor, and that he would not be likely to call till the following day. In the afternoon Mrs. McKeon, with Lyddy and Louey, went out for a drive, and as Feemy was apparently so much better, they asked her to accompany them, but this she declined.
“It’s as well for her not to go out before the trial,” whispered Mrs. McKeon to her daughters. “Poor girl; she has a great deal, a great deal, indeed, to go through yet.” Indeed she had a very great deal to go through; a very heavy atonement to pay for her folly and her crime.
As soon as the car was gone from the door, she hurried up stairs, put on her bonnet and cloak, took a letter which she had already prepared, and opening the door of Mrs. McKeon’s own room, put it on the table. She then crept noiselessly down stairs, opened the front door, and passed into the street, without having been seen or heard by either of the servants, who were alone left with her in the house. The following is the letter, which, to her great grief and surprise, Mrs. McKeon found on her table when she returned:—
DEAR MRS. McKEON,
It is because I know you’d never let me go back to Ballycloran, that I’ve now gone away without telling you what I was going to do. Pray don’t be angry with me. Indeed I’m very unhappy; but I should be worse if you were to be angry with me. I’m only a bother and a throuble to you here, and I hav’n’t spirits left even to let you see how very much obliged I am to you for all your throuble; but indeed I am in my heart, my dear Mrs. McKeon, both to you and to dear Lyddy and Louey, who have been so very kind to me. It is a deal better for me to be at home with my father; my heart’s nearly broken with all I’ve gone through; but he’ll bear with me, for he’s used to me. Give my compliments to Doctor Blake. Pray beg him not to come to Ballycloran. I am in his debt a great deal already, and how will I ever pay him? Besides, I’m a deal better now, as you see, in health; it’s only the heart now that ails me. Give my kind love to Lyddy and Louey. I felt their kindness when the sorrow within me wouldn’t let me tell them so. Now good bye, dear Mrs. McKeon; don’t be throubling yourself to come to Ballycloran; it’ll be a poor place now. I’ll send Katty for the things.
I remain, dear Mrs. McKeon, Very, very faithfully yours,
FEEMY.
P.S. — Indeed — indeed — it isn’t the case, what you were saying.
When Mrs. McKeon found the letter on her return, she was greatly vexed; but she could do nothing; she couldn’t go to Ballycloran and fetch Feemy by force. The falsehood with which the letter concluded was not altogether disbelieved; but still she felt by no means certain that her former suspicions were not true, and if so, perhaps it was better for all parties that Feemy should be at home. She determined to call at Ballycloran when Feemy might be supposed to have settled herself, and content herself for the present with hearing from the girl who came for the clothes that she had got home safe.
When Father John called on the Saturday, she talked over the subject as fully with him as she could without alluding to the matter respecting which she was so much in doubt. He declared his intention of seeing Feemy on the following Monday, and of speaking to her strongly on the subject of the trial which was so soon coming on; and he begged Mrs. McKeon to do the same afterwards — as perhaps having become latterly used to her interference, Feemy might bear from her what she had to be told, with more patience than she would from himself.
“Indeed I will, Father John, but do you be gentle with her. She’s broken-hearted now; you’ll find her very different from the hot-headed creature she was before her sorrows began.”
“I fear she is — I fear she is; but, Mrs. McKeon, has she ever shown a feeling of regard — a spark of interest, for her noble brother? — it’s that so annoys me in Feemy; I could feel for her — weep for her — and forgive her with all my heart — all but that.”
“Ah, Father John,” answered the lady; “it’s not for me to preach to you; but where would we all be at the last, if our Judge should say to us, ‘I can forgive you all but that?’”
“God forbid I should judge her; God forbid I should limit that to her, which I so much need myself. But isn’t her heart hardened against her brother? Oh, if you could have seen him as I have done this morning — if you could believe how softened is his heart! He had never much false pride in it — it is nearly all gone now! If you could have heard how warmly, how affectionately he asks after the sister that won’t mention his name; if you could know how much more anxious he is on her account and his father’s, than on his own, Feemy’s coldness and repugnance would strike you as it does me. I’m afraid her chief sorrow is still for the robber that would have destroyed her, and has destroyed her brother.”
“Of course it is, Father John — and so it should be. I’m a woman and a mother, and you may take my word respecting a woman’s heart. No wife could love her husband more truly than Feemy loved that man: unworthy as he was, he was all in all to her. Would it not, therefore, show more heartlessness in her to forget him that is now dead, than the brother who killed him? Of course she loved him better than her brother, as every woman loves the man she does love better than all the world. How can she forget him? Be gentle to her, Father John, and I think she will do what you desire.”
Father John promised that he would comply with Mrs. McKeon’s advice, and he was as good as his word.
On reaching the hall-door of Mrs. McKeon’s house Feemy looked cautiously about her, but seeing that no one belonging to the house was in sight, she passed on through the little garden into the street. She pulled her old veil down over her face, and walked on through the village as quickly as she could. She felt that every one’s eye was on her; that all the country was looking at her; but she had made up her mind to go through it all, and she persevered. The last time she had been out of the house was the day she had been taken from Ballycloran to the inquest. That was a horrid day, but the present seemed worse; she had now a greater sorrow than any of which she was then conscious, and she had to bear it alone, unpitied and uncomforted. Indeed, her only rest, her only respite from absolute torture was now to consist in being alone; and yet bad as the present was, there was a worse — she felt that there was a worse in store for her. She already anticipated the tortures of that day, when she would again be dragged out from her resting-place before the eyes of all mankind, and placed in the very middle of the crowd, conspicuous above the rest, to be stared at, bullied, and questioned horridly about that dread subject, which it even racked her mind to remember. Would she be able on that long, long day — days, for what she knew — to conceal her shame from all who would be looking at her, and to bear in patience the agonies which it would be necessary for her to endure? She walked on quickly, and was soon out of Drumsna, and in the lane leading by the cottage to Ballycloran. By the time she had walked half a mile she was in a dreadful heat, although it was still in March, for she was so weak and ill that her exertion, in proportion to her strength, had been immense. She sat down by the side of the road for a time, and then continued; and then again sat down. Her sufferings were soon so great that she was unable to walk above two hundred yards at a time, and she began to fear that she would be utterly unable to get to the house. Once when she was sitting, panting on the bank by the road-side, one of the labouring peasants recognised her — saw she was ill — and offered to get her a country car. Oh, what an agonising struggle she made to answer the man cheerfully, when she assured him that she was quite well — that she was only sitting there for her pleasure — that she required no assistance, and that she should walk home directly. The man well knew that she was not there for her pleasure — that her brother was in gaol, her father on the point of losing his property, and that she was weak and in need of rest; but he saw that she would sooner be alone, and he had the good tact to leave her, without pressing his offer for her accommodation.
At length she reached the avenue, and had to pass the spot where she had sat so long on that fatal night listening for the sound of her lover’s horse, and watching her brother as he stood swinging his stick before the house. She shuddered as she did so, but she did walk by the tree where she had then sat shivering, and at last once more stood on the steps of her father’s house.
The door was fastened inside, and she had to knock for admittance. This she did three times, till she thought she should have fainted on the flags, and at last the window of her own sitting-room was raised, and Mary McGovery’s head was slowly protruded. Feemy was sitting on the low stone wall, which guarded the side of the flags, as she heard Mary say in a sharp voice —
“Who’s that? — and what are ye wanting here? Oh! by the mortials, but av it aint Miss Feemy herself come back I declare!”
And Mary ran round, and began to draw the bolts of the front door. Up jumped Larry at the unwelcome sound, from his accustomed seat by the fire.
“What in the divil’s name are ye afther? What are ye doing? Ye owld hag, will ye be letting the ruffians in on me?” And he caught violently hold of Mary’s gown to drag her back, before she had accomplished the liberation of the rusty bolts.
“Now go in, sir, and sit down,” said Mary. “Go in, sir, will you; I tell you it’s yer own daughter, and no ruffian whatever. Dra —— the owld man, but he’ll have every rag off the back of me! Don’t I tell you, it’s Miss Feemy. Will you be asy now? — do you want to have me stark naked?”
“Come away, woman, I tell you; don’t I know Feemy’s gone off, away from me; she’ll niver, niver come back; it’s Keegan and his hell-hounds you’re letting in on me.”
By this time Mary had accomplished her object of undoing the door in spite of the old man’s exertions, and Feemy entered weary and worn, soiled with the road, and pale and wan in spite of the hectic flush which reddened a portion of her cheek.
“Father,” she said when she saw the old man standing astonished and stupified in the hall, “father, don’t ye know me — won’t ye spake to me?”
“Why thin, Feemy, is it yer own self in arnest come back again? And where’s yer lover? the man ye married, ye know — what war his name? — why don’t ye tell me? Mary, what’s the name of the Captain Feemy married?”
“Asy, sir, asy; come in thin,” and Mary led him into his own room, and Feemy followed in silence with her eyes already filled with tears.
“Where’s yer own husband thin, Feemy dear? Ussher, I main — Captain Ussher — it’s he’d be welcome with you now, my pet,” and he began stroking his daughter’s shoulders and back, for she had still her bonnet on her head. “Thady’s not here now to be brow-beating and teasing him; it’s we’ll be comfortable now the cowld long nights — for the Captain’ll be bringing the whiskey and the groceries with him, won’t he, darling? and Thady the blackguard’s out along wid Keegan, and they can’t get in through the door, for it’s always locked;” and then turning to Mary, he said, “why don’t you put the locks back, you d —— d jade? do you want them to be catching me the first moment I’m seeing my own darling girl here?”
Feemy could not say a word to her father: his absolute idiotcy, and the manner in which he referred to Ussher, quite upset her, and she sat down and wept bitterly.
“What ails you, pet?” continued the old man, “what ails you, alanna? they shan’t touch him, dear — there, you see the big lock’s closed now; he’ll be safe from Thady now, darling.”
“Oh, Miss Feemy,” said Mary, “he’s quite beside himself; asy now, sir, asy, and don’t be talking such nonsense; don’t ye know the Captain got kilt — months ago — last October?”
“Killed — and who dared to kill my darling’s husband? who’d dare to touch him? why wasn’t he here? why wasn’t he inside the big lock?”
“Why, don’t you know,” and Mary gave the old man a violent shake to refresh his memory; “don’t you know Mr. Thady kilt him in the avenue?”
“May his father’s curse blisther him then! May — but I think they wor telling me about that before. Eh, Feemy?” he continued, with a sigh, “it’s a bad time I’ve been having of it with this tipsy woman since you were gone; she don’t lave me a moment’s pace from morning to night; bad ‘cess to her, but I wish she wor well out of the house. I’ll have you to mind me now — and you’ll not be bawling and shaking me as she does; but she’s always dhrunk,” he added in a whisper.
Feemy could bear this no longer; she was obliged to make her escape from the room into her own, in which she found that Mary had taken up her temporary residence during so much of the day as she could spare ............