Read Ebook: The Scratch Pack by Conyers Dorothea

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Ebook has 2826 lines and 96652 words, and 57 pages

THE SCRATCH PACK

"If there even appeared to be the faintest reason for his not going into something," said Gheena severely. Then she put her hand on the collar of the nondescript cur named Crabbit, an animal which was not precisely an Irish terrier and not quite a retriever, had some distant connections in the house of spaniels, and other relations too varied to trace, the result of this liberally scattered ancestry being endowed with a silky-red coat, and liquid, truthful eyes which expressed his powers of affection, but not the original sin behind his broad forehead.

"Like me--yes, Gheena." The words came lightly, but a little half stifled twisted sigh slipped from Darby Dillon's lips. Darby had been a light-hearted, long-limbed soldier in days of peace. If you saw him sitting down or in the saddle, and came up at his right side, he was apparently long limbed and good-looking still: a lean well-built man of about thirty-five, but at the left side Darby's shoulder stooped; he shuffled with one limb stiff and useless, generally with a crutch under his shoulder.

A crashing fall playing polo on hard Egyptian ground had left him maimed and crippled.

"I--did.... I wasn't. He's gone again," said Gheena philosophically.

A streak of red had tumbled over the brow of the low cliff, and a resounding splash marked the fact that Crabbit was once more in hot pursuit of seagulls, the hope to seize one unawares being embedded deeply in him.

"He is off to that rock where they all sit on. Mother gets quite worried when he snuffles under her chair and thinks it is bits or perhaps he is going mad. Why do some people"--Gheena whistled impotently--"never get a grip of life, Darby? Mummie can't ever think about Crabbit without asking Dearest if it isn't right--Aren't the dog's nose noises suspicious? Darby--I--I never meant to refer to anyone."

Darby said cheerily that he knew it, and that one got used to a lost leg, even if it meant other losses--here his eyes clouded--and that a fellow who could sit on a saddle need never grumble.

They sat silent then, looking across the sea; the great endless water carpet was grey under a grey sky, always moving with froth of spray on its lips when it touched the shore, here and there a line of white breaking over some hidden rock, its steely heaving distance merging to the moving sky. Far off the smudge of smoke marked the track of a liner standing out, and two fishing boats, red-sailed, were creeping into harbour. The sea-birds cried their curiously eerie notes, a little stretch of golden sand sandwiched between the rocks was fringed with pipers skimming on their infinitesimal legs, and here and there a breathless and outraged gull eyeing Crabbit irritably.

The peace of late autumn was on the world; smoke curled up lazily from the little stone chimneys; children were gathering seaweed and carrying it up to dry. Red war seemed impossible as the two looked out across the heaving, dimpling sea.

The cliffs, covered with short, sweet grass, ran at Duncahir to the V of a small deep harbour, shaded by high hills at the back, shadowing it chilly. Beyond the shadow of the hills stretched a tangle of jutting rocks hollowed by innumerable caves, out to where the Atlantic beat and surged on the higher cliffs outside, and, skipping, trod its brave way to and fro to distant ports.

The mouth of the inlet was wide, and generally rough with the swell and rush of cross currents.

In the soft salty air fuchsias flourished, their blazing bells in every sheltered nook, and planted in hedges for shelter.

In a hollow near the mouth of the harbour, battered trees protesting against their position as mere protection from roaring gales, Castle Freyne stood, tall and rambling, with all kinds of semi-tropical flowers growing in the garden, and its rows of blind windows staring reproachfully among open-eyed glassed fellows.

The village of Duncahir hung upon the very edge of the cliffs with an air of supreme pride because it did not topple over, so close were the houses built to where the land broke off and the sudden rent all fuchsia-edged.

The Freynes had once owned all the mountain and bog and flat lands along the east side of the harbour, and had now disposed of it with cheer; this sentiment lessened when it appeared that the tenants of the estate still expected to have defunct calves replaced, help given with carts and horses and all the old benefits which a patient landlady had conferred on them.

Matilda Freyne, Gheena's mother, had acquiesced with every decision made for her in life save one--her own name. She had detested it in her childhood, turned it to Matty and Mat and Tilda during her girlhood, and then dared anyone worthy of the name of friend to call her by any of these abbreviations, as they were worse than the original.

She had seriously thought of becoming Genevieve when confirmed, but having some vague idea that a change of name was irrefutably coupled with immersion, and her hair being straight by nature, she refrained, holding a grievance for years afterwards against the clergyman because he had not fully explained a subject which she here consulted him.

On her wedding day the "I Matilda" was spoken so faintly that an agitated mother held out strong smelling-salts and quite upset the ceremony. It took the Bishop, a nervous man, five minutes to recover, because he had been bending over to whisper reassurance to the faint-voiced bride at the moment.

In the vestry Matilda viciously upset the ink-bottle over the registry book, thus obliterating every signature except her own.

When her first child was born and proved to be a girl, Mrs. Freyne decided that at least she should not be burdened with one hideous name. Her child's was to be Irish and the name of a flower. Very weak-minded people have occasional outbursts of complete obstinacy, and when Major Freyne, who was very deaf, insisted on the family name of Annette or Caroline, Matilda, his wife, merely sent for the gardener and asked for information about Irish flowers.

When Hallinan scratched his head and seemed to think of nothing but Push och Bui and Cruve tharrig, Mrs. Freyne was still determined, but undecided. She held the baby herself at the font, had a flash of inspiration five minutes beforehand, and pronounced its name firmly--Carrigeen.

It was sufficiently like Caroline to escape her husband's notice, and when the astounded Mr. Hallinan, who was too well acquainted with the word, said "Eh, what?" Matilda Freyne repeated it hurriedly and firmly.

When it was pointed out to her--and, in fact, she remembered that Carrigeen was a certain edible seaweed--Mrs. Freyne said gloomily that at least it was not Matilda, and bent before the blast of marital wrath, with what Major Freyne called heatedly the aggravation of a sally bough.

When Carrigeen could no longer be Baby or Doatie she certainly could not be Carrig or Een, and it was the nurse who settled the matter by calling her Miss Gheena, with an "h" introduced.

Major Freyne was taken early to his fathers, and his wife being quite unable to decide anything for herself, drifted into matrimony with a somewhat peppery cousin, who resented Gheena's ultimate inheritance of Castle Freyne at her marriage and the prospect of the dower house, Girtnamurragh, for himself.

Gheena was slight, with very bright brown hair, seldom burdened with a hat; a skin browned to a very soft tan, grey-blue eyes, a crooked smile and a determined will.

"Crabbit very nearly got a gull, Darby; he is snapping at jelly-fish now and coming in. And why you men don't say something!"

Darby Dillon observed patiently that if an American citizen chose to come to Duncahir for his health, they really had no right to criticize.

Gheena returned severely that she did not believe that Basil Stafford had any right either to America or ill-health, and got up.

The sun was setting, and through a rift in the pack of clouds came bars of amber and gold, turning Innisfail island to a dome of misty purple, and Leeshane to a low hump of mauve.

"If Mom did not cry and talk of her heart I'd go out myself," said Gheena, dropping three stitches in her excitement, her needles clicking and flashing feverishly.

"It was hot enough to take a swim this morning," said Basil Stafford easily. "You might have come out, Miss Freyne, when I was doing aquatic feats."

Gheena knitted faster still. She looked up, frowning, at a nondescript and active young man, with pleasant eyes and a somewhat grim mouth, who was standing close to them.

"Coming like--like--a man in rubber shoes! You might be out after spies," said Gheena sarcastically.

"It was after Carrigeen at low tide," said the young man gravely, showing a basket of white seaweed, to prove that the remark was not personal. "The news is none too cheery," he added gravely, looking down at a telegraph-form.

Gheena pulled at the flimsy slip, to read something concerning cows, sheep, pigs and several numbers, and to grunt suspiciously.

"The newspaper office sends them to me in code," said Basil softly. "I get so much more for my money that way." He translated a long message, and Gheena's lips drooped until her eyes grew angry.

With the energy and skill of the amateur strategist, she immediately explained how completely everything had been muddled.

"How, if the English had done one thing and another and France and Russia the rest, the whole of the German army would be scrambling away back to Berlin to get into the Kaiser's coal cellars."

"Just rush and dash," declaimed Gheena loftily, "not this retreating and losing."

Basil Stafford remarked, "And perhaps of men," rather slyly; to which Gheena answered, "Yes," with a glance of fiery meaning, and he grinned--softly.

Picking up the khaki sock--Gheena often dropped it--Basil inquired gravely whether the holes were for the easily clipping in of suspenders, and really wilted this time before the look which flashed over the piece of knitting.

"There is quite a party here to-night," said Dillon, looking along the cliff. "Here is Mrs. Weston now."

Gheena, staring unhappily, suddenly remembered that she had promised to go to Mrs. Weston's and fetch her up to tea and: "It was all Crabbit's fault," said Gheena placidly. "I don't know why people are staying on here this year like this. Mrs. Weston hasn't even the excuse of drainage works."

Mrs. Weston, who was slim and upright and nice-looking, came tripping in, heels palpably too high, along the cliffs. She was quite ostensibly but neatly painted, and made no pretence as to the expense of her chestnut wig. She was a capable young woman, who now talked of taking a house at Duncahir because her people in Australia had joined the army and she was quite alone.

The district inspector, a stout and self-opinionated youth, had shown marked symptoms of admiration, these coupled with discreet desire to know if she was one of those widows whose husbands left provisos in their wills.

Mr. Keefe joined the group at the moment. He was also asked to tea, and Darby nodded.

Violet Weston held out an eager hand for the telegram and clamoured for news. Personally, she was one of the optimists who regarded the retreat as mere strategy to lure the Germans on, and who considered that the war would end in Berlin with the Kaiser on exhibition in a neat brass cage.

Stafford read the message aloud, keeping it himself.

"You see, you wouldn't understand it," said Gheena, eyeing her knitting. "He has them sent to him in some code or other."

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