The Four Feathers

by A. E. W. Mason

  CHAPTER XXXI

  FEVERSHAM RETURNS TO RAMELTON

  On an August morning of the same year Harry Feversham rode across theLennon bridge into Ramelton. The fierce suns of the Soudan had tannedhis face, the years of his probation had left their marks; he rode upthe narrow street of the town unrecognised. At the top of the hill heturned into the broad highway which, descending valleys and climbinghills, runs in one straight line to Letterkenny. He rode rather quicklyin a company of ghosts.

  The intervening years had gradually been dropping from his thoughts allthrough his journey across Egypt and the Continent. They were no morethan visionary now. Nor was he occupied with any dream of the thingswhich might have been but for his great fault. The things which hadbeen, here, in this small town of Ireland, were too definite. Here hehad been most happy, here he had known the uttermost of his misery; herehis presence had brought pleasure, here too he had done his worst harm.Once he stopped when he was opposite to the church, set high above theroad upon his right hand, and wondered whether Ethne was still atRamelton--whether old Dermod was alive, and what kind of welcome hewould receive. But he waked in a moment to the knowledge that he wassitting upon his horse in the empty road and in the quiet of an Augustmorning. There were larks singing in the pale blue above his head; alandrail sent up its harsh cry from the meadow on the left; the crow ofa cock rose clear from the valley. He looked about him, and rode brisklyon down the incline in front of him and up the ascent beyond. He rodeagain with his company of ghosts--phantoms of people with whom upon thisroad he had walked and ridden and laughed, ghosts of old thoughts andrecollected words. He came to a thick grove of trees, a broken fence, agateway with no gate. Inattentive to these evidences of desertion, heturned in at the gate and rode along a weedy and neglected drive. At theend of it he came to an open space before a ruined house. The aspect ofthe tumbling walls and unroofed rooms roused him at last completely fromhis absorption. He dismounted, and, tying his horse to the branch of atree, ran quickly into the house and called aloud. No voice answeredhim. He ran from deserted room to deserted room. He descended into thegarden, but no one came to meet him; and he understood now from theuncut grass upon the lawn, the tangled disorder of the flowerbeds, thatno one would come. He mounted his horse again, and rode back at a sharptrot. In Ramelton he stopped at the inn, gave his horse to the ostler,and ordered lunch for himself. He said to the landlady who waited uponhim:--

  "So Lennon House has been burned down? When was that?"

  "Five years ago," the landlady returned, "just five years ago thissummer." And she proceeded, without further invitation, to give avoluminous account of the conflagration and the cause of it, the ruin ofthe Eustace family, the inebriety of Bastable, and the death of DermodEustace at Glenalla. "But we hope to see the house rebuilt. It's likelyto be, we hear, when Miss Eustace is married," she said, in a voicewhich suggested that she was full of interesting information upon thesubject of Miss Eustace's marriage. Her guest, however, did not respondto the invitation.

  "And where does Miss Eustace live now?"

  "At Glenalla," she replied. "Halfway on the road to Rathmullen there's atrack leads up to your left. It's a poor mountain village is Glenalla,and no place for Miss Eustace, at all, at all. Perhaps you will bewanting to see her?"

  "Yes. I shall be glad if you will order my horse to be brought round tothe door," said the man; and he rose from the table to put an end to theinterview.

  The landlady, however, was not so easily dismissed. She stood at thedoor and remarked:--

  "Well, that's curious--that's most curious. For only a fortnight ago agentleman burnt just as black as yourself stayed a night here on thesame errand. He asked for Miss Eustace's address and drove up toGlenalla. Perhaps you have business with her?"

  "Yes, I have business with Miss Eustace," the stranger returned. "Willyou be good enough to give orders about my horse?"

  While he was waiting for his horse he looked through the leaves of thehotel book, and saw under a date towards the end of July the name ofColonel Trench.

  "You will come back, sir, to-night?" said the landlady, as he mounted.

  "No," he answered, "I do not think I shall come again to Ramelton." Andhe rode down the hill, and once more that day crossed the Lennon bridge.Four miles on he came to the track opposite a little bay of the Lough,and, turning into it, he rode past a few white cottages up to the purplehollow of the hills. It was about five o'clock when he came to the long,straggling village. It seemed very quiet and deserted, and built withoutany plan. A few cottages stood together, then came a gap of fields,beyond that a small plantation of larches and a house which stood byitself. Beyond the house was another gap, through which he could seestraight down to the water of the Lough, shining in the afternoon sun,and the white gulls poising and swooping above it. And after passingthat gap he came to a small grey church, standing bare to the winds uponits tiny plateau. A pathway of white shell-dust led from the door of thechurch to the little wooden gate. As he came level with the gate acollie dog barked at him from behind it.

  The rider looked at the dog, which was very grey about the muzzle. Henoticed its marking, and stopped his horse altogether. He glancedtowards the church, and saw that the door stood open. At once hedismounted; he fastened his horse to the fence, and entered thechurchyard. The collie thrust its muzzle into the back of his knee,sniffed once or twice doubtfully, and suddenly broke into an exuberantwelcome. The collie dog had a better memory than the landlady of theinn. He barked, wagged his tail, crouched and sprang at the stranger'sshoulders, whirled round and round in front of him, burst into sharp,excited screams of pleasure, ran up to the church door and barkedfuriously there, then ran back and jumped again upon his friend. The mancaught the dog as it stood up with its forepaws upon his chest, pattedit, and laughed. Suddenly he ceased laughing, and stood stock-still withhis eyes towards the open door of the church. In the doorway EthneEustace was standing. He put the dog down and slowly walked up the pathtowards her. She waited on the threshold without moving, withoutspeaking. She waited, watching him, until he came close to her. Then shesaid simply:--

  "Harry."

  She was silent after that; nor did he speak. All the ghosts and phantomsof old thoughts in whose company he had travelled the whole of that dayvanished away from his mind at her simple utterance of his name. Sixyears had passed since his feet crushed the gravel on the dawn of a Junemorning beneath her window. And they looked at one another, remarkingthe changes which those six years had brought. And the changes,unnoticed and almost imperceptible to those who had lived daily in theircompany, sprang very distinct to the eyes of these two. Feversham wasthin, his face was wasted. The strain of life in the House of Stone hadleft its signs about his sunken eyes and in the look of age beyond hisyears. But these were not the only changes, as Ethne noticed; they werenot, indeed, the most important ones. Her heart, although she stood sostill and silent, went out to him in grief for the great troubles whichhe had endured; but she saw, too, that he came back without a thought ofanger towards her for that fourth feather snapped from her fan. But shewas clear-eyed even at this moment. She saw much more. She understoodthat the man who stood quietly before her now was not the same man whomshe had last seen in the hall of Ramelton. There had been a timidity inhis manner in those days, a peculiar diffidence, a continual expectationof other men's contempt, which had gone from him. He was now quietlyself-possessed; not arrogant; on the other hand, not diffident. He hadput himself to a long, hard test; and he knew that he had not failed.All that she saw; and her face lightened as she said:--

  "It is not all harm which has come of these years. They were notwasted."

  But Feversham thought of her lonely years in this village ofGlenalla--and thought with a man's thought, unaware that nowhere elsewould she have chosen to live. He looked into her face, and saw themarks of the years upon it. It was not that she had aged so much. Herbig grey eyes shone as clearly as before, the colour was still as brightupon her cheeks. But there w
as more of character. She had suffered; shehad eaten of the tree of knowledge.

  "I am sorry," he said. "I did you a great wrong six years ago, and Ineed not."

  She held out her hand to him.

  "Will you give it me, please?"

  And for a moment he did not understand.

  "That fourth feather," she said.

  He drew his letter-case from his coat, and shook two feathers out intothe palm of his hand. The larger one, the ostrich feather, he held outto her. But she said:--

  "Both."

  There was no reason why he should keep Castleton's feather any longer.He handed them both to her, since she asked for them, and she claspedthem, and with a smile treasured them against her breast.

  "I have the four feathers now," she said.

  "Yes," answered Feversham; "all four. What will you do with them?"

  Ethne's smile became a laugh.

  "Do with them!" she cried in scorn. "I shall do nothing with them. Ishall keep them. I am very proud to have them to keep."

  She kept them, as she had once kept Harry Feversham's portrait. Therewas something perhaps in Durrance's contention that women so much morethan men gather up their experiences and live upon them, lookingbackwards. Feversham, at all events, would now have dropped the feathersthen and there and crushed them into the dust of the path with his heel;they had done their work. They could no longer reproach, they were nolonger needed to encourage, they were dead things. Ethne, however, heldthem tight in her hand; to her they were not dead.

  "Colonel Trench was here a fortnight ago," she said. "He told me youwere bringing it back to me."

  "But he did not know of the fourth feather," said Feversham. "I nevertold any man that I had it."

  "Yes. You told Colonel Trench on your first night in the House of Stoneat Omdurman. He told me. I no longer hate him," she added, but without asmile and quite seriously, as though it was an important statement whichneeded careful recognition.

  "I am glad of that," said Feversham. "He is a great friend of mine."

  Ethne was silent for a moment or two. Then she said:--

  "I wonder whether you have forgotten our drive from Ramelton to ourhouse when I came to fetch you from the quay? We were alone in thedog-cart, and we spoke--"

  "Of the friends whom one knows for friends the first moment, and whomone seems to recognise even though one has never seen them before,"interrupted Feversham. "Indeed I remember."

  "And whom one never loses whether absent or dead," continued Ethne. "Isaid that one could always be sure of such friends, and you answered--"

  "I answered that one could make mistakes," again Feversham interrupted.

  "Yes, and I disagreed. I said that one might seem to make mistakes, andperhaps think so for a long while, but that in the end one would beproved not to have made them. I have often thought of those words. Iremembered them very clearly when Captain Willoughby brought to me thefirst feather, and with a great deal of remorse. I remember them againvery clearly to-day, although I have no room in my thoughts for remorse.I was right, you see, and I should have clung firmly to my faith. But Idid not." Her voice shook a little, and pleaded as she went on: "I wasyoung. I knew very little. I was unaware how little. I judged hastily;but to-day I understand."

  She opened her hand and gazed for a while at the white feathers. Thenshe turned and went inside the church. Feversham followed her.