“You will not. I wouldn’t bet against her to win a million,” said Paddy Bawn.
The loud-speaker spoke out of the sky. Seven horses were called for the second round, and the bay’s name—Cnucanor—was announced third.
“A pound saved is a pound won,” said Paddy Bawn. “He’ll go kinder this time with the temper cooled in him.”
He was too sanguine all of a sudden. But, indeed, Cnucanor might have jumped better that second round if his rider had held hand and mind on him. For two days her eyes—when they had time—had been looking over that sea of faces for one face; and now, when she was not looking for it, she saw it. If she had once started for the green bank she would have seen nothing, but in that moment before she steadied her mount she saw that looked-for face with the tail of an eye—just beyond the bank and to one side, low down, leaning far over the railing, set on her like a magnet.
She could never tell what happened after that.
A touch of knee, a jerk of the off-rein, the least thing—perhaps the horse’s natural weakness at a wide bank—would do it. The colt came slew-ways at the jump, rose gallantly, rapped his forefeet hard, bumped his nose into the grass top, kicked for a hold under firm rein, came down somehow on four feet on the right side, and pecked disastrously forward on his head.
A deep lifting moan went over the crowd.
The rider had been jarred loose in the saddle by the first jolting bump, and had no time to recover balance and knee grip before that disastrous peck. Instinctively her feet were clear of the stirrups; she sailed in the air, turned a clean somersault, and came down clump. But barely had she touched the ground than she rolled away from the trampling hooves, and in the same movement came to her feet. Only for a moment. She swayed, drooped, crumpled down on her side, and lay still.
“God Almighty! her back!” said Hugh Forbes, and placed a holding hand on MacDonald’s shoulder. “Steady, son—wait till we see!”
The Scot threw back his shoulders stiffly against Hugh’s hand.
The Saint John ambulance men were already at Nuala Kierley’s side and lifting her carefully on a light canvas stretcher. Sean Glynn spoke for the first time.
“See that! She kicked her legs straight then. Nothing wrong with her spine—only a wrench. Come on!”
“Right!” said Hugh. “We’ll go down to the dressing-station end. Paddy Bawn has the entrance to the ring, and will bring us out word.”
But already Paddy Bawn was gone.
On the way down Archibald MacDonald slipped his friends in the crowd. He could not face Nuala Kierley.
II
Archibald MacDonald spent a bad evening, as he well deserved to.
As soon as he had left the show grounds, he knew that he had acted in a churlish manner, but could not summon up enough self-discipline to go back. Nuala Kierley was nothing to him, but as, in a way, he was responsible for her riding the colt that afternoon, he might at least inquire after her. He must do that—but not just yet . . . His friends would know, but to find his friends in the crowded Dublin hotels might take all night.
His dissatisfaction with himself drove him round to the City of Dublin Hospital not far from the show grounds. Nuala Kierley had not been brought there nor to any of the nursing homes in the vicinity, nor to St. Vincent’s across the Green from his hotel. She might be anywhere in a city of half a million people. He even went into a phone-booth and rang up the show yard, but the officials had already left and the attendant knew nothing. Finally he cursed himself heartily and plodded heavily across Stephen’s Green Park to his hotel.
The first man he saw in the foyer was Paddy Bawn Enright. He was alone and sitting forward on a leather couch outside the door of the lounge, his strong brown fists clenched between the knees of his riding-breeches, one shoulder hunched in that characteristic fashion he had, and his brows down over his steadfast fighter’s eyes.
“Sit down here,” he said shortly. “I want your advice.”
Archibald MacDonald sat down. He felt a strange little glow of warmth in him. These Irishmen who were his friends would never let a friend go. They understood, and stuck by him.
“How is Mrs. Kierley?” he inquired at once.
“All right. ’Tis about her I want your advice.”
The Scot frowned. “Not badly hurt, I hope?”
“Nothing broken. A twist to something with a long name that’ll keep her on her back for a week. Listen to me! You and Sean Glynn took her down to Knockanore and put her in the hands of me and Ellen Roe. And what am I going to do now?”
“Is there anything to be done, Paddy Bawn?”
“That is what I want to know. If Ellen Roe were here she’d know, but I want to know now, before the night falls. Listen! When I went to the dressing-station after the fall I couldn’t get in to her for a while, as the doctor was with her, and, when I did get in, there was another man with her. A strong-built man, a dark-complexioned man, with a nose that was hit hard some time or other. You know who he was?”
“Hanley?”
“That’s him. I know about Hanley—Sean Glynn told me. And I might as well tell you that she had dinner with him last night. But the two of us had a walk by ourselves down to O’Connell Bridge after that, and had a cup of coffee at a place. Look now! All that Nuala Kierley said to me today and she lying there was, ‘Good-by, Paddy Bawn, and give my love to Ellen Roe and small Sean.’ And after that Hanley took her away in a big car with a nurse.”
Archibald MacDonald’s chin was on his breast, and he felt nothing but an utter sense of depression.
“What could I do?” went on Paddy Bawn. “I could do nothing, but I wasn’t the least bit satisfied—not one bit. So I galloped a hack after the car, and we hadn’t far to go. Listen! This fellow Hanley has never left Dublin since that night at the Gaiety—I know about that too; he has taken a service flat in Fitzwilliam Street, and Nuala Kierley is there now. Are we to do anything about it?”
“Have you put it to Sean Glynn and Hugh Forbes?”
“Leave them out of it. They have a dislike to Hanley—and you are a cool man—as I know.”
“Not very cool, Paddy Bawn.”
“Cool enough at a pinch. That girl was placed in my charge, and I liked her—and Ellen Roe—and she liked us and small Sean. She was nice in the house and had simple ways; and she would make you laugh and you with the toothache. You wouldn’t think that, now, but she has the light heart in her if she had a chance to show it. Like a lad she was. Sure, ’tis her heart kept her alive. And one thing we noticed, and it used make Ellen Roe cry. It was the way she held that life in her arms as if she was saying, ‘Oh, God! ’tis only for a short time.’ Are you listening to me?”
“I am listening, Paddy Bawn.”
“Is there anything to be done?”
“She said good-by to you this afternoon?”
“She said good-by to me, her face gallant.”
“She went away with Sir Henry Hanley?”
“He took her away.”
“She went with him. There is nothing to be done, Paddy Bawn.”
“That is your advice?”
“I can see nothing that you can do—that any one can do.”
They sat silent then, and slowly Paddy Bawn’s face changed. MacDonald had never really seen the small man’s fighting face, and it gave him a cold shiver. All expression was wiped off it, a glaze washed over the eyes; and the cheekbones were blenched and hard as stone. His hands were clenched over his knees at the end of stiff arms, and his voice, not raised, had a strange even harshness.
“By Christ God! I will not have it that way. She will be lying there waiting for a word. I will go and see her now.”
“Better be careful. Hanley is exceedingly tough.”
“I hope he is,” said Paddy Bawn, and rose to his feet.
Archibald MacDonald rose with him.
“I am coming with you,” he said.
“I know you are,” said Paddy Bawn simply.
III
Propped on pillows, with pillows all round her, Nuala Kierley lay on a white bed in the middle of a big room. The bright bars of evening sunlight came level, over the trees of the park, through two tall windows, and lay across the white coverlet. A uniformed nurse moved some things about on a dressing-table between the windows, and Sir Henry Hanley sat aside on the bed and looked at Nuala. Her fine light hair was about her face, and her face was entirely colorless. But it was not a weak face. It was set in some steady inner strength of its own, and the eyes, slightly frowning, were considering the man dispassionately. Her smooth long arms lay outside the coverlet.
The nurse turned from the table. “I’ll want a few things for the night,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me for half an hour I’ll go out and get them.”
When the nurse was gone Hanley took Nuala’s hand, brown after the sun of Kerry.
“I knew you’d come back to Dublin, old girl,” he said half playfully.
“You knew where I was?”
“No.”
“But you knew who took me away?”
“I could have found out, no doubt, but I did not want to incur any danger—for you. You see, I knew you’d be back. That is why I took a risk, and stayed on in Dublin.”
“I don’t think you run any risk in Dublin, Henry, nor was I in any danger. I left Dublin of my own free will; are you not afraid that I may leave it again as soon as I can put my foot under me?”
“So you will, my dear—with me. We will cross over to Holyhead and get married. You surely see at last that that is the thing to do?”
“I suppose it will come to that—unless your pride saves you.”
“Pride?”
“Yes. You have a certain attraction—a force—but I do not love you.”
“That will come.”
“It is worse than that. I love another man.”
He said nothing, but a dour obstinacy darkened his brow, and his big jaw stuck out.
“And yet you would marry me?” She wondered.
“I will. This other man—?”
“It does not matter, Henry. I will never see him again—and he does not know. Queer, is it not, that this disaster of love should come to me again?”
“And it will come again. I know enough of life to know that. Give me time, Nance.”
She nodded her head, her eyes considering him curiously. “I understand. You must have your own way. Since that night when you failed to possess me—that night we drugged you in the Rowton—your mind has been set on one end—and I felt the force in you even then.”
“From the very beginning—from the first hour we saw each other—I knew I had to have you. Anything else did not matter—does not matter. It is inevitable, my dear.”
“I suppose it is. We brought disaster enough upon each other from the beginning, and seem fated to go on. That sense of fate has been always on me.”
“Then you will marry me? . . .”
The front door bell rang, and went on ringing, as if a finger remained pressed hard down.
“Damn!” exclaimed Hanley. “My man is out for the evening. Just a moment, Nance.” He bent quickly and kissed her, and went out, shutting the door behind him.
Nuala Kierley listened to the racing bell. Her heart had started racing with it. She kept her eyes fixed steadfastly on the closed door.
When Sir Henry Hanley opened the front door, a smallish, hunch-shouldered man placed a foot on the threshold. Behind him stood a tall man in loose tweeds. Hanley knew that man, and a flare came into his eyes. There was little need for parleying here.
“We came to ask for Mrs. Kierley,” said the small man mildly, but that firm foot remained inside the threshold.
“She is all right. Get out of here!”
He looked contemptuously at the mild man. He did not attempt to thrust the door against him. Instead he threw it wide to the wall.
“If you do not get out I’ll throw you out.”
The small man lifted a deprecatory hand.
“Now, sir—now, sir! No need to be rough. Mrs. Kierley knows me. She rode my horse today—”
Hanley gave no further warning. Why should he? He, himself, had been manhandled without warning, not so long ago. And prompt action is half the battle. He launched his right from the hip, a hooked, stiff-armed drive, with enough power behind it to knock Paddy Bawn heels over head. That was its intent. Then the tall man would get thrown over the bannisters, with this fellow kicked downstairs after him. A reasonable and probable conclusion—if that powerful first blow had landed.
But it did not. The small man was not there when it arrived. He had no time to guard it, no time to jerk back out of distance, but he fell inward on the other’s breast and the fist grazed the back of his neck. At the same time he might, as he well knew how, have brought his right devastatingly into the short ribs. But, instead of that, he thrust the big man back and held up an open hand protestingly.
“Have sense, man, and listen to me,” he implored.
Hanley might have guessed by that quick forward duck that he was up against a skilful professional, but his Dublin luck pursued him; and he held fast to the intention of tying up this small country man with one solid blow and getting his hands on the man he really wanted to manhandle.
“I’ll get you, you little thug!” he growled, and came on.
Paddy Bawn threw three quick words over his shoulder. “Look for her!” and dodged quickly sideways into the hall.
But Archibald MacDonald did not look for any one for a space. He stepped in, shut the door, and stood with his back to it.
The bigger man was in a hurry. But so was Paddy Bawn. That says almost enough. Well then! Hanley, once a first-class amateur, was now out of training, going to flesh a little; Paddy Bawn, once known as Tiger Enright, the most explosive welterweight in the American ring, had been kept in good condition by the life he led. Surely that says enough. Hanley, confident of an easy task, was a little more than astounded. He was hit quickly, from all angles, very hard and two or three times too often, crowded into a corner, brought down solidly, sat upon, dragged up, trundled through a doorway . . . Tiger was the right adjective. And Dublin was Sir Henry Hanley’s unlucky town. . . .
Nuala Kierley, lying still, her eyes steadily on the door, had heard the voices, the angry tones, the movement of feet, the sound of struggle, the thud of blows and bodies, and then a bump and a lull. . . .
And there the door opened and Archibald MacDonald stood looking in at her.
“A small argument,” he said calmly. “It’s over now.”
The bars of sunlight had moved an inch along the white coverlet and glowed on the hands clasped closely. That was the only sign of agitation she showed. Her eyes were steady as ever.
He did not stand long in the door. He shut it softly, walked slowly across to the bed, and looked down at her sternly.
“The colt threw me at last,” she said in a quiet small voice. “Are you coming to wipe my nose?”
“I am coming to take you away,” he said, “and it will be for all the time.”
“All the time,” she whispered, and that faint crinkle of a smile came about her eyes. But then her mouth quivered and her eyes, grown strangely dark, filled up.
“Nuala girl!” He caught her hands firmly, lifted them, and pressed them down on her breast. “No nonsense about this! You are marrying me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you—because I’ll never let you go.”
“Did Sean—?”
“I don’t care a damn,” he said fiercely. “You must marry me.”
“I must,” she whispered. “I am very tired. Please take me away, Archie.”
• • • • • • •
“Paddy Bawn can’t sit on his head all night.”
That was Hugh Forbes. He grinned at them pleasantly. “There’s no hurry in the world, but, if we don’t make haste, we may have to fight our way out. We have a big saloon car down at the door, and a nurse of our own. If you would leave the lady’s bedroom, Archie, the nurse would be getting the girl ready. Dublin is too hot to hold you more’n a day at a time. Come on, son!”
“Hugh, you darling!” said Nuala.
“ ’Tis what the ladies call me always,” said Hugh.
Out in the hallway Sean Glynn caught Archibald MacDonald by the breast and shook him.
“We’ll apologize to each other, Archie,” said he.
“It does not matter now, Sean.”
“It does. You are a pig-headed Scot.”
“Please, Sean! It does not matter.”
“Listen, damn you! You need not be ashamed of anything Nuala Kierley ever did. . . . All right, then! Let her tell you herself. She will have plenty of time.”
“It does not make the least difference, Sean,” said Archibald MacDonald.
No one at all had a word or thought for Sir Henry Hanley, who had done only his best and had found Dublin a bad town.
THE END
The Quiet Man and Other Stories Page 26