on to the boat-house, where one of the men was busily engaged in painting John's sailing-boat, the gig being already in the water.
Everyone smiled, everyone was happy, and John himself felt something warm and new stirring in his heart which he could not express. He ran up to his room in the tower.
There were his guns, and his rods, and all his old schoolboy books, worn and familiar, and the painting of the chapel at Eton, and the quad of his college at Oxford. There was the case of butterflies, passionate hobby of one summer holiday only, and the collection of birds' eggs, and on the mantelpiece the random objects that he had gathered from time to time in his boyhood: a piece of flint from Hungry Hill, a queer-shaped stone like an egg he had found once on Doon Island, a patch of dried moss from the bogs around Kileen.
'Tomorrow,' he said to Jane, 'tomorrow we will go fishing for killigs in the creek,' and holding her at arm's length, and cocking his head on one side, he observed, 'You know you are becoming very pretty.'
Jane blushed, and told him not to be absurd.
'She is having her portrait painted,' said Barbara. 'We all think it a most excellent likeness, although Willie Armstrong says it does not do her justice.'
And there in the drawing-room, standing upon its easel, the paint still wet on the canvas, was the replica of the Jane who stood beside him, wearing the new cream gown which had been purchased in Bath that winter, her pearl necklace round her throat, her warm brown eyes full of the expression he knew so well, wistful and a little unsure of herself.
'And what does Dick Fox say to the portrait?' asked John.
'Oh, he is delighted, of course,' said Eliza, tossing her head. 'He used to come to every sitting, and talk to Jane to relieve the monotony. No doubt that is why Jane has such a simpering look about her in the portrait.'
John, glancing at his youngest sister, saw that she seemed distressed at Eliza's words, and that tears, even, were not far distant. He smiled across at her and shook his head.
'Take no notice of Eliza,' he said, 'the grapes are very sour,' and with quick understanding he changed the subject from the portrait.
So Jane is growing up, he thought at dinner, and is falling in love with Dick Fox on Doon Island, and only yesterday it seemed she was a little girl reading fairy stories before the fire in the old nursery. Dick Fox was a good sort of fellow, no doubt, but for a moment there was a nickering jealousy in John's heart that his pet Jane, who had been such a dear companion, should look kindly upon any man but himself, and the thought of her being kissed and perhaps fondled by a scruffy young officer from the garrison was distasteful, and did not bear thinking about.
?'
John started, and 'Yes, sir, of course, I shall be delighted,' he said, Without a notion of what his father had been talking about.
Barbara gave him a warning nudge with her knee.
'I entered into an agreement,' continued Copper John, 'to take one-half of the arrears and let him hold the ground at able130 a year. Needless to say I have not received a penny, and gave him notice to quit last March, which he has not yet done. The position is intolerable, as you see.'
'Oh, quite, sir. Most intolerable.'
'I mean to make every exertion in my power to get the communications opened by a good road between Doonhaven and Denmare, which, you will agree, will be of incalculable advantage to Robert Lumley's and Lord Mundy's estates, and if we can once open up the route from the lakes by Denmare and Doonhaven and Mundy to Slane, I think that visitors to the west would prefer it to returning the same way. Then we might safely build an inn in Doonhaven.
Indeed, it might induce gentlemen to reside in the neighbourhood. What do you think, John?'
'I am of your opinion undoubtedly, sir.'
'I don't know whether the Government have money at their disposal for the purpose, but I shall get all the information I can. They might do it all at their own risk. It would be a great matter to open up communications with the west part of the country, and ships of war could be supplied with provisions in the event of another war. I only hope our Ministers will not kick up some row unexpectedly, and get us all into a scrape.'
'I hope not, sir,' said John.
Very little of what his father was saying made any interest to him, but he hoped that his voice rang with some conviction and that his father would be satisfied.
'The Flowers are at Castle Andriff, by the way,' said Barbara. 'They were abroad as usual, until just recently. I am glad to say that Fanny-Rosa is not such a harum-scarum, wild thing as she was. Wintering abroad has given her poise and good manners. But I believe she does exactly as she pleases.
And poor Mrs. Flower has no control over the younger girl at all.'
'They say some Italian was desperately in love with Fanny-Rosa,' said Eliza, 'a titled man too, who had a wife already.'
'Never listen to scandal, Eliza,' said her father.
'It does no good to the hearer, and less to the speaker.
If you come into the library, John, I can show you the exact spot on the plan of Hungry Hill where I think of making a further trial. There is copper there, and at no very great depth either, so that our expenses would be inconsiderable.'
John followed his father into the library, and pretended an interest in figures and mining calculations, but all the while his thoughts strayed to Fanny-Rosa. He had not seen her for eighteen months, not since that unforgettable day on Hungry Hill when she had lain in his arms in the heather beside the lake and Henry had sailed for the Barbados. Last year, during the hot summer in London, John had wondered how much she had seen of Henry in Naples. Had she been sorry when he died? His thoughts then had added to the turmoil in his mind, and Fanny- Rosa became a symbol to him of something rare, and beautiful, and unobtainable, a ghost girl in a foreign land he would never see again. She would marry some Italian, and perhaps years later come to Castle Andriff with a brood of babies and a flashy husband, herself coarse and heavy, her charm vanished with the years.
Deliberately he had painted this picture in his mind so that he should not be hurt by the thought of her, and the idea of her marriage to her foreigner, and out of his reach for ever, gave him a peculiar, rather warped, satisfaction. His Fanny-Rosa would be a memory, a phantom thing born out of the loveliness of Hungry Hill, while she who continued living was someone with whom he had no concern. And now all the careful locking of his memory was to be broken by the real Fanny-Rosa, no ghost at all, but alive, and unmarried, and even if every Italian in Naples had made love to her she would be more beautiful than ever, and she was coming to Clonmere next week, Barbara had said. She might want to see the greyhounds, and Jim was given special orders to have the dogs groomed and ready on the day the Flowers were expected, and their coats upon their backs in spite of the warm weather, for the scarlet and grey trimmings were really rather fine, and the large J. L. B. looked well against the background.
About two hours before the Flowers were due to come he became fearful and sick of heart, and going to the far end of the grounds, by the last fir tree, he sat out of sight of the castle and stared across at Doon Island, wondering whether it would not be wiser to get his boat and disappear all day, and not come in to the house and meet the Flowers at all. He felt suddenly that he did not want to see Fanny-Rosa, or talk to her, and if he did, nothing would happen as he had planned; she would hate the greyhounds, scorn his cups, talk all the while about the Italians she had met, and the day would be disastrous, a failure from beginning to end. He was still sitting by the creek when he heard the carriage bowl along the drive, pass under the arch of rhododendrons, and sweep round again to the house, and then in the distance came the sound of Barbara's voice, and Eliza's rather irritating, high- pitched laugh. Barbara called, 'John…
John… ea? and he crouched behind the tree, determined not to join them, wondering whether he could return to the house in some way without being seen, and go and shut himself up in his room in the tower. The voices were silent, they must have gone indoors, and he heard Casey come round for the carriage and drive the horses to the stable. Some impulse stronger than himself made him rise to his feet and walk slowly back across the grass to the house. His hands were trembling, and he thrust them into his pockets. He was aware of someone looking down at him from the drawing-room window.
'How do you do, John?'
And glancing up, he smiled, for there was Fanny-Rosa, the ghost of Hungry Hill, and the eighteen months since he had seen her were as though they had never been, were as yesterday, and fresh and vivid in his memory
