Dearest George disliking draughts, the library curtains were always closely drawn on still nights, and the shutters closed when a wind blew; also, there was always a fire. He sat there now, thinking; the problem of Gheena troubled George Freyne deeply. His objection to the Dower House, which lurked in a gloom of trees on the very edge of the cliff, increased hourly. A stealthy backwater came fawning to the end of the garden, casting up chill salt airs from its slowly moving waters, yet sea-like enough to expose an unsightly stretch of shingle and rock at low tide, and to sap in a mean, secretive way at the protecting wall of the garden, picking away constant gaps. Castle Freyne became Gheena's, when she married, and a nephew of George Freyne's, who combined meekness of mind, strong conceit with plump cheeks and an Irish accent, had been decided upon as Gheena's future spouse.
In fact, failing Gheena, he was the next heir following a life tenancy by Matilda Freyne, so it was only right.
This Lancelot Freyne had been considered too delicate to go to school, and had strayed to manhood in his home, tyrannized over by his too fond mother. Now having dutifully ridden to hounds, gone out shooting, and applied his mind to the courtship ordered by his mother, Lancelot had upset all calculations by immediately getting a commission from the Militia and going off to train in a camp in England.
Castle Freyne was quite large enough for everyone, but Gheena, as owner, might show a still more marked desire for open windows, unguarded by curtains or shutters, and also for various innovations which made a comfort-loving soul shiver apprehensively. In any case, it would be hers when she was twenty-five.
Gheena, coming down to dinner in white, was exceedingly good to look at, and with strangers at Dunaleen Camp Mr. Freyne grew anxious.
The night fell in a mist of grey stillness, broken by a taint whimper of little waves weeping as they broke upon the rocks.
Gheena put on a black cloak, wrapped her head in a Lusky veil and slipped away to the shore. It was cold to bathe, but she scarcely knew what she was going out to look for. Some patrol ships, coastguards tramping—anything to show her that war raged somewhere, despite the grey peace upon Ireland. Her mother had already begun to re-read the papers and ask for explanations, until her husband fell asleep; then she would fall asleep herself, until ten o'clock, when she invariably awoke with great vigour, and hoped Dearest George would not lose his figure for his bad habit of sleeping in his chair, and then read a novel until eleven, when she put out all the lamps, drank hot milk, and went to bed.
Crabbit scuttled into the undergrowth, crashing through it with little short yelps, as he scented rabbits. Gheena stepped on to where the low cliffs jutted to oppose the sea. The waters whispered, fretting, lapping, sucking through the rocks; lifted on the coming tide the fringe of brown seaweed rustled faintly as it awoke to the life of the sea. A sleeping row of sea-birds on a peak of brown rock, a blur of white just visible.
Gheena had put on tennis shoes; she moved soundlessly, sure-footed, across the still uncovered rocks, stooped at the edge of the tide, where it lapped deep and cool, to put her hands in, and see the blue drip run off her fingers back to the gleaming tide.
At this point, Crabbit, having mislaid her, uttered a yell of anguish, and hurled himself noisily across the rocks, his unerring nose down.