“Would you permit me to offer yet another piece of advice?”
“Certainly. I shall be only too glad to accept it.”
“Leave Mary here with me for, say, a fortnight, or even a month, and then return and fetch her. Yes, it may be terribly against the grain, but it will well repay you in the long run.”
“How?” and he looked at her sharply.
“You see, if you take the girl away now, a grief-stricken, reluctant captive, who has not had time to realise herself and her new position, she will fret and pine—she will receive, and give, a wrong impression.”
“But she is beautiful—you admit that?”
“Yes, but she is Mary Foley; she does not know how to dress, or enter a room, or arrange her hair, or even behave at table. She drinks out of a saucer; she uses her own knife for butter and salt.”
“May I ask how you know?”
“I had tea with her once,” replied Miss Usher drily. “Besides this, I would help her to weed the too forcible expressions out of her vocabulary—expressions such as ‘For the love of God,’ ‘The saints protect me,’ ‘Faix,’ ‘Bedad,’ ‘Musha,’ and ‘Begorra.’ Of course, a month is not long enough to supply the necessary instruction, but it will clip off the sharp corners and give her a little polish before she faces the severe ordeal of being presented to Lady Mulgrave and your relations. To leave her for a short time among her old surroundings would be a true kindness to her. She will have by that time become accustomed to her new character, and may have attained a certain amount of self-possession and confidence.”
“All right then, Miss Usher; but the kindness is entirely yours. If you will continue to be her guide, counsellor, and friend, you lay me under a lifelong obligation. I will return home the day after the funeral and will leave you in sole charge. Shall you remain here?”
“Yes, that Mary may presently see herself as others—her old associates—see her.”
“Miss Usher, you are a clever woman.”
“No, no, only sensible. Bence has our brains.”
“Of course you will have a private sitting-room, a carriage, and a maid?”
“Oh, no maid yet,” she protested—“we are not quiteready for that; but we will be glad of this sitting-room and an outside car. And now I’m going to suggest something funny. Please send her a gold watch and chain. I gather that to an Irish peasant—and she is that—a gold watch and a long chain represent the visible sign of a great rise in life. It will come home to her as a most tangible proof that she is a girl of some position. Every time she looks at the watch she will be reminded of this fact. The watch and chain will give her proper pride and consequence.”
“I cannot imagine it; but you know women, and I do not.”
“You see, you must approach your daughter through theMary Foleyside of her character—touch her sensibilities as the peasant girl. There is one thing for which you have to be devoutly thankful.”
“Yes, and what is that?” he asked gravely.
“She has no lover.”
“Good heavens!”—and he grew suddenly white. “What an awful idea!”
“But surely a very commonplace idea. She is the beauty, or, at any rate, theboastof the county. She is twenty-one; she might have been married. Think of that!”
“Oh, I could not entertain such a horrible notion. Yes, I own I have much to be thankful for.”
“Her inherited disposition, the race in her veins, has undoubtedly been her safeguard. She, as old Mike declared, was always for ‘picking and choosing like a born lady.’ Her suitors were beneath her standard; she is too fastidious.”
“Thank God for that!” he exclaimed, with pious emphasis.
The following afternoon, the funeral of Katty Foley took place. It was an immense affair, for not only was the whole neighbourhood represented, but cars, asses’ cars, and even turf cars, came laden for miles and miles—not so much to see the last of Katty Foley as the first of Lady Joseline! And Lady Joseline was present—accompanied by her father. Here she would have her own way, being dressed, or rather draped, in black—yes, and in the crêpe so dear to the heart of the Irish lower classes. Her gown was of heavy material that broiling August afternoon; but then, she had not been obliged to walk; she came in a carriage, it was noted, like the real lady she was—now. All eyes were concentrated on the girl as she stepped out and followed her father into the wild, overgrown graveyard which surrounded an old ruined church. She wore a hat, and a long crêpe veil with a deep border, and a pair of loose black kid gloves. Yes, they were proud of her! She looked a lady, every inch. She was crying too, as any one could see, and not a bit uplifted, for all the neighbours could hear her sobbing and sniffing behind the crêpe fall. His lordship was a fine-looking, upstanding man, grave and erect, as became a lord. It was a terrible pity he wasn’t Irish; but anyhow, his daughter was Irish born, and a credit to him, and the country.
Taking it all in all, he had behaved handsomely to Katty Foley, and the burying, which was of the best—a hearse and plumes, a beautiful coffin, and two coaches—was at his expense.
There was a good deal of whispering and nudging when the ceremony had concluded. Mary threw back the long veil, looked about her, and exhibited to thehundreds of watching eyes, a tear-stained and utterly miserable countenance.
In spite of her father’s overawing presence, she was immediately encompassed by a crowd of friends. They swarmed round her, shook her by the hand, looked hard into her eyes to see if they were proud? No; only very sad, and wet with tears. More fluent than sympathy and regret for Katty, came warm expressions of amazement, and congratulation; but these were somewhat jarring, and found no echo in Mary’s heart. Tom Kelly looked sheepish, and hung back. To think of his having made up to a lady born! When he glanced at his lordship he felt half inclined to run and hide behind one of the tombstones. Old Betty the Brag was present; she was getting on for eighty, but still wonderfully active. “Oh, me own little darlin’ fair creature,” she screeched, in her shrill old voice, “and hadn’t she the great nerve to steal ye, and keep ye out of your own?”
Mike Mahon, the author and originator of the great discovery, remained aloof, gazing with melancholy pride upon her mother’s daughter.
At last the earl, who had been surprisingly long-suffering, made a move to depart, and the crowd wrung Mary by the hand, with every description of English and Irish benediction. Hitherto she had been their own, and now she was leaving them—leaving them in tears. All the same, no bride in the country had ever received such a grand “send off” from her home, as did Mary Foley from the old Clonlara churchyard. The crowd streamed downen masseto the gate and lined the road three deep. “The place was black with them,” as a man subsequently described it; “and such a commotion over a young girl was never, never seen.” Therewas no thought of the poor corpse who had just been laid to rest. Every interest was centred on the young woman who was about to enter another state of life.
All her friends and acquaintances realised that Mary had taken leave of her former station, when she drove away in the pair-horse brougham, now rapidly passing out of sight.
The occasion was unprecedented. The crowd felt inclined to shout and to cheer, but a glance at the hearse, and the near sound of falling earth, restrained their enthusiasm. Presently, they scattered each to their place, or their own little shebeen, there to marvel, to discourse, and to prophesy, concerning Mary Foley’s future.
It was wonderful how an old maid like Miss Usher had developed such a motherly heart, as well as so much worldly wisdom. She prudently abstained from intruding on her companion’s grief, and left her to enjoy several good comfortable cries, and talks with Mrs. Hogan. She accompanied Mary on a car to see Lota one Sunday, and left her in the hands of old Mike, who proudly escorted her round the place, and pointed out the terrace, the room where she was born, and gave her the first and, needless to say, most eloquent, description of her own mother; and the disconsolate girl began at last to realise, as she stood listening to him, this mother whom she had never seen.
“An’ sure ye have the hair and eyes and hands, aye, and the very walk of her,” declared Mike. “Though Katty brought ye up on a flagged floor, ye see these things come out in the appearance.”
“And so you have guessed it all the time?”
“Is it guess?” he repeated indignantly. “Sure, haven’t Iknownit.”
“And that was why you used to come and stare at me in that strange way?”
“To be sure it was. And what else?”
“And I have never seen her!”
“It would be hard for ye, seein’ she giv’ her life for yours. But when ye look in the glass ye see her. I’mtold when his lordship first laid eyes on ye he got a terrible turn. He’s gone home for the present, and left ye with the ould wan over there,” indicating Miss Usher, who, under a distant tree, was happy with a book. “An’ for why?”
“Because I didn’t want to stir, I think, and I made so strange——”
“Now what balderdash is that, yer telling me?” cried Mike.
“Man alive, isn’t he a stranger? Ye’ll not deny that. If he’d let me, I’d go back and live in Foley’s Corner, this very blessed hour.”
“Would ye now!” he rejoined, with an expression of sovereign contempt. “And all by yerself, too! Bridgie Grogan is going home at wance, wid her pocket well lined. Faix, that was the easily earned money! His lordship also giv’ her all the furniture and stock, you having no call for it. The place is to be shut up, and not a hate left in it. Bridgie says it’s entirely too lonely for her, is Foley’s Corner.”
“But suppose Ichoseto stay on?—then what would ye say?”
“That you had a right to be taken out of it, and put in the county lunatic asylum.”
“But surely the lease, and the cows and pigs, were coming to me?”
“An’ for why? Ye were no relation to Katty whatever, and isn’t Bridgie her own sister?”
Mary stared at him in silence. Yes, he was right; the house was Mrs. Grogan’s, and the door of that home was closed to her. She was shut out from her old life in the cottage, and must accept her new quarters in the castle. For the first time since Katty’sdeath she began to catch a faint glimpse of herself, as “Lady Joseline.”
“I expect you’ll have Bridgie coming round to see yer ladyship this evening. She might bring you a few bits of things and your duds. I know she’s aching to get off home.”
“Who is going to have the cat?”
“The white cat, ye mane? ’Tis no bargain for any one; an ugly blackguard of a thing. I’m thinking the lake will take him, as it has done his betters.”
“No, no, Mike, I’ll have him! the poor angashore.”
“What’s that yer saying?”
“Yes, and give him whatever home I have, as long as he lives.”
“Faix, it’s well known he has nine lives! You and the white cat! Well, to be sure. A nice ornament he is to be transported over to England. I’m thinking they’ll get a cruel bad notion of the breed of Irish cats. But maybe he’s dead by now.”
“No. And I want you to go up to Biddy Grogan’s and tell her to bring him this evening in a basket, will ye?”
“’Tis a quare fancy ye have! But I’ll do yer commands. I wish it was meself yer ladyship was taking along wid her instead of an ould scorched tom-cat, wid a bad character.”
“Do not call me yer ladyship!”
“Arrah! an’ what else am I to call ye?”
“Mary.”
“Sure, how can I put such a lie in me mouth asthat?—yer name being Joseline, and a quare one, too, and it was given ye within there in the drawing-room”—pointing to the apartment which harboured the boat—“and you were christened by the Reverend William Scott, in a great hurry, and out of the General’s old china punch-bowl.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Because the windows, as ye see, are big, and I was working round the flower-beds. And sure, didn’t all the world know ye were baptised that day; her ladyship, your mother, wished it. I saw ye; we all did, for his lordship was the proud man. Ye were wrapped up in a white shawl, and had a head on you as red as a carrot, and a screech out of ye like a peacock. More betoken, there was a peacock sitting on the roof; it came over from Lord Warner’s place. When I saw it, the heart crossed in me, for them’s, as ye know, theunluckybirds. Sure enough that night her ladyship took bad. Oh, it would have made a great differ to you, aye and to every one, if she had lived; and by all accounts she found it terribly hard to go and leave ye all.”
“Who told you?” inquired the girl under her breath.
“Oh, I heard it. When she knew she had but a couple of hours to spare, she sent for his lordship and talked, talked, talked, striving her best to comfort him, and telling him to be brave, with her very last breath. Oh, ’twas she had a spirit, and when she went it made small differ to her—sure, she was always an angel.”
“She was buried over in England?”
“Yes, and with Katty Foley’s three-months baby lying alongside of her.”
“Well, I’m glad I’ve come here, Mike, and seen this place and had a talk with you—you who found it all out. Somehow it makes things seem morereal. But I’ll never get used to it—never; and that’s as true as I am standing here.”
“Oh, yes, ye will; only take your time. When you get fine dresses, and learn talk and manners, it will be as easy to you as eating your dinner.”
“But sure, I’ve no talk, and no manners, Mike.”
“You’ll soon learn them, me dear, for ye see it’s not as if you were a real common country girl; ye have her ladyship’s manners and talkinye somewhere, and they are bound somehow or other to come out! I tell ye this, that in a year’s time you won’t know yourself, and I won’t know you.”
“But I will always knowyou, Mike; and you must come over to England, and see me, if I am to have any say.”
“I think you’ll find you’ll have a good say.”
“Perhaps with his lordship, for—for”—with an effort—“my mother’s sake; but the ladies.”
“Sure, aren’t you a lady, me darlin?”
“No, no! I feel so frightened of all that’s before me.”
“And what would frighten ye? Keep a stout heart—be a good girl; what harm can come to you? One would think they’d ate yer!”
“People have a way of doing that, sometimes.”
“I know what ye mane—some bad ones, that never has a good word for a crature, and are always chewing up others and passing remarks; but the likes of them are not among the gentry!” (Poor simple Mike!) “All your friends is proud for ye, but sorry for themselves, ye being taken up out of their station. There’s one, howsomever, that will be glad of yer uprise, when he hears it.” Here Mike paused, and his expression became shrewd and personal.
Mary stared at him interrogatively, and then a sudden tinge of pink, flooded her pale face.
“Ye mane Mr. Ulick,” she said boldly. “I’d just hate——Whist!” for here Miss Usher broke in upon thetête-à-tête, which had lasted more than an hour. It seemed to her, that the time had been well employed. Mary’s expression was not quite so dismal; there was a little colour in her face, a spark of animation in her glance. She accepted a bunch of flowers from Mike, and as Mike and Miss Usher moved away together, talking, they suddenly noticed that the girl lagged behind.
“Take no notice,” he muttered; “she’s coming to herself nicely. I think she’s picking a pebble off the terrace where her mother used to walk, aye, and a bit of a rose from the house. Pass no remark whatever, but ye may take it from me, that it’s a good sign. The lady bred in her bones is bound to come outyet——”
As they swung along homewards, one on each side of a well-hung jaunting-car, with a slashing four-year-old between the shafts, Miss Usher and her companion never exchanged a single remark. The elder lady was reflecting that she had done a capital afternoon’s work in introducing Mary to her birthplace, and she felt confident that the words she had heard from old Mike had sunk down into her heart, and brought the girl to realise what had never yet dawned upon her: that only by birth—the mere accident of birth—did she belong to this beautiful, romantic, green and blue country—for if the trees and pastures were emerald, the mountains were royal blue, the skies cobalt.
The crafty lady determined that she would not break the spell, but give Mary ample time to meditate on these matters, and presently adjust herself to her strange circumstances; she must now begin to see about some suitable clothes for the girl, and to offer, cautiously and by degrees, a few lessons on manners and deportment. After all, it would not be an onerous task; in fact, to an old maid with a warm heart, hitherto centred on her brother and a white cockatoo—it was a pleasure to interest herself in this young life, for the time entrusted to her care. Indeed she felt her own youth renewed as an eagle’s! Lord Mulgrave had left them but one week, and already Mary was a littleless Mary Foley than formerly. She drove out in a hat (swathed in crêpe), no longer in her “hair.” She had cast off with joy her aprons and cobbler’s shoes, and taken quite meekly to black thread stockings, a black silk parasol, and kid gloves; also she often closed the door when she entered a room, and did not now peel her potato on the table-cloth, or drink tea out of her saucer. Yes, already there was an improvement, the girl was adaptable and quick to learn—she never required to be told anything twice; her personal tastes were curiously and unexpectedly refined; her petticoats and stockings were certainly coarse, but as neat and trim as those of any fine lady; and as to pocket-handkerchiefs, they were almost as fine as Miss Usher’s own.
Whilst the good, kind woman was occupied with these reflections, Mary was engaged in a similar manner. Her active, imaginative brain was filled with the picture of the beautiful lady who had died at Lota. Could she really behermother? Was it true that she was like her? She pulled off her glove and gravely considered her hand. Certainly it was small—too small for dairy work—and the fact had been cast up to her! If that marvellous beauty were her mother, oh! she was a shocking falling off; a common, ignorant, low creature, who did not know how to talk, or walk, or sit, or eat, like the quality—and who was too old to learn. But if she was this other girl (even to herself, she would not say “Joseline Dene”)—and people seemed to believe it, and Father Daly had been very eager about her taking up her birthright, and her duties—she must learn. With the help of God she was bound to do her best, not forgetting her old friends, as he had said, nordisgracing the beautiful lady that had brought her into the world, and whose place, late as it was, she must endeavour to fill. Oh, but what was the use of talking or thinking. She never could be anything but Mary Foley. The driver of the car happened to be a certain Patsie Maguire, Mary’s former partner, friend, declared (and declined) lover. He too had his private meditations, which now and then stung him so sharply that he laid the unnecessary whip, on the sleek and thin-skinned flanks of the flying chestnut, and almost invited a catastrophe. Here was he, by the stress of circumstances, actually driving for hire her ladyship, no less! Mary Foley—the great lord’s daughter, who was soon quitting Ireland and him. She, his partner, his girl, his intended wife—for of course if let alone, she’d have come round, and married him. And what would hinder him now, to let the young red mare run away, accidentally on purpose, and break their three necks? The present situation was enough to make a man mad. Was he not attending in the capacity of a servant, a girl whom hitherto he had considered a little beneath him in position? His mother, the daughter of a well-to-do publican, rented a small farm, had been brought up on a carpeted floor, and kept even now her own cover car. And Mary Foley, was just a good-looking, gay little creature, with fifty pounds fortune. Of course, every one knew he could have done far better, butshehad such pretty, joking ways with her; she had made a fool of him, and faix, by all accounts he was in good company! Then before anything was fixed comes this sort of fairy tale, and “Mary at the corner” is turned at one stroke into her ladyship, and he himself driving her like any hired boy. When shegot up on the car she had just nodded at him, her face as long as a ha’porth of bacon, and said— “Is that yer self, Pat? How are ye?”
And not another word; and coming home she had never opened her mouth once. He’d make her do that, if it was only screaming—for a pin’s head, he’d upset the machine.
Pat—“handsome Pat” as he was called—was about seven-and-twenty, and certainly as good-looking a fellow as could be met with in a day’s walk—and not indifferent to the fact. His was the real type of Celtic face—dark blue eyes, dark hair and brows, well-shaped, somewhat refined features, white teeth, and eyelashes so long and so effective, that to a London débutante they might have proved an asset of extraordinary value.
Pat was capable and active when he chose, but innately lazy and self-indulgent. He liked dancing, he liked horses, and porter, and singing, and girls. The girls liked him—indeed so did many people, for when Pat was in the humour, his manner was irresistible. His mother and eldest sister kept the farm, where at present he was out of favour, and had taken on a job at the hotel. His mother adored her handsome Pat—so clever, so well schooled, and so smart! His shirts were invariably white as snow, his clothes well mended. Once he had taken it into his head to go to America, where he remained one year, and then returned, because, as he said, “His mother was dying after him”; also because (though this he did not divulge) the country did not suit him. It was true that good money was to be earned, but the work was hard and continuous, and the price of everything was so high, that it swallowed upthe dollars. It suited him better to have smaller earnings and easier labour; to live at home, and be a comfort to his mother. Pat and his sister, an industrious, strong-willed, hot-tempered woman, did not always agree. Now and then a domestic storm arose. Occasionally Lizzie’s tongue drove Pat abroad, and he went off and took service. He enjoyed the bit of change for one thing, and for another, he was pleasantly alive to the fact that, during his absence, his mother was leading Lizzie a devil of a life, and paying off his score with interest.
Having arrived safely at the “Glenveigh Arms,” Miss Usher descended in a gingerly manner from the car, and walked straight into the hall in search of letters.
Here was Pat’s opportunity, and leaning over to Mary, he thus addressed her in a low voice.
“Am I never to have a word with you again, asthore, and you going off for ever and ever, and taking the heart out of my body along with you?”
“I’m not going yet—no, nor soon. But sure, what’s the good of talking nonsense about yer heart? To me own knowledge, you’ve given it away twenty times.”
“It will be a relief to me to spake, anyhow. Are ye going up to the corner again?”
“Of course I am—to see my aunt Bridgie and the place, and to fetch away the cat.”
“I’ll bring him down to-night for you. You have only to say the word.”
“Well, then, maybe you might as well, Pat; and you must mind and butter his feet, and put him in one of the old egg-baskets. I’m taking him to England.”
“Faix, he’ll be an elegant souvenir! But every one to his taste, as the monkey said, when he kissed theparrot! Whist now, there’s Bridgie Grogan sitting within the hall a-waiting to see ye. I believe she has all cleared out at the house above already. She’s mad to be off home wid her takings. That wan will talk ye out of yer shoes! Mind, you and me must have a few words together before ye go—for the sake of old times.”
Mary nodded her head in assent, and the frantic chestnut, who had been champing, jumping, and tearing up the ground, was at last suffered to fling herself into the stable yard.
The news of Mary Foley’s sudden transformation flew round the county like wild-fire. Barky heard it in the stables, and brought it to his mother at dinner.
“Now Barky,” she cried, “you’ve been drinking again! and you know you promised me on your honour, not to touch whisky between meals.”
“I’m as sober as a judge, so don’t be flying into one of your tantrums for nothing; it’s the solid truth I’m telling you.”
“What, Mary below, the daughter of Lord Mulgrave! And Kitty bringing her up as her own! Well”—and she gasped—“I don’t believe it.”
“You can please yourself about that, but it’s true.”
“I remember them at the cottage,” she returned, “and I went and called, but they just left cards here. They wanted no visitors. She was a pretty, Frenchy-looking young woman and—yes—Mary has a look of her. I wonder I never noticed it. But who would dream of looking forherchild in Katty Foley’s smoky cabin?”
“If for it’s smoky, ’tis your own fault. You never will do a thing to the chimneys—often as you are asked.”
“Yes, I see the likeness. And there was alwayssomething queer and independent about Mary, that I could never quite make out; she was never shy, or embarrassed.”
“Now you have it. She’s an aristocrat.”
“And what a match for some one!”
“It’s a pity you snuffed out that affair with Ulick, or she might be your daughter-in-law this day.”
“Of course she is impossible-a mere ignorant peasant. What an awful situation for the poor Mulgraves!”
“Oh, she’s a bright enough girl. I daresay she can write, and speak, as well as any—and hold her own too.”
“Who told you this story?”
“Tom Whelan; he had it from Mrs. Hogan at the ‘Arms’; the lawyer and his sister are there, and his lordship too.”
“Really! Oh, then, you must leave a card on him to-morrow.”
“You and your card-leaving, mother! Maybe you will go and leave one on Mary.”
“Of course; as soon as she is established in her new position I shall certainly call; it will be my duty to do so, considering that she was reared here, and lived on our land for twenty-one years.”
“And has kept you going in your trade of eggs and chickens. This is no doubt one of her chickens I’m eating this minute.”
“I wish you would marry her, Barky.”
“And I don’t. In the first place, she wouldn’t look at me; she is accustomed to refusing; and in the second, she’s too much coxy and fiery. I tried to kiss her once, and she left the print of her five fingers on my face.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Barky.”
“Why? I’d kiss any girl that would let me. Now if I’d been Ulick, it would have beenall right”.
“Maybe it will be Ulick—yet.”
“No, mammy. Use your common sense. She’s as much above him now, as he was above her before; it’s like a see-saw. Now I’m up, now you are down.”
“Ulick is good enough for any one!”
“Faith! you don’t think so when he is here; he is not nearly good enough for you. You have always a pick out of him!”
“I mean as a match!”
“Such as an earl’s only daughter, with, say, ten thousand a year—oh, stop coddin, now!”
“Barky, wheredoyou get hold of such horrible expressions?”
“Anyhow, Ulick is in India,” he continued. “Shall I telegraph out to him, ‘Come home at once—Mary Foley is a peeress’?”
“No, she is not a peeress—and you’re an unmannerly boor!” As she spoke, Mrs. Doran got up and pushed back her chair; and as she walked to the door, Barky gave a loud, unfilial laugh,—
“If ye were more civil to common folk, mammy, and less civil to the big ones, it would be better for us. Look at Aunt Nora, and the fine fortune you lostme! And now Mary Foley, and the great match you lostUlick!”
“How was I to know that the old bagwoman was your aunt herself, coming to spy on me?” she demanded passionately. “And wouldanymother, in her senses, allow her son to marry a common country girl off the side of the road? Tell me that? Whenyou talk such nonsense you drive me mad!” and she went out and slammed the door with violence.
Mrs. Doran called in due state on Mary and Miss Usher. She sent up her cards in proper form.
“Oh, it’s Mrs. Doran,” cried Mary. “Oh, miss, I don’t want to see her. I can’tbearher; she makes me tingle all over, ever since I was a young one. ’Tis she is the hard bitter woman.”
“Still, she is coming to start a fresh acquaintance, with a new Mary Foley, and you must receive her as one lady receives another.”
“She’s no lady! and I told her so to her face!”
The door opened as she spoke, and Mrs. Doran, in her best beaded mantle and feathered toque, sailed in, now all smiles and affability.
“Well, Mary”—offering two hands—“this is indeedgreatnews. I am so glad, and I have come as your oldest friend, to offer my warm congratulations, and good wishes.”
“Thank you, yer ladyship!” said the girl faintly.
“Oh,youare the ladyship now, Mary,” she rejoined, with an affable smile, “and this is, I presume, Miss Usher?” And as Miss Usher was only a legal woman, she bowed stiffly, and subsided into a chair.
“And now do tell me all about it, my dear? No one can be more interested than I am, who have seen you all your life, and have met your own mother.”
“It’s just this, yer ladyship—that I am not Mrs. Foley’s daughter at all, but a nurse child she kept, and made out was her own—and buried her girlie instead of me; and now it’s all come out.”
“And are you immensely delighted?”
“No, I am not; I’d sooner stay as I am, exceptfor a few things. I’m not educated, nor fit to be a lady.”
“Oh, you will soon learn, Lady Joseline,” put in Miss Usher. “It will all come quite easy; it is so much pleasanter to go up, than down.”
Mrs. Doran stared at the speaker, and said, “And what are the few things you wish for most?”
“Nice dresses, and books, and pretty things, and not having to wash clothes, and scour.”
“Still, you were fond of poultry?”
“No, I never wish to see another hen; but I do love flowers.”
“I suppose you have no plans as yet?”
Mary paused and looked interrogatively at Miss Usher. “I believe we are going to England soon.”
“Never to return, eh, Mary?” She asked persuasively, with her head on one side.
“I don’t know.”
“I presume Lord Mulgrave has a London house?”
“That’s more than I can tell ye.”
“Because if so, my sister, Lady Barre, will call upon you at once. Will you come up to tea to-morrow? I’ll send the carriage for you?”
Mary became scarlet. “Thank you ma’am, no.”
“No?” she repeated, in a tone of angry incredulity.
“You see,” said Miss Usher, coming to the rescue, “Mary is a little strange as yet, and is very shy and awkward.”
“I suppose it’s only natural”—appeased. “Well, you won’t forget your old friends, will you, my dear?”—rising to go.
“No, Mrs. Doran”—and she looked her in the face—“I won’t forget my old—friends.”
Mrs. Doran returned the gaze with observant scrutiny—she read in Mary’s eyes, hostility and dislike. Evidently there was nothing to be made out of her; and presently she went rustling downstairs.
As the carriage rolled off, the girl ran to the window and said: “To think of me! Offered a seat in that! I’d as soon have expected to be asked to take a seat on a throne. Well, there goes the last of Mrs. Doran, please God!”
* * * * *
The “Glenveigh Arms” was an unpretentious hostelry, standing close to the roadside, from which a narrow strip of gravel and a low laurel hedge divided it—a long, plain, whitewashed house, with nothing attractive in its appearance. Strangers little guessed how comfortable it was within, and what a really beautiful old garden lay concealed behind it.
Motors whirled by in a cloud of dust and ignorance, making for a fine new tourist hotel some miles ahead. Mrs. Hogan did not approve of these “mad” cars, that went racking and tearing through the country, killing dogs and poultry and scaring the cattle out of their seven senses! and made no attempt to secure their custom. The word “Garage” was not advertised along with “Mary Hogan, Livery and Bait Stables.”
All the same, about a week after Mary’s expedition to Lota, a smart bright red Mercédès car, containing four passengers, halted and palpitated outside the hotel.
It contained two men in motoring coats and goggles, the chauffeur in black leather; a valet sat beside him, and there was a certain amount of luggage, indicating that the party was making an extensive tour. The twogentlemen got out and went into the hotel. The tallest of them, when he removed his mask, proved to be a man of about thirty, with a dark, handsome face, a clean-cut profile, and a pair of sleepy eyes. He was Captain Dudley Deverell, Lord Mulgrave’s cousin, and heir. His companion, Sir Harry Coxford, was a tubby little round-faced man with a red moustache and many freckles. The two travellers were ceremoniously ushered into the drawing-room.
“No, we don’t want rooms, thanks,” said Captain Deverell, in a pleasant drawl. “Want to see Lord Mulgrave—heard he was here.”
“His lordship left ten days ago,” said a trim, black-whiskered waiter, who looked like a Methodist parson in evening dress. “We don’t expect his lordship back at present.”
“No”—looking round superciliously—“I should thinknot.”
“But a—any message or letter to his lordship, will a—be forwarded to his lordship?”
“Oh, it’s of no consequence. We were in this part of the world and happened to hear he’d been here, and we looked in on chance, that’s all.”
“Can I get you two gentlemen any refreshment?”
“No”—looking round the low sitting-room with narrow windows and old-fashioned furniture.
“Lord, how it smells of musty hay!” exclaimed Sir Harry.
“And flowers,” added his friend. “I say, what roses!—yes, and a garden at the back”—walking over. “I wonder what sort of people come here?” and, staring out at the unexpectedly large pleasance, with its wide gravel walks, and old-fashioned benches,“I say,” to the waiter, “what sort of people stay here?”
“Thebestsort, sir,” replied the waiter, who had been secretly indignant at the bold, cheap air of these motoring gents. “People comes here that like comfort and quiet. No cheap trippers. There’s some took in at other hotels as Mrs. Hogan would have the hall washed after, if they had the impudence to put a foot in it! We have our own farm, the finest poultry in the country, fruit and vegetables, good cars and horses on hire, and”—as a grand climax—“abath-room.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Sir Harry, putting up his eyeglass.
“Yes. At present we have his lordship’s sister’s man of business here. I mean the man of business’ sister of his lordship.”
“The man of business’ sister of his lordship,” drawled Captain Deverell. “What the dickensdoyou mean?”
The cool, superior air of the “young high flyer,” as he mentally termed him, inflamed the waiter’s wrath; his Celtic temper rose fast; he resolved to give this contemptuous inquirer one for his nob.
“Miss Usher, sir, I mean.”
“Oh, old Usher’s sister,” said the captain, turning to his friend. “Then”—to the waiter—“is Mr. Usher staying here too?”
“No, sir; he left with his lordship some time back.”
“Leaving Miss Usher alone?”
“Oh, no, sir. It’s not giv’ out yet exactly on the papers; but she’s keeping company with her ladyship, his lordship’s daughter.”
Captain Deverell stared hard at the waiter, then looked at his friend and laughed. As he resumed hisgoggles, he exclaimed: “This Ireland is a funny place, isn’t it, Coxy? The land of romance, eh?”
“Yes, one must come to the back of the world for news, I see. Well, now we really must get on. It is past four o’clock.”
And the pair tramped noisily through the hall; and presently the motor departed with a triumphant “Tuff, tuff, tuff!”
On the occasion of this visit Miss Usher happened to be laid up with a severe cold, suspiciously akin to a touch of the “flue,” and was nursing herself in her sitting-room. Meanwhile, her young companion had set out for Foley’s Corner, in quest of the white cat, who, despite of his buttered paws, daily returned to his late abode with praiseworthy devotion. It was true that the doors and windows were closed, that there was nothing available to eat or to drink, but nevertheless, he was to be found sitting with pathetic patience on Katty’s window, or making the air hideous with his melancholy caterwaulings.
Mary thought but little of the mile and a half distance, and directly after tea she and “Rap” had departed to fetch “Whitey.” She enjoyed the walk there, when she could be alone, and think, and as Miss Usher was not about, she sallied forth, as in former times, in her “hair”—that is to say, bareheaded, with her hat slung over her arm. She wore a white spotted cotton dress-an old friend, made by an old friend—the weather was much too warm for crêpe and wool; and the same friend, Maggie Kane, met her, and walked part of the way with her, and said good-bye at the cross above the corner. Maggie’s manner had been a mixture of constraint and freedom, and Mary hadbegun to realise the bitter truth of Miss Usher’s prophecy. Old comrades and schoolfellows were changed—if she was really her ladyship, she had no call to mix with them as one of themselves; she had a right to go away. They were no longer at ease with Mary, nor she with them. Yes; Miss Usher’s plan was working to admiration. Formerly she went in and out among the neighbours, and they were only too glad to welcome Mary Foley; but this grand Lady Joseline was another person. At one time—even three weeks ago—Mary would have felt broken-hearted to leave them all. Now, much as she still liked them, and much as she dreaded her future, she was secretly impatient to depart. Wise old women had given her advice, and Mrs. Hogan, her former patroness, had said to her privately, “See here, Mary, me dear! ye have no part nor lot among usnow; you’re a lady born, and a titled lady; sure, look at your finger-nails yerself!—and ye must just make the best of it. I’ve no call whatever to be talking so free with ye, and I know it; but I’m fond of ye, lovey, and proud—and so is all the countryside: and we think you should just go quietly to your own, and get the education, and the airs, as is yourdue.”
“But I’d ever so much rather stay here!” she protested with tears.
“But you can’t, me dear—ye cannot be fish and fowl at the wan time. Sure, ye haven’t a soul over here belonging to yer; and it makes people unaisy in themselves, to be sitting talking to ye, cheek by jowl, as Mary Foley, knowing as ’tis standing up and dropping curtseys to her ladyship as they should be half the time. Sometimes I declare when I think of theliberties I’ve took wid ye as a young girl, I break out into a cold sweat, saving yer presence.”
“Then I must go,” she cried. “And none of ye want me!” and she burst into sobs. “Oh, I’d never have believed it of ye!”
“If ’twas only Mary ye wor, we all want ye; and the young boys, especially Tom Grady, and poor Dan that’s heart-broke, and Patsie Maguire, that’s killing himself with bad whisky for your sake.”
“Tom! Dan!” repeated the girl; and her face grew scarlet.
“Yes,—see now, the very names brings all the lady’s blood in yer body, to yer face! ’Tis her ladyship coming out, and proud and haughty, as is fit for an earl’s daughter.”
“An earl’s daughter!” echoed Mary. “It’s all like a dream. I was better as I was before, a thousand times!”
“So we would have ye, my dear; but ye must make up yer mind to the other lot in life. Faix, and it will come aisy. The ould wan above” (she meant Miss Usher) “know’s what’s what, and will put ye in training. I’d be entirely said and led by her if I was you. You look a lady when ye have the hat on, and ye willbea lady yit!”
Mary was thinking over this conversation as she leant against the gate at Foley’s Corner with “Rap” and the cat sitting sedately beside her. Miss Usher had talked of leaving as soon as her cold was better, and as it might be that she was now standing at her lifelong post for the last time, she fell into a dreamy meditation. The various faces she remembered seemed to pass the gate in single file. Master Ulick, on his bay hunter; Old Mike Daly; Kathleen Sullivan, her friend, who died ofa decline, and the match made up and all; Bridgie Curran, her schoolfellow, whose boy was in America; Timmy Maher, who had asked her to marry him here at this very spot; Johnny Sugrue, who was killed in the war; and scores and scores of others. All that life was behind her, as much as if she were dead. No one would ever come to speak to her again at the gate. No one—ever! She had taken leave of the cottage which had been the home of many joys and sorrows—and kissed the little star on the window in token of farewell: for years she had never slept without first pressing her sweet red lips upon the irresponsive glass; but of late she had relinquished the habit. What was Mr. Ulick to her? Or she to Mr. Ulick? The scar was healing—time and silence are great physicians; yet “the tender grace of a day that was dead” occasionally stole into her heart, and it was a fact, that the sudden mention of one name invariably brought the colour to her cheek. Since Ulick Doran went away he had never sent but one sign; and that, thanks to the delinquencies of the local post, was fifteen long months, in reaching its destination.
Judy Flynn was the mistress of a secondary makeshift post office, where the mail car picked up a small bag, en route from village to village; and Mrs. Flynn held a licence to sell stamps, as well as tobacco and tea. Judy was a widow—a character, and a notorious gossip. All the news in the county emanated from “the cross.” And if tales were true, no wonder. Judy kept a kettle handy and opened and read every letter that seemed to her to be of general interest! It was she who made known how John MacCarthy was owing for seed-potatoes nigh on three years, and likely to beput in court. How Mary Hannigan’s boy had gone back on her! Why the Connors were leaving Moreen, and when old Murphy had married his cook. Her shop was a place of the wildest, maddest confusion; behind the little counter letters, parcels, canisters of tobacco, pipes, old newspapers, herrings, and packets of tea, were inextricably mixed with portions of Mrs. Flynn’s wardrobe.
“If ye will only lave me alone, and don’t moider me, I can lay me hand on everything,” was her invariable boast. Her business methods were at least original. Sometimes she went out, locked the door after her, and left the yawning post-bag hanging on a nail, where the passer-by might post (or extract) letters, precisely as he or she pleased.
But Judy Flynn, stout survival of old times and ways, continued to flourish in spite of numerous complaints from afar. When brought to book, she wept torrents of tears, assuming the attitude of a persecuted, hard-working widow woman. She had strong local interest; her backers were sensible that if Judy was superseded, they would lose much exciting and unexpected information; and as her office was a mere cross-post, serving a small insignificant district, Judy remained.
One beautiful June afternoon Judy beckoned to Mary Foley, who was passing her door.
“See here, acushla,” she cried, “there’s been a bit of a parcel for ye this whiles back. It come one evening, and I put it up safe, and forgot it, till I found it ’ere last week behind the meal-chest, when I was looking for a spool. Being a parcel, it’s no harm; if it was a letter I’d be main sorry; an’ here it is”—dusting it as she spoke.
“For me?” said Mary incredulously.
“Yes. Ye don’t trouble the post much; all yer boys are within spakin’ distance of ye. That thing looks like a book, and is from India.”
“India!” repeated the girl confusedly. “Sure I know no one out there!”
“Oh, yes, me darlin’, ye knowwan,” replied Mrs. Flynn, with a significant nod. “I can’t say if it’s in his writing, for the Castle letters does not come this way.”
Mary made no reply; she tucked the parcel under her arm, and saying, “Good evening to ye kindly, Mrs. Flynn,” stepped forth.
Poor disappointed Mrs. Flynn remained staring after her, till a turn in the road hid her figure from sight. Subsequently she told a neighbour that “Mary Foley was getting a bit crabbed in herself, and looked like a girl that had something on hermind.”
Mary desired to be alone, and far away from every human eye, when she opened her parcel; she felt instinctively that it came from Mr. Ulick; he and she had often talked of books; he had offered to lend her several; he knew that she was a great reader. Anyhow, this book was a sign that he was thinking of her still. She crossed several fields by a narrow footpath, and at last, at the back of a stile, rarely used, halted and proceeded to investigate her treasure. She studied the writing, the cover, the stamps; finally she cut the string with her excellent white teeth, and a little volume of poetry was disclosed—Songs of the Glens of Antrim.
Then she sat down in the long grass, and began to examine it carefully. No name was inscribed within. As she turned over the pages with hasty, tremulous fingers, she came to one, on which was scrawled, inpencil, the word “Mary.” Below ran the title: “I mind the day.”