CHAPTER XXExplanations.“It’s just this way, aunties,” he explained. “Somehow, while you and father made me feel you only wanted me to stay at home with you, I was too easy-going and happy to care about the future at all.”He had come over to the fire place now and pulled a chair between them, so that he was quite close to each. The ice being once broken, it was easier, and Miss Jane was helping him by her brave self-control.“Then, a little while ago something happened which made me suddenly think of what I meant to be or do in the future, and I realised how I was wasting the years. Since the dear old General died, and we heard that Paddy and Eileen and their mother were poor, I have felt awful about it, as if, had I only been making the most of these years, I might have been able to help them now.”“Poor Jack,” murmured Miss Jane gently, and little Miss Mary laid her small withered hand upon one of his big ones. “I am afraid it is chiefly our fault, sister,” she said sadly. “In our love we have been selfish.”Miss Jane pressed her lips together tightly. She was thinking the same thing, but it was hard to say it.“You will have all that we have some day, Jack,” she said presently. “You will not be poor.”“I know you will do all you can for me, aunties,” he answered, “but I hope it will be a long, long time before anything that is your becomes mine.”Then he told them all about his plans and about his friend, and they tried to listen as if they were glad for his sake, and finally arranged that Mr Wilkinson should be brought over to the Parsonage the following day, so that they might get to know him and hear all about the country he had come from. It was quite late when they finally went upstairs to bed, and no one spoke as they kissed their usual good-night in the sisters’ room, for their hearts were too full. Five minutes later, however, there was a gentle tap upon Jack’s door, and in answer to his voice little Miss Mary slipped into the room and softly pushed the door to behind her.Jack was sitting on his bed, feeling utterly wretched, and he had remained so since he came upstairs. Miss Mary sat down beside him and slipped one arm through his.“Jack dear,” she said, “you know that sister and I don’t really care for anything in the world except you and your happiness, and that if we thought you were unhappy it would be impossible for us to be otherwise?”“Yes, auntie, I know,” he answered, with a catch in his voice. “You are just too good to me, that’s all.”“No, dear, because no words could ever tell all you have done for us. If you had not come into our lives to keep us young and hopeful, a sorrow that nearly broke my heart, and Jane’s for my sake, would probably have ended in making us sour, embittered old maids.”Jack shook his head; he knew how impossible that would have been.“But it might, Jack,” the little lady urged; “and so we must always feel we cannot ever do enough for you.”That Jack had had no choice in the matter of coming into their lives did not appear to strike her; but what of that?—she could not love him less or more either way.“What I want to say, Jack dear,” she continued, “is that sister and I have often thought how foolish it was that you should have to wait until we are dead to have our money when we would much rather you had it now. As you know, we have three hundred pounds a year each, and however much we try we cannot spend more than fifty pounds each, living in this quiet country parsonage. So we think if you would take the remaining five hundred pounds a year you might be able to win something of all you want, and we should never miss it at all.”“How good you are—how good you both are,” was all he could say.“And you will take it?” with unconcealed eagerness.“No, no,” hastily. “It is impossible—quite, quite impossible. Oh, auntie! how could I—a great strong fellow such as I—with my health and strength, take away the income of two frail women?”“Jack dear,” she urged tearfully, “don’t look at it in that way. It is only that we long to repay you for all the happiness you have brought into our lives.”“It is impossible, auntie,” he said, and his eyes glistened.“Jack,”—there was a new note of tenderness in Miss Mary’s voice—“is there anything between you and Eileen?”For answer he dropped his face in his hands with a low groan. For some moments Miss Mary was silent. She could not trust herself to speak.“Don’t think your old auntie over-curious, Jack,” she said at last. “I love you so. It is just as if the pain was mine again, as it was long ago. It is because I suffered so once, and understand it all, I came to you to-night. Perhaps if you could tell me about it—”“You are an angel, auntie,” he murmured, and gripped the little hand in his until he hurt it.Miss Mary waited.“She doesn’t care, auntie,” he said at last, as if the words were wrung from him. “It just seems as if nothing in heaven or earth matters since Eileen does not care.”“Poor boy; poor laddie,” and a hot tear fell on his hand.“And I don’t know why she should care,” he ran on, finding relief in speaking. “What have I ever done or been that she should care for me? I must always have seemed just a great, lazy schoolboy, and not a man at all. And yet I have loved her since she was a little serious-faced thing in pinafores. I can’t think why I did not realise it sooner, and try to do something that might teach her to care. Instead, I have just waited until the wolf came and stole her heart away, and found out how terribly I cared when the mischief was all done.”“Poor laddie, poor laddie,” the little lady said again, letting her tears flow freely. “I don’t think it was so much your fault as sister’s and mine. We ought to have let you go out into the world sooner. It would probably have made all the difference. Are you quite sure there is no hope?”“There is none now, but if he does not come back I shall still hope in the future. She will not care for anyone else, I think, and by and by, perhaps, she will forget. I shall go on hoping that if such a time comes she will turn to me.”“I believe it will come, Jack,” Miss Mary said hopefully, “and that in the end she will indeed turn to you.”“But I must do something to feel more worthy of her auntie, and when I come back I must come with something to offer. I feel as if I had yet to prove to her that I am a man,” and he half smiled with a very wistful expression. “She has lectured me so often on being idle and wasting my life; and I always meant to begin at something but somehow it got put off. Perhaps it was just staying in Omeath spoilt everything. I feel as if I should be different altogether when I get away from the fishing, and shooting, and boating, among hardworking chaps.” He paused, then added: “You must tell me everything about her that you possibly can, and perhaps—perhaps when I come back she will be waiting for me.”“I believe she will, Jack, I do, indeed,” and then the little lady kissed him lovingly and went back to tell her sister.But it was a long, weary night for all of them. Jack’s hopefulness was only intermittent and vanished again almost as soon as it came, leaving him a prey to vain, pitiless regret and longing.As for the two little ladies, it was many years since they had spent sadder hours. Far into the night they wept silently, quite unable to comfort each other. That he must go away was so terrible to them; that he must go away in trouble was only worse. In a few weeks The Ghan House would be empty and their birdling flown, and the desolation in Omeath would be terrible beyond words. Once before life had dealt them a bitter blow, and for years joy had been crushed beneath it. Then Jack had come, and their old friend the General with his young wife, and life had smiled on them again, and it had seemed that they had found a “desired haven” for the remainder of their years. And now, suddenly, the cup was dashed from their lips again, and the old, old bitterness offered, instead, and for that one night poor human nature rebelled.Only the next morning it was as if the words, “Peace be still,” had been spoken through the silence of the starlit heavens, and two sweet, calm faces greeted Jack at the breakfast-table. For sorrow does not comesohard upon the old as upon the young, since when half the journey is over and can be looked back upon, for those who have eyes to see there is ever the God-light visible shining through the darkest hours.That day Jack told Paddy, and the news began to spread swiftly, until it was known in all the neighbourhood that not only was The Ghan House to be let to strangers, but Jack O’Hara, everybody’s favourite, was going away across the sea to seek his fortune in foreign lands. And in every direction there was manifold sorrow and regret. People did not like to intrude upon Mrs Adair yet, but every day someone drove or bicycled to the Parsonage to know if it was indeed true, and tried the two little ladies sorely with their exclamations and questionings.Moreover they were extremely busy. Going away to a foreign land—for all they knew, of heathens and cannibals—where there was never a woman to sew on a button nor darn a sock, it was, of course, necessary for Jack to have a regular trousseau. Everything had to be new, everything of the best, and every button and every tape sewed and sewed until it would really have puzzled Jack to get them off if he had wanted to.In vain he expostulated and pleaded as the heap of clothes grew bigger and bigger. They would not listen to him, and were deaf to his plea that it would necessitate chartering a private ship if he were really to take ill the things they were preparing for him. When there was the slightest indecision about anything, it was always, “What do you think, sister?—will he want this?” or “Will he want a dozen suits of pyjamas” or “Three dozen pairs of socks?” or “Do you think he would be likely to require silk handkerchiefs?” And always, whichever sister asked the question, the other answered gravely, “Hemight,” and that was considered final.The Parsonage rapidly assumed the appearance of a clothing warehouse or permanent jumble sale, and Paddy’s first real laugh broke out one afternoon when she came over to help sew on name-tapes. The order for the socks had accidentally been repeated four times, with the result that they were so literally swamped in socks that it seemed quite impossible to get away from them go where you would. All over the drawing-room socks lay everywhere. They hid in corners of the dining-room, disported themselves in the kitchen, smiled at you from the stairs, where they had been dropped in driblets when Miss Mary carried one armful to the first story, to spread themselves over the bedroom. In many places they were hopelessly mixed up with woollen underclothes, which also lay broadcast around, waiting for name-tapes; while flannel shirts and sleeping-suits of every hue and description draped themselves, gracefully and otherwise, over chairs and on the dining-room sideboard. The half-dozen cholera belts, that hemightwant, managed even to get into the rector’s study, though how or when no one knew, and it was only after a frantic search they were discovered. His suits of clothes he had always left lying about since he left off petticoats, also his boots; and now, as if unwilling to see old friends outdone, these were tossed pell-mell among the rest, and walk where one would you were pretty certain to stumble over boots or get entangled in trouser legs.When Paddy first saw it all there was a sort of aching pause, and then she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. Indeed, being somewhat out of practice, she laughed so much that she could not stop, and finally Jack attempted to stuff socks, and cholera belts, and woollen garments down her throat, to help her, while, governed by instinct, the two little ladies once more flew round collecting the breakables.“I’m—I’m—so afraid you won’t have enough things to keep you warm,” gasped Paddy between her struggles. “It’s only about ninety degrees in the shade, you know, in South America; you really ought to have two or three fur coats and caps and a dozen nice warm blankets.”Two minutes later nothing was to be seen of her except a pair of feet, emerging from a promiscuous heap of coats, waistcoats, socks, woollens, shirts, handkerchiefs, and an odd boot here and there.
“It’s just this way, aunties,” he explained. “Somehow, while you and father made me feel you only wanted me to stay at home with you, I was too easy-going and happy to care about the future at all.”
He had come over to the fire place now and pulled a chair between them, so that he was quite close to each. The ice being once broken, it was easier, and Miss Jane was helping him by her brave self-control.
“Then, a little while ago something happened which made me suddenly think of what I meant to be or do in the future, and I realised how I was wasting the years. Since the dear old General died, and we heard that Paddy and Eileen and their mother were poor, I have felt awful about it, as if, had I only been making the most of these years, I might have been able to help them now.”
“Poor Jack,” murmured Miss Jane gently, and little Miss Mary laid her small withered hand upon one of his big ones. “I am afraid it is chiefly our fault, sister,” she said sadly. “In our love we have been selfish.”
Miss Jane pressed her lips together tightly. She was thinking the same thing, but it was hard to say it.
“You will have all that we have some day, Jack,” she said presently. “You will not be poor.”
“I know you will do all you can for me, aunties,” he answered, “but I hope it will be a long, long time before anything that is your becomes mine.”
Then he told them all about his plans and about his friend, and they tried to listen as if they were glad for his sake, and finally arranged that Mr Wilkinson should be brought over to the Parsonage the following day, so that they might get to know him and hear all about the country he had come from. It was quite late when they finally went upstairs to bed, and no one spoke as they kissed their usual good-night in the sisters’ room, for their hearts were too full. Five minutes later, however, there was a gentle tap upon Jack’s door, and in answer to his voice little Miss Mary slipped into the room and softly pushed the door to behind her.
Jack was sitting on his bed, feeling utterly wretched, and he had remained so since he came upstairs. Miss Mary sat down beside him and slipped one arm through his.
“Jack dear,” she said, “you know that sister and I don’t really care for anything in the world except you and your happiness, and that if we thought you were unhappy it would be impossible for us to be otherwise?”
“Yes, auntie, I know,” he answered, with a catch in his voice. “You are just too good to me, that’s all.”
“No, dear, because no words could ever tell all you have done for us. If you had not come into our lives to keep us young and hopeful, a sorrow that nearly broke my heart, and Jane’s for my sake, would probably have ended in making us sour, embittered old maids.”
Jack shook his head; he knew how impossible that would have been.
“But it might, Jack,” the little lady urged; “and so we must always feel we cannot ever do enough for you.”
That Jack had had no choice in the matter of coming into their lives did not appear to strike her; but what of that?—she could not love him less or more either way.
“What I want to say, Jack dear,” she continued, “is that sister and I have often thought how foolish it was that you should have to wait until we are dead to have our money when we would much rather you had it now. As you know, we have three hundred pounds a year each, and however much we try we cannot spend more than fifty pounds each, living in this quiet country parsonage. So we think if you would take the remaining five hundred pounds a year you might be able to win something of all you want, and we should never miss it at all.”
“How good you are—how good you both are,” was all he could say.
“And you will take it?” with unconcealed eagerness.
“No, no,” hastily. “It is impossible—quite, quite impossible. Oh, auntie! how could I—a great strong fellow such as I—with my health and strength, take away the income of two frail women?”
“Jack dear,” she urged tearfully, “don’t look at it in that way. It is only that we long to repay you for all the happiness you have brought into our lives.”
“It is impossible, auntie,” he said, and his eyes glistened.
“Jack,”—there was a new note of tenderness in Miss Mary’s voice—“is there anything between you and Eileen?”
For answer he dropped his face in his hands with a low groan. For some moments Miss Mary was silent. She could not trust herself to speak.
“Don’t think your old auntie over-curious, Jack,” she said at last. “I love you so. It is just as if the pain was mine again, as it was long ago. It is because I suffered so once, and understand it all, I came to you to-night. Perhaps if you could tell me about it—”
“You are an angel, auntie,” he murmured, and gripped the little hand in his until he hurt it.
Miss Mary waited.
“She doesn’t care, auntie,” he said at last, as if the words were wrung from him. “It just seems as if nothing in heaven or earth matters since Eileen does not care.”
“Poor boy; poor laddie,” and a hot tear fell on his hand.
“And I don’t know why she should care,” he ran on, finding relief in speaking. “What have I ever done or been that she should care for me? I must always have seemed just a great, lazy schoolboy, and not a man at all. And yet I have loved her since she was a little serious-faced thing in pinafores. I can’t think why I did not realise it sooner, and try to do something that might teach her to care. Instead, I have just waited until the wolf came and stole her heart away, and found out how terribly I cared when the mischief was all done.”
“Poor laddie, poor laddie,” the little lady said again, letting her tears flow freely. “I don’t think it was so much your fault as sister’s and mine. We ought to have let you go out into the world sooner. It would probably have made all the difference. Are you quite sure there is no hope?”
“There is none now, but if he does not come back I shall still hope in the future. She will not care for anyone else, I think, and by and by, perhaps, she will forget. I shall go on hoping that if such a time comes she will turn to me.”
“I believe it will come, Jack,” Miss Mary said hopefully, “and that in the end she will indeed turn to you.”
“But I must do something to feel more worthy of her auntie, and when I come back I must come with something to offer. I feel as if I had yet to prove to her that I am a man,” and he half smiled with a very wistful expression. “She has lectured me so often on being idle and wasting my life; and I always meant to begin at something but somehow it got put off. Perhaps it was just staying in Omeath spoilt everything. I feel as if I should be different altogether when I get away from the fishing, and shooting, and boating, among hardworking chaps.” He paused, then added: “You must tell me everything about her that you possibly can, and perhaps—perhaps when I come back she will be waiting for me.”
“I believe she will, Jack, I do, indeed,” and then the little lady kissed him lovingly and went back to tell her sister.
But it was a long, weary night for all of them. Jack’s hopefulness was only intermittent and vanished again almost as soon as it came, leaving him a prey to vain, pitiless regret and longing.
As for the two little ladies, it was many years since they had spent sadder hours. Far into the night they wept silently, quite unable to comfort each other. That he must go away was so terrible to them; that he must go away in trouble was only worse. In a few weeks The Ghan House would be empty and their birdling flown, and the desolation in Omeath would be terrible beyond words. Once before life had dealt them a bitter blow, and for years joy had been crushed beneath it. Then Jack had come, and their old friend the General with his young wife, and life had smiled on them again, and it had seemed that they had found a “desired haven” for the remainder of their years. And now, suddenly, the cup was dashed from their lips again, and the old, old bitterness offered, instead, and for that one night poor human nature rebelled.
Only the next morning it was as if the words, “Peace be still,” had been spoken through the silence of the starlit heavens, and two sweet, calm faces greeted Jack at the breakfast-table. For sorrow does not comesohard upon the old as upon the young, since when half the journey is over and can be looked back upon, for those who have eyes to see there is ever the God-light visible shining through the darkest hours.
That day Jack told Paddy, and the news began to spread swiftly, until it was known in all the neighbourhood that not only was The Ghan House to be let to strangers, but Jack O’Hara, everybody’s favourite, was going away across the sea to seek his fortune in foreign lands. And in every direction there was manifold sorrow and regret. People did not like to intrude upon Mrs Adair yet, but every day someone drove or bicycled to the Parsonage to know if it was indeed true, and tried the two little ladies sorely with their exclamations and questionings.
Moreover they were extremely busy. Going away to a foreign land—for all they knew, of heathens and cannibals—where there was never a woman to sew on a button nor darn a sock, it was, of course, necessary for Jack to have a regular trousseau. Everything had to be new, everything of the best, and every button and every tape sewed and sewed until it would really have puzzled Jack to get them off if he had wanted to.
In vain he expostulated and pleaded as the heap of clothes grew bigger and bigger. They would not listen to him, and were deaf to his plea that it would necessitate chartering a private ship if he were really to take ill the things they were preparing for him. When there was the slightest indecision about anything, it was always, “What do you think, sister?—will he want this?” or “Will he want a dozen suits of pyjamas” or “Three dozen pairs of socks?” or “Do you think he would be likely to require silk handkerchiefs?” And always, whichever sister asked the question, the other answered gravely, “Hemight,” and that was considered final.
The Parsonage rapidly assumed the appearance of a clothing warehouse or permanent jumble sale, and Paddy’s first real laugh broke out one afternoon when she came over to help sew on name-tapes. The order for the socks had accidentally been repeated four times, with the result that they were so literally swamped in socks that it seemed quite impossible to get away from them go where you would. All over the drawing-room socks lay everywhere. They hid in corners of the dining-room, disported themselves in the kitchen, smiled at you from the stairs, where they had been dropped in driblets when Miss Mary carried one armful to the first story, to spread themselves over the bedroom. In many places they were hopelessly mixed up with woollen underclothes, which also lay broadcast around, waiting for name-tapes; while flannel shirts and sleeping-suits of every hue and description draped themselves, gracefully and otherwise, over chairs and on the dining-room sideboard. The half-dozen cholera belts, that hemightwant, managed even to get into the rector’s study, though how or when no one knew, and it was only after a frantic search they were discovered. His suits of clothes he had always left lying about since he left off petticoats, also his boots; and now, as if unwilling to see old friends outdone, these were tossed pell-mell among the rest, and walk where one would you were pretty certain to stumble over boots or get entangled in trouser legs.
When Paddy first saw it all there was a sort of aching pause, and then she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. Indeed, being somewhat out of practice, she laughed so much that she could not stop, and finally Jack attempted to stuff socks, and cholera belts, and woollen garments down her throat, to help her, while, governed by instinct, the two little ladies once more flew round collecting the breakables.
“I’m—I’m—so afraid you won’t have enough things to keep you warm,” gasped Paddy between her struggles. “It’s only about ninety degrees in the shade, you know, in South America; you really ought to have two or three fur coats and caps and a dozen nice warm blankets.”
Two minutes later nothing was to be seen of her except a pair of feet, emerging from a promiscuous heap of coats, waistcoats, socks, woollens, shirts, handkerchiefs, and an odd boot here and there.