Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 24

"Yes. Wait for me by the boat-house," and she turned away and crossed the churchyard.

In the library her uncle, a kindly, strong-faced man, was anxiously looking for her, and when she entered he glanced keenly into her face.

He had been hearing a good deal about her from one and another during the last two or three days, and it was because of a plan he had in his mind that his glance held such searching interest.

"Did you want me, uncle?"

"Yes, dear."

He hesitated, then went on: "You slipped away this afternoon the moment I had finished reading your father's will, didn't you?"

"Yes, uncle. Ought I have stayed?"

"It did not make any difference, my child, except that I must explain now what has pa.s.sed since. You heard, I suppose, that your father lived almost entirely on his pension, and that the greater part of that ceased at his death?"

"Yes," wonderingly.

"In fact, he seems to have had nothing left of his private property except this house and grounds, and even upon this there is a mortgage.

At some period, though not within recent years, I think, with his usual kind-heartedness, he has put his name to bills for one or two brother officers, and they have not been met, and your father has had to pay.

In short, my dear, your father was a n.o.ble-hearted man, but he had no business capacities, and what with one thing and another, you and your mother and sister are left very badly off."

A sudden fear seemed to seize Paddy, and with dread in her eyes, she half whispered:

"Yes, uncle. Go on."

The doctor cleared his throat and played nervously with his watch-chain.

"There does not seem to be anything except your mother's pension now, and that is barely enough to support three."

"And The Ghan House--!"

What was it in Paddy's voice that made him turn away a moment and apply his handkerchief vigorously to his nose? What was it in the aching pause that opened those eyes, wont to brim over with fun and laughter, wider and wider with dread? But nothing was to be gained by delay, and at last the doctor said slowly:

"You will have to leave The Ghan House."

Paddy sat as if she had been suddenly turned to stone. On the top of all the rest, this last blow fell like a death-stroke. Her uncle gave her a little time to recover, and then he sat down and, resting his arms upon the table, leaned toward her.

"Paddy, my child, it's terribly hard for you all," he said in a gentle voice, "but I'm so hoping you will help me to do the best for your mother and sister."

He had touched the right chord; no other method could have gone so straight to Paddy's heart. She gulped down the hard, dry sobs that threatened to choke her, and looking up with an effort said:

"I promised daddy I would be a good son."

"And I'm sure you will!" her uncle exclaimed. "You will prove yourself a true Adair--your father's own flesh and blood. You see," he continued more seriously, "what I am most troubled about is your future and Eileen's. While your mother lives there is the pension, such as it is, but when she dies, you two little girls will have practically nothing-- except an old uncle who will always do what he can."

Paddy looked up gratefully, but he gave her no opportunity to speak, continuing immediately:

"If I were a rich man, you should none of you want _for_ anything, but I am far from it. We Adairs have a fatal gift of getting through money--a truly Irish trait--and a great part of my private means have gone in medical research, and my practice is in a poor parish, where I have to get what fees I can and leave the rest. As you know, your aunt has a little money, but she has insisted upon giving Basil a most expensive education, and now he is only half through his exams. He may not pa.s.s his final for two or three years, and meanwhile he is a great expense."

He paused and there was a long silence, then Paddy looked up, and, steadying her voice with an effort, said:

"I must earn money, uncle. I must do something at once."

The doctor knit his forehead together. He knew only too well how, in spite of the widening opportunities for women of earning a livelihood, it is desperately hard for a young girl, fresh from the country, who has done nothing but play most of her life, to gain any kind of a footing in the ranks of women workers.

"It is difficult to begin," he said, "and you have had no training."

Paddy was silent.

"I think it will be better to go away from this neighbourhood first," he began, as if feeling his way a little.

"Oh, must we?" she cried. "I think I could teach or something. It would break our hearts to go away from the mountains."

The doctor shook his head.

"I have a plan," he said, "and you must talk it over together and let me know your answer in a week or two. Comparatively recently, it has become usual for doctors to employ women, instead of men, as dispensers.

There is a certain amount of studying necessary and an examination to be pa.s.sed, but this once over, they are able to demand very good salaries. You are a smart little woman, Paddy, and I have been thinking it would be an excellent arrangement for you all to come to London, and for you to fit yourself to be my dispenser. I would pay you a hundred a year, and that would not only be a help to your mother, but it would mean that you had something substantial to fall back upon when she is gone."

"A hundred a year!" Paddy half gasped. "Isn't that a great deal?"

"Oh, no!" carelessly. "It is what most dispensers get." He knew that it was considerably above the salary of the average lady-dispenser, but he did not want Paddy or her mother to know, and in any case he believed she would be well worth it to him.

"You must just think it over well," he said, "and let me know later what you decide. If your mother does not approve, I will try to think of something else, but if she does, there is no time to be lost. You must begin to study in January, with a view to getting through in July, and I will pay all the fees for you. I was obliged to speak to you to-night, my dear, because I must return to London to-morrow, and I may not have another opportunity. You are a brave girl. G.o.d will help you to do the right," and with a suspicious moisture in his eyes he stooped and kissed her forehead, and went out leaving her alone.

Then it was that the flood-gates were opened, and throwing herself down in the chair where her father had been wont to sit so often, she gave way to hopeless, heart-broken weeping. She had said little enough to her uncle, but in reality the news had been a terrible shock to her; it had never entered her head for a moment that they must leave the old home. Even now it seemed utterly impossible--as if it were better that they should all three lie quietly in the churchyard beside their beloved dead, than go away from the loch and the mountains and leave him there in the churchyard alone!

When he weeping had spent itself, she remembered Jack and how he was waiting for her at the boat-house, but just for the moment she felt too exhausted to rise. Presently, however, she dragged herself up, and with a long, sobbing breath, turned to the door and crept noiselessly through the hall to the garden, and made her way down across the railway track to the spot where she and Jack had met so often to go upon one of their many madcap escapades. He was leaning against a post, lost in thought, and he started a little when her light footstep sounded on the shingle.

"Is that you Paddy!" he asked.

"Yes, Jack!" came the answer, and he felt vaguely that there were tears in her voice.

He went forward with outstretched hands, and took her unresisting ones, trying to see into her face.

"I thought you were never coming," he said.

She gulped down a sob, and big tears splashed upon his hand.

"What is it!" he asked, feeling cold suddenly.

The little wavelets hushed their singing, a twittering bird stopped to listen; over the majestic sleeping mountains, the shining stars, the steadfast heavens, the sentinel trees, the shimmering, wistful loch, there seemed to spread the hush of a spirit of pain, as he heard her say in a trembling voice:

"We have to leave The Ghan House, and the mountains, and the loch, and go and begin over again somewhere else."

He said nothing--what was there to say! To both of them the words were like a sentence of doom.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

IN WHICH THE WORST CAME.