Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 27

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 come _so_ hard 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 G.o.d-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 b.u.t.ton 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 b.u.t.ton 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, "He _might_," and that was considered final.

The Parsonage rapidly a.s.sumed 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 he _might_ want, 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.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

TWO LOVE STORIES.

Christmas Day broke clear and frosty--the last Christmas Day of the old order. Everyone woke up with an oppressed feeling and a vague wish that for just this once the season of merry-making and gladness might have been omitted. For The Ghan House and the Parsonage it had always been such a particularly joyous time, the aunties always spoiling the young folks in every possible way, and Mrs Adair had been wont to say laughingly when they were children, that she had to develop into a sort of griffin armed with salts and soothing draughts, and follow them all around. And there had always been such presents too--ever since Jack, as a four-year-old youngster, managed to slip out of the Parsonage in his night-clothes and no shoes, on a cold Christmas morning, to get over to The Ghan House to show Paddy and Eileen his wooden horse. The gardener found him trying to drag the animal over the breach in the wall, his poor little feet blue with cold, but his eagerness was so great that he could think of nothing but getting to The Ghan House with that precious horse before any of the Parsonage folk caught him. So the gardener picked him up, horse and all, and carried him into The Ghan House kitchen to be warmed, and then went back to tell the aunties and fetch his clothes. Meanwhile Eileen had heard him in the kitchen, and managed to drag herself, burdened with an enormous doll, to the head of the stairs, where she was only just rescued in the nick of time from going down head first, doll and all.

But at breakfast-time things had looked a little more cheerful, for a delightful surprise awaited everyone. The two families had arranged to spend the whole day together, and The Ghan House had been selected, so that quite a large party sat down to the table. Two minutes later the postman arrived and Jack and Paddy once more raced and fell over each other to the door. They came back with their arms loaded. It just seemed as if everyone who knew them had seized the opportunity of expressing their sympathy by means of a little present.

There were books, and handkerchiefs, and pictures, and purses--never had there been such a Christmas before as far as presents were concerned, and even Mrs Adair smiled to think her girls were so genuinely beloved.

The greatest surprise of all came last, in the form of an envelope on each of the three young folk's plates. With eager fingers Paddy got hers open first, and then uttered a little cry of amazement, and in two seconds was hugging both aunties at the same time with a vigour that added consternation to their discomfort.

Each of the three envelopes contained a cheque for twenty pounds, and the three recipients could find no words to express their thanks.

Later they all went to church, the Adairs sitting as usual in the top pew on one side of the little aisle, and the Parsonage folks in the top pew on the other side; just as they had sat ever since Jack and Paddy as children had had to be closely watched, because they would peep at each other and make signs behind their elders' backs. Vivid recollections thronged the aunties' minds that last Christmas before the boy left them. They remembered how he and Paddy would try to see who could sing the loudest, all out of tune of course, and had considerably disturbed the music of the whole congregation; how Jack, as a little chap, loved to slip out of the pew when his father was reading the Lessons, and stand beside him--and how once, when Paddy had happened to be sitting on the outside of the Adair's pew as a reward for being a good girl, the temptation had been too much for her and she had slipped after Jack; of the Sunday Jack had put a little frog in her pocket, and she had found it and screamed out in church; and of another time when Paddy, exasperated because he would not look at her, had deliberately, in a fit of naughtiness, thrown a hymn book across the aisle at his head.

For one and all there were recollections that saddened and gladdened at once, but perhaps for Eileen were the saddest of all, because the most hopeless.

Close behind, on one side, where his thin profile had been distinctly visible, was the spot where Lawrence had often sat on a Sunday evening after coming to church, as she could not but know, especially to see her. The Blakes' parish church was at Newry, but Lawrence was never seen there; if he went to church at all he walked over to Omeath, and went in to The Ghan House to supper afterward.

It was in vain Eileen told herself he was unworthy, fickle; struggle as she would she could not tear him out of her heart, nor forget for a moment all he had been to her. The effort to do so, combined with her mourning for her father, and the dreariness of the future, had seriously affected her health the last few weeks, and just as they were finishing the first prayers, everyone was startled by the sound of a fall, and discovered Eileen in a dead faint. A second later, with a set, compressed expression, Jack had picked her up as when she was a child, and carried her out, across the churchyard and into the Parsonage. When he laid her down on the sofa, his own face was scarcely less white than the face on the cushions, and he smothered a sound that was almost a sob, as he turned away to make room for Mrs Adair and Aunt Jane.

So the day ended in sadness after all, for though Eileen came round quickly, she was almost too weak to stand, and in the evening Jack helped her across to The Ghan House, and then went to fetch the doctor.

It had been arranged for her and Paddy and their mother to start for London the first week in January, where Dr Adair had already taken a house for them, and they were to stay with him while the furniture followed, but in Eileen's state of health this seemed very unwise, and it was finally decided Jack and Paddy should start off together, and Mrs Adair and Eileen should move over to the Parsonage, and remain there for a week or two following to London when their own home was ready.

Mrs Adair and Aunt Jane and Paddy and Jack planned it all in a consultation that Christmas evening, while little Miss Mary sat upstairs with Eileen. It was an opportunity she had wished for some time, for her understanding heart saw that Eileen would be better if she could be induced to speak of her pain, and she believed that she held a key that would unlock her confidence. She carefully closed the door and made up the fire, before she drew an arm-chair beside the bed, and sat down, saying:

"I think we shall have a quiet hour now, dearie, for the others are talking business, and that will be so nice, won't it?"

Eileen smiled her consent, and Miss Mary went on talking softly, in a soothing way that was natural to her. Presently she laid a little wasted hand on the invalid's and said simply:

"Eileen, my dear, you have always been especially precious to me. It goes to my heart to feel that you are unhappy and none of us can do anything."

The quick tears sprang to Eileen's eyes, but she made no reply.

"I have been thinking, perhaps, if you could trust me--" Miss Mary continued a little hesitatingly. "I know how difficult it is to speak of anything like this--I know how terrible it is to bear. I once suffered in just the same way myself, dearie, only perhaps for me it was a little harder, for we were actually engaged."

Eileen was crying quietly now, wholly undone by Miss Mary's tenderness, and made no attempt to speak.

"I always meant to tell you about it some day, if you cared to hear,"

Miss Mary went on, softly stroking the girl's hand, "and I have been thinking I would like to tell you now, or shall I weary you?"

"No, please tell me," murmured Eileen, and her fingers closed lovingly over her companion's.

"My dear, as you know, many people about here wonder why sister and I have never married, but I doubt if anyone knows the real reason except just she and I." She paused a moment, and then continued simply: "You have heard of old General Quinn, who used to live at Omeath Park? He was a hard-drinking, hard-living old man, and he had three sons, two of whom took after him in everything. The third son was quieter, but he was terribly weak, though none of us quite knew it at the time. He took after his mother, who was a beautiful Irish girl from the South, but she died young, and none of the boys had anyone much to look after them as they grew up. There was no real harm in any of them, but the two elder were terribly wild, and the younger was very handsome and very fond of popularity, though he followed none of the excesses of his brothers.

"They all three went into the army and were away some time, and then Patrick, the eldest, and Allan, the youngest, came home on furlough. My sister and I were twenty and twenty-one then, and I believe we were considered very pretty, but we had never been away from the Parsonage much, and we knew nothing of the world beyond the mountains.

"Patrick fell in love with Jane, and Allan with me, and you can understand, I think, how easily and naturally we were conquered, though sister never actually got so far as Allan and I, who were secretly engaged after a few weeks. We were afraid to tell my father, because he was angry with the old General about something, and we knew well it was wiser to wait until his anger had blown over, as it always did pretty quickly. The only person who knew was my G.o.dmother, and she happened to come and stay with us just then. Fortunately for me she liked Allan, though indeed she was certain to, for he was just as handsome and popular as Jack, only without Jack's backbone. She promised to help us if she could, and advised us not to say anything to father just yet. Of Patrick and Jane she thought less, perhaps because they quarrelled so often, and it seemed so very doubtful if they would ever be actually engaged; though, when they were good friends, no one need wish to meet with a happier pair. Looking back since, I have not been able to help feeling deeply sorry for Patrick. Though he was wild he was not bad, and Jane could have done as she liked with him. I know now that he was far the best of the three brothers, and it seems strange that he should have been the one who had to suffer for the other's sins.

"Things were going on in this way when the Egyptian War broke out, and Allan's regiment was ordered on active service. It was a terrible time, my dear. Getting Jack's things ready now brings to my mind so clearly that last week with Allan, and the misery of the parting when at last he sailed away.

"Had I known what was to follow I could not have borne it all. My only fear, night and day, was that he would be killed in battle, and yet before so very long my cry was changed to--'Oh, G.o.d I would that he had been killed fighting for his country!'

"We did not hear from him for some time, and then his name appeared among the wounded, and I was nearly distraught. My G.o.dmother was staying with us again, and through her influence we managed to get many details we could not otherwise have done, and we heard he had been rather seriously hurt, and as it might prove a long case he was going to be taken to the hospital at Cairo. I was not very strong at that time, dear, and what with worry and dread, the winter tried me exceedingly, and G.o.dmother grew anxious. Then she hit upon a plan. I must tell you she was rich and she had no children of her own, which doubtless made her care so deeply for me. When she saw how I was suffering about Allan, she made up her mind to take me to him--and when she made up her mind about anything she always carried it through. It took her some time to talk my father round, but in the end he agreed to let Jane and myself go away with her for three months, and a few days later we started for Cairo."

She stopped, and remained thoughtful for a few minutes, as if recalling all the facts more vividly to her mind. Eileen did not speak, and presently she added:

"It was nine months after Allan first sailed that we reached Cairo. It is no use to weary you with the details of the trip, or of what happened when we arrived. All that matters is, that in three days we discovered he was married."