Chapter 28 Light O' the Morning by L. T. Meade
THE WILD IRISH
The somewhat slow Irish train jogged along its way; it never put itself out, did that special train, starting when it pleased, and arriving when it chose at its destination. Its guard, Jerry by name, was of a like mind with itself; there was no hurry about Jerry; he took the world “aisy,” as he expressed it.
“What's the good of fretting?” he used to say. “What can't be cured must be endured. I hurry no man's cattle; and my train, she goes when she likes, and I aint going to hurry her, not I.”
On one occasion Jerry was known to remark to a somewhat belated traveler:
“Why, then, miss, is it hurrying ye are to meet the train? Why, then, you can take your time.”
“Oh, Jerry!” said this anxious person, fixing her eyes on his face in great excitement, “I forgot a most important parcel at a shop half a mile away.”
“Run and fetch it, then, honey,” replied Jerry, “and I'll keep her a bit longer.”
This the lady accordingly did. When she returned, the heads of all the other angry passengers were out of the windows expostulating with Jerry as to the cause of the delay.
“Hurry up, miss,” he said then. He popped her into a compartment, and she, as he called the train, moved slowly out of the station.
At times, too, without the smallest provocation, Jerry would stop this special train because a little “pigeen” had got off one of the trucks and was running along the line. He and the porter shouted and raced after the animal, caught it, and brought it back to the train. On another occasion he calmly informed a rather important passenger, “Ye had best get out here, for she's bust.” “She” happened to be the engine.
Into this train now got English Molly and Irish Nora. Mr. Hartrick pronounced it quite the vilest service he had ever traveled by. He began to grumble the moment he got into the train.
“It crawls,” he said; “and it absolutely has the cheek to call itself an express.”
But Nora, with her head out of the window, was shouting to Jerry, who came toward her full of blessings, anxious to shake her purty white hand, and telling her that he was as glad as a shower of gould to have her back again in the old country.
At last, however, the slow, very slow journey came to an end; and just after sunset the party found themselves at the little wayside station. Here a sight met Nora's eyes which displeased her exceedingly. Instead of the old outside car which her father used to drive, with the shabby old retainer, whose livery had long ago seen its best days, there arrived a smart groom, in the newest of livery, with a cockade in his hat. He touched his hat respectfully to Mr. Hartrick, and gave a quick glance round at Nora and Molly.
“Is the brougham outside, Dennis?” was Mr. Hartrick's response.
“Yes, sir; it has been waiting for half an hour; the train is a bit late, as usual, sir.”
“You need not tell me that this train is ever in time,” said Mr. Hartrick. “Well, girls, come along; I told Dennis to meet us, and here we are.”
Molly thought nothing at all of the neat brougham, with its pair of spirited grays; she was accustomed to driving in the better-class of carriage all her life; but Nora turned first pale and then crimson. She got into the carriage, and sat back in a corner; tears were brimming to her eyes.
“This is the first. How am I to bear all the rest?” she said to herself.
Mr. Hartrick, who had hoped that Nora would be pleased with the brougham, with Dennis himself, with the whole very stylish get-up, was mortified at her silence, and, taking her hand, tried to draw her out.
“Well, little girl,” he said, “I hope you will like the improvements I have made in the Castle. I have done it all at your instigation, remember.”
“At my instigation?” cried Nora. “Oh, no, Uncle George, that you have not.”
He looked at her in some amazement, then closed his lips, and said nothing more. Molly longed to get her father alone, in order to explain Nora's peculiar conduct.
“It is difficult for an Englishman to understand her,” thought Molly. “I do, and I think her altogether charming; but father, who has gone to this enormous expense and trouble, will be put out if she does not show a little gratitude. I will tell her that she must; I will take the very first opportunity.”
And now they were turning in at the well-known gates. These gates were painted white, whereas they had been almost reduced to their native wood. The avenue was quite tidy, no weeds anywhere; but Nora almost refused to look out. One by one the familiar trees seemed to pass by her as she was bowled rapidly along in the new brougham, as if they were so many ghosts saying good-by. But then there was the roar—the real, real, grand roar—of the Atlantic in her ears. No amount of tidiness, nothing could ever alter that sound.
“Oh, hurrah for the sea!” she said. She flung down the window and popped out her head.
Mr. Hartrick nodded to Molly. “She will see a great deal more to delight her than just the old ocean,” he said.
Molly was silent. They arrived at the house; the butler was standing on the steps, a nice, stylish-looking Englishman, in neat livery. He came down, opened the carriage door, let down the steps, and offered his arm to Nora to alight; but she pushed past him, bounded up the steps, and the next moment found herself in her mother's arms.
“How do you do, my dear Nora?” said Mrs. O'Shanaghgan. “I am glad to see you, dear, but also surprised. You acted in your usual headstrong fashion.”
“Oh, another time, mother. Mummy, how are you? I am glad to see you again; but don't scold me now; just wait. I'll bear it all patiently another time. How is the dad, mummy?—how is the dad?”
“Your father is doing nicely, Nora; there was not the slightest occasion for you to hurry off and give such trouble and annoyance.”
“I don't suppose I have given annoyance to father,” said Nora. “Where is he—in his old room?”
“No; we moved him upstairs to the best bedroom. We thought it the wisest thing to do; he was in considerable pain.”
“The best bedroom? Which is the best bedroom?” said Nora. “Your room, mummy?”
“The room next to mine, darling. And just come and have a look at the drawing room, Nora.”
“I will go to father first,” said Nora. “Don't keep me; I can't stay.”
She forgot Molly; she forgot her uncle; she even forgot her mother. In a moment she was bounding upstairs over those thick Axminster carpets—those awful carpets, into which her feet sank—down a corridor, also heavily lined with Axminster, past great velvet curtains, which seemed to stifle her as she pushed them aside, and the next instant she had burst open a door.
In the old days this room had been absolutely destitute of furniture. In the older days again it had been the spare room of Castle O'Shanaghgan. Here hospitality had reigned; here guests of every degree had found a hearty welcome, an invitation to stay as long as they pleased, and the best that the Castle could afford for their accommodation. When Nora had left O'Shanaghgan, the only thing that had remained in the old room was a huge four-poster. Even the mattress from this old bed had been removed; the curtains had been taken from the windows; the three great windows were bare of both blinds and curtains. Now a soft carpet covered the entire floor; a neat modern Albert bed stood in a recess; there were heavy curtains to the windows, and Venetian blinds, which were so arranged as to temper the light. But the light of the sunset had already faded, and it was twilight when Nora popped her wild, excited little face round the door.
In the bed lay a gaunt figure, unshaven, with a beard of a week's growth. Two great eyes looked out of caverns, then two arms were stretched out, and Nora was clasped to her father's breast.
“Ah, then, I have you again; may God be praised for all His mercies,” said the Squire in a great, deep hoarse voice.
Nora lay absolutely motionless for nearly half a minute in his arms, then she raised herself.
“Ah,” she said, “that was good. I hungered for it.”
“And I also hungered for it, my darling,” said the Squire. “Let me look at you, Light o' the Morning; get a light somehow, and let me see your bonny, bonny, sweet, sweet face.”
“Ah, there's a fire in the grate,” said Nora. “Are there any matches?”
“Matches, bedad!” said the Squire; “there's everything that's wanted. It's perfectly horrible. They are in a silver box, too, bedad! What do we want with it? Twist up a bit of paper, do, Nora, like a good girl, and light the glim the old way.”
Nora caught at her father's humor at once. She had already flung off her hat and jacket.
“To be sure I will,” she said, “and with all the heart in the world.” She tore a long strip from the local paper, which was lying on a chair near by, twisted it, lit it in the fire, and then applied it to a candle.
“Only light one candle, for the love of heaven, child,” said the Squire. “I don't want to see too many of the fal-lals. Now then, that's better; bring the light up to the bed. Oh, what I have suffered with curtains, and carpets, and—-”
“It's too awful, father,” said Nora.
“That's it, child. That's the first cheery word I have heard for the last six weeks—too awful I should think it is. They are smothering me between them, Nora. I shall never get up and breathe the free air again; but when you came in you brought a breath of air with you.”
“Let's open the window. There's a gale coming up, We'll have some air,” said Nora.
“Why, then, Light o' the Morning, they say I'll get bronchitis if the window is opened.”
“They! Who are they?” said Nora, with scorn.
“Why, you wouldn't believe it, but they had a doctor down from Dublin to see me. I don't believe he had a scrap of real Irish blood in him, for he said I was to be nursed and messed over, and gruels and all kinds of things brought to my bedside—I who would have liked a fine potato with a pinch of salt better than anything under the sun.”
“You'll have your potato and your pinch of salt now that I am back,” said Nora. “I mean to be mistress of this room.”
The Squire gave a laugh.
“Isn't it lovely to hear her?” he said. “Don't it do me a sight of good? There, open the window wide, Nora, before your mother comes in. Oh, your mother is as pleased as Punch, and for her sake I'd bear a good deal; but I am a changed man. The old times are gone, never to return. Call this place Castle O'Shanaghgan. It may be suitable for an English nobleman to live in, but it's not my style; it's not fit for an Irish squire. We are free over here, and we don't go in for luxuries and smotherations.”
“Ah, father, I had to go through a great deal of that in England,” said Nora. “It's awful to think that sort of life has come here; but there—there's the window wide open. Do you feel a bit of a breeze, dad?”
“To be sure I do; let me breathe it in. Prop me up in bed, Nora. They said I was to lie flat on my back, but, bedad! I won't now that you have come back.”
Nora pushed some pillows under her father, and sat behind him to support him, and at last she got him to sit up in bed with his face turned to the wide-open window.
The blinds were rattling, the curtains were being blown into the room, and the soft, wild sound of the sea fell on his ears.
“Ah, I'm better now,” he said; “my lungs are cleared at bit. You had best shut the window before your lady-mother comes in. And put the candle so that I can't see the fal-lals too much,” he continued; “but place it so that I can gaze at your bonny face.”
“You must tell me how you were hurt, father, and where.”
“Bedad! then, I won't—not to-night. I want to have everything as cheerful as possible to-night. My little girl has come back—the joy of my heart, the light of my eyes, the top of the morning, and I'm not going to fret about anything else.”
“You needn't—you needn't,” said Nora. “Oh! it is good to see you again. There never was anybody like you in all the world. And you were longing for Nora?”
“Now, don't you be fishing.”
“But you were—wern't you?”
“To be sure—to be sure. Here, then, let me grip hold of your little hand. I never saw such a tiny little paw. And so they haven't made a fine English lady of you?”
“No, not they,” said Nora.
“And you ran away to see your old dad? Why, then, you have the spirit of the old O'Shanaghgans in you.”
“Horses would not have kept me from you,” said Nora.
“I might have known as much. How I laughed when your mother brought in the telegram from your Aunt Grace this morning! And weren't they in a fuss, and wasn't your Uncle George as cross as he could be, and your mother rampaging up and down the room until I said, 'If you want to bring on the fever, you'll go on like that, Ellen; and then she went out, and I heard her talking to your uncle in the passage. Clap, clap went their tongues. I never knew anything like English people; they never talk a grain of anything amusing; that's the worst of it. Why, it's the truth I'm telling you, darling; I haven't had a hearty laugh since you left home. I'll do fine now. When they were out of the room didn't I give way! I gave two loud guffaws, that I did, when I thought of the trick you had played them. Ah, you're a true daughter of the old race!”
Nora nestled up to her father, squeezing his hand now and then, and looking into his face.
“We'll have a fine time to-morrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next,” she said. “Oh! I am determined to be near you. But isn't there one little place in the house left bare, father, where we can go and have a happy moment?”
“Never a square inch,” said the Squire, looking at her solemnly. “It's too awful; even the attics have been cleared out and put in order, for the servants, forsooth! says your Uncle George.”
“What do we want so many retainers for? I am sure, now, if they would take a good houseful of some of the poor villagers and plant them up in those attics, there would be some sense in it.”
“Oh, Nora, couldn't we get a bit of a place just like the old place, all to ourselves?”
“I'll think it over,” said Nora; “we'll manage somehow. We can't stand feather-beds for ever and ever, father.”
“Hark to her,” said the Squire; “you're a girl after my own heart, Light o' the Morning, and it's glad I am to see you, and to have you back again.”