Chapter 22 A Girl of High Adventure by L. T. Meade
IT IS JOYFUL TO BEHOLD THEE, MY PUSHKEEN
On their way back to Desmondstown, Margot told Uncle Fergus that she meant to tell The Desmond everything.
"He will be shocked," returned Fergus Desmond.
"No," replied Margot, "the truth told as I shall tell it can never shock anyone. I will not allow him to think me what I am not. Uncle Fergus, I thought you were too great to permit it."
"I have not your strength of character, my child," said The Desmond of the future.
As little Margot had come back to Desmondstown now to live, as it was to be her home in the future, with the exception of the one month which she would spend with la belle grand'mère, and as mon grandpère was dead, her return was quiet and without that sense of rejoicing which stimulated it on her last return. There were no bonfires; there were no excited, screaming peasants; but Phinias Maloney was there with his little old cart, and the baby had grown so big that his mother thought that she might bring him out just for the bit colleen to kiss him. They drove quietly up to the rickety old house.
The girls were standing in the hall, all three of them dressed as young and as little like their age as ever. They all came forward to greet her, but Auntie Norah cried out:
"Whyever aren't ye in black, pushkeen?"
"Why should I be in black?" replied Margot.
"Because, for sure, isn't your French grandfather killed entirely?"
"My French grandfather is in heaven, and very—very happy," said Margot. "He is with God, the dear God who loves us all, and I am not going to wear black for him, for if he could speak to me now he wouldn't like it. I loved him most dearly; I shall always love his memory, but now I want The Desmond and Madam."
"Then whip into the room," said Bridget. "Why, to say the least of it, you know your way about, pushkeen."
"Yes," said Margot. She could not help giving a happy little laugh; she could not help feeling a great load rolling off her heart. This was her real home, her beloved home, her home of all homes. There were no people like the Irish; there was no one in the world like The Desmond.
She was wearing a little dress of thick, white serge, coat and skirt to match, and a piece of white fox fur round her neck; her little cap was also of white and was pushed back off her dark hair. Her cheeks were blooming with roses. The Desmond had felt a momentary fear at the thought of meeting his little granddaughter, but when he saw her with her rosy cheeks and brilliant dark eyes and white apparel, he gave a sigh of rapture.
"Eh, eh, but it is joyful to behold ye, my pushkeen," he cried, and then they were clasped in each other's arms.
Madam went out, as was her custom, to prepare supper for the little pushkeen; and this was Margot's opportunity to tell her proud old grandfather what had occurred.
She told him all from beginning to end; her great dark eyes were fixed on his face; his eyes, nearly as dark, regarded her gravely. She did not leave out a single point. She explained the entire secret, the miserable little secret which had turned her into a shopgirl, all for such a wretched thing as a dot.
Certainly The Desmond was very grave at first—the colour mounted to his cheeks and he clenched one of his great strong hands; but when Margot went on to describe mon grandpère's death, and then the arrangement which had been finally decided on after the funeral, by which Margot gave up her dot, returning it absolutely to la belle grand'mère and only keeping the old Château for herself—which she could not give away, for she inherited it from her father and her grandfather—then the old man changed his attitude.
He burst into a loud guffaw. He rose to his immense height and folded the pushkeen in his arms, and cried:
"Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah! Old Ireland forever! The Desmonds forever! Their pluck, their spirit to the world's end!"
Madam, hearing a loud noise, came hastily in, and The Desmond told her to calm herself and to look upon the pushkeen as a gem of the purest water.
"She has been telling me things that set me up," was his remark; "they set me up fine, but they are to go no further. Quit any curious ways, my woman; get my pushkeen her supper. Old Ireland forever! Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah!"
So little Margot sat on her grandfather's knee and ate the excellent food provided for her by dear, sweet, dainty little Madam, and then, being really very tired, she dropped asleep, with her head leaning on The Desmond's breast, and her dark hair pressed against his white beard.
"Eh, but she's the wonder," said The Desmond; "and I won't have her woke, that I won't, if she lies here all night long. She's mine forever and ever now. Thank the Lord God Almighty and His blessed Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit and the angels and the archangels and all the hosts of heaven, for their mercies! I've got her and she's mine! My pushkeen, my mavourneen, my blessed brave little lamb. I tell you, Mary, she's a heroine. She's better than the best—what more can an old man say?"
Margot did awake in time to go up to her own snug little bedroom, to slip into her own cosy bed, and to sleep the sound sleep of the weary. But before he went to bed himself that night, The Desmond had a talk with Fergus.
"We've got her back, Fergus boy," he said. "She's ours now forever."
"Yes, that's true enough, forever."
"She has let out something to me," said The Desmond, "which I can't repeat and won't for the life of me."
"Don't then, father," said Fergus.
"But she's a heroine," said The Desmond.
"I always reckoned she was born that way," said Fergus.
"I'm not going to tell you her bit of a secret, my man."
"I say, father, I'm not wanting to hear it."
"But you and me, Fergus, we must provide for her. We must settle a bit of a dower on her."
"I'm thinking that way myself," said Fergus.
"We'll talk it over to-morrow," said The Desmond.
"We will, father," said Fergus. "We'll do something fine for the pushkeen; she's worth it."
"Worth it!" cried The Desmond. "There never was her like before in the world. Good-night, Fergus. You are my heir, remember, and you'll be The Desmond after me. But listen here and now—old men die off quick sometimes, and if anything happens to me she's your charge."
"Of course, father; can you doubt it?"
"That's all right. I'm going to bed," said The Desmond. He slowly left the room. There was a great rejoicing in his heart; he saw real, true goodness when it was brought before him. The little pushkeen should not suffer for her confidence in him. He had loved her before; now his love filled his heart to the very brim.
Fergus sat for some time by the turf fire in his father's sitting-room and laughed quietly and softly to himself at the way the little pushkeen had managed The Desmond, who imagined he was the only one of all the family of Desmonds who knew the true story of the établissement at Arles.
"I never saw the old fellow so took up with anything," thought Fergus to himself. "The girls and Bruce and Malachi must never know, and of course I'll pretend never to know. It's all right—better than right—brave little pushkeen."