CHAPTER XVI
It was wonderful how an old maid like Miss Usher had developed such a motherly heart, as well as so much worldly wisdom. She prudently abstained from intruding on her companion’s grief, and left her to enjoy several good comfortable cries, and talks with Mrs. Hogan. She accompanied Mary on a car to see Lota one Sunday, and left her in the hands of old Mike, who proudly escorted her round the place, and pointed out the terrace, the room where she was born, and gave her the first and, needless to say, most eloquent, description of her own mother; and the disconsolate girl began at last to realise, as she stood listening to him, this mother whom she had never seen.
“An’ sure ye have the hair and eyes and hands, aye, and the very walk of her,” declared Mike. “Though Katty brought ye up on a flagged floor, ye see these things come out in the appearance.”
“And so you have guessed it all the time?”
“Is it guess?” he repeated indignantly. “Sure, haven’t I known it.”
“And that was why you used to come and stare at me in that strange way?”
“To be sure it was. And what else?”
“And I have never seen her!”
“It would be hard for ye, seein’ she giv’ her life for yours. But when ye look in the glass ye see her. I’m told when his lordship first laid eyes on ye he got a terrible turn. He’s gone home for the present, and left ye with the ould wan over there,” indicating Miss Usher, who, under a distant tree, was happy with a book. “An’ for why?”
“Because I didn’t want to stir, I think, and I made so strange——”
“Now what balderdash is that, yer telling me?” cried Mike.
“Man alive, isn’t he a stranger? Ye’ll not deny that. If he’d let me, I’d go back and live in Foley’s Corner, this very blessed hour.”
“Would ye now!” he rejoined, with an expression of sovereign contempt. “And all by yerself, too! Bridgie Grogan is going home at wance, wid her pocket well lined. Faix, that was the easily earned money! His lordship also giv’ her all the furniture and stock, you having no call for it. The place is to be shut up, and not a hate left in it. Bridgie says it’s entirely too lonely for her, is Foley’s Corner.”
“But suppose I chose to stay on?—then what would ye say?”
“That you had a right to be taken out of it, and put in the county lunatic asylum.”
“But surely the lease, and the cows and pigs, were coming to me?”
“An’ for why? Ye were no relation to Katty whatever, and isn’t Bridgie her own sister?”
Mary stared at him in silence. Yes, he was right; the house was Mrs. Grogan’s, and the door of that home was closed to her. She was shut out from her old life in the cottage, and must accept her new quarters in the castle. For the first time since Katty’s death she began to catch a faint glimpse of herself, as “Lady Joseline.”
“I expect you’ll have Bridgie coming round to see yer ladyship this evening. She might bring you a few bits of things and your duds. I know she’s aching to get off home.”
“Who is going to have the cat?”
“The white cat, ye mane? ’Tis no bargain for any one; an ugly blackguard of a thing. I’m thinking the lake will take him, as it has done his betters.”
“No, no, Mike, I’ll have him! the poor angashore.”
“What’s that yer saying?”
“Yes, and give him whatever home I have, as long as he lives.”
“Faix, it’s well known he has nine lives! You and the white cat! Well, to be sure. A nice ornament he is to be transported over to England. I’m thinking they’ll get a cruel bad notion of the breed of Irish cats. But maybe he’s dead by now.”
“No. And I want you to go up to Biddy Grogan’s and tell her to bring him this evening in a basket, will ye?”
“’Tis a quare fancy ye have! But I’ll do yer commands. I wish it was meself yer ladyship was taking along wid her instead of an ould scorched tom-cat, wid a bad character.”
“Do not call me yer ladyship!”
“Arrah! an’ what else am I to call ye?”
“Mary.”
“Sure, how can I put such a lie in me mouth as that?—yer name being Joseline, and a quare one, too, and it was given ye within there in the drawing-room”—pointing to the apartment which harboured the boat—“and you were christened by the Reverend William Scott, in a great hurry, and out of the General’s old china punch-bowl.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Because the windows, as ye see, are big, and I was working round the flower-beds. And sure, didn’t all the world know ye were baptised that day; her ladyship, your mother, wished it. I saw ye; we all did, for his lordship was the proud man. Ye were wrapped up in a white shawl, and had a head on you as red as a carrot, and a screech out of ye like a peacock. More betoken, there was a peacock sitting on the roof; it came over from Lord Warner’s place. When I saw it, the heart crossed in me, for them’s, as ye know, the unlucky birds. Sure enough that night her ladyship took bad. Oh, it would have made a great differ to you, aye and to every one, if she had lived; and by all accounts she found it terribly hard to go and leave ye all.”
“Who told you?” inquired the girl under her breath.
“Oh, I heard it. When she knew she had but a couple of hours to spare, she sent for his lordship and talked, talked, talked, striving her best to comfort him, and telling him to be brave, with her very last breath. Oh, ’twas she had a spirit, and when she went it made small differ to her—sure, she was always an angel.”
“She was buried over in England?”
“Yes, and with Katty Foley’s three-months baby lying alongside of her.”
“Well, I’m glad I’ve come here, Mike, and seen this place and had a talk with you—you who found it all out. Somehow it makes things seem more real. But I’ll never get used to it—never; and that’s as true as I am standing here.”
“Oh, yes, ye will; only take your time. When you get fine dresses, and learn talk and manners, it will be as easy to you as eating your dinner.”
“But sure, I’ve no talk, and no manners, Mike.”
“You’ll soon learn them, me dear, for ye see it’s not as if you were a real common country girl; ye have her ladyship’s manners and talk in ye somewhere, and they are bound somehow or other to come out! I tell ye this, that in a year’s time you won’t know yourself, and I won’t know you.”
“But I will always know you, Mike; and you must come over to England, and see me, if I am to have any say.”
“I think you’ll find you’ll have a good say.”
“Perhaps with his lordship, for—for”—with an effort—“my mother’s sake; but the ladies.”
“Sure, aren’t you a lady, me darlin?”
“No, no! I feel so frightened of all that’s before me.”
“And what would frighten ye? Keep a stout heart—be a good girl; what harm can come to you? One would think they’d ate yer!”
“People have a way of doing that, sometimes.”
“I know what ye mane—some bad ones, that never has a good word for a crature, and are always chewing up others and passing remarks; but the likes of them are not among the gentry!” (Poor simple Mike!) “All your friends is proud for ye, but sorry for themselves, ye being taken up out of their station. There’s one, howsomever, that will be glad of yer uprise, when he hears it.” Here Mike paused, and his expression became shrewd and personal.
Mary stared at him interrogatively, and then a sudden tinge of pink, flooded her pale face.
“Ye mane Mr. Ulick,” she said boldly. “I’d just hate——Whist!” for here Miss Usher broke in upon the tête-à-tête, which had lasted more than an hour. It seemed to her, that the time had been well employed. Mary’s expression was not quite so dismal; there was a little colour in her face, a spark of animation in her glance. She accepted a bunch of flowers from Mike, and as Mike and Miss Usher moved away together, talking, they suddenly noticed that the girl lagged behind.
“Take no notice,” he muttered; “she’s coming to herself nicely. I think she’s picking a pebble off the terrace where her mother used to walk, aye, and a bit of a rose from the house. Pass no remark whatever, but ye may take it from me, that it’s a good sign. The lady bred in her bones is bound to come out yet——”