CHAPTER VI.
I felt a little bewildered. The night and the spot were both dark; all I could see was a low garden-wall, half lost in the shadow of a few tall trees, and a narrow wooden door. The gleam of light that appeared through the chinks, and the sound of a quick step on the gravel within, spared Cornelius the trouble of ringing. The door opened of its own accord, and on the threshold appeared a lady in black, holding a low lamp in her right hand. We entered; she closed the door upon us, and, almost immediately, flung the arm that was free around the neck of Cornelius.
"God bless you!" she exclaimed eagerly, and speaking in a warm ardent tone, that sounded like a gentle echo of his; "God bless you! I have been so wretched!"
"Did you not get my letter?"
"Yes, but I had such a dream!"
"A dream! Oh Kate!" he spoke with jesting reproach, but pausing in the path, he stooped and kissed his sister several times, each time more tenderly.
"How is the child? Where is she?" asked Miss O'Reilly.
"She is here, and well. By the bye, I have left her little property outside."
"Deborah shall fetch it. Take her in."
We were entering the house, which stood at the end of the garden.
"This way, Margaret," said Cornelius, leading me into a small, but comfortable and elegant-looking parlour, which took my fancy at once. The furniture, though simple, was both good and handsome; the walls were adorned with a few pictures and engravings in gilt frames; a well-filled book-case faced the rosewood piano; a large table, covered with books, occupied the centre of the room, and a stand of splendid flowers stood in the deep bow-window.
"Well!" carelessly said Miss O'Reilly, who had followed us in almost immediately, "where is that little Sassenach girl?"
"Here she is, Kate," replied Cornelius, leading me to his sister; he stood behind me, his hand lightly resting on my shoulder, and looking at her, I felt sure, for, in the stoic sadness of her gaze, there was something of a glance returned. She lowered the light, gave me a cursory look, put by the lamp, and sat down on a low chair by the fire, on which she kept her eyes intently fixed.
Miss O'Reilly was very like her brother, and almost as good-looking, though at least ten or twelve years older. She was fresh as a rose, and had the dark hair, finely arched eyebrows, clear hazel eyes, and handsome features of Cornelius; but the expression of countenance was different. It was as decided, but more calm; as kind, but scarcely as good-humoured. She was very simply attired in black; her glossy and luxuriant hair was braided, and fastened at the back of her head with jet pins; jet bracelets clasped her wrists. As she sat leaning back in her chair, her hands clasped on her knees, even that simple attire and careless attitude could not disguise the elegant symmetry of her figure; her hands were small and perfect.
"Well!" said Cornelius in a low tone.
"Well!" replied his sister, smiling at the fire with sorrowful triumph in her clear eyes; "she is like her father; she has his eyes; pity she has not his hair, instead of those pale and sickly flaxen locks. Come here, little thing," she added, looking up at me, and holding out her hand.
I hesitated.
"She is very shy, Kate," said Cornelius.
"I shall cure her of her shyness. Come here, Midge."
I obeyed, and took her extended hand. She had the open, direct manner of which children are quick to feel the power; her likeness to her brother made me more communicative than I usually was with strangers.
"My name is not Midge," I said to her.
"Then it ought to have been, you mite of a thing!"
"My name is Margaret; it was Mamma's name."
Miss O'Reilly dropped my hand, and rose somewhat abruptly. Then she took my hand again and said calmly—
"Come, child, you look dusty and tired, after your journey."
She led me upstairs to a cheerful-looking bed-room, where she unpacked my wardrobe, and changed my whole attire, with a prompt dexterity that seemed natural to her. When we returned to the parlour we found Cornelius lying at full length on a sofa drawn before the hearth; a dark cushion pillowed his handsome head; the flickering fire-light played on his face. His sister went up to him at once; she passed her white hand in his dark hair, and bending over him, said tenderly, as if speaking to a child—
"Poor boy! you are tired."
He shook his head, and laughed up in her face.
"Not a bit, Kate. Where is she?"
He half raised his head to look for me; signed me to approach, and made room for me on the sofa. I sat down and looked at him and his sister, who stood lingering there, smiling silently over him, and still passing her slender fingers in his luxuriant hair. The light fell on their two faces, almost equally handsome, and to which their striking resemblance gave a charm beyond that of mere contrast. To trace in both the same symmetrical outlines of form and feature, was to recognize the loveliness of nature's gifts, received and perpetuated for generations in the same race; and to look at them thus in their familiar tenderness, was to feel the beauty and holiness of kindred blood. Child as I was, I was moved with the tender sweetness of Miss O'Reilly's smile; it preceded however a question more kind than romantic.
"What will you have with your tea? Ham?"
"Nothing, Kate; we dined on the road."
"Will she?"
"You mean—"
"Yes," she interrupted impatiently.
He looked at his sister, who went up to the table, then put the question to me. I wished for nothing; so Miss O'Reilly simply rang the bell; a demure-looking servant brought in the tray. When the tea was made and poured out, Miss O'Reilly said to me, in her short way—
"Child, Thing, give that cup to Cornelius."
"But my name is Margaret," I objected, a little nettled at being called
"Thing."
"I know it is," she replied in a low tone.
"Margaret," musingly repeated Cornelius, taking the cup I was handing to him, "diminutives, Meg, Peg, and by way of variety Peggy; which do you prefer, child?"
"I don't like any of them," I frankly replied.
"Mar-ga-ret! three syllables! I could not afford the time; Katherine has come down to Kate.—you must be Meg."
I sat at the table taking my tea. I laid down the cup with dismay.
"I don't like Meg," I said.
"Well then, Peg."
"I don't like Peg, either."
"Well then, Peggy."
"I hate Peggy!" I indignantly exclaimed.
"Let the child alone!" said Miss O'Reilly.
"Meg, my dear, a little more milk, if you please," calmly observed Cornelius. Though ready to cry with mortification, I acknowledged the name by complying with his request.
"Thank you, Meg," he said, returning the milk-jug.
"Let the child alone," again put in his sister.
"She is my property, and I shall call her as I choose," quietly replied
Cornelius. "I don't like the name of Mar-ga-ret."
"Papa said there was not a prettier name," I objected.
"That is a matter of taste," almost sharply replied Cornelius; "I think
Katherine is a much prettier name."
He reddened as he spoke, whilst his sister pushed back her untasted tea.
"He said Margaret was the name of a flower," I persisted,—"of the China- aster."
"Which you do not resemble a bit," inexorably replied Cornelius; "the garden has shorter and prettier names; Rose, Lily, Violet, etc."
"I like my own name best."
"Meg! No; well then Peg. What!—not Peg! which then?"
"I don't care which," I replied despondingly.
He saw that my eyes were full of tears, and yet that I submitted.
"Poor little thing!" he observed with a touch of pity. "I must think of something else.—Let me see.—Eureka! Kate, what do you say to Daisy, the botanical diminutive of Margaret?"
"Anything you like, Cornelius," she replied sadly, "but don't teaze the poor child."
"She shall decide."
He called me to him, and left the matter to me. I was glad to escape from
Meg and Peg; and Daisy I was called from that hour.
"You already have it quite your own way with that child," observed Miss
O'Reilly, looking at her brother; "and yet she looks a little wilful!"
"That is just what makes it pleasant having one's way with her," he replied, smiling down at me, as if amused at his triumph over my obstinacy, and gently pulling my hair by way of caress. "News from the city?" he added after a while.
"There came a message yesterday and two to-day."
Cornelius shook his head impatiently, in a manner habitual to him, and which was ever displaying the heavy masses of his dark hair, but, catching the eye of his sister, he smoothed his brow, and said, smiling—
"I am glad I am so precious."
"It was Mr. Trim who came this evening."
"Very kind of him to call on my handsome sister when I am out of the way."
"He says it is a pity you do not give more of your mind to business."
"I give ninety pounds' worth a year," disdainfully replied Cornelius, "the exact amount of my salary."
"He has got his long-promised government office, with a salary of five hundred a year," continued Miss O'Reilly.
Cornelius half started up on one elbow, to exclaim gaily—
"Kate! has he made you an offer?"
"Nonsense," she replied impatiently, "who is to take the place Trim is leaving vacant?"
"And to do his work," answered Cornelius, indolently sinking back into his previous attitude; "Faith! I don't know, Kate."
"Trim leaves next month," said Miss O'Reilly, looking at her brother.
"Let him, Kate."
"Will you allow that Briggs to step in?"
"Why not, poor fellow?"
Miss O'Reilly's brown eyes sparkled. She gave the fire a vigorous and indignant poke.
"Will you let that Briggs walk upon you?" she asked vehemently.
"Yes," answered Cornelius, yawning slightly, "I will, Kate."
"You have no spirit!"
"None."
He spoke with irritating carelessness. From reproach she changed to argument.
"It would make a great difference in the salary, Cornelius!"
"And in the work, Kate. I shudder to think of the dull letters that unfortunate Briggs will have to write. The tedious additions, subtractions, and divisions he must go through, make my head ache for him."
"Do you fear work, Cornelius?"
"I hate it, Kate."
Again she poked the fire; then looked up at her brother, and said decisively—
"I don't believe it."
He laughed.
"You idle? Nonsense! I don't believe it."
"Then you ought; nothing but the direct necessity daily hunts me to the city."
"I hate the city!"
"Why so, poor thing? It is only a little smoky, dingy, noisy, and foggy, after all."
"I wish," hotly observed Miss O'Reilly, "that instead of pulling that unfortunate child's hair as if it were the ear of a spaniel, you would talk sense. Come here, Primrose," she added, impatiently, addressing me.
Instead of going I looked at Cornelius. I sat by him on the edge of the sofa, and he was in the act of mechanically unrolling a stray lock of my hair.
"Well!" said Miss O'Reilly
He smiled; but his look said I was to obey his sister; I went up to her a little reluctantly. She made me sit down on a low cushion at her feet, then resumed—
"Cornelius, will you talk sense?"
"Kate, I will."
"Do you, or do you not, like the life you have chosen?"
He did not answer.
"I always thought a stool in an office unworthy of your talents and education. If you do not like it, leave it; if you do like it, seek at least to rise."
"Viz.: Get up on a higher stool, do more work, earn more money, and end the year as I began it—a poor devil of a clerk."
"Why be a clerk at all?"
"Because, though I am idle, I must work to live. Ask me no more, Kate; I have no more to tell you."
He threw himself back on the sofa in a manner that implied a sufficient degree of obstinacy.
"Will you have any supper?" asked his sister, as composedly as if nothing had passed between them.
"Yes, Kate, my dear," he answered pleasantly. She rose and left the room. As the door closed on her, Cornelius half rose and bent forward; from careless his face became serious; from indifferent, thoughtful and attentive, like that of one engaged in close argument; then he looked up and shook his head with a triumphant smile; but chancing to catch my eye, as I sat facing him on the low stool where Miss O'Reilly had left me, he started slightly, and exclaimed, with a touch of impatience—
"Don't look so like a fairy, child! take a book." And bending forward he took from the table a volume of engravings, which he handed to me, informing me I should find it more entertaining than his face. I never looked up from the volume until Deborah brought in the supper.
When the frugal meal was over, Miss O'Reilly took my hand, and led me to her brother. He was standing on the hearth; he looked down at me, laid his hand on my head, and quietly bade me good-night. His sister offered him her cheek.
"Are you not coming down again?" he asked.
"No. I feel sleepy."
He looked deep into her eyes.
"Nonsense!" she said impatiently, "no such a thing."
He passed his arm around her and smiled.
"How handsome you are, Kate!" he observed, with jesting flattery; "woe to my peace of mind when I meet—"
"Not a bit!" she interrupted with a blush and a sigh; "no dark-haired woman will ever endanger your peace. Give me a kiss and let me go."
He embraced her with a lingering tenderness that seemed to have a meaning, for she looked another way, and appeared moved. But at length he released her; she took my hand, led me up to her room, and undressed me in silence. She then looked at me, and said pointedly—
"Well!"
I thought she meant I was to kiss her. I offered to do so, but she put me away, and observed more emphatically than before—
"Well!"
I looked at her thoroughly puzzled.
"Bless me!" she said, in her warm way, "is the child a heathen! Midge, Daisy, whatever your name may be, don't you know that you must say your prayers before going to bed!"
"I always said my prayers to Papa," I replied, rather offended.
"Then kneel down and say them to me."
She sat on the edge of the bed; I knelt at her feet; she took my hands in hers, and fastening on me her clear brown eyes, she heard me to the end. Then she put me to bed, closed the curtains, and told me to sleep. I obeyed. I know not how long I had slept, when low moans awoke me. The light was still burning; I sat up softly, and looked through the opening of the curtains. The handsome sister of Cornelius was kneeling before a small table, on which stood a low lamp; its white circle of light fell on an open volume, but she was not reading; thrown back somewhat in the attitude of the penitent Magdalene, with her hands clasped, and her head sunk in her bosom, she was weeping bitterly. She whom I had seen but a few hours before fresh as a flower, cheerful, gay, was now pale as death, and seemed bowed down with grief. Tears ran down her check like rain, but the only words that passed her lips were those uttered by Christ in his agony on the Mount—"Thy will, not mine, be done!" And this she repeated over and over, as if vainly thirsting for the resignation she thus expressed.
I looked at her with wonder. At length she rose; I softly sank back into my place; scarcely had I done so, when Miss O'Reilly came up to the bed and opened the curtains. I closed my eyes almost without knowing why. She bent over me, I felt her breath soft and warm on my face; then a light though lingering kiss was pressed on my cheek. I did not dare to stir until I felt her lying down by my side; when I then looked, I found the room quite dark. Miss O'Reilly remained very still; for awhile I staid awake, wondering at what I had seen, but at length I fell fast asleep.