CHAPTER XI. THE GRAND BLÜTHNER.
There was a strange feeling over the old house, a feeling which had never pervaded it even in the unhappy days of the late Mrs. O'Brien. To all appearance, it was Maureen who was the cause of the misery. It was not that she ever complained, but that she looked fagged and lifeless. She locked her piano, the beautiful Blüthner. She could not stand Daisy's crashing chords and Henrietta's false notes. The two Mostyn girls went one day, when Maureen was out, on purpose to open this instrument in order to indulge in long squeals on it, and in short to injure it as much as possible. They hated the piano because it belonged to Maureen. They could not accuse her of robbery in connection with it, for Colonel Herbert had given it to her.
Mr. O'Brien was busy over his parochial work, and the girls thought they would have a fine time. They had dragged Denis and little Kitty into the room, and, wild with mischievous excitement, they proposed a dance.
"I'll play the music," said Daisy. "I'm the musical one; and Henny-penny, you can hop round with Denis. He's just about better than nobody, and that's about all I can say for him. Wherever is Dominic, I wonder? I say, Kitty—oh, don't look so frightened, you little goose!—where is your eldest brother? Where's the one respectable member of the family?" "Dominic—has gone—away—with Colonel Herbert—and Maureen," faltered Kitty. "Colonel Herbert brought his motor car—and the three went away together. I—I don't want—to dance, please—'sides, I couldn't, as the pianner is locked."
"Locked, you little brat, you little imp! What on earth do you mean?"
"Please, I'm going out," said Kitty.
"You don't go out until you tell us the truth." "'Pon my word, she's right."
Henrietta struggled with all her might to open the instrument; but the lock was good—in fact, a double one—and the great piano stood in its solitary splendour completely shut away from mischievous fingers.
"Well, this is more than I can stand," said Henrietta. "Look here, Denis, you'll be a man some day, and a right handsome one, too—fetching, you know."
"Whatever's fetching?" asked Denis.
"Oh, the sort of boy that lures the birds from the hedges, with those dark grey eyes of yours and the curly black lashes. Oh, I say, you are a wonder. You'll catch the girls by handfuls!"
"Don't know, and don't care!" said Denis. "I hate girls—that is, except Maureen and Kitty!"
"Well, I never! You are a nice sort of lad," said Daisy. "I've thought of a plan, though. You don't know where she has put the key?"
"No, I don't," said the boy sturdily; "and if I did I wouldn't tell."
"Well, get away as fast as you can, with that little brat of a sister of yours."
The two children only too eagerly left the room.
"Henny," said Daisy, the minute they were alone, "are you going to stand this sort of thing?"
"I don't see how we are going to do anything else. It is most detestable," said Henrietta. "But if the piano is locked, we can't do anything with it, can we?"
"I have my thoughts, and they are very fine ones," said Daisy. "Will you listen to me, Henrietta?"
"Oh, I'm sick of everything," said Henrietta, and she put her arms down on the lovely instrument and began to cry loudly and bitterly.
"Look here, Henny, do shut up. Let's dance a jig on the top of the piano. We've got our outdoor shoes on and they are covered with mud. That little wretch is so particular about the top of her piano—always dusting it and polishing it; and then, I say, can't we go to her room and search for the key?"
Henny was not one long to endure hopeless grief. The next moment she had jumped on the top of the piano, and, encircling Daisy in her arms, proceeded to do the one thing she could do fairly decently—that was the steps of a Scotch reel. She whistled the tune with her full rosy lips, and the two girls danced faster and faster until, suddenly going too near the narrow part of the instrument, they both fell over with a resounding crash.
Just at that moment Burke solemnly opened the drawing-room door and announced the Honourable Mrs. Leach and Miss Leach. How it so happened that this Mrs. Leach was a friend in a sort of way of the second Mrs. O'Brien. She therefore thought it her duty to call on the poor lady's daughters, although her own daughter Kathleen by no means approved of the idea.
The sight that met their eyes was decidedly startling: Two girls prone on the floor, and the top of the piano hopelessly injured by clumsy boots and covered from end to end with mud; but Daisy, quick as lightning, saved the situation. Henrietta felt slightly stunned, but Daisy always kept her composure.
"We're so glad to see you, Mrs. Leach," she said. "Darling mumsie wrote so often about you, and said you were quite cheearming. We are glad to see you—we poor lone orphans. And what a pretty daughter you have got, Mrs. Leach. What's her name—Sally or Patty, or what?"
"My name is Kathleen," said that young lady, in a very stiff voice.
"I hope you are not hurt, Miss Mostyn," said Mrs. Leach, going up to Henrietta. "What an awful mess that lovely piano is in! Is it possible that you were dancing on the top? How terribly vexed little Maureen will be!"
"Well, she locked it, spiteful cat," said Henrietta, "so we thought we would pay her out. We are two lone orphans. You'll stay and have tea with us, won't you, Mrs. Leach; mumsie-pumsie's friend—you will, won't you now? I'll ring and tell Burke to get tea at once."
"No, I'm greatly afraid I cannot stay," said Mrs. Leach. "I have several other calls to make."
"Then have you only come to tantalise us like?" said Daisy. "You come in—mumsie's friend—you and your beauty of a daughter—why, I could hug her this minute—and I will, too. I never can restrain myself when I get a passionate fit on. Oh, please stay, do; we are such lone orphans."
Kathleen stood up. She was very tall and graceful. She was one of the most beautiful girls in the neighbourhood. She was more than a head taller than Daisy.
"Mother, we must go," she said. "I always told you that what you have done to-day was a mistake. No, we cannot possibly stay. Miss Mostyn, forgive me, I never kiss strangers. May I ring to have our carriage brought round?"
But Burke at that moment was standing at the door.
"Is it tay ye'll be requiring for the ladies?" he inquired of Henrietta.
"No, thank you, Burke," said Mrs. Leach. "We cannot possibly stay to tea. Good-bye, Miss Mostyn. Good-bye, Miss Daisy. For your mother's sake"—she paused and seemed to swallow something in her throat—"for her sake, I intended to be kind, but it is impossible; you are hopeless. We only make friends with our own sort."
"Give my love to Maureen and sweet little Kitty," said Kathleen. "Come, mother darling, or we'll be late for Colonel Herbert's tea-party."
They swept out of the dismantled drawing-room with all those airs of women of the world which they truly possessed. As Burke was conducting them to their carriage, he could not help saying:
"Ah, thin, it's the truth I'm telling y'ladyship. The things that be going on now are past bearing—past bearing; and I'm frightened out of my very life for Miss Maureen and Miss Kitty."
"Well, Burke, you must do your best to protect them," said Mrs. Leach. "I quite feel with you; but you must know that it is impossible for us to associate with such girls."
"It's the truth ye are saying, ma'am. Why, their ma—goodness knows she was bad enough—but she was a beauty compared to thim as she has left ahint her. Oh, Heaven presarve us, they're listening. That's one of their ways. It's my heart that's broke entirely. Good-bye, ma'am; good-bye, Miss Kathleen. May the God above bless ye both."
The old servant stood bareheaded on the steps of the ancient house and the handsome carriage of the Leaches rolled down the avenue. Then Burke stepped softly back on his way to the kitchen premises. There was no sound audible anywhere, and he sincerely hoped that he was mistaken in supposing that Miss Daisy had been listening to him. But he was not. Daisy had listened—Daisy had overheard, and had now come back to her sister.
"We must do something," she said, and she ground her little uneven teeth and spite flashed out of her small eyes.
"What's to be done?" said Henrietta. "It is you who make the mischief, Daisy. You have no reticence of any sort. I'm sure dear mums didn't keep us so many years at that expensive school without our at least learning that strange girls a great deal older than ourselves should not be kissed. If you had gone away quietly and tidied your mop of white hair, I would soon have got round Mrs. Leach; but I can do nothing when you are by—nothing at all."
"Oh, do let us stop talking about the old horror," said Daisy. "There's one thing I'm determined on: Burke shall be turned away. I heard what he said of us. Disgraceful, I call it!"
"Well, father is the only one to turn him away," said Henrietta. "My head aches. I got a very nasty fall."
"Poor Henny-penny—poor old girl! We did damage the piano a good bit, that's one comfort. How, look here, suppose we go up to Maureen's room and have a right good search for the key. She must have hidden it somewhere. There's something very tiresome about Maureen. Whatever we do to her, whatever we say, she only looks sad and pale and doesn't answer back. I detest that sort of little nonentity. And the petting she gets! And she living on poor mumsie's money! We must contrive to punish her in some way she'll feel."
"Well, anyhow," said Henrietta, "we will go and have a look for the key."
They soon found themselves in Maureen's room, which was a little dressing-room off Uncle Pat's, and which, although by no means grand, was exquisitely neat and tidy.
"Let's make hay while the sun shines," said Daisy. "Pull the bed to pieces and throw the bed-clothes on the floor. Now, then, let's look in her drawers. Locked, I do declare! What a mean spite of a thing! Henrietta, can't you contrive to kick over her water-jug and set the water rolling on the floor? That, I rather fancy, will put Miss Neatness out. Oh, dear—oh, dear! Why, whatever have we here?"
The girls converted the neat room into a hopeless, sopping mess, but now their eager eyes lighted on a little basket, which contained screw-drivers and tools of different descriptions. With these in their hands, they rushed downstairs again to the drawing-room, and began to use every endeavour to burst open the Blüthner grand. Try as they would, however, they could not succeed, for the double lock was too much for them. All they did do was to break two or three screw-drivers and injure the front of the piano. They even broke off little bits of its lovely, highly-polished frame. They then returned the tools to Maureen's room and went out hand-in-hand into the open air. There they met Garry, the young groom, who was just bringing in Fly-away after his daily exercise.
They stopped immediately and entered into a very animated conversation, which obtained but small response.
"Couldn't we ride him, just for a bit?" said Daisy. "Turn about, you know. Maureen doesn't want him to-day, and it would be such fun. Do let us, Garry; do—do!"
"I won't, and that's flat," said Garry. "The horse ain't mine—he's Miss Maureen's. He has had his scamper, and now that he's dry and brushed down and cooled off a bit I'm going to give him his oats. The Colonel is that particular about him—white oats he allus gives him. They are a sight dearer than the others. He's a beautiful baste entirely. I wouldn't be tampering with him if I was you, misses; you must remember, though 'tain't for me to sphake, that it was The O'Shee kilt your mother and The O'Shee is nothing at all to Fly-away. Watch the fire in his eye. It wants a practised rider to manage himself, that it does. Ye'd best lave him alone. Ef you ride him, as sure as I'm standing here, ye'll get your deaths as 'herself' did afore ye."
"But please tell us," said Daisy, who could be very agreeable to any man when she liked, "you don't only give him those white oats? We don't want to ride him. We are not a bit that sort; but we are interested. I suppose you don't mind telling us how you feed him, do you, Garry?"
"I knows my business, and as a rule I kapes it to meself," said Garry.
"But you'll tell it to us, won't you? There surely is no harm in that, Garry; and we are so fond of Maureen!"
"Are ye, now? Well, I wouldn't have guessed it; but there's no saying what's hid in the breast of a maid. I must be off now. I'm going to lock himself in, and ye'd best be making for the hall, for the Rector will be there, and as like as not will be wanting his tay—with Masther Dominic and Miss Maureen away."
"But do—do tell us what else you give him to eat," said Daisy.
"To ate—bless ye—he has his males reglar. A hot mash o' nights."
"Oh, a hot mash at night," said Henrietta.
"Yus, and why not. Yee are afther no good; but I have the charge o' Fly-away, and I don't say that the stable yard is the right place for little maids. Ye'll forgive me, misses, but it ain't, really it ain't."
The girls walked back slowly and thoughtfully to the house. They had never ridden in their lives, and were not at all anxious to risk their existence on the back of Fly-away. Rich as she was, Mrs. Mostyn, before she became Mrs. O'Brien, had placed her daughters in a very common school, and beyond saying from time to time that she meant to leave them all her money and that they were dear, beautiful girls, she took little or no interest in them. She paid their school fees and their holiday fees, and did not bother about anything else. Her one great object was to keep Mostyn's daughters away from Patrick O'Brien, for she knew perfectly well that her second husband was a very different sort of person from her first. But now the girls were established at Templemore and were bent on mischief. They certainly could not break open the piano, but they might be able to injure the horse.
They conversed in low tones on that subject while they went arm in arm to the house, where Burke, according to custom, was laying a sumptuous tea in the hall. They felt certain they could accomplish it if they took their time over the matter. They did not absolutely want to kill him, but Daisy's idea was to mix something in his hot mash which poor unsuspecting Garry would give him without knowing anything about it. They felt they must be very careful how they set to work. The horse must be brought to the jaws of death, so that it would not be good for anything for a long time afterwards; and that horrid Garry would be dismissed. Oh, it was a jolly, jolly notion, and would pay off Miss Prunes and Prisms, which was their private name for Maureen.
In their father's library there would certainly be some medical books, and they could look up poisons and—hurrah! of course they could buy some at the chemist's, and then Daisy, who was as lithe and slight as an eel, could creep through the windows and administer a sufficient amount of the dose mixed in with the hot mash.
This was their plan of plans. They were consequently in high spirits when they joined their step-father at tea.