“I suppose I shall have to sit with my back to the horses in future,” she exclaimed, “and walk behind her ladyship into a room! But I haven’t got to share my allowance, or my maid, or partners. After all, perhaps I may like her very much; there’s nothing bad that might not be worse. Yes,” to a servant who had entered, “I’m coming—coming this moment.”
Meanwhile, Mary—she could not get accustomed to her new name—had left Foley’s farm the evening of Katty’s death, and had been carried off to the “Glenveigh Arms” by her father. Here Miss Usher had been her true and kind friend, and endeavoured to comfort and console her, in what, in the lady’s experience, was an unparalleled situation.
The girl was heart-broken at the death of a woman who was no relation, who had actually stolen her and brought her up in a station different to the one in which she was born; who had robbed her for years of her patrimony and her parent, as well as her position and wealth; yet Mary had no desire to be claimed. She shrank from “his lordship,” as she called him, and earnestly pleaded to be permitted “to live for the rest of her life, according,” as the Prayer-book says, “to its beginning.” Her bewildered father was at his wits’ end. All his newly-found daughter did, when in his society, was to weep, and weep, and weep! She most urgently desired to attend the wake, and passionately protested that if she were not present, people would “talk,” and it would raise a terrible scandal in the county!
But no. Lord Mulgrave, although exceedingly anxious to please her in every way, was firm. It was not befitting that his daughter should be present at a wake. In every possible manner Mrs. Foley’s funeral would be conducted with respect—the Foley family should be benefited; but Mary must endeavour to remember that she had no real connection with them—and was Lady Joseline Dene.
“Lady Joseline Dene!” cried she. “I just hate the likes of her!”—and she got up precipitately! and rushed away to her own room, where she buried her head in the bedclothes.
“There, you see. And what can I do?” he cried, appealing to Miss Usher; and his tone expressed despair.
“Leave her to Mrs. Hogan of the hotel,” replied the lady; “she will talk to her in her own fashion, and by-and-by, when she has had a good rest—you know she has been sitting up nursing Katty for three whole nights—she will be different. At present she is overwrought and out of herself. It is a startling change for a girl—much less one of her impulsive and passionate nature—to lose an identity and a mother, and to find a father, all within the same week. Give her time, a good sleep, and some nourishing food. I should certainly permit her to attend the funeral, and I would arrange for her to have a long interview with Mike Mahon; he has been haunting the hotel. By-and-by he will turn her thoughts to her own mother in a manner, and in speech, we could never emulate.”
“That is an excellent idea. Yes, she must then begin to realise things a little. At present, of course, she is suffering from want of rest, from grief, and from the first sad wrench. At present——”
“At present she is like some newly-caught bird,” continued Miss Usher, “most miserably unhappy.”