“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——”
CHAPTER XVII
As they swung along homewards, one on each side of a well-hung jaunting-car, with a slashing four-year-old between the shafts, Miss Usher and her companion never exchanged a single remark. The elder lady was reflecting that she had done a capital afternoon’s work in introducing Mary to her birthplace, and she felt confident that the words she had heard from old Mike had sunk down into her heart, and brought the girl to realise what had never yet dawned upon her: that only by birth—the mere accident of birth—did she belong to this beautiful, romantic, green and blue country—for if the trees and pastures were emerald, the mountains were royal blue, the skies cobalt.
The crafty lady determined that she would not break the spell, but give Mary ample time to meditate on these matters, and presently adjust herself to her strange circumstances; she must now begin to see about some suitable clothes for the girl, and to offer, cautiously and by degrees, a few lessons on manners and deportment. After all, it would not be an onerous task; in fact, to an old maid with a warm heart, hitherto centred on her brother and a white cockatoo—it was a pleasure to interest herself in this young life, for the time entrusted to her care. Indeed she felt her own youth renewed as an eagle’s! Lord Mulgrave had left them but one week, and already Mary was a little less Mary Foley than formerly. She drove out in a hat (swathed in crêpe), no longer in her “hair.” She had cast off with joy her aprons and cobbler’s shoes, and taken quite meekly to black thread stockings, a black silk parasol, and kid gloves; also she often closed the door when she entered a room, and did not now peel her potato on the table-cloth, or drink tea out of her saucer. Yes, already there was an improvement, the girl was adaptable and quick to learn—she never required to be told anything twice; her personal tastes were curiously and unexpectedly refined; her petticoats and stockings were certainly coarse, but as neat and trim as those of any fine lady; and as to pocket-handkerchiefs, they were almost as fine as Miss Usher’s own.
Whilst the good, kind woman was occupied with these reflections, Mary was engaged in a similar manner. Her active, imaginative brain was filled with the picture of the beautiful lady who had died at Lota. Could she really be her mother? Was it true that she was like her? She pulled off her glove and gravely considered her hand. Certainly it was small—too small for dairy work—and the fact had been cast up to her! If that marvellous beauty were her mother, oh! she was a shocking falling off; a common, ignorant, low creature, who did not know how to talk, or walk, or sit, or eat, like the quality—and who was too old to learn. But if she was this other girl (even to herself, she would not say “Joseline Dene”)—and people seemed to believe it, and Father Daly had been very eager about her taking up her birthright, and her duties—she must learn. With the help of God she was bound to do her best, not forgetting her old friends, as he had said, nor disgracing the beautiful lady that had brought her into the world, and whose place, late as it was, she must endeavour to fill. Oh, but what was the use of talking or thinking. She never could be anything but Mary Foley. The driver of the car happened to be a certain Patsie Maguire, Mary’s former partner, friend, declared (and declined) lover. He too had his private meditations, which now and then stung him so sharply that he laid the unnecessary whip, on the sleek and thin-skinned flanks of the flying chestnut, and almost invited a catastrophe. Here was he, by the stress of circumstances, actually driving for hire her ladyship, no less! Mary Foley—the great lord’s daughter, who was soon quitting Ireland and him. She, his partner, his girl, his intended wife—for of course if let alone, she’d have come round, and married him. And what would hinder him now, to let the young red mare run away, accidentally on purpose, and break their three necks? The present situation was enough to make a man mad. Was he not attending in the capacity of a servant, a girl whom hitherto he had considered a little beneath him in position? His mother, the daughter of a well-to-do publican, rented a small farm, had been brought up on a carpeted floor, and kept even now her own cover car. And Mary Foley, was just a good-looking, gay little creature, with fifty pounds fortune. Of course, every one knew he could have done far better, but she had such pretty, joking ways with her; she had made a fool of him, and faix, by all accounts he was in good company! Then before anything was fixed comes this sort of fairy tale, and “Mary at the corner” is turned at one stroke into her ladyship, and he himself driving her like any hired boy. When she got up on the car she had just nodded at him, her face as long as a ha’porth of bacon, and said— “Is that yer self, Pat? How are ye?”
And not another word; and coming home she had never opened her mouth once. He’d make her do that, if it was only screaming—for a pin’s head, he’d upset the machine.