Mary thought but little of the mile and a half distance, and directly after tea she and “Rap” had departed to fetch “Whitey.” She enjoyed the walk there, when she could be alone, and think, and as Miss Usher was not about, she sallied forth, as in former times, in her “hair”—that is to say, bareheaded, with her hat slung over her arm. She wore a white spotted cotton dress-an old friend, made by an old friend—the weather was much too warm for crêpe and wool; and the same friend, Maggie Kane, met her, and walked part of the way with her, and said good-bye at the cross above the corner. Maggie’s manner had been a mixture of constraint and freedom, and Mary had begun to realise the bitter truth of Miss Usher’s prophecy. Old comrades and schoolfellows were changed—if she was really her ladyship, she had no call to mix with them as one of themselves; she had a right to go away. They were no longer at ease with Mary, nor she with them. Yes; Miss Usher’s plan was working to admiration. Formerly she went in and out among the neighbours, and they were only too glad to welcome Mary Foley; but this grand Lady Joseline was another person. At one time—even three weeks ago—Mary would have felt broken-hearted to leave them all. Now, much as she still liked them, and much as she dreaded her future, she was secretly impatient to depart. Wise old women had given her advice, and Mrs. Hogan, her former patroness, had said to her privately, “See here, Mary, me dear! ye have no part nor lot among us now; you’re a lady born, and a titled lady; sure, look at your finger-nails yerself!—and ye must just make the best of it. I’ve no call whatever to be talking so free with ye, and I know it; but I’m fond of ye, lovey, and proud—and so is all the countryside: and we think you should just go quietly to your own, and get the education, and the airs, as is your due.”
“But I’d ever so much rather stay here!” she protested with tears.
“But you can’t, me dear—ye cannot be fish and fowl at the wan time. Sure, ye haven’t a soul over here belonging to yer; and it makes people unaisy in themselves, to be sitting talking to ye, cheek by jowl, as Mary Foley, knowing as ’tis standing up and dropping curtseys to her ladyship as they should be half the time. Sometimes I declare when I think of the liberties I’ve took wid ye as a young girl, I break out into a cold sweat, saving yer presence.”
“Then I must go,” she cried. “And none of ye want me!” and she burst into sobs. “Oh, I’d never have believed it of ye!”
“If ’twas only Mary ye wor, we all want ye; and the young boys, especially Tom Grady, and poor Dan that’s heart-broke, and Patsie Maguire, that’s killing himself with bad whisky for your sake.”
“Tom! Dan!” repeated the girl; and her face grew scarlet.
“Yes,—see now, the very names brings all the lady’s blood in yer body, to yer face! ’Tis her ladyship coming out, and proud and haughty, as is fit for an earl’s daughter.”
“An earl’s daughter!” echoed Mary. “It’s all like a dream. I was better as I was before, a thousand times!”
“So we would have ye, my dear; but ye must make up yer mind to the other lot in life. Faix, and it will come aisy. The ould wan above” (she meant Miss Usher) “know’s what’s what, and will put ye in training. I’d be entirely said and led by her if I was you. You look a lady when ye have the hat on, and ye will be a lady yit!”
Mary was thinking over this conversation as she leant against the gate at Foley’s Corner with “Rap” and the cat sitting sedately beside her. Miss Usher had talked of leaving as soon as her cold was better, and as it might be that she was now standing at her lifelong post for the last time, she fell into a dreamy meditation. The various faces she remembered seemed to pass the gate in single file. Master Ulick, on his bay hunter; Old Mike Daly; Kathleen Sullivan, her friend, who died of a decline, and the match made up and all; Bridgie Curran, her schoolfellow, whose boy was in America; Timmy Maher, who had asked her to marry him here at this very spot; Johnny Sugrue, who was killed in the war; and scores and scores of others. All that life was behind her, as much as if she were dead. No one would ever come to speak to her again at the gate. No one—ever! She had taken leave of the cottage which had been the home of many joys and sorrows—and kissed the little star on the window in token of farewell: for years she had never slept without first pressing her sweet red lips upon the irresponsive glass; but of late she had relinquished the habit. What was Mr. Ulick to her? Or she to Mr. Ulick? The scar was healing—time and silence are great physicians; yet “the tender grace of a day that was dead” occasionally stole into her heart, and it was a fact, that the sudden mention of one name invariably brought the colour to her cheek. Since Ulick Doran went away he had never sent but one sign; and that, thanks to the delinquencies of the local post, was fifteen long months, in reaching its destination.