“That is so, my dear. It is for Joy’s good!”
“Her good? Fiddlesticks! But in that case I have nothing more to say!” Some of her wrath seemed to be turned on both Athlyne and Joy; for she did not say a single word to either of them. She simply relapsed into stony silence.
Mrs. O’Brien’s reception of the news afforded what might be termed the “comic relief” of the strained situation. She raised her hands, as though in protest to heaven for allowing such a thing, and emitted a loud wail such as a “keener” raises at an Irish wake. Then she burst into voluble speech:
“Oh wirrasthrue me darlin’ bhoy, is it a haythen Turk y’ are becomin’, to take another wife whin ye’ve got one already only a day ould. An such a wan more betoken—the beautifullest darlinest young cratur what iver I seen! Her that I picked out long ago as the only wan that ye was good enough for. Shure, couldn’t ye rist content wid Miss Joy, me darlin’? It’s lookin’ forward I was to nursin’ her childher, as I nursed yerself me lord darlin’, her childher, an yours! An’ now it’s another woman steppin’ in betune ye; an’ maybe there’ll be no childher at all, at all. Wirrasthrue!”
“But look here, Nanny,” said Athlyne with some impatience. “Can’t you see that you’re all wrong. It is to Joy that I am going to marry again! There’s no other woman coming in between us. ’Tis only the dear girl herself!”
“Ah, that’s all very well, me lord darlin’; but which iv them is to be the mother? Faix but I’ll go an ax her Ladyship this minit!” And go she did, to Athlyne’s consternation and Joy’s embarrassment. All in a hurry she started up and went over to the sofa where Joy sat, and with a bob curtesy said to her:
“Me lady, mayn’t I have the nursin’ av yer childher, the way I had their father before them? Though, be the same token, it’s not the same nursin’ I can give thim, wid me bein’ ould an’ rhun dhry!” Joy felt that the only thing to do was to postpone the difficulty to a more convenient season, when there should not be so many eyes—some of them strange ones—on her. To do this as kindly and as brightly as she could, she said:
“But dear Mrs. O’Brien, isn’t it a little soon to think—or at any rate to speak—of such things?”
“Wasn’t ye married yisterday?” interrupted the old woman. But looking at her lady’s cheeks she went on in a different tone:
“But me darlin’—Lady, it’s over bould an’ too contagious for me to mintion such things, as yit. But I’ll take, if I may, a more saysonable opportunity to ask ye to patthernise me. Some time whin ye’re more established as a wife thin ye are now!”