The mother made a passionate gesture of astonishment and joy; then she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, with the letter—which was closely written, in old-fashioned punctiliousness—in her hands.
“Oh, my dear, my dear!” she said. “How strange it all is! Your Uncle Bryan is immensely rich. He has no children and no family; his health is failing.”
She seemed able to get no further.
“Well, what is it, mother?” asked Sheila again.
For an instant Mrs. Llyn hesitated; then she put the letter into Sheila’s hands.
“Read it, my child,” she said. “It’s for you as much as for me—indeed, more for you than for me.” Sheila took the letter. It ran as follows:
DEAREST SISTER:
It is eleven years since I wrote to you, and yet, though it may seem
strange, there have not been eleven days in all that time in which I
have not wished you and Sheila were here. Sheila—why, she is a
young woman! She’s about the age you were when I left Ireland, and
you were one of the most beautiful and charming creatures God ever
gave life to. The last picture I have of you was a drawing made
soon after your marriage—sad, bad, unhappy incident. I have kept
it by me always. It warms my heart in winter; it cools my eyes in
summer.
My estate is neither North nor South, but farther South than North.
In a sense it is always summer, but winter on my place would be like
summer in Norway—just bitingly fresh, happily alert. I’m writing
in the summer now. I look out of the window and see hundreds of
acres of cotton-fields, with hundreds upon hundreds of negroes at
work. I hear the songs they sing, faint echoes of them, even as I
write. Yes, my black folk do sing, because they are well treated.
Not that we haven’t our troubles here. You can’t administer
thousands of acres, control hundreds of slaves, and run an estate
like a piece of clockwork without creaks in the machinery. I’ve
built it all up out of next to nothing. I landed in this country
with my little fortune of two thousand pounds. This estate is worth
at least a quarter of a million now. I’ve an estate in Jamaica,
too. I took it for a debt. What it’ll be worth in another twenty
years I don’t know. I shan’t be here to see. I’m not the man I was
physically, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m writing to you
to-day. I’ve often wished to write and say what I’m going to say
now; but I’ve held back, because I wanted you to finish your girl’s
education before I said it
What I say is this: I want you and Sheila to come here to me, to
make my home your home, to take control of my household, and to let
me see faces I love about me as the shadows enfold me.
Like your married life, mine was unsuccessful, but not for the same
reason. The woman I married did not understand—probably could not
understand. She gave me no children. We are born this way, or
that. To understand is pain and joy in one; to misconceive is to
scatter broken glass for bare feet. Yet when I laid her away, a few
years ago, I had terrible pangs of regret, which must come to the
heart that has striven in vain. I did my best; I tried to make her
understand, but she never did. I used at first to feel angry; then
I became patient. But I waked up again, and went smiling along,
active, vigorous, getting pleasure out of the infinitely small
things, and happy in perfecting my organization.
This place, which I have called Moira, is to be yours—or, rather,
Sheila’s. So, in any case, you will want to come and see the home I
have made this old colonial mansion, with its Corinthian pillars and
verandah, high steps, hard-wood floors polished like a pan, every
room hung in dimity and chintz, and the smell of fruit and flowers
everywhere. You will want to see it all, and you’ll want to live
here.
There’s little rain here, so it’s not like Ireland, and the green is
not so green; but the flowers are marvellously bright, and the birds
sing almost as well as they sing in Ireland, though there’s no lark.
Strange it is, but true, the only things that draw me back to
Ireland in my soul are you, and Sheila, whom I’ve never seen, and
the lark singing as he rises until he becomes a grey-blue speck, and
then vanishing in the sky.
Well, you and the lark have sung in my heart these many days, and
now you must come to me, because I need you. I have placed to your
credit in the Bank of Ireland a thousand pounds. That will be the
means of bringing you here—you and Sheila—to my door, to Moira.
Let nothing save death prevent your coming. As far as Sheila’s eye
can see-north, south, east, and west—the land will be hers when I’m
gone. Dearest sister, sell all things that are yours, and come to
me. You’ll not forget Ireland here. Whoever has breathed her air
can never forget the hills and dells, the valleys and bogs, the
mountains, with their mists of rain, the wild girls, with their bare
ankles, their red petticoats, and their beautiful, reckless air.
None who has ever breathed the air of Ireland can breathe in another
land without memory of the ancient harp of Ireland. But it is as a
memory-deep, wonderful, and abiding, yet a memory. I sometimes
think I have forgotten, and then I hear coming through this Virginia
the notes of some old Irish melody, the song of some wayfarer of
Mayo or Connemara, and I know then that Ireland is persuasive and
perpetual; but only as a memory, because it speaks in every pulse
and beats in every nerve.
Oh, believe me, I speak of what I know! I have been away from
Ireland for a long time, and I’m never going back, but I’ll bring
Ireland to me. Come here, colleen, come to Virginia. Write to me,
on the day you get this letter, that you’re coming soon. Let it be
soon, because I feel the cords binding me to my beloved fields
growing thinner. They’ll soon crack, but, please God, they won’t
crack before you come here.
Now with my love to you and Sheila I stretch out my hand to you.
Take it. All that it is has worked for is yours; all that it wants
is you.
Your loving brother,
BRYAN.
As Sheila read, the tears started from her eyes; and at last she could read no longer, so her mother took the letter and read the rest of it aloud. When she had finished, there was silence—a long warm silence; then, at last, Mrs. Llyn rose to her feet.
“Sheila, when shall we go?”
With frightened eyes Sheila sprang up.