I must have inherited this tendency from my mother's father, a music-daft Scotsman, who was never quite sure whether he was Hamlet or Bach. At long intervals he would stroll out of town by the Kildare road in an operatic cloak and a wide-leafed sombrero, to inspect us. He had a notion that I, if left to my own devices, might turn out a second Catherine Hayes, and after his visits I invariably returned to my dirges and cantatas with ardour.
During the year that Stevie lived at nurse's, visits from the people I significantly called my Sunday parents (because, I suppose, I wore my Sunday frock and shoes in their honour) were more frequent. Golden-haired little ladies, in silk frocks and poky bonnets, came and looked at me superciliously. The bland hauteur of one of those town creatures in superior raiment once maddened me to that degree (it was the dog-days, no doubt) that I walked up to the chair on which she complacently sat, and hit her cheek.
This naturally afforded my mother an excuse for pronouncing me dangerous and prolonging my absence from the family circle.
I was, I will admit, a desperate little spitfire, full of uncontrollable passion. But I had some rudimentary virtue, I am glad to know. I never lied, and I was surprisingly valiant for a delicately-built little girl.
I cannot remember the period of transition, but I suddenly see Stevie in quite a new part. The vitality and unfathomable yearning burnt themselves out of his eyes, and there was a wearied gentleness in them even for me. He would watch me quiescently without envy or bitterness, and speak to me in slow unfamiliar tones. He turned with indifference from his books, and seemed to know no active desires.
"Does your back hurt, Stevie?" I asked, staring at him solemnly. Even now I can feel the moving sadness of his grave look.
"It always hurts;" and then he added, with a ring of his old spite, "but you needn't be sorry for me, Angela."
"I am sorry, ever so sorry, Stevie," I sobbed, not knowing why.
"I wasn't good to you at all," he muttered, dreamily.