Part 8 (1/2)
”Maybe it will do you good to tell me,” answered Sylvia, concealing her eager curiosity behind her desire to serve Margaret.
”Well, you see, miss, my sister Dora is purty.”
”So are you, Maggie.”
”No, but Dora is a young thing, and kind of helpless, like a baby. I was the oldest, and that Dora was my baby, like. Well, Andy Doyle and me were always friends. I wish I hadn't never seen him. But he seemed to be the nicest fellow in the world. There was never anything said between him an' me, only--well--but I can't tell ye--you're so young--you don't know about such things.”
”Yes, I do. You loved him, didn't you?”
”You see, miss, he was always so good. Dora, she hadn't no end of b'ys that liked her. But anything that I had she always wanted, you may say, and I always 'umored her in a way. She was young and a kind of a baby, an' she is that purty, Miss Sylvy. Well, one of us had to go out to work in the mill, an' my mother, she said that Dora must go, because Dora wasn't any good about the house to speak of. She never knew how to do anything right. But Dora cried, and said she couldn't work in the mill, and so I went down to Larne to work in the mill, and Dora promised to look after the house. Now, at the time I went away Dora was all took up with Billy Caughey, and we thought sure as could be it was a match. But what does that girl do but desave Billy, and catch Andy. I don't think, miss, that he ever half loved her, but then I don't know what she made him believe; and then, ye know, n.o.body ever could refuse Dora anything, with her little beggin', winnin' ways. She just dazed him and got him engaged to her; and I don't believe he was ever entirely happy with her. But what could I do, miss? I couldn't try to coax him back--now could I? She was such a baby of a thing that she would cry if Andy only talked to me a minute after I come home. And I didn't want to take him away from her. That was when the mill at Larne had shut up. And so I hadn't no heart to do anything more there; it seemed like I was dead; and I knowed that if I stayed there would be trouble, for I could see that Andy looked at me strange, like there was somethin' he didn't quite understand, ye may say; but I was mad, and I didn't want to take away Dora's beau, nor to have anything to do with a lad that could change his mind so easy. And so I come away, thinkin'
maybe I'd get some heart again on this side of the sea, and that I could soon send for me old mother to come.”
Here she leaned her head on the table and cried.
”Now, there,” she said after a while, ”to-day I got a letter from Dora; there it is!” and she pushed it to the middle of the table as though it stung her. ”She says that Andy is comin' over here to make money enough to bring her over after a while, sure. It kind o' makes my heart jump up, miss, to think of seein' anybody from Drogheda, and more'n all to see Andy again, that always played with me, and---- But I despise him too, miss, fer bein' so changeable. But then, Dora she makes fools out of all of them with her purty face and her coaxin' ways, miss. She can't help it, maybe.”
”Well, you needn't see Andy if you don't want to,” said Sylvia.
”Oh! but I do want to,” and Margaret laughed through her tears at her own inconsistency. ”Besides, Dora wants me to help him get a place, and I must do that; and then, sure, miss, do you think I'd let him know that I cared a farthin' fer him? Not a bit of it!” and Maggie pushed back her hair and held herself up proudly.
The next morning, as Margaret laid the morning paper on Mr. Thorne's table in the library, she ventured to ask if he knew of a place for a friend of hers that was coming from Ireland the next week. That gentleman had caught the infection of Sylvia's enthusiasm for the Irish girl, and by the blush on her cheek when she made the request he was sure that his penetration had divined the girl's secret. So he made some inquiries about Andy, and, finding that he was ”handy with tools,”
the merchant thought he could give him a place in his packing department.
It happened, therefore, that Sylvia rarely spent any more evenings in the kitchen. Instead of that, her little sister used to frequent it, for Andy was very ingenious in making chairs, tables, and other furniture for doll houses, and little Sophy thought him the nicest man in the world. Maggie was very cool and repellent to him, with little spells of relenting. Sometimes Andy felt himself so much snubbed that he would leave after a five minutes' call, in which event Maggie Byrne was sure to relax a little at the door, and Sylvia or Sophy was almost certain to find her in tears afterward.
Andy could not, perhaps, have defined his feelings toward Margaret. He could not resist the attraction of the kitchen, for was not Maggie his old playmate and the sister of Dora? Sure, there was no harm at all in a fellow's goin' to see, just once a week, the sister of his swateheart, when the ocean kept him from seein' his swateheart herself.
But if Andy had been a man accustomed to a.n.a.lyze his feelings he might have inquired how it came that he liked his swateheart's sister better even than his swateheart herself.
One evening he had a letter from Dora, and he thought to cheer Margaret with good news from home. But she would not be cheered.
”Now what's the matter, Mag?” Andy said coaxingly. ”Don't that fellow in Larne write to ye?”
”What fellow in Larne?” demanded Margaret with asperity.
”Why, him that used to be so swate when ye was a-workin' in the mill.”
”Who told you that?”
”Oh, now, you needn't try to kape it from me! Don't you think I knew all about it? Do you think Dora wouldn't tell me, honey? Don't I know you was engaged to him before you left the mill at Larne? Has he gone an' desaved you now, Maggie? If he has, I don't wonder you're cross.”
”Andy, that isn't true. I never had any b'y at Larne, at all.”
”Now, what's the use denying it? That's always the way with you girls about such things.”
”Andy Doyle, do you go out of this kitchen, and don't you never come back. I never desaved you in my life, and I won't have n.o.body say that I did.”
A conflict of feeling had made Margaret irritable, and Andy was the most convenient object of wrath in the absence of Dora. Andy started slowly out through the hall; there he turned about, and said:
”Hold a bit, my poor Mag. Let me git me thoughts together. It's me's been desaved. If it hadn't 'a' been fer that fellow down at Larne there wouldn't never 'a' been anything betwixt me and Dora. And now----”