Part 27 (1/2)
Miss Mary waited.
”She doesn't care, auntie,” he said at last, as if the words were wrung from him. ”It just seems as if nothing in heaven or earth matters since Eileen does not care.”
”Poor boy; poor laddie,” and a hot tear fell on his hand.
”And I don't know why she should care,” he ran on, finding relief in speaking. ”What have I ever done or been that she should care for me?
I must always have seemed just a great, lazy schoolboy, and not a man at all. And yet I have loved her since she was a little serious-faced thing in pinafores. I can't think why I did not realise it sooner, and try to do something that might teach her to care. Instead, I have just waited until the wolf came and stole her heart away, and found out how terribly I cared when the mischief was all done.”
”Poor laddie, poor laddie,” the little lady said again, letting her tears flow freely. ”I don't think it was so much your fault as sister's and mine. We ought to have let you go out into the world sooner. It would probably have made all the difference. Are you quite sure there is no hope?”
”There is none now, but if he does not come back I shall still hope in the future. She will not care for anyone else, I think, and by and by, perhaps, she will forget. I shall go on hoping that if such a time comes she will turn to me.”
”I believe it will come, Jack,” Miss Mary said hopefully, ”and that in the end she will indeed turn to you.”
”But I must do something to feel more worthy of her auntie, and when I come back I must come with something to offer. I feel as if I had yet to prove to her that I am a man,” and he half smiled with a very wistful expression. ”She has lectured me so often on being idle and wasting my life; and I always meant to begin at something but somehow it got put off. Perhaps it was just staying in Omeath spoilt everything. I feel as if I should be different altogether when I get away from the fis.h.i.+ng, and shooting, and boating, among hardworking chaps.” He paused, then added: ”You must tell me everything about her that you possibly can, and perhaps--perhaps when I come back she will be waiting for me.”
”I believe she will, Jack, I do, indeed,” and then the little lady kissed him lovingly and went back to tell her sister.
But it was a long, weary night for all of them. Jack's hopefulness was only intermittent and vanished again almost as soon as it came, leaving him a prey to vain, pitiless regret and longing.
As for the two little ladies, it was many years since they had spent sadder hours. Far into the night they wept silently, quite unable to comfort each other. That he must go away was so terrible to them; that he must go away in trouble was only worse. In a few weeks The Ghan House would be empty and their birdling flown, and the desolation in Omeath would be terrible beyond words. Once before life had dealt them a bitter blow, and for years joy had been crushed beneath it. Then Jack had come, and their old friend the General with his young wife, and life had smiled on them again, and it had seemed that they had found a ”desired haven” for the remainder of their years. And now, suddenly, the cup was dashed from their lips again, and the old, old bitterness offered, instead, and for that one night poor human nature rebelled.
Only the next morning it was as if the words, ”Peace be still,” had been spoken through the silence of the starlit heavens, and two sweet, calm faces greeted Jack at the breakfast-table. For sorrow does not come _so_ hard upon the old as upon the young, since when half the journey is over and can be looked back upon, for those who have eyes to see there is ever the G.o.d-light visible s.h.i.+ning through the darkest hours.
That day Jack told Paddy, and the news began to spread swiftly, until it was known in all the neighbourhood that not only was The Ghan House to be let to strangers, but Jack O'Hara, everybody's favourite, was going away across the sea to seek his fortune in foreign lands. And in every direction there was manifold sorrow and regret. People did not like to intrude upon Mrs Adair yet, but every day someone drove or bicycled to the Parsonage to know if it was indeed true, and tried the two little ladies sorely with their exclamations and questionings.
Moreover they were extremely busy. Going away to a foreign land--for all they knew, of heathens and cannibals--where there was never a woman to sew on a b.u.t.ton nor darn a sock, it was, of course, necessary for Jack to have a regular trousseau. Everything had to be new, everything of the best, and every b.u.t.ton and every tape sewed and sewed until it would really have puzzled Jack to get them off if he had wanted to.
In vain he expostulated and pleaded as the heap of clothes grew bigger and bigger. They would not listen to him, and were deaf to his plea that it would necessitate chartering a private s.h.i.+p if he were really to take ill the things they were preparing for him. When there was the slightest indecision about anything, it was always, ”What do you think, sister?--will he want this?” or ”Will he want a dozen suits of pyjamas”
or ”Three dozen pairs of socks?” or ”Do you think he would be likely to require silk handkerchiefs?” And always, whichever sister asked the question, the other answered gravely, ”He _might_,” and that was considered final.
The Parsonage rapidly a.s.sumed the appearance of a clothing warehouse or permanent jumble sale, and Paddy's first real laugh broke out one afternoon when she came over to help sew on name-tapes. The order for the socks had accidentally been repeated four times, with the result that they were so literally swamped in socks that it seemed quite impossible to get away from them go where you would. All over the drawing-room socks lay everywhere. They hid in corners of the dining-room, disported themselves in the kitchen, smiled at you from the stairs, where they had been dropped in driblets when Miss Mary carried one armful to the first story, to spread themselves over the bedroom.
In many places they were hopelessly mixed up with woollen underclothes, which also lay broadcast around, waiting for name-tapes; while flannel s.h.i.+rts and sleeping-suits of every hue and description draped themselves, gracefully and otherwise, over chairs and on the dining-room sideboard. The half-dozen cholera belts, that he _might_ want, managed even to get into the rector's study, though how or when no one knew, and it was only after a frantic search they were discovered. His suits of clothes he had always left lying about since he left off petticoats, also his boots; and now, as if unwilling to see old friends outdone, these were tossed pell-mell among the rest, and walk where one would you were pretty certain to stumble over boots or get entangled in trouser legs.
When Paddy first saw it all there was a sort of aching pause, and then she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. Indeed, being somewhat out of practice, she laughed so much that she could not stop, and finally Jack attempted to stuff socks, and cholera belts, and woollen garments down her throat, to help her, while, governed by instinct, the two little ladies once more flew round collecting the breakables.
”I'm--I'm--so afraid you won't have enough things to keep you warm,”
gasped Paddy between her struggles. ”It's only about ninety degrees in the shade, you know, in South America; you really ought to have two or three fur coats and caps and a dozen nice warm blankets.”
Two minutes later nothing was to be seen of her except a pair of feet, emerging from a promiscuous heap of coats, waistcoats, socks, woollens, s.h.i.+rts, handkerchiefs, and an odd boot here and there.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
TWO LOVE STORIES.
Christmas Day broke clear and frosty--the last Christmas Day of the old order. Everyone woke up with an oppressed feeling and a vague wish that for just this once the season of merry-making and gladness might have been omitted. For The Ghan House and the Parsonage it had always been such a particularly joyous time, the aunties always spoiling the young folks in every possible way, and Mrs Adair had been wont to say laughingly when they were children, that she had to develop into a sort of griffin armed with salts and soothing draughts, and follow them all around. And there had always been such presents too--ever since Jack, as a four-year-old youngster, managed to slip out of the Parsonage in his night-clothes and no shoes, on a cold Christmas morning, to get over to The Ghan House to show Paddy and Eileen his wooden horse. The gardener found him trying to drag the animal over the breach in the wall, his poor little feet blue with cold, but his eagerness was so great that he could think of nothing but getting to The Ghan House with that precious horse before any of the Parsonage folk caught him. So the gardener picked him up, horse and all, and carried him into The Ghan House kitchen to be warmed, and then went back to tell the aunties and fetch his clothes. Meanwhile Eileen had heard him in the kitchen, and managed to drag herself, burdened with an enormous doll, to the head of the stairs, where she was only just rescued in the nick of time from going down head first, doll and all.
But at breakfast-time things had looked a little more cheerful, for a delightful surprise awaited everyone. The two families had arranged to spend the whole day together, and The Ghan House had been selected, so that quite a large party sat down to the table. Two minutes later the postman arrived and Jack and Paddy once more raced and fell over each other to the door. They came back with their arms loaded. It just seemed as if everyone who knew them had seized the opportunity of expressing their sympathy by means of a little present.
There were books, and handkerchiefs, and pictures, and purses--never had there been such a Christmas before as far as presents were concerned, and even Mrs Adair smiled to think her girls were so genuinely beloved.