Part 28 (2/2)

”It will be the making of us, you know, Jack,” she said, throwing back her head with an odd little jerk, and speaking at random. ”I can see it well enough now. If you had not been suddenly awakened to the true state of things, you'd just have hung on here, and never been anything at all but two dear little old maids' spoiled darling. By and by you would have taken to sipping tea, and knitting, and having your slippers warmed, and a hot-water bottle at nights, and grown very stout, and quite forgotten you were ever meant to be a man. You'd have been for all the world like one of Lady Dudley's precious kittens, that are not allowed out in the rain for fear of getting their feet wet. You wouldn't have been able to help yourself--just everything would have tended to it.

”Oh! of course it's a splendid thing for both of us,” running on. ”I'd have developed into an oddity of some sort, you may be sure, and been a kind of show person of the neighbourhood. Or perhaps I'd never have grown up at all. I'd just have remained a rowdy kid--and fancy a rowdy kid of thirty-five! wouldn't it be awful! Now I'm going to be a good son--it sounds lovely, doesn't it? I'm so glad daddy put it that way.

Being a good daughter sounds namby-pamby and Sunday-schoolish, but being a good son, when you happen to be a girl, sounds just fine. And then it's splendid not having to teach, isn't it? Not that I could, for I don't know anything; but I might have had to be a nursery governess and worry about after tiresome children. Mixing medicines sounds much more exciting, though, I think, if I might have had my choice of anything, I'd have been one of the keepers at the Zoo. It would be just lovely to be with the animals all day long, and find out all their funny little ways, and make friends of them. But best of all would have been to come to the Argentine with you,” hurrying on without giving him time to speak. ”You'll ride bare-headed over endless gra.s.s plains, and have great times with the cattle, and shoot and fish, and have wide-spreading skies all around you still, while I'll be suffocated among the s.m.u.ts and chimney-pots. Oh, Jack, Jack!” clinging to him with sudden weakness, ”G.o.d might have made me a man, mightn't He? Then I could have come and been a cowboy with you, instead of mixing silly medicines among the s.m.u.ts and chimney-pots.”

Jack put his arm round her, but for a few moments he could not trust himself to speak.

”It'll be all right by and by, Paddy,” he said at last. ”You'll get married, you know, to some awfully nice chap, who'll take you back to the country again and just spoil you all day long.”

She shrank away from him suddenly, almost with an angry gesture.

”No, I won't get married,” she said. ”I tell you I won't--I won't--I won't!”

Jack looked taken aback.

”Why ever not!” he asked.

”Because I won't, that's why. You're no better than the other men, Jack--and you're all a lot of blind owls. You think a girl can't do without getting married--that just that, and nothing else, is her idea of happiness! Such rubbish--you ought to have more sense.”

Jack was quite at a loss to understand in what way he had so unexpectedly offended, and for the matter of that Paddy was not much wiser but under her show of determination and spirit her heart was just breaking, and she felt she must go to one extreme or another to keep up at all. And then that he could talk so calmly of her getting married and belonging to someone else? Was it possible he would not care the least little bit if his old playfellow could be the same to him no longer? Did his love for Eileen make her no more of any account at all?

Of course it was so--she could see it plainly now; he did not really mind leaving anything or anybody except Eileen; the rest of them were all in a bunch--just people he had been fond of once. Her goaded heart ran on, exaggerating every little detail in its misery, and adding tenfold to its own loneliness; while in every thought she wronged Jack.

Before all things he was intensely affectionate and true; and so deep was his distress at leaving his aunts and the old home and each inmate of The Ghan House, that he had given less thought to Eileen than usual, as the day of departure approached.

”What have I done, Paddy?” he said, seeing the wild, strained look in her eyes.

”Go away,” she said. ”Go away to Eileen, and leave me with daddy.”

The tears rained down her cheeks, as she turned from him to her father's grave, and leaning against a tombstone behind it buried her face in her hands, murmuring pa.s.sionately:

”Why did you go away, daddy, when I wanted you so? Didn't you know I hadn't anyone else?--that I'd be just all alone? Mother loves Eileen best, and Jack and the aunties love her best, but you and I belonged to each other, and we didn't mind. It wasn't kind to go away and leave me.

It wasn't good of G.o.d--it was cruel. I'll be a good son, because I promised, but I'd much rather come to you, and no one would mind.

Daddy, daddy, can't you hear me? Ah! I know you can't or you'd come to me. You couldn't stay in Heaven or anywhere else if you knew your Paddy had this awful--awful lonely feeling--you'd just make G.o.d let you come back to me. Only you can't hear, you can't hear, and I'm all alone-- alone. What shall I do through all the long years to come?”

She was now in a paroxysm of weeping, all the more intense that she had kept up so long, and Jack was frightened. His impulse was to run and fetch one of the aunts, but something held him back. Instinct told him that there was in Paddy a kindred soul, which would shrink from letting anyone see her in tears if she could possibly help it. So he stood and waited beside her silently, as he would have wished her to do had he been in her place. And when Paddy grew quieter, this action in itself appealed to her more than anything else could have done, and all her anger against him died away.

”I'm awfully silly, Jack. I don't know what you'll think of me,” she said, trying to stay the tears.

”I think you're rather unkind,” he answered.

She seemed surprised and asked ”Why?”

”You know I think the world of you,” he blurted out, feeling very near tears himself. ”You know you're just the best pal a chap ever had.”

Paddy gave a little crooked smile.

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