Part 69 (1/2)
The house door opened, and an elderly man, looking cowed and humble, shuffled out to meet them.
”We've come at last!” cried out her aunt in a loud voice; ”it's the last time I'll take the trouble to visit my folks! What the better am I for all the money I've spent on the trip? Better, indeed! A good deal worse _I_ should say! Take in the box, William! what are you stopping for?”
she demanded angrily.
”Oh, nothing, nothing, my dear! I'll take the box in at once, certainly!” The old man hurried to do his wife's bidding, and entered the squalid house. Eily followed with her parcels, and stood in doubt as to what her next proceedings should be, while her aunt bustled away somewhere, on food intent.
The old man, having obediently deposited the box in the region of upstairs, shuffled down again, and approached Eily gently. ”Are you her niece, my poor girl?” he whispered, with a backward glance in the direction of his departed spouse.
”I am, sorr,” answered Eily; ”I am come to help me aunt wid the claning and the lodgers.”
”Poor child! poor child! I was afraid so,” he murmured, shaking his head dolefully; ”but, look here, don't notice her tempers and her tantrums, her carries on fearful sometimes, but least said soonest mended, and if you want to please her keep a still tongue in your head; I've learnt to do it, and it pays best. If ever you want a friend your uncle William will stand by you; now, not a word, not a word!” and he shuffled noiselessly away as loud footsteps drew near, and Mrs. Murphy appeared on the scene.
”Now then, girl, come downstairs and set to work; the fire's black out, and not a drop o' water to be had! It's like him; he's got a brain like a sieve”--pointing to her husband, ”and here am I nigh dying of thirst.
Drat that bell!” she exclaimed, as a loud peal from upstairs sounded in the pa.s.sage.
William lit the fire, boiled the kettle, and frizzled the bacon, his wife sitting by criticising the work of his hands, and warming her elastic-sided boots at the fire. She ate her breakfast in silence, and then remembered Eily, who was sitting on the stairs, hungry, forlorn, and desolate, the tears running down her cheeks.
”Come, girl, get your tea!” she called, as she replenished the pot from the kettle; ”here's bread for you, better than that rubbishy stuff your mother makes; such bread as that I never see, it's that heavy it lies on your chest like a mill-stone.”
Eily took the slice of bread offered her and gnawed it hungrily; she had tasted nothing since the previous evening, as her aunt objected to waste money on ”them swindling refreshment rooms,” and the stock of bread and cakes her mother had given her was soon exhausted.
”Now, girl, if you start crying you'll find you make a great mistake. I brought you here to work, and work you must! Fie, for shame! an ignorant country girl like you should be thankful for such a start in life as you are getting.”
”I'm not ignorant,” Eily answered with spirit, ”and it's yourself that knows it!”
[Sidenote: ”Do what you're Told!”]
”Then get up and wash that there delf--don't give me any imperence, or you'll find yourself in the street; there's others better than you I've turned away, and the work'us has been their end--so mind your business, and do what you're told!” With this parting injunction Mrs. Murphy left the kitchen.
The winter pa.s.sed--cold, foggy, murky, miserable winter. Eily was transformed. No longer bright, sparkling, and gay, but pale, listless, and weary--the veriest drudge that ever lived under an iron rule. A thick black fringe adorned her forehead, her ears were bedecked with gaudy rings, and her waist squeezed into half its ordinary size; her clothes, bought cheaply at a second-hand shop, were tawdry and ill-fitting, yet they were her only pleasure; she watched herself gradually developing into a ”fine lady” with a satisfaction and excitement that alone kept her from giving way altogether.
Her heart was still aching for a sight of her lover, and many a time when her aunt was out she neglected tasks that she might sit at the parlour window and watch with feverish expectancy for the owner of the fair moustache and languid manner that had so completely taken her fancy; but he never came, and she rose from her vigils with a sore heart.
Two friends she had; two who never spoke roughly, nor upbraided her.
”Uncle William,” himself cowed and subdued, stood first. Sometimes, when the lady of the house became unbearable, and poor Eily's head ached with all the tears she shed, he would take her in the cool of the evening away to a large green park, where the wind blew fresh, the dew sparkled on the gra.s.s, and the noisy traffic of the streets was still; there she would rest her weary body, while the old man soothed her gently and stroked her poor hands, all chapped and red with hard work.
Eily's other friend was a lady who occupied a single top room in her aunt's tall house. She was a gentle, white-haired woman, with faded blue eyes and a sweet smile. She had won Eily's heart from the first by the soft, kindly tones of her voice, and the consideration she showed for the severely-tried feet of the little Irish maid. Mrs. Grey taught drawing and painting; her pupils were few, her terms low; it was a difficult matter to make both ends meet, but she managed it by careful contriving, and sometimes had enough to treat her waiting-maid to a morsel of something savoury cooked on her own little stove.
It was May. Eily was standing at the window while Mrs. Murphy went forth on a bargain-hunting expedition.
”Eily, come upstairs, child; I have something to show you.” Mrs. Grey was in the room, looking flushed and excited; she was flouris.h.i.+ng a book in her hand. Eily's heart beat rapidly as she ascended the steep staircase in the wake of her friend. Was it possible she could have news of _him_? Then she shook her head, for Mrs. Grey was not in her secret.
They entered the neat little room at the top of the stairs. Mrs. Grey, walking to the table, never pausing to unfasten her bonnet-strings or to unb.u.t.ton her gloves, opened the book and laid it on the table, exclaiming in triumph, ”There you are to the life, Eily! See! it is the picture of the year, and is called 'The Queen of Connemara.'”
A girl with eyes half-defiant, half-coquettish, lips demure and smiling, hair tied loosely in a knot at the back of her proudly-set head, was leaning against the white-washed wall of a thatched cabin--ah! it was Dermot's own! Eily noted the geraniums in the little blue box that he had tended himself.
Eily's heart leapt, and then was still; there were her two bare feet peeping from beneath her thick red petticoat, just as they used in the olden times, and there was the blue-checked ap.r.o.n she had long ago discarded. With face now white, now red, she gazed at the picture, then spelt out its t.i.tle, ”The Queen of Connemara,” painted by Leslie Hamilton.