The handsome Brandons

CHAPTER X.

FROM THE NIGHT AND THE STORM.

For some time Pierce's letters had been irregular, and when they came had been the merest scraps, very unsatisfactory to Aline, one could see, though she often said that, moving about so much as he did, Pierce couldn't be expected to write letters like a home-keeping woman.

Then had come a couple of months of silence, during which Aline fretted visibly, at least during the latter portion of the time, for of course she did not begin to worry at once, and there had been the distraction of young De Lacy's accident and convalescence in the house.

It was now April, and blithe, beautiful weather. The smaller trees were all in leaf, and the bigger ones were cloudy with the coming leafage. It was sunny every day, with a touch of east wind, which brought the most beautiful colours on Brandon Hill, bronzes and crimsons and golds, instead of his usual soft azures. The kitchen-garden was a forest of white blossom, and the apple-buds were pushing open a little rosier every day. I was getting rid of my cold, and was out walking every day on the sheltered side of the house, in the gardens, or on the grassy terrace overlooking the rose-garden.

I came on Oona one day in the kitchen-garden picking spinach into her apron.

"Why, Oona," I said, "you are going to give us an early dish. I thought you wouldn't be putting it on the table for a fortnight yet."

"There'll be a stranger to dinner, Miss Hilda. Three nights running I've dreamt of a man dressed in black, but the face of him I couldn't see, coming in over the threshold stone, and this morning there was a stranger in my tea-cup, so there's someone coming over the hill."

"And you've picked the spinach because of your dreams."

"Yes, and killed a pair of chickens. One of them was a pullet, but as she'd learned to crow it couldn't be lucky to keep her. Chickens, an' a bit o' bacon, an' a dish o' spinach is good feeding for anybody, if it was Miss Freda or Master Pierce even."

"Your banshee never came to anything, Oona," I said.

"The year's not out, Miss Hilda," she answered solemnly.

But I was not to be depressed by Oona's superstitions this bright spring morning, so I went off laughing, and left her shaking her old head in its snowy cap-frills.

The day passed without event, and it was late afternoon. Esther was still out, and I had thought I would go a little way to meet her, so after Aline had wrapped me up in a soft old Indian cashmere shawl, and enjoined on me not to go too far, I started off down the avenue. I went farther, perhaps, than I intended, for I expected Esther to come in sight at every turn. Anyhow all at once I felt a little tired, and so sat down on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree to wait for her. The evening was rosy now, and translucent yellow, and palest green, and Brandon had flushed rosy pink, and was wearing the evening star in his hair.

"If she doesn't come soon," said I, "I must turn back."

And just at that moment I heard, in the silence, wheels and the trotting of a horse's hoofs on the road. The sound was coming nearer every minute, and was sufficient of a novelty to attract my attention, for, as I have said before, the road to Brandon led nowhere but to Brandon, the only exit from it, after Brandon gates, being a horrible rutty boreen, too narrow for anything but the smallest donkey-cart.

"Hullo!" said I to myself—I have learnt slang from the boys, you see—"Oona's stranger, for a ducat!" and I began to feel rather excited.

With the sensitive hearing of a country-girl, I could follow the sound of the car through its many windings and turnings, and could even catch the murmur of voices when the turning was towards Brandon, and not away from it, or in a hollow.

Presently there was a pause, and I knew the car had stopped at the gate, and that the driver was leading his horse through, for our last lodge-keeper, Larry Hefferman, had been dead two years, and we had not filled his place. Then I heard the car coming on towards me up the avenue.

I listened in strained expectancy, still keeping my place on the log. It came nearer and nearer. Then it turned on to the long straight bit at the other end of which I was sitting. There was one person on it besides the driver—a tall man, much muffled, despite the clemency of the April evening. As they came near me I saw him lean across and speak to the driver. Then the car stopped and he alighted slowly and painfully, and, taking a bag from the seat, came on to where I was sitting, while the car turned round and drove slowly off.

The man came up to me and stopped. I could scarcely see his face, for the muffling and the soft hat. But there was something familiar about it, and yet unfamiliar, which made me jump up, trembling slightly.

"Why, it is little Hilda!" said the man, and with the sound of his voice uncertainty vanished.

"Oh, Pierce," I cried, "Pierce! How glad Aline will be!" And then I added, nearly in the same breath:

"But what have you been doing to yourself? You are not the Pierce that went away. Have you been ill, Pierce?"

He stooped and kissed me and laughed.

"Five years make a difference in a man's looks, little woman;" and then he coughed a hard dry cough, which seemed to be tearing through flesh and bone.

"And how are they all? How is Aline? And you and Essie, and the twins, and the boys, and Freda?"

He pushed the soft hat off his head, drew a long breath, and looked all around him. Five years! Ah! it might have been twenty-five, so great was the difference. This was not our Pierce, this hollow-eyed, gaunt-cheeked, white-lipped stranger. He looked taller too by a head, but that might have been because he was very thin.

"Dear Heaven!" he said, "how sweet it is to be at home! How often I have longed for a sight of old Brandon there, and to smell these delicious woods!"

He patted my hand, which he still held, softly.

"Come along, little girl, let us get home. I've been ill, and am ordered to be out only in the sun. How fortunate that you should have been mooning down here! I didn't want to go in on Aline suddenly, with this sick man's face."

So he did know that he was looking very ill. What matter? Home air and tender nursing and good feeding would soon make him the old Pierce again.

He would have taken up his bag, but I pushed away his hand from it.

"One of the boys will run down for it," said I. "It is as safe till they fetch it as the Bank of Ireland."

There was still no sign of Esther, and we walked on towards the house. We met no one to be surprised at my return with a stranger's arm about me. Poor Pierce! Being so near me, I could hear the painful catching of his breath as he walked, and now and again he had to pause to recover himself.

The hall-door stood open as usual, and I brought him into the drawing-room, which was unoccupied, and to a comfortable chair. He sank into it without a word, but a quivering sigh told me how delicious its restfulness was. "Now rest," said I, "and I will fetch Aline."

"You will tell her, little Hilda?"

"Yes; I will tell her that you have been ill, and have come home to be made well."

But all the way upstairs Oona's story of the banshee would haunt me, though I put out two hands to drive it away.

I found Aline writing labels for the rhubarb and parsnip wine Oona was making. She looked up at me with a questioning smile, and I noticed that she was not looking well. I sat down on the arm of the chair and kissed her ear.

"What is it?" she said. "Have you had a nice walk, and found Essie as you expected?"

"I didn't wait for her. I—I found news."

Her eyes opened wide and startled.

"News!" she repeated after me. "Of Pierce? It could only be of Pierce. What news, Hilda? Not bad news?"

"Good news, darling."

"Oh, Hilda, he is coming home! I know by your face. Tell me. Oh ... he is come!"

"He is come," said I; "but wait, don't rush away like that. He has been ill, and has come home to get well. I was to tell you he was looking ill. You mustn't be startled at the change in him, nor startle him."

But Aline was already on her way to the door, and I followed her as fast as I could. After all, she would have time to get over the shock of his appearance gradually, for now the kindly twilight would soften it down.

She went straight to the drawing-room, and I followed her, with an irrational fear lest she might want me. I saw Pierce stand up and lean on a near table, as if he felt faint. Then Aline put her arms round him with a sharp cry of love and pity, and I went out and closed the door.

Half an hour later Pierce came into the dining-room, and was installed in a big chair by the brisk little wood-fire, which had been lit because the nights turned chilly. He had had a wash and a brush-up, and looked better than when I had seen him first, and because he had been ill there was a little table set beside him, to which we carried the dainty bits of the chicken and the delicacies which Oona had hastily served up.

The young ones, of course, could not see how woefully Pierce was changed, which was a relief to us. Now that the lamp was lit I could mark the changes in his face. He had left us a sunny-hearted, sunny-faced boy. Now some immense trouble had drawn a myriad fine lines on the skin that had been so smooth. When, for a moment, it relaxed into quietness, it wore a curiously tragic expression. More than illness had been at work on that face. I, in my dim corner, wondered and wondered what the years had held for him to change him so greatly.

Aline had taken the shock of his changed looks well. I think her secret fear for him out in the briers and thorns of the world had been so great, that to have him at home was for the time being joy enough. He himself seemed to think that all he needed to get well was Brandon, and she was only too glad to believe him.

And now Oona came to our help with all the knowledge and love that is in her faithful old heart. After a night's rest, Pierce, who seemed overjoyed to be back again, was for all sorts of exertions and expeditions, as if he were a strong man. But Oona put down her foot.

"Breakfast in bed, Miss Aline," she said, "and if the day's fine an' warm you can get down the little sofa Miss Hilda had when her foot was bad, an' when Mr. Pierce is dressed he can lie on it in the verandy. He'll have to be stronger before he goes racketin' an' tearin' round the place like them young colts o' boys."

Aline acquiesced silently, but when she was telling Pierce the arrangements that had been made for him, she added:

"You must rest well, you see, after the fatigue of the voyage, and be patient, and do as Oona bids you."

He laughed with some of his old merriment.

"I have always done as Oona bid me. And though I feel as strong as a horse this morning, she is probably right. I used to think, on the way home, that I should never be able to get rest enough."

After that the days passed, and Pierce seemed to have accepted the invalid's part even gratefully. I would have said he was quite content, except that once or twice he reproached himself for being an expense to us.

"I am a useless beggar, little Hilda," he said to me one day when I was alone with him, "and I am bitterly ashamed to have come home empty-handed. I fought against that as long as I could,—so long that it was near being a case of never coming home at all."

"Oh, Pierce, that would have been the real cruelty and the real wrong!" I cried out.

"I felt that, Hilda. I thought it would be the cruellest wrong of all if I were to die out there, and leave Aline the heritage of that eternal sorrow. I kept hoping that things would be better. Indeed, Hilda, I endured much before I made up my mind to come. Yet I always knew that, in a certain contingency, I would come, and for that I kept my passage-money inviolate, even when I was starving."

"Starving, Pierce?"

"Yes, child, starving,—like many a better man. Privation paved the way for sickness with me. But you will not tell Aline, nor anyone else. I don't want to squirm under my punishment, which I richly deserved. And I would not have Aline's tender heart wrung afterwards to think upon such things."

"She need never know," I said. "We will make you well, Pierce, and Aline will be happy."

Then I saw a light of exaltation break over his face.

"Life and death are in God's hands, little one," he said, "and if it is death for me, I shall not repine. It may happen to a man to save his soul alive in the very gates of death."

I said nothing. With that light on his face I could not talk of death as if it were the last evil.

"I have known worse than death," he went on dreamily, "but the knowledge shall die with me. God knows it is no merit of mine that I did not give my immortal soul for the asking. I have been snatched out of the gates of hell, little Hilda, and shall I be afraid of the Valley of the Shadow? Ah! there are terrible things in the world out there, crueller than wolves, deadlier than serpents."

We were silent for a time. Pierce had turned his face away, and when he looked at me again I could have thought there were tears in his eyes, but perhaps it was because I was crying myself.

"You see, there is nothing to be sad about," he said softly, "even if I am very ill. There is more joy in heaven,—ah, yes! and if there is joy in heaven, is there not cause for joy on earth? Believe me, child, there is no real sadness, no real sorrow on earth, except sin. All else that seems sad to us is because we see as in a glass, darkly."

I never found Pierce in this mood again. And I believe I was the only one to whom he said so much, for he had the tender compassion for Aline that would not leave her the memory of great sorrow.

Only once afterwards did he touch upon those years.

"Desmond would have saved me, Hilda," he said suddenly one day,—"and I would not be saved. When I am gone I want you to write to Desmond, and tell him that I knew at last he was right, and that I died loving and thanking him. You will do that for me, Hilda?"

I said I would do it, and he was satisfied. It was curious that he should have chosen me for his confidant about such things. I know he did not talk to Aline, close as the bond was between them, as if he did not expect to live.

Good old Oona surpassed herself in those days after Pierce came home. I had rather feared her superstitions, the superstitions the peasants love; but if she felt them she did not impart them to me. She was indefatigable in compounding dainty dishes to tempt Pierce's weak appetite, and she brought out of her stores of knowledge wonderful recipes for healing and strengthening.

But as the days turned round to summer, Pierce did not grow stronger.

CHAPTER XI.

A FAIRY GODMOTHER

Old Dr. Devine had seen Pierce soon after his return, very much against our invalid's wishes. He had not enlightened us much, nor given us much comfort.

"Go on as you are doing," he had said to Aline in his fat, comfortable way. "Plenty of port wine and fresh eggs, and keep him from taking cold."

But so much we had known before, and at Pierce's earnest request we had troubled Dr. Devine no further.

"Hilda," said Esther to me one day, "do you remember that when your foot was so bad Aline sold her collet to get you the best doctor that could be procured for money?"

"Could I forget it?" said I.

"Well, don't you think that something ought to be done for Pierce in the same way?"

"Yes," said I, "but how are we to raise the money? I do think Freda ought to help us."

"I believe Aline thought the same thing when she wrote to her all about Pierce's illness, but Freda evidently thinks differently. Do you remember how generous Freda once was?"

"Yes," said I wisely, "but then she was a girl. I believe she has grown selfish for that child. There, I have said it, and it is the first time any of us have. What is the use of our going about wondering at Freda in our secret hearts and shutting our lips upon it?"

"It is strange about her. However, Hilda, if she will not help, we must. We must sell our sapphires."

"Would they bring much? They are heavy and old-fashioned."

"I daresay they are rather ugly, but they will sell for the stones. We won't ask Aline. She would sell her own things, but she would feel our parting with ours. Once it is irrevocable, she will be glad."

We went upstairs and took out our parures, and looked at them with a little melancholy. They were our only jewels of value, and though we never had any occasion for wearing them, we had always felt that some day the occasion might come. Now that we were going to give them up they seemed beautiful, glowing deeply against the white velvet of their cases. We had each a necklet and pendant, a brooch and ear-rings, and a bracelet. Esther, in addition, had a little tiara of the stones set round with small diamonds.

"But how are we to sell them?" I asked.

"I have thought of that," said Esther. "If we ask Mr. Benson he will sell them for us to the Dublin goldsmith from whom he bought his new altar-plate. There, shut them up, Hilda dear. We have not needed them all the years, and we are not going to miss them now."

She went off to see Mr. Benson that afternoon, with the cases in brown paper under her arm. We felt like a pair of conspirators; but Pierce must have his doctor and all the things he needed, and I think the sacrifice made us both happy, once it was over and done with.

Mr. Benson accepted the commission when it had been explained to him that the things were really and truly our own, and that there was such sore need for money at Brandon.

A few days later Esther went over to the Rectory for the goldsmith's answer. It was nearly dinner-time when she came back, and I was washing my hands upstairs in my own room when she came in, still wearing her hat, and laid down something on the table. My heart sank, for it looked uncommonly like our jewel-cases, only not quite so thick.

"Ah!" said I to myself, "so the old things were worthless after all; and Pierce must go without his doctor, and his port wine, and game, and all the things that may save his life!"

But Esther, who had not spoken, had locked the door and returned to the table. She had bright spots of excitement in each cheek, and as I dried my hands on the towel and came towards her she put down a heavy, lumpish parcel on the table, and, reaching for my scissors with a hand that trembled, she cut the cord, opened a little bag that was inside, and spilt the contents on the table. I was so near screaming out at the sight that. I had to clap both hands on my mouth. There, on the table, glittering before me, was a substantial heap of sovereigns—a great heap, it seemed to me at the first glance.

"One hundred pounds!" said Esther in an exultant voice. "Actually a hundred pounds for the old sapphires! That dear Mr. Benson went to the bank and cashed the cheque, and got it all in gold, knowing it would delight us so."

"And to think they've been lying there so uselessly all those years!" said I.

"They could never have served us as they will now," said Esther again; and we both stood gloating over that heap of sovereigns as though we were a pair of misers.

Then Esther began putting back the gold again in the little bag which had held it. When she had drawn the strings and wrapped it in its outer covering of brown paper my eye fell on the other square-shaped parcel.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Oh, Hilda," said Esther, rather guiltily, "Mr. Benson thought we would not sell both parures till we saw what one would fetch! He guessed the stones were valuable. So I have brought back yours."

Well, for the moment I felt nothing but vexation, which quite put out of my mind the fact that it had been rather a wrench to give up the sapphires.

"You wretched, mean girl!" said I. "You know it was my place to give the sapphires, seeing what Aline had done for me. You should have kept yours. What use are jewels to me, seeing that even if we were asked to balls and such things I would have no place there?"

"Hush, hush, Hilda!" said Esther in her gentle way. "Your jewels may be wanted later; and in any case mine were the more valuable, and brought in the bigger sum."

Now I'm afraid this makes us seem rather unnatural, for girls, by nature, love their pretty things; only, you see, as we were both well on in the twenties, and had never had an opportunity of wearing jewels, and never seemed likely to have, the things were not of so much account in our happiness. Besides, money was wanted so sorely that the old jewels counted for very little by comparison.

"I shall never need mine, never!" said Esther, with conviction.

"And in any case mine are yours," added I.

Then we went down to Aline and spilled the money in her lap. We were a little nervous about acting on our own responsibility, so we blurted the story out in a great hurry; and then, when Aline would have held up horror-stricken hands at the loss of the sapphires, we simply cried out, "It is for Pierce, you know, for Pierce," and so silenced her.

We kept from Pierce the secret of how the Dublin doctor's fee was paid, but all the same he was vexed and disturbed when he heard that we had sent for him. The great man came and went, and left us sadder than before. Whatever hopes we had had from his visit were dissipated in thin air after he had gone.

"I can give you no hope of your brother's ultimate recovery," he had said to Aline. "Constant and tender care may keep him with you a little while, but the mischief is too deep-rooted for our skill to reach."

He had looked at her compassionately out of his stern gray eyes and pressed her hand in silence. After all, we had known it all the time, had known we were only buoying ourselves up with faint hopes.

"How long?" said Aline.

"Perhaps a twelvemonth," said the doctor, "perhaps not so long."

After he had gone we left Aline alone, as she asked us. She wanted to gain composure before she went back to Pierce. In her little octagon room, holy with the atmosphere of her prayers and long patience, we left her to gain courage and comfort from the Source. Our hearts were heavy for her, but we knew her Comforter would not fail. Meanwhile I went back to Pierce with a foot that lagged and a face that vainly strove for a show of cheerfulness.

It was June then, and Pierce was out every day, sitting in a comfortable wicker-chair under the shade of limes. He certainly looked less ill than when he had come home, but that might be because he was rested and refreshed now, and his mind at ease to be among his own people.

I sat down on the rug at his feet, being glad not to meet his eyes, but he leant forward and pulled my face round towards him. As he did so I lost my hard-won composure.

"What, tears!" he said, and smiled. He was the only one of us had heart to smile that day.

"The doctor's been telling you that I've got my marching orders?" he said.

I bowed my head silently.

"I wish you could come over here and stand beside me"—he spoke as if an immense gulf divided us,—"and see from my side how death looks. There would be nothing to cry about, little Hilda."

I answered by a half-stifled sob.

"My only trouble is," he said, "that I cause you all sorrow. I meant to have done so much for this old place and all of you once, and I have done nothing but drag myself home to be a burden on you all, and then to grieve you by my death. And yet if you could know, little Hilda, how impossible it was for me to take up life again in the old way, you would understand how glad I am to go."

Still I could not answer him.

He spoke again with a curious strength and will that for the moment made his voice like the voice of one in health.

"There must be no more doctors, Hilda. Even if it comforts Aline I cannot have it. You must let me go quietly. God knows that in being here I have more happiness than I deserve."

I followed his eyes as they gazed around. The great lime was flinging wavering shadows on the grass. The sun was very hot, but under the shelter of the tree a cool wind had strayed in, and flapped about with half-folded wings. And facing Pierce as he sat was Brandon, blue as forget-me-nots.

A day or two later we had accepted with what resignation we might the knowledge that Pierce's time with us was to be but short. It is wonderful how one grows used to such things. Troubles that, imagined, we would have said we could not endure, we accept in a few hours, and go about, not only living, but carrying out the usual routine of life, as if the thing had always been so.

About a week after the Dublin doctor's visit there dropped a new friend out of the clouds. I was with Aline one day, and she was snipping off withering roses into a basket from the bushes close to where Pierce was sitting. To us came the newest of our small handmaidens—for Oona keeps up an incessant change—in much trepidation, and holding a card between her finger and thumb. Aline took it, and looked at it in surprise. Then she walked up to Pierce.

"Why, Pierce," she said, "here is old Lady O'Brien come home to Annagower, and come to make a call. I thought she was dead long ago."

"So did I," said Pierce. "We used to call her the Fairy Godmother when we were small. I thought she was enormously old then."

"She has been out of these parts a long time," said Aline. "But I must not keep her waiting. However, I shall have to wash my hands. Hilda dear, would you mind going in to the old lady till I can come? I wish Esther were not out, for Lady O'Brien is her godmother."

"She has only gone to see Oona's cousin, Mary," said I, "and may come in at any minute."

I found a very tiny old lady sitting in the biggest chair in the drawing-room. She had a foreign-looking big black hood pulled over her face, out of which twinkled her bright eyes, set in a delicate little old white face.

"Well, my dear," she said, "which of the girls are you? and why didn't you come at once, instead of keeping me waiting?"

"I am Hilda, Lady O'Brien, and I came as quickly as I could. But we were at the far end of the rose-garden with Pierce when your card came, and I can't walk very quickly. Aline will be here in a moment. She was gardening, and had to wash her hands."

"Why can't you walk quickly?" snapped the old lady.

"I am a little lame," I explained.

"Now, how do you come to be that? Mary Brandon's children were born without blot or blemish. What mischief were you up to to lame yourself, child?"

"We went to the races without leave, and fell into a ditch on the way home."

"Indeed, then, you've been too much punished, for I've been doing things without leave all my life, and here I am with all my teeth and my eyesight, and my hair and complexion, at seventy years of age. But never mind," she added consolingly, "'tis only a pretty bit of a limp after all. Not so long ago it was fashionable to be a bit lame, because one sweet woman was so."

At that moment Aline came in, and was called over to kiss the old ivory face in its black hood.

"You're the image of your grandmother, my dear," said the old lady graciously; "and when we were both brides together we divided the county into factions about our beauty, though you wouldn't think it now to look at me. Eh, what?"

"This exclamation was addressed to me. I had just said in a low voice that I could well believe the old lady's statement. I repeated the speech, to her delight.

"Well done!" she cried. "You've a pair of eyes in your head, madam."

Then she turned to Aline in her quick way, which reminded me of a bird pecking.

"I suppose you wonder where I've come from after all those years?"

"I hope you've come back to Annagower to stay."

"To make my exit, my dear. I've been racketing all those years up and down the world, and now I've come back to 'make my soul'. Ireland's a pleasant place to die in."

"You don't look like dying," said Aline with truth.

"Nor feel like it, my dear; but I am an old woman—seventy years of age. I thought I'd like to lie beside poor Sir Peter at the last, though it's so long since he went he must have given up expecting me, poor man. But where's my girl?" she asked with startling suddenness; "I don't see her yet."

"Esther?" said Aline. "She is out, Lady O'Brien, but I hope she will be in before you go. Now, you'll have some tea," for at this moment little Annie appeared with the tea-tray, casting at the same time alarmed glances at the old lady, who indeed looked exactly like a witch.

"If it's fresh and well-made, my dear, and you can give me cream with it. My doctor-man at Monte Carlo has absolutely forbidden me tea, so that if I am to ruin my stomach it must be for something worth having."

"You could have milk if you preferred it," suggested Aline.

"I haven't cut my second milk-teeth yet, my dear. Thank you, that looks very nice. Gebhardt, the doctor-man, was rather a fool. I often told him so. But, bless you, doctors must be saying something."

Lady O'Brien was graciously pleased to approve of the tea and the thin brown bread-and-butter, for which she displayed a most youthful appetite. When she had finished she dusted off the crumbs from her silk lap.

"Well, I suppose I must be going," she said, "for there are Daisy and Dobson both fast asleep in the sun, though I always tell them they'll get sunstroke one day."

We followed her gaze out to the space before the window, where a little basket phaeton stood, with an old pony, evidently asleep, and a fat coachman, also slumbering, as she had said.

"By the way," she said as she stood up, "where are all the others? Where is the boy who was next to you? A very handsome boy he promised to be. I should like to see him. I adore handsome boys."

"He is in the garden, Lady O'Brien," answered Aline, sadly, "and I am sure he would like to see you. But he is not strong." Her face quivered suddenly. "Indeed his lungs are affected, and we fear he will never be very well again."

The old lady's manner changed quite suddenly to one of the utmost kindness and sympathy.

"Indeed, my dear," she said earnestly, "I am very sorry for that. The young should be well and happy. You think I might see him, hey?"

"I am sure you might," said Aline, smiling. "A visit from you could do nothing but good."

So the old lady took her silver-headed cane, and pouring out a flood of memories as she went, accompanied us to the shady seat where Pierce was sitting, with my little gray-headed Paudeen comfortably curled up at his feet.

CHAPTER XII.

A SECRET ROOM.

I went before to set a seat for the old lady, and to tell Pierce she was coming; and indeed I had no need to hurry myself, for at every bush she stopped and appeared to be reciting with animation some memory of her youth. At last she caught sight of Pierce and quickened her pace.

"Well, young man," she said as she took the chair beside him, "the last time I saw you you were in white frilled trousers and a petticoat."

But though she said it to make us laugh, I could see that the shrewd old eyes looked at him with great compassion. Poor Pierce brightened up immediately.

"And the last time I saw you, Lady O'Brien, you were the toast of the county and the acknowledged reigning beauty."

"Hear the boy," said the old lady; "he was five years old, and I was near my fifties."

She took up his hand and patted it as if he were yet five.

"They tell me you're not strong. Dear, dear, how did that come? You were a beautiful strong child as I remember you."

"He went seeking his fortune in Africa," said Aline quickly, "and took cold, and was neglected."

"Dear, dear!" said the old lady again, managing to get a great deal of tender kindness into the simple ejaculation. Then she passed easily to other subjects, seeing that we could hardly bear this.

"How this garden brings me back things! Not things I'm going to tell you children about. What a figure of a man your grandfather was! I remember walking by his side in this very garden, and he wore a maroon silk coat and silver-gray stockings. Ah, the men have no such calves to show nowadays!"

She shook her old head for a minute or two.

"There," she said, "I might have been your grandmother. And poor Peter had never a calf to him at all; he was beef to the heels, as they say, and he born into the time of small clothes too. What's become of that rapscallion De Lacy?"

"He still lives over there at Castle Angry, but he is seldom seen, I believe. He keeps within his own walls," said Aline.

"He hasn't found the grace of God yet?"

Aline shook her head.

"Well, well. He was always a bad lot, was De Lacy. I must drive over some day and give him a bit of my mind. He was in love with your grandmother, but I think he had a bit of a soft place in his heart for me too."

"It wouldn't be safe, Lady O'Brien. Sir Rupert lives in almost savage isolation, at least he did up to quite recently, with barred gates and bloodhounds walking about inside."

"Like an opera," said the old lady, delightedly. "But why do you say up to recently? Have you any hope that he has mended his ways?"

Aline told her then of young De Lacy's accident and of his determination to stay at Castle Angry at all costs.

"There must be something in the boy," she commented. "I must have him over to see me after I've been there. Tut, tut, I'm not afraid of De Lacy or his dogs. He'll keep them off me, I'll go bail."

Just then Esther came in view, coming towards us down the long straight path.

"Here is Esther now, Lady O'Brien," I said.

The old lady drew out a pair of glasses attached to a long tortoise-shell stick, and levelled them at poor Esther.

"H'm, h'm!" she said, apparently satisfied. "So that's my girl! I have no fault to find with her."

Indeed she would have been exacting if she had, for Esther's confusion only added to her beauty. When she had reached us, the old lady enfolded her in a warm embrace.

"I suppose you've never thought of your godmother, my dear, and small blame to you. I don't believe you've heard of me since I gave you your christening-mug. An old hunks of a godmother, surely—hey?

"Never mind," she went on, without waiting for an answer; "I must do what I can in the time that's left me. Now I'll tell you what"—to Aline—"I'm going to come over and take this young man for drives whenever I can and it's fine; when I can't, I'll send Dobson, who's eating his head off, and Daisy, who's no better. There, don't thank me. It will be a blessing to give the lazy creatures something to do. And you must all come over to me as soon as I've shaken down a bit. Now, good-by, good-by, my dears!"

She kissed us all affectionately, only extending to Pierce a tiny bejewelled hand, which he, understanding what was expected of him, kissed reverentially. The old lady looked pleased as she went off with Aline, and as for us, why, she had given us enough to talk about for a week.

Aline told us afterwards how nice she had been about Pierce.

"Has he had the very best doctors?" she had asked. "If it is any question of expense you will trust the oldest friend you have."

"Oh, indeed, Lady O'Brien," said Aline, much touched, "I would trust you about anything. But we have had Dr. Lee-Cornyns. I believe he is as good as any man living."

"And he suggested nothing? A sea-voyage now? Wouldn't that be the thing?"

"The doctor thought not. He seemed to think the mischief was too far gone. He said we could do nothing but take care of him and make him as happy as possible for ... the time. Indeed, Lady O'Brien, expense would not stand in the way. We would sell everything we have if it could save Pierce."

"There, there, my dear. Well, if I can do anything you may depend upon me. To think that that lad and I are taking the same way together, the way that leads away from you all. For me it is all right; I have lived. But for him—poor boy, poor boy!"

"He is quite happy about it, Lady O'Brien."

"Then maybe he'll teach me his happiness. I've been a selfish woman, living for no one but myself all my days, and now at seventy I feel as attached to the world as if I was twenty-five; aye, and more attached. I'm a worldling, my dear, a worldling to the core."

Every day after that, unless the rain fell, the little wicker phaeton would come rattling up to Brandon, with or without its mistress. If Lady O'Brien did not come herself, one of us filled the vacant place in the phaeton, but I am not at all sure that Pierce, though he is so affectionate, did not enjoy the old lady's society more than ours.

A curious and touching friendship sprang up quickly between them. They never seemed to tire of each other's company; and the old lady's shrewd, humorous, slightly biting comments on men and things, and her glimpses of the world she had left behind her, seemed to afford great delight and refreshment to our poor invalid. It was strange to see him so humble, so devout, so cheerfully resigned to the Will that was taking him in the flower of his youth, yet looking at the world through the eyes of tolerant laughter, with which the world-worn old woman presented it.

"The boy is teaching me how to die," she said to Aline in one of her serious moments.

And one could scarcely doubt that she was helping him in the last moments of his life, which it was his desire and his will to leave with cheerful courage, and a trust too great for sadness. We all grew very fond of Lady O'Brien in those days. She had come in the nick of time for Pierce.

She brought us all out of our shells. Once we dined at Annagower, Aline and Esther and I, but only once, for Aline would be with Pierce all she could, and she did not like to leave him a portion of the evening alone. But we often went to tea, Pierce and Aline driving, and we following, Esther and I and the boys; and hugely the boys enjoyed it, for Lady O'Brien had a most generous idea of catering for boyish appetites.

She was still in process of settling down at Annagower, and still many of the pictures and curios she had gathered up stood in their cases unpacked. Part of the house was yet in the hands of workmen, for it had got damp and uninhabitable during the years of its mistress's absence.

It was, or is, a long, low, pleasant house, with a green porch, and roses nodding at the little windows. The room which I associate most with Lady O'Brien is a low-ceiled panelled room, covered with Indian matting, which looked so cool that hot summer. White curtains hung before the windows, through which the light came green, because the gardener had been forbidden to prune the roses and honeysuckle outside. The room was full of the most comfortable chairs all petticoated in green and white chintz, and there was old china behind the glass lattices of the corner cupboards.

The twins used to say that there was no tea like Lady O'Brien's, and I'm sure we all agreed with them. That was an ideal tea-table, to my mind, and we were always so hungry after our walk. Her continental life had not taught our old lady to scrimp about honest eatables. Delicious pink ham and cold fowl were flanked by thin bread-and-butter, and strawberries and cream, and honey and marmalade, and hot home-made cream-cakes, and boiled eggs for those who liked them. And the tea, so hot and fragrant, with delicious rich cream. Then our hostess, though she ate little herself, expected us to eat much, and was so delighted at our enormous appetites. Even the twins did not scandalize her, and how they could eat so much after feasting on the raspberries and strawberries in the garden, was beyond me to say.

"Young people should eat," she would say, wagging her old head—"eat and grow: that is all young people should be asked to do."

I really think that she quite put Esther and myself on a level with the boys and the twins in those matters.

Then, when we were leaving, we would find in the pony-carriage a little hamper packed with the dainties we had been forced to leave.

"Martha would be so vexed if she thought her sweet things weren't appreciated", was the regular excuse. Martha was Lady O'Brien's invaluable cook, housekeeper, and personal attendant; and the two had been together years out of mind, though Martha was but a personable woman of fifty.

Martha, indeed, would have been sorely hurt if any of her confections had had to go to the kitchen to be devoured by Curtis, the page-boy, whom Martha always referred to as "that dratted boy", or fat Dobson, or the pretty housemaid, who was the old servant's bête noire.

Then there was no end to the dainties that were sent for Pierce, to Oona's mingled jealousy and delight.

Once, when we had been visiting at Annagower, Lady O'Brien brought me upstairs, alone, in a rather mysterious way.

"You can keep a still tongue in your head?" she asked as we went along the low corridor under the thatch.

"I think so, Lady O'Brien. I have that reputation," said I modestly.

"Well, you shall see my secret room," she said.

A little farther she opened the door of a room, and motioned me to step inside. The room was fresh from the hands of the workmen. It had a green-painted ceiling following the lines of the roof, so that it was very low on the side where the gable-window opened. It had been papered in pink, a pretty paper with roses on it, and the woodwork was white. A little brass bed, hung with green and pink, stood in the corner, and there was pretty white-enamelled furniture, and several low wicker chairs were covered with the rosy and green chintz.

I sighed with delight as I took a long, long look.

"You think it pretty?" inquired the old lady, who had been watching me anxiously.

"Pretty! it is delicious."

"A girl would be happy in it, hey?"

"A girl would adore it," said I.

"It would be all her own. Her little bed would be made, soft and white, and her books would be in the book-shelf, and she would come upstairs to find her little pink dressing-gown on the back of a chair, and her little pink slippers to thrust her feet into, and a bunch of roses on the dressing-table, and all her little fal-lals about, and no one would bother or disturb her."

"She would be a very happy girl," said I, meeting the old lady's rapturous gaze.

"I always wanted a girl of my own. I would have known how to be good to one. But the Lord didn't see fit to send me any babies. I've got this little room ready, as if it were for the little daughter or granddaughter I never had. I think I shall have ... a young lady ... coming soon ... on a visit."

Now I knew as well as if she had told me that all this was for Esther, but I did not betray my knowledge.

"Would you think now that she'd be so happy that, when she came on a visit, she'd be willing to stay altogether?"

"I should not be at all surprised," said I.

After all, there was no reason why Esther shouldn't come to Lady O'Brien and be happy. She would not be far from us, and of late the close companionship that used to exist between Esther and myself had somehow lessened. Esther, more than of old, seemed to like to be alone, and I no longer knew all her thoughts and feelings as of old. I came out of the room with a little sigh, but as I met the bright, wistful old eyes, I nodded reassuringly.

"There can be no doubt at all about it," said I, "no doubt at all. If she could resist that room, she couldn't resist the love that made it ready for her. Not if I know what girls are made of."

"Thank you, my dear," said the old lady simply. "I feel that she is going to stay."

She locked the door and put the key in her pocket, and we rejoined the others. Of course I kept my own counsel about Lady O'Brien's secret room, and gave myself up more and more to the companionship of my books and papers. They, at least, would not fail me. And then I have always Paudeen, of whom I have been saying too little in this narrative.

CHAPTER XIII.

CINDERELLA.

The summer had turned round to autumn before Lady O'Brien broached her project about Esther. I think she waited till she had us all bound fast to her by ties of affection and gratitude. Things were much the same with us, except that Pierce had grown a little thinner, a little more pinched and peaked like an old man, and a little weaker every day.

His couch now was in Aline's octagon room, and, though the autumn was a fine one, fires were pleasant. We were there one day, Pierce and I, and Paudeen at Pierce's feet. A little wood fire sparkled in the grate, though outside the world was full of brightness—brightness of blue sky and yellow sun, and golden and scarlet woods. The leaves were beginning to fall, and old Brandon's shoulders were visible now, where a month ago we could only see the top of his head.

I was restless, and kept going round the panelling, as I had so often gone fruitlessly, pressing the spines of every rose, and the leaves and buds, in search of the hiding-place I always said must be there. Pierce lay watching me with contented eyes which had a spark of amusement in them.

"I am quite sure it is here," I said, pausing opposite to him. "Listen, doesn't the panel ring hollow?"

I tapped with my finger, and he listened.

"There may be only the wall behind," he said, "but it certainly does ring hollow."

"If there is a hiding-place it should be easily discovered," he said again. "I have always found a singular innocence in those contrivances."

Now each panel fitted in squarely, being carved separately and set into the wall, so that a door might be suspected of any one of them. I went tapping and pushing in a dissatisfied way round about the room, and finally came back again to the panel that rang hollow.

On the leaves in many places there were little beetles of the kind we call lady-birds. They had specially exercised my mind, for they stood much above the surface of the carving. But, after all, it was Pierce who discovered the little door, not I.

"Do you see that fellow about the middle of the left-hand side, Hilda?" he said. "Near your hand now? Yes, that is the one."

"I have tried him over and over, for he has tentacles, and the others have none."

"Try to twist him instead of pressing him."

I tried, and thought he moved ever so slightly. I tried again: yes, there was no doubt he turned with my hand, but I had little purchase on him.

"I know," said I. "I'll get Oona's hammer, and see what that will do."

The claw-end of the hammer just caught the little beetle. I gave it a wrench and a turn, and there was the click of a bolt. Then, a little clink, and the panel opened towards me. It was simply a door in the wall, where I had been looking for a sliding panel all the time.

I looked at Pierce with expectant triumph. He was nearly as excited as I. The light poured full into the little cupboard. There was an Indian box of lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold. A little gold key stood in it. I handed it to Pierce, and drew out next a pair of white gloves with tarnished gilt tassels at the wrist. Then a tiny riding-whip. Next a case containing a miniature of a handsome young man. That was all. Not a scrap of writing—not a word by which we could guess at what time the girl had lived who must have gone away so suddenly leaving all her treasures hidden in the wall.

I opened the lacquer box with a hand that trembled. Inside it was divided into little square boxes, surrounding a larger box in the middle.

"This first," said I, lifting the cover.

Within there was nothing but a faint perfumed dust in the corners, and a tiny bit of blue ribbon.

"Ah!" said Pierce. "All that remains of Dulcinea's breast-knot."

We opened another. Within was a tiny gold bodkin and a thimble studded with turquoise. In another, an old vinaigrette. In a third a mother-of-pearl bobbin wound with green silk. In a fourth, a tablet of ivory, with a gold pencil. The last two were empty.

"So this is all your treasure-trove," said Pierce, looking down at the quaint box.

"Yes," said I, "aren't they lovely? I am so happy to have found them," for the romance of the discovery gratified me immensely.

"I don't quite think we have found all," said Pierce, who had been examining the box. "There must be a tray under here."

After a little search we found the tray, which slid outward. It was a flat receptacle for jewels, with, at one corner, a diamond-shaped box like those in the upper part.

"Garnets!" cried I, in an ecstasy when the tray had slid out. "They will look lovely on Esther, and will make up for her sapphires."

Fortunately Pierce was too interested to notice my slip. He took up the collar of garnets and looked at it.

"Exquisite setting," he said, turning it over and looking at the gold honey-combing at the back. "I wonder they put garnets in such a setting."

"Everything was worth doing well then," said I, lifting up the bracelets to match. The stones were laid on closely, almost like beads, except in the pendant, where a heart-shaped garnet was surrounded by diamonds, There was a whole set of the pretty things, including stars for the hair.

"Look at their soft fires," I cried, "how they will light up on Esther's creamy skin!"

"They are for Esther then?"

"Yes, I should like them to be for Esther. They are mine to give, Pierce, and ... yours."

"Oh, I waive all claim to them, little girl! What should I do with garnets? I think there's no doubt that the jewels belonged to the lady who left them there, and you, I should say, are her residuary legatee."

"I shall give Aline the thimble and bodkin," said I, "and all the rest I shall keep myself."

"What, the tablet and the vinaigrette, and the whip and gloves and the portrait! Aren't you rather greedy? And the bobbin—I had forgotten the bobbin."

But I saw he was laughing, and did not justify myself.

"Hullo, there is something we have forgotten!" said he, lifting the little corner-box. It was detached from the rest, and inside was lined softly with silk. It held a lock of brown hair, tied with a piece of green silk. That was all.

I lifted the hair reverentially, and put it beside the brown head of the miniature.

"Ah!" said I, "but she should not have tied it with green silk. Green is so unlucky."

I put back all the things in their hiding-place, except the jewels, and again slid the bolt.

"Now," I said, "no one is to know the secret, not even Aline. I like to think it is mine, and yours."

But even as I said it I felt that it would not be his for long.

"You will hoard your own treasures there," he said, "and in a century or two another Hilda will come upon your locks of hair, and your love-letters, and the portrait of Him, and wonder about the girl who treasured those things."

"What nonsense!" said I, blushing. "I shall never have such things. What she will discover will be piles of rejected manuscripts; and she will peep inside, and think how very dull they are."

Presently Aline came in, and I told her of my discovery.

"You must make me a present of that one panel in the room," said I, "but I will never tell you which one it is.

"Very well, Hilda," she said, laughing. "I'm sure you've earned that panel by your years of industrious search."

"And here is your tribute," said I, putting the bodkin and thimble into her hand.

Just then we heard that Lady O'Brien was downstairs; and, pushing the garnets into Aline's work-basket, for I didn't want them to be seen till they were Esther's own, I went downstairs to ask the old lady to come up. Since the fire had been lit in the octagon room, and Pierce had sat there, it had come to be a general assembling-place for the family.

After she had greeted us all, and perched herself in the big chair by Pierce, she said:

"You won't guess, my dears, what brings me over to-day. It is to ask a favour, Aline. There is the County Ball a week from now, and I want to take my god-daughter."

"But Esther has never been to a ball!"

"So much I heard her say the other day. That's what put it into my head. Never been to a ball! Why, I had worn out hundreds of slippers dancing at balls, aye, and on the hearts of my partners, before I was Esther's age."

"I wonder if she would like it?" said Aline doubtfully. You see it was such an unheard-of thing in our lives, and there was Pierce so ill; and then how was she to get a proper frock?

"Of course she will like it, not being a saint like you, nor a literary woman like Hilda," said the old lady with sparkling eyes.

Just then Esther appeared in the doorway.

"Come here, my dear," said the old lady, "and kiss me. Now tell us, would you like to put on your glass slippers, and step into my pumpkin, and be whirled off to the Ball?"

"Better finish it, Lady O'Brien," said I, while Esther stood turning red and white with excitement. "Cinderella has no frock."