The girls now went straight to the railway station; the hour was a quarter to twelve. They entered and asked at once if there was a train up to town. Yes; the last train would be due in ten minutes. Molly now took the management of affairs; she purchased a third-class ticket for herself and another for Nora.
“If we go third-class we shall not be specially remarked,” she said. “People always notice girls who travel first-class.”
The tickets being bought, the girls stood side by side on the platform. Molly had put on her shabbiest hat and oldest jacket; her gloves had some holes in them; her umbrella was rolled up in such a thick, ungainly fashion that it looked like a gamp. Nora, however, exquisitely neat and trim, stood by her companion's side, betraying as she did so traces of her good birth and breeding.
“You must untidy yourself a bit when we get into the train,” said Molly. “I'll manage it.”
“Oh, never mind about my looks; the thing is to get off,” said Nora. “I'm not a scrap afraid,” she added; “if Aunt Grace came to me now she could not induce me to turn back; nothing but force would make me. I have got the money, and to Ireland I will go.”
“I admire you for your determination,” said Molly. “I never knew that an Irish girl could have so much spunk in her.”
“And why not? Aren't we about the finest race on God's earth?”
“Oh, come, come,” said Molly; “you mustn't overdo it. Even you sometimes carry things a trifle too far.”
Just then the train came in. There was the usual bustle of passengers alighting and others getting in; the next moment the girls had taken their seats in a crowded compartment and were off to town. They arrived in London between twelve and one o'clock, and found themselves landed at Waterloo. Now, Waterloo is not the nicest station in the world for two very young girls to arrive at midnight, particularly when they have not the faintest idea where to go.
“Let us go straight to the waiting room and ask the woman there what we had best do,” said Molly, who still immensely enjoyed taking the lead.
Nora followed her companion quite willingly. Her worst fears about her father were held in abeyance, now that she was really on her way to him. The girls entered the waiting room. A tired-looking woman was busy putting out the gas, and reducing the room to darkness for the night. She turned round as the girls came in.
“I'm shutting up, ladies,” she said.
“Oh, but please advise us,” said Molly.
“How so, miss? What am I to do?”
“You'll be paid well,” said Molly, “so you need not look so angry. Can you take us home to your place until the morning?”
“What does this mean?” said the woman.
“Oh, I'll explain,” said Molly. “We're two runaways. I don't mind telling you that we are, because it's a fact. It is important that we should leave home. We don't want to be traced. Will you give us lodging?—any sort. We don't mind how small the room is. We want to be at Euston at an early hour in the morning; we are going to Holyhead.”
“Dear, dear!” said the woman; “and does this really mean money?”
“It means five shillings,” said Molly.
“Ten” was on Nora's lips; but Molly silenced her with a look.
“There's no use in overpaying her; she won't be half as civil,” whispered Molly to Nora.
“It's five shillings you'll get,” she repeated in a firm voice. “Here, I have got the change; you can look in my purse.”
“Molly opened her purse as she spoke. The woman, a Mrs. Terry by name, did look in. She saw the shine of gold and several half-crowns.
“Well, to be sure!” she said. “But you'll promise not to get me into a scrape?”
“We won't even ask you your name. You can let us out of the house in time for us to catch the first train from Euston. We shall be off and away before we are discovered.”
“And we'll remember you all our lives if you'll help us,” said Nora. Then she added, tears filling her pretty eyes, “It's my father, please, kind woman; he has been shot at and is very ill.”
“And who wants to keep you from your father, you poor thing?” said the woman. “Oh, if it's that, and there's no lovers in the question, I don't mind helping you both. It don't do for young girls to be wandering about the streets alone at night. You come with me, honeys. I can't take you for nothing, but I'll give you supper and breakfast, and the best bed I can, for five shillings.”
Accordingly, in Mrs. Terry's company, the two girls left Waterloo Station. She walked down a somewhat narrow side-street, crossed another, and they presently found themselves in a little, old-fashioned square. The square was very old indeed, belonging to quite a dead-and-gone period of the world. The woman stopped at a house which once had been large and stately; doubtless in days gone by it had sheltered goodly personages and had listened to the laughter of the rich and well-to-do; but in its old age the house was let out in tenements, and Mrs. Terry owned a couple of rooms at the very top.
She took the girls up the dirty stairs, opened the door of a not uncomfortable sitting room, and ushered them in.
“There now, honeys,” she said; “the best I can do for you both is the sofa for one and my bed for the other.”
“No, no,” said Nora, “we would not dream of taking your bed; and, for that matter, I could not sleep,” she added. “If you will let me have a couple of chairs I shall lie down on them and wait as best I can until the morning. Oh, I have often done it at home and thought it great fun.”
“Well, you must each have a bit of supper first; it don't do for young girls to go to bed hungry, more particularly when they have a journey before them. I'll get you some bread and cheese and a glass of milk each—unless, indeed, you would prefer beer?”
“Oh, no, we would much rather have milk,” said Molly.
The woman bustled about, and soon came in with a jug of milk, a couple of glasses, some bread, and some indifferent butter.
“You can have the cheese if you really want it,” she said.
“No; this will do beautifully,” answered Nora.
“Well then, my dears, I'll leave you now for the night. The lamp will burn all night. It will be lonely for young girls to be in the dark; and I'll promise to call you at five o'clock. There's a train leaves Euston between six and seven that you had better catch, unless you want them as is hindering you from flight to stop you. I am interested in this poor young lady who wants to see her father.”
“Oh, thank you; you are a perfect darling!” said Nora. “I'll come and see you some day when I am happy again, and tell you all about it.”
“Bless your kind heart, honey! I'm glad to be able to do something for those who are in trouble. Now then, lie down and have a bit of sleep. I'll wake you sure and certain, and you shan't stir, the two of you, until you have had a hot cup of tea each.”
Mrs. Terry was as good as her word. She called the girls in good time, and gave them quite a comfortable breakfast before they started. The tea was hot; the bread was good—what else did they want?
Nora awoke from a very short and broken slumber.
“Soon I shall be back again,” she thought. “No matter how changed and ruined the place is, I shall be with him once more. Oh, my darling, my heart's darling, I shall kiss you again! Oh! I am happy at the thought.”
Mrs. Terry herself accompanied them to Euston. It was too early to get a cab; she asked them if they were good walkers. They said they were. She took them by the shortest routes; and, somewhat tired, but still full of a strange exultation, they found themselves at the great station. Mrs. Terry saw them into their train, and with many loudly uttered blessings started them on their journey. She would not touch anything more than the five shillings, and tears were in her eyes as she looked her last at them.
“God bless them, and particularly that little Irish girl. Haven't she just got the cunningest, sweetest way in all the world?” thought the good woman. “I do hope her father will be better when she gets to him. Don't she love him just!”
Yes, it had been the most daring scheme, the wildest sort of adventure, for two girls to undertake, and yet it was crowned with success. They were too far on their journey for Mrs. Hartrick, however much she might wish it, to rescue them. She might be as angry as she pleased; but nothing now could get them back. She accordingly did the very best thing she could do—telegraphed to Mr. Hartrick to say that they had absolutely run away, but begged of him to meet them in Dublin. This the good man did. He met them both on the pier, received them quietly, without much demonstration; but then, looking into Nora's anxious face, his own softened.
“You have come, Nora, and against my will,” he said. “Are you sorry?”
“Not a bit, Uncle George,” she answered. “I would have come against the wills of a thousand uncles if father were ill.”
“Then I have nothing to say,” he answered, with a smile, “at least to you; but, Molly, I shall have something to talk to you about presently.”
“It was very good of you to meet us, father. Was mother terribly angry?”
“What could you expect her to be? You have behaved very badly.”
“I don't think so. I did the only possible thing to save Nora's heart from breaking.”
“It seems to me,” said Mr. Hartrick slowly, “that you all think of nothing but the heart of Nora. I am almost sorry now that I ever asked her to come to us in England.”
“Oh, it's home again; it's home again!” cried the Irish girl as she paced up and down the platform. “Molly, do listen to the brogue. Isn't it just delicious? Come along, and let's talk to this poor old Irish beggar.”
“Oh, but he doesn't look at all pleasant,” said Molly, backing a little.
“Bless the crayther, but he is pleasant,” said Nora. “I must go and have a chat with him.” She caught hold of Molly's hand, and dragged her to the edge of the pavement, where an old man, with almost blind eyes, was seated in front of a large basket of rosy apples.
“And how are you this morning, father?” said Nora.
“Oh, then, it's the top of the morning to yez, honey,” was the instant reply. “And how is yourself?”
“Very well indeed,” said Nora.
“Then it's I that am delighted to see yez, though see yez I can't. Oh, then, I hope that it's a long life and plenty you'll have before you, my sweet, dear, illigant young lady—a good bed to lie on, and plenty to eat and drink. If you has them, what else could ail yez? Good-by to yez; good-by to yez.”
Nora slipped a couple of pence into his hand.
“The blessings of the Vargin and all the Saints be on your head, miss. Oh! it's I that am glad to see yez. God's blessing on yez a thousand times.”
Nora took the old man's hand and wrung it. He raised the white little hand to his lips and kissed it.
“There now,” he said, “I have kissed yez; and these lips shan't see wather again for many a long day—that they shan't. I wouldn't wash off the taste of your hand, honey, for a bag of yellow gold.”
“What an extraordinary man!” said Molly. “Have you known him all your life?”
“Known him all my life!” said Nora. “Never laid eyes on him before; that's the way we always talk to one another. Oh, I can tell you we love each other here in Ireland.”
“It seems so,” answered Molly, in some astonishment. “Dear me! if you address a total stranger so, how will you speak to those you really love?”
“You wait and see,” answered Nora, her dark-blue eyes shining, and a mist of tears dimming their brightness; “you wait and see. Ah, it's past words we are sometimes; but you wait and you'll soon see.”
Mr. O'Shanaghgan was pronounced better, although Mr. Hartrick had to admit that he was weak and fretful; and, now that Nora had come, it was extremely likely that her presence would do her father a sight of good.
“I knew it, Uncle George,” she answered as they seated themselves in the railway carriage preparatory to going back to O'Shanaghgan—“I knew it, and that was why I came. You, uncle, are very wise,” she added; “and yours is a beautiful, neat, orderly country; and you are very kind, and very clever; and you have been awfully good to the Irish girl—awfully good; and she is very ignorant; and you know a great deal; but one thing she does know best, and that is, the love and the longing in the heart of her own dear father. Oh, hurrah! I'm home again; I'm home again! Erin go bragh! Erin go bragh!”
The somewhat slow Irish train jogged along its way; it never put itself out, did that special train, starting when it pleased, and arriving when it chose at its destination. Its guard, Jerry by name, was of a like mind with itself; there was no hurry about Jerry; he took the world “aisy,” as he expressed it.
“What's the good of fretting?” he used to say. “What can't be cured must be endured. I hurry no man's cattle; and my train, she goes when she likes, and I aint going to hurry her, not I.”
On one occasion Jerry was known to remark to a somewhat belated traveler:
“Why, then, miss, is it hurrying ye are to meet the train? Why, then, you can take your time.”
“Oh, Jerry!” said this anxious person, fixing her eyes on his face in great excitement, “I forgot a most important parcel at a shop half a mile away.”
“Run and fetch it, then, honey,” replied Jerry, “and I'll keep her a bit longer.”
This the lady accordingly did. When she returned, the heads of all the other angry passengers were out of the windows expostulating with Jerry as to the cause of the delay.
“Hurry up, miss,” he said then. He popped her into a compartment, and she, as he called the train, moved slowly out of the station.
At times, too, without the smallest provocation, Jerry would stop this special train because a little “pigeen” had got off one of the trucks and was running along the line. He and the porter shouted and raced after the animal, caught it, and brought it back to the train. On another occasion he calmly informed a rather important passenger, “Ye had best get out here, for she's bust.” “She” happened to be the engine.
Into this train now got English Molly and Irish Nora. Mr. Hartrick pronounced it quite the vilest service he had ever traveled by. He began to grumble the moment he got into the train.
“It crawls,” he said; “and it absolutely has the cheek to call itself an express.”
But Nora, with her head out of the window, was shouting to Jerry, who came toward her full of blessings, anxious to shake her purty white hand, and telling her that he was as glad as a shower of gould to have her back again in the old country.
At last, however, the slow, very slow journey came to an end; and just after sunset the party found themselves at the little wayside station. Here a sight met Nora's eyes which displeased her exceedingly. Instead of the old outside car which her father used to drive, with the shabby old retainer, whose livery had long ago seen its best days, there arrived a smart groom, in the newest of livery, with a cockade in his hat. He touched his hat respectfully to Mr. Hartrick, and gave a quick glance round at Nora and Molly.
“Is the brougham outside, Dennis?” was Mr. Hartrick's response.
“Yes, sir; it has been waiting for half an hour; the train is a bit late, as usual, sir.”
“You need not tell me that this train is ever in time,” said Mr. Hartrick. “Well, girls, come along; I told Dennis to meet us, and here we are.”
Molly thought nothing at all of the neat brougham, with its pair of spirited grays; she was accustomed to driving in the better-class of carriage all her life; but Nora turned first pale and then crimson. She got into the carriage, and sat back in a corner; tears were brimming to her eyes.
“This is the first. How am I to bear all the rest?” she said to herself.
Mr. Hartrick, who had hoped that Nora would be pleased with the brougham, with Dennis himself, with the whole very stylish get-up, was mortified at her silence, and, taking her hand, tried to draw her out.
“Well, little girl,” he said, “I hope you will like the improvements I have made in the Castle. I have done it all at your instigation, remember.”
“At my instigation?” cried Nora. “Oh, no, Uncle George, that you have not.”
He looked at her in some amazement, then closed his lips, and said nothing more. Molly longed to get her father alone, in order to explain Nora's peculiar conduct.
“It is difficult for an Englishman to understand her,” thought Molly. “I do, and I think her altogether charming; but father, who has gone to this enormous expense and trouble, will be put out if she does not show a little gratitude. I will tell her that she must; I will take the very first opportunity.”
And now they were turning in at the well-known gates. These gates were painted white, whereas they had been almost reduced to their native wood. The avenue was quite tidy, no weeds anywhere; but Nora almost refused to look out. One by one the familiar trees seemed to pass by her as she was bowled rapidly along in the new brougham, as if they were so many ghosts saying good-by. But then there was the roar—the real, real, grand roar—of the Atlantic in her ears. No amount of tidiness, nothing could ever alter that sound.
“Oh, hurrah for the sea!” she said. She flung down the window and popped out her head.
Mr. Hartrick nodded to Molly. “She will see a great deal more to delight her than just the old ocean,” he said.
Molly was silent. They arrived at the house; the butler was standing on the steps, a nice, stylish-looking Englishman, in neat livery. He came down, opened the carriage door, let down the steps, and offered his arm to Nora to alight; but she pushed past him, bounded up the steps, and the next moment found herself in her mother's arms.
“How do you do, my dear Nora?” said Mrs. O'Shanaghgan. “I am glad to see you, dear, but also surprised. You acted in your usual headstrong fashion.”
“Oh, another time, mother. Mummy, how are you? I am glad to see you again; but don't scold me now; just wait. I'll bear it all patiently another time. How is the dad, mummy?—how is the dad?”
“Your father is doing nicely, Nora; there was not the slightest occasion for you to hurry off and give such trouble and annoyance.”
“I don't suppose I have given annoyance to father,” said Nora. “Where is he—in his old room?”
“No; we moved him upstairs to the best bedroom. We thought it the wisest thing to do; he was in considerable pain.”
“The best bedroom? Which is the best bedroom?” said Nora. “Your room, mummy?”
“The room next to mine, darling. And just come and have a look at the drawing room, Nora.”
“I will go to father first,” said Nora. “Don't keep me; I can't stay.”
She forgot Molly; she forgot her uncle; she even forgot her mother. In a moment she was bounding upstairs over those thick Axminster carpets—those awful carpets, into which her feet sank—down a corridor, also heavily lined with Axminster, past great velvet curtains, which seemed to stifle her as she pushed them aside, and the next instant she had burst open a door.
In the old days this room had been absolutely destitute of furniture. In the older days again it had been the spare room of Castle O'Shanaghgan. Here hospitality had reigned; here guests of every degree had found a hearty welcome, an invitation to stay as long as they pleased, and the best that the Castle could afford for their accommodation. When Nora had left O'Shanaghgan, the only thing that had remained in the old room was a huge four-poster. Even the mattress from this old bed had been removed; the curtains had been taken from the windows; the three great windows were bare of both blinds and curtains. Now a soft carpet covered the entire floor; a neat modern Albert bed stood in a recess; there were heavy curtains to the windows, and Venetian blinds, which were so arranged as to temper the light. But the light of the sunset had already faded, and it was twilight when Nora popped her wild, excited little face round the door.
In the bed lay a gaunt figure, unshaven, with a beard of a week's growth. Two great eyes looked out of caverns, then two arms were stretched out, and Nora was clasped to her father's breast.
“Ah, then, I have you again; may God be praised for all His mercies,” said the Squire in a great, deep hoarse voice.
Nora lay absolutely motionless for nearly half a minute in his arms, then she raised herself.
“Ah,” she said, “that was good. I hungered for it.”
“And I also hungered for it, my darling,” said the Squire. “Let me look at you, Light o' the Morning; get a light somehow, and let me see your bonny, bonny, sweet, sweet face.”
“Ah, there's a fire in the grate,” said Nora. “Are there any matches?”
“Matches, bedad!” said the Squire; “there's everything that's wanted. It's perfectly horrible. They are in a silver box, too, bedad! What do we want with it? Twist up a bit of paper, do, Nora, like a good girl, and light the glim the old way.”
Nora caught at her father's humor at once. She had already flung off her hat and jacket.
“To be sure I will,” she said, “and with all the heart in the world.” She tore a long strip from the local paper, which was lying on a chair near by, twisted it, lit it in the fire, and then applied it to a candle.
“Only light one candle, for the love of heaven, child,” said the Squire. “I don't want to see too many of the fal-lals. Now then, that's better; bring the light up to the bed. Oh, what I have suffered with curtains, and carpets, and—-”
“It's too awful, father,” said Nora.
“That's it, child. That's the first cheery word I have heard for the last six weeks—too awful I should think it is. They are smothering me between them, Nora. I shall never get up and breathe the free air again; but when you came in you brought a breath of air with you.”
“Let's open the window. There's a gale coming up, We'll have some air,” said Nora.
“Why, then, Light o' the Morning, they say I'll get bronchitis if the window is opened.”
“They! Who are they?” said Nora, with scorn.
“Why, you wouldn't believe it, but they had a doctor down from Dublin to see me. I don't believe he had a scrap of real Irish blood in him, for he said I was to be nursed and messed over, and gruels and all kinds of things brought to my bedside—I who would have liked a fine potato with a pinch of salt better than anything under the sun.”
“You'll have your potato and your pinch of salt now that I am back,” said Nora. “I mean to be mistress of this room.”
The Squire gave a laugh.
“Isn't it lovely to hear her?” he said. “Don't it do me a sight of good? There, open the window wide, Nora, before your mother comes in. Oh, your mother is as pleased as Punch, and for her sake I'd bear a good deal; but I am a changed man. The old times are gone, never to return. Call this place Castle O'Shanaghgan. It may be suitable for an English nobleman to live in, but it's not my style; it's not fit for an Irish squire. We are free over here, and we don't go in for luxuries and smotherations.”
“Ah, father, I had to go through a great deal of that in England,” said Nora. “It's awful to think that sort of life has come here; but there—there's the window wide open. Do you feel a bit of a breeze, dad?”
“To be sure I do; let me breathe it in. Prop me up in bed, Nora. They said I was to lie flat on my back, but, bedad! I won't now that you have come back.”
Nora pushed some pillows under her father, and sat behind him to support him, and at last she got him to sit up in bed with his face turned to the wide-open window.
The blinds were rattling, the curtains were being blown into the room, and the soft, wild sound of the sea fell on his ears.
“Ah, I'm better now,” he said; “my lungs are cleared at bit. You had best shut the window before your lady-mother comes in. And put the candle so that I can't see the fal-lals too much,” he continued; “but place it so that I can gaze at your bonny face.”
“You must tell me how you were hurt, father, and where.”
“Bedad! then, I won't—not to-night. I want to have everything as cheerful as possible to-night. My little girl has come back—the joy of my heart, the light of my eyes, the top of the morning, and I'm not going to fret about anything else.”
“You needn't—you needn't,” said Nora. “Oh! it is good to see you again. There never was anybody like you in all the world. And you were longing for Nora?”
“Now, don't you be fishing.”
“But you were—wern't you?”
“To be sure—to be sure. Here, then, let me grip hold of your little hand. I never saw such a tiny little paw. And so they haven't made a fine English lady of you?”
“No, not they,” said Nora.
“And you ran away to see your old dad? Why, then, you have the spirit of the old O'Shanaghgans in you.”
“Horses would not have kept me from you,” said Nora.
“I might have known as much. How I laughed when your mother brought in the telegram from your Aunt Grace this morning! And weren't they in a fuss, and wasn't your Uncle George as cross as he could be, and your mother rampaging up and down the room until I said, 'If you want to bring on the fever, you'll go on like that, Ellen; and then she went out, and I heard her talking to your uncle in the passage. Clap, clap went their tongues. I never knew anything like English people; they never talk a grain of anything amusing; that's the worst of it. Why, it's the truth I'm telling you, darling; I haven't had a hearty laugh since you left home. I'll do fine now. When they were out of the room didn't I give way! I gave two loud guffaws, that I did, when I thought of the trick you had played them. Ah, you're a true daughter of the old race!”
Nora nestled up to her father, squeezing his hand now and then, and looking into his face.
“We'll have a fine time to-morrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next,” she said. “Oh! I am determined to be near you. But isn't there one little place in the house left bare, father, where we can go and have a happy moment?”
“Never a square inch,” said the Squire, looking at her solemnly. “It's too awful; even the attics have been cleared out and put in order, for the servants, forsooth! says your Uncle George.”
“What do we want so many retainers for? I am sure, now, if they would take a good houseful of some of the poor villagers and plant them up in those attics, there would be some sense in it.”
“Oh, Nora, couldn't we get a bit of a place just like the old place, all to ourselves?”
“I'll think it over,” said Nora; “we'll manage somehow. We can't stand feather-beds for ever and ever, father.”
“Hark to her,” said the Squire; “you're a girl after my own heart, Light o' the Morning, and it's glad I am to see you, and to have you back again.”
While Nora and her father were talking together there came a sound of a ponderous gong through the house.
“What's that?” said Nora, starting.
“You may well ask 'What's that?'” replied the Squire. “It's the dinner-gong. There's dinner now in the evening, bedad! and up to seven courses, by the same token. I sat out one or two of them; but, bless my soul! I couldn't stand too much of that sort of thing. You had best go and put on something fine. Your mother dresses in velvet and silk and jewels for dinner. She looks wonderful; she is a very fine woman indeed, is your mother. I am as proud as Punch of her; but, all the same, it is too much to endure every day. She is dressed for all the world as though she were going to a ball at the Lord-Lieutenant's in Dublin. It's past standing; but you had best go down and join 'em, Norrie.”
“Not I. I am going to stay here,” said Nora.
“No, no, darling pet; you had best go down, enjoy your dinner, and come back and tell me about it. It will be fun to hear your description. You mimic 'em as much as you like, Norrie; take 'em off. Now, none of your coaxing and canoodling ways; off you go. You shall come back later on, and tell me all about it. Oh, they are stiff and stately, and they'll never know you and I are laughing at 'em up our sleeves. Now, be off with you.”
So, unwillingly, Nora went. In the corridor outside she met her cousin Molly.
“Why, you haven't begun to dress yet,” said Molly; “and I'm going down to dinner.”
“Bother dress!” said Nora. “I am home again. Mother can't expect me to dress.” She rushed past her cousin. She was too excited to have any sympathy then with English Molly. She ran up to her own room, and stood with a sense of dismay on the threshold. It had always been a beautiful room, with its noble proportions and its splendid view; and it was now furnished exquisitely as well.
Mrs. O'Shanaghgan had great taste. She had taken immense pains with Nora's room; had thought it all out, and got it papered and painted after a scheme of color of her own. The furniture was of light wood—the room was fit to be the bower of a gracious and lovely maiden; there were new books in the little bookcase hanging up by the bedside. Everything was new and everything was beautiful. There was no sense of bad taste about the room; it was furnished harmoniously.
Nora stood and gazed at it, and her heart sank.
“Oh! it is kind of mother; it is beautiful,” she said to herself; “but am I never, never, never to lie down in the little old bed again? Am I never to pour water out of the cracked old jug? Am I never to look at myself in the distorted glass? Oh, dear! oh, dear! how I did love looking at myself in the old glass, which made one cheek much more swollen than the other, and one eyebrow went up a quarter of an inch above the other, and my mouth was a little crooked! It is perfectly horrid to know one's self all one's life long with a swollen cheek and a crooked mouth, and then see classical features without a scrap of fun in them. Oh, dear! But I suppose I had best get ready.”
So Nora washed her face and hands, and ran downstairs. The dining room looked heavy and massive, and the footman and the butler attended noiselessly; and Mr. Hartrick at the foot of the table and Mrs. O'Shanaghgan at the head looked as stately a pair as could be found in the length and breadth of the land.
Molly, nicely dressed in her dinner-frock, was quite in keeping with the elder pair; but wild Nora, still wearing her gray traveling-dress, felt herself out of place. Her cheeks were flushed with the excitement of seeing her father; her hair was wild and disarranged. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan looked at her all over with marked disapproval.
“Why, she looks scarcely pretty,” thought the mother to herself. “How tired and fagged she appears! Dear, dear! if after all the trouble I have gone to, Nora disappoints me in this way, life will really not be worth living.”
But Mrs. O'Shanaghgan could scarcely suppress the joy which was now filling her life. She was the mistress of a noble home; she was at the head of quite the finest establishment in the county. Already all the best county folk had called upon her several times.
It is sad to state that these great and rich people had rather neglected the lady of the Castle during the last few years; but now that she drove about behind a pair of horses, that her house was refurnished, that wealth seemed to have filled all her coffers, she was certainly worth attending to.
“Now that you have come back, Nora,” said her mother in the course of the meal, “I wish to say that I have several invitations for you, and that Molly can accept too.” She looked with kindness at Molly, who, if only Nora had been happy, would have thoroughly enjoyed herself.
“I must show you the drawing room after dinner, my dear,” said her mother. “It is really a magnificent room. And I must also show you my morning room, and the library, and your father's smoking room.”
“This is a splendid house, you know, Ellen,” said Mr. Hartrick to his sister, “and pays for doing up. Why, a house like this in any habitable part of England would fetch a colossal fortune.”
Nora sighed and shrugged her shoulders. Molly glanced at her, and the word “Jehoshaphat!” was almost trembling on her lips. She kept it back, however; she was wonderfully on her good behavior to-night. At last the long and dreary meal came to an end. Nora could scarcely suppress her yawns of utter weariness. She began to think of nothing but lying down, shutting her eyes, and going into a long and dreamless slumber.
Mrs. O'Shanaghgan rose from the table and sailed out of the room. A footman flung open the door for her, and Nora and Molly followed in her wake.
“I'll be with you presently in the drawing room, Ellen,” said Mr. Hartrick to his sister; “but first of all I'll just go up and have a smoke with O'Shanaghgan. You found your father much better to-night, did you not, Nora?”
“I thought father looked very bad indeed,” said Nora. She could not add another word; she went out into the hall.
Mrs. O'Shanaghgan took her hand, squeezing it up in a tight pressure.
“You ought not to speak in that tone to your uncle,” she said; “you can never, never know all that he has done for us. He is the noblest, the most generous, the best man in the world.”
“Oh, I know all that, mother; I know all that,” said Nora. She did not add, “But for me he would never have done it. It was I who inserted the thin edge of the wedge.” Her tone was gentle; her mother looked at her with a softening of her own face.
“Well, dear,” she said, “your Uncle George has taken a great fancy to you. Notwithstanding your eccentricities, Nora—and they are considerable—he says you have the making of a fine girl. But come, we must not neglect your cousin. Come here, dear Molly; you and Nora will be interested in seeing what a beautiful place Castle O'Shanaghgan is now.”
Molly took hold of Nora's other hand, and they entered the drawing room. It was lit with soft candles in many sconces; the blinds were down; across the windows were drawn curtains of Liberty silk of the palest, softest shade of rose. On the floor was a carpet of many soft colors cunningly mingled. The walls were painted a pale artistic green, large mirrors were introduced here and there, and old family portraits, all newly framed, of dead and gone O'Shanaghgans, hung on the painted walls. There were new tables, knick-knacks—all the various things which constitute the drawing room of an English lady.
Nora felt for one brief, passionate, angry moment that she was back again at The Laurels; but then, seeing the light in her mother's eyes, the pink flush of happiness on her cheeks, she restrained herself.
“It makes you happy, mummy,” she said, “and——”
“But what do you think of it, my darling?”
“It is a very beautiful room.”
“Ah! that is right. I thought my little wildflower would appreciate all these things when she came back again. Ah, Nora! you have been a naughty, wild imp; but your father was delighted when he heard what you had done. Of course I am terribly angry.”
“No, you are not, mummy; you are pleased to see me again.”
“I am glad to have you back, Nora; but as to being pleased, how could I be? However, you can stay here for a fortnight or so now that you have come; and then, when your dear uncle leaves us, you and Molly can go back with him.”
Nora did not say anything; but a stubborn look came into her face which her mother knew of old.
From the drawing room they went to the library, which had also undergone complete rejuvenation. The walls were laden with standard works of different kinds; but some of the shelves were still empty.
“The old books, your uncle says, were of great value,” said Mrs. O'Shanaghgan, “and he sent them all to Dublin to be rebound. They have not come back yet. They are to be bound in old calf, and will suit the rest of the room. Is it not a magnificent apartment?”
Nora said “Yes” in a somewhat dreamy voice.
They then went to her mother's morning-room, and then on to the Squire's smoking-room.
“They might at least have left this alone,” thought the girl. “They might at least have left this one room, where he could retire when he felt quite choked by all the furniture in the rest of the place.”
But even the Squire's smoking-room was changed into the smoking-room of an English gentleman. There were deep easy-chairs covered with leather; there were racks for pipes, and great brass dogs before the fireplace; on the floor was a thick carpet. Nora felt as if she longed to give it a savage kick.
At last the terrible ordeal of going through the—to her, utterly ruined—house was over, and she and Molly found themselves alone.
“I will go up to your father for a few minutes,” said Mrs. O'Shanaghgan, nodding to Nora. “You and your cousin will like to have a chat; and then, my dears, I should recommend you both to go to bed as early as possible.”
When they were back again in the big drawing room Nora gave Molly a wild look.
“Come out,” she said; “at least out of doors the air is the same as of old.”
Molly caught up a shawl and wrapped it round her head; but Nora went out just as she was.
“You'll catch cold,” said English Molly.
“I catch cold in my native land!” replied Irish Nora. “How little you know me! Oh, come, Molly, I am going to be wild; I am going to give way.”
They both stepped outside on the broad gravel sweep. The moon was up, and it was shining over everything. In the moonlight Castle O'Shanaghgan looked very much as it had done before. The moon had always glorified the old place, and it glorified it still. Nora stood and gazed around her; up to the tops of the mountains, with their dark summits clearly defined against the evening sky; across the wide breadth of the Atlantic; over the thick plantations, the fields, and the huge trees in the background.
“It's all the same,” she said, with a glad laugh; “thank God it is all the same. Even your father, Molly, cannot destroy the place outside, at least.”
“Oh Nora, it is such a lovely, lovely place!” said Molly. “Cannot you be happy in it with its modern dress?”
“Happy,” said Nora, suddenly brought back to her sense of misery by the word. “I am thankful that my father is not so ill; but—but you must help, Molly. Promise that you will.”
“I am sure I'd do anything in the world,” said Molly. “I think I have been very good to-day. I have kept in my naughty words, Jehoshaphat and Moses and Elephants, and all the rest. What do you want me to do, Nora?”
“We must get him out of that room,” said Nora.
“Him? You mean your father?”
“Yes; he will never recover there. I have been thinking and thinking, and I'll have my plan ready by the morning; only you must help me. I'll get Hannah Croneen to come in, and we'll do it between us if you can help me.”
“But what is it?” said Molly.
“I'll tell you in the morning; you wait and see.”