It was a soft and exquisite autumn afternoon. A delicate blue haze
lay over the hills; the dense, dark woods were steeped in breathless
silence, and the only sound that caught the ear, was the rattle of
a reaping machine. As Lord Mulgrave and Mr. Usher turned down the
long, straight road leading to Foley’s Corner, the earl was livid,
his expression was set; evidently he was struggling in the grip
of some vehement emotion, and the name of this disturbing element
was “suspense.” Would it be true? or false? Would it be Joseline’s
daughter? or some raw, uncouth stranger? Was it the wild-goose chase
his wife had predicted, or the pursuit and capture of happiness? Oh,
these next ten minutes would mean so much to him; he almost felt, this
self-contained man, as if he were treading on the very boundaries of
life and death.
“Joseline’s daughter,” he was saying to himself. “Joseline’s daughter.”
Mr. Usher, instinctively aware that his companion was in a highly
strung and nervous condition, like the wise little man he was, held his
peace; yes, even when they came within full view of the slated house,
with its commonplace white face half hidden by a veil of crimson roses.
“There she is!” he exclaimed abruptly.
Yes; standing at the farthest side from them, attended by a terrier,
feeding a multitude of bold and presumptuous poultry, stood Mary
herself.
“See, now! that’s all I have for ye,” she declared, as she tossed the
last crumbs away, and a race ensued between a strong-limbed cochin and
a dissipated-looking hen turkey. The bang of the gate caused her to
turn her head, and she beheld, to her surprise, the “little grey man,”
as she called him, and a fine, tall gentleman; and little did she guess
how deeply he was agitated.
“Here I am again, Mary!” announced Mr. Usher, with an off-hand air. “I
thought, as we were just passing, we would look in and bid you the time
of the day!”
“And kindly welcome.” As she spoke she glanced up at the stranger; he
was awfully white, and his eyes, as he looked into hers, seemed to
pierce down to her very heart. “What ailed the poor gentleman?” she
wondered; “was he taken bad?” Yes; he suddenly sat down on a bench
outside the door, and, in a husky tone, asked for a “glass of water.”
He really seemed faint and come over, and Mary hastened into the house,
and presently returned with a brimming tin porringer.
As he sipped it, the hand which held the porringer shook visibly, and
Mr. Usher, in order to make a diversion, inquired--
“How is your mother to-day, Mary?”
Lord Mulgrave started violently.
“Deed then, your honour,” she replied, “she is in a way better. She is
sitting up, and the pains are gone, but her head is bothersome.”
From within a shrill old voice called out querulously:
“What are you after? Who is it that’s talking to your ladyship?”
“There it is!” she ejaculated. “The head of the poor thing is not
right. Maybe”--hesitating--“you’ll come inside? or will the other
gentleman?”
“Thank you,” he interrupted, “yes--yes, if you will permit me, I should
like to see your--Mrs. Foley.”
Mary instantly pushed back the half-door, and ushered in the visitors.
Old Katty was seated in a comfortable chair near the window. On her lap
lay a peculiarly complacent white cat, whose loud purrings testified to
its supreme satisfaction, although she had the fur half singed off one
side, and was in appearance the very lowest of the lower order of the
great tribe, with a thin, pointed head, and a disgracefully dirty face.
Mrs. Foley, on the other hand, presented the remains of remarkably good
breeding and good looks--slender and erect, with well-cut features,
wavy black hair, but slightly powdered with grey, and dark, deep-set,
tragic eyes. She bore but scant resemblance to her half-sister--the
sandy, mealy-skinned, peevish Mrs. Grogan--and had made the more
successful match of the two sisters.
“Here’s two gentlemen, mother!” was Mary’s somewhat vague introduction.
Mrs. Foley slowly turned her great melancholy eyes, first on Mr. Usher
and then on his companion. As she gazed she suddenly seized the arms
of her chair, rose to her feet and cried, “God help me! ’tis the earl
himself!” and she trembled violently from head to foot.
“Now, can’t ye sit down, mother,” protested Mary, “and don’t be
exciting yourself. Sure, ’tis only a chance friend of the visitors from
the ‘Glenveigh’ as has looked in.”
Mrs. Foley threw herself back in her chair, and, rocking to and fro,
began to wail and sob.
“Oh, my sin has found me out. Wirrah, wirrah, asthue! My sin has found
me out! You’ve come to put me in jail and take her away at last.”
“Katty Foley,” he replied, “I will do you no injury in any way, you may
be certain of that”--and his voice was strong and encouraging. “But I
implore you to tell me the truth.”
“Aye, your honour,” she moaned, “I will so, and sure, haven’t I been
telling it this twelvemonth, and not a soul will believe me!”
“I will believe you, I promise you on my honour.”
“Ye may think I am mad, but it was only _bad_ I was; yer lordship will
remember when I was sent for to take the poor little motherless babe?”
He nodded his head gravely.
“Oh, it was a fair and lovely darlin’, and so fine and healthy; but
my own little girl grew droopy and pined--I’ve had four, and I never
reared one. It killed me to see them just fading off and my heart
withering along with them. When my little Mary--God rest her!--died,
quite sudden, I was nearly crazy, but that other little one was a
consolation, and as I lay in the bed I made up my mind I’d keep her
for my own. Oh, wasn’t I the wicked woman? I had no scruple. Oh, may
the saints pity me! But the little live warm child just caught me by
the heart”--her voice rose to a wail of agony; “_how_ could I send her
away, and sit again by the empty cradle?”
She came to a pause, fighting for breath and overcome by the violence
of her emotion.
“And how did you do it?” he inquired in a low voice.
“I kep’ my own baby well covered up, and the room within dark; and John
telegraphed over, and there was a great stir, and a mighty gay little
funeral; and no one knew--for young babies is so similar--that it was
my own little girlie, I laid in the beautiful white and silver coffin
under the flowers.”
“Tell me”--leaning forward as he spoke--“did no one ever suspect you?”
“Sorra a wan, but Mike over beyant at Lota. When he saw the child
growing up he would come to the gate there and just stand and look over
at her and then at _me_, in a way that put the fear of death in me. You
see, he had worked for her ladyship; he saw the _likeness_; he saw her
walking, living, talking image. Sure, don’t you see it, sir, yourself?”
“Yes, I do,” he asserted gravely.
“And what are you going to do with me and her?” she asked, in a broken
voice.
“I intend to take her home,” he said quietly.
“Sir, if I’d suspicioned you’d have cared, I’d never have kep her from
ye all these years. I surely believed ye thought yerself well shut of
her. For you will remember as you were terribly bitter against her, and
wouldn’t so much as lay an eye on her.”
“That is true, Katty; but if I had known, she would have been a
wonderful comfort to me.”
As these two talked together, Mary herself listened in white-faced,
petrified silence. Surely she was dreaming! Either that or going out
of her mind! During a sudden pause in the conversation there was not a
sound to be heard, but the distant reaping machine, and the immediate
purring of the white cat.
“Mary,” said the earl, suddenly turning to her, and speaking in a husky
voice, as he took her hand in his. “Do you understand that all your
foster-mother tells us is true, and that you are _my_ daughter?”
Here he looked hard at the little fingers which lay so limply in his
grasp, and Mary, having thrown her apron over her head, burst into a
violent storm of sobbings.
“Oh, no! Faix, I couldn’t face it! No, no, I’m not going out of this,”
she stammered in gasps behind the apron. “Sure, sir, I was born and
reared here; my life is here--not among grand folks.”
“They are your own folks, Mary,” he said gently.
“Well, anyhow”--and she flung down her screen, and flashed upon him a
pair of challenging wet eyes--“I’m no lady, and I’m dog ignorant; so
what can you do with me?”
“Love you, my dear,” he answered, in a low voice.
“Arrah, how could you? and you and me strangers--you a grand lord, and
me just a common girl with no manners, and very foolish and unhandy in
myself? I can’t even do a day’s washing; and the bread I bake turns
out like leather! I’m no good whatever here, and sure I’d be a million
times worse in a strange country!”
“You’re making an awful poor mouth about yourself, Mary asthore,” put
in the high, complaining treble of Mrs. Grogan. “Why don’t ye up and
tell his lordship how good ye are at learning--how ye were in the sixth
book, and if there’d have been a seventh, you’d be in _that_ too?--and
that learning and reading and singing and dancing comes as easy to you
as kiss me hand?”
“Sir,” said Mary, suddenly drawing herself up and confronting him--did
she but know it, with the very face and form of her mother--“I’m no
credit to ye. For God’s sake leave me here, where you found me. It
will be better for both you and me. Think of the awful scandal and
talk it will raise in this parish” (and what of the great Mulgrave
connection?), “and my mother always so respected--when people thought
it was only raving and wake in the head she was. Now, if it is _true_
what she’s after telling us, they will be saying she’d a right to be
jailed up in Tralee!”
“My dear girl,” he said, “since Mrs. Foley has declared before
witnesses and a lawyer, that you are no relation to her, but a very
near relation to _me_, do you suppose I will leave you among people
to whom you have no ties whatever? No; I am much too thankful to have
found a daughter.”
“O God! What ails Katty?” screamed Mrs. Grogan. “Glory! she’s come
over, and she’s going off in a faint and a wakeness!”
This was true. The recent scene and excitement had been too much for
the poor frail woman, and after a few weak gasps she fell back in her
chair insensible.
Cold water was procured immediately, also whisky (Mr. Usher, who looked
the last man in the world to carry a flask, produced one), and then he
and his employer went out of the cottage, leaving the women to attend
on the invalid.
As Lord Mulgrave’s eyes met those of his companion, he said--
“Yes, Usher, she is my child, and her mother’s daughter. Oh, what a
blessing and happiness to come so suddenly, when I thought that life
held no more--that nothing lay before me but the long, monotonous road
that leads to the gate of death. Now I have something to----” He paused
abruptly, and remembered himself. “You see how it is. The discovery of
an unexpected treasure has been a shock, and I’m rambling, from sheer
happiness. I will never forget, Usher, that I owe it chiefly to _you_.”
A frightened face now appeared at the half-door, and Mary said--
“Oh, sir, me mother is took awful bad in her breathing. Will ye go and
send some one for Doctor Manns? I’ve no red ticket,--but we can pay
him.”
The two visitors set off at once, and despatched a doctor post-haste
from Glenveigh, with instructions that no exertions or expense were to
be spared on behalf of Mrs. Foley.
The sick woman remained unconscious for twenty-four hours, and then
rallied; but on the morning of the third day, when Lord Mulgrave walked
over early in order to make his usual inquiries, he was met by Mary at
the gate. Her eyes were red, and her face was sodden with crying.
“Oh, sir,” she began, “sure I see you can guess!” She sobbed aloud, and
the tears poured down her pale cheeks. “She was took off in her sleep
about sunrise. Me mother is dead!”