On the occasion of this visit Miss Usher happened to be laid up with
a severe cold, suspiciously akin to a touch of the “flue,” and was
nursing herself in her sitting-room. Meanwhile, her young companion had
set out for Foley’s Corner, in quest of the white cat, who, despite of
his buttered paws, daily returned to his late abode with praiseworthy
devotion. It was true that the doors and windows were closed, that
there was nothing available to eat or to drink, but nevertheless, he
was to be found sitting with pathetic patience on Katty’s window, or
making the air hideous with his melancholy caterwaulings.
Mary thought but little of the mile and a half distance, and directly
after tea she and “Rap” had departed to fetch “Whitey.” She enjoyed the
walk there, when she could be alone, and think, and as Miss Usher was
not about, she sallied forth, as in former times, in her “hair”--that
is to say, bareheaded, with her hat slung over her arm. She wore a
white spotted cotton dress-an old friend, made by an old friend--the
weather was much too warm for crêpe and wool; and the same friend,
Maggie Kane, met her, and walked part of the way with her, and said
good-bye at the cross above the corner. Maggie’s manner had been a
mixture of constraint and freedom, and Mary had begun to realise the
bitter truth of Miss Usher’s prophecy. Old comrades and schoolfellows
were changed--if she was really her ladyship, she had no call to mix
with them as one of themselves; she had a right to go away. They were
no longer at ease with Mary, nor she with them. Yes; Miss Usher’s plan
was working to admiration. Formerly she went in and out among the
neighbours, and they were only too glad to welcome Mary Foley; but this
grand Lady Joseline was another person. At one time--even three weeks
ago--Mary would have felt broken-hearted to leave them all. Now, much
as she still liked them, and much as she dreaded her future, she was
secretly impatient to depart. Wise old women had given her advice, and
Mrs. Hogan, her former patroness, had said to her privately, “See here,
Mary, me dear! ye have no part nor lot among us _now_; you’re a lady
born, and a titled lady; sure, look at your finger-nails yerself!--and
ye must just make the best of it. I’ve no call whatever to be talking
so free with ye, and I know it; but I’m fond of ye, lovey, and
proud--and so is all the countryside: and we think you should just go
quietly to your own, and get the education, and the airs, as is your
_due_.”
“But I’d ever so much rather stay here!” she protested with tears.
“But you can’t, me dear--ye cannot be fish and fowl at the wan time.
Sure, ye haven’t a soul over here belonging to yer; and it makes people
unaisy in themselves, to be sitting talking to ye, cheek by jowl, as
Mary Foley, knowing as ’tis standing up and dropping curtseys to her
ladyship as they should be half the time. Sometimes I declare when I
think of the liberties I’ve took wid ye as a young girl, I break out
into a cold sweat, saving yer presence.”
“Then I must go,” she cried. “And none of ye want me!” and she burst
into sobs. “Oh, I’d never have believed it of ye!”
“If ’twas only Mary ye wor, we all want ye; and the young boys,
especially Tom Grady, and poor Dan that’s heart-broke, and Patsie
Maguire, that’s killing himself with bad whisky for your sake.”
“Tom! Dan!” repeated the girl; and her face grew scarlet.
“Yes,--see now, the very names brings all the lady’s blood in yer body,
to yer face! ’Tis her ladyship coming out, and proud and haughty, as is
fit for an earl’s daughter.”
“An earl’s daughter!” echoed Mary. “It’s all like a dream. I was better
as I was before, a thousand times!”
“So we would have ye, my dear; but ye must make up yer mind to the
other lot in life. Faix, and it will come aisy. The ould wan above”
(she meant Miss Usher) “know’s what’s what, and will put ye in
training. I’d be entirely said and led by her if I was you. You look a
lady when ye have the hat on, and ye will _be_ a lady yit!”
Mary was thinking over this conversation as she leant against the
gate at Foley’s Corner with “Rap” and the cat sitting sedately beside
her. Miss Usher had talked of leaving as soon as her cold was better,
and as it might be that she was now standing at her lifelong post for
the last time, she fell into a dreamy meditation. The various faces
she remembered seemed to pass the gate in single file. Master Ulick,
on his bay hunter; Old Mike Daly; Kathleen Sullivan, her friend, who
died of a decline, and the match made up and all; Bridgie Curran, her
schoolfellow, whose boy was in America; Timmy Maher, who had asked her
to marry him here at this very spot; Johnny Sugrue, who was killed in
the war; and scores and scores of others. All that life was behind her,
as much as if she were dead. No one would ever come to speak to her
again at the gate. No one--_ever_! She had taken leave of the cottage
which had been the home of many joys and sorrows--and kissed the little
star on the window in token of farewell: for years she had never slept
without first pressing her sweet red lips upon the irresponsive glass;
but of late she had relinquished the habit. What was Mr. Ulick to her?
Or she to Mr. Ulick? The scar was healing--time and silence are great
physicians; yet “the tender grace of a day that was dead” occasionally
stole into her heart, and it was a fact, that the sudden mention of
one name invariably brought the colour to her cheek. Since Ulick Doran
went away he had never sent but one sign; and that, thanks to the
delinquencies of the local post, was fifteen long months, in reaching
its destination.
Judy Flynn was the mistress of a secondary makeshift post office, where
the mail car picked up a small bag, en route from village to village;
and Mrs. Flynn held a licence to sell stamps, as well as tobacco and
tea. Judy was a widow--a character, and a notorious gossip. All the
news in the county emanated from “the cross.” And if tales were true,
no wonder. Judy kept a kettle handy and opened and read every letter
that seemed to her to be of general interest! It was she who made
known how John MacCarthy was owing for seed-potatoes nigh on three
years, and likely to be put in court. How Mary Hannigan’s boy had gone
back on her! Why the Connors were leaving Moreen, and when old Murphy
had married his cook. Her shop was a place of the wildest, maddest
confusion; behind the little counter letters, parcels, canisters of
tobacco, pipes, old newspapers, herrings, and packets of tea, were
inextricably mixed with portions of Mrs. Flynn’s wardrobe.
“If ye will only lave me alone, and don’t moider me, I can lay me hand
on everything,” was her invariable boast. Her business methods were at
least original. Sometimes she went out, locked the door after her, and
left the yawning post-bag hanging on a nail, where the passer-by might
post (or extract) letters, precisely as he or she pleased.
But Judy Flynn, stout survival of old times and ways, continued to
flourish in spite of numerous complaints from afar. When brought
to book, she wept torrents of tears, assuming the attitude of a
persecuted, hard-working widow woman. She had strong local interest;
her backers were sensible that if Judy was superseded, they would lose
much exciting and unexpected information; and as her office was a mere
cross-post, serving a small insignificant district, Judy remained.
One beautiful June afternoon Judy beckoned to Mary Foley, who was
passing her door.
“See here, acushla,” she cried, “there’s been a bit of a parcel for ye
this whiles back. It come one evening, and I put it up safe, and forgot
it, till I found it ’ere last week behind the meal-chest, when I was
looking for a spool. Being a parcel, it’s no harm; if it was a letter
I’d be main sorry; an’ here it is”--dusting it as she spoke.
“For me?” said Mary incredulously.
“Yes. Ye don’t trouble the post much; all yer boys are within spakin’
distance of ye. That thing looks like a book, and is from India.”
“India!” repeated the girl confusedly. “Sure I know no one out there!”
“Oh, yes, me darlin’, ye know _wan_,” replied Mrs. Flynn, with a
significant nod. “I can’t say if it’s in his writing, for the Castle
letters does not come this way.”
Mary made no reply; she tucked the parcel under her arm, and saying,
“Good evening to ye kindly, Mrs. Flynn,” stepped forth.
Poor disappointed Mrs. Flynn remained staring after her, till a turn in
the road hid her figure from sight. Subsequently she told a neighbour
that “Mary Foley was getting a bit crabbed in herself, and looked like
a girl that had something on her _mind_.”
Mary desired to be alone, and far away from every human eye, when
she opened her parcel; she felt instinctively that it came from Mr.
Ulick; he and she had often talked of books; he had offered to lend
her several; he knew that she was a great reader. Anyhow, this book
was a sign that he was thinking of her still. She crossed several
fields by a narrow footpath, and at last, at the back of a stile,
rarely used, halted and proceeded to investigate her treasure. She
studied the writing, the cover, the stamps; finally she cut the string
with her excellent white teeth, and a little volume of poetry was
disclosed--_Songs of the Glens of Antrim_.
Then she sat down in the long grass, and began to examine it carefully.
No name was inscribed within. As she turned over the pages with hasty,
tremulous fingers, she came to one, on which was scrawled, in pencil,
the word “Mary.” Below ran the title: “I mind the day.”
“I mind the day. I wish I was a say-gull flying far,
For then I’d fly and find you in the West;
And I wish I was a little rose--as sweet as roses are,
For then you’d maybe wear it on your breast.
I wish I could be living near to love you day and night,
To let no trouble touch you, or annoy,
I wish I could be dyin’ here to rise a spirit light,
If them above ’ud let me win you joy.
And now I wish no wishes, nor ever fall a tear;
Nor take a thought beyond the way I’m led:
I mind the day that’s overby, and bless the day that’s near,
Then be to come--a day, when we’ll be dead;
A longer, lighter day, when we’ll be dead.”
Mary read this quickly, with a catch in her breath; then slowly;
finally with eyes so dim, that she could scarcely distinguish the
words, and her tears pattered down upon the pages.
This pathetic and touching lament reopened the gates of the poor girl’s
grief. Misery stalked in, and resumed the seat from which, time, youth,
and summer, had almost dislodged her.
Fifteen months previously, a brother officer on the trooper had given
the book to Ulick. Ulick, still smarting from his separation, had found
that the lines exactly interpreted his own feelings, and in a spasm of
imprudent impulse had posted the book to Mary the very day he landed in
Bombay.
And now Mary had received it at last. The poem recalled a bygone
ecstasy that could never, never return, and in a passion of despair,
anguish, and rebellion she cast herself face downwards in the soft June
grass. She might have been lifeless, she remained there so long, and
lay so still; but the birds in the thorn hedge and the bees among the
clover knew better. They heard her low, stifled sobs. It was only a
girl who had lost something--or who had been robbed of her all. Well,
they had known the experience themselves!
The June evening was five years ago, and Mary, like the birds, had
outgrown her heartbreak.
As she stood leaning on the gate for the last time, dreamily reviewing
the past years, there was a loud rumbling, whizzing sound, and a
red motor shot by, leaving a cloud of dust and a hideous smell of
petroleum. This same motor had not travelled half a mile before it
broke down. The by-road was covered with sharp, loose stones, and a
tyre was punctured.
“It will be nothing much,” announced the chauffeur, “but it will take
time.”
“What do you call time?” inquired Sir Harry Coxford.
“About an hour, sir.”
“An hour! How is that hour to be killed?” drawled his companion and
host.
“I know”--slapping his leg. “I noticed a pretty girl at a gate about a
quarter of a mile back--just below a cottage. Let us go and have a look
at her, and a talk.”
“Let us go anywhere and stretch our legs, as long as it is not far.”
“You lazy beggar! I never met your match. You wouldn’t walk half a mile
to look at a pretty face, eh?”
“Not five yards to look at the prettiest face in Ireland. Come on. Lead
the way to the miraculous beauty at the gate. I bet you a sov. she is
ugly, or she has gone.”
“Done!” rejoined Sir Harry, and they strolled along down the straight
road towards the corner.
“No; there she is!” cried Sir Harry. “I see her dress.”
There she was indeed, still leaning on the gate, so absorbed in her own
thoughts that the two gentlemen were within a few yards of her, when
she realised their presence with a violent start.
“Good evening,” said Sir Harry, taking off his cap. He had an affable
manner of talking to refreshment-room young ladies. “You seem buried in
meditation. I’m afraid we disturbed you.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” she answered briskly. Here were some people to
talk and chaff with--her very last visitors.
“I expect you were thinking of _him_,” he suggested, with a significant
glance.
She coloured to her hair, and looked haughty.
“Come, come. A pretty girl like you is bound to have a score of lovers.”
“That’s true!” she assented, with a touch of her old sauciness,
suddenly resolved to act the part of Mary once more--“but _she_ need
never trouble her head to think of them.”
“What were you thinking of, then? I say, if you’ll tell me the honest
truth I’ll give you a sovereign, or rather, this other gentleman will,
for your thoughts.”
“My thoughts are not for sale. They are my own.”
“Very sweet and beautiful they must be.”
“Sometimes.”
“How proud _I_ should be if I might have a place in them!”
She smiled derisively. Really, for a country girl she had a wonderfully
short upper lip.
“Are you often at this gate?”
“I used to be.”
“For any particular reason?”
“Only to see my friends, and pass them the time of day!”
“To see your friends? Yes; but I am sure they found it difficult to
_pass_. The road must have been blocked from end to end!”
“Well, there’s not many about now, as you may notice.”
“Is that thing a cat you have beside you?”
“Yes; it’s the newly-invented Chinese breed.”
“Where did you rise it?”
“It came to the house as a stray kitten. A stray cat coming in like
that brings luck.”
“Well, it’s more like a dilapidated old weasel.”
“Don’t abuse it, sir, if you please, for it has something in common
with your friend, the other gentleman.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, the poor creature is dumb!”
“Ah, ha! There’s a compliment and a challenge for you, Dudley,” he
exclaimed, with a boisterous laugh. “You must pick up the gauntlet.”
“May I ask why you suppose I am dumb?” inquired Captain Deverell, in
his slow voice, looking her over with supercilious eyes.
“Sure I had no reason to suppose otherwise till now.”
“My friend here invariably talks for both. He enjoys it.”
“Yes, and saves your lazy self, a lot of trouble,” amended Sir Henry.
“Conversation is a fag. Do you live here?” he added, looking straight
at Mary.
“I’ve spent my whole life in that cottage.”
“But it looks as if it were unoccupied.”
“It is so.”
“Are you, then, a disembodied spirit or a witch? If so, the cat is the
wrong colour.”
“I am not sure what the word ‘disembodied’ means, but I understand the
word spirit, because I have one.”
“I am glad to hear that,” broke in Sir Harry. “Tell me where you live;
where is your home?”
“My home? Oh, I don’t know where it is, so I cannot oblige ye.”
“Come, come! think again, and I’ll give you a sovereign.”
“You are very free with that sovereign, sir.”
“Yes. This particular one doesn’t happen to be mine. I won it as a bet
from the dumb gentleman. He bet you would not be here. I saw you as we
passed. And he bet something else, too.”
“What else?”
“That you would not be pretty.”
“Neither I am--no more nor yourselves. Are you the two frights in
goggles that went by on the motor? What has become of it?”
“It’s rather delicate just now.”
“Well, then, I’m glad, and I hope it may die. I hate motors!”
“Really. And why?”
“Because they go hooting through the world, never caring what they do.
One of them killed our neighbour’s old dog Joe, too stiff to clear out
of the road; and as to the fowls and ducks they run over, and those no
use after, there are scores!”
“Would you permit me to take a photograph?” said Sir Harry, suddenly
swinging round a small snapshotting camera.
“Certainly, sir. You may take the cat. Here he is,” pulling him up,
“and proud to sit for you”--and she held him in her arms.
A pretty picture! Snap! It was done--“Beauty and the Beast.”
“And now for yourself!”
“What do you want it for, sir?”
“To keep as the portrait of the prettiest Irish girl I’ve ever seen.”
“What would you say, if I told you I was not Irish?”
“Oh, I say! Come”--and he laughed; “you can scarcely expect me to
believe _that_! Now, please stay still for one moment. There! I’ve
taken two.”
“What’s going on here?” said a hoarse voice, and Patsie Maguire came
suddenly through a gap in the opposite wall. Patsie, in his dark blue
Sunday clothes, looking handsome, ill-tempered, and excited.
“I’m after having my picture took,” explained Mary.
“This is a queer sort of business,” he growled, stepping over the
stile, and standing beside her within the gate.
Patsie had “a drop taken,” as the saying is. Raw, bad whisky
was working in his veins; his brain was in a state of wild
confusion--jealousy and vanity were seething within him, and he had
come to the conclusion that he would not let Mary Foley stir a toe out
of the place, dead or alive.
“So yer at yer old games,” he began, in a blustering voice, addressing
himself to Mary, “talking at the corner, talking to any one.
Faith!”--to the strangers--“she’s the gabbiest little divil in Ireland!”
Mary glanced at him furtively. Patsie Maguire was drunk.
“An’ now she’s pratin’ to gentlemen no less; and for a change--but let
me tell ye,”--here he paused and swayed a little--“yer--not--the first
gentlemen--that Mary here--has talked to. Aye”--and his wink expressed
malicious significance--“Mary knows that I’m telling the holy truth,
don’t ye, Mary, me darlin’?”
The girl’s colour had faded; there was a momentary tightening of the
lips, but she merely said--
“Patsie, I’ll thank ye to behave yerself! You don’t know what yer
saying.” What was the use, she said to herself, in argufying with a man
who was not sober? Patsie, when in such a state, was more or less mad.
Had he forgotten, that she was not Mary Foley, now?
They were an uncommonly good-looking couple in Sir Harry’s opinion,
this Irishman and his sweetheart--the one, so fair, vivacious, and in
a way brilliant, with wonderful hair; the other, dark as a Spaniard,
with equally wonderful eyes, undeniably well-favoured, and undeniably
jealous. So this was the fellow she had been thinking of, and
expecting. The gate was their trysting place, and without permission
Sir Harry took a joint photograph of the couple.
“Ye’d no call to do that!” cried Pat. “It’s a shame to steal a person’s
face unknownst.”
“Do you think so?” rejoined Sir Harry airily. “I’ve not the slightest
objection to any one stealing mine.”
“No, for yer quite safe! No one would be at the trouble of taking off
your picture; it’s ugly enough to break the plate!”
“I say, my good fellow,” he cried, colouring up, “don’t presume on my
good-nature. Don’t go too far!”
“Go back to your motor that’s lying up the road there on its belly, and
take a picture of that!” scoffed the Irishman.
“Yes, I suppose”--ignoring this insult, and turning to his
companion--“that we ought to be moving.”
Captain Deverell had made himself comfortable on the wall, and was
smoking a pipe.
“Before I go, won’t you tell me your name?” said Sir Harry, appealing
to Mary. “You are better-looking, and better fun, than half the girls
in England.”
“Thank you kindly, sir, for your good opinion”--and she dropped a
curtsey. “My name is--a secret.”
“I see”--looking significantly at her; “you are soon going to change
it.”
“I am--so.”
“May I be permitted to kiss your pretty little hand?”
“You may, if you please,” and she held it out across the gate.
Sir Harry took it in his, gazed at it in surprise, and pressed his lips
on it. Then he turned it about and squeezed the sovereign into its
small, rosy palm.
“Throw away his dirty money, Mary!” cried Pat. “Tell him yer able to
buy and sell his likes! Throw it in his face, I tell ye!” he shouted
passionately, “do ye hear me!”
These men belonged to the very class who would now come between him
and Mary; he hated them both furiously.
“I tell you what?” said Sir Harry, who had lost his easily mislaid
temper, pushing back the gate as he spoke, “I see that I will have to
give you a thrashing; you are spoiling for it, as they say here”--and
he seized Pat roughly by the coat.
Pat, nothing loth, tore it out of his hand, flung it on the grass,
squared himself, and said: “Come on, me little man! and I’ll soon knock
the head off ye.”
Hearing this challenge, Captain Deverell jumped down with unexpected
agility, caught hold of his companion, and dragged him through the
gate, struggling violently, saying: “For heaven’s sake don’t make an
ass of yourself! Come along, come along--leave the fellow alone. Why
should you interfere with his girl?--how would you like it yourself?”
And the girl called after him, in a clear voice: “Yes; you take your
wan off quietly, sir, and I’ll see, that Patsie Maguire here, keeps
himself in bounds!”