Much as the magnificence and comfort in-doors had astonished Malone, he
was far more captivated by the beauty of the garden. Here were a vast
variety of objects which he could thoroughly appreciate. The luxuriant
vegetation, the fruit-trees bending under their fruit, the proffusion of
rare and rich flowers, the trim order of the whole, that neatness which
the inexperienced eye has seldom beheld, nor can, even when seeing,
credit, struck him at every step; and then there were plants utterly
new and strange to him--pines and pomegranates, and enormous gourds,
streaked and variegated in gorgeous colours, and over and through all a
certain pervading odour that distilled a sense of drowsy enjoyment very
captivating. Never, perhaps, in his whole life, had he so fully brought
home to him the glorious prerogative of wealth, that marvellous
power that culls from life, one by one, every attribute that is
pleasure-giving, and surrounds daily existence with whatever can charm
or beguile.
When he heard from the gardener that Sir Gervais seldom or never came
there, he almost started, and some vague and shadowy doubt shot across
his mind that rich men might not be so triumphantly blessed as he had
just believed them.
“Sure,” he muttered, “if he doesn’t see this he can’t enjoy it, and
if he sees it so often that he doesn’t mind, it’s the same thing. I
wondher, now, would that be possible, and would there ever come a time
to myself when I wouldn’t think this was Paradise.”
He was musing in this wise, when a merry burst of childish laughter
startled him, and at the same instant a little girl bounded over a
melon-frame and ran towards him. He drew aside, and took off his hat
with respectful deference, when suddenly the child stopped, and burst
into a ringing laugh, as she said, “Why, grandfather, don’t you know
me?”
Nor even then did he know her, such a marvellous change had been wrought
in her by one of Ada’s dresses, and a blue ribbon that fastened her hair
behind, and fell floating down her back with the rich golden tresses.
“Sure it isn’t Kitty?” cried he, shading his eyes with his hand.
“And why wouldn’t it be Kitty?” replied she, tartly, and piqued
that her own attractions were not above all adventitious aid. “Is it a
white frock makes me so grand that ye wouldn’t know me again?”
“May I never,” cried he, “but I thought you was a young lady.”
“Well, and what’s the differ, I wonder? If I look like one, couldn’t I
be one?”
“Ay, and do it well, too!” said he, while his eyes glistened with a look
of triumph. “Come here, Kitty, darlin’,” said he, taking her hand, and
leading her along at his side, “I want to spake a word to you. Now,
Kitty, though you’re only a child, as one may say, you’ve more wit in
your head nor many a grown woman, and if you hadn’t, it’s the heavy
heart I’d have this day leavin’ you among strangers.”
“Don’t fret about that, grandfather; it’s an elegant fine place to be
in. Wait till I show you the dairy, that’s grander inside than ever I
seen a house in Ireland; and if you saw the cowhouse, the beasts has
straps with buckles round their necks, and boords under their feet, just
like Christians, only betther.”
“A long sight betther nor Christians!” muttered he, half savagely.
Then recovering, he went on: “You see, here’s how it is. ‘Twas out of
a ‘conceit’--a sort of fancy--they took you, and out of the same, my
honey, they may leave you some fine mornin’ when you’ve got ways that
would be hard to give up, and used to twenty things you couldn’t do
without; and I was tellin’ them that, and askin’ how it would be if that
day was to come?”
“Ah,” cried she, with an impatient toss of her head, “I wish you hadn’t
put such thoughts into their heads at all. Sure, ain’t I here now?
Haven’t they tuk me away from my home, and where would I go if they
turned me out? You want to make it asy for them, grandfather, isn’t that
it?”
“Faix, I believe you’re right, Kitty.”
“Sure, I know I am. And why would they send me away if I didn’t displase
them, and you’ll see that I’ll not do that.”
“Are you sure and certain of that?”
“As sure as I’m here. Don’t fret about it, grandfather.”
“Ay, but darlin’, what will plase one wouldn’t, may be, be plasin’ to
another; there’s the mistress and her sister--and they’re not a bit
like each other--and there’s the master and that ould man with the goold
chain round his neck--he’s your guardian.”
“Oh, is he?” cried she; “see what he gave me--he took it off his
watch-chain. He said, ‘There’s a little sweetheart for you.’” And she
drew from her bosom her handkerchief, in which she had carefully
rolled up a small figure of a man in armour, of fine gold and delicate
workmanship. “And the little girl here--Ada, they call her--tells me
that he is far richer than her papa, and has a house ten times grander.”
“That’s lucky, anyhow,” said the old man, musing. “Well, honey, when I
found that I couldn’t do any better, I said I’d go and talk to yourself,
and see whether you were set upon stayin’ with all your heart, or if
you’d like to go back again.”
“Is it back to Derryvaragh?”
“Yes; where else?”
“Catch me at it, Peter Malone, that’s all! Catch me goin’ to eat
potatoes and lie on straw, work in the fields and go barefoot, when I
can be a lady, and have everything I can think of.”
“I wonder will ye ever larn it?”
“Larn what?”
“To be a lady--I mane a raal lady--that nobody, no matter how cute they
were, could find you out.”
“Give me two years, Peter Malone, just two years--maybe not so much,
but I’d like to be sure--and if I don’t, I’ll promise you to go back to.
Derryvaragh, and never lave it again.”
“Faix, I think you’d win!”
“Sure, I know it.”
And there was a fierce energy in her look that said far more than her
words.
“Oh, Kitty, darlin’, I wondher will I live to see it?”
Apparently, this consummation was not which held chief sway over her
mind, for she was now busy making a wreath of flowers for her head.
“Won’t the gardener be angry, darlin’, at your pluckin’ the roses and the
big pinks?”
“Let him, if he dare. Miss Ada told him a while ago that I was to go
everywhere, and take anything just like herself; and I can eat the
fruit, the apples, and the pears, and the grapes that you see there, but
I wouldn’t because Ada didn’t,” said she, gravely.
“You’ll do, Kitty--you’ll do,” said the old man; and his eyes swam with
tears of affection and joy.
“You begin to think so now, grandfather,” said she, archly.
“And so I may go in now and tell them that you’ll stay.”
“You may go in, Peter Malone, and tell them that I won’t go, and that’s
better.”
The old man stepped back, and, turning her round full in front of him,
stood in wondering admiration of her for some seconds.
“Well?” said she, pertly, as if interrogating his opinion of
her--“well?”
But his emotion was too strong for words, and the heavy tears coursed
after each other down his wrinkled cheeks.
“It’s harder for me to leave you, Kitty, darlin’, than I thought it
would be, and I know, too, I’ll feel it worse when I go back.”
“No you won’t, grandfather,” said she, caressingly. “You’ll be thinking
of me and the fine life I’m leadin’ here, and the fine times that’s
before me.”
“Do you think so, honey?” asked he, in a half-sobbing tone--“do you
think so?”
“I know it, grandfather--I know it, so don’t cry any more; and, whenever
your heart is low, just think of what’s coming. That’s what I do. I
always begin to think of what’s coming!”
“And when that time comes, Kitty ‘Alannah,’ will you ever renumber yer
ould grandfather, who won’t be to ‘the fore’ to see it?”
“And why won’t he be?”
“Because, darlin’, I’m nigh eighty years of age, and I can’t expect to
see above a year or two, at farthest. Come here, and give me a kiss, ma
Cushleen! and cut off a bit of your hair for me to have as a keepsake,
and put next my heart in my coffin.”
“No, grandfather; take this, it will do as well”--and she handed him
the little golden trinket--“for I can’t cut my hair, after hearin’ the
gentlemen sayin’ how beautiful it is!”
The old man, however, motioned away the gift with one hand, while he
drew the other across his eyes.
“Is there anything you think of now, Kitty,” said he, with an effort to
appear calm, “for I must be goin’?”
“Give my love to them all beyant,” said she, gravely, “and say if
there’s a thing I could do for them, I’ll do it, but don’t let them be
comin’ after me!”
A sickly paleness spread over the old man’s face, and his lips trembled
as he muttered, “No fear of that! They’ll not trouble you! Good-by!” And
he stooped and kissed her.
When he had walked a few paces away, he turned, and, with hands
fervently clasped above his head, uttered a blessing in Irish.
“God speed you, grandfather, and send you safe home!” cried she. And,
skipping over a flower-bed, was lost to his view, though he could hear
her happy voice as she went away singing.
“The devil a doubt of it,” muttered the old man, “them’s the ones that
bate the world; and, if she doesn’t come in first in the race, by my
soule, it isn’t the weight of her heart will keep her back!”
“Well, Malone!” cried Sir Gervais, as they met at the garden-gate, “have
you been able to make up your mind?”
“Yes, your honour; Kitty says she’ll stay.” Sir Gervais paused for a
moment, then said:
“Because we have been talking the matter over amongst ourselves, Malone,
and we have thought that, as possibly your expectations might be greater
than were likely to be realised, our best way might be to make you some
compensation for all the trouble we have given you, and part the same
good friends that we met. I therefore came to say, that if you like your
present holding, that little farm----”
“No, your honour, no,” broke he in, eagerly; “her heart’s in the place
now, and it would be as much as her life’s worth to tear her away from
it.”
“If that be so, there’s no more to be said; but remember, that we gave
you a choice, and you took it.”
“What does he mean to do?” asked Georgina, as she now came up the path.
“To leave her here,” answered Vyner.
“Of course. I never had a doubt of it. My good man, I’m much mistaken
if your granddaughter and I will not understand each other very quickly.
What do you think?”
“It is little trouble it will give your Ladyship to know all that’s
inside a poor ignorant little child like that!” said he, with an intense
servility of manner. “But her heart is true, and her conscience clean,
and I’m lavin’ you as good a child as ever broke bread this day!”
“So that if the tree doesn’t bear the fruit it ought, the blame will lie
with the gardener; isn’t that what you mean?” asked she, keenly.
“God help me! I’m only a poor man, and your Ladyship is too hard on me,”
said he, uncovering his snow-white head, and bowing deeply and humbly.
“After all,” whispered she in Vyner’s ear, “there has really been
nothing determined about the matter in dispute. None of us know what is
to be done, if the contingency he spoke of should arise.”
They walked away, arm in arm, in close conference together, but when
they returned, after a half-hour or so, to the place, Malone was gone.
The porter said he had come to the lodge for his bundle, wished him a
good-by, and departed.