A POUND A DAY--A PICTURE AND A WEDDING.
Notwithstanding all her confident dreams and her bold, resolute
spirit, little Margot did not find the next day at Desmondstown either
peaceful or happy. Fergus, true to his word, told his father of Norah's
engagement. The old man stormed and raved. He sent for Norah, who
refused to go to him. His rage grew yet hotter. He said that if she did
not appear at once he would have her locked up; that no child of his
should disgrace herself by marrying a Flannigan.
Samuel Flannigan was forbidden the house. He was told that his case
was hopeless. Aunt Norah, in terror, did appear and was assured by her
father that she was nothing but a blessed bit of a fool and mighty old
at that, and that she must immediately promise him that she would never
speak to that low-down fellow, Samuel Flannigan, again.
Norah cried, sobbed, even screamed, and was finally locked up in her
room by The Desmond himself. Then little Margot came in and tried to
smooth matters and comfort the distracted old man. He looked at her
bonny face; at her glowing, rosy cheeks; at her wonderful, soft, black
eyes; at her thick, curling, black hair; and held out his arms to her.
She crept into his embrace and sat there very quiet, without speaking.
Margot was singularly wise for her age, and she knew that the time to
speak had not come yet.
Presently, however, as the old man was feeling the comfort of her
presence, he was startled by one great tear splashing on his hand.
"Why, my pushkeen, alanna," he said. "I thought for sure that the
Desmonds never cried--those that are true Desmonds, I mean."
"It was only _one_ tear, granddad," said little Margot. "I don't like
anybody to be unhappy."
"Eh, now, to be sure, nor do I," said The Desmond.
"But there's Aunt Norah, granddad. She is very mis'rable; she _is_ fond
of Samuel."
"Don't ye dare," said the old man. His whole manner changed; he pushed
her off his knee. She looked at him without reproach, but with intense
sadness, and then slowly, very slowly left the room.
He was so wretched after she had gone that he felt inclined to call her
back, and to tell her that all the foolish Norah Desmonds in the wide
world and all the ridiculous, low-born Samuel Flannigans might marry,
if only she would stay with him and comfort him.
Madam came in presently and found him alone. The one tear that Margot
had shed had dried on his horny old hand, but he kept on looking at
the hand. He did not attempt to wipe that tear--that pearl of all
price--away. It had dried itself. He thought his hand a sort of sacred
thing because it held one tear from the little pushkeen.
"What ails your hand, Fergus?" asked Mary, his wife.
"Oh, nothing," he replied. "Why shouldn't I have a hand in all
conscience, and why shouldn't I look at it? Where on earth is the
pushkeen?"
"Why, didn't you know?" said Madam.
"No; what should I know? For goodness' sake, woman, speak out!"
"Well, I'm thinking you won't see her for a bit," said Madam; "but
she'll come back by-and-bye--very soon, most like."
As a matter of fact Margot had taken up the cause of Aunt Norah and Mr.
Flannigan; and for her to take up any cause meant far more than the
people who benefited by her counsel and advice had any idea of. Now,
having left her grandfather, she tried to find Uncle Fergus; but he
was nowhere in the house. Then she went up to Aunt Norah's room. She
knocked at the door. She heard sobbing and moaning within.
There were sounds like "Ohone! ohone! Oh, dear me, Oh, dear me! Oh,
it's me heart that's torn to tatters!"
Margot could not get Aunt Norah to listen to her; so she left her. She
went to her own little room, and opening a certain drawer took out her
purse. It had been well stored by _la belle_ grand'mère. There were a
great many gold pieces in it. Margot did not stop to think how many.
The sun was shining to-day. She put on a neat little dark-blue serge
frock and her pretty crimson cap, and went straight to the house where
Samuel Flannigan lived. It was a very small house and very shabby. It
was close to the church; and the front door stood open. Margot entered.
She went down the narrow hall and into the tiny front sitting-room,
where the blinds were drawn down and where Samuel Flannigan was seated,
his face buried in his hands, his great ungainly shoulders shaken with
sobs.
Margot went up and touched him somewhat delicately.
"I don't want you, Miss Margot," he said. "It's your sort that does the
mischief; but for you I wouldn't have lost my little girl."
"Mr. Flannigan, I've done no mischief, except that I made you blush.
I'm sorry I did that--I am truly. I want to tell you that you need
never blush any more, and you'll get your little _wee_ young girlie if
only you have patience and behave like a man. _I've_ taken the matter
up, Mr. Flannigan, and I mean to succeed. Good-bye, now, and cheer up.
Things will come right soon, but not quite immediately. Trust me, Mr.
Flannigan, and forgive me for making you blush such an awful ugly red."
Flannigan looked vacantly at the pretty child. Somehow a gleam of hope
did stir in his heart. That child was very uncommon and remarkable.
He had never, never seen her like before. He wondered whether he
could manage to run away with Norah. But ten minutes after Margot had
departed, his little flicker of courage had left him, and he sat down a
weary, desolate man, who felt very old and good-for-nothing.
He was really fond of Norah, and he did not see why he should be abused
because his grandfather was a labourer on the Desmondstown estates.
Meanwhile Margot, having quite made up her mind, went quickly in
the direction of Phinias Maloney's bit of a houseen. She kissed the
children who were basking in the sun and picking flowers to throw them
away again.
She snatched up the baby and covered his small face with her kisses.
Then she went into the little kitchen to Annie Maloney.
"Why, whatever," exclaimed Annie; "my blessed missie, what do you want?"
"Where's Phinias?" asked little Margot.
"He's over beyont; ye can see him if ye look. He's planting cabbages
for the summer."
"Annie," said Margot, "are you great enough to be good in a very great
cause?"
"Well, now, whatever does the bit thing mean?" said Annie.
"I want Phinias. Will you give him to me?"
"Well, now, I'd do most things for ye, alanna, but _himself_!--I
couldn't part with himself. 'Tain't likely now, is it, missie, and he
the father of the childer?"
"I only want him for about two or three days at the most," said Margot;
"and I'll pay him well," she added. "A pound for every day he's away
from you."
"To be sure now, that's powerful big pay," exclaimed Mrs. Maloney. "We
could buy another piggeen, and put by for the rint, and tidy up the
place a bit."
"So you can," said Margot. "We'd best make it three days."
"To be sure, my blessed mavourneen--to be sartin sure."
"Well, I'm going to speak to him," said Margot. "You're a very noble
woman, Annie. He'll be back with you in three days and he'll have three
pounds to put into your hand. Now then, don't tell anybody in the world
where we have gone."
"Is it a sacret?" exclaimed Annie. "Lor' love us, I dote on a sacret."
"I'll go and see him at once," said Margot. "I trust you, Annie, more
than anyone else in all the world; I do indeed."
"Lor' love ye, my pretty," said Annie.
Margot scampered across the field. Presently she reached "himself" as
he was planting the young spring cabbages.
"Phinias," said Margot, "you are just a darling."
"Be I?" said Phinias. "You do use pretty words, missie, asthore."
"It's what I feel, Phinias. Now I've spoken to Annie and Annie is
satisfied, and I'll pay all your expenses and my expenses, too. I can't
run away alone, because I'm too small; but Phinias, I'm going to run
away."
"Lor' bless us and save us," cried Phinias, "and you the idol of The
Desmond's dear old heart."
"Sometimes we must be parted from the people we love," said Margot.
"Get the cart ready as fast as you can, Phinias, and put on your best
things and come with me. You must take me straight, right away, this
blessed minit, to dear Uncle Jacko. As soon as ever I get there _you_
can go home again. And when you get home you'll carry a letter with you
which I'll have written, and you'll put it _yourself_ into the hands of
The Desmond. That's all; and you'll get three pounds besides your food
and your travelling. Come along this blessed minute, Phinias; there
isn't a moment to spare."
Phinias stared out of his truly Irish eyes; his wide mouth grinned a
trifle. He looked a little sheepish, a little glad, vastly surprised;
but in the end Margot got her way. She was seated beside Phinias in the
queer little cart.
They went by a road they did not usually go, and arrived at a railway
station which they did not generally get to, and there they took train
for Rosslare.
On the following day, quite late in the evening, Margot's little brown
face peeped round the shabby door of the study, where Uncle Jacko was
preparing his Sunday sermon.
Margot gave a cry of joy and flung herself into his arms.
"Why, then, by the powers! isn't this too joyful altogether?" exclaimed
Uncle Jacko.
"Yes," said Margot, "Phinias brought me. You'll keep him for to-night,
and he'll go back to-morrow. Uncle Jacko, is Aunt Priscilla about?"
"No, thank the Lord. She's gone missioning to Manchester."
"I don't know what that is," said little Margot.
"It's good work, very good work. She's a good woman," said Uncle Jacko.
"Then we'll be alone?"
"We will so, my bonny bird."
"Then everything is going to come beautifully right," said Margot.
"I think God is almost _too_ good, Uncle Jacko. Oh, I do love Him so
tremendously."
That evening the little girl told Uncle Jacko the entire story of Aunt
Norah and Mr. Flannigan, of her grandfather's unaccountable rage and of
her own determination that Aunt Norah and Mr. Flannigan should be happy.
"He--granddad--can't live without _me_, Uncle Jacko, so you see I ran
away. I'm going to send him back a letter to-morrow morning by Phinias
Maloney. The very moment he says 'yes' about Aunty you'll take me back
to him, won't you, Uncle Jacko?"
"I will, my sweet child, although the parting with you will be a sort
of tearing open of an old wound."
"Oh, Uncle Jacko, he won't give way for a bit. We'll have some days to
play--to be just a little boy and just a little girl together."
If Uncle Jacko was delighted to see Margot, old Hannah's raptures were
also beyond words.
"Thank the Lord the missus is away missioning," she said, and then she
hugged and kissed, and kissed and hugged Margot, and got her old tiny
room warm and snug for her, and treated those two _children_, as she
spoke of her master and Miss Margot, to the very best that the house
could afford.
Before she went to bed that night, however, Margot wrote a letter to
granddad. It ran as follows:
DARLINGEST AND BEST:--
I couldn't live even with _you_ at Desmondstown unless we were
happy together. I couldn't bear to see your dear face all puckered
up with sorrow, and with anger, which the beautiful God hates; so I
have come away for a bit to Uncle Jacko; but when you feel that you
can give your bit girleen to poor Sammy, why then--then I'll _fly_
back to you, for you'll be the noblest old man in the world--nobler
than your pride; and I'll never leave you again, never, never. This
is to say that I'm here and I'm safe, and my heart is full to the
brim with love for you; so send for me _very_ quick indeed, my own
granddad.
P.S. Don't let your wee girlie get too old from sobbing. You and I,
we both know that it isn't the way of the Desmonds. Be as quick as
you can in settling the matter up.
Forever and forever,
Your PUSHKEEN.
This letter was read by a broken-down old man who, for three days, had
given up Margot as lost; whose heart was so completely broken with
regard to her, that he did not give either Norah or Flannigan a thought.
When the old man read Margot's letter he gave vent to a sort of yell of
delight.
"Why, bless the bit thing," he cried. "Madam, Madam, Fergus, Fergus,
she's safe with that good fellow, Mansfield. Wire to her to come home.
Fergus, go off at once and send a wire. Norah may go her own way. She's
nothing to me compared to my Margot--my pushkeen--my blessing."
So the wire was sent, and as quickly as possible Uncle Jacko and little
Margot returned to Desmondstown. Margot flew into her grandfather's
arms.
"Is it right?" she said. "May they marry?"
"They may marry every single week of the year from this time forward,
for all I care," said The Desmond.
"Have you told them so?" asked Margot.
"No, and don't want to."
"Granddad, you _must_."
"All right, my pushkeen."
"Madam, darlin,' bring Norah down to granddad this minute."
"I'll fetch her," said Fergus.
He went up to his sister's room, and in a few minutes she appeared,
looking very cowed and shaken.
"It's that blessed little Margot's doings," said Fergus. "No one else
would have brought him round. Loving my father as much as she does, she
was determined to give him up unless he allowed you to be happy."
"I don't understand," said Norah.
"Well, you needn't, colleen. Come with me now and don't keep the old
man waiting."
Norah went. Margot was in her usual place on her grandfather's knee.
She would not allow him to rise. He just put out his great hand in the
direction of Norah.
"Ye're looking a bit white, colleen," he said; "and weak, too, with the
weakness of the aged. I give in; you can take him. Why, there he is,"
for Malachi had rushed round to the house of Flannigan and brought
him straight back--a very red-eyed, feeble man, to meet his red-eyed,
feeble bride.
"There, I've settled it," said The Desmond. "You can both go out and
spoon. I'm busy with my granddaughter. I had never have given in but
for her. She's as cute as she's sweet. Lor' bless her, she's the cutest
thing on earth," and then he hugged Margot close to his heart.
The three Sundays were obliged to be gone through in order that the
banns might be properly read, and Margot brought her wonderful taste to
bear on the subject of the wardrobe of the bride. Knowing quite well
that her grandfather would give in, she had wired to _belle_ grand'mère
from England, telling her what things she would require for the wedding.
Accordingly a huge parcel arrived, containing muslins, silks, laces,
hats, gloves, stockings, shoes. Was not Margot busy during that
fortnight? Was not Bride busy helping? Did not Eileen show the taste
she--Margot--had in a far greater degree? The bride was the most
indifferent of all, for did not Samuel come at all hours to her window
and sing out to her: "Norah me honey, Norah, asthore;" and was not the
entire place alive with the excitement of a wedding in the Desmond
family?
It was Margot herself, however, who superintended the making of the
bride's dress. She hired a sewing-machine; and bought the softest
cream satin, suitable for a bride of eighteen, and saw that it was
properly cut and prepared for old-young Auntie Norah.
At last the wedding day arrived, and a great feast was to be held in
the huge dining-room when the ceremony was at an end. Nothing could
take Norah's fifty years from her, but Margot arranged her hair in a
marvellous style, and put a bunch of white roses into her dress, and
made her look as no one else could have made her look.
"To be sure, she passes the years wonderful," said one old crone to
another.
But it was at the wedding breakfast that little Margot shone in all her
glory. She was in very simple, pure white, and her cheeks were flushed
a little deeper than usual, and her eyes shone with a softer and more
beautiful light. By The Desmond's desire there was a chair placed for
Margot next to himself. He sat at the head of the board, but in such a
position that he could not see the old bride and bridegroom.
"Margot," he whispered, "pushkeen asthore, they'll be making speeches
to drown ye like, and they'll be expecting me to take my turn. Will you
do it for me, little Margot?"
"_I_ do it?" said Margot. "What sort is a speech, granddad?"
"What comes into your head and what ye lets out. That's a speech."
"Oh, that's easy enough," said Margot. "May I say that I'm speaking for
you?"
"Ye may, pushkeen asthore."
So when the right moment arrived, a very, very tall old man, of immense
breadth of stature as well, stood up, holding the hand of a lovely
little dark girl.
"My granddad is tired," began Margot, "and he can't speak what he
thinks, so he has put his thoughts into me. There's a bride and there's
a bridegroom sitting beyont. They were married in church this morning.
They are both of them young, for their hearts are young, and they are
mighty fond of each other entirely; and my granddad, he wishes me to
say----"
"Whist, pushkeen," came from the lips of the old man. But pushkeen
could not be stopped at that moment. She was looking straight into
the happy eyes of old-young Aunt Norah, and into the blissful face of
old-young Uncle Samuel.
"I'm wishing you," she said, "me and my grandfather, long, long life
and prosperity. I'm wishing that your happiness may continue and you
may always, as long as you live, play _puss-in-the-corner_ and _blind
man's buff_. I'm thinking it's a very good way to begin to get married,
by playing those games; and I recommend them to the rest of my uncles
and aunts. I'll look out for husbands for them if I can, and for wives
for the boys if I can, but for me myself I don't mean to marry, being
altogether too much occupied, having one so precious as my granddad to
live with forever and forever. Amen."
"Isn't she exactly like the Romney?" said a quaint old lady who was one
of the guests invited for the occasion.
"Yes, to be sure, only handsomer," said her companion.
"She's the sweetest, most uncommon child I ever saw," said the first
lady; "and doesn't the old man love her? He's bound up in her, bless
her little heart."
A few minutes later Norah went upstairs to change her bridal robes and
put on the going-away dress which Margot had selected for her. She
never felt so stylish in her life, nor so tearful, nor so happy.
"Why, Margot," she said, turning round and looking at the child. "It
was you that did it all--all. There was a time when I hated you. But
for you, I can plainly see now that I'd never have got my Sam. Oh,
Margot, I _am_ happy. And tell me, what does the Rev. John Mansfield
think of the holy man?"
"He loves him; he can't do more," said Margot.
"And you love him, don't you, Margot?"
"For your sake I'll begin to twist myself in that direction," said
Margot. "Now hurry, auntie, hurry, or you'll miss your train."
A beautiful carriage had been provided. This had been secured out of
the proceeds of a small cheque which _la belle_ grand'mère had sent to
Margot for the wedding; and the bride and bridegroom, when they went
away, were not obliged to step into Phinias Maloney's trap.
"For all God's mercies, let's be thankful for that," said Aunt Norah.
But Margot, as she watched them go and helped to throw slippers and
rice after them, felt that she herself would prefer the little trap.
"The house is well quit of them," whispered The Desmond; but Margot
would not allow him to say these words aloud.
"It's her wedding day; it has come a bit late, but let her be happy in
it, granddad."
"Right you are, my dove, my blossom;" and then they sat down--the old,
old man, and the young child--to examine some flowers by the aid of a
microscope.
All was indeed well in the heart of little Margot. She and her
grandfather were in the midst of their game, and as a matter of fact,
had forgotten Norah and her husband when Fergus came in.
"This is a lucky day in the Desmond family," he said, "and to complete
it utterly, I think we ought to present little Margot with the deed of
gift which will secure to her the Romney picture whenever you pass from
this world to a better, dear sir."
"Oh, I won't take it if it means _that_," said Margot. "I want granddad
to live forever and ever."
"But I can't do that, my child; no one can. You are quite right,
Fergus, my son. The Romney is mine for my life, and I think my life
will last for some time yet with such a little dear to put life and joy
into it; but I should like to sign the document now to make all sure
and safe. She _is_ the little Romney, only just twice as beautiful. But
we can have the deed signed at once, my son."
So the deed, which Margot did not in the least understand, was brought
in by a very old man, who was a solicitor from the city of Cork; and a
great many names were put in certain places, and the old Desmond signed
his name, and Fergus Desmond his name, and the little Margot was
requested to write certain words in her clear, childish writing:
"I accept this picture as a most sacred gift whenever my grandfather,
The Desmond, goes up to God."
But the signing of this paper, coming on top of everything else, was
almost too much for the sensitive child. She had to rush from the room
to keep back her tears, for a Desmond, a proper Desmond, _must_ not cry.
"I tell you what, father," said Fergus, "I have been thinking that as
I, _too_, shall never marry--for I don't care for the colleens round
this part--and so, in this case, I shall eventually leave Desmondstown
to the little pushkeen, she might take back the name of Desmond, and
if she marries, as marry she will some day, her husband must take the
name with the property. Somehow, since she came to us everything has
prospered in the most wonderful way, and I'm paying off the mortgages,
and Desmondstown will be clear of all debt long before you die, father.
What do you think of the little dear taking back the old name?"
"I say goroosh! I say hurrah! I say hip, hip, hurrah! I say
Erin-go-bragh! I say the Desmonds forever; and beyond and above all
other things, I say God bless the little Desmond, the future owner of
the Romney. God bless and keep her forever!"
"Granddad, _what_ a noise you are making," said Margot, coming in at
that moment, having got over her tears.
"It was about you, my pushkeen. It's all settled and you are to be a
Desmond forever and forever and forever!"
Little Margot did not understand, but she was happy beyond words; and
what _could_ it matter about understanding when you are happy--too
happy even to speak?
THE END.