READJUSTMENT.
For weeks after Denis Quirk's homecoming Kathleen O'Connor was uncertain
as to her feeling towards him.
He was ugly and abrupt, somewhat inquisitive, with none of those gentler
qualities that we term polish. He spoke his mind, and spoke it bluntly,
regardless of the feelings of others. Self-reliant and perfectly
satisfied with himself, he sometimes irritated the girl to the verge of
anger. But he was rarely angry, or, if he blazed out into sudden
passion, returned speedily to his customary imperturbability, and he was
always humorous. His mother he worshipped, and with her he was gentle as
a woman; his father he jested with in an affectionate manner. Kathleen
realised that he was a good son, while she resented his attitude to
herself. His abrupt questions, his curious searching looks led her to
believe that he was for ever testing her to discover the strength and
weakness of her character. This caused the girl to adopt an attitude of
defence, and to meet his inquisitive questions with replies that almost
bordered on discourtesy.
Just a fortnight after his arrival, as she sat writing in the
breakfast-room at Layton, pausing now and again to watch the gambols of
Mrs. Quirk's Persian kitten, Denis Quirk marched into the room. He
picked up the kitten, and seated himself with it near the door.
"Writing?" he asked, abruptly.
His manner of questioning her, indicating to her mind a desire to know
as to whom and of what she was writing, aroused an immediate resentment
in the girl.
"Yes, I am," she answered, shortly.
He smiled at her manifest annoyance, and continued to play with the
kitten.
"Fire away then and get it all off your chest," he said.
Kathleen felt that writing was an impossibility under the circumstances,
but she was determined that he should not recognise her embarrassment.
Her nib flew relentlessly over the sheets, but the letter was
disconnected and dry. At last she gathered her writing materials
together, and rose to leave the room.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Never mind that," she replied. "I have never been asked to give an
account of my actions, and I do not intend to."
Denis Quirk smiled yet more broadly. It was evident that her irritation
amused him. This did not make her the better pleased.
"Sit down and talk to me," he suggested.
"I have other and better things to do," she answered.
He whistled the long-drawn note of surprise. His chair was across the
door, but he made no attempt to move it.
"Angry?" he asked.
"Will you please move your chair?" she replied.
"Why should I? I am quite comfortable. Just sit down for five minutes
and talk about the old people. I have any number of questions to ask
you," he said.
"You always have; but I have no time to answer them. Please move your
chair."
"Do you always have your own way?" he asked.
"Always--with gentlemen," she answered.
"Then you shall have it this once with Denis Quirk, who neither
professes nor has the slightest wish to be--a gentleman."
He rose and put his chair on one side.
"Thank you," she said, as he held the door open for her. But, while she
went up the stairs to Mrs. Quirk's room, the eternal question was
repeating itself to her: "What do you think of this man?"
She found old Mrs. Quirk in her room, arranging a series of photos.
There was Denis from infancy until the period when he had left his
home--ugly, but smiling from infancy to manhood.
"What do you think of Denis? Isn't he grown into a fine man, and as full
of fun as if he were a boy? And doesn't he love his old mother?" asked
the fond old mother.
"Why shouldn't he?" asked Kathleen. "I love her as if she were my own
mother."
"God bless you, child. I believe you do. Did you see what he has brought
me? Brooches and shawls! But what good is jewellery to me? You must take
them."
"No, no!" cried Kathleen, hastily. "You must keep them for Mr. Quirk's
wife."
A smile lit up the old lady's face as she looked at the brooch in her
hand and then at Kathleen.
"I just will do that same," she said.
A peremptory knock at the door, and Denis himself entered. He smiled as
he noted the array of photographs.
"Which is the uglier," he asked Kathleen, "the picture or the original?
Fire away, mother, and tell Miss O'Connor every detail of my life. Cut
my first tooth when I was seven days old; spoke--or did I swear--at
three months, fought my first fight on my first birthday, and I've been
fighting ever since."
"Oh, Denis, Denis, you are as much an omadhaun as ever," sighed Mrs.
Quirk. "But he was a fine boy, Kathleen!"
"And into a fine man he has grown, mother!" laughed Denis. "But what
could you expect with such a mother? Father alive, Miss O'Connor?"
The abruptness of the question was quite disconcerting to Kathleen.
"No," she replied; "my father is dead."
"Sorry I asked," said Denis.
"God rest his soul! They do say he was a great man; but what could you
expect, and him an O'Connor?" said Mrs. Quirk.
"Hem!" began Denis, but he checked himself and asked: "Any relations
living, Miss O'Connor?"
"There's her brother Desmond, as handsome as herself," said Mrs. Quirk.
"Anything like me? But that's not to be expected. Where does he work?"
"My brother is a reporter at 'The Observer' office," replied Kathleen.
Had it not been for Mrs. Quirk's presence she would have checked his
questions once and for all.
"I must look him up to-day. I start operations in Grey Town this
afternoon. Did it ever strike you that this place needs stirring up?
It's been sleeping ever since it was born. I have come here to make
things hum, I tell you that."
Kathleen laughed at the thought of Grey Town humming. All her life she
had known it as a gentle, quiet town, to which excitement was unknown
and undesired.
"What do you intend to do?" she asked.
"Everything," he answered. "See here, in twelve months' time you will
scarcely know Grey Town. There will be squalls, of course, and plenty of
fighting. But when I get to work I'll make the old place boom. Ran a
paper in the States, and divided the town into friends and enemies. I
was just over the last libel action brought against 'The Firebrand' by
the last enemy on my list when I sold out. The paper went like wildfire,
and the town all but doubled itself in my time. Nothing like a little
mustard and pepper if you want to make things go."
"I prophesy that Grey Town will subdue even you. This is a very sleepy
atmosphere. No man remains vigorous for over six months; you will soon
be slumbering like the rest of us."
"I shall be dead first," he answered. "You don't know me."
"Nor you Grey Town. You are not our first reformer; we have had numbers
of them, and we have destroyed them without remorse," said Kathleen.
From the window of the room they could look across fields now green in
the freshness of early summer, across the racecourse and park, to where
Grey Town climbed irregularly towards St. Mary's Church. There it lay, a
town whose streets were only partly made; where sanitation had halted in
its most primitive stages; where little attempt had been made to assist
the beauties of nature. Yet Grey Town was, in the distance, a pretty
spot, embowered in green trees, the blue smoke resting over it, and in
the distance the great blue ocean. Large buildings and small hovels,
well-cared for gardens and filthy back yards, imposing factories and
dilapidated shops--there was surely work here for an energetic reformer.
But Kathleen knew the strength of vested rights, the strength of
contented indolence; above all, the bitter tongue of scandal that was
ever ready to destroy a prophet. Others had fought with Grey Town and
failed; why not Denis Quirk?
"No," he answered, reading her thoughts. "Grey Town has been waiting for
me, and to-morrow I start on Grey Town. See here! This town should be a
city. We need a few more cities, and Grey Town shall be one of the
first. Given half a dozen factories and an improved system of
railways----."
"Factories!" laughed Kathleen, her eyes straying towards the town and
its open sea-front, where only a small peninsula of rock protected the
bay from the south-west gales. "You are dreaming, Mr. Quirk?"
"Nothing is impossible nowadays. Why no factories in Grey Town? Shall
Melbourne possess all the good things? Let us provide for ourselves and
for other people, and bring money to the town. Factories Grey Town must
have to make agricultural implements, to turn our wool into blankets,
our wheat into flour, our milk into butter. Factories and an up-to-date
paper."
Mrs. Quirk had listened in a dazed manner to this conversation. It
delighted her to sit and listen to her son, just as it did on those rare
occasions when her husband talked to her. But she never quite realised
what the topic under discussion was, although she nodded or shook her
head as she believed was necessary to the occasion.
"Another paper?" cried Kathleen.
"And why not?" asked Mrs. Quirk. "Denis knows what he is saying and
doing. Why not another paper if Denis wants it? And what colour would it
be, Denis?"
Denis Quirk laughed heartily at his mother's misapprehension, but he
threw his arm around her and stooped to kiss her.
"Black and white," he replied; "a newspaper, old lady, up to date and
go-ahead, like the old 'Firebrand.'" Then he turned again to Kathleen.
"You don't know me," he said. "You imagine I am nothing better than a
talker; just wait for three months before you judge me."
Therewith he swung out of the room. A few minutes later Kathleen saw him
striding rapidly down the avenue on his way towards Grey Town. But she
had other things to do besides thinking of Denis Quirk. No sooner was he
out of sight than she had settled Mrs. Quirk comfortably in an
easy-chair on the balcony, and was reading to the old lady until the
latter fell into a peaceful sleep.
It was a quiet and monotonous life for a young girl. Mrs. Quirk was now
so dependent upon her that she must have Kathleen always by her side.
This was not due to selfishness on the old lady's part. She did not
understand that young people need a certain amount of amusement and
pleasure to make their lives complete. Kathleen, being wholly unselfish
in her nature, considered it her sole duty to look after the old lady.
Mr. Quirk, too, had made Kathleen his secretary and accountant. When she
was not with Mrs. Quirk, the girl was generally to be found surrounded
by accounts and business letters.
It was thus that Denis Quirk found her on his return from the town.
"Do you ever go out?" he asked her, imperatively.
"Every day," she answered.
"To theatres and dances?" he asked.
"I have no time for such frivolities," she answered, laughingly. "I am a
working woman now, with every moment occupied."
"Pshaw!" he answered, impatiently. "You need readjusting; you all need
readjusting. Life was never intended to be a mere drudgery."
At tea--the Quirks still clung to the old scheme of meals of the
Collingwood days--as they sat around the large table, he suddenly asked
his father:
"Why don't you buy a motor, Dad?"
Samuel Quirk glared at his son for some moments in speechless surprise.
Then he answered:
"What would I be doing with a motor?"
"Enjoying the beauties of Australia, and giving the mother a little
pleasure," replied Denis.
"Pleasure! I would die in a motor," cried Mrs. Quirk.
"Just as well die there as in a phaeton. If you once ride in a motor,
you will never ride in anything else, unless it's an aeroplane. If the
Dad doesn't buy you a motor, I will."
"A motor! What would the boys say to see me in a motor?" growled Samuel
Quirk.
"Confound the boys! If the boys object to a motor, they are fools.
Motors mean the circulation of money. What is the difference between a
motor and a house, a motor and a horse, a motor and a coat? Don't they
all represent money to the working man? Don't bother yourself about the
boys, or the jackasses either!"
Already there were signs of political differences between father and
son. Samuel Quirk had clung to his Labour political creed all his life;
now, in his time of prosperity, he refused to resign his early
principles. Denis, a Democrat at heart, was something of a freelance,
inclined to tilt indiscriminately at both parties. This, however, was
the first occasion since his homecoming on which he had openly opposed
his father, and Samuel Quirk resented it.
"I have two legs to travel on, and they are good enough for me," he
growled.
"Just hear him, and he calls himself a Progressive. It's a Conservative
he is. Where's the use of science, if you refuse to make use of its
gifts?" cried Denis.
Kathleen recognised that Denis was irritating his father and grieving
his mother, not of intention, but simply because he did not realise that
Samuel Quirk could not tolerate opposition.
"Well, I have a proposal to make. You shall hire a motor," she
suggested. "Mr. Quirk and Granny shall ride in it, and see how they like
it. Then, perhaps, Mr. Quirk may be induced to buy one."
"Never!" growled Samuel Quirk. "Them noisy, dusty, smelling inventions
of the----!"
"Hush!" cried Mrs. Quirk. "The devil never invented anything good."
"And where's the good of them?" asked her husband.
"They make a long and hard journey short and pleasant. But Miss O'Connor
is right. You shall try what a motor is like, and if you don't take to
it I will buy one for the mother myself," said Denis.
It was an exciting moment in the house when he drove up the following
day in a large car. Mrs. Quirk, if very nervous, was anxious to
experience the new sensation of travelling in a motor; Kathleen was
keenly desirous that Denis' plan might succeed; Samuel Quirk feigned
contempt and indifference, but he was in his heart as excited as his
wife.
"Now, come along, mother, and you, too, Miss O'Connor. Will you try a
short spin, Dad?" said Denis.
Samuel Quirk strolled over to and eyed the motor even more
contemptuously than before.
"What's that?" he asked the chauffeur.
"That's the throttle," replied the latter.
"Humph! I suppose you can drive the noisy thing?"
The chauffeur nodded; he was too insulted to reply in words.
"Can you stop it?" asked the old man.
"In a few yards," said Denis. "Step inside, Dad, and see for yourself."
Grumbling and growling, Samuel Quirk followed his wife and Kathleen into
the tonneau. From the front seat Denis directed the driver.
"Easy at first, until they find their legs; then intoxicate them with
the sensation of flying," he half whispered.
To Kathleen it was pure joy from the first; but Mrs. Quirk, and, to tell
the truth, Samuel Quirk, were for half an hour very nervous.
"Can you stop her?" the latter asked as they flew down a steep hill.
In answer to the question, the chauffeur brought the car to a
standstill. Thus assured, Samuel Quirk became confident, and before
they returned home he was urging the chauffeur to increased speed.
"Do you call this fast?" he asked; and when the car began to race along
the road a pleased smile lighted up his face. He even waved his hand
pleasantly to those he passed on the road, and when the car stopped in
front of the house the old man asked the chauffeur:
"How much do you want for it?"
"You don't think of buying this old car?" cried Denis. "You want a new
one, and right up to date."
"Would it go as fast as this one?" asked Samuel Quirk.
"You shall have one out in a few days and try it."
Only a fortnight later a large twenty-horse-power car and a chauffeur
were added to the equipment of "Layton." Samuel Quirk was the most
enthusiastic admirer of, and the most frequent passenger in, the car. He
was curious as to the machinery and the method of driving. Probably this
was the most satisfactory thing that his wealth had brought him.
Mrs. Quirk, too, after her first nervousness, found great pleasure in
the motor; but to Kathleen it was the first of a series of new
enjoyments, for Denis Quirk hurried his mother on from one dissipation
to another--concerts, theatres, even dances. Hesitatingly, Mrs. Quirk
accepted his advice to try them; but, having once found pleasure in the
evident enjoyment they gave Kathleen, she willingly went wherever Denis
advised her. In this way the household at "Layton" received the
necessary readjustment, with excellent results to all the inmates.