A PROPOSAL.
"Where shall I put the old gown?" sighed Molly Healy as she surveyed a
trunk already packed to overflowing. "I took it out to make place for
the shoes, and now I must take out the shawl to make place for it. I am
tired of taking out and putting in again."
Therewith she seated herself despairingly on a chair and eyed the trunk
in disgust. Kathleen O'Connor regarded her with a smile of amusement.
"May I see what I can do?" she asked.
"I am beyond refusing you anything, Kathleen. I have that trunk on my
brain, and it's worse than water in the same place. Mrs. Gorman kept
poking her nose in and telling me: 'I had no method' until I slammed the
door in her face and locked it. Then the Father and Dr. Marsh began to
look in on me through the window, telling me I was overlooked when the
gift of tidiness was being distributed. But I have sent them on a dying
message to Pat Collins, who is not sick. Dan, too, must come along and
ask me why I was swearing? There is only one good angel in Grey Town,
and you are that one, Kathleen O'Connor."
Kathleen began to remove the contents of the trunk, loosely rolled up
and thrown in after a harum-scarum fashion.
"What will you do at St. Luke's?" she asked.
"I am going there to mortify the flesh. Nursing I love, but to be tidy
is a penance to me."
"Make a big effort," suggested Kathleen.
"I wonder could I? I wouldn't enjoy a tidy room one bit. I would not so
much as dare to brush my hair for fear of disturbing the arrangements."
"The Mother Superioress insists upon her nurses' appearance being spick
and span," said Kathleen.
"For two ha'pence I would not go there, but ever since I cared for poor
Joe Mulcahy I have wished to be a nurse. Well, heaven help me and send
me the virtue of order."
Kathleen had managed by rearrangement of the contents to find a place in
the trunk for the rebellious gown. She closed the trunk and tied the
straps.
"I shall miss you every moment of the day," she sighed.
"Why not come with me and keep my room tidy? Now that Denis Quirk is
home you have no call to be spending your life slaving for the old man."
A hammering at the door prevented Kathleen O'Connor from replying.
"What do you want with me?" cried Molly.
"A gentleman would be asking to see you--Mr. Cairns," Mrs. Gorman
answered from the passage.
"Now, what would he be wanting with me?" asked Molly. "Tell him I am
coming," she cried. "Am I tidy, Kathleen?"
"Of course you are," replied Kathleen. "I will put the smaller things
in your bag for you while you entertain him."
Molly found Cairns waiting for her in the passage. Always punctilious in
his dress to-day he was exceptionally spruce, his tie very new, and
clothes without one crease.
"Come into the garden, Molly," he said, and there was an unaccustomed
nervousness in his voice that caused Molly to ask:
"Are you not well, Mr. Cairns?"
"Oh, yes--perfectly well," he answered. "Why do you ask?"
"You look pale, and there is a kind of a quiver in your voice," she
answered as they strolled to a seat in the garden that overlooked the
town, a favourite place for Father Healy when saying his Office.
"Sit down and rest yourself," Molly advised. "You get no peace down
there in the office. Denis Quirk believes you are all machinery like
himself."
But Cairns remained standing behind the seat on which she sat. After a
short silence Molly Healy asked:
"Now, what are you doing to my hair? Do be leaving it alone; it is
untidy enough already."
"Molly," he said, and his voice caused her to turn suddenly.
"I knew you were ill," she said. "It's the rest cure that would be doing
you good. Denis Quirk has overworked you."
"Try to be serious for once," he asked.
"Serious? There is no need for me to be serious. Your face is solemn
enough for the whole town. Just let my hair alone. There it was just put
up in a hurry and you have pulled it down."
Molly had glorious brown hair, her one real beauty, and she rose with it
falling in waves to her waist.
"If you only knew the work it is to build it up you would be down on
your knees begging forgiveness of me," she cried.
"If you only knew that," he began, and ended with a mumbled "that I love
you?"
Molly Healy dropped her hair and gazed at him in absolute surprise.
"Did you come all this way to joke with me?" she asked.
"Please take me seriously for once," said Cairns. "I don't want you to
go away from Grey Town if I can keep you here."
Molly had fixed her hair up in haste. It formed a great tower on her
head, for she needed time to arrange it in order. Slowly dawning
surprise crept into her eyes as he spoke, surprise with perhaps a not
unnatural triumph.
"I really believe you are in earnest," she said; "but I can't understand
it. They call me 'plain Molly Healy,' and I believe it from what the
glass tells me."
"In my eyes you are beautiful," he replied.
"No blarney, if you please," she said. "I don't love you, and that is a
fact, Mr. Cairns. But I will think of you--and perhaps--that is, if you
don't find someone else in the meantime--when I come back----."
"How soon will that be?" he asked.
"A matter of three years."
"Three years!" he groaned; "an eternity to wait. I will give you three
months to think about it; then I will come to Melbourne and ask again."
"And what will Mother Superioress say to me with a young man?"
"Oh, blow--I mean, never mind the Mother Superioress. Quirk tells me she
is delightfully human, and as sympathetic as you are," replied Cairns.
"Sympathetic? Sure, you must be in love to believe that of me. I am as
hard as flint. But come if you like, and bring me a big box of
chocolates. Will you now?"
"I intend to bring a ring with me. What stones do you like best?"
"Emeralds, to be sure, and diamonds. But don't be spending your money
until you are sure of me. I may be taking the veil myself."
"If you do I shall destroy myself," said Cairns.
"Would you do that for me?" she cried eagerly. "How would you do it?"
"Oh, poison, or possibly a razor. But there will be no need for that."
"And do you really love me--me, Molly Healy? I don't understand it. I am
plain and untidy, with never an accomplishment to my name. If I had
money I could see a reason for it. Why do you love me?" she asked.
"Because you are Molly Healy, cheerful, light-hearted and kind," he
answered.
"I intend to think of you all night and every night. I can't think of
you and be neglecting the day's work. But, perhaps, after three months,
I may be willing to consider the ring. Now be off with you, for I am
busy. You may kiss my hand, and here is a rose for you. Good-bye, Mr.
Cairns, for three months. Sure, I will miss you."
To Kathleen O'Connor Molly confided Cairns' proposal.
"I don't understand it," she sighed. "If it had been you, Kathleen, I
would not have wondered, for you are as beautiful as I am plain. But
what made the man be wanting me? I have nothing beyond my hair, and who
would be marrying a girl for her hair?"
"If I were a man I would marry no other woman but Molly Healy. Plain!
Why, you are lovely, and you have a heart of gold, Molly," Kathleen
answered.
"Mr. Cairns could not see my heart; it is what a man sees that he loves.
But I am perplexed what to do. I like Mr. Cairns, and he is an honest
gentleman, not like Gerard, all on the surface. But I don't fancy I love
him. What does it feel like to be in love, Kathleen?"
Kathleen blushed scarlet at the question.
"There is a real love and a false one," she said. "The false sort loves
a man, not for what he is, but for what he is imagined to be. The real
love comes from recognising that a man is noble and brave."
Molly pondered a while over this.
"Mr. Cairns is not young, and he is not beautiful," she soliloquised,
"but he is honest and brave, just a gentleman. Perhaps I might come to
love him in time."
"Shall I prophesy?" Kathleen asked.
"If it would be any help to you or to me, I would not be the one to stop
you."
"Then I see you, in six months time, Mrs. Cairns," Kathleen answered.
"I wish it had been O'Brien, or Fitzgerald, even O'Connor, but Desmond
has chosen the better way," said Molly.