ALTERATIONS.
While Nora and her father were talking together there came a sound of a
ponderous gong through the house.
“What's that?” said Nora, starting.
“You may well ask 'What's that?'” replied the Squire. “It's the
dinner-gong. There's dinner now in the evening, bedad! and up to seven
courses, by the same token. I sat out one or two of them; but, bless my
soul! I couldn't stand too much of that sort of thing. You had best go
and put on something fine. Your mother dresses in velvet and silk and
jewels for dinner. She looks wonderful; she is a very fine woman indeed,
is your mother. I am as proud as Punch of her; but, all the same, it is
too much to endure every day. She is dressed for all the world as though
she were going to a ball at the Lord-Lieutenant's in Dublin. It's past
standing; but you had best go down and join 'em, Norrie.”
“Not I. I am going to stay here,” said Nora.
“No, no, darling pet; you had best go down, enjoy your dinner, and come
back and tell me about it. It will be fun to hear your description. You
mimic 'em as much as you like, Norrie; take 'em off. Now, none of your
coaxing and canoodling ways; off you go. You shall come back later on,
and tell me all about it. Oh, they are stiff and stately, and they'll
never know you and I are laughing at 'em up our sleeves. Now, be off
with you.”
So, unwillingly, Nora went. In the corridor outside she met her cousin
Molly.
“Why, you haven't begun to dress yet,” said Molly; “and I'm going down
to dinner.”
“Bother dress!” said Nora. “I am home again. Mother can't expect me
to dress.” She rushed past her cousin. She was too excited to have any
sympathy then with English Molly. She ran up to her own room, and stood
with a sense of dismay on the threshold. It had always been a beautiful
room, with its noble proportions and its splendid view; and it was now
furnished exquisitely as well.
Mrs. O'Shanaghgan had great taste. She had taken immense pains with
Nora's room; had thought it all out, and got it papered and painted
after a scheme of color of her own. The furniture was of light wood--the
room was fit to be the bower of a gracious and lovely maiden; there were
new books in the little bookcase hanging up by the bedside. Everything
was new and everything was beautiful. There was no sense of bad taste
about the room; it was furnished harmoniously.
Nora stood and gazed at it, and her heart sank.
“Oh! it is kind of mother; it is beautiful,” she said to herself; “but
am I never, never, never to lie down in the little old bed again? Am I
never to pour water out of the cracked old jug? Am I never to look
at myself in the distorted glass? Oh, dear! oh, dear! how I did love
looking at myself in the old glass, which made one cheek much more
swollen than the other, and one eyebrow went up a quarter of an inch
above the other, and my mouth was a little crooked! It is perfectly
horrid to know one's self all one's life long with a swollen cheek and a
crooked mouth, and then see classical features without a scrap of fun in
them. Oh, dear! But I suppose I had best get ready.”
So Nora washed her face and hands, and ran downstairs. The dining
room looked heavy and massive, and the footman and the butler attended
noiselessly; and Mr. Hartrick at the foot of the table and Mrs.
O'Shanaghgan at the head looked as stately a pair as could be found in
the length and breadth of the land.
Molly, nicely dressed in her dinner-frock, was quite in keeping with the
elder pair; but wild Nora, still wearing her gray traveling-dress, felt
herself out of place. Her cheeks were flushed with the excitement of
seeing her father; her hair was wild and disarranged. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan
looked at her all over with marked disapproval.
“Why, she looks scarcely pretty,” thought the mother to herself. “How
tired and fagged she appears! Dear, dear! if after all the trouble I
have gone to, Nora disappoints me in this way, life will really not be
worth living.”
But Mrs. O'Shanaghgan could scarcely suppress the joy which was now
filling her life. She was the mistress of a noble home; she was at the
head of quite the finest establishment in the county. Already all the
best county folk had called upon her several times.
It is sad to state that these great and rich people had rather neglected
the lady of the Castle during the last few years; but now that she drove
about behind a pair of horses, that her house was refurnished, that
wealth seemed to have filled all her coffers, she was certainly worth
attending to.
“Now that you have come back, Nora,” said her mother in the course of
the meal, “I wish to say that I have several invitations for you, and
that Molly can accept too.” She looked with kindness at Molly, who, if
only Nora had been happy, would have thoroughly enjoyed herself.
“I must show you the drawing room after dinner, my dear,” said her
mother. “It is really a magnificent room. And I must also show you my
morning room, and the library, and your father's smoking room.”
“This is a splendid house, you know, Ellen,” said Mr. Hartrick to his
sister, “and pays for doing up. Why, a house like this in any habitable
part of England would fetch a colossal fortune.”
Nora sighed and shrugged her shoulders. Molly glanced at her, and the
word “Jehoshaphat!” was almost trembling on her lips. She kept it back,
however; she was wonderfully on her good behavior to-night. At last the
long and dreary meal came to an end. Nora could scarcely suppress her
yawns of utter weariness. She began to think of nothing but lying down,
shutting her eyes, and going into a long and dreamless slumber.
Mrs. O'Shanaghgan rose from the table and sailed out of the room. A
footman flung open the door for her, and Nora and Molly followed in her
wake.
“I'll be with you presently in the drawing room, Ellen,” said Mr.
Hartrick to his sister; “but first of all I'll just go up and have a
smoke with O'Shanaghgan. You found your father much better to-night, did
you not, Nora?”
“I thought father looked very bad indeed,” said Nora. She could not add
another word; she went out into the hall.
Mrs. O'Shanaghgan took her hand, squeezing it up in a tight pressure.
“You ought not to speak in that tone to your uncle,” she said; “you can
never, never know all that he has done for us. He is the noblest, the
most generous, the best man in the world.”
“Oh, I know all that, mother; I know all that,” said Nora. She did not
add, “But for me he would never have done it. It was I who inserted the
thin edge of the wedge.” Her tone was gentle; her mother looked at her
with a softening of her own face.
“Well, dear,” she said, “your Uncle George has taken a great fancy
to you. Notwithstanding your eccentricities, Nora--and they are
considerable--he says you have the making of a fine girl. But come, we
must not neglect your cousin. Come here, dear Molly; you and Nora will
be interested in seeing what a beautiful place Castle O'Shanaghgan is
now.”
Molly took hold of Nora's other hand, and they entered the drawing room.
It was lit with soft candles in many sconces; the blinds were down;
across the windows were drawn curtains of Liberty silk of the palest,
softest shade of rose. On the floor was a carpet of many soft colors
cunningly mingled. The walls were painted a pale artistic green, large
mirrors were introduced here and there, and old family portraits, all
newly framed, of dead and gone O'Shanaghgans, hung on the painted
walls. There were new tables, knick-knacks--all the various things which
constitute the drawing room of an English lady.
Nora felt for one brief, passionate, angry moment that she was back
again at The Laurels; but then, seeing the light in her mother's eyes,
the pink flush of happiness on her cheeks, she restrained herself.
“It makes you happy, mummy,” she said, “and----”
“But what do you think of it, my darling?”
“It is a very beautiful room.”
“Ah! that is right. I thought my little wildflower would appreciate
all these things when she came back again. Ah, Nora! you have been a
naughty, wild imp; but your father was delighted when he heard what you
had done. Of course I am terribly angry.”
“No, you are not, mummy; you are pleased to see me again.”
“I am glad to have you back, Nora; but as to being pleased, how could I
be? However, you can stay here for a fortnight or so now that you have
come; and then, when your dear uncle leaves us, you and Molly can go
back with him.”
Nora did not say anything; but a stubborn look came into her face which
her mother knew of old.
From the drawing room they went to the library, which had also undergone
complete rejuvenation. The walls were laden with standard works of
different kinds; but some of the shelves were still empty.
“The old books, your uncle says, were of great value,” said Mrs.
O'Shanaghgan, “and he sent them all to Dublin to be rebound. They have
not come back yet. They are to be bound in old calf, and will suit the
rest of the room. Is it not a magnificent apartment?”
Nora said “Yes” in a somewhat dreamy voice.
They then went to her mother's morning-room, and then on to the Squire's
smoking-room.
“They might at least have left this alone,” thought the girl. “They
might at least have left this one room, where he could retire when he
felt quite choked by all the furniture in the rest of the place.”
But even the Squire's smoking-room was changed into the smoking-room of
an English gentleman. There were deep easy-chairs covered with leather;
there were racks for pipes, and great brass dogs before the fireplace;
on the floor was a thick carpet. Nora felt as if she longed to give it a
savage kick.
At last the terrible ordeal of going through the--to her, utterly
ruined--house was over, and she and Molly found themselves alone.
“I will go up to your father for a few minutes,” said Mrs. O'Shanaghgan,
nodding to Nora. “You and your cousin will like to have a chat; and
then, my dears, I should recommend you both to go to bed as early as
possible.”
When they were back again in the big drawing room Nora gave Molly a wild
look.
“Come out,” she said; “at least out of doors the air is the same as of
old.”
Molly caught up a shawl and wrapped it round her head; but Nora went out
just as she was.
“You'll catch cold,” said English Molly.
“I catch cold in my native land!” replied Irish Nora. “How little you
know me! Oh, come, Molly, I am going to be wild; I am going to give
way.”
They both stepped outside on the broad gravel sweep. The moon was up,
and it was shining over everything. In the moonlight Castle O'Shanaghgan
looked very much as it had done before. The moon had always glorified
the old place, and it glorified it still. Nora stood and gazed around
her; up to the tops of the mountains, with their dark summits clearly
defined against the evening sky; across the wide breadth of the
Atlantic; over the thick plantations, the fields, and the huge trees in
the background.
“It's all the same,” she said, with a glad laugh; “thank God it is all
the same. Even your father, Molly, cannot destroy the place outside, at
least.”
“Oh Nora, it is such a lovely, lovely place!” said Molly. “Cannot you be
happy in it with its modern dress?”
“Happy,” said Nora, suddenly brought back to her sense of misery by the
word. “I am thankful that my father is not so ill; but--but you must
help, Molly. Promise that you will.”
“I am sure I'd do anything in the world,” said Molly. “I think I have
been very good to-day. I have kept in my naughty words, Jehoshaphat and
Moses and Elephants, and all the rest. What do you want me to do, Nora?”
“We must get him out of that room,” said Nora.
“Him? You mean your father?”
“Yes; he will never recover there. I have been thinking and thinking,
and I'll have my plan ready by the morning; only you must help me. I'll
get Hannah Croneen to come in, and we'll do it between us if you can
help me.”
“But what is it?” said Molly.
“I'll tell you in the morning; you wait and see.”