There was a whole colony on the ground floor of our house who, like my
father, could not reconcile themselves to my existence, and the head of
them was Aunt Bridget.
She had been married, soon after the marriage of my mother, to one
Colonel MacLeod, a middle-aged officer on half-pay, a widower, a Belfast
Irishman, and a tavern companion of my maternal grandfather. But the
Colonel had died within a year, leaving Aunt Bridget with one child of
her own, a girl, as well as a daughter of his wife by the former
marriage. As this happened about the time of my birth, when it became
obvious that my mother was to be an invalid, my father invited Aunt
Bridget to come to his house as housekeeper, and she came, and brought
her children with her.
Her rule from the outset had been as hard as might have been expected
from one who prided herself on her self-command--a quality that covered
everybody, including my mother and me, and was only subject to softening
in favour of her own offspring.
Aunt Bridget's own daughter, a year older than myself, was a fair child
with light grey eyes, round cheeks of the colour of ripe apples, and
long yellow hair that was carefully combed and curled. Her name was
Betsy, which was extended by her mother to Betsy Beauty. She was usually
dressed in a muslin frock with a sash of light blue ribbon, and being
understood to be delicate was constantly indulged and nearly always
eating, and giving herself generally the airs of the daughter of the
house.
Aunt Bridget's step-daughter, ten years older, was a gaunt, ungainly
girl with red hair and irregular features. Her name was Nessy, and,
having an instinctive sense of her dependent position, she was very
humble and subservient and, as Tommy the Mate used to say, "as smooth as
an old threepenny bit" to the ruling powers, which always meant my Aunt,
but spiteful, insolent, and acrid to anybody who was outside my Aunt's
favour, which usually meant me.
Between my cousin and myself there were constant feuds, in which Nessy
MacLeod never failed to take the side of Betsy Beauty, while my poor
mother became a target for the shafts of Aunt Bridget, who said I was a
wilful, wicked, underhand little vixen, and no wonder, seeing how
disgracefully I was indulged, and how shockingly I was being brought up.
These skirmishes went on for a considerable time without consequences,
but they came at last to a foolish climax which led to serious results.
Even my mother's life had its gleams of sunshine, and flowers were a
constant joy to her. Old Tommy, the gardener, was aware of this, and
every morning sent up a bunch of them, freshly cut and wet with the dew.
But one day in the spring he could not do so, being out in the dubs of
the Curragh, cutting peat for the fires. Therefore I undertook to supply
the deficiency, having already, with the large solemnity of six, begun
to consider it my duty to take charge of my mother.
"Never mind, mammy, I'll setch some slowers sor you," I said (every _f_
being an _s_ in those days), and armed with a pair of scissors I skipped
down to the garden.
I had chosen a bed of annuals because they were bright and fragrant, and
was beginning to cut some "gilvers" when Nessy MacLeod, who had been
watching from a window, came bouncing down me.
"Mary O'Neill, how dare you?" cried Nessy. "You wilful, wicked,
underhand little vixen, what will your Aunt Bridget say? Don't you know
this is Betsy Beauty's bed, and nobody else is to touch it?"
I began to excuse myself on the ground of my mother and Tommy the Mate,
but Nessy would hear no such explanation.
"Your mamma has nothing to do with it. You know quite well that your
Aunt Bridget manages everything in this house, and nothing can be done
without her."
Small as I was that was too much for me. Somewhere in my little heart
there had long been a secret pang of mortified pride--how born I do not
know--at seeing Aunt Bridget take the place of my mother, and now,
choking with vexation but without saying a word, I swept off the heads
of all the flowers in the bed, and with my arms full of them--ten times
more than I wanted--I sailed back to my mother's room.
Inside two minutes there was a fearful tumult. I thought I was doomed to
punishment when I heard the big bunch of keys, which Aunt Bridget kept
suspended from her waist, come jingling up the stairs, but it was my
poor mother who paid the penalty.
"Isabel," cried Aunt Bridget, "I hope you are satisfied with your child
at last."
"What has Mary been doing now, dear?" said my mother.
"Don't ask me what she has been doing. You know quite well, or if you
don't you ought to."
My mother glanced at the flowers and she seemed to understand what had
happened, for her face fell and she said submissively,
"Mary has done wrong, but I am sure she is sorry and will never do it
again."
"Sorry, indeed!" cried my Aunt. "Not she sorry. And she'll do it again
at the very next opportunity. The vixen! The little wilful, underhand
vixen! But what wonder if children go wrong when their own mothers
neglect to correct them."
"I daresay you are quite right, dear Bridget--you are always right,"
said my mother in a low, grave voice. "But then I'm not very well, and
Mary is all I have, you know."
My mother was in tears by this time, but Aunt Bridget was not content
with her triumph. Sweeping downstairs she carried her complaint to my
father, who ordered that I was to be taken out of my mother's charge on
the ground that she was incapable of attending to my upbringing--a task
which, being assigned to my Aunt Bridget, provided that I should
henceforward live on the ground floor and eat oaten cake and barley
bonnag and sleep alone in the cold room over the hall while Betsy Beauty
ate wheaten bread and apple tart and slept with her mother in the room
over the kitchen in which they always kept a fire.