Adrienne's letters were very quickly written. She was anxious to go out
to the children, and to make acquaintance with the place. But when she
went to look for them they were nowhere to be found.
Enchanted with the place, which, neglected as it was, seemed to her
very beautiful, she wandered about for a time in the pleasure-ground
and shrubberies that lay at the back of the house; and then, tempted
by the lovely brightness of the morning, she set off to make further
discoveries. Land seemed to be no consideration in that part of the
world; a wide park, dotted with trees and clustering bushes, lay
stretched out on three sides of the house; a sunny avenue, winding away
between old thorns and oaks, offered a charming walk, and as Adrienne
went along she looked around her in delight.
On the left the ground sloped down to the bed of a broad, rocky stream.
To the right, undulating park-land stretched for some distance, and,
beyond the park, trees and fields and hedges seemed to grow closer
and closer together, till out of the indistinctness rose suddenly a
bold line of purple hills. In the park, soft-eyed cows were cropping
the autumn grass. Thrushes were singing in the thorns. Red haws lay
scattered in profusion under the trees. The air was pure, and the earth
smelt sweet after the rain.
_Haw_: the fruit of the hawthorne.
Adrienne, enticed by a little side path, turned off the avenue and
came suddenly upon a child standing on tiptoe in the wet grass, and
stretching up in a vain endeavor to reach a branch of roseberries that
hung temptingly out from a clump of bushes. A sylph-like, tender little
thing, she looked as though a sudden gust of wind would blow her right
away. And then she was carefully dressed; the golden hair that hung
down to her waist was neatly brushed, and the hand stretched up to the
roseberries was cased in a warm cloth glove.
Adrienne stepped on to the grass and succeeded in reaching the branch.
Blushing and surprised the little girl thanked her with a sweet smile.
At the same moment a voice exclaimed, "Marion, Marion, for goodness'
sake come off that sopping grass!" and looking up, Adrienne perceived
a lady, in a shiny, black silk gown, who with an anxious face was
hurrying down the path.
"Let me see your feet," she continued, coming up to them and taking
Marion's hand as the child stepped obediently on to the path. "Yes,
they're soaking wet! You must come back and change at once! I beg your
pardon, Miss Blair. I know I ought to have spoken to you first, but
this child is so delicate she keeps me in a perpetual fright. How could
you think of going on the grass, Marion?"
"I'm so sorry, mother," replied the child, in her sweet little voice,
"I quite forgot."
"Well, well, come back and change as quickly as you can, and perhaps
there'll be no harm done. And you, Miss Blair, I am sure your feet must
be wet too! Will you come in, and let me have your boots dried in the
kitchen? The house is quite close. I am Mrs. Plunkett."
"Thank you," she said; "I don't think my feet are at all wet. I was
only on the grass for a moment."
"Ah! but you don't know this climate; it is most treacherous. Marion,
don't bring that litter into the house." As she spoke she pulled the
branch of roseberries out of Marion's hand and threw it away. "There's
nothing more dangerous than wet feet, I can assure you--I lost my poor
sister through nothing in the world but that,--and Mr. Plunkett's
mother often said, 'Anything else you please, James, but no wet feet, I
beg.'"
Marion looked regretfully after her pretty red branch, but she said
nothing, and Mrs. Plunkett continued to relate anecdotes of people who
had died from the consequences of wet feet, till a few more turns in
the path brought them to the back of a neat-looking house and garden.
"Pray walk in," said Mrs. Plunkett, throwing open the gate. And in a
minute or two more, Adrienne, found herself sitting without her boots
in a wicker arm-chair beside the nursery fire. A beautiful nursery it
was--beautiful, not from any special luxury of furniture, but by its
exquisite cleanliness. The white, boarded floor was as spotless as
scrubbing could make it; the brass knobs of the fireplace glittered in
the sunlight; the window-panes could not have been more brilliantly
transparent.
Two little children in white pinafores were playing with wooden bricks
on the floor. Marion, perched on a chair on the other side of the
fireplace, stretched out two little blue-stockinged feet to the blaze;
and while Nurse took the boots down-stairs, the clean fat baby was
transferred to Adrienne's lap.
Finding that Adrienne was fond of children, Mrs. Plunkett grew
confidential over the sayings and doings of her own four; and then
suddenly interrupting herself, she exclaimed in a tone half-curious,
half-confidential:
"But your cousins, Miss Blair? Have they left you alone already? I
_should_ have thought they would have liked to show you the place. Ah,
it's very sad to see children lead such lives."
"Yes," said Adrienne, "it is almost the same as though they had neither
father nor mother, poor little things."
"It is their own fault, I assure you; entirely their own fault. For
shame, baby! is that the way you treat ladies who are kind enough
to nurse you, sir? Mr. Plunkett and I were prepared to take every
interest in them," she continued, bending over Adrienne, and helping to
extricate her hair from baby's fat, rosy fingers. "We were away for our
summer trip when Murtagh and Winnie first arrived. Poor little Marion
was the only one we had then, and we were very near losing her that
same summer. When we came back we found that that poor foolish Mrs.
Donegan had already done a great deal of harm.
"The two children were making themselves ill with pining, and she
encouraging them, letting them do every mortal thing they liked, under
the pretence that they must be amused. My husband saw at once that
it was his duty to remonstrate; he was quite shocked to see the way
things were going. And I'm sure it was enough to shock any one to see
those two children, with their heads cropped after the fever, and their
wizened yellow faces, and their little sticks of arms; they were enough
to frighten one.
"They had suffered so terribly from fever that Mr. Launcelot insisted
upon their having what he called perfect rest. He said that their
brains were too active, and that the thing he most desired to hear of
them was that they were growing as ignorant as the village children.
"But my husband was determined to do his duty by them. He spoke sharply
to Mrs. Donegan about her behavior, and there were most unpleasant
scenes between them. She came down here one evening and said the most
dreadful things. She told me myself, Miss Blair, that he ought to be
ashamed to be so hard on poor little fatherless, motherless children,
who were pining for a bit of love. I was quite upset after she went
away. But my husband never minds those things. He does his duty, and he
doesn't mind what anybody says. He spoke to Murtagh himself next day,
and told him how sinful it was to give way like that to every fanciful
feeling that came over him,--one minute pining and miserable, and the
next rampaging like wild animals all about everywhere, not minding a
word anybody said to them. But it was all no use: Murtagh wouldn't
answer a word, and from that day to this they've just gone on growing
worse and worse.
"My husband has tried severity with them; but Mr. Blair doesn't like
to hear of their being punished, and James hesitates to take the
responsibility entirely upon himself. If they were his own children,
he'd soon bring them to order.
"He worries himself about those children ten times as much as he's
ever had occasion to worry about his own. Why, their governesses alone
have given him more trouble than all his own servants put together.
What's the good of worrying about other people's children? They are not
one bit grateful. I really believe, Miss Blair, that they hate him; I
believe those children hate every one; there's never been one day's
peace since they've been here."
Mrs. Plunkett paused to take breath, and Marion said in a slow, gentle
way that seemed years older than her little self, "I don't think they
hate me, mother."
"What do you know about it, child?" asked Mrs. Plunkett.
"Because," said Marion, "I looked at them in church, and a butterfly
flew in, and went on the side of Murtagh's nose, and I laughed, and he
laughed, too, quite kind."
Adrienne could not help smiling at the earnest, half-pleading tone in
which the child spoke, but Mrs. Plunkett said: "Nonsense, Maimy, you
don't know anything about it! No; I don't believe there's any one in
this world they care one bit about, except it is little Frankie."
As Mrs. Plunkett enunciated for the second time her disbelief in the
children's powers of affection, some one called from down-stairs,
"Marion! Maimy!"
"It's father!" exclaimed the child, springing off her chair. "Back
already! Yes, father, I'm coming. Nurse, my slippers please, quick!"
But nurse had gone down-stairs to fetch the dried boots, and while
Marion went to the cupboard to find her own slippers, a firm regular
step quickly ascended the staircase, and Mr. Plunkett entered the
nursery, holding in his hand the very branch of roseberries which had
brought about all the wet feet.
Adrienne had been surprised at the voice in which Marion's name had
been called; it was scarcely to be recognized as belonging to the stern
man she had seen that morning. But she was still more surprised to see
the soft beaming welcome that broke out over little Marion's face as
her father entered the room.
She was sitting on the floor, putting on her slippers, one little blue
leg stretched out, the other doubled up to enable her to button the
strap. She did not jump up to kiss her father, but she turned her face
up towards him, with a sweet glad look in her eyes.
"Are you going to have dinner with us after all, Fardie?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied, looking down with a smile at the upturned face.
"I shall go to the farms to-morrow instead. See, I've brought you
something pretty. It was lying in the middle of the path, and I thought
it would please you."
"Why, it's my own branch! How could you know it was just what I wanted?"
The slipper was fastened by this time, so she got up from the floor,
holding the branch of roseberries in one hand, and slipped the other
into her father's. Then he perceived Adrienne. A few polite sentences
were interchanged; and Adrienne, wishing them all "Good morning,"
walked back along the avenue, her pretty golden head as full as it
would hold of thoughts about all these new people.
As she approached the house she found that the hall-door was shut, and
passing round to the back, she ventured to open what seemed to her like
a kitchen door. It was not the door of the kitchen. She found herself
on the threshold of a large, airy room, littered all over with clothes
in various stages of washing, drying, and ironing. Mrs. Donegan, with
her sleeves tucked up, was busy ironing print frocks at a large table
near the fire, and exclaimed:
"Do, for goodness' sake, shut that door, Kate. Why ever don't you stop
in the kitchen and attend to your dinner?"
"It's not Kate," said Adrienne; "I came round this way because the
hall-door was shut. May I come in?"
Mrs. Donegan looked up, and grew quite red with confusion, as she
discerned her mistake.
"Oh, Ma'am, I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed, setting down her iron
and coming forward to meet Adrienne. "I'm sure I never thought to see
you here, and the laundry in such a mess, too; of a Friday there is so
much to do. Walk in, Ma'am, if you please."
"Please don't let me disturb you," said Adrienne, as she shut the door.
"Can I get through to the house this way?"
"Yes, Ma'am," replied Mrs. Donegan; "it's always through here or
through the kitchen the children come."
"Have they come back yet?" asked Adrienne.
"Indeed, no, Ma'am! they were in the kitchen with me this morning,
getting some bits of brown cake to go off with somewhere, an' if
they're back to dinner, it's as much as they'll be."
"You can't tell me where to find them, can you?" suggested Adrienne.
"Tell you where to find them!" exclaimed Mrs. Donegan. "Maybe it's up
the mountains they are, or maybe up the river, or maybe across the
fields, five miles away by this time. But wherever it is, ye might look
for them a month o' Sundays, and never find them if ye're wanting them;
and so sure as ye're not wanting them, they'll turn up fast enough,
bless their hearts!"
"They live out of doors a great deal, don't they?" asked Adrienne,
smiling at Mrs. Donegan's description of their proceedings.
"God bless you, yes, Ma'am. They'd never be confined with stoppin' in a
house, but out and about, no matter what weather it is. They're a bit
wild like, but they're the best-hearted children ever lived. But won't
you sit down, Ma'am," added Mrs. Donegan, interrupting herself to set a
chair near the table.
"If I stay, may I help you?" asked Adrienne, attracted to the
free-spoken old woman, and very willing to stay and talk to her. "I can
_tuyauter_ these frills. I don't know what that word is in English."
She took up a pair of gauffering tongs as she spoke, and Mrs. Donegan
looked amused at the notion of her help.
"Sure, you don't know anything about such work, an' it's not so easy as
it looks. But you may try if you like, Miss," she added good-humoredly.
Adrienne, all unconscious of the greatness of the concession, laid
her hat on one side, and in another minute was sitting gauffering
pillow-case frills in so business-like a manner that Mrs. Donegan
exclaimed, after a minute or two:
"Upon my word, Miss, you do it better than I do it myself."
Adrienne laughed, and Mrs. Donegan, going back to her work, returned to
the current of her thoughts.
"I could tell you more about those children than anybody else that's
here," she continued. "But whatever you do, Miss, don't you go to
believe anything Mr. Plunkett says about them. It's not the like of
him can understand these children. Wasn't I here in the nursery in
old Mrs. Blair's time, and nursemaid to Mr. Launcelot himself? I know
what Master Launce was when his mother died, and I know what sort his
children's come of. And they're Mr. Launcelot's children to the very
backbone. Master Harry was always quieter; but you're not much like
him, Miss, except when you laugh you have a look of him about the eyes,
I think."
Mrs. Donegan liked to talk, but after her own fashion, so before
Adrienne could hear anything about the children she had to listen to a
panegyric upon their father, which wound up with an account of how he
married Mrs. Launcelot, a perfect lady; "Mr. Launcelot wouldn't have
married none other, but a gentle, delicate bit of a thing, who had a
French maid to look after her, and let the children do whatever they
pleased."
Then Adrienne was told that Mr. and Mrs. Launcelot had been in India
now nearly seven years, and Winnie and Murtagh had been sent home
four years ago. "Mr. Launcelot wrote me a letter with his own hand,"
added Donnie, "asking me to take care of his two little orphans till
he came himself to fetch them; and he told me to 'mother them, when
they were lonely, the way I'd mothered him long ago when he needed
it.' Those were his very words. Many an' many a time I've read the
letter. And when I saw the poor little things drooping and pining, I
used to think o' the night, thirty-two years ago, when the poor missis
died, an' I crep' into the nursery after the old nurse was asleep, an'
Master Launce was sobbing in his bed; and when I tried to comfort him,
he knelt in his little nightgown an' put his two arms round about my
neck,--and, 'Oh, Biddy,' says he, 'what _shall_ I do now?'" Donnie's
tears were running down at the remembrance.
"And he laid his head upon my shoulder, and he was that tired out
with crying after a bit he fell asleep kneeling up against me; an' I
carried him away into my own bed, and kept him warm till the morning.
And then," she continued, indignantly sniffing away her tears, "tell me
I don't know what I'm doing with his children. 'Deed, faith, I know a
deal better than them as tells me such nonsense."
"They were very lonely when they first came, were they not?" said
Adrienne, remembering Murtagh's words of the evening before.
"'Deed they were! poor little lambs, sick and lonely enough; they
scarce cared to do anything, and I never could get them off my mind.
Then after a bit, when the summer came, they used to go off whole days
up the mountains; and when I saw that pleased them I used to give them
their dinner to take with them, and then they took to rampaging about,
and I began to grow easier.
"When Miss Rose and Master Bobbo were sent over with the baby--they
were every bit as yellow and skinny as Master Murtagh and Miss Winnie;
and where would you see finer, heartier-looking children now than the
four of them? I'm not for cosseting children too much. Give 'em plenty
of good fresh air, and plenty o' good food, and let 'em alone, that's
what I say."
"But don't you think," said Adrienne, looking up with a smile, "that
now they have had the fresh air and the food, they might have just a
little learning, too, without doing them any harm?"
"Well," replied Donnie, "I don't say but what they might have a
governess, and let them do a bit of learning every day. But when they
first came Mr. Launcelot said they wasn't to be allowed to see a book
at all, but running about wild in the good mountain air; and quite
right he was, too. And since then they begged so hard not to have a
governess in the house, that Mr. Blair giv' in to them, and got them
governesses from Ballyboden.
"But what with one thing and another they never stay. One says it's too
far to come every day, and another says she can't manage the children,
an' the last went away close upon three months ago because Mr. Murtagh
slipped a handful of hailstones down her back. But it doesn't signify;
they weren't any good, when they did come; they hadn't got the wit to
teach these children.
"They tell me there'll be a real clever German governess next year,
when the young gentlemen go to school. If they never got a governess at
all, there's no fear but what Mr. Launcelot's children would be clever
enough. They may be a bit wild like, but if they've got the good blood
in them, they'll never go far wrong. I'm old, and I've seen a lot o'
people, an' I tell you, Miss, you may always let the good blood have
its way; it's only the half-and-half folks take such a deal o' looking
after.
"Then it isn't every one can understand that, and that's where the
trouble is. With these children, now, ye can manage them with a crick
o' your little finger, if you take them the right way. They'd give you
the coats off o' their backs, and the bit out o' their mouths, if they
thought you wanted it. But they won't be driven. There's nothing but
gentleness is a bit o' good with them, and that's where it is them and
Mr. Plunkett is such enemies."
Such were Donnie's opinions, and she descanted upon them at length,
till Kate came to say that she had sent up Miss Blair's luncheon to the
dining-room.
Mr. Blair did not take luncheon, so Adrienne sat alone at the head
of the big table. She spent her afternoon alone, too, and had plenty
of leisure to decide that Murtagh was right,--the drawing-room was a
musty-smelling old room. She opened the windows wide, and filled the
old china bowls and vases with flowers, and pushed the furniture about
till the room looked more habitable. Then she unpacked her needlework
and her music, and tried to occupy herself; but finally she was very
glad when at half-past five Brown came to inform her that six o'clock
was the dinner hour--an intimation which she took as a respectful hint
that in Brown's opinion it was now time for her to dress.