Murtagh woke next day with a glad feeling that something pleasant
was to happen; he sprang out of bed with a shout of--"Hurrah, Bobbo,
to-morrow has come, and we'll be all right now!" Careering across the
landing, he awoke Rosie and Winnie to remind them of the same fact, and
they all rejoiced together, planning what they would say to Theresa's
mother, and anticipating how "awfully" pleased she would look when she
knew that Theresa wasn't dead, and that the money was all right.
"I'm very glad we met her, after all," reflected Murtagh, as he
returned to his own room to put on some garments more suitable to the
breakfast table. "Even if the police had got hold of us, it would have
been something to have saved her, and this way it's jolly."
They expected to see Mr. Plunkett at ten o'clock. It was his custom to
walk through the greenhouses at that hour on Sunday mornings. But alas
for their joyful expectations! Ten o'clock struck, and eleven too, and
no Mr. Plunkett made his appearance.
Ballyboden fashion was to begin morning service at twelve o'clock, and
at half-past eleven the carriage came to the door. Clearly, all hope
of seeing Mr. Plunkett before church must be given up, and the mood in
which the children started was anything but devotional.
It must be confessed that they were not agreeable companions in church
that day.
They meant to be quiet, but they yawned till the tears ran down their
cheeks, and not only did they change their position every five minutes,
but by a painful fatality they rarely succeeded in effecting the change
without administering an unintentional but resounding kick to the
woodwork of the old pew. At last came the final prayer, and Winnie went
down on her knees with such alacrity that more than one respectable old
lady turned her head, and seemed reproachfully to ask an explanation
from Nessa. Oh! why are old pews constructed on the principles of a
sounding-board?
But it was over; service and sermon had come to an end; and the
congregation poured out into the churchyard.
There the children learnt that Mr. Plunkett had been, this morning,
unable to leave his bed. "It was likely," said the young doctor, who
gave them the news, "that he would be confined to the house for several
days."
Nessa was astonished at the faces of dismay with which the children
received the information.
"Are you sure?" Rosie ventured to ask. "Are you sure he won't be able
to get out for several days?"
"Well, I really can't tell you that, Miss Rose," replied the doctor.
"But he's not very bad,--not very bad."
"Would you like to go round by the Red House, and inquire there how he
is?" Nessa suggested, feeling quite sorry for the children's needless
anxiety.
Murtagh felt doubtful of the utility of that proceeding, but a nudge
from Winnie, and an expressive glance from Rosie, made him accept the
proposal. Winnie had conceived the bold design of seeing Mr. Plunkett
in his own house, and of asking him without more delay; but, arrived at
the Red House, she found that her hopes were vain.
"Mr. Plunkett was in his own room," Mrs. Plunkett said, "and did not
know when he expected to leave it."
"Mightn't we go up and see him?" suggested Winnie, undauntedly, but
Mrs. Plunkett answered in horror: "My dear Winnie, I wouldn't let one
of you inside his room for anything in the world. Why, he won't even
have one of his own children in except Marion, and she's more like a
mouse than a child."
They drove away feeling more than ever puzzled as to what was to be
done. Poor Theresa! They scarcely dared to think of going up to her
with the news that she must wait again, till they did not know when.
Their heads were so full of Theresa's troubles that dinner was torment
to them. They could not eat; they were longing for the meal to be
finished in order that they might get away and consult together. What,
therefore, was their confusion, when Nessa innocently suggested that
they should pay a visit to the poor woman whose little girl had been
lost.
"Uncle Blair said it would be kind of us," she said.
"We--we can't," replied Murtagh. "We have to go--I mean," he said,
recovering himself, "we have something else to do."
"Look here, Murtagh, I don't see a bit of use all of us going,"
exclaimed Rosie, gaining a sort of desperate courage from Nessa's
presence; "and I'm not, for one."
"Do you mean," exclaimed Murtagh, astonished, "that you're not coming
up to--" He stopped short, growing scarlet at the thought of how nearly
he had betrayed himself.
Nessa looked at him in surprise, while Rosie answered stoutly, "No, I'm
not."
"Couldn't your business wait till to-morrow?" Nessa asked gently.
"No," said Murtagh, with a sort of shutting of himself up that made
further questions impossible.
There was a minute's silence; then Nessa asked whether she knew the way
to Mrs. Daly's cottage, and if it would be too far for Ellie to walk.
"I tell you what," said Winnie, presently, "if you'll wait for us at
the cottage, we'll come there after; that's the way we'll come home.
Rosie can go with you if she likes," she added contemptuously.
Dinner over, the children went to prepare for their walk.
"What is to be done, Murtagh?" asked Rosie, as they mounted the little
staircase. "Goodness knows when that stupid Mr. Plunkett will get well
again! I think much the best plan is to give up the whole thing, and
tell Mrs. Daly now all about Theresa. We can't possibly keep her there
forever, and we shall be getting into an awful row, for the police
always find things out."
"What is the good of talking like that, Rosie?" interrupted Winnie,
impatiently. "Just as if we didn't know as well as you that we're
getting into an awful row. You keep on telling us the same thing over
and over again, as if that would help us out of it."
"Well, but I do tell you a way out of it," replied Rose.
"Yes, just like a sneaking woman's way," said Murtagh. "Of course,
you're never to stick to any one when it gets to be any trouble."
"Well, I'm sure I don't see much good sticking to people when you can't
do any good by it," returned Rose, reddening; "and besides, you're sure
to let it all out before long."
"Come now, Rosie, you're a great deal worse than Murtagh," remarked
Bobbo, and a pitched battle of tongues was imminent, when Winnie again
interrupted:
"Do hold your tongues, and let's settle what's to be done."
But talking about it was very little use, and soon Nessa's voice was
heard at the bottom of the stairs calling out to know if Rosie and
Ellie were ready.
Great indeed, as the children expected, was poor Theresa's trouble when
she heard the news they brought; it was impossible to console her.
Nothing but the terror of going home, which grew in proportion with the
efforts made to save her from that dreaded contingency, kept her upon
the island.
In answer to her tears the children could say nothing but promise to
make it all right somehow, if only she would wait patiently; and after
they had done their little best to comfort her they went away promising
to come up the very first thing before breakfast and bring with them
news of her mother.
The hour they had spent with her had made them more than ever
downspirited. They had exhausted all their courage in trying to comfort
her, and the three little hearts were very heavy as they walked along
the road that led to the cottage. It was Winnie as usual who brightened
up a little at last.
"Never mind, Myrrh," she said, as they reached the cottage door. "We'll
do it somehow, you know, if we hold out long enough." And she seemed so
sure that the boys felt surer too.
Nessa's voice within, speaking to Rose, emboldened them to lift
the latch. The cottage was much like many another, but bare and
neglected-looking. It felt cold, like an uninhabited place. A mud
floor; at one end a cupboard; at the other a bed; a table, a couple
of broken chairs; and in the smoke-stained fireplace a newly lit fire
trying to burn; that was what the children saw. Rose, at the fire, was
stirring something in a saucepan; Nessa was sitting beside the bed with
her back turned to the door. There seemed at first to be no one else
in the cottage except little Ellie, who was leaning against Nessa's
knees; but as the children's eyes became used to the obscurity they
distinguished on the pillow the white, wasted face of a sick woman.
Rosie looked up as they entered.
"There you are!" she exclaimed in a half-whisper. "Oh, it was such
a good thing we came. Do you know she had nothing to eat, and there
was no fire, and the door was open, and the pig had got in, and the
chickens were pecking her oatmeal, and oh! everything was so miserably
uncomfortable; but we've settled her bed, and now we're making some
gruel."
Nessa looked round at the sound of their entry. Her face wore a
saddened expression not usual to it.
"These are my little cousins," she said to Mrs. Daly; "but we did not
know how ill you were when we agreed to come all together."
"They're very welcome, Ma'am," replied the poor woman, with a trace
of cordial hospitality still left in her faint voice. "Ye're kindly
welcome, my dears; will yez please to sit down?"
"Thank you," said Murtagh, and they sat down at once round the fire.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" whispered Murtagh, after a time.
"Oh, no," replied Rose. "We've done everything. We made the room tidy,
and we lit the fire, and there was scarcely any wood, and she has
hardly any covering on her bed, and there isn't a single thing to eat
except a little oatmeal and some scraps of hard bread."
"What's in the saucepan?" asked Winnie.
"Gruel," replied Rosie. "It's got to be stirred all the time, and then
Nessa's going to toast the scraps of bread when the fire gets brighter."
After that the children employed themselves with poking bits of wood
into the blaze, and listened at first almost mechanically to what Mrs.
Daly was saying.
"He was as kind as a body could want yesterday morning," she said,
"and went up to Mr. Plunkett's to tell about the child being gone; but
now I suppose it's in with some of his bad companions he is, for he's
never been back since. And then, Ma'am, it's not like as if Theresa was
his own child. Of course, he hasn't the feelings for her that a father
might have, an' she makes him mad with her flighty ways, till what with
the drink an' the anger he beats her sometimes till she can scarce
stan' up on her legs.
"She lost the goat up on the mountains, an' he nearly murthered her
entirely. She lay moanin' there on the straw all night fit to make your
heart bleed. But for all that he's a very kind man; by nature I mean,
Ma'am. It's all for her good he thinks he's doing it, and with the
drink--"
All this was said in detached sentences, interrupted often by a cough,
or a few words from Nessa.
The children scarcely dared even to look at one another. They strained
their ears to catch every word. Poor Theresa! it seemed to them
that she might almost as well live with a wild beast as with such a
stepfather. No wonder she was afraid to come home.
But talking exhausted Mrs. Daly, and Nessa came soon to the fire to see
if the gruel were ready. Then the bread had to be toasted, and a cup
and plate and spoon had to be found and washed. In a very few minutes
Mrs. Daly, propped up in her bed, was partaking of the most comfortable
meal she had tasted for days.
Nessa would not let her speak any more, but in order that she might
not feel hurried over her gruel began to talk herself, and amuse
the children as much as Mrs. Daly by an account of her journey from
Brittany to Ballyboden.
Mrs. Daly was cheered by the pleasant chatter, and the children were
quite sorry when the gruel was finished. But it was time to go home,
and after asking if Mrs. Daly would like her to come again to-morrow,
Nessa took her leave.
As they passed out of the gate a man evidently the worse for drink
rolled in, and staggering up the little path noisily entered the
cottage.
Nessa turned quite white.
"Are you afraid?" asked Bobbo.
"I--I can't bear people who drink," she replied, recovering herself.
"Mustn't it be dreadful to live with him?" said Rosie, as they walked
on.
No one answered her. The children were inclined to be very silent. This
life of Theresa's seemed to them something that could not be true. They
had often been in and out of cottages; they had seen men tipsy in the
village; but they had never realized before what it meant.
"How kind you are!" said Rosie, gently, coming close to Nessa, after
they walked about half a mile. "Mustn't Mrs. Daly be very glad we went?"
"Poor woman!" said Nessa, her eyes filling suddenly with tears. "She is
very good. I wonder why God made us so happy."
"Yes," said Murtagh, who had been considering Rosie's words. "I think
you're very kind; I think you like helping people."
"When I was little," replied Nessa, turning to him with a smile, and
falling into the children's train of thought, "I had a nurse called
Aimée. She used to be very unhappy because I could not go to her
church, and on Sunday afternoons she always took me to try and help
some one. She used to tell me that that was my way to heaven. Wasn't it
a pretty thought?"
"I think you must have been quite a different sort of girl from us,"
said Winnie. "We never thought about helping people, and that kind of
thing."