Explanations.
“It’s just this way, aunties,” he explained. “Somehow, while you and
father made me feel you only wanted me to stay at home with you, I was
too easy-going and happy to care about the future at all.”
He had come over to the fire place now and pulled a chair between them,
so that he was quite close to each. The ice being once broken, it was
easier, and Miss Jane was helping him by her brave self-control.
“Then, a little while ago something happened which made me suddenly
think of what I meant to be or do in the future, and I realised how I
was wasting the years. Since the dear old General died, and we heard
that Paddy and Eileen and their mother were poor, I have felt awful
about it, as if, had I only been making the most of these years, I
might have been able to help them now.”
“Poor Jack,” murmured Miss Jane gently, and little Miss Mary laid her
small withered hand upon one of his big ones. “I am afraid it is
chiefly our fault, sister,” she said sadly. “In our love we have been
selfish.”
Miss Jane pressed her lips together tightly. She was thinking the same
thing, but it was hard to say it.
“You will have all that we have some day, Jack,” she said presently.
“You will not be poor.”
“I know you will do all you can for me, aunties,” he answered, “but I
hope it will be a long, long time before anything that is your becomes
mine.”
Then he told them all about his plans and about his friend, and they
tried to listen as if they were glad for his sake, and finally arranged
that Mr Wilkinson should be brought over to the Parsonage the following
day, so that they might get to know him and hear all about the country
he had come from. It was quite late when they finally went upstairs to
bed, and no one spoke as they kissed their usual good-night in the
sisters’ room, for their hearts were too full. Five minutes later,
however, there was a gentle tap upon Jack’s door, and in answer to his
voice little Miss Mary slipped into the room and softly pushed the door
to behind her.
Jack was sitting on his bed, feeling utterly wretched, and he had
remained so since he came upstairs. Miss Mary sat down beside him and
slipped one arm through his.
“Jack dear,” she said, “you know that sister and I don’t really care
for anything in the world except you and your happiness, and that if we
thought you were unhappy it would be impossible for us to be
otherwise?”
“Yes, auntie, I know,” he answered, with a catch in his voice. “You are
just too good to me, that’s all.”
“No, dear, because no words could ever tell all you have done for us.
If you had not come into our lives to keep us young and hopeful, a
sorrow that nearly broke my heart, and Jane’s for my sake, would
probably have ended in making us sour, embittered old maids.”
Jack shook his head; he knew how impossible that would have been.
“But it might, Jack,” the little lady urged; “and so we must always
feel we cannot ever do enough for you.”
That Jack had had no choice in the matter of coming into their lives
did not appear to strike her; but what of that?—she could not love him
less or more either way.
“What I want to say, Jack dear,” she continued, “is that sister and I
have often thought how foolish it was that you should have to wait
until we are dead to have our money when we would much rather you had
it now. As you know, we have three hundred pounds a year each, and
however much we try we cannot spend more than fifty pounds each, living
in this quiet country parsonage. So we think if you would take the
remaining five hundred pounds a year you might be able to win something
of all you want, and we should never miss it at all.”
“How good you are—how good you both are,” was all he could say.
“And you will take it?” with unconcealed eagerness.
“No, no,” hastily. “It is impossible—quite, quite impossible. Oh,
auntie! how could I—a great strong fellow such as I—with my health and
strength, take away the income of two frail women?”
“Jack dear,” she urged tearfully, “don’t look at it in that way. It is
only that we long to repay you for all the happiness you have brought
into our lives.”
“It is impossible, auntie,” he said, and his eyes glistened.
“Jack,”—there was a new note of tenderness in Miss Mary’s voice—“is
there anything between you and Eileen?”
For answer he dropped his face in his hands with a low groan. For some
moments Miss Mary was silent. She could not trust herself to speak.
“Don’t think your old auntie over-curious, Jack,” she said at last. “I
love you so. It is just as if the pain was mine again, as it was long
ago. It is because I suffered so once, and understand it all, I came to
you to-night. Perhaps if you could tell me about it—”
“You are an angel, auntie,” he murmured, and gripped the little hand in
his until he hurt it.
Miss Mary waited.
“She doesn’t care, auntie,” he said at last, as if the words were wrung
from him. “It just seems as if nothing in heaven or earth matters since
Eileen does not care.”
“Poor boy; poor laddie,” and a hot tear fell on his hand.
“And I don’t know why she should care,” he ran on, finding relief in
speaking. “What have I ever done or been that she should care for me? I
must always have seemed just a great, lazy schoolboy, and not a man at
all. And yet I have loved her since she was a little serious-faced
thing in pinafores. I can’t think why I did not realise it sooner, and
try to do something that might teach her to care. Instead, I have just
waited until the wolf came and stole her heart away, and found out how
terribly I cared when the mischief was all done.”
“Poor laddie, poor laddie,” the little lady said again, letting her
tears flow freely. “I don’t think it was so much your fault as sister’s
and mine. We ought to have let you go out into the world sooner. It
would probably have made all the difference. Are you quite sure there
is no hope?”
“There is none now, but if he does not come back I shall still hope in
the future. She will not care for anyone else, I think, and by and by,
perhaps, she will forget. I shall go on hoping that if such a time
comes she will turn to me.”
“I believe it will come, Jack,” Miss Mary said hopefully, “and that in
the end she will indeed turn to you.”
“But I must do something to feel more worthy of her auntie, and when I
come back I must come with something to offer. I feel as if I had yet
to prove to her that I am a man,” and he half smiled with a very
wistful expression. “She has lectured me so often on being idle and
wasting my life; and I always meant to begin at something but somehow
it got put off. Perhaps it was just staying in Omeath spoilt
everything. I feel as if I should be different altogether when I get
away from the fishing, and shooting, and boating, among hardworking
chaps.” He paused, then added: “You must tell me everything about her
that you possibly can, and perhaps—perhaps when I come back she will be
waiting for me.”
“I believe she will, Jack, I do, indeed,” and then the little lady
kissed him lovingly and went back to tell her sister.
But it was a long, weary night for all of them. Jack’s hopefulness was
only intermittent and vanished again almost as soon as it came, leaving
him a prey to vain, pitiless regret and longing.
As for the two little ladies, it was many years since they had spent
sadder hours. Far into the night they wept silently, quite unable to
comfort each other. That he must go away was so terrible to them; that
he must go away in trouble was only worse. In a few weeks The Ghan
House would be empty and their birdling flown, and the desolation in
Omeath would be terrible beyond words. Once before life had dealt them
a bitter blow, and for years joy had been crushed beneath it. Then Jack
had come, and their old friend the General with his young wife, and
life had smiled on them again, and it had seemed that they had found a
“desired haven” for the remainder of their years. And now, suddenly,
the cup was dashed from their lips again, and the old, old bitterness
offered, instead, and for that one night poor human nature rebelled.
Only the next morning it was as if the words, “Peace be still,” had
been spoken through the silence of the starlit heavens, and two sweet,
calm faces greeted Jack at the breakfast-table. For sorrow does not
come _so_ hard upon the old as upon the young, since when half the
journey is over and can be looked back upon, for those who have eyes to
see there is ever the God-light visible shining through the darkest
hours.
That day Jack told Paddy, and the news began to spread swiftly, until
it was known in all the neighbourhood that not only was The Ghan House
to be let to strangers, but Jack O’Hara, everybody’s favourite, was
going away across the sea to seek his fortune in foreign lands. And in
every direction there was manifold sorrow and regret. People did not
like to intrude upon Mrs Adair yet, but every day someone drove or
bicycled to the Parsonage to know if it was indeed true, and tried the
two little ladies sorely with their exclamations and questionings.
Moreover they were extremely busy. Going away to a foreign land—for all
they knew, of heathens and cannibals—where there was never a woman to
sew on a button nor darn a sock, it was, of course, necessary for Jack
to have a regular trousseau. Everything had to be new, everything of
the best, and every button and every tape sewed and sewed until it
would really have puzzled Jack to get them off if he had wanted to.
In vain he expostulated and pleaded as the heap of clothes grew bigger
and bigger. They would not listen to him, and were deaf to his plea
that it would necessitate chartering a private ship if he were really
to take ill the things they were preparing for him. When there was the
slightest indecision about anything, it was always, “What do you think,
sister?—will he want this?” or “Will he want a dozen suits of pyjamas”
or “Three dozen pairs of socks?” or “Do you think he would be likely to
require silk handkerchiefs?” And always, whichever sister asked the
question, the other answered gravely, “He _might_,” and that was
considered final.
The Parsonage rapidly assumed the appearance of a clothing warehouse or
permanent jumble sale, and Paddy’s first real laugh broke out one
afternoon when she came over to help sew on name-tapes. The order for
the socks had accidentally been repeated four times, with the result
that they were so literally swamped in socks that it seemed quite
impossible to get away from them go where you would. All over the
drawing-room socks lay everywhere. They hid in corners of the
dining-room, disported themselves in the kitchen, smiled at you from
the stairs, where they had been dropped in driblets when Miss Mary
carried one armful to the first story, to spread themselves over the
bedroom. In many places they were hopelessly mixed up with woollen
underclothes, which also lay broadcast around, waiting for name-tapes;
while flannel shirts and sleeping-suits of every hue and description
draped themselves, gracefully and otherwise, over chairs and on the
dining-room sideboard. The half-dozen cholera belts, that he _might_
want, managed even to get into the rector’s study, though how or when
no one knew, and it was only after a frantic search they were
discovered. His suits of clothes he had always left lying about since
he left off petticoats, also his boots; and now, as if unwilling to see
old friends outdone, these were tossed pell-mell among the rest, and
walk where one would you were pretty certain to stumble over boots or
get entangled in trouser legs.
When Paddy first saw it all there was a sort of aching pause, and then
she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. Indeed, being somewhat
out of practice, she laughed so much that she could not stop, and
finally Jack attempted to stuff socks, and cholera belts, and woollen
garments down her throat, to help her, while, governed by instinct, the
two little ladies once more flew round collecting the breakables.
“I’m—I’m—so afraid you won’t have enough things to keep you warm,”
gasped Paddy between her struggles. “It’s only about ninety degrees in
the shade, you know, in South America; you really ought to have two or
three fur coats and caps and a dozen nice warm blankets.”
Two minutes later nothing was to be seen of her except a pair of feet,
emerging from a promiscuous heap of coats, waistcoats, socks, woollens,
shirts, handkerchiefs, and an odd boot here and there.