Good-Bye.
It was the early January twilight the day before they left that Jack
and Paddy went round to take their last farewells. They slipped out
quietly and went alone on purpose, as neither felt particularly sure of
themselves, and they were determined not to upset the others. This very
fact made Paddy remark resolutely, as they walked down to the quay:
“Now, we’re not going to be sentimental, Jack, and we’re not going to
act as if saying good-by was awful. We’ve just got to pretend we like
it, do you see!”
“I’m with you,” he answered at once, “only you’ll have to show me the
way.”
“Let’s take hands and pretend we’re children again to begin with,” was
the prompt reply, and then, hand in hand, they stood and looked across
the water to Warrenpoint.
“We’ve had some fun there, haven’t we!” said Paddy. “Do you remember
the first time we crossed alone, when you were about ten and I was six,
and what a row we got into afterward!—and three weeks later we decided
it was worth it and went again? Jack! what a scoundrel you were!” and
she laughed up into his face.
“I, a scoundrel indeed! I like that! Why, you put me up to nearly
everything, and called me a coward if I held back.”
“Did I?” innocently. “How wrong of me! Good-by, my dear loch, we’re
only going away for a little while, and well soon be back. Mind you
don’t forget.” And she turned briskly away, pulling Jack after her.
All through the grounds of The Ghan House and the Parsonage, path by
path, they trampled, laughing at a recollection here, an escapade
there, each pretending not to notice how near to tears they both felt.
Last of all they came to the churchyard, and the hand in Jack’s
tightened involuntarily.
“It will be the making of us, you know, Jack,” she said, throwing back
her head with an odd little jerk, and speaking at random. “I can see it
well enough now. If you had not been suddenly awakened to the true
state of things, you’d just have hung on here, and never been anything
at all but two dear little old maids’ spoiled darling. By and by you
would have taken to sipping tea, and knitting, and having your slippers
warmed, and a hot-water bottle at nights, and grown very stout, and
quite forgotten you were ever meant to be a man. You’d have been for
all the world like one of Lady Dudley’s precious kittens, that are not
allowed out in the rain for fear of getting their feet wet. You
wouldn’t have been able to help yourself—just everything would have
tended to it.
“Oh! of course it’s a splendid thing for both of us,” running on. “I’d
have developed into an oddity of some sort, you may be sure, and been a
kind of show person of the neighbourhood. Or perhaps I’d never have
grown up at all. I’d just have remained a rowdy kid—and fancy a rowdy
kid of thirty-five! wouldn’t it be awful! Now I’m going to be a good
son—it sounds lovely, doesn’t it? I’m so glad daddy put it that way.
Being a good daughter sounds namby-pamby and Sunday-schoolish, but
being a good son, when you happen to be a girl, sounds just fine. And
then it’s splendid not having to teach, isn’t it? Not that I could, for
I don’t know anything; but I might have had to be a nursery governess
and worry about after tiresome children. Mixing medicines sounds much
more exciting, though, I think, if I might have had my choice of
anything, I’d have been one of the keepers at the Zoo. It would be just
lovely to be with the animals all day long, and find out all their
funny little ways, and make friends of them. But best of all would have
been to come to the Argentine with you,” hurrying on without giving him
time to speak. “You’ll ride bare-headed over endless grass plains, and
have great times with the cattle, and shoot and fish, and have
wide-spreading skies all around you still, while I’ll be suffocated
among the smuts and chimney-pots. Oh, Jack, Jack!” clinging to him with
sudden weakness, “God might have made me a man, mightn’t He? Then I
could have come and been a cowboy with you, instead of mixing silly
medicines among the smuts and chimney-pots.”
Jack put his arm round her, but for a few moments he could not trust
himself to speak.
“It’ll be all right by and by, Paddy,” he said at last. “You’ll get
married, you know, to some awfully nice chap, who’ll take you back to
the country again and just spoil you all day long.”
She shrank away from him suddenly, almost with an angry gesture.
“No, I won’t get married,” she said. “I tell you I won’t—I won’t—I
won’t!”
Jack looked taken aback.
“Why ever not!” he asked.
“Because I won’t, that’s why. You’re no better than the other men,
Jack—and you’re all a lot of blind owls. You think a girl can’t do
without getting married—that just that, and nothing else, is her idea
of happiness! Such rubbish—you ought to have more sense.”
Jack was quite at a loss to understand in what way he had so
unexpectedly offended, and for the matter of that Paddy was not much
wiser but under her show of determination and spirit her heart was just
breaking, and she felt she must go to one extreme or another to keep up
at all. And then that he could talk so calmly of her getting married
and belonging to someone else? Was it possible he would not care the
least little bit if his old playfellow could be the same to him no
longer? Did his love for Eileen make her no more of any account at all?
Of course it was so—she could see it plainly now; he did not really
mind leaving anything or anybody except Eileen; the rest of them were
all in a bunch—just people he had been fond of once. Her goaded heart
ran on, exaggerating every little detail in its misery, and adding
tenfold to its own loneliness; while in every thought she wronged Jack.
Before all things he was intensely affectionate and true; and so deep
was his distress at leaving his aunts and the old home and each inmate
of The Ghan House, that he had given less thought to Eileen than usual,
as the day of departure approached.
“What have I done, Paddy?” he said, seeing the wild, strained look in
her eyes.
“Go away,” she said. “Go away to Eileen, and leave me with daddy.”
The tears rained down her cheeks, as she turned from him to her
father’s grave, and leaning against a tombstone behind it buried her
face in her hands, murmuring passionately:
“Why did you go away, daddy, when I wanted you so? Didn’t you know I
hadn’t anyone else?—that I’d be just all alone? Mother loves Eileen
best, and Jack and the aunties love her best, but you and I belonged to
each other, and we didn’t mind. It wasn’t kind to go away and leave me.
It wasn’t good of God—it was cruel. I’ll be a good son, because I
promised, but I’d much rather come to you, and no one would mind.
Daddy, daddy, can’t you hear me? Ah! I know you can’t or you’d come to
me. You couldn’t stay in Heaven or anywhere else if you knew your Paddy
had this awful—awful lonely feeling—you’d just make God let you come
back to me. Only you can’t hear, you can’t hear, and I’m all
alone—alone. What shall I do through all the long years to come?”
She was now in a paroxysm of weeping, all the more intense that she had
kept up so long, and Jack was frightened. His impulse was to run and
fetch one of the aunts, but something held him back. Instinct told him
that there was in Paddy a kindred soul, which would shrink from letting
anyone see her in tears if she could possibly help it. So he stood and
waited beside her silently, as he would have wished her to do had he
been in her place. And when Paddy grew quieter, this action in itself
appealed to her more than anything else could have done, and all her
anger against him died away.
“I’m awfully silly, Jack. I don’t know what you’ll think of me,” she
said, trying to stay the tears.
“I think you’re rather unkind,” he answered.
She seemed surprised and asked “Why?”
“You know I think the world of you,” he blurted out, feeling very near
tears himself. “You know you’re just the best pal a chap ever had.”
Paddy gave a little crooked smile.
“Then you ought not to want me to get married,” she said.
“You know I only want you to have a good time, and that I’d rather a
thousand time you were a man and could come with me to the Argentine.”
Paddy slipped her arm through his and rubbed her face against his
coat-sleeve caressingly. “I know you would, Jack. I’m just horrid, but
you must forget and make allowances. I feel—oh, I don’t know what I
feel—it’s so positively awful.”
“I know,” he said feelingly. “That’s just it, positively awful. But
it’s not any good minding, so we’d better go on trying to pretend we
don’t. I’ll be glad when we’re started now. I dread to-morrow so.”
The next evening they stood together leaning on the ship rail, and
straining their eyes up the loch while they steamed away from Greenore.
The terrible day was over at last, and both felt quite exhausted. “How
had they ever kept up at all?” they wondered, through those three meals
of forced conversations, forced smiles, and poor attempts at merriment.
How had the aunties ever kept up? Of a certainty they were sobbing
their hearts out now in the empty, empty Parsonage. There had been no
tears until the final good-by and then the strain had become too much
for them. But Jack had still held on manfully.
“Don’t you fret, aunties,” he said, with an odd little crack in his
voice. “I’ll be back almost before you’ve had time to tidy up after me,
with pockets full of gold; and Paddy and I will be flying over the
furniture again, and you’ll both be collecting the ornaments, and
you’ll just forget we’ve ever been away at all.”
“That’s if I don’t poison somebody and get hanged meanwhile,” said
Paddy in a cheerful way that made them all laugh in spite of
themselves. “I’m sure I’ll never know one medicine from another.”
And now the ship is steaming away, and the two travellers strain their
eyes to the familiar mountains, outlined distinctly against the
star-spangled sky in the bright moonlight.
“I’m glad we can see the old giant on Carlingford Mountain,” Paddy
said. “I’ve always had a kind of fondness for him. He lies there so
calmly through all weathers, and when it’s bright and sunny and not too
hot I can always imagine him heaving a sigh of content that it’s not
raining, or snowing, or anything unpleasant. Good-by, old man,” waving
her hand to him. “I’ll be back again soon, and mind you don’t change in
any way. I want you to look exactly the same when I come again.
“There are the lights at Warrenpoint,” she ran on. “Isn’t it odd to
think that the people there are going about just as usual; and next
summer the Pierrots will come again, and we shall all be so far away?
The mountains look specially beautiful to-night, don’t they? My dear
Mourne Mountains, it’s just as if they put on their very best dresses,
to look their nicest for our sake. I’m quite sure they’re sorry, Jack.
They’re just awfully sorry, but they can’t say it. You see they’ve
watched us grow up, and we must have amused them a good deal at times.
They know all about that first rabbit we shot, when we stole daddy’s
gun. How proud we were, weren’t we? And they were so angry at home,
instead of delighted as we thought they ought to be, when we carried in
the trophies of our big game expedition. You were Selous, you know, and
I was Captain Bailey. We had been reading about them just before. I
expect they know about every time we have got capsized in the loch, and
each time we were lost and nearly got in bogs, and just all about
everything. Good-by again!” and she waved her handkerchief slowly. A
bitter sea wind struck them.
“You’ll catch cold,” said Jack. “Come in.”
“All right,” and she turned away. At the entrance to the salon she
looked back once more. “Good-by,” she said softly to the night.
“Good-by, daddy’s grave—try and keep nice. Daddy himself will be in
London with me.”