Paddy Makes Her Cousin’s Acquaintance.
One of the first things Paddy did when she got to London was to quarrel
with her cousin, Basil Adair. Basil was a medical student, a young man
who had somehow got a notion that the world would be in no end of a
queer fix without him; but that, as long as he remained in it, he had
no occasion to work or strive after anything except having a good time,
spending a great deal of money and talking big. He was rather curious
about this new cousin who was coming to stay a few weeks with them, and
inclined to be pleased at the idea of some one quite fresh to impress
daily with his new clothes, immaculate boots, glossy head-gear, and
generally magnificent appearance. When he saw a black-robed,
sallow-faced girl, with serious eyes and badly dressed hair, he was
inclined to be satirical. Paddy’s mourning, hastily procured in Newry,
did not meet with his approval at all, as indeed it was hardly likely
to do, and black was the most unbecoming colour she could possibly
wear. Still, he had a great idea of always doing the correct thing, so
he came home to dinner the flint evening, and addressed various polite
remarks to her, in a grandiloquent, not to say condescending, tone.
Paddy looked at him as if he were a clothes-horse, and Basil was not
pleased. Half divining the same, Paddy looked again. After dinner, when
she had the opportunity of a nearer inspection, she looked with
interest at the immaculate patent-leather boots, and took a calm survey
of the whole effect. Basil felt he was making an impression, and though
he thought she was very plain and dowdy, he was a young man who could
not have resisted trying to make an impression on a crossing sweeper.
He took up his stand on the hearthrug, with his legs astride and his
hands behind him, and looked down at her over his two-and-a-half-inch
collar, prepared to continue his magnanimity.
“Er—you don’t know London, I believe—er—Miss Adair?” he began.
“I have been here before,” Paddy answered. “I was at school here for
about four months.”
“It is unfortunate,” he continued, “that father’s practice happens to
be—er—in Shepherd’s Bush, and that, therefore, you should have to
become acquainted with London from such a—er—plebeian locality.”
“I don’t see that it matters where you are, if you’ve got to be in
London,” said Paddy more bluntly than grammatically.
“But London is a glorious place,” he cried. “To be in London is life,
to be out of it is death. London is—er—the centre of the world. The
centre of learning, and commerce, and—er—art, and—er—progress.”
“Don’t they say the same about Paris, and Berlin, and New York, and
lots of other places?” she asked calmly.
“If they do, it is a lie. London stands at the top of the pyramid built
by the cities of the world.”
“Well, anyhow, I’d sooner have Omeath,” said Paddy.
“It is heresy,” he cried, “rank heresy—and you an Englishwoman.”
“Irish,” corrected Paddy, very decidedly.
“Ah, yes, to be sure! And I suppose you’re—er—very proud of it. Funny
thing how the Irish fancy their nationality.”
“Not half so funny as some of the things you fancy yourselves for over
in England,” she retorted, getting a little exasperated.
Basil glanced down over his collar rather as if he were taking stock of
a curious kind of animal, and Paddy began to fidget. She was becoming
more and more conscious of a desperate impulse to ruffle his hair, and
tumble his collar, and disarrange generally this painfully well-dressed
young man, with his air of extreme condescension.
“Ah!” he said satirically, “you cultivate the art of repartee in
Ireland—as well as potatoes.”
“We cultivate men, too,” with scorn. “You ought to go over there and
finish your education.”
This rather took his breath away for a minute, and while he was
recovering Paddy’s mood changed.
“That was rude,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
This surprised him still more, and he mentally designated her the
oddest fish he had come across.
“Oh, don’t mention it,” he replied with a paternal air. “I like people
who say what they think.” There was a pause, then he asked: “I suppose
you are fond of theatres?”
“I have never been to one.”
“Never been to a theatre!” he gasped. “Impossible! Why you haven’t done
anything!”
Paddy leaned forward suddenly. “Have you ever shot a snipe?” she said.
“No,” wonderingly.
“Well, I have,” and she closed her lips with an expressive snap, and
there was a slight pause.
“You’re a—er—sportswoman then?” at last.
“I don’t shoot my bird sitting, if that’s what you mean.”
Basil had no mind to reveal his ignorance upon sport generally, so he
tried another tack, asking: “I suppose you have read all the new
novels.”
“I have ready scarcely anything, except ‘The Jungle Tales,’ ‘A Voyage
in the Cachalot,’ and the Bible. I never had time to read.”
“Never had time!” he echoed. “I thought people who lived in the country
had no other way to kill time.”
Paddy did not reply, so he asked, “What did you do beside shoot, then!”
“Oh, I could sail a bit, and fish a bit, and climb a bit. Then there
was the hockey club, and tennis club, and golf club. The days weren’t
as a rule half long enough.”
Basil looked down with some show of interest.
“You’ll rather miss all that in London,” he suggested.
“I guess so,” was Paddy’s short, laconic response, and she fixed her
eyes on the fire.
“Still, there’ll be lots of other things,” he went on. “Dances, and
theatres, and—er—shops. The guv’nor’s awfully easy-going, you know—you
won’t have to do much work.”
“Do you mean Uncle Frank?” raising her eyebrows a little.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
Paddy did not answer, and just then her aunt come back.
“Basil, my dear,” said his mother anxiously, “I don’t like to think you
are working so hard. I’m sure you’re not strong enough. Last night it
was quite one o’clock when I heard you moving about overhead.”
“Oh, that won’t hurt me,” carelessly, “and it’s so much easier to read
at night.”
Paddy looked at him keenly.
“But, my dear boy, you must remember your health,” continued his mother
fondly. “You must not let your zeal make you rash.”
Paddy grew meditative. She had distinct recollections of her uncle
saying Basil could not get through his exams, and implying that he did
not work. Her aunt turned to her.
“You know the medical profession is such a hard one to get on in, my
dear,” she said, “and Basil has to be nearly always working. I assure
you it is a most unusual thing for him to spend an evening in the
drawing-room like this. He nearly always goes to the hospital, or works
at a friend’s rooms. It is entirely for your sake, my dear, and I was
very glad when I heard him say he could manage it.”
Paddy murmured something about being honoured, and a little later asked
if she might be excused and go to bed, as she was very tired.
Basil had something of a shock. It was incredible for any girl to want
to go to bed at nine o’clock when he was there. When Paddy actually
stood up and prepared to go, he concluded she had a headache and could
not bear the light. As a matter of fact poor Paddy was momentarily
getting nearer breaking down altogether, and the instant her aunt
closed the door and left her alone, she went down on her knees by the
bedside and burst into tears.
It had been such a terrible day—she thought she would never forget it
as long as she lived.
She and Jack had breakfasted together at Holyhead, where they remained
until morning, and then he had seen her safely into the train to
London. There had been tears in his sunny eyes, and Paddy had felt
awful, but it had to be borne, and now he was on the sea sailing
away—away from England and all of them. It did, indeed, seem as if all
the hard things possible had come upon them at once, and when she at
last slipped into bed, she cried herself to sleep.
The next day she went with her uncle to see about her dispensing and
was fortunately able to start working at once, which left her less time
to think.
Nevertheless, often across her studies would steal the memory of the
mountains and loch. In fancy she would smell the heather or the peat,
hear the curlews calling or the cry of the plover, the lapping of the
little waves against the keel of the boat, or their light murmuring on
the shingle; she would wonder what the aunties were doing, and how the
hockey club was getting on with its new captain, and whether they all
thought of her sometimes and missed her! One big tear would gather and
then another, and she would dash them angrily away, fighting day by day
with steady persistence the passionate longing, the sometimes
passionate determination, to throw everything to the winds and go back
and live on crusts, if need be, beside her beloved lake. Sometimes
these fits left her very sore and irritable, and it was in such a mood
she had her first real quarrel with Basil, about three weeks after her
arrival. She hardly knew what it was all about, neither did he, but he
started holding forth in his usual high fashion upon London and
Londoners being the salt of the earth, with certain vague innuendoes
about well-cut, tailor-made dresses and a smart style, until Paddy grew
exasperated beyond endurance, and informed him, none too politely, that
he was only fitted to stand in tailor’s window, as a model of an
empty-headed, well-dressed, curled and pampered modern young man, with
about as much real manhood in him as a wax doll.
Having delivered herself of this somewhat pointed speech, in a highly
impressive fashion, she flung out of the room and slammed the door
behind her in a way that shook the jerry-built Shepherd’s Bush villa to
its very foundation. It shook his lordship, Basil Adair, gasping into a
large arm-chair with open mouth and eyes, for the onslaught had very
literally taken his breath away.
“By Jove,” he breathed, “I hope the roof’s securely fastened on. What
in the name of fortune did the guv’nor bring this whirlwind—this
tornado—this positive monsoon—into a suburban villa for?”