The first and most pressing necessity of a woman's life is--what? Love?
No, a home. A home implies love and everything in life worth having.
A girl without a home and without relations is the loneliest thing on
earth, simply because she is a woman, and nothing has such a capacity
for loneliness as a woman.
Give her anything in the way of a tie, and she will crystallise on to it
and take it to heart, just as the sugar in a solution of barley-sugar
takes the string.
So it came about that Violet Grimshaw found herself, in less than three
weeks after her arrival at Drumgool, not only acclimatised to her new
surroundings, but literally one of the family. She had caught on to
them, and they had caught on to her. French, with that charming easiness
which one finds rarely nowadays, except in that fast vanishing
individual, the real old Irish gentleman, had from the first treated her
as though he had known her for years. Guessing, with the sure intuition
of the irresponsible, the level-headedness and worth behind her
prettiness, he now talked to her about his most intimate affairs, both
financial and family.
In him and in the other denizens of Drumgool was brought home to her the
power of the Celtic nature to imagine things and take them for granted.
"Now, where's me colander?" Mrs. Driscoll would say (as, for instance,
in a dialogue which reached the girl one afternoon with a whiff of
kitchen-scented air through a swing-door left open). "Where's me
colander? It's that black baste of a Doolan. I b'lave he's taken it to
feed the chickens. I'll tie a dish-cloth to his tail if he comes into me
kitchen takin' me colanders! Doolan! Foolan! Come here wid ye, and bring
me me colander. I'll tell the masther on you for takin' me things. You
haven't got it? May Heaven forgive you, but I saw you with the two eyes
in me head, and it in your hand! It's forenint me nose? Which nose? Oh,
glory be to Heaven! so it is. Now, out of me kitchen wid you, and don't
be littherin' me floor with your dirty boots!"
The connection of Doolan with the missing colander was based on a pure
assumption.
Just so French had adorned the portrait of Miss Grimshaw, which he had
painted in his own mind, with spectacles. And he would have sworn to
those spectacles in a court of law.
Just so, by extension, he saw Garryowen passing the winning-post despite
all the obstacles in his path. But it was the case of Effie that brought
home to Miss Grimshaw this trait with full force.
"Mr. French," said she one morning, entering the sitting-room where he
was writing letters, "do you know Effie can walk?"
"I beg your pardon--what did you say?" asked Mr. French, dropping his
pen and turning in his chair.
"The child's not a cripple at all. She can walk as well as I can."
"Walk! Why, she's been a cripple for years! Walk! Why, Mrs. Driscoll
never lets her on her feet by any chance!"
"Yes, but when she's alone she runs about the room, and she's as sound
on her legs as I am."
"But Dr. O'Malley said with his own mouth she was a cripple for life!"
"How long ago was that?"
"Four years."
"Has he seen her lately?"
"Seen her lately? Why, he's been in his coffin three years come next
October!"
"Have you had no other doctor to see her?"
"Sure, there's no one else but Rafferty at Cloyne, and he's a fool--and
she won't see doctors; she says they are no use to her."
"Well, all I can say is that I've seen her walking. She can run, and she
tells me she has been able to for years, only no one will believe her.
Whenever they see her on her feet she says they pop her back on the
couch. The poor child seems to have become so hopeless of making any one
believe her that she has submitted to her fate. I believe she half
believes herself that she oughtn't to walk, that it's a sort of sin; she
does it more out of perversity than anything else. She's been coddled
into invalidhood, and I'm going to coddle her out of it," said Miss
Grimshaw. "And if you will come upstairs with me now, I'll show you that
she's as firm on her legs as you are yourself."
They went upstairs. As Miss Grimshaw turned the handle of the door of
Effie's room a scuffling noise was heard, and when they entered, the
child was sitting up on the couch, flushed and bright-eyed.
"Why, what's all this, Effie?" cried her father. "What's all this I've
been hearing about your running about the room? Stick your legs out, and
let me see you do it."
Effie grinned.
"I will," said she, "if you promise not to tell Mrs. Driscoll."
For three years the unfortunate child had been suffering from no other
disease but Mrs. Driscoll's vivid imagination and the firm belief held
by her that the child's back would "snap in two" if she stood on her
legs. Vivid and vital, this belief, like some people's faith, refused to
listen to suggestion or criticism.
"I won't tell," said Effie's father. "Up with you and let's see you on
your pins."
"Now," said Miss Grimshaw, when the evolutions were over, and Miss
French had demonstrated her soundness in wind and limb to the full
satisfaction of her sire, "what do you think of that?"
"But how did you find it out?" asked the astonished man.
"She told me it as a secret."
"But why didn't she tell anyone else, with a whole houseful of people to
tell, this three years and more?"
"She did, but no one would believe her--would they, Effie?"
"No," replied Effie.
"You told Mrs. Driscoll over and over again you could walk, and what did
she say to you?"
"She told me to 'hold my whisht and not to be talking nonsense.' She
said she'd give me to the black man that lives in the oven if I put a
foot to the ground, and I told papa I was all right, and could walk, if
they'd let me, and he only laughed and told me not to be getting ideas
in my head."
"Faith, and that's the truth," said her papa. "I thought it was only her
fancies."
"Well," said Miss Grimshaw, "I examined her back this morning, and there
is nothing wrong with it. Her legs are all right. She's in good health.
Well, where's your invalid?"
"Faith, I don't know," said French. "This beats Bannagher."
He went to the bell and pulled it.
"Send up Mrs. Driscoll," said the master of Drumgool. "Send up Mrs.
Driscoll. And what are you standing there with your mouth hanging open
for?"
"Sure, Miss Effie, and what are you doin' off the couch?" cried Norah,
shaken out of her respect for her master by the sight of Effie on her
legs.
"Doing off the couch? Away with you down, and send up Mrs. Driscoll. You
and your couch! You've been murdering the child between you for the last
three years with your couches and your coddling. Off with you!"
"Don't be harsh to them," said Effie's saviour, as Norah departed in
search of the housekeeper. "They did it for the best."
Half-an-hour later, Mrs. Driscoll, with her pet illusion still perfectly
unshattered, returned to her kitchen to conduct the preparations for
dinner, while Effie, freed for ever from her bonds, sat on a stool
before the nursery fire, reading Mrs. Brown's adventures in Paris.
Miss Grimshaw, coming down a little later, found three letters that had
just come by post awaiting her. One was from Mr. Dashwood.
It was a short and rather gloomy letter. He had asked permission to
write to her, and she had been looking forward to a letter from him, for
she liked him, and his recollection formed a picture in her mind
pleasant to contemplate; but this short and rather gloomy screed was so
unlike him that she at once guessed something wrong in his affairs.
Womanlike, she was not over pleased that he should permit his private
worries to take the edge off his pen when he was writing to her, and she
determined to leave the letter unanswered.