I
When Patrick Carolan Breagh attained the age of six years, the boy
being tall enough to view his own topknot of scarlet curls and
freckled snub nose in the big shining mirror of his stepmother's
toilet-table, without standing on the tin bonnet-box that was kept
under the chintz cover, or climbing on a chair,--he was fated to
acquire, during one brief half-hour's concealment under a Pembroke
table, more knowledge of Life, Death, and the value of Money, than
would otherwise have come to him in the course of half a dozen more
years.
Upon this unforgetable third of January, his plaid frock had been
taken off and, to his infinite delight, replaced by a little pair of
blue cloth breeches and a roundabout jacket. Amateurish as to cut,
the nether garments displaying so little difference fore and aft that
it did not matter in the least which way you faced when you stepped
into them, they were yet splendid,--not only in Carolan's eyes.
Alan, his junior by three years, bellowed with envy on beholding
them; and four-year-old Monica sucked her finger and stared with all
her might.
It was plain to Carolan that, having once assumed the manly garments,
no boy could be expected to put on those hateful petticoats again.
In vain Nurse Povah,--who had been Carolan's foster-mother,--and Miss
Josey, the governess, explained to him that the breeches were not
completed, and directed his eyes to the mute evidence of pins,
chalk-marks, and yellow basting-threads. Their arguments were vain,
their entreaties addressed to deaf ears. An attempt to remove the
cause of contention by force resulted in Nurse's being butted, though
not hard! and Miss Josey kicked with viciousness. In the confusion
that ensued, the rebel effected an escape from the scene of combat.
And the door of the sitting-room being open, Carolan trotted across
the Government cocoanut matting of the landing with the intention of
confessing his own misdeeds, since Miss Josey was quite certain to
report him at headquarters, had not this often-tested method of
blunting the edge of retributory justice failed, through his own
fault.
For upon entering the large, shabbily furnished room, situated on the
second floor of a gaunt, gray stone building known as Block D,
Married Officers' Quarters--the room that served Captain Breagh and
his second wife as sitting-room, dining-room, smoking-room and
boudoir--Carolan became aware that his stepmother, quite unconscious
of his intrusion, was dusting the china vases on the mantel-shelf,
and was instantly possessed by the conviction that it would be huge
fun to hide under the large round table that occupied the middle of
the worn Brussels carpet, and bounce out upon the poor lady when she
turned, making her say "Owh!"
So the boy noiselessly dived under the deep, hanging, silk-fringed
border of the Indian shawl that covered the circular Pembroke table,
upon which were ranged, about a central basket of wax fruit and
flowers, gilt frames with spotty daguerrotypes, albums of scraps,
Books of Beauty containing the loveliest specimens of Early Victorian
female aristocracy, and Garlands of Poetry reeking with the
sentimental effusions of Eliza Cook and L.E.L., interspersed with
certain card-cases and paper-knives of Indian carved ivory and
sandal-wood, and other trifles of brass and filigree ware.
The big, shabbily furnished second-floor room had three windows
looking out upon the graveled expanse of the Parade-ground, and
commanding a view of the flower-bedded patch of sacred green turf,
inclosed by posts and chains, that graced the front of the pillared,
pedimented, and porticoed building that housed the Officers' Mess.
And when the regiment got the route for another garrison town, nearly
everything the room contained--from the Pembroke center-table and
chintz-covered sofa, to the secrétaire at which Captain Breagh penned
his letters, the big leather-covered arm-chair in which he sat, and
the Bengal tiger-skin hearthrug,--would be packed,--with the picture
of the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Vimiera, and the
chimney-glass over which it always hung--into wooden cases, with the
before-mentioned chimney-glass, curtains and carpets, beds, baths,
uniform-cases and a great number of other things; and then after a
period of rumbling confusion there would be a new sitting-room
looking on another barrack-square, other bedrooms and a fresh
nursery,--and Carolan would forget the old ones in something under a
week. As a matter of fact, the regiment had been shifted four times
since its return from India, when Carolan was little more than a
baby, and Monica and Alan and Baba were nowhere at all.
Now either Mrs. Breagh occupied an unconscionable time in dusting the
vases and making up the fire for her Captain, who by reason of long
service with the regiment in the East was susceptible to chill; or
Carolan, with the mental instability shared by the child and the
savage, lost interest in his new project and abandoned it. He was
squatting silently in his hiding-place when Miss Josey entered; he
heard her complaint, noted down two spiteful exaggerations and one
malicious falsehood, and witnessed the exhibition of a bulgy ankle in
a badly-gartered white cotton stocking surmounting an elastic-sided
cloth boot. When the governess withdrew, consoled by Mrs. Breagh's
sympathy, Nurse Povah was summoned from the other side of the landing
by a tinkle of the hand-bell, and bore stout witness on the culprit's
side.
"Did ye see her leg, I'd make so bould as ask, or did ye take her
worrud for ut? And--av there was anythin' to show barrin' a
flaybite, is ut natheral a boy wud parrut wid his furrst breches
widout a kick? Sure, they're the apple av his eye, and the joy av
his harrut! And her--wid her talk av bendin' his will and breakin'
his temper! is ut like ye wud lay a finger on the Captain's eldest
son, to plaze the likes of her?"
"The Captain has said himself--over and over--that a sound thrashing
would be a capital thing for Carry," Mrs. Breagh returned.
"He praiches--ay, bedad!--but does he ever practuss?" demanded Nurse,
smoothing her apron with stout, matronly hands, and getting very red
in the cheeks. "Niver fear but he'd be too wise to bring a curse
upon himself by ill-thrating a motherless child!"
"_Motherless!_" What did the word mean? Carolan wondered, recalling
how Nurse would describe some particularly down-hearted person as
being as long in the jaw as a motherless calf. And now Mrs. Breagh
was saying, in the kind of voice some good people use for the purpose
of Scriptural quotation, and which is not in the least like their
accents of every day...
"Solomon said, 'He that spareth the rod'--but you Catholics never
seem to read the Bible. And I always treat Carolan as if he were my
own child--and you know I do! 'Ssh! Here comes the Captain--and I
_think_ I hear Baba crying...."
And Nurse, with the honors of war, retired to the nursery on the
other side of the landing, as Captain Breagh's hasty footsteps and
the jingle of his scabbard were heard on the stone stair. A minute
later he entered the room. But during the minute's interval Carolan
had had time to ponder, mentally digest and form a conclusion from
what he had just heard.
It had never previously occurred to him that the stout, dark,
beady-eyed, brightly dressed lady whom he had been taught to call
Mamma was not really his mother, but he knew it now. It was revealed
to him in one lightning-flash of comprehension that this was the
reason why her hands felt so like hands of wood whenever they touched
him, and why her kiss,--religiously administered night and
morning--was a thing he would much sooner have gone without. He
knew,--and something inside him was glad to know--that it was not
wicked of him not to love her as he loved Nurse, or Monica, or Ponto
the brown retriever. And then his heart dropped like a leaden
plummet to the pit of his infant stomach. This was to be a day of
discoveries. He had discovered that by kicking out lustily it had
been possible to resist the forcible removal of his new breeches. He
had discovered that "Mamma" was not his real, real mother! Would
Daddy turn out to be Monica's and Alan's and Baba's Daddy, and not
Carolan's, after all?
A sob rose in his throat, and his hot, dry eyes began to smart and
water. But the manly trampling and clanking came nearer. The door
opened--his father was in the room. He could only see his shiny
Wellington boots, and the bottoms of the red-striped dark blue
breeches that were strapped over them. But familiar knowledge built
from the boots the handsome manly figure in the light brick-red coat
with the Royal blue facings, the China and Punjab war-medals, the
crimson sash and the other martial accouterments topped by the stiff
leather stock, and the head whose wealth of jet-black curls and
luxuriant bushy whiskers might have been the glory of a fashionable
hairdresser's window; in combination with the well-cut features,
light blue eyes, and fine rosy complexion, as yet scarcely
deteriorated by Mess port, whisky punch, and late hours.
Captain Breagh kissed Mrs. Breagh with a hearty smack that made
Carolan start in his hiding-place, and said the wind was enough to
cut you in two, and that the fire looked tempting; as he laid down
his pipeclayed gloves and dress-schako with the gilt grenade and
white ball-tuft on the aged and dilapidated sideboard, and permitted
his lady to relieve him of his sword. Then he rubbed his hands and
thrust them to the blaze enjoyingly, and threw himself into the
creaking leathern arm-chair. This, it suddenly occurred to Carolan,
would be a favorable moment for emerging from concealment. He had
got on all-fours, ready to appear in the character of a bear or
tiger, when Mrs. Breagh stopped him by beginning to tell tales. The
child was beyond control, she declared--there was no end to his
naughtiness. For the sake of his immortal soul, something would have
to be done....
"What's he been doing? For my own part,--I wouldn't give a brass
farthing for a pup that wouldn't bite, or a boy that wouldn't show
fight when he was put to it!" The arm-chair creaked suggestively as
the Captain stretched out his legs, and the firelight danced in the
polish of his boots, hardly dimmed by the dry gravel of the
Parade-ground. "And it's in the blood, that high spirit. Don't
suppose I'm bragging that the Breaghs are any great shakes in the way
of family!--though the name's as decent a one as you'll meet in a
long day's march. But Carolan's a Fermeroy on the mother's side--and
they're a hot-headed, high-handed breed," the Captain added, taking
the newspaper from the Pembroke table, "and have been ever since the
year One--if you take the trouble to look 'em up in Irish History.
Not that I've ever read any, but my poor Milly used to say----"
His wife's eyes snapped with irrepressible jealousy at the reference
to her predecessor.
"And everything that came from her you took for Gospel, I suppose?"
"Pretty near!" said Captain Breagh, and began to unfold his newspaper.
"I get little enough time for reading things that are useful," said
Mrs. Breagh, as the Captain dipped into the crackling sheets. "It
was my bounden duty to speak, and I've done it! And if you think you
are doing your duty by the child--let alone his mother----"
She broke off, for the Captain bounced in his chair, and dashed down
the newspaper.
"Haven't I told you I won't have poor Milly's name dragged into these
discussions! She's dead!--and so let her be!"
If a lady can be said to snort, Mrs. Breagh gave utterance to a sound
of that nature.
"I'm willing, Alexander, I'm sure! But all things considered, I must
say I think it's a pity her ladyship died and left you a widower!"
"And you're right there, begad you are! And how many times have I
told you she was merely an Honorable, and not her ladyship!" He left
the newspaper sprawling on the hearthrug, and mechanically reaching
down his pipe and tobacco-pouch from the corner of the mantelshelf,
proceeded to fill the well-browned meerschaum, and when his wife
lighted a spill and held it to him as an olive-branch, he thanked her
in an absent way. What did the Captain see as he pulled at the
gnawed, amber mouthpiece and stared into the red-hot heart of the
fire, communing with that other self that dwells within every man?