"Why, yes! Oh, you mean I've told you that already? But I thought they
were such a good investment--" he broke off, and walked quickly to the
window.
"Your mother isn't getting her strength back," he said suddenly.
They realised at once that there were still things that mattered. He
went on quickly: "You needn't be anxious. Oh, no! But Dr. O'Donovan--"
he broke off, and started afresh. "You know that, as a young man, I
didn't expect to come into this--" he waved his hand impatiently around.
There was an air about him now of wanting to get it over as quickly as
possible; an irritated impatience made his words hurried.
"Well, you know, I studied medicine. I was a qualified doctor. It's
all settled. I've got the post. There's no other way. Dr. O'Donovan
says your mother must have a sea voyage. We can't afford it. I've got
the post of surgeon on the _Albany_--starts at end of October for
Australia--sailing ship."
They knew it all at last. Thinking it over now, Nell was struck with
the difference there had been from his usual manner of speaking. She
knew now what it had cost him to tell them. Then she had been too
absorbed in her horror to think much of anything beyond the news he had
told them.
After that, in the weeks that followed, there had been the cruel
carrying into effect of the news. There had been much wearisome talk.
Amongst it Nell remembered one thing that had been clear and definite at
once. That was Denis's determination to do some sort of work. Mr.
O'Brien wished him to study shorthand and type-writing, with a literary
future in view. But Denis refused, beyond agreeing to study them in his
spare time. For the rest he intended to do work that would have
remuneration attached to it. Already he was fired with hope and
ambition to turn the strangers from their home. Mr. O'Brien secured him
a position as a clerk in a London bank, the manager of which had been a
schoolfellow of his. Nell cried miserably because she wasn't a boy.
Denis shook her, and painted, in glowing colours, the great academy
picture that in a few years' time was to win her fame and fortune. But
two or three years seemed such an interminable time that, mostly, her
mind refused to grasp the thought.
There had been much discussion as to where they should stay while their
parents were away. They were singularly destitute of relations. They
had some cousins in America, and an aunt by marriage in London. They
had never seen the aunt; but she happened to live near the bank where
Denis had found employment. She had lately lost her mother, and with
her the annuity that had helped to pay the rent of the house. She wrote
suggesting that they should come to her. After much worried discussion
it was settled that they should live with her for the time. Mr. O'Brien
paid a small sum for their maintenance in advance, and they faced the
thought of a house in a street in London.
Sheila Pat, before she left Kilbrannan, laid out a burying-ground. She
dug with a dogged face, and a mind black with pictures of a London where
it was always foggy--where there were nothing but muddy pavements; roads
crowded with poor tired horses carrying loads too heavy for them; and
tall houses packed so close together that you were stifled. She refused
to lighten the picture by the admittance into it of so much as one blade
of grass. She chose a spot for her burying-ground close by the little
stream that gurgled so softly sometimes and roared and rushed at others.
The smooth piece of grass, just by the boulders that turned the stream
into a little cascade, was sheltered on the other side by a hill that
rose up--grey rock, purple heather, bracken, and grass--till it seemed
to meet the sky. There Sheila Pat buried her treasures. She had always
scorned dolls; only once had she been presented with a doll, and within
the day it had been mercilessly drowned. But she had many treasures,
and she buried them, in an agony of renunciation. "Here you will have
the heather and the stream, and when the wind blows from the west you'll
get the scent of the turf smoke from Biddy's cottage." She laid a large
and grinning monkey tenderly down beside a one-legged driver. "Oh, my
dears, and when the wind's in the east, you'll get the sea,"--she hid
her face in a passion of woe--"and you'll be hearing the trees
whisp'rin' and singin' and your Sheila Pat far away in a great, dirty
London, dead with stiflin', and only streets to walk in!"
She hugged up to her bosom a jaunty jockey, who had lost an eye and a
nose.
"I'll put you on Mavourneen--your own Mavourneen--who won the Dalgerry
race for you." She seized up Mavourneen and hugged her too. "You won't
mind waitin' for me, under the earth; for isn't it Irish earth,
Mavourneen? And weren't you born and bred on it? But I was, too! Oh, I
was, too!"
The old grey rock and the heather looked down upon a prone Atom--prone
and shaking in a storm of bitter weeping--midst dogs and horses,
jockeys, monkeys, and jaunting-car drivers.
No one intruded on her there. Sheila Pat had not been known to cry
since her babyhood. She scorned tears; no physical hurt could break
down her sturdy self-control. In those last days she was often a
ludicrous Atom. Grave, self-contained, her pig-tail immaculate, she
would emerge from the burying-ground, facing the world with a brave
little countenance and all unaware that it was adorned with patches and
streaks of dirt.
The pig-tail was generally crooked, but that was merely because Sheila
Pat invariably plaited it herself. No one would do it for her; they did
not approve of her mode of dressing her hair, but the Atom clung
obstinately to her pig-tail, and serenely wore it over her left
shoulder.
Nell, in the omnibus, glanced across at the small, still figure opposite
her; a great ache seized her throat.
Suddenly Denis made a valiant effort. He broke the silence with a
jocose--
"This rivals Dinny O'Sullivan's donkey barrow! My teeth are fairly
rattling in my boots!"
Nell said "yes" with weary dutifulness.
The silence fell again. He rubbed his brow, and recognised the
uselessness of worrying them with such palpably unreal cheerfulness.
All his castles in Spain were, for the time being, razed to the ground.
With the O'Briens there was no possibility of a story or two tumbling;
the whole edifice had to tower to the skies or fall flat to the ground.
The omnibus drew up outside No. 35, Henley Road. They got out, and
stood a moment--a forlorn little group--looking at the tall, narrow
house, with, to their eyes, such an unhappy air of being wedged in too
tightly between the two neighbouring houses.
"Run in and knock, while I pay up," Denis admonished them.
They trailed slowly up the flight of steps. Nell knocked. There was a
pause; then they heard a step approaching the door. With a sudden
spasmodic burst of awakened conscience and courage Nell drew herself
erect and tried to achieve a smile.
The rattle of bars and chains that heralded the opening of the door was
hideous to their unaccustomed ears; it shocked them with its clang of
inhospitality--its suggestion of suspicion.
Miss Kezia opened the door a cautious inch or two and peered out. Her
face appeared to them, against the light, very long and very black.
"It's you," she said; "come in."
Nell faltered, calling together all her stock of politeness, "I'm sorry
that you had to sit up for us."
Miss Kezia waved it aside with a curt response that a little loss of
sleep would not hurt her.
There was porridge waiting for them in the dining room. Too wretched,
too apathetic to make the necessary stand against it, they sat down to
the table and tried to eat.
The dining room was furnished strictly for use and not for ornament.
Heavy chairs and a heavier sideboard constituted all the furniture, save
the table. The floor was covered with a cold linoleum. There was no
flower in the room. Only one gas-burner was alight, and it left gloomy
corners. There was a stiff look about it all, a poverty and bareness
that was bewilderingly new to them. A beautiful little cocker spaniel,
who pressed close to them with plaintive whimpers when they entered the
room, looked quite out of place there. Miss Kezia eyed her with
disfavour. She demanded, "Where will that dog sleep?"
The want of due respect in the designation roused Sheila Pat.