"Ridiculous! I won't have it! Denis, why aren't you at the bank? My
steps!"
Denis waved an airy farewell with his shillelagh.
"Bank?" His voice was amazed. "It's a holiday, of course! Told them I
shouldn't be there!"
"You are not to--"
Miss Kezia's voice died away. She recognised the uselessness of calling
injunctions after fast-disappearing and obviously obstinate backs.
She returned to her dusting. Her amiability had been sorely tried; it
was little more than a memory now. She approached the window to dust a
chair, and became aware of the fact that her house was an object of
interest and mirth to passers-by. She sighed angrily. She had a
genuine wish to make allowances. She understood dimly that the day
meant a great deal to them. She could not discover from the windows the
cause of the interest her house seemed to possess for the passers-by.
She donned her bonnet and coat and went out. From the pavement she
discovered only too quickly the cause of that interest and mirth. Her
respectable house wore a festive, even a rakish, air. The dingy bricks
seemed to shrink back apologetically beneath their gay adornments.
Green--green--green--Miss Kezia took a violent dislike to the colour
that day which never left her. The Irish flag held a prominent
position; green bunting was festooned across from window to window; a
basket of shamrock was slung by green ribbons from a water-pipe; there
were garlands and harps. From one window there hung a long, limp
object, professedly a dead serpent. Miss Kezia's eyesight was good; it
was better than her imagination. She saw at once that a thing composed
of some rolled-up strips of carpet that were her property hung from a
window. But she did not see that the thing was a serpent. The
realistic touches given by Nell's brush were, to her, merely so many
insults added to the injury.
The O'Briens did not come home to lunch. Miss Kezia lunched alone. She
also said to Sarah, "You are not to keep anything hot, Sarah!"
Sarah dragged the beef from the oven in such a temper that it fell into
the fender.
Soon after lunch Miss Kezia went out. She glanced from the gate with
approval at the decorous, unadorned bricks of her house. When she
returned a few hours later, she glanced again at it approvingly. But as
she put her key into the lock of the door, the more amiable expression
of her countenance faded, and a look of disapproving horror took its
place. She entered the hall and was greeted with several disconcerting
things. Her ears were offended by the loud singing of many voices,
accompanied by a concertina and combs. Her nose was offended with the
unmistakable scent of tobacco. Her eyes--well, her eyes were offended
with the smoke and with many signs of untidiness, of riot, and of fun.
Miss Kezia went upstairs. As she reached the door of the Stronghold the
voices and music were in full swing:--
"'You may take the Shamrock from your hat and cast it on the
sod,
But, never fear, 'twill take root there, tho' under foot 'tis
trod.
When laws can stop the blades of grass from growing as they
grow,
And when the leaves in summer time their verdure dare not show,
Then I will change the colour I wear in my caubeen;
But till that day, please God, I'll stick to wearin' of the
green.'"
Miss Kezia stood, unseen, unheard, within the door of the Stronghold,
and gazed.
Round the table sat several men, women, and children. On the table were
the remains of a feast. Miss Kezia caught sight of a beef bone and
gasped; she saw poultry bones, remains of pies, tarts, and cakes. The
windows were flung wide, but the atmosphere of the room, thick with
smoke, offended her nostrils.
A pair of bare little legs gave a sudden spasmodic leap to a sheltering
lap, and a shrill little voice exclaimed:--
"Lady!"
There was a sudden lull. Denis turned to his aunt.
"Hulloa, Aunt Kezia! These are a few friends we came across to-day."
"In--deed!" said Miss Kezia.
An old woman was heard to exclaim with deep sentiment:
"Sure 'tis his honour's a rale gintleman entirely!"
Miss Kezia, looking back afterwards, on the minutes that followed,
marvelled angrily at her strange and quite unsuitable behaviour. She
concluded, and rightly, that she was dazed with bewilderment at the
welcome she received. To her cold and austere nature it was
inexplicable. She found herself surrounded, called by terms of
endearment, her hands held and shaken, compliments paid to herself and
her nation. One old woman, half weeping over the joy that had been hers
that day, actually kissed her hand. She was not a particularly clean old
woman, and Miss Kezia wished that she wouldn't do it. But she did not
draw her hand roughly away. "Ten years," wailed the old woman, "have I
stood the whole day through beside me barrow, and me not able to put me
foot to the ground with the rheumatics!"
Miss Kezia felt a passing inclination to point out that the two facts
were not compatible. Oh, these people were awful! And one had a
monkey, a horrible little monkey, sitting on his shoulder! And they
were dirty!
"Sure 'tis herself's the kind lady, givin' the poor Irish immigrants the
welcome!"
Welcome!
Miss Kezia began to beat an ignominious retreat. She had to confess
herself unequal to the occasion. Her inclination set strongly toward
turning these undesirable guests from her house. But their gratitude
was so exuberant; they were so sure of her welcome, so childishly
hilarious.
"'Tis herself's giving us the grand time entirely!"
"Won't ye be sittin' down wid us, me dear?" The old woman who had
kissed her hand dragged a chair forward invitingly.
"'Tisn't much we've left ye," she pursued, "but ye'll be havin' a piece
of cheese now?"
Miss Kezia heard, amazedly, her own voice making excuses, as she edged
back into the doorway. A grimy little hand was thrust up in front of
her; a beguiling little voice suggestively besought God to bless her.
Miss Kezia looked down into a smutty imp's face with eyes as blue and
innocent as Heaven.
"God bless ye, lady! God bless ye, lady!"
Slowly Miss Kezia opened her purse, slowly she took from it a halfpenny,
and dropped it into the little hand.
"God send ye a good husband, lady!" rang out jubilantly. "God guard
every shtep of your way!"
Miss Kezia found herself surrounded suddenly by bare legs, blue eyes,
outstretched hands, entreating voices.
"God bless ye, lady! God bless ye, lady!"
There were five halfpennies and two farthings in her purse. She
dispensed them automatically.
"God send ye a good husband! God send ye a good husband!"
Even the smallest imp, a scrap of a thing, about a foot and a half high,
shrilly called on Heaven to provide her with a suitable partner.
Miss Kezia looked uncomfortable. She shut her purse with a snap and
retreated on to the landing. But they followed her, all talking at
once. Her hands were taken again. Disconcerting questions as to her
family, her parents, were asked. The old woman who had stood beside her
barrow for ten years without once putting her foot to the ground broke
out wailingly into an account of her trials, her sorrows, and pains. A
black-bearded man gave her a picturesque presentment of his life as a
father of eight children. His was the shoulder on which the
objectionable monkey sat. He came close, emphasising, with dramatic
gestures, his story. The monkey stretched out a thin little arm towards
Miss Kezia's bonnet. Miss Kezia backed precipitately. Why did her
bonnet possess a fascination for monkeys, she wondered shudderingly. She
hated monkeys.
"Sure, thin, isn't he welcoming one of his own people?" the man with the
black beard observed.
Miss Kezia thought the remark impertinent, and concluded that it was
intended to be funny. It wasn't.
It gave her disapproval the necessary fillip, and she managed to beat a
retreat. Once in her bedroom, she shut the door, and, with a hurried
air not usual to her, turned the key in the lock.
Miss Kezia possessed an uncompromising conscience. She never allowed it
to veil or excuse her motives. Yet, as she stood untying the strings of
the bonnet that possessed such a weird attraction for the monkey tribe,
she said to herself that she really must turn out and tidy a certain
drawer at once. To an outsider the drawer would have seemed tidy
enough, but Miss Kezia, sitting before it, the door still locked,
methodically sorted out and refolded every article it contained. As she
was refolding, for the third time, a certain scarf that was the last
article to be tidied, the noise that had been surging, high and low,
exuberant and sad, in her ears, as a never ceasing accompaniment to her
tidying, suddenly swelled into sharper sounds, and she understood that
the door of the Stronghold had been opened. She sat, rigid, a queer
dread on her face. The dread gave place presently to absolute
astonishment at the noise they managed to make. The rapid talk, the
laughter, the jokes, bewildered her. The great affection that evidently
existed between them and her young relatives surprised her.
"Old tenants," she surmised. "How very fond they are of their
landlord's children!"
She experienced a distinct feeling of gratitude towards the Albert Hall,
and the Irish concert that was to be held there that evening, and for
which her relatives had taken tickets.
For a quarter of an hour by Miss Kezia's watch, the "tenants" bade their
landlord's children good-bye. Three times the door was shut, three
times there came bangs and thumps on it, and it was re-opened. And each
time all the noise and talk began again.
Later on Miss Kezia ventured forth. On meeting the O'Briens, she
observed with forbearance that she trusted they would make things tidy
now that their father's tenants had gone. She went on to remark that it
was strange so many of them should be in London. They were a good deal
amused. They pointed out airily that they were no tenants of their
father's; that they had never seen them till that day; that they had
just come across them. It was the last shock poor Miss Kezia received
on that 17th of March. She was very angry, and very genuinely
bewildered. She watched them go off to their concert with a sense of
relief. She felt a newly developed fondness for the Albert Hall.
*CHAPTER XXIX*
The day after St. Patrick's day was a bad one for them. It was a
beautiful day, bright and cold; but, in the reactionary mood that had
gripped them all in a great gloom, the very brightness was a thing to
rail at.
At the breakfast-table Miss Kezia gazed at them astonished. She was not
a keen observer, but even she, with the memory of yesterday in her mind,
marvelled at the sudden depression.