"I have never seen him--no! Only a month after that he was ordered to India, and sailed almost at once, but he wrote to me before he left. A letter arrived one day in a strange handwriting, but I guessed almost at once that it was from him. He said he had intended to come to Ireland in the spring, and to call at Knock Castle, but that now it would be impossible for some years to come. He said he had enjoyed so much meeting me for those few days, and he hoped I should not altogether forget him while he was away. Would I allow him to write to me now and again, and would I send a photograph for a poor exile to take away to comfort his loneliness? I had a very nice photograph that a friend of father had taken the summer before, and I thought there was no harm in sending him that, and writing a polite little note. It was very short, and I tried not to make it too nice, and I said nothing at all about writing, only just remarked that it would be interesting to receive letters from India," said Bridgie, with a naivete which made Mademoiselle throw up her hands in delight. "He has written to me four times since then, and,"--her eyes began to dance, and a dimple danced mischievously in her cheek--"I enjoy writing to him so much that I answer them the very next day; but it would not be proper to send them so soon, you know, so I put no date, but just lock them away in my desk, and wait for six weeks, or two months before I send them off. Once I waited for three, and then he sent a newspaper. There was nothing in it that could interest me in the least, but it was just a gentle hurry up.
I did laugh over that newspaper!"
"Bridgie, Bridgie! this is more serious than I thought. No wonder you look upon new-comers with indifference. I hope they are very interesting, those letters. They must be, I suppose, since you are so eager to reply." But at this Bridgie shook her head, and shrugged her shoulders deprecatingly.
"You are a teacher; perhaps you would call them interesting. For me they are just a trifle instructive! I want to hear about himself, and he describes the country, and the expeditions they make. Don"t please think they are love-letters, Therese. They are very, very proper, not in the least affectionate, and my replies are terribly dull. You see I"m in an awkward position, for everything that would be interesting it would not be proper to say, and everything I can say must be uninteresting, for he knows almost nothing of us or of our people."
"And yet you are compelled to answer these "instructive epistles" the moment they arrive, and he cannot wait patiently to receive your so dull replies. That has only one meaning, my dear, and it will come when he returns home in a few years, and your children are grown up and able to be left. It will come. I am sure it will come!"
"If it is the right thing for me--if it is G.o.d"s will--yes! it will come, and meanwhile I am very happy. It is good of Him to have given me such a hope in my life," said Bridgie simply; and Mademoiselle"s eyes dimmed with sudden tears. Her own nervous, restless spirit was for ever kicking against the p.r.i.c.ks, but she was at least honest enough to acknowledge her shortcomings, and the example of this young girl filled her with shame and a humble desire to follow in her footsteps.
"And I am thankful that He has let me know you. You do me good, _cherie_. I wish to be more like you," she said humbly; and Bridgie opened her great eyes in bewilderment.
"Like me!" she echoed incredulously. "My dear!" The dimple dipped again, and she slipped her hand through Mademoiselle"s arm and shook her in playful remonstrance. "Don"t you make fun of your hostess, or she"ll starve you for your pains. The very idea of clever, accomplished You wanting to be like blundering Irish Me!"
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
"TO SEE THE RUINS!"
"This begins to grow exciting. The plot develops!" said Mademoiselle gaily to herself, when the fifth day of the last week in the year was reached, and Mr Geoffrey Hilliard made his fifth appearance on the scene in transparently accidental-on-purpose manner. On the first day he had been discovered a.s.siduously pumping up the tyres of a bicycle immediately outside the Castle gates; on the second, he was lounging about the village street with an air of boredom which showed that he had exhausted all the objects of interest long before the O"Shaughnessy party pa.s.sed by on their morning walk; on the third, he paid a formal call in the afternoon and stayed a good two hours by the clock, for which breach of etiquette he was so much concerned that he was compelled to come again the next day to apologise, and hope the ladies were not fatigued. Bridgie smiled polite rea.s.surements, but Esmeralda lay back in her seat and naughtily yawned, as though in protest against her sister"s words. She affected to conceal her weariness, but it was a transparent pretence, and the young fellow"s eyes twinkled with amus.e.m.e.nt. Since the moment of their first meeting there had been this pretence of antagonism, this playing at fighting on the girl"s part; but, as Bridgie had foretold, the man seemed to find it rather an encouragement than otherwise, and his smile was never more bright and self-confident than after an exhibition like the present.
"Miss Joan seems to have suffered," he said boldly. "I feel truly guilty; but won"t you allow me to remedy the mischief? If I might make a suggestion, it"s a perfect winter afternoon, and you promised to show me the remains of that old ruin in your grounds. Don"t you think that half an hour"s walk before tea would freshen you up?"
"I detest ruins; they are so dull," said Esmeralda ungraciously; but Mr Hilliard still continued to smile and to look at her in expectant fashion, and presently, almost against her will, as it seemed, she rose from her chair and moved across the room. "Of course, if you really want to see them! It will only take a few minutes. Come then, Pixie!
You were asking me to come out. It will do you good to come too."
Bridgie and Mademoiselle exchanged a quick glance of amus.e.m.e.nt at the look of disgust which pa.s.sed over the visitor"s face, and which all his politeness was not able to conceal; but Pixie pranced after her sister with willing step, for it had never entered into her heart to believe it possible that there could exist a living creature unto whom her society could be otherwise than rapturously welcome. In the cloak-room off the hall she put on two odd shoes, the two which came first to hand, and a piebald sealskin jacket, which, according to tradition, had descended from a great-aunt, and which was known in the household as "The jacket,"
and worn indiscriminately by whosoever might happen to need a warm wrap.
The effect of this costume, finished off by an old bowler hat, was so weird and grotesque that at the first moment of beholding it Hilliard thought it must surely be a joke designed for his benefit; but the air of unconsciousness worn by both girls saved him from making a false move, and he speedily forgot all about Pixie in admiration of her sister. Whatever Esmeralda wore, it seemed as if this were the dress of all others to show off her beauty to the best advantage; and the grey golf-cape and knitted cap, set carelessly over her smoke-like locks, appeared at once the ideal garments for a winter promenade. Pixie slipped her arm underneath the cloak to hang on to her sister"s arm, and the three set off together across the snow-bound park.
"I suppose you know a great deal about ruins, since you are so much interested in ours," said Esmeralda, as an opening to the conversation.
"People are always interested in things they understand. That"s the only reason why I should like to be clever and learned--it would make life so much more satisfying. It doesn"t amuse me in the least to see old walls, and bits of pillars sticking out of the earth. I"d pull them all down and build something new in their place if I had the chance, but people who understand are quite different. Some people came here once on a picnic from Dublin, and father gave them permission to see over the grounds. Of course it rained, but they all stood round on the damp, soaking gra.s.s while an old gentleman gave a lecture about that miserable little ruin. He said something about the shape of the windows, and they all took notes and sketches and snapshots, as if they had never seen anything so wonderful in their lives. There is a bit of a pillar two yards high. He prosed away about that until I had to yawn, but they seemed to like it. Some of them were quite young too. There was a girl rather like Bridgie, with such a pretty hat!" Esmeralda heaved a sigh of melancholy recollection. "She stood there and let the rain soak through the ribbons while she sketched the stupid old things. I envied her so! I thought, "Why can"t I be interested in ruins too, and then I should have something to think about, and to amuse myself with when the time feels so long?""
"Does the time seem long to you, then? Do you find it dull over here?"
asked Hilliard, in a tone that was almost tender in its anxious solicitude; and Esmeralda heaved a sigh of funereal proportions, delighted to find herself supplied with a listener ready to sympathise with her woes. A home audience is proverbially stoical, and after the jeers and smiles of brothers and sisters, it was a refreshing change to wake a note of distress at the very beginning of a conversation. She became suddenly conscious of a feeling of acute enjoyment, but endeavoured to look pensive, as befitted the occasion, and rolled her grey eyes upward with eloquent sadness.
"Oh, dull! Dull does not express my feelings! We are so shut in here, and so little happens, and I know nothing. I have had no chance of learning and finding interests in that way."
"Why didn"t ye study, then, when ye had the chance? Ye drove Miss Minnitt crazy with your idleness!" interposed Pixie brutally; and Esmeralda flushed and hesitated, momentarily discomfited, then, recovering herself, cast a melancholy glance in Hilliard"s face.
"Our old governess," she explained resignedly, in the tone of one who might speak volumes, but is restrained from feelings of loyalty and decorum. "A kind old creature, so good to us! She has lived in this village all her life."
"I understand," said the model listener. It seemed to him quite natural that this beautiful creature possessed an intellect to match her person, and felt her eagle wings pinioned in the atmosphere of an Irish village.
He wished he were only more intellectual himself, so that he might be a fitter companion, and devoutly hoped that he might make no bad slip to betray his ignorance, and so alienate her sweet confidence. "As you say, the more one knows, the less possible it should be to be dull or idle. Amus.e.m.e.nt can never make up for good solid occupation."
"Oh, never, never!" cried Miss Esmeralda, with a fervour which brought Pixie"s eyes upon her in a flash of righteous indignation. Esmeralda to talk like this! Esmeralda, who sat at ease while others worked, who groaned aloud if asked to sew on a b.u.t.ton, and was at once so dilatory and so inefficient that Bridgie declared it was easier to do a task at once than to unravel it after her vain attempts. Pixie gasped and pranced on ahead, her back towards the direction in which she was going, her face turned upon the culprit in kindling reproach.
"Joan O"Shaughnessy, what"s happened to you to talk in such a fashion this day? You, that doesn"t know the meaning of work, to be sighing and groaning that you haven"t enough to do! You, to be saying that it would cheer you to be busy, when ye sigh like a furnace and grumble the day long if you have to work for an hour on end! I"ve heard ye say with my own ears that if you had your own way, you would never do another hand"s turn, and of all the lazy, idle girls--"
"Wouldn"t it perhaps be wise if you looked which way you were going?
The ground is rough, and I"m afraid you will have a fall," interposed Hilliard mildly; not that he was in truth the least bit anxious about this strange child"s safety, or could not have witnessed her downfall with equanimity, but in pity for Esmeralda"s embarra.s.sment she could not be allowed to continue her tirade indefinitely. He was rewarded by a melting glance, as the beauty sighed once more, and said, in a tone of sweet forbearance--
"She does not understand! She has been away, and that"s not the sort of work I meant; and besides--"
She stopped short, for she could not think how to finish the sentence, and the fear of Pixie was ever before her eyes. It was in a different and much more natural voice that she again took up her explanation.
"Perhaps I was mistaken in saying it was work I wanted, but it is certainly interest. I have never been farther away than Dublin, and I get so tired and weary of it all, and have such a longing for something fresh. The others don"t feel it, for they are so fond of the place; but I"m restless. I feel pent in, knowing the world is moving on and on, all the time, and I am shut up here, and sometimes the longing comes over me so strongly that it"s more than I can bear, and I fall into--"
"A rage!" said Pixie calmly. Esmeralda had paused just long enough to draw that short eloquent breath which adds so largely to the eloquence of a peroration, and was preparing to roll out a tragic "despair," when that tiresome child must needs interfere and spoil everything by her suggestion. Esmeralda"s anger was quickly roused, but fortunately even quicker still was her sense of humour. For a moment clouds and sunshine struggled together upon her face, then the sunshine prevailed, she looked at Hilliard, beheld him biting his lips in a vain effort to preserve composure, and went off into peal after peal of rich, melodious laughter.
"Next time I wish to talk at my ease, it"s not bringing you out with me I"ll be, Pixie O"Shaughnessy!" she cried between her gasps; and Hilliard"s merry "Ho! ho! ho!" rang out in echo.
"She is indeed a most painfully honest accompanist. I am thankful that I have no small brothers to give me away in return. You give your sister a very bad character, Miss Pixie; but you seem very little in awe of her, I notice. She must possess some redeeming qualities to make up for the bad ones you have quoted."
Pixie bent her head in benignant a.s.sent, as one bound by honesty to see both sides of a question and to deal out praise with blame.
"She"s idle," she said judicially, "and she"s hasty, but she"s sorry afterwards. The more awful her temper, the quicker she"s sorry. The night after you left--"
"Thank you, Pixie, you can spare us further domestic revelations!" cried Esmeralda, flushing in lovely confusion, and keeping her face turned away from the merry blue eyes so persistently bent upon her. "There"s one comfort, Mr Hilliard. You know the worst of me now, and there is nothing more to dread. Pixie has spoiled my chance of posing as a blighted genius, and shown me as just a bad-tempered, discontented girl who has not the sense to be satisfied with her position. I"m sorry, for it would have been interesting to hear you talk like the clever, intellectual people in books, and perhaps, if I had kept very quiet and agreed with all you said, you wouldn"t have discovered my ignorance for quite a long time to come."
"But, dear me, you would have discovered mine! I couldn"t have kept it up for an hour. You surely don"t expect me to lecture on improving topics!" cried Hilliard, in such transparent amaze that Esmeralda could not but be convinced of his sincerity.
"Then you are not clever either!" she exclaimed. "What a relief! Now we can just talk comfortably, and not pretend any more. But at any rate you have seen more than we have. Have you travelled much? What have you seen? What countries have you been in?"
"I can hardly say straight off. Let me count. France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey--"
The "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of astonishment had been steadily gaining in volume, but at the sound of this last name they reached a perfect shriek of delight. There was something so very strange and mysterious about Turkey that even to see a man who had visited its borders gave one a thrill of excitement. Pixie"s premeditated boast that she had been in Surbiton died upon her lips, and Esmeralda"s eyes grew soft with wonder.
"Turkey! Oh, you are a traveller! What on earth made you go to Turkey?"
"It was part of a tour on which my uncle took me after leaving the University, and I went even farther afield than that,--to Palestine and Egypt. You would like Egypt even better than Turkey, Miss Joan, for there, thanks to our rule, you have picturesqueness without squalor, whereas Turkey does not stand a close inspection. We were thankful to leave Constantinople after a very few days, but were sad indeed to turn our backs on fascinating Cairo. If I had the seven-leagued boots, I should be a frequent visitor over there."
The two sisters linked arms, and gazed at him with awe-stricken eyes.
"And you have seen veiled women," sighed Esmeralda softly, "and Mont Blanc, and the Pyramids, and the desert, and the Red Sea, and Saint Peter"s at Rome, and all the things I have dreamt about ever since I was a child! Oh, you are lucky! I think I should die with joy if anyone offered to take me a trip like that. Did you have any adventures? What did you like best? Begin at the beginning, and tell us all about it!"
Well, as our American cousins would say, this was rather a large order; but Hilliard could refuse nothing to such an audience, and, if the truth must be told, had his full share of the traveller"s love of relating his experiences. He pa.s.sed lightly over days spent in countries near home, but grew even more and more animated as he went farther afield, and reached the Eastern surroundings in which he delighted.
"Shall I tell you about Palestine? I never knew anything stranger than arriving at that railway station and seeing "Jerusalem" written up on the h.o.a.rdings. It seemed extraordinary to have a station there at all, and such a station! It was in autumn, and everything was white with dust. Outside in the road were a number of the most extraordinary- looking vehicles you can possibly imagine, white as if they had been kept in a flour mill, and as decrepit as if a hundred years had pa.s.sed since they were last used. How they kept together at all was a marvel to me, and as for the harness, there was more string than leather to be seen. The drive from the station to the hotel was one of the most exciting things I ever experienced. I am not nervous, and have had as much driving as most fellows, but that was a bit too much even for me.
The road is very hilly, turns sharply at many corners, and is, of course, badly made to the last degree, so that it would have seemed difficult enough to manage suck crazy vehicles even at a foot-pace; but our fellow drove as if the Furies were at his back, as if it were a question of life and death to get to the hotel before any of his companions. He stood up on the box and shouted to his horses; he lashed at them with his whip; he yelled imprecations to the rivals who were galloping in pursuit. When an especially dangerous corner came in view, two drivers made for it in a reckless stampede, which made it seem certain that one or other must be hurled to the bottom of the hill. A lady inside our carriage burst into a flood of tears, and I believe her companions were all clinging to one another in terror. As for me, I was on the box, and I never pa.s.sed a more exciting ten minutes. We were told afterwards that we had had the best driver in Jerusalem, but I never engaged his services again.
"That same night in the hotel I was introduced to a dragoman, whom we engaged to take us about. I am sure you will like to hear about Salim, for, apart from himself, he had a great claim to attention, for he had been Gordon"s dragoman years ago when he was in Egypt. Yes! I knew that would interest you, and you would have loved Salim for his own sake too. He had a gentle, sad face, with the beautiful dark eyes of the Eastern, and he spoke English remarkably well. He was unmarried, and lived with his mother and a married brother. Sixteen years he and his sister-in-law had lived in the same house, but he had never seen her face. He had been unlucky in money matters, but accepted his poverty with the placid acquiescence of the Oriental. I remember one day when he told me of a piece of good fortune which had befallen a fellow- dragoman, and I said that I hoped he might be similarly fortunate. He bowed his head with quiet dignity, and waved a brown hand in the air.
"That is with G.o.d, sahib--that is with G.o.d!" I used to question him about Gordon, and he loved to talk of him. "He was a good man, sahib, better than any bishop. When we were camping in the desert he was up every morning before it was light, kneeling to pray before his tent, and his heart was so great that he could not bear to see anyone in trouble.
I must always keep with me a bag with small moneys, and he would not wait to be asked. Everyone who needed must be helped. When he went away he gave me his two best horses, but my heart was sore. He was a great chief--a great chief; but I heard afterwards that when he came to die he was quite poor--the same as Christ!""
Hilliard told a story well, and now, as he repeated the words, his voice softened into the deep cadence of the Eastern tones, in which they had first been said; his hand waved and his eye kindled with emotion.
Esmeralda looked at him, and her heart gave a throb of admiration. The manner in which he had spoken was unmistakably reverent, and if young men only knew it, there is nothing which a girl loves more than a mingling of manliness and reverence in the man who singles her out for attention.