One morning Augusta took her brother into the privacy of her own sitting room, and said: —
“I do not think, Philip, that you have had your proper share of our parents’ belongings.”
Philip’s blue eyes widened in pleasurable anticipation. “Were you thinking of giving me something, Augusta?” he asked.
“Yes, if you feel you can safely take fine furniture with you. I should hate to think that precious possessions which our family long cherished might be handled roughly.”
“They won’t,” he eagerly assured her. “They will be strongly crated and I’ll personally oversee the loading on to the ship and off it. We are sailing by fast clipper which, I am told, is almost as quick and much cleaner and more comfortable than by steamship.”
She sighed. “Oh, I do wish you weren’t going! It seems so hard to have you return from India, only to lose you again. And I do so dread the voyage for the dear baby.”
“Augusta,” he said earnestly, “if you’d like to keep the baby for a time —”
“No, no. It would never do. Baby Augusta does not take to me. She cries too much. It upsets Frederick. She shall come to visit me when she is older …”
“She is a spoilt little creature,” said Philip. He frowned, then brightened. “The house Uncle Nicholas left me is well-built, in the French style, I am told. I want to furnish it well,” he said. “We brought some things from India, as you know. Adeline has a really picturesque bedstead and inlaid cabinets. We have some fine rugs. Oh, we shall get on! Don’t worry.”
“But I do worry. I want you to take your place in Quebec as people of consequence and you cannot do that in a sparsely furnished house.”
“Oh, we shall get on. I fancy that there aren’t many officers of Hussars in the town and Adeline is the granddaughter of a marquis, as you know.”
“Yes. She is distinguished-looking, too. Did she show you the pearl brooch and bracelet I gave her?”
“She did indeed and I’m delighted.”
“Now I am going to give you the furniture I had from our home. It is mostly real Chippendale and would grace any drawing-room. But I do not need it. This house was filled with furniture when Frederick brought me to it. I have no children to save it for. Will you like to have it, Philip dear?”
“I shall like it tremendously,” Philip exclaimed. “It’s very handsome of you, Augusta.”
Adeline was charmed by Augusta’s generosity. Her spirits were high. Her talk, her laughter, the sound of her eager footsteps, filled the house. Philip did not know what it was to desire peace and quiet. But how earnestly the Dean and Augusta wished for it! By the time the visitors had departed with their mountain of luggage (the noise of the furniture being crated had nearly driven the Dean mad), their crying child and its ayah who kept the kitchen in a ferment with her demands of strange food, and their noisy and often blasphemous parrot, the sedate couple were exhausted. Their sincerest wish was to see the last of their relatives and never again to have a prolonged visit from them.
Philip and Adeline, on their part, had felt a cooling in the atmosphere and resented it. They were setting out to visit Adeline’s people in Ireland.
“There you will find,” she exclaimed, throwing herself back against the cushions of the carriage, “Irish hospitality, generous hearts, and true affection!”
II
IN IRELAND
NOT IN ALL the long voyage from India had Adeline suffered as she suffered in crossing the Irish Sea. The waves were short, choppy, violent. Never were they satisfied to torment the ship from one quarter alone. They raged on her from the northeast, veered and harried her from the southeast, then with a roar sprang on her from the west. Sometimes, it seemed to Adeline, the ship did not move at all, would never move again but just wallow in the grey misery of those ragged waters till the day of doom. The ayah’s face was enough to frighten one, it was so green. Gussie, who had not been seasick on her first voyage, now was deadly so. It was maddening to see Philip, pink and white as ever, his firm cheeks moist from spray, actually enjoying the tumult of the sea. Still he was able to look after her and that was a comfort. In fact he gave a sense of support to all who where near him.
The Irish train was dirty, smoky, and its roadbed rough, but it seemed heaven after the Irish Sea. One after the other the sufferers raised their heads and looked about them with renewed interest in life. Gussie took a biscuit in her tiny hand and made a feeble attempt at gnawing it. But more crumbs were strewn down the front of the ayah’s robe than found their way into Gussie’s stomach.
At the railway station they were met by a jaunting car drawn by a fine pair of greys and driven by Patsy O’Flynn who had been nearly all his life in the service of the Courts. He was a great hand with the reins. A light wind was blowing across the hills which were turning into a tender green, and the leaf buds on the trees were opening almost as you watched them. There was a mistiness on the scene as though a fine veil hung between it and the sun. The cackle of geese, the bray of a donkey, the shouts of young children at play, brought tears to Adeline’s eyes. “Oh, ’tis good to be home!” she exclaimed.
“Aye, and it’s good to see your honour, Miss,” said Patsy. “And it’s a queer shame to you that you should be thinkin’ of lavin’ us agin so soon.”
“Oh, I shall make a good visit. There is so much to show my husband. And all the family to see. I expected by father to meet me at the station. Is he not well?”
“He’s well enough and him off to lodge a complaint against Sir John Lafferty for the overflow of wather from his land makin’ a bog out of ours and his cattle runnin’ wild as wolves.”
“And is my mother well?”
“She is, and at her wit’s end to get the house ready for you and your black servant and parrots and all, the poor lady!”
“Are any of my brothers at home?”
“There’s the two young lads your mother sent to the English school to get the new accent on them but they attacked one of the masthers and gave him a beatin’. So they were expelled and ’tis at home they are till himself decides what to do with them. And, of course, there’s Masther Tim. He’s a grand lad entirely.”
Adeline and Patsy chattered on, to Philip’s wonder and amusement. He saw her in a new light against the advancing background of her early life. The road was so muddy after rain and flood that the wheels were sunk almost to their axles but Patsy did not appear to mind. He cracked his whip about the well-groomed flanks of the horses and encouraged them with a stream of picturesque abuse. Several times women appeared in the doorways of low thatched cabins at the roadside and, when they saw Adeline, held up their babies for her inspection, while fowls scratched and pecked in and out of the cabins. There was an air of careless well-being about the place and the children were chubby, though far from clean. Adeline seemed delighted to see both mothers and babies. She called out to them and promised to visit them later. Apparently Patsy did not approve of this, for he whipped up his horses and hurried them past.
The fields about were bluish-green like the sea and the grass moved slowly in the breeze. Cattle stood knee-deep in the grass. Swallows darted overhead. Adeline was looking beyond the fields. The roof of her home showed above the trees of a park where deer grazed. She cried: —
“There is the house, Philip! Lord, to think it is nearly five years since I’ve seen it! It’s more splendid than anything I’ve set my eyes on since! Look at it! Isn’t it grand, Philip?”
“It’s fallin’ to pieces,” said Patsy, over his shoulder, “and divil a one to spend a five-pound note on it.”
“It was indeed a fine old house, though not so fine as Philip had expected, judging by Adeline’s