Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl Part 20

Nora's face, over which many emotions had been flitting, now looked grave.

"You know that Terence is my brother?" she said slowly.

Molly gazed at her; then she burst into a fit of hearty laughter.

"You and I will get on," she said. "I like you for sticking up for your brother. But now, my dear, I must go back. I am supposed to stay in my bedroom until to-morrow morning. Linda, if you tell--well, you'll have to answer to me when we are going to bed, that's all. By-by, Nora. I'll see you in the morning. Do get her some hot water, Linda. She's worth waiting on; she's a very nice sort of child, and very, very pretty. If that is the Irish sort of face, I for one shall adore it. Good-by, Nora, for the present."

Molly banged herself away--her mode of exit could scarcely be called by any other name. As soon as the door had closed behind her Linda laughed.

"I ought to tell, you know," she said in her precise voice; "it is very, very wrong of Molly to leave her bedroom when mother is punis.h.i.+ng her."

"But what has she done wrong?" asked Nora.

"Oh, went against discipline. She is at school, you know, and she would write letters during lessons. It is really very wrong of her, and Miss Scott had to complain; so mother said she should stay in her room, instead of being downstairs to welcome you. She is a good soul enough; but we none of us can discipline her. She is very funny; you'll see a lot of her queer cranks while you are here."

"How old is she?" asked Nora.

"Between sixteen and seventeen; too old to be such a romp."

"Only a little older than I am," said Nora. "And how old are you, Linda?"

"Fifteen; they all tell me I look more."

"You do; you look eighteen. You are very old for your age."

"Oh, thank you for the compliment. Now, then, do brush your hair and wash your hands; there's the supper-gong. Mother will be annoyed if we are not down in a jiffy. Now, do be quick."

Nora washed her hands, brushed her hair, and ran downstairs with her cousin. As she ate during the somewhat stiff meal that followed she thought many times of Molly. She felt that, naughty as Molly doubtless was, she would make the English house tolerable. Terence sat near her at supper, by way of extending to her brotherly attentions; but all the time he was talking on subjects of local interest to his aunt and uncle.

Mr. Hartrick evidently thought Terence a very clever fellow, and listened to his remarks with a deference which Nora thought by no means good for him.

"He wants one of the dear old dad's downright snubs," was her inward comment. "I must have a talk with him to-morrow. If he progresses at this rate toward English refinement he will be unbearable at O'Shanaghgan when he returns; quite, quite unbearable. Oh, for a sniff of the sea! oh, for the wild, wild wind on my cheeks! and oh, for my dear, darling, bare bedroom! I shall be smothered in that heavily furnished room upstairs. Oh, it is all lovely, I know--very lovely; but I'm not made to enjoy it. I belong to the free, and I don't feel free here. The silken chains and the feather-bed life won't suit me; of that I am quite sure. Thank goodness, however, there's Molly; she is in a state of rebellion, too. I must not sympathize with her; but I am truly glad she is here."

CHAPTER XIV.

BITS OF SLANG.

Early the next morning Nora was awakened from a somewhat heavy sleep by someone pulling her violently by the arm.

"Wake up! wake up!" said a voice; and then Nora, who had been dreaming of her father, and also of Andy Neil, started up, crying as she did so, "Oh, don't, Andy! I know father will let you stay a little longer in the cot. Don't, don't, Andy!"

"Who, in the name of fortune, is Andy?" called the clear voice of Molly Hartrick. "Do wake up, Nora, and don't look so dazed. You really are a most exciting person to have staying in the house. Who is Andy, and what cot are you going to turn him out of? Is he a baby?"

Nora now began to laugh.

"I quite forgot that I was in England," she said. "Am I really in England? Are you--are you----Oh, now I remember everything. You are Molly Hartrick. What is the hour? Is it late? Have I missed breakfast?"

"Bless you, child! lie down and keep quiet; it's not more than six o'clock. I wanted to see some more of you all by myself. I am out of punishment now; it ended at midnight, and I am as free as anybody else; but as it is extremely likely I shall be back in punishment by the evening, I thought we would have a little chat while I was able to have it. Just make way for me in your bed; I'll nestle up close to you, and we'll be ever so jolly."

"Oh, do," said Nora, in a hearty tone.

Molly scrambled in, taking the lion's share of the bed, Nora lay on the edge.

"I am glad you are facing the light, for I can examine your features well," said Molly. "You certainly are very nice-looking. How prettily your eyebrows are arched, and what white teeth you have! And, although you have that wonderful black hair, you have a fair skin, and your cheeks have just enough color; not too much. I hate florid people; but you are just perfect."

"I wish you would not flatter me, Molly," said Nora; "n.o.body flatters me in Ireland."

"They don't? But I thought they were a perfect nation of flatterers. I am sure it is always said of them."

"Oh, if you mean the poor people," said Nora; "they make pretty speeches, but n.o.body thinks anything about that. Everybody makes pretty speeches to everybody else, except when we are having a violent scold by way of a change."

"How delicious!" said Molly. "And what sort of house have you? Like this?"

"No, not the least like this," answered Nora.

"With what emphasis you speak. Do you know that father told me you lived in a beautiful place, a castle hanging over the sea, and that your mountains and your sea and your old castle were things to be proud of?"

"Did he? Did your father really say that?" asked Nora. She sat up on her elbow; her eyes were s.h.i.+ning; they a.s.sumed a look which Nora's eyes often wore when she was, as she expressed it, "seeing things out of her head." Far-off castles in the clouds would Nora look at then; rainbow-tinted were they, and their summits reached heaven. Molly gazed at her with deepening interest.

"Yes, Nora," she said; "he did say it. He told me so before Terence came; but I--do forgive me--I don't care for Terence."

"You must not talk against him to me," said Nora, "because he happens to be my brother; but I'll just whisper one thing back to you, Molly--if he was not my brother he would not suit me."

"How nice of you to say that! We shall get on splendidly. Of course, you must stick up for him, being your brother; he stuck up for you before you came. It is very nice and loyal of you, and I quite understand. But, dear me! I am not likely to see much of you while you are here."

"Why not? Are you not going to stay here?"

"Oh, my dear, yes; I'll stay. School has just begun over again, you know, and I am always in hot water. I cannot help it; it is a sort of way of mine. This is the kind of way I live. Breakfast every morning; then a lecture from mother or from father. Off I go in low spirits, with a great, sore heart inside me; then comes the hateful discipline of school; and every day I get into disgrace. I have a lot of lessons returned, and am low down in my cla.s.s, instead of high up, and am treated from first to last as a naughty child. By the middle of the day I am a very naughty child indeed."

"But you are not a child at all, Molly; you are a woman. Why, you are older than I."

"Oh, what have years to do with it?" interrupted Molly. "I shall be a child all my days, I tell you. I shall never be really old. I like mischief and insubordination, and--and--let me whisper it to you, little Nora--vulgarity. Yes, I do love to be vulgar. I like shocking mother; I like shocking father. Since Terence came I have had rare fun shocking him. I have learned a lot of slang, and whenever I see Terence I shout it at him. He has got quite nervous lately, and avoids me. He likes Linda awfully, but he avoids me. But, to go on with my day. I am back from school to early dinner, generally in disgrace. I am not allowed to speak at dinner. Back again I go to school, and I am home, or supposed to be home, at half-past four; but not a bit of it, my dear; I don't get home till about six, because I am kept in to learn my lessons. It is disgraceful, of course; but it is a fact. Then back I come, and mother has a talk with me. However busy mother may be, and she is a very busy woman, Nora--you will soon find that out--she always has time to find out if I have done anything naughty; and, as fibs are not any of my accomplishments, I always tell her the truth; and then what do you think happens? An evening quite to myself in my bedroom; my dinner sent up to me there, and I eating it in solitary state. They are all accustomed to it. They open their eyes and almost glare at me when by a mere chance I do come down to dinner. They are quite uncomfortable, because, you see, I am waiting my opportunity to fire slang at one of them. I always do, and always will. I never could fit into the dull life of the English."

"You must be Irish, really," said Nora.

"You don't say so! But I am afraid I am not. I would give all the world to be, but am quite certain I am not. There, now, of course I'd be awfully scolded if it was found out that I had awakened you at this hour, and had confided my little history to you. I am over sixteen.

I shall be seventeen in ten months' time. And that is my history, insubordination from first to last. I don't suppose anybody really likes me, unless it is poor Annie Jefferson at school."

"Who is Annie Jefferson, Molly?"

"A very shabby sort of girl, who is always in hot water too. I have taken to her, and she just adores me. There is no one else who loves me; and she, poor child, would not be admitted inside these walls; she is not aristocratic enough. Dear me, Nora! it is wrong of me to give you all this information so soon; and don't look anxious about me, little goose, for I have taken an enormous fancy to you."

"I will tell you one thing," said Nora after a pause, "if you will never tell again."