Barrington Volume I Part 30

"The project has done this for him, at least," said she, firmly,--"it has given him hope!"

"How I like to hear about hope!" said he, with a peculiarly sarcastic bitterness. "I never knew a fellow worth sixpence that had that cant of 'hope' in his mouth! How much hope had I when I began the world! How much have I now?"

"Don't you hope Captain Stapylton may not have forgotten his appointment, papa?" said she, with a quick drollery, which sparkled in her eye, but brought no smile to her lips.

"Well, here he is at last," said Dill, as he heard the sharp click made by the wicket of the little garden; and he started up, and rushed to the window. "May I never!" cried he, in horror, "if it isn't M'Cormick! Say we're out,--that I'm at Graigue,--that I won't be home till evening!"

But while he was multiplying these excuses, the old Major had caught sight of him, and was waving his hand in salutation from below.

"It's too late,--it's too late!" sighed Dill, bitterly; "he sees me now,--there's no help for it!"

What benevolent and benedictory expressions were muttered below his breath, it is not for this history to record; but so vexed and irritated was he, that the Major had already entered the room ere he could compose his features into even a faint show of welcome.

"I was down at the Dispensary," croaked out M'Cormick, "and they told me you were not expected there to-day, and so I said, maybe he's ill, or maybe,"--and here he looked shrewdly around him,--"maybe there 's something going on up at the house."

"What should there be going on, as you call it?" responded Dill, angrily, for he was now at home, in presence of the family, and could not compound for that tone of servile acquiescence he employed on foreign service.

"And, faix, I believe I was right; Miss Polly isn't so smart this morning for nothing, no more than the saving cover is off the sofa, and the piece of gauze taken down from before the looking-gla.s.s, and the 'Times' newspaper away from the rug!"

"Are there any other domestic changes you 'd like to remark upon, Major M'Cormick?" said Dill, pale with rage.

"Indeed, yes," rejoined the other; "there 's yourself, in the elegant black coat that I never saw since Lord Kilraney's funeral, and looking pretty much as lively and pleasant as you did at the ceremony."

"A gentleman has made an appointment with papa," broke in Polly, "and may be here at any moment."

"I know who it is," said M'Cormick, with a finger on the side of his nose to imply intense cunning. "I know all about it."

"What do you know?--what do you mean by all about it?" said Dill, with an eagerness he could not repress.

"Just as much as yourselves,--there now! Just as much as yourselves!"

said he, sententiously.

"But apparently, Major, you know far more," said Polly.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't; but I 'll tell you one thing, Dill, for your edification, and mind me if I 'm not right: you 're all mistaken about him, every one of ye!"

"Whom are you talking of?" asked the doctor, sternly.

"Just the very man you mean yourself, and no other! Oh, you need n't fuss and fume, I don't want to pry into your family secrets. Not that they 'll be such secrets tomorrow or next day,--the whole town will be talking of them,--but as an old friend that could, maybe, give a word of advice--"

"Advice about what? Will you just tell me about what?" cried Dill, now bursting with anger.

"I 've done now. Not another word pa.s.ses my lips about it from this minute. Follow your own road, and see where it will lead ye?"

"Cannot you understand, Major M'Cormick, that we are totally unable to guess what you allude to? Neither papa nor I have the very faintest clew to your meaning, and if you really desire to serve us, you will speak out plainly."

"Not another syllable, if I sat here for two years!"

The possibility of such an infliction seemed so terrible to poor Polly that she actually shuddered as she heard it.

"Is n't that your mother I see sitting up there, with all the fine ribbons in her cap?" whispered M'Cormick, as he pointed to a small room which opened off an angle of the larger one. "That 's 'the boodoo,' is n't it?" said he, with a grin. This, I must inform my reader, was the M'Cormick for "boudoir." "Well, I'll go and pay my respects to her."

So little interest did Mrs. Dill take in the stir and movement around her that the Major utterly failed in his endeavors to torture her by all his covert allusions and ingeniously drawn inferences. No matter what hints he dropped or doubts he suggested, _she_ knew "Clarissa" would come well out of her trials; and beyond a little unmeaning simper, and a muttered "To be sure," "No doubt of it," and, "Why not?" M'Cormick could obtain nothing from her.

Meanwhile, in the outer room the doctor continued to stride up and down with impatience, while Polly sat quietly working on, not the less anxious, perhaps, though her peaceful air betokened a mind at rest.

"That must be a boat, papa," said she, without lifting her head, "that has just come up to the landing-place. I heard the plash of the oars, and now all is still again."

"You 're right; so it is!" cried he, as he stopped before the window.

"But how is this! That 's a lady I see yonder, and a gentleman along with her. That's not Stapylton, surely!"

"He is scarcely so tall," said she, rising to look out, "but not very unlike him. But the lady, papa,--the lady is Miss Barrington."

Bad as M'Cormick's visit was, it was nothing to the possibility of such an advent as this, and Dill's expressions of anger were now neither measured nor muttered.

"This is to be a day of disasters. I see it well, and no help for it,"

exclaimed he, pa.s.sionately. "If there was one human being I 'd hate to come here this morning, it's that old woman! She's never civil. She's not commonly decent in her manner towards me in her own house, and what she 'll be in mine, is clean beyond me to guess. That's herself! There she goes! Look at her remarking,--I see, she's remarking on the weeds over the beds, and the smashed paling. She's laughing too! Oh, to be sure, it's fine laughing at people that's poor; and she might know something of that same herself. I know who the man is now. That 's the Colonel, who came to the 'Fisherman's Home' on the night of the accident."

"It would seem we are to hold a levee to-day," said Polly, giving a very fleeting glance at herself in the gla.s.s. And now a knock came to the door, and the man who acted gardener and car-driver and valet to the doctor announced that Miss Barrington and Colonel Hunter were below.

"Show them up," said Dill, with the peremptory voice of one ordering a very usual event, and intentionally loud enough to be heard below stairs.

If Polly's last parting with Miss Barrington gave little promise of pleasure to their next meeting, the first look she caught of the old lady on entering the room dispelled all uneasiness on that score. Miss Dinah entered with a pleasing smile, and presented her friend, Colonel Hunter, as one come to thank the doctor for much kindness to his young subaltern. "Whom, by the way," added he, "we thought to find here. It is only since we landed that we learned he had left the inn for Kilkenny."

While the Colonel continued to talk to the doctor, Miss Dinah had seated herself On the sofa, with Polly at her side.

"My visit this morning is to you," said she. "I have come to ask your forgiveness. Don't interrupt me, child; your forgiveness was the very word I used. I was very rude to you t' other morning, and being all in the wrong,--like most people in such circ.u.mstances,--I was very angry with the person who placed me so."

"But, my dear madam," said Polly, "you had such good reason to suppose you were in the right that this _amende_ on your part is far too generous."

"It is not at all generous,--it is simply just. I was sorely vexed with you about that stupid wager, which you were very wrong to have had any share in; vexed with your father, vexed with your brother,--not that I believed his counsel would have been absolute wisdom,--and I was even vexed with my young friend Conyers, because he had not the bad taste to be as angry with you as I was. When I was a young lady," said she, bridling up, and looking at once haughty and defiant, "no man would have dared to approach me with such a proposal as complicity in a wager. But I am told that my ideas are antiquated, and the world has grown much wiser since that day."

"Nay, madam," said Polly, "but there is another difference that your politeness has prevented you from appreciating. I mean the difference in station between Miss Barrington and Polly Dill."

It was a well-directed shot, and told powerfully, for Miss Barrington's eyes became clouded, and she turned her head away, while she pressed Polly's hand within her own with a cordial warmth. "Ah!" said she, feelingly, "I hope there are many points of resemblance between us. I have always tried to be a good sister. I know well what you have been to your brother."

A very jolly burst of laughter from the inner room, where Hunter had already penetrated, broke in upon them, and the merry tones of his voice were heard saying, "Take my word for it, madam, n.o.body could spare time nowadays to make love in nine volumes. Life 's too short for it. Ask my old brother-officer here if he could endure such a thirty years' war; or rather let me turn here for an opinion. What does your daughter say on the subject?"

"Ay, ay," croaked out M'Cormick. "Marry in haste--"

"Or repent that you did n't. That 's the true reading of the adage."

"The Major would rather apply leisure to the marriage, and make the repentance come--"

"As soon as possible afterwards," said Miss Dinah, tartly.

"Faix, I 'll do better still; I won't provoke the repentance at all."

"Oh, Major, is it thus you treat me?" said Polly, affecting to wipe her eyes. "Are my hopes to be dashed thus cruelly?"