The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 Part 70

"Shure, you do not forget your own Eily--the girl you made into the picthur, your colleen oge! But maybe it's the jiwils and the clothes that has changed me; it's mighty grand they make me, to be sure, but it was so you should not be ashamed of me I put them on. Arrah, shpake to me, and let me hear the sound of your voice!"

She looked pleadingly into his eyes, but he was speechless. At last by a mighty effort he turned with a sickly smile to some of his guests--

"Here is the original of 'The Queen of Connemara'--scarcely recognisable in her new clothes, is she? Why, Eily, my child," with a paternal air, "whatever brought you here to London?"

It was an unwise question; the answer was plain enough.

"Faith, thin, 'twas yourself, Misther Hamilton! You promised to come back to me, and said you would make me the finest lady in the land; and I waited, but faix, I got sick and sore, so I came to find yez, and it's well-nigh at death's door I was till I heard of yez and found where ye live--and musha, but it's a grand place, G.o.d bless it!"

Eily was looking around her now at the beautiful room, the lovely women, their smart attire, and shyness seized her; she hung her head in dismay; every one in the room was pressing forward to see the girl whom Hamilton had immortalised, and comments on her appearance pa.s.sed from lip to lip.

"Stand there, Eily," said Hamilton kindly, placing her on a low stool that stood near. The game should be played out now.

The crowd pressed around eagerly, delighted and curious.

[Sidenote: A Pleasant Surprise!]

"What a pleasant surprise you have prepared for us, dear Mr. Hamilton!

quite unprepared, I a.s.sure you! but ah, how you artists idealise to be sure! who but genius itself could find anything picturesque under so much glitter and vulgarity?" and so on and so on, until Eily's blus.h.i.+ng face grew paler and paler.

"Now, Eily, you may go; the ladies and gentlemen have looked at you long enough. Here is something to buy a new gown and bonnet," and Leslie Hamilton, with a patronising smile, put some gold into her hand.

"How kind and considerate!" murmured the highborn dames as they turned away.

He escorted the girl to the door, and drew aside the _portiere_ courteously, but his face became livid with rage as he spoke in a low, stern voice, "Go, girl! never dare to come here again--if you do, I swear I will call the police!"

He closed the door after her retreating figure, and turned with a smile to the company; his eyes sought those of beautiful Bee Vandaleur, but she had gone.

Outside in the busy street Eily stood, leaning for support against a stone pillar. She heard nothing, saw nothing. A mist swam before her eyes; she was dumb with shame and disappointment; her face, a moment before so eager, was pale as death, and deep sobs that came from her very soul shook her poor body. She clenched the gold in her hands, and then with a bitter, pa.s.sionate cry threw it into the street, and watched while two street-urchins picked it up and ran off with their treasure-trove.

"May I help you, my poor girl? Are you in trouble?" Bee Vandaleur spoke gently and softly; she had heard all that pa.s.sed between the artist and his model.

Eily looked up. "Oh, me lady, G.o.d bless ye! but I'm past the helping now! I loved him, I would have died to save him from a minute's sorrow, and he threatened the police on me!"

"Come with me; I will take care of you, and you shall tell me all." Miss Vandaleur hailed a pa.s.sing hansom and jumped in, followed by Eily, white, s.h.i.+vering, and limp. "Now tell me all," she said, as they were driven at a rapid pace through the streets. Eily, won by her gentleness, told her the pitiful story of her love; told her of her simple mountain home, of the handsome stranger who had promised to return and carry her to a land where she would be fairest of the fair; told it with dry eyes and white set lips, while her heart was breaking and her temples beat, beat, beat, like sledge-hammers beneath the weight of the fringe with which she had thought to please him.

Miss Vandaleur heard all, and made no sign, save that her lips tightened now and then, and an expression of pain stole into her soft grey eyes.

It was a pathetic story, and the rich girl was touched as she listened to the poor simple one at her side. "Where do you live, Eily?" she asked, as the girl stopped speaking, and lay back with closed eyes.

"At me aunt's, your honour, but I won't go back! shure, I cannot! Oh, me lady, let me go; it's not for the likes of me to be keeping your ladys.h.i.+p away from her grand friends. G.o.d's blessing upon ye for your kindness to a poor girl!"

Bee was silent, wondering what she could do with the unhappy creature beside her; presently a bright thought struck her.

"I am looking out for a girl who will attend on me, Eily; do you think you would like the place if you are taught?"

[Sidenote: "An Angel from Heaven!"]

"Arrah, me lady, me lady! it's an angel from heaven ye are!" cried Eily gratefully, but her head sank back again, till the gaudy pink feather in her hat was spoilt for ever.

That night Eily was taken to hospital. Brain fever set in, and the doctors and nurses feared the worst.

Bee Vandaleur sat in her boudoir thinking. Her pretty brow was puckered as she gazed at the photograph of a young man, tall, fair, and handsome.

For some time she cogitated, then, setting her lips together, she tore the card straight across, dropped it into the waste-paper basket beside her, and shrugged her pretty shoulders, exclaiming in a tone more forcible than polite, "Brute!"

Leslie Hamilton stood outside the door of Mr. Vandaleur's handsome town residence. The footman, gorgeously attired, opened the heavy door.

"Not at 'ome, sir," he answered pompously in answer to inquiries.

"My good man, you have made some mistake; I am Leslie Hamilton, and I wish to see Miss Vandaleur."

"Very sorry, sir, no mistake, sir; Miss Vandaleur is not at 'ome!" and the door closed in the face of the astonished artist.

It was June in Connemara. Where else is the month of roses half as lovely? where does the sky show bluer, or the gra.s.s greener? and where is the air so clear and cool and fragrant, or the lakes half as still and azure as in that blessed country?

The sun rode high in the sky, monarch of all, and men smiled as they went about their daily toil, and thanked the good G.o.d who was sending them favourable weather. Here and there, dotted about the hillsides, the tiny white-washed cabins were full of life; the c.o.c.ks crowed proudly as they strutted in and out among their plump, sleek wives; the useful a.s.s brayed loudly, roaming about field and lane in enjoyment of a leisure hour; the men were in the fields, cutting the sweet-scented gra.s.s, and the women busied themselves about the midday meal, while babies, with dirty faces and naked feet, tumbled about among the wandering pigs and quacking ducks in blissful content.

Along the white road that bordered the lake a cart was jolting slowly along; it was painted in a startling shade of blue, with shafts of brightest red that projected both back and front; upon it was arranged, with neatness and precision, a load of turf just cut from the bog; on one side, painted black, that all who run might read, was the name of "Patrick O'Malley" in crude lettering, and Patrick himself, in working dress of coa.r.s.e cream homespun, walked beside his slow-going jennet, idly smoking his tin-topped pipe. From time to time he drew from his trouser pocket a letter, which he fingered with respect, gazing at it with profoundest wonder.

"Shure, 'tis the grandest and the natest letther ever seen, and the ilegant picthur on the back! Musha, musha, 'tis not the likes o' that comes to Biddy Joyce ivery day, no, nor to no one else neither in these parts! It minds me of a letther her ladys.h.i.+p at the castle aksed me to take to the posht, and her in a hurry; begob, but the paper's thick and good entoirely!" and he rubbed it softly between his finger and thumb.

"Shure 'tis from London itself, and maybe the one as wrote it is some friend o' Eily's. Ah, but it's she is the foolish one that she did not take the boy! it's long ere she'll find another such a match again, and him with cattle and sheep and pigs o' his own, a house that many a girl would be wild for to get, and maybe--maybe--a bit laid by for a rainy day into the bargain!"

[Sidenote: "Too Good for Her!"]

The jennet jogged slowly on as Patrick soliloquised. "The poor lad, but it makes me heart ache to see him so low-like, setting so quiet in the house, and him thinking, thinking all the blessed while, and never a word out o' his mouth to complain. He's a rale good lad, and it's sorry I am that he should take on so bad, and all for the sake o' a pair o'

bright eyes! To see him when Biddy Joyce was sick and Mike got laid up with rheumatics; who was it minded the cattle, and fed the pigs, and sat early and late 'tending on the pair o' thim but Dermot! It's mighty high the girl is, with her talk o' the gintry and the ilegant places she seen in London, and never a mintion o' his name in all her letthers, the foolish craythur! it's too good the bhoy is for the likes o' her!" The old man was beginning to wax indignant over his son's unfavoured suit when a voice, rich and strong, called to him across the loose stone wall that divided the road from the fields.

"Any news going down Lissough way, father?" It was Dermot, who had stopped for a moment in his task of cutting down the long gra.s.s.

"Arrah, phwat news is it likely an old man like me should bring? You ask me so eager-like that I mis...o...b.. me but it's some colleen that's caught your eye!" Patrick's eyes twinkled merrily as he made his little joke.

Dermot's face saddened, and he turned to his scythe once more.

His father, sorry that he had brought back the cloud once more to his son's face, pulled the letter from his pocket and laid it on the wall.

"Now, there's for yez! as lovely a letther as ever you seen, all the way from London, with a little picthur of an agle on the back o' it! 'Tis for Biddy Joyce, and maybe ye'll take it, Dermot, seeing your legs is younger than mine?"

Dermot was off already, climbing the mountain slopes in hot haste.

Biddy Joyce stood watching him from the door where Eily and he had parted months before.

"The poor fellow! it's like me own son he has been all this time, so kind when the sickness took hould o' Mike and me! It's meself that wishes he could forget me daughter, for it's poor comfort she will ever be to him. Faith, thin, Dermot," she exclaimed, as he came towards her, "phwat is it at all at all that ye come hurrying like this when the sun is warm enough to kill a body? Come inside, lad, and taste a sup o' me nice, sweet b.u.t.ther-milk; shure the churn's just done, though the b.u.t.ther's too soft entoirely"--she shook her head sadly.

"A letther!" cried Dermot, drawing out the treasured epistle from between the folds of his s.h.i.+rt, where he had hastily thrust it, that his hands might not soil the creamy paper.