Luttrell Of Arran Part 39

The old man stepped back, and, turning her round full in front of him, stood in wondering admiration of her for some seconds.

"Well?" said she, pertly, as if interrogating his opinion of her--"well?"

But his emotion was too strong for words, and the heavy tears coursed after each other down his wrinkled cheeks.

"It's harder for me to leave you, Kitty, darlin', than I thought it would be, and I know, too, I'll feel it worse when I go back."

"No you won't, grandfather," said she, caressingly. "You'll be thinking of me and the fine life I'm leadin' here, and the fine times that's before me."

"Do you think so, honey?" asked he, in a half-sobbing tone--"do you think so?"

"I know it, grandfather--I know it, so don't cry any more; and, whenever your heart is low, just think of what's coming. That's what I do. I always begin to think of what's coming!"

"And when that time comes, Kitty 'Alannah,' will you ever renumber yer ould grandfather, who won't be to 'the fore' to see it?"

"And why won't he be?"

"Because, darlin', I'm nigh eighty years of age, and I can't expect to see above a year or two, at farthest. Come here, and give me a kiss, ma Cushleen! and cut off a bit of your hair for me to have as a keepsake, and put next my heart in my coffin."

"No, grandfather; take this, it will do as well"--and she handed him the little golden trinket--"for I can't cut my hair, after hearin' the gentlemen sayin' how beautiful it is!"

The old man, however, motioned away the gift with one hand, while he drew the other across his eyes.

"Is there anything you think of now, Kitty," said he, with an effort to appear calm, "for I must be goin'?"

"Give my love to them all beyant," said she, gravely, "and say if there's a thing I could do for them, I'll do it, but don't let them be comin' after me!"

A sickly paleness spread over the old man's face, and his lips trembled as he muttered, "No fear of that! They'll not trouble you! Good-by!" And he stooped and kissed her.

When he had walked a few paces away, he turned, and, with hands fervently clasped above his head, uttered a blessing in Irish.

"G.o.d speed you, grandfather, and send you safe home!" cried she. And, skipping over a flower-bed, was lost to his view, though he could hear her happy voice as she went away singing.

"The devil a doubt of it," muttered the old man, "them's the ones that bate the world; and, if she doesn't come in first in the race, by my soule, it isn't the weight of her heart will keep her back!"

"Well, Malone!" cried Sir Gervais, as they met at the garden-gate, "have you been able to make up your mind?"

"Yes, your honour; Kitty says she'll stay." Sir Gervais paused for a moment, then said:

"Because we have been talking the matter over amongst ourselves, Malone, and we have thought that, as possibly your expectations might be greater than were likely to be realised, our best way might be to make you some compensation for all the trouble we have given you, and part the same good friends that we met. I therefore came to say, that if you like your present holding, that little farm----"

"No, your honour, no," broke he in, eagerly; "her heart's in the place now, and it would be as much as her life's worth to tear her away from it."

"If that be so, there's no more to be said; but remember, that we gave you a choice, and you took it."

"What does he mean to do?" asked Georgina, as she now came up the path.

"To leave her here," answered Vyner.

"Of course. I never had a doubt of it. My good man, I'm much mistaken if your granddaughter and I will not understand each other very quickly.

What do you think?"

"It is little trouble it will give your Ladys.h.i.+p to know all that's inside a poor ignorant little child like that!" said he, with an intense servility of manner. "But her heart is true, and her conscience clean, and I'm lavin' you as good a child as ever broke bread this day!"

"So that if the tree doesn't bear the fruit it ought, the blame will lie with the gardener; isn't that what you mean?" asked she, keenly.

"G.o.d help me! I'm only a poor man, and your Ladys.h.i.+p is too hard on me,"

said he, uncovering his snow-white head, and bowing deeply and humbly.

"After all," whispered she in Vyner's ear, "there has really been nothing determined about the matter in dispute. None of us know what is to be done, if the contingency he spoke of should arise."

They walked away, arm in arm, in close conference together, but when they returned, after a half-hour or so, to the place, Malone was gone.

The porter said he had come to the lodge for his bundle, wished him a good-by, and departed.

CHAPTER XXV. THE TWO PUPILS

Days went over, and the time arrived for the Vyners to leave their Welsh cottage and take up their abode for the winter in their more commodious old family house, when a letter came from Rome stating that Lady Vyner's mother, Mrs. Courtenay, was very ill there, and begging to see her daughters as soon as might be.

After considerable debate, it was resolved that the children should be left behind with the governess, Sir Within pledging himself to watch over them most attentively, and send constant reports of Ada to her family. Mademoiselle Heinzleman had already spoken very favourably of Kitty, or Kate, as she was henceforth to be called; not only of her disposition and temper, but of her capacity and her intense desire to learn, and the Vyners now deemed her presence a most fortunate event.

Nor were they so far wrong. Ada was in every quality of gentleness and obedience all that the most anxious love could ask: she had the traits--very distinctive traits are they, too--of those who have been from earliest infancy only conversant with one school of manners, and that the best. All the examples she had seen were such as teach habits of deference, the wish to oblige, the readiness to postpone self-interest, and a general disposition to please without obtrusiveness--ways which spread a very enjoyable atmosphere over daily life, and gild the current of existence to those with whom the stream runs smoothly.

She was a very pretty child too. She had eyes of deep blue, which seemed deeper for their long black lashes; her hair was of that rich auburn which sets off a fair skin to greatest advantage; her profile was almost faultless in regularity, and so would have been her full face if an over-shortness of the upper lip had not marred the effect by giving a habit of slightly separating the lips when silent, and thus imparting a look of weakness to her features which the well-formed brow and forehead contradicted.

She was clever, but more timid than clever, and with such a distrust of her ability as to make her abashed at the slightest demand upon it. This timidity had been deepened by solitude--she being an only child--into something like melancholy, and her temperament when Kate O'Hara first came was certainly sad-coloured.

It was like the working of a charm, the change which now came over her whole nature. Not merely that emulation had taken the place of indolence, and zeal usurped the post of apathy, but she became active, lively, and energetic. The occupations which had used to weary became interesting, and instead of the la.s.situde that had weighed her down she seemed to feel a zest and enjoyment in the mere fact of existence. And it is probably the very nearest approach to happiness of which our life here below is capable, when the suns.h.i.+ne of the outer world is felt within our own hearts, and we are glad with the gladness of all around us.

Mademoiselle Heinzleman's great test of all goodness was a.s.siduity.

In her appreciation all the cardinal virtues resolved themselves into industry, and she was inclined to believe that heaven itself might be achieved by early rising and hard work. If she was greatly gratified, then, at the change produced in her pupil, she was proportionately grateful to the cause of it. But Kate had other qualities which soon attracted the governess and drew her towards her. She possessed that intense thirst for knowledge, so marked a trait in the Irish peasant-nature. She had that sense of power so a.s.sociated with acquirement as the strongest feature in her character, and in this way she had not--at least she seemed not to have--a predilection for this study or for that; all was new, fascinating, and engaging.

It was as with Aladdin in the mine, all were gems, and she gathered without thinking of their value; so did she pursue with the same eagerness whatever was to be learned. What will not industry, with even moderate capacity, achieve? But hers were faculties of a high order; she had a rapid perception, considerable reasoning power, and a good memory; but above all was the ability she possessed of concentrating her whole thoughts upon the matter before her.

She delighted, too, in praise; not the common eulogy that she had learned this or that well, but such praise as pointed to some future eminence as the price of all this labour; and when her governess told her of a time when she would be so glad to possess this acquirement, or to have mastered that difficulty, she would draw herself up, and with head erect and flas.h.i.+ng eye, look a perfect picture of gratified pride.

It would have been difficult for a teacher not to feel pride in such a pupil. It was such a reflected triumph to see how rapidly she could master every task, how easily she met every difficulty; and so it was that the governess, in her report, though laying all due stress on Ada's charming traits of disposition and temper, speaking actually with affection of her guileless, gentle nature, grew almost rapturous when she spoke of Kate's capacity and progress. She went into the theme with ardour, and was carried away by it much more than she knew or imagined.

It was a sort of defence of herself she was making, all unconsciously--a defence of her system, which, as applied to Ada, had not been always a success. This correspondence was invariably carried on with Miss Courtenay, who, for some time, contented herself with merely dwelling on what related to her niece, and only pa.s.singly, if at all, spoke of Kate.

At last, pushed, as it were, by Mademoiselle Heinzleman's insistance, and vexed at a pertinacity which no silence could repress, she wrote a letter, so full of reprimand that the governess was actually overwhelmed as she read it.

"I have your four last letters before me," wrote she, "and it would be difficult for a stranger on reading them to declare which of the two pupils under your care was your especial charge, and which a merely advent.i.tious element. Not so if the question were to be, Which of the two engrossed all your interest and engaged all your sympathy? We read, it is true, of dear Ada's temper, her kindness, her generosity, and her gentleness--traits which we all recognise, and many of which, we surmise, must have been sorely tried, but of which you can speak with a most fitting and scholastic moderation. Far otherwise, however, does your pen run on when Kate O'Hara is the theme. You are not, perhaps, aware that you are actually eloquent on thia subject. You never weary of telling us of her marvellous progress; how she already begins to speak French; how she imitates those mysterious pothooks your countrymen persist in using as writing; how she plays her scales, and what a talent she has for drawing. Do you forget the while that these are very secondary matters of interest to us all here? Do you forget that in her companions.h.i.+p with my niece our whole object was the spring which might be derived from her healthy peasant-nature and light-heartedness? To convert this child into a miracle of accomplishment could serve no purpose of ours, and a.s.suredly would conduce to no advantage of her own.

On this latter point you have only to ask yourself, What will become of all these attainments when she goes back--as she will go back--to her life of poverty and privation? Will her piano make her better company for the pig? Will her French reconcile her to the miseries of a mud cabin?

"She is the child of a poor cottier, a creature so humble that even here in this benighted State we have nothing his equal in indigence; and she will one day or other have to go back to the condition that my brother, with I fear a very mistaken kindness, took her from. You will see, therefore, how misjudging is the interest you are now bestowing. It is, however, the injustice to my niece which more nearly concerns me; and with this object I inform you that if I am not satisfied as to the total change in your system, I shall certainly be prepared to recommend to my brother one of two courses: a change in Ada's governess, or the dismissal of Ada's companion. It is but fair to you to say I prefer the latter.

"Remember, my dear Mademoiselle Heinzleman, this is a purely confidential communication. I have not confided to my sister either my fears or my hopes. The experiment was one I did not augur well from. It has turned out even worse than I expected. Indeed, if Ada was not the very best and sweetest of natures, she could not but resent the unfair preference shown to one so inferior to her in all but those traits which win favour from a schoolmistress. My mother's health precludes all hope of our soon returning to England; indeed, we have even thought of sending for Ada to come here, and it is the dread of this climate, so pernicious to young people, offers the chief obstacle to the plan.

Meanwhile, I feel forced to write what I have done, and to lay before you in all sincerity my complaint and its remedy.