“At last!” she said.
Mrs. Hartrick was not in the room; she had a headache, and did not get up to breakfast. Terence had already started for town. He had secured the post he desired in his uncle's office, and thought himself a very great man of business. Linda did not count for anything.
Nora flung herself into an easy-chair, and opened the first of her letters. It was from her mother. She was soon lost in its contents.
“MY DEAR NORA [wrote Mrs. O'Shanaghgan]: Be prepared for very great, startling, and at the same time gratifying, news. Your dear Uncle George, who has been spending the last three weeks with us, has made an arrangement which lifts us, my dear daughter, out of all pecuniary embarrassments. I will tell you as briefly as possible what has taken place. He had a consultation with your father, and induced him, at my suggestion, to unburden his mind to him. You know the Squire's ways. He pooh-poohed the subject and fought shy of it; but at last I myself brought him to task, and the whole terrible and disgraceful state of things was revealed. My dear Nora, my dear little girl, we were, it appears, on the brink of bankruptcy. In a couple of months O'Shanaghgan would no longer have been ours.
I cannot say that I should ever have regretted leaving this ramshackle and much-dilapidated place, but of course I should have shrunk from the disgrace, the exposure, the feeling that I was the cynosure of all eyes. That, indeed, would have cut me to the quick. Had your father consented to sell O'Shanaghgan and live in England, it would have been a moment of great rejoicing for me; but the place to be sold up over his head was quite a different matter. This, my dear Nora, seems to have been the position of affairs when your dear uncle, like a good providence or a guardian angel, appeared on the scene. Your uncle, my dearest Nora, is a very rich man. My dear brother has been careful with regard to money matters all his life, and is now in possession of a very large supply of this world's goods. Your dear uncle was good enough to come to the rescue, and has bought O'Shanaghgan from the man to whom your father owed the mortgage. O'Shanaghgan now belongs to your Uncle George.”
“Never!” cried Nora, springing to her feet.
“What is the matter, Nora?” said Linda.
“Don't talk to me for the present, or I'll say something you won't like to hear,” replied Nora.
“Really, I must say you are copying Molly in your manner.”
“Don't speak to me,” said Nora. Her face was crimson; she had never felt such a wild, surging sense of passion in the whole of her existence. Linda's calm gray eyes were upon her, however. She managed to suppress any more emotion, saw that her cousin was burning with curiosity, and continued the letter.
“Although, my dearest Nora, Castle O'Shanaghgan now belongs to your Uncle George, don't suppose for a single moment that he is going to be unkind to us. Far from it. To all appearance the place is still ours; but with, oh! such a difference. Your father is still, in the eyes of the tenants and of the country round, the owner of Castle O'Shanaghgan; but, after consulting with me, your Uncle George felt that he must not have the reins. His Irish nature, my dear—But I need not discuss that. You know as well as I do how reckless and improvident he is.”
“Oh, mother!” gasped Nora. She clenched her little white teeth, and had great difficulty in proceeding with her letter. Linda's curiosity, however, acted as a restorative, and she went on with her mother's lengthy epistle.
“All things are now changed, and I may as well say that a glorious era has begun. Castle O'Shanaghgan is now your uncle's property, and it will soon be a place to be proud of. He is having it refurnished from attic to cellar; carpets, curtains, mirrors, furniture of all sorts have already begun to arrive from one of the most fashionable shops in Dublin. Gardeners have been got to put the gardens to rights, the weeds have been removed from the avenue, the grass has been cut, the lawns have been mown; the whole place looks already as if it had undergone a resurrection. My bedroom, dear Nora, is now a place suitable for your mother to sleep in; the bare boards are covered with a thick Brussels carpet. The Axminster stair carpets arrived yesterday. In the dining room is one of the most magnificent Turkey carpets I have ever seen; and your uncle has insisted on having the edge of the floor laid with parquetry. Will you believe me, Nora?—your father has objected to the sound of the hammering which the workmen make in putting in the different pieces of wood. You can scarcely believe it possible; but I state a fact. The stables are being filled with suitable horses; and with regard to that I am glad to say your father does take some interest. A victoria has arrived for me, and a pony-trap for you, dear; for it seems your Uncle George has taken a great fancy to you, my little Nora. Well, dear, all this resurrection, this wonderful restoration of Castle O'Shanaghgan has occurred during your absence. You will come back to a sort of fairyland; but it is one of your uncle's stipulations that you do not come back at present; and, of course, for such a fairy godfather, such a magician, no promise is too great to give. So I have told him, dear Nora, that you will live with your kind and noble Aunt Grace, and with your charming cousin Linda, and your cousin Molly—about whom I do not hear so much—as long as he wishes you to do so. You will receive the best of educations, and come back at Christmas to a suitable home. You must have patience until then. It is your uncle's proposal that at Christmas-time you and your cousins also come to O'Shanaghgan, and that we shall have a right good old-fashioned Christmas in this place, which at last is beautiful and worthy of your ancient house. You must submit patiently, therefore, dear Nora, to remaining in England. You will probably spend the greater portion of your time there for the next few years, until you are really accomplished. But the holidays you, with your dear cousins and your uncle and aunt, will always spend at O'Shanaghgan. You must understand, dear, that the house really belongs to your uncle; the place is his, and we are simply his tenants, from whom he nobly asks no rent. How proud I am of my dear brother, and how I rejoice in this glorious change!—Your affectionate mother,
“ELLEN O'SHANAGHGAN.”.
The letter dropped from Nora's fingers.
“And was it I who effected all this?” she said to herself. “And I thought I was doing good.”
The other letter lay unopened on her lap. She took it up with trembling hands, and broke the seal. It was a short letter compared to her mother's, but it was in the handwriting she loved best on earth.
“LIGHT O' THE MORNING [it began]: Why, then, my darling, it's done—it is all over. The place is mine no longer; it belongs to the English. To think I, O'Shanaghgan of Castle O'Shanaghgan, should live to write the words. Your mother put it to me, and I could not refuse her; but, oh, Nora asthore, heart of my life, I can scarcely bear to live here now. What with the carpets and the curtains, and the fuss and the misery, and the whole place being turned into a sort of furniture-shop, it is past bearing. I keep out most of my time in the woods, and I won't deny to you, my dearest child, that I have shed some bitter tears over the change in O'Shanaghgan; for the place isn't what it was, and it's heart-breaking to behold it. But your mother is pleased, and that's one comfort. I always did all I could for her; and when she smiles at me and looks like the sun—she is a remarkably handsome woman, Nora—I try to take a bit of comfort. But I stumble over the carpets and the mats, and your mother is always saying, 'Patrick, take care where you are going, and don't let the dogs come in to spoil the new carpets.' And the English servants that we have now taken are past bearing; and it's just as if I were in chains, and I would almost as lief the place had been sold right away from me as see it in its changed condition. I can add no more now, my child, except to say that, as I am under great and bitter obligations to your Uncle George,
I must agree to his request that you stay in England for the present; but Christmas is coming, and then I'll clasp you in my arms, and I'll have a grain of comfort again.—Your sorrowful old father,
PATRICK O'SHANAGHGAN.”
Nora's cheeks flushed brighter than ever as she read these two letters. The first had cut her to the heart; the second had caused that desire for weeping which unless it is yielded to amounts to torture.
Oh! if Linda would not stay in the room. Oh! if she might crouch away where she, too, could shed tears over the changed Castle O'Shanaghgan. For what did she and her father want with a furniture-shop? Must she, for all the rest of her days, live in a sort of feather-bed house? Must the bareness, the space, the sense of expansion, be hers no more? She was half a savage, and her silken fetters were tortures to her.
“It will kill him,” she murmured. She said the words aloud.
“What will kill him? What is wrong? Do, please, tell me,” said Linda.
Nora looked at her with flashing eyes.
“How bright your cheeks are, Nora, and how your eyes shine! But you look very, very angry. What can be the matter?”
“Matter? There is plenty the matter. I cannot tell you now,” said Nora.
“Then I'll go up and ask mother; perhaps she will tell me. It has something to do with that old place of yours, I have not the slightest doubt. Mother has got a very long letter from Ireland; she will tell me perhaps.”
“Yes, go; and don't come back again,” said Nora, almost rudely.
“She gets worse and worse,” thought Linda as she slowly mounted the stairs. “Nora is anything but a pleasure in the house. At first when she came she was not quite so bad; she had a pretty face, and her manners had not been coarsened from contamination with Molly. Now she is much changed. Yes, I'll go to mother and talk to her. What an awful afternoon we are likely to have with that American girl here and Nora changing for the worse hour by hour.”
Linda knocked at her mother's door. Mrs. Hartrick was not well, and was sitting up in bed reading her letters.
“My head is better, Linda,” she said. “I shall get up presently. What is it, darling?”
“It is only the usual thing,” said Linda, with a deep sigh. “I am always being rubbed the wrong way, and I don't like it.”
“So it seems, my pet. But how nicely you have done your hair this morning! How very neat and ladylike you are becoming, Linda! You are a great comfort to me, dear.”
“Thank you, mother; I try to please you,” said Linda. She seated herself on her mother's bed, suppressed a sigh, then said eagerly:
“Nora is awfully put out. Is there bad news from that wild place, Castle O'Shanaghgan?”
“Bad news?” cried Mrs. Hartrick. “Has the child had letters?”
“Yes, two; she had been reading them instead of eating her breakfast, and the sighs and the groans, and the flashing eyes and the clenched teeth, and the jumping to her feet and the flopping herself down again have been past bearing. She won't let out anything except that she is downright miserable, and that it is a burning shame.”
“What can she mean, mother? Is the old place sold? I always expected they were terribly poor.”
“The best, most splendid news,” said Mrs. Hartrick. “My dear Linda, you must be mistaken. Your father says that he has given your aunt and uncle leave to tell Nora everything. I thought the child would be in the seventh heaven of bliss; in fact, I was almost dreading her arrival on the scene, she is so impetuous.”
“Well, mother, she is not in any seventh heaven of bliss,” replied Linda; “so perhaps they have not told her. But what is it, mother dear? Do tell me.”
“It is this, darling—your father has bought Castle O'Shanaghgan.”
“Oh! and given it to the O'Shanaghgans. Why did he do that?”
“He has bought it, but he has not given it to the O'Shanaghgans. Some day, if Terence turns out worthy, the old place will doubtless be his, as we have no son of our own; but at present it is your father's property; he has bought it.”
“Then no wonder poor Nora is sad,” said Linda. “I can understand her; she is fond of the old place.”
“But why should she be sad? They are not going; they are to stay there, practically owners of all they possess; for, although the property is really your father's, he will only exercise sufficient control to prevent that poor, wild, eccentric uncle of yours from throwing good money after bad. To all intents and purposes the O'Shanaghgans still hold possession; only now, my dear Linda, they will have a beautiful house, magnificently furnished. The grounds are carefully attended to, good gardeners provided, English servants sent for, and the whole place made suitable for your father's sister.”
“But does Nora know of this?”
“I suppose so. I know your father said she was to be told.”
“She is very miserable about something. I cannot understand her,” said Linda. “I tell you what, I'll just go down and tell her. Perhaps those two letters were nothing but grumbles; and the O'Shanaghgans did not know then the happiness that was in store for them.”
“You can tell her if you like, dear.”
“I will, I will,” said Linda. She jumped off her mother's bed and ran downstairs.
Nora was standing in the conservatory. She was gazing straight before her, not at the great, tall, flowering cactus nor the orchids, nor the mass of geraniums and pelargoniums of every shade and hue—she was seeing a picture of a wild, wild lonely place, of a bare old house, of a seashore that was like no other seashore in the world. She was looking at this picture with all the heart of which she was capable shining in her eyes; and she knew that she was looking at it in imagination only, and that she would never see the real picture again, for the wild old place was wild no longer, and in Nora's opinion the glory had departed. She turned when Linda's somewhat mincing voice fell upon her ears.
“How you startled me!” she said. “What is it?”
“Oh, good news,” said Linda. “I am not quite so bad as you think me, Nora, and I am delighted. Mother has told me everything. Castle O'Shanaghgan is yours to live in as long as ever you care to do so. Of course it belongs to us; but that does not matter, and it is furnished from attic to cellar most splendidly, and there are English servants, and there are—”
“Everything abominable and odious and horrible!” burst from Nora's lips. “Oh, don't keep me; don't keep me! I am smothered at the thought—O'Shanaghgan is ruined—ruined!”
She ran away from her cousin out into the air. At headlong speed did she go, until at last she found herself in the most remote and least cultivated part of the plantation.
Oh, to be alone! Now she could cry, and cry she did right bitterly.
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