Molly helped, also Biddy and Nora, in all the preparations, and at last the three girls jumped upon the outside car and returned to O'Shanaghgan. Biddy felt that she was anything but welcome. She was certainly not looking her best. Her dress was of the shabbiest, and her turned-up nose looked more celestial than ever. Molly was gazing at her just as if she were a sort of curiosity, and finally Biddy resented this close scrutiny, and turned to Nora, grasping her by the hand.
“Tell her,” said Biddy, “that it is very rude to stare in that sort of stolid way. If she were an Irish girl she would give a flashing glance and then look away again; but that way of staring full and stiff puts a body out. Tell her it is not true Irish manners.”
“Oh, Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Molly, “I hear you both whispering together. What is it all about? I am nearly wild trying to keep myself on this awful car, and I know you are saying something not in my favor.”
“We are that,” cried Biddy; “we are just wishing you would keep your English manners to yourself.”
Molly flushed rather indignantly.
“I did not know that I was doing anything,” she said.
“Why, then,” cried Biddy, “is it nothing when you are bringing the blushes to my cheeks and the palpitation to my heart; and is it nothing to be, as it were, exposed to the scorn of the English? Why, then, bedad! I have got my nose from the old Irish kings, from whom I am descended, as true as true. Blue is my blood, and I am as proud of my ancestry as if I was Queen Victoria herself. I see that you have neat, straight features; but you have not got a scrap of royal blood in you—now, have you?”
“I don't think so,” answered Molly, laughing in spite of herself. “Well, if it offends you, I will try not to look at you again.”
The drive came to an end, and Nora entered the big, splendidly furnished hall, accompanied by Molly and Biddy. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan happened to be standing there. She came hurriedly forward.
“My dear Nora,” she began, but then her eyes fell upon Biddy. Her brows went up with a satirical action; she compressed her lips and kept back a sigh of annoyance.
“How do you do, Miss Murphy?” she said.
“I am fine, thank you kindly, ma'am,” replied Biddy; “and it is sorry I am that I had not time to change my dress and put on the pink one with the elegant little flounces that my aunt sent me from Dublin.”
“Oh, your present dress will do very well,” said Mrs. O'Shanaghgan, suppressing an internal shudder at the thought of Biddy at the renovated Castle of O'Shanaghgan in her dirty pink dress with the flounces.
“But, Miss Murphy,” she continued, “I am sorry that I cannot ask you to stay. The Squire is too unwell to admit of our having friends at present.”
“Oh, glory!” cried Biddy, “and how am I to get back again? Why, it was on your own outside car that I came across country, and I cannot walk all the way back to Cronane. Oh, but what a truly beautiful house! I never saw anything like it. Why, it is a sort of palace!”
Biddy's open admiration of the glories of O'Shanaghgan absolutely made the good mistress of the mansion smile. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan felt that Nora did not really care for the beautiful place—the grandly furnished rooms had brought no enthusiasm or delight to her heart. Nora had tried very hard to keep in her real feelings; but her mother was quite sharp enough to know what they were. There was little pleasure in taking a girl round rooms, corridors, and galleries when she was only forcing herself to say pretty things which she did not feel. Molly, of course, had always lived in a beautiful and well-furnished house; therefore there was nothing exciting in showing her the present magnificence of O'Shanaghgan, and half Mrs. O'Shanaghgan's pleasure was showing the place in its now regal state to her friends. Biddy's remark, therefore, was most fortunate. Even wild, unkempt, untaught Irish Biddy was better than no one.
“I tell you what it is,” said the good lady, with quite a gracious expression stealing over her features, “if you will promise to walk softly, and not to make any loud remarks, I will take you through the suite of drawing rooms and the big dining room and my morning room; but you must promise to be very quiet if I give you this great pleasure.”
“And it is glad I'll be, and as mum as a mouse. I'll hold my hands to my heart, and keep in everything; but, oh, Mrs. O'Shanaghgan, if I am fit to burst now and then, you will let me run to the window and give a big sigh? It is all I'll ask, to relieve myself; but mum's the word for everything else.”
On these terms Mrs. O'Shanaghgan conducted her unwelcome guest through the rooms, and after a brief tour Biddy joined her companions in the yard. Nora was busy sweeping out the barn herself, and, with the aid of Hannah Croneen and Molly, was already beginning to put it to rights. Biddy was now free to join the other conspirators, and the girls quickly became friends under these conditions.
Hannah proved herself a most valuable ally. She whisked about, dashing here and there, raising a whirlwind of dust, but, in Nora's opinion, effecting wonders. Angus also was drawn into the midst of the fray. His delight and approval of Nora's scheme was almost beyond bounds.
“Ah, then,” he said; “it's this will do the masther good. Oh, then, Miss Nora, it's you that has the 'cute ways.”
A tarpaulin was found and laid upon the floor. From Hannah's cottage a small deal table was fetched. A washstand was given by Angus; a cracked basin and jug were further secured; and Nora gave implicit directions with regard to the boiling of the mealy potatoes and the little scrap of bacon on which the Squire was to sup.
“You will bring them in—the potatoes, I mean—in their jackets,” said the Irish girl, “and have them hot as hot can be.”
“They shall screech, that they shall,” replied Hannah; “and the bacon, it shall be done as tasty and sweet as bacon can be. I'll give the last bit of my own little pigeen, with all the heart in the world, for the Squire's supper.”
Accordingly, when the long cart arrived from Cronane, accompanied by the Squire and his factotum, Mike, the barn was ready to receive the bedstead, the straw paillasse, and the mattress. Nora managed to convey, from the depths of the Castle, sheets, blankets, pillows, and a counterpane, and everything was in apple-pie order by the time the family was supposed to assemble for afternoon tea. This was the hour that Nora had selected for having the Squire removed from his feather-bed existence to the more breezy life of the barn. It was now the fashion at O'Shanaghgan to make quite a state occasion of afternoon tea. The servants, in their grand livery, were all well to the fore. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan, dressed as became the lady of so beautiful a place, sat in her lovely drawing room to receive her guests; and the guests came up in many conveyances—some in carriages, some on outside cars, some on dog-carts, some on foot; but, come as they would, they came, day after day, to show their respects to the lady whom now the whole country delighted to honor.
On these occasions Mr. Hartrick sat with his sister, and helped her to entertain her visitors. It had been one of the sore points between Nora and her mother that the former would not appear to afternoon tea. Nora had made her sick father her excuse. On the present occasion she took good care not even to show her face inside the house. But Molly kept watch, just behind the plantation, and soon rushed into the yard to say that the carriages were beginning to appear.
“A curious party have come just now,” said Molly, “in such a droll carriage, with yellow wheels and a glass body. It looks like a sort of a Lord Mayor's coach.”
“Why, it must be the coach of the O'Rorkes,” cried Nora. “Fancy Madam coming to see mother! Why, Madam will scarcely pay a visit to royalty itself. There is no doubt that mother is thought a lot of now. Oh, dear, oh, dear, what a frightfully society life we shall have to lead here in future! But I have no time to think of mother and her friends just now. Squire, will you come upstairs with me to see father? Hannah, please wait down here to be ready to help? Angus, you must also come upstairs, and wait in the passage outside the Squire's room until I send for you.”
Having given her directions, Nora entered the house. All was quiet and peaceful. The well trained English servants were, some of them, in the kitchen premises, and some of them attending in the hall and drawing rooms, where the guests were now arriving thick and fast. Nora had chosen her hour well. She entered her father's room, accompanied by Squire Murphy.
The old Squire was lying, half-dozing, in his luxurious bed. The fire had been recently built up. The room felt close.
“Ah, dear!” said Squire Murphy, “it is difficult to breathe here! And how's yourself, O'Shanaghgan, my man? Why, you do look drawn and pulled down. I am right glad to see ye, that I am.”
The Squire of Cronane grasped the hand of the Squire of O'Shanaghgan, and the Squire of O'Shanaghgan looked up at the other man's weather-beaten face with a pathetic expression in his deep-set, hawk-like, dark eyes.
“I am bad, Murphy—very bad,” said the Squire; “it's killing me they are amongst them.”
“Why, then, it looks like it,” said Squire Murphy. “I never was in such a smotheration of a place before. Faix, then, why don't you have the window open, and have a bit of air circulating through the room?”
“It's forbid I am,” said the Squire. “Ah, Murphy! it's killing me, it's killing me.”
“But it shall kill you no longer, father,” said Nora. “Oh, father! Squire Murphy and I have made up such a lovely, delicious plan. What would you say to a big, bare room again, father; and a hard bed again, father; and potatoes and a pinch of salt and a little bit of bacon again, father?”
“What would I say?” cried the Squire. “I'd say, glory be to Heaven, and all the Saints be praised; but it is too good luck to be true.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Squire Murphy; “it is going to be true. You just do what you are bid, and you will be in the hoight of contentment.”
The wonder-stricken Squire now had to listen to Nora's plan.
“We have done it,” she cried, in conclusion; “the barn is ready. It makes a lovely bedroom; there are no end of draughts, and you'll get well in a jiffy.”
“Then let's be quick,” said the Squire, “or your lady-mother will be up and prevent me. Hurry, Nora, for Heaven's sake! For the life of me, don't give me a cup of cold water to taste, and then dash it from my lips. If we are not quick, we'll be caught and prevented from going. I am ready; wrap me up in a rug, and carry me out. I am ready and willing. Good-by to feather bed-dom. I don't want ever to see these fal-lals again.”
The next few moments were ones of intense excitement; but before ten minutes had elapsed the Squire was lying in the middle of the hard bed, gazing round him with twinkling eyes and a smile on his lips. The appearance of Hannah Croneen, with a dish of steaming potatoes and a piece of boiled bacon, was the final crown to his rapture.
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