CHAPTER II

COUSIN ANSEY'S LEGACY

Norah did not let her mind wander again during the rest of the geography lesson. At its conclusion Miss Euphemia gave three taps of her pencil on her desk and said in her sharp, determined tones, "Dictation!"

In a moment, with the precision of an infantry battalion going through its drill, each girl had her exercise-book open before her and her pen dipped in the ink, ready to begin to write at the first word which should fall from Miss Euphemia's lips. Before that word had been spoken, however, the door opened and the neat parlour-maid appeared.

"If you please, m'm, Miss O'Brien is in the drawing-room, and she hopes you'll excuse her, but she wishes to see Miss Norah most particular if you'd kindly give her leave for a few minutes."

Miss Euphemia hesitated.

"Really, Norah, your conduct this morning has not been such as to entitle you to any indulgence--" she was beginning, when she caught the imploring glance fixed on her by Norah, who had sprung to her feet at the first words of the parlour-maid's message.

She paused involuntarily. There was something pathetic about the little figure in its well-worn mourning, and in the pleading blue eyes, and Miss Euphemia, strict disciplinarian though she was, had yet a kindly heart.

"As, however, your sister wishes so very specially to see you, I suppose you may be allowed to go to her. I hope you will show your gratitude by increased application to your studies afterwards," was the manner in which, after a moment's hesitation, she ended her speech.

It was doubtful if Norah heard the concluding words at all. She let her pen fall with a clatter from her fingers, dropped a jerky little curtsey, and gasping out "Thank you, Miss Euphemia, thank you so much!" she whisked out of the room and raced upstairs to the drawing-room, where Anstace stood awaiting her, a slight graceful figure in her simple black gown, with coils of shining hair wound round beneath her hat.

Norah crossed the room in one bound and flung her arms round her sister.

"Oh, Anstace, Anstace, darling!" with a hug between each word. "It's such an age since I've seen you, I began to think you weren't ever coming again."

"I couldn't get away last Sunday afternoon: two of the children were not well, and so I did not like to leave Mrs. Trafford alone," Anstace said, seating herself in an arm-chair and lifting her little sister on her knee, where she held her closely folded in her arms. "Why, Norah, you are as wild a little Irishwoman as ever; school has not tamed you in the least. And oh, my dear child," as her eye fell on the roughly-darned rents in the front of Norah's frock, "look at the state your dress is in. How could you have got it so torn?"

"I can't help it, Anstace, I can't indeed; it will hook on to things and tear. It's getting ever so much too short for me, too. See!" and Norah slipped off Anstace's knee and stood up before her with her feet in the first position, to show what a very little way the scanty black skirt reached below her knees.

"So it is indeed," Anstace said with a sigh, as she turned up the hem and examined it critically to see if any letting down was possible. "Norah dear, I do wish you would try to be more careful of your things; you know how difficult it is for Roderick and me to buy new ones for you."

"I do try my very best," Norah protested, with a threatened return of the tears that had been so near to her all morning, "but it's no use; I do think nails and spikes stick themselves out on purpose to catch me. There's Lily Allardyce, who might have a new frock every week if she liked, and her clothes never tear or have things spilt over them. Oh dear, wouldn't it be nice if we were rich like the Allardyces?--but I don't know either; they're only city people, and her father made his money selling chemicals or something of that sort, and we're the old, old O'Briens, no matter how poor we are.

"And one of the old, old O'Briens is a goose to talk such nonsense," said Anstace gravely; then, as her quick eyes took in the signs of recent trouble on the little girl's face, she asked solicitously, drawing her close to her side: "What is the matter, dearie? Have you been in difficulties over your lessons this morning?"

"Well, yes, but it wasn't that altogether," and Norah hid her face against Anstace's shoulder. "You know that Lily promised to ask leave for me to go home with her to Heron's Court for the holidays, but she's heard from her mother that they're all going to Paris for Easter; and I do feel horrid and mean, for of course it's splendid for Lily, and I ought to be glad that she's going to have such fun, but I can't. It's so miserable to think that I'll have to spend all these weeks here alone with Fräulein. And hearing all the others talk about going home, and all that they're going to do in the holidays, makes it worse." And the tears which had been kept back with such difficulty hitherto were coming in real earnest now.

Anstace stroked the little rough head that lay upon her shoulder tenderly.

"Do you remember, Norah," she said, "when I used to teach you at home, and you came to the heading in your copy-book, 'Never cross a bridge till you come to it', that you said it was the most ridiculous nonsense you had ever heard, for no one could possibly go over a bridge till they got there?"

"Yes," said Norah, dully, not understanding where this was going to lead to.

"Well, Norah, you have just been doing that very thing to-day in fretting about something that is not going to happen. You are not in the least likely to spend the holidays at Treherne House."

"Anstace! why, what do you mean?" Norah started upright and brushed the tumbled hair back behind her ears, whilst the tears still hung from her eyelashes. A strange light was shining in her sister's eyes.

"A very wonderful and unexpected thing has happened. We have come into a fortune, Norah."

Norah clapped her hands and whisked wildly round the room.

"Oh, I know, I know, Anstace! It's Uncle Nicholas! He's forgiven us and made up the feud, and we're all going over to live with him at Moyross Abbey, and Roderick's to be the heir. Is that it?"

"No, dear," Anstace returned a little sadly, "that is not it, nor is it at all likely to happen, as far as I know. It is only a little property which has been left to us--a very small one which I dare say a great many people would despise, but we are only too thankful for it. Did you ever hear Father speak of his old relation Anstace O'Brien, who was my godmother, and whom I was called after--Cousin Ansey he used to call her?"

Norah was doubtful, but thought she remembered having heard of such a personage.

"She died last week. Poor old woman, she had had a very sad life. Years ago, when she was quite young, she was engaged to be married, and her lover went out to America to make his fortune and then come home and marry her. Perhaps he died out there, or perhaps he forgot poor Cousin Ansey and married someone else, but at any rate no one ever heard of him again, and Cousin Ansey kept waiting and watching for him for years and years, till she had grown to be an old woman. She lived on in the place that had been her father's, and where her lover had known her, so that when he came home he might have no difficulty in finding her, but come there straight. Her mind gave way at last, and they had to take her away and shut her up in an asylum in Dublin, and she lived twelve years there. I only saw her once; she came to see us when I was quite a little girl, but she would only stay a day or two. 'I must go home, Piers,' I remember her saying to Father, 'I cannot tell what day Hugh might walk in', and so back she went. It was soon afterwards that she went out of her mind."

"And about the fortune; oh quick, quick, Anstace!" Norah cried eagerly, and then hung her head with some shamefacedness as she caught her sister's reproving look. "Oh yes, I know, Anstace, but you can't expect me to be sorry for someone just because she was my cousin, when I never even saw her, and she was mad before I was born. I think if she was shut up all those years she must have been rather glad to die."

"Perhaps she was, poor thing!" said Anstace, with feeling in her voice. "She certainly had not much to live for. However, Norah, she had always been very fond of our father, and so when her will was opened--it had been made long ago when she knew what she was doing--it was found that she had left everything she had to him and to his children, if Hugh Masters, the man she was to have married, should not have been heard of before her death."

"And he hasn't been; so of course we get it," said Norah promptly.

"Yes, dear. The little property is only worth about a hundred a year, but there is a small old-fashioned house upon it with a garden and a few fields belonging to it. It is called Kilshane, and is about two miles from Moyross Abbey. It was part of the O'Brien estate, and was sliced off to be a younger son's portion for Cousin Ansey's father."

"And we're all going to live there in that little old house, and be together again, and be done with school, and London, and everything that's horrid?" cried Norah, skipping gleefully about.

Anstace could not help laughing. "I hope so, Norah. Roderick came to have a long talk with me last night. He has been over at Moyross Abbey attending poor Cousin Ansey's funeral."

"At Moyross Abbey? Oh, Anstace, why didn't you tell me sooner? Did he see Uncle Nicholas? And what is he like? And is he going to be friends?"

"My dear child, how could I possibly answer so many questions all at once? He only went to Moyross Abbey because all the O'Briens for generations have been buried there; the old abbey is close to the house. Don't you remember how Father used to describe it all to us? He himself is the only one not buried there." And Anstace's eyes filled with tears as she thought of the crowded cemetery where her father's last resting-place had been made. "Uncle Nicholas was at the funeral; he is an old gray-haired man, Roderick says. He evidently noticed Roderick and asked who he was, for he turned quite white when he was told, but he never spoke to him, or took any notice of him. Roderick felt it a good deal, I think; it was so sad for him to be actually at Father's old home and not to be asked even to come inside the door. If it had not been for Mr. Lynch, the old clergyman, who knew Father long ago, and who made Roderick come to the rectory with him, Roderick would have had to drive straight back to the railway station. As it was, he walked over with Mr. and Mrs. Lynch the next day to see Kilshane. He says the house stands almost on the edge of the cliffs, and looks out right over the Atlantic. It is small, and rather out of repair, but that cannot be wondered at, for no one has lived in it since poor Cousin Ansey was taken away. Still, it is quite habitable, and the furniture and everything remains in it just as it was in her time. Roderick thinks he could farm the land that belongs to it. And he wants to know if we would be satisfied to go over and live there with him."

"Satisfied? I should think so! How can he ask anything so silly, the dear old delightful donkey? Why, Anstace, it's almost too wonderful to believe;--we four all living together again in a lovely old house of our own; no more London streets, and school-rooms and lessons, and going out two and two--"

"Yes, Norah, but it is just about all that I want to speak to you," Anstace interposed gravely. "If we go over to live at Kilshane we shall not be at all well off. As I told you already, the little property is not worth much; and though Roderick thinks he could make a little by writing--he has had one or two articles accepted by magazines lately--I don't suppose it would bring him in a very large sum. We must try to keep Manus at school whatever happens, but we could not possibly pay for his schooling and yours too. We should be obliged to take you away from this--

"Oh, but I shouldn't mind that in the least," Norah hastened to assure her sister.

"I dare say not, dear, but Roderick and I would mind your growing up a wild little ignoramus very much indeed. However, I am quite willing to teach you if you will only try to be steady and attentive. Will you promise to do your best, Norah?"

"Oh yes, Anstace, I will, I will indeed! It's so glorious to think of, and then to have heard of it to-day just when I was so miserable!" And Norah once more spun madly about the room in a manner that argued none too well for the promised steadiness, till she came into violent contact with the grand piano, and subsided, panting, on to the sofa.

"I cannot tell you what a weight it has lifted off my mind, our coming in for this little property," Anstace went on, speaking more to herself than to her little sister. "I have been so anxious about Roderick of late; he has grown so pale and thin, poor fellow, and has had that nasty hacking cough ever since the winter. Dr. Trafford examined him two or three weeks ago, and told me afterwards that it was the close confinement and long hours of desk work which were telling upon him, and that though his lungs were not actually affected, there was an undoubted delicacy which might develop into something serious if it were not checked. But at the time it was impossible to see how he could give up his employment, and I have been so wretched and so worried about it! We shall find it hard work, I dare say, to make both ends meet over in Ireland, but that will be a trifle if Roderick gets well and strong again; and Dr. Trafford says that nothing could possibly be better for him than the outdoor life that he will lead there, on the very edge of the Atlantic."

"Of course there couldn't; it would be enough to make anyone ill to be shut up in an odious poky office all day," said Norah, with as much decision as if she were an authority on medical matters. She sat silent for a minute or two, and then asked suddenly, "Anstace, why does Uncle Nicholas hate us all so? What did Father or any of us ever do to him?"

Anstace hesitated before she answered. "It's a very old story, Norah, and Father never cared to talk much about it, so I only know it in a vague sort of way from things he once or twice said to me. Uncle Nicholas was only Father's half-brother, you know, and years older than he. They didn't see very much of each other either, for Uncle Nicholas lived at Moyross Abbey always, and Father came to London and took to writing when he was quite a young man. However, Uncle Nicholas became engaged to a girl whom he met when he was over in England once on some business. I don't believe she cared much about him.--she was quite young, and Uncle Nicholas must have been a man of forty or more at the time. It was more to please her father than for any other reason that she promised to marry Uncle Nicholas. Her father was very ill--dying, and he was anxious to see her provided for, and of course Uncle Nicholas was a rich man and a great match for her. So it was all settled, and the day for the wedding fixed, and Uncle Nicholas wrote to Father to come down and make his future sister-in-law's acquaintance, and be present at his marriage. I don't know how it all came about after that, Norah, but Father and she were thrown a good deal together, and they found out that they loved each other. It was all very wrong, no doubt, and not straightforward, but they stole away together and came up to London, and were married the very day before her wedding with Uncle Nicholas was to have been."

"Then that girl was our mother?" Norah cried, with her eyes open to their widest.

"Yes, dear; Marion Belthorpe her name was, and that was the way in which she and Father were married. It was a very unhappy business altogether, for the shock killed her father--he was in bad health, I told you,--and she never saw him again. Uncle Nicholas never got over the blow either; he had been really and truly fond of our mother, and he was a changed man from that time out, so everyone who knew him said. Father and Mother tried more than once to make it up with him, but he would take nothing to do with them. Perhaps it was hardly to be expected that he would."

"He must be a horrid, mean, unforgiving old thing!" Norah said indignantly. "And does he live at Moyross Abbey all by himself?"

"No; the children of a niece of his live there with him. She and her husband died out in India some years ago, and Uncle Nicholas brought the children home and adopted them. There are two of them, a boy and a girl; so Mr. Lynch told Roderick. I don't quite know how old they are, but I suppose that Harry Wyndham will be owner of Moyross Abbey some day."

Norah stared at her sister in angry amazement, as if she could hardly believe that she had heard aright.

"But he has no right to it--he's not an O'Brien, and Moyross Abbey has belonged to O'Briens for hundreds and hundreds of years! Harry Wyndham! why, he might as well be called Smith, or Robinson, or anything else," she burst out vehemently.

Anstace could not forbear smiling a little at her impetuosity, but she sighed too.

"It is hard upon Roderick that the old O'Brien estate should pass away from him, for however our father wronged Uncle Nicholas, Roderick had no share in it. But then, Norah, you must remember that the Wyndhams' mother was Uncle Nicholas' own niece, while our father was only his half-brother; so that though they are not O'Briens they are really nearer to him than we are. Besides, I am afraid that our father and Uncle Nicholas did not get on very well together, even before that last quarrel. Uncle Nicholas was always very prudent and careful himself, and he thought Father reckless and extravagant--it never was Father's way to be careful of money."

And Anstace gave another sigh.

"I'm sure Uncle Nicholas is an old curmudgeon," said Norah decisively.

"If he is, he has something to show for it; and if it had not been for him Moyross Abbey would most likely have passed away from the O'Briens long before this. The property was loaded with debt when it came to him, and the house was falling to ruin. Father has often told me so. Uncle Nicholas was quite a young man then, but he set himself steadily to redeem the estate, and worked hard and economized, and denied himself in every way till he had paid the mortgages off, bit by bit, and rebuilt the house. Then a vein of copper was discovered on the property, and he managed to raise money enough to begin mining, and was his own engineer and manager, and now that mine brings him in a very large income. I don't wonder that he looks upon Moyross Abbey as absolutely his own, and considers that he has a right to leave it to anyone he pleases."

"He has not, then! He has no right to leave one half-quarter of a yard of the O'Brien land to anyone except an O'Brien. Oh, Anstace, how can you sit there and talk of it all so quietly? One wouldn't think that you cared the very least bit."

The look of pain which crossed Anstace's face might have told a keener observer than Norah that her brother's exclusion from the old family inheritance, which should have been his by rights, was by no means a matter of indifference to her. She only said, however, in her wonted quiet way, as she rose to go:

"It seems to me, Norah, that it is wisest for us to make the best of things as they are, instead of fretting over what they are not, and to be thankful that at least one little bit of O'Brien land has come to us. You had better run back to your lessons now. I hope Miss Euphemia will not be annoyed at my having kept you so long. I must speak to Miss Clarkson and tell her of the change in our plans, and that you will be leaving at the end of the term."

The sisters parted at the foot of the first flight of stairs. A door upon the landing gave access to the eldest Miss Clarkson's sanctum, a small room where she transacted the general business of the school and had interviews with the parents of present or future pupils. No girl in Treherne House, even if not summoned into that room to receive reproof and admonition, ever approached it without some trepidation, and Norah, as she continued her way down to her class-room, felt a sort of wondering admiration at the smiling unconcern with which Anstace, having first tapped at the door and received permission to enter, disappeared within the dreaded precinct.