CHAPTER VII

MOYROSS ABBEY

Miss Browne's feelings, as she drove homewards with Ella, were of a somewhat mixed nature. Roderick in his note had made as light of Ella's adventure, and of his own share in it, as possible; he had not the least wish to glorify himself, or to endeavour to pose as a hero in his uncle's eyes. None the less, had he been anyone else, Miss Browne would have been ready to fall at his feet in her gratitude to him for having rescued Ella from any position of peril. She had made up her mind from the first, however, that the O'Briens of Kilshane were an artful, designing family, who had come over to the little lonely house upon the cliffs specially to work their way into their uncle's good graces, and to oust Ella and her brother from the place which they held in his affections. Miss Browne, ordinarily the most simple-minded and unsuspicious of mortals, was almost inclined to imagine that it must have been by some crafty and deeply-laid plot that Ella's pony had been made to run away just at the gate of Kilshane, thereby forcing on an acquaintanceship between the two families.

Poor Miss Browne had been left an orphan without near relations, and had therefore become a governess at a very early age. She had taken charge of many children, and had been tossed to and fro in many directions before fate drifted her out to India to Mrs. Wyndham's bungalow at Dinapore upon the Ganges. For the first time in her lonely and unconsidered life she found herself treated with real kindliness and thought, for it was gentle Mrs. Wyndham's way to endeavour to make everyone dependent on her happy. Miss Browne repaid her employer's good-will by lavishing all her starved affections on her, and on the two fair-haired children who were in her charge. Before she had been two years with Mrs. Wyndham, the dread scourge cholera smote the cantonment. Captain Wyndham was amongst the first of its victims, and a few days later his young wife was stricken too. Miss Browne nursed her with unbounded and fearless devotion, and Mrs. Wyndham's last whisper to her was:

"You love the children, Brownie, and there is no one else. Promise me to stay with them always--promise."

Miss Browne had promised, and had kept her promise faithfully; indeed it might be doubted if their own mother could have devoted herself to the two children, gentle dreamy Ella and her handsome high-spirited brother, more unselfishly than she had done. She had come home with the two little orphans from India, and for their sakes she had dwelt for the past dozen years in what was to her a wilderness, shut in between the wild mountains and the wilder sea. For the grandeur of the scenery she had no appreciation, a trimly-kept suburban road would have been a far more pleasing prospect to her than the wide stretch of rugged coast that Moyross House looked out upon; and the Irish peasantry, with their guttural language, and their disregard of dirt and disorder, repelled her almost more than the dusky natives of India had done.

If Miss Browne had ever had any hopes or aspirations for herself, they were dead long ago. All her aims and ambitious projects were for the charges whom their dying mother had left to her care. From her first coming to Moyross Abbey she had made up her mind that Harry was to be his grand-uncle's heir, and succeed to the old heritage of the O'Briens. She was certain that Piers O'Brien had been a very worthless and undeserving person, and that his family were no better than himself. Indeed Miss Browne entertained but a poor opinion of Irish people in general, the only flattering exception she made being in favour of old Mr. O'Brien himself, and the commendation that she was wont to pass upon him to Ella was:

"Indeed, my dear, no one would ever imagine that your uncle was an Irishman."

During the past few months poor Miss Browne had been painfully aware that the fair castle in the air which she had built up was only too likely to fall in ruin. There had been serious differences between Harry Wyndham and his uncle, since the former had left school and come to live permanently at Moyross Abbey. The boy was hot-headed and wilful, and not inclined for either the steady work or the implicit obedience which Mr. O'Brien expected from him. As an outcome he had been despatched to Austria for a couple of years' training in practical mining.

"He's likely to come to his senses there," Mr. O'Brien had remarked grimly.

And now whilst Harry was absent, banished, and more or less in disgrace, here were these formidable rivals of the old name established close by, and eagerly on the watch, no doubt, to seize every advantage for themselves. Quite unconsciously to herself, Miss Browne's prejudice against the new-comers had been aggravated just a little by the mortifying recollection of the laughable figure she had cut in the drawing-room at Kilshane. Nature certainly had never intended her for a conspirator, but just as a timid moorhen will ruffle up her feathers and peck fiercely at the enemy who menaces her brood, so, for what she conceived to be the interests of her charges, poor Miss Browne was ready to plot and scheme, and accordingly, as the carriage turned in at the entrance gates of Moyross Abbey and bowled up the smoothly gravelled drive, she said impressively to Ella, "My dear, I would say as little as possible to your uncle of what took place this afternoon. Of course you were not to blame in any way; still, I am afraid he will not be pleased to hear that you have made the acquaintance of a family with whom he evidently wishes to have nothing to do."

"But that is such a pity," said Ella, looking at her with wide, innocent eyes, "and if he could only see them, and how nice they all are, I am sure he would wish to be friends. Their father was his own brother, and they are the only relations he has of his own name--Oh, Brownie, wouldn't it be delightful if we could persuade Uncle Nicholas to make up that dreadful old feud, you and I?"

Miss Browne gave an embarrassed cough; this was hardly according to her mind.

"One must be careful not to let one's self be influenced too much by outward appearances, dear," she said in judicial tones; "I am sure the young O'Briens were very pleasant and polite to you this afternoon, they would be anxious to make as good an impression as possible. Their father was not Mr. O'Brien's own brother, you must always remember, but only his step-brother, which is quite a different thing, and we all know how shamefully he behaved, after your good, kind uncle had educated him, and done everything for him. Indeed, he was a very extravagant, good-for-nothing person, from all I have ever heard; he wrote for magazines and newspapers and things of that sort." Miss Browne brought this forward as if it were an undoubted proof of an idle, ill-regulated life. "I should doubt if his children were much better than he," she went on; "they have no sooner inherited that little property of Kilshane than that young Mr. O'Brien throws up whatever employment he had in London, and comes over here, no doubt to set up as an Irish country gentleman, and lead the same sort of spendthrift, wasteful life that too many of his ancestors did."

"I am very glad he was on the road to-day, and not in London, or Sheila and I would have fared very badly," Ella answered, rather more sharply than was usual to her, and in her heart she thought that whatever the sins and follies of bygone generations of O'Briens might have been, Roderick and Anstace did not look as if they were likely to embark on any wild career of debt and dissipation.

The carriage swept round the last bend of the avenue and came in view of the house, a square erection, solidly built of gray stone. On one side, and separated only from the house by a stretch of smoothly shaven greensward, rose the old abbey from which Moyross had its name, with its broken arches and cloisters--grand even in its desolation. Behind it lay an old, old graveyard, with great beech-trees stretching their long branches out over moss-green tombstones. And at the back, where the path wound down through the little glen to the shore below, an opening in the trees allowed the blue plain of the sea to be seen, tracked with glistening streaks and wavy tide-marks.

The butler, who came down the steps to open the carriage door for the ladies, informed them that Mr. O'Brien had arrived from Dublin half an hour previously, and had asked for Miss Ella.

"I will go to him at once then, before I change my dress," Ella said, gathering up her riding habit. "I am not very untidy, am I, Brownie?"

"No, my love, you look very nice, as you always do," said Miss Browne, gazing at her with fond admiration. "But as I said before, be cautious, Ella, and don't make too much of the little occurrence this afternoon, or you may vex your uncle."

The poor lady would have liked to be more explicit, but she shrank from instilling any of her worldly motives, unselfish though they might be, into Ella's pure mind. As for the girl herself, no thought of the future, with its possibilities of gain or loss, had ever entered her head, and as she went swiftly towards the wing of the house in which Mr. O'Brien's rooms were situated, she could only marvel at Brownie's strange manner that day. Why! one of her most frequent complaints had been of the utter absence in the neighbourhood of Moyross of any suitable companionship for Ella, and Ella herself had often longed for a friend of her own age. Could she have a more winning one than Anstace O'Brien, with her sweet face and gentle manner; her own kinswoman too? Then there was her brother Roderick, who had saved her own life that day, and those two merry children--how delightful if they might all be on the easy, intimate footing which their relationship warranted, and why should these young O'Briens be held accountable for their father's sins and misdoings? Ella could only shake her head in perplexity, as she opened the door of her uncle's study.

Mr. O'Brien was sitting at his writing-table, opening the letters that had come for him during his three days' absence from home. He was a handsome, high-bred looking old man, with keen dark eyes, a hooked nose, and a firm, thin-lipped mouth. His hair and his eyebrows were both snowy-white, and his figure, that had been tall and erect, was somewhat stooped. He looked tired and dejected, too, as though the letters he was reading were not altogether pleasant, but he roused himself with eager anxiety as Ella came in.

"My dear child, I am very glad to see you; they told me something about an accident, but you seem none the worse."

"No more I am, Uncle Nicholas," Ella answered brightly. "I was a little frightened and shaken at the time, that was all. Sheila ran away with me near the top of the long hill beyond Kilshane gate."

Mr. O'Brien started; his superior knowledge made him understand the peril of the situation much more thoroughly than Miss Browne had done.

"And a nastier place for a runaway there is not in the whole county. It was a most providential escape. What stopped the pony?"

"Young Mr. O'Brien--Roderick O'Brien--was in the field close by, and he jumped out over the gate and caught Sheila by the head."

Mr. O'Brien did not speak for a moment or two.

"He seems to have displayed great promptitude," he said then, slowly. "The consequences might have been very serious if he had not been there. Well, what happened afterwards?"

"He made me go back with him to Kilshane, while he sent over here for the carriage, and I had tea there with them all."

Another pause, but Ella noticed how Mr. O'Brien's fingers were closing and unclosing on the paper-knife that lay before him.

"Yes, I heard they had come over," he said at length, speaking more to himself than to Ella. "They were not long in taking possession of poor Ansey's little place. And whom does the 'all' consist of?"

"Not very many," Ella said, trying to speak lightly, though she felt somewhat nervous, and Mr. O'Brien still continued to toy with the paper-knife without looking up at her as she stood beside him. "There is one grown-up sister and a boy and a little girl, besides Roderick O'Brien himself. They were all very nice and kind to me, but I liked Anstace, the elder sister, best. She is quite unlike the others, one would not take her for their sister at all; they are all dark, and the little girl has such merry blue eyes, full of fun and mischief. Miss O'Brien has very fair hair and gray eyes; she is not pretty exactly, but she has such a sweet face, and it lights up wonderfully when she talks and smiles."

She stopped abruptly as her eyes rested on a little water-colour sketch that hung over Mr. O'Brien's writing-table, the head of a young girl with fair hair, very smoothly banded down on either side of her face. It had often moved Ella's childish curiosity in former days, and Mr. O'Brien had always put her off with some evasive answer when she questioned him about it, but now she gave an eager exclamation.

"Why, Uncle Nicholas, that might be Anstace O'Brien herself, it is so like her! I knew her face reminded me of something, but I could not remember what it was. Is that a likeness of the old Miss O'Brien who died the other day, who left Kilshane to them?"

"No, Ella," Mr. O'Brien said quietly, as he turned back to his letters again. "That is not the portrait of any O'Brien."

Ella had no need to ask any more, she knew that the little picture was the face of the one woman whom Nicholas O'Brien had ever loved, and whom--though she had been nearly ten years in her grave--he had neither forgotten nor forgiven. She had intended to make a timid request that she might be allowed to keep up the acquaintanceship with her cousins which she had begun that day, but her courage failed her, as her uncle went on imperturbably reading and arranging his correspondence, and after a few moments' hesitation she stole away.