CHAPTER XII

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A SECRET ROOM.

I went before to set a seat for the old lady, and to tell Pierce she was coming; and indeed I had no need to hurry myself, for at every bush she stopped and appeared to be reciting with animation some memory of her youth. At last she caught sight of Pierce and quickened her pace.

"Well, young man," she said as she took the chair beside him, "the last time I saw you you were in white frilled trousers and a petticoat."

But though she said it to make us laugh, I could see that the shrewd old eyes looked at him with great compassion. Poor Pierce brightened up immediately.

"And the last time I saw you, Lady O'Brien, you were the toast of the county and the acknowledged reigning beauty."

"Hear the boy," said the old lady; "he was five years old, and I was near my fifties."

She took up his hand and patted it as if he were yet five.

"They tell me you're not strong. Dear, dear, how did that come? You were a beautiful strong child as I remember you."

[Illustration: "WHAT A FIGURE OF A MAN YOUR GRANDFATHER WAS! ... I MIGHT HAVE BEEN YOUR GRANDMOTHER!"]

"He went seeking his fortune in Africa," said Aline quickly, "and took cold, and was neglected."

"Dear, dear!" said the old lady again, managing to get a great deal of tender kindness into the simple ejaculation. Then she passed easily to other subjects, seeing that we could hardly bear this.

"How this garden brings me back things! Not things I'm going to tell you children about. What a figure of a man your grandfather was! I remember walking by his side in this very garden, and he wore a maroon silk coat and silver-gray stockings. Ah, the men have no such calves to show nowadays!"

She shook her old head for a minute or two.

"There," she said, "I might have been your grandmother. And poor Peter had never a calf to him at all; he was beef to the heels, as they say, and he born into the time of small clothes too. What's become of that rapscallion De Lacy?"

"He still lives over there at Castle Angry, but he is seldom seen, I believe. He keeps within his own walls," said Aline.

"He hasn't found the grace of God yet?"

Aline shook her head.

"Well, well. He was always a bad lot, was De Lacy. I must drive over some day and give him a bit of my mind. He was in love with your grandmother, but I think he had a bit of a soft place in his heart for me too."

"It wouldn't be safe, Lady O'Brien. Sir Rupert lives in almost savage isolation, at least he did up to quite recently, with barred gates and bloodhounds walking about inside."

"Like an opera," said the old lady, delightedly. "But why do you say up to recently? Have you any hope that he has mended his ways?"

Aline told her then of young De Lacy's accident and of his determination to stay at Castle Angry at all costs.

"There must be something in the boy," she commented. "I must have him over to see me after I've been there. Tut, tut, I'm not afraid of De Lacy or his dogs. He'll keep them off me, I'll go bail."

Just then Esther came in view, coming towards us down the long straight path.

"Here is Esther now, Lady O'Brien," I said.

The old lady drew out a pair of glasses attached to a long tortoise-shell stick, and levelled them at poor Esther.

"H'm, h'm!" she said, apparently satisfied. "So that's my girl! I have no fault to find with her."

Indeed she would have been exacting if she had, for Esther's confusion only added to her beauty. When she had reached us, the old lady enfolded her in a warm embrace.

"I suppose you've never thought of your godmother, my dear, and small blame to you. I don't believe you've heard of me since I gave you your christening-mug. An old hunks of a godmother, surely--hey?

"Never mind," she went on, without waiting for an answer; "I must do what I can in the time that's left me. Now I'll tell you what"--to Aline--"I'm going to come over and take this young man for drives whenever I can and it's fine; when I can't, I'll send Dobson, who's eating his head off, and Daisy, who's no better. There, don't thank me. It will be a blessing to give the lazy creatures something to do. And you must all come over to me as soon as I've shaken down a bit. Now, good-by, good-by, my dears!"

She kissed us all affectionately, only extending to Pierce a tiny bejewelled hand, which he, understanding what was expected of him, kissed reverentially. The old lady looked pleased as she went off with Aline, and as for us, why, she had given us enough to talk about for a week.

Aline told us afterwards how nice she had been about Pierce.

"Has he had the very best doctors?" she had asked. "If it is any question of expense you will trust the oldest friend you have."

"Oh, indeed, Lady O'Brien," said Aline, much touched, "I would trust you about anything. But we have had Dr. Lee-Cornyns. I believe he is as good as any man living."

"And he suggested nothing? A sea-voyage now? Wouldn't that be the thing?"

"The doctor thought not. He seemed to think the mischief was too far gone. He said we could do nothing but take care of him and make him as happy as possible for ... the time. Indeed, Lady O'Brien, expense would not stand in the way. We would sell everything we have if it could save Pierce."

"There, there, my dear. Well, if I can do anything you may depend upon me. To think that that lad and I are taking the same way together, the way that leads away from you all. For me it is all right; I have lived. But for him--poor boy, poor boy!"

"He is quite happy about it, Lady O'Brien."

"Then maybe he'll teach me his happiness. I've been a selfish woman, living for no one but myself all my days, and now at seventy I feel as attached to the world as if I was twenty-five; aye, and more attached. I'm a worldling, my dear, a worldling to the core."

Every day after that, unless the rain fell, the little wicker phaeton would come rattling up to Brandon, with or without its mistress. If Lady O'Brien did not come herself, one of us filled the vacant place in the phaeton, but I am not at all sure that Pierce, though he is so affectionate, did not enjoy the old lady's society more than ours.

A curious and touching friendship sprang up quickly between them. They never seemed to tire of each other's company; and the old lady's shrewd, humorous, slightly biting comments on men and things, and her glimpses of the world she had left behind her, seemed to afford great delight and refreshment to our poor invalid. It was strange to see him so humble, so devout, so cheerfully resigned to the Will that was taking him in the flower of his youth, yet looking at the world through the eyes of tolerant laughter, with which the world-worn old woman presented it.

"The boy is teaching me how to die," she said to Aline in one of her serious moments.

And one could scarcely doubt that she was helping him in the last moments of his life, which it was his desire and his will to leave with cheerful courage, and a trust too great for sadness. We all grew very fond of Lady O'Brien in those days. She had come in the nick of time for Pierce.

She brought us all out of our shells. Once we dined at Annagower, Aline and Esther and I, but only once, for Aline would be with Pierce all she could, and she did not like to leave him a portion of the evening alone. But we often went to tea, Pierce and Aline driving, and we following, Esther and I and the boys; and hugely the boys enjoyed it, for Lady O'Brien had a most generous idea of catering for boyish appetites.

She was still in process of settling down at Annagower, and still many of the pictures and curios she had gathered up stood in their cases unpacked. Part of the house was yet in the hands of workmen, for it had got damp and uninhabitable during the years of its mistress's absence.

It was, or is, a long, low, pleasant house, with a green porch, and roses nodding at the little windows. The room which I associate most with Lady O'Brien is a low-ceiled panelled room, covered with Indian matting, which looked so cool that hot summer. White curtains hung before the windows, through which the light came green, because the gardener had been forbidden to prune the roses and honeysuckle outside. The room was full of the most comfortable chairs all petticoated in green and white chintz, and there was old china behind the glass lattices of the corner cupboards.

The twins used to say that there was no tea like Lady O'Brien's, and I'm sure we all agreed with them. That was an ideal tea-table, to my mind, and we were always so hungry after our walk. Her continental life had not taught our old lady to scrimp about honest eatables. Delicious pink ham and cold fowl were flanked by thin bread-and-butter, and strawberries and cream, and honey and marmalade, and hot home-made cream-cakes, and boiled eggs for those who liked them. And the tea, so hot and fragrant, with delicious rich cream. Then our hostess, though she ate little herself, expected us to eat much, and was so delighted at our enormous appetites. Even the twins did not scandalize her, and how they could eat so much after feasting on the raspberries and strawberries in the garden, was beyond me to say.

"Young people should eat," she would say, wagging her old head--"eat and grow: that is all young people should be asked to do."

I really think that she quite put Esther and myself on a level with the boys and the twins in those matters.

Then, when we were leaving, we would find in the pony-carriage a little hamper packed with the dainties we had been forced to leave.

"Martha would be so vexed if she thought her sweet things weren't appreciated", was the regular excuse. Martha was Lady O'Brien's invaluable cook, housekeeper, and personal attendant; and the two had been together years out of mind, though Martha was but a personable woman of fifty.

Martha, indeed, would have been sorely hurt if any of her confections had had to go to the kitchen to be devoured by Curtis, the page-boy, whom Martha always referred to as "that dratted boy", or fat Dobson, or the pretty housemaid, who was the old servant's _bête noire_.

Then there was no end to the dainties that were sent for Pierce, to Oona's mingled jealousy and delight.

Once, when we had been visiting at Annagower, Lady O'Brien brought me upstairs, alone, in a rather mysterious way.

"You can keep a still tongue in your head?" she asked as we went along the low corridor under the thatch.

"I think so, Lady O'Brien. I have that reputation," said I modestly.

"Well, you shall see my secret room," she said.

A little farther she opened the door of a room, and motioned me to step inside. The room was fresh from the hands of the workmen. It had a green-painted ceiling following the lines of the roof, so that it was very low on the side where the gable-window opened. It had been papered in pink, a pretty paper with roses on it, and the woodwork was white. A little brass bed, hung with green and pink, stood in the corner, and there was pretty white-enamelled furniture, and several low wicker chairs were covered with the rosy and green chintz.

I sighed with delight as I took a long, long look.

"You think it pretty?" inquired the old lady, who had been watching me anxiously.

"Pretty! it is delicious."

"A girl would be happy in it, hey?"

"A girl would adore it," said I.

"It would be all her own. Her little bed would be made, soft and white, and her books would be in the book-shelf, and she would come upstairs to find her little pink dressing-gown on the back of a chair, and her little pink slippers to thrust her feet into, and a bunch of roses on the dressing-table, and all her little fal-lals about, and no one would bother or disturb her."

"She would be a very happy girl," said I, meeting the old lady's rapturous gaze.

"I always wanted a girl of my own. I would have known how to be good to one. But the Lord didn't see fit to send me any babies. I've got this little room ready, as if it were for the little daughter or granddaughter I never had. I think I shall have ... a young lady ... coming soon ... on a visit."

Now I knew as well as if she had told me that all this was for Esther, but I did not betray my knowledge.

"Would you think now that she'd be so happy that, when she came on a visit, she'd be willing to stay altogether?"

"I should not be at all surprised," said I.

After all, there was no reason why Esther shouldn't come to Lady O'Brien and be happy. She would not be far from us, and of late the close companionship that used to exist between Esther and myself had somehow lessened. Esther, more than of old, seemed to like to be alone, and I no longer knew all her thoughts and feelings as of old. I came out of the room with a little sigh, but as I met the bright, wistful old eyes, I nodded reassuringly.

"There can be no doubt at all about it," said I, "no doubt at all. If she could resist that room, she couldn't resist the love that made it ready for her. Not if I know what girls are made of."

"Thank you, my dear," said the old lady simply. "I feel that she is going to stay."

She locked the door and put the key in her pocket, and we rejoined the others. Of course I kept my own counsel about Lady O'Brien's secret room, and gave myself up more and more to the companionship of my books and papers. They, at least, would not fail me. And then I have always Paudeen, of whom I have been saying too little in this narrative.

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