CHAPTER XVI

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HONEY AMONG THE ROSES.

That was the loneliest summer that ever I remember. Soon after Pierce had left us, Lady O'Brien carried Aline and Esther off to Kilkee. Aline bore her sorrow bravely, with more hope and faith than we had dared to expect; but if you have been building all your thoughts and cares and wishes and anxieties about one human being for nearly all your years, and then you are bereft, the empty place is terrible. Even our Lord Himself endured desolation, and He does not spare it to His creatures though He walk with them through the shadows.

There had been some talk of my going after a time, when Aline should return. Lady O'Brien had taken her cottage till the end of September. But I begged her to keep Aline and let me stay at home,--I knew Aline's mind would be at rest while I was in charge,--and I had my wish.

But, oh, the unutterable loneliness of it! It was a beautiful summer, with long, long days of haze and heat, and evenings that trailed themselves out, I thought, unduly long. There was no excuse for firelit and lamplit evenings. By the time the moon had come out in the green sky, and the last wood-dove had gone to bed, it was time for me to follow.

I have always associated the call of the wood-quest, as we call it, with the loneliness of that summer. As the woods grew dark with their prime, and the love-songs of the blackbird were stilled, that lonely complaint of the dove seemed to brood over all the world. The children say it is the bird's lament for the smallness of her family.

"The robin and the wren have nine and ten, And I have only two--oo--oo."

When I have been happy her note has sounded as though she were sweetly in love with her own melancholy, but now, how lonely it was, oh, how lonely!

The young ones were always out and about, full of the multitudinous occupations of country children in summer. I would not hamper them with my lagging steps or burden them with my melancholy, so that, except for Oona, I was almost always alone. And she was not cheerful. The death of her eldest nursling had shaken her sorely, and she had grown feebler and was usually full of forebodings and omens.

But for my writing I could not have endured the loneliness. I scribbled a bit in those long days, and burnt much of what I scribbled, but what I retained I laid away in the secret cupboard in Aline's room. The blessed thing about writing is that we must give it everything for the time, entire absorption. If I had had to sit and sew a seam, I think my heart would have broken. I started my novel, _Love in the Valley_, some time that July, and it progressed more to my satisfaction, and with less destruction of manuscript, than anything I had hitherto attempted. I love the book, because it helped me then, more than any of its successors. People find it sad, but the sadness and loneliness of youth are of the most monotonous gray. The future has no such illuminating flashes as come out of the past.

I had always been rather starved for reading. The Brandons could never have been very bookish folk, and it is not possible to find any but very dry provender in the mouldering volumes bound in calf and gold which line the library. Why, a whole side of it is taken up by _Transactions of the Irish Parliament_, wherein many Brandons sat; and many of the later volumes are records of learned societies and such things. The little amount of literary bread to this vast deal of sack I had devoured long ago.

Well, one evening in August, when I was finding my time more than usually heavy, Oona came to me where I sat on the terrace overlooking the rose-garden, and longing for once that I could fly out into the world where the human soul need not walk in such utter loneliness. She looked quite cheerful, and I turned to her, willing to be cheered.

"Miss Hilda dear," she said, "I've a little bit of news for you. Rose Hill is open again."

"Indeed!" said I languidly. "Who has taken it?"

"A military gentleman; General Hugh MacNeill. Oh, a rale good Irish stock, though his family has lived out of the country!"

"I'm glad the pretty old place is not to go to rack and ruin like many another."

"Oh, they're putting the finest complexion at all on it! Thousands of painters and paper men in it, I hear, and the most elegant of furniture come down from Dublin. 'Twill be a sight when 'tis all done."

"I suppose he has a family," I said, more by way of being civil to Oona than anything else, for I didn't suppose the occupation of Rose Hill would affect us any more than the occupation of twenty other houses in the country.

"Sorra one. He's an ould bachelor gentleman, or a widdy man--I don't rightly know which. But it isn't about him I'm thinking, an' he's not expected this good while yet. 'Tis a visit I'm after havin' from my cousin, Mary O'Connor. She's goin' as housekeeper. I believe 'twas Lady O'Brien gave her the good word, for the General and she's ould friends. 'Tis glad I am Mary's in place again, an' two housemaids an' a boy under her. It'll be new life to her, the poor woman, to have them to drive over-an'-hither. She was always used to rulin' sarvants, an' a fine heavy hand over them she has, Miss Hilda dear. I'd like to be there the first clay or two to hear the malavoguin' Mary'll give them with her tongue. They're English, more betoken."

Oona seemed as heartened up by Mary's news as Mary could be herself, and I was cheered insensibly enough to waken up to a certain interest in her tale.

"The grandest of chaney an' ould eccentricities out o' the Aist. Mary says there is haythen gods an' goddesses that hasn't a screed on them, and 'ud be downright ondecent, only they're brute bastes, an' silver trays as big as a cart-wheel, an' little houses--piggodys, Mary says they're named--of ivory, an' big ould elephant tusks. There's no end to the grandeur. An' Mary's duty to you, Miss Hilda, an' if you'd bring over the little ladies, an' Master Hugh and Master Donald, she thinks they'd like to see the ingenuities. An' proud she'd be if you'd take a cup of tea afterwards."

"It would be very pleasant, Oona," I said, "if you are sure there would be no danger of intrusion."

"Sure isn't Mary housekeeper, an' the master not expected this month yet? Let alone that him an' Lady O'Brien's ould cronies, an' I expect yez'll be in an' out with him, like a dog at a fair, all the time as soon as he gets settled."

"Then we shall certainly go, Oona," I said. "The twins would love it, I know, and so would the boys."

"Oh, Miss Hilda dear!" cried Oona, her voice changing to one of tragic supplication, "all I ask you is to keep them darlin' boys from the ould swoords an' pistols an' trumperies that Mary says has come down by the cart-load. Sure 'tis not in Nature if they go meddlin' with them that they won't kill aich other or thimselves. Let alone that some o' them is maybe poisoned, as Mary says, an' a scratch o' one 'ud let the life out of a rig'mint."

"They'll be sensible, Oona, an' not meddle with them."

"Indeed, then, an' if they are they won't be like any boy-flesh I ever heard tell of. 'Tis as natural for boys to kill thimselves as for the bird to fly. There! an' you can't have 'em different. The Lord made them so."

The next day the party of us went over to Rose Hill accompanied by Oona, who could not refrain from seeing the "ingenuities" as well as ourselves, though she put it on the score of seeing that the boys and the twins didn't get into mischief.

Rose Hill is built on the side of a little ravine, down which it looks to the plain and the distant sea. You ascend to it through a tiny wood, and you look down from the winding pathway upon a little brown trout-stream in the valley below. The house is fancifully built with balconies and green outside shutters, and stands but two stories, to the second of which you ascend by the hall-door steps. But it stretches away at the back to a considerable size.

The house had long been shut up, and many a time as children we had peered in at the unshuttered windows to rooms once gay with gilding and white wood panelling, with marble mantel-pieces that had coloured wreaths let in, and shutters with looking-glass in the panels. The house seemed built for lightness and brightness, and was said indeed to have been designed for a bride. But the bride died almost before the waning of the honeymoon, and the disconsolate bridegroom shut up the place, and let it go to ruin.

The little lawn in front was planted thickly with rose-trees, from which I suppose the place derived its name. Many of them had gone half-wild, and every summer these flung out the most exquisite rosy veil of blossoms, more beautiful, with the pale-green leaves, than any gardener ever fostered. For years we had gathered those roses, and waded in the grass, knee-deep, in the garden, to find the cherries and apples and pears and plums in their season, which would otherwise have gone to feed the birds.

As we came up to the door we saw the changes that were taking place. The long grass was mown and lying in swathes, and a grumpy-looking old man was shearing the rose-trees, now fortunately done blooming.

The house-door stood open, and the hall was full of painters' ladders and paint-pots and such things, while already the front of the house had been brilliantly whitened and the shutters re-painted.

Oona's cousin came bustling out to meet us, her comfortable face wreathed in smiles. She was dressed very neatly in black, but I could imagine that her frilled white cap, and the little shawl round her shoulders, might excite the derision of the English servants. However, as Oona explained, Mary was subject to the ear-ache this good many years back, and couldn't bring herself to return to the cocked-up bit of a thing which she had worn with dignity on her dark hair in her old house-keeping days.

The library was in comparative order. Like all the rooms in the house, it was light, and the bookshelves had been painted white, which I thought very gay. The floor had been covered with a cool green-and-white matting, and the green blinds were drawn down to temper the brightness of the room. It was a real summer room as I saw it first, and the effect was increased by the open French window, which led on to a flight of steps going down to the garden.

Tea was set out on a table, with strawberries in their own green leaves, and honey, fresh from the hive, with many other good things; but it was not the eatables that made me draw a long breath of rapture. It was what seemed to me the endless number of books--books of every kind I saw at a glance, grave and gay, ancient and modern, poetry, novels, biography, art, in all manner of bindings, from purple morocco to the humble paper yellowback.

They were piled high on the floor, and in boxes, some opened, some still unopened. Rows of the books were hastily set on the shelves, to be out of the way, I felt sure, for they were higgledy-piggledy, upside down, long and short, and most incongruous neighbours.

You, good people, who have never wanted for books, can have no idea of what the sight meant to me, to whom a solitary book newly come my way, represented hours of delight. I simply stood and sniffed at the books, inhaling the smell of them with rapture. For the moment I did not ask to touch; to gape at them was enough; and twice Mrs. O'Connor asked me to take my seat at the tea-table unheard.

"There!" said Oona, "she never saw so many books before in her life. Come away, Miss Hilda dear, and have your tea; but sure I never saw the day, no matter how young you were, that you wouldn't rather have an ould romaush of a book than your good food."

"Is that the way with her?" said Mary O'Connor, as I came reluctantly to the table. "Whethen she'll have to be findin' her way to Rose Hill every day that's in it, if she's to get through half the books. I hear there's thousands more to come down."

"That won't give her much trouble," said Oona proudly. "Why, before she was three she could read me the whole news was on the papers."

"You don't say so!" cried her cousin, with hands flung out in admiration.

"I wouldn't blame you for doubtin' my word, for Dr. Whittaker, Lord rest him, did the same. He was in vaccinatin' Master Donald, and Miss Hilda sat on her little creepy-stool readin' the paper to her dolls. ''Tis gibberish,' says he. 'Askin' your pardon, sir, for contradictin' you, 'tis sense,' says I. 'Come over here, my little girl,' says he, 'an' tell me,' he says, 'if the Rooshians is smashin' the Turks, or the Turks knockin' smoke out o' the Rooshians.' Well, of course, the innocent child took him seriously, an' so she came an' perched on his knee, an' began to read for him--though, of course, some of the words was too big for her little mouth. 'Oh, by this and that,' says he, 'this licks creation! 'Tis a progedy she's goin' to be, or else,' says he, 'she'll grow up without any sinse at all in her brain-pan.'"

If Mary O'Connor hadn't heard this tale a thousand times the young Brandons had, and the boys at this stage looked up indignantly from their strawberries and cream, to tell Oona they were rather tired of it.

"'Deed, then," she said, very angry with them, "if a bit o' the same love of the book had been passed on, 'twould have been a good thing; but Master Hugh there said he'd rather ait his jography than learn it, and Master Donald, it's well known through the barony, turned his Ailments of Euclid into kite-tails."

At this stage, seeing things looked a bit stormy, I interposed with an inquiry about the "ingenuities", and the attention of the boys was distracted.

After tea we roamed about the house and gardens at our will. The rooms were still full of big packing-cases and swathed articles which made progress difficult.

"General MacNeill seems likely to settle here, Mary," I said, looking round at the assemblage of furniture.

"I'm told he says he doesn't want to stir out of it till he dies. I hear he's burnt black, poor man, with the Ingy sun, an' his temper not what it ought to be by raison of the annoyance of them Red Injins he's been commandin'. I wouldn't be surprised now if he's come here to get his mind quiet an' his temper settled before he laves this world for a better. Ireland's an elegant quiet place for makin' your sowl."

I smiled, remembering that Lady O'Brien had said something of the same kind.

After we had viewed all the curiosities, and enjoyed ourselves immensely, I sat down quietly in the library to wait till the boys and the twins were satiated with the gardens, and while the two old cronies were having their gossip in the housekeeper's room.

The library was deliciously quiet, and I wandered about from one heap to another, picking off a book and looking into it, and then drawn by the embarrassment of my riches to another one. I felt as if I should be a long time in that library before I could settle down to read. I should have to look into every single book first. There were delightful little ladders by which to reach the upper shelves. I looked at the chaos of books up there.

"Ah," said I, "if I had a long, long day, I should ask for nothing better than to arrange those books!"

A sudden flash of inspiration came to me.

"Hilda Brandon," said I, "you were born to be a librarian!"

And indeed it seemed to me at the moment as though the earth could hold no fairer plot of peace than this cool place, with the green garden below, and the atmosphere inside cool green like the woods, and all those books waiting to be handled and dusted and loved.

Presently the twins came up the garden steps, and said they should like to go home, by which I guessed that their fruit-eating capacity had come to an end.

"I hope you won't be horribly upset to-morrow, little girls," said I; but they assured me that they could have eaten a great deal more if they really wanted to, only they feared that the boys would make themselves ill with the green apples they were eating after all the ripe fruit.

However, a boy's digestion is a wonderful thing, and the interest those boys, and the twins as well, showed in their supper on the way home, fairly amazed me.

Before we left, Mary O'Connor gave me a very urgent invitation to come and read all the books I liked, and Oona seconded her.

"'Twill do you a world of good, Miss Hilda," she said, "an' keep you from mopin' about by yourself, so that the sight of you keeps my own heart sore."

"But what would General MacNeill say?" I said hesitating, for I wanted very badly to come.

"What would he say!" exclaimed Mary indignantly; "only that he was a proud man to have a clever young lady like yourself enjoyin' his ould books. But anyhow he's not due this month yet, and you can come in by the garden door without even knockin', but just come an' go as you like. There's no one will make or meddle with you, an' sure when the master comes, an' ould Lady O'Brien fetches him over to see you, you can just spake up an' ask him if you mayn't have the run of the place."

"Very well, Mary," said I, "I'll come."

Indeed the books seemed such a paradise to me that I did not stop overlong to examine my scruples about invading General MacNeill's domain. After all, unless he was a perfect curmudgeon, he could not object, and then his friendship with Esther's godmother seemed to make him a kind of friend of ours too.

Yes, on the whole, I thought I might venture to accept Mary's invitation, and indeed the thought of it sent me to bed that night with more cheerfulness in my heart than I had known since Pierce died.

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