CHAPTER XVII

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THE MASTER OF ROSE HILL.

The following day, after I had presided at lunch, I set out with great joy for Rose Hill, and spent a long afternoon among the books, and though I had said, to quiet my scruples, that I would not go too often, yet there did not seem a day of the days following that I could bear to keep away. It changed all the face of my daily life for me, to look forward to those quiet hours. As Mary O'Connor had said, no one disturbed me. I went in by the garden and up the rose-wreathed steps, and found the door standing invitingly open every day. Then at four Mary would send me in a little tea-tray, which I was usually glad enough to see after my climb up the hilly road, and my rest among the books; and then after tea I would read again till it was time to go home.

But after a good many days spent in sipping the honey of the books, an eagerness came on me to arrange them in their shelves, so I asked the pretty little English maid who brought my tea if she could fetch me a duster and a feather-brush.

"Lawks, miss," she cried, "wotever for?"

"I'm going to arrange the books, Jane," said I. I never could bring myself to call her "Jenkins", by which name she had been known in her other situations, she told me, and Mary O'Connor was in sympathy with me on this one point, though she could seldom be accused of over-consideration to her subordinates.

"If I was in a place," Mary said, "and they called me 'O'Connor', I'd ask them if it was a dog they were spakin' to, and take my box and walk."

Jane was so perturbed by my desire for activity that she carried my request to Mary herself, who came hurrying in.

"That omadhaun of a girl's after comin' to me with a story about your wantin' a feather-whisk and a duster, Miss Hilda. I told her no Brandon could want the like. They haven't got their hearin' right, them cratures; often an' often when I do send them to turn out the upper bedrooms, 'tis in the drawin'-room, where the painter-men are workin', I'll find them. And then they'll say they didn't understand me rightly. 'The shoe's on the wrong foot, my girl,' says I. 'If it was myself didn't understand your outlandish up-and-down curlykews of a way of spakin', there'd be nothin' wonderful in it'."

"But I do really want the feather-brush and duster, and a big apron, if you will lend them to me, Mary. I do so want to get those books in order."

"You'll be fallin' down an' breakin' your neck," said Mary doubtfully.

"I'll do nothing of the kind," I assured her. "I'll take my time about it, and set up all the books by degrees. I shall love to do it, and when the General comes home he'll think you and your handmaidens have been so clever, Mary."

"You won't tire yourself, honey?"

"I'll leave off the minute I'm tired. I'll promise you that, Mary," cried I, all eagerness to begin.

So Mary brought me a big serviceable apron, and manufactured me a mob-cap out of a piece of muslin, to keep my hair from the dust, and, so protected, I began my labours. Mary had the remaining packing-cases opened for me, so that I had all the books under my hand. I said to myself that I was giving General MacNeill a _quid pro quo_ for reading his books, but I really set out to arrange them for the sheer pleasure the task gave me. It was slow work, but it was quite delightful when one had got a comely shelf-full of them together, to sit down and survey one's handiwork, and enjoy a well-earned rest and recreation.

But between finding out the books and sorting them, and occasionally altering the whole arrangement of them, things got on slowly. It was nearing the month's end, and yet only one side of the library had been done. I was beginning to grow hopeless about finishing the job before the General should arrive and put a stop to my labours, but as yet there was no word of his coming. I dreaded that coming, which should shut me out of the library, and send me back to my former loneliness.

I had gone over one afternoon, and entered by the garden as usual, and, having donned my cap and apron, I was working away furiously at an upper shelf. Suddenly I heard a cough behind me, and it startled me so much that it was a mercy I didn't fall. But my lameness has taught me caution, so I turned round very carefully and sat down on the top step of the ladder to survey the intruder.

It was an old gentleman with a face the colour of mahogany and a bristling white moustache--General MacNeill, of course. Neither of us said anything for a minute, and then he coughed again, a short sharp cough, exactly like a little bark. At the sound, Paudeen, who had been eyeing him watchfully from the rug at the door on which he lay every afternoon, responded with a bark which might have been an echo.

The old fellow looked towards Paudeen irately, as if he suspected mockery, then back at me.

"What is your name, my girl, and what are you doing with those books?" he snapped.

"My name is Brandon, sir," said I meekly, "and I'm putting the books in order."

"H'm! You'll be a strange kind of housemaid if you're able to do that. Who put you to do it?--Mrs. O'Connor? Hey? What kind of a fool is the woman to put you to such work?"

"If you please, sir," said I, "she didn't. I put myself to it."

"Hoity-toity! Is this how discipline is kept? How do you suppose that plan would work in the army, young woman, if every man put himself to whatever work he liked?"

"Badly," said I.

"Badly is the word," he said emphatically. "And now if you'll please to step off that ladder I'll see what kind of hay you've been making of my library."

I came down meekly and stood watching him, while he went up in my place and began examining my shelves.

"H'm, h'm!" he said to himself. "Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,--not so bad, by Jove! It must have been a chance shot her sticking them side by side. H'm, h'm,--Horace, Catullus, Pindar,--couldn't have done it better myself."

He came down with great agility and faced me, frowning.

"Now, look here," he said gruffly, "are you a classical housemaid?"

[Illustration: "NOW, LOOK HERE," HE SAID GRUFFLY, "ARE YOU A CLASSICAL HOUSEMAID?"]

His tone was so aggressive that Paudeen got up from his rug and came towards us, growling suspiciously.

"Be quiet, Paudeen," said I; and then answering my interlocutor: "No, sir, I'm not classical; I've only gone by what I've heard."

"Where did my housekeeper pick you up? Do you belong to the neighbourhood?"

"Yes, sir."

I was beginning to wonder with some alarm how I should own up to this very irascible-looking old gentleman, when Mary O'Connor came in. She held up her hands, standing behind him, in amazement. Then she came forward.

"Shall I bring your tea here, sir?" she asked, evidently under the impression that there was nothing to be explained. "I see Miss Hilda's been tellin' you that I allowed her to read among your books. I told her, sir, that I knew you'd make her kindly welcome."

"Miss what?" he thundered, so suddenly, that Mary jumped.

"Why, Miss Hilda Brandon, sir," she answered stiffly. "Miss Brandon, of Brandon. Miss Esther lives with Lady O'Brien,--an' a kinder an' sweeter young lady than Miss Hilda--There,--she's give herself no end of trouble over them books."

The old fellow whisked off his skull-cap and made me a somewhat chilly bow.

"You've been laughing at me, young lady," he said.

"Oh no, indeed, General MacNeill!" I said; "it was you that took me for a housemaid, and I was just making up my mind to undeceive you."

"But you called me sir."

"Only homage from a young woman to a famous soldier," said I cheerfully.

"Very well," he said, his grimness relaxing. "Punishment--you'll have to pour out my tea, and afterwards explain to me what in thunder set you to doing my servants' work."

"You said before that no servant could do it."

"You are right. Well, my librarian's work, if I had such a functionary?"

"Love of it, General."

"And you'll give it up now?"

"I suppose so," said I regretfully.

"I don't see why. If you loved it before, you love it now, and I sha'n't interfere with you. A battered old hulk like me in the house needn't make much difference. There's plenty for me to do getting other things into order without my hindering you. You'll come, hey?"

"Yes, I think I shall," said I.

"That's right. And now pour out the tea."

I grew quite to like General MacNeill that very first day, he was so kind and gentle in looking after my wants, and then he took my little Paudeen on his knee and fed him with dainty little bits, so that I began to suspect an unusually kind heart under the gruff exterior.

"And so you are great friends with my old flame, Molly O'Brien?" he said.

"Molly O'Brien!" repeated I, wondering.

"Lady O'Brien, then, if it pleases you better. Of course I forget she's an old woman, and the pretty name sounds odd to a young creature like you. All the same, Molly was a pretty girl as I remember her, and the soft name just suited her--a pretty, pretty girl."

"So I've often heard her say."

"I've no doubt you have," he answered with twinkling eyes. "And how is my old friend keeping? I haven't seen her for some years."

"Very well, indeed, General. And she's a very pretty old woman, you know."

"Aye, I suppose she is. Molly'll be in her grave before she gives up her claims to be a belle."

"And very witty and sharp and kind and good," I added--"sharp-sweet, like a wholesome fruit."

"Oh, the very old Molly!" he chuckled. "You've just hit it off, young lady. Well, Molly and I were young together, and both handsome, though you'll laugh in your sleeve at my saying so," bending a somewhat fierce gaze upon me; "and here we are now, two lonely old hulks cast high and dry, side by side, to moulder to our last end. Ah! I remember Molly fresh as a rose in the dew. She should have had a girl of her own to be as pretty as she was!"

"She has my sister Esther, General, living with her now. Esther is her god-daughter, and she's as pretty as a picture--not the least bit in the world like me," I added hastily.

"Oh, indeed! I'm glad Molly's got a young girl to live with her. And your sister's very pretty, and not the least bit in the world like you. Well, well, we can't all be pretty," he said, with a humorous glint in his eyes, which, now I noticed, were quite startlingly blue for the eyes of an old man.

"The Brandons are all handsome and strong except me," said I.

"And you're good, I suppose?"

"No, but I'm supposed to have the brains," said I.

"And which would you rather have, brains or beauty?" he asked, with great gravity.

"Beauty," said I, "of course. But brains are a great comfort too."

"Now, I'm glad to hear you say that," he said. "I'd have distrusted you if you'd said you'd rather have brains. But how do you use them? Are you cramming that little head of yours with a lot of knowledge that'll never be any use to you--examinations, degrees, all that sort of thing?"

"If I were I should be almost afraid to tell you," said I, "while you frown at me like that."

"Never mind my frowns," said he. "They mean nothing. My bark's worse than my bite. See, your little dog has found that out!"

I looked at Paudeen, who was sitting with a confiding paw in one of the General's palms.

"Paudeen's a very wise dog," said I; "but I don't think it takes much wisdom to discover that."

"You saw it with half an eye, hey?" he said, frowning more fiercely than ever. "So you don't think I'm an ogre that'll eat you up. Well, I'm glad, as you're going to arrange my books for me. Still, some that should have known better took me at my angry word and went away from me. What would you think, young lady, of one who had known me all his life, and yet knew no better than to go when I said 'Go, and let me see your face no more'?"

"If it was a 'he'," said I, "that makes it difficult. If it were a 'she', I should say she was a dunderhead. But in a matter between two men, there come in questions of pride and dignity on which I am not able to speak. I don't know enough about it."

"Well, well, we won't talk about it now. I am glad Molly O'Brien has your sister, though. And now tell me about yourself. You have other sisters? Why, I remember your grandmother, my dear. You favour her rather."

"Not a bit," said I, with some scorn. "Aline is like her, I believe, but more like grandpapa."

"Oh, Aline is another sister, I suppose?"

"Yes," said I, "our eldest, dear sister, who has mothered all of us."

And then I found myself telling him everything about ourselves, as if I had known him for years. I told him even about dear Pierce, at least till the sobs came up in my throat, and I was obliged to walk away from the table, and keep silence for a few minutes to recover my composure. When I came back to the table I found the General sitting as straight as a ramrod, and stroking Paudeen with great gravity, and so we passed on to less trying topics.

"But you didn't tell me," he said, "how you propose to use those brains of yours. Brains are given to be used, young lady."

"Oh, not in passing exams.!" said I. "I am not clever enough for that, I suppose. I am trying to write," I said, looking down at my hands, for I am shy of betraying my literary aspirations.

"Write!" he echoed. "What kind of writing?"

"Oh, novels, poems, plays," I answered.

"Well, well. So you would be an authoress? Have you published anything?"

"Nothing yet."

"Ever tried?"

"Not yet: I've burned reams."

"Ah! not easily satisfied. That's the right way to do good work. Well, the pen has a mission too, young lady. You won't forget that? You won't strive only after worldly honour and success? You won't forget the Giver of the gift?"

I was not long in finding out that General MacNeill, like many military and naval men, was very strongly and simply religious in his character, and his religion entered into all his life, even to the extent of holding his naturally fiery temper greatly in check. Though, as he told me afterwards, the struggle between the flesh and the spirit was an ever-continuing one. I could not have imagined him without his peppery temper, and I have often thought that I could not be so fond of him if he had quite succeeded in driving out the old Adam. Still, he was one of those essentially manly men who are always soft and gentle towards women, so that his greatest irascibility towards myself had a touch of tenderness in it which took out all the sting. Yet I could imagine that with a man the dear old man might have been trying. He was dictatorial, when the flesh rather than the spirit had the upper hand, and I could well believe what Hawkins, his soldier servant, said of him, half regretfully:

"Ah, Miss, the master isn't the man he was before he found religion! He never has none of the old rages now, and the langwidge he'd scatter in them days was--well, it was lively. Sometimes I do feel sorry for him tryin' to satisfy himself with 'dashes' and 'bloomin's', and often I've thought he'd do himself a mischief through not havin' the old words to let himself go on. Not but what he did change the face of the rig'mint before he left, an' a good thing too. An' terrible down on langwidge he was. Why, 'e got rid of the rig'mintal parrot because it wouldn't change its ways."

But all this belongs to a later stage, when I had learned to appreciate and love the dear old General, and to bless the hour he came to settle at Rose Hill.

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