Chapter VIII: Part 8

There was a final mad and unlawful spurt, and Ted's hansom leading by a yard or two, they dashed up in style before a pair of incredulous, horrified eyes watching their mad approach from Mrs. Barclay's drawing-room window. Moreover, the window was open, and a pair of ears, as incredulous and horrified as the eyes, listened to a babel of laughter and talk, to arguments on the horses' and drivers' merits.

Nell broke in suddenly, "Good gracious, _how are we to get in_?"

There was a pause.

"Allow me to scratchulate my head and ruminate," Denis observed.

Ted suggested: "How about the old German? When does he come in? I suppose he has a key?"

"He's gone away till Monday!"

"I have it," ejaculated Denis; "I, even I, will climb that passage gate and effect a burglarious--oh, my prophetic soul, my--_aunt_!"

A voice--an awful, laughter-killing voice, smote upon their startled ears.

"So," it said, in accents hard and cold, "this is the way you behave in my absence!"

She came slowly down the steps of the next-door house. Denis strode to open the gate, hat in hand.

"How are you, Aunt Kezia? Quite an unexpected pleasure!"

Ted raised his hat.

She took no notice of either salutation.

"May I ask how you intend to enter the house?"

"With your key, Aunt Kezia. Could things have happened more fortunately?" The twinkle in his gay blue eye was irresistible. "You arrive at the crucial moment--a ministering angel--a fairy godmother--"

"Be quiet, sir! You are impertinent! And my latchkey," a dull pink spread slowly over her face, "is packed in my box, and my box is coming on this evening. I could not dream that I should need my key at half-past two o'clock, the time I arrived home!"

He winked at Nell.

"Do you always pack your key, Aunt Kezia?" in an innocent little voice.

"No! Once more, may I inquire how you intend to enter the house?"

"You see that wooden gate? I will climb it--Excelsior--or perish in the attempt! Once over that, I can enter by the kitchen or the passage door."

"So you did not even trouble to lock them?"

"Sure, then, how would we be getting in if we had?"

"It was me!" burst out Nell, and her voice trembled.

"I!" said Miss Kezia.

"Fare thee well! I go to attack bolts and bars for you!"

He made for the gate, which only opened from the inside, swarmed airily up, and disappeared with a wave of his hand.

"Is Miss Hadlow quite well now, Aunt Kezia?" queried Nell, breaking the awful silence.

"No! When I read in your letter that still Mrs. Barclay had not returned, I considered it my duty to come back! _It is well I did so_!"

"I must be off," said Ted, turning to shake hands with Nell.

"Will you please to remain, Master Lancaster? I wish to have some questions answered once we get into the house."

That emphasised "Master" tickled him hugely; he gave Nell's arm a surreptitious pinch as he responded courteously that he would be pleased to stay.

"I'm sorry we kept you waiting, Aunt Kezia," began Nell again, valiantly.

"Eileen, I do not wish to speak to any of you till we get inside the house!"

Nell gave a little helpless gurgle, and tried to turn it into a cough. So they stood in dead silence and looked at each other. Nell felt that in another moment she would shriek aloud with mirth. Sheila Pat's small shoulders shook every now and then, and Sheila Pat's eyes studied Miss Kezia's face with a most unholy glee in their wicked depths. Suddenly Molly, in a paroxysm of nervousness, burst out:--

"Did you enjoy yourself, Aunt Kezia?"

There was a little dreadful pause.

Then--"I do not go to nurse my sick friends for _enjoyment_, Molly!"

Nell clutched Ted's arm despairingly, and then suddenly, glancing wildly about to keep her eyes from the comical little group, she caught sight of Denis's wicked face peering at them from Herr Schmidt's window. He met her eye, winked, and rolled away from the window in roars of laughter.

She struggled--she pinched Ted's arm cruelly--and she glared, fascinated, at that window. In a minute he reappeared, his eyes wet, studied them a moment, and rolled away again, roaring. His face was irresistible. She could see how he was roaring. She gave one last frantic pinch of Ted's arm, and burst out into wild laughter--hopeless, unmistakable, helpless laughter.

Ted looked at her, then at Miss Kezia's crimson face, and leant helplessly against the front door. Poor Molly made the most awful sounds in her agitated efforts not to laugh, and Sheila Pat's face grew momentarily more impish. Then the front door was opened with a suspicious suddenness, and Ted went headlong in--Denis dodged--he stumbled and staggered into the wall, where he recovered his equilibrium, and stood ruefully rubbing his head.

"All right, old man, I'll remember it!" he declared.

Nell fled ignominiously, laughing and shaking, up the stairs and into the Stronghold, and banged the door. Down to the others there floated a long ripple of helpless laughter.

They followed Miss Kezia into the morning room, and there she turned and faced them.

Ted looked about him interestedly. He was distinctly amused; to be held up like this and lectured as if he were a naughty little boy was new to him, and he enjoyed it immensely.

"One of you go up and fetch Eileen--no, not you, Denis! Or you, Master Lancaster! You go, Molly."

Molly hesitated, in distress. She knew that, once alone with Nell, she would never be able to regain her seriousness.

Ted took a step forward, "_Mayn't_ I, please?" he asked meekly.

"Did you not hear me, Molly?"

"Y-yes, Aunt Kezia."

She hurried from the room, banged her elbow against the door, and went upstairs. She opened the door of the Stronghold about an inch, and called through, all in one agitated breath:--

"You're to come down, and oh, _don't_ laugh, Nell!"

"I _can't_, M-Molly! I s-simply _can't_!"

"You must! Oh, _do_ be serious!"

There was a pause.

"What are you all doing down there, Molly?"

"Standing--"

There was a ripple of laughter from the other side of the door.

"Oh, don't! I can see it! I--I can't come."

Molly had started giggling directly Nell's laugh reached her.

"Oh, Nell, don't be--so mean! You--you're making me laugh!"

"Why don't you come in?"

"I daren't!"

Inside and outside the door there was laughter then. Then a despairing--

"You go down, M-Molly! I'll come in a minute!"

Molly fled.

"S-she's coming, Aunt Kezia." She gave a terrified giggle, and took her place next to the Atom.

There was a pause. All heard a light pattering step outside and glanced towards the door. Nothing happened.

Miss Kezia stood gaunt and grim; no one spoke. Denis's head drooped low; he had folded his hands meekly before him. The door handle was touched--there was another pause--then it was turned abruptly, suddenly, and Nell marched in. Head back, looking straight in front of her, biting her lip, frowning, she marched in, took her stand beside Ted, and implored him in a shaky whisper not to make her l-laugh. Then Miss Kezia began. She started on the vulgarity and danger of racing in hansoms in London. She pointed out the trouble in which they might have involved their drivers. She emphasised the scandal there would have been had they been pursued by the police, and Sheila Pat's face grew full of longing. From hansoms she went on to the awful iniquity of having left the house unguarded; from that to Sarah's holiday, of which she disapproved strongly. From Sarah's holiday she ranged austerely to grease stains, untidiness, foolish hilarity, and hysteria. She threw in various uncomplimentary remarks on feather-heads, untrustworthiness, rowdyism, and other things of a similar nature, and then in a final tone she wound up:--

"I shall forbid all intercourse between you and Master Lancaster for a month!"

There was a sudden movement, an uplifting of heads, a very definite and unmistakable change in the faces confronting her.

"Aunt Kezia--" Denis began, and his tone left nothing to the imagination with regard to the nature of the thing he meant to say. Miss Kezia cut in with sudden and very wise haste:--

"No, I shall not do that, but I shall write to your parents by this mail, and tell them how you failed to behave with any decorum in my absence. Now you may go."

They did go. They fled.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

Nell rose with a headache.

"I never," said she, "owned such a thing at home!"

She went to the window and looked out. A dingy grey fog hung over everything; the garden walls were wet.

"The fourth day that has been foggy and raw and liquid with mud!"

Sheila Pat trotted back into the room, her small face pinched, her teeth shut tight to prevent their chattering.

"Sheila Pat, you've had a cold bath!"

"I let the hot tap run a minute."

"And the hot water was tepid. Come here."

"I'm busy, Nell."

Nell went across and seized the shivering little body. Even through the bath-robe she could feel how cold it was. She started rubbing her down with a rough towel.

"You're awfully tiresome, Sheila Pat. If you will be such a baby, I shall have to come and get your bath ready myself."

"Y-you all have cold s-sponges!" sulked Sheila Pat, with chattering teeth.

"And so will you when you've grown bigger and stronger. Didn't Dr. McCarthy tell you so?"

"Is it s-strong? Feel my muscles! I j-just _love_ icy-c-cold baths!"

"You look as if you do!"

"I think you're v-very rude, Nell O'Brien!" The Atom, after this dignified retort, relapsed into a cold silence.

"Now go and get Molly up, there's a good Atom," Nell said when Sheila Pat was clothed. "I can hear she's not moving."

The Atom departed.

"She's up now," she announced on her return.

"_Well_ up?"

"I dipped her sponge in the jug, and squeezed it on her feet. She's very cross."

"I daresay she is. You're an ingenious little torturer, Sheila Pat."

Presently a wild-haired Molly burst into the room.

"Oh, Nell, I _can't_ find any hair-ribbons, and my comb has tumbled down--I stuck it in the window to stop it rattling, and it's tumbled out--"

Nell interrupted, "Here's a comb and here's a ribbon."

"And Sheila Pat's made my bed all wet!"

"Hurry up! You've only three minutes, and you were late down yesterday, you know."

"Oh, Nell, _do_ wait for me! I simply _can't_ come into that room with Aunt Kezia's eye on me and grim silence!"

Sheila Pat had shut the door on her.

After breakfast the fog deepened, yellowed; Nell, with her mouth set obstinately, got out her canvas and brushes, and began to paint.

"Nell, you _can't_ see to paint!" exclaimed Molly.

"I know I can't."

"Then what are you painting for?"

Nell squeezed out cobalt blue recklessly.

"My dear child, if we're to live in a place where it's always foggy, I've got to learn to paint in a thick yellow atmosphere, with the gas alight one minute and out the next. D'you think I'm not going to practise for the next hundred years? Sheila Pat, _don't_ go near K.K.! You'll rouse her! Oh, _why_ is she black? Do go on with your copy."

"I don't wish ever to write like my copy," said the Atom, stiffening her straight little back, "so what's the use of doin' it now?"

"Well, you've got to!" said Nell.

Sheila Pat arose.

"Sheila Pat, where are you going?"

"To fetch my snowy-breasted Pearl. I'm afraid he'll be breakin' his heart, all alone so long."

"You're to come straight back, then."

"I don't want to, Nell!"

"Well, you are to."

"I want to take him to visit Herr Smit, Nell."

Nell eyed the little heavy black mass that on ordinary days was Kate Kearney, and savagely harked back with, "I don't think a lodger's landlady's belongings should worry him at all times of the day!"

She blushed and dabbed angrily at her canvas.

Sheila Pat paused, and thought.

Intolerable, biting irritation possessed Nell. The room cramped her unbearably; painting drove her mad; everyone worried her; sick anger at it all goaded her.

"Sheila Pat, go and fetch your Pearl at once, and bring him straight back here!"

Sheila Pat eyed her interestedly.

"Eileen O'Brien, you got out of your bed the wrong side this morning!" she observed, and walked from the room. Molly looked at Nell commiseratingly.

"_I_ know," she said, "we never have these horrid yellow fogs at--"

Nell stopped the word before it left her lips, with a wildly impatient:--

"Oh, _be_ quiet!"

"I only meant--"

"I know you did! Go on with your history."

"But--"

Nell looked at her.

"If you say another word, Molly O'Brien, I shall yell!"

Denis came in.

He looked at her with her hair pushed up and laughed.

"Golliwog, what's happened to your hair?"

She looked away from him, fighting a weak inclination to go to him and cry.

"Nothing," she said.

"Painting in this light! Why, Nell, you must be crazy!"

"I daresay I am. I'm sick of never being able to paint--"

"But a dense fog!"

"It's always dense fog in London."

"Headache?" he queried.

"It's my temper that aches, I think."

She put down her palette, and gave a little laugh.

"Head, too?" he persisted.

"That I should have to own to such a thing! A little."

"It's boiled mutton for lunch; Sarah just told me so. I'll go and tell Aunt Kezia you must have something else. What would you like? Chicken? Sole?"

She laughed helplessly.

"Denis, I see her face! No--really--"

She stopped him. "I couldn't touch either. I'm not hungry. I'll have some pudding."

"It's rice puddin'," put in Sheila Pat, her words annotated by protesting squeaks. The Pearl objected to being taken from his cage.

Nell, feeling momentarily more sane, declared valiantly that rice pudding would do nicely.

Aunt Kezia was sorry that boiled mutton did not meet with her approval, so she said.

The Atom was the first to answer her.

"Approval, is it? And would you be approvalin' it with a headache, Aunt Kezia?"

It was a Saturday. Denis had suggested Madam Tussaud's for the afternoon. Now he declared he didn't think Nell was fit to come with them. She did not feel fit herself, but she wouldn't own it. She was very prickly, and somehow he rubbed her the wrong way,--"Oh, very well, if they'd rather go without her!" Up flared one of those quick Irish outbursts. Nell found herself alone. She sang loudly, listening intently for the shutting of the front door.

"''Twas down at Ballina Fair,
Cailins and boys were gaily tripping it there,
And I the soul of the spree,
When I set eyes on Kitty Magee.
Her smile so sweet, her step so neat,
Hide and seek her two little feet;
Gliding just like a swan at sea,
Handsome, winsome Kitty Magee.

And now I'm dreaming all day,
Sighing from dark to dawn, and wasting away,
Like a lone bird on a tree,
Pining the long hours through for Kitty Magee,
At dance or wake no--"

Bang!

The song died abruptly.

The hopeless muddle on the easel was dabbed at, made more and more oily.

"Eileen!"

Nell went out on to the landing.

"Yes, Aunt Kezia?"

"Please clean your brushes and put away your paints and all that smells so horribly, at once! The house reeks, and I have a friend coming to see me this afternoon!"

Nell said, "Yes, Aunt Kezia," and a gleam lit her eye. She went back to the Stronghold, and washed her brushes with slow care in turpentine. There was an air of waiting about her. She lifted Jim into his cage, and dropped it behind the lounge. Presently an irate voice rang up the stairs:--

"Eileen! _Eileen_!"

Ah expression of grim satisfaction overspread her features. The voice ascended with its owner.

"How dare you, Eileen? What is this horrible smell?"

"Smell, Aunt Kezia? Do you mean the turps?"

"I suppose so! It is _filthy_! I told you I expect a visitor. It is positively disgraceful--"

"You told me to wash my brushes, Aunt Kezia."

Nell's tone was as soft as butter.

"Certainly I told you to! You are being unwarrantably impertinent! You--"

"But I am only washing my brushes as you told me, Aunt Kezia!"

"What do you mean?"

"You have to wash them in turpentine, Aunt Kezia."

Miss Kezia had a moment of hesitation; her face reddened.

Nell dipped a brush into the tin washer.

"Then cease washing them at once! Open the window, and keep the door shut."

She closed the door behind her with such a very decisive click that it might almost have been designated a bang. Nell smiled wryly. She cleared up a little, then went to the window and looked out. Kate Kearney came to her, and begged to look, too. Nell sat down, and K.K. jumped into her lap.

"They don't allow dogs at Madame Tussaud's, K.K. Bad taste. But they do allow Nells--even bad-tempered ones; but she wasn't wanted, you see. Oh, K.K., you must get off!"

She rose restlessly. She looked down at a pathetic Kate Kearney, and exclaimed suddenly:--

"We'll go for a walk!"

The pathos of Kate Kearney vanished in a black whirl of ecstatic body and tail.

Nell went to put on her boots.

"We'll go for a long, long walk, and we'll come back on top of an omnibus, K.K. It's such a glorious day for a walk, isn't it? Oh, heavenly! But we'll go."

In the hall they came upon Miss Kezia. Nell's slim body stiffened suddenly; a feeling of desperation seized her.

"You are going to take that dog out on a day like this! I cannot allow it! Think of its feet when it comes in!"

Nell found that she had to moisten her dry lips; she took a moment or two to choke back unexpectedly rude words. She said then in an even tone:--

"I'll carry her upstairs, Aunt Kezia."

"But when it gets there! The carpet! Ruining my carpet!"

"I'll put her on her rug till she's dry."

"Microbes!" Miss Kezia said.

There was a little, pregnant silence. Nell's face had grown suddenly hot; she felt she dared not trust her tongue to speak again; she was shaken with longing to be very rude to Miss Kezia.

Miss Kezia hesitated, then she said:--

"Very well. And make her _stay_ on her rug, and you had better not go far; the fog is deepening again."

Nell went out into the street. At the corner she met Ted.

"You? Where are the others?" he asked innocently, showing faint surprise.

"At Madame Tussaud's. Good-bye," she said.

"Where are you off to, Nell?"

"A walk---a long walk--" Something prompted her to add, "just me and Kate Kearney."

"You needn't be afraid that I shall offer my escort. Am I allowed to suggest that it's beginning to sleet, and that the fog is getting thicker?"

The deadly politeness of his tone afforded her a small satisfaction.

"You may suggest what you like," she assured him, "only--do you mind suggesting it to the lamp-post? It's cold standing here."

"Oh, certainly. I've never come to embracing a lamp-post yet, but I daresay it's better to talk to than some people are!"

The grand sweep with which he raised his hat, and the dignified sarcasm of his tone, lifted the words above mere childishness.

Nell walked on down Gardiner Street. The fact that she could not help feeling that it would be comfortable to have Ted's sturdy figure beside her irritated her.

She felt a touch on her arm. Through the yellowing fog Ted smiled at her.

"I say, Nell, I can't stand it! You'd be on my conscience. You know you don't know your way about a bit, and if the fog comes down--"

She began to smile warmly.

"Since Denis has deserted you," cheerfully he blundered, "you'll let me order you about, eh?"

The "eh" held a suddenly surprised inflection, brought about by the change in her face.

"You're downright impertinent!" she stormed. "Do go away! How can you thrust yourself where you're not wanted?"

She hurried on, leaving silence behind her.

The lamps were alight; they shone pale and blurred through the fog. The lights from the shops made little pathways of misty light across the pavement. It was very raw, the air was bitter, wet, laden with sleet. She had not brought an umbrella with her; she was so unused to umbrellas. She turned up the collar of her coat, and valiantly suppressed a shiver. Kate Kearney trotted dejectedly at her heels.

"We will go for a long walk, K.K., won't we? And then we will take an omnibus back again. There are always omnibuses in London to take one everywhere.... Some people are so fussy and frumpish, aren't they?"

She was in dull, quiet streets; the effect of the tall houses, wet, ghostlike in the fog, was gloomy, weird. They got on her nerves, set them jarring. A deep depression seized upon her; she ceased trying to fight it. She was too cold, too wretched. She found herself suddenly in a dirty, noisy street, amongst innumerable barrows, innumerable ragged children. Everyone was shouting, it seemed to her; their voices were hideous. Everyone jostled her. She was afraid, horribly afraid. It was all so squalid, so inexpressibly sordid. She shrank back appalled. The noise set her head throbbing and aching. Through the fog she could discern an unending stream of traffic; she could see omnibuses. But to get to one she must slip between two barrows--venture into that muddy road. She hesitated, went on nervously, at a loss. She walked up the Hampstead Road, and came out upon Euston Road, where numberless omnibuses were drawn up. The noise was worse than before. She tried to find out which was her omnibus by listening to the conductors' raucous voices. She was deafened by the din.

"King's Cross! Baker Street! 'Ammersmith! Victoria!"

She approached the nearest conductor, and asked if he went to Henley Road.

"What road, miss?"

"Henley Road."

'"Enley Road? Where is it, miss?"

"It,"--she faltered, at a loss,--"oh," brightening--"it leads out of Gardiner Street!"

"Never 'eard of it, miss."

"It's not very far from Horton Square."

"Oh, we don't go anywhere near there."

He hopped on to his step and rang the bell.

She stood on the curb, looking at the other omnibuses with a weary disinclination to ask again. She held Kate Kearney in her arms, in terror of the traffic. A boy was shouting almost in her ear: "_Star_! Daring burglary by d'ylight! _Star_! Murder in the West End! _Evening News_! Duke of Oldchester run over by a motor! Great Strike in Nottingham! Families starving!..."

She turned from him with a sense of physical repulsion. She went forward and accosted another conductor.

"That dawg with you, miss? Can't take a dawg in a 'bus! Not allowed, miss!"

He shouted as a consolatory afterthought: "'E can run alongside, you know!"

She gave a sudden hysterical little laugh. She glanced at the crowded road, and down at Kate Kearney, cowering in her arms. She moved forward slowly, not knowing which way Henley Road lay. She was tired out; she had never felt so tired and forlorn in all her life. The sea of people, of traffic, the noise, the shouts, bewildered her, dazed her. She moved away hurriedly from the newspaper boys, who seemed, to her shrinking fancy, to be gloating with aggressive noise over endless horrors.

"We--we've got to walk back, K.K. I've only sixpence, so we can't drive at all. Oh, K.K.--I--I'm going to cry--"

"Expect you'll bite my head off, but you've just got to put up with me!"

Out of the yellow fog--out of the chaotic nightmarish hubbub--a broad-shouldered figure, a gruff, sulky voice, suddenly became clear to her.

"Oh!" she gasped.

Ted took hold of her elbow and shouldered his way through the crowd. She submitted weakly, occupied chiefly in swallowing ignominious tears. She found herself being helped into a hansom. She heard him say, "Fuller's--Regent Street." Then he seated himself beside her.

"Is it--a station?" she asked.

"No. You're going to have some tea before you go home."

"Oh!"

There was a silence. She cudgelled dull brains for something to say, then having found it, turned it over and over in her mind, distrusting her voice, till it grew silly and meaningless, and she let it go. The silence got on her nerves; she almost began to laugh helplessly; she burst out in an odd voice:--

"W-what a funny action the horse has!"

"Took the first that came. Couldn't wait to pick and choose."

"Of course not," she hurried to agree with meek haste.

The silence fell again. She cast a swift glance at Ted's profile; it was very grim and very cross. She couldn't let the silence last; it worried her past bearing.

"Kate Kearney is getting perky," she said.

"Yes?" said Ted.

She began wildly:--

"Ted--I--I--" and stopped.

He did not help her, and she said no more.

Presently the cab came to a standstill, and he helped her out. They went in, past the tempting sweets, on to warmth and lightness. The rush for tea was over, and there were not many people left now. They secured a little table and sat down.

"What'll you have?" he said curtly.

"Oh--anything."

He ordered tea and tea-cake. The band struck up with a selection from a popular musical play. She looked round quickly.

"Oh, how lovely!"

She poured out tea; he accepted his cup with a brief "thanks." She bent across the table to him.

"Would you mind listening? I'm sure I'm purring all over."

There was a tentative smile in her eyes.

"Tea-cake?" he said.

She took a piece with a sigh. Suddenly her laugh rang out, deliciously gay and glad. Coaxingly she bent towards him.

"Don't be cross, Ted! I'm so happy!"

He frowned.

"It was ridiculous of you," he began.

"I know it was!" with gay insouciance. "But this isn't the way to punish me, is it?" Her voice sank softly; she was radiant in the joy of the reaction. "You wouldn't be spoiling it all, Teddie?" she coaxed.

Unwillingly, his mouth relaxed into a smile; he caught it back with a quick, bad-tempered indrawing of his lips.

"You'd better know--first--I followed you! Now bite my head off!"

Her eyes opened wide.

"All--the--way?" she said slowly.

He nodded.

"Why, Ted, how awfully _sweet_ of you!" in a soft and very unexpected rush. "Fancy taking all that trouble! Bite your head off? Why, I think it was just lovely of you!"

His glum face cleared.

"And my head's gone! gone! gone!" she laughed.

He glanced at it inquiringly.

"Oh, well, the ache thereof."

Presently she sighed loudly and with suggestive reproach.

"To think that all the time nice, cross, comfy you were there behind me! I wish I'd known!"

He compressed his lips humorously.

"Don't be mean!" she laughed. "More tea?" As she handed him his cup:--

"Ted, you're not to be feeling superior just because I got into a muddle and you pulled me out! If it had been a bog now, it would have been the other way about! But yellow fog, and--" she gave a little shudder--"the newspaper boys! But I ask you, how was a sane person, in other words, an Irish person, to guess that omnibuses would refuse to allow dogs in them? All the same," softly, "I'm feeling just now that man is a noble animal, and woman a mere headless and rudderless cipher. But I warn you it won't last."

"Wish it would," he said, giving K.K. a piece of cake.

"Ah, then, you are feeling superior! Ted, what would you have done if I had had hysterics when I caught sight of you? Oh, I'm so happy!"

"Eat something," he urged.

She looked round the room, then out at the fog, and smiled on him.

He looked at her with sudden seriousness.

"Nell, remember another time if you're in a hole--"

"The hole doesn't exist that'll ever get a chance of seeing me again!" She dismissed it airily.

"Well, anyhow, when that frame of mind's worn off--"

"You mean when I'm in a howling temper again," she interpolated, pursing her mouth.

"Perhaps. Well, remember, _take a hansom_!"

"But I couldn't. I'd only sixpence with me."

"Doesn't matter. You pay up the other end. You could get it when you arrived."

"Oh, do you? I didn't know. You don't in omnibuses."

"No, you don't in omnibuses."

She rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.

"Shall I try to thank you, Ted?"

He flushed in horror.

"Good Lord, no! I say, have another cake."

She laughed softly.

"I don't want any more, thanks. I--"

"Do have some more tea."

She shook her head.

"If you'll let me speak--"

"You might give me some more, will you?"

She poured it out.

"I'm only trying to assure you I won't thank you!" she managed to say. "I won't, really. You've been too nice. I'll do just whatever you wish."

"Um!" he grunted.

She settled her elbows on the table again. She looked out straight before her, and her face grew thoughtful. There was a little silence. Then she looked at him and smiled; it was an odd little smile, half-humorous, half sad.

"I'm getting like that," she said, "all bad-tempered and horrid and cross! I was horrid to you, and to Denis,--to everyone. I--I used not to be grumpy and nasty. I'm just growing that way. In books they don't. When there's trouble and things all go wrong, they get sweeter and sweeter. I don't. I feel sometimes all shuddery with snappishness. I never used to feel like that--" Her voice died away in a plaintive little murmur.

"Books are all rot!" he declared vigorously.

"Oh, Ted, all of them?"

She was laughing again, but the shadow of wistfulness still clouded her eyes.

"All those with goody-goody heroines hanging around like dying ducks in a thunder-storm!" he asserted.

"You don't mind if I'm horrid and grumpy, then?"

"Not a bit," he declared cheerfully.

She rose.

"You know you ought to have said that I never am horrid or grumpy. But no matter!"

"I've got a conscience to think of, you know," he suggested.

Outside, they found that the fog had cleared away, leaving a wet, cold world behind it.

"We'll choose our horse now," he said.

"Oh, how lovely! Here comes a hansom! Poor thing, his knees are rather awful. There's a better one--that big bay, Ted!"

"Got a fare already."

"Oh, I didn't think of that."

"We'll walk along. You wouldn't sooner have a crock from the rank, would you?"

"Don't insult me, Ted! Look--that grey! Oh, he's a beauty!"

"Put on the pace," Ted said to the man, and presently Nell was sighing with joy.

"I'd love to spend a whole day in hansoms! Ted, the moral's all wrong! I'm enjoying myself much too much. And never so much as one 'I-told-you-so' glance from you! It's hopelessly wrong!"

As they turned into Henley Road, she held out her hand.

"Shake," she said, "and--I'm not going to thank you, but--oh, Teddie, you _are_ a brick!"

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

Towards morning on March 17 Miss Kezia dreamed. She was not often troubled with dreams, but on this occasion her dream was long and peculiarly vivid. She dreamed that she was passing through a narrow roadway, on either side of which great rocks rose high and precipitous. On these rocks men were at work, cutting, chiselling, hammering, and every sound they made rolled and rumbled and echoed amongst the rocks, till, in her dream, Miss Kezia's ears sang and buzzed in agony. As they worked the men sang and talked, and the rocks took up their voices, and flung them from one to another, till the noise was deafening. On she hurried, striving to get through the roadway, but it had the interminableness of dream roads, and Miss Kezia struggled in vain.

At seven o'clock she woke, because seven o'clock was the hour at which she invariably rose. On the 17th of March she rose four minutes later than usual, taking that time to ponder her dream and feel her pulse. She looked anxiously at herself in the peculiarly unflattering mirror on the toilet-table, but it showed her the same long Scotch face as usual, and the green tinge imparted by the glass was no greener than it always was. Miss Kezia considered dreams a weakness due to illness or a diseased imagination, but halfway through her toilet a voice broke out:--

"'Oh! Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that's going round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;
Saint Patrick's day no more we'll keep, his colour can't be
seen.
For there's a cruel law agin' the wearin' of the green....'"

Miss Kezia stood, the cold water trickling down her face, and experienced a queer sort of sensation. Where had she heard that tune--sad even to her tough senses--quite lately? Why did her dream suddenly descend upon her, the sense of it gripping her most unaccountably?

A scream of woe in Molly's most material voice, "Oh, I've hammered my thumb into the middle of next month!" and the heavy fall of a hammer roused her suddenly, sharply, to full realisation and understanding of her dream. To the accompaniment of a steady hammering she finished her ablutions with a grim and wrathful haste. She faced the unflattering mirror with a gleam in her eye, and pulled and screwed her hair into its accustomed tight knot. She finished her toilet, and then she left her room.

Green met her eye; whichever way she turned she encountered green. The balusters were draped with green muslin. The austere photograph of a long-faced ancestor hanging, a perpetual prim disdainer of the follies of youth, on the wall opposite her door, looked out now disapprovingly from beneath a coquettish green satin bow hanging over his very brows.

Sheila Pat came marching down the stairs, holding aloft the Irish flag.

"Are you all mad?" Miss Kezia queried wrathfully.

The Atom turned an eye alight with a far-away scorn upon her.

"It's St. Patrick's Day!" she said curtly, and marched on down the stairs.

Miss Kezia put up with a good deal that day. She sat at the breakfast-table and faced, with strong but silent disapproval, a green-draped window. She said no word even when Sarah wriggled shyly in, her diminutive cap adorned with a great green bow. But her eye followed the hot and abashed little hand-maiden with dire meaning. When next Sarah appeared the bow had vanished.

She watched, from beneath raised brows, Kate Kearney tumbling over her own head in pursuit of the ribbon tied about her neck, but she did not say anything. After breakfast a box came by parcel's post addressed to Nell. It was a large box, and it was filled with shamrock. Miss Kezia studied it amiably.

"I suppose it is a pretty little weed," she said with affability.

She went farther. She asked Sheila Pat for information anent St. Patrick.

Unfortunately Sheila Pat started with the little item of his having swum across the Shannon with his head in his mouth. Miss Kezia remonstrated. She pointed out the impossibility of his performing such a feat.

Sheila Pat waxed indignant. She explained scornfully that anything was possible to St. Patrick, and that, moreover, his being in Ireland at the time had a great deal to do with his wonderful cleverness.

Miss Kezia argued that it would have been nothing more or less than a miracle.

Sheila Pat retorted, "And why not?" Miss Kezia was shocked. A long and hot discussion followed, of which the Atom had the last word. She said:--

"Why, you can't know _any*thing! You don't even know what Ireland's *like_! You're just a hignoramus!"

Miss Kezia was angry. She was also genuinely worried. It was not the first time that her young relatives by marriage had worried her active conscience from a religious point of view. Their stories of fairies and legends and miracles seemed, to her stern narrowness, profane. In the course of her argument with Sheila Pat, the Atom had observed that she thought it must be very nice for God to have St. Patrick for a companion. The remark had left Miss Kezia gasping.

Left alone with the rude epithet of hignoramus hovering scornfully in the air, Miss Kezia sought to arrange the chaos in her mind. She was still forming sound arguments to be used with effect on a future occasion, when she heard the O'Briens going out. She went to the window and received several further shocks. In the first place Denis was with the others, when he should have been at the bank. In the second, third, and fourth places, their costumes were most unseemly. To Miss Kezia they appeared to be composed chiefly of shamrock and green ribbon. In the fifth place Kate Kearney, all unchidden, was dividing her energies in a vain attempt to rid herself of her bow, between the mud heap at the side of the road and Miss Kezia's spotless door-steps.

Miss Kezia flung open the window, and called out:--

"Ridiculous! I won't have it! Denis, why aren't you at the bank? My steps!"

Denis waved an airy farewell with his shillelagh.

"Bank?" His voice was amazed. "It's a holiday, of course! Told them I shouldn't be there!"

"You are not to--"

Miss Kezia's voice died away. She recognised the uselessness of calling injunctions after fast-disappearing and obviously obstinate backs.

She returned to her dusting. Her amiability had been sorely tried; it was little more than a memory now. She approached the window to dust a chair, and became aware of the fact that her house was an object of interest and mirth to passers-by. She sighed angrily. She had a genuine wish to make allowances. She understood dimly that the day meant a great deal to them. She could not discover from the windows the cause of the interest her house seemed to possess for the passers-by. She donned her bonnet and coat and went out. From the pavement she discovered only too quickly the cause of that interest and mirth. Her respectable house wore a festive, even a rakish, air. The dingy bricks seemed to shrink back apologetically beneath their gay adornments. Green--green--green--Miss Kezia took a violent dislike to the colour that day which never left her. The Irish flag held a prominent position; green bunting was festooned across from window to window; a basket of shamrock was slung by green ribbons from a water-pipe; there were garlands and harps. From one window there hung a long, limp object, professedly a dead serpent. Miss Kezia's eyesight was good; it was better than her imagination. She saw at once that a thing composed of some rolled-up strips of carpet that were her property hung from a window. But she did not see that the thing was a serpent. The realistic touches given by Nell's brush were, to her, merely so many insults added to the injury.

The O'Briens did not come home to lunch. Miss Kezia lunched alone. She also said to Sarah, "You are not to keep anything hot, Sarah!"

Sarah dragged the beef from the oven in such a temper that it fell into the fender.

Soon after lunch Miss Kezia went out. She glanced from the gate with approval at the decorous, unadorned bricks of her house. When she returned a few hours later, she glanced again at it approvingly. But as she put her key into the lock of the door, the more amiable expression of her countenance faded, and a look of disapproving horror took its place. She entered the hall and was greeted with several disconcerting things. Her ears were offended by the loud singing of many voices, accompanied by a concertina and combs. Her nose was offended with the unmistakable scent of tobacco. Her eyes--well, her eyes were offended with the smoke and with many signs of untidiness, of riot, and of fun.

Miss Kezia went upstairs. As she reached the door of the Stronghold the voices and music were in full swing:--

"'You may take the Shamrock from your hat and cast it on the
sod,
But, never fear, 'twill take root there, tho' under foot 'tis
trod.
When laws can stop the blades of grass from growing as they
grow,
And when the leaves in summer time their verdure dare not show,
Then I will change the colour I wear in my caubeen;
But till that day, please God, I'll stick to wearin' of the
green.'"

Miss Kezia stood, unseen, unheard, within the door of the Stronghold, and gazed.

Round the table sat several men, women, and children. On the table were the remains of a feast. Miss Kezia caught sight of a beef bone and gasped; she saw poultry bones, remains of pies, tarts, and cakes. The windows were flung wide, but the atmosphere of the room, thick with smoke, offended her nostrils.

A pair of bare little legs gave a sudden spasmodic leap to a sheltering lap, and a shrill little voice exclaimed:--

"Lady!"

There was a sudden lull. Denis turned to his aunt.

"Hulloa, Aunt Kezia! These are a few friends we came across to-day."

"In--deed!" said Miss Kezia.

An old woman was heard to exclaim with deep sentiment:

"Sure 'tis his honour's a rale gintleman entirely!"

Miss Kezia, looking back afterwards, on the minutes that followed, marvelled angrily at her strange and quite unsuitable behaviour. She concluded, and rightly, that she was dazed with bewilderment at the welcome she received. To her cold and austere nature it was inexplicable. She found herself surrounded, called by terms of endearment, her hands held and shaken, compliments paid to herself and her nation. One old woman, half weeping over the joy that had been hers that day, actually kissed her hand. She was not a particularly clean old woman, and Miss Kezia wished that she wouldn't do it. But she did not draw her hand roughly away. "Ten years," wailed the old woman, "have I stood the whole day through beside me barrow, and me not able to put me foot to the ground with the rheumatics!"

Miss Kezia felt a passing inclination to point out that the two facts were not compatible. Oh, these people were awful! And one had a monkey, a horrible little monkey, sitting on his shoulder! And they were dirty!

"Sure 'tis herself's the kind lady, givin' the poor Irish immigrants the welcome!"

Welcome!

Miss Kezia began to beat an ignominious retreat. She had to confess herself unequal to the occasion. Her inclination set strongly toward turning these undesirable guests from her house. But their gratitude was so exuberant; they were so sure of her welcome, so childishly hilarious.

"'Tis herself's giving us the grand time entirely!"

"Won't ye be sittin' down wid us, me dear?" The old woman who had kissed her hand dragged a chair forward invitingly.

"'Tisn't much we've left ye," she pursued, "but ye'll be havin' a piece of cheese now?"

Miss Kezia heard, amazedly, her own voice making excuses, as she edged back into the doorway. A grimy little hand was thrust up in front of her; a beguiling little voice suggestively besought God to bless her.

Miss Kezia looked down into a smutty imp's face with eyes as blue and innocent as Heaven.

"God bless ye, lady! God bless ye, lady!"

Slowly Miss Kezia opened her purse, slowly she took from it a halfpenny, and dropped it into the little hand.

"God send ye a good husband, lady!" rang out jubilantly. "God guard every shtep of your way!"

Miss Kezia found herself surrounded suddenly by bare legs, blue eyes, outstretched hands, entreating voices.

"God bless ye, lady! God bless ye, lady!"

There were five halfpennies and two farthings in her purse. She dispensed them automatically.

"God send ye a good husband! God send ye a good husband!"

Even the smallest imp, a scrap of a thing, about a foot and a half high, shrilly called on Heaven to provide her with a suitable partner.

Miss Kezia looked uncomfortable. She shut her purse with a snap and retreated on to the landing. But they followed her, all talking at once. Her hands were taken again. Disconcerting questions as to her family, her parents, were asked. The old woman who had stood beside her barrow for ten years without once putting her foot to the ground broke out wailingly into an account of her trials, her sorrows, and pains. A black-bearded man gave her a picturesque presentment of his life as a father of eight children. His was the shoulder on which the objectionable monkey sat. He came close, emphasising, with dramatic gestures, his story. The monkey stretched out a thin little arm towards Miss Kezia's bonnet. Miss Kezia backed precipitately. Why did her bonnet possess a fascination for monkeys, she wondered shudderingly. She hated monkeys.

"Sure, thin, isn't he welcoming one of his own people?" the man with the black beard observed.

Miss Kezia thought the remark impertinent, and concluded that it was intended to be funny. It wasn't.

It gave her disapproval the necessary fillip, and she managed to beat a retreat. Once in her bedroom, she shut the door, and, with a hurried air not usual to her, turned the key in the lock.

Miss Kezia possessed an uncompromising conscience. She never allowed it to veil or excuse her motives. Yet, as she stood untying the strings of the bonnet that possessed such a weird attraction for the monkey tribe, she said to herself that she really must turn out and tidy a certain drawer at once. To an outsider the drawer would have seemed tidy enough, but Miss Kezia, sitting before it, the door still locked, methodically sorted out and refolded every article it contained. As she was refolding, for the third time, a certain scarf that was the last article to be tidied, the noise that had been surging, high and low, exuberant and sad, in her ears, as a never ceasing accompaniment to her tidying, suddenly swelled into sharper sounds, and she understood that the door of the Stronghold had been opened. She sat, rigid, a queer dread on her face. The dread gave place presently to absolute astonishment at the noise they managed to make. The rapid talk, the laughter, the jokes, bewildered her. The great affection that evidently existed between them and her young relatives surprised her.

"Old tenants," she surmised. "How very fond they are of their landlord's children!"

She experienced a distinct feeling of gratitude towards the Albert Hall, and the Irish concert that was to be held there that evening, and for which her relatives had taken tickets.

For a quarter of an hour by Miss Kezia's watch, the "tenants" bade their landlord's children good-bye. Three times the door was shut, three times there came bangs and thumps on it, and it was re-opened. And each time all the noise and talk began again.

Later on Miss Kezia ventured forth. On meeting the O'Briens, she observed with forbearance that she trusted they would make things tidy now that their father's tenants had gone. She went on to remark that it was strange so many of them should be in London. They were a good deal amused. They pointed out airily that they were no tenants of their father's; that they had never seen them till that day; that they had just come across them. It was the last shock poor Miss Kezia received on that 17th of March. She was very angry, and very genuinely bewildered. She watched them go off to their concert with a sense of relief. She felt a newly developed fondness for the Albert Hall.

*CHAPTER XXIX*

The day after St. Patrick's day was a bad one for them. It was a beautiful day, bright and cold; but, in the reactionary mood that had gripped them all in a great gloom, the very brightness was a thing to rail at.

At the breakfast-table Miss Kezia gazed at them astonished. She was not a keen observer, but even she, with the memory of yesterday in her mind, marvelled at the sudden depression.

Denis, in the hall, observed gloomily:--

"Wish I'd get run over, or save a millionnaire's life. Either'd make a break."

"Millionnaires only get their lives saved in books," Nell rejoined bitterly.

He kicked the hat-stand angrily.

"Look here, Nell, I can't go to that beastly bank to-day. I'm sick of it! I'll be committing suicide, or murder, or something, if I do!"

A quick little sob caught suddenly at her throat.

"Oh, Denis!" she whispered. "Oh, Denis!"

He smoothed out a dent he had made in his hat. He looked up at her, a humorous smile twisting his mouth.

"Anyhow, I'll be a success as an author soon," he said. "Didn't I say all this beastly bank business was copy? Well, my books'll be pretty morbid and sordid, won't they?"

She felt blindly for his coat; it danced before her eyes in a mist. He began to laugh.

"I say, old fumble-fist, wouldn't old Pom-Pom be rich while I was murdering him? I can see him--'Excuse me, Mr. O'Brien, but you really are going to work in an unnecessarily rough manner.'" He dived an arm into the coat she held out for him. "Nell--think I shall ever want to bring in a realistic murder into a book? If so, now's the time to get it."

"You're late. Don't dawdle."

"Bet I'd get to the corner before you even if I gave you the steps in!"

"Not you!"

She flung open the door, jumped the long flight of steps, and vanished. She came back laughing, flushed, and vanquished, into the disapproving arms of Miss Kezia.

She listened to the lecture that followed in a passion of dreary revolt. When it was finished she observed tragically, "Next time I'll put on a _veil_!"

She went upstairs to Molly and French translation. She set Sheila Pat a sum to work out. Sheila Pat sat and gazed awhile at the figures, then she slid down from her chair.

"I won't do it, Nell!" she said.

She stood, a small figure at bay; a little quiver passed through her.

"Very well, asthore," Nell said gently.

The Atom went to the window and looked out. She came back to the table.

"Give me something to do, please, Nell."

Molly began, "Why, you just said--"

"I'm not sayin' it now, Molly O'Brien!"

"Duckie," Nell said, "will you write me a letter? I just feel I'd like a letter."

Sheila Pat got paper and ink and began:--

"My dear Nell--"

She wrote for a few minutes, then she said:--.

"May I say I've no time to write any more now, Nell? I don't want to write any more."

She went down into the garden and quarrelled violently with Stewart over the rival merits of St. George and St. Patrick. In the very heart of the argument she slipped and grazed her nose on the wall. But she retrieved her position without loss of time or dignity, and went on with the argument.

Nell met her later wandering aimlessly up and down the stairs, in and out the rooms.

"Please don't touch me!" she said strenuously as Nell advanced, and she ran away down to the kitchen. At luncheon she hardly ate anything; she fidgeted, was rude to Miss Kezia.

Afterward she refused to go for a walk with the others. She said with forlorn dignity:--

"I am tired of walkin' between houses that squeeze you to death, thank you."

To omnibuses she made much the same objection. Nell, in pity, left her alone.

Later on Nell went out to buy a tube of rose-madder. She was painting desperately, in a sudden wild accession of determination to get back to Kilbrannan somehow. When she came back she found Molly deep in a book in the Stronghold.

"Where's the Atom?"

"Somewhere about."

Nell searched.

"She isn't."

"Oh, she's gone, then. I didn't know she'd gone yet. The maid came from next door to ask her to go to tea with Stewart."

"I'm glad."

A little before six Miss Kezia came into the Stronghold. Denis whisked Jim behind him, and faced her serenely.

"Molly, I wish to know if it is to you I am indebted for--these?"

She held out a pair of large, flat, square-toed shoes, and pointed majestically to two frivolous-looking little bows on their toes.

Molly grew scarlet.

"Y-yes, Aunt Kezia! I--I--"

"I thought so. I should like to know _why_ my property is never to be safe from you?"

"I--I saw--I saw there _had_ been bows--and I--I made fresh ones--"

"Yes. I picked the bows off myself. I object to them." She stared at Molly with a puzzled frown. "You are a very peculiar girl," she said, and left the room.

"I took _hours_ sewing them on!" wailed the discomfited Molly to an unsympathetic and much-amused audience.

"I believe our dear aunt thinks you're a bit wanting," declared Denis, tapping his brow.

Miss Kezia put her head round the door again

"Where is Sheila?"

"She hasn't come back yet."

"Come back? From where?"

"Next door," said Nell.

"What has she gone there for? I object to her running in and out."

"She went to tea."