THE YOUNG O'BRIENS

BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR SOJOURN IN LONDON

By the author of "ELIZABETH'S CHILDREN"

[Transcriber's note: Margaret Westrup]

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY, MDCCCCVI

Copyright, 1906 BY JOHN LANE COMPANY

The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

By the same Author

ELIZABETH'S CHILDREN Fifth Edition

HELEN ALLISTON

THE YOUNG O'BRIENS

CHAPTER I

Inside the hired omnibus there was a dead silence. Outside the rain lashed drearily against the window panes. From the corner where Molly sat there came a dismal, despairing sniffle, drowned, before its finish, by Denis's superlatively cheerful voice.

"Sure, 'tis a rough night entirely!" he observed airily.

Nell gave a sudden quick little laugh with a queer end to it.

"So it is!" she said, and her effort after cheerfulness gave the remark a surprised tone, as if she had not noticed before that the night was rough.

Sheila Pat sat silent in her corner, her slim little body stiff and erect, a bag and a box clutched tight in her small arms. Afterwards, later that night, she found that her arms ached. There was desperation in that tight clutch of the bag and the box.

Suddenly Mr. O'Brien spoke; he recognised the futility of ignoring what was in everyone's mind.

"Well," he said, "a year soon passes, after all, and I hope we shall be back in about ten or eleven months."

"But—but not—" came a watery stammer from Molly's corner, but Nell broke in hurriedly.

"I—I wonder will you look different, dad?"

"Oh, yes," her mother laughed the pretty laugh that was just like Nell's, "I shall be a horrid, stout old woman! Even Sheila Pat won't acknowledge me then!"

Sheila Pat said nothing.

Mrs. O'Brien squeezed Nell's fingers tightly. There was another silence. There was nothing to say. Everything had been said over and over again. The wind sent the rain beating angrily against the closed windows. The omnibus jolted and jarred over the road.

A hoarse shout smote on their ears, and the driver's whip flicked one of the panes.

Denis jumped up and let down the small window in front. Then shouting began; the wind howled derisively, drowning their voices. The driver's hoarse yells, and Denis's impatient shouts, asked and answered questions over and over again. At last Denis drew in his head:

"If that's a specimen of the London driver, I don't think much of 'em! The wind didn't get at you, did it, mother?"

"No, dear, your broad shoulders kept it off."

"Does he seem to understand the way now?" Mr. O'Brien queried.

"I wouldn't like to answer for him. I've explained till I'm hoarse, but the damp seems to have got to his brain—it won't work—rusty, you know."

"Isn't his voice funny?" observed Nell, doing her duty manfully.

"Drivers often have those hoarse voices," responded her father, and for just as long as they could make it last, they used that driver as a topic of conversation. Certainly he did not seem of much use for any other purpose.

It was not long before there came another flick against the window, and on Denis putting forth his head, there ensued more shouts and yells. In a lull of the wind the driver waxed sentimentally despairing. "Never been to these 'ere East Lunnon docks afore—eh, sir? Wot? Which turning? Can't see no turning. It ain't a night as I'd turn a pore blessed cat out—much less a respectable fambly man with little children dependant on 'im! Eh, sir? Can't 'ear, sir! Wot? Poplar? Ain't nowhere's near Poplar!"

Denis drew in his head.

"Of all the old fools! I'd better go up on to the box and direct him. I know my way better than he does, anyway, though I've only been to the docks once."

"It's raining so, Denis," his mother put in.

"But we don't want the death from exposure of the respectable fambly man on our consciences, do we, mother? Not to mention the touching little children—"

It ended in his exit to the box. Nell watched him go with wide, strained eyes; she crushed down a strong impulse to clutch at his coat. Without her twin she felt feeble and deserted.

When the omnibus stopped at last outside the dock gates, no one made a movement towards getting out. Long and dreary as that drive had been, each one, looking out at those gates looming so big and grim in the dim light cast by a solitary lamp, wished it could begin all over again. The parting grew, at that jolting stop, suddenly, acutely nearer. In spite of the dread of it, perhaps no one had quite realised it. To get out of the omnibus was to give it a hideous reality. A cautious voice demanded their business. Denis appeared at the door. One by one they left the omnibus. The policeman, to whom the cautious voice belonged, let them through a wicket; then began a dreary march in the dark; the wind sent the rain beating against them in angry little gusts. Laden with bundles and packages, they stumbled along in the dense darkness, treading into puddles, splashing, slipping. There were no friendly lamps to cast a warning glimmer on the deep puddles left by the rain in the holes of the uneven ground. They could barely distinguish the form of the diminutive guide with whom the policeman had provided them. But they could hear him. He was a small, sharp-looking boy, who heeded neither rain nor wind nor dark, but trudged along, in and out the puddles, up and down the hillocks, emitting a kind of dismal whistling below his breath.

Nell laughed suddenly with an overdone hilarity.

"The water's trickling down my neck!"

Denis seconded her with, "It's running a regular cascade off my hat rim!"

Then the Atom spoke; it was the first remark she had made since they had started from Miss Kezia's house in Henley Road.

"Isn't is London?" she said.

Her father was amused.

"You know, we do see rain occasionally at home," he observed.

"There's rain and rain!" the Atom declared sapiently, and relapsed again into her dour silence.

Molly, with a sudden sob, put the fear that was in everyone's mind into words.

"It's—awfully bad—for mother!"

"Oh, I shall be all right, dear," Mrs. O'Brien insisted with tired cheerfulness.

"I've a good mind to drop my bag and carry you!" her husband declared.

"Oh, Owen, what a first appearance for the wife of the ship's surgeon! Let me at least be dignified."

Beyond the small figure of their guide the Albany loomed, slowly taking shape in the dark, big, very mysterious.

"I bet we came to the wrong entrance," Denis observed.

Mr. O'Brien handed the guide a tip. "I'm afraid we did," he said.

The guide disappeared with a "thankysir"; a steward's head bobbed up from the hatchway and shouted out directions. Mr. O'Brien and Denis helped the others along a wet, slippery board, and over the ship's side.

The saloon looked more cheerful; deserted as it was, it wore quite a festive air after the wet and darkness outside.

In the cabin they hung up a few things, to give it a more homelike air, and because it was easier to do something than not. They procured coffee from the steward, but no one wanted it. Everyone pretended they did, except Sheila Pat, who never pretended. Mrs. O'Brien made her drink it.

"You are cold and wet, dear; it—I—will—"

She stopped abruptly. Nell saw and understood. She went close.

"I—I will take care of her—" she whispered.

She had promised it so often, but Mrs. O'Brien turned to her gratefully.

"Yes, dear," she said; her eyes went from Nell back again hungrily to the bit of brow and head that Sheila Pat's big coffee cup left exposed.

"I know you will, Nell," she said gently, and kissed her.

Several other passengers had arrived and sat or stood about the saloon and cabins with an air of unsettledness, of uncertainty. The last minute came suddenly at the end. There was a sort of breathless rush; injunctions, good-byes, forcedly hopeful prognostications.

"A year soon passes!" Mr. O'Brien said again.

A little later they were in the omnibus once more. There were gaps now; there was so much room to move about. Those gaps gave a poignant reality to the loneliness.

In Nell's mind there grew up a dull wonder whether anyone could conceivably think that a year soon passes. To her the coming year stretched long and interminable; at the moment she was incapable of looking beyond it. Father and mother were gone, and home was gone too. The wonder passed, and with aching iteration there dinned in her ears—"So long as the shamrock's growing in Ireland, will there be O'Briens in Kilbrannan." It was a prediction of an old gipsy's. She had given it when telling Denis his fortune. That was last year, barely a year ago, and now—Nell's lips curled with a sudden bitterness that made her young, soft face look, for the moment, older—now there were strangers in their home, and no O'Briens in Kilbrannan. She wondered tragically how it was possible to live through months such as they had lived through. Looking back, the failure of the bank in which most of her father's money had been placed, and which had been the first misfortune to fall upon them, seemed a small calamity. She remembered the shock of it, the sorrow, with surprise now. What though they had been obliged to retrench, to pinch and try to learn the lesson of economy, they had still their home and were not separated. The grief of parting with old servants, with some of the horses, had been sharp. But they had still dear old Patsy; they had O'Leary and Gretta; and they had—Nell's breath caught suddenly—they had Acushla, the Colleen Bawn. Her thoughts chased each other over those unhappy months. The day when her mother had so suddenly been taken ill stood out, sharp and grim. She remembered the anxious worry she had experienced when she saw that in spite of the doctor's hopeful words, in spite of the daily improvement in the invalid, her father's face refused to lighten. She

remembered the slow growth of suspicion in her mind, so that when at last he asked her and Denis to come into the study one day, she knew they were to hear some bad news. Denis knew it too, but in their worst prognostications they had never given one thought to the possibility of having to give up their home for awhile. Even when their father had told them, they could not comprehend quite. Nell remembered how she had stood staring stupidly at the binding of one of Ruskin's works in the book-case, where a ray of sunlight shone on it. She had found herself saying, "Sesame and Lilies." Then her eyes had followed the ray of sunshine to the windows—beyond the windows. She gave a little shudder at the memory of that moment of sudden, sharp realisation. The study faced east; its windows looked out on to great boulders of grey rock that led in a long uneven slope to the seaweed-covered rocks and the sea. The heather had been out then; the boulders were covered with it; there was a little mist in the air, so that the grey and purple mingled in a lovely haze of colour. The sea-gulls and the gannets were quarrelling over something; their voices came in at the open windows. The scent of the seaweed had come to her, too; and quite suddenly she had understood that they were to leave it all. Her father had gone on speaking; she had felt vaguely sorry for him, as she listened to his halting speech and saw the strained look on his face. But in those first minutes nothing was of moment, nothing was real, save the crushing blow that they were to leave their home; that they were to go away; that strangers were to live in it. But presently she realised that he was trying to prepare them for some further bad news. She had smiled at his thinking it necessary to prepare them; nothing

mattered now. Denis had had the same feeling. He had broken into his father's speech abruptly, roughly:—

"Tell us what it is. What does it matter, anyway?"

But Mr. O'Brien had gone on skirting the subject, preparing them.

"I have been anxious for months about those mine shares. They have gone down and down, and now they have ceased to pay any dividends at all."

He had said it before, had explained that it was because of these shares that they must let their home.

Denis said, surprised, "The Rêve d'or shares?"

"Why, yes! Oh, you mean I've told you that already? But I thought they were such a good investment—" he broke off, and walked quickly to the window.

"Your mother isn't getting her strength back," he said suddenly.

They realised at once that there were still things that mattered. He went on quickly: "You needn't be anxious. Oh, no! But Dr. O'Donovan—" he broke off, and started afresh. "You know that, as a young man, I didn't expect to come into this—" he waved his hand impatiently around. There was an air about him now of wanting to get it over as quickly as possible; an irritated impatience made his words hurried.

"Well, you know, I studied medicine. I was a qualified doctor. It's all settled. I've got the post. There's no other way. Dr. O'Donovan says your mother must have a sea voyage. We can't afford it. I've got the post of surgeon on the Albany—starts at end of October for Australia—sailing ship."

They knew it all at last. Thinking it over now, Nell was struck with the difference there had been from his usual manner of speaking. She knew now what it had cost him to tell them. Then she had been too absorbed in her horror to think much of anything beyond the news he had told them.

After that, in the weeks that followed, there had been the cruel carrying into effect of the news. There had been much wearisome talk. Amongst it Nell remembered one thing that had been clear and definite at once. That was Denis's determination to do some sort of work. Mr. O'Brien wished him to study shorthand and type-writing, with a literary future in view. But Denis refused, beyond agreeing to study them in his spare time. For the rest he intended to do work that would have remuneration attached to it. Already he was fired with hope and ambition to turn the strangers from their home. Mr. O'Brien secured him a position as a clerk in a London bank, the manager of which had been a schoolfellow of his. Nell cried miserably because she wasn't a boy. Denis shook her, and painted, in glowing colours, the great academy picture that in a few years' time was to win her fame and fortune. But two or three years seemed such an interminable time that, mostly, her mind refused to grasp the thought.

There had been much discussion as to where they should stay while their parents were away. They were singularly destitute of relations. They had some cousins in America, and an aunt by marriage in London. They had never seen the aunt; but she happened to live near the bank where Denis had found employment. She had lately lost her mother, and with her the annuity that had helped to pay the rent of the house. She wrote suggesting that they should come to her. After much worried discussion it was settled that they should live with her for the time. Mr. O'Brien paid a small sum for their maintenance in advance, and they faced the thought of a house in a street in London.

Sheila Pat, before she left Kilbrannan, laid out a burying-ground. She dug with a dogged face, and a mind black with pictures of a London where it was always foggy—where there were nothing but muddy pavements; roads crowded with poor tired horses carrying loads too heavy for them; and tall houses packed so close together that you were stifled. She refused to lighten the picture by the admittance into it of so much as one blade of grass. She chose a spot for her burying-ground close by the little stream that gurgled so softly sometimes and roared and rushed at others. The smooth piece of grass, just by the boulders that turned the stream into a little cascade, was sheltered on the other side by a hill that rose up—grey rock, purple heather, bracken, and grass—till it seemed to meet the sky. There Sheila Pat buried her treasures. She had always scorned dolls; only once had she been presented with a doll, and within the day it had been mercilessly drowned. But she had many treasures, and she buried them, in an agony of renunciation. "Here you will have the heather and the stream, and when the wind blows from the west you'll get the scent of the turf smoke from Biddy's cottage." She laid a large and grinning monkey tenderly down beside a one-legged driver. "Oh, my dears, and when the wind's in the east, you'll get the sea,"—she hid her face in a passion of woe—"and you'll be hearing the trees whisp'rin' and singin' and your Sheila Pat far away in a great, dirty London, dead with stiflin', and only streets to walk in!"

She hugged up to her bosom a jaunty jockey, who had lost an eye and a nose.

"I'll put you on Mavourneen—your own Mavourneen—who won the Dalgerry race for you." She seized up Mavourneen and hugged her too. "You won't mind waitin' for me, under the earth; for isn't it Irish earth, Mavourneen? And weren't you born and bred on it? But I was, too! Oh, I was, too!"

The old grey rock and the heather looked down upon a prone Atom—prone and shaking in a storm of bitter weeping—midst dogs and horses, jockeys, monkeys, and jaunting-car drivers.

No one intruded on her there. Sheila Pat had not been known to cry since her babyhood. She scorned tears; no physical hurt could break down her sturdy self-control. In those last days she was often a ludicrous Atom. Grave, self-contained, her pig-tail immaculate, she would emerge from the burying-ground, facing the world with a brave little countenance and all unaware that it was adorned with patches and streaks of dirt.

The pig-tail was generally crooked, but that was merely because Sheila Pat invariably plaited it herself. No one would do it for her; they did not approve of her mode of dressing her hair, but the Atom clung obstinately to her pig-tail, and serenely wore it over her left shoulder.

Nell, in the omnibus, glanced across at the small, still figure opposite her; a great ache seized her throat.

Suddenly Denis made a valiant effort. He broke the silence with a jocose—

"This rivals Dinny O'Sullivan's donkey barrow! My teeth are fairly rattling in my boots!"

Nell said "yes" with weary dutifulness.

The silence fell again. He rubbed his brow, and recognised the uselessness of worrying them with such palpably unreal cheerfulness. All his castles in Spain were, for the time being, razed to the ground. With the O'Briens there was no possibility of a story or two tumbling; the whole edifice had to tower to the skies or fall flat to the ground. The omnibus drew up outside No. 35, Henley Road. They got out, and stood a moment—a forlorn little group—looking at the tall, narrow house, with, to their eyes, such an unhappy air of being wedged in too tightly between the two neighbouring houses.

"Run in and knock, while I pay up," Denis admonished them.

They trailed slowly up the flight of steps. Nell knocked. There was a pause; then they heard a step approaching the door. With a sudden spasmodic burst of awakened conscience and courage Nell drew herself erect and tried to achieve a smile.

The rattle of bars and chains that heralded the opening of the door was hideous to their unaccustomed ears; it shocked them with its clang of inhospitality—its suggestion of suspicion.

Miss Kezia opened the door a cautious inch or two and peered out. Her face appeared to them, against the light, very long and very black.

"It's you," she said; "come in."

Nell faltered, calling together all her stock of politeness, "I'm sorry that you had to sit up for us."

Miss Kezia waved it aside with a curt response that a little loss of sleep would not hurt her.

There was porridge waiting for them in the dining room. Too wretched, too apathetic to make the necessary stand against it, they sat down to the table and tried to eat.