Читать книгу Doreen, The Story of a Singer - Ada Ellen Bayly - Страница 4

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"A voice of ... heavenly sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it which you have heard in the thrush's even-song."—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"Her name is Doreen," said Max Hereford, laying emphatic stress on the last syllable. "Why do you insist on calling her the little Colleen Bawn?"

"Because she invariably wears that red 'Colleen Bawn' cloak," replied his cousin Miriam, with a gleam of amusement in her dark eyes. "Probably, like charity, it hides a multitude of sins, for I fancy the O'Ryans are very poor and of the shabby genteel sort. My old French governess would have called the cloak a 'Couvre douleur.'"

"Who are you speaking about, my dear?" said Mrs. Hereford, looking up from her embroidery frame.

"Why, aunt, about the little Irish girl that Mr. Desmond and Max take such delight in studying. We found her in difficulties one day with Mr. Foxell's dog, which was frightening her small brother nearly into fits, and ever since Max has done nothing but rave about her charming little touch of the brogue and her bewitching voice. Several times she has been out in the boat with us, and I have been obliged, in consequence, to play the unpleasant part of second fiddle."

"She is a child of twelve years old, mother," said Max, leaving John Desmond, his tutor, to enter a protest against Miriam's last sentence, "the jolliest little girl you ever saw. She and her mother are lodging at that gray house not far from the lodge. Michael—that's the small boy—had been ill, and the mother seems to be half an invalid."

"You should have told me of her before," said Mrs. Hereford. "She might have been glad to borrow books, for this lonely country place must be dull for an invalid. Is she as Irish as her daughter?"

"No: on the contrary, she is English, and seems quiet and reserved, and as if she had lived through a lot of trouble. I can't make out much about the father, except that they are to join him in a few weeks' time; I fancy he is a literary man of some sort: Doreen spoke once about his writing."

"It is a very curious name," said Mrs. Hereford.

"It makes one think of a soup tureen," said Miriam, naughtily. "Though Max will declare that it is the most beautiful old Irish name in existence. Nothing offends him more than to lay the accent on the first syllable. If I call the child Dor-een, he says it sounds like the feminine of John Dory."

"She certainly has the most beautiful voice," said John Desmond. "Could we not make her sing to Mrs. Hereford?"

Miriam clapped her hands with delight at the suggestion.

"The very thing," she exclaimed, "to pass away this dull afternoon. See, it does not rain so very fast, and I am sure that cloak must be waterproof. Do go and fetch her, Max, and tell her that I am shut in with a bad cold, and want to be amused."

"Stay; I had better write to Mrs. O'Ryan. It is hardly civil not to explain to her that I am unable just now to call upon her; and, Max, you can take down the new 'Contemporary'; she might like to see it," said Mrs. Hereford, turning from her embroidery frame to a cosy little writing-table that stood by the hearth.

The mother and son were not unlike each other. Each had the same well-cut features, and warm English colouring; and though Mrs. Hereford's light brown hair was flecked with gray, her eyes were almost as bright and frank as her son's. They were eyes which, once seen, could never be forgotten, owing to their curious colour, which some people called light hazel, and others yellow, but which all agreed in praising. Mrs. Hereford had the ready wit and the strong character which not unfrequently accompany a delicate physique. She was often unable to take any part in active life, but she had never for a single day ceased to guide and influence Max, and had contrived somehow, during the long years of her widowhood, not to spoil him. Others had done their best, it is true, to flatter and make much of the young heir of Monkton Verney, but the mother had loved him well enough to deny herself the pleasure of indulging him to her heart's content, and had done her best to mitigate the flattery of others.

"You must not make him a prig," she had protested when his godmother had showered down upon him "treasuries of devotion" and manuals of self-examination.

"You shall not over-amuse him and make him blasé before he is of age," she had said plainly to Colonel Hereford, his uncle and guardian, whose idea of making a schoolboy happy was to fill his pockets with money, let him fare sumptuously every day, and take him to the play every night.

Max was now eighteen; in October he was to go up to Oxford, and for some months John Desmond had been coaching him. It was partly in order that he might have more time for reading that Mrs. Hereford had given up the usual summer visit to Switzerland, and had taken for three months an old castle in the South of Ireland, far removed from distractions of any sort, and in the heart of a wild, mountainous district. She had brought her niece with her as a companion; and Miriam, tired with her first London season, was glad enough to rest and read novels, to amuse herself in a cousinly fashion with Max, and to enjoy the tutor's silent admiration. Life, as yet, was not at all a serious thing to her; she was just playing with it in a happy, contented fashion, with a firm conviction that the future must infallibly be better than the present, and a comfortable sense of success and self-satisfaction to buoy her up.

The little, dreary, gray house at which the O'Ryans were staying stood at the foot of a mountain called Kilrourk, and was not more than five minutes' walk from the gates of Castle Karey. Max, having inquired for Mrs. O'Ryan, was ushered by the unkempt but pleasant-looking landlady into a room in which the chairs and tables were pushed about in wild disorder, while on the back of the old-fashioned horsehair sofa sat a little girl with her arms tied behind her and a pair of tongs uncomfortably dangling from them.

"God save Ireland!" she cried. Whereupon the small boy who mounted guard beside her, with a tin pot for a helmet and a brand-new sixpenny sword, silenced her in the most peremptory fashion.

"Faith, children, and whativer is it that you are afther, at all, at all!" exclaimed the landlady. "Here is a gintleman from the Castle come to see the misthress."

Doreen, who had been sitting with her back to the door, started up, the fire-irons about her hands and feet clanking dismally, while the dragoon, who was of a timid nature, drooped his head shyly, whereupon the tin pot fell with a clatter to the ground.

"I can't shake hands with you," said Doreen, her blue eyes dancing with merriment. "We are playing prisoners, and I'm heavily ironed."

"And who is this?" said Max, patting Michael's head reassuringly.

"He's an English dragoon guarding me. I'm John Mitchel, and have got fourteen years' transportation. This sofa is the prison van, and we are driving from the court, and just now I saw a great crowd and asked where the people were going, and he—the dragoon—told me they were going to a flower show. You know they really did say that to Mitchel; but it was a lie—the people had come because they loved him."

"My mother has sent a note to Mrs. O'Ryan, asking if you will come to the Castle," said Max. "Should you be afraid of the rain?"

"Oh, not of the rain," said Doreen, loftily; "but you see I can't very well leave home, for my mother is lying down with one of her bad headaches."

"But perhaps the house would be quieter if you came," said Max. Then, seeing that he had said quite the wrong thing, "I mean, of course, if you brought the dragoon with you."

"It's my birthday," said Michael, rather dismally, "and we was going to pop corn over the kitchen fire."

"We have a fire in the drawing-room, summer though it is," said Max; "that old place is as cold as a barn. Bring your corn with you, and you shall show me how to do it. And there are real helmets and swords there which you will like to see."

The armour settled the question, and before long Max and the two children were walking along the dripping avenue which led down to Castle Karey.

"Here they are, mother," he said, taking them straight into the drawing-room; and Mrs. Hereford, looking up somewhat curiously, saw a little red-cloaked figure, with a parcel tucked under one arm, and a small boy clinging to the other.

Doreen was small for her age; she scarcely looked more than ten years old. She had a little pale, winsome face, and a thick bush of dark brown hair; her blue eyes were shaded by long and singularly black lashes; and the face was of that pure Irish type, oval in shape, with rather high cheek-bones, finely moulded chin, and sweet but firm mouth, so often to be met with in the South and West.

"I am glad you could come," said Mrs. Hereford, greeting the little couple kindly; "I hope you did not get very wet."

"Thank you, no; it is such a little way: but if you will let me take Michael into the hall, I will change his boots; he had bronchitis last month, and we have to be careful with him."

There was something so captivating in the silvery voice, with its sweet modulations, and in the little motherly air with which the child glanced at Michael, that Mrs. Hereford bent clown and kissed her.

"I hope you have your own shoes, too, in that parcel," she said.

"No," said Doreen, "I forgot my own; but it doesn't matter, because I am quite strong, you see."

"Miriam, dear, you will take them both to your room," said Mrs. Hereford, "and see if you cannot find some slippers." And Miriam, who was the most good-natured person possible, took charge of the two children, and had soon made even shy Michael quite at his ease.

Doreen looked wonderingly around the great panelled drawing-room when she returned, never having seen before such quaint old oak furniture, such marvellous crewel work of ancient design, such stores of old-world china. Her little eager face delighted Mrs. Hereford.

"Do you like it?" she said. "We have all taken a fancy to this room."

"I never saw such a beautiful story-book place before," said Doreen, "and it all smells so lovely and old."

They laughed, but well understood what she meant; for, indeed, the whole Castle had that old-time atmosphere which, indescribable as it is, lends such a charm to the homes of generations gone by.

"Do you think you could sing to my mother?" said Max. "I want her very much to hear the song you gave us in the boat last week."

"You mean 'She is far from the land,'" said Doreen; "but the worst of it is, that is almost sure to make Michael cry: he seems to think it means I am going to die when that bit comes, 'Oh, make her a grave.' It is very funny, for he never cries at 'Kathleen O'More.'"

"You don't sing that with the tears in your voice," said Michael; "but I will promise not to cry, if directly after you will sing, ''Tis no time to take a wife.'"

"What a lugubrious choice," said Miriam, laughing.

"Ah! but he did take a wife in spite of them all," said Doreen. "You will see."

And with a happy freedom from nervousness, partly caused by her youth and simplicity, and partly by the kindly, uncritical faces around her, she began to sing.

Her voice, though as yet untrained and immature, was clear and sweet as a bird's. It rang through the old room; it thrilled through Mrs. Hereford's heart with a strange inexplicable power, it softened Miriam's bright eyes, it lighted up John Desmond's thoughtful face, and it filled Max with exultation. It seemed to him that the voice was in some sense his; he delighted in having been the one to discover such a treasure in this lonely Irish hamlet.

No one was surprised that little Michael had to fight gallantly in order to keep his promise. He sat with his funny little face rigidly fixed, lips pressed together, eyes staring hard at the painting of the Battle of the Boyne on the opposite wall, while in his mind he was saying, "I'm six years old. I must give up crying."

But it was all very well to theorize in this fashion; the fact remained that most of the grown-up folk had tears in their eyes when Doreen sang,—

"She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,

Ev'ry note which he loved awaking:

Ah! little they think who delight in her strains

How the heart of the minstrel is breaking.

"He had lived for his love, for his country he died,

They were all that to life had entwin'd him;—

Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,

Nor long will his love stay behind him."

"Who is it all about?" asked Miriam, at the end.

"Father told me it was about Miss Curran who was betrothed to Robert Emmet," said Doreen.

"And who was Robert Emmet?"

The child opened her eyes wide, with an air of such naïve surprise that no one could possibly have been offended by the astonished question that escaped her.

"Didn't they teach Irish history at your school? Why, Robert Emmet was one of our greatest patriots! They hung him; Michael and I often go up the Castle steps at Dublin, and he is buried there behind a high wall on the left as you go up. Of course we can't see over, you know, and there would be nothing but grass to see if we could. It is waiting, as he wished, for its epitaph, till Ireland takes her place among the nations of the earth."

She paused, glanced anxiously at Michael's brimming eyes, and soon made them all laugh with the blithe song,—

"'Tis no time to take a wife, honest John O'Grady.

When the land is filled with strife, gallant John O'Grady.

Who can think of beauty's charms, in the midst of war's alarms?

'That can I, to be sure!' said fearless John O'Grady."

Her humour was equal to her pathos, and they all realized that a child with such gifts had in all probability a great career before her. And yet, somehow, it was hard to think of a public life for that little, simple, innocent-faced girl. She was so fresh and sweet and pure that Mrs. Hereford shrank from the thought of what she might become in that wearing struggle for fame which is the greatest test of character.

"Where do you get your voice from?" she asked, drawing the child down to the sofa beside her. "Is your mother musical?"

"No; but my father sings well, though he has never been taught. He says I shall be taught when we go to America."

"You are going to leave Ireland, then?"

"Yes," said Doreen, sighing. "As soon as father comes back."

"You will be sorry to leave your country, I am sure," said Mrs. Hereford. "But perhaps your father has been preparing a nice home for you over in America?"

Doreen's blue eyes opened wide, with a puzzled expression.

"I—I thought you knew," she said. "He is in Portland Prison."

There was a moment's silence. Then Max struck in quickly, to the relief of every one else.

"For his political views, no doubt," he said.

"Oh yes," rejoined Doreen quickly, her colour rising, "of course not for anything wrong. It is because he loved Ireland, and because he is a Fenian."

"And he will soon be with you again?" asked Mrs. Hereford gently, taking the child's hot little hand in hers, as she spoke, with a tender, comforting clasp that seemed like a caress.

"He will be free almost directly now," said Doreen, her eyes lighting up. "We are to meet him at Queenstown and to sail for New York. It seems such a long, long time since he went away, though. Of course we go to see him now and then, but it is, oh, so tantalizing. For the first few weeks we used to see him every day in Richmond Prison, and then in Kilmainham; but after the trial he was sent to England, for fear the Irish people should rescue him."

"Has he been in prison a long time?" asked John Desmond.

"About five years," said Doreen. "Michael can't remember the time when he lived at home. Of course he was quite a baby; but I was seven, and can remember just how he looked the morning they arrested him. He had not been to bed at all that night, because mother was ill, and he was too anxious to leave her. He had been writing letters in her room, and by and bye came downstairs to say she was asleep; and he let me seal his letters, and afterwards I sat on his knee, making patterns on my arm with the seal he wore on his watch-chain. It had a cross and an anchor, and was shaped like a shamrock leaf. I suppose we were talking and laughing together; for we never heard what was going on till all at once three men came into the room, and one of them strode up to my father, and thrusting his hand between us laid it on father's shoulder and told him that he arrested him, and showed him a paper. At first I wasn't frightened, only surprised. I didn't understand what they were talking about; but when I looked into father's face, I began to be terrified, for it had quite changed. I think he was full of anger and grief. They let him go upstairs with one of the men to say good-bye to my mother, and the men who were left took up all the letters that were on the table where I had been sealing them, and turned out father's desk and hunted everywhere for papers. But when I began to cry, one of them was very kind to me; he looked so sorry for me that I've always sort of liked policemen since. He said, 'Don't cry, my pretty little maid.'

"Then father came down once more, and his face was changed again—it looked very still and strong; he took me up in his arms and kissed me a great many times, and when he said, 'Take care of mother and little Michael till I come back,' his voice was changed, too, so that I hardly knew it."

Remembering the injunction to take care of Michael, she glanced round with an uneasy consciousness that he was too quiet, and began to make many apologies when she found that he had emptied his little paper bag of corn on to the hearth rug and was carefully choosing out the largest grains. It was something of a relief to turn from the startling story of the Fenian father to the children's funny explanation of the mysteries of corn-popping. "It's the way you find out if your friendships are going to last," said Doreen, as Miriam set on the fire the little copper skillet for which she had asked. "There is a grain of corn for each of us, and now we must choose pairs. You must choose first," and she looked up at her hostess, her blue eyes no longer sad with memories, but brimming over with laughter and enjoyment of the game.

"I will choose Michael," said Mrs. Hereford.

"And I will choose Mr. Desmond," said Miriam, with a coquettish glance at the tutor.

"Then that means that we two are together," said Doreen, composedly, drawing Max towards the hearth and making him drop his grain of corn into the skillet beside hers. "Now we must watch and see how they pop."

The first to go were Mrs. Hereford's and Michael's; they popped just as they should have done, inside the skillet.

"You and I will be friends for ever and ever," said the child, clapping his hands. "I wonder if you'll be so lucky, Doreen."

"No," said the little sister. "It hardly ever comes that more than one pair are lucky. Ah, there goes Mr. Desmond! Sure, and it's you that will be breaking your friendship; for it popped outside and flew right towards you, and there goes the other popping inside. It will be all your fault. What a long time ours do take. At last! there they go! Oh dear, dear! No luck at all for us; our grains both popped outside! That means that we shall both agree to separate. I'm never lucky at corn-popping unless I pair with Michael, and we always stay friends."

"Then I shall make hay while the sun shines," said Max, laughing. "And to-morrow you must come again with us in the boat."