Читать книгу Doreen, The Story of a Singer - Ada Ellen Bayly - Страница 8

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"Be my epitaph writ on my country's mind,

'He served his country, and loved mankind.' " —Thomas Davis.

"How much time do you give me, doctor?"

The questioner lay in one of the berths of a stateroom on an Atlantic steamer; he was a man of sixty, though his deeply lined face and silvery hair made him look older. His hollow cheeks and emaciated form told their own tale, and so did the over-bright eyes, which now looked keenly into the doctor's embarrassed face.

"I fear, Mr. O'Ryan, that the time is but short,—that you can scarcely hope to reach England."

The sick man laughed.

"And I don't know that I should break my heart about that," he said in a tone free from all bitterness, and full of a humour which at such a time struck the doctor as pathetic. "England, you know, was my prison house for five years. Will I live to reach Queenstown, do you think?"

The doctor shook his head.

"My dear sir, if you will have the plain truth, I fear that it is but a question of hours. Is there anything I can do for you?"

The dying man sighed. "Send Doreen to me," he said, "and tell my wife that I am now free from pain. Is there no possibility of letting me see her?"

"I am sorry, but it is out of the question," said the doctor decidedly. "For the children's sake, you would not let her run any risk. I will send your daughter to you."

Patrick O'Ryan thanked him courteously, and lay with closed eyes, musing over the past, certain lines of patient endurance first traced by the years in Portland Prison becoming more distinctly visible about his mouth. He had faced death too often to fear it, and the manner of his death pleased him well enough. He knew that he should take his place in that long line of patriots who have laid down their lives for Ireland. Nearly six years ago he had come out of gaol with his health undermined,—now with unexpected suddenness the end had come, just as he was leaving America for London, there to embark on fresh and congenial work, and to enjoy Doreen's first appearance as a public singer.

The sound of some one at the door made him open his keen blue eyes. He saw at a glance that the doctor had told his daughter the truth; for Doreen's face, which had been singularly young and girlish for her eighteen years, had strangely altered; it was stamped now with a look of grief and care which went to his heart.

"Child," he said, taking her hand in his, "you must not fret over me. Is there a priest on board?"

"No, father," she said, with deep regret; for she knew that he, as a devout Roman Catholic, would feel the deprivation in a way which she, who had been brought up to share her mother's opinions, could not fully enter into.

"Well, it can't be helped," he replied. "It sometimes happens on the battle-field that two soldiers have to confess to each other." And with his hands folded between hers he made his shrift.

"Oh, if I, too, could tell father what happened at Lough Lee!" thought Doreen. "Might I rightly break my oath to ask advice of one who is leaving the world?"

The temptation was strong, but she thought of Max Hereford's words in the fernery, and was silent. Gradually, too, all her thoughts became absorbed in her father's words; when he had ended, there was a long silence. Nothing was to be heard save the swish of the waves against the steamer, and the ceaseless throbbing of the engine, which to her fancy seemed eternally playing the tune of "God save Ireland." There had been something pathetic in the extreme simplicity of the confession to which she had listened. This rebel, who had twice tried unsuccessfully to free his country from oppression, failing because he had tried in mistaken ways and before the times were ripe,—had not only the devoted courage which characterizes the pioneers of all great movements, but he had, what is much more rare, a perfectly childlike faith.

"I have been thinking," he said, "it will save much trouble if my funeral be at sea. Don't shrink so, mavourneen. What does it matter? I would sooner lie at the bottom of the Atlantic than in an English grave, and it would be but an ill opening for your public career, to have all the Irish in Liverpool trooping to the funeral of O'Ryan the ex-convict."

"We shall touch at Queenstown," she faltered.

"Yes; and were Ireland freed from her chains, I might feel differently. As it is—let me be buried at sea. Some day when this new scheme ripens, and Home Rule brings peace to our land, why, you can build me a fine monument at Glasnevin in the O'Connell circle." He smiled and stroked her cheek. "Oh, it's great things I expect of you," he added tenderly, while her tears fell fast. "Your voice and your good courage will serve the children in this strait, and will serve old Ireland, too, if I mistake not. Do you remember the last time we were together at Glasnevin? It was but a few days before my arrest; I taught you to know the blackbird's note, and we looked together at the graves of the patriots, and you learnt Ellen O'Leary's poem and said it to me once when you came to see me at Kilmainham; don't you remember it?—

"I'm very sure, if right took place, we'd all have full and plenty;

The landlords live upon our toil, and leave us bare and empty."

There followed some hours of great weakness and weariness, in which the sweet-natured patience which had always characterized Patrick O'Ryan's personal character, shone out radiantly. Early in the morning, when the doctor had paid his visit and had gone to report progress to the poor invalid wife, who was too ill to be moved, Doreen and Michael, who were keeping watch beside the dying man, heard him make a faint request.

"Something of Newman's," he said dreamily.

And Doreen, taking up a book from the open portmanteau close at hand, read a poem which she knew to be a favourite with her father,—a poem which perhaps naturally appealed to one whose life had been made up of hard fighting and crushing disappointment, ending with a far-distant yet confident hope.

"When I sink down in gloom or fear,

Hope blighted or delay'd,

Thy whisper, Lord, my heart shall cheer,

''Tis I, be not afraid!'

"Or startled at some sudden blow,

If fretful thoughts I feel,

'Fear not, it is but I,' shall flow

As balm my wound to heal.

"Nor will I quit Thy way, though foes

Some onward pass defend;

From each rough voice the watchword goes,

'Be not afraid!...a friend!'

"And oh! when judgment's trumpet clear

Awakes me from my grave,

Still in its echo may I hear,

''Tis Christ; He comes to save.'"

As she ended, his eyes opened for a minute, and Doreen bent down to listen to a brief whispered message for her mother; then, having kissed them both, he lay at rest for some time, a sort of drowsiness stealing over him till just as eight bells rang his lips moved, and Doreen again bent forward, thinking that he wanted something.

She caught the words,—"God save Ireland!"

They were the last he spoke.

For the next few days Doreen felt like one in a horrible dream. But the glimpse of the beautiful harbour at Queenstown, with its wide welcoming shores, its indescribable look of home, roused her and drew her back to the actual needs of the present. As they approached England, she became more and more absorbed in the manifold arrangements for her mother's comfort, and in the care of Dermot, Mollie, and the baby,—the three little ones who had been born during those happy years at New York.

Already it seemed to her a long, long time since she had stood with Michael on the deck, listening to the words of the burial service read by the captain, and watching the great Atlantic waves as they surged over her father's coffin and hid it from view.

Sorrow and anxiety, and long nights of watching with her mother, had robbed her cheek of its colour and sobered the dancing blue eyes; nevertheless there was still a look of unquenchable youth and spirit in the face, which made the careworn lines about the lips seem nothing but a mistake.

"How soon shall we be in, dear?" asked Mrs. O'Ryan faintly, from her berth, glancing a little anxiously at the wild confusion which prevailed in the stateroom.

"They said it would be half an hour just now, mother," said Doreen, seizing on books, clothes, and music, and crowding them into a much-enduring carpet-bag; then, pausing to catch up little Bride, the baby of six months old, she hastily averted an impending cry with a snatch of "The Meeting of the Waters."

She sang brightly, so brightly that one might have fancied her heart was as light as it had been six years before when she sang to the Herefords at Castle Karey.

"Little time-waster!" she said tenderly, as she put the child down on the floor again between two small people of five and three. "Now play with Dermot and Mollie, there's a doat, and leave me the use of my hands, for in truth they've enough to do."

Just then there came a tap at the cabin door, and a brisk, cheery-looking American woman entered. She must have been about forty, but looked younger, owing to her trim figure, and fresh, rosy cheeks with their high cheek-bones; her hard, shiny, bright face always reminded Doreen of a well-polished apple, while her eyes, small, dark, and twinkling, were like the eyes of a robin.

"Can I help you, miss?" she asked; and scarcely waiting for permission or thanks she began to do everything that had to be done, strapping bags and portmanteaux, dressing the baby, and chatting to little Dermot and Mollie, while Doreen was set free to wait on her mother, who looked very unfit for the move on shore.

Hagar Muchmore was migrating from her New England home to Liverpool to visit her only son, who, somewhat to his mother's dismay, had married on his twenty-first birthday a woman several years his senior. The news had perturbed Hagar, and she had resolved to cross the Atlantic and see for herself whether the match were satisfactory or not. The villagers at Salem had remonstrated with her for wasting her money on such an expedition, but Hagar thought peace in the heart was worth more than gold in the bank; she drew out her savings and started for England, enjoying the thought of the pleasant surprise she was preparing for her boy.

The crossing would, however, have been both dull and lonely for her had it not been for the great interest she had taken in the O'Ryans. Many people had sympathized with them, had patted the children on the head, or filled Michael's pockets with chocolate, or said kind words to Doreen. But Hagar Muchmore had thrown her whole heart into the sorrows of these fatherless children, had identified herself with them, had waited on Mrs. O'Ryan as though she had been her own maid, and had learnt to love them almost as much as though she had nursed them and cared for them all their lives.

"The doctor says my mother must not travel to London yet," said Doreen. "He has told us of rooms in Grove Street, where the terms would not be very high. Do you know whether it is far from the landing-quay?"

"No, miss," said Hagar; "I'm as new to this country as you are. But I can find out from the stewardess. And I'm thinking I would just as soon come round with you there and settle you in before going to my son; for he'll not be back from his work till night, I guess, and I'm in no such haste to see his wife."

Doreen's face lighted up.

"Oh, what a comfort you will be!" she said. "I was wondering how I should ever manage with the little ones and yet be free to help my mother. How kind every one is!"

She took little Mollie in her arms and carried her on deck, receiving friendly farewells from several of the passengers, and soon descrying Michael, not as she had expected, however, among his friends the sailors, but standing apart looking with wistful eyes at the crowded landing-quay.

"Will you mind Mollie for a minute, while I see to the others?" she said, noticing that there were tears in the brown eyes that looked anxiously up at her.

"Doreen!" he exclaimed. "I heard that old lady with the curls telling her husband that mother would never be better; she said it would be a dreadful thing for you to be—to be left—with all those children on your hands."

"Nonsense!" said Doreen hastily, yet with an odd choking in her throat. "She knows nothing about it. Mother may be much the better for the change, and for seeing auntie. I shall write to auntie to-night and beg her to come to Liverpool, as we can't go straight to London."

Michael looked relieved, but his burden seemed to have transferred itself to Doreen, who went back to the stateroom with an aching heart and a mind full of heavy fore-bodings. She seemed to see her mother now with different eyes, for the first time fully realizing how worn and thin her face had become during the last few days, and how slight a hold she seemed to have of the world.

"People always look worse when they first wear their walking-things," she said to herself. "It is the bonnet that makes her look so ill, and the excitement of landing that has brought that horrid little flush to her cheeks. Oh, Dr. Lewis, have you come to help us? That is very good of you!" she exclaimed, as the ship's doctor entered with the steward's mate behind him.

"We'll get Mrs. O'Ryan on shore if you will see to your little people on deck," said the doctor. "Young Vanheim is attending to your luggage, so you need not have any anxiety about that."

"And I'll see to the baby," said Hagar Muchmore, skirmishing round the stateroom in search of anything that might be left, like a kindly bird of prey.

So with good-natured help and friendly farewells and much sympathy the sad little group was set on shore, and Doreen, looking at the busy streets of Liverpool, fancied that, after all, this strange country had a sort of homelike air, and that she should soon grow to love it. Thanks to the doctor's recommendation, they had no difficulty in getting rooms, and before long Hagar Muchmore had settled the four children round a comfortable tea-table, which, as she remarked, would keep them quiet for a good half-hour; and Doreen, having helped her mother to bed, was able to write to her aunt, Mrs. Garth. She snatched up pen and paper, but somehow to begin was a difficult matter. Some letters are hard to write, from dearth of anything to say; others are hard because there is so much that must be said,—such ill news to convey, such sorrow to restrain, such fear for the future that must be hinted at, yet not too clearly expressed. Doreen opened her inkstand, then she sat with her head resting on her hands, vainly struggling to clothe her thoughts in words. Roused at length by the remembrance that there was no time to be lost, she forced herself to write the brief lines which should summon Mrs. Garth to Liverpool.

"My Dear Auntie:—We have just arrived in England and are in sad trouble. My father had an attack of spasms of the heart and died two days after leaving New York; and mother, who was never very strong, and who has been, as you know, since Bride was born, quite an invalid, seems as if she could not rally from this great shock. The doctor will not hear of letting her travel to London, but she has counted very much on seeing you, and begs that, if possible, you will come to us here. I think she will not rest till she has seen you; so that if you could come at once, it would be a great comfort. Your affectionate niece,Doreen O'Ryan."

Hagar Muchmore posted the letter when she set off in search of her son's home, and poor Doreen, feeling very desolate and burdened, despatched Michael to keep guard in his mother's room, and set to work to put the three little ones to bed, having desperate hunts for straying nightgowns and lost brushes and combs, and sighing many a time and oft, to think that in the matter of orderliness she should have failed to inherit the least trace of her mother's nature, and should have been wholly Irish.

"But at any rate I can keep them in good humour by singing," she reflected, and spite of all the sorrow that filled her heart she sang whatever Dermot and Mollie begged for, from "Come back to Erin" to "Kate O'Shane," and finally left them sleeping as happily as though one great sorrow had not just passed into their lives while a fresh one stood waiting at the threshold.

But when her own work was done, when the landlady had been interviewed and provisions ordered, and Michael cheered with hopeful words and tucked up in bed, proud to think himself in charge of the little ones, Doreen was so weary that to sleep was impossible. She lighted her little night-lamp and then lay down beside her mother, aching in every limb and with ears still on the alert to catch any sounds from her small charges in the next room, yet afraid in her restless wakefulness to stir, lest the sleep into which the invalid had fallen should be broken. It was all very well to speak hopefully to Michael, but the fears that had troubled the boy's heart began now to trouble her, to force themselves upon her notice, to refuse to be stifled as she had hitherto contrived to stifle them.

And then all the dreams, the ambitious plans, of her girlhood came back to her with a bitter sense that just as they were beginning to become practical possibilities, her desire for them had faded utterly away. What did she care now for the chance of becoming a great public singer? The mother who was to have enjoyed her triumph was dying. What could she care now for the rights of Ireland, when the father whose sufferings had wrung her heart would not be there to rejoice in the progress of the cause? The rain came driving against the window, the wind howled drearily down the narrow street, and Doreen lay looking at the familiar shadow cast by the crucifix on the wall and wondering if all her life it would happen that the good things so long waited, so eagerly hoped for, should come invariably hand in hand with sorrow. Very vividly she remembered how, when at length her father's imprisonment had ended and they had met him once more, the happiness of the reunion had been most sadly marred by the dreadful secret that had been weighing on her heart. Time had softened to some extent the misery of the remembrance of that afternoon on Lough Lee; it had ceased to be a continual burden to her, for her nature was too buoyant to be crushed for very long, and, fortunately, she was not given to brooding over anything. Still, there were times when the past became fearfully vivid, times when she was filled with a most dreadful craving to see Max Hereford once more,—the one person in the world to whom she might speak of what had passed on that last day of her childhood.

"My darling," said Mrs. O'Ryan, opening her eyes and taking the girl's hand in hers, "I am afraid you have not slept. You are sadly tired. What is the time? I am feeling so much better."

"The clock has just struck two, mother; you have had a longer sleep than usual."

"I thought so," said the invalid. "Lie still, dear; I want nothing. What was the name, Doreen, of those people at Castle Karey? I have been dreaming about them."

"Their name was Hereford," said Doreen, glancing at the crucifix. "Mr. Hereford always sends Christmas cards to Michael and me. I believe he must still think I am quite a little girl, for last year it was a picture of a robin singing to a harp; just an absurd thing, more fit for Dermot or Mollie than for me!"

"Where did they live in England?" asked Mrs. O'Ryan.

"Somewhere in the South, I think," said Doreen. "Firdale was the name of their nearest town."

"I had a dream that they were very good to you," said her mother. "I wish it may come true, for I am leaving you with but few friends and with many cares."

"Oh, mother, don't talk like that!" said Doreen, tears choking her voice.

"I should like to be spared to my children; but, in any case," (she stroked Doreen's hand tenderly,) "it does not bring death nearer to speak of what may happen. Your father has left Donal Moore his sole executor; he will help and advise you about the children: there is not a kinder, better man living. It would, of course, be possible for me to leave your uncle and aunt co-guardians, but I think it will be better not. To them Donal Moore is no doubt only a dangerous agitator, newly released from prison; they might not work well together. I would rather that you and Donal shared the guardianship of the little ones, though I know auntie will always be ready to help you, and you will naturally turn to her in any trouble."

"What is Uncle Garth like?" asked Doreen. "I can't recall him well."

"I know very little of him, save that he is a good, honest man, clever and very silent. The Garths were Tories of the old school, a delightful family, full of old-fashioned hospitality; they sadly disapproved of my marriage, but were very kind to me, for all that. Yet, somehow, I cannot think that Uncle Garth and Donal Moore could ever pull together, specially as your uncle is a strong Protestant, and as the boys must be brought up in their father's faith according to our agreement. If they do come across each other, you will have to play the part of peacemaker."

"My temper is too hot for that part," said Doreen. "It is you, mother, who will manage to bring them together and smooth the rough places."

Mrs. O'Ryan sighed.

"If I live," she said, "I doubt whether I can be anything but a burden and an expense, and God knows there is little enough for you all to live upon."

"Oh, mother, mother, don't!" sobbed Doreen. "Have I not got my voice that the maestro told us would some day make our fortune? And what do I care for it if you are not here?"

"The thought that at least you have that is my great comfort," said Mrs. O'Ryan. "A sweet voice, a good training, and a brave heart,—with these you are left to face the world and to support four children. Michael is but twelve, and can be nothing but an expense to you for many years. It is a terrible burden to leave to a girl of eighteen."

"It would be far worse without the children, mother; at least I shall have them to work for: it will seem worth while," said Doreen. "Besides, father said something of money invested in some railway."

"It is very little," said Mrs. O'Ryan; "it would not realize more than four hundred pounds. Donal Moore will see to that for you, and God grant it may keep you until you begin to earn money enough for your needs. It is strange how vividly I dream now. It still seems almost like something that really happened, that talk with Mrs. Hereford and her son; I should like to think you would come across them again. It must have been, I suppose, some remembrance of the old days when he used to come and persuade me to let you go with them on some expedition, but I seemed to hear his voice saying, just as he used to then: 'I will take such care of her.' What became of that tutor who was taken ill with brain fever?"

"He was getting better when we left, they said," replied Doreen; "but since then I have heard nothing about him."

She pressed her lips tightly together, for once more there came upon her the old, burning desire to tell everything to her mother. The unreasoning wish was all the more difficult to resist because of her exhausted state, while the sense that the time left to her was short, that soon all chance of unburdening her mind would be over, weighed upon her with an intolerable oppression. Could it be wrong to tell now, to unburden her soul to one who was leaving the world, to win that counsel and sympathy for which she craved so terribly?

The temptation was strong, so strong that again and again it nearly overmastered her. Was she to fight so desperately all for the sake of a stranger who, for aught she knew, might be dead? Was she to be silent now when probably all danger was over? Had she, indeed, ever been right to keep such a thing from her mother? "Help me, God! Help me, God!" she cried desperately; and, as if in answer, there rose before her a vision of the lovely fernery at Castle Karey, and of the little Keep, and of Max Hereford's clear, truthful eyes, as he repeated the words of the oath, and, stooping down, kissed her for the first time.

"I will be true," she said, and, venturing to raise herself a little on her elbow, she looked at her mother and found that in the long silence she had again fallen asleep quite tranquilly. Into the girl's sanguine heart there instantly rushed a glad thought: "I have been true to God; perhaps—oh, perhaps—He will, after all, spare mother to us."