Read Ebook: Nervosos Lymphaticos e Sanguineos by Pimentel Alberto

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Ebook has 785 lines and 42329 words, and 16 pages

"It is impossible to keep tidy with the boys," she explained; "they do pull one about so."

"Come now, the boys didn't tear that dress; you tore it yourself, coming down a tree," said Murtagh.

A contemptuous reply from Rosie seemed likely to lead to a sharp answer, but Adrienne interposed a question.

"Do you always live here?" she asked.

"Of course we do!" answered both the children at once. "There's nowhere else where we could live since we came back from India."

"Are there any more of you besides Winnie and Bobbo?"

"No," said Murtagh, "that's all. And quite enough, I expect you'll think before long," he added, looking into the fire, and suddenly ceasing from his flippant manner.

"Who else is there in the house? Who takes care of you?"

"Oh!" said Rosie, "there's Mrs. Donegan. She takes care of everything, and cooks the dinner and all that. Then there's Peggy Murphy. She does the schoolroom, and mends our clothes; and there is Kate Murphy; and there's the new housemaid, and Uncle Blair's man, Brown; and that's all except Mr. Plunkett."

"Mr. Plunkett!" repeated Murtagh, in a tone of disgust.

"Oh, he is so horrible," continued Rosie. "He settles all about everything, and gives us our pocket-money on Saturdays, and gives Mrs. Donegan money to buy our clothes, and orders everybody about, and interferes. Mrs. Plunkett says his mother was a second cousin of Uncle Blair's mother, but I don't believe she was. But he doesn't live in this house; he lives in a house in the park."

"He's dot such a nice ickle baby," put in Ellie, who had been following the conversation with wide-open eyes and ears.

"Has he?" said Adrienne, encircling the child with her arm. "What is it like?"

"It's dot two dreat big eyes and--"

"It's got a nose, Ellie, don't forget that," interrupted Murtagh, mockingly.

Little Ellie was silenced; she flushed up, and tears came into her eyes. But without paying any attention to her, Rosie continued:

"And that's all the people there are in the house."

"Except--Monsieur Blair," suggested Adrienne, comforting Ellie as she spoke by hanging her watch round the child's neck.

"Oh! Uncle Blair! Yes, of course he's here, only I forgot all about him."

"You don't see much of him?"

"No," said Murtagh, with a chuckle; "he thinks we're perfect savages. He has breakfast with us, because he thinks he ought to; but you should see how funny he looks. I believe he's always expecting us to set upon him and eat him, or do something of that kind."

"Hullo, Mrs. Donegan!" he called out suddenly, as a good-humored, shrewd-looking woman entered the hall. "There you are! and it's high time you came, too. Here's a poor lady freezing just for want of some one to show her to her room. Allow me to introduce Mrs. Bridget Donegan Esquire of Tipperary."

Adrienne acknowledged the introduction with a smile, and Mrs. Donegan, curtseying, began at once to apologize for not having met her at the door.

"It's very sorry I am, Ma'am, that you should have been kept sitting out here. I've been waiting this last half-hour to hear the bell go," she began with much respectful dignity. And then suddenly turning round upon the children: "It's you, Master Murtagh, might ha' thought to ring it; and where's your manners, Miss Rose, to keep Miss Blair sitting out here in the cold instead of taking her into the drawing-room?"

"It's not very cold," said Adrienne, with a smiling glance at the fire. And Mrs. Donegan continued: "Mr. Blair desired his compliments, Ma'am, and he was sorry he was engaged to dine out the evening you arrived, but he hoped the young ladies and gentlemen would make you comfortable. And, if you please, Ma'am, I've boiled a couple of fowls for you, and there's a nice little drop o' soup; and will you have dinner served in the dining-room, or wouldn't it be more comfortable, if I sent it up with the children's tea into the schoolroom?"

"Oh, I should like that much the best, please," said Adrienne.

"Then it's no use going to that smelly old drawing-room!" exclaimed Murtagh. "Come along to the schoolroom."

He turned round as he spoke, and led the way across the hall. He told Ellie to run on and open the door, so that there might be some light in the passage; but her little fingers not proving strong enough to turn the handle, the whole party had to grope their way in the dark. At the end of a long passage Rosie threw open a door, saying: "Here's the schoolroom! It's not particularly tidy. We did make it neat this morning, but somehow it always gets wrong again."

It was a good-sized room, with a large window at one end and another smaller one at the side. But the curtains were not drawn before either of them, and one was open, letting the rain beat in upon the carpet. The fire had burnt low, and the fender was full of ashes and chestnut-husks. The rest of the room was so strewn with toys, books, cooking-utensils, and rubbish of every description, that there was some difficulty in distinguishing any article of furniture: only the tea-table, clean and white in the midst, stood out against the general disorder like an ark in a second deluge.

"Deed faith, it's time ye had some one to see after yez," muttered Mrs. Donegan to herself. "Where's Miss Winnie and Master Bobbo?" she added aloud.

"Gone to the garden to get some apples," answered Murtagh. "I wish they'd look sharp."

"Well, when they do come in there isn't a dress for Miss Winnie to put on. All the print dresses are gone to the wash-tub, and she soaked her old black one through and through this morning."

"Oh, well, she can dry herself all right. Don't you bother her about it and she won't bother you," replied Murtagh, good-humoredly, sitting down to the piano as he spoke, and beginning to play "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning."

"That's just the way it is with them all; there's no getting them to listen to reason; an' it isn't that they don't have frocks enough," explained poor Mrs. Donegan, in despair, "but you might just every bit as well try to keep clean pinafores on the ducks and chickens out in the yard as try to keep them tidy."

Murtagh's only answer was to crow like a cock, and then he fell into the more meditative quacking of ducks as he began an elaborate variation upon his air.

Their guest began to look just a little forlorn. After traveling for three or four days people are apt to be tired, and it did not seem to occur to any one that she might like to be shown to a room where she could rest a little and wash away the dust of her long journey. There was apparently no chair disengaged either, upon which she might sit down, so she stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Rosie tried hurriedly to make the room tidier, and Ellie sat down upon the floor, delighted with the treasure that had been left hanging round her neck.

But Rosie had some idea of the duties of a hostess, and she soon noticed how white the girl looked.

"You look dreadfully tired," she said in a voice so gentle that Adrienne was quite surprised. "Wait a minute, here's a comfortable chair; I'll clear the music out of it." As she spoke she tipped up an arm-chair and wheeled it to the fireplace.

"Thank you," said Adrienne; "but if you would show me where my room is--I am so tired."

"Oh, yes," said Rosie; "and I'll get you some--" but the end of her sentence was lost as she ran out of the room.

The variation of "St. Patrick's Day" was growing so intricate that Murtagh was completely absorbed by it. Mrs. Donegan was picking up books and toys from the floor; there was nothing for Adrienne to do but to sit down and wait.

"You do look tired, Ma'am," said Mrs. Donegan, presently, pausing with a broken Noah's ark in her hand. "I think, Master Murtagh, I'll go and send the tea in at once. There's no use waitin' for Miss Winnie and Master Bobbo."

"Fire away," grunted Murtagh, from the piano. His music was very good, and Adrienne began to think it pleasant to listen to as she lay back in the big chair.

But in another moment the music was interrupted by a collision of some kind, and then a confusion of voices in the hall.

"Whatever are you thinking of, Master Bobbo?" came out in Donnie's energetic tones.

"I do wish you'd look where you're going, Donnie; you've nearly knocked me into the middle of next week!" retorted a hearty boy's voice.

"Hurrah! here they are," cried Murtagh; and he started up and dashed into the hall. There was some whispering outside the door; and then Bobbo and Murtagh entered the room, followed by Winnie.

Bobbo was a pleasant, strong-looking boy, with clear eyes, rosy cheeks, and a turned-up nose.

Winnie was a little elf-like thing; her scarlet cloak twisted all crooked with the wind, the skirt of her brown dress gathered up to hold the apples, her hair beaten down over her forehead by the rain, her great dark eyes dancing, her cheeks glowing, the merry mouth ready to break into smiles, she seemed the very incarnation of life and brightness.

"The Queen of robin redbreasts!" flashed through Adrienne's mind, and she sat up with revived animation to greet the new-comers.

Bobbo walked up to her and said, "How do you do?" with a decidedly Irish intonation, retiring then behind her chair and entering into a whispered conversation with little Ellie.

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