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<h3>Chapter Seven.</h3> <h4>A Happy Inspiration.</h4> Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard stood in the long gallery of Knock Castle and drummed wearily on the window-pane with a white, heavily-ringed hand. It had rained for a whole week without stopping, and for the happiest girl in the world, as she proclaimed herself to be at least three times a day, she came perilously near feeling shedding tears of depression. Geoffrey was out shooting, and the old Castle seemed full of ghosts—ghosts of the living, not of the dead—of those dear, gay, loving, teasing, happy-go-lucky brothers and sisters who had filled the rooms with echoes of song and laughter. Geoffrey was the dearest of husbands, but he had one great, insuperable failing—he was not Irish, and one phase of his wife’s character was even yet an inexplicable riddle in his eyes. Why should she consider it monotonous to have her meals served regularly at a stated hour; why should she find infinite enjoyment in arranging a festivity in a rush and scramble, instead of making her plans with due leisure and decorum; why should she wear the latest Paris fashions on a day when the thermometer pointed to rain, and walk about in the sunshine in an ulster and deerstalker?—these, and many similar questions, were as puzzling to him as the fact that she found it absolutely impossible to do a thing twice over in the same way, or to master the very rudiments of method. Geoffrey inherited the business instincts which had made his fathers successful above their competitors, and when he had become temporary owner of Knock, he had striven hard to introduce order and punctuality into the establishment, with more success in the servants’ hall than in those regions where the mistress reigned supreme. Esmeralda was a devoted wife, who would have gone through fire and water to ensure his happiness; she would have shared his poverty with a smiling face, and have worked her fingers to the bone on his behalf, but she seemed quite incapable of replacing the match-box on his dressing-room mantelpiece when she had borrowed it for her own use, or of refraining from taking his nail-scissors downstairs and then forgetting where she had put them. Geoffrey on his part adored his beautiful wife, and would have fought a dozen dragons on her behalf, but when he groped in the dark for his matches, and knocked his pet ornaments off the chimney-piece, and barked his knee against a chair, and tried vainly to get out of the room through a blank wall—well, he was only a man after all, and he was not precisely lamb-like in temper. Some such incident had happened this afternoon when the husband had made a complaining remark, and the wife had poured oil on the troubled waters by murmured allusions to people who were not really men, but “finnicky old maids.” Geoffrey had stalked majestically from the room, leaving Esmeralda to reflect sadly how very unsatisfactory it was to quarrel when your adversary was dignified and English. With either of her three brothers such an introduction would have meant an enjoyable and lengthy wrangle; even “Saint Bridget” could snap on occasion, while Pixie was capable of screaming, “It is not—it is not!” until her breath failed, for pure love of contradiction. Esmeralda yawned, and wondered what in the world she could do to while away the long afternoon. As the wife of a millionaire, with a professional cook in the kitchen who tolerated her mistress’s incursions at stated hours only; with a wardrobe full of new clothes, and a French maid to sew up every hole almost before it made an appearance; with a gardener who did not like interference, and a patriarchal butler who said, “Allow me, madam!” if she dared to lift a hand for herself, life was not really half so amusing as in the dear old days, when she could make potato cakes for tea, re-trim old dresses, with Bridgie as model, and sit perched on one of the empty stages in the conservatory, while Dennis confided his latest love experiences and the gossip of the countryside. Esmeralda had longed for riches all her life, and for the most part found the experience to her taste, but there were occasions when she felt fettered by the golden chains. When Bridgie wrote of her experiences in that funny, cramped little house, of her various devices for making sixpence do duty for a shilling, of excursions about London, when she rode with the boys on the tops of omnibuses and dined luxuriously at an ABC, it was not pity, but envy, which filled Esmeralda’s bosom as she drove in state behind coachman and footman to pay dull, proper calls on the county magnates. It was cold and dark in the gallery this December afternoon, so she went downstairs into the room which had been dedicated to lessons, when Miss Minnitt the governess tried to instil knowledge into half a dozen ignorant heads. It was now metamorphosed into a luxuriant little boudoir, with pots of hothouse plants banked on the table, a couch piled with silken cushions taking the place of the old horsehair sofa, a charming grate, all glowing copper and soft green tiles, and beside it a deep arm-chair and a pile of books to while away an idle hour. Esmeralda yawned and flicked over the pages of the topmost of the pile, looked at the beginning to see if it promised excitement, peeped at the last sentence of all to make sure there was no heart-breaking separation, finally sank down into the chair, and settled herself to read. There was something wanting for perfect enjoyment, however, for in the old days she and Bridgie had agreed that the charms of an interesting book could only be thoroughly appreciated to an accompaniment of crisp sweet apples. Esmeralda O’Shaughnessy had been wont to climb up into the loft and bring down as many rosy baldwins as she could carry in the crown of her cap; but Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard crept down her own passages like a thief, listened breathlessly at the pantry door to make sure that Montgomery was absent, then abstracted an apple from each of the two pyramids of fruit already prepared for dinner, and flew back to her room, aghast at her own temerity. The presence of the apples seemed to bring back other schoolgirl impulses, for instead of seating herself in dignified, grown-up fashion, she stretched herself on the rug before the fire, her back supported against the chair, her head drooping ever nearer and nearer the cushions, as warmth and quiet wrought their usual work. She slept and dreamt, and awoke with a start to hear a voice observing, “Tea is served, madam!” and to see Montgomery the immaculate standing over her with an unmoved expression, as if, in the many noble families in which he had served, it was an invariable custom to find his mistress fast asleep on the floor, with a half-gnawed apple in her hand! Esmeralda crawled to her feet, trying vainly to look dignified, but she had no appetite for muffins. She felt like a child who has been found out, and blushed at the thoughts of her embarrassment that evening when the fruit pyramid was handed for her selection. Tea did not taste half so nice out of the Queen Anne silver as when it had been poured from the old brown pot, which had to be refilled so many times to satisfy clamorous appetites, and the longing for companionship made her hurry through the meal, and run upstairs to a wide room overlooking the park. With the opening of the door came that sweet, flannely, soapy, violet-powdery smell which is associated with a well-kept nursery, and there on the rocking-chair sat Mistress Nurse with a bundle of embroidery on her knee, which purported to be O’Shaughnessy Geoffrey, the heir of the Hilliards. “Oh, I’m so glad you have come, ma’am! I did so want you to see him. He has been so pert this afternoon. I don’t know what to do with him, he is so pert! I never saw such a forward child for his age!” Esmeralda’s face softened to a beautiful tenderness as she turned down the Shetland shawl and looked at her little son. The pert child had a fat white face, with vacant eyes, a button of a nose, and an expression of preternatural solemnity. His head waggled helplessly from side to side as his nurse held him out at arm’s length, and stared fixedly into space, regardless of his mother’s blandishments. “There now, isn’t he pert?” repeated the triumphant nurse. “You know your mammie, my precious—yes, you do! The cleverest little sing that was ever seen! He will begin to talk, ma’am, before he is many months old, I’m sure he will! I was speaking to him just now, and he tried so hard to copy me. I said ‘Goo-oo!’ and he said ‘Coo-oo!’ Oh, you would have loved to hear him! He is a prince of babies, he is! A beautiful darling pet!” Esmeralda beamed with maternal pride. “He is clever!” she cried. “Fancy talking at three months old! I must write and tell Bridgie. And he looks so intelligent, too—doesn’t he, nurse? So wise and serious! He stares at the fire as if he knew all about it. I believe his hair has grown since yesterday! I do, indeed!” “He has beautiful hair—so fine! It’s going to curl, too,” declared the optimistic nurse, holding the child’s head against the light, when the faintest of downs could be dimly discerned across the line of the horizon. “He will smile in a moment if you go on talking to him, ma’am. Perhaps you would like to sit down and take him for a bit?” Yes, Esmeralda was only too willing, for it was only by act of grace and when Mistress Nurse felt inclined for a gossip in the servants’ hall that she was allowed to nurse her own baby. She took the dear little soft bundle in her arms and rocked gently to and fro, studying the little face and dreaming mother dreams of the days to come. If God spared him, the tiny form would grow strong, the vacant face would become bright and alert with life, the mite of a hand would be bigger than her own—a man’s hand with a man’s work as its inheritance. There was something awful in the thought, and in her own responsibility towards his future. Esmeralda never felt so serious, so prayerful, so little satisfied with herself, as when she sat alone with her baby in her arms. She knew nothing about children—very little, poor girl, of the wise training of father and mother, but the very consciousness of her own defects added earnestness to the resolve to bring up this child to be wise, and strong, and noble—a power for good in the world. That was her resolve, renewed afresh from day to day, and after the resolve followed the relentless conviction that the change must be wrought in herself before she would have power to teach another. It would need a noble mother to train a noble son, a mother who was mistress over her own tongue to teach the lessons of self-control; a mother who had fought her own giants of vanity and self-seeking before she could hand on the sword. Esmeralda trembled and shrank weakly from the conflict, but the baby turned its wondering eyes upon her and straightway she was strong again. “My son!” she murmured tenderly. “My little son! We shall love one another. Oh, how we shall love one another—you and I!” The beautiful dark head bent low over the shapeless little bundle, and the croon of a cradle song accompanied the regular rocking of the chair. It was the most peaceful and charming of pictures, and the husband and father stood noiselessly on the threshold, almost unwilling to speak and destroy the effect. All the afternoon he had been regretting his hasty words, and reproaching himself for want of forbearance towards his impetuous girl-wife. It was unreasonable to expect the habit of a lifetime to be outlived in a few short months, and at this season there were especial reasons for judging her tenderly. Poor darling! She had suffered a bitter disappointment! Bridgie and the boys had found it impossible to spend Christmas at Knock, and although Joan had not confessed as much in words, the slackness of her preparations showed that she had lost all zest in the season. She had had a dull time of it since the birth of the boy, and it was only natural that she should long for her own people, especially those two dear sisters whose names were so constantly on her lips. If it were only possible to indulge her—to hit upon some plan by which Christmas could be made all she could desire! Geoffrey knitted his brows in thought, then suddenly came the inspiration, and with it an exclamation of satisfaction which brought Esmeralda’s eyes upon him. She smiled softly, and held up her face to receive his kiss—such a different face from the one which he had seen two hours before, with its curling lips and flushed, contemptuous smile! In its sweetness and subdued tenderness it was a type of the youthful Madonna, and Geoffrey’s own expression softened in sympathy. “Well, my dearie! Nursing your boy?” Esmeralda turned back the shawl once more and held up the child for his father’s inspection. “There! Isn’t he splendid? Nurse is quite excited about him this afternoon. She says it is wonderful how he gets on. He has been so ‘pert,’ as she calls it, that she hardly knew how to manage him.” “H’m!” The young father regarded the little face with amused, speculative eyes. “‘Pert’ does not commend itself to me as precisely the best word which could be found. Solemn little beggar, I call him! He seems quite oppressed by the wickedness of the world. I say, that’s rather a peculiar mouth, isn’t it? Something funny about the upper lip!” “It’s exactly like yours—the image of it!” said Esmeralda firmly. “You can’t judge because naturally you can’t see yourself. But it really is. Look at that old picture when you were two years old.” Geoffrey stroked his moustache to one side, and regarded himself critically in the mirror. “Oh, well, there’s hope for him yet!” he pronounced complacently. “I suppose babies are all ugly in the beginning, but considering his parentage he ought to come out all right by and by. How long do you suppose it will be before he gets his hair, and begins to be intelligible?” “He has hair now, and he is beginning to speak. He said ‘Coo-oo!’ this afternoon quite distinctly. It’s horrid of you, Geoff, to call him ugly! Everyone says he is a beautiful boy and the image of you!” “Much more chance of being beautiful if he were like you, darling! Spoke, did he? Well, I take your word for it, but it’s rather a stretch of imagination. He is a jolly little chap, anyway, and I’m very proud of him. Here is nurse coming to <ANTIMG src="images/mapix080.jpg" alt=""> take possession. Hand him over and come along with me. I have something to tell you.” “Something nice, I hope! I want a distraction,” said Esmeralda wistfully. She slid her hand through her husband’s arm as they walked down the corridor and peered up in his face. “Somebody was rather vicious this afternoon! I’m sorry you put me in a temper. It’s stupid to quarrel when we are so fond of one another. You’ll never do it again, will you?” “Never, never! It was all my fault, and I apologise abjectly to your temper for taking liberties with it. I ought to know by this time that it’s in delicate health. Never mind, I’ve planned a delightful programme for you! What would you like best for a Christmas present if you had the choice?” He was all radiant with smiles, but Esmeralda sighed, and a far-away expression came into her beautiful grey eyes. “I’d like—Oh, what’s the use of speaking of it, Geoff? They can’t come, and that’s all about it! I haven’t thought of any present. I don’t seem to care about anything else.” “Whisper!” cried Geoffrey triumphantly. “Whisper!” He bent his head, and Esmeralda put her ear to his lips, her face alight with expectation. “Oh!” she cried rapturously, and again, “Oh!” and “Oh” in ever-ascending tones of delight. “Do you mean it, Geoff—really—really? It’s like a fairy-tale—so perfectly lovely and charming! I shan’t sleep a wink—I know I shan’t! Geoffrey, you darling, I do love you for thinking of it!” and in an ecstasy of delight she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him rapturously. “Any letters for the post, madam?” asked an even voice from the end of the corridor, and the husband wrenched himself free, while the wife stared after the departing figure with gloomy eyes. “He saw me kiss you! The only marvel is he didn’t offer to do it for me. The strain of behaving properly before that man will be the death of me, Geoffrey Hilliard!” <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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