The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 26 June 1913, Page 5

The Storyteller

THE MISTRESS OF WIRRIBIRRJ It was late afternoon on an early December clay, and the giant gums threw their long shadows over the Wirribirri homestead _ and over the big dam at the garden’s foot, darkening the delicate green of the willows that tenderly kissed its cooling surface. The magpies had awakened from their afternoon nap and were filling the air with rippling music. I he master of Wirribirri was lying on a cane lounge on the cool southern verandah nursing his left knee, hurt in a fall he had had a couple of weeks previously while schooling a new hunter over some rather stiff fences. The necessity of careful inactivity at first palled almost unbearably, and it required all Mrs. Moyle’s—his housekeeper— most earnest persuasion to keep him in bed for one week and the threat of Shane O’Shane, his right-hand man and the counsellor of his whole lifetime. ( Put one foot out, Master Kevin,’ he had said, * and as sure as the sun rises to-morrow I’ll leave you for good and all and go gardening for old, Brown at Letherton.” So there’s for you now, my boyyou do it and I’ll do it.’ So he had consented, and was at length moved out to the verandah, where he lay dreaming on this bright December day. The dream was one that had haunted him for the last five years, and it gave him exquisite pain and —pleasure because of the unspeakable beauty and lovableness of the girl who came to him in it and pain because of its Jaitter intangibility. The crunching of a horse’s hoofs on the gravel of the drive brought him back to the everyday world around him as Shane rode up with the mail bag swinging over his shoulder. He gave a long, low whistle, and • a . black boy came from where he had been enioying- a siesta under the big mulberry tree and took the horse . away. Shane slowly mounted the steps and came along to his master. &

__ .‘TJ 1030 confounded ewes will have to be sold, Master Kevin, he said. ‘ I met two of the boys out at the

two-mile gate with them just now. * They found the lucerne flats last week and they’ve lived there since, and you might as well try to stop the tides from flowing as those sheep from going back there now. An’ there’s the mail, and a good big one it is, too.’ And he sorted the letters and papers and laid them convenient to his master’s hand and threw himself into the deck chair opposite and surveyed the master with a look of tender solicitude.

How does the knee feel to-day, laddie? You’ve got pale and thin. It’s the lying still that’s done it.’ And without waiting for a reply he went on : ‘ Sure, every living soul in the township was after me to know how you were. The doctor said he’d run; out some evening, and his wife said to tell you that she was coming, too, and going to bring her sister. And a, fine-looking girl she is,- too,’ and Shane glanced out of the corner of his eye at his master’s face, which was unperturbed as he answered slowly : ‘ Brown was in the township, too,’ Shane continued. ‘He was asking about you, and said to tell you he and the girls will, ride over some day next week to see you. He sold two mobs of fats from “Letherton”—-didn’t make much of them, either—and Father Lyons wanted to know every mortal thing about you, from your temper and your weight to what you eat and read, and he said to tell you that the new organ has come for the church, and as soon as you’re able you’re to go and try it. And you’re to be the organist, and he won’t have any parley about it. He has given his orders, and you’re to obey. The only other fingers he 11 allow on it are those of the mistress of Wirribirri, and if you’ll provide her, well and good. Meanwhile you’re organist, and Mrs. '’Connor is quite frantic about it. Miss Kitty is home from the city wearing such a hat! Oh, Lor’ ! It is as big around as ~ as as that rose bed yonder, and there is quite a bushel of flowers cast about it; and they’re both set on her being organist. But Father Lyons says either the master or the mistress of Wirribirri, and no other and that’s all about it.’

‘ Father Lyons is absurd,’ said Kelvin O’Neill impatiently. Miss Conor or any of the Brown girls would make a much more competent organist than I, but because it happens that I presented the instrument he insists that no one else play it. I’ll have to remonstrate with him.’ ‘He hasn’t said “no one else,” Master Kelvin,’ said Shane cautiously. ‘He said one other might, and as he says to me, “Shane, why doesn’t that man marry? He should, you know; and there’s many a nice girl who ”’ ' J & ‘ Shane,’ said Kevin, sitting erect, ‘ drop it. The world only holds one girl that I’d marry, and as I’m never likely to meet her again, that’s an end to it.’ , He gave his knee a little twist that shrivelled him with pain and drove the moisture to his brow. Shane instantly had him in his arms, and, laying him down again, gently straightened the injured knee. Ah, laddie, you shouldn’t flare: you hurt yourself, you see. It’s wholesome advice, and you know, lad, I’ve not known you from your babyhood, aye, and loved you, too, for nothing. I feel an interest in you, and I’m getting to be an old man ; and when I have to meet your sweet little mother on the blessed shores of eternity I want to be able to tell her that I left her boy in good hands. The little mother said to me that very last night; “ Shane, take care of my wee lad, and see that there are always good hands to tend him ” and I promised her.’ ’ Kevin’s strong, young right hand went out and clasped those of the old man, who for the last twentyfive years had served him and his so faithfully. He had come into his life when he was only a baby, when he had brought his gay, handsome young father home lifeless from where he had found him, crushed beneath his disabled horse, and he had been the young -widow’s right hand for the few years she lived after her husband’s death. And then he had ‘ been father and mother to the orphaned boy, until he was able to take the reins of management and drive for himself. Several time since the boy had grown up a spirit of unrest had

taken possession of Shane, and many times he was on the point of setting out to ‘explore the world,’ as he termed it, but each time he hesitated and then settled in his little cottage on Wirribirri again and 'became interested in the doings of his young master. But the feeling had returned with renewed strength, because there was a reason. > , '

‘ I was thinking, Master Kevin,’ he said when the sharp pain had passed, of getting out and having a good look over the face of the earth before I have to leave it, but I’d wish to see you safe in good hands before I go.’ Kevin’s hand tightened on his. ‘ Don’t Shane,’ he said shortly. ‘ Don’t, for it seems to me when a fellow goes far afield he stands greater chances of meeting troubles which, had he stayed at home, he would never have come in contact with. In fact, I found it so.’

The old man shook his head. My mind is made up, lad. I’m going to be a wanderer for the next year or two. Indeed and indeed I must. I’m getting old, and I’ve two duties to see to before I leave this old world, and one is to see you safe with good hands to tend you and the otheris what’s calling me out.’ Kevin O’Neill carefully lit a cigarette and thoughtfully blew the blue rings of smoke heavenwards. Presently he spoke: * Shane, I’ll tell you a dream of mine. I’ve dreamed it sleeping and waking, until at times it seems so real that I nearly cry aloud in my joy, and again it is only so utterly a dream that the pain of it is intolerable. Anyway, five years ago —I’ve not breathed this to a living soul before, Shaneyou remember I went travelling, and one August morning I found myself in an English village, and went looking around the little town. On the outskirts I came upon a little church. I went in, and I remember distinctly every detailthe old notched seats, the tall, narrow windows, the statue of our Lady, with a crudely blue mantle, the perfume of a thousand white roses massed about her feet ; the silver sanctuary lamp of exquisite workmanship, the Stations of the Cross, beautiful in the extreme, in frames that were hideous. Oh, and a hundred other things. I was telling my beads and enjoying the cool, when some one commenced playing the organ, softly and tenderly at first, a miracle of delicate melody, then swelling and rising until it was a perfect paean of glorious sound. It was only a common little instrument, I discovered afterwards; all the magic was in the player. Presently I ventured to look back, and just above the organ I could see a drooping white hat and the lower part of a girl’s face, a dainty chin and an exquisite mouth. I turned to the altar again and drank of the melody that welled around me. The music ceased, and I followed the player out. She. was a tall, graceful, white-clad figure. I had forgotten my cane in the church and hurried back for it, and when

I came on to the street again I was just in time to see her take an overdressed young fop by the shoulder and seize a whip with which he had been beating a little dog, break it in two and throw it over the fence into a field, and taking the poor, bruised dog in her arms, carry it away with her. Late that afternoon I met her again on a country lane, and she was kneeling, binding the wound on a poor old tramp’s foot and laughing with him and cheering him. It was then that I spoke to her, offering my services. “Thanks, so much,” she said, in a voice that was peculiarly deep and musical. “I’ve just finished nicely now, but I’d be so glad if you’d help this poor old fellow back into the village. I’m going the other way, and my people will be anxious about me if I’m out late. Otherwise would go myself.” She stood up beside me and looked me with those sea-blue eyes that have haunted me over since. Of course, I said I would. Indeed, I’d have done anything she might have asked me. She came back a little way, helping the old chap along, and when leaving she gave him her hand. “Cheer up,” she said, brightly. “Why, by to-morrow you’ll never know you had a cut on your foot. I wager you’ll be ready for football or a race.” And then she placed that firm white hand in mine and thanked me shyly, and when she took it back again, Shane, she took my heart with it. The next day I determined to discover

her name and her people, but I could do neither. They were tourists, and they had left that morning. I suppose it seems odd to you, Shane, that the girl I saw for that brief while is the only girl I ' shall ever call wife. I close my eyes a thousand times a day and I can see the gleam of her red-gold hair down there among the roses. I meet the direct blue eyes and I see the rare, sweet face in the light and the dark, and the music of her voice comes to me at will. I love her, Shane; she is my “one woman,” my dream wife, the mistress of Wirribirri and me. That closes the matter, Shane, and we won’t mention it again, please. You’re going down to the cottage now? Well, take those papers. You’ll probably find something of interest in them, and I won’t want them before to-morrow.’

Shane O’ Shane rose and, taking the papers with a soft word of thanks, went slowly down to his cottage, where Billy, his black boy, kept everything in the pink of sweet perfection. He threw the papers on the table and himself into an easy chair—the master had seen that his chair left nothing to be desiredand, closing his eyes, went back into the past and saw many things, but chief among them was the tall, graceful figure of a woman, who smiled on him with a sweet, tender mouth and sea-blue eyes that held a world of love, and on whose shapely head lay coiled masses of red-gold hair and in whose arms there nestled a little child. The night came down unheeded : the past held him securely, and it was only when Billy came in and lit the lamp that he recalled himself, and with trembling hands took the paper that lay nearest and opened it, and on looking down its columns read, at first uncomprehendingly, and then again and again, the following,; Mr. and Mrs. John St. John have returned to Australia from abroad after an absence of twenty-five years, and taken up their residence at “St. Winifred at Mosman’s Bay. They are accompanied by their two daughters.’ ‘’Tis them; ’tis them,’ he said aloud. ‘Ah, dear Lord. After twenty-five years. Oh, my little girl, my little babe ! I must, I must ! Oh, surely I may just look upon you—just onceno more. I swear no more! ’Tis God’s doing. Just when I’m about to search the whole world over, to just set eyes on you, He brings you here so close to me.’ Then out of the night the past came leaping back again, and he lived through the most poignant anguish of his life, just as he had done one night twenty-five years before, and when the first faint rays of the morning came creeping into the room he aroused himself. He had a cold bath and some breakfast, meanwhile making his plans rapidly. He called the black boy. ‘ Billy, saddle Jess and bring her around for me quickly.’ I want to get into the township to catch the train.’ . i The boy went for the horse, and Shane hastily wrote a note to the master, telling him he was going down to Sydney for a couple of days, but not giving any reason. It was the first time he had gone further than the township since he had come to Wirribirri twenty-five years before. He gave the note to Billy. ‘ Take it to the homestead,’ he told the astonished boy, ‘at dinner time, and give it to the master. Mind the cottage, Billy, and I’ll be back in a couple of days, please God.’ And, mounting his horse, he rode away. ****•»• , On the following morning, when the first rays of the sun were tipping the tree-tops with gold and burnishing the crest of every wave that broke across Sydney’s harbor, an upper window of ‘St. Winifred’s,’ at Mosman’s, was thrown open, and the morning light glorified the girl that looked out, turning her red-gold hair into a halo and deepening the depths of the eyes that were as blue as the sea she looked out upon. She drew a long, deep breath and withdrew, and presently emerged' from a lower door, swinging her bathing dress and towel, and ran lightly down through the grounds to the private bathing beach. In about half an hour along the way she had gone came Shane O’Shane. With white, set face and cautious step he worked his way around to the back of the mansion and hesitated. 1

‘ Dear Mother of God,’ he breathed, ‘ help me. Let me just see her and know if she is happy. I'll not break my word. I’ll go then.’ As he paused a door close to where he was standing opened and a woman came out—one of the servants early astir. He started and faced her, and she threw out her hands with a startled exclamation. ‘ Shane O’Shane !’ she gasped in a hoarse whisper. ‘ Man, why have you come here—how dare you — right have you ‘ The right of a father,’ he answered fiercely, fearing he was going to be deprived 1 of the chance he had waited so long for, t ‘ Shane,’ she said, sorrowfully, ‘ are you mad? Do you know what you are doing What is it you want ‘ Not much, Alice —only the sight of my child, to know if she is happy and if they’ve stood fairly by her. Tell me of her, Alice; tell me, and I’ll go without even seeing her.’ The woman looked at the white face and the quivering lips. ‘ There is much I would tell you, Shane. _ Come with me to my own parlor. There are none astir yet, or likely to be for some while, unless it’s her. Come with me, though. Heaven knows what the master would say if he knew you had been under the roof.’ He followed her silently into a dimly lighted room. She closed the door and left the blinds undrawn, and motioned him to an easy chair

‘ Sit there, Shane, and I’ll tell you. of her,’ and she drew her own chair close, and neither of. them noticed a wet bathing dress and a towel thrown on a chair, or the girl who was on the couch on the further side of the room, her damp, red-golden hair falling in a shower over the end to the floor. ‘ Shane,’ said the woman, softly, ‘ were you wise to come?’

‘ I don’t know, Alice, but when one’s heart hungei's as mine did one doesn’t count what is wise or foolish, or the cost of it. For twenty -five years my heart has called for its own, and last night when I read that the St. Johns had returned to Australia I could stifle it no longer. If I could just look on her once and know she was happy, I could die content. But how could I face her motherah, how could I meet my wife and tell her that I knew nought of the little girl she left me; that I gave the child of our own flesh and blood to others; that her father was too cowardly to face the task alone? Oh, gracious heaven, none know what I suffered that night! I was mad, I think, and ah ! how often have I lived it over again. I was kneeling by my dead wife and my helpless babe was clasped in my arms, when Mr. St. John burst into the room.

‘ “O’Shane,” he said, “our baby is dead. Man, it will kill my wife when she knows. The doctors say she will never have another child, and this babe was all the world to her.”

‘ I looked up at him. “I wish God had taken my babe,” I said, “and spared me Johanna. ‘ “O’Shane,” said he, “give me the child. We’ll take her for our own. It will save my wife, and the child will be as our own. She’ll never know want, and she’ll have all that money can do for her.”

‘I got up and put the child in his arms. Take her,” I said, “and thank God.” And then he made me swear that I’d never attempt to become known to her; that I’d never, by word or act, make it known that she was not their own child; that I’d give her up, my little babe, body and soul, into their keeping for life, and I swore over the dead body of my Johanna, and I’m not going to break my word. I only want to look upon her and to know if she is happy. And, sure, isn’t God good to me to send you"in my way, the only other soul who knew that my girl and the daughter of the millionaire were one and the same. Tell me of her. Do they call her Johanna? That was her name, you know.’ ‘ No, Shane; they call her Joan. And they’re good to her, and they’re proud of her, and, they love her as their own, though God did give them a daughter of their own since.’

‘What is my Joan like, Alice V And the quivering face turned away. . ‘ What is she like, avick?’ And the woman gently rocked herself to and fro. ‘ Ah, what can I say she is like?'

; ‘ Like Johanna, is she?’ Yes, Shane, surely ; but, oh, much more beautiful. She is like a May morning, and like a sweet wild flower. She is a queen. Her portrait hangs in many a gallery in the Old World. Her hair is like a shower of burnished copper, and her eyes are like the sunlit sea. Her face is like the Madonna’s, and her soul is like snow, avick; and her heart is gold —pure gold. I’ve seen her in satin and diamonds, the talk of the Old World cities. I’ve seen her carry a poor bruised dog home in her arms and tend it herself. I’ve seen her ride over fences and hedges where, every other one feared to follow. I’ve seen her peerless among beauty and rank, and I’ve seen her kneeling in poor cottages weeping with those who wept. She has all the world can give, avick, but I think there are times when her heart craves for something else. Her nature is different, 1 Shane. There are times when I think she needs her father.’ '

Shane sobbed softly. ‘ Ah, my little girl, my little girl; I did it for the best. They have given you what I never could, and you don’t know, and if I suffer, what matter?’ Out of the gloom rose the figure from the couch, the glory of her hair falling about her shoulders and coming straight to, Shane, she knelt at his feet and put her arms about him and drew his white head down on her shoulder.

‘ Oh, my father, my father!’ she cooed. ‘My poor brave father. Your daughter has found you, and never again will you leave her. Oh, my own, my own Kiss your little girl. We shall have Christmas together, daddy. Wheye you go I go, too. Wherever your home is, it is mine, too. Oh, they were good and kind and loving, but they’re not my own. I think my heart told me so at times, and he should not have tempted you then. Oh, I’m- glad, I’m glad, my own father! - • ;

Alice was wringing her hands and moaning. ‘ What will the master say, alannah ? Think before you act. They’ll turn me off in my old age. Alannah, where did you come from? I thought you were in your bed.’

* You dear' old goose, they won’t turn you off. They wouldn’t lose tlxeir oldest and most valued servant for the world; and if they do, why, you can come to us. I went out early to bathe, and then came back here to wait until you would come along and get me a cup of tea. I had fallen asleep, and then your voices woke me, and then —I found my father. Get him some tea, like a dear soul, and then we’ll go home. Where is home, father?’ And she looked -at him.eagerly. ‘Ah, sweetheart, it’s a wee cottage on a station many good miles from anywhere, where we have a jolly black boy to mind us and the best young master in the world.’

She smiled and ran off, and then went slowly up the luxurious stairway to her own dainty room. She locked the door and in a storm of silent weeping threw herself on her knees before an ‘ Ecce Homo.’

‘ Oh, my suffering God,’ she prayed, 4 give me strength. He is my father, and because he needs me my place is with him, be he rich or poor. Give me strength to do right.’ She dressed herself plainly, took a few necessaries, and then hastily wrote ; ‘ My dears, —May heaven bless you for all your loving goodness and kindness to me, and, dears, forgive me for leaving you without a good-bye, but I dare not trust myself. The gulf between us is a great one now, for I have found my own fatheryour old servant, Shane Shane—and my place is with him, for he needs me. With my heart’s love. Joan.’ ***** Billy’s eyes goggled when they fell on the radiant vision that sat beside Shane when he drove up to the cottage in the gloaming, and as he took the horse away he walked backwards, gazing. The doctor’s wife and

been to him ideal but this girl—he was 5 ,-H-,- T f hane gently drew h “ daughter into his little sitting-room. ‘ Welcome home, my own brave child,’ he said lokenly It s not much I have to give you but the pent-up love of my lonely, longing heart.’ Which is all in the world I ask, my father.’ . roo l he low, thrilling voice brought the man who sat dreaming in Shane s easy chair to his feet with a bound that apprised him of the fact that he still had a very weak knee. He sank down quietly with a smothered groan. 1 J v . - 'w T e ,’- ol t man/ he said ‘ I’m sorry I startled you, but I v© been awfully anxious about you,- so I came down to wait and see if you’d turn up. , I gave strengTen.' tWISt; “ does take ...» wMe to ~ Master Kevin! Why, God bless you, boy. Sit there and Billy will bring the light.’ _ - / Kevin' ll O’7vj-i ) v ght S e lam P along and revealed to dream girl' S Waifang e^es his ‘ one ™ ’—his w bni? o f f-h ye at the C l ttage for tea and heard the whole of the story, and when Shane said; ‘Praise God or working it out in His own wonderful way,’ he answered a fervent Amen.’ y : for a Ti whde WaS SO ” e litUe troubl e “bout the organist it t?°’’ !f‘ d Fatlie L Lyons i 'no one else shall play • .Its either you, Kevin, or the mistress of Wirri•lTrt..' nd 80 ther ? was no music in the little church, and the organ remained locked. ‘How could I,’ Kevin told himself, ‘go fumbling there ” y B t mSJ fing6rS While her ma ones are there. But one joyous day he ran into the presby- « ‘ Father,’ he exclaimed, ‘you are going to have your organist and Wirribirri its mistress I’ S Father Lyons extended both hands and beamed. I m glad, my boy, glad. Who is it?’ saidfoTtiy! 8 6yeS dr ° Pped - Why ’ Joan O’Shane,’ he ‘Good!’ cried the genial priest. ‘Good! The grandest soul and the noblest heart I know. God bless the mistress of Wirribirri!”— Cross .