Bridgie

“ You don’t know the excitement there was in this house when Jack’s telegram arrived! If we were pleased to think of having a child for the holidays, imagine our delight when it was a girl like ourselves—a companion for Esmeralda and me!”
“A girl like ourselves!” Oh, Bridgie, Bridgie, you must have had a taste of the Blarney Stone too, to have ignored so completely the ten years which separated you from your visitor; but, needless to say, Mademoiselle bore you no grudge for your short-sightedness, and was only too happy to be classed as a girl once more. ”

“ Too soft!” declared Bridgie sternly. “‘Them,’ indeed! Plural, I’ll trouble you! Just realise, my child, that there are not enough men to go round, and don’t waste time making pictures of a chorus who will never appear. If you have one lover, it will be more than your share; and it’s doubtful if you ever get that.”
“I doubt it,” maintained Pixie sturdily. “I’m plain, but I’ve a way. You know yourself, me dear, I’ve a way! ... I’m afraid I’ll have lots; and that’s the trouble of it, for as sure as you’re there, Bridgie, I’ll accept them all! ”

“ Ah dear, it’s a great responsibility to have a beauty for a sister! I am in terror every time a young man comes to the house, in case he should fall in love with her.”
“There is more than one girl in the house, however, and I know vich of the two would be my choice, if I were, as you say, a young man myself,” returned Mademoiselle sturdily. Bridgie’s utter unconsciousness of her own claims to attention filled her at once with admiration and impatience, and she could not resist putting her feelings into words. “Does it never give you any fear in case one should fall in love with you instead?” ”

“ It’s the way with life; ye go jog-trotting along, blind and cheerful, until suddenly ye bang your head against a wall, and your eyes are opened! ’Twas the same with me. I looked at myself every day, but I never saw. Habit, my dear, blindfolded me like a bandage, and looking at good-looking people all day long it seemed only natural that I should look nice too. But this morning the sun shone, and I stood before the glass twisting about to try on my new hat, and, Bridgie, the truth was revealed! ”

“ A murmur of protest did duty as a reply, and Bridgie continued impressively—
“Yes, I am sure you will choose the right sort of friend, for the honour of your name and the family to which you belong; but you must be industrious with your work as well. Now that I have left off lessons I wish I had worked twice as hard, for I feel so ignorant and stupid beside other girls; and you are clever, Pixie, and can do well if you choose. ”

“ We heard you right up in the schoolroom. You’re not the hero you thought yourself, to mistake an innocent gentleman for a midnight assassin.”
“Pat, be quiet!” interrupted Bridgie sharply, then turned to the stranger with that winsome smile which was her greatest charm. “You’ve been a schoolboy yourself, and know the ways of them. My brother never rests out of mischief, and he dared my sister Joan to walk the round of the Castle in the dark. ”

“ Mademoiselle started and looked alarmed questionings, and Bridgie smiled in response, saying in cool, conversational tones—
“We are ruined, you know! We can’t go on living here much longer. Father has spent all his money, and we should have had to leave before now, but that he came into a little more at mother’s death. It was not much, and it is going very fast. It can’t be more than a year or two at most before the crash comes, so you can’t wonder I let the boys and girls enjoy themselves, can you?” ”

“ Oh, Bridgie, what a week it has been! Going to sleep with the weight on my heart; waking up and thinking, ‘What is it? What is it?’ and the shock of remembering afresh! I lay and thought it all out; never to be able to run, nor bicycle, nor skate, nor dance, nor even walk without crutches, to dread going upstairs, to be cut off from girls of my own age because I could not take part in their amusements, to hear people say ‘Poor thing!’ and look pitifully at me as I hobbled by. ”

“ There is many a true word spoken in jest, and Bridgie was reminded of the proverb when the next morning arrived, and her inclination for hunting or any other amusement died a sudden death through an incident which happened at the breakfast-table. The Major was the only one of the party who received a letter, and when he had perused it he gave an exclamation of dismay, and leant back in his chair with an expression of bewilderment. “It can’t be! It isn’t possible!” ”

“ Are you sufficiently appeased to let me kiss you, you haughty Mademoiselle?”
“With pleasure; yes! but my feelings are still sensitive. With the slightest irritation I should have a relapse!” said Mademoiselle stiffly; for it would not do to indulge in sentiment to-day, and Bridgie’s tears were dangerously near the surface.
The time for parting came at last, and the Major nerved himself to bid adieu to his piccaninny with a composure which should leave her unsuspicious of its final nature. ”

“ Bridgie raised her head: she was smiling, a bright, unaffected, relieved-looking smile.
“There’s no end to the work on a big estate. The Major—my father—used to say that every man was his own best bailiff, though he made a fine muddle of it himself, poor darling! ”

“ There’s nothing settled, for, to tell you the truth, he has never so much as seen her yet, but she was visiting old Biddy Gallagher when he drove past to the meet, and at lunch says she, ‘He’s the elegant creature, that duke! I’m thinking of marrying him myself!’ and took Bridgie’s advice on the trousseau that very afternoon. She says she won’t be engaged until she is twenty-one, and that it’s a pity to unsettle him about it yet awhile, as there’s over two years to wait. ”

“ Jack frowned at that, and put a quick question.
“Have you been walking about by yourself? I won’t have it at this hour of the night. You can find your own way about the neighbourhood in the daytime, but I won’t have you going into town by yourself, or even across the road in the dark. London is not Knock, remember, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to get lost. Don’t let her roam about without you, Bridgie!”
“’Twas only a step, and barely four o’clock!” Bridgie’s forehead was fretted with anxious lines, but Pixie nodded back cheery reassurement. ”

“ The Major smiled for the first time since his return home. He never could resist Pixie’s quaint speeches, and Bridgie watched with delight his brightening glance.
“Is it, piccaninny? That doesn’t sound very serious. You’ll have to tell the doctor to be stern with me. What have you been doing with yourself all day?”
“Fretting for you, but Mademoiselle’s going to play games with me, and I’ll enjoy them now that you’re comfortable. You’ve got on the very best pillow-cases, father. You do look smart! Are you tired now? Do you want to go to sleep? ”

“ It’s just like being in seaside lodgings, when the smallnesses and inconveniences make part of the fun. We are going home some day, when Jack has made his fortune, and until then my brother-in-law rents the Castle from us, and we go over and stay with him once or twice in the year. Esmeralda is mistress of Knock, and is having it put in such terrible order that we can hardly recognise the dear old tumbledown place. There is not a single broken pane in the glass-houses!” Bridgie spoke in a tone of almost incredulous admiration, the while she drew a large promenade photograph from its envelope. ”

“ Give us leave to ask some people on New Year’s Eve, and we will plan such a wonderful programme as will be the talk for miles around. I’m brimful of ideas, and we have not had any sort of entertainment for two years now. Say we may ask them, won’t you, dear?”
But at this the Major began to look uneasy, for it was one thing to find fault with Bridgie for not having given an invitation in the past, and quite another to be asked to sanction a fresh one in the future.
“Who will you be wanting to ask?” he queried anxiously. “Never did I meet such an exacting child! ”

“ Bridget, thou knowest that I love not my life as some love it. Often it seems to me as though by death alone I may escape a frightful doom. All around us our fellow creatures are dying -- too often alone and untended, like dogs in a ditch. Good Bridget, I have money in the house, and we have health and strength and courage; and thou art an excellent good nurse in all cases of sickness. Thou hast taught me some of thy skill, and I long to show it on behalf of these poor stricken souls, so often deserted by their nearest and dearest in the hour of their deadliest peril. ”

“ Yet another philosophy.
'Miss Briggs,' came a man's voice from the stairs.
'Coming, sir,' yelled Miss Briggs in the penetrating tone that calling from cellar to attic teaches.
'Where are my boots?' said the voice on the stairs.
'I'll get 'em for you, sir,' cried Miss Briggs shuffling to the door on her worn slippers.
Life is a hard thing, thought Victoria again. Another woman for the scrap heap. Fourteen hours work a day, nightmares of unlet rooms, boots to black and coals to carry, dirt, loneliness, harsh words and at the end 'I dunno.' Is that to be my fate? she wondered. ”

“ It was now Bridget's turn to change color, as she stammered out, "I—I was going to, not that I care much about him; no, no, Mark is the flower of the flock, and I've a mighty great mind to set my cap at him myself."
Peggy smiled, a very small, but a peculiar, and it might have been, perfectly self-satisfied smile, as she replied: "Try, Miss Bridget, and I wish you success."
"Truth is scarce when liars are near," said Bridget. "But I say, Peg, does Mark know you love him so hard?" ”

“ Bridget’s love for her child lay very deep—deeper than that daughter ever knew; or I should think she would never have wearied of home as she did, and prayed her mistress to obtain for her some situation—as waiting maid—beyond the seas, in that more cheerful continental life, among the scenes of which so many of her happiest years had been spent. She thought, as youth thinks, that life would last for ever, and that two or three years were but a small portion of it to pass away from her mother, whose only child she was. Bridget thought differently, but was too proud ever to show what she felt. ”

“ What a trim little maid brings in the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug dressing-room he has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears trying on the delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire! How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room: Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp; Mamma and Grannie with their respective needleworks; the children clustering round a great book of prints—a great book of prints such as this before us, which, at this season, must make thousands of children happy by as many firesides! ”

“ She gave a little alarmed shiver.
'Don't wonder, Colin. Don't worry.... And oh! before everything, don't drive me—it isn't safe with an O'Hara woman. I can see that you don't understand women—of a certain type.'
'Oh! I grant you women haven't stood for a great deal in my life, and the few I've known well have been of the humble, human sort. But I do know this, Bridget'—his face softened—'I do know that a proud, sensitive woman—which is what you are and what I love you for being—is like a thoroughbred mare, out the first time in harness. ”

“ When Brigit came into the King’s presence, the King said to her, ‘Since it is thy father’s wealth that thou takest, much more if I buy thee, wilt thou take of my wealth and my cattle, and give them to the poor.’ Said Brigit, ‘The Son of the Virgin knoweth if I had thy might with all Leinster and with all thy wealth, I would give them to the Lord of the Elements.’ Said the King to Duffy, ‘Thou art not fit on either hand to bargain for this maiden, for her merit is higher before God than before men.’ And he gave Duffy for her an ivory-hilted sword. ”

“ Wit'out keepin' exact tabs on Bridgy, I'm able to state that as soon as she's big enough she goes to woik; an' at one time an' another she sells poipers, does a toin in a vest factory, or some other sweat shop; an' at last, when she's about seventeen, she's model in a cloak joint. She gets along all right, all right for a space or so, when one day d' old grey guy who owns d' woiks takes it into his nut he'll float into Bridgy's 'fections.
“'Love youse!' says Bridgy, to this aged stiff; 'old gent, you're dopey! ”

“ Very spruce and fine was Captain Briggs; very much content with life and with the strength that in him lay, that excellent May morning, as with firm stride and clear eye he walked up State Street, in Boston Town. The wounds which would have killed a weaker man had long since healed on him. Up from the water-front he walked, resplendent in his best blue suit, and with a gold-braided cap on his crisp hair. His black beard was carefully trimmed and combed ”

“ When you let it out, one is thrilled and shaken, and there is no end to the glory and power; it encircles one as with a wreath of tones. But when you lower it suddenly and breathe out the sound—child—little one, what have you suffered to sing like that? You are young. What must you have suffered!"
He clasped her hands tenderly between his own, and stared down into her eyes.
"Don't touch me," she said brokenly, "I told you—there is blood on them! I am cursed like Brünnhilde. ”

“ He should be tall,"—her eye fell on Briggs—"he should be handsome,"—still on Briggs—"he should be graceful, he should be athletic."—At this point her eye seemed fairly to feast on Briggs, and a curious lurid light lowered in it. She paused a moment. I was sitting next to Briggs, and I felt a shiver run through him. I looked at his face, and it was ghastly pale. I asked him in a whisper if he felt faint? He impatiently motioned me to be silent, and remained, as I thought, like a bird paralysed beneath the gaze of a serpent. ”