Penelope's Irish Experiences Part 2

"Sure it's you that have the good hearts!"

"May the heavens be your bed!"

"May the journey thrive wid her, the crathur!"

Francesca and I arrived first at the hotel where our rooms were already engaged, and there proved to be a comfortable little dressing, or maid's, room just off Salemina's.

Here the Derelict was presently ensconced, and there she lay, in a sort of profound exhaustion, all day, without once absolutely regaining her consciousness. Instead of visiting the National Gallery as I had intended, I returned to the dock to see if I could find the girl's luggage, or get any further information from the stewardess before she left Dublin.

"I'll send the doctor at once, but we must learn all possible particulars now," I said maliciously to poor Salemina. "It would be so awkward, you know, if you should be arrested for abduction."

The doctor thought it was probably nothing more than the complete prostration that might follow eight days of sea-sickness, but the patient's heart was certainly a little weak, and she needed the utmost quiet. His fee was a guinea for the first visit, and he would drop in again in the course of the afternoon to relieve our anxiety. We took turns in watching by her bedside, but the two unemployed ones lingered forlornly near, and had no heart for sightseeing. Francesca did, however, purchase opera tickets for the evening, and secretly engaged the housemaid to act as head nurse in our absence.

As we were dining at seven, we heard a faint voice in the little room beyond. Salemina left her dinner and went in to find her charge slightly better. We had been able thus far only to take off her dress, shoes, and such garments as made her uncomfortable; Salemina now managed to slip on a nightdress and put her under the bedcovers, returning then to her cold mutton cutlet.

"She's an extraordinary person," she said, absently playing with her knife and fork. "She didn't ask me where she was, or show any interest in her surroundings; perhaps she is still too weak. She said she was better, and when I had made her ready for bed, she whispered, 'I've got to say my prayers'.

"'Say them by all means,' I replied.

"'But I must get up and kneel down, she said.

"I told her she must do nothing of the sort; that she was far too ill.

"'But I must,' she urged. 'I never go to bed without saying my prayers on my knees.'

"I forbade her doing it; she closed her eyes, and I came away. Isn't she quaint?"

At this juncture we heard the thud of a soft falling body, and rus.h.i.+ng in we found that the Derelict had crept from her bed to her knees, and had probably not prayed more than two minutes before she fainted for the fifth or sixth time in twenty-four hours. Salemina was vexed, angel and philanthropist though she is. Francesca and I were so helpless with laughter that we could hardly lift the too conscientious maiden into bed. The situation may have been pathetic; to the truly pious mind it would indeed have been indescribably touching, but for the moment the humorous side of it was too much for our self-control. Salemina, in rus.h.i.+ng for stimulants and smelling salts, broke her only comfortable eyegla.s.ses, and this accident, coupled with her other anxieties and responsibilities, caused her to shed tears, an occurrence so unprecedented that Francesca and I kissed and comforted her and tucked her up on the sofa. Then we sent for the doctor, gave our opera tickets to the head waiter and chambermaid, and settled down to a cheerful home evening, our first in Ireland.

"If Himself were here, we should not be in this plight," I sighed.

"I don't know how you can say that," responded Salemina, with considerable spirit. "You know perfectly well that if your husband had found a mother and seven children helpless and deserted on that dock, he would have brought them all to this hotel, and then tried to find the father and grandfather."

"And it's not Salemina's fault," argued Francesca. "She couldn't help the girl being born in Salem; not that I believe that she ever heard of the place before she saw it printed on Salemina's trunk. I told you it was too big and red, dear, but you wouldn't listen! I am the strongest American of the party, but I confess that U.S.A. in letters five inches long is too much for my patriotism."

"It would not be if you ever had charge of the luggage," retorted Salemina.

"And whatever you do, Francesca," I added beseechingly, "don't impugn the veracity of our Derelict. While we think of ourselves as ministering angels I can endure anything, but if we are the dupes of an adventuress, there is nothing pretty about it. By the way, I have consulted the English manageress of this hotel, who was not particularly sympathetic.

'Perhaps you shouldn't have a.s.sumed charge of her, madam,' she said, 'but having done so, hadn't you better see if you can get her into a hospital?' It isn't a bad suggestion, and after a day or two we will consider it, or I will get a trained nurse to take full charge of her.

I would be at any reasonable expense rather than have our pleasure interfered with any further."

It still seems odd to make a proposition of this kind. In former times, Francesca was the Croesus of the party, Salemina came second, and I last, with a most precarious income. Now I am the wealthy one, Francesca is reduced to the second place, and Salemina to the third, but it makes no difference whatever, either in our relations, our arrangements, or, for that matter, in our expenditures.

Chapter IV. Enter Benella Dusenberry.

'A fair maiden wander'd All wearied and lone, Sighing, "I'm a poor stranger, And far from my own."

We invited her in, We offered her share Of our humble cottage And our humble fare; We bade her take comfort, No longer to moan, And made the poor stranger Be one of our own.'

Old Irish Song.

The next morning dawned as lovely as if it had slipped out of Paradise, and as for freshness, and emerald sheen, the world from our windows was like a lettuce leaf just washed in dew. The windows of my bedroom looked out pleasantly on St. Stephen's Green, commonly called Stephen's Green, or by citizens of the baser sort, Stephens's Green. It is a good English mile in circ.u.mference, and many are the changes in it from the time it was first laid out, in 1670, to the present day, when it was made into a public park by Lord Ardilaun.

When the celebrated Mrs. Delany, then Mrs. Pendarves, first saw it, the centre was a swamp, where in winter a quant.i.ty of snipe congregated, and Harris in his History of Dublin alludes to the presence of snipe and swamp as an agreeable and uncommon circ.u.mstance not to be met with perhaps in any other great city in the world.

A double row of spreading lime-trees bordered its four sides, one of which, known as Beaux' Walk, was a favourite lounge for fas.h.i.+onable idlers. Here stood Bishop Clayton's residence, a large building with a front like Devons.h.i.+re House in Piccadilly: so writes Mrs. Delany. It was splendidly furnished, and the bishop lived in a style which proves that Irish prelates of the day were not all given to self-abnegation and mortification of the flesh.

A long line of vehicles, outside-cars and cabs, some of them battered and shaky, others sufficiently well-looking, was gathering on two sides of the Green, for Dublin, you know, is 'the car-drivingest city in the world.' Francesca and I had our first experience yesterday in the intervals of nursing, driving to Dublin Castle, Trinity College, the Four Courts, and Grafton Street (the Regent Street of Dublin). It is easy to tell the stranger, stiff, decorous, terrified, clutching the rail with one or both hands, but we took for our model a pretty Irish girl, who looked like nothing so much as a bird on a swaying bough. It is no longer called the 'jaunting,' but the outside car and there is another charming word lost to the world. There was formerly an inside-car too, but it is almost unknown in Dublin, though still found in some of the smaller towns. An outside-car has its wheels practically inside the body of the vehicle, but an inside car carries its wheels outside. This definition was given us by an Irish driver, but lucid definition is not perhaps an Irishman's strong point. It is clearer to say that the pa.s.senger sits outside of the wheels on the one, inside on the other. There are seats for two persons over each of the two wheels, and a d.i.c.key for the driver in front, should he need to use it.

Ordinarily he sits on one side, driving, while you perch on the other, and thus you jog along, each seeing your own side of the road, and discussing the topics of the day across the 'well,' as the covered-in centre of the car is called. There are those who do not agree with its champions, who call it 'Cupid's own conveyance'; they find the seat too small for two, yet feel it a bit unsociable when the companion occupies the opposite side. To me a modern Dublin car with rubber tires and a good Irish horse is the jolliest vehicle in the universe; there is a liveliness, an irresponsible gaiety, in the spring and sway of it; an ease in the half-lounging position against the cus.h.i.+ons, a unique charm in 'travelling edgeways' with your feet planted on the step. You must not be afraid of a car if you want to enjoy it. Hold the rail if you must, at first, though it's just as bad form as clinging to your horse's mane while riding in the Row. Your driver will take all the chances that a crowded thoroughfare gives him; he would scorn to leave more than an inch between your feet and a Guinness' beer dray; he will shake your flounces and furbelows in the very windows of the pa.s.sing trams, but he is beloved by the G.o.ds, and nothing ever happens to him.

The morning was enchanting, as I said, and, above all, the Derelict was better.

"It's a grand night's slape I had wid her intirely," said the housemaid; "an' sure it's not to-day she'll be dyin' on you at all, at all; she's had the white drink in the bowl twyst, and a grand cup o' tay on the top o' that."

Salemina fortified herself with breakfast before she went in to an interview, which we all felt to be important and decisive. The time seemed endless to us, and endless were our suppositions.

"Perhaps she has had morning prayers and fainted again."

"Perhaps she has turned out to be Salemina's long-lost cousin."

"Perhaps she is upbraiding Salemina for kidnapping her when she was insensible."

"Perhaps she is relating her life history; if it is a sad one, Salemina is adopting her legally at this moment."

"Perhaps she is one of Mr. Beresford's wards, and has come over to complain of somebody's ill treatment."

Here Salemina entered, looking flushed and embarra.s.sed. We thought it a bad sign that she could not meet our eyes without confusion, but I made room for her on the sofa, and Francesca drew her chair closer.

"She is from Salem," began the poor dear; "she has never been out of Ma.s.sachusetts in her life."

"Unfortunate girl!" exclaimed Francesca, adding prudently, as she saw Salemina's rising colour, "though of course if one has to reside in a single state, Ma.s.sachusetts offers more compensations than any other."

"She knows every nook and corner in the place," continued Salemina; "she has even seen the house where I was born, and her name is Benella Dusenberry."

"Impossible!" cried Francesca. "Dusenberry is unlikely enough, but who ever heard of such a name as Benella! It sounds like a flavouring extract."

"She came over to see the world, she says."

"Oh! then she has money?"

"No--or at least, yes; or at least she had enough when she left America to last for two or three months, or until she could earn something."

"Of course she left her little all in a chamois-skin bag under her pillow on the steamer," suggested Francesca.

"That is precisely what she did," Salemina replied, with a pale smile.

"However, she was so ill in the steerage that she had to pay twenty-five or thirty dollars extra to go into the second cabin, and this naturally reduced the amount of her savings, though it makes no difference since she left them all behind her, save a few dollars in her purse. She says she is usually perfectly well, but that she was very tired when she started, that it was her first sea-voyage, and the pa.s.sage was unusually rough."

"Where is she going?"