SHORT STORIES. REFUSED AND GRANTED.

Otago Witness, Issue 3355, 3 July 1918, Page 58

SHORT STORIES.

REFUSED AND GRANTED.

By Jane Babi>ow. (Copyright.) Late in the afternoon of a day late in August, Mrs Heffernan went out/ to cut lavender in her garden. It was a large old wal.'sd-in garden, which had come down in the world together with its redbrick Georgian manor-house, for they both belonged now to a farmer's family. Folk, whose labours lie in the fields, often are prone to despise gardening, much as a painter in fresco mignt despise the production of a miniature; and the Heffernans did eo to some extent; but Mrs Heffernan was very fond of flowers ; she took care • that though fruit and vegetables were neglected, there should be no lack of blossom in her beds and borders. On this day they were very brilliant with dahlias and poppies, sweet Avilliam, and sweet pea, and in the south-west angle of the sunbeaten wall her lavender hedge m?de & glowing lilac mist; you could hardly stick a needle between the scented spikes. It was full of humming bees and noiseless butterflies. They were nearly all thrown away on Mrs Heffernan, who had come out in a morose mood. Her mind was fixed upon. a long-standing grievance, which recent events had set even more vividly than usual before her thoughts. What she considered the chief misfortune of her life was her eldest and favourite son's headstrong behaviour about his marriage, ror all she could do or say, off he had run to the States with Bridgie Kelly, the ploughman's daughter, who was in service at the Vicarage, and no sort of match for ' Owen. That had happened two years ago, and she neither asked nor heard a word about him, until within the last few months had come the news that he had died of pneumonia at Chicago. She said that it made no great difference, as he could never have been anything to her, food of bad, living or dead. Yet everyody remarked that she had "somehow got to look wonderful old of a sudden," though she was not much over forty, and a fine, personable woman, without a white " thread in her black hair. She did not, however, attempt to dissemble her chagrin at her next misfortune, which \vas the return of Owen's widow to live with the Kellys close by, thus threatening perpetual mortification to the Heffernan's family pride. Bitterly did Mrs Heffernan rail at what she called the brazenness of Bridgie , Kelly for settling in the neighbourhood, nor would she be mollified by reports that the girl "looked verv bad entirely, and net likely to be long following poor Owen." "No such luck, said Bridgie's mother-in-law. But despite her unbelief, this August day's sun had been shining on Bridgie's funeral in the old burial ground not many hundred yards down the road. Anyone r might have supposed that the event would have had a soothing effect upon Mrs Heffernan, ensuring as it did the removal of what must have proved a chronic source of irritation. On the contrary, it rather exasperated her. She began to brood more repiningly over Owen's .death. For if he had only lived, she said to herself, "he would now have been rid of that one, and might have come back to his own people, just as if he had never demeaned himself to take up with them Kellys." And then, after a while, he might have married Frances O'Connor, or Mary McDowell, both of whom "were Sue fortunes, and would have had him ready enough—and small blame to them." Her consciousness that these happy might-have-beens were no longer possible, filled herewith wrath .and resentment, aggra\ajed by the lack of any object on which fHkvreik her ill-humour. It was only by d '•;?.«■'?£ that the pleasantness of her surroundings vr-ms their influence mildly felt, as she Knitted away at the dry grey-green etalks, nnd dropped diminutive sheaves of the fragrant, blossoming ears into a shallow w id e>-mouthed basket at her feet. Her trouble-. h«d lust begun to sink for the mcrnuni below the surface of her mind, when the brown painted door in the wall on her right band was pushed open slowly and hesitatingly, and through it entered a very old woman. Small and much bent and wizened, phe was wrapped in a large, elaborate, blank mant'.o, which had descended to her *rom a Ion.? succession of wearers, starting; with a high-born and portly dame, and which now enveloped her extincrmshincly. On her head she wore ' a white finen rap. surmounted bv a little black shawl, so that the shrivelled wedge of h<»T fane glimpsed out from among fltitterfhg frills nnd dangling fringes. After a slight half. she came on again down the Straight path leading towards the lavender ' herlge.: she moved along in short, feeble rushiv:, v.-ith the cait of a decrepit mouse. At the sight of her Mrs Heffernan's aggrieved wrath swelled up once more in fullest lido, for in this new-comer she recognised old Nan Kelly, Bridgie's grandmother, who wai the least bearable of her unbearable family, being credited with a verv wicked temner. as well as other gifts of nn nncannv kind. "And what bring you here, ma'am?" Mrs Heffprnan called to her in a rough tone meant to discourage nearev approach, but old Nan continued to advance undeterred, and did not rerdv until she bad reached the hedge. " r Twas after, a few flowers I come." she said in a hoarse, croaking bass, "and I see there's a plenty wid vou." "Thon vou may go abont your busrne«3," i Mrs Heffernan sa'd. "T've'got no flowers for vou—or <invthing else." "Me grandchild, your daughter-in-law, that we're burvin' this day, God be good •to her." said old Nan. "was verv wishful for them, and she Ivin' sick. She did he tninrlin' poor Owen, brinin' her some now and again, when he was coortin'. So I'm ihinkin' it's aisier she might re6t this

night if I had e'er a few out of the garden here to throw over the grave of her below yonder. A handful of that 'ud do well," she said, pointing with a long, crooked finger at the lavender heaped in the basket. „

"You'll do well without it," said Mrs Heffernan. Old Nan's words had been a stinging swarm, " or ill for aught I care. I'd sooner pitch the whole of it at the back of the fire than let you have a sprig of it. Be off, and don't' offer to meddle wid it," for the crone seemed to stoop over the basket. "What you took out of this place was a dale too good for the pack of you, and nothin' more you'll take as long as I'm mistress here." " Have it your own way, me fine lady," old Nan'said, fixing upon her an eye which was commonly believed to be an evil one. • And may black bad luck go along 1 anight you give out of aught growm' or blowin' here to the end of your days." " 'Twill be better givin' that than keepin' it," Mrs Heffernan said defiantly, lifting up her basket. " Get along wid you, yourself and your ill tongue." " There's no telhn' but it mayn't be," said old Nan, turning to go. "No tellin' there is, no tellin'. she muttered on, like a growl of retreating thunder as she went towards the door. At the threshold she broke into a sudden screech of shrill laughter. Mrs Heffernan ran down the walk, end locked and bolted the door which opened on the road. But she could not shut out the sound of old Nr n's laugh, which came skirling in for what seemed a very long time.

One August day about a dozen years later the lavender was again fit for cutting in the Heffernan's garden. No sunshine brightened it on this occasion, the sky being murkily overcast, but Mrs Heffernan's spirits were unwontedly high. They might well be so, indeed, since she had just succeeded in making up a very advantageous match for Eily, her only daughter, who now nearlv filled Owen's place in her affections. Young Dan Quin was heir to a fine property, and in every way exceptionally eligible, let alone that lie' and ■ Eily had set their hearts on one another, and were as happy as crickets. Mrs Heiiernan was so busv making a fruit cake for to-morrow's tea party in honour of the .engagement that she did not observe the day's lowering aspect until she happened to glance out of the window, whereupon she said to .Eily: "It looks apt to be a wet night. Couldn't you run out, honey, and be cu.tain'' a bit of the lavender? I'd be sorry it was all destroyed." Eily ran out, nothing loth, to the garden, where she expected that somebody would soon arrive to share her labours. At the moment, however, nobody was there except old Christy Walsh, who had worked for the HeAernans all the days of his life, and had been her confidential friend all the much fewer ones of her own. " About cuitin' the lavender, are you, Miss Eily?" he said. "'lhere does be a great sight of it, and a grand smell of it." " 1 wish I could give you a bunch of it for yourself, Christy," said Eily. " But, you know—l wonder what in the world ever set her" —she nodded towards the house—'' so against giving away a flower out of the garden r She isn't like that about anything else." "Sure she is not," said Christy; " freehanded though she is most whiles. But the raison's more than I can be tellin' .you; only I've a notion that ould Nan Kelly—who's dead and gone beiore your recollection—was somehow at the bottom of it. Ould Nan was a quare one; more than her prayers she did be sayin', and it's my belief that one day she put some sort of a comether on the misthress. You may laugh, Miss Eily, but 'twouldn't be the first time she done that same." "I didn't laugh," said Eily, looking round with a start. " It must have been someone on the road, though it sounded nearer." " Or it might be on the flowers themselves she put it," said Christy. " Some quare unlucky things happened, that's sartin. Well, now, 1 must go finish wheelin' in the ton of coal. We'll bt gettm' ugly weather before much longer. Them great dirty Avool-packs"—he pointed at some glistening black-and-white cloudbergs Avhich had come sailing by—" do be as full of hail as they can stick together." Christy withdrew opportunely just as Dan Quin's arrival made superfluous the company of a third. His penknife and Eilv s scissors did swift execution among the lavender spikes, masses of which had fallen into the basket by the time that a few heavy drops began to glance down dispersedly around them. "It's turning out wet," said Dan. "I'll leave this inside for you, mavourneen, and be running home. I should get back by six." As he carried the basket towards the yarddoor he added: "I'll take a bunch of your lavender along. We've next to none, and poor Aunt Isabella might like a bit. bile's only middling to-da.y. Eily heard with some consternation, for she had been brought up under a law as of the Medes and Persians, prohibiting the gift of even a single flower out of the garden. jOften she had chafed against its churlishness, and now urged not only by the difficulty of refusing Dan, but by confidence in her own strengthened position as a person of newly-created importance, she rapidly resolved to disobey. So, in the porch, she helped him to tie ut> a liberal handful, thinking the while that her mother would very likely never know. But herein she was mistaken. Scarcely had Dan run off through the hopping hailstones before Mrs Heffernan- hurried down the long kitchen passage, and was confronting her daughter with a countenance wrathful and dismayed. "What's young Quin after takin' away with him?" she ''Pmanded. "Why, just a bit of lavender he wanted for his old aunt," said Eily. And haven't I times and again forbidden you to be givin' away flowers?" said her mother. " Ashamed of my life I'd have been to refuse him," said Eily, "and it lyin' there in stacks." "You might better be ashamed," said

her mother, "than sorry for doin' him a very bad turn.'' ''Where's the badness of it?" retorted Eily; and with that she went off into the kitchen,, partly because she was vexed, and partly, because a vivid flash of lightning scared her away from the open door. At that moment old Christy passed by it, trundling his empty barrow, and Mrs -Lieilernan, speeding after him, gave him some commands in an urgent whisper. You must make the best excuse you can," she concluded, "but be quick about it." Tire old man trotted off across the yard with the expression of one bound on an unpleasant and perplexing errand, while his mistress joined her daughter in the kitchen.

Thereupon the storm began to flash and crash so fiercely that they both cowered affrighted in a corner, quite forgetful of their disagreement. Eily was reassuring herself bv saying that Dan would certainly have taken shelter in the Dowlings' cottage, when a hasty shuffle sounded outside, and Christy peered into the room. Then he made his way over to Mrs Heffernan, holding out something towards her. " What in the name of g&odness is it?" she said. It was a bunch of lavender, scorched and blackened, with a charred spike dropping off as it shook in his hand " Och, ma'am—after takin' it I am off of young Mr Quin," he said breathlessly, "that's lyin' wonder under the big beech. You see the way it is, ma'am—and worse he is—the Lord .have mercy on him." Eily's darkening eyes went to and fro between this messenger and her mother, until at last thev fixed on the dreadful bunch of lavender. "I see," she said, "it was bad luck I gave him —old Nan's bad luck." And she laughed shrilly. | ,r Whisht, child, dear—whisht now," her mother implored her; but Eily's laugh grew wild ana wilder. And a mocking echo skirled in answer to it from without.