SOME SILK STOCKINGS AND ANNIE EGAN

New Zealand Tablet, 14 August 1913, Page 9

SOME SILK STOCKINGS AND ANNIE EGAN

(By Nora McAuliffe, for the N.Z. Tablet.) ' Miracles,' declared Polly O'Reilly, from her seat on the top step of the grotto, are happening every minute of the day. Why at this very moment people down in the city are praying, and at this very moment God may be choosing any- one of us as His instrument to bring them their heart's desire.' - Her listeners hung upon her words, and, intoxicated by their silent attention, Polly continued to, as Maggie Ryan irreverently called it, ' bubble over.' ' Our smallest actions may have a world-wide influence, just as when we drop a stone into the lagoon hole the stone makes in the water is small, but the ripple spreads and spreads, till at last it kisses the rim -of the lake.' She paused. Annie Egan squeezed her arm ecstatically. 'Oh, Polly, how beautifully you talk ■ You'd think her father was a lay preacher,' said Maggie Ryan disgusted she's always saying pious things, and turning up the whites of her eyes.' The white face of the little Queensland girl grew still whiter with passion. Her red hair flamed with indignation. Even Maggie Ryan was frightened by the tempest she had evoked. "' Maggie didn't mean it, Polly.'—Ellie O'Neill, the peace-lover, had her arms round Polly's neck'she was only joking. Weren't you, Maggie? ' ' Her jests are in decidedly bad taste,' said Polly, dismissing the affair and Maggie Ryan, with a gesture a Siddons might have envied. ; 'I think we ought to commence decorating the grotto,' hurried on Ellie before Maggie could recover. ' Timothy says if we like we can take the blossom from the apple tree by the big green gate, because it never bears any fruit. * 'l'll get the blossom,' volunteered Annie Egan, and, rising, discovered a pair of long, slim, silk-clad legs. Polly O'Reilly dropped a handful of flowers. 'Annie, your legs are beautiful!' she breathed. Silk stockings! The girls thrilled at the thought. They had gazed at them, dreamed of them, but Annie Egan was the first to really introduce them into their

world. The owner of the admired hose took her honors humbly. ' Grattan bought them for me to wear at the * Bishop's reception to-night, but Muriel Murphy said '' she guessed they were only mercerized," so I wore them to let you all see.' She was busy placing a spray of flowers in the hands of the statue, and then the dreadful thing happened. There was a sharp scrap-' ing as Annie's foot slipped, and a sudden cry of horror as a great piece of Annie Egan's right stocking remained clinging to one of the sharp points of the rockery. Maggie Ryan turned accusingly on Polly O'Reilly. 'l'd like to know,' she said scornfully, 'where*; the ripple caused by that hole is going to end?' «'■' Annie's mouth trembled. * Such a short-lived glory How was she to tell the little Mother, and Grattan. A dozen voices cooed consolation. A dozen hands were outstretched to caress her. Blindly she made her way through them, and soberly took her way down the path that zig-zagged in the most unaccountable fashion. At length, gaining the shelter of the convent wall, she ran, a quivering, sobbing fragment of humanity. Down the trellised walk she sped, and the glory of the spring sunshine and the fragrance of the budding earth held no joy for her. At length she reached her own corner of the wilderness and flung herself face downwards on the grass; and the old apple tree, whose sap still quickened into bloom beneath the warming sun, but whose boughs would never again blush with the rosy fruit, sighed with her, and sighing shed its petals on the brown curly head, and presently, lulled by the tender breeze that whispered through the grasses, Annie Egan fell asleep. An hour later she woke suddenly to find Rev. Mother and the Bishop looking down at her. Forgetful of her troubles, Annie sprang to her feet, then remembering, flopped back to earth. ' Annie!' —Rev. Mother's voice was surprised, horrified—'aren't you going to ask his Lordship's blessing V Annie's reply was a look of dumb misery. How silent the earth had grownnot even a grasshopper chirped. Annie swallowed the lump in her throat, and the noise sounded to her ' like the cannon must have sounded to the Six Hundred.' (She described it all afterwards to Polly O'Reilly.) She looked from one to the other desperately, then, driven to bay—' I've torn my stocking, my silk stocking, and if I stand up, Mother, his Lordship will see.' The Bishop's grey eyes twinkled, but his ears were quick to catch the note of sorrow, and he sat down on the grass by Annie Egan. Bit by bit the story was unfolded. How Grattan had bought the stockings with the money he had earned by working overtime; how her mother had embroidered them; how Muriel Murphy had said she ' guessed they'd only be mercerized,' and how Annie Egan had in her pride worn them to confound Muriel Murphy, and how her pride had been her downfall. Her listener suddenly thought of the little sister whose grave he had not long since visited in far-away Ireland— grave that was forever green in his memory. He rose slowly. ' Rev. Mother,' he said, ' I have just twenty minutes to spare, and if you will allow me, I'll take Annie for a spin in my new car.' ' Come along, Annie ' —he turned to the child ' I'll walk in front of you down the path, and when we get to the gate I'll promise to shut my eyes tight.' Annie glowed at him. 'You're just a saint?' she breathed. Rev. Mother had known and played with the little sister in that 'long, long ago, and her heart was big with understanding. You pair ofl children!' she laughed gently. From the instant the doors of Jonathan Wardern and Son's Colossal Stores had opened that morning, there had been a constant stream of spring shoppers through its departments. Smiling shopwalkers directed the ladies to the different counters, where smiling shopgirls ministered to their needs. If the smiles were as artificial as the arches of cherry -blossom and wistaria—-

well, your bargain-hunter hasn't a discerning eye for the quality of smiles. » 'The decorations look so real, one almost expects to see the blue SKy above. After all, there is nothing quite like the spring sunshine, is there?' gushed one lady to the girl who was serving her with stockings; and the girl, who had commenced work at eight o'clock that morning and had had twenty minutes for ■■■ lunch in the tea rooms on the premises, smilingly agreed. Then as the customer departed and Kitty Howard was placing the stockings back in their folders, a &icat bitterness swept over her. The warm spring sunshine, and the; joy of life! She looked at the tired, dispirited girls around her. 'Our birthright has. been stolen lrom us,' she thought grimly, '"and even the mess of pottage has run short.' She would take the way of escape" that offered. She was weary to death of the awful drabness of her days—the weary round of work for a mere existence. If she had had proper care when she was ill her voice would not have deserted her. She thought bitterly of all the money she had wasted on its cultivation, of those years on the Continent that only made her present life the harder "By contrast. She had thought to climb to the stars, and behold, she was an underpaid, overworked assistant in a department store. Suddenly she shook with longing for the greenness of the park, her park. The trees would be beautiful just now. She remembered how beautiful they had looked from her sitting-room window in the spring of last year when she had returned to the city with seventy pounds and a determination to become an opera singer. She had sung little songs to them. She remembered the young man — whom she had been briefly introduced after Mass one Sunday at the Cathedral—who used to pass on the other side of the street every morning, on his way to business, and how one day, feeling sorry for him, she had sung a little song brimful of the gladness of youth and life and her voice had carried her message to him. TErough the open window it had floated, soaring through the blue and gold of the morning, stilling the trees opposite to a tremulous silence, and surprising a lark high above into a yet more wonderful outburst of melody. How glad their street had sounded. A few minutes later, going to her window, she Had discovered the young man standing opposite. As she appeared he raised his hat, smiled his thanks, and went his way. Every morning, as she practised,, he passed that way, and every morning she interrupted her exercises to sing some song for him. Each morning she went to the window, feeling like some gracious prima donna, and each morning he smiled his thanks and went his way. Down into the city her imagination followed him into some dreadful block of buildings where Kb, no doubt, was busy all . day long adding up columns and columns of figures. She who was going to be so wonderful pitied him, and in the largeness of her heart had poured out her gift to make his lot less sad. , Then had come the illness, and her voice had left her. She moved to a back street and sold her piano. Then sue started to look for employment. Places had not been hard to get. At the time she had marvelled that so little experience was needed for the different positions. After a while she wondered less, and as she was forced to leave place after place the horror that was worse than poor food and shabby clothes ate into her soul. For three months now she had worked at Wardern's, and until the advent of the Hon. Jimmy Furnival a fortnight ago she had felt safe. The Hon. Jimmy was a young old man, slack of mouth, and offensively familiar of eye. He was the largest shareholder in the firm; he directed its managementhe was, in short, Wardern and Sons. He had become aware of her one day when she had been borrowed from her own department, by the head of the showroom, to act as hat model. In a square of yellow sunlight she had stood —a slender pink and gold beautytrying on river hats for the approval of the Hon. Mrs. Jimmy, whose eyes looked, Kitty thought, as if -they had been through a refrigerator.' The Honorable saw, admired, desired her. He had the feeling of turning a corner in a windy garden expecting nothing but cold, un-

responsive soil, and coming suddenly -\ upon a daffodil in all its golden glory. There had been some accidental , meetings, requests to walk her way (one doesn't say 'No with impunity to the director of the company) there had been subtle flatteries, and, hardest of all for a lonely girl to resist—sympathy. ; " Almost unconsciously she had told him of her frustrated ambition, and he had been so deeply concerned. -What she needed, he declared, was restlong, lazy days under the blue Australian skies. He'd get his cousin, who was a throat specialist, to thoroughly examine her throat. He spoke of a little summer I cottage nestling in the heart of the Blue Mountains, of the morning mists and the throbbing moonlight nights. Would she not honor him by letting him take care of her. With a touch of humor, ' he'd be awfully proud to have mended a star.' . Her eyes were lifted to his in gay response to his humor. But all the delight died in them, and they grew wide with fright, when he had suggested • that perhaps she would leThim visit her in her garden of delights. In a flash he knew he had given himself away. Poor, bruised Kitty Howard She turned and left him without a word. For a moment Jimmy swore softly. Then She'll come round,' he grinned; 'they always do. The trouble generally is to get rid of 'em.' So Jimmy, being a master in the art of waiting, took himself into the country for a few days, and at first Kitty Howard prayed with a force that left her a white and quivering thing for deliverance from the great spider's web in which she was as helpless as a struggling fly. Two days went by. The air in the shop was more stifling. One grew too tired to pray, too tired even to think. This morning's- mail had. brought her a letter such as the Jimmy Furnivals know how to write. Why should she struggle any longer, she asked herself wearily. If she resisted him it would mean a dismissal slip in her pay envelope, and she was quite without money or friends. He asked her in his letter to meet him that evening at eight. Well, she would do so; and she would accept his offer if he renewed it. It would mean at least a few months' respite from this prison life, and if her voice was not restored to her, well, one could always for a few pence purchase the key to that other door of escape from the chemist. 'A sudden fear of what she visualised gripped her. She felt herself drowning in a sea of blackness. 'Mother of God, pray for me!' and again, with shaking lips, ' Mbnstra Te esse Hatrem.' And as she prayed, the Bishop, with Annie Egan in tow, stopped before her and asked to see some black silk stockings. Up to that moment Annie Egan had not had the faintest notion of the Bishop's intention, and her eyes grew wide with wonder, but when after after some consultation, the beautiful lady behind the counter wrapped up two pairs of stockings and handed the parcel to her, Annie Egan's heart swelled and swelled. For a moment she was dumb, and then, greatly to his Lordship's embarrassment, she dropped on her knees amongst tttat surging mass of. spring-shoppers and kissed his ring. He placed his hand very gently on the bent head, then, glancing up, he surprised the look of hopeless misery in Kitty Howard's eyes. 'You are in trouble, my child?' he asked gently. Yes, oh yes, M'Lord.' He spoke gently to her for a minute. ' I'll be expecting you at the Palace at halfpast six, then,' Annie Egan heard him say, as they turned from the counter. Kitty Howard slipped away from her department into the cloak room. She pushed open the window, and for a moment breathed the fresh air. 'God's in His heaven she exulted. The way to the Palace led her past her park, and as Kitty went her way there was an exultant rhythm in her walk, a dewy vividness about her pink and gold beauty that made the young man loitering towards her draw in his breath for very wonder. Seeing her, he stood still till she reached him, then smiling frankly May I speak to you?'' He spoke shyly, hesitatingly. • You are the young man who went down into the city?' her eyebrows interrogated, but her voice held an inflection of certainty.

' - , - 'And you,' he said, 'were the singing princess." t His eyes noted her patched shoes, so'she had been in life's battle. May i walk with you? lam going your way,' he said. " J s ~ % ,„ 'Oh,' said Kitty, 'it seemed to me you were walking in the opposite direction.' :.' 1 was,'; he admitted cheerfully, 'but I am not now.' l He en.ded with firmness, and'fell into step beside her. ' : .:'■■■ ■;" ,-■-•' v ." ,-, 'l'm going to the Palace,' said Kitty demurely, nodding vaguely in its direction. 'V--; ; ;/;.M ,, t ■' So am I,' said her companion, with delighted surprise. v '"* •-'••--■' '- 'I am going,' Kitty spoke decisively, to see the Bishop.' > ' What a charming coincidence. I too am going to see his Lordship. Let us go and see him together.' Their glances met, and they laughed.,_A.sudden adorable shyness wrapped the girl; and to Bryan Lawlor, whom nature had made a poet and circumstances had turned into the only child of a wealthy brewer, it seemed as though her real self were gleaming through a misty veil that but enhanced her loveliness. i So in the twilight they reached the gates of the Palace. In the trees above their heads a bird called to its mate. The man's eyes grew serious. • Won't you tell me how to find you if you should vanish again, singing princess ?' he asked. ' How I searched for you; and to think I found you by the merest chance!' When the door opened in answer to their ring, the young man elected to wait on the terrace, and half ,an hour later, when the Bishop escorted Kitty to the door, they found him with an impassive face. A penny, Bryan, for your thoughts,' offered the Bishop, for the two were old friends. ' They're worth far more,' the brazen young man replied. ' They concern a princess who got lost in a mist and who was found again, by the merest chance, in the spring twilight." They also concern a pile ofmasonry that is going to be transmuted into a home.' He waved a hand towards a somewhat blatant house on the hill. The Bishop took a hand of each. ' You are good children. You are a pair of dear, good children.' . Kitty leaned forward impulsively, 'Was there ever a Bishop like ours?' After they had gone, the Bishop stood almost motionless for a long, long time. Night stole over the city. In the distance he saw the windows of St. Mary's flash into a sudden brilliance. They were preparing for his coming. He thought of Annie Egan, and all that the hole in her stocking had involved. He laughed, and for a moment his face grew boyish. Then, turning, his gaze rested on the dark outline of Wardern and Son's buildings, and his face became suddenly stern and drawn, at the thought of the danger threatening his little ones. 'The wolf in the fold,' he.muttered. He stretched "his hands in yearning benediction - over the city— My people! My flock!'