Chapter Five Tom Moore gives Mistress Dyke an Inkling
Moore regarded Bessie with a glance of reproving indignation, which was quite lost upon the young lady.
“I ’m in a den of thieves, I am,” he remarked, sternly. “Bessie, I half believe you put those lads up to that same game. What share do you get? Half, I ’ll wager.”
“When do you go back to Dublin, Tom?” asked the girl, waving aside his insinuation with a flirt of her handkerchief.
“I don’t know,” responded Moore. “I should be there now.”
“Should you, Tom? What is keeping you, then?”
Simple child! She, of course, had not the slightest suspicion that she was in any way concerned in the poet’s prolonged tarrying at Dalky. Innocence is a truly beautiful thing, and that it is not more popular is much to be regretted.
“Keeping me?” repeated Moore. “Nothing but my heart, mavourneen.”
“Indeed? Who has it in their possession, if it is no longer in yours?”
“You, Bessie,” answered Moore, earnestly. “And pray do not return it. After being in your keeping, no other woman would satisfy it, and I ’d have no peace at all. Ah, alanna, when I left Dublin, weary and discouraged at my failure to sell my poetry, and came to this quiet country place in search of rest, it is little I dreamed I would run across such a girl as you. You have put new thoughts in my head, Bessie. My soul is not the same at all.”
Touched by the tenderness of his tone, the girl grew sober in her turn.
“And you must go, Tom?” she asked, regretfully.
“I have my fortune to make, Bessie. Why, mavourneen, I have n’t a penny of my own.”
“And no pennies of anybody else’s?”
Moore smiled broadly.
“How could I have?” said he. “I never went to school here. I don’t know the system like your pupils.”
Bessie laughed and looked so tempting in her mirth that Moore made another attempt to kiss her, with no better success than had rewarded his previous efforts.
“Poverty is a common complaint,” she observed, shaking her head at the disappointed youth.
“I had rather be poor than a miser,” said Moore, sitting down on a stool.
“A miser? Am I one?”
“Yes, with your kisses. Faith, they are spoiling to be picked.”
“I am the best judge of when and by whom they shall be picked, good sir,” replied Bessie, pensively nibbling on the end of a brown curl.
“It is hard to be poor, Bessie,” sighed Moore, resting his feet on a rung of the stool, his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hand, this being a favorite attitude of the poet’s.
“If you would marry Winnie Farrell you would have slews of money,” suggested Bessie, leaning on the back of the bench with affected carelessness of demeanor, but there was a gleam in her eye, hidden ’neath drooping lids and long lashes, that seemed indicative of no little interest in the forthcoming answer.
Moore looked inquiringly at his fair companion.
“Winnie Farrell is it?” he said, laughing at the idea. “Not for me, Bessie. I have picked out another lassie.”
“But I ’m told you often call at Squire Farrell’s,” persisted the girl, not wholly reassured.
“To be sure I do, Bessie,” replied Moore frankly. “And no wonder. The Farrells are pleasant people. Winnie is nice to chat with, and I like her brother. He is the cleverest lad in the country.”
Bessie shook her head doubtfully, and a sunbeam that, slanting in the window, had comfortably nested in a coil of her bonny brown hair was rudely thrown forth to find no better resting-place than the floor, for the girl moved nearer to Moore as she spoke.
“He is too clever for his own good, I fear,” she said. “The fewer dealings you have with Terence the better it will be for you.”
Before Moore could reply the door opened, and Patsy, Micky, and Willy Donohue filed in, each clutching an arithmetic.
“Look, Tom,” said Bessie, pointing out the new-comers.
Moore regarded the little party with wide-open eyes.
“Egad, Bessie,” said he, “it’s a committee. What do you lads want now?”
“Please, sir,” said Patsy, acting as spokesman, “these two boys wants help wid their lessons. They each has a sum, sir, and their answer is sixpence apiece.”
“Come here, then,” said Moore, sweetly, “and I ’ll hand it to you.”
The boys, made confident by past successes, came forward without hesitation as their victim put both hands in his pockets.
“It is a long worm that has no turning,” remarked Moore, seizing Patsy by the collar with one hand, while with the other he picked up the ruler from the desk. “This is where Thomas Moore worms—I mean turns. There is sixpence where you won’t lose it, my lad.”
The dust flew from Patsy’s breeches, while from his mouth proceeded vigorous objections to his present treatment.
“Now run, you divil, or I will repeat the dose,” cried Moore, throwing the ruler at Micky’s bare shins as that youthful conspirator sought safety in headlong flight with Willy before him and Patsy close at his heels. A moment later they appeared outside the window and retaliated with derisive gestures for their recent defeat until Moore ran towards the door as though about to give chase, when the lads, squealing with fright, fled across the fields, disappearing in the distant trees.
“How do you like teaching?” asked Bessie, mischievously, as Moore returned.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine, and it’s I that pays the fines, little limbs of Satan.”
“Remember, you are speaking of my pupils, Mr. Moore,” she said threateningly.
“All right,” said Moore, “little limbs of Bessie Dyke!”
“Tom!”
“I did n’t mean it that way, my dear. Far be it from me to make such indelicate remarks intentionally.”
“I am not so sure,” said Bessie, suspiciously.
“I did n’t think what I was saying, Bessie.”
“Do you always say what you think?”
“Do you want me to be arrested?” demanded Moore. “I conceal my thoughts almost as often as you do, mavourneen.”
“You can omit that ‘Mavourneen,’” said Bessie, refusing to be so soon cajoled into good humor. “I ’m not to be blarneyed so easily.”
“Oh,” said Moore, “it’s a terrible thing to be haunted by a girl’s face.”
“Is it?” asked Bessie, mollified.
“I should think so,” responded Moore. “I can’t work for thinking of one.”
“Is her name ‘Laziness’?”
“You ’ll get no more information on the subject from me. Do you know, Bessie, I have half made up my mind not to go back to Dublin at all?”
“No? Where else would you go, Tom?”
“To London,” announced Moore, dramatically. “To London, Bessie, and once there I ’ll take Dame Fortune by the throat and strangle the hussy till she gives me what I deserve.”
“Ah,” cried Bessie, “that would be splendid, Tom!”
“I ‘d go to-morrow only I dare n’t leave you, darlin’, for fear you will be stolen from me in my absence.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bessie, looking at him in surprise.
“As though you did not know, Bessie!” answered Moore, rising to his feet. “I mean this Sir Percival Lovelace, who is seen so often in your company of late. Lord Brooking’s friend. Don’t I know what he is after when I see a great gentleman like him, the odor of Court still in his ruffles, walking and talking with a pretty bit of a school-teacher like you?”
Bessie flushed a little, but her tone was sad instead of angry when she answered:
“Tom, have you no faith in me?”
“Well, it is precious little I have in Sir Percival,” he replied, turning away angrily, “and the less you have the better it will be for you.”
Bessie’s eyes twinkled maliciously. Here was her chance to pay her lover back for some of the plaguements he had practised upon her.
“You don’t like Sir Percival?” said she, calmly.
“Not I,” said Moore. “I see through his fine manners easy enough.”
“He says I would make a good actress,” continued Bessie, as though flattered by the idea.
Moore bit his lip in anger, but spoke calmly enough when he answered:
“He did n’t say you would make a good wife?”
It was Bessie’s turn to lose her temper.
“Oh, Tom,” she snapped crossly. “I shall be angry.”
Moore sat down on the bench previously ornamented by Patsy’s youthful form.
“I’d rather you would be angry than sorry,” he said, moodily.
There was a short silence. For a moment Bessie hesitated between anger and apology, then her real regard for Moore triumphed and she decided not to torment him further.
“Tom,” she said softly.
Moore showed no sign of having heard her.
“Tom,” she said as sweetly as a deliciously modulated voice could sound the word.
Still no reply. She stepped lightly towards him.
“Tom, dear, don’t be sulky,” she said, laying one hand upon his sturdy shoulder. “Why I care more for your little finger than I ever could for Sir Percival.”
“Will you tell him so?” asked Moore, taking her hand as he rose.
This was asking entirely too much and Bessie raised her head very haughtily, indignant that her condescension in making so confidential a statement had led to such an extravagant request.
“Indeed, I will not,” she declared, defiantly, returning as she spoke to her chair behind the desk at the front of the schoolroom. Moore followed her and they stood face to face, the desk between them.
“Very well,” he said determinedly, “if you won’t, I will.”
“If you dare, Thomas Moore,” cried Bessie, shaking one pink forefinger at the poet, admonishingly. “If you dare!”
“Faith, I dare do anything,” he replied, and, seizing her hand, plunged the lifted finger up to the second joint in the contents of the inkstand, thus effectually ending the argument.
“Oh!” cried Bessie, holding her hand, so the jetty fluid would not fall upon her gown or apron. “You horrid, horrid thing, see what you have done!”
Moore laughed heartily at her discomfiture, and in so doing recovered his usual cheerful spirits.
“Oh, the ink will wash off,” he chuckled. “That is more than the mark you have left on my heart will do, for that is indelible.”
Bessie stamped her tiny foot in her rage and made as though she would wipe her hand on Moore’s coat, which caused the triumphant young man to seek sudden shelter behind the benches.
“I can’t wash it off, Tom Moore.”
“Have you never been taught to perform your ablutions, Bessie?”
“Stupid! My other hand is burned and water will make it smart.”
“I wonder if water would make me smart.”
“I ’d like to,” said the girl.
“I ’ve always tried wine when I thought I needed intellectual stimulation.”
“I should think you would be drinking all the time,” said Bessie, spitefully.
“Not all the time,” corrected Moore. “Part of it I spend earning the price. There, now, don’t worry, I ’ll scrub your little fist for you if you will let me. Will you?”
Bessie’s anger cooled as rapidly as it had warmed.
“If you will be very gentle, you may.”
“Trust me for that,” said Moore, going to the bucket that stood in the corner with a basin covering it. “It’s empty, Bessie. There is not as much water here as would make a foot-bath for a flea.”
“You can fetch it from the well,” said Bessie.
“Will you come with me?”
“You can go alone, Tom Moore.”
“I can, but I don’t want to, Bessie.”
“You would be almost there now if you had n’t stopped to talk.”
“Won’t you come, Bessie?”
“I suppose I will have to do it to please you,” said the girl, yielding with a little sigh.
“Won’t it please you, too?” said Moore, stopping her.
“But, Tom—”
“Won’t it?” he insisted.
“Yes,—yes,—yes!” she replied, with increasing emphasis on each reiteration.
Moore let her pass, and she paused at the door, looking over her plump shoulder.
“What a child you are, Tom Moore!”
“Child,” he repeated. “Child? Maybe I am, Bessie, but when you are called ‘Mama’ it won’t be by me, though I think I ’ll not be far off.”
“Oh!” she cried, and slammed the door.