CHAPTER XV

THE EMPTY HOUSE

We had rooms on the sunny side of St. Stephen’s Green, not far from the Shelbourne Hotel and the Clubs, and, what interested me more, the Grafton Street shops.  I was nineteen years old, and I had never seen any shops but those of Quinn, our country town, and these very seldom; so it may be imagined what wonderful places the Dublin shops appeared to me, although my godmother assured me they were not a patch on those of London and Paris.  In fact, the town seemed quite strange and wonderful altogether, with the people hurrying hither and thither and the traffic in the streets and the fine stir of life.  I thought I never could be tired of it all; and I was quite sure I should never be tired of the shops.

My godmother was well pleased at my delight, while she laughed at me, assuring me that Dublin was a dead city as compared with others.

“It is a Sleeping Beauty which wakes once a year,” she said, “and that is in Horse-Show Week.  Time was when I came up every year for the show.  Now I think I shall revive the custom for your sake, Bawn.  We can bespeak these rooms if they are not already bespoken.  I assure you, in Horse-Show Week, Bawn, people are glad to sleep anywhere.  Even the bathrooms of houses and hotels are turned into bedrooms.”

“I could not imagine a greater crowd than this,” said I, for which she laughed at me, again calling me a country mouse.

Although the Castle season was over there was still a good deal going on, dinners and dances and many outdoor amusements, such as races and regattas and flower-shows, to many of which we went.  And it was only when I saw how she enjoyed it all and how glad her old friends were to see her that I realized what a dull life she spent with us, always looking after that selfish invalid, her cousin, when she was not with old people like Lord and Lady St. Leger.

Also I realized, when I saw her in her fine gowns, what a stately, handsome woman she was still, and with an air of youth, although she had put away the things of youth from her.

Indeed, after the first, our lives seemed to me a whirl of gaiety, and although I went to no big balls, not having been presented, there were a good many young girls’ dances and garden-parties and such things open to me, all of which I enjoyed greatly.

But one day, as it happened, my godmother was not very well, and our engagement for the afternoon had to be abandoned.

I remembered then that half our visit was over and I had not yet been to see Bridget Kelly, Maureen’s sister, nor our old house which was in a sad and forsaken part of the city that hitherto we had not visited.  I had had a great desire to see the old house all the time, but we had so many engagements.  Now, when my godmother wanted sleep and darkness but was loth to leave me alone seemed to me an excellent moment.