Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XXIII MRS. BURKE HAS GOOD FORTUNE

Mrs. Burke re­mained a week longer to nurse Colonel Pre­ston. At the end of this time Mr. Pre­ston thought he was well enough to dis­pense with a nurse, and ac­cord­ing­ly she pre­pared to take leave.

“I shall al­ways re­mem­ber your kind ser­vice, Mrs. Burke,” said the colonel, warm­ly.

“It was on­ly my du­ty, sir,” said the wid­ow, mod­est­ly.

“Not all would have done their du­ty so faith­ful­ly.”

“I am glad to see you well again,” said the wid­ow.

“Not more than I am to get well, I as­sure you,” said he. “When­ev­er you are in any trou­ble, come to me.”

With these words, he placed in her hands an en­ve­lope, which, as she un­der­stood, con­tained the com­pen­sa­tion for her ser­vices. She thanked him, and took her de­par­ture.

Mrs. Pre­ston was cu­ri­ous to know how much her hus­band paid the nurse, and asked the ques­tion.

“A hun­dred dol­lars,” he replied.

“A hun­dred dol­lars!” she re­peat­ed, in a tone which im­plied dis­ap­proval. “I thought she agreed to come for ten dol­lars a week.”

“So she did.”

“She has not been here ten weeks; on­ly about six.”

“That is true, but she has rich­ly earned all I gave her.”

“Ten dol­lars a week I con­sid­er very hand­some re­mu­ner­ation to one in her po­si­tion in life,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, point­ed­ly.

“Lu­cin­da, but for her at­ten­tion I prob­ably should not have lived through this sick­ness. Do you think a hun­dred dol­lars so much to pay for your hus­band's life?”

“You ex­ag­ger­ate the val­ue of her ser­vices,” said his wife.

“Dr. Town­ley says the same thing that I do.”

“You are both in­fat­uat­ed with that wom­an,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, im­pa­tient­ly.

“We on­ly do her jus­tice.”

“Oh, well, have it your own way. But I should have on­ly paid her what I agreed to. It is a great wind­fall for her.”

“She de­serves it.”

Mrs. Pre­ston said no more at this time, for she found her hus­band too “in­fat­uat­ed,” as she termed it, to agree with her. She did, how­ev­er, open the sub­ject to God­frey when he came home, and he adopt­ed her view of the case.

“She and her low son are try­ing to get all they can out of fa­ther,” he said. “It's just like them.”

“I wish I could make your fa­ther see it,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, “but he seems pre­pos­sessed in her fa­vor.”

“If he can give a hun­dred dol­lars to her, he can give me a lit­tle ex­tra mon­ey; I'm go­ing to ask him.”

So he did the same evening.

“Will you give me ten dol­lars, fa­ther?” he asked.

“What for?”

“Oh, for var­ious things. I need it.”

“I give you an al­lowance of three dol­lars a week.”

“I have a good many ex­pens­es.”

“That will meet all your rea­son­able ex­pens­es. I was far from hav­ing as much mon­ey as that when I was of your age.”

“I don't see why you won't give me the mon­ey,” said God­frey, dis­con­tent­ed­ly.

“I don't think you need it.”

“You are gen­er­ous enough to oth­ers.”

“To whom do you re­fer?”

“You give plen­ty of mon­ey to that Irish boy and his moth­er.”

“They have both ren­dered me great ser­vices. The boy saved me from be­ing robbed. The moth­er, in all prob­abil­ity, saved me from falling a vic­tim to small­pox. But that has noth­ing to do with your af­fairs. It is scarce­ly prop­er for a boy like you to crit­icise his fa­ther's way of dis­pos­ing of his mon­ey.”

“I con­fess I think God­frey is right in com­ment­ing up­on your ex­traor­di­nary lib­er­al­ity to the Burkes,” ob­served Mrs. Pre­ston.

“Lu­cin­da,” said her hus­band, grave­ly, “when my own wife de­sert­ed my sick bed, leav­ing me to wres­tle alone with a ter­ri­ble and dan­ger­ous dis­ease, I was for­tu­nate enough to find in Mrs. Burke a de­vot­ed nurse. The mon­ey I have paid her is no ad­equate com­pen­sa­tion, nor is it all that I in­tend to do for her.”

There was a part of this speech that star­tled Mrs. Pre­ston. Nev­er be­fore had her hus­band com­plained of her de­ser­tion of him in his sick­ness, and she hoped that he had been im­posed up­on by the ex­cuse which she gave of sav­ing her­self for God­frey. Now she saw that in this she had not been al­to­geth­er suc­cess­ful, and she re­gret­ted hav­ing re­ferred to Mrs. Burke, and so brought this re­proach up­on her­self. She felt it nec­es­sary to say some­thing in ex­ten­ua­tion.

“It was be­cause I want­ed to live for God­frey,” she said, with a flushed face. “Noth­ing but that would have tak­en me away from you at such a time. It was a great tri­al to me,” she con­tin­ued, putting up her hand­ker­chief to eyes that were per­fect­ly dry.

“We will say no more about it,” said Colonel Pre­ston, grave­ly. “I shall not re­fer to it, un­less you un­der­val­ue my obli­ga­tions to Mrs. Burke.”

Mrs. Pre­ston thought it best not to re­ply, but on one thing that her hus­band had said, she com­ment­ed to God­frey.

“Your fa­ther speaks of giv­ing more mon­ey to Mrs. Burke. I sup­pose we shall not know any­thing about it if he does.”

“Per­haps he will leave her some mon­ey in his will,” said God­frey.

“Very like­ly. If he does, there is such a thing as con­test­ing a will--that is, if he gives her much.”

Mrs. Pre­ston was right. Her hus­band did in­tend to give his de­vot­ed nurse some­thing in his will, but of that more anon. There was one thing which he did at once, and that was to buy the cot­tage which Mrs. Burke oc­cu­pied, from the heir, a non-​res­ident. Mrs. Burke didn't learn this un­til she went to pay her rent to the store­keep­er, who had act­ed as agent for the own­er.

“I have noth­ing to do with the house any longer, Mrs. Burke,” he said.

“Then who shall I pay rent to?” said Mrs. Burke.

“To Colonel Pre­ston, who has re­cent­ly bought the house.”

Mrs. Burke, there­fore, called at the house of the colonel.

Mr. and Mrs. Pre­ston were sit­ting to­geth­er when the ser­vant an­nounced that she wished to speak to him.

“You seem to have a good deal of busi­ness with Mrs. Burke,” said his wife, in a very un­pleas­ant tone.

“None that I care to con­ceal,” he said, smil­ing. “Show Mrs. Burke in here, Jane,” he con­tin­ued, ad­dress­ing the ser­vant.

“Good-​morn­ing, Mrs. Burke,” he said, pleas­ant­ly.

“Good-​morn­ing,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, cold­ly.

“Good-​morn­ing, sir, I'm glad to see you look­ing so much bet­ter.”

“Oh, yes, I am feel­ing pret­ty well now.”

“I didn't find out till just now, Colonel Pre­ston, that you were my land­lord.”

Here Mrs. Pre­ston pricked up her ears, for it was news to her al­so, as her hus­band had not men­tioned his re­cent pur­chase.

“Yes, I thought I would buy the house, as it was in the mar­ket.”

“I have come to pay my rent. I have been in the habit of pay­ing fif­teen dol­lars a quar­ter.”

“I won't be a hard land­lord,” said Colonel Pre­ston. “You are wel­come to live in the house, if it suits you, free of all rent.”

“This is too much kind­ness,” said Mrs. Burke, quite over­whelmed by the un­ex­pect­ed lib­er­al­ity.

Mrs. Pre­ston thought so, too, but could not well say any­thing.

“There's been kind­ness on both sides, Mrs. Burke. Put up your mon­ey, I don't want it, but I have no doubt you will find use for it. Buy your­self a new dress.”

“Thank you, Colonel Pre­ston. You are very gen­er­ous, and I am very grate­ful,” said the wid­ow.

“I have some­thing to be grate­ful for al­so, Mrs. Burke. If you want any re­pairs, just let me know, and they shall be at­tend­ed to.”

“Thank you, sir, but the house is very com­fort­able.”

She soon took her leave.

“When did you buy that house, Colonel Pre­ston?” asked his wife.

“A month since.”

“You didn't say any­thing about it to me.”

“Nor to any­one else, ex­cept those with whom I did the busi­ness.”

Mrs. Pre­ston would like to have said more, but she did not think it ex­pe­di­ent, re­mem­ber­ing what she had brought up­on her­self be­fore.