Brodrick herself seemed to forget it sooner than they did.
For three months or so Fanny-Rosa had shown every wild extravagance of grief. She had threatened suicide, she had stayed in bed and been nursed tenderly by Barbara and Eliza, she had vowed that she would never be able to continue living, and then, shortly before Christmas, the sisters-in-law had prevailed upon her to accompany them to Saunby for the winter, and the change of scene, the visits of friends, the high spirits of the children, all combined to make her throw off the first transport of grief, and when she returned to Clonmere in the spring she was almost the same Fanny-Rosa as before. Almost, not quite. Something indefinable had gone out of her, never to return. The light, joyous quality, the glow of loveliness that John had awoken in her with his love and tenderness, flickered and died, finally and for ever. Her appearance, her dress, the care of her hair, suddenly these things ceased to matter. Once it had been amusing to buy gowns and hats, because of John, because he would look at her with that light in his eyes, and hold out his arms.
Now there was little point in bothering to purchase material; last season's gown would do for this as well. A widow of twenty-nine might be expected to marry again, and Doctor Armstrong, when he saw Fanny-Rosa after her return to Clonmere, some six months after her husband's death, said to himself that no one of her temperament and vitality would be likely to remain single for long. He was wrong.
All that side of life was finished and done with. The future remained, with one day Johnnie master of Clonmere, Mrs. John Brodrick was a person of importance. One day, surely before very long, her father-in-law would die, and Johnnie would come in for the estate and the money. Fanny-Rosa would be mistress of Clonmere. It would be she who would give all the orders, pay the wages, have the handling of Johnnie's purse; and his fortune would be enormous, no doubt, for the copper was bringing in vast sums, and Mrs. John Brodrick, running the estate for the benefit of her son, would be someone of considerable significance in the barony. She had never forgotten that she was the niece of the Earl of Mundy, and now and again she would remind Eliza and Barbara of the fact, just dropping a casual word or two, but those words sufficient to bring them to some sense of reality, if familiarity with her presence had caused them to neglect it.
Little by little she began to talk of what she would do to Clonmere when the house became hers, or rather Johnnie's, which Barbara and Eliza felt was rather premature. Their father was not yet seventy and enjoyed excellent health, and there seemed small prospect of his making way for his grandson for several years to come.
"It is a pity," said Eliza one day to Barbara, "that Fanny-Rosa talks so incessantly as though Clonmere belonged to her. For my part, I find she has become very altered since John died. She has lost much of her gaiety, and is overbearing."
"Poor Fanny-Rosa," sighed Barbara; "we neither of us know quite how much she misses John. We must be patient and not mind; and don't forget how devoted she is to darling Johnnie."
"I say nothing against her devotion to Johnnie," replied Eliza, "but I find it rather trying when Fanny-Rosa gives orders in the stables, and has my horse saddled for herself when she wishes to ride."
"You forget," said Barbara the peace-maker, "that Fanny-Rosa has been used to giving orders too. She did everything at Lletharrog, and a married woman who has had a house of her own is lost without servants to command. I am always finding her in the kitchen, countermanding my instructions, because she tells cook that certain dishes are bad for the children's digestion, and as she is probably right, I say nothing. Whatever she does, do let us avoid any unpleasantness."
"It amazes me that father does not become annoyed at times," said Eliza. "She flatly contradicts him at dinner very often, which was a thing he never would accept from any of us."
"Fanny-Rosa has travelled, which you and I have never done," said Barbara, "and she has also read many more books. And I have frequently noticed that men will argue quite amicably with women who have had husbands, when they will snub unmarried women like you and me. I suppose they have some sort of superior knowledge of life that we do not possess."
Eliza sniffed. She hated to be reminded of spinsterhood and her middle years. But her brother's widow had come to live with them for good, and Barbara was right, it was no use having any unpleasantness. So "Mrs. John," as she was known to the servants, began to take a more prominent place in the running of the household than either "Miss Barbara" or "Miss Eliza," but in a different way. Meals that were late and rooms that were undusted meant little to her, but if pastry appeared on the table when she had ordered a milk pudding she would storm into the kitchen and shout at Mrs. Casey, shaming her before the other servants, and if some article of dress or a trinket was missing from her dressing-table (and no doubt fallen behind it, for Fanny-Rosa had no sense of order in her room) the housemaid would be summoned and upbraided as a thief, and possibly be sent from the castle at once, without Barbara's permission or even knowledge that any such scene had occurred.
Her children were never quite sure of her. She would spoil them lavishly one moment, and scold the next; and, after their grandfather, the most dominant figure during those years of childhood at Clonmere would be the bewildering, changeful personality that was their mother, sometimes an angel with smiling eyes and a cloud of hair about her face, at others a wrathful demon, a fury from a fairy-tale, with a voice that uttered angry sounds.
The only person to beat Johnnie was his godfather, Doctor Armstrong, or "Uncle Willie" as he was known to the children, and Johnnie never forgave him, because the beating, for the first time in his life, was undeserved.
Aunt Barbara had not been well, she was always coughing these days, and Uncle Willie had come to see her. She had been making a shawl for a sick woman up at Oakmount, and her wool had been left in the drawing-room. Uncle Willie, requested by Aunt Barbara to fetch the shawl so that she could continue working upon it while laid up in her room, found the wool tangled and dirtied beyond repair, and the shawl torn in shreds. The servants, when questioned, admitted to having seen "Master Johnnie" playing with the wool after breakfast. Johnnie was summoned by his godfather and accused of doing wanton mischief. In vain he protested that he had only touched the shawl for a moment and then put it aside, saying that no doubt the nursery puppy had broken loose and done the damage, for which he was very sorry.