Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)
ROLAND CASHEL
By Charles James Lever
With Illustrations By Phiz.
In Two Volumes. Vol. II.
CONTENTS
ROLAND CASHEL
CHAPTER I. AN “UNLIMITED” MONARCHY
CHAPTER II. LADY KILGOFF AT BAY
CHAPTER III. A PARTIAL RECOVERY AND A RELAPSE
CHAPTER IV. MORE KENNYFECK INTRIGUING
CHAPTER V. LINTON’S MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE
CHAPTER VI. THE SEASON OF LINTON’S FLITTING
CHAPTER VII. FORGERY
CHAPTER VIII. ROLAND DISCOVERS THAT HE HAS OVERDRAWN
CHAPTER IX. THE BURNT LETTER—“GREAT EXPECTATIONS”
CHAPTER X. A STARTLING INTRUSION
CHAPTER XI. SCANDAL, AND GENERAL ILL-HUMOR
CHAPTER XII. SHYLOCK DEMANDS HIS BOND
CHAPTER XIII. CIGARS, ÉCARTÉ, AND HAZARD
CHAPTER XIV. MR. KENNYFECK AMONG THE BULLS
CHAPTER XV. POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS
CHAPTER XVI. A WET DAT—THE FALSE SIGNAL
CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW IN THE MIRROR
CHAPTER XVIII. THE OLD FRIENDS IN COUNCIL
CHAPTER XIX. A TÊTE-À-TÊTE INTERRUPTED
CHAPTER XX. LORD KILGOFF DETERMINES TO “MEET” ROLAND
CHAPTER XXI. THE SECOND SHOCK
CHAPTER XXII. LINTON INSTIGATES KEANE TO MURDER
CHAPTER XXIII. LINTON IS BAFFLED—HIS RAGE AT THE DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XXIV. GIOVANNI UNMASKED
CHAPTER XXV. TIERNAY INTIMIDATED——THE ABSTRACTED DEEDS
CHAPTER XXVI. AN UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE DUPE AND HIS VICTIM
CHAPTER XXVII. MURDER OF MR. KENNYFECK— CASHEL DETAINED ON SUSPICION
CHAPTER XXVIII. SCENE OF THE MURDER—THE CORONER’S VERDICT
CHAPTER XXIX. THE TRIAL—THE PROSECUTION
CHAPTER XXX. THE DEFENCE
CHAPTER XXXI. "NOT GUILTY”
CHAPTER XXXII. ON THE TRACK
CHAPTER XXXIII. LA NINETTA
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FATE OF KEANE—HIS DEPOSITION
CHAPTER XXXV. THE “BANK OF ROUGE ET NOIR”
CHAPTER XXXVI. ARREST OF LINTON
CHAPTER XXXVII. ALL MYSTERY CEASES—MARRIAGE AND GENERAL JOY
ROLAND CASHEL.
CHAPTER I. AN “UNLIMITED” MONARCHY
And at last they find out, to their greatest surprise,
That’t is easier far to be “merry than wise.”
Bell: Images.
“Here is Mr. Cashel; here he is!” exclaimed a number of voices, as Roland, with a heart full of indignant anger, ascended the terrace upon which the great drawing-room opened, and at every window of which stood groups of his gay company. Cashel looked up, and beheld the crowd of pleased faces wreathed into smiles of gracious welcome, and then he suddenly remembered that it was he who had invited all that brilliant assemblage; that, for him, all those winning graces were assumed; and that his gloomy thoughts, and gloomier looks, were but a sorry reception to offer them.
With a bold effort, then, to shake off the load that oppressed him, he approached one of the windows, where Mrs. Kennyfeck and her two daughters were standing, with a considerable sprinkling of young dragoons around them.
“We are not to let you in, Mr. Cashel,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, from within. “There has been a vote of the House against your admission.”
“Not, surely, to condemn me unheard,” said Roland; “I might even say, unaccused.”
“How so?” cried Mrs. Kennyfeck. “Is not your present position your accusation? Why are you there, while we are here?”
“I went out for a walk, and lost myself in the woods.”
“What does he say, my dear?” said Aunt Fanny, fearful of losing a word of the dialogue.
“That he lost himself, madam,” said one of the dragoons, dryly.
“So, indeed, we heard, sir,” said the maiden lady, piteously; “but I may say I foresaw it all.”
“You are an old fool, and, worse still, every one sees it,” whispered Mrs. Kennyfeck, in an accent that there was no mistaking, although only a whisper.
“We considered that you had abdicated, Mr. Cashel,” said Mrs. White, who, having in vain waited for Roland to approach the window she occupied, was fain at last to join the others, “and we were debating on what form of Government to adopt,—a Presidency, with Mr. Linton—”
“I see you are no legitimist,” slyly remarked Miss Kenny-feck. But the other went on,—
“Or an open Democracy.”
“I ‘m for that,” said a jolly-looking cavalry captain. “Pray, Miss Olivia Kennyfeck, vote for it too. I should like nothing so much as a little fraternizing.”
“I have a better suggestion than either,” said Roland, gayly; “but you must admit me ere I make it.”
“A device of the enemy,” called out Mrs. White; “he wants to secure his own return to power.”
“Nay, on honor,” said he, solemnly; “I shall descend to the rank of the humblest citizen, if my advice be acceded to,—to the humblest subject of the realm.”
“Ye maunna open the window. Leddy Janet has the rheumatics a’ dandering aboot her back a’ the morning,” said Sir Andrew, approaching the group; and then, turning to Cashel, said, “Glad to see ye, sir; very glad indeed; though, like Prince Charlie, you’re on the wrang side o’ the wa’.”
“Dear me!” sighed Meek, lifting his eyes from the newspaper, and assuming that softly compassionate tone in which he always delivered the most commonplace sentiments, “how shocking, to keep you out of your own house, and the air quite damp! Do pray be careful, and change your clothes before you come in here.” Then he finished in a whisper to Lady Janet, “One never gets through a country visit without a cold.”
“Upon my word, I’ll let him in,” said Aunt Fanny, with a native richness of accent that made her fair nieces blush.
“At last!” said Cashel, as he entered the room, and proceeded to salute the company, with many of whom he had but the very slightest acquaintance,—of some he did not even remember the names.
The genial warmth of his character soon compelled him to feel heartily what he had begun by feigning, and he bade them welcome with a cordiality that spread its kindly influence over all.
“I see,” said he, after some minutes, “Lady Kilgoff has not joined us; but her fatigue has been very great.”
“They say my Lord ‘s clean daft,” said Sir Andrew.
“Oh, no, Sir Andrew,” rejoined Roland; “our misfortune has shaken his nerves a good deal, but a few days’ rest and quiet will restore him.”
“He was na ower wise at the best, puir man,” sighed the veteran, as he moved away.
“Her Ladyship was quite a heroine,—is n’t that so?” said Lady Janet, tartly.
“She held the rudder, or did something with the compass, I heard,” simpered a young lady in long flaxen ringlets.
Cashel smiled, but made no answer.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Meek, “and there was a dog that swam—or was it you that swam ashore with a rope in your mouth?”
“I grieve to say, neither man nor dog performed the achievement.”
“And it would appear that the horrid wretch—what’s his name?” asked Mrs. White of her friend Howie.
“Whose name, madam?”
“The man—the dreadful man, who planned it all. Sick—Sickamore—no, not Sickamore—”
“Sickleton, perhaps,” said Cashel, strangely puzzled to make out what was coming.
“Yes, Sickleton had actually done the very same thing twice before, just to get possession of the rich plate and all the things on board.”
“This is too bad,” cried Cashel, indignantly; “really, madam, you must pardon my warmth, if it even verges on rudeness; but the gentleman whose name you have associated with such iniquitous suspicions saved all our lives.”
“That’s what I like in him better than all,” whispered Aunt Fanny to Olivia; “he stands by his friends like a trump.”
“You have compelled me,” resumed Cashel, “to speak of what really I had much rather forget; but I shall insist upon your patience now for a few minutes, simply to rectify any error which may prevail upon this affair.”
With this brief prelude, Cashel commenced a narrative of the voyage from the evening of the departure from Kingstown to the moment of the vessel’s sinking off the south coast.
If most of his auditors only listened as to an interesting anecdote, to others the story had a deeper meaning. The Kennyfecks were longing to learn how the excursion originated, and whether Lady Kilgoff’s presence had been a pre-arranged plan, or a mere accidental occurrence.
“All’s not lost yet, Livy,” whispered Miss Kennyfeck in her sister’s ear. “I give you joy.” While a significant nod from Aunt Fanny seemed to divine the sentiment and agree with it.
“And I suppose ye had na the vessel insured?” said Sir Andrew, at the close of the narrative; “what a sair thing to think o’!”
“Oh, dear, yes, to be sure!” ejaculated Meek, piteously; “and the cold, and the wetting, and the rest of it! for of course you must have met few comforts in that miserable fishing-hut.”
“How picturesque it must have been,” interposed Mrs. White; “and what a pity you had no means of having a drawing made of it. The scene at the moment of the yacht striking; the despair-struck seamen—”
“Pardon me, madam, for destroying even a particle of so ingenious a fancy; but the men evinced nothing of the kind,—they behaved well, and with the calmest steadiness.”
“It is scarcely too late yet,” resumed the lady, unabashed; “if you would just describe it all carefully to Mr. Howie, he could made a sketch in oils one would swear was taken on the spot.”
“Quite impossible,—out of the question,” said Howie, who was always ashamed at the absurdities which compromised himself, although keenly alive to those which involved his neighbors.
“We have heard much of Lady Kilgoff’s courage and presence of mind,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, returning to a theme by which she calculated on exploring into Cashel’s sentiments towards that lady. “Were they indeed so conspicuous?”
“Can you doubt it, madam?” said Lady Janet, tartly; “she gave the most unequivocal proof of both,—she remembered her husband!”
The tartness of this impertinent speech was infinitely increased by the voice and manner of the speaker, and a half-suppressed titter ran through the room, Cashel alone, of all, feeling annoyed and angry. Aunt Fanny, always less occupied with herself than her neighbors, quickly saw his irritation, and resolved to change a topic which more than once had verged on danger.
“And now, Mr. Cashel,” said she, “let us not forget the pledge on which we admitted you.”
“Quite right,” exclaimed Roland; “I promised a suggestion: here it is—”
“Pardon me for interrupting,” said Miss Kennyfeck; “but in what capacity do you make this suggestion? Are you still king, or have you abdicated?”
“Abdicated in all form,” replied Roland, bowing with well-assumed humility; “as simple citizen, I propose that we elect a ‘Queen,’ to rule despotically in all things,—uncontrolled and irresponsible.”
“Oh, delightful! admirable!” exclaimed a number of voices, among which all the men and the younger ladies might be heard; Lady Janet and Mrs. Kennyfeck, and a few others “of the senior service,” as Mr. Linton would have called them, seeming to canvass the motion with more cautious reserve.
“As it is to be an elective monarchy, sir,” said Lady Janet, with a shrewd glance over all the possible candidates, “how do you propose the choice is to be made?”
“That is to be for after consideration,” replied Roland; “we may have universal suffrage and the ballot.”
“No, no, by Jove!” exclaimed Sir Harvey Upton; “we must not enter upon our new reign by a rebellion. Let only the men vote.”
“How gallant!” said Miss Kennyfeck, sneeringly; while a chorus of “How unfair!” “How ungenerous!” went through the room.
“What say ye to the plan they hae wi’ the Pope?” said Sir Andrew, grinning maliciously: “tak’ the auldest o’ the company.”
This suggestion caused a laugh, in which certain parties did not join over-heartily. Just at this moment the door opened, and Lord Kilgoff, leaning on the arm of two servants, entered. He was deathly pale, and seemed several years older; but his face had acquired something of its wonted expression, and it was with a sad but courteous smile he returned the salutations of the company.
“Glad to see you amongst us, my Lord,” said Cashel, as he placed an arm-chair, and assisted the old man to his seat. “I have just been telling my friends that our country air and quiet will speedily restore you.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” said he, taking Cashel’s hand. “We are both greatly indebted to your kindness, nor can we indeed ever hope to repay it.”
“Make him a receiver on the estate, then,” whispered Lady Janet in Miss Kennyfeck’s ear, “and he’ll soon pay himself.”
“Tell my Lord about our newly intended government, Mr. Cashel,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck; “I’m sure it will amuse him.” And Cashel, more in obedience to the request than from any conviction of its prudence, proceeded to obey. One word only, however, seemed to fix itself on the old man’s memory.
“Queen! queen!” repeated he several times to himself. “Oh, indeed! You expect her Majesty will honor you with a visit, sir?”
Cashel endeavored to correct the misconception, but to no purpose; the feeble intelligence could not relinquish its grasp so easily, and he went on in a low muttering tone,—
“Lady Kilgoff is the only peeress here, sir, remember that; you should speak to her about it, Mr. Cashel.”
“I hope we are soon to have the pleasure of seeing Lady Kilgoff, my Lord,” whispered Cashel, half to concur with, half to turn the course of conversation.
“She will be here presently,” said he, somewhat stiffly, as if some unpleasant recollection was passing through his mind; and Cashel turned away to speak with the others, who eagerly awaited to resume the interrupted conversation.
“Your plan, Mr. Cashel; we are dying to hear it,” cried one.
“Oh, by all means; how are we to elect the queen?” said another.
“What say you to a lottery,” said he, “or something equally the upshot of chance? For instance, let the first lady who enters the room be queen.”
“Very good indeed,” said Lady Janet, aloud; then added, in a whisper, “I see that old Mrs. Malone with her husband toddling up the avenue this instant.”
“Olivia, my love,” whispered Mrs. Kennyfeck to her daughter, “fetch me my work here, and don’t be a moment away, child. He’s so amusing!” And the young lady glided unseen from the room at her mamma’s bidding. After a short but animated conversation, it was decided that this mode of choice should be adopted; and now all stood in anxious expectancy to see who first should enter. At last footsteps were heard approaching, and the interest rose higher.
“Leddy Janet was right,” said Sir Andrew, with a grin; “ye ‘ll hae Mrs. Malone for your sovereign,—I ken her step weel.”
“By Jove!” cried Upton, “I ‘ll dispute the succession; that would never do.”
“That’s-a lighter tread and a faster,” said Cashel, listening.
“There are two coming,” cried Mrs. White; “I hear voices: how are we then to decide?”
There was no time to canvass this knotty point, when a hand was heard upon the door-handle; it turned, and just as the door moved, a sound of feet upon the terrace without,—running at full speed,—turned every eye in that direction, and the same instant Miss Meek sprang into the room through the window, while Lord Charles and Linton hurried after her, at the same moment that Lady Kilgoff, followed by Olivia Kennyfeck, entered by the door.
Miss Meek’s appearance might have astonished the company, had even her entrée been more ceremonious; for she was without hat, her hair falling in long, dishevelled masses about her shoulders, and her riding-habit, torn and ragged, was carried over one arm, with a freedom much more in accordance with speed than grace.
“Beat by two lengths, Charley,” cried she, in a joyous, merry laugh; “beat in a canter,—Mr. Linton, nowhere.”
“Oh, dear me, what is all this, Jemima love?” softly sighed her bland papa; “you’ve not been riding, I hope?”
“Schooling a bit with Charley, pa, and as we left the nags at the stable, they challenged me to a race home; I don’t think they’ll do it again. Do look how they’re blown.”
Some of the company laughed good-humoredly at the girlish gayety of the scene. Others, among whom, it is sad to say, were many of the younger ladies, made significant signs of being shocked by the indecorum, and gathered in groups to canvass the papa’s indifference and the daughter’s indelicacy. Meanwhile Cashel had been completely occupied with Lady Kilgoff, making the usual inquiries regarding fatigue and rest, but in a manner that bespoke all his interest in a favored guest.
“Are you aware to what high destiny the Fates have called you?” said he, laughing. “Some attain fortune by being first to seek her,—you, on the contrary, win by dallying. We had decided, a few moments before you came in, that the first lady who entered should be the Queen of our party,—this lot is yours.”
“I beg to correct you, Mr. Cashel,” cried Lady Janet, smartly; “Miss Meek entered before her Ladyship.”
“Oh, yes!” “Certainly!” “Without a doubt!” resounded from the whole company, who were not sorry to confer their suffrages on the madcap girl rather than the fashionable beauty.
“How distressing!” sighed Mr. Meek. “Oh, dear! I hope this is not so,—nay, I ‘m sure, Jemima, it cannot be the case.”
“You’re thinking of George Colman, Meek,—I see you are,” cried Linton.
“No, indeed; no, upon my honor. What was it about Colman?”
“The story is everybody’s story. The Prince insisted once that George was his senior, and George only corrected himself of his mistake by saying that ‘he could not possibly have had the rudeness to enter the world before his Royal Highness.’”
“Ah! yes—very true—so it was,” sighed Meek, who-affected not to perceive the covert sneer at his assumed courtesy.
While, therefore, the party gathered around Cashel, with eager assurance of Miss Meek’s precedence, Lady Kilgoff, rising, crossed the room to where that young lady was standing, and gracefully arranging her loose-flowing ringlets into a knot at the back of the head, fastened them by a splendid comb which she took from her own, and whose top was fashioned into a handsome coronet of gold, saying, “The question of legitimacy is solved forever: the Pretender yields her crown to the true Sovereign.”
The gracefulness and tact of this sudden movement called forth the warmest acknowledgments of all save Lady Janet, who whispered to Miss Kenny feck, “It is pretty clear, I fancy, who is to pay for the crown jewels!”
“Am I really the Queen?” cried the young girl, half wild with delight.
“Most assuredly, madam,” said Linton, kissing her hand in deep reverence. “I beg to be first to tender my homage.”
“That ‘s so like him!” cried she, laughing; “but you shall be no officer of mine. Where ‘s Charley? I want to make him Master of the Buckhounds, if there be buckhounds.”
“Will you not appoint your ladies first, madam?” said Lady Janet; “or, are your preferences for the other sex to leave us quite forgotten?”
“Be all of you everything you please,” rejoined the childish, merry voice, “with Charley Frobisher for Master of the Horse.”
“Linton for Master of the Revels,” said some one.
“Agreed,” said she.
“Mr. Cashel had better be First Lord of the Treasury, I suspect,” said Lady Janet, snappishly, “if the Administration is to last.”
“And if ye a’ways wear drapery o’ this fashion,” said Sir Andrew, taking up the torn fragment of her riding-habit as he spoke, “I maun say that the Mistress of the Robes will na be a sinecure.”
“Will any one tell me what are my powers?” said she, sitting down with an air of mock dignity.
“Will any one dare to say what they are not?” responded Cashel.
“Have I unlimited command in everything?”
“In everything, madam; I and all mine are at your orders.”
“That’s what the farce will end in,” whispered Lady Janet to Mrs. Kennyfeck.
“Well, then, to begin. The court will dine with us today—to-morrow we will hunt in our royal forest; our private band—Have we a private band, Mr. Linton?”
“Certainly, your Majesty,—so private as to be almost undiscoverable.”
“Then our private band will perform in the evening; perhaps, too, we shall dance. Remember, my Lords and Ladies, we are a young sovereign who loves pleasure, and that a sad face or a mournful one is treason to our person. Come forward now, and let us name our household.”
While the group gathered around the wild and high-spirited girl, in whose merry mood even the least-disposed were drawn to participate, Linton approached Lady Kilgoff, who had seated herself near a window, and was affecting to arrange a frame of embroidery, on which she rarely bestowed a moment’s labor.
CHAPTER II. LADY KILGOFF AT BAY
I’ll make her brew the beverage herself,
With her own fingers stir the cap,
And know’t is poison as she drinks it.
Harold.
Had Linton been about to renew an acquaintance with one he had scarcely known before, and who might possibly have ceased to remember him, his manner could not have been more studiously diffident and respectful.
“I rejoice to see your Ladyship here,” said he, in a low, deliberate voice, “where, on the last time we spoke together, you seemed uncertain of coming.”
“Very true, Mr. Linton,” said she, not looking up from her work; “my Lord had not fully made up his mind.”
“Say, rather, your Ladyship had changed yours,” said he, with a cold smile,—“a privilege you are not wont to deny yourself.”
“I might have exercised it oftener in life with advantage,” replied she, still holding her head bent over the embroidery frame.
“Don’t you think that your Ladyship and I are old friends enough to speak without innuendo?”
“If we speak at all,” said she, with a low but calm accent.
“True, that is to be thought of,” rejoined he, with an unmoved quietude of voice. “Being in a manner prepared for a change in your Ladyship’s sentiments towards me—”
“Sir!” said she, interrupting, and as suddenly raising her face, which was now covered with a deep blush.
“I trust I have said nothing to provoke reproof,” said Linton, coldly. “Your Ladyship is well aware if my words be not true. I repeat it, then,—your sentiments are changed towards me, or—the alteration is not of my choosing—I was deceived in the expression of them when last we met.”
“It may suit your purpose, sir, but it can scarcely conform to the generosity of a gentleman, to taunt me with acceding to your request for a meeting. If any other weakness can be alleged against me, pray let me hear it.”
“When we last met,” said Linton, in a voice of lower and deeper meaning than before, “we did so that I might speak, and you hear, the avowal of a passion which for years has filled my heart—against which I have struggled and fought in vain—to stifle which I have plunged into dissipations that I detested, and followed ambitions I despised—to obliterate all memory of which I would stoop to crime itself, rather than suffer on in the hopeless misery I must do.”
“I will hear no more of this,” said she, pushing back the work-table, and preparing to rise.
“You must and you shall hear me, madam,” said he, replacing the table and affecting to arrange it for her. “I conclude you do not wish this amiable company to arbitrate between us.”
“Oh, sir! is it thus you threaten me?”
“You should say compromise, madam. There can be no threat where a common ruin impends on all concerned.”
“To what end all this, Mr. Linton?” said she. “You surely cannot expect from me any return to a feeling which, if it once existed, you yourself were the means of uprooting forever. Even you could scarcely be ungenerous enough to persecute one for whose misery you have done already too much.”
“Will you accept my arm for half an hour?” cried he, interrupting. “I pledge myself it shall be the last time I either make such a request, or even allude to this topic between us. On the pretence of showing you the house, I may be able—if not to justify myself—nay, I see how little you care for that—well, at least to assure you that I have no other wish, no other hope, than to see you happy.”
“I cannot trust you,” said she, in a tone of agitation; “already we are remarked.”
“So I perceive,” said he, in an undertone; then added, in a voice audible enough to be heard by the rest, “I am too vain of my architectural merits to leave their discovery to chance; and as you are good enough to say you would like to see the house, pray will your Ladyship accept my arm while I perform the cicerone on myself?”
The coup succeeded, and, to avoid the difficulty and embarrassment a refusal would have created, Lady Kilgoff arose, and prepared to accompany him.
“Eh, what—what is’t, my Lady?” said Lord Kilgoff, suddenly awaking from a kind of lethargic slumber, as she whispered some words in his ear.
“Her Ladyship is telling you not to be jealous, my Lord, while she is making the tour of the house with Mr. Linton,” said Lady Janet, with a malicious sparkle of her green eyes.
“Why not make it a royal progress?” said Sir Harvey. “Her Majesty the Queen might like it well.”
“Her Majesty likes everything that promises amusement,” said the wild romp; “come, Charley, give us your arm.
“No, I ‘ve got a letter or two to write,” said he, rudely; “there ‘s Upton or Jennings quite ready for any foolery.”
“This is too bad!” cried she; and through all the pantomime of mock royalty, a real tear rose to her eyes, and rolled heavily down her cheek; then, with a sudden change of humor, she said, “Mr. Cashel, will you take me?”
The request was too late, for already he had given his arm to Lady Janet,—an act of devotion he was performing with the expression of a saint under martyrdom.
“Sir Harvey,—there’s no help for it,—we are reduced to you.”
But Sir Harvey was leaving the room with Olivia Kenny-feck. In fact, couples paired off in every direction; the only disengaged cavalier being Sir Andrew MacFarline, who, with a sardonic grin on his features, came hobbling forward, as he said,—
“Te maunna tak sich long strides, Missy, if ye ga wf me, for I’ve got a couple o’ ounces of Langredge shot in my left knee—forbye the gout in both ankles.”
“I say, Jim,” called out Lord Charles, as she moved away, “if you like to ride Princepino this afternoon, he’s-ready for you.”
“Are you going?” said she, turning her head.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll not go.” And so saying, she left the room.
When Linton, accompanied by Lady Kilgoff, issued from the drawing-room, instead of proceeding through the billiard-room towards the suite which formed the “show” part of the mansion, he turned abruptly to his left, and, passing through a narrow corridor, came out upon a terrace, at the end of which stood a large conservatory, opening into the garden.
“I ask pardon,” said he, “if I reverse the order of our geography, and show you the frontiers of the realm before we visit the capital; but otherwise we shall only be the advance-guard of that interesting company who have nothing more at heart than to overhear us.”
Lady Kilgoff walked along without speaking, at his side, having relinquished the support of his arm with a stiff, frigid courtesy. Had any one been there to mark the two-figures, as side by side they went, each deep in thought, and not even venturing a glance at the other, he might well have wondered what strange link could connect them. It was thus they entered the conservatory, where two rows of orange-trees formed a lane of foliage almost impenetrable to the eye.
“As this may be the last time we shall ever speak together in secret—”
“You have promised as much, sir,” said she, interrupting; and the very rapidity of her utterance betrayed the eagerness of her wish.
“Be it so, madam,” replied he, coldly, and with a tone of sternness very different from that he had used at first. “I have ever preferred your wishes to my own. I shall never prove false to that allegiance. As we are now about to speak on terms which never can be resumed, let us at least be frank. Let us use candor with each other. Even unpleasing truth is better at such a moment than smooth-tongued insincerity.”
“This preamble does not promise well,” said Lady Kilgoff, with a cold smile.
“Not, perhaps, for the agreeability of our interview, but it may save us both much time and much temper. I have said that you are changed towards me.”
“Oh, sir! if I had suspected that this was to be the theme—” She stopped, and seemed uncertain, when he finished the speech for her.
“You would never have accorded me this meeting. Do be frank, madam, and spare me the pain of self-inflicted severity. Well, I will not impose upon your kindness,—nor indeed was such my intention, if you had but heard me out. Yes, madam, I should have told you that while I deplore that alteration, I no more make you chargeable with it, than you can call me to account for cherishing a passion without a hope. Both one and the other are independent of us. That one should forget and the other remember is beyond mere volition.”
He waited for some token of assent, some slight evidence of concurrence; but none came, and he resumed:
“When first I had the happiness of being distinguished by some slight show of your preference, there were many others who sought with eagerness for that position I was supposed to occupy in your favor. It was the first access of vanity in my heart, and it cost me dearly. Some envied me; some scoffed; some predicted that my triumph would be a brief one; some were rude enough to say that I was only placed like a buoy, to show the passage, and that I should lie fast at anchor while others sailed on with prosperous gale and favoring fortune. You, madam, best know which of these were right. I see that I weary you. I can conceive how distasteful all these memories must be, nor should I evoke them without absolute necessity. To be brief, then, you are now about to play over with another the very game by which you once deceived me. It is your caprice to sacrifice another to your vanity; but know, madam, the liberties which the world smiled at in Miss Gardiner will be keenly criticised in the Lady Kilgoff. In the former case, the most malevolent could but hint at a mésalliance; in the latter, evil tongues can take a wider latitude. To be sure, the fascinating qualities of the suitor, his wealth, his enviable position, will plead with some; my Lord’s age and decrepitude will weigh with others: but even these charitable persons will not spare you. Your own sex are seldom over-merciful in their judgments. Men are unscrupulous enough to hint that there was no secret in the matter; some will go further, and affect to say that they themselves were not unfavorably looked on.”
“Will you give me a chair, sir?” said she, in a voice which, though barely above a whisper, vibrated with intense passion. Linton hastened to fetch a seat, his whole features glowing with the elation of his vengeance. This passed rapidly away, and as he placed the chair for her to sit down, his face had resumed its former cold, almost melancholy expression.
“I hope you are not ill?” said he, with an air of feeling.
A glance of the most ineffable scorn was her only reply.
“It is with sincere sorrow that I inflict this pain upon you,—indeed, when I heard of that unhappy yacht excursion, my mind was made up to see Lord Kilgoff the very moment of his arrival, and, on any pretence, to induce him to leave this. This hope, however, was taken from me, when I beheld the sad state into which he had fallen, leaving me no other alternative than to address yourself. I will not hurt your ears by repeating the inventions, each full of falsehood, that heralded your arrival here. The insulting discussions how you should be met—whether your conduct had already precluded your acceptance amongst the circle of your equals—or, that you were only a subject of avoidance to mothers of marriageable daughters, and maiden ladies of excessive virtue. You have mixed in the world, and therefore can well imagine every ingenious turn of this peculiar eloquence. How was I—I who have known—I who—nay, madam, not a word shall pass my lips in reference to that theme—I would only ask, Could I hear these things, could I see your foot nearing the cliff, and not cry out, Stop?—Another step, and you are lost! There are women who can play this dangerous game with cool heads and cooler hearts: schooled in all the frigid indifference that would seem the birthright of a certain class, the secrets of their affections die with them; but you are not one of these. Born in what they would call an humbler, but I should call a far higher sphere, where the feelings are fresher and the emotions purer, you might chance to—fall in love!”
A faint smile, so faint that it conveyed no expression to her eyes, was Lady Kilgoff’s acknowledgment of these last words.
“Have you finished, sir?” said she, as, after a pause of some seconds, he stood still.
“Not yet, madam,” replied he, dryly.
“In that case, sir, would it not be as well to tell the man who is lingering yonder to leave this? except, perhaps, it may be your desire to have a witness to your words.”
Linton started, and grew deadly pale; for he now perceived that the man must have been in the conservatory during the entire interview. Hastening round to where he stood, his fears were at once dispelled; for it was the Italian sailor, Giovanni, who, in the multiplicity of his accomplishments, was now assisting the gardener among the plants.
“It is of no consequence, madam,” said he, returning; “the man is an Italian, who understands nothing of English.”
“You are always fortunate, Mr. Linton,” said she, with a deep emphasis on the pronoun.
“I have ceased to boast of my good luck for many a day.”
“Having, doubtless, so many other qualities to be proud of,” said she, with a malicious sparkle of her dark eyes.
“The question is now, madam, of one far more interesting than me.”
“Can that be possible, sir? Is any one’s welfare of such moment to his friends—to the world at large—as the high-minded, the honorable, the open-hearted Mr. Linton, who condescends, for the sake of a warning to his young friends, to turn gambler and ruin them; while he has the daring courage to single out a poor unprotected woman, without one who could rightly defend her, and, under the miserable mask of interest, to insult her?”
“Is it thus you read my conduct, madam?” said he, with an air at once sad and reproachful.
“Not altogether, Mr. Linton. Besides the ineffable pleasure of giving pain, I perceive that you are acquitting a debt,—the debt of hate you owe me; because—But I cannot descend to occupy the same level with you in this business. My reply to you is a very short one. Your insult to me must go unpunished; for, as you well know, I have not one to resent it. You have, however, introduced another name in this discussion; to that gentleman I will reveal all that you have said this day. The consequences may be what they will, I care not; I never provoked them. You best know, sir, how the reckoning will fare with you.”
Linton grew pale, almost lividly so, while he bit his lip till the very blood came; then, suddenly recovering himself, he said: “I am not aware of having mentioned a name. I think your Ladyship must have been mistaken; but”—and here he laughed slightly—“you will scarce succeed in sowing discord between me and my old friend, Lord Charles Frobisher.”
“Lord Charles Frobisher!” echoed she, almost stunned with the effrontery.
“You seem surprised, madam. I trust your Ladyship meant no other.” The insolence of his manner, as he said this, left her unable for some minutes to reply, and when she did speak, it was with evident effort.
“I trust now, sir, that we have spoken for the last time together. I own—and it is, indeed, humiliation enough to own it—your words have deeply insulted me. I cannot deny you the satisfaction of knowing this; and yet, with all these things before me, I do not hate—I only despise you.”
So saying, she moved towards the door; but Linton stepped forward, and said: “One instant, madam. You seem to forget that we are pledged to walk through the rooms; our amiable friends are doubtless looking for us.”
“I will ask Mr. Cashel to be my chaperon another time,” said she, carelessly, and, drawing her shawl around her, passed out, leaving Linton alone in the conservatory.
“Ay, by St Paul! the work goes bravely on,” cried he, as soon as she had disappeared. “If she ruin not him and herself to boot, now, I am sore mistaken. The game is full of interest, and, if I had not so much in hand, would delight me.”
With this brief soliloquy, he turned to where the Italian was standing, pruning an orange-tree.
“Have you learned any English yet, Giovanni?”
A slight but significant gesture of one finger gave the negative.
“No matter, your own soft vowels are in more request here. The dress I told you of is now come,—my servant will give it to you; so, be ready with your guitar, if the ladies wish for it, this evening.”
Giovanni bowed respectfully, and went on with his work, and soon after Linton strolled into the garden to muse over the late scene.
Had any one been there to mark the signs of triumphant elation on his features, they would have seen the man in all the sincerity of his bold, bad heart. His success was perfect. Knowing well the proud nature of the young, high-spirited woman, thoroughly acquainted with her impatient temper and haughty character, he rightly foresaw that to tell her she had become the subject of a calumny was to rouse her pride to confront it openly. To whisper that the world would not admit of this or that, was to make her brave that world, or sink under the effort.
To sting her to such resistance was his wily game, and who knew better how to play it? The insinuated sneers at the class to which she had once belonged, as one not “patented” to assume the vices of their betters, was a deep and most telling hit; and he saw, when they separated, that her mind was made up, at any cost and every risk, to live down the slander by utter contempt of it Linton asked for no more. “Let her,” said he to himself, “but enter the lists with the world for an adversary! I ‘ll give her all the benefits of the best motives,—as much purity of heart, and so forth, as she cares for; but, ‘I ‘ll name the winner,’ after all.”
Too true. The worthy people who fancy that an innate honesty of purpose can compensate for all the breaches of conventional use, are like the volunteers of an army who refuse to wear its uniform, and are as often picked down by their allies as by their enemies.
CHAPTER III. A PARTIAL RECOVERY AND A RELAPSE
Such a concourse ne’er was seen
Of coaches, noddies, cars, and jingles,
“Chars-a-bancs,” to hold sixteen,
And “sulkies,” meant to carry singles.
The Pic-nic: A Lay.
It is an old remark that nothing is so stupid as love-letters; and, pretty much in the same spirit, we may affirm that there are few duller topics than festivities. The scenes in which the actor is most interested are, out of compensation, perhaps, those least worthy to record; the very inability of description to render them is disheartening too. One must eternally resort to the effects produced, as evidences of the cause, just as, when we would characterize a climate, we find ourselves obliged to fall back upon the vegetable productions, the fruits and flowers of the seasons, to convey even anything of what we desire. So is it Pleasure has its own atmosphere,—we may breathe, but hardly chronicle it.
These prosings of ours have reference to the gayeties of Tubbermore, which certainly were all that a merry party and an unbounded expenditure could compass. The style of living was princely in its splendor; luxuries fetched from every land,—the rarest wines of every country, the most exquisite flowers,—all that taste can suggest, and gold can buy, were there; and while the order of each day was maintained with undiminished splendor, every little fancy of the guests was studied with a watchful politeness that marks the highest delicacy of hospitality.
If a bachelor’s house be wanting in the gracefulness which is the charm of a family reception, there is a freedom, a degree of liberty in all the movements of the guests, which some would accept as a fair compromise; for, while the men assume a full equality With their host, the ladies are supreme in all such establishments. Roland Cashel was, indeed, not the man to dislike this kind of democracy; it spared him trouble; it inflicted no tiresome routine of attentions; he was free as the others to follow the bent of his humor, and he asked for no more.
It was without one particle of vulgar pride of wealth that he delighted in the pleasure he saw around him; it was the mere buoyancy of a high-spirited nature. The cost no more entered into his calculations in a personal than a pecuniary sense. A consciousness that he was the source of all that splendid festivity,—that his will was the motive-power of all that complex machinery of pleasure,—increased, but did not constitute, his enjoyment. To see his guests happy, in the various modes they preferred, was his great delight, and, for once, he felt inclined to think that wealth had great privileges.
The display of all which gratified him most was that which usually took place each day after luncheon; when the great space before the house was thronged with equipages of various kinds and degrees, with saddle-horses and mounted grooms, and amid all the bustle of discussing where to, and with whom, the party issued forth to spend the hours before dinner.
A looker-on would have been amused to watch all the little devices in request, to join this party, to avoid that, to secure a seat in a certain carriage, or to escape from some other; Linton’s chief amusement being to thwart as many of these plans as he could, and while he packed a sleepy Chief Justice into the same barouche with the gay Kennyfeck girls, to commit Lady Janet to the care of some dashing dragoon, who did not dare decline the wife of a “Commander of the Forces.”
Cashel always joined the party on horseback, so long as Lady Kilgoff kept the house, which she did for the first week of her stay; but when she announced her intention of driving out, he offered his services to accompany her. By the merest accident it chanced that the very day she fixed on for her first excursion was that on which Cashel had determined to try a new and most splendid equipage which had just arrived; it was a phaeton, built in all the costly splendor of the “Regency of the Duke of Orleans,”—one of those gorgeous toys which even a voluptuous age gazed at with wonder. Two jet-black Arabians, of perfect symmetry, drew it, the whole forming a most beautiful equipage.
Exclamations of astonishment and admiration broke from the whole party as the carriage drove up to the door, where all were now standing.
“Whose can it be? Where did it come from? What a magnificent phaeton! Mr. Cashel, pray tell us all about it. Do, Mr. Linton, give us its history.”
“It has none as yet, my dear Mrs. White; that it may have, one of these days, is quite possible.”
Lady Janet heard the speech, and nodded significantly in assent.
“Mr. Linton, you are coming with us, a’n’t you?” said a lady’s voice from a britzska close by.
“I really don’t know how the arrangement is; Cashel said something about my driving Lady Kilgoff.”
Lady Kilgoff pressed her lips close, and gathered her mantle together as if by some sudden impulse of temper, but never spoke a word. At the same instant Cashel made his appearance from the house.
“Are you to drive me, Mr. Cashel?” said she, calmly.
“If you will honor me so far,” replied he, bowing.
“I fancied you said something to me about being her Ladyship’s charioteer,” said Linton.
“You must have been dreaming, man,” cried Cashel, laughing.
“Will you allow my Lady to choose?” rejoined Linton, jokingly, while he stole at her a look of insolent malice.
Cashel stood uncertain what to say or do in the emergency, when, with a firm and determined voice, Lady Kilgoff said,—
“I must own I have no confidence in Mr. Linton’s guidance.”
“There, Tom,” said Cashel, gayly, “I ‘m glad your vanity came in for that.”
“I have only to hope that you are in safer conduct, my Lady,” said Linton; and he bowed with uncovered head, and then stood gazing after the swift carriage as it hastened down the avenue.
“Is it all true about these Kennyfeck girls having so much tin’?” said Captain Jennings, as he stroked down his moustache complacently.
“They say five-and-twenty thousand each,” said Linton, “and I rather credit the rumor.”
“Eh, aw! one might do worse,” yawned the hussar, languidly; “I wish they hadn’t that confounded accent!” And so he moved off to join the party on horseback.
“You are coming with me, Jemima,” said Mr. Downie Meek to his daughter. “I want to pay a visit to those works at Killaloe, we have so much committee talk in the House on inland navigation. Oh, dear! it is very tiresome.”
“Charley says I ‘m to go with him, pa; he ‘s about to try Smasher as a leader, and wants me, if anything goes wrong.”
“Oh, dear! quite impossible.”
“Yes, yes, Jim, I insist,” said Frobisher, in a half-whisper; “never mind the governor.”
“Here comes the drag, pa. Oh, how beautiful it looks! There they go, all together; and Smasher, how neatly he carries himself! I say, Charley, he has no fancy for that splinter-bar so near him,—it touches his near hock every instant; would n’t it be better to let his trace a hole looser?”
“So it would,” said Frobisher; “but get up and hold the ribbons till I have got my gloves on. I say, Linton, keep Downie in chat one moment, until we ‘re off.”
This kindly office was, however, anticipated by Lady Janet MacFarline, who, in her brief transit from the door to the carriage, always contrived to drop each of the twenty things she loaded herself with at starting, and thus to press into the service as many of the bystanders as possible, who followed, one with a muff, another with a smelling-bottle, a third with a book, a fourth with her knitting, and so on; while Flint brought up the rear with more air-cushions and hot-water apparatus than ever were seen before for the accommodation of two persons. In fact, if the atmosphere of our dear island, instead of being the mere innocent thing of fog it is, had been surcharged with all the pestilential vapors of the mistral and the typhoon together, she could not have armed herself with stronger precautions against it; while even Sir Andrew, with the constitution of a Russian bear, was compelled to wear blue spectacles in sunshine, and a respirator when it lowered,—leaving him, as he said, to the “domnable alternative o’ being blind or dumb.”
“I maun say,” muttered he, behind his barrier of mouth plate, “that Mesther Cashel has his ain notions aboot amusin’ his company when he leaves ane o’ his guests to drive aboot wi’ his ain wife. Ech, sir, it is a pleasure I need na hae come so far to enjoy.”
“Where’s Sir Harvey Upton, Sir Andrew?” said my Lady, tartly; “he has never been near me to-day. I hope he ‘s not making a fool of himself with those Kennyfeck minxes.”
“I dinna ken, and I dinna care,” growled Sir Andrew; and then to himself, he added, “An’ if he be, it’s aye better fooling wi’ young lassies than doited auld women!”
“A place for you, Mr. Linton!” said Mrs. White, as she seated herself in a low drosky, where her companion, Mr. Howie, sat, surrounded with all the details for a sketching-excursion.
“Thanks, but I have nothing so agreeable in prospect.”
“Why, what are you about to do?”
“Alas! I must set out on a canvassing expedition, to court the sweet voices of my interesting constituency. You know that I am a candidate for the borough.”
“That must be very disagreeable.”
“It is, but I could not get off; Cashel is incurably lazy, and I never know how to say ‘no.’”
“Well, good-bye, and all fortune to you,” said she; and they drove away.
Mr. Kennyfeck and the Chief Justice, mounted on what are called sure-footed ponies, and a few others, still lingered about the door, but Linton took no notice of them, but at once re-entered the house.
For some time previous he had remarked that Lord Kilgoff seemed, as it were, struggling to emerge from the mist that had shrouded his faculties; his perceptions each day grew quicker and clearer, and even when silent, Linton observed that a shrewd expression of the eye would betoken a degree of apprehension few would have given him credit for. With the keenness of a close observer, too, Linton perceived that he more than once made use of his favorite expression, “It appears to me,” and slight as the remark might seem, there is no more certain evidence of the return to thought and reason than the resumption of any habitual mode of expression.
Resolved to profit by this gleam of coming intelligence, by showing the old peer an attention he knew would be acceptable, Linton sent up a message to ask “If his Lordship would like a visit from him?” A most cordial acceptance was returned; and, a few moments after, Linton entered the room where he sat, with all that delicate caution so becoming a sick chamber.
Motioning his visitor to sit down, by a slight gesture of the finger, while he made a faint effort to smile, in return for the other’s salutation, the old man sat, propped up by pillows, and enveloped in shawls, pale, sad, and careworn.
“I was hesitating for two entire days, my Lord,” said Linton, lowering his voice to suit the character of the occasion, “whether I might propose to come and sit an hour with you, and I have only to beg that you will not permit me to trespass a moment longer than you feel disposed to endure me.”
“Very kind of you—most considerate, sir,” said the old peer, bowing with an air of haughty courtesy.
“You seem to gain strength every day, my Lord,” resumed Linton, who well knew there was nothing like a personal topic to awaken a sick man’s interest.
“There is something here,” said the old man, slowly, as he placed the tip of his finger on the centre of his forehead.
“Mere debility, nervous debility, my Lord. You are paying the heavy debt an overworked intellect must always acquit; but rest and repose will soon restore you.”
“Yes, sir,” muttered the other, with a weak smile, as though, without fathoming the sentiment, he felt that something agreeable to his feelings had been spoken.
“I have been impatient for your recovery, my Lord, I will confess to you, on personal grounds; I feel now how much I have been indebted to your Lordship’s counsel and advice all through life, by the very incertitude that tracks me. In fact, I can resolve on nothing, determine nothing, without your sanction.”
The old man nodded assentingly; the assurance had his most sincere conviction.
“It would seem, my Lord, that I must—whether I will or no—stand for this borough, here; there is no alternative, for you are aware that Cashel is quite unfit for public business. Each day he exhibits more and more of those qualities which bespeak far more goodness of heart than intellectual training or culture. His waywardness and eccentricity might seriously damage his own party,—could he even be taught that he had one,—and become terrible weapons in the hands of the enemy. I was speaking of Cashel, my Lord,” said Linton, as it were answering the look of inquiry in the old man’s face.
“I hate him, sir,” said the old peer, with a bitterness of voice and look that well suited the words.
“I really cannot wonder at it,” said Linton, with a deep sigh; “such duplicity is too shocking—far too shocking—to contemplate.”
“Eh! what? What did you say, sir?” cried the old man, impatiently.
“I was remarking, my Lord, that I have no confidence in his sincerity; that he strikes me as capable of playing a double part.”
A look of disappointment succeeded to the excited expression of the old man’s face; he had evidently expected some revelation, and now his features became clouded and gloomy.
“We may be unjust, my Lord,” said Linton; “it may be a prejudice on our part: others would seem to have a different estimate of that gentleman. Meek thinks highly of him.”
“Who, sir? I didn’t hear you,” asked he, snappishly.
“Meek,—Downie Meek, my Lord.”
“Pshaw!” said the old man, with a shrewd twinkle of the eye that made Linton fear the mind behind it was clearer than he suspected.
“I know, my Lord,” said he, hastily, “that you always held the worthy secretary cheap; but you weighed him in a balance too nice for the majority of people—”
“What does that old woman say? Tell me her opinion of Cashel,” said Lord Kilgoff, rallying into something like his accustomed manner. “You know whom I mean!” cried he, impatient at Linton’s delay in answering. “The old woman one sees everywhere,—she married that Scotch sergeant—”
“Lady Janet MacFarline—”
“Exactly, sir.”
“She thinks precisely with your Lordship.”
“I’m sure of it; I told my Lady so,” muttered he to himself.
Linton caught the words with eagerness, and his dark eyes kindled; for at last were they nearing the territory he wanted to occupy.
“Lady Kilgoff,” said he, slowly, “does not need any aid to appreciate him; she reads him thoroughly, the heartless, selfish, unprincipled spendthrift that he is.”
“She does not, sir,” rejoined the old man, with a loud voice, and a stroke of his cane upon the floor that echoed through the room; “you never were more mistaken in your life. His insufferable puppyism, his reckless effrontery, his underbred familiarity, are precisely the very qualities she is pleased with,—‘They are so different,’ as she says, ‘from the tiresome routine of fashionable manners.’”
“Unquestionably they are, my Lord,” said Linton, with a smile.
“Exactly, sir; they differ as do her Ladyship’s own habits from those of every lady in the peerage. I told her so; I begged to set her right on that subject, at least.”
“Your Lordship’s refinement is a most severe standard,” said Linton, bowing low.
“It should be an example, sir, as well as a chastisement. Indeed, I believe few would have failed to profit by it.” The air of insolent pride in which he spoke seemed for an instant to have brought back the wonted look to his features, and he sat up, with his lips compressed, and his chin pro-traded, as in his days of yore.
“I would entreat your Lordship to remember,” said Linton, “how few have studied in the same school you have; how few have enjoyed the intimacy of ‘the most perfect gentleman of all Europe;’ and of that small circle, who is there could have derived the same advantage from the privilege?”
“Your remark is very Just, sir. I owe much—very much—to his Royal Highness.”
The tone of humility in which he said this was a high treat to the sardonic spirit of his listener.
“And what a penance to you must be a visit in such a house as this!” said Linton, with a sigh.
“True, sir; but who induced me to make it? Answer me that.”
Linton started with amazement, for he was very far from supposing that his Lordship’s memory was clear enough to retain the events of an interview that occurred some months before.
“I never anticipated that it would cost you so dearly, my Lord,” said he, cautiously, and prepared to give his words any turn events might warrant. For once, however, the ingenuity was wasted; Lord Kilgoff, wearied and exhausted by the increased effort of his intellect, had fallen back in his chair, and, with drooping lips and fallen jaw, sat the very picture of helpless fatuity.
“So, then,” said Linton, as on tiptoe he stole noiselessly away, “if your memory was inopportune, it was, at least, very short-lived. And now, adieu, my Lord, till we want you for another act of the drama.”
CHAPTER IV. MORE KENNYFECK INTRIGUING
We ‘ll have you at our merry-making, too.
Honeymoon.
If we should appear, of late, to have forgotten some of those friends with whom we first made our readers acquainted in this veracious history, we beg to plead against any charge of caprice or neglect. The cause is simply this: a story, like a stream, has one main current; and he who would follow the broad river must eschew being led away by every rivulet which may separate from the great flood to follow its own vagrant fancy elsewhere. Now, the Kennyfecks had been meandering after this fashion for some time back. The elder had commenced a very vigorous flirtation with the dashing Captain Jennings, while the younger sister was coyly dallying under the attentions of his brother hussar,—less, be it remembered, with any direct intention of surrender, than with the faint hope that Cashel, perceiving the siege, should think fit to rescue the fortress; “Aunt Fanny” hovering near, as “an army of observation,” and ready, like the Prussians in the last war, to take part with the victorious side, whichever that might be.
And now, we ask in shame and sorrow, is it not humiliating to think, that of a party of some thirty or more, met together to enjoy in careless freedom the hospitality of a country house, all should have been animated with the same spirit of intrigue,—each bent on his own deep game, and, in some one guise or other of deceitfulness, each following out some scheme of selfish advantage?
Some may say these things are forced and unnatural; that pleasure proclaims a truce in the great war of life, where combatants lay down their weapons, and mix like friends and allies. We fear this is not the case; our own brief experiences would certainly tend to a different conclusion. Less a player than a looker-on in the great game, we have seen, through all the excitements of dissipation, all the fascinating pleasures of the most brilliant circles, the steady onward pursuit of self-interest; and, instead of the occasions of social enjoyment being like the palm-shaded wells in the desert, where men meet to taste the peacefulness of perfect rest, they are rather the arena where, in all the glitter of the most splendid armor, the combatants have come to tilt, with more than life upon the issue.
For this, the beauty wreathes herself in all the winning smiles of loveliness; for this, the courtier puts forth his most captivating address and his most seductive manner; for this, the wit sharpens the keen edge of his fancy, and the statesman matures the deep resolve of his judgment. The diamond coronets that deck the hair and add lustre to the eyes; the war-won medals that glitter on the coat of some hardy veteran; the proud insignia of merit that a sovereign’s favor grants,—all are worn to this end! Each brings to the game whatever he may possess of superiority, for the contest is ever a severe one.
And now to go back to our company. From Lady Janet, intent upon everything which might minister to her own comfort or mortify her neighbor, to the smooth and soft-voiced Downie Meek,—with the kindest of wishes and the coldest of hearts,—they were, we grieve to own it, far more imposing to look at, full dressed at dinner, than to investigate by the searching anatomy that discloses the vices and foibles of humanity; and it is, therefore, with less regret we turn from the great house, in all the pomp of its splendor, to the humble cottage where Mr. Corrigan dwelt with his granddaughter.
In wide contrast to the magnificence and profusion of the costly household, where each seemed bent on giving way to every caprice that extravagance could suggest, was the simple quietude of that unpretending family. The efforts by which Corrigan had overcome his difficulties not only cost him all the little capital he possessed in the world, but had also necessitated a mode of living more restricted than he had ever known before. The little luxuries that his station, as well as his age and long use, had made necessaries, the refinements that adorn even the very simplest lives, had all to be, one by one, surrendered. Some of these he gave up manfully, others cost him deeply; and when the day came that he had to take leave of his old gray pony, the faithful companion of so many a lonely ramble, the creature he had reared and petted like a dog, the struggle was almost too much for him.
He walked along beside the man who led the beast to the gate, telling him to be sure and seek out some one who would treat her kindly. “Some there are would do so for my sake; but she deserves it better for her own.—Yes, Nora, I ‘m speaking of you,” said he, caressing her, as she laid her nose over his arm. “I’m sure I never thought we’d have to part.”
“She’s good as goold this minit,” said the man; “an’ it’ll go hard but ‘ll get six pounds for her, any way.”
“Tell whoever buys her that Mr. Corrigan will give him a crown-piece every Christmas-day that he sees her looking well and in good heart. To be sure, it’s no great bribe, we’re both so old,” said he, smiling; “but my blessing goes with the man that’s a friend to her.” He sat down as he said this, and held his hand over his face till she was gone. “God forgive me, if I set my heart too much on such things, but it’s like parting with an old friend. Poor Mary’s harp must go next. But here comes Tiernay. Well, doctor, what news?”
The doctor shook his head twice or thrice despondingly, but said nothing; at last, he muttered, in a grumbling voice,—
“I was twice at the Hall, but there’s no seeing Cashel himself; an insolent puppy of a valet turned away contemptuously as I asked for him, and said,—
“Mr. Linton, perhaps, might hear what you have to say.’”
“Is Kennyfeck to be found?”
“Yes, I saw him for a few minutes; but he’s like the rest of them. The old fool fancies he ‘s a man of fashion here, and told me he had left ‘the attorney’ behind, in Merrion Square. He half confessed to me, however, what I feared. Cashel has either given a promise to give this farm of yours to Linton—”
“Well, the new landlord will not be less kind than the old one.”
“You think so,” said Tiernay, sternly. “Is your knowledge of life no better than this? Have you lived till now without being able to read that man? Come, come, Corrigan, don’t treat this as a prejudice of mine; I have watched him closely, and he sees it. I tell you again, the fellow is a villain.”
“Ay, ay,” said Corrigan, laughing; “your doctor’s craft has made you always on the look-out for some hidden mischief.”
“My doctor’s craft has taught me to know that symptoms are never without a meaning. But enough of him. The question is simply this: we have, then, merely to propose to Cashel the purchase of your interest in the cottage, on which you will cede the possession.”
“Yes; and give up, besides, all claim at law; for you know we are supported by the highest opinions.”
“Pooh! nonsense, man; don’t embarrass the case by a pretension they ‘re sure to sneer at. The cottage and the little fields behind it are tangible and palpable; don’t weaken your case by a plea you could not press.”
“Have your own way, then,” said the old man, mildly.
“It is an annuity, you say, you ‘d wish?”
“On Mary’s life, not on mine, doctor.”
“It will be a poor thing,” said Tiernay, with a sigh.
“They say we could live in some of the towns in Flanders very cheaply,” said Corrigan, cheerfully.
“You don’t know how to live cheaply,” rejoined Tiernay, crankily. “You think, if you don’t see a man in black behind your chair, and that you eat off delf instead of silver, that you are a miracle of simplicity. I saw you last Sunday put by the decanter with half a glass of sherry at the bottom of it, and you were as proud of your thrift as if you had reformed your whole household.”
“Everything is not learned in a moment, Tiernay,” said Corrigan, mildly.
“You are too old to begin, Con Corrigan,” said the other, gravely. “Such men as you, who have not been educated to narrow fortunes, never learn thrift; they can endure great privations well enough, but it is the little, petty, dropping ones that break down the spirit,—these they cannot meet.”
“A good conscience and a strong will can do a great deal, Tiernay. One thing is certain,—that we shall escape persecution from him. He will scarcely discover us in our humble retreat.”
“I’ve thought of that too,” said Tiernay; “it is the greatest advantage the plan possesses. Now, the next point is, how to see this same Cashel; from all that I can learn, his life is one of dissipation from morning till night. Those fashionable sharpers by whom he is surrounded are making him pay dearly for his admission into the honorable guild.”
“The greater the pity,” sighed Corrigan; “he appeared to me deserving of a different fate. An easy, complying temper—”
“The devil a worse fault I ‘d with my enemy,” broke in Tiernay, passionately. “A field without a fence,—a house without a door to it! And there, if I am not mistaken, I hear his voice; yes, he ‘s coming along the path, and some one with him too.”
“I ‘ll leave you to talk to him, Tiernay, for you seem in ‘the vein.’” And with these words the old man turned into a by-path, just as Cashel, with Lady Kilgoff on his arm, advanced up the avenue.
Nothing is more remarkable than the unconscious homage tendered to female beauty and elegance by men whose mould of mind, as well as habit, would seem to render them insensible to such fascinations, nor is their instinctive admiration a tribute which beauty ever despises.
The change which came over the rough doctor’s expression as the party came nearer exemplified this truth strongly. The look of stern determination with which he was preparing to meet Cashel changed to one of astonishment, and, at last, to undisguised admiration, as he surveyed the graceful mien and brilliant beauty before him. They had left the phaeton at the little wicket, and the exercise on foot had slightly colored her cheek, and added animation to her features,—the only aid necessary to make her loveliness perfect.
“I have taken a great liberty with my neighbor, Doctor Tiernay,” said Cashel, as he came near. “Let me present you, however, first,—Doctor Tiernay, Lady Kilgoff. I had been telling her Ladyship that the only picturesque portion of this country lies within this holly enclosure, and is the property of my friend Mr. Corrigan, who, although he will not visit me, will not, I ‘m sure, deny me the pleasure of showing his tasteful grounds to my friends.”
“My old friend would be but too proud of such a visitor,” said Tiernay, bowing low to Lady Kilgoff.
“Mr. Cashel has not confessed all our object, Mr. Tiernay,” said she, assuming her most gracious manner. “Our visit has in prospect the hope of making Miss Leicester’s acquaintance; as I know you are the intimate friend of the family, will you kindly say if this be a suitable hour, or, indeed, if our presence here at all would not be deemed an intrusion?”
The doctor colored deeply, and his eye sparkled with pleasure; for strange enough as it may appear, while sneering at the dissipations of the great house, he felt a degree of indignant anger at the thought of Mary sitting alone and neglected, with gayeties around her on every side.
“It was a most thoughtful kindness of your Ladyship,” replied he, “for my friend is too old and too infirm to seek society; and so the poor child has no other companionship than two old men, only fit to weary each other.”
“You make me hope that our mission will succeed, sir,” said Lady Kilgoff, still employing her most fascinating look and voice; “we may reckon you as an ally, I trust.”
“I am your Ladyship’s most devoted,” said the old man, courteously; “how can I be of service?”
“Our object is to induce Miss Leicester to pass some days with us,” said she. “We are plotting various amusements that might interest her,—private theatricals among the rest.”
“Here she comes, my Lady,” said Tiernay, with animation; “I am proud to be the means of introducing her.”
Just at this instant Mary Leicester had caught sight of the party, and, uncertain whether to advance or retire, was standing for a moment undecided, when Tiernay called out:
“Stay a minute, Miss Mary; Lady Kilgoff is anxious to make your acquaintance.”
“This is a very informal mode of opening an intimacy, Miss Leicester,” said Lady Kilgoff; “pray let it have the merit of sincerity, for I have long desired to know one of whom I have heard so much.”
Mary replied courteously to the speech, and looked pleasedly towards Cashel, to whom she justly attributed the compliment insinuated.
As the two ladies moved on side by side, engaged in conversation, Tiernay slackened his pace slightly, and, in a voice of low but earnest import, said,—
“Will Mr. Cashel consider it an intrusion if I take this opportunity of speaking to him on a matter of business?”
“Not in the least, doctor,” said Cashel, gayly; “but it’s right I should mention that I am most lamentably ignorant of everything that deserves that name. My agent has always saved me from the confession, but the truth will out at last.”
“So much the worse, sir,—for others as well as for yourself,” replied Tiernay, bluntly. “The trust a large fortune imposes—But I shall forget myself if I touch on such a theme. My business is this, sir,—and, in mercy to you, I ‘ll make it very brief. My old friend, Mr. Corrigan, deems it expedient to leave this country, and, in consequence, to dispose of the interest he possesses in these grounds, so long embellished by his taste and culture. He is well aware that much of what he has expended here has not added substantial value to the property; that, purely ornamental, it has, in great part, repaid himself by the many years of enjoyment it has afforded him. Still, he hopes, or, rather, I do for him,—for, to speak candidly, sir, he has neither courage nor hardihood for these kind of transactions,—I hope, sir, that you, desirous of uniting this farm to the large demesne, as I understand to be the case, will not deem this an unfitting occasion to treat liberally with one whose position is no longer what it once was. I must take care, Mr. Cashel, that I say nothing which looks like solicitation here; the confidence my friend has placed in me would be ill requited by such an error.”
“Is there no means of securing Mr. Corrigan’s residence here?” said Cashel. “Can I not accommodate his wishes in some other way, and which should not deprive me of a neighbor I prize so highly?”
“I fear not. The circumstances which induce him to go abroad are imperative.”
“Would it not be better to reflect on this?” said Cashel. “I do not seek to pry into concerns which are not mine, but I would earnestly ask if some other arrangement be not possible?”
Tiernay shook his head dubiously.
“If this be so, then I can oppose no longer. It only remains for Mr. Corrigan to put his own value on the property, and I accept it.”
“Nay, sir; this generosity will but raise new difficulties. You are about to deal with a man as high-hearted as yourself, and with the punctilious delicacy that a narrow fortune suggests, besides.”
“Do you, then, doctor, who know both of us, be arbitrator. Let it not be a thing for parchments and lawyers’ clerks; let it be an honorable understanding between two gentlemen, and so, no more of it.”
“If the world were made up of men like yourself and my old friend, this would be, doubtless, the readiest and the best solution of the difficulty,” said Tiernay; “but what would be said if we consented to such an arrangement? What would not be said? Ay, faith, there’s not a scandalous rumor that malice could forge would not be rife upon us.”
“And do you think such calumnies have any terror for me?” cried Cashel.
“When you’ve lived to my age, sir, you’ll reason differently.”
“It shall be all as you wish, then,” said Cashel. “But stay!” cried he, after a moment’s thought; “there is a difficulty I had almost forgotten. I must look that it may not interfere with our plans. When can I see you again? Would it suit you to come and breakfast with me tomorrow? I ‘ll have my man of business, and we ‘ll arrange everything.”
“Agreed, sir; I’ll not fail. I like your promptitude. A favor is a double benefit when speedily granted.”
“Now I shall ask one from you, doctor. If I can persuade my kind friends here to visit us, will you too be of the party sometimes?”
“Not a bit of it. Why should I, sir, expose you to the insolent criticism my unpolished manners and rude address would bring upon you—or myself to the disdain that fashionable folk would show me? I am proud—too proud, perhaps—at the confidence you would repose in my honor; I don’t wish to blush for my breeding by way of recompense. There, sir,—there is one yonder in every way worthy all the distinction rank and wealth can give her. I feel happy to think that she is to move amongst those who, if they cannot prize her worth, will at least appreciate her fascinations.”
“Will Mr. Corrigan consent?”
“He must,—he shall,” broke in Tiernay; “I’ll insist upon it But come along with me into the cottage, while the ladies are cementing their acquaintance; we’ll see him, and talk him over.”
So saying, he led Cashel into the little library, where, deep sunk in his thoughts, the old man was seated, with an open book before him, but of which he had not read a line.
“Con!” cried Tiernay, “Mr. Cashel has come to bring you and Miss Mary up to the Hall to dinner. There, sir, look at the face he puts on,—an excuse in every wrinkle of it!”
“But, my dear friend—my worthy doctor—you know perfectly—-”
“I ‘ll know perfectly that you must go,—no help for it I have told Mr. Cashel that you ‘d make fifty apologies—pretend age—Ill-health—want of habit, and so on; the valid reason being that you think his company a set of raffs, and—”
“Oh, Tiernay, I beg you ‘ll not ascribe such sentiments to me.”
“Well, I thought so myself, t’ other day,—ay, half-an-hour ago; but there is a lady yonder, walking up and down the grass-plot, has made me change my mind. Come out and see her, man, and then say as many ‘No’s’ as you please.” And, half-dragging, half-leading the old man out, Tiernay went on:—
“You ‘ll see, Mr. Cashel, how polite he ‘ll grow when he sees the bright eyes and the fair cheek. You ‘ll not hear of any more refusals then, I promise you.”
Meanwhile, so far had Lady Kilgoff advanced in the favorable opinion of Miss Leicester that the young girl was already eager to accept the proffered invitation. Old Mr. Corrigan, however, could not be induced to leave his home, and so it was arranged that Lady Kilgoff should drive over on the following day to fetch her; with which understanding they parted, each looking forward with pleasure to their next meeting.
CHAPTER V. LINTON’S MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE
“Gone! and in secret, too!”
Amid all the plans for pleasure which engaged the attention of the great house, two subjects now divided the interest between them. One was the expected arrival of the beautiful Miss Leicester,—“Mr. Cashel’s babe in the wood,” as-Lady Janet called her,—the other, the reading of a little one-act piece which Mr. Linton had written for the company. Although both were, in their several ways, “events,” the degree of interest they excited was very disproportioned to their intrinsic consequence, and can only be explained by dwelling on the various intrigues and schemes by which that little world was agitated.
Lady Janet, whose natural spitefulness was a most catholic feeling, began to fear that Lady Kilgoff had acquired such an influence over Cashel that she could mould him to any course she pleased,—even a marriage. She suspected, therefore, that this rustic beauty had been selected by her Ladyship as one very unlikely to compete with herself in Roland’s regard, and that she was thus securing a lasting ascendancy over him.
Mrs. Leicester White, who saw, or believed she saw, herself neglected by Roland, took an indignant view of the matter, and threw out dubious and shadowy suspicions about “who this young lady might be, who seemed so opportunely to have sprung up in the neighborhood,” and expressed, in confidence, her great surprise “how Lady Kilgoff could lend herself to such an arrangement.”
Mrs. Kennyfeck was outraged at the entrance of a new competitor into the field, where her daughter was no longer a “favorite.” In fact, the new visitor’s arrival was heralded by no signs of welcome, save from the young men of the party, who naturally were pleased to hear that a very handsome and attractive girl was expected.
As for Aunt Fanny, her indignation knew no bounds; indeed, ever since she had set foot in the house her state had been one little short of insanity. In her own very graphic phrase, “She was fit to be tied at all she saw.” Now, when an elderly maiden lady thus comprehensively sums up the cause of her anger, without descending to “a bill of particulars,” the chances are that some personal wrong—real or imaginary—is more in fault than anything reprehensible in the case she is so severe upon. So was it here. Aunt Fanny literally saw nothing, although she heard a great deal. Daily, hourly, were the accusations of the whole Kennyfeck family directed against her for the loss of Cashel. But for her, and her absurd credulity on the statement of an anonymous letter, and there had been no yacht voyage with Lady Kilgoff—no shipwreck—no life in a cabin on the coast—no——In a word, all these events had either not happened at all, or only occurred with Livy Kennyfeck for their heroine.
Roland’s cold, almost distant politeness to the young ladies, was marked enough to appear intentional; nor could all the little by-play of flirtation with others excite in him the slightest evidence of displeasure. If the family were outraged at this change, poor Livy herself bore up admirably; and while playing a hundred little attractive devices for Cashel, succeeded in making a very deep impression on the well-whiskered Sir Harvey Upton, of the—th. Indeed, as Linton, who saw everything, shrewdly remarked, “She may not pocket the ball she intended, but, rely on’t, she ‘ll make a ‘hazard’ somewhere.”
Of all that great company, but one alone found no place in her heart for some secret wile; this was Miss Meek, who, sadly disappointed at the little influence of her royalty, had ceased to care much for in-door affairs, and spent her mornings “schooling” with Charley, and her evenings listening to sporting talk whenever two or three “fast men” got together in the drawing-room.
The evening that preceded Miss Leicester’s intended arrival had been fixed for the reading of Mr. Linton’s comedy,—a little dramatic piece, which, whether he had stolen wholesale from the French, or only borrowed in part, none knew; but various were the rumors that it would turn out to be a very satirical composition, with allusions to many of those who were to sit in judgment over it. How this supposition originated, or with whom, there is no saying, nor if well-founded in any respect, for Linton had never shown his sketch to any one, nor alluded to it, save in the most vague manner.
Each, however, looked to see his neighbor “shown up;” and while one said, “What a character could be made of old Sir Andrew, with his vulgarity, his deafness, and his gluttony!” another thought that Downie Meek, in his oily smoothness, his sighings, and his “dear me’s,” would be admirable,—all the ladies averring that Lady Kilgoff would be a perfect embodiment of Lady Teazle as Sir Peter suspected and Joseph intended her to be.
Fears for individual safety were merged in hopes of seeing others assailed, and it was in something like a flutter of expectancy that the party assembled in the drawing-room before dinner. Great was their surprise to find that Mr. Linton did not make his appearance. The dinner was announced, but he never came, and his place vacant at the foot of the table was the continual suggester of every possible reason for his absence. If Lady Kilgoff could not divest herself of a certain terror,—vague and meaningless, it is true,—the dread she felt proceeded from knowing him to be one whose every act had some deep purpose; while others were then canvassing his absence in easy freedom, she took the first opportunity of asking Cashel whether he were in the secret, or if it were really true that Linton had not communicated, even with him, about his departure.
“I am no better informed than my friends here,” said Roland; “and, to say truth, I have given little thought about the matter. We have not, as you are aware, of late seen so much of each other as we used once; he has himself rather drawn off me, and I have left the interval between us to widen, without much regret.”
“Remember, however, what I told you: he can be a terrible enemy.”
Cashel smiled calmly as he said, “I have consorted with men whose vengeance never took longer to acquit than the time occupied in drawing a knife from the sleeve or a pistol from the girdle. I care very little for him whose weapon is mere subtlety.”
“It is this over-confidence makes me fear for you,” said she, anxiously; “for, I say again, you do not know him.”
“I wish I never had,” said Cashel, with an earnestness of voice and accent. “He has involved me in a hundred pursuits for which I feel neither taste nor enjoyment. To him I owe it that pleasure is always associated in my mind with mere debauch; and the only generosity he has taught me has been the spendthrift waste of the gaming-table.”
“Could you not find out something of him,—when he went, and in what direction?” said she, anxiously. “I cannot tell you why, but my heart misgives me about his departure.”
More in compliance with her scruples than that he deemed the matter worth a thought, Cashel left the room to make inquiries from the servants; but all he could learn was, that Mr. Linton arose before daybreak and left the house on foot, his own servant not knowing in what direction, nor having heard anything of his master’s previous intention.
His intimacy with the family at the cottage left it possible that they might know something of his movements and Cashel accordingly despatched a messenger thither to ask; but with the same fruitless result as every previous inquiry.
While Cashel was following up this search with a degree of interest that increased as the difficulty augmented, he little knew how watchfully his every word and gesture was noted down by one who stood at his side. This was Mr. Phillis, who, while seeming to participate in his master’s astonishment, threw out from time to time certain strange, vague hints, less suggestive of his own opinions than as baits to attract those of his master.
“Very odd, indeed, sir,—very strange; so regular a gentleman, too,—always rising at the same hour. His man says, he ‘s like the clock. To be sure,” added he, after a pause, “his manner is changed of late.”
“How do you mean?” asked Cashel, hurriedly.
“He seems anxious, sir,—uneasy, as one might say.”
“I have not perceived it.”
“His man says—”
“What care I for that?” said Cashel, impatiently. “It is not to pry into Mr. Linton’s habits that I am here, it is to assure myself that no accident has happened to him, and that if he stand in need of my assistance, I shall not be neglecting him. Tell two of the grooms to take horses and ride down to Killaloe and Dunkeeran, and ask at the inns there if he has been seen. Let them make inquiry, too, along the road.” With these directions, hastily given, he returned to the drawing-room, his mind far more interested in the event than he knew how to account for.
“No tidings of Tom?” said Lord Charles Frobisher, lounging carelessly in a well-cushioned chair.
Cashel made a sign in the negative.
“Well, it’s always a satisfaction to his friends to know that he ‘ll not come to harm,” said he, with an ambiguous smile.
“The country is much disturbed at this moment,” said the Chief Justice; “the calendar was a very heavy one last assize. I trust no marauding party may have laid hold of him.”
“Ah, yes, that would be very sad indeed,” sighed Meek; “mistaking him for a spy.”
“No great blunder, after all,” said Lady Janet, almost loud enough for other ears than her next neighbor’s.
“If the night were moonlight,” said Miss Meek, as she opened a shutter and peeped out into the darkness, “I ‘d say he was trying those fences we have laid out for the hurdle-race.”
“By Jove, Jim, that is a shrewd thought!” said Lord Charles, forgetting that he was addressing her by a familiar sobriquet he never used before company.
“You have a bet with him, Charley?” said Upton.
“Yes, we have all manner of bets on the race, and I ‘ll have one with you, if you like it,—an even fifty that Tom turns up ‘all right and no accident,’ after this bolt.”
“Ah, my Lord, you ‘re in the secret, then!” said Aunt Fanny, whose experiences of sporting transactions, derived from “the West,” induced her to suspect that a wager contained a trap-fall.
A very cool stare was the only acknowledgment he deigned to return to this speech, while Mrs. Kennyfeck looked unutterable reproaches at her unhappy relative.
“I call the present company to witness,” said Sir Harvey Upton, “that if Tom has to come to an untimely end, he has bequeathed to me his brown cob pony, Batter.”
“I protest against the gift,” said Miss Kennyfeck; “Mr. Linton told me, if he were killed in the steeplechase on Tuesday next, I should have Batter.”
“That was a special reservation, Miss Kennyfeck,” said the Chief Justice; “so that if his death did not occur in the manner specified, the deed or gift became null and void.”
“I only know,” said Miss Meek, “that Mr. Linton said, as we came back from the hurdle-field,—‘Remember, Batter is yours if—if—‘” She hesitated and grew red, and then stopped speaking, in evident shame and confusion.
“If what? Tell us the condition; you are bound to be candid,” said several voices together.
“I’ll tell you but I’ll not tell any one else,” said the young girl, turning to Lady Kilgoff; and at the same instant she whispered in her ear, “if I were to be married to Mr. Cashel.”
“Well,” said her Ladyship, laughing, “and was the bribe sufficient?”
“I should think not!” replied she, with a scornful toss of the head, as she walked back to her seat.
“I winna say,” said Sir Andrew, “but I ha’ a bit claim mysel to that bonnie snuff-box he ca’d a Louis-Quatorze; if ye mind, leddies, I asked him to mak’ me a present o’ it, and he replied, ‘In my weell, Sir Andrew; I’ll leave it ye in my weell.’”
“I foresee there will be abundance of litigation,” said the Chief Justice, “for the claims are both numerous and conflicting.”
“You ‘ll not be troubled with the next of kin, I believe,” said Lady Janet, in her most spiteful of voices.
“I say, my Lord Chief Justice,” said Frobisher, “let me have a travelling opinion from you, on a legal point. Wouldn’t Linton’s heirs, or representatives, or whatever they ‘re called, be bound to ‘book up’ if Ramekin is beaten in the handicap?”
“The law expressly declares such transactions without its pale, my Lord,” said the judge, rebukingly.
“Well, I can only say,” interrupted Upton, “that when we were in cantonments at Sickmabund, Jack Faris ‘of ours’ had a heavy stake in a game of piquet with the major, and just as he was going to count his point, he gave a tremendous yell, and jumped up from the table. It was a cobra capella had bitten him in the calf of the leg. Everything was done for him at once, but all in vain; he swelled up to the size of four, and died in about two hours. It was rather hard on old Cox, the major, who had two hundred pounds on it, and a capital hand; and so he made a representation to the mess, showing that he had seven cards to his point, with a quint in hearts; that, taking in the ace of clubs, he should count a quatorze, and, therefore, unquestionably win the game. The thing was clear as day, and so they awarded him the stakes. Cox behaved very handsomely, too; for he said, ‘If Faris’s widow likes to play the game out, I ‘ll give her the opportunity when we get back to England, and back myself, two to one.’”
“The Chevalier Bayard himself could not have done more,” said Miss Kennyfeck, with admirable gravity.
“I must say,” resumed the dragoon, “we thought it handsome, for old Cox was always hard up for money.”
“And what is to become of our theatricals, if Mr. Linton should have been so ill-natured as to drown himself?” said Mrs. White, in a most disconsolate tone; for she had already made terrible havoc in her wardrobe to accomplish a Turkish costume.
“Such a disappointment as it will be,” sighed Olivia Kennyfeck, who had speculated on a last effort upon Cashel in a Mexican dress, where, certes, superfluity should not be the fault.
“You can always make some compensation for the disappointment,” said Lady Kilgoff, “by a fancy ball.”
“Oh, delightful! the very thing!” exclaimed several together. “When shall it be, Mr. Cashel?”
“I am entirely at your orders,” said he, bowing courteously.
“Shall we say Tuesday, then?”
“Not Tuesday; we have the race on that morning,” said Frobisher; “and some of us, at least, will be too tired for a ball afterwards.”
“Well, Wednesday,—is Wednesday open?”
“Wednesday was fixed for a boat excursion to Holy Island,” said Cashel.
“You can’t have Thursday, then,” exclaimed Lady Janet; “that is the only evening we ever have our rubber. I’ll not give you Thursday.”
“Friday we are to have some people at dinner,” said Cashel; “and Saturday was to have been some piece of electioneering festivity for Linton’s constituents.”
“What matter now?” said Mrs. White; “perhaps the poor dear man is in a better place. A very sad thought,” sighed she; “but such things are happening every day.”
“Ah, yes, very sad,” responded Meek, who never failed to perform echo to any one’s lamentation.
“Ah, indeed!” chimed in Aunt Fanny, “cut off like a daisy.” And she wiped her eyes and looked solemn, for she believed she was quoting Scripture.
At last it was decided that the ball should come off on the earliest evening possible, irrespective of all other arrangements; and now the company formed in a great circle, discussing dresses and characters and costumes with an eager interest that showed how little Linton’s fate had thrown a shadow over the bright picture of anticipated pleasure.
CHAPTER VI. THE SEASON OF LINTON’S FLITTING
He could outrogue a lawyer.
Oldham.
Revealing so freely as we do the hidden wiles of our characters for the reader’s pleasure, it would ill become us to affect any reserve or mystery regarding their actions. We shall not make, therefore, any secret of Mr. Linton’s absence, nor ask of our patient reader to partake of the mystification that prevailed among the company at Tubbermore.
It so chanced, that on the evening preceding his departure he saw in a newspaper paragraph the arrival of a very distinguished lawyer at Limerick on his way to Dublin, and the thought at once occurred to him, that the opportunity was most favorable for obtaining an opinion respecting the “Corrigan Pardon,” without incurring either suspicion or any lengthened absence.
Another object, inferior, but not devoid of interest, also suggested itself. It was this: profiting by a secret passage which led from the theatre to Cashel’s bedroom, it was Linton’s custom to visit this chamber every day, ransacking the letters and papers which, in his careless indolence, Roland left loose upon the tables, and thus possessing himself of the minutest knowledge of Cashel’s affairs. In his very last visit to this room, he perceived a cumbrous document, of which the seal of the envelope was broken, but apparently the contents unlooked at. It was enough that he read the indorsement, “Deed of conveyance of the Cottage and Lands of Tubber-beg.”
Feeling how far he himself was interested in the paper, and well knowing the forgetful habits of Cashel, who would never detect its removal, he coolly folded it up and carried it away.
At first, his intention was simply to peruse the paper at his ease, and, if need were, to show it in confidence to Cor-rigan, and thus establish for himself that degree of influence over the old man which the character of his landlord might convey. But another and a bolder expedient soon suggested itself to his mind—nor was he one to shrink from an enterprise merely on account of its hazard—and this was no less than to forge Cashel’s signature to the deed; for, as yet, it was wanting in that most essential particular.
That Roland would never remember anything of the matter, and that he would always incline to believe his own memory defective, than suppose such a falsification possible, Linton was well convinced. There was but one difficulty; how should he manage for the witnesses, whose names were to be appended as actually present at the moment of signing. Here was a stumbling-block—since he could scarcely hope to find others as short of memory as was Roland Cashel. It was while still canvassing the question in his mind that he came upon the intelligence in the newspaper of the lawyer’s arrival at Limerick, and suddenly it struck him that he could easily in that city find out two persons, who, for a sufficient consideration, would append their signatures to the deed. A little further reflection devised even an easier plan, which was to take along with him the Italian sailor Giovanni, and make him represent Cashel, whose appearance was quite unknown. By Giovanni’s personation of Roland, Linton escaped all the hazard of letting others into his confidence, while the sailor himself, in a few days more, would leave the country—never to return.
It was with the calm assurance of a man who could put a price upon any action required of him, that Giovanni found himself, an hour after midnight, summoned to Linton’s dressing-room.
“I told you some time back, Giovanni, that we might be serviceable to each other. The hour has come a little earlier than I looked for; and now the question is, are you of the same mind as you then were?”
“I know nothing of the laws of this country, signor, but if there be life on the issue—”
“No, no, nothing like that, my worthy fellow. In the present case, all I ask for is your silence and your secrecy.”
“Oh, that is easily had—go on, signor.”
“Well, I wish to go over to-morrow by daybreak to Limerick. I desire, too, that you should accompany me—as my companion, however, and my equal. We are about the same height and size, so take that suit there, dress yourself, and wait for me at the cross-roads below the village.”
The Italian took the parcel without speaking, and was about to retire, when Linton said,—
“You can write, I suppose?”
The other nodded.
“I shall want you to sign a document in presence of witnesses—not your own name, but another, which I’ll tell you.”
The Italian’s dark eyes flashed with a keen and subtle meaning, and leaning forward, he said in a low, distinct tone,—
“His Excellency means that I should forge a name?”
“It is scarcely deserving so grave a phrase,” replied Linton, affecting an easy smile; “but what I ask amounts pretty much to that. Have you scruples about it?”
“My scruples are not easily alarmed, signor; only let us understand each other. I’ll do anything”—and he laid a deep emphasis on the word—“when I see my way clear before me, nothing when I am blindfolded.”
“A man after my own heart!” cried Linton; “and now, good-night. Be true to the time and place.” And with this they parted.
The gray mist of a winter morning was just clearing away as Linton, accompanied by Giovanni, drove up to the principal hotel of Limerick, where Mr. Hammond, the eminent barrister, was then stopping. Having ascertained that he was still in the house, Linton at once sent up his name, with a request to be admitted to an interview with him. The position he had so long enjoyed among the officials of the Viceroy had made Linton a person of considerable importance in a city where the “plated article” so often passes for silver: and no sooner had the lawyer read the name, than he immediately returned a polite answer, saying that he was perfectly at Mr. Linton’s orders.
The few inquiries which Mr. Linton had meanwhile made at the bar of the hotel informed him that Mr. Hammond was making all haste to England, where he was about to appear in a case before the House of Lords; that horses had been already ordered for him along the whole line of road, and his presence in London was imperative. Armed with these facts, Linton entered the room, where, surrounded with deeds, drafts, and acts of Parliament, the learned counsel was sitting at his breakfast.
“It was but last night late, Mr. Hammond,” said he, advancing with his very frankest manner, “that we caught sight of your name as having arrived here, and you see I have lost no time in profiting by the intelligence. I have come thirty Irish miles this day to catch and carry you off with me to Mr. Cashel’s, at Tubbermore.”
“Most kind, indeed—very flattering—I am really overpowered,” said the lawyer, actually reddening with pleasure; and he said the exact truth, he was “overpowered” by a compliment so little expected. For, although high in his profession, and in considerable repute among his brethren, he had never been admitted into that peculiar class which calls itself the first society of the metropolis.
“I assure you,” resumed Linton, “it was by a vote of the whole house I undertook my mission. The Kilgoffs, the MacFarlines, the Chief Justice, Meek, and, in fact, all your friends, are there, and we only want you to make the party complete.”
“I cannot express the regret—the very deep regret—I feel at being obliged to decline such an honor; one which, I am free to confess, actually takes me by surprise. But, my dear Mr. Linton, you see these weighty papers—that formidable heap yonder—”
“Meek said so,” said Linton, interrupting, and at the same time assuming a look of deep despondency. “‘Hammond will refuse,’ said he. ‘There’s no man at the Irish bar has the same amount of business; he cannot give his friends even one hour from his clients.’”
“I ‘m sure I scarcely suspected the Right Honorable Secretary knew of me,” said Hammond, blushing between pleasure and shame.
“Downie not know of you!—not know Mr. Hammond!—come, come—this may do for a bit of quiz in those Irish newspapers that are always affecting to charge English officials with ignorance of the distinguished men here; but I cannot permit Mr. Hammond himself to throw out the aspersion, nor, indeed, can I suffer Meek, one of my oldest friends, to lie under the obloquy. I need not tell one so much more capable of appreciating these things than myself how every administration comes into office with a host of followers far more eager for place, and infinitely more confident of high deservings, than the truly capable men of the party. These ‘locusts’ eat up the first harvest, but, happily for humanity, they rarely live for a second.”
Linton leaned back in his chair, and appeared to be taking counsel with himself, and at length, as if having formed his resolve, said,—
“Of course frankness with such a man is never a mistaken policy.” And with this muttered soliloquy again became silent.
CHAPTER VII. FORGERY
It was not “Flattery,” he sold, but “Hope.”
Bell.
We left Mr. Linton and Mr. Hammond seated opposite each other, the former lost in seeming reflection, the latter awaiting with eager expectancy for something which might explain the few strange words he had just listened to.
“May I venture on a bit of confidence, Mr. Hammond?” said Linton, clearing his brow as he spoke; “you’ll never betray me?”
“Never—on my honor.”
“Never, willingly, I well know; but I mean, will you strictly keep what I shall tell you—for yourself alone—because, as I am the only depositary of the fact, it would be inevitable ruin to me if it got about?”
“I give you my solemn pledge—I promise.”
“Quite enough—well—” Here he leaned on the other’s shoulder, and putting his lips close to his ear, said: “Malone will retire—Repton will be chief—and”—here he prodded the listener with his finger—“Attorney-General.”
“You mean me, sir—do you mean that I am to be Attor—”
“Hush!” said Linton, in a long low note; “do not breathe it, even in your sleep! If I know these things, it is because I am trusted in quarters where men of far more influence are hoodwinked. Were I once to be suspected of even this much, it would be ‘up’ with me forever.”
“My dear friend—will you pardon me for calling you so?—I ‘d suffer the torture of the rack before I ‘d divulge one syllable of it. I own to you, my family and my friends in general have not been patient under what they deemed the Government neglect of me.”
“And with too good reason, sir,” said Linton, assuming the look and air of a moralizer. “And do you know why you have been passed over, Mr. Hammond? I’ll tell you, sir; because your talents were too brilliant, and your integrity too spotless, for promotion, in times when inferior capacities and more convenient consciences were easier tools to handle!—Because you are not a man who, once placed in a conspicuous position, can be consigned to darkness and neglect when his capabilities have been proved to the world!—Because your knowledge, sir, your deep insight into the political condition of this country, would soon have placed you above the heads of the very men who appointed you. But times are changed; capable men, zealous men—ay, sir, and I will say, great men—are in request now. The public will have them, and ministers can no longer either overlook their claim or ignore their merit. You may rely upon it; I see something of what goes on behind the scenes of the great State drama, and be assured that a new era is about to dawn on the really able men of this country.”
“Your words have given me a degree of encouragement, Mr. Linton, that I was very far from ever expecting to receive. I have often deplored—not on my own account, I pledge my honor—but I have grieved for others, whom I have seen here, unnoticed and undistinguished by successive Governments.”
“Well, there is an end of the system now, and it was time!” said Linton, solemnly. “But to come back. Is there no chance of stealing you away, even for a couple of days?”
“Impossible, my dear Mr. Linton. The voluminous mass of evidence yonder relates to an appeal case, in which I am to appear before ‘the Lords.’ It is a most important suit; and I am at this very moment on my way to London, to attend a consultation with the Solicitor-General.”
“How unfortunate!—for us, I mean—for, indeed, your client cannot join in the plaint. By the way, your mention of ‘the Lords’ reminds me of a very curious circumstance. You are aware of the manner in which my friend Cashel succeeded to this great estate here?”
“Yes. I was consulted on a point of law in it, and was present at the two trials.”
“Well, a most singular discovery has been made within the last few days. I suppose you remember that the property had been part of a confiscated estate, belonging to an old Irish family, named Corrigan?”
“I remember perfectly,—a very fine old man, that used to be well known at Daly’s Club, long ago.”
“The same. Well, this old gentleman has been always under the impression that shortly after the accession of George III. the Act of Confiscation was repealed, and a full pardon granted to his ancestors for the part they had taken in the events of the time.”
“I never knew the descendants of one of those ‘confiscated’ families who had not some such hallucination,” said Hammond, laughing; “they cling to the straw, like the drowning man.”
“Exactly,” said Linton. “I quite agree with you. In the present case, however, the support is better than a straw; for there is an actual bona fide document extant, purporting to be the very pardon in question, signed by the king, and bearing the royal seal.”
“Where is this? In whose possession?” said Hammond, eagerly.
Linton did not heed the question, but continued,—
“By a very singular coincidence, the discovery is not of so much moment as it might be; because, as Cashel is about to marry the old man’s granddaughter—his sole heiress—no change in the destination of the estate would ensue, even supposing Corrigan’s title to be all that he ever conceived it. However, Cashel is really anxious on the point: he feels scruples about making settlements and so forth, with the consciousness that he may be actually disposing of what he has no real claim to. He is a sensitive fellow; and yet he dreads, on the other side, the kind of exposure that would ensue in the event of this discovery becoming known. The fact is, his own ancestors were little better than bailiffs on the estate; and the inference from this new-found paper would lead one to say, not over-honest stewards besides.”
“But if this document be authentic, Mr. Linton, Cashel’s title is not worth sixpence.”
“That is exactly what I ‘m coming to,” said Linton, who, the reader may have already perceived, was merely inventing a case regarding a marriage, the better to learn from the counsel the precise position the estate would stand in towards Mary Leicester’s husband. “If this document be authentic, Cashel’s title is invalid. Now, what would constitute its authenticity?”
“Several circumstances: the registry of the pardon in the State Paper Office—the document itself, bearing the unmistakable evidences of its origin—the signature and seal—in fact, it could not admit of much doubt when submitted to examination.”
“I told Cashel so,” said Linton. “I said to him, ‘My opinion unquestionably is that the pardon is genuine; but,’ said I, ‘when we have Hammond here, he shall see it, and decide the question.’”
“Ah! that is impossible—”
“So I perceive,” broke in Linton; “we then hoped otherwise.”
“Why did n’t you bring it over with you?”
“So I did,” said Linton; “here it is.” And opening a carefully folded envelope, he placed the important document in the lawyer’s bands.
Hammond spread it out upon the table, and sat down to read it over carefully, while Linton, to afford the more time to the scrutiny, took the opportunity of descending to his breakfast.
He stopped as he passed the bar to say a few words to the landlord,—one of those easy speeches he knew so well how to make about the “state of trade,” “what travellers were passing,” and “how the prospect looked for the coming season,”—and then, when turning away, as if suddenly recollecting himself, said:—
“By the way, Swindon, you are a cautious fellow, that a man may trust with a secret—you know who the gentleman is that came with me?”
“No, sir; never saw him before. Indeed, I did not remark him closely.”
“All the better, Swindon. He does not fancy anything like scrutiny. He is Mr. Roland Cashel.”
“Of Tubbermore, sir?”
“The same. Hush, man,—be cautious! He has come up here about a little law business on which he desired to consult Mr. Hammond, and now we have a document for signature, if you could only find us another person equally discreet with yourself to be the witness, for these kind of things, when they get about in the world, are misrepresented in a thousand ways. Do you happen to have any confidential man here would suit us?”
“If my head waiter, sir, Mr. Nipkin, would do; he writes an excellent hand, and is a most reserved, cautious young man.”
“Perfectly, Swindon; he’ll do perfectly. Will you join us upstairs, where my friend is in waiting? Pray, also, give Nipkin a hint not to bestow any undue attention on Mr. Cashel, who wants to be incog. so far as may be; as for yourself, Swindon, no hint is necessary.”
A graceful bow from the landlord acknowledged the compliment, and he hastened to give the necessary orders, while Linton continued his way to the apartment where the Italian awaited him.
“Impatient for breakfast, I suppose, Giovanni?” said Linton, gayly, as he entered. “Well? sit down, and let us begin. Already I have done more than half the business which brought me here, and we may be on our way back within an hour.”
Giovanni seated himself at the table without any of that constraint a sense of inferiority enforces, and began his breakfast in silence.
“You understand,” said Linton, “that when you have written the name ‘Roland Cashel,’ and are asked if that be your act and deed, you have simply to say ‘Yes;’ a bow—a mere nod, indeed—is sufficient.”
“I understand,” said he, thoughtfully, as if reflecting over the matter with himself. “I conclude, then,” added he, after a pause, “that the sooner I leave the country afterwards, the better—I mean the safer—for me.”
“As to any positive danger,” said Linton, affecting an easy carelessness, “there is none. The document is merely a copy of one already signed by Mr. Cashel, but which I have mislaid, and I am so ashamed of my negligence I cannot bring myself to confess it.”
This tame explanation Linton was unable to finish without faltering, for the Italian’s keen and piercing dark eyes seemed to penetrate into him as he was speaking.
“With this I have nothing to do,” said he, abruptly. “It is quite clear, however, that Giovanni Santini is not Roland Cashel; nor, if there be a penalty on what I have done, am I so certain that he whose name I shall have forged will undergo it in my place.”
“You talk of forgery and penalties as if we were about to commit a felony,” said Linton, laughing. “Pray give me the cream. There is really no such peril in the case, and if there were, it would be all mine.”
“I know nothing of your laws here—I desire to know nothing of them,” said the Italian, haughtily; “but if it should be my lot to be arraigned, let it be for something more worthy of manhood. I ‘ll sign the paper, but I shall leave the country at once.”
No words could have been more grateful to Linton’s ears than these; he was, even at that very moment, considering in his own mind in what way to disembarrass himself of his “friend” when this service should have been effected.
“As you please, Giovanni,” said be, gravely. “I regret to part company so soon with one whose frankness so well accords with my own humor.”
The Italian’s lips parted slightly, and a smile of cold and dubious meaning flitted across his dark features.
“We part here, then,” said he, rising from the table. “There is a vessel leaves this for Bristol at noon to-day; it is already past eleven o’clock.”
“I’ll not delay,” said Linton, rising and ringing the bell; “send Mr. Swindon here,” said he to the waiter, while he opened a parchment document upon the table, and after hastily glancing over it, folded it carefully again, leaving uppermost the margin, where certain pencil-marks indicated the places of signature. “This is yours, Giovanni,” said he, placing a weighty purse in the Italian’s hand, who took it with all the easy indifference of one whose feelings of shame were not too acute. “Remember what I have—”
There was no time to finish, for already a light tap was-heard at the door, and the landlord, followed by the head waiter, entered.
“We were pressed for time, Swindon,” said Linton, as he examined the pens, which, like all hotel ones, seemed invented for ruling music paper, “and have sent for you to witness the signature to this document. Here, Cashel, you are to sign here,” said he, turning to Giovanni, who-had just lighted a cigar, and was smoking away with all imaginable coolness. The Italian took the pen, and with a bold and steady hand wrote the words “Roland Cashel.”
“Mr. Swindon at this side; Mr. Nipkin’s name comes underneath.”
“You acknowledge this for your hand and seal, sir?” said Swindon, turning towards Giovanni.
“I do,” said the Italian, in an accent which did not betray the slightest emotion, nor any trace of foreign pronunciation.
“All right; thank you, Swindon—thanks, Mr. Nipkin,” said Linton, as, with an elation of countenance all his efforts could not suppress, he folded up the parchment; “and now, will you order my horses at once?”
The landlord and the waiter left the room, and Linton found himself once more alone with Giovanni; the only consolation he felt being that it was for the last time. There was a pause, in which each gazed steadily at the other without a word. At last, with a long-drawn sigh, Giovanni exclaimed,—
“Perdio! but it is hard to do.” And with this he pressed his hat upon his brows, and waving a careless farewell with his hand, walked out, leaving Linton in a state of amazement not altogether unmingled with fear. Tom watched the tall and stalwart figure of the foreigner as he moved through the crowd that filled the quay, and it was with a sense of relief he could not explain to himself that he saw him cross the plank that led to the steamer, on whose deck numerous passengers were already assembled.
The bell rang out in warning of her approaching departure, and Linton kept his eyes intently fixed upon the one figure, which towered above the others around him. Already the scene of bustle portended the moment of starting, and some were hastening on board, as others, with not less eagerness, were endeavoring to get on shore; when, just at that instant, the landlord’s voice was heard.
“Mr. Hammond is just going off, sir; he wants to say one word to you before he goes.”
Mr. Hammond had just taken his seat in his carriage, and sat with one hand upon the door, awaiting Linton’s coming.
“I am run sharp for time, Mr. Linton,” cried he, “and have not a second to lose. I wish sincerely I could have given a little more time to that document—not indeed that any feature of difficulty exists in forming an opinion, only that I believe I could have put your friend on the safe road as to his future course.”
“You regard it then as authentic—as a good and valid instrument?” said Linton, in a low but eager voice.
“So much so,” said Hammond, lowering his tone to a mere whisper, “that if he does not marry the young lady in question, I would not give him twenty shillings for his title.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Linton, leaning his head on the door of the carriage, as if to conceal his chagrin, but in reality to hide the exuberance of his joy; “and this is your candid opinion of the case?”
“I am willing to stake my fame as a lawyer on the issue; for, remember, the whole history of the suit is familiar to me. I recollect well the flaws in the course of proofs adduced, and I see how this discovery reconciles each discrepancy, and supplies every missing link of the chain.”
“Poor fellow!—it will be a sad blow for him,” said Linton, with admirably feigned emotion.
“But it need not, Mr. Linton; the church can tie a knot not even an equity suit can open. Let him marry.”
“Ay, if he will.”
“Tell him he must; tell him what I now tell you, that this girl is the greatest heiress in the land, and that he is a beggar. Plain speaking, Mr. Linton, but time is short Good-bye.”
“One word more. Is the document of such a nature that leaves him no case whatever? Is all the ground cut away beneath his feet?”
“Every inch of it. Once more, good-bye. Here is your parchment; keep it safely. There are few men in this city hold in their hands a paper of such moment.”
“I’ll take good care of it,” said Linton, sententiously; “and so good-bye, and a safe journey to you. I ‘ll not forget our conversation of this morning; Meek shall hear of it before I sleep to-night. Adieu.”
“The richest heiress in the land, and Cashel a beggar,” repeated Linton, slowly, to himself, as the carriage drove off. “Charley Frobisher would say, ‘Hedge on the double event,’ but I ‘ll keep my book.” And, with this slang reflection, he sauntered into the inn to wait for his horses.
CHAPTER VIII. ROLAND DISCOVERS THAT HE HAS OVERDRAWN
—His counsel, like his physic,
If hard to take, was good when taken.
Village Worthies.
Long before the guests of Tubbermore were astir, Cashel sat in his library awaiting the arrival of Dr. Tiernay. In obedience to Roland’s request, Mr. Kennyfeck was present, and affected to look over books or out of windows,—to scan over prints or inspect maps,—anything, in short, which should pass the time and shorten the interval of waiting, doubly awkward from being the first moment he had been alone with Cashel since his arrival. Cashel was silent and absorbed, and, more intent upon following out the train of his own thoughts, never noticed the various arts by which Kennyfeck affected to interest himself. The solicitor, too, bent from time to time a stealthy look on the young man, on whose features he had rarely seen the same traces of deep reflection.
At last, with a half start, as if suddenly awaking, Cashel sat up in his chair, and said,—
“Have I explained to you what Dr. Tiernay’s business is here this morning? It is to make a proposition from Mr. Corrigan for the sale of his interest in Tubber-beg. He wishes to leave the country and go abroad.”
“His interest, sir,” replied Kennyfeck, calmly, “although more valuable to you than to any one else, must be a matter of small amount; for years back, he has done little more than vegetate on the property, without capital or skill to improve it.”
“I ‘m not asking you to appraise it, just yet,” said Roland, snappishly; “I was simply informing you of the object of the gentleman’s visit. It is the advantage of this purchase that I wished you to consider, not its cost.”
“The cost will define the advantage, sir,” rejoined Kennyfeck, “particularly as the demand may be high, and the payment inconvenient.”
“How do you mean, inconvenient?”
Kennyfeck hesitated. There was something in the hurried abruptness of the question, as well as in the excited expression of the questioner’s face, that confused him; so that Cashel had time to repeat the words before he could reply.
“Is it that I am straitened for money?” said he, passionately.
“Not quite—that—sir,” replied Kennyfeck, stopping between every word. “You have resources—very great resources—untouched, and you have considerable sums in foreign securities, intact—”
“Never mind these,” broke in Roland, hurriedly. “How do we stand with those London fellows?”
Kennyfeck shook his head gravely, but without speaking.
“I pray you, sir,” said Roland, in a voice of hardly suppressed passion, “keep pantomime for another moment, or a keener interpreter of it, and condescend, in plain English, to answer me my last question.”
“There is no difficulty with Bigger and Swain, sir,” said Kennyfeck, as his cheek grew slightly red. “They will neither be pressing for a settlement, nor exacting when making it; besides, you have not overdrawn very heavily, After all.”
“Overdrawn, said you?—did you say overdrawn, Mr. Kennyfeck?”
“Yes, sir. In the account last forwarded, your debit was eleven thousand four hundred and forty pounds; since that you have drawn—but not for any large amount.”
“Overdrawn!” repeated Cashel, as though his thoughts had never wandered beyond the first shock of that fact; then rallying into something like his habitual easy humor, he said, “I am, I need not tell you, the stupidest man of business that ever breathed, so pray forgive me if I ask you once more if I understood you aright, that I have not only expended all the money I owned in these people’s hands, but actually had contracted a debt to them?”
“That is the case, sir,” said Kennyfeck, gravely.
A deep groan broke from Cashel, and he sat silent and still.
“I would wish to observe, sir,” said Kennyfeck, who was shocked at the alteration a few moments had made in the young man’s countenance—“I would wish to observe, sir, that if you desire a sum of money for any purpose—”
“Stay—let me interrupt you here,” said Cashel, laying his hand on Kennyfeck’s arm, and using a tone whose earnest distinctness thrilled through his hearer’s heart; “I should deceive you, were you to suppose that it is the want of money gives me the pain I am now suffering. That I had believed myself rich a few moments back, and now found myself a beggar, could not give one-thousandth part of that suffering which I feel here. I have braved poverty in every form, and I could brave it again; but I ‘ll tell you what it is that now cuts me to the soul, and lowers me to myself. It is that, in a senseless, heartless career, I should have squandered the wealth by which I once imagined I was to bless and succor hundreds. It is to think, that of all the gold I have wasted, not one memory has been purchased of a sick-bed consoled, a suffering lessened, a sinking spirit encouraged,—I have done nothing, actually nothing, save pamper vice and sensual heartlessness. I came to this kingdom a few months back, my very dreams filled with schemes of benevolence; I felt as if this wealth were given to me that I might show the world how much of good may be done by one who, having experienced narrow fortune, should best know how to relieve it in others; and now, here am I, the wealth and the high aspirations alike departed, with no tradition to carry away, save of a life passed in debauch, the friendship of worthless, the pitying contempt of good men! Hear me out I was nurtured in no school of sentiment; I belonged to a class who had too little time or taste to indulge in scruples. We were reckless, passionate,—cruel, if you will,—but we were not bad in cold blood; we seldom hated long; we never could turn on a benefactor. These are not the lessons I ‘ve lived to learn here! It is over, however—it is past now! I ‘ll go back to the old haunts, and the old comrades. It will go hard with me if I quarrel with their rude speech and rough demeanor. I ‘ll think of gentlemen! and be grateful.”
The rapid utterance in which he poured forth these words, and the fervid excitement of his manner, abashed Kenny-feck, and deterred him from reply. Cashel was the first to speak.
“This arrangement, however, must be provided for; whatever Mr. Corrigan’s interest be worth—or rather, whatever he will accept in lieu of it—I insist upon his having. But I see Dr. Tiernay coming up to the door; we can talk of these things at another time.”
When Tiernay entered the library he was heated with his walk, and his face betrayed unmistakable signs of recent irritation; indeed, he did not long conceal the reason.
“Is it true, Mr. Cashel, that Mr. Linton is your nominee for the borough of Derraheeny?”
“Yes; what of that?”
“Why, that he canvasses the constituency in a fashion we have not yet been accustomed to; at least your tenants, of whom I am one, are told that our votes are the condition on which our leases will receive renewal; that you will not brook opposition in any one who holds under you. Are these your sentiments, Mr. Cashel, or only his?”
“Not mine, assuredly,” replied Cashel, gravely.
“I said as much. I told several of my neighbors that if this mode of canvass had your sanction, it was from not knowing the privileges of an elector.”
“I neither sanctioned nor knew of it,” rejoined Cashel, eagerly.
“So much the better—at least for me,” said Tiernay, seating himself at the breakfast-table, “for I shall not lose a good breakfast, as I should have been forced to do had these been your intentions.”
“I would observe, Dr. Tiernay,” interposed Kennyfeck, mildly, “that the borough, being entirely the property of Mr. Cashel, its charities maintained by his bounty, and its schools supported at his cost, he has a fair claim on the gratitude of those who benefit by his benevolence.”
“Let him stand himself for the borough, and we ‘ll not deny the debt,” said Tiernay, roughly; “but if for every ten he should expend a hundred, ay, sir, or a thousand, on the village, I ‘d not vote for Mr. Linton.”
“Most certainly, doctor; I’d never seek to coerce you,” said Cashel, smiling.
“Labor lost, sir. I am your tenant for a holding of twenty-two pounds a year. I have never been in arrear; you, consequently, have not granted me any favor, save that of extending your acquaintance to me. Now, sir, except that you are a rich man and I a poor one, how is even that condescension on your part a favor? and how could you purpose, upon it, to ask me to surrender my right of judgment on an important point to you, who, from your high station, your rank and influence, have a thousand prerogatives, while I have but this one?”
“I never heard the just influence of the landed proprietor disputed before,” said Kenny feck, who felt outraged at the doctor’s hardihood.
“It is only just influence, sir,” said Tiernay, “when he who wields it is an example, as much by his life, as by the exercise of an ability that commands respect. Show me a man at the head of a large property extending the happiness of his tenantry, succoring the sick, assisting the needy, spreading the blessings of his own knowledge among those who have neither leisure nor opportunity to acquire it for themselves. Let me see him, while enjoying to the fullest the bounteous gifts that are the portion of but few in this world, not forgetful of those whose life is toil, and whose struggle is for mere existence. Let me not know the landlord only by his liveries and his equipage, his fox-hounds, his plate, his racers, and his sycophants.”
“Hard hitting, doctor!” cried Cashel, interrupting.
“Not if you can take it so good-humoredly,” said Tiernay; “not if it only lose me the honor of ever entering here, and teach you to reflect on these things.”
“You mistake me much,” said Cashel, “if you judge me so narrowly.”
“I did not think thus meanly of you; nor, if I did, would it have stopped me. I often promised myself, that if I could but eat of a rich man’s salt, I’d tell him my mind, while under the protection of his hospitality. I have paid my debt now; and so, no more of it. Kennyfeck could tell you better than I, if it be not, in part at least, deserved. All this splendor that dazzles our eyes,—all this luxury, that makes the contrast of our poverty the colder,—all this reckless waste, that is like an unfeeling jest upon our small thrift, is hard to bear when we see it, not the pastime of an idle hour, but the business of a life. You can do far better things than these, and be happier as well as better for doing them! And now, sir, are you in the mood to discuss my friend’s project?”
“Perfectly so, doctor; you have only to speak your sentiments on the matter before Mr. Kennyfeck; my concurrence is already with you.”
“We want you to buy our interest in Tubber-beg,” said the doctor, drawing his chair in front of Kennyfeck; “and though you tell us that flower-plats and hollies, laurustinus and geraniums, are not wealth, we ‘ll insist on your remunerating us for some share of the cost. The spot is a sweet one, and will improve your demesne. Now, what’s it worth?”
“There are difficulties which may preclude any arrangement,” said Kennyfeck, gravely. “There was a deed of gift of this very property made out, and only awaiting Mr. Cashel’s signature.”
“To whom?” said Tiernay, gasping with anxiety.
“To Mr. Linton.”
“The very thing I feared,” said the old man, dropping his head sorrowfully.
“It is easily remedied, I fancy,” said Cashel. “It was a hasty promise given to afford him qualification for Parliament. I ‘ll give him something of larger value; I know he ‘ll not stand in our way here.”
“How you talk of giving, sir! You should have been the Good Fairy of a nursery tale, and not a mere man of acres and bank-notes. But have your own way. It’s only anticipating the crash a month or so; ruined you must be!”
“Is that so certain?” said Cashel, half smiling, half seriously.
“Ask Mr. Kennyfeck, there, whose highest ambition half a year ago was to be your agent, and now he ‘d scarcely take you for a son-in-law! Don’t look so angry, man; what I said is but an illustration. It will be with your property as it was with your pleasure-boat t’other day; you ‘ll never know you ‘ve struck till you ‘re sinking.”
“You affect to have a very intimate knowledge of Mr. Cashel’s affairs, sir,” said Kennyfeck, who was driven beyond all further endurance.
“Somewhat more than you possess, Mr. Kennyfeck; for I know his tenantry. Not as you know them, from answering to their names at rent-day, but from seeing them in seasons of distress and famine,—from hearing their half-uttered hopes that better days were coming when the new landlord himself was about to visit them; from listening to their sanguine expectations of benefits; and now, within some few days, from hearing the low mutterings of their discontent,—the prelude of worse than that.”
“I have seen nothing else than the same scenes for forty years, but I never remember the people more regular in their payments,” said the attorney.
“Well, don’t venture among the Drumcoologhan boys alone; that, at least, I would recommend you,” said the doctor, menacingly.
“Why not?—who are they?—where are these fellows?” cried Cashel, for danger was a theme that never failed to stir his heart.
“It ‘s a bad barony, sir,” said Kennyfeck, solemnly.
“A district that has supplied the gallows and the convict-ship for many a year; but we are wandering away from the theme we ought to discuss,” interposed Tiernay, “and the question narrows itself to this; if this property is still yours,—if you have not already consigned it to another,—what is my friend’s interest worth?”
“That will require calculation and reflection.”
“Neither, Mr. Kennyfeck,” broke in Cashel. “Learn Mr. Corrigan’s expectations, and see that they are complied with.”
“My friend desired a small annuity on the life of his granddaughter.”
“Be it an annuity, then,” replied Cashel.
“By heaven!” exclaimed Tiernay, as if he could not restrain the impulse that worked within him, “you are a fine-hearted fellow. Here, sir,” said he, taking a paper from his pocket,—“here is a document, which my poor friend sat up half the night to write, but which I’d half made up my mind never to give you. You’d never guess what it is, nor your keen friend either, but I ‘ll spare you the trouble of spelling it over. It’s a renunciation of Cornelius Corrigan, Esq., for himself and his heirs forever, of all right, direct or contingent, to the estate of Tubbermore, once the family property of his ancestors for eleven generations. You never heard of such a claim,” said Tiernay, turning to Cashel, “but Mr. Kennyfeck did; he knows well the importance of that piece of paper he affects to treat with such indifference.”
“And do you suppose, sir, that if this claim you speak of be a good and valid one, I could, as a man of honor, maintain a possession to which I had no right? No; let Mr. Corrigan take back that paper; let him try his right, as the laws enable him. If I stand not here as the just owner of this house, I am ready to leave it at this instant; but I am neither to be intimidated by a threat nor conciliated by a compromise.”
“Mr. Corrigan’s claim has nothing to go upon, I assure you,” broke in Kennyfeck. “If we accept the paper, it is by courtesy,—to show that we respect the feeling that suggested it,—nothing more.”
While these words were addressed to Tiernay, Cashel, who had walked towards one of the windows, did not hear them.
“Well,” cried Tiernay, after an awkward pause, “the devil a worse negotiator ever accepted a mission than myself! When I desire to be frank, the only truths that occur to me are sure to be offensive, and I never am so certain to insult as when I fancy I ‘m doing a favor. Goodbye, sir; pardon the liberties of an old man, whose profession has taught him to believe that remedies are seldom painless, and who, although a poor man, would rather any day lose the fee than the patient! You’ll not treat Con Corrigan the less kindly because he has an imprudent friend. I’m sorry to think that I leave an unfavorable impression behind me; but I’m glad, heartily glad, I came here to breakfast, for I go away convinced of two things, that I was far from believing so certain when I entered,”—he paused for a second or two, and then said,—“that a spendthrift could have an unblemished sense of honor, and that an attorney could appreciate it!”
With these words he departed, while Cashel, after staring for a few moments at Kennyfeck, threw himself back in his chair, and laughed long and heartily.
“An original, sir,—quite an original,” said Kennyfeck, who, not exactly knowing whether to accept the doctor’s parting speech as a compliment, or the reverse, contented himself with this very vague expression.
“He’s a fine old fellow, although he does lay on his salve in Indian fashion, with a scalping-knife; but I wish he’d not have said anything of that confounded paper.”
“Pardon me, sir,” interposed Kennyfeck, taking it from his pocket, “but it might prove of inestimable value, in the event of any future litigation.”
“What! you kept it, then?” cried Cashel.
“Of course I did, sir. It is a document scarce inferior to a deed of title; for, although Mr. Corrigan has nothing to substantiate a claim at law, it is incontestable that his family were the original owners of this estate.”
Cashel took the paper from Kennyfeck’s hand, and seemed to peruse it for some minutes, and then approaching the fire he threw it into the blaze, and pressed it down with a poker till it was consumed; while Kennyfeck, too much consternated to utter a word, stood the personification of terror-struck astonishment.
“You have burnt it, sir!” said he at last, in a whisper.
“Why not, sir?” cried Cashel, rudely. “Should I have made use of it against the man who wrote it, or against his heirs, if by chance they should seek one day to dispute my right?”
A deep sigh was all the reply Kennyfeck could make.
“I understand your compassion well,” said Cashel, scornfully. “You are right, sir. It was the buccaneer, not the gentleman, spoke there; but I ‘m sick of masquerading, and I long for a little reality.”
Without waiting for a reply, Roland left the room, and wandered out into the park.
CHAPTER IX. THE BURNT LETTER—“GREAT EXPECTATIONS”
“‘Like Dido’s self,’ she said, ‘I’m free!
Trojan or Tyrian are alike to me.’”
There was but one species of tyranny Mr. Kennyfeck ever attempted in his family: this was, to shroud with a solemn mystery every little event in his professional career which he saw excited any curiosity with his wife and daughters. It was true that on such occasions he became a mark for most sneering insinuations and derisive commentaries, but he rose with the dignity of a martyr above all their taunts, and doubtless felt in his heart the supporting energy of a high-priest standing watch over the gate of the Temple.
The few pencilled lines by Cashel, which had summoned him to the meeting recorded in the last chapter, he threw into the fire as soon as he had read, and then arising from the breakfast-table, dryly observed,—
“Don’t wait breakfast, Mrs. Kennyfeck; I shall not be back for some time.”
“Another secret, Mr. Kennyfeck?” said his wife, scoffingly.
He only smiled in reply.
“It ought to be a duel, at least, pa,” said his eldest daughter, “from the urgent haste of your departure.”
“Or a runaway couple, who wish to have the settlements—”
“Is that all you know of the matter, Livy?” said her sister, laughing heartily; “why, child, your Gretna Green folks never have settlements—never think of them till six months later, when they are wanting to separate.”
“Is there any occasion for mystery in this case?” rejoined Mrs. Kennyfeck, haughtily.
“To be sure there may, my dear,” broke in Aunt Fanny; “there ‘s many a dirty thing the lawyers have to do they ‘d be ashamed to own before their families.”
Even this did not move Mr. Kennyfeck, and, although from the way he nestled his chin behind the folds of his white cravat, and a certain scarcely perceptible shake of the head, it was clear he longed to refute the foul aspersion.
“I suppose you will appear at dinner, sir?” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, with her grandest air.
“I hope so, Mrs. Kennyfeck,” was the mild answer.
“Without you should take it into your head, pa, to enter into rivalry with Mr. Linton, and stay away, heaven knows where or how long,” said Miss Kennyfeck.
Mr. Kennyfeck did not wait for more, but left the room with an air whose solemnity well suited any amount of secrecy.
“Is there a carriage at the door?” said Mrs. Kennyfeck.
“No, mamma; there are three saddle-horses—one with a side-saddle. That odious Miss Meek!” exclaimed Miss Kennyfeck; “what Lord Charles can see in her I cannot conceive. To be sure, she saves a stable-boy the more, and that to him is something.”
“Has your father gone out by the back terrace?” resumed Mrs. Kennyfeck, one only theme occupying her thoughts.
Olivia retired into an adjoining room, and soon returned, saying,—
“No, ma; there’s no one there, except Sir Andrew and Lady Janet, taking their morning walk.”
“Their run, rather, my dear,” chimed in Miss Kennyfeck, “for she chases the poor old man up and down with a cup of camomile tea, which either scalds or sets him a-coughing. I ‘m sure that tiresome old couple have awoke me every day the last week with their squabbling.”
“Step down into the library, my love,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck to her younger daughter, “and bring, me up the ‘Post’ or the ‘St. James’s Chronicle.’”
“And if you meet Phillis, Just ask if he saw your father, for he forgot his gloves.” And, suiting the action to the word, Aunt Fanny dived into a cavern of an apron-pocket, and drew out a pair of knitted things without fingers, which she offered to Olivia.
“Do no such thing, Miss Olivia Kennyfeck,” said her mamma, with an air of imposing grandeur.
“Ma wants the newspaper, Olivia, and is not thinking of papa,” said Miss Kennyfeck; and her eyes sparkled with a malicious fun she well knew how to enjoy.
As Miss Olivia Kennyfeck left the room, her sister approached the fireplace, where a small charred portion of the note thrown down by her father was yet lying. She took it, and walking toward the window, examined it carefully.
And while we leave her thus occupied, let us, for the reader’s information—albeit he may deem the matter trivial—give the contents as Cashel wrote them:—
Dear Mr. Kennyfeck,—Make my excuses to Mrs. Kennyfeck
and the Demoiselles Cary and Olivia, if I deprive them of
your society this morning at breakfast, for I shall want
your counsel and assistance in the settlement of some
difficult affairs. I have been shamefully backward in paying
my respectful addresses to the ladies of your family; but
to-day, if they will permit, I intend to afford myself that
pleasure. It is as a friend, and not as my counsel learned
in law, I ask your presence with me in my library at ten
o’clock. Till then,
Believe me yours,
R. C.
Now, of this very commonplace document, a few blackened, crumpled, frail fragments were all that remained; and these, even to the searching dark eyes of Miss Kennyfeck, revealed very little. Indeed, had they not been written in Cashel’s hand, she would have thrown them away at once, as unworthy of further thought. This fact, and the word “Olivia,” which she discovered after much scrutiny, however, excited all her zeal, and she labored now like an antiquarian who believes he has gained the clew to some mysterious inscription. She gathered up the two or three filmy black bits of paper which yet lay within the fender, and placing them before her, studied them long and carefully. The word “settlement” was clear as print.
“‘Olivia and ‘settlement’ in the same paper,” thought she; “what can this mean?
“Come here, mamma—Aunt Fanny—look at this for a moment,” said she, eagerly; and the two ladies approached at her bidding.
“What is that word?” she said to Mrs. Kennyfeck; “is it not ‘Olivia’? Don’t you see the end of the ‘l’ has been burned away, but the rest is quite plain?”
“So it is—upon my life!—and in Cashel’s hand, too!” exclaimed Mrs. Kennyfeck.
“And what is that?” asked Miss Kennyfeck, triumphantly, pointing to another word.
Aunt Fanny, with her spectacles on, bent down, and examined it long.
“‘Battlement.’ That is ‘battlement’ as clear as day,” said she.
“What nonsense, aunt—it is ‘settlement.’ Look at what you call a ‘b’—it is an ‘s.’”
“Cary’s quite right. The word is ‘settlement,’” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, in a voice tremulous with joy.
“And there!—I hope you can read!” exclaimed Miss Kennyfeck, “even without your spectacles—‘paying’—‘addresses.’”
“Show it to me, Cary,” said her mother, eagerly. “I declare I can read it perfectly. Is it possible?—can this be indeed true?”
“Of course it is, mamma. Will you tell me by what other coincidence you could find Olivia’s name coupled with the words ‘settlement’ and ‘addresses’ in the same note?”
“It is very suspicious, certainly,” said Aunt Fanny.
“I think it very convincing, aunt—not suspicious,” said Miss Kennyfeck, proudly. “Here is something about ‘friend,’ and another word I can’t make out.”
“That’s something about a ‘saw,’ my love,” said Aunt Fanny.
“How absurd, aunt; the word is ‘law.’ I have it. See—here is the name—it is the conclusion of the note, and ran, doubtless, thus: ‘Your present friend, and future son-in-law,—R. C.”
Mrs. Kennyfeck leaned forward, and kissed her daughter’s cheek with a degree of fervor she very rarely gave way to; and then, lying back in her chair, pressed her handkerchief to her face, while she, doubtless, revelled in a little excursion of fancy, not the less brilliant because tempered with anxiety.
If the moment was one of maternal ecstasy for Mrs. Kennyfeck, it was no less one of triumphant joy to her daughter. It was she who revealed the secret meaning; her skill and ingenuity had given light to the dark mystery, and consistency to its incoherence. What domination could be too great for such services? It was then, like a legitimate sovereign assuming the reins of government, she said,—
“I beg, Aunt Fanny, that you will not spoil the game this time, as most unquestionably you did before.”
“Let us see that there is one to be spoiled, my dear,” rejoined Aunt Fanny, snappishly.
“You are really too provoking, Fanny,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, removing her handkerchief from two very red eyelids. “You never are satisfied when you see us happy. Cary has shown you enough to convince any one—”
“Anyone disposed to conviction, mamma,” broke in Miss Kennyfeck, haughtily. “Hush, here’s Olivia.”
“Mr. Meek is reading the ‘Post,’ ma,” said the young lady, entering; “and he has got the other papers in his pocket, but he says there’s really nothing of any interest in them.”
“I think Livy should be told, mamma,” whispered Miss Kennyfeck to her mother.
“I quite agree with you, Cary,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck; “I never was a friend to any secrecy in families. Your father, indeed, I grieve to say, does not participate in my sentiments; but much may be excused in him, from the habits of his profession, and, I will also say, from the class in life he sprang from.” Here Mrs. Kennyfeck, who had spoken like one delivering an oracle, stopped to drop a tear over the sad mésalliance which had condemned her to become the wife of an attorney. “Olivia, my dear, circumstances have disclosed the nature of the interview which Mr. Kennyfeck would not confide to us. It is one in which you are deeply concerned, my dear. Have you any suspicion to what I allude?”
Olivia assumed her very sweetest look of innocence, but made no reply.
“Mamma wants you to be candid enough to say, if there is anything in the way of particular attention you may have received lately, which should corroborate the impressions we entertain.”
Miss Kennyfeck delivered these words so categorically, that her sister well knew how, in the event of refusal, a searching cross-examination was reserved for her.
Olivia looked down, and a very slight embarrassment might be detected in the quickened heaving of her chest.
“Tell us, my darling,” said Aunt Fanny, “if—if any one has, in a manner so to say—you understand—eh?”
“Keep the blushes, Livy, for another time; they look beautiful with orange flowers in the hair,” said her sister; “but be candid with us.”
“If you mean attentions, mamma—”
“We mean attentions, ‘and something more,’ as Lord Lyndburst says,” interposed Miss Kennyfeck, who felt that she was the proper person to conduct the inquiry.
“I cannot positively say, mamma, that we are engaged, but I believe that if you and pa made no obstacles—if, in fact, you are satisfied that his rank and fortune are sufficient for your expectations, as I own they are for mine—”
“What humility!” exclaimed Miss Kennyfeck, holding up her hands.
“Hush, Cary—go on, Livy,” said her mother.
“I have no more to say, mamma. Sir Harvey told me—”
“Sir Harvey!” cried Mrs. Kennyfeck.
“Sir Harvey Upton!” echoed Miss Kennyfeck.
“The man with the hair all over his face!” exclaimed Aunt Fanny, whose western habits had not accustomed her to mustaches.
Olivia stared from one to the other in mingled fear and astonishment. She suddenly saw that she had been betrayed into a confession to which they did not possess the slightest clew; she also perceived that the tidings, for which she anticipated a most joyous welcome, were received with coldness and almost disdain.
“He is a baronet, mamma, with very great expectations,” said she, proudly; for really, it was a large “bird” to bag, in the beginning of the season, too!
“Very possibly,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, looking to her elder daughter with that silent eloquence which the court occasionally bestows upon the crown counsel, meaning to say: “Have you anything to reply to that?”
“Mamma is aware that Sir Harvey is a baronet, and a captain of Hussars, and Jonas Upton of Somerton is his uncle, who may, or may not, leave him his large estates—a circumstance, most probably, mainly dependent on the alliance he may form in marriage.”
“Yes, indeed! my dear,” broke in Aunt Fanny; “and when the old man finds out that ‘tis only an attorney’s daughter—”
“Fanny, do you mean to drive me distracted?” screamed Mrs. Kennyfeck; “are my children to be taught to be ashamed of their father?”
“‘T is a lesson they might know by heart, this time of day, my dear,” said the inexorable Fanny, who put up her spectacles, and smoothed down her apron,—unmistakable signs that she was preparing for battle.
“You need n’t ‘beat to quarters,’ aunt, as Captain Luttredge says; there is no one going to fire into you,” said Miss Kennyfeck. “The question at present is, how is Olivia to free herself from an unhappy connection—”
“An unhappy connection!” exclaimed Livy, in amazement.
“Listen to your sister, and don’t interrupt her,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck.
“I spoke advisedly, Livy,” resumed the elder, “when I called your connection with Sir Harvey Upton unhappy. We have just learned that far higher views are open to you,—that no less a person than Mr. Cashel—”
“Impossible, mamma! he never notices me in the least. Our acquaintance is scarcely more than a cold act of recognition when we meet.”
“Though love is hot sometimes, soon it grows cold,” muttered Aunt Fanny, who believed she was quoting to the letter.
“There never was love in the case at all, aunt,” said Olivia.
“Attend to me, Livy,” said her sister, who seemed impatient at this digression. “It is sufficient—it ought, at least, to be sufficient—for you, that we know Mr. Roland Cashel’s intentions. It is for you to establish a coolness with Sir Harvey. There is no difficulty in the task. I could not presume to instruct you in any matter of this kind, nor will I.”
“Take a friend’s advice, Livy dear, and don’t throw out dirty water till you’re sure of clean.”
“What, aunt?” asked Olivia, who really was puzzled by the figurative eloquence of her relative.
“Pshaw!” said Miss Kennyfeck, equally angry at the counsel and the vulgarity of the expression it was couched in. “Livy, attend to me,” said she again. “Mr. Cashel has sent for papa this morning to make a formal—Hush! here is pa himself.” And Mr. Kennyfeck’s heavy tread was heard approaching the door.
Mr. Kennyfeck’s sudden entrance not only closed the discussion, but left the debaters in the difficulty of having no concerted line of conduct respecting the new arrival; and although Mrs. Kennyfeck’s eyebrows were worked with a telegraphic activity, and Miss Kennyfeck’s pantomimic replies as promptly returned, it was clear that neither comprehended the other. Kaunitz lays it down as an axiom that “when two wings of an army are in presence of an enemy, and without means of rapid and certain communication, it is always better to act on the defensive than to attack, without some evident weak point of the adversary encourages a forward movement.” It is more than probable that neither Mrs. Kennyfeck nor her fair daughter had studied the authority in question, yet, with a tact quite instinctive, they proceeded to act upon it.
“You are back early, Mr. Kennyfeck,” said his wife, with a tone of half indifference.
Mr. Kennyfeck looked at his watch, and said it wanted twenty minutes to twelve.
“Has Mr. Linton returned, pa?” asked Miss Kennyfeck.
“I believe not. I have not heard that he has.”
“It would be little loss if he never did!” said Aunt Fanny, as she bit the end of an obstinate thread that would not enter the eye of her needle.
“Oh, Aunt Fanny!” exclaimed Olivia, in a deprecating tone.
“‘Pon my word, my dear, them ‘s my sentiments—whatever yours is.”
“Mr. Cashel certainly thinks differently,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, glad to introduce the name uppermost in all their thoughts.
“I think of late there has been something like a coldness between them—You see them very rarely together. Did Mr. Cashel mention his name to you this morning, Mr. Kennyfeck?” said his wife; and by this sudden question revealing that they knew, at least, where he had been.
“Mere passingly, incidentally,” said Mr. Kennyfeck, evidently amazed that his small mystery had been penetrated; then, after a slight pause, he added, very probably with a sly malice to pique curiosity, “Mr. Cashel is desirous of Mr. Linton’s counsel on a step he meditates taking.”
“Indeed, sir; and has he much confidence in Mr. Linton’s judgment?”
“In this instance, it is likely he will follow the dictates of his own, Mrs. Kennyfeck,” said the attorney, solemnly.
This fencing was too much for Mrs. Kennyfeck, in whom the Job-like element was always at zero. It was an insult, too, to her understanding, that Mr. Kennyfeck should skirmish in this fashion with her; and so, drawing herself proudly up, she said,—
“Mr. Kennyfeck, I would wish to ask you, if you have, even upon one single occasion, discovered that my knowledge of the world, my tact, or my intelligence, were inferior to your own?”
“Never, madam; I’m sure I never disputed the—”
“No, sir, you never dared to contest the fact, though you may have endeavored to escape from its application. I believe, sir, the only instance of deficient judgment I can be accused of, you, at least, ought not to reproach me with. ‘My family’”—this was a word Mrs. Kennyfeck used to enunciate with an emphasis that always impressed her husband very little provocation might possibly have made her say, “our house”—“my family, indeed, may refuse to forgive me”—she stopped, wiped her eyes, and then, with what seemed an heroic victory over her feelings, went on—“but the welfare of my children, sir, may well be conceived dear to one, who would not league to them the unhappy descent she has herself suffered.”
Mrs. Kennyfeck paused again. It appeared as though, do what she would, there was no escaping from the theme of her mésalliance when once she had touched it. It was very birdlime in its adhesiveness.
“When, therefore, Mr. Kennyfeck, the occasion presents itself of resuming, through my children—for alas! it is lost to me in my own person—the station I have forfeited, I do think that I should at least be consulted, that my advice should be asked, and my guidance required. Don’t you think so too, sir?”
Now, of all men living, never was there one more inept to read riddles than poor Mr. Kennyfeck, and while he averred that he perfectly concurred in his wife’s opinion, he had not the faintest glimmering of a notion what that opinion implied.
“Don’t you think, sir, also it would be better to use a little candor with your family?”
“Yes, pa, we know all about it,” said Miss Kennyfeck, nodding significantly.
“Ay, indeed, we had it in black and white—that is, if we can call a bit of burnt—”
“Aunt Fanny, what are you about?” cried Miss Kennyfeck, in a voice of real terror, for she was shocked at the meanness she did not scruple to stoop to.
“Yes, Mr. Kennyfeck,” reiterated his wife, “we know all! If, however, you still persist in maintaining that mysterious aspect you have assumed with your family, I must say, sir, it is perfectly absurd.”
“It is unnecessary, too, papa,” cried Miss Kennyfeck.
“And it’s unfair to that young creature,” chimed in Aunt Fanny, with a gesture towards Olivia, who sat, en tableau for injured innocence, next a window.
Possibly, if any could have read Mr. Kennyfeck’s sentiments at that instant, they would have recognized the sufferings of a true martyr. To his own heart he muttered,—
“This is very hard; it is being called upon to reply to a case without a copy of the affidavits.”
At length, with a courage that he did not believe he was capable of, he said,—
“I am confused, Mrs. Kennyfeck; I am overwhelmed; I may submit a plea of surprise—that is, I would move the court, I mean—in fact, I must beg you will permit me to adjourn this case.”
And with these words, and in an agitation very unusual with him, he hastened from the room. Scarcely had the door closed after him, than he reopened it, and putting in his head, said,—
“I should have told you, Mrs. Kennyfeck, that Mr. Cashel intends to pay a visit here to-day.”
And so saying, he shut the door and departed.
“At last, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Kennyfeck, in a voice of exultation, “you have been obliged to confess so much at least; but, rely on it, girls, your father is acting under Cashel’s dictation, or he never would dare to tamper in this manner with me.”
CHAPTER X. A STARTLING INTRUSION
Say what you will, good friend, I do persist,
I had him “covered” when you shook my wrist.
The Duel.
In a handsome drawing-room, where the light was judiciously tempered by the slight folds of rose-colored curtains, while the air breathed the faint delicious perfume of some hot-house flowers, sat Olivia Kennyfeck alone. She was most simply but becomingly dressed, and in her hair, worn in smooth bands on either cheek, a little sprig of Greek myrtle, with its bright red berries, was interwoven, which served to show to even greater advantage the delicate fairness of a skin tinged with the very faintest blush. There was a soft pensive character in her beauty which seemed to harmonize perfectly with the silent room and its scattered objects of art. The very exclusion of all view appeared to add to the effect; as though suggesting how much of in-door happiness was contained within those four walls\ neither asking for, nor wanting, the “wide cold world” without. She was reading—at least she held a book in her hand—a gorgeously bound little volume it was—nor did the dark ribbon of velvet fringed with gold that marked her place fail to contrast well with the snowy whiteness of the wrist it fell upon.
Her attitude, as she lay, rather than sat, in a deep armchair, was faultless in its grace; and even the tiny foot, which rested on a little Blenheim spaniel as he lay sleeping on the hearth-rug, had a certain air of homelike ease that made the scene a picture, and to a suggestive mind might have given it a story. And yet, for all the sleepy softness of those half-drooped lids, for all that voluptuous ease of every lineament and limb, the heart within was watchful and waking. Not a sound upon the stairs, not a voice, not a footstep, that did not make its pulses beat faster and fuller.
Two o’clock struck, and the great bell rang out which called the guests to luncheon, a meal at which Cashel never appeared; and now Olivia listened to the sounds of merry laughter that floated along the corridors, and faded away in the distance, as group after group passed downstairs, and at last, all was silent again. Where was he? Why did he not come? she asked herself again and again. Her mamma and sister had purposely stayed away from luncheon to receive him; for so it was arranged, that she herself should first see Cashel alone, and afterwards be joined by the others—and yet he came not!
The half-hour chimed, and Olivia looked up at the French clock upon the mantelpiece with amazement. Surely there had been more than thirty minutes since she heard it last; and the little Cupid on the top, who, with full-stretched bow and fixed eye, seemed bent on mischief—silly fool! like herself, there was no mark to shoot at! She sighed; it was not a deep sigh, nor a sad one; nor was it the wearisome expression of listlessness; nor was it the tribute paid to some half-called up memory. It was none of these; though perhaps each entered into it as an ingredient. But what right have we to analyze its meaning, or ask how much of hope or fear it contained?—what portion of regret for one she was about to desert?—what shame for the faithlessness? Ay, what shame!
Coquetry is no virtue; but most certainly it is not the wholesale corrupter some moralists would make it. Miss Olivia Kennyfeck had been taught it from her earliest years,—from those pleasant days, when, dressed like some fairy queen, she descended from the nursery to stand beside pa’s chair on company days, at dessert, and be stared at, and kissed, and “dear-loved” by some scores of people, whose enthusiasm for childish beauty had all the warmth that springs from turtle and truffles, iced punch and Lafitte. She had been taught it by the French governess, who told her to be aimable. The very dancing-master cried out, “Grace,—more grace, if you please, Miss Olivia,” at every step of her minuet; and the riding-master’s eternal exhortation was, “Sit as if the whole world was watching you, miss.”
These teachings go further and deeper into the heart than we suspect. “The wish to please”—pure and amiable as the feeling can be—lies on the frontier of a dangerous land,—the “wish to conquer.” That passion once engendered in the heart, no room remains for any other.
To return to Miss Olivia Kennyfeck,—for most ungallantly we are forgetting she is alone all this while. Her education had but one end and object,—to obtain a good position by marriage. The precept had been instilled into her mind in a thousand different ways, and not only self-interest, but pride, emulation, and vanity had been enlisted in its support. So constantly was the theme presented to her, such day-by-day discussion of the prizes and blanks drawn by others in the wheel connubial, that she really felt little or no interest in any other topic.
And yet, with all that misdirection of mind, that perverse insistence on wrong, there was still in her heart a void, a want, that neither vanity nor selfishness could fill. It might be, perhaps, to be found out by one who should make it the storehouse of high and generous impulses, of ennobling duties and tender affections; or, just as likely, lie like some fruitful but unknown tract,—barren, waste, and profitless!
Three o’clock came! And now the house resounded with the buzz of voices and the hurried movement of feet. Carriages and horses, too, assembled before the door, and all the pleasant bustle of those bent on pleasure filled the air. Olivia arose, and, screened by the curtain, watched the scene beneath. For the first time she perceived that Lady Kilgoff was in a riding-dress. She stood in the midst of a group before the door, amid which Olivia’s eyes peered with restless activity.
No, Cashel was not there! She almost said the comforting words aloud, but at the same instant a cry of, “Here he is,—here he comes!” broke from those beneath, and every head was turned towards the road to the stables, along which Cashel was seen cantering a snow-white Arab of great beauty. As he came nearer it could be seen that he was seated on a side-saddle, while he managed the well-trained creature with the most graceful address.
“Are you quite certain I may venture, Mr. Cashel?” said Lady Kilgoff, as he pulled up in front of her; “remember, that I am neither so fearless nor so skilful as our fair queen beside me, who, I must own, is far more worthy of ‘Hassan Bey’ than I am.”
“I’ll pledge my life on his good conduct,” said Roland, springing from his back; “I’ve ridden him for an hour, and he is gentleness itself.”
“He’s over-trained for my fancy,” said Miss Meek. “He’s like one of the creatures you see in Franconi’s, walking up a ladder to catch a handkerchief.”
Lady Janet whispered something in her ear, at which she started and smiled, but evidently in ignorance of its meaning.
“What is that very wicked thing that Lady Janet has just told you?” said Lady Kilgoff, as she advanced to mount her horse.
“It was à propos of the handkerchief. She said ‘Probably you were going to throw yours at Mr. Cashel,’—I’m sure I don’t know why.”
Fortunately none but Lady Kilgoff and Cashel heard this speech, but both blushed deeply.
While this was enacting below, Olivia, who marked every gesture and every look eagerly, could not hear what passed. She could only see the respectful attention bestowed by Cashel on every wish of his fair guest; how, having seated her, he draped in graceful folds the long velvet habit, in which, and with a white hat and drooping feather, she resembled one of the court of Louis Quinze.
At last she turned her horse’s head, and rode him slowly along before the house, evidently timid and afraid of the high-mettled animal. Cashel, however, walked at his head, and so they stood, while he arranged the curb-chain, exactly beneath the window where Olivia was standing.
She opened the sash noiselessly, and, bending down, listened.
“I assure you,” said Lady Kilgoff, “I ‘ll not continue my ride if you don’t come. I have no confidence in these fine gentlemen cavaliers; and as for Miss Meek, she ‘d risk her life to see me run away with.”
“I pledge myself to follow in ten minutes,—nay, in five, if possible. I told Mr. Kennyfeck I should make my obeisances to the ladies to-day.”
“Would to-morrow not serve?” said she, smiling.
“I believe it might—but a promise! Besides, I have been sadly deficient in attentions there.”
“Sir Harvey and his brother hussar have made the amende for your shortcomings, but go, make haste and overtake us. I see ‘my Lord’ trying to understand Lady Janet, and I must not delay longer.”
“Ride slowly,” cried Roland, “and don’t get run away with till I ‘m of the party.”
She nodded archly in reply to this speech, and joining the group, who were all awaiting her, rode off, while Cashel entered the house, and soon was heard ascending the stairs at a hurried pace.
Olivia could only close the window and resume her place, when a tap was given at the door, and the same instant Cashel entered the room. He stopped suddenly, and looked around, for at first he did not perceive Olivia, who, deep in her book, affected not to hear the noise of his approach.
The rich coronet of brown hair, on which an evening sun was throwing one brilliant gleam, caught his eye, and he advanced near enough to see and be struck by that graceful attitude of which we gave our reader a glimpse at the opening of this chapter.
She was reading some old English ballad; and, as she closed the volume, murmured, half aloud, the lines of the concluding verse:—
“And ye variété, bounde upon a carte, Was draggede to ye gallows high, While ye knighte that stole ye ladye’s hearte (And was not his ye gravere parte!) Rode onte to see him die.”
“A sad moral indeed,” said Cashel, in a low, soft voice.
“Oh, dear! oh, Mr. Cashel!” cried she, starting, and letting fall the book, “how you have terrified me!”
“Pray forgive me,” said he, drawing his chair near, “but when I entered the room I saw no one. I had come thus far ere I discovered that I was so fortunate.”
“Shall I ring for mamma and Cary? they are dressing, I know, but will be quite annoyed if you go before they come down.”
“You must not inconvenience them on my account,” said Roland, eagerly. “I’m certain,” added he, smiling, “you are not afraid to receive me alone.”
She hung down her head, and partly averting it, murmured a scarcely audible “No.”
Cashel, who had evidently never calculated on his careless remark being taken thus seriously, looked silly and uncomfortable for a few seconds. There is a terrible perversity sometimes in our natures; we are disposed to laugh occasionally at times when nothing could be more ill-timed or unsuitable; and so, at moments when we would give anything in the world for some commonplace theme to hang phrases on, we cannot, for the life of us, originate one.
“You’ve not ridden out, I think, since we came?” said Roland, at last, but with an air of sudden despair at his own stupidity.
“No. We have driven out once or twice; but—but—”
“Pray finish,” said he, with a persuasive look as he spoke.
“I was going to say that your horses are so spirited, that I was really afraid to trust myself, and the more so as Miss Meek is so wild and so reckless.”
“Never think of riding with her, Let me be your chaperon,—shall we say to-morrow? I ‘ve got the gentlest creature that was ever mounted.”
“Oh, I know her; that sweet white Arab I saw the groom exercising yesterday?”
“No; not she,” said Roland, blushing and confused, “a spotted barb, fully as handsome—some say handsomer. Will you do me the favor to ride her to-morrow, and, if she be fortunate enough to please you, to accept her?”
Olivia hung down her head for a second, and a deep scarlet covered her cheek, and rose even to her temples, and it was with a voice broken and interrupted she said, “Oh, I cannot—I must not.” Then, turning on him a look, where the tearful eyes, swimming in a softened lustre, conveyed a whole story of deep suffering, she said rapidly, “You are too kind and too good ever to give pain; you are too generous to believe others capable of it; but were I to accept your beautiful gift—were I even to ride out with you alone—there is nothing that would not be said of me.”
It was Cashel’s turn for a slight blush now; and, to do him justice, he felt the sensation a most disagreeable one. It had not indeed occurred to him to make the proposal as the young lady took it, but he was far too long schooled in gallantry to undeceive her, and so he said, “I really cannot see this in the light you do. It is a very natural wish on my part, that I should show my guests whatever my poor grounds afford of the picturesque; and remember, we are not friends of yesterday.” This he said in his very kindest tone.
“I do remember it,” said she, with a slow but most meaning sigh.
“That memory is, I trust, not so associated with sorrow,” added he, leaning down, and speaking in a deep, earnest voice, “that you recall it with a sigh?”
“Oh, no; but I was thinking—I must not say of what I was thinking.”
“Nay, but you must,” said he, gently, and drawing his chair closer.
“I dare not—I cannot—besides, you “—and there was on the pronoun the very softest of all-dwelling intonation—“you might be angry—might never forgive me.”
“Now I must insist on your telling me,” said Roland, passionately, “if but to show how unfairly you judge me.”
“Well,” said she, drawing a long breath—“but shall I trust you?”
There was a most winning archness in the way she said this, that thrilled through Cashel as he listened. “No, I will not,” added she, suddenly, and as if carried away by a passionate impulse; “you are too—”
“Too what?” cried he, impatiently.
“Too fickle,” said she; and then, as if terrified at her own boldness, she added, in a tremulous voice, “Oh, do forgive me!”
“There is really nothing to forgive,” said Roland, “unless you persist in keeping from me an avowal that I almost fancy I have a right to ask for. And now, of what were you thinking?”
“I ‘ll tell you,” said she, in a low, earnest accent, “though it may lose me your esteem. I was thinking”—her voice here fell so low that Cashel, to hear her words, was obliged to draw his chair closer, and bend down his head till it actually brushed against the leaves she wore in her hair—“I was thinking that, when we knew you first, before you had made acquaintance with others, when you sat and read to us, when we walked and rode together,—when, in short, the day was one bright dream of pleasure to us, who had never known a brother—”
Pardon us, dear reader, if, at so critical a moment, we occupy the pause which here ensued—and there was a pause—by referring to our Aunt Fanny, only premising that we do so advisedly. It was one of that excellent lady’s firmest convictions that every one in the world required some discreet friend, who should, at eventful passages in life, be ready to aid, by presence of mind, a wavering resolve, or confirm a half-formed determination. Now, she had waited for two mortal hours on that day for Cashel’s coming, in a state of impatience little short of fever. She opened and shut her window, looked up one avenue and down another; she had watched on the landing, and stood sentinel on the stairs; she had seen Mrs. Kenny-feck and her elder daughter pass out into the garden, weary of long waiting; when, at last, she heard Roland’s hasty step as he traversed the hall, and, hurrying upstairs, entered the drawing-room.
Drawn by an attraction there is no explaining, she left her room, and took up her position in a small boudoir which adjoined the drawing-room. Here she sat, persuading herself she was at her work; but, in reality, in a state of suspense not very inferior to some prisoner while a jury is deliberating on his fate.
The conversation, at first conducted in an ordinary tone, had gradually subsided, till it dropped into the low, undistinguishable manner we have mentioned.
Aunt Fanny’s inventive mind had suggested every step of the interview. She kept muttering to herself: “He is explaining himself—she is incredulous—and he tries to reassure her—she believes that his heart was given to another—he vows and swears it was always hers—she cannot credit the happiness—she is too unworthy.”
It was just as our aunt had got thus far in her running commentary that both voices ceased, and a stillness, unbroken by a murmur, succeeded. “What could it mean?” was the sudden question that flashed across her mind; and Napoleon’s own dread anxiety, as he gazed on the wood, and hesitated whether the dark masses emerging from the shade were his own legions or the Prussians, was not much more intense than hers. At last—we are sorry to record it—but, alas! Aunt Fanny was only mortal, and an old maid to boot—she approached the door and peeped through the keyhole. The sight which met her eyes needed no second glance; she saw both heads bent down together, the dark waving hair of Cashel close to the nut-brown silky braids of Olivia. Neither spoke. “It was then concluded.”
This was the moment in which mutual avowals, meeting like two rivers, form one broad and sweeping flood; it was the moment, too, in which, according to her theory; a friend was all essential. According to her phrase, the “nail should be clinched.”
Now, Aunt Fanny had been cruelly handled by the family for all the blunders she had committed. Her skill had been impugned; her shrewdness sneered at; her prognostications derided. Here was an opportunity to refute all at once; and, in the language of the conqueror, “to cover herself with glory.”
Gently opening the door she entered the room, and stealing tiptoe over, till she stood behind their chairs, she placed, with all the solemnity of an archbishop, a hand on either head, and, in a voice of touching fervor, said,—
“Bless ye both, my darlings; may ye be as happy as—”
As what? The history is unable to record; for a shrill cry from her niece, and an exclamation nearly as loud, and we fear far less polite, from Roland, cut short the speech.
Shriek followed shriek from Olivia, who, partly from the shock, and still more from shame, was thrown into an attack of hysterics.
“What the—” he was very nigh saying something else—“what have you done, madam?” said Roland, in a state of mingled anger and terror.
“It’s only your Aunt Fanny; it’s me, my pet. Livy, darling, don’t be frightened; and here, too, is Mr. Cashel.”
In this, however, the good lady was mistaken; for Roland had hastened upstairs to Mrs. Kennyfeck’s room, which finding locked, he flew down to the great drawing-room, thence to the library, and was making for the garden, when he saw that lady and her daughter crossing the hall.
“I ‘m afraid, madam,” said he, with all the composure he could summon, “Miss Olivia Kennyfeck is not well; nothing serious, I trust; but a sudden fright—a shock—Miss O’Hara somewhat imprudently—”
“Oh, Fanny again!” screamed Mrs. Kennyfeck; and without waiting for more, rushed upstairs, followed by her daughter, while Roland, in a state of mind we dare not dwell upon, hastened from the house, and mounting his horse, galloped off into the wood.
There were times when Cashel would have laughed, and laughed heartily, at the absurdity of this adventure. He would have even treasured up the “tableau” as a thing for future ridicule among his friends; but his better feelings, born of a more manly pride, rejected this now; he was sorry, deeply, sincerely sorry that one with so much to fascinate and charm about her, could lend herself to a mere game like this. “Where are these deceptions to end?” said he, in passionate warmth. “Have candor, good faith, and honesty fled the world? or, are they only to be found among those whose vices make the foil to such humble virtues?”
Nor were these his only painful reflections. He was obliged to see himself—the thing of all others he despised—“a dupe;” the mark for every mean artifice and every ignoble scheme. The gambler, the flirt, the adventurer in every walk, regarded him as a prey. Wealth had done this for him—and it had done no more! None cared for him as a friend or companion. Even as a lover, his addresses were heralded by his gold, not enhanced by qualities of his own. What humiliation!
Mary Leicester alone seemed unimpressed by his great fortune, and regardless of his wealth; she alone had never evinced towards him any show of preference above others less endowed by Fate. Nay, he fancied he could trace something of reserve in her manner whenever he stepped by chance out of his character of careless, buoyant youth, and dwelt upon the plans mere money accomplishes. In these she showed no interest, and took no pleasure; while, to the adventures of his former life, she listened with eager attention. It was easy to see she thought more of the caballero than the millionnaire.
What a happiness had it been to have befriended her grandfather and herself; how different had been his reflections at this hour; what lessons in the true wisdom of life might he not have learned from one who had seen the world, not as the play-table for the rolling dice of fortune, but as the battle-ground where good and evil strive for victory, where a higher philosophy is taught than the lifeless, soulless dictates of mere fashionable existence!
CHAPTER XI. SCANDAL, AND GENERAL ILL-HUMOR.
But where are they alle, I do not see,
One half of our goodlie companie!
Hone.
That day was destined to be one of contrarieties to the household of Tubbermore. Of the Kennyfeck family, none appeared at dinner. Lady Kilgoff, angry at Roland’s breach of engagement,—for, although he rode at top speed in every direction, he never overtook her,—also kept her room. The carriage sent for Miss Leicester had returned without her, a somewhat formal note of apology stating that Mr. Corrigan was indisposed, and his granddaughter unwilling to leave him; while Linton, usually a main feature in all the social success of a dinner, was still absent.
Of the assembled guests, too, few were in their wonted spirits. Sir Andrew and Lady Janet had quarrelled in the morning about the mode of preparing dandelion tea, and kept up the dispute all the day; Upton was sulky, dark, and reserved; Meek more than usually lachrymose; Fro-bisher’s best mare had been staked in taking a leap, and Miss Meek had never discovered it till half an hour after, so that the lameness was greatly aggravated; Mrs. White had had a “tiff” with the author, for his not believing the Irish to be of Phoenician origin, and would n’t speak to him at dinner; so that Cashel himself, constrained, absent, and ill at ease, found his company anything rather than a relief to his own distracted thoughts.
Among his other guests he found the same reserve and coldness of manner, so that no sooner had they assembled in the drawing-room, after dinner, than he left the house and set off to inquire for Mr. Corrigan at the cottage.
“We had nine vacant places to-day at table,” said Lady Janet, as soon as she had arranged her special table next the fire, with a shade in front and a screen behind her, and was quite satisfied that, in regard to cushions and footstools, she had monopolized the most comfortable in the room.
“I thought—aw—that we—aw—were somewhat slow,” said Captain Jennings, with his habitually tiresome, pompous intonation.
“What’s the matter with Upton?” said a junior officer of his regiment, in a whisper; “he looks so confoundedly put out.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” yawned out Lord Charles; “he has a very safe book on the Oaks.”
“He’s backing Dido at very long odds,” interposed Miss Meek, “and she’s weak before, they say.”
“Not staked, I hope,” said Frobisher, looking maliciously at her.
“I don’t care what you say, Charley,” rejoined she; “I defy any one to know whether a horse goes tender, while galloping in deep ground. You are always unjust.” And she moved away in anger.
“She is so careless,” said Frobisher, listlessly.
“Tell me about these Kennyfecks. What is it all about?” said Mrs. White, bustling up, as if she was resolved on a long confidence.
“They hedged against themselves, I hear,” said Frobisher.
“Indeed! poor things; and are they much hurt?”
“Not seriously, I fancy,” drawled he. “Lady Janet knows it all.”
Mrs. White did not neglect the suggestion, but at once repaired to that part of the room where Lady Janet was sitting, surrounded by a select circle, eagerly discussing the very question she had asked to be informed upon.
“I had it from Verthinia,” said Mrs. Malone, with her peculiar, thick enunciation, “Lady Kilgoff’s maid. She said that not a day passes without some such scene between the mother and daughters. Mrs. Kennyfeck had, it seems, forbithen Cashel to call there in her abthence.”
“I must most respectfully interrupt you, madam,” said a large old lady, with blond false hair, and a great deal of rouge, “but the affair was quite different. Miss Olivia, that is the second girl, was detected by her aunt, Miss O’Hara, packing up for an elopement.”
“Fudge!” said Lady Janet; “she’d have helped her, if that were the case! I believe the true version of the matter is yet to come out. My woman, Stubbs, saw the apothecary coming downstairs, after bleeding Livy, and called him into her room; not, indeed, to speak of this matter”—here Lady Janet caused her voice to be heard by Sir Andrew, who sat, in moody sulk, right opposite—“it was to ask, if there should not be two pods of capsicum in every pint of dandelion tea.”
“There may be twa horns o’ the de’il in it,” ejaculated Sir Andrew, “but I ‘ll na pit it to my mouth agen. I hae a throat like the fiery furnace that roasted the three chaps in the Bible.”
“It suits your tongue all the better,” muttered Lady Janet, and turned round to the others. “Stubbs, as I was saying, called the man in, and after some conversation about the dandelion, asked, in a cursory way, you know, ‘How the lady was, upstairs?’ He shook his head, and said nothing.
“‘It will not be tedious, I hope?’ said Stubbs.
“‘These are most uncertain cases,’ said he; ‘sometimes they last a day, sometimes eight or nine.’
“‘I think you ‘re very mysterious, doctor,’ said Stubbs.
“He muttered something about honor, and, seizing his hat went off, as Stubbs says, ‘as if he was shot!’”
“Honor!” cried one of the hearers.
“Honor!” ejaculated another, with an expression of pure horror.
“Did n’t he say, madam,” said the blond old lady, “that it wasn’t his branch of the profession?”
“Oh! oh!” broke in the company together, while the younger ladies held up their fans and giggled behind them.
“I ‘m thorry for the poor mother!” sighed Mrs. Malone, who had seven daughters, each uglier than the other.
“I pity the elder girl,” said Lady Janet; “she had a far better tone about her than the rest.”
“And that dear, kind old creature, the aunt. It is said that but for her care this would have happened long ago,” said Mrs. Malone.
“She was, to my thinking, the best of them,” echoed the blond lady; “so discreet, so quiet, and so unobtrusive.”
“What could come of their pretension?” said a colonel’s widow, with a very large nose and a very small pension; “they attempted a style of living quite unsuited to them! The house always full of young men, too.”
“You would n’t have had them invite old ones, madam,” said Lady Janet, with the air of rebuke the wife of a commander-in-chief can assume to the colonel’s relict.
“It’s a very sad affair, indeed,” summed up Mrs. White, who, if she had n’t quarrelled with Mr. Howie, would have given him the whole narrative for the “Satanist.”
“What a house to be sure! There’s Lady Kilgoff on one side—”
“What of her, my Lady?” said the blonde.
“You did n’t hear of Lord Kilgoff overtaking her to-day in the wood with Sir Harvey Upton?—hush! or he ‘ll hear us. The poor old man—you know his state of mind—snatched the whip from the coachman, and struck Sir Harvey across the face. They say there’s a great welt over the cheek!”
Mrs. White immediately arose, and, under pretence of looking for a book, made a circuit of the room in that part where Sir Harvey Upton was lounging, with his head on his hand.
“Quite true,” said she, returning to the party. “It is so painful, he can’t keep his hand from the spot.”
“Has any one discovered who the strange-looking man was that was received by Mr. Cashel this morning in his own study?” asked the blonde. “My maid said he was for all the world like a sheriff’s officer. It seems, too, he was very violent in his language; and but for Mr. Kennyfeck, he would not have left the house.”
“Too true, I fear, ma’am,” said Mrs. Malone; “my husband, the Thief,”—this was Mrs. Malone’s mode of abbreviating and pronouncing the words Chief Justice,—“told me it was impothible for Mr. Cashel to continue his extravaganth much longer.”
“It’s shameful—it’s disgraceful,” said Lady Janet; “the kitchen is a scene of waste and recklessness, such as no fortune could stand.”
“Indeed, so the ‘Thief’ said,” resumed Mrs. Malone; “he said that robbery went on, on every thide, and that Mr. Phillith, I think his name is, was the worst of all.”
“Your husband was quite correct, ma’am,” said Lady Janet; “no one should know it better.” And then she whispered in her neighbor’s ear, “If the adage be true, ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’”
The party intrusted with this could not restrain her laughter, and for a space, a species of distrust seemed to pervade the circle.
We are certain that no apology will be required, if we ask of our reader to quit this amiable society,—although seated at a comfortable fire, in the very easiest of chairs, with the softest carpet beneath his feet,—and accompany Roland Cashel, who now, with hasty step, trod the little path that led to Tubber-beg Cottage.
However inhospitable the confession, we are bound to acknowledge Cashel was growing marvellously weary of his character as a host. The hundred little contrarieties which daily arose, and which he knew not how to smooth down or conciliate, made him appear, in his own estimation at least, deficient in worldly tact, and left him open to the belief that others would judge him even less mercifully. The unbridled freedom of his household, besides, stimulated all the selfishness of those who, in a better arranged establishment, had kept “watch and ward” over their egotism; and thus, instead of presenting the features of a society where the elements of agreeability were not deficient, they resembled rather the company in a packet-ship, each bent upon securing his own comfort, and only intent how to make his neighbor subsidiary to himself.
Prosperity, too, was teaching him one of its least gracious lessons,—“Distrust.” The mean and selfish natures by which he was surrounded were gradually unfolding themselves to his view, and he was ever on the verge of that dangerous frontier where scepticism holds sway. One conclusion—and it was not the least wise—he formed was, that he was ill suited to such companionship, and that he had been happier, far happier, on some humble fortune, than as the rich proprietor of a great estate.
It was while thus ruminating, Cashel found himself at the little space which intervened between one front of the cottage and the lake, and was struck by the rapid movement of lights that glanced from window to window, appearing and disappearing at every instant.
The dread that the old man was taken seriously ill at once came over him, and he hastened forward in eager anxiety to learn the tidings. Then, suddenly checking himself, he felt reluctant, almost stranger that he was, to obtrude at such a moment. Fearing to advance, and unwilling to retire, he stood uncertain and hesitating.
As he remained thus, the door of the drawing-room that opened upon the lawn was flung wide, and Tiernay passed hastily out, saying in a loud and excited voice, “I will have my own way. I ‘ll see Cashel at once.” And with these words he issued forth in haste. Scarcely, however, had he gone a dozen paces, than he stopped short, and, clasping his hands firmly together, muttered aloud, “To what end should I seek him? What claim can I pretend,—by what right appeal to him?”
“Every claim and every right,” cried Roland, advancing towards him, “if I can only be of any service to you.”
“What! actually here at this moment!” exclaimed Tiernay. “Come this way with me, sir; we must not go into the house just yet.” And so saying, he passed his arm within Roland’s, and led him onward towards the lake.
“Is he ill?” said Cashel,—“is Mr. Corrigan taken ill?” But although the question was asked eagerly, Tiernay was too deeply sunk in his own thoughts to hear it; while he continued to mutter hurriedly to himself.
“What is the matter?” said Roland at last, losing patience at a preoccupation that could not be broken in upon. “Is Mr. Corrigan ill?”
“He is ruined!” said Tiernay, dropping Cashel’s arm, and letting fall his own as he spoke, with a gesture of despair.
“What do you mean? How?”
“Ruined! utterly ruined!” re-echoed Tiernay; and there was that in his accent and the emotion of his manner that forbade any further questioning.
“It is not at a moment like this,” said the doctor, “that I can tell you a long tale, where treachery and falsehood on one side, and generosity and manliness on the other, played the game as ever it has been, and ever will be played, between such antagonists;—enough, if I say my poor friend became responsible for the debts of a man who, but for his aid, would have had a felon’s fate. This fellow, who possesses one terrible means of vengeance, threatens now to use it, if a demand be not complied with, which Corrigan may leave himself a beggar and yet not satisfy. The threat has been held over him for years, and for years he has struggled on, parting, one by one, with every little requirement of his station, and submitting with noble resignation to any and every thing to stave off the evil day; but it has come at last.”
“And what is the sum demanded?” said Cashel, hastily.
“I cannot tell. There are various bills; some have been renewed again and again, others are yet current. It is a tangled web, and, in our hopelessness, we never sought to unravel it!”
“But the danger is imminent?”
“So imminent that my friend will be arrested to-morrow if bail be not forthcoming. I have not told him this; I dare not tell him so; but I have made up a story to induce him to leave this to-night.”
“Where for?” cried Roland, anxiously.
“God knows! I lose memory as well as judgment in moments like this. I believe I advised Limerick, and thence by ship to some port in England, from which they could reach the Continent.”
“But all this will be unnecessary if I offer myself as security,” said Roland.
“For a sum of which you know nothing!” muttered Tiernay, sorrowfully.
“No matter; it cannot be, in all likelihood, more than I can meet.”
“And for one who can never repay!” echoed the doctor still more sadly.
“Who can tell that?” said Cashel. “There’s many a coinage costlier than ever the mint fashioned; he may requite me thus.”
The doctor started. “You mean—no!—no!” cried he, interrupting himself, “that were too great good fortune. I must tell you, sir,” added he, in a firm voice, “that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—to give you in requital for such aid. My friend’s alternative is a prison, or be your debtor for what he cannot pay.”
“I am content,—perfectly content,” said Roland. “There is no need to say another word on the matter. Do not suffer him to endure any anxiety we can spare him; tell him at once the thing is done.”
“We must think over this a little,” said Tiernay, musing. “Con is a difficult fellow to deal with; there must be something which shall give it the semblance of a loan; he must be made to believe it is only a change of creditors.”
“Could not we arrange it without his knowledge, while you could affect to have made some settlement which has satisfied the others?”
“Too late,—too late, for that; he has seen Hoare himself.”
“Hoare!—the money-lender from Dublin?” said Cashel, blushing at the recollection of his own acquaintance with him.
“Ay, sir, of course you know him! A man cannot enjoy such distinguished friendships as you have without the aid of usurers?”
Cashel smiled good-humoredly, and went on,—
“Where is this gentleman at present.”
“Yonder,” said Tiernay, pointing to the cottage; “but he intends shortly returning to the inn at the village, where perhaps it would be better to meet him than here. If you ‘ll permit me, I ‘ll just step in and say as much, and then we can stroll that way together.”
Cashel consented, and his companion left him to do his errand. It was only as he stood alone, and had time for reflection, that he remembered his conversation with Kennyfeck in the morning, and learned that, with regard to ready money at least, he stood in a very different position from what he supposed. That there would be difficulties and legal obstacles innumerable made by Kennyfeck to any sale of property, he well knew; but he had made up his mind as to his course, and would not be thwarted. He had but space for these reflections, when Tiernay joined him, saying,—
“So far all is well. Hoare will follow us in a few minutes, and, for privacy’ sake, I have made the rendezvous at my house.”
“And Corrigan,—how have you left him?” asked Cashel.
“Like one in a dream. He seems neither to know whether it be misfortune or the opposite which impends him. Were it not for Mary, his poor heart had given way long since. Ay, sir, there is more true heroism in one day of that humble life, than in the boldest deed of bravery even you have ever witnessed.”
Cashel did not speak, but, in the pressure of his arm against Tiernay’s the other felt how the theme had touched him.
“You only know her by the graceful elegance of her manner, and the fascinations that, even to old men like myself, are a kind of sorcery; but I have seen her in every trial, where temper and mind, and heart and pride, are tested, and come through all victorious; draining the very wells of her own hopefulness to feed the exhausted fountain which age and disappointment had dried up; lending to manhood a greater courage than her own; ay, and more,—showing that her temper could resist the jarring influences of misfortune, and, like the bright moon above the storm-lashed clouds, soar on, glorious and lustrous ever. What are men made of?” cried he, energetically; “of what stuff are they formed, when such a girl as this can excite more admiration for her beauty than for traits of character that ennoble humanity?”
“You speak with all a lover’s warmth, doctor,” said Cashel, half smiling, while in reality, the subject interested him deeply.
“And why not, sir? I do love her, and with an affection that only such beings inspire. It is creatures like her that redeem years of disappointment and worldly disgust. It is in watching the single-heartedness of that young girl that I, an old man, hackneyed and hardened as I am, become trustful and hopeful of others. Love her!—to be sure I love her. And so would you, if the poor fopperies amid which you live but left you one moment free to think and feel as your own head and heart would lead you. I hope you take no heed of my rude speech, sir,” said he, hastily; “but it is the fault of my craft to believe that sweet things are only ‘Placebos,’ given but to earn the fee and amuse the patient.”
“I thank you for it,” said Cashel, pressing his hand; “few have ever cared to tell me truths.”
“Say, rather, few have cared to resign their influence over you by showing they knew your weak points. Now, I have too deep an interest in you, and too slight a regard for any profit your acquaintance can render myself, to be swayed by this. You don’t know, you cannot know, what a charm there is to an old fellow like myself—whose humble fortunes limit to a life of mere routine—to think that he has an opportunity of counselling one in your station,—to feel that he has sown the seed of some good principle, that one day or other will bear its fruit. Yes, years hence, when you have forgotten the old village doctor,—or if by chance remember him, only to recall his vulgarity or eccentricity,—I will be an anxious watcher over you, flattering myself to think that I have had some share in instilling the precepts by which you are winning good men’s esteem. These thoughts are poor men’s treasures, but he that feels them would not barter them for gold.”
“I have long wished for such a counsellor,” said Cashel, fervently.
“The advice will not be the less stringent that it comes when you are heart-sick of frivolity,” said Tiernay. “What could your fine company up yonder teach you? Such of them as are above mere folly trade in vice. I have seen them all since they have assembled here, and I am no mean physiognomist, and there is but one among them deserving of better than the poor heartless life they ‘re leading.”
“I can guess whom you mean,” said Roland, half pleased and half fearful.
“Well, she indeed would merit a better lot; and yet I would she were gone.”
“Why so? Do you grudge as even a passing ‘gleam of virtue’s brightness’?”
“She is more dangerous than the veriest coquette that ever lured a man to ruin. It is in such as she, where noble qualities have run to waste, where generous sentiments and pure affections have been blighted by the cold chill of a world that fosters not such gifts, the peril is ever greatest; for her sake and for yours, I would she were gone.”
As they spoke thus, they had reached the wide esplanade in front of the great house, from the windows of which lights were gleaming, while sounds of festivity and pleasure floated on the night air.
Tiernay halted for a second, and then said, “Who could believe that the owner of that princely mansion, filled as it is with pleasure-loving guests, and every adjunct that can promote enjoyment, should leave it, to wander on foot with a poor old village doctor, whose only merit is to utter unpalatable truths!”
“And be happier while doing so,—add that, my worthy friend,” said Cashel, pressing the arm that he held within his own.
“Come along, sir; this dalliance is pleasanter to me than to you. I begin to feel that I may have done you good, and you should be a doctor to know the full ecstasy of that feeling. Let us now move on, or this man will be before us.” And so saying, they moved briskly forward towards the village of Dunkeeran.
CHAPTER XII. SHYLOCK DEMANDS HIS BOND
The debts we make by plighted vows,
Bear heaviest interest, ever!
Haywood.
The doctor’s little parlor was the very “ideal” of snugness; there was nothing which had the faintest resemblance to luxury save the deep-cushioned arm-chair, into which he pressed Cashel at entering; but there were a hundred objects that told of home. The book-shelves, no mean indication of the owner’s trempe, were filled with a mixture of works on medicine, the older English dramatists, and that class of writers who prevailed in the days of Steele and Addison. There was a microscope on one table, with a great bunch of fresh-plucked fern beside it. A chess-board, with an unfinished game—a problem from a newspaper, for he had no antagonist—stood on another table; while full in front of the fire, with an air that betokened no mean self-importance, sat a large black cat, with a red leather collar, the very genius of domesticity. As Cashel’s eyes took a hasty survey of the room, they rested on a picture—it was the only one there—which hung over the mantelpiece. It was a portrait of Mary Leicester, and although a mere water-color sketch, an excellent likeness, and most characteristic in air and attitude.
“Ay!” said Tiernay, who caught the direction of his glance, “a birthday present to me! She had promised to dine with me, but the day, like most Irish days when one prays for sunshine, rained torrents; and so she sent me that sketch, with a note, a merry bit of doggerel verse, whose merit lies in its local allusions to a hundred little things, and people only known to ourselves; but for this, I ‘d be guilty of breach of faith and show it to you.”
“Is the drawing, too, by her own hand?”
“Yes; she is a clever artist, and might, it is said by competent judges, have attained high excellence as a painter had she pursued the study. I remember an illustration of the fact worth mentioning. Carringford, the well-known miniature-painter, who was making a tour of this country a couple of years back, passed some days at the cottage, and made a picture of old Con Corrigan, for which, I may remark passingly, poor Mary paid all her little pocket-money,—some twenty guineas, saved up from Heaven knows how long. Con did not know this, of course, and believed the portrait was a compliment to his granddaughter. Carringford’s ability is well known, and there is no need to say the picture was admirably painted; but still it wanted character; it had not the playful ease, the gentle, indulgent pleasantry that marks my old friend’s features; in fact, it was hard and cold,—not warm, generous, and genial: so I thought, and so Mary thought, and accordingly, scarcely had the artist taken his leave, when she set to work herself, and made a portrait, which, if inferior as a work of art, was infinitely superior as a likeness. It was Con himself; it had the very sparkle of his mild blue eye, the mingled glance of drollery and softness, the slightly curled mouth, as though some quaint conceit was lingering on the lip,—all his own. Mary’s picture hung on one side of the chimney, and Carringford’s at the other, and so they stood when the painter came through from Limerick and passed one night at Tubber-beg, on his way to Dublin. I breakfasted there that morning, and I remember, on entering the room, I was surprised to see the frame of Carringford’s portrait empty, and a bank-note, carefully folded, stuck in the corner. ‘What does that mean?’ said I to him, for we were alone at the time.
“‘It means simply that my picture cannot stand such competitorship as that, said he; mine was a miniature, that is the man himself.’ I will not say one half of the flatteries he uttered, but I have heard from others since, that he speaks of this picture as a production of high merit. Dear girl! that meagre sketch may soon have a sadder interest connected with it; it may be all that I shall possess of her! Yes, Mr. Cashel, your generosity may stave off the pressure of one peril, but there is another, from which nothing but flight will rescue my poor friend.”
A sharp knocking at the door here interrupted the doctor’s recital, and soon Hoare’s voice was heard without, inquiring if Dr. Tiernay was at home.
Hoare’s easy familiarity, as he entered, seemed to suffer a slight shock on observing Roland Cashel, who received him with cold politeness.
Tiernay, who saw at once that business alone would relieve the awkwardness of the scene, briefly informed the other that Mr. Cashel was there to learn the exact amount and circumstances of Corrigan’s liabilities, with a view to a final settlement of them.
“Very pleasing intelligence this, doctor,” said the moneylender, rubbing his hands, “and I am free to own, very surprising also! Am I to enter into an explanation of the peculiar causes of these liabilities, doctor, or to suppose,” said he, “that Mr. Cashel is already conversant with them?”
“You are to suppose, sir,” interposed Cashel, “that Mr. Cashel is aware of every circumstance upon which he does not ask you for further information.” There was a sternness in the way he spoke that abashed the other, who, opening a huge pocket-book on the table, proceeded to scan its contents with diligence; while Tiernay, whose agitation was great, sat watching him without speaking.
“The transactions,” said Hoare, “date from some years back, as these bills will show, and consist, for the most part, in drafts, at various dates, by Mr. Leicester, of South Bank, New Orleans, on Cornelius Corrigan, Esq., of Tubbermore. Some of these have been duly honored; indeed, at first, Mr. Corrigan was punctuality itself; but bad seasons, distress at home here, greater demands, the consequence of some commercial losses sustained by Mr. Leicester in the States, all coming together, the bills were not met as usual; renewals were given—and, when it comes to that, Mr. Cashel, I need scarcely say difficulties travel by special train.” No one joined in the little laugh by which Mr. Hoare welcomed his own attempt at pleasantry, and he went on: “At first we managed tolerably well. Mr. Corrigan devoted a portion of his income to liquidate these claims; he made certain sales of property; he reduced his establishment; in fact, I believe he really made every sacrifice consistent with his position—”
“No, sir,” broke in Tiernay, “but consistent with bare subsistence.”
The violent tone of the interruption startled the moneylender, who hastened to concur with the sentiment, while he faltered out—
“Remember, gentlemen, I speak only from hearsay; of myself I know nothing.”
“Go on with your statement, sir,” said Cashel, peremptorily.
“My statement,” said Hoare, provoked at the tone assumed towards him, “resolves itself into a debt of three thousand seven hundred and forty-eight pounds some odd shillings. There are the bills. The sums due for interest and commission are noted down, and will, I believe, be found duly correct.”
“Three thousand seven hundred pounds in less than five years!” ejaculated Tiernay. “What iniquity!”
“If your expression is intended to apply to anything in the conduct of this transaction, sir,” said Hoare, growing pale with passion as he spoke, “I beg you to remember that there is such a thing in the land as redress for libel.”
“If the laws will warrant sixty per cent, they may well punish the man who calls it infamy,” said Tiernay, almost choking with anger.
“That will do, gentlemen, that will do,” said Hoare, replacing the bills in the pocket-book, while his fingers trembled with passion. “I was not aware that your object in this meeting was to insult me; I ‘ll not expose myself a second time to such a casualty. I ‘ll thank you to hand me that bill, sir!” This request was addressed to Cashel, who, with his eyes riveted on a document which he held in both hands, sat perfectly unmindful of all around him.
“If you will have the kindness to give me that bill, sir?” said Hoare, again.
“Shylock wants his bond,” said Tiernay, who walked up and down the room with clinched hands, and brows knitted into one deep furrow.
Hoare turned a scowling glance towards him, but not trusting himself to reply, merely repeated his question to Cashel.
“How came you by this?” cried Roland, rising from the table, and holding out a written paper towards Hoare; “I ask, sir, how came you by this?” reiterated he, while the paper shook with the hand that held it.
“Oh! I perceive,” said Hoare; “that document has no concern with the case before us; it refers to another and very different transaction.”
“This is no answer to my question, sir,” said Cashel, sternly; “I asked, and I ask you again, how it came into your hands?”
“Don’t you think, sir, that it would be more appropriate to express your regret at having examined a paper not intended to have been submitted to you?” said Hoare, in a tone half insolent, half deferential.
“I saw my name upon it,” said Cashel, “coupled, too, with that of another, of whom I preserve too many memories to treat anything lightly wherein he bears a part; besides, there can be but little indiscretion in reading that to which I had attached my own signature. And now, once more, sir, how do I see it in your possession?”
“Really, Mr. Cashel, when the question is put in this tone and manner, I am much disposed to refuse an answer. I can see nothing in our relative situations that can warrant the assumption of these airs towards me!”
“Shylock, again!” exclaimed Tiernay, who continued to pace the room during this scene with hasty strides.
“Not so, sir,” said Cashel, as Hoare moved towards the door, against which Roland now placing a chair, sat down. “Out of this room you shall not stir, till I hear a distinct and clear account of the circumstances by which I find you in possession of this paper.”
“You have no right, sir, to demand such an answer.”
“Possibly not, legally speaking,” said Cashel, whose voice became calmer and deeper as his passion increased. “You are more conversant with law than I am, and so I take it that your opinion is correct. But I have the right which a good conscience and strong will beget, and I tell you again, you ‘ll not leave this room before you satisfy me, or you ‘ll not leave it living.”
“I call you to witness, Dr. Tiernay,” said Hoare, whose accents trembled with fear and anger together, “that this is a case of false imprisonment,—that a threat against my life has been uttered, if I do not surrender the possession of certain papers.”
“Nothing of the kind,” broke in Tiernay; “there is no thought of taking anything from you by force. Mr. Roland Cashel—doubtless for good reasons of his own—has asked you a question, which you, demurring to answer, he tells you that you shall not leave the room till you do.”
“And do you fancy, sir, that such conduct is legal?” cried Hoare.
“I cannot say,” rejoined Tiernay; “but that it is far more mild and merciful than I could have expected under the circumstances, I am perfectly ready to aver.”
“May I read the paper out?” said Hoare, with a malicious scowl at Cashel.
“There is no need that you should, sir,” said Roland; “its contents are known to me, whom alone they concern.”
“You can, I opine, have no objection that your friend, Dr. Tiernay, should hear them?”
“I repeat, sir, that with the contents of that paper neither you nor any one else has any concern; they relate to me, and to me alone.”
“Then I must labor under some misapprehension,” said Hoare, affectedly; “I had fancied there was another person at least equally interested.”
“Will you dare, sir!” said Roland; and in the thick guttural utterance there was that which made the other tremble with fear.
“If the matter be one, then,” said he, rallying into his former assurance, “that you deem best kept secret, it would be perhaps a judicious preliminary to any conversation on the subject, that Dr. Tiernay should withdraw.”
“I only await Mr. Cashel’s pleasure,” said Tiernay, moving towards the door.
“Then you will remain, sir,” said Roland, firmly. “Remain, and listen to what this gentleman has so menacingly alluded. Here it is: it is the promise, given under my hand, that I will espouse the daughter of a certain Don Pedro Rica, to whom, in the date herein annexed, I have been this day betrothed; or, in forfeiture of such pledge, pay down the sum of seventy thousand dollars, thereby obtaining a full release from the conditions of the contract. It was the rash pledge of a young and thoughtless boy, with regard to one who neither accepted his affection nor acknowledged the contract. I do not say this to absolve myself from the forfeiture, which I am ready to acquit this hour; I speak of it, that, as a man of honor, I may not seem to pay a debt of feeling by a check on my banker.”
“But this betrothal,” said Tiernay,—“what does it imply?”
“It is a ceremony common enough in Old Spain and her once colonies, and is simply the recognition of a private promise of marriage.”
“You have forgotten two circumstances, sir,” said Hoare, whose eyes never quitted Cashel’s face.
“Which are they?”
“One is, that this contract should be either fulfilled, or the forfeit paid, within two years,—twenty-one months of which have already expired.”
“True!—and the other condition?”
“That the acceptance or refusal of the forfeit is optional with Don Pedro, who may, at his pleasure, select which clause he likes,—the marriage or the penalty.”
“I never acknowledged this interpretation of the document,” said Cashel, reddening. “I know Don Pedro did, and there we were at issue. Methinks it were somewhat hard to compel a marriage distasteful to both parties, and only to suit the speculations of a ruined adventurer.”
“I hope, sir, the likelihood of future relationship will moderate the warmth of your language.”
“And is the man fool enough to fancy such a promise could be legally enforced in this country?” said Tiernay.
“He is not without the opinion of learned counsel,” said Hoare, “who are strongly of opinion that the interpretations Columbian law would put upon the document would be recognized by our own courts, and recognize the marriage as such.”
“And does he, or do you, suppose,” said Cashel, indignantly, “that I could expose her name, were I indifferent about my own, to be bandied about your assize courts, and printed in newspapers, and made the gossip of the town for a nine days’ wonder?” He stopped, for he saw by the elation of Hoare’s features with what triumph this avowal had been listened to. “And now, sir, enough has been said of this; I come back to my former question,—How came you by this paper?”
“I received it from Don Pedro, with whom I have had much business intercourse, and who left it in my hands a few days back.”
“Then he is in this country?” said Cashel, anxiously.
Hoare nodded an assent.
“Here, in Ireland! and is Mari—” He stopped suddenly, remembering to whom he was speaking; but Hoare, as if eager to show an intimacy with names and events, said,—
“Yes, sir, she is also here.”
Cashel became silent, his mind a very chaos of confused thought,—memories of his buccaneer life, its lawless habits, its wild companionship, its adventures of love and war, of play, of heroism, and of mad debauch. The villa and Maritaña were before him as last he saw her at the fountain; and from these he came to his fine and lordly friendships, with all their fictitious warmth; and he began to fancy how would his present society—the very guests at that moment beneath his roof—receive or recognize his old associates!
The deep pre-occupation of his look suggested to Tiernay’s mind the notion that Cashel was overwhelmed by the intelligence he had just received, and drawing close to him, he said, in a whisper,—
“That fellow is watching and enjoying your confusion; put a bolder face on the matter, and we ‘ll see what is best to be done.”
Roland started, and then, as if by an effort chasing away an unpleasant thought, he said to Hoare,—
“Our first business is Mr. Corrigan’s. The sum due is—”
“Three thousand seven hundred and forty.”
“Will you accept my bill for this?”
“At what date, sir?” said Hoare, cautiously.
“At whatever date you please; a month or a week.”
“A month be it.”
“Does that release Mr. Corrigan from every claim so far as your principal is concerned?”
“All, up to this date.”
“By which, probably, you would imply, that new liabilities may begin again. Is that so?”
“I think, from the nature of Mr. Leicester’s claim, such an event is not impossible.”
“Never mind the threat,” whispered Tiernay; “it is but a threat.”
“As to the other affair,” said Cashel, approaching Hoare, “I will accompany you to town. I will see Don Pedro myself.”
“That will be difficult, sir. I am not at liberty to mention his place of abode; nor does he wish his presence here to be known.”
“But to me,” said Cashel, “this objection cannot apply.”
“His orders are positive, and without qualification; but any proposition which you desire to submit—”
“Can come through Mr. Hoare?” said Cashel, sneer-ingly. “I prefer doing these things in person, sir.”
“Leave this to me,” whispered Tiernay; “I’ll manage him better.”
Cashel squeezed his friend’s arm in assent, and turned away; while Hoare, reseating himself, proceeded to draw out the bill for Cashel’s signature.
“You are aware,” said Tiernay, “that Corrigan can give you nothing but personal security for this sum, and the lease of Tubber-beg?” But Cashel did not heed the remark, deep as he was in his own reflections. “There is a small sum—a few thousand pounds—of Mary’s, settled at her mother’s marriage. You are not attending to me,” said he, perceiving the pre-occupation of Roland’s look. “I was mentioning that Mary Leicester—”
“Yes,” said Cashel, talking his thoughts aloud, “to marry her would, indeed, be the true solution of the difficulty.”
“What did you say?” whispered Tiernay, upon whose ear the muttered words fell distinctly.
“She would refuse me,” Roland went on; “the more certainly that I am rich. I know her well; the rank, the station, the thousand flatteries that wealth bestows, would be things for her mockery if unallied with power.”
“You are wrong, quite wrong,” said Tiernay; “her ambition is of a different order. Mary Leicester—”
“Mary Leicester!” echoed Cashel; and, in his suddenly awakened look, Tiernay at once perceived that some mistake had occurred. Hoare relieved the awkwardness of the moment as he said,—
“This wants but your signature, sir, and the matter is finished.”
Cashel wrote his name on the bill and was turning away, when Hoare said,—
“These are the bills; they are now your property, sir.”
“For what purpose?”
“They are vouchers for your claim on Mr. Corrigan,” said Hoare.
“His word will suffice,” said Cashel; and, gathering them up, he hurled them into the fire.
“A costly blaze that,” said Hoare, as he watched the conflagration.
“Speak to him, doctor; learn what you can of Rica for me. If money will do it, I ‘ll not quarrel with the price,” said Cashel to Tiernay, in a low tone. “Another point,—I was nigh forgetting it,—you ‘ll not tell Mr. Corrigan how the matter has been arranged. Promise me this. Nay, I have a reason for it,—a reason you shall hear to-morrow or next day, and will acknowledge to be good. Keep my secret for a month; I ask no longer.”
“For a month, then, I am silent,” said Tiernay.
“Let me see you to-morrow early,” said Cashel. “Will you breakfast with me?”
“No; I ‘ll not risk my character by going twice to your grand house in the same week; besides, I am going to Limerick.”
“Good-night, then,” said Cashel; “good-night, sir.” And with a formal bow to Hoare, Roland left the room, and took his way homeward alone.
CHAPTER XIII. CIGARS, ÉCARTÉ, AND HAZARD
The Devil’s back-parlor—a bachelor’s room.
Milyard.
While Cashel continued his way homeward, a very joyous party had assembled in Lord Charles Frobisher’s room, who were endeavoring, by the united merits of cigars, écarté, hazard, and an excellent supper, of which they partook at intervals, to compensate themselves for the unusual dulness of the drawing-room. It is well known how often the least entertaining individuals in general society become the most loquacious members of a party assembled in this fashion. The restraints which had held them in check before are no longer present; their loud speech and empty laughter are not any longer under ban, and they are tolerated by better men, pretty much as children are endured, because at least they are natural.
At a round table in the middle of the room were a group engaged at hazard. Upton was deep in écarté with his brother officer, Jennings, while Frobisher lounged about, sipping weak negus, and making his bets at either table as fancy or fortune suggested. The supper-table had few votaries; none, indeed, were seated at it save Meek, who, with a newspaper on his knee, seemed singularly out of place in the noisy gathering.
“Eleven’s the nick—eleven! I say, Charley, have at you for a pony,” called out a boyish-looking dragoon, from the middle table.
“You’re under age, young gentleman,” said Frobisher; “I can’t afford to bet with you. Wait a moment, Upton, I ‘ll back you this time. Twenty sovereigns—will you have it?”
“Done!” said Jennings, and the game began.
“The King,” cried Upton; “I propose.”
“To which of them?” said a sharp-looking infantry captain, behind his chair.
“Olivia, of course,” slipped in Jennings.
“I ‘d give fifty pounds to know if they have the money people say,” cried Upton.
“Meek can tell you; he knows everything. I say, Downie,” said Jennings, “come here for a moment, and enlighten us on a most interesting point.”
“Oh dear! what is it? This room is so very cold. Don’t you think, Frobisher, that a double door would be advisable?”
“A green one, with a centre pane of glass, would make it devilish like a ‘hell,’” said Upton; upon which the company all laughed approvingly.
“What is it you want?” said Meek, approaching, glass in hand.
“Play out the game, and have your gossip afterwards,” said Frobisher, who felt far more anxious about the fate of his twenty pounds than for the result of the conversation.
“A queen of hearts,” said Upton, leading; then, turning to Meek, said, “These Kennyfeck girls—can you tell what the figure is?”
“Poor dear things,” said Meek, piteously; “they should be very well off.”
“I score two!” said Upton. “Well, have they twenty thousand each?”
“I should say more. Oh dear me! they must have more! Kennyfeck holds a heavy mortgage on Kilgoff’s estate, and has a great deal of other property.”
“Then it would be a good thing, Meek, eh?” said Jennings.
“Game!” cried Upton, showing his cards upon the table.
“There is so much chaffing about girls and their fortunes, one can’t play his game here,” said Jennings, as he threw down a handful of gold on the board.
“Who was it ordered the post-horses for to-morrow?” said a youth at the supper-table. “The MacFarlines?”
“No; Lord Kilgoff.”
“I assure you,” cried a third, “it was the Kennyfecks. There has been a ‘flare-up’ about money between Cashel and him, and it is said he ‘ll lose the agency. Who ‘ll get it, I wonder?”
“Tom Linton, of course,” said the former speaker. “I ‘d wager he is gone off to Dublin to furbish up securities, or something of that kind.”
“Who’d give Tom trust, or go bail for him?” said Frobisher.
A very general laugh did not sound like a contradiction of the sentiment.
“I heard a week ago,” said the cornet, “that Kilgoff would stand security to any amount for him.”
“Ah, that comes of my Lady’s good opinion of him!” cried Jennings.
“Nay, don’t say that, it looks so ill-natured,” sighed Meek; “and there is really nothing in it. You know she and Tom were old friends. Oh dear, it was so sad!”
“Where does Cashel get such execrable champagne?” said an infantryman, with a very wry expression of face.
“It’s dry wine, that’s all,” said Frobisher, “and about the best ever imported.”
“We ‘d be very sorry to drink it at our mess, my Lord, I know that,” said the other, evidently nettled at the correction.
“Yours is the Fifty-third?” said a guardsman.
“No; the Thirty-fifth.”
“Aw! same thing,” sighed he; and he stooped to select a cigar.
“I wish the Kennyfecks were not going,” said Upton, drawing his chair closer to Meek’s; “there are so few houses one meets them at.”
“You should speak to Linton about that,” whispered Meek.
“Here’s Jim’s health,—hip, hip, hurrah!” cried out a white-moustached boy, who had joined a hussar regiment a few weeks before, and was now excessively tipsy.
The laughter at this toast was increased by Meek’s holding out his glass to be filled as he asked, “Of course,—whose health is it?”
“One of Frobisher’s trainers,” said Upton, readily.
“No, it’s no such thing,” hiccoughed the hussar. “I was proposing a bumper to the lightest snaffle hand from this to Doncaster—the best judge of a line of country in the kingdom—”
“That’s me,” said a jolly voice, and at the same instant the door was flung wide, and Tom Linton, splashed from the road, and travel-stained, entered.
“I must say, gentlemen, you are no churls of your wit and pleasantry, for, as I came up the stairs, I could hear every word you were saying.”
“Oh dear, how dreadful! and we were talking of you too,” said Meek, with a piteous air that made every one laugh.
A thousand questions as to where he had been, whom with, and what for?—all burst upon Linton, who only escaped importunity by declaring that he was half dead with hunger, and would answer nothing till he had eaten.
“So,” said he, at length, after having devoted twenty minutes to a grouse-pie of most cunning architecture, “you never guessed where I had been?”
“Oh! we had guesses enough, if that served any purpose.”
“I thought it was a bolt, Tom,” said Upton; “but as she appeared at breakfast, as usual, I saw my mistake.”
“Meek heard that you had gone over to Downing Street to ask for the Irish Secretaryship,” said Jennings.
“I said you had been to have a talk with Scott about ‘Regulator;’ was I far off the mark?”
“Mrs. White suggested an uncle’s death,” said Frobisher; “but uncles don’t die nowadays.”
“Did you buy the colt?—Have you backed ‘Runjeet Singh?’—Are you to have the agency?—How goes on the borough canvass?” and twenty similar queries now poured in on him.
“Well, I see,” cried he, laughing, “I shall sadly disappoint all the calculations founded on my shrewdness and dexterity, for the whole object of my journey was to secure a wardrobe for our fancy ball, which I suddenly heard of as being at Limerick; and so, not trusting the mission to another, I started off myself, and here I am, with materials for more Turks, Monks, Sailors, Watchmen, Greeks, Jugglers, and Tyrolese, than ever travelled in anything save a caravan with one horse.”
“Are your theatrical intentions all abandoned?” cried Jennings.
“I trust not,” said Linton; “but I heard that Miss Meek had decided on the ball to come off first.”
“Hip! hip! hip!” was moaned out, in very lachrymose tone, from a sofa where the boy hussar, very sick and very tipsy, lay stretched on his back.
“Who is that yonder?” asked Linton.
“A young fellow of ours,” said Jennings, indolently.
“I thought they made their heads better at Sandhurst.”
“They used in my time,” said Upton; “but you have no idea how the thing has gone down.”
“Quite true,” chimed in another; “and I don’t think we ‘ve seen the worst of it yet. Do you know, they talk of an examination for all candidates for commissions!”
“Well, I must say,” lisped the guardsman, “I believe it would be an improvement for the ‘line.’”
“The household brigade can dispense with information,” said an infantry captain.
“I demur to the system altogether,” said Linton. “Physicians tell us that the intellectual development is always made at the expense of the physical, and as one of the duties of a British army is to suffer yellow fever in the West Indies and cholera in the East, I vote for leaving them strong in constitution and intact in strength as vacant heads and thoughtless skulls can make them.”
“Oh dear me! yes,” sighed Meek, who, by one of his mock concurrences, effectually blinded the less astute portion of the audience from seeing Linton’s impertinence.
“What has been doing here in my absence?” said Linton; “have you no event worth recording for me?”
“There is a story,” said Upton, “that Cashel and Kennyfeck have quarrelled,—a serious rupture, they say, and not to be repaired.”
“How did it originate? Something about the management of the property?”
“No, no,—it was a row among the women. They laid some scheme for making Cashel propose for one of the girls.”
“Not Olivia, I hope?” said Upton, as he lighted a new cigar.
“I rather suspect it was,” interposed another.
“In any case, Linton,” cried Jennings, “you are to be the gainer, for the rumor says, Cashel will give you the agency, with his house to live in, and a very jolly thing to spend, while he goes abroad to travel.”
“If this news be true, Tom,” said Frobisher, “I ‘ll quarter my yearlings on you; there is a capital run for young horses in those flats along the river.”
“The house is cold at this season,” said Meek, with a sad smile; “but I think it would be very endurable in the autumn months. I should n’t say but you may see us here again at that time.”
“I hope ‘ours’ may be quartered at Limerick,” said an infantryman, with a most suggestive look at the comforts of the apartment, which were a pleasing contrast to barrack-room accommodation.
“Make yourselves perfectly at home here, gentlemen, when that good time comes,” said Linton, with one of his careless laughs. “I tell you frankly, that if Cashel does make me such a proposal—a step which, from his knowledge of my indolent, lazy habits, is far from likely—I only accept on one condition.”
“What is that?” cried a dozen voices.
“That you will come and pass your next Christmas here.”
“Agreed—agreed!” was chorused on every side.
“I suspect from that bit of spontaneous hospitality,” whispered Frobisher to Meek, “that the event is something below doubtful.”
Meek nodded.
“What is Charley saying?” cried Linton, whose quick eye caught the glance interchanged between the two.
“I was telling Meek,” said Frobisher, “that I don’t put faith enough in the condition to accept the invitation.”
“Indeed!” said Linton, while he turned to the table and filled his glass, to hide a passing sign of mortification.
“Tom Linton for a man’s agent, seems pretty like what old Frederick used to call keeping a goat for a gardener.”
“You are fond of giving the odds, Frobisher,” said Linton, who, for some minutes, continued to take glass after glass of champagne; “now, what’s your bet that I don’t do the honors here next Christmas-day?”
“I can’t say what you mean,” said Frobisher, languidly. “I’ve seen you do ‘the honors’ at more than one table where you were the guest.”
“This, I suppose, is meant for a pleasantry, my Lord?” said Linton, while his face became flushed with passion.
“It is meant for fact,” said Frobisher, with a steady coolness in his air and accent.
“A fact! and not in jest, then!” said he, approaching where the other sat, and speaking in a low voice.
“That’s very quarrelsome wine, that dry champagne,” said Frobisher, lazily; “don’t drink any more of it.”
Linton tried to smile; the effort, at first not very successful, became easier after a moment, and it was with a resumption of his old manner he said,—
“I ‘ll take you two to one in fifties that I act the host here this day twelvemonth.”
“You hear the offer, gentlemen?” said Frobisher, addressing the party. “Of course it is meant without any reservation, and so I take it.”
He produced a betting-book as he said this, and began to write in it with his pencil.
“Would you prefer it in hundreds?” said Linton.
Frobisher nodded an assent.
“Or shall we do the thing sportingly, and say two thousand to one?” continued he.
“Two thousand to one be it,” said Frobisher, while the least possible smile might be detected on his usually immovable features. “There is no knowing how to word this bet,” said he, at last, after two or three efforts, followed by as many erasures; “you must write it yourself.”
Linton took the pencil, and wrote rapidly for a few seconds.
“Will that do?” said he.
And Frobisher read to himself: “‘Mr. Linton, two thousand to one with Lord C. Frobisher, that he, T. L., on the anniversary of this day, shall preside as master of the house Tubbermore, by due right and title, and not by any favor, grace, or sanction of any one whatsoever.”
“Yes; that will do, perfectly,” said Frobisher, as he closed the book, and restored it to his pocket.
“Was the champagne so strong as you expected?” whispered Upton, as he passed behind Frobisher’s chair.
A very knowing nod of acquiescence was the only reply.
Indeed, it did not require the practised shrewdness of Lord Charles, or his similarly sharp-eyed friends, to see that Linton’s manner was very different from his habitual calm collectedness, while he continued to drink on, with the air of a man that was resolved on burying his faculties in the excitement of wine.
Meek slipped away soon after, and, at Linton’s suggestion a rouge-et-noir bank was formed, at which the play became high, and his own losses very considerable.
It was already daylight, and the servants were stirring in the house ere the party broke up.
“Master Tom has had a squeeze to-night,” said Jennings, as he was bidding Upton good-bye at his door.
“I can’t understand it at all,” replied the other. “He played without judgment, and betted rashly on every side. It was far more like Roland Cashel than Tom Linton.”
“Well, you remember he said—to be sure, it was after drinking a quantity of wine—‘Master Roland and I may change characters yet. Let us see if he can play “Linton,” as well as I can “Cashel.”’”
“He’s so deep, that I wouldn’t say but there is something under all this.” And so they parted, sadly puzzled what interpretation to put on conduct, the mere result of a passing intemperance; for so it is, your “cunning men” are never reputed to be so deep by the world as when by some accident they, have forgotten their craft.
CHAPTER XIV. MR. KENNYFECK AMONG THE BULLS
With a bright flie upon his hook,
He played mankind, as anglers play a fish.
COTTER.
An hour’s sleep and a cold bath restored Linton to himself, and ere the guests of Tubbermore were stirring, he was up and ready for the day. He dressed with more than usual care, and having ordered a horse to be saddled and a groom to follow him, he sauntered out into the park, taking the road that led to the village.
The groom rapidly overtook him; and then, mounting, he rode at a brisk trot down the road, and drew up at the door of the doctor’s house. To his question, “If Mr. Tiernay were at home?” he received for answer, that “He had set out for Limerick that morning;” nor did the servant know when he might be expected back.
For a moment this intelligence appeared to derange his plans; but he rallied soon, and turning his horse’s head towards Tubbermore, muttered to himself, “As well,—perhaps better as it is.” He rode fast till he gained the wood, and then dismounting, he gave the horse to the groom, with directions to go home, as he would return on foot.
He stood looking after the horses as they retired, and it seemed as if his thoughts were following them, so intent was his gaze; but, long after they had disappeared, he remained standing in the same place, his features still wearing the same expression of highly-wrought occupation. The spot where he stood was a little eminence, from which the view stretched, upon one side, over the waving woods of the demesne, and, on the other, showed glimpses of the Shannon, as, in its sweeping curves, it indented the margin of the grounds. Perhaps not another point could be found which displayed so happily the extent and importance of the demesne, and yet concealed so well whatever detracted from its picturesque effect. The neighboring village of Derra-heeny—a poor, straggling, ruinous street of thatched hovels, like most Irish villages—was altogether hidden from view; while of the great house itself,—an object with few pretensions to architectural elegance,—only so much was visible as indicated its size and extent. The little cottage of Tubber-beg, however, could be seen entire, glittering in the morning’s sun like a gem, its bright-leaved hollies and dark laurels forming a little grove of foliage in the midst of winter’s barrenness.
If this was by far the most striking object of the picture, it was not that which attracted most of Linton’s attention. On the contrary, his eye ranged more willingly over the wide woods which stretched for miles along the river’s side, and rose and fell in many a gentle undulation inland. A commonplace observer, had such been there to mark him, would have pronounced him one passionately devoted to scenery,—a man who loved to watch the passing cloud-shadows of a landscape, enjoying with all a painter’s delight the varying tints, the graceful lines, the sharp-thrown shadows, and the brilliant lights of a woodland picture; a deeper physiognomist would, however, have seen that the stern stare and the compressed lip, the intense preoccupation which every feature exhibited, did not denote a mind bent upon such themes.
“Tom Linton, of Tubbermore,” said he, at length,—and it seemed as if uttering the words gave relief to his overburdened faculties, for his face relaxed, and his habitual easy smile returned to his mouth,—“Linton, of Tubbermore; it sounds well, too.” And then the great game! that game for which I have pined so long and wished so ardently,—which I have stood by and seen others play and lose, where I could have won,—ay, won rank, honor, station, and fame. The heaviest curse that lies on men like me is to watch those who rise to eminence in the world, and know their utter shallowness and incapacity. There will soon be an end to that now.
“Stand by, gentlemen; make way, my Lords Charles and Harry; it is Tom Linton’s turn—not Linton the ‘adventurer,’ as you were gracious enough to call him—not the bear-leader of a marquis, or the hanger-on of his grace the duke, but your equal in rank and fortune—more than your equal in other things; the man who knows you all thoroughly, not fancying your deficiencies and speculating on your shortcomings, as your vulgar adversaries, your men of cotton constituencies, are wont to do, but the man who has seen you in your club and your drawing-room, who has eaten, drunk, betted, played, and lived with you all! who knows your tactics well, and can expound your ‘aristocratic prejudices better than ever a Quaker of them all!’—Not but,” said he, after a pause, “another line would satisfy me equally. The peerage, with such a fortune as this, is no inordinate ambition; a few years in the House, of that dogged, unmanageable conduct Englishmen call independence—a capriciousness in voting—the repute of refusing office, and so on. There’s no originality in the thought, but it succeeds as well as if there were! Besides, if hard pressed, I can be a Romanist, and, as times go, with every party; that is a strong claim. And why not Lord Linton? I have no doubt”—and he laughed as he spoke this—“there is a peerage in the family already, if I only knew where to look for it!
“And now, sufficient of speculation! to open the campaign!” So saying, he descended the knoll and took the path which led to the cottage. As he drew near the wicket, he saw a man lounging beside it, in all that careless indifference which an Irish peasant can assume, and soon perceived it was Tom Keane, the gatekeeper.
“Good-morrow, Tom; how comes it you are up here so early?”
“‘T is in throuble I am, your honer,” said he, taking off his hat, and putting on that supplicating look so characteristic of his class. “The master’s going to turn me out of the little place beyant.”
“What for?”
“For nothing at all, your honer: that’s just it; but ould Kennyfeck put him up to it.”
“Up to what? That seems the whole question.”
“Your honer may remimber, that when you came here first, the cattle of the neighbors was used to come and pick a mouthful of grass,—and poor grass it was,—bekase there was no way of keeping them out. Well, when the master came down, and all the people, by coorse the cows and pigs couldn’t be let in as afore; for, as the agint said, it was a disgrace to see them under the nose of the quality, running about as if it was Donnybrook fair! ‘Don’t let them appear here again, Tom Keane,’ says he, ‘or it will be worse for you.’ And sorra one ever I let in since that, till it was dark night. But ould Mr. Kennyfeck, the other evening, takes it into his head to walk into the park, and comes right into a crowd of two-year-old bulls, and did n’t know a bit where he was, till a man called out, ‘Lie down on your face, for the love of the Virgin, or you are a dead man! The bullsheens is comin’!’ And down he lay, sure enough, and hard work they had to get him up afterwards, for the herd went over him as the man drov’ them off; and what between bruises and fear, he kept his bed two days; but the worst of it was, the spalpeens said that they paid threepence apiece for the bullsheens every night for the grass, and it was to me they gave it.”
“Which, of course, was untrue?” said Linton, smiling knowingly.
“By coorse it was!” said Tom, with a laugh, whose meaning there was no mistaking; “and so, I ‘m to be turned out of ‘the gate,’ and to lose my few acres of ground, and be thrun on the wide world, just for sake of an attorney!”
“It is very hard,—very hard indeed.”
“Is n’t it now, your honer?”
“A case of destitution, completely; what the newspapers call ‘extermination.’”
“Exactly, sir,—tarnination, and nothing less.”
“But how comes it that you are up here, on that account?”
“I was thinking, sir, if I saw Miss Mary, and could get her to spake a word to the master,—they say she can do what she plazes with him.”
“Indeed!—who says so?”
“The servants’ hall says it; and so does Mr. Corrigan’s ould butler. He towld me the other day that he hoped he ‘d be claning the plate up at the big house before he died.”
“How so?” said Linton, affecting not to catch the intention of the remark.
“Just that he was to be butler at the hall when the master was married to Miss Mary.”
“And so, I suppose, this is very likely to happen?”
“Sure yer honer knows betther than ignorant craytures like us; but faix, if walking about in the moonlight there, among the flowers, and talking together like whisperin’, is any sign, I would n’t wonder if it came about.”
“Indeed! and they have got that far?”
“Ay, faith!” said Tom, with a significance of look only an Irishman or an Italian can call up.
“Well, I had no suspicion of this,” said Linton, with a frankness meant to invite further confidence.
“An’ why would yer honer? Sure was n’t it always on the evenings, when the company was all together in the great house, that Mr. Cashel used to steal down here and tie his horse to the wicket, and then gallop back again at full speed, so that the servants towld me he was never missed out of the room!”
“And does she like him,—do they say she likes him?”
“Not like him wid a place such as this!” said Tom, waving his hand towards the wide-spreading fields and woods of the demesne. “Bathershin! sure the Queen of England might be proud of it!”
“Very true,” said Linton, affecting to be struck by the shrewdness of the speaker.
“See, now,” said Tom, who began to feel a certain importance from being listened to, “I know faymales well, and so I ought! but take the nicest, quietest, and most innocent one among them, and by my conscience ye ‘ll see, ‘t is money and money’s worth she cares for more nor the best man that ever stepped! Tell her ‘tis silk she’ll be wearin’, and goold in her ears, and ye may be as ould and ogly as Tim Hogan at the cross roods!”
“You have n’t a good opinion of the fair sex, Thomas,” said Linton, carelessly, for he was far less interested in his speculations than his facts. “Well, as to your own case,—leave that in my hands. I may not have all the influence of Miss Leicester, but I suspect that I can do what you want on this occasion.” And without waiting for the profuse expressions of his gratitude, Linton passed on and entered the garden, through which a little path led directly to the door of the cottage.
“At breakfast, I suppose?” said Linton to the servant who received him.
“The master is, sir; but Miss Mary isn’t well this morning.”
“Nothing of consequence, I hope?”
“Only a headache from fatigue, sir.” So saying, he ushered Linton, whose visits were admitted on the most intimate footing, into the room where Mr. Corrigan sat by himself at the breakfast-table.
“Alone, sir!” said Linton as he closed the door behind him, and conveying in his look an air of surprise and alarm.
“Yes, Mr. Linton, almost the only time I remember to have been so for many a year. My poor child has had a night of some anxiety, which, although bearing well at the time, has exacted its penalty at last in a slight attack of fever. It will, I trust, pass over in a few hours; and you,—where have you been; they said you had been absent for a day or two?”
“A very short ramble, sir,—one of business rather than pleasure. I learned suddenly—by a newspaper paragraph, too—that a distant relative of my mother’s had died in the East, leaving a considerable amount of property to myself; and so, setting out, I arrived at Limerick, intending to sail for Liverpool, when, who should I meet, almost the first person I saw, but my agent, just come in haste from London, to confer with me on the subject. The meeting was so far agreeable, that it saved me a journey I had no fancy for, and also put me in possession of the desired information regarding the property. My agent, speaking of course from imperfect knowledge, calls it a large—what a man like myself would style—a very large fortune.”
“I give you joy, with all my heart,” cried Corrigan, grasping his hand in both his, and shaking it cordially. “When wealth descends to men who have shown their ability to maintain an honorable station without it, the chances are greatly in favor of its being nobly and generously employed.”
“How I hope that I may not disgrace your theory,” said Linton, “for I am not ashamed to assert that I have fulfilled the first condition of the category. With little else but good birth and a fair education, I had to start in the race against others with every aid of fortune; and if I have not reached a more elevated position, I can say that the obstacle lay rather in my own scruples than my incapacity. I declined Parliamentary life because I would not be a nominee; I had a glancing suspicion that my time would come, too, when, without other check upon my motives than the voice of conscience, I should stand in the British Senate a free and independent member. If I have waited patiently for this hour, I hope I have not abused the leisure interval, and that I may bring to the public service something besides the zeal of one who feels the importance of his trust.”
“There is no failure with intentions pure and honorable as these,” said Corrigan, warmly. “It does not need your talents, Mr. Linton, to insure success in such a path; one half of your ability, so nobly backed, would reach the goal. And now tell me, if I be not indiscreet in asking some of your plans, what place do you mean to stand for?”
“Our good borough of Derraheeny,” said Linton, half smiling. “I am in a measure committed to continue my canvass there, and, indeed, have already entered into securities to keep my pledge. I see these words sound a little mysteriously, but I intend to explain them; only I must ask one favor of you. I hope, before I leave the room, to show that I have, if not a claim upon your generosity, at least a plea to warrant my request. My entreaty is this, that you will never divulge to any one what I shall now tell you.”
“Pray, my dear friend, consider for a moment what you are asking. Why make me the depositary of a secret? An old man, whose very years are like ‘fissures in the strong keep,’ where mysteries should be imprisoned.”
“Could I participate in your reasonings, my dear sir, there is yet enough in the present instance to make it an exception. This is a matter you ought to know for your sake, and to keep secret for mine.”
“Then you have my promise,” said Corrigan, frankly.
“I ‘ll be brief with my explanation,” said Linton. “When there was a design, some time back, of my accepting the representation of the borough, Cashel offered me his property of Tubber-beg, on terms which very nearly approached a gift. This—though at the time our relations were those of the closest friendship—I refused; but, as I had made some progress in my canvass of the borough, there was a difficulty in abandoning the position; and so the matter hung, each hoping that the other would suggest some arrangement that might satisfy both. This fortunate device, however, was not to be discovered, and as, for some time back, our intercourse had become gradually less intimate, the chance of such a solution diminished daily.
“In this way the affair stood, when, a couple of mornings since, I felt it my duty, as one who really felt an interest in him, to remonstrate with Roland on a circumstance which, without any affectation of prudery, would have gravely compromised himself, and, worse still, another person. It was a case,—I know not exactly how to touch upon a matter of such delicacy; enough if I say it was one where a persistence in his conduct must have ended in disgrace to him, ruin and misery to another. Poor thing! she is, indeed, to be pitied; and if there be extenuation for such cases, hers is one to claim it. I knew her as Laura Gardiner,—the handsomest creature I ever beheld. Well, well, it is a theme I must not linger on. Cashel, so far from receiving my counsel as I hoped, and indeed expected, resented it with anger and rudeness, and even questioned the degree of intimacy on which I presumed to give my unasked advice.
“I am fortunately a man of cool temper, and so I bore this ungenerous return better than most others might; and seeing that it would possibly be the last occasion I should ever have of giving even unwilling counsel, I spoke to him freely and openly. I told him that his mode of living, while derogatory to the hopes conceived of him, was one that must end at last in ruin; that no fortune could stand his losses at play, and the wasteful extravagance of his caprices. I pressed the matter as strongly as I was able, and represented that his habits bore no reference whatever to his income.
“‘It is quite true,’ said he, with a sneering tone; ‘I cannot readily forget I am chargeable with all these wasteful ways you speak of, nor do I feel that I make any the slightest defence of myself, in regard to habits where my generosity has been as lavish as it has been ill-bestowed.’
“‘I wish I knew if I understand you aright,’ said I.
“‘Your comprehension is of the quickest where there is question of a favor to be received.’
“I did not trust myself with any answer to this speech, which I well knew was a trait of his old buccaneer life. I withdrew, and hastening to his law-agent, Kennyfeck, I at once arranged for the purchase of this small property. The moment for me was propitious; they were in want of ready money, and the treaty was completed the same day. There is the title.”
As he spoke, he threw down the parchment deed upon the table, and lay back in his chair, watching with intense delight the expression of sadness and disappointment on Corrigan’s features.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the old man at last, “how deceived I have been in him!”
“I confess that is what wounds me most in the whole transaction,” said Linton, with a mock emotion in his manner. “One is well accustomed through life to meet sordid motives in mere men of the world, and who deem their low-born subtilty cleverness; but to find a young fellow, beginning life with an ample fortune and a fair position, surrounded by all the blandishments that wealth charms up—”
“Hold!” cried Corrigan, laying his hand on Linton’s arm, “I cannot bear this. It is not at my age, sir, that disappointments like these can be borne easily. I have too short a time before me here to hope to recover from such shocks.”
“I would not willingly give you pain, my dear sir; nor indeed, is this the topic on which I am most anxious to address you. Another and a very different interest led me hither this morning; and, although I have thought long and maturely on the subject, I am as far as ever from knowing how to approach it. My own unworthiness to what I aspire recoils upon me at every instant, and nothing but the indulgent kindness with which you have always regarded me could give me courage. Forgive me this prolixity; I am like one who fears to plunge, lest he should never rise again.”
“If my estimate of you be correct,” said the old man, laying his hand upon Linton’s, “the goal must needs be high to which you dare not aspire.”
“It is indeed so!” cried Linton, as if carried away by an irresistible emotion. “To me it means station, hope, worldly success, happiness,—ay, life itself. I cannot longer tamper with your feelings, nor my own. The ambition of which I speak, is to be your son; not alone in the affectionate love which already I bear you, but by the closest and dearest ties, to be bound to you in the same chain by which she is, who owns all my heart and all my destiny.”
He stopped as if overcome; and Corrigan, compassionating the agitation he seemed to suffer, said,—
“Be calm, my dear friend; this takes me by surprise. I was not in any way prepared for such an announcement; nor have I courage to look at its consequences; poor, old, companionless as I should be—”
“Nay, such cruelty was not in my thoughts. It was with far other intentions I became possessed of the property; it was in the glorious hope that it would be our home,—yours and mine together; not to render your hearth desolate, but to give it another guest, whose duty would be his title to be there.”
“Let me think,—let me reflect on this,—let me separate my own selfish thoughts from the higher ones that should guide me. You have not spoken to my daughter?”
“No, sir; I deemed the more honorable course to have your sanction; or, if not that, to bury my sorrows in silence forever.”
“There is so much to consider, and I am so weak and infirm, so inadequate to decide. Your proposal is a proud one for any girl,—I know it; and we are proud, although poor. Ay, Mr. Linton, poor to very necessity! If her affections were engaged by you, if I saw that your high qualities had made the impression upon her that they have on me, I own this offer would delight me; but can you say this is the case?”
“I hope, sir, I am not indifferent to Miss Leicester. The humble fortune which has restrained me hitherto, and prevented my prosecuting an attachment to which I felt I had no claim, exists no longer. I am independent in means, as in opinion; and, however conscious of my personal unworthiness, in all that regards station and condition I ‘m in a position to satisfy you. I only ask your sanction to address Miss Leicester, to know, in fact, that if I should prove acceptable to her, that you will not look unfavorably upon me.”
“This appears most candid and fair on your part; and it is a time when we must both use candor and fairness. Now, Mr. Linton, there are circumstances which at this moment involve me in considerable difficulty; I cannot enter into them just yet; but they may offer grave obstacles to what you propose. I will, therefore, beg of you not to press me for my answer. I see this delay is displeasing—”
“Nay, sir, I am ready to yield to anything you suggest; but is it not possible that my assistance and advice might be of service in these difficulties you speak of?”
“There is another point, Mr. Linton,—and I know you will think better of me for all my frankness. Are your friends—your family I mean—aware of this step of yours? are you certain of their concurrence in it?”
“I have few relatives living, sir,” said Linton, reddening; “but I can answer for their participation in all that so nearly concerns my happiness.”
“This evening, then; come to me this evening, then,” said Mr. Corrigan, “and you shall hear my sentiments.”
“This is most kind; I can ask for nothing more,” said Linton; and, with a most affectionate pressure of the old man’s hand, departed.
CHAPTER XV. POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS
Be grateful too! you ask, “for what?”
Simply, for that you never got;
And you ‘ll get something yet.
Machiavelli Travestied.
Mr. Linton, like a large majority of the cunning people in this world, made the mistake of supposing that every one had an “after-thought,”—some secret mental reservation in all he said; that, in fact, no one told “the whole truth” on any subject. Now, judging Mr. Corrigan by this rule, he came to the conclusion that the old gentleman had not received his addresses with all the warmth that might be expected;—possibly, in the hope of a more advantageous offer; possibly, because, in his old Irish pride of family, he had got to learn who this Mr. Linton was, what his connections, and what position they held in the society of their own country.
In this way did Linton read the old man’s inquiry as to the “concurrence of his relatives.” It was, to his thinking, a mere subtle attempt to ascertain who and what these same relatives were. “A clever stroke in its way,” thought Tom; “but I am not to be drawn out of my intrenchment so easily. Still, the theme will linger in his mind, and must be got rid of.”
Linton knew well how the influence of rank and title can smooth down difficulties of this kind, and ran over in his mind the names of at least a dozen peers, any one of whom, in such an emergency, would have owned him for a half-brother, or a cousin, at least.
It was provoking to think how many there were, at that dull season, listless and unemployed, who could, were he only able to summon them, stand sponsors to his rank and condition. Measuring Corrigan by what he had witnessed in other men of small fortune and retired lives, he deemed “a lord” was all-essential. Linton had seen a great deal of life, and a great deal of that submissive homage so readily conceded to nobility. A lord, at a wedding, is like a captain in a duel; they are the great ingredients which warrant that these events “come off” properly; they place beyond all cavil or question whatever may occur; and they are the recognizances one enters into with the world that he is “spliced” or shot like a gentleman. It is quite true Linton was above this vulgarity; but he was not above the vulgarity of attributing it to another.
The more he reflected on this, the more did he believe it to be the solution of the whole difficulty. “My kingdom for a lord!” exclaimed he, laughing aloud at the easy gullibility of that world which he had duped so often.
The reader is aware that of the pleasant company of Tub-bermore, Lord Kilgoff was the only representative of the peerage; and to him Linton’s thoughts at once resorted as the last hope in his emergency. Of late his Lordship had been gradually mending: clear intervals broke through the mist of his clouded faculties, and displayed him, for the time, in all his wonted self-importance, irritability, and pertinacity. To catch him in one of these fortunate moments was the object, and so induce him to pay a visit to the cottage.
Could he but succeed in this, none better than the old peer to play the part assigned to him. The very qualities to make his society intolerable would be, here, the earnest of success; the imperturbable conceit, the pompous distance of his manner, would repel inquiry, and Linton saw that his oracle would not utter one word more than he ought.
“He will not,—I dare not ask him to call me his relative,” said he; “but I can easily throw a hazy indistinctness over our intimacy. He can be a friend of ‘my poor father,’”—Tom laughed at the conceit,—“one who knew me from the cradle. With him for a foreground figure, I ‘ll soon paint an imaginary group around him, not one of whom shall be less than a marquis.
“With Mary this will not succeed. Laura, indeed, might do me good service in that quarter, but I cannot trust her. Were she more skilled in this world’s ways, she would gladly aid me—it would be like drawing the game between us; but she is rash, headlong, and passionate. I doubt if even her fears would control her. And yet I might work well upon these! I have the will, and the way, both; the event shall decide whether I employ them.” With these thoughts passing in his mind he reached the house, and entering unobserved, since they were all at breakfast, repaired to his own room.
He immediately sat down and wrote a few lines to Lord Kilgoff, inquiring with solicitude after his health, and craving the favor of being permitted to wait upon him. This done, he amused himself by inventing a number of little political “gossipries” for the old peer,—those small nothings which form the sweepings of clubs and the whisperings of under-secretaries’ offices; the pleasant trifles which every one repeats, but no one believes.
“My Lord will see Mr. Linton whenever he pleases,” was the answer of the valet; and Linton lost no time in availing himself of the permission.
“His Lordship is at breakfast?” said he to the servant, as he walked along.
“Yes, sir.”
“And her Ladyship?”
“My Lady breakfasts below stairs, sir.”
“As it ought to be; he is alone,” thought Linton, who, in his present incertitude of purpose, had no desire to meet her.
“If you ‘ll have the goodness to wait a moment, sir, I ‘ll tell my Lord you are here,” said the man, as he ushered Linton into a handsome drawing-room, which various scattered objects denoted to be her Ladyship’s.
As Linton looked over the table, where books, drawings, and embroidery were negligently thrown, his eye caught many an object he had known long, long before; and there came over him, ere he knew it, a strange feeling of melancholy. The past rushed vividly to his mind,—that time when, sharing with her all his ambitions and his hopes, he had lived in a kind of fairy world. He turned over the leaves of her sketch-book,—she had done little of late,—an unfinished bit, here and there, was all he found; and he sat gazing at the earlier drawings, every one of which he remembered. There was one of an old pine-tree scathed by lightning, at the top, but spreading out, beneath, into a light and feathery foliage, beneath which they had often sat together. A date in pencil had been written at the foot, but was now erased, leaving only enough to discover where it had been. Linton’s breathing grew hurried, and his pale cheek paler, as with his head resting on his hands he sat, bent over this. “I was happier, then,” said he, with a sigh that seemed to rise from his very heart,—“far happier! But would it have lasted? that is the question. Would mere love have compensated for thwarted ambition, delusive hope, and poverty? How should I have borne continued reverses?”
The door opened, and Lady Kilgoff entered; not seeing him, nor expecting any one in the apartment, she was humming an opera air, when suddenly she perceived him.
“Mr. Linton here? This is a surprise indeed!” exclaimed she, as, drawing herself proudly up, she seemed to question the reason of his presence.
“I beg you will forgive an intrusion which was not of my seeking. I came to pay my respects to Lord Kilgoff, and his servant showed me into this chamber until his Lordship should be ready to receive me.”
“Won’t you be seated, sir?” said she, with an accent which it would be difficult to say whether it implied an invitation or the opposite.
Few men had more self-possession than Linton, fewer still knew better how to construe a mere accent, look, or a gesture; and yet, he stood now, uncertain and undecided how to act. Meanwhile Lady Kilgoff, arranging the frame of her embroidery, took her seat near the window.
“Penelope must have worked in Berlin wool, I ‘m certain,” said Linton, as he approached where she sat. “These wonderful tissues seem never to finish.”
“In that lies their great merit,” replied she, smiling; “it is sometimes useful to have an occupation whose monotony disposes to thought, even when the thoughts themselves are not all pleasurable.”
“I should have fancied that monotony would dispose to brooding,” said he, slowly.
“Perhaps it may, now and then,” said she, carelessly. “Life, like climate, should not be all sunshine;” and then, as if wishing to change the theme, she added, “you have been absent a day or two?”
“Yes; an unexpected piece of fortune has befallen me. I find myself the heir of a considerable property, just as I have reached that point in life when wealth has no charm for me! There was a time when—but, no matter; regrets are half-brother to cowardice.”
“We can no more help one than the other, occasionally,” said she, with a faint sigh; and both were silent for some time.
“Is not that tulip somewhat too florid?” said he, stooping over her embroidery.
“That tulip is a poppy, Mr. Linton.”
“What a natural mistake, after all!” said he. “How many human tulips who not only look like, but are downright poppies! Is not this house intolerably stupid?”
“I ‘m ashamed to own I think it pleasant,” said she, smiling.
“You were more fastidious once, if my memory serves me aright,” said he, meaningly.
“Perhaps so,” said she, carelessly. “I begin to fancy that odd people are more amusing than clever ones; and certainly they entertain without an effort, and that is an immense gain.”
“Do you think so? I should have supposed the very effort would have claimed some merit, showing that the desire to please had prompted it.”
“My Lord will see Mr. Linton at present,” said the servant.
Linton nodded, and the man withdrew.
“How long ago is it since you made this sketch?” said he, opening the book, as if accidentally, at the page with the pine-tree.
She turned, and although her bent-down head concealed her features, Linton saw the crimson flush spread over the neck as she answered, “About three years ago.”
“Scarcely so much,” said he. “If I mistake not, I wrote the date myself beneath it; but it has worn out.”
“You will excuse my reminding you, Mr. Linton, that Lord Kilgoff has not regained his habitual patience, and will be very irritable if you defer a pleasure such as a visit from you always affords him.”
“Happy conjuncture,” said he, smiling, “that can make my presence desired in one quarter, when my absence is wished for in another.” And with a low, respectful bow, he left the room.
Whatever the object of the hint, Lady Kilgoff had not exaggerated his Lordship’s deficiency in the Job-like element, and Linton found him, on entering, interrogating the servant as to whether he “had conveyed his message properly, and what answer he had received.”
“That will do; leave the room,” said he. Then turning to Linton, “I have waited twelve minutes, sir,—nearly thirteen,—since my servant informed you I would receive you.”
“I am exceedingly sorry, my Lord, to have occasioned you even a moment of impatience. I was mentioning to Lady Kilgoff a circumstance of recent good fortune to myself, and I grieve that my egotism should have mastered my sense of propriety.”
“Twelve minutes, or thirteen, either, may seem a very unimportant fraction of time to men of mere pleasure, but to those whose weightier cares impose graver thoughts, is a very considerable inroad, sir.”
“I know it, my Lord. I feel it deeply, and I beg you to excuse me.”
“Life is too short, at least in its active period, to squander twelve minutes, Mr. Linton; and however you, in your station, and with your pursuits, may deem otherwise, I would wish to observe, that persons in mine think differently.”
Linton looked a perfect statue of contrition, nor did he utter another word. Perhaps he felt that continuing the discussion would be but an indifferent mode of compensating for the injury already incurred.
“And now, Mr. Linton, I conclude that it was not without a reason you sought an interview at this unusual hour.”
“The old story, my Lord; and as I came to ask a favor, I selected the petit lever as the most appropriate hour.”
“Indeed! you surprise me much how an individual so much forgotten as Lord Kilgoff can possibly be of service to that most promising gentleman, Mr. Linton!”
Linton never heeded the sarcastic discontent of the speech, but went on,—
“Yes, my Lord, you find me, as you have so often found me, a suppliant.”
“I have nothing to bestow, sir.”
“You can do all that I could ask, or even wish for, my Lord. My ambition is not very unmeasured; my greatest desire is to have the opportunity of frequent intercourse with you, and the benefit of that practical wisdom for which your Lordship s conversation is distinguished at home and abroad.”
“My valet is not going to leave me,” said the old man, with an insolence of look that tallied with the rude speech.
“My Lord!—”
“Nay, nay, you must not be offended; I was rather jesting on my own barrenness of patronage than upon your proposal.”
Linton saw by the slight advantage he had gained that the bold course was the more promising, and continued:—
“You will soon have a great deal of business on your hands, my Lord, and so, I will economize your time and your patience. You have not heard, I am aware, that Dollington has been recalled. The mission at Florence is to give away, and I am here to ask for the secretaryship. I know well that the appointment is a Foreign-Office one; but Blackwell, who gives me the present information, says, ‘If you have interest with Kilgoff, push it now; his recommendation will, I know, be attended to.’ He then goes on to say that Dollington is most anxious to know if you would take his house off his hands. He has been furnishing and arranging the interior most expensively, never dreaming of a recall.”
“When did this news come?” said Lord Kilgoff, sitting down and wiping his forehead, on which the perspiration now stood, from agitation.
“Yesterday. Blackwell sent a cabinet messenger to me, but with the strictest injunctions to secrecy. In fact, the rumor would call so many suitors in the field, that the Foreign Office would be besieged.”
“You can rely upon it, however?”
“Unquestionably. Blackwell writes me that the thing is done. You will receive the offer immediately after the recess.”
“You acted very properly, I must say,—very properly, indeed, in giving me this early notice of his Majesty’s gracious intentions with regard to me; the more, as I shall have time to consider how far my views upon questions of foreign politics are in agreement with those of the Government.”
“Upon that point your Lordship’s mind may be at rest. I gather from Blackwell that you will receive the widest discretion. The Secretary of State has named you as the man; of course interference is out of the question.”
“Of course it would be, sir, were I to accept the mission. Dollington’s house, I conclude, is a suitable one, and we ‘ll think of it; and as to yourself, Linton, I really am at a loss what to say. Lady Kilgoff—it is best to be candid—is prejudiced against you. She thinks you satirical and sarcastic, as if,”—and here he raised his head, and threw forward his chin with most imposing dignity,—“as if the person who bore my name need fear such qualities anywhere; but besides this, it appears to me that your abilities are not diplomatic. You have neither that natural reserve nor that suave impressiveness ‘the line’ requires. You are a Club man,-and will probably make a very good House of Commons man; but diplomacy, Mr. Linton,—diplomacy is a high, I had almost said a sacred vocation! To all the prestige of family and ancient lineage must be added the most insinuating graces of manner. Personal advantages should be combined with a high cultivation, so that the Envoy may worthily mirror forth the Majesty he represents. It would be an inestimable benefit if the Eastern principle of ‘caste’ were observed in diplomacy, and the office of Ambassador be limited to certain families! Believe me, sir, you may say of such, ‘Nascitur non fit.’”
As he spoke, his eyes flashed, and his cheek became flushed; the flutter of self-importance gave a fresh impulse to his circulation, and he walked back and forward in a perfect ecstasy of delight.
“Alas, my Lord! you have made me feel too deeply the presumption of my request. I confess, till I had listened to your eloquent exposition, I had formed other and very erroneous ideas upon this subject. I see, now, that I am quite unsuited to the career. The very fact that it becomes your Lordship is evidence enough how unfitted it would prove to me.”
“I will not say, that in Greece, or perhaps with some republican government, you might not be very eligible. We’ll consider about it.”
“No, no, my Lord; I’ll content myself with more humble fortunes. I suppose there is always a place for every capacity; and now, to a matter purely personal to myself, and in which, I hope, I may count upon your kind co-operation. I have thoughts of marriage, my Lord, and as I am a stranger in this country, unconnected with it by kindred or connection, I would ask of you to give me that sanction and currency which the honor of your Lordship’s friendship confers. The lady upon whom I have fixed my choice is without fortune, but of a family which traces back to royalty, I fancy. This Irish pride of lineage, then, requires that I, upon my side, should not be deficient in such pretensions.”
“I am not a Clarencieux, nor Norroy, sir, to make out your genealogy,” said the old peer, with ineffable disdain.
Linton had more difficulty to control his laughter than his anger at this impertinent absurdity. “I was not thinking of ‘the tree,’ my Lord, but its last and most insignificant twig, myself; and, remembering how many kindnesses I owed you, how uniformly your patronage had befriended me through life, I still reckon upon the feeling to serve me once more.”
“Be explicit. What do you ask?” said he, leaning back and looking like a monarch whose will was half omnipotence.
“What I should like, my Lord, is this,—that you would permit me to drive you over some morning to the gentleman’s house, where, presenting the family to your Lordship, I might, while enjoying the sanction of your intimacy and friendship, also obtain your opinion upon the merits of one with whom I would link my humble destinies. I have said that the lady has no fortune; but your Lordship has shown the noble example of selecting for far higher and more ennobling qualities than wealth.” This was said with a spice of that subdued raillery of which Linton was a master; and he saw, with delight, how the old peer winced under it.
“Very true, sir; your remark is just, except that the disparity between our conditions does not give the instance the force of example; nor am I certain the experiment will be always successful!” The irritation under which the last words were uttered spread a triumphant joy through Linton’s heart, nor dare he trust himself to speak, lest he should reveal it!
“Perhaps a letter, Mr. Linton, would answer your object. It appears to me that the condescension of a visit is a step too far in advance. You are aware that, in a day or two, as his Majesty’s representative, etiquette would require that I should never make the initiative in acquaintance.”
“Pardon my interrupting, my Lord; but that rule will only apply to you at the seat of your mission. Here, you have no other distinction than of being the well-known leader of the Irish peerage,—the great head of an illustrious body, who look up to you for guidance and direction.”
“You are right, perhaps, sir,—my station is what you have described it. I trust you have not mentioned to Lady Kilgoff anything of your Foreign-Office news?”
“Of course not, my Lord. It will always remain with your discretion when and how to make the communication.”
“It appears to me, sir, that her Ladyship has admitted many of the inmates here to a degree of intimacy quite inconsistent with their relative stations.”
“Her Ladyship’s youth and amiability of manner offer great temptations to the inroads of obtrusiveness,” said Linton, with the air of one thinking aloud.
“I disagree with you, sir, entirely. I was young myself, sir, and, I am told, not quite destitute of those attractions you speak of; but I am not aware that any one ever took a liberty with me! This must be looked to. And now, your affair? When is it to come off? Your marriage, I mean?”
“That is by no means so certain, my Lord,” said Linton, who smiled in spite of himself at the careless tone in which his Lordship treated so very humble an event. “I may reckon on your Lordship’s assistance, however?”
Lord Kilgoff waved his hand in token of acquiescence, and Linton took a formal leave, almost bursting with laughter at the ridiculous conceit he had himself contributed to create.
“Ay,” muttered he, as he descended the stairs, “as a democrat, an out-and-out democrat, I say, ‘Long live’ an Hereditary Peerage! ‘I know nothing can equal it, in making the untitled classes the rulers.”
CHAPTER XVI. A WET DAT—THE FALSE SIGNAL
So cunning, like the doubling of the hare,
Oft turns upon itself.
Bell.
It was a rainy day,—one of those downright pelting, pouring, swooping wet days which Ireland is accustomed to, for nearly one half of every year. All out-of-door occupation was impossible; the most fidgety could only get as far as the stables, to smoke a cigar and “chaff” horse-talk with the grooms; while the more resigned wandered from room to room, and place to place, in that restlessness that defies common philosophy to subdue.
A wet day in a country house is always a severe trial. Sociability will not be coerced, and the greater the necessity for mutual assistance, the less is the disposition to render it; besides, they who habitually contribute least to the enjoyment of their fellows have always great resources of annoyance at such periods,—as the most insignificant instrument in the orchestra can at any moment destroy the harmony of the band.
Scarcely was breakfast over in Tubbermore than the guests were scattered in various directions, it was difficult to say where. Now and then, some one would peep into the drawing-room or the library, and, as if not seeing “the right man,” shut the door noiselessly, and depart. Of the younger men, many were sleeping off the debauch of the previous evening. Downie Meek, who had a theory upon the subject, always kept his bed while it rained. Sir Andrew had, unfortunately, mistaken a lotion containing laudanum for some concoction of bitters, and was obliged to be kept eternally walking up and down stairs, along corridors and passages, lest he should drop asleep; his man, Flint, accompanying him with “the wakeful announcement” of “Hae a care, Sir Andrew; here ‘s my leddy,”—an antidote to the narcotic worth all the Pharmacopoeia contained.
Lady Janet was meanwhile deep in the formation of a stomachic, which, judging from the maid’s face as she tasted it, must needs have been of the pungent order. Mrs. White was letter-writing. Howie was sketching heads of the company, under the title of “Beauties of Ireland,” for a weekly newspaper. Frobisher was instructing Miss Meek in the science of making knee-caps for one of his horses; and so with the remainder, a few only were to be seen below stairs; of these the “Chief” was fast asleep with the “Quarterly” on his knee, and a stray subaltern or two sat conning over the “Army List,” and gazing in stupid wonder at their own names in print! And now we come to the Kennyfecks, at whose door a servant stands knocking for the second or third time. “Come in” is heard, and he enters.
The blinds are drawn, which, adding to the gloom of the day, the vast apartment is in semi-darkness, and it is some time before you can descry the figures. On a sofa sits Mrs. Kennyfeck in a kind of travelling-dress, with her bonnet beside her; fragments of ribbons and stray articles of dress litter the sofa and the table, several trunks are strewn about, and a maid and a man are performing a pas de deux on an “imperial,” which, in its efforts to close at the lock, is giving way simultaneously at the hinges. Miss Kennyfeck stands at the chimney burning notes and letters, of which, as she glances from time to time, her features betray the tenor; and, lastly, Olivia is lying on a sofa, her face concealed between her hands, and only the quick palpitation of her bosom showing that her agitation is not lulled in slumber.
“What does he say? I can’t hear him with all that stamping,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck; and her voice was not of the dulcet order.
“He says the post-horses have come, mamma, and wishes to know when he’s to come round with the carriage.”
“When I give orders for it; not till then,” said she, imperiously; and the man, abashed in such a presence, departed.
“There, Pearse, leave it so; I cannot bear that noise any longer. Frances, you need n’t wait; I ‘ll send for you if I want you;” and the servants withdrew.
“He’s at least two hours away, now,” said she, addressing her eldest daughter.
“Very nearly. It wanted only a few minutes to eleven when Mr. Cashel sent for him.”
“I hope, Caroline, that he will remember what is due, not to himself,—I cannot say that,—but to me, on this occasion. It is impossible that Cashel can avoid the acknowledgment of his attentions; nothing but your father’s incompetence could permit of his escape.”
“It’s too late, mamma,—altogether too late. When Aunt Fanny—”
“Don’t speak of her; don’t even mention her name in my presence,” cried Mrs. Kennyfeck, with an accent of bitter anguish.
“I was merely going to observe, mamma, that her conduct has involved us in such ridicule, that reparation of the mischief is out of the question.”
“I wish we were away; I cannot bear to stay another day here,” said Olivia, with a deep sigh.
“If Aunt—”
“Don’t call her your aunt, Caroline,—I forbid it; she is no sister of mine; she has been the evil genius of our family all her life long. But for her and her wiles I had never been married to your father! Just fancy what a position you might have had now, but for that cruel mishap.”
The problem, to judge from Miss Kennyfeck’s face, seemed difficult to solve; but she prudently held her peace.
“You may rest assured they know it all below stairs. That odious Lady Janet has told it in every dressing-room already.”
“And Linton, mamma,” said Caroline, whose sisterly feelings were merged in most impartial justice,—“only fancy Linton imitating Aunt Fanny’s benediction with uplifted hands and eyes. I almost think I see him before me, and hear the insolent shouts of laughter on every side.”
“Give me the aromatic vinegar!” cried Mrs. Kennyfeck, with an accent like suffocation.
“I think there ‘s some one at the door. Come in,” cried Miss Kennyfeck; and a very smartly dressed groom entered with a note.
“Is there any answer to this?” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, listlessly, who thought it one of the habitual invitations to some excursion in a carriage or on horseback.
“Yes, my Lady,” said the servant, bowing.
The title sounded pleasantly, and Mrs. K.‘s features relaxed as she broke the seal.
Ah, Mrs. Kennyfeck, indolently and carelessly as you hold that small epistle in your fingers, it cost him who wrote it many a puzzling thought, and many a fair sheet of foolscap. Critics assure us that style is no criterion of the labor of composition, and that Johnson’s rounded periods ran flippantly off the pen, while the seemingly careless sentences of Rousseau cost days and nights of toil. The note was from Sir Harvey Upton, and neither by its caligraphy nor grammar shed lustre on the literary genius of his corps. It went thus:—
My dear Madam,—The beauty and fascinations of your
daughters—but more especially of the second—have
conspired to inspire me with sentiments of respectful
admiration, which may speedily become something warmer
should I obtain the gratifying sensation of your
approbation.
Family, fortune, and future expectations, will I fancy, be
found “all right.”
Part of the estate entailed on the baronetcy; encumbrances,
a trifle.
I am, waiting your reply, dear madam, Very respectfully
yours,
Harvey Upton,
——Hussars.
“Shall we write, Cary?” whispered Mrs. Kennyfeck, in the very faintest of tones.
“Better not, mamma; a verbal ‘happy to see Sir Harvey,’ safer,” was the answer.
Mrs. Kennyfeck yielded to the sager counsel, and the servant departed with the message.
“We may leave the matter entirely with Livy, mamma,” said her sister, half sarcastically; “I opine that innocence, upon the present occasion, will carry the day.”
“I am glad of it,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck; “I am fatigued and out of spirits: I ‘d rather not receive visitors.”
“A white frock and a little sentiment,—a sprig of jessamine and a bit of poetry!” said Miss K., as she arranged her hair at the glass; “only don’t overdo it, Livy.”
“I ‘d much rather you ‘d not go!” said Olivia, languidly.
“Of course, my dear, we are perfectly aware of that; but we have our duties also. Mamma must take care that Aunt Fanny does not ‘give you away’ before you ‘re asked for; and I must see what the result of papa’s interview with Cashel may be, lest you should make a bad market while a good bid is being offered.”
“Clever creature!” murmured Mrs. Kennyfeck, as she rose to leave the room.
“It will seem so odd, mamma, that I’m to receive him, alone!”
“Not at all, Livy; we are packing up to go off: there are the trunks and cap-cases all strewn about. You can be engaged with Frances, and send her to summon us when Sir Harvey comes,” said Miss Kennyfeck.
“Just so, my dear; and then you ‘ll entreat of him to sit down,—all as if you had heard nothing of his note; you ‘ll be quite lively and natural in your manner.”
“Ah, mamma, remember what Talleyrand said to the Emperor: ‘Give me the instructions, sire, but leave the knavery to myself.’ My sweet sister is quite diplomatic enough to re-echo it.”
Livy looked reproachfully at her, but said nothing.
“If I discover, my dear, that the high prize is on your ticket, I ‘ll wear a handkerchief round my neck. Without you see this emblem, don’t discard your baronet.”
“Mamma, is this quite fair?” said Olivia. “Cary speaks as if my heart had no possible concern in the matter.”
“Quite the reverse, my dear; but bear in mind that you have only one heart, and it would not be altogether discreet to give it away to two parties. Cary is always right, my love, in morals as in everything else!”
“And how am I to behave, mamma,” said Olivia, with more courage than before, “if I am neither to refuse nor accept Sir Harvey’s proposals?”
“Did you never flirt, Livy dearest? Doesn’t every partner with whom you dance twice of the same evening make advances that are neither repelled nor received? The silliest boarding-school miss that ever blushed before her Italian teacher knows how to treat such difficulties, if they deserve the name. But we are delaying too long. Mamma! to your post, while I, in the library, establish a strict blockade over papa.”
With these words Miss Kennyfeck waved her hand affectedly in adieu, and led her mother from the room; while Olivia, after a second’s pause, arose and arrayed more smoothly the silky tresses of her hair before the glass.
We have once already, in this veracious narrative, been ungallant enough to peep at this young lady, and coolly watch her strategy before the enemy. We will not repeat the offence, nor linger to mark how, as she walked the room, she stopped from time to time before the mirror to gaze on charms which expectancy had already heightened; in fact, we will quit the chamber with Mrs. Kennyfeck and her elder daughter, and as the choice is permitted which to follow, we select the latter.
“Here ‘s Miss Kennyfeck, by Jove!” cried Jennings, as she crossed the hall. “We have all been dying to see you; pray come here and give us your counsel.” And he led her into a small drawing-room, where, around a table covered with prints and colored drawings of costume, a considerable number of the guests were assembled.
“For mercy’s sake, nothing out of the Waverley novels!” said the blond lady. “I am wearied of seeing the Jewess Rebecca wherever I go.”
“Well, I’ll be Diana Vernon, I know that,” said Miss Meek; “you may all choose how you please.”
“But you can’t be, my love, if we have the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’” said Mrs. White.
“Why can’t I, if Charley takes Osbaldiston?” said she.
“Because they are not characters of the piece.”
“Nobody cares for character in a masquerade!” said Linton.
“Or if they have any, they put a mask over it,” said Lady Janet
“I vote that we are all Tyrolese peasanths,” lisped the fat and dumpy Mrs. Malone. “It’s a most picthuresque costhume.”
“What will you be, Sir Andrew?” cried another, as the old general passed the door in a dog-trot, with Flint behind him.
“By me saul! I thenk I’ll be the Wanderin’ Jew!” cried he, wiping the perspiration off his forehead.
“You hear that, Lady Janet?” said Linton, roguishly. “Sir Andrew intends to live forever.”
“So that I don’t, sir, I can’t complain,” said she, with a tartness quite electric.
“I incline to leave the choice of each free,” said Miss Kennyfeck, as she tossed over the drawings. “When you select a story, there are always a certain number of characters nobody likes to take.”
“I’ll be Henri Quatre,” said an infantry captain. “I wish you ‘d be Gabrielle, Miss Kennyfeck?”
“Thanks; but I ‘ve a fancy for that Cephalonian costume.”
“Egad! you can always pick up a ‘Greek’ or two, here, to keep you company,” said a hussar; but no one joined his laugh.
“I’ll be Don Belianis!” said a tall, melancholy subaltern.
“What were you at Bellingden’s last year, Fillymore?”
“I went as ‘Chiffney;’ but they turned me out. The whole was mediaeval, and they said I was all wrong.”
“Try that turban, my dear Miss Kennyfeck,” said Mrs. White, who, suspecting the young lady wore false ringlets, made a vigorous effort to expose the cheat.
“By Jove! how becoming!” exclaimed Jennings. “Now, put on the mantle,—not over the right shoulder, but so,—crossed a little.”
“You ought to have this scarf round your neck,” said another; “blue and gold have such an excellent effect.”
“I vote for your wearing that,” said the hussar, quite smitten with her beauty. “What do they call the dress?”
“Costume of Leopoldine of Eschingen, who defended the ‘Irongate’ against the Turks, in 1662.”
“Where was that?” asked one.
“In somebody’s avenue, I suppose,” lisped out the tall sub.
“No, no; it ‘s on some river or other. There’s a cataract they call the Irongate,—I forget where.”
“The Lethe, perhaps,” said Miss Kennyfeck, slyly.
“Is not that a pace! by Jove! Cashel ‘s in a hurry. This way,” said Jennings; and they all rushed to the window in time to see Roland flit past at a full gallop.
Miss Kennyfeck did not wait for more; but, throwing off the turban and mantle, hastened out to catch her father, who, at the same instant, was issuing from the library..
“Now, pa,” said she, slipping her arm within his, “how is it to be? Pray, now, don’t affect the mysterious, but say at once,—has he proposed?”
“Who? has who proposed?”
“Mr. Cashel, of course. How could I mean any other?”
“For you, my dear?” said he, for once venturing upon a bit of raillery.
“Pshaw, pa; for Olivia!”
“Nothing of the kind, my dear. Such a subject has never been alluded to between us.”
“Poor thing! she has been badly treated, then, that’s all! It would, however, have saved us all a world of misconception if you had only said so at first; you must own that.”
“But you forget, Miss Kennyfeck, that I never supposed you entertained this impression. Mr. Cashel’s conversation with me related exclusively to the affairs of his property.”
“Poor Livy!” said Miss Kennyfeck, letting go his arm and ascending the stairs. As Miss Kennyfeck drew near the door of the drawing room, she began to sing sufficiently loud to be heard by those within, and thus, judiciously heralding her approach, she opened the door and entered. Sir Harvey had been standing beside the chimney-piece with Olivia, but turned hastily round, his countenance exhibiting that state of mingled doubt, fear, and satisfaction, which vouched for the cleverness of the young lady’s tactics. Nothing, in truth, could have been more adroit than her management; performing a feat which among naval men is known as “backing and filling,” she succeeded in manoeuvring for nigh an hour, without ever advancing or retiring. We should be unwilling to deny our reader the value of a lesson, did we not feel how the fairer portion of our audience would weary over a recital, in every detail of which they could instruct our ignorance.
The late Lord Londonderry was famed for being able to occupy “the house” for any given time without ever communicating a fact, raising a question, solving a difficulty, or, what is harder than all, committing himself. But how humbly does this dexterity appear beside the young-lady-like tact that, opposed by all the importunity of a lover, can play the game in such wise that after fifty-odd minutes the “pieces” should stand upon the board precisely as they did at the beginning!
“How do you do, Sir Harvey? Why are you not on that committee of costume in the little drawing-room where the great question at issue is between the time of the crusades and the swell mob?”
“I have been far more agreeably occupied, in a manner that my feelings”—here Olivia looked disappointed,—“my heart, I mean,” said he—and the young lady looked dignified—“my feelings and my heart, too,” resumed be, horribly puzzled which tack to sail upon, “assure me must nearly concern my future happiness.”
“How pleasant!” said Cary, laughingly, as if she accepted the speech as some high-flown compliment; “you are so fortunate to know what to do on a dreary wet day like this.”
Olivia, whose eyes were bent upon her sister, changed color more than once. “The signal was flying,” “Stop firing,” just at the moment when the enemy had all but “struck;” in less figurative phrase, Miss Kennyfeck’s throat was encircled by the scarf which she had forgotten to lay aside on leaving the drawing-room.
The object was too remarkable to escape notice, and Olivia’s face grew scarlet as she thought of her triumph.
Miss Kennyfeck saw this, but attributed the agitation to anything but its true cause.
“I ‘m in search of mamma,” said she, and with a very peculiar glance at Olivia, left the room.
Sir Harvey’s visit lasted full twenty minutes longer; and although no record has been preserved of what passed on the occasion, they who met him descending the stairs all agreed in describing his appearance as most gloomy and despondent. As for Olivia, she saw the door close after him with a something very like sorrow. There was no love in the case, nor anything within a day’s journey of it; but he was good-looking, fashionable, well-mannered, and mustachioed. She would have been “my lady,” too; and though this is but a “brevet nobility” after all, it has all “the sound of the true metal.” She thought over all these things; and she thought, besides, how very sad he looked when she said “No;” and, how much sadder, when asked the usual question about “time, and proved devotion, and all that sort of thing,” she said “No,” again; and how, saddest of all, when she made the stereotyped little speech about “sisterly affection, and seeing him happy with another!” Oh dear! oh dear! is it not very wearisome and depressing to think that chess can have some hundred thousand combinations, and love-making but its two or three “gambits,”—the “fool’s-mate” the chief of them? We have said she was sorry for what had occurred; but she consoled herself by remembering it was not her fault that Sir Harvey was not as rich as Cashel, and nephew to a live uncle!
As Sir Harvey’s “lady”—Heaven forgive me, I had almost written “wife”—she would have been the envy of a very large circle of her Dublin acquaintance; and then she knew that these dragoon people have a way of making their money go so much further than civilians; and in all that regards horses, equipage, and outward show, the smartest “mufti” is a seedy affair beside the frogs of the new regulation pelisse! She actually began to feel misgivings about her choice. A high drag at the Howth races, a crowd of whiskered fellows of “ours,” and the band of the regiment in Merrion Square, came home to her “dear Dublin” imagination with irresistible fascination. In her mind’s eye, she had already cut the “bar,” and been coldly distant with the infantry. It was a little revery of small triumphs, but the sum of them mounted up to something considerable.
“Is he gone, Livy?” said Cary, as, entering noiselessly, she stole behind her sister’s chair.
“Yes, dear, he is gone!” said she, sighing slightly.
“My poor forlorn damsel, don’t take his absence so much to heart! You ‘re certain to see him at dinner!”
“He said he’d leave this afternoon,” said she, gravely; “that he could n’t bear to meet me after what had passed.”
“And what has passed, child?”
“You know, of course, Cary; I refused him!”
“Refused him!—refused him!—what possessed you to do so?”
“This!” said Olivia, gasping with terror at the unknown danger; and she caught hold of the fringe of her sister’s scarf. Miss Kennyfeck started, and put her hand to her neck, and, suddenly letting it fall again, she leaned against the wall for support.
“This was a mistake, Livy,” said she, in a voice barely above a whisper; “I was trying on some costumes below stairs, and they tied this round my neck, where I utterly forgot it.”
“And there is nothing—” She could not go on, but, hanging her head, burst into tears.
“My poor dear Livy, don’t give way so; the fault, I know, was all mine. Let me try if I cannot repair it Have you positively refused him?”
She nodded, but could not speak.
“Did you say that there was no hope,—that your sentiments could never change?”
“I did.”
“Come, that’s not so bad; men never believe that. You did n’t say that your affections were engaged?”
“No!”
“There ‘s a dear child,” said she, kissing her neck; “I knew you ‘d not be guilty of such folly. And how did you part, Livy,—coldly, or in affectionate sorrow?”
“Coldly; we did not shake hands.”
“That’s right; all as it ought to be. It is a sad blunder, but I hope not irreparable. Cheer up, child; depend upon it, my scarf is not so fatal as Aunt Fanny’s blessing.”
“Ah, then, my dear, I don’t see much difference in the end,” said that redoubtable lady herself, who issued from a small conservatory off the drawing-room, where she had lain in wait for the last half hour. “I heard it, my dears, and a nice hash you made of it between you, with your signals and telescopes,”—we believe she meant telegraphs; “you threw out the dirty water, now, in earnest!” And so saying, she proceeded to disentangle herself from a prickly creeper which had a most pertinacious hold of what Linton called her “scalp-lock.”
“Aunt Fanny’s blessing indeed!” said she, for her temper knew no bounds when she saw the enemy silenced. “‘T is little harm that would have done, if ye did n’t take to screaming about it; as if any man could bear that! You drove him away, my dear, just the way your own mother did poor Major Cohlhayne,—with hard crying,—till he said, ‘he ‘d as soon go to a wake as take tay in the house.’ And sure enough, she had to take up with your poor father, after! Just so. I never knew luck come of signals and signs. When the good thing ‘s before you, help yourself. My poor father used to say, ‘Don’t pass “the spirits” because there ‘s claret at the head of the table; who knows if it ‘ll ever come down to you?’ And there you are, now! and glad enough you ‘d be to take that curate I saw in Dublin, with the smooth face, this minute. I don’t blame you as much as your poor foolish mother; she has you as she reared you. Bad luck to you for a plant!” cried she, as the ingenious creeper insinuated itself among the meshes of her Limerick lace collar. “Cary, just take this out for me;” but Cary was gone, and her sister with her. Nor did Aunt Fanny know how long her eloquence had been purely soliloquy.
She looked around her for a moment at the deserted battle-field, and then slowly retired.
CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW IN THE MIRROR
“No” is the feminine of “Yes!”
Hungarian Proverb.
Bad as the weather is,—and certainly even in Ireland a more drenching, driving-down, pouring rain never fell,—we must ask of our readers to follow Cashel, who at a slapping gallop rode on, over grass and tillage, now careering lightly over the smooth sward, now sweltering along heavily through deep ground, regardless of the pelting storm, and scarcely noticing the strong fences which at every instant tried the stride and strength of his noble horse.
If his speed was headlong, his seat was easy, and his hand as steady as if lounging along some public promenade; his features, however, were flushed, partly from the beating rain, but more from a feverish excitement that showed itself in his flashing eye and closely compressed lip. More than once, in crossing a difficult leap, his horse nearly fell, and although half on the ground, and only recovering by a scramble, he seemed not to heed the accident. At last he arrived at the tall oak paling which fenced the grounds of the cottage, and where it was his wont to halt and fasten his horse. Now, however, he rode fiercely at it, clearing the high leap with a tremendous spring, and alighting on the trimly kept grass-plat before the door.
A slight faint shriek was heard as the horse dashed past the window, and, pale with terror, Mary Leicester stood in the porch.
Cashel had meanwhile dismounted, and given his horse to the old gardener.
“Not hurt, Mr. Cashel?” said she, trying to seem composed, while she trembled in every limb.
“Not in the least. I never intended to have alarmed you, however.”
“Then it was no runaway?” said she, essaying a smile.
“I ‘m ashamed to say I have not that excuse for so rudely trampling over your neat sward. Will Mr. Corrigan forgive me?”
“Of course he will, if he even ever knows that he has anything to forgive; but it so happens that he has gone into the village to-day,—an excursion he has not made for nigh a year. He wished to consult our friend the doctor on some matter of importance, and I half suspect he may have stayed to share his dinner.”
As Miss Leicester continued to make this explanation, they had reached the drawing-room, which, to Cashel’s amazement, exhibited tokens of intended departure. Patches here and there on the walls showed where pictures had stood. The bookshelves were empty, the tables displayed none of those little trifling objects which denote daily life and its occupations, and his eye wandered over the sad-looking scene till it came back to her, as she stood reading his glances, and seeming to re-echo the sentiment they conveyed. “All this would seem to speak of leave-taking,” said Cashel, in a voice that agitation made thick and guttural.
“It is so,” said she, with a sigh; “we are going away.”
“Going away!” Simple as the words are, we have no sadder sounds in our language; they have the sorrowful cadence that bespeaks desertion; they ring through the heart like a knell over long-past happiness; they are the requiem over “friends no more,” and of times that never can come back again.
“Going away!” How dreary does it sound,—as if life had no fixed destination in future, but that we were to drift over its bleak ocean, the “waifs” of what we once had been!
“Going away!” cried Cashel. “But surely you have not heard—” He stopped himself; another word, and his secret had been revealed,—the secret he had so imperatively enjoined Tiernay to keep; for it was his intention to have left Ireland forever ere Mr. Corrigan should have learned the debt of gratitude he owed him. It is true, indeed, that one night of sleepless reflection had suggested another counsel, but had altered not his desire that the mystery should be preserved.
He was confused, therefore, at the peril he had so narrowly escaped, and for a moment was silent; at length he resumed, in a tone of assumed ease,—
“‘Going away!’ sounds to one like me, who have lived a life of wandering, so like pleasure that I always associate it with new scenes of enjoyment; I think all the sorrow is reserved for those who remain behind,—the deserted.”
“So it may,” said she, “with those who, like yourself, have roamed the world in the excitement of ardent youth, glorying in enterprise, thirsting for adventure; but there are others—ourselves, for instance—whose humble fortunes have linked them with one class of scenes and objects till they have grown part of our very natures; so that we only know the world as it is associated with things familiar to daily use. There are, doubtless, plants of more gorgeous foliage and fairer flowers in other countries, but we shall never learn to look at them as we do upon these that speak to us of home, of spring and summer, when they gladdened us, of autumn and winter, when our culture cared for them. There are sunsets more rich and glowing, but if we see them, it will be to think of that sinking orb which sent its last rays over that wide river, and lit up in a golden glory this little chamber. There ‘s not a charm the fairest clime can own but will have its highest merit in recalling some humble scene that tells of ‘home.’”
“I never could leave a spot so dear to me as this were!” cried Cashel, who watched with ecstasy the impassioned beauty of her features.
“Do not say that,” said she, seriously. “We can all of us do what we ought, however it may try our courage. Yes, I say courage,” said she, smiling, “since I fancy it is a property you have a due respect for. If we leave scenes so dear to us as these, it is because we feel it a duty; and a duty fulfilled is a buckler against most sorrows. But we are wandering into a very sad theme,—at least, to judge from your grave looks. What news have you of your gay company?”
“I see but little of them,” said Cashel, abruptly.
“What a strange host!—and how do they amuse themselves?”
“As they fancy, I believe. I only know I never interfere with them, and they are kind enough to reciprocate the civility; and so we get on admirably.”
“I must say this scarcely speaks well for either party,” said she, laughing.
“I fear not; but it is true, notwithstanding.”
“You have a most accomplished friend, I believe?”
“Linton. Do you mean Linton?”
“Yes. He must be an excellent counsellor in all difficulties.”
Cashel did not look as if he concurred in the sentiment, but he said nothing; and Mary, half fearing that she had unwittingly given pain, was silent also. She was the first to speak.
“Do you know, Mr. Cashel, how I passed the morning? You ‘d scarcely guess. It was in writing a long letter,—so long, indeed, that I began to fear, like many efforts of over-zeal, it might defeat itself, and never get read; and that letter was—to you.”
“To me! where is it, then?”
“There!” said she, pointing to some charred leaves beneath the grate. “I see your curiosity, and I have no pretension to trifle with it. But last night, late, papa dictated to me a long sermon on your account, premising that the impertinence was from one you should never see again, and one who, however indiscreet in his friendship, was assuredly sincere in it. Were the document in existence, I should probably not have to utter so many apologies; for, on the whole, it was very flattering to you.”
“And why is it not so?” cried Cashel, eagerly.
“I cannot tell you why.”
“Do you mean that you do not wish to tell, or do not know the reason?”
“I do not know the reason,” said she, firmly. “I was ill, slightly ill, this morning, and could not breakfast with papa. It was late when I arose, and he was on the very brink of starting for Dunkeeran; he seemed agitated and excited, and, after a few words of inquiry about my health, he said,—
“‘That letter, Mary, have you written it? Well, burn it Throw it into the fire at once.’
“I did so; but I cannot conceal from you the deep interest he has taken in your fortunes,—a feeling which the dread of offending has possibly sentenced him to cherish in secret. At least, so I read his change of intention.”
“I had hoped he knew me better,” said Cashel, in whose voice a feeling of disappointment might be traced. “It is the misfortune of men like myself to make the most unfavorable impression, where alone they are anxious for the opposite. Now, it may seem very uncourteous, but I am less than indifferent what the fair company yonder think of me; and yet I would give much to stand high in Mr. Corrigan’s esteem.”
“And you do so, believe me,” cried she, her eagerness moved by the evident despondency of his manner; “he speaks of you with all the interest of a father.”
“Do not say so,” cried Cashel, in a voice tremulous with anxiety; “do not say so, if you mean not to encourage hopes I scarcely dare to cherish.”
His look and manner, even more than his words, startled her, and she stared at him, uncertain what reply to make.
“I never knew a father, nor have I ever tasted a mother’s affection. I have been one of whom fortune makes a plaything, as if to show how much worldly prosperity can consort with a desolate condition, and a heart for which none have sympathy. I had hoped, however, to attach others to me. I had joined in pursuits that were not mine, to endeavor to render myself companionable. I fell in with habits that were uncongenial, and tastes that I ever disliked; but without success. I might be ‘the dupe.’ but never ‘the friend.’ I could have borne much—I did bear much—to win something that resembled cordiality and esteem; but all in vain! When I lived the wild life of a Columbian sailor, I deemed that such men as I now associate with must be the very types of chivalry, and I longed to be of them, and among them. Still, the reproach lies not at their door. They stepped not out of their sphere to act a part,—I did; mine was all the sycophancy of imitation. The miserable cant of fashion formed all my code. But for this, I might have won good men’s esteem; but for this, I might have learned what duties attach to fortune and station such as mine; and now I see the only one, from whom I hoped to gain the knowledge, about to leave me!”
“This despondency is ill-judging and unfair,” said Mary, in a kind tone. “You did, perhaps, choose your friends unwisely, but you judge them unjustly too. They never dreamed of friendship in their intercourse with you; they only thought of that companionship which men of the same age and fortune expect to meet in each other. If less worldly wise, or more generous than themselves, they deemed that they once had paid for their skill and cleverness; and so should you. Remember, that you put a value upon their intimacy which it never laid claim to, and that they were less false than were you self-deceived.”
“Be it so,” said Cashel, hastily. “I care little where the delusion began. I meant honestly, and if they played not on the square with me, the fault be theirs; but that is not what I would speak of, nor what brought me here to-day. I came to throw my last stake for happiness.” He paused, and took her hand in his. “I came,” said he,—and his lips trembled as he spoke,—“I came to ask you to be my wife!”
Mary withdrew her hand, which he had scarcely dared to press, and leaned upon the chimney-piece without speaking. It rarely happens that such an announcement is made to a young lady quite unexpectedly; such was, however, the case here: for nothing was she less prepared! Cashel, it is true, had long ceased to be indifferent to her; the evenings of his visits at the cottage were sure to be her very happiest; his absences made dreary blanks. The inartificial traits of his character had at first inspired interest; his generous nature, and his manly leaning to right, had created esteem of him. There were passages of romantic interest in his former life which seemed so well to suit his bold and dashing independence; and there was also an implicit deference, an almost humility, in the obedience he tendered to her grandfather which spoke much for one whom sudden wealth and prosperity might be supposed to have corrupted. Yet, all this while, had she never thought of what impression she herself was making.
“I have but one duty,” said she at last, in a faint whisper.
“Might I not share it with you, Mary?” said he, again taking her hand between his own; “you would not grudge me some part of his affection?”
“Who crossed the window there?” cried she, starting; “did you not see a figure pass?”
“No, I saw no one,—I thought of none, save you.”
“I am too much frightened to speak. I saw someone stop before the window and make a gesture, as if threatening,—I saw it in the glass.”
Cashel immediately hurried from the room, and, passing out, searched through the shrubberies on either side of the cottage, but without success. On examining closely, however, he could detect the trace of recent footsteps on the wet grass, but lost the direction on the gravel-walk; and it was in a frame of mind far from tranquil that be reentered the room.
“You saw no one?” said she, eagerly.
“Not one.”
“Nor any appearance of footsteps?”
“Yes, I did, or fancied I did, detect such before the window; but why should this alarm you, or turn your mind from what we spoke of? Let me once more—”
“Not now—not now, I beg of you; a secret misgiving is over me, and I am not generally a coward; but I have not the collectedness to speak to you as I ought. I would not wish to be unkind, nor would I yet deceive you. This cannot be.”
“Cannot be, Mary?”
“Do not ask me more now. You are too generous to give pain: spare me, then, the suffering of inflicting it on you. I will tell you my reasons, you shall own them to be sufficient.”
“When are we to meet again?” said Roland, as he moved slowly towards the door.
“There it is again!” cried she, in a voice of actual terror; and Cashel opened the window and sprang out; but even the slight delay in unfastening the sash prevented his overtaking the intruder, whoever he might be, while, in the abundance of evergreens about, search was certain to prove fruitless.
“Good-bye,” said she, endeavoring to smile; “you are too proud and high of spirit, if I read you aright, to return to a theme like this.”
“I am humble enough to sue it out,—a very suppliant,” said he, passionately.
“I thought otherwise of you,” said she, affecting a look of disappointment.
“Think of me how you will, so that you know I love you,” cried he, pressing his lips to her hand; and then, half-maddened by the conflict in his mind, he hastened out, and, mounting his horse, rode off, not, indeed, at the mad speed of his coming, but slowly, and with bent-down head.
Let a man be ever so little of a coxcomb, the chances are that he will always explain a refusal of this kind on any ground rather than upon that of his own unworthiness. It is either a case “of pre-engaged affection” or some secret influence on the score of family and fortune; and even this sophistry lends its balm to wounded self-love. Cashel, unhappily for his peace of mind, had not studied in this school, and went his way in deep despondency. Like many men who indulge but seldom in self-examination, he never knew how much his affections were involved till his proffer of them was refused. Now, for the first time, he felt that; now recognized what store he placed on her esteem, and how naturally he had turned from the wearisome dissipations of his own house to the cheerful happiness of “the cottage.” Neither could he divest himself of the thought that had Mary known him in his early and his only true character, she might not have refused him, and that he owed his failure to that mongrel thing which wealth had made him.
“I never was intended for this kind of life,” thought he. “I am driven to absurdities and extravagances to give it any character of interest in my eyes, and then I feel ashamed of such triviality. To live among the rich, a man should be born among them,—should have the habits, the tastes, and the traditions. These are to be imbibed from infancy, but not acquired in manhood,—at least, I will not begin the study.”
He turned homeward, still slowly. The bell was ringing which called the guests to dress for dinner, as he reached a large open lawn before the house, and for a moment he halted, muttering to himself, “How would it be, now, were I to turn my horse’s head, and never re-enter that house? How many are there, of all my ‘dear friends,’ who would ever ask what befell me?”
Arrived at the door, he passed upstairs to his dressing-room, upon a table of which he perceived a very small note, sealed with Lady Kilgoff’s initials. It was written in pencil, and merely contained one line: “Come over to me, before dinner, for one minute.—L. K.”
He had not seen her since the day before, when he had in vain sought to overtake her in the wood; and her absence from the dinner-table had seemed to him in pique at his breach of engagement. Was this an endeavor, then, to revive that strange relationship between them, which took every form save love-making, but was all the more dangerous on that account? Or was it merely to take up some commonplace plan of amusement and pleasure,—that mock importance given to trifles which as frequently makes them cease to be trifles?
Half careless as to what the invitation portended, and still pondering over his failure, he reached her door and knocked.
“Come in,” said she; and he entered.
Dressed for dinner with unusual taste and splendor, he had never seen her look so beautiful. For some time back she had observed an almost studied simplicity of dress, rarely wearing an ornament, and distinguishing herself rather by a half Puritanism of style. The sudden change to all the blaze of diamonds, and the softening influence of deep folds of lace, gave a brilliancy to her appearance quite magicial; nor was Cashel’s breeding proof against a stare of amazement and admiration.
A deeper flush on her cheek acknowledged how she felt his confusion, and, hastening to relieve it, she said,—
“I have but a moment to speak to you. It is almost seven o’clock. You were at ‘the cottage’ to-day?”
“Yes,” said Roland, his cheek growing scarlet as he spoke.
“And, doubtless, your visit had some object of importance. Nay, no confessions. This is not curiosity on my part, but to let you know that you were followed. Scarcely had you left this, when Linton set out also, making a circuit by the wood, but at a speed which must have soon overtaken you. He returned some time before you, at the same speed, and entered by the back gate of the stables. From this window I could see him each time.”
“Indeed,” said Roland, remembering the figure Mary had seen before the window.
“You know my opinion of this man already. He never moves without a plan; and a plan, with him, is ever a treachery.”
“He avoids me strangely; we rarely meet now,—never by any chance alone. And even before others there is a forced gayety in his manner that all his artifice cannot pass off for real.”
“Have you thwarted him in anything?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Have you refused him any favor that he sought for?”
“Never.”
“Is he your debtor for what he ought, but never means, to pay?”
“Not even that. What I may have given him has been always without any reserve or thought of restitution.”
“Are your affections directed towards the same object?”
As she said this, the ease in which she commenced gradually left her, and her cheek grew flushed ere she finished.
“I cannot tell. There are no confidences between us; besides, a very bankrupt in love could not envy my solvency. Mine is a heart that cannot threaten dangerous rivalry!”
“You cannot be certain of that!” said she, as if thinking aloud.
Fortunately, Cashel did not hear the words, but stood in deep revery for some seconds.
“There! the second bell has rung; I must leave you. My Lord comes down to dinner to-day. It is by his orders that I am thus showily dressed. Linton has been filling his mind with stories of some embassy he is to have, and we are already rehearsing ‘our excellencies!’ I have but time to say, Be on your guard; Linton is no common enemy, nor does it need an injury to make him one.”
“It is very rude of me, I know, to interrupt so interesting a tête-à-tête, but Mr. Cashel’s cook has feelings also at stake.”
These words were spoken by Lord Kilgoff, who, in a tone of no small irritation, now joined them.
“I was speaking of your mission, my Lord.”
“Which you forgot, of course, was not to be mentioned,—even to so sincere a well-wisher as Mr. Cashel.”
“In any case, my Lord, it remains safe in my keeping.”
“Very possibly, sir; but it is a poor earnest Lady Kilgoff gives of her fitness as the wife of a ‘diplomatist.’”
Cashel gave his arm to Lady Kilgoff, without speaking, and sis Lordship followed them slowly towards the dining-room. Linton stood at the door as they entered, and his wan features grew flushed as the haughty beauty moved past him with the very coldest of recognitions.
“What an admirable taste is your Lordship’s!” said he to the old peer; “Lady Kilgoff’s diamonds are disposed with an elegance that bespeaks the guiding skill of a consummate artist.”
“Ha! you perceive it, then!” said he, smiling. “I own to you, the festooning the robe with bouquets of brilliants was a fancy of mine, and has, I think, a very pretty effect.”
“Storr told me that he had not one person in his employment could equal your Lordship in the harmonious arrangement of gems. He mentioned a bracelet, if I remember aright, made from your own designs, as the most beautifully chaste ornament he had ever seen.”
“You must pronounce for yourself, sir,” said the old lord, with a smile of elated vanity; and so, taking Linton’s arm, he approached where Lady Kilgoff was seated in a group of ladies.
“Will you oblige me, madam,” said he, with a courteous bow, “by showing Mr. Linton your ruby and opal bracelet, which I had the poor merit of designing?”
“I am unfortunate enough not to have it here,” replied she, with a confusion which made the blood mount to her temples.
“I am grieved, madam, it should not enjoy the honor of your preference,” said Lord Kilgoff, with an air of pique. “Will you order your maid to fetch it?”
“I ‘ve not got it, my Lord,” said she, coloring still deeper.
“Not got it, madam! You do not mean to imply—”
“Only that it is slightly broken,—a few stones have fallen out, and I have sent it to be repaired.”
“To be repaired, madam; and without my knowledge I To whom, pray?”
“That man in Dublin; I forget his name.”
“Your Ladyship means Leonard, I presume,” interposed Linton, with an air of courtesy, while, plainer than any words, his glance said, “My revenge is coming!”
“Leonard!” exclaimed Lord Kilgoff, with a look of horror. “Give Leonard that bracelet! the mould of which I refused to the Princess of Hohenhoffingen, and which I made Storr destroy in my own presence!”
“You perceive, my Lord,” cried Lady Janet, “her Ladyship is less exclusive than you are.”
“And generous enough to admire what may belong to another,” added Linton, but in a tone only audible by Lady Kilgoff.
“We have got a few minutes before dinner, madam. I must beg you will employ them in writing to Mr. Leonard to return the bracelet at once. Say it was a mistake on your part,—an inadvertence,—and done without my knowledge. Caution the man, too, about appropriating any portion of the design, and remind him that articles of virtu are protected by the Act of copyright.”
“We had better delay the postboy, my Lord,” said Linton; “he starts at seven precisely.”
“Do so, sir.”
“Dinner!” cried the butler, flinging wide the folding-doors.
“Could we delay that pleasant summons a few minutes, Mr. Cashel?” said Lord Kilgoff.
“It will not be necessary on my account, sir; I ‘ll write to-morrow.” And this she said with an air of haughty defiance that never failed to subdue the old peer’s petulance; and then, accepting Cashel’s arm, moved on without a word.
“Where is it? that’s the question!” whispered Mrs. White to Lady Janet.
“Take you two to one it’s not at Leonard’s,” said Frobisher.
“Give you an even fifty, Linton knows all about it,” replied Upton.
“And ten to two that he ‘ll never tell!” chimed in Miss Meek; and so they took their places at the table.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE OLD FRIENDS IN COUNCIL
I could an I would, Sir Harry.
Old Play.
While the gay company at Tubbermore dined sumptuously, and enjoyed the luxuries of a splendid table with no other alloy to their pleasure than the ennui of people whose fastidiousness has grown into malady, Mr. Corrigan sat in council at the cottage with his ancient ally, the doctor. There was an appearance of constraint over each,—very unusual with men who had been friends from boyhood; and in their long pauses, and short, abrupt sentences, might be read the absence of that confiding spirit which had bound them so many years like brothers.
It may be in the reader’s recollection that while Corrigan was pledged to secrecy by Linton respecting his revelations of Cashel, Tiernay was equally bound by Roland not to divulge any of his plans for the old man’s benefit. Perhaps it was the first time in the life of either that such a reserve had been practised. Certainly it weighed heavily upon both; and more than once they were coming to the fatal resolve to break their vows, and then some sudden thought—some unknown dread of disconcerting the intentions of those who trusted them—would cross their mind, and after a momentary struggle, a half cough, and muttered “Well! well!” they would relapse into silence, each far too occupied by himself to note the other’s embarrassment.
It was after a long time and much thought that Corrigan perceived, however pledged to Linton not to speak of Cashel’s conduct respecting the cottage, that he was in no wise bound to secrecy regarding the proposal for Mary Leicester’s hand; and this was, indeed, the topic on which he was most desirous of the doctor’s counsel.
“I have a secret for you, Tiernay,” said the old man, at length; “and it is one which will surprise you. I have had an offer this morning for Mary! Ay; just so. You often told me that nothing but this life of isolation and retirement would have left her with me so long; but the thought of losing her—the tangible, actual dread—never presented itself before this day!”
“Who is it?” said Tiernay, shortly, but not without evident agitation of manner.
“One who has never enjoyed much of your favor, Tiernay, and whom I suspect you have judged with less than your habitual fairness.”
“I know the man. Linton?”
“It was Linton.”
“And he actually made this proposition?” said Tiernay, with an expression of the most unbounded surprise in his features.
“To me, myself, in this room, he made it.”
“He asked you what her fortune would be?” said Tiernay, gruffly.
“He did not; he told me of his own. He said, that by a recent event he had become possessed of sufficient property to make him indifferent to the fortune of whoever he might marry. He spoke sensibly and well of his future career, of the plans he had conceived, and the rules he made for his own guidance; he spoke warmly of her with whom he wished to share his fortunes; and lastly, he alluded in kind terms to myself, dependent as I am upon her care, and living as I do upon her affection. In a word, if there was not the ardor of a passionate lover, there was what I augur better from,—the sentiments of one who had long reflected on his own position in life, who knew the world well, and could be no mean guide amid its dangers and difficulties.”
“Have you told Mary of this?”
“I have not. My answer to Linton was: ‘Let me have time to think over this proposal; give me some hours of thought before I even speak to my granddaughter;’ and he acceded at once.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Tiernay, rising, and pacing the room. “How inadequate are we two old men—removed from intercourse with the world, neither players nor lookers-on at the game of life—to cope with one like him, and see what he purposes to himself by this alliance! As for his affection, as for his power to feel her worth, to estimate the gentle virtues of her spotless nature, I cannot, I will not believe it.”
“And for that very reason are you unfit to judge him. Your prejudices, ever against him, are rendered stronger because you cannot divine motives black enough to suit your theory; you give the benefit of all your doubts against himself.”
“I know him to be a gambler in its worse sense. Not one who plays even for the gratification of those alternating vacillations of hope and fear which jaded, worn-out natures resort to as the recompense for blunted emotions and blasted ambitions, but a gambler for gain!—that foul amalgam of the miser and the knave. I ‘ve seen him play the sycophant, too, like one who studied long his part, and knew it thoroughly. No, no, Con, it is not one like this must be husband of Mary!”
“I tell you again, Tiernay, you suffer your prejudices to outrun all your prudence. The very fact that he asks in marriage a portionless girl, without influence from family, and without the advantage of station, should outweigh all your doubts twice told.”
“This does but puzzle me,—nothing more,” said Tiernay, doggedly. “Were it Cashel, that high-hearted, generous youth, who made this offer—”
“I must stop you, Tiernay; you are as much at fault in your over-estimate of one as in your disparagement of the other. Cashel is not what you deem him. Ask me not how I know it. I cannot, I dare not tell you; it is enough that I do know it, and know it by the evidence of my own eyes.”
“Then they have deceived you, that’s all,” said Tiernay, roughly; “for I tell you, and I speak now of what my own knowledge can sustain, that he is the very soul of generosity,—a generosity that would imply recklessness, if not guided by the shrinking delicacy of an almost girlish spirit.”
“Tiernay, Tiernay, you are wrong, I say,” cried Corrigan, passionately.
“And I say it is you who are in error,” said Tiernay. “It was but this morning I held in my hands—” He stopped, stammered, and was silent.
“Well,” cried Corrigan, “go on,—not that, indeed, you could convince me against what my eyes have assured; for here, upon this table, I beheld—”
“Out with it, man! Tell what jugglery has been practised on you, for I see you have been duped.”
“Hush! here ‘s Mary!” cried Corrigan, who, scarcely able to control himself, now walked the room in great agitation.
“You were talking so loud,” said Mary, “that I guessed you were quarrelling about politics, and so I came to make peace.”
“We were not, Mary; but Tiernay is in one of his wrong-head humors.”
“And your grandfather in the silliest of his foolish ones!” exclaimed Tiernay, as, snatching up his hat he left the cottage.
CHAPTER XIX. A TÊTE-À-TÊTE INTERRUPTED
Like battle-tramps
The chaos of their tongues did drown reflection.
Oswald.
It might be thought that in a household so full of contrarieties as Tubbermore, any new plan of pleasure would have met but a meagre success. Here, were the Kilgoffs, upon one side, full of some secret importance, and already speaking of the uncertainty of passing the spring in Ireland. There, were the Kennyfecks, utterly disorganized by intestine troubles,—mother, aunt, and daughters at open war, and only of one mind for some few minutes of each day, when they assailed the luckless Kennyfeck as the “author of all evil;” Frobisher, discontented that no handicap could be “got up,” to remunerate him for the weariness of his exile; Upton, suffering under the pangs of rejection; Sir Andrew, reduced to a skeleton by the treatment against his unhappy opiate, being condemned, as “Jim” phrased it, to “two heavy sweats without body-clothes, and a drench every day;” Meek, grown peevish at the little prospect of making anything of Cashel politically; and Cashel himself, hipped and bored by all in turn, and wearied of being the head of a house where the only pleasantry existed in the servants’ hall,—and they were all rogues and thieves who made it.
It might be easily supposed these were not the ingredients which would amalgamate into any agreeable union, and that even a suggestion to that end would meet but few supporters.
Not so; the very thought of doing “anything” was a relief: each felt, perhaps, his share of shame at the general ennui, and longed for whatever gave a chance of repelling it. It was as in certain political conditions in seasons of general stagnation,—men are willing even to risk a revolution rather than continue in a state of unpromising monotony.
Linton, whose own plans required that the others should be full of occupation of one kind or other, was the first to give the impulse, by reminding Miss Meek that her sovereignty had, up to this time, been a dead letter.
“You have positively done nothing,” said he, “since your accession. Here we are, all ready to do your bidding, only waiting for the shadow of a wish on your part. There is no obstacle anywhere; pray let us commence a series of such right royal festivities as shall cause the envy of every other sovereign in Christendom.”
“I ‘m sure I wish for nothing better; but nobody minds me,” said she, pouting.
“What shall be the opening, then?” said Linton, taking a sheet of paper, and seating himself, in all form, to write. “A masquerade?”
“By all means! A masquerade!” exclaimed a dozen voices; and at once a large circle gathered round the table where he sat.
“Does the country afford materials for one?” asked Jennings.
“Oh, dear, yes!” sighed Meek; “you could gather a great many important people here by a little management.”
“I ‘ll tell Macnevin, wha commands at Limerick, to send ye every officer wha is n’t under arrest,” said Sir Andrew,—a speech received with great favor by various young ladies unknown to the reader.
Every one who knew anything of the three neighboring counties was at once summoned to form part of a select committee to name those who ought to be invited. The Chief Justice was acquainted with the principal persons, from his having gone circuit; but then, those he mentioned were rarely of the stamp to add lustre or brilliancy to a fancy ball,—indeed, as Linton whispered, “The old judge had either hanged or transported all the pleasant fellows.”
The Infantry men from Limerick were familiar with every pretty girl of that famed capital and its environs for some miles round; and as exclusiveness was not to be the rule, a very imposing list was soon drawn up.
Then came the question of receiving so large a party, and each vied with his neighbor in generous sacrifices of accommodation; even Downie vouchsafed to say that the noise would be terrible, “but one ought to submit to anything to give pleasure to his friends.”
The theatre should be the ball-room; the two drawing-rooms and the library would offer space for the company to promenade; the buffet stand in the dining-room; and supper be served in the great conservatory, which, with its trellised vines all studded with lights disposed as stars, would have a new and beautiful effect.
Sir Andrew promised two military bands, and unmarried officers à discrétion.
Devoted offers of assistance poured in from every side. Foraging parties were “told off” to shoot snipe and woodcocks without ceasing; and Frobisher was to ply with a four-in-hand—of Cashel’s horses—to and from Limerick every day, carrying every body and every thing that was wanting.
All the servants of the guests, as well as of the house, were to be attired in a costume which, after some discussion, was decided to be Spanish.
Unlimited facilities were to be at the disposal of all, for whatever they pleased to order. Mrs. White sat down to write to Paris for an envoy of moss-roses and camellias, with a postscript from Upton on the subject of red partridges and foie gras.
Jennings dictated a despatch to Mayence for two cases of Steinberger; and Howie took notes of all for a series of papers which, in four different styles, were to appear in four periodicals simultaneously.
As each guest was at full liberty to invite some half-dozen friends, there was quite an excitement in comparing lists with each other, and speculations innumerable as to the dress and character they would appear in, for all were mysterious upon that head.
“But whar is Maister Cashel all this time?” said Sir Andrew; “methinks it wud na be vara polite na to hae his opinion upon a’ this, syne he must gie the siller for it.”
“He’s playing chess with Lady Kilgoff in the boudoir,” said Jennings.
“Tell Kennyfeck,” said Frobisher; “that’s quite enough! Cashel calls everything where money enters, business, and hates it, in consequence.”
“Oh, dear! I’m precisely of his mind, then,” sighed Meek, caressing his whiskers.
“Kilgoff will not remain, you ‘ll see,” said Upton. “He is not pleased with my Lady’s taste for close intimacy.”
“The Kennyfecks are going to-morrow or next day,” said another.
“So they have been every day this last week; but if some of you gentlemen will only be gallant enough to give a good reason for remaining, they ‘ll not stir.” This was spoken by Lady Janet in her tartest of voices, and with a steady stare at Upton, who stroked his moustaches in very palpable confusion. “Yes, Sir Harvey,” continued she, “I ‘m perfectly serious, and Mr. Linton, I perceive, agrees with me.”
“As he always does, Lady Janet, when he desires to be in the right,” said Linton, bowing.
“Aw—I, aw—I did n’t think it was so easy in that quarter, aw!” said Jennings, in a low semi-confidential tone.
“I ‘ll insure you for a fair premium, Jennings, if you have any fancy that way.”
“Aw, I don’t know,—concern looks hazardous,—ha, ha, ha!—don’t you think so?” But as nobody joined in his laughter, he resumed, in a lower voice, “There, Upton ‘s very spooney indeed about one of them.”
“It’s the aunt,” said Linton,—“a very fine woman, too; what the French call beauté sévère; but classical, quite classical.”
“Confounded old harridan!” muttered Upton, between his teeth; “I ‘d not take her with Rothschild’s bank at her disposal.”
All this little chit-chat was a thing got up by Linton, while stationing himself in a position to watch Cashel and Lady Kilgoff, who sat, at a chess-table, in an adjoining room. It needed not Linton’s eagle glance to perceive that neither was attentive to the game, but that they were engaged in deep and earnest conversation. Lady Kilgoff’s back was towards him, but Roland’s face he could see clearly, and watch the signs of anger and impatience it displayed.
“A little more noise and confusion here,” thought Linton, “and they ‘ll forget that they ‘re not a hundred miles away;” and, acting on this, he set about arranging the company in various groups; and while he disposed a circle of very fast-talking old ladies, to discuss rank and privileges in one corner, he employed some others in devising a character quadrille, over which Mrs. White was to preside; and then, seating a young lady at the piano,—one of those determined performers who run a steeple-chase through waltz, polka, and mazurka, for hours uninterruptedly,—he saw that he had manufactured a very pretty chaos “off-hand.”
While hurrying hither and thither, directing, instructing, and advising every one, he contrived also, as it were by mere accident, to draw across the doorway of the boudoir the heavy velvet curtain that performed the function of a door. The company were far too busied in their various occupations to remark this; far less was it perceived by Lady Kilgoff or Roland. Nobody knew better than Linton how to perform the part of fly-wheel to that complicated engine called society; he could regulate its pace to whatever speed he pleased; and upon this occasion he pushed the velocity to the utmost; and, by dint of that miraculous magnetism by which men of warm imagination and quick fancy inspire their less susceptible neighbors, he spread the contagion of his own merry humor, and converted the drawing-room into a scene of almost riotous gayety.
“They want no more leadership now,” said he, and slipped from the room and hastened towards the library, where sat Lord Kilgoff, surrounded by folios of Grotius and Puffendorf,—less, indeed, for perusal and study than as if inhaling the spirit of diplomatic craft from their presence.
“Nay, my Lord, this is too much,” said he, entering with a smile; “some relaxation is really necessary. Pray come and dissipate a little with us in the drawing-room.”
“Don’t lose my place, however,” said he, smiling far more graciously than his wont. “I was just considering that assertion of Grotius, wherein be lays it down that ‘a river is always objectionable as a national boundary.’ I dissent completely from the doctrine. A river has all the significance of a natural frontier. It is the line of demarcation drawn from the commencement of the world between different tracts, and at once suggests separation.”
“Very true, my Lord; I see your observation in all its justice. A river, in the natural world, is like the distinguishing symbol of rank in the social, and should ever be a barrier against unwarrantable intrusion.”
Lord Kilgoff smiled, tapped his snuff-box, and nodded, as though to say, “Continue.” Linton understood the hint in this wise, and went on,—
“And yet, my Lord, there is reason to fear that, with individuals as with nations, these demarcations are losing their prestige. What people call enlightenment and progress, nowadays, is the mere negation of these principles.”
“Every age has thrown some absurd theory to the surface, sir,” said Lord Kilgoff, proudly; “Southcotians, Mormons, and Radicals among the rest. But truth, sir, has always the ascendency in the long run. Facts cannot be sneered down; and the Pyrenees and the English peerage are facts, Mr. Linton,—and similar facts, too!”
Linton looked like one who divided himself between rebuke and conviction,—submissive, but yet satisfied.
“Give me your arm, Linton; I’m still very far from strong,—this place disagrees with me. I fancy the air is rheumatic, and I am impatient to get away; but the fact is, I have been lingering in the hope of receiving some tidings from the Foreign Office, which I had rather would reach me here than at my own house.”
“Precisely, my Lord; the request, then, has the air—I mean it shows you have been sought after by the Minister, and solicited to take office when not thinking of the matter yourself.”
“Quite so; I open the despatch, as it may be, at the breakfast-table, jocularly observing that it looks official, eh?”
“Exactly, my Lord; you even surmise that it may prove an appointment you have solicited for one of your numerous protégés,—something in the Colonies, or the ‘troop,’ without purchase, in the Blues?”
Lord Kilgoff laughed—for him, heartily—at Linton’s concurrence in his humor, and went on,—
“And when I open it, Linton, and read the contents, eh?”
Here he paused, as if asking what effect his astute friend would ascribe to such pleasant tidings.
“I think I see your Lordship throw the heavy packet from you with a ‘pshaw!’ of disappointment; while you mutter to your next neighbor, ‘I have been warding off this these two or three last years; but there’s no help for it: the King insists upon my taking the mission at Florence!’”
“I must say, Mr. Linton, your conjecture strikes me as strained and unnatural. The appointment to represent my august master at the court of Tuscany might be a worthy object of my ambition. I cannot agree with the view you take of it.”
Linton saw that he had “charged too far,” and hastened to secure his retreat.
“I spoke, my Lord, rather with reference to your regret at quitting the scenes of your natural influence at home, of withdrawing from this distracted country the high example of your presence, the wisdom of your counsels, the munificence of your charity. These are sad exports at such a time as this!”
Lord Kilgoflf sighed, he sighed heavily; he knew Ireland had gone through many trials and afflictions, but the dark future which Linton pictured had never presented itself so full of gloom before. He doubtless felt that when he left the ship she would not long survive the breakers; and, sunk in these reveries, he walked along at Linton’s side till they gained the picture-gallery, at one extremity of which lay the boudoir we have spoken of.
“Poor things, my Lord!” said Linton, shrugging his shoulders as he passed along, and casting a contemptuous glance at the apocryphal Vandykes and Murillos around, and for whose authenticity he had himself, in nearly every case, been the guarantee.
Lord Kilgoff gave a fleeting look at them, but said nothing; and Linton, to occupy time, went on,—
“New men, like our friend here, should never aspire above the Flemish school. Your Cuyps, and Hobbemas, and Vanderveldes are easily understood, and their excellences are soon learned. Even Mieris and Gerard Dow are open to such connoisseurship; but, to feel the calm nobility of a Velasquez, the sublime dignity of a Vandyck, or the glorious intellectuality of a Titian portrait, a man must be a born gentleman, in its most exalted signification. What a perfect taste your collection at Kilgoff displays! All Spanish or Venetian, if I mistake not.”
“Are we not like to disturb a tête-à-tête, Linton?” said Lord Kilgoff, nudging his friend’s arm, and laughing slyly, as he pointed through the large frame of plate-glass that formed a door to the boudoir.
“By Jove!” said Linton, in a low whisper, “and so we were; you are always thoughtful, my Lord!”
“You know the adage, Linton, ‘An old poacher makes the best gamekeeper!’ Ha, ha, ha!”
“Ah, my Lord! I have heard as much of you. But who can they be?”
“We shall soon see, for it is always better in these cases to incur the rudeness of interruption than the meanness of espionage;” and so saying, Lord Kilgoff opened the door and entered. Although in so doing the noise he made might easily have attracted notice, the chess-players, either deep in their preoccupation, or habituated to the uproar of the drawing-room, paid no attention, so that it was only as he exclaimed “Lady Kilgoff!” that both started, and beheld him, as, pale with passion, he stood supporting himself on the back of a chair.
“Pray don’t stir, sir; be seated, I beg,” said he, addressing Cashel, in a voice that shook with anger; “my interruption of your game was pure accident.”
“No apologies, my Lord; we are both but indifferent players,” said Cashel, smiling, but yet very far from at ease.
“Your seclusion at least bespeaks the interest you feel in the game. Mr. Linton and I can vouch—” (Here his Lordship turned to call his witness; but he had left the court, or, more properly speaking, had never entered it.)
“Linton here?” said Lady Kilgoff, in a voice which, though scarce a whisper, was actually thrilling in the intensity of its meaning.
“I hope, sir, when you have lived somewhat more in the world, you will learn that the first duty of a host is not to compromise a guest.”
“I am most willing to be taught by your Lordship’s better knowledge; but if I am to benefit by the lesson in the present case, it must be more clearly expressed,” said Cashel, calmly.
“As for you, madam,” said Lord Kilgoff, “I cannot compliment you on the progress you have made in acquiring the habits and instincts of ‘your order.’”
“My Lord!” exclaimed she; and then, with a countenance wherein rebuke and entreaty were blended, she stopped.
“I am aware, sir, what éclat young gentlemen nowadays derive from the supposed preference of individuals of exalted rank; and I hope that your vanity may be most in fault here.”
“My Lord, one word,—only one,” said Cashel, eagerly; “I am sadly afflicted with the infirmity of hot temper, which never gives way more surely, nor more suddenly, than when accused wrongfully. Such is your Lordship doing at present. I would entreat you not to say what a very little calm reflection will call upon you to retract.”
“This concerns me, sir, most of all,” said Lady Kilgoff, rising, and drawing herself proudly up. “These unworthy suspicions had never occurred to you had they not been prompted; but you might have believed that when I sacrificed all I have done for that rank of which so incessantly you remind me, that I would not rashly hazard the position for which I paid so dearly. Let us leave this now, my Lord; Mr. Cashel can scarcely desire a presence that has so ungratefully rewarded his hospitality, and I, at least, shall be spared the mortification of meeting one who has been a witness to such an outrage.”
“This is not to end here, sir,” said Lord Kilgoff, in a whisper to Cashel, who, more intent upon the words Lady Kilgoff had just uttered, carelessly answered,—
“As you will.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Cashel,” said she, holding out her hand; “I wish I was leaving a better souvenir behind me than the memory of this last scene.”
“I will never remember it, madam,” said Cashel; “but I would beg that you may not let an incident so trivial, so perfectly devoid of everything like importance, hasten your going. Nothing save malevolence and calumny could suggest any other impression, and I would beseech you not to favor, by such a step as a hasty departure, the malice that scandal-lovers may circulate.”
“This is matter for my consideration, sir,” said Lord Kilgoflf, haughtily; while, drawing Lady Kilgoffs arm within his own, he made a vigorous attempt to move away with dignity.
CHAPTER XX. LORD KILGOFF DETERMINES TO “MEET” ROLAND
Is he not too old for such gambols?
—Sir Raymond.
Cashel was in no mood to join his company after such a scene, and hastening upstairs, he entered his dressing-room. What was his surprise to see that Linton was seated in an easy-chair, before the fire, enjoying a cigar and a new novel, with all the cool negligence of his unruffled nature.
“At last!” cried he, as Cashel entered. “I have been waiting here most impatiently to know how you got through it.”
“Through what!—how—what do you mean?”
“That affair with Kilgoff. I slipped away when I saw that he would enter the boudoir, after having coughed and sneezed like a grampus, in the hope of attracting your attention; but you were so confoundedly engrossed by my Lady’s agreeability,—so excessively tender—”
“Linton, I must stop you at once. I may barter some of my own self-respect for quietness’ sake, and let you talk this way of me, but you shall not do so of another.”
“Hang it, man, she is an older friend than yourself. I have known her these seven years—as little more than a child.”
“Your friendship would seem a costly blessing, if you understand its duties always in this fashion.”
“I hope it will admit of a little frankness, at all events,” said he, affecting a laugh. “It will be too bad if you both fall out with me for watching over your interests.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I will be plain enough. I have seen for many a day back what has been going on. I perceived the very commencement of the mischief, when probably neither she nor you dreamed of it; and, resigning all the esteem that years had cemented between us, I spoke to her. Ay, Roland, I told her what would happen. I said that qualities like yours could not be brought every day into contrast with those of poor Kilgoff without most unhappy comparisons. I explained to her, that if she did form an attachment to you, it could not be one of those passing flirtations that an easy code of fashion admits and sanctions; that you were a fellow whose generous nature could never descend to such heartless levity, and that there was no sacrifice of position and prospect you would hesitate to make for a woman that loved you; and I asked her flatly, would she bring such ruin upon you? The greater fool myself; I ought to have known better. She not only refused to listen to me, but actually resented my at-tempted kindness by actual injury. I don’t want to speak for myself here, so I ‘ll hasten on. It was all but a cut between us, for months before we met here. You may remember, in Dublin, we rarely even spoke to each other; we, who once had been like brother and sister!
“Well, before she was a week here, I saw that the danger I had dreaded so long was hourly becoming more imminent. You, very possibly, had not a serious thought upon the matter, but she had actually fallen in love! I suppose you must have played hero, at that shipwreck, in some very chivalrous fashion; however it was, my Lady had lost her heart, precisely at the same time that his Lordship had lost his head,—leaving you, I conjecture, in a very awkward dilemma. Seeing there was no time to lose, and resolving to sacrifice myself to save her, I made one more effort. I’ll not weary you with a narrative of my eloquence, nor repeat any of the ten-thousand-and-one reasons I gave for her shunning your society, and, if need were, leaving your house. The whole ended as I ought to have foreseen it would,—in an open breach between us; she candidly avowing that she would be my deadly enemy through life, and even procure a personal rupture between you and me, if pushed to it, by my ‘impertinent importunity,’ so she called it. I own to you I was completely dumfounded by this. I knew that she had courage for anything, and that, if she did care for a man, there would be a recklessness in the course she would follow that would defy guidance or direction, and so I abstained from any further interference; and, as you may have remarked yourself, I actually estranged myself from you.”
“I did remark that,” said Cashel, gravely.
“Well, to-night, when by mere accident Kilgoff and I had sauntered into the gallery and came upon you in the boudoir, I own frankly I was not sorry for it; unpleasant as such scenes are, they are better—a hundred thousand times better—than the sad consequences they anticipate; and even should anything take place personally, I ‘d rather see you stand Kilgoff’s fire at ‘twelve paces,’ than be exposed to the flash of my Lady’s eye at ‘one.’”
“Your friendly zeal,” said Cashel, with a very peculiar emphasis on the words, “would seem to have got the upper hand of your habitually sharp perception; there was nothing to fear in any part of my intimacy with Lady Kilgoff. I have been but too short a time conversant with fashionable life to forget more vulgar habits, and, among them, that which forbids a man to pay his addresses to the wife of another. I need not vindicate her Ladyship; that she has taken a warm, I shame not to say an affectionate, interest in my fortunes, may have been imprudent I know not what your code admits of or rejects, but her kindness demands all my gratitude, and, if need be, the defence that a man of honor should always be ready to offer for the cause of truth.”
“Don’t you perceive, Cashel, that all you are saying only proves what I have been asserting,—that, while you are actually ignorant of your danger, the peril is but the greater? I repeat it to you, however intact your heart may be, hers is in your keeping. I know this; nay, I say it advisedly—don’t shake your head and look so confident—I repeat it, I know this to be the case.”
“You know it?” said Cashel, as though Linton’s words had startled his convictions.
“I know it, and I ‘ll prove it, but upon one condition—your word of honor as to secrecy.” Cashel nodded, and Linton went on. “Some short time back, some one, under the shelter of the anonymous, wrote her a letter, stating that they had long watched her intimacy with you—grieving over it, and regretting that she should have yielded any portion of her affection to one whose whole life had been a series of deceptions; that your perjuries in Love’s Court were undeniable, and that you were actually married—legally and regularly married—to a young Spanish girl.”
“Was this told her?” said Cashel, gasping for breath.
“Yes, the very name was given—Maritaña, if I mistake not. Is there such a name?”
Cashel bent his head slightly in assent.
“How you had deserted this poor girl after having won her affections—”
“This is false, sir; every word of it false!” said Cashel, purple with passion; “nor will I permit any man to drag her name before this world of slanderers in connection with such a tale. Great Heaven! what hypocrisy it is to have a horror for the assassin and the cut-throat, and yet give shelter, in your society, to those who stab character and poison reputation! I tell you, sir, that among those buccaneers you have so often sneered at, you’d not meet one base enough for this.”
“I think you are too severe upon this kind of transgression, Cashel,” said Linton, calmly. “It is as often prompted by mere idleness as malice. The great mass of people in this life have nothing to do, and they go wrong just for occupation. There may have been—there generally is—a little grain of truth amid all the chaff of fiction; there may, therefore, be a young lady whose name was—”
“I forbid you to speak it. I knew her, and, girl as she was, she was not one to suffer insult in her presence, nor shall it be offered to her in her absence.”
“My dear fellow, your generous warmth should not be unjust, or else you will find few friends willing to incur your anger in the hope of doing you service. I never believed a word of this story. Marriage—adventure—even the young lady’s identity, I deemed all fictions together.”
Cashel muttered something he meant to be apologetic for his rudeness, and Linton was not slow in accepting even so unwilling a reparation.
“Of course I think no more of it,” cried he, with affected cordiality. “I was going to tell you how Lady Kilgoff received the tidings—exactly the very opposite to what her kind correspondent had intended. It actually seemed to encourage her in her passion, as though there was a similarity in your cases. Besides, she felt, perhaps, that she was not damaging your future career, as it might be asserted she had done, were you unmarried. These are mere guesses on my part. I own to you, I have little skill in reading the Machiavellism of a female heart; the only key to its mystery I know of is, ‘always suspect what is least likely.’”
“And I am to sit down patiently under all this calumny!” said Cashel, as he walked the room with hasty steps. “I am perhaps to receive at my table those whose amusement it is so to sport with my character and my fame!”
“It is a very naughty world, no doubt of it,” said Linton, lighting a fresh cigar; “and the worst of it is, it tempts one always to be as roguish as one’s neighbors for self-preservation.”
“You say I am not at liberty to speak of this letter to Lady Kilgoff?”
“Of course not; I am myself a defaulter in having told the matter to you.”
Cashel paced the room hurriedly; and what a whirlwind of opposing thoughts rushed through his brain! for while at times all Lady Kilgoff s warnings about Linton, all his own suspicions of his duplicity and deceit, were uppermost, there was still enough in Linton’s narrative, were it true, to account for Lady Kilgoff’s hatred of him. The counsels he had given, and she rejected, were enough to furnish a feud forever between them. At which side lay the truth? And then, this letter about Maritaña,—who was the writer? Could it be Linton himself? and if so, would he have ventured to allude to it?
These thoughts harassed and distressed him at every instant, and in his present feeling towards Linton he could not ask his aid to solve the mystery.
Now, he was half disposed to charge him with the whole slander; his passion prompted him to seek an object for his vengeance, and the very cool air of indifference Linton assumed was provocative of anger. The next moment, he felt ashamed of such intemperate warmth, and almost persuaded himself to tell him of his proposal for Mary Leicester, and thus prove the injustice of the suspicion about Lady Kilgoff.
“There’s a tap at the door, I think,” said Linton. “I suppose, if it’s Frobisher, or any of them, you’d rather not be bored?” And, as if divining the answer, he arose and opened it.
“Lord Kilgoff’s compliments, and requests Mr. Linton will come over to his room,” said his Lordship’s valet.
“Very well,” said Linton, and closed the door. “What can the old peer want at this time of night? Am I to bring a message to you, Cashel?”
Cashel gave an insolent laugh.
“Or shall I tell him the story of Davoust at Hamburg, when the Syndicate accused him of peculating, and mentioned some millions that he had abstracted from the treasury. ‘All untrue, gentlemen,’ said he; ‘I never heard of the money before, but since you have been polite enough to mention the fact, I ‘ll not show myself so ungrateful as to forget it.’ Do you think Kilgoff would see the à propos?”
With this speech, uttered in that half-jocular mood habitual to him, Linton left the room, while Cashel continued to ponder over the late scene, and its probable consequences; not the least serious of which was, that Linton was possessor of his secrets. Now thinking upon what he had just heard of Lady Kilgoff, now picturing to himself how Mary Leicester would regard his pledge to Maritaña, he walked impatiently up and down, when the door opened, and Linton appeared.
“Just as I surmised!” said he, throwing himself into a chair, and laughing heartily. “My Lord will be satisfied with nothing but a duel à mort.”
“I see no cause for mirth in such a contingency,” said Cashel, gravely; “the very rumor of it would ruin Lady Kilgoff.”
“That of course is a grave consideration,” said Linton, affecting seriousness; “but it is still more his than yours.”
“He is a dotard!” said Cashel, passionately, “and not to be thought of; she is young, beautiful, and unprotected. Her fortune is a hard one already, nor is there any need to make it still more cruel.”
“I half doubt she would think it so!” said Linton, with an air of levity, as he stooped to select a cigar.
“How do you mean, sir?” cried Cashel, angrily.
“Why, simply that, when you shoot my Lord, you’ll scarcely desert my Lady,” said he, with the same easy manner.
“You surely told him that his suspicions were unfounded and unjust; that my intimacy, however prompted by the greatest admiration, had never transgressed the line of respect?”
“Of course, my dear fellow, I said a thousand things of you that I did n’t believe—and, worse still, neither did he; but the upshot of all is, that he fancies it is a question between the peerage and the great untitled class; he has got it into his wise brain that the barons of Runnymede will rise from their monumental marble in horror and shame at such an invasion of ‘the order;’ and that there will be no longer security beneath the coronet when such a domestic Jack Cade as yourself goes at large.”
“I tell you again, Linton,—and let it be for the last time,—your pleasantry is most ill-timed. I cannot, I will not, gratify this old man’s humor, and make myself ridiculous to pamper his absurd vanity. Besides, to throw a slander upon his wife, he must seek another instrument.”
By accident, mere accident, Cashel threw a more than usual significance into these last few words; and Linton, whose command over his features rarely failed, taken suddenly by what seemed a charge, grew deep red.
Cashel started as he saw the effect of his speech; he was like one who sees his chance shot has exploded a magazine.
“What!” cried he, “have you a grudge in that quarter, and is it thus you would pay it?”
“I hope you mean this in jest, Cashel?” said Linton, with a voice of forced calm.
“Faith, I never was less in a mood for joking; my words have only such meaning as your heart accuses you of.”
“Come, come, then there is no harm done. But pray, be advised, and never say as much to any one who has less regard for you. And now, once more, what shall we do with Kilgoff? He has charged me to carry you a message, and I only undertook the mission in the hope of some accommodation,—something that should keep the whole affair strictly amongst ourselves.”
“Then you wish for my answer?”
“Of course.”
“It is soon said. I ‘ll not meet him.”
“Not meet him? But just consider—”
“I have considered, and I tell you once more I ‘ll not meet him. He cannot lay with truth any injury at my door; and I will not, to indulge his petulant vanity, be led to injure one whose fair fame is of more moment than our absurd differences.”
“I own to you, Cashel, this does not strike me as a wise course. By going out and receiving his fire, you have an opportunity of declaring on the ground your perfect innocence of the charge; at least, such, I fancy, would be what I should do, in a like event. I would say, ‘My Lord, it is your pleasure, under a very grave and great misconception, to desire to take my life. I have stood here for you once, and will do so again, as many times as you please, till either your vengeance be satisfied or your error recognized; simply repeating, as I now do, that I am innocent.’ In this way you will show that personal risk is nothing with you in comparison with the assertion of a fact that regards another far more nearly than yourself. I will not dispute with you which line is the better one; but, so much will I say, This is what ‘the World’ would look for.”
The word was a spell! Cashel felt himself in a difficulty perfectly novel; he was, as it were, arraigned to appear before a court of whose proceedings he knew little or nothing. How “the World” would regard the affair, was the whole question,—what “the World” would say of Lady Kilgoff,—how receive her exculpation. Now Linton assuredly knew this same “World” well; he knew it in its rare moods of good-humor, when it is pleased to speak its flatteries to some popular idol of the hour; and he knew it in its more congenial temper, when it utters its fatal judgments on unproved delinquency and imputed wrong.
None knew better than himself the course by which the “Holy Office” of slander disseminates its decrees, and he had often impressed Roland with a suitable awe of its mysterious doings. The word was, then, talismanic; for, however at the bar of Conscience he might stand acquitted, Cashel knew that it was to another and very different jurisdiction the appeal should be made. Linton saw what was passing in his mind, for he had often watched him in similar conflicts, and he hastened to press his advantage.
“Understand me well, Cashel; I do not pretend to say that this is the common-sense solution of such a difficulty; nor is it the mode which a man with frankness of character and honorable intentions would perhaps have selected; but it is the way in which the world will expect to see it treated, and any deviation from which would be regarded as a solecism in our established code of conduct.”
“In what position will it place her? That’s the only question worth considering.”
“Perfect exculpation. You, as I said before, receive Kilgoff’s fire, and protest your entire innocence; my Lord accepts your assurance, and goes home to breakfast—voilà tout!”
“What an absurd situation! I declare to you I shrink from the ridicule that must attach to such a rencontre, meeting a man of his age and infirmity!”
“They make pistols admirably now-a-days,” said Linton, dryly; “even the least athletic can pull a hair-trigger.”
Cashel made no answer to this speech, but stood still, uncertain how to act.
“Come, come,” said Linton, “you are giving the whole thing an importance it does not merit; just let the old peer have the pleasure of his bit of heroism, and it will all end as I have mentioned. They ‘ll leave this to-morrow early, reach Killaloe to breakfast, whence Kilgoff will start for the place of meeting, and, by ten o’clock, you ‘ll be there also. The only matter to arrange is, whom you ‘ll get Were it a real affair, I ‘d say Upton, or Frobisher; but, here, it is a question of secrecy, not skill. I ‘d advise, if possible, your having MacFarline.”
“Sir Andrew?” said Cashel, half laughing.
“Yes; his age and standing are precisely what we want here. He’ll not refuse you; and if he should, it’s only telling Lady Janet that we want to shoot Kilgoff, and she ‘ll order him out at once.”
“I protest it looks more absurd than ever!” said Roland, impatiently.
“That is merely your own prejudice,” said Linton. “You cannot regard single combat but as a life struggle between two men, equal not merely in arms, but alike in bodily energy, prowess, skill, and courage. We look on the matter here as a mere lottery, wherein the less expert as often draws the prize—But there, as I vow, that was two o’clock! It struck, and I promised to see Kilgoff again to-night. By the way, he ‘ll want horses. Where can he get them?”
“Let him take mine; there are plenty of them, and he ‘ll never know anything of it.”
“Very true. What an obliging adversary, that actually ‘posts’ his enemy to the ground!”
“How am I to see MacFarline to-night?”
“You ‘ll have to call him out of bed. Let Flint say there ‘s an orderly from Limerick with despatches; that Biddy Molowney won’t pay her poor-rate, or Paddy Flanagan has rescued his pig, and the magistrates are calling for the Fifty-something and two squadrons of horse, to protect the police. You’ll soon have him up; and, once up, his Scotch blood will make him as discreet as an arch-deacon. So, good-night; add a codicil to your will in favor of my Lady, and to bed.”
With this Linton took his candle and retired.
Cashel, once more alone, began to ponder over the difficulty of his position. The more he reasoned on the matter, the stronger appeared his fears that Lady Kilgoff’s name would be compromised by a foolish and unmeaning quarrel; while, for himself, he saw nothing but ridicule and shame from his compliance. That omnipotent arbiter, “the World,” might indeed be satisfied, but Roland suspected that few of its better-judging members would hesitate to condemn a course as unfeeling as it was unwise.
A quick, sharp knocking at the door of his room aroused him from his musings; it was Lady Kilgoff’s maid, breathless and agitated. She came to say that Lord Kilgoff, after a scene of passionate excitement with her Ladyship, had been seized with paralysis, and that he was now lying powerless and unconscious on his bed.
“Come, sir, for mercy’s sake; come quickly. My Lady is distracted, nor can any of us think of what to do.”
Cashel scratched a few lines in pencil to Tiernay, requesting his immediate presence, and ringing for his servant, at once despatched a message to the village. This done, he followed the maid to Lord Kilgoff’s chamber.
CHAPTER XXI. THE SECOND SHOCK
The waters darken, and the rustling sound
Tells of the coming “squall.”
The Pilot.
Lord Kilgoff was stretched upon a bed, breathing heavily; one arm lay straight beside him, and the other crossed upon his breast. His features were deadly pale, save in the centre of each cheek, where a deep-red spot seemed to burn. A slight, very slight, distortion marked his features, and a faint tremor seemed to quiver on his lip. Beside the bed, with an expression of some conscious terror in her face, sat Lady Kilgoff; her white dressing-gown, over which her hair fell in long abundant masses, added pallor to her looks. Her eyes met Cashel’s as he entered, and then reverted to the bed where the sick man lay, but with an expression less of sorrow than of bewilderment and confusion.
She looked, indeed, like one whose faculties had been stunned by some sudden shock, and had, as yet, made no effort to recall them to their wonted exercise. At the foot of the bed stood the maid, whose half-uttered sobs were the only sounds to break the stillness.
Cashel drew near, and placed his fingers on the sick man’s pulse. Often had he, in his former adventurous career, felt the ebbing current of a life’s blood, and measured its power by its resistance. The full but laboring swell of the heart might well deceive him, then, into the impression that no grave consequences were near. He knew not that in such affections the pulse can be round and strong and impulsive; and it was with an earnest conviction of truth he whispered to her,—
“There is no danger.”
She looked up, but it was easy to see that although the words had sounded like comfort, they had not pierced the dense veil that clouded her mind.
Cashel repeated the phrase, and said,—
“Tiernay will soon be here, but have no fears; my own slight skill can tell you there is nothing of peril. Had you not better retire from this—even to the window?”
A faint “No” was all she uttered.
“He was in perfect health this afternoon?” said Cashel to the maid.
“My Lord was better than usual, sir; he took out his collar and his star to look at them, and he spoke very pleasantly of going abroad in the spring. He was reading in the library when Mr. Linton went to him.”
“Linton!” muttered Lady Kilgoff, with a shudder.
“I think I hear voices in the corridor,” said Cashel. “If it be the doctor, say I wish to speak with him before he sees my Lord.”
The maid left the room to perform the commission, and scarcely had the door closed, than Lady Kilgoff started up, and seizing an object which lay on the bed, exclaimed, “How came it in your keeping?”
“What?” cried Cashel, in amazement
“This bracelet,” said she, holding out towards him the massive bracelet which Linton had contrived to detach from her arm at their meeting in the “Park.”
“I never saw it before—never in my life.”
She sank slowly back upon the chair without speaking, while a faint tremor shook her frame.
“The doctor is without, sir,” said the maid at this moment, and Cashel hastened out. He spoke a few hurried words to Tiernay, and then walked towards his own room. That some deep and artful treachery had drawn its web around and about him, involving not himself alone, but another too, he now clearly felt. He saw danger, as the sailor sees it in the lowering sky and fleeting scud, but as yet he knew not from what quarter the “squall” was coming. His suspicions all pointed to Linton; but why attribute such a game to him? and if such were his purpose, to what end could be practise this treachery?
“Would it not be better,” thought he, “to see him at once; tell him my suspicions openly; say, that I no longer trust him as my friend, but feel towards him the misgivings of a secret enemy? If there is manliness about him, he will avow his enmity, or resent my distrust; either or both would be a relief to what I now suffer. Ah! here he comes,” said he; but he was deceived; it was Tiernay entered.
“What say you, doctor? Is the case a grave one?”
“Worse; it is nearly hopeless!”
“What! do you fear for his life?”
“Life or intellect, one or the other, must pay the penalty. This is the second shock. The shipwreck gave the first, and rent the poor edifice almost in twain; this will, in all likelihood, lay it in ashes.”
“This is very dreadful!” said Cashel, upon whom the attendant event and the consequences were weighing heavily.
“He has told me all!” said Tiernay, almost sternly. “His jealousy and her levity, the rampant pride of station, the reckless freedom of a broken heart,—such are the ingredients that have made up a sad story, which may soon become a tragedy.”
“But there was no reason for it; his jealousy was absurd—unfounded.”
“As you will. You may go further, and say he could not lose what he never owned. I saw the peril—I even warned you of it.”
“I can only comprehend you by half,” said Cashel, impatiently. “You imply blame to me where I can feel none.”
“I blame you as I will ever do those who, not fearing danger for themselves, are as indifferent about their neighbors. It is not of this silly old man I am thinking here,—it is of her who, without a protector, should have found one in every man of generous and honorable feeling; not as you, perhaps, understand protection,—not by the challenge hurled in the face of all who would dare to asperse her fair name, but by that studied respect, that hallowed deference, that should avert detraction. Neither you nor any other could be the champion of her honor; but you might have been its defender by a better and a nobler heroism. It is too late to think of this now; let us not lose time in vain regrets. We must take measures that ungenerous reports should not be circulated.”
The door suddenly opened at the instant, and Linton, in his dressing-gown, entered; but, seeing Tiernay, made a motion to retire.
“Come in,” said Cashel; and there was something almost peremptory in the words.
“I feared I might prove an intruder, seeing the doctor here. Is it true what my servant says, that Kilgoff is dangerously ill?”
Cashel nodded.
“Poor fellow! he has no command over himself in those paroxysms of passion, which his folly and vanity are so constantly stirring up. But is the case serious?”
“He will scarcely recover, sir,” said Tiernay; “and it was because my functions as a physician can be of so little benefit, that I ventured to offer my services as a friend in the case, and give some counsel as to what should be done.”
“Most considerate, indeed,” said Linton, but in an accent at once impossible to say whether ironical or the reverse.
“I said, sir,” resumed Tiernay, “that it would be becoming that no false representation should obtain currency as to the origin of the illness, nor that a momentary excitement of a feeble intellect should be assumed as the settled conviction of a sound mind. My Lord Kilgoff has had something like altercation with his wife, and being a weak and failing man, with breaking faculties, has been seized with a paralytic attack.”
“Very thoughtful, all this,” said Linton, gravely; “pray command me in any part of your plan where I may be serviceable.”
“The plan is this,” said Cashel: “here is a case where a terrible calamity has befallen, and which can be made worse only by calumny. To make the slanderer pay the heaviest penalty of his infamy—”
“Nay, nay; this is not our plan,” said Tiernay, gently. “Lord Kilgoff’s attack must be spoken of without connection with any circumstances which preceded it this evening. Nothing was more likely to occur than such a seizure; his age, his late illness, his peculiar habit, all predisposed to it.”
“Just so,” interposed Cashel, hastily; “and as none, save you, Linton, and myself, know anything of the matter, it need never gain wider publicity.”
“Of course nothing can be easier than this. The Lady ‘Janets’ need never hear a word more than you choose to tell them,” said Linton.
“In a few days he will bear removal. Change will be necessary for him; and, in fact, our caution is, doubtless, greater than the necessity warrants,” added Tiernay.
“You will, of course, leave everything to take its course in the house?” said Linton. “To interfere with all the plans of pleasure would be to give rise to malicious rumors.”
“I scarcely know how to act,” said Cashel. “It looks unfeeling and unkind that we should give ourselves up to gayety at such a moment.”
“Mr. Linton’s counsel may be wise, notwithstanding,” said Tiernay. “His Lordship may continue a long time in his present state.”
“Exactly what I mean,” said Linton. “He will probably linger on, unchanged; so that if events follow their habitual train, there will be little time or temptation to spread scandal about him; and then, what, at first blush, seems to lack kindness, is, in reality, the very truest and most considerate service we can render.”
“Then you will look to this part of the matter, Linton?” said Cashel, on whom his apparent frankness had resumed its former ascendancy.
“Leave it all to me,” said he; “and so good-night.” And, with that, he departed, leaving Cashel and Tiernay together.
They were silent for some minutes, as Linton’s retiring steps were heard going towards his own room. Soon after the loud bang of a door resounded through the house, and all was still. Little knew they, that scarcely had he gained his room than he left it noiselessly, and, slipping down the great stairs, crossed the hall, and, entering the theatre, proceeded by the secret passage which led to Cashel’s dressing-room, and through the thin panel that covered which, he could easily overhear whatever was spoken within.
“At least you will allow that he has been candid with us here?” said Cashel, in a tone of remonstrance.
“I cannot afford to give a man my confidence, because I am unable to sound his intentions,” said Tiernay. “I disliked this Linton from the first, and I never yet saw any distinct reason to alter the sentiment. That he has puzzled me—ay, completely puzzled me and all my calculations, within the last few days, is quite true. He has done that which, in a man like himself, disconcerts one altogether, because it is so difficult to trace his probable motive. What would you say, were I to tell you that this deep man of the world, this artful and subtle gambler in the game of life, has actually proposed for a girl who is utterly without fortune or family influence? That she is endowed with noble attributes—that she is one a prince might have chosen to share his fortunes, I deem as nothing to the purpose, for I cannot conceive such qualities as hers could weigh with him; but so it is,—he has actually made an offer of his hand.”
“Dare your confidence go further?” said Cashel, eagerly, “and tell me—to whom?”
“Yes. I have been guilty of one breach of faith in telling you so much, and I ‘ll hazard all, and let you hear the remainder. It was Mary Leicester.”
“Mary Leicester!” echoed Cashel, but in a voice barely audible.
“Mary Leicester,” continued Tiernay, “may count it among her triumphs to have attracted one whom all the world regards as an adventurer; a man living by the exercise of his clever wits, profiting by the weaknesses and follies of his acquaintances, and deriving his subsistence from the vices he knows how to pamper.”
“And what answer has he received?” asked Cashel, timidly.
“None, as yet. Poor Corrigan, overwhelmed by misfortune, threatened by one whose menace, if enforced, would be his death-stroke, has begged for a day or two to consider; but the reply is certain.”
“And will be—” Cashel could not command his emotion as he spoke.
“Refusal.”
“You are certain of this, Tiernay? You are positive of what you say?”
“I know it. My old friend, were, he even inclined to this alliance, could never coerce her; and Mary Leicester has long since learned to distinguish between the agreeable qualities of a clever man and the artful devices of a treacherous one. She knows him; she reads him thoroughly, and as thoroughly she despises him. I will not say that her impressions have been unaided; she received more than one letter from a kind friend—Lady Kilgoff; and these were her first warnings. Poor Corrigan knows nothing of this; and Mary, seeing how Linton’s society was pleasurable to the old man, actually shrank from the task of undeceiving him. ‘He has so few pleasures,’ said she to me one evening; ‘why deny him this one?’—‘It is a poison which cannot injure in small doses, doctor,’ added she, another time; and so, half jestingly, she reasoned, submitting to an intimacy that was odious to her, because it added a gleam of comfort to the chill twilight of his declining life.”
“And you are sure of this—you are certain she will refuse him?” cried Cashel, eagerly.
“I am her confidant,” said Tiernay; “and you see how worthily I repay the trust! Nay, nay! I would not tell these things to any other living; but I feel that I owe them to you. I have seen more misery in life from concealment, from the delicacy that shuns a frank avowal, than from all the falsehood that ever blackened a bad heart. Mary has told me all her secrets; ay—don’t blush so deeply—and some of yours also.”
Cashel did indeed grow red at this speech, and, in his effort to conceal his shame, assumed an air of dissatisfaction.
“Not so, my dear young friend,” said Tiernay; “I did not mean to say one word which could offend you. Mary has indeed trusted me with the secret nearest to her heart She has told me of the proudest moment of her life.”
“When she rejected me?” said Cashel, bitterly.
“So was it—when she rejected you,” re-echoed Tiernay. “When poor, she refused wealth; when friendless in all that friendship can profit, she declined protection; when almost homeless, she refused a home; when sought by one whom alone of all the world she preferred, she said him nay! It was at that moment of self-sacrifice, when she abandoned every thought of present happiness and of future hope, and devoted herself to one humble but holy duty, she felt the ecstasy of a martyr’s triumph. You may think that these are exaggerations, and that I reckon at too exalted a standard such evidences of affection, but I do not think so. I believe that there is more courage in the patient submission to an obscure and unnoticed fortune, beset with daily trials and privations, than in braving the stake or the scaffold, with human sympathies to exalt the sacrifice.”
“But I offered to share this duty with her; to be a son to him whom she regarded as a father.”
“How little you know of the cares—the thoughtful, watchful, anxious cares—you were willing to share! You could give wealth and splendor, it is true; you could confer all the blandishments of fortune, all the luxuries that rich men command; but one hour of gentle solicitude in sickness—one kind look, that recalled years of tenderness—one accustomed service, the tribute of affection—were worth all that gold could purchase, told ten times over. And these are not to be acquired; they are the instincts that, born in childhood, grow strong with years, till at length they form that atmosphere of love in which parents live among their children. No! Mary felt that it were a treason to rob her poor old grandfather of even a thought that should be his.”
“But, I repeat it,” cried Cashel, passionately, “I would participate in every care; I would share her duties, as she should share my fortunes.”
“And what guarantee did you give for your fitness to such a task?” said Tiernay. “Was it by your life of pleasure, a career of wild and wasteful extravagance—was it by the unbridled freedom with which you followed every impulse of your will—was it by the example your friendships exhibited—was it by an indiscriminating generosity, that only throws a shade over better-regulated munificence, you would show that you were suited to a life of unobtrusive, humble duties?”
“You wrong me,” said Cashel. “I would have lived in that cottage yonder, without a thought or a wish for the costly pleasures you think have such attractions for me.”
“You had already sold it to your friend.”
“Sold it I—never!—to whom?”
“I thought Linton had purchased it.”
“Never!”
“Well, you gave it as a gift?”
“I did intend to do so; but seeing the value Corrigan puts upon it, I will give Linton double—thrice the value, rather than part with it.”
“What if he refuse?”
“He will not. Linton’s fancies never run counter to solid advantages. A thousand pounds, with him, is always twice five hundred, come with what condition it may.”
“But Linton may, for his own reasons, think differently here; his proposal to marry seems as though it were part of some settled plan; and if you have already given him a legal claim here, my opinion is that he will uphold it.”
“That I have never done; but my word is pledged, and to it he may hold me, if he will. Meanwhile, I have seen Kennyfeck this morning. The man Hoare has offered us a large sum on mortgage, and I have promised to meet them both the day after to-morrow. If I read Tom aright, £10,000 will free me from every claim he has upon me.”
“A heavy sum, but not ill spent if it liberate you from his friendship,” cried Tiernay, eagerly.
“And so it shall.”
“You promise me this—you give me your word upon it?”
“I do.”
“Then there are good days in store for you. That man’s intimacy has been your bane; even when you thought least of it, his influence swayed your actions and perverted your motives. Under the shadow of his evil counsels your judgment grew warped and corrupted; you saw all things in a false and distorted light; and your most fatal error of all was, that you deemed yourself a ‘gentleman.’”
“I have done with him forever,” said Cashel, with slow, deliberate utterance.
“Again I say, good days are in store for you,” said Tiernay.
“I cannot live a life of daily, hourly distrust,” said Cashel; “nor will I try it. I will see him to-morrow; I will tell him frankly that I am weary of his fashionable protectorate; that as a scholar in modish tastes I should never do him credit, and that we must part. Our alliance was ever a factitious one; it will not be hard to sever it.”
“You mistake much,” said Tiernay; “the partnership will not be so easily relinquished by him who reaps all the profit.”
“You read me only as a dupe,” said Cashel, fiercely.
Tiernay made no reply, but waving his hand in adieu, left the room.
CHAPTER XXII. LINTON INSTIGATES KEANE TO MURDER
Hell’s eloquence—“Temptation!”
Harold
Tom Keane, the gatekeeper, sat moodily at his door on the morning after the events recorded in our last chapter. His reflections seemed of the gloomiest, and absorbed him so completely that he never noticed the mounted groom, who, despatched to seek the doctor for Lord Kilgoff, twice summoned him in vain to open the gate.
“Halloa!” cried the smartly equipped servant, “stupid! will you open that gate, I say?”
“It ‘s not locked,” said Tom, looking up, but without the slightest indication of obeying the request.
“Don’t you see the mare won’t stand?” cried he, with an oath.
Tom smoked away without replying.
“Sulky brute you are!” cried the groom; “I ‘m glad we ‘re to see the last of you soon.”
With this he managed to open the gate and pass on his way.
“So it’s for turnin’ me out yez are,” said Tom to himself; “turnin’ me out on the road—to starve, or maybe—to rob”—(these words were uttered between the puffs of his tobacco-smoke)—“after forty years in the same place.”
The shrill barking of a cur-dog, an animal that in spitefulness as in mangy condition seemed no bad type of its master, now aroused him, and Tom muttered, “Bite him, Blaze! hould him fast, yer soule!”
“Call off your dog, Keane—call him off!” cried out a voice whose tones at once bespoke a person of condition; and at the same instant Linton appeared. “You’d better fasten him up, for I feel much tempted to ballast his heart with a bullet.”
And he showed a pistol which he held at full cock in his fingers.
“Faix, ye may shoot him for all I care,” said Tom; “he’s losing his teeth, and won’t be worth a ‘trawneen’ ‘fore long. Go in there—into the house,” cried he, sulkily; and the animal shrank away, craven and cowed.
“You ought to keep him tied up,” said Linton; “every one complains of him.”
“So I hear,” said Tom, with a low, sardonic laugh; “he used only to bite the beggars, but he’s begun now to be wicked with the gentlemen. I suppose he finds they taste mighty near alike.”
“Just so,” said Linton, laughing; “if the cur could speak, he ‘d tell us a laborer was as tender as ‘my lord.’ I’ve come over to see you,” added he, after a moment’s pause, “and to say that I ‘m sorry to have failed in my undertaking regarding you; they are determined to turn you out.”
“I was thinking so,” said Tom, moodily.
“I did my best. I told them you had been many years on the estate—”
“Forty-two.”
“Just so. I said forty and upwards—that your children had grown up on it—that you were actually like a part of the property. I spoke of the hardship of turning a man at your time of life, with a helpless family too, upon the wide world. I even went so far as to say that these were not the times for such examples; that there was a spirit abroad of regard for the poor man, a watchful inquiry into the evils of his condition, that made these 4 clearances,’ as they call them, unwise and impolitic, as well as cruel.”
“An’ what did they say to that?” asked Tom, abruptly.
“Laughed—laughed heartily.”
“They laughed?”
“No—I am wrong,” said Linton, quickly. “Kennyfeck did not laugh; on the contrary, he seemed grave, and observed that up at Drumcoologan—is there such a name?”
“Ay, and nice boys they ‘re in it,” said Tom, nodding.
“‘Well, up at Drumcoologan,’ said he, ‘such a step would be more than dangerous.’
“‘How do you mean?’ said Mr. Cashel.
“‘They ‘d take the law into their own hands,’ replied Kennyfeck. The man who would evict one of those fellows might as well make his will, if he wished to leave one behind him. They are determined fellows, whose fathers and grandfathers have lived and died on the land, and find it rather hard to understand how a bit of parchment with a big seal on it should have more force than kith and kindred.”
“Did ould Kennyfeck say that?” asked Tom, with a glance of unutterable cunning.
“No,” replied Linton; “that observation was mine, for really I was indignant at that summary system which disposes of a population as coolly as men change the cattle from one pasturage to another. Mr. Cashel, however, contented himself with a laugh, and such a laugh as, for his sake, I am right glad none of his unhappy tenantry were witness to.”
“‘You may do as you please down here, sir,’ said Kenny-feck—who, by the way, does not seem to be any friend of yours—‘but the Drumcoologan fellows must be humored.’
“‘I will see that,’ said Mr. Cashel, who, in his own hotheaded way, actually likes opposition, ‘but we ‘ll certainly begin with this fellow Keane.’
“‘I suppose you’ll give him the means to emigrate?’ said I, addressing Kennyfeck.
“‘We generally do in these cases,’ said he.
“‘I’ll not give the scoundrel a farthing,’ broke in Mr. Cashel. ‘I took a dislike to him from the very hour I came here.’ And then he went on to speak about the dirt and neglect about the gate-lodge, the ragged appearance of the children—even your own looks displeased him; in fact, I saw plainly that somehow you had contrived to make him your enemy, not merely of a few days’ standing, but actually from the moment of his first meeting you. Kennyfeck, though not your friend, behaved better than I expected: he said that to turn you out was to leave you to starve; that there was no employment to be had in the country; that your children were all young and helpless; that you were not accustomed to daily labor; indeed, he made out your case to be a very hard one, and backed as it was by myself, I hoped that we should have succeeded; but, as I said before, Mr. Cashel, for some reason of his own, or perhaps without any reason, hates you. He has resolved that out you shall go, and go you must!”
Keane said nothing, but sat moodily moving his foot backwards and forwards on the gravel.
“For Mr. Cashel’s sake, I ‘m not sorry the lot has fallen upon a quiet-tempered fellow like yourself; there are plenty here who would n’t bear the hardship so patiently.”
Keane looked up, and the keen twinkle of his gray eyes seemed to read the other’s very thoughts. Linton, so proof against the searching glances of the well-bred world, actually cowered under the vulgar stare of the peasant.
“So you think he’s lucky that I ‘m not one of the Drumcoologan boys?” said Keane; and his features assumed a smile of almost insolent meaning.
“They’re bold fellows, I’ve heard,” said Linton, “and quick to resent an injury.”
“Maybe there’s others just as ready,” said he, doggedly.
“Many are ready to feel one,” said Linton; “that I’m well aware of. The difference is that some men sit down under their sorrows, crestfallen and beaten; others rise above them, and make their injuries the road to fortune. And really, much as people say against this ‘wild justice’ of the people, when we consider they have no other possible—that the law is ever against them—that their own right hand alone is their defence against oppression—one cannot wonder that many a tyrant landlord falls beneath the stroke of the ruined tenant, and particularly when the tyranny dies with the tyrant.”
Keane listened greedily, but spoke not; and Linton went on,—
“It so often happens that, as in the present case, by the death of one man, the estate gets into Chancery; and then it’s nobody’s affair who pays and who does not. Tenants then have as mach right as the landlord used to have. As the rents have no owner, there’s little trouble taken to collect them; and when any one makes a bold stand and refuses to pay, they let him alone, and just turn upon the others that are easier to deal with.”
“That’s the way it used to be here long ago,” said Keane.
“Precisely so. You remember it yourself, before Mr. Cashel’s time; and so it might be again, if he should try any harsh measures with those Drumcoologan fellows. Let me light my cigar from your pipe, Keane,” said he; and, as he spoke, he laid down the pistol which he had still carried in his hand. Keane’s eyes rested on the handsome weapon with an expression of stern intensity.
“Cashel would think twice of going up to that mountain barony to-morrow, if he but knew the price that lies upon his head. The hundreds of acres that to-day are a support to as many people, and this day twelvemonth, perhaps, may lie barren and waste; while the poor peasants that once settled there have died of hunger, or wander friendless and houseless in some far-away country—and all this to depend on the keen eye and the steady hand of any one man brave enough to pull a trigger!”
“Is he going to Drumcoologan to-morrow?” asked Keane, dryly.
“Yes; he is to meet Kennyfeck there, and go over the property with him, and on Tuesday evening he is to return here. Perhaps I may be able to put in another word for you, Tom, but I half fear it is hopeless.”
“‘T is a lonely road that leads from Sheehan’s Mill to the ould churchyard,” said Keane, more bent upon following out his own fancies than in attending to Linton.
“So I believe,” said Linton; “but Mr. Cashel cares little for its solitude; he rides always without a servant, and so little does he fear danger, that he never goes armed.”
“I heard that afore,” observed Tom, significantly.
“I have often remonstrated with him about it,” said Linton. “I ‘ve said, ‘Remember how many there are interested in your downfall. One bullet through your forehead is a lease forever, rent free, to many a man whose life is now one of grinding poverty.’ But he is self-willed and obstinate. In his pride, he thinks himself a match for any man—as if a rifle-bore and a percussion-lock like that, there, did not make the merest boy his equal! Besides, he will not bear in mind that his is a life exposed to a thousand risks; he has neither family nor connections interested in him; were he to be found dead on the roadside to-morrow, there is neither father nor brother, nor uncle nor cousin, to take up the inquiry how he met his fate. The coroner would earn his guinea or two, and there would be the end of it!”
“Did he ever do you a bad turn, Mr. Linton?” asked Keane, while he fixed his cold eyes on Linton with a stare of insolent effrontery.
“Me! injure me? Never. He would have shown me many a favor, but I would not accept of such. How came you to ask this question?”
“Because you seem so interested about his comin’ home safe to-morrow evening,” said Tom, with a dry laugh.
“So I am!” said Linton, with a smile of strange meaning.
“An’ if he was to come to harm, sorry as you ‘ll be, you couldn’t help it, sir?” said Keane, still laughing.
“Of course not; these mishaps are occurring every day, and will continue as long as the country remains in its present state of wretchedness.”
Keane seemed to ponder over the last words, for he slouched his hat over his eyes, and sat with clasped hands and bent-down head for several minutes in silence. At last he spoke, but it was in a tone and with a manner whose earnestness contrasted strongly with his former levity.
“Can’t we speak openly, Mr. Linton, would n’t it be best for both of us to say fairly what’s inside of us this minit?”
“I ‘m perfectly ready,” said Linton, seating himself beside him; “I do not desire anything better than to show my confidence in a man of courage like yourself.”
“Then let us not be losin’ our time,” said the other, gruffly. “What’s the job worth? that’s the chat. What is it worth?”
“You are certainly a most practical speaker,” said Linton, laughing in his own peculiar way, “and clear away preliminaries in a very summary fashion.”
“If I’m not worth trustin’ now,” replied the other, doggedly, “ye ‘d betther have nothin’ to say to me.”
“I did not mean that, nor anything like it, Tom. I was only alluding to your straightforward, business-like way of treating a subject which less vigorously minded men would approach timidly and carefully.”
“Faix, I ‘d go up to him bouldly, if ye mane that!” cried the other, who misconceived the eulogy passed upon his candor.
“I know it,—well I know it,” said Linton, encouraging a humor he had thus casually evoked; for in the bloodshot eyes and flushed cheeks of the other, it was plain to see what was passing within him.
“Do ye want it done? Tell me that,—be fair and above boord with me,—do you want it done?”
Linton was silent; but a slight, an almost imperceptible motion of his brows made the reply.
“And now what’s it worth?” resumed Tom.
“To you,” said Linton, speaking slowly, “it is worth much—everything. It is all the difference between poverty, suffering, and a jail, and a life of ease and comfort either here or in America. Your little farm, that you hold at present by the will, or rather the caprice, of your landlord, becomes your own forever; when I say forever, I mean what is just as good, since the estate will be thrown back into Chancery; and it is neither your children nor mine will see the end of that.”
“That’s no answer to me,” said Keane, fixing his cold, steady stare on Linton’s face. “I want to know—and I won’t ax it again—what is it worth to you?”
“To me!—to me!” said Linton, starting. “How could it be worth anything to me?”
“You know that best yourself,” said Tom, sulkily.
“I am neither the heir to his estates, nor one of his remote kindred. If I see a fine property going to ruin, and the tenantry treated like galley-slaves, I may, it is true, grieve over it; I may also perceive what a change—a total and happy change—a mere accident might work; for, after all, just think of the casualties that every day brings forth—”
“I have n’t time for these thoughts now,” muttered Tom.
“Always to the point,—always thinking of the direct question!” said Linton, smiling.
“‘T is n’t yer honer’s failin’, anyhow,” said Tom, laughing sardonically.
“You shall not say that of me, Tom,” said Linton, affecting to relish the jocularity; “I’ll be as prompt and ready as yourself. I’ll wager you ten sovereigns in gold—there they are—that I can keep a secret as well as you can.”
As he spoke, he threw down the glittering pieces upon the step on which they sat.
The peasant’s eyes were bent upon the money with a fierce and angry expression, less betokening desire than actual hate. As he looked at them, his cheek grew red, and then pale, and red once more; his broad chest rose and fell like a swelling wave, and his bony fingers clasped each other in a rigid grasp.
“There are twenty more where these came from,” said Linton, significantly.
“That’s a high price,—devil a lie in it!” muttered Tom, thoughtfully.
Linton spoke not, but seemed to let the charm work.
“A high price, but the ‘dhrop’ in Limerick is higher,” said Tom, with a grin.
“Perhaps it may be,” rejoined Linton, carelessly; “though I don’t perceive how the fact can have any interest for you or me.”
“Be gorra, ye ‘re a cowld man, anyhow,” said Keane, his savage nature struck with admiring wonder at the unmoved serenity of Linton’s manner.
“I’m a determined one,” said Linton, who saw the necessity of impressing his companion; “and with such alone would I wish to act.”
“And where would you be, after it was all over, sir?”
“Here, where I am at present, assisting the magistrates to scour the country,—searching every cabin at Drumoologan,—draining ditches to discover the weapon, and arresting every man that killed a pig and got blood on his corduroys for the last fortnight.”
“And where would I be?” asked Keane.
“Here too; exactly where you sit this moment, quietly waiting till the outcry was over. Nor need that make you impatient. I have said already there is neither wife, nor sister, nor brother, nor child to take up the pursuit. There are forty people in the great house yonder, and there would n’t be four of them left two hours after it was known, nor one out of the four that would give himself the trouble of asking how it happened.”
“An’ them’s gentlemen!,” said Keane, closing his lips and shaking his head sententiously.
Linton arose; he did not over-fancy the turn of reflection Tom’s remark implied: it looked too like the expression of a general condemnation of his class—at the very moment, too, when he was desirous of impressing him with the fullest trust and confidence in his own honor.
“I believe it’s safer to have nothin’ to do with it,” muttered Keane.
“As you please, friend,” replied Linton; “I never squeeze any man’s conscience. You know best what your own life is.”
“Hard enough, that’s what it is,” said the other, bitterly.
“You can also make a guess what it will be in future, when you leave this.”
A deep groan was all that he gave for answer.
“For all that I know, you may have many friends who ‘ll not see your wife and children begging along the roads, or sitting in a hole scooped out of a clay ditch, without food or fire, waiting for the fever to finish what famine has begun. You have n’t far to seek for what I mean; about two hundred yards from that gate yonder there ‘s a group exactly like it.”
“Ye ‘re a terrible man, that’s the truth,” said Tom, as he wiped the big drops of perspiration from his forehead. “Be gorra, I never seed your like afore!”
“I told you that I was a determined man,” said Linton, sternly; “and I’m sorry to see that’s not what I should say of you.” He moved a step or two as he spoke, and then turning carelessly back, added, “Leave that money for me at ‘The house’ this evening; I don’t wish to carry gold about me on the roads here.” And with this negligent remark he departed.
Linton sauntered carelessly away; nothing in his negligent air and carriage to show that he was not lounging to kill the weary hours of a winter’s day. No sooner, however, had he turned an angle of the road than he entered the wood, and with cautious steps retraced his way, till he stood within a few paces of where Keane yet sat, still and motionless.
His worn hat was pressed down upon his brows, his hands were firmly clasped, and his head bent so as to conceal his features; and in this attitude he remained as rigidly impassive as though he were seized with a catalepsy. A few heavy drops of rain fell, and then a low growling roar of thunder followed, but he heeded not these signs of coming storm. The loud cawing of the rooks as they hastened homeward filled the air, but he never once lifted his head to watch them! Another crash of thunder was heard, and suddenly the rain burst forth in torrents. Swooping along in heavy drifts, it blackened the very atmosphere, and rushed in rivulets down the gravel walk; but still he sat, while the pelting storm penetrated his frail garments and soaked them through. Nor was it till the water lay in pools at his feet that he seemed conscious of the hurricane. Then rising suddenly, he shook himself roughly, and entered the house.
Linton’s eyes were earnestly fixed upon the stone—he crept nearer to observe it. The money was gone.
