XXVI. THE DINNER IN THE SCHOOLROOM
Sir Within could not persuade Mademoiselle to accept his invitation for herself and her pupils to dinner, and was about to take his leave, when Ada suddenly said, “Why not dine with us, Sir Within?”
“Fi! donc, Mademoiselle!” broke in the governess. “How could you think of such a thing? Sir Within Wardle sit down to a schoolroom dinner!”
“But why need it be a schoolroom dinner, Mademoiselle Heinzleman? Why not tell cook that we mean to have company to-day, and make Bickards wait on us, and tell George to wear his gloves, just as if papa were at home?”
“Oh” broke in Sir Within, “I have seen quite enough--more than enough--of all that, dear Ada; but if I could be permitted to join your own little daily dinner of the schoolroom, as you call it, that would really be a treat to me.”
“I invite you, then!” said Ada. “Mademoiselle owes me a favour for that wonderful German theme I wrote, and I take this as my reward. We dine at three, Sir Within, and, I warn you, on mutton-broth and mutton something else; but Kate and I will make ourselves as fine as we may, and be as entertaining as possible.”
While the two girls scampered off, laughing merrily at the discomfiture of the governess, that respectable lady remained to offer profuse apologies to Sir Within for the liberty, childish though it was, that had been taken with him, and to excuse herself from any imputation of participating in it.
She little knew, indeed, with what honest sincerity he had accepted the proposal. Of the great game of life, as played by fine people, he had seen it to satiety. He was thoroughly wearied of all the pleasures of the table, as he was of all the captivations which witty conveners and clever talkers can throw over society. Perhaps, from his personal experience, he knew how artificial such displays are--how studied the à propos, how carefully in ambush the impromptu--and that he longed for the hearty, healthful enjoyment of young, fresh, joyous natures, just as one might turn from the oppressive odours of a perfumer’s shop to taste with ecstasy the fresh flowers of a garden. It was, therefore, as he expressed it to the governess, a perfect fête to him to assist at that little dinner, and he was deeply honoured by the invitation.
Mademoiselle was charmed with the old Baronet’s politeness. It was ceremonious enough even for Germany, he smiled so blandly and bowed so reverently, and often it was like a memory of the Fatherland just to listen to him; and, indeed, it was reassuring to her to hear from him that he had once been a Minister at the Court of a Herzog, and had acquired his “moden” in this true and legitimate fashion. And thus did they discuss for hours “aesthetic,” and idealism, and sympathy, mysterious affinity, impulsive destiny, together with all the realisms which the Butter-brod life of Germany can bring together, so that when she arose to dress for dinner, she could not help muttering to herself, as she went, that he was “a deeply skilled in the human heart-and-far acquainted with the mind’s operations--but not the less on that account a fresh-with-a-youthful sincerity-endowed man.”
The dinner, though not served in the schoolroom, was just as simple as Ada promised, and she laughingly asked Sir Within if he preferred his beer frothed or still, such being the only choice of liquor afforded him.
“Mademoiselle is shocked at the way we treat you,” said she, laughing, “but I have told her that your condescension would be ill repaid if we made any attempt to lessen its cost, and it must be a ‘rice-pudding day’ in your life.”
And how charmingly they talked, these two girls! Ada doing the honours as a hostess, and Kate, as the favoured friend, who aided her to entertain an honoured guest. They told him, too, how the fresh bouquet that decked the table had been made by themselves to mark the sense they had of his presence, and that the coffee had been prepared by their own hands.
“Now, do say, Sir Within, that dining with Royal Highnesses and Supreme Somethings is but a second-rate pleasure compared to an Irish stew in a schoolroom, and a chat round a fire that has been lighted with Bonnycastle’s Algebra. Yes, Mademoiselle,” Kate said, “I had to make light of simple equations for once! I was thinking of that story of the merchant, who lighted his fire with the King’s bond when his Majesty deigned to dine with him. I puzzled my head to remember which of our books lay nearest our heart, and I hesitated long between Ollendorff and Bonnycastle.”
“And what decided you?” asked Sir Within.
“What so often decides a doubt--convenience. Bonnycastle had the worst binding, and was easier to burn.”
“If you so burn to study algebra, Mademoiselle,” said the governess, who had misunderstood the whole conversation, “you must first show yourself more ‘eifrig’--how you call zeal?--for your arithmetic.”
“You shall have full liberty, when you pay me a visit, to burn all the volumes on such subjects you find,” said Sir Within.
“Oh, I’d go through the whole library,” cried Kate, eagerly, “if I could only find one such as Garret O’Moore did.”
“I never heard of his fortune.”
“Nor I. Do tell it, Kate.”
“Mademoiselle has forbidden all my legends,” said she, calmly.
“I’m sure,” said Sir Within, “she will recal the injunction for this time.”
“It is very short,” said Kate; and then with infinite archness, turning to the governess, added, “and it has a moral.”
The governess nodded a grave permission, and the other began:
“There was once on a time a great family in the west of Ireland called the O’Moores, who, by years of extravagance, spent everything they had in the world, leaving the last of the name, a young man, so utterly destitute, that he had scarcely food to eat, and not a servant to wait on him. He lived in a lonely old house, of which the furniture had been sold off, bit by bit, and nothing remained but a library of old books, which the neighbours did not care for.”
“Algebras and Ollendorff’s, I suppose,” whispered Sir Within; and she smiled and went on:
“In despair at not finding a purchaser, and pinched by the cold of the long winter’s nights, he used to bring an armful of them every night into his room to make his fire. He had not, naturally, much taste for books or learning, but it grieved him sorely to do this; he felt it like a sort of sacrilege, but he felt the piercing cold more, and so he gave in. Well, one night, as he brought in his store, and was turning over the leaves--which he always did before setting fire to them--he came upon a little square volume, with the strangest letters ever he saw; they looked like letters upside down, and gone mad, and some of them were red, and some black, and some golden, and between every page of print there was a sheet of white paper without anything on it. O’Moore examined it well, and at last concluded it must have been some old monkish chronicle, and that the blank pages were left for commentaries on it. At all events, it could have no interest for him, as he couldn’t read it, and so he put it down on the hearth till he wanted it to burn.
“It was close on midnight, and nothing but a few dying embers were on the hearth, and no other light in the dreary room, when he took up the old chronicle, and tearing it in two, threw one half on the fire.
The moment he did so the flame sprang up bright as silver, lighting up the whole room, so that he could see even the old cobwebs on the ceiling, that had not been seen for yean and years, and at the same time a delicious music filled the air, and the sounds of children’s voices singing beautifully; but, strangest of all, in the very middle of the bright fire that now filled the whole hearth, there sat a little man with a scarlet cloak on him, and a scarlet hat and a white feather in it, and he smiled very graciously at O’Moore, and beckoned him over to him, but O’Moore was so frightened and so overcome he couldn’t stir. At last, as the flames got lower, the Tittle man’s gestures grew more energetic, and O’ Moore crept down on his knees, and said, “‘Do you want anything with me, Sir?’”
“‘Yes, Garret,’ said the little man,: ‘I want to be your friend, and to save you from ruin like the rest of your family. You were wrong to burn that book.’
“‘But I couldn’t read it,’ said Garret; ‘what use was it to me?’
“‘It was your own life, Garret O’Moore,’ said the little man, ‘and take care that you keep the part you have there, and study it carefully. It would have been, better for you if you had kept the whole of it.’
“And with that the flame sprang brightly up for a second or two, and then went black out, so that O’Moore had to grope about to find tinder to strike a light. He lit the only bit of candle he had, and began to examine the part of the book that remained, and what did he find but on every blank page there was a line--sometimes two--written as if to explain the substance of the printed page, and all in such a way as to show it was somebody’s life, and adventures--as, for instance: ‘Takes to the sea--goes to America--joins an expedition to the Far West--on the plantations--marries--wife dies---off to China--marries again.’ I needn’t go on: everything that was ever to happen to him was written there till he was forty-five years of age, the rest was burned; but it was all fortunate--all, to the very end. He grew to be very rich, and prospered in everything, for whenever he was faint-hearted or depressed, he always said, ‘It wasn’t by being low and weak of heart that I begun this career of good fortune, and I must be stout and of high courage if I mean to go on with it.’ And he grew so rich that he bought back all the old acres of the O’Moores, and they have a hand rescuing a book from the flames on their arms till this day.”
“And the moral?--where’s the moral?” asked the governess.
“The moral, the moral!” said Kate, dubiously. “Well, I’m not exactly sure where it is, but I suppose it is this; that it’s far better to go to sea as a sailor than to sit down and burn your father’s library.”
“I have a notion, my dear Kate, that you yourself would like well to have a peep into destiny--am I wrong?”
“I would, Sir.”
“And you, Ada?”
“Why should she?” broke in Kate, eagerly; and then, as though shocked at her impetuosity, she went on, in a lower voice: “Ada makes her voyage in a three-decker, I am only clinging to a plank.”
“No, no, dearest,” said Ada, tenderly; “don’t say that.”
“Mademoiselle is looking at her watch,” said Sir Within, “and I must accept the signal.” And though she protested, elaborately too, that it was a mere habit with her, he arose to ring for his carriage. “I am not going without the sketch you promised me, Ada,” said he--“the pencil sketch of the old fountain.”
“Oh, Kate’s is infinitely better. I am ashamed to see mine after it.”
“Why not let me have both?”
“Yes,” said the governess, “that will be best. I’ll go and fetch them.”
Ada stood for a moment irresolute, and then muttering, “Mine is really too bad,” hastened out of the room after Mademoiselle Heinzle-man.
“You are less merry than usual, Kate,” said Sir Within, as he took her hand and looked at her with interest. “What is the reason?”
A faint, scarce perceptible motion of her brow was all she made in answer.
“Have you not been well?”
“Yes, Sir. I am quite well.”
“Have you had news that has distressed you?”
“Where from?” asked she, hurriedly.
“From your friends--from home.”
“Don’t you know, Sir, that I have neither!”
“I meant, my dear child--I meant to say, that perhaps you had heard or learned something that gave you pain.”
“Yes, Sir,” broke she in, “that is it. Oh, if I could tell you----”
“Why not write it to me, dear child?”
“My writing is coarse and large, and I misspell words; and, besides, it is such a slow way to tell what one’s heart is full of--and then I’d do it so badly,” faltered she out with pain.
“Suppose, then, I were to settle some early day for you all to come over to Dalradern; you could surely find a moment to tell me then?”
“Yes, Sir--yes,” cried she; and, seizing his hand, she kissed it passionately three or four times.
“Here they are,” said Ada, merrily--“here they are! And if Kate’s does ample justice to your beautiful fountain, mine has the merit of showing how ugly it might have been. Isn’t this hideous?”
After a few little pleasant common-places, Sir Within turned to Mademoiselle Heinzleman, and said: “I have rather an interesting book at Dalradern; at least, it would certainly have its interest for you, Mademoiselle. It is a copy of ‘Clavigo,’ with Herder’s marginal suggestions. Goethe had sent it to him for his opinion, and Herder returned it marked and annotated. You will do me an infinite favour to accept it.”
“Ach Gott!” said the governess, perfectly overwhelmed with the thought of such a treasure.
“Well, then, if the weather be fine on Tuesday, Mademoiselle, will you and my young friends here come over and dine with me? We shall say three o’clock for dinner, so that you need not be late on the road. My carriage will be here to fetch you at any hour you appoint.”
A joyous burst of delight from Ada, and a glance of intense gratitude from Kate, accompanied the more formal acceptance of the governess; and if Sir Within had but heard one tithe of the flattering things that were said of him, as he drove away, even his heart, seared as it was, would have been touched.
Kate, indeed, said least; but when Ada, turning abruptly to her, asked, “Don’t you love him?” a slight colour tinged her cheek, as she said, “I think he’s very kind, and very generous, and very-------”
“Go on, dear--go on,” cried Ada, throwing her arm around her--“finish; and very what?”
“I was going to say an impertinence,” whispered she, “and I’ll not.”
“Nine o’clock, young ladies, and still in the drawing-room!” exclaimed the governess, in a tone of reproach. “These are habits of dissipation, indeed--come away. Ach Gott! der Clavigo!” muttered she, with clasped hands. And the girls were hardly able to restrain a burst of laughter at the fervour of her voice and manner.
XXVII. KITTY
The wished-for Tuesday came at last, and with a fortune not always so favouring, brought with it a glorious morning, one of those bright, sharp, clear days, with a deep blue sky and frosty air, and with that sense of elasticity in the atmosphere which imparts itself to the spirits, and makes mere existence enjoyment. The girls were in ecstasy; they had set their hearts so much on this visit, that they would not let themselves trust to the signs of the weather on the night before, but were constantly running out to ask George the gardener, if that circle round the moon meant anything?--why were the stars so blue?--and why did they twinkle so much?--and was it a sign of fine weather that the river should be heard so clearly? Rickards, too, was importuned to consult the barometer, and impart his experiences of what might be expected from its indications. The gardener augured favourably, was pronounced intelligent, and tipped by Ada in secret. Rickards shook his head at the aspect of the mercury, and was called a “conceited old ass” for his pains. Not either of them treated with different measure than is meted by the public to those great organs of information which are supposed to be their guides, but are just as often their flatterers, for the little world of the family is marvellously like the great world of the nation.
“What a splendid day, Kate. How beautiful the waterfall will look, coming down in showers of diamonds, and how crisp and sharp the copper beech and the big ilex-trees over it. Oh, winter, if this be winter, is really the time for scenery! What makes you so grave, dear? I am wild with spirits to-day.”
“And so should I if I were you.”
“How can you say that,” said Ada, as she threw her arm around the other’s waist. “How can you, Kate, when you know how much cleverer you are, and quicker at everything--how you leave me behind at all I have been working at for years!”
“And never to need that same cleverness is worth it all, I am told!”
“How so? I don’t understand you.”
“I mean, that you are better off--better dealt with by Fortune to be a born lady than I, if I had all the gifts and all the powers you would bestow upon me.”
“This is one of your dark days, as you call them,” said Ada, reproachfully; “and you mean to make it one of mine, too, and I was so happy.”
“This, perhaps, is another of my gifts,” said she, with a mocking laugh, “and yet I was brought here to make you merry and light-hearted! Yes, dear, I overheard Mr. Grenfell tell your papa that his plan was a mistake, and that all ‘low-bred ones’--that was the name he gave us--lost the little spirit they had when you fed them, and only grew lazy.”
“Oh, Kate, for shame!”
“The shame is not mine; it was he said it.”
“How sad you make me by saying these things.”
“Well, but we must own, Ada, he was right! I was--no, I won’t say happier, but fifty times as merry and light-hearted before I came here; and though gathering brushwood isn’t as picturesque as making a bouquet, I am almost sure I sang over the one, and only sighed over the other.”
Ada turned away her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Isn’t it a hopeful thing to try and make people happy?”
“But papa surely wished, and he believed that you would be happy,” said Ada, with something almost reproachful in her manner.
“All because he hadn’t read that little German fable of the Two Fairies--the one who always did something and failed, and the other who always promised and promised; watering the little plant of Hope, as he calls it, and making believe that the fruit would be, one day, so sweet and so luscious as no lips had ever tasted before. And it’s strange, Ada,” added she, in a graver tone--“it’s strange, but when I was out upon the mountains watching the goats, rambling all day alone in the deep heather, how I used to think and think! O dear! what wonderful things did I not think would one day come to pass--how rich I should be, how great, and, best of all, how beautiful! How kings and great people would flatter me, and make me grand presents; and how haughty I should be to some, and how gracious to others--perhaps very humble people; and how I’d amaze every one with all I knew, and they’d say, ‘Where did she learn this? How did she ever come to know that?’”
“And would that be happiness, Kate?”
“Would it not?”
“Then why not have the same dreams now?”
“Because I cannot--because they won’t come--because life is too full--because, as we eat before we are hungry, and lie down before we are tired, one’s thoughts never go high enough to soar above the pleasures that are around them. At least, I suppose that’s the reason; but I don’t care whether it is or not; there’s the carriage--I hear it coming. And now for such a jolly day in that glorious old garden, with the fountains and the statues, and
All the fine things in rock-work and crockery, That make of poor Katun a solemn old mockery.
Do you know the rest?”
“No, I don’t. I never heard it.”
“It goes on, a something about
Flowers, the first gardener ne’er had in his Eden, And dells so secluded, they ne’er saw the sun, And sweet summer-houses so pleasant to read in, With bright little jets-d’eau of eau-de-Cologne.
Isn’t that a Snob’s Paradise?--that’s what it’s called, Ada.” And away she went, singing a “Tyrol, tra la, la lira!” with a voice that seemed to ring with joy.
Ada called to her to come back; but she never heeded, and fled down the garden and was soon lost to view. Meanwhile, the carriage had reached the door, and as Ada rushed forward to greet it, she stepped back with dismay, for, instead of Sir Within’s spruce britschka, it was an old post-chaise, from which descended the well wrapt-up figure of Mr. M’Kinlay.
“Delighted to see you, Miss Ada; how you’ve grown since I was here--quite a young woman, I declare!” The last words were in soliloquy, for Ada, not aware that he had seen her, had betaken herself to flight to acquaint Mademoiselle of his arrival.
“Glad to see you again, Sir, in these parts,” said Rickards, as he caught up the smallest item of the luggage by way of assisting the traveller. “You had a pleasant journey, I hope, Sir?”
“So-so, Rickards--only so-so. It’s not the time of year one would choose to come down amongst the Welsh mountains; bitterly cold it was this morning early.”
“We’ll soon warm you, Sir; come into the dining-room. You haven’t had breakfast, I’m sure.”
“Nothing--not as much as a cup of tea--since four o’clock yesterday.”
“Dear me, Sir, I don’t know how you bear it. It’s what I remarked to Sir Gervais. I said, ‘There’s Mr. M’Kinlay, Sir,’ said I, ‘he goes through more than any young gentleman in the grouse season.’”
“Well, I’m not so very old, Rickards--eh?”
“Old! I should think not, Sir--in the very prime of life; and I declare, of an evening, Sir, with your white waistcoat on, I’d not guess you to be more than--let me see----”
“Never mind the figure. Ah, this is comfortable; capital old room, and a good old-fashioned fire-place.”
While the lawyer held his half-frozen hands to the fire, Rickards drew a little table close to the hearth, and, with the dexterity of his calling, arranged the breakfast-things. “A hot steak in one moment, Sir, and a devilled kidney or two. Excuse me, Sir, but I’d say a little mulled claret would be better than tea; mulled, Sir, with just one table-spoonful of old brandy in it--Mr. Grenfell’s receipt.”
“No man should know better, Rickards.”
“Ah, Sir, always sharp--always ready you are, to be sure!” And Rickards had to wipe his eyes as he laughed at the repartee.
“And how do you get on here, Rickards?” said M’Kinlay, in a tone evidently meant to invite perfect confidence, and as evidently so interpreted, for, though the door was closed, Rickards went over and laid his hand on it, to assure himself of the fact, and then returned to the fireplace.
“Pretty well, Sir, pretty well. The governess will be meddling--these sort of people can’t keep from it--about the house expenses, and so on; but I don’t stand it, nohow. I just say, ‘This is the way we always do, Mam’sel. It’s just thirty-eight years I’m with the master’s father and himself.’ Isn’t that a pictur’ of a steak, Mr. M’Kinlay? Did you ever see sweeter fat than that, and the gravy in it, Sir? Mrs. Byles knows you, Sir, and does her best. You remember that game-pie, Sir, the last time you was here?”
“I think I do, and you told her what I said of it; but I don’t like what you say of the governess. She is meddlesome--interferes, eh?”
“Everywhere, Sir, wherever she can. With George about the hothouse plants and the melon-frames, with Mrs. Byles about the preserves, a thing my lady never so much as spoke of; and t’other day, Sir, what d’ye think she does, but comes and says to me, ‘Mr. Rickards, you have a cellar-book, haven’t you?’ Yes, ma’am,’ says I; ‘and if the young ladies wants it in the schoolroom to larn out of, I’ll bring it in with pleasure.’ Wasn’t that pretty home, Sir, eh?”
“And what did she say to that?”
“She whisked about this way”--here Mr. Rickards made a bold pirouette--“and said something in high Dutch that I feel sure wasn’t a blessing.”
“Tell me one thing, Rickards,” said the lawyer, in a lower tone, and with the air of a complete confidant. “What’s this little game she’s playing about that Irish girl, writing to my lady that she’s a genius, that she can do this, that, and t’other, and that you’ve only to show her a book, and she knows it from cover to cover?”
“And don’t you see what it is, Sir?” said Rickards, with one eye knowingly closed; “don’t you see it, Sir?”
“No, Rickards, I do not.”
“It’s all the way that little sarpent has of comin’ round her. Of all the creatures ever I seen, I never knew her equal for cunning. It ain’t any use knowing she’s a fox--not a bit of it, Sir--she’ll get round you all the same. It’s not an easy thing to get to the blind side of Mrs. Byles, I promise you. She’s a very knowledgeable woman, lived eleven years under a man-cook at Lord Wandsford’s, and knows jellies, and made French dishes as well as Monsieur Honoré himself. Well, Sir, that imp there winds her round her finger like a piece of packthread. She goes and says, ‘Byles’--she doesn’t as much as Mrs. Byles her, the way my lady would--but ‘Byles,’ says she, ‘if ever I come to be a great lady and very rich, I’ll have you to keep my house, and you shall have your own nice sittin’-room, and your own maid to wait on you, and a hundred a year settled on you for your life.’ I vow it’s a fact, Sir, wherever she heard of such a thing, but she said ‘settled on you for life;’ and then, Sir, she’ll sit down and help her with the strawberry-jam, or the brandy-peaches, or whatever it is, and Mrs. Byles says there wouldn’t be her equal in all England, if she only took to be a still-room maid.”
“And can she humbug Mr. Rickards? Tell me that,” asked the lawyer, with the leer of an old cross-examiner.
“Well, I do think, Sir, she can’t do that. It’s not every one as could.”
“No, Rickards; you and I know how to sleep with one eye open. But what does she mean by all this cunning--what does she intend by it?”
“There’s what I can’t come at, nohow, Sir; for, as I say, what’s the good of plotting when you have everything at your hand? She hasn’t no need for it, Mr. M’Kinlay. She has the same treatment here as Miss Ada herself--it was the master’s orders.”
“It puzzles me, Rickards: I own it puzzles me,” said the lawyer, as, with his hands deep! in his pockets, he took a turn or two in the room.
“They say, Sir, it’s the way of them Irish,” said Rickards, with the air of a man enunciating a profound sentiment; but M’Kinlay either did not hear, or did not value the remark, for, after a pause, he said, “Its just possible, after all, Rickards, that it’s only a way she has. Don’t you think so?”
“I do not, Sir,” replied he, stoutly. “If there wasn’t more than that in it, she wouldn’t go on as I have seen her do, when she thought she was all alone.”
“How so? What do you mean?”
“Well, you see, Sir, there’s a laurel hedge in the garden, that goes along by the wall where the peach-trees are, and that’s her favourite walk, and I’ve watched her when she was there by herself, and it was as good as any play to see her.”
“In what respect?”
“She’d be making believe all sorts of things to herself--how that she was a fine lady showing the grounds to a party of visitors, telling them how she intended to build something here and throw down something there, what trees she’d plant in one place, and what an opening for a view she’d made in another. You’d not believe your ears if you heard how glibly she’d run on about plants and shrubs and flowers. And then suddenly she’d change, and pretend to call her maid, and tell her to fetch her another shawl or her gloves; or she’d say, ‘Tell George I shall not ride to-day, perhaps I’ll drive out in the evening.’ And that’s the way she’d go on till she heard the governess coming, and then, just as quick as lightning, you’d hear her in her own voice again, as artless as any young creature you ever listened to.”
“I see--I see,” said M’Kinlay, with a sententious air and look, as though he read the whole case, and saw her entire disposition revealed before him like a plan. “A shrewd minx in her own way, but a very small way it is. Now, Rickards, perhaps you’d tell Miss Heinzleman that I’m here--of course, not a word about what we’ve been talking over.”
“You couldn’t think it, Sir.”
“Not for a moment, Rickards. I could trust to your discretion like my own.”
When Mr. M’Kinlay was left alone, he drew forth some letters from his pocket, and sought out one in a small envelope, the address of which was in a lady’s writing. It was a yery brief note from Miss Courtenay to himself, expressing her wish that he could find it convenient to run down, if only for a day, to Wales, and counsel Mademoiselle Heinzleman on a point of some difficulty respecting one of her pupils. The letter was evidently written in terms to be shown to a third party, and implied a case in which the writer’s interest was deep and strong, but wherein she implicitly trusted to the good judgment of her friend, Mr. M’Kinlay, for the result.
“You will hear,” wrote she, “from Mademoiselle Heinzleman the scruples she has communicated to myself and learn from her that all the advantages derivable from my brother-in-law’s project have been already realised, but that henceforth difficulties alone may be apprehended, so that your consideration will be drawn at once to the question whether this companionship is further necessary, or indeed advisable.” She went on to state that if Sir Gervais had not told her Mr. M’Kinlay would be obliged to go down to the cottage for certain law papers he required, she would have scarcely ventured on imposing the present charge upon him, but that she felt assured, in the great regard he had always expressed for the family, of his ready forgiveness.
A small loose slip, marked “Strictly private and confidential,” was enclosed within the note, the words of which ran thus: “You will see that you must imply to Mademoiselle H. that she has written to me, in the terms and the spirit of my letter to her, and in this way pledge her to whatever course you mean to adopt. This will be easy, for she is a fool.
“I cannot believe that all the interest she assumes to take in K. is prompted by the girl’s qualities, or her aptitude to learn, and I gravely suspect she has my brother-in-law’s instructions on this head. This plot, for plot it is, I am determined to thwart, and at any cost. The girl must be got rid of, sent to a school, or if no better way offer, sent home again. See that you manage this in such a way as will not compromise yourself, nor endanger you in the esteem of
“G. C.”
This last line he re-read before he enclosed the slip in his pocket-book, muttered to himself the words, “endanger you in the esteem of Georgina Courtenay.”
“I wonder what she means by all this?” muttered he, as he folded the loose slip and placed it within the recess of his pocket-book. “The whole scheme of educating this girl was never a very wise one, but it need not have called up such formidable animosity as this. Ah, Mademoiselle, I am charmed to see you looking so well; this mountain air agrees with you,” said he, as the governess entered. “I have come down to search for some documents Sir Gervais tells me I shall find in his desk, here, and will ask you to let me be your guest for twenty-four hours.”
Mademoiselle professed the pleasure his visit would confer, and in an interchange of compliments some time was passed; at length, Mr. M’Kinlay, as if suddenly remembering himself, said, “By the way here is a note I have just received from Miss Courtenay; I think you may as well read it yourself.”
The lawyer watched her face keenly as she read over the letter, and saw clearly enough, in the puzzled expression of her features, that she was trying to recal what she could have written in her last letter to Rome.
“Sonderbar, es ist sonderbar: it is strange, very strange,” muttered she, evidently lost in doubt, “for in my letter of this morning from Lady Vyner, she says that we shall probably soon be sent for to Italy, for that her mother has a great longing to see Ada; and yet there is no hint whatever about Kate.”
“Does she mention that she expects Miss O’Hara to accompany you?” asked he.
“She does not say so; her words are, ‘Do not feel startled if my next letter will call you to us, for her grandmother is most anxious to see Ada;’ and then she goes on to say what different routes there are, and where Sir Gervais could meet us.”
“I think I understand the reserve,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, with an air of much wisdom; “her Ladyship addresses herself to one question solely, and leaves all outside of it to be dealt with by others. It is for us--for you, Mademoiselle, and I, to think of what is to be done with Miss O’Hara.”
“What is there to be done but take her with us?--without, indeed, you were to send her home again,” said she, with some agitation in her voice.
“That is the whole question, Mademoiselle; we must think over it carefully, and, first of all, I must examine certain papers here, which will explain what are the legal claims of this young lady, and who are her guardians; for I remember, though Mr. Grenfell was to have acted, and, indeed, his name was written in pencil, Sir Gervais changed his mind, and thought of another trustee. For all these matters I shall want a little time, and perhaps it will not be asking too great a favour if I were to beg, to let me have my whole day to myself in the library, and the churlish privilege of being alone.”
The governess acceded politely to his proposal, not sorry, perhaps, to have a short interval to herself for consideration over the question before her, and still better pleased, too, that the girls were not destined to lose the long wished-for delight of a day at Dalradern.
XXVIII. SIR WITHIN “AT HOME.”
If the two young girls whose visit Sir Within Wardle was expecting had been Princesses of a Royal House, he could scarcely have made more preparations for their reception. Who knows if he did not, indeed, feign to himself that his castle was on that morning to be honoured by the presence of those who move among lesser humanities, as suns do among inferior orbs? It would have certainly been one of those illusions natural to such a man; he loved that great world, and he loved all that revived it in his memory; and so when he gave orders that all the state furniture of the castle should be uncovered, the handsomest rooms thrown open, and the servants in their dress liveries, the probability is, that the fête he was giving was an offering secretly dedicated to himself.
In the old court-yard, beautiful plants, magnolias, camellias, and rare geraniums were arranged, regardless that the nipping cold of a sharp winter’s day was to consign so many of them to an early death; and over the fountain and the statues around it, beautiful orchids were draped--delicate tendrils torn from the genial air of the conservatory, to waste a few hours of beauty ere they drooped for ever.
Sir Within heard the remonstrances of his afflicted gardener with the bland dignity he would have listened to a diplomatic “reclamation;” and then instantly assured him that his representations should have due weight on the next similar occasion, but, for the present, his commands were absolute. The comments of a household disturbed on a pretext so humble may be easily imagined. The vested interests of major-domo, and butler, and housekeeper, are not institutions to be lightly dealt with, and many indeed were the unflattering commentaries bestowed on the intelligence and understanding of him who had turned the house out of the windows for a couple of “school-girls.” But guesses that actually rose to the impertinence of impeachment of his sanity were uttered, when the old Baronet came down stairs, wearing his ribbon and his star.
And it was thus attired that he received them as they drove into the court, and alighted at the foot of the grand staircase.
“You see, young ladies,” said he, with a courtly smile, “that I deem the honour of your visit no small distinction. That old river-god yonder and myself have put on our smartest coats; and it is only to be hoped neither of us will be the worse for our ‘Bath.’”
Ada smiled graciously and bowed her thanks; but Kate, with a sparkle in her eye, muttered, in his hearing too, “How neatly said!” a little compliment that fluttered the old man, bringing back days when a happy mot was a success only second to a victory.
“As you have never been here before, you must allow me to be your ‘Cicerone;’ and I’ll be a more merciful one than Mrs. Simcox, my housekeeper, who really would not spare you one of my ancestors since the Conquest. These grim people, then, at either side of us are Withins or Wardles; nine generations of excellent mortals are gazing on us; that dark one yonder, Sir Hugh, was standard-bearer to Henry the Second; and that fair-faced damsel yonder, was maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, and betrothed to her cousin, Sir Walter Raleigh, whom she threw off in a fit of jealousy; the massive ring that she wears on her finger is described in the chronicle, as ‘an auncient seale of Sir Walter with his armes.”
“So that,” said Kate, “we may infer that at the time of the portrait she was yet betrothed.”
Sir Within was pleased at a remark that seemed to show interest in his description; and henceforth, unconsciously indeed, directed most of his attention to her.
“We had not many warriors amongst us,” continued he. “Most of my ancestors were statesmen or penmen. The thin, hard-visaged man yonder, however, was killed at Dettingen; that sweet-faced girl--she looks a mere girl--was his wife.”
“His wife! I thought she was his daughter,” said Ada, with some disappointment in her voice.
“Why not his wife?” interposed Kate; “he looks a very gallant gentleman.”
Sir Within smiled, and turned on her a look of most meaning admiration.
“I perceive,” said he, in a low tone, “that neither wrinkles nor a grey beard can hide chivalry from your eyes. He was, indeed, a gallant gentleman. Mademoiselle,” said he, turning to the governess, “you will, I hope, pardon all this display of family pretension, the more, since it is the last of the race inflicts it.”
A faint sigh--so faint, that if Kate, who uttered it, had not been beside him, he could not have heard it--fell on the old Baronet’s ear, and, in a flutter of strange emotion, he passed rapidly on, and gained the landing-place. From room to room they strolled leisurely on. Pictures, statues, antique cabinets, and rare china, arresting attention at every moment.
There were, indeed, objects to have attracted more critical observers; but in their eager delight at all they saw, their fresh enthusiasm, their frank outspoken enjoyment, Sir Within reaped a satisfaction far and away beyond all the most finished connoisseurship would have yielded him.
He showed them his armoury--mailed suits of every time and country, from the rudely-shaped corslets of Northern Europe, to the chased and inlaid workmanship of Milan and Seville; and with these were weapons of Eastern fashion, a scimitar whose scabbard was of gold, and a helmet of solid silver amongst them; and, last of all, he introduced them into a small low-ceilinged chamber, with a massive door of iron concealed behind one of oak. This he called his “Gem-room;” and here were gathered together a variety of beautiful things, ranging from ancient coins and medals to the most costly ornaments in jewellery: jewelled watches, bon-bon boxes of the time of Louis XIV., enamelled miniatures in frames of brilliants, and decorations of various foreign orders, which, though not at liberty to wear, he treasured as relics of infinite worth. Kate hung over these like one entranced. The costly splendour seemed so completely to have captivated her, that she heard scarcely a word around her, and appeared like one fascinated by an object too engrossing to admit a thought, save of itself.
“Shall I own that I like those grand landscapes we saw in the second drawing-room better than all these gorgeous things,” said Ada. “That beautiful Salvator Rosa, with the warm sunset on the sea-shore, and the fishermen drying their nets--may I go back and look at it?”
“By all means,” said Sir Within. “Remember, that all here is at your disposal. I want first of all to show Mademoiselle my library, and then, while I am giving some orders to my household, you shall be free of me--free to ramble about where you like. Will you come with us, Kate?” said he, as he prepared to leave the room.
“Not if I may remain here. I’d like to pass days in this little chamber.”
“Remain, then, of course; and now, Mademoiselle, if you will accompany me, I will show you my books.”
Scarcely had the door closed, and Kate found herself alone, than she opened one of the glass-cases in which some of the costliest trinkets lay. There was a splendid cameo brooch of Madame de Valois, with her crest in diamonds at top. This Kate gazed at long and thought-folly, and at last fastened on her breast, walking to the glass to see its effect. She half started as she looked; and, whether in astonishment at seeing herself the wearer of such magnificence, or that some other and far deeper sentiment worked within her, her eyes became intensely brilliant, and her cheek crimson. She harried back, and drew forth a massive necklace of emeralds and brilliants. It was labelled, “A present from the Emperor to Marie Antoinette on the birth of the Dauphin.” She clasped it round her throat, her fingers trembling with excitement, and her heart beating almost audibly. “Oh!” cried she, as she looked at herself again in the mirror; and how eloquent was the cry--the whole outburst of a nature carried away by intense delight and the sentiment of an all-engrossing self-admiration, for indeed she did look surpassingly lovely, the momentary excitement combining with the lustre of the jewels to light up her whole face into a radiant and splendid beauty.
She took out next a large fan actually weighted with precious stones, and opening this, she seated herself in front of the glass, to survey herself at her ease. Lying back languidly in the deep old chair, the hand which held the fan indolently drooped over the arm of the chair, while with the other she played with the massive drop of the emerald necklace, she looked exceedingly beautiful. Her own ecstasy had heightened her colour and given a brilliant depth to the expression of her eyes, while a faint, scarcely detectable quiver in her lip showed how intense was her enjoyment of the moment. Even as she gazed, a gentle dreamy sentiment stole over her, visions, Heaven knows of what future triumphs, of days when others should offer their homage to that loveliness, when sculptors would mould and poets sing that beauty; for in its power upon herself she knew that it was Beauty, and so as she looked her eyelids drooped, her breathing grew longer and longer, her cheek, save in one pink cloud, became pale, and she fell off asleep. Once or twice her lips murmured a word or two, but too faintly to be caught. She smiled, too, that sweet smile of happy sleep, when softly creeping thoughts steal over the mind, as the light air of evening steals across a lake.
For nearly an hour did she lie thus, when Sir Within came in search of her. His habitual light step and cautious gait never disturbed her, and there he stood gazing on her, amazed, almost enraptured. “Where was there a Titian or a Raphael like that!” was his first thought; for, with the instinct of his life, it was to Art he at once referred her. “Was there ever drawing or colour could compare to it!” Through the stained glass window one ray of golden glory pierced and fell upon her hair and brow, and he remembered how he had seen the same “effect” in a “Memling,” but still immeasurably inferior to this. What would he not have given that Danneker or Canova could have seen her thus and modelled her! Greek art itself had nothing finer in form, and as to her face, she was infinitely more beautiful than anything the antique presented. How was it that in all his hitherto admiration of her he had never before recognised such surpassing beauty? Was it that excitement disturbed the calm loveliness, and gave too much mobility to these traits? or was it that, in her versatile, capricious way, she had never given him time for admiration? As for the gems, he did not remark them for a long while, and when he did, it was to feel how much more she adorned them than they contributed to her loveliness.
“I must bring Ada here,” muttered he to himself. “How she will be charmed with the picture.” He turned to steal away, and then, with the thoughtful instinct of his order, he moved noiselessly across the room, and turned the looking-glass to the wall. It was a small trait, but in it there spoke the old diplomatist. On gaining the drawing-room he heard that the governess and Ada had gone out to see the conservatory, so Sir Within hurried back to the Gem-room, not fully determined whether to awaken Kate or suffer her to sleep on. Remembering suddenly that if discovered all jewelled and bedecked the young girl would feel overcome with a sense of shame, he resolved not to disturb her. Still he wished to take a last look, and stole noiselessly back to the chamber.
Her position had changed since he left the room, the fan had fallen from her hand to the floor, and by a slight, very slight, motion of the eyelids he could mark that her sleep was no longer untroubled. “Poor girl,” muttered he, “I must not leave her to dream of sorrow;” and laying his hand softly on the back of hers, he said, in a low whisper, “Kate, were you dreaming, my child?”
She raised her eyelids slowly, lazily, and looked calmly at him without a word.
“What was your dream, Kate?” said he, gently, as he bent over her.
“Was it a dream?” murmured she, softly. “I wish it had not been a dream.”
“And what was it, then?” said he, as taking a chair he sat down beside her--“tell me of it all.”
“I thought a great queen, who had no child of her own, had adopted me, and said I should be her daughter, and in proof of it she took a beautiful collar from her throat and fastened it on mine.”
“You see so much is true,” said he, pointing to the massive emerald drop that hung upon her neck.
Kate’s cheek flushed a deep crimson as her eyes glanced rapidly over the room, and her mind seemed in an instant to recover itself. “I hope you are not angry with me,” stammered she, in deep confusion. “I know I have been very foolish--will you forgive me?” As she came to the last words she dropped upon her knees, and, bending forward, hid her head between his hands.
“My sweet child, there is not anything to forgive. As to those trinkets, I never believed they were so handsome till I saw them on you.”
“It was wrong--very wrong; but I was alone, and I thought no one would ever see me. If I was sure you had forgiven me----”
“Be sure, my dear child,” said he, as he smoothed back her golden hair, caressing the beautiful head with his wasted fingers, “and now that I have assured you of this, tell me what it was you wished to speak of to me. You had a trouble, you said--what was it, Kate?”
“May I tell you of it?” asked she, lifting her eyes for the first time towards him, and gazing upwards through her tears.
“To be sure you may, child, and with the certainty that you speak to one who loves you.”
“But I do not know how I can tell it--that is, how you are to believe what I shall tell you, when I am not able to say why and how I know the truth of what I shall say.”
“More likely is it, child, I shall not ask that question, but take your word for it all.”
“Yes, that is true; it is what you would do. I ought to have seen that,” muttered she, half aloud. “Are we certain to be alone here? Can I tell you now?”
“Certainly. They are off to see the gardens. None will interrupt us: say on.”
“Mind,” said she, eagerly, “you are not to ask me anything.” “I agree. Go on.” “At the same time, you shall be free to find out from others whether I have misled you or not.” “Go on, my dear child, and do not torment yourself with needless cares. I want to hear what it is that grieves you, and if I can remove your sorrow.”
“You can at least counsel me--guide me.”
“It is my right and my duty to do so. I am one of your guardians, Kate,” said he, encouragingly.
“Do you remember the morning I came from Ireland, the morning of my arrival at the Cottage?” “Perfectly.”
“Do you remember my grandfather hesitating whether he would let me stay, till some promise was given him that I should not be sent away out of a whim, or a fancy, or at least some pledge as to what should be done with me?” “I remember it all.”
“Well, he was right to have foreseen it. The time has come. Mind your promise--do not question me--but I know that they mean to send me---- I cannot--I will not call it home,” cried she, fiercely. “Home means shelter--friends--safety. Which of these does it offer me?”
“Be calm, my dear child; be calm and tell me all that you know. What reason have they for this change?”
“Ada is to go to Italy, to see her grandmother, who is ill. I am no longer wanted, and to be sent away.” “This is very unlike them. It is incredible.” “I knew you’d say so,” said she, with a heightened colour, and a sparkling eye. “They of course could do no wrong, but perhaps I can convince you. You know Mr. M’Kinlay, he is now at the Cottage, he has come down about this. Oh!” burst she out with a wild cry, while the tears ran down her cheeks--“oh, how bold my sorrow makes me, that I can speak this way to you. But save me! oh save me from this degradation! It is not the poverty of that life I dread, so much as the taunts upon me for my failure; the daily scoffs I shall have to meet from those who hoped to build their fortunes on my success. Tell me, then, where I may go to earn my bread, so it be not there. I could be a servant. I have seen girls as young as me at service. I could take care of little children, and could teach them, too. Will you help me? Will you help me,” cried she, sobbing, “and see if I will not deserve it?”
“Be comforted, my poor child. I have told you already you have a right to my assistance, and you shall have it.”
She bent down and kissed his hand, and pressed her cheek upon it. “Tell me, Kate, do you desire to go abroad with Ada?” “Not now,” said she, in a faint voice. “I did, but I do so no longer.”
“And on no account to return to Ireland.” “On none,” said she, resolutely.
“Then I will think the matter over. I will send for Mr. M’Kinlay to-morrow, and doubtless he will make some communication to me.” “But do not forget, Sir, that you must not betray me.” “I will take care of that, Kate; but come, my dear child, bathe these eyes of yours, and come into the air. They will wonder, besides, if they do not see you. Let us go and find them. Your heart may be at rest, now. Is it not so?”
“I have your promise, Sir?”
“You have, child.”
“Oh! am I not happy again!” said she, throwing back her long hair upon her neck, and turning towards him her eyes beaming with gratitude, and bright with triumph. “I have spent two nights of misery, but they are well repaid by the joy I feel now.”
“There. You look like yourself already,” said he. “Come, and we’ll search for them.”
“What am I thinking of!” cried she, suddenly. “I was forgetting these;” and she unclasped the necklace, and took off the brooch, depositing them carefully in their places.
“You shall wear them again one of these days, Kate,” said he, with a look of pensive meaning.
“They only served me to build castles with,” said she, gaily, “and the words you have spoken will help me to raise much finer ones. I am ready now, Sir.”
“Of all the days of your life,” whispered Ada to Kate, as they drove home that evening, “was this the happiest?”
“It was,” said the other, thoughtfully.
“And mine, too. I had not one dark thought till I saw evening coming on, and felt how soon it was to end. But I have such happy news for you, dear Kate, only I am not at liberty to tell it--something that is going to happen--somewhere we are about to go.”
“Do not tell me more, or I shall become too curious to hear all.”
“But you would be so glad, so overjoyed to hear it.”
“One can always wait patiently for good tidings, the wise people say. Where did you get your violets in mid-winter?”
“Where you got your roses, Kate,” said the other, laughing. “I never saw such pink cheeks as you had when you came into the garden.”
“I had fallen asleep,” said Kate, blushing slightly. “Whenever I am very, very happy, I grow sleepy.”
XXIX. MR. M’KINLAY IS PUZZLED
Mr. M’Kinlay was at his breakfast the next day when he received the following letter from Sir Gervais Vyner:
“Rome, Palazzo Altieri.
“My dear M’Kinlay,--Lady Vyner’s mother insists on seeing Ada out here, and will not listen to anything, either on the score of the season or the long journey. I cannot myself venture to be absent for more than a few days at a time; and I must entreat of you to give Mademoiselle and my daughter a safe convoy as far as Marseilles, where I shall meet you. I know well how very inconvenient it may prove to you, just as term is about to open, so pray make me deeply your debtor for the service in all ways. My sister-in-law informs me--but so vaguely that I cannot appreciate the reasons--that Mademoiselle H. does not advise Miss O’Hara should accompany them. It will be for you to learn the grounds of this counsel, and, if you concur with them, to make a suitable arrangement for that young lady’s maintenance and education in England, unless, indeed, her friends require her to return home. To whatever you decide, let money be no obstacle. There are good schools at Brighton, I believe. If her friends prefer a French education, Madame Gosselin’s, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris, is well spoken of. See Sir Within Wardle on the subject, who, besides being her guardian, is well qualified to direct your steps.
“I cannot tell you how much I am provoked by what I must call this failure in a favourite project, nor is my annoyance the less that I am not permitted to know how, when, or why the failure has been occasioned. All that Miss Courtenay will tell me is, ‘She must not come out to Italy,’ and that I shall be the first to agree to the wisdom of this decision when I shall hear the reasons for it. Of course all this is between ourselves, and with Sir Within you will limit yourself to the fact that her education will be more carefully provided for by remaining north of the Alps--a truth he will, I am certain, recognise.
“Be sure, however, to get to the bottom of this, I may call it--mystery, for up to this I have regarded Ada’s progress in learning, and great improvement in spirits, as entirely owing to this very companionship.
“Drop me a line to say if you can start on Monday or Tuesday, and at the Pavilion Hotel you will either find me on your arrival, or a note to say when to expect me. Tell Sir Within from me, that I will accept any trouble he shall take with Miss O’H. as a direct personal favour. I am not at all satisfied with the part we are taking towards this girl; nor shall I be easy until I hear from you that all is arranged to her own liking, and the perfect satisfaction of her family. I think, indeed, you should write to Mr. L., at Arran; his concurrence ought to be secured, as a formality; and he’ll not refuse it, if not linked to something troublesome or inconvenient.
“I shall be curious to hear your personal report of Miss O’Hara, so take care to fit yourself for a very searching cross-examination from
“Yours faithfully,
“Gervais Vyner.
“I hear that the people have just thrown down the walls of my new lodge in Derryvaragh, and vowed that they’ll not permit any one to build there. Are they mad? Can they not see that a proprietor, if he ever should come there, must be of use to them, and that all the benefit would be theirs? Grenfell laughs at me, and says he predicted it all. Perhaps he did: at all events, I shall not be deterred from going on, though neither of my Irish experiences have as yet redounded to my vainglory.
“I have not the shadow of a reason for suspecting it, still you would confer a favour on me if you could assure me, of your own knowledge, that nothing weightier than a caprice has induced Mademoiselle to recommend that Miss O’H. should not come out here with my daughter.
“All of this letter is to be regarded private and confidential.”
Scarcely had M’Kinlay finished the reading of this letter, than a servant presented him with a small note, sealed with a very large impress of the Wardle arms, and bearing a conspicuous W. W. on the outer corner. Its contents ran thus:
“My dear Mr. M’Kinlay,--Will you allow me to profit by the fortunate accident of your presence in these regions to bespeak the honour and pleasure of your company at a tête-à-tête dinner with me to-day? My carriage will await your orders; and if perfectly in accordance with your convenience, I would beg that they may be to take you over here by an early hour--say four o’clock--as I am desirous of obtaining the benefit of your advice.
“I am very sincerely yours,
“Within Wardle.”
“How provoking!” cried Mr. M’Kinlay; “and I meant to have caught the night-mail at Wrexham.”
Now Mr. M’Kinlay was not either provoked or disappointed. It had never been his intention to have left the Cottage till the day after; and as to a dinner invitation to Dalradern, and with “the contingent remainder” of a consultation, it was in every respect the direct opposite of all that is provoking. Here he was alone. None heard, him as he said these words. This hypocrisy was not addressed to any surrounders. It was the soliloquy of a man who liked self-flattery, and, strange as it may seem, there are scores of people who mix these sweet little draughts for themselves and toss them off in secresy, like solitary drinkers, and then go out into the world refreshed and stimulated by their dram.
“I cannot take his agency, if that’s what he is at,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, as he stood with his back to the fire and fingered the seals of his watch; “I am overworked already--sorely overworked. Clients, now-a-days, I find, have got the habit of employing their lawyers in a variety of ways quite foreign to their callings.” This was a hit at Sir Gervais for his request to take Ada abroad. “A practice highly to be condemned, and, in fact, to be put down. It is not dignified; and I doubt if even it be profitable,”--his tone was now strong and severe. “A fine old place, Dalradern,” muttered he, as his eyes fell upon a little engraving of the castle at the top of the note--such vignettes were rarer at that day than at the present--“I think, really, I will give myself a holiday and dine with him. I thought him a bit of a fop--an old fop, too--when I met him here; but he may ‘cut up’ better under his own roof.”
“Rickards,” said he, as that bland personage entered to remove the breakfast-things, “I am not going to dine here to-day.”
“Lor, Sir! You an’t a going so soon?”
“No. To-morrow, perhaps--indeed, I should say to-morrow certainly; but to-day I must dine at Dalradern.”
“Well, Sir, you’ll tell me when you comes home if he’s better than Mrs. Byles for his side-dishes; for I’ll never believe it, Sir, till I have it from a knowledgeable gentleman like yourself. Not that I think, Sir, they will play off any of their new-fangled tricks on you--putting cheese into the soup, and powdered sugar over the peas.”
“I have seen both in Paris,” said M’Kinlay, gravely.
“And frogs too, Sir, and snails; and Jacob, that was out in Italy with the saddle-horses, says, he seen fifteen shillings given for a hedgehog, when lamb got too big.”
“Let Mademoiselle Heinzleman know that I should be glad to speak to her,” said the lawyer, who, feeling that he was going to dine out, could afford to be distant.
“Yes, Sir, I’ll tell her;” and Rickards stirred the fire, and drew down a blind here, and drew up another there, and fidgeted about in that professionally desultory manner his order so well understand. When he got to the door, however, he stepped back, and in a low confidential whisper said, “It’s the ‘Ock, Sir, the ‘Ock, at Dalradem, that beats us; eighty odd years in bottle, and worth three guineas a flask.” He sighed as he went out, for the confession cost him dear. It was like a Government whip admitting that his party must be beaten on the next division!
Mr. M’Kinlay was deep in a second perusal of Sir Gervais Vyner’s letter when Mademoiselle Heinzleman entered. “I have a few lines from Sir Gervais here, Mademoiselle,” said he, pompously, for the invitation to Dalradem was still fresh in his mind. “He wishes me, if it be at all possible, to accompany you and Miss Vyner as far as, let me see”--and he opened the letter--“as far as Marseilles. I own, with whatever pride I should accept the charge, however charmed I should naturally feel at the prospect of a journey in such company----”
“Es macht nichts. I mean, Sare,” said she, impetuously, “with Franz, the courier, we can travel very well all alone.”
“If you will permit me, Mademoiselle,” said he, haughtily, to finish my phrase, “you will find that, notwithstanding my many and pressing engagements, and the incessant demands which the opening of term makes upon my time, it is my intention not to refuse this--this, I shall call it favour--for it is favour--to my respected client. Can you be ready by Monday?”
“We are Wednesday now! Yes; but of Mademoiselle Kate, what of her? Does she come with us?”
“I opine not,” said he, gravely.
“And where she go to?” said she, with an eagerness which occasionally marred the accuracy of her expression.
“Sir Gervais has suggested that we may take one of two courses, Mademoiselle,” said he, and probably something in the phrase reminded M’Kinlay of a well-known statesman, for he unconsciously extended an arm, and with the other lifted his coat-skirt behind him, “or, it is even possible, adopt a third.”
“This means, she is not to come with us, Sir.”
Mr. M’Kinlay bowed his concurrence. “You see, Mademoiselle,” said he, authoritatively, “it was a mistake from the beginning, and though I warned Sir Gervais that it must be a mistake, he would have his way; he thought she would be a means of creating emulation.”
“So she has, Sir.”
“I mean, wholesome emulation; the generous rivalry--the--the--in fact, that she would excite Miss Vyner to a more vigorous prosecution of her studies, without that discouragement that follows a conscious--what shall I call it--not inferiority?”
“Yes, inferiority.”
“This, I am aware, Mademoiselle, was your view; the letter I hold here from Miss Courtenay shows me the very painful impression your opinion has produced; nor am I astonished at the warmth--and there is warmth--with which she observes: ‘Mademoiselle H. is under a delusion if she imagines that my brother-in-law was about to establish a nursery for prodigies. If the pigeon turns out to be an eagle, the sooner it is out of the dovecot the better.’ Very neatly and very smartly put. ‘If the pigeon-------’”
“Enough of the pigeon, Sare. Where is she to go? who will take her in charge?”
“I have not fully decided on the point, Mademoiselle, but by this evening I hope to have determined upon it; for the present, I have only to apprise you that Miss O’Hara is not to go to Italy, and that whatever arrangement should be necessary for her---either to remain in England, or to return to her family, will be made as promptly possible.”
“And who will take her in charge, Sare?” said she, repeating the former question.
Mr. M’Kinlay laid his hand over the region of his heart, and bowed; but whether he meant that he himself would undertake the guardianship of the young lady, or that the matter was a secret enclosed in his own breast, is not at all easy to say.
“May I speak to her about this?”
“Not until I shall see you again; but you may take all such measures as may prepare her for her sudden departure.”
Mr. M’Kinlay was, throughout the brief interview, more despotic than gallant. He was not quite satisfied that the mission was one in perfect accordance with his high professional dignity, and so to relieve himself from any self-reproach, he threw a dash of severity through his condescension.
“I suppose,” said he, superbly--“I suppose she has clothes?”
Mademoiselle stared at this, but did not reply.
“I am somewhat unaccustomed, as you may perceive, Mademoiselle, to these sort of affairs; I know nothing of young ladies’ wardrobes. I simply asked, was she in a position to travel, if called on, at a brief notice?”
“My poor Kate! my poor Kate!” was all that the governess could utter.
“I must say, Mademoiselle,” said he, pompously, “that, looking to what she originally came from, and taking into account the care and cost bestowed upon her, I do not perceive this to be a case that calls for any deep commiseration.”
“Poor child! poor child!” stammered she out; and, unable to control her emotion, she arose and left the room.
“Rickards was right; that artful minx has won them all over. It is high time to send her back to her own country, and, from the brief experience I have had of it, I’ll venture to say all her captivations there will not make many victims. Three o’clock already,” said he, with surprise, “and I had meant to be at Dalradern early.” He rung and ordered the carriage. It had been at the door for above an hour. Strange how the morning should have slipped over; had it been real business, what a deal he could have transacted in the time; but these little “peddling negotiations,” so he called them, ran away with a man’s time before he was aware of it. As he passed through the hall, he saw, through a partly open door, the two girls--they were seated at a table, with their heads bent over a map.
“Yea,” said Ada, “this is the way papa mentions; here is Marseilles, and here, if the sea be rough, is the road we shall have to travel, all along the coast, by Nice and Genoa. Oh, don’t you wish it may be bad weather, Kate?”
M’Kinlay bent his head, but could not catch the words she spoke.
“And I used to fancy you would like it all more than even I did myself,” said Ada, in a tone of reproach.
“It is your lot to enjoy everything, and to have everything to enjoy,” said Kate; “and mine is--no matter what it is--let us have a stroll in the garden.”
M’Kinlay had just time to move on ere they arose, and, passing out, he got into the carriage and drove away.
XXX. SCANDAL
It was half-past four as Mr. M’Kinlay drove into the court-yard at Dalradern. Sir Within’s note had said four o’clock, an early dinner, and Sir Within himself could be seen, at an oriel window, watch in hand, as the carriage passed under the arched entrance. Now, though it was part of Mr. M’Kinlay’s usual tactics never to “cheapen himself,” he felt he might by possibility have erred on the opposite side on this occasion, and he prepared to make some excuses for his delay, the letters he had read, the replies he was forced to make, and such like.
The old Baronet heard these apologies with a most polished urbanity, he bowed a continual acquiescence, and then ordered dinner.
“I had hoped for a little daylight, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said he, “to have shown you some of my pictures, which are only worth seeing when they have got sun on them. Are you fond of the arts?”
“Passionately, Sir Within; devotedly, if a man so ignorant may dare to say so.”
“Then, I must only hope for better fortune on another occasion, and that you will give me an entire morning, if you will not graciously make me a visit of some days.”
“Oh, Sir.”
“I think,” continued he--“I think I could requite you. My Van Eyks are accounted the best of any private collection; and one at least of my Albert Durers will bear comparison with any in the Munich Gallery.”
M’Kinlay muttered something that sounded as if he were firmly persuaded of the fact.
“I know,” added Sir Within, “this sounds a little boastful; but when I shall have told you how I came by this picture--it is called the Queen’s Martyrdom, and represents the Queen Beatrice of Bohemia on a balcony while her lover is going to the scaffold: the king, her husband, has ordered her to throw to him the garland or wreath, which was the privilege of nobles to wear in their last moments--and, I say, when I tell you the history of the picture, you will, perhaps, acquit me of vainglory; and also, when you see it, you will render me a greater service by deciding whether the headsman has not been painted by Cranach. How I wish we had a little daylight, that I might show it to you!”
How grateful was M’Kinlay to the sun for his setting on that evening; never was darkness more welcome, even to him who prayed for night--or Blucher; and, secretly vowing to himself that no casualty should ever catch him there before candlelight, he listened with a bland attention, and pledged his word to any amount of connoisseurship required of him. Still he hoped that this might not be “the case”--the especial case--on which Sir Within had summoned him to give counsel; for, besides being absurd, it would be worse--it would be unprofitable. It was a pleasant interruption to this “art conversation” when dinner was announced. Now did Mr. M’Kinlay find himself more at home when appealed to for his judgment on brown sherry, and the appropriate period at which “Amontillado” could be introduced; but he soon discovered he was in the presence of a master. Dinner-giving was the science of his craft, and Sir Within belonged to that especial school who have always maintained that Brillat Savarin is more to be relied upon than Grotius, and M. Ude a far abler ally than Puffendorf. It was the old envoy’s pleasure on this occasion to put forth much of his strength; both the dinner and the wine were exquisite, and when the entertainment closed with some choice “Hermitage,” which had been an imperial present, the lawyer declared that it was not a dinner to which he had been invited, but a banquet.
“You must run down in your next vacation, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay, and give me a week. I don’t know if you are a sportsman?”
“Not in the least, Sir. I neither shoot, ride, nor fish.”
“Nor do I, and yet I like a country life, as a sort of interlude in existence.”
“With a house like this, Sir Within, what life can compare with it?”
“One can at least have tranquillity,” sighed Sir Within, with an air that made it difficult to say whether he considered it a blessing or the reverse.
“There ought to be a good neighbourhood, too, I should say. I passed some handsome places as I came along.”
“Yes, there are people on every hand, excellent people, I have not a doubt; but they neither suit me, nor I them. Their ways are not mine, nor are their ideas, their instincts, nor their prejudices. The world, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay, is, unfortunately, wider than a Welsh county, though they will not believe it here.”
“You mean, then, Sir Within, that they are local, and narrow-minded in their notions?”
“I don’t like to say that, any more than I like to hear myself called a libertine; but I suppose, after all, it is what we both come to.” The air of self-accusation made the old envoy perfectly triumphant, and, as he passed his hand across his brow and smiled blandly, he seemed to be recalling to mind innumerable successes of the past. “To say truth, diplomacy is not the school for dévots.”
“I should think not, indeed, Sir,” said M’Kinlay.
“And that is what these worthy folk cannot or will not see. Wounds and scars are the necessary incidents of a soldier’s life; but people will not admit that there are moral injuries which form the accidents of a minister’s life, and to which he must expose himself as fearlessly as any soldier that ever marched to battle. What do these excellent creatures here--who have never experienced a more exciting scene than a cattle-show, nor faced a more captivating incident than a Bishop’s visitation--know of the trials, the seductions--the irresistible seductions of the great world? Ah, Mr. M’Kinlay, I could lay bare a very strange chapter of humanity, were I to tell even one-fourth of my own experiences.”
“And an instructive one too, I should say, Sir.”
“In one sense, yes; certainly instructive. You see, Mr. M’Kinlay, with respect to life, it is thus: Men in your profession become conversant with all the material embarrassments and difficulties of families; they know of that crushing bond, or that ruinous mortgage, of the secret loan at fifty per cent., or the drain of hush-money to stop a disclosure, just as the doctor knows of the threatened paralysis or the spreading aneurism; but we men of the world--men of the world par excellence--read humanity in its moral aspect; we study its conflicts, its trials, its weakness, and its fall--I say fall, because such is the one and inevitable end of every struggle.”
“This is a sad view, a very sad view,” said M’Kinlay, who, probably to fortify himself against the depression he felt, drank freely of a strong Burgundy.
“Not so in one respect. It makes us more tolerant, more charitable. There is nothing ascetic in our judgment of people--we deplore, but we forgive.”
“Fine, Sir, very fine--a noble sentiment!” said the lawyer, whose utterance was not by any means so accurate as it had been an hour before.
“Of that relentless persecution of women, for instance, such as you practise it here in England, the great world knows positively nothing. In your blind vindictiveness you think of nothing but penalties, and you seem to walk over the battle-field of life with no other object or care than to search for the wounded and hold them up to shame and torture. Is it not so?”
“I am sure you are right. We are all fal--fal--la--hie, not a doubt of it,” muttered M’Kinlay to himself.
“And remember,” continued Sir Within, “it is precisely the higher organisations, the more finely-attuned temperaments, that are most exposed, and which, from the very excellence of their nature, demand our deepest care and solicitude. With what pains, for instance, would you put together the smashed fragments of a bit of rare Sèvres, concealing the junctures and hiding the flaws, while you would not waste a moment on a piece of vulgar crockery.”
“Pitch it out o’ window at once!” said M’Kinlay, with an almost savage energy.
“So it is. It is with this precious material, finely formed, beautiful in shape, and exquisite in colour, the world has to deal; and how natural that it should treat it with every solicitude and every tenderness. But the analogy holds further. Every connoisseur will tell you that the cracked or fissured porcelain is scarcely diminished in value by its fracture; that when skilfully repaired it actually is almost, if not altogether, worth what it was before.”
M’Kinlay nodded; he was not quite clear how the conversation had turned upon porcelain, but the wine was exquisite, and he was content. “These opinions of mine meet little mercy down here, Mr. M’Kinlay; my neighbours call them Frenchified immoralities, and fifty other hard names; and as for myself, they do not scruple to aver that I am an old rake, come back to live on the recollection of his vices. I except, of course, our friends the Vyners--they judge, and they treat me differently; they are a charming family.”
“Charming!” echoed the lawyer, and seeming by his action to drink their health to himself.
“You know the old line, ‘He jests at wounds that never felt a scar;’ and so have I ever found that it is only amongst those who have suffered one meets true sympathy. What is this curious story”--here he dropped into a low, confidential voice--“about Miss C.? It is a by-gone now-a-days; but how was it? She was to have married a man who had a wife living; or, she did marry him, and discovered it as they were leaving the church? I forget exactly how it went--I mean the story--for I know nothing as to the fact.”
M’Kinlay listened, and through the dull fog of his besotted faculties a faint nickering of light seemed struggling to pierce. The misanthrope at Arran--the once friend, now banished for ever--the name that never was to be uttered--the mystery to be kept from all--and then Georgina’s own sudden outburst of passion on the evening they parted, when he blundered out something about a reparation to Luttrell.
All this, at first confusedly, but by degrees more clearly, passed in review before him, and he thought he had dropped upon a very black page of family history. Though the wine of which he had drank freely had addled, it had not overcome him, and, with the old instincts of his calling, he remembered how all important it is, when extracting evidence, to appear in fall possession of all the facts.
“How, in the name of wonder, Sir Within,” said he, after a long pause--“how did it ever chance that this story reached you?”
“Mr. M’Kinlay, my profession, like your own, has its secret sources of information, and, like you, we hear a great deal, and we believe very little of it.”
“In the present case,” said M’Kinlay, growing clearer every minute, “I take it you believe nothing.”
“How old is Miss O’Hara!” asked Sir William, quietly.
“Oh, Sir Within, you surely don’t mean to----”
“To what, Mr. M’Kinlay--what is it that I cannot possibly intend?” said he, smiling.
“You would not imply that--that there was anything there?” said he, blundering into an ambiguity that might not commit him irretrievably.
“Haven’t I told you, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay,” said he, with an air of easy familiarity, “that if I am somewhat sceptical, I am very charitable? I can believe a great deal, but I can forgive everything.” “And you really do believe this?” asked M’Kinlay. “Something of it; about as much as Mr. M’Kinlay believes Kate O’Hara is---- Let me see,” muttered he, half aloud; “I was at Stuttgard; it was the winter Prince Paul died; we had a court-mourning, and there were no festivities. The Legations received a few intimates, and we exchanged all the contents of our letters--that was sixteen or seventeen years ago; the young lady, I take it, is not far from fifteen.” “Good Heavens, Sir Within, you want to establish a distinct link between this story and the age of the young girl!”
“That is too legal a view, Mr. M’Kinlay; we diplomatists deal in another fashion--we speculate, we never specify. We always act as if everything were possible, and nothing certain; and in our very uncertainty lies our greatest security.”
“At all events, you don’t believe one word of this story?” “When a gentleman so intimately connected with all the secret details of a family history as you are, instead of showing me where and how I am in error, limits himself to an appeal to my incredulity, my reply is, his case is a weak one. She is a most promising creature; she was here yesterday, and I declare I feel half ashamed of myself for thinking her more attractive than my dear old favourite, Ada. What are you going to do about her?”
The suddenness of this question startled M’Kinlay not much, if at all “Did the old Baronet know of the Vyners’ plans?--was he in reality more deeply in their confidence than himself?”--was the lawyer’s first thought. It was clear enough he knew something, whatever that something might mean. To fence with such a master of his weapon would be a lamentable blunder, and M’Kinlay determined on frankness.
“It is the very subject on which I want to consult you, Sir Within. The case is a nice one, and requires nice treatment. The Vyners have determined she is not to go out to Italy.”
“Do they give their reason?”
“No, not exactly a reason. They think--that is, Miss Courtenay thinks--all this is, of course, in strict confidence, Sir Within?”
The old minister bowed an acquiescence, with his hand on his heart.
“As I was observing, then,” resumed M’Kinlay, “Miss Courtenay thinks that the united education scheme has not been a success; that Miss O’Hara has contrived, somehow, to usurp more than her share; that from natural quickness, perhaps, in learning, a greater aptitude for acquirement, she has not merely outstripped but discouraged Miss Vyner----”
The incredulous surprise that sat on the old Baronet’s face stopped M’Kinlay in his explanation, and he said: “You don’t appear to believe in this, Sir Within?”
“Don’t you think, Sir,” said the old envoy, “that sitting here tête-à-tête as we do now, we could afford to be candid and frank with each other? Does it not strike you that you and I are very like men who could trust each other?”
There was a fine shade of flattery in the collocation that touched the lawyer. It was not every day that he saw himself “brigaded” in such company, and he reddened slightly as he accepted the compliment.
“Let us, then,” resumed the old minister--“let us leave to one side all mention of these young ladies’ peculiar talents and capacities; come to the practical fact that, for reasons into which we are not to inquire, they are to be separated. What do you mean to do by Miss O’Hara?”
Mr. M’Kinlay paused for a few seconds, and then, with the air of one who could not subdue himself to any caution, said: “Whatever you suggest, Sir Within--anything that you advise. You see, Sir,” said he, turning down the corner of Vyner’s letter, and handing it to him to read, “this is what he says: ‘Tell Sir Within from me, that I will accept any trouble he shall take with Miss O’H. as a direct personal favour.’”
Sir Within bowed. It was not the first time he had been shown a “strictly confidential despatch” that meant nothing.
“I think--that is, I suspect--I apprehend the situation,” said he. “The Vyners want to stand in the ‘statu quo ante;’ they have made a mistake, and they see it. Now, what does Mr. M’Kinlay suggest?”
“I’d send her back, Sir Within.”
“Back! Where? To whom?”
“To her friends.”
“To her friends! My dear Mr. M’Kinlay, I thought we had disposed of all that part of the case. Let us be frank--it does save so much time; for friends, read Mr. Luttrell. Now, what if he say, ‘No; you have taken her away, and by your teaching and training unfitted her for such a life as she must lead here; I cannot receive her?’”
“I did not mean Mr. Luttrell; I really spoke of the girl’s family----”
“You are a treasure of discretion, Sir,” said Sir Within; “but permit me to observe, that the excess of caution often delays a negotiation. You say that she cannot go to Italy, and I say she can as little return to Ireland--at least, without Mr. Luttrell’s acquiescence. Now for the third course?”
“This school Sir Gervais speaks of in Paris,” said M’Kinlay, fumbling for the passage in the letter, for he was now so confused and puzzled that he was very far from feeling calm. “Here is the address--Madame Gosselin, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris. Sir Gervais thought that--with of course your approval--this would be the best course we could take. She would be well treated, well educated, cared for, and eventually qualified to be a governess--if she should not chance to marry.”
“Yes, yes,” said Sir Within, slowly, as he pondered over the other’s words, “there is much in what you say, and the remarkable fact is, that they do, very often, make admirable wives.”
Who were the “they” he referred to, as a category, M’Kinlay did not dare to inquire, but assented by a smile and a bow.
“Curious it is,” said the old man, reflectively, “to mark how generations alternate, as if it were decreed that the world should not make any distinct progress, but oscillate between vice and virtue--virtue and vice. The respectable father and the scampish son being the counterpoise for the rakish mamma and the discreet daughter.”
To what such a reflection could be thought to apply, Mr. M’Kinlay had not the vaguest conception; but it is only fair to add, that his faculties were never throughout the interview at their clearest.
“My chief difficulty is this, Sir,” said the lawyer, rising to an effort that might show he had an opinion and a will of his own; “Sir Gervais requests me to convey his daughter as far as Marseilles; he names an early day to meet us there, so that really there is very little time--I may say no time, if we must start by Monday next.”
Sir Within made no reply, and the other went on.
“Suppose I take this girl over to Paris with us, and the school should be full, and no vacancy to be had? Suppose they might object--I have heard of such things--to receive as a pupil one who had not made any preliminary inquiries?”
“Your position might become one of great embarrassment, Mr. M’Kinlay, and to relieve you so far as in me lies, I would propose that until you have taken the necessary steps to ensure Miss O’Hara’s reception, she should remain under the charge of my housekeeper here, Mrs. Simcox. She is a most excellent person, and kindness itself. When you have satisfied yourself by seeing Madame Gosselin at Paris, as to all matters of detail, I shall very probably have had time to receive a reply to the letter I will write to my co-trustee, Mr. Luttrell, and everything can be thus arranged in all due form.”
“I like all of your plans, Sir, but the last step. I have confessed to you that Sir Gervais Vyner had strictly enjoined me not to mention Mr. Luttrell’s name.”
“You also mentioned to me, if I mistake not, that the young girl’s friends, whoever they might be supposed to be, were to be consulted as to any future arrangements regarding her. Now, do you seriously mean to tell me that you are going to address yourself to the old peasant, who assumed to be her grandfather, and who frankly owned he couldn’t read?”
“I do think, Sir Within, that old Malone--that is the man’s name--ought to be informed, and, indeed, consulted as to any step we take.”
“A model of discreet reserve you certainly are!” said Sir Within, smiling graciously. “You will write to him, therefore, and say that Miss Kate O’Hara is, for the time being, under the roof of one of her guardians, Sir Within Wardle, preparatory to her being sent to a school at Paris. You may, if you think it advisable, ask him for a formal acquiescence to our plan, and if he should desire it, add, he may come over here and see her. I suspect, Mr. M’Kinlay, we cannot possibly be called on to carry out the illusion of relationship beyond this.”
“But he is her grandfather; I assure you he is.”
“I believe whatever Mr. M’Kinlay asks me to believe. With the inner convictions which jar against my credulity, you shall have no cause of complaint, Sir; they are, and they shall be, inoperative. To prove this, I will beg of you to enclose ten pounds on my part to this old peasant, in case he should like to come over here.”
“I am sure Sir Gervais will be deeply obliged by all your kindness in this matter.”
“It is my pleasure and my duty both.”
“What a rare piece of fortune it was for her, that made you her guardian.”
“Only one of them, remember, and that I am now acting, per force, without my colleague. I own, Mr. M’Kinlay, I am red tapist enough not to like all this usurped authority, but you have tied me up to secresy.”
“Not I, Sir Within. It was Sir Gervais who insisted on this.”
“I respect his wishes, for perhaps I appreciate their necessity. You see some sort of objection to my plan, Mr. M’Kinlay?” said the old diplomatist, with a cunning twinkle of the eye. “What is it?”
“None, Sir, none whatever,” said the lawyer, rapidly.
“Yes, yes, you do; be candid, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay. What we say to each other here will never figure in a Blue-book.”
“I did not see a positive objection, Sir Within; I only saw what might be an embarrassment.”
“In what shape?”
“I am completely in your hands, Sir Within Wardle; but such is my confidence in you, I will not withhold anything. Here is the difficulty I speak of: Miss Courtenay, who never favoured the project about this girl, likes it now less than ever, and I do not feel quite certain that she will be satisfied with any arrangement short of sending her back to the obscurity she came from.”
“I can understand and appreciate that wish on her part, but then there is no need that I should suspect it, Mr. M’Kinlay. The habits of my profession have taught me to bear many things in mind without seeming to act upon the knowledge. Now, the shelter that I purpose to afford this young lady need not excite any mistrust. You will tell Sir Gervais that the arrangement met with your approval. That it was, in your opinion, the best of the alternatives that offered, and that Sir Within Wardle has, on the present occasion, a double happiness afforded him--he obliges friends whom he values highly, and he consults his own personal gratification.”
In the last few words the old envoy had resumed a tone familiar to him in the days when he dictated despatches to a secretary, and sent off formal documents to be read aloud to dignitaries great and potent as himself; and Mr. M’Kinlay was duly impressed thereat.
“In all that relates to Mr. Luttrell I am to rely upon you, Sir,” said Sir Within, and Mr. M’Kinlay bowed his acquiescence. “I am certain that you smile at my excess of formality,” continued the old minister. “These particularities are second nature to us;” and it was clear as he said “us,” that he meant an order whose ways and habits it would be a heresy to dispute. “If you will not take more wine, let us go into the drawing-room. A drawing-room without ladies, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said he, with a sigh; “but, perhaps, one of these days--who knows?--we may be fortunate enough to receive you here more gracefully.”
Mr. M’Kinlay, in any ordinary presence, would have responded by one of those little jocose pleasantries which are supposed to be fitting on such occasions; he had tact enough, however, to perceive that Sir Within would not have been the man for a familiarity of this sort, so he merely smiled, and bowed a polite concurrence with the speech.
“It will be as well, perhaps, if I wrote a few lines to Mademoiselle Heinzleman, and also to Miss O’Hara herself, and if you will excuse me for a few minutes, I will do so.”
The old minister despatched his two notes very speedily, and, with profuse assurances of his “highest consideration,” he took leave of the lawyer, and sat down to ruminate over their late conversation, and the step he had just taken.
Mr. M’Kinlay, too, meditated as he drove homewards, but not with all that clearness of intellect he could usually bestow upon a knotty point. Like most men in his predicament, to be puzzled was to be angered, and so did he inveigh to himself against “that crotchety old humbug, with his mare’s nest of a secret marriage.” Not but there was-a “something somewhere,” which he, M’Kinlay, would certainly investigate before he was many weeks older. “Miss Georgina’s manner to me used to undergo very strange vacillations--very strange ones indeed. Yes, there was something ‘in it’--surely something.”
While Kate O’Hara was still sleeping the next morning, Ada hurried into her room, and threw her arms around her, sobbing bitterly, as the hot tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh, Kate, my own dear, darling Kate, what is this dreadful thing I have just heard? Lisette has just told me that she is not to pack your clothes--that you are not coming with me abroad.”
Kate raised herself on one arm, and pushed back her hair from her brow, her large eyes wearing for an instant the meaningless look of one suddenly awakened from sleep.
“Do you hear me--do you know what I am saying, dearest?” asked Ada, as she kissed her, and drew her towards her.
“Tell it me again,” said she, in a low, distinct voice.
“Lisette says that Mademoiselle has orders--from whom I cannot say--that you are to remain in England, to go to a school, or to live with a governess, or to return to Ireland, or something; but whatever it is, that we are to be separated.” And again her grief burst forth and choked her words.
“I knew this would come one day,” said Kate, slowly, but without any touch of emotion. “It was a caprice that took me, and it is a caprice that deserts me.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Kate, of my own dear papa, who loves you almost as he loves me!”
“I can have nothing but words of gratitude for him, Ada, and for your mother.”
“You mean, then----”
“No matter what I mean, my sweet Ada. It may be, after all, a mercy. Who is to say whether, after another year of this sort of life, its delicious happiness should have so grown into my nature that it would tear my very heart-strings to free myself from its coils? Even now, there were days when I forgot I was a peasant girl, without home, or friends, or fortune.”
“Oh, Kate, you will break my heart if you speak this way!”
“Well, then, to talk more cheerfully. Will not that pretty hat yonder, with the long blue feather, look wondrous picturesque, as I follow the goats up the steep sides of Inchegora? and will not that gauzy scarf be a rare muffle as I gather the seaweed below the cliffs of Bengore?”
“Kate, Kate!” sobbed Ada, “how cruel you are! You know, too, that dear papa does not mean this. It is not to hardship and privation he would send you.”
“But there are reverses, Ada, a hundred times worse than any change of food or dress. There are changes of condition that seem to rend one’s very identity. Here, I had respect, attention, deference, and now, I go, Heaven knows where, to render these tributes to Heaven knows whom. Tell me of yourself, my sweet Ada. It is a far brighter theme to dwell on.”
“No, no; not if I must part with you,” said she, sobbing; “but you will write to me, my own darling Kate? We shall write to each other continually till we meet again?”
“If I may. If I be permitted,” said Kate, gravely.
“What do you--what can you mean?” cried Ada, wildly. “You speak as though some secret enemy were at work to injure you here, where you have found none but friends who love you.”
“Don’t you know, my dear Ada, that love, like money, has a graduated coinage, and that what would be a trifle to the rich man, would make the wealth of a poor one? The love your friends bear me is meted out by station; mind, dearest, I’m not complaining of this. Let us talk of Italy, rather; how happy you ought to be there!”
“If I but had you, my own dearest----”
“There, I hear Mademoiselle coming. Bathe your eyes, dear Ada; or, better still, run away before she sees you.”
Ada took this last counsel; but scarcely had she left by one door, than Mademoiselle entered by another.
XXXI. DERRYVARAGH
A dreary day of December it was, and the rain was pouring heavily, pitilessly down in the dark gorge of Derryvaragh. The roar of mountain rivulets, swollen to torrents, filled the air, and the crashing sounds of falling timber blended with the noise of troubled waters. Beautiful as that landscape would be on a day of bright sunshine, it seemed now the dreariest scene the eye could rest on. The clouds lay low on the mountain-sides, thickening the gloom that spread around, while yellow currents of water crossed and re-crossed on every side, rending the earth, and laying bare the roots of tall trees.
From a window in O’Rorke’s inn, O’Rorke himself and old Malone watched the devastation and ruin of the flood; for even there, in that wild region forgotten of men, there were little patches of cultivation--potato-gardens and small fields of oats or rye--but through which now the turbid water tore madly, not leaving a trace of vegetation as it went.
“And so you saw the last of it?” said O’Rorke, as he lit his pipe and sat down at the window.
“I did; there wasn’t one stone on another as I came by. The walls were shaky enough before, and all the mortar washed out of them, so that when the stream came down in force, all fell down with a crash like thunder; and when I turned round, there was nothing standing as high as your knee, and in five minutes even that was swept away, and now it’s as bare as this floore.”
“Now, mind my words, Peter Malone; as sure as you stand there, all the newspapers will be full of ‘Another Outrage--More Irish Barbarism and Stupidity.’ That will be the heading in big letters; and then underneath it will go on: ‘The beautiful Lodge that Sir Gervais Vyner had recently built in the Gap of Derryvaragh was last night razed to the ground by a party of people who seem determined that Ireland should never rise out of the misery into which the ignorance of her natives have placed her.’ That’s what they’ll say, and then the Times will take it up, and we’ll have the old story about benefactor on one side, and brutality on the other; and how, for five hundred years’ and more, England was trying to civilise us, and that we’re as great savages now--ay, or worse--than at first.”
Malone clasped his worn hands together, and muttered a deep curse in Irish below his breath.
“And all our own fault,” continued O’Rorke, oratorically. “‘Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.’ I said that on Essex Bridge to the Lord-Lieutenant himself; and look at me now--is it here, or is it this way, a patriot ought to be?”
“Isn’t it the same with us all?” said Malone, sternly. “Didn’t they take my grandchild away from me--the light of my eyes--and then desart her?”
“No such thing--she’s better off than ever she was. She’s living with a man that never was in Ireland, and, mind what I say, Peter Malone, them’s the only kind of English you ever get any good out of.”
“What do you mane?”
“I mane that when one or two of us go over there, we’re sure to be thought cute and intelligint; and the Saxon says, ‘Isn’t it wonderful what a clever people they are?’ But if he comes here himself, and sees nothing but misery and starvation, he cries ont, ‘They’re hopeless craytures--they live with the pig.’”
“And why wouldn’t we, if we had one?”
“Well, well, well,” muttered the other, who never minded nor heeded the interruption, “maybe the time is coming, maybe the great day is near. Don’t you know the song of the ‘Shamroge in my Hat?’”
“I ne’er heerd it.”
“The little I care for Emancipation, The little I want such laws as that; What I ask is, Ould Ireland to be a nation, And myself with a shamroge in my hat.”
“I wonder will the letter come to-day,” said the old man, with a weary sigh; “my heart is heavy waiting for it.”
“If she sent you a ten-pound note, Peter Malone, whenever she wrote, there would be some sense and reason in your wishing for a letter; but, so well as I remember the one scrap of a letter she sent you, there was neither money nor money’s worth in it.”
“It was betther than goold to my heart,” said Malone, with a deep feeling in his voice and look.
“Well, there, it’s coming now; there’s Patsey holding up a letter in his hand. Do you see him at the ford, there?”
“I don’t see him, my eyes are so weak; but are ye sure of it, Tim O’Rorke? Don’t decave me, for the love of the blessed Virgin.”
“I’m not deceiving you; there’s the boy coming along as fast as he can.”
“Ay, but the letter?”
“He flourished it a minute ago, this way, for he saw me at the window.”
“Open the window and maybe, he’d show it again,” said the old man, trembling with eagerness.
“Faix! I’ll not let the rain in! It’s a nice day to have the windows open. You’re eaten up with your selfishness, Peter Malone!”
“Maybe I am, maybe I am,” muttered the old peasant, as he sat down, and hid his face between his hands.
“And who knows where the letter will be from? Maybe its Vyner is going to turn you out of your holding.”
“So he may,” sighed the other, meekly.
“Maybe it’s the agents callin’ on you to pay up for the time you were in it. Do you think that would be convanient, eh?”
“I don’t care, if they did.”
“I wouldn’t wonder if it was trouble you were getting in about throwing down the walls of the Lodge. The police, they say, made a report about it.”
“So they may; let them do their worst.”
“Go round to the back. Do you think I’ll open the front doore of a day like this?” screamed out O’Rorke to the messenger, who now stood without.
While he went to unbar the door, Old Malone dropped on his knees, and with clasped hands and uplifted eyes muttered a few words of prayer; they were in Irish, but their intense passion and fervour were but increased by the strong-sounding syllables of that strange tongue.
“There it is--from herself,” said O’Rorke, throwing down the letter on the table. “Her own handwriting; ‘Mr. Peter Malone, to the care of Mr. O’Rorke, Vinegar Hill, Cush-ma-greena, Ireland.’”
“The heavens be your bed, for the good news, Tim O’Rorke! May the Virgin watch over you for the glad heart you’ve given me this day.”
“Wait till we see the inside of it, first. Give it to me till I open it.” But the old man could not part with it so easily, but held it pressed hard to his lips.
“Give it here,” said the other, snatching it rudely; “maybe you’ll not be so fond of it, when you know the contents.”
The old man rocked to and fro in his agitation as O’Rorke broke the seal; the very sound of the wax, as it smashed, seemed to send a pang through him, as he saw the rough, unfeeling way the other handled that precious thing.
“It’s long enough, anyhow, Peter--one, two, three pages,” said he, turning them leisurely over. “Am I to read it all?”
“Every word of it, Tim O’Rorke.”
“Here goes, then:
“‘March 27,18--.
Dalradem Castle, N. Wales.
“‘My dear old Grandfather,--I sit down to write you a very long letter---’”
“God bless her! God bless the darlin’!” said the old man, interrupting; “show me the words, Tim--show them to me.”
“Indeed I will not do any such thing. It’s just as much as I’ll do is to read it out--‘a very long letter, and I hope and trust it will serve for a very long time, and save me, besides, from the annoyance of your friend and secretary, Mr. O’Rorke.’ Listen to this, Peter Malone,--‘from your secretary, Mr. O’Rorke, who, I suppose, having no treason to occupy him, is good enough to bestow his leisure upon me.’ Did you ever hear more impudence than that in all your born days? Did you believe she’d be bowld enough to insult the man that condescended to serve her?”
“She’s young, she’s young, Tim! Would you have her as wise as you and me? The crayture!”
“I’d have her with a civil tongue in her head. I’d have her respect and regard and rev’rahce her superiors--and I’m one of them!”
“Go on; read more,” muttered the old man.
“It’s not so easy, with a throat on fire, and a tongue swelled with passion. I tell you, Peter Malone, I know that girl well, and what’s more, she never deceived me! It’s like yesterday to me, the day she stood up here to my own face and said, ‘I wish I never set foot in your house, Tim O’Rorke.’ Yes, there’s the very words she used.”
“Wasn’t she a child, a poor little child?” said Malone, in a humble, almost supplicating voice.
“She was a child in years, but she had the daring of a woman, that no man would ever frighten.”
“Read on, avick, read on, and God bless you,” said the other, wiping away the big drops that stood on his brow.
O’Rorke read on: “‘I know, grandfather, it is very natural you should like to hear of me----’”
A deep sigh and low muttered prayer broke here from the old man.
“‘--to hear of me: but when once assured that I was well and happy, I hoped and believed you would cease to make such inquiries as fill O’R.’s letters----’”
“What does she mean?” broke in Malone.
“Listen, and maybe you’ll hear;” and he read:
“‘--for it cannot possibly be a matter of interest to you to hear that I read books you never saw, speak with people you never met, and talk of things, places, and persons that are all just as strange to you as if you were walking on a different earth from this.’”
“Read that again.”
“I will not. ‘Tis as much as I can to say it once. Listen:
“‘You ask, Am I happy? and I answer, If I am not, is it in your power to make me so? You want to know, Do I like the life I lead? and I ask you, If it should be that I did not like it, do you think I’d like to go back to rags, misery, and starvation? Do you believe that I can forget the cold, cutting wind, and the rain, and the snow-drift of Strathmore, or that I don’t remember the long days I shivered on the cliffs of Kilmacreenon? They all come back to me, grandfather, in my dreams, and many a morning I awake, sobbing over miseries, that, no matter what may be my fortune, have left a dark spot on my heart for life!’”
“The darlin’ jewel! I hope not,” muttered Malone, as his lips trembled with emotion. “Read on, O’Rorke.”
“‘Take it for granted, that you need never fret about me.’ That’s true, anyhow, Peter; and she means it to say, ‘Don’t bother yourself about one that will never trouble her head about you!’”
“Go on with the readin’,” grumbled out Malone.
“‘Though I cannot answer one-fourth of your questions, I will tell you so much: I am better off here than at Sir Q. V.’s. I am my own mistress; and, better still, the mistress of all here. Sir Within leaves everything at my orders. I drive out, and dress, and ride, and walk, just as I please. We see no company whatever, but there is so much to do, I am never lonely. I have masters if I wish for them--sometimes I do--and I learn many things, such as riding, driving, &c, which people never do well if they only have picked up by chance opportunity. You ask, What is to be the end of all this? or, as Mr. O’Rorke says, What will ye make of it? I reply, I don’t know, and I don’t much trouble my head about it; because I do know, Peter Malone, that if I am not interrupted and interfered with, all will go well with me, though certainly I can neither tell how, or where, or why. Another thing is equally clear: neither of us, dear grandfather, can be of much use to the other.’”
“What’s that?” cried the old man; “read it again.”
“‘Neither of us can be of much use to the other.’ That’s plain talking, anyhow, Peter. She’s a young lady that makes herself understood, I must say that!”
“I never ‘dragged’ on her for a farthin’,” said Malone, with a mournful sigh.
“Lucky for you, Peter; lucky for you!”
“Nor I wouldn’t, if I was starvin’!” said he, with a fierce energy.
“Lucky for you, I say again!”
“You mane, that she wouldn’t help me, Tim O’Rorke. You mane, that she’d turn her back on her ould grandfather. That’s as it may be. God knows best what’s in people’s hearts! I can’t tell, nor you either; but this I can tell, and I can swear to it: That for all the good she could do me--ten, ay, fifty times told--I’d not disgrace her, nor bring her to the shame of saying, ‘That ould man there in the ragged frieze coat and the patched shoes, that’s my mother’s father!’”
“If it’s to your humility you’re trusting, Peter, my man,” said the other, scoffingly, “you’ve made a great mistake in your granddaughter; but let us finish the reading. Where was it I left off? Yes, here, ‘Neither of us of much use to the other. You want to know what intercourse exists between the Vyners and myself----’ The Vyners! Ain’t we grand!” cried O’Rorke. “The Vyners! I wonder she don’t say, ‘between the Vyners and the O’Haras!’”
“Go on, will you?” said Malone, impatiently.
“‘--It is soon told--there is none; and what’s more, Sir Within no longer hears from or writes to them. Although, therefore, my own connexion with this family has ceased, there is no reason why this should influence yours; and I would, above all things, avoid, if I were you, letting my fortunes interfere with your own. You can, and with truth, declare that you had nothing whatever to do with any step I have taken; that I went my own way, and never asked you for the road. My guardian, Sir Within, wrote, it is true, to Mr. Luttrell of Arran, but received no answer. It will be my duty to write to him in a few days, and not improbably with the same result.
“‘You seem anxious to know if I have grown tall, and whether I am still like what I was as a child. I believe I may say, Yes, to both questions; but I shall send you, one of these days, a sketch from a picture of me, which the painter will this year exhibit at the Academy. It is called a great likeness. And last of all, you ask after my soul. I am sorry, dear grandfather, that I cannot be as certain of giving you as precise intelligence on this point as I have done on some others. It may satisfy you, however, perhaps, if I say I have not become a Protestant----’”
“God bless her for that!” said Malone, fervently.
“‘--although our excellent housekeeper here, Mrs. Simcox, assures me that such a change would be greatly to my advantage, in this world and in that to come; but if her knowledge of the former is the measure of what she knows of the latter, I shall require other counsel before I read my recantation.’”
“What does she mean by that?” asked Malone.
“‘‘Tis another way of saying, ‘I won’t play a card till I see the money down on the table.’”
“How can that be? Which of us knows what’s going to happen here or in the next world?”
“Maybe the Protestants does! Perhaps that’s the reason they’re always so dark and downcast now.”
Malone shook his head in despair; the problem was too much for him, and he said, “Read on.”
“‘That I am not without the consolations of the Church you will be glad to hear, as I tell you that a French priest, the Abbé Gerard, dines here every Sunday, and sings with me in the evening.’”
“Sings with her. What makes them sing?”
“Religion, of coorse,” said O’Rorke, with a grin of derision. “Listen to me, Peter Malone,” cried he, in a stern voice; “when people is well off in the world, they no more think of going to heaven the way you and I do, than they’d think of travellin’ a journey on a low-backed car.”
“Go on with the reading,” muttered Malone.
“I have read enough of it, Peter Malone. You are cute enough to see by this time what a fine-hearted, generous, loving creature you have for a granddaughter. At all events, the dose you’ve taken now, ought to be enough for a day. So put up the physic”--here he handed him the letter--“and whenever you feel in want of a little more, come back, and I’ll measure it out for you!”
“You’re a hard man, you’re a hard man, Mr. O’Rorke,” said the old fellow, as he kissed the letter twice fervently, and then placed it in his bosom.
“I’m a hard man because I read you out her own words, just as she wrote them.”
“You’re a hard man, or you’d not want to crush one as old and feeble as me!” And so saying, he went his way.
XXXII. MR. M’KINLAY IN ITALY
As there are periods in life, quiet and tranquil periods, in which the mind reverts to the past, and dwells on bygones, so in story-telling there are little intervals in which a brief retrospect is pardonable, and it is to one of these I would now ask my reader’s attention.
There was not anything very eventful in Mr. M’Kinlay’s journey across Europe with Ada and her governess. They met with no other adventures than occur to all travellers by land or by water; but on arriving at Marseilles, a letter from Lady Vyner apprised them that Sir Gervais was slightly indisposed, and requested Mr. M’Kinlay would complete his kindness by giving them his company and protection as far as Genoa, at a short distance from which city, and in one of those little sheltered nooks of the Riviera, they had now established themselves in a villa.
It is but truthful to own, that the lawyer did not comply with this request either willingly or gracefully. He never liked the Continent, he was an indifferent linguist, he detested the cookery, and fancied that the wines poisoned him. Mademoiselle Heinzleman, too, was fussy, meddling, and officious, presuming, at least he thought so, on being in an element more her own. And as for Ada, grief at separating from Kate had made her so indifferent and apathetic, that she neither enjoyed the journey or took any interest in the new scenes and objects around her. Mr. M’Kinlay, therefore, was in no mood to proceed farther; he was tired of it all. But, besides this, he was not quite certain that he had done the right thing by placing Kate O’Hara at Dalradern; or that in so doing he had carried out the very vague instructions of Miss Courtenay. Not that the lawyer saw his way at all in the whole affair. The absurd suspicions of the old envoy about some secret contract, or marriage, or some mysterious bond, he could afford to deride; but, unhappily, he could not as easily forget, and some doubts--very ungenerous and ungallant doubts they were--would cross his mind, that Miss Georgina Courtenay’s favour to himself, in some way or other, depended on the changeful fortunes of some other “issue,” of which he knew nothing. “She means to accept me if she can get nothing better,” was the phrase that he found on his lips when he awoke, and heard himself muttering as he dropped off asleep at night; and, after all, the consideration was not either reassuring or flattering. Middle-aged gentlemen, even with incipient baldness and indolent “proclivities,” do not fancy being consigned to the category of “last resorts.” They fancy--Heaven help them!--that they have their claims on regard, esteem, and something stronger too; and doubtless the delusion has its influence in fighting off, for a year or two, the inevitable admission that they have dropped out of the “van” into that veteran battalion which furnishes no more guards of honour at the Temple of Venus, nor even a sentinel at the gate. Very ungallant little sums in arithmetic, too, used he to work about Georgina’s age; and it would seem strange to younger men the anxiety he felt to give her a year or two more than she had a right to. “I’m not sure she’s not nearer thirty-five than thirty-two,” muttered he, ill naturedly, to himself. “Rickards said, one night, she was older than her sister, though the old rascal took care to come and tell me in the morning that it was a mistake.” And then, by subtracting this thirty-five from another arbitrary sum, he obtained a result apparently satisfactory, being, as he termed it, the proper difference of age between man and wife! Why will not men, in their zeal for truth, take “evidence for the defence” occasionally, and ask a woman’s opinion on. this subject?
They arrived at last at the Villa Balbi, a grand old palace on the sea-side, where ruin and splendour were blended up together, and statues, and fountains, and frescoes struggled for the mastery over a rank growth of vegetation, that seemed to threaten enclosing the whole place in a leafy embrace. Into the deep arches that supported the terrace, the blue Mediterranean flowed with that noiseless motion of this all but tideless sea. All was silent as they drove up to the gate, for they had not been expected before the morrow-. Scarcely was the door opened than Ada sprung out and disappeared up the stairs, followed as well as she might by the governess. Mr. M’Kinlay was then left alone, or, at least, with no other companionship than some three or four servants, whose attempts at English were by no means successful.
“Ah, Miller, I’m glad to see your face at last,” said the lawyer, as Sir Gervais’s valet pushed his way through the crowd; “how are all here?”
“Sir Gervais has had a bad night, Sir, and we were expecting the doctor every moment. Indeed, when I heard your carriage, I thought it was he had come.”
“Not seriously ill, I hope?”
“Not that, perhaps, Sir; but the doctor calls it a very slow fever, and requiring great care and perfect quiet. He is not to know when Miss Ada arrives.”
“And the ladies, are they well?”
“My Lady’s greatly tired and fatigued, Sir, of course; but Miss Courtenay is well. She was just giving directions about your room, Sir. She said, ‘If Mr. M’Kinlay should be afraid of this fever, you can take him down to the fattore’s house, and make him up a room there.’”
“Is it a fever then, Miller, a real fever?”
“They call it so, Sir.”
“This is all that’s wanting,” muttered M’Kinlay to himself. “I only need to catch some confounded disorder, now, to make this the most happy exploit of my whole life! Where is this house you speak of?”
“At the foot of the hill, Sir, where you saw the clump of evergreen oaks.”
“Why, it was a dirty-looking hovel, with Indian corn hung all over it.”
“Well, Sir, it ain’t very clean to look at, but it’s not so bad inside, and you can be sure of a comfortable bed.”
“I don’t see why I am to stop at all. I have seen Miss Ada safe to her own door; I really cannot perceive that anything more is required of me,” said he to himself, as he walked up and down the terrace.
“You’d like to eat something, perhaps, Sir? Supper is ready whenever you wish it.”
“Yes, I’ll eat a morsel; I was very hungry half an hour ago, but all this tidings of illness and infection has driven away my appetite. A vast roomy old place this appears,” said he, as he followed the serrant across a hall spacious as a public square, into a salon large enough to be a church.
“We have five like this, Sir; and on the other floor there is one still larger and loftier.”
“How long are you here?” said the lawyer, abruptly, for he was not at all in love with the mansion.
“We shall be two months here on Tuesday, and her Ladyship likes it so much, Sir Gervais means to buy it.”
“Well, I hope I shall not be much more than two hours in it. Let me have something to eat, and order fresh horses at the post.”
“You’ll see my Lady, I suppose, Sir?”
“Of course, if she can receive me; but I will just send up a line on my card to say that my departure at once is imperatively necessary.”
Few as the words were that were required to convey this message, Mr. M’Kinlay could scarcely write them in a legible way. He was nervously afraid of an illness; but the thought of a foreign malady--a fever of some outlandish type--was a terror as great as the attack of a savage animal, of whose instinct and ways he knew nothing. All the speculations which had filled his head as he came along the road, were routed at once. Love-making and marriage were all very well, but they might be purchased too dearly. A dowry that was only to be won by facing a fever, was a sorry speculation. No! he would have none of such dangerous ambitions. He had gone through enough already--he had braved shipwreck--and if needs were that he must resign the agency, better that than resign life itself.
Not even the appetising supper that was now spread before him, could dispel these gloomy thoughts. He was half afraid to eat, and he could not be sure that wine was safe under the present circumstances.
“My Lady hoped to see you in the morning, Sir,” said the valet. “She has just lain down, having been up last night with Sir Gervais.”
“I am extremely sorry! I am greatly distressed! But it is impossible for me to defer my departure. I will explain it all by a letter. Just unstrap that writing-desk, and I will write a few lines. You ordered the horses, I hope?”
“Yes, Sir; they will be at the door by ten o’clock.”
“Miss Courtenay knows I am here, I suppose?” said M’Kinlay, in a tone of well put-on indifference, as he opened his writing-desk and arranged his papers.
“I don’t know, indeed, Sir; but she has the governess in her room with her, and perhaps she has heard it from her.”
Mr. M’Kinlay bit his lip with impatience; he was vexed, and he was angry. Nor altogether was it unreasonable; he had come a long journey, at considerable inconvenience, and at a time he could be ill-spared from his clients; he had undergone fatigue and annoyance--the sort of annoyance which, to men who dislike the Continent, is not a trifling matter--and here he was now, about to set out again without so much as a word of thanks, not even a word of acknowledgment. What were they, or what was he, to justify such treatment? This was the somewhat irritating query to which all his self-examination reverted. “Am I a lacquey!” cried he, as he threw down his pen in a passionate outburst that completely overcame him. “I suppose they think I am a lacquey!” and he pushed back from the table in disgust.
“Miss Courtenay, Sir, would be pleased to see you in the drawing-room, Sir, whenever it was convenient,” said a thin-looking damsel of unmistakably English mould.
“I will wait upon her now,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, with the severe accents of an injured and indignant man. In fact, he spoke like one whose coming might be supposed to evoke sentiments of trepidation, if not of awe; and yet, after he had uttered the words, he fussed and pottered amongst his papers, arranging and settling, and undoing, in a way that to any shrewder observer than the Abigail, would have discovered a mind not by any means so bent upon peremptory action as he had assumed to bespeak.
“Will you show me the way?” said he, at last, as he locked up the writing-desk, and now followed her through room after room, till the girl stopped at a door and knocked gently. No answer was returned, and she repeated the summons, on which the maid opened the door, saying, “If you’ll step inside, Sir, I’ll tell my mistress you are here;” and Mr. M’Kinlay entered into what his first footstep informed him was a lady’s boudoir. It was a small room, opening on a terrace by two windows, which were thrown wide, filling the chamber with the odour of orange-flowers to a degree positively oppressive. An alabaster lamp was the only light, and served merely to throw a sort of faint sunset-glow over the room, which seemed filled with cabinet pictures and statuettes, and had an easel in one corner with an unfinished sketch in oils upon it. The perfume of orange and magnolia was so overcoming that the lawyer moved out upon the terrace, which descended by a flight of marble steps into the sea. He sat down on these to inhale the fresh night air, for already his head was beginning to feel confused and addled by the strong odours.
He had not been many minutes there, when he heard the rustle of a lady’s dress close to him, and before he could arise, Miss Courtenay moved forward and sat down beside him.
“How are you, Mr. M’Kinlay?” said she, giving him her hand cordially. “I have come to thank you for all your care of Ada, and your kindness to us all.”
These very simple words were delivered with a most winning grace of look and manner. No wonder if he forgot all his irritation of a few moments before; no wonder if in the very unexpectedness of this pleasure, he felt somewhat confused; and it but needed that starlight hour, that perfumed air, that murmuring sea, and the light gauzy veil, which in Genoese mode Georgina wore in her hair, and which now floated carelessly half across his arm, to make Mr. M’Kinlay think this one of the happiest moments of his life.
After a few questions about the journey and its incidents, she went on to tell him of themselves, in that tone of easy confidence people use with their nearest friends. “It was a somewhat sad house,” she said, “he had come to. Gervais”--she called him Gervais--“had caught one of those low fevers of the country, and her mother was still very poorly. Her sister, however, had benefited by the climate, and this it was that decided them on remaining abroad. You knew, of course, that Gervais intends to buy this villa?”
“No; he had not heard of it.”
“Nor that he has given up his seat in the House, and retired from public life?”
“Nor that either had he heard.”
“Well, of course he means to tell you all now that he has got you out here. You will be such a comfort to him, Mr. M’Kinlay; he was longing to see an old friend again.”
Mr. M’Kinlay’s ears tingled with delight, and his heart throbbed high with hope, but he could only mutter out something that sounded like acknowledgment.
“He has so much to ask you about, besides,” she went on. “Mamma wants him to let his Wiltshire house for some years, and so retrench a little, for you know he has been rather extravagant lately.”
“I have ventured on an occasional remonstrance myself, though not without feeling what a liberty I was taking.”
“A liberty! Surely, my dear Mr. M’Kinky, the kind solicitude of friendship is not a liberty. Then there have been some mines--lead or copper, I forget which, and I don’t well remember whether in South Wales or Sardinia--but they have not turned out well.”
“Very badly, indeed, Miss Courtenay; the shares are at thirty-two, and falling still.”
“Yes; he will have to talk over all these things with you; but not for some days, of course, for he is very weak and low.”
“You don’t seem to know, then,” said he, with a smile, “that I am going off to-night; my horses are ordered for ten o’clock.”
“Impossible! Why, we have not seen you yet; surely, Mr. M’Kinlay, you couldn’t leave this without seeing Gervais and my sister?” There was a reproachful tenderness in her look, and mingled expression of wounded sensibility and shame at its being confessed, that gave some trouble to the lawyer’s heart; for there rankled in that crafty old heart some memories of the conversation at Dalradern; and, in his distrust-fulness, he would ask himself, “What does this mean?”
“Come, Mr. M’Kinlay, say this is only a threat; do confess it was only meant to terrify.”
“Oh, Miss Georgina, you cannot attach such interest to my presence here, as to speak of my departure in terms like these!”
“I don’t know how others think of these things,” said she, with a sort of pouting air, “but, for my own part, I cling very closely to old friendships.”
Had Mr. M’Kinlay been some twenty years younger, he would, doubtless, have seized on the moment to make a declaration. The conjuncture promised well, and he would not have lost it; but Mr. M’Kinlay had arrived at the time of life in which men are more prone to speculate on the consequences of failure than on the results of success, and when they never address them to jump over the narrowest ditch without a thought of the terrible splashing they shall get if they fall in, and, worse even than the wetting, the unsympathising comments of a malicious public.
“What is Mr. M’Kinlay pondering over so deeply?” said Georgina, as she turned her eyes full upon him; and very effective eyes they were at such a range.
“I can scarcely tell; that is, I don’t well know now to tell,” said he, trying to screw up his courage.
“Mr. M’Kinlay has a secret, I’m certain,” said she, with a winning coquetry she was quite mistress of.
That look she gave--it-was a long-dwelling look as though she had half forgotten, to take away her eyes, for ladies will sometimes fire after the enemy has struck--was too much for Mr. M’Kinlay; he forgot all his prudential reserves, and said, “Has not every one his secret, Miss Courtenay?”
“I suppose so,” said she, carelessly.
“Has not Miss Courtenay got one?” said he, leaning, forward, and trying to catch her eyes; but she had dropped them too suddenly for him.
“Not that I’m aware of,” said she; and if he had been gifted with a nice ear, he would have perceived: that a slight vibration marked the words as they fell.
“By the way,” said M’Kinlay--a most unlucky à propos--“have I your perfect approval in my arrangement for that young Irish lady--or girl--Miss O’Hara?”
Now the words “by the way,” had so completely touched her to the quick, that for an instant her face became crimson.
“If you will first of all tell me what the arrangements are,” said she, with a forced calm, “perhaps I may be able to say if I like them.”
“Has Mademoiselle not told you anything?”
“Mademoiselle has told me, simply, that Mr. M’Kinlay assumed the whole responsibility of the case, and neither counselled with her nor divulged his intentions.”
“Ah, that was not quite fair; I really must say, that Mademoiselle did not represent me as I think I merit. It was a sort of case perfectly new to me. It was not very easy to see one’s way. I could not make out whether you would all be better pleased by some costly arrangement for the girl, or by having her sent straight back to where she came from. The mystery that hung over----” he paused and stammered; he had said what he had not intended, and he blundered in his attempt to recal it. “I mean,” added he, “that mystery that the old diplomatist insists on connecting with her.”
“As how?” said Georgina, in a low, soft voice, intensely insinuating in its cadence--“as how?”
“It’s not very easy to say how, so much of what he said was vague, so much hypothetical; and, indeed, so much that seemed----” He stopped, confused, and puzzled how to go on.
“So that you had a long conversation together on this topic?”
“An entire evening. I dined with him alone, and we spoke of very little else as we sat over our wine.”
“I wish you could remember what he said. Don’t you think you could recal some at least of it?”
“I can’t say that I could, and for this reason: that he kept always interpolating little traits of what he knew of life, and all his vast and varied experiences of human nature. These sort of men are rather given to this.”
“Are they?” asked she; and it was not easy to say whether her accents implied a simple curiosity, or a dreamy indifference. Mr. M’Kinlay accepted them in the former sense, and with some pomposity continued:
“Yes; I have frequently remarked this tone in them, as well as the tendency to see twice as much in everything as it really contains.”
“Indeed!” said she, and now her voice unmistakably indicated one who listened with eager attention to the words of wisdom. “Did he show this tendency on the occasion you speak of?”
“Markedly, most markedly. It is very strange that I cannot give you a more accurate account of our interview; but he addled my head about pictures and early art; and then, though always temperate, his wine was exquisite. In fact, I carried away a most confused impression of all that took place between us.”
“You remember, however, the arrangements that were settled on, What were they?”
“The great point of all, the one you insisted on, I was, I may say, peremptory upon.”
“Which was that?”
“That she should not come abroad; as I said to Sir Within: ‘We must negotiate on this basis; here is Miss Courtenay’s letter, these are her words;’ and I showed him the turn-down, only the turndown, of your note.”
Had there been light enough to remark it, Mr. M’Kinlay would have seen that Miss Courtenay’s face became deadly pale, and her lips trembled with repressed anger.
“Well, and then?” said she, with a faint voice.
“He cut the Gordian knot at once, my dear Miss Courtenay,” continued he, in a sort of sprightly tone; “he said, ‘There need be no difficulty in the matter. I can act here ex-officio;’ he meant by that he was her guardian. ‘I will write to her,’ said he, ‘and if she prefers to remain here----’”
“Remain where?” gasped she out, with a great effort to seem calm and composed.
“At Dalradern Castle, at his own house; if she likes this better than a Paris pension, or an Irish cabin, it is quite at her service.”
“But, of course, you replied the thing was impossible; such an arrangement couldn’t be. It would be indelicate, improper, indecent?”
“I didn’t say all that; but I hinted that as Sir Within was a bachelor, there were difficulties----”
“Difficulties, Sir! What do you mean by difficulties? Is it possible that one evening’s companionship with a person hardened by a long life of ‘libertinage’ can have so warped your moral sense as to render you blind to so obvious a shame as this?”
“He said his housekeeper----”
“His housekeeper! Am I to believe, Sir, that you listened to all this with the patience with which you repeat it now, and that no feeling of propriety roused you to an indignant rejection of such a scheme? Was his Claret or his Burgundy so insinuating as this?”
“When he said housekeeper----”
“Pray, Sir, do not push my endurance beyond all limits. I have given a very wide margin for the influence of Sir Within’s fascinations; but, bear in mind, that the magnetism of his wit and his wine has not extended to me.”
“If you want to imply, Miss Courtenay, that I was not in a condition to judge of----.”
“Mr. M’Kinlay, I say nothing at any time by implication. People are prone to call me too outspoken. What I say and what I mean to say is this, that I cannot imagine a person of your intelligence calmly listening to and concurring in such a project.”
“I am free to own I disliked it, and I distrusted it; the few words that your brother’s butler, Rickards, said about this girl’s craft and subtlety, the artful way she got round people, the study she made of the tempers and tastes of those about her----”
“And with all this before you, with this knowledge fresh as it was in your mind, you quietly sit down to agree to a plan which opens to these very qualities a most dangerous field of exercise. What do you mean by it? What do you intend? I can’t suppose,” said she, with a sneer, “you contemplated her being Lady Wardle?”
“I certainly did not,” said he, with a sickly smile.
“Well, Sir, you have placed yourself in a position for malevolent people to impute worse to you. Will you just tell me, who ever heard of such a thing? Is there any country, any society ever tolerated it? This girl is close on sixteen.”
“He asked particularly about her age,” said M’Kinlay, who was now so confused, that he knew not well what he said.
And, simple as the words were, they seemed to pierce to her very heart, for she sprang to her feet, and in a voice trembling with passion, said:
“I sincerely trust that you manage the material questions confided to you with more ability and tact than you do matters of social interest, and I can only say, Sir, it is the last occasion of this kind on which you will be troubled with any commission from me.”
“I believed I was strictly carrying out your intentions. You said she must not come abroad.”
“But I never said----” she stopped, and the crimson flush rose on her face and covered her whole forehead. “Now mind me, Mr. M’Kinlay, and remember, I do not intend that you should twice mistake my meaning, my wish was, and is, that this girl should go back to the place, the people, and the condition from which my brother, in a very ill-judging hour, took her. I believed, and I believe, that her presence in any, the most remote, connexion with our family, is fraught with inconvenience, or worse--do you understand me so far?”
“I do,” said he, slowly.
“Well, with this strong conviction on my mind, I desire that she should be sent home again; and I tell Mr. M’Kinlay now, that any favour he cares for or values at my hands, depends on the success with which he carries out this wish.”
“But how is this possible? What can I do?”
“That is for your consideration, Sir; you entangled the skein, you must try if you cannot undo it. Lawyers, I have always heard, have resources at their command common mortals never have dreamed of. You may discover that Sir Within has no right to exercise this guardianship. You might find out,” she smiled dubiously as she uttered the words, “that the girl’s friends disapproved of this protection,--very humble people occasionally are right-minded on these points,--you might find--how can I tell what your ingenuity could not find--excellent reasons that she should go back to Ireland and to the obscurity she should never have quitted. I don’t doubt it may be hard to do this; but until I learn that it is impossible, I will never consent to withdraw from Mr. M’Kinlay that confidence with which his character and his abilities have ever inspired me.”
“If the desire to win your favour Miss Courtenay----”
“No, no, Mr. M’Kinlay, that is not enough! We women are very practical, if we are not very logical; we ask for success from those who aspire to our good esteem.”
“To meet a difficulty, the first thing is to see where is the hitch!” said he, thoughtfully.
“I don’t believe that I apprehend you here. What is it that you mean?”
“I mean, Miss Courtenay, that it is only by learning very accurately what are the reasons for this girl’s removal--what urgent necessity, in fact, requires it--that I shall be likely to hit upon the means to affect it.”
“Suppose it to be a caprice--a mere caprice!”
“In that case, I should be powerless.”
“I don’t mean an actual caprice,” said she, hurriedly, for she saw her error; “but a sort of apprehension that this initial mistake of my brother’s would lead to worse. Great unhappiness has been caused to families by these connexions; the Irish are a very vindictive people, Sir, if they thought, as they might think, some years hence, that we should have discovered our blunder before. In short, Sir, I will not turn special pleader to show what I wish and I insist on.”
“Do you think, if I were to remain here to-morrow, Sir Gervais would be able to see me.”
“It is most improbable; I am certain the doctors would not consent to it.”
“Nor even the next day, perhaps?”
“Just as unlikely; everything like business is strictly forbidden to him.”
“Then I do not see why I should not start at once--now!”
“If I am to accept this as zeal to serve me,” said she, in a very sweet accent, “I thank you sincerely.”
“Ah, Miss Courtenay, could you only guess with what ardour I would apply myself to win your favour! If you had known how the very faintest promise of that favour----”
“Mr. M’Kinlay,” said she, stopping him, and bestowing a very captivating smile on him, “Mr. M’Kinlay belongs to a profession that never stipulates for its reward!”
“Enough, my dear Miss Courtenay,” said he, and, in his enthusiasm, he actually seized her hand and kissed it.
“Good-by,” said she, with a sort of maidenly impatience; “let me hear from you soon.” And she left him.
That same night saw Mr. M’Kinlay wearily rumbling along the same way he had lately travelled, very tired and very road-sick; but still there burned in his heart a small flame of hope, a tiny light indeed, not unlike one of the little lamps which from time to time he saw on the wayside, throwing their sickly glare over some humble shrine.
Ah, M’Kinlay! if you could but have seen the hurried impatience with which a cambric handkerchief was employed to efface, as it were, all trace of that rapturous embrace, it might have rescued you from some vain fancies, even though it made the road all the wearier and the drearier.
A very few words more will complete our account of a retrospect that has already grown longer than we wished. Mr. M’Kinlay’s first care on reaching town, was to address a very carefully-worded and respectful letter to Sir Within Wardle, stating that as the Vyner family had not fully approved of what he, M’K., had done with regard to the arrangements for Miss O’Hara, he hoped Sir Within would graciously name an early day to receive him, and explain what were the plans which they had fixed on for this young person, and by what means they purposed to relieve him from a charge which could not be other than embarrassing.
The following was the reply he received by return of post:
“Dear Sir,--Sir Within Wardle has handed me your note, and directed me to answer it. Perhaps this fact alone, and of itself, will be a sufficient reply. It will at least serve to show that while I am honoured by his entire confidence, I am not the cause of any such embarrassment as you feelingly deplore.
“Sir Within sees nothing in his present arrangements which call for the advice you are so kind as to offer, nor does he feel warranted in giving you the inconvenience of a journey, whose results would be unprofitable. Apart from this discussion, a visit from you would be always acceptable.
“Believe me, dear Sir, with every sense of esteem and respect, yours,
“Kate O’Hara.”
This short epistle, written in a bold but well-formed handwriting, and sealed with the initials of the writer, M’Kinlay forwarded by the night-mail to Miss Courtenay, and in due course received the following three lines:
“Dear Sir,--It will not be necessary in future to impose any further trouble on you in this matter. Sir Within Wardle, the young lady, and yourself, are all admirable representatives of the orders you severally pertain to.
“And I am, your faithful servant,
“Georgina Courtenay.”
XXXIII. SIR WITHIN AND HIS WARD
How time has slipped over since we were last here, in the midst of the Welsh mountains! It is more than a year, but still wonderfully little has gone on in that interval. The larch-trees at Dalradern have added some palms to their stature, but the venerable oaks and elms disdain to show by change the influence of so brief a period, and, in the same way, it is in Kate alone--that plant of rapid growth--that we have much alteration to mark.
What a change has been wrought in her! It is not merely that she has grown into a tall and graceful girl, but that one by one the little traits of her peasant origin have faded away, and she looks, and seems, and carries herself with all the air of a high-born beauty. In her lofty brow, her calm features, her manner, in which a quiet dignity blends with a girlish grace, and, above all, in her voice singularly sweet-toned as it was, might be read every sign of that station men distinctively call the “best.”
Masters and professors of every kind had surrounded her, but she had a sort of indolent activity in her disposition, which tended little to the work of learning, while her quickness enabled her to pick up smatterings of many things. But, as she said herself, Sir Within was her best teacher. The old minister’s tact, his social readiness, his instinctive seizure of the nice points of every situation,--these were the gifts that had a special attraction for her; and while she was envying him the charm of a manner that could captivate all, from the highest to the humblest, she had actually acquired the gift and made it her own.
To recognise in her the traits on which he most prided himself, to see in that lovely girl his pupil in the arts of society, to mark in her a copyist of himself in the little tricks of manner and effect, was the greatest of all flatteries; and he never wearied of watching her repeating himself before him in a form so captivating and so graceful.
Although he had lost--and it was a loss he deplored--the friendly intercourse with the Vyners, and although the neighbourhood more strictly than ever quarantined him now, no representations nor remonstrances could prevail upon him to send Kate to a school, or to place her under other protection than his own. Innumerable were the governesses who had come down to take charge of her; none, however, remained long. Some alleged it was the solitude that oppressed them; others averred that their pupil would submit to no discipline but such as she liked, and that not alone the studies she would pursue, but even the hours she would devote to them, should be at her own choosing.
And one or two took higher ground, and declared that the establishment which contained an old bachelor and a very beautiful ward, was not in a position to confront the criticisms of the world.
To such as have not known, or met with the class Sir Within pertained to, it will perhaps seem incredible that the old rake actually felt flattered by this attack on his reputation. All that he had ever known of life was passed amongst people of admirable manners and very lax morals. They were the best bred, the best informed, the best dressed, and the pleasantest in the universe. Nowhere was life so easy and agreeable as in their company; every one was kind, considerate, and obliging; not a hard word was ever dropped. Who could be uncharitable where all was tolerated? Who could be severe where everything was pardoned?
It was by a very easy induction that he was led to believe that a certain laxity on the score of morals was an essential element of good breeding, and that nothing was so low in tone as that “eternal scrutiny,” as he called it, into one’s neighbours’ habits, which would make of a gentleman very little other than a detective.
When he heard, therefore, that a certain Mademoiselle La Grange had taken her departure on these exceptional grounds, he actually chuckled with delighted vanity.
“So ‘Ma Mie’”--this was his pet name for Kate--“they tell me that Mademoiselle has gone off this morning,” said he, “no longer able to tolerate a house where there is no mistress.”
“The note she left behind her went fully into the matter,” said Kate. “It was not alone that you were unmarried, but that you were a very well-known monster of vice.”
“Vrai! vrai!” cried he, with ecstasy; “monstre épouvantable!”
“And, to confirm it, she added, that no one came here; that the neighbours avoided the house, as the abode of a plague; and even sight-seers would not gratify the craving of their curiosity at the cost of their propriety.”
“Did she say all that?”
“Yes; she said it very neatly, too; as prettily and as tersely as such impertinence can be put in nice French.”
“And this is the ninth departure, is it not, Ma Mie, on these high grounds of morality?”
“No, Sir; only the fifth. Two alleged loneliness, one accused the damp, and one protested against my temper!”
“What had you done, then?”
“Everything that was cross and ill natured. It was the unlucky week that Cid Hamet staked himself.”
“I remember; there were two days you would not come down to dinner on pretence of headache, and you told me afterwards it was all ill humour.”
“Because I always tell you everything,” said she, with a smile so captivatingly beautiful, that it lit up her fave as the sun lights up a landscape.
“I am sorry, too,” said he, after a short silence, “that Mademoiselle should have gone away at this moment, for I am expecting visitors.”
“Visitors, Sir?”
“Yes, child; two distant, very distant relatives of mine are coming to-day; less, indeed, to see me than the place I live in. They are my heirs, Ma Mie; and the world says, no sort of people are less palatable to the man in possession, and, I take it, the world is right in the matter. When one thinks how he dislikes the man who keeps the newspaper too long at the club, it may be imagined how he is hated who keeps another out of an estate; and the sense of being so hated engenders something that is not friendship!”
“I think I can understand that feeling!” said she, thoughtfully.
“Every one knows,” continued he, “that when he is gone, the objects which he has loved and cherished--I mean the material objects, for I am talking as an old bachelor--will survive to give pleasure to others; but somehow he fancies--at least, I fancy--that the new incumbent will not know the full luxury of the shade under that sycamore where we sat yesterday to watch the fish in the pond; that he’ll never appreciate that Claude as I do, when I let a fresh blaze of sunlight on the opposite wall, and see it in a soft reflected light; and as to the delight of riding through these old wooded alleys as I feel it, he’ll not have you for a companion--eh, ma belle et bonne?”
She turned away her head. Was it shame, or sorrow, or both? Who knows? “What are your friends like?” asked she, suddenly.
“They are very like each other, and not like anything or any one else I ever met. They are, first of all, descendants of an old Huguenot family of excellent blood. Their ancestors settled here, and, like most others, they prospered. One became a Peer, but died without an heir, and the title became extinct. The present head of the house is this person I expect here to-day, with his son. He is a banker, as his son is. They are very rich, and very eager to be richer. Report says that they are not very generous or free-handed. My own experience can neither refute nor confirm the rumour. Their London house was very handsome when I saw it, and when I dined there everything bespoke the habits of wealth; but they had a sort of air of business in their reception, a look of doing something that was to redound to the bank, that I didn’t like. The company, too, was of that mixed character that showed they were less familiars than clients.”
“How intensely acute to detect all this at once!”
“I am nothing, Ma Mie, positively nothing, if I am not ‘fin.’ It is the spirit of my old calling that survives in me. Nay, I even thought, in the distributions of the host’s attentions to his friends, I could name the men who stood with a goodly balance to their account, and point out those who were being, what is called, accommodated.”
“Oh, this is too much!” said she, laughing; but there was nothing in her tone or look that implied a shade of incredulity.
“Well, you are to see them both to-day; they will be here to dinner.” He said this with a half-suppressed sigh, for the visit promised him very little that was agreeable.
He was essentially a man of conventionalities, and there were some difficulties in the present case that embarrassed him. First, he should be unable to have any dinner company to meet his visitors. He had long ceased to have intercourse with his country neighbours, and, of course, none would think of “calling” on his friends. This was provoking enough, but a greater trouble remained behind it. Kate’s presence! How was he to account for that? Who was she? Why was she there? Who, and what, and where were her friends? Would not the Ladarelles at once connect the estrangement in which he lived from all society with the fact of this girl being beneath his roof? Would they not at once jump to the conclusion, It is this scandal has deterred all from visiting him? Now, it is just possible that something in this allegation against his morality might have tickled the morbid vanity of the old rake, who loved to think that youth and vice were convertible terms, and he even smirked as he imagined himself called on for his defence. Still, in his element of gentleman, there survived the shame of the part that would be assigned to Kate by such an imputation, and it is but justice to him to say that he felt this acutely. Had there been time for such an arrangement, he would have procured a governess, and sent her away to some sea-side spot. As it was, he thought of taking the Vyners’s Cottage, and placing her there under the charge of Mrs. Simcox. This would have been easy, as the Cottage had been advertised to let for some time back; but, as ill luck would, have, it, some one had just arrived there, whether as friend or tenant, none knew.
It was true, he might keep her unseen for, the few days the visit would last. The Castle was ample enough to secure a retreat which should be inviolable; but there were difficulties, too, about; this, not easily to be met.
He could not implicitly rely on the discretion of servants, especially of servants who found themselves in, the presence of the coming heir, of him who should be “king hereafter;” and again, he was not quite sure how she herself would meet a proposition that assigned her so equivocal a position. She was very proud, and on one or two occasions he had seen her display a spirit that no old gentleman of his stamp would possibly expose himself to from a young girl, if he could help it. There was, then, nothing left but to present her as his ward, a word so wide in acceptance, that he trusted it might defy scrutiny, and with this resolve, though not without misgivings, he went about giving his orders, and directing the arrangements to receive his guests.
Even this office had its shade of sadness, pleasant as it is at ordinary times to prepare for those who come to enliven solitude or break a monotony, which even of itself savours of gloom; the task is not so agreeable if undertaken for those who come to inspect what will be their own hereafter; what, even as they survey, they seem half inclined to grasp; what, while they look at, they speculate on the changes they will effect in, thinking of that day when he, who now does the honours, shall have left the stage, and they themselves become the actors.
Kate, however, accompanied him everywhere, aiding by her counsels and assisting by her suggestions, and serving in this way to dispel much of that depression which the task imposed. It was, as they both were returning from one of the gardens, that a keeper came forward with a dead pheasant in his hand.
“A hen! Michael, a hen!” cried Sir Within, with displeasure.
“Yes, Sir, and a very fine one. It was the gentleman who has just come to Dinasllyn shot her this morning. I met him coming up here to excuse himself to you, and say how sorry he was. He gave me this card, and hoped you’d not be displeased at it.”
“What’s the name? I have not got my glass, Kate.”
“Mr. George Grenfell, Sir, Dover-street.”
“Grenfell, Grenfell--never heard of any Grenfells but Cox and Grenfell, the Piccadilly people, eh?”
Kate gave no answer, but still held the card, with her eyes fixed upon it.
“Sad thing to shoot a hen--very sad thing--and a remarkably fine bird; quite young, quite young,” muttered Sir Within to himself. “Could scarcely be the game sauce Grenfell, I think, eh, Kate? This apology smacks of the gentleman. What was he like, Michael?”
“A fine-looking man, Sir, standing as tall as me; and about thirty-six or thirty-eight, perhaps. He had a nice spaniel with him, Sir, one of the Woburn breed; I know ‘em well.”
“I’m sorry he shot that hen. Ain’t you, Kate?”
But Kate was deep in thought, and did not hear him.
XXXIV. SIR WITHIN’S GUESTS
A short, somewhat plump, dark-eyed young man, with a low but wide forehead, and a well-formed but rather thick-lipped mouth, lay in his dressing-gown on the sofa smoking, and at intervals conversing with a smart-looking valet. These were Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, and his man Fisk. The time--a little past midnight; the place--a bedroom in Dalradern Castle.
“The governor gone to bed yet, Fisk?”
“No, Sir; he’s still talking with the old gent. They seemed to have had high words of it awhile ago, but they’ve got quiet again.”
“The governor came down expressly for that! He likes a bit of a breeze, too, and I believe it does him good.”
“Well, indeed I think you’re right, Sir! I never seed him in such health as after that trial where Mr. Hythe, the cashier, was sentenced to fourteen years. It was just like putting so much to the master’s own life.”
Whether the prospect of such longevity was so agreeable to the young gentleman, I cannot say, but he winced a little under the remark, and said, half moodily: “This old cove here ought to be thinking of that same journey. It’s slow work waiting for the death of a man, after he passes seventy-four or five. The assurance offices know that much.”
“It’s to be all yours, Master Dolly, ain’t it?” asked the man, in a coaxing sort of tone.
“Every stone of it, and every stick that the old boy doesn’t manage to cut down in the mean while.”
“You’ll never live here, Master Dolly? You’d not stand this lonesome place a week!”
“I don’t think I should, Tom. I might come down for the shooting, and bring some fellows with me, or I might run down for a few weeks ‘on the sly.’ By the way, have you found out who she is?”
“No, Sir; they’re as close as wax. Mrs. Simcox, I see, knows all about it, but she won’t say a word beyond the ‘young lady as is my master’s ward.’”
“Is she French or English?”
“Can’t say, Sir; but I suspect she’s French.”
“Is she his daughter?”
“At times I do think she is; but she ain’t like him, Sir, not a bit!”
“But why can’t you find out where she came from when she came here, who and what her friends, if she has any?”
“It’s clear impossible, Sir. They has all got orders to know nothing, and it’s nothing they know.”
“Did you try them with a ‘tip,’ Tom?”
“No use, Sir. In a town-house you can always do that, but these savages--they are just savages--in the country, think they are bound to their masters, body and soul.”
“What a mistake, Tom,” said the other, with a twinkle of the eye.
“Well, Sir, it’s a mistake when a man does not love his master;” and Mr. Fisk turned away and drew his hand across his eyes.
The grin upon young Mr. Ladarelle’s face was not a very flattering commentary on this show of feeling, but he did not speak for some minutes. At last he said: “He presented her to my governor as Mademoiselle O’Hara, saying, ‘My ward;’ and she received us as calmly as if she owned the place. That’s what puzzles me, Tom--her cool self-possession.”
“It ain’t nat’ral, Sir; it ain’t, indeed!”
“It is the sort of manner a man’s wife might have, and not even that if she were very young. It was as good as a play to see how she treated the governor as if he had never been here before, and that everything was new to him!”
Mr. Fisk rubbed his hands and laughed heartily at this joke.
“And as for myself, she scarcely condescended to acknowledge me.”
“Warn’t that too imperent, Sir?”
“It was not gracious, at all events, but we’ll know more of each other before the week is over. You’ll see.”
“That’s pretty sartain, Sir.”
“Not but I’d rather you could have found out something like a clue to her first of all.”
“Well, indeed, Sir, there wasn’t no way of doin’ it. I even went down to the stable-yard and saw her own boxes. She has two as neat nags as ever you’d see in the Park, and I tried it on with her groom--Bill Richey they call him--and there was nothing to be done, Sir. He had just one answer for everything; and when I said, ‘Can she ride?’ ‘Ride! why wouldn’t she!’ ‘Has she these two for her own use?’ says I. ‘Why wouldn’t she!’ says the fellow again. ‘So I suppose,’ says I, ‘she’s got lots of tin?’ ‘Why wouldn’t she have lots of it?’ said he, in the same voice. I don’t know whether he was more rogue or fool, Sir, but it was no good saying any more to him.”
Young Ladarelle arose, and with his hands thrust low in his pockets, and his head slightly bent forward, walked the room in deep thought. “Cool as he is, he’d scarcely have presented her to the governor if there was a screw loose,” muttered he; “he’s too much a man of the world for that. And yet, what can it be?”
“There must be something in it, that’s certain, Sir; for none of the neighbours visit here, and Sir Within don’t go out anywhere.”
“How did you learn that?”
“From the gardener, Sir. He was saying what a cruel shame it was to see the fruit rotting under the trees; and that last September he gave a basketful of pine-apples to the pigs, for that none of the people round would take presents when Sir Within sent them. ‘That’s all on account of her,’ says I, with a wink, for I thought I had him landed. ‘I don’t well know,’ says he, ‘what it’s on account of, but here’s the master comin’ up, and maybe he’ll tell you!’ And I had just time to cut away before he seen me.”
“All that we know, then, is, that there’s a mystery in it. Well,” muttered he, “I couldn’t ask a prettier skein to unravel. She is very beautiful! Are they late or early here, Tom?” asked he, after a pause.
“They be just as they please, Sir. The housekeeper told me there’s breakfast from ten to one every morning, and dinner is served for six people every day, though only them two selves sits down to it; but the old gent says, perhaps some one might drop in. He says that every day of the year, Sir; but they never drop in. Maybe he knows why!”
“Call me at eleven or twelve. I don’t care if it be one; for the day will be long enough here, after that.”
“They tell me it’s a very pretty place, Sir, and plenty to see.”
“I know every inch of it. I used to be here after my Rugby half, and I don’t want to recal those days, I promise you.”
“They’ve got some nice saddle-horses, too, Sir.”
“So they may; and they may ride them, too.”
“And the lake is alive with carp, I hear.”
“I’ll not diminish their number; I’ll promise them so much. I must stay here as long as the governor does, which, fortunately for me, cannot be many days; but tobacco and patience will see me through it.”
“I always said it, Sir: ‘When Master Dolly comes to his fortune, it’s not an old gaol he’ll sit down to pass his life in!’”
“It’s one of the finest and oldest places in the kingdom,” said the young man, angrily, “though perhaps a London cad might prefer Charing Cross to it.”
“No other orders, Sir?” said Mr. Fisk, curtly.
“No; you may go. Call me at nine--d’ye hear--at nine; and I’ll breakfast at ten.” And now was Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle alone with his own thoughts.
Though he had rebuked so promptly and so sharply the flippant impertinence of his servant, the young gentleman was by no means persuaded that a sojourn at Dalradern was likely to prove lively or agreeable. He thought Sir Within a bore, and he felt--very unmistakably felt--that the old Baronet regarded himself as a snob. The very way in which the old diplomatist seasoned his talk for his guests, the mode in which he brought all things to the meridian of Piccadilly, showed clearly the estimation in which he held them; and though the elder Ladarelle, whose head carried weightier cares, had no room for such thoughts, the young man brooded over and disliked them.
“By what reprisals should he resent this covert impertinence?” was the question that very often recurred to him. Should he affect to undervalue the place, and all the art treasures? Should he throw out dark hints of how much these tasteful toys might realise at a sale? Should he speculate vaguely on what the Castle would become, if, instead of a show-house, it were to be made what he would call habitable? Or, last of all, what tone should he assume towards Mademoiselle--should he slight her, or make love to her? In these self-discussions he fell asleep at last.
Long before any of his guests were awake the next morning, Sir Within had called for his writing-desk. It was a passion of his to ask for his writing materials before he was up. It smacked of old times, when, remembering something that might very well have been forgotten, he would dash off a few smart lines to a minister or a secretary, “with reference to the brief conversation with which your Excellency honoured me yesterday.” He was an adept in little notes; he knew how to throw off those small evasive terms which pass for epigrams, and give a sort of glitter to a style that was about as real as a theatrical costume.
He had suddenly bethought him of a case for the exercise of his high gift. It was to address a few neat lines to his recently-arrived neighbour at the Cottage, and ask him that day to dinner. To convert that gentleman’s polite attention in sending up to the Castle the pheasant he had shot by mistake, into an excuse for the liberty of inviting him without a previous exchange of visits, constituted exactly the amount of difficulty he could surmount. It was a low-wall, and he could leap it splendidly. It must be owned that he succeeded. His note was courteous without familiarity. It was a faint foreshadowing of the pleasure the writer had promised himself in the acquaintance of one so thoroughly imbued with the nicest notions of good breeding.
“I hope,” he wrote in conclusion, “you will not, by refusing me this honour, rebuke the liberty by which I have presumed to aspire to it;” and with this he signed himself, with every sense of his most distinguished consideration, “Within Wildrington Wardle.”
The reply was prompt--a most cordial acceptance. Sir Within scanned the terms of the note, the handwriting, the paper, the signature, and the seal. He was satisfied with everything. The writer was unquestionably a man of the world, and, in the old envoy’s estimation, that meant all, or nearly all, that one could desire in friend or acquaintance; one, in short, who knew how to subordinate passions, feelings, emotions, all selfishness, and all personal objects to the laws of a well-regulated conventionality; and who neither did, nor attempted to do, anything but what Society had done already, and declared might be done again.
How far Mr. George Grenfell realised this high estimate, it is not our purpose to inquire; we turn rather to what we are far more sure of, the delight with which he read Sir Within’s invitation.
Grenfell was well known about town to members of two or three good clubs, where he had a certain amount of influence with very young men. He was an excellent whist-player, and very useful on a wine committee; an admirable judge of a horse, though not remarkable as a rider. He knew everybody, but, somehow, he went nowhere. There were people--very good people, too, as the world calls them--would gladly have had his society at their tables in town, or in their houses at Christmas; but Grenfell saw that, if once launched amongst these, he must abandon all ambition of everything higher; extrication would be impossible; and so, with a self-denial which only a high purpose ever inspires, he refused invitations, here, and rejected advances, there, waiting on for the time when the great world would awaken to the conviction of his merits, and say, This is the very man we wanted!
Now, the great world was not so prompt in making this discovery as it might have been, and Mr. Grenfell was getting on in years, and not fully as hopeful as when his hair had been thicker and his beard bushier. He had begun, not exactly to sulk, but what the French call to “bouder”--a sort of male pouting--and he thought of going abroad, or going into Parliament, or doing something or other which would give him a new start in life; and it was to ruminate over these plans he had written to his friend Vyner, to say, “Let me, or lend me--I don’t care which--your Welsh Cottage for a month or two;” and by return of post came the answer, saying, “It is yours as long as you like it;” and thus was he there.
Sir Within’s note pleased him much. The old envoy was, it is true, a bygone, and a thing of the past: still he was one of those Brahmins whose priesthood always is accredited, and Grenfell knew, that to walk into the Travellers’ arm in arm with him, would be a great step in advance; for there was no set or knot of men so unapproachable by the outsiders, as that small clique of religionists who scourge themselves with red tape, and worship the great god “F. O.!”
“In asking for the Cottage,” Grenfell had said, “I should like to have an introduction of some sort to your quondam neighbour, Wardle, who, though too profligate for his neighbours, will not, I apprehend, endanger my morals. Let me have, therefore, a few lines to accredit me, as one likely to suit his humour.” To this Vyner replied, not very clearly: “The intimacy they had used to have with Sir Within had ceased; they held no correspondence now. It was a long story, and would not be worth the telling, nor very intelligible, perhaps, when told; but it was enough to say, that even should they meet now personally, it was by no means sure if they would recognise or address each other. You will use this knowledge for your guidance in case you ever come to know him, and which I hope you may, for he is a very delightful acquaintance, and full of those attentions which render a neighbourhood pleasant. I do not say so that you may repeat it; but simply as an admission of what is due--that I deeply regret our estrangement, though I am not certain that it was avoidable.” This, which Grenfell deemed somewhat contradictory, served, at all events, to show that he could not make Sir Within’s acquaintance through this channel, and he was overjoyed when another and a more direct opening presented itself.
“The hen pheasant I thought would do it,” muttered Grenfell, as he read the note. “A punster would say, I had shot up into his acquaintance.”
XXXV. A WALK BEFORE DINNER
Poor Sir Within! What a change is all this for you! Instead of that pleasant little pottering about from terrace to garden, and from garden to gallery; now in ecstasy over some grand effect of light on a favourite picture, some rich promise of beauty in an opening flower, or, better than either, a chance peep at the fair “ward” as she flitted past, a vision of beauty she well knew how to exaggerate by infrequency--for it was her especial habit to be rarely, if ever, seen of a morning--now, he had to devote himself to his guest, the elder Ladarelle, and not even in the office of Cicerone or guide over the grounds and the woods, but as the apologist of this, and the explainer of that. It had been settled by law that a certain sum should be expended each year on the demesne at the wise discretion of the life tenant, and now came the moment in which this same wisdom was to be arraigned, and all its tasteful exercise brought to the cold and terrible test of what is called permanency. The rock-work grottos, the temples, the rustic bridges, and cane pagodas--all that Horace Walpoleism, in fact, by which the area of domesticity can be so enlarged as to embrace the field, the garden, and the shrubbery--all this, with its varied luxury, and elegance, and beauty, and bad taste, was so repugnant to the mind of the old banker, that he regarded the whole as a tawdry and tasteless extravagance. Structures in stone and iron he could understand. He wanted permanency; and though the old envoy, with a little faint jest, begged to insinuate that he asked more than was supposed to be accorded by the laws of nature, the stern intelligence of the other rejected the pleasantry, and vaguely hinted at a “bill in equity.”
“None of these, Sir, not one of them, would be ‘allowed,’” was the phrase he repeated again and again. “The discretionary power vested in you to-day, or in me, as it might be, to-morrow----”
“I ask pardon,” broke in the minister; “it is not my present intention to impose the burden upon you so soon. I hope still to live a little longer, with the kind permission of my friends and successors.”
“Humph!” muttered the other, and turned away his head.
“There was an arrangement, however, which I submitted to you four years ago. I am ready--not very willingly, perhaps--but still ready to return to it.”
“You mean, to commute the life-interest into a sum for immediate surrender of the estate? I remember, we did discuss it formerly. Your demand was, I think, sixty thousand pounds--equal to very close on six years’ income?”
“Yes; that was the sum fixed on.”
“Well, suppose we were to entertain the question now. What proposal are you prepared to make, Sir Within?”
“I am ready to repeat my former offer, Sir.”
“Made four years and five months ago?”
“Precisely,” said Sir Within, colouring deeply.
“Four years and a half, Sir Within, at your age or at mine, are a very considerable space of time.”
“I do not deny it, Sir; but I feel in the enjoyment of excellent health. I rise at the same hour, and eat my meals as heartily as I did then; with every regret for the inconvenience I’m occasioning, I still profess to believe that my chances of life are pretty much as they were.”
“Actuaries are the only people to entertain these points. Indeed, friends should not discuss them.”
“Our friendship has stood the test of very delicate details so beautifully this morning, that I see no reason why we should not take all the benefit we can get out of it.”
The fine sarcasm with which he spoke was thoroughly understood, though unnoticed, by the other, who went on:
“When I mentioned actuaries, I merely meant to say that demands of this kind are not arbitrary or capricious--that they are based on laws established by long and abstruse calculations.”
“Perhaps it is my fancy to imagine myself an exceptional case,” said Sir Within, with a faint smile.
“They would take little count of this. They would say, ‘Here is a man aged----’” he paused for the other to fill up the blank.
“Let us say one hundred,” said Sir Within, bowing.
“Who has lived long in warm climates----”
“Participating freely in the dissipations of his class and order,” said Sir Within, throwing back his head, and looking as though, with all the daring of this avowal, he defied scrutiny.
“They’d not say forty thousand. I have my doubts if they’d give you five-and-thirty,” said the banker, curtly.
“And under these circumstances, I should consider it my duty to break off the negotiation, and retire from the conference.”
“Let us suppose, for talk sake, the arrangement possible. I conclude you would not insist upon that other matter--the settlement clause, I mean. You remember that Sir Hugh Rivers decided it was not to be maintained in law?”
“The Attorney-General, with due submission, Sir, never saw the original document; he saw the draft, which was subsequently cancelled, and if there be any point upon which I will waive nothing--positively nothing--it is this.”
“When a man insists so positively on his right to make a settlement, it is no unfair presumption to infer that he means to marry.”
“The supposition might certainly be entertained,” said the old envoy, bowing with the courtesy he would have observed in a ministerial conference.
“For that”--and the banker laid a most marked and peculiar emphasis on the word--“for that, most assuredly, I was not prepared.”
“Nor can I say,” continued the other, “that I deemed it any part of my duty to submit such a possibility to your consideration.”
“Perhaps not, Sir Within; there was no absolute reason why you should. You are, of course, the only judge of what concerns your own interests, or--or----”
“Or happiness?”
“I didn’t say happiness, simply because I thought it was the very consideration that you were about to omit.”
Sir Within smiled very blandly; he arranged the frill of his shirt--he wore a frilled shirt--and, taking forth a splendidly jewelled box, he offered a pinch to his companion. It was the diplomatic mode of saying that a conference was closed; but Mr. Ladarelle did not understand this nicety.
“After all, Sir Within, neither you nor I are men who can affect to defy the world. What the world thinks and says of us, we cannot undervalue.”
“The world, at my age, is the six, perhaps eight, people I could get to dine with me.”
“No, no, Sir, don’t say that--you can’t say that. The world is to you, as to all men who have taken a large part in public affairs, the wide circle of those who bring to their judgment on their fellow-men a vast acquaintance with motives, and interests, and reasons; and, besides all these, with conventionalities and decorums. They form the jury who decide on, not alone the good morals of their contemporaries, but on their good taste.”
“Perhaps it might be my fortune to offer them a most undeniable proof of mine,” said the old man, intentionally mistaking what the other had said.
“Take care, Sir Within! Take care. You might be like that case at Guildford t’other day, where the judge said, ‘There is nothing so serious in the indictment against you as your own defence.’”
“I believe you said you never took snuff,” said the envoy, tapping the gorgeous box he still held in his fingers. “That clump of oaks you see yonder,” continued he, pointing with his finger, “shuts out one of the most beautiful bits of landscape I ever saw, and I have only waited for your presence here, to decide on cutting them down.”
“I will not consent to fell timber, Sir, for the sake of landscape. I am certain Adolphus would agree with me.”
They now walked on, side by side, in silence. How beautiful that wood alley was! How calmly sweet the leafy shade, how deliciously the blackbird carolled from its depths, and how soft the smooth turf beneath their feet, and yet how little they heeded or cared for it all! The banker spoke first: “If you had been prepared to propose terms on which it was possible to treat, Sir Within, my son, I know--as for myself, the plan has no attractions for me--but my son, I know, would have felt disposed to meet you; but when you start on the basis that an interval of five years, or something akin to it, makes no inroad whatever on a man’s life, and then, possibly aided by that theory, hint at the likelihood of having to charge the estate with settlement----”
“My dear Mr. Ladarelle, forgive my interrupting you. All this is very painful, and, what is worse, unprofitable. I remember a remark of the charming old Duke of Anhalt to his neighbouring sovereign, the Prince of Hohen Alttingen: ‘My dear Prince,’ said he, ‘whatever our ministers can and ought to discuss together, will always prove a most unseemly topic for us;’ so be assured, Sir, that what our lawyers can wrangle over, we will do much better if we leave to them.”
“You know best, I am certain, Sir. I feel it is your province to understand these cases; but I own it would never have occurred to me to take a stupid old German potentate as an authority on a matter of business. May I ask what is that edifice yonder, like a piece of confectionary?”
“It is my aviary, which I shall be proud to-show you.” “Excuse me, I know nothing about birds.”
“I shall not insist, for it is the season when they lose their plumage.”
“By Jove! Sir, if this system of expense be carried on, I suspect that some of ourselves will be just as devoid of feathers. That gimcrack cost, I should say, seven or eight hundred pounds?”
“You have guessed too low! It will, when finished--for the frescos are not completed--amount to very close on two thousand.”
“For linnets and piping bullfinches!”
“Pardon me, Sir; for nothing of the kind. For the blue sparrows of Java, for the crimson owl of Ceylon, for the azure-winged mocking-bird, and the scarlet bustard.”
“Let us see what the Master will say to this fine catalogue, when it is presented to him as part of works of permanent value--that’s the phrase, Sir, permanent and substantial improvements--which scarcely contemplated cockatoos and canaries. And what do I see yonder? Is that the Lord Mayor’s state barge, that you have bought in at second hand?”
“That is a little gondola--a caprice of my ward’s, Sir, and not to be questioned in any way.”
It was the first time since they met that any allusion to Kate had been dropped between them, and already the old envoy’s voice showed by its vibration that the theme was one not to be lightly adverted to.
“The young lady’s tastes, it would seem, incline to splendour, but possibly her fortune warrants it.”
“I am certain that her tastes befit her condition,” said the other, with a tone of open defiance.
“I have no doubt of it, not the least doubt of it; I would only observe, that a person so very attractive----”
“Well, Sir, go on; finish what you were about to say.”
“Certainly not, Sir Within, when the expression with which you hear me declares that I am taking too great a liberty.”
“It is too late for apology, Sir. You have already transgressed.”
“I never intended an apology, Sir Within, for I took care not to incur what might require one. When I saw, or fancied I saw, that my remarks, well meant as they were, might not be as acceptable as I desired, I forbore from completing them; that is all.”
“And you did well, Sir!” said the other, haughtily, while, with a proud wave of his hand, he seemed to say the subject must be dropped.
“I mean to return to town to-morrow,” said Mr. Ladarelle, after a pause; “but my son, with your kind permission, will be a burden on your hospitality for a few days longer.”
“I am proud to have his company,” said the old minister, with a courteous bow; but the other, not noticing it, went on: “He wants to see that mill. Hoare says, that without some arrangement about the supply of water, he must insist upon an abatement; that your Neptunes, and Dryads, and river-gods, consume far more than goes over his wheel; and though, perhaps, it is a little premature on our part to enter upon this matter, yet, as the man has a lease renewable at his pleasure----”
“With your gracious leave, it is on a question of wine, and not of water, I will ask your opinion. I have got some very old Steinberger, which I purpose to have your judgment on, and as I hear the first bell ringing, probably we have not much time to lose. This is the shortest way back to the house.”
The banker made no reply; he plodded on moodily towards the Castle, and mounted the stairs to his dressing-room, neither pleased with his host nor himself, nor, indeed, with the rest of the world.
It is very probable that Sir Within retired to dress for dinner far more deeply wounded and far more irritated by this interview than his guest. With persons as plain spoken as Mr. Ladarelle, Sir Within had held very little intercourse in life. He had always played the game with those of the most refined and the most susceptible politeness. Men who would no more have committed a rudeness than a murder, and it was no mean trial of his nerves to be told, not merely that he was old, but that he was of that age in which life was something more than precarious. The ex-envoy felt, in fact, as he might have felt had some one ordered his carriage before the time he himself had told his coachman to come; thus intimating, it is possible, from reasons not entered upon or discussed, that he might think proper to leave earlier than he had contemplated. He changed colour so often, that he had to supply a little extra rouge to his cheek; and his nerves were so shaken, that he could not descend to the drawing-room without a little dram of Maraschino and ether.
He found Kate alone in the drawing-room as he entered. She was most becomingly dressed, and wore a sprig of lily of the valley in her hair, which became her vastly.
“How well you look, Ma Mie,” said he, as he surveyed her through his glass; “and how glad I should be if our guests were more deserving of us both. You, however, cannot help being beautiful.”
“And you will be witty, whether you like it or not, my dear guardian,” said she, with a bewitching smile.
“C’est plus fort que moi! Kate. The old Duc de Nevers said to me, when I was a very young man, ‘Mon cher Wardle, always talk your very best, no matter what the theme, or with whom. Never give yourself the indolent habit of careless expression. There is no such thing in conversation as dishabille.’”
“Indeed, Sir!”
“Yes, ma chere; to be epigrammatic, your faculties must be always in exercise. To let off those brilliant fireworks which astonish the world as wit, the match must be kept ever a-light, the hand ready.”
“Mr. George Grenfell!” said the servant, throwing wide the door, and, after about two seconds’ interval, that former acquaintance of our reader entered the room, and was met by Sir Within with a blended polish and cordiality.
“This is a kindness, Mr. Grenfell, that promises well for our future neighbourhood. I am most grateful to you for accepting my short-time invitation. My ward, Mademoiselle O’Hara.”
He introduced her, as he had done to the Ladarelles the day before, as Mademoiselle; why, it would not have been so easy to say; perhaps to mystify, perhaps to avoid a difficulty, perhaps to create one; for Sir Within was a diplomatist, and one of these reasons to such a man is own brother of the other.
Grenfell was evidently struck by her beauty; but there was something besides admiration in his gaze; he was surprised, and more than surprised; the traits were not altogether new to him, though the expression, lofty--haughty, even--unquestionably was. As for Kate, she had seen too few faces in life to have forgotten any one of them. They were like the books she had read, too remarkable not to be remembered. She knew him, and knew well the very hour and the very spot in which first she saw him.
Either Grenfell had not heard the name, O’Hara, well, or had not connected it with the past; very possibly, he had not heard it ever before, for it suggested nothing to him; still her features continued to puzzle him; through all, however, was he enough man of the world to conceal any show of this; and, as he sat down beside the sofa where she sat, opened the usual common-places of first acquaintance. He spoke of the country and its charming scenery, especially around Dalradern, which was all new to him; “for I am ashamed,” added he, “to own, I know more of Switzerland than I do of Wales. Perhaps in this, Mademoiselle is a defaulter like myself?”
Here was a question adroitly insinuated, to induce what might lead to some disclosure as to whence she came, or where she had been.
“I am very fond of mountains,” said she, as if mistaking his question.
“Ladies are the less selfish in their love of scenery,” resumed he, with a little smile, “that they do not connect mountains with grouse shooting. Now, I’m afraid a man in his admiration for the hill-side and the heather, has some lurking dreams about deer-stalking, and in the highland ‘tarn’ his thoughts invariably run on ten-pound trout.”
“That is the practical side by which men assert their superiority, I believe; but perhaps they mistake occasionally; I suspect they do, at least.”
“You mean, that women have the quality also?”
“I fancy that women are not so prone to parade this egotism,” said she, with a slight flashing of the eye.
“That may mean something very severe,” said he, laughing.
“In which case, I could not have said what I intended.”
Though this was said apologetically, there was a saucy defiance in her look that declared anything rather than apology.
“Your remark,” said he, “reminds me of an Irish squire I heard of, who, wanting to get rid of the charge in his pistol, fired it out of the window into a crowd, saying, ‘I hope it won’t hurt any of you!’ Have you been in Ireland, Mademoiselle?”
“I have seen next to nothing of Ireland; far too little to have caught up, as you infer, any traits of her nationality.”
There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, nor change in her colour as she spoke, though Grenfell watched her with more--far more--intentness than he was aware of, or would have permitted himself to bestow, if he had known it.
“I know very little of the green island myself,” said he. “I once made a yachting excursion with a friend to the West--the same friend to whom I am now indebted for the honour of knowing you.”
Kate’s cheek grew crimson; she had mistaken the meaning of his words, and fancied that they referred to his meeting her first in Vyner’s company, and not to his possession of Vyner’s Cottage.
“Will you let me present my friends--Mr. Ladarelle, Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, Mr. Grenfell?” said Sir Within, at this critical moment, “and then, if you will give Mademoiselle your arm, we will go to dinner.”
It required all the practised tact and consummate skill in such matters of Sir Within’s to carry through that day’s dinner.
Kate scarcely spoke at all, the elder Ladarelle very little; the younger was evidently bent on finding out who Grenfell was, what were his clubs, his houses, and his associates; and Grenfell, not at all unused to such assaults of curiosity, repelled them by a cold and distant politeness, which gave little aid to table-talk. So that on the old envoy was thrown all the burden of the entertainment.
Where men imagine that in supplying the material wants of humanity they have amply fulfilled the part between host and guest, and that when the viands are good, and the wine exquisite, the whole responsibility is satisfied, it will seem that Sir Within’s fears and anxieties were not all reasonable; but this was not his theory. At a grand dinner, a state occasion, a certain dulness was a part of the solemnity, and full-dress liveries and gold dishes were the natural accompaniments of dreariness and display; but a little dinner meant a choice party, a selected few, bound to bring with them their faculties at the brightest; not sharpening their wits at the moment of exercise, like an unruly orchestra tuning their instruments when they should be playing, but ready to start off at score. What a blank disappointment was here! The few sallies that relieved the dulness came from the younger Ladarelle, and were neither attic in themselves, or quite unquestionable in point of taste; and when they arose to take their coffee, the feeling was rather gratification that so much of weariness had been got over, and a hope that there was not much more to come.
“I shall want you to sing, Ma Mie; I see you won’t talk,” whispered Sir Within to Kate, as he drew near her.
“No, Sir, I have a headache. I shall go and lie down.”
“That is about as much of her company as she has vouchsafed us since we have been here,” said Ladarelle the younger to Grenfell, as they stood together in a window.
“Is she haughty?”
“I don’t know.”
“Vain, I should take her to be, eh?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is she?” whispered Grenfell, in the confidential tone he knew how to assume with younger men.
“I don’t know that, either,” said Ladarelle. “The old fellow says his ward; but I’d not be surprised if one of these days he should say his wife.”
“Why, he’s seventy.”
“Seventy-six--seventy-six! but he’d like to fancy he was eight-and-thirty.”
“A natural sort of self-delusion in its way,” said Grenfell, carelessly. “He’d be wrong to marry, though.”
“I believe you; and very hard on me, too.”
“How do you mean on you?”
“Because the estate comes to me; but he can charge it with a settlement if he marries; that’s what I call hard. Don’t you?”
Grenfell had no time to resolve the question, for Sir Within had already come over to propose a rubber at whist, a party to which, as an old member of Graham’s, his appetite was not whetted as young Ladarelle whispered, “I wish you joy of your whist; old Wardle revokes, and my father never pays if he loses!”
“Come over and dine with me to-morrow,” said Grenfell; “it will not be more dreary than this.”
XXXVI. A NEW FRIENDSHIP
“What a snug place you have here; it’s as pretty as paint, too,” said Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, as he lounged into the Cottage, a few minutes after the time named for dinner.
“It is not mine; I am only here on sufferance. It belongs to Sir Gervais Vyner,” said Grenfell.
“Not the Vyner who sat for Holstead?”
“The same.”
“And the man who bought Cloudsley’s yacht Carinthia, and then exchanged her for the Meteor, that won the Cowes cup two years ago?” continued Grenfell, who was watching the altered expression of the other’s face, as he learned that he was the guest of one so closely allied in intimacy with one of the leaders of fashion; for though the Ladarelles were rich people, and well placed in society, Vyner moved in a set, and associated with a class, quite apart from, and above them.
“I never met Vyner,” said Ladarelle, carelessly.
“He is the man I am most intimate with in the world. We chummed together at Cambridge, travelled together, and would have stood side by side in public life together, if I had not been too indolent to fag at official drudgery. But here comes dinner;” and taking his guest’s arm, he led him away literally captive--so completely was he overcome by the news that he was dining with the great Sir Gervais Vyner’s dearest friend and oldest companion.
Now, though the Ladarelles were not in that class to which Grenfell aspired, and with whom he hoped one day to see himself, they were on the direct road to it. They occupied what represented an intermediate territory, through which he must pass; and he set himself patiently to cultivate their good opinion--secretly cherishing the hope that a time would come when he could afford to be indifferent to it.
The dinner was exquisite; and young Ladarelle enjoyed, not alone the good cheer, but the freedom of being alone with one to whom he could talk without any reserve.
“You don’t half know what a charity you’ve done,” said he, “in asking me here to-day. That dreary old place was killing me. My governor is not what people call jolly. Old Sir Within is about the greatest prig I ever met; and as for the ward, she is either insufferably impertinent, or downright under bred.”
“She is exceedingly beautiful, however,” said Grenfell, smiling.
“At times--yes; I’ll not dispute that. But she has a something half supercilious, half silly, occasionally, that I don’t like. Do you think her clever?”
“I have no means of knowing.. I never met her till yesterday. Old Wardle declares that there never was her equal--that she learns whatever she likes, without any labour; but it’s easy enough to understand infatuation at his age, and he does seem to admire her vastly,” said Grenfell, slowly.
“I’d say the old fellow was madly in love with her, if the idea was not too absurd; not that it would be a laughing matter for me, though--very far from it.”
“How do you mean?”
“I told you last night, that if he were to marry, he can charge the estate with a settlement. But that’s not the whole of it. Sir Hugh Rivers says that, if he should have a direct heir! O, yes--it’s all very fine laughing; but the world has seen some such cases.”
“Very true,” said Grenfell; “and we all know what Lord Stowell said of them.”
“I know nothing about Lord Stowell; but I know this, that it’s no pleasant thing to think there’s a flaw in what one was once sure of. I used to fancy myself as much the owner of Dalradern as though Sir Within Wardle was only a tenant.”
“I scarcely think, if I was in your place, I’d fret myself about the contingency you speak of,” said Grenfell.
“I’ll not go so far as to say I fret about it. I don’t exactly do that; but it worries me in certain ways.”
“I understand,” said Grenfell; “it makes the Jews more difficult to deal with--more captious about post obits.”
“You have it exactly. That fellow Joel--I can’t imagine how he came at it--said to me, t’other day, ‘I don’t like my security, Mr. Dolly; it ain’t what I used to think it was.’ And what do you think I’m paying him all the time?”
“Ten--perhaps fifteen--per cent.”
“Guess again.”
“Twenty?--surely not more than twenty-five?”
“Forty--ay, forty per cent.! And when I was let in so heavily last May on ‘Grampus,’ I stood for the whole of Cloudsley’s lot, old Joel refused to renew under sixty per cent.! He even threatened he’d go up to Leadenhall-street and have a talk with my governor.” “Which might not have been pleasant.”
“I believe you. The governor has only to know that I’ve been betting in the ring to scratch my name out of the bank to-morrow, and cut me off root and branch. You haven’t an idea what these old ‘dons’ in the banking world think of what they call ‘the house.’ When my father speaks of ‘the house,’ he means something that represents the honour of all the Ladarelles--not alone since Adam, but the unborn partners that are to discount and keep deposits for centuries to come. Maybe you have not mixed with these sort of people?”
“Very little; but I have heard tell of their prejudices,” said Gren-fell, with the very faintest tinge of colour in his cheek as he spoke.
“That’s just what my governor is. After the bank comes the monarchy with him; so that you see I must be cautious.”
“I know something of Master Joel. It is rather his interest to stand well with me; and, if you like, I will just give him a gentle hint to keep quiet, and not create any disturbance.”
“Oh, would you? By Jove! I’ll take it as a great service to me. The fact is, I’ve been going it rather fast. Hawkshaw ‘let me in’ pretty heavily on ‘Caithness,’ and then Blunden, as you know, levanted; so that our last settling day was rather a dark morning to me.”
“Have you any other creditors than Joel?”
“Nothing very heavy. I owe Davis----”
“Grog?”
“Yes--Grog Davis. I owe him about two thousand; but he never presses. Grog’s a gentleman in that respect. It’s only when a fellow ‘hums’ and ‘hahs’ about whether the thing was all square or not; that’s what Grog won’t stand a moment. He’ll insist on his money then; and, what’s more, he’ll have a shot at you, too, if he can get it.”
“Yes, but he’ll have his money first. I never heard of Grog Davis shooting at a solvent debtor yet.”
“You know him, that’s plain enough,” said Dolly, laughing.
“Who could have been about town the last ten or fifteen years and not known him? I rather like him, too.”
“So do I,” cried Ladarelle, eagerly, and as though it relieved his heart of a weight to make the confession. “Say what they will of Grog Davis, he’s a fellow to do a right good-natured thing; and as for advice, there’s not a man in the clubs I’d as soon go to as to him.”
“He has a deal of worldly wit, that’s certain.”
“Ay, and he has more. He knows the exact way to treat every one. I’ve seen him go up and take the Duke of Dullworth by the arm just as familiarly as you’d take me.”
“Yes, when the Duke wanted him; he might do that.”
Dolly paused for some minutes, and seemed to reflect. He was, indeed, reflecting and considering with himself whether he would make a clean breast of it, and tell Grenfell all--everything that he had on his mind, and everything that he had done in consequence. At length, he appeared to have formed his decision; and, pushing his glass from before him, he leaned his arm on the table, and addressed Grenfell in a voice of most confidential meaning.
“I wrote to Grog since I came here,” said he, significantly. “I told him all about old Wardle, and as much as I could make out about his ward. It wasn’t much; but I added whatever I suspected, and I asked what he thought of it. He answered me by the same post.”
“And what did he say?” asked Grenfell, for the other had come to a dead stop.
“I only got the letter as I stepped into the carriage, and glanced my eye over it. Shall I read it for you? It’s very short.”
“Read it, then, by all means.”
“Here it is,” said he, producing a very square-shaped sheet of paper, with a large seal of coarse wax attached, evidence that it had not been encased in an envelope:
“‘Dear Dol! That’s his way, he’d be intimate with his Royal Highness. ‘Dear Dol, your note was writ like one of the queries to Bell’s Life, and in the same spirit I answer it. The old cove means to marry her----’ Eh, what?”
“I did not speak--go on.”
“‘The old cove means to marry her, and cut you out of the estate, just as Tom Barkely wag done by Rixley Drummond--only that Tom was offered the girl first, and wouldn’t have her.’”
“He’s all right there. Tom Barkely’s obstinacy cost him about sixteen thousand a year, and sent him out to India as a major in a marching regiment,” said Grenfell. “Go on.”
“‘This is my opinion,’ he puts two n’s to opinion, and it makes it read all the more stubborn, ‘and as for the remedy, Master Dolly, all I can say is, there ain’t two ways about it--there ain’t two ways about it,” repeated Ladarelle, slowly, and as though weighing each word as he uttered it. “Now, will you tell me, what does he mean by that?”
“Read it over again.”
“‘This is my opinion; and as for the remedy, Master Dolly, there ain’t too ways about it.--Yours, C. D.’”
Grenfell took the letter from the other’s hand, and pored over it in silence for several minutes; then, leisurely folding it, he laid it down on the table.
“How do you understand him?” asked Ladarelle again.
“It’s not very easy to understand what he says here; though, if the words had been spoken instead of written, I suspect I could have come at the meaning.”
“‘There ain’t two ways about it,’” repeated Dolly, moodily, “and why not say which is the one way? That would be more to the purpose.”
“It’s one of two things, evidently; either you are to get rid of Sir Within, or his ward. Grog is not a very scrupulous fellow; but though he would poison a horse he had laid heavily against for the Derby, I don’t think he’d go so far in the case of an old diplomatist. It remains then to be seen what is to be done with the ward; he probably means you should carry her off yourself.”
“Perhaps she wouldn’t come: if she has designs on Sir Within, it’s almost certain she would not.”
Grenfell made no answer, but sat lost in thought for some minutes, when he said: “Yes; that’s what Grog advises: his calculation is, that this old man’s infatuation, which, uninterfered with, would have led him into a foolish marriage, will, if it be crossed and thwarted, as certainly break him down and kill him.”
“Men don’t die of these things!”
“Not men like you and me, certainly; but there is a time of life when existence is held on a very frail tenure; and, at that time, a mere hope extinguished serves to crush vitality.”
“And do you really think he’d take it so much to heart?”
“I know too little of him to give an opinion. When I have seen him some half-dozen times more, and seen, besides, something of his manner towards her, I might risk a guess, perhaps.”
“If I was quite sure that I ‘stood in’ for the double event--that is, to stop her marriage and succeed to the estate at once--I almost think I’d do it.”
“‘Yes,” said Grenfell, after another pause, “this must be what Grog alludes to, as the one way of dealing with the matter.”
“She’d insist on marriage, I suppose?” said Dolly, in a sort of sulky tone.
“Of course she would.”
“That’s a bit of a bore. I had not calculated on such a step for these six or eight years yet. Then there’s another thing to be thought of: my governor, who naturally will not see the necessity of the step, is sure to be outrageous at it. All that he will recognise will be the very thing he most despises in the world--a love match.”
“Could he not be brought to see a much more valid reason for this match? Don’t you think the matter could be placed before him in such a light that he must accept that view?”
“No. I know him better. I could tell you at once what he’d say.” “And what would it be?”
“He’d say: If she must be got out of the way and married off, get some hard-up Sub who can’t pay his mess debts, or wants to lodge a few hundreds for the next vacancy; or find some Irish squire. My governor always thinks an Irishman is ready for anything but paying his debts. He’d marry her for a couple of thousand down. That’s what my governor would hit on, without taking five minutes to think of it.”
“What if she would not consent to such an arrangement?” “That’s as it might be. You’ll not find my governor giving any one credit for a strong will but himself. He reasons out every question his own way, and never suspects the mere possibility of opposition.”
“That may do in the bank, perhaps, where none can gainsay him.”
“He’ll tell you, it does just as well in the world at large; and he’ll point to himself as the best proof of the system.”
“I should like to hear your father discuss the question with the young lady herself; she, I take it, has a will of her own, also; and the matter would probably be well debated.” “She’d have no chance with my governor!”
“I’m not so sure of that. I have a suspicion that she could hold her own in an argument that touched her interest.”
“You know more of her than I do. She spoke to you, to me she barely condescended a few words. No more wine: thanks. I must be thinking of the road. I have got old Sir Within’s horses, and the coachman tells me they have never been out after sunset for the last four years, and if they get cold now it may cost him his place.”
“Why not come over and stop here, it might bore you less than yonder?”
“I should be delighted; I could ask nothing better; but I am supposed to be down here on business. My governor is not at all satisfied with the way things are going on. He says Sir Within has cut down too much timber, and he has taken renewals for leases he had no right to grant, and what with his tanks, and fish-ponds, and river-gods, he has left two mills without a drop of water.”
“Tell him, with my compliments, Sir Within Wardle will do worse than all these.”
“You mean about that girl?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Grog says, but I dare not quote him to the governor. Tell me, would you have any objection to my telling him that this was your opinion?”
“I have not the honour of being known to your father, and a mere surmise of mine would carry no weight with it.”
“I don’t know that. I fancy he rather took a liking to you last night. What did you do at whist?”
“Lost a few half-crowns.”
“Ah, that accounts for it all! He said at breakfast this morning, that though you held only indifferent cards, you played with perfect composure, and it was quite a pleasure to play with you. With a few nights’ ill luck you’ll stand high in his favour, I promise you.”
“It is a cheap friendship after all,” said Grenfell, laughing.
“Yes. You may have it for five pounds, but I doubt greatly if you could re-sell it for as many shillings.”
“Make use of my favour, therefore, while it lasts, and if nothing prevent, come and dine here the day after to-morrow,” said Grenfell.
“Agreed. Here come the fat coach-horses; see how they heave their flanks, only coming round from the stable-yard. I tell you, Grenfell,” said he in a whisper, “there will be a great sale of stock at Dahradern one of these days; and there’s a lot I’ll certainly not give orders to have bought in. Good night--good night.”