Lord Kilgobbin

‘We shall have him in the House one of these days,’ he would say; ‘and I am much mistaken if he will not make a remarkable figure there.’

When Lady Maude sailed proudly into the library before dinner, Atlee was actually stunned by amazement at her beauty. Though not in actual evening-dress, her costume was that sort of demi-toilet compromise which occasionally is most becoming; and the tasteful lappet of Brussels lace, which, interwoven with her hair, fell down on either side so as to frame her face, softened its expression to a degree of loveliness he was not prepared for.

It was her pleasure – her caprice, perhaps – to be on this occasion unusually amiable and agreeable. Except by a sort of quiet dignity, there was no coldness, and she spoke of her uncle’s health and hopes just as she might have discussed them with an old friend of the house.

When the butler flung wide the folding-doors into the dining-room and announced dinner, she was about to move on, when she suddenly stopped, and said, with a faint smile, ‘Will you give me your arm?’ Very simple words, and commonplace too, but enough to throw Atlee’s whole nature into a convulsion of delight. And as he walked at her side it was in the very ecstasy of pride and exultation.

Dinner passed off with the decorous solemnity of that meal, at which the most emphatic utterances were the butler’s ‘Marcobrunner,’ or ‘Johannisberg.’ The guests, indeed, spoke little, and the strangeness of their situation rather disposed to thought than conversation.

‘You are going to Constantinople to-morrow, Mr. Atlee, my uncle tells me,’ said she, after a longer silence than usual.

‘Yes; his Excellency has charged me with a message, of which I hope to acquit myself well, though I own to my misgivings about it now.’

‘You are too diffident, perhaps, of your powers,’ said she; and there was a faint curl of the lip that made the words sound equivocally.

‘I do not know if great modesty be amongst my failings,’ said he laughingly. ‘My friends would say not.’

‘You mean, perhaps, that you are not without ambitions?’

‘That is true. I confess to very bold ones.’ And as he spoke he stole a glance towards her; but her pale face never changed.

‘I wish, before you had gone, that you had settled that stupid muddle about the attack on – I forget the place.’

‘Kilgobbin?’

‘Yes, Kil-gobbin – horrid name! – for the Premier still persists in thinking there was something in it, and worrying my uncle for explanations; and as somebody is to ask something when Parliament meets, it would be as well to have a letter to read to the House.’

‘In what sense, pray?’ asked Atlee mildly.

‘Disavowing all: stating the story had no foundation: that there was no attack – no resistance – no member of the viceregal household present at any time.’

‘That would be going too far; for then we should next have to deny Walpole’s broken arm and his long confinement to house.’

‘You may serve coffee in a quarter of an hour, Marcom,’ said she, dismissing the butler; and then, as he left the room – ‘And you tell me seriously there was a broken arm in this case?’

‘I can hide nothing from you, though I have taken an oath to silence,’ said he, with an energy that seemed to defy repression. ‘I will tell you everything, though it’s little short of a perjury, only premising this much, that I know nothing from Walpole himself.’

With this much of preface, he went on to describe Walpole’s visit to Kilgobbin as one of those adventurous exploits which young Englishmen fancy they have a sort of right to perform in the less civilised country. ‘He imagined, I have no doubt,’ said he, ‘that he was studying the condition of Ireland, and investigating the land question, when he carried on a fierce flirtation with a pretty Irish girl.’

‘And there was a flirtation?’

‘Yes, but nothing more. Nothing really serious at any time. So far he behaved frankly and well, for even at the outset of the affair he owned to – a what shall I call it? – an entanglement was, I believe, his own word – an entanglement in England – ’

‘Did he not state more of this entanglement, with whom it was, or how, or where?’

‘I should think not. At all events, they who told me knew nothing of these details. They only knew, as he said, that he was in a certain sense tied up, and that till Fate unbound him he was a prisoner.’

‘Poor fellow, it was hard.’

‘So he said, and so they believed him. Not that I myself believe he was ever seriously in love with the Irish girl.’

‘And why not?’

‘I may be wrong in my reading of him; but my impression is that he regards marriage as one of those solemn events which should contribute to a man’s worldly fortune. Now an Irish connection could scarcely be the road to this.’

‘What an ungallant admission,’ said she, with a smile. ‘I hope Mr. Walpole is not of your mind.’ After a pause she said, ‘And how was it that in your intimacy he told you nothing of this?’

He shook his head in dissent.

‘Not even of the “entanglement”?’

‘Not even of that. He would speak freely enough of his “egregious blunder,” as he called it, in quitting his career and coming to Ireland; that it was a gross mistake for any man to take up Irish politics as a line in life; that they were puzzles in the present and lead to nothing in the future, and, in fact, that he wished himself back again in Italy every day he lived.’

‘Was there any “entanglement” there also?’

‘I cannot say. On these he made me no confidences.’

‘Coffee, my lady!’ said the butler, entering at this moment. Nor was Atlee grieved at the interruption.

‘I am enough of a Turk,’ said she laughingly, ‘to like that muddy, strong coffee they give you in the East, and where the very smallness of the cups suggests its strength. You, I know, are impatient for your cigarette, Mr. Atlee, and I am about to liberate you.’ While Atlee was muttering his assurances of how much he prized her presence, she broke in, ‘Besides, I promised my uncle a visit before tea-time, and as I shall not see you again, I will wish you now a pleasant journey and a safe return.’

‘Wish me success in my expedition,’ said he eagerly.

‘Yes, I will wish that also. One word more. I am very short-sighted, as you may see, but you wear a ring of great beauty. May I look at it?’

‘It is pretty, certainly. It was a present Walpole made me. I am not sure that there is not a story attached to it, though I don’t know it.’

‘Perhaps it may be linked with the “entanglement,’” said she, laughing softly.

‘For aught I know, so it may. Do you admire it?’

‘Immensely,’ said she, as she held it to the light.

‘You can add immensely to its value if you will,’ said he diffidently.

‘In what way?’

‘By keeping it, Lady Maude,’ said he; and for once his cheek coloured with the shame of his own boldness.

‘May I purchase it with one of my own? Will you have this, or this?’ said she hurriedly.

‘Anything that once was yours,’ said he, in a mere whisper.

‘Good-bye, Mr. Atlee.’

And he was alone!

CHAPTER XXXIV

AT TEA-TIME

The family at Kilgobbin Castle were seated at tea when Dick Kearney’s telegram arrived. It bore the address, ‘Lord Kilgobbin,’ and ran thus: ‘Walpole wishes to speak with you, and will come down with me on Friday; his stay cannot be beyond one day. – RICHARD KEARNEY.’

‘What can he want with me?’ cried Kearney, as he tossed over the despatch to his daughter. ‘If he wants to talk over the election, I could tell him per post that I think it a folly and an absurdity. Indeed, if he is not coming to propose for either my niece or my daughter, he might spare himself the journey.’

‘Who is to say that such is not his intention, papa?’ said Kate merrily. ‘Old Catty had a dream about a piebald horse and a haystack on fire, and something about a creel of duck eggs, and I trust that every educated person knows what they mean.’

‘I do not,’ cried Nina boldly.

‘Marriage, my dear. One is marriage by special license, with a bishop or a dean to tie the knot; another is a runaway match. I forget what the eggs signify.’

‘An unbroken engagement,’ interposed Donogan gravely, ‘so long as none of them are smashed.’

‘On the whole, then, it is very promising tidings,’ said Kate.

‘It may be easy to be more promising than the election,’ said the old man.

‘I’m not flattered, uncle, to hear that I am easier to win than a seat in Parliament.’

‘That does not imply you are not worth a great deal more,’ said Kearney, with an air of gallantry. ‘I know if I was a young fellow which I’d strive most for. Eh, Mr. Daniel? I see you agree with me.’

Donogan’s face, slightly flushed before, became now crimson as he sipped his tea in confusion, unable to utter a word.

‘And so,’ resumed Kearney, ‘he’ll only give us a day to make up our minds! It’s lucky, girls, that you have the telegram there to tell you what’s coming.’

‘It would have been more piquant, papa, if he had made his message say, “I propose for Nina. Reply by wire.”’

‘Or, “May I marry your daughter?” chimed in Nina quickly.

‘There it is, now,’ broke in Kearney, laughing, ‘you’re fighting for him already! Take my word for it, Mr. Daniel, there’s no so sure way to get a girl for a wife, as to make her believe there’s another only waiting to be asked. It’s the threat of the opposition coach on the road keeps down the fares.’

‘Papa is all wrong,’ said Kate. ‘There is no such conceivable pleasure as saying No to a man that another woman is ready to accept. It is about the most refined sort of self-flattery imaginable.’

‘Not to say that men are utterly ignorant of that freemasonry among women which gives us all an interest in the man who marries one of us,’ said Nina. ‘It is only your confirmed old bachelor that we all agree in detesting.’

‘‘Faith, I give you up altogether. You’re a puzzle clean beyond me,’ said Kearney, with a sigh.

‘I think it is Balzac tells us,’ said Donogan, ‘that women and politics are the only two exciting pursuits in life, for you never can tell where either of them will lead you.’

‘And who is Balzac?’ asked Kearney.

‘Oh, uncle, don’t let me hear you ask who is the greatest novelist that ever lived.’

‘‘Faith, my dear, except Tristram Shandy and Tom Jones, and maybe Robinson Crusoe– if that be a novel – my experience goes a short way. When I am not reading what’s useful – as in the Farmer’s Chronicle or Purcell’s “Rotation of Crops” – I like the “Accidents” in the newspapers, where they give you the name of the gentleman that was smashed in the train, and tell you how his wife was within ten days of her third confinement; how it was only last week he got a step as a clerk in Somerset House. Haven’t you more materials for a sensation novel there than any of your three-volume fellows will give you?’

‘The times we are living in give most of us excitement enough,’ said Donogan. ‘The man who wants to gamble for life itself need not be balked now.’

‘You mean that a man can take a shot at an emperor?’ said Kearney inquiringly.

‘No, not that exactly; though there are stakes of that kind some men would not shrink from. What are called “arms of precision” have had a great influence on modern politics. When there’s no time for a plebiscite, there’s always time for a pistol.’

‘Bad morality, Mr. Daniel,’ said Kearney gravely.

‘I suspect we do not fairly measure what Mr. Daniel says,’ broke in Kate. ‘He may mean to indicate a revolution, and not justify it.’

‘I mean both!’ said Donogan. ‘I mean that the mere permission to live under a bad government is too high a price to pay for life at all. I’d rather go “down into the streets,” as they call it, and have it out, than I’d drudge on, dogged by policemen, and sent to gaol on suspicion.’

‘He is right,’ cried Nina. ‘If I were a man, I’d think as he does.’

‘Then I’m very glad you’re not,’ said Kearney; ‘though, for the matter of rebellion, I believe you would be a more dangerous Fenian as you are. Am I right, Mr. Daniel?’

‘I am disposed to say you are, sir,’ was his mild reply.

‘Ain’t we important people this evening!’ cried Kearney, as the servant entered with another telegram. ‘This is for you, Mr. Daniel. I hope we’re to hear that the Cabinet wants you in Downing Street.’

‘I’d rather it did not,’ said he, with a very peculiar smile, which did not escape Kate’s keen glance across the table, as he said, ‘May I read my despatch?’

‘By all means,’ said Kearney; while, to leave him more undisturbed, he turned to Nina, with some quizzical remark about her turn for the telegraph coming next. ‘What news would you wish it should bring you, Nina?’ asked he.

‘I scarcely know. I have so many things to wish for, I should be puzzled which to place first.’

‘Should you like to be Queen of Greece?’ asked Kate.

‘First tell me if there is to be a King, and who is he?’

‘Maybe it’s Mr. Daniel there, for I see he has gone off in a great hurry to say he accepts the crown.’

‘What should you ask for, Kate,’ cried Nina, ‘if Fortune were civil enough to give you a chance?’

‘Two days’ rain for my turnips,’ said Kate quickly. ‘I don’t remember wishing for anything so much in all my life.’

‘Your turnips!’ cried Nina contemptuously.

‘Why not? If you were a queen, would you not have to think of those who depended on you for support and protection? And how should I forget my poor heifers and my calves – calves of very tender years some of them – and all with as great desire to fatten themselves as any of us have to do what will as probably lead to our destruction?’

‘You’re not going to have the rain, anyhow,’ said Kearney; ‘and you’ll not be sorry, Nina, for you wanted a fine day to finish your sketch of Croghan Castle.’

‘Oh! by the way, has old Bob recovered from his lameness yet, to be fit to be driven?’

‘Ask Kitty there; she can tell you, perhaps.’

‘Well, I don’t think I’d harness him yet. The smith has pinched him in the off fore-foot, and he goes tender still.’

‘So do I when I go afoot, for I hate it,’ cried Nina; ‘and I want a day in the open air, and I want to finish my old Castle of Croghan – and last of all,’ whispered she in Kate’s ear, ‘I want to show my distinguished friend Mr. Walpole that the prospect of a visit from him does not induce me to keep the house. So that, from all the wants put together, I shall take an early breakfast, and start to-morrow for Cruhan – is not that the name of the little village in the bog?’

‘That’s Miss Betty’s own townland – though I don’t know she’s much the richer of her tenants,’ said Kearney, laughing. ‘The oldest inhabitants never remember a rent-day.’

‘What a happy set of people!’

‘Just the reverse. You never saw misery till you saw them. There is not a cabin fit for a human being, nor is there one creature in the place with enough rags to cover him.’

‘They were very civil as I drove through. I remember how a little basket had fallen out, and a girl followed me ten miles of the road to restore it,’ said Nina.

‘That they would; and if it were a purse of gold they ‘d have done the same,’ cried Kate.

‘Won’t you say that they’d shoot you for half a crown, though?’ said Kearney, ‘and that the worst “Whiteboys” of Ireland come out of the same village?’

‘I do like a people so unlike all the rest of the world,’ cried Nina; ‘whose motives none can guess at, none forecast. I’ll go there to-morrow.’

These words were said as Daniel had just re-entered the room, and he stopped and asked, ‘Where to?’

‘To a Whiteboy village called Cruhan, some ten miles off, close to an old castle I have been sketching.’

‘Do you mean to go there to-morrow?’ asked he, half-carelessly; but not waiting for her answer, and as if fully preoccupied, he turned and left the room.

CHAPTER XXXV

A DRIVE AT SUNRISE

The little basket-carriage in which Nina made her excursions, and which courtesy called a phaeton, would scarcely have been taken as a model at Long Acre. A massive old wicker-cradle constituted the body, which, from a slight inequality in the wheels, had got an uncomfortable ‘lurch to port,’ while the rumble was supplied by a narrow shelf, on which her foot-page sat dos à dos to herself – a position not rendered more dignified by his invariable habit of playing pitch-and-toss with himself, as a means of distraction in travel.

Except Bob, the sturdy little pony in the shafts, nothing could be less schooled or disciplined than Larry himself. At sight of a party at marbles or hopscotch, he was sure to desert his post, trusting to short cuts and speed to catch up his mistress later on.

As for Bob, a tuft of clover or fresh grass on the roadside were temptations to the full as great to him, and no amount of whipping could induce him to continue his road leaving these dainties untasted. As in Mr. Gill’s time, he had carried that important personage, he had contracted the habit of stopping at every cabin by the way, giving to each halt the amount of time he believed the colloquy should have occupied, and then, without any admonition, resuming his journey. In fact, as an index to the refractory tenants on the estate, his mode of progression, with its interruptions, might have been employed, and the sturdy fashion in which he would ‘draw up’ at certain doors might be taken as the forerunner of an ejectment.

The blessed change by which the county saw the beast now driven by a beautiful young lady, instead of bestrode by an inimical bailiff, added to a popularity which Ireland in her poorest and darkest hour always accords to beauty; and they, indeed, who trace points of resemblance between two distant peoples, have not failed to remark that the Irish, like the Italians, invariably refer all female loveliness to that type of surpassing excellence, the Madonna.

Nina had too much of the South in her blood not to like the heartfelt, outspoken admiration which greeted her as she went; and the ‘God bless you – but you are a lovely crayture!’ delighted, while it amused her in the way the qualification was expressed.

It was soon after sunrise on this Friday morning that she drove down the approach, and made her way across the bog towards Cruhan. Though pretending to her uncle to be only eager to finish her sketch of Croghan Castle, her journey was really prompted by very different considerations. By Dick’s telegram she learned that Walpole was to arrive that day at Kilgobbin, and as his stay could not be prolonged beyond the evening, she secretly determined she would absent herself so much as she could from home – only returning to a late dinner – and thus show her distinguished friend how cheaply she held the occasion of his visit, and what value she attached to the pleasure of seeing him at the castle.

She knew Walpole thoroughly – she understood the working of such a nature to perfection, and she could calculate to a nicety the mortification, and even anger, such a man would experience at being thus slighted. ‘These men,’ thought she, ‘only feel for what is done to them before the world: it is the insult that is passed upon them in public, the soufflet that is given in the street, that alone can wound them to the quick.’ A woman may grow tired of their attentions, become capricious and change, she may be piqued by jealousy, or, what is worse, by indifference; but, while she makes no open manifestation of these, they can be borne: the really insupportable thing is, that a woman should be able to exhibit a man as a creature that had no possible concern or interest for her – one might come or go, or stay on, utterly unregarded or uncared for. To have played this game during the long hours of a long day was a burden she did not fancy to encounter, whereas to fill the part for the short space of a dinner, and an hour or so in the drawing-room, she looked forward to rather as an exciting amusement.

‘He has had a day to throw away,’ said she to herself, ‘and he will give it to the Greek girl. I almost hear him as he says it. How one learns to know these men in every nook and crevice of their natures, and how by never relaxing a hold on the one clue of their vanity, one can trace every emotion of their lives.’

In her old life of Rome these small jealousies, these petty passions of spite, defiance, and wounded sensibility, filled a considerable space of her existence. Her position in society, dependent as she was, exposed her to small mortifications: the cold semi-contemptuous notice of women who saw she was prettier than themselves, and the half-swaggering carelessness of the men, who felt that a bit of flirtation with the Titian Girl was as irresponsible a thing as might be.

‘But here,’ thought she, ‘I am the niece of a man of recognised station; I am treated in his family with a more than ordinary deference and respect – his very daughter would cede the place of honour to me, and my will is never questioned. It is time to teach this pretentious fine gentleman that our positions are not what they once were. If I were a man, I should never cease till I had fastened a quarrel on him; and being a woman, I could give my love to the man who would avenge me. Avenge me of what? a mere slight, a mood of impertinent forgetfulness – nothing more – as if anything could be more to a woman’s heart! A downright wrong can be forgiven, an absolute injury pardoned – one is raised to self-esteem by such an act of forgiveness; but there is no elevation in submitting patiently to a slight. It is simply the confession that the liberty taken with you was justifiable – was even natural.’

These were the sum of her thoughts as she went, ever recurring to the point how Walpole would feel offended by her absence, and how such a mark of her indifference would pique his vanity, even to insult.

Then she pictured to her mind how this fine gentleman would feel the boredom of that dreary day. True, it would be but a day; but these men were not tolerant of the people who made time pass heavily with them, and they revenged their own ennui on all around them. How he would snub the old man for the son’s pretensions, and sneer at the young man for his disproportioned ambition; and last of all, how he would mystify poor Kate, till she never knew whether he cared to fatten calves and turkeys, or was simply drawing her on to little details, which he was to dramatise one day in an after-dinner story.

She thought of the closed pianoforte, and her music on the top – the songs he loved best; she had actually left Mendelssohn there to be seen – a very bait to awaken his passion. She thought she actually saw the fretful impatience with which he threw the music aside and walked to the window to hide his anger.

‘This excursion of Mademoiselle Nina was then a sudden thought, you tell me; only planned last night? And is the country considered safe enough for a young lady to go off in this fashion. Is it secure – is it decent? I know he will ask, “Is it decent?” Kate will not feel – she will not see the impertinence with which he will assure her that she herself may be privileged to do these things; that her “Irishry” was itself a safeguard, but Dick will notice the sneer. Oh, if he would but resent it! How little hope there is of that. These young Irishmen get so overlaid by the English in early life, they never resist their dominance: they accept everything in a sort of natural submission. I wonder does the rebel sentiment make them any bolder?’ And then she bethought her of some of those national songs Mr. Daniel had been teaching her, and which seemed to have such an overwhelming influence over his passionate nature. She had even seen the tears in his eyes, and twice he could not speak to her with emotion. What a triumph it would have been to have made the high-bred Mr. Walpole feel in this wise. Possibly at the moment, the vulgar Fenian seemed the finer fellow. Scarcely had the thought struck her, than there, about fifty yards in advance, and walking at a tremendous pace, was the very man himself.

‘Is not that Mr. Daniel, Larry?’ asked she quickly.

But Larry had already struck off on a short cut across the bog, and was miles away.

Yes, it could be none other than Mr. Daniel. The coat thrown back, the loose-stepping stride, and the occasional flourish of the stick as he went, all proclaimed the man. The noise of the wheels on the hard road made him turn his head; and now, seeing who it was, he stood uncovered till she drove up beside him.