Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience

Polly blushed deeply, not the less so that the Frenchman’s eyes were bent upon her during the delivery of the speech with evident admiration.

“If mademoiselle would permit me, even as a sanctuary – ” began the Count.

“Just so, Miss Polly,” broke in Curtis; “let him take refuge there, as he tells you, for he feels very far from at his ease in my company.”

Polly’s quick intelligence read in these few words the real state of the case; and, resolved at all hazards to prevent untoward consequences, she made a sign to the Frenchman to follow her, and left the room.

It was in vain that the old man re-seated himself at the writing-table; all his efforts at composure were fruitless, and he muttered to himself threats of vengeance and imprecations till he worked his mind up to a state of ungovernable fury. It was in the very paroxysm of this passion, and while he was pacing the chamber with hasty steps, that Fagan entered.

“Nothing unpleasant has occurred, sir, I trust,” exclaimed the Grinder, as he beheld the agitated face, and watched the lips that never ceased to mutter unintelligibly.

“Tell me, sir,” cried he, advancing up to Fagan, and placing one hand upon his shoulder, “tell me, sir, what is there in my age and appearance that should exclude me from exacting the satisfaction in vogue amongst gentlemen? I ask you, sir, in plain language, – and you have a right to answer me, for it was in your house and under your roof that I have received this outrage, – where and what is my disqualification?”

“Pray explain yourself, Mr. Curtis. I trust I have n’t heard you aright, and that any one had dared to offend you within these walls!”

“Yes, sir, in the very room where we stand, not half an hour ago, an insolent scoundrel of a foreigner – a French lackey, a hairdresser, perhaps – has had the insolence to talk to me, a gentleman of fortune and position, a man whose estate places him in the first rank of this country’s gentry. You said so yesterday. Don’t deny it, sir; I quote your own very words.”

“I am most ready and willing to repeat them, Mr. Curtis,” said Fagan, humbly; “pray go on.”

“You said yesterday,” continued Curtis, “in the presence of two others, that, except Lord Kiltimon’s, there was not so large a property in the country; did you, sir, or did you not?”

“I certainly did say so, sir.”

“And now, sir, you would go back of it, – you had some reservation, some qualifying something or other, I’ll be bound; but I tell you, Mr. Anthony Fagan, that though these habits may suit an apple-stall in Mary’s Abbey, they are unbecoming when used in the presence of men of rank and fortune. I believe that is plain speaking, sir; I trust there may be no misconception of my meaning, at least!”

Fagan was not, either by nature or by disposition, disposed to submit tamely to insult; but whether it was from some strong reason of policy, or that he held Curtis as one not fully responsible for his words, he certainly took no steps to resent his language, but rather seemed eager to assuage the violence of the old man’s temper.

“It’s all very well, sir,” said Curtis, after listening with considerable show of impatience to these excuses; “it’s all very well to say you regret this, and deplore that. But let me tell you there are other duties of your station beside apologies. You should take measures that when persons of my rank and station accept the shelter of your roof, they are not broken in upon by rascally foreigners, vile adventurers, and swindlers! You may be as angry as you please, sir, but I will repeat every word I have said. Yes, Mr. Fagan; I talk from book, sir, – I speak with knowledge; for when you were serving out crab-apples, in a check-apron, at your father’s stall, I was travelling on the Continent as a young gentleman of fortune!”

“Until you tell me how you have been insulted, and by whom,” said Fagan, with some warmth, “I must hope that there is some easily explained mistake.”

“Egad! this is better and better,” exclaimed Curtis. “No, sir, you mistake me much; you entirely misunderstand me. I should most implicitly accept your judgment as to a bruised peach or a blighted pear; but upon a question of injured honor or of outraged feeling, I should scarcely defer to you so humbly!” and as he said these words, with an air of most exaggerated self-importance, he put on his hat and left the room, without once noticing the respectful salutation of the Grinder.

When Fagan entered his daughter’s room, he was surprised at the presence of the stranger, whom she presented to him as the Count de Gabriac, and who had so far profited by the opportunity as to have already made a most favorable impression upon the fair Polly.

Polly rapidly told her father that the stranger, while awaiting his return, had been accidentally exposed to the most outrageous treatment from Curtis, to shelter him from a continuance of which she had offered him the hospitality of her own apartment.

“He came in,” resumed she, “to learn some tidings of his cousin’s affairs; for it appears that law proceedings of the most rigorous kind are in operation, and the poor widow will be obliged to leave Castle Carew.”

Polly spoke with true feelings of regret, for she really now learned for the first time that my mother’s position was involved in any difficulty, though from what precise cause she was still in ignorance.

“Leave me to speak with the Count alone, Polly; I can probably afford him the information he seeks.”

The interview was not of long duration; but Fagan acquitted himself with a degree of tact and delicacy that scarcely seemed native to him. It is difficult to guess at his real motives in the matter. Perhaps he entertained some secret doubts that my mother’s marriage might one day or other admit of proof; perhaps he felt some touch of gratitude for the treatment his daughter had experienced when a guest at Castle Carew. Indeed, he spoke of this to the Count with pride and satisfaction. Whatever the reasons, he used the greatest and most delicate reserve in alluding to my mother’s situation, and told De Gabriac that the proceedings, however rigorous they might appear, were common in such cases, and that when my mother had sufficiently recovered herself to give detailed information as to the circumstances of her marriage, there would be ample time and opportunity to profit by the knowledge. He went even further, and suggested that for the present he wished to place his little cottage at the Killeries at her disposal, until such time as she could fix upon a residence more to her taste. In fact, both his explanations and his offers were made so gracefully and so kindly that De Gabriac assented at once, and promised to come to dinner on the following day to complete all the arrangements.

When MacNaghten came to hear of the plan, he was overjoyed, not only because it offered a home to my mother in her houseless destitution, but as evidencing a kind spirit on Fagan’s part, from which he augured most favorably. In fact, the arrangement, while relieving them from all present embarrassment, suggested also future hope; and it was now determined that while De Gabriac was to accompany my mother to the far west, Dan himself was to set out for France, with a variety of letters which might aid him in tracing out the story of my father’s marriage.

It was at an humble little hotel in Stafford Street, a quaint old house called “The Hart,” that they passed the last evening together before separating. Polly Fagan came over to drink tea with my mother, and they chatted away in sombre mood till past midnight. MacNaghten was to sail with an early tide, and they agreed to sit up till it should be his time to depart. Often and often have I heard Dan speak of that evening. Every incident of it made an impression upon his memory quite disproportioned to their non-importance, and he has taken pains even to show me where each of them sat. The corner where my mother’s chair stood is now before me, and I fancy I can bring up her pale young widow’s face, tear-furrowed and sad, trying to look interested where, with all her efforts, her wandering thoughts were ever turning to the past, and where by no exertion could she keep pace with those who “sorrowed not as she sorrowed.”

“We did not dare to talk to her of the future,” said poor MacNaghten, – “her grief was too holy a thing to be disturbed by such thoughts; but amongst ourselves we spoke whisperingly of when we were all to meet again, and she seemed to listen to us with interest. It was strange enough,” remarked he, “how sorrow had blended all our natures, – differing and discordant as Heaven knows they were – into some resemblance of a family. I felt towards Polly as though she had been my sister, and totally forgot that Gabriac belonged to another land and another people: so humanizing is the touch of affliction!”

It struck three; and at four o’clock Dan was to sail. As he stood up, he caught sight of my mother, and saw that her eyes were full of tears. She made a signal to him to approach, and then said, in a fervent whisper, —

“Come and see him before you go;” and led the way to the adjoining room, where her baby lay asleep. “I know,” said she, in broken accents, “that you will be a friend to him always; but if aught were to befall you – ”

MacNaghten cast his eyes heavenward, but made no answer.

“Yes,” cried she, “I have that hope;” and, so saying, she knelt down beside the little cot to pray.

“It was odd,” said he, when telling me this. “I had never heard words of prayer in the French language before; but they struck upon my heart with a power and significance I cannot explain. Was it some strange inward consciousness of the power of Him before whom I was standing, and who knows every tongue and every people, and to whom all hearts are open, let their accents be ever so unlike or so various? I was in the street,” added he, “without knowing how I came there, for my brain was turning with a thousand thoughts.

“‘Where to, sir?’ said the carman.

“‘The Pigeon House,’ said I, seating myself on the vehicle.

“‘Ain’t you Mr. MacNaghten, sir?’ asked a large, well-dressed man, in a civil voice, as he touched his hat respectfully to me.

“‘That is my name,’ replied I.

“‘Mr. Daniel MacNaghten, of Garrah Lynn?’ asked he, again.

“‘When I owned it,’ rejoined I, trying to smile at a sad recollection.

“‘Then I have a writ against you, sir,’ continued he, ‘and I’m sorry I must execute it, too.’

“‘At whose suit, and for what sum?’ asked I, trying to be calm and collected. He answered my last question first, by saying it was for an acceptance for twelve hundred and seventy-six pounds odd; and, after a little pressing, added, —

“‘At the suit of Joseph Curtis, Esq., of Meagh-valley House.’

“‘What’s to be done?’ said I. ‘I cannot pay it.’

“‘Come over to Green Street for the present, anyhow,’ said he, civilly; ‘there are plenty of houses.’

“‘No, no; to jail, if I must,’ said I, boldly. ‘It’s not myself I was thinking about.’

“Just as day was breaking, I passed into the prison; and when I thought to be looking upon the mountains of the bay slowly fading behind me, I was ushered into the debtors’ yard, to wait till my future dwelling-place should be assigned me.”

I copy this incident in the very words he himself related it.

CHAPTER XXI. AT REST

Having already acquainted my reader with the source from which I have derived all these materials of my family history, he will not be surprised to learn that MacNaghten’s imprisonment leaves a blank in this part of my narrative. All that I know, indeed, of these early years can be told in a few lines. My mother repaired with me to the cottage in the Killeries, to which also came De Gabriac shortly after, followed by Polly Fagan, whose affection for my mother now exhibited itself most remarkably. Not vainly endeavoring to dam up the current of a grief that would flow on, she tried to interest my mother in ways and by pursuits which were totally new to her, and, consequently, not coupled with painful recollections. She taught her to visit the poor in their cabins; to see them, in the hard struggle of their poverty, stoutly confronting fortune day by day, carrying the weary load of adversity, without one hope as to the time when they might cease to labor and be at rest. These rambles through wild and unvisited tracts rewarded them well in the grand and glorious objects of scenery with which they became acquainted. It was everlasting discovery, – now of some land-locked little bay, half-hid among its cliffs; now some lone island, with its one family for inhabitants; or now some picturesque bit of inland scenery, with wood and mountain and waving grass. Occasionally, too, they ventured out to sea, either to creep along the coast, and peep into the rocky caverns with which it is perforated, or they would set sail for the distant islands of Arran, – bleak and desolate spots on the wide, wild ocean. The charms of landscape in its grandest features were, however, the least of the benefits these excursions conferred, at least on my poor mother. She learned then to see and to feel that the sorrows of life fall uniformly; that few, indeed, are singled out for especial suffering; and that the load is apportioned to the strength that is to bear it. She saw, besides, how the hard necessities of existence formed in themselves a barrier against the wearing influence of grief: the hands that must labor for daily bread are not wrung in the wild transports of misery! It is the law of human nature, and the claims of the living are the counterpoise to the memory of the dead.

Neither her early education nor her habits disposed her to any exertion. All her ideas of life were circumscribed within the limits of certain pleasures and enjoyments. From her infancy she had never known any other care than how to make time pass swiftly and agreeably: now she had to learn the more rewarding lesson that life can be profitably passed; and to this task she addressed herself, I believe, with a hearty earnestness.

It is only by estimating the change which took place in her character at this time, and which marked it during the short remainder of her life, that I am led to speculate upon the cause. Her days were passed in intercourse with the peasantry, whom, at last, she began to understand, through all the difficulties of their strange temperament and all the eccentricities of their habits. There was not a cabin for miles round, with every one of whose inmates she was not acquainted, and of whose joys and sorrows, whose hopes and cares, she was not in some shape the participator.

When the sea was too rough and the weather too wild for the fishermen to venture out, she was constantly amongst them with some material for home occupation; and it was curious to see those fingers, which had never been used to harder toil than the mock labor of the embroidery frame, ingeniously moving through the mazes of a fishing-net, while in her foreign English she would relate some story of her Breton countrymen, certain to interest those who sat admiringly around her.

How singular it is that the experience and the habits which are destined to guide us through the great trials of life are frequently acquired in scenes and amongst people the very opposite to those wherein the lesson is to be profitable! And yet so it was. In exhorting and cheering others she elevated the tone of her own mind; in suggesting exertion to the faint-hearted, she imbibed courage herself; and when teaching them to be of good cheer, she spoke the language of encouragement to herself. Her bodily health, too, kept pace with her mental. She who rarely had ventured out if the weather merely were threatening, could now face the stormiest seasons of that wild west. The darkest day of winter would see her abroad, braving with an almost childish excitement the beating rain and wind, or fighting onward to some lone cabin amongst the hills, through sleet and snowdrift, undeterred!

I have heard but little of the life they led within doors, but I believe that the evenings were passed pleasantly with books and conversation, De Gabriac reading aloud, while my mother and Polly worked; and thus the winter glided easily over, and spring was now approaching ere they were well aware that so many months had gone by. If my mother wondered at times why they never heard from MacNaghten, De Gabriac and Polly, who were in the secret for his mishap, would frame various excuses to account for his silence. Meanwhile they heard that such was the complication of the law proceedings which concerned the estate, so intricate the questions, and so puzzling, that years might pass in litigation ere any decision could be come to. A reserved offer came at this time from Sir Carew O’Moore to settle some small annuity on my mother if she would relinquish all claim to the estate in his favor; but Fagan hesitated to acquaint her with a proposal which he well knew she would reject, and the very fact of which must be an insult to her feelings. This the Grinder commented on in a letter to his daughter, while he also avowed that as he saw no prospect of anything favorable to my mother likely to issue from the course of law, he must press upon her the necessity of her seeking an asylum in her own country and amongst her own friends.

I have never been able to ascertain why my mother herself did not at once determine on returning to France after my father’s death. Perhaps the altered circumstances of her fortune deterred her. There might have been reasons, perhaps, on the score of her birth. My impression is, that De Gabriac had quitted the Continent overwhelmed with debt, and dared not return there, and that, as his counsels greatly swayed her, she was influenced by whatever arguments he adduced.

So little was my mother acquainted with the details of her altered condition in life, that she still believed a small but secure income remained to her; and it was only by a few lines addressed to her, and inclosed in a letter to Polly, that she was at length brought to see that she was actually without means of support for a single day, and that hitherto she had been a dependent on Fagan’s kindness for a home.

I believe that this communication was not made with any harshness or want of feeling; on the contrary, that it was conveyed with whatever delicacy the writer could summon to so ungracious a task. It is more than probable, besides, that Fagan would not have made it at all, or at least not for a considerable time, had he not at that moment been involved in an angry correspondence with Polly, who had flatly refused to quit my mother and return home. Irritated at this, and driven to extremities, he had determined in this last course to accomplish his object.

My mother was so much overwhelmed by the tidings that she thought she could not have understood them aright, and hastened to Polly’s room, with the letter in her hand.

“Tell me,” cried she, “what this means. Is it possible – can it be true – that I am actually a beggar?”

Polly read the lines with a flashing eye and heightened color, but never uttered a word.

“Speak, Polly, dearest, and relieve me of this terrible fear, if you can,” cried my mother, passionately.

“I understand what this means,” said Polly, crushing the note in her hand; “this is a question that requires explanation. You must leave it to me. I’ll go up to town this evening, and before the end of the week I ‘ll be back with you. My father is mistaken, – that’s all; and you have misunderstood him!”

And thus planning, and excusing and contradicting herself, she at last succeeded in allaying my mother’s fears and assuring her that it was a mere misapprehension, and that a few days would suffice to rectify it.

My mother insisted that Polly should not travel alone, and that Gabriac should be her companion, – an arrangement to which she acceded with comparative ease and willingness. Had Polly Fagan and Gabriac merely met as people meet in society, with no other opportunities of knowing each other than are presented by the ordinary intercourse with the world, the great likelihood is that they should have conceived for each other a rooted dislike. There was scarcely one single subject on which they thought in common. They differed in ideas of country and people. Their tastes, their prejudices, their ambitions, all took opposite directions; and yet such is the effect of intimacy, such the consequence of daily, hourly communion, that each not only learned to tolerate, but even to imbibe, some of the notions of the other; and an imperceptible compromise was at length entered into, by Which individuality became tempered down, and even the broad traits of nationality almost effaced. The Count came to perceive that what he had at first regarded as coarse and inelegant was in reality the evidence of only a bold and vigorous spirit, exulting in its own energy, and confident of its power; and Polly began to recognize that remarkable truth, that a coxcomb need not necessarily be a coward, and that the most excessive puppyism can consort with even a chivalrous courage and daring. Of these qualities – the very first in Polly’s estimation – he had given several proofs in their adventures by sea and land, and under circumstances, too, where the very novelty of the peril to be surmounted might have suggested some fear.

There is a generous impulse usually to exalt in our esteem those whom we had once held cheaply, when on nearer intimacy we discover that we had wronged them. We feel as if there was a debt of reparation due to them, and that we are unjust till we have acquitted it. It may chance that now and then this honorable sentiment may carry us beyond reasonable bounds, and that we are disposed to accord even more than is due to them.

I have no means of knowing if such were the case here: I can but surmise from other circumstances the causes which were in operation. It is enough, however, if I state that long before Gabriac had passed the limit of admiration for Polly, she had conceived for him a strong sentiment of love; and while he was merely exerting those qualities which are amongst the common gifts of his class and his country, she was becoming impressed with the notion of his vast superiority to all of those she had ever met in society. It must be taken into account that his manner towards her evinced a degree of respect and devotion which, though not overpassing the usual observance of good manners in France, contrasted very favorably with the kind of notice bestowed by country gentlemen upon “the Grinder’s daughter.” Those terrible traditions of exorbitant interest, those fatal compacts with usury, that had made Fagan’s name so dreadfully notorious in Ireland, were all unknown to Gabriac. He only saw in Polly a very handsome girl, of a far more than common amount of intelligence, and with a spirit daringly ambitious. As the favored friend and companion of his cousin, he took it for granted that the peculiar customs of Ireland admitted such intimacies between those socially unequal, and that there was nothing strange or unusual in seeing her where she was. He therefore paid her every attention he would have bestowed on the most high-born damsel of his own court; he exhibited that deference which his own language denominated homage; and, in fact, long before he had touched her affections, he had flattered her pride and self-love by a courtesy to which she had never, in all her intercourse with the world, been habituated.

Perhaps my reader needs not one-half of the explanation to surmise why two young people – both good-looking, both attractive, and both idle – should, in the solitude of a country cottage, fall in love with each other. That they did so, at all events, – she first, and he afterwards, – is, however, the fact; and now, by the simple-hearted arrangement of my poor mother, – whose thoughts had never taken in such a casualty, – were they to set off together as fellow-travellers for Dublin. So far, indeed, from even suspecting such a possibility, it was only a few days previously that she had been deploring to Polly her cousin’s fickleness in breaking off his proposed marriage in France, on the mere ground that his absence must necessarily have weakened the ties that bound him to his betrothed What secret hopes the revelation may have suggested to Polly’s mind is matter that I cannot even speculate on.

It was with a heavy heart my poor mother saw them drive from the door, and came back to sit down in solitude beside the cradle of her baby. It was a dark and rainy day of winter; the beating of the waves against the rocky shore, and the wailing winds, made sad chorus together; and without, as well as within, all was cheerless and depressing. Dark and gloomy as was the landscape, it was to the full as bright as the scene within her own heart; for now that she began to arrange facts and circumstances together, and to draw inferences from them, she saw that nothing but ruin lay before her. The very expressions of Fagan’s letter, so opposite to the almost submissive courtesy of former times, showed her that he no longer hesitated to declare her the dependent on his bounty. “And yet,” cried she, aloud, “are these the boasted laws of England? Is the widow left to starve? – is the orphan left houseless, except some formality or other be gone through? To whom descends the heritage of the father, while the son is still living?” From these thoughts, which no ingenuity of hers could pierce, she turned to others not less depressing. What had become of all those who once called themselves her husband’s friends? She, it is true, had herself lived estranged and retired from the world; but Walter was everywhere, – all knew him, all professed to love him. Bitter as ingratitude will ever seem, all its poignancy is nothing compared to the smart it inflicts when practised towards those who have gone from us forever; we feel then as though treachery had been added to the wrong. “Oh!” cried she, in her anguish, “how have they repaid him whose heart and hand were ever open to them!” A flood of recollections, long dammed up by the habits of her daily life, and the little cares by which she was environed, now swept through her mind, and from her infancy and her childhood, in all its luxurious splendor, to her present destitution, each passage of her existence seemed revealed before her. The solitude of the lonely cottage suggesting such utter desolation, and the wild and storm-lashed scene without adding its influence to her depression, she sat for some time still and unmoved, like one entranced; and then, springing to her feet, she rushed out into the beating rain, glad to exchange the conflict of the storm for that more terrible war that waged within her.