The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

“I am going to send for Captain Martin, Miss Henderson.”

“Do not, I entreat of you, – I implore your Ladyship,” cried Kate, with her clasped hands trembling as she spoke.

“This agitation is not without a cause, and would alone decide me to call for my son.”

“If I have ever deserved well at your hands, my Lady, – if I have served you faithfully in anything, – if my devotion has lightened you of one care, or aided you through one difficulty, – spare me, oh, spare me, I beseech you, this – degradation!”

“I have a higher consideration to consult here, Miss Henderson, than any which can have reference to you.” She pulled the bell violently, and while her hand still held the cord, the servant entered. “Tell Captain Martin to come here,” said she, and sat down.

Kate leaned her arm upon the chimney-piece, and, resting her head on it, never uttered a word.

For several minutes the silence was unbroken on either side. At last Lady Dorothea started suddenly, and said, – “We cannot receive Captain Martin here.”

“Your Ladyship is full of consideration,” said Kate, bitterly. “For a moment I had thought it was only an additional humiliation to which you had destined me.”

“Follow me into the drawing-room, Miss Henderson,” said Lady Dorothea, proudly, as she left the room. And with slow, submissive mien Kate quitted the chamber, and walked after her.

Scarcely had the door of the drawing-room been closed upon them than it was re-opened to admit Captain Martin. He was booted and spurred for his afternoon canter, and seemed in no wise pleased at the sudden interruption to his project.

“They said you wanted me,” cried he; “and here have I been searching for you in your dressing-room, and all over the house.”

“I desire to speak with you,” said she, proudly; and she motioned to a chair.

“I trust the séance is to be a brief one, otherwise I ‘ll beg a postponement,” said he, half laughingly. Then turning his glance towards Kate, he remarked for the first time the deathlike color of her face, and an expression of repressed suffering that all her self-control could not conceal. “Has anything happened? What is it?” said he, in a half-whisper.

But she never replied, nor even seemed to heed his question.

“Tell me, I beseech you,” cried he, turning to Lady Dorothea, – “tell me, has anything gone wrong?”

“It is precisely on that account I have sent for you, Captain Martin,” said her Ladyship, as she assigned to him a seat with a motion of her hand. “It is because a great deal has gone wrong here – and were it not for my vigilance, much more still likely to follow it – I have sent for you, sir, that you should hear from this young lady’s lips a denial which, I own, has not satisfied me; nor shall it, till it be made in your presence and meet with your corroboration. Your looks, Miss Henderson,” said she, addressing her, “would imply that all the suffering of the present moment falls to your share; but I would beg you to bear in mind what a person in my sphere must endure at the bare possibility of the event which now demands investigation.”

“Good heavens! will not you tell me what it is?” exclaimed Martin, in the last extremity of impatience.

“I have sent for you, sir,” resumed she, “that you should hear Miss Henderson declare that no attentions on your part – no assiduities, I should perhaps call them – have ever been addressed to her; that, in fact” – here her Ladyship became embarrassed in her explanation, – “that, in fact, those counsels – those very admirable aids to your conduct which she on so many occasions has vouchsafed to afford you – have had no object – no ulterior object, I should perhaps call it – and that your – your intercourse has ever been such as beseems the heir of Cro’ Martin, and the daughter of the steward on that property!”

“By Jove, I can make nothing of all this!” cried the Captain, whose bewildered looks fully corroborated the assertion.

“Lady Dorothea, sir, requires you to assure her that I have never made love to you,” said Kate Henderson, with a look of scorn that her Ladyship did not dare to reply to. “I,” added she, “have already given my pledge on this subject. I trust that your testimony will not gainsay me.”

“Confound me if I can fathom it at all!” said he, more distracted than ever. “If you are alluding to the offer I made you – ”

“The offer you made,” cried Lady Dorothea. “When? – how? – in what wise?”

“No, no, I will speak out,” said he, addressing Kate. “I am certain you never divulged it; but I cannot accept that all the honorable dealing should be on one side only. Yes, my Lady, however you learned it, I cannot guess, but it is perfectly true; I asked Miss Henderson to be my wife, and she refused me.”

A low, faint sigh broke from Lady Dorothea, and she fell back into her chair.

“She would have it, – it’s not my fault, – you are witness it’s not,” muttered he to Kate. But she motioned him in silence to the door, and then opening the window, that the fresh air might enter, stood silently beside the chair.

A slight shivering shook her; and Lady Dorothea – her cheeks almost lividly pale – raised her eyes and fixed them on Kate Henderson.

“You have had your triumph!” said she, in a low but firm voice.

“I do not feel it such, madam,” said Kate, calmly. “Nor is it in a moment of humiliation like this that a thought of triumph can enter.”

“Hear me, – stoop down lower. You can leave this – tomorrow, if you wish it.”

Kate bowed slowly in acquiescence.

“I have no need to ask you that what has occurred here should never be mentioned.”

“You may trust me, madam.”

“I feel that I may. There – I am better – quite well, now! You may leave me.” Kate courtesied deeply, and moved towards the door. “One word before you go. Will you answer me one question? I’ll ask but one; but your answer must be full, or not at all.”

“So it shall be, madam. What is it?”

“I want to know the reason – on what grounds – you declined the proposal of my son?”

“For the same good reason, madam, that should have prevented his ever making it.”

“Disparity – inequality of station, you mean?”

“Something like it, madam. Our union would have been both a blunder and a paradox. Each would have married beneath him!” And once more courtesying, and with an air of haughty dignity, Kate withdrew, and left her Ladyship to her own thoughts.

Strange and conflicting were the same thoughts; at one moment stimulating her to projects of passionate vengeance, at the next suggesting the warmest measures of reconciliation and affection. These indeed predominated, for in her heart pride seemed the emblem of all that was great, noble, or exalted; and when she saw that sentiment, not fostered by the accidents of fortune, not associated with birth, lineage, and high station, but actually rising superior to the absence of all these, she almost felt a species of worship for one so gloriously endowed.

“She might be a duchess!” was the only speech she uttered, and the words revealed a whole volume of her meditations. It was curious enough how completely all recollection of her son was merged and lost in the greater interest Kate’s character supplied. But so is it frequently in life. The traits which most resemble our own are those we alone attach importance to, and what we fancy admiration of another is very often nothing more than the gratified contemplation of ourselves.

CHAPTER XXIII. MAURICE SCANLAN ADVISES WITH “HIS COUNSEL”

Jack Massingbred sat in expectation of Mr. Merl’s arrival till nigh ten o’clock; and if not manifesting any great degree of impatience at the delay, still showing unmistakable signs of uneasiness, as though the event were not destitute of some cause for anxiety. At last a note arrived to say that a sudden and imperative necessity to start at once for England would prevent Mr. Merl from keeping his appointment. “I shall be in town by Tuesday,” continued the writer, “and if Captain Martin has any communication to make to me respecting his affairs, let it be addressed to Messrs. Twining and Scape’s, solicitors, Furnival’s Inn. I hope that with regard to your own matter, you will make suitable provision for the acceptance due on the ninth of next month. Any further renewal would prove a great inconvenience to yours

“Very sincerely and to command,

“Herman Merl.”

“Negotiations have ended ere they were opened, and war is proclaimed at once,” said Massingbred, as he read over this brief epistle. “You may come forth, Master Scanlan,” added he, opening the door of his bedroom, and admitting that gentleman. “Our Hebrew is an overmatch for us. He declines to appear.”

“Why so? How is that?” asked Scanlan.

“There ‘s his note,” said the other; “read and digest it.”

“This smacks of suspicion,” said Scanlan. “He evidently suspects that we have concerted some scheme to entangle him, and he is resolved not to be caught.”

“Precisely; he ‘ll do nothing without advice. Well, well, if he but knew how unprepared we are, how utterly deficient not only in resources, but actually in the commonest information of our subject, he might have ventured here in all safety.”

“Has Captain Martin not put you in possession of the whole case, then?”

“Why, my good Scanlan, the Captain knows nothing, actually nothing, of his difficulties. He has, it is true, a perfect conviction that he is out of his depth; but whether he be in five fathom water or fifty, he doesn’t know; and, what ‘s stranger, he does n’t care!”

“After all, if it be over his head, I suppose it’s pretty much the same thing,” said Scanlan, with a bitter laugh.

“I beg to offer my dissent to that doctrine,” said Mas-singbred, gently. “Where the water is only just out of a man’s depth, the shore is usually not very distant. Now, if we were quite certain such were the case here, we might hope to save him. If, on the contrary, he has gone down out of all sight of land – ” He stopped, gazed steadily at Scanlan for a few seconds, and then in a lower tone, not devoid of a touch of anxiety, said, “Eh, do you really know this to be so?”

“I’ll tell you all I know, Mr. Massingbred,” said he, as having turned the key in the door, he took his seat at the table. “And I ‘ll tell you, besides, how I came by the knowledge, and I ‘ll leave it to your own judgment to say what his chance is worth. When Merl was stopping at Kilkieran, he left there a little pocket-book, with memorandums of all his secret transactions. Mighty nice doings they were, – and profitable, too, – as you ‘ll perceive when you look over it.”

“You have it, then,” cried Jack, eagerly.

“Here it is,” said he, producing the precious volume, and laying his hand firmly on it. “Here it is now. I got it under a pledge to hand it to himself, which I need n’t tell you I never had the slightest intention of performing. It’s not every day in the week one has the good luck to get a peep into the enemy’s brief, and this is exactly what you ‘ll find here.”

Massingbred stretched out his hand to take the book, but Scanlan quietly replaced it in his pocket, and, with a dry and very peculiar smile, said, – “Have a little patience, sir. We must go regularly to work here. You shall see this book – you shall examine it – and even retain it – but it must be on conditions.” “Oh, you may confide in me, Scanlan. Even if Mr. Merl were my friend, – which I assure you he is not, – I could not venture to betray you.”

“That’s not exactly what I ‘m thinking of, Mr. Massingbred. I ‘m certain you ‘d say nothing to Merl of what you saw here. My mind is easy enough upon that score.”

“Well, then, in what direction do your suspicions point?”

“They ‘re not suspicions, sir,” was the dry response.

“Fears, – hesitations, – whatever you like to call them.”

“Are we on honor here, Mr. Massingbred?” said Scanlan, after a pause.

“For myself, I say decidedly so,” was the firm reply.

“That will do, sir. I ask only one pledge, and I ‘m sure you ‘ll not refuse it: if you should think, on reflection, that what I propose to you this evening is neither practicable nor advisable, – that, in fact, you could neither concur in it nor aid it, – that you’ll never, so long as you live, divulge it to any one, – man, woman, or child. Have I that promise?”

“I think I may safely say that.”

“Ay, but do you say it?”

“I do; here is my promise.”

“That will do. I don’t ask a word more. Now, Mr. Massingbred,” said he, replacing the book on the table, “I ‘ll tell you in the fewest words I can how the case stands, – and brevity is essential, for we have not an hour to lose. Merl is gone to London about this business, and we ‘ll have to follow him. He ‘d be very glad to be rid of the affair to-morrow, and he ‘ll not waste many days till he is so. Read that bit there, sir,” said he, pointing to a few closely written lines in the note-book.

“Good heavens!” cried Jack, “this is downright impossible. This is a vile falsehood, devised for some infernal scheme of roguery. Who ‘d believe such a trumpery piece of imposition? Ah, Scanlan, you are not the wily fellow I took you for. This same precious note-book was dropped as a decoy, as I once knew a certain noble lord to have left his betting-book behind him. An artful device, that can only succeed once, however. And you really believed all this?”

“I did, and I do believe it,” said Scanlan, firmly.

“If you really say so, we must put the matter to the test. Captain Martin is here, – we ‘ll send for him, and ask him the question; but I must say I don’t think your position will be a pleasant one after that reply is given.”

“I must remind you of your promise already, it seems,” said Scanlan. “You are pledged to say nothing of this, if you cannot persuade yourself to act along with me in it.”

“Very true,” said Massingbred, slowly; “but I never pledged myself to credit an impossibility.”

“I ask nothing of the kind. I only claim that you should adhere to what you have said already. If this statement be untrue, all my speculations about it fall to the ground at once. I am the dupe of a stale trick, and there’s an end of it.”

“Ay, so far all well, Master Scanlan; but I have no fancy to be associated in the deception. Can’t you see that?”

“I can, sir, and I do. But perhaps there may be a readier way of satisfying your doubts than calling for the Captain’s evidence. There is a little page in this same volume devoted to one Mr. Massingbred. You surely may have some knowledge about his affairs. Throw your eye over that, sir, and say what you think of it.”

Massingbred took the book in his hand and perused the place pointed out to him.

“By Jove! this is very strange,” said he, after a pause. “Here is my betting-book on the St. Hubert all transcribed in full, – however the Jew boy got hold of it; and here ‘s mention of a blessed hundred-pound note, which, in less than five years, has grown to upwards of a thousand!”

“And all true? All fact?”

“Perfectly true, – most lamentable fact, Master Scanlan! How precise the scoundrel is in recording this loan as ‘after supper at Dubos’!’ Ay, and here again is my unlucky wager about Martingale for the ‘Chester,’ and the handicap with Armytage. Scanlan, I recant my rash impression. This is a real work of its great author! Aut Merl – aut Diabolus.”

“I could have sworn it,” said Scanlan.

“To be sure you could, man, and have done, ere this time o’ day, fifty other things on fainter evidence. But let me tell you it requires strong testimony to make one believe that there should live such a consummate fool in the world as would sell his whole reversionary right to a splendid state of some twelve thousand – ”

“Fifteen at the lowest,” broke in Scanlan.

“Worse again. Fifteen thousand a year for twenty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-four pounds sterling.”

“And he has done it.”

“No, no; the thing is utterly incredible, man. Any one must see that if he did want to make away with his inheritance, that he could have obtained ten, twenty times that sum amongst the tribe of Merl.”

“No doubt, if he were free to negotiate the transaction. But you ‘ll see, on looking over these pages, in what a network of debt he was involved, – how, as early as four years ago, at the Cape, he owed Merl large sums, lost at play, and borrowed at heavy interest. So that, at length, this same twenty-two thousand, assumed as paid for the reversion, was in reality but the balance of an immense demand for money lost, bills renewed, sums lent, debts discharged, and so on. But to avoid the legal difficulty of an ‘immoral obligation,’ the bale of the reversion is limited to this simple payment of twenty-two thousand – ”

“Seven hundred and sixty-four pounds, sir. Don’t let us diminish the price by a fraction,” said Massingbred. “Wonderful people ye are, to be sure; and whether in your talent for savings, or dislike for sausages, alike admirable and praiseworthy! What a strange circle do events observe, and how irrevocable is the law of the material, the stern rule of the moral world, decay, decomposition, and regeneration following on each other; and as great men’s ashes beget grubs, so do illustrious houses generate in their rottenness the race of Herman Merls.”

Scanlan tried to smile at the rhapsodical conceit, but for some private reason of his own he did not relish nor enjoy it.

“So, then, according to the record,” said Massingbred, holding up the book, “there is an end of the ‘Martins of Cro’ Martin’?”

“That’s it, sir, in one word.”

“It is too shocking – too horrible to believe,” said Mas-singbred, with more of sincerity than his manner usually displayed. “Eh, Scanlan, – is it not so?” added he, as waiting in vain for some show of concurrence.

“I believe, however,” said the other, “it’s the history of every great family’s downfall: small liabilities growing in secrecy to become heavy charges, severe pressure exerted by those out of whose pockets came eventually the loans to meet the difficulties, – shrewdness and rapacity on one side, folly and wastefulness on the other.”

“Ay, ay; but who ever heard of a whole estate disposed of for less than two years of its rental?”

“That’s exactly the case, sir,” said he, in the same calm tone as before; “and what makes matters worse, we have little time to look out for expedients. Magennis will put us on our title at the new trial next assizes. Merl will take fright at the insecurity of his claim, and dispose of it, – Heaven knows to whom, – perhaps to that very league now formed to raise litigation against all the old tenures.”

“Stop, stop, Scanlan! There is quite enough difficulty before us, without conjuring up new complications,” cried Massingbred. “Have you anything to suggest? What ought to be done here?”

Scanlan was silent, and leaning his head on his hand seemed lost in thought.

“Come, Scanlan, you ‘ve thought over all this ere now. Tell me, man, what do you advise?”

Scanlan was silent.

“Out with it, Scanlan. I know, I feel that you have a resource in store against all these perils! Out with it, man.”

“Have I any need to remind you of your promise, Mr. Massingbred?” asked the other, stealthily.

“Not the slightest, Scanlan. I never forget a pledge.”

“Very well, sir; that’s enough,” said Scanlan, speaking rapidly, and like one anxious to overcome his confusion by an effort. “We have just one thing to do. We must buy out Merl. Of course as reasonably as we can, but buy him out we must. What between his own short experiences of Ireland, and the exposure that any litigation is sure to bring with it, he’s not likely to be hard to deal with, particularly when we are in possession, as I suppose we may be, through your intimacy with the Captain, of all the secret history of these transactions. I take it for granted that he ‘ll be as glad of a settlement that keeps all ‘snug,’ as ourselves. Less than the twenty-two thousand we can’t expect he’ll take.”

“And how are we to raise that sum without Mr. Martin’s concurrence?”

“I wish that was the only difficulty,” said Scanlan.

“What do you mean?”

“Just this: that in his present state no act of his would stand. Sure his mind is gone. There isn’t a servant about him could n’t swear to his fancies and imaginations. No, sir, the whole thing must be done amongst ourselves. I have eight thousand some hundred pounds of my own available at a moment; old Nelligan would readily – for an assignment of the Brewery and the Market Square – advance us ten thousand more; – the money, in short, could be had – more if we wanted it – the question – ”

“As to the dealing with Merl?” broke in Jack.

“No, sir, not that, though of course it is a most important consideration.”

“Well, what then?”

“As to the dealing with Maurice Scanlan, sir,” said he, making a great effort. “There’s the whole question in one word.”

“I don’t see that there can be any grave obstacle against that. You know the property.”

“Every acre of it.”

“You know how you’d like your advance to be secured to you – on what part of the estate. The conditions, I am certain, might be fairly left in your own hands; I feel assured you’d not ask nor expect anything beyond what was equitable and just.”

“Mr. Massingbred, we might talk this way a twelvemonth, and never be a bit nearer our object than when we began,” said Scanlan, resolutely. “I want two things, and I won’t take less than the two together. One is to be secured in the agency of the estate, under nobody’s control whatever but the Martins themselves. No Mister Repton to say ‘Do this, sign that, seal the other.’ I ‘ll have nobody over me but him that owns the property.”

“Well, and the other condition?”

“The other – the other – ” said Scanlan, growing very red – “the other, I suppose, will be made the great difficulty – at least, on my Lady’s side. She ‘ll be bristling up about her uncle the Marquis, and her half-cousin the Duke, and she’ll be throwing in my teeth who I am, and what I was, and all the rest of it, forgetting all the while where they ‘ll be if they reject my terms, and how much the most noble Viceroy will do for her when she has n’t a roof over her head, and how many letters his Grace will write when she has n’t a place to address them to, – not to say that the way they’re treating the girl at this very moment shows how much they think of her as one of themselves, living with old Catty Broon, and cantering over the country without as much as a boy after her. Sure, if they were n’t Pride itself, it’s glad they might be that a – a – a respectable man, that is sure to be devoted to their own interests forever, and one that knows the estate well, and, moreover than that, that doesn’t want to be going over to London, – no, nor even to Dublin, – that doesn’t care a brass farthing for the castle and the lodge in the park, – that, in short, Mr. Massingbred, asks nothing for anybody, but is willing to trust to his industry and what he knows of life – There it is now, – there’s my whole case,” said he, stammering, and growing more and more embarrassed. “I haven’t a word to add to it, except this: that if they’d rather be ruined entirely, left without stick or stone, roof or rafter in the world, than take my offer, they ‘ve nothing to blame but themselves and their own infernal pride!” And with this peroration, to deliver which cost him an effort like a small apoplexy, Maurice Scanlan sat down at the table, and crossed his arms on his breast like one prepared to await his verdict with a stout heart.

At last, and with the start of one who “suddenly bethought him of a precaution that ought not to be neglected,” he said, – “Of course, this is so far all between ourselves, for if I was to go up straight to my Lady, and say, ‘I want to marry your niece,’ I think I know what the answer would be.”

Although Massingbred had followed this rambling and incoherent effort at explanation with considerable attention, it was only by the very concluding words that he was quite certain of having comprehended its meaning. If we acknowledge that he felt almost astounded by the pretension, it is but fair to add that nothing in his manner or air betokened this feeling. Nay, he even by a slight gesture of the head invited the other to continue; and when the very abrupt conclusion did ensue, he sat patiently, as it were revolving the question in his own mind.