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

“Your attached friend,

“Val. Repton.”

“I believe I was wrong about Henderson; at least the disagreeable went no further than that he is supposed to be the channel through which Lady Dorothea occasionally issues directions, not always in agreement with Mary’s notions. And as your niece never liked the man, the measures are not more palatable when they come through his intervention.”

Lady Dorothea was still pondering over this letter, in which there were so many things to consider, when a hurried message called her to the sick-room. As she approached the room, she could hear Martin’s voice calling imperiously and angrily to the servants, and ordering them to dress him. The difficulty of utterance seemed to increase his irritation, and gave to his words a harsh, discordant tone, very unlike his natural voice.

“So,” cried he, as she entered, “you have come at last. I am nigh exhausted with telling them what I want. I must get up, Dora. They must help me to dress.”

As he was thus speaking, the servants, at a gesture from her Ladyship, quietly stole from the chamber, leaving her alone at his bedside.

“You are too weak for this exertion, Godfrey,” said she, calmly. “Any effort like this is certain to injure you.”

“You think so?” asked he, with the tone of deference that he generally used towards her. “Perhaps you are right, Dora; but how can it be helped? – there is so much to do, such a long way to travel. What a strange confusion is over me! Do you know, Dolly,” – here his voice fell to a mere whisper, – “you’ll scarcely credit it; but all the time I have been fancying myself at Cro’ Martin, and here we are in – in – what do you call the place?”

“Baden.”

“Yes – yes – but the country?”

“Germany.”

“Ay, to be sure, Germany; hundreds of miles away from home!” Here he raised himself on one arm, and cast a look of searching eagerness through the room. “Is he gone?” whispered he, timidly.

“Of whom are you speaking?” said she.

“Hush, Dolly, hush!” whispered he, still lower. “I promised I ‘d not tell any one, even you, of his being here. But I must speak of it – I must – or my brain will turn. He was here – he sat in that very chair – he held my hand within both his own. Poor, poor fellow! how his eyes filled when he saw me! He little knew how changed he himself was! – his hair white as snow, and his eyes so dimmed!”

“This was a dream, Godfrey, – only a dream!”

“I thought you ‘d say so, – I knew it,” said he, sorrowfully; “but I know better. The dear old voice rang in my heart as I used to hear it when a child, as he said, ‘Do you remember me?’ To be sure I remembered him, and told him to go and fetch Molly; and his brow darkened when I said this, and he drew back his hand and said, ‘You have deserted her, – she is not here!’”

“All this is mere fancy, Godfrey; you have been dreaming of home.”

“Ay,” muttered he, gloomily, “it was but too true; we did desert her, and that was not our bargain, Dolly. It was all the poor fellow asked at our hands, – his last, his only condition. What’s that letter you have there?” cried he, impatiently, as Lady Dorothea, in the agitation of the moment, continued to crumple Repton’s letter between her fingers.

“A letter I have been reading,” said she, sternly.

“From whom – from whom?” asked he, still more eagerly.

“A letter from Mr. Repton. You shall read it when you are better. You are too weak for all this exertion, God-frey; you must submit – ”

“Submit!” broke he in; “the very word he said. You submit yourself to anything, if it only purchase your selfish ease. No, Dolly, no, I am wrong. It was I that said so. I owned to him how unworthily I had acted. Give me that letter, madam. Let me see it,” said he, imperiously.

“When you are more tranquil, Godfrey, – in a fitting state.”

“I tell you, madam,” cried he, fiercely, “this, is no time for trifling or deception. Repton knows all our affairs. If he has written now, it is because matters are imminent. My head is clear now. I can think – I can speak. It is full time Harry should hear the truth. Let him come here.”

“Take a little rest, Godfrey, be it only half an hour, and you shall have everything as you wish it.”

“Half an hour! you speak of half an hour to one whose years are minutes now!” said he, in a broken voice. “This poor brain, Dora, is already wandering. The strange things I have seen so lately – that poor fellow come back after so many years – so changed, so sadly changed – but I knew him through all the mist and vapor of this feverish state; I saw him clearly, my own dear Barry!” The word, as it were the last barrier to his emotion, brought forth a gush of tears; and burying his face within the bedclothes, he sobbed himself to sleep. As he slept, however, he continued to mutter about home and long passed years, – of boyish sports with his brother; childish joys and sorrows were all mingled there, with now and then some gloomier reveries of later days.

“He has been wandering in his mind!” whispered Lady Dorothea to her son, as he joined her in the darkened room. “He woke up, believing that he had seen his brother, and the effect was very painful.”

“Has he asked for me?” inquired the other.

“No; he rambled on about Mary, and having deserted her, and all that; and just as ill-luck would have it, here is a letter from Repton, exactly filled with the very same theme. He insists on seeing it; but of course he will have forgotten it when he awakes.”

“You have written to Scanlan?” asked he.

“Yes; my letter has been sent off.”

“Minutes are precious now. If anything should occur here,” – his eyes turned towards the sick-bed as he spoke, – “Merl will refuse to treat. His people – I know they are his – are hovering about the hotel all the morning. I heard the waiter whispering as I passed, and caught the words, ‘No better; worse, if anything.’ The tidings would be in London before the post.”

Lady Dorothea made no reply, and all was now silent, save the unequal but heavy breathings of the sick man, and the faint, low mutterings of his dream. “In the arras – between the window and the wall – there it is, Barry,” cried he, in a clear, distinct voice. “Repton has a copy of it, too, with Catty’s signature, – old Catty Broon.”

“What is he dreaming of?” asked the young man.

But, instead of replying to the question, Lady Dorothea bent down her head to catch the now muttered words of the sleeper.

“He says something of a key. What key does he mean?” asked he.

“Fetch me that writing-desk,” said Lady Dorothea, as she took several keys from her pockets; and noiselessly unlocking the box, she began to search amidst its contents. As she continued, her gestures grew more and more hurried; she threw papers recklessly here and there, and at last emptied the entire contents upon the table before her. “See, search if there be a key here,” cried she, in a broken voice; “I saw it here three days ago.”

“There is none here,” said he, wondering at her eagerness.

“Look carefully, – look well for it,” said she, her voice trembling at every word.

“Is it of such consequence – ”

“It is of such consequence,” broke she in, “that he into whose hands it falls can leave you and me beggars on the world!” An effort at awaking by the sick man here made her hastily restore the papers to the desk, which she locked, and replaced upon the table.

“Was it the Henderson did this?” said she aloud, as if asking the question of herself. “Could she have known this secret?”

“Did what? What secret?” asked he, anxiously.

A low, long sigh announced that the sick man was awaking; and in a faint voice he said, “I feel better, Dora. I have had a sleep, and been dreaming of home and long ago. To-morrow, or next day, perhaps, I may be strong enough to leave this. I want to be back there again. Nay, don’t refuse me,” said he, timidly.

“When you are equal to the journey – ”

“I have a still longer one before me, Dora, and even less preparation for it. Harry, I have something to say to you, if I were strong enough to say it, – this evening, perhaps.” Wearied by the efforts he had made, he lay back again with a heavy sigh, and was silent.

“Is he worse – is he weaker?” asked his son.

A mournful nod of the head was her reply.

Young Martin arose and stole noiselessly from the room, he scarcely knew whither; he indeed cared not which way he turned. The future threw its darkest shadows before him. He had little to hope for, as little to love. His servant gave him a letter which Massingbred had left on his departure, but he never opened it; and in a listless vacuity he wandered out into the wood.

It was evening as he turned homeward. His first glance was towards the windows of his father’s room. They were wont to be closely shuttered and fastened; now one of them lay partly open, and a slight breeze stirred the curtain within. A faint, sickly fear of he knew not what crept over him. He walked on quicker; but as he drew nigh the door, his servant met him. “Well!” cried he, as though expecting a message.

“Yes, sir, it is all over; he went off about an hour since.” The man added something; but Martin heard no more, but hurried to his room, and locked the door.

CHAPTER XXVII. A VERY BRIEF INTERVIEW

When Jack Massingbred found himself once more “in town,” and saw that the tide of the mighty world there rolled on the same full, boiling flood he had remembered it of yore, he began to wonder where and how he had latterly been spending his life. There were questions of politics – mighty interests of which every one was talking – of which he knew nothing; party changes and new social combinations had arisen of which he was utterly ignorant. But what he still more acutely deplored was that he himself had, so to say, dropped out of the memory of his friends, who accosted him with that half-embarrassed air that says, “Have you been ill? – or in India? – or how is it that we have n’t met you about?” It was last session he had made a flash speech, – an effort that his own party extolled to the skies, and even the Opposition could only criticise the hardihood and presumption of so very young a member of the House, – and now already people had ceased to bear him in mind.

The least egotistical of men – and Massingbred did not enter into this category – find it occasionally very hard to bear the cool “go-by” the world gives them whenever a chance interval has withdrawn them from public view. The stern truth of how little each atom of the social scheme affects the working of the whole machinery is far from palatable in its personal application. Massingbred was probably sensitive enough on this score, but too consummate a tactician to let any one guess his feelings; and so he lounged down to the “House,” and lolled at his Club, and took his airings in the Park with all the seeming routine of one who had never abdicated these enjoyments for a day.

He had promised, and really meant, to have looked after Martin’s affairs on his reaching London; but it was almost a week after his return that he bethought him of his pledge, his attention being then called to the subject by finding on his table the visiting-card of Mr. Maurice Scanlan. Perhaps he was not sorry to have something to do; perhaps he had some compunctions of conscience for his forgetfulness; at all events, he sent his servant at once to Scanlan’s hotel, with a request that he would call upon him as early as might be. An answer was speedily returned that Mr. Scanlan was about to start for Ireland that same afternoon, but would wait upon him immediately. The message was scarcely delivered when Scanlan himself appeared.

Dressed in deep mourning, but with an easy complacency of manner that indicated very little of real grief, he threw himself into a chair, saying, “I pledge you my word of honor, it is only to yourself I ‘d have come this morning, Mr. Massingbred, for I ‘m actually killed with business. No man would believe the letters I’ve had to read and answer, the documents to examine, the deeds to compare, the papers to investigate – ”

“Is the business settled, then – or in train of settlement?” broke in Jack.

“I suppose it is settled,” replied Scanlan, with a slight laugh. “Of course you know Mr. Martin is dead?”

“Dead! Good heavens! When did this occur?”

“We got the news – that is, Merl did – the day before yesterday. A friend of his who had remained at Baden to watch events started the moment he breathed his last, and reached town thirty hours before the mail; not, indeed, that the Captain has yet written a line on the subject to any one.”

“And what of the arrangement? Had you come to terms previously with Merl?”

“No; he kept negotiating and fencing with us from day to day, now asking for this, now insisting on that, till the evening of his friend’s arrival, when, by special appointment, I had called to confer with him. Then, indeed, he showed no disposition for further delay, but frankly told me the news, and said, ‘The Conferences are over, Scanlan. I ‘m the Lord of Cro’ Martin.’”

“And is this actually the case, – has he really established his claim in such a manner as will stand the test of law and the courts?”

“He owns every acre of it; there’s not a flaw in his title; he has managed to make all Martin’s debts assume the shape of advances in hard cash. There is no trace of play transactions throughout the whole. I must be off, Mr. Massing-bred; there ‘s the chaise now at the door.”

“Wait one moment, I entreat of you. Can nothing be done? Is it too late to attempt any compromise?”

“To be sure it is. He has sent off instructions already to serve the notice for ejectment. I ‘ve got orders myself to warn the tenants not to pay the last half-year, except into court.”

“Why, are you in Mr. Merl’s service, then?” asked Jack, with one of his quiet laughs.

“I am, and I am not,” said Scanlan, reddening. “You know the compact I made with Lady Dorothea at Baden. Well, of course there is no longer any question about that. Still, if Miss Mary agrees to accept me, I ‘ll stand by the old family! There ‘s no end of trouble and annoyance we could n’t give Merl before he got possession. I know the estate well, and where the worst fellows on it are to be found! It’s one thing to have the parchments of a property, and it is another to be able to go live on it, and draw the rents. But I can’t stay another minute. Good-bye, air. Any chance of seeing you in the West soon?”

“I ‘m not sure I ‘ll not go over to-morrow,” said Jack, musing.

“I suppose you are going to blarney the constituency?” said Maurice, laughing heartily at his coarse conceit. Then suddenly seeing that Massingbred did not seem to relish the freedom, he hurriedly repeated his leave-takings, and departed.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DARK SIDE OF A CHARACTER

“Ye might ken the style of these epistles by this time, Dinah,” said Mr. Henderson, as he walked leisurely up and down a long low-ceilinged room, and addressed himself to a piece of very faded gentility, who sat at a writing-table. “She wants to hear naething but what she likes, and, as near as may be, in her ain words too.”

“I always feel as if I was copying out the same letter every time I write,” whined out a weak, sickly voice.

“The safest thing ye could do,” replied he, gravely. “She never tires o’ reading that everybody on the estate is a fule or a scoundrel, and ye canna be far wrang when ye say the worst o’ them all. Hae ye told her aboot the burnin’ at Kyle-a-Noe?”

“Yes, I have said that you have little doubt it was malicious.”

“And hae ye said that there’s not a sixpence to be had out of the whole townland of Kiltimmon?”

“I have. I have told her that, except Miss Mary herself, nobody would venture into the barony.”

“The greater fule yerself, then,” said he, angrily. “Couldna ye see that she’ll score this as a praise o’ the young leddy’s courage? Ye maun just strike it out, ma’am, and say that the place is in open rebellion – ”

“I thought you bade me say that Miss Mary had gone down there and spoken to the people – ”

“I bade ye say,” broke he angrily in, “that Miss Mary declared no rent should be demanded o’ them in their present distress; that she threw the warrants into the fire, and vowed that if we called a sale o’ their chattels, she ‘d do the same at the castle, and give the people the proceeds.”

“You only said that she was in such a passion that she declared she ‘d be right in doing so.”

“I hae nae time for hair-splitting, ma’am. I suppose if she had a right she ‘d exercise it! Put down the words as I gie them to ye! Ye hae no forgotten the conspeeracy?”

“I gave it exactly as you told me, and I copied out the two paragraphs in the papers about it, beginning, ‘Great scandal,’ and ‘If our landed gentry expect – ‘”

“That’s right; and ye hae added the private history of Joan? They ‘ll make a fine thing o’ that on the trial, showing the chosen associate o’ a young leddy to hae been naething better than – Ech! what are ye blubberin’ aboot, – is it yer feelin’s agen? Ech! ma’am, ye are too sentimental for a plain man like me!”

This rude speech was called up by a smothering effort to conceal emotion, which would not be repressed, but burst forth in a violent fit of sobbing.

“I know you didn’t mean it. I know you were not thinking – ”

“If ye canna keep your ain counsel, ye must just pay the cost o’ it,” said he, savagely. “Finish the letter there, and let me send it to the post. I wanted ye to say a’ about the Nelligans comin’ up to visit Miss Mary, and she goin’ ower the grounds wi’ them, and sendin’ them pineapples and grapes, and how that the doctor’s girls are a’ways wi’ her, and that she takes old Catty out to drive along wi’ herself in the pony phaeton, which is condescendin’ in a way her Leddyship will no approve o’. There was mony a thing beside I had in my head, but ye hae driven them a’ clean awa’ wi’ your feelin’s!” And he gave the last word with an almost savage severity.

“Bide a wee!” cried he, as she was folding up the letter. “Ye may add that Mister Scanlan has taken to shootin’ over the preserves we were keepin’ for the Captain, and if her Leddyship does not wish to banish the woodcocks a’the-gither, she ‘d better gie an order to stop him. Young Nelli-gan had a special permission from Miss Mary hersel’ and if it was na that he canna hit a haystack at twenty yards, there ‘d no be a cock pheasant in the demesne! I think I ‘m looking at her as she reads this,” said he, with a malicious grin. “Ech, sirs, won’t her great black eyebrows meet on her forehead, and her mouth be drawn in till never a bit of a red lip be seen! Is na that a chaise I see comin’ up the road?” cried he, suddenly. “Look yonder!”

“I thought I saw something pass,” said she, trying to strain her eyes through the tears that now rose to them.

“It’s a post-chaise wi’ twa trunks on the top. I wonder who’s comin’ in it?” said Henderson, as he opened the sash-door, and stood awaiting the arrival. The chaise swept rapidly round the beech copse, and drew up before the door; the postilion, dismounting, lowered the steps, and assisted a lady to alight. She threw back her veil as she stood on the ground, and Kate Henderson, somewhat jaded-looking and pale from her journey, was before her father. A slight flush – very slight – rose to his face as he beheld her, and without uttering a word he turned and re-entered the house.

“Ye are aboot to see a visitor, ma’am,” said he to his wife; and, taking his hat, passed out of the room. Meanwhile Kate watched the postboy as he untied the luggage and deposited it at her side.

“Did n’t I rowl you along well, my Lady? – ten miles in little more than an hour,” said he, pointing to his smoking cattle.

“More speed than we needed,” said she, with a melancholy smile, while she placed some silver in his hand.

“What’s this here, my Lady? It’s like one of the owld tenpenny bits,” said he, turning over and over a coin as he spoke.

“It’s French money,” said she, “and unfortunately I have got none other left me.”

“Sure they’ll give you what you want inside,” said he, pointing towards the house.

“No, no; take this. It is a crown piece, and they’ll surely change it for you in the town.” And so saying, she turned towards the door. When she made one step towards it, however, she stopped. A painful irresolution seemed to possess her; but, recovering it, she turned the handle and entered.

“We did not know you were coming; at least, he never told me,” said her stepmother, in a weak, broken voice, as she arose from her seat.

“There was no time to apprise you,” said Kate, as she walked towards the fire and leaned her arm on the chimney-piece.

“You came away suddenly, then? Had anything unpleasant – was there any reason – ”

“I had been desirous of leaving for some time back. Lady Dorothea only gave her consent on Tuesday last, – I think it was Tuesday; but my head is not very clear, for I am somewhat tired.” There was an indescribable sadness in the way these simple words were uttered and in the sigh which followed them.

“I ‘m afraid he ‘ll not be pleased at it!” said the other, timidly.

Another sigh, but still weaker than the former, was Kate’s only reply.

“And how did you leave Mr. Martin? They tell us here that his case is hopeless,” said Mrs. Henderson.

“He is very ill, indeed; the doctors give no hope of saving him. Is Miss Martin fully aware of his state?”

“Who can tell? We scarcely ever see her. You know that she never was very partial to your father, and latterly there has been a greater distance than ever between them. They differ about everything; and with that independent way he has – ”

A wide stare from Kate’s full dark eyes, an expression of astonishment, mingled with raillery, in her features, here arrested the speaker, who blushed deeply in her embarrassment.

“Go on,” said Kate, gently. “Pray continue, and let me hear what it is that his independence accomplishes.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed the other. “I see well you are not changed, Kate. You have come back with your old haughty spirit, and sure you know well, dear, that he ‘ll not bear it.”

“I ‘ll not impose any burden on his forbearance. A few days’ shelter – a week or two at furthest – will not be, perhaps, too much to ask.”

“So, then, you have a situation in view, Kate?” asked she, more eagerly.

“The world is a tolerably wide one, and I ‘m sure there is room for me somewhere, even without displacing another. But let us talk of anything else. How are the Nelligans? and Joe, what is he doing?”

“The old people are just as you left them; but Mr. Joseph is a great man now, – dines with the Lord-Lieutenant, and goes into all the grand society of Dublin.”

“Is he spoiled by his elevation?”

“Your father thinks him haughtier than he used to be; but many say that he is exactly what he always was. Mrs. Nelligan comes up frequently to the cottage now, and dines with Miss Martin. I ‘m sure I don’t know how my Lady would like to see her there.”

“She is not very likely,” said Kate, dryly.

“Why not?”

“I mean, that nothing is less probable than Lady Dorothea’s return here.”

“I suppose not!” half sighed Mrs. Henderson, for hers was one of those sorrowful temperaments that extract only the bitter from the cup of life. In reality, she had little reason to wish for Lady Dorothea’s presence, but still she could make a “very good grievance” out of her absence, and find it a fitting theme for regret. “What reason do you mean to give for your coming home, Kate, if he should ask you?” inquired she, after a pause.

“That I felt dissatisfied with my place,” replied Kate, coldly.

“And we were always saying what a piece of good luck it was for you to be there! Miss Mary told Mrs. Nelligan – it was only the other day – that her uncle could n’t live without you, – that you nursed him, and read to him, and what not; and as to her Ladyship, that she never took a drive in the carriage, or answered a note, without asking your advice first.”

“What a profound impression Miss Martin must have received of my talents for intrigue!” said Kate, sneeringly.

“I believe not. I think she said something very kind and good-natured, just as if it was only people who had really very great gifts that could condescend to make themselves subservient without humiliation. I know she said ‘without humiliation,’ because your father laughed when he heard of it, and remarked, ‘If it’s Kate’s humility they like, they are assuredly thankful for small mercies!”