About twelve o’clock the same night, Lord Kilcullen and Mat Tierney were playing billiards, and were just finishing their last game: the bed-candles were lighted ready for them, and Tierney was on the point of making the final hazard.
‘So you’re determined to go tomorrow, Mat?’ said Kilcullen.
‘Oh, yes, I’ll go tomorrow: your mother’ll take me for a second Paddy Rea, else,’ said Mat.
‘Who the deuce was Paddy Rea?’
‘Didn’t you ever hear of Paddy Rea? Michael French of Glare Abbey he’s dead now, but he was alive enough at the time I’m telling you of, and kept the best house in county Clare well, he was coming down on the Limerick coach, and met a deuced pleasant, good-looking, talkative sort of a fellow a-top of it. They dined and got a tumbler of punch together at Roscrea; and when French got down at Bird Hill, he told his acquaintance that if he ever found himself anywhere near Ennis, he’d be glad to see him at Glare Abbey. He was a hospitable sort of a fellow, and had got into a kind of way of saying the same thing to everybody, without meaning anything except to be civil just as I’d wish a man good morning. Well, French thought no more about the man, whose name he didn’t even know; but about a fortnight afterwards, a hack car from Ennis made its appearance at Glare Abbey, and the talkative traveller, and a small portmanteau, had soon found their way into the hail. French was a good deal annoyed, for he had some fashionables in the house, but he couldn’t turn the man out; so he asked his name, and introduced Paddy Rea to the company. How long do you think he stayed at Glare Abbey?’
‘Heaven only knows! Three months.’
‘Seventeen years!’ said Mat. ‘They did everything to turn him out, and couldn’t do it. It killed old French; and at last his son pulled the house down, and Paddy Rea went then, because there wasn’t a roof to cover him. Now I don’t want to drive your father to pull down this house, so I’ll go tomorrow.’
‘The place is so ugly, that if you could make him do so, it would be an advantage; but I’m afraid the plan wouldn’t succeed, so I won’t press you. But if you go, I shan’t remain long. If it was to save my life and theirs, I can’t get up small talk for the rector and his curate.’
‘Well, good night,’ said Mat; and the two turned off towards their bed-rooms.
As they passed from the billiard-room through the hall, Lord Cashel shuffled out of his room, in his slippers and dressing-gown.
‘Kilcullen,’ said he, with a great deal of unconcerned good humour affected in his tone, ‘just give me one moment I’ve a word to say to you. Goodnight, Mr Tierney, goodnight; I’m sorry to hear we’re to lose you tomorrow.’
Lord Kilcullen shrugged his shoulders, winked at his friend and then turned round and followed his father.
‘It’s only one word, Kilcullen,’ said the father, who was afraid of angering or irritating his son, now that he thought he was in so fair a way to obtain the heiress and her fortune. ‘I’ll not detain you half a minute;’ and then he said in a whisper, ‘take my advice, Kilcullen, and strike when the iron’s hot.’
‘I don’t quite understand you, my lord,’ said his son, affecting ignorance of his father’s meaning.
‘I mean, you can’t stand better than you do with Fanny:— you’ve certainly played your cards admirably, and she’s a charming girl, a very charming girl, and I long to know that she’s your own. Take my advice and ask her at once.’
‘My lord,’ said the dutiful son, ‘if I’m to carry on this affair, I must he allowed to do it in my own way. You, I dare say, have more experience than I can boast, and if you choose to make the proposal yourself to Miss Wyndham on my behalf, I shall be delighted to leave the matter in your hands; but in that case, I shall choose to be absent from Grey Abbey. If you wish me to do it, you must let me do it when I please and how I please.’
‘Oh, certainly, certainly, Kilcullen,’ said the earl; ‘I only want to point out that I think you’ll gain nothing by delay.’
‘Very well, my lord. Good night.’ And Lord Kilcullen went to bed, and the father shuffled back to his study. He had had three different letters that day from Lord Kilcullen’s creditors, all threatening immediate arrest unless he would make himself responsible for his son’s debts. No wonder that he was in a hurry, poor man!
And Lord Kilcullen, though he had spoken so coolly on the subject, and had snubbed his father, was equally in a hurry. He also received letters, and threats, and warnings, and understood, even better than his father did, the perils which awaited him. He knew that he couldn’t remain at Grey Abbey another week; that in a day or two it wouldn’t be safe for him to leave the house; and that his only chance was at once to obtain the promise of his cousin’s hand, and then betake himself to some place of security, till he could make her fortune available.
When Fanny came into the breakfast-room next morning, he asked her to walk with him in the demesne after breakfast. During the whole of the previous evening she had sat silent and alone, pretending to read, although he had made two or three efforts to engage her in conversation. She could not, however, refuse to walk with him, nor could she quite forgive herself for wishing to do so. She felt that her sudden attachment for him was damped by what had passed between her and Lady Selina; but she knew, at the same time, that she was very unreasonable for quarrelling with one cousin for what another had said. She accepted his invitation, and shortly after breakfast went upstairs to get ready. It was a fine, bright, April morning, though the air was cold, and the ground somewhat damp; so she put on her boa and strong boots, and sallied forth with Lord Kilcullen; not exactly in a good humour, but still feeling that she could not justly be out of humour with him. At the same moment, Lady Selina knocked at her father’s door, with the intention of explaining to him how impossible it was that Fanny should be persuaded to marry her brother. Poor Lord Cashel his life, at that time, was certainly not a happy one.
The two cousins walked some way, nearly in silence. Fanny felt very little inclined to talk, and even Kilcullen, with all his knowledge of womankind with all his assurance, had some difficulty in commencing what he had to get said and done that morning.
‘So Grey Abbey will once more sink into its accustomed dullness,’ said he. ‘Cokely went, yesterday, and Tierney and the Ellisons go today. Don’t you dread it, Fanny?’
‘Oh, I’m used to it: besides, I’m one of the component elements of the dullness, you know. I’m a portion of the thing itself: it’s you that must feel it.’
‘I feel it? I suppose I shall. But, as I told you before, the physic to me was not nearly so nauseous as the sugar. I’m at any rate glad to get rid of such sweetmeats as the bishop and Mrs Ellison;’ and they were both silent again for a while.
‘But you’re not a portion of the heaviness of Grey Abbey, Fanny,’ said he, referring to what she had said. ‘You’re not an element of its dullness. I don’t say this in flattery I trust nothing so vile as flattery will ever take place between us; but you know yourself that. your nature is intended for other things; that you were not born to pass your life in such a house as this, without society, without excitement, without something to fill your mind. Fanny, you can’t be happy here, at Grey Abbey.’
Happy! thought Fanny to herself. No, indeed, I’m not happy! She didn’t say so, however; and Kilcullen, after a little while, went on speaking.
‘I’m sure you can’t be comfortable here. You don’t feel it, I dare say, so intolerable as I do; but still you have been out enough, enough in the world, to feel strongly the everlasting do-nothingness of this horrid place. I wonder what possesses my father, that he does not go to London for your sake if for no one else’s. It’s not just of him to coop you up here.’
‘Indeed it is, Adolphus,’ said she. ‘You mistake my character. I’m not at all anxious for London parties and gaiety. Stupid as you may think me, I’m quite as well contented to stay here as I should be to go to London.’
‘Do you mean me to believe,’ said Kilcullen, with a gentle laugh, ‘that you are contented to live and die in single blessedness at Grey Abbey? that your ambition does not soar higher than the interchange of worsted-work patterns with Miss O’Joscelyn?’
‘I did not say so, Adolphus.’
‘What is your ambition then? what kind and style of life would you choose to live? Come, Fanny, I wish I could get you to talk with me about yourself. I wish I could teach you to believe how anxious I am that your future life should be happy and contented, and at the same time splendid and noble, as it should be. I’m sure you must have ambition. I have studied Lavater well enough to know that such a head and face as yours never belonged to a mind that could satisfy itself with worsted-work.’
‘You are very severe on the poor worsted-work.’
‘But am I not in the right?’
‘Decidedly not. Lavater, and my head and face, have misled you.’
‘Nonsense, Fanny. Do you mean to tell me that you have no aspiration for a kind of life different from this you are leading? If so, I am much disappointed in you; much, very much astray in my judgment of your character.’ Then he walked on a few yards, looking on the ground, and said, ‘Come, Fanny, I am talking very earnestly to you, and you answer me only in joke. You don’t think me impertinent, do you, to talk about yourself?’
‘Impertinent, Adolphus of course I don’t.’
‘Why won’t you talk to me then, in the spirit in which I am talking to you? If you knew, Fanny, how interested I am about you, how anxious that you should be happy, how confidently I look forward to the distinguished position I expect you to fill if you could guess how proud I mean to be of you, when you are the cynosure of all eyes the admired of all admirers admired not more for your beauty than your talent if I could make you believe, Fanny, how much I expect from you, and how fully I trust that, my expectations will be realised, you would not, at any rate, answer me lightly.’
‘Adolphus,’ said Fanny, ‘I thought there was to be no flattering between us?’
‘And do you think I would flatter you? Do you think I would stoop to flatter you? Oh! Fanny, you don’t understand me yet; you don’t at all understand, how thoroughly from the heart I’m speaking how much in earnest I am; and, so far from flattering you, I am quite as anxious to find fault with you as I am to praise you, could I feel that I had liberty to do so.’
‘Pray do,’ said Fanny: ‘anything but flattery; for a friend never flatters.’
But Kilcullen had intended to flatter his fair cousin, and he had been successful. She was gratified and pleased by his warmth of affection. ‘Pray do,’ repeated Fanny; ‘I have more faults than virtues to be told of, and so I’m afraid you’ll find out, when you know me better.’
‘To begin, then,’ said Kilcullen, ‘are you not wrong but no, Fanny, I will not torment you now with a catalogue of faults. I did not ask you to come out with me for that object. You are now in grief for the death of poor Harry’ Fanny blushed as she reflected how much more poignant a sorrow weighed upon her heart ‘and are therefore unable to exert yourself; but, as soon as you are able when you have recovered from this severe blow, I trust you will not be content to loiter and dawdle away your existence at Grey Abbey.’
‘Not the whole of it,’ said Fanny.
‘None of it,’ replied her cousin. ‘Every month, every day, should have its purpose. My father has got into a dull, heartless, apathetic mode of life, which suits my mother and Selina, but which will never suit you. Grey Abbey is like the Dead Sea, of which the waters are always bitter as well as stagnant. It makes me miserable, dearest Fanny, to see you stifled in such a pool. Your beauty, talents, and energies your disposition to enjoy life, and power of making it enjoyable for others, are all thrown away. Oh, Fanny, if I could rescue you from this!’
‘You are inventing imaginary evils,’ said she; ‘at any rate they are not palpable to my eyes.’
‘That’s it; that’s just what I fear,’ said the other, ‘that time, habit, and endurance may teach you to think that nothing further is to be looked for in this world than vegetation at Grey Abbey, or some other place of the kind, to which you may be transplanted. I want to wake you from such a torpor; to save you from such ignominy. I wish to restore you to the world.’
‘There’s time enough, Adolphus; you’ll see me yet the gayest of the gay at Almack’s.’
‘Ah! but to please me, Fanny, it must be as one of the leaders, not one of the led.’
‘Oh, that’ll be in years to come: in twenty years’ time; when I come forth glorious in a jewelled turban, and yards upon yards of yellow satin fat, fair, and forty. I’ve certainly no ambition to be one of the leaders yet.’
Lord Kilcullen walked on silent for a considerable time, during which Fanny went on talking about London, Almack’s, and the miserable life of lady patronesses, till at last she also became silent, and began thinking of Lord Ballindine. She had, some little time since, fully made up her mind to open her heart to Lord Kilcullen about him, and she had as fully determined not to do so after what Selina had said upon the subject; but now she again wavered. His manner was so kind and affectionate, his interest in her future happiness appeared to be so true and unaffected: at any rate he would not speak harshly or cruelly to her, if she convinced him how completely her happiness depended on her being reconciled to Lord Ballindine. She had all but brought herself to the point; she had almost determined to tell him everything, when he stopped rather abruptly, and said,
‘I also am leaving Grey Abbey again, Fanny.’
‘Leaving Grey Abbey?’ said Fanny. ‘You told me the other day you were going to live here,’
‘So I intended; so I do intend; but still I must leave it for a while. I’m going about business, and I don’t know how long I may he away. I go on Saturday.’
‘I hope, Adolphus, you haven’t quarrelled with your father,’ said she.
‘Oh, no,’ said he: ‘it is on his advice that I am going. I believe there is no fear of our quarrelling now. I should rather say I trust there is none. He not. only approves of my going, but approves of what I am about to do before I go.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I had not intended, Fanny, to say what I have to say to you for some time, for I feel that different circumstances make it premature. But I cannot bring myself to leave you without doing so;’ and again he paused and walked on a little way in silence ‘and yet,’ he continued, ‘I hardly know how to utter what I wish to say; or rather what I would wish to have said, were it not that I dread so much the answer you may make me. Stop, Fanny, stop a moment; the seat is quite dry; sit down one moment.’
Fanny sat down in a little alcove which. they had reached, considerably embarrassed and surprised. She had not, however, the most remote idea of what he was about to say to her. Had any other man in the world, almost, spoken to her in the same language, she would have expected an offer; but from the way in which she had always regarded her cousin, both heretofore, when she hardly knew him, and now, when she was on such affectionate terms with him, she would as soon have thought of receiving an offer from Lord Cashel as from his son.
‘Fanny,’ he said,’ I told you before that I have my father’s warmest and most entire approval for what I am now going to do. Should I be successful in what I ask, he will be delighted; but I have no words to tell you what my own feelings will be. Fanny, dearest Fanny,’ and he sat down close beside her ‘I love you better and how much better, than all the world holds beside. Dearest, dearest Fanny, will you, can you, return my love?’
‘Adolphus,’ said Fanny, rising suddenly from her seat, more for the sake of turning round so as to look at him, than with the object of getting from him, Adolphus, you are joking with me.’
‘No, by heavens then,’ said he, following her, and catching her hand; ‘no man in Ireland is this moment more in earnest: no man more anxiously, painfully in earnest. Oh, Fanny! why should you suppose that I am not so? How can you think I would joke on such a subject? No: hear me,’ he said, interrupting her, as she prepared to answer him, ‘hear me out, and then you will know how truly I am in earnest.’
‘No, not a word further!’ almost shrieked Fanny ‘— Not a word more, Adolphus not a syllable; at any rate till you have heard me. Oh, you have made me so miserable!’ and Fanny burst into tears.
‘I have spoken too suddenly to you, Fanny; I should have given you more time I should have waited till ’
‘No, no, no,’ said Fanny, ‘it is not that but yes; what you say is true: had you waited but one hour but ten minutes I should have told you that which would for ever have prevented all this. I should have told you, Adolphus, how dearly, how unutterably I love another.’ And Fanny again sat down, hid her face in her handkerchief against the corner of the summer-house, and sobbed and cried as though she were broken-hearted: during which time Kilcullen stood by, rather perplexed as to what he was to say next, and beginning to be very doubtful as to his ultimate success.
‘Dear Fanny!’ he said, ‘for both our sakes, pray try to be collected: all my future happiness is at this moment at stake. I did not bring you here to listen to what I have told you, without having become too painfully sure that your hand, your heart, your love, are necessary to my happiness. All my hopes are now at stake; but I would not, if I could, secure my own happiness at the expense of yours. Pray believe me, Fanny, when I say that I love you completely, unalterably, devotedly: it is necessary now for my own sake that I should say as much as that. Having told you so much of my own heart, let me hear what you wish to tell me of yours. Oh, that I might have the most distant gleam of hope, that it would ever return the love which fills my own!’
‘It cannot, Adolphus it never can,’ said she, still trying to hide her tears. ‘Oh, why should this bitter misery have been added!’ She then rose quickly from her seat, wiped her eyes, and, pushing back her hair, continued, ‘I will no longer continue to live such a life as I have done miserable to myself, and the cause of misery to others. Adolphus I love Lord Ballindine. I love him with, I believe, as true and devoted a love as woman ever felt for a man. I valued, appreciated, gloried in your friendship; but I can never return your, love. My heart is wholly, utterly, given away; and I would not for worlds receive it back, till I learn from his own mouth that he has ceased to love me.’
‘Oh, Fanny! my poor Fanny!’ said Kilcullen; ‘if such is the case, you are really to be pitied. If this be true, your condition is nearly as unhappy as my own.,
‘I am unhappy, very unhappy in your love,’ said Fanny, drawing herself up proudly; ‘but not unhappy in my own. My misery is that I should be the cause of trouble and unhappiness to others. I have nothing to regret in my own choice.’
‘You are harsh, Fanny. It may be well that you should be decided, but it cannot become you also to be unfeeling. I have offered to you all that a man can offer; my name, my fortune, my life, my heart; though you may refuse me, you have no right to be offended with me.’
‘Oh, Adolphus!’ said she, now in her turn offering him her hand: ‘pray forgive me: pray do not be angry. Heaven knows I feel no offence: and how strongly, how sincerely, I feel the compliment you have offered me. But I want you to see how vain it would be in me to leave you leave you in any doubt. I only spoke as I did to show you I could not think twice, when my heart was given to one whom I so entirely love, respect and approve.’ Lord Kilcullen’s face became thoughtful, and his brow grew black: he stood for some time irresolute what to say or do.
‘Let us walk on, Fanny, for this is cold and damp,’ he said, at last.
‘Let us go back to the house, then.’
‘As you like, Fanny. Oh, how painful all this is! how doubly painful to know that ray own love is hopeless, and that yours is no less so. Did you not refuse Lord Ballindine?’
‘If I did, is it not sufficient that I tell you I love him? If he were gone past all redemption, you would not have me encourage you while I love another?’
‘I never dreamed of this! What, Fanny, what are your hopes? what is it you wish or intend? Supposing me, as I wish I were, fathoms deep below the earth, what would you do? You cannot marry Lord Ballindine.’
‘Then I will marry no one,’ said Fanny, striving hard to suppress her tears, and barely succeeding.
‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Kilcullen; ‘what an infatuation is this!’ and then again he walked on silent a little way. ‘Have you told any one of this, Fanny? do they know of it at Grey Abbey? Come, Fanny, speak to me: forget, if you will, that I would be your lover: remember me only as your cousin and your friend, and speak to me openly. Do they know that you have repented of the refusal you gave Lord Ballindine?’
‘They all know that I love him: your father, your mother, and Selina.’
‘You don’t say my father?’
‘Yes,’ said Fanny, stopping on the path, and speaking with energy, as she confronted her cousin. ‘Yes, Lord Cashel. He, above all others, knows it. I have told him so almost on my knees. I have implored him, as a child may implore her father, to bring back to me the only man I ever loved. I have besought him not to sacrifice me. Oh! how I have implored him to spare me the dreadful punishment of my own folly wretchedness rather in rejecting the man I loved. But he has not listened to me; he will never listen to me, and I will never ask again. He shall find that I am not a tree or a stone, to be planted or placed as he chooses. I will not again be subjected to what I have today suffered, I will not — I will not —’ But Fanny was out of breath; and could not complete the catalogue of what she would not do.
‘And did you intend to tell me all this, had I not spoken to you as I have done?’ said Kilcullen.
‘I did,’ said she. ‘I was on the point of telling you everything: twice I had intended to do so. I intended to implore you, as you loved me as your cousin, to use your exertions to reconcile my uncle and Lord Ballindine and now instead of that ’
‘You find I love you too well myself?’
‘Oh, forget, Adolphus, forget that the words ever passed your lips. You have not loved me long, and therefore will not continue to love me, when you know I never can be yours: forget your short-lived love; won’t you, Adolphus?’ and she put her clasped hands upon his breast ‘forget, let us both forget that the words were ever spoken. Be still my cousin, my friend, my brother; and we shall still both be happy.’
Different feelings were disturbing Lord Kilcullen’s breast different from each other, and some of them very different from those which usually found a place there. He had sought Fanny’s hand not only with most sordid, but also with most dishonest views: he not only intended to marry her for her fortune, but also to rob her of her money; to defraud her, that he might enable himself once more to enter the world of pleasure, with the slight encumbrance of a wretched wife. But, in carrying out his plan, he had disturbed it by his own weakness: he had absolutely allowed himself to fall in love with his cousin; and when, as he had just done, he offered her his hand, he was quite as anxious that she should accept him for her own sake as for that of her money. He had taught himself to believe that she would accept him, and many misgivings had haunted him as to the ruined state to which he should bring her as his wife. But these feelings, though strong enough to disturb him, were not strong enough to make him pause: he tried to persuade himself that he could yet make her happy, and hurried on to the consummation of his hopes. He now felt strongly tempted to act a generous part; to give her up, and to bring Lord Ballindine back to her feet; to deserve at any rate well of her, and leave all other things to chance. But Lord Kilcullen was not accustomed to make such sacrifices: he had never learned to disregard himself; and again and again he turned it over in his mind ‘how could he get her fortune? was there any way left in which he might be successful?’
‘This is child’s play, Fanny,’ he said. ‘You may reject me: to that I have nothing further to say, for I am but an indifferent wooer; but you can never marry Lord Ballindine.’
‘Oh, Adolphus, for mercy’s sake don’t say so!’
‘But I do say so, Fanny. God knows, not to wound you, or for any unworthy purpose, but because it is so. He was your lover, and you sent him away; you cannot whistle him back as you would a dog.’
Fanny made no answer to this, but walked on towards the house, anxious to find herself alone in her own room, that she might compose her mind and think over all that she had heard and said; nor did Lord Kilcullen renew the conversation till he got to the house. He could not determine what to do. Under other circumstances it might, he felt, have been wise for him to wait till time had weakened Fanny’s regret for her lost lover; but in his case this was impracticable; if he waited anywhere it would be in the Queen’s Bench. And yet, he could not but feel that, at present, it was hopeless for him to push his suit.
They reached the steps together, and as he opened the front door, Fanny turned round to wish him good morning, as she was hurrying in; but he stopped her, and said,
‘One word more, Fanny, before we part. You must not refuse me; nor must we part in this way. Step in here; I will not keep you a minute;’ and he took her into a room off the hall ‘do not let us be children; Fanny; do not let us deceive each other, or ourselves: do not let us persist in being irrational if we ourselves see that we are so;’ and he paused for a reply.
‘Well, Adolphus?’ was all she said.
‘If I could avoid it,’ continued he, ‘I would not hurt your feelings; but you must see, you must know, that you cannot marry Lord Ballindine.’ Fanny, who was now sitting, bit her lips and clenched her hands, but she said nothing; ‘If this is so if you feel that so far your fate is fixed, are you mad enough to give yourself up to a vain and wicked passion for wicked it will be? Will you not rather strive to forget him who has forgotten you?’
‘That is not true,’ interposed Fanny.
‘His conduct, unfortunately, proves that it is too true,’ continued Kilcullen. ‘He has forgotten you, and you cannot blame him that he should do so, now that you have rejected him; but he neglected you even before you did so. Is it wise, is it decorous, is it maidenly in you, to indulge any longer in so vain a passion? Think of this, Fanny. As to myself, Heaven knows with what perfect truth, with what true love, I offered you, this morning, all that a man can offer: how ardently I hoped for an answer different from that you have now given me. You cannot give me your heart now; love cannot, at a moment, be transferred. But think, Fanny, think whether it is not better for you to accept an offer which your friends will all approve, and which I trust will never make you unhappy, than to give yourself up to a lasting regret, to tears, misery, and grief.’
‘And would you take my hand without my heart?’ said she.
‘Not for worlds,’ replied the other, ‘were I not certain that your heart would follow your hand. Whoever may be your husband, you will love him. But ask my mother, talk to her, ask her advice; she at any rate will only tell you that which must be best for your own happiness. Go to her, Fanny; if her advice be different from mine, I will not say a word farther to urge my suit.’
‘I will go to no one,’ said Fanny, rising. ‘I have gone to too many with a piteous story on my lips. I have no friend, now, in this house. I had still hoped to find one in you, but that hope is over. I am, of course, proud of the honour your declaration has conveyed; but I should be wicked indeed if I did not make you perfectly understand that it is one which I cannot accept. Whatever may be your views, your ideas, I will never marry unless I thoroughly love, and feel that I am thoroughly loved by my future husband. Had you not made this ill-timed declaration had you not even persisted in repeating it after I had opened my whole heart to you, I could have loved and cherished you as a brother; under no circumstances could I ever have accepted you as a husband. Good morning.’ And she left him alone, feeling that he could have but little chance of success, should he again renew the attempt.
He did not see her again till dinner-time, when she appeared silent and reserved, but still collected and at her ease; nor did he speak to her at dinner or during the evening, till the moment the ladies were retiring for the night. He then came up to her as she was standing alone turning over some things on a side-table, and said, ‘Fanny, I probably leave Grey Abbey tomorrow. I will say good bye to you tonight.’
‘Good bye, Adolphus; may we both be happier when next we meet,’ said she.
‘My happiness, I fear, is doubtful: but I will not speak of that now. If I can do anything for yours before I go, I will. Fanny, I will ask my father to invite Lord Ballindine here. He has been anxious that we should be married: when I tell him that that is impossible, he may perhaps be induced to do so.’
‘Do that,’ said Fanny, ‘and you will be a friend to me. Do that, and you will be more than a brother to me.’
‘I will; and in doing so I shall crush every hope that I have had left in me.’
‘Do not say so, Adolphus: do not ’
‘You’ll understand what I mean in a short time. I cannot explain everything to you now. But this will I do; I will make Lord Cashel understand that we never can be more to each other than we are now, and I will advise him to seek a reconciliation with Lord Ballindine. And now, good bye,’ and he held out his hand.
‘But I shall see you tomorrow.’
‘Probably not; and if you do, it will be but for a moment, when I shall have other adieux to make.’
‘Good bye, then, Adolphus; and may God bless you; and may we yet live to have many happy days together,’ and she shook hands with him, and went to her room.
Lord Cashel’s plans were certainly not lucky. It was not that sufficient care was not used in laying them, nor sufficient caution displayed in maturing them. He passed his time in care and caution; he spared no pains in seeing that the whole machinery was right; he was indefatigable in deliberation, diligent in manoeuvring, constant in attention. But, somehow, he was unlucky; his schemes were never successful. In the present instance he was peculiarly unfortunate, for everything went wrong with him. He had got rid of an obnoxious lover, he had coaxed over his son, he had spent an immensity of money, he had undergone worlds of trouble and self-restraint; and then, when he really began to think that his ward’s fortune would compensate him for this, his own family came to him, one after another, to assure him that he was completely mistaken that it was utterly impossible that such a thing as a family marriage between the two cousins could never take place, and indeed, ought not to be thought of.
Lady Selina gave him the first check. On the morning on which Lord Kilcullen made his offer, she paid her father a solemn visit in his book-room, and told him exactly what she had before told her mother; assured him that Fanny could not be induced, at any rate at present, to receive her cousin as her lover; whispered to him, with unfeigned sorrow and shame, that Fanny was still madly in love with Lord Ballindine; and begged him to induce her brother to postpone his offer, at any rate for some months.
‘I hate Lord Ballindine’s very name,’ said the earl, petulant with irritation.
‘We none of us approve of him, papa: we don’t think of supposing that he could now be a fitting husband for Fanny, or that they could possibly ever be married. Of course it’s not to bethought of. But if you would advise Adolphus not to be premature, he might, in the end, be more successful.’
‘Kilcullen has made his own bed and he must lie in it; I won’t interfere between them,’ said the angry father.
‘But if you were, only to recommend delay,’ suggested the daughter; ‘a few months’ delay; think how short a time Harry Wyndham has been dead!’
Lord Cashel knew that delay was death in this case, so he pished, and hummed, and hawed; quite lost the dignity on which he piqued himself, and ended by declaring that he would not interfere; that they might do as they liked; that young people would not be guided, and that he would not make himself unhappy about them. And so, Lady Selina, crestfallen and disappointed, went away.
Then, Lady Cashel, reflecting on what her daughter had told her, and yet anxious that the marriage should, if possible, take place at some time or other, sent Griffiths down to her lord, with a message ‘Would his lordship be kind enough to step up-stairs to her ladyship?’ Lord Cashel went up, and again had all the difficulties of the case opened out before him.
‘But you see,’ said her ladyship, ‘poor Fanny she’s become so unreasonable I don’t know what’s come to her I’m sure I do everything I can to make her happy: but I suppose if she don’t like to marry, nobody can make her.’
‘Make her? who’s talking of making her?’ said the earl.
‘No, of course not,’ continued the countess; ‘that’s just what Selina says; no one can make her do anything, she’s got so obstinate, of late: but it’s all that horrid Lord Ballindine, and those odious horses. I’m sure I don’t know what business gentlemen have to have horses at all; there’s never any good comes of it. There’s Adolphus he’s had the good sense to get rid of his, and yet Fanny’s so foolish, she’d sooner have that other horrid man and I’m sure he’s not half so good-looking, nor a quarter so agreeable as Adolphus.’
All these encomiums on his son, and animadversions on Lord Ballindine, were not calculated to put the earl into a good humour; he was heartily sick of the subject; thoroughly repented that he had not allowed his son to ruin himself in his own way; detested the very name of Lord Ballindine, and felt no very strong affection for his poor innocent ward. He accordingly made his wife nearly the same answer he had made his daughter, and left her anything but comforted by the visit.
It was about eleven o’clock on the same evening, that Lord Kilcullen, after parting with Fanny, opened the book-room door. He had been quite sincere in what he had told her. He had made up his mind entirely to give over all hopes of marrying her himself, and to tell his father that the field was again open for Lord Ballindine, as far as he was concerned.
There is no doubt that he would not have been noble enough to do this, had he thought he had himself any chance of being successful; but still there was something chivalrous in his resolve, something magnanimous in his determination to do all he could for the happiness of her he really loved, when everything in his own prospects was gloomy, dark, and desperate. As he entered his father’s room, feeling that it would probably be very long before he should be closeted with him again, he determined that he would not quietly bear reproaches, and even felt a source of satisfaction in the prospect of telling his father that their joint plans were overturned their schemes completely at an end.
‘I’m disturbing you, my lord, I’m afraid,’ said the son, walking into the room, not at all with the manner of one who had any hesitation at causing the disturbance.
‘Who’s that?’ said the earl ‘Adolphus? no yes. That is, I’m just going to bed; what is it you want?’ The earl had been dozing after all the vexations of the day.
‘To tell the truth, my lord, I’ve a good deal that I wish to say: will it trouble you to listen to me?’
‘Won’t tomorrow morning do?’
‘I shall leave Grey Abbey early tomorrow, my lord; immediately after breakfast.’
‘Good heavens, Kilcullen! what do you mean? You’re not going to run off to London again?’
‘A little farther than that, I’m afraid, will be necessary,’ said the son. ‘I have offered to Miss Wyndham have been refused and, having finished my business at Grey Abbey, your lordship will probably think that in leaving it I shall be acting with discretion.’
‘You have offered to Fanny and been refused!’
‘Indeed I have; finally and peremptorily refused. Not only that: I have pledged my word to my cousin that I will never renew my suit.’
The earl sat speechless in his chair so much worse was this catastrophe even than his expectations. Lord Kilcullen continued.
‘I hope, at any rate, you are satisfied with me. I have not only implicitly obeyed your directions, but I have done everything in my power to accomplish what you wished. Had my marriage with my cousin been a project of my own, I could not have done more for its accomplishment. Miss Wyndham’s affections are engaged; and she will never, I am sure, marry one man while she loves another.’
‘Loves another psha!’ roared the earl. ‘Is this to be the end of it all? After your promises to me after your engagement! After such an engagement, sir, you come to me and talk about a girl loving another? Loving another! Will her loving another pay your debts?’
‘Exactly the reverse, my lord,’ said the son. ‘I fear it will materially postpone their payment.’
‘Well, sir,’ said the earl. He did not exactly know how to commence the thunder of indignation with which he intended to annihilate his son, for certainly Kilcullen had done the best in his power to complete the bargain. But still the storm could not be stayed, unreasonable as it might be for the earl to be tempestuous on the occasion. ‘Well, sir,’ and he stood up from his chair, to face his victim, who was still standing and, thrusting his hands into his trowsers’ pockets, frowned awfully ‘Well, sir; am I to be any further favoured with your plans?’
‘I have none, my lord,’ said Kilcullen; ‘I am again ready to listen to yours.’
‘My plans? I have no further plans to offer for you. You are ruined, utterly ruined: you have done your best to ruin me and your mother; I have pointed out to you, I arranged for you, the only way in which your affairs could be redeemed; I made every thing easy for you.’
‘No, my lord: you could not make it easy for me to get my cousin’s love.’
‘Don’t contradict me, sir. I say I did. I made every thing straight and easy for you: and now you come to me with a whining story about a girl’s love! What’s her love to me, sir? Where am I to get my thirty thousand pounds, sir? and my note of hand is passed for as much more, at this time twelve-month! Where am I to raise that, sir? Do you remember that you have engaged to repay me these sums? do you remember that, or have such trifles escaped your recollection?’
‘I remember perfectly well, my lord, that if I married my cousin, you were to repay yourself those sums out of her fortune. But I also remember, and so must you, that I beforehand warned you that I thought she would refuse me.’
‘Refuse you,’ said the earl, with a contortion of his nose and lips intended to convey unutterable scorn; ‘of course she refused you, when you asked her as a child would ask for an apple, or a cake! What else could you expect?’
‘I hardly think your lordship knows ’
‘Don’t you hardly think? then I do know; and know well too. I know you have deceived me, grossly deceived me induced me to give you money to incur debts, with which I never would have burdened myself had I not believed you were sincere in your promise. But you have deceived me, sir taken me in; for by heaven it’s no better! it’s no better than downright swindling and that from a son to his father! But it’s for the last time; not a penny more do you get from me: you can ruin the property; indeed, I believe you have; but, for your mother’s and sister’s sake, I’ll keep till I die what little you have left me.’
Lord Cashel had worked himself up into a perfect frenzy, and was stamping about the room as he uttered this speech; but, as he came to the end of it, he threw himself into his chair again, and buried his face in his hands.
Lord Kilcullen was standing with his back resting against the mantel-piece, with a look of feigned indifference on his face, which he tried hard to maintain. But his brow became clouded, and he bit his lips when his father accused him of swindling; and he was just about to break forth into a torrent of recrimination, when Lord Cashel turned off into a pathetic strain, and Kilcullen thought it better to leave him there.
‘What I’m to do, I don’t know; what I am to do, I do not know!’ said the earl, beating the table with one hand, and hiding his face with the other. ‘Sixty thousand pounds in one year; and that after so many drains! And there’s only my own life there’s only my own life!’ and then there was a pause for four or five minutes, during which Lord Kilcullen took snuff, poked the fire, and then picked up a newspaper, as though he were going to read it. This last was too much for the father, and he again roared out, ‘Well, sir, what are you standing there for? If you’ve nothing else to say; why don’t you go? I’ve done with you you can not get more out of me, I promise you!’
‘I’ve a good deal to say before I go, my lord,’ said Kilcullen. ‘I was waiting till you were disposed to listen to me. I’ve a good deal to say, indeed, which you must hear; and I trust, therefore, you will endeavour to be cool, whatever your opinions may be about my conduct.’
‘Cool? no, sir, I will not be cool. You’re too cool yourself!’
‘Cool enough for both, you think, my lord.’
‘Kilcullen,’ said the earl, ‘you’ve neither heart nor principle: you have done your worst to ruin me, and now you come to insult me in my own room. Say what you want to say, and then leave me.’
‘As to insulting language, my lord, I think you need not complain, when you remember that you have just called me a swindler, because I have been unable to accomplish your wish and my own, by marrying my cousin. However, I will let that pass. I have done the best I could to gain that object. I did more than either of us thought it possible that I should do, when I consented to attempt it. I offered her my hand, and assured her of my affection, without falsehood or hypocrisy. My bargain was that I should offer to her. I have done more than that, for I have loved her. I have, however, been refused, and in such a manner as to convince me that it would be useless for me to renew my suit. If your lordship will allow me to advise you on such a subject, I would suggest that you make no further objection to Fanny’s union with Lord Ballindine. For marry him she certainly will.’
‘What, sir?’ again shouted Lord Cashel.
‘I trust Fanny will receive no further annoyance on the subject. She has convinced me that her own mind is thoroughly made up; and she is not the person to change her mind on such a subject.’
‘And haven’t you enough on hand in your own troubles, but what you must lecture me about my ward? Is it for that you have come to torment me at this hour? Had not you better at once become her guardian yourself, sir, and manage the matter in your own way?’
‘I promised Fanny I would say as much to you. I will not again mention her name unless you press me to do so.’
‘That’s very kind,’ said the earl.
‘And now, about myself. I think your lordship will agree with me that it is better that I should at once leave Grey Abbey, when I tell you that, if I remain here, I shall certainly be arrested before the week is over, if I am found outside the house. I do not wish to have bailiffs knocking at your lordship’s door, and your servants instructed to deny me.’
‘Upon my soul, you are too good.’
‘At any rate,’ said Kilcullen, ‘you’ll agree with me that this is no place for me to remain in.’
‘You’re quite at liberty to go,’ said the earl. ‘You were never very ceremonious with regard to me; pray don’t begin to be so now. Pray go tonight if you like. Your mother’s heart will be broken, that’s all.’ ‘I trust my mother will be able to copy your lordship’s indifference.’
‘Indifference! Is sixty thousand pounds in one year, and more than double within three or four, indifference? I have paid too much to be indifferent. But it is hopeless to pay more. I have no hope for you; you are ruined, and I couldn’t redeem you even if I would. I could not set you free and tell you to begin again, even were it wise to do so; and therefore I tell you to go. And now, good night; I have not another word to say to you,’ and the earl got up as if to leave the room.
‘Stop, my lord, you must listen to me,’ said Kilcullen.
‘Not a word further. I have heard enough;’ and he put out the candles on the book-room table, having lighted a bed candle which he held in his hand.
‘Pardon me, my lord,’ continued the son, standing just before his father, so as to prevent his leaving the room; ‘pardon me, but you must listen to what I have to say.’
‘Not another word not another word. Leave the door, sir, or I will ring for the servants to open it.’
‘Do so,’ said Kilcullen, ‘and they also shall hear what I have to say. I am going to leave you tomorrow, perhaps for ever; and you will not listen to the last word I wish to speak to you?’
‘I’ll stay five minutes,’ said the earl, taking out his watch, ‘and then I’ll go; and if you attempt again to stop me, I’ll ring the bell for the servants.’
‘Thank you, my lord, for the five minutes it will be time enough. I purpose leaving Grey Abbey tomorrow, and I shall probably be in France in three days’ time. When there, I trust I shall cease to trouble you; but I cannot, indeed I will not go, without funds to last me till I can make some arrangement. Your lordship must give me five hundred pounds. I have not the means even of carrying myself from hence to Calais.’
‘Not one penny. Not one penny if it were to save you from the gaol tomorrow! This is too bad!’ and the earl again walked to the door, against which Lord Kilcullen leaned his back.
‘By Heaven, sir, I’ll raise the house if you think to frighten me by violence!’
‘I’ll use no violence, but you must hear the alternative: if you please it, the whole house shall hear it too. If you persist in refusing the small sum I now ask ’
‘I will not give you one penny to save you from gaol. Is that plain?’
‘Perfectly plain, and very easy to believe. But you will give more than a penny; you would even give more than I ask, to save yourself from the annoyance you will have to undergo.’
‘Not on any account will I give you one single farthing.’
‘Very well. Then I have only to tell you what I must do. Of course, I shall remain here. You cannot turn me out of your house, or refuse me a seat at your table.’
‘By Heavens, though, I both can and will!’
‘You cannot, my lord. if you think of it, you’ll find you cannot, without much disagreeable trouble. An eldest son would be a very difficult tenant to eject summarily: and of my own accord I will not go without the money I ask.’
‘By heavens, this exceeds all I ever heard. Would you rob your own father?’
‘I will not rob him, but I’ll remain in his house. The sheriff’s officers, doubtless, will hang about the doors, and be rather troublesome before the windows; but I shall not be the first Irish gentleman that has remained at home upon his keeping. And, like other Irish gentlemen, 1 will do so rather than fall into the hands of these myrmidons. I have no wish to annoy you; I shall be most sorry to do so; most sorry to subject my mother to the misery which must attend the continual attempts which will be made to arrest me; but I will not put my head into the lion’s jaw.’
‘This is the return for what I have done for him!’ ejaculated the earl, in his misery.
‘Unfortunate reprobate! unfortunate reprobate! that I should be driven to wish that he was in gaol!’
‘Your wishing so won’t put me there, my lord. If it would I should not be weak enough to ask you for this money. Do you mean to comply with my request?’
‘I do not, sir: not a penny shall you have not one farthing more shall you get from me.’
‘Then good night, my lord. I grieve that I should have to undergo a siege in your lordship’s house, more especially as it is likely to be a long one. In a week’s time there will be a ‘ne exeat’ issued against me, and then it will be too late for me to think of France.’ And so saying, the son retired to his own room, and left the father to consider what he had better do in his distress.
Lord Cashel was dreadfully embarrassed. What Lord Kilcullen said was perfectly true; an eldest son was a most difficult tenant to eject; and then, the ignominy of having his heir arrested in his own house, or detained there by bailiffs lurking round the premises! He could not determine whether it would be more painful to keep his son, or to give him up. If he did the latter, he would be driven to effect it by a most disagreeable process. He would have to assist the officers of the law in their duty, and to authorise them to force the doors locked by his son. The prospect, either way, was horrid. He would willingly give the five hundred pounds to be rid of his heir, were it not for his word’s sake, or rather his pride’s sake. He had said he would not, and, as he walked up and down the room he buttoned up his breeches pocket, and tried to resolve that, come what come might, he would not expedite his son’s departure by the outlay of one shilling.
The candles had been put out, and the gloom of the room was only lightened by a single bed-room taper, which, as it stood near the door, only served to render palpable the darkness of the further end of the chamber. For half an hour Lord Cashel walked to and fro, anxious, wretched, and in doubt, instead of going to his room. How he wished that Lord Ballindine had married his ward, and taken her off six months since! all this trouble would not then have come upon him. And as he thought of the thirty thousand pounds that he had spent, and the thirty thousand more that he must spend, he hurried on with such rapidity that in the darkness he struck his shin violently against some heavy piece of furniture, and, limping back. to the candlestick, swore through his teeth ‘No, not a penny, were it to save him from perdition! I’ll see the sheriff’s officer. I’ll see the sheriff himself, and tell him that every door in the house every closet every cellar, shall be open to him. My house shall enable no one to defy the law.’ And, with this noble resolve, to which, by the bye, the blow on his shin greatly contributed, Lord Cashel went to bed, and the house was at rest.
About nine o’clock on the following morning Lord Kilcullen was still in bed, but awake. His servant had been ordered to bring him hot water, and he was seriously thinking of getting up, and facing the troubles of the day, when a very timid knock at the door announced to him that some stranger was approaching. He adjusted his nightcap, brought the bed-clothes up close to his neck, and on giving the usual answer to a knock at the door, saw a large cap introduce itself, the head belonging to which seemed afraid to follow.
‘Who’s that?’ he called out.
‘It’s me, my lord,’ said the head, gradually following the cap. ‘Griffiths, my lord.’
‘Well?’
‘Lady Selina, my lord; her ladyship bids me give your lordship her love, and would you see her ladyship for five minutes before you get up?’
Lord Kilcullen having assented to this proposal, the cap and head retired. A second knock at the door was soon given, and Lady Selina entered the room, with a little bit of paper in her hand.
‘Good morning, Adolphus,’ said the sister.
‘Good morning, Selina,’ said the brother. ‘It must be something very particular, which brings you here at this hour.’
‘It is indeed, something very particular. I have been with papa this morning, Adolphus: he has told me of the interview between you last night.’
‘Well.’
‘Oh, Adolphus! he is very angry he’s ’
‘So am I, Selina. I am very angry, too so we’re quits. We laid a plan together, and we both failed, and each blames the other; so you need not tell me anything further about his anger. Did he send any message to me?’
‘He did. He told me I might give you this, if I would undertake that you left Grey Abbey today:’ and Lady Selina held up, hut did not give him, the bit of paper.
‘What a dolt he is.’
‘Oh, Adolphus!’ said Selina, ‘don’t speak so of your father.’ ‘So he is: how on earth can you undertake that I shall leave the house?’
‘I can ask you to give inc your word that you will do so; and I can take back the check if you refuse,’ said Lady Selina, conceiving it. utterly impossible that one of her own family could break his word.
‘Well, Selina, I’ll answer you fairly. If that bit of paper is a cheque for five hundred pounds, I will leave this place in two hours. If it is not ’
‘It is,’ said Selina. ‘It is a cheque for five hundred pounds, and I may then give it to you?’
‘I thought as much,’ said Lord Kilcullen; ‘I thought he’d alter his mind. Yes, you may give it me, and tell my father I’ll dine in London tomorrow evening.’
‘He says, Adolphus, he’ll not see you before you go.’
‘Well, there’s comfort in that, anyhow.’
‘Oh, Adolphus! how can you speak in that manner now? how can you speak in that wicked, thoughtless, reckless manner?’ said his sister.
‘Because I’m a wicked, thoughtless, reckless man, I suppose. I didn’t mean to vex you, Selina; but my father is so pompous, so absurd, and so tedious. In the whole of this affair I have endeavoured to do exactly as he would have me; and he is more angry with me now, because his plan has failed, than he ever was before, for any of my past misdoings. But let me get up now, there’s a good girl; for I’ve no time to lose.’
‘Will you see your mother before you go, Adolphus?’
‘Why, no; it’ll be no use only tormenting her. Tell her something, you know; anything that won’t vex her.’
‘But I cannot tell her anything about you that will not vex her.’
‘Well, then, say what will vex her least. Tell her tell her. Oh, you know what to tell her, and I’m sure I don’t.’
‘And Fanny: will you see her again?’
‘No,’ said Kilcullen. ‘I have bid her good bye. But give her my kindest love, and tell her that I did what I told her I would do.’
‘She told me what took place between you yesterday.’
‘Why, Selina, everybody tells you everything! And now, I’ll tell you something. If you care for your cousin’s happiness, do not attempt to raise difficulties between her and Lord Ballindine. And now, I must say good bye to you. I’ll have my breakfast up here, and go directly down to the yard. Good bye, Selina; when I’m settled I’ll write to you, and tell you where I am.’
‘Good bye, Adolphus; God bless you, and enable you yet to retrieve your course. I’m afraid it is a bad one;’ and she stooped down and kissed her brother.
He was as good as his word. In two hours’ time he had left Grey Abbey. He dined that day in Dublin, the next in London, and the third in Boulogne; and the sub-sheriff of County Kildare in vain issued half-a-dozen writs for his capture.
We will now return for a while to Dunmore, and settle the affairs of the Kellys and Lynches, which we left in rather a precarious state.
Barry’s attempt on Doctor Colligan’s virtue was very unsuccessful, for Anty continued to mend under the treatment of that uncouth but safe son of Galen. As Colligan told her brother, the fever had left her, though for some time it was doubtful whether she had strength to recover from its effects. This, however, she did gradually; and, about a fortnight after the dinner at Dunmore House, the doctor told Mrs Kelly and Martin that his patient was out of danger.
Martin had for some time made up his mind that Anty was to live for many years in the character of Mrs Martin, and could not therefore be said to be much affected by the communication. But if he was not, his mother was. She had made up her mind that Anty was to die; that she was to pay for the doctor the wake, and the funeral, and that she would have a hardship and grievance to boast of, and a subject of self-commendation to enlarge on, which would have lasted her till her death; and she consequently felt something like disappointment at being ordered to administer to Anty a mutton chop and a glass of sherry every day at one o’clock. Not that the widow was less assiduous, or less attentive to Anty’s wants now that she was convalescent; but she certainly had not so much personal satisfaction, as when she was able to speak despondingly of her patient to all her gossips.
‘Poor cratur!’ she used to say ‘it’s all up with her now; the Lord be praised for all his mercies. She’s all as one as gone, glory be to God and the Blessed Virgin. Shure no good ever come of ill-got money not that she was iver to blame. Thank the Lord, av’ I have a penny saved at all, it was honestly come by; not that I shall have when this is done and paid for, not a stifle; (stiver Mrs Kelly probably meant) but what’s that!’ and she snapped her fingers to show that the world’s gear was all dross in her estimation. ‘She shall be dacently sthretched, though she is a Lynch, and a Kelly has to pay for it. Whisper, neighbour; in two years’ time there’ll not be one penny left on another of all the dirty money Sim Lynch scraped together out of the gutthers.’
There was a degree of triumph in these lamentations, a tone of self-satisfied assurance in the truth of her melancholy predictions, which showed that the widow was not ill at ease with herself. When Anty was declared out of danger, her joy was expressed with much more moderation.
‘Yes, thin,’ she said to Father Pat Geoghegan, ‘poor thing, she’s rallying a bit. The docthor says maybe she’ll not go this time; but he’s much in dread of a re-claps ’
‘Relapse, Mrs Kelly, I suppose?’
‘Well, relapse, av’ you will, Father Pat relapse or reclaps, it’s pretty much the same I’m thinking; for she’d niver get through another bout. God send we may be well out of the hobble this day twelvemonth. Martin’s my own son, and ain’t above industhrying, as his father and mother did afore him, and I won’t say a word agin him; but he’s brought more throuble on me with them Lynches than iver I knew before. What has a lone woman like me, Father Pat, to do wid sthrangers like them? jist to turn their backs on me when I ain’t no furder use, and to be gitting the hights of insolence and abuse, as I did from that blagguard Barry. He’d betther keep his toe in his pump and go asy, or he’ll wake to a sore morning yet, some day.’
Doctor Colligan, also, was in trouble from his connection with the Lynches: not that he had any dissatisfaction at the recovery of his patient, for he rejoiced at it, both on her account and his own. He had strongly that feeling of self-applause, which must always be enjoyed by a doctor who brings a patient safely through a dangerous illness. But Barry’s iniquitous proposal to him weighed heavy on his conscience. It was now a week since it had been made, and he had spoken of it to no one. He had thought much and frequently of what he ought to do; whether he should publicly charge Lynch with the fact; whether he should tell it confidentially to some friend whom he could trust; or whether by far the easiest alternative, he should keep it in his own bosom, and avoid the man in future as he would an incarnation of the devil. It preyed much upon his spirits, for lie lived in fear of Barry Lynch in fear lest he should determine to have the first word, and, in his own defence, accuse him (Colligan) of the very iniquity which he had himself committed. Nothing, the doctor felt, would be too bad or too false for Barry Lynch; nothing could be more damnable than the proposal he had made; and yet it would be impossible to convict him, impossible to punish him. He would, of course, deny the truth of the accusation, and probably return the charge on his accuser. And yet Colligan felt that he would be compromising the matter, if he did not mention it to some one; and that he would outrage his own feelings if he did not express his horror at the murder which he had been asked to commit.
For one week these feelings quite destroyed poor Colligan’s peace of mind; during the second, he determined to make a clean breast of it; and, on the first day of the third week, after turning in his mind twenty different people Martin Kelly young Daly the widow the parish priest the parish parson the nearest stipendiary magistrate and a brother doctor in Tuam, he at last determined on going to Lord Ballindine, as being both a magistrate and a friend of the Kellys. Doctor Colligan himself was not at all acquainted with Lord Ballindine: he attended none of the family, who extensively patronised his rival, and he had never been inside Kelly’s Court house. He felt, therefore, considerable embarrassment at his mission; but he made up his mind to go, and, manfully setting himself in his antique rickety gig, started early enough, to catch Lord Ballindine, as he thought, before he left the house after breakfast.
Lord Ballindine had spent the last week or ten days restlessly enough. Armstrong, his clerical ambassador, had not yet started on his mission to Grey Abbey, and innumerable difficulties seemed to arise to prevent his doing so. First of all, the black cloth was to be purchased, and a tailor, sufficiently adept for making up the new suit, was to be caught. This was a work of some time; for though there is in the West of Ireland a very general complaint of the stagnation of trade, trade itself is never so stagnant as are the tradesmen, when work, is to be done; and it is useless for a poor wight to think of getting his coat or his boots, till such time as absolute want shall have driven the artisan to look for the price of his job unless some private and underhand influence be used, as was done in the case of Jerry Blake’s new leather breeches.
This cause of delay was, however, not mentioned to Lord Ballindine; but when it was well got over, and a neighbouring parson procured to preach on the next Sunday to Mrs O’Kelly and the three policemen who attended Ballindine Church, Mrs Armstrong broke her thumb with the rolling-pin while making a beef pudding for the family dinner, and her husband’s departure was again retarded. And then, on the next Sunday, the neighbouring parson could not leave his own policemen, and the two spinsters, who usually formed his audience.
All this tormented Lord Ballindine. and he was really thinking of giving up the idea of sending Mr Armstrong altogether, when he received the following letter from his friend Dot Blake.
Limmer’s Hotel. April, 1847.
Dear Frank,
One cries out, ‘what are you at?’ the other, ‘what are you after?’ Every one is saying what a fool you are! Kilcullen is at Grey Abbey, with the evident intention of superseding you in possession of Miss W, and, what is much more to his taste, as it would be to mine, of her fortune. Mr T. has written to me from Grey Abbey, where he has been staying: he is a good-hearted fellow, and remembers how warmly you contradicted the report that your match was broken off. For heaven’s sake, follow up your warmth of denial with some show of positive action, a little less cool than your present quiescence, or you cannot expect that any amount of love should be strong enough to prevent your affianced from resenting your conduct. I am doubly anxious; quite as anxious that Kilcullen, whom I detest, should not get young Wyndham’s money, as I am that you should. He is utterly, utterly smashed. If he got double the amount of Fanny Wyndham’s cash, it could not keep him above water for more than a year or so; and then she must go down with him. I am sure the old fool, his father, does not half know the amount of his son’s liabilities, or he could not be heartless enough to consent to sacrifice the poor girl as she will be sacrificed, if Kilcullen gets her. I am not usually very anxious about other people’s concerns; but I do feel anxious about this matter. I want to have a respectable house in the country, in which I can show my face when I grow a little older, and be allowed to sip my glass of claret, and talk about my horses, in spite of my iniquitous propensities and I expect to be allowed to do so at Kelly’s Court. But, if you let Miss Wyndham slip through your fingers, you won’t have a house over your head in a few years’ time, much less a shelter to offer a friend. For God’s sake, start for Grey Abbey at once. Why, man alive, the ogre can’t eat you!
The whole town is in the devil of a ferment about Brien. Of course you heard the rumour, last week, of his heels being cracked? Some of the knowing boys want to get out of the trap they are in; and, despairing of bringing the horse down in the betting by fair means, got a boy out of Scott’s stables to swear to the fact. I went down at once to Yorkshire, and published a letter in Bell’s Life last Saturday, stating that he is all right. This you have probably seen. You will be astonished to hear it, but I believe Lord Tattenham Corner got the report spread. For heaven’s sake don’t mention this, particularly not as coining from me. They say that if Brien does the trick, he will lose more than he has made these three years, and I believe he will, lie is nominally at 4 to 1; but you can’t get 4 to anything like a figure from a safe party. For heaven’s sake go to Grey Abbey, and at once.
Always faithfully, W. BLAKE.
This letter naturally increased Lord Ballindine’s uneasiness, and he wrote a note to Mr Armstrong, informing him that he would not trouble him to go at all, unless he could start the next day. Indeed, that he should then go himself, if Mr Armstrong did not do so.
This did not suit Mr Armstrong. He had made up his mind to go; he could not well return the twenty pounds he had received, nor did he wish to forego the advantage which might arise from the trip. So he told his wife to be very careful about her thumb, made up his mind to leave the three policemen for once without spiritual food, and wrote to Lord Ballindine to say that he would be with him the next morning, immediately after breakfast, on his road to catch the mail-coach at Ballyglass.
He was as good as his word, or rather better; for he breakfasted at Kelly’s Court, and induced Lord Ballindine to get into his own gig, and drive him as far as the mail-coach road.
‘But you’ll be four or five hours too soon,’ said Frank; ‘the coach doesn’t pass Ballyglass till three.’
‘I want to see those cattle of Rutledge’s. I’ll stay there, and maybe get a bit of luncheon; it’s not a bad thing to be provided for the road.’
‘I’ll tell you what, though,’ said Frank. ‘I want to go to Tuam, so you might as well get the coach there; and if there’s time to spare, you can pay your respects to the bishop.’
It was all the same to Mr Armstrong, and the two therefore started for Tuam together. They had not, however, got above half way down the avenue, when they saw another gig coming towards them; and, after sundry speculations as to whom it might contain, Mr Armstrong pronounced the driver to be ‘that dirty gallipot, Colligan.’
It was Colligan; and, as the two gigs met in the narrow road, the dirty gallipot took off his hat, and was very sorry to trouble Lord Ballindine, but had a few words to say to him on very important and pressing business.
Lord Ballindine touched his hat, and intimated that he was ready to listen, but gave no signs of getting out of his gig.
‘My lord,’ said Colligan, ‘it’s particularly important, and if you could, as a magistrate, spare me five minutes.’
‘Oh, certainly, Mr Colligan,’ said Frank; ‘that is, I’m rather hurried I may say very much hurried just at present. But still I suppose there’s no objection to Mr Armstrong hearing what you have to say?’
‘Why, my lord,’ said Colligan, ‘I don’t know. Your lordship can judge yourself afterwards; but I’d rather ’
‘Oh, I’ll get down,’ said the parson. ‘I’ll just take a walk among the trees: I suppose the doctor won’t be long?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind getting into my buggy, and letting me into his lordship’s gig, you could be following us on, Mr Armstrong,’ suggested Colligan.
This suggestion was complied with. The parson and the doctor changed places; and the latter, awkwardly enough, but with perfect truth, whispered his tale into Lord Ballindine’s ear.
At first, Frank had been annoyed at the interruption; but, as he learned the cause of it, he gave his full attention to the matter, and only interrupted the narrator by exclamations of horror and disgust.
When Doctor Colligan had finished, Lord Ballindine insisted on repeating the whole affair to Mr Armstrong. ‘I could not take upon myself,’ said he, ‘to advise you what to do; much less to tell you what you should do. There is only one thing clear; you cannot let things rest as they are. Armstrong is a man of the world, and will know what to do; you cannot object to talking the matter over with him.’
Colligan consented: and Armstrong, having been summoned, drove the doctor’s buggy up alongside of Lord Ballindine’s gig.
‘Armstrong,’ said Frank, ‘I have just heard the most horrid story that ever came to my ears. That wretch, Barry Lynch, has tried to induce Doctor Colligan to poison his sister!’
‘What!’ shouted Armstrong; ‘to poison his sister?’
‘Gently, Mr Armstrong; pray don’t speak so loud, or it’ll be all through the country in no time.’
‘Poison his sister!’ repeated Armstrong. ‘Oh, it’ll hang him! There’s no doubt it’ll hang him! Of course you’ll take the doctor’s information?’
‘But the doctor hasn’t tendered me any information,’ said Frank, stopping his horse, so that Armstrong was able to get close up to his elbow.
‘But I presume it is his intention to do so?’ said the parson.
‘I should choose to have another magistrate present then,’ said Frank. ‘Really, Doctor Colligan, I think the best thing you can do is to come before myself and the stipendiary magistrate at Tuam. We shall be sure to find Brew at home today.’
‘But, my lord,’ said Colligan, ‘I really had no intention of doing that. I have no witnesses. I can prove nothing. Indeed, I can’t say he ever asked me to do the deed: he didn’t say anything I could charge him with as a crime: he only offered me the farm if his sister should die. But I knew what he meant; there was no mistaking it: I saw it in his eye.’
‘And what did you do, Doctor Colligan, at the time?’ said the parson.
‘I hardly remember,’ said the doctor; ‘I was so flurried. But I know I knocked him down, and then I rushed out of the room. I believe I threatened I’d have him hung.’
‘But you did knock him down?’
‘Oh, I did. He was sprawling on the ground when I left him.’
‘You’re quite sure you knocked him down?’ repeated the parson.
‘The divil a doubt on earth about that!’ replied Colligan. ‘I tell you, when I left the room he was on his back among the chairs.’
‘And you did not hear a word from him since?’
‘Not a word.’
‘Then there can’t be any mistake about it, my lord,’ said Armstrong. ‘If he did not feel that his life was in the doctor’s hands, he would not put up with being knocked down. And I’ll tell you what’s more if you tax him with the murder, he’ll deny it and defy you; but tax him with having been knocked down, and he’ll swear his foot slipped, or that he’d have done as much for the doctor if he hadn’t run away. And then ask him why the doctor knocked him down? you’ll have him on the hip so.’
‘There’s something in that,’ said Frank; ‘but the question is, what is Doctor Colligan to do? He says he can’t swear any information on which a magistrate could commit him.’
‘Unless he does, my lord,’ said Armstrong, ‘I don’t think you should listen to him at. all; at least, not as a magistrate.’
‘Well, Doctor Colligan, what do you say?’
‘I don’t know what to say, my lord. I came to your lordship for advice, both as a magistrate and as a friend of the young man who is to marry Lynch’s sister. Of course, if you cannot advise me, I will go away again.’
‘You won’t come before me and Mr Brew, then?’
‘I don’t say I won’t,’ said Colligan; ‘but I don’t see the use. I’m not able to prove anything.’ ‘I’ll tell you what, Ballindine,’ said the parson; ‘only I don’t know whether it mayn’t he tampering with justice suppose we were to go to this hell-hound, you and I together, and, telling him what we know, give him his option to stand his trial or quit the country? Take my word for it, he’d go; and that would be the best way to be rid of him. He’d leave his sister in peace and quiet then, to enjoy her fortune.’
‘That’s true,’ said Frank; ‘and it would be a great thing to rid the country of him. Do you remember the way he rode a-top of that poor bitch of mine the other day Goneaway, you know; the best bitch in the pack?’
‘Indeed I do,’ said the parson; ‘but for all that, she wasn’t the best bitch in the pack: she hadn’t half the nose of Gaylass.’
‘But, as I was saying, Armstrong, it would be a great thing to rid the country of Barry Lynch.’
‘Indeed it would.’
‘And there’d be nothing then to prevent young Kelly marrying Anty at once.’
‘Make him give his consent in writing before you let him go,’ said Armstrong.
‘I’ll tell you what, Doctor Colligan,’ said Frank; ‘do you get into your own gig, and follow us on, and I’ll talk the matter over with Mr Armstrong.’
The doctor again returned to his buggy, and the parson to his own seat, and Lord Ballindine drove off at a pace which made it difficult enough for Doctor Colligan to keep him in sight.
‘I don’t know how far we can trust that apothecary,’ said Frank to his friend.
‘He’s an honest man, I believe,’ said Armstrong, ‘though he’s a dirty, drunken blackguard.’
‘Maybe he was drunk this evening, at Lynch’s?’
‘I was wrong to call him a drunkard. I believe he doesn’t get drunk, though he’s always drinking. But you may take my word for it, what he’s telling you now is as true as gospel. If he was telling a lie from malice, he’d be louder, and more urgent about it: you see he’s half afraid to speak, as it is. He would not have come near you at all, only his conscience makes him afraid to keep the matter to himself. You may take my word for it, Ballindine, Barry Lynch did propose to him to murder his sister. Indeed, it doesn’t surprise me. He is so utterly worthless.’
‘But murder, Armstrong! downright murder; of the worst kind; studied premeditated. He must have been thinking of it, and planning it, for days. A man may be worthless, and yet not such a wretch as that would make him. Can you really think he meant Colligan to murder his sister?’
‘I can, and do think so,’ said the parson. ‘The temptation was great: he had been waiting for his sister’s death; and he could not bring himself to bear disappointment. I do not think he could do it with his own hand, for he is a coward; but I can quite believe that he could instigate another person to do it.’
‘Then I’d hang him. I wouldn’t raise my hand to save him from the rope!’
‘Nor would I: but we can’t hang him. We can do nothing to him, if he defies us; but, if he’s well handled, we can drive him from the country.’
The lord and the parson talked the matter over till they reached Dunmore, and agreed that they would go, with Colligan, to Barry Lynch; tell him of the charge which was brought against him, and give him his option of standing his trial, or of leaving the country, under a written promise that he would never return to it. In this case, he was also to write a note to Anty, signifying his consent that she should marry Martin Kelly, and also execute some deed by which all control over the property should be taken out of his own hands; and that he should agree to receive his income, whatever it might be, through the hands of an agent.
There were sundry matters connected with the subject, which were rather difficult of arrangement. In the, first place, Frank was obliged, very unwillingly, to consent that Mr Armstrong should remain, at any rate one day longer, in the country. It was, however, at last settled that he should return that night and sleep at Kelly’s Court. Then Lord Ballindine insisted that they should tell young Kelly what they were about, before they went to Barry’s house, as it would be necessary to consult him as to the disposition he would wish to have made of the property. Armstrong was strongly against this measure but it was, at last, decided on; and then they had to induce Colligan to go with them. He much wished them to manage the business without him. He had had quite enough of Dunmore House; and, in spite of the valiant manner in which he had knocked its owner down the last time he was there, seemed now quite afraid to face him. But Mr Armstrong informed him that he must go on now, as he had said so much, and at last frightened him into an unwilling compliance.
The three of them went up into the little parlour of the inn, and summoned Martin to the conference, and various were the conjectures made by the family as to the nature of the business which brought three such persons to the inn together. But the widow settled them all by asserting that ‘a Kelly needn’t be afeared, thank God, to see his own landlord in his own house, nor though he brought an attorney wid him as well as a parson and a docther.’ And so, Martin was sent for, and soon heard the horrid story. Not long after he had joined them, the four sallied out together, and Meg remarked that something very bad was going to happen, for the lord never passed her before without a kind word or a nod; and now he took no more notice of her than if it had been only Sally herself that met him on the stairs.
Poor Martin was dreadfully shocked; and not only shocked, but grieved and astonished. He had never thought well of his intended brother-inlaw, but he had not judged him so severely as Mr Armstrong had done. He listened to all Lord Ballindine said to him, and agreed as to the propriety of the measures he proposed. But there was nothing of elation about him at the downfall of the man whom he could not but look on as his enemy: indeed, he was not only subdued and modest in his demeanour, but he appeared so reserved that he could hardly be got to express any interest in the steps which were to be taken respecting the property. It was only when Lord Ballindine pointed out to him that it was his duty to guard Anty’s interests, that he would consent to go to Dunmore House with them, and to state, when called upon to do so, what measures he would wish to have adopted with regard to the property.
‘Suppose he denies himself to us?’ said Frank, as the four walked across the street together, to the great astonishment of the whole population.
‘If he’s in the house, I’ll go bail we won’t go away without seeing him,’ said the parson. ‘Will he be at home, Kelly, do you think?’
‘Indeed he will, Mr Armstrong,’ said Martin; ‘he’ll be in bed and asleep. He’s never out of bed, I believe, much before one or two in the day. It’s a bad life he’s leading since the ould man died.’
‘You may say that,’ said the doctor ‘cursing and drinking; drinking and cursing; nothing else. You’ll find him curse at you dreadful, Mr Armstrong, I’m afraid.’
‘I can bear that, doctor; it’s part of my own trade, you know; but I think we’ll find him quiet enough. I think you’ll find the difficulty is to make him speak at all. You’d better be spokesman, my lord, as you’re a magistrate.’
‘No, Armstrong, I will not. You’re much more able, and more fitting: if it’s necessary for me to act as a magistrate, I’ll do so but at first we’ll leave him to you.’
‘Very well,’ said the parson; ‘and I’ll do my best. But I’ll tell you what I am afraid of: if we find him in bed we must wait for him, and when the servant tells him who we are, and mentions the doctor’s name along with yours, my lord, he’ll guess what we’re come about, and he’ll be out of the window, or into the cellar, and then there’d be no catching him without the police. We must make our way up into his bed-room.’
‘I don’t think we could well do that,’ said the doctor.
‘No, Armstrong,’ said Lord Ballindine. ‘I don’t think we ought to force ourselves upstairs: we might as well tell all the servants what we’d come about.’
‘And so we must,’ said Armstrong, ‘if it’s necessary. The more determined we are in fact, the rougher we are with him, the more likely we are to bring him on his knees. I tell you, you must have no scruples in dealing with such a fellow; but leave him to me;’ and so saying, the parson gave a thundering rap at the hail door, and in about one minute repeated it, which brought Biddy running to the door without shoes or stockings, with her hair streaming behind her head, and, in her hand, the comb with which she had been disentangling it.
‘Is your master at home?’ said Armstrong.
‘Begorra, he is,’ said the girl out of breath. ‘That is, he’s not up yet, nor awake, yer honer,’ and she held the door in her hand, as though this answer was final.
‘But I want to see him on especial and immediate business,’ said the parson, pushing back the door and the girl together, and walking into the hall. ‘I must see him at once. Mr Lynch will excuse me: we’ve known each other a long time.’
‘Begorra, I don’t know,’ said the girl, ‘only he’s in bed and fast. Couldn’t yer honer call agin about four or five o’clock? That’s the time the masther’s most fittest to be talking to the likes of yer honer.’
‘These gentlemen could not wait,’ said the parson.
‘Shure the docther there, and Mr Martin, knows well enough I’m not telling you a bit of a lie, Misther Armstrong,’ said the girl.
‘I know you’re not, my good girl; I know you’re not telling a lie but, nevertheless, I must see Mr Lynch. Just step up and wake him, and tell him I’m waiting to say two words to him.’
‘Faix, yer honer, he’s very bitther intirely, when he’s waked this early. But in course I’ll be led by yer honers. I’ll say then, that the lord, and Parson Armstrong, and the docther, and Mr Martin, is waiting to spake two words to him. Is that it?’
‘That’ll do as well as anything,’ said Armstrong; and then, when the girl went upstairs, he continued, ‘You see she knew us all, and of course will tell him who we are; but I’ll not let him escape, for I’ll go up with her,’ and, as the girl slowly opened her master’s bedroom door, Mr Armstrong stood close outside it in the passage.
After considerable efforts, Biddy succeeded in awaking her master sufficiently to make him understand that Lord Ballindine, and Doctor Colligan were downstairs, and that Parson Armstrong was just outside the bedroom door. The poor girl tried hard to communicate her tidings in such a whisper as would be inaudible to the parson; but this was impossible, for Barry only swore at her, and asked her ‘what the d she meant by jabbering there in that manner?’ When, however, he did comprehend who his visitors were, and where they were, he gnashed his teeth and clenched his fist at the poor girl, in sign of his anger against her for having admitted so unwelcome a party; but he was too frightened to speak.
Mr Armstrong soon put an end to this dumb show, by walking into the bedroom, when the girl escaped, and he shut the door. Barry sat up in his bed, rubbed his eyes, and stared at him, but he said nothing.
‘Mr Lynch,’ said the parson, ‘I had better at once explain the circumstances which have induced me to make so very strange a visit.’
‘Confounded strange, I must say! to come up to a man’s room in this way, and him in bed!’ ‘Doctor Colligan is downstairs ’
‘D Doctor Colligan! He’s at his lies again, I suppose? Much I care for Doctor Colligan.’
‘Doctor Colligan is downstairs,’ continued Mr Armstrong, ‘and Lord Ballindine, who, you are aware, is a magistrate. They wish to speak to you, Mr Lynch, and that at once.’
‘I suppose they can wait till a man’s dressed?’
‘That depends on how long you’re dressing, Mr Lynch.’
‘Upon my word, this is cool enough, in a man’s own house!’ said Barry. ‘Well, you don’t expect me to get up while you’re there, I suppose?’
‘Indeed I do, Mr Lynch: never mind me; just wash and dress yourself as though I wasn’t here. I’ll wait here till we go down together.’
‘I’m d d if I do,’ said Barry. ‘I’ll not stir while you remain there!’ and he threw himself back in the bed, and wrapped the bedclothes round him.
‘Very well,’ said Mr Armstrong; and then going out on to the landing-place, called out over the banisters ‘Doctor Doctor Colligan! tell his lordship Mr Lynch objects to a private interview: he had better just step down to the Court-house, and issue his warrant. You might as well tell Constable Nelligan to be in the way.’
‘D n!’ exclaimed Barry, sitting bolt upright in his bed. ‘Who says I object to see anybody? Mr Armstrong, what do you go and say that for?’ Mr Armstrong returned into the room. ‘It’s not true. I only want to have my bedroom to myself, while I get up.’
‘For once in the way, Mr Lynch, you must manage to get up although your privacy be intruded on. To tell you the plain truth, I will not leave you till you come downstairs with me, unless it be in the custody of a policeman. If you will quietly dress and come downstairs with me, I trust we may be saved the necessity of troubling the police at all.’ Barry, at last, gave way, and, gradually extricating himself from the bedclothes, put his feet down on the floor, and remained sitting on the side of his bed. He leaned his head down on his hands, and groaned inwardly; for he was very sick, and the fumes of last night’s punch still disturbed his brain. His stockings and drawers were on; for Terry, when he put him to bed, considered it only waste of time to pull them off, for ‘shure wouldn’t they have jist to go on agin the next morning?’
‘Don’t be particular, Mr Lynch: never mind washing or shaving till we’re gone. We won’t keep you long, I hope.’
‘You’re very kind, I must say,’ said Barry. ‘I suppose you won’t object to my having a bottle of soda water?’ and he gave a terrible tug at the bell.
‘Not at all nor a glass of brandy in it, if you like it. Indeed, Mr Lynch, I think that, just at present, it will be the better thing for you.’
Barry got his bottle of soda water, and swallowed about two glasses of whiskey in it, for brandy was beginning to be scarce with him; and then commenced his toilet. He took Parson Armstrong’s hint, and wasn’t very particular about it. He huddled on his clothes, smoothed his hair with his brush, and muttering something about it’s being their own fault, descended into the parlour, followed by Mr Armstrong. He made a kind of bow to Lord Ballindine; took no notice of Martin, but, turning round sharp on the doctor, said:
‘Of all the false ruffians, I ever met, Colligan by heavens, you’re the worst! There’s one comfort, no man in Dunmore will believe a word you say.’ He then threw himself back into the easy chair, and said, ‘Well, gentlemen well, my lord here I am. You can’t say I’m ashamed to show my face, though I must say your visit is not made in the genteelest manner.’
‘Mr Lynch,’ said the parson, ‘do you remember the night Doctor Colligan knocked, you down in this room? In this room, wasn’t it, doctor?’
‘Yes; in this room,’ said the doctor, rather sotto voce.
‘Do you remember the circumstance, Mr Lynch?’ ‘It’s a lie!’ said Barry.
‘No it’s not,’ said the parson. ‘If you forget it, I can call in the servant to remember so much as that for me; but you’ll find it better, Mr Lynch, to let us finish this business among ourselves. Come, think about it. I’m sure you remember being knocked down by the doctor.’
‘I remember a scrimmage there was between us. I don’t care what the girl says, she didn’t see it. Colligan, I suppose, has given her half-a-crown, and she’d swear anything for that.’
‘Well, you remember the night of the scrimmage?’
‘I do: Colligan got drunk here one night. He wanted me to give him a farm, and said cursed queer things about my sister. I hardly know what he said; but I know I had to turn him out of the house, and there was a scrimmage between us.’
‘I see you’re so far prepared, Mr Lynch: now, I’ll tell you my version of the story. Martin Kelly, just see that the door is shut. You endeavoured to bribe Doctor Colligan to murder your own sister.’
‘It’s a most infernal lie!’ said Barry. ‘Where’s your evidence? where’s your evidence? What’s the good of your all coming here with such a story as that? Where’s your evidence?’
‘You’d better be quiet, Mr Lynch, or we’ll adjourn at once from here to the open Court-house.’
‘Adjourn when you like; it’s all one to me. Who’ll believe such a drunken ruffian as that Colligan, I’d like to know? Such a story as that!’
‘My lord,’ said Armstrong, ‘I’m afraid we must go on with this business at the Court-house. Martin, I believe I must trouble you to go down to the police barrack.’ And the whole party, except Barry, rose from their seats.
‘What the devil are you going to drag me down to the Court-house for, gentlemen?’ said he. ‘I’ll give you any satisfaction, but you can’t expect I’ll own to such a lie as this about my sister. I suppose my word’s as good as Colligan’s, gentlemen? I suppose my character as a Protestant gentleman stands higher than his a dirty Papist apothecary. He tells one story; I tell another; only he’s got the first word of me, that’s all. I suppose, gentlemen, I’m not to be condemned on the word of such a man as that?’
‘I think, Mr Lynch,’ said Armstrong, ‘if you’ll listen to me, you’ll save yourself and us a great deal of trouble. You asked me who my witness was: my witness is in this house. I would not charge you with so horrid, so damnable a crime, had I not thoroughly convinced myself you were guilty now, do hold your tongue, Mr Lynch, or I will have you down to the Court-house. We all know you are guilty, you know it yourself ’
‘I’m —’ began Barry.
‘Stop, Mr Lynch; not one word till I’ve done; or what I have to say, shall be said in public. We all know you are guilty, but we probably mayn’t be able to prove it ’
‘No, I should think not!’ shouted Barry.
‘We mayn’t be able to prove it in such a way as to enable a jury to hang you, or, upon my word, I wouldn’t interfere to prevent it: the law should have its course. I’d hang you with as little respite as I would a dog.’
Barry grinned horribly at this suggestion, but said nothing, and the parson continued:
‘It is not the want of evidence that stands in the way of so desirable a proceeding, but that Doctor Colligan, thoroughly disgusted and shocked at the iniquity of your proposal ’
‘Oh, go on, Mr Armstrong! go on; I see you are determined to have it all your own way, but my turn’ll come soon.’
‘I say that Doctor Colligan interrupted you before you fully committed yourself.’
‘Fully committed myself, indeed! Why, Colligan knows well enough, that when he got up in such a fluster, there’d not been a word at all said about Anty.’
‘Hadn’t there, Mr Lynch? just now you said you turned the doctor out of your house for speaking about your sister. You’re only committing yourself. I say, therefore, the evidence, though quite strong enough to put you into the dock as a murderer in intention, might not be sufficient to induce a jury to find you guilty. But guilty you would be esteemed in. the mind of every man, woman, and child in this county: guilty of the wilful, deliberate murder of your own sister.’
‘By heavens I’ll not stand this!’ exclaimed Barry. ‘I’ll not stand this! I didn’t do it, Mr Armstrong. I didn’t do it. He’s a liar, Lord Ballindine: upon my sacred word and honour as a gentleman, he’s a liar. Why do you believe him, when you won’t believe me? Ain’t I a Protestant, Mr Armstrong, and ain’t you a Protestant clergyman? Don’t you know that such men as he will tell any lie; will do any dirty job? On my sacred word of honour as a gentleman, Lord Ballindine, he offered to poison Anty, on condition he got the farm round the house for nothing! He knows it’s true, and why should you believe him sooner than me, Mr Armstrong?’
Barry had got up from his seat, and was walking up and down the room, now standing opposite Lord Ballindine, and appealing to him, and then doing the same thing to Mr Armstrong. He was a horrid figure: he had no collar round his neck, and his handkerchief was put on in such a way as to look like a hangman’s knot: his face was blotched, and red, and greasy, for he had neither shaved nor washed himself since his last night’s debauch; he had neither waistcoat nor braces on, and his trousers fell on his hips; his long hair hung over his eyes, which were bleared and bloodshot; he was suffering dreadfully from terror, and an intense anxiety to shift the guilt from himself to Doctor Colligan. He was a most pitiable object so wretched, so unmanned, so low in the scale of creation. Lord Ballindine did pity his misery, and suggested to Mr Armstrong whether by any possibility there could be any mistake in the matter whether it was possible Doctor Colligan could have mistaken Lynch’s object? The poor wretch jumped at this loop-hole, and doubly condemned himself by doing so.
‘He did, then,’ said Barry; ‘he must have done so. As I hope for heaven, Lord Ballindine, I never had the idea of getting him to to do anything to Anty. I wouldn’t have done it for worlds indeed I wouldn’t. There must be some mistake, indeed there must. He’d been drinking, Mr Armstrong drinking a good deal that night isn’t that true, Doctor Colligan? Come, man, speak the truth don’t go and try and hang a fellow out of mistake! His lordship sees it’s all a mistake, and of course he’s the best able to judge of the lot here; a magistrate, and a nobleman and all. I know you won’t see me wronged, Lord Ballindine, I know you won’t. I give you my sacred word of honour as a gentleman, it all came from mistake when we were both drunk, or nearly drunk. Come, Doctor Colligan, speak man isn’t that the truth? I tell you, Mr Armstrong, Lord Ballindine’s in the right of it. There is some mistake in all this.’
‘As sure as the Lord’s in heaven,’ said the doctor, now becoming a little uneasy at the idea that Lord Ballindine should think he had told so strange a story without proper foundation ‘as sure as the Lord’s in heaven, he offered me the farm for a reward, should I manage to prevent his sister’s recovery.’
‘What do you think, Mr Armstrong?’ said Lord Ballindine.
‘Think!’ said the parson ‘There’s no possibility of thinking at all. The truth becomes clearer every moment. Why, you wretched creature, it’s not ten minutes since you yourself accused Doctor Colligan of offering to murder your sister! According to your own showing, therefore, there was a deliberate conversation between you; and your own evasion now would prove which of you were the murderer, were any additional proof wanted. But it is not. Barry Lynch, as sure as you now stand in the presence of your Creator, whose name you so constantly blaspheme, you endeavoured to instigate that man to murder your own sister.’
‘Oh, Lord Ballindine! oh, Lord Ballindine!’ shrieked Barry, in his agony, ‘don’t desert me! pray, pray don’t desert me! I didn’t do it I never thought of doing it. We were at school together, weren’t we? And you won’t see me put upon this way. You mayn’t think much of me in other things, but you won’t believe that a school-fellow of your own ever — ever — ever —’ Barry couldn’t bring himself to use the words with which his sentence should be finished, and so he flung himself back into his armchair and burst into tears.
‘You appeal to me, Mr Lynch,’ said Lord Ballindine, ‘and I must say I most firmly believe you to be guilty. My only doubt is whether you should not at once be committed for trial at the next assizes.’
‘Oh, my G!’ exclaimed Barry, and for some time he continued blaspheming most horribly swearing that there was a conspiracy against him accusing Mr Armstrong, in the most bitter terms, of joining with Doctor Colligan and Martin Kelly to rob and murder him.
‘Now, Mr Lynch,’ continued the parson, as soon as the unfortunate man would listen to him, ‘as I before told you, I am in doubt we are all in doubt whether or not a jury would hang you; and we think that we shall do more good to the community by getting you out of the way, than by letting you loose again after a trial which will only serve to let everyone know how great a wretch there is in the county. We will, therefore, give you your option either to stand your trial, or to leave the country at once and for ever.’
‘And my property? what’s to become of my property’?’ said Barry.
‘Your property’s safe, Mr Lynch; we can’t touch that. We’re not prescribing any punishment to you. We fear, indeed we know, you’re beyond the reach of the law, or we shouldn’t make the proposal.’ Barry breathed freely again as he heard this avowal. ‘But you’re not beyond the reach of public opinion of public execration of general hatred, and of a general curse. For your sister’s sake for the sake of Martin Kelly, who is going to marry the sister whom you wished to murder, and not for your own sake, you shall be allowed to leave the country without this public brand being put upon your name. If you remain, no one shall speak to you but as to a man who would have murdered his sister: murder shall be everlastingly muttered in your ears; nor will your going then avail you, for your character shall go with you, and the very blackguards with whom you delight to assort, shall avoid you as being too bad even for their society. Go now, Mr Lynch go at once; leave your sister to happiness which you cannot prevent; and she at least shall know nothing of your iniquity, and you shall enjoy the proceeds of your property anywhere you will anywhere, that is, but in Ireland. Do you agree to this?’
‘I’m an innocent man, Mr Armstrong. I am indeed.’
‘Very well,’ said the parson, ‘then we may as well go away, and leave you to your fate. Come, Lord Ballindine, we can have nothing further to say,’ and they again all rose from their seats.
‘Stop, Mr Armstrong; stop,’ said Barry.
‘Well,’ said the parson; for Barry repressed the words which were in his mouth, when he found that his visitors did stop as he desired them.
‘Well, Mr Lynch, what have you further to say.’
‘Indeed I am not guilty.’ Mr Armstrong put on his hat and rushed to the door ‘but —’ continued Barry.
‘I will have no “buts,” Mr Lynch; will you at once and unconditionally agree to the terms I have proposed?’
‘I don’t want to live in the country,’ said Barry; ‘the country’s nothing to me.’
‘You will go then, immediately?’ said the parson. ‘As soon as I have arranged about the property, I will,’ said Barry.
‘That won’t do,’ said the parson. ‘You must go at once, and leave your property to the care of others. You must leave Dunmore today, for ever.’
‘To-day!’ shouted Barry.
‘Yes, today. You can easily get as far as Roscommon. You have your own horse and car. And, what is more, before you go, you must write to your sister, telling her that you have made up your mind to leave the country, and expressing your consent to her marrying whom she pleases.’
‘I can’t go today,’ said Barry, sulkily. ‘Who’s to receive my rents? who’ll send me my money? besides besides. Oh, come that’s nonsense. I ain’t going to be turned out in that style.’
‘You ain’t in earnest, are you, about his going today?’ whispered Frank to the parson.
‘I am, and you’ll find he’ll go, too,’ said Armstrong. ‘It must be today this very day, Mr Lynch. Martin Kelly will manage for you about the property.’
‘Or you can send for Mr Daly, to meet you at Roscommon,’ suggested Martin.
‘Thank you for nothing,’ said Barry; ‘you’d better wait till you’re spoken to. I don’t know what business you have here at all.’
‘The business that all honest men have to look after all rogues,’ said Mr Armstrong. ‘Come, Mr Lynch, you’d better make up your mind to prepare for your journey.’
‘Well, I won’t and there’s an end of it,’ said Barry. ‘It’s all nonsense. You can’t do anything to me: you said so yourself. I’m not going to be made a fool of that way I’m not going to give up my property and everything.’
‘Don’t you know, Mr Lynch,’ said the parson, ‘that if you are kept in jail till April next, as will be your fate if you persist. in staying at Dunmore tonight, your creditors will do much more damage to your property, than your own immediate absence will do? If Mr Daly is your lawyer, send for him, as Martin Kelly suggests. I’m not afraid that he will recommend you. to remain in the country, even should you dare to tell him of the horrid accusation which is brought against you. But at any rate make up your mind, for if you do stay in Dunmore tonight it shall be in the Bridewell, and your next move shall be to Galway.’
Barry sat silent for a while, trying to think. The parson was like an incubus upon him, which he was totally unable to shake off. He knew neither how to resist nor how to give way. Misty ideas got into his head of escaping to his bed-room and blowing his own brains out. Different schemes of retaliation and revenge flitted before him, but he could decide on nothing. There he sat, silent, stupidly gazing at nothing, while Lord Ballindine and Mr Armstrong stood whispering over the fire.
‘I’m afraid we’re in the wrong: I really think we are,’ said Frank.
‘We must go through with it now, any way,’ said the parson. ‘Come, Mr Lynch, I will give you five minutes more, and then I go;’ and he pulled out his watch, and stood with his back to the fire, looking at it. Lord Ballindine walked to the window, and Martin Kelly and Doctor Colligan sat in distant parts of the room, with long faces, silent and solemn, breathing heavily. How long those five minutes appeared to them, and how short to Barry! The time was not long enough to enable him to come to any decision: at the end of the five minutes he was still gazing vacantly before him: he was still turning over in his brain, one after another, the same crowd of undigested schemes.
‘The time is out, Mr Lynch: will you go?’ said the parson.
‘I’ve no money,’ hoarsely croaked Barry.
‘If that’s the only difficulty, we’ll raise money for him,’ said Frank.
‘I’ll advance him money,’ said Martin.
‘Do you mean you’ve no money at all?’ said the parson.
‘Don’t you hear me say so?’ said Barry.
‘And you’ll go if you get money say ten pounds?’ said the parson.
‘Ten pounds! I can go nowhere with ten pounds. You know that well enough.’
‘I’ll give him twenty-five,’ said Martin. ‘I’m sure his sister’ll do that for him.’ ‘Say fifty,’ said Barry, ‘and I’m off at once.’ ‘I haven’t got it,’ said Martin. ‘No,’ said the parson; ‘I’ll not see you bribed to go: take the twenty-five that will last you till you make arrangements about your property. We are not going to pay you for going, Mr Lynch.’
‘You seem very anxious about it, any way.’
‘I am anxious about it,’ rejoined the parson. ‘I am anxious to save your sister from knowing what it was that her brother wished to accomplish.’
Barry scowled at him as though he would like, if possible, to try his hand at murdering him; but he did not answer him again. Arrangements were at last made for Barry’s departure, and off he went, that very day not to Roscommon, but to Tuam; and there, at the instigation of Martin, Daly the attorney took upon himself the division and temporary management of the property. From thence, with Martin’s, or rather with his sister’s twenty-five pounds in his pocket, he started to that Elysium for which he had for some time so ardently longed, and soon landed at Boulogne, regardless alike of his sister, his future brother, Lord Ballindine, or Mr Armstrong. The parson had found it quite impossible to carry out one point on which he had insisted. He could not induce Barry Lynch to write to his sister: no, not a line; not a word. Had it been to save him from hanging he could hardly have induced himself to write those common words, ‘dear sister’.
‘Oh! you can tell her what you like,’ said he. ‘It’s you’re making me go away at once in this manner. Tell her whatever confounded lies you like; tell her I’m gone because I didn’t choose to stay and see her make a fool of herself and that’s the truth, too. If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t move a step for any of you.’
He went, however, as I have before said, and troubled the people of Dunmore no longer, nor shall he again trouble us.
‘Oh! but Martin, what nonsense!’ said the widow, coaxingly to her son, that night before she went to bed. ‘The lord wouldn’t be going up there just to wish him good bye and Parson Armstrong too. What the dickens could they he at there so long? Come, Martin you’re safe with me, you know; tell us something about it now.’
‘Nonsense, mother; I’ve nothing to tell: Barry Lynch has left the place for good and all, that’s all about it.’
‘God bless the back of him, thin; he’d my lave for going long since. But you might be telling us what made him be starting this way all of a heap.’
‘Don’t you know, mother, he was head and ears in debt?’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said the widow. ‘Parson Armstrong’s not a sheriff’s officer, that he should be looking after folks in debt.’
‘No, mother, he’s not, that I know of; but he don’t like, for all that, to see his tithes walking out of the country.’
‘Don’t be coming over me that way, Martin. Barry Lynch, nor his father before him, never held any land in Ballindine parish.’
‘Didn’t they well thin, you know more than I, mother, so it’s no use my telling you,’ and Martin walked of! to bed.
‘I’ll even you, yet, my lad,’ said she, ‘close as you are; you see else. Wait awhile, till the money’s wanting, and then let’s see who’ll know all about it!’ And the widow slapped herself powerfully on that part where her pocket depended, in sign of the great confidence she had in the strength of her purse.
‘Did I manage that well?’ said the parson, as Lord Ballindine drove him home to Kelly’s Court, as soon as the long interview was over. ‘If I can do as well at Grey Abbey, you’ll employ me again, I think!’
‘Upon my word, then, Armstrong,’ said Frank, ‘I never was in such hot water as I have been all this day: and, now it’s over, to tell you the truth, I’m sorry we interfered. We did what we had no possible right to do.’
‘Nonsense, man. You don’t suppose I’d have dreamed of letting him off, if the law could have touched him? But it couldn’t. No magistrates in the county could have committed him; for he had done, and, as far as I can judge, had said, literally nothing. It’s true we know what he intended; but a score of magistrates could have done nothing with him: as it is, we’ve got him out of the country: he’ll never come back again.’
‘What I mean is, we had no business to drive him out of the country with threats.’
‘Oh, Ballindine, that’s nonsense. One can keep no common terms with such a blackguard as that. However, it’s done now; and I must say I think it was well done.’
‘There’s no doubt of your talent in the matter, Armstrong: upon my soul I never saw anything so cool. What a wretch what an absolute fiend the fellow is!’
‘Bad enough,’ said the parson. ‘I’ve seen bad men before, but I think he’s the worst I ever saw. What’ll Mrs O’Kelly say of my coming in this way, without notice?’
The parson enjoyed his claret at Kelly’s Court that evening, after his hard day’s work, and the next morning he started for Grey Abbey.
Lord Cashel certainly felt a considerable degree of relief when his daughter told him that Lord Kilcullen had left the house, and was on his way to Dublin, though he had been forced to pay so dearly for the satisfaction, had had to falsify his solemn assurance that he would not give his son another penny, and to break through his resolution of acting the Roman father. He consoled himself with the idea that he had been actuated by affection for his profligate son; but such had not been the case. Could he have handed him over to the sheriff’s officer silently and secretly, he would have done so; but his pride could not endure the reflection that all the world should know that bailiffs had forced an entry into Grey Abbey.
He closely questioned Lady Selina, with regard to all that had passed between her and her brother.
‘Did he say anything?’ at last he said ‘did he say anything about about Fanny?’ ‘Not much, papa; but what he did say, he said with kindness and affection,’ replied her ladyship, glad to repeat anything in favour of her brother.
‘Affection pooh!’ said the earl. ‘He has no affection; no affection for any one; he has no affection even for me. What did he say about her, Selina?’
‘He seemed to wish she should marry Lord Ballindine.’
‘She may marry whom she pleases, now,’ said the earl. ‘I wash my hands of her. I have done my best to prevent what I thought a disgraceful match for her ’
‘It would not have been disgraceful, papa, had she married him six months ago.’
‘A gambler and a rou?!’ said the earl, forgetting, it is to be supposed, for the moment, his own son’s character. ‘She’ll marry him now, I suppose, and repent at her leisure. I’ll give myself no further trouble about it.’
The earl thought upon the subject, however, a good deal; and before Mr Armstrong’s arrival he had all but made up his mind that he must again swallow his word, and ask his ward’s lover back to his house. He had at any rate become assured that if he did not do so, some one else would do it for him.
Mr Armstrong was, happily, possessed of a considerable stock of self-confidence, and during his first day’s journey, felt no want of it with regard to the delicate mission with which he was entrusted. But when he had deposited his carpet-bag at the little hotel at Kilcullen bridge, and found himself seated on a hack car, and proceeding to Grey Abbey, he began to feel that he had rather a difficult part to play; and by the time that the house was in sight, he felt himself completely puzzled as to the manner in which he should open his negotiation.
He had, however, desired the man to drive to the house, and he could not well stop the car in the middle of the demesne, to mature his plans; and when he was at the door he could not stay there without applying for admission. So he got his card-case in his hand, and rang the bell. After a due interval, which to the parson did not seem a bit too long, the heavy-looking, powdered footman appeared, and announced that Lord Cashel was at home; and, in another minute Mr Armstrong found himself in the book-room.
It was the morning after Lord Kilcullen’s departure, and Lord Cashel was still anything but comfortable. Her ladyship had been bothering him about the poor boy, as she called her son, now that she learned he was in distress; and had been beseeching him to increase his allowance. The earl had not told his wife the extent of their son’s pecuniary delinquencies, and consequently she was greatly dismayed when her husband very solemnly said,
‘My lady, Lord Kilcullen has no longer any allowance from me.’
‘Good gracious!’ screamed her ladyship; ‘no allowance? how is the poor boy to live?’
‘That I really cannot tell. I cannot even guess; but, let him live how he may, I will not absolutely ruin myself for his sake.’
The interview was not a comfortable one, either to the father or mother. Lady Cashel cried a great deal, and was very strongly of opinion that her son would die of cold and starvation: ‘How could he get shelter or food, any more than a common person, if he had no allowance? Mightn’t he, at any rate, come back, and live at Grey Abbey? That wouldn’t cost his father anything.’ And then the countess remembered how she had praised her son to Mrs Ellison, and the bishop’s wife; and she cried worse than ever, and was obliged to be left to Griffiths and her drops.
This happened on the evening of Lord Kilcullen’s departure, and on the next morning her ladyship did not appear at breakfast. She was weak and nervous, and had her tea in her own sitting-room. There was no one sitting at breakfast but the earl, Fanny, and Lady Selina, and they were all alike, stiff, cold, and silent. The earl felt as if he were not at home even in his own breakfast-parlour; he felt afraid of his ward, as though he were conscious that she knew how he had intended to injure her: and, as soon as he had swallowed his eggs, he muttered something which was inaudible to both the girls, and retreated to his private den.
He had not been there long before the servant brought in our friend’s name. ‘The Rev. George Armstrong’, written on a plain card. The parson had not put the name of his parish, fearing that the earl, knowing from whence he came, might guess his business, and decline seeing him. As it was, no difficulty was made, and the parson soon found himself t?te-…-t?te with the earl.
‘I have taken the liberty of calling on you, Lord Cashel,’ said Mr Armstrong, having accepted the offer of a chair, ‘on a rather delicate mission.’
The earl bowed, and rubbed his hands, and felt more comfortable than he had done for the last week. He liked delicate missions coming to him, for he flattered himself that he knew how to receive them in a delicate manner; he liked, also, displaying his dignity to strangers, for he felt that strangers stood rather in awe of him: he also felt, though he did not own it to himself, that his manner was not so effective with people who had known him some time.
‘I may say, a very delicate mission,’ said the parson; ‘and one I would not have undertaken had I not known your lordship’s character for candour and honesty.’
Lord Cashel again bowed and rubbed his hands.
‘I am, my lord, a friend of Lord Ballindine; and as such I have taken the liberty of calling on your lordship.’
‘A friend of Lord Ballindine?’ said the earl, arching his eyebrows, and assuming a look of great surprise.
‘A very old friend, my lord; the clergyman of his parish, and for many years an intimate friend of his father. I have known Lord Ballindine since he was a child.’
‘Lord Ballindine is lucky in having such a friend: few young men now, I am sorry to say, care much for their father’s friends. Is there anything, Mr Armstrong, in which I can assist either you or his lordship?’
‘My lord,’ said the parson, ‘I need not tell you that before I took the perhaps unwarrantable liberty of troubling you, I was made acquainted with Lord Ballindine’s engagement with your ward, and with the manner in which that engagement was broken off.’
‘And your object is, Mr Armstrong?’
‘My object is to remove, if possible, the unfortunate misunderstanding between your lordship and my friend.’.
‘Misunderstanding, Mr Armstrong? There was no misunderstanding between us. I really think we perfectly understood each other. Lord Ballindine was engaged to my ward; his engagement, however, being contingent on his adoption of a certain line of conduct. This line of conduct his lordship did not adopt; perhaps, he used a wise discretion; however, I thought not. I thought the mode of life which he pursued ’
‘But ’
‘Pardon me a moment, Mr Armstrong, and I shall have said all which appears to me to be necessary on the occasion; perhaps more than is necessary; more probably than I should have allowed myself to say, had not Lord Ballindine sent as his ambassador the clergyman of his parish and the friend of his father,’ and Lord Cashel again bowed and rubbed his hands. ‘I thought, Mr Armstrong, that your young friend appeared wedded to a style of life quite incompatible with his income with his own income as a single man, and the income which he would have possessed had he married my ward. I thought that their marriage would only lead to poverty and distress, and I felt that I was only doing my duty to my ward in expressing this opinion to her. I found that she was herself of the same opinion; that she feared a union with Lord Ballindine would not ensure happiness either to him or to herself. His habits were too evidently those of extravagance, and hers had not been such as to render a life of privation anything but a life of misery.’
‘I had thought ’
‘One moment more, Mr Armstrong, and I shall have done. After mature consideration, Miss Wyndham commissioned me to express her sentiments and I must say they fully coincided with my own to Lord Ballindine, and to explain to him, that she found herself obliged to to to retrace the steps which she had taken in the matter. I did this in a manner as little painful to Lord Ballindine as I was able. It is difficult, Mr Armstrong, to make a disagreeable communication palatable; it is very difficult to persuade a young man who is in love, to give up the object of his idolatry; but I trust Lord Ballindine will do me the justice to own that, on the occasion alluded to, I said nothing unnecessarily harsh nothing calculated to harass his feelings. I appreciate and esteem Lord Ballindine’s good qualities, and I much regretted that prudence forbad me to sanction the near alliance he was anxious to do me the honour of making with me.’ Lord Cashel finished his harangue, and felt once more on good terms with himself. He by no means intended offering any further vehement resistance to his ward’s marriage. He was, indeed, rejoiced to have an opportunity of giving way decently. But he could not resist the temptation of explaining his conduct, and making a speech.
‘My lord,’ said the parson, ‘what you tell me is only a repetition of what I heard from my young friend.’
‘I am glad to hear it. I trust, then, I may have the pleasure of feeling that Lord Ballindine attributes to me no personal unkindness?’
‘Not in the least, Lord Cashel; very far from it. Though Lord Ballindine may not be may not hitherto have been, free from the follies of his age, he has had quite sense enough to appreciate your lordship’s conduct.’
‘I endeavoured, at any rate, that it should be such as to render me liable to no just imputation of fickleness or cruelty.’
‘No one would for a moment accuse your lordship of either. It is my knowledge of your lordship’s character in this particular which has induced me to undertake the task of begging you to reconsider the subject. Lord Ballindine has, you are aware, sold his race-horses.’
‘I had heard so, Mr Armstrong; though, perhaps, not on good authority.’
‘He has; and is now living among his own tenantry and friends at Kelly’s Court. He is passionately, devotedly attached to your ward, Lord Cashel; and with a young man’s vanity he still thinks that she may not be quite indifferent to him.’
‘It was at her own instance, Mr Armstrong, that his suit was rejected.’
‘I am well aware of that, my lord. But ladies, you know, do sometimes mistake their own feelings. Miss Wyndham must have been attached to my friend, or she would not have received him as her lover. Will you, my lord, allow me to see Miss Wyndham? If she still expresses indifference to Lord Ballindine, I will assure her that she shall be no further persecuted by his suit. If such be not the case, surely prudence need not further interfere to prevent a marriage desired by both the persons most concerned. Lord Ballindine is not now a spendthrift, whatever he may formerly have been; and Miss Wyndham’s princely fortune, though it alone would never have induced my friend to seek her hand, will make the match all that it should be. You will not object, my lord, to my seeing Miss Wyndham?’
‘Mr Armstrong really you must be aware such a request is rather unusual.’
‘So are the circumstances,’ replied the parson. ‘They also are unusual. I do not doubt Miss Wyndham’s wisdom in rejecting Lord Ballindine, when, as you say, he appeared to be wedded to a life of extravagance. I have no doubt she put a violent restraint on her own feelings; exercised, in fact, a self-denial which shows a very high tone of character, and should elicit nothing but admiration; but circumstances are much altered.’
Lord Cashel continued to raise objections to the parson’s request, though it was, throughout the interview, his intention to accede to it. At last, he gave up the point, with much grace, and in such a manner as he thought should entitle him to the eternal gratitude of his ward, Lord Ballindine, and the parson. He consequently rang the bell, and desired the servant to give his compliments to Miss Wyndham and tell her that the Rev. Mr Armstrong wished to see her, alone, upon business of importance.
Mr Armstrong felt that his success was much greater than he had had any reason to expect, from Lord Ballindine’s description of his last visit at Grey Abbey. He had, in fact, overcome the only difficulty. If Miss Wyndham really disliked his friend, and objected to the marriage, Mr Armstrong was well aware that he had only to return, and tell his friend so in the best way he could. If, however, she still had a true regard for him, if she were the Fanny Wyndham Ballindine had described her to be, if she had ever really been devoted to him, if she had at all a wish in her heart to see him again at her feet, the parson felt that he would have good news to send back to Kelly’s Court; and that he would have done the lovers a service which they never could forget.
‘At any rate, Mr Armstrong,’ said Lord Cashel, as the parson was bowing himself backwards out of the room, ‘you will join our family circle while you are in the neighbourhood. Whatever may be the success of your mission and I assure you I hope it may be such as will be gratifying to you, I am happy to make the acquaintance of any friend of Lord Ballindine’s, when Lord Ballindine chooses his friends so well.’ (This was meant as a slap at Dot Blake.) ‘You will give me leave to send down to the town for your luggage.’ Mr Armstrong made no objection to this proposal, and the luggage was sent for.
The powder-haired servant again took him in tow, and ushered him out of the book-room, across the hall through the billiard-room, and into the library; gave him a chair, and then brought him a newspaper, giving him to understand that Miss Wyndham would soon be with him.
The parson took the paper in his hands, but he did not trouble himself much with the contents of it. What was he to say to Miss Wyndham? how was he to commence? He had never gone love-making for another in his life; and now, at his advanced age, it really did come rather strange to him. And then he began to think whether she were short or tall, dark or fair, stout or slender. It certainly was very odd, but, in all their conversations on the subject, Lord Ballindine had never given him any description of his inamorata. Mr Armstrong, however, had not much time to make up his mind on any of these points, for the door opened, and Miss Wyndham entered.
She was dressed in black, for she was, of course, still in mourning for her brother; but, in spite of her sable habiliments, she startled the parson by the brilliance of her beauty. There was a quiet dignity of demeanour natural to Fanny Wyndham; a well-balanced pose, and a grace of motion, which saved her from ever looking awkward or confused. She never appeared to lose her self-possession. Though never arrogant, she seemed always to know what was due to herself. No insignificant puppy could ever have attempted to flirt with her. When summoned by the servant to meet a strange clergyman alone in the library, at the request of Lord Cashel, she felt that his visit must have some reference to her lover; indeed, her thoughts for the last few days had run on little else. She had made up her mind to talk to her cousin about him; then, her cousin had matured that determination by making love to her himself: then, she had talked to him of Lord Ballindine, and he had promised to talk to his father on the same subject; and she had since been endeavouring to bring herself to make one other last appeal to her uncle’s feelings. Her mind was therefore, full of Lord Ballindine, when she walked into the library. But her face was no tell-tale; her gait and demeanour were as dignified as though she had no anxious love within her heart no one grand desire, to disturb the even current of her blood. She bowed her beautiful head to Mr Armstrong as she walked into the room, and, sitting down herself, begged him to take a chair.
The parson had by no means made up his mind as to what he was to say to the young lady, so he shut his eyes, and rushed at once into the middle of his subject. ‘Miss Wyndham,’ he said, ‘I have come a long way to call on you, at the request of a friend of yours a very dear and old friend of mine at the request of Lord Ballindine.’
Fanny’s countenance became deeply suffused at her lover’s name, but the parson did not observe it; indeed he hardly ventured to look in her face. She merely said, in a voice which seemed to him to be anything but promising, ‘Well, sir?’ The truth was, she did not know what to say. Had she dared, she would have fallen on her knees before her lover’s friend, and sworn to him how well she loved him.
‘When Lord Ballindine was last at Grey Abbey, Miss Wyndham, he had not the honour of an interview with you.’
‘No, sir,’ said Fanny. Her voice, look, and manner were still sedate and courtly; her heart, however, was beating so violently that she hardly knew what she said.
‘Circumstances, I believe, prevented it,’ said the parson. ‘My friend, however, received, through Lord Cashel, a message from you, which which which has been very fatal to his happiness.’
Fanny tried to say something, but she was not able.
‘The very decided tone in which your uncle then spoke to him, has made Lord Ballindine feel that any further visit to Grey Abbey on his own part would be an intrusion.’
‘I never —’ said Fanny, ‘I never —’
‘You never authorised so harsh a message, you would say. It is not the harshness of the language, but the certainty of the fact, that has destroyed my friend’s happiness. If such were to be the case if it were absolutely necessary that the engagement between you and Lord Ballindine should be broken off, the more decided the manner in which it were done, the better. Lord Ballindine now wishes I am a bad messenger in such a case as this, Miss Wyndham: it is, perhaps, better to tell you at once a plain tale. Frank has desired me to tell you that he loves you well and truly; that he cannot believe you are indifferent to him; that your vows, to him so precious, are still ringing in his ears; that he is, as far as his heart is concerned, unchanged; and he has commissioned me to ascertain from yourself, whether you have really changed your mind since he last had the pleasure of seeing you.’ The parson waited a moment for an answer, and then added, ‘Lord Ballindine by no means wishes to persecute you on the subject; nor would I do so, if he did wish it. You have only to tell me that you do not intend to renew your acquaintance with Lord Ballindine, and I will leave Grey Abbey.’ Fanny still remained silent. ‘Say the one word “go”, Miss Wyndham, and you need not pain yourself by any further speech. I will at once be gone.’
Fanny strove hard to keep her composure, and to make some fitting reply to Mr Armstrong, but she was unable. Her heart was too full; she was too happy. She had, openly, and in spite of rebuke, avowed her love to her uncle, her aunt, to Lady Selina, and her cousin. But she could not bring herself to confess it to Mr Armstrong. At last she said:
‘I am much obliged to you for your kindness, Mr Armstrong. Perhaps I owe it to Lord Ballindine to to . . . I will ask my uncle, sir, to write to him.’
‘I shall write to Lord Ballindine this evening, Miss Wyndham; will you intrust me with no message? I came from him, to see you, with no other purpose. I must give him some news: I must tell him I have seen you. May I tell him not to despair?’
‘Tell him — tell him —’ said Fanny, and she paused to make up her mind as to the words of her message, ‘tell him to come himself.’ And, hurrying from the room, she left the parson alone, to meditate on the singular success of his mission. He stood for about half an hour, thinking over what had occurred, and rejoicing greatly in his mind that he had undertaken the business. ‘What fools men are about women!’ he said at last, to himself. ‘They know their nature so well when they are thinking and speaking of them with reference to others; but as soon as a man is in love with one himself, he is cowed! He thinks the nature of one woman is different from that of all others, and he is afraid to act on his general knowledge. Well; I might as well write to him! for, thank God, I can send him good news —’ and he rang the bell, and asked if his bag had come. It had, and was in his bed-room. ‘Could the servant get him pen, ink, and paper?’ The servant did so; and, within two hours of his entering the doors of Grey Abbey, he was informing his friend of the success of his mission.
The two following letters for Lord Ballindine were sent off, in the Grey Abbey post-bag, on the evening of the day on which Mr Armstrong had arrived there. They were from Mr Armstrong and Lord Cashel. That from the former was first opened.
Grey Abbey, April, 1844
Dear Frank,
You will own I have not lost much time. I left Kelly’s Court the day before yesterday and I am already able to send you good news. I have seen Lord Cashel, and have found him anything but uncourteous. I have also seen Miss Wyndham and though she said but little to that little was just what you would have wished her to say. She bade me tell you to come yourself. In obedience to her commands, I do hereby require you to pack yourself up, and proceed forthwith to Grey Abbey. His lordship has signified to me that it is his intention, in his own and Lady Cashel’s name, to request the renewed pleasure of an immediate, and, he hopes, a prolonged visit from your lordship. You will not, my dear Frank, I am sure, be such a fool as to allow your dislike to such an empty butter-firkin as this earl, to stand in the way of your love or your fortune. You can’t expect Miss Wyndham to go to you, so pocket your resentment like a sensible fellow, and accept Lord Cashel’s invitation as though there had been no difference between you.
I have also received an invite, and intend staying here a day or two. I can’t say that, judging from the master of the house, I think that a prolonged sojourn would be very agreeable. I have, as yet, seen none of the ladies, except my embryo Lady Ballindine.
I think I have done my business a little in the veni vidi vici style. What has effected the change in Lord Cashel’s views, I need not trouble myself to guess. You will soon learn all about it from Miss Wyndham.
I will not, in a letter, express my admiration, &c., &c., &c. But I will proclaim in Connaught, on my return, that so worthy a bride was never yet brought down to the far west. Lord Cashel will, of course, have some pet bishop or dean to marry you; but, after what has passed, I shall certainly demand the privilege of christening the heir.
Believe me, dear Frank,
Your affectionate friend,
GEORGE ARMSTRONG.
Lord Cashel’s letter was as follows. It cost his lordship three hours to compose, and was twice copied. I trust, therefore, it is a fair specimen of what a nobleman ought to write on such an occasion.
Grey Abbey, April, 1844.
My dear lord,
Circumstances, to which I rejoice that I need not now more particularly allude, made your last visit at my house a disagreeable one to both of us. The necessity under which I then laboured, of communicating to your lordship a decision which was likely to be inimical to your happiness, but to form which my duty imperatively directed me, was a source of most serious inquietude to my mind. I now rejoice that that decision was so painful to you has been so lastingly painful; as I trust I may measure your gratification at a renewal of your connection with my family, by the acuteness of the sufferings which an interruption of that connexion has occasioned you.
I have, I can assure you, my lord, received much pleasure from the visit of your very estimable friend, the Reverend Mr Armstrong; and it is no slight addition to my gratification on this occasion, to find your most intimate friendship so well bestowed. I have had much unreserved conversation today with Mr Armstrong, and I am led by him to believe that I may be able to induce you to give Lady Cashel and myself the pleasure of your company at Grey Abbey. We shall be truly delighted to see your lordship, and we sincerely hope that the attractions of Grey Abbey may be such as to induce you to prolong your visit for some time.
Perhaps it might be unnecessary for me now more explicitly to allude to my ward; but still, I cannot but think that a short but candid explanation of the line of conduct I have thought it my duty to adopt, may prevent any disagreeable feeling between us, should you, as I sincerely trust you will, do us the pleasure of joining our family circle. I must own, my dear lord, that, a few months since, I feared you were wedded to the expensive pleasures of the turf. Your acceptance of the office of Steward at the Curragh meetings confirmed the reports which reached me from various quarters. My ward’s fortune was then not very considerable; and, actuated by an uncle’s affection for his niece as well as a guardian’s caution for his ward, I conceived it my duty to ascertain whether a withdrawal from the engagement in contemplation between Miss Wyndham and yourself would be detrimental to her happiness. I found that my ward’s views agreed with my own. She thought her own fortune insufficient, seeing that your habits were then expensive: and, perhaps, not truly knowing the intensity of her own affection, she coincided in my views. You are acquainted with the result. These causes have operated in inducing me to hope that I may still welcome you by the hand as my dear niece’s husband. Her fortune is very greatly increased; your character is — I will not say altered is now fixed and established. And, lastly and chiefly, I find I blush, my lord, to tell a lady’s secret that my ward’s happiness still depends on you.
I am sure, my dear lord, I need not say more. We shall be delighted to see you at your earliest convenience. We wish that you could have come to us before your friend left, but I regret to learn from him that his parochial duties preclude the possibility of his staying with us beyond Thursday.
I shall anxiously wait for your reply. In the meantime I beg to assure you, with the joint kind remembrances of all our party, that I am,
Most faithfully yours,
CASHEL.
Mr Armstrong descended to the drawing-room, before dinner, looking most respectable, with a stiff white tie and the new suit expressly prepared for the occasion. He was introduced to Lady Cashel and Lady Selina as a valued friend of Lord Ballindine, and was received, by the former at least, in a most flattering manner. Lady Selina had hardly reconciled herself to the return of Lord Ballindine. It was from no envy at her cousin’s happiness; she was really too high-minded, and too falsely proud, also, to envy anyone. But it was the harsh conviction of her mind, that no duties should be disregarded, and that all duties were disagreeable: she was always opposed to the doing of anything which appeared to be the especial wish of the person consulting her; because it would be agreeable, she judged that it would be wrong. She was most sincerely anxious for her poor dependents, but she tormented them most cruelly. When Biddy Finn wished to marry, Lady Selina told her it was her duty to put a restraint on her inclinations; and ultimately prevented her, though there was no objection on earth to Tony Mara; and when the widow Cullen wanted to open a little shop for soap and candles, having eight pounds ten shillings left to stock it, after the wake and funeral were over, Lady Selina told the widow it was her duty to restrain her inclination, and she did so; and the eight pounds ten shillings drifted away in quarters of tea, and most probably, half noggins of whiskey.
In the same way, she could not bring herself to think that Fanny was doing right, in following the bent of her dearest wishes-in marrying this man she loved so truly. She was weak; she was giving way to temptation; she was going back from her word; she was, she said, giving up her claim to that high standard of feminine character, which it should be the proudest boast of a woman to maintain.
It was in vain that her mother argued the point with her in her own way. ‘But why shouldn’t she marry him, my dear,’ said the countess, ‘when they love each other and now there’s plenty of money and all that; and your papa thinks it’s all right? I declare I can’t see the harm of it.’
‘I don’t say there’s harm, mother,’ said Lady Selina; ‘not absolute harm; but there’s weakness. She had ceased to esteem Lord Ballindine.’
‘Ah, but, my dear, she very soon began to esteem him again. Poor dear! she didn’t know how well she loved him.’
‘She ought to have known, mamma to have known well, before she rejected him; but, having rejected him, no power on earth should have induced her to name him, or even to think of him again. She should have been dead to him; and he should have been the same as dead to her.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said the countess; ‘but I’m sure I shall be delighted to see anybody happy in the house again, and I always liked Lord Ballindine myself. There was never any trouble about his dinners or anything.’
And Lady Cashel was delighted. The grief she had felt at the abrupt termination of all her hopes with regard to her son had been too much for her; she had been unable even to mind her worsted-work, and Griffiths had failed to comfort her; but from the moment that her husband had told her, with many hems and haws, that Mr Armstrong had arrived to repeat Lord Ballindine’s proposal, and that he had come to consult her about again asking his lordship to Grey Abbey, she became happy and light-hearted; and, before Griffiths had left her for the night, she had commenced her consultations as to the preparations for the wedding.
There was no one at dinner that first evening, but Mr Armstrong, and the family circle; and the parson certainly felt it dull enough. Fanny, naturally, was rather silent; Lady Selina did not talk a great deal; the countess reiterated, twenty times, the pleasure she had in seeing him at Grey Abbey, and asked one or two questions as to the quantity of flannel it took to make petticoats for the old women in his parish; but, to make up the rest, Lord Cashel talked incessantly. He wished to show every attention to his guest, and he crammed him with ecclesiastical conversation, till Mr Armstrong felt that, poor as he was, and much as his family wanted the sun of lordly favour, he would not give up his little living down in Connaught, where, at any rate, he could do as he pleased, to be domestic chaplain to Lord Cashel, with a salary of a thousand a-year.
The next morning was worse, and the whole of the long day was insufferable, lie endeavoured to escape from his noble friend into the demesne, where he might have explored the fox coverts, and ascertained something of the sporting capabilities of the country; but Lord Cashel would not leave him alone for an instant; and he had not only to endure the earl’s tediousness, but also had to assume a demeanour which was not at all congenial to his feelings. Lord Cashel would talk Church and ultra-Protestantism to him, and descanted on the abominations of the National system, and the glories of Sunday-schools. Now, Mr Armstrong had no leaning to popery, and had nothing to say against Sunday schools; but he had not one in his own parish, in which, by the bye, he was the father of all the Protestant children to be found there without the slightest slur upon his reputation be it said. Lord Cashel totally mistook his character, and Mr Armstrong did not know how to set him right; and at five o’clock he went to dress, more tired than he ever had been after hunting all day, and then riding home twelve miles on a wet, dark night, with a lame horse.
To do honour to her guest Lady Cashel asked Mr O’Joscelyn, the rector, together with his wife and daughters, to dine there on the second day; and Mr Armstrong, though somewhat afraid of brother clergymen, was delighted to hear that they were coming. Anything was better than another t?te-…-t?te with the ponderous earl. There were no other neighbours near enough to Grey Abbey to be asked on so short a notice; but the rector, his wife, and their daughters, entered the dining-room punctually at half-past six.
The character and feelings of Mr O’Joscelyn were exactly those which the earl had attributed to Mr Armstrong. He had been an Orangeman, and was a most ultra and even furious Protestant. He was, by principle, a charitable man to his neighbours; but he hated popery, and he carried the feeling to such a length, that he almost hated Papists. He had not, generally speaking, a bad opinion of human nature; but he would not have considered his life or property safe in the hands of any Roman Catholic. He pitied the ignorance of the heathen, the credulity of the Mahommedan, the desolateness of the Jew, even the infidelity of the atheist; but he execrated, abhorred, and abominated the Church of Rome. ‘Anathema Maranatha; get thee from me, thou child of Satan go out into utter darkness, thou worker of iniquity into everlasting lakes of fiery brimstone, thou doer of the devil’s work thou false prophet thou ravenous wolf!’ Such was the language of his soul, at the sight of a priest; such would have been the language of his tongue, had not, as he thought, evil legislators given a licence to falsehood in his unhappy country, and rendered it impossible for a true Churchman openly to declare the whole truth.
But though Mr O’Joscelyn did not absolutely give utterance to such imprecations as these against the wolves who, as he thought, destroyed the lambs of his flock or rather, turned his sheep into foxes yet he by no means concealed his opinion, or hid his light under a bushel. He spent his life an eager, anxious, hard-working life, in denouncing the scarlet woman of Babylon and all her abominations; and he did so in season and out of season: in town and in country; in public and in private; from his own pulpit, and at other people’s tables; in highways and byways; both to friends who only partly agreed with him, and to strangers, who did not agree with him at all. He totally disregarded the feelings of his auditors; he would make use of the same language to persons who might in all probability be Romanists, as he did to those whom he knew to be Protestants. He was a most zealous and conscientious, but a most indiscreet servant of his Master, he made many enemies, but few converts. He rarely convinced his opponents, but often disgusted his own party. He had been a constant speaker at public meetings; an orator at the Rotunda, and, on one occasion, at Exeter Hall. But even his own friends, the ultra Protestants, found that he did the cause more harm than good, and his public exhibitions had been as much as possible discouraged. Apart from his fanatical enthusiasm, he was a good man, of pure life, and simple habits; and rejoiced exceedingly, that, in the midst of the laxity in religious opinions which so generally disfigured the age, his wife and his children were equally eager and equally zealous with himself in the service of their Great Master.
A beneficed clergyman from the most benighted, that is, most Papistical portion of Connaught, would be sure, thought Mr O’Joscelyn, to have a fellow-feeling with him; to sympathise with his wailings, and to have similar woes to communicate.
‘How many Protestants have you?’ said he to Mr Armstrong, in the drawing-room, a few minutes after they had been introduced to each other. ‘I had two hundred and seventy in the parish on New Year’s day; and since that we’ve had two births, and a very proper Church of England police-serjeant has been sent here, in place of a horrid Papist. We’ve a great gain in Serjeant Woody, my lord.’
‘In one way we certainly have, Mr O’Joscelyn,’ said the earl. ‘I wish all the police force were Protestants; I think they would be much more effective. But Serjeant Carroll was a very good man; you know he was removed from hence on his promotion.’
‘I know he was, my lord just to please the priests just because he was a Papist. Do you think there was a single thing done, or a word said at Petty Sessions, but what Father Flannery knew all about it? Yes, every word. When did the police ever take any of Father Flannery’s own people?’
‘Didn’t Serjeant Carroll take that horrible man Leary, that robbed the old widow that lived under the bridge?’ said the countess.
‘True, my lady, he did,’ said Mr O’Joscelyn; ‘but you’ll find, if you inquire, that Leary hadn’t paid the priest his dues, nor yet his brother. How a Protestant government can reconcile it to their conscience how they can sleep at night, after pandering to the priests as they daily do, I cannot conceive. How many Protestants did you say you have, Mr Armstrong?’
‘We’re not very strong down in the West, Mr O’Joscelyn,’ said the other parson. ‘There are usually two or three in the Kelly’s Court pew. The vicarage pew musters pretty well, for Mrs Armstrong and five of the children are always there. Then there are usually two policemen, and the clerk; though, by the bye, he doesn’t belong to the parish. I borrowed him from Claremorris.’
Mr O’Joscelyn gave a look of horror and astonishment.
‘I can, however, make a boast, which perhaps you cannot, Mr Joscelyn: all my parishioners are usually to be seen in church, and if one is absent I’m able to miss him.’
‘It must paralyse your efforts, preaching to such a congregation,’ said the other. ‘Do not disparage my congregation,’ said Mr Armstrong, laughing; ‘they are friendly and neighbourly, if not important in point of numbers; and, if I wanted to fill my church, the Roman Catholics think so well of me, that they’d flock in crowds there if I asked them; and the priest would show them the way for any special occasion, I mean; if the bishop came to see me, or anything of that kind.’
Mr O’Joscelyn was struck dumb; and, indeed, he would have had no time to answer if the power of speech had been left to him, for the servant announced dinner.
The conversation was a little more general during dinner-time, but after dinner the parish clergyman returned to another branch of his favourite subject. Perhaps, he thought that Mr Armstrong was himself not very orthodox; or, perhaps, that it was useless to enlarge on the abominations of Babylon to a Protestant peer and a Protestant parson; but, on this occasion, he occupied himself with the temporal iniquities of the Roman Catholics. The trial of O’Connell and his fellow-prisoners had come to an end, and he and they, with one exception, had just. commenced their period of imprisonment. The one exception was a clergyman, who had been acquitted. He had in some way been connected with Mr O’Joscelyn’s parish; and, as tile parish priest and most of his flock were hot Repealers, there was a good deal of excitement on tile occasion,— rejoicings at the priest’s acquittal, and howlings, yellings, and murmurings at the condemnation of the others.
‘We’ve fallen on frightful days, Mr Armstrong,’ said Mr O’Joscelyn: ‘frightful, lawless, dangerous days.’
‘We must take them as we find them, Mr O’Joscelyn.’
‘Doubtless, Mr Armstrong, doubtless; and I acknowledge His infinite wisdom, who, for His own purposes, now allows sedition to rear her head unchecked, and falsehood to sit in the high places. They are indeed dangerous days, when the sympathy of government is always with the evil doers, and the religion of the state is deserted by the crown.’
‘Why, God bless me! Mr O’Joscelyn! the queen hasn’t turned Papist, and the Repealers are all in prison, or soon will he there.’
‘I don’t mean the queen. I believe she is very good. I believe she is a sincere Protestant, God bless her;’ and Mr O’Joscelyn, in his loyalty, drank a glass of port wine; ‘but I mean her advisers. They do not dare protect the Protestant faith: they do not dare secure the tranquillity of the country.’
‘Are not O’Connell and the whole set under conviction at this moment? I’m no politician myself, but the only question seems to be, whether they haven’t gone a step too far?’
‘Why did they let that priest escape them?’ said Mr O’Joscelyn.
‘I suppose he was not guilty;’ said Mr Armstrong; ‘at any rate, you had a staunch Protestant jury.’
‘I tell you the priests are at the head of it all. O’Connell would be nothing without them; he is only their creature. The truth is, the government did not dare to frame an indictment that would really lead to the punishment of a priest. The government is truckling to the false hierarchy of Rome. Look at Oxford a Jesuitical seminary, devoted to the secret propagation of Romish falsehood. Go into the churches of England, and watch their bowings, their genuflexions, their crosses and their candles; see the demeanour of their apostate clergy; look into their private oratories; see their red-lettered prayer-books, their crucifixes, and images; and then, can you doubt that the most dreadful of all prophecies is about to be accomplished?’
‘But I have not been into their closets, Mr O’Joscelyn, nor yet into their churches lately, and therefore I have riot seen these things; nor have I seen anybody who has. Have you seen crucifixes in the rooms of Church of England clergymen? or candles on the altar-steps of English churches?’
‘God forbid that I should willingly go where such things are to be seen; but of the fearful fact there is, unfortunately, no doubt. And then, as to the state of the country, we have nothing round us but anarchy and misrule: my life, Mr Armstrong, has not been safe any day this week past.’
‘Good Heaven, Mr O’Joscelyn your life not safe! I thought you were as quiet here, in Kildare, as we are in Mayo.’
‘Wait till I tell you, Mr Armstrong: you know this priest, whom they have let loose to utter more sedition? He was coadjutor to the priest in this parish.’
‘Was he? The people are not attacking you, I suppose, because he’s let loose?’
‘Wait till I tell you. No; the people are mad because O’Connell and his myrmidons are to be locked up; and, mingled with their fury on this head are their insane rejoicings at the escape of this priest. They are, therefore or were, till Saturday last, howling for joy and for grief at the same time. Oh! such horrid howls, Mr Armstrong. I declare, Mr Armstrong, I have trembled for my children this week past.’
The earl, who well knew Mr O’Joscelyn, and the nature of his grievances, had heard all these atrocities before; and, not being very excited by their interest, had continued sipping his claret in silence till he began to doze; and, by the time the worthy parson had got to the climax of his misery, the nobleman was fast asleep.
‘You don’t mean that the people made any attack on the parsonage?’ said Mr Armstrong.
‘Wait till I tell you, Mr Armstrong,’ replied the other. ‘On Thursday morning last they all heard that O’Connell was a convicted felon.’
‘Conspirator, I believe? Mr O’Joscelyn.’
‘Conspiracy is felony, Mr Armstrong and that their priest had been let loose. It was soon evident that no work was to be done that day. They assembled about the roads in groups; at the chapel-door; at Priest Flannery’s house; at the teetotal reading-room as they call it, where the people drink cordial made of whiskey, and disturb the neighbourhood with cracked horns; and we heard that a public demonstration was to be made.’
‘Was it a demonstration of joy or of grief?’
‘Both, Mr Armstrong! it was mixed. They were to shout and dance for joy about Father Tyrrel; and howl and curse for grief about O’Connell; and they did shout and howl with a vengeance. All Thursday, you would have thought that a legion of devils had been let loose into Kilcullen.’
‘But did they commit any personal outrages, Mr O’Joscelyn?’
‘Wait till I tell you. I soon saw how the case was going to be, and I determined to be prepared. I armed myself, Mr Armstrong; and so did Mrs O’Joscelyn. Mrs O’Joscelyn is a most determined woman a woman of great spirit; we were resolved to protect our daughters and our infants from ill-usage, as long as God should leave us the power to do so. We both armed ourselves with pistols, and I can assure you that, as far as ammunition goes, we were prepared to give them a hot reception.’
‘Dear me! This must have been very unpleasant to Mrs O’Joscelyn.’
‘Oh, she’s a woman of great nerve, Mr Armstrong. Mary is a woman of very great nerve. I can assure you we shall never forget that Thursday night. About seven in the evening it got darkish, but the horrid yells of the wild creatures had never ceased for one half-hour; and, a little after seven, twenty different bonfires illuminated the parish. There were bonfires on every side of us: huge masses of blazing turf were to be seen scattered through the whole country.’
‘Did they burn any thing except the turf, Mr O’Joscelyn?’
‘Wait till I tell you, Mr Armstrong. I shall never forget that night; we neither of us once lay down; no, not for a moment. About eight, the children were put to bed; but with their clothes and shoes on, for there was no knowing at what moment and in how sudden a way the poor innocents might be called up. My daughters behaved admirably; they remained quite quiet in the drawing-room till about eleven, when we had evening worship, and then they retired to rest. Their mother, however, insisted that they should not take off their petticoats or stockings. At about one, we went to the hall-door: it was then bright moonlight but the flames of the surrounding turf overpowered the moon. The whole horizon was one glare of light.’
‘But were not the police about, Mr O’Joscelyn?’
‘Oh, they were about, to be sure, poor men; but what could they do? The government now licenses every outrage.’
‘But what did the people do? said Mr Armstrong.
‘Wait till I tell you. They remained up all night; and so did we, you may be sure. Mary did not rise from her chair once that night without a pistol in her hand. We heard the sounds of their voices continually, close to the parsonage gate; we could see them in the road, from the windows crowds of them men, women and children; and still they continued shouting. The next morning they were a little more quiet, but still the parish was disturbed: nobody was at work, and men and women stood collected together in the roads. But as soon as it was dusk, the shoutings and the bonfires began again; and again did I and Mrs O’Joscelyn prepare for a night of anxious watching. We sat up all Friday night, Mr Armstrong.’
‘With the pistols again?’
‘Indeed we did; and lucky for us that we did so. Had they not known that we were prepared, I am convinced the house would have been attacked. Our daughters sat with us this night, and we were so far used to the state of disturbance, that we were able to have a little supper.’
‘You must have wanted that, I think.’
‘Indeed we did. About four in the morning, I dropped asleep on the sofa; but Mary never closed her eyes.’
‘Did they come into the garden at all, or near the house?’
‘No, they did not. And I am very thankful they refrained from doing so, for I determined to act promptly, Mr Armstrong, and so was Mary that is, Mrs O’Joscelyn. We were both determined to fire, if we found our premises invaded. Thank God the miscreants did not come within the gate.’
‘You did not suffer much, then, except the anxiety, Mr O’Joscelyn?’
‘God was very merciful, and protected us; but who can feel safe, living in such times, and among such a people? And it all springs from Rome; the scarlet woman is now in her full power, and in her full deformity. She was smitten down for a while, but has now risen again. For a while the right foot of truth was on her neck; for a while she lay prostrated before the strength of those, who by God’s grace, had prevailed against her. But the latter prophecies which had been revealed to us, are now about to be accomplished. It is well for those who comprehend the signs of the coming time.’
‘Suppose we join the ladies,’ said the earl, awakened by the sudden lull in Mr O’Joscelyn’s voice. ‘But won’t you take a glass of Madeira first, Mr Armstrong?’
Mr Armstrong took his glass of Madeira, and then went to the ladies; and the next morning, left Grey Abbey, for his own parish. Well; thought he to himself, as he was driven through the park, in the earl’s gig, I’m very glad I came here, for Frank’s sake. I’ve smoothed his way to matrimony and a fortune. But I don’t know anything which would induce me to stay a week at Grey Abbey. The earl is bad nearly unbearable; but the parson! I’d sooner by half be a Roman myself, than think so badly of my neighbours as he does. Many a time since has he told in Connaught, how Mr O’Joscelyn. and Mary, his wife, sat up two nights running, armed to the teeth, to protect themselves from the noisy Repealers of Kilcullen.
Mr Armstrong arrived safely at his parsonage, and the next morning he rode over to Kelly’s Court. But Lord Ballindine was not there. He had started for Grey Abbey almost immediately on receiving the two letters which we have given, and he and his friend had passed each other on the road.
When Frank had read his two letters from Grey Abbey, he was in such a state of excitement as to be unable properly to decide what he would immediately do. His first idea was to gallop to Tuam, as fast as his best horse would carry him; to take four horses there, and not to stop one moment till he found himself at Grey Abbey: but a little consideration showed him that this would not do. He would not find horses ready for him on the road; he must take some clothes with him; and it would be only becoming in him to give the earl some notice oh his approach. So he at last made up his mind to postpone his departure for a few hours.
He was, however, too much overcome with joy to be able to do anything rationally. His anger against the earl totally evaporated; indeed, he only thought of him now as a man who had a house in which he could meet his love. He rushed into the drawing-room, where his mother and sisters were sitting, and, with the two letters open in his hand, proclaimed his intention of leaving home that day.
‘Goodness gracious, Frank! and where are you going?’ said Mrs O’Kelly.
‘To Grey Abbey.’
‘No!’ said Augusta, jumping up from her chair.
‘I am so glad!’ shouted Sophy, throwing down her portion of the worsted-work sofa.
‘You have made up your difference, then, with Miss Wyndham?’ said the anxious mother. ‘I am so glad! My own dear, good, sensible Frank!’
‘I never had any difference with Fanny,’ said he. ‘I was not able to explain all about it, nor can I now: it was a crotchet of the earl’s only some nonsense; however, I’m off now I can’t wait a day, for I mean to write to say I shall be at Grey Abbey the day after tomorrow, and I must go by Dublin. I shall be off in a couple of hours; so, for Heaven’s sake, Sophy, look sharp and put up my things.’
The girls both bustled out of the room, and Frank was following them, but his mother called him back. ‘When is it to be, Frank? Come tell me something about it. I never asked any questions when I thought the subject was a painful one.’
‘God bless you, mother, you never did. But I can tell you nothing only the stupid old earl has begged me to go there at once. Fanny must settle the time herself: there’ll be settlements, and lawyer’s work.’
‘That’s true, my love. A hundred thousand pounds in ready cash does want looking after. But look here, my dear; Fanny is of age, isn’t she?’
‘She is, mother.’
‘Well now, Frank, take my advice; they’ll want to tie up her money in all manner of ways, so as to make it of the least possible use to you, or to her either. They always do; they’re never contented unless they lock up a girl’s money, so that neither she nor her husband can spend the principal or the interest. Don’t let them do it, Frank. Of course she will be led by you, let them settle whatever is fair on her; but don’t let them bother the money so that you can’t pay off the debts. It’ll be a grand thing, Frank, to redeem the property.’
Frank hemmed and hawed, and said he’d consult his lawyer in Dublin before the settlements were signed; but declared that he was not going to marry Fanny Wyndham for her money.
‘That’s all very well, Frank,’ said the mother; ‘but you know you could not marry her without the money, and mind, it’s now or never. Think what a thing it would be to have the property unencumbered!’
The son hurried away to throw himself at the feet of his mistress, and the mother remained in her drawing-room, thinking with delight on the renovated grandeur of the family, and of the decided lead which the O’Kellys would again be able to take in Connaught.
Fanny’s joy was quite equal to that of her lover, but it was not shown quite so openly. Her aunt congratulated her most warmly; kissed her twenty times; called her her own dear, darling niece, and promised her to love her husband, and to make him a purse if she could get Griffiths to teach her that new stitch; it looked so easy she was sure she could learn it, and it wouldn’t tease her eyes. Lady Selina also wished her joy; but she did it very coldly, though very sensibly.
‘Believe me, my dear Fanny, I am glad you should have the wish of your heart. There were obstacles to your union with Lord Ballindine, which appeared to be insurmountable, and I therefore attempted to wean you from your love. I hope he will prove worthy of that love, and that you may never have cause to repent of your devotion to him. You are going greatly to increase your cares and troubles; may God give you strength to bear them, and wisdom to turn them to advantage!’
The earl made a very long speech to her, in which there were but few pauses, and not one full stop. Fanny was not now inclined to quarrel with him; and he quite satisfied himself that his conduct, throughout, towards his ward, had been dignified, prudent, consistent, and disinterested.
These speeches and congratulations all occurred during the period of Mr Armstrong’s visit, and Fanny heard nothing more about her lover, till the third morning after that gentleman’s departure; the earl announced then, on entering the breakfast-room, that he had that morning received a communication from Lord Ballindine, and that his lordship intended reaching Grey Abbey that day in time for dinner.
Fanny felt herself blush, but she said nothing; Lady Selina regretted that he had had a very wet day yesterday, and hoped he would have a fine day today; and Lady Cashel was overcome at the reflection that she had no one to meet him at dinner, and that she had not yet suited herself with a cook.
‘Dear me,’ exclaimed her ladyship; ‘I wish we’d got this letter yesterday; no one knows now, beforehand, when people are coming. I’m sure it usen’t to be so. I shall be so glad to see Lord Ballindine; you know, Fanny, he was always a great favourite of mine. Do you think, Selina, the O’Joscelyns would mind coming again without any notice? I’m sure I don’t know I would not for the world treat Lord Ballindine shabbily; but what can I do, my dear?’
‘I think, my lady, we may dispense with any ceremony now, with Lord Ballindine,’ said the earl. ‘He will, I am sure, be delighted to be received merely as one of the family. You need not mind asking the O’Joscelyns today.’
‘Do you think not? Well, that’s a great comfort: besides, Lord Ballindine never was particular. But still, Fanny, had I known he was coming so soon, I would have had Murray down from Dublin again at once, for Mrs Richards is not a good cook.’
During the remainder of the morning, Fanny was certainly very happy; but she was very uneasy. She hardly knew how to meet Lord Ballindine. She felt that she had treated him badly, though she had never ceased to love him dearly; and she also thought she owed him much for his constancy. It was so good of him to send his friend to her and one to whom her uncle could not refuse admission; and then she thought she had treated Mr Armstrong haughtily and unkindly. She had never thanked him for all the trouble he had taken; she had never told him how very happy he had made her; but she would do so at some future time, when he should be an honoured and a valued guest in her own and her husband’s house.
But how should she receive her lover? Would they allow her to be alone with him, if only for a moment, at their first meeting? Oh! How she longed for a confidante! but she could not make a confidante of her cousin. Twice she went down to the drawing-room, with the intention of talking of her love; but Lady Selina looked so rigid, and spoke so rigidly, that she could not do it. She said such common-place things, and spoke of Lord Ballindine exactly as she would of any other visitor who might have been coming to the house. She did not confine herself to his eating and drinking, as her mother did; but she said, he’d find the house very dull, she was afraid especially as the shooting was all over, and the hunting very nearly so; that he would, however, probably he a good deal at the Curragh races.
Fanny knew that her cousin did not mean to be unkind; but there was no sympathy in her: she could not talk to her of the only subject which occupied her thoughts; so she retreated to her own room, and endeavoured to compose herself. As the afternoon drew on, she began to wish that he was not coming till tomorrow. She became very anxious; she must see him, somewhere, before she dressed for dinner; and she would not, could not, bring herself to go down into the drawing-room, and shake hands with him, when he came, before her uncle, her aunt, and her cousin.
She was still pondering on the subject, when, about four o’clock in the afternoon, she got a message from her aunt, desiring her to go to her in her boudoir.
‘That’ll do, Griffiths,’ said the countess, as Fanny entered her room; ‘you can come up when I ring. Sit down, Fanny; sit down, my dear. I was thinking Lord Ballindine will soon be here.’
‘I suppose he will, aunt. In his letter to Lord Cashel, he said he’d be here before dinner.’ ‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Dear me; I’m so glad it’s all made up between you. I’m sure, Fanny, I hope, and think, and believe, you’ll be very, very happy.’
‘Dear aunt’ and Fanny kissed Lady Cashel. A word of kindness to her then seemed invaluable.
‘It was so very proper in Lord Ballindine to give up his horses, and all that sort of thing,’ said the countess; ‘I’m sure I always said he’d turn out just what he should be; and he is so good-tempered. I suppose, dear, you’ll go abroad the first thing?’
‘I haven’t thought of that yet, aunt,’ said Fanny, trying to smile.
‘Oh, of course you will; you’ll go to the Rhine, and Switzerland, and Como, and Rome, and those sort of places. It’ll be very nice: we went there your uncle and I and it was delightful; only I used to be very tired. It wasn’t then we went to Rome though. I remember now it was after Adolphus was born. Poor Adolphus!’ and her ladyship sighed, as her thoughts went back to the miseries of her eldest born. ‘But I’ll tell you why I sent for you, my dear: you know, I must go downstairs to receive Lord Ballindine, and tell him how glad I am that he’s come back; and I’m sure I am very glad that he’s coming; and your uncle will be there. But I was thinking you’d perhaps sooner see him first alone. You’ll be a little flurried, my dear that’s natural; so, if you like, you can remain up here, my dear, in my room, quiet and comfortable, by yourself; and Griffiths shall show Lord Ballindine upstairs, as soon as he leaves the drawing-room.’
‘How very, very kind of you, dear aunt!’ said Fanny, relieved from her most dreadful difficulty. And so it was arranged. Lady Cashel went down into the drawing-room to await her guest, and Fanny brought her book into her aunt’s boudoir, and pretended she would read till Lord Ballindine disturbed her.
I need hardly say that she did not read much. She sat there over her aunt’s fire, waiting to catch the sound of the wheels on the gravel at the front door. At one moment she would think that he was never coming the time appeared to be so long; and then again, when she heard any sound which might be that of his approach, she would again wish to have a few minutes more to herself.
At length, however, she certainly did hear him. There was the quick rattle of the chaise over the gravel, becoming quicker and quicker, till the vehicle stopped with that kind of plunge which is made by no other animal than a post-horse, and by him only at his arrival at the end of a stage. Then the steps were let down with a crash she would not go to the window, or she might have seen him; she longed to do so, but it appeared so undignified. She sat quite still in her chair; but she heard his quick step at the hail door; she was sure she could have sworn to his step and then she heard the untying of cords, and pulling down of luggage.
Lord Ballindine was again in the house, and the dearest wish of her heart was accomplished. She felt that she was trembling. She had not yet made up her mind how she would receive him what she would first say to him and certainly she had no time to do so now. She got up, and looked in her aunt’s pier-glass. It was more a movement of instinct than one of premeditation; but she thought she had never seen herself look so wretchedly. She had, however, but little time, either for regret or improvement on that score, for there were footsteps in the corridor. He couldn’t have stayed a moment to speak to anyone downstairs however, there he certainly was; she heard Griffiths’ voice in the passage, ‘This way, my lord in my lady’s boudoir;’ and then the door opened, and in a moment she was in her lover’s arms.
‘My own Fanny! once more my own!’
‘Oh, Frank! dear Frank!’
Lord Ballindine was only ten minutes late in coming down to dinner, and Miss Wyndham not about half an hour, which should be considered as showing great moderation on her part. For, of course, Frank kept her talking a great deal longer than he should have done; and then she not only had to dress, but to go through many processes with her eyes, to obliterate the trace of tears. She was, however, successful, for she looked very beautiful when she came down, and so dignified, so composed, so quiet in her happiness, and yet so very happy in her quietness. Fanny was anything but a hypocrite; she had hardly a taint of hypocrisy in her composition, but her looks seldom betrayed her feelings. There was a majesty of beauty about her, a look of serenity in her demeanour, which in public made her appear superior to all emotion.
Frank seemed to be much less at his ease. He attempted to chat easily with the countess, and to listen pleasantly to the would-be witticisms of the earl; but he was not comfortable, he did not amalgamate well with the family; had there been a larger party, he could have talked all dinner-time to his love; but, as it was, he hardly spoke a word to her during the ceremony, and indeed, but few during the evening. He did sit next to her on the sofa, to be sure, and watched the lace she was working; but he could not talk unreservedly to her, when old Lady Cashel was sitting close to him on the other side, and Lady Selina on a chair immediately opposite. And then, it is impossible to talk to one’s mistress, in an ordinary voice, on ordinary subjects, when one has not seen her for some months. A lover is never so badly off as in a family party: a t?te-…-t?te, or a large assembly, are what suit him best: he is equally at his ease in either; but he is completely out of his element in a family party. After all, Lady Cashel was right; it would have been much better to have asked the O’Joscelyns.
The next morning, Frank underwent a desperate interview in the book-room. His head was dizzy before Lord Cashel had finished half of what he had to say. He commenced by pointing out with what perfect uprightness and wisdom he had himself acted with regard to his ward; and Lord Ballindine did not care to be at the trouble of contradicting him. He then went to the subject of settlements, and money matters: professed that he had most unbounded confidence in his young friend’s liberality, integrity, and good feeling; that he would be glad to listen, and, he had no doubt, to accede to any proposals made by him: that he was quite sure Lord Ballindine would make no proposal which was not liberal, fair, and most proper; and he said a great deal more of the kind, and then himself proposed to arrange his ward’s fortune in such a way as to put it quite beyond her future husband’s control. On this subject, however, Frank rather nonplussed the earl by proposing nothing, and agreeing to nothing; but simply saying that he would leave the whole matter in the hands of the lawyers.
‘Quite right, my lord, quite right,’ said Lord Cashel, ‘my men of business, Green and Grogram, will manage all that. They know all about Fanny’s property; they can draw out the settlements, and Grogram can bring them here, and we can execute them: that’ll be the simplest way.’
‘I’ll write to Mr Cummings, then, and tell him to wait on Messrs. Green and Grogram. Cummings is a very proper man: he was recommended to me by Guinness.’
‘Oh, ah yes; your attorney, you mean?’ said the earl. ‘Why, yes, that will be quite proper, too. Of course Mr Cummings will see the necessity of absolutely securing Miss Wyndham’s fortune.’
Nothing further, however, was said between them on the subject; and the settlements, whatever was their purport, were drawn out without any visible interference on the part of Lord Ballindine. But Mr Grogram, the attorney, on his first visit to Grey Abbey on the subject. had no difficulty in learning that Miss Wyndham was determined to have a will of her own in the disposition of her own money.
Fanny told her lover the whole episode of Lord Kilcullen’s offer to her; but she told it in such a way as to redound rather to her cousin’s credit than otherwise. She had learned to love him as a cousin amid a friend, and his ill-timed proposal to her had not destroyed the feeling. A woman can rarely be really offended at the expression of love, unless it be from some one unfitted to match with her, either in rank or age. Besides, Fanny thought that Lord Kilcullen had behaved generously to her when she so violently repudiated his love: she believed that it had been sincere; she had not even to herself accused him of meanness or treachery; and she spoke of him as one to be pitied, liked, and regarded; not as one to be execrated and avoided. And then she confessed to Frank all her fears respecting himself; how her heart would have broken, had he taken her own rash word as final, and so deserted her. She told him that she had never ceased to love him, for a day; not even on that day when, in her foolish spleen, she had told her uncle she was willing to break off the match; she owned to him all her troubles, all her doubts; how she had made up her mind to write to him, but had not dared to do so, lest his answer should be such as would kill her at once. And then she prayed to be forgiven for her falseness; for having consented, even for a moment, to forget the solemn vows she had so often repeated to him.
Frank stopped her again and again in her sweet confessions, and swore the blame was only his. He anathematised himself, his horses, and his friends, for having caused a moment’s uneasiness to her; but she insisted on receiving his forgiveness, and he was obliged to say that he forgave her. With all his follies, and all his weakness, Lord Ballindine was not of an unforgiving temperament: he was too happy to be angry with any one, now. He forgave even Lord Cashel; and, had he seen Lord Kilcullen, he would have been willing to give him his hand as to a brother.
Frank spent two or three delightful weeks, basking in the sunshine of Fanny’s love, and Lord Cashel’s favour. Nothing could be more obsequiously civil than the earl’s demeanour, now that the matter was decided. Every thing was to be done just as Lord Ballindine liked; his taste was to be consulted in every thing; the earl even proposed different, visits to the Curragh; asked after the whereabouts of Fin M’Coul and Brien Boru; and condescended pleasantly to inquire whether Dot Blake was prospering as usual with his favourite amusement.
At length, the day was fixed for the marriage. It was to be in the pleasant, sweet-smelling, grateful month of May the end of May; and Lord and Lady Ballindine were then to start for a summer tour, as the countess had proposed, to see the Rhine, and Switzerland, and Rome, and those sort of places. And now, invitations were sent, far and wide, to relatives and friends. Lord Cashel had determined that the wedding should be a great concern. The ruin of his son was to be forgotten in the marriage of his niece. The bishop of Maryborough was to come and marry them; the Ellisons were to come again, and the Fitzgeralds: a Duchess was secured, though duchesses are scarce in Ireland; and great exertions were made to get at a royal Prince, who was commanding the forces in the west. But the royal Prince did not see why he should put himself to so much trouble, and he therefore sent to say that he was very sorry, but the peculiar features of the time made it quite impossible for him to leave his command, even on so great a temptation; and a paragraph consequently found its way into the papers, very laudatory of his Royal Highness’s military energy and attention. Mrs O’Kelly and her daughters received a very warm invitation, which they were delighted to accept. Sophy and Augusta were in the seventh heaven of happiness, for they were to form a portion of the fair bevy of bridesmaids appointed to attend Fanny Wyndham to the altar. Frank rather pished and poohed at all these preparations of grandeur; he felt that when the ceremony took place he would look like the ornamental calf in the middle of it; but, on the whole, he bore his martyrdom patiently. Four spanking bays, and a new chariot ordered from Hutton’s, on the occasion, would soon carry him away from the worst part of it.
Lord Cashel was in the midst of his glory: he had got an occupation and he delighted in it. Lady Selina performed her portion of the work with exemplary patience and attention. She wrote all the orders to the tradesmen, and all the invitations; she even condescended to give advice to Fanny about her dress; and to Griffiths, about the arrangement of the rooms and tables. But poor Lady Cashel worked the hardest of all her troubles had no end. Had she known what she was about to encounter, when she undertook the task of superintending the arrangements for her niece’s wedding, she would never have attempted it: she would never have entered into negotiations with that treacherous Murray that man cook in Dublin but have allowed Mrs Richards to have done her best or her worst in her own simple way, in spite of the Duchess and the Bishop, and the hopes of a royal Prince indulged in by Lord Cashel. She did not dare to say as much to her husband, but she confessed to Griffiths that she was delighted when she heard His Royal Highness would not come. She was sure his coming would not make dear Fanny a bit happier, and she really would not have known what to do with him after the married people were gone.
Frank received two letters from Dot Blake during his stay at Grey Abbey. In the former he warmly congratulated him on his approaching nuptials, and strongly commended him on his success in having arranged matters. ‘You never could have forgiven yourself,’ he said, ‘had you allowed Miss Wyndham’s splendid fortune to slip through your hands. I knew you were not the man to make a vain boast of a girl’s love, and I was therefore sure that you might rely on her affection. I only feared you might let the matter go too far. You know I strongly advised you not to marry twenty thousand pounds. I am as strongly of opinion that you would be a fool to neglect to marry six times as much. You see I still confine myself to the money part of the business, as though the lady herself were of no value. I don’t think so, however; only I know you never would have lived happily without an easy fortune.’ And then he spoke of Brien Boru, and informed Lord Ballindine that that now celebrated nag was at the head of the list of the Derby horses; that it was all but impossible to get any odds against him at all that the whole betting world were talking of nothing else; that three conspiracies had been detected, the object of which was to make him safe that is, to make him very unsafe to his friends; that Scott’s foreman had been offered two thousand to dose him; and that Scott himself slept in the stable with him every night, to prevent anything like false play.
The second letter was written by Dot, at Epsom, on the 4th of May, thirty minutes after the great race had been run. It was very short; and shall therefore be given entire.
Epsom, Derby Day,
Race just over.
God bless you, my dear boy Brien has done the trick, and done it well! Butler rode him beautifully, but he did not want any riding; he’s the kindest beast ever had a saddle on. The stakes are close on four thousand pounds: your share will do well to pay the posters, &c., for yourself and my lady, on your wedding trip. I win well very well; but I doubt the settling. We shall have awful faces at the corner next week. You’ll probably have heard all about it by express before you get this.
In greatest haste, yours,
W. BLAKE.
The next week, the following paragraph appeared in ‘Bell’s Life in London.’
‘It never rains but it pours. It appears pretty certain, now, that Brien Boru is not the property of the gentleman in whose name he has run; but that he is owned by a certain noble lord, well known on the Irish turf, who has lately, however, been devoting his time to pursuits more pleasant and more profitable than the cares of the stable pleasant and profitable as it doubtless must be to win the best race of the year. The pick-up on the Derby is about four thousand pounds, and Brien Boru is certainly the best horse of his year. But Lord Ballindine’s matrimonial pick-up is, we are told, a clear quarter of a million; and those who are good judges declare that no more beautiful woman than the future Lady Ballindine will have graced the English Court for many a long year. His lordship, on the whole, is not doing badly.’
Lord Cashel, also, congratulated Frank on his success on the turf, in spite of the very decided opinion he had expressed on the subject, when he was endeavouring to throw him on one side.
‘My dear Ballindine,’ he said, ‘I wish you joy with all my heart: a most magnificent animal, I’m told, is Brien, and still partly your own property, you say. Well; it’s a great triumph to beat those English lads on their own ground, isn’t it? And thorough Irish blood, too! thorough Irish blood! He has the “Paddy Whack” strain in him, through the dam the very best blood in Ireland. You know, my mare “Dignity”, that won the Oaks in ‘29, was by “Chanticleer”, out of “Floribel”, by “Paddy Whack.” You say you mean to give up the turf, and you know I’ve done so, too. But, if you ever do change your mind-should you ever run horses again take my advice, and stick to the “Paddy Whack” strain. There’s no beating the real “Paddy Whack” blood.’
On the 21st of May, 1844, Lord Ballindine and Fanny Wyndham were married. The bishop ‘turned ’em off iligant,’ as a wag said in the servants’ hall. There was a long account of the affair in the ‘Morning Post’ of the day; there were eight bridesmaids, all of whom, it was afterwards remarked, were themselves married within two years of the time; an omen which was presumed to promise much continued happiness to Lord and Lady Ballindine, and all belonging to them.
Murray, the man cook, did come down from Dublin, just in time; but he behaved very badly. He got quite drunk on the morning of the wedding. He, however, gave Richards an opportunity of immortalising herself. She behaved, on the trying occasion, so well, that she is now confirmed in her situation; and Lady Cashel has solemnly declared that she will never again, on any account, be persuaded to allow a man cook to enter the house.
Lady Selina she would not officiate as one of the bridesmaids is still unmarried; but her temper is not thereby soured, nor her life embittered. She is active, energetic, and good as ever: and, as ever, cold, hard, harsh, and dignified. Lord Kilcullen has hardly been heard of since his departure from Grey Abbey. It is known that he is living at Baden, but no one knows on what. His father never mentions his name; his mother sometimes talks of ‘poor Adolphus;’ but if he were dead and buried he could not give less trouble to the people of Grey Abbey.
No change has occurred, or is likely to take place, in the earl himself nor is any desirable. How could he change for the better? How could he bear his honours with more dignity, or grace his high position with more decorum? Every year since the marriage of his niece, he has sent Lord and Lady Ballindine an invitation to Grey Abbey; but there has always been some insuperable impediment to the visit. A child had just been born, or was just going to be born; or Mrs O’Kelly was ill; or one of the Miss O’Kellys was going to be married. It was very unfortunate, but Lord and Lady Ballindine were never able to get as far as Grey Abbey.
Great improvements have been effected at Kelly’s Court. Old buildings have been pulled down, and additions built up; a great many thousand young trees have been planted, and some miles of new roads and walks constructed. The place has quite an altered appearance; and, though Connaught is still Connaught, and County Mayo is the poorest part of it, Lady Ballindine does not find Kelly’s Court unbearable. She has three children already, and doubtless will have many more. Her nursery, therefore, prevents her from being tormented by the weariness of the far west.
Lord Ballindine himself is very happy. He still has the hounds, and maintains, in the three counties round him, the sporting pre-eminence, which has for so many years belonged to his family. But he has no race-horses. His friend, Dot, purchased the lot of them out and out, soon after the famous Derby; and a very good bargain, for himself, he is said to have made. He is still intimate with Lord Ballindine, and always spends a fortnight with him at Kelly’s Court during the hunting-season.
Sophy O’Kelly married a Blake, and Augusta married a Dillon; and, as they both live within ten miles of Kelly’s Court. and their husbands are related to all the Blakes and all the Dillons; and as Ballindine himself is the head of all the Kellys, there is a rather strong clan of them. About five-and-twenty cousins muster together in red coats and top-boots, every Tuesday and Friday during the hunting-season. It would hardly be wise, in that country, to quarrel with a Kelly, a Dillon, or a Blake.
We must now return to Dunmore, and say a few parting words of the Kellys and Anty Lynch; and then our task will be finished.
It will be remembered that that demon of Dunmore, Barry Lynch, has been made to vanish: like Lord Kilcullen, he has gone abroad; he has settled himself at an hotel at Boulogne, and is determined to enjoy himself. Arrangements have been made about the property, certainly not very satisfactory to Barry, because they are such as make it necessary for him to pay his own debts; but they still leave him sufficient to allow of his indulging in every vice congenial to his taste; and, if he doesn’t get fleeced by cleverer rogues than himself which, however, will probably be the case he will have quite enough to last him till lie has drunk himself to death.
After his departure, there was nothing to delay Anty’s marriage, but tier own rather slow recovery. She has no other relatives to ask, no other friends to consult. Now that Barry was gone she was entirely her own mistress, and was quite willing to give up her dominion over herself to Martin Kelly. She had, however, been greatly shaken; not, by illness only, but by fear also her fears of Barry and for Barry. She still dreamed while asleep, and thought while awake, of that horrid night when lie crept up to her room and swore that he would murder her. This, and what she had suffered since, had greatly weakened her, and it was some time before Doctor Colligan would pronounce her convalescent. At last, however, the difficulties were overcome; all arrangements were completed. Anty was well; the property was settled; Martin was impatient; and the day was fixed.
There was no bishop, no duchess, no man-cook, at the wedding-party given on the occasion by Mrs Kelly; nevertheless, it was, in its way, quite as grand an affair as that given by the countess. The widow opened her heart, and opened her house. Her great enemy, Barry I.ynch, was gone clean beaten out of the field thoroughly vanquished; as far as Ireland was concerned, annihilated; and therefore, any one else in the three counties was welcome to share her hospitality. Oh, the excess of delight the widow experienced in speaking of Barry to one of her gossips, as the ‘poor misfortunate crature!’ Daly, the attorney, was especially invited, and he came. Moylan also was asked, but he stayed away. Doctor Colligan was there, in great feather; had it not been for him, there would probably have been no wedding at all. It would have been a great thing if Lord Ballindine could have been got to grace the party, though only for ten minutes; but he was at that time in Switzerland with his own bride, so he could not possibly do so.
‘Well, ma’am,’ said Mrs Costelloe, the grocer’s wife, from Tuam, an old friend of the widow, who had got into a corner with her to have a little chat, and drink half-a-pint of porter before the ceremony ‘and I’m shure I wish you joy of the marriage. Faux, I’m tould it’s nigh to five hundred a-year, Miss Anty has, may God bless and incrase it! Well, Martin has his own luck; but he desarves it, he desarves it.’
‘I don’t know so much about luck thin, Mrs Costelloe,’ said the widow, who still professed to think that her son gave quite as much as he got, in marrying Amity Lynch; ‘I don’t know so much about luck: Martin was very well as he was; his poor father didn’t have him that way that he need be looking to a wife for mains, the Lord be praised.’
‘And that’s thrue, too, Mrs Kelly,’ said the other; ‘but Miss Anty’s fortune ain’t a bad step to a young man, neither. Why, there won’t be a young gintleman within tin no, not within forty miles, more respectable than Martin Kelly; that is, regarding mains.’
‘And you needn’t stop there, Ma’am, neither; you may say the very same regarding characther, too and family, too, glory be to the Virgin. I’d like to know where some of their ancesthers wor, when the Kellys of ould wor ruling the whole counthry?’
‘Thrue for you, my dear; I’d like to know, indeed: there’s nothing, afther all, like blood, and a good characther. But is it thrue, Mrs Kelly, that Martin will live up in the big house yonder?’
‘Where should a man live thin, Mrs Costelloe, when he gets married, but jist in his own house? Why for should he not live there?’
‘That’s thrue agin, to be shure: but yet, only to think Martin living in ould Sim Lynch’s big house! I wondther what ould Sim would say, hisself, av he could only come back and see it!’
‘I’ll tell you what he’d say thin, av he tould the thruth; he’d say there was an honest man living there, which wor niver the case as long as any of his own breed was in it barring Anty, I main; she’s honest and thrue, the Lord be good to her, the poor thing. But the porter’s not to your liking, Mrs Costelloe you’re not tasting it at all this morning.’
No one could have been more humble and meek than was Anty herself, in the midst of her happiness. She had no idea of taking on herself the airs of a fine lady, or the importance of an heiress; she had no wish to be thought a lady; she had no wish for other friends than those of her husband, and his family. She had never heard of her brother’s last horrible proposal to Doctor Colligan, and of the manner in which his consent to her marriage had been obtained; nor did Martin intend that she should hear it. She had merely been told that her brother had found that it was for his advantage to leave the neighbourhood altogether; that he had given up all claim to the house; and that his income was to be sent to him by a person appointed in the neighbourhood to receive it. Anty, however, before signing her own settlement, was particularly careful that nothing should be done, injurious to her brother’s interest, and that no unfair advantage should be taken of his absence.
Martin, too, was quiet enough on the occasion. It was arranged that he and his wife, and at any rate one of his sisters, should live at Dunmore House; and that he should keep in his own hands the farm near Dunmore, which old Sim had held, as well as his own farm at Toneroe. But, to tell the truth, Martin felt rather ashamed of his grandeur. He would much have preferred building a nice snug little house of his own, on the land he held under Lord Ballindine; but he was told that he would be a fool to build a house on another man’s ground, when he had a very good one ready built on his own. He gave way to such good advice, but he did not feel at all happy at the idea; and, when going up to the house, always felt an inclination to shirk in at the back-way.
But, though neither the widow nor Martin triumphed aloud at their worldly prosperity, the two girls made up for their quiescence. They were full of nothing else; their brother’s fine house Anty’s great fortune; their wealth, prosperity, and future station and happiness, gave them subjects of delightful conversation among their friends. Meg. moreover, boasted that it was all her own doing; that it was she who had made up the match; that Mart in would never have thought of it but for her nor Anty either, for the matter of that.
‘And will your mother be staying down at the shop always, the same as iver?’ said Matilda Nolan, the daughter of the innkeeper at Tuam.
‘‘Deed she says so, then,’ said Jane, in a tone of disappointment.; for her mother’s pertinacity in adhering to the counter was, at present, the one misery of her life.
‘And which of you will be staying here along with her, dears?’ said Matilda. ‘She’ll be wanting one of you to be with her, any ways.’
‘Oh, turn about, I suppose,’ said Jane.
‘She’ll not. get much of my company, any way,’ said Meg. ‘I’ve had enough of the nasty place, and now Martin has a dacent house to put over our heads, and mainly through my mains I may say, I don’t see why I’m to be mewing myself up in such a hole as this. There’s room for her up in Dunmore House, and wilcome, too; let her come up there. Av she mains to demain herself by sticking down here, she may stay by herself for me.’
‘But you’ll take your turn, Meg?’ said Jane.
‘It’ll he a very little turn, then,’ said Meg; ‘I’m sick of the nasty ould place; fancy coming down here, Matilda, to the tobacco and sugar, after living up there a month or so, with everything nice and comfortable! And it’s only mother’s whims, for she don’t want the shop. Anty begged and prayed of her for to come and live at Dunmore House for good and all; but no; she says she’ll never live in any one’s house that isn’t her own.’
‘I’m not so, any way,’ said Jane; ‘I’d be glad enough to live in another person’s house av I liked it.’ ‘I’ll go bail you would, my dear,’ said Matilda; ‘willing enough especially John Dolan’s.’
‘Oh! av I iver live in that it’ll be partly my own, you know; and may-be a girl might do worse.’
‘That’s thrue, dear,’ said Matilda; ‘but John Dolan’s not so soft as to take any girl just as she stands. What does your mother say about the money part of the business?
And so the two friends put their heads together, to arrange another wedding, if possible.
Martin and Anty did not go to visit Switzerland, or Rome, as soon as they were married; but they took a bathing-lodge at Renvill, near Galway, and with much difficulty, persuaded Mrs Kelly to allow both her daughters to accompany them. And very merry they all were. Anty soon became a different creature from what she ever had been: she learned to be happy and gay; to laugh and enjoy the sunshine of the world. She had always been kind to others, and now she had round her those who were kind amid affectionate to tier. Her manner of life was completely changed: indeed, life itself was an altered thing to her. It was so new to her to have friends; to he loved; to be one of a family who regarded amid looked up to her. She hardly knew herself in her new happiness.
They returned to Dunmore in the early autumn, and took up their residence at Sim Lynch’s big house, as had been arranged. Martin was very shy about it: it was long before he talked about it as his house, or his ground, or his farm; and it was long before he could find himself quite at home in his own parlour.
Many attempts were made to induce the widow to give up the inn, and shift her quarters to the big house, but in vain. She declared that, ould as she was, she wouldn’t think of making herself throublesome to young folks; who, maybe, afther a bit, would a dail sooner have her room than her company: that she had always been misthress, and mostly masther too, in her own house, glory be to God; and that she meant to be so still; and that, poor as the place was, she meant to call it her own. She didn’t think herself at all fit company for people who lived in grand houses, and had their own demesnes, and gardens, and the rest of it; she had always lived where money was to be made, and she didn’t see the sense of going, in her old age, to a place where the only work would be how to spend it. Some folks would find it was a dail asier to scatther it than it wor to put it together. All this she said and a great deal more, which had her character not been known, would have led people to believe that her son was a spendthrift, and that he and Anty were commencing life in an expensive way, and without means. But then, the widow Kelly was known, and her speeches were only taken at their value.
She so far relaxed, however, that she spent every Sunday at the house; on which occasions she invariably dressed herself with all the grandeur she was able to display, and passed the whole afternoon sitting on a sofa, with her hands before her, trying to look as became a lady enjoying herself in a fine drawing-room. Her Sundays were certainly not the comfort to her, which they had been when spent at the inn; but they made her enjoy, with a keener relish, the feeling of perfect sovereignty when she returned to her own domains.
I have nothing further to tell of Mr and Mrs Kelly. I believe Doctor Colligan has been once called in on an interesting occasion, if not twice; so it is likely that Dunmore House will not be left without an heir.
I have also learned, on inquiry, that Margaret and Jane Kelly have both arranged their own affairs to their own satisfaction.
The End