Lord Kilgobbin

CHAPTER LI

When Walpole hurried into the beech alley which he had seen Nina take, and followed her in all haste, he did not stop to question himself why he did so. Indeed, if prudence were to be consulted, there was every reason in the world why he should rather have left his leave-takings to the care of Mr. Kearney than assume the charge of them himself; but if young gentlemen who fall in love were only to be logical or ‘consequent,’ the tender passion would soon lose some of the contingencies which give it much of its charm, and people who follow such occupations as mine would discover that they had lost one of the principal employments of their lifetime.

As he went along, however, he bethought him that as it was to say good-bye he now followed her, it behoved him to blend his leave-taking with that pledge of a speedy return, which, like the effects of light in landscape, bring out the various tints in the richest colouring, and mark more distinctly all that is in shadow. ‘I shall at least see,’ muttered he to himself, ‘how far my presence here serves to brighten her daily life, and what amount of gloom my absence will suggest.’ Cecil Walpole was one of a class – and I hasten to say it is a class – who, if not very lavish of their own affections, or accustomed to draw largely on their own emotions, are very fond of being loved themselves, and not only are they convinced that as there can be nothing more natural or reasonable than to love them, it is still a highly commendable feature in the person who carries that love to the extent of a small idolatry, and makes it the business of a life. To worship the men of this order constitutes in their eyes a species of intellectual superiority for which they are grateful, and this same gratitude represents to themselves all of love their natures are capable of feeling.

He knew thoroughly that Nina was not alone the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, that the fascinations of her manner, and her grace of movement and gesture, exercised a sway that was almost magic; that in quickness to apprehend and readiness to reply, she scarcely had an equal; and that whether she smiled, or looked pensive, or listened, or spoke, there was an absorbing charm about her that made one forget all else around her, and unable to see any but her; and yet, with all this consciousness, he recognised no trait about her so thoroughly attractive as that she admired him.

Let me not be misunderstood. This same sentiment can be at times something very different from a mere egotism – not that I mean to say it was such in the present case. Cecil Walpole fully represented the order he belonged to, and was a most well-looking, well-dressed, and well-bred young gentleman, only suggesting the reflection that, to live amongst such a class pure and undiluted, would be little better than a life passed in the midst of French communism.

I have said that, after his fashion, he was ‘in love’ with her, and so, after his fashion, he wanted to say that he was going away, and to tell her not to be utterly disconsolate till he came back again. ‘I can imagine,’ thought he, ‘how I made her life here, how, in developing the features that attract me, I made her a very different creature to herself.’

It was not at all unpleasant to him to think that the people who should surround her were so unlike himself. ‘The barbarians,’ as he courteously called them to himself, ‘will be very hard to endure. Nor am I very sorry for it, only she must catch nothing of their traits in accommodating herself to their habits. On that I must strongly insist. Whether it be by singing their silly ballads – that four-note melody they call “Irish music,” or through mere imitation, she has already caught a slight accent of the country. She must get rid of this. She will have to divest herself of all her “Kilgobbinries” ere I present her to my friends in town.’ Apart from these disparagements, she could, as he expressed it, ‘hold her own,’ and people take a very narrow view of the social dealings of the world, who fail to see how much occasion a woman has for the exercise of tact and temper and discretion and ready-wittedness and generosity in all the well-bred intercourse of life. Just as Walpole had arrived at that stage of reflection to recognise that she was exactly the woman to suit him and push his fortunes with the world, he reached a part of the wood where a little space had been cleared, and a few rustic seats scattered about to make a halting-place. The sound of voices caught his ear, and he stopped, and now, looking stealthily through the brushwood, he saw Gorman O’Shea as he lay in a lounging attitude on a bench and smoked his cigar, while Nina Kostalergi was busily engaged in pinning up the skirt of her dress in a festoon fashion, which, to Cecil’s ideas at least, displayed more of a marvellously pretty instep and ankle than he thought strictly warranted. Puzzling as this seemed, the first words she spoke gave the explanation.

‘Don’t flatter yourself, most valiant soldier, that you are going to teach me the “Czardasz.” I learned it years ago from Tassilo Esterhazy; but I asked you to come here to set me right about that half-minuet step that begins it. I believe I have got into the habit of doing the man’s part, for I used to be Pauline Esterhazy’s partner after Tassilo went away.’

‘You had a precious dancing-master in Tassilo,’ growled out O’Shea. ‘The greatest scamp in the Austrian army.’

‘I know nothing of the moralities of the Austrian army, but the count was a perfect gentleman, and a special friend of mine.’

‘I am sorry for it,’ was the gruff rejoinder.

‘You have nothing to grieve for, sir. You have no vested interest to be imperilled by anything that I do.’

‘Let us not quarrel, at all events,’ said he, as he arose with some alacrity and flung away his cigar; and Walpole turned away, as little pleased with what he had heard as dissatisfied with himself for having listened. ‘And we call these things accidents,’ muttered he; ‘but I believe Fortune means more generously by us when she crosses our path in this wise. I almost wish I had gone a step farther, and stood before them. At least it would have finished this episode, and without a word. As it is, a mere phrase will do it – the simple question as to what progress she makes in dancing will show I know all. But do I know all?’ Thus speculating and ruminating, he went his way till he reached the carriage, and drove off at speed, for the first time in his life, really and deeply in love!

He made his journey safely, and arrived at Holyhead by daybreak. He had meant to go over deliberately all that he should say to the Viceroy, when questioned, as he expected to be, on the condition of Ireland. It was an old story, and with very few variations to enliven it.

How was it that, with all his Irish intelligence well arranged in his mind – the agrarian crime, the ineffective police, the timid juries, the insolence of the popular press, and the arrogant demands of the priesthood – how was it that, ready to state all these obstacles to right government, and prepared to show that it was only by ‘out-jockeying’ the parties, he could hope to win in Ireland still, that Greek girl, and what he called her perfidy, would occupy a most disproportionate share of his thoughts, and a larger place in his heart also? The simple truth is, that though up to this Walpole found immense pleasure in his flirtation with Nina Kostalergi, yet his feeling for her now was nearer love than anything he had experienced before. The bare suspicion that a woman could jilt him, or the possible thought that a rival could be found to supplant him, gave, by the very pain it occasioned, such an interest to the episode, that he could scarcely think of anything else. That the most effectual way to deal with the Greek was to renew his old relations with his cousin Lady Maude was clear enough. ‘At least I shall seem to be the traitor,’ thought he, ‘and she shall not glory in the thought of having deceived me.’ While he was still revolving these thoughts, he arrived at the castle, and learned as he crossed the door that his lordship was impatient to see him.

Lord Danesbury had never been a fluent speaker in public, while in private life a natural indolence of disposition, improved, so to say, by an Eastern life, had made him so sparing of his words, that at times when he was ill or indisposed he could never be said to converse at all, and his talk consisted of very short sentences strung loosely together, and not unfrequently so ill-connected as to show that an unexpressed thought very often intervened between the uttered fragments. Except to men who, like Walpole, knew him intimately, he was all but unintelligible. The private secretary, however, understood how to fill up the blanks in any discourse, and so follow out indications which, to less practised eyes, left no footmarks behind them.

His Excellency, slowly recovering from a sharp attack of gout, was propped by pillows, and smoking a long Turkish pipe, as Cecil entered the room and saluted him. ‘Come at last,’ was his lordship’s greeting. ‘Ought to have been here weeks ago. Read that.’ And he pushed towards him a Times, with a mark on the margin: ‘To ask the Secretary for Ireland whether the statement made by certain newspapers in the North of a correspondence between the Castle authorities and the Fenian leader was true, and whether such correspondence could be laid on the table of the House?’

‘Read it out,’ cried the Viceroy, as Walpole conned over the paragraph somewhat slowly to himself.

‘I think, my lord, when you have heard a few words of explanation from me, you will see that this charge has not the gravity these newspaper-people would like to attach to it.’

‘Can’t be explained – nothing could justify – infernal blunder – and must go.’

‘Pray, my lord, vouchsafe me even five minutes.’

‘See it all – balderdash – explain nothing – Cardinal more offended than the rest – and here, read.’ And he pushed a letter towards him, dated Downing Street, and marked private. ‘The idiot you left behind you has been betrayed into writing to the rebels and making conditions with them. To disown him now is not enough.’

‘Really, my lord, I don’t see why I should submit to the indignity of reading more of this.’

His Excellency crushed the letter in his hand, and puffed very vigorously at his pipe, which was nearly extinguished. ‘Must go,’ said he at last, as a fresh volume of smoke rolled forth.

‘That I can believe – that I can understand, my lord. When you tell me you cease to endorse my pledges, I feel I am a bankrupt in your esteem.’

‘Others smashed in the same insolvency – inconceivable blunder – where was Cartwright? – what was Holmes about? No one in Dublin to keep you out of this cursed folly?’

‘Until your lordship’s patience will permit me to say a few words, I cannot hope to justify my conduct.’

‘No justifying – no explaining – no! regular smash and complete disgrace. Must go.’

‘I am quite ready to go. Your Excellency has no need to recall me to the necessity.’

‘Knew it all – and against my will, too – said so from the first – thing I never liked – nor see my way in. Must go – must go.’

‘I presume, my lord, I may leave you now. I want a bath and a cup of coffee.’

‘Answer that!’ was the gruff reply, as he tossed across the table a few lines signed, ‘Bertie Spencer, Private Secretary.’

‘“I am directed to request that Mr. Walpole will enable the Right Honourable Mr. Annihough to give the flattest denial to the inclosed.”’

‘That must be done at once,’ said the Viceroy, as the other ceased to read the note.

‘It is impossible, my lord; I cannot deny my own handwriting.’

‘Annihough will find some road out of it,’ muttered the other. ‘You were a fool, and mistook your instructions, or the constable was a fool and required a misdirection, or the Fenian was a fool, which he would have been if he gave the pledge you asked for. Must go, all the same.’

‘But I am quite ready to go, my lord,’ rejoined Walpole angrily. ‘There is no need to insist so often on that point.’

‘Who talks – who thinks of you, sir?’ cried the other, with an irritated manner. ‘I speak of myself. It is I must resign – no great sacrifice, perhaps, after all; stupid office, false position, impracticable people. Make them all Papists to-morrow, and ask to be Hindus. They’ve got the land, and not content if they can’t shoot the landlords!’

‘If you think, my lord, that by any personal explanation of mine, I could enable the Minister to make his answer in the House more plausible – ’

‘Leave the plausibility to himself, sir,’ and then he added, half aloud, ‘he’ll be unintelligible enough without you. There, go, and get some breakfast – come back afterwards, and I’ll dictate my letter of resignation. Maude has had a letter from Atlee. Shrewd fellow, Atlee – done the thing well.’

As Walpole was near the door, his Excellency said, ‘You can have Guatemala, if they have not given it away. It will get you out of Europe, which is the first thing, and with the yellow fever it may do more.’

‘I am profoundly grateful, my lord,’ said he, bowing low.

‘Maude, of course, would not go, so it ends that.’

‘I am deeply touched by the interest your lordship vouchsafes to my concerns.’

‘Try and live five years, and you’ll have a retiring allowance. The last fellow did, but was eaten by a crocodile out bathing.’ And with this he resumed his Times, and turned away, while Walpole hastened off to his room, in a frame of mind very far from comfortable or reassuring.

CHAPTER LII

As Dick Kearney and young O’Shea had never attained any close intimacy – a strange sort of half-jealousy, inexplicable as to its cause, served to keep them apart – it was by mere accident that the two young men met one morning after breakfast in the garden, and on Kearney’s offer of a cigar, the few words that followed led to a conversation.

‘I cannot pretend to give you a choice Havana, like one of Walpole’s,’ said Dick, ‘but you’ll perhaps find it smokeable.’

‘I’m not difficult,’ said the other; ‘and as to Mr. Walpole’s tobacco, I don’t think I ever tasted it.’

‘And I,’ rejoined the other, ‘as seldom as I could; I mean, only when politeness obliged me.’

‘I thought you liked him?’ said Gorman shortly.

‘I? Far from it. I thought him a consummate puppy, and I saw that he looked down on us as inveterate savages.’

‘He was a favourite with your ladies, I think?’

‘Certainly not with my sister, and I doubt very much with my cousin. Do you like him?’

‘No, not at all; but then he belongs to a class of men I neither understand nor sympathise with. Whatever I know of life is associated with downright hard work. As a soldier I had my five hours’ daily drill and the care of my equipments, as a lieutenant I had to see that my men kept to their duty, and whenever I chanced to have a little leisure, I could not give it up to ennui or consent to feel bored and wearied.’

‘And do you mean to say you had to groom your horse and clean your arms when you served in the ranks?’

‘Not always. As a cadet I had a soldier-servant, what we call a “Bursche”; but there were periods when I was out of funds, and barely able to grope my way to the next quarter-day, and at these times I had but one meal a day, and obliged to draw my waist-belt pretty tight to make me feel I had eaten enough. A Bursche costs very little, but I could not spare even that little.’

‘Confoundedly hard that.’

‘All my own fault. By a little care and foresight, even without thrift, I had enough to live as well as I ought; but a reckless dash of the old spendthrift blood I came of would master me now and then, and I’d launch out into some extravagance that would leave me penniless for months after.’

‘I believe I can understand that. One does get horribly bored by the monotony of a well-to-do existence: just as I feel my life here – almost insupportable.’

‘But you are going into Parliament; you are going to be a great public man.’

‘That bubble has burst already; don’t you know what happened at Birr? They tore down all Miller’s notices and mine, they smashed our booths, beat our voters out of the town, and placed Donogan – the rebel Donogan – at the head of the poll, and the head-centre is now M.P. for King’s County.’

‘And he has a right to sit in the House?’

‘There’s the question. The matter is discussed every day in the newspapers, and there are as many for as against him. Some aver that the popular will is a sovereign edict that rises above all eventualities; others assert that the sentence which pronounces a man a felon declares him to be dead in law.’

‘And which side do you incline to?’

‘I believe in the latter: he’ll not be permitted to take his seat.’

‘You’ll have another chance, then?’

‘No; I’ll venture no more. Indeed, but for this same man Donogan, I had never thought of it. He filled my head with ideas of a great part to be played and a proud place to be occupied, and that even without high abilities, a man of a strong will, a fixed resolve, and an honest conscience, might at this time do great things for Ireland.’

‘And then betrayed you?’

‘No such thing; he no more dreamed of Parliament himself than you do now. He knew he was liable to the law, – he was hiding from the police – and well aware that there was a price upon his head.’

‘But if he was true to you, why did he not refuse this honour? why did he not decline to be elected?’

‘They never gave him the choice. Don’t you see, it is one of the strange signs of the strange times we are living in that the people fix upon certain men as their natural leaders and compel them to march in the van, and that it is the force at the back of these leaders that, far more than their talents, makes them formidable in public life.’

‘I only follow it in part. I scarcely see what they aim at, and I do not know if they see it more clearly themselves. And now, what will you turn to?’

‘I wish you could tell me.’

‘About as blank a future as my own,’ muttered Gorman.

‘Come, come, you have a career: you are a lieutenant of lancers; in time you will be a captain, and eventually a colonel, and who knows but a general at last, with Heaven knows how many crosses and medals on your breast.’

‘Nothing less likely – the day is gone by when Englishmen were advanced to places of high honour and trust in the Austrian army. There are no more field-marshals like Nugent than major-generals like O’Connell. I might be made a Rittmeister, and if I lived long enough, and was not superannuated, a major; but there my ambition must cease.’

‘And you are content with that prospect?’

‘Of course I am not. I go back to it with something little short of despair.’

‘Why go back, then?’

‘Tell me what else to do – tell me what other road in life to take – show me even one alternative.’

The silence that now succeeded lasted several minutes, each immersed in his own thoughts, and each doubtless convinced how little presumption he had to advise or counsel the other.

‘Do you know, O’Shea,’ cried Kearney, ‘I used to fancy that this Austrian life of yours was a mere caprice – that you took “a cast,” as we call it in the hunting-field, amongst those fellows to see what they were like and what sort of an existence was theirs – but that being your aunt’s heir, and with a snug estate that must one day come to you, it was a mere “lark,” and not to be continued beyond a year or two?’

‘Not a bit of it. I never presumed to think I should be my aunt’s heir – and now less than ever. Do you know, that even the small pension she has allowed me hitherto is now about to be withdrawn, and I shall be left to live on my pay?’

‘How much does that mean?’

‘A few pounds more or less than you pay for your saddle-horse at livery at Dycers’.’

‘You don’t mean that?’

‘I do mean it, and even that beggarly pittance is stopped when I am on my leave; so that at this moment my whole worldly wealth is here,’ and he took from his pocket a handful of loose coin, in which a few gold pieces glittered amidst a mass of discoloured and smooth-looking silver.

‘On my oath, I believe you are the richer man of the two,’ cried Kearney, ‘for except a few half-crowns on my dressing-table, and some coppers, I don’t believe I am master of a coin with the Queen’s image.’

‘I say, Kearney, what a horrible take-in we should prove to mothers with daughters to marry!’

‘Not a bit of it. You may impose upon any one else – your tailor, your bootmaker, even the horsy gent that jobs your cabriolet, but you’ll never cheat the mamma who has the daughter on sale.’

Gorman could not help laughing at the more than ordinary irritability with which these words were spoken, and charged him at last with having uttered a personal experience.