Lord Kilgobbin

CHAPTER LXXIII

The ‘comatose’ state, to use the language of the doctors, into which Gorman O’Shea had fallen, had continued so long as to excite the greatest apprehensions of his friends; for although not amounting to complete insensibility, it left him so apathetic and indifferent to everything and every one, that the girls Kate and Nina, in pure despair, had given up reading or talking to him, and passed their hours of ‘watching’ in perfect silence in the half-darkened room.

The stern immobility of his pale features, the glassy and meaningless stare of his large blue eyes, the unvarying rhythm of a long-drawn respiration, were signs that at length became more painful to contemplate than evidences of actual suffering; and as day by day went on, and interest grew more and more eager about the trial, which was fixed for the coming assize, it was pitiable to see him, whose fate was so deeply pledged on the issue, unconscious of all that went on around him, and not caring to know any of those details the very least of which might determine his future lot.

The instructions drawn up for the defence were sadly in need of the sort of information which the sick man alone could supply; and Nina and Kate had both been entreated to watch for the first favourable moment that should present itself, and ask certain questions, the answers to which would be of the last importance.

Though Gill’s affidavit gave many evidences of unscrupulous falsehood, there was no counter-evidence to set against it, and O’Shea’s counsel complained strongly of the meagre instructions which were briefed to him in the case, and his utter inability to construct a defence upon them.

‘He said he would tell me something this evening, Kate,’ said Nina; ‘so, if you will let me, I will go in your place and remind him of his promise.’

This hopeful sign of returning intelligence was so gratifying to Kate that she readily consented to the proposition of her cousin taking her ‘watch,’ and, if possible, learning something of his wishes.

‘He said it,’ continued Nina, ‘like one talking to himself, and it was not easy to follow him. The words, as well as I could make out, were, “I will say it to-day – this evening, if I can. When it is said” – here he muttered something, but I cannot say whether the words were, “My mind will be at rest,” or “I shall be at rest for evermore.”’

Kate did not utter a word, but her eyes swam, and two large tears stole slowly down her face.

‘His own conviction is that he is dying,’ said Nina; but Kate never spoke.

‘The doctors persist,’ continued Nina, ‘in declaring that this depression is only a well-known symptom of the attack, and that all affections of the brain are marked by a certain tone of despondency. They even say more, and that the cases where this symptom predominates are more frequently followed by recovery. Are you listening to me, child?’

‘No; I was following some thoughts of my own.’

‘I was merely telling you why I think he is getting better.’

Kate leaned her head on her cousin’s shoulder, and she did not speak. The heaving motion of her shoulders and her chest betrayed the agitation she could not subdue.

‘I wish his aunt were here; I see how her absence frets him. Is she too ill for the journey?’ asked Nina.

‘She says not, and she seems in some way to be coerced by others; but a telegram this morning announces she would try and reach Kilgobbin this evening.’

‘What could coercion mean? Surely this is mere fancy?’

‘I am not so certain of that. The convent has great hopes of inheriting her fortune. She is rich, and she is a devout Catholic; and we have heard of cases where zeal for the Church has pushed discretion very far.’

‘What a worldly creature it is!’ cried Nina; ‘and who would have suspected it?’

‘I do not see the worldliness of my believing that people will do much to serve the cause they follow. When chemists tell us that there is no finding such a thing as a glass of pure water, where are we to go for pure motives?’

‘To one’s heart, of course,’ said Nina; but the curl of her perfectly-cut lip as she said it, scarcely vouched for the sincerity.

On that same evening, just as the last flickerings of twilight were dying away, Nina stole into the sick-room, and took her place noiselessly beside the bed.

Slowly moving his arm without turning his head, or by any gesture whatever acknowledging her presence, he took her hand and pressed it to his burning lips, and then laid it upon his cheek. She made no effort to withdraw her hand, and sat perfectly still and motionless.

‘Are we alone?’ whispered he, in a voice hardly audible.

‘Yes, quite alone.’

‘If I should say what – displease you,’ faltered he, his agitation making speech even more difficult; ‘how shall I tell?’ And once more he pressed her hand to his lips.

‘No, no; have no fears of displeasing me. Say what you would like to tell me.’

‘It is this, then,’ said he, with an effort. ‘I am dying with my secret in my heart. I am dying, to carry away with me the love I am not to tell – my love for you, Kate.’

‘I am not Kate,’ was almost on her lips; but her struggle to keep silent was aided by that desire so strong in her nature – to follow out a situation of difficulty to the end. She did not love him, nor did she desire his love; but a strange sense of injury at hearing his profession of love for another shot a pang of intense suffering through her heart, and she lay back in her chair with a cold feeling of sickness like fainting. The overpowering passion of her nature was jealousy; and to share even the admiration of a salon, the ‘passing homage,’ as such deference is called, with another, was a something no effort of her generosity could compass.

Though she did not speak, she suffered her hand to remain unresistingly within his own. After a short pause he went on: ‘I thought yesterday that I was dying; and in my rambling intellect I thought I took leave of you; and do you know my last words – my last words, Kate?’

‘No; what were they?’

‘My last words were these: “Beware of the Greek; have no friendship with the Greek.”’

‘And why that warning?’ said she, in a low, faint voice.

‘She is not of us, Kate; none of her ways or thoughts are ours, nor would they suit us. She is subtle, and clever, and sly; and these only mislead those who lead simple lives.’

‘May it not be that you wrong her?’

‘I have tried to learn her nature.’

‘Not to love it?’

‘I believe I was beginning to love her – just when you were cold to me. You remember when?’

‘I do; and it was this coldness was the cause? Was it the only cause?’

‘No, no. She has wiles and ways which, with her beauty, make her nigh irresistible.’

‘And now you are cured of this passion? There is no trace of it in your breast?’

‘Not a vestige. But why speak of her?’

‘Perhaps I am jealous.’

Once more he pressed his lips to her hand, and kissed it rapturously.

‘No, Kate,’ cried he, ‘none but you have the place in my heart. Whenever I have tried a treason, it has turned against me. Is there light enough in the room to find a small portfolio of red-brown leather? It is on that table yonder.’

Had the darkness been not almost complete, Nina would scarcely have ventured to rise and cross the room, so fearful was she of being recognised.

‘It is locked,’ said she, as she laid it beside him on the bed; but touching a secret spring, he opened it, and passed his fingers hurriedly through the papers within.

‘I believe it must be this,’ said he. ‘I think I know the feel of the paper. It is a telegram from my aunt; the doctor gave it to me last night. We read it over together four or five times. This is it, and these are the words: “If Kate will be your wife, the estate of O’Shea’s Barn is your own for ever.”’

‘Is she to have no time to think over this offer?’ asked she.

‘Would you like candles, miss?’ asked a maid-servant, of whose presence there neither of the others had been aware.

‘No, nor are you wanted,’ said Nina haughtily, as she arose; while it was not without some difficulty she withdrew her hand from the sick man’s grasp.

‘I know,’ said he falteringly, ‘you would not leave me if you had not left hope to keep me company in your absence. Is not that so, Kate?’

‘Bye-bye,’ said she softly, and stole away.

CHAPTER LXXIV

It was with passionate eagerness Nina set off in search of Kate. Why she should have felt herself wronged, outraged, insulted even, is not so easy to say, nor shall I attempt any analysis of the complex web of sentiments which, so to say, spread itself over her faculties. The man who had so wounded her self-love had been at her feet, he had followed her in her walks, hung over the piano as she sang – shown by a thousand signs that sort of devotion by which men intimate that their lives have but one solace, one ecstasy, one joy. By what treachery had he been moved to all this, if he really loved another? That he was simply amusing himself with the sort of flirtation she herself could take up as a mere pastime was not to be believed. That the worshipper should be insincere in his worship was too dreadful to think of. And yet it was to this very man she had once turned to avenge herself on Walpole’s treatment of her; she had even said, ‘Could you not make a quarrel with him?’ Now, no woman of foreign breeding puts such a question without the perfect consciousness that, in accepting a man’s championship, she has virtually admitted his devotion. Her own levity of character, the thoughtless indifference with which she would sport with any man’s affections, so far from inducing her to palliate such caprices, made her more severe and unforgiving. ‘How shall I punish him for this? How shall I make him remember whom it is he has insulted?’ repeated she over and over to herself as she went.

The servants passed her on the stairs with trunks and luggage of various kinds; but she was too much engrossed with her own thoughts to notice them. Suddenly the words, ‘Mr. Walpole’s room,’ caught her ear, and she asked, ‘Has any one come?’

Yes, two gentlemen had just arrived. A third was to come that night, and Miss O’Shea might be expected at any moment.

‘Where was Miss Kate?’ she inquired.

‘In her own room at the top of the house.’

Thither she hastened at once.

‘Be a dear good girl,’ cried Kate as Nina entered, ‘and help me in my many embarrassments. Here are a flood of visitors all coming unexpectedly. Major Lockwood and Mr. Walpole have come. Miss Betty will be here for dinner, and Mr. Atlee, whom we all believed to be in Asia, may arrive to-night. I shall be able to feed them; but how to lodge them with any pretension to comfort is more than I can see.’

‘I am in little humour to aid any one. I have my own troubles – worse ones, perhaps, than playing hostess to disconsolate travellers.’

‘And what are your troubles, dear Nina?’

‘I have half a mind not to tell you. You ask me with that supercilious air that seems to say, “How can a creature like you be of interest enough to any one or anything to have a difficulty?”’

‘I force no confidences,’ said the other coldly.

‘For that reason you shall have them – at least this one. What will you say when I tell you that young O’Shea has made me a declaration, a formal declaration of love?’

‘I should say that you need not speak of it as an insult or an offence.’

‘Indeed! and if so, you would say what was perfectly wrong. It was both insult and offence – yes, both. Do you know that the man mistook me for you, and called me Kate?’

‘How could this be possible?’

‘In a darkened room, with a sick man slowly rallying from a long attack of stupor; nothing of me to be seen but my hand, which he devoured with kisses – raptures, indeed, Kate, of which I had no conception till I experienced them by counterfeit!’

‘Oh! Nina, this is not fair!’

‘It is true, child. The man caught my hand and declared he would never quit it till I promised it should be his own. Nor was he content with this; but, anticipating his right to be lord and master, he bade you to beware of me! “Beware of that Greek girl!” were his words – words strengthened by what he said of my character and my temperament. I shall spare you, and I shall spare myself, his acute comments on the nature he dreaded to see in companionship with his wife. I have had good training in learning these unbiassed judgments – my early life abounded in such experiences – but this young gentleman’s cautions were candour itself.’

‘I am sincerely sorry for what has pained you.’

‘I did not say it was this boy’s foolish words had wounded me so acutely. I could bear sterner critics than he is – his very blundering misconception of me would always plead his pardon. How could he, or how could they with whom he lived and talked, and smoked and swaggered, know of me, or such as me? What could there be in the monotonous vulgarity of their tiresome lives that should teach them what we are, or what we wish to be? By what presumption did he dare to condemn all that he could not understand?’

‘You are angry, Nina; and I will not say without some cause.’

‘What ineffable generosity! You can really constrain yourself to believe that I have been insulted!’

‘I should not say insulted.’

‘You cannot be an honest judge in such a cause. Every outrage offered to me was an act of homage to yourself! If you but knew how I burned to tell him who it was whose hand he held in his, and to whose ears he had poured out his raptures! To tell him, too, how the Greek girl would have resented his presumption, had he but dared to indulge it! One of the women-servants, it would seem, was a witness to this boy’s declaration. I think it was Mary was in the room, I do not know for how long, but she announced her presence by asking some question about candles. In fact, I shall have become a servants’-hall scandal by this time.’

‘There need not be any fear of that, Nina: there are no bad tongues amongst our people.’

‘I know all that. I know we live amidst human perfectabilities – all of Irish manufacture, and warranted to be genuine.’

‘I would hope that some of your impressions of Ireland are not unfavourable?’

‘I scarcely know. I suppose you understand each other, and are tolerant about capricious moods and ways, which, to strangers, might seem to have a deeper significance. I believe you are not as hasty, or as violent, or as rash as you seem, and I am sure you are not as impulsive in your generosity, or as headlong in your affections. Not exactly that you mean to be false, but you are hypocrites to yourselves.’

‘A very flattering picture of us.’

‘I do not mean to flatter you; and it is to this end I say, you are Italians without the subtlety of the Italian, and Greeks without their genius. – You need not curtsy so profoundly. – I could say worse than this, Kate, if I were minded to do so.’

‘Pray do not be so minded, then. Pray remember that, even when you wound me, I cannot return the thrust.’

‘I know what you mean,’ cried Nina rapidly. ‘You are veritable Arabs in your estimate of hospitality, and he who has eaten your salt is sacred.’

‘You remind me of what I had nigh forgotten, Nina – of our coming guests.’

‘Do you know why Walpole and his friend are coming?’

‘They are already come, Nina – they are out walking with papa; but what has brought them here I cannot guess, and, since I have heard your description of Ireland, I cannot imagine.’

‘Nor can I,’ said she indolently, and moved away.

CHAPTER LXXV

To have his house full of company, to see his table crowded with guests, was nearer perfect happiness than anything Kearney knew; and when he set out, the morning after the arrival of the strangers, to show Major Lockwood where he would find a brace of woodcocks, the old man was in such spirits as he had not known for years.

‘Why don’t your friend Walpole come with us?’ asked he of his companion, as they trudged across the bog.

‘I believe I can guess,’ mumbled out the other; ‘but I’m not quite sure I ought to tell.’

‘I see,’ said Kearney, with a knowing leer; ‘he’s afraid I’ll roast him about that unlucky despatch he wrote. He thinks I’ll give him no peace about that bit of stupidity; for you see, major, it was stupid, and nothing less. Of all the things we despise in Ireland, take my word for it, there is nothing we think so little of as a weak Government. We can stand up strong and bold against hard usage, and we gain self-respect by resistance; but when you come down to conciliations and what you call healing measures, we feel as if you were going to humbug us, and there is not a devilment comes into our heads we would not do, just to see how you’ll bear it; and it’s then your London newspapers cry out: “What’s the use of doing anything for Ireland? We pulled down the Church, and we robbed the landlords, and we’re now going to back Cardinal Cullen for them, and there they are murthering away as bad as ever.”’

‘Is it not true?’ asked the major.

‘And whose fault if it is true? Who has broke down the laws in Ireland but yourselves? We Irish never said that many things you called crimes were bad in morals, and when it occurs to you now to doubt if they are crimes, I’d like to ask you, why wouldn’t we do them? You won’t give us our independence, and so we’ll fight for it; and though, maybe, we can’t lick you, we’ll make your life so uncomfortable to you, keeping us down, that you’ll beg a compromise – a healing measure, you’ll call it – just as when I won’t give Tim Sullivan a lease, he takes a shot at me; and as I reckon the holes in my hat, I think better of it, and take a pound or two off his rent.’

‘So that, in fact, you court the policy of conciliation?’

‘Only because I’m weak, major – because I’m weak, and that I must live in the neighbourhood. If I could pass my days out of the range of Tim’s carbine, I wouldn’t reduce him a shilling.’

‘I can make nothing of Ireland or Irishmen either.’

‘Why would you? God help us! we are poor enough and wretched enough; but we’re not come down to that yet that a major of dragoons can read us like big print.’

‘So far as I see you wish for a strong despotism.’

‘In one way it would suit us well. Do you see, major, what a weak administration and uncertain laws do? They set every man in Ireland about righting himself by his own hand. If I know I shall be starved when I am turned out of my holding, I’m not at all so sure I’ll be hanged if I shoot my landlord. Make me as certain of the one as the other, and I’ll not shoot him.’

‘I believe I understand you.’

‘No, you don’t, nor any Cockney among you.’

‘I’m not a Cockney.’

‘I don’t care, you’re the same: you’re not one of us; nor if you spent fifty years among us, would you understand us.’

‘Come over and see me in Berkshire, Kearney, and let me see if you can read our people much better.’

‘From all I hear, there’s not much to read. Your chawbacon isn’t as cute a fellow as Pat.’

‘He’s easier to live with.’

‘Maybe so; but I wouldn’t care for a life with such people about me. I like human nature, and human feelings – ay, human passions, if you must call them so. I want to know – I can make some people love me, though I well know there must be others will hate me. You’re all for tranquillity all over in England – a quiet life you call it. I like to live without knowing what’s coming, and to feel all the time that I know enough of the game to be able to play it as well as my neighbours. Do you follow me now, major?’

‘I’m not quite certain I do.’

‘No – but I’m quite certain you don’t; and, indeed, I wonder at myself talking to you about these things at all.’

‘I’m much gratified that you do so. In fact, Kearney, you give me courage to speak a little about myself and my own affairs; and, if you will allow me, to ask your advice.’

This was an unusually long speech for the major, and he actually seemed fatigued when he concluded. He was, however, consoled for his exertions by seeing what pleasure his words had conferred on Kearney; and with what racy self-satisfaction, that gentleman heard himself mentioned as a ‘wise opinion.’

‘I believe I do know a little of life, major,’ said he sententiously. ‘As old Giles Dackson used to say, “Get Mathew Kearney to tell you what he thinks of it.” You knew Giles?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you’ve heard of him? No! not even that. There’s another proof of what I was saying – we’re two people, the English and the Irish. If it wasn’t so, you’d be no stranger to the sayings and doings of one of the cutest men that ever lived.’

‘We have witty fellows too.’

‘No, you haven’t! Do you call your House of Commons’ jokes wit? Are the stories you tell at your hustings’ speeches wit? Is there one over there’ – and he pointed in the direction of England – ‘that ever made a smart repartee or a brilliant answer to any one about anything? You now and then tell an Irish story, and you forget the point; or you quote a French mot, and leave out the epigram. Don’t be angry – it’s truth I’m telling you.’

‘I’m not angry, though I must say I don’t think you are fair to us.’

The last bit of brilliancy you had in the House was Brinsley Sheridan, and there wasn’t much English about him.’

‘I’ve never heard that the famous O’Connell used to convulse the House with his drollery.’

‘Why should he? Didn’t he know where he was? Do you imagine that O’Connell was going to do like poor Lord Killeen, who shipped a cargo of coalscuttles to Africa?’

‘Will you explain to me then how, if you are so much shrewder and wittier and cleverer than us, it does not make you richer, more prosperous, and more contented?’

‘I could do that too – but I’m losing the birds. There’s a cock now. Well done! I see you can shoot a bit. – Look here, major, there’s a deal in race – in the blood of a people. It’s very hard to make a light-hearted, joyous people thrifty. It’s your sullen fellow, that never cuts a joke, nor wants any one to laugh at it, that’s the man who saves. If you’re a wit, you want an audience, and the best audience is round a dinner-table; and we know what that costs. Now, Ireland has been very pleasant for the last hundred and fifty years in that fashion, and you, and scores of other low-spirited, depressed fellows, come over here to pluck up and rouse yourselves, and you go home, and you wonder why the people who amused you were not always as jolly as you saw them. I’ve known this country now nigh sixty years, and I never knew a turn of prosperity that didn’t make us stupid; and, upon my conscience, I believe, if we ever begin to grow rich, we’ll not be a bit better than yourselves.’

‘That would be very dreadful,’ said the other, in mock-horror.