Lord Kilgobbin

CHAPTER LXXVIII

It was not without considerable heart-sinking and misgiving that old Kearney heard it was Miss Betty O’Shea’s desire to have some conversation with him after breakfast. He was, indeed, reassured, to a certain extent, by his daughter telling him that the old lady was excessively weak, and that her cough was almost incessant, and that she spoke with extreme difficulty. All the comfort that these assurances gave him was dashed by a settled conviction of Miss Betty’s subtlety. ‘She’s like one of the wild foxes they have in Crim Tartary; and when you think they are dead, they’re up and at you before you can look round.’ He affirmed no more than the truth when he said that ‘he’d rather walk barefoot to Kilbeggan than go up that stair to see her.’

There was a strange conflict in his mind all this time between these ignoble fears and the efforts he was making to seem considerate and gentle by Kate’s assurance that a cruel word, or even a harsh tone, would be sure to kill her. ‘You’ll have to be very careful, papa dearest,’ she said. ‘Her nerves are completely shattered, and every respiration seems as if it would be the last.’

Mistrust was, however, so strong in him, that he would have employed any subterfuge to avoid the interview; but the Rev. Luke Delany, who had arrived to give her ‘the consolations,’ as he briefly phrased it, insisted on Kearney’s attending to receive the old lady’s forgiveness before she died.

‘Upon my conscience,’ muttered Kearney, ‘I was always under the belief it was I was injured; but, as the priest says, “it’s only on one’s death-bed he sees things clearly.”’

As Kearney groped his way through the darkened room, shocked at his own creaking shoes, and painfully convinced that he was somehow deficient in delicacy, a low, faint cough guided him to the sofa where Miss O’Shea lay. ‘Is that Mathew Kearney?’ said she feebly. ‘I think I know his foot.’

‘Yes indeed, bad luck to them for shoes. Wherever Davy Morris gets the leather I don’t know, but it’s as loud as a barrel-organ.’

‘Maybe they re cheap, Mathew. One puts up with many a thing for a little cheapness.’

‘That’s the first shot!’ muttered Kearney to himself, while he gave a little cough to avoid reply.

‘Father Luke has been telling me, Mathew, that before I go this long journey I ought to take care to settle any little matter here that’s on my mind. “If there’s anybody you bear an ill will to,” says he; “if there’s any one has wronged you,” says he, “told lies of you, or done you any bodily harm, send for him,” says he, “and let him hear your forgiveness out of your own mouth. I’ll take care afterwards,” says Father Luke, “that he’ll have to settle the account with me; but you mustn’t mind that. You must be able to tell St. Joseph that you come with a clean breast and a good conscience “: and that’s’ – here she sighed heavily several times – ‘and that’s the reason I sent for you, Mathew Kearney!’

Poor Kearney sighed heavily over that category of misdoers with whom he found himself classed, but he said nothing.

‘I don’t want to say anything harsh to you, Mathew, nor have I strength to listen, if you’d try to defend yourself; time is short with me now, but this I must say, if I’m here now sick and sore, and if the poor boy in the other room is lying down with his fractured head, it is you, and you alone, have the blame.’

‘May the blessed Virgin give me patience!’ muttered he, as he wrung his hands despairingly.

‘I hope she will; and give you more, Mathew Kearney. I hope she’ll give you a hearty repentance. I hope she’ll teach you that the few days that remain to you in this life are short enough for contrition – ay – contrition and castigation.’

‘Ain’t I getting it now,’ muttered he; but low as he spoke the words her quick hearing had caught them.

‘I hope you are; it is the last bit of friendship I can do you. You have a hard, worldly, selfish nature, Mathew; you had it as a boy, and it grew worse as you grew older. What many believed high spirits in you was nothing else than the reckless devilment of a man that only thought of himself. You could afford to be – at least to look – light-hearted, for you cared for nobody. You squandered your little property, and you’d have made away with the few acres that belonged to your ancestors, if the law would have let you. As for the way you brought up your children, that lazy boy below-stairs, that never did a hand’s turn, is proof enough, and poor Kitty, just because she wasn’t like the rest of you, how she’s treated!’

‘How is that: what is my cruelty there?’ cried he.

‘Don’t try to make yourself out worse than you are,’ said she sternly, ‘and pretend that you don’t know the wrong you done her.’

‘May I never – if I understand what you mean.’

‘Maybe you thought it was no business of yours to provide for your own child. Maybe you had a notion that it was enough that she had her food and a roof over her while you were here, and that somehow – anyhow – she’d get on, as they call it, when you were in the other place. Mathew Kearney, I’ll say nothing so cruel to you as your own conscience is saying this minute; or maybe, with that light heart that makes your friends so fond of you, you never bothered yourself about her at all, and that’s the way it come about.’

‘What came about? I want to know that.’

‘First and foremost, I don’t think the law will let you. I don’t believe you can charge your estate against the entail. I have a note there to ask McKeown’s opinion, and if I’m right, I’ll set apart a sum in my will to contest it in the Queen’s Bench. I tell you this to your face, Mathew Kearney, and I’m going where I can tell it to somebody better than a hard-hearted, cruel old man.’

‘What is it that I want to do, and that the law won’t let me?’ asked he, in the most imploring accents.

‘At least twelve honest men will decide it.’

‘Decide what! in the name of the saints?’ cried he.

‘Don’t be profane; don’t parade your unbelieving notions to a poor old woman on her death-bed. You may want to leave your daughter a beggar, and your son little better, but you have no right to disturb my last moments with your terrible blasphemies.’

‘I’m fairly bothered now,’ cried he, as his two arms dropped powerlessly to his sides. ‘So help me, if I know whether I’m awake or in a dream.’

‘It’s an excuse won’t serve you where you’ll be soon going, and I warn you, don’t trust it.’

‘Have a little pity on me, Miss Betty, darling,’ said he, in his most coaxing tone; ‘and tell me what it is I have done?’

‘You mean what you are trying to do; but what, please the Virgin, we’ll not let you!’

‘What is that?’

‘And what, weak and ill, and dying as I am, I’ve strength enough left in me to prevent, Mathew Kearney – and if you’ll give me that Bible there, I’ll kiss it, and take my oath that, if he marries her, he’ll never put foot in a house of mine, nor inherit an acre that belongs to me; and all that I’ll leave in my will shall be my – well, I won’t say what, only it’s something he’ll not have to pay a legacy duty on. Do you understand me now, or ain’t I plain enough yet?’

‘No, not yet. You’ll have to make it clearer still.’

‘Faith, I must say you did not pick up much cuteness from your adopted daughter.’

‘Who is she?’

‘The Greek hussy that you want to marry my nephew, and give a dowry to out of the estate that belongs to your son. I know it all, Mathew. I wasn’t two hours in the house before my old woman brought me the story from Mary. Ay, stare if you like, but they all know it below-stairs, and a nice way you are discussed in your own house! Getting a promise out of a poor boy in a brain fever, making him give a pledge in his ravings! Won’t it tell well in a court of justice, of a magistrate, a county gentleman, a Kearney of Kilgobbin? Oh! Mathew, Mathew, I’m ashamed of you!’

‘Upon my oath, you’re making me ashamed of myself that I sit here and listen to you,’ cried he, carried beyond all endurance. ‘Abusing, ay, blackguarding me this last hour about a lying story that came from the kitchen. It’s you that ought to be ashamed, old lady. Not, indeed, for believing ill of an old friend – for that’s nature in you – but for not having common sense, just common sense to guide you, and a little common decency to warn you. Look now, there is not a word – there is not a syllable of truth in the whole story. Nobody ever thought of your nephew asking my niece to marry him; and if he did, she wouldn’t have him. She looks higher, and she has a right to look higher than to be the wife of an Irish squireen.’

‘Go on, Mathew, go on. You waited for me to be as I am now before you had courage for words like these.’

‘Well, I ask your pardon, and ask it in all humiliation and sorrow. My temper – bad luck to it! – gets the better, or, maybe, it’s the worse, of me at times, and I say fifty things that I know I don’t feel – just the way sailors load a gun with anything in the heat of an action.’

‘I’m not in a condition to talk of sea-fights, Mr. Kearney, though I’m obliged to you all the same for trying to amuse me. You’ll not think me rude if I ask you to send Kate to me? And please to tell Father Luke that I’ll not see him this morning. My nerves have been sorely tried. One word before you go, Mathew Kearney; and have compassion enough not to answer me. You may be a just man and an honest man, you may be fair in your dealings, and all that your tenants say of you may be lies and calumnies, but to insult a poor old woman on her death-bed is cruel and unfeeling; and I’ll tell you more, Mathew, it’s cowardly and it’s – ’

Kearney did not wait to hear what more it might be, for he was already at the door, and rushed out as if he was escaping from a fire.

‘I’m glad he’s better than they made him out,’ said Miss Betty to herself, in a tone of calm soliloquy; ‘and he’ll not be worse for some of the home truths I told him.’ And with this she drew on her silk mittens, and arranged her cap composedly, while she waited for Kate’s arrival.

As for poor Kearney, other troubles were awaiting him in his study, where he found his son and Mr. Holmes, the lawyer, sitting before a table covered with papers. ‘I have no head for business now,’ cried Kearney. ‘I don’t feel over well to-day, and if you want to talk to me, you’ll have to put it off till to-morrow.’

‘Mr. Holmes must leave for town, my lord,’ interposed Dick, in his most insinuating tone, ‘and he only wants a few minutes with you before he goes.’

‘And it’s just what he won’t get. I would not see the Lord-Lieutenant if he was here now.’

‘The trial is fixed for Tuesday the 19th, my lord,’ cried Holmes,’ and the National press has taken it up in such a way that we have no chance whatever. The verdict will be “Guilty,” without leaving the box; and the whole voice of public opinion will demand the very heaviest sentence the law can pronounce.’

‘Think of that poor fellow O’Shea, just rising from a sick-bed,’ said Dick, as his voice shook with agitation.

‘They can’t hang him.’

‘No, for the scoundrel Gill is alive, and will be the chief witness on the trial; but they may give him two years with prison labour, and if they do, it will kill him.’

‘I don’t know that. I’ve seen more than one fellow come out fresh and hearty after a spell. In fact, the plain diet, and the regular work, and the steady habits, are wonderful things for a young man that has been knocking about in a town life.’

‘Oh, father, don’t speak that way. I know Gorman well, and I can swear he’d not survive it.’

Kearney shook his head doubtingly, and muttered, ‘There’s a great deal said about wounded pride and injured feelings, but the truth is, these things are like a bad colic, mighty hard to bear, if you like, but nobody ever dies of it.’

‘From all I hear about young Mr. O’Shea,’ said Holmes, ‘I am led to believe he will scarcely live through an imprisonment.’

‘To be sure! Why not? At three or four-and-twenty we’re all of us high-spirited and sensitive and noble-hearted, and we die on the spot if there’s a word against our honour. It is only after we cross the line in life, wherever that be, that we become thick-skinned and hardened, and mind nothing that does not touch our account at the bank. Sure I know the theory well! Ay, and the only bit of truth in it all is, that we cry out louder when we’re young, for we are not so well used to bad treatment.’

‘Right or wrong, no man likes to have the whole press of a nation assailing him and all the sympathies of a people against him,’ said Holmes.

‘And what can you and your brothers in wigs do against that? Will all your little beguiling ways and insinuating tricks turn the Pike and the Irish Cry from what sells their papers? Here it is now, Mr. Holmes, and I can’t put it shorter. Every man that lives in Ireland knows in his heart he must live in hot water; but somehow, though he may not like it, he gets used to it, and he finds it does him no harm in the end. There was an uncle of my own was in a passion for forty years, and he died at eighty-six.’

‘I wish I could only secure your attention, my lord, for ten minutes.’

‘And what would you do, counsellor, if you had it?’

‘You see, my lord, there are some very grave questions here. First of all, you and your brother magistrates had no right to accept bail. The injury was too grave: Gill’s life, as the doctor’s certificate will prove, was in danger. It was for a judge in Chambers to decide whether bail could be taken. They will move, therefore, in the Queen’s Bench, for a mandamus – ’

‘May I never, if you won’t drive me mad!’ cried Kearney passionately; ‘and I’d rather be picking oakum this minute than listening to all the possible misfortunes briefs and lawyers could bring on me.’

‘Just listen to Holmes, father,’ whispered Dick. ‘He thinks that Gill might be got over – that if done by you with three or four hundred pounds, he’d either make his evidence so light, or he’d contradict himself, or, better than all, he’d not make an appearance at the trial – ’

‘Compounding a felony! Catch me at it!’ cried the old man, with a yell.

‘Well, Joe Atlee will be here to-night,’ continued Dick. ‘He’s a clever fellow at all rogueries. Will you let him see if it can’t be arranged.’

‘I don’t care who does it, so it isn’t Mathew Kearney,’ said he angrily, for his patience could endure no more. ‘If you won’t leave me alone now, I won’t say but that I’ll go out and throw myself into a bog-hole!’

There was a tone of such perfect sincerity in his speech, that, without another word, Dick took the lawyer’s arm, and led him from the room.

A third voice was heard outside as they issued forth, and Kearney could just make out that it was Major Lockwood, who was asking Dick if he might have a few minutes’ conversation with his father.

‘I don’t suspect you’ll find my father much disposed for conversation just now. I think if you would not mind making your visit to him at another time – ’

‘Just so!’ broke in the old man, ‘if you’re not coming with a strait-waistcoat, or a coil of rope to hold me down, I’d say it’s better to leave me to myself.’

Whether it was that the major was undeterred by these forbidding evidences, or that what he deemed the importance of his communication warranted some risk, certain it is he lingered at the door, and stood there where Dick and the lawyer had gone and left him.

A faint tap at the door at last apprised Kearney that some one was without, and he hastily, half angrily, cried, ‘Come in!’ Old Kearney almost started with surprise as the major walked in.

‘I’m not going to make any apology for intruding on you,’ cried he. ‘What I want to say shall be said in three words, and I cannot endure the suspense of not having them said and answered. I’ve had a whole night of feverish anxiety, and a worse morning, thinking and turning over the thing in my mind, and settled it must be at once, one way or other, for my head will not stand it.’

‘My own is tried pretty hard, and I can feel for you,’ said Kearney, with a grim humour.

‘I’ve come to ask if you’ll give me your daughter?’ said Lockwood, and his face became blood-red with the effort the words had cost him.

‘Give you my daughter?’ cried Kearney.

‘I want to make her my wife, and as I know little about courtship, and have nobody here that could settle this affair for me – for Walpole is thinking of his own concerns – I’ve thought the best way, as it was the shortest, was to come at once to yourself: I have got a few documents here that will show you I have enough to live on, and to make a tidy settlement, and do all that ought to be done.’

‘I’m sure you are an excellent fellow, and I like you myself; but you see, major, a man doesn’t dispose of his daughter like his horse, and I’d like to hear what she would say to the bargain.’

‘I suppose you could ask her?’

‘Well, indeed, that’s true, I could ask her; but on the whole, major, don’t you think the question would come better from yourself?’

‘That means courtship?’

‘Yes, I admit it is liable to that objection, but somehow it’s the usual course.’

‘No, no,’ said the other slowly, ‘I could not manage that. I’m sick of bachelor life, and I’m ready to send in my papers and have done with it, but I don’t know how to go about the other. Not to say, Kearney,’ added he, more boldly, ‘that I think there is something confoundedly mean in that daily pursuit of a woman, till by dint of importunity, and one thing or another, you get her to like you! What can she know of her own mind after three or four months of what these snobs call attentions? How is she to say how much is mere habit, how much is gratified vanity of having a fellow dangling after her, how much the necessity of showing the world she is not compromised by the cad’s solicitations? Take my word for it, Kearney, my way is the best. Be able to go up like a man and tell the girl, “It’s all arranged. I’ve shown the old cove that I can take care of you, he has seen that I’ve no debts or mortgages; I’m ready to behave handsomely, what do you say yourself?”’

‘She might say, “I know nothing about you. I may possibly not see much to dislike, but how do I know I should like you.”’

‘And I’d say, “I’m one of those fellows that are the same all through, to-day as I was yesterday, and to-morrow the same. When I’m in a bad temper I go out on the moors and walk it off, and I’m not hard to live with.”’