Lord Kilgobbin

CHAPTER XIII

Cecil Walpole occupied the state-room and the state-bed at Kilgobbin Castle; but the pain of a very serious wound had left him very little faculty to know what honour was rendered him, or of what watchful solicitude he was the object. The fever brought on by his wound had obliterated in his mind all memory of where he was; and it was only now – that is, on the same morning that the young men had arrived at the castle – that he was able to converse without much difficulty, and enjoy the companionship of Lockwood, who had come over to see him and scarcely quitted his bedside since the disaster.

It seems going on all right,’ said Lockwood, as he lifted the iced cloths to look at the smashed limb, which lay swollen and livid on a pillow outside the clothes.

‘It’s not pretty to look at, Harry; but the doctor says “we shall save it” – his phrase for not cutting it off.’

‘They’ve taken up two fellows on suspicion, and I believe they were of the party here that night.’

‘I don’t much care about that. It was a fair fight, and I suspect I did not get the worst of it. What really does grieve me is to think how ingloriously one gets a wound that in real war would have been a title of honour.’

‘If I had to give a V.C. for this affair, it would be to that fine girl I’d give it, and not to you, Cecil.’

‘So should I. There is no question whatever as to our respective shares in the achievement.’

‘And she is so modest and unaffected about it all, and when she was showing me the position and the alcove, she never ceased to lay stress on the safety she enjoyed during the conflict.’

‘Then she said nothing about standing in front of me after I was wounded?’

‘Not a word. She said a great deal about your coolness and indifference to danger, but nothing about her own.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s almost a shame to own it – not that I could have done anything to prevent it – but she did step down one step of the stair and actually cover me from fire.’

‘She’s the finest girl in Europe,’ said Lockwood warmly.

‘And if it was not the contrast with her cousin, I’d almost say one of the handsomest,’ said Cecil.

‘The Greek is splendid, I admit that, though she’ll not speak – she’ll scarcely notice me.’

‘How is that?’

‘I can’t imagine, except it might have been, an awkward speech I made when we were talking over the row. I said, “Where were you? what were you doing all this time? “’

‘And what answer did she make you?’

‘None; not a word. She drew herself proudly up, and opened her eyes so large and full upon me, that I felt I must have appeared some sort of monster to be so stared at.’

‘I’ve seen her do that.’

‘It was very grand and very beautiful; but I’ll be shot if I’d like to stand under it again. From that time to this she has never deigned me more than a mere salutation.’

‘And are you good friends with the other girl?’

‘The best in the world. I don’t see much of her, for she’s always abroad, over the farm, or among the tenants: but when we meet we are very cordial and friendly.’

‘And the father, what is he like?’

‘My lord is a glorious old fellow, full of hospitable plans and pleasant projects; but terribly distressed to think that this unlucky incident should prejudice you against Ireland. Indeed, he gave me to understand that there must have been some mistake or misconception in the matter, for the castle had never been attacked before; and he insists on saying that if you will stop here – I think he said ten years – you’ll not see another such occurrence.’

‘It’s rather a hard way to test the problem though.’

‘What’s more, he included me in the experiment.’

‘And this title? Does he assume it, or expect it to be recognised?’

‘I can scarcely tell you. The Greek girl “my lords” him occasionally; his daughter, never. The servants always do so; and I take it that people use their own discretion about it.’

‘Or do it in a sort of indolent courtesy, as they call Marsala, sherry, but take care at the same time to pass the decanter. I believe you telegraphed to his Excellency?’

‘Yes; and he means to come over next week.’

‘Any news of Lady Maude?’

‘Only that she comes with him, and I’m sorry for it.’

‘So am I – deuced sorry! In a gossiping town like Dublin there will be surely some story afloat about these handsome girls here. She saw the Greek, too, at the Duke of Rigati’s ball at Rome, and she never forgets a name or a face. A pleasant trait in a wife.’

‘Of course the best plan will be to get removed, and be safely installed in our old quarters at the Castle before they arrive.’

‘We must hear what the doctor says.’

‘He’ll say no, naturally, for he’ll not like to lose his patient. He will have to convey you to town, and we’ll try and make him believe it will be the making of him. Don’t you agree with me, Cecil, it’s the thing to do?’

‘I have not thought it over yet. I will to-day. By the way, I know it’s the thing to do,’ repeated he, with an air of determination. ‘There will be all manner of reports, scandals, and falsehoods to no end about this business here; and when Lady Maude learns, as she is sure to learn, that the “Greek girl” is in the story, I cannot measure the mischief that may come of it.’

‘Break off the match, eh?’

‘That is certainly “on the cards.”’

‘I suspect even that would not break your heart.’

‘I don’t say it would, but it would prove very inconvenient in many ways. Danesbury has great claims on his party. He came here as Viceroy dead against his will, and, depend upon it, he made his terms. Then if these people go out, and the Tories want to outbid them, Danesbury could take – ay, and would take – office under them.’

‘I cannot follow all that. All I know is, I like the old boy himself, though he is a bit pompous now and then, and fancies he’s Emperor of Russia.’

‘I wish his niece didn’t imagine she was an imperial princess.’

‘That she does! I think she is the haughtiest girl I ever met. To be sure she was a great beauty.’

‘Was, Harry! What do you mean by “was”? Lady Maude is not eight-and-twenty.’

‘Ain’t she, though? Will you have a ten-pound note on it that she’s not over thirty-one; and I can tell you who could decide the wager?’

‘A delicate thought! – a fellow betting on the age of the girl he’s going to marry!’

‘Ten o’clock! – nearly half-past ten!’ said Lockwood, rising from his chair. ‘I must go and have some breakfast. I meant to have been down in time to-day, and breakfasted with the old fellow and his daughter; for coming late brings me to a tête-à-tête with the Greek damsel, and it isn’t jolly, I assure you.’

‘Don’t you speak?’

‘Never a word?’ She’s generally reading a newspaper when I go in. She lays it down; but after remarking that she fears I’ll find the coffee cold, she goes on with her breakfast, kisses her Maltese terrier, asks him a few questions about his health, and whether he would like to be in a warmer climate, and then sails away.’

‘And how she walks!’

‘Is she bored here?’

‘She says not.’

‘She can scarcely like these people; they ‘re not the sort of thing she has ever been used to.’

‘She tells me she likes them: they certainly like her.’

‘Well,’ said Lockwood, with a sigh, ‘she’s the most beautiful woman, certainly, I’ve ever seen; and, at this moment, I’d rather eat a crust with a glass of beer under a hedge than I’d go down and sit at breakfast with her.’

‘I’ll be shot if I’ll not tell her that speech the first day I’m down again.’

‘So you may, for by that time I shall have seen her for the last time.’ And with this he strolled out of the room and down the stairs towards the breakfast-parlour.

As he stood at the door he heard the sound of voices laughing and talking pleasantly. He entered, and Nina arose as he came forward, and said, ‘Let me present my cousin – Mr. Richard Kearney, Major Lockwood; his friend, Mr. Atlee.’

The two young men stood up – Kearny stiff and haughty, and Atlee with a sort of easy assurance that seemed to suit his good-looking but certainly snobbish style. As for Lockwood, he was too much a gentleman to have more than one manner, and he received these two men as he would have received any other two of any rank anywhere.

‘These gentlemen have been showing me some strange versions of our little incident here in the Dublin papers,’ said Nina to Lockwood. ‘I scarcely thought we should become so famous.’

‘I suppose they don’t stickle much for truth,’ said Lockwood, as he broke his egg in leisurely fashion.

‘They were scarcely able to provide a special correspondent for the event,’ said Atlee; ‘but I take it they give the main facts pretty accurately and fairly.’

‘Indeed!’ said Lockwood, more struck by the manner than by the words of the speaker. ‘They mention, then, that my friend received a bad fracture of the forearm.’

‘No, I don’t think they do; at least so far as I have seen. They speak of a night attack on Kilgobbin Castle, made by an armed party of six or seven men with faces blackened, and their complete repulse through the heroic conduct of a young lady.’

‘The main facts, then, include no mention of poor Walpole and his misfortune?’

‘I don’t think that we mere Irish attach any great importance to a broken arm, whether it came of a cricket-ball or gun; but we do interest ourselves deeply when an Irish girl displays feats of heroism and courage that men find it hard to rival.’

‘It was very fine,’ said Lockwood gravely.

‘Fine! I should think it was fine!’ burst out Atlee. ‘It was so fine that, had the deed been done on the other side of this narrow sea, the nation would not have been satisfied till your Poet Laureate had commemorated it in verse.’

‘Have they discovered any traces of the fellows?’ said Lockwood, who declined to follow the discussion into this channel.

‘My father has gone over to Moate to-day,’ said Kearney, now speaking for the first time, ‘to hear the examination of two fellows who have been taken up on suspicion.’

‘You have plenty of this sort of thing in your country,’ said Atlee to Nina.

‘Where do you mean when you say my country?’

‘I mean Greece.’

‘But I have not seen Greece since I was a child, so high; I have lived always in Italy.’

‘Well, Italy has Calabria and the Terra del Lavoro.’

‘And how much do we in Rome know about either?’

‘About as much,’ said Lockwood, ‘as Belgravia does of the Bog of Allen.’

‘You’ll return to your friends in civilised life with almost the fame of an African traveller, Major Lockwood,’ said Atlee pertly.

‘If Africa can boast such hospitality, I certainly rather envy than compassionate Doctor Livingstone,’ said he politely.

‘Somebody,’ said Kearney dryly, ‘calls hospitality the breeding of the savage.’

‘But I deny that we are savage,’ cried Atlee. ‘I contend for it that all our civilisation is higher, and that class for class we are in a more advanced culture than the English; that your chawbacon is not as intelligent a being as our bogtrotter; that your petty shopkeeper is inferior to ours; that throughout our middle classes there is not only a higher morality but a higher refinement than with you.’

‘I read in one of the most accredited journals of England the other day that Ireland had never produced a poet, could not even show a second-rate humorist,’ said Kearney.

‘Swift and Sterne were third-rate, or perhaps, English,’ said Atlee.

‘These are themes I’ll not attempt to discuss,’ said Lockwood; ‘but I know one thing, it takes three times as much military force to govern the smaller island.’

‘That is to say, to govern the country after your fashion; but leave it to ourselves. Pack your portmanteaus and go away, and then see if we’ll need this parade of horse, foot, and dragoons; these batteries of guns and these brigades of peelers.’

‘You’d be the first to beg us to come back again.’

‘Doubtless, as the Greeks are begging the Turks. Eh, mademoiselle; can you fancy throwing yourself at the feet of a Pasha and asking leave to be his slave?’

‘The only Greek slave I ever heard of,’ said Lockwood, ‘was in marble and made by an American.’

‘Come into the drawing-room and I’ll sing you something,’ said Nina, rising.

‘Which will be far nicer and pleasanter than all this discussion,’ said Joe.

‘And if you’ll permit me,’ said Lockwood, ‘we’ll leave the drawing-room door open and let poor Walpole hear the music.’

‘Would it not be better first to see if he’s asleep?’ said she.

‘That’s true. I’ll step up and see.’

Lockwood hurried away, and Joe Atlee, leaning back in his chair, said, ‘Well, we gave the Saxon a canter, I think. As you know, Dick, that fellow is no end of a swell.’

‘You know nothing about him,’ said the other gruffly.

‘Only so much as newspapers could tell me. He’s Master of the Horse in the Viceroy’s household, and the other fellow is Private Secretary, and some connection besides. I say, Dick, it’s all King James’s times back again. There has not been so much grandeur here for six or eight generations.’

‘There has not been a more absurd speech made than that, within the time.’

‘And he is really somebody?’ said Nina to Atlee.

‘A gran signore davvero,’ said he pompously. ‘If you don’t sing your very best for him, I’ll swear you are a republican.’

‘Come, take my arm, Nina. I may call you Nina, may I not?’ whispered Kearney.

‘Certainly, if I may call you Joe.’

‘You may, if you like,’ said he roughly, ‘but my name is Dick.’

‘I am Beppo, and very much at your orders,’ said Atlee, stepping forward and leading her away.

CHAPTER XIV

They were assembled in the drawing-room before dinner, when Lord Kilgobbin arrived, heated, dusty, and tired, after his twelve miles’ drive. ‘I say, girls,’ said he, putting his head inside the door, ‘is it true that our distinguished guest is not coming down to dinner, for, if so, I’ll not wait to dress?’

‘No, papa; he said he’d stay with Mr. Walpole. They’ve been receiving and despatching telegrams all day, and seem to have the whole world on their hands,’ said Kate.

‘Well, sir, what did you do at the sessions?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ broke in Nina, eager to show her more mindful regard to his rank than Atlee displayed; ‘tell us your news?’

‘I suspect we have got two of them, and are on the traces of the others. They are Louth men, and were sent special here to give me a lesson, as they call it. That’s what our blessed newspapers have brought us to. Some idle vagabond, at his wits’ end for an article, fastens on some unlucky country gentleman, neither much better nor worse than his neighbours, holds him up to public reprobation, perfectly sure that within a week’s time some rascal who owes him a grudge – the fellow he has evicted for non-payment of rent, the blackguard he prosecuted for perjury, or some other of the like stamp – will write a piteous letter to the editor, relating his wrongs. The next act of the drama is a notice on the hall door, with a coffin at the top; and the piece closes with a charge of slugs in your body, as you are on your road to mass. Now, if I had the making of the laws, the first fellow I’d lay hands on would be the newspaper writer. Eh, Master Atlee, am I right?’

‘I go with you to the furthest extent, my lord.’

‘I vote we hang Joe, then,’ cried Dick. ‘He is the only member of the fraternity I have any acquaintance with.’

‘What – do you tell me that you write for the papers?’ asked my lord slyly.

‘He’s quizzing, sir; he knows right well I have no gifts of that sort.’

‘Here’s dinner, papa. Will you give Nina your arm? Mr. Atlee, you are to take me.’

‘You’ll not agree with me, Nina, my dear,’ said the old man, as he led her along; ‘but I’m heartily glad we have not that great swell who dined with us yesterday.’

‘I do agree with you, uncle – I dislike him.’

‘Perhaps I am unjust to him; but I thought he treated us all with a sort of bland pity that I found very offensive.’

‘Yes; I thought that too. His manner seemed to say, “I am very sorry for you, but what can be done?”’

‘Is the other fellow – the wounded one – as bad?’

She pursed up her lip, slightly shrugged her shoulders, and then said, ‘There’s not a great deal to choose between them; but I think I like him better.’

‘How do you like Dick, eh?’ said he, in a whisper.

‘Oh, so much,’ said she, with one of her half-downcast looks, but which never prevented her seeing what passed in her neighbour’s face.

‘Well, don’t let him fall in love with you,’ said he, with a smile, ‘for it would be bad for you both.’

‘But why should he?’ said she, with an air of innocence.

‘Just because I don’t see how he is to escape it. What’s Master Atlee saying to you, Kitty?’

‘He’s giving me some hints about horse-breaking,’ said she quietly.

‘Is he, by George? Well, I ‘d like to see him follow you over that fallen timber in the back lawn. We’ll have you out, Master Joe, and give you a field-day to-morrow,’ said the old man.

‘I vote we do,’ cried Dick; ‘unless, better still, we could persuade Miss Betty to bring the dogs over and give us a cub-hunt.’

‘I want to see a cub-hunt,’ broke in Nina.

‘Do you mean that you ride to hounds, Cousin Nina?’ asked Dick.

‘I should think that any one who has taken the ox-fences on the Roman Campagna, as I have, might venture to face your small stone-walls here.’

‘That’s plucky, anyhow; and I hope, Joe, it will put you on your metal to show yourself worthy of your companionship. What is old Mathew looking so mysteriously about? What do you want?’

The old servant thus addressed had gone about the room with the air of one not fully decided to whom to speak, and at last he leaned over Miss Kearney’s shoulder, and whispered a few words in her ear. ‘Of course not, Mat!’ said she, and then turning to her father – ‘Mat has such an opinion of my medical skill, he wants me to see Mr. Walpole, who, it seems, has got up, and evidently increased his pain by it.’

‘Oh, but is there no doctor near us?’ asked Nina eagerly.

‘I’d go at once,’ said Kate frankly, ‘but my skill does not extend to surgery.’

‘I have some little knowledge in that way: I studied and walked the hospitals for a couple of years,’ broke out Joe. ‘Shall I go up to him?’

‘By all means,’ cried several together, and Joe rose and followed Mathew upstairs.

‘Oh, are you a medical man?’ cried Lockwood, as the other entered.

‘After a fashion, I may say I am. At least, I can tell you where my skill will come to its limit, and that is something.’

‘Look here, then – he would insist on getting up, and I fear he has displaced the position of the bones. You must be very gentle, for the pain is terrific.’

‘No; there’s no great mischief done – the fractured parts are in a proper position. It is the mere pain of disturbance. Cover it all over with the ice again, and’ – here he felt his pulse – ‘let him have some weak brandy-and-water.’

‘That’s sensible advice – I feel it. I am shivery all over,’ said Walpole.

‘I’ll go and make a brew for you,’ cried Joe, ‘and you shall have it as hot as you can drink it.’

He had scarcely left the room, when he returned with the smoking compound.

‘You’re such a jolly doctor,’ said Walpole, ‘I feel sure you’d not refuse me a cigar?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Only think! that old barbarian who was here this morning said I was to have nothing but weak tea or iced lemonade.’

Lockwood selected a mild-looking weed, and handed it to his friend, and was about to offer one to Atlee, when he said —

‘But we have taken you from your dinner – pray go back again.’

‘No, we were at dessert. I’ll stay here and have a smoke, if you will let me. Will it bore you, though?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Walpole, ‘your company will be a great boon to us; and as for myself, you have done me good already.’

‘What would you say, Major Lockwood, to taking my place below-stairs? They are just sitting over their wine – some very pleasant claret – and the young ladies, I perceive, here, give half an hour of their company before they leave the dining-room.’

‘Here goes, then,’ said Lockwood. ‘Now that you remind me of it, I do want a glass of wine.’

Lockwood found the party below-stairs eagerly discussing Joe Atlee’s medical qualifications, and doubting whether, if it was a knowledge of civil engineering or marine gunnery had been required, he would not have been equally ready to offer himself for the emergency.

‘I’ll lay my life on it, if the real doctor arrives, Joe will take the lead in the consultation,’ cried Dick: ‘he is the most unabashable villain in Europe.’

‘Well, he has put Cecil all right,’ said Lockwood: ‘he has settled the arm most comfortably on the pillow, the pain is decreasing every moment, and by his pleasant and jolly talk he is making Walpole even forget it at times.’

This was exactly what Atlee was doing. Watching carefully the sick man’s face, he plied him with just that amount of amusement that he could bear without fatigue. He told him the absurd versions that had got abroad of the incident in the press; and cautiously feeling his way, went on to tell how Dick Kearney had started from town full of the most fiery intentions towards that visitor whom the newspapers called a ‘noted profligate’ of London celebrity. ‘If you had not been shot before, we were to have managed it for you now,’ said he.

‘Surely these fellows who wrote this had never heard of me.’

‘Of course they had not, further than you were on the Viceroy’s staff; but is not that ample warranty for profligacy? Besides, the real intention was not to assail you, but the people here who admitted you.’ Thus talking, he led Walpole to own that he had no acquaintanceship with the Kearneys, that a mere passing curiosity to see the interesting house had provoked his request, to which the answer, coming from an old friend, led to his visit. Through this channel Atlee drew him on to the subject of the Greek girl and her parentage. As Walpole sketched the society of Rome, Atlee, who had cultivated the gift of listening fully as much as that of talking, knew where to seem interested by the views of life thrown out, and where to show a racy enjoyment of the little humoristic bits of description which the other was rather proud of his skill in deploying; and as Atlee always appeared so conversant with the family history of the people they were discussing, Walpole spoke with unbounded freedom and openness.

‘You must have been astonished to meet the “Titian Girl” in Ireland?’ said Joe at last, for he had caught up the epithet dropped accidentally in the other’s narrative, and kept it for use.

‘Was I not! but if my memory had been clearer, I should have remembered she had Irish connections. I had heard of Lord Kilgobbin on the other side of the Alps.’

‘I don’t doubt that the title would meet a readier acceptance there than here.’

‘Ah, you think so!’ cried Walpole. ‘What is the meaning of a rank that people acknowledge or deny at pleasure? Is this peculiar to Ireland?’

‘If you had asked whether persons anywhere else would like to maintain such a strange pretension, I might perhaps have answered you.’

‘For the few minutes of this visit to me, I liked him; he seemed frank, hearty, and genial.’