Luttrell Of Arran
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“No, I don’t! I just mean what I said – how near. You don’t know her as well as I do, that’s clear!” Another long pause followed these words, and each followed out his own train of thought. At length, Ladarelle, not at all satisfied, as it seemed, with his own diplomacy, said, half-impatiently: “My friend Grenfell said, if there was any one who would understand how to deal with this matter, you were the man; and it was with that view he gave me the letter you have just read.”
“Oh! there’s many a way to deal with it,” said O’Rorke, who was not insensible to the flattery. “That is to say, if she was anything else but the girl she is, there would be no trouble at all in it.”
“You want me to believe that she is something very uncommon, and that she knows the world, like a woman of fashion.”
“I know nothing about women of fashion, but I never saw man or woman yet was ‘cuter than Katty O’Hara, or Luttrell, as she calls herself now.”
“She did not play her cards here so cunningly, that’s plain,” said Ladarelle, with a sneer. “Maybe I can guess why.”
“What is your guess, then?”
“Something happened that wounded her pride! If anything did that, she’d forget herself and her advantage – ay, her very life – and she’d think of nothing but being revenged. That’s the blood that’s in her!”
“So that her pride is her weak point?”
“You have it now! That’s it. I think she’d rather have died than write that letter the other morning, and if the answer isn’t what she expects, I don’t think she’ll get over it! Without,” added he, quickly, “it would drive her to some vengeance or other, if she was to see the way to any.”
“I begin to understand her,” said Ladarelle, thoughtfully. “The devil a bit of you! And if you were to think of it for twenty years, you wouldn’t understand her! She beats me, and I don’t suspect that you do.”
This was one of those thrusts it was very hard to bear without wincing, but Ladarelle turned away, and concealed the pain he felt.
“It is evident, then, Mr. O’Rorke, that you don’t feel yourself her match?”
“I didn’t say that; but it would be no disgrace if I did say it,” was the cautious answer.
“Mr. Grenfell assured me, that with a man like yourself to aid me, I need not be afraid of any difficulty. Do you feel as if he said too much for you, or has he promised more than you like to fulfil? You see, by what I have told you, that I should be very sorry to see that girl here again, or know that she was likely to regain any part of her old influence over my relative. Now, though her present letter does not touch either of these points, it opens a correspondence; don’t you perceive that?”
“Go on,” said O’Rorke, half sulkily, for a sort of doubt was creeping over him that possibly his services ought to be retained by the other party.
“And if they once begin writing letters, and if she only be as ready with her pen as you say she is with her tongue, there’s nothing to prevent her being back here this day week, on any terms she pleases.”
“Faix, and there are worse places! May I never! if I’d wonder that she’d like to be mistress of it.”
For the second time had Ladarelle blundered in his negotiation, and he was vexed and angry as he perceived it.
“That’s not all so plain and easy, Mr. O’Rorke, as you imagine. When old men make fools of themselves, the law occasionally takes them at their word, and pronounces them insane. So long as Sir Within’s eccentricities were harmless, we bore them, but I’ll not promise our patience for serious injury.”
If O’Rorke was not convinced by this threat, he was sufficiently staggered by it to become more thoughtful, and at last he said: “And what is it you’d propose to do?”
“I’d rather put that question to you,” said Ladarelle, softly. “You have the case before you, what’s your remedy?”
“If she was any other girl, I’d say give her a couple of hundred pounds, and get her married and out of the way.”
“And why not do so here?”
“Because it would be no use; that’s the why.”
“Is she not a peasant? Are not all belonging to her people in the very humblest station; and not blessed with the best possible reputations?”
“They’re poor enough, if that’s what you mean; and they’re the very sort of men that would make mighty short work of you, if you were to harm one belonging to them.”
“I promise you faithfully I’ll not go to reside in the neighbourhood,” said Ladarelle, with a laugh.
“I’ve known them track a man to America before now.”
“Come, come, Mr. O’Rorke, your countrymen may be as like Red Indians as you please, but they have no terrors for me.”
“So much the better; but I’ve seen just as big men as yourself afraid of them.”
The quiet coolness of this speech sent a far stronger sense of fear through the other’s heart than any words of menace could have done, and it required a great effort on his part to seem collected.
“You say she cannot be bought over, O’Rorke; now, what other line is open to us?”
O’Rorke made no reply, but seemed lost in thought.
“What if she were to believe that Sir Within wouldn’t receive her letter, or read it, and sent back a cold, unfeeling answer?” Still no answer passed his lips. “If,” continued Ladarelle, “you were to return and say you had failed, what would she do then? She’d never write to him again, I suppose?”
“Never, that you may depend upon, but it wouldn’t be so easy to make her believe it.”
“That might be managed. First of all, tell me how she would take the tidings.”
“I don’t know. I could not even guess.”
“At all events, she’d not write to him again?”
“For that I’ll answer. I believe I could take my oath on it.”
“Now, then, the game is easy enough,” said Ladarelle, with a more assured tone. “You are to have Sir Within’s answer to-morrow. When you get it, set out for Wrexham, where I’ll meet you. We’ll open it and read it. If it be a simple acceptance of her note, and a mere compliance with her request, I’ll re-seal it with his crest, and you shall take it on to her; but if, as I suspect, the old man will make an effort to renew their former relations, and throw out any bait to induce her to come back here – ”
“Well, what then?” asked O’Rorke, after waiting a few seconds for the other to continue.
“In that case we must lay our heads together, O’Rorke, and see what’s best to be done.”
“And the old man that’s in gaol, and that’s to be tried on the 19th, what’s to be done about him?”
“I’ll think of that.”
“He hasn’t a great chance anyway, but if there’s no defence, it’s all up with him.”
“I’ll think of that.”
“Then there’s myself,” said O’Rorke, drawing his figure up to his full height, as though the subject was one that entailed no painful modesty. “What about me?”
“I have thought of that already. Put that in your pocket, for the present” – and he pressed a note into his hand – “and when to-morrow comes you shall name your own conditions. Only stand by me to the end – mind that.”
O’Rorke opened the bank-note leisurely, and muttered the word “Twenty;” and certainly nothing in the accent showed enthusiastic gratitude.
“I can give you an order on my banker to-morrow,” said Ladarelle, hurriedly, “but I am rather low in cash here, just now; and I repeat it – your own terms, O’Rorke, your own terms.”
“I suppose so,” was the dry rejoinder.
“It’s not everybody would make you the same proposal.”
“It’s not everybody has so much need of me as you have.”
Ladarelle tried to laugh as he wished him good night, but the attempt was a poor one, and all he could say, as they parted, was:
“Wrexham – the Boar’s Head – the inn on the left hand as you enter the town. I’ll be on the look-out for you myself.”
O’Rorke nodded and withdrew.
“Vulgar scoundrel! I wish I had never spoken to him!” said Ladarelle, as soon as the door closed. “This is all Grenfell’s doing; he has just shoved me into the hands of a fellow that will only serve me till he finds a higher bidder. What a fool I have been to open myself to him; and he sees it well! And as for the ready-wittedness and expediency, I wonder where they are! Why, the rascal had not a single suggestion to offer; he kept on harping about the difficulties, and never a word did he drop as to how to meet them.”
And, with a hearty malediction on him, Ladarelle concluded his meditation, and went off to sleep.
CHAPTER LI. THE BOAR’S HEAD
Ladarelle stood at a window of the Boar’s Head which commanded a view of the road into the town, and waited, watch in hand, for O’Rorke’s coming. The morning passed, and noon, and it was late in the day when a wearied horse, over-driven and steaming, drew up at the door, and the long looked-for traveller alighted.
Though burning with impatience to learn his news, Ladarelle saw the necessity of concealing his anxiety, and, opening his writing-desk, he affected to be deeply engaged writing when, conducted by a waiter, O’Rorke appeared.
A single glance as he passed the threshold told Ladarelle that his tidings were important. Already the fellow’s swagger declared it, and in the easy confidence with which he sat down, and in the careless way he rather threw than laid his hat on the table, might be seen that he felt himself “master of the situation.”
“You are later than I expected,” said Ladarelle, carelessly.
“I didn’t leave the place till after twelve. He made me go over the gardens and the forcing-houses, and after that the stables, till at one time I thought I’d not get away till to-morrow.”
“And what do you think of it all?”
“Grand! – grand! It’s the finest place I ever saw, and well kept up, too! There’s eight men in the garden, and the head-gardener told me he might have as many more, if he wanted them.”
“The horses are overfed; they are like prize oxen.”
“They’re fat, to be sure; but it’s fine to see them standing there, with their glossy skins, and their names over them, and their tails hanging down like tassels, and no more call for them to work than if they were lords themselves.”
“I’ll make a grand clearance of all that rubbish one day. I’ll have none of those German elephants, I promise you, when I come to the property.”
“He isn’t going to make room for you yet awhile, he says,” said O’Rorke, with a grin.
“What do you mean?”
“If what he said to me this morning is to be relied on, he means to marry.”
“And haye a family, perhaps?” added Ladarelle, with a laugh.
“He said nothing about that; he talked like a man that hoped to see many years, and happy ones.”
“No one ever lived the longer for wishing it, or else we heirs-expectant would have a bad time of it. But this is not the question. What answer did he give you?”
“There it is!”
And, as he spoke, he drew from his breast-pocket a large square-shaped letter, massively sealed, and after showing the address, “Miss Luttrell,” on the cover, he replaced it in his pocket.
“Do you know what’s in it?” asked Ladarelle, sharply.
“Only that there’s money, that’s all, for he said to me, ‘Any banker will cash it.’”
Ladarelle took a couple of turns of the room without speaking; then, coming directly in front of the other, he said:
“Now, then, Mr. O’Rorke, which horse do you back? Where do you stand to win? I mean, are you going to serve Sir Within or me?”
“He is the bird in the hand, any way!” said O’Rorke, with a grin of malicious meaning.
“Well, if you think so, I have no more to say, only that as shrewd a man as you are might see that an old fellow on the verge of the grave is not likely to be as lasting a friend as a man like myself. In other words, which life would you prefer in your lease?”
O’Rorke made no answer, but seemed sunk in thought.
“I’ll put the case before you in three words. You might help this girl in her plans – you might aid her so far that she could come back here, and remain either as this old man’s wife or mistress – I don’t know that there would be much difference, in fact, as the law stands, between the two – but how long would you be a welcome visitor here after that? You speculate on being able to come, and go, and stay here just as you please; you’d like to have this place as a home you could come to whenever you pleased, and be treated not merely with respect and attention, but with cordiality. Now, I just ask you, from what you have yourself told me of this girl, is that what you would expect when she was the mistress? Is she so staunch to her own people, that she would be true to you?”
For some minutes O’Rorke made no answer, and then, leaning both arms on the table before him, he said, in a slow, measured voice, “What do you offer me yourself?”
“I said last night, and I repeat it now, make your own terms.”
O’Rorke shook his head, and was silent.
“I am willing,” resumed Ladarelle, “to make you my land-steward, give you a house and a plot of ground rent free, and pay you eighty pounds a year. I’ll make it a hundred if I see you stand well to me!”
“I’ve got some debts,” muttered O’Rorke, in a low voice.
“What do they amount to?”
“Oh, they’re heavy enough; but I could settle them for a couple of hundreds.”
“I’ll pay them, then.”
“And, after that, I’d rather go abroad. I’d like to go and settle in Australia.”
“How much money would that require?”
“I want to set up a newspaper, and I couldn’t do it under two thousand pounds.”
“That’s a big sum, Master O’Rorke.”
“The devil a much the old man at the Castle there would think of it, if it helped him to what he wanted.”
“I mean, it’s a big sum to raise at a moment, but I don’t say it would be impossible.”
“Will you give it, then? That’s the short way to put it. Will you give it?”
“First, let me ask for what am I to give it? Is it that you will stand by me in this business to the very end, doing whatever I ask you, flinching at nothing, and taking every risk equally with myself?”
“And no risk that you don’t share yourself?”
“None!”
“It is worth thinking about, anyhow,” said O’Rorke, as he arose and paced the room, with his hands deep in his pockets; “that is, if the money is paid down – down on the nail – for I won’t take a bill, mind.”
“I’m afraid, O’Rorke, your experiences in life have not taught you to be very confiding.”
“I’ll tell you what they’ve taught me; they’ve taught me that wherever there’s money in anything, a man ought not to trust his own mother.”
In a few hurried words, Ladarelle explained that till he came to his estate, all his dealings for ready money were of the most ruinous kind; that to raise two thousand would cost him eventually nearly four; and, as he phrased it, “I’d rather see the difference in the pocket of an honest fellow who stood to me, than a rascally Jew who rogued me.”
“I’ll give you a post obit on Sir Within’s estate for three thousand, and, so far as a hundred pounds goes to pay your voyage, you shall not want it.”
O’Rorke did not at first like the terms. Whenever he ventured his chances in life, things had turned out ill; all his lottery tickets were blanks, and he shook his head doubtingly, and made no reply.
“Five o’clock already! I must be going,” said Ladarelle, suddenly looking at his watch.
“That’s a fine watch!” said O’Rorke, as he gazed at the richly-embossed crest on the case.
“If having my arms on the back is no objection to you, O’Rorke, take it. I make you a present of it.”
O’Rorke peered into his face with an inquisitiveness so full of unbelief as almost to be laughable, but the expression changed to a look of delight as Ladarelle took the chain from off his neck and handed the whole to him.
“May I never!” cried O’Rorke; “if I won’t be your equal. There’s the letter!” And he drew forth Sir Within’s despatch, and placed it in his hands.
Concealing all the delight he felt at this unlooked-for success, Ladarelle retired to the window to read the letter; nor did he at once break the seal. Some scruple – there were not many left him – did still linger amidst the wreck of his nature, and he felt that what he was about to do was a step lower in baseness than he had hitherto encountered. “After all,” muttered he, “if I hesitate about this, how am I to meet what is before me?” And so he broke the seal and tore open the envelope. “The old fool! the infatuated old fool!” broke from him, in an accent of bitter scorn, as he ran over the three lines which a trembling hand had traced. “I knew it would come to this. I said so all long. Here’s an order to pay Miss Luttrell or bearer two hundred pounds!” said he, turning to O’Rorke. “We must not cash this, or we should get into a precious scrape.”
“And what’s in the letter?” asked O’Rorke, carelessly.
“Nothing beyond his readiness to be of use, and all that. He writes with difficulty, he says, and that’s not hard to believe – an infernal scrawl it is – and he promises to send a long letter by the post tomorrow. By the way, how do they get the letters at Arran?”
“They send for them once a week to the mainland; on Saturdays, if I remember aright.”
“We must arrest this correspondence then, or we shall be discovered at once. How can we obtain her letters?”
“Easy enough. I know the boy that comes for them, and he can’t read, though he can tell the number of letters that he should have. I’ll have one ready to substitute for any that should be to her address.”
“Well thought of. I see, O’Rorke, you are the man I wanted; now listen to me attentively, and hear my plan. I must return to the Castle, and pretend that I have pressing business in town. Instead of taking the London mail, however, I shall proceed to Holyhead, where you must wait for me at the inn, the Watkins’ Arms. I hope to be there tomorrow morning early, but it may be evening before I can arrive. Wait, at all events, for my coming.”
“Remember that I promised to be back in Arran, with the answer to her letter, by Saturday.”
“So you shall. It is fully as important for me that you should keep your word.”
“Does he want her back again?” said O’Rorke, not fully satisfied that he had not seen Sir Within’s note.
“No, not exactly; at least, it is evasive, and very short. It is simply to this purport: ‘I conclude you have made a mistake by leaving me, and think you might have humility enough to acknowledge it; meanwhile, I send you a cheque for two hundred. I shall write to-morrow more fully.’”
O’Rorke was thoroughly aware, by the stammering confusion of the other’s manner, that these were not the terms of the note; but it was a matter which interested him very little, and he let it pass unchallenged. His calculation – and he had given a whole night to it – was briefly this: “If I serve Sir Within, I may possibly be well and handsomely rewarded, but I shall obtain no power of pressure upon him; under no circumstances can I extort from him one shilling beyond what he may be disposed to give me. If, on the other hand, I stand by Ladarelle, his whole character is in my hands. He is too unscrupulous not to compromise himself, and though his accomplice, I shall do everything in such a way that one day, if I need it, I may appear to have been his dupe. And such a position as this can be the source of untold money.”
Nor was it a small inducement to him to think that the side he adopted was adverse to Kate. Why he disliked her he knew not – that is, he would not have been well able to say why. Perhaps he might not readily have admitted the fact, though he well knew that to see her great, and prosperous, and high placed, a winner in that great lottery of life where he had failed so egregiously, would be to him the most intense misery, and he would have done much to prevent it.
Along with these thoughts were others, speculating on Ladarelle himself, and whom he was sorely puzzled whether to regard more as knave or fool, or an equal mixture of the two. “He’ll soon see that whatever he does he mustn’t try to cheat Tim O’Rorke,” muttered he; “and when he gets that far, I’ll not trouble myself more about his education.”
CHAPTER LII. THE NIGHT AT SEA
The Saturday – the eventful day on which Kate was to have her answer from Sir Within – came at last. It was a dark, lowering morning, and though there was scarcely an air of wind, the sea rolled heavily in, and broke in great showers of spray over the rocks, sure sign that a storm was raging at a distance.
From an early hour she had been down to the shore to watch if any boat could be seen, but not a sail could be descried, and the fishermen told her that though the wind had a faint sound in it, there were few Westport men would like to venture out in such a sea.
“If you cannot see a boat before noon, Tim Hennesy,” said she to one of the boatmen, “you’ll have to man the yawl, for I mean to go over myself.”
“It will be a hard beat against the wind, Miss,” said the man. “It will take you an hour to get out of the bay here.”
“I suppose we shall reach Westport before morning?”
“It will be no bad job if we get in by this time to-morrow.”
She turned angrily away; she hated opposition in every shape, and even the semblance of anything like discouragement chafed and irritated her.
“No sign of your messenger?” said Luttrell, from the window of the tower, whither he had gone to have a look out over the sea.
“It is early yet, Sir. If they came out on the ebb we should not see them for at least another hour.”
He made no answer, but closed the window and withdrew.
“Get me a loaf of bread, Molly, and some hard eggs and a bottle of, milk,” said Kate, as she entered the house.
“And sure, Miss, it’s not off to the mountains you’ll be going such a day as this. It will be a down-pour of rain before evening, and you have a bad cough on you already.”
“You most lend me your cloak, too, Molly,” said she, not heeding the remonstrance, “it’s much warmer than my own.”
“Ain’t I proud that it would be on your back, the Heavens bless and protect you! But where are you going that you want a cloak?”
“Go and ask my uncle if I may speak to him.”
Molly went, and came back at once to say that Mr. Luttrell was in his room below, and she might come there when she pleased.
“I am thinking of going over to Westport, Sir,” said Kate, as she passed the threshold. “My impatience is fevering me, and I want to do something.”
“Listen to the sea, young woman; it is no day to go out, and those drifting clouds tell that it will be worse by-and-by.”
“All the better if it blows a little, it will take me off thinking of other cares.”
“I’ll not hear of it – there!”
And he waved his hand as though to dismiss her, but she never moved, but stood calm and collected where she was.
“You remember, Sir, to-day is Saturday, and very little time is now left us for preparation. By going over to the mainland, I shall meet O’Rorke, and save his journey here and back again, and the chances are, that, seeing the day rough, he’d not like to leave Westport this morning.”
“I have told you my mind, that is enough,” said he, with an impatient gesture; but she stood still, and never quitted the spot. “I don’t suppose you have heard me, Miss Luttrell,” said he, with a tone of suppressed passion.
“Yes, Sir, I have heard you, but you have not heard me. My poor old grandfather’s case is imminent; whatever measures are to be taken for his defence cannot be deferred much longer. If the plan I adopted should turn out a failure, I must think of another, and that quickly.”
“What is this old peasant to me?” broke out Luttrell, fiercely. “Is this low-lived family to persecute me to my last day? You must not leave me – you shall not – I am not to be deserted for the sake of a felon! – I’ll not hear of it! – Go! Leave me?”
She moved gently towards him, and laid her hand on the back of his chair.
“Dear uncle,” said she, in a low, soft voice, “it would grieve you sorely if aught befel this poor old man – aught, I mean, that we could have prevented. Let me go and see if I cannot be of some use to him.”
“Go? – go where? – do you mean to the gaol?”
“Yes, Sir, I mean to see him.”
“The yery thing I have forbidden! The express compact by which you came here was, no intercourse with this – this – family, and now that the contact has become a stain and a disgrace, now is the moment you take to draw closer to them.”