Luttrell Of Arran
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“We must hasten to repair the disaster. Sir Within, would you oblige me by ordering our ponies. I know you’ll forgive our abrupt leave-taking.”
“I shall never forgive the cause of it. Why not let me send a messenger over to ask him, saying I had insisted on detaining you?”
“Oh, on no account! Besides, he’s a touchy person, and my husband is most tenacious regarding him. I must hasten back and make my explanations in person.”
“I don’t know how I am to face him at all!” cried Georgina.
“I’d certainly not try,” said Sir Within.
Vague as the mere words were, they were uttered with a significance that plainly said, “You might stay where you are;” and Miss Courtenay evidently so read them, for her cheek reddened as she turned away.
Lady Vyner, however, went on: “I don’t think we shall have any difficulty about it – at least, I hope not – though what I’m to say, and how to say it, I cannot imagine.”
“Throw me into the breach,” said Sir Within; “say that, hearing of his arrival, I begged a visit from you – that I wanted some legal advice – I required a draft of – what shall I say? – I can scarcely be going to be married. Let it be a will, then.”
“Oh no, not a will, Sir Within!” said Georgina, with a very soft smile.
“It shall be whatever you decide for it,” said he, assisting her with her shawl as he spoke.
“Do you ever mean to come over to breakfast with us?” asked Lady Vyner. “The promise has been made and renewed, I think, a dozen times.”
“May I say next Sunday, then?”
“And you’ll promise to come to church with us afterwards?” cried Lady Vyner.
He muttered something with a smile to Miss Courtenay, and she turned away abruptly, but ere she drew down her veil her face betokened the reverse of displeasure.
Though, as they drove homeward, the unpleasant explanation that lay before them engaged much of their thoughts, taxing all their address how to encounter its difficulty, yet, from time to time, Georgina would return to talk of the house they had just quitted, and the host.
“It is easy enough to see why our straitlaced neighbours do not take to him,” said she; “he is too much a man of the world – too tolerant and forgiving for their notions.”
“A little too lax, also, for the proprieties of English life,” added Lady Vyner.
“For its hypocrisies, if you like, Laura. I’m certain people are pretty much the same everywhere, though the way they talk about themselves may be very different.”
“I suspect he has made a conquest, Georgy,” said her sister, laughing; “or rather, that his magnificent old castle, and his Vandykes, and his pineries, and his conservatory have – ”
“No! that I protest against. His ‘accessories,’ as the French would call them, are undeniable. It is a house absolutely princely in all its details; but I think he himself is the gem of the collection. He is so courteous and so pleasant, so anecdotic, and so full of all manner of apropos, and then so utterly unlike every one else that one knows.”
“I suppose there lies his chief attraction. We have to measure him with people all whose thoughts and ideas are so essentially homely, and who must of necessity be eternally talking of themselves – that is, of their own turnpike, their own turnips, and their own cock pheasants.”
“Is it not strange that he never married?” said Georgina, after a silence.
“I don’t think so. He’s not a man that would be likely to marry, and very far from being one that a woman would like to take as a husband.”
“Do you think so – do you really think so?”
“I’m certain of it. All those charming little schemes for our entertainment that captivated us a while ago, show a degree of care and attention bestowed on little things which would make life a perfect servitude. Cannot you imagine him spending his mornings giving audience to his cook, and listening to the report of his gardener? I fancy I see him in the midst of a levee of domestics, gravely listening to the narrative of the last twenty-four hours of his household.”
“So far from that,” said Georgina, warmly, “he told me Bernais did everything – engaged and discharged servants, changed furniture, rearranged rooms, and, in fact, managed little daily ‘surprises’ for him, that, as he said, compensated for much of the solitude in which he lived.”
“But why does he live in solitude? Why not go back to the life and the places that habit has endeared to him?”
“He told me to-day that he intended to do so; that he is only waiting for the visit of a certain relative, Mr. Ladarelle; after which he means to set out for Italy.”
“Ladarelle is the great banker, and, if I mistake not, his heir.” “Yes. Sir Within says that they scarcely know each other, and have all that dislike and distrust that usually separate the man in possession and the man in expectancy.”
“One can fancy how distasteful his heir must be to a man like Sir Within Wardle,” said Lady Vyner.
“To any man, sister,” broke in Georgina – “to any man who only knows the person as the inheritor of his fortune. I declare I think Sir Within spoke of the Ladarelles with much forbearance, aware, as he is, that they are coming down here to see in what state of repair the castle is, and whether the oaks are being thinned more actively than a mere regard for their welfare would exact.”
“Did Sir Within say that?” asked Lady Vyner, with a laugh. “No; but I guessed it!” “Well, he supplied the text for your theory?” “In a measure, perhaps. It was when you went with Groves to look at the large cactus he told me this, and mentioned that, by a singular provision, though the estate is strictly entailed, he could charge the property to any extent with jointure if he married; and perhaps, said he, my worthy relatives are anxious to satisfy themselves that this event has not, nor is very likely to occur.”
“Not now, certainly?” said Lady Vyner, with a saucy laugh. “I don’t know. There are many women well to do, and well off, would marry him.”
“That is to say, there are a considerable number of women who would sacrifice much for money.”
Miss Courtenay was silent; when she next spoke, it was about the evening – the air was growing fresh, and the twilight deepening. “I wonder in what mood we are to find Mr. M’Kinlay – if we are to find him at all.”
“I own it would be very awkward; but I am such a coward about meeting him, that I half wish he had gone away, and that we were left to make our lame excuses in a letter.”
“I have to confess that the matter sits very lightly on my conscience,” said Georgina, “though I am the real delinquent. I don’t like him, and I shall not be very unhappy if he knows it.”
“Possibly enough, but such a breach of all politeness – ”
“My dear Laura, he has met this incident, or something very like it, a hundred times. Earls and Viscounts have made appointments with him and forgotten him; he has been left standing on that terrace, or pacing moodily up that street, for hours long, and, as Sir Within said very smartly, consoled by the item that would record it in the bill of costs.”
“Yes, I remember the remark; it struck me as the only bit of vulgarity about him.”
“Vulgarity! Sir Within Wardle vulgar!”
“Well, I have no other word for it, Georgy. It was the observation that might readily have come from any ordinary and common-place person, and sounded unsuitably from the lips of a very polished gentleman.”
“Poor Sir Within! if in a gloomy moment you may be wondering to yourself what harsh or envious things your wealth, your splendour, and your taste may have provoked from us, I am certain that you never imagined that the imputation of being vulgar was one of them!”
Fortunately there was no time to continue a theme so threatening to be unpleasant, for already they were at the gate lodge, and a loud summons with the bell had announced their arrival.
CHAPTER IX. MR. M’KINLAY’S TRIALS
Mr. M’Kinlay was awakened from a pleasant nap oyer the “Man of Feeling,” which he had persuaded himself he was reading with all the enjoyment it had once afforded him, by the French clock oyer the mantelpiece performing a lively waltz, and then striking five!
He started, rubbed his eyes, and looked about him, not very certain for some minutes where he was. The hum of the bees, the oppressive perfume of the sweetbriar and the jessamine, and the gentle drip-drip of a little trickling rivulet over some rock-work, seemed still to steep his senses in a pleasant dreamy languor, and a sort of terror seized him that the ladies might possibly have come in, and found him there asleep. He rang the bell and summoned Rickards at once.
“Where are the ladies?” asked he, eagerly.
“Not come back yet, Sir. It’s very seldom they stay out so long. I can make nothing of it.”
“You told her Ladyship I was here, didn’t you?”
“I told Miss Georgina, Sir, and of course she told my Lady.”
“What’s your dinner-hour?”
“Always early, Sir, when Sir Gervais is from home. My Lady likes four, or half-past.”
“And it’s five now!”
“Yes, Sir; a quarter-past five. It’s the strangest thing I ever knew,” said he, going to the window, which commanded a view of the road at several of its windings through the valley. “We have an excellent lake trout for dinner; but by good luck it’s to be grilled, not boiled, or it would be ruined utterly.”
“Capital things, those red trout,” said M’Kinlay, to whom, like most of his craft and way of life, the pleasures of the table offered great temptations. “Is your cook a good one, Rickards?”
“Only a woman, Sir; but by no means bad. Sir Gervais always takes M. Honoré with him on board the yacht; but you’ll see, Sir, that she knows how to roast, and we have a sweet saddle of Welsh mutton to-day, if it’s not over-done.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Rickards,” said the lawyer; and if a sigh ever denoted sorrow, his did as he spoke. “Is the mutton small?”
“Very small, Sir. Mountain mutton.”
“And of course it will be done to rags! She serves it with currant-jelly, I snppose?”
“No, Sir, with guava. Sir Gervais prefers it.”
“And what else was there on your bill of fare for to-day?”
“A very simple dinner, Sir. Partridges on toast, a salad of white truffles, and a roast hare.”
“Quite enough, quite enough. Do you bring your wine down with you!”
“Only the Madeira, Sir. Sir Gervais gets some claret oyer from an Irish house called Sneyd’s, which he calls very drinkable.”
“So do I, too; very drinkable, indeed; and your Madeira, you say, you bring with you. I say, Rickards, I think a glass of it and a biscuit wouldn’t be amiss, if I’m to wait much longer.”
“I was just thinking the same, Sir; and if you’ll step into the dining-room and take a morsel of game-pie, I’ll fetch the Madeira out of the sun. It’s fine and mellow by this time.”
“Is this your woman cook’s performance?” said Mr. M’Kinky, as he helped himself for the second time to the pie.
“Yes, Sir; and she’d do better, too, if it wasn’t that the ladies don’t like so much jelly. Here’s a fine whole truffle, Sir!”
“She’s a valuable woman – a very valuable woman. Tell her, Rickards, that I drank her health in a bumper. Yes, up to the brim with it. She shall have all the honours.”
“Something sweet, Sir? A little cherry tart?”
“Well, a little cherry tart I’ ll not object to. No, no, Rickards, don’t open champagne for me.”
“It’s in the ice, Sir, and quite ready.”
“Let it stay there. I’m very simple about both eating and drinking. I’d not have made a bad hermit, if I hadn’t been a lawyer.”
“No, indeed, Sir! I never saw a gentleman so easily pleased. You’re not like Mr. Grenfell, Sir, that has the bill of fare brought up every morning to his dressing-room; ay, and M. Honoré himself, too, summoned, just as if it was before a magistrate, to explain what’s the meaning of this, and why he doesn’t do the other.”
“Your master permits this?”
“He likes it, Sir; he laughs heartily at it.”
“And the ladies, do they like it?”
“Oh, Mr. Grenfell only comes over to Beau Park when the ladies is away, Sir, up in town, or at the sea-side.”
“He’s no favourite of theirs, then?”
“I don’t believe they ever saw him, Sir. At all events, he was never down with us when we were all at home.”
“I suspect I know why,” said M’Kinlay, knowingly.
“Yes, Sir,” replied Rickards, as knowingly, while he took up a jar of pickled onions from the sideboard, and held it ostentatiously forward.
“You’re right, Rickards, you’ve hit it correctly. One glass more of that admirable wine. What’s that great ringing at the gate? Is that your mistress?”
“No, Sir. The lodge people have orders never to keep her waiting; they always have a look-out when she’s coming. There it is again. If you’ll excuse me a moment, Sir, I’d better step out and see what it means!”
The permission was graciously accorded, and Mr. M’Kinlay emptied the last of the Madeira into his glass, discussing with himself whether the world had anything really more enjoyable to offer than a simple cottage life, with a good cook, and a capital cellar! Little heed did he give to the absence of Rickards, nor was he in the least aware that the bland butler had been above a quarter of an hour away, when he entered flushed and excited.
“It’s the same as a burglary, Sir, there’s no difference; and it’s by good luck you are here to declare the law of it!”
“What’s the matter – what has happened, Rickards?”
“They’re in the drawing-room, Sir; they walked in by the open windows; there was no keeping them out.”
“Who are in the drawing-room?”
“The tourists, Sir,” exclaimed Rickards. “The tourists! The people that would force their way into Windsor Castle and go through it, if the King was at his dinner there!”
Strong in a high purpose, and bold with the stout courage of that glorious Madeira, Mr. M’Kinlay arose. “This is an unparalleled outrage,” cried he; “follow me, Rickards;” and he took his way to the drawing-room. Though the noise and tumult bespoke the presence of several people, there were not above half a dozen in the room. One, however, a pale, sickly-looking young man, with long hair, which required everlasting tossing of his head to keep out of his eyes, sat at the piano, playing the most vigorous chords, while over his shoulder leaned a blue-eyed, fair, ringletted lady, whose years – past the forties – rather damaged the evident determination she evinced to be youthful and volatile.
“Do, Manny, do dearest, there’s a love,” said she, with the faintest imaginable lisp, “do compothe something. A Fanthasia, on visiting Dinaslryn. A dhream – ”
“Pray be quiet, Celestina!” said he, with a wave of his hand. “You derange me!”
“Have they got a ‘catalog’ of the gimcracks?” exclaimed a nasal voice that there was no mistaking. “I a’n’t posted in brass idols and boxwood saints, but I’d like to have ‘em booked and ticketed.”
“Are you aware, gentlemen and ladies,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, with a voice meant to awaken the very dullest sense of decorum – “are you aware that you are in the house of a private gentleman, without any permission or sanction on his part?”
“Oh, don’t, don’t disturb him, Sir,” broke in the ringletted lady. “You’ll never forgive yourself if you spoil it;” and she pointed to the artist, who had now let all his hair fall forward, after the fashion of a Skye terrier, and sat with his head drooped over the piano, and his hands suspended above the keys.
“Say what for the whole bilen,” cried the Yankee. “It ain’t much of a show; but I’ll take it over to New York, and charge only twenty-five cents for the reserved seats!”
“I repeat, Sir,” exclaimed M’Kinlay, “your presence here, and that of all your companions, is a most unreasonable intrusion – a breach of all propriety – one of those violations of decency, which, however practised, popular, and approved of in a certain country, neither distinguished for the civilisation of its inhabitants, nor for their sense of refinement – ”
“Is it Ireland you mane, Sir – is it Ireland?” said a short, carbuncled-nosed little man, with a pair of fiery red eyes. “Say the word if it is.”
“It is not Ireland, Sir. I respect the Irish. I esteem them.”
“Could you get them to be quiet, Celestina?” said the artist, faintly; “could you persuade the creatures to be still?”
“Hush, hush!” said she, motioning with both her hands.
A tremendous crash now resounded through the room. It was Mr. Herodotus M. Dodge, who, in experimenting with his umbrella on a Sèvres jar, to detect if it were cracked, had smashed it to atoms, covering the whole floor with the fragments.
“Send for the police! Tell the porter to lock the gate, and fetch the police!” shouted M’Kinlay. “I trust to show you, Sir, that you’re not in Fifteenth-street, or Forty-sixth Avenue. I hope to prove to you that you’re in a land of law and order.”
Overcome by his rage, he followed Rickards out of the room, declaring that he’d make all England ring with the narrative of this outrage.
The legal mind, overbalanced for an instant, suddenly recovered its equanimity, and he began to reflect how far he was justified in a forcible detention. Would “a claim lie” for false imprisonment? Were he to detain them, too, what should be his charge? Was it a trespass? Had they been warned off? “Wait a moment, Rickards,” said he; “I must think a minute or two. There’s a difficulty here. Where a person, passing in the street, smashes accidentally – it must be accidentally – a pane of plate-glass, of the value of, let us say five-and-twenty or thirty guineas, the law only holds him responsible for the damage of an ordinary window-pane; so that here it will be quite open to the defence to show that this man imagined he was breaking a common jug, a mere earthenware pipkin. It is, then, to the trespass we must look. Call the lodge-keeper; say I wish to have a word with him.”
While Rickards hastened on his errand, Mr. M’Kinlay sat down to ponder carefully over the case. Your men conversant with great causes in equity and weighty trials at bar, are nervously fearful of meddling with the small cases which come before petty tribunals. They really know little about them, and are almost certain to fail in them; and they feel – very naturally – ashamed at the sorry figure they must exhibit in such failures.
“They’re all gone, Sir – they’ve made a regular retreat of it – not one left.”
“Who – who are gone?”
“Them tourists, Sir. They overtook me as I went down the avenue, and made George open the gate; and away they are, the whole of ‘em.”
“I’m not sorry for it, Rickards. I declare I’m not sorry. It would cost more time and more trouble to follow them up than they’re worth; and I am certain, besides, Sir Gervais wouldn’t have the affair in the newspapers for ten times the amount of all the damage they’ve done him. What’s that noise without – who’s coming now?”
“My Lady!” exclaimed Rickards, and hastened out to receive her. Mr. M’Kinlay could notice that a short dialogue took place between the ladies and the butler before they entered the door, and that they both laughed at something he was telling them. Was the story that amused them of him, or of the invasion? He had not time to consider, when they entered.
“How d’ye do, Mr. M’Kinlay?” said Lady Vyner, quietly. “We’ve kept you very long waiting, I fear. You may serve dinner at once, Rickards. Mr. M’Kinlay will excuse our dining in morning dress, Georgina.”
“I should hope so,” said her sister, with a very saucy toss of the head.
“Your Ladyship will excuse my not remaining to dinner,” said he, with a marked coldness. “I only wanted to see you, and ask if you had any commissions for Sir Gervais.”
“No, there’s nothing, I fancy. I wrote yesterday – I think it was yesterday.”
“Tell him not to meddle with Irish property, and come away from that country as soon as he can,” said Georgina.
“Say the garden is looking beautiful since the rain,” said Lady Vyner, rising. “Good-by, and a pleasant journey!”
“Good-by!” said Georgina, giving him the tips of her fingers.
And Mr. M’Kinlay bowed and took his leave, carrying away as he went very different thoughts of cottage life and its enjoyments from those he might have felt had he gone when he had finished the last glass of Madeira.
CHAPTER X. THE SHEBEEN
Just as we see on the confines of some vast savage territory one solitary settlement that seems to say, “Here civilisation ends, beyond this the tracts of cultivated man are unknown,” so there stood on the borders of a solitary lake in Donegal – Lough Anare – a small thatched house, over whose door an inscription announced “Entertainment for Man and Beast,” the more pretentious letters of the latter seeming to indicate that the accommodation for Beast was far more likely to prove a success than that intended for mere humanity.
What imaginable spirit of enterprise could have induced Mr. O’Rorke to have established an inn in such a region is not easy to guess. To the north of Lough Anare lay a vast untravelled, almost roadless district. Great mountains and deep valleys, wild plains of heather, enclosing lakes, with islands, sometimes mere rocks, sometimes covered with an oak scrub – last remnants of primeval forests – succeeded each other apparently without end. A miserable shealing, usually padlocked on the outside, was all that betokened habitation, and a living being was rarely met with. It is true there was scenery which for grandeur and beauty might have vied with the most vaunted spots on the island. Mountain gorges far finer than Dunluce, lakes more varied in shape, and with margins bolder in outline and richer in colour than Killarney, and coast-line with which the boasted Glengariff could not for a moment compete, all destined to remain as unknown as if they lay thousands of miles away in some Indian sea.
A great proportion of this territory was the property of the University of Dublin – endowment made in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when probably all lands without the pale had about the same value; some of it pertained to a wealthy English noble, who, until the accident of a governmental survey, had never so much as cared to ascertain his limits, and who made the first use of his knowledge by announcing for sale the lands of Mac-na-Morroch, Knochlifty, Eilmacooran, and Denyvaragh; in all, nigh fifty thousand acres of mountain, bog, callow, and lake, whose great capabilities, whether for sheep-farming, fishing, for the quarries of marble, or the immense mineral resources, were vouched for by a roll of scientific names, whose very titular letters enforced conviction. If the pen of an imaginative writer might have been employed in depicting the stores of wealth and fortune that lay here entombed, no fancy could have exaggerated the natural loveliness of the landscape. All that was wild and grotesque in outline, with all that was most glowing in colour, were there; and when on the nameless lakes the setting sun added his glory to the golden purple of their reflected lights, the scene became one of such gorgeous splendour as Art would not have dared to imitate.
The little inn we have just mentioned stood on a rocky eminence which projected from the mountain-side, and could be seen for miles off, more conspicuous, besides, by a large green flag, with a harp in the centre, which by the patriotism of Mr. O’Rorke flaunted its folds to the wild mountain breezes, as though enjoying in the solitude an immunity which the Saxon might have resented elsewhere. Tim O’Rorke was indeed one who had “suffered for Ireland.” Four several times had he figured in Crown Prosecutions, and both fine and imprisonment had been his portion. On the last occasion, however, either that national enthusiasm was cooling down, or that suspicions of Tim’s honesty were getting abroad, the subscription for his defence was almost a failure. No imposing names headed the list, and the sums inscribed were mean and contemptible. Unable to fee the great bar, to retain which, perhaps, formed the grandest triumph of his life, O’Rorke decided to defend himself, and in the course of his defence launched forth into a severe and insulting castigation of his party, who, after using up his youth and manhood in their cause, left him, when old and broken and dispirited, to the merciless cruelty of his enemies. He read aloud in open court the names of the powerful and wealthy men who at first stood by him, and then, with a shameless insolence, contrasted them with the ignoble friends who remained to him. He recited the proud sums once contributed, and, amidst the laughter of the court, ridiculed the beggarly half-crowns that now represented Irish patriotism. The verdict was against him, and once more was he sent back to Kilmainham, to serve out a two years’ sentence, this time unalienated by the sympathy of any friends, or the kind wishes of any partisans. His sentence completed, he made two to three efforts to reinstate himself in public esteem; he established an eating-house called “The Rebel’s Home,” he instituted an evening paper entitled the Pike, he invented a coat-button marked ‘98, but somehow friends and enemies had become wearied of him. It was seen that he was one of those who neither have the power of good nor evil, that he could be of no use to his own, no injury to others, and the world dropped him – dropped him as it does its poor and disreputable relatives, taking no heed of his gaunt looks nor his tattered raiment, and by its tacit indifference showed that the mass of mankind can behave on certain occasions pretty much as would an individual man. Tim threatened, stormed, and reviled; he vowed vengeance and menaced disclosures; he swore that his revelations would impeach some of the highest in the land, and he intimated that up to a certain day he was yet appeasable. Threats, however, were not more successful than entreaties, and Tim, gathering together a few pounds, under the plea of departure for Australia, quitted the scene he had so long troubled, and was heard of no more.