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CHAPTER LXXIV

AN ANGRY COLLOQUY

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

MATHEW KEARNEY’S REFLECTIONS

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.

‘So it would, whether you mean it or not. – There’s a hare missed this time!’

‘I was thinking of something I wanted to ask you. The fact is, Kearney, I have a thing on my mind now.’

‘Is it a duel? It’s many a day since I was out, but I used to know every step of the way as well as most men.’

‘No, it’s not a duel!’

‘It’s money, then! Bother it for money! What a deal of bad blood it leads to. Tell me all about it, and I’ll see if I can’t deal with it.’

‘No, it’s not money; it has nothing to do with money. I’m not hard up. I was never less so.’

‘Indeed!’ cried Kearney, staring at him.

‘Why, what do you mean by that?’

‘I was curious to see how a man looks, and I’d like to know how he feels, that didn’t want money. I can no more understand it than if a man told me he didn’t want air.’

‘If he had enough to breathe freely, could he need more?’

‘That would depend on the size of his lungs, and I believe mine are pretty big. But come now, if there’s nobody you want to shoot, and you have a good balance at the banker’s, what can ail you, except it’s a girl you want to marry, and she won’t have you?’

‘Well, there is a lady in the case.’

‘Ay, ay! she’s a married woman,’ cried Kearney, closing one eye, and looking intensely cunning. ‘Then I may tell you at once, major, I’m no use to you whatever. If it was a young girl that liked you against the wish of her family, or that you were in love with though she was below you in condition, or that was promised to another man but wanted to get out of her bargain, I’m good for any of these, or scores more of the same kind; but if it’s mischief, and misery, and lifelong sorrow you have in your head, you must look out for another adviser.’

‘It’s nothing of the kind,’ said the other bluntly. ‘It’s marriage I was thinking of. I want to settle down and have a wife.’

‘Then why couldn’t you, if you think it would be any comfort to you?’

The last words were rather uttered than spoken, and sounded like a sad reflection uttered aloud.

‘I am not a rich man,’ said the major, with that strain it always cost him to speak of himself, ‘but I have got enough to live on. A goodish old house, and a small estate, underlet as it is, bringing me about two thousand a year, and some expectations, as they call them, from an old grand-aunt.’

‘You have enough, if you marry a prudent girl,’ muttered Kearney, who was never happier than when advocating moderation and discretion.

‘Enough, at least, not to look for money with a wife.’

‘I’m with you there, heart and soul,’ cried Kearney. ‘Of all the shabby inventions of our civilisation, I don’t know one as mean as that custom of giving a marriage-portion with a girl. Is it to induce a man to take her? Is it to pay for her board and lodging? Is it because marriage is a partnership, and she must bring her share into the “concern”? or is it to provide for the day when they are to part company, and each go his own road? Take it how you like, it’s bad and it’s shabby. If you’re rich enough to give your daughter twenty or thirty thousand pounds, wait for some little family festival – her birthday, or her husband’s birthday, or a Christmas gathering, or maybe a christening – and put the notes in her hand. Oh, major dear,’ cried he aloud, ‘if you knew how much of life you lose with lawyers, and what a deal of bad blood comes into the world by parchments, you’d see the wisdom of trusting more to human kindness and good feeling, and above all, to the honour of gentlemen – things that nowadays we always hope to secure by Act of Parliament.’

‘I go with a great deal of what you say.’

‘Why not with all of it? What do we gain by trying to overreach each other? What advantage in a system where it’s always the rogue that wins? If I was a king to-morrow, I’d rather fine a fellow for quoting Blackstone than for blasphemy, and I’d distribute all the law libraries in the kingdom as cheap fuel for the poor. We pray for peace and quietness, and we educate a special class of people to keep us always wrangling. Where’s the sense of that?’

While Kearney poured out these words in a flow of fervid conviction, they had arrived at a little open space in the wood, from which various alleys led off in different directions. Along one of these, two figures were slowly moving side by side, whom Lockwood quickly recognised as Walpole and Nina Kostalergi. Kearney did not see them, for his attention was suddenly called off by a shout from a distance, and his son Dick rode hastily up to the spot.

‘I have been in search of you all through the plantation,’ cried he. ‘I have brought back Holmes the lawyer from Tullamore, who wants to talk to you about this affair of Gorman’s. It’s going to be a bad business, I fear.’

‘Isn’t that more of what I was saying?’ said the old man, turning to the major. ‘There’s law for you!’

‘They’re making what they call a “National” event of it,’ continued Dick. ‘The Pike has opened a column of subscriptions to defray the cost of proceedings, and they’ve engaged Battersby with a hundred-guinea retainer already.’

It appeared from what tidings Dick brought back from the town, that the Nationalists – to give them the much unmerited name by which they called themselves – were determined to show how they could dictate to a jury.

‘There’s law for you!’ cried the old man again.

‘You’ll have to take to vigilance committees, like the Yankees,’ said the major.

‘We’ve had them for years; but they only shoot their political opponents.’

‘They say, too,’ broke in the young man, ‘that Donogan is in the town, and that it is he who has organised the whole prosecution. In fact, he intends to make Battersby’s speech for the plaintiff a great declaration of the wrongs of Ireland; and as Battersby hates the Chief Baron, who will try the cause, he is determined to insult the Bench, even at the cost of a commitment.’

‘What will he gain by that?’ asked Lockwood.

‘Every one cannot have a father that was hanged in ‘98; but any one can go to gaol for blackguarding a Chief-Justice,’ said Kearney.

For a moment or two the old man seemed ashamed at having been led to make these confessions to ‘the Saxon,’ and telling Lockwood where he would be likely to find a brace of cocks, he took his son’s arm and returned homeward.