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CHAPTER XXII. SOME WORDS AT PARTING

It was as the Vyners sat at breakfast the following morning, that the servant announced the arrival of an old countryman and a little girl, who had just come by the stage.

“Oh! may I go, papa, may I go and see her?” cried Ada, eagerly; but Sir Gervais had stooped across to whisper something to his wife, and the governess, deeming the moment favourable to exert her authority, moved away at once with her charge.

“The peasant child that we told you of, Sir Within,” said Lady Vyner, “has arrived, and it is a rare piece of fortune you are here, for we shall steal a travelling opinion out of you.”

“In what way may I hope to be of use?”

“In telling us what you think of her. I mean, of her temper, character, disposition; in short, how you, with that great tact you possess in reading people, interpret her.”

“You flatter me much, Lady Vyner; but any skill I may possess in these respects is rather applicable to people in our own rank of life, where conventionalities have a great share; now in hiding, now in disclosing traits of character. As to the simple child of nature, I suspect I shall find myself all at fault.”

“But you are a phrenologist, too?” said Sir Gervais.

“A believer, certainly, but no accomplished professor of the science.”

“I declare it is very nervous work to be in company with a magician, who reads one like an open volume,” said Georgina. “What do you say, Mr. M’Kinlay, if we take a walk in the garden, while these learned chemists perform their analyses?”

Mr. M’Kinlay’s eyes sparkled with delight, though he had to stammer out his excuses: He was going to start off for town; he must meet the “up mail” somewhere, and his conveyance was already waiting at the gate.

“Then I’ll stroll down the avenue with you,” said she, rising. “I’ll go for my bonnet.”

“Let me have the draft as early as you can, M’Kinlay,” whispered Sir Gervais, as he drew the lawyer into a window-recess. “I don’t think Luttrell will like acting with Grenfell, and I would ask my friend, Sir Within here, to be the other trustee.”

“No; he certainly did not seem to like Grenfell, though he owned he did not know him.”

“Then, as to his own boy, I’ll write to him myself; it will be more friendly. Of course, all these matters are between ourselves.”

“Of course.”

“I mean strictly so; because Lady Vyner’s family and the Luttrells have had some differences, years and years ago. Too long a story to tell you now, and scarcely worth telling at any time; however, it was one of those unfinished games – you understand – where each party accuses the other of unfair play, and there are no quarrels less reparable. I say this much simply to show you the need of all your caution, and how the name ‘Luttrell,’ must never escape you.”

Mr. M’Kinlay would like, to have declared at once that the imprudence had been committed, and that the warning had come too late; but it required more time than he then had at his disposal to show by what a mere slip it had occurred, and at the same time how innocuously the tidings had fallen. Lastly, there was his pride as a business man in the way – the same sort of infallibility which makes Popes and Bank cashiers a little less and more than all humanity – so he simply bowed and smiled, and muttered a something that implied a perfect acquiescence. And now he took his leave, Lady Vyner graciously hoping soon to see him again; and Sir Within, with a courtesy that had often delighted Arch-Duchesses, declaring the infinite pleasure it would afford him to see him at Dalradern, with which successes triumphant, he shook Vyner’s hand, and hastened out to meet Miss Courtenay.

It is a very strange thing to mark how certain men, trained and inured to emergencies of no mean order – the lawyer and the doctor, for instance – who can await with unshaken courage the moment in which duty will summon them to efforts on whose issue another’s life is hanging, – I say, it is a strange thing to mark how such men are unnerved and flurried by that small by-play of society which fine ladies go through without a sensation or an emotion. The little commonplace, attentions, the weak flatteries, the small coquetteries that are the every-day incidents of such a sphere, strike them as all full of a direct application, a peculiar significance, when addressed to themselves; and thus was it Mr. M’Kinlay issued forth, imbued with a strong conviction that he had just taken leave of a charming family, endowed with many graceful gifts, amongst which conspicuously shone the discernment they showed in understanding himself.

“I see it,” muttered he below his breath – “I see it before me. There will come a day when I shall cross this threshold on still safer grounds. When Sir Gervais will be Vyner, and even – ”

“I trust I have not kept you waiting?” said the very sweetest of voices, as Miss Courtenay, drawing her shawl around her, came forward. “I sincerely hope I have not perilled your journey; but I went to fetch you a rose. Here it is. Is it not pretty? They are the true Japanese roses, but they have no odour.”

Mr. M’Kinlay was in ecstasy; he declared that the flower was perfection; there never was such grace of outline, such delicacy of colouring, such elegance of form; and he protested that there was a faint, a very faint, but delicious perfume also.

Georgina laughed, one of those sweet-ringing little laughs beauties practise – just as great pianists do those seemingly hap-hazard chords they throw off, as in careless mood they find themselves before a piano – and they now walked along, side by side, towards the gate.

“You don’t know in what a position of difficulty my indiscretion of yesterday evening has placed me, Miss Courtenay,” said he. “Here has been Sir Gervais enjoining me to the strictest secresy.”

“You may trust me to the fullest extent; and tell me, what was your business with Lutrell?”

“You shall know all. Indeed, I have no desire to keep secrets from you.” It was somewhat of a hazardous speech, particularly in the way it was uttered; but she received it with a very sweet smile, and he went on: “My journey had for its object to see this Mr. Luttrell, and induce him to accept a trusteeship to a deed.”

“For this child?”

“Yes; the same.”

“But she is his daughter, is she not?”

“No; he had but one child, the boy I spoke of.”

“Who told you so? Luttrell himself, perhaps, or some of his people. At all events, do you believe it?”

He was a good deal startled by the sharp, quick, peremptory tone she now spoke in, so like her wonted manner, but so widely unlike her late mood of captivating softness, and for a second or two he did not answer.

“Tell me frankly, do you believe it?” cried she.

“I see no reason to disbelieve it,” was his reply.

“Is the boy older than this girl?” asked she, quickly.

“I should say so. Yes, certainly. I think so, at least.”

“And I am almost as certain he is not,” said she, in the same determined tone. “Now for another point. My brother Vyner is about to make a settlement on this girl; is it not so?”

“Yes; I have instructions to prepare a deed.”

“And do you believe – is it a thing that your experience warrants you to believe – that he contemplates this for the child of Heaven knows whom, found Heaven knows where? Tell me that!”

“It is strange, no doubt, and it surprised me greatly, and at first I couldn’t credit it.”

“Nor you don’t now! No, no, Mr. M’Kinlay, ‘don’t be a churl of your confidence. This girl is a Luttrell; confess it?”

“On my honour, I believe she is not.”

“Then I take it they are cleverer folk than I thought them, for they seem to have deceived you.”

“We shall not do it, Sir, in the time,” cried the postilion from his saddle, “unless we start at once.”

“Yes, yes, I am coming. If you would write to me, Miss Courtenay, any of your doubts – if you would allow me to write to you.”

“What for, Sir? I have no doubts. I don’t certainly see how all this came about; nor – not having Mr. Grenfell’s acquaintance, who was with my brother – am I likely to find out; but I know quite as much as I care to know.”

“You suspect – I see what you suspect,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, hoping by one clever dash to achieve the full measure of her confidence.

“What is it I suspect?” asked she, with an air of innocent curiosity.

“You suspect,” said he, slowly, while he looked intently into her eyes at the time – “you suspect that Sir Gervais means by adopting this child to make some sort of a reparation to Luttrell.”

“A what, Sir?” said she, opening her eyes to almost twice the usual size, while her nostrils dilated with passion. “What did you dare to mean by that word?”

“My dear Miss Courtenay, I am miserable, the most wretched of men, if I have offended you.”

“There’s eleven now striking, Sir, and we may as well send the horses back,” cried the postilion, sulkily.

“There, Sir, you hear what he says; pray don’t be late on my account. Good-by. I hope you’ll have no more disasters. Good-by.”

For a moment he thought to hasten after her, and try to make his peace; but great interests called him back to town, and, besides, he might in his confusion only make bad worse. It was a matter of much thought, and so, with a deep sigh, he stepped into the chaise and drove away, with a far heavier heart than he had carried from the porch of the cottage.

“I must have called a wrong witness,” muttered he, “there’s no doubt of it; she belonged to ‘the other side.’”

CHAPTER XXIII. MALONE IN GOOD COMPANY

When Georgina returned to the drawing-room, she found her sister seated on a sofa, with Sir Within beside her, and in front of them stood a girl, whose appearance certainly answered ill to the high-flown descriptions Sir Gervais had given them of her beauty.

With the evident intention of making a favourable first impression, her grandfather had dressed her up in some faded relics of Mrs. Luttrel’s wardrobe: a blue silk dress, flounced and trimmed, reaching to her feet, while a bonnet of some extinct shape shadowed her face and concealed her hair, and a pair of satin boots, so large that they curved up, Turkish fashion, towards the toes, gave her the look rather of some wandering circus performer, than of a peasant child.

“Je la trouve affreusement laide!” said Lady Vyner, as her sister came forward and examined herewith a quiet and steady stare through her eye-glass.

“She is certainly nothing like the sketch he made, and still less like the description he gave of her,” said Georgina, in French. “What do you say, Sir Within?”

“There is something – not exactly beauty – about her,” said he, in the same language, “but something that, cultivated and developed, might possibly be attractive. Her eyes have a strange colour in them: they are grey, but they are of that grey that gets a tinge of amethyst when excited.”

While they thus spoke, the girl had turned from one to the other, listening attentively, and as eagerly watching the expressions of the listeners’ faces, to gather what she might of their meaning.

“Your name is Kitty – Kitty O’Hara, I think?” said Lady Vyner. “A very good name, too, is O’Hara!”

“Yes, my Lady. There is an O’Hara lives at Craig-na-Manna, in his own castle.”

“Are you related to him?” asked Georgina, gravely.

“No, my Lady.”

“Distantly, perhaps, you might be?”

“Perhaps we might; at all events, he never said so!”

“And you think, probably, it was more for him to own the relationship than for you to claim it?”

The girl was silent, and looked thoughtful; and Lady Vyner said, “I don’t think she understood you, Georgy?”

“Yes I did, my Lady; but I didn’t know what to say.”

“At all events,” said Georgina, “you don’t call each other cousins.”

The child nodded.

“And yet, Kitty, if I don’t mistake greatly, you’d like well enough to have some grand relations – fine, rich people living in their own great castle?”

“Yes, I’d like that!” said the girl. And her cheek glowed, while her eyes deepened into the colour the old Baronet described.

“And if we were to be to you as these same cousins, Batty,” said Lady Vyner, good naturedly, “do you think you could love us, and be happy with us?”

The girl turned her head and surveyed the room with a quiet leisurely look, and, though it was full of objects new and strange, she did not let her gaze dwell too long on any one in particular; and, in a quiet, steady tone, said, “I’d like to live here!”

“Yes; but you have only answered half of her Ladyship’s question,” said Sir Within. “She asked, ‘Could you love her?’”

The girl turned her eyes full on Georgina, and, after a steady stare, she looked in Lady Vyner’s face, and said, “I could love you!” The emphasis plainly indicating what she meant.

“I think there can be very little mistake there,” said Georgina, in French. “I, at least, have not captivated her at first sight.”

“Ma foi, she is more savage than I thought her,” said Sir Within, in the same language.

“No,” said she, quickly catching, at the sound of the word, “I am not a savage!” And there was a fierce energy in the way she spoke actually startling.

“My dear child,” said he, gently, “I did not call you so.”

“And if he had,” interposed Miss Courtenay, “gentlemen are not accustomed to be rebuked by such as you!”

The girl’s face grew scarlet; she clenched her hands together, and the joints cracked as the fingers strained and twisted in her grasp.

“You have much to learn, Kitty,” said Lady Vyner; “but if you are a good child, gentle and obedient, we will try and teach you.”

The child curtseyed her thanks.

“Take off that odious bonnet, Georgy, and let us see her better.”

The girl stared with amazement at hearing her head-dress so criticised, and followed it with her eyes wistfully.

“Yes; she is much better now.”

“What splendid hair!” said Sir Within, in French.

“You have got pretty hair, he says,” said Georgina.

“This is prettier,” said the child, as she lifted the amber beads of her necklace and displayed them proudly.

“They are very pretty too, and real amber.”

“Amber and gold,” said the girl, proudly.

“Now she looks like the picture of her,” said Lady Vyner, in French; “she positively is pretty. The horrid dress disfigured her altogether.”

Sir Gervais entered the room hastily at this moment, and whispered a few words in his wife’s ear, concluding aloud: “Let her go to Ada; she is in the garden. You can go this way, Kitty,” said he, opening one of the French windows; “cross over the grass to that little wooden gate yonder, and the path will bring you to the garden. You’ll find a young lady there, who would like to know you.”

“May I have my bonnet?” asked she, wistfully.

“No; go without it. You’ll be freer!”

“I must ask you to let me show you this old man. He has submitted me to a cross-examination so sharp and searching for the last half-hour, that I really want a little rest.”

Whatever absurdity the pretension of dress had thrown around the girl, nothing of the same kind was observable in the appearance of the old man, who, in his long coat of bluish grey frieze, and with his snow-white hair falling on his shoulders, stood before them. His air, too, was thoroughly respectful; but neither abashed by the presence in which he found himself, nor, stranger still for an Irish peasant, at all excited to any show, of curiosity by the rich objects about.

“Well, Malone,” said Vyner, with the frank familiar tone that so well became him, “I believe we have now gone over everything that we have to say to each other, and, at all events, as you will stop here today – ”

“No, your honour; with your honour’s leave, I’ll go off now. It’s best for the child, and, indeed, for myself!” And a heavy sigh followed the last word.

“You are afraid, then, she will fret after you,” said Georgina, fixing a full and steady gaze on the old man’s face.

“She might, my Lady,” said he, calmly.

“Nothing more natural; who would blame her?” broke in Lady Vyner. “But might it not be as well for you to wait and see how she likes her new life here?”

“She is sure to like it, my Lady.”

“I suspect she is!” said Georgina, quickly. And the old man turned and looked at her with a keen, sharp glance; it almost seemed to ask, “How do you know this?”

Vyner broke the somewhat awkward pause that ensued, by saying, “As I shall be your landlord, Malone, in a few days, you will have many opportunities of communicating with me, and I am sure, until your granddaughter can write with her own hand, either of these ladies will be kind enough to send you news of her.”

The old man made a gesture of gratitude, and stood still without speaking. At length he sighed deeply, and seemed engaged in some process of recollection, for he counted over to himself something, marking each event on his fingers.

“I do think, Malone,” said Vyner, with much kindness of voice and manner, “it would be well to remain here to-day at least. You yourself will go back more satisfied as you see in what sort of place and with what people you have left your child.”

“No, thank your honour; I’ll go this morning. It is best. There’s only one thing more I have to say, but to be sure it’s the great one of all.”

“Then it is a matter of money,” said Georgina, in a low tone; but low as it was the old fellow, who often affected deafness, caught it at once, and with a look of great resentment fixed his eyes on her.

“I half suspect,” said Vyner, “we have not forgotten anything. I have told you how she will be treated and looked on, how educated and cared for.”

“And how dressed,” added Lady Vyner.

“I have, so far as I know, too, provided for the contingency of her wishing to return home again, or for such a wish on the part of her friends; and I have satisfied you that her opinions in matters of religion shall be respected, and that she shall have, whenever it is possible, the advantage of conferring with a priest of her own Church. Now, do you remember anything else we ought to take into account?”

“Yes, your honour,” said the old man, resolutely. “I want to know, if it was to happen, from any rayson, that your honour or the ladies wished to send her back again, after she was, maybe, two years or three years here, when she was accustomed to be treated like a lady, and felt like one – I want to know where she’s to go, or who to?”

“There is much good sense in that question,” said Sir Within, in French; and he now arose to look closer at the old countryman.

“I think, Malone, we have already provided for that.”

“No, your honour. You said how it would be if Kitty wanted to go back herself, or if I sent for her; and how, too, it would be if, when she was grown up and fit to be married, that she ought to have consent from your honour, or the guardians that your honour wud give her in charge to. But now I want to know how it would be if, after the child was used to fine ways of livin’, she was to be sent away – without any fault of hers, maybe, but just because – no matter for what rayson” – here his eyes glanced rapidly at Georgina – “I’d like to ax, what’s to become of her then?”

“I scarcely think we can go so far as to provide for every casualty in life; but it will perhaps satisfy you to know that she’ll have two guardians to watch over her interests. One of them is this gentleman here.”

“And who’s the other?” asked Malone, curiously.

“The other? The other is not yet formally declared, but you will be fully satisfied with him, that much I guarantee.”

Malone did not give much attention to this speech, his whole interest seeming now to concentrate in the person of him who was to be the girl’s guardian.

“Is your honour married?” asked he at length of Sir Within.

“I have not that happiness,” said the old diplomatist, with a grace of manner that he might have displayed to a sovereign.

“There it is again,” sighed Malone; “she’ll have nowhere to go to if she’s turned out. Has his honour a house near this?”

“Yes. I shall be happy to show it to you,” said Sir Within, politely.

“I declare, Malone, if I’m ever in want of a guardian, I’ll look you up. I never heard of your equal in foresight,” said Georgina, laughing.

“Wouldn’t I need to be, my Lady? Who has the child to look to barrin’ myself? And maybe, then, she wouldn’t have even me. I’m seventy-eight last April; and his honour there isn’t very young either.”

“Trop vrai, ma foi,” said Sir Within, trying to laugh gaily, but reddening to his forehead as he turned away.

“You must have more patience than I, Gervais, to prolong this discussion,” said Georgina, angrily. “I vow I’d anticipate the old man’s objection, and pack them off both together this very morning.”

Every syllable of this was overheard by Malone, though he affected not to hear it, and stood a perfect picture of immobility.

Sir Gervais, who up to this was rather amused by the casuistical turn of the peasant’s mind, now seemed rather to lose temper, and said, “Such an arrangement as we contemplated, Malone, requires a little exercise of good faith on both sides; if you believe that you cannot extend that trust in us so far as we expect from you, I really think the best and easiest way would be to do as this young lady says – end our contract at once.”

Not in the least startled by the peremptory tone which Vyner had now for the first time used towards him, the old man folded his hands with an air of resignation, and stood without uttering a word.

“Did you hear what Sir Gerrais said to you?” asked Georgina, after a pause of some seconds. “Yes, my Lady.”

“And what answer have you to make?” asked she again, more imperatively.

“‘Tis your Ladyship is right,” began Malone, in a voice greatly subdued, and with almost a slight whining intonation through it; “‘tis your Ladyship is right. His honour is too good and too patient with me. But what am I but a poor ignorant labourin’ man, that never had any edication nor larnin’ at all? And if I be thinkin’ of more than I ought, it’s because I know no better.”

“Well, what will you do?” said Vyner, hastily, for there was a servility in the man’s manner that revolted him, and he was impatient to conclude.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, if your honour lets me,” said Malone, resolutely, “I’ll go and speak to Kitty. She’s cute enough, young as she is, and whatever she says I’ll abide by.”

“Do so; take your own way altogether, my good man; and be assured that whichever decision you come to will not in any degree affect our future dealings together.”

“That is, your honour won’t turn me out of my houldin’.”

“Nothing of the kind.”

“He never suspected you would,” said Georgina, but in a very cautious whisper, which this time escaped Malone.

“I’ll not be ten minutes, your honour,” said he, as he moved towards the door.

“Take as much time as you please.”

“He’ll not part with her, I see that,” said Lady Vyner, as the man withdrew.

Georgina gave a saucy laugh, and said, “He never so much as dreamed of taking her away; his whole mind was bent upon a hard bargain; and now that he has got the best terms he could, he’ll close the contract.”

“You don’t believe too implicitly in humanity,” said Sir Within, smiling.

“I believe in men only when they are gentlemen,” said she; and there was a very gracious glance as she spoke, which totally effaced all unpleasant memory of the past.