Читать книгу: «Kate Vernon, Vol. 2 (of 3)», страница 7

"No, no, thank you," replied Kate, shaking her head rather mournfully, as she remembered the last time a similar question had been put to her; and taking her seat near the Colonel, who was standing with Langley and Galliard; she dismissed Tuckett, junior, with a gracious inclination of the head.

Soon after, the Colonel complaining of fatigue, and Kate, glad to escape her good-humoured host's frequently expressed wish that she would 'polkar,' took her leave of the soirée. Langley and Galliard attended them to the carriage, which awaited them.

"Mr. Langley tells me he saw our friend Egerton's name, in some paper, promoted to a majority," said the Colonel.

"Did he! oh, where?" cried Kate.

"It was in the Gazette, I took it up while waiting for Lord H – , whose portrait I am painting."

"What did it say?" asked Kate, folding her shawl round her.

"Oh, – 'The Honourable Frederic Egerton to be Major in the Lancers, without purchase, vice,' some one, I forget the name, 'deceased.'"

"I dare say it cost him some hard cash, though it is there stated 'without purchase;' I understand all that. Come, Kate. Good night, Mr. Langley. Bon soir, monsieur, au plaisir de vous voir," said the Colonel.

The Frenchman bowed profoundly, and they drove away.

The Colonel was not animated after this piece of gaiety, as he used to be in former days; it seemed to have depressed him, and he complained of slight cold. Mrs. O'Toole was woefully disappointed to find that there was "ne'er a lord, nor even an honourable, good or bad, at the party."

"To think iv yer playin' an' singin' for the likes iv thim!" she exclaimed, indignantly.

"What have I said to make you think so contemptuously of the very respectable people, amongst whom we have spent (I confess) 'a rather slow evening,' as my eloquent partner would term it?"

"Och no matther, sure it's thim that's the only quolity goin' now; well, niver mind, Miss Kate, we'll lave thim all yet."

"I hope so," sighed Kate.

CHAPTER VII.
LETTERS

The next morning, just as Kate was preparing to write a long letter to the Winters, one from the kind-hearted little artist was put into her hand. It was sealed with black wax, and announced the death of poor Gilpin. He had suffered a good deal; but, towards the last, fell into a calm, sweet sleep, out of which he suddenly awoke with a look of bright happiness, such as they had never seen on his face before, as if had heard a summons inaudible to their ears.

"I come," he said, and, feebly laying his hand on Winter's, passed to "where his treasure was," without a sigh.

There was little in the letter besides the account of the good man's death; he had left a memorandum of the persons amongst whom his books and music were to be distributed. He had desired, kindly messages, to one or two friends, and the last name he uttered was that of Kate Vernon.

She read the letter aloud, calmly, but the intonation of her voice indicated deep emotion; at its conclusion there was a pause, which neither the Colonel nor his granddaughter were inclined to break; both were hushed and awed by this description of their friend's passage to the World of Spirits.

The large, round, pearly tears weighed down Kate's long lashes, and slowly rolled over her cheeks, without any effort on her part to restrain them. She was unconscious that she wept.

At last the old man broke the silence, saying,

"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!"

"Amen," replied his granddaughter. "Oh, dearest grandpapa," she continued at length, "he has entered into his rest, and though it is an awful thought to us, that he still exists, but where no mortal eye can see him; what an exchange from the many woes and struggles of his warfare here, to the boundless bliss of heaven! He had many sorrows, and yet surely the coming shadow of a great deliverance rested on his spirit, long before he was freed! How sensitive he was – about his appearance I mean – how keenly alive to every glance, and yet how resolutely he used to brace up his soul to love, and to endure!"

"I suppose we shall soon hear from Winter again," said the Colonel, after another pause.

"I suppose so," returned Kate, dreamily. "Ah, nurse," she exclaimed, a few moments after, as Mrs. O'Toole entered, about some household matter, "he is gone – he is happy – our kind, gentle friend, Mr. Gilpin."

"The heavens be his bed," said Mrs. O'Toole, crossing herself. "Och, whin was he taken, Miss Kate?"

"Two days ago."

"Athin 'twas he was fit to go! faith, he was worth a score iv clargy to the poor; an', at the first goin' to A – , I used to think it beneath ye, to be talkin' an' walkin, wid a poor crathure iv an organist; but I was proud to spake to him aftherwards meself; for he always looked as if he'd a taste iv heaven inside iv him, so he did. Sure, it's no wondher, this is such a miserable place to be in, wid sich min as Misther Gilpin an' the masther, whipt off like – like a pooff, or robbed iv their own; an' sich chaps as Taaffe an' Moore, or thim in their coaches, an' desavin' the world! faith, it's beyant me entirely, so it is."

"And beyond many a wiser head than either yours or mine, Nelly," said the Colonel, kindly. "We must leave all that to God."

"Thrue for ye, sir." And she retired, murmuring – "Och, blessed Jasus! resave yer soul, mee poor Gilpin! It's a saint on airth ye wur!"

So Kate's letter was written, in a very different strain from what she had intended; and then she strolled with her grandfather in Kensington Gardens. The old man seemed feeble and depressed; he took Kate's arm, as he often did of late, and spoke much of his own advancing years, and his anxiety, in the event of his death, for her in a tone that thrilled her heart with fear and anguish. She strove to turn the conversation – but it would not do.

"I have no doubt, that you alone would find a happy home under Georgina's roof; but I wish I might see you happily married, and in a house of your own, before I am called away. I fear from Moore's intelligence, brief and scanty as it is, there is no chance of our gaining this fatal lawsuit, so that you will be totally unprovided for;" and he sighed deeply. "Our relations are so few, and – "

"Oh, hush, hush, dearest and best!" cried Kate; "you cannot dream what pain you inflict on me, by such words; do not fear for me; I never know dread on my own account, for the future; you do not know the strong courage of my heart – I did not know it myself till of late; we cannot provide against future ills; why then darken the present by anticipating them. Let us leave it all to God, as you told nurse this morning; believe me, I fear nothing, except hearing you speak in this manner."

The old man was silent for a while, and then resumed —

"We little thought, the day Fred Egerton rushed back so gallantly to rescue our poor friend, how soon that pleasant little party would be scattered."

"Little indeed," echoed Kate; "next week it will be a year since the ball at Carrington, where I first met him."

The Colonel smiled, and sighed.

"He will be sorry to hear of poor Gilpin's death. I wonder he has not written."

"Good morning, Miss Vernon," said Langley, coming up behind them. "I hope you caught no cold last night? How do you do, Colonel Vernon?"

The Colonel informed him of Gilpin's death; and he seemed rather interested, as the compositions of the organist, which Kate had played the night before, had pleased him greatly. Then they talked of great musicians, and Mozart's Requiem, and the strange circumstances under which it is said to have been composed.

"How much I love those wild, mysterious German stories, they have an indescribable charm for me," said Kate.

"Why?" asked Langley, in his blunt manner.

"That is exactly what I cannot answer."

"I never like what I do not understand."

"How is it you are a painter then?" asked Kate, in her turn.

"I do not see what that has to do with the subject on which we were speaking," he returned, startled at this attack.

"How is it that you can give expression to a face with your pencil, which you could not convey in words? Even a landscape may speak the painter's soul, far more than the most eloquent description; so it is that glimpses of what is far beyond our nature to comprehend, faint though they be, give us an idea of space and might far more than any even perfectly comprehended explanation, as mist-wreaths hide but magnify the depths seen from a mountain."

"A very poetical definition, Miss Vernon."

"I speak but my thoughts," said Kate, steadily, though she blushed, and felt uneasy; as enthusiasts always do, when the quick current of their imagination is checked by some son of earth, who dignifies his dulness by the name of strong common sense.

"Well, Miss Vernon, I must think of what you say about painting."

"Ah, you must have enthusiasm and imagination to be a painter, though you are too English not to be ashamed of your better self."

"That is what Galliard says."

"Who is this Monsieur Galliard?" asked the Colonel.

"Oh, a very curious medley – his father was French, his mother English – and his life has been divided between France, Italy, and England – he is half a musician, half a painter, but wholly a writer for newspapers and reviews, foreign and domestic; he is well thought of, however, notwithstanding some vulnerable points – knows lots of people, and is a very likely person to push you on well, Miss Vernon."

The Colonel winced at this conclusion.

"You are very kind," said Kate; "I quite begin to think you a real friend, now I am more accustomed to you."

Langley stared, astonished! Old enough to be Miss Vernon's father, it was extraordinary the influence this fair, bright, noble creature, whose every word and thought were so at variance with the maxims of his work-a-day world, was gaining over him.

Meanwhile, they had reached the Vernon's lodgings before he had recovered the fit of musing into which Kate's words had thrown him.

"I am glad you think me your friend," he said, at length, interrupting an exposition of the state of the Ancienne Regime, as it existed when he was in France, into which the Colonel had diverged, apropos to Galliard.

"I am quite sure you are 'no humbug,' as my partner of last night would say," returned Kate, laughing.

And they parted.

Lady Desmond's letters were rather more frequent at this time, and though they evinced, as usual, warm affection and sincere interest in the fortunes of her relatives, there was a restlessness and despondency in their tone which spoke of a spirit ill at ease. She frequently said she would return to them, as they would not come to her; but months flew by, and still she was among the "distinguished English at present in Florence." And Kate, who, in spite of herself, yearned for her return, as for the first beam of the rising sun, as something that would create a change for the better in the face of affairs, and also longed to see the fair face of a much loved relative, felt that the only reason why she did not quite despair of seeing Lady Desmond's promises fulfilled, was because she dared not deprive herself of that hope. The Colonel, too, clung to it, with an eagerness almost painful, at times; and it was evident, this feverish anxiety was connected with some intention of putting Kate under her guardianship.

And so their life rolled on – the only break in its monotony was a slight difference between Mrs. Crooks, the landlady, and Mrs. O'Toole, which arose from their mutual affection for the parrot. Nurse asserted "it was a mighty knowledgeable craythur iv a bird;" and Poll verified the statement of her admirer, by repeating various phrases she learnt from Mrs. O'Toole, in a rich County Clare brogue. The poverty of the kitchen fire was a constant source of vexation to Mrs. O'Toole.

"Hesther, och! girl alive – will ye rouse up that fire a bit," was her constant cry; and Poll never beheld the much enduring handmaid of Mrs. Crooks, without screaming. "Hesther, Hesther, rouse up the fire a bit." "Hesther ye divil!" "Ah, speak pretty, Poll," Mr. Crooks would then exclaim, "don't say such ugly words – say dear mistress." "Ye divil," Poll would reply.

"Faith it would make ye break yer heart laughing, sir," said nurse, who was detailing the events of their warfare, to the Colonel and Kate, one evening. 'Spake pretty,' ses she, 'an don't be hollowin' out thim vulgar Hirish words,' ses she. 'Och, God help ye woman,' ses I, 'it's little ye know the differ between what's vulgar, an what's genteel in this counthry,' ses I. 'Ye'd lave a poor Queen, to go sarve a rich tinker, any hour of the twinty-four; an ye'd rummage through the blackest dirt iv London for a halfpenny, though yer pocket was full iv goold guineas, all the time – that's yer gintility in England,' sis I; 'an as for style, an rale quolity, faith it's so little – '"

"Dear nurse," interrupted Kate, gravely, "I wish you had not made such a long and irritating speech, to Mrs. Crooks; you must let me settle your differences, and in future turn a deaf ear to any casual remarks that may hurt your national vanity – they are not worth noticing."

"Och, my gracious, Miss Kate, is an impident thief iv a lodging-house keeper, to be let to have her talk about her betthers an – be the powers! there's the post," cried nurse interrupting herself, "an I dhreamt, I had a letther from – " she ran out hastily, and returned almost immediately, with a disappointed look, "It's for the masther."

"From Winter," said he, opening it. An enclosed letter, with the Indian post-mark fell from it. "From Egerton, I do believe," cried the Colonel; but no – within that again was another enclosure, the address, written in an intoxicated looking hand, and much blotted. "For Mrs. O'Toole, at the Kurnel's in England."

"It's for you, nurse," said Kate, with a heavy sensation of deep disappointment weighing down her heart.

"I'll engage it's from Dinny; athin read it for me, jewil!"

So Kate, disengaging its folds from the stiff adhesion of a large red wafer, and taking the liberty of correcting some very prominent errors of orthography, and transferring small into capital I's, read as follows: —

"Deer mother, I'm quite well, an it's little I thought I'd ever get a letther sent to ye; bud this is the way iv it; last April the new Captin, iv throop, No. 1, kem into Cantoonments, an' he half dead – havin' been kilt be robbers, an' murthered entirely be the faver. Well this was the beginnin' iv luck, fur ye see, what with the hate iv the climat', an' the druth an' me, I was gettin' accustomed to punishmint drill an' the like, an' to spake God's thruth, I was'nt sober over wanct in a week – though many's the sore heart I had about that same, thinkin' iv you mother, an' the green glens iv Dungar, an' father O'Dris-coll, bud ye see I'd got a bad name, an' it was no use."

"Och! God help ye – ye onfortunate boy – many's the sowl that same, 'bad name,' has ruinated," ejaculated Mrs. O'Toole. "Go on, asthore."

"Captin Egerton comes on parade – lookin' like a ghost iv a fine man, an' sittin' his horse illegant – and ses he, afther praade, ridin' up, jist as we wor dispersin' – 'Is there a man among ye's, me lads, iv the name iv Dinnis O'Toole?" ses he, quite cheerful like. 'Yes, sir,' ses Sargant Mills – 'he's in throop, No. 3.' 'Let me see him,' ses the Captin'.' 'Dennis O'Toole, if yer sober, stand out,' ses the Sarjant.' 'Ha!' ses the Captin, quite quick like – 'that's bad.' An' I niver felt so ashamed iv meself afore nor since; wid that he tells me to come up to his quarthers in the afthernoon. So I wint – an' he give me yer letther, that Miss Kate wrote for ye, God bless her! an' sure me hart was in me mouth, whin I got the word iv home; bud faith it 'ud take a month's time to write all the good he done me – he discoarsed me like – no not like a clargy – like a man. 'Don't let the dhrink get the betther of ye,' ses he; 'fight it, as ye would a rascally Sikh – give it no quarther; an' don't let the people at home, say ye showed the white feather,' ses he; an' thin he walks up an' down, an' ses to hisself – 'I will not have Kate Vernon's foster brother a dhrunkard, an' disgraced' – I hard him say it. Well, the ind iv it was, I was put in his throop, No. 1, an' iv taken the pledge; that's to the Captin; an' I'll be a corplar in a week or so; an' I'm as sober as a jidge, barin' the pipe – an' it's many a ride we do be takin – the Captin an' meself. He's not a bit like the other officers; but, always reading, whin he is'nt shootin' tigers or pullin' unfortunate women out iv the fire, or any divilment that way. Iv all the dashin' young min iver I seen, I'll back the Captin – there's nothin' good, bad, nor indifferent he would'nt face – jist as if he was goin' to his dinner; an' many a time we do be talkin' iv you, an' how ye nursed him; and he's niver tired of hearin' tell iv Miss Kate, whin she was a beautiful little darlin' iv a child; an' iv Dungar an' the masther; an' I'm improvin' me writin' – an' Corplar Morrisson's writin' this letther for me like a rale pinman as he is; an' so I hope yer well – an he ses he's a trifle iv money with the Captin; an' indeed Mrs. O'Toole yer son's another man, intirely, an' I'm proud to tell ye that same; an' me duty to Miss Kate, an' the Kurnel. Sure, I never can forget Dungar, an' ould times, nor you, mother; an' if we are not to meet here again, I hope we may in Heaven, amin!

"Your dutiful an' lovin' son,

"Dinnis O'Toole.

"Throop, No. 1, an' own man to the Captin.

"Cantoonment.

"Junglepore, Ingy."

"The Queen in Heaven reward ye, Captin," cried Mrs. O'Toole, the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Och, Dinny, it's you's in luck – an' he's the Captin's own man; an' give up dhrink – glory be to God!"

"Well, it's a very pleasing, satisfactory letter, Nelly," said the Colonel, "and I am heartily glad to hear so good an account from your son. Eh, Kate, is there a postscript?"

"No; but I was reading over the concluding part – it is rather confused – Corporal Morrisson, appears to write for Dennis in the third person, and then Dennis himself comes in again, in the first person; but, dear nurse, I congratulate you, with all my heart, I think my foster-brother will now get on remarkably well."

"Sorra fear iv him now. Sure there was always luck in the Captin's face, an' he'll be back yet wid a pocket full iv goold, and set us all right, I pray, God, amin. Now I'll just get the specks, an' read it all over meself, sure I can make it out beautiful afther Miss Kate readin' it."

And so after a few more ejaculations, nurse retired.

"It is very curious," began the Colonel.

"That Captain Egerton did not write himself," interrupted Kate, quickly.

"Yes, I cannot understand it, that letter indicates the kindliest feelings towards us, and yet I wonder he would not wish for some more direct communication with us, than through Dennis O'Toole."

"Do letters ever go astray?"

"Oh, scarcely; this one you see has arrived safe, but what surprises me is that he enclosed it without a line."

"Indolence about writing, I suppose," said Kate, with a sigh.

"But now I have the address, I shall certainly write."

"Will you, dear grandpapa?"

"Well, perhaps it would be better, decidedly – let me see what days the Indian mail leaves, we can find it out at the post-office; you must remind me, my love."

"Yes, grandpapa."

Then she went to the piano, and played dreamily for a long time, seeing neither notes or music, but a tableau – Dennis O'Toole and Captain Egerton, while the words of the latter "I will not have Kate Vernon's foster brother, a drunkard," seemed to meet her eye, wherever she turned it, and brought the speaker too vividly before her. One of Egerton's most distinguishing characteristics was a chivalrous delicacy of feeling towards women, generally; Kate had often observed it, with silent, but profound approbation, and she could well imagine the tender consideration with which he would treat even a dog that had belonged to one he loved, and something whispered to her that she was this one – it was but very rarely that such a thought flashed across her mind. Yet although she felt that the course of probabilities held out little or no chance of their again meeting till the lapse of many years had fixed their destinies wide apart, still the conviction that she was loved and not forgotten, thrilled through her heart, with an ecstasy so exquisite, so strange that she shrunk from it, startled at the depths of her own nature, thus revealed, even while she thanked God that he had never become necessary to her happiness.

"No, there is much of joy in life for me, and much of peace, though, in all human probability, we shall never meet again. No, I do not love him, but I could, ah, heavens, yes, how much!"

And she lay down to sleep perfectly resigned that their lots in life should be cast widely separate; yet the vision conjured up by Denny's letter, of Egerton's evidently unaltered interest in all that concerned her, contributed largely to the dilation of heart with which she poured forth her prayers and thanksgivings to her "Father which is in heaven."