"I will send some one to you," he said, as he took his departure; "some one that shall take the poor child and bury it, and who shall move you and the other one into the workhouse." She thanked him once more with some low muttered words, but the promise brought her no joy. And when the succour came it was all too late, for the mother and the two children never left the cabin till they left it together, wrapped in their workhouse shrouds.
Herbert, as he remounted his horse and rode quietly on, forgot for a while both himself and Clara Desmond. Whatever might be the extent of his own calamity, how could he think himself unhappy after what he had seen? how could he repine at aught that the world had done for him, having now witnessed to how low a state of misery a fellow human being might be brought? Could he, after that, dare to consider himself unfortunate?
Before he reached Desmond Court he did make some arrangements for the poor woman, and directed that a cart might be sent for her, so that she might be carried to the union workhouse at Kanturk. But his efforts in her service were of little avail. People then did not think much of a dying woman, and were in no special hurry to obey Herbert's behest.
"A woman to be carried to the union, is it? For Mr. Fitzgerald, eh? What Mr. Fitzgerald says must be done, in course. But sure av' it's done before dark, won't that be time enough for the likes of her?"
But had they flown to the spot on the wings of love, it would not have sufficed to prolong her life one day. Her doom had been spoken before Herbert had entered the cabin.
He was two hours later than he had intended as he rode up the avenue to Lady Desmond's gate, and his chief thought at the moment was how he should describe to the countess the scene he had just witnessed. Why describe it at all? That is what we should all say. He had come there to talk about other things—about other things which must be discussed, and which would require all his wits. Let him keep that poor woman on his mind, but not embarrass himself with any mention of her for the present. This, no doubt, would have been wise if only it had been possible; but out of the full heart the mouth speaks.
But Lady Desmond had not witnessed the scene which I have attempted to describe, and her heart, therefore, was not full of it, and was not inclined to be so filled. And so, in answer to Herbert's exclamation, "Oh, Lady Desmond, I have seen such a sight!" she gave him but little encouragement to describe it, and by her coldness, reserve, and dignity, soon quelled the expression of his feelings.
The earl was present and shook hands very cordially with Herbert when he entered the room; and he, being more susceptible as being younger, and not having yet become habituated to the famine as his mother was, did express some eager sympathy. He would immediately go down, or send Fahy with the car, and have her brought up and saved; but his mother had other work to do and soon put a stop to all this.
"Mr. Fitzgerald," said she, speaking with a smile upon her face, and with much high-bred dignity of demeanour, "as you and Lady Clara both wish to see each other before you leave the country, and as you have known each other so intimately, and considering all the circumstances, I have not thought it well absolutely to forbid an interview. But I do doubt its expediency; I do, indeed. And Lord Desmond, who feels for your late misfortune as we all do, perfectly agrees with me. He thinks that it would be much wiser for you both to have parted without the pain of a meeting, seeing how impossible it is that you should ever be more to each other than you are now." And then she appealed to her son, who stood by, looking not quite so wise, nor even quite so decided as his mother's words would seem to make him.
"Well, yes; upon my word I don't see how it's to be," said the young earl. "I am deuced sorry for it for one, and I wish I was well off, so that I could give Clara a pot of money, and then I should not care so much about your not being the baronet."
"I am sure you must see, Mr. Fitzgerald, and I know that you do see it because you have very properly said so, that a marriage between you and Lady Clara is now impossible. For her such an engagement would be very bad—very bad indeed; but for you it would be utter ruin. Indeed, it would be ruin for you both. Unencumbered as you will be, and with the good connection which you will have, and with your excellent talents, it will be quite within your reach to win for yourself a high position. But with you, as with other gentlemen who have to work their way, marriage must come late in life, unless you marry an heiress. This I think is thoroughly understood by all people in our position; and I am sure that it is understood by your excellent mother, for whom I always had and still have the most unfeigned respect. As this is so undoubtedly the case, and as I cannot of course consent that Lady Clara should remain hampered by an engagement which would in all human probability hang over the ten best years of her life, I thought it wise that you should not see each other. I have, however, allowed myself to be overruled; and now I must only trust to your honour, forbearance, and prudence to protect my child from what might possibly be the ill effects of her own affectionate feelings. That she is romantic,—enthusiastic to a fault I should perhaps rather call it—I need not tell you. She thinks that your misfortune demands from her a sacrifice of herself; but you, I know, will feel that, even were such a sacrifice available to you, it would not become you to accept it. Because you have fallen, you will not wish to drag her down; more especially as you can rise again—and she could not."
So spoke the countess, with much worldly wisdom, and with considerable tact in adjusting her words to the object which she had in view. Herbert, as he stood before her silent during the period of her oration, did feel that it would be well for him to give up his love, and go away in utter solitude of heart to those dingy studies which Mr. Prendergast was preparing for him. His love, or rather the assurance of Clara's love, had been his great consolation. But what right had he, with all the advantages of youth, and health, and friends, and education, to require consolation? And then from moment to moment he thought of the woman whom he had left in the cabin, and confessed that he did not dare to call himself unhappy.
He had listened attentively, although he did thus think of other eloquence besides that of the countess—of the eloquence of that silent, solitary, dying woman; but when she had done he hardly knew what to say for himself. She did make him feel that it would be ungenerous in him to persist in his engagement; but then again, Clara's letters and his sister's arguments had made him feel that it was impossible to abandon it. They pleaded of heart-feelings so well that he could not resist them; and the countess—she pleaded so well as to world's prudence that he could not resist her.
"I would not willingly do anything to injure Lady Clara," he said.
"That's what we all knew," said the young earl. "You see, what is a girl to do like her? Love in a cottage is all very well, and all that; and as for riches, I don't care about them. It would be a pity if I did, for I shall be about the poorest nobleman in the three kingdoms, I suppose. But a chap when he marries should have something; shouldn't he now?"
To tell the truth the earl had been very much divided in his opinions since he had come home, veering round a point or two this way or a point or two that, in obedience to the blast of eloquence to which he might be last subjected. But latterly the idea had grown upon him that Clara might possibly marry Owen Fitzgerald. There was about Owen a strange fascination which all felt who had once loved him. To the world he was rough and haughty, imperious in his commands, and exacting even in his fellowship; but to the few whom he absolutely loved, whom he had taken into his heart's core, no man ever was more tender or more gracious. Clara, though she had resolved to banish him from her heart, had found it impossible to do so till Herbert's misfortunes had given him a charm in her eyes which was not all his own. Clara's mother had loved him—had loved him as she never before had loved; and now she loved him still, though she had so strongly determined that her love should be that of a mother, and not that of a wife. And the young earl, now that Owen's name was again rife in his ears, remembered all the pleasantness of former days. He had never again found such a companion as Owen had been. He had met no other friend to whom he could talk of sport and a man's outward pleasures when his mind was that way given, and to whom he could also talk of soft inward things,—the heart's feelings, and aspirations, and wants. Owen would be as tender with him as a woman, allowing the young lad's arm round his body, listening to words which the outer world would have called bosh—and have derided as girlish. So at least thought the young earl to himself. And all boys long to be allowed utterance occasionally for these soft tender things;—as also do all men, unless the devil's share in the world has become altogether uppermost with them.
And the young lad's heart hankered after his old friend. He had listened to his sister, and for a while had taken her part; but his mother had since whispered to him that Owen would now be the better suitor, the preferable brother-in-law; and that in fact Clara loved Owen the best, though she felt herself bound by honour to his kinsman. And then she reminded her son of Clara's former love for Owen—a love which he himself had witnessed; and he thought of the day when with so much regret he had told his friend that he was unsuited to wed with an earl's penniless daughter. Of the subsequent pleasantness which had come with Herbert's arrival, he had seen little or nothing. He had been told by letter that Herbert Fitzgerald, the prosperous heir of Castle Richmond, was to be his future brother-in-law, and he had been satisfied. But now, if Owen could return—how pleasant it would be!
"But a chap when he marries should have something; shouldn't he now?" So spoke the young earl, re-echoing his mother's prudence.
Herbert did not quite like this interference on the boy's part. Was he to explain to a young lad from Eton what his future intentions were with reference to his mode of living and period of marriage? "Of course," he said, addressing himself to the countess, "I shall not insist on an engagement made under such different circumstances."
"Nor will you allow her to do so through a romantic feeling of generosity," said the countess.
"You should know your own daughter, Lady Desmond, better than I do," he answered; "but I cannot say what I may do at her instance till I shall have seen her."
"Do you mean to say that you will allow a girl of her age to talk you into a proceeding which you know to be wrong?"
"I will allow no one," he said, "to talk me into a proceeding which I know to be wrong; nor will I allow any one to talk me out of a proceeding which I believe to be right." And then, having uttered these somewhat grandiloquent words, he shut himself up as though there were no longer any need for discussing the subject.
"My poor child!" said the countess, in a low tremulous voice, as though she did not intend him to hear them. "My poor unfortunate child!" Herbert as he did hear them thought of the woman in the cabin, and of her misfortunes and of her children. "Come, Patrick," continued the countess, "it is perhaps useless for us to say anything further at present. If you will remain here, Mr. Fitzgerald, for a minute or two, I will send Lady Clara to wait upon you;" and then curtsying with great dignity she withdrew, and the young earl scuffled out after her. "Mamma," he said, as he went, "he is determined that he will have her."
"My poor child!" answered the countess.
"And if I were in his place I should be determined also. You may as well give it up. Not but that I like Owen a thousand times the best."
Herbert did wait there for some five minutes, and then the door was opened very gently, was gently closed again, and Clara Desmond was in the room. He came towards her respectfully, holding out his hand that he might take hers; but before he had thought of how she would act she was in his arms. Hitherto, of all betrothed maidens, she had been the most retiring. Sometimes he had thought her cold when she had left the seat by his side to go and nestle closely by his sister. She had avoided the touch of his hand and the pressure of his arm, and had gone from him speechless, if not with anger then with dismay, when he had carried the warmth of his love beyond the touch of his hand or the pressure of his arm. But now she rushed into his embrace and hid her face upon his shoulder, as though she were over glad to return to the heart from which those around her had endeavoured to banish her. Was he or was he not to speak of his love? That had been the question which he had asked himself when left alone there for those five minutes, with the eloquence of the countess ringing in his ears. Now that question had in truth been answered for him.
"Herbert," she said, "Herbert! I have so sorrowed for you; but I know that you have borne it like a man."
She was thinking of what he had now half forgotten,—the position which he had lost, those hopes which had all been shipwrecked, his title surrendered to another, and his lost estates. She was thinking of them as the loss affected him; but he, he had reconciled himself to all that,—unless all that were to separate him from his promised bride.
"Dearest Clara," he said, with his arm close round her waist, while neither anger nor dismay appeared to disturb the sweetness of that position, "the letter which you wrote me has been my chief comfort." Now if he had any intention of liberating Clara from the bond of her engagement,—if he really had any feeling that it behoved him not to involve her in the worldly losses which had come upon him,—he was taking a very bad way of carrying out his views in that respect. Instead of confessing the comfort which he had received from that letter, and holding her close to his breast while he did confess it, he should have stood away from her—quite as far apart as he had done from the countess; and he should have argued with her, showing her how foolish and imprudent her letter had been, explaining that it behoved her now to repress her feelings, and teaching her that peers' daughters as well as housemaids should look out for situations which would suit them, guided by prudence and a view to the wages,—not follow the dictates of impulse and of the heart. This is what he should have done, according, I believe, to the views of most men and women. Instead of that he held her there as close as he could hold her, and left her to do the most of the speaking. I think he was right. According to my ideas woman's love should be regarded as fair prize of war,—as long as the war has been carried on with due adherence to the recognized law of nations. When it has been fairly won, let it be firmly held. I have no opinion of that theory of giving up.
"You knew that I would not abandon you! Did you not know it? say that you knew it?" said Clara, and then she insisted on having an answer.
"I could hardly dare to think that there was so much happiness left for me," said Herbert.
"Then you were a traitor to your love, sir; a false traitor." But deep as was the offence for which she arraigned him, it was clear to see that the pardon came as quick as the conviction. "And was Emmeline so untrue to me also as to believe that?"
"Emmeline said—" and then he told her what Emmeline had said.
"Dearest, dearest Emmeline! give her a whole heart-load of love from me; now mind you do,—and to Mary, too. And remember this, sir; that I love Emmeline ten times better than I do you; twenty times—, because she knew me. Oh, if she had mistrustedme—!"
"And do you think that I mistrusted you?"
"Yes, you did; you know you did, sir. You wrote and told me so;—and now, this very day, you come here to act as though you mistrusted me still. You know you have, only you have not the courage to go on with the acting."
And then he began to defend himself, showing how ill it would have become him to have kept her bound to her engagements had she feared poverty as most girls in her position would have feared it. But on this point she would not hear much from him, lest the very fact of her hearing it should make it seem that such a line of conduct were possible to her.
"You know nothing about most girls, sir, or about any, I am afraid; not even about one. And if most girls were frightfully heartless, which they are not, what right had you to liken me to most girls? Emmeline knew better, and why could not you take her as a type of most girls? You have behaved very badly, Master Herbert, and you know it; and nothing on earth shall make me forgive you; nothing—but your promise that you will not so misjudge me any more." And then the tears came to his eyes, and her face was again hidden on his shoulder.
It was not very probable that after such a commencement the interview would terminate in a manner favourable to the wishes of the countess. Clara swore to her lover that she had given him all that she had to give,—her heart, and will, and very self; and swore, also, that she could not and would not take back the gift. She would remain as she was now as long as he thought proper, and would come to him whenever he should tell her that his home was large enough for them both. And so that matter was settled between them.
Then she had much to say about his mother and sisters, and a word too about his poor father. And now that it was settled between them so fixedly, that come what might they were to float together in the same boat down the river of life, she had a question or two also to ask, and her approbation to give or to withhold, as to his future prospects. He was not to think, she told him, of deciding on anything without at any rate telling her. So he had to explain to her all the family plans, making her know why he had decided on the law as his own path to fortune, and asking for and obtaining her consent to all his proposed measures.
In this way her view of the matter became more and more firmly adopted as that which should be the view resolutely to be taken by them both. The countess had felt that that interview would be fatal to her; and she had been right. But how could she have prevented it? Twenty times she had resolved that she would prevent it; but twenty times she had been forced to confess that she was powerless to do so. In these days a mother even can only exercise such power over a child as public opinion permits her to use. "Mother, it was you who brought us together, and you cannot separate us now." That had always been Clara's argument, leaving the countess helpless, except as far as she could work on Herbert's generosity. That she had tried,—and, as we have seen, been foiled there also. If only she could have taken her daughter away while the Castle Richmond family were still mersed in the bitter depth of their suffering,—at that moment when the blows were falling on them! Then, indeed, she might have done something; but she was not like other titled mothers. In such a step as this she was absolutely without the means.
Thus talking together they remained closeted for a most unconscionable time. Clara had had her purpose to carry out, and to Herbert the moments had been too precious to cause him any regret as they passed. But now at last a knock was heard at the door, and Lady Desmond, without waiting for an answer to it, entered the room. Clara immediately started from her seat, not as though she were either guilty or tremulous, but with a brave resolve to go on with her purposed plan.
"Mamma," she said, "it is fixed now; it cannot be altered now."
"What is fixed, Clara?"
"Herbert and I have renewed our engagement, and nothing must now break it, unless we die."
"Mr. Fitzgerald, if this be true your conduct to my daughter has been unmanly as well as ungenerous."
"Lady Desmond, it is true; and I think that my conduct is neither unmanly nor ungenerous."
"Your own relations are against you, sir."
"What relations?" asked Clara, sharply.
"I am not speaking to you, Clara; your absurdity and romance are so great that I cannot speak to you."
"What relations, Herbert?" again asked Clara; for she would not for the world have had Lady Fitzgerald against her.
"Lady Desmond has, I believe, seen my Aunt Letty two or three times lately; I suppose she must mean her."
"Oh," said Clara, turning away as though she were now satisfied. And then Herbert, escaping from the house as quickly as he could, rode home with a renewal of that feeling of triumph which he had once enjoyed before when returning from Desmond Court to Castle Richmond.
On the next day Herbert started for London. The parting was sad enough, and the occasion of it was such that it could hardly be otherwise. "I am quite sure of one thing," he said to his sister Emmeline, "I shall never see Castle Richmond again." And, indeed, one may say that small as might be his chance of doing so, his wish to do so must be still less. There could be no possible inducement to him to come back to a place which had so nearly been his own, and the possession of which he had lost in so painful a manner. Every tree about the place, every path across the wide park, every hedge and ditch and hidden leafy corner, had had for him a special interest,—for they had all been his own. But all that was now over. They were not only not his own, but they belonged to one who was mounting into his seat of power over his head.
He had spent the long evening before his last dinner in going round the whole demesne alone, so that no eye should witness what he felt. None but those who have known the charms of a country-house early in life can conceive the intimacy to which a man attains with all the various trifling objects round his own locality; how he knows the bark of every tree, and the bend of every bough; how he has marked where the rich grass grows in tufts, and where the poorer soil is always dry and bare; how he watches the nests of the rooks, and the holes of the rabbits, and has learned where the thrushes build, and can show the branch on which the linnet sits. All these things had been dear to Herbert, and they all required at his hand some last farewell. Every dog, too, he had to see, and to lay his hand on the neck of every horse. This making of his final adieu under such circumstances was melancholy enough.
And then, too, later in the evening, after dinner, all the servants were called into the parlour that he might shake hands with them. There was not one of them who had not hoped, as lately as three months since, that he or she would live to call Herbert Fitzgerald master. Indeed, he had already been their master—their young master. All Irish servants especially love to pay respect to the "young masther;" but Herbert now was to be their master no longer, and the probability was that he would never see one of them again.
He schooled himself to go through the ordeal with a manly gait and with dry eyes, and he did it; but their eyes were not dry, not even those of the men. Mrs. Jones and a favourite girl whom the young ladies patronized were not of the number, for it had been decided that they should follow the fortunes of their mistress; but Richard was there, standing a little apart from the others, as being now on a different footing. He was to go also, but before the scene was over he also had taken to sobbing violently.
"I wish you all well and happy," said Herbert, making his little speech, "and regret deeply that the intercourse between us should be thus suddenly severed. You have served me and mine well and truly, and it is hard upon you now, that you should be bid to go and seek another home elsewhere."
"It isn't that we mind, Mr. Herbert; it ain't that as frets us," said one of the men.
"It ain't that at all, at all," said Richard, doing chorus; "but that yer honour should be robbed of what is yer honour's own."
"But you all know that we cannot help it," continued Herbert; "a misfortune has come upon us which nobody could have foreseen, and therefore we are obliged to part with our old friends and servants."
At the word friends the maid-servants all sobbed. "And 'deed we is your frinds, and true frinds, too," wailed the cook.
"I know you are, and it grieves me to feel that I shall see you no more. But you must not be led to think by what Richard says that anybody is depriving me of that which ought to be my own. I am now leaving Castle Richmond because it is not my own, but justly belongs to another;—to another who, I must in justice tell you, is in no hurry to claim his inheritance. We none of us have any ground for displeasure against the present owner of this place, my cousin, Sir Owen Fitzgerald."
"We don't know nothing about Sir Owen," said one voice.
"And don't want," said another, convulsed with sobs.
"He's a very good sort of young gentleman—of his own kind, no doubt," said Richard.
"But you can all of you understand," continued Herbert, "that as this place is no longer our own, we are obliged to leave it; and as we shall live in a very different way in the home to which we are going, we are obliged to part with you, though we have no reason to find fault with any one among you. I am going to-morrow morning early, and my mother and sisters will follow after me in a few weeks. It will be a sad thing too for them to say good-bye to you all, as it is for me now; but it cannot be helped. God bless you all, and I hope that you will find good masters and kind mistresses, with whom you may live comfortably, as I hope you have done here."
"We can't find no other mistresses like her leddyship," sobbed out the senior housemaid.
"There ain't niver such a one in the county Cork," said the cook; "in a week of Sundays you wouldn't hear the breath out of her above her own swait nathural voice."
"I've driv' her since iver—" began Richard; but he was going to say since ever she was married, but he remembered that this allusion would be unbecoming, so he turned his face to the door-post, and began to wail bitterly.
And then Herbert shook hands with them all, and it was pretty to see how the girls wiped their hands in their aprons before they gave them to him, and how they afterwards left the room with their aprons up to their faces. The women walked out first, and then the men, hanging down their heads, and muttering as they went, each some little prayer that fortune and prosperity might return to the house of Fitzgerald. The property might go, but according to their views Herbert was always, and always would be, the head of the house. And then, last of all, Richard went. "There ain't one of 'em, Mr. Herbert, as wouldn't guv his fist to go wid yer, and think nothing about the wages."
He was to start very early, and his packing was all completed that night. "I do so wish we were going with you," said Emmeline, sitting in his room on the top of a corded box, which was to follow him by some slower conveyance.
"And I do so wish I was staying with you," said he.
"What is the good of staying here now?" said she; "what pleasure can there be in it? I hardly dare to go outside the house door for fear I should be seen."
"But why? We have done nothing that we need be ashamed of."
"No; I know that. But, Herbert, do you not find that the pity of the people is hard to bear? It is written in their eyes, and meets one at every turn."
"We shall get rid of that very soon. In a few months we shall be clean forgotten."
"I do not know about being forgotten."
"You will be as clean forgotten,—as though you had never existed. And all these servants who are now so fond of us, in three months' time will be just as fond of Owen Fitzgerald, if he will let them stay here; it's the way of the world."
That Herbert should have indulged in a little morbid misanthropy on such an occasion was not surprising. But I take leave to think that he was wrong in his philosophy; we do make new friends when we lose our old friends, and the heart is capable of cure as is the body; were it not so, how terrible would be our fate in this world! But we are so apt to find fault with God's goodness to us in this respect, arguing, of others if not of ourselves, that the heart once widowed should remain a widow through all time. I, for one, think that the heart should receive its new spouses with what alacrity it may, and always with thankfulness.
"I suppose Lady Desmond will let us see Clara," said Emmeline.
"Of course you must see her. If you knew how much she talks about you, you would not think of leaving Ireland without seeing her."
"Dear Clara! I am sure she does not love me better than I do her. But suppose that Lady Desmond won't let us see her! and I know that it will be so. That grave old man with the bald head will come out and say that 'the Lady Clara is not at home,' and then we shall have to leave without seeing her. But it does not matter with her as it might with others, for I know that her heart will be with us."
"If you write beforehand to say that you are coming, and explain that you are doing so to say good-bye, then I think they will admit you."
"Yes; and the countess would take care to be there, so that I could not say one word to Clara about you. Oh, Herbert! I would give anything if I could have her here for one day,—only for one day." But when they talked it over they both of them decided that this would not be practicable. Clara could not stay away from her own house without her mother's leave, and it was not probable that her mother would give her permission to stay at Castle Richmond.
On the following morning the whole household was up and dressed very early. Lady Fitzgerald—the poor lady made many futile attempts to drop her title, but hitherto without any shadow of success—Lady Fitzgerald was down in the breakfast parlour at seven, as also were Aunt Letty, and Mary, and Emmeline. Herbert had begged his mother not to allow herself to be disturbed, alleging that there was no cause, seeing that they all so soon would meet in London; but she was determined that she would superintend his last meal at Castle Richmond. The servants brought in the trays with melancholy silence, and now that the absolute moment of parting had come the girls could not speak lest the tears should come and choke them. It was not that they were about to part with him; that parting would only be for a month. But he was now about to part from all that ought to have been his own. He sat down at the table in his accustomed place, with a forced smile on his face, but without a word, and his sisters put before him his cup of tea, and the slice of ham that had been cut for him, and his portion of bread. That he was making an effort they all saw. He bowed his head down over the tea to sip it and took the knife in his hand, and then he looked up at them, for he knew that their eyes were on him; he looked up at them to show that he could still endure it. But, alas! he could not endure it. The struggle was too much for him; he pushed his plate violently from him into the middle of the table, and dropping his head upon his hands he burst forth into audible lamentations.
Oh, my friends! be not hard on him in that he was thus weeping like a woman. It was not for his lost wealth that he was wailing, nor even for the name or splendour that could be no longer his; nor was it for his father's memory, though he had truly loved his father; nor for his mother's sorrow, or the tragedy of her life's history. For none of these things were his tears flowing and his sobs coming so violently that it nearly choked him to repress them. Nor could he himself have said why he was weeping.
It was the hundred small things from which he was parting for ever that thus disturbed him. The chair on which he sat, the carpet on the floor, the table on which he leaned, the dull old picture of his great-grandfather over the fireplace,—they were all his old familiar friends, they were all part of Castle Richmond,—of that Castle Richmond which he might never be allowed to see again.
His mother and sisters came to him, hanging over him, and they joined their tears together. "Do not tell her that I was like this," said he at last.
"She will love you the better for it if she has a true woman's heart within her breast," said his mother.
"As true a heart as ever breathed," said Emmeline through her sobs.
And then they pressed him to eat, but it was in vain. He knew that the food would choke him if he attempted it. So he gulped down the cup of tea, and with one kiss to his mother he rushed from them, refusing Aunt Letty's proffered embrace, passing through the line of servants without another word to one of them, and burying himself in the post-chaise which was to carry him the first stage on his melancholy journey.
It was a melancholy journey all through. From the time that he left the door at Castle Richmond that was no longer his own, till he reached the Euston Station in London, he spoke no word to any one more than was absolutely necessary for the purposes of his travelling. Nothing could be more sad than the prospect of his residence in London. Not that he was without friends there, for he belonged to a fashionable club to which he could still adhere if it so pleased him, and had all his old Oxford comrades to fall back upon if that were of any service to him. But how is a man to walk into his club who yesterday was known as his father's eldest son and the heir to a baronetcy and twelve thousand a year, and who to-day is known as nobody's son and the heir to nothing? Men would feel so much for him and pity him so deeply! That was the worst feature of his present position. He could hardly dare to show himself more than was absolutely necessary till the newness of his tragedy was worn off.
Mr. Prendergast had taken lodgings for him, in which he was to remain till he could settle himself in the same house with his mother. And this house, in which they were all to live, had also been taken,—up in that cheerful locality near Harrow-on-the-Hill, called St. John's Wood Road, the cab fares to which from any central part of London are so very ruinous. But that house was not yet ready, and so he went into lodgings in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mr. Prendergast had chosen this locality because it was near the chambers of that great Chancery barrister, Mr. Die, under whose beneficent wing Herbert Fitzgerald was destined to learn all the mysteries of the Chancery bar. The sanctuary of Mr. Die's wig was in Stone Buildings, immediately close to that milky way of vice-chancellors, whose separate courts cluster about the old chapel of Lincoln's Inn; and here was Herbert to sit, studious, for the next three years,—to sit there instead of at the various relief committees in the vicinity of Kanturk. And why could he not be as happy at the one as at the other? Would not Mr. Die be as amusing as Mr. Townsend; and the arguments of Vice-Chancellor Stuart's court quite as instructive as those heard in the committee room at Gortnaclough?
On the morning of his arrival in London he drove to his lodgings, and found a note there from Mr. Prendergast asking him to dinner on that day, and promising to take him to Mr. Die on the following morning. Mr. Prendergast kept a bachelor's house in Bloomsbury Square, not very far from Lincoln's Inn—just across Holborn, as all Londoners know; and there he would expect Herbert at seven o'clock. "I will not ask any one to meet you," he said, "because you will be tired after your journey, and perhaps more inclined to talk to me than to strangers."
Mr. Prendergast was one of those old-fashioned people who think that a spacious substantial house in Bloomsbury Square, at a rent of a hundred and twenty pounds a year, is better worth having than a narrow, lath and plaster, ill-built tenement at nearly double the price out westward of the Parks. A quite new man is necessarily afraid of such a locality as Bloomsbury Square, for he has no chance of getting any one into his house if he do not live westward. Who would dine with Mr. Jones in Woburn Terrace, unless he had known Mr. Jones all his days, or unless Jones were known as a top sawyer in some walk of life? But Mr. Prendergast was well enough known to his old friends to be allowed to live where he pleased, and he was not very anxious to add to their number by any new fashionable allurements.
Herbert sent over to Bloomsbury Square to say that he would be there at seven o'clock, and then sat himself down in his new lodgings. It was but a dingy abode, consisting of a narrow sitting-room looking out into the big square from over a covered archway, and a narrower bedroom looking backwards into a dull, dirty-looking, crooked street. Nothing, he thought, could be more melancholy than such a home. But then what did it signify? His days would be passed in Mr. Die's chambers, and his evenings would be spent over his law books with closed windows and copious burnings of the midnight oil. For Herbert had wisely resolved that hard work, and hard work alone, could mitigate the misery of his present position.
But he had no work for the present day. He could not at once unpack his portmanteau and begin his law studies on the moment. It was about noon when he had completed the former preparation, and eaten such breakfast as his new London landlady had gotten for him. And the breakfast had not of itself been bad, for Mrs. Whereas had been a daughter of Themis all her life, waiting upon scions of the law since first she had been able to run for a penn'orth of milk. She had been laundress on a stairs for ten years, having married a law stationer's apprentice, and now she owned the dingy house over the covered way, and let her own lodgings with her own furniture; nor was she often without friends who would recommend her zeal and honesty, and make excuse for the imperiousness of her ways and the too great fluency of her by no means servile tongue.
"Oh, Mrs.—," said Herbert. "I beg your pardon, but might I ask your name?"
"No offence, sir; none in life. My name's Whereas. Martha Whereas, and 'as been now for five-and-twenty year. There be'ant many of the gen'lemen about the courts here as don't know some'at of me. And I knew some'at of them too, before they carried their wigs so grandly. My husband, that's Whereas,—you'll all'ays find him at the little stationer's shop outside the gate in Carey Street. You'll know him some of these days, I'll go bail, if you're going to Mr. Die; anyways you'll know his handwrite. Tea to your liking, sir? I all'ays gets cream for gentlemen, sir, unless they tells me not. Milk a 'alfpenny, sir; cream tuppence; three 'alfpence difference; hain't it, sir? So now you can do as you pleases, and if you like bacon and heggs to your breakfastesses you've only to say the words. But then the heggs hain't heggs, that's the truth; and they hain't chickens, but some'at betwixt the two."
And so she went on during the whole time that he was eating, moving about from place to place, and putting back into the places which she had chosen for them anything which he had chanced to move; now dusting a bit of furniture with her apron, and then leaning on the back of a chair while she asked him some question as to his habits and future mode of living. She also wore a bonnet, apparently as a customary part of her house costume, and Herbert could not help thinking that she looked very like his Aunt Letty.
But when she had gone and taken the breakfast things with her, then began the tedium of the day. It seemed to him as though he had no means of commencing his life in London until he had been with Mr. Prendergast or Mr. Die. And so new did it all feel to him, so strange and wonderful, that he hardly dared to go out of the house by himself and wander about the premises of the Inn. He was not absolutely a stranger in London, for he had been elected at a club before he had left Oxford, and had been up in town twice, staying on each occasion some few weeks. Had he therefore been asked about the metropolis some four months since at Castle Richmond, he would have professed that he knew it well. Starting from Pall Mall he could have gone to any of the central theatres, or to the Parks, or to the houses of Parliament, or to the picture galleries in June. But now in that dingy big square he felt himself to be absolutely a stranger; and when he did venture out he watched the corners, in order that he might find his way back without asking questions.
And then he roamed round the squares and about the little courts, and found out where were Stone Buildings,—so called because they are so dull and dead and stony-hearted: and as his courage increased he made his way into one of the courts, and stood up for a while on an uncomfortable narrow step, so that he might watch the proceedings as they went on, and it all seemed to him to be dull and deadly. There was no life and amusement such as he had seen at the Assize Court in county Cork, when he was sworn in as one of the Grand Jury. There the gentlemen in wigs—for on the Munster circuit they do wear wigs, or at any rate did then—laughed and winked and talked together joyously; and when a Roman Catholic fisherman from Berehaven was put into the dock for destroying the boat and nets of a Protestant fisherman from Dingle in county Kerry, who had chanced to come that way, "not fishing at all, at all, yer honour, but just souping," as the Papist prisoner averred with great emphasis, the gentlemen of the robe had gone to the fight with all the animation and courage of Matadors and Picadors in a bull-ring. It was delightful to see the way in which Roman Catholic skill combated Protestant fury, with a substratum below of Irish fun which showed to everybody that it was not all quite in earnest;—that the great O'Fagan and the great Fitzberesford could sit down together afterwards with all the pleasure in life over their modicum of claret in the barristers' room at the Imperial hotel. And then the judge had added to the life of the meeting, helping to bamboozle and make miserable a wretch of a witness who had been caught in the act of seeing the boat smashed with a fragment of rock, and was now, in consequence, being impaled alive by his lordship's assistance.
"What do you say your name is?" demanded his lordship, angrily.
"Rowland Houghton," said the miserable stray Saxon tourist who had so unfortunately strayed that way on the occasion.
"What?" repeated the judge, whose ears were sharper to such sounds as O'Shaughnessy, Macgillycuddy, and O'Callaghan.
"Rowland Houghton," said the offender, in his distress; quicker, louder, and perhaps not more distinctly than before.
"What does the man say?" said the judge, turning his head down towards a satellite who sat on a bench beneath his cushion.
The gentleman appealed to pronounced the name for the judge's hearing with a full rolling Irish brogue, that gave great delight through all the court; "R-rowland Hough-h-ton, me lor-r-d."
Whereupon his lordship threw up his hands in dismay. "Oulan Outan!" said he. "Oulan Outan! I never heard such a name in my life!" And then, having thoroughly impaled the wicked witness, and added materially to the amusement of the day, the judge wrote down the name in his book; and there it is to this day, no doubt, Oulan Outan. And when one thinks of it, it was monstrous that an English witness should go into an Irish law court with such a name as Rowland Houghton.
But here, in the dark dingy court to which Herbert had penetrated in Lincoln's Inn, there was no such life as this. Here, whatever skill there might be, was of a dark subterranean nature, quite unintelligible to any minds but those of experts; and as for fury or fun, there was no spark either of one or of the other. The judge sat back in his seat, a tall, handsome, speechless man, not asleep, for his eye from time to time moved slowly from the dingy barrister who was on his legs to another dingy barrister who was sitting with his hands in his pockets, and with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling. The gentleman who was in the act of pleading had a huge open paper in his hand, from which he droned forth certain legal quiddities of the dullest and most uninteresting nature. He was in earnest, for there was a perpetual energy in his drone, as a droning bee might drone who was known to drone louder than other drones. But it was a continuous energy supported by perseverance, and not by impulse; and seemed to come of a fixed determination to continue the reading of that paper till all the world should be asleep. A great part of the world around was asleep; but the judge's eye was still open, and one might say that the barrister was resolved to go on till that eye should have become closed in token of his success.
Herbert remained there for an hour, thinking that he might learn something that would be serviceable to him in his coming legal career; but at the end of the hour the same thing was going on,—the judge's eye was still open, and the lawyer's drone was still sounding; and so he came away, having found himself absolutely dozing in the uncomfortable position in which he was standing.
At last the day wore away, and at seven o'clock he found himself in Mr. Prendergast's hall in Bloomsbury Square; and his hat and umbrella were taken away from him by an old servant looking very much like Mr. Prendergast himself;—having about him the same look of the stiffness of years, and the same look also of excellent preservation and care.
"Mr. Prendergast is in the library, sir, if you please," said the old servant; and so saying he ushered Herbert into the back down-stairs room. It was a spacious, lofty apartment, well fitted up for a library, and furnished for that purpose with exceeding care;—such a room as one does not find in the flashy new houses in the west, where the dining-room and drawing-room occupy all of the house that is visible. But then, how few of those who live in flashy new houses in the west require to have libraries in London!
As he entered the room Mr. Prendergast came forward to meet him, and seemed heartily glad to see him. There was a cordiality about him which Herbert had never recognized at Castle Richmond, and an appearance of enjoyment which had seemed to be almost foreign to the lawyer's nature. Herbert perhaps had not calculated, as he should have done, that Mr. Prendergast's mission in Ireland had not admitted of much enjoyment. Mr. Prendergast had gone there to do a job of work, and that he had done, very thoroughly; but he certainly had not enjoyed himself.
There was time for only few words before the old man again entered the room, announcing dinner; and those few words had no reference whatever to the Castle Richmond sorrow. He had spoken of Herbert's lodging, and of his journey, and a word or two of Mr. Die, and then they went in to dinner. And at dinner too the conversation wholly turned upon indifferent matters, upon reform at Oxford, the state of parties, and of the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the Irish Low Church clergymen, on all of which subjects Herbert found that Mr. Prendergast had a tolerably strong opinion of his own. The dinner was very good, though by no means showy,—as might have been expected in a house in Bloomsbury Square—and the wine excellent, as might have been expected in any house inhabited by Mr. Prendergast.
And then, when the dinner was over, and the old servant had slowly removed his last tray, when they had each got into an arm-chair, and were seated at properly comfortable distances from the fire, Mr. Prendergast began to talk freely; not that he at once plunged into the middle of the old history, or began with lugubrious force to recapitulate the horrors that were now partly over; but gradually he veered round to those points as to which he thought it good that he should speak before setting Herbert at work on his new London life.
"You drink claret, I suppose?" said Mr. Prendergast, as he adjusted a portion of the table for their evening symposium.
"Oh yes," said Herbert, not caring very much at that moment what the wine was.
"You'll find that pretty good; a good deal better than what you'll get in most houses in London nowadays. But you know a man always likes his own wine, and especially an old man."
Herbert said something about it being very good, but did not give that attention to the matter which Mr. Prendergast thought that it deserved. Indeed, he was thinking more about Mr. Die and Stone Buildings than about the wine.
"And how do you find my old friend Mrs. Whereas?" asked the lawyer.
"She seems to be a very attentive sort of woman."
"Yes; rather too much so sometimes. People do say that she never knows how to hold her tongue. But she won't rob you, nor yet poison you; and in these days that is saying a very great deal for a woman in London." And then there was a pause, as Mr. Prendergast sipped his wine with slow complacency. "And we are to go to Mr. Die to-morrow, I suppose?" he said, beginning again. To which Herbert replied that he would be ready at any time in the morning that might be suitable.
"The sooner you get into harness the better. It is not only that you have much to learn, but you have much to forget also."
"Yes," said Herbert, "I have much to forget indeed; more than I can forget, I'm afraid, Mr. Prendergast."
"There is, I fancy, no sorrow which a man cannot forget; that is, as far as the memory of it is likely to be painful to him. You will not absolutely cease to remember Castle Richmond and all its circumstances; you will still think of the place and all the people whom you knew there; but you will learn to do so without the pain which of course you now suffer. That is what I mean by forgetting."
"Oh, I don't complain, sir."
"No, I know you don't; and that is the reason why I am so anxious to see you happy. You have borne the whole matter so well that I am quite sure that you will be able to live happily in this new life. That is what I mean when I say that you will forget Castle Richmond."
Herbert bethought himself of Clara Desmond, and of the woman whom he had seen in the cabin, and reflected that even at present he had no right to be unhappy.
"I suppose you have no thought of going back to Ireland?" said Mr. Prendergast.
"Oh, none in the least."
"On the whole I think you are right. No doubt a family connection is a great assistance to a barrister, and there would be reasons which would make attorneys in Ireland throw business into your hands at an early period of your life. Your history would give you anéclatthere, if you know what I mean."
"Oh, yes, perfectly; but I don't want that."
"No. It is a kind of assistance which in my opinion a man should not desire. In the first place, it does not last. A man so bouyed up is apt to trust to such support, instead of his own steady exertions; and the firmest of friends won't stick to a lawyer long if he can get better law for his money elsewhere."
"There should be no friendship in such matters, I think."
"Well, I won't say that. But the friendship should come of the service, not the service of the friendship. Good, hard, steady, and enduring work,—work that does not demand immediate acknowledgment and reward, but that can afford to look forward for its results,—it is that, and that only which in my opinion will insure to a man permanent success."
"It is hard though for a poor man to work so many years without an income," said Herbert, thinking of Lady Clara Desmond.
"Not hard if you get the price of your work at last. But you can have your choice. A moderate fixed income can now be had by any barrister early in life,—by any barrister of fair parts and sound acquirements. There are more barristers now filling salaried places than practising in the courts."
"But those places are given by favour."
"No; not so generally,—or if by favour, by that sort of favour which is as likely to come to you as to another. Such places are not given to incompetent young men because their fathers and mothers ask for them. But won't you fill your glass?"
"I am doing very well, thank you."
"You'll do better if you'll fill your glass, and let me have the bottle back. But you are thinking of the good old historical days when you talk of barristers having to wait for their incomes. There has been a great change in that respect,—for the better, as you of course will think. Now-a-days a man is taken away from his boat-racing and his skittle-ground to be made a judge. A little law and a great fund of physical strength—that is the extent of the demand." And Mr. Prendergast plainly showed by the tone of his voice that he did not admire the wisdom of this new policy of which he spoke.
"But I suppose a man must work five years before he can earn anything," said Herbert, still despondingly; for five years is a long time to an expectant lover.
"Fifteen years of unpaid labour used not to be thought too great a price to pay for ultimate success," said Mr. Prendergast, almost sighing at the degeneracy of the age. "But men in those days were ambitious and patient."
"And now they are ambitious and impatient," suggested Herbert.
"Covetous and impatient might perhaps be the truer epithets," said Mr. Prendergast with grim sarcasm.
It is sad for a man to feel, when he knows that he is fast going down the hill of life, that the experience of old age is to be no longer valued nor its wisdom appreciated. The elderly man of this day thinks that he has been robbed of his chance in life. When he was in his full physical vigour he was not old enough for mental success. He was still winning his spurs at forty. But at fifty—so does the world change—he learns that he is past his work. By some unconscious and unlucky leap he has passed from the unripeness of youth to the decay of age, without even knowing what it was to be in his prime. A man should always seize his opportunity; but the changes of the times in which he has lived have never allowed him to have one. There has been no period of flood in his tide which might lead him on to fortune. While he has been waiting patiently for high water the ebb has come upon him. Mr. Prendergast himself had been a successful man, and his regrets, therefore, were philosophical rather than practical. As for Herbert, he did not look upon the question at all in the same light as his elderly friend, and on the whole was rather exhilarated by the tone of Mr. Prendergast's sarcasm. Perhaps Mr. Prendergast had intended that such should be its effect.
The long evening passed away cosily enough, leaving on Herbert's mind an impression that in choosing to be a barrister he had certainly chosen the noblest walk of life in which a man could earn his bread. Mr. Prendergast did not promise him either fame or fortune, nor did he speak by any means in high enthusiastic language; he said much of the necessity of long hours, of tedious work, of Amaryllis left by herself in the shade, and of Neæra's locks unheeded; but nevertheless he spoke in a manner to arouse the ambition and satisfy the longings of the young man who listened to him. There were much wisdom in what he did, and much benevolence also.
And then at about eleven o'clock, Herbert having sat out the second bottle of claret, betook himself to his bed at the lodgings over the covered way.
It was not quite at first that the countess could explain to her son how she now wished that Owen Fitzgerald might become her son-in-law. She had been so steadfast in her opposition to Owen when the earl had last spoken of the matter, and had said so much of the wickedly dissipated life which Owen was leading, that she feared to shock the boy. But by degrees she brought the matter round, speaking of Owen's great good fortune, pointing out how much better he was suited for riches than for poverty, insisting warmly on all his good qualities and high feelings, and then saying at last, as it were without thought, "Poor Clara! She has been unfortunate, for at one time she loved Owen Fitzgerald much better than she will ever love his cousin Herbert."
"Do you think so, mother?"
"I am sure of it. The truth is, Patrick, you do not understand your sister; and indeed it is hard to do so. I have also always had an inward fear that she had now engaged herself to a man whom she did not love. Of course as things were then it was impossible that she should marry Owen; and I was glad to break her off from that feeling. But she never loved Herbert Fitzgerald."
"Why, she is determined to have him, even now."
"Ah, yes! That is where you do not understand her. Now, at this special moment, her heart is touched by his misfortune, and she thinks herself bound by her engagement to sacrifice herself with him. But that is not love. She has never loved any one but Owen,—and who can wonder at it? for he is a man made for a woman to love."
The earl said nothing for a while, but sat balancing himself on the back legs of his chair. And then, as though a new idea had struck him, he exclaimed, "If I thought that, mother, I would find out what Owen thinks of it himself."
"Poor Owen!" said the countess. "There is no doubt as to what he thinks;" and then she left the room, not wishing to carry the conversation any further.
Two days after this, and without any further hint from his mother, he betook himself along the banks of the river to Hap House. In his course thither he never let his horse put a foot upon the road, but kept low down upon the water meadows, leaping over all the fences, as he had so often done with the man whom he was now going to see. It was here, among these banks, that he had received his earliest lessons in horsemanship, and they had all been given by Owen Fitzgerald. It had been a thousand pities, he had thought, that Owen had been so poor as to make it necessary for them all to discourage that love affair with Clara. He would have been so delighted to welcome Owen as his brother-in-law. And as he strode along over the ground, and landed himself knowingly over the crabbed fences, he began to think how much pleasanter the country would be for him if he had a downright good fellow and crack sportsman as his fast friend at Castle Richmond. Sir Owen Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond! He would be the man to whom he would be delighted to give his sister Clara.
And then he hopped in from one of Owen's fields into a small paddock at the back of Owen's house, and seeing one of the stable-boys about the place, asked him if his master was at home.
"Shure an' he's here thin, yer honour;" and Lord Desmond could hear the boy whispering, "It's the young lord hisself." In a moment Owen Fitzgerald was standing by his horse's side. It was the first time that Owen had seen one of the family since the news had been spread abroad concerning his right to the inheritance of Castle Richmond.
"Desmond," said he, taking the lad's hand with one of his, and putting the other on the animal's neck, "this is very good of you. I am delighted to see you. I had heard that you were in the country."
"Yes; I have been home for this week past. But things are all so at sixes and sevens among us all that a fellow can't go and do just what he would like."
Owen well understood what he meant. "Indeed they are at sixes and sevens; you may well say that. But get off your horse, old fellow, and come into the house. Why, what a lather of heat the mare's in."
"Isn't she? it's quite dreadful. That chap of ours has no more idea of condition than I have of—of—of—of an archbishop. I've just trotted along the fields, and put her over a ditch or two, and you see the state she's in. It's a beastly shame."
"I know of old what your trottings are, Desmond; and what a ditch or two means. You've been at every bank between this and Banteer as though you were going for a steeplechase plate."
"Upon my honour, Owen—"
"Look here, Patsey. Walk that mare up and down here, between this gate and that post, till the big sweat has all dried on her; and then stick to her with a whisp of straw till she's as soft as silk. Do you hear?"
Patsey said that he did hear; and then Owen, throwing his arm over the earl's shoulder, walked slowly towards the house.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you, old boy," said Owen, pressing his young friend with something almost like an embrace. "You will hardly believe how long it is since I have seen a face that I cared to look at."
"Haven't you?" said the young lord, wondering. He knew that Fitzgerald had now become heir to a very large fortune, or rather the possessor of that fortune, and he could not understand why a man who had been so popular while he was poor should be deserted now that he was rich.
"No, indeed, have I not. Things are all at sixes and sevens as you say. Let me see. Donnellan was here when you last saw me; and I was soon tired of him when things became serious."
"I don't wonder you were tired of him."
"But, Desmond, how's your mother?"
"Oh, she's very well. These are bad times for poor people like us, you know."
"And your sister?"
"She's pretty well too, thank you." And then there was a pause. "You've had a great change in your fortune since I saw you, have you not?" said the earl, after a minute or two. And there it occurred to him for the first time, that, having refused his sister to this man when he was poor, he had now come to offer her to him when he was rich. "Not that that was the reason," he said to himself. "But it was impossible then, and now it would be so pleasant."
"It is a sad history, is it not?" said Owen.
"Very sad," said the earl, remembering, however, that he had ridden over there with his heart full of joy,—of joy occasioned by that very catastrophe which now, following his friend's words like a parrot, he declared to be so very sad.
And now they were in the dining-room in which Owen usually lived, and were both standing on the rug, as two men always do stand when they first get into a room together. And it was clear to see that neither of them knew how to break at once into the sort of loving, genial talk which each was longing to have with the other. It is so easy to speak when one has little or nothing to say; but often so difficult when there is much that must be said: and the same paradox is equally true of writing.
Then Owen walked away to the window, looking out among the shrubs into which Aby Mollett had been precipitated, as though he could collect his thoughts there; and in a moment or two the earl followed him, and looked out also among the shrubs. "They killed a fox exactly there the other day; didn't they?" asked the earl, indicating the spot by a nod of his head.
"Yes, they did." And then there was another pause. "I'll tell you what it is, Desmond," Owen said at last, going back to the rug and speaking with an effort. "As the people say, 'a sight of you is good for sore eyes.' There is a positive joy to me in seeing you. It is like a cup of cold water when a man is thirsty. But I cannot put the drink to my lips till I know on what terms we are to meet. When last we saw each other, we were speaking of your sister; and now that we meet again, we must again speak of her. Desmond, all my thoughts are of her; I dream of her at night, and find myself talking to her spirit when I wake in the morning. I have much else that I ought to think of; but I go about thinking of nothing but of her. I am told that she is engaged to my cousin Herbert. Nay, she has told me so herself, and I know that it is so. But if she becomes his wife—any man's wife but mine—I cannot live in this country."
He had not said one word of that state of things in his life's history of which the country side was so full. He had spoken of Herbert, but he had not alluded to Herbert's fall. He had spoken of such hope as he still might have with reference to Clara Desmond; but he did not make the slightest reference to that change in his fortunes—in his fortunes, and in those of his rival—which might have so strong a bias on those hopes, and which ought so to have in the minds of all worldly, prudent people. It was to speak of this specially that Lord Desmond had come thither; and then, if opportunity should offer, to lead away the subject to that other one; but now Owen had begun at the wrong end. If called upon to speak about his sister at once, what could the brother say, except that she was engaged to Herbert Fitzgerald?
"Tell me this, Desmond, whom does your sister love?" said Owen, speaking almost fiercely in his earnestness. "I know so much of you, at any rate, that whatever may be your feelings you will not lie to me,"—thereby communicating to the young lord an accusation, which he very well understood, against the truth of the countess, his mother.
"When I have spoken to her about this she declares that she is engaged to Herbert Fitzgerald."
"Engaged to him! yes, I know that; I do not doubt that. It has been dinned into my ears now for the last six months till it is impossible to doubt it. And she will marry him too, if no one interferes to prevent it. I do not doubt that either. But, Desmond, that is not the question that I have asked. She did love me; and then she was ordered by her mother to abandon that love, and to give her heart to another. That in words she has been obedient, I know well; but what I doubt is this,—that she has in truth been able so to chuck her heart about like a shuttlecock. I can only say that I am not able to do it."
How was the earl to answer him? The very line of argument which Owen's mind was taking was exactly that which the young lord himself desired to promote. He too was desirous that Clara should go back to her first love. He himself thought strongly that Owen was a man more fitted than Herbert for the worshipful adoration of such a girl as his sister Clara. But then he, Desmond, had opposed the match while Owen was poor, and how was he to frame words by which he might encourage it now that Owen was rich?
"I have been so little with her, that I hardly know," he said. "But,Owen—"
"Well?"
"It is so difficult for me to talk to you about all this."
"Is it?"
"Why, yes. You know that I have always liked you—always. No chap was ever such a friend to me as you have been;" and he squeezed Owen's arm with strong boyish love.
"I know all about it," said Owen.
"Well; then all that happened about Clara. I was young then, you know,"—he was now sixteen—"and had not thought anything about it. The idea of you and Clara falling in love had never occurred to me. Boys are so blind, you know. But when it did happen—you remember that day, old fellow, when you and I met down at the gate?"
"Remember it!" said Owen. He would remember it, as he thought, when half an eternity should have passed over his head.
"And I told you then what I thought. I don't think I am a particular fellow myself about money and rank and that sort of thing. I am as poor as a church mouse, and so I shall always remain; and for myself I don't care about it. But for one's sister, Owen—you never had a sister, had you?"
"Never," said Owen, hardly thinking of the question.
"One is obliged to think of such things for her. We should all go to rack and ruin, the whole family of us, box and dice,—as indeed we have pretty well already—if some of us did not begin to look about us. I don't suppose I shall ever marry and have a family. I couldn't afford it, you know. And in that case Clara's son would be Earl of Desmond; or if I died she would be Countess of Desmond in her own right." And the young lord looked the personification of family prudence.
"I know all that," said Owen; "but you do not suppose that I was thinking of it?"
"What; as regards yourself. No; I am sure you never did. But, looking to all that, it would never have done for her to marry a man as poor as you were. It is not a comfortable thing to be a very poor nobleman, I can tell you."
Owen again remained silent. He wanted to talk the earl over into favouring his views, but he wanted to do so as Owen of Hap House, not as Owen of Castle Richmond. He perceived at once from the tone of the boy's voice, and even from his words, that there was no longer anything to be feared from the brother's opposition; and perceiving this, he thought that the mother's opposition might now perhaps also be removed. But it was quite manifest that this had come from what was supposed to be his altered position. "A man as poor as you were," Lord Desmond had said, urging that though now the marriage might be well enough, in those former days it would have been madness. The line of argument was very clear; but as Owen was as poor as ever, and intended to remain so, there was nothing in it to comfort him.
"I cannot say that I, myself, have so much worldly wisdom as you have," said he at last, with something like a sneer.
"Ah, that is just what I knew you would say. You think that I am coming to you now, and offering to make up matters between you and Clara because you are rich!"
"But can you make up matters between me and Clara?" said Owen, eagerly.
"Well, I do not know. The countess seems to think it might be so."
And then again Owen was silent, walking about the room with his hands behind his back. Then after all the one thing of this world which his eye regarded as desirable was within his reach. He had then been right in supposing that that face which had once looked up to his so full of love had been a true reflex of the girl's heart,—that it had indicated to him love which was not changeable. It was true that Clara, having accepted a suitor at her mother's order, might now be allowed to come back to him! As he thought of this, he wondered at the endurance and obedience of a woman's heart which could thus give up all that it held as sacred at the instance of another. But even this, though it was but little flattering to Clara, by no means lessened the transport which he felt. He had had that pride in himself, that he had never ceased to believe that she loved him. Full of that thought, of which he had not dared to speak, he had gone about, gloomily miserable since the news of her engagement with Herbert had reached him, and now he learned, as he thought with certainty, that his belief had been well grounded. Through all that had passed Clara Desmond did love him still!
But as to this overture of reconciliation that was now made to him; how was he to accept it or reject it? It was made to him because he was believed to be Sir Owen Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond, a baronet of twelve thousand a year, instead of a poor squire, whose wife would have to look narrowly to the kitchen, in order that food in sufficiency might be forthcoming for the parlour. That he would become Sir Owen he thought probable; but that he would be Sir Owen of Hap House and not of Castle Richmond he had firmly resolved. He had thought of this for long hours and hours together, and felt that he could never again be happy were he to put his foot into that house as its owner. Every tenant would scorn him, every servant would hate him, every neighbour would condemn him; but this would be as nothing to his hatred of himself, to his own scorn and his own condemnation. And yet how great was the temptation to him now! If he would consent to call himself master of Castle Richmond, Clara's hand might still be his.