His lordship welcomed the appearance of the two young people as a relief from the further discussion of a painful topic.
‘So, young madam,’ he said to Dulcie, pinching her ear, ‘you’ve come back! And where have you been all the afternoon?’
‘On the sands,’ said Dulcie. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’ she asked, kissing him in a coaxing fashion, for the tone in which he had spoken was a little sharp. ‘I was so sorry to hear that you had been upset.’
‘It wouldn’t have happened if you had been at the table,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘I suppose I have to thankyou, sir,’ he continued to Desmond, ‘for her absence? You’re pretty spectacles, the pair of you,’ he went on, looking at the disordered dresses, flushed faces and untidy hair of the young couple. ‘You’ve been up to some mischief, I suppose?’
‘Not this time,’ said Desmond, smiling. ‘Hold your tongue, boy!’ snapped his lordship, with sudden and inexplicable ill-temper. ‘Don’t bandy words with me—hold your tongue!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Desmond.
‘Can’t you find something better to do than to go wandering about the place, mixing with all the loafers and blackguards in the county? Can’t you speak? You can chatter fast enough when you’re not asked to.’
‘You told me to hold my tongue, sir,’ said Desmond, falling back on Irish prevarication and broadening his brogue.
‘I shall have to take some order with you, sir,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘Come to my study to-morrow after breakfast. It’s time you were doing something—time you began to think of—of your future. There, there,’ he continued, patting Desmond’s shoulder, ‘I’m not angry with you, my boy. I’ve been upset, and in my state of health the least thing excites me—ask Peebles.’
‘Ay,’ said the Scot, ‘that’s true—you’ve a troublesome temper.’
‘Never mind,’ said Dulcie; ‘we’ll coddle you up and comfort you. I’ll play a game of backgammon with you, and if that doesn’t cure you, I’ll send over to Galway for mamma.’
‘For your mother!’ cried Kilpatrick. ‘My sister Matilda!’
‘She’s a capital nurse,’ said Dulcie. ‘She’ll set you right in a jiffy—as Desmond would say.’ The bit of slang passed unnoticed by his lordship in his terror at the suggestion it conveyed.
‘Good heavens, child! Matilda will be praying over me day and night. I’m not quite so bad as that—I won’t be prayed over; but for this little cardiac weakness, I’m in excellent condition. Ask Peebles. There, there, go and get your dinner, and take Desmond with you.’
‘I shall come back afterwards,’ said Dulcie.
‘Yes, yes!’ said her uncle. ‘Come back by-and-by and give me my game of backgammon.’
‘I met Mr. Blake on the road, sir,’ said Desmond. ‘He asked me to deliver a message to your lordship.’
‘Well,’ snapped Kilpatrick, ‘what has the drunken brute to say to me?’
‘Just to apologize for what he did and said this afternoon.’
‘His repentance is mighty sudden,’ said Kilpatrick.
‘He didn’t repent at all till Desmond talked to him,’ said Dulcie, glad to get in a word in favour of her sweetheart.
‘So you’ve been giving Blake a lesson in manners, eh?’ said the old man. ‘And what did you say to him, and how did he take it?’
Desmond recounted the interview.
‘He took it like mother’s milk, sir. Sure he knew he was in the wrong. He’s not a bad fellow, if you know how to humour him.’
Peebles coughed behind his hand a dubious note, and Kilpatrick, catching the old man’s eye, said with something of his former testiness:
‘Well, well, that will do—go and eat your dinner. Peebles, wait on Lady Dulcie.’
The two young people and the old servitor left the room together, and Kilpatrick, sinking back into the seat he had quitted, sat for some time plunged in silent thought. Conseltine, leaning against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, took advantage of the shadow with which the room was filled, and of his brother’s abstraction, to watch him narrowly. The old lord sighed once or twice, and gave one or two movements of impatience, and once the sound of a broken murmur reached Conseltine’s ear, in which he distinguished only the word ‘Moya.’
‘Dick,’ said Kilpatrick, suddenly turning towards him, ‘I must provide at once for Desmond—I simply must do it—I should be a cad if I didn’t.’
The intently watchful look which Conseltine’s face had worn was replaced by his general expression of suavity as he came forward into the ray of light which was yet coming through the great oriel window.
‘My dear Henry,’ he said smoothly, ‘you are perfectly right. ’Tis the dictate of nature and justice—it does you credit.’ Kilpatrick, who was anything but a fool, looked at his brother with a curious, quick, questioning glance. Conseltine replied to it as if to a speech.
‘I know, my dear Henry, I know! You’ve been thinking me grasping, and avaricious, and heartless, all this time, now, haven’t you? And why? Just because I’ve felt it my duty, as your brother and Richard’s father, to safeguard the interests of the family. The title goes to Richard, anyhow; and ’tis but common-sense, as you said just now yourself, that the bulk of the property should go with it. ’Tis mighty little I can leave him, and a lord without soil to his foot or a guinea in his pocket would be a queer spectacle, wouldn’t he? ’Tis not Lord Kilpatrick, anyhow, that shall be seen in that predicament; but you can provide for Desmond, too. You can give him all he has a right to expect, and still leave enough for Richard.’
The argument was unanswerable, the manner and voice with which it was put were suave, persuasive, honest; but Kilpatrick’s only answer was to shoot another quick, questioning glance at his brother’s face, and to tap the carpet with his foot.
‘What would you call a proper provision?’ he asked, after an interval of silence.
‘Give the boy a profession, and—well, some hundreds a year. He’s bright and clever, and with that income, and a calling in his fingers, if he can’t make his way in the world, ’tis a pity.’
‘A profession!’ said Kilpatrick musingly. ‘I don’t know what the boy’s fit for, unless it’s for a soldier or a sailor.’
‘Bad pay and poor prospects,’ said Conseltine. ‘Why not the Church?’
His lordship went off into a sudden cackle of laughter.
‘The Church! Fancy Desmond a priest! Faith, ’twould be a pretty parish that he had charge of!’
‘The bar?’ suggested his brother.
‘No; Desmond hates lawyers almost as much as Blake himself—it’s in the blood, I suppose—I’m none too fond of them myself. I’ll think it over, Dick, I’ll think it over; don’t bother me about it any more at present. Nothing shall be done without your knowledge and—without your knowledge, at all events.’
‘You are tired?’ asked Conseltine.
‘Yes, tired to death.’
‘Well, I’ll leave you to yourself. Goodnight; sleep well, and you’ll be as sound as a trout in the morning. I’ll send up Peebles to help you to undress.’
He went; and Kilpatrick, rising from his seat, began to pace the room from end to end among the gathering shadows.
‘What the devil makes Dick Conseltine so tender all of a sudden?’ he asked himself. ‘Dictate of nature and justice, indeed! He hates the boy like poison, that I’m sure of. I can see it in his eye, sly and smooth as he is, every time he looks at him; and so does that bull-headed young fool, his son. It’s natural, I suppose. Faith, then, one sees the hatred that money breeds—brother hating brother, father hating son, son father; the meanness, lying, ingratitude, intriguing; I’d rather be the poorest peasant on my estate. I’d rather be Desmond, poor boy; he knows his friends, at least. Nobody cajoles and flatters him.’
He fell silent again, and paced the room with a slower step.
‘Poor Moya! Gad! how it all comes back to me! If she had been only a little more of a lady, just a shade more possible as my wife! She was a lady in heart and feeling; the truest I ever met, I think. I threw away a jewel when I cast her off—nineteen years ago.
‘Nineteen years ago this month, and it is all as clear and vivid as if it had happened yesterday. Poor girl! I can see her face now as it was when I broke the secret to her. It will haunt me till I die, and after, if all tales are true. I was a scoundrel! It was a vile business. There are moments when I think Peebles is right: that it is my plain duty to let family considerations slide, own the boy, and leave him all. It wrings my heart to see him, handsome, manly, courageous, loved by everybody—my son! my own son!—and then look at that long-shanked cub of Dick’s, and think that he, Desmond, is worth a million of him, worth a planetful of the stupid, ugly cur. How like his mother he is! Sometimes he frightens me; it is as if the dead came out of the grave to accuse me.’
He paused in his walk, and looked round the darkened chamber as if he feared an actual hidden presence there; then he walked to his desk, struck a match, and applied it to the wick of a small shaded reading-lamp; then, stealthily, and with more than one glance over his shoulder, he unlocked the desk, touched a spring, and drew from a secret drawer a scrap of paper and a miniature portrait. It was to the paper he gave his first attention. The writing, originally bold and heavy, had faded to a faint rusty red, the paper was stained and spotted. ‘Take your child,’ he read falteringly; ‘and as you use him may God use you.’ He sat staring at the flame of the lamp, blurred by the mist of gathering tears.
‘As you use him, may God use you,’ he repeated half aloud. ‘I’ll do my duty by the boy—Imust!Before God, if Moya were alive!—No, even that wouldn’t mend matters—it wouldn’t even mend her broken heart. It was not that she wasn’t my lady—not that her vanity was wounded—it was the treachery! She loved me—she thought me an honest man. It was her pride in me that was broken. God forgive me! I acted like a villain!’
He took up the portrait and bent his eyes upon it with a long, regretful gaze. It was the work of a true artist, who had caught and reproduced with actual fidelity the features and expression of the proud and tender girl Kilpatrick had betrayed. The bright, gay face, instinct with youth and happiness, beamed from the picture; the sensitive lips seemed almost to tremble as the world-worn old man gazed at them. The dress was that of the better class of an Irish peasant of twenty years ago; but the hand which held the shawl about the throat wore jewelled rings.
‘She sent back the rings—every scrap and every rag I’d ever given her,’ said Kilpatrick. They lay in the secret drawer, and rattled as his blanched fingers drew them forth. ‘She wouldn’t wear the dress I’d given her when she had this taken. “Let me be as I was when you first knew me, when the great lord wasn’t ashamed to tell the poor girl he loved her.”’
With a sudden passionate gesture of love and remorse, he carried the picture to his lips.
‘My lord!’ said a voice so startlingly close that it seemed to be at his very ear. Kilpatrick turned with a start and beheld a dim form standing in the shadow of the door.
‘Confound you!’ he said. ‘Who is it?’
‘Just Peebles,’ said that worthy with his usual slow Scotch drawl.
‘Confound you,’ said his lordship again, ‘why didn’t you knock?’
‘I knocked twice,’ said Peebles, ‘and got nae answer. Mr. Conseltine told me ye needed me.’
Kilpatrick dropped the letter and the miniature back into the desk and closed and locked it before speaking again.
‘Is Feagus still below?’
‘Ay,’ said Peebles. ‘He’s drinking with Mr. Conseltine and Mr. Richard. He’s just as drunk as a lord—begging your lordship’s pardon. It’s an old proverb, and like the most o’ proverbs, it has its exceptions.’
‘Drunk, eh?’ said his lordship musingly.
‘Verra drunk!’ said Peebles. ‘It’s seldom he gets such liquor as comes out o’ your cellar, my lord.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Kilpatrick absently; ‘I suppose so. Well, you can help me to undress, Peebles, and then you can tell Mr. Feagus—you can tell him—tell him I’ll write him regarding the business I have in hand.’
Peebles, his face hidden in the darkness which surrounded the little circle of light cast by the reading-lamp, smiled sourly.
‘Verra weel, my lord,’ he said; and Kilpatrick, rising, accepted his arm as a support to his bedroom.
Half an hour later Peebles descended to the dining-room, where he found Mr. Feagus with his head on the table and one arm curled lovingly round an empty bottle.
It took some trouble to rouse him, and even when awakened he was for a time oblivious of his surroundings. At last, dimly defining the figure of Peebles, he took him for Blake, and rising with a sort of paralytic alertness, bade the old man stand upon his defence. Peebles, from a safe distance, proclaimed his identity; thereupon the lawyer, relinquishing his pugnacious ardour, wept copiously, and would have embraced him.
‘Gang hame—gang hame, now!’ said Peebles, repulsing him; thereupon Mr. Feagus’s tears ran faster. ‘My lord will send for ye if he should hae need o’ ye.’
‘You’ll come and have a drink with me, just for the sake of old times, Mr. Peebles?’ said Feagus.
‘Ye’ve had drink enough,’ said Peebles; ‘gang hame!’ and bundled him through the French window opening on the lawn. Finding himself in the open air, Feagus made straight by instinct for the high road. Peebles stood at the window watching him tacking and reeling along the path until he had passed out of sight, and was about to return and close the window, when he heard a voice hailing him—
‘Misther Paybles! Misther Paybles!’ Peering into the darkness, he made out a dim form approaching him.
‘Who is it?’ he asked.
‘’Tis me, sure—Larry.’
Peebles recognised the lad, a henchman of Desmond’s, a village loafer, generally to be found in the company either of the Squireen or of Lady Dulcie’s maid, Rosie.
‘Weel, Larry! What hae ye there?’
‘’Tis a letther!’ panted Larry.
‘For my lord?’
‘No, ’tis for yourself.’
‘And where did ye get it?’
‘I met a poor woman at the foot o’ the hill, and she asked me if I knew one Misther Paybles. “Sure I do,” says I. “Then,” ses she, “will ye earn the blessin’ on a poor craythur by givin’ this into his own hand?” “I will,” ses I—and here I am.’
Peebles accepted the scrap of paper Larry held out to him, and walking to the chimneypiece, read it by the light of the lamp: ‘One who comes from Kenmare, and who knew Moya Macartney’—he started, but, remembering Larry’s presence, controlled himself and read on—‘would like to speak with him who was the best of friends to that poor colleen before she died. Will you meet the writer at ten tomorrow night in the churchyard by the lake-side and hear her message, for poor Moya’s sake?’
Peebles stood silent for a moment, the paper shaking in his fingers.
‘Who gave ye this, did ye say?’ he asked.
‘A stranger,’ said Larry. ‘She said there was no answer.’
‘Verra weel,’ said Peebles, in a tone as near commonplace as he could make it. ‘I’ll attend to it.’ Larry saluted and vanished.
Left alone, Peebles mused:
‘What’s the meaning of this? What mystery’s here? A droll kind o’ message, and a droll kind o’ place for an appointment, and a droll hour o’ the night for a respectable man to be gadding about a kirkyard. Weel, weel! Maybe it’s one of Moya’s kin anxious to hear news aboot the bairn. Be she friend or foe, angel or deil, I’ll be there.’
Mr. Richard Conseltine, junior, was not a young man of brilliant parts, but, like most intellectually slow people, he made up for the paucity of his ideas by the intensity with which he dwelt on those he possessed. He had made up his mind quite easily and naturally that his uncle’s belongings should come to him in their entirety along with the title. He had grown to early manhood in the unquestioning belief that such would be the case.
But now, to his amazement, he had learned of the real relationship existing between his uncle and the Squireen. Up to that moment, Mr. Conseltine had thought it well to keep the knowledge from his son.
The two boys had hated each other, almost at first sight, with a quiet instinctive ferocity as of cat and dog. In his sullen grudging fashion Richard detested all who were not subservient to his wishes and interests, and especially hated anybody who was his superior in matters in which he most desired to excel. Desmond, as bright and quick as he himself was lumpish and dull, compared with him to his disadvantage at every turn. The poor Squireen, who owned not a single acre of soil, and was dependent upon Richard’s uncle for his daily bread, for the clothes he wore, was the idol of the district. Mr. Richard Conseltine, the independent young gentleman of birth and means, was everywhere tacitly, and not unfrequently overtly, set at naught. In those exercises which are popular in all rural districts, and especially among the sport-loving people of Ireland, Desmond was easily Richard’s master. He was the best shot, rider, angler, boxer, dancer, and fly-fisherman of his years in the county. He was handsome in person, and had with all women, young or old, that serene and beautiful assurance which of all masculine qualities recommends itself most instantly to the feminine heart.
All women loved him, and did their best to spoil him. Every man and boy on the estate was his willing servant and accomplice in the freaks and frolics and breaches of discipline in which he delighted, confident that the simple excuse, ‘’Twas the Squireen that asked me,’ would be quite sufficient to calm the wrath of my lord or his agent, or even of the dreaded Mr. Peebles, before whom, it was popularly believed, even his lordship trembled.
Richard could not but contrast this willing and eager service with the frigid obedience which was paid to him as the future owner of the soil. Had he been other than he was, he might have found a lesson in the contrast, and have penetrated the simple secret of Desmond’s popularity, which lay more in his sunny good-temper, his quick sympathy, his courage and generosity, than in the physical superiorities which so galled his cousin’s envious mind.
Ideas, it has been said, were not common with Richard, but the evening of the events just recorded was made additionally memorable to him by the implanting of a new one in his mind. He had happened to pass on the terrace below the open window of the drawing-room during the conversation held between Lord Kilpatrick and the faithful Peebles. The window was open, and the calm evening air had brought one single utterance of the old servant’s distinctly to his ears.
‘There’s just a chance,’ the deliberate Scotch voice had said, ‘that Desmond, when he kens ye’re his father, will refuse to tak’ a shilling o’ your money.’
Now, the moment Richard was made aware of Desmond’s illegitimacy, the secret began to tremble at his lips. He longed to dash the insolent triumph of the nameless adventurer who diminished his chances of succession, and by every morsel he ate seemed to lessen the future possessions of the rightful heir. He was only restrained from insulting Desmond on the score of his birth by his father’s strenuous assurance that to touch on that matter might be to lose his uncle’s favour at once and for ever. Conseltine senior had impressed that belief on him very forcibly. Richard rolled the sweet morsel of insolence round his tongue a score of times, with a rich anticipation of the time when it should be safe to humiliate his adversary by full publicity.
Peebles’ words came to him as a veritable revelation. For just a minute the solution of the whole difficulty, so long sought, so ardently desired, seemed almost ludicrously easy. He had only to acquaint the Squireen with the truth in order to secure the even greater and much more solid pleasure of inheriting his uncle’s estate. Then a doubt came and chilled him. We are all apt to fancy that our neighbour’s conduct in any given conditions will closely resemble our own conduct under like circumstances. Richard knew, and—no criminal being ashamed of his own instincts—confessed to himself quite openly and with no embarrassment, that if he, in Desmond’s place, had learned the secret of his birth, the effects of the knowledge would certainly not be those foreshadowed by Peebles. Rather the contrary! The stain on his name would have been an added claim on the generosity of the father who had so wronged him. Still, a fiery-tempered fool like Desmond might think differently. Peebles’ words stuck in his mind, and returned during the night with a constant reiteration, keeping sleep at arm’s length. Again and again his clumsy imagination tried to realize the effects of the betrayal of the secret, until he determined to take the trouble to his father, and consult with him as to the best line of conduct to be followed.
He descended to the breakfast-table to find my lord and his father seated together there, attended by Peebles, but neither Desmond nor Dulcie was present. In answer to a remark on their absence from Kilpatrick, Peebles deposed to having heard them laughing and talking on the lawn at least three hours earlier, and suggested that they had gone on one of their eternal excursions. Breakfast was almost over when they appeared, flushed and radiant. Kilpatrick had shown some testiness in remarking their absence, but Dulcie’s good-morning kiss had quite dissipated his gloom, and he listened with a goodtempered smile to their chatter about the morning’s adventures.
‘Don’t forget to come to the study, Desmond,’ he said, as he rose and passed out on to the terrace with his newspaper.
‘All right, sir,’ said Desmond. Conseltine also withdrew, leaving the three young people together, Richard sitting apart, and scowling angrily at Dulcie and her companion, who ignored his presence completely.
‘Dulcie,’ he said suddenly, ‘won’t you come into the drawing-room and teach me that song? You promised, you know.’
‘Not now,’ said the girl, ‘I’m busy. I’ve got to go and look out my fishing-tackle.’
‘Are you going fishing?’ asked Richard. ‘Yes,’ said Desmond; ‘she’s going with me.’
‘I wasn’t addressing you,’ said Richard.
‘Thank you for the honour you do me in not addressing me!’ said Desmond quietly.
There was something in Richard’s manner which the lad could not define, something more than usually insolent and offensive.
‘I really think, Dulcie,’ said Richard, ‘that you might give us a little of your company now and then, instead of running all over the county like a madcap with all the tatterdemalions in the village. I wish we were back in Dublin, with civilized people about us.’
‘Really, Mr. Conseltine,’ said Dulcie quietly, but with a manner which marked her sense of the side-sneer at Desmond, ‘I can choose my society without your assistance.’
The lowering look which always rested on Richard’s heavy features deepened.
‘No, you can’t,’ he said roughly; ‘or, at all events, you don’t. You’re getting yourself talked about all over the county, wandering about like a girl off the hillside with any vagabond who——’
‘I beg your pardon,’ interrupted Desmond, with great smoothness of manner, but with a dangerous glitter in his eyes, ‘but civility costs nothing, Mr. Richard. Were you alluding to me at all?’
‘Well,’ said Richard, trying hard to revert to his usual manner of heavy insolence, but speaking angrily, ‘and what if I was?’
‘Why——’ returned Desmond, rising.
‘Don’t be afraid, Lady Dulcie, I’m not going to quarrel. If I’ve said or done anything to give offence to this kind, civil-spoken, amiable young gentleman, I’m willing and anxious to apologize. What’s my offence, sir?’
‘You hang too much about the Castle,’ said Richard. ‘I know his lordship encourages you, but you ought to know better than to presume on his good-nature.’
‘Don’t you think,’ said Desmond quietly, ‘that you might leave his lordship to say that?’
‘You’re not fit company for my cousin,’ cried Richard hotly.
Dulcie rose with an exclamation of anger, but Desmond laid his hand upon her arm, and she remained silent.
‘And don’t you think,’ continued Desmond again, ‘that you might leave that for your cousin to say? She hasn’t said it yet.’ ‘Said it!’ cried Dulcie, in a white heat of anger; ‘why should I say it? A gentleman is fit company for anybody.’
‘A gentleman!’ sneered Richard. ‘A gentleman! Yes, but you should be able to tell the difference between the real article and the counterfeit.’
‘Oh!’ said Desmond, quietly still, but with more keenly glittering eyes and a pulsating voice. ‘And I suppose I’m the counterfeit? Is that what you mean?’
‘That is just what I mean,’ returned Richard.
‘Then,’ said Desmond, ‘if Lady Dulcie will do us the honour to leave us to ourselves, or if you’ll kindly step out on the lawn, the counterfeit will give the real article a taste of his quality.’
‘Desmond!’ cried Dulcie.
‘All right, Lady Dulcie,’ said Desmond, soothing her with his hand, and keeping his eye on Richard’s face.
The girl let the endearing tone and action pass unregarded. They stung Richard to fury.
‘You beggar!’ he cried.
Desmond made a step towards him; Dulcie clung to him, beseeching him to be quiet.
‘Don’t be alarmed, now,’ said Desmond, with his Irish blood dancing in his veins, and his heart all aglow with love of battle. ‘We’re only going to have a small civil kind of a fight, just to see howrealhe is!’
Peebles, who had entered the room unobserved, overheard these last words, and came between the combatants, ‘Master Desmond,’ he said, ‘I’m surprised at ye. Ye’ll no’ disgrace his lordship’s house by brawling in it, as if ye were in a tap-room or a hillside shebeen?’
‘Stand out of the way, if you please, Mr. Peebles,’ said Desmond.
‘That I’ll no’ do,’ returned the old Scot. ‘Ye’ll just be a sensible lad, as I’ve always thought ye, and tell me what’s the trouble. You’re the calmest, Master Richard—what’s a’ the steer aboot?’
‘I warned that ruffian,’ said Richard, ‘to avoid my company. He retaliated, as you see, and——’
‘You insulted him cruelly!’ cried Dulcie, with a heaving breast, and a glitter of tears in her soft eyes. ‘Never mind him, Desmond—come away!’
‘Insulthim!’ cried Richard. Peebles’ presence, and the near neighbourhood of his lordship, gave him some sense of security, and Dulcie’s obvious sympathy with the object of his antagonism enraged him beyond all control. ‘Insulthim!By the powers! Ask him who and what he is, and then you’ll know what right he has to be in your company, or in the company of any young lady.’
The anger half faded from Desmond’s face, and gave way to something of a look of astonishment.
‘Who and what I am?’ he repeated. ‘Sure, I’m Desmond Macartney.’
Richard repeated the name, and gave a scornful laugh.
‘And who has anything to say against me? I’m as good a gentleman as yourself.’
‘That’s a lie,’ said Richard. ‘You’re a pauper, dependent on my uncle’s charity for bread.’
Peebles let out a slow growl of remonstrance and warning, through which Dulcie’s voice sounded like the clear note of a flute through the scraping of a violoncello.
‘For shame!’ she cried, her cheeks burning with a hot flush of generous indignation.
‘Shame!’ cried Richard. ‘If there’s any shame, it’s there!’ He pointed his finger straight at Desmond.
‘Hold your fool’s tongue!’ said Peebles gruffly.
‘I will speak!’ shouted Richard. ‘Everybody knows—he knows—that his mother was a common peasant woman, and that he is my uncle’s bastard!’
Desmond sprang past Peebles with a cry, and struck his traducer in the face.
‘Keep him off!’ cried Richard, white and reeling from the blow. ‘Curse you, Peebles, why don’t you keep him off?’
‘Ye fool!’ said Peebles, with angry contempt. ‘Ye pitiful, cowardly fool, ’twad serve ye right if he beat the life oot of your carcase!’
Desmond, blind with fury, had seized Richard by the throat.
‘Down on your knees!’ he cried.
‘Take back those words!’
Just then Kilpatrick’s gray face and trembling figure appeared at the room door—none but Peebles saw him.
‘Take them back!’ cried Desmond, raising his fist to strike again.
‘Let me go!’ cried Richard desperately.
Desmond’s hand slackened on his collar.
‘Speak!’ he cried. ‘Tell me, or I’ll strangle you! Is it the truth ye’ve told me? Is Lord Kilpatrick my father?’
‘Yes,’ cried Richard, ‘and you know it!’
Desmond released him, and fell back with a moan. Cur and coward as he knew the man to be, his words carried conviction. As by a lightning-flash, he read the meaning of a thousand details of his past life, which, thus illuminated, went to prove the truth.
‘My mother!’ he said. ‘My mother! No, no! Don’t say it—don’t say it! Don’t say it, for the love of God! I can’t bear it!’ He broke into a terrible sob.
‘Ye’re just the champion fool o’ my experience,’ said Peebles, as he passed Richard on his way to the door, to the frame of which Lord Kilpatrick was clinging, looking on the scene with haggard eyes.
‘You cad!’ said Dulcie, flinging the word at Richard like a missile.
‘Peebles! Desmond! What’s all this?’ cried his lordship.
‘The secret’s out, my lord,’ said Peebles. ‘The poor lad knows he’s your son.’
Kilpatrick looked with a ghastly face towards Desmond, who glared back at him like one turned to stone.
‘Uncle,’ cried Dulcie, ‘speak to him. Tell him it is not true.’
‘Itistrue,’ said Kilpatrick hoarsely.
Desmond, my boy, my son, speak to me!’
‘You!’’said Desmond. ‘You—you are my father?’
Lord Kilpatrick tottered into the room and fell into a chair.
‘And mymother,’ said Desmond—‘my mother? What ofher?’
‘She died, long years ago,’ said his lordship.
‘Who was she? Speak!’ cried Desmond—‘speak! I must know!’
‘She was named Moya Macartney,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘She was—she——’
‘She was not yourwife?’ said the boy. ‘Then I am—I am what he called me!’
‘Convention!’ cried Kilpatrick—‘mere convention! I acknowledge you as my son. Who will dare to point at you? Take witness, all of you!’ he cried, rising from his seat, ‘Desmond Macartney is my son. Those who will receive him and treat him as such are welcome here. Those who will not, let them go their ways.’
‘Uncle!’ cried Dulcie, ‘God bless you! Desmond——’
‘Hush, Lady Dulcie!’ cried Desmond. ‘Don’t speak to me now, or my heart will break. I was too happy to-day,’ he said brokenly; ‘I might have known that trouble was to come.’
Kilpatrick made a movement towards him.
‘Keep back!’ said Desmond. ‘Don’t come near me! I’mherson, not yours. I’ll never eat your bread, or call you father.’
So saying, he pushed his way past Peebles, who sought in vain to restrain him, and with one wild glance at the assembled group, rushed from the room and ran like a death-struck deer from Kilpatrick Castle.
On Desmond’s departure, Dulcie left the room, and ran swiftly to her own chamber. Her hurried ring at the bell was answered by her maid, Rosie.
‘Mr. Desmond has left the Castle,’ said Lady Dulcie. ‘He has had a misunderstanding with his lordship. Follow him, and tell him not to leave the village till he sees me. Quick!’
‘Sure, there’s no hurry,’ said Rosie coolly.
‘But there is!’ cried Dulcie. ‘The poor boy has quarrelled with Lord Kilpatrick, and vows that he will never come back.’
‘He’ll not lave the place without sayin’ farewell to the boys at Widdy Daly’s,’ said Rosie. ‘There’s a grand dance there to-night, and the whole counthryside will be there. I’ll just go to the shebeen, and tell the widdy and the boys to kape on the watch for ‘m, and lave word that I have a message for him from your ladyship.’
Rosie’s instinct had not deceived her, for that night Desmond was found sitting in the kitchen of the rude hostelry kept by the Widow Daly, listening to the strains of Patsey Doolan’s fiddle, and sombrely watching the dance of boys and colleens, in which, for the first time during their long experience of him, he had declined to take part. Rosie delivered her message. Desmond heard it with a half-averted face, which did not hide from the girl’s keen eyes a flush of pleasure on his cheek. He pressed her hand gratefully, but shook his head with a sad smile.
‘’Tis like her, Rosie—’tis like her. But that’s all over now. What can she have to say to a poor devil like me? She’s up there with the reigning government of angels, and I’m down here with the opposition. Well, never mind! The world’s wide, and there’s room in it somewhere for us all. Don’t stand staring at me there, Rosie, as if I was a show in a fair. There’s Larry dying to shake the rheumatism out of his legs. Play up, Patsey, you rogue, and put the music into their heels!’
‘Ye’ll dance yourself, Mr. Desmond?’ said Rosie. ‘I’d be proud to stand out on the floor wid ye.’
‘And, sure,’ said Larry, ‘I wouldn’t be jealous if ye did!’
‘No, no,’ said Desmond. ‘Go and enjoy yourselves, and leave me to myself. Play up, play up!’ he shouted wildly, ‘and the devil take the hindmost!’
Rosie and Larry left him with pitying glances. The dance proceeded, the Squireen sitting apart and looking on with haggard eyes at the mirth he had so often shared.
A sudden cessation of the music and the measured beat of feet upon the earthen floor made him look round. Lady Dulcie stood just within the door.
‘Lady Dulcie!’ Desmond cried in astonishment, and rose and went towards her. ‘What has brought you here?’
‘I’ve come to speak to you,’ she said.
‘Desmond, Imustspeak to you.’
‘But,’ replied the boy, ‘this is no place for you.’
‘It’s the place whereyouare,’ said the girl, with a tender look shining in her eyes, ‘and that’s enough for me.’
Larry, standing arrested with his arm about Rosie’s waist, caught the words.
‘D’ye hear that?’ he said to his partner. ‘Clare out, boys,’ cried the widow. ‘There’s the rale stuff in the next room and in a moment, as if by magic, the whole company melted away,—only Larry and Rosie lingering at the door.
Widow Daly wiped the seat of a stool for her guest, and set it for her.
‘Sit ye down, my lady. Ye’re kindly welcome.’
Dulcie sat, looking up in Desmond’s face.
‘She’s the light of his eyes,’ whispered Rosie to her sweetheart. ‘See how she looks at him.’
‘Ah!’ said Larry, ‘when will ye be afther lookin’ atmelike that?’
‘When your desarts are ayqual to your impudence!
She curtsied, and drew Larry from the room after the others. The Widow Daly followed, dropping an ecstatic curtsey before she disappeared.
There was a long pause. Desmond sat looking sadly at the fire.
‘Desmond!’
‘Yes, Lady Dulcie.’
‘Dulcie to you, now and always,’ she said, taking his hand.
‘Don’t, don’t!’ said the lad. ‘I can’t bear it. I’d rather you let me drift away from you like a leaf on the running water. I can bear all the rest, but not your pity.’
‘It’s not pity that brings me here,’ said the warm-hearted girl, with all her heart in her face. ‘It’s something more. I’ve come to ask your forgiveness.’
‘My forgiveness!’ cried Desmond. ‘For what?’
‘For all my foolish ways—my thoughtless words. I ought to have known better. But we were both so young. Well, I was a child this morning, but seeing your trouble, I feel to-night like an old, old woman.’
‘Ah! You’re still what you always were, Dulcie, sweet and beautiful. ’Twas on a sunny summer’s day God made ye, and ’Twas the brightest bit of work He ever did!’
‘You’re not going away, Desmond?’ she besought him.
‘I must,’ he answered.
‘I came to ask you for your father’s sake, for mine, to stay a little while. You will, Desmond? For my sake!’
‘They’re words to conjure with, Dulcie,’ said Desmond. ‘But sure I can’t. D’ye know what they’ll all be calling me? D’ye know what name they’ll soon be giving me? How can I stay and look you in the face?’
‘Oh, Desmond,’ she pleaded, ‘your father——’
‘Don’t spake of him!’ cried Desmond.
‘He loves you, Desmond. He’d give his right hand to put things right. If you will remain he will acknowledge you as his son—make you his heir.’
Desmond shook his head.
‘He can’t give me the one thing I want,’ said Desmond proudly and sadly. ‘He can’t take the blot off my name, the stain off my mother’s. He can’t turn back the years and bring her from the grave.’
‘He can make amends,’ said Dulcie. ‘He will.’
‘It’s too late for that, too,’ answered Desmond. ‘Ah, spare me, Dulcie! Don’t speak of it! Don’t remind me of my disgrace!’
‘Your disgrace?’ repeated Dulcie. ‘Where is the disgrace to you? Where there is no sin there can be no shame; and you are innocent. Desmond, there are others who care for you. There’s one,’ she added softly, ‘who would give all the world to see you happy. Don’t make her miserable by going away.’
‘You mean that?’ cried the boy. ‘No? Oh, Dulcie, don’t be too good to me! Don’t let me think you care for me!’
‘Why not, when I do care for you?’ returned the girl. ‘And I do, I do!’ She took his hand and rose from her seat. ‘I think you’re very ungrateful.’
‘Ungrateful! Toyou!’
‘Yes. You think me a child still, a doll, with no heart, or head, or will of my own. Ah! you don’t know me. If you were to say, now, “Dulcie, I want you,” I’d follow you to the end of the world.’
‘Dulcie!’ He stretched his arms towards her, but fell back and let them drop at his sides again. ‘I daren’t! I mustn’t! There’s a great black river running between you and me.’
Dulcie laughed with the old dashing spirit, so alien to his own.
‘Then show your pluck. Strip off your coat, plunge in, and swim across the river! I’ll help you up the bank when you reach the other side.’
‘Oh, Dulcie! my darling!’ Desmond caught her in his arms with a sudden gust of passion, and strained her to his breast.
‘Dulce, dulce domum!’ she said with another laugh, though her own eyes were brimming. ‘You maykissme if you like,’ she added with ineffable drollness. Choking with tears, he pressed his lips to her face. ‘That’s a dreadfully damp kiss. Sure, you’ve swallowed the river. No, you shan’t go. I’ve got you, and I mean to keep you.’
‘You—you love me, Dulcie?’ said Desmond, breathless with wonder and delight.
‘A wee little bit,’ said Dulcie; ‘just the least little bit in the world. Now, just sit down like a good sensible boy and listen to me. No more nonsense, if you please, about “shame” and “disgrace.” Our parents don’t consult us as to the how and the where of our being born, and I don’t see why we should trouble our heads aboutthem!A boy’s a boy, and a girl’s a girl, and this boy and girl quite understand each other. Don’t we?’ she asked, nestling up to him. ‘I never knew you to be so backward before, Desmond! That river has washed all the old impudence out of you.’
Her raillery could not altogether conquer Desmond’s gloom.
‘It can’t be, Dulcie. You’re only opening the door to a fool’s paradise for me. I’ve lived in one long enough. ’Tis time I came out and looked at the world as it is. It can never be. It’s madness to think of it. Even if it were different, even if the trouble had never fallen on me, I could never have hoped to win you. You’re a lady. I’m only the Squireen.’ ‘You’ve grown mighty humble all of a sudden,’ said Dulcie. ‘You weren’t like this only this afternoon. After I’d waded with you across the pool, you had the impudence to kiss my shoes.’
‘Sure I did,’ replied Desmond. ‘And I’m ready now to kiss your feet.’
‘That’s better,’ said Dulcie, nestling nearer yet. ‘That’s more like the old Desmond. But a boy of taste would look a little higher. The mouth’s prettier, and more “convanient,” as you’d call it. Ah!’ she continued, with a sudden gush of tenderness, ‘don’t think me too bold! don’t think me an outrageous little flirt! It wasn’t till I felt your trouble that I knew my own heart, and learned that I loved you so much.’ She broke into a sudden sob. ‘Tell me you’re not miserable any more!’
‘Miserable!’ cried Desmond, almost sobbing too; ‘I’m the most miserable and the happiest man in Ireland. But, oh, Dulcie, darling, I’ve sworn——’
‘But you mustn’t!’ said Dulcie, laying her fingers on his lips. ‘My sweetheart mustn’t swear.’
‘I mean, Dulcie, that while this shadow is over me I can never hold my head up again. I must leave this place. I’ve neither land nor title, father nor mother——’
‘I don’t want your land or your title,’ interrupted Dulcie, ‘nor your father and mother. I wantyou, and I’ve got you, and I shall keep you. Try to get away if you dare! You can’t!’
A sound behind them made them both start, and, turning quickly, Desmond beheld Peebles standing in the doorway. He turned away to brush the tears from his eyes, but Dulcie hailed the intruder with delight.
‘Come in, Mr. Peebles,’ she cried, ‘and talk to this stubborn boy. He won’t listen to me a bit.’
‘Is that so?’ said Peebles dryly, scratching at the scrap of gray whisker which decorated his cheek. ‘I thought jest noo he seemed very attentive to your discourse! Desmond, laddie,’ he continued, ‘my lord has sent me after you. Noo, noo, ye’ll just hear me deliver my message. He’s oot of his mind, almost, clean daft, and neither pancreatic emulsion nor leever pills will hae much power to help him through in this trouble, I’m thinking.’
‘Tell Lord Kilpatrick from me,’ said Desmond, when he could trust his voice, ‘that I’ve nothing more to say to him.’
‘Hoot, lad!’ said Peebles. ‘Blood’s thicker than water. Ye can’t shake off the ties of relationship in that fashion, and cast awa’ your father like an old glove. For, after all, ye ken, heisyour father.’
‘No!’ said Desmond. ‘He’s no father of mine.’
‘Then he himself is sairly mista’en,’ quoth the old servitor. ‘He’s been leevin’ for years under that impression!’
‘The man who broke my mother’s heart is neither kith nor kin to me! Dulcie, good-bye! God bless you for all your goodness. You must try to forget me.’
‘Oh, Desmond!’ cried the girl, ‘you can’t leave us; you can’t, dear. Stay! Stay for my sake, I implore you!’
‘To be pointed at by everyone as the wretched thing I am. To know that my mother’s name is a byword, and I myself am an outcast. You don’t know what it is you ask me. ’Tis more than I can do.’
‘For my sake, Desmond!’
‘I can’t,’ cried the poor, proud boy; ‘I can’t, even for your sake.’
‘And where are ye going?’ asked Peebles. ‘Eh, Desmond, lad, what will ye do?’
‘Do! Hide myself at any rate from those that have known me. The world’s wide, old friend; don’t fear for me!’
And he made a movement to the door.
‘Stop!’ cried Peebles. ‘Since yewillgang, listen to a word I hae to say to you. Never think shame o’ the mother that bore ye, Desmond.Ikenned her, lad; I kenned her weel. She was a brave woman, as true and honest as she was loving, and ’twas foryoursake that she took the weary road o’ death.’
Desmond broke into sobs again, and the old man, seeing him thus softened, went on:
‘There’s jest one thing ye’ll promise me, lad. Before ye gang awa’, see me once more, and maybe I can help ye yet.’
‘I’ll promise you that,’ said Desmond, ‘if you’ll give me a promise in return. You’ll tell me all about my mother?’
‘Ay, lad, I’ll tell ye all I ken. There’s no word o’ shame forherin all the story, whatever shame there may be for others.’
‘All I think of now,’ continued Desmond, ‘is the thought of the grief I brought her.’
‘Ne’er believe it, lad,’ cried the old man; ‘ne’er believe it. Ye brought her comfort and hope.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘Many’s the time I’ve grat o’er your cradle, and noo, old fool that I am, I’m greeting again. Bide a bit, lad; God may help us yet! There, there!’ he continued, as the impulsive young fellow threw his arms about him, ‘ye’ll not be for hugging old Peebles. Tak’ the little lass in your arms, and gieherone more kiss for luck!’
‘Desmond!’ cried Dulcie, stretching her arms to him.
‘My conscience!’ said Peebles, as the lovers embraced, ‘if I’d your youth, and siccan a mouth to kiss, I wadna care if the Deil himsel’ was my progenitor!’
‘Good-bye, my darling!’ sobbed Desmond. ‘Good-bye, and God Almighty bless ye! I must go. Good-bye, good-bye!’ He tore himself from her arms, and ran out of the house. Dulcie sank back upon a bench, and her tears ran unrestrainedly.
‘Tak’ heart, Lady Dulcie, tak’ heart,’ said the good old man, patting her shoulder with one hand, as he wiped his own eyes with the other. ‘It’s a sair trouble, but we’ll maybe reconcile them yet.’
‘Oh, Mr. Peebles!’ sobbed the girl. ‘I love him!’
‘Any fool could see that,’ said the old man, with a chuckle which was half a sob. ‘I love him, too, the rascal! Ye must hasten home, Lady Dulcie. My lord needs watching, and ’tis weel ye should be with him, for the boy’s sake.’
Dulcie dried her tears, and called Rosie, who answered the summons at once.
‘You’ll take care of him?’ she said to Peebles. ‘You’ll see that he comes to no harm?’
‘Trust me for that,’ said Peebles. ‘There, there, my bonny doo, tak’ comfort. He’ll be yours yet.’
‘Oh, how good you are!’ cried Dulcie. She threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him on either cheek with right goodwill. ‘That’s for Desmond’s sake. Mind, I trust inyou.’
Left alone, Peebles stood for some moments in a cataleptic condition, till he recovered his senses, and refreshed his brain with a liberal pinch of snuff from his waistcoat pocket.
‘Peebles, ye old villain!’ he said to himself, ‘what’s gone wi’ your morality, lettin’ the lassies kiss you at your age! Aweel! a kiss like that from a pure lass is better than a bad man’s blessing. Never fear, Lady Dulcie, nae mischief shall befall Desmond Macartney if I can save him.’