‘Is it true they have captured Donogan?’ said Nina, coming hurriedly into the library, where Walpole was busily engaged with his correspondence, and sat before a table covered not only with official documents, but a number of printed placards and handbills.
He looked up, surprised at her presence, and by the tone of familiarity in her question, for which he was in no way prepared, and for a second or two actually stared at without answering her.
‘Can’t you tell me? Are they correct in saying he has been caught?’ cried she impatiently.
‘Very far from it. There are the police returns up to last night from Meath, Kildare, and Dublin; and though he was seen at Naas, passed some hours in Dublin, and actually attended a night meeting at Kells, all trace of him has been since lost, and he has completely baffled us. By the Viceroy’s orders, I am now doubling the reward for his apprehension, and am prepared to offer a free pardon to any who shall give information about him, who may not actually have committed a felony.’
‘Is he so very dangerous, then?’
‘Every man who is so daring is dangerous here. The people have a sort of idolatry for reckless courage. It is not only that he has ventured to come back to the country where his life is sacrificed to the law, but he declares openly he is ready to offer himself as a representative for an Irish county, and to test in his own person whether the English will have the temerity to touch the man—the choice of the Irish people.’
‘He is bold,’ said she resolutely.
‘And I trust he will pay for his boldness! Our law-officers are prepared to treat him as a felon, irrespective of all claim to his character as a Member of Parliament.’
‘The danger will not deter him.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know it,’ was the calm reply.
‘Indeed,’ said he, bending a steady look at her. ‘What opportunities, might I ask, have you had to form this same opinion?’
‘Are not the public papers full of him? Have we not an almost daily record of his exploits? Do not your own rewards for his capture impart an almost fabulous value to his life?’
‘His portrait, too, may lend some interest to his story,’ said he, with a half-sneering smile. ‘They say this is very like him.’ And he handed a photograph as he spoke.
‘This was done in New York,’ said she, turning to the back of the card, the better to hide an emotion she could not entirely repress.
‘Yes, done by a brother Fenian, long since in our pay.’
‘How base all that sounds! how I detest such treachery!’
‘How deal with treason without it? Is it like him?’ asked he artlessly.
‘How should I know?’ said she, in a slightly hurried tone. ‘It is not like the portrait in theIllustrated News.’
‘I wonder which is the more like,’ added he thoughtfully, ‘and I fervently hope we shall soon know. There is not a man he confides in who has not engaged to betray him.’
‘I trust you feel proud of your achievement.’
‘No, not proud, but very anxious for its success. The perils of this country are too great for mere sensibilities. He who would extirpate a terrible disease must not fear the knife.’
‘Not if he even kill the patient?’ asked she.
‘That might happen, and would be to be deplored,’ said he, in the same unmoved tone. ‘But might I ask, whence has come all this interest for this cause, and how have you learned so much sympathy with these people?’
‘I read the newspapers,’ said she dryly.
‘You must read those of only one colour, then,’ said he slyly; ‘or perhaps it is the tone of comment you hear about you. Are your sentiments such as you daily listen to from Lord Kilgobbin and his family?’
‘I don’t know that they are. I suspect I’m more of a rebel than he is; but I’ll ask him if you wish it.’
‘On no account, I entreat you. It would compromise me seriously to hear such a discussion even in jest. Remember who I am, mademoiselle, and the office I hold.’
‘Your great frankness, Mr. Walpole, makes me sometimes forget both,’ said she, with well-acted humility.
‘I wish it would do something more,’ said he eagerly. ‘I wish it would inspire a little emulation, and make you deal as openly withmeas I long to do withyou.’
‘It might embarrass you very much, perhaps.’
‘As how?’ asked he, with a touch of tenderness in his voice.
For a second or two she made no answer, and then, faltering at each word, she said, ‘What if some rebel leader—this man Donogan, for instance—drawn towards you b some secret magic of trustfulness, moved by I know not what need of your sympathy—for there is such a craving void now and then felt in the heart—should tell you some secret thought of his nature—something that he could utter alone to himself—would you bring yourself to use it against him? Could you turn round and say, “I have your inmost soul in my keeping. You are mine now—mine—mine?”’
‘Do I understand you aright?’ said he earnestly. ‘Is it just possible, even possible, that you have that to confide to me which would show that you regard me as a dear friend?’
‘Oh! Mr. Walpole,’ burst she out passionately, ‘do not by the greater power ofyourintellect seek the mastery overmine. Let the loneliness and isolation of my life here rather appeal to you to pity than suggest the thought of influencing and dominating me.’
‘Would that I might. What would I not give or do to have that power that you speak of.’
‘Is this true?’ said she.
‘It is.’
‘Will you swear it?’
‘Most solemnly.’
She paused for a moment, and a slight tremor shook her mouth; but whether the motion expressed a sentiment of acute pain or a movement of repressed sarcasm, it was very difficult to determine.
‘What is it, then, that you would swear?’ asked she calmly and even coldly.
‘Swear that I have no hope so high, no ambition so great, as to win your heart.’
‘Indeed! And that other heart that you have won—what is to become of it?’
‘Its owner has recalled it. In fact, it was never inmykeeping but as a loan.’
‘How strange! At least, how strange to me this sounds. I, in my ignorance, thought that people pledged their very lives in these bargains.’
‘So it ought to be, and so it would be, if this world were not a web of petty interests and mean ambitions; and these, I grieve to say, will find their way into hearts that should be the home of very different sentiments. It was of this order was that compact with my cousin—for I will speak openly to you, knowing it is her to whom you allude. We were to have been married. It was an old engagement. Our friends—that is, I believe, the way to call them—liked it. They thought it a good thing for each of us. Indeed, making the dependants of a good family intermarry is an economy of patronage—the same plank rescues two from drowning. I believe—that is, I fear—we accepted all this in the same spirit. We were to love each other as much as we could, and our relations were to do their best for us.’
‘And now it is all over?’
‘All—and for ever.’
‘How came this about?’
‘At first by a jealousy aboutyou.’
‘A jealousy aboutme! You surely never dared—’ and here her voice trembled with real passion, while her eyes flashed angrily.
‘No, no. I am guiltless in the matter. It was that cur Atlee made the mischief. In a moment of weak trustfulness, I sent him over to Wales to assist my uncle in his correspondence. He, of course, got to know Lady Maude Bickerstaffe—by what arts he ingratiated himself into her confidence, I cannot say. Indeed, I had trusted that the fellow’s vulgarity would form an impassable barrier between them, and prevent all intimacy; but, apparently, I was wrong. He seems to have been the companion of her rides and drives, and under the pretext of doing some commissions for her in the bazaars of Constantinople, he got to correspond with her. So artful a fellow would well know what to make of such a privilege.’
‘And is he your successor now?’ asked she, with a look of almost undisguised insolence.
‘Scarcely that,’ said he, with a supercilious smile. ‘I think, if you had ever seen my cousin, you would scarcely have asked the question.’
‘But I have seen her. I saw her at the Odescalchi Palace at Rome. I remember the stare she was pleased to bestow on me as she swept past me. I remember more, her words as she asked, “Is this your Titian Girl I have heard so much of?”’
‘And may hear more of,’ muttered he, almost unconsciously.
‘Yes—even that too; but not, perhaps, in the sense you mean.’ Then, as if correcting herself, she went on, ‘It was a bold ambition of Mr. Atlee. I must say I like the very daring of it.’
‘Henever dared it—take my word for it.’
An insolent laugh was her first reply. ‘How little you men know of each other, and how less than little you know of us! You sneer at the people who are moved by sudden impulse, but you forget it is the squall upsets the boat.’
‘I believe I can follow what you mean. You would imply that my cousin’s breach withmemight have impelled her to listen to Atlee?’
‘Not so much that as, by establishing himself as her confidant, he got the key of her heart, and let himself in as he pleased.’
‘I suspect he found little to interest him there.’
‘The insufferable insolence of that speech! Can you men never be brought to see that we are not all alike to each of you; that our natures have their separate watchwords, and that the soul which would vibrate with tenderness to this, is to that a dead and senseless thing, with no trace or touch of feeling about it?’
‘I only believe this in part.’
‘Believe it wholly, then, or own that you know nothing of love—no more than do those countless thousands who go through life and never taste its real ecstasy, nor its real sorrow; who accept convenience, or caprice, or flattered vanity as its counterfeit, and live out the delusion in lives of discontent. You have done wrong to break with your cousin. It is clear to me you suited each other.’
‘This is sarcasm.’
‘If it is, I am sorry for it. I meant it for sincerity. Inyourcareer, ambition is everything. The woman that could aid you on your road would be the real helpmate. She who would simply cross your path by her sympathies, or her affections, would be a mere embarrassment. Take the very case before us. Would not Lady Maude point out to you how, by the capture of this rebel, you might so aid your friends as to establish a claim for recompense? Would she not impress you with the necessity of showing how your activity redounded to the credit of your party? She would neither interpose with ill-timed appeals to your pity or a misplaced sympathy.Shewould help the politician, while another might hamper the man.’
‘All that might be true, if the game of political life were played as it seems to be on the surface, and my cousin was exactly the sort of woman to use ordinary faculties with ability and acuteness; but there are scores of things in which her interference would have been hurtful, and her secrecy dubious. I will give you an instance, and it will serve to show my implicit confidence in yourself. Now with respect to this man, Donogan, there is nothing we wish less than to take him. To capture means to try—to try means to hang him—and how much better, or safer, or stronger are we when it is done? These fellows, right or wrong, represent opinions that are never controverted by the scaffold, and every man who dies for his convictions leaves a thousand disciples who never believed in him before. It is only because he braves us that we pursue him, and in the face of our opponents and Parliament we cannot do less. So that while we are offering large rewards for his apprehension, we would willingly give double the sum to know he had escaped. Talk of the supremacy of the Law—the more you assert that here, the more ungovernable is this country by a Party. An active Attorney-General is another word for three more regiments in Ireland.’
‘I follow you with some difficulty; but I see that you would like this man to get away, and how is that to be done?’
‘Easily enough, when once he knows that it will be safe for him to go north. He naturally fears the Orangemen of the northern counties. They will, however, do nothing without the police, and the police have got their orders throughout Antrim and Derry. Here—on this strip of paper—here are the secret instructions:—“To George Dargan, Chief Constable, Letterkenny District. Private and confidential.—It is, for many reasons, expedient that the convict Donogan, on a proper understanding that he will not return to Ireland, should be suffered to escape. If you are, therefore, in a position to extort a pledge from him to this extent—and it should be explicit and beyond all cavil—you will, taking due care not to compromise your authority in your office, aid him to leave the country, even to the extent of moneyed assistance.” To this are appended directions how he is to proceed to carry out these instructions: what he may, and what he may not do, with whom he may seek for co-operation, and where he is to maintain a guarded and careful secrecy. Now, in telling you all this, Mademoiselle Kostalergi, I have given you the strongest assurance in my power of the unlimited trust I have in you. I see how the questions that agitate this country interest you. I read the eagerness with which you watch them, but I want you to see more. I want you to see that the men who purpose to themselves the great task of extricating Ireland from her difficulties must be politicians in the highest sense of the word, and that you should see in us statesmen of an order that can weigh human passions and human emotions—and see that hope and fear, and terror and gratitude, sway the hearts of men who, to less observant eyes, seem to have no place in their natures but for rebellion. That this mode of governing Ireland is the one charm to the Celtic heart, all the Tory rule of the last fifty years, with its hangings and banishments and other terrible blunders, will soon convince you. The Priest alone has felt the pulse of this people, and we are the only Ministers of England who have taken the Priest into our confidence. I own to you I claim some credit for myself in this discovery. It was in long reflecting over the ills of Ireland that I came to see that where the malady has so much in its nature that is sensational and emotional, so must the remedy be sensational too. The Tories were ever bent on extirpating—wedevote ourselves to “healing measures.” Do you follow me?’
‘I do,’ said she thoughtfully.
‘Do I interest you?’ asked he, more tenderly.
‘Intensely,’ was the reply.
‘Oh, if I could but thinkthat. If I could bring myself to believe that the day would come, not only to secure your interest, but your aid and your assistance in this great task! I have long sought the opportunity to tell you that we, who hold the destinies of a people in our keeping, are not inferior to our great trust, that we are not mere creatures of a state department, small deities of the Olympus of office, but actual statesmen and rulers. Fortune has given me the wished-for moment, let it complete my happiness, let it tell me that you see in this noble work one worthy of your genius and your generosity, and that you would accept me as a fellow-labourer in the cause.’
The fervour which he threw into the utterance of these words contrasted strongly and strangely with the words themselves; so unlike the declaration of a lover’s passion.
‘I do—not—know,’ said she falteringly.
‘What is that you do not know?’ asked he, with tender eagerness.
‘I do not know if I understand you aright, and I do not know what answer I should give you.’
‘Will not your heart tell you?’
She shook her head.
‘You will not crush me with the thought that there is no pleading for me there.’
‘If you had desired in honesty my regard, you should not have prejudiced me: you began here by enlisting my sympathies in your Task; you told me of your ambitions. I like these ambitions.’
‘Why not share them?’ cried he passionately.
‘You seem to forget what you ask. A woman does not give her heart as a man joins a party or an administration. It is no question of an advantage based upon a compromise. There is no sentiment of gratitude, or recompense, or reward in the gift. She simply gives that which is no longer hers to retain! She trusts to what her mind will not stop to question—she goes where she cannot help but follow.’
‘How immeasurably greater your every word makes the prize of your love.’
‘It is in no vanity that I say I know it,’ said she calmly. ‘Let us speak no more on this now.’
‘But you will not refuse to listen to me, Nina?’
‘I will read you if you write to me,’ and with a wave of good-bye she slowly left the room.
‘She is my master, even at my own game,’ said Walpole, as he sat down, and rested his head between his hands. ‘Still she is mistaken: I can write just as vaguely as I can speak, and if I could not, it would have cost me my freedom this many a day. With such a woman one might venture high, but Heaven help him when he ceased to climb the mountain!’
It was so rare an event of late for Nina to seek her cousin in her own room, that Kate was somewhat surprised to see Nina enter with all her old ease of manner, and flinging away her hat carelessly, say, ‘Let me have a cup of tea, dearest, for I want to have a clear head and a calm mind for at least the next half-hour.’
‘It is almost time to dress for dinner, especially for you, Nina, who make a careful toilet.’
‘Perhaps I shall make less to-day, perhaps not go down to dinner at all. Do you know, child, I have every reason for agitation, and maiden bashfulness besides? Do you know I have had a proposal—a proposal in all form—from—but you shall guess whom.
‘Mr. O’Shea, of course.’
‘No, not Mr. O’Shea, though I am almost prepared for such a step on his part—nor from your brother Dick, who has been falling in and out of love with me for the last three months or more. My present conquest is the supremely arrogant, but now condescending, Mr. Walpole, who, for reasons of state and exigencies of party, has been led to believe that a pretty wife, with a certain amount of natural astuteness, might advance his interests, and tend to his promotion in public life; and with his old instincts as a gambler, he is actually ready to risk his fortunes on a single card, and I, the portionless Greek girl, with about the same advantages of family as of fortune—I am to be that queen of trumps on which he stands to win. And now, darling, the cup of tea, the cup of tea, if you want to hear more.’
While Kate was busy arranging the cups of a little tea-service that did duty in her dressing-room, Nina walked impatiently to and fro, talking with rapidity all the time.
‘The man is a greater fool than I thought him, and mistakes his native weakness of mind for originality. If you had heard the imbecile nonsense he talked to me for political shrewdness, and when he had shown me what a very poor creature he was, he made me the offer of himself! This was so far honest and above-board. It was saying in so many words, “You see, I am a bankrupt.” Now, I don’t like bankrupts, either of mind or money. Could he not have seen that he who seeks my favour must sue in another fashion?’
‘And so you refused him?’ said Kate, as she poured out her tea.
‘Far from it—I rather listened to his suit. I was so far curious to hear what he could plead in his behalf, that I bade him write it. Yes, dearest; it was a maxim of that very acute man my papa, that when a person makes you any dubious proposition in words, you oblige him to commit it to writing. Not necessarily to be used against him afterwards, but for this reason—and I can almost quote my papa’s phrase on the occasion—in the homage of his self-love, a man will rarely write himself such a knave as he will dare to own when he is talking, and in that act of weakness is the gain of the other party to the compact.’
‘I don’t think I understand you.’
‘I’m sure you do not; and you have put no sugar in my tea, which is worse. Do you mean to say that your clock is right, and that it is already nigh seven? Oh dear! and I, who have not told you one-half of my news, I must go and dress. I have a certain green silk with white roses which I mean to wear, and with my hair in that crimson Neapolitan net, it is a toiletà laminute.’
‘You know how it becomes you,’ said Kate, half slyly.
‘Of course I do, or in this critical moment of my life I should not risk it. It will have its own suggestive meaning too. It will recallce cherCecil to days at Baia, or wandering along the coast at Portici. I have known a fragment of lace, a flower, a few bars of a song, do more to link the broken chain of memory than scores of more laboured recollections; and then these little paths that lead you back are so simple, so free from all premeditation. Don’t you think so, dear?’
‘I do not know, and if it were not rude, I’d say I do not care?’
‘If my cup of tea were not so good, I should be offended, and leave the room after such a speech. But you do not know, you could not guess, the interesting things that I could tell you,’ cried she, with an almost breathless rapidity. ‘Just imagine that deep statesman, that profound plotter, telling me that they actually did not wish to capture Donogan—that they would rather that he should escape!’
‘He told you this?’
‘He did more: he showed me the secret instructions to his police creatures—I forget how they are called—showing what they might do to connive at his escape, and how they should—if they could—induce him to give some written pledge to leave Ireland for ever.’
‘Oh, this is impossible!’ cried Kate.
‘I could prove it to you, if I had not just sent off the veritable bit of writing by post. Yes, stare and look horrified if you like; it is all true. I stole the piece of paper with the secret directions, and sent it straight to Donogan, under cover to Archibald Casey, Esq., 9 Lower Gardner Street, Dublin.’
‘How could you have done such a thing?’
‘Say, how could I have done otherwise. Donogan now knows whether it will become him to sign this pact with the enemy. If he deem his life worth having at the price, it is well thatIshould know it.’
‘It is then of yourself you were thinking all the while.’
‘Of myself and of him. I do not say I love this man; but I do say his conduct now shall decide if he be worth loving. There’s the bell for dinner. You shall hear all I have to say this evening. What an interest it gives to life, even this much of plot and peril! Short of being with the rebel himself, Kate, and sharing his dangers, I know of nothing could have given me such delight.’
She turned back as she left the door, and said, ‘Make Mr. Walpole take you down to dinner to-day; I shall take Mr. O’Shea’s arm, or your brother’s.’
The address of Archibald Casey, which Nina had used on this occasion, was that of a well-known solicitor in Dublin, whose Conservative opinions placed him above all suspicion or distrust. One of his clients, however—a certain Mr. Maher—had been permitted to have letters occasionally addressed to him to Casey’s care; and Maher, being an old college friend of Donogan’s, afforded him this mode of receiving letters in times of unusual urgency or danger. Maher shared very slightly in Donogan’s opinions. He thought the men of the National party not only dangerous in themselves, but that they afforded a reason for many of the repressive laws which Englishmen passed with reference to Ireland. A friendship of early life, when both these young men were college students, had overcome such scruples, and Donogan had been permitted to have many letters marked simply with a D., which were sent under cover to Maher. This facility had, however, been granted so far back as ‘47, and had not been renewed in the interval, during which time the Archibald Casey of that period had died, and been succeeded by a son with the same name as his father.
When Nina, on looking over Donogan’s note-book, came upon this address, she saw also some almost illegible words, which implied that it was only to be employed as the last resort, or had been so used—a phrase she could not exactly determine what it meant. The present occasion—so emergent in every way—appeared to warrant both haste and security; and so, under cover to S. Maher, she wrote to Donogan in these words:—
‘I send you the words, in the original handwriting, of the instructions with regard to you. You will do what your honour and your conscience dictate. Do not write to me; the public papers will inform me what your decision has been, and I shall be satisfied, however it incline. I rely upon you to burn the inclosure.’
A suit-at-law, in which Casey acted as Maher’s attorney at this period, required that the letters addressed to his house for Maher should be opened and read; and though the letter D. on the outside might have suggested a caution, Casey either overlooked or misunderstood it, and broke the seal. Not knowing what to think of this document, which was without signature, and had no clue to the writer except the postmark of Kilgobbin, Casey hastened to lay the letter as it stood before the barrister who conducted Maher’s cause, and to ask his advice. The Right Hon. Paul Hartigan was an ex-Attorney-General of the Tory party—a zealous, active, but somewhat rash member of his party; still in the House, a member for Mallow, and far more eager for the return of his friends to power than the great man who dictated the tactics of the Opposition, and who with more of responsibility could calculate the chances of success.
Paul Hartigan’s estimate of the Whigs was such that it would have in nowise astonished him to discover that Mr. Gladstone was in close correspondence with O’Donovan Rossa, or that Chichester Fortescue had been sworn in as a head-centre. That the whole Cabinet were secretly Papists, and held weekly confession at the feet of Dr. Manning, he was prepared to prove. He did not vouch for Mr. Lowe; but he could produce the form of scapular worn by Mr. Gladstone, and had a facsimile of the scourge by which Mr. Cardwell diurnally chastened his natural instincts.
If, then, he expressed but small astonishment at this ‘traffic of the Government with rebellion,’ for so he called it—he lost no time in endeavouring to trace the writer of the letter, and ascertaining, so far as he might, the authenticity of the inclosure.
‘It’s all true, Casey,’ said he, a few days after his receipt of the papers. ‘The instructions are written by Cecil Walpole, the private secretary of Lord Danesbury. I have obtained several specimens of his writing. There is no attempt at disguise or concealment in this. I have learned, too, that the police-constable Dargan is one of their most trusted agents; and the only thing now to find out is, who is the writer of the letter, for up to this all we know is, the hand is a woman’s.’
Now it chanced that when Mr. Hartigan—who had taken great pains and bestowed much time to learn the story of the night attack on Kilgobbin, and wished to make the presence of Mr. Walpole on the scene the ground of a question in Parliament—had consulted the leader of the Opposition on the subject, he had met not only a distinct refusal of aid, but something very like a reproof for his ill-advised zeal. The Honourable Paul, not for the first time disposed to distrust the political loyalty that differed with his own ideas, now declared openly that he would not confide this great disclosure to the lukewarm advocacy of Mr. Disraeli; he would himself lay it before the House, and stand or fall by the result.
If the men who ‘stand or fall’ by any measure were counted, it is to be feared that they usually would be found not only in the category of the latter, but that they very rarely rise again, so very few are the matters which can be determined without some compromise, and so rare are the political questions which comprehend a distinct principle.
What warmed the Hartigan ardour, and, indeed, chafed it to a white heat on this occasion, was to see by the public papers that Daniel Donogan had been fixed on by the men of King’s County as the popular candidate, and a public meeting held at Kilbeggan to declare that the man who should oppose him at the hustings should be pronounced the enemy of Ireland. To show that while this man was advertised in theHue and Cry, with an immense reward for his apprehension, he was in secret protected by the Government, who actually condescended to treat with him; what an occasion would this afford for an attack that would revive the memories of Grattan’s scorn and Curran’s sarcasm, and declare to the senate of England that the men who led them were unworthy guardians of the national honour!
Whether Walpole found some peculiar difficulty in committing his intentions to writing, or whether the press of business which usually occupied his mornings served as an excuse, or whether he was satisfied with the progress of his suit by his personal assiduities, is not easy to say; but his attentions to Mademoiselle Kostalergi had now assumed the form which prudent mothers are wont to call ‘serious,’ and had already passed into that stage where small jealousies begin, and little episodes of anger and discontent are admitted as symptoms of the complaint.
In fact, he had got to think himself privileged to remonstrate against this, and to dictate that—a state, be it observed, which, whatever its effect upon the ‘lady of his love,’ makes a man particularly odious to the people around him, and he is singularly fortunate if it make him not ridiculous also.
The docile or submissive was not the remarkable element in Nina’s nature. She usually resisted advice, and resented anything like dictation from any quarter. Indeed, they who knew her best saw that, however open to casual influences, a direct show of guidance was sure to call up all her spirit of opposition. It was, then, a matter of actual astonishment to all to perceive not only how quietly and patiently she accepted Walpole’s comments and suggestions, but how implicitly she seemed to obey them.
All the little harmless freedoms of manner with Dick Kearney and O’Shea were now completely given up. No more was there between them that interchange of light persiflage which, presupposing some subject of common interest, is in itself a ground of intimacy.
She ceased to sing the songs that were their favourites. Her walks in the garden after breakfast, where her ready wit and genial pleasantry used to bring her a perfect troop of followers, were abandoned. The little projects of daily pleasure, hitherto her especial province, were changed for a calm subdued demeanour which, though devoid of all depression, wore the impress of a certain thoughtfulness and seriousness.
No man was less observant than old Kearney, and yet even he saw the change at last, and asked Kate what it might mean. ‘She is not ill, I hope,’ said he, ‘or is our humdrum life too wearisome to her?’
‘I do not suspect either,’ said Kate slowly. ‘I rather believe that as Mr. Walpole has paid her certain attentions, she has made the changes in her manner in deference to some wishes of his.’
‘He wants her to be more English, perhaps,’ said he sarcastically.
‘Perhaps so.’
‘Well, she is not born one of us, but she is like us all the same, and I’ll be sorely grieved if she’ll give up her light-heartedness and her pleasantry to win that Cockney.’
‘I think she has won the Cockney already, sir.’
A long low whistle was his reply. At last he said, ‘I suppose it’s a very grand conquest, and what the world calls “an elegant match”; but may I never see Easter, if I wouldn’t rather she’d marry a fine dashing young fellow over six feet high, like O’Shea there, than one of your gold-chain-and-locket young gentlemen who smile where they ought to laugh, and pick their way through life as a man crosses a stream on stepping-stones.’
‘Maybe she does not like Mr. O’Shea, sir.’
‘And do you think she likes the other man? or is it anything else than one of those mercenary attachments that you young ladies understand better, far better, than the most worldly-minded father or mother of us all?’
‘Mr. Walpole has not, I believe, any fortune, sir. There is nothing very dazzling in his position or his prospects.’
‘No. Not amongst his own set, nor with his own people—he is small enough there, I grant you; but when he come down to ours, Kitty, we think him a grandee of Spain; and if he was married into the family, we’d get off all his noble relations by heart, and soon start talking of our aunt, Lady Such-a-one, and Lord Somebody else, that was our first-cousin, till our neighbours would nearly die out of pure spite. Sitting down in one’s poverty, and thinking over one’s grand relations, is for all the world like Paddy eating his potatoes, and pointing at the red-herring—even the look of what he dare not taste flavours his meal.’
‘At least, sir, you have found an excuse for our conduct.’
‘Because we are all snobs, Kitty; because there is not a bit of honesty or manliness in our nature; and because our women, that need not be bargaining or borrowing—neither pawnbrokers nor usurers—are just as vulgar-minded as ourselves; and now that we have given twenty millions to get rid of slavery, like to show how they can keep it up in the old country, just out of defiance.’
‘If you disapprove of Mr. Walpole, sir, I believe it is full time you should say so.’
‘I neither approve nor disapprove of him. I don’t well know whether I have any right to do either—I mean so far as to influence her choice. He belongs to a sort of men I know as little about as I do of the Choctaw Indians. They have lives and notions and ways all unlike ours. The world is so civil to them that it prepares everything to their taste. If they want to shoot, the birds are cooped up in a cover, and only let fly when they’re ready. When they fish, the salmon are kept prepared to be caught; and if they make love, the young lady is just as ready to rise to the fly, and as willing to be bagged as either. Thank God, my darling, with all our barbarism, we have not come to that in Ireland.’
‘Here comes Mr. Walpole now, sir; and if I read his face aright, he has something of importance to say to you.’ Kate had barely time to leave the room as Walpole came forward with an open telegram and a mass of papers in his hand.
‘May I have a few moments of conversation with you?’ said he; and in the tone of his words, and a certain gravity in his manner, Kearney thought he could perceive what the communication portended.
‘I am at your orders,’ said Kearney, and he placed a chair for the other.
‘An incident has befallen my life here, Mr. Kearney, which, I grieve to say, may not only colour the whole of my future career, but not impossibly prove the barrier to my pursuit of public life.’
Kearney stared at him as he finished speaking, and the two men sat fixedly gazing on each other.
‘It is, I hasten to own, the one unpleasant, the one, the only one, disastrous event of a visit full of the happiest memories of my life. Of your generous and graceful hospitality, I cannot say half what I desire—’
‘Say nothing about my hospitality,’ said Kearney, whose irritation as to what the other called a disaster left him no place for any other sentiment; ‘but just tell me why you count this a misfortune.’
‘I call a misfortune, sir, what may not only depose me from my office and my station, but withdraw entirely from me the favour and protection of my uncle, Lord Danesbury.’
‘Then why the devil do you do it?’ cried Kearney angrily.
‘Why do I do what, sir? I am not aware of any action of mine you should question with such energy.’
‘I mean, if it only tends to ruin your prospects and disgust your family, why do you persist, sir? I was going to say more, and ask with what face you presume to come and tell these things tome?’
‘I am really unable to understand you, sir.’
‘Mayhap, we are both of us in the same predicament,’ cried Kearney, as he wiped his brow in proof of his confusion.
‘Had you accorded me a very little patience, I might, perhaps, have explained myself.’
Not trusting himself with a word, Kearney nodded, and the other went on: ‘The post this morning brought me, among other things, these two newspapers, with penmarks in the margin to direct my attention. This is theLily of Londonderry, a wild Orange print; this theBanner of Ulster, a journal of the same complexion. Here is what theLilysays: “Our county member, Sir Jonas Gettering, is now in a position to call the attention of Parliament to a document which will distinctly show how Her Majesty’s Ministers are not only in close correspondence with the leaders of Fenianism, but that Irish rebellion receives its support and comfort from the present Cabinet. Grave as this charge is, and momentous as would be the consequences of such an allegation if unfounded, we repeat that such a document is in existence, and that we who write these lines have held it in our hands and have perused it.”
‘TheBannercopies the paragraph, and adds, “We give all the publicity in our power to a statement which, from our personal knowledge, we can declare to be true. If the disclosures which a debate on this subject must inevitably lead to will not convince Englishmen that Ireland is now governed by a party whose falsehood and subtlety not even Machiavelli himself could justify, we are free to declare we are ready to join the Nationalists to-morrow, and to cry out for a Parliament in College Green, in preference to a Holy Inquisition at Westminster.”’
‘That fellow has blood in him,’ cried Kearney, with enthusiasm, ‘and I go a long way with him.’
‘That may be, sir, and I am sorry to hear it,’ said Walpole coldly; ‘but what I am concerned to tell you is, that the document or memorandum here alluded to was among my papers, and abstracted from them since I have been here.’
‘So that therewasactually such a paper?’ broke in Kearney.
‘There was a paper which the malevolence of a party journalist could convert to the support of such a charge. What concerns me more immediately is, that it has been stolen from my despatch-box.’
‘Are you certain of that?’
‘I believe I can prove it. The only day in which I was busied with these papers, I carried them down to the library, and with my own hands I brought them back to my room and placed them under lock and key at once. The box bears no trace of having been broken, so that the only solution is a key. Perhaps my own key may have been used to open it, for the document is gone.’
‘This is a bad business,’ said Kearney sorrowfully.
‘It is ruin tome,’ cried Walpole, with passion. ‘Here is a despatch from Lord Danesbury, commanding me immediately to go over to him in Wales, and I can guess easily what has occasioned the order.’
‘I’ll send for a force of Dublin detectives. I’ll write to the chief of the police. I’ll not rest till I have every one in the house examined on oath,’ cried Kearney. ‘What was it like? Was it a despatch—was it in an envelope?’
‘It was a mere memorandum—a piece of post-paper, and headed, “Draught of instruction touching D.D. Forward to chief constable of police at Letterkenny. October 9th.”’
‘But you had no direct correspondence with Donogan?’
‘I believe, sir, I need not assure you I had not. The malevolence of party has alone the merit of such an imputation. For reasons of state, we desired to observe a certain course towards the man, and Orange malignity is pleased to misrepresent and calumniate us.’
‘And can’t you say so in Parliament?’
‘So we will, sir, and the nation will believe us. Meanwhile, see the mischief that the miserable slander will reflect upon our administration here, and remember that the people who could alone contradict the story are those very Fenians who will benefit by its being believed.’
‘Do your suspicions point to any one in particular? Do you believe that Curtis—?’
‘I had it in my hand the day after he left.’
‘Was any one aware of its existence here but yourself?’
‘None—wait, I am wrong. Your niece saw it. She was in the library one day. I was engaged in writing, and as we grew to talk over the country, I chanced to show her the despatch.’
‘Let us ask her if she remembers whether any servant was about at the time, or happened to enter the room.’
‘I can myself answer that question. I know there was not.’
‘Let us call her down and see what she remembers,’ said Kearney.
‘I’d rather not, sir. A mere question in such a case would be offensive, and I would not risk the chance. What I would most wish is, to place my despatch-box, with the key, in your keeping, for the purposes of the inquiry, for I must start in half an hour. I have sent for post-horses to Moate, and ordered a special train to town. I shall, I hope, catch the eight o’clock boat for Holyhead, and be with his lordship before this time to-morrow. If I do not see the ladies, for I believe they are out walking, will you make my excuses and my adieux? my confusion and discomfiture will, I feel sure, plead for me. It would not be, perhaps, too much to ask for any information that a police inquiry might elicit; and if either of the young ladies would vouchsafe me a line to say what, if anything, has been discovered, I should feel deeply gratified.’
‘I’ll look to that. You shall be informed.’
‘There was another question that I much desired to speak of,’ and here he hesitated and faltered; ‘but perhaps, on every score, it is as well I should defer it till my return to Ireland.’
‘You know best, whatever it is,’ said the old man dryly.
‘Yes, I think so. I am sure of it. ‘A hurried shake-hands followed, and he was gone.
It is but right to add that a glance at the moment through the window had shown him the wearer of a muslin dress turning into the copse outside the garden, and Walpole dashed down the stairs and hurried in the direction he saw Nina take, with all the speed he could.
‘Get my luggage on the carriage, and have everything ready,’ said he, as the horses were drawn up at the door. ‘I shall return in a moment.’