“Well, it 's done now, Lucy, and it can't be helped,” said young Lendrick to his sister, as, with an unlighted cigar between his lips, and his hands in the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he walked impatiently up and down the drawing-room. “I 'm sure if I only suspected you were so strongly against it, I 'd not have done it.”
“My dear Tom, I'm only against it because I think papa would be so. You know we never see any one here when he is at home, and why should we now, because he is absent?”
“Just for that reason. It's our only chance, girl.”
“Oh, Tom!”
“Well, I don't mean that exactly, but I said it to startle you. No, Lucy; but, you see, here's how the matter stands. I have been three whole days in their company. On Tuesday the young fellow gave me that book of flies and the top-joint of my rod. Yesterday I lunched with them. To-day they pressed me so hard to dine with them that I felt almost rude in persisting to refuse; and it was as much to avoid the awkwardness of the situation as anything else that I asked them up to tea this evening.”
“I'm sure, Tom, if it would give you any pleasure—”
“Of course it gives me pleasure,” broke he in; “I don't suspect that fellows of my age like to live like hermits. And whom do I ever see down here? Old Mills and old Tobin, and Larry Day, the dog-breaker. I ask his pardon for putting him last, for he is the best of the three. Girls can stand this sort of nun's life, but I 'll be hanged if it will do for us.”
“And then, Tom,” resumed she, in the same tone, “remember they are both perfect strangers. I doubt if you even know their names.”
“That I do,—the old fellow is Sir Brook something or other. It 's not Fogey, but it begins like it; and the other is called Trafford,—Lionel, I think, is his Christian name. A glorious fellow, too; was in the 9th Lancers and in the blues, and is now here with the fifty—th because he went it too hard in the cavalry. He had a horse for the Derby two years ago.” The tone of proud triumph in which he made this announcement seemed to say, Now, all discussion about him may cease. “Not but,” added he, after a pause, “you might like the old fellow best; he has such a world of stories, and he draws so beautifully. The whole time we were in the boat he was sketching something; and he has a book full of odds and ends; a tea-party in China, quail-shooting in Java, a wedding in Candia,—I can't tell what more; but he 's to bring them up here with him.”
“I was thinking, Tom, that it might be as well if you 'd go down and ask Dr. Mills to come to tea. It would take off some of the awkwardness of our receiving two strangers.”
“But they 're not strangers, Lucy; not a bit of it. I call him Trafford, and he calls me Lendrick; and the old cove is the most familiar old fellow I ever met.”
“Have you said anything to Nicholas yet?” asked she, in some eagerness.
“No; and that's exactly what I want you to do for me. That old bear bullies us all, so that I can't trust myself to speak to him.”
“Well, don't go away, and I'll send for him now;” and she rang the bell as she spoke. A smart-looking lad answered the summons, to whom she said, “Tell Nicholas I want him.”
“Take my advice, Lucy, and merely say there are two gentlemen coming to tea this evening; don't let the old villain think you are consulting him about it, or asking his advice.”
“I must do it my own way,” said she; “only don't interrupt. Don't meddle,—mind that, Tom.” The door opened, and a very short, thick-set old man, dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, and drab breeches and white stockings, with large shoe-buckles in his shoes, entered. His face was large and red, the mouth immensely wide, and the eyes far set from each other, his low forehead being shadowed by a wig of coarse red hair, which moved when he spoke, and seemed almost to possess a sort of independent vitality.
He had been reading when he was summoned, and his spectacles had been pushed up over his forehead, while he still held the county paper in his hand,—a sort of proud protest against being disturbed.
“You heard that Miss Lucy sent for you?” said Tom Lendrick, haughtily, as his eye fell upon the newspaper.
“I did,” was the curt answer, as the old fellow, with a nervous shake of the head, seemed to announce that he was ready for battle.
“What I wanted, Nicholas, was this,” interposed the girl, in a voice of very winning sweetness; “Mr. Tom has invited two gentlemen this evening to tea.”
“To tay!” cried Nicholas, as if the fact staggered all credulity.
“Yes, to tea; and I was thinking if you would go down to the town and get some biscuits, or a sponge-cake, perhaps—whatever, indeed, you thought best; and also beg Dr. Mills to step in, saying that as papa was away—”
“That you was going to give a ball?”
“No. Not exactly that, Nicholas,” said she, smiling; “but that two friends of my brother's—”
“And where did he meet his friends?” cried he, with a marked emphasis on the “friends.” “Two strangers. God knows who or what! Poachers as like as anything else. The ould one might be worse.”
“Enough of this,” said Tom, sternly. “Are you the master here? Go off, sir, and do what Miss Lucy has ordered you.”
“I will not,—the devil a step,” said the old man, who now thrust the paper into a capacious pocket, and struck each hand on a hip. “Is it when the 'Jidge' is dying, when the newpapers has a column of the names that 's calling to ask after him, you are to be carousing and feastin' here?”
“Dear Nicholas, there's no question of feasting. It is simply a cup of tea we mean to give; sorely there's no carousing in that. And as to grandpapa, papa says that he was certainly better yesterday, and Dr. Beattie has hopes now.”
“I have n't, then, and I know him better than Dr. Beattie.”
“What a pity they have n't sent for you for the consultation!” said Tom, ironically.
“And look here, Nicholas,” said Lucy, drawing the old man towards the door of a small room that led off the drawing-room, “we could have tea here; it will look less formal, and give less trouble; and Mears could wait,—he does it very well; and you need n't be put out at all.” These last words fell to a whisper; but he was beyond reserve, beyond flattery. The last speech of her brother still rankled in his memory, and all that fell upon his ear since that fell unheeded.
“I was with your grandfather, Master Tom,” said the old man, slowly, “twenty-one years before you were born! I carried his bag down to Court the day he defended Neal O' Gorman for high treason, and I was with him the morning he shot Luke Dillon at Castle Knock; and this I 'll say and stand to, there 's not a man in Ireland, high or low, knows the Chief Baron better than myself.”
“It must be a great comfort to you both,” said Tom; but his sister had laid her hand on his mouth and made the words unintelligible.
“You'll say to Mr. Mills, Nicholas,” said she, in her most coaxing way, “that I did not write, because I preferred sending my message byyou, who could explain why I particularly wanted him this evening.”
“I'll go, Miss Lucy, resarving the point, as they say in the law,—resarving the point! because I don't give in that what you're doin' is right; and when the master comes home, I'm not goin' to defend it.”
“We must bear up under that calamity as well as we can,” said the young man, insolently; but Nicholas never looked towards or seemed to hear him.
“A barn-a-brack is better than a spongecake, because if there 's some of it left it does n't get stale, and one-and-six-pence will be enough; and I suppose you don't need a lamp?”
“Well, Nicholas, I must say, I think it would be better; and two candles on the small table, and two on the piano.”
“Why don't you mentiou a fiddler?” said he, bitterly. “If it's a ball, there ought to be music?”
Unable to control himself longer, young Lendrick wrenched open the sash-door, and walked out into the lawn.
“The devil such a family for temper from this to Bantry!” said Nicholas; “and here's the company comin' already, or I 'm mistaken. There 's a boat makin' for the landing-place with two men in the stern.”
Lucy implored him once more to lose no time on his errand, and hastened away to make some change in her dress to receive the strangers. Meanwhile Tom, having seen the boat, walked down to the shore to meet his friends.
Both Sir Brook and Trafford were enthusiastic in their praises of the spot. Its natural beauty was indeed great, but taste and culture had rendered it a marvel of elegance and refinement. Not merely were the trees grouped with reference to foliage and tint, but the flower-beds were so arranged that the laws of color should be respected, and thus these plats of perfume were not less luxuriously rich in odor than they were captivating as pictures.
“It is all the governor's own doing,” said Tom, proudly, “and he is continually changing the disposition of the plants. He says variety is a law of the natural world, and it is our duty to imitate it. Here comes my sister, gentlemen.”
As though set in a beautiful frame, the lovely girl stood for an instant in the porch, where drooping honeysuckles and the tangled branches of a vine hung around her, and then came courteously to meet and welcome them.
“I am in ecstasy with all I see here, Miss Lendrick,” said Sir Brook. “Old traveller that I am, I scarcely know where I have ever seen such a combination of beauty.”
“Papa will be delighted to hear this,” said she, with a pleasant smile; “it is the flattery he loves best.”
“I 'm always saying we could keep up a salmon-weir on the river for a tithe of what these carnations and primroses cost us,” said Tom.
“Why, sir, if you had been in Eden you 'd have made it a market garden,” said the old man.
“If the governor was a Duke of Devonshire, all these-caprices might be pardonable; but my theory is, roast-beef before roses.”
While young Lendrick attached himself to Trafford, and took him here and there to show him the grounds, Sir Brook walked beside Lucy, who did the honors of the place with a most charming courtesy.
“I am almost ashamed, sir,” said she, as they turned towards the house, “to have asked you to see such humble objects as these to which we attach value, for my brother tells me you are a great traveller; but it is just possible you have met in your journeys others who, like us, lived so much out of the world that they fancied they had the prettiest spot in it for their own.”
“You must not ask me what I think of all I have seen: here, Miss Lendrick, till my enthusiasm calms down;” and his look of admiration, so palpably addressed to herself, sent a flush to her cheek. “A man's belongings are his history,” said Sir Brook, quickly turning the conversation into an easier channel: “show me his study, his stable, his garden; let me see his hat, his cane, the volume he thrusts into his pocket, and I 'll make you an indifferent good guess about his daily doings.”
“Tell me of papa's. Come here, Tom,” cried she, as the two young men came towards her, “and listen to a bit of divination.”
“Nay, I never promised a lecture. I offered a confidence,” said he, in a half whisper; but she went on: “Sir Brook says that he reads people pretty much as Cuvier pronounced on a mastodon, by some small minute detail that pertained to them. Here's Tom's cigar-case,” said she, taking it from his pocket; “what do you infer from that, sir?”
“That he smokes the most execrable tobacco.”
“But can you say why?” asked Tom, with a sly twinkle of his eye.
“Probably for the same reason I do myself,” said Sir Brook, producing a very cheap cigar.
“Oh, that's a veritable Cuban compared to one of mine,” cried Tom; “and by way of making my future life miserable, here has been Mr. Trafford filling my pocket with real havannahs, giving me a taste for luxuries I ought never to have known of.”
“Know everything, sir, go everywhere, see all that the world can show you; the wider a man's experiences the larger his nature and the more open his heart,” said Foss-brooke, boldly.
“I like the theory,” said Trafford to Miss Lendrick; “do you?”
“Sir Brook never meant it for women, I fancy,” said she, in a low tone; but the old man overheard her, and said: “You are right. The guide ought to know every part of the mountain; the traveller need only know the path.”
“Here comes a guide who is satisfied with very short excursions,” cried Tom, laughing; “this is our parson, Dr. Mills.”
The little, mellow-looking, well-cared-for person who now joined them was a perfect type of old-bachelorhood, in its aspect of not unpleasant selfishness. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and appropriate; and though you saw at a glance it was all for himself and his own enjoyment it was provided, his good manners and courtesy were ever ready to extend its benefits to others; and a certain genial look he wore, and a manner that nature had gifted him with, did him right good service in life, and made him pass for “an excellent fellow, though not much of a parson.”
He was of use now, if only that by his presence Lucy felt more at ease, not to say that his violoncello, which always remained at the Nest, made a pleasant accompaniment when she played, and that he sang with much taste some of those lyrics which arc as much linked to Ireland by poetry as by music.
“I wish he was our chaplain,—by Jove I do!” whispered Trafford to Lendrick; “he's the jolliest fellow of his cloth I have ever met.”
“And such a cook,” muttered the other.
“A cook!”
“Ay, a cook. I 'll make him ask us to dinner, and you 'll tell me if you ever ate fish as he gives it, or tasted macaroni as dressed by him. I have a salmon for you, doctor, a ten-pound fish. I wish it were bigger! but it is in splendid order.”
“Did you set it?” asked the parson, eagerly.
“What does he mean by set it?” whispered Trafford.
“Setting means plunging it in very hot water soon after killing it, to preserve and harden the 'curd.' Yes; and I took your hint about the arbutus leaves, too, doctor. I covered it all up with them.”
“You are a teachable youth, and shall be rewarded. Come and eat him to-morrow. Dare I hope that these gentlemen are disengaged, and will honor my poor parsonage? Will you favor me with your company at five o'clock, sir?”
Sir Brook bowed, and accepted the invitation with pleasure.
“And you, sir?”
“Only too happy,” said Trafford.
“Lucy, my dear, you must be one of us.”
“Oh, I could not; it is impossible, doctor,—you know it is.”
“I know nothing of the kind.”
“Papa away,—not to speak of his never encouraging us to leave home,” muttered she, in a whisper.
“I accept no excuses, Lucy; such a rare opportunity may not occur to me in a hurry. Mrs. Brennan, my housekeeper, will be so proud to see you, that I 'm not sure she 'll not treat these gentlemen to her brandy peaches,—a delicacy, I feel bound to say, she has never conceded to any one less than the bishop of the diocese.”
“Don't ask me, doctor. I know that papa—”
But he broke in, saying,—“'You know I 'm your priest, and your conscience is mine;' and besides, I really do want to see how the parsonage will look with a lady at the top of the table: who knows what it may lead to?”
“Come, Lucy, that's the nearest thing to a proposal I 've heard for some time. You really must go now,” said Tom.
“Papa will not like it,” whispered she in his ear.
“Then he'll have to settle the matter with me, Lucy,” said the doctor, “for it was I who overruled you.”
“Don't look to me, Miss Lendrick, to sustain you in your refusal,” said Sir Brook, as the young girl turned towards him. “I have the strongest interest in seeing the doctor successful.”
If Trafford said nothing, the glance he gave her more than backed the old man's speech, and she turned away half vexed, half pleased, puzzled how to act, and flattered at the same time by an amount of attention so new to her and so strange. Still she could not bring herself to promise she would go, and wished them all good-night at last, without a pledge.
“Of course she will,” muttered Tom in the doctor's ear. “She's afraid of the governor; but I know he'll not be displeased,—you may reckon on her.”
From the day that Sir Brook made the acquaintance of Tom Lendrick and his sister, he determined he would “pitch his tent,” as he called it, for some time at Killaloe. They had, so to say, captivated the old man. The young fellow, by his frank, open, manly nature, his ardent love of sport in every shape, his invariable good-humor, and more than all these, by the unaffected simplicity of his character, had strongly interested him; while Lucy had made a far deeper impression by her gentleness, her refinement, an elegance in deportment that no teaching ever gives, and, along with these, a mind stored with thought and reflectiveness. Let us, however, be just to each, and own that her beauty and the marvellous fascination of her smile gave her, even in that old man's eyes, an irresistible charm. It was a very long bygone, but he had once been in love, and the faint flicker of the memory had yet survived in his heart. It was just as likely Lucy bore no resemblance to her he had loved, but he fancied she did,—he imagined that she was her very image. That was the smile, the glance, the tone, the gesture which once had set his heart a-throbbing, and the illusion threw around her an immense fascination.
She liked him too. Through all the strange incongruities of his character, his restless love of adventure and excitement, there ran a gentle liking for quiet pleasures. He loved scenery passionately, and with a painter's taste for color and form; he loved poetry, which he read with a wondrous charm of voice and intonation. Nor was it without its peculiar power, this homage of an old, old man, who rendered her the attentive service of a devoted admirer.
There is very subtle flattery in the obsequious devotion of age to youth. It is, at least, an honest worship, an unselfish offering, and in this way the object of it may well feel proud of its tribute.
From the vicar, Dr. Mills, Fossbrooke had learned the chief events of Dr. Lendrick's history, of his estrangement from his father, his fastidious retirement from the world, and, last of all, his narrow fortune, apparently now growing narrower, since within the last year he had withdrawn his son from the University on the score of its expense.
A gold-medallist and a scholar, Dr. Lendrick would have eagerly coveted such honors for his son. It was, probably, the one triumph in life he would have set most store by, but Tom was one not made for collegiate successes. He had abilities, but they were not teachable qualities; he could pick up a certain amount of almost anything,—he could learn nothing. He could carry away from a chance conversation an amount of knowledge it had cost the talkers years to acquire, and yet set him down regularly to work book-fashion, and either from want of energy, or concentration, or of that strong will which masters difficulties just as a full current carries all before it—whichever of these was his defect,—he arose from his task wearied, worn, but unadvanced.
When, therefore, his father would speak, as he sometimes did, in confidence to the vicar, in a tone of depression about Tom's deficiencies, the honest parson would feel perfectly lost in amazement at what he meant. To his eyes Tom Lendrick was a wonder, a prodigy. There was not a theme he could not talk on, and talk well too. “It was but the other day he told the chief engineer of the Shannon Company more about the geological formation of the river-basin than all his staff knew. Ay, and what's stranger,” added the vicar, “he understands the whole Colenso controversy better than I do myself.” It is just possible that in the last panegyric there was nothing of exaggeration or excess. “And with all that, sir, his father goes on brooding over his neglected education, and foreshadowing the worst results from his ignorance.”
“He is a fine fellow,” said Fossbrooke, “but not to be compared with his sister.”
“Not for mere looks, perhaps, nor for a graceful manner, and a winning address; but who would think of ranking Lucy's abilities with her brother's?”
“Not I,” said Fossbrooke, boldly, “for I place hers far and away above them.”
A sly twinkle of the parson's eye showed to what class of advantages he ascribed the other's preference; but he said no more, and the controversy ended.
Every morning found Sir Brook at the “Swan's Nest.” He was fond of gardening, and had consummate taste in laying out ground, so that many pleasant surprises had been prepared for Dr. Lendrick's return. He drew, too, with great skill, and Lucy made considerable progress under his teaching; and as they grew more intimate, and she was not ashamed of the confession that she delighted in the Georgics of Virgil, they read whole hours together of those picturesque descriptions of rural life and its occupations, which are as true to nature at this hour as on the day they were written.
Perhaps the old man fancied that it was he who had suggested this intense appreciation of the poet. It is just possible that the young girl believed that she had reclaimed a wild, erratic, eccentric nature, and brought him back ta the love of simple pleasures and a purer source of enjoyment. Whichever way the truth inclined, each was happy, each contented. And how fond are we all, of every age, of playing the missionary, of setting off into the savage districts of our neighbors' natures and combating their false idols, their superstitions and strange rites! The least adventurous and the least imaginative have these little outbursts of conversion, and all are more or less propagandists.
It was one morning, a bright and glorious one too, that, while Tom and Lucy were yet at breakfast, Sir Brook arrived and entered the breakfast-room.
“What a day for a gray hackle, in that dark pool under the larch-trees!” cried Tom, as he saw him.
“What a day for a long walk to Mount Laurel!” said Lucy. “You said, t'other morning, you wanted cloud effects on the upper lake. I 'll show you splendid ones to-day.”
“I 'll promise you a full basket before four o'clock,” broke in Tom.
“I 'll promise you a full sketch-book,” said Lucy, with one of her sweetest smiles.
“And I 'm going to refuse both; for I have a plan of my own, and a plan not to be gainsaid.”
“I know it, You want us to go to work on that fish-pond. I'm certain it's that.”
“No, Tom; it's the catalogue,—the weary catalogue that he told me, as a punishment for not being able to find Machiavelli's comedies last week, he 'd make me sit down to on the first lovely morning that came.”
“Better that than those dreary Georgics which remind one of school, and the third form. But what 's your plan, Sir Brook? We have thought of all the projects that can terrify us, and you look as if it ought to be a terror.”
“Mine is a plan for pleasure, and pleasure only; so pack up at once and get ready. Trafford arrived this morning.”
“Where is he? I am so glad! Where's Trafford?” cried Tom, delighted.
“I have despatched him with the vicar and two well-filled hampers to Holy Island, where I mean that we shall all picnic. There 's my plan.”
“And a jolly plan too! I adhere unconditionally.”
“And you, Lucy, what do you say?” asked Sir Brook, as the young girl stood with a look of some indecision and embarrassment.
“I don't say that it's not a very pleasant project, but—”
“But what, Lucy? Where 's the but?”
She whispered a few words in his ear, and he cried out: “Is n't this too bad? She tells me Nicholas does not like all this gayety; that Nicholas disapproves of our mode of life.”
“No, Tom; I only said Nicholas thinks that papa would not like it.”
“Couldn't we see Nicholas? Couldn't we have a commission to examine Nicholas?” asked Sir Brook, laughingly.
“I 'll not be on it, that 's all I know; for I should finish by chucking the witness into the Shannon. Come along, Lucy; don't let us lose this glorious morning. I 'll get some lines and hooks together. Be sure you 're ready when I come back.”
As the door closed after him, Sir Brook drew near to Lucy, where she stood in an attitude of doubt and hesitation. “I mustn't risk your good opinion of me rashly. If you really dislike this excursion, I will give it up,” said he, in a low, gentle voice.
“Dislike it? No; far from it. I suspect I would enjoy it more than any of you. My reluctance was simply on the ground that all this is so unlike the life we have been leading hitherto. Papa will surely disapprove of it. Oh, there comes Nicholas with a letter!” cried she, opening the sash-window. “Give it to me; it is from papa.”
She broke the seal hurriedly, and ran rapidly over the lines. “Oh, yes! I will go now, and go with delight too. It is full of good news. He is to see grandpapa, if not to-morrow, the day after. He hopes all will be well. Papa knows your name, Sir Brook. He says, 'Ask your friend Sir Brook if he be any relative of a Sir Brook Foss-brooke who rescued Captain Langton some forty years ago from a Neapolitan prison. The print-shops were filled with his likeness when I was a boy.' Was he one of your family?” inquired she, looking at him.
“I am the man,” said he, calmly and coldly. “Langton was sentenced to the galleys for life for having struck the Count d'Aconi across the face with his glove; and the Count was nephew to the King. They had him at Capri working in chains, and I landed with my yacht's crew and liberated him.”
“What a daring thing to do!”
“Not so daring as you fancy. The guard was surprised, and fled. It was only when reinforced that they showed fight. Our toughest enemies were the galley-slaves, who, when they discovered that we never meant to liberate them, attacked us with stones. This scar on my temple is a memorial of the affair.”
“And Langton, what became of him?”
“He is now Lord Burrowfield. He gave me two fingers to shake the last time I met him at the Travellers'.”
“Oh, don't say that! Oh, don't tell me of such ingratitude!”
“My dear child, people usually regard gratitude as a debt which, once acknowledged, is acquitted; and perhaps they are right. It makes all intercourse freer and less trammelled.”
“Here comes Tom. May I tell him this story, or will you tell him yourself?”
“Not either, my dear Lucy. Your brother's blood is over-hot as it is. Let him not have any promptings to such exploits as these.”
“But may I tell papa?”
“Just as well not, Lucy. There were scores of wild things attributed to me in those days. He may possibly remember some of them, and begin to suspect that his daughter might be in better company.”
“How was it that you never told me of this exploit?” asked she, looking, not without admiration, at the hard stern features before her.
“My dear child, egotism is the besetting sin of old people, and even the most cautious lapse into it occasionally. Set me once a-talking of myself, all my prudence, all my reserve vanishes; so that, as a measure of safety for my friends and myself too, I avoid the theme when I can. There! Tom is beckoning to us. Let us go to him at once.”
Holy Island, or Inishcaltra, to give it its Irish name, is a wild spot, with little remarkable about it, save the ruins of seven churches and a curious well of fabulous depth. It was, however, a favorite spot with the vicar, whose taste in localities was somehow always associated with some feature of festivity, the great merit of the present spot being that you could dine without any molestation from beggars. In such estimation, indeed, did he hold the class, that he seriously believed their craving importunity to be one of the chief reasons of dyspepsia, and was profoundly convinced that the presence of Lazarus at his gate counterbalanced many of the goods which fortune had bestowed upon Dives.
“Here we dine in real comfort,” said he, as he seated himself under the shelter of an ivy-covered wall, with a wide reach of the lake at his feet.
“When I come back from California with that million or two,” said Tom, “I 'll build a cottage here, where we can all come and dine continually.”
“Let us keep the anniversary of the present day as a sort of foundation era,” said the vicar.
“I like everything that promises pleasure,” said Sir Brook, “but I like to stipulate that we do not draw too long a bill on Fortune. Think how long a year is. This time twelvemonth, for example, you, my dear doctor, may be a bishop, and not over inclined to these harmless levities. Tom there will be, as he hints, gold-crushing, at the end of the earth. Trafford, not improbably, ruling some rajah's kingdom in the far East. Of your destiny, fair Lucy, brightest of all, it is not for me to speak. Of my own it is not worth speaking.”
“Nolo episcopari,” said the vicar; “pass me the Madeira.”
“You forget, perhaps, that is the phrase for accepting the mitre,” said Sir Brook, laughing. “Bishops, like belles, say 'No' when they mean 'Yes.'”
“And who told you that belles did?” broke in Lucy. “I am in a sad minority here, but I stand up for my sex.”
“I repeat a popular prejudice, fair lady.”
“And Lucy will not have it that belles are as illogical as bishops? I see I was right in refusing the bench,” said the vicar.
“What bright boon of Fortune is Trafford meditating the rejection of?” said Sir Brook; and the young fellow's cheek grew crimson as he tried to laugh off the reply.
“Who made this salad?” cried Tom.
“It was I; who dares to question it?” said Lucy. “The doctor has helped himself twice to it, and that test I take to be a certificate to character.”
“I used to have some skill in dressing a salad, but I have foregone the practice for many a day; my culinary gift got me sent out of Austria in twenty-four hours. Oh, it 's nothing that deserves the name of a story,” said Sir Brook, as the others looked at him for an explanation. “It was as long ago as the year 1806. Sir Robert Adair had been our minister at Vienna, when, a rupture taking place between the two Governments, he was recalled. He did not, however, return to England, but continued to live as a private citizen at Vienna. Strangely enough, from the moment that our embassy ceased to be recognized by the Government, our countrymen became objects of especial civility. I myself, amongst the rest, was thebien-venuin some of the great houses, and even invited by Count Cobourg Cohari to thosedéjeunerswhich he gave with such splendor at Maria Hülfe.
“At one of these, as a dish of salad was handed round, instead of eating it, like the others, I proceeded to make a very complicated dressing for it on my plate, calling for various condiments, and seasoning my mess in a most refined and ingenious manner. No sooner had I given the finishing touch to my great achievement than the Grand-Duchess Sophia, who it seems had watched the whole performance, sent a servant round to beg that I would send her my plate. She accompanied the request with a little bow and a smile whose charm I can still recall. Whatever the reason, before I awoke next morning, an agent of the police entered my room and informed me my passports were made out for Dresden, and that his orders were to give me the pleasure of his society till I crossed the frontier. There was no minister, no envoy to appeal to, and nothing left but to comply. They said 'Go,' and I went.”
“And all for a dish of salad!” cried the vicar.
“All for the bright eyes of an archduchess, rather,” broke in Lucy, laughing.
The old man's grateful smile at the compliment to his gallantry showed how, even in a heart so world-worn, the vanity of youth survived.
“I declare it was very hard,” said Tom,—“precious hard.”
“If you mean to give up the salad, so think I too,” cried the vicar.
“I 'll be shot if I 'd have gone,” broke in Trafford.
“You'd probably have been shot if you had stayed,” replied Tom.
“There are things we submit to in life, not because the penalty of resistance affrights us, but because we half acquiesce in their justice. You, for instance, Trafford, are well pleased to be here on leave, and enjoy yourself, as I take it, considerably; and yet the call of duty—some very commonplace duty, perhaps—would make you return tomorrow in all haste.”
“Of course it would,” said Lucy.
“I 'm not so sure of it,” murmured Trafford, sullenly; “I 'd rather go into close arrest for a week than I 'd lose this day here.”
“Bravo! here's your health, Lionel,” cried Tom. “I do like to hear a fellow say he is willing to pay the cost of what pleases him.”
“I must preach wholesome doctrine, my young friends,” broke in the vicar. “Now that we have dined well, I would like to say aword on abstinence.”
“You mean to take no coffee, doctor, then?” asked Lucy, laughing.
“That I do, my sweet child,—coffee and a pipe, too, for I know you are tolerant of tobacco.”
“I hope she is,” said Tom, “or she 'd have a poor time of it in the house with me.”
“I 'll put no coercion upon my tastes on this occasion, for I 'll take a stroll through the ruins, and leave you to your wine,” said she, rising.
They protested, in a mass, against her going. “We cannot lock the door, Lucy,de facto,” said Sir Brook, “but we do it figuratively.”
“And in that case I make my escape by the window,” said she, springing through an old lancet-shaped orifice in the Abbey wall.
“There goes down the sun and leaves us but a gray twilight,” said Sir Brook, mournfully, as he looked after her. “If there were only enough beauty on earth, I verily believe we might dispense with parsons.”
“Push me over the bird's-eye, and let me nourish myself till your millennium comes,” said the vicar.
“What a charming girl she is! her very beauty fades away before the graceful attraction of her manner!” whispered Sir Brook to the doctor.
“Oh, if you but knew her as I do! If you but knew how, sacrificing all the springtime of her bright youth, she has never had a thought save to make herself the companion of her poor father,—a sad, depressed, sorrow-struck man, only rescued from despair by that companionship! I tell you, sir, there is more courage in submitting one's self to the nature of another than in facing a battery.”
Sir Brook grasped the parson's hand and shook it cordially. The action spoke more than any words. “And the brother, doctor,—what say you of the brother?” whispered he.
“One of those that the old adage says 'either makes a spoon or spoils the horn.' That 's Master Tom there.”
Low as the words were uttered, they caught the sharp ears of him they spoke of, and with a laughing eye he cried out, “What 's that evil prediction you 're uttering about me, doctor?”
“I am just telling Sir Brook here that it's pure head or tail how you turn out. There's stuff in you to make a hero, but it's just as likely you 'll stop short at a highwayman.”
“I think I could guess which of the two would best suit the age we live in,” said Tom, gayly. “Are we to have another bottle of that Madeira, for I suspect I see the doctor putting up the corkscrew?”
“You are to have no more wine than what's before you till you land me at the quay of Killaloe. When temperance means safety as well as forbearance, it's one of the first of virtues.”
The vicar, indeed, soon grew impatient to depart. Fine as the evening was then, it might change. There was a feeling, too, not of damp, but chilliness; at all events, he was averse to being on the water late; and as he was the great promoter of these little convivial gatherings, his word was law.
062 (96K)
It is not easy to explain how it happened that Trafford sat beside Lucy. Perhaps the trim of the boat required it; certainly, however, nothing required that the vicar, who sat next Lucy on the other side, should fall fast asleep almost as soon as he set foot on board. Meanwhile Sir Brook and Tom had engaged in an animated discussion as to the possibility of settling in Ireland as a man settles in some lone island in the Pacific, teaching the natives a few of the needs of civilization and picking up a few convenient ways of theirs in turn, Sir Brook warming with the theme so far as to exclaim at last, “If I only had a few of those thousands left me which I lost, squandered, or gave away, I 'd try the scheme, and you should be my lieutenant, Tom.”
It was one of those projects, very pleasant in their way, where men can mingle the serious with the ludicrous, where actual wisdom may go hand in hand with downright absurdity; and so did they both understand it, mingling, the very sagest reflections with projects the wildest and most eccentric. Their life, as they sketched it, was to be almost savage in freedom, untrammelled by all the tiresome conventionalities of the outer world, and at the same time offering such an example of contentedness and comfort as to shame the condition of all without the Pale.
They agreed that the vicar must join them; he should be their Bishop. He might grumble a little at first about the want of hot plates or finger-glasses, but he would soon fall into their ways, and some native squaw would console him for the loss of Mrs. Brennan's housekeeping gifts.
And Trafford and Lucy all this time,—what did they talk of? Did they, too, imagine a future and plan out a life-road in company? Far too timid for that,—they lingered over the past, each asking some trait of the other's childhood, eager to hear any little incident which might mark character or indicate temper. And at last they came down to the present,—to the very hour they lived in, and laughingly wondered at the intimacy that had grown up between them. “Only twelve days to-morrow since we first met,” said Lucy, and her color rose as she said it, “and here we are talking away as if—as if—”
“As if what?” cried he, only by an effort suppressing her name as it rose to his lips.
“As if we knew each other for years. To me it seems the strangest thing in the world,—I who have never had friendships or companionships. To you, I have no doubt, it is common enough.”
“But it is not,” cried he, eagerly. “Such fortune never befell me before. I have gone a good deal into life,—seen scores of people in country-houses and the like; but I never met any one before I could speak to of myself,—I mean, that I had courage to tell—not that, exactly—but that I wanted them to know I was n't so bad a fellow—so reckless or so heartless as people thought me.”
“And is that the character you bear?” said she, with, though not visible to him, a faint smile on her mouth.
“I think it's what my family would say of me,—I mean now, for once on a time I was a favorite at home.”
“And why are you not still?”
“Because I was extravagant; because I went into debt; because I got very easily into scrapes, and very badly out of them,—not dishonorably, mind; the scrapes I speak of were money troubles, and they brought me into collision with my governor. That was how it came about I was sent over here. They meant as a punishment what has turned out the greatest happiness of my life.”
“How cold the water is!” said Lucy, as, taking off her glove, she suffered her hand to dip in the water beside the boat.
“Deliciously cold,” said he, as, plunging in his hand, he managed, as though by accident, to touch hers. She drew it rapidly away, however, and then, to prevent the conversation returning to its former channel, said aloud: “Whatareyou laughing over so heartily, Sir Brook? You and Tom appear to have fallen upon a mine of drollery. Do share it with us.”
“You shall hear it all one of these days, Lucy. Jog the doctor's arm now and wake him up, for I see the lights at the boat-house, and we shall soon be on shore.”
“And sorry I am for it,” muttered Trafford, in a whisper; “I wish this night could be drawn out to years.”
On the sixth day after Dr. Lendrick's arrival in Dublin—a fruitless journey so far as any hope of reconciliation was concerned—he resolved to return home. His friend Beattie, however, induced him to delay his departure to the-next day, clinging to some small hope from a few words-that had dropped from Sir William on that same morning. “Let me see you to-night, doctor; I have a note to show you which I could not to-day with all these people about me.” Now, the people in question resolved themselves into one person, Lady Lendrick, who indeed bustled into the room and out of it, slammed doors and upset chairs in a fashion that might well have excused the exaggeration that converted her into a noun of multitude. A very warm altercation had occurred, too, in the doctor's presence with reference to some letter from India, which Lady Lendrick was urging Sir William to reply to, but which he firmly declared he would not answer.
“How I am to treat a man subject to such attacks of temper, so easily provoked, and so incessantly irritated, is not clear to me. At all events I will see him to-night, and hear what he has to say to me. I am sure it has no concern with this letter from India.” With these words Beattie induced his friend to defer his journey for another day.
It was a long and anxious day to poor Lendrick. It was not alone that he had to suffer the bitter disappointment of all his hopes of being received by his father and admitted to some gleam of future favor, but he had discovered that certain debts which he had believed long settled by the judge were still outstanding against him, Lady Lendrick having interfered to prevent their payment, while she assured the creditors that if they had patience Dr. Lendrick would one day or other be in a position to acquit them. Between two and three thousand pounds thus hung over him of indebtedness above all his calculations, and equally above all his ability to meet.
“We thought you knew all this, Dr. Lendrick,” said Mr. Hack, Sir William's agent; “we imagined you were a party to the arrangement, understanding that you were reluctant to bring these debts under the Chief Baron's eyes, being moneys lent to your wife's relations.”
“I believed that they were paid,” was all his reply, for the story was a painful one of trust betrayed and confidence abused, and he did not desire to revive it. He had often been told that his stepmother was the real obstacle to all hope of reconciliation with his father, but that she had pushed her enmity to him to the extent of his ruin was more than he was prepared for. They had never met, but at one time letters had frequently passed between them. Hers were marvels of good wishes and kind intentions, dashed with certain melancholy reflections over some shadowy unknown something which had been the cause of his estrangement from his father, but which time and endurance might not impossibly diminish the bitterness of, though with very little hope of leading to a more amicable relation. She would assume, besides, occasionally a kind of companionship in sorrow, and, as though the confession had burst from her unawares, avow that Sir William's temper was more than human nature was called upon to submit to, and that years only added to those violent outbursts of passion which made the existence of all around him a perpetual martyrdom. These always wound up with some sweet congratulations on “Tom's good fortune in his life of peaceful retirement,” and the “tranquil pleasures of that charming spot of which every one tells me such wonders, and which the hope of visiting is one of my most entrancing daydreams.” We give the passage textually, because it occurred without a change of a word thus in no less than five different letters.
This formal repetition of a phrase, and certain mistakes she made about the names of his children, first opened Lendrick's eyes as to the sincerity and affection of his correspondent, for he was the least suspicious of men, and regarded distrust as a disgrace to him who entertained it.
Over all these things now did he ponder during this long dreary day. He did not like to go out lest he should meet old acquaintances and be interrogated about his father, of whom he knew less than almost every one. He shunned the tone of compassionate interest men met him with, and he dreaded even the old faces that reminded him of the past. He could not read: he tried, but could not. After a few minutes he found that his thoughts wandered off from the book and centred on his own concerns, till his head ached with the weary round of those difficulties which came ever back, and back, and back again undiminished, unrelieved, and unsolved. The embarrassments of life are not, like chess problems, to be resolved by a skilful combination: they are to be encountered by temper, by patience, by daring at one time, by submission at another, by a careful consideration of a man's own powers, and by a clear-sighted estimate of his neighbors; and all these exercised not beforehand, nor in retirement, but on the very field itself where the conflict is raging and the fight at its hottest.
It was late at night when Beattie returned home, and entered the study where Lendrick sat awaiting him. “I am very late, Tom,” said he, as he threw himself into an arm-chair, like one fatigued and exhausted; “but it was impossible to get away. Never in all my life have I seen him so full of anecdote, so abounding in pleasant recollections, so ready-witted, and so brilliant. I declare to you that if I could but recite the things he said, or give them even with a faint semblance of the way he told them, it would be the most amusing page of bygone Irish history. It was a grand review of all the celebrated men whom he remembered in his youth, from the eccentric Lord Bristol, the Bishop of Down, to O'Connell and Shiel. Nor did his own self-estimate, high as it was, make the picture in which he figured less striking, nor less memorable his concluding words, as he said, 'These fellows are all in history, Beattie,—every man of them. There are statues to them in our highways, and men visit the spots that gave them birth; and here am I, second to none of them. Trinity College and the Four Courts will tell you if I speak in vanity; and here am I; and the only question about me is, when I intend to vacate the bench, when it will be my good pleasure to resign—they are not particular which—my judgeship or my life. But, sir, I mean not to do either; I mean to live and protest against the inferiority of the men around me, and the ingratitude of the country that does not know how to appreciate the one man of eminence it possesses.' I assure you, Tom, vain and insolent as the speech was, as I listened I thought it was neither. There was a haughty dignity about him, to which his noble bead and his deep sonorous voice and his commanding look lent effect that overcame all thought of attributing to such a man any over-estimate of his powers.”
“And this note that he wished to show you,—what was it?”
“Oh, the note was a few lines written in an adjoining room by Balfour, the Viceroy's secretary. It seems that his Excellency, finding all other seductions fail, thought of approaching your father through you.”
“Throughme!It was a bright inspiration.”
“Yes; he sent Balfour to ask if the Chief Baron would feel gratified by the post of Hospital Inspector at the Cape being offered to you. It is worth eight hundred a year, and a house.”
“Well, what answer did he give?” asked Lendrick, eagerly.
“He directed Balfour, who only saw Lady Lendrick, to reduce the proposal to writing. I don't fancy that the accomplished young gentleman exactly liked the task, but he did not care to refuse, and so he sat down and wrote one of the worst notes I ever read.”
“Worst—in what way?”
“In every way. It was scarcely intelligible, without a previous knowledge of its contents, and so worded as to imply that when the Chief Baron had acceded to the proposal, he had so bound himself in gratitude to the Government that all honorable retreat was closed to him. I wish you saw your father's face when he read it. 'Beattie,' said he, 'I have no right to say Tom must refuse this offer; but if he should do so, I will make the document you see there be read in the House, and my name is not William Lendrick if it do not cost them more than they are prepared for. Go now and consult your friend;' it was so he called you. 'If his wants are such that this place is of consequence to him, let him accept it. I shall not ask his reasons for whatever course he may take.Myreply is already written, and to his Excellency in person.' This he said in a way to imply that its tone was one not remarkable for conciliation or courtesy.
“I thought the opportunity a favorable one to say that you were in town at the moment, that the accounts of his illness had brought you up, and that you were staying at my house.
“'The sooner will you be able to communicate with him, sir,' said he, haughtily.”
“No more than that!”
“No more, except that he added, 'Remember, sir, his acceptance or his refusal is to be his own act, not to be intimated in any way to me, nor to come through me.'”
“This is unnecessary harshness,” said Lendrick, with a quivering lip; “there was no need to tell me how estranged we are from each other.”
“I fancied I could detect a struggle with himself in all his sternness; and his hand trembled when I took it to say 'good-bye.' I was going to ask if you might not be permitted to see him, even for a brief moment; but I was afraid, lest in refusing he might make a reconciliation still more remote, and so I merely said, 'May I leave you those miniatures I showed you a few days ago? 'His answer was, 'You may leave them, sir.'
“As I came down to the hall, I met Lady Lendrick. She was in evening dress, going out, but had evidently waited to Catch me as I passed.
“'You find the Chief much better, don't you?' asked she. I bowed and assented.. 'And he will be better still,' added she, 'when all these anxieties are over.' She saw that I did not or would not apprehend her meaning, and added, 'I mean about this resignation, which, of course, you will advise him to. The Government are really behaving so very well, so liberal, and withal so delicate. If they had been our own people, I doubt if they would have shown anything like the same generosity.'
“'I have heard of nothing but the offer to Dr. Lendrick,' said I.
“She seemed confused, and moved on; and then recovering herself, said, 'And a most handsome offer it is. I hope he thinks so.'
“With this we parted, and I believe now I have told you almost word for word everything that occurred concerning you.”
“And what doyousay to all this, Beattie?” asked Lendrick, in a half-sad tone.
“I say that if in your place, Tom, I would accept. It may be that the Chief Baron will interpose and say, Don't go; or it may be that your readiness to work for your bread should conciliate him; he has long had the impression that you are indisposed to exertion, and too fond of your own ease.”
“I know it,—I know it; Lady Lendrick has intimated as much to me.”
“At all events, you can make no mistake in entertaining the project; and certainly the offer is not to be despised.”
“It is of him, and of him alone, I am thinking, Beattie. If he would let me see him, admit me once more on my old terms of affection, I would go anywhere, do anything that he counselled. Try, my dear friend, to bring this about; do your best for me, and remember I will subscribe to any terms, submit to anything, if he will only be reconciled to me.”
“It will be hard if we cannot manage this somehow,” said Beattie; “but now let us to bed. It is past two o'clock. Good-night, Tom; sleep well, and don't dream of the Cape or the Caffres.”