CHAPTER II.COMING EVENTS.
Nothing but the desire of annoying Mrs. Somerford could have reconciled Lady Glendare to the bi- or tri-weekly dip with which she sought, and not unsuccessfully, to increase the earl’s popularity amongst the Whigs of Kingslough and its dependencies.
Ninon de l’Enclos, we are assured, preserved her beauty by a plentiful use of water; but then that was rain water, and not salt, used also in privacy and under comfortable, not to say luxurious, circumstances; and, besides, she was an exception to most rules,—certainly, if she pinned her faith to water pure and simpleas a conservator of good looks, an exception to one.
As for Lady Glendare, she never made a secret of her antipathy to what she styled the horrid and indecent practice of bathing in the sea. Exclusive in all her ideas, a Tory in every turn of her mind except as regarded the politics she professed, Lady Glendare looked upon soap and water, more especially water, as methods of cleansing intended by Providence for those poor and busy persons who had little time to spend upon their toilettes, and less money to devote to the accessories of the dressing-table. She might indeed, so great was her objection to all ordinary modes of ablution, have been the original of that mother who, when she left her daughters at school, begged they should on no pretence be permitted to wash their faces.
“A silk handkerchief,” she suggested, “carefully passed over the skin, being sufficient for the purpose, and rendering injury to the complexion impossible.”
And, indeed, at a time when “making up”was rather an art than a science, ere chemistry had exhausted its resources to provide a new bloom, and invention had outstripped imagination in order to confer beauties previously undreamed of, the indiscriminate use of so plebeian a fluid as water could not fail to be attended with accidents, not to say danger.
The rule was then, as now, to improve nature as much as possible, but the process by which all this was accomplished seems to our modern ideas clumsy and tedious.
It is almost a pity that some of the great-grandmothers of our present sirens who likewise, and at great trouble and expense, tired their heads and darkened their eyes and beautified their complexions, cannot come to life again and behold all the pretty inventions by which much more effective and deceptive results are now attained.
As the steam-engine is to horse-power so are the devices of women now to those employed by their progenitors in the old days departed. The worst of it is that beauty, by reason of its universality, will soon be at adiscount. Time was when, unless a lady were young and fair by the grace of God, she had to be rich and idle before she could counterfeit His gifts. Now loveliness can be had on the most reasonable terms; a complexion is cheaper than a chignon, and large eyes with the iris distended at high noon can be matched with real hair a dozen shades lighter than it appeared a week previously, for the expenditure of a few pence.
Things were not so when Lady Glendare came to Bayview, “for the benefit of the salt water,” so ran the simple phrase in that primitive age.
People “took salt water” externally then as they might have taken a solution of sulphuretted hydrogen internally. Some strong-minded old persons and some light-minded young ones really liked the operation; but taking society round, it shivered on the brink and went in for its “three dips and out again,” actuated either by a strong feeling of duty or a stronger dread of being laughed at. In a word, the sea was a medicine, and regarded as such.
Lady Glendare considered it a medicine she personally did not require, but she took it to benefit her lord and spite her sister-in-law. Many a wry face she made over the dose to Grace; and Grace, when she beheld her ladyship tripping down the ladder, pitied her, as she might a poor wretch going up one on a different errand.
Not but that sea-bathing at Bayview was, as far as it could be made so, an eminently comfortable affair. Grace was one of those fanatics who dipped in season and out, for whom rough weather had no terrors, winter rather charms than otherwise, and her box was therefore the perfection of a dressing-room by the sea.
The usual mode of procedure at Kingslough, which indeed I have seen adopted in more northern latitudes within the last few years, and considered charmingly primitive and easy, if slightly uncomfortable by reason of wind and sand, was to undress on the shore, flinging on a green or blue baize gown to conceal the operation. Those who were so fortunateas to own “back entrances,” disrobed themselves within four walls and slipped quietly into the water, as, indeed, did others whose houses faced the shore, and who, watching their opportunity, rushed across the road enveloped in cloaks, which they flung off at the water’s edge, and then went out to sea as calmly as though they had been fishes bred and born.
Perhaps Lady Glendare was right, perhaps the whole system might be accounted barbarous; but it is open to question whether the bathing-machine régime, which jolts a poor shivering wretch over stones and shingles, only to land her finally in six inches of water, imagined sufficient to conceal her and her meagre serge dress from profane eyes, is superior in any way.
However, there were no bathing-machines at Kingslough then (it is possible Kingslough may have adopted them now), and failing such and such like devices, the Countess of Glendare was fain to put up with the accommodation afforded by Miss Moffat’s box.
For many reasons Miss Moffat took her pleasure in the deep at other hours than those affected by the countess. Right glad would her ladyship have been of her company in the water; but Grace judged, and judged rightly, that on those mysteries of the toilette which were enacted with closed doors and in solemn silence, the scrutiny of youthful eyes was not desired.
Any change in the arrangement of her ladyship’s hair was hidden, as she stepped out of the box, by that most hideous of all head-gear, an oil-silk bathing-cap; and if, in the momentary glance which was all that even by accident Grace caught of her guest’s face as, followed by her maid, she went to perform her penance, it looked older and whiter than had been the case an hour previously, still that proved nothing.
Her ladyship had been a beauty, and was beautiful even yet. If she chose to put back the years and look younger than chanced to be actually the case, that was entirely her affair, and Grace had sense enough to know thecountess felt no desire to reveal the secret means whereby such wonderful results were obtained.
As regarded the maid, she consented to bathe, as she would have consented to anything else which was duly considered in her wages.
After all, going into the sea could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered a greater hardship than coming to Ireland.
Ireland was an extra, and so was bathing, or, to speak more correctly, following Lady Glendare into the water and assisting her to bathe. Mrs. Somerford wondered how her sister-in-law could think of making such an exhibition of herself; but the exhibition was rapidly restoring the earl’s popularity. Her ladyship’s condescension—so the fact of her going into the sea at all was styled—had given a greater fillip to Kingslough than could have been supposed likely. The Ardmornes had tried being popular, but Lady Glendare beat them at their own game, and the finishing stroke of being within an ace of drowningsettled, as Grace prophesied it would, the fate of the Tory candidate.
Certainly, could Kingslough have chosen, it would not have selected Mr. Brady for her ladyship’s rescuer.
It grudged such a piece of good fortune to a man of his standing and antecedents; but still, had he not chanced to be at hand when the countess got out of her depth, and her maid lost whatever presence of mind she ever possessed, and stood shrieking helplessly, while Grace ran the risk of being carried out to sea likewise in her mad endeavour to render assistance,—had Mr. Brady, I say, not been near enough to render efficient help then, Kingslough would have lost both Miss Moffat and the stranger within her gates. And Kingslough was not ungrateful; more especially as the earl, moved no doubt by hints from his agent, and very plain speaking on the part of Mr. Robert Somerford, confined his thanks, so far as anybody knew, to an early visit.
Nettie and her husband were not taken intohigh favour at Rosemont. They were, it is true, like everybody else, asked to the election ball, but Mr. and Mrs. Brady had sense enough to stay away.
The world did not know that a grateful husband had asked in which direction Mr. Brady’s wishes lay, so that he might advance them, and that Lady Glendare had told Nettie she could answer for herself and her children that they would never, never forget the obligation under which Mr. Brady had laid them.
There were a great many things Mr. Brady wanted which it was in Lord Glendare’s power to give; but although he knew enough of society to be aware a nobleman’s memory for benefits conferred is about as short as that of other people, he contented himself, for the time being, with having “got his foot in.”
It might be or it might not be that hereafter the earl would have the opportunity of serving him disinterestedly, but he was well aware that once he was in a position to avail himself of his opportunities, he could make it serve Lord Glendare’s purpose to advance his views.
The world was before him—and it was an advantage that his world now included an acquaintance with the owner of Rosemont, and something which amounted almost to the right of speaking or writing to him without the intervention of any one, whether agent or lawyer.
Mr. Brady hated lawyers, which was all the more natural since lawyers, even his own, hated him.
Looking around, this man saw that nearly every rising fortune, and almost every fortune that was secure in Kingslough, owed its foundation to some stone rent from the ruins of the Glendare prosperity. Any one whose property was unencumbered—any one who was getting on in the world, any one whose father and grandfather having been nobodies was consequently educating his children to become somebodies, owed the whole of their advancement to the need or the improvidence of the Glendares.
Any man clever enough to obtain their ear, and patient enough to wait his opportunity,any one unscrupulous as to making terms, and wise enough to have those terms made binding, could get an advantage over the Somerfords, could clear his own way to wealth, while lending a hand to help them along the road to ruin.
Not that they needed any help; they found the road easy to travel, if occasionally not over pleasant.
To use a phrase which has become common of late in connexion with business failures, “They were bound to go;” and to pursue the same simile, all that wise men thought of in relation to them was how to get as much money, or money value, as possible out of them before the crash came.
Unsophisticated people, who had always been hearing of the embarrassments of each successive earl, thought there must be a wonderful vitality about the Somerfords’ affairs, and concluded rashly, that what had been apparently from the beginning must go on to the end; but these were persons who forgot, on the one hand, the first enormous extent ofthe property, and, on the other, the fact that a man rolling down hill gains a frantic speed as he nears the bottom.
“I do not know why I should grudge Glendare this triumph,” said Lord Ardmorne, looking askance at grapes which he would fain have made believe to think sour; “he will never see his nominee sent to Parliament again.”
And the marquis was right. When the next election took place Mr. Robert Somerford, who contested the seat himself, was beaten, not ignominiously, perhaps, but sufficiently.
From which remark of his fellow-peer, it will be understood that the earl had the happiness of seeing a Whig returned for the family seat. The fight was fierce, the contest close, the expense great, but the Glendare interest won.
How far my lady contributed to this result can only be surmised; how far sympathy carried the voters is also problematical. One thing only is certain, that when the general public learned how Lady Glendare, herselfstill ailing, started at a few hours’ notice to see her youngest born, reported dangerously ill, and heard Lord Glendare making his lament about Arthur, whom he loved best of all his children, and called, to those who evinced sorrow (and few there were that failed to do so), the “flower of the flock;” and when further news came that on the very eve of the election the earl was summoned away, told to travel with all speed “if he wished to see his boy alive,” the hearts of the people forgot Th’ Airl’s faults, and remembered only Th’ Airl’s grief.
Men who had “promised,” men who had half consented, men who were undecided, forgot their promises, their semi-agreement, their doubts, and voted to please the earl.
And the result did please him. Though his son lay dead when the news came, he felt gratified, and, for the moment it might be, so far as such a sensation could exist in a Glendare, grateful.
After all, they were not a bad race, a degenerate peasantry, those Irishmen, who despiteLord Ardmorne’s money remained true to the Somerfords and the traditions of their fathers.
They were a staunch tenantry and an honest, who forgot not former benefits—so he mentally styled the renewals of leases, the granting of liberty to pay rent—those sturdy independent men who spoke to him as though he had been one of themselves, and yet who honoured him and his house, who toiled early and late to make up the amount required on “gale” days, expressive phrase! and who asked for nothing better than to live and die hard-working paupers on the ground their “forbears” had, personally paupers likewise, cultivated for the benefit of a reckless, faithless, ingrate, doomed race.
Doomed! yes, and justly. They had cumbered the ground for a sufficient period, and the inexorable fiat, “Cut them down!” had gone forth.
Their reign was coming to an end—the reign of the good-natured, handsome, wicked Glendares. They had sprung from the loinsof some dare-devil English trooper, and they had not belied their ancestry. It was time for them to depart and give place to another house willing to return to the soil a portion at all events of what it took out of the soil.
But the Glendares, one and all, men and women, were as those in the days of Noë.
They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, and still the waters were creeping up about them, round and about, and when they were engulfed no soul pitied them.
It was coming, it was coming; wise were they who could read the signs of the sky, and foretell the impending tempest, wise in their generation, as are usually the children of this world.
Amongst the wise men were Mr. Dillwyn and Nettie’s husband. Of the doings of the former there will be something to state hereafter. He took steps at which all the world wondered, but which at the same time all men could see and comment upon.
Mr. Brady, on the contrary, worked like amole underground, throwing up here a mound and there another, that might have conveyed a hint to observant eyes.
But the eyes were wanting. Society at Kingslough was not clever at addition. Scandal, being presumably feminine, is generally deficient in its ability to solve abstruse arithmetical problems.
Kingslough, therefore, with whom Mr. Brady did not intermeddle, put Mr. Brady on one side and left him at leisure to work out his plans.
What those plans were, even Nettie, with all her quick perception and intuitive knowledge of other folks’ designs, failed fully to understand. She comprehended that her husband, like the rest of his countrymen, had a passion for the possession of land, a passion not second even to his love of money; but her imagination never grasped the fact that already he had formed a scheme to get the Woodbrook mortgage into his own hands, and the thing he most fervently hoped for was that he might be able to achieve his purpose before the General died.
The idea had entered his mind, more in the form of a vague wish than a practicable scheme, on that day when John Riley and his father refused his proffered hand; but he had since brooded over the plan, moulded it into shape, and resolved to carry it into effect.
He knew he could ruin the Rileys. It became in his mind a mere question of time, for now that Miss Moffat had refused to cast in her lot with the family, not even a hope remained of ultimate extrication. The more rapidly the world went on—and the world had begun in those days to show signs of quicker movement—the more certainly were the Rileys doomed to destruction; but he felt that his revenge would lose half its sweetness if he failed to carry out his design in the General’s lifetime.
Already his fancy portrayed the old man leaving the house and lands he had struggled so gallantly and so unavailingly to retain. Already he pictured the daughters governesses, the father and mother living poorly in some cheap house in Kingslough, the son’sexertions being taxed to provide for the necessities of his family.
Such reverses had been over and over again, such a reverse should be enacted once more.
“Had the Rileys,” he said to himself, but said falsely, though perhaps unconscious of his self-deceit, “had the Rileys recognized Nettie and received me, I would have forgiven them their insolence, and helped them to build up their fortunes once again.”
So he said, so possibly he thought; but the experience of all time tending to prove that a known enemy is better than a false friend, the Rileys, in the impulse of their indignation at Nettie’s choice, acted probably as well for themselves as they would have done had they gone into a series of worldly calculations and ordered their conduct accordingly.
Mr. Brady might be a rising man in a pecuniary sense, people soon began to say he was, but the Rileys were of one rank and sort and he of another, and there can be no greater folly than for one in a higher station to supposethat a person who is trying to creep up to the same station will serve him faithfully either for love or interest.
So after John’s departure there was a dead break between Woodbrook and Maryville, and if Nettie had found her life in Kingslough monotonous, she probably found it—except so far as her husband’s tempers diversified the routine—more monotonous still in her new home.
But how she fared in that new home, whether well or the reverse, no one could tell. Few ever saw her, to none did she give her confidence.
Even the Castle Farm beheld her no more. In the early days of her marriage she wandered over there two or three times, in the vague hope, perhaps, of meeting Grace; but Mr. Brady, hearing of these visits, expressed his disapproval, and Nettie silently obeyed his wishes in that as in all other matters.
Perhaps, indeed, after a few sentences she and her husband exchanged one day, she felt little inclination to listen to Mrs. Scott’s hopefultalk about the future, her cheerful gossip concerning their plans and expectations.
“I wonder,” said Mr. Brady to his wife, “why Scott is drawing all those stones? It looks as if he meant to build.”
“So he does,” Nettie answered; “he is going to build a new byre and stable and loft over.”
“He must be mad,” remarked Mr. Brady, “to lay out money at the tail-end of his lease.”
“The earl has promised him a new one, did not you know that?”
“I heard something about it,” said her husband, “but it is all nonsense. The earl has no power to give him a new lease.”
“Why?” Nettie inquired.
“I wonder if one could talk for three minutes to any woman without her asking ‘Why?’” said Mr. Brady impatient. “It would take me a day to explain the why and the wherefore to you. He can’t, and there’s an end of it.”
Having returned which courteous answer,Mr. Brady walked out of the room with his hands deep in his pockets.
Now the lands of the Castle Farm “marched,” to use a local expression, with those of Maryville.