Whether an uneasy consciousness that he might not be able to display a
proper spirit of connoisseurship before that bland, soft-spoken domestic
who accompanied him through the picture-gallery, and who, doubtless,
had enjoyed various opportunities of imbibing critical notions on art,
disposed Mr. O’Rorke--or whether he deemed that his own enjoyment of
the splendour would be higher if unwitnessed, is not given to us to
pronounce; but so it was, that he dismissed his guide very soon, and
declared that he preferred to ramble about quite alone. The well-trained
servant bowed and withdrew, and Mr. O’Rorke was left to revel at will
amidst the magnificence of Dalradern.
There were art treasures there to have fixed the attention and
captivated the gaze of more cultivated admirers; but these attracted
less of his notice than the splendid furniture, the inlaid tables, the
richly-encrusted cabinets, the gorgeously gilded “consoles,” which,
as he surveyed, he appraised, till he actually lost himself in the
arithmetic of his valuation. Nor was this mere unprofitable speculation;
far from it. Mr. O’Rorke was a most practical individual, and the point
to which his calculation led him was this: How much depletion will
all this plethora admit of? What amount of money may be a fair sum to
extract from a man of such boundless wealth? “I’d have let him off for
a hundred pounds,” said he to himself, “as I came up the avenue, and
I wouldn’t take three now, to give him a receipt in full!” In the true
spirit of a brigand, he estimated that his prisoner’s ransom should be
assessed by the measure of his fortune.
Wandering on from room to room, still amazed at the extent and splendour
he surveyed, he opened a door, and suddenly found himself in a large
room brilliantly lighted, and with a table copiously covered with fruit
and wine. As he stood, astonished at the sight, a voice cried out,
“Holloa, whose that? What do you want?” And though O’Rorke would
willingly have retreated, he was so much embarrassed by his intrusion
that he could not move.
“Who the--are you?” cried out the voice again. And now O’Rorke perceived
that a young man was half sitting, half lying in the recess of a very
deep chair, beside the fire, with his legs resting on another chair. “I
say,” cried he, again, “what brings you here?” And as it was young
Ladarelle that spoke, the reader may possibly imagine that the tone was
not over conciliatory.
Retreat was now out of the question, not to say that Mr. O’Rorke had
regained his self-possession, and was once more assured and collected.
Advancing, therefore, till he came in front of the other, he made
his apologies for the accident of his intrusion, and explained how he
happened to be there.
“And where’s the letter you say you brought?” broke in Ladarelle,
hurriedly.
“I gave it to Sir Within Wardle; he has it now.”
“Where did it come from? Who wrote it?”
“It came from Ireland, and from a part of Ireland that, maybe, you never
heard of.”
“And the writer--who was he?”
“That’s no business of _mine_,” said O’Rorke; but he contrived to give
the words the significance that would mean, “Nor of _yours_ either.”
“I think I can guess without your help, my worthy friend; and I have
suspected it would come to this for many a day. What relation are you to
her?”
“Your honour must explain yourself better, if you want a clear answer,”
replied he, in some confusion.
“Don’t fence with me, my fine fellow. I’m more than your match at that
game. I see the whole thing with half an eye. She wants to come back!”
As he said the last words he sat up straight in the chair, and darted a
searching, stern look at the other.
“Faix, this is all riddles to _me_,” said O’Rorke, folding his hands,
and looking his very utmost to seem like one puzzled and confused.
“What a-------fool you are,” cried Ladarelle, passionately, “not to see
that you may as well tell me now, what, before two hours are over, I
shall know for nothing; out with it, what was in the letter.”
“How can I tell what’s in a sealed letter,” said O’Rorke, sulkily, for
he was not very patient under this mode of interrogation.
“You know who wrote it, at all events?”
“I’ll tell you what I know!” said O’Rorke, resolutely. “That I’ll not
answer any more questions, and that I’ll leave this room now.”
As he turned towards the door, Ladarelle sprang up and said, “You
mistake me, my good fellow, if you think I want all this for nothing.
If you knew a little more of me, you’d see I was a pleasanter fellow to
deal with than my old relation yonder. What is your name?”
“My name,” said he, with a sort of dogged pride--“_my_ name is O’Rorke.”
“Timothy O’Rorke? Ain’t I right?”
“You are indeed, however you knew it.”
“You shall soon see. I have had a letter for you in my writing-desk
for many a long day. ‘Timothy O’Rorke, Vinegar Hill, Cush--something or
other, Ireland.’”
“And who wrote it, Sir?” said O’Rorke, approaching him, and speaking in
a low, anxious voice.
“I’ll be more frank with you than you are with me. I’ll give you the
letter, O’Rorke.”
“But tell me who wrote it?”
“One who was your well wisher, and who told me I might trust you.”
There was never a more puzzling reply than this, for Mr. O’Rorke well
knew that there were few who thought well of him, and fewer who trusted
him.
“Sit down. Take a glass of wine. Drink this.” And as he spoke he filled
a large goblet with sherry.
O’Rorke drained it, and looked happier.
“Take another,” said Ladarelle, as he filled it out, and O’Rorke
complied, smacking his lips with satisfaction as he finished.
“When you have read the letter I’ll give you this evening, O’Rorke,
you’ll see that we are two men who will readily understand each other.
My friend Grenfell said----”
“Was it Mr. Grenfell wrote it?” broke in O’Rorke.
“It was. You remember him, then? He was afraid you might have forgotten
his name.”
“That’s what I never did yet.”
“All right, then. What he said was, ‘Show O’Rorke that you mean to deal
liberally with him. Let him see that you don’t want to drive a hard
bargain, and he’ll stand by you like a man.’”
“When he said that, he knew me well.”
“He said that you were a fine-hearted, plucky fellow, who had not the
success he deserved in life.”
“And he said true; and he might have said that others made a
stepping-stone of me, and left me to my fate when they passed over me!”
The door opened at this moment, and the bland butler announced that the
“Gentleman’s supper was served.”
“Come in here, Mr. O’Rorke, when you have finished, and Til give you a
cigar. I want to hear more about the snipe shooting,” said Ladarelle,
carelessly; and, without noticing the other’s leave-takings, he returned
to his easy-chair and his musings.
“I wonder which of the two is best to deal with,” muttered O’Rorke to
himself, and on this text he speculated as he ate his meal. It was a
very grand moment of his existence certainly: he was served on silver,
fed by a French cook, and waited on by two servants--one being the
black-coated gentleman, whose duty seemed to be in anticipating Mr.
O’Rorke’s desires for food or drink, and whose marvellous instincts were
never mistaken. “Port, always port,” said he, holding up his glass. “It
is the wine that I generally drink at home.”
[Illustration: 424]
“This is Fourteen, Sir; and considered very good,” said the butler,
obsequiously; for humble as the guest appeared, his master’s orders were
to treat him with every deference and attention.
“Fourteen or fifteen, I don’t care which,” said O’Rorke, not aware to
what the date referred; “but the wine pleases me, and I’ll have another
bottle of it.”
He prolonged his beatitude till midnight, and though Mr. Fisk came twice
to suggest that Mr. Ladarelle would like to see him, O’Rorke’s answer
was, each time, “The day for business, the evening for relaxation;
them’s my sentiments, young man.”
At last a more peremptory message arrived, that Mr. Ladarelle wanted him
at once, and O’Rorke, with a promptitude that astonished the messenger,
arose, and cooling his brow and bathing his temples with a wet napkin,
seemed in an instant to restore himself to his habitual calm.
“Where is he?” asked he.
“In his dressing-room. I’ll show you the way,” said Fisk. “I don’t think
you’ll find him in a pleasant humour, though. You’ve tried his patience
a bit.”
“Not so easy to get speech of you, Mr. O’Rorke,” said Ladarelle, when
they were alone. “This is about the third or fourth time I have sent to
say I wanted you.”
“The port, Sir, the port! It was impossible to leave it. Indeed, I don’t
know how I tore myself away at last.”
“It will be your own fault if you haven’t a bin of it in your cellar at
home.”
“How so?”
“I mean that as this old place and all belonging to it must one day be
mine, it will be no very difficult matter to me to recompense the man
who has done me a service.”
“And are you the heir, Sir?” asked O’Rorke, for the first time his voice
indicating a tone of deference.
“Yes, it all comes to me; but my old relative is bent on trying my
patience. What would you say his age was?”
“He’s not far off eighty.”
“He wants six or seven years of it. Indeed, until the other day he did
not look seventy. He broke down all at once.”
“That’s the way they all do,” said O’Rorke, sententiously.
“Yes, but now and then they make a rally, Master O’Rorke, and that’s
what I don’t fancy; do you understand me?”
In the piercing look that accompanied these words there seemed no common
significance, and O’Rorke, drawing closer to the speaker, dropped his
voice to a mere whisper, and said, “Do you want to get rid of him?”
“I’d be much obliged to him if he would die,” said the other, with a
laugh.
“Of course--of course--that’s what I mean,” said O’Rorke, who now began
to suspect he was going too fast.
“I’ll be frank with you, O’Rorke, because I want you; but, first of all,
there’s the letter I had for you.” And he pitched the document across
the table.
O’Rorke drew the candle towards him, and perused the paper slowly and
carefully..
“Well!” said Ladarelle, when he had finished--“well! what do you say to
that?”
“I say two things to it,” said O’Rorke, calmly. “The first is, what am I
to do? and the second is, what am I to get for it?”
“What you are to do is this: you are to serve my interests, and help me
in every way in your power.”
“Am I to break the law?” burst in O’Rorke.
“No--at least, no very serious breach.”
“Nothing against that old man up there?” And he made a strange and
significant gesture, implying violence.
“No, no, nothing of the kind. You don’t think me such a fool as to risk
a halter out of mere impatience. I’ll run neither you nor myself into
such danger as that. When I said you were to serve me, it was in such
ways as a man may help another by zeal, activity, ready-wittedness, and
now and then, perhaps, throwing overboard a few scruples, and proving
his friendship by straining his conscience.”
“Well, I won’t haggle about that. My conscience is a mighty polite
conscience, and never drops in on me without an invitation!”
“The man I want--the very man. Grenfell told me you were,” said
Ladarelle, taking his hand, and shaking it cordially. “Now let me see if
you can be as frank with me as I have been with you, O’Rorke. What was
this letter that you brought here this evening? Was it from _her?_”
“It was.”
“From herself--by her own hand?”
“By her own hand!”
“Are you perfectly sure of that?”
“I saw her write it.”
Ladarelle took a turn up and down the room after this without speaking.
At last he broke out: “And this is the high spirit and the pride they’ve
been cramming me with! This is the girl they affected to say would die
of hunger rather than ask forgiveness!”
“And they knew her well that said it. It’s just what she’d do!”
“How can you say that now? Here she is begging to be taken back again!”
“Who says so?”
“Was not that the meaning of the letter?”
“It was not--the devil a bit of it! I know well what was in it, though
I didn’t read it. It was to ask Sir Within Wardle to send her some money
to pay for the defence of her grandfather, that’s to be tried for murder
next Tuesday week. It nearly broke her heart to stoop to it, but I made
her do it. She called it a shame and a disgrace, and the tears ran down
her face; and, by my soul, it’s not a trifle would make the same young
lady cry!”
“After all, the intention is to open a way to come back here?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I suspect, Master O’Rorke, this is rather a pleasanter place to live in
than the Arran Islands.”
“So it is; there’s no doubt of that! But she is young, and thinks more
about her pride than her profit--not to say that she comes of a stock
that’s as haughty in their own wild way as ever a peer in the land.”
“There never was a better bait to catch that old man there than this
same pride. She has just hit upon the key to move him. What did he say
when he read the letter?”
“He couldn’t speak for a while, but kept wiping his eyes and trembling
all over.”
“And then?”
“And then he said, ‘Stop here to-night, Mr. O’Rorke, and I’ll have your
answer ready for you in the morning.’”
“And shall I tell you what it will be? It will be to implore her to come
back here. She can have her own terms now; she may be My Lady.”
“Do you mean his wife?”
“I do.”
O’Rorke gave a long whistle, and stood a perfect picture of amazement
and wonder.
“That _was_ playing for a big stake! May I never! if I thought she was
bowld enough for that. That she was. And how she missed it, to this hour
I never knew. But whatever happened between them was, one evening, on
the strand at a sea-side place abroad. That much I learned from her
maid, who was in my pay; and it must have been serious, for she left the
house that night, and never returned; and, what is more, never wrote one
line to him till this letter that you carried here yesterday.”
So astounded was O’Rorke by what he heard, that for some minutes he
scarcely followed what Ladarelle was saying.
“So that,” continued Ladarelle, “it may not be impossible that he had
the hardihood to make her some such proposal.”
“Do you mean without marriage?” broke in O’Rorke, suddenly catching the
clue. “Do you mean that?”
The other nodded.
“No, by all that’s holy!” cried O’Rorke. “That he never did! You might
trick her, you might cheat her--and it wouldn’t be so easy to do it,
either--but, take my word for it, the man that would insult her, and get
off free, isn’t yet born!”
“What could she do, except go off?” said Ladarelle, scoffingly.
“That’s not the stuff they’re made of where she comes from, young man.”
And, in his eagerness, he for a moment forgot all respect and deference;
nor did the other seem to resent the liberty, for he only smiled as he
heard it, and then said:
“All I have been telling you now is merely to prepare you for what I
want you to do, and mind, if you stand by me faithfully and well, your
fortune is made. I ask no man’s help without being ready and willing to
pay for it--to pay handsomely, too! Is that intelligible?”
“Quite intelligible.”
“Now, the short and long of the story is this: If this old fool were
to marry that girl, he could encumber my estate--for it is mine--with
a jointure, and I have no fancy to pay some twelve or fifteen hundred a
year--perhaps more--to Biddy somebody, and have, besides, a lawsuit for
plate, or pictures, or china, or jewels, that she claimed as matter of
gift--and all this, that an old worn-out rake should end his life with
an act of absurdity!”
“And he could leave her fifteen hundred a year for ever,” muttered
O’Rorke, thoughtfully.
“Nothing of the kind. For her life only; and even that, I believe, we
might break by law--at least, Palmer says so.”.
All this Ladarelle said hastily, for he half suspected he had made a
grievous blunder in pointing out the wealth to which she would succeed
as Sir Within’s widow.
“I see--I see!” muttered O’Rorke, thoughtfully; which simply meant that
there was a great deal to be said for each side of the question.
“What are you thinking of?” said Ladarelle at last, losing patience at
his prolonged silence.
“I’m just wondering to myself if she ever knew how near she was to being
My Lady.”
“How near, or how far off, you mean!”
“No, I don’t! I just mean what I said--how near. You don’t know her as
well as I do, that’s clear!” Another long pause followed these words,
and each followed out his own train of thought. At length, Ladarelle,
not at all satisfied, as it seemed, with his own diplomacy, said,
half-impatiently: “My friend Grenfell said, if there was any one who
would understand how to deal with this matter, you were the man; and it
was with that view he gave me the letter you have just read.”
“Oh! there’s many a way to deal with it,” said O’Rorke, who was not
insensible to the flattery. “That is to say, if she was anything else
but the girl she is, there would be no trouble at all in it.”
“You want me to believe that she is something very uncommon, and that
she knows the world, like a woman of fashion.”
“I know nothing about women of fashion, but I never saw man or woman yet
was ‘cuter than Katty O’Hara, or Luttrell, as she calls herself now.”
“She did not play her cards here so cunningly, that’s plain,” said
Ladarelle, with a sneer. “Maybe I can guess why.”
“What is your guess, then?”
“Something happened that wounded her pride! If anything did _that_,
she’d forget herself and her advantage--ay, her very life--and she’d
think of nothing but being revenged. That’s the blood that’s in her!”
“So that her pride is her weak point?”
“You have it now! That’s it. I think she’d rather have died than
write that letter the other morning, and if the answer isn’t what she
expects, I don’t think she’ll get over it! Without,” added he, quickly,
“it would drive her to some vengeance or other, if she was to see the
way to any.”
“I begin to understand her,” said Ladarelle, thoughtfully. “The devil
a bit of you! And if you were to think of it for twenty years, you
wouldn’t understand her! She beats _me_, and I don’t suspect that _you_
do.”
This was one of those thrusts it was very hard to bear without wincing,
but Ladarelle turned away, and concealed the pain he felt.
“It is evident, then, Mr. O’Rorke, that you don’t feel yourself her
match?”
“I didn’t say that; but it would be no disgrace if I _did_ say it,” was
the cautious answer.
“Mr. Grenfell assured me, that with a man like yourself to aid me, I
need not be afraid of any difficulty. Do you feel as if he said too much
for you, or has he promised more than you like to fulfil? You see, by
what I have told you, that I should be very sorry to see that girl
here again, or know that she was likely to regain any part of her old
influence over my relative. Now, though her present letter does not
touch either of these points, it opens a correspondence; don’t you
perceive that?”
“Go on,” said O’Rorke, half sulkily, for a sort of doubt was creeping
over him that possibly his services ought to be retained by the other
party.
“And if they once begin writing letters, and if she only be as ready
with her pen as you say she is with her tongue, there’s nothing to
prevent her being back here this day week, on any terms she pleases.”
“Faix, and there are worse places! May I never! if I’d wonder that she’d
like to be mistress of it.”
For the second time had Ladarelle blundered in his negotiation, and he
was vexed and angry as he perceived it.
“That’s not all so plain and easy, Mr. O’Rorke, as you imagine. When old
men make fools of themselves, the law occasionally takes them at their
word, and pronounces them insane. So long as Sir Within’s eccentricities
were harmless, we bore them, but I’ll not promise our patience for
serious injury.”
If O’Rorke was not convinced by this threat, he was sufficiently
staggered by it to become more thoughtful, and at last he said: “And
what is it you’d propose to do?”
“I’d rather put that question to _you_,” said Ladarelle, softly. “You
have the case before you, what’s your remedy?”
“If she was any other girl, I’d say give her a couple of hundred pounds,
and get her married and out of the way.”
“And why not do so here?”
“Because it would be no use; that’s the why.”
“Is she not a peasant? Are not all belonging to her people in the very
humblest station; and not blessed with the best possible reputations?”
“They’re poor enough, if that’s what you mean; and they’re the very sort
of men that would make mighty short work of you, if you were to harm one
belonging to them.”
“I promise you faithfully I’ll not go to reside in the neighbourhood,”
said Ladarelle, with a laugh.
“I’ve known them track a man to America before now.”
“Come, come, Mr. O’Rorke, your countrymen may be as like Red Indians as
you please, but they have no terrors for _me_.”
“So much the better; but I’ve seen just as big men as yourself afraid of
them.”
The quiet coolness of this speech sent a far stronger sense of fear
through the other’s heart than any words of menace could have done, and
it required a great effort on his part to seem collected.
“You say she cannot be bought over, O’Rorke; now, what other line is
open to us?”
O’Rorke made no reply, but seemed lost in thought.
“What if she were to believe that Sir Within wouldn’t receive her
letter, or read it, and sent back a cold, unfeeling answer?” Still no
answer passed his lips. “If,” continued Ladarelle, “you were to return
and say you had failed, what would she do then? She’d never write to him
again, I suppose?”
“Never, that you may depend upon, but it wouldn’t be so easy to make her
believe it.”
“That might be managed. First of all, tell me how she would take the
tidings.”
“I don’t know. I could not even guess.”
“At all events, she’d not write to him again?”
“For that I’ll answer. I believe I could take my oath on it.”
“Now, then, the game is easy enough,” said Ladarelle, with a more
assured tone. “You are to have Sir Within’s answer to-morrow. When you
get it, set out for Wrexham, where I’ll meet you. We’ll open it and read
it. If it be a simple acceptance of her note, and a mere compliance with
her request, I’ll re-seal it with his crest, and you shall take it on
to her; but if, as I suspect, the old man will make an effort to renew
their former relations, and throw out any bait to induce her to come
back here----”
“Well, what then?” asked O’Rorke, after waiting a few seconds for the
other to continue.
“In that case we must lay our heads together, O’Rorke, and see what’s
best to be done.”
“And the old man that’s in gaol, and that’s to be tried on the 19th,
what’s to be done about him?”
“I’ll think of that.”
“He hasn’t a great chance anyway, but if there’s no defence, it’s all up
with him.”
“I’ll think of that.”
“Then there’s myself,” said O’Rorke, drawing his figure up to his full
height, as though the subject was one that entailed no painful modesty.
“What about _me?_”
“I have thought of that already. Put that in your pocket, for the
present”--and he pressed a note into his hand--“and when to-morrow comes
you shall name your own conditions. Only stand by me to the end--mind
that.”
O’Rorke opened the bank-note leisurely, and muttered the word “Twenty;”
and certainly nothing in the accent showed enthusiastic gratitude.
“I can give you an order on my banker to-morrow,” said Ladarelle,
hurriedly, “but I am rather low in cash here, just now; and I repeat
it--your own terms, O’Rorke, your own terms.”
“I suppose so,” was the dry rejoinder.
“It’s not everybody would make you the same proposal.”
“It’s not everybody has so much need of me as you have.”
Ladarelle tried to laugh as he wished him good night, but the attempt
was a poor one, and all he could say, as they parted, was:
“Wrexham--the Boar’s Head--the inn on the left hand as you enter the
town. I’ll be on the look-out for you myself.”
O’Rorke nodded and withdrew.
“Vulgar scoundrel! I wish I had never spoken to him!” said Ladarelle,
as soon as the door closed. “This is all Grenfell’s doing; he has just
shoved me into the hands of a fellow that will only serve me till he
finds a higher bidder. What a fool I have been to open myself to him;
and he sees it well! And as for the ready-wittedness and expediency, I
wonder where they are! Why, the rascal had not a single suggestion to
offer; he kept on harping about the difficulties, and never a word did
he drop as to how to meet them.”
And, with a hearty malediction on him, Ladarelle concluded his
meditation, and went off to sleep.