A MOTHER'S WILES.
Having indulged in a soothing torrent of tears, Doreen departed with
lightened heart with the other young people for an excursion on the
bay. She felt all the better for the passage of arms, for her breezy
common-sense told her that my lady's charges resulted from momentary
pique, and had no foundation in conviction. But, resulting from the
quarrel, a vista had risen in her mind for the first time of what she
might be sacrificing for her people's sake. Evil tongues will wag.
Women who brave public opinion have always gone to the wall, time out
of mind. No. Not always. Scandal had nothing to say against the maid
of Domremy; Judith's fair fame was smirched in nowise by that little
supper _en tete-a-tete_ with Holofernes. Miss Wolfe failed to consider
that the rapid action of that Jewish tragedy, with its pitiless
termination in the murder of a helpless sleeper, did much to keep the
tongue of scandal quiet. Had she held clandestine interviews with the
doughty general, walked with him by moonlight and so forth, it is
highly probable that all the geese in Jewry would have cackled, and
that the heroine would have been tabooed for a brazen slut. Now the
young lady whose peculiar position interests us so much at present,
while perfectly innocent of wrong-doing, could not but see that her
motives might possibly be misinterpreted; that spiteful remarks,
similar to her aunt's, would probably go the round of Dublin. Was she
prepared to endure opprobrium? was the game worth the candle she was
burning for it? was the good she was likely to achieve at all in
proportion to the social ruin which would fall upon herself? Like the
generous young person that she was, her first romantic feeling was an
exultant glow at the distant prospect of martyrdom; her second--due to
the practical firmness of her character--a doubt whether she might not
be self-deceived by inexperience. Then her father too--the good weak
father who cared very much for sublunary fleshpots--what would he say
when he came to know how deeply circumstances were involving his child
in matters which he would surely disapprove? She could not help the
stirring of an idea (which she strove hard to lull to rest) to the
effect that it is not very heroic to drag innocent people into a mess;
and a second one moved at the stirring of the first, which whispered
that if her own name were to be publicly bandied, her father would
certainly get into trouble for not keeping her in check. Her aunt's
was the wisdom of the world; there was no doubt about it.
It is all very well to sacrifice yourself, vow that you will never
marry, that no woodbine-bonds of family affection shall be permitted
to spring up around you--provided that you stand quite alone. If you
have a parent who delights in fleshpots, who holds an honourable
situation of which your own heroics may deprive him, it is surely a
matter of doubt whether your better part would not be the dusting of
household furniture, the warming of slippers, the mending of old
stockings, instead of the more picturesque operation of donning
plume and helm. What, I wonder, did the parents of Joan of Arc
think of their daughter when she abandoned the care of sheep to go
a-soldiering? Doreen recognised the objections to her proposed course
with a pang, but wavered, searching for an excuse such as should
render her desires commendable. She would have liked to go down to
posterity as a female Moses. The position of the budding lawgiver at
Pharaoh's court was somewhat like her own, save in the important point
that he had no father who loved fleshpots. If it might only be
permitted for Arthur Wolfe's daughter to wean him from them to better
things! But that seemed too good a prospect to be hoped for, so with a
sigh she put it from her.
As, after the recent skirmish, she reviewed the situation, I grieve to
relate she was not sorry for her pertness. My lady had no business to
say what she had said, to make rude speeches, and to worry about
Shane. The young lady conceived herself bound to speak up boldly in
self-defence, to put my lady down on the subject of private liberty,
as she often did in the matter of King William. The two ladies started
in all things from two opposite poles. That they should clash was
inevitable. But she did promise herself to be more prudent in the
future for her father's sake; to do what was feasible for the good
cause in private, strictly remaining in the background herself, come
what might. And this resolution being firmly graven on her mind, she
busied herself about fishing-tackle with the placid calm which passed
with her for cheerfulness.
Meanwhile my lady sat alone in the tapestry-saloon among the faded
effigies of departed Crosbies, looking appealingly at them as though
they could help her in an extremity. The guiding spring of her life
had been pride, which became firmly grafted by marriage in the glory
of her husband's lineage. Pride it was which had supported her
fainting heart in many a bitter struggle. Black care had thinned her
cheek, had pressed crow's-feet about her restless eyes; yet, save for
a querulous manner and the peculiar sudden dilation of the pupil which
struck us when first we were introduced to the stately countess in
'83, there was but little that was unusual on the surface to tell a
new acquaintance that the battle which she fought was never-ceasing.
In the late lord's lifetime she was wretched enough--but with a
numbing dulness which is its own anodyne. Moreover, as we discovered
on his deathbed, the important secret, if important it were, had
been shared between the two. A secret known to even one other person,
whose feelings in the matter are similar to our own, is lightened by
more than half its weight. He died. His widow was condemned to drag
the chain alone--worse than alone, for yet one other person knew
of it whose feelings were remote from friendly. The late lord's
devil-may-care visage glanced sideways down with an eternal smirk from
its frame upon the wall. He was dead. His breast was unburthened. He
slept in peace, and there was his smiling counterfeit grinning at his
unhappy partner. Did he sleep in peace? Oh! If she could have been
sure of that! But no. Possibly he was enduring torments even worse
than hers. As he lay choking between the confines of two worlds,
perchance he had been allowed to see what was still concealed from her
human ken--and then had cried out the warning--'Set right that wrong
while you have the opportunity.' How horribly unjust seemed the
retribution which pursued her! Her sin had been the negative one of
living a long lie. If she had had courage to confess--to abase her
stiff-necked pride--the wrong might have been set right with but
little serious injury to any but herself. But my lord--the prime
sinner--had encouraged this pride, declaring that there was no call
for a great sacrifice--until the last moment when his eyes were
opened, and he called out in his agony, 'Beware!' By that time the
pride so long nurtured was become a second nature.
She could not all of a sudden break through the ramparts of long
usage. It was very well for him to cry 'Stand on the pillory,' when he
was himself flitting beyond the reach of stone-throwing. It was very
well for his odious concubine to cry 'Confess!' who would be no
sufferer by the confession. By that improvised death-couch the widow
had turned the matter over in all its phases. Then she had not
perceived that, with every rising sun, the confession would become
more difficult--that (despite the lying proverb) the rolling stone
would gather moss till it should move slowly and more slowly, pressing
her breath out by degrees ere it ground her to powder under its
weight.
Sometimes she tried to forget, and almost fancied that she succeeded,
almost believed that her conscience was quite hardened. Then something
would take place--a trivial circumstance--one of Doreen's idle shafts,
which set her nerves jarring, and the painful truth forced itself upon
her that there are tender spots on the most seared of consciences. She
had wild accesses of rage within the secrecy of her own chamber, in
that my lord who simpered on the wall should have wrecked her life so
utterly. She took refuge in religion, loathing the faith of the
surviving participator in her secret as an outlet for surging hate and
bitterness. She tried to take refuge from her own trouble by smoothing
that of others, but even in this--the last resource of those who see
life through jaundiced spectacles--she found little consolation, for
the trouble which she soothed was at least open and laid bare. And so
the distinct working of a double consciousness--one for good and one
for evil at the same time--(which we all feel within us) became
unusually evident in Lady Glandore, urging her at one moment to a rash
act for which she was gnawed by deep remorse the next. May this
account for the growing dislike which she nourished for her second
son, while she fed the poor with soup and wrapped their limbs in
flannel? Perhaps it was the singular contradictions of her character
which induced Lord Clare to like and to respect her so much, and which
permitted him at the same time to make that disgraceful suggestion
without fear of exclusion from the Abbey, anent Tone's letter.
For the thousandth time, as she twisted in the great chair, my lady
wondered whether it was really too late to humble herself, to grovel
in the dust, and make confession. There was an obstacle which rendered
a tardy repentance impossible, at least until it was removed. That
long-cherished match between Shane and Doreen must be accomplished
first; then, perhaps--but surely it could not be so absolutely urgent!
Time, so far, had brought with him only a complication of troubles,
more tangled than his usual fardel. Where was his all-comforting
finger, about which the poets have raved? Sure he would relent, and
spare the countess the supreme sacrifice. Not that so far he showed
much sign of relenting. This idea of Doreen's about a secret marriage,
which had sent the blood tearing back to her aunt's heart, was an
extra knot in the web that was smothering her. Norah must be put away;
Shane must be seriously exhorted to observe his cousin's charms. Of
course she would never marry Terence; nobody wished her to do so. This
my lady decided comfortably, on the principle that we easily believe
that which we desire. How could Arthur Wolfe be bolstered into showing
greater strength of character, and induced to obey his sister? If she
were to tell him what she knew of Doreen, to impress on him by this
means that a speedy marriage was necessary for her.--No! That would
not do. He would be capable of carrying her off in a fright to London,
Paris, Rome--anywhere out of temptation's reach.
Then, again, the dowager reflected on the chances of who Norah's
father was; and again her agony ascended to a paroxysm. At all hazards
so awful a shadow as this hideous new one that loomed must be
exorcised. How? Mrs. Gillin was brutish and pitiless, of course. Why
did she encourage this terrible flirtation? She could not realise,
surely, the sharpness of the tools with which she played. Come what
might of it, it was plainly her duty, for everybody's sake (so the
chatelaine pondered), to take Madam Gillin to task as to her present
conduct.
It is all very well to stick pins in your rival's seat (so she must
explain to her), but it is your distinct interest to be quite certain
that you yourself may not be called upon to sit on them. Gillin's
spite against my lady was doubtless great. She would do much to injure
her, but not to the extent of ruining her own daughter, surely? For,
somehow or other--probably on the principle that life not being hard
enough, we must practise self-torture--my lady had quite made up her
mind as to Norah's parentage. Now Gillin must be bidden forthwith to
stop this scandal--and my lady was the one person who could venture to
broach the subject. Then qualms of pride arose within the latter's
breast. The twain had never spoken but once--on the dreadful evening
at Daly's club-house. At Castle-balls they had looked with Medusan
gaze right through each other; for the compact was there--no less
binding that it was unwritten--that the mistress and the wife should
never speak, save on the subject of that secret. Had things not gone
crooked, nothing could have been more satisfactory than such a
compact. As things were, was not Mrs. Gillin--inflamed to vulgar wrath
through her sinful designs being exposed--certain to set her foul
tongue clacking, to delve into old sores whose cicatrices were yet
soft, to plunge into long-buried matters within hearing, perhaps, of
other vulgar wretches, who, in surprised horror, would blab to all the
world. Thus did my lady attempt to gloss over her own dread, to veneer
the promptings of her pride with plausible reasons for avoiding that
which conscience--speaking through unconscious Doreen--had specially
declared must be done without delay.
But it was more than a merely human woman might be called upon to do.
In my lord's time people, more sensitive than the herd, marvelled that
the countess could bear the insulting presence of her flaunting rival
with such stoical equanimity. That much she had bravely borne. But of
her own free will to descend from a pedestal occupied with dignity
during half a lifetime; to lower herself to an interview with the
concubine, who would surely jump upon the rival, voluntarily abased,
was more, much more, than might be demanded of a mortal. It was not
possible to call upon Mrs. Gillin. The only remaining plan was to take
Shane away; to follow Doreen's counsel, and move the household to
Ennishowen.
At this point in her self-communing, the limbs of the countess shook
with palsy, and her haggard face looked really aged. Since the
commencement of her married life, she had carefully eschewed
Glas-aitch-e, the wild islet on Lough Swilly, where the decayed castle
of Ennishowen stood, and where _that_ had taken place which was the
beginning of her troubles. It would be dreadful to have to revisit
that spot; yet to that sacrifice at least she was able to resign
herself, hoping that it might be counted as half a penance. But Shane,
would he consent to be carried thither? to forego the society of
Norah, the allurements of Dublin taverns? And if he did in this much
obey his mother, could the match with his cousin be in anywise
promoted? My lady's brain grew weary and bewildered as she tried to
fit into harmony the pieces of her puzzle.
There was beloved Shane, galloping in, unkempt, from last night's
debauch. So soon as he had had time to bathe and dress himself, his
mother resolved to summon the dear prodigal to her presence-chamber,
and try what her influence could accomplish.
When her favourite son appeared before her, with two pointers
gambolling about him, the countess's stern face softened; and well it
might, for he was a comely spectacle. Rather low in stature, but
elegantly made, with hair brushed backwards and fastened by a diamond
clasp, he looked, with his delicate wan face, and eyes rendered the
more lustrous for the dark circles round them, a fit guardian of the
honour of Glandore. His air and manner when in his mother's presence
(as, indeed, in that of Doll Tearsheet, or any other woman) assumed an
exquisite blandness, such as gave a false first impression of
effeminacy, which was corroborated by the tiny dimensions of his hand.
But are not first impressions snares, my brethren, for the deceiving
of the unwary? That gazelle-like eye could, on occasion, shoot forth a
light of cold ferocity; that finely-modelled little forefinger had
many a time sent a hapless boon companion to his last account for an
idle jest, with a cool precision and nonchalance which compelled an
unwilling sort of admiration, despite its ruffianism. But this morning
he was in the best of humours, as Eblana and Aileach danced about him,
wagging their tails and tumbling over and over, in their delight at
his friendly notice; for his head did not burn, neither was his tongue
parched, and he registered a mental resolution to send a yacht
forthwith to Douglas for another hogshead or two of that especially
pure claret.
Drawing around him the ample folds of his morning-gown (that
becoming one of rose-coloured brocade, thickly frogged and tasselled
in gold), he kissed his mother lightly, and played with the jewelled
watch-chains which dangled from either fob. As her eyes wandered over
his neat limbs, which looked their best in tight blue-striped
pantaloons that ended midway down the calf in a great bunch of
ribbons, her spirits rose, for sure no damsel in her senses could long
resist so refined a combination of elegant graces, leaving the lustre
of the coronet quite out of the question. But the female heart--as my
lady might be expected to remember--is prone to erratic courses; to
start off down crooked byways, instead of keeping the straight road;
to take distracting and inconvenient fancies, and generally to
distress its friends.
But Shane was a _parti comme il y en a peu_. If he could only be
induced to abandon the Doll Tearsheets, and direct amorous glances at
the high-born young ladies of the metropolis, Doreen might be
permitted to run her foolish race unchecked, for Shane could be well
married without her. Unluckily the male heart is not too justly
balanced neither. Shane liked something more highly spiced than an
innocent miss, who, he declared, always made him qualmish with a smell
of bread and butter. Nobody could accuse Doreen of anything so vapid,
and Shane certainly liked Doreen after a careless fashion, though he
never in his life had made love to her. My lady now proposed to rate
him on this subject, for the possibility of choosing another bride for
him in due time was finally put out of the question by the imminent
danger of some catastrophe with Norah. It was clear, all things
considered, that there was nothing for it but to remove my lord
forthwith to his fastness in the north, and keep him there for a time;
and it was quite certain that no high-born damsels with suitable
attributes were to be found in the wilds of Donegal, straying about in
search of husbands.
'Mother!' Shane said gaily, 'we had such a whimsical accident last
night. George Fitzgerald wagered to keep three of the best of us at
bay with his single rapier-point, for a whole hour. I saw he was too
drunk to stand, so I took the bet at once, and off we marched,
borrowing their lanterns from the watchmen as we passed, to the ring
in Stephen's Green. George steadied himself against the statue, and
really made superb play--I could not have done better myself--till
somebody in the crowd shouted, "For God's sake part them!" to which
another blackguard hallooed, "Let them have it out, for one will be
killed, and the rest hanged for murder, and so we shall be rid of a
bunch of pests." Of course this roused us, so we all turned on him,
just to show he was wrong; and faix he was wrong, sure enough, for
'twas he that got killed, and none of us are ripe for hanging.'
'But, Shane!' my lady exclaimed, 'who was the man? You are so
imprudent.'
'No one of any importance,' responded her son, carelessly. 'An old
busybody--a shoemaker, I think, or a baker. Sure it was an accident,
for George meant only to pink the spalpeen, and his sword went in too
far--a miscalculation. Do you know, mother, that there'll soon be no
end to the insolence of these ruffians? There's a report at the Castle
that that crazy idiot Tone, to whom you were always much too kind, has
succeeded in persuading the French to take up his cudgels. He'll dance
the Kilmainham minuet, as the saying is, take my word for it, and
serve him right; but Lord Camden really thinks it's serious. He talked
with such mystery of plots last evening, of some scheme for attacking
Dublin, that I thought his excellency was having a joke with us, till
he said if things go on as they are going, there'll be nothing for it
but to proclaim martial law.'
My lady meditated for a time, reviewing this intelligence. 'Then these
United Irish did not intend to be mere wind-bags?' she thought, and my
Lord Camden was beginning to be afraid of them. Her common-sense told
her that if, in a tussle, they got even for a moment the upper hand,
their vengeance would fall heavily upon the perpetrators of such
reckless escapades as that which Shane had just narrated. At any rate,
it was not good to give them such food for complaint. My lady's caste
prejudices blinded her to the fact that when half-a-dozen youths (even
blue-blood ones) set on a single man and slay him, the act is no
better than murder, though they are content to deplore it for a minute
as an accident. There was no doubt left in her mind that Doreen's
advice had been of the very best. She must even go to Ennishowen,
however great the pain might be to herself in the revival of
unpleasant memories. So, shaking her head, she remarked: 'Dear Shane!
in '45 the Scotch rebels advanced within a hundred miles of London. If
5,000 ragged Highlanders are capable of that, why should not the
French army march on Dublin? Lord Clare spoke to me yesterday on the
subject of the yeomanry. It seems that the Privy Council expect you to
undertake this district.'
'I should like that!' Shane said.
'It would not be wise, though,' returned his mother, quietly. 'The
aristocracy will have a difficult game to play if these silly people
really aim at violence. The executive will have brought it on
themselves, and it's only fair that they should get out of their own
difficulties in their own way. In '82, when your father and I both
wore the uniform, the case was different. Landlord and tenant were
united, as lord and servant of the soil, against a foreigner who had
maltreated both. Things have changed since then. The position of the
nobles is different. They have become Anglicised. Much of their
interest is English. Yet it would be best for them not too openly to
join the foreigner in coercing their own tenants--at least, not just
now.'
The cunning old lady was saying what she did not quite believe, having
in view an object, and Shane looked at her in surprise.
'If riots take place,' the countess proceeded, 'the commander-in-chief
will put them down, if he thinks proper, with the English troops who
have come over lately; and he and they will bear the odium. The Irish
nobles would be placing themselves in a false position by interfering
against their own people with too great alacrity. At all events, they
will gain a point by waiting.'
'But, mother, the other lords are heading the squireens. If I hold
back they will say I am a coward!'
'Not so, my son. Your proceedings every day would give the lie to
that. I grant that if you sat here, or roystered on in Dublin, you
might be accused of shuffling, which would not do. But if you went
away? Not to England, no! That would not do either. Why not go to
Ennishowen, under the pretext that here everything is safe under the
paternal rule of the executive, whilst in the vast wild northern
district, over which you hold sway, it would be politic for the lord
to be amongst his tenants? You would be of local service, and at that
distance no one could be sure whether or no your future actions were
guided by events.'
'You do not believe that this pack of fools will do any harm?'
'Certainly not, or I would not counsel you to go away. Cannot you see
that in ignoble squabbles with the scum it is best to keep clean hands
by remaining neutral? They will be put down--of course they will be
put down; but, you stupid fellow, we must so manage that you have no
hand in it. We will go to Glas-aitch-e. 'Tis long since we were
there.'
Shane twirled the satin ear of Eblana round his finger absently. This
move of his mother's puzzled him. What would his life be away at wild
Glas-aitch-e without his boon companions, among boors who had probably
never heard of a Hellfire Club? In earlier days he used to be madly
fond of field-sports, was still devoted to certain branches of the
chase. But suddenly to leave the joys of a gay metropolis to bury
himself in a hut on practically a desert island, was no pleasant
prospect. And dear Norah, too, must she be left behind? Accustomed as
he was to bow to his mother's ascendency in political questions as in
the management of the estates, the vision of Norah deploring in
dishevelled loneliness the absence of his fascinating self was too
much for him.
'I cannot go, mother! It would look like flight,' he said with a show
of firmness.
My lady was too acute not to read his thoughts; too wise to expect her
son to yield without a flutter. She moved with stately sweep to where
he sat, and, pressing his face with her two hands, whispered fondly as
she knelt down beside him. 'My darling, do you not know that I would
cut my heart out for you, that I would walk to the stake to save you
one needless pang? Men can never realise the fulness of a mother's
love--the sublimity of its unselfishness--the majesty of its devotion.
It is the one ray of the Divine which has been allowed to glimmer
forth on our dull earth. Do you suppose I would counsel you to aught
that could bring you injury? that I have not anxiously weighed each
side of the question before deciding what is best? You know that I
love you much better than myself. You know that Heaven has denied you
cleverness. You are not clever, my poor child; but we can't help that,
can we? And you are not good, I am sorely afraid. Yet as your mother I
love you no whit the less. Try to comprehend what a mother's love is
like--how large--how grandly blind in that it might see but will not!'
As she spoke, the poor lady who had been so buffeted by worldly
troubles was transfigured by the strength of her affection for this
one being. The fact of her loving nothing else served but to increase
her love. As one, some of whose senses have decayed whilst others are
proportionately sensitised, she felt with intensity all which affected
her firstborn. It was strange that she could not remember that Terence
also was her son--that he had pined for such a display as this all his
life in vain--that even now (yawning in the Four-courts) he would have
upset the presiding judge and sent all the attorneys to a man into
the Liffey, and galloped at breakneck speed to Strogue if his mother
would only have given him one of the looks which she was lavishing on
Shane--one of those hand-touches that are in nowise akin to
'paddling,' but which send stronger thrills through us than the most
languishing of eyes.
'Ireland is being involved in complicated difficulties,' she pursued.
'You must be obedient, and allow me to lead you through them safely.
It will only be for a month or two. Then all will be over, and we can
come back here again. Say you will do as I wish?'
Shane never could long withstand his mother's coaxing, when she
condescended to implore. Is it not always thus? Is it not worth while
to be haughty, arrogant, ill-tempered--as the case may be--if only for
the fuller appreciation of our benignity when we elect to be benign?
Shane clung to the dowager's last straw, which with artful artlessness
she had held out to him. It would only be for a month or two. It would
do Norah all the good in life to miss her beloved for a space; while
he was away, she would measure his merits, and fly with rapture to his
bosom on his return. It would be rather fun, too, again to visit for a
few weeks the haunts he used so to doat upon. But it ill became him as
one of the sterner sex to be over-easily persuaded.
'It will be very dull up there, mother,' he objected.
'How civil of you,' the countess said, kissing him, for she saw the
point was gained. 'If you are a good boy, I will ask your uncle to let
Doreen come too. Her eccentricities will enliven us.'
'You are always talking of Doreen?' complained my lord. 'I can't see
why you make so much fuss about her.'
'Then we won't take her,' responded my lady, with prompt and
Machiavellian wisdom.
'I care not,' he returned 'Perhaps we had better take her, and I'll
teach her to shoot seals.'
And so the matter was decided, whilst my lady made up her mind that,
once in Donegal, her son should stop there under one pretext or
another until all danger from Miss Gillin should be averted.
END Of VOL. I.
* * * * *
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.
_S. & H_.