“Have you seen Upton?” asked Glencore eagerly of Harcourt as he entered
his bedroom.
“Yes; he vouchsafed me an audience during his toilet, just as the old
kings of France were accustomed to honor a favorite with one.”
“And is he full of miseries at the dreary place, the rough fare and
deplorable resources of this wild spot?”
“Quite the reverse; he is charmed with everything and everybody. The
view from his window is glorious; the air has already invigorated him.
For years he has not breakfasted with the same appetite; and he finds
that of all the places he has ever chanced upon, this is the one
veritable exact spot which suits him.”
“This is very kind on his part,” said Glencore, with a faint smile.
“Will the humor last, Harcourt? That is the question.”
“I trust it will,--at least it may well endure for the short period
he means to stay; although already he has extended that, and intends
remaining till next week.”
“Better still,” said Glencore, with more animation of voice and manner.
“I was already growing nervous about the brief space in which I was to
crowd in all that I want to say to him; but if he will consent to wait a
day or two, I hope I shall be equal to it.”
“In his present mood there is no impatience to be off; on the contrary,
he has been inquiring as to all the available means of locomotion, and
by what convenience he is to make various sea and land excursions.”
“We have no carriage,--we have no roads, even,” said Glencore,
peevishly.
“He knows all that; but he is concerting measures about a certain
turf-kish, I think they call it, which, by the aid of pillows to lie
on, and donkeys to drag, can be made a most useful vehicle; while, for
longer excursions, he has suggested a 'conveniency' of wheels and axles
to the punt, rendering it equally eligible on land or water. Then he
has been designing great improvements in horticulture, and giving orders
about a rake, a spade, and a hoe for himself. I 'm quite serious,” said
Harcourt, as Glencore smiled with a kind of droll incredulity. “It is
perfectly true; and as he hears that the messenger occasionally crosses
the lough to the post, when there are no letters there, he hints at a
little simple telegraph for Leenane, which should announce what the mail
contains, and which might be made useful to convey other intelligence.
In fact, all _my_ changes here will be as for nothing to _his_ reforms,
and between us you 'll not know your own house again, if you even be
able to live in it.”
“You have already done much to make it more habitable, Harcourt,” said
Glencore, feelingly; “and if I had not the grace to thank you for it,
I 'm not the less grateful. To say truth, my old friend, I half doubted
whether it was an act of friendship to attach me ever so lightly to a
life of which I am well weary. Ceasing as I have done for years back to
feel interest in anything, I dread whatever may again recall me to the
world of hopes and fears,--that agitated sea of passion wherein I have
no longer vigor to contend. To speak to me, then, of plans to carry
out, schemes to accomplish, was to point to a future of activity and
exertion; and!”--here he dropped his voice to a deep and mournful
tone--“can have but one future,--the dark and dreary one before the
grave!”
Harcourt was too deeply impressed by the solemnity of these words to
venture on a reply, and he sat silently contemplating the sorrow-struck
but placid features of the sick man.
“There is nothing to prevent a man struggling, and successfully too,
against mere adverse fortune,” continued Glencore. “I feel at times
that if I had been suddenly reduced to actual beggary,--left without
a shilling in the world,--there are many ways in which I could eke out
subsistence. A great defeat to my personal ambition I could resist. The
casualty that should exclude me from a proud position and public life,
I could bear up against with patience, and I hope with dignity. Loss of
fortune, loss of influence, loss of station, loss of health even, dearer
than them all, can be borne. There is but one intolerable ill, one
that no time alleviates, no casuistry diminishes,--loss of honor!
Ay, Harcourt, rank and riches do little for him who feels himself the
inferior of the meanest that elbows him in a crowd; and the man whose
name is a scoff and a jibe has but one part to fill,--to make himself
forgotten.”
“I hope I 'm not deficient in a sense of personal honor, Glencore,” said
Harcourt; “but I must say that I think your reasoning on this point is
untenable and wrong.”
“Let us not speak more of it,” said Glencore, faintly. “I know not how
I have been led to allude to what it is better to bear in secret than
to confide even to friendship;” and he pressed the strong fingers of the
other as he spoke, in his own feeble grasp. “Leave me now, Harcourt, and
send Upton here. It may be that the time is come when I shall be able to
speak to him.”
“You are too weak to-day, Glencore,--too much agitated. Pray defer this
interview.”
“No, Harcourt; these are my moments of strength. The little energy now
left to me is the fruit of strong excitement. Heaven knows how I shall
be to-morrow.”
Harcourt made no further opposition, but left the room in search of
Upton.
It was full an hour later when Sir Horace Upton made his appearance in
Glencore's chamber, attired in a purple dressing-gown, profusely braided
with gold, loose trousers as richly brocaded, and a pair of real Turkish
slippers, resplendent with costly embroidery; a small fez of blue
velvet, with a deep gold tassel, covered the top of his head, at
either side of which his soft silky hair descended in long massy waves,
apparently negligently, but in reality arranged with all the artistic
regard to effect of a consummate master. From the gold girdle at his
waist depended a watch, a bunch of keys, a Turkish purse, an embroidered
tobacco-bag, a gorgeously chased smelling-bottle, and a small stiletto,
with a topaz handle. In one hand he carried a meerschaum, the other
leaned upon a cane, and with all the dependence of one who could not
walk without its aid. The greeting was cordial and affectionate on both
sides; and when Sir Horace, after a variety of preparations to ensure
his comfort, at length seated himself beside the bed, his features
beamed with all their wonted gentleness and kindness.
“I'm charmed at what Harcourt has been telling me, Upton,” said
Glencore; “and that you really can exist in all the savagery of this
wild spot.”
“I'm in ecstasy with the place, Glencore. My memory cannot recall the
same sensations of health and vigor I have experienced since I came
here. Your cook is first-rate; your fare is exquisite; the quiet is
a positive blessing; and that queer creature, your doctor, is a very
remarkable genius.”
“So he is,” said Glencore, gravely.
“One of those men of original mould who leave cultivation leagues
behind, and arrive at truth by a bound.”
“He certainly treated me with considerable skill.”
“I'm satisfied of it; his conversation is replete with shrewd and
intelligent observation, and he seems to have studied his art more like
a philosopher than a mere physician of the schools. And depend upon it,
Glencore, the curative art must mainly depend upon the secret instinct
which divines the malady, less by the rigid rules of acquired skill than
by that prerogative of genius, which, however exerted, arrives at its
goal at once. Our conversation had scarcely lasted a quarter of an hour,
when he revealed to me the exact seat of all my sufferings, and the
most perfect picture of my temperament. And then his suggestions as to
treatment were all so reasonable, so well argued.”
“A clever fellow, no doubt of it,” said Glencore.
“But he is far more than that, Glencore. Cleverness is only a
manufacturing quality,--that man supplies the raw article also. It has
often struck me as very singular that such heads are not found in _our_
class,--they belong to another order altogether. It is possible that the
stimulus of necessity engenders the greatest of all efforts, calling
to the operations of the mind the continued strain for contrivance; and
thus do we find the most remarkable men are those, every step of whose
knowledge has been gained with a struggle.”
“I suspect you are right,” said Glencore, “and that our old system of
school education, wherein all was rough, rugged, and difficult, turned
out better men than the present-day habit of everything-made-easy and
everybody-made-any-thing. Flippancy is the characteristic of our age,
and we owe it to our teaching.”
“By the way, what do you mean to do with Charley?” said Upton. “Do you
intend him for Eton?”
“I scarcely know,--I make plans only to abandon them,” said Glencore,
gloomily.
“I'm greatly struck with him. He is one of those fellows, however,
who require the nicest management, and who either rise superior to all
around them, or drop down into an indolent, dreamy existence, conscious
of power, but too bashful or too lazy to exert it.”
“You have hit him off, Upton, with all your own subtlety; and it was to
speak of that boy I have been so eager to see you.”
Glencore paused as he said these words, and passed his hand over his
brow, as though to prepare himself for the task before him.
“Upton,” said he, at last, in a voice of deep and solemn meaning, “the
resolution I am about to impart to you is not unlikely to meet your
strenuous opposition; you will be disposed to show me strong reasons
against it on every ground; you may refuse me that amount of assistance
I shall ask of you to carry out my purpose; but if your arguments were
all unanswerable, and if your denial to aid me was to sever the old
friendship between us, I 'd still persist in my determination. For more
than two years the project has been before my mind. The long hours
of the day, the longer ones of the night, have found me deep in the
consideration of it. I have repeated over to myself everything that my
ingenuity could suggest against it; I have said to my own heart all that
my worst enemy could utter, were he to read the scheme and detect my
plan; I have done more,--I have struggled with myself to abandon it;
but in vain. My heart is linked to it; it forms the one sole tie that
attaches me to life. Without it, the apathy that I feel stealing over me
would be complete, and my existence become a mournful dream. In a word,
Upton, all is passionless within me, save one sentiment; and I drag on
life merely for a '_Vendetta_.'”
Upton shook his head mournfully, as the other paused here, and said,--
“This is disease, Glencore!”
“Be it so; the malady is beyond cure,” said he, sternly.
“Trust me it is not so,” said Upton, gently; “you listened to my
persuasions on a more--”
“Ay, that I did!” cried Glencore, interrupting; “and have I ever ceased
to rue the day I did so? But for _your_ arguments, and I had not lived
this life of bitter, self-reproaching misery; but for you, and my
vengeance had been sated ere this!”
“Remember, Glencore,” said the other, “that you had obtained all the
world has decreed as satisfaction. He met you and received your fire;
you shot him through the chest,--not mortally, it is true, but to carry
to his grave a painful, lingering disease. To have insisted on his again
meeting you would have been little less than murder. No man could have
stood your friend in such a quarrel. I told you so then, I repeat it
now, _he_ could not fire at you; what, then, was it possible for you to
do?”
“Shoot him,--shoot him like a dog!” cried Glencore, while his eyes
gleamed like the glittering eyes of an enraged beast. “You talk of his
lingering life of pain: think of _mine_; have some sympathy for what _I_
suffer! Would all the agony of _his_ whole existence equal one hour of
the torment he has bequeathed to me, its shame and ignominy?”
“These are things which passion can never treat of, my dear Glencore.”
“Passion alone can feel them,” said the other, sternly. “Keep subtleties
for those who use like weapons. As for me, no casuistry is needed
to tell me I am dishonored, and just as little to tell me I must be
avenged! If _you_ think differently, it were better not to discuss this
question further between us; but I did think I could have reckoned upon
you, for I felt you had barred my first chance of a vengeance.”
“Now, then, for your plan, Glencore,” said Upton, who, with all the
dexterity of his calling, preferred opening a new channel in the
discussion, to aggravating difficulties by a further opposition.
“I must rid myself of her! There's my plan!” cried Glencore, savagely.
“You have it all in that resolution. Of no avail is it that I have
separated my fortune from hers, so long as she bears my name, and
renders it infamous in every city of Europe. Is it to _you_, who live in
the world,--who mix with men of every country,--that I need tell this?
If a man cannot throw off such a shame, he must sink under it.”
“But you told me you had an unconquerable aversion to the notion of
seeking a divorce.”
“So I had; so I have! The indelicate, the ignominious course of a trial
at law, with all its shocking exposure, would be worse than a thousand
deaths! To survive the suffering of all the licensed ribaldry of some
gowned coward aspersing one's honor, calumniating, inventing, and,
when invention failed, suggesting motives, the very thought of which in
secret had driven a man to madness! To endure this--to read it--to
know it went published over the wide globe, till one's shame became the
gossip of millions--and then--with a verdict extorted from pity, damages
awarded to repair a broken heart and a sullied name--to carry this
disgrace before one's equals, to be again discussed, sifted, and
cavilled at! No, Upton; this poor shattered brain would give way under
such a trial; to compass it in mere fancy is already nigh to madness! It
must be by other means than these that I attain my object!”
The terrible energy with which he spoke actually frightened Upton, who
fancied that his reason had already begun to show signs of decline.
“The world has decreed,” resumed Glencore, “that in these conflicts all
the shame shall be the husband's; but it shall not be so here! _She_
shall have her share, ay, and, by Heaven, not the smaller share
either!”
“Why, what would you do?” asked Upton, eagerly.
“Deny my marriage; call her my mistress!” cried Glencore, in a voice
shaken with passion and excitement.
“But your boy,--your son, Glencore!”
“He shall be a bastard! You may hold up your hands in horror, and look
with all your best got-up disgust at such a scheme; but if you wish
to see me swear to accomplish it, I'll do so now before you, ay, on
my knees before you! When we eloped from her father's house at
Castellamare, we were married by a priest at Capri; of the marriage
no trace exists. The more legal ceremony was performed before you, as
Chargé d'Affaires at Naples,--of that I have the registry here; nor,
except my courier, Sanson, is there a living witness. If you determine
to assert it, you will do so without a fragment of proof, since every
document that could substantiate it is in my keeping. You shall see them
for yourself. She is, therefore, in my power; and will any man dare to
tell me how I should temper that power?”
“But your boy, Glencore, your boy!”
“Is my boy's station in the world a prouder one by being the son of the
notorious Lady Glencore, or as the offspring of a nameless mistress?
What avail to him that he should have a title stained by _her_ shame?
Where is he to go? In what land is he to live, where her infamy has not
reached? Is it not a thousand times better that he enter life ignoble
and unknown,--to start in the world's race with what he may of strength
and power,--than drag on an unhonored existence, shunned by his equals,
and only welcome where it is disgrace to find companionship?”
“But you surely have never contemplated all the consequences of this
rash resolve. It is the extinction of an ancient title, the alienation
of a great estate, when once you have declared your boy illegitimate.”
“He is a beggar: I know it; the penalty he must pay is a heavy one. But
think of _her_, Upton,--think of the haughty Viscountess, revelling in
splendor, and, even in all her shame, the flattered, welcomed guest of
that rotten, corrupt society she lives in. Imagine her in all the pride
of wealth and beauty, sought after, adulated, worshipped as she is,
suddenly struck down by the brand of this disgrace, and left upon the
world without fortune, without rank, without even a name. To be shunned
like a leper by the very meanest of those it had once been an honor when
she recognized them. Picture to yourself this woman, degraded to the
position of all that is most vile and contemptible. She, that scarcely
condescended to acknowledge as her equals the best-born and the highest,
sunk down to the hopeless infamy of a mistress. They tell me she
laughed on the day I fainted at seeing her entering the San Carlos at
Naples,--laughed as they carried me down the steps into the fresh air!
Will she laugh now, think you? Shall I be called 'Le Pauvre Sire'
when she hears this? Was there ever a vengeance more terrible, more
complete?”
“Again, I say, Glencore, you have no right to involve others in the
penalty of her fault. Laying aside every higher motive, you can have no
more right to deny your boy's claim to his rank and fortune than I or
any one else. It cannot be alienated nor extinguished; by his birth he
became the heir to your title and estates.”
“He has no birth, sir, he is a bastard: who shall deny it? _You_ may,”
added he, after a second's pause; “but where's your proof? Is not every
probability as much against you as all documentary evidence, since none
will ever believe that I could rob myself of the succession, and make
over my fortune to Heaven knows what remote relation?”
“And do you expect me to become a party to this crime?” asked Upton,
gravely.
“You balked me in one attempt at vengeance, and I think you owe me a
reparation!”
“Glencore,” said Upton, solemnly, “we are both of us men of the
world,--men who have seen life in all its varied aspects sufficiently to
know the hollowness of more than half the pretension men trade upon as
principle; we have witnessed mean actions and the very lowest motives
amongst the highest in station; and it is not for either of us to affect
any overstrained estimate of men's honor and good faith; but I say to
you, in all sincerity, that not alone do I refuse you all concurrence in
the act you meditate, but I hold myself open to denounce and frustrate
it.”
“You do!” cried Glencore, wildly, while with a bound he sat up in his
bed, grasping the curtain convulsively for support.
“Be calm, Glencore, and listen to me patiently.”
“You declare that you will use the confidence of this morning against
me!” cried Glencore, while the lines in his face became indented more
deeply, and his bloodless lips quivered with passion. “You take your
part with _her!_”
“I only ask that you would hear me.”
“You owe me four thousand five hundred pounds, Sir Horace Upton,”
said Glencore, in a voice barely above a whisper, but every accent of
which was audible.
“I know it, Glencore,” said Upton, calmly. “You helped me by a loan of
that sum in a moment of great difficulty. Your generosity went farther,
for you took, what nobody else would, my personal security.”
Glencore made no reply, but, throwing back the bedclothes, slowly and
painfully arose, and with tottering and uncertain steps approached a
table. With a trembling hand he unlocked a drawer, and taking out a
paper, opened and scanned it over.
“There's your bond, sir,” said he, with a hollow, cavernous voice, as
he threw it into the fire, and crushed it down into the flames with a
poker. “There is now nothing between us. You are free to do your worst!”
And as he spoke, a few drops of dark blood trickled from his nostril,
and he fell senseless upon the floor.