BRIAN took care that no moment was lost. In the course of a very few
minutes Lord Fotheringay was seated on the windward thwarts of the boat,
his hands grasping the gunwale to right and left, and his head bowed
to mitigate in some measure the force of the shower of sea-water that
flashed over the boat as her hows neatly clipped the crest off every
wave.
Lord Fotheringay held on grimly. He hated the sea and all connected with
it; though he hated the House of Lords to almost as great an extent, yet
he had offered the promoter of the Channel Tunnel to attend in the House
and lend the moral weight of his name to the support of the scheme. It
was only the breadth and spontaneousness of Brian’s assurance that the
breeze was no more than a draught, that had induced him to carry out his
cherished idea of crossing the lough.
“Didn’t I tell your lardship that the boat could sail with the best of
them?” said the man, as he hauled in the sheet a trifle, and brought
the boat closer to the wind--a manouvre that did not tend to lessen the
cascade that deluged his passenger.
Lord Fotheringay said not a word. He kept his head bowed to every flap
of the waves beneath the bows. His attitude would have commended itself
to any painter anxious to produce a type of Submission to the Will of
Heaven.
He was aging quickly--so much Brian perceived, and dwelt upon--with
excellent effect--in his subsequent narrative of the voyage to some
of the servants at the Castle. The cosmetic that will withstand the
constant application of sea-water has yet to be invented, so that in
half an hour Lord Fotheringay would not have been recognized except by
his valet. Brian had taken aboard a well-preserved gentleman with a rosy
complexion and a moustache almost too black for nature. The person who
disembarked at the opposite side of the lough was a stooped old man with
lank streaky cheeks and a wisp of gray hair on each side of his upper
lip.
“And it’s a fine sailor your lardship is entirely,” remarked the
boatman, as he lent his tottering, dazed passenger a helping hand up the
beach of pebbles. “And it’s raal enjoyment your lardship will be after
having among the Castles of the ould quality, after your lardship’s
sail.”
Not a word did Lord Fotheringay utter. He felt utterly broken down in
spirit, and it was not until he had got behind a rock and had taken out
a pocket-comb and a pocket-glass, and had by these auxiliaries, and the
application of a grain or two of roseate powder without which he never
ventured a mile from his base of supplies, repaired some of the ravages
of his voyage, that he ventured to make his way to the picturesque white
cottage, which Miss Avon had once pointed out to him as the temporary
residence of her father and herself.
It was a five-roomed cottage that had been built and furnished by an
enthusiastic English fisherman for his accommodation during his annual
residence in Ireland. One, more glance did Lord Fotheringay give to his
pocket-mirror before knocking at the door.
He would have had time to renew his youth, had he had his pigments
handy, before the door was opened by an old woman with a shawl over
her shoulders and a cap, that had possibly once been white, on her
straggling hairs.
She made the stage courtesy of an old woman in front of Lord
Fotheringay, and explained that she was a little hard of hearing--she
was even obliging enough to give a circumstantial account of the
accident that was responsible for her infirmity.
“Miss Avon?” said the old woman, when Lord Fotheringay had repeated
his original request in a louder tone. “Miss Avon? no, she’s not here
now--not even her father, who was a jewel of a gentleman, though a bit
queer. God bless them both now that they have gone back to England,
maybe never to return.”
“Back to England. When?” shouted Lord Fotheringay.
“Why, since early in the morning. The Blessed Virgin keep the young
lady from harm, for she’s swater than honey, and the Saints preserve her
father, for he was--”
Lord Fotheringay did not wait to hear the position of the historian
defined by the old woman. He turned away from the door with such words
as caused her infirmity to be a blessing in disguise.
When Brian greeted his return with a few well-chosen phrases bearing
upon the architecture of the early Celtic nobles, Lord Fotheringay swore
at him; but the boatman, who did a little in that way himself when under
extreme provocation, only smiled as Lord Fotheringay took his seat in
the boat once more, and prepared for the ordeal of his passage.
There was a good deal in Brian’s smile.
The wind had changed most unaccountably, he explained, so that it would,
he feared, be absolutely necessary to tack out almost to the entrance
of the lough in order to reach the mooring-place. For the next hour
he became the exponent of every system of sailing known to modern
navigators. After something over an hour of this manoeuvring, he had
compassion upon his victim, and ran the boat before the wind--he might
have done so at first if Lord Fotheringay had not shown such a poor
knowledge of men as to swear at him--to the mooring-place.
“If it’s not making too free with your lardship, I’d offer your lardship
a hand up the track,” said Brian. “It’s myself that has to go up to the
Castle anyway, with a letter to her ladyship from Miss Avon. Didn’t
the young lady give it to me in the morning before she started with his
honour her father on the car?”
“And you knew all this time that Miss Avon and her father had left the
neighbourhood?” said Lord Fotheringay, through his store teeth.
“Tubbe sure I did,” said Brian. “But Miss Avon didn’t live in one of the
Castles of the ould quality that your lardship was so particular ready
to explore.”
Lord Fotheringay felt that his knowledge of the world and the dwellers
therein had its limits.
It was at Lord Fotheringay’s bedside that Harold said his farewell to
his father the next day. Lord Fotheringay’s incipient rheumatism had
been acutely developed by his drenching of the previous afternoon, and
he thought it prudent to remain in bed.
“You’re going, are you?” snarled the Father.
“Yes, I’m going,” replied the Son. “Lord and Lady Innisfail leave
to-morrow.”
“Have you asked Miss Craven to marry you?” inquired the Father.
“No,” said Harold.
“Why not--tell me that?”
“I haven’t made up my mind on the subject of marrying.”
“Then the sooner you make it up the better it will be for yourself. I’ve
been watching you pretty closely for some days--I did not fail to notice
a certain jaunty indifference to what was going on around you on the
night of your return from that tomfoolery in the boats--seal-hunting,
I think they called it. I saw the way you looked at Helen Craven that
night. Contempt, or something akin to contempt, was in every glance. Now
you know that she is to be at Ella’s in October. You have thus six weeks
to make up your mind to marry her. If you make up your mind to marry
anyone else, you may make up your mind to live upon the three hundred a
year that your mother left you. Not a penny you will get from me. I’ve
stinted myself hitherto to secure you your allowance. By heavens, I’ll
not do so any longer. You will only receive your allowance from me for
another year, and then only by signing a declaration at my lawyer’s to
the effect that you are not married. I’ve heard of secret marriages
before now, but you needn’t think of that little game. That’s all I’ve
to say to you.”
“And it is enough,” said Harold. “Good-bye.” He left the room and then
he left the Castle, Lady Innisfail only shaking her head and whispering,
“You have disappointed me,” as he made his adieux.
The next day all the guests had departed--all, with the exception of
Lord Fotheringay, who was still too ill to move. In the course of some
days, however, the doctor thought that he might without risk--except, of
course, such as was incidental to the conveyance itself--face a drive on
an outside car, to the nearest railway-station.
Before leaving him, as she was compelled to do owing to her own
engagements, Lady Innisfail had another interesting conversation--it
almost amounted to a consultation--with her friend Mrs. Burgoyne on the
subject of the Reform of the Hardened Reprobate. And the result of
their further consideration of the subject from every standpoint, was
to induce them to believe that, with such a powerful incentive to the
Higher Life as an acute rheumatic attack, Lord Fotheringay’s reform
might safely be counted on. It might, at any rate, be freely discussed
during the winter. If, subsequently, he should become a backslider, it
would not matter. His reform would have gone the way of all topics.
Helen Craven and Edmund Airey had also a consultation together on the
subject upon which they had previously talked more than once.
Each of them showed such an anxiety to give prominence to the
circumstance that they were actuated solely for Harold’s benefit in
putting into practice the plan which one of them had suggested, it was
pretty clear that they had an uneasy feeling that they required some
justification for the course which they had thought well to pursue.
Yes, they agreed that Harold should be placed beyond the power of his
father. Mr. Airey said he had never met a more contemptible person than
Lord Fotheringay, and for the sake of making Harold independent of such
a father, he would, he declared, do again all that he had done during
the week of Miss Avon’s sojourn at the Castle.
It was, indeed, sad, Miss Craven felt, that Harold should have such a
father.
“Perhaps it was because I felt this so strongly that I--I--well, I began
to ask myself if there might not be some way of escape for him,” said
she, in a pensive tone that was quite different from the tone of the
frank communication that she had made to Mr. Airey some time before.
“I can quite understand that,” said Edmund. “Well, though Harold hasn’t
shown himself to be wise--that is--”
“We both know what that means,” said she, anticipating his definition of
wisdom so far as Harold was concerned.
“We do,” said Edmund. “If he has not shown himself to be wise in this
way, he has not shown himself to be a fool in another way.”
“I suppose he has not,” said she, thoughtfully.
“Great heavens! you don’t mean to think that--”
“That he has told Beatrice Avon that he loves her? No, I don’t fancy
that he has, still--”
“Still?”
“Well, I thought that, on their return from that awful seal-hunt, I saw
a change in both of them. It seemed to me that--that--well, I don’t
quite know how I should express it. Haven’t you seen a thirsty look on a
man’s face?”
“A thirsty look? I believe I have seen it on a woman’s face.”
“It may be the same. Well, Harold Wynne’s face wore such an expression
for days before the seal-hunt--I can’t say that I noticed it on Beatrice
Avon’s face at the same time; but so soon as they returned from the
boats on that evening, I noticed the change on Harold’s--perhaps it was
only fancy.”
“I am inclined to believe that it was fancy. In my belief none of us was
quite the same after that wild cruise. I was beside Miss Avon all the
time that we were sailing out to the caves, and though she and Harold
were in the boat together, yet Lord Innisfail and Durdan were in the
same boat also. I can’t see how they could have had any time for an
understanding while they were engaged in looking after the seals.”
Miss Craven shook her head doubtfully. It was clear that she was a
believer in the making of opportunities in such matters as those which
they were discussing.
“Anyhow, we have done all that we could reasonably be expected to do,”
said she.
“And perhaps a trifle over,” said he. “If it were not that I like Harold
so much--and you, too, my dear”--this seemed an afterthought--“I would
not have done all that I have done. It is quite unlikely that Miss Avon
and I shall be under the same roof again, but if we should be, I shall,
you may be certain, find out from her whether or not an understanding
exists between her and Harold. But what understanding could it be?”
Miss Craven smiled. Was this the man who had made such a reputation
for cleverness, she asked herself--a man who placed a limit on the
opportunities of lovers, and then inquired what possible understanding
could be come to between a penniless man and a girl with “a gray eye or
so.”
“What understanding?” said she. “Why, he may have unfolded to her a
scheme for becoming Lord High Chancellor after two year’s hard work at
the bar, with a garden-party now and again; or for being made a Bishop
in the same time; and their understanding may be to wait for one another
until the arrival of either event. Never mind. We have done our best for
him.”
“For them,” said Edmund.
Yes, he tried to bring himself to believe that all that he had done was
for the benefit of his friend Harold and for his friend Beatrice--to say
nothing of his friend Helen as well. After a time he did almost
force himself to believe that there was nothing that was not strictly
honourable in the endeavour that he had made, at Helen’s suggestion,
to induce Beatrice Avon to perceive the possibility of her obtaining a
proposal of marriage from a rich and distinguished man, if she were
only to decline to afford the impecunious son of a dissolute peer an
opportunity of telling her that he loved her.
Now and again, however, he had an uneasy twinge, as the thought occurred
to him that if some man, understanding the exact circumstances of the
case, were to be as frank with him as Helen Craven had been (once),
that man might perhaps be led to say that he had been making a fool of
Beatrice for the sake of gratifying his own vanity.
It was just possible, and he knew it, that that frank friend--assuming
that frankness and friendship may exist together--might be disposed
to give prominence in this matter to the impulses of vanity, to the
exclusion of the impulses of friendship, and a desire to set the crooked
straight.
Even the fortnight which he spent in Norway with one of the heads of
the Government party--a gentleman who would probably have shortly at his
disposal an important Under-Secretaryship--failed quite to abate these
little twinges that he had when he reflected upon the direction that
might be taken by a frank friend, in considering the question of the
responsibility involved in his attitude toward Miss Avon.
It was just a week after Lord Fotheringay had left Castle Innisfail that
a stranger appeared in the neighbourhood--a strange gentleman with the
darkest hair and the fiercest eyes ever seen, even in that region of
dark hair and eyes. He inquired who were the guests at the Castle, and
when he learned that the last of them--a distinguished peer named Lord
Fotheringay--had gone some time, and that it was extremely unlikely that
the Castle would be open for another ten months, his eyes became
fiercer than ever. He made use of words in a strange tongue, which Brian
declared, if not oaths, would do duty for oaths without anyone being the
wiser.
The stranger departed as mysteriously as he had come.