DOT BLAKE’S ADVICE
In hour or two after Martin Kelly had left Porto Bello in the
Ballinasloe fly-boat, our other hero, Lord Ballindine, and his friend
Dot Blake, started from Morrison’s hotel, with post horses, for
Handicap Lodge; and, as they travelled in Blake’s very comfortable
barouche, they reached their destination in time for a late dinner,
without either adventure or discomfort. Here they remained for some
days, fully occupied with the education of their horses, the attention
necessary to the engagements for which they were to run, and with their
betting-books.
Lord Ballindine’s horse, Brien Boru, was destined to give the Saxons a
dressing at Epsom, and put no one knows how many thousands into his
owner’s hands, by winning the Derby; and arrangements had already been
made for sending him over to John Scott, the English trainer, at an
expense, which, if the horse should by chance fail to be successful,
would be of very serious consequence to his lordship. But Lord
Ballindine had made up his mind, or rather, Blake had made it up for
him, and the thing was to be done; the risk was to be run, and the
preparations—the sweats and the gallops, the physicking, feeding, and
coddling, kept Frank tolerably well employed; though the whole process
would have gone on quite as well, had he been absent.
It was not so, however, with Dot Blake. The turf, to him, was not an
expensive pleasure, but a very serious business, and one which, to give
him his due, he well understood. He himself, regulated the work, both
of his horses and his men, and saw that both did what was allotted to
them. He took very good care that he was never charged a guinea, where
a guinea was not necessary; and that he got a guinea’s worth for every
guinea he laid out. In fact, he trained his own horses, and was thus
able to assure himself that his interests were never made subservient
to those of others who kept horses in the same stables. Dot was in his
glory, and in his element on the Curragh, and he was never quite happy
anywhere else.
This, however, was not the case with his companion. For a couple of
days the excitement attending Brien Boru was sufficient to fill Lord
Ballindine’s mind; but after that, he could not help recurring to other
things. He was much in want of money, and had been civilly told by his
agent’s managing clerk, before he left town, that there was some
difficulty in the way of his immediately getting the sum required. This
annoyed him, for he could not carry on the game without money. And
then, again, he was unhappy to be so near Fanny Wyndham, from day to
day, without seeing her. He was truly and earnestly attached to her,
and miserable at the threat which had been all but made by her
guardian, that the match should be broken off.
It was true that he had made up his mind not to go to Grey Abbey, as
long as he remained at Handicap Lodge, and, having made the resolution,
he thought he was wise in keeping it; but still, he continually felt
that she must be aware that he was in the neighbourhood, and could not
but be hurt at his apparent indifference. And then he knew that her
guardian would make use of his present employment—his sojourn at such a
den of sporting characters as his friend Blake’s habitation—and his
continued absence from Grey Abbey though known to be in its vicinity,
as additional arguments for inducing his ward to declare the engagement
at an end.
These troubles annoyed him, and though he daily stood by and saw Brien
Boru go through his manoeuvres, he was discontented and fidgety.
He had been at Handicap Lodge about a fortnight, and was beginning to
feel anything but happy. His horse was to go over in another week,
money was not plentiful with him, and tradesmen were becoming obdurate
and persevering. His host, Blake, was not a soothing or a comfortable
friend, under these circumstances: he gave him a good deal of practical
advice, but he could not sympathise with him. Blake was a sharp, hard,
sensible man, who reduced everything to pounds shillings and pence.
Lord Ballindine was a man of feeling, and for the time, at least, a man
of pleasure; and, though they were, or thought themselves friends, they
did not pull well together; in fact, they bored each other terribly.
One morning, Lord Ballindine was riding out from the training-ground,
when he met, if not an old, at any rate an intimate acquaintance, named
Tierney. Mr or, as he was commonly called, Mat Tierney, was a bachelor,
about sixty years of age, who usually inhabited a lodge near the
Curragh; and who kept a horse or two on the turf, more for the sake of
the standing which it gave him in the society he liked best, than from
any intense love of the sport. He was a fat, jolly fellow, always
laughing, and usually in a good humour; he was very fond of what he
considered the world; and the world, at least that part of it which
knew him, returned the compliment.
“Well, my lord,” said he, after a few minutes of got-up enthusiasm
respecting Brien Boru, “I congratulate you, sincerely.”
“What about?” said Lord Ballindine.
“Why, I find you’ve got a first-rate horse, and I hear you’ve got rid
of a first-rate lady. You’re very lucky, no doubt, in both; but I think
fortune has stood to you most, in the latter.”
Lord Ballindine was petrified: he did not know what to reply. He was
aware that his engagement with Miss Wyndham was so public that Tierney
could allude to no other lady; but he could not conceive how any one
could have heard that his intended marriage was broken off—at any rate
how he could have heard it spoken of so publicly, as to induce him to
mention it in that sort of way, to himself. His first impulse was to be
very indignant; but he felt that no one would dream of quarrelling with
Mat Tierney; so he said, as soon as he was able to collect his thoughts
sufficiently,
“I was not aware of the second piece of luck, Mr Tierney. Pray who is
the lady?”
“Why, Miss Wyndham,” said Mat, himself a little astonished at Lord
Ballindine’s tone.
“I’m sure, Mr Tierney,” said Frank, “you would say nothing,
particularly in connection with a lady’s name, which you intended
either to be impertinent, or injurious. Were it not that I am quite
certain of this, I must own that what you have just said would appear
to be both.”
“My dear lord,” said the other, surprised and grieved, “I beg ten
thousand pardons, if I have unintentionally said anything, which you
feel to be either. But, surely, if I am not wrong in asking, the match
between you and Miss Wyndham is broken off?”
“May I ask you, Mr Tierney, who told you so?”
“Certainly—Lord Kilcullen; and, as he is Miss Wyndham’s cousin, and
Lord Cashel’s son, I could not but think the report authentic.”
This overset Frank still more thoroughly. Lord Kilcullen would never
have spread the report publicly unless he had been authorised to do so
by Lord Cashel. Frank and Lord Kilcullen had never been intimate; and
the former was aware that the other had always been averse to the
proposed marriage; but still, he would never have openly declared that
the marriage was broken off, had he not had some authority for saying
so.
“As you seem somewhat surprised,” continued Mat, seeing that Lord
Ballindine remained silent, and apparently at a loss for what he ought
to say, “perhaps I ought to tell you, that Lord Kilcullen mentioned it
last night very publicly—at a dinner-party, as an absolute fact.
Indeed, from his manner, I thought he wished it to be generally made
known. I presumed, therefore, that it had been mutually agreed between
you, that the event was not to come off—that the match was not to be
run; and, with my peculiar views, you know, on the subject of
matrimony, I thought it a fair point for congratulation. If Lord
Kilcullen had misled me, I heartily beg to apologise; and at the same
time, by giving you my authority, to show you that I could not intend
anything impertinent. If it suits you, you are quite at liberty to tell
Lord Kilcullen all I have told you; and, if you wish me to contradict
the report, which I must own I have spread, I will do so.”
Frank felt that he could not be angry with Mat Tierney; he therefore
thanked him for his open explanation, and, merely muttering something
about private affairs not being worthy of public interest, rode off
towards Handicap Lodge.
It appeared very plain to him that the Grey Abbey family must have
discarded him—that Fanny Wyndham, Lord and Lady Cashel, and the whole
set, must have made up their minds to drop him altogether; otherwise,
one of the family would not have openly declared the match at an end.
And yet he was at a loss to conceive how they could have done so—how
even Lord Cashel could have reconciled it to himself to do so, without
the common-place courtesy of writing to him on the subject. And then,
when he thought of her, “his own Fanny,” as he had so often called her,
he was still more bewildered: she, with whom he had sat for so many
sweet hours talking of the impossibility of their ever forgetting,
deserting, or even slighting each other; she, who had been so entirely
devoted to him—so much more than engaged to him—could she have lent her
name to such a heartless mode of breaking her faith?
“If I had merely proposed for her through her guardian,” thought Frank,
to himself—“if I had got Lord Cashel to make the engagement, as many
men do, I should not be surprised; but after all that has passed
between us—after all her vows, and all her—” and then Lord Ballindine
struck his horse with his heel, and made a cut at the air with his
whip, as he remembered certain passages more binding even than
promises, warmer even than vows, which seemed to make him as miserable
now as they had made him happy at the time of their occurrence. “I
would not believe it,” he continued, meditating, “if twenty Kilcullens
said it, or if fifty Mat Tierneys swore to it!” and then he rode on
towards the lodge, in a state of mind for which I am quite unable to
account, if his disbelief in Fanny Wyndham’s constancy was really as
strong as he had declared it to be. And, as he rode, many unusual
thoughts—for, hitherto, Frank had not been a very deep-thinking
man—crowded his mind, as to the baseness, falsehood, and iniquity of
the human race, especially of rich cautious old peers who had beautiful
wards in their power.
By the time he had reached the lodge, he had determined that he must
now do something, and that, as he was quite unable to come to any
satisfactory conclusion on his own unassisted judgment, he must consult
Blake, who, by the bye, was nearly as sick of Fanny Wyndham as he would
have been had he himself been the person engaged to marry her.
As he rode round to the yard, he saw his friend standing at the door of
one of the stables, with a cigar in his mouth.
“Well, Frank, how does Brien go to-day? Not that he’ll ever be the
thing till he gets to the other side of the water. They’ll never be
able to bring a horse out as he should be, on the Curragh, till they’ve
regular trained gallops. The slightest frost in spring, or sun in
summer, and the ground’s so hard, you might as well gallop your horse
down the pavement of Grafton Street.”
“Confound the horse,” answered Frank; “come here, Dot, a minute. I want
to speak to you.”
“What the d––––l’s the matter?—he’s not lame, is he?”
“Who?—what?—Brien Boru? Not that I know of. I wish the brute had never
been foaled.”
“And why so? What crotchet have you got in your head now? Something
wrong about Fanny, I suppose?”
“Why, did you hear anything?”
“Nothing but what you’ve told me.”
“I’ve just seen Mat Tierney, and he told me that Kilcullen had
declared, at a large dinner-party, yesterday, that the match between me
and his cousin was finally broken off.”
“You wouldn’t believe what Mat Tierney would say? Mat was only taking a
rise out of you.”
“Not at all: he was not only speaking seriously, but he told me what
I’m very sure was the truth, as far as Lord Kilcullen was concerned. I
mean, I’m sure Kilcullen said it, and in the most public manner he
could; and now, the question is, what had I better do?”
“There’s no doubt as to what you’d better do; the question is what
you’d rather do?”
“But what had I _better_ do? call on Kilcullen for an explanation?”
“That’s the last thing to think of. No; but declare what he reports to
be the truth; return Miss Wyndham the lock of hair you have in your
desk, and next your heart, or wherever you keep it; write her a pretty
note, and conclude by saying that the ‘Adriatic’s free to wed another’.
That’s what I should do.”
“It’s very odd, Blake, that you won’t speak seriously to a man for a
moment. You’ve as much heart in you as one of your own horses. I wish
I’d never come to this cursed lodge of yours. I’d be all right then.”
“As for my heart, Frank, if I have as much as my horses, I ought to be
contented—for race-horses are usually considered to have a good deal;
as for my cursed lodge, I can assure you I have endeavoured, and, if
you will allow me, I will still endeavour, to make it as agreeable to
you as I am able; and as to my speaking seriously, upon my word, I
never spoke more so. You asked me what I thought you had better do—and
I began by telling you there would be a great difference between that
and what you’d rather do.”
“But, in heaven’s name, why would you have me break off with Miss
Wyndham, when every one knows I’m engaged to her; and when you know
that I wish to marry her?”
“Firstly, to prevent her breaking off with you—though I fear there’s
hardly time for that; and secondly, in consequence—as the newspapers
say, of incompatibility of temper.”
“Why, you don’t even know her!”
“But I know you, and I know what your joint income would be, and I know
that there would be great incompatibility between you, as Lord
Ballindine, with a wife and family—and fifteen hundred a year, or so.
But mind, I’m only telling you what I think you’d better do.”
“Well, I shan’t do that. If I was once settled down, I could live as
well on fifteen hundred a year as any country gentleman in Ireland.
It’s only the interference of Lord Cashel that makes me determined not
to pull in till I am married. If he had let me have my own way, I
shouldn’t, by this time, have had a horse in the world, except one or
two hunters or so, down in the country.”
“Well, Frank, if you’re determined to get yourself married, I’ll give
you the best advice in my power as to the means of doing it. Isn’t that
what you want?”
“I want to know what you think I ought to do, just at this minute.”
“With matrimony as the winning-post?”
“You know I wish to marry Fanny Wyndham.”
“And the sooner the better—is that it?”
“Of course. She’ll be of age now, in a few days,” replied Lord
Ballindine.
“Then I advise you to order a new blue coat, and to buy a
wedding-ring.”
“Confusion!” cried Frank, stamping his foot; and turning away in a
passion; and then he took up his hat, to rush out of the room, in which
the latter part of the conversation had taken place.
“Stop a minute, Frank,” said Blake, “and don’t be in a passion. What I
said was only meant to show you how easy I think it is for you to marry
Miss Wyndham if you choose.”
“Easy! and every soul at Grey Abbey turned against me, in consequence
of my owning that brute of a horse! I’ll go over there at once, and
I’ll show Lord Cashel that at any rate he shall not treat me like a
child. As for Kilcullen, if he interferes with me or my name in any
way, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?—thrash him?”
“Indeed, I’d like nothing better!”
“And then shoot him—be tried by your peers—and perhaps hung; is that
it?”
“Oh, that’s nonsense. I don’t wish to fight any one, but I am not going
to be insulted.”
“I don’t think you are: I don’t think there’s the least chance of
Kilcullen insulting you; he has too much worldly wisdom. But to come
back to Miss Wyndham: if you really mean to marry her, and if, as I
believe, she is really fond of you, Lord Cashel and all the family
can’t prevent it. She is probably angry that you have not been over
there; he is probably irate at your staying here, and, not unlikely,
has made use of her own anger to make her think that she has quarrelled
with you; and hence Kilcullen’s report.”
“And what shall I do now?”
“Nothing to-day, but eat your dinner, and drink your wine. Ride over
to-morrow, see Lord Cashel, and tell him—but do it quite coolly, if you
can—exactly what you have heard, and how you have heard it, and beg him
to assure Lord Kilcullen that he is mistaken in his notion that the
match is off; and beg also that the report may not be repeated. Do
this; and do it as if you were Lord Cashel’s equal, not as if you were
his son, or his servant. If you are collected and steady with him for
ten minutes, you’ll soon find that he will become bothered and
unsteady.”
“That’s very easy to say here, but it’s not so easy to do there. You
don’t know him as I do: he’s so sedate, and so slow, and so
dull—especially sitting alone, as he does of a morning, in that large,
dingy, uncomfortable, dusty-looking book-room of his. He measures his
words like senna and salts, and their tone is as disagreeable.”
“Then do you drop out yours like prussic acid, and you’ll beat him at
his own game. Those are all externals, my dear fellow. When a man knows
he has nothing within his head to trust to,—when he has neither sense
nor genius, he puts on a wig, ties up his neck in a white choker, sits
in a big chair, and frightens the world with his silence. Remember, if
you were not a baby, he would not be a bugbear.”
“And should I not ask to see Fanny?”
“By all means. Don’t leave Grey Abbey without seeing and making your
peace with Miss Wyndham. That’ll be easy with you, because it’s your
_métier_. I own that with myself it would be the most difficult part of
the morning’s work. But don’t ask to see her as a favour. When you’ve
done with the lord (and don’t let your conference be very long)—when
you’ve done with the lord, tell him you’ll say a word to the lady; and,
whatever may have been his pre-determination, you’ll find that, if
you’re cool, he’ll be bothered, and he won’t know how to refuse; and if
he doesn’t prevent you, I’m sure Miss Wyndham won’t.”
“And if he asks about these wretched horses of mine?”
“Don’t let him talk more about your affairs than you can help; but, if
he presses you—and he won’t if you play your game well—tell him that
you’re quite aware your income won’t allow you to keep up an
establishment at the Curragh after you’re married.”
“But about Brien Boru, and the Derby?”
“Brien Boru! You might as well talk to him about your washing-bills!
Don’t go into particulars—stick to generals. He’ll never ask you those
questions unless he sees you shiver and shake like a half-whipped
school-boy.”
After a great deal of confabulation, in which Dot Blake often repeated
his opinion of Lord Ballindine’s folly in not rejoicing at an
opportunity of breaking off the match, it was determined that Frank
should ride over the next morning, and do exactly what his friend
proposed. If, however, one might judge from his apparent dread of the
interview with Lord Cashel, there was but little chance of his
conducting it with the coolness or assurance insisted on by Dot. The
probability was, that when the time did come, he would, as Blake said,
shiver and shake like a half-whipped school-boy.
“And what will you do when you’re married, Frank?” said Blake; “for I’m
beginning to think the symptoms are strong, and you’ll hardly get out
of it now.”
“Do! why, I suppose I’ll do much the same as others—have two children,
and live happy ever afterwards.”
“I dare say you’re right about the two children, only you might say two
dozen; but as to the living happy, that’s more problematical. What do
you mean to eat and drink?”
“Eggs—potatoes and bacon—buttermilk, and potheen [21]. It’s odd if I
can’t get plenty of them in Mayo, if I’ve nothing better.”
“I suppose you will, Frank; but bacon won’t go down well after venison;
and a course of claret is a bad preparative for potheen punch. You’re
not the man to live, with a family, on a small income, and what the
d––––l you’ll do I don’t know. You’ll fortify Kelly’s Court—that’ll be
the first step.”
“Is it against the Repealers?”
“Faith, no; you’ll join them, of course: but against the sub-sheriff,
and his officers—an army much more likely to crown their enterprises
with success.”
“You seem to forget, Dot, that, after all, I’m marrying a girl with
quite as large a fortune as I had any right to expect.”
“The limit to your expectations was only in your own modesty; the less
you had a right—in the common parlance—to expect, the more you wanted,
and the more you ought to have looked for. Say that Miss Wyndham’s
fortune clears a thousand a year of your property, you would never be
able to get along on what you’d have. No; I’ll tell you what you’ll do.
You’ll shut up Kelly’s Court, raise the rents, take a moderate house in
London; and Lord Cashel, when his party are in, will get you made a
court stick of, and you’ll lead just such a life as your grandfather.
If it’s not very glorious, at any rate it’s a useful kind of life. I
hope Miss Wyndham will like it. You’ll have to christen your children
Ernest and Albert, and that sort of thing; that’s the worst of it; and
you’ll never be let to sit down, and that’s a bore. But you’ve strong
legs. It would never do for me. I could never stand out a long tragedy
in Drury Lane, with my neck in a stiff white choker, and my toes
screwed into tight dress boots. I’d sooner be a porter myself, for he
can go to bed when the day’s over.”
“You’re very witty, Dot; but you know I’m the last man in Ireland, not
excepting yourself, to put up with that kind of thing. Whatever I may
have to live on, I shall live in my own country, and on my own
property.”
“Very well; if you won’t be a gold stick, there’s the other
alternative: fortify Kelly’s Court, and prepare for the sheriff’s
officers. Of the two, there’s certainly more fun in it; and you can go
out with the harriers on a Sunday afternoon, and live like a ‘ra’al
O’Kelly of the ould times’;—only the punch’ll kill you in about ten
years.”
“Go on, Dot, go on. You want to provoke me, but you won’t. I wonder
whether you’d bear it as well, if I told you you’d die a broken-down
black-leg, without a friend or a shilling to bless you.”
“I don’t think I should, because I should know that you were
threatening me with a fate which my conduct and line of life would not
warrant any one in expecting.”
“Upon my word, then, I think there’s quite as much chance of that as
there is of my getting shut up by bailiffs in Kelly’s Court, and dying
drunk. I’ll bet you fifty pounds I’ve a better account at my bankers
than you have in ten years.”
“Faith, I’ll not take it. It’ll be hard work getting fifty pounds out
of you, then! In the meantime, come and play a game of billiards before
dinner.”
To this Lord Ballindine consented, and they adjourned to the
billiard-room; but, before they commenced playing, Blake declared that
if the names of Lord Cashel or Miss Wyndham were mentioned again that
evening, he should retreat to his own room, and spend the hours by
himself; so, for the rest of that day, Lord Ballindine was again driven
back upon Brien Boru and the Derby for conversation, as Dot was too
close about his own stable to talk much of his own horses and their
performances, except when he was doing so with an eye to business.