“Mount Rorke is considered to be a handsome place, but as I have known
it from childhood, as my earliest memories are of it, I cannot see it
with the eyes of a professed scenery hunter. I have loved it always, but
I do not think I ever loved it more than now, for now I think that one
day I shall give it to you. Should that day come--and it will come--what
happiness it will be to walk with you under the old trees, made lovelier
by your presence, to pass down the glades to the river, watching your
shadow on the grass and your image in the stream. We will roam together
through the old castle, and I will show you the little bed I used to
sleep in, the school-room where I learned my lessons. When I entered
the old room I saw in imagination--and oh, how clearly!--the face of
my governess; and how easily I see her in the corridor she used to walk
down to get to her room.
“Poor, dear, old thing, I wonder what has become of her!
“I saw again the pictures that stirred my childish fancy, and whose
meaning I once vainly strove to decipher.
“I came to live here when I was four, immediately after my father's
death. I can just remember coming here. I remember Mount Rorke taking
me up in his arms and kissing me. I will not say there is no place like
home--I do not believe that; but certainly no place seems so real. Every
spot of ground has its own particular recollections. Every bend of the
avenue evokes some incident of childish life (in Ireland we call any
road leading to a house an avenue, even if it is absolutely bare of
trees; we also speak of rooks as crows, and these two provincialisms
jarred on my ear after my long stay in Sussex). Mount Rorke is covered
with trees--great woods of beech and fir--and at the end of every vista
you see a piece of blue mountain. A river passes behind the castle,
winding through the park; there are bridges, and swans float about the
sedges, and there are deer in the glades. The garden,--I do not know if
you would like the garden; it is old-fashioned--full of old-fashioned
flowers--convolvuluses, Michaelmas daisies, marigolds; hedges clipped
into all sorts of strange and close shapes. There is a beautiful avenue
behind the garden (an avenue in the English sense of the word) where you
may pace to and fro and feel an exquisite sense of solitude; for when
the castle had passed out of the hands of Irish princes--that is to say,
brigands--it was turned into a monastery, and I often think, as I look
on the mossy trees--the progeny of those under whose leafage the monks
told their beads--that all happened that I might throw my arm about you
some beautiful day, and whisper, 'My wife, this is yours.'”
“How beautifully he writes,” said Sally reflectively.
“You never had a lover who wrote to you like that. Do you remember how
Jimmy used to write?”
“I don't know how he wrote to you, but his letters to me, I will say
that, were quite as nice as anything Frank could write. You needn't toss
your head, you are not Lady Mount Rorke yet.”
Sally refused to hear, but presently, seeing a cloud on her sister's
face, and thinking the letter contained some piece of unpleasantness,
she relented, and pressed her to continue.
“The house is full of people--people whom I have known all my life--and
they make a great deal of me. I have to tell them about Italy, and they
ask me absurd questions about Michael Angelo or Titian, Leonardo or
Watteau.... The house party is a large one, and we have people to dinner
every day; and in the evening the drawing-room, with its grim oak and
escutcheons and rich modern furniture, is a pretty sight indeed. There
is a lady here whom I knew in London, Lady Seveley; and I have had
suspicions that Mount Rorke would like me to marry her. But she has
the reputation of being rather fast, so perhaps the old gentleman is
allowing his thoughts to wander where they should not. I hope not for
his sake, for I hear she is devoted to a young Irishman, a Mr. Fletcher,
a journalist in London. I met them at Reading once in most suspicious
circumstances. He is the son of a large grazier, one of my uncle's
tenants, and she is, I suppose, so infatuated that she could not resist
the temptation of calling on his family. She was careful not to speak
of her intentions to anybody, but waited until she got a favourable
opportunity and slipped off to pay her visit. The Fletchers live about
half a mile from the castle. I was riding that way, and met her coming
out of their house. I got off my horse and walked back together. I hope
Mount Rorke will not hear of her ladyship's escapade; he would be very
angry, for the Fletchers are people who would be asked to have something
to eat in the housekeeper's room if they called at the Castle. In London
one knows everybody, but in the country we are more conservative.”
“I hope she won't cut you out,” said Sally. “It would be a sell for
you if she did. Go on.”
“No, I shan't, you are too insulting.”
“Who began it? You told me that I didn't get such nice letters as you.
Pray go on.”
“I do not know if you would think her handsome. I don't. She is,
however, an excellent musician; we play duets together every evening, to
Mount Rorke's intense delight. You know my dialogue between a lady and a
gentleman? She has written it down for me and corrected a few mistakes;
I think I shall publish it. Darling, I love you better than any one in
the world; you are all the world to me; try to love me a little--you
will never find any one to love you as I do.”
“Well, you can't find anything peculiarly disagreeable to say about
that, I think.”