Next.
If the fact of Lady Emmeline being Colonel Vervensoe’s wife, and
unattainable, had not enhanced her charms in Maxwell Drewitt’s eyes, the
fact of her being Colonel Vervensoe’s widow, and available, rendered her
less desirable still.
There had been a time, indeed, as previously mentioned, when the young
man hesitated about running away with her, and settled not to do so; but
then his future looked dark in the extreme—now it was bright and
hopeful.
If only Colonel Vervensoe had remained at Cragantlet, as any other
Christian would, instead of dying at such an unlucky crisis!
“It seems as if he had almost done it to spite me,” muttered Maxwell;
and the young man cursed his neighbour for having departed this life at
all.
In former days Lady Emmeline’s loan to Maxwell had smoothed matters for
him; but four years after that loan complicated his difficulties, and
made him walk round and round Eversbeg Head, and round Eversbeg Bay,
asking himself as he kicked the stones before him, What next—what next?
The financial crisis which troubled Maxwell was this:—
Suppose he did not marry Lady Emmeline—her ladyship would be certain to
ask for repayment. He could not mortgage to repay, because his land was
mortgaged to its full value already. Suppose he offered to marry her,
and that they kept the engagement secret, and that he never fulfilled
his promise?
Before he was well out of his difficulties, somebody else would marry
Lady Emmeline—she was sure to leave Connemara, because the next heir
would require possession of Cragantlet; and if she went to Dublin or
London, how long was it probable she would remain a widow? Suppose he
did marry her—he would get fortune and position, but then he would also
get a wife.
“That is the devil of it!” said Maxwell Drewitt, with that charming
frankness which characterized all his mental conversations. “That is the
devil of it!” and he hesitated and waited on, while Lady Emmeline grew
kinder and kinder; and, free at last to follow the bent of her
inclination, absolutely forced money on the man who could have sworn at
her for ever having lent him any.
He had his own ideal of a wife, and Lady Emmeline did not come up to it.
He had an ideal the reality of which was not unlike Jenny Bourke, if
Jenny Bourke had been rich, and well-born, and accomplished.
It is not fair to contrast twenty and forty-four—the bloom of youth and
the bloom of rouge—the charms of purity and innocence and the graces of
fashion and affectation; but, on the other hand, poverty can bear no
comparison with wealth, low birth with long pedigree.
He could not marry Jenny. Were he as rich as Crœsus, as great a man as
the Duke of Leinster, Maxwell felt it would be impossible for him to
marry Ryan’s sister and remain in Connemara.
There are some things which to some men are impossible, and a low match
was one of these to Maxwell Drewitt. No love, no beauty, no truth, no
devotion could reconcile him to that.
Though he had lived in a cabin, though he would not have minded working
like a common labourer to achieve an object, still Maxwell Drewitt was
as proud as Lucifer; and for the blood of his wife, of the mother of his
children, not to be of the regulation colour and quality, was a thing
terrible to contemplate.
He could not marry Jenny Bourke—poor Jenny! And Maxwell Drewitt’s dark
eyes grew darker as he thought of the girl who loved him, who was
staying single for his sake, who managed, spite of all her brother’s
precautions, sometimes to see him; who had got pale, poor child! pale
and thin, because of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick.
He could not marry Jenny, but he could marry Lady Emmeline; and he could
have her Connemara property, which lay among the mountains beyond
Cragantlet, and her money to improve his own properties.
He could buy, he could drain, he could till; in imagination he saw corn
waving where the sheep now browsed. He could be wealthy and independent;
he could soon be almost as great a man as the Earl of Popingham. He
could pay out everybody who had ever been insolent to him. He could take
up the mortgages on his uncle’s estates; he could make Headlands the
wonder of Galway, the admiration of strangers, a place to be proud of
himself. He could do all this if he married Lady Emmeline; but then,
when he had done all, he should not be able to get rid of her: that was
the devil of it, that was where the shoe pinched.
“But then,” reflected Maxwell, “hang it! a man cannot have everything in
life; and if he gets the best thing he must be content. Isn’t it better
to satisfy one’s ambition than one’s love? If we fulfil our ambition,
the gratification remains; if we gratify our love, the pleasure is
transient. Anyhow, I am not called upon to make a choice, because,
though I do love Jenny, I still cannot marry her—could not if there were
no Lady Emmeline in existence. Hang marriage! it is like going through
life with a halter round one’s neck. It is the most terrible ‘must’ in
existence, because we seem to have some choice in it, and have, as a
rule, nobody but ourselves to blame if it turn out ill. All experience
is against it—all proverbs are against it. ‘Next after single a good
wife’s best;’ but the single is better than the good wife. ‘Better marry
late or never.’ I don’t think that is true. I fancy it must be better to
marry young or never. I wish I had not to decide; and yet, after all,
many a man would consider himself a deuced lucky fellow to be standing
in my shoes. Success has spoiled me. I would have married her four years
ago and welcome. Oh! Jenny, I wish I had never seen you.” And Maxwell
Drewitt crossed his arms on the table, and leaning his head on them,
thought this problem out—this wonderful problem of not loving a woman
well enough to marry her, and yet of loving her so much that it made the
idea of marrying another hateful to him.
He could not make up his mind; he grew restless, he became soured; he
would ride halfway to Cragantlet, and then turn back again. He was so
young to sell himself for money; but yet such a chance might never come
in his way again. Lady Emmeline had been thought a catch for Colonel
Vervensoe. What would she be therefore for Maxwell Drewitt? It was
folly, it was nonsense, it was midsummer madness; and the young man
began to visit regularly at Cragantlet, which the courtesy of the next
heir had left at Lady Emmeline’s disposal for twelve months till she
should form her future plans. Mr. Maxwell Drewitt had his own opinion
about this next heir—a distant relative of the late proprietor—which was
not favourable. He thought he wanted to marry Lady Emmeline himself, and
perhaps so did the widow, for after a time she began playing off Dolf
Vervensoe against Max Drewitt. Dolf often came down to see to the
management of the estates, and people soon commenced talking (they talk
and chatter in Connemara the same as in any country village), and saying
that Lady Emmeline would not have to leave Cragantlet at all except to
be married.
“She can go to Dublin and buy her trousseau, and get it all over there,”
laughed Mrs. Munks, a little bitterly, for Cragantlet was a fine
property, and the Honourable Mrs. Munks had daughters.
“But surely,” suggested Mrs. Drewitt, “she would not marry so soon after
her husband’s death?”
“He has been dead a year nearly,” was the reply, “and I dare say Mr.
Vervensoe would let her keep Cragantlet another for the sake of her
fortune; besides, is there any person on earth who could say for certain
what Lady Emmeline would or would not do? Louisa, my dear,” went on Mrs.
Munks, turning to her second daughter, “do you remember that funny
Scotch song Miss Macpherson so amused us with the other evening? Talking
of Lady Emmeline puts me in mind of it. Something about a widow; don’t
you recollect?”
“Oh, I know,” exclaimed Miss Munks, holding up her riding-habit while
she walked across the room, for as usual the mother and daughter had
galloped over to Kincorth; “at least, I know the song you mean. I think
I can repeat the last two verses, though of course it would be
impossible for me to say the words anything like Miss Macpherson.”
“Good gracious! Miss Macpherson! You should hear her talk, Mrs.
Drewitt,” exclaimed Mrs. Munks, who spoke with a fine brogue fresh as
the day it was imported from the county of Cork.
Mrs. Drewitt vaguely wondered whether Miss Macpherson’s Scotch accent
_could_ be any worse than Mrs. Munks’ Irish, while Miss Louisa began:
“‘Tam withered like a sickly flower that frae its stalk does fa’,
And in a twelvemonth after that puir Pate was ta’en awa’;
And as I laid him in his kist and closed his glazèd e’e,
I wonder’t if the yirth contained a lanelier thing than me.
“‘Noo I’m a waefu’ widow left, a’ nicht I sich and grane,
And aften in my musin’ moods when sitting here my lane,
There’s ae thing I’ll confess to you, ‘bout whilk I’m sair perplext,
I aften wonder, Janet, noo, whose lassie I’ll be next.’”
“For my part,” concluded Miss Louisa, “I wonder that while there are
more women than men in the world, widows are allowed to marry at all—I
do indeed.”
“There was a time when I thought if Colonel Vervensoe died, another
person would try for Lady Emmeline, and try successfully; but it appears
I was mistaken,” said Mrs. Munks.
“Who was that other person?” asked Mrs. Drewitt, being naturally curious
on the subject, for where there are few neighbours, even the quietest
woman cannot help being interested in their affairs.
“My dear, you are far too sly,” answered Mrs. Munks. “You know as well
as I do;” and when Mrs. Drewitt declared and protested that she did not
know, that she had not the faintest idea of whom her visitor was
speaking, Mrs. Munks only laughed the more, and declared it would be
better for her not to enlighten such pristine innocence.
“Lady Emmeline never did flirt with any one you remember, and
consequently there can be no person whom her marrying Mr. Adolphus
Vervensoe will disappoint,” went on Lady Emmeline’s friend. “Colonel
Vervensoe never did forbid any gentleman the house—never cut any
acquaintance of yours when he met him.”
“You surely do not mean Maxwell!” exclaimed Mrs. Drewitt. “Why he is
young enough to be her son.”
“Exactly so; and he is not rich either; while Mr. Vervensoe—is forty,
though he has Cragantlet. Still I fancy your nephew will be
disappointed. We have met him often of late riding in that direction.
Have not we, Louisa?”
“Yes, mamma,” answered Louisa, who would have said “yes,” even if her
mamma had stated a falsehood. “But if you remember he told us he was
looking after some land that was for sale.”
“A man must say something,” remarked Mrs. Munks. “In my opinion, Lady
Emmeline will do best to marry Mr. Vervensoe.”
“I think so decidedly,” said Mrs. Drewitt, “if she marry at all. But
from what Lady Emmeline dropped the other day about her future plans I
should think she meant to remain a widow.”
“Time will show,” was Mrs. Munks’ reply. And time did show, for Maxwell
Drewitt proposed that very same evening, was accepted by Lady Emmeline,
and rode home to Headlands an engaged man.
The die was cast; the game played out. He had won a wife: he had made
his fortune.
In after days it was one of Maxwell Drewitt’s favourite remarks that “a
man may get anything he wants in life if he be only willing to pay high
enough for it.”
Was he thinking then of the price he had paid for his wealth, of the
exchange he had made for position? Who can tell? Who ever knew for
certain what pleased or troubled Maxwell Drewitt, until that great
sorrow came which clouded with darkness the evening of his life?
One fact was sure, however, viz., that when the young man finally chose
to sell himself for money, to follow ambition and eschew love, he flung
his last chance of making a better thing of existence away for ever. But
he had set out to conquer fortune, and he gained the day. He had decided
that such a prize as Lady Emmeline might never cross his path again, and
he determined to secure it while within his reach. He would continue to
live at Headlands, and he would beautify and improve his property. He
would farm Lady Emmeline’s estate, and add acre to acre, and thousand to
thousand, till, when Kincorth did come to him, as come it should,
Drewitt would be a name worth talking about.
Better than ever the Martins were known, the Drewitts should be
remembered. They had not sprung from any trooper of the merciless
“Protector;” they had not kept their estates by currying favour with any
king. The English papers should tell how a man—poor, disinherited,
well-born—worked his way back to fortune, unassisted by his family,
unhelped by patronage. Tourists would come and wonder to see, in the
midst of that wild region, smiling fields and waving woods, and neat
cottages and blooming gardens.
They would go back and speak of what one individual had effected. He
should have to give evidence on parliamentary committees: when he grew
very, very rich, perhaps he would go up to Parliament himself. He could
reclaim mile after mile of barren country. He would drain and cultivate
the bogs; he would do away with the loose stone walls which divided the
land when any division was attempted into about half-acre plots; he
would plant trees up the mountains—there was no reason why trees should
not grow among those fastnesses that he could understand; he would
change the aspect of Connemara. Did he think of possessing the whole of
it? Had he any vision about all Galway one day having but one landlord,
and that landlord’s name being Drewitt?
He reduced the 1,566,354 acres Galway contains into hundreds, and after
deducting a certain portion for lake and mountain, calculated how long
it would take to bring them under cultivation. He thought how useful
those lakes would be for watering cattle, for purposes of irrigation; he
ran over the best sites for towns and villages; he saw, in fancy, ships
putting into each secure harbour; he saw the mines worked, the quarries
filled with well-paid labourers, the country prosperous, the people
warmly clad and sufficiently fed. He was doubtful whether Mayo ought not
to figure in his programme too. As he rode out of Cragantlet gates he
gave the rein to his imagination, and bid it conjure up before him fame,
wealth, success. He held the bridle loosely in his hand, letting it lie
on his horse’s neck, while he reflected on what he had just done, and on
what fruit that act might bring forth for him.
“Gold begets gold,” they say; that was what Maxwell hoped it might.
“Money makes money” is oftentimes a great truth. Maxwell trusted it
would prove a great truth in his case.
The kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof seemed to spread out
before Maxwell’s mind when he thought of what he had achieved on little,
when he considered what he might effect with much.
The kingdoms of this world were around him—there was land to be
cultivated—there were the resources of nature to be developed—there were
the hidden riches of the country to be brought to light. There was fuel
to be had for the cutting—fish for the catching—cattle for the
rearing—corn for the growing—wealth for the hand of industry to gather
in. There were barren wastes to clothe with verdure—there were hills to
plant with trees—there was granite to build houses—there was a land to
be peopled—there was a people to elevate and civilize.
It was all very fine; nay, it was more, it was glorious; and yet, as the
moon sailed out from behind a bank of watery clouds and shone over the
country this man was traversing, a feeling of loneliness, of desolation,
of misery came upon him which he could neither explain nor analyze.
There were the tremendous mountains, there the bare, solitary-looking
lakes; far as his eye could see across the valley, nothing met his view
but water, and stone, and bog: there were hills lying dark, and silent,
and sullen in the distance. Above his head was a cloudy sky, where the
moon kept wandering in and out like a troubled spirit. Now his way was
dark, now light: now the moon shone clear on the lake, and the road, and
the mountains, and then, again, she played fantastic tricks with the
stunted bushes—with the huge boulders. She would lay a white trap along
the highway and up the mountain-side, at which Maxwell’s horse would shy
frightened; she would dance on the ripples of the waters; she would
thrust her full face out of window, as it seemed, and stare down at the
earth, and then she would plunge behind the fringed curtains of the
night, and be invisible for a time again, after which she would come
shyly forth and gaze upon the man who rode slowly and alone through that
desolate portion of God’s fair earth.
Is it not necessary for a person to be very sensitive or very poetical
for a scene like this to produce a profound impression upon him. An
individual who has not an amazingly warm heart can yet feel something
stir within him when he looks upon a fine picture; and those who have
lived in the country all their lives are as susceptible to the
influences of nature’s varying moods as though her every change was
fresh to their comprehension.
All his life Maxwell Drewitt had loved scenery as he loved his country.
All his life the sun, and the wind, and the snow, and the frost, and the
sea, and the mountains had talked to him as they oftentimes fail to
speak to a better man; and now, as the moon shone with a fitful
brightness over the landscape, as her cold light fell on the breast of
the lonely waters, as the clouds rolled up and shrouded the mountains in
darkness, as the eternal hills returned his eager glance with a hard
unsympathising gaze, as they looked with stony eyes down upon him as
they had looked on others who had gone under their shadow sighing or
singing, laughing or weeping—as he paused and listened to the dash and
flow of the waters, as he heard the whistle of the plover and the cry of
the curlew, some voice through the still night spoke as clearly and
distinctly to Maxwell Drewitt’s soul as the “Preacher,” who tried all
things, and pronounced them vanity of vanities, tells the same tale to
us.
Most probably Maxwell Drewitt had never read Ecclesiastes. If he had, he
would certainly not have recollected any portion of it; and yet it was
the same story as that told so many thousand years ago by the great king
of Israel, which the night, and the clouds, and the moonlight, and the
mountains were whispering prophetically in his ear—
“I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I
gathered me also silver and gold, and whatsoever mine eyes desired I
kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy.
“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and _behold
all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the
sun. Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because
I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me._”
“It is a desolate place,” thought Maxwell. “It gives a man the blues!”
and he struck his heel against his horse’s flank, and the animal sprang
forward along the hard road, and the flints flashed fire as the iron
hoofs dashed over them. He passed by lonely lakes, round the base of
steep rocks, over bridges beneath which the mountain streams brawled
noisily among the stones. He passed by silent cabins, by unroofed
cottages, by deserted hearthstones gleaming white and bare in the
moonlight; by a lonely chapel, by a forsaken-looking graveyard, where
the tombs were covered with moss, where the crosses were black with
weather, wind, and age.
On, on, he rode, and as he rode he sung, either to encourage his horse
or to reassure himself, that cheerful ballad which recounts the loves of
King Connor and the fair Kathleen, and the sad fate of the latter:—
“‘The castle portal stood grimly wide,
None welcomed the king from that weary ride,
For dead, in the light of the dawning day,
The pale sweet form of the welcomer lay
Who had yearned for his voice while dying.’
“While dying!” hummed Maxwell, and the words brought him within sight of
Eversbeg.
There was the sea, the fair, calm open sea, with the moonlight sleeping
in it as peacefully as if he had not seen the same light wandering about
the hills and through the valleys he had just left. There was Eversbeg
Abbey, where poor Kathie had been lying dead this many a day. There was
Eversbeg Head, round which Mrs. Drewitt had walked when she came to
speak to him about Susan and Kathie and Lady Vervensoe.
There was the cabin where he had received her, where they had sat beside
the turf-fire talking; there were the woods of Kincorth high up on the
other side of Duranmore Bay, and there close down by the bay was his own
place, which he meant to convert into the garden of Erin. Was he
sorrowful when he came in sight of all these things? My reader, no! the
dark hour had passed away, and Maxwell Drewitt was a man of the world,
in the world, loving the world once more.
He was glad to have done with uncertainty, to have settled his future
past recall, to feel no more hesitation, to have laid down a course to
which he meant to adhere.
He was glad; he had done well: he should do better. It was a good match.
He knew half the county would say what a capital thing he had done for
himself. He knew many a man would gnash his teeth with rage when he
heard of Drewitt having carried off the prize.
Altogether, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt was a contented man; and yet, as he came
along the road that led down towards the bay, he stopped his horse for a
moment, and strained his eyes away to a little cottage gleaming white
and ghostly in the moonlight.
It was a deserted cottage now, and he had made it so. There was no Jenny
waiting for him by the stream or up the ravine. She had long been living
with her brother in Duranmore, and many suitors had sought her hand in
vain.
“She will marry now,” was the idea that passed through Maxwell’s mind;
and then, with a pang of remorse, he added, “Poor Jenny!”