FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT.
Herbert as he started from his bed with this letter in his hand felt
that he could yet hold up his head against all that the world could
do to him. How could he be really unhappy while he possessed such an
assurance of love as this, and while his mother was able to give him
so glorious an example of endurance? He was not really unhappy. The
low-spirited broken-hearted wretchedness of the preceding day seemed
to have departed from him as he hurried on his clothes, and went off
to his sister's room that he might show his letter to Emmeline in
accordance with the promise he had made her.
"May I come in?" he said, knocking at the door. "I must come in,
for I have something to show you." But the two girls were dressing
and he could not be admitted. Emmeline, however, promised to come
to him, and in about three minutes she was out in the cold little
sitting-room which adjoined their bed-room with her slippers on, and
her dressing gown wrapped round her, an object presentable to no male
eyes but those of her brother.
"Emmeline," said he, "I have got a letter this morning."
"Not from Clara?"
"Yes, from Clara. There; you may read it;" and he handed her the
precious epistle.
"But she could not have got your letter?" said Emmeline, before she
looked at the one in her hand.
"Certainly not, for I have it here. I must write another now; but in
truth I do not know what to say. I can be as generous as she is."
And then his sister read the letter. "My own Clara!" she exclaimed,
as she saw what was the tenor of it. "Did I not tell you so, Herbert?
I knew well what she would do and say. Love you ten times better!--of
course she does. What honest girl would not? My own beautiful Clara,
I knew I could depend on her. I did not doubt her for one moment."
But in this particular it must be acknowledged that Miss Emmeline
Fitzgerald hardly confined herself to the strictest veracity, for she
had lain awake half the night perplexed with doubt. What, oh what,
if Clara should be untrue! Such had been the burden of her doubting
midnight thoughts. "'I will not be given up,'" she continued, quoting
the letter. "No; of course not. And I tell you what, Herbert, you
must not dare to talk of giving her up. Money and titles may be
tossed to and fro, but not hearts. How beautifully she speaks of dear
mamma!" and now the tears began to run down the young lady's cheeks.
"Oh, I do wish she could be with us! My darling, darling, darling
Clara! Unhappy? Yes: I am sure Lady Desmond will give her no peace.
But never mind. She will be true through it all; and I said so from
the first." And then she fell to crying, and embracing her brother,
and declaring that nothing now should make her altogether unhappy.
"But, Emmeline, you must not think that I shall take her at her word.
It is very generous of her--"
"Nonsense, Herbert!" And then there was another torrent of eloquence,
in answering which Herbert found that his arguments were of very
little efficacy.
And now we must go back to Desmond Court, and see under what all but
overwhelming difficulties poor Clara wrote her affectionate letter.
And in the first place it should be pointed out how very wrong
Herbert had been in going to Desmond Court on foot, through the mud
and rain. A man can hardly bear himself nobly unless his outer aspect
be in some degree noble. It may be very sad, this having to admit
that the tailor does in great part make the man; but such I fear is
undoubtedly the fact. Could the Chancellor look dignified on the
woolsack, if he had had an accident with his wig, or allowed his
robes to be torn or soiled? Does not half the piety of a bishop
reside in his lawn sleeves, and all his meekness in his anti-virile
apron? Had Herbert understood the world he would have had out the
best pair of horses standing in the Castle Richmond stables, when
going to Desmond Court on such an errand. He would have brushed his
hair, and anointed himself; he would have clothed himself in his rich
Spanish cloak; he would have seen that his hat was brushed, and his
boots spotless; and then with all due solemnity but with head erect,
he would have told his tale out boldly. The countess would still have
wished to be rid of him, hearing that he was a pauper; but she would
have lacked the courage to turn him from the house as she had done.
But seeing how wobegone he was and wretched, how mean to look at, and
low in his outward presence, she had been able to assume the mastery,
and had kept it throughout the interview. And having done this her
opinion of his prowess naturally became low, and she felt that he
would have been unable to press his cause against her.
For some time after he had departed, she sat alone in the room in
which she had received him. She expected every minute that Clara
would come down to her, still wishing however that she might be left
for a while alone. But Clara did not come, and she was able to pursue
her thoughts.
How very terrible was this tragedy that had fallen out in her close
neighbourhood! That was the first thought that came to her now that
Herbert had left her. How terrible, overwhelming, and fatal! What
calamity could fall upon a woman so calamitous as this which had
now overtaken that poor lady at Castle Richmond? Could she live
and support such a burden? Could she bear the eyes of people, when
she knew the light in which she must be now regarded? To lose at
one blow, her name, her pride of place, her woman's rank and high
respect! Could it be possible that she would still live on? It was
thus that Lady Desmond thought; and had any one told her that this
degraded mother would that very day come down from her room, and sit
watchful by her sleeping son, in order that she might comfort and
encourage him when he awoke, she would not have found it in her heart
to believe such a marvel. But then Lady Desmond knew but one solace
in her sorrows--had but one comfort in her sad reflections. She was
Countess of Desmond, and that was all. To Lady Fitzgerald had been
vouchsafed other solace and other comforts.
And then, on one point the countess made herself fixed as fate, by
thinking and re-thinking upon it till no doubt remained upon her
mind. The match between Clara and Herbert must be broken off, let
the cost be what it might; and--a point on which there was more room
for doubt, and more pain in coming to a conclusion--that other match
with the more fortunate cousin must be encouraged and carried out.
For herself, if her hope was small while Owen was needy and of poor
account, what hope could there be now that he would be rich and
great? Moreover, Owen loved Clara, and not herself; and Clara's hand
would once more be vacant and ready for the winning. For herself, her
only chance had been in Clara's coming marriage.
In all this she knew that there would be difficulty. She was sure
enough that Clara would at first feel the imprudent generosity of
youth, and offer to join her poverty to Herbert's poverty. That was
a matter of course. She, Lady Desmond herself, would have done this,
at Clara's age,--so at least to herself she said, and also to her
daughter. But a little time, and a little patience, and a little care
would set all this in a proper light. Herbert would go away and would
gradually be forgotten. Owen would again come forth from beneath the
clouds, with renewed splendour; and then, was it not probable that,
in her very heart of hearts, Owen was the man whom Clara had ever
loved?
And thus having realized to herself the facts which Herbert had told
her, she prepared to make them known to her daughter. She got up
from her chair, intending at first to seek her, and then, changing
her purpose, rang the bell and sent for her. She was astonished to
find how violently she herself was affected; not so much by the
circumstances, as by this duty which had fallen to her of telling
them to her child. She put one hand upon the other and felt that she
herself was in a tremor, and was conscious that the blood was running
quick round her heart. Clara came down, and going to her customary
seat waited till her mother should speak to her.
"Mr. Fitzgerald has brought very dreadful news," Lady Desmond said,
after a minute's pause.
"Oh mamma!" said Clara. She had expected bad tidings, having thought
of all manner of miseries while she had been up stairs alone; but
there was that in her mother's voice which seemed to be worse than
the worst of her anticipations.
"Dreadful, indeed, my child! It is my duty to tell them to you;
but I must caution you, before I do so, to place a guard upon your
feelings. That which I have to say must necessarily alter all your
future prospects, and, unfortunately, make your marrying Herbert
Fitzgerald quite impossible."
"Mamma!" she exclaimed, with a loud voice, jumping from her chair.
"Not marry him! Why; what can he have done? Is it his wish to break
it off?"
Lady Desmond had calculated that she would best effect her object
by at once impressing her daughter with the idea that, under the
circumstances which were about to be narrated, this marriage would
not only be imprudent, but altogether impracticable and out of
the question. Clara must be made to understand at once, that the
circumstances gave her no option,--that the affair was of such a
nature as to make it a thing manifest to everybody, that she could
not now marry Herbert Fitzgerald. She must not be left to think
whether she could, or whether she could not, exercise her own
generosity. And therefore, not without discretion, the countess
announced at once to her the conclusion at which it would be
necessary to arrive. But Clara was not a girl to adopt such a
conclusion on any other judgment than her own, or to be led in such a
matter by the feelings of any other person.
"Sit down, my dear, and I will explain it all. But, dearest Clara,
grieved as I must be to grieve you, I am bound to tell you again
that it must be as I say. For both your sakes it must be so; but
especially, perhaps, for his. But when I have told you my story, you
will understand that this must be so."
"Tell me, then, mother." She said this, for Lady Desmond had again
paused.
"Won't you sit down, dearest?"
"Well, yes; it does not matter;" and Clara, at her mother's bidding,
sat down, and then the story was told to her.
It was a difficult tale for a mother to tell to so young a child--to
a child whom she had regarded as being so very young. There were
various little points of law which she thought that she was obliged
to explain; how it was necessary that the Castle Richmond property
should go to an heir-at-law, and how it was impossible that Herbert
should be that heir-at-law, seeing that he had not been born in
lawful wedlock. All these things Lady Desmond attempted to explain,
or was about to attempt such explanation, but desisted on finding
that her daughter understood them as well as she herself did. And
then she had to make it also intelligible to Clara that Owen would
be called on, when Sir Thomas should die, to fill the position and
enjoy the wealth accruing to the heir of Castle Richmond. When Owen
Fitzgerald's name was mentioned a slight blush came upon Clara's
cheek; it was very slight, but nevertheless her mother saw it, and
took advantage of it to say a word in Owen's favour.
"Poor Owen!" she said. "He will not be the first to triumph in this
change of fortune."
"I am sure he will not," said Clara. "He is much too generous for
that." And then the countess began to hope that the task might not
be so very difficult. Ignorant woman! Had she been able to read one
page in her daughter's heart, she would have known that the task was
impossible. After that the story was told out to the end without
further interruption; and then Clara, hiding her face within her
hands on the head of the sofa, uttered one long piteous moan.
"It is all very dreadful," said the countess.
"Oh, Lady Fitzgerald, dear Lady Fitzgerald!" sobbed forth Clara.
"Yes, indeed. Poor Lady Fitzgerald! Her fate is so dreadful that I
know not how to think of it."
"But, mamma--" and as she spoke Clara pushed back from her forehead
her hair with both her hands, showing, as she did so, the form of her
forehead, and the firmness of purpose that was written there, legible
to any eyes that could read. "But, mamma, you are wrong about my not
marrying Herbert Fitzgerald. Why should I not marry him? Not now, as
we, perhaps, might have done but for this; but at some future time
when he may think himself able to support a wife. Mamma, I shall not
break our engagement; certainly not."
This was said in a tone of voice so very decided that Lady Desmond
had to acknowledge to herself that there would be difficulty in her
task. But she still did not doubt that she would have her way, if
not by concession on the part of her daughter, then by concession on
the part of Herbert Fitzgerald. "I can understand your generosity
of feeling, my dear," she said; "and at your age I should probably
have felt the same. And therefore I do not ask you to take any
steps towards breaking your engagement. The offer must come from Mr.
Fitzgerald, and I have no doubt that it will come. He, as a man of
honour, will know that he cannot now offer to marry you; and he will
also know, as a man of sense, that it would be ruin for him to think
of--of such a marriage under his present circumstances."
"Why, mamma? Why should it be ruin to him?"
"Why, my dear? Do you think that a wife with a titled name can be of
advantage to a young man who has not only got his bread to earn, but
even to look out for a way in which he may earn it?"
"If there be nothing to hurt him but the titled name, that difficulty
shall be easily conquered."
"Dearest Clara, you know what I mean. You must be aware that a girl
of your rank, and brought up as you have been, cannot be a fitting
wife for a man who will now have to struggle with the world at every
turn."
Clara, as this was said to her, and as she prepared to answer,
blushed deeply, for she felt herself obliged to speak on a matter
which had never yet been subject of speech between her and her
mother. "Mamma," she said, "I cannot agree with you there. I may have
what the world calls rank; but nevertheless we have been poor, and I
have not been brought up with costly habits. Why should I not live
with my husband as--as--as poorly as I have lived with my mother? You
are not rich, dear mamma, and why should I be?"
Lady Desmond did not answer her daughter at once; but she was not
silent because an answer failed her. Her answer would have been ready
enough had she dared to speak it out. "Yes, it is true; we have been
poor. I, your mother, did by my imprudence bring down upon my head
and on yours absolute, unrelenting, pitiless poverty. And because I
did so, I have never known one happy hour. I have spent my days in
bitter remorse--in regretting the want of those things which it has
been the more terrible to want as they are the customary attributes
of people of my rank. I have been driven to hate those around me
who have been rich, because I have been poor. I have been utterly
friendless because I have been poor. I have been able to do none of
those sweet, soft, lovely things, by doing which other women win
the smiles of the world, because I have been poor. Poverty and rank
together have made me wretched--have left me without employment,
without society, and without love. And now would you tell me that
because I have been poor you would choose to be poor also?" It would
have been thus that she would have answered, had she been accustomed
to speak out her thoughts. But she had ever been accustomed to
conceal them.
"I was thinking quite as much of him as of you," at last she said.
"Such an engagement to you would be fraught with much misery, but to
him it would be ruinous."
"I do not think it, mamma."
"But it is not necessary, Clara, that you should do anything. You
will wait, of course, and see what Herbert may say himself."
"Herbert--"
"Wait half a moment, my love. I shall be very much surprised if we
do not find that Mr. Fitzgerald himself will tell you that the match
must be abandoned."
"But that will make no difference, mamma."
"No difference, my dear! You cannot marry him against his will. You
do not mean to say that you would wish to bind him to his engagement,
if he himself thought it would be to his disadvantage?"
"Yes; I will bind him to it."
"Clara!"
"I will make him know that it is not for his disadvantage. I will
make him understand that a friend and companion who loves him as
I love him--as no one else will ever love him now--for I love him
because he was so high-fortuned when he came to me, and because he
is now so low-fortuned--that such a wife as I will be, cannot be a
burden to him. I will cling to him whether he throws me off or no. A
word from him might have broken our engagement before, but a thousand
words cannot do it now."
Lady Desmond stared at her daughter, for Clara, in her excitement,
was walking up and down the room. The countess had certainly not
expected all this, and she was beginning to think that the subject
for the present might as well be left alone. But Clara had not done
as yet.
"Mamma," she said, "I will not do anything without telling you; but
I cannot leave Herbert in all his misery to think that I have no
sympathy with him. I shall write to him."
"Not before he writes to you, Clara! You would not wish to be
indelicate?"
"I know but little about delicacy--what people call delicacy; but I
will not be ungenerous or unkind. Mamma, you brought us two together.
Was it not so? Did you not do so, fearing that I might--might still
care for Herbert's cousin? You did it; and half wishing to obey you,
half attracted by all his goodness, I did learn to love Herbert
Fitzgerald; and I did learn to forget--no; but I learned to cease to
love his cousin. You did this and rejoiced at it; and now what you
did must remain done."
"But, dearest Clara, it will not be for his good."
"It shall be for his good. Mamma, I would not desert him now for all
that the world could give me. Neither for mother nor brother could I
do that. Without your leave I would not have given him the right to
regard me as his own; but now I cannot take that right back again,
even at your wish. I must write to him at once, mamma, and tell him
this."
"Clara, at any rate you must not do that; that at least I must
forbid."
"Mother, you cannot forbid it now," the daughter said, after walking
twice the length of the room in silence. "If I be not allowed to send
a letter, I shall leave the house and go to him."
This was all very dreadful. Lady Desmond was astounded at the manner
in which her daughter carried herself, and the voice with which she
spoke. The form of her face was altered, and the very step with which
she trod was unlike her usual gait. What would Lady Desmond do? She
was not prepared to confine her daughter as a prisoner, nor could she
publicly forbid the people about the place to go upon her message.
"I did not expect that you would have been so undutiful," she said.
"I hope I am not so," Clara answered. "But now my first duty is to
him. Did you not sanction our loving each other? People cannot call
back their hearts and their pledges."
"You will at any rate wait till to-morrow, Clara."
"It is dark now," said Clara, despondingly, looking out through the
window upon the falling night; "I suppose I cannot send to-night."
"And you will show me what you write, dearest?"
"No, mamma. If I wrote it for your eyes it could not be the same as
if I wrote it only for his."
Very gloomy, sombre, and silent, was the Countess of Desmond all that
night. Nothing further was said about the Fitzgeralds between her
and her daughter, before they went to bed; and then Lady Desmond did
speak a few futile words.
"Clara," she said. "You had better think over what we have been
saying, in bed to-night. You will be more collected to-morrow
morning."
"I shall think of it of course," said Clara; "but thinking can make
no difference," and then just touching her mother's forehead with her
lips she went off slowly to her room.
What sort of a letter she wrote when she got there, we have already
seen; and have seen also that she took effective steps to have her
letter carried to Castle Richmond at an hour sufficiently early in
the morning. There was no danger that the countess would stop the
message, for the letter had been read twenty times by Emmeline and
Mary, and had been carried by Herbert to his mother's room, before
Lady Desmond had left her bed. "Do not set your heart on it too
warmly," said Herbert's mother to him.
"But is she not excellent?" said Herbert. "It is because she speaks
of you in such a way--"
"You would not wish to bring her into misery, because of her
excellence."
"But, mother, I am still a man," said Herbert. This was too much for
the suffering woman, the one fault of whose life had brought her son
to such a pass, and throwing her arm round his neck she wept upon his
shoulders.
There were other messengers went and came that day between Desmond
Court and Castle Richmond. Clara and her mother saw nothing of each
other early in the morning; they did not breakfast together, nor was
there a word said between them on the subject of the Fitzgeralds.
But Lady Desmond early in the morning--early for her that is--sent
her note also to Castle Richmond. It was addressed to Aunt Letty,
Miss Letitia Fitzgerald, and went to say that Lady Desmond was very
anxious to see Miss Letty. Under the present circumstances of the
family, as described to Lady Desmond by Mr. Herbert Fitzgerald, she
felt that she could not ask to see "his mother;"--it was thus that
she overcame the difficulty which presented itself to her as to the
proper title now to be given to Lady Fitzgerald;--but perhaps Miss
Letty would be good enough to see her, if she called at such and such
an hour. Aunt Letty, much perplexed, had nothing for it, but to say
that she would see her. The countess must now be looked on as closely
connected with the family--at any rate until that match were broken
off; and therefore Aunt Letty had no alternative. And so, precisely
at the hour named, the countess and Aunt Letty were seated together
in the little breakfast-room of which mention has before been made.
No two women were ever closeted together who were more unlike each
other,--except that they had one common strong love for family rank.
But in Aunt Letty it must be acknowledged that this passion was not
unwholesome or malevolent in its course of action. She delighted in
being a Fitzgerald, and in knowing that her branch of the Fitzgeralds
had been considerable people ever since her Norman ancestor had come
over to Ireland with Strongbow. But then she had a useful idea that
considerable people should do a considerable deal of good. Her family
pride operated more inwardly than outwardly,--inwardly as regarded
her own family, and not outwardly as regarded the world. Her brother,
and her nephew, and her sister-in-law, and nieces, were, she thought,
among the highest commoners in Ireland; they were gentlefolks of the
first water, and walked openly before the world accordingly, proving
their claim to gentle blood by gentle deeds and honest conduct.
Perhaps she did think too much of the Fitzgeralds of Castle Richmond;
but the sin was one of which no recording angel could have made much
in his entry. That she was a stupid old woman, prejudiced in the
highest degree, and horribly ignorant of all the world beyond her own
very narrow circle,--even of that, I do not think that the recording
angel could, under the circumstances, have made a great deal.
And now how was her family pride affected by this horrible
catastrophe that had been made known to her? Herbert the heir, whom
as heir she had almost idolized, was nobody. Her sister-in-law, whom
she had learned to love with the whole of her big heart, was no
sister-in-law. Her brother was one, who, in lieu of adding glory to
the family, would always be regarded as the most unfortunate of the
Fitzgerald baronets. But with her, human nature was stronger than
family pride, and she loved them all, not better, but more tenderly
than ever.
The two ladies were closeted together for about two hours; and then,
when the door was opened, Aunt Letty might have been seen with her
bonnet much on one side, and her poor old eyes and cheeks red with
weeping. The countess, too, held her handkerchief to her eyes as she
got back into her pony carriage. She saw no one else there but Aunt
Letty; and from her mood when she returned to Desmond Court it might
be surmised that from Aunt Letty she had learned little to comfort
her.
"They will be beggars!" she said to herself--"beggars!"--when the
door of her own room had closed upon her. And there are few people in
the world who held such beggary in less esteem than did the Countess
of Desmond. It may almost be said that she hated herself on account
of her own poverty.