A TALE OF A TURBOT.
It would have been Owen Fitzgerald's desire to disclaim the
inheritance which chance had put in his way in absolute silence, had
such a course been possible to him. And, indeed, not being very well
conversant with matters of business, he had thought for a while that
this might be done--or at any rate something not far different from
this. To those who had hitherto spoken to him upon the subject, to
Mr. Prendergast, Mr. Somers, and his cousin, he had disclaimed the
inheritance, and that he had thought would have sufficed. That Sir
Thomas should die so quickly after the discovery had not of course
been expected by anybody; and much, therefore, had not been thought
at the moment of these disclaimers;--neither at the moment, nor
indeed afterwards, when Sir Thomas did die.
Even Mr. Somers was prepared to admit that as the game had been
given up,--as his branch of the Fitzgeralds, acting under the advice
of their friend and lawyer, admitted that the property must go
from them--even he, much as he contested within his own breast the
propriety of Mr. Prendergast's decisions, was fain to admit now that
it was Owen's business to walk in upon the property. Any words which
he may have spoken on the impulse of the moment were empty words.
When a man becomes heir to twelve thousand a year, he does not give
it up in a freak of benevolence. And, therefore, when Sir Thomas had
been dead some four or five weeks, and when Herbert had gone away
from the scene which was no longer one of interest to him, it was
necessary that something should be done.
During the last two or three days of his life Sir Thomas had executed
a new will, in which he admitted that his son was not the heir to his
estates, and so disposed of such moneys as it was in his power to
leave as he would have done had Herbert been a younger son. Early in
his life he himself had added something to the property, some two or
three hundred a year, and this, also, he left of course to his own
family. Such having been done, there would have been no opposition
made to Owen had he immediately claimed the inheritance; but as he
made no claim, and took no step whatever,--as he appeared neither by
himself, nor by letter, nor by lawyer, nor by agent,--as no rumour
ever got about as to what he intended to do, Mr. Somers found it
necessary to write to him. This he did on the day of Herbert's
departure, merely asking him, perhaps with scant courtesy, who was
his man of business, in order that he, Mr. Somers, as agent to the
late proprietor, might confer with him. With but scant courtesy,--for
Mr. Somers had made one visit to Hap House since the news had been
known, with some intention of ingratiating himself with the future
heir; but his tenders had not been graciously received. Mr. Somers
was a proud man, and though his position in life depended on the
income he received from the Castle Richmond estate, he would not make
any further overture. So his letter was somewhat of the shortest, and
merely contained the request above named.
Owen's reply was sharp, immediate, and equally short, and was carried
back by the messenger from Castle Richmond who had brought the
letter, to which it was an answer. It was as follows:--
Hap House, Thursday morning, two o'clock.
(There was no other date; and Owen probably was unaware that his
letter being written at two P.M. was not written on Thursday
morning.)
Dear Sir,
I have got no lawyer, and no man of business; nor do I
mean to employ any if I can help it. I intend to make no
claim to Mr. Herbert Fitzgerald's property of Castle
Richmond; and if it be necessary that I should sign any
legal document making over to him any claim that I may
have, I am prepared to do so at any moment. As he has got
a lawyer, he can get this arranged, and I suppose Mr.
Prendergast had better do it.
I am, dear sir,
Your faithful servant,
OWEN FITZGERALD of Hap House.
And with those four or five lines he thought it would be practicable
for him to close the whole affair.
This happened on the day of Herbert's departure, and on the day
preceding Lord Desmond's visit to Hap House; so that on the occasion
of that visit, Owen looked upon the deed as fully done. He had put
it quite beyond his own power to recede now, even had he so wished.
And then came the tidings to him,--true tidings as he thought,--that
Clara was still within his reach if only he were master of Castle
Richmond. That this view of his position did for a moment shake him I
will not deny; but it was only for a moment: and then it was that he
had looked up at Clara's brother, and bade him go back to his mother
and sister, and tell them that Owen of Hap House was Owen of Hap
House still;--that and nothing more. Clara Desmond might be bought at
a price which would be too costly even for such a prize as her. It
was well for him that he so resolved, for at no price could she have
been bought.
Mr. Somers, when he received that letter, was much inclined to doubt
whether or no it might not be well to take Owen at his word. After
all, what just right had he to the estate? According to the eternal
and unalterable laws of right and wrong ought it not to belong to
Herbert Fitzgerald? Mr. Somers allowed his wish on this occasion
to be father to many thoughts much at variance from that line of
thinking which was customary to him as a man of business. In his
ordinary moods, law with him was law, and a legal claim a legal
claim. Had he been all his life agent to the Hap House property
instead of to that of Castle Richmond, a thought so romantic would
never have entered his head. He would have scouted a man as nearly a
maniac who should suggest to him that his client ought to surrender
an undoubted inheritance of twelve thousand a year on a point of
feeling. He would have rejected it as a proposed crime, and talked
much of the indefeasible rights of the coming heirs of the new heir.
He would have been as firm as a rock, and as trenchant as a sword in
defence of his patron's claims. But now, having in his hands that
short, pithy letter from Owen Fitzgerald, he could not but look at
the matter in a more Christian light. After all was not justice,
immutable justice, better than law? And would not the property be
enough for both of them? Might not law and justice make a compromise?
Let Owen be the baronet, and take a slice of four or five thousand,
and add that to Hap House; and then if these things were well
arranged, might not Mr. Somers still be agent to them both?
Meditating all this in his newly tuned romantic frame of mind Mr.
Somers sat down and wrote a long letter to Mr. Prendergast, enclosing
the short letter from Owen, and saying all that he, as a man of
business with a new dash of romance, could say on such a subject.
This letter, not having slept on the road as Herbert did in Dublin,
and having been conveyed with that lightning rapidity for which the
British Post-office has ever been remarkable--and especially that
portion of it which has reference to the sister island,--was in Mr.
Prendergast's pocket when Herbert dined with him. That letter, and
another to which we shall have to refer more specially. But so much
at variance were Mr. Prendergast's ideas from those entertained by
Mr. Somers, that he would not even speak to Herbert on the subject.
Perhaps, also, that other more important letter, which, if we live,
we shall read at length, might also have had some effect in keeping
him silent.
But in truth Mr. Somers' mind, and that of Mr. Prendergast, did not
work in harmony on this subject. Judging of the two men together by
their usual deeds and ascertained character, we may say that there
was much more romance about Mr. Prendergast than there was about
Mr. Somers. But then it was a general romance, and not one with
an individual object. Or perhaps we may say, without injury to
Mr. Somers, that it was a true feeling, and not a false one. Mr.
Prendergast, also, was much more anxious for the welfare of Herbert
Fitzgerald than that of his cousin; but then he could feel on behalf
of the man for whom he was interested that it did not behove him to
take a present of an estate from the hands of the true owner.
For more than a week Mr. Somers waited, but got no reply to his
letter, and heard nothing from Mr. Prendergast; and during this time
he was really puzzled as to what he should do. As regarded himself,
he did not know at what moment his income might end, or how long
he and his family might be allowed to inhabit the house which he
now held: and then he could take no steps as to the tenants; could
neither receive money nor pay it away, and was altogether at his
wits' ends. Lady Fitzgerald looked to him for counsel in everything,
and he did not know how to counsel her. Arrangements were to be made
for an auction in the house as soon as she should be able to move;
but would it not be a thousand pities to sell all the furniture if
there was a prospect of the family returning? And so he waited for
Mr. Prendergast's letter with an uneasy heart and vexation of spirit.
But still he attended the relief committees, and worked at the
soup-kitchens attached to the estate, as though he were still the
agent to Castle Richmond; and still debated warmly with Father
Barney on one side, and Mr. Townsend on the other, on that vexatious
question of out-door relief. And now the famine was in full swing;
and, strange to say, men had ceased to be uncomfortable about
it;--such men, that is, as Mr. Somers and Mr. Townsend. The cutting
off of maimed limbs, and wrenching out from their sockets of smashed
bones, is by no means shocking to the skilled practitioner. And dying
paupers, with "the drag" in their face--that certain sign of coming
death of which I have spoken--no longer struck men to the heart. Like
the skilled surgeon, they worked hard enough at what good they could
do, and worked the better in that they could treat the cases without
express compassion for the individuals that met their eyes. In
administering relief one may rob five unseen sufferers of what would
keep them in life if one is moved to bestow all that is comfortable
on one sufferer that is seen. Was it wise to spend money in
alleviating the last hours of those whose doom was already spoken,
which money, if duly used, might save the lives of others not yet
so far gone in misery? And so in one sense those who were the best
in the county, who worked the hardest for the poor and spent their
time most completely among them, became the hardest of heart, and
most obdurate in their denials. It was strange to see devoted women
neglecting the wants of the dying, so that they might husband their
strength and time and means for the wants of those who might still be
kept among the living.
At this time there came over to the parish of Drumbarrow a young
English clergyman who might be said to be in many respects the very
opposite to Mr. Townsend. Two men could hardly be found in the
same profession more opposite in their ideas, lives, purposes, and
pursuits;--with this similarity, however, that each was a sincere,
and on the whole an honest man. The Rev. Mr. Carter was much the
junior, being at that time under thirty. He had now visited Ireland
with the sole object of working among the poor, and distributing
according to his own judgment certain funds which had been collected
for this purpose in England.
And indeed there did often exist in England at this time a
misapprehension as to Irish wants, which led to some misuses of the
funds which England so liberally sent. It came at that time to be
the duty of a certain public officer to inquire into a charge made
against a seemingly respectable man in the far west of Ireland,
purporting that he had appropriated to his own use a sum of twelve
pounds sent to him for the relief of the poor of his parish. It had
been sent by three English maiden ladies to the relieving officer
of the parish of Kilcoutymorrow, and had come to his hands, he then
filling that position. He, so the charge said,--and unfortunately
said so with only too much truth,--had put the twelve pounds into
his own private pocket. The officer's duty in the matter took him to
the chairman of the Relief Committee, a stanch old Roman Catholic
gentleman nearly eighty years of age, with a hoary head and white
beard, and a Milesian name that had come down to him through
centuries of Catholic ancestors;--a man urbane in his manner, of the
old school, an Irishman such as one does meet still here and there
through the country, but now not often--one who above all things was
true to the old religion.
Then the officer of the government told his story to the old Irish
gentleman--with many words, for there were all manner of small
collateral proofs, to all of which the old Irish gentleman listened
with a courtesy and patience which were admirable. And when the
officer of the government had done, the old Irish gentleman thus
replied:--
"My neighbour Hobbs,"--such was the culprit's name--"has undoubtedly
done this thing. He has certainly spent upon his own uses the
generous offering made to our poor parish by those noble-minded
ladies, the three Miss Walkers. But he has acted with perfect honesty
in the matter."
"What!" said the government officer, "robbing the poor, and at such a
time as this!"
"No robbery at all, dear sir," said the good old Irish gentleman,
with the blandest of all possible smiles; "the excellent Miss
Walkers sent their money for the Protestant poor of the parish of
Kilcoutymorrow, and Mr. Hobbs is the only Protestant within it." And
from the twinkle in the old man's eye, it was clear to see that his
triumph consisted in this,--that not only he had but one Protestant
in the parish, but that that Protestant should have learned so little
from his religion.
But this is an episode. And nowadays no episodes are allowed.
And now Mr. Carter had come over to see that if possible certain
English funds were distributed according to the wishes of the
generous English hearts by whom they had been sent. For as some
English, such as the three Miss Walkers, feared on the one hand that
the Babylonish woman so rampant in Ireland might swallow up their
money for Babylonish purposes; so, on the other hand, did others
dread that the too stanch Protestantism of the church militant in
that country might expend the funds collected for undoubted bodily
wants in administering to the supposed wants of the soul. No such
faults did, in truth, at that time prevail. The indomitable force of
the famine had absolutely knocked down all that; but there had been
things done in Ireland, before the famine came upon them, which gave
reasonable suspicion for such fears.
Mr. Townsend among others had been very active in soliciting aid
from England, and hence had arisen a correspondence between him and
Mr. Carter; and now Mr. Carter had arrived at Drumbarrow with a
respectable sum to his credit at the provincial bank, and an intense
desire to make himself useful in this time of sore need. Mr. Carter
was a tall, thin, austere-looking man; one, seemingly, who had
macerated himself inwardly and outwardly by hard living. He had a
high, narrow forehead, a sparse amount of animal development, thin
lips, and a piercing, sharp, gray eye. He was a man, too, of few
words, and would have been altogether harsh in his appearance had
there not been that in the twinkle of his eye which seemed to say
that, in spite of all that his gait said to the contrary, the cockles
of his heart might yet be reached by some play of wit--if only the
wit were to his taste.
Mr. Carter was a man of personal means, so that he not only was not
dependent on his profession, but was able--as he also was willing--to
aid that profession by his liberality. In one thing only was he
personally expensive. As to his eating and drinking it was, or might
have been for any solicitude of his own, little more than bread
and water. As for the comforts of home, he had none, for since his
ordination his missions had ever been migrating. But he always
dressed with care, and consequently with expense, for careful
dressing is ever expensive. He always wore new black gloves, and
a very long black coat which never degenerated to rust, black
cloth trousers, a high black silk waistcoat, and a new black hat.
Everything about him was black except his neck, and that was always
scrupulously white.
Mr. Carter was a good man--one may say a very good man--for he gave
up himself and his money to carry out high views of charity and
religion, in which he was sincere with the sincerity of his whole
heart, and from which he looked for no reward save such as the godly
ever seek. But yet there was about him too much of the Pharisee.
He was greatly inclined to condemn other men, and to think none
righteous who differed from him. And now he had come to Ireland with
a certain conviction that the clergy of his own church there were men
not to be trusted; that they were mere Irish, and little better in
their habits and doctrines than under-bred dissenters. He had been
elsewhere in the country before he visited Drumbarrow, and had shown
this too plainly; but then Mr. Carter was a very young man, and it is
not perhaps fair to expect zeal and discretion also from those who
are very young.
Mrs. Townsend had heard of him, and was in dismay when she found that
he was to stay with them at Drumbarrow parsonage for three days. If
Mr. Carter did not like clerical characters of her stamp, neither
did she like them of the stamp of Mr. Carter. She had heard of him,
of his austerity, of his look, of his habits, and in her heart she
believed him to be a Jesuit. Had she possessed full sway herself in
the parish of Drumbarrow, no bodies should have been saved at such
terrible peril to the souls of the whole parish. But this Mr. Carter
came with such recommendation--with such assurances of money given
and to be given, of service done and to be done,--that there was no
refusing him. And so the husband, more worldly wise than his wife,
had invited the Jesuit to his parsonage.
"You'll find, Æneas, he'll have mass in his room in the morning
instead of coming to family prayers," said the wife.
"But what on earth shall we give him for dinner?" said the husband,
whose soul at the present moment was among the flesh-pots; and indeed
Mrs. Townsend had also turned over that question in her prudent mind.
"He'll not eat meat in Lent, you may be sure," said Mrs. Townsend,
remembering that that was the present period of the year.
"And if he would there is none for him to eat," said Mr. Townsend,
calling to mind the way in which the larder had of late been emptied.
Protestant clergymen in Ireland in those days had very frequently
other reasons for fasting than those prescribed by ecclesiastical
canons. A well-nurtured lady, the wife of a parish rector in the
county Cork, showed me her larder one day about that time. It
contained two large loaves of bread, and a pan full of stuff which I
should have called paste, but which she called porridge. It was all
that she had for herself, her husband, her children, and her charity.
Her servants had left her before she came to that pass. And she was a
well-nurtured, handsome, educated woman, born to such comforts as you
and I enjoy every day,--oh, my reader! perhaps without much giving of
thanks for them. Poor lady! the struggle was too much for her, and
she died under it.
Mr. Townsend was, as I have said, the very opposite to Mr. Carter,
but he also was a man who could do without the comforts of life, if
the comforts of life did not come readily in his way. He liked his
glass of whisky punch dearly, and had an idea that it was good for
him. Not caring much about personal debts, he would go in debt for
whisky. But if the whisky and credit were at an end, the loss did not
make him miserable. He was a man with a large appetite, and who took
great advantage of a good dinner when it was before him; nay, he
would go a long distance to insure a good dinner; but, nevertheless,
he would leave himself without the means of getting a mutton chop,
and then not be unhappy. Now Mr. Carter would have been very unhappy
had he been left without his superfine long black coat.
In tendering his invitation to Mr. Carter, Mr. Townsend had explained
that with him the _res angusta domi_, which was always a prevailing
disease, had been heightened by the circumstances of the time; but
that of such crust and cup as he had, his brother English clergyman
would be made most welcome to partake. In answer to this, Mr. Carter
had explained that in these days good men thought but little of
crusts and cups, and that as regarded himself, nature had so made him
that he had but few concupiscences of that sort. And then, all this
having been so far explained and settled, Mr. Carter came.
The first day the two clergymen spent together at Berryhill, and
found plenty to employ them. They were now like enough to be in want
of funds at that Berryhill soup-kitchen, seeing that the great fount
of supplies, the house, namely, of Castle Richmond, would soon have
stopped running altogether. And Mr. Carter was ready to provide
funds to some moderate extent if all his questions were answered
satisfactorily. "There was to be no making of Protestants," he said,
"by giving away of soup purchased with his money." Mr. Townsend
thought that this might have been spared him. "I regret to say,"
replied he, with some touch of sarcasm, "that we have no time for
that now." "And so better," said Mr. Carter, with a sarcasm of a
blunter sort. "So better. Let us not clog our alms with impossible
conditions which will only create falsehood." "Any conditions are out
of the question when one has to feed a whole parish," answered Mr.
Townsend.
And then Mr. Carter would teach them how to boil their yellow meal,
on which subject he had a theory totally opposite to the practice
of the woman employed at the soup-kitchen. "Av we war to hocus it
that, yer riverence," said Mrs. Daly, turning to Mr. Townsend, "the
crathurs couldn't ate a bit of it; it wouldn't bile at all, at all,
not like that."
"Try it, woman," said Mr. Carter, when he had uttered his receipt
oracularly for the third time.
"'Deed an' I won't," said Mrs. Daly, whose presence there was pretty
nearly a labour of love, and who was therefore independent. "It'd be
a sin an' a shame to spile Christian vittels in them times, an' I
won't do it." And then there was some hard work that day; and though
Mr. Townsend kept his temper with his visitor, seeing that he had
much to get and nothing to give, he did not on this occasion learn to
alter his general opinion of his brethren of the English high church.
And then, when they got home, very hungry after their toil, Mr.
Townsend made another apology for the poorness of his table. "I am
almost ashamed," said he, "to ask an English gentleman to sit down to
such a dinner as Mrs. Townsend will put before you."
"And indeed then it isn't much," said Mrs. Townsend; "just a bit of
fish I found going the road."
"My dear madam, anything will suffice," said Mr. Carter, somewhat
pretentiously. And anything would have sufficed. Had they put before
him a mess of that paste of which I have spoken he would have ate it
and said nothing,--ate enough of it at least to sustain him till the
morrow.
But things had not come to so bad a pass as this at
Drumbarrow parsonage; and, indeed, that day fortune had been
propitious;--fortune which ever favours the daring. Mrs. Townsend,
knowing that she had really nothing in the house, had sent Jerry to
waylay the Lent fishmonger, who twice a week was known to make his
way from Kanturk to Mallow with a donkey and panniers; and Jerry had
returned with a prize.
And now they sat down to dinner, and lo and behold, to the great
surprise of Mr. Carter, and perhaps also to the surprise of the host,
a magnificent turbot smoked upon the board. The fins no doubt had
been cut off to render possible the insertion of the animal into the
largest of the Drumbarrow parsonage kitchen-pots,--an injury against
which Mr. Townsend immediately exclaimed angrily. "My goodness,
they have cut off the fins!" said he, holding up both hands in deep
dismay. According to his philosophy, if he did have a turbot, why
should he not have it with all its perfections about it--fins and
all?
"My dear Æneas!" said Mrs. Townsend, looking at him with that agony
of domestic distress which all wives so well know how to assume.
Mr. Carter said nothing. He said not a word, but he thought much.
This then was their pretended poorness of living! with all their mock
humility, these false Irishmen could not resist the opportunity of
showing off before the English stranger, and of putting on their
table before him a dish which an English dean could afford only on
gala days. And then this clergyman, who was so loudly anxious for
the poor, could not repress the sorrow of his heart because the
rich delicacy was somewhat marred in the cooking. "It was too bad,"
thought Mr. Carter to himself, "too bad."
"None, thank you," said he, drawing himself up with gloomy
reprobation of countenance. "I will not take any fish, I am much
obliged to you."
Then the face of Mrs. Townsend was one on which neither Christian
nor heathen could have looked without horror and grief. What, the
man whom in her heart she believed to be a Jesuit, and for whom
nevertheless, Jesuit though he was, she had condescended to cater
with all her woman's wit!--this man, I say, would not eat fish in
Lent! And it was horrible to her warm Irish heart to think that after
that fish now upon the table there was nothing to come but two or
three square inches of cold bacon. Not eat turbot in Lent! Had he
been one of her own sort she might have given him credit for true
antagonism to popery; but every inch of his coat gave the lie to such
a supposition as that.
"Do take a bit," said Mr. Townsend, hospitably. "The fins should not
have been cut off, otherwise I never saw a finer fish in my life."
"None, I am very much obliged to you," said Mr. Carter, with sternest
reprobation of feature.
It was too much for Mrs. Townsend. "Oh, Æneas," said she, "what are
we to do?" Mr. Townsend merely shrugged his shoulders, while he
helped himself. His feelings were less acute, perhaps, than those
of his wife, and he, no doubt, was much more hungry. Mr. Carter
the while sat by, saying nothing, but looking daggers. He also was
hungry, but under such circumstances he would rather starve than eat.
"Don't you ever eat fish, Mr. Carter?" said Mr. Townsend, proceeding
to help himself for a second time, and poking about round the edges
of the delicate creature before him for some relics of the glutinous
morsels which he loved so well. He was not, however, enjoying it
as he should have done, for seeing that his guest ate none, and
that his wife's appetite was thoroughly marred, he was alone in his
occupation. No one but a glutton could have feasted well under such
circumstances, and Mr. Townsend was not a glutton.
"Thank you, I will eat none to-day," said Mr. Carter, sitting bolt
upright, and fixing his keen gray eyes on the wall opposite.
"Then you may take away, Biddy; I've done with it. But it's a
thousand pities such a fish should have been so wasted."
The female heart of Mrs. Townsend could stand these wrongs no longer,
and with a tear in one corner of her eye, and a gleam of anger in the
other, she at length thus spoke out. "I am sure then I don't know
what you will eat, Mr. Carter, and I did think that all you English
clergymen always ate fish in Lent,--and indeed nothing else; for
indeed people do say that you are much the same as the papists in
that respect."
"Hush, my dear!" said Mr. Townsend.
"Well, but I can't hush when there's nothing for the gentleman to
eat."
"My dear madam, such a matter does not signify in the least," said
Mr. Carter, not unbending an inch.
"But it does signify; it signifies a great deal; and so you'd know if
you were a family man;"--"as you ought to be," Mrs. Townsend would
have been delighted to add. "And I'm sure I sent Jerry five miles,
and he was gone four hours to get that bit of fish from Paddy
Magrath, as he stops always at Ballygibblin Gate; and indeed I
thought myself so lucky, for I only gave Jerry one and sixpence. But
they had an uncommon take of fish yesterday at Skibbereen, and--"
"One and sixpence!" said Mr. Carter, now slightly relaxing his brow
for the first time.
"I'd have got it for one and three," said Mr. Townsend, upon whose
mind an inkling of the truth was beginning to dawn.
"Indeed and you wouldn't, Æneas; and Jerry was forced to promise the
man a glass of whisky the first time he comes this road, which he
does sometimes. That fish weighed over nine pounds, every ounce of
it."
"Nine fiddlesticks," said Mr. Townsend.
"I weighed it myself, Æneas, with my own hands, and it was nine
pounds four ounces before we were obliged to cut it, and as firm as a
rock the flesh was."
"For one and sixpence!" said Mr. Carter, relaxing still a little
further, and condescending to look his hostess in the face.
"Yes, for one and six; and now--"
"I'm sure I'd have bought it for one and four, fins and all," said
the parson, determined to interrupt his wife in her pathos.
"I'm sure you would not then," said his wife, taking his assertion in
earnest. "You could never market against Jerry in your life; I will
say that for him."
"If you'll allow me to change my mind, I think I will have a little
bit of it," said Mr. Carter, almost humbly.
"By all means," said Mr. Townsend. "Biddy, bring that fish back. Now
I think of it, I have not half dined myself yet."
And then they all three forgot their ill humours, and enjoyed their
dinner thoroughly,--in spite of the acknowledged fault as touching
the lost fins of the animal.