PLAYING ROUNDERS.
My story is nearly at its close, and all readers will now know how
it is to end. Those difficulties raised by Mr. Die were all made to
vanish; and though he implored Mr. Prendergast over and over again
to go about this business with a moderated eagerness, that gentleman
would not consent to let any grass grow under his heels till he had
made assurance doubly sure, and had seen Herbert Fitzgerald firmly
seated on his throne. All that the women in Spinny Lane had told him
was quite true. The register was found in the archives of the parish
of Putney, and Mr. Prendergast was able to prove that Mr. Matthew
Mollett, now of Spinny Lane, and the Mr. Matthew Mollett then
designated as of Newmarket in Cambridgeshire, were one and the same
person; therefore Mr. Mollett's marriage with Miss Wainwright was
no marriage, and therefore, also, the marriage between Sir Thomas
Fitzgerald and that lady was a true marriage; all which things will
now be plain to any novel-reading capacity, mean as such capacity may
be in respect to legal law.
And I have only further to tell in respect to this part of my story,
that the Molletts, both father and son, escaped all punishment
for the frauds and villanies related in these pages--except such
punishment as these frauds and villanies, acting by their own innate
destructive forces and poisons, brought down upon their unfortunate
heads. For so allowing them to escape I shall be held by many to
have been deficient in sound teaching. "What!" men will say, "not
punish your evil principle! Allow the prevailing evil genius of your
book to escape scot free, without administering any of that condign
punishment which it would have been so easy for you to allot to them!
Had you not treadmills to your hand, and all manner of new prison
disciplines? Should not Matthew have repented in the sackcloth of
solitary confinement, and Aby have munched and crunched between his
teeth the bitter ashes of prison bread and water? Nay, for such
offences as those did you wot of no penal settlements? Were not
Portland and Spike Islands gaping for them? Had you no memory of
Dartmoor and the Bermudas?"
Gentle readers, no; not in this instance shall Spike Island or the
Bermudas be asked to give us their assistance. There is a sackcloth
harsher to the skin than that of the penal settlement, and ashes more
bitter in the crunching than convict rations. It would be sad indeed
if we thought that those rascals who escape the law escape also the
just reward of their rascality. May it not rather be believed that
the whole life of the professional rascal is one long wretched
punishment, to which, if he could but know it, the rations and
comparative innocence of Bermuda would be so preferable? Is he not
always rolling the stone of Sysiphus, gyrating on the wheel of Ixion,
hankering after the waters of Tantalus, filling the sieves of the
daughters of Danaüs? He pours into his sieve stolen corn beyond
measure, but no grain will stay there. He lifts to his lips rich
cups, but Rhadamanthus the policeman allows him no moment for a
draught. The wheel of justice is ever going, while his poor hanging
head is in a whirl. The stone which he rolls never perches for a
moment at the top of the hill, for the trade which he follows admits
of no rest. Have I not said truly that he is hunted like a fox,
driven from covert to covert with his poor empty craving belly?
prowling about through the wet night, he returns with his prey, and
finds that he is shut out from his lair; his bloodshot eye is ever
over his shoulder, and his advanced foot is ever ready for a start;
he stinks in the nostrils of the hounds of the law, and is held by
all men to be vermin.
One would say that the rascal, if he but knew the truth, would
look forward to Spike Island and the Bermudas with impatience and
raptures. The cold, hungry, friendless, solitary doom of unconvicted
rascaldom has ever seemed to me to be the most wretched phase of
human existence,--that phase of living in which the liver can trust
no one, and be trusted by none; in which the heart is ever quailing
at the policeman's hat, and the eye ever shrinking from the
policeman's gaze. The convict does trust his gaoler, at any rate his
master gaoler, and in so doing is not all wretched. It is Bill Sikes
before conviction that I have ever pitied. Any man can endure to be
hanged; but how can any man have taken that Bill Sikes' walk and have
lived through it?
To such punishments will we leave the Molletts, hoping of the elder
one, that under the care of those ministering angels in Spinny Lane,
his heart may yet be softened; hoping also for the younger one that
some ministering angel may be appointed also for his aid. 'Tis a
grievous piece of work though, that of a ministering angel to such a
soul as his. And now, having seen them so far on their mortal career,
we will take our leave of both of them.
Mr. Prendergast's object in sparing them was of course that of saving
Lady Fitzgerald from the terrible pain of having her name brought
forward at any trial. She never spoke of this, even to Herbert,
allowing those in whom she trusted to manage those things for her
without an expression of anxiety on her own part; but she was not the
less thankful when she found that no public notice was to be taken of
the matter.
Very shortly after Herbert's return to Castle Richmond, it was
notified to him that he need have no fear as to his inheritance; and
it was so notified with the great additional comfort of an assuring
opinion from Mr. Die. He then openly called himself Sir Herbert, took
upon himself the property which became his by right of the entail,
and issued orders for the preparation of his marriage settlement.
During this period he saw Owen Fitzgerald; but he did so in the
presence of Mr. Somers, and not a word was then said about Lady
Clara Desmond. Both the gentlemen, Herbert and Mr. Somers, cordially
thanked the master of Hap House for the way in which he had behaved
to the Castle Richmond family, and in reference to the Castle
Richmond property during the terrible events of the last two months;
but Owen took their thanks somewhat haughtily. He shook hands warmly
enough with his cousin, wishing him joy on the arrangement of his
affairs, and was at first less distant than usual with Mr. Somers;
but when they alluded to his own conduct, and expressed their
gratitude, he declared that he had done nothing for which thanks were
due, and that he begged it to be understood that he laid claim to no
gratitude. Had he acted otherwise, he said, he would have deserved to
be kicked out of the presence of all honest men; and to be thanked
for the ordinary conduct of a gentleman was almost an insult. This he
said looking chiefly at Mr. Somers, and then turning to his cousin,
he asked him if he intended to remain in the country.
"Oh, certainly," said Herbert.
"I shall not," said Owen; "and if you know any one who will take a
lease of Hap House for ten or twelve years, I shall be glad to find a
tenant."
"And you, where are you going?"
"To Africa in the first instance," said he; "there seems to be some
good hunting there, and I think that I shall try it."
The new tidings were not long in reaching Desmond Court, and the
countess was all alone when she first heard them. With very great
difficulty, taking as it were the bit between her teeth, Clara had
managed to get over to Castle Richmond that she might pay a last
visit to the Fitzgerald girls. At this time Lady Desmond's mind was
in a terribly distracted state. The rumour was rife about the country
that Owen had refused to accept the property; and the countess
herself had of course been made aware that he had so refused. But she
was too keenly awake to the affairs of the world to suppose that such
a refusal could continue long in force; neither, as she knew well,
could Herbert accept of that which was offered to him. It might be
that for some years to come the property might be unenjoyed; the rich
fruit might fall rotten from the wall; but what would that avail to
her or to her child? Herbert would still be a nameless man, and could
never be master of Castle Richmond.
Nevertheless Clara carried her point, and went over to her friends,
leaving the countess all alone. She had now permitted her son to
return to Eton, finding that he was powerless to aid her. The young
earl was quite willing that his sister should marry Owen Fitzgerald;
but he was not willing to use any power of persuasion that he might
have, in what his mother considered a useful or legitimate manner.
He talked of rewarding Owen for his generosity; but Clara would have
nothing to do either with the generosity or with the reward. And so
Lady Desmond was left alone, hearing that even Owen, Owen himself,
had now given up the quest, and feeling that it was useless to have
any further hope. "She will make her own bed," the countess said to
herself, "and she must lie on it."
And then came this rumour that after all Herbert was to be the man.
It first reached her ears about the same time that Herbert arrived at
his own house, but it did so in such a manner as to make but little
impression at the moment. Lady Desmond had but few gossips, and in
a general way heard but little of what was doing in the country.
On this occasion the Caleb Balderston of her house came in, making
stately bows to his mistress, and with low voice, and eyes wide
open, told her what a gossoon running over from Castle Richmond had
reported in the kitchen of Desmond Court. "At any rate, my lady,
Mr. Herbert is expected this evening at the house;" and then Caleb
Balderston, bowing stately again, left the room. This did not make
much impression, but it made some.
And then on the following day Clara wrote to her: this she did after
deep consideration and much consultation with her friends. It would
be unkind, they argued, to leave Lady Desmond in ignorance on such
a subject; and therefore a note was written very guardedly, the
joint production of the three, in which, with the expression of many
doubts, it was told that perhaps after all Herbert might yet be the
man. But even then the countess did not believe it.
But during the next week the rumour became a fact through the
country, and everybody knew, even the Countess of Desmond, that all
that family history was again changed. Lady Fitzgerald, whom they had
all known, was Lady Fitzgerald still, and Herbert was once more on
his throne. When rumours thus became a fact, there was no longer any
doubt about the matter. The countryside did not say that, "perhaps
after all so and so would go in such and such a way," or that "legal
doubts having been entertained, the gentlemen of the long robe were
about to do this and that." By the end of the first week the affair
was as surely settled in county Cork as though the line of the
Fitzgeralds had never been disturbed; and Sir Herbert was fully
seated on his throne.
It was well then for poor Owen that he had never assumed the regalia
of royalty: had he done so his fall would have been very dreadful; as
it was, not only were all those pangs spared to him, but he achieved
at once an immense popularity through the whole country. Everybody
called him poor Owen, and declared how well he had behaved. Some
expressed almost a regret that his generosity should go unrewarded,
and others went so far as to give him his reward: he was to
marry Emmeline Fitzgerald, they said at the clubs in Cork, and a
considerable slice of the property was destined to give additional
charms to the young lady's hand and heart. For a month or so Owen
Fitzgerald was the most popular man in the south of Ireland; that is,
as far as a man can be popular who never shows himself.
And the countess had to answer her daughter's letter. "If this be
so," she said, "of course I shall be well pleased. My anxiety has
been only for your welfare, to further which I have been willing to
make any possible sacrifice." Clara when she read this did not know
what sacrifice had been made, nor had the countess thought as she
wrote the words what had been the sacrifice to which she had thus
alluded, though her heart was ever conscious of it, unconsciously.
And the countess sent her love to them all at Castle Richmond. "She
did not fear," she said, "that they would misinterpret her. Lady
Fitzgerald, she was sure, would perfectly understand that she had
endeavoured to do her duty by her child." It was by no means a
bad letter, and, which was better, was in the main a true letter.
According to her light she had striven to do her duty, and her
conduct was not misjudged, at any rate at Castle Richmond.
"You must not think harshly of mamma," said Clara to her future
mother-in-law.
"Oh no," said Lady Fitzgerald. "I certainly do not think harshly of
her. In her position I should probably have acted as she has done."
The difference, however, between them was this, that it was all
but impossible that Lady Fitzgerald should not sympathize with her
children, while it was almost impossible that the Countess of Desmond
should do so.
And so Lady Desmond remained all alone at Desmond Court, brooding
over the things as they now were. For the present it was better that
Clara should remain at Castle Richmond, and nothing therefore was
said of her return on either side. She could not add to her mother's
comfort at home, and why should she not remain happy where she was?
She was already a Fitzgerald in heart rather than a Desmond; and
was it not well that she should be so? If she could love Herbert
Fitzgerald, that was well also. Since the day on which he had
appeared at Desmond Court, wet and dirty and wretched, with a broken
spirit and fortunes as draggled as his dress, he had lost all claim
to be a hero in the estimation of Lady Desmond. To her those only
were heroes whose pride and spirit were never draggled; and such a
hero there still was in her close neighbourhood.
Lady Desmond herself was a woman of a mercenary spirit; so at least
it will be said and thought of her. But she was not altogether so,
although the two facts were strong against her that she had sold
herself for a title, and had been willing to sell her daughter for
a fortune. Poverty she herself had endured upon the whole with
patience; and though she hated and scorned it from her very soul, she
would now have given herself in marriage to a poor man without rank
or station,--she, a countess, and the mother of an earl; and that
she would have done with all the romantic love of a girl of sixteen,
though she was now a woman verging upon forty!
Men and women only know so much of themselves and others as
circumstances and their destiny have allowed to appear. Had it
perchance fallen to thy lot, O my forensic friend, heavy laden
with the wisdom of the law, to write tales such as this of mine,
how charmingly might not thy characters have come forth upon the
canvas--how much more charmingly than I can limn them! While, on the
other hand, ignorant as thou now tellest me that I am of the very
alphabet of the courts, had thy wig been allotted to me, I might have
gathered guineas thick as daisies in summer, while to thee perhaps
they come no faster than snow-drops in the early spring. It is all
in our destiny. Chance had thrown that terrible earl in the way of
the poor girl in her early youth, and she had married him. She had
married him, and all idea of love had flown from her heart. All idea
of love, but not all the capacity--as now within this last year or
two she had learned, so much to her cost.
Long months had passed since she had first owned this to herself,
since she had dared to tell herself that it was possible even for her
to begin the world again, and to play the game which women love to
play, once at least before they die. She could have worshipped this
man, and sat at his feet, and endowed him in her heart with heroism,
and given him her soft brown hair to play with when it suited her
Hercules to rest from his labours. She could have forgotten her
years, and have forgotten too the children who had now grown up to
seize the world from beneath her feet--to seize it before she herself
had enjoyed it. She could have forgotten all that was past, and have
been every whit as young as her own daughter. If only--!
It is so, I believe, with most of us who have begun to turn the hill.
I myself could go on to that common that is at this moment before me,
and join that game of rounders with the most intense delight. "By
George! you fellow, you've no eyes; didn't you see that he hadn't
put his foot in the hole. He'll get back now that long-backed,
hard-hitting chap, and your side is done for the next half-hour!" But
then they would all be awestruck for a while; and after that, when
they grew to be familiar with me, they would laugh at me because
I loomed large in my running, and returned to my ground scant of
breath. Alas, alas! I know that it would not do. So I pass by,
imperious in my heavy manhood, and one of the lads respectfully
abstains from me though the ball is under my very feet.
But then I have had my game of rounders. No horrible old earl with
gloating eyes carried me off in my childhood and robbed me of the
pleasure of my youth. That part of my cake has been eaten, and, in
spite of some occasional headache, has been digested not altogether
unsatisfactorily. Lady Desmond had as yet been allowed no slice of
her cake. She had never yet taken her side in any game of rounders.
But she too had looked on and seen how jocund was the play; she also
had acknowledged that that running in the ring, that stout hitting of
the ball, that innocent craft, that bringing back by her own skill
and with her own hand of some long-backed fellow, would be pleasant
to her as well as to others. If only she now could be chosen in at
that game! But what if the side that she cared for would not have
her?
But _tempus edax rerum_, though it had hardly nibbled at her heart or
wishes, had been feeding on the freshness of her brow and the bloom
of her lips. The child with whom she would have loved to play kept
aloof from her too, and would not pick up the ball when it rolled
to his feet. All this, if one thinks of it, is hard to bear. It is
very hard to have had no period for rounders, not to be able even to
look back to one's games, and to talk of them to one's old comrades!
"But why then did she allow herself to be carried off by the wicked
wrinkled earl with the gloating eyes?" asks of me the prettiest girl
in the world, just turned eighteen. Oh heavens! Is it not possible
that one should have one more game of rounders? Quite impossible, O
my fat friend! And therefore I answer the young lady somewhat grimly.
"Take care that thou also art not carried off by a wrinkled earl. Is
thy heart free from all vanity? Of what nature is the heroism that
thou worshippest?" "A nice young man!" she says, boldly, though in
words somewhat different. "If so it will be well for thee; but did I
not see thine eyes hankering the other day after the precious stones
of Ophir, and thy mouth watering for the flesh-pots of Egypt? Was
I not watching thee as thou sattest at that counter, so frightfully
intent? Beware!" "The grumpy old fellow with the bald head!" she said
shortly afterwards to her bosom friend, not careful that her words
should be duly inaudible.
Some idea that all was not yet over with her had come upon her poor
heart,--upon Lady Desmond's heart, soon after Owen Fitzgerald had
made himself familiar in her old mansion. We have read how that idea
was banished, and how she had ultimately resolved that that man whom
she could have loved herself should be given up to her own child when
she thought that he was no longer poor and of low rank. She could not
sympathize with her daughter,--love with her love, and rejoice with
her joy; but she could do her duty by her, and according to her
lights she endeavoured so to do.
But now again all was turned and changed and altered. Owen of Hap
House was once more Owen of Hap House only, but still in her eyes
heroic, as it behoved a man to be. He would not creep about the
country with moaning voice and melancholy eyes, with draggled dress
and outward signs of wretchedness. He might be wretched, but he would
still be manly. Could it be possible that to her should yet be given
the privilege of soothing that noble, unbending wretchedness? By no
means possible, poor, heart-laden countess; thy years are all against
thee. Girls whose mouths will water unduly for the flesh-pots of
Egypt must in after life undergo such penalties as these. Art thou
not a countess?
But not so did she answer herself. Might it not be possible? Ah,
might it not be possible? And as the question was even then being
asked, perhaps for the ten thousandth time, Owen Fitzgerald stood
before her. She had not yet seen him since the new news had gone
abroad, and had hardly yet conceived how it might be possible that
she should do so. But now as she thought of him there he was. They
two were together,--alone together; and the door by which he had
entered had closed upon him before she was aware of his presence.
"Owen Fitzgerald!" she said, starting up and giving him both her
hands. This she did, not of judgment, nor yet from passion, but of
impulse. She had been thinking of him with such kindly thoughts,
and now he was there it became natural that her greeting should be
kindly. It was more so than it had ever been to any but her son since
the wrinkled, gloating earl had come and fetched her.
"Yes, Owen Fitzgerald," said he, taking the two hands that were
offered to him, and holding them awhile; not pressing them as a man
who loved her, who could have loved her, would have done. "After all
that has gone and passed between us, Lady Desmond, I cannot leave the
country without saying one word of farewell to you."
"Leave the country!" she exclaimed. "And where are you going?"
As she looked into his face with her hands still in his,--for she did
not on the moment withdraw them, she felt that he had never before
looked so noble, so handsome, so grand. Leave the country! ah, yes;
and why should not she leave it also? What was there to bind her to
those odious walls in which she had been immolated during the best
half of her life?
"Where are you going?" she asked, looking almost wildly up at him.
"Somewhere very far a-field, Lady Desmond," he said; and then the
hands dropped from him. "You will understand at any rate that Hap
House will not be a fitting residence for me."
"I hate the whole country," said she, "the whole place hereabouts.
I have never been happy here. Happy! I have never been other than
unhappy. I have been wretched. What would I not give to leave it
also?"
"To you it cannot be intolerable as it will be to me. You have known
so thoroughly where all my hopes were garnered, that I need not tell
you why I must go from Hap House. I think that I have been wronged,
but I do not desire that others should think so. And as for you and
me, Lady Desmond, though we have been enemies, we have been friends
also."
"Enemies!" said she, "I hope not." And she spoke so softly, so
unlike her usual self, in the tones so suited to a loving, clinging
woman, that though he did not understand it, he was startled at
her tenderness. "I have never felt that you were my enemy, Mr.
Fitzgerald; and certainly I never was an enemy to you."
"Well; we were opposed to each other. I thought that you were robbing
me of all I valued in life; and you, you thought--"
"I thought that Clara's happiness demanded rank and wealth and
position. There; I tell you my sins fairly. You may say that I was
mercenary if you will,--mercenary for her. I thought that I knew what
would be needful for her. Can you be angry with a mother for that?"
"She had given me a promise! But never mind. It is all over now. I
did not come to upbraid you, but to tell you that I now know how it
must be, and that I am going."
"Had you won her, Owen," said the countess, looking intently into his
face, "had you won her, she would not have made you happy."
"As to that it was for me to judge--for me and her. I thought
it would, and was willing to peril all in the trial. And so was
she--willing at one time. But never mind; it is useless to talk of
that."
"Quite useless now."
"I did think--when it was as they said in my power to give him back
his own,--I did think;--but no, it would have been mean to look for
payment. It is all over, and I will say nothing further; not a word.
I am not a girl to harp on such a thing day after day, and to grow
sick with love. I shall be better away. And therefore I am going, and
I have now come to say good-bye, because we were friends in old days,
Lady Desmond."
Friends in old days! They were old days to him, but they were no more
than the other day to her. It was as yet hardly more than two years
since she had first known him, and yet he looked on the acquaintance
as one that had run out its time and required to be ended. She would
so fain have been able to think that the beginning only had as yet
come to them. But there he was, anxious to bid her adieu, and what
was she to say to him?
"Yes, we were friends. You have been my only friend here I think. You
will hardly believe with how much true friendship I have thought of
you when the feud between us--if it was a feud--was at the strongest.
Owen Fitzgerald, I have loved you through it all."
Loved him? She was so handsome as she spoke, so womanly, so graceful,
there was still about her so much of the charm of beauty, that he
could hardly take the word when coming from her mouth as applicable
to ordinary friendship. And yet he did so take it. They had all loved
each other--as friends should love--and now that he was going she
had chosen to say as much. He felt the blood tingle his cheek at the
sound of her words; but he was not vain enough to take it in its
usual sense. "Then we will part as friends," said he--tamely enough.
"Yes, we will part," she said. And as she spoke the blood mantled
deep on her neck and cheek and forehead, and a spirit came out of
her eye, such as never had shone there before in his presence. "Yes,
we will part," and she took up his right hand, and held it closely,
pressed between both her own. "And as we must part I will tell you
all. Owen Fitzgerald, I have loved you with all my heart,--with all
the love that a woman has to give. I have loved you, and have never
loved any other. Stop, stop," for he was going to interrupt her. "You
shall hear me now to the last,--and for the last time. I have loved
you with such love--such love as you perhaps felt for her, but as she
will never feel. But you shall not say, nay you shall not think that
I have been selfish. I would have kept you from her when you were
poor as you are now,--not because I loved you. No; you will never
think that of me. And when I thought that you were rich, and the head
of your family, I did all that I could to bring her back for you. Did
I not, Owen?"
"Yes, I think you did," he muttered between his teeth, hardly knowing
how to speak.
"Indeed, indeed I did so. Others may say that I was selfish for my
child, but you shall not think that I was selfish for myself. I sent
for Patrick, and bade him go to you. I strove as mothers do strive
for their children. I taught myself,--I strove to teach myself to
forget that I had loved you. I swore on my knees that I would love
you only as my son,--as my dear, dear son. Nay, Owen, I did; on my
knees before my God."
He turned away from her to rub the tears from his eyes, and in doing
so he dragged his hand away from her. But she followed him, and again
took it. "You will hear me to the end now," she said; "will you not?
you will not begrudge me that? And then came these other tidings, and
all that scheme was dashed to the ground. It was better so, Owen; you
would not have been happy with the property--"
"I should never have taken it."
"And she, she would have clung closer to him as a poor man than ever
she had done when he was rich. She is her mother's daughter there.
And then--then-- But I need not tell you more. You will know it all
now. If you had become rich, I would have ceased to love you; but I
shall never cease now that you are again poor,--now that you are Owen
of Hap House again, as you sent us word yourself that day."
And then she ceased, and bending down her head bathed his hand with
her tears. Had any one asked him that morning, he would have said
that it was impossible that the Countess of Desmond should weep.
And now the tears were streaming from her eyes as though she were a
broken-hearted girl. And so she was. Her girlhood had been postponed
and marred,--not destroyed and made away with, by the wrinkled earl
with the gloating eyes.
She had said all now, and she stood there, still holding his hand in
hers, but with her head turned from him. It was his turn to speak
now, and how was he to answer her. I know how most men would have
answered;--by the pressure of an arm, by a warm kiss, by a promise
of love, and by a feeling that such love was possible. And then most
men would have gone home, leaving the woman triumphant, and have
repented bitterly as they sat moody over their own fires, with their
wine-bottles before them. But it was not so with Owen Fitzgerald.
His heart was to him a reality. He had loved with all his power and
strength, with all the vigour of his soul,--having chosen to love.
But he would not now be enticed by pity into a bastard feeling,
which would die away when the tenderness of the moment was no longer
present to his eye and touch. His love for Clara had been such that
he could not even say that he loved another.
"Dear Lady Desmond," he began.
"Ah, Owen; we are to part now, part for ever," she said; "speak to me
once in your life as though we were equal friends. Cannot you forget
for one minute that I am Countess of Desmond?"
Mary, Countess of Desmond; such was her name and title. But so little
familiar had he been with the name by which he had never heard her
called, that in his confusion he could not remember it. And had he
done so, he could not have brought himself to use it. "Yes," he said;
"we must part. It is impossible for me to remain here."
"Doubly impossible now," she replied, half reproaching him.
"Yes; doubly impossible now. Is it not better that the truth should
be spoken?"
"Oh, yes. I have spoken it--too plainly."
"And so will I speak it plainly. We cannot control our own hearts,
Lady Desmond. It is, as you say, doubly impossible now. All the love
I have had to give she has had,--and has. Such being so, why should I
stay here? or could you wish that I should do so?"
"I do not wish it." That was true enough. The wish would have been to
wander away with him.
"I must go, and shall start at once. My very things are packed for my
going. I will not be here to have the sound of their marriage bells
jangling in my ears. I will not be pointed at as the man who has been
duped on every side."
"Ah me, that I was a man too,--that I could go away and make for
myself a life!"
"You have Desmond with you."
"No, no. He will go too; of course he will go. He will go, and I
shall be utterly alone. What a fool I am,--what an ass, that by this
time I have not learned to bear it!"
"They will always be near you at Castle Richmond."
"Ah, Owen, how little you understand! Have we been friends while we
lived under the same roof? And now that she is there, do you think
that she will heed me? I tell you that you do not know her. She is
excellent, good, devoted; but cold as ice. She will live among the
poor, and grace his table; and he will have all that he wants. In
twelve months, Owen, she would have turned your heart to a stone."
"It is that already I think," said he. "At any rate, it will be so to
all others. Good-bye, Lady Desmond."
"Good-bye, Owen; and God bless you. My secret will be safe with you."
"Safe! yes, it will be safe." And then, as she put her cheek up to
him, he kissed it and left her.
He had been very stern. She had laid bare to him her whole heart,
and he had answered her love by never a word. He had made no reply
in any shape,--given her no thanks for her heart's treasure. He had
responded to her affection by no tenderness. He had not even said
that this might have been so, had that other not have come to pass.
By no word had he alluded to her confession,--but had regarded her
delusion as monstrous, a thing of which no word was to be spoken.
So at least said the countess to herself, sitting there all alone
where he had left her. "He regards me as old and worn. In his eyes
I am wrinkled and ugly." 'Twas thus that her thoughts expressed
themselves; and then she walked across the room towards the mirror,
but when there she could not look in it: she turned her back upon
it without a glance, and returned to her seat by the window. What
mattered it now? It was her doom to live there alone for the term of
life with which it might still please God to afflict her.
And then looking out from the window her eyes fell upon Owen as he
rode slowly down across the park. His horse was walking very slowly,
and it seemed as though he himself were unconscious of the pace.
As long as he remained in sight she did not take her eyes from his
figure, gazing at him painfully as he grew dimmer and more dim in the
distance. Then at last he turned behind the bushes near the lodge,
and she felt that she was all alone. It was the last that she ever
saw of Owen Fitzgerald.
Unfortunate girl, marred in thy childhood by that wrinkled earl
with the gloating eyes; or marred rather by thine own vanity! Those
flesh-pots of Egypt! Are they not always thus bitter in the eating?