Though it was late when Repton took his departure, Mary Martin felt
no inclination for sleep, but addressed herself at once to examine the
letter bag, whose contents seemed more than usually bulky. Amid a mass
of correspondence about the estate, she came at length upon the foreign
letters, of which there were several from the servants to their friends
or relations at Cro' Martin,--all, as usual, under cover to Miss Martin;
and at last she found one in Lady Dorothea's own hand, for herself,--a
very rare occurrence; nay, indeed, it was the first epistle her Ladyship
had favored her with since her departure.
It was not, then, without curiosity as to the cause that Mary broke the
large seal and read as follows:--
“Carlsruhe, Saturday Evening, Cour de Bade.
“My dear Niece,--It was only yesterday, when looking over your uncle's
papers, I chanced upon a letter of yours, dated some five or six weeks
back, and which, to my great astonishment, I discovered had never been
communicated to me,--though this mark of deficient confidence will
doubtless seem less surprising to _you_.
“To bring your letter to your mind, _I_ may observe it is one in which
you describe the condition of the people on the estate, and the fatal
inroads then making upon them by famine and pestilence. It is not my
intention here to advert to what may possibly be a very natural error
in your account,--the exaggerated picture you draw of their sufferings;
your sympathy with them, and your presence to witness much of what they
are enduring, will explain and excuse the highly colored statement of
their sorrows. It were to be wished that an equally valid apology could
be made for what I am forced to call the importunity of your demands in
their favor. Five of your six last letters now before me are filled
with appeals for abatements of rent, loans to carry out improvements,
stipends for schoolmasters, doctors, scripture-readers, and a tribe of
other hangers-on, that really seem to augment in number as the pauperism
of the people increases. However ungracious the task of disparaging the
accuracy of your view, I have no other alternative but to accept it, and
hence I am forced to pen these lines myself in preference to committing
the office to another.
“It really seems to me that you regard our position as landed
proprietors in the light of a mere stewardship, and that it is our
bounden duty to expend upon the tenantry the proceeds of the estate,
reserving a scanty percentage, perhaps, for ourselves to live upon. How
you came to this opinion, and whence you acquired it, I have no means of
knowing. If, however, it has been the suggestion of your own genius, it
is right you should know that you hold doctrines in common with the most
distinguished communists of modern times, and are quite worthy of a seat
of honor beside those who are now convulsing society throughout Europe.
“I am unwilling to utter anything like severity towards errors, many
of which take their rise in a mistaken and ill-directed benevolence,
because the original fault of committing the management of this property
to your hands was the work of another. Let me hope that sincere sorrow
for so fatal a mistake may not be the primary cause of his present
attack--”
When Mary read so far, she started with a sudden fear; and turning over
the pages of the long letter, she sought for some allusion to her uncle.
At length she found the following lines:--“Your cousin would have
left this for Ireland, but for the sudden seizure your poor uncle has
suffered from, and which came upon him after breakfast, in apparently
his ordinary health. The entire of the left side is attacked,--the face
particularly,--and his utterance quite inarticulate.”
For some minutes she could read no more; the warm tears rolled down her
cheeks and dropped heavily on the paper, and she could only mutter to
herself, “My poor, dear uncle,--my last, my only friend in the world!”
Drying her eyes, with a great effort she read on:--
“The remedies have been so far successful as to arrest the progress
of the malady, and his appetite is good, and his spirits, everything
considered, are excellent. Of course, all details of business are
strictly excluded from his presence; and your cousin has assumed
whatever authority is necessary to the management of the property. We
thought at one time your presence here might have been desirable, but,
considering the distance, the difficulty of travelling without suitable
companionship, and other circumstances, it would, on the whole, be a
step we should not recommend; and, indeed, your uncle himself has not
expressed any wishes on the subject.”
She dropped the letter at these words, and, covering her face with her
hands, sobbed bitterly and long; at length, and with an effort which
taxed her strength to the utmost, she read on:--
“Although, however, you are to remain at Cro' Martin, it will be more
than ever imperative you should reduce the establishment there within
the very strictest possible limits; and to begin this-reform, I 'm fully
assured it is necessary you should depose old Mrs. Broon, who is really
incapable of her duties, while her long-acquired habits of expense
render her incompatible with any new regulations to enforce economy. A
moderate pension--something, however, in accordance with her real
wants and requirements, rather than what might be called her
expectations--should be settled upon her, and there are several farmers
on the estate, any one of whom would gladly take charge of her. The
gardens still figure largely in the account, and considering the very
little probability of our makings the place a residence again, might
be turned to more profitable use. You will confer with Henderson on
the subject, and inquire how far it might be advisable to cultivate
vegetables for market, or convert them into paddocks for calves, or,
in short, anything which, if less remunerative, should still save the
enormous outlay we now hear of I scarcely like to allude to the stable,
knowing how much you lean to the enjoyment of riding and driving; but
really these are times when retrenchment is called for at every hand;
and I am persuaded that for purposes of health walking is infinitely
better than carriage exercise. I know myself, that since I have taken to
the habit of getting out of the carriage at the wells, and walking twice
round the parterre, I feel myself braced and better for the day.
“It is not improbable but when the changes I thus suggest, and others
similar to them, are enacted, that you will see to what little purpose
a large house is maintained for the mere accommodation of a single
individual, without suitable means, or indeed any reason whatever, to
dispense them. If then, I say, you should come to this conviction,--at
which I have already arrived,--a very great saving might be effected
by obtaining a tenant for Cro' Martin, while you, if still desirous of
remaining in the county, might be most comfortably accommodated at the
Hendersons'.”
Three times did Mary Martin read over this passage before she could
bring herself to believe in its meaning; and hot tears of sorrow coursed
down her cheeks as she became assured of its import.
“It is not,” went on the epistle--“it is not in your uncle's present
most critical state that I could confer with him on this project,
nor strengthen my advice by what most probably would be _his_ also. I
therefore make the appeal simply to your own sense of what you may
think in accordance with our greatly increased outlay and your own
requirements. Should you receive this suggestion in the spirit in which
it is offered, I think that both for your uncle's satisfaction and your
own dignity, the proposal ought to come from yourself. You could make it
to me in a letter, stating all the reasons in its favor, and of course
not omitting to lay suitable stress upon the isolation of your present
life, and the comfort and security you would derive from the protection
of a family. Mrs. H. is really a very nice person, and her tastes and
habits would render her most companionable; and she would, of course,
make you an object of especial attention and respect. It is, besides,
not impossible that the daughter may soon return--though this is a point
I have not leisure to enter upon at present. A hundred a year would he a
very handsome allowance for Henderson, and indeed for that sum he ought
to keep your pony, if you still continue your taste for equipage. You
would thus be more comfortable, and really richer,--that is, have
more disposable means--than you have hitherto had. I forbear to insist
further upon what--till it has your own approval--may be a vain advocacy
on my part. I can only say, in conclusion, that in adopting this plan
you would equally consult what is due to your own dignity, as what is
required by your uncle's interests. Your cousin, I am forced to avow it,
has been very silly, very inconsiderate, not alone in contracting heavy
debts, but in raising large sums to meet them at fabulous rates of
interest. The involvements threaten, from what I can gather, to imperil
a considerable part of the estate, and we are obliged to send for
Scanlan to come out here, and confer with him as to the means of
extrication. I feel there is much to be said in palliation of errors
which have their origin in high and generous qualities. Plantagenet
was thrown at a very early age into the society of a most expensive
regiment, and naturally contracted the tastes and habits around him.
Poor fellow, he is suffering severely from the memory of these early
indiscretions, and I see that nothing but a speedy settlement of his
difficulties will ever restore him to his wonted spirits. You will thus
perceive, that if my suggested change of life to you should not conform
entirely to your wishes, that you are in reality only accepting your
share of the sacrifices called for from each of us.
“There are a great number of other matters on which I wished to
touch,--some, indeed, are not exactly within your province, such as
the political fortunes of the borough, whose seat Mr. Massingbred has
determined to vacate. Although not admitting the reason for his conduct,
I am strongly convinced that the step is a mere acknowledgment of
an error on his part, and an effort, however late, at the _amende
honorable_. The restitution, for so I am forced to regard it, comes most
inopportunely, since it would be a most ill-chosen moment in which to
incur the expense of a contested election; besides that, really your
cousin has no desire whatever for Parliamentary honors. Plantagenet,
however, would seem to have some especial intentions on the subject
which he keeps secret, and has asked of Massingbred not to send off
his farewell address to the constituency for some days. But I will not
continue a theme so little attractive to you.
“Dr. Schubart has just called to see your uncle. He is not altogether
so satisfied with his state as I could have hoped; he advises change of
scene, and a little more intercourse with the world, and we have some
thought of Nice, if we cannot get on to Naples. Dr. S., to whom I spoke
on the subject of your Irish miseries, tells me that cholera is now
the most manageable of all maladies, if only taken early; that you must
enjoin the persons attacked to a more liberal diet, no vegetables, and
a sparing use of French wines, excepting, he says, the generous 'Vins du
Midi.' There is also a mixture to be taken--of which he promised me
the prescription--and a pill every night of arnica or aconite--I 'm not
quite certain which--but it is a perfect specific. He also adds, what
must be felt as most reassuring, that the disease never attacks but the
very poorest of the population. As to typhus, he smiled when I spoke
of it. It is, he says, a mere 'Gastrite,' a malady which modern science
actually despises. In fact, my dear niece, these would seem, like all
other Irish misfortunes, the mere offshoots of her own dark ignorance
and barbarism. If it were not for the great expense--and of course that
consideration decides the question--I should have requested you to send
over your doctor here to confer with Dr. Schubart. Indeed, I think
it might be a very reasonable demand to make of the Government, but
unhappily my present 'relations' with my relative Lord Reckington
preclude any advances of mine in that quarter.
“I was forgetting to add that, with respect to cholera, and indeed fever
generally, that Dr. S. lays great stress upon what he calls the moral
treatment of the people, amusing their minds by easily learned games and
simple pleasures. I fear me, however, that the coarser natures of our
population may not derive adequate amusement from the resources which
would have such eminent success with the enlightened peasant of the
Rhine land. Dr. S., I may remark, is a very distinguished writer on
politics, and daily amazes us with the astounding speculations he is
forming as to the future condition of Europe. His conviction is that our
great peril is Turkey, and that Mohammedanism will be the religion
of Europe before the end of the present century. Those new baths
established at Brighton by a certain Hamet are a mere political agency,
a secret propaganda, which his acuteness has alone penetrated. Miss
Henderson has ventured to oppose these views with something not very far
from impertinent ridicule, and for some time back, Dr. S. only discusses
them with myself alone.
“I had left the remainder of the sheet for any intelligence that might
occur before post hour, but I am suddenly called away, and shall close
it at once. When I was sitting with your uncle awhile ago, I _half_
broached the project I was suggesting to you, and he seemed highly to
approve of so much as I ventured to tell him. Nothing then is wanting
but your own concurrence to make it as practicable as it is deemed
advisable by your affectionate aunt,
“Dorothea Martin.”
The eccentricities of her aunt's character had always served as
extenuating circumstances with Mary Martin. She knew the violence of
her prejudices, the enormous amount of her self-esteem, and the facility
with which she was ever able to persuade herself that whatever she
wished to do assumed at once all the importance and gravity of a duty!
This thorough appreciation of her peculiarities enabled Mary to bear
up patiently under many sore trials and some actual wrongs. Where the
occasion was a light one, she could afford to smile at such trials, and,
even in serious cases, they palliated the injustice; but here was an
instance wherein all her forgiveness was in vain. To take the moment of
her poor uncle's illness--that terrible seizure, which left him without
self-guidance, if even a will--to dictate these hard and humiliating
terms, was a downright cruelty. Nor did it diminish the suffering which
that letter cost her that its harsh conditions seemed dictated by a
spirit of contempt for Ireland and its people. As Mary re-read the
letter, she felt that every line breathed this tone of depreciation. It
was to her Ladyship a matter of less than indifference what became of
the demesne, who inhabited the house,--the home of “the Martins” for
centuries! She was as little concerned for the prestige of “the old
family,” as she was interested for the sorrows of the people. If Mary
endeavored to treat these things dispassionately to her own heart,
by dwelling upon all the points which affected others, still, her own
individual wrong would work to the surface, and the bitter and insulting
suggestion made to her rose up before her in all its enormity.
She did her very best to turn her thoughts into some other channel,--to
fix them upon her poor uncle, on his sick-bed, and sorrowing as he
was sure to be; to think of her cousin Harry, struggling against the
embarrassments of his own imprudence; of the old housekeeper, Catty
Broon, to whom she could not summon courage to speak the cruel tidings
of her changed lot,--but all, all in vain; back she would come to the
humiliation that foreshadowed her own fortune, and threatened to depose
her from her station forever.
An indignant appeal to her uncle--her own father's brother--was her
first resolve. “Let me learn,” said she to herself, “from his own lips,
that such is the destiny he assigns me; that in return for my tried
affection, my devotion, he has no other recompense than to lower me in
self-esteem and condition together. Time enough, when assured of
this, to decide upon what I shall do. But to whom shall I address this
demand?” thought she again. “That dear, kind uncle is now struck down
by illness. It were worse than cruelty to add to his own sorrows any
thought of _mine_. If he have concurred in Lady Dorothea's suggestion,
who knows in what light it may have been presented to him, by what
arguments strengthened, with what perils contrasted? Is it impossible,
too, that the sacrifice may be imperative? The sale of part of the
property, the pressure of heavy claims,--all show that it may be
necessary to dispose of Cro' Martin. Oh,” exclaimed she, in agony,
“it is but a year ago, that when Mr. Repton hinted vaguely at such a
casualty, how stoutly and indignantly did I reject it!
“'Your uncle may choose to live abroad,' said he; 'to sell the estate,
perhaps.' And I heard him with almost scornful defiance; and now the
hour is come! and even yet I cannot bring myself to believe it. When
Repton drew the picture of the tenantry, forsaken and neglected, the
poor unnoticed, and the sick uncared for, he still forgot to assign me
my place in the sad 'tableau,' and show that in destitution my lot was
equal to their own; the very poorest and meanest had yet some spot, poor
and mean though it were, they called a home, that Mary Martin was the
only one an outcast!”
These gloomy thoughts were darkened as she bethought her that of her
little fortune--on which, by Scanlan's aid, she had raised a loan--a
mere fragment remained,--a few hundred pounds at most. The outlay on
hospitals and medical assistance for the sick had more than quadrupled
what she had estimated. The expense once begun, she had persevered with
almost reckless determination. She had despatched to Dublin, one by one,
the few articles of jewelry and value she possessed for sale; she had
limited her own expenditure to the very narrowest bounds, nor was it
till driven by the utmost urgency that she wrote the appeal to her uncle
of which the reader already knows.
“How I once envied Kate Henderson,” cried she, aloud, “the brilliant
accomplishments she possessed, the graceful charm that her cultivation
threw over society, and the fascination she wielded, by acquirements of
which I knew nothing; but how much more now do I envy her, that in those
same gifts her independence was secured,--that, high above the chances
of the world, she could build upon her own efforts, and never descend to
a condition of dependence!”
Her diminished power amongst the people had been fully compensated by
the sincere love and affection she had won from them by acts of charity
and devotion. Even these, however, owed much of their efficacy to the
prestige of her station. No peasant in Europe puts so high a value on
the intercourse with a rank above his own as does the Irish. The most
pleasant flattery to his nature is the notice of “the gentleman,” and
it was more than half the boon Mary bestowed upon the poor, that she
who sat down beside the bed, who heated the little drink, who raised the
head to swallow it, was the daughter of the Great House! Would not her
altered fortune destroy this charm? was now her bitter reflection. Up
to this hour, greatly reduced as were the means she dispensed, and the
influence she wielded, she still lived in the proud home of her family,
and all regarded her as the representative of her honored name. But
now--No, she could not endure the thought! “If I must descend to further
privations,” said she to herself, “let me seek out some new scene,--some
spot where I am unknown, have never been heard of; there, at least, I
shall be spared the contrast of the past with the present, nor see in
every incident the cruel mockery of my former life.
“And yet,” thought she, “how narrow-minded and selfish is all this, how
mean-spirited, to limit the question to my own feelings! Is there no
duty involved in this sacrifice? Shall I not still--reduced though I be
in fortune--shall I not still be a source of comfort to many here? Will
not the very fact of my presence assure them that they are not deserted?
They have seen me under some trials, and the lesson has not been
fruitless. Let them then behold me, under heavier ones, not dismayed nor
cast down. What I lose in the prestige of station I shall more than gain
in sympathy; and so I remain!” No sooner was the resolve formed than
all her wonted courage came back. Rallying with the stimulus of action
before her, she began to plan out a new life, in which her relation
to the people should be closer and nearer than ever. There was a small
ornamental cottage on the demesne, known as the Chalet, built by
Lady Dorothea after one she had seen in the Oberland; this Mary now
determined on for her home, and there, with Catty Broon alone, she
resolved to live.
“My aunt,” thought she, “can scarcely be so wedded to the Henderson
scheme but that this will equally satisfy her wishes; and while it
secures a home and a resting-place for-poor Catty, it rescues _me_ from
what I should feel as a humiliation.”
The day was already beginning to dawn as Mary sat down to answer Lady
Dorothea's letter. Most of her reply referred to her uncle, to whose
affection she clung all the more as her fortunes darkened. She saw all
the embarrassment of proffering her services to nurse and tend him,
living, as he was, amidst his own; but still, she said that of the
journey or its difficulties she should never waste a thought, if her
presence at his sick-bed could afford him the slightest satisfaction.
“He knows me as a nurse already,” said she. “But tell him that I have
grown, if not wiser, calmer and quieter than he knew me formerly; that
I should not disturb him by foolish stories, but sit patiently save when
he would have me to talk. Tell him, too, that if changed in many things,
in my love to_ him_ I am unaltered.” She tried to add more, but could
not. The thought that these lines were to be read to her uncle by Lady
Dorothea chilled her, and the very tones of that supercilious voice
seemed to ring in her ears, and she imagined some haughty or insolent
comment to follow them as they were uttered.
With regard to her own future, she, in a few words, remarked upon the
unnecessary expense of maintaining a large house for the accommodation
of a single person, and said that, if her Ladyship concurred in the
plan, she would prefer taking up her home at the Chalet with old Catty
for companion and housekeeper.
She pointed out the advantages of a change which, while securing a
comfortable home to them, would equally suggest to their dependants
lessons of thrift and self-sacrifice, and added, half sportively, “As
for me, when I find myself _en Suisse_, I 'm sure I shall less regret
horses and dogs, and such-like vanities, and take to the delights of
a dairy and cream cheeses with a good grace. Indeed, I 'm not quite
certain but that Fortune, instead of displacing, will in reality be
only installing me in the position best suited to me. Do not, then, be
surprised, if at your return you find me in sabots and an embroidered
bodice, deep in the mystery of all cottage economics, and well content
to be so.
“You are quite right, my dear aunt,” she continued, “not to entertain
me with politics. The theme is as much above as it is distasteful to
me; and so grovelling are my sentiments, that I 'd rather hear of
the arrival of a cargo of oatmeal at Kilkieran than learn that the
profoundest statesman of Great Britain had condescended to stand for
our dear borough of Oughterard. At the same time, if Cousin Harry should
change his mind, and turn his ambition towards the Senate, tell him I
'm quite ready to turn out and canvass for him to-morrow, and that the
hospitalities of the Chalet shall do honor to the cause. As you speak
of sending for Mr. Scanlan, I leave to him to tell you all the events of
our late assizes here,--a task I escape from the more willingly, since
I have no successes to record. Mr. Repton, however,--he paid me a visit
yesterday, and stopped here to dinner,--says that he has no fears for
the result at the next trial, and honestly confesses that our present
defeat was entirely owing to the skill and ability of the counsel
opposed to us. By some delay or mistake, I don't exactly know which,
Scanlan omitted to send a retainer to young Mr. Nelligan, and who, being
employed for the other side, was the chief cause of our failure. My
uncle will be pleased to learn that Mr. N.'s address to the jury was
scrupulously free from any of that invective or attack so frequently
levelled at landlords when defending the rights of property. Repton
called it 'a model of legal argument, delivered with the eloquence of a
first-rate speaker, and the taste and temper of a gentleman.' Indeed,
I understand that the tone of the speech has rendered all the ribaldry
usual on such occasions in local journals impossible, and that the young
barrister has acquired anything but popularity in consequence. Even
in this much, is there a dawn of better things; and under such
circumstances a defeat may be more profitable than a victory.”
With a few kind messages to her uncle, and an earnest entreaty for
early tidings of his state, Mary concluded a letter in which her great
difficulty lay in saying far less than her thoughts dictated, and
conveying as much as she dare trust to Lady Dorothea's interpretation.
The letter concluded and sealed, she lay down, dressed as she was, on
her bed, and fell a-thinking over the future.
There are natures to whom the opening of any new vista in life suggests
fully as much of pleasure as anxiety. The prospect of the unknown and
the untried has something of the adventurous about it which more than
counterbalances the casualties of a future. Such a temperament was hers;
and the first sense of sorrowful indignation over, she really began
to speculate upon her cottage life with a certain vague and dreamy
enjoyment. She foresaw, that when Cro' Martin Castle fell into other
hands, that her own career ceased, her occupation was gone, and that
she should at once fashion out some new road, and conform herself to new
habits. The cares of her little household would probably not suffice to
engage one whose active mind had hitherto embraced so wide a field of
action, and Mary then bethought her how this leisure might be devoted to
study and improvement. It was only in the eager enthusiasm of her many
pursuits that she buried her sorrows over her neglected and imperfect
education; and now a time was approaching when that reflection could no
longer be resisted. She pondered long and deeply over these thoughts,
when suddenly they were interrupted; but in what way, deserves a chapter
of its own,--albeit a very brief one.