Jack Massingbred was one of those who, in questions of difficulty,
resort to the pen in preference to personal interference. It was a fancy
of his that he wrote better than he talked. Very probably he thought
so because the contrary was the fact. On the present occasion another
motive had also its influence. It was Lady Dorothea that he addressed,
and he had no especial desire to commit himself to a direct interview.
His object was to convey Mr. Scanlan's propositions,--to place them
fully and intelligibly before her Ladyship without a syllable of comment
on his own part, or one word which could be construed into advocacy or
reprobation of them. In truth, had he been called upon for an opinion,
it would have sorely puzzled him what to say. To rescue a large estate
from ruin was, to be sure, a very considerable service, but to accept
Maurice Scanlan as a near member of one's family seemed a very heavy
price even for that. Still, if the young lady liked him, singular as the
choice might appear, other objections need not be insurmountable. The
Martins were very unlikely ever to make Ireland their residence again,
they would see little or nothing of this same Scanlan connection, “and,
after all,” thought Jack, “if we can only keep the disagreeables of
this life away from daily intercourse, only knowing them through the
post-office and at rare intervals, the compact is not a bad one.”
Massingbred would have liked much to consult Miss Henderson upon the
question itself, and also upon his manner of treating it; but to touch
upon the point of a marriage of inequality with her, would have been
dangerous ground. It was scarcely possible he could introduce the topic
without dropping a word, or letting fall a remark she could not seize
hold of. It was the theme, of all others, in which her sensitiveness
was extreme; nor could he exactly say whether she sneered at a
_mésalliance,_ or at the insolent tone of society regarding it.
Again he bethought him of the ungraciousness of the task he had assumed,
if, as was most probable, Lady Dorothea should feel Mr. Scanlan's
pretensions an actual outrage. “She'll never forgive me for stating
them, that's certain,” said he; “but will she do so if I decline to
declare them, or worse still, leave them to the vulgar interpretation
Scanlan himself is sure to impart to them?” While he thus hesitated and
debated with himself, now altering a phrase here, now changing a word
there, Captain Martin entered the room, and threw himself into a chair
with a more than ordinary amount of weariness and exhaustion.
“The governor's worse to-day, Massingbred,” said he, with a sigh.
“No serious change, I hope?” said Jack.
“I suspect there is, though,” replied the other. “They sent for me from
Lescour's last night, where I was winning smartly. Just like _my_ luck
always, to be called away when I was 'in vein,' and when I got here,
I found Schubart, and a French fellow whom I don't know, had just bled
him. It must have been touch and go, for when I saw him he was very
ill--very ill indeed--and they call him better.”
“It was a distinct attack, then,--a seizure of some sort?” asked
Massingbred.
“Yes, I think they said so,” said he, lighting his cigar.
“But he has rallied, has n't he?”
“Well, I don't fancy he has. He lifts his eyes at times, and seems to
look about for some one, and moves his lips a little, but you could
scarcely say that he was conscious, though my mother insists he is.”
“What does Schubart think?”
“Who minds these fellows?” said he, impatiently. “They're only
speculating on what will be said of themselves, and so they go on: 'If
this does not occur, and the other does not happen, we shall see him
better this evening.'”
“This is all very bad,” said Massingbred, gloomily--“It's a deuced deal
worse than you know of, old fellow,” said Martin, bitterly.
“Perhaps not worse than I suspect,” said Massingbred.
“What do you mean by that?”
Massingbred did not reply, but sat deep in thought for some time. “Come,
Martin,” said he, at last, “let us be frank; in a few hours it may be,
perhaps, too late for frankness. Is this true?” And he handed to him
Merl's pocket-book, open at a particular page.
Martin took it, and as his eyes traced the lines a sickly paleness
covered his features, and in a voice scarcely stronger than an infant's,
he said, “It is so.”
“The whole reversionary right?”
“Every acre--every stick and stone of it--except,” added he, with a
sickly attempt at a smile, “a beggarly tract, near Kiltimmon, Mary has a
charge upon.”
“Read that, now,” said Jack, handing him his recently written letter.
“I was about to send it without showing it to you; but it is as well you
saw it.”
While Martin was reading, Massingbred never took his eyes from him. He
watched with all his own practised keenness the varying emotions the
letter cost; but he saw that, as he finished, selfishness had triumphed,
and that the prospect of safety had blunted every sentiment as to the
price.
“Well,” said Jack, “what say you to that?”
“I say it's a right good offer, and on no account to be refused. There
is some hitch or other--I can't say what, but it exists, I know--which
ties us up against selling. Old Repton and the governor, and I think
my mother, too, are in the secret; but I never was, so that Scanlan's
proposal is exactly what meets the difficulty.”
“But do you like his conditions?” asked Jack.
“I can't say I do. But what 's that to the purpose? One must play the
hand that is dealt to them; there 's no choice! I know that, as agent
over the property, he 'll make a deuced good thing of it for himself. It
will not be five nor ten per cent will satisfy Master Maurice.”
“Yes; but there is another condition, also,” said Jack, quietly.
“About Mary? Well, of course it's not the kind of thing one likes.
The fellow is the lowest of the low; but even that's better, in some
respects, than a species of half gentility, for he actually has n't
one in the world belonging to him. No one ever heard of his father or
mother, and he's not the fellow to go in search of them.”
“I confess that _is_ a consideration,” said Massingbred, with a tone
that might mean equally raillery or the reverse, “so that you see no
great objection on that score?”
“I won't say I 'd choose the connection; but 'with a bad book it's at
least a hedge,'--eh, Massy, is n't it?”
“Perhaps so,” said the other, dryly.
“It does n't strike me,” said Martin, as he glanced his eye again over
the letter, “that you have advocated Scanlan's plan. You have left it
without, apparently, one word of comment. Does that mean that you don't
approve of it?”
“I never promised him I would advocate it,” said Jack.
“I have no doubt, Massingbred, you think me a deuced selfish fellow for
treating the question in this fashion; but just reflect a little,
and see how innocently, as I may say, I was led into all these
embarrassments. I never suspected how deep I was getting. Merl used to
laugh at me if I asked him how we stood; he always induced me to regard
our dealings as trifles, to be arranged to-day, to-morrow, or ten years
hence.”
“I am not unversed in that sort of thing, unluckily,” said Massingbred,
interrupting him. “There is another consideration, however, in the
present case, to which I do not think you have given sufficient weight.”
“As to Mary, my dear fellow, the matter is simple enough. Our consent
is a mere form. If she liked Scanlan, she 'd marry him against all the
Martins that ever were born; and if she did n't, she 'd not swerve an
inch if the whole family were to go to the stake for it. She 's not one
for half measures, I promise you; and then, remember, that though she
is one 'of us,' and well born, she has never mingled with the society
of her equals; she has always lived that kind of life you saw
yourself,--taking a cast with the hounds one day, nursing some old hag
with the rheumatism the next. I 've seen her hearing a class in the
village school, and half an hour after, breaking in a young horse to
harness. And what between her habits and her tastes, she is really not
fit for what you and I would call the world.” As Massingbred made no
reply, Martin ascribed his silence to a part conviction, and went on:
“Mind, I 'm not going to say that she is not a deuced deal too good for
Maurice Scanlan, who is as vulgar a hound as walks on two legs; but, as
I said before, Massy, we haven't much choice.”
“Will Lady Dorothea be likely to view the matter in this light?” asked
Jack, calmly.
“That is a mere matter of chance. She 's equally likely to embrace the
proposal with ardor, or tell a footman to kick Scanlan out of the house
for his impertinence; and I own the latter is the more probable of the
two,--not, mark you, from any exaggerated regard for Mary, but out of
consideration to the insult offered to herself.”
“Will she not weigh well all the perils that menace the estate?”
“She'll take a short method with them,--she'll not believe them.”
“Egad! I must say the whole negotiation is in a very promising state!”
exclaimed Jack, as he arose and walked the room. “There is only one
amongst us has much head for a case of difficulty.”
“You mean Kate Henderson?” broke in Martin.
“Yes.”
“Well, we 've lost _her_ just when we most needed her.”
“Lost her! How--what do you mean?”
“Why, that she is gone--gone home. She started this morning before
daybreak. She had a tiff with my mother last night. I will say the girl
was shamefully treated,--shamefully! My Lady completely forgot herself.
She was in one of those blessed paroxysms in which, had she been born a
Pasha, heads would have been rolling about like shot in a dockyard, and
she consequently said all manner of atrocities; and instead of giving
her time to make the _amende_, Kate beat a retreat at once, and by this
time she is some twenty miles on her journey.”
Massingbred walked to the window to hide the emotion these tidings
produced; for, with all his self-command, the suddenness of the
intelligence had unmanned him, and a cold and sickly feeling came over
him. There was far more of outraged and insulted pride than love in the
emotions which then moved him. The bitter thought of the moment was,
how indifferent she felt about _him_,--how little _he_ weighed in
any resolve she determined to follow. She had gone without a word of
farewell,--perhaps without a thought of him. “Be it so,” said he to
himself; “there has been more than enough of humiliation to me in our
intercourse. It is time to end it! The whole was a dream, from which the
awaking was sure to be painful. Better meet it at once, and have done
with it.” There was that much of passion in this resolve that proved how
far more it came from wounded pride than calm conviction; and so deeply
was his mind engrossed with this feeling, that Martin had twice spoken
to him ere he noticed his question.
“Do you mean, then, to show that letter to my mother?”
“Ay; I have written it with that object Scanlan asked me to be
his interpreter, and I have kept my pledge.--And did she go
alone,--unaccompanied?”
“I fancy so; but, in truth, I never asked. The doctors were here, and
all that fuss and confusion going on, so that I had really little head
for anything. After all, I suspect she's a girl might be able to take
care of herself,--should n't you say so?”
Massingbred was silent for a while, and then said: “You 'll have to be
on the alert about this business of yours, Martin; and if I can be of
service to you, command me. I mean to start for London immediately.”
“I 'll see my mother at once, then,” said he, taking up Massingbred's
letter.
“Shall I meet you in about an hour, in the Lichtenthal Avenue?”
“Agreed,” said he; and they parted.
We have no need, nor have we any right, to follow Massingbred as he
strolled out to walk alone in an alley of the wood. Irresolution is an
intense suffering to men of action; and such was the present condition
of his mind. Week after week, month after month, had he lingered on
in companionship with the Martins, till such had become the intimacy
between them that they scrupled not to discuss before him the most
confidential circumstances, and ask his counsel on the most private
concerns. He fancied that he was “of them;” he grew to think that he
was, somehow, part and parcel of the family, little suspecting the
while that Kate Henderson was the link that bound him to them, and that
without her presence they resolved themselves into three individuals for
whom he felt wonderfully little of interest or affection. “She is gone,
and what have I to stay for?” was the question he put to himself; and
for answer he could only repeat it.