It was not without a very painful emotion that Lady Dorothea turned
over a mass of letters addressed to her husband. They came from various
quarters, written in all the moods of many minds. Some were the mere
gossip of clubs and dinnerparties,--some were kindly and affectionate
inquiries, gentle reproachings on his silence, and banterings about his
pretended low spirits. A somewhat favorite tone is that same raillery
towards those whose lot in life seems elevated above the casualties of
fortune, forgetting the while that the sunniest path has its shadows,
and they whom we deem exempt from the sore trials of the world have
their share of its sorrows. These read strangely now, as he to whom they
were addressed lay breathing the heavy and labored breath, and muttering
the low broken murmurs that prelude the one still deeper sleep!
With a tremulous hand, and a gesture of fretful impatience, she threw
them from her one after the other. The topics and the tone alike jarred
upon her nerves. They seemed so unfeeling, too, and so heartless at such
a moment. Oh, if we wanted to moralize over the uncertainty of life,
what a theme might we have in the simple fact that, quicker than the
lines we are writing fall from our pen, are oftentimes changing the
whole fate and fortune of him for whom we destine them! We are telling
of hope where despair has already entered,--we are speaking joy to a
house of mourning! But one letter alone remained unopened. It was in
Repton's hand, and she broke the seal, wondering how he, who of all men
hated writing, should have turned a correspondent.
The “strictly confidential” of the cover was repeated within; but the
hour had come when she could violate the caution, and she read on. The
first few lines were a half-jesting allusion to Martin's croakings about
his health; but even these had a forced, constrained air, and none of
the jocular ease of the old man's manner. “And yet,” continued he, “it
is exactly about your health I am most anxious. I want you to be strong
and stout, body and mind, ready for action, and resolute. I know the
tone and style that an absentee loves and even requires to be addressed
in. He wants to be told that, however he may be personally regretted,
matters go on wonderfully well in his absence, that rent is paid, farms
improved, good markets abound, and the county a pattern of quietness. I
could tell you all this, Martin, and not a syllable of it be true. The
rents are not paid, partly from a season of great pressure, but, more
still, from an expectancy on the side of the people that something--they
know not what--is coming. The Relief Bill only relieved those who wanted
to job in politics and make market of their opinions; the masses it has
scarcely touched. They are told they are emancipated, but I am at a loss
to know in what way they realize to their minds the new privilege. Their
leaders have seen this. Shrewd fellows as they are, they have guessed
what disappointment must inevitably ensue when the long-promised boon
can show nothing as its results but certain noisy mob-orators made
Parliament men; and so they have slyly hinted,--as yet it is only a
hint,--'this is but the first step--an instalment they call it--of a
large debt, every fraction of which must yet be paid!'
“Now there is not in all Europe a more cunning or a deeper fellow than
Paddy. He has an Italian's subtlety and a Celt's suspicion; but enlist
his self-love, his vanity, and his acquisitiveness in any scheme, and
all his shrewdness deserts him. The old hackney coach-horses never
followed the hay on the end of the pole more hopefully than will he
travel after some promised future of 'fine times,' with plenty to eat
and drink, and nothing to do for it! They have booked themselves now for
this journey, and the delusion must run its course. Meanwhile rents will
not be paid, farms not improved, bad prices and poverty will abound, and
the usual crop of discontent and its consequent crime. I 'm not going
to inflict you with my own opinions on this theme. You know well enough
already that I never regarded these 'Agrarian disturbances,' as they are
called, in the light of passing infractions of the peace, but traced in
them the continuous working of a long preconcerted plan,--the scheme of
very different heads from those who worked it,--by which the law should
ever be assailed and the right of property everlastingly put in dispute.
In plain words, the system was a standing protest against the sway of
the Saxons in Ireland! 'The agitators' understood thoroughly how to
profit by this, and they worked these alternate moods of outrage and
peace pretty much as the priests of old guided their auguries. They
brought the game to that perfection that a murder could shake a
ministry, or a blank calendar become the triumph of an Administration!
“Such is, at the moment I am writing, the actual condition of Ireland!
Come home, then, at once,--but come alone. Come back resolved to see and
act for yourself. There is a lingering spark of the old feudalism
yet left in the people. Try and kindle it up once more into the old
healthful glow of love to the landlord. Some would say it is too late
for all this; but I will not think so. Magennis has given us an open
defiance; we are to be put on our title. Now, you are well aware there
is a complication here, and I shall want to consult you personally;
besides, we must have a search through those registries that are locked
up in the strong-room. Mary tells me you carried away the key of it.
I tell you frankly, I wish we could hit upon some means of
stopping Magennis. The suit is a small war, that demands grand
preparation,--always a considerable evil! The fellow, I am told, is also
concocting another attack,--an action against your niece and others for
the forcible abduction of his wife. It would read fabulously enough,
such a charge, but as old Casey said, 'There never yet was anything you
could n't impute at law, if you only employed the word “conspiracy;”'
and I believe it! The woman certainly has deserted him, and her
whereabouts cannot be ascertained. The scandal of such a cause would of
course be very great; but if you were here we might chance upon some
mode of averting it,--at all events, your niece shouldn't be deserted at
such a moment. What a noble girl it is, Martin, and how gloriously she
comprehends her station! Give me a dozen like her, and I 'll bid
defiance to all the machinations of all the agitators; and they know it!
“If your estate has resisted longer than those of your neighbors the
demoralizing influences that are now at work here, you owe it to Mary.
If crime has not left its track of blood along your avenue or on your
door-sill, it is she who has saved you. If the midnight hour has not
been scared by the flame of your burning house or haggard, thank _her_
for it,--ay, Martin, _her_ courage, _her_ devotion, _her_ watchful
charity, _her_ unceasing benevolence, the glorious guarantee her daily
life gives, that _she_, at least, is with the people in all their
sufferings and their trials! You or I had abandoned with impatience the
cause that she had succored against every disappointment. Her woman's
nature has endowed her with a higher and a nobler energy than ever a man
possessed. She _will not_ be defeated.
“Henderson may bewail, and Maurice Scanlan deride, the shortcomings of
the people. But through evil and good report she is there to hear from
their own lips, to see with her own eyes, the story of their sorrows. Is
this nothing? Is there no lesson in the fact that she, nurtured in
every luxury, braves the wildest day of winter in her mission of
charity?--that the most squalid misery, the most pestilent disease never
deterred her? I saw her a few days back coming home at daybreak; she
had passed the night in a hovel where neither you nor I would have taken
shelter in a storm. The hectic flush of fatigue and anxiety was on her
cheek; her eyes, deep sunk, showed weariness; and her very voice, as
she spoke to me, was tremulous and weak; and of what, think you, was her
mind full? Of the noble calm, the glorious, patient endurance of
those she had just quitted. 'What lessons might we not learn,' said
she, 'beneath the wet thatch of poverty! There are three struck down with
fever in that cabin; she who remains to nurse them is a little girl of
scarcely thirteen. There is all that can render sickness wretched around
them. They are in pain and in want; cold winds and rain sweep across
their beds, if we could call them such. If they cherish the love of
life, it must be through some instinct above all reason; and there they
lie, uncomplaining. The little remnant of their strength exhausts itself
in a look of thankfulness,--a faint effort to say their gratitude. Oh,
if querulous hypochondriacism could but see them, what teaching it might
learn! Sufferings that call forth from us not alone peevishness and
impatience, but actually traits of rude and ungenerous meaning, develop
in them an almost refined courtesy, and a trustfulness that supplies all
that is most choice in words of gratitude.'
“And this is the girl whose life every day, every hour is
imperilling,--who encounters all the hazards of our treacherous climate,
and all the more fatal dangers of a season of pestilence, without
friends, without a home! Now, Martin, apart from all higher and better
considerations on the subject, this was not your compact,--such was not
the text of your bargain with poor Barry. The pledge you gave him at
your last parting was that she should be your daughter. That you made
her feel all the affection of one, none can tell more surely than
myself. That your own heart responds to her love I am as fully convinced
of. But this is not enough, my dear Martin. She has rights--actual
rights--that no special pleading on the score of intentions or good
wishes can satisfy. I should but unworthily discharge my office, as your
oldest friend in the world, if I did not place this before you broadly
and plainly. The country is dull and wearisome, devoid of society, and
without resources, and you leave it; but you leave behind you, to endure
all its monotony, all its weariness, one who possesses every charm and
every attention that are valued in the great world! There is fever and
plague abroad, insurrection threatens, and midnight disturbances are
rife, and she who is to confront these perils is a girl of twenty. The
spirit of an invading party threatens to break down all the prestige of
old family name and property,--a cunningly devised scheme menaces the
existence of an influence that has endured for centuries; and to oppose
its working, or fall victim to its onslaught, you leave a young lady,
whose very impulses of generous meaning may be made snares to entrap
her. In a word, you neglect duty, desert danger, shun the path of
honorable exertion, and retreat before the menace of an encounter, to
place, where you should stand yourself, the frail figure and gentle
nature of one who was a child, as it were, but yesterday. Neither
your health nor your happiness can be purchased at such a price,--your
conscience is too sound for that,--nor can your ease! No, Martin, your
thoughts will stray over here, and linger amongst these lonely glens
that she is treading. Your fancy will follow her through the dark nights
of winter, as alone she goes forth on her mission of mercy. You will
think of her, stooping to teach the young--bending over the sick-bed of
age. And then, tracing her footsteps homeward, you will see her sit down
by a solitary hearth,--none of her own around her,--not one to advise,
to counsel, to encourage her! I will say no more on this theme; your own
true heart has already anticipated all that _I_ could _speak_,--all that
_you_ should _do_.
“Now for one more question, and I shall have finished the most painful
letter I ever wrote in my life. There are rumors--I cannot trace them,
nor fully understand them, but they imply that Captain Martin has been
raising very considerable sums by reversionary bonds and post-obits.
Without being able to give even a guess, as to the truth of this, I
draw your attention to the bare possibility, as of a case full of very
serious complications. Speak to your son at once on the subject, and
learn the truth,--the whole truth. My own fears upon the matter have
been considerably strengthened by hearing of a person who has been
for several weeks back making inquiries on the estate. He has resided
usually at Kilkieran, and spends his time traversing the property in all
directions, investigating questions of rent, wages, and tenure of land.
They tell marvellous stories of his charity and so forth,--blinds,
doubtless, to cover his own immediate objects. Mary, however, I ought to
say, takes a very different view of his character, and is so anxious to
know him personally that I promised her to visit him, and bring him to
visit her at the cottage. And, by the way, Martin, why should she be
at the cottage,--why not at Cro' Martin? What miserable economy has
dictated a change that must reflect upon her influence, not to speak of
what is justly due to her own station? I could swear that you never
gave a willing consent to this arrangement. No, no, Martin, the plan was
never yours.
“I 'm not going to bore you with borough politics. To tell truth, I
can't comprehend them. They want to get rid of Massingbred, but they
don't see who is to succeed him. Young Nelligan ought to be the man, but
he will not. He despises his party,--or at least what would call
itself his party,--and is resolved never to concern himself with public
affairs. Meanwhile he is carrying all before him at the Bar, and is as
sure of the Bench as though he were on it.
“When he heard of Magennis's intention of bringing this action against
Mary, he came up to town to ask me to engage him on our side, 'since,'
said he, 'if they send me a brief I cannot refuse it, and if I accept
it, I promise you it shall be my last cause, for I have resolved to
abandon the Bar the day after.' This, of course, was in strictest
secrecy, and so you must regard it. He is a cold, calm fellow, and yet
on this occasion he seemed full of impulsive action.
“I had something to tell you about Henderson, but I actually forget what
it was. I can only remember it was disagreeable; and as this epistle has
its due share of bitters, my want of memory is perhaps a benefit; and so
to release you at once, I 'll write myself, as I have never ceased to be
for forty years,
“Your attached friend,
“Val. Repton.”
“I believe I was wrong about Henderson; at least the disagreeable went
no further than that he is supposed to be the channel through which Lady
Dorothea occasionally issues directions, not always in agreement with
Mary's notions. And as your niece never liked the man, the measures are
not more palatable when they come through his intervention.”
Lady Dorothea was still pondering over this letter, in which there were
so many things to consider, when a hurried message called her to the
sick-room. As she approached the room, she could hear Martin's voice
calling imperiously and angrily to the servants, and ordering them
to dress him. The difficulty of utterance seemed to increase his
irritation, and gave to his words a harsh, discordant tone, very unlike
his natural voice.
“So,” cried he, as she entered, “you have come at last. I am nigh
exhausted with telling them what I want. I must get up, Dora. They must
help me to dress.”
As he was thus speaking, the servants, at a gesture from her Ladyship,
quietly stole from the chamber, leaving her alone at his bedside.
“You are too weak for this exertion, Godfrey,” said she, calmly. “Any
effort like this is certain to injure you.”
“You think so?” asked he, with the tone of deference that he generally
used towards her. “Perhaps you are right, Dora; but how can it be
helped?--there is so much to do, such a long way to travel. What a
strange confusion is over me! Do you know, Dolly,”--here his voice fell
to a mere whisper,--“you'll scarcely credit it; but all the time I have
been fancying myself at Cro' Martin, and here we are in--in--what do you
call the place?”
“Baden.”
“Yes--yes--but the country?”
“Germany.”
“Ay, to be sure, Germany; hundreds of miles away from home!” Here
he raised himself on one arm, and cast a look of searching eagerness
through the room. “Is he gone?” whispered he, timidly.
“Of whom are you speaking?” said she.
“Hush, Dolly, hush!” whispered he, still lower. “I promised I 'd not
tell any one, even you, of his being here. But I must speak of it--I
must--or my brain will turn. He was here--he sat in that very chair--he
held my hand within both his own. Poor, poor fellow! how his eyes filled
when he saw me! He little knew how changed he himself was!--his hair
white as snow, and his eyes so dimmed!”
“This was a dream, Godfrey,--only a dream!”
“I thought you 'd say so,--I knew it,” said he, sorrowfully; “but _I_
know better. The dear old voice rang in my heart as I used to hear it
when a child, as he said, 'Do you remember me?' To be sure I remembered
him, and told him to go and fetch Molly; and his brow darkened when
I said this, and he drew back his hand and said, 'You have deserted
her,--she is not here!'”
“All this is mere fancy, Godfrey; you have been dreaming of home.”
“Ay,” muttered he, gloomily, “it was but too true; we did desert her,
and that was not our bargain, Dolly. It was all the poor fellow asked
at our hands,--his last, his only condition. What's that letter you have
there?” cried he, impatiently, as Lady Dorothea, in the agitation of the
moment, continued to crumple Repton's letter between her fingers.
“A letter I have been reading,” said she, sternly.
“From whom--from whom?” asked he, still more eagerly.
“A letter from Mr. Repton. You shall read it when you are better. You
are too weak for all this exertion, God-frey; you must submit--”
“Submit!” broke he in; “the very word he said. You submit yourself to
anything, if it only purchase your selfish ease. No, Dolly, no, I am
wrong. It was I that said so. I owned to him how unworthily I had acted.
Give me that letter, madam. Let me see it,” said he, imperiously.
“When you are more tranquil, Godfrey,--in a fitting state.”
“I tell you, madam,” cried he, fiercely, “this, is no time for trifling
or deception. Repton knows all our affairs. If he has written now, it is
because matters are imminent. My head is clear now. I can think--I can
speak. It is full time Harry should hear the truth. Let him come here.”
“Take a little rest, Godfrey, be it only half an hour, and you shall
have everything as you wish it.”
“Half an hour! you speak of half an hour to one whose years are minutes
now!” said he, in a broken voice. “This poor brain, Dora, is already
wandering. The strange things I have seen so lately--that poor fellow
come back after so many years--so changed, so sadly changed--but I knew
him through all the mist and vapor of this feverish state; I saw him
clearly, my own dear Barry!” The word, as it were the last barrier to
his emotion, brought forth a gush of tears; and burying his face within
the bedclothes, he sobbed himself to sleep. As he slept, however, he
continued to mutter about home and long passed years,--of boyish sports
with his brother; childish joys and sorrows were all mingled there, with
now and then some gloomier reveries of later days.
“He has been wandering in his mind!” whispered Lady Dorothea to her son,
as he joined her in the darkened room. “He woke up, believing that he
had seen his brother, and the effect was very painful.”
“Has he asked for _me?_” inquired the other.
“No; he rambled on about Mary, and having deserted her, and all that;
and just as ill-luck would have it, here is a letter from Repton,
exactly filled with the very same theme. He insists on seeing it; but of
course he will have forgotten it when he awakes.”
“You have written to Scanlan?” asked he.
“Yes; my letter has been sent off.”
“Minutes are precious now. If anything should occur here,”--his eyes
turned towards the sick-bed as he spoke,--“Merl will refuse to treat.
His people--I know they are his--are hovering about the hotel all the
morning. I heard the waiter whispering as I passed, and caught the
words, 'No better; worse, if anything.' The tidings would be in London
before the post.”
Lady Dorothea made no reply, and all was now silent, save the unequal
but heavy breathings of the sick man, and the faint, low mutterings of
his dream. “In the arras--between the window and the wall--there it is,
Barry,” cried he, in a clear, distinct voice. “Repton has a copy of it,
too, with Catty's signature,--old Catty Broon.”
“What is he dreaming of?” asked the young man.
But, instead of replying to the question, Lady Dorothea bent down her
head to catch the now muttered words of the sleeper.
“He says something of a key. What key does he mean?” asked he.
[Illustration: 297]
“Fetch me that writing-desk,” said Lady Dorothea, as she took several
keys from her pockets; and noiselessly unlocking the box, she began to
search amidst its contents. As she continued, her gestures grew more and
more hurried; she threw papers recklessly here and there, and at last
emptied the entire contents upon the table before her. “See, search if
there be a key here,” cried she, in a broken voice; “I saw it here three
days ago.”
“There is none here,” said he, wondering at her eagerness.
“Look carefully,--look well for it,” said she, her voice trembling at
every word.
“Is it of such consequence--”
“It is of such consequence,” broke she in, “that he into whose hands it
falls can leave you and me beggars on the world!” An effort at awaking
by the sick man here made her hastily restore the papers to the desk,
which she locked, and replaced upon the table.
“Was it the Henderson did this?” said she aloud, as if asking the
question of herself. “Could she have known this secret?”
“Did what? What secret?” asked he, anxiously.
A low, long sigh announced that the sick man was awaking; and in a
faint voice he said, “I feel better, Dora. I have had a sleep, and been
dreaming of home and long ago. To-morrow, or next day, perhaps, I may be
strong enough to leave this. I want to be back there again. Nay, don't
refuse me,” said he, timidly.
“When you are equal to the journey--”
“I have a still longer one before me, Dora, and even less preparation
for it. Harry, I have something to say to you, if I were strong enough
to say it,--this evening, perhaps.” Wearied by the efforts he had made,
he lay back again with a heavy sigh, and was silent.
“Is he worse--is he weaker?” asked his son.
A mournful nod of the head was her reply.
Young Martin arose and stole noiselessly from the room, he scarcely knew
whither; he indeed cared not which way he turned. The future threw its
darkest shadows before him. He had little to hope for, as little to
love. His servant gave him a letter which Massingbred had left on his
departure, but he never opened it; and in a listless vacuity he wandered
out into the wood.
It was evening as he turned homeward. His first glance was towards the
windows of his father's room. They were wont to be closely shuttered and
fastened; now one of them lay partly open, and a slight breeze stirred
the curtain within. A faint, sickly fear of he knew not what crept over
him. He walked on quicker; but as he drew nigh the door, his servant met
him. “Well!” cried he, as though expecting a message.
“Yes, sir, it is all over; he went off about an hour since.” The man
added something; but Martin heard no more, but hurried to his room, and
locked the door.