ALMOST TOO LATE.
Lord Ardmorne was as good as his word, and better; thereby demonstrating
the truth of the frequent assertion, that those who promise little often
perform much; while those who promise much usually fail altogether in
performing.
Not in the least like the Somerfords was the Marquis of Ardmorne. He was
not handsome in person or gracious in manner, or fluent of speech, but
he was true; true in his prejudices, which were many; in his political
faith, which was becoming obnoxious even in England; in his religion,
that generally condemned all men—but was so in the habit of excepting
special persons and cases that the damnatory clauses were practically
rendered innocuous.
From what stock shall we say such a man sprang. He was not Scotch, or
Irish, or English; but he was something which we are accustomed—though
as I think, erroneously—to regard as a mixture of all three. He was what
the tenants called a hard landlord, and yet his rents were lower than
those of the Glendares.
Politically, the Glendares were on the right side to please the people.
He was on the wrong; and the “hard bit,” as the tenantry called it,
about Lord Ardmorne was that when a man took a farm from him he had the
choice of voting as his landlord wished, of thinking as his landlord
thought, or of having worldly matters made uncomfortable for him.
To ensure so desirable a state of affairs, Lord Ardmorne granted no
fresh leases; but let his lands at a proportionately low rental, so as
to be able to rid his farms of recalcitrant tenants as rapidly as might
be.
I do not defend the system. Of course amongst a people so highly
enlightened as our own—in a state of society which produces such
profound thinkers, and renders the views of even the lowest so clear and
so just, as that which recommends itself at present—it is most desirable
the freedom of action and of conscience should obtain, even if such
freedom of action and of conscience produce similar results to those
England and Ireland have both had to deplore during the last few years;
but still those who took Lord Ardmorne’s farms did so with a perfect
knowledge of consequences.
There was no secrecy about the matter. My lord having a certain set of
opinions, expected his tenants to acquiesce in those opinions; and they
were aware of the fact.
When by reason of death—the resignation of a member, or other causes—an
election took place, Lord Ardmorne expected his men to vote for his man.
If they refused to do so, my lord turned them out. They rented his land,
knowing well the full consequences of contumacy, and if they liked to
risk those consequences, it was scarcely fair to grumble (as they did)
when the marquis enforced his share of the bargain.
If an Irish farmer of that period could only live a struggling trader
for a year in the city of London, in this, he might well pray heaven to
deliver him from the men of our time, and to restore him even a hard
landlord like the marquis, who expected his tenantry to think as he
thought for the sake of an exceptionally low rental and various other
indulgences beside.
The Marquis of Ardmorne would have found scant favour at the hands of
those gentlemen of the press who, in the present day, are good enough to
instruct the nobility in their duties as landlords and landowners. He
was in no way romantic. He might have forgiven a tenant a year’s rent,
but he could not overlook his venturing to have an opinion of his own.
His manners were not genial; he could not, to reproduce an old Irish
phrase, have “charmed a bird off the bush,” even if he had tried to do
so. He was one of those who, it is sometimes stated, strive to stop
progress. His own party honestly thought they were only the breakwaters
that tended to keep the perilous waves of innovation from sweeping over
and destroying the land.
The Reform Bill he believed to have been the ruin of the country. Had he
lived to see the Irish Church Bill passed, he would have covered his
face and turned him to the wall, feeling death had lingered too long.
Tenant right stank in his nostrils. Liberty of conscience was a phrase
which sounded in his ears like the claptrap expression of a party who
were trying to lead the lower orders astray.
The peasantry he regarded as children who, not knowing what was best for
them, ought to do as they were told. There could be no mistake as to
what Lord Ardmorne considered the first duty of a tenant-farmer; and if
the tenant-farmer chanced to entertain a different opinion, why so much
the worse for him.
On the other hand, the Ardmorne tenantry enjoyed advantages unknown to
those who rented the Somerford lands. The marquis, it is true, did
little or nothing in the way of improvements; but he did not prevent the
farmers improving their holdings if they pleased to do so. Lime and
stone were supplied to them at almost nominal prices. The shore rights,
such as the Glendares had let and the lessee sublet again, were
practically free to those who, behaving themselves properly, were
suffered to cultivate his lordship’s lands and pay rent to his
lordship’s agent; and when crops failed or sickness laid low, and the
gale days came round, time would often be given to make up that rent for
which, as on the Glendare estates, the farmers and their wives, and
their sons and daughters, and men-servants and maidservants, worked from
morning till night from week’s beginning to week’s end, from the time
they were big enough to pick up stones and herd cows till they were
carried to their graves.
Nevertheless, the marquis was not liked as Th’ Airl had been. Though his
religious opinions were identical with their own; though he reverenced
the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of King William; though he had
nothing but contempt and hatred for that of James; though he was an
Orangeman, and thought “Protestant Boys” the most charming melody ever
composed; though his watchword, like theirs, was “No Surrender;” though
his feelings towards the Pope were identical with their own sentiments,
despite the fact that he uttered his commination services in Parliament
in more orthodox and gentlemanly fashion than they shouted out theirs in
the streets and highways,—still, his lordship failed to win the hearts
of his people.
He had always been a grave quiet man, with stern features and reserved
habits; a man with a story in his life which had perhaps made the
fulfilment of his age different from the promise of his youth; a man of
strong purposes and deep feelings; a man to like few, but to like those
few much; a man who would have thought himself no better than a thief,
if he had left impoverished acres and a diminished rent-roll to the next
heir, albeit that heir was neither son nor nephew, nor aught but a
distant relative who held a high position in India.
It was to this relative he had sent out John Riley, and the young man
might pecuniarily have done well for himself in his new appointment, had
he not commenced sending home all he could spare in order to enable his
family to live more comfortably.
He would have done them a greater kindness had he kept his money. To
persons who have always been short, the command of a little money is a
great snare as well as to those who have never had much experience in
spending; so at least it proved with Mrs. Riley.
She had been compelled to do without so many things during the previous
part of her life, that now when a few of them were within her reach she
tried to compass all; and the result proved that not only was the Indian
allowance spent, but the interest on the mortgage fell into arrear.
“When the girls are married, we can soon retrench,” Mrs. Riley observed,
but the girls failed to marry. If they had not done so when they lived
quietly and dressed plainly, and engaged themselves in those various
works of a domestic kind which recommend young ladies to men of a
prudent and economical turn of mind, they were certainly likely to
remain unwedded when, arrayed in gorgeous attire they were met at
parties and balls in Dublin, where it was their new custom to winter.
They never lacked partners, and they never were destitute of attendant
swains, who found Woodbrook a pleasant sort of house at which to stay
for a week or two in the summer and autumn; but although the hopes of
Mrs. Riley were often excited, they always ended in disappointment.
Visitors they had in abundance, but suitors none; till at length Lucy
captivated a curate, whose addition to the finances of the family proved
seventy pounds a year from his rector, twenty-five pounds a year from
private sources, and a baronet uncle.
“Who will be certain to present him with a good living,” said Mrs.
Riley; though on what foundation she erected this pleasing
superstructure was an inscrutable mystery to all her friends.
Things were in this state when Lord Ardmorne through his solicitors
ascertained, first, that if Mr. Brady did not actually hold the mortgage
he was intimately and pecuniarily associated with those who did, and
that it was in his power to pull the strings which prompted the
movements of the ostensible actors; second, that the interest was
running back; third, that the mortgage-deed contained some unusual and
stringent covenants; fourth, that the Woodbrook estates were not
returning the amount of money they had once done; and fifth, that owing
to failing health, the pressure of anxiety, and the more exciting life
he had in the interests of his daughters been leading, the General was
becoming daily less and less competent to act as his own agent and to
manage his own affairs.
Altogether the family prospects were in as deplorable a state as family
prospects could be, when Lord Ardmorne’s solicitor went to confer with
General Riley’s legal adviser and General Riley himself.
It was from the latter gentleman that information of the interest having
fallen behind was elicited.
Not being pressed for it, he, as frequently happens in such cases, had
not mentioned the matter to those who would have advised him to make any
sacrifice in order to keep so important an affair within manageable
limits.
Piteously he confessed his error, and asked, as people are in the habit
of asking when counsel is almost useless, what he was to do.
It had been agreed between Lord Ardmorne and the lawyers that, in
consideration of his broken health and other causes, the fact of Mr.
Brady having managed to thrust his fingers into the Riley pie should not
be mentioned to the General; that if a settlement of the matter could be
left until the son’s return, all explanations should be deferred till he
came back.
The first thing to be done was clearly to wipe off the arrears of
interest; but as not an acre of the Woodbrook estate was free, General
Riley’s solicitors said openly that they failed to see where the money
was to come from.
Lord Ardmorne, however, having taken up the affair, was not going to let
this difficulty stop him on the very threshold of his undertaking, and
instructed his lawyer to find the amount necessary.
He did not intend to be harsh to the General, but he did tell the old
man some very plain truths concerning the risk he had run of
jeopardizing his son’s inheritance; and he made a point of seeing Mrs.
Riley, then in Dublin, and explaining to her that the old life of paring
and pinching would have to be resumed if she did not wish Woodbrook to
pass into the hands of strangers.
“It is all that girl’s doing,” groaned the poor murmuring lady. “But for
her we should have been comfortable and happy years and years ago.”
Which remark set the marquis thinking. John was a fine fellow, and,
spite his encumbered acres, not an ineligible _parti_ even for Grace
Moffat; but he failed to see how the little romance he had planned could
be carried out if Mrs. Riley were to be one of the _dramatis personæ_.
The lapse of years had not improved the General’s wife. Lord Ardmorne
could imagine many more desirable things than a close relationship with
her, and he left the house thinking matters were complicating a little,
and that perhaps he should not be justified in dragging Miss Moffat into
the Riley entanglement.
“Perhaps the very best thing the young man could do would be to persuade
his father to sell the estate right out and go back to India. That,
however, will be a matter for future discussion and consideration.
Meantime, we can do nothing but clear off the arrears of interest.”
In this, however, his lordship proved to be mistaken. No sooner was the
interest settled than notice was served requiring the repayment of the
principal at the extremely short date mentioned in the deed.
Like most of his countrymen, Lord Ardmorne had a passion for acquiring
land. A townland for sale, an estate in the market, these things
affected him as the news that a rare picture is to be brought to the
hammer affects a collector, and Woodbrook was a property he would have
felt by no means loth to add to those he already possessed.
But the knowledge of this desire tied his tongue. In the General’s
extremity he could not advise him to let the encumbered acres be
purchased by some one willing and able to give enough for them to clear
off the mortgage and leave a margin beside.
Had he stepped in at this point and counselled the General to do that
which really seemed the only rational way of solving the difficulty, he
would not have cared to meet the man for whose return he had written.
“I fancy it will have to come to that in the end,” he said to his
solicitor in reply to a remark from that gentleman, that the sooner
Woodbrook passed into other hands the better it would be for every one,
the General included, “but we must leave it for the son to decide.”
“I do not exactly see how the decision is to be left for so long a
time,” remarked the lawyer. “There can be no question it is all a
planned affair, and how any man’s adviser could permit such a deed to be
signed baffles my comprehension.”
“Well, you must remember when a state of mortgage becomes chronic,” said
the marquis, “people are apt to overlook symptoms that would strike a
person to whom the disease is new. Besides which there was no choice as
I imagine in the matter. An old mortgage had to be paid off, and under
such circumstances it is not always easy for a man to dictate his own
terms.”
To which words of wisdom, coming from a nobleman, the lawyer listened
with deference and attention as in duty bound; but he held naturally to
his own opinion nevertheless.
Here, then, the Rileys had arrived at a point where two roads met, and
written on the finger-post in letters plain enough to those who could
read were the words—To Ruin.
Where the other road led was not so clearly indicated. It puzzled Lord
Ardmorne himself, though both long and clear-headed, to imagine what the
end of it all would be. He could turn them out of the direct route to
beggary, and he meant to do so, but whether the second path might not
merely prove a round-about-way to the same end he was not prepared to
assert.
After all there is nothing on earth so difficult as to manage another
man’s affairs for him, even if he be willing to let his neighbour
attempt the almost impossible feat.
But about the end, Lord Ardmorne did not mean to trouble himself till
John Riley’s return. When that event happened, he proposed to lay the
whole difficulty of the position before the younger man, and warn him
against attempting to drag an endless chain of debt through yet another
generation. Meantime arrangements must be made for paying off the
existing mortgage; and when he had done all he could in the matter—and
with a solvent nobleman and in Ireland that all was considerable,—Lord
Ardmorne found a pecuniary deficiency still existed that, although not
large in itself, was still sufficiently great to cause perplexity and
difficulty.
Up to this point he had decided not to permit Grace to moil or meddle in
the matter, now he decided to leave her to say whether she would help or
not.
“I will take care she is no loser,” he said to himself, “and also that
she does not appear in the transaction. I certainly will buy the place
if the father and son agree to sell; if not I must arrange differently,
that is all. So now to see Miss Moffat, and ascertain whether she is
still willing to assist in saving an old family from utter worldly
ruin.”
Very straightforwardly he put the state of the case before “the woman of
John Riley’s life,” told her what he had done, and the precise way in
which she could best help, that help being kept a secret between
herself, himself, and Mrs. Hartley; and if the subsequent conversation
were rendered less connected by reason of the widow’s comments on the
folly of Mrs. Riley and the childish weakness of her husband, her
remarks tended at least to make it more exciting.
“I should like to be of use to the General or his son,” Grace said with
a frankness which caused Mrs. Hartley to shake for the ultimate success
of her project; “indeed, I should like to serve any of them. It would be
a sad thing if for lack of a friendly hand Mrs. Riley and the girls had
to leave Woodbrook.”
“It is clearly Lord Ardmorne’s opinion that the sooner they leave
Woodbrook the better for all concerned,” observed Mrs. Hartley. “And in
that opinion I entirely agree. If all the poor Irish gentry were
compelled to sell their estates, and let people who have money and sense
purchase them, it would be a grand thing for the country.”
“English people seem to think there is a necessary connection between
money and sense. I must say I fail to see the link myself,” answered
Grace.
“I am inclined, however, to think the English capacity to make and to
keep money implies a considerable amount of sense,” interposed Lord
Ardmorne.
“It is not a pleasant sort of sense,” persisted Grace.
“Perhaps not, but it is useful, my dear,” said Mrs. Hartley. “For
instance, had your grandfather squandered the fortune he made instead of
leaving it to you, he might have been a more popular old gentleman, but
he could scarcely have proved himself so admirable a person in his
domestic relations as was the case.”
“I sometimes wish he had never left me a penny,” remarked Grace a little
bitterly.
“What a shame for you to make such a remark, Miss Moffat, at a time when
your fortune enables you to step forward to the rescue of your old
friends,” exclaimed Lord Ardmorne, with an affectation of playful
raillery which sat upon him about as gracefully as a cap and bells might
have done.
“Yes, it is a shame,” Grace answered quietly; “for about the first time
in my life I feel really thankful now that I am as rich as I am.”
“Many other opportunities for thankfulness from the same cause will
present themselves in the years to come, believe me,” said their
visitor.
“I only hope they may not have to leave Woodbrook,” exclaimed Miss
Moffat, a little irrelevantly to the conversation as it seemed.
“Then you ought not to hope anything of the kind,” rebuked Mrs. Hartley.
“You should hope that John may have enough resolution and sufficient
sense to free himself and his family from the incubus of debt, that must
have made existence a daily and hourly torture and humiliation to the
whole of them. As I said before, if a law were passed compelling the
owners of heavily mortgaged properties to sell them, there might be a
chance of Ireland’s regeneration. As matters stand there is none.”
If with prophetic eye Mrs. Hartley had been able to look forward a very
little way, how she would have longed for the Encumbered Estates Court,
and welcomed the changes every one predicted must be wrought by it.
In those days capital and civilization were the favourite panaceas the
English proposed for all Irish troubles. In these the same remedies are
indirectly suggested, but the English are now quite content to leave
their sister to find both for herself.
And no doubt the present course is the correct one. The curse of all
former administrations has been that instead of leaving Ireland’s
diseases to be cured by time and nature, each fresh political doctor has
thought it necessary to try his own new course of treatment on the
patient.
Fortunately the latest and rashest surgeon who has experimented on her
so far as to cut away the grievance most bitterly complained of, has
discovered there may be a tendency to hysteria in the constitution of a
nation as well as of a woman, and that it does not follow because a cry
is raised, “The pain is here,” that the arm or leg is to be hacked off
with impunity. One man has deprived Ireland of that which kings, nor
queens, nor parliament, nor statesman, can ever restore to her again.
Nevertheless, he may have done both England and Ireland good service,
for it will be some time before the former is tempted to try the result
of another such surgical operation, let the latter cry for knife and
caustic as loud and as long as she will.