Lawrence Hears Some News.
“Now, you know this is very foolish,” said Gwen.
When she entered the library Earl Selloyd had hastened to meet her with
exaggerated courtesy, and dragged forward a big arm-chair, begging her
to be seated. Gwen poised herself on the arm of it, and swung one foot.
“Very foolish, indeed!” she repeated, eyeing gravely the thin, nervous,
foolish-looking young man, who, nevertheless, represented one of the
oldest and most illustrious families of England.
“I hope you don’t mean that,” he said. “Indeed, Miss Carew, it is only
your happiness I have at heart.”
“And a little your own, I hope,” with a faint smile. Then she went on
before he could interrupt: “You know I have the name for being very
original, Lord Selloyd, and I’m going to be original now. You’ve
evidently come here this evening to propose to me, and I’m not going to
let you propose. I’m not the sort of girl who likes to count up her
conquests and tell all the other girls. All I ask of things generally
just now is, let me have a good time, and I don’t care whether I get
any proposal or not. Of course I think it is awfully good of you to
want to give me your name and title and all that, but since I can’t
accept them, we won’t say any more about it.”
“But my dear Miss Carew,” he implored, “your mother led me to suppose
that she—”
“That doesn’t count,” interrupted Gwen. “To be very candid, you know as
well as I do that no mother can help fancying a coronet for her
daughter, and it’s just the same the world over. Now, although I’m
supposed to be very up to date, I’m really positively antique about
some things, and one of them is the question of matrimony. I’m so
old-fashioned that I mean to marry for love, even if I marry a plain Mr
Nobody. There! now you must see that it is a mistake to continue this
interview.”
His lordship fidgeted nervously. “But couldn’t you?” he began—“couldn’t
you—don’t you think—?”
“I’m afraid not,” Gwen said kindly, helping him out. “Isn’t there
anything I could do?” pleadingly. “Perhaps if you would tell me what
you want in a man—?”
Gwen felt inclined to say it was a _man_, just that, pure and simple:
that she wanted, but she was naturally a kind hearted girl and had no
desire to hurt his feelings.
“It’s no use,” she said frankly. “Let’s part friends, and you’ll soon
find someone you can care for heaps more than me, who won’t worry the
life out of you a bit like I should have done.”
His lordship shook his head sorrowfully, and looked very woebegone.
“No,” he said, “I shall never love another, and I shall never be happy
again. I might as well go and shoot myself at once.”
Gwen felt desperately inclined to laugh, but managed to keep her face
sufficiently to say:
“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that. When you’ve got a fine estate, and a title,
and all that sort of thing, it’s a pity to clear out and let someone
else snatch it up.”
His lordship seemed rather struck with the idea, for he said no more
about shooting as he dragged himself to the door. He did, however,
contrive to look the picture of wretchedness, though somehow not in a
manner that appealed to Gwen’s heart, and when the door finally closed
behind him she hid her face in her hands a moment as if she would hide
her smile even from herself. She had to pause to straighten her face
again before she reappeared in the drawing-room, though Lawrence read
everything directly in her eyes.
“Well,” said her mother, “have you sent him away?”
“I didn’t send him, mummie—he went,” she answered coaxingly.
“He wouldn’t have gone if you had answered him sensibly.”
“Answered him about what?”
“Why, his proposal, of course.”
“But he didn’t propose.”
“Didn’t propose!” dropping her work on her knee, and lifting her eyes
in astonishment.
“No, mummie. I advised him not to.”
Lawrence’s rare smile spread over his face.
“My dear, what do you mean?” said Mrs Carew with a helpless look.
“Well, mother, what was the good of Lord Selloyd making a fool of
himself any more than he could help by asking me to marry him, when I
was certain to decline with thanks? I didn’t put it to him quite like
that, but it came to the same thing in the end, and he had the sense to
see it and go away.”
“You are hopeless, quite hopeless; and I believe you make her worse,
Lawrence.”
“No, indeed,” answered Lawrence from the depths of his easy-chair. “I
have been at great pains to point out to her the ineffable benefits of
a coronet, to say nothing of a husband who is—well—like cotton-wool in
the hands of a strong-minded woman.”
“You are both leagued against me,” continued the mother, shaking her
head. “If the same thing happens again, Lawrence, I shall just expect
you to marry her yourself, and what will happen to your quiet Irish
home then I’m afraid to think.” She spread out her hands with a gesture
of hopelessness, but there was a twinkle in her eyes that made the
mother and daughter for a moment wonderfully alike. “Gwen buried in the
Mourne Mountains would result in a social tornado, and a year of libel
actions. She’d just scandalise the whole countryside and set every one
quarrelling to break the monotony, and though you think you are very
strong-minded, Lawrence, you’d find your match in Gwen; and I ought to
know, being her mother.”
Owen laughed gayly, without the smallest shadow of self-consciousness,
for marriage between herself and Lawrence had been so long talked of
with jesting freedom that it embarrassed neither of them in the
smallest degree, although there were many who firmly believed it would
eventually ensue.
“We’d get mummie to come and smooth things over, wouldn’t we?” she
laughed, and sauntered to the piano, afterward singing several songs in
a rich and beautiful contralto. When she was tired of singing she came
back to the fireplace and, seating herself upon a low footstool,
remarked to her mother with a side-glance at Lawrence: “Has Lawrie told
you about his Irish friend yet, mummie?”
“No,” looking up questioningly. “Hasn’t he?” in feigned surprise. “I am
astounded. He’s just full of her.”
“Her?” repeated Mrs Carew, raising her eyebrows significantly.
“Yes, _her_—and she _hates_ me, mummie. What do you think of that?”
“But surely she doesn’t know you?”
“That’s of no account at all. She’s rather given to hating, for she
hates Lawrie too—at least she says she does.”
“I hardly see how she can be his friend then.”
“Oh, yes! it’s simple enough. If I say I hate a man, I find it’s
generally a sure sign I rather like him. Only I’m surprised she’s found
the trick out, buried among those old mountains.”
“All the mountain ranges in the world piled up round a woman wouldn’t
make her other than contrary,” remarked Lawrence. “I can imagine her
wrestling and struggling to get away, and then a deliverer of the male
sex comes along and proceeds to help her, says something she doesn’t
like, or doesn’t say something she does like, and she would promptly
sit down and say she adored mountain ranges and wouldn’t be in any
other spot for the world.”
“Of course,” exclaimed Gwen, “you wouldn’t have us grow as milk and
watery and monotonous as the male sex, would you? That’s just what
makes us so interesting.”
“Irritating would be nearer the mark.”
“Well, both if you like. One is just as good for you as the other. But
touching this Irish girl, what’s her name, Lawrie?”
“There were two I told you of. Which do you mean?”
“Why, the one who hates, of course. The other doesn’t count, especially
if she’s goody-goody.”
“The hater is Paddy Adair.”
“Paddy!” cried Gwen in amusement. “What a name, but I rather like it!
I’m beginning to feel quite interested in this Paddy. At first I was
furious with her for daring to hate me, but now I rather like her for
it. Tell me something about her.”
“There isn’t anything to tell.”
“Of course there is. What does she do all day long, living in that
deadly place!”
“Fishes, and shoots, and sails.”
“Oh, does she shoot!” with eagerness.
“She’s the finest shot of her sex that I’ve ever come across, and she
can sail a boat as well as any man. She gets capsized into the loch
periodically, but thinks nothing of it. Her father is a soldier, and
the wilder the things she does, the better he likes it, because then he
is half able to persuade himself that she is a boy. I believe the dream
of his life was to have a son, but as it is he considers Paddy the next
best thing and dotes on her.”
“She must be very jolly,” said Gwen. “What a pity she isn’t pretty
too.”
“I never knew anyone who cared less. She won’t even take the trouble to
make the most of her hair, and yet, with a little pains, it is so
beautiful that she could easily pass for a good-looking girl.”
“I’d like to know her,” said Gwen.
“I daresay you will when you find there’s nothing for it but to take me
and reign at Mourne Lodge instead of Selloyd Castle,” with a twinkle.
“I wonder if she’d still hate me,” thoughtfully.
Lawrence said nothing, but he was of the opinion that Paddy would hate
more than ever.
Owen’s father came in then from an official interview with Lord
Kitchener, during which grave matters concerning the welfare of India
had been discussed. The Hon. Jack Carew, as he still continued to be
called, in spite of his forty-three years, held a Government post in
India, and was one of the popular rising men of his day, great things
being predicted for him in the future. Like all the rest, he idolised
Gwen, and when told of the Earl’s visit and its result he took her side
entirely, secretly only too glad to feel the question of a wedding once
more thrust in the background. The subject was quickly dismissed, and
affairs of state, as far as was permissible, discussed with great
interest between the father and daughter and Lawrence, until the latter
departed for his club.
Here he was surprised to find a letter with a thin black edge awaiting
him, in his mother’s handwriting, and, once more sinking into the
depths of a big easy-chair, he proceeded to read it. As he did so his
brow contracted somewhat, and once or twice he glanced over the top of
the paper with a half-anxious, worried expression. Then he folded it up
slowly, and sat for a long time lost in thought.
So the General was dead—the kind old soldier he could remember almost
as soon as he could remember anything—and, beyond doubt, Omeath and its
neighbourhood was greatly the poorer. And The Ghan House was to be let,
was probably already let, and Mrs Adair and her daughters were going to
London. This was the news that set him thinking the most deeply—at
first it seemed so utterly incredible. Omeath without the Adairs was
like a problem he could not solve. Omeath without Jack O’Hara—without
the Adairs or Jack—was only more extraordinary still.
And then to go to London! Eileen and Paddy cooped up in a little stuffy
London house, after their lovely home among the mountains on the
loch-side. It was not possible—surely it was not possible that this had
to be.
He read the letter again, lingering over the part that explained how
all the General’s private means had gone and there was nothing left but
the widow’s pension, and how the post of dispenser had been offered to
Paddy, and rather than be separated they were all going to London
together.
So Paddy was to be dispenser? What in the name of fortune could have
put such an idea into their heads? Paddy dispensing was so ludicrous to
him that he could scarcely forbear to smile. But he soon grew serious
again. The Adairs’ misfortunes touched him more nearly than he would
have thought. His mind ran on. If he went back and persuaded Eileen to
marry him, he wondered if there would be any difficulty about his
renting The Ghan House, and installing Mrs Adair and Paddy there for
good. He believed not. If it were arranged that the gift came from
Eileen, they could hardly object, and, for the matter of that, why
should they?
Far into the night Lawrence sat in his big easy-chair, oblivious to all
that was going on around him, thinking out his new idea.