Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and
surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from
under the arched gateway of Cro' Martin. One eager and anxious face
turned hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and
then as hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin
sat back in the carriage in silence.
“Twenty minutes after eight!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her
watch. “It is always the case; one never can get away in time.”
Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window.
“How handsome those larches are!” cried he; “it seems but yesterday that
I planted them, and they are magnificent trees now.”
Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to
himself: “The place is in great beauty just now. I don't think I ever
saw it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?” muttered he, in a
still lower tone.
“I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I
were to say 'No' to that question,” said she, testily.
“No--no!” exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; “not come back
here!”
“There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do
so,” replied she, calmly. “I only observed that one could face the
alternative with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in
this spot are represented to _your_ mind by more leafy trees and better
timber. To _me_ they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless,
weary existence. I detest the place,” cried she, passionately, “and
for nothing more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and
broken to feel the happiness that they ought.”
Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word.
“So it is,” resumed she; “one ever takes these resolutions too late.
What we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years
ago.”
“Or not at all,” muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be
overheard.
“I don't think so, sir,” cried she, catching up his words; “if only
as our protest against the insolence and ingratitude of this
neighborhood,--of these creatures who have actually been maintained by
us! It was high time to show them their real condition, and to what they
will be reduced when the influence of our position is withdrawn.”
“If it were only for _that_ we are going away--” And he stopped himself
as he got thus far.
“In itself a good and sufficient reason, sir; but I trust there are
others also. I should hope that we have paid our debt to patriotism, and
that a family who have endured twenty years of banishment may return,
if only to take a passing glance at the world of civilization and
refinement.”
“And poor Mary!” exclaimed Martin, with deep feeling.
“Your niece might have come with us if she pleased, Mr. Martin. To
remain here was entirely her own choice; not that I am at all disposed
to think that her resolution was not a wise one. Miss Mary Martin
feels very naturally her utter deficiency in all the graces and
accomplishments which should pertain to her condition. She appreciates
her unfitness for society, and selects--as I think, with commendable
discretion--a sphere much better adapted to her habits.”
Martin again sighed heavily.
“To leave any other girl under such circumstances would have been highly
improper,” resumed her Ladyship; “but she is really suited to this kind
of life, and perfectly unfit for any other, and I have no doubt she and
Catty Broon will be excellent company for each other.”
“Catty loves her with all her heart,” muttered Martin.
And her Ladyship's lip curled in silent derision at the thought of such
affection. “And, after all,” said he, half involuntarily, “our absence
will be less felt so long as Molly stays behind.”
“If you mean by that, Mr. Martin, that the same system of wasteful
expenditure is still to continue,--this universal employment scheme,--I
can only say I distinctly and flatly declare against it. Even Rep
ton--and I 'm sure he 's no ally of mine--agrees with me in pronouncing
it perfectly ruinous.”
“There's no doubt of the cost of it,” said Martin, gravely.
“Well, sir, and what other consideration should weigh with us?--I mean,”
added she, hastily, “what should have the same weight? The immaculate
authority I have just quoted has limited our personal expenditure for
next year to five thousand pounds, and threatens us with even less in
future if the establishment at Cro' Martin cannot be reduced below its
present standard; but I would be curious to know why there is such a
thing as an establishment at Cro' Martin?”
“Properly speaking, there is none,” said Martin. “Rep-ton alludes only
to the workpeople,--to those employed on the grounds and the gardens. We
cannot let the place go to ruin.”
“There is certainly no necessity for pineries and forcing-houses. Your
niece is not likely to want grapes in January, or camellias in the early
autumn. As little does she need sixteen carriage-horses and a stable
full of hunters.”
“They are to be sold off next week. Mary herself said that she only
wanted two saddle-horses and the pony for the phaeton.”
“Quite sufficient, I should say, for a young lady.”
“I 'm sure she 'd have liked to have kept the harriers--”
“A pack of hounds! I really never heard the like!”
“Poor Molly! It was her greatest pleasure,--I may say her only amusement
in life. But she would n't hear of keeping them; and when Repton tried
to persuade her--”
“Repton's an old fool,--he's worse; he's downright dishonest,--for he
actually proposed my paying my maids out of my miserable pittance
of eight hundred a year, and at the same moment suggests your niece
retaining a pack of foxhounds!”
“Harriers, my Lady.”
“I don't care what they 're called. It is too insolent.”
“You may rely upon one thing,” said Martin, with more firmness than
he had hitherto used, “there will be nothing of extravagance in Mary's
personal expenditure. If ever there was a girl indifferent to all the
claims of self, she is that one.”
“If we continue this discussion, sir, at our present rate, I opine that
by the time we reach Dublin your niece will have become an angel.”
Martin dropped his head, and was silent; and although her Ladyship made
two or three other efforts to revive the argument, he seemed resolved
to decline the challenge, and so they rolled along the road sullen and
uncommunicative.
In the second carriage were Repton and Kate Henderson,--an arrangement
which the old lawyer flatteringly believed he owed to his cunning and
address, but which in reality was ordained by Lady Dorothea, whose
notions of rank and precedence were rigid. Although Repton's greatest
tact lay in his detection of character, he felt that he could not
satisfactorily affirm he had mastered the difficulty in the present
case. She was not exactly like anything he had met before; her mode of
thought, and even some of her expressions were so different that the
old lawyer owned to himself, “It was like examining a witness through an
interpreter.”
A clever talker--your man of conversational success--is rarely patient
under the failure of his powers, and, not very unreasonably perhaps,
very ready to ascribe the ill-success to the defects of his hearer. They
had not proceeded more than half of the first post ere Repton began to
feel the incipient symptoms of this discontent.
She evidently had no appreciation for bar anecdote and judicial wit;
she took little interest in political events, and knew nothing of the
country or its people. He tried the subject of foreign travel, but his
own solitary trip to Paris and Brussels afforded but a meagre experience
of continental life, and he was shrewd enough not to swim a yard out of
his depth. “She must have her weak point, if I could but discover it,”
said he to himself. “It is not personal vanity, that I see. She does not
want to be thought clever, nor even eccentric, which is the governess
failing _par excellence_. What then can it be?” With all his ingenuity
he could not discover. She would talk, and talk well, on any theme
he started, but always like one who maintained conversation through
politeness and not interest; and this very feature it was which piqued
the old man's vanity, and irritated his self-love.
When he spoke, she replied, and always with a sufficient semblance of
interest; but if he were silent, she never opened her lips.
“And so,” said he, after a longer pause than usual, “you tell me that
you really care little or nothing whither Fortune may be now conducting
you.”
“To one in my station it really matters very little,” said she, calmly.
“I don't suppose that the post-horses there have any strong preference
for one road above another, if they be both equally level and smooth.”
“There lies the very question,” said he; “for you now admit that there
may be a difference.”
“I have never found in reality,” said she, “that these differences were
appreciable.”
“How is it that one so young should be so--so philosophic?” said he,
after a hesitation.
“Had you asked me that question in French, Mr. Repton, the language
would have come so pleasantly to your aid, and spared you the
awkwardness of employing a grand phrase for a small quality; but my
'philosophy' is simply this: that, to fill a station whose casualties
range from courtesies in the drawing-room to slights from the servants'
hall, one must arm themselves with very defensive armor as much, nay
more, against flattery than against sarcasm. If, in the course of time,
this habit render one ungenial and uncompanionable, pray be lenient
enough to ascribe the fault to the condition as much as to the
individual.”
“But, to be candid, I only recognize in you qualities the very opposite
of all these; and if I am to confess a smart at this moment, it is in
feeling that I am not the man to elicit them.”
“There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton.”
“Now we are on the good road at last!” said he, gayly; “for Mr. Repton
is dying to be captivated.”
“The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to
the conqueror,” replied she.
“By Jove! I 'm glad you 're not at the bar.”
“If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr.
Repton.”
“How so? What do you mean?”
“I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have
done so!”
“Ah! they told you that,” said he, coloring with pleasurable pride.
“Well, it's quite true. The fact is correct, but I don't know what
explanation they have given of it!”
“There was none, sir,--or, at least, none that deserved the name.”
“Then what was your own reading of it?” asked he.
“Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks,
but spurn the grade of a petty officer.”
“By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand
one's motives better than an old Minister,” said he, with an evident
satisfaction.
“It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own
perspicuity in this case,” said she, hastily; “for I was aided in my
judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister's eyes.”
“And what was that?”
“A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, entitled
'Days of the Historical Society of Trinity College,' wherein I found Mr.
Repton's name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in
enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go
further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great
principles of the French Revolution.”
“Ah,--yes. I was a boy,--a mere boy,--very rash,--full of hope,--full of
enthusiasm,” said Repton, with an embarrassment that increased at every
word. “We all took fire from the great blaze beside us just then; but,
my dear young lady, the flame has died out,--very fortunately, too; for
if it had n't, it would have burned us up with it. We were wrong,--wrong
with Burke, to be sure,--_Errare Platone_, as one may say,--but still
wrong.”
“You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences;
wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking
the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by
declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back
affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you
accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great
champions of liberty you descended to be--modern Whigs!”
“Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!” said Repton,
looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.
“I don't much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks
that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment.
We shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be
done, nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will
be as effectual as a 'Noyade,' and a Reforming Administration will work
as cleanly as a Constituent!”
“But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconstituted
pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige
of rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?”
“The best evidence. Nobody believes in it,--not one. Society is
reconstituted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he
can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people--the true
people of the Continent--look at the pageantry of a court and a nobility
just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the same
spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice
permit, and then, some fine morning, they 'll dash down the whole
edifice; and be assured that the fragments of the broken toy will never
suggest the sentiment to repair it.”
“You are a Democrat of the first water!” exclaimed Repton, in half
amazement.
“I am simply for the assertion of the truth everywhere and in
everything,--in religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If
the people be the source of power, don't divert the stream into another
channel; and, above all, don't insist that it should run up-hill! Come
abroad, Mr. Repton,--just come over with us to Paris,--and see if what
I am telling you be so far from the fact. You 'll find, too, that it
is not merely the low-born, the ignoble, and the poor who profess these
opinions, but the great, the titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen
quarterings and ancient lineage; and who, sick to death of a contest
with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather start fair in the race again, and
win whatever place their prowess or their capacity might giye them. You
'll hear very good socialism from the lips of dukes and princesses who
swear by Fourier.”
Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard
than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually
assumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her
features a character of boldness and determination such as he had not
seen in them before..
“Yes,” resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, “it is
your new creations, your ennobled banker, your starred and cordoned
agitator of the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the
divine right of misrule! The truly noble have other sentiments!”
“There 's nothing surprises me so much,” said Repton, at last, “as
to hear these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the
blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy,
and never could have arisen without one,--who has lived that delightful
life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms the
atmosphere of only one class throughout the whole world. How would you
bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?”
“As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may,
perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really,” added
she, laughing, “this is wandering very far out of the record. I had
promised myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to
array every feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against
me.”
“It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such
sentiments as you have just uttered,” said Repton, gravely. “I was young
and ardent,--full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after
all, the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old,
time-hardened lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you
suppose that such opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the
interval?”
“Come over to Paris, sir,” was her reply.
“And I would ask nothing better,” rejoined he. “Did I ever tell you of
what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France,
after the peace of '15? 'Now is the time to see the French capital,'
said Mac. 'I 'll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other,
and start to-morrow.' 'Ay, sir,' said Parsons, 'and never change either
till you come back again!'”
Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting
story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor
was Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his
stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!
The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea's French
maid; Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar,
Mr. Martin's “gentleman,”--a party which, we are forced to own, seemed
to combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the
vehicles that preceded them. To _their_ share there were no regrets for
leaving home,--no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by long
association. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They were
escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth into
that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why
should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its associations
more essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single
compensation for all its depression to such as these?
“Our noble selves,” said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies' glasses, and
then his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before
them, and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the
crystal ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. “Mam'selle, it is your favorite
tipple, and deliciously cool.”
“Perfection,” replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had
been long in England; “and I never enjoyed it more. _Au revoir_,”
added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro' Martin, just
visible above the trees,--“_Au revoir!_”
“Just so,--till I see you again,” said Mrs. Runt; “and I 'm sure I
'll take good care that day won't come soon. It seems like a terrible
nightmare when I think of the eight long years I passed there.”
“_Et moi_, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, _provisoirement_, to
come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in
Paris, Rome, Naples,--_que sais-je?_ I accept,--I arrive,--_et me
voici!_” And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct
attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.
“Hard lines, ma'am,” said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused
of an _equivoque_; “and here am I, that left the best single-handed
situation in all England,--Sir Augustus Hawleigh's,--a young fellow
just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here at
a salary positively little better than a country curate's, and live the
life of--of--what shall I say?--”
“No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one
glass, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house.”
“I 'm sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there,” said Peddar,
adjusting his cravat; “she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better,
though.”
“She has no ambitions,--no what you call them?--no aspirations for _le
grand monde_; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she is.”
“But with a young fellow of _ton_ and fashion, mam'selle,--a fellow
who has seen life,--to guide and bring her out, trust me, there are
excellent capabilities in that girl.” And as Mr. Peddar enunciated the
sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and performed a
kind of impromptu toilet.
“She do dress herself _bien mal_.”
“Disgracefully so,” chimed in Mrs. Runt “I believe, whenever she bought
a gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she 'd done
with it.”
“I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something,” said
Peddar, affectedly.
“_Au contraire_,--she like to make the contrast more strong; she always
seek to make say, '_Regardez_, mademoiselle, see what a _tournure_ is
there!'”
“Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?” asked Mrs. Runt.
“Handsome, yes; but not _my_ style,--not one of what _I_ call _my_
women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?” And he drew his head back,
and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.
“Just so. Downright impudent, I'd call it.”
“Not even that,” said Mr. Peddar, pondering; “haughty, rather,--a kind
of don't-think-to-come-it-on-me style of look, eh?”
“Not at all amiable,--_point de cela,_” exclaimed mam'selle; “but still,
I will say, _très bon genre_. You see at a glance that she has seen _la
bonne société._”
“Which, after all, is the same all the world over,” said Peddar,
dogmatically. “At Vienna we just saw the same people we used to have
with us in London; at Rome, the same; so, too, at Naples. I assure you
that the last time I dined at Dolgorouki's, I proposed going in the
evening to the Haymarket. I quite forgot we were on the Neva. And when
Prince Gladuatoffski's gentleman said, 'Where shall I set you down?'
I answered carelessly, 'At my chambers in the Albany, or anywhere your
Highness likes near that.' Such is life!” exclaimed he, draining the
last of the champagne into his glass.
“The place will be pretty dull without us, I fancy,” said Mrs. Runt,
looking out at the distant landscape.
“That horrid old Mother Broon won't say so,” said Peddar, laughing. “By
Jove! if it was only to escape that detestable hag, it 's worth while
getting away.”
“I offer her my hand when I descend the steps, but she refuse
_froidement_, and say, 'I wish you as much pleasure as you leave behind
you.' _Pas mal_ for such a _creature_.”
“I did n't even notice her,” said Mrs. Runt.
“_Ma foi!_ I was good with all the world; I was in such Joy--such
spirits--that I forgave all and everything. I felt _nous sommes en
route_, and Paris--dear Paris--before us.”
“My own sentiments to, a T,” said Mr. Peddar. “Let me live on the
Boulevards, have my cab, my stall at the Opera, two Naps, per diem
for my dinner, and I'd not accept Mary Martin's hand if she owned Cro'
Martin, and obliged me to live in it.”
The speech was fully and warmly acknowledged, other subjects were
started, and so they travelled the same road as their betters, and
perhaps with lighter hearts.