His lordship welcomed the appearance of the two young people as a
relief from the further discussion of a painful topic.
‘So, young madam,’ he said to Dulcie, pinching her ear, ‘you’ve come
back! And where have you been all the afternoon?’
‘On the sands,’ said Dulcie. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’ she
asked, kissing him in a coaxing fashion, for the tone in which he had
spoken was a little sharp. ‘I was so sorry to hear that you had been
upset.’
‘It wouldn’t have happened if you had been at the table,’ said
Kilpatrick. ‘I suppose I have to thank _you_, sir,’ he continued to
Desmond, ‘for her absence? You’re pretty spectacles, the pair of you,’
he went on, looking at the disordered dresses, flushed faces and untidy
hair of the young couple. ‘You’ve been up to some mischief, I suppose?’
‘Not this time,’ said Desmond, smiling. ‘Hold your tongue, boy!’ snapped
his lordship, with sudden and inexplicable ill-temper. ‘Don’t bandy
words with me--hold your tongue!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Desmond.
‘Can’t you find something better to do than to go wandering about the
place, mixing with all the loafers and blackguards in the county? Can’t
you speak? You can chatter fast enough when you’re not asked to.’
‘You told me to hold my tongue, sir,’ said Desmond, falling back on
Irish prevarication and broadening his brogue.
‘I shall have to take some order with you, sir,’ said Kilpatrick.
‘Come to my study to-morrow after breakfast. It’s time you were doing
something--time you began to think of--of your future. There, there,’ he
continued, patting Desmond’s shoulder, ‘I’m not angry with you, my
boy. I’ve been upset, and in my state of health the least thing excites
me--ask Peebles.’
‘Ay,’ said the Scot, ‘that’s true--you’ve a troublesome temper.’
‘Never mind,’ said Dulcie; ‘we’ll coddle you up and comfort you. I’ll
play a game of backgammon with you, and if that doesn’t cure you, I’ll
send over to Galway for mamma.’
‘For your mother!’ cried Kilpatrick. ‘My sister Matilda!’
‘She’s a capital nurse,’ said Dulcie. ‘She’ll set you right in a
jiffy--as Desmond would say.’ The bit of slang passed unnoticed by his
lordship in his terror at the suggestion it conveyed.
‘Good heavens, child! Matilda will be praying over me day and night. I’m
not quite so bad as that--I won’t be prayed over; but for this little
cardiac weakness, I’m in excellent condition. Ask Peebles. There, there,
go and get your dinner, and take Desmond with you.’
‘I shall come back afterwards,’ said Dulcie.
‘Yes, yes!’ said her uncle. ‘Come back by-and-by and give me my game of
backgammon.’
‘I met Mr. Blake on the road, sir,’ said Desmond. ‘He asked me to
deliver a message to your lordship.’
‘Well,’ snapped Kilpatrick, ‘what has the drunken brute to say to me?’
‘Just to apologize for what he did and said this afternoon.’
‘His repentance is mighty sudden,’ said Kilpatrick.
‘He didn’t repent at all till Desmond talked to him,’ said Dulcie, glad
to get in a word in favour of her sweetheart.
‘So you’ve been giving Blake a lesson in manners, eh?’ said the old man.
‘And what did you say to him, and how did he take it?’
Desmond recounted the interview.
‘He took it like mother’s milk, sir. Sure he knew he was in the wrong.
He’s not a bad fellow, if you know how to humour him.’
Peebles coughed behind his hand a dubious note, and Kilpatrick, catching
the old man’s eye, said with something of his former testiness:
‘Well, well, that will do--go and eat your dinner. Peebles, wait on Lady
Dulcie.’
The two young people and the old servitor left the room together, and
Kilpatrick, sinking back into the seat he had quitted, sat for some
time plunged in silent thought. Conseltine, leaning against the high,
old-fashioned mantelpiece, took advantage of the shadow with which
the room was filled, and of his brother’s abstraction, to watch him
narrowly. The old lord sighed once or twice, and gave one or two
movements of impatience, and once the sound of a broken murmur reached
Conseltine’s ear, in which he distinguished only the word ‘Moya.’
‘Dick,’ said Kilpatrick, suddenly turning towards him, ‘I must provide
at once for Desmond--I simply must do it--I should be a cad if I
didn’t.’
The intently watchful look which Conseltine’s face had worn was replaced
by his general expression of suavity as he came forward into the ray of
light which was yet coming through the great oriel window.
‘My dear Henry,’ he said smoothly, ‘you are perfectly right. ’Tis the
dictate of nature and justice--it does you credit.’ Kilpatrick, who
was anything but a fool, looked at his brother with a curious, quick,
questioning glance. Conseltine replied to it as if to a speech.
‘I know, my dear Henry, I know! You’ve been thinking me grasping, and
avaricious, and heartless, all this time, now, haven’t you? And why?
Just because I’ve felt it my duty, as your brother and Richard’s father,
to safeguard the interests of the family. The title goes to Richard,
anyhow; and ’tis but common-sense, as you said just now yourself, that
the bulk of the property should go with it. ’Tis mighty little I can
leave him, and a lord without soil to his foot or a guinea in his pocket
would be a queer spectacle, wouldn’t he? ’Tis not Lord Kilpatrick,
anyhow, that shall be seen in that predicament; but you can provide for
Desmond, too. You can give him all he has a right to expect, and still
leave enough for Richard.’
The argument was unanswerable, the manner and voice with which it was
put were suave, persuasive, honest; but Kilpatrick’s only answer was to
shoot another quick, questioning glance at his brother’s face, and to
tap the carpet with his foot.
‘What would you call a proper provision?’ he asked, after an interval of
silence.
‘Give the boy a profession, and--well, some hundreds a year. He’s bright
and clever, and with that income, and a calling in his fingers, if he
can’t make his way in the world, ’tis a pity.’
‘A profession!’ said Kilpatrick musingly. ‘I don’t know what the boy’s
fit for, unless it’s for a soldier or a sailor.’
‘Bad pay and poor prospects,’ said Conseltine. ‘Why not the Church?’
His lordship went off into a sudden cackle of laughter.
‘The Church! Fancy Desmond a priest! Faith, ’twould be a pretty parish
that he had charge of!’
‘The bar?’ suggested his brother.
‘No; Desmond hates lawyers almost as much as Blake himself--it’s in the
blood, I suppose--I’m none too fond of them myself. I’ll think it over,
Dick, I’ll think it over; don’t bother me about it any more at
present. Nothing shall be done without your knowledge and--without your
knowledge, at all events.’
‘You are tired?’ asked Conseltine.
‘Yes, tired to death.’
‘Well, I’ll leave you to yourself. Goodnight; sleep well, and you’ll be
as sound as a trout in the morning. I’ll send up Peebles to help you to
undress.’
He went; and Kilpatrick, rising from his seat, began to pace the room
from end to end among the gathering shadows.
‘What the devil makes Dick Conseltine so tender all of a sudden?’ he
asked himself. ‘Dictate of nature and justice, indeed! He hates the boy
like poison, that I’m sure of. I can see it in his eye, sly and smooth
as he is, every time he looks at him; and so does that bull-headed young
fool, his son. It’s natural, I suppose. Faith, then, one sees the
hatred that money breeds--brother hating brother, father hating son, son
father; the meanness, lying, ingratitude, intriguing; I’d rather be the
poorest peasant on my estate. I’d rather be Desmond, poor boy; he knows
his friends, at least. Nobody cajoles and flatters him.’
He fell silent again, and paced the room with a slower step.
‘Poor Moya! Gad! how it all comes back to me! If she had been only a
little more of a lady, just a shade more possible as my wife! She was a
lady in heart and feeling; the truest I ever met, I think. I threw away
a jewel when I cast her off--nineteen years ago.
‘Nineteen years ago this month, and it is all as clear and vivid as if
it had happened yesterday. Poor girl! I can see her face now as it was
when I broke the secret to her. It will haunt me till I die, and after,
if all tales are true. I was a scoundrel! It was a vile business. There
are moments when I think Peebles is right: that it is my plain duty
to let family considerations slide, own the boy, and leave him all.
It wrings my heart to see him, handsome, manly, courageous, loved by
everybody--my son! my own son!--and then look at that long-shanked cub
of Dick’s, and think that he, Desmond, is worth a million of him,
worth a planetful of the stupid, ugly cur. How like his mother he is!
Sometimes he frightens me; it is as if the dead came out of the grave to
accuse me.’
He paused in his walk, and looked round the darkened chamber as if he
feared an actual hidden presence there; then he walked to his
desk, struck a match, and applied it to the wick of a small shaded
reading-lamp; then, stealthily, and with more than one glance over his
shoulder, he unlocked the desk, touched a spring, and drew from a secret
drawer a scrap of paper and a miniature portrait. It was to the paper
he gave his first attention. The writing, originally bold and heavy,
had faded to a faint rusty red, the paper was stained and spotted. ‘Take
your child,’ he read falteringly; ‘and as you use him may God use
you.’ He sat staring at the flame of the lamp, blurred by the mist of
gathering tears.
‘As you use him, may God use you,’ he repeated half aloud. ‘I’ll do my
duty by the boy--I _must!_ Before God, if Moya were alive!--No, even
that wouldn’t mend matters--it wouldn’t even mend her broken heart. It
was not that she wasn’t my lady--not that her vanity was wounded--it was
the treachery! She loved me--she thought me an honest man. It was her
pride in me that was broken. God forgive me! I acted like a villain!’
He took up the portrait and bent his eyes upon it with a long, regretful
gaze. It was the work of a true artist, who had caught and reproduced
with actual fidelity the features and expression of the proud and tender
girl Kilpatrick had betrayed. The bright, gay face, instinct with youth
and happiness, beamed from the picture; the sensitive lips seemed almost
to tremble as the world-worn old man gazed at them. The dress was that
of the better class of an Irish peasant of twenty years ago; but the
hand which held the shawl about the throat wore jewelled rings.
‘She sent back the rings--every scrap and every rag I’d ever given
her,’ said Kilpatrick. They lay in the secret drawer, and rattled as his
blanched fingers drew them forth. ‘She wouldn’t wear the dress I’d given
her when she had this taken. “Let me be as I was when you first knew me,
when the great lord wasn’t ashamed to tell the poor girl he loved her.”’
With a sudden passionate gesture of love and remorse, he carried the
picture to his lips.
‘My lord!’ said a voice so startlingly close that it seemed to be at his
very ear. Kilpatrick turned with a start and beheld a dim form standing
in the shadow of the door.
‘Confound you!’ he said. ‘Who is it?’
‘Just Peebles,’ said that worthy with his usual slow Scotch drawl.
‘Confound you,’ said his lordship again, ‘why didn’t you knock?’
‘I knocked twice,’ said Peebles, ‘and got nae answer. Mr. Conseltine
told me ye needed me.’
Kilpatrick dropped the letter and the miniature back into the desk and
closed and locked it before speaking again.
‘Is Feagus still below?’
‘Ay,’ said Peebles. ‘He’s drinking with Mr. Conseltine and Mr. Richard.
He’s just as drunk as a lord--begging your lordship’s pardon. It’s an
old proverb, and like the most o’ proverbs, it has its exceptions.’
‘Drunk, eh?’ said his lordship musingly.
‘Verra drunk!’ said Peebles. ‘It’s seldom he gets such liquor as comes
out o’ your cellar, my lord.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Kilpatrick absently; ‘I suppose so. Well, you can
help me to undress, Peebles, and then you can tell Mr. Feagus--you
can tell him--tell him I’ll write him regarding the business I have in
hand.’
Peebles, his face hidden in the darkness which surrounded the little
circle of light cast by the reading-lamp, smiled sourly.
‘Verra weel, my lord,’ he said; and Kilpatrick, rising, accepted his arm
as a support to his bedroom.
Half an hour later Peebles descended to the dining-room, where he found
Mr. Feagus with his head on the table and one arm curled lovingly round
an empty bottle.
It took some trouble to rouse him, and even when awakened he was for a
time oblivious of his surroundings. At last, dimly defining the figure
of Peebles, he took him for Blake, and rising with a sort of paralytic
alertness, bade the old man stand upon his defence. Peebles, from a safe
distance, proclaimed his identity; thereupon the lawyer, relinquishing
his pugnacious ardour, wept copiously, and would have embraced him.
‘Gang hame--gang hame, now!’ said Peebles, repulsing him; thereupon Mr.
Feagus’s tears ran faster. ‘My lord will send for ye if he should hae
need o’ ye.’
‘You’ll come and have a drink with me, just for the sake of old times,
Mr. Peebles?’ said Feagus.
‘Ye’ve had drink enough,’ said Peebles; ‘gang hame!’ and bundled him
through the French window opening on the lawn. Finding himself in the
open air, Feagus made straight by instinct for the high road. Peebles
stood at the window watching him tacking and reeling along the path
until he had passed out of sight, and was about to return and close the
window, when he heard a voice hailing him--
‘Misther Paybles! Misther Paybles!’ Peering into the darkness, he made
out a dim form approaching him.
‘Who is it?’ he asked.
‘’Tis me, sure--Larry.’
Peebles recognised the lad, a henchman of Desmond’s, a village loafer,
generally to be found in the company either of the Squireen or of Lady
Dulcie’s maid, Rosie.
‘Weel, Larry! What hae ye there?’
‘’Tis a letther!’ panted Larry.
‘For my lord?’
‘No, ’tis for yourself.’
‘And where did ye get it?’
‘I met a poor woman at the foot o’ the hill, and she asked me if I knew
one Misther Paybles. “Sure I do,” says I. “Then,” ses she, “will ye earn
the blessin’ on a poor craythur by givin’ this into his own hand?” “I
will,” ses I--and here I am.’
Peebles accepted the scrap of paper Larry held out to him, and walking
to the chimneypiece, read it by the light of the lamp: ‘One who comes
from Kenmare, and who knew Moya Macartney’--he started, but, remembering
Larry’s presence, controlled himself and read on--‘would like to speak
with him who was the best of friends to that poor colleen before she
died. Will you meet the writer at ten tomorrow night in the churchyard
by the lake-side and hear her message, for poor Moya’s sake?’
Peebles stood silent for a moment, the paper shaking in his fingers.
‘Who gave ye this, did ye say?’ he asked.
‘A stranger,’ said Larry. ‘She said there was no answer.’
‘Verra weel,’ said Peebles, in a tone as near commonplace as he could
make it. ‘I’ll attend to it.’ Larry saluted and vanished.
Left alone, Peebles mused:
‘What’s the meaning of this? What mystery’s here? A droll kind o’
message, and a droll kind o’ place for an appointment, and a droll hour
o’ the night for a respectable man to be gadding about a kirkyard. Weel,
weel! Maybe it’s one of Moya’s kin anxious to hear news aboot the bairn.
Be she friend or foe, angel or deil, I’ll be there.’