THE EARL’S PROMISE.
A Novel.
BY
MRS. RIDDELL,
AUTHOR OF
“GEORGE GEITH,” “TOO MUCH ALONE,” “HOME, SWEET HOME,” ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1873.
[_All rights of Translation and Reproduction are Reserved._]
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAP. PAGE.
I. KINGSLOUGH NÉE BALLYLOUGH 1
II. WHERE CAN SHE BE? 23
III. THE GLENDARES 57
IV. HOW THE NEWS ARRIVED 78
V. MR. RILEY’S PROSPECTS 97
VI. ON THE TERRACE 124
VII. MR. SOMERFORD’S SUGGESTION 144
VIII. INTRODUCES THE NAME OF AMOS SCOTT 180
IX. AT THE CASTLE FARM 225
X. MR. DANIEL BRADY RECEIVES 250
XI. NETTIE AT BAY 281
THE EARL’S PROMISE.
CHAPTER I.
KINGSLOUGH _née_ BALLYLOUGH.
Kingslough at high noon was ordinarily the stupidest, dullest, dirtiest
little town that could have been found in the Province of Ulster. On
market and fair, and party-procession days, the inhabitants seemed to
expend the whole of their strength. An almost unbroken calm ensued after
wild excitement, a death-like stillness followed the shouts and cries of
faction, the shrieks of drunken merriment, the shrill piping of fifes,
the braying of trumpets, and the bang-banging of drums.
Excepting on such and such-like festive occasions as those above
enumerated, the town, figuratively speaking, looked as though it had
gone to bed to sleep off the effects of its last excitement or debauch.
In the bright sunlight it appeared like a place deserted by its
population—a place rich in every natural beauty, which there was neither
man nor woman to admire.
So far as position was concerned, Kingslough had nothing left to desire.
Situated on an arm of the sea, the town, well sheltered from the wild
north winds by hills and far-spreading plantations, nestled its houses
snugly along the shore, while the blue waves rippled gently in over the
red sandstone beach.
Nature had indeed done everything for the little watering-place, and man
had, as is usually the case, done his best to spoil Nature’s handiwork.
Seen from the sea Kingslough lay tranquil under its hills, the
perfection of an artist’s ideal; but a nearer view dispelled this
allusion, and it appeared to eyes from which the glamour was removed,
just what it has already been described, the stupidest, dullest,
dirtiest little town in Ulster.
Here was no dark Moorish architecture, lighted up by the bright costumes
and brighter eyes of the Galway women. Here were no fantastic houses, no
picturesque surprises, no archways lying in deep shadow, no recessed and
highly ornamented doorways, no rich carvings, no evidences of a
wonderful and romantic past. Everything was straight, strictly
utilitarian, mean. The best houses presented outwardly no sign of the
amount of actual accommodation they contained.
They were old, but they had not grown grey and softened with the lapse
of years. The prevailing “finish” amongst the better class of residences
was paint or rough-cast, whilst the dwellings inhabited by the trading
and working members of the community were periodically covered with
lime-white, which the rain as regularly washed off.
The side-paths were uneven, the streets unlighted, every sanitary
regulation either unborn or in the earliest and weakest stage of
infancy. From a picturesque point of view the fishing-boats drawn up on
the beach formed a pleasing foreground to a charming landscape,
acceptable to the eye; but the neighbourhood of these boats was
disagreeable to the nose by reason of cods’ heads, and other fishy
matters, that lay decomposing in the sun.
Time had been when Kingslough was known by a more distinctively Irish
name, that of Ballylough, the A being pronounced very broad indeed,
while a fine guttural sound was imparted to the “ough,”—as indeed is
still the case with the terminal letters in Kingslough.
At that period, Ballylough was a very modest Bally indeed, and the
lodgings it let in the boating season to strangers from Glenwellan were
of the most primitive description.
The villa residences, the rows of terraces, the sea-wall, the grand
promenade overlooking the bay, all of which now delight the eyes of
tourists and others, had not yet emerged from the then future that has
long since become the past.
The occasion on which the tiny seaport came to be re-christened, was
that of the first gentleman in Europe succeeding to the British throne.
Mighty things were, by certain people and classes in Ireland, expected
to result from that event.
His visit, when Prince of Wales, to the Isle of Saints had excited high
hopes in the hearts of many of his Hibernian subjects.
The liberalism exhibited by the heir-apparent would, they felt
satisfied, be brought into practice by the sovereign in remedying the
wrongs of Ireland.
The Roman Catholics believed they should now have a friend and partisan
in the highest places, able and willing to redress their grievances. The
trading portion of the community, deceived by the fact of the honour or
dishonour of knighthood having been conferred on a few Dublin
shopkeepers, trusted the hour was at hand when commerce would be
recognized as a power in Ireland; and that a good time was coming, when
money made in mills and offices might be pleasantly spent in crushing
the pride of those “aristocrats,” who spite of their poverty persisted
in holding a semblance of state on their unproductive acres, and
extending such hospitality as their narrow means permitted, solely and
exclusively to those they considered born by God’s grace in the same
rank of life as themselves.
As for the dissenters in the north,—that numerous and remarkable body to
which successive monarchs and prime ministers have paid a curious amount
of attention ever since the time of William the Third, who established
that _raison d’être_ of many a shabby, poorly attended place of worship,
the Regium Donum—as for the dissenters they cherished a vague idea that,
although his Most Gracious Majesty George IV. might be styled “Defender
of the Faith,” which was not in some respects exactly their faith, still
the light of his glorious countenance would not impossibly be lent to
them for the purpose of placing those who worshipped in meetinghouses
and other conventicles on a par, socially and pecuniarily, with their
old enemy the Church as by law established. The labouring classes
commonly cherished a conviction that an immediate rise of wages must
follow the coronation; in fact, amongst those of the Irish who wanted
and hoped for anything, there was a noisy and expectant accession of
loyalty: and as a small evidence of this, the municipal rulers of
Ballylough convened a meeting, at which with the almost unanimous
consent of the inhabitants it was decided that for the future—
“The important seaport town of Ballylough, possessed of an almost
natural harbour, situated on the direct route to America, in the centre
of a supply of herrings practically speaking limitless, boasting a beach
unrivalled in the three kingdoms, and which presented facilities for
bathing unsurpassed by any other watering-place, having likewise in its
immediate neighbourhood manufactories of no mean extent” and so forth,
should for the future be known to those whom it might, and those whom it
might not concern, as Kingslough.
In liberal and democratic matters the rulers over the town were strong.
Amongst others of less note may be enumerated a woollen-draper who in
the course of a long and laborious life had made much money, and what
was more to the purpose, kept it when made; a certain sea-captain called
Mullins, reputed to be worth nine thousand pounds, every sixpence of
which he had made by smuggling; an apothecary; a Mr. Connor, who resided
a little way out of the town, and who, possessing an income of one
hundred and thirty pounds a year, did nothing, as his fathers had done
before him.
These men, being ardent lovers of their country, its traditions, Brian
Baroïhme, the Irish melodies (“Boyne Water” and “Protestant Boys”
excepted), illicit spirits, and the Old Parliament House on Stephen’s
Green, were, as might have been expected, uproarious with delight when
this graceful tribute to the virtues of their new monarch had been
offered.
From the demonstration, however, all those who belonged to the powerful
though comparatively small Tory party held resolutely aloof.
They could generally, not always by ways and influence that would have
borne the light, materially assist in sending one member for the county
at least to the House of Commons, but in local and municipal matters
they were impotent.
Ballylough was owned by the Earl of Glendare who to the disgust of Lord
Ardmorne, his relentless political opponent, chanced to be
ground-landlord of almost every house and public building the town
contained.
For centuries the Glendares had been connected with that part of the
country. All those members of the family who died in any place
reasonably accessible to Ireland were carried up a very steep hill
overlooking Ballylough, where among the ruins of Ballyknock Abbey the
curious stranger could obtain an exquisite view over land and sea, and
behold at the same time sheep nibbling the short sweet mountain herbage
beside the family vault which contained all that death had left of youth
and beauty—of rank, wealth, and earthly consideration.
It was a mighty strange contrast to meet Lady Glendare in her grand
coach, a very Jezebel made up of pride, paint, deceit, extravagance and
heartlessness, and then to toil up to that burying-place lying lonely
among the desolate hills, and think of those women—once haughty and
sinful, just like her, in life knowing no rest, making no happiness—who
lay there mouldering into dust.
At the time of George the Fourth’s accession to the throne, Charles, the
eighth Earl had not long succeeded to the title and estates of his
father, and so far from objecting to Ballylough being changed into
Kingslough gave the project his warmest support, being moved thereto by
the reasons following.
First, because he trusted his eldest son, no longer a young man, would
sooner or later hold an appointment about the Court of the new monarch;
secondly, because a builder, who proposed the wild speculation of
erecting a terrace of houses, and was willing to pay a handsome sum down
for a lease of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, signified his belief
that houses, and land intended as sites for houses, would let better if
the place were, as he expressed himself, “given a fresh start;” and
thirdly, because he knew the change would annoy Lord Ardmorne.
So the name was altered, and the town, after a sleepy, inconsequent sort
of fashion, grew and prospered; so that by the time this story
commences, it had established for itself the name of a highly
respectable, not to say aristocratic, watering-place.
Travelling then was not what it is now. People did not go whisking about
like comets; a journey was attended with many discomforts; the nearer
home anxious mothers could obtain sea-bathing for their darlings, and
change of air and scene for themselves, the better they were pleased;
and accordingly, in the season, Kingslough was crammed from parlour to
attic, and even ladies who, having seen better days, spoke much about
their papas and mammas, and a radiant past which had once been theirs,
did not disdain to let lodgings, or it might be to accept invitations
during the summer months from various relations and friends, so as to
leave their houses and furniture free for the use of Mr. and Mrs., or
Sir and my Lady, at so much per month.
But even in the season it was not a lively place. People went there to
bathe, not to form acquaintances. Let Mrs. Murtock, wife of Murtock, the
great distiller, don what gorgeous array she pleased, not even a glance
could she win from one of the upper ten as they sat in church trying to
look blandly unconscious of her existence.
People made no experiments in acquaintanceship at Kingslough. The world,
according to the then social gospel extant, meant the old stock and the
new; and whenever the new held out the right hand of fellowship to the
old, it got, metaphorically speaking, so cruelly slapped, that the
experiment was rarely repeated.
Not a dweller in the Faubourg St. Germain was in reality one whit more
bitterly proud than those Irish ladies, so charming in their manners to
high and low, to those on the same rung of the social ladder as
themselves, and those at the foot of it; but who refused to recognize
even the existence of “such people” as the wives and daughters of men
that could, to use the expression which frequently fell from their lips,
have “bought and sold” the lands and goods and chattels of the old stock
without a misgiving as to where the money was to come from to compass so
laudable a purpose.
Altogether, unless a human being was excessively fond of his own society
and natural scenery, Kingslough could not have been accounted a
desirable place in which to settle for life.
Its aboriginal inhabitants—those, that is to say, who resided there all
the year round, were principally a well-developed race of marvellously
healthy, dirty, poor, ragged, happy children, shoeless and stockingless
as regarded their legs and feet, soapless and combless as concerned
their heads and faces.
From early morning till late at night these picturesque urchins held
high revel in the gutters and along the side-paths of the poorer
streets; scores of them disported themselves along the beach, wading out
into the sea as far as their clothing—scanty enough, Heaven knows—would
allow them, and when the sea, or tide as they called it, was out too far
to be waded into, they pursued the entrancing amusement of hunting for
crabs and periwinkles on the sands.
At intervals, shrill cries from some woman, got up in the costume of her
class—a large white cap, with immense coiffured frills on her head, and
a very small plaid shawl over her shoulders—shrieking for the return of
her offspring, interrupted the pastimes indulged in by youth at
Kingslough.
Occasionally these cries from the parents were succeeded by bitter
lamentations from the children, who were not unfrequently hurried back
to the duties and realities of life by slaps, and threats of more
serious punishment.
Towards evening, young men and old men, who, following fishing as a
profession, spent a considerable portion of the day in bed, appeared
upon the scene. Stalwart weatherbeaten men, attired in pilot-coats and
sou’westers, they made their way to the shore, where great tub-like
smacks lay waiting their coming.
These fishers were brave and patient; kind, tender husbands to wives,
who soon lost their good looks in that hard northern climate, and grew
prematurely wrinkled and aged with the battle of life; good sons to
widowed mothers or aged fathers; faithful lovers to girls who boasted
exquisite complexions, tall, erect figures, and a wealth of beautiful
hair rarely to be seen amongst their Saxon sisters; a grand, sturdy,
hard-working race, who feared God exceedingly, and went out in the wild,
dark winter nights to war with the winds and the waves as undauntedly as
though each season did not leave some maid, or wife, or mother desolate.
Next to the fishermen came the shopkeeper class, who differed from each
other as stars vary in magnitude, from Widow McCann, who set out her
cottage-window with sweets, and cakes, and apples for the children, and
who sold besides, halfpennyworths of everything that could possibly be
sub-divided into that value, to Mr. Neill, proprietor of _the_ shop of
the town, a place where everything, from an ounce of tea to canvas for
sails, from a boy’s kite to a plough, could be procured at a moment’s
notice.
Mr. Neill at one time entertained ideas of making his way into
drawing-rooms where only the _élite_ of Kingslough society was to be
found; but his pretensions being firmly and, truth to say, not over
courteously repudiated, he afterwards revenged himself by buying from
the Encumbered Estates Commissioners a great property in Munster, where,
though it was darkly rumoured that he once stood behind a counter,
impecunious gentry—_real_ gentry as the poorer classes call them—made
friends with his sons and daughters, hoping that the marriage of blood
with money might yet save the rushy acres they lacked capital and energy
to drain.
Time has done wonders in Ireland. It has taught the “old stock” that if
they want money, and unhappily they cannot do without it, they must
tolerate the people who have been able to make money.
But they do not like those persons yet, except as a means to an end; and
possibly the faculty of adding sovereign to sovereign and acre to acre
is not exactly that calculated to render a man socially popular
anywhere.
The Kingslough upper ten held that opinion at any rate. They longed for
Dives’ possessions, but Dives himself they would have consigned to a
deeper hell than that mentioned in the parable, had their theology
contained it.
Above the shopkeepers ranked the manufacturers, men who attended closely
to their business, associated freely amongst themselves, and on the
occasion of public dinners, meetings, and the like, were shaken by the
hand by Lord Glendare, Lord Ardmorne, and the remainder of the élite of
Kingslough.
They did not presume on these privileges. Residing out of the town, they
came little in contact with its inhabitants, and were content with such
civilities as the worthies of Kingslough thought fit to accord.
If they could afford to keep good horses, their sons followed the
hounds; and they generally were able to give dowries to their daughters,
when in due course of time they married men who likewise were connected
with manufacture, either far off or near at hand.
They were select people, keeping themselves to themselves, marrying and
intermarrying amongst their own class, neither meddling nor
intermeddling with the affairs of their neighbours.
They gave employment and they paid good wages, and took care that
neither their smoke nor their refuse caused offence to Kingslough.
The town might claim them, but they did not claim the town. If they
interfered in politics, and had strong opinions about the return of
members for the county, it was but human and Irish. As a rule they were
quiet enough, harmless as doves, busy with their own gathering and
storing of honey as bees.
Higher than the manufacturers, who? Old maids and poodles. The Court
Circle at Kingslough was composed almost entirely of ladies who wore
fronts, and fat, snapping wretches of dogs who had too much hair of
their own. The men belonging to these women were dead, or serving the
king in India, or captains on board men-of-war, or constabulary officers
in remote parts of Ireland, or barristers in Dublin, or even it might be
solicitors in the same city, who had a large connection amongst the
landed gentry and were learned in the mysteries of conveyancing.
These men did not often visit Kingslough, but on the rare occasions of
their coming, the sensation produced by their presence was profound.
Kingslough rubbed its eyes, so to say, and woke up, and the opinions and
facts then brought from the great and wicked world to that garden of
Eden where so many elderly Eves congregated, furnished conversation for
years afterwards.
In addition to the inhabitants already enumerated, Kingslough reckoned
amongst its gentry a clergyman, whose cure was four miles distant; a
curate, on whose shoulders devolved the spiritual responsibilities of a
rector, who was continually absent from his flock; a colonel, who had
never been in active service, but who, on the strength of his rank in
the army, was so fortunate as to marry an English lady possessed of a
comfortable fortune; a priest, the soul of good company; a remarkably
acute attorney, Lord Ardmorne’s agent; the police officer, and, may I
add, the doctor?
Hardly. He attended all the population, gentle and simple, and was
popular alike amongst high and low. He knew the secrets of most
households, was personally acquainted with the history and appearance of
those skeletons that do somehow contrive to get locked up in the
cupboards of even the best regulated families; but he had sprung from
the bourgeois class, he had relatives very low down in the worldly
scale, he had friends whose existence and status could not be overlooked
by old maids and old women of the other sex, and therefore, and for all
these reasons he was socially only tolerated by his best patients.
Curious stories he could have told concerning some of them—stories
compromising the honour of many an ancient house, but his name had never
been tarnished by any indiscreet confidence.
Even to the wife of his bosom, a woman of an inquiring, not to say
inquisitive turn of mind, who had as many wiles as a poacher, and
changed her tactics as often as a fox, he presented an invulnerable
front of lamb-like innocence.
Trusting her ostensibly with everything in and out of his professional
experience, he kept her in a state of actual ignorance, worthy of
admiration in these latter days.
The moment he started on his rounds in the morning, she started on
hers—telling this, that, and the other as the most profound secret to
each one of her acquaintances, who laughed at her when once she left the
house—for had they not heard all she was able to communicate, and more,
hours previously, from Molly the fish-wife, or Pat O’Donnel, one of the
privileged beggars and newsmongers of the town?
So ends the list. If tedious, it has been necessary to indicate the
history of Kingslough and glance at the élite of Kingslough society in
order to save stoppages by the way hereafter.
After this needful digression, let us revert to the first sentence in
this story once again, and enter the stupid, dull, dirty little town of
Kingslough at noon.