My Lady Clancarty
_Mary Imlay Taylor’s Novels_
ON THE RED STAIRCASE.
AN IMPERIAL LOVER.
A YANKEE VOLUNTEER.
THE HOUSE OF THE WIZARD.
THE CARDINAL’S MUSKETEER.
THE COBBLER OF NÎMES.
ANNE SCARLETT.
LITTLE MISTRESS GOOD HOPE AND OTHER FAIRY STORIES.
THE REBELLION OF THE PRINCESS.
MY LADY CLANCARTY.
[Illustration: ALICE BARBER STEPHENS 1905]
My Lady Clancarty
BEING THE
TRUE STORY OF THE EARL OF CLANCARTY
AND LADY ELIZABETH SPENCER
BY
MARY IMLAY TAYLOR
Author of “On the Red Staircase,” “The Cobbler of Nîmes,”
“The Rebellion of the Princess,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
ALICE BARBER STEPHENS
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
_Copyright, 1905_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
TO MY MOST CONSTANT READER,
MY MOTHER
_CONTENTS_
CHAPTER PAGE
I. “ROSEEN DHU” 1
II. BROTHER AND SISTER 11
III. LADY BETTY AND HER FATHER 18
IV. IN THE WOODS OF ALTHORPE 27
V. LADY SUNDERLAND 42
VI. LADY BETTY’S TOILET 52
VII. AT THE RACES 61
VIII. LADY BETTY AND AN IRISH JACOBITE 72
IX. THE WEARING OF THE GREEN 81
X. AN IRISH DEFIANCE 89
XI. A NIGHT OF PORTENTS 104
XII. MASTER AND MAN 110
XIII. LADY BETTY TAKES THE FIELD 120
XIV. THE INN GARDEN 129
XV. MY LADY SUNDERLAND TAKES TEA 139
XVI. MY LORD CLANCARTY 147
XVII. AT THE TOY-SHOP 157
XVIII. THE DUEL 165
XIX. MY LORD SAVILE REAPS HIS REWARD 170
XX. LADY BETTY’S SEARCH 180
XXI. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 186
XXII. “UNTIL DEATH US DO PART” 196
XXIII. MY LORD SPENCER 211
XXIV. MELISSA 221
XXV. MR. SECRETARY VERNON 229
XXVI. THE ARREST 235
XXVII. THE TRAITOR’S GATE 245
XXVIII. ALICE AND DENIS 256
XXIX. FATHER AND DAUGHTER 260
XXX. MY LORD OF DEVONSHIRE 268
XXXI. LADY RUSSELL 276
XXXII. THE KING 284
XXXIII. DONOUGH! 293
_MY LADY CLANCARTY_
_Being the True Story of the Earl of Clancarty
and Lady Elizabeth Spencer_
CHAPTER I
“ROSEEN DHU”
LADY BETTY shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out on the rose
garden of Althorpe.
At her feet the lawn was close clipped and green; beyond was a garland
of many colors, roses by hundreds and tens of hundreds, the warmth
and glow of the sun upon them; behind them, the long avenue of limes
and beeches, and between the trees vistas of level land with the deer
moving to and fro.
The butterflies—a little host of them—whirled under the window, and
her ladyship smiled.
“Come, Alice,” she said, “’tis too fair a day to linger indoors. Bring
your lute, girl, and we’ll sing one of those dear Irish ballads where
none may hear it, to carp and scold,—none, indeed, but the rooks and
butterflies, or perchance the roses. What sayst thou, Alice, may not a
rose hear sweet sounds when it exhales such sweet perfume?”
“I know not, madam,” replied her handmaid soberly, as she laid aside
her needlework and reached for her lute; “but sometimes, truly, I think
’twould be well if ears were fewer in this world.”
“Ay, or tongues more gentle,” assented Lady Betty laughing, as she
stepped out of the window to the lawn, followed by her attendant.
Both were young girls, but youth and the rosy comeliness of youth
sat more lightly on the handmaid Alice, whose simple face and figure
suggested nothing more subtle than the virtue and homely wisdom of a
country girl. It was quite different with Lady Betty Clancarty, the
daughter of the Earl of Sunderland and the maiden wife of an Irish
peer. There was a slight pensiveness to her beauty, for beautiful she
was; yet there were times when the gayety of a vivacious spirit broke
through all restraints, and she was the light-hearted, witty girl that
nature had intended her to be. Her eyes—beautiful eyes they were,
too,—were large, clear and sparkling with spirit, and the soft tints
of her complexion and the glossy waves of her dark hair combined to
make a charming picture, far more human and bewitching, indeed, than
her own portrait from the brush of Lely, hanging in the great gallery
at Althorpe. The pensiveness of her expression showed only when her
face was in repose; when she smiled the sun shone through the cloud.
Her figure was gracefully tall in its gown of white dimity flowered
with pink, the neck dressed open with falls of lace, and the full
sleeves loose and flowing at the elbow.
She moved lightly and swiftly across the lawn, one white hand resting
on the shoulder of her handmaid, who was shorter and fuller in outline
than her mistress. Though their stations were thus widely sundered,
a frank girlish friendship existed between them, and Lady Betty had
few secrets that were not shared by Alice Lynn. They had grown up in
the same household; the one child waiting on the other on all state
occasions, but usually her playmate, after the fashion of those days
when the feudal tie of lord and vassal still bound old servants and
their descendants to their masters. The ancestors of Alice Lynn
had borne the banner of the Despencers in many a bloody field; she
came of good yeoman stock, worthy of honor and trust, and she was
single-hearted in her devotion to Lady Clancarty. They made a charming
picture, walking through winding paths and talking freely, with little
reference to their respective stations in the great world beyond
Althorpe.
“Ah, the roses,” Lady Betty said, “I know not whether I love them best
in their first budding or in their prime, or when the last few pale
blossoms struggle to unfold under wintry skies, like our poor hearts,
Alice, that need to be warmed by the sunshine of prosperous love. Mine
should have shrivelled up long ago—like an old dried leaf. But it has
not,” she added, smiling and laying her hand on her bosom; “I feel
it—it throbs—it is warm and strong and whole, Alice, and yet—I am a
wife and, for aught I know, a widow too!”
“There be many wives who would fain be widows, I trow,” retorted Alice,
bluntly, and Lady Betty laughed gayly and lightly, the sun shining in
her lustrous eyes.
“Perchance I am happy, then, in not knowing my husband’s face,” she
said; and added musingly, “a strange fate is mine, Alice, married at
eleven and then separated forever from my husband by a gulf as wide
as—as the infinite space; I know no stronger simile. Here am I, the
daughter of a Whig peer, who is a counsellor of King William’s, and the
sister of a burning Whig—for Spencer is on fire, I am sure—and yet I
am the wife, the wedded wife, of an Irish rebel and Jacobite; an outlaw
from his country and a stranger even to me. What a fate!” and she shook
her head with a pensive air, though a smile lurked about her lips for,
after all, she could not mourn the absence of an unknown spouse.
“’Twas wrong to marry a child of such tender years, my lady,” the
handmaid said indignantly; “to tie you up—one of the loveliest women
in England—to a—a—” she broke off confused, catching Lady Betty’s
eye.
“A what, Alice?” the countess asked dryly; “ay, I know by your blushes
and confusion that you have caught the contagion, that you believe with
Lord Spencer that my husband is a consummate villain. But look you, my
girl, if there is one thing above another that would make me love a
man and take up his cause, it is to find him the object of senseless
and bitter abuse. What of it if Clancarty has not sought me? how could
he? Is he not banished from the kingdom, stripped of his estates, and
denied even his most natural and sacred rights?” Lady Clancarty’s
eyes sparkled with indignation. “What of it, if he is a Jacobite
and a Papist? Is he the only man who has changed his faith? I trow
not!—though I should be the last one to say it,” and she broke off,
blushing crimson.
The thought of her own father’s apostasy, of his frequent political
somersaults, overwhelmed her, and she recollected her own dignity in
time to bridle her impulsive tongue.
Alice was too discreet to take up the argument; she stooped, instead,
to gather some violets, and arranged them slowly and in silence. Lady
Betty walked ahead of her to a little rustic seat, and sitting down
held out her hand with an impatient gesture.
“Give hither the violets, Alice,” she said imperiously, “and sing me
a song. I am in as black a mood as ever Saul was, and may do you a
mischief if you do not soothe me.”
Alice smiled. “I fear you not, dear Lady Betty,” she said, tuning her
lute; “your anger passes over as quickly as a storm-cloud in April
weather. What shall I sing you, madam?”
A roguish smile twinkled in Lady Clancarty’s eyes.
“You shall do penance, lass, and sing me either a Papist hymn or an
Irish ballad.”
“Nay, I am no Papist, but a good Protestant,” said Alice, stiffly,
“therefore it must be an Irish ballad, which is what you really want,
my lady!”
Lady Betty laughed softly.
“’Tis true, my girl,” she said, clasping her hands about her knees,
the full sleeves falling away from arms as white as milk. “I love the
ballads; whether for his sake or their own, I know not,” and she bent
her head listening as the handmaid played the first plaintive notes on
her lute.
Alice was no contemptible musician, and she touched the instrument
softly with loving fingers, playing the first sweet sad chords of that
old Irish air and Jacobite ballad, “Roseen Dhu,” or “Dark Rosaleen.”
The garden and the great park beyond and around it were quiet save for
the cawing of the hundreds of rooks that haunted those stately avenues
of trees. The warmth and the soft murmuring of the late summer were
there; here was the deep shadow of stately groves, yonder the wide
sunshine on level lawns, but the place was deserted save for the two
young women and the deer that were so tame that they pressed close
about them, looking through the trees with soft brown eyes, and seeming
to listen to the wild, plaintive notes of the ballad, as Alice sang in
a full, mellow voice:
“All day long in unrest
To and fro do I move,
The very soul within my breast
Is wasted for you, love!
The heart in my bosom faints,
To think of you, my queen,
My life of life, my saint of saints,
My dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
To hear your sweet and sad complaints,
My life, my love, my saint of saints,
My dark Rosaleen!”
Midway in the song the girl paused, still playing the air softly.
“My lady,” she said, in an undertone, “there is some one yonder in the
shrubbery.”
“’Tis Melissa,” replied Lady Clancarty; “I have seen her. She loves to
lurk behind a bush, and to slip along softly as a cat upon nut-shells;
’tis her nature. Faith, I must buy her some bells for her toes. Go on,
my girl; I care not,” she added, laughing, “and I do love the tune. Ah,
‘Rosaleen, my own Rosaleen!’” she hummed, keeping time with her slender
hand.
Alice sang again:
“Over dews, over sands,
Will I fly for your weal:
Your holy white hands
Shall gird me with steel.
At home—in your emerald bowers,
From morning’s dawn till e’en,
You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
My dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
You’ll think of me, through daylight’s hours,
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
My dark Rosaleen!”
Suddenly Lady Clancarty started and half rose, interrupting the singer;
but as Alice looked up in alarm, she sat down again, rosy and defiant.
“Pshaw!” she said; “go on, Alice, there comes Spencer himself, and,
forsooth, I would not be frightened out of my pleasure.”
“But, my lady,” protested Alice, in confusion, “he will be dreadfully
angry, he always is!”
“To be sure he will,” retorted Lady Betty, with a ripple of laughter,
“therefore sing, lass, and I will sing, too.”
Alice still hesitated, her eyes on the figure of a young man who was
coming swiftly across the lawn, but her mistress stamped her foot.
“Sing!” she commanded so sharply that Alice obeyed hastily, and in a
moment the countess’ rich contralto joined her voice in singing the
last passionate verse of “Roseen Dhu.”
“O! the Erne shall run red
With redundance of blood,
The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
And flames wrap hill and wood,
And gun peal and slogan cry
Wake many a glen serene,
Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
My dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
The judgment hour must be nigh
Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
My dark Rosaleen!”