COMING EVENTS.
Nothing but the desire of annoying Mrs. Somerford could have reconciled
Lady Glendare to the bi- or tri-weekly dip with which she sought, and
not unsuccessfully, to increase the earl’s popularity amongst the Whigs
of Kingslough and its dependencies.
Ninon de l’Enclos, we are assured, preserved her beauty by a plentiful
use of water; but then that was rain water, and not salt, used also in
privacy and under comfortable, not to say luxurious, circumstances; and,
besides, she was an exception to most rules,—certainly, if she pinned
her faith to water pure and simple as a conservator of good looks, an
exception to one.
As for Lady Glendare, she never made a secret of her antipathy to what
she styled the horrid and indecent practice of bathing in the sea.
Exclusive in all her ideas, a Tory in every turn of her mind except as
regarded the politics she professed, Lady Glendare looked upon soap and
water, more especially water, as methods of cleansing intended by
Providence for those poor and busy persons who had little time to spend
upon their toilettes, and less money to devote to the accessories of the
dressing-table. She might indeed, so great was her objection to all
ordinary modes of ablution, have been the original of that mother who,
when she left her daughters at school, begged they should on no pretence
be permitted to wash their faces.
“A silk handkerchief,” she suggested, “carefully passed over the skin,
being sufficient for the purpose, and rendering injury to the complexion
impossible.”
And, indeed, at a time when “making up” was rather an art than a
science, ere chemistry had exhausted its resources to provide a new
bloom, and invention had outstripped imagination in order to confer
beauties previously undreamed of, the indiscriminate use of so plebeian
a fluid as water could not fail to be attended with accidents, not to
say danger.
The rule was then, as now, to improve nature as much as possible, but
the process by which all this was accomplished seems to our modern ideas
clumsy and tedious.
It is almost a pity that some of the great-grandmothers of our present
sirens who likewise, and at great trouble and expense, tired their heads
and darkened their eyes and beautified their complexions, cannot come to
life again and behold all the pretty inventions by which much more
effective and deceptive results are now attained.
As the steam-engine is to horse-power so are the devices of women now to
those employed by their progenitors in the old days departed. The worst
of it is that beauty, by reason of its universality, will soon be at a
discount. Time was when, unless a lady were young and fair by the grace
of God, she had to be rich and idle before she could counterfeit His
gifts. Now loveliness can be had on the most reasonable terms; a
complexion is cheaper than a chignon, and large eyes with the iris
distended at high noon can be matched with real hair a dozen shades
lighter than it appeared a week previously, for the expenditure of a few
pence.
Things were not so when Lady Glendare came to Bayview, “for the benefit
of the salt water,” so ran the simple phrase in that primitive age.
People “took salt water” externally then as they might have taken a
solution of sulphuretted hydrogen internally. Some strong-minded old
persons and some light-minded young ones really liked the operation; but
taking society round, it shivered on the brink and went in for its
“three dips and out again,” actuated either by a strong feeling of duty
or a stronger dread of being laughed at. In a word, the sea was a
medicine, and regarded as such.
Lady Glendare considered it a medicine she personally did not require,
but she took it to benefit her lord and spite her sister-in-law. Many a
wry face she made over the dose to Grace; and Grace, when she beheld her
ladyship tripping down the ladder, pitied her, as she might a poor
wretch going up one on a different errand.
Not but that sea-bathing at Bayview was, as far as it could be made so,
an eminently comfortable affair. Grace was one of those fanatics who
dipped in season and out, for whom rough weather had no terrors, winter
rather charms than otherwise, and her box was therefore the perfection
of a dressing-room by the sea.
The usual mode of procedure at Kingslough, which indeed I have seen
adopted in more northern latitudes within the last few years, and
considered charmingly primitive and easy, if slightly uncomfortable by
reason of wind and sand, was to undress on the shore, flinging on a
green or blue baize gown to conceal the operation. Those who were so
fortunate as to own “back entrances,” disrobed themselves within four
walls and slipped quietly into the water, as, indeed, did others whose
houses faced the shore, and who, watching their opportunity, rushed
across the road enveloped in cloaks, which they flung off at the water’s
edge, and then went out to sea as calmly as though they had been fishes
bred and born.
Perhaps Lady Glendare was right, perhaps the whole system might be
accounted barbarous; but it is open to question whether the
bathing-machine régime, which jolts a poor shivering wretch over stones
and shingles, only to land her finally in six inches of water, imagined
sufficient to conceal her and her meagre serge dress from profane eyes,
is superior in any way.
However, there were no bathing-machines at Kingslough then (it is
possible Kingslough may have adopted them now), and failing such and
such like devices, the Countess of Glendare was fain to put up with the
accommodation afforded by Miss Moffat’s box.
For many reasons Miss Moffat took her pleasure in the deep at other
hours than those affected by the countess. Right glad would her ladyship
have been of her company in the water; but Grace judged, and judged
rightly, that on those mysteries of the toilette which were enacted with
closed doors and in solemn silence, the scrutiny of youthful eyes was
not desired.
Any change in the arrangement of her ladyship’s hair was hidden, as she
stepped out of the box, by that most hideous of all head-gear, an
oil-silk bathing-cap; and if, in the momentary glance which was all that
even by accident Grace caught of her guest’s face as, followed by her
maid, she went to perform her penance, it looked older and whiter than
had been the case an hour previously, still that proved nothing.
Her ladyship had been a beauty, and was beautiful even yet. If she chose
to put back the years and look younger than chanced to be actually the
case, that was entirely her affair, and Grace had sense enough to know
the countess felt no desire to reveal the secret means whereby such
wonderful results were obtained.
As regarded the maid, she consented to bathe, as she would have
consented to anything else which was duly considered in her wages.
After all, going into the sea could not by any stretch of the
imagination be considered a greater hardship than coming to Ireland.
Ireland was an extra, and so was bathing, or, to speak more correctly,
following Lady Glendare into the water and assisting her to bathe. Mrs.
Somerford wondered how her sister-in-law could think of making such an
exhibition of herself; but the exhibition was rapidly restoring the
earl’s popularity. Her ladyship’s condescension—so the fact of her going
into the sea at all was styled—had given a greater fillip to Kingslough
than could have been supposed likely. The Ardmornes had tried being
popular, but Lady Glendare beat them at their own game, and the
finishing stroke of being within an ace of drowning settled, as Grace
prophesied it would, the fate of the Tory candidate.
Certainly, could Kingslough have chosen, it would not have selected Mr.
Brady for her ladyship’s rescuer.
It grudged such a piece of good fortune to a man of his standing and
antecedents; but still, had he not chanced to be at hand when the
countess got out of her depth, and her maid lost whatever presence of
mind she ever possessed, and stood shrieking helplessly, while Grace ran
the risk of being carried out to sea likewise in her mad endeavour to
render assistance,—had Mr. Brady, I say, not been near enough to render
efficient help then, Kingslough would have lost both Miss Moffat and the
stranger within her gates. And Kingslough was not ungrateful; more
especially as the earl, moved no doubt by hints from his agent, and very
plain speaking on the part of Mr. Robert Somerford, confined his thanks,
so far as anybody knew, to an early visit.
Nettie and her husband were not taken into high favour at Rosemont. They
were, it is true, like everybody else, asked to the election ball, but
Mr. and Mrs. Brady had sense enough to stay away.
The world did not know that a grateful husband had asked in which
direction Mr. Brady’s wishes lay, so that he might advance them, and
that Lady Glendare had told Nettie she could answer for herself and her
children that they would never, never forget the obligation under which
Mr. Brady had laid them.
There were a great many things Mr. Brady wanted which it was in Lord
Glendare’s power to give; but although he knew enough of society to be
aware a nobleman’s memory for benefits conferred is about as short as
that of other people, he contented himself, for the time being, with
having “got his foot in.”
It might be or it might not be that hereafter the earl would have the
opportunity of serving him disinterestedly, but he was well aware that
once he was in a position to avail himself of his opportunities, he
could make it serve Lord Glendare’s purpose to advance his views.
The world was before him—and it was an advantage that his world now
included an acquaintance with the owner of Rosemont, and something which
amounted almost to the right of speaking or writing to him without the
intervention of any one, whether agent or lawyer.
Mr. Brady hated lawyers, which was all the more natural since lawyers,
even his own, hated him.
Looking around, this man saw that nearly every rising fortune, and
almost every fortune that was secure in Kingslough, owed its foundation
to some stone rent from the ruins of the Glendare prosperity. Any one
whose property was unencumbered—any one who was getting on in the world,
any one whose father and grandfather having been nobodies was
consequently educating his children to become somebodies, owed the whole
of their advancement to the need or the improvidence of the Glendares.
Any man clever enough to obtain their ear, and patient enough to wait
his opportunity, any one unscrupulous as to making terms, and wise
enough to have those terms made binding, could get an advantage over the
Somerfords, could clear his own way to wealth, while lending a hand to
help them along the road to ruin.
Not that they needed any help; they found the road easy to travel, if
occasionally not over pleasant.
To use a phrase which has become common of late in connexion with
business failures, “They were bound to go;” and to pursue the same
simile, all that wise men thought of in relation to them was how to get
as much money, or money value, as possible out of them before the crash
came.
Unsophisticated people, who had always been hearing of the
embarrassments of each successive earl, thought there must be a
wonderful vitality about the Somerfords’ affairs, and concluded rashly,
that what had been apparently from the beginning must go on to the end;
but these were persons who forgot, on the one hand, the first enormous
extent of the property, and, on the other, the fact that a man rolling
down hill gains a frantic speed as he nears the bottom.
“I do not know why I should grudge Glendare this triumph,” said Lord
Ardmorne, looking askance at grapes which he would fain have made
believe to think sour; “he will never see his nominee sent to Parliament
again.”
And the marquis was right. When the next election took place Mr. Robert
Somerford, who contested the seat himself, was beaten, not
ignominiously, perhaps, but sufficiently.
From which remark of his fellow-peer, it will be understood that the
earl had the happiness of seeing a Whig returned for the family seat.
The fight was fierce, the contest close, the expense great, but the
Glendare interest won.
How far my lady contributed to this result can only be surmised; how far
sympathy carried the voters is also problematical. One thing only is
certain, that when the general public learned how Lady Glendare, herself
still ailing, started at a few hours’ notice to see her youngest born,
reported dangerously ill, and heard Lord Glendare making his lament
about Arthur, whom he loved best of all his children, and called, to
those who evinced sorrow (and few there were that failed to do so), the
“flower of the flock;” and when further news came that on the very eve
of the election the earl was summoned away, told to travel with all
speed “if he wished to see his boy alive,” the hearts of the people
forgot Th’ Airl’s faults, and remembered only Th’ Airl’s grief.
Men who had “promised,” men who had half consented, men who were
undecided, forgot their promises, their semi-agreement, their doubts,
and voted to please the earl.
And the result did please him. Though his son lay dead when the news
came, he felt gratified, and, for the moment it might be, so far as such
a sensation could exist in a Glendare, grateful.
After all, they were not a bad race, a degenerate peasantry, those
Irishmen, who despite Lord Ardmorne’s money remained true to the
Somerfords and the traditions of their fathers.
They were a staunch tenantry and an honest, who forgot not former
benefits—so he mentally styled the renewals of leases, the granting of
liberty to pay rent—those sturdy independent men who spoke to him as
though he had been one of themselves, and yet who honoured him and his
house, who toiled early and late to make up the amount required on
“gale” days, expressive phrase! and who asked for nothing better than to
live and die hard-working paupers on the ground their “forbears” had,
personally paupers likewise, cultivated for the benefit of a reckless,
faithless, ingrate, doomed race.
Doomed! yes, and justly. They had cumbered the ground for a sufficient
period, and the inexorable fiat, “Cut them down!” had gone forth.
Their reign was coming to an end—the reign of the good-natured,
handsome, wicked Glendares. They had sprung from the loins of some
dare-devil English trooper, and they had not belied their ancestry. It
was time for them to depart and give place to another house willing to
return to the soil a portion at all events of what it took out of the
soil.
But the Glendares, one and all, men and women, were as those in the days
of Noë.
They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, and
still the waters were creeping up about them, round and about, and when
they were engulfed no soul pitied them.
It was coming, it was coming; wise were they who could read the signs of
the sky, and foretell the impending tempest, wise in their generation,
as are usually the children of this world.
Amongst the wise men were Mr. Dillwyn and Nettie’s husband. Of the
doings of the former there will be something to state hereafter. He took
steps at which all the world wondered, but which at the same time all
men could see and comment upon.
Mr. Brady, on the contrary, worked like a mole underground, throwing up
here a mound and there another, that might have conveyed a hint to
observant eyes.
But the eyes were wanting. Society at Kingslough was not clever at
addition. Scandal, being presumably feminine, is generally deficient in
its ability to solve abstruse arithmetical problems.
Kingslough, therefore, with whom Mr. Brady did not intermeddle, put Mr.
Brady on one side and left him at leisure to work out his plans.
What those plans were, even Nettie, with all her quick perception and
intuitive knowledge of other folks’ designs, failed fully to understand.
She comprehended that her husband, like the rest of his countrymen, had
a passion for the possession of land, a passion not second even to his
love of money; but her imagination never grasped the fact that already
he had formed a scheme to get the Woodbrook mortgage into his own hands,
and the thing he most fervently hoped for was that he might be able to
achieve his purpose before the General died.
The idea had entered his mind, more in the form of a vague wish than a
practicable scheme, on that day when John Riley and his father refused
his proffered hand; but he had since brooded over the plan, moulded it
into shape, and resolved to carry it into effect.
He knew he could ruin the Rileys. It became in his mind a mere question
of time, for now that Miss Moffat had refused to cast in her lot with
the family, not even a hope remained of ultimate extrication. The more
rapidly the world went on—and the world had begun in those days to show
signs of quicker movement—the more certainly were the Rileys doomed to
destruction; but he felt that his revenge would lose half its sweetness
if he failed to carry out his design in the General’s lifetime.
Already his fancy portrayed the old man leaving the house and lands he
had struggled so gallantly and so unavailingly to retain. Already he
pictured the daughters governesses, the father and mother living poorly
in some cheap house in Kingslough, the son’s exertions being taxed to
provide for the necessities of his family.
Such reverses had been over and over again, such a reverse should be
enacted once more.
“Had the Rileys,” he said to himself, but said falsely, though perhaps
unconscious of his self-deceit, “had the Rileys recognized Nettie and
received me, I would have forgiven them their insolence, and helped them
to build up their fortunes once again.”
So he said, so possibly he thought; but the experience of all time
tending to prove that a known enemy is better than a false friend, the
Rileys, in the impulse of their indignation at Nettie’s choice, acted
probably as well for themselves as they would have done had they gone
into a series of worldly calculations and ordered their conduct
accordingly.
Mr. Brady might be a rising man in a pecuniary sense, people soon began
to say he was, but the Rileys were of one rank and sort and he of
another, and there can be no greater folly than for one in a higher
station to suppose that a person who is trying to creep up to the same
station will serve him faithfully either for love or interest.
So after John’s departure there was a dead break between Woodbrook and
Maryville, and if Nettie had found her life in Kingslough monotonous,
she probably found it—except so far as her husband’s tempers diversified
the routine—more monotonous still in her new home.
But how she fared in that new home, whether well or the reverse, no one
could tell. Few ever saw her, to none did she give her confidence.
Even the Castle Farm beheld her no more. In the early days of her
marriage she wandered over there two or three times, in the vague hope,
perhaps, of meeting Grace; but Mr. Brady, hearing of these visits,
expressed his disapproval, and Nettie silently obeyed his wishes in that
as in all other matters.
Perhaps, indeed, after a few sentences she and her husband exchanged one
day, she felt little inclination to listen to Mrs. Scott’s hopeful talk
about the future, her cheerful gossip concerning their plans and
expectations.
“I wonder,” said Mr. Brady to his wife, “why Scott is drawing all those
stones? It looks as if he meant to build.”
“So he does,” Nettie answered; “he is going to build a new byre and
stable and loft over.”
“He must be mad,” remarked Mr. Brady, “to lay out money at the tail-end
of his lease.”
“The earl has promised him a new one, did not you know that?”
“I heard something about it,” said her husband, “but it is all nonsense.
The earl has no power to give him a new lease.”
“Why?” Nettie inquired.
“I wonder if one could talk for three minutes to any woman without her
asking ‘Why?’” said Mr. Brady impatient. “It would take me a day to
explain the why and the wherefore to you. He can’t, and there’s an end
of it.”
Having returned which courteous answer, Mr. Brady walked out of the room
with his hands deep in his pockets.
Now the lands of the Castle Farm “marched,” to use a local expression,
with those of Maryville.