BY THE SAD SEA WAVES.
Times goes on, whether people are glad or sorry, sick or well, rich or
poor, and it never paused for a moment, although Miss Grace Moffat was
mortified beyond expression because a man had served her as she had
served Mr. John Riley.
Fast and loose is a game at which people only like to play when they are
the winners. It had been a small matter in the opinion of the girl Grace
to discard a lover. Seven years later it seemed no small matter for a
lover to discard her.
It is a curious thing to consider how rarely in matters of great or
little importance men and women are able to avenge themselves, and yet
how surely retribution is compassed for them by others. Thousands of
miles distant, John Riley never dreamed his lost love was receiving from
Mr. Somerford the same measure she had meted to him. Grace, as was
natural, felt very indignant about the matter, but it never occurred to
her that it had been rather nice of John Riley not to feel anger against
her in the days that could never come back.
It was not a pleasant experience, but I am very certain that she was the
better for it; that the heiress, who found her money could not buy
everything for her, could no more prevent slights being put upon her
than if she were a girl without a sixpence, was much improved by the
discovery.
In affairs of the heart, when their own is not touched, women are as
instinctively cruel to men as children to insects, perhaps for the same
reason; and if the lesson which makes them “feel too” be sharp, it is
nevertheless better for them to understand that what may seem fun to
their ignorance is death to their victims.
The blow to Grace’s pride was so severe that it almost deadened the pain
of the wound received by her fancy. I use the word advisedly, for her
heart had never been very deeply concerned in the matter.
Robert Somerford never was to her what Daniel Brady had been to poor
Nettie. She never loved him with an absorbing attachment; if she had,
however, that love must indeed be remarkable which can subsist for years
on hope and expectancy. People may marry after a probation of this kind,
as they may marry after a long engagement, but the probability is that
the final wooing and wedding will prove a somewhat prosaic affair.
No; now the scales were removed from her eyes, Grace Moffat knew she had
never cared for Robert Somerford as she understood a girl should care
for the man she intended to take as husband. She had been dazzled by his
good looks, his accomplishments, his manners, his rank, his prospects.
She had felt as the poor people around her would have said that she was
“getting value for her money.” Oh, that money! In the first bitterness
of her disappointment Grace wished she had not a penny. “Then perhaps
somebody might care for me for myself,” she thought, as if John Riley
had not cared more for her little finger than for all her fortune.
But, then, she did not care for John Riley, which made the difference.
One mortification, however, Miss Moffat was spared. The world (that is
to say, her world) never knew exactly how the matter stood, for the home
thrust she administered had only the effect of bringing Mr. Somerford as
a more frequent visitor to her father’s house. He wrote Grace a note,
complaining of how utterly she had misjudged him, and declaring that
till the last hour of his life he could never forget Bayview; the dear
friends who lived there; the happy hours he had spent beneath its roof.
What he said was specious enough, and Grace, wise in her generation, and
mindful always of what “Kingslough might think,” accepted his
explanation.
But she knew perfectly well that she had not misinterpreted his meaning;
and he knew this. Perhaps because he did know it, he came to the house
more frequently, feeling relieved at the idea that now Grace could not
expect him to propose for her, and yet with a vague idea that at some
future period he might ask her to marry him.
But for his expectations he would have asked her to do so long before.
He was very fond of her, but he was not one half so fond of her as of
himself. Never had he liked her better than when she said he could stay
away. There was a spirit and a directness, and a comprehension about her
swift retort which gave a piquancy to the transaction.
And he liked to think no one knew, no one would ever know, anything
about it excepting they two. He felt satisfied she would feel as little
desire to speak of that short skirmish as he. They understood each
other, and the only drawback to the pleasure of her society he had ever
felt was removed. Altogether it was as well she had spoken; altogether
Grace acknowledged it was better he should still visit at Bayview.
But she could never care for him again. Hero in her eyes he might never
seem more.
It was at this period he would have talked to Mr. Dillwyn concerning
Amos Scott’s affairs, had that gentleman not told him he declined to
meddle in the transaction, that there was nothing to be done about the
matter, that if the old earl rose from the dead he could not give Scott
the promised lease, and that, in fine, there was no use in discussing
the question.
“If you believe your uncle had the man’s money, and feel any desire to
repay the amount—pay it,” finished Mr. Dillwyn; “but neither you nor
anybody else, except Brady, can give him a longer term of the Castle
Farm, and Brady won’t give it to him.”
“You think not?”
“I am sure not!” was the reply.
Nevertheless Mr. Somerford rode over to Maryville in the hope of
affecting Mr. Brady’s heart by his powers of persuasion. But Mr. Brady
was firm. He would only, so he declared, have been too glad to accede to
Mr. Somerford’s request had the land been any other land than the Castle
Farm, and the man any other man than Amos Scott.
“If I were to give in to him now,” he said, “I might leave Maryville. He
would regard my concession as an act of weakness; he would be setting
himself up in opposition against me at every turn. I should have no
peace of my life. It really grieves me, Mr. Somerford, to have to refuse
a request coming from one of your family, and more particularly as I
understand Miss Moffat is also interested in the matter. But if you put
yourself in my place, you will see, I think, how utterly impossible it
is for me to do what you ask.”
All of which, and many other regrets, and apologies and excuses, Mr.
Somerford repeated to Miss Moffat, who, thanks to the fresh light thrown
across his character, understood perfectly that if the earl’s nephew had
stood in Mr. Brady’s shoes, he would most likely have acted in a
somewhat similar manner. As indeed why should he not?
Even Grace would have been unable to say with authority that Mr. Brady
ought to give up his rights for any other reason than because “it was
such a pity of poor Amos,” and this sentiment, although pretty coming
from a woman’s lips, would scarcely, I imagine, satisfy a jury as to the
justice of a man’s claim. Undoubtedly it was a pity of poor Amos; but
then, as Mr. Dillwyn remarked, he had no one to thank for his
misfortunes except himself.
Amos, on the contrary, thought every one was to blame for his
misfortunes except himself, and Mr. Brady he regarded as the chief of
the offenders, because, knowing Scott wanted the farm, he had gone and
taken it “over his head.”
“I shall fight it out with you,” said Scott, shaking his fist in Mr.
Brady’s face.
“Very well,” answered Mr. Brady, “I am content.” And it required no seer
to tell what the end of the matter would be as regarded the Scotts.
Meanwhile, however, a strong feeling was developing itself against Mr.
Brady. Popular opinion, which in other places besides Ireland generally
rears itself in opposition to law, considered Scott had been hardly done
by—that “Brady had taken an advantage of him,”—that “he knew well enough
the decent man had paid his savings honestly come by, to the earl”—that
the “Castle Farm could be no more to him nor any other farm,” and that
“he might have taken the sum Mr. Moffat offered him to let Scott and his
wife and the boys and girls stay on in the old home.”
“But it’s himself is the hard man,” said even the beggars, when
rehearsing Mr. Brady’s sins of omission and commission.
“An’ it’ll come home to him yet,” chorused dozens of self-constituted
partisans, for it was a noticeable fact in the affair that Mr. Brady was
the person on whose head all the vials of righteous wrath were poured.
As for the earl, “In course a gentleman like him had plenty to think
about; and it was no miracle, with all the trouble he had on him, that
Scott’s lease should have slipped his memory.”
There was some truth in this view of the question, and it was a natural
view, at all events to a nation who probably never will be induced to
understand that as much evil may be wrought through carelessness as
through set purpose, that the indifference of selfishness may curse as
many lives as the deliberate plotting of a clever schemer.
Be this as it may, however, people were beginning to take sides in the
matter. One party considered Scott ought to be supported; another,
though perfectly indifferent to his opponent, thought Brady was entitled
to enter into possession.
“The law is clear enough in the case,” said Lord Ardmorne, “and those
who are inciting the poor fellow to resist the law, are doing him but a
sorry kindness.”
Wherein the marquis was quite correct, only he overlooked the fact that
Scott was quite ready to resist the law without any incitement from his
fellows. Further, if such a paradox be admissible, he believed the law
to be on his side; that is, he was looking out for a solicitor whom he
could persuade to be of his opinion. Somewhere on the earth justice
would be done him, if not in one court, why in another.
The man was unreasonable, mad if you will; but Mr. Brady, as he
imagined, was trying to despoil him of the labour of years, the fruits
of his toil, and it is not alone in Ireland that people who fancy they
have been ruined without any fault of their own are irrational and
implacable.
Besides, he had a vague idea that if he could pour the tale of his
wrongs into the ears of the proper person, Brady might be worsted, and
he righted; and there is perhaps nothing more difficult to combat than a
conviction, decided, though formless, of this kind.
As for Grace, she was growing sick at heart of the whole business. All
her sympathies were with Scott and his family, but she had sense enough
to see there could be only one end to the course the farmer had elected
to tread—ruin; and sometimes she could not help agreeing in her father’s
openly-expressed opinion that the best thing which could now occur at
the Castle Farm would be for Amos to take a fever and die, and so leave
the mother and children free to quit the place, and let those who were
willing to help them do so.
It was whilst things were in this unsatisfactory state that Mr. Hanlon
one day brought Grace a note from Mrs. Brady. He presented it with
formal politeness, saying he had been asked to give it in private into
Miss Moffat’s own hands.
“Will you not read it?” he asked, as Grace held the letter unopened.
“Does Mrs. Brady wish me to return an answer by you?” was the reply
spoken coldly enough, for Miss Moffat by no means approved of the
messenger chosen by her old friend.
“No; as I understand the matter, that note only contains a request which
Mrs. Brady is sure you will comply with. She had no other means,” he
went on hurriedly, “of sending to you: she was afraid of the letter
miscarrying in any way, of it falling by mischance into her husband’s
possession.”
“Did she tell you so?” Grace inquired.
“There are some things, Miss Moffat, one knows by intuition.”
Grace broke the seal and read the few lines Nettie had traced; then,
turning to Mr. Hanlon, she said, “Do you know by intuition the contents
of this note?”
“I gathered from a few words Mrs. Brady let fall that she wishes to see
you,” he replied ignoring the ironical repetition of his own remark
contained in Miss Moffat’s inquiry.
“Do you know why she wishes to see me?” Grace persisted.
“I do not,” was the reply. Then more earnestly, “I assure you, on my
honour, I have not the slightest idea—”
“Mr. Hanlon,” Grace began, “I always was, I always shall be, attached to
Mrs. Brady; but I do not like commencing any correspondence with her
which involves mystery and secrecy.”
“That I can well understand; but from what I have seen of Mrs. Brady you
may be certain she has some sufficient reason for her request; from what
I have seen of Mr. Brady, it might be perilous for her openly to disobey
his commands.”
“Perilous!” exclaimed Grace.
“I use the word advisedly—and—confidentially,” he answered. “It may be,”
he went on, “that in meeting Mrs. Brady as she asks, you may be doing
her a great service. In any case you cannot be doing her an unkindness,
for she is very lonely and—very unhappy.”
Grace did not reply, she took up Nettie’s note and read it over once
more:
“This evening soon after dusk, I shall be at the Lone Rock. I want to
speak to you; meet me there. _Be sure you do._ Burn this note, and say
nothing about it to any one.”
When she had finished, she said,—
“You are going back to Maryville, I suppose?”
“No, I may not perhaps be there again for weeks, unless, indeed, you
wish me to convey a message to Mrs. Brady.”
“It is not a matter of any consequence,” was the reply; “I only wanted
to let her know I would do as she asks.”
“That I think she expected,” he said; and then, having completed his
mission, and finding that the conversation languished, Mr. Hanlon took
his leave.
It would be difficult to say why Miss Moffat shrank from the idea of the
interview suggested by Nettie. Had Mrs. Brady proposed coming to
Bayview, Grace would have welcomed her with open arms; but she
distrusted mysteries. She could not help remembering all the evil
Nettie’s secret ways of proceeding had wrought in the days gone by, and
she could not endure being a party to a clandestine meeting, the note
appointing which was brought to her, of all people in the world, by Mr.
Hanlon.
Instinct in most women is a truer guide than reason, and instinctively
Grace felt that Nettie’s note portended trouble; that her choice of a
messenger was indiscreet; that matters at Maryville were even worse than
most people imagined; and that time, instead of drawing Mr. Brady and
his wife closer together, was widening the breach that had been made
when injudicious but well-meaning friends forced Nettie on a man who was
but half-willing to marry her.
“I must try to gain her confidence,” thought Grace, as though after
seven years she could hope to win a trust which Nettie then withheld.
Mrs. Brady had never confided in any one. It was not likely she intended
to change her tactics now.
The grounds at Bayview extended to the seashore. At high tide the trees
spread their branches over the water, and when storms were fierce and
the waves came rolling in, the long gravel-walk on the top of the
sloping bank was impassable. In calm weather, however, the place gave
one the idea of utter peace and repose, and Grace had always been fond
of wandering upon the shore, looking now away to the open sea, and again
to the soft green hills, with Kingslough nestling under their shadow.
Not a stone, not a tree, not an effect of sun and shade, not an illusion
of twilight, not a fairy touch of moonlight, but was familiar to Grace;
and as she neared the Lone Rock in the growing darkness of a still
summer’s evening her accustomed eye saw a figure leaning against the
stone, which came forward to meet her.
“Nettie!”
“Grace!” That was all; then they sat down, hand clasped in hand, and
kept silence for a minute.
It was broken by Nettie.
“I knew you would come,” she said.
“Yes.” Grace could not find it in her heart to speak the words she had
intended, at least not then.
“Perhaps you thought it strange my not going to Bayview?” resumed
Nettie; “but I dare not.”
“Why?” asked the other.
“In the first place, because Mr. Brady never would have forgiven me if I
had; in the next, because he would have wanted to know what I could have
to say to you.
“And supposing he had?” Grace inquired.
“When I have told you, there will be no need to suppose how he would
feel about the matter,” replied Nettie shortly. “Before, however, I get
to that part of my story, I want to say something. When I was first
married, I felt your not coming to see me very keenly. I was bitter
against you; I am not bitter now. I am glad you never entered Maryville;
you were right.”
“That is a point on which I have never been able to satisfy myself,”
said Grace sadly. “I did not want to desert you, Nettie, but I could not
run counter to the wishes and desires of all my friends.”
“We will leave your friends and their wishes out of the question,” was
the answer. “I tell you I am glad. I say it was right for you to have
done with me. It was I who deserted you; it was I who, without counting
the cost, gave all for love and the world well lost.”
“I cannot ask you questions which might pain you,” said Grace; “but
anything you like to tell me, do, though I am almost afraid to hear what
your married life has been.”
“You need not be afraid, for you will never hear, neither you nor
anybody else,” Nettie replied. “I have borne, and I can bear. No human
being knows what I have borne but myself.”
There was a little catching sob, and then she proceeded,—
“Grace, you must never let any one suspect how you got to know what I am
going to tell you.”
“Perhaps you ought not to tell me?” suggested Miss Moffat.
“You will be able to judge better about that when you know what it is,”
retorted her companion.
“But I do not like having to keep secrets,” Grace pleaded, “I never did
all my life; they are always productive of anxiety, or misery, or
shame.”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Brady; “people must have secrets,
and they must hear and tell them too sometimes. The matter I have to
speak about does not concern me, though it concerns people in whose
prosperity you ought to feel interested.”
“Do you mean the Scotts?”
“No, I do not mean the Scotts; I mean a family who will find themselves
in a worse position than the Scotts some day, if they are not wise in
time. If John Riley were at home, I should not have troubled you about
the matter.
“What has John Riley to do with it?” asked Grace.
“Just this much: you know Woodbrook is heavily mortgaged? of course you
do, that was one reason why you would not marry John.”
“Nettie!”
“It is of no use interrupting me in that ridiculous manner,” said Mrs.
Brady pettishly. “If John had been a rich man, I believe you would have
married him; but as he was only a poor, honest fellow, with a plain
face, who loved you with all his heart and soul, you sent him adrift,
and let him go to India, where I hope he may make a fortune, and come
home, and meet with some good, sensible girl, richer than ever you were.
Yes, you may take away your hand; I did not come here to-night to
flatter you, be sure of that.”
“What did you come for?” asked Miss Moffat; “do not beat about the bush,
and talk of all sorts of irrelevant matters, but tell me in a word what
it is you want to say.”
“In a word, then, you know Woodbrook is mortgaged?”
“Yes; it has always been so.”
“Do you know who holds that mortgage?”
“I once heard, but I have forgotten the name.”
“Do you think you could remember it if I told you?”
“If any good purpose were to be served by my recollection, I would try,”
answered Grace.
“Well, then, the mortgage is really held by Mr. Daniel Brady of
Maryville.”
“You are not serious?”
“Am I not? The Rileys may find it a very serious matter to them,
whatever you may think.”
“But how could he hold the mortgage without the General being aware of
the fact?”
“I cannot tell you, for I do not know myself. All I am able to say, he
does hold it.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“As certain as that we are sitting here.”
“From whom did you hear this?”
“From Mr. Brady’s own lips.”
“And what does he say about it?”
“He never said a word to me concerning the affair.”
“But I thought you heard from his own lips that he held the mortgage?”
“So I did, but he was not talking to me.”
“To whom was he talking?”
“To his lawyer, and I was listening: and if he knew I had listened, he
would kill me—that is,” added Nettie reflectively, “if he was not afraid
of being hung.”
“Why should he mind your knowing about it?” Grace asked with a shiver.
“Why should he mind your knowing about it? why should he mind the
General knowing?” inquired Nettie contemptuously. “Because if once the
Rileys’ eyes were opened, they would move heaven and earth to pay the
interest regularly, or to pay off the mortgage altogether. If they do
not do this, he will own Woodbrook yet, as surely as he owns the Castle
Farm now.”
“What can be done?” said Grace helplessly; “do you think I ought to go
to the General?”
“I am sure you ought to do nothing of the kind,” answered Nettie. “He is
an old man, and he never was a very wise one. Do you ever write to
John?”
“Never.”
“What a shame! If I had not liked him well enough for a husband, I would
have tried to keep him as a friend.”
“Surely we need not talk of that now?” suggested Grace.
“Mrs. Hartley has not given him up, I suppose?” said Nettie, unheeding
the interruption.
“She hears from him frequently,” was the answer.
“But then you never see her,” remarked Mrs. Brady.
“She often asks me to go to England, but I always refuse.”
“Home attractions are so great,” said Nettie demurely.
“I am very fond of my home.”
“Are you still very fond of something else, or, to speak more correctly,
of somebody else?”
“I do not exactly understand.”
“Do you intend to marry Mr. Somerford or not?”
“It will be time enough for me to answer that question when he asks me
it himself.”
“I wish you would answer me though, Grace,” said Mrs. Brady earnestly.
“When Robert Somerford asks you to be his wife, what reply shall you
make?”
“He may never put such a question,” answered Grace, with an uneasy
laugh, “so what is the use of talking about it?”
“He will put just such a question before very long,” persisted Mrs.
Brady; “you are neither a child nor a very foolish girl any more. You
are a year older than I am, and I feel as if I had lived a century at
least. Tell me truly what answer you will return; do tell me, Grace, for
the sake of the days when you loved me.”
“I love you still, Nettie!”
Impatiently Mrs. Brady turned aside the remark.
“I do not want to know whether you love me or not. What can that signify
how? I want to know if you mean to marry Mr. Somerford when he asks
you.”
“How do you know he ever means to do so?” said Grace evasively.
“I will tell you when you have replied to my question. Will you say
‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
“In that entirely suppositious case I should say ‘No.’”
“Really and truly?”
“Really and truly I shall never be more to him than I am now.”
“Notwithstanding his handsome face!”
“Not if he were ten times handsomer than he is.”
“He is going to act extremely handsomely by you,” said Nettie, picking
up a pebble and throwing it out into the sea as far as she could. “He
means to propose to Miss Middleton, and when she refuses him, as she
will do, he intends to ask you.”
There was a matter-of-fact coolness about this statement which took away
Miss Moffat’s breath. Finding she made no comment, her friend continued,
“I heard that, also, the other evening. Miss Middleton is the daughter
of a great English brewer, who has bought an estate near Kilcurragh; but
her father will not hear of the match. Some one has been prejudicing him
against Mr. Robert, so you see the gentleman will fall between the two
stools.”
“It does not matter to either you or me where he falls,” said Grace
hurriedly.
“Not much certainly,” agreed Mrs. Brady. “And now that I have told you
my news, I will go home again.”
“Do not go yet!” entreated Miss Moffat. “Tell me what I ought to do
about the General.”
“Your own sense will tell you that,” Nettie answered; “only, Grace, on
whatever course you may decide, keep my name out of the affair. Never
let any one suspect you heard of it from me.”
“Are you not afraid of trusting Mr. Hanlon?” asked her friend gently.
“I do not trust him.”
“But he knew you wished to see me?”
“Yes; but nothing more. He does not know anything from me, though, of
course, he cannot avoid seeing.”
“What does he see, dear?” asked Grace, replying rather to the quiver in
Nettie’s voice than to the words she spoke.
“It is no matter,” was the answer, and the sentence sounded almost like
a sob.
Grace’s arms were about her neck; Grace’s tears were on her cheek.
“Nettie darling, am I not the nearest friend you ever had? cannot you
trust me with your trouble, whatever it may be?”
Gently and sorrowfully Nettie unclasped the twining arms, and put away
the lips which were pressed to hers.
“It is no matter,” she repeated; “I do not want to talk of myself at
all. I must go now, Grace, I must indeed.”
And she rose as she spoke, and drawing her dark shawl closely about her
slight figure, pressed Grace’s hand in token of farewell.
Grace held her hand tight.
“When shall I see you again?” she asked.
“Sometime perhaps—perhaps never,” was the reply. “Sometime, Grace, when
you are happily married and have a tribe of bairns about you, or are a
rich old maid with no bairns at all, I may ask you to give a helping
hand to my children. It is the thought of them that breaks my heart.”
“You lost one!” Grace said pityingly.
“Two,” corrected Nettie, “and sometimes I wish I had lost them all.”
“You must not speak in that way, dear!” expostulated Grace.
“I know it,” was the reply, “and so I do not want to speak.”
“Will you let me come and see you?”
“No, _never_,” said Nettie decidedly. “There is only one thing you can
do for me now, and that is save the Rileys. I think Mrs. Hartley will
find a way to do it. At all events she can warn John. He did the best he
could for me once, and I should not like to see his father and mother
and sisters beggars.”
“But why should Mr. Brady want to beggar them?” asked Grace, who could
not yet grasp the full meaning and importance of all Nettie had told
her.
“He hates them,” was the answer, spoken calmly and evenly. “He hates
everybody, I think, but he has an especial aversion to the Rileys,
because they made him marry me.”
“You were married to him before they interfered.”
“I am not so sure of that; I shall never know for a certainty whether
the first ceremony, if one could call it a ceremony, was legal. In any
case, but for the Rileys, he could have turned round some day and told
me it was valueless. Besides that, the General and John were not very
civil to him, and none of the family ever took any notice of me
after—after—I left my aunt.”
“Scant causes to produce such great results!” said Miss Moffat
reflectively.
“More than sufficient, however,” answered Nettie.
“Mr. Brady must be very rich,” remarked Grace after a moment’s silence.
“He is not rich; he is poor, he will always be poor; but he has the
command of money, he knows people ready to advance it. I suppose if you
and I wanted to raise money for any good purpose, we should not be able
to get it, but if we desired it to compass any evil, I do not doubt but
we should have more than we could use.”
“You seem to entertain some nice comfortable theories concerning life,”
said Grace, trying to speak cheerfully.
“I have no theories,” answered Mrs. Brady. “Everything with me resolves
itself into practice. I used to have dreams and fancies, but I have none
now, except one which haunts me night and day.”
“What is that?”
“Never mind, it may come true or it may not. I wonder, Grace,” she
suddenly added, “what you and I will be doing seven years hence, if we
live so long?”
“I hope you will be happier, Nettie.”
“I never said I was unhappy, did I?” asked the young wife. “Some people
are born to be very happy, I suppose, and some—are not so fortunate. It
was not such a bright fortune which lay before me when I was a girl,
that I need lament over my present lot. I have not everything I should
like, it is true, but I do not complain; no one ever heard me complain.”
“I would rather hear you complain, Nettie, than talk in the way you have
done to-night.”
“Ah! that is because you do not know, because you cannot understand.”
She was gone. Grace would have followed, but she waved her back.
“You must not come with me,” she said. “Good-bye.”
Slowly and mournfully the waves rippled in on the sands as Grace Moffat
walked homeward, her thoughts intent on Nettie and her extraordinary
confidence.
If the statement she had made were true, and it was impossible to doubt
its accuracy, then Mr. Brady intended to oust the Rileys out of
Woodbrook, as he proposed to turn the Scotts out of the Castle Farm.
As Nettie had said, it does not require so much money to compass evil as
it does to effect good. It is easier to ruin a man than to establish his
fortunes.
Mortgaging in Ireland was not in those days so unusual a thing as to
induce general ignorance concerning its possible, and probable results;
and although Mr. Moffat had never borrowed a shilling, never forestalled
his income by an hour, still Grace had heard enough of monetary
embarrassments among her acquaintances to understand tolerably well what
“foreclosing” would mean on the Woodbrook estates.
Her own fortune, it may be remembered, had at one time been destined to
redeeming that mortgage, and giving ease to a family who had never known
the meaning of the word: but when she refused Mr. Riley, of course his
relatives had relapsed into their old state of embarrassment, which was,
however, in their eyes relieved by John’s letters and John’s remittances
from India. If, therefore, the interest were accumulating, if the
indebtedness were increasing, if Mr. Brady were the real mortgagee,
Grace, without any gift of second sight, could see the end which must
come ere long, unless steps to avert the catastrophe could be taken, and
that without delay.
And the sea rippled in over the sands, and the scent of the flowers and
shrubs floated on the air as they had done that night when she refused
her first lover, and sent him out into the world to seek such fortune as
the world had in store for him.