THE COUSINS
‘Only think of it!’ cried Kate to her cousin, as she received Walpole’s
note. ‘Can you fancy, Nina, any one having the curiosity to imagine this
old house worth a visit? Here is a polite request from two tourists to be
allowed to see the--what is it?--the interesting interior of Kilgobbin
Castle!’
‘Which I hope and trust you will refuse. The people who are so eager for
these things are invariably tiresome old bores, grubbing for antiquities,
or intently bent on adding a chapter to their story of travel. You’ll say
No, dearest, won’t you?’
‘Certainly, if you wish it. I am not acquainted with Captain Lockwood, nor
his friend Mr. Cecil Walpole.’
‘Did you say Cecil Walpole?’ cried the other, almost snatching the card
from her fingers. ‘Of all the strange chances in life, this is the very
strangest! What could have brought Cecil Walpole here?’
‘You know him, then?’
‘I should think I do! What duets have we not sung together? What waltzes
have we not had? What rides over the Campagna? Oh dear! how I should like
to talk over these old times again! Pray tell him he may come, Kate, or let
me do it.’
‘And papa away!’
‘It is the castle, dearest, he wants to see, not papa! You don’t know
what manner of creature this is! He is one of your refined and supremely
cultivated English--mad about archæology and mediæval trumpery. He’ll know
all your ancestors intended by every insane piece of architecture, and
every puzzling detail of this old house; and he’ll light up every corner of
it with some gleam of bright tradition.’
‘I thought these sort of people were bores, dear?’ said Kate, with a sly
malice in her look.
‘Of course not. When they are well-bred and well-mannered---’
‘And perhaps well-looking?’ chimed in Kate.
‘Yes, and so he is--a little of the _petit-maître_, perhaps. He’s much of
that school which fiction-writers describe as having “finely-pencilled
eyebrows, and chins of almost womanlike roundness”; but people in Rome
always called him handsome, that is if he be my Cecil Walpole.’
‘Well, then, will you tell YOUR Cecil Walpole, in such polite terms as
you know how to coin, that there is really nothing of the very slightest
pretension to interest in this old place; that we should be ashamed at
having lent ourselves to the delusion that might have led him here; and
lastly, that the owner is from home?’
‘What! and is this the Irish hospitality I have heard so much of--the
cordial welcome the stranger may reckon on as a certainty, and make all his
plans with the full confidence of meeting?’
‘There is such a thing as discretion, also, to be remembered, Nina,’ said
Kate gravely.
‘And then there’s the room where the king slept, and the chair that--no,
not Oliver Cromwell, but somebody else sat in at supper, and there’s the
great patch painted on the floor where your ancestor knelt to be knighted.’
‘He was created a viscount, not a knight!’ said Kate, blushing. ‘And there
is a difference, I assure you.’
‘So there is, dearest, and even my foreign ignorance should know that much,
and you have the parchment that attests it--a most curious document, that
Walpole would be delighted to see. I almost fancy him examining the curious
old seal with his microscope, and hear him unfolding all sorts of details
one never so much as suspected.’
‘Papa might not like it,’ said Kate, bridling up. ‘Even were he at home,
I am far from certain he would receive these gentlemen. It is little
more than a year ago there came here a certain book-writing tourist, and
presented himself without introduction. We received him hospitably, and he
stayed part of a week here. He was fond of antiquarianism, but more eager
still about the condition of the people--what kind of husbandry they
practised, what wages they had, and what food. Papa took him over the whole
estate, and answered all his questions freely and openly. And this man made
a chapter of his book upon us, and headed it, “Rack-renting and riotous
living,” distorting all he heard and sneering at all he saw.’
‘These are gentlemen, dearest Kate,’ said Nina, holding out the card. ‘Come
now, do tell me that I may say you will be happy to see them?’
‘If you must have it so--if you really insist--’
‘I do! I do!’ cried she, half wildly. ‘I should go distracted if you denied
me. O Kate! I must own it. It will out. I do cling devotedly, terribly, to
that old life of the past. I am very happy here, and you are all good, and
kind, and loving to me; but that wayward, haphazard existence, with all its
trials and miseries, had got little glimpses of such bliss at times that
rose to actual ecstasy.’
‘I was afraid of this,’ said Kate, in a low but firm voice. ‘I thought what
a change it would be for you from that life of brightness and festivity to
this existence of dull and unbroken dreariness.’
‘No, no, no! Don’t say that! Do not fancy that I am not happier than I
ever was or ever believed I could be. It was the castle-building of that
time that I was regretting. I imagined so many things, I invented such
situations, such incidents, which, with this sad-coloured landscape here
and that leaden sky, I have no force to conjure up. It is as though the
atmosphere is too weighty for fancy to mount in it. You, my dearest Kate,’
said she, drawing her arm round her, and pressing her towards her, ‘do not
know these things, nor need ever know them. Your life is assured and safe.
You cannot, indeed, be secure from the passing accidents of life, but they
will meet you in a spirit able to confront them. As for me, I was always
gambling for existence, and gambling without means to pay my losses if
Fortune should turn against me. Do you understand me, child?’
‘Only in part, if even that,’ said she slowly.
‘Let us keep this theme, then, for another time. Now for _ces messieurs_. I
am to invite them?’
‘If there was time to ask Miss O’Shea to come over--’
‘Do you not fancy, Kate, that in your father’s house, surrounded with
your father’s servants, you are sufficiently the mistress to do without a
chaperon? Only preserve that grand austere look you have listened to me
with these last ten minutes, and I should like to see the youthful audacity
that could brave it. There, I shall go and write my note. You shall see how
discreetly and properly I shall word it.’
Kate walked thoughtfully towards a window and looked out, while Nina
skipped gaily down the room, and opened her writing-desk, humming an opera
air as she wrote:--
‘KILGOBBIN CASTLE.
‘DEAR MR. WALPOLE,--I can scarcely tell you the pleasure I feel at the
prospect of seeing a dear friend, or a friend from dear Italy, whichever
be the most proper to say. My uncle is from home, and will not return till
the day after to-morrow at dinner; but my cousin, Miss Kearney, charges
me to say how happy she will be to receive you and your fellow-traveller
at luncheon to-morrow. Pray not to trouble yourself with an answer, but
believe me very sincerely yours, ‘NINA KOSTALERGI.’
‘I was right in saying luncheon, Kate, and not dinner--was I not? It is
less formal.’
‘I suppose so; that is, if it was right to invite them at all, of which I
have very great misgivings.’
‘I wonder what brought Cecil Walpole down here?’ said Nina, glad to turn
the discussion into another channel. ‘Could he have heard that I was here?
Probably not. It was a mere chance, I suppose. Strange things these same
chances are, that do so much more in our lives than all our plottings!’
‘Tell me something of your friend, perhaps I ought to say your admirer,
Nina!’
‘Yes, very much my admirer; not seriously, you know, but in that charming
sort of adoration we cultivate abroad, that means anything or nothing. He
was not titled, and I am afraid he was not rich, and this last misfortune
used to make his attention to me somewhat painful--to _him_ I mean, not to
_me_; for, of course, as to anything serious, I looked much higher than a
poor Secretary of Legation.’
‘Did you?’ asked Kate, with an air of quiet simplicity.
‘I should hope I did,’ said she haughtily; and she threw a glance at
herself in a large mirror, and smiled proudly at the bright image that
confronted her. ‘Yes, darling, say it out,’ cried she, turning to Kate.
‘Your eyes have uttered the words already.’
‘What words?’
‘Something about insufferable vanity and conceit, and I own to both! Oh,
why is it that my high spirits have so run away with me this morning that
I have forgotten all reserve and all shame? But the truth is, I feel half
wild with joy, and joy in _my_ nature is another name for recklessness.’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ said Kate gravely. ‘At any rate, you give me
another reason for wishing to have Miss O’Shea here.’
‘I will not have her--no, not for worlds, Kate, that odious old woman, with
her stiff and antiquated propriety. Cecil would quiz her.’
‘I am very certain he would not; at least, if he be such a perfect
gentleman as you tell me.’
‘Ah, but you’d never know he did it. The fine tact of these consummate men
of the world derives a humoristic enjoyment in eccentricity of character,
which never shows itself in any outward sign beyond the heightened pleasure
they feel in what other folks might call dulness or mere oddity.’
‘I would not suffer an old friend to be made the subject of even such
latent amusement.’
‘Nor her nephew, either, perhaps?’
‘The nephew could take care of himself, Nina; but I am not aware that he
will be called on to do so. He is not in Ireland, I believe.’
‘He was to arrive this week. You told me so.’
‘Perhaps he did; I had forgotten it!’ and Kate flushed as she spoke, though
whether from shame or anger it was not easy to say. As though impatient
with herself at any display of temper, she added hurriedly, ‘Was it not
a piece of good fortune, Nina? Papa has left us the key of the cellar, a
thing he never did before, and only now because you were here!’
‘What an honoured guest I am!’ said the other, smiling.
‘That you are! I don’t believe papa has gone once to the club since you
came here.’
‘Now, if I were to own that I was vain of this, you’d rebuke me, would not
you?’
‘_Our_ love could scarcely prompt to vanity.’
‘How shall I ever learn to be humble enough in a family of such humility?’
said Nina pettishly. Then quickly correcting herself, she said, ‘I’ll go
and despatch my note, and then I’ll come back and ask your pardon for all
my wilfulness, and tell you how much I thank you for all your goodness to
me.’
And as she spoke she bent down and kissed Kate’s hand twice or thrice
fervently.
‘Oh, dearest Nina, not this--not this!’ said Kate, trying to clasp her in
her arms; but the other had slipped from her grasp, and was gone.
‘Strange girl,’ muttered Kate, looking after her. ‘I wonder shall I ever
understand you, or shall we ever understand each other?’