AN UNWELCOME VISIT
If Mathew Kearney had been put to the question, he could not have concealed
the fact that the human being he most feared and dreaded in life was his
neighbour Miss Betty O’Shea.
With two years of seniority over him, Miss Betty had bullied him as a
child, snubbed him as a youth, and opposed and sneered at him ever after;
and to such an extent did her influence over his character extend,
according to his own belief, that there was not a single good trait of his
nature she had not thwarted by ridicule, nor a single evil temptation to
which he had yielded that had not come out of sheer opposition to that
lady’s dictation.
Malevolent people, indeed, had said that Mathew Kearney had once had
matrimonial designs on Miss Betty, or rather, on that snug place and nice
property called ‘O’Shea’s Barn,’ of which she was sole heiress; but he most
stoutly declared this story to be groundless, and in a forcible manner
asseverated that had he been Robinson Crusoe and Miss Betty the only
inhabitant of the island with him, he would have lived and died in
celibacy.
Miss Betty, to give her the name by which she was best known, was no
miracle of either tact or amiability, but she had certain qualities that
could not be disparaged. She was a strict Catholic, charitable, in her own
peculiar and imperious way, to the poor, very desirous to be strictly just
and honest, and such a sure foe to everything that she thought pretension
or humbug of any kind--which meant anything that did not square with her
own habits--that she was perfectly intolerable to all who did not accept
herself and her own mode of life as a model and an example.
Thus, a stout-bodied copper urn on the tea-table, a very uncouth
jaunting-car, driven by an old man, whose only livery was a cockade, some
very muddy port as a dinner wine, and whisky-punch afterwards on the brown
mahogany, were so many articles of belief with her, to dissent from any of
which was a downright heresy.
Thus, after Nina arrived at the castle, the appearance of napkins palpably
affected her constitution; with the advent of finger-glasses she ceased her
visits, and bluntly declined all invitations to dinner. That coffee and
some indescribable liberties would follow, as postprandial excesses, she
secretly imparted to Kate Kearney in a note, which concluded with the
assurance that when the day of these enormities arrived, O’Shea’s Barn
Would be open to her as a refuge and a sanctuary; ‘but not,’ added she,
‘with your cousin, for I’ll not let the hussy cross my doors.’
For months now this strict quarantine had lasted, and except for the
interchange of some brief and very uninteresting notes, all intimacy had
ceased between the two houses--a circumstance, I am loth to own, which was
most ungallantly recorded every day after dinner by old Kearney, who drank
‘Miss Betty’s health, and long absence to her.’ It was then with no small
astonishment Kate was overtaken in the avenue by Miss Betty on her old
chestnut mare Judy, a small bog-boy mounted on the croup behind to act as
groom; for in this way Paddy Walshe was accustomed to travel, without the
slightest consciousness that he was not in strict conformity with the ways
of Rotten Row and the ‘Bois.’
That there was nothing ‘stuck-up’ or pretentious about this mode of being
accompanied by one’s groom--a proposition scarcely assailable--was Miss
Betty’s declaration, delivered in a sort of challenge to the world. Indeed,
certain ticklesome tendencies in Judy, particularly when touched with the
heel, seemed to offer the strongest protest against the practice; for
whenever pushed to any increase of speed or admonished in any way, the
beast usually responded by a hoist of the haunches, which invariably
compelled Paddy to clasp his mistress round the waist for safety--a
situation which, however repugnant to maiden bashfulness, time, and perhaps
necessity, had reconciled her to. At all events, poor Paddy’s terror would
have been the amplest refutation of scandal, while the stern immobility of
Miss Betty during the embrace would have silenced even malevolence.
On the present occasion, a sharp canter of several miles had reduced Judy
to a very quiet and decorous pace, so that Paddy and his mistress sat
almost back to back--a combination that only long habit enabled Kate to
witness without laughing.
‘Are you alone up at the castle, dear?’ asked Miss Betty, as she rode
along at her side; ‘or have you the house full of what the papers call
“distinguished company”?’
‘We are quite alone, godmother. My brother is with us, but we have no
strangers.’
‘I am glad of it. I’ve come over to “have it out” with your father, and
it’s pleasant to know we shall be to ourselves.’
Now, as this announcement of having ‘it out’ conveyed to Kate’s mind
nothing short of an open declaration of war, a day of reckoning on which
Miss O’Shea would come prepared with a full indictment, and a resolution to
prosecute to conviction, the poor girl shuddered at a prospect so certain
to end in calamity.
‘Papa is very far from well, godmother,’ said she, in a mild way.
‘So they tell me in the town,’ said the other snappishly. ‘His brother
magistrates said that the day he came in, about that supposed attack--the
memorable search for arms--’
‘Supposed attack! but, godmother, pray don’t imagine we had invented all
that. I think you know me well enough and long enough to know--’
‘To know that you would not have had a young scamp of a Castle aide-de-camp
on a visit during your father’s absence, not to say anything about amusing
your English visitor by shooting down your own tenantry.’
‘Will you listen to me for five minutes?’
‘No, not for three.’
‘Two, then--one even--one minute, godmother, will convince you how you
wrong me.’
‘I won’t give you that. I didn’t come over about you nor your affairs. When
the father makes a fool of himself, why wouldn’t the daughter? The whole
country is laughing at him. His lordship indeed! a ruined estate and a
tenantry in rags; and the only remedy, as Peter Gill tells me, raising the
rents--raising the rents where every one is a pauper.’
‘What would you have him do, Miss O’Shea?’ said Kate, almost angrily.
‘I’ll tell you what I’d have him do. I’d have him rise of a morning before
nine o’clock, and be out with his labourers at daybreak. I’d have him
reform a whole lazy household of blackguards, good for nothing but waste
and wickedness. I’d have him apprentice your brother to a decent trade or
a light business. I’d have him declare he’d kick the first man that called
him “My lord”; and for yourself, well, it’s no matter--’
‘Yes, but it is, godmother, a great matter to me at least. What about
myself?’
‘Well, I don’t wish to speak of it, but it just dropped out of my lips by
accident; and perhaps, though not pleasant to talk about, it’s as well it
was said and done with. I meant to tell your father that it must be all
over between you and my nephew Gorman; that I won’t have him back here on
leave as I intended. I know it didn’t go far, dear. There was none of what
they call love in the case. You would probably have liked one another well
enough at last; but I won’t have it, and it’s better we came to the right
understanding at once.’
‘Your curb-chain is loose, godmother,’ said the girl, who now, pale as
death and trembling all over, advanced to fasten the link.
‘I declare to the Lord, he’s asleep!’ said Miss Betty, as the wearied head
of her page dropped heavily on her shoulder. ‘Take the curb off, dear, or
I may lose it. Put it in your pocket for me, Kate; that is, if you wear a
pocket.’
‘Of course I do, godmother. I carry very stout keys in it, too. Look at
these.’
‘Ay, ay. I liked all that, once on a time, well enough, and used to think
you’d be a good thrifty wife for a poor man; but with the viscount your
father, and the young princess your first cousin, and the devil knows what
of your fine brother, I believe the sooner we part good friends the better.
Not but if you like my plan for you, I’ll be just as ready as ever to aid
you.’
‘I have not heard the plan yet,’ said Kate faintly.
‘Just a nunnery, then--no more nor less than that. The “Sacred Heart” at
Namur, or the Sisters of Mercy here at home in Bagot Street, I believe, if
you like better--eh?’
‘It is soon to be able to make up one’s mind on such a point. I want a
little time for this, godmother.’
‘You would not want time if your heart were in a holy work, Kate Kearney.
It’s little time you’d be asking if I said, will you have Gorman O’Shea for
a husband?’
‘There is such a thing as insult, Miss O’Shea, and no amount of long
intimacy can license that.’
‘I ask your pardon, godchild. I wish you could know how sorry I feel.’
‘Say no more, godmother, say no more, I beseech you,’ cried Kate, and her
tears now gushed forth, and relieved her almost bursting heart. ‘I’ll take
this short path through the shrubbery, and be at the door before you,’
cried she, rushing away; while Miss Betty, with a sharp touch of the spur,
provoked such a plunge as effectually awoke Paddy, and apprised him that
his duties as groom were soon to be in request.
While earnestly assuring him that some changes in his diet should be
speedily adopted against somnolency, Miss Betty rode briskly on, and
reached the hall door.
‘I told you I should be first, godmother,’ said the girl; and the pleasant
ring of her voice showed she had regained her spirits, or at least such
self-control as enabled her to suppress her sorrow.