‘ON THE LEADS’
Kate Kearney’s room was on the top of the castle, and ‘gave’ by a window
over the leads of a large square tower. On this space she had made a
little garden of a few flowers, to tend which was of what she called her
‘dissipations.’
[Illustration: ‘Is not that as fine as your boasted Campagna?’]
Some old packing-cases filled with mould sufficed to nourish a few stocks
and carnations, a rose or two, and a mass of mignonette, which possibly,
like the children of the poor, grew up sturdy and healthy from some of the
adverse circumstances of their condition. It was a very favourite spot with
her; and if she came hither in her happiest moments, it was here also her
saddest hours were passed, sure that in the cares and employments of her
loved plants she would find solace and consolation. It was at this window
Kate now sat with Nina, looking over the vast plain, on which a rich
moonlight was streaming, the shadows of fast-flitting clouds throwing
strange and fanciful effects over a space almost wide enough to be a
prairie.
‘What a deal have mere names to do with our imaginations, Nina!’ said Kate.
‘Is not that boundless sweep before us as fine as your boasted Campagna?
Does not the night wind career over it as joyfully, and is not the
moonlight as picturesque in its breaks by turf-clamp and hillock as by
ruined wall and tottering temple? In a word, are not we as well here, to
drink in all this delicious silence, as if we were sitting on your loved
Pincian?’
‘Don’t ask me to share such heresies. I see nothing out there but bleak
desolation. I don’t know if it ever had a past; I can almost swear it will
have no future. Let us not talk of it.’
‘What shall we talk of?’ asked Kate, with an arch smile.
‘You know well enough what led me up here. I want to hear what you know of
that strange man Dick brought here to-day to dinner.’
‘I never saw him before--never even heard of him.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘I have scarcely seen him.’
‘Don’t be so guarded and reserved. Tell me frankly the impression he makes
on you. Is he not vulgar--very vulgar?’
‘How should I say, Nina? Of all the people you ever met, who knows so
little of the habits of society as myself? Those fine gentlemen who were
here the other day shocked my ignorance by numberless little displays
of indifference. Yet I can feel that they must have been paragons of
good-breeding, and that what I believed to be a very cool self-sufficiency,
was in reality the very latest London version of good manners.’
‘Oh, you did not like that charming carelessness of Englishmen that goes
where it likes and when it likes, that does not wait to be answered when it
questions, and only insists on one thing, which is--“not to be bored.” If
you knew, dearest Kate, how foreigners school themselves, and strive to
catch up that insouciance, and never succeed--never!’
‘My brother’s friend certainly is no adept in it.’
‘He is insufferable. I don’t know that the man ever dined in the company of
ladies before; did you remark that he did not open the door as we left the
dinner-room? and if your brother had not come over, I should have had to
open it for myself. I declare I’m not sure he stood up as we passed.’
‘Oh yes; I saw him rise from his chair.’
‘I’ll tell you what you did not see. You did not see him open his napkin
at dinner. He stole his roll of bread very slyly from the folds, and then
placed the napkin, carefully folded, beside him.’
‘You seem to have observed him closely, Nina.’
‘I did so, because I saw enough in his manner to excite suspicion of his
class, and I want to know what Dick means by introducing him here.’
‘Papa liked him; at least he said that after we left the room a good deal
of his shyness wore off, and that he conversed pleasantly and well. Above
all, he seems to know Ireland perfectly.’
‘Indeed!’ said she, half disdainfully.
‘So much so that I was heartily sorry to leave the room when I heard them
begin the topic; but I saw papa wished to have some talk with him, and I
went.’
‘They were gallant enough not to join us afterwards, though I think we
waited tea till ten.’
‘Till nigh eleven, Nina; so that I am sure they must have been interested
in their conversation.’
‘I hope the explanation excuses them.’
‘I don’t know that they are aware they needed an apology. Perhaps they were
affecting a little of that British insouciance you spoke of--’
‘They had better not. It will sit most awkwardly on their Irish habits.’
‘Some day or other I’ll give you a formal battle on this score, Nina, and I
warn you you’ll not come so well out of it.’
‘Whenever you like. I accept the challenge. Make this brilliant companion
of your brother’s the type, and it will test your cleverness, I promise
you. Do you even know his name?’
‘Mr. Daniel, my brother called him; but I know nothing of his country or of
his belongings.’
‘Daniel is a Christian name, not a family name, is it not? We have scores
of people like that--Tommasina, Riccardi, and such like--in Italy, but they
mean nothing.’
‘Our friend below-stairs looks as if _that_ was not his failing. I should
say that he means a good deal.’
‘Oh, I know you are laughing at my stupid phrase--no matter; you understand
me, at all events. I don’t like that man.’
‘Dick’s friends are not fortunate with you. I remember how unfavourably you
judged of Mr. Atlee from his portrait.’
‘Well, he looked rather better than his picture--less false, I mean; or
perhaps it was that he had a certain levity of manner that carried off the
perfidy.’
‘What an amiable sort of levity!’
‘You are too critical on me by half this evening,’ said Nina pettishly; and
she arose and strolled out upon the leads.
For some time Kate was scarcely aware she had gone. Her head was full of
cares, and she sat trying to think some of them ‘out,’ and see her way to
deal with them. At last the door of the room slowly and noiselessly opened,
and Dick put in his head.
‘I was afraid you might be asleep, Kate,’ said he, entering, ‘finding all
so still and quiet here.’
‘No. Nina and I were chatting here--squabbling, I believe, if I were to
tell the truth; and I can’t tell when she left me.’
‘What could you be quarrelling about?’ asked he, as he sat down beside her.
‘I think it was with that strange friend of yours. We were not quite agreed
whether his manners were perfect, or his habits those of the well-bred
world. Then we wanted to know more of him, and each was dissatisfied that
the other was so ignorant; and, lastly, we were canvassing that very
peculiar taste you appear to have in friends, and were wondering where you
find your odd people.’
‘So then you don’t like Donogan?’ said he hurriedly.
‘Like whom? And you call him Donogan!’
‘The mischief is out,’ said he. ‘Not that I wanted to have secrets from
you; but all the same, I am a precious bungler. His name is Donogan, and
what’s more, it’s Daniel Donogan. He was the same who figured in the dock
at, I believe, sixteen years of age, with Smith O’Brien and the others,
and was afterwards seen in England in ‘59, known as a head-centre, and
apprehended on suspicion in ‘60, and made his escape from Dartmoor the same
year. There’s a very pretty biography in skeleton, is it not?’
‘But, my dear Dick, how are you connected with him?’
‘Not very seriously. Don’t be afraid. I’m not compromised in any way,
nor does he desire that I should be. Here is the whole story of our
acquaintance.’
And now he told what the reader already knows of their first meeting and
the intimacy that followed it.
‘All that will take nothing from the danger of harbouring a man charged as
he is,’ said she gravely.
‘That is to say, if he be tracked and discovered.’
‘It is what I mean.’
‘Well, one has only to look out of that window, and see where we are, and
what lies around us on every side, to be tolerably easy on that score.’
And, as he spoke, he arose and walked out upon the terrace.
‘What, were you here all this time?’ asked he, as he saw Nina seated on the
battlement, and throwing dried leaves carelessly to the wind.
‘Yes, I have been here this half-hour, perhaps longer.’
‘And heard what we have been saying within there?’
‘Some chance words reached me, but I did not follow them.’
‘Oh, it was here you were, then, Nina!’ cried Kate. ‘I am ashamed to say I
did not know it.’
‘We got so warm in discussing your friend’s merits or demerits, that we
parted in a sort of huff,’ said Nina. ‘I wonder was he worth quarrelling
for?’
‘What should _you_ say?’ asked Dick inquiringly, as he scanned her face.
‘In any other land, I might say he was--that is, that some interest might
attach to him; but here, in Ireland, you all look so much brighter, and
wittier, and more impetuous, and more out of the common than you really
are, that I give up all divination of you, and own I cannot read you at
all.’
‘I hope you like the explanation,’ said Kate to her brother, laughing.
‘I’ll tell my friend of it in the morning,’ said Dick; ‘and as he is a
great national champion, perhaps he’ll accept it as a defiance.’
‘You do not frighten me by the threat,’ said Nina calmly.
Dick looked from her face to her sister’s and back again to hers, to
discern if he might how much she had overheard; but he could read nothing
in her cold and impassive bearing, and he went his way in doubt and
confusion.