SOME NIGHT-THOUGHTS
When Gorman reached his room, into which a rich flood of moonlight was
streaming, he extinguished his candle, and, seating himself at the open
window, lighted his cigar, seriously believing he was going to reflect on
his present condition, and forecast something of the future. Though he
had spoken so cavalierly of outstaying his time, and accepting arrest
afterwards, the jest was by no means so palatable now that he was alone,
and could own to himself that the leave he possessed was the unlimited
liberty to be houseless and a vagabond, to have none to claim, no roof to
shelter him.
His aunt’s law-agent, the same Mr. McKeown who acted for Lord Kilgobbin,
had once told Gorman that all the King’s County property of the O’Sheas was
entailed upon him, and that his aunt had no power to alienate it. It is
true the old lady disputed this position, and so strongly resented even
allusion to it, that, for the sake of inheriting that twelve thousand
pounds she possessed in Dutch stock, McKeown warned Gorman to avoid
anything that might imply his being aware of this fact.
Whether a general distrust of all legal people and their assertions was the
reason, or whether mere abstention from the topic had impaired the force of
its truth, or whether--more likely than either--he would not suffer himself
to question the intentions of one to whom he owed so much, certain is it
young O’Shea almost felt as much averse to the belief as the old lady
herself, and resented the thought of its being true, as of something that
would detract from the spirit of the affection she had always borne him,
and that he repaid by a love as faithful.
‘No, no. Confound it!’ he would say to himself. ‘Aunt Betty loves me, and
money has no share in the affection I bear her. If she knew I must be her
heir, she’d say so frankly and freely. She’d scorn the notion of doling out
to me as benevolence what one day would be my own by right. She is proud
and intolerant enough, but she is seldom unjust--never so willingly and
consciously. If, then, she has not said O’Shea’s Barn must be mine some
time, it is because she knows well it cannot be true. Besides, this very
last step of hers, this haughty dismissal of me from her house, implies the
possession of a power which she would not dare to exercise if she were but
a life-tenant of the property. Last of all, had she speculated ever so
remotely on my being the proprietor of Irish landed property, it was most
unlikely she would so strenuously have encouraged me to pursue my career
as an Austrian soldier, and turn all my thoughts to my prospects under the
Empire.’
In fact, she never lost the opportunity of reminding him how unfit he was
to live in Ireland or amongst Irishmen.
Such reflections as I have briefly hinted at here took him some time to
arrive at, for his thoughts did not come freely, or rapidly make place for
others. The sum of them, however, was that he was thrown upon the world,
and just at the very threshold of life, and when it held out its more
alluring prospects.
There is something peculiarly galling to the man who is wincing under the
pang of poverty to find that the world regards him as rich and well off,
and totally beyond the accidents of fortune. It is not simply that he feels
how his every action will be misinterpreted and mistaken, and a spirit of
thrift, if not actual shabbiness, ascribed to all that he does, but he also
regards himself as a sort of imposition or sham, who has gained access to a
place he has no right to occupy, and to associate on terms of equality with
men of tastes and habits and ambitions totally above his own. It was in
this spirit he remembered Nina’s chance expression, ‘I don’t suppose _you_
want money!’ There could be no other meaning in the phrase than some
foregone conclusion about his being a man of fortune. Of course she
acquired this notion from those around her. As a stranger to Ireland,
all she knew, or thought she knew, had been conveyed by others. ‘I don’t
suppose _you_ want money’ was another way of saying, ‘You are your aunt’s
heir. You are the future owner of the O’Shea estates. No vast property, it
is true; but quite enough to maintain the position of a gentleman.’
‘Who knows how much of this Lord Kilgobbin or his son Dick believed?’
thought he. ‘But certainly my old playfellow Kate has no faith in the
matter, or if she have, it has little weight with her in her estimate of
me.
‘It was in this very room I was lodged something like five years ago. It
was at this very window I used to sit at night, weaving Heaven knows what
dreams of a future. I was very much in love in those days, and a very
honest and loyal love it was. I wanted to be very great, and very gallant,
and distinguished, and above all, very rich; but only for _her_, only that
_she_ might be surrounded with every taste and luxury that became her,
and that she should share them with me. I knew well she was better than
me--better in every way: not only purer, and simpler, and more gentle, but
more patient, more enduring, more tenacious of what was true, and more
decidedly the enemy of what was merely expedient. Then, was she not
proud? not with the pride of birth or station, or of an old name and a
time-honoured house, but proud that whatever she did or said amongst the
tenantry or the neighbours, none ever ventured to question or even qualify
the intention that suggested it. The utter impossibility of ascribing a
double motive to her, or of imagining any object in what she counselled but
the avowed one, gave her a pride that accompanied her through every hour of
life.
‘Last of all, she believed in _me_--believed I was going to be one day
something very famous and distinguished: a gallant soldier, whose very
presence gave courage to the men who followed him, and with a name repeated
in honour over Europe. The day was too short for these fancies, for they
grew actually as we fed them, and the wildest flight of imagination led us
on to the end of the time when there would be but one hope, one ambition,
and one heart between us.
‘I am convinced that had any one at that time hinted to her that I was to
inherit the O’Shea estates, he would have dealt a most dangerous blow to
her affection for me. The romance of that unknown future had a great share
in our compact. And then we were so serious about it all--the very gravity
it impressed being an ecstasy to our young hearts in the thought of
self-importance and responsibility. Nor were we without our little
tiffs--those lovers’ quarrels that reveal what a terrible civil war can
rage within the heart that rebels against itself. I know the very spot
where we quarrelled; I could point to the miles of way we walked side by
side without a word; and oh! was it not on that very bed I have passed the
night sobbing till I thought my heart would break, all because I had not
fallen at her feet and begged her forgiveness ere we parted? Not that she
was without her self-accusings too; for I remember one way in which she
expressed sorrow for having done me wrong was to send me a shower of
rose-leaves from her little terraced garden; and as they fell in shoals
across my window, what a balm and bliss they shed over my heart! Would I
not give every hope I have to bring it all back again? to live it over once
more--to lie at her feet in the grass, affecting to read to her, but
really watching her long black lashes as they rested on her cheek, or that
quivering lip as it trembled with emotion. How I used to detest that work
which employed the blue-veined hand I loved to hold within my own, kissing
it at every pause in the reading, or whenever I could pretext a reason to
question her! And now, here I am in the self-same place, amidst the same
scenes and objects. Nothing changed but _herself_! She, however, will
remember nothing of the past, or if she does, it is with repugnance and
regret; her manner to me is a sort of cold defiance, not to dare to revive
our old intimacy, nor to fancy that I can take up our acquaintanceship from
the past. I almost fancied she looked resentfully at the Greek girl for the
freedom to which she admitted me--not but there was in the other’s coquetry
the very stamp of that levity other women are so ready to take offence at;
in fact, it constitutes amongst women exactly the same sort of outrage, the
same breach of honour and loyalty, as cheating at play does amongst men,
and the offenders are as much socially outlawed in one case as in the
other. I wonder, am I what is called falling in love with the Greek--that
is, I wonder, have the charms of her astonishing beauty and the grace of
her manner, and the thousand seductions of her voice, her gestures, and
her walk, above all, so captivated me that I do not want to go back on the
past, and may hope soon to repay Miss Kate Kearney by an indifference the
equal of her own? I don’t think so. Indeed, I feel that even when Nina
was interesting me most, I was stealing secret glances towards Kate, and
cursing that fellow Walpole for the way he was engaging her attention.
Little the Greek suspected, when she asked if “I could not fix a quarrel on
him,” with what a motive it was that my heart jumped at the suggestion! He
is so studiously ceremonious and distant with me; he seems to think I am
not one of those to be admitted to closer intimacy. I know that English
theory of “the unsafe man,” by which people of unquestionable courage avoid
contact with all schooled to other ways and habits than their own. I hate
it. “I am unsafe,” to his thinking. Well, if having no reason to care for
safety be sufficient, he is not far wrong. Dick Kearney, too, is not very
cordial. He scarcely seconded his father’s invitation to me, and what he
did say was merely what courtesy obliged. So that in reality, though the
old lord was hearty and good-natured, I believe I am here now because
Mademoiselle Nina commanded me, rather than from any other reason. If
this be true, it is, to say the least, a sorry compliment to my sense
of delicacy. Her words were, “You shall stay,” and it is upon this I am
staying.’
As though the air of the room grew more hard to breathe with this thought
before him, he arose and leaned half-way out of the window.
As he did so, his ear caught the sound of voices. It was Kate and Nina, who
were talking on the terrace above his head.
‘I declare, Nina,’ said Kate, ‘you have stripped every leaf off my poor
ivy-geranium; there’s nothing left of it but bare branches.’
‘There goes the last handful,’ said the other, as she threw them over the
parapet, some falling on Gorman as he leaned out. ‘It was a bad habit I
learned from yourself, child. I remember when I came here, you used to do
this each night, like a religious rite.’
‘I suppose they were the dried or withered leaves that I threw away,’ said
Kate, with a half-irritation in her voice.
‘No, they were not. They were oftentimes from your prettiest roses, and
as I watched you, I saw it was in no distraction or inadvertence you were
doing this, for you were generally silent and thoughtful some time before,
and there was even an air of sadness about you, as though a painful thought
was bringing its gloomy memories.’
‘What an object of interest I have been to you without suspecting it,’ said
Kate coldly.
‘It is true,’ said the other, in the same tone; ‘they who make few
confidences suggest much ingenuity. If you had a meaning in this act and
told me what it was, it is more than likely I had forgotten all about it
ere now. You preferred secrecy, and you made me curious.’
‘There was nothing to reward curiosity,’ said she, in the same measured
tone; then, after a moment, she added, ‘I’m sure I never sought to ascribe
some hidden motive to _you_. When _you_ left my plants leafless, I was
quite content to believe that you were mischievous without knowing it.’
‘I read you differently,’ said Nina. ‘When _you_ do mischief you mean
mischief. Now I became so--so--what shall I call it, _intriguée_ about this
little “fetish” of yours, that I remember well the night you first left off
and never resumed it.’
‘And when was that?’ asked Kate carelessly.
‘On a certain Friday, the night Miss O’Shea dined here last; was it not a
Friday?’
‘Fridays, we fancy, are unlucky days,’ said Kate, in a voice of easy
indifference.
‘I wonder which are the lucky ones?’ said Nina, sighing. ‘They are
certainly not put down in the Irish almanac. By the way, is not this a
Friday?’
‘Mr. O’Shea will not call it amongst his unlucky days,’ said Kate
laughingly.
‘I almost think I like your Austrian,’ said the other.
‘Only don’t call him _my_ Austrian.’
‘Well, he was yours till you threw him off. No, don’t be angry: I am only
talking in that careless slang we all use when we mean nothing, just as
people employ counters instead of money at cards; but I like him: he has
that easy flippancy in talk that asks for no effort to follow, and he says
his little nothings nicely, and he is not too eager as to great ones, or
too energetic, which you all are here. I like him.’
‘I fancied you liked the eager and enthusiastic people, and that you felt a
warm interest in Donogan’s fate.’
‘Yes, I do hope they’ll not catch him. It would be too horrid to think of
any one we had known being hanged! And then, poor fellow, he was very much
in love.’
‘Poor fellow!’ sighed out Kate.
‘Not but it was the only gleam of sunlight in his existence; he could go
away and fancy that, with Heaven knows what chances of fortune, he might
have won me.’
‘Poor fellow!’ cried Kate, more sorrowfully than before.
‘No, far from it, but very “happy fellow” if he could feed his heart with
such a delusion.’
‘And you think it fair to let him have this delusion?’
‘Of course I do. I’d no more rob him of it than I’d snatch a life-buoy from
a drowning man. Do you fancy, child, that the swimmer will always go about
with the corks that have saved his life?’
‘These mock analogies are sorry arguments,’ said Kate.
‘Tell me, does your Austrian sing? I see he understands music, but I hope
he can sing.’
‘I can tell you next to nothing of my Austrian--if he must be called so. It
is five years since we met, and all I know is how little like he seems to
what he once was.’
‘I’m sure he is vastly improved: a hundred times better mannered; with more
ease, more quickness, and more readiness in conversation. I like him.’
‘I trust he’ll find out his great good-fortune--that is, if it be not a
delusion.’
For a few seconds there was a silence--a silence so complete that Gorman
could hear the rustle of a dress as Nina moved from her place, and seated
herself on the battlement of the terrace. He then could catch the low
murmuring sounds of her voice, as she hummed an air to herself, and at
length traced it to be the song she had sung that same evening in the
drawing-room. The notes came gradually more and more distinct, the tones
swelled out into greater fulness, and at last, with one long-sustained
cadence of thrilling passion, she cried, ‘_Non mi amava--non mi amava!_’
with an expression of heart-breaking sorrow, the last syllables seeming to
linger on the lips as if a hope was deserting them for ever. ‘_Oh, non mi
amava!_’ cried she, and her voice trembled as though the avowal of her
despair was the last effort of her strength. Slowly and faintly the sounds
died away, while Gorman, leaning out to the utmost to catch the dying
notes, strained his hearing to drink them in. All was still, and then
suddenly, with a wild roulade that sounded at first like the passage of
a musical scale, she burst out into a fit of laughter, crying ‘_Non mi
amava,_’ through the sounds, in a half-frantic mockery. ‘_No, no, non mi
amava,_’ laughed she out, as she walked back into the room. The window was
now closed with a heavy bang, and all was silent in the house.
‘And these are the affections we break our hearts for!’ cried Gorman, as he
threw himself on his bed, and covered his face with both his hands.