A CHANCE AGREEMENT
As Dick Kearney and young O’Shea had never attained any close intimacy--a
strange sort of half-jealousy, inexplicable as to its cause, served to keep
them apart--it was by mere accident that the two young men met one morning
after breakfast in the garden, and on Kearney’s offer of a cigar, the few
words that followed led to a conversation.
‘I cannot pretend to give you a choice Havana, like one of Walpole’s,’ said
Dick, ‘but you’ll perhaps find it smokeable.’
‘I’m not difficult,’ said the other; ‘and as to Mr. Walpole’s tobacco, I
don’t think I ever tasted it.’
‘And I,’ rejoined the other, ‘as seldom as I could; I mean, only when
politeness obliged me.’
‘I thought you liked him?’ said Gorman shortly.
‘I? Far from it. I thought him a consummate puppy, and I saw that he looked
down on us as inveterate savages.’
‘He was a favourite with your ladies, I think?’
‘Certainly not with my sister, and I doubt very much with my cousin. Do
_you_ like him?’
‘No, not at all; but then he belongs to a class of men I neither understand
nor sympathise with. Whatever _I_ know of life is associated with downright
hard work. As a soldier I had my five hours’ daily drill and the care of my
equipments, as a lieutenant I had to see that my men kept to their duty,
and whenever I chanced to have a little leisure, I could not give it up to
ennui or consent to feel bored and wearied.’
‘And do you mean to say you had to groom your horse and clean your arms
when you served in the ranks?’
‘Not always. As a cadet I had a soldier-servant, what we call a “Bursche”;
but there were periods when I was out of funds, and barely able to grope my
way to the next quarter-day, and at these times I had but one meal a day,
and obliged to draw my waist-belt pretty tight to make me feel I had eaten
enough. A Bursche costs very little, but I could not spare even that
little.’
‘Confoundedly hard that.’
‘All my own fault. By a little care and foresight, even without thrift,
I had enough to live as well as I ought; but a reckless dash of the old
spendthrift blood I came of would master me now and then, and I’d launch
out into some extravagance that would leave me penniless for months after.’
‘I believe I can understand that. One does get horribly bored by the
monotony of a well-to-do existence: just as I feel my life here--almost
insupportable.’
‘But you are going into Parliament; you are going to be a great public
man.’
‘That bubble has burst already; don’t you know what happened at Birr? They
tore down all Miller’s notices and mine, they smashed our booths, beat our
voters out of the town, and placed Donogan--the rebel Donogan--at the head
of the poll, and the head-centre is now M.P. for King’s County.’
‘And he has a right to sit in the House?’
‘There’s the question. The matter is discussed every day in the newspapers,
and there are as many for as against him. Some aver that the popular will
is a sovereign edict that rises above all eventualities; others assert that
the sentence which pronounces a man a felon declares him to be dead in
law.’
‘And which side do you incline to?’
‘I believe in the latter: he’ll not be permitted to take his seat.’
‘You’ll have another chance, then?’
‘No; I’ll venture no more. Indeed, but for this same man Donogan, I had
never thought of it. He filled my head with ideas of a great part to
be played and a proud place to be occupied, and that even without high
abilities, a man of a strong will, a fixed resolve, and an honest
conscience, might at this time do great things for Ireland.’
‘And then betrayed you?’
‘No such thing; he no more dreamed of Parliament himself than you do now.
He knew he was liable to the law,--he was hiding from the police--and well
aware that there was a price upon his head.’
‘But if he was true to you, why did he not refuse this honour? why did he
not decline to be elected?’
‘They never gave him the choice. Don’t you see, it is one of the strange
signs of the strange times we are living in that the people fix upon
certain men as their natural leaders and compel them to march in the van,
and that it is the force at the back of these leaders that, far more than
their talents, makes them formidable in public life.’
‘I only follow it in part. I scarcely see what they aim at, and I do not
know if they see it more clearly themselves. And now, what will you turn
to?’
‘I wish you could tell me.’
‘About as blank a future as my own,’ muttered Gorman.
‘Come, come, _you_ have a career: you are a lieutenant of lancers; in
time you will be a captain, and eventually a colonel, and who knows but
a general at last, with Heaven knows how many crosses and medals on your
breast.’
‘Nothing less likely--the day is gone by when Englishmen were advanced to
places of high honour and trust in the Austrian army. There are no more
field-marshals like Nugent than major-generals like O’Connell. I might be
made a Rittmeister, and if I lived long enough, and was not superannuated,
a major; but there my ambition must cease.’
‘And you are content with that prospect?’
‘Of course I am not. I go back to it with something little short of
despair.’
‘Why go back, then?’
‘Tell me what else to do--tell me what other road in life to take--show me
even one alternative.’
The silence that now succeeded lasted several minutes, each immersed in his
own thoughts, and each doubtless convinced how little presumption he had to
advise or counsel the other.
‘Do you know, O’Shea,’ cried Kearney, ‘I used to fancy that this Austrian
life of yours was a mere caprice--that you took “a cast,” as we call it in
the hunting-field, amongst those fellows to see what they were like and
what sort of an existence was theirs--but that being your aunt’s heir, and
with a snug estate that must one day come to you, it was a mere “lark,” and
not to be continued beyond a year or two?’
‘Not a bit of it. I never presumed to think I should be my aunt’s heir--and
now less than ever. Do you know, that even the small pension she has
allowed me hitherto is now about to be withdrawn, and I shall be left to
live on my pay?’
‘How much does that mean?’
‘A few pounds more or less than you pay for your saddle-horse at livery at
Dycers’.’
‘You don’t mean that?’
‘I do mean it, and even that beggarly pittance is stopped when I am on my
leave; so that at this moment my whole worldly wealth is here,’ and he
took from his pocket a handful of loose coin, in which a few gold pieces
glittered amidst a mass of discoloured and smooth-looking silver.
‘On my oath, I believe you are the richer man of the two,’ cried Kearney,
‘for except a few half-crowns on my dressing-table, and some coppers, I
don’t believe I am master of a coin with the Queen’s image.’
‘I say, Kearney, what a horrible take-in we should prove to mothers with
daughters to marry!’
‘Not a bit of it. You may impose upon any one else--your tailor, your
bootmaker, even the horsy gent that jobs your cabriolet, but you’ll never
cheat the mamma who has the daughter on sale.’
Gorman could not help laughing at the more than ordinary irritability with
which these words were spoken, and charged him at last with having uttered
a personal experience.
‘True, after all!’ said Dick, half indolently. ‘I used to spoon a pretty
girl up in Dublin, ride with her when I could, and dance with her at all
the balls, and a certain chum of mine--a Joe Atlee--of whom you may have
heard--under-took, simply by a series of artful rumours as to my future
prospects--now extolling me as a man of fortune and a fine estate,
to-morrow exhibiting me as a mere pretender with a mock title and mock
income--to determine how I should be treated in this family; and he would
say to me, “Dick, you are going to be asked to dinner on Saturday next”;
or, “I say, old fellow, they’re going to leave you out of that picnic at
Powerscourt. You’ll find the Clancys rather cold at your next meeting.”’
‘And he would be right in his guess?’
‘To the letter! Ay, and I shame to say that the young girl answered the
signal as promptly as the mother.’
‘I hope it cured you of your passion?’
‘I don’t know that it did. When you begin to like a girl, and find that
she has regularly installed herself in a corner of your heart, there is
scarcely a thing she can do you’ll not discover a good reason for; and
even when your ingenuity fails, go and pay a visit; there is some artful
witchery in that creation you have built up about her--for I heartily
believe most of us are merely clothing a sort of lay figure of loveliness
with attributes of our fancy--and the end of it is, we are about as wise
about our idols as the South Sea savages in their homage to the gods of
their own carving.’
‘I don’t think that!’ said Gorman sternly. ‘I could no more invent the
fascination that charms me than I could model a Venus or an Ariadne.’
‘I see where your mistake lies. You do all this, and never know you do it.
Mind, I am only giving you Joe Atlee’s theory all this time; for though I
believe in, I never invented it.’
‘And who is Atlee?’
‘A chum of mine--a clever dog enough--who, as he says himself, takes a very
low opinion of mankind, and in consequence finds this a capital world to
live in.’
‘I should hate the fellow.’
‘Not if you met him. He can be very companionable, though I never saw any
one take less trouble to please. He is popular almost everywhere.’
‘I know I should hate him.’
‘My cousin Nina thought the same, and declared, from the mere sight of his
photograph, that he was false and treacherous, and Heaven knows what else
besides; and now she’ll not suffer a word in his disparagement. She began
exactly as you say you would, by a strong prejudice against him. I remember
the day he came down here--her manner towards him was more than distant;
and I told my sister Kate how it offended me; and Kate only smiled and
said, “Have a little patience, Dick.”’
‘And you took the advice? You did have a little patience?’
‘Yes; and the end is they are firm friends. I’m not sure they don’t
correspond.’
‘Is there love in the case, then?’
‘That is what I cannot make out. So far as I know either of them, there
is no trustfulness in their dispositions; each of them must see into the
nature of the other. I have heard Joe Atlee say, “With that woman for a
wife, a man might safely bet on his success in life.” And she herself one
day owned, “If a girl was obliged to marry a man without sixpence, she
might take Atlee.”’
‘So, I have it, they will be man and wife yet!’
‘Who knows! Have another weed?’
Gorman declined the offered cigar, and again a pause in the conversation
followed. At last he suddenly said, ‘She told me she thought she would
marry Walpole.’
‘She told _you_ that? How did it come about to make _you_ such a
confidence?’
‘Just this way. I was getting a little--not spooney--but attentive, and
rather liked hanging after her; and in one of our walks in the wood--and
there was no flirting at the time between us--she suddenly said, “I don’t
think you are half a bad fellow, lieutenant.” “Thanks for the compliment,”
said I coldly. She never heeded my remark, but went on, “I mean, in fact,
that if you had something to live for, and somebody to care about, there
is just the sort of stuff in you to make you equal to both.” Not exactly
knowing what I said, and half, only half in earnest, I answered, “Why can I
not have one to care for?” And I looked tenderly into her eyes as I spoke.
She did not wince under my glance. Her face was calm, and her colour did
not change; and she was full a minute before she said, with a faint sigh,
“I suppose I shall marry Cecil Walpole.” “Do you mean,” said I, “against
your will?” “Who told you I had a will, sir?” said she haughtily; “or that
if I had, I should now be walking here in this wood alone with you? No,
no,” added she hurriedly, “you cannot understand me. There is nothing to be
offended at. Go and gather me some of those wild flowers, and we’ll talk of
something else.”’
‘How like her!--how like her!’ said Dick, and then looked sad and pondered.
‘I was very near falling in love with her myself!’ said he, after a
considerable pause.
‘She has a way of curing a man if he should get into such an indiscretion,’
muttered Gorman, and there was bitterness in his voice as he spoke.
‘Listen! listen to that!’ and from an open window of the house there came
the prolonged cadence of a full sweet voice, as Nina was singing an Irish
ballad air. ‘That’s for my father! “Kathleen Mavourneen” is one of his
favourites, and she can make him cry over it.’
‘I’m not very soft-hearted,’ muttered Gorman, ‘but she gave me a sense of
fulness in the throat, like choking, the other day, that I vowed to myself
I’d never listen to that song again.’
‘It is not her voice--it is not the music--there is some witchery in the
woman herself that does it,’ cried Dick, almost fiercely. ‘Take a walk with
her in the wood, saunter down one of these alleys in the garden, and I’ll
be shot if your heart will not begin to beat in another fashion, and your
brain to weave all sorts of bright fancies, in which she will form the
chief figure; and though you’ll be half inclined to declare your love, and
swear that you cannot live without her, some terror will tell you not to
break the spell of your delight, but to go on walking there at her side,
and hearing her words just as though that ecstasy could last for ever.’
‘I suspect you are in love with her,’ said O’Shea dryly.
‘Not now. Not now; and I’ll take care not to have a relapse,’ said he
gravely.
‘How do you mean to manage that?’
‘The only one way it is possible--not to see her, nor to hear her--not to
live in the same land with her. I have made up my mind to go to Australia.
I don’t well know what to do when I get there; but whatever it be, and
whatever it cost me to bear, I shall meet it without shrinking, for there
will be no old associates to look on and remark upon my shabby clothes and
broken boots.’
‘What will the passage cost you?’ asked Gorman eagerly.
‘I have ascertained that for about fifty pounds I can land myself in
Melbourne, and if I have a ten-pound note after, it is as much as I mean to
provide.’
‘If I can raise the money, I’ll go with you,’ said O’Shea.
‘Will you? is this serious? is it a promise?’
‘I pledge my word on it. I’ll go over to the Barn to-day and see my aunt. I
thought up to this I could not bring myself to go there, but I will now. It
is for the last time in my life, and I must say good-bye, whether she helps
me or not.’
‘You’ll scarcely like to ask her for money,’ said Dick.
‘Scarcely--at all events, I’ll see her, and I’ll tell her that I’m going
away, with no other thought in my mind than of all the love and affection
she had for me, worse luck mine that I have not got them still.’
‘Shall I walk over with--? would you rather be alone?’
‘I believe so! I think I should like to be alone.’
‘Let us meet, then, on this spot to-morrow, and decide what is to be done?’
‘Agreed!’ cried O’Shea, and with a warm shake-hands to ratify the pledge,
they parted: Dick towards the lower part of the garden, while O’Shea turned
towards the house.