The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 63

Dunroe found his father much as Morty had described him--enjoying the fresh breeze and blessed light of heaven, as both came in upon him through the open window at which he sat.

The appearance of the good old man was much changed for the worse. His face was paler and more emaciated than when we last described it. His chin almost rested on his breast, and his aged-looking hands were worn away to skin and bone. Still there was the same dignity about him as ever, only that the traces of age and illness gave to it something that was still more venerable and impressive. Like some portrait, by an old master, time, whilst it mellowed and softened the colors, added that depth and truthfulness of character by which the value I is at once known. He was sitting in an arm-chair, with a pillow for his head to rest upon when he wished it; and on his son's entrance he asked him to wheel it round nearer the centre of the room, and let down the window.

"I hope you are better this morning, my lord?" inquired Dunroe.

"John," said he in reply, "I cannot say that I am better, but I can that I am worse."

"I am sorry to hear that, my lord," replied the other, "the season is remarkably fine, and the air mild and cheerful."

"I would much rather the cheerfulness were here," replied his father, putting his wasted hand upon his heart; "but I did not ask you here to talk about myself on this occasion, or about my feelings. Miss Gourlay has consented to marry you, I know."

"She has, my lord."

"Well, I must confess I did her father injustice for a time. I ascribed his extraordinary anxiety for this match less to any predilection of hers--for I thought it was otherwise--than to his ambition. I am glad, however, that it is to be a marriage, although I feel you are utterly unworthy of her; and if I did not hope that her influence may in time, and in a short time, too, succeed in bringing about a wholesome reformation in your life and morals, I would oppose it still as far as lay in my power. It is upon this subject I wish to speak with you."

Lord Dunroe bowed with an appearance of all due respect, but at the same time wished in his heart that Norton could be present to hear the lecture which he had so correctly prognosticated, and to witness the ability with which he should bamboozle the old peer.

"I a.s.sure you, my lord," he replied, "I am very willing and anxious to hear and be guided by everything you shall say. I know I have been wild--indeed, I am very sorry for it; and if it will satisfy you, my lord, I will add, without hesitation, that it is time I should turn over a new leaf--hem!"

"You have, John, been not merely wild--for wildness I could overlook without much severity--but you have been profligate in morals, profligate in expenditure, and profligate in your dealings with those who trusted in your integrity. You have been intemperate; you have been licentious; you have been dishonest; and as you have not yet abandoned any one of these frightful vices, I look upon your union with Miss Gourlay as an a.s.sociation between pollution and purity."

"You are very severe, my lord."

"I meant to be so; but am I unjust? Ah, John, let your own conscience answer that question."

"Well, my lord, I trust you will be gratified to hear that I am perfectly sensible of the life I have led--ahem?"

"And what is that but admitting that you know the full extent of your vices?--unless, indeed, you have made a firm resolution to give them up."

"I have made such a resolution, my lord, and it is my intention to keep it. I know I can do little of myself, but I trust that where there is a sincere disposition, all will go on swimmingly, as the Bible says--ahem!"

"Where does the Bible say that all will go on swimmingly?"

"I don't remember the exact chapter and verse, my lord," he replied, affecting a very grave aspect, "but I know it is somewhere in the Book of Solomon--ahem!--ahem! Either in Solomon or Exodus the Prophet, I am not certain which. Oh, no, by the by, I believe it is in the dialogue that occurs between Jonah and the whale."

His father looked at him as if to ascertain whether his worthy son were abandoned enough to tamper, in the first place, with a subject so solemn, and, in the next, with the anxiety of his own parent, while laboring, under age and infirmity, to wean him from a course of dissipation and vice. Little indeed did he suspect that his virtuous offspring was absolutely enacting his part, for the purpose of having a good jest to regale Norton with in the course of their evening's potations.

Let it not be supposed that we are overstepping the modesty of nature in this scene. There is scarcely any one acquainted with life who does not know that there are hundreds, thousands, of hardened profligates, who would take delight, under similar circ.u.mstances, to quiz the governor--as a parent is denominated by this cla.s.s--even at the risk of incurring his lasting displeasure, or of altogether forfeiting his affection, rather than lose the opportunity of having a good joke to tell their licentious companions, when they meet. The present age has as much of this, perhaps, as any of its predecessors, if not more. But to return.

"I know not," observed Lord Cullamore, "whether this is an ironical affectation of ignorance, or ignorance itself; but on whichever horn of the dilemma I hang you, Dunroe, you are equally contemptible and guilty.

A heart must be deeply corrupted, indeed, that can tempt its owner to profane sacred things, and cast an aged and afflicted parent into ridicule. You are not aware, unfortunate young man, of the precipice on which you stand, or the dismay with which I could fill your hardened heart, by two or three words speaking. And only that I was not a conscious party in circ.u.mstances which may operate terribly against us both, I would mention them to you, and make you shudder at the fate that is probably before you."

"I really think," replied his son, now considerably alarmed by what he had heard, "that you are dealing too severely with me. I am not, so far as I know, profaning anything sacred; much less would I attempt to ridicule your lords.h.i.+p. But the truth is, I know little or nothing of the Bible, and consequently any mistaken references to it that I may sincerely make, ought not to be uncharitably misinterpreted--ahem! 'We are going on swimmingly' as Jonah said to the whale, or the whale to Jonah, I cannot say which, is an expression which I have frequently heard, and I took it for granted that it was a scriptural quotation.

Your lords.h.i.+p is not aware, besides, that I am afflicted with a very bad memory."

"Perfectly aware of it, Dunroe: since I have been forced to observe that you forget every duty of life. What is there honorable to yourself or your position in the world, that you ever have remembered? And supposing now, on the one hand, that you may for the present only affect a temporary reformation, and put in practice that worst of vices, a moral expediency, and taking it for granted, on the other, that your resolution to amend is sincere, by what act am I to test that sincerity?"

"I will begin and read the Bible, my lord, and engage a parson to instruct me in virtue. Isn't that generally the first step?"

"I do not forbid you the Bible, nor the instructions of a pious clergyman; but I beg to propose a test that will much more satisfactorily establish that sincerity. First, give up your dissipated and immoral habits; contract your expenditure within reasonable limits; pay your just debts, by which I mean your debts of honesty, not of honor--unless they have been lost to a man of honor, and not to notorious swindlers; forbear to a.s.sociate any longer with sharpers and blacklegs, whether aristocratic or plebeian; and as a first proof of the sincerity you claim, dismiss forever from your society that fellow, Norton, who is, I am sorry to say, your bosom friend and boon companion."

"With every condition you have proposed, my lord, I am willing and ready to comply, the last only excepted. I am sorry to find that you have conceived so strong and unfounded a prejudice against Mr. Norton. You do not know his value to me, my lord. He has been a Mentor to me--saved me thousands by his ability and devotion to my interests. The fact is, he is my friend. Now I am not prepared to give up and abandon my friend without a just cause; and I regret that any persuasion to such an act should proceed from you, my lord. In all your other propositions I shall obey you implicitly; but in this your lords.h.i.+p must excuse me. I cannot do it with honor, and therefore cannot do it at all."

"Ah, I see, Dunroe, and I bitterly regret to see it--this fellow, this Norton, has succeeded in gaining over you that iniquitous ascendancy which the talented knave gains over the weak and unsuspicious fool.

Pardon me, for I speak plainly. He has studied your disposition and habits; he has catered for your enjoyments; he has availed himself of your weaknesses; he has flattered your vanity; he has mixed himself up in the management of your affairs; and, in fine, made himself necessary to your existence; yet you will not give him up?"

"My lord, I reply to you in one word--he IS MY FRIEND."

A shade of bitterness pa.s.sed over the old man's face as he turned a melancholy look upon Dunroe.

"May you never live, Dunroe," he said, "to see your only son refuse to comply with your dying request, or to listen with an obedient I spirit to your parting admonition. It is true, I am not, I trust, immediately dying, and yet why should I regret it? But, at the same time, I feel that my steps are upon the very threshold of death--a consideration which ought to insure obedience to my wishes in any heart not made callous by the worst experiences of life."

"I would comply with your wishes, my lord," replied Dunroe, "with the sincerest pleasure, and deny myself anything to oblige you; but in what you ask there is a principle involved, which I cannot, as a man of honor, violate. And, besides, I really could not afford to part with him now. My affairs are in such a state, and he is so well acquainted with them, that to do so would ruin me."

His father, who seemed wrapt in some painful reflection, paid no attention to this reply, which, in point of fact, contained, so far as Norton was concerned, a confirmation of the old man's worst suspicions.

His chin had sunk on his breast, and looking into the palms of his hands as he held them clasped together, he could not prevent the tears from rolling slowly down his furrowed cheeks. At length he exclaimed:

"My child, Emily, my child! how will I look upon thee! My innocent, my affectionate angel; what, what, oh what will become of thee? But it cannot be. My guilt was not premeditated. What I did I did in ignorance; and why should we suffer through the arts of others? I shall oppose them step by step should they proceed. I shall leave no earthly resource untried to frustrate their designs; and if they are successful, the cruel sentence may be p.r.o.nounced, but it will be over my grave. I could never live to witness the sufferings of my darling and innocent child.

My lamp of life is already all but exhausted--this would extinguish it forever."

He then raised his head, and after wiping away the tears, spoke to his son as follows:

"Dunroe, be advised by me; reform your life; set your house in order, for you know not, you see not, the cloud which is likely to burst over our heads."

"I don't understand you, my lord."

"I know you do not, nor is it my intention that you should for the present; but if you are wise, you will be guided by my instructions and follow my advice."

When Dunroe left him, which he did after some formal words of encouragement and comfort, to which the old man paid little attention, turning toward the door, which his son on going out had shut, he looked as if his eye followed him beyond the limits of the room, and exclaimed:

"Alas! why was I not born above the ordinary range of the domestic affections? Yet so long as I have my darling child--who is all affection--why should I complain on this account? Alas, my Maria, it is now that thou art avenged for the neglect you experienced at my hands, and for the ambition that occasioned it. Cursed ambition! Did the coronet I gained by my neglect of you, beloved object of my first and only affection, console my heart under the cries of conscience, or stifle the grief which returned for you, when that ambition was gratified? Ah, that false and precipitate step! How much misery has it not occasioned me since I awoke from my dream! Your gentle spirit seemed to haunt me through life, but ever with that melancholy smile of tender and affectionate reproach with which your eye always encountered mine while living. And thou, wicked woman, what has thy act accomplished, if it should be successful? What has thy fraudulent contrivance effected?

Sorrow to one who was ever thy friend--grief, shame, and degradation to the innocent!"

Whilst the old man indulged in these painful and melancholy reflections, his son, on the other hand, was not without his own speculations. On retiring to his dressing-room, he began to ponder over the admonitory if not prophetic words of his father.

"What the deuce can the matter be?" he exclaimed, surveying himself in the gla.s.s; "a good style of face that, in the meantime. Gad, I knew she would surrender in form, and I was right. Something is wrong with--that gold b.u.t.ton--yes, it looks better plain--the old gentleman--something's in the wind--in the meantime I'll raise this window--or why should he talk so lugubriously as he does? Upon my soul it was the most painful interview I ever had. There is nothing on earth so stupid as the twaddle of a sick old lord, especially when repenting for his sins. Repentance!

I can't at all understand that word; but I think the style of the thing in the old fellow's hands was decidedly bad--inartistic, as they say, and without taste; a man, at all events, should repent like a gentleman.

As far as I can guess at it, I think there ought to be considerable elegance of manner in repentance--a kind of genteel ambiguity, that should seem to puzzle the world as to whether you weep for or against the sin; or perhaps repentance should say--as I suppose it often does--'D--n me, this is no humbug; this, look you, is a grand process--I know what I'm about; let the world look on; I have committed a great many naughty things during my past life; I am now able to commit no more; the power of doing so has abandoned me; and I call G.o.ds and men to witness that I am very sorry for it.'--Now, that, in my opinion, would be a good style of thing. Let me see, however, what the venerable earl can mean. I am threatened, am I? Well, but nothing can affect the t.i.tle; of that I'm sure when the cue, 'exit old peer,' comes; then, as to the property; why, he is one of the wealthiest men in the Irish peerage, although he is an English one also. Then, what the deuce can his threats mean? I don't know--perhaps he does not know himself; but, in any event, and to guard against all accidents, I'll push on this marriage as fast as possible; for, in case anything unexpected and disagreeable should happen, it will be a good move to have something handsome--something certain, to fall back upon."

Having dressed, he ordered his horse, and rode out to the Phoenix Park, accompanied by his shadow, Norton, who had returned, and heard with much mirth a full history of the interview, with a glowing description of the stand which Dunroe made for himself.

CHAPTER x.x.x. A Courts.h.i.+p on Novel Principles.

Having stated that Sir Thomas Gourlay requested Dunroe to postpone an interview with Lucy until her health should become reestablished, we feel it necessary to take a glance at the kind of life the unfortunate girl led from the day she made the sacrifice until that at which we have arrived in this narrative. Since that moment of unutterable anguish her spirits completely abandoned her. Naturally healthy she had ever been, but now she began to feel what the want of it meant; a feeling which to her, as the gradual precursor of death, and its consequent release from sorrow, brought something like hope and consolation. Yet this was not much; for we know that to the young heart entering upon the world of life and enjoyment, the prospect of early dissolution, no matter by what hopes or by what resignation supported, is one so completely at variance with the mysterious gift of existence and the natural tenacity with which we cling to it, that, like the drugs which we so reluctantly take during illness, its taste upon the spirit is little else than bitterness itself. Lucy's appet.i.te failed her; she could not endure society, but courted solitude, and scarcely saw any one, unless, indeed, her father occasionally, and her maid Alley Mahon, when her attendance was necessary. She became pale as a shadow, began to have a wasted appearance, and the very fountains of her heart seemed to have dried up, for she found it impossible to shed a tear. A dry, cold, impa.s.sive agony, silent, insidious, and exhausting, appeared to absorb the very elements of life, and reduce her to a condition of such physical and morbid incapacity as to feel an utter inability, or at all events disinclination, to complain.