Lord Kilgobbin Part 71

'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 d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k, 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 a.s.sociates to look on and remark upon my shabby clothes and broken boots.'

'What will the pa.s.sage 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 d.i.c.k.

'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: d.i.c.k towards the lower part of the garden, while O'Shea turned towards the house.

CHAPTER LIII

A Sc.r.a.pE

We have all of us felt how depressing is the sensation felt in a family circle in the first meeting after the departure of their guests. The friends who have been staying some time in your house not only bring to the common stock their share of pleasant converse and companions.h.i.+p, but, in the quality of strangers, they exact a certain amount of effort for their amus.e.m.e.nt, which is better for him who gives than for the recipient, and they impose that small reserve which excludes the purely personal inconveniences and contrarieties, which unhappily, in strictly family intercourse, have no small s.p.a.ce allotted them for discussion.

It is but right to say that they who benefit most by, and most gratefully acknowledge, this boon of the visitors, are the young. The elders, sometimes more disposed to indolence than effort, sometimes irritable at the check essentially put upon many little egotisms of daily use, and oftener than either, perhaps, glad to get back to the old groove of home discussion, unrestrained by the presence of strangers; the elders are now and then given to express a most ungracious grat.i.tude for being once again to themselves, and free to be as confidential and outspoken and disagreeable as their hearts desire.

The dinner at Kilgobbin Castle, on the day I speak of, consisted solely of the Kearney family, and except in the person of the old man himself, no trace of pleasantry could be detected. Kate had her own share of anxieties.

A number of notices had been served by refractory tenants for demands they were about to prefer for improvements, under the new land act. The pa.s.sion for litigation, so dear to the Irish peasant's heart--that sense of having something to be quibbled for, so exciting to the imaginative nature of the Celt, had taken possession of all the tenants on the estate, and even the well-to-do and the satisfied were now bestirring themselves to think if they had not some grievance to be turned into profit, and some possible hards.h.i.+p to be discounted into an abatement.

d.i.c.k Kearney, entirely preoccupied by the thought of his intended journey, already began to feel that the things of home touched him no longer. A few months more and he should be far away from Ireland and her interests, and why should he hara.s.s himself about the contests of party or the balance of factions, which never again could have any bearing on his future life. His whole thought was what arrangement he could make with his father by which, for a little present a.s.sistance, he might surrender all his right on the entail and give up Kilgobbin for ever.

As for Nina, her complexities were too many and too much interwoven for our investigation; and there were thoughts of all the various persons she had met in Ireland, mingled with scenes of the past, and, more strangely still, the people placed in situations and connections which by no likelihood should they ever have occupied. The thought that the little comedy of everyday life, which she relished immensely, was now to cease for lack of actors, made her serious--almost sad--and she seldom spoke during the meal.

At Lord Kilgobbin's request, that they would not leave him to take his wine alone, they drew their chairs round the dining-room fire; but, except the bright glow of the ruddy turf, and the pleasant look of the old man himself, there was little that smacked of the agreeable fireside.

'What has come over you girls this evening?' said the old man. 'Are you in love, or has the man that ought to be in love with either of you discovered it was only a mistake he was making?'

'Ask Nina, sir,' said Kate gravely.

'Perhaps you are right, uncle,' said Nina dreamily.

'In which of my guesses--the first or the last?'

'Don't puzzle me, sir, for I have no head for a subtle distinction. I only meant to say it is not so easy to be in love without mistakes. You mistake realities and traits for something not a bit like them, and you mistake yourself by imagining that you mind them.'

'I don't think I understand you,' said the old man.

'Very likely not, sir. I do not know if I had a meaning that I could explain.'

'Nina wants to tell you, my lord, that the right man has not come forward yet, and she does not know whether she'll keep the place open in her heart for him any longer,' said d.i.c.k, with a half-malicious glance.

'That terrible Cousin d.i.c.k! nothing escapes him,' said Nina, with a faint smile.

'Is there any more in the newspapers about that scandal of the Government?'

cried the old man, turning to Kate.

'Is there not going to be some inquiry as to whether his Excellency wrote to the Fenians?'

'There are a few words here, papa,' cried Kate, opening the paper. '"In reply to the question of Sir Barnes Malone as to the late communications alleged to have pa.s.sed between the head of the Irish Government and the head-centre of the Fenians, the Right Honourable the First Lord of the Treasury said, 'That the question would be more properly addressed to the n.o.ble lord the Secretary for Ireland, who was not then in the House.

Meanwhile, sir,' continued he, 'I will take on myself the responsibility of saying that in this, as in a variety of other cases, the zeal of party has greatly outstripped the discretion that should govern political warfare.