Lord Kilgobbin Part 99

A knock at the door apprised them that the dinner was waiting, neither having heard the bell which had summoned them a quarter of an hour before.

'And I wanted to hear all about your progress,' cried Walpole, as they descended the staircase together.

'I have none to report,' was the gruff reply.

'Why, surely you have not pa.s.sed the whole day in Kearney's company without some hint of what you came here for?'

But at the same moment they were in the dining-room.

'We are a man party to-day, I am sorry to say,' cried old Kearney, as they entered. 'My niece and my daughter are keeping Miss O'Shea company upstairs. She is not well enough to come down to dinner, and they have scruples about leaving her in solitude.'

'At least we'll have a cigar after dinner,' was d.i.c.k's ungallant reflection as they moved away.

CHAPTER LXXVII

TWO YOUNG LADIES ON MATRIMONY

'I hope they had a pleasanter dinner downstairs than we have had here,'

said Nina, as, after wis.h.i.+ng Miss O'Shea a good-night, the young girls slowly mounted the stairs.

'Poor old G.o.dmother was too sad and too depressed to be cheerful company; but did she not talk well and sensibly on the condition of the country? was it not well said, when she showed the danger of all that legislation which, a.s.suming to establish right, only engenders disunion and cla.s.s jealousy?'

'I never followed her; I was thinking of something else.'

'She was worth listening to, then. She knows the people well, and she sees all the mischief of tampering with natures so imbued with distrust. The Irishman is a gambler, and English law-makers are always exciting him to play.'

'It seems to me there is very little on the game.'

'There is everything--home, family, subsistence, life itself--all that a man can care for.'

'Never mind these tiresome themes; come into my room; or I'll go to yours, for I'm sure you've a better fire; besides, I can walk away if you offend me: I mean offend beyond endurance, for you are sure to say something cutting.'

'I hope you wrong me, Nina.'

'Perhaps I do. Indeed, I half suspect I do; but the fact is, it is not your words that reproach me, it is your whole life of usefulness is my reproach, and the least syllable you utter comes charged with all the responsibility of one who has a duty and does it, to a mere good-for-nothing. There, is not that humility enough?'

'More than enough, for it goes to flattery.'

'I'm not a bit sure all the time that I'm not the more lovable creature of the two. If you like, I'll put it to the vote at breakfast.'

'Oh, Nina!'

'Very shocking, that's the phrase for it, very shocking! Oh dear, what a nice fire, and what a nice little snug room; how is it, will you tell me, that though my room is much larger and better furnished in every way, your room is always brighter and neater, and more like a little home? They fetch you drier firewood, and they bring you flowers, wherever they get them. I know well what devices of roguery they practise.'

'Shall I give you tea?'

'Of course I'll have tea. I expect to be treated like a favoured guest in all things, and I mean to take this arm-chair, and the nice soft cus.h.i.+on for my feet, for I warn you, Kate, I'm here for two hours. I've an immense deal to tell you, and I'll not go till it's told.'

'I'll not turn you out.'

'I'll take care of that; I have not lived in Ireland for nothing. I have a proper sense of what is meant by possession, and I defy what your great Minister calls a heartless eviction. Even your tea is nicer, it is more fragrant than any one else's. I begin to hate you out of sheer jealousy.'

'That is about the last feeling I ought to inspire.'

'More humility; but I'll drop rudeness and tell you my story, for I have a story to tell. Are you listening? Are you attentive? Well, my Mr. Walpole, as you called him once, is about to become so in real earnest. I could have made a long narrative of it and held you in weary suspense, but I prefer to dash at once into the thick of the fray, and tell you that he has this morning made me a formal proposal, and I have accepted him. Be pleased to bear in mind that this is no case of a misconception or a mistake. No young gentleman has been petting and kissing my hand for another's; no tender speeches have been uttered to the ears they were not meant for. I have been wooed this time for myself, and on my own part I have said Yes.'

'You told me you had accepted him already. I mean when he was here last.'

'Yes, after a fas.h.i.+on. Don't you know, child, that though lawyers maintain that a promise to do a certain thing, to make a lease or some contract, has in itself a binding significance, that in Cupid's Court this is not law?

and the man knew perfectly that all pa.s.sed between us. .h.i.therto had no serious meaning, and bore no more real relation to marriage than an outpost encounter to a battle. For all that has taken place up to this, we might never fight--I mean marry--after all. The sages say that a girl should never believe a man means marriage till he talks money to her. Now, Kate, he talked money; and I believed him.'

'I wish you would tell me of these things seriously, and without banter.'

'So I do. Heaven knows I am in no jesting humour. It is in no outburst of high spirits or gaiety a girl confesses she is going to marry a man who has neither wealth nor station to offer, and whose fine connections are just fine enough to be ashamed of him.'

'Are you in love with him?'

'If you mean, do I imagine that this man's affection and this man's companions.h.i.+p are more to me than all the comforts and luxuries of life with another, I am not in love with him; but if you ask me, am I satisfied to risk my future with so much as I know of his temper, his tastes, his breeding, his habits, and his abilities, I incline to say Yes. Married life, Kate, is a sort of dietary, and one should remember that what he has to eat of every day ought not to be too appetising.'

'I abhor your theory.'

'Of course you do, child; and you fancy, naturally enough, that you would like ortolans every day for dinner; but my poor cold Greek temperament has none of the romantic warmth of your Celtic nature. I am very moderate in my hopes, very humble in all my ambitions.'

'It is not thus I read you.'

'Very probably. At all events, I have consented to be Mr. Walpole's wife, and we are to be Minister Plenipotentiary and Special Envoy somewhere. It is not Bolivia, nor the Argentine Republic, but some other fabulous region, where the only fact is yellow fever.'

'And you really like him?'

'I hope so, for evidently it must be on love we shall have to live, one half of our income being devoted to saddle-horses and the other to my toilet.'

'How absurd you are!'

'No, not I. It is Mr. Walpole himself, who, not trusting much to my skill at arithmetic, sketched out this schedule of expenditure; and then I bethought me how simple this man must deem me. It was a flattery that won me at once. Oh! Kate dearest, if you could understand the ecstasy of being thought, not a fool, but one easily duped, easily deceived!'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'It is this, then, that to have a man's whole heart--whether it be worth the having is another and a different question--you must impress him with his immense superiority in everything--that he is not merely physically stronger than you, and bolder and more courageous, but that he is mentally more vigorous and more able, judges better, decides quicker, resolves more fully than you; and that, struggle how you will, you pa.s.s your life in eternally looking up to this wonderful G.o.d, who vouchsafes now and then to caress you, and even say tender things to you.'

'Is it, Nina, that you have made a study of these things, or is all this mere imagination?'

'Most innocent young lady! I no more dreamed of these things to apply to such men as your country furnishes--good, homely, commonplace creatures--than I should have thought of asking you to adopt French cookery to feed them. I spoke of such men as one meets in what I may call the real world: as for the others, if they feel life to be a stage, they are always going about in slipshod fas.h.i.+on, as if at rehearsal. Men like your brother and young O'Shea, for instance--tossed here and there by accidents, made one thing by a chance, and something else by a misfortune. Take my word for it, the events of life are very vulgar things; the pa.s.sions and emotions they evoke, _these_ const.i.tute the high stimulants of existence, they make the _gross jeu_, which it is so exciting to play.'

'I follow you with some difficulty; but I am rude enough to own I scarcely regret it.'

'I know, I know all about that sweet innocence that fancies to ignore anything is to obliterate it; but it's a fool's paradise, after all, Kate.