Sir Jasper Carew Part 16

My father sighed, but it was more in weariness than sorrow; and Rutledge said,--

"I came out to have a long chat with you, Walter, about various things; but I fear talking fatigues you."

"It does fatigue me,--I'm not equal to it," said my father, faintly.

"It's unlucky too," said the other, half peevishly, "one so seldom can catch you alone; and though MacNaghten is the best fellow in the world--"

"You must still say nothing against him, at least in my hearing," added my father, as if to finish the sentence for him.

"I was only going to observe that in all that regards politics--"

"Pardon my interrupting you again," broke in my father, "but Dan never pretended to know anything about them; nor is it likely that a fellow that felt the turf a contamination will try to cultivate his morals by the intrigues of party."

Rutledge affected to laugh at the sneering remark, and after a moment resumed,--

"Do you know, then, it was precisely about that very subject of politics I came out to talk with you to-day. The Duke told me of the generous way you expressed yourself to him during his visit here, and that although not abating anything of your attachment to what you feel a national cause, you never would tie yourself hand and foot to party, but stand free to use your influence at the dictates of your own honest conviction. Now, although there is no very important question at issue, there are a number of petty, irritating topics kept continually before Parliament by the Irish party, which, without the slightest pretension to utility, are used as means of hara.s.sing and annoying the Government."

"I never heard of this before, Rutledge; but I know well, if the measures you speak of have Grattan and Flood and Ponsonby, and others of the same stamp, to support them, they are neither frivolous nor contemptible; and if they be not advocated by the leaders of the Irish party, you can afford to treat them with better temper."

"Be that as it may, Walter, the good men of the party do not side with these fellows. But I see all this worries you, so let 's forget it!" And so, taking a turn through the room, he stopped opposite a racing print, and said: "Poor old Gadfly, how she reminds me of old times! going along with her head low, and looking dead-beat when she was just coming to her work. That was the best mare ever you had, Carew!"

"And yet I lost heavily on her," said my father, with a half sigh.

"Lost! Why the report goes that you gained above twenty thousand by her the last year she ran."

"'Common report,' as Figaro says, 'is a common liar;' my losses were very nearly one-half more! It was a black year in my life. I began it badly in Ireland, and ended it worse abroad!"

The eager curiosity with which Rutledge listened, suddenly caught my father's attention, and he stopped short, saying: "These are old stories now, and scarcely worth remembering. But here comes my wife; she 'll be glad to see you, and hear all the news of the capital, for she has been leading a stupid life of it these some weeks back."

However uneasy my mother and MacNaghten might have been lest Rutledge should have alluded to the newspaper attacks, they were soon satisfied on that point, and the evening pa.s.sed over pleasantly in discussing the sayings and doings of the Dublin world.

It was late when Rutledge rose to take his leave, and my father had so far rallied by the excitement of conversation that he already felt himself restored to health; and his last words to his guest at parting were,--

"I'll call and see you, Rutledge, before the week is over."

CHAPTER XII. SHOWING THAT "WHAT IS CRADLED IN SHAME IS HEa.r.s.eD IN SORROW."

Accustomed all his life to the flattery which surrounds a position of some eminence, my father was not a little piqued at the coldness of his friends during his illness. The inquiries after him were neither numerous nor hearty. Some had called once or twice to ask how he was; others had written brief excuses for their absence; and many contented themselves with hearing that it was a slight attack, which a few days would see the end of. Perhaps there were not many men in the kingdom less given to take umbrage at trifles than my father. Naturally disposed to take the bold and open line of action in every affair of life, he never suspected the possibility of a covert insult; and that any one could cherish ill-feeling to another, without a palpable avowal of hostility, was a thing above his conception. At any other time, therefore, this negligence, or indifference, or whatever it was, would not have occasioned him a moment's unpleasantness. He would have explained it to himself in a dozen ways, if it ever occurred to him to require explanation. Now, however, he was irritable from the effects of a malady peculiarly disposed to ruffle nervous susceptibility; while the chagrin of the late Viceregal visit, and its abrupt termination, was still over him. There are little eras in the lives of the best-tempered men, when everything is viewed in wrong and discordant colors, and when, by a perverse ingenuity, they seek out reasons for their own unhappiness in events and incidents that have no possible bearing on the question.

Having once persuaded himself that his friends were faithless to him, he set about accounting for it by every casuistry he could think of. I have lived too long abroad; I have mixed too much in the great world, thought he, to be able to conform to this small and narrow circle. I am not local enough for them. I cannot trade on the petty prejudices they love to cherish, and which they foolishly think means being national. My wider views of life are a rebuke to their pettiness; and it 's clear we do not suit each other. To preserve my popularity I should have lived at home, and married at home; never soared beyond a topic of Irish growth, and voted at the tail of those two or three great men who comprise within themselves all that we know of Irish independence. "Even idolatry would be dear at that price," cried he, aloud, at the end of his reflections,--bitter and unpleasant reveries in which he had been sunk as he travelled up to town some few days after the events related in the last chapter.

Matters of business with his law agent had called him to the capital, where he expected to be detained for a day or two. My mother had not accompanied him, her state of health at the time requiring rest and quietude. Alone, an invalid, and in a frame of, to him, unusual depression, he arrived at his hotel at nightfall. It was not the "Drogheda Arms," where he stopped habitually, but the "Clare," a smaller and less frequented house in the same street, and where he hoped to avoid meeting with his ordinary acquaintances.

Vexed with everything, even to the climate, to which he wrongfully ascribed the return of his malady, he was bent on making immediate arrangements to leave Ireland, and forever. His pecuniary affairs were, it is true, in a condition of great difficulty and embarra.s.sment; still, with every deduction, a very large income, or at least what for the Continent would be thought so, would remain; and with this he determined to go abroad and seek out some spot more congenial to his tastes and likings, and, as he also fancied, more favorable to his health.

The hotel was almost full, and my father with difficulty obtained a couple of rooms; and even for these he was obliged to await the departure of the occupant, which he was a.s.sured would take place immediately. In the mean while, he had ordered his supper in the coffee-room, where now he was seated, in one of those gloomy looking stalls which in those times were supposed to comprise all that could be desired of comfort and isolation.

It was, indeed, a new thing for him to find himself thus,--he, the rich, the flattered, the high-spirited, the centre of so much wors.h.i.+p and adulation, whose word was law upon the turf, and whose caprices gave the tone to fas.h.i.+on, the solitary occupant of a dimly lighted division in a public coffee-room, undistinguished and unknown. There was something in the abrupt indifference of the waiter that actually pleased him, ministering, as it did, to the self-tormentings of his reflections. All seemed to say, "This is what you become when stripped of the accidents of wealth and fortune,--these are your real claims." There was no deference to him there. He had asked for the newspaper, and been curtly informed "that 'Falkner' was engaged by the gentleman in the next box;"

so was he left to his own lucubrations, broken in upon only by the drowsy, monotonous tone of his neighbor in the adjoining stall, who was reading out the paper to a friend. Either the reader had warmed into a more distinct elocution, or my father's ears had become more susceptible by habit, but at length he found himself enabled to overhear the contents of the journal, which seemed to be a rather flippant criticism on a late debate in the Irish House of Commons.

A motion had been made by the Member for Cavan for leave to bring in a bill to build s.h.i.+ps of war for Ireland,--a proposition so palpably declaring a separate and independent nationality that it not only incurred the direct opposition of Government, but actually met with the disapprobation of the chief men of the Liberal party, who saw all the injury that must accrue to just and reasonable demands, by a course of policy thus exaggerated. "Falkner" went even further; for he alleged that the motion was a trick of the Castle party, who were delighted to see the patriots hastening their own destruction, by a line of action little short of treason. The arguments of the journalist in support of this view were numerous and acute. He alleged the utter impossibility of the measure ever being accepted by the House, or sanctioned by the Crown. He showed its insufficiency for the objects proposed, were it even to become law; and, lastly, he proceeded to display all the advantages the Government might derive from every pa.s.sing source of disunion amongst the Irish party,--schisms which, however insignificant at first, were daily widening into fatal breaches of all confidence. His last argument was based on the fact that had the Ministry antic.i.p.ated any serious trouble by the discussion, they would never have displayed such utter indifference about mustering their forces. "We saw not,"

said the writer, "the accustomed names of Townley, Tisdale, Loftus, Skeffington, and fifty more such, on the division. Old Roach did n't whistle up one of his pack, but hunted down the game with the fat poodles that waddle after the Viceroy through the Castle-yard."

"M'Cleary had a caricature of the Portland hunt this morning in his window," cried the listener; "and capital likenesses there are of Bob Uniack and Vandeleur. Morris, too, is represented by a lame dog that stands on a little eminence and barks vigorously, but makes no effort to follow the chase."

"Much they care for all the ridicule and all the obloquy you can throw on them," replied the reader. "They well know that the pensions and peerages that await them will survive newspaper abuse, though every word of it was true as Gospel. Now, here's a list of them alphabetically arranged; and will you tell me how many will read or remember one line of them a dozen years hence? Besides, there is a kind of exaggeration in these attacks that deprives them of credit; when you read such stories as that of Carew, for instance, throwing a main with the dice to decide whether or not he'd vote with the Government."

"I would not say that it was impossible, however," broke in the other.

"Carew's a confirmed gambler, and we know what that means; and as to his having a particle of principle, if Rutledge's story be true, he has done far worse than this."

My father tried to arise from his seat; he even attempted to call out, and impose silence on those whose next words might possibly contain an insult irreparable forever: but he could not do either; a cold sweat broke over him, and he sat powerless and almost fainting, while they continued:--

"I'd be slow to take Master Bob's word, either in praise or dispraise of any man," said the first speaker.

"So should I, if he could make it the subject of a wager," said the other; "but here is a case quite removed from all chance of the betting-ring."

"And what does it amount to, if true?" said the other. "He married somebody's illegitimate daughter. Look at the peerage; look at one half the small sovereignties of Europe."

"That's not the worst of it at all," broke in the former. "It was the way he got his wife."

"Then I suppose I have not heard the story aright. How was it?"

"Rutledge's version is something in this wise: Carew had won such enormous sums at play from one of the French princes that at last he actually held in his hands some of the rarest of the crown jewels as pledges. One of the ministers, having heard of the transaction, went to the prince and insisted, under threat of a public exposure, on an immediate settlement of the debt. In this terrible dilemma, the prince had nothing for it but to offer Carew the valuable paintings and furniture of his chateau,--reputed to be the most costly in the whole kingdom. The report goes that the pictures alone were estimated at several millions of francs. Carew at once accepts the proposition; but, as if not to be outdone in generosity, even by a royal prince, he lets it be known that he will only accept of one solitary article from the whole collection,--rather, in fact, a souvenir than a ransom. I suppose the prince, like everybody else, felt that this was very handsome conduct, for he frankly said: 'The chateau and all within it are at his disposal; I reserve nothing.' Armed with this authority, Carew never waits for morning, but starts that night, by post, for Auvergne, where the chateau lies. I believe it is not ascertained whether he was previously acquainted with the circ.u.mstances of the prince's domestic affairs. The probability, however, is that he must have been; for within a week he returned to Paris, bringing with him the object selected as his choice, in the person of a beautiful girl, the natural daughter of his Royal Highness. Whether he married her then under compulsion, or subsequently of his own free will, is to this day a secret. One thing, however, is certain: he was banished from the French territory by a summary order, which gave him barely time to reach the coast and embark. Of course, once in England, he had only to select some secluded, out-of-the-way spot for a while, and there could be no likelihood of leaving any trace to his adventure. Indeed, the chances are that Rutledge is about the only man who could have unravelled so tangled a skein. How he ever contrived to do so, is more than I can tell you!"

My father sat listening to this story more like one whose faculties are under the dominion of some powerful spell, than of a man in the free exercise of reason. There was something in the mingled truth and falsehood of the tale that terrified and confused him. Up to that moment he had no notion in what a light his conduct could be exhibited, nor could he see by what means the calumny could be resented. There was, however, one name he could fix upon. Rutledge at least should be accountable! There was enough of falsehood in the story to brand him as a foul slanderer, and he should not escape him.

By an effort that demanded all his strength my father rose, the cold sweat dropping from his forehead, and every limb trembling, from weakness and pa.s.sion. His object was to present himself to the strangers in the adjoining box, and, by declaring his name, to compel them to bring home to Rutledge the accusation he had overheard. He had no time, had he even head, to weigh all the difficulties of such a line of procedure. It was not at such a moment that he could consider the question calmly and deliberately. Next to the poignant sense of injury, the thought of vengeance was uppermost in his mind; and the chances were that he was ready to wreak his fury on the first object that should present itself. Fortunately,--might I not rather say unfortunately, since nothing could be more disastrous than the turn affairs were fated to take; it seemed, however, at the moment, as though it were good fortune that when my father by an immense effort succeeded in reaching the adjoining box, the former occupants had departed. Several persons were leaving the coffee-room at the same instant; and though my father tried to hasten after them, and endeavor to recognize the voices he had overheard, his strength was unequal to the effort, and he sank back powerless on a bench. He beckoned to a waiter who was pa.s.sing, and questioned him eagerly as to their names, and, giving him a guinea, promised as much more if he should follow them to their residences and bring back their addresses. But the man soon returned to say that as the strangers were not remarked by him, he had no clew whatever to Their detection in the crowded streets of the capital.

It struck my father as though destiny itself pointed out Rutledge as the only one of whom he could seek reparation; and now he retired to his room to weigh the whole question in his mind, and see by what means, while gratifying his thirst for vengeance, he should best avoid that degree of exposure which would be fatal to the future happiness of my mother.

In this lay all the difficulty. To demand satisfaction from Rutledge required that he should specify the nature of the injury, open the whole history of the slander, and, while giving contradiction to all that was false, publish to the world a true version of an incident that, up to that moment, he had never confided to his dearest friend. Terrible as seemed the task of such a revelation, it was nothing in comparison with what he judged would be the effect upon my mother when she came to learn the course of events which preceded her marriage.

And now this must be given to the world, with all that accompaniment of gossip and scandal such a story would be sure to evoke. Was this possible?--could he venture to embark upon such a sea of peril as this?--could he dare to confront difficulties that would rise up against him at every step and in every relation of life, to a.s.sail his political reputation to-day--to slur his personal honor to-morrow--to cast shame upon her whose fair fame was dearer to him than life itself twice told--to be an inheritance of disgrace to his children, if he were to have children? No, no i For such an exposure as this nothing short of downright desperation could give courage.

Far from serving to allay his pa.s.sion for vengeance, these difficulties but deepened the channel of his wrath, and made the injury itself appear more irreparable. Nor did he know whom to consult at such a crisis. To unbosom himself to MacNaghten was like confessing that he could do, from personal motives, what he had shrunk from in the full confidence of his friends.h.i.+p; and such an avowal would, he was well aware, give heartfelt pain to his best friend in the world. Many other names occurred to him, but each was accompanied by some especial difficulty. It was a case which demanded great discretion, and at the same time prompt.i.tude and decision. To have allowed any interval for discussion would have been to incur that publicity which my father dreaded beyond all.

The indignant energy of his mind had given a kind of power to his emaciated and wasted frame; and as he paced his room in pa.s.sionate emotion, he felt as though all his wonted strength and vigor were returning to "stand by him" in his hour of peril. He had opened his window to admit the cool air of the night; and scarcely had he thrown wide the sash when the cry of a newsvendor met his ear.

"Here's the 'List of the Castle hacks,' to be sold to the highest bidder, the Government having no further use for them; with the pedigree and performances set forth in full, and a correct account of the sums paid for each of them."

To this succeeded a long catalogue of gentlemen's names, which were received by the mob that followed the hawker, with shouts and cries of derision. Groan followed groan as they were announced, and my father listened with an agonizing suspense lest he should hear his own amidst the number; but, to his inexpressible relief, the fellow concluded his muster-roll without alluding to him. Just, however, as he was about to close the window, the man again broke out with: "On Sat.u.r.day next will be published the account of the five bought in by the Crown; and Mark Brown, Sam Vesey, William Burton, Ross Mahon, and Walter Carew will be given in full, on a separate sheet, for one halfpenny!"

A wild outburst of derisive laughter from the crowd followed, and my father heard no more.