Roland Cashel, Volume I (of II)

“Tom, yer honer – Tom Keane; and, by this and by that, I’m ready to do yer honer’s bidding from this hour out – ”

“Well, we shall be good friends, I see,” interrupted Linton; “you may, perhaps, be useful to me, and I can also be able to serve you. Now, which is the regular entrance to this chamber?”

“There, sir; it’s the last door as ye see in the long passage. Them is all bedrooms alone there, but it’s not safe to walk down, for the floor is rotten.”

Linton noted down in a memory far from defective the circumstances of the chamber, and then followed his guide through the remainder of the house, which in every quarter presented the same picture of ruin and decay.

“The bit of candle is near out,” said Tom, “but sure there is n’t much more to be seen; there’s rooms there was never opened, and more on the other side, the same. The place is as big as a barrack, and here we are once more on the grand stair.”

For once, the name was not ill applied, as, constructed of Portland stone, and railed with massive banisters of iron, it presented features of solidity and endurance, in marked contrast to the other portions of the edifice. Linton cast one more glance around the gloomy entrance, and sallied forth into the free air. “I ‘ll see you to-morrow, Tom,” said he, “and we’ll have some talk together. Good night.”

“Good night, and good luck to yer honer; but won’t you let me see your honer out of the grounds, – as far as the big gate, at least?”

“Thanks; I know the road perfectly already, and I rather like a lonely stroll of a fine night like this.”

Tom, accordingly, reiterated his good wishes, and Linton was suffered to pursue his way unaccompanied. Increasing his speed as he arrived at a turn of the road, he took the path which led off the main approach, and led down by the river-side to the cottage of Tubber-beg. There was a feeling of strong interest which prompted him to see this cottage, which now he might call his own; and as he went, he regarded the little clumps of ornamental planting, the well-kept walks, the neat palings, the quaint benches beneath the trees, with very different feelings from those he had bestowed on the last-visited scene. Nor was he insensible to the landscape beauty which certain vistas opened, and, seen even by the faint light of a new moon, were still rich promises of picturesque situation.

Suddenly, and without any anticipation, he found himself on turning a little copse of evergreens, in front of the cottage, and almost beneath the shadow of its deep porch. Whatever his previous feelings of self-interest in every detail around, they were speedily routed by the scene before him.

In a large and well furnished drawing-room, where a single lamp was shining, sat an old man in an easy-chair, his features, his attitude, and his whole bearing indicating the traces of recent illness. Beside him, on a low stool almost at his feet, was a young girl of singular beauty, – the plastic grace of her figure, the easy motion of the head, as from time to time she raised it to throw upwards a look of affectionate reverence, and the long, loose masses of her hair, which, accidentally unfastened, fell on either shoulder, making rather one of those ideals which a Raphael can conceive than a mere creature of every-day existence. Although late autumn, the windows lay open to the ground, for, as yet, no touch of coming winter had visited this secluded and favored spot. In the still quiet of the night, her voice, for she alone spoke, could be heard; at first, the mere murmur of the accents reached Linton’s ears, but even from them he could gather the tone of cheering and encouragement in which she spoke. At length he heard her say, in a voice of almost tremulous enthusiasm, “It was so like you, dear papa, not to tell this Mr. Cashel that you had yourself a claim, and, as many think, a rightful one, to this same estate, and thus not trouble the stream of his munificence.”

“Nay, child, it had been as impolitic as unworthy to do so,” said the old man; “he who stoops to receive a favor should detract nothing from the generous sentiment of the granter.”

“For my part, I would tell him,” said she, eagerly, “that his noble conduct has forever barred my prosecuting such a claim, and that if, to-morrow, the fairest proofs of my right should reach me, I’d throw them in the fire.”

“To get credit for such self-sacrifice, Mary, one must be independent of all hypothesis; one must do, and not merely promise. Now, it would be hard to expect Mr. Cashel to feel the same conviction I do, that this confiscation was repealed by letters under the hand of Majesty itself. The Brownes, through whom Cashel inherits, were the stewards of my ancestors, entrusted with all their secret affairs, and cognizant of all their family matters. From the humble position of dependents, they suddenly sprang into wealth and fortune, and ended by purchasing the very estate they once lived on as day-laborers, – sold as it was, like all confiscated estates, for a mere fraction of its value.”

“Oh, base ingratitude!”

“Worse still; it is said, and with great reason to believe it true, that Hammond Browne, who was sent over to London by my great grandfather to negotiate with the Government, actually received the free pardon and the release of the confiscation, but concealed and made away with both, and, to prevent my grandfather being driven to further pursuit, gave him the lease of this cottage on the low terms we continue to hold it.”

A low, faint cough from the old man warned his granddaughter of the dangers of the night air, and she arose and closed the windows. They still continued their conversation, but Linton, unable to hear more, returned to his inn, deeply reflecting over the strange disclosures he had overheard.

CHAPTER XXIV. BREAKFAST WITH MR. CORRIGAN

How cold is treachery.

Play.

“Who can Mr. Linton be, my dear?” said old Mr. Corrigan, as he sat at breakfast the next day, and pondered oyer the card which, with a polite request for an interview, the servant had just delivered. “I cannot remember the name, if I ever heard it before; but should we not invite him to join us at breakfast?”

“Where is he, Simon?” asked Miss Leicester.

“At the door, miss, and a very nice-looking gentleman as ever I saw.”

“Say that I have been ill, Simon, and cannot walk to the door, and beg he’ll be kind enough to come in to breakfast.”

With a manner where ease and deference were admirably blended, Linton entered the room, and apologizing for his intrusion, said, “I have come down here, sir, on a little business matter for my friend Roland Cashel, and I could not think of returning to town without making the acquaintance of one for whom my friend has already conceived the strongest feeling of interest and regard. It will be the first question I shall hear when I get back, ‘Well, what of Mr. Corrigan, and how is he?’”

While making this speech, which he delivered in a tone of perfect frankness, he seemed never to have noticed the presence of Miss Leicester, who had retired a little as he entered the room, and now, on being introduced to her, made his acknowledgments with a grave courtesy.

“And so our young landlord is thinking of taking up his residence amongst us?” said Corrigan, as Linton assumed his place at the breakfast-table.

“For a few weeks he purposes to do so, but I question greatly if the tranquil pleasures and homely duties of a country life will continue long to attract him; he is very young, and the world so new to him, that he will scarcely settle down anywhere, or to anything, for some time to come.”

“Experience is a capital thing, no doubt, Mr. Linton; but I ‘d rather trust the generous impulses of a good-hearted youth in a country like this, long neglected by its gentry. Let him once take an interest in the place and the people, and I’ll vouch for the rest. Is he a sportsman?”

“He was, when in Mexico; but buffalo and antelope hunting are very different from what this country offers.”

“Does he read? – is he studious?” said Mary.

“Not even a newspaper, Miss Leicester. He is a fine, high-spirited, dashing fellow, and if good-nature and honorable intentions could compensate for defective education and training, he would be perfect.”

“They’ll go very far, depend on it, Mr. Linton. In these days, a man of wealth can buy almost anything. Good sense, judgment, skill, are all in the market; but a generous nature and a warm heart are God’s gifts, and can neither be grafted nor transplanted.”

“You’ll like him, I’m certain, Mr. Corrigan.”

“I know I shall. I have reason for the anticipation; Tiernay told me the handsome words he used when according me a favor – and here comes the doctor himself.” And as he spoke, Dr. Tiernay entered the room, his flushed face and hurried breathing bespeaking a hasty walk. “Good-morrow, Tiernay. Mr. Linton, let me present our doctor; not the least among our local advantages, as you can tell your friend Mr. Cashel.”

“We’ve met before, sir,” said Tiernay, scanning, with a steady gaze, the countenance which, wreathed in smiles, seemed to invite rather than dread recognition.

“I am happy to be remembered, Dr. Tiernay,” said Linton, “although I fancy our meeting was too brief for much acquaintance; but we’ll know each other better, I trust, hereafter.”

“No need, sir,” whispered Tiernay, as he passed close to his side; “I believe we read each other perfectly already.”

Linton smiled, and bowed, as though accepting the speech in some complimentary sense, and turned toward Miss Leicester, who was busily arranging some dried plants in a volume.

“These are not specimens of this neighborhood?” said Linton, taking up some heaths which are seldom found save in Alpine regions.

“Yes, sir,” interrupted Tiernay, “you ‘ll be surprised to find here productions which would not seem native to these wilds.”

“If you take an interest in such things,” said old Corrigan, “you can’t have a better guide than my granddaughter and Tiernay; they know every crag and glen for twenty miles round; all I bargain for is, don’t be late back for dinner. You ‘ll give us your company, I hope, sir, at six?”

Linton assented, with a cordial pleasure that delighted his inviter; and Mary, so happy to see the gratified expression of her grandfather’s face, looked gratefully at the stranger for his polite compliance.

“A word with you, sir,” whispered Tiernay in Linton’s ear; and he passed out into the little flower-garden, saying, as he went, “I ‘ll show Mr. Linton the grounds, Miss Mary, and you shall not have to neglect your household cares.”

Linton followed him without speaking, nor was a word interchanged between them till they had left the cottage a considerable distance behind them. “Well, sir,” said Linton, coming to a halt, and speaking in a voice of cold and steadfast purpose, “how far do you propose that I am to bear you company?”

“Only till we are beyond the danger of being overheard,” said Tiernay, turning round. “Here will do perfectly. You will doubtless say, sir, that in asking you for an explanation of why I see you in this cottage, that I am exceeding the bounds of what right and duty alone impose.”

“You anticipate me precisely,” said Linton, sarcastically, “and to save you the embarrassment of so obviously impertinent a proceeding, I beg to say that I shall neither afford you the slightest satisfaction on this or any other subject of inquiry. Now, sir, what next?”

“Do you forget the occasion of our first meeting?” said the doctor, who actually was abashed beneath the practised effrontery of his adversary.

“Not in the least, sir. You permitted yourself on that occasion to take a liberty, which from your age and other circumstances I consented to pass unnoticed. I shall not always vouch for the same patient endurance on my part; and so pray be cautious how you provoke it.”

“It was at that meeting,” said the doctor, with passionate earnestness, “that I heard you endeavor to dissuade your friend from a favorable consideration of that man’s claim, whose hospitality you now accept of. It was with an insolent sneer at Mr. Cashers simplicity – ”

“Pray stop, sir; not too far, I beseech you. The whole affair, into which by some extraordinary self-delusion you consider yourself privileged to obtrude, is very simple. This cottage and the grounds appertaining to it are mine. This old gentleman, for whom I entertain the highest respect, is my tenant. The legal proof of what I say, I promise to submit to you within the week; and it was to rescue Mr. Cashel from the inconsistency of pledging himself to what was beyond his powers of performance, that I interfered. Your very ill-advised zeal prevented this; and rather than increase the awkwardness of a painful situation, I endured a very unprovoked and impertinent remark. Now, sir, you have the full explanation of my conduct, and my opinion of yours; and I see no reason to continue the interview.” So saying, Linton touched his hat and turned back towards the cottage.

CHAPTER XXV. TUBBERMORE TRANSFORMED

Ay, sir, the knave is a deep one.

Old Play.

To save our reader the tedious task of following Mr. Linton’s movements, however necessary to our story some insight into them may be, we take the shorter, and therefore pleasanter course, of submitting one of his own brief notes to Roland Cashel, written some three days after his arrival at Tubbermore: —

“Still here, my dear Cashel, still in this Tipperary Siberia, where our devotion to your service has called and still retains us, – and what difficulties and dangers have been ours! What a land! – and what a people! Of a truth, I no longer envy the rich, landed proprietor, as, in my ignorance, I used to do some weeks back. To begin: Your Château de Tubbermore, which seems a cross between a jail and a county hospital without, and is a downright ruin within, stands in a park of thistles and docks whose luxuriant growth are a contemptuous reflection upon your trees, which positively don’t grow at all. So ingeniously placed is this desirable residence, that although the country, the river, and the mountains, offer some fine landscape effects, not a vestige of any of them can be seen from your windows. Your dining-room, late a nursery for an interesting family of small pigs, looks out upon the stables, picturesque as they are in fissured walls and tumbling rafters; and one of the drawing-rooms – they call it the blue room, a tint so likely to be caught up by the spectators – opens upon a garden, – but what a garden! Fruittrees, there are none – stay, I am unjust, two have been left standing to give support to a clothes-line, where the amiable household of your care-taker, Mr. Cane, are pictorially represented by various garments, crescendo from the tunic of tender years to the full-grown ‘toga.’ But why enumerate small details? Let me rather deal in negatives, and tell you there is not a whole pane of glass in the entire building, not a grate, few doors, little flooring, and actually no roof. The slates, where there are such, are so loose that the wind rattles among them like the keys of a gigantic piano, and usually ends with a grand Freischutz effect, which uncovers a room or two. The walls are everywhere so rotten, that if you would break a loop-hole, you throw down enough to drive a ‘break’ through; and as for the chimneys, the jackdaw may plead the Statute of Limitations, and defy to surrender a possession which certainly dates from the past century! Perystell is in despair; he goes about sticking his thumb through the rotting timbers, and knocking down partitions with a tick of his foot, and exclaiming against the ignorance of the last age of architects, who, I take it, were pretty much like their successors, save in the thefts committed from Greek and Roman models. This is not tempting, nor the remedy for it easy. Stone and mortar are as great luxuries here as icecream at Calcutta; there are no workmen, or the few are merely artificers in mud. Timber is an exotic, glass and iron are traditions; so that if you desire to be an Irish country gentleman, your pursuit of territorial ascendancy has all the merit of difficulty. Now, que faire? Shall we restore, or, rather, rebuild, or shall we put forty pounds of Dartford gunpowder in one of the cellars, and blow the whole concern to him who must have devised it? Such is the course I should certainly adopt myself, and only feel regret at the ignoble service of the honest explosive.

“Perystell, like all his tribe, is a pedant, and begins by asking for two years, and I won’t say how many thousand pounds. My reply is, ‘Months and hundreds, vice years and thousands’ – and so we are at issue. I know your anxiety to receive the people you have invited, and I feel how fruitless it would be to tell you with what apologies I, if in your place, should put them off; so pray instruct me how to act. Shall I commission Perystell to go to work in all form, and meanwhile make a portion of the edifice habitable?

or shall I – and I rather admire the plan – get a corps of stage artificers from Drury Lane, and dress up the house as they run up a provincial theatre? I know you don’t care about cost, which, after all, is the only real objection to the scheme; and if you incline to my suggestion about the fireworks for a finish, it will be perfectly appropriate.

“‘My own cottage’ – so far, at least, as I could see of it without intruding on the present occupant – is very pretty: roses, and honeysuckle, and jasmines, and such-like ruralities, actually enveloping it. It is well placed, too, in a snug little nook, sheltered from the north, and with a peep at the river in front, – just the sort of place where baffled ambition and disappointment would retire to; and where, doubtless, some of these days, Tom Linton, not being selected by her Majesty as Chief Secretary for the Home Office, will be announced in the papers to have withdrawn from public life, ‘to prosecute the more congenial career of literature.’ There is a delicious little boudoir, too, – such is it at present, you or I would make it a smoking crib, – looking over the Shannon, and with a fine bold mountain, well wooded, beyond. I should like a gossip with you in that bay-window, in the mellow hour, when confidence, which hates candles, is at its full.

“Have I told you everything? I scarcely know, my head is so full of roof-trees, rafters, joists, gables, and parapets.

Halt! I was forgetting a pretty – that is not the word – a handsome girl, daughter or granddaughter of our tenant, Mr. Corrigan, one of those saintly, virginal heads Raphael painted, with finely pencilled eyebrows, delicate beyond expression above; severe, in the cold, un-impassioned character of the mouth and lips; clever, too, or, what comes to nearly the same, odd and eccentric, being educated by an old St. Omer priest who taught her Latin, French, Italian, with a dash of theology, and, better than all, to sing Provençal songs to her own accompaniment on the piano.

You ‘ll say, with such companionship, Siberia is not so bad after all, nor would it, perhaps, if we had nothing else to think of. Besides, she is as proud as an Austrian archduchess, has the blood of, God knows how many, kings – Irish, of course – in her veins, and looks upon me, Saxon that I am, as a mountain-ash might do on a mushroom.”

There was no erasure but one, and that very slight, and seeming unimportant; he had written Tubber-beg at the top of the letter, and, perceiving it, had changed it to Tubber-more, the fact being that he had already established himself as an inmate of the “Cottage,” and a guest of Mr. Corrigan. We need not dwell on the arts by which Linton accomplished this object, to which, indeed, Mr. Corrigan’s hospitable habits contributed no difficulty. The “doctor” alone could have interposed any obstacle; and he, knowing the extent of Linton’s power, did not dare to do so, contenting himself to watch narrowly all his proceedings, and warn his friend whenever warning could no longer be delayed.

Without enjoying the advantages of a careful education, Linton’s natural quickness counterfeited knowledge so well that few, in every-day intercourse, could detect the imposition. He never read a book through, but he skimmed some thousands, and was thoroughly familiar with that process so popular in our Universities, and technically termed “cramming” an author. In this way, there were few subjects on which he could not speak fairly, – a faculty to which considerable fluency and an easy play of fancy lent great assistance. His great craft, however, was – and whatever may be said on the subject, it would seem the peculiar gift of certain organizations – that he was able, in an inconceivably short time, to worm himself into the confidence of almost all with whom he came in contact. His natural good sense, his singularly clear views, his ever ready sympathy, but, more than all, the dexterity with which he could affect acquaintance with topics he was all but totally ignorant of, pointed him out as the very person to hear the secrets of a family.

Mr. Corrigan was not one to exact any great efforts of Linton’s tact in this walk; his long isolation from the world, Joined to a character naturally frank, made him communicative and open; and before Linton had passed a week under his roof, he had heard all the circumstances of the old forfeiture, and the traditionary belief of the family that it had been withdrawn under a special order of the King in council.

“You are quite right,” said Linton, one night, as this theme bad been discussed for some hours, “never to have alluded to this in any correspondence with Cashel. His hasty and excitable temper would have construed the whole into a threat; and there is no saying how he might have resented it.”

“I did not speak of it for a very different reason,” said old Corrigan, proudly; “I had just accepted a favor – and a great one – at his hands, and I would not tarnish the lustre of his noble conduct by even the possibility of self-interest.”

Linton was silent; a struggle of some kind seemed working within him, but he did not speak, and at last sauntered from the room, and passed out into the little garden in front.

He had not gone far, when he heard a light footstep on the gravel behind him. He turned, and saw Mary Leicester.

“I have followed you, Mr. Linton,” said she, in a voice whose agitation was perceptible, “because I thought it possible that some time or other, in your close intimacy with Mr. Cashel, you might allude to this topic, and I know what distress such a communication would occasion to my grandfather. Our claim – if the word be not inapplicable – can never be revived; for myself, there is no condition of privation I would not rather meet, than encounter the harassing vicissitudes of a struggle which should embitter my poor dear grandfather’s few years on earth. The very mention of the theme is sure to render him irritable and unhappy. Promise me, then, to avoid the subject as much as possible here, and never to advert to it elsewhere.”

“Should I not be doing you a gross injustice by such a pledge?” said Linton, mildly.

“I can endure that; I cannot support the alternative. Make me this promise.”

“I make it, truly and solemnly; would it were in my power to pledge myself to aught of real service to Miss. Leicester.”

“There is one such,” said Mary, after a pause, “and yet I am ashamed to ask it, – ashamed of the presumption it would imply, – and yet I feel acquitted to my own heart.”

“What is it? – only tell me how I can serve you,” said Linton, passionately.

“I have scarce courage for the avowal,” said she, in a low, faint voice. “It is not that my self-love can be wounded by any judgment that may be pronounced; it is rather that I dread failure for itself. In a word, Mr. Linton, certain circumstances of fortune have pressed upon my grandfather’s resources, some of which I am aware of – of others ignorant. So much, however, do I know, that the comforts, so necessary to his age and habits, have diminished one by one, each year seeing some new privations, where increasing infirmity would demand more ease. In this emergency, I have thought of an effort – you will smile at the folly, perhaps, but be lenient for the motive – I have endeavored to make some of the many reminiscences of his own early years contribute to his old age, and have written certain short sketches of the time when, as a youth, he served as a soldier of the body-guard of Louis XVI. I know how utterly valueless they are in a literary point of view, but I have thought that, as true pictures of a time now probably passed away never to return again, they might have their interest Such is my secret. My entreaty is, to ask of you to look at them, and, if not utterly unworthy, to assist me regarding their publication.”