The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2

“Not exactly, sir; we deny the right, we totally reject the claim, we merely say, forego proceedings that are useless, spare yourselves and us the cost and publicity of legal measures, whose issue never can benefit you, and, in return for your compliance, receive an annuity or a sum, as may be agreed upon.”

“But how is Lady Eleanor to decide upon a course so important, in the absence of her husband and her son? Is it likely, is it possible, she would venture on so bold a step?”

“I think so; Bicknell half acknowledged that the funds of the suit were her jointure, and that Darcy, out of delicacy towards her, had left it entirely at her option to continue or abandon the proceedings.”

“Still,” said O’Reilly, “a great difficulty remains; for supposing them to accept our terms, that they give up the claim and accept a sum in return, what if at some future day evidence should turn up to substantiate their views, – they may not, it is true, break the engagement – though I don’t see why they should not – but let us imagine them to be faithful to the contract, – what will the world say? In what position shall we stand when the matter gains publicity?”

“How can it, sir?” interposed Nalty, quickly; “how is it possible, if there be no trial? The evidence, as you call it, is no evidence unless produced in court. You know, sir,” said the little man, with twinkling eyes and pleased expression, “that a great authority at common law only declined the testimony of a ghost because the spirit was n’t in court to be cross-examined. Now all they could bring would be rumor, newspaper allegations and paragraphs, asterisks and blanks.”

“There may come a time when public opinion, thus expounded, will be as stringent as the judgments of the law courts,” said O’Reilly, thoughtfully.

“I am not so certain of that, sir; the license of an unfettered press will always make its decisions inoperative; it is ‘the chartered libertine’ the poet speaks of.”

“But what if, yielding to public impression, it begins to feel that its weight is in exact proportion to its truth, that well-founded opinions, just judgments, correct anticipations, obtain a higher praise and price than scandalous anecdotes and furious attacks? What if that day should arrive, Nalty? I am by no means convinced that such an era is distant.”

“Let it come, sir,” said the little man, rubbing his hands, “and when it does there will be enough employment on its hand without going back on our trangressions; the world will always be wicked enough to keep the moralist at his work of correction. But to return to our immediate object, I perceive you are inclined to Dr. Hickman’s plan.”

“I am so far in its favor,” said O’Reilly, “that it solves the present difficulty, and prevents all future danger. Should my father succeed in persuading Lady Eleanor to this marriage, the interest of the two families is inseparably united. It is very unlikely that any circumstance, of what nature soever, would induce young Darcy to dispute his sister’s claim, or endanger her position in society. This settlement of the question is satisfactory in itself, and shows a good face to the world, and I confess I am curious to know what peculiar objection you can see against it.”

“It has but one fault, sir.”

“And that?”

“Simply, it is impossible.”

“Is it the presumption of a son of mine seeking an alliance with the daughter of Maurice Darcy that appears so very impossible?” said Hickman, with a hissing utterance of each word, that bespoke a fierce conflict of passion within him.

“Certainly not, sir,” replied Nalty, hastily excusing himself. “I am well aware which party contributes most to such a compact. Mr. Beecham O’Reilly might look far higher – ”

“Wherein lies the impossibility you speak of, then?” rejoined O’Reilly, sternly.

“I need scarcely remind you, sir,” said Nalty, with an air of deep humility, “you that have seen so much more of life than I have, of what inveterate prejudices these old families, as they like to call themselves, are made up; that, creating a false standard of rank, they adhere to its distinctions with a tenacity far greater than what they exhibit towards the real attributes of fortune. They seem to adopt for their creed the words of the old song, —

“The King may make a Baron bold,Or an Earl of any fool, sir,But with all his power, and all his goldHe can never make an O’Toole, sir.”

“These are very allowable feelings when sustained by wealth and fortune,” said O’Reilly, quietly.

“I verily believe their influence is greater in adversity,” said Nalty; “they seem to have a force of consolation that no misery can rob them of. Besides, in this case – for we should not lose sight of the matter that concerns us most – we must not forget that they regard your family in the light of oppressors. I am well aware that you have acted legally and safely throughout; but still – let us concede something to human prejudices and passions – is it unreasonable to suppose that they charge you and yours with their own downfall?”

“The more natural our desire to repair the apparent wrong.”

“Very true on your part, but not perhaps the more necessary on theirs to accept the amende.”

“That will very much depend, I think, on the way of its being proffered. Lady Eleanor, cold, haughty, and reserved as she is to the world, has always extended a degree of cordiality and kindness towards my father; his age, his infirmities, a seeming simplicity in his character, have had their influence. I trust greatly to this feeling, and to the effect of a request made by an old man, as if from his death-bed. My father is not deficient in the tact to make an appeal of this kind very powerful; at all events, his heart is in the scheme, and nothing short of that would have induced me to venture on this long and dreary journey at such a season. Should he only succeed in gaining an influence over Lady Eleanor, through pity or any other motive, we are certain to succeed. The Knight, I feel sure, would not oppose; and as for the young lady, a handsome young fellow with a large fortune can scarcely be deemed very objectionable.”

“How was the proposition met before?” said Nalty, inquiringly; “was their refusal conveyed in any expression of delicacy? Was there any acknowledgment of the compliment intended them?”

“No, not exactly,” said O’Reilly, blushing; for, while he hesitated about the danger of misleading his adviser, he could not bear to repeat the insolent rejection of the offer. “The false position in which the families stood towards each other made a great difficulty; but, more than all, the influence of Bagenal Daly increased the complexity; now he, fortunately for us, is not forthcoming, his debts have driven him abroad, they say.”

“So, then, they merely declined the honor in cold and customary phrase?” said Nalty, carelessly.

“Something in that way,” replied O’Reilly, affecting an equal unconcern; “but we need not discuss the point, it affords no light to guide us regarding the future.”

If Nalty saw plainly that some concealment was practised towards him, he knew his client too well to venture on pushing his inquiries further; so he contented himself with asking when and in what manner O’Reilly proposed to open the siege.

“To-morrow morning,” replied the other; “there’s no time to be lost. A few lines from my father to Lady Eleanor will acquaint her with his arrival in the neighborhood, after a long and fatiguing search for her residence. We may rely upon him performing his part well; he will allude to his own breaking health in terms that will not fail to touch her, and ask permission to wait upon her. As for us, Nalty, we must not be foreground figures in the picture. You, if known to be here at all, must be supposed to be my father’s medical friend. I must be strictly in the shade.”

Nalty gave a grim smile at the notion of his new professional character, and begged O’Reilly to proceed.

“Our strategy goes no further; such will be the order of battle. We must trust to my father for the mode he will engage the enemy afterwards, for the reasons which have led him to take this step, – the approaching close of a long life, unburdened with any weighty retrospect, save that which concerns the Darcy family; for, while affecting to sorrow over their changed fortunes, he can attribute their worst evils to bad counsels and rash advice, and insinuate how different had been their lot had they only consented to regard us – as they might and ought to have done – in the light of friends. Hush! who is speaking there?”

They listened for a second or two, and then came the sound of the old man’s voice, as he talked to himself in his sleep; his accents were low and complaining, as if he were suffering deeply from some mental affliction, and at intervals a heavy sob would break from him.

“He is ill, sir; the old gentleman is very ill!” said Nalty, in real alarm.

“Hush!” said O’Reilly, as, with one hand on the door, he motioned silence with the other.

“Yes, my Lady,” muttered the sleeper, but in a voice every syllable of which was audible, “eighty-six years have crept to your feet, to utter this last wish and die. It is the last request of one that has already left the things of this world, and would carry from it nothing but the thought that will track him to the grave!” A burst of grief, too sudden and too natural to admit of a doubt of its sincerity, followed the words; and O’Reilly was about to enter the room, when a low dry laugh arrested his steps, and the old man said, —

“Ay! Bob Hickman, did n’t I tell you that would do? I knew she ‘d cry, and I told you, if she cried one tear, the day was ours!”

There was something so horrible in the baseness of a mind thus revelling in its own duplicity, that even Nalty seemed struck with dread. O’Reilly saw what was passing in the other’s mind, and, affecting to laugh at these “effects of fatigue and exhaustion,” half led, half pushed him from the room, and said “Good-night.”

CHAPTER XXIV. THE DOCTOR’S LAST DEVICE

“Tell Mister Bob – Mr. O’Reilly I mean – to come to me,” were the first words of old Dr. Hickman, as he awoke on the following morning.

“Well, sir, how have you slept?” said his son, approaching the bedside, and taking a chair; “have you rested well?”

“Middling, – only middling, Bob. The place is like a vault, and the rats have it all their own way. They were capering about the whole night, and made such a noise trying to steal off with one of my shoes.” “Did they venture that far?”

“Ay, did they! but I couldn’t let it go with them. I know you ‘re in a hurry to stand in them yourself, Bob, and leave me and the rats to settle it between us – ay!” “Really, sir, these are jests – ”

“Too like earnest to be funny, Bob; so I feel them myself. Ugh! ugh! The damp of this place is freezing the very heart’s blood of me. How is Nalty this morning?” “Like a fellow taken off a wreck, sir, after a week’s starvation. He is sitting at the fire there, with two blankets round him, and vows to heaven, every five minutes, that if he was once back in Old Dominick Street, a thousand guineas would n’t tempt him to such another expedition.”

The old doctor laughed till it made him cough, and when the fit was over, laughed again, wiping his weeping eyes, and chuckling in the most unearthly glee at the lawyer’s discomfiture.

“Wrapped up in blankets, eh, Bob?” said he, that he might hear further of his fellow-traveller’s misery.

O’Reilly saw that he had touched the right key, and expatiated for some minutes upon Nalty’s sufferings, throwing out, from time to time, adroit hints that only certain strong and hale constitutions could endure privations like these. “Now, you, sir,” continued he, “you look as much yourself as ever; in fact, I half doubt how you are to play the sick man, with all these signs of rude health about you.”

“Leave that to me, Bob; I think I’ve seen enough of them things to know them now. When I ‘ve carried my point, and all’s safe and secure, you ‘ll see me like the pope we read of, that looked all but dead till they elected him, and then stood up stout and hearty five minutes after, – we ‘ll have a miracle of this kind in our own family.”

“I suspect, sir, we shall have difficulty in obtaining an interview,” said O’Reilly.

“No!” rejoined the old man, with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of his fishy eyes.

“Nalty ‘s of my opinion, and thinks that Lady Eleanor will positively decline it.”

“No,” echoed he once more.

“And that, without any suspicion of our plan, she will yet refuse to receive you.”

“I ‘m not going to ask her, Bob,” croaked the old doctor, with a species of chuckling crow in his voice.

“Then you have abandoned your intention,” exclaimed O’Reilly, in dismay, “and the whole journey has been incurred for nothing.”

“No!” said the doctor, whose grim old features were lit up with a most spiteful sense of his superior cunning.

“Then I don’t understand you, – that’s clear,” exclaimed O’Reilly, testily. “You say that you do not intend to call upon her – ”

“Because she’s coming here to see me,” cried the old man, in a scream of triumph; “read that, it’s an answer to a note I sent off at eight o’clock. Joe waited and brought back this reply.” As he spoke, he drew from beneath his pillow a small note, and handed it to his son. O’Reilly opened it with impatience, and read: —

“Lady Eleanor Darcy begs to acknowledge the receipt of Dr. Hickman’s note, and, while greatly indisposed to accept of an interview which must be so painful to both parties without any reasonable prospect of rendering service to either, feels reluctant to refuse a request made under circumstances so trying. She will therefore comply with Dr. Hickman’s entreaty, and, to spare him the necessity of venturing abroad in this severe weather, will call upon him at twelve o’clock, should she not learn in the meanwhile that the hour is inconvenient.”

“Lady Eleanor Darcy come out to call upon you, sir!” said O’Reilly, with an amazement in part simulated to flatter the old man’s skill, but far more really experienced. “This is indeed success.”

“Ay, you may well say so,” chimed in the old man; “for besides that I always look ten years older when I ‘m in bed and unshaved, with my nightcap a little off, – this way, – the very sight of these miserable walls, green with damp and mould, this broken window, and the poverty-struck furniture, will all help, and I can get up a cough, if I only draw a long breath.”

“I vow, sir, you beat us all; we are mere children compared to you. This is a master-stroke of policy.”

“What will Nalty say now – eh, Bob?”

“Say, sir? What can any one say, but that the move showed a master’s hand, as much above our skill to accomplish as it was beyond our wit to conceive? I should like greatly to hear how you intend to play the game out,” said O’Reilly, throwing a most flattering expression of mingled curiosity and astonishment into his features.

“Wait till I see what trumps the adversary has in hand, Bob; time enough to determine the lead when the cards are dealt.”

“I suppose I must keep out of sight, and perhaps Nalty also.”

“Nalty ought to be in the house if we want him; as my medical friend, he could assist to draw any little memorandum we might determine upon; a mere note, Bob, between friends, not requiring the interference of lawyers, eh?” There was something fiendish in the low laugh which accompanied these words. “What brings that fellow into the room so often, putting turf on, and looking if the windows are fast? I don’t like him, Bob.” This was said in reference to a little chubby man, in a waiter’s jacket, who really had taken every imaginable professional privilege to obtrude his presence.

“There, there, that will do,” said O’Reilly, harshly; “you needn’t come till we ring the bell.”

“Leave the turf-basket where it is. Don’t you think we can mind the fire for ourselves?”

“Let Joe wait, that will be better, sir,” whispered O’Reilly; “we cannot be too cautious here.” And with a motion of the hand he dismissed the waiter, who, true to his order, seemed never to hear “an aside.”

“Leave me by myself, Bob, for half an hour; I ‘d like to collect my thoughts, – to settle and think over this meeting. It’s past eleven now, and she said twelve o’clock in the note.”

“Well, I ‘ll take a stroll over the hills, and be back for dinner about three; you’ll be up by that time.”

“That will I, and very hungry too,” muttered the old man. “This dying scene has cost me the loss of my breakfast; and, faith, I ‘m so weak and low, my head is quite dizzy. There ‘s an old saying, Mocking is catching; and sure enough there may be some truth in it too.”

O’Reilly affected not to hear the remark, and moved towards the door, when he turned about and said, —

“I should say, sir, that the wisest course would be to avoid anything like coercion, or the slightest approach to it. The more the appeal is made to her feelings of compassion and pity – ”

“For great age and bodily infirmity,” croaked the old man, while the filmy orbs shot forth a flash of malicious intelligence.

“Just so, sir. To others’ eyes you do indeed seem weak and bowed down with years. It is only they who have opportunity to recognize the clearness of your intellect and the correctness of your judgment can see how little inroad time has made.”

“Ay, but it has, though,” interposed the old man, irritably. “My hand shakes more than it used to do; there ‘s many an operation I ‘d not be able for as I once was.”

“Well, well, sir,” said his son, who found it difficult to repress the annoyance he suffered from his continual reference to the old craft; “remember that you are not called upon now to perform these things.”

“Sorry I am it is so,” rejoined the other. “I gave up seven hundred a year when I left Loughrea to turn gentleman with you at Gwynne Abbey; and faith, the new trade isn’t so profitable as the old one! So it is,” muttered he to himself; “and now there ‘s a set of young chaps come into the town, with their medical halls, and great bottles of pink and blue water in the windows! What chance would I have to go back again?”

O’Reilly heard these half-uttered regrets in silence; he well knew that the safest course was to let the feeble brain exhaust its scanty memories without impediment. At length, when the old doctor seemed to have wearied of the theme, he said, —

“If she make allusion to the Dalys, sir, take care not to confess our mistake about that cabin they called ‘The Corvy,’ and which you remember we discovered that Daly had settled upon his servant. Let Lady Eleanor suppose that we withdrew proceedings out of respect to her.”

“I know, I know,” said the old man, querulously, for his vanity was wounded by these reiterated instructions.

“It is possible, too, sir, she ‘d stand upon the question of rank; if so, say that Heffernan – no, say that Lord Castlereagh will advise the king to confer the baronetcy on the marriage – don’t forget that, sir – on the marriage.”

“Indeed, then, I’ll say nothing about it,” said he, with an energy almost startling. “It’s that weary baronetcy cost me the loan to Heffernan on his own bare bond; I ‘m well sick of it! Seven thousand pounds at five and a half per cent, and no security!”

“I only thought, sir, it might be introduced incidentally,” said O’Reilly, endeavoring to calm down this unexpected burst of irritation.

“I tell you I won’t. If I’m bothered anymore about that same baronetcy, I ‘ll make a clause in my will against my heir accepting it How bad you are for the coronet with the two balls; faix, I remember when the family arms had three of them; ay, and we sported them over the door, too. Eh, Bob, shall I tell her that?”

“I don’t suppose it would serve our cause much, sir,” said O’Reilly, repressing with difficulty his swelling anger. Then, after a moment, he added, “I could never think of obtruding any advice of mine, sir, but that I half feared you might, in the course of the interview, forget many minor circumstances, not to speak of the danger that your natural kindliness might expose you to in any compact with a very artful woman of the world.”

“Don’t be afraid of that anyhow, Bob,” said he, with a most hideous grin. “I keep a watchful eye over my natural kindliness, and, to say truth, it has done me mighty little mischief up to this. There, now, leave me quiet and to myself.”

When the old man was left alone, his head fell slightly forward, and his hands, clasped together, rested on his breast. His eyes, half closed and downcast, and his scarcely heaving chest, seemed barely to denote life, or at most that species of life in which the senses are steeped in apathy. The grim, hard features, stiffened by years and a stern nature, never moved; the thin, close-drawn lips never once opened; and to any observer the figure might have seemed a lifeless counterfeit of old age. And yet within that brain, fast yielding to time and infirmity, where reason came and went like the flame of some flickering taper, and where memory brought up objects of dreamy fancy as often as bygone events, even there plot and intrigue held their ground, and all the machinery of deception was at work, suggesting, contriving, and devising wiles that in their complexity were too puzzling for the faculties that originated them. Is there a Nemesis in this, and do the passions by which we have swayed and controlled others rise up before us in our weak hours, and become the tyrants of our terror-stricken hearts?

It is not our task, were it even in our power, to trace the strange commingled web of reality and fiction that composed the old man’s thoughts. At one time he believed he was supplicating the Knight to accord him some slight favor, as he had done more than once successfully. Then he suddenly remembered their relative stations, so strangely reversed; the colossal fortune he had himself accumulated; the hopes and ambitions of his son and grandson, whose only impediments to rank and favor lay in himself, the humble origin of all this wealth. How strange and novel did the conviction strike him that all the benefit of his vast riches lay in the pleasure of their accumulation, that for him fortune had no seductions to offer! Rank, power, munificence, what were they? He never cared for them.

No; it was the game he loved even more than the stake, that tortuous course of policy by which he had outwitted this man and doubled on that. The schemes skilfully conducted, the plots artfully accomplished, – these he loved to think over; and while he grieved to reflect upon the reckless waste he witnessed in the household of his sou, he felt a secret thrill of delight that he, and he alone, was capable of those rare devices and bold expedients by which such a fortune could be amassed. Once and only once did any expression of his features sympathize with these ponderings; and then a low, harsh laugh broke suddenly from him, so fleeting that it failed to arouse even himself. It came from the thought that if after his death his son or grandson would endeavor to forget his memory, and have it forgotten by others, that every effort of display, every new evidence of their gorgeous wealth, would as certainly evoke the criticism of the envious world, who, in spite of them, would bring up the “old doctor” once more, and, by the narrative of his life, humble them to the dust.

This desire to bring down to a level with himself those around him had been the passion of his existence. For this he had toiled and labored, and struggled through imaginary poverty when possessed of wealth; had endured scoffs and taunts, – had borne everything, – and to this desire could be traced his whole feeling towards the Darcys. It was no happiness to him to be the owner of their princely estate if he did not revel in the reflection that they were in poverty. And this envious feeling he extended to his very son. If now and then a vague thought of the object of his present journey crossed his mind, it was speedily forgotten in the all-absorbing delight of seeing the proud Lady Eleanor humbled before him, and the inevitable affliction the Knight would experience when he learned the success of this last device. That it would succeed he had little doubt; he had come too well prepared with arguments to dread failure. Nay, he thought, he believed he could compel compliance if such were to be needed.

It was in the very midst of these strangely confused musings that the doctor’s servant announced to him the arrival of Lady Eleanor Darey. The old man looked around him on the miserable furniture, the damp, discolored walls, the patched and mended window-panes, and for a moment he could not imagine where he was; the repetition of the servant’s announcement, however, cleared away the cloud from his faculties, and with a slight gesture of his hand he made a sign that she should be admitted. A momentary pause ensued, and he could hear his servant expressing a hope that her Ladyship might not catch cold, as the snow-drift was falling heavily, and the storm very severe. A delay of a few minutes was caused to remove her wet cloak. What a whole story did these two or three seconds reveal to old Hickman as he thought of that Lady Eleanor Darey of whose fastidious elegance the whole “West” was full, whose expensive habits and luxurious tastes had invested her with something like an Oriental reputation for magnificence, – of her coming on foot and alone, through storm and snow, to wait upon him!