The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)

“‘I ‘m not more than half an hour out of the house,’ said she, ‘for I only went down the boreen to show the short cut by Kell Mills to a young lady that was here.’

“‘A visitor, Mrs. Joan?’

“‘Yes. But to be sure you know her yourself, for you came with her the day she walked part of the way back with me from Cro’ Martin.’

“‘Miss Henderson?’

“‘Maybe that’s her name. She only told me to call her Kate.’

“‘Was she here alone? – did she come on foot? – which way is she gone?’ cried I, hurrying question after question. Perhaps the tone of my last was most urgent, for it was to that she replied, by pointing to a glen between two furze-clad hills, and saying, ‘That’s the road she ‘s taking, till she crosses the ford at Coomavaragh.’

“‘And she is alone?’

“‘That she is; sorra a one with her, and she has five good miles before her.’

“I never waited for more. If I did say good-bye to poor Joan, I really forget; but I dashed down the mountain at speed, and hurried onward in the direction she had pointed out. In an instant all my fatigue of the day was forgotten, and as I went along I remembered nothing, thought of nothing, but the object of my pursuit.

“You who have so often bantered me on the score of my languor – that ‘elegant lassitude,’ as you used to call it, which no zeal ever warmed, nor any ardor ever could excite – would have been somewhat astonished had you seen the reckless, headlong pace at which I went, – vaulting over gates, clearing fences, and dashing through swamps, without ever a moment’s hesitation. Picture to yourself, then, my splashed and heated condition as, after a two-miles’ chase in this fashion, I at length overtook her, just as she was in search of a safe spot to ford the river. Startled by the noise behind her, she turned suddenly round, and in an instant we stood face to face. I ‘d have given much to have seen some show of confusion, even embarrassment in her looks, but there was not the slightest. No, Harry, had we met in a drawing-room, her manner could not have been more composed, as she said, – ‘Good-morning, Mr. Massingbred. Have you had much sport?’ ‘My chase was after you, Miss Henderson,’ said I, hurriedly. ‘I just reached Barnagheela as Mistress Joan returned, and having learned which road you took, followed you in all haste.’

“‘Indeed!’ exclaimed she, and in a voice wherein there were blended a vast variety of meanings.

“‘Yes,’ I resumed, ‘for an opportunity of meeting you alone – of speaking with you even for a few moments – I have delayed my departure this week back. I wrote to you twice.’

“‘Yes; I got your letters.’

“‘But did not deign to answer them.’

“’ I did not write to you, because, situated as I was, and regarded as you were at Cro’ Martin, there would have been a species of treason in maintaining anything like correspondence, just as I feel there is somewhat akin to it in our intercourse at this moment.’

“‘And have the events occurring lately changed your feeling with regard to me?’ asked I, half reproachfully.

“‘I don’t exactly know to what former condition you refer, Mr. Massingbred,’ said she, calmly. ‘If to the counsels which you were gracious enough to receive at hands humble and inexperienced as mine, they were given, as you remember, when you were the chosen representative of the family at Cro’ Martin, and continued only so long as you remained such.’

“‘Then I have deceived myself, Miss Henderson,’ broke I in. ‘I had fancied that there was a personal good-will in the aid you tendered me. I even flattered myself that I owed my success entirely and solely to your efforts.’

“‘You are jesting, Mr. Massingbred,’ said she, with a saucy smile; ‘no one better than yourself knows how to rely upon his own abilities.’

“‘At least, confess that it was you who first suggested to me that they were worth cultivating; that it was you who pointed out a road to me in life, and even promised me your friendship as the price of my worthily adopting it!’

“‘I remember the conversation you allude to. It was on this very road it occurred.’

“‘Well, and have I done anything as yet to forfeit the reward you spoke of?’

“‘All this is beside the real question, Mr. Massingbred,’ said she, hurriedly. ‘What you are really curious to learn is, why it is that I, being such as I am, should have displayed so much zeal in a cause which could not but have been opposed to the interests of those who are my patrons. That you have not divined the reason is a proof to me that I could not make you understand it. I don’t want to talk riddles, – enough that I say it was a caprice.’

“‘And yet you talked seriously, persuasively to me, of my future road in life; you made me think that you saw in me the qualities that win success.’

“‘You have a wonderful memory for trifles, sir, since you can recall so readily what I said to you.’

“‘But it was not a trifle to me,’ said I.

“‘Perhaps not, Mr. Massingbred, since it referred to yourself. I don’t mean this for impertinence!’

“‘I am glad that you say so!’ cried I, eagerly. ‘I am but too happy to catch at anything which may tend to convince me that you would not willingly hurt my feelings.’

“For several minutes neither of us uttered a word; at last I said, ‘Should I be asking too much, if I begged Miss Henderson to tell me whether she is dissatisfied with anything I may have done in this contest? There may be matters in which I have been misrepresented; others of which I could make some explanation.’

“‘Are you quite satisfied with it yourself, sir?’ said she, interrupting me.

“‘No,’ said I; ‘so little am I so, that were it all to do over again, I ‘d not embark in it. The whole affair, from beginning to end, is a false position.’

“‘Ignoble associates – low companionships – very underbred acquaintances,’ said she, in a tone of scorn that seemed far more directed at me than the others. I believe I showed how I felt it. I know that my cheek was on fire for some seconds after.

“‘The Martins, I take it, are outrageous with me?’ said I, at last.

“‘They never speak of you!’ was the reply.

“‘Not my Lady?’

“‘No!’

“‘Nor even Repton?’

“‘Not once.’

“‘That, at least, is more dignified; and if any accident should bring us together in county business – ’

“‘Which is not likely.’

“‘How so?’ asked I.

“‘They are going away soon.’

“‘Going away – to leave Cro’ Martin – and for any time?’

“‘My Lady speaks of the Continent, and that, of course, implies a long absence.’

“‘And has this miserable election squabble led to this resolve? Is the neighborhood to be deprived of its chief ornament – the people of their best friend – just for the sake of a petty party triumph?’

“‘It is fortunate Mr. Massingbred’s constituents cannot hear him,’ said she, laughing.

“‘But be serious, and tell me how far am I the cause of all this.’

“‘The whole cause of it, – at least, so far as present events can reveal.’

“‘How they must abhor me!’ said I, half involuntarily.

“‘Avec les circonstances atténuantes,’ said she, smiling again.

“‘How so? – what do you mean?’

“‘Why, that my Lady is thankful at heart for a good excuse to get away, – such a pretext as Mr. Martin himself cannot oppose. Repton, the Grand Vizier, counsels economy, and, like all untravelled people, fancies France and Italy cheap to live in; and Miss Mary is, perhaps, not sorry with the prospect of the uncontrolled management of the whole estate.’

“‘And is she to live here alone?’

“‘Yes; she is to be sole mistress of Cro’ Martin, and without even a governess, since Miss Henderson is to accompany her Ladyship as private secretary, minister of the household, and, in fact, any other capacity you may please in flattery to assign her. And now, Mr. Massingbred, that I have, not over-discreetly, perhaps, adventured to talk of family arrangements to a stranger, will you frankly ac-knowledge that your pride, or self-love, or any other quality of the same nature, is rather gratified than otherwise at all the disturbance you have caused here? Don’t you really feel pleased to think that you have revolutionized a little neighborhood, broken up a society, severed the ties that bound proprietor and peasant, and, in fact, made a very pretty chaos, out of which may come anything or everything?’

“‘When you address such a question as this to me, you don’t expect an answer. Indeed, the query itself is its own reply,’ said I.

“‘Well said, sir, and with consummate temper, too. Certainly, Mr. Massingbred, you possess one great element of success in public life.’

“‘Which is – ’

“‘To bear with equanimity and cool forbearance the impertinences of those you feel to be your inferiors.’

“‘But it is not in this light I regard Miss Henderson, be assured,’ said I, with earnestness; ‘and if I have not replied to her taunts, it is not because I have not felt them.’

“I thought I detected a very faint flush on her cheek as I said this, and certainly her features assumed a more serious expression than before.

“‘Will you let me speak to you of what is far nearer my heart?’ said I, in a low voice, – ‘far nearer than all this strife and war of politics? And will you deign to believe that what I say is prompted by whatever I know in myself of good or hopeful?’

“‘Say on, – that is, if I ought to hear it,’ said she, coldly.

“Deterred a second or two by her manner, I rallied quickly, and with an ardor of which I cannot convey an impression, much less explain, – one of those moments of rhapsody, you ‘d call it, – poured forth a warm declaration of love. Aye, Harry, sincere, devoted love! – a passion which, in mastering all the common promptings of mere worldly advantage and self-interest, had really inspired me with noble thoughts and high aspirations.

“A judge never listened to a pleading with more dignified patience than she did to my appeal. She even waited when I had concluded, as it were to allow of my continuing, had I been so minded; when, seeing that I had closed my argument, she quietly turned about, and facing the road we had just been travelling, pointed to the bleak, bare mountain on which Barnagheela stood. ‘It was yonder, then, that you caught up this lesson, sir. The admirable success of Mr. Magennis’s experiment has seduced you!’

“‘Good heavens! Kate,’ cried I —

“‘Sir,’ said she, drawing herself proudly up, ‘you are continuing the parallel too far.’

“‘But Miss Henderson cannot for a moment believe – ’

“‘I can believe a great deal, sir, of what even Mr. Massingbred would class with the incredible; but, sir, there are certain situations in life which exact deference, from the very fact of their humility. Mine is one of these, and I am aware of it.’

“‘Will you not understand me aright?’ cried I, eagerly. ‘In offering to share my fortune in life with you – ’

“‘Pray, sir, let this stop here. Poor Joan, I have no doubt, felt all the grandeur of her elevation, and was grateful even in her misery. But I should not do so. I am one of those who think that the cruellest share in a mésalliance is that of the humbler victim. To brave such a fate, there should be all the hopeful, sanguine sense of strong affection; and, as a reserve to fall back on in reverses, there should be an intense conviction of the superiority over others of him from whom we accept our inferiority. Now, in my case, these two conditions are wanting. I know you like frankness, and I am frank.’

“‘Even to cruelty,’ said I.

“‘We are very near Cro’ Martin, sir, and I think we ought to part,’ said she, calmly.

“‘And is it thus you would have us separate? Have I nothing to hope from time, – from the changes that may come over your opinions of me?’

“‘Calculate rather on the alterations in your own sentiments, Mr. Massingbred; and perhaps the day is not very distant when you will laugh heartily at yourself for the folly of this same morning, – a folly which might have cost you dearly, sir, for I might have said, Yes.’

“‘Would that you had!’

“‘Good-bye, sir,’ said she, not noticing my interruption, ‘and remember that, if I should ever need it, I have a strong claim on your gratitude. Good-bye!’

“She did not give me her hand at parting, but waved it coldly towards me as she went. And so she passed the little wicket, and entered the dark woods of the demesne, leaving me in a state wherein the sense of bewilderment alone prevailed over all else.

“I have given you this narrative, Harry, as nearly as I can remember, every step of it; but I do not ask you to understand it better than I do, which means, not at all! Nor will I worry you with the thousand-and-one attempts I have made to explain to myself what I still confess to be inexplicable. I mean to leave this at once. Would that I had never come here! Write to me soon; but no bantering, Harry. Not even my friendship for you– oldest and best of all my friends – could stand any levity on this theme. This girl knows me thoroughly, since she comprehends that there is no so certain way to engage my affections as to defy them!

“Write to me, I entreat. Address me at my father’s, where I shall be, probably, within a week. Were I to read over what I have just written, the chances are I should burn the letter; and so, sans adieu,

“Yours ever,

“Jack Massingbred.”

CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY

Three large and stately travelling-carriages, heavily laden, and surrounded with all the appliances for comfort possible, rolled from under the arched gateway of Cro’ Martin. One eager and anxious face turned hastily to catch a last look at the place he was leaving, and then as hastily concealing his emotion with his handkerchief, Mr. Martin sat back in the carriage in silence.

“Twenty minutes after eight!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, looking at her watch. “It is always the case; one never can get away in time.”

Rousted by the speech, Martin started, and turned again to the window.

“How handsome those larches are!” cried he; “it seems but yesterday that I planted them, and they are magnificent trees now.”

Her Ladyship made no reply, and he went on, half as though speaking to himself: “The place is in great beauty just now. I don’t think I ever saw it looking so well. Shall I ever see it again?” muttered he, in a still lower tone.

“I really cannot think it ought to break your heart, Mr. Martin, if I were to say ‘No’ to that question,” said she, testily.

“No – no!” exclaimed he, repeating the word after her; “not come back here!”

“There is nothing to prevent us if we should feel disposed to do so,” replied she, calmly. “I only observed that one could face the alternative with a good courage. The twenty years we have passed in this spot are represented to your mind by more leafy trees and better timber. To me they are written in the dreary memory of a joyless, weary existence. I detest the place,” cried she, passionately, “and for nothing more, that even on leaving it my spirits are too jaded and broken to feel the happiness that they ought.”

Martin sighed heavily, but did not utter a word.

“So it is,” resumed she; “one ever takes these resolutions too late. What we are doing now should have been done sixteen or eighteen years ago.”

“Or not at all,” muttered Martin, but in a voice not meant to be overheard.

“I don’t think so, sir,” cried she, catching up his words; “if only as our protest against the insolence and ingratitude of this neighborhood, – of these creatures who have actually been maintained by us! It was high time to show them their real condition, and to what they will be reduced when the influence of our position is withdrawn.”

“If it were only for that we are going away – ” And he stopped himself as he got thus far.

“In itself a good and sufficient reason, sir; but I trust there are others also. I should hope that we have paid our debt to patriotism, and that a family who have endured twenty years of banishment may return, if only to take a passing glance at the world of civilization and refinement.”

“And poor Mary!” exclaimed Martin, with deep feeling.

“Your niece might have come with us if she pleased, Mr. Martin. To remain here was entirely her own choice; not that I am at all disposed to think that her resolution was not a wise one. Miss Mary Martin feels very naturally her utter deficiency in all the graces and accomplishments which should pertain to her condition. She appreciates her unfitness for society, and selects – as I think, with commendable discretion – a sphere much better adapted to her habits.”

Martin again sighed heavily.

“To leave any other girl under such circumstances would have been highly improper,” resumed her Ladyship; “but she is really suited to this kind of life, and perfectly unfit for any other, and I have no doubt she and Catty Broon will be excellent company for each other.”

“Catty loves her with all her heart,” muttered Martin.

And her Ladyship’s lip curled in silent derision at the thought of such affection. “And, after all,” said he, half involuntarily, “our absence will be less felt so long as Molly stays behind.”

“If you mean by that, Mr. Martin, that the same system of wasteful expenditure is still to continue, – this universal employment scheme, – I can only say I distinctly and flatly declare against it. Even Rep ton – and I ‘m sure he ‘s no ally of mine – agrees with me in pronouncing it perfectly ruinous.”

“There’s no doubt of the cost of it,” said Martin, gravely.

“Well, sir, and what other consideration should weigh with us? – I mean,” added she, hastily, “what should have the same weight? The immaculate authority I have just quoted has limited our personal expenditure for next year to five thousand pounds, and threatens us with even less in future if the establishment at Cro’ Martin cannot be reduced below its present standard; but I would be curious to know why there is such a thing as an establishment at Cro’ Martin?”

“Properly speaking, there is none,” said Martin. “Rep-ton alludes only to the workpeople, – to those employed on the grounds and the gardens. We cannot let the place go to ruin.”

“There is certainly no necessity for pineries and forcing-houses. Your niece is not likely to want grapes in January, or camellias in the early autumn. As little does she need sixteen carriage-horses and a stable full of hunters.”

“They are to be sold off next week. Mary herself said that she only wanted two saddle-horses and the pony for the phaeton.”

“Quite sufficient, I should say, for a young lady.”

“I ‘m sure she ‘d have liked to have kept the harriers – ”

“A pack of hounds! I really never heard the like!”

“Poor Molly! It was her greatest pleasure, – I may say her only amusement in life. But she would n’t hear of keeping them; and when Repton tried to persuade her – ”

“Repton’s an old fool, – he’s worse; he’s downright dishonest, – for he actually proposed my paying my maids out of my miserable pittance of eight hundred a year, and at the same moment suggests your niece retaining a pack of foxhounds!”

“Harriers, my Lady.”

“I don’t care what they ‘re called. It is too insolent.”

“You may rely upon one thing,” said Martin, with more firmness than he had hitherto used, “there will be nothing of extravagance in Mary’s personal expenditure. If ever there was a girl indifferent to all the claims of self, she is that one.”

“If we continue this discussion, sir, at our present rate, I opine that by the time we reach Dublin your niece will have become an angel.”

Martin dropped his head, and was silent; and although her Ladyship made two or three other efforts to revive the argument, he seemed resolved to decline the challenge, and so they rolled along the road sullen and uncommunicative.

In the second carriage were Repton and Kate Henderson, – an arrangement which the old lawyer flatteringly believed he owed to his cunning and address, but which in reality was ordained by Lady Dorothea, whose notions of rank and precedence were rigid. Although Repton’s greatest tact lay in his detection of character, he felt that he could not satisfactorily affirm he had mastered the difficulty in the present case. She was not exactly like anything he had met before; her mode of thought, and even some of her expressions were so different that the old lawyer owned to himself, “It was like examining a witness through an interpreter.”

A clever talker – your man of conversational success – is rarely patient under the failure of his powers, and, not very unreasonably perhaps, very ready to ascribe the ill-success to the defects of his hearer. They had not proceeded more than half of the first post ere Repton began to feel the incipient symptoms of this discontent.

She evidently had no appreciation for bar anecdote and judicial wit; she took little interest in political events, and knew nothing of the country or its people. He tried the subject of foreign travel, but his own solitary trip to Paris and Brussels afforded but a meagre experience of continental life, and he was shrewd enough not to swim a yard out of his depth. “She must have her weak point, if I could but discover it,” said he to himself. “It is not personal vanity, that I see. She does not want to be thought clever, nor even eccentric, which is the governess failing par excellence. What then can it be?” With all his ingenuity he could not discover. She would talk, and talk well, on any theme he started, but always like one who maintained conversation through politeness and not interest; and this very feature it was which piqued the old man’s vanity, and irritated his self-love.

When he spoke, she replied, and always with a sufficient semblance of interest; but if he were silent, she never opened her lips.

“And so,” said he, after a longer pause than usual, “you tell me that you really care little or nothing whither Fortune may be now conducting you.”

“To one in my station it really matters very little,” said she, calmly. “I don’t suppose that the post-horses there have any strong preference for one road above another, if they be both equally level and smooth.”

“There lies the very question,” said he; “for you now admit that there may be a difference.”

“I have never found in reality,” said she, “that these differences were appreciable.”

“How is it that one so young should be so – so philosophic?” said he, after a hesitation.

“Had you asked me that question in French, Mr. Repton, the language would have come so pleasantly to your aid, and spared you the awkwardness of employing a grand phrase for a small quality; but my ‘philosophy’ is simply this: that, to fill a station whose casualties range from courtesies in the drawing-room to slights from the servants’ hall, one must arm themselves with very defensive armor as much, nay more, against flattery than against sarcasm. If, in the course of time, this habit render one ungenial and uncompanionable, pray be lenient enough to ascribe the fault to the condition as much as to the individual.”

“But, to be candid, I only recognize in you qualities the very opposite of all these; and if I am to confess a smart at this moment, it is in feeling that I am not the man to elicit them.”

“There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton.”

“Now we are on the good road at last!” said he, gayly; “for Mr. Repton is dying to be captivated.”

“The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to the conqueror,” replied she.

“By Jove! I ‘m glad you ‘re not at the bar.”

“If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr. Repton.”

“How so? What do you mean?”

“I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have done so!”

“Ah! they told you that,” said he, coloring with pleasurable pride. “Well, it’s quite true. The fact is correct, but I don’t know what explanation they have given of it!”

“There was none, sir, – or, at least, none that deserved the name.”

“Then what was your own reading of it?” asked he.

“Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks, but spurn the grade of a petty officer.”

“By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand one’s motives better than an old Minister,” said he, with an evident satisfaction.