Lord Kilgobbin

‘My intention is to propose to one, and I imagine I need not tell you which?’

‘Naturally, the Irish girl. She saved your life – ’

‘Pray let me undeceive you in a double error. It is not the Irish girl; nor did she save my life.’

‘Perhaps not; but she risked her own to save yours. You said so yourself at the time.’

‘We’ll not discuss the point now. I hope I feel duly grateful for the young lady’s heroism, though it is not exactly my intention to record my gratitude in a special license.’

‘A very equivocal sort of repayment,’ grumbled out Lockwood.

‘You are epigrammatic this evening, major.’

‘So, then, it’s the Greek you mean to marry?’

‘It is the Greek I mean to ask.’

‘All right. I hope she’ll take you. I think, on the whole, you suit each other. If I were at all disposed to that sort of bondage, I don’t know a girl I’d rather risk the road with than the Irish cousin, Miss Kearney.’

‘She is very pretty, exceedingly obliging, and has most winning manners.’

‘She is good-tempered, and she is natural – the two best things a woman can be.’

‘Why not come down along with me and try your luck?’

‘When do you go?’

‘By the 10.30 train to-morrow. I shall arrive at Moate by four o’clock, and reach the castle to dinner.’

‘They expect you?’

‘Only so far, that I have telegraphed a line to say I’m going down to bid “Good-bye” before I sail for Guatemala. I don’t suspect they know where that is, but it’s enough when they understand it is far away.’

‘I’ll go with you.’

‘Will you really?’

‘I will. I’ll not say on such an errand as your own, because that requires a second thought or two; but I’ll reconnoitre, Master Cecil, I’ll reconnoitre.’

‘I suppose you know there is no money.’

‘I should think money most unlikely in such a quarter; and it’s better she should have none than a small fortune. I’m an old whist-player, and when I play dummy, there’s nothing I hate more than to see two or three small trumps in my partner’s hand.’

‘I imagine you’ll not be distressed in that way here.’

‘I’ve got enough to come through with; that is, the thing can be done if there be no extravagances.’

‘Does one want for more?’ cried Walpole theatrically.

‘I don’t know that. If it were only ask and have, I should like to be tempted.’

‘I have no such ambition. I firmly believe that the moderate limits a man sets to his daily wants constitute the real liberty of his intellect and his intellectual nature.’

‘Perhaps I’ve no intellectual nature, then,’ growled out Lockwood, ‘for I know how I should like to spend fifteen thousand a year. I suppose I shall have to live on as many hundreds.’

‘It can be done.’

‘Perhaps it may. Have another weed?’

‘No. I told you already I have begun a tobacco reformation.’

‘Does she object to the pipe?’

‘I cannot tell you. The fact is, Lockwood, my future and its fortunes are just as uncertain as your own. This day week will probably have decided the destiny of each of us.’

‘To our success, then!’ cried the major, filling both their glasses.

‘To our success!’ said Walpole, as he drained his, and placed it upside down on the table.

CHAPTER LXIX

AT KILGOBBIN CASTLE

The ‘Blue Goat’ at Moate was destined once more to receive the same travellers whom we presented to our readers at a very early stage of this history.

‘Not much change here,’ cried Lockwood, as he strode into the little sitting-room and sat down. ‘I miss the old fellow’s picture, that’s all.’

‘Ah! by the way,’ said Walpole to the landlord, ‘you had my Lord Kilgobbin’s portrait up there the last time I came through here.’

‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ said the man, smoothing down his hair and looking apologetically. ‘But the Goats and my lord, who was the Buck Goat, got into a little disagreement, and they sent away his picture, and his lordship retired from the club, and – and – that was the way of it.’

‘A heavy blow to your town, I take it,’ said the major, as he poured out his beer.

‘Well, indeed, your honour, I won’t say it was. You see, sir, times is changed in Ireland. We don’t care as much as we used about the “neighbouring gentry,” as they called them once; and as for the lord, there! he doesn’t spend a hundred a year in Moate.’

‘How is that?’

‘They get what they want by rail from Dublin, your honour; and he might as well not be here at all.’

‘Can we have a car to carry us over to the castle?’ asked Walpole, who did not care to hear more of local grievances.

‘Sure, isn’t my lord’s car waiting for you since two o’clock!’ said the host spitefully, for he was not conciliated by a courtesy that was to lose him a fifteen-shilling fare. ‘Not that there’s much of a horse between the shafts, or that old Daly himself is an elegant coachman,’ continued the host; ‘but they’re ready in the yard when you want them.’

The travellers had no reason to delay them in their present quarters, and taking their places on the car, set out for the castle.

‘I scarcely thought when I last drove this road,’ said Walpole, ‘that the next time I was to come should be on such an errand as my present one.’

‘Humph!’ ejaculated the other. ‘Our noble relative that is to be does not shine in equipage. That beast is dead lame.’

‘If we had our deserts, Lockwood, we should be drawn by a team of doves, with the god Cupid on the box.’

‘I’d rather have two posters and a yellow postchaise.’

A drizzling rain that now began to fall interrupted all conversation, and each sank back into his own thoughts for the rest of the way.

Lord Kilgobbin, with his daughter at his side, watched the car from the terrace of the castle as it slowly wound its way along the bog road.

‘As well as I can see, Kate, there is a man on each side of the car,’ said Kearney, as he handed his field-glass to his daughter.

‘Yes, papa, I see there are two travellers.’

‘And I don’t well know why there should be even one! There was no such great friendship between us that he need come all this way to bid us good-bye.’

‘Considering the mishap that befell him here, it is a mark of good feeling to desire to see us all once more, don’t you think so?’

‘May be so,’ muttered he drearily. ‘At all events, it’s not a pleasant house he’s coming to. Young O’Shea there upstairs, just out of a fever; and old Miss Betty, that may arrive any moment.’

‘There’s no question of that. She says it would be ten days or a fortnight before she is equal to the journey.’

‘Heaven grant it! – hem – I mean that she’ll be strong enough for it by that time. At all events, if it is the same as to our fine friend, Mr. Walpole, I wish he’d have taken his leave of us in a letter.’

‘It is something new, papa, to see you so inhospitable.’

‘But I am not inhospitable, Kitty. Show me the good fellow that would like to pass an evening with me and think me good company, and he shall have the best saddle of mutton and the raciest bottle of claret in the house. But it’s only mock-hospitality to be entertaining the man that only comes out of courtesy and just stays as long as good manners oblige him.’

‘I do not know that I should undervalue politeness, especially when it takes the shape of a recognition.’

‘Well, be it so,’ sighed he, almost drearily. ‘If the young gentleman is so warmly attached to us all that he cannot tear himself away till he has embraced us, I suppose there’s no help for it. Where is Nina?’

‘She was reading to Gorman when I saw her. She had just relieved Dick, who has gone out for a walk.’

‘A jolly house for a visitor to come to!’ cried he sarcastically.

‘We are not very gay or lively, it is true, papa; but it is not unlikely that the spirit in which our guest comes here will not need much jollity.’

‘I don’t take it as a kindness for a man to bring me his depression and his low spirits. I’ve always more of my own than I know what to do with. Two sorrows never made a joy, Kitty.’

‘There! they are lighting the lamps,’ cried she suddenly. ‘I don’t think they can be more than three miles away.’

‘Have you rooms ready, if there be two coming?’

‘Yes, papa, Mr. Walpole will have his old quarters; and the stag-room is in readiness if there be another guest.’

‘I’d like to have a house as big as the royal barracks, and every room of it occupied!’ cried Kearney, with a mellow ring in his voice. ‘They talk of society and pleasant company; but for real enjoyment there’s nothing to compare with what a man has under his own roof! No claret ever tastes so good as the decanter he circulates himself. I was low enough half an hour ago, and now the mere thought of a couple of fellows to dine with me cheers me up and warms my heart! I’ll give them the green seal, Kitty; and I don’t know there’s another house in the county could put a bottle of ‘46 claret before them.’

‘So you shall, papa. I’ll go to the cellar myself and fetch it.’

Kearney hastened to make the moderate toilet he called dressing for dinner, and was only finished when his old servant informed him that two gentlemen had arrived and gone up to their rooms.

‘I wish it was two dozen had come,’ said Kearney, as he descended to the drawing-room.

‘It is Major Lockwood, papa,’ cried Kate, entering and drawing him into a window-recess; ‘the Major Lockwood that was here before, has come with Mr. Walpole. I met him in the hall while I had the basket with the wine in my hand, and he was so cordial and glad to see me you cannot think.’

‘He knew that green wax, Kitty. He tasted that “bin” when he was here last.’

‘Perhaps so; but he certainly seemed overjoyed at something.’

‘Let me see,’ muttered he, ‘wasn’t he the big fellow with the long moustaches?’

‘A tall, very good-looking man; dark as a Spaniard, and not unlike one.’

‘To be sure, to be sure. I remember him well. He was a capital shot with the pistol, and he liked his wine. By the way, Nina did not take to him.’

‘How do you remember that, papa?’ said she archly.

If I don’t mistake, she told me so, or she called him a brute, or a savage, or some one of those things a man is sure to be, when a woman discovers he will not be her slave.’

Nina entering at the moment cut short all rejoinder, and Kearney came forward to meet her with his hand out.

‘Shake out your lower courses, and let me look at you,’ cried he, as he walked round her admiringly. ‘Upon my oath, it’s more beautiful than ever you are! I can guess what a fate is reserved for those dandies from Dublin.’

‘Do you like my dress, sir? Is it becoming?’ asked she.

‘Becoming it is; but I’m not sure whether I like it.’

‘And how is that, sir?’

‘I don’t see how, with all that floating gauze and swelling lace, a man is to get an arm round you at all – ’

‘I cannot perceive the necessity, sir,’ and the insolent toss of her head, more forcibly even than her words, resented such a possibility.

CHAPTER LXX

ATLEE’S RETURN

When Atlee arrived at Bruton Street, the welcome that met him was almost cordial. Lord Danesbury – not very demonstrative at any time – received him with warmth, and Lady Maude gave him her hand with a sort of significant cordiality that overwhelmed him with delight. The climax of his enjoyment was, however, reached when Lord Danesbury said to him, ‘We are glad to see you at home again.’

This speech sank deep into his heart, and he never wearied of repeating it over and over to himself. When he reached his room, where his luggage had already preceded him, and found his dressing articles laid out, and all the little cares and attentions which well-trained servants understand awaiting him, he muttered, with a tremulous sort of ecstasy, ‘This is a very glorious way to come home!’

The rich furniture of the room, the many appliances of luxury and ease around him, the sense of rest and quiet, so delightful after a journey, all appealed to him as he threw himself into a deep-cushioned chair. He cried aloud, ‘Home! home! Is this indeed home? What a different thing from that mean life of privation and penury I have always been associating with this word – from that perpetual struggle with debt – the miserable conflict that went on through every day, till not an action, not a thought, remained untinctured with money, and if a momentary pleasure crossed the path, the cost of it as certain to tarnish all the enjoyment! Such was the only home I have ever known, or indeed imagined.’

It is said that the men who have emerged from very humble conditions in life, and occupy places of eminence or promise, are less overjoyed at this change of fortune than impressed with a kind of resentment towards the destiny that once had subjected them to privation. Their feeling is not so much joy at the present as discontent with the past.

‘Why was I not born to all this?’ cried Atlee indignantly. ‘What is there in me, or in my nature, that this should be a usurpation? Why was I not schooled at Eton, and trained at Oxford? Why was I not bred up amongst the men whose competitor I shall soon find myself? Why have I not their ways, their instincts, their watchwords, their pastimes, and even their prejudices, as parts of my very nature? Why am I to learn these late in life, as a man learns a new language, and never fully catches the sounds or the niceties? Is there any competitorship I should flinch from, any rivalry I should fear, if I had but started fair in the race?’

This sense of having been hardly treated by Fortune at the outset, marred much of his present enjoyment, accompanied as it was by a misgiving that, do what he might, that early inferiority would cling to him, like some rag of a garment that he must wear over all his ‘braverie,’ proclaiming as it did to the world, ‘This is from what I sprung originally.’

It was not by any exercise of vanity that Atlee knew he talked better, knew more, was wittier and more ready-witted than the majority of men of his age and standing. The consciousness that he could do scores of things they could not do was not enough, tarnished as it was by a misgiving that, by some secret mystery of breeding, some freemasonry of fashion, he was not one of them, and that this awkward fact was suspended over him for life, to arrest his course in the hour of success, and balk him at the very moment of victory.

‘Till a man’s adoption amongst them is ratified by a marriage, he is not safe,’ muttered he. ‘Till the fate and future of one of their own is embarked in the same boat with himself, they’ll not grieve over his shipwreck.’

Could he but call Lady Maude his wife! Was this possible? There were classes in which affections went for much, where there was such a thing as engaging these same affections, and actually pledging all hope of happiness in life on the faith of such engagements. These, it is true, were the sentiments that prevailed in humbler walks of life, amongst those lowly-born people whose births and marriages were not chronicled in gilt-bound volumes. The Lady Maudes of the world, whatever imprudences they might permit themselves, certainly never ‘fell in love.’ Condition and place in the world were far too serious things to be made the sport of sentiment. Love was a very proper thing in three-volume novels, and Mr. Mudie drove a roaring trade in it; but in the well-bred world, immersed in all its engagements, triple-deep in its projects and promises for pleasure, where was the time, where the opportunity, for this pleasant fooling? That luxurious selfishness in which people delight to plan a future life, and agree to think that they have in themselves what can confront narrow fortune and difficulty – these had no place in the lives of persons of fashion! In that coquetry of admiration and flattery which in the language of slang is called spooning, young persons occasionally got so far acquainted that they agreed to be married, pretty much as they agreed to waltz or to polka together; but it was always with the distinct understanding that they were doing what mammas would approve of, and family solicitors of good conscience could ratify. No tyrannical sentimentality, no uncontrollable gush of sympathy, no irresistible convictions about all future happiness being dependent on one issue, overbore these natures, and made them insensible to title, and rank, and station, and settlements.

In one word, Atlee, after due consideration, satisfied his mind that, though a man might gain the affections of the doctor’s daughter or the squire’s niece, and so establish him as an element of her happiness that friends would overlook all differences of fortune, and try to make some sort of compromise with Fate, all these were unsuited to the sphere in which Lady Maude moved. It was, indeed, a realm where this coinage did not circulate. To enable him to address her with any prospect of success, he should be able to show – ay, and to show argumentatively – that she was, in listening to him, about to do something eminently prudent and worldly-wise. She must, in short, be in a position to show her friends and ‘society’ that she had not committed herself to anything wilful or foolish – had not been misled by a sentiment or betrayed by a sympathy; and that the well-bred questioner who inquired, ‘Why did she marry Atlee?’ should be met by an answer satisfactory and convincing.

In the various ways he canvassed the question and revolved it with himself, there was one consideration which, if I were at all concerned for his character for gallantry, I should be reluctant to reveal; but as I feel little interest on this score, I am free to own was this. He remembered that as Lady Maude was no longer in her first youth, there was reason to suppose she might listen to addresses now which, some years ago, would have met scant favour in her eyes.

In the matrimonial Lloyd’s, if there were such a body, she would not have figured A No. 1; and the risks of entering the conjugal state have probably called for an extra premium. Atlee attached great importance to this fact; but it was not the less a matter which demanded the greatest delicacy of treatment. He must know it, and he must not know it. He must see that she had been the belle of many seasons, and he must pretend to regard her as fresh to the ways of life, and new to society. He trusted a good deal to his tact to do this, for while insinuating to her the possible future of such a man as himself – the high place, and the great rewards which, in all likelihood, awaited him – there would come an opportune moment to suggest, that to any one less gifted, less conversant with knowledge of life than herself, such reasonings could not be addressed.

‘It could never be,’ cried he aloud; ‘to some miss fresh from the schoolroom and the governess, I could dare to talk a language only understood by those who have been conversant with high questions, and moved in the society of thoughtful talkers.’

There is no quality so dangerous to eulogise as experience, and Atlee thought long over this. One determination or another must speedily be come to. If there was no likelihood of success with Lady Maude, he must not lose his chances with the Greek girl. The sum, whatever it might be, which her father should obtain for his secret papers, would constitute a very respectable portion. ‘I have a stronger reason to fight for liberal terms,’ thought he, ‘than the Prince Kostalergi imagines; and, fortunately, that fine parental trait, that noble desire to make a provision for his child, stands out so clearly in my brief, I should be a sorry advocate if I could not employ it.’

In the few words that passed between Lord Danesbury and himself on arriving, he learned that there was but little chance of winning his election for the borough. Indeed, he bore the disappointment jauntily and good-humouredly. That great philosophy of not attaching too much importance to any one thing in life, sustained him in every venture. ‘Bet on the field – never back the favourite,’ was his formula for inculcating the wisdom of trusting to the general game of life, rather than to any particular emergency. ‘Back the field,’ he would say, ‘and you must be unlucky, or you’ll come right in the long run.’

They dined that day alone, that is, they were but three at table; and Atlee enjoyed the unspeakable pleasure of hearing them talk with the freedom and unconstraint people only indulge in when ‘at home.’ Lord Danesbury discussed confidential questions of political importance: told how his colleagues agreed in this, or differed on that; adverted to the nice points of temperament which made one man hopeful and that other despondent or distrustful; he exposed the difficulties they had to meet in the Commons, and where the Upper House was intractable; and even went so far in his confidences as to admit where the criticisms of the Press were felt to be damaging to the administration.

‘The real danger of ridicule,’ said he, ‘is not the pungency of the satire, it is the facility with which it is remembered and circulated. The man who reads the strong leader in the Times may have some general impression of being convinced, but he cannot repeat its arguments or quote its expressions. The pasquinade or the squib gets a hold on the mind, and in its very drollery will ensure its being retained there.’

Atlee was not a little gratified to hear that this opinion was delivered apropos to a short paper of his own, whose witty sarcasms on the Cabinet were exciting great amusement in town, and much curiosity as to the writer.

‘He has not seen “The Whitebait Dinner” yet,’ said Lady Maude; ‘the cleverest jeu d’esprit of the day.’

‘Ay, or of any day,’ broke in Lord Danesbury. ‘Even the Anti-Jacobin has nothing better. The notion is this. The Devil happens to be taking a holiday, and he is in town just at the time of the Ministerial dinner, and hearing that he is at Claridge’s, the Cabinet, ashamed at the little attention bestowed on a crowned head, ask him down to Greenwich. He accepts, and to kill an hour —

“He strolled down, of course,To the Parliament House,And heard how England stood,As she has since the Flood,Without ally or friend to assist her.But, while every persuasionWas full of invasionFrom Russian or Prussian,Yet the only discussionWas, how should a Gentleman marry his sister.”’

‘Can you remember any more of it, my lord?’ asked Atlee, on whose table at that moment were lying the proof-sheets of the production.

‘Maude has it all somewhere. You must find it for him, and let him guess the writer – if he can.’

‘What do the clubs say?’ asked Atlee.

‘I think they are divided between Orlop and Bouverie. I’m told that the Garrick people say it’s Sankey, a young fellow in F. O.’

‘You should see Aunt Jerningham about it, Mr. Atlee – her eagerness is driving her half mad.’

‘Take him out to “Lebanon” on Sunday,’ said my lord; and Lady Maude agreed with a charming grace and courtesy, adding as she left the room, ‘So remember you are engaged for Sunday.’

Atlee bowed as he held the door open for her to pass out, and threw into his glance what he desired might mean homage and eternal devotion.

‘Now then for a little quiet confab,’ said my lord. ‘Let me hear what you mean by your telegram. All I could make out was that you found our man.’

‘Yes, I found him, and passed several hours in his company.’

‘Was the fellow very much out at elbows, as usual?’

‘No, my lord – thriving, and likely to thrive. He has just been named envoy to the Ottoman Court.’

‘Bah!’ was all the reply his incredulity could permit.

‘True, I assure you. Such is the estimation he is held in at Athens, the Greeks declare he has not his equal. You are aware that his name is Spiridion Kostalergi, and he claims to be Prince of Delos.’

‘With all my heart. Our Hellenic friends never quarrel over their nobility. There are titles and to spare for every one. Will he give us our papers?’

‘Yes; but not without high terms. He declares, in fact, my lord, that you can no more return to the Bosporus without him than he can go there without you.’

‘Is the fellow insolent enough to take this ground?’

‘That is he. In fact, he presumes to talk as your lordship’s colleague, and hints at the several points in which you may act in concert.’

‘It is very Greek all this.’

‘His terms are ten thousand pounds in cash, and – ’

‘There, there, that will do. Why not fifty – why not a hundred thousand?’

‘He affects a desire to be moderate, my lord.’