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“I am ashamed to send off all the selfish details that fill the first part of this letter. In the presence of such a calamity as poor Luttrell’s, my sorrows are unworthy and contemptible; but who knows when I could have the time or the temper to go over my dreary story again? and so you shall have it as it is.

“I am not able to read over again what I have written, so that I am not sure whether I have answered all your questions. You will, I am sure, however, forgive me much at such a season; for, though I had screwed up my courage to meet my own disasters, I had no reserve of pluck to sustain me against this sad blow of Luttrell’s.

“Do not refuse me, George, this service; believe me, the poor fellow is worthy of all the kindness you can show him. More than ever do I feel the wrong that we have done him, since every misfortune of his life has sprung from it.

“I must finish to catch the post. I enclose you a copy of the deposition of the seaman made before the consul at Genoa, and an extract from the log of St. Genaro, the despatch-boat. If you do go – indeed, in any case – write to me at once, and believe me, meanwhile,

“Your faithful friend,

“Gervais Vyner.

“A hearty letter from Lord B. has just come. He says he has just heard of my smash, and offers me my choice of something at home, or in the Colonies. Time enough to think of this; for the present, we shall have to live on about what my guardian allowed me at Christ-church. Address, La Boschetta, Chiavari.”

With much attention, Grenfell read this letter to the end, and then re-read it, pondering over certain parts as he went. He was certainly grieved as much as he could well be for any misfortune not his own.

He liked Vyner as well as it was in his nature to like any one; not, indeed, for his fine and generous qualities, his manliness, and his rectitude – he liked him simply because Vyner had always stood by him. Vyner had sustained him in a set, which, but for such backing, would not have accepted him. Every real step he had made in life had been through Vyner’s assistance; and he well knew that Vyner’s fall would extend its influence to himself.

Then came other thoughts: “He should have to leave the Cottage, where he had hoped to have remained for the cock shooting at least, perhaps a little longer; for this same Welsh life was a great economy. He was living for ‘half nothing;’ no rent, no servants to pay; horses, a fine garden, a capital cellar, all at his disposal. What, in the name of all foolishness, could make a man with double what he could spend, go and squander the whole in rotten speculations? He says he did not want to be richer! What did he want then? How can men tell such lies to their own hearts? Of course, he intended to be a Rothschild. It was some cursed thirsting after enormous wealth – wealth, that was to be expressed by figures on paper – not felt, not enjoyed, nor lived up to; that was the whole sum and substance of the temptation. Why not have the honesty to say so? As for Luttrell, I only wonder how he can think of him at such a time. I imagine, if I were to awake some fine morning to hear I was a beggar, I should take all the other calamities of the world with a marvellous philosophy. It’s a bore to be drowned, particularly if there was no necessity for it; but the young fellow had the worst of it; and after all, I don’t see that he had a great deal to live for. The island that formed his patrimony would certainly never have seduced me into any inordinate desire to prolong existence. Perhaps I must go there. It is a great annoyance. I hate the journey, and I hate the duty; but to refuse would, in all probability, offend Vyner. It is just the time men are unreasonably thin-skinned, fancying that all the world has turned its back on them, because they have sent off their French cook. Vulgar nonsense! Perhaps Vyner would not take that view; but his women would, I’m certain!”

Now, Mr. Grenfell knew nothing whatever of “the women” in question, and that was the precise reason that he included them in his spiteful censure.

“And then to fancy that his money-seeking was philanthropy! Was there ever delusion like it! Your virtuous people have such a habit of self-esteem; they actually believe the thing must be right, because they do it.”

Grumbling sorely over that “Irish journey,” he sauntered back to the house, in the porch of which Ladarelle was standing, with an open letter in his hand.

“I say,” cried he, “here’s a go! The house of Fletcher and David, one of the oldest in London, smashed!”

“I know it,” said Grenfell, dryly.

“Then you know, perhaps, how your friend, Sir Gervais Vyner, has let them in for nigh a quarter of a million?”

“I know more; for I know that you know nothing of the matter; but, to turn to something that concerns ourselves. I must start by the mail train to-night for Holyhead.”

“Which means, that I must evacuate my quarters. I must say, you give your tenants short notice to quit.”

“Stay, by all means. All I have to say is, that I cannot keep you company. Rickards will take excellent care of you till I come back.”

“Which will be – ?”

“I can’t name the day; but I hope it will be an early one.”

“A mysterious journey – eh?”

“No; but one which it is not at all necessary to take an opinion upon.”

“By the way, you wrote the letter to that Irish fellow the other evening – what did you do with it?”

“It is on the writing-table.”

“And I suppose I may make use of it, if I need it?”

“Yes; it’s a matter that other things have driven out of my head; but the letter is yours, if you wish.”

“And you will stand by me, I hope, if I get into a scrape?”

“Don’t count on me. I’m a capricious fellow, and whenever a thing does not come off at once, I never can vouch for the spirit in which I may resume it.”

“That’s hearty, at all events!”

“No; but it is unmistakable. – Rickards, hurry the cook, if he will let you, and order the carriage for eight o’clock.”

“And posters for me for Dalradern at the same hour,” said Ladarelle. “Grog is worth a score of such fellows!” muttered he below his breath, as he strolled to his room. “Grog would never strike out a plan, and leave a man in the lurch afterwards.”

When they met at dinner, Grenfell took care that the conversation should be as general as possible, never by a chance alluding to any subject of personal interest to either of them; and, as the clock struck eight, and he heard the tramp of the horses on the gravel, he arose and said:

“Don’t forget to say all sorts of things to Sir Within for me, and to Mademoiselle, too, when she is visible. Good-by, and ‘bonne chance!’”

“Good-by! I wish I could have had a few words with you before you started. I wish you would have told me something more definite about the plan. I wish – ” What he continued to wish is not on record, for once more Grenfell uttered his good-by, and the next moment he was gone.

CHAPTER XLI. THE DARK TIDINGS

It was a dull, lowering October day, sky and sea alike lead-coloured, when the boat that bore Grenfell rounded the southern point of Arran, and opened a view of the island in all its extent. His first visit there had not left any favourable impressions of the place, though then he saw it in sunshine, warm-tinted and softened; now all was hard, bleak, and cold, and the ruined Abbey stood out amongst the leafless trees, like the ghost of a civilisation long dead and buried.

“There he is himself, Sir,” said the steersman to Grenfell, as he pointed to a lone rock on the extreme point of a promontory. “You’d think he was paid for sitting there, to watch all the vessels that go north about to America. He can see every craft, big and little, from Belmullet to Craig’s Creek.”

“And does he stay there in bad weather?”

“I never missed him any day I came by, no matter how hard it blew.”

“It’s a dreary look-out.”

“Indeed it is, your honour! more by token, when a man has a comfortable house and a good fire to sit at, as Mr. Luttrell has, if he liked it.”

“Perhaps he thinks it less lonely to sit there than to mope over his hearth by himself. He lives all alone, I believe?”

“He does, Sir; and it’s what he likes best. I took a party of gentlemen over from Westport last summer; they wanted to see the curiosities of the place, and look at the old Abbey, and they sent me up with a civil message, to say what they came for and who they were – one of them was a lord – and what d’ye think, Sir? instead of being glad to see the face of a Christian, and having a bit of chat over what was doing beyond there, he says to me, ‘Barny Moore,’ says he, ‘you want to make a trade,’ says he, ‘of showing me like a wild baste; but I know your landlord, Mr. Creagh, and as sure as my name’s John Luttrell,’ says he, I’ll have you turned out of your holding; so just take your friends and yourself off the way you came!’ And when I told the gentlemen, they took it mighty good humoured, and only said, ‘After all, if a man comes so far as this for quietness, it’s rather hard if he wouldn’t get it;’ and we went off that night. I’m tellin’ your honour this,” added he, in a low, confidential tone, “because, if he asks you what boat you came in, you would say it was Tom M’Caffray’s – that man there in the bow – he’s from Kilrush, and a stranger; for I wouldn’t put it past John Luttrell to do me harm, if I crossed him.”

“But, is he not certain to see you?”

“No, Sir; not if I don’t put myself in his way. Look now, Sir, look, he’s off already?”

“Off! whereto?”

“To the Abbey, Sir, to bar himself in. He saw that the yawl was coming in to anchor, and he’ll not look back now till he’s safe in his own four walls.”

“But I want to speak with him – is it likely he’ll refuse to see me?”

“Just as-like as not. May I never! but he’s running, he’s so afeard we’ll be on shore before he gets in.”

At no time had Grenfell been much in love with his mission; he was still less pleased with it as he stepped on the shingly shore, and turned to make his way over a pathless waste to the Abbey. He walked slowly along, conning over to himself what he had got to do, and how he should do it. “At all events,” thought he, “the more boorish and uncivil the man may be, the less demand will be made on me for courtesy. If he be rude, I can be concise; nor need I have any hesitation in showing him that I never volunteered for this expedition, and only came because Vyner begged me to come.”

He had seen no one since he left the boat, and even now, as he arrived close to the house, no living thing appeared. He walked round on one side. It was the side of the old aisle, and there was no door to be found. He turned to the other, and found his progress interrupted by a low hedge, looking over which he fancied he saw an entrance. He stepped, therefore, over the enclosure; but, by the noise of the smashing twigs a dog was aroused, a wild, wolfish-looking animal, that rushed fiercely at him with a yelping bark. Grenfell stood fast, and prepared to defend himself with a strong stick, when suddenly a harsh voice cried out, “Morrah! come back, Morrah! Don’t strike the dog, Sir, or he’ll tear you to pieces!” And then a tall, thin man, much stooped in the shoulders, and miserably dressed, came forward, and motioned the dog to retire.

“Is he savage?” said Grenfell.

“Not savage enough to keep off intruders, it seems,” was the uncourteous reply. “Is your business with me, Sir?”

“If I speak to Mr. Luttrell, it is.”

“My name is Luttrell.”

“Mine is Grenfell; but I may be better known as the friend of your old friend, Sir Gervais Vyner.”

“Grenfell – Grenfell! to be sure. I know the name – we all know it,” said Luttrell, with a sort of sneer. “Is Vyner come – is he with you?”

“No, Sir,” said Grenfell, smarting under the sting of what he felt to be an insult. “It is because he could not come that he asked me to see you.”

Luttrell made no reply, but stood waiting for the other to continue.

“I have come on a gloomy errand, Mr. Luttrell, and wish you would prepare yourself to hear very, very sad news.”

“What do you call prepare?” cried Luttrell, in a voice almost a shriek. “I know of nothing that prepares a man for misfortune except its frequency,” muttered he, in a low tone. “What is it? Is it of Harry – of my boy?”

Grenfell nodded.

“Wait,” said Luttrell, pressing his hand over his brow. “Let me go in. No, Sir; I can walk without help.” He grasped the door-post as he spoke, and stumbling onward, clutching the different objects as he went, gained a chair, and sank into it. “Tell me now,” said he, in a faint whisper.

“Be calm, Mr. Luttrell,” said Grenfell, gently. “I have no need to say, take courage.”

Luttrell stared vacantly at him, his lips parted, and his whole expression that of one who was stunned and overcome. “Go on,” said he, in a hoarse whisper – “go on.”

“Compose yourself first,” said Grenfell.

“Is Harry – is he dead?”

Grenfell made a faint motion of his head.

“There – leave me – let me be alone!” said Luttrell, pointing to the door; and his words were spoken in a stern and imperative tone.

Grenfell waited for a few seconds, and then withdrew noiselessly, and strolled out into the open air.

“A dreary mission and a drearier spot!” said he, as he sauntered along, turning his eyes from the mountain, half hid in mist, to the lowering sea. “One would imagine that he who lived here must have little love of life, or little care how others fared in it.” After walking about a mile he sat down on a rock, and began to consider what further remained for him to do. To pass an entire day in such a place was more than he could endure; and, perhaps, more than Luttrell himself would wish. Vyner’s letter and its enclosures would convey all the sorrowful details of the calamity; and, doubtless, Luttrell was a man who would not expose his grief, but give free course to it in secret.

He resolved, therefore, that he would go back to the Abbey, and, with a few lines from himself, enclose these papers to Luttrell, stating that he would not leave the island, which it was his intention to have done that night, if Luttrell desired to see him again, and at the same time adding, that he possessed no other information but such as these documents afforded. This he did, to avoid, if it could be, another interview. In a word, he wanted to finish all that he had to do as speedily as might be, and yet omit nothing that decorum required. He knew how Vyner would question and cross-question him, besides; and he desired, that as he had taken the trouble to come, he should appear to have acquitted himself creditably.

“The room is ready for your honour,” said Molly, as Grenfell appeared again at the door; “and the master said that your honour would order dinner whenever you liked, and excuse himself to-day, by rayson he wasn’t well.”

“Thank you,” said Grenfell; “I will step in and write a few words to your master, and you will bring me the answer here.”

Half a dozen lines sufficed for all he had to say, and, enclosing the other documents, he sat down to await the reply.

In less time than he expected, the door opened. Luttrell himself appeared. Wretched and careworn as he seemed before, a dozen years of suffering could scarcely have made more impress on him than that last hour: clammy sweat covered his brow and cheeks, and his white lips trembled unceasingly; but in nothing was the change greater than in his eye. All its proud defiance was gone; the fierce energy had passed away, and its look was now one of weariness and exhaustion. He sat down in front of Grenfell, and for a minute or so did not speak. At last he said:

“You will wish to get back – to get away from this dreary place; do not remain on my account. Tell Vyner I will try and go over to him. He’s in Wales, isn’t he?”

“No; he is in Italy.”

“In Italy! I cannot go so far,” said he, with a deep sigh.

“I was not willing to obtrude other sorrows in the midst of your own heavier one; but you will hear the news in a day or two, perhaps, that our poor friend Vyner has lost everything he had in the world.”

“Is his daughter dead?” gasped out Luttrell, eagerly.

“No; I spoke of his fortune; his whole estate is gone.”

“That is sad, very sad,” sighed Luttrell; “but not the saddest! One may be poor and hope; one may be sick, almost to the last, and hope; one may be bereft of friends, and yet think that better days will come; but to be childless – to be robbed of that which was to have treasured your memory when you passed away, and think lovingly on you years after you were dust – this is the great, the great affliction!” As he spoke, the large tears rolled down his face, and his lank cheeks trembled. “None will know this better than Vyner,” said he, after a pause.

“You do him no more than justice; he thought little of his own misfortune in presence of yours.”

“It was like him.”

“May I read you his own words?”

“No; it is enough that I know his heart. Go back, and say I thank him. It was thoughtful of him at such a time to remember me; few but himself could have done it!” He paused for a few seconds, and then in a stronger, fuller voice continued: “Tell him to send this sailor to me; he may live here, if he will. At all events, he shall not want, wherever he goes. Vyner will ask you how I bore this blow, Sir. I trust to you to say the strict truth, that I bore it well. Is that not so?” Grenfell bowed his head slightly. “Bore it,” continued Luttrell, “as a man may, who now can defy Fortune, and say, ‘See, you have laid your heaviest load on me, and I do not even stagger under it!’ Remember, Sir, that you tell Vyner that. That I listened to the darkest news a man can hear, and never so much as winced. There is no fever in that hand, Sir; touch it!”

“I had rather that you would not make this effort, Mr. Luttrell. I had far rather tell my friend that your grief was taking the course that nature meant for it.”

“Sir!” said Luttrell, haughtily, “it is not to-day that misfortune and I have made acquaintance. Sorrow has sat at my hearth-stone – my one companion – for many a year! I knew no other guest, and had any other come, I would not have known how to receive him! Look around you and say, is it to such a place as this a man comes if the world has gone well with him?”

“It is not yet too late – ”

“Yes, it is, Sir; far too late,” broke in Luttrell, impatiently. “I know my own nature better than you ever knew it. Forgive me, if I am rude. Misery has robbed me of all – even the manners of a gentleman. It would be only a mockery to offer you such hospitality as I have here, but if, before leaving, you would eat something – ”

Grenfell made some hurried excuses; he had eaten on board the boat – he was not hungry – and he was impatient to get back in time for the morning mail.

“Of course, no one could wish to tarry here,” said Luttrell. “Tell Vyner I will try and write to him, if not soon, when I can. Good-by, Sir! You have been very kind to me, and I thank you.”

Grenfell shook his cold hand and turned away, more moved, perhaps, than if he had witnessed a greater show of sorrow. Scarcely, however, had he closed the door after him, than a dull, heavy sound startled him. He opened the door softly, and saw that Luttrell had fallen on the ground, and with his hands over his face lay sobbing in all the bitterness of intense grief. Grenfell retired noiselessly and unseen. It was a sorrow that none should witness; and, worldling as he was, he felt it. He stopped twice on his way down to the shore, uncertain whether he ought not to go back, and try to comfort that desolate man. But how comfort him? How speak of hope to one who mocked all hope, and actually seemed to cling to his misery?

“They cry out against the worldling, and rail at his egotism, and the rest of it,” muttered he; “but the selfishness that withdraws from all contact with others, is a hundred times worse! Had that man lived in town, and had his club to stroll down to, the morning papers would have shown him that he was not more unlucky than his fellows, and that a large proportion of his acquaintances carried crape on their hats, whether they had sorrow in their hearts or not.”

It was with a mind relieved that he reached Holyhead the next day, and set out for the Cottage. Vyner had begged him to secure certain papers and letters of his that were there; and for this purpose he turned off on his way to town to visit Dinasllyn for the last time.

“The young gentleman went away the night you left, Sir,” said Rickards, without being questioned; “but he came over this morning to ask if you had returned.”

“What news of the young lady who was so ill at Dalradern?”

“Out of danger, Sir. The London doctor was the saving of her life, Sir; he has ordered her to the sea-side as soon as she is fit to move, and Sir Within sent off Carter yesterday to Milford Haven, to take the handsomest house he can find there, and never think of the cost.”

“Rich men can do these things, Rickards!”

“Yes, Sir. Sir Within and my master haven’t to ask what’s the price when an article strikes their fancy.”

Grenfell looked to see if the remark was intended to explode a mine, or a mere chance shot. The stolid face of the butler reassured him in an instant, and he said, “I shall want candles in the library, and you will call me to-morrow early – say seven.”

When Grenfell had covered the library table with papers and parchments innumerable, title-deeds of centuries old, and grants from the Crown to Vyner’s ancestors in different reigns, he could not restrain a passionate invective against the man who had, out of mere levity, forfeited a noble fortune.

Contemptible as young Ladarelle was – mean, low-lived, and vulgar – the fellow’s ambition to be rich, the desire to have the power that wealth confers, raised him in Grenfell’s esteem above “that weak-minded enthusiast “ – so he called him – who must needs beggar himself, because he had nothing to do.

He emptied drawer after drawer, burning, as Vyner had bade him, rolls of letters, parliamentary papers, and such-like, till, in tossing over heaps of rubbish, he came upon a piece of stout card-board, and on turning it about saw the sketch Vyner had made of the Irish peasant child in Donegal. Who was it so like? Surely he knew that expression, the peculiar look of the eyes, sad and thoughtful, and yet defiant? He went over in his mind one after another of those town-bred beauties he had met in the season, when, suddenly, he exclaimed, “What a fool I have been all this time. It is the girl at Dalradern, the ‘ward,’” – here he laughed in derision – “the ‘ward’ of Sir Within Wardle. Ay, and she knew me, too, I could swear. All her evasive answers about Ireland show it.” He turned hastily to Vyner’s letter, and surmised that it was to this very point he was coming, when the news of young Luttrell’s death was brought him. “What can be her position now, and how came she beneath that old man’s roof? With what craft and what boldness she played her game! The girl who has head enough for that, has cleverness to know that I am not a man to be despised. She should have made me her friend at once. Who could counsel her so well, or tell her the shoals and quicksands before her? She ought to have done this, and she shall, too. I will go over to-morrow to Dalradern; I will take her this sketch; we shall see if it will not be a bond of friendship between us.”

When, true to the pledge he had made with himself, he went oyer to Dalradern the next morning, it was to discover that Sir Within and his ward had taken their departure two hours before. The servants were busily engaged in dismantling the rooms, and preparing to close the Castle against all visitors.

To his inquiries, ingenious enough, he could get no satisfactory answer as to the direction they had gone, or to what time their absence might be protracted, and Grenfell, disappointed and baffled, returned to the Cottage to pass his last evening, ere he quitted it for ever.