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CHAPTER XI. SCANDAL, AND GENERAL ILL-HUMOR

 
But where are they alle, I do not see,
One half of our goodlie companie!
 

Hone.

That day was destined to be one of contrarieties to the household of Tubbermore. Of the Kennyfeck family, none appeared at dinner. Lady Kilgoff, angry at Roland’s breach of engagement, – for, although he rode at top speed in every direction, he never overtook her, – also kept her room. The carriage sent for Miss Leicester had returned without her, a somewhat formal note of apology stating that Mr. Corrigan was indisposed, and his granddaughter unwilling to leave him; while Linton, usually a main feature in all the social success of a dinner, was still absent.

Of the assembled guests, too, few were in their wonted spirits. Sir Andrew and Lady Janet had quarrelled in the morning about the mode of preparing dandelion tea, and kept up the dispute all the day; Upton was sulky, dark, and reserved; Meek more than usually lachrymose; Fro-bisher’s best mare had been staked in taking a leap, and Miss Meek had never discovered it till half an hour after, so that the lameness was greatly aggravated; Mrs. White had had a “tiff” with the author, for his not believing the Irish to be of Phoenician origin, and would n’t speak to him at dinner; so that Cashel himself, constrained, absent, and ill at ease, found his company anything rather than a relief to his own distracted thoughts.

Among his other guests he found the same reserve and coldness of manner, so that no sooner had they assembled in the drawing-room, after dinner, than he left the house and set off to inquire for Mr. Corrigan at the cottage.

“We had nine vacant places to-day at table,” said Lady Janet, as soon as she had arranged her special table next the fire, with a shade in front and a screen behind her, and was quite satisfied that, in regard to cushions and footstools, she had monopolized the most comfortable in the room.

“I thought – aw – that we – aw – were somewhat slow,” said Captain Jennings, with his habitually tiresome, pompous intonation.

“What’s the matter with Upton?” said a junior officer of his regiment, in a whisper; “he looks so confoundedly put out.”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” yawned out Lord Charles; “he has a very safe book on the Oaks.”

“He’s backing Dido at very long odds,” interposed Miss Meek, “and she’s weak before, they say.”

“Not staked, I hope,” said Frobisher, looking maliciously at her.

“I don’t care what you say, Charley,” rejoined she; “I defy any one to know whether a horse goes tender, while galloping in deep ground. You are always unjust.” And she moved away in anger.

“She is so careless,” said Frobisher, listlessly.

“Tell me about these Kennyfecks. What is it all about?” said Mrs. White, bustling up, as if she was resolved on a long confidence.

“They hedged against themselves, I hear,” said Frobisher.

“Indeed! poor things; and are they much hurt?”

“Not seriously, I fancy,” drawled he. “Lady Janet knows it all.”

Mrs. White did not neglect the suggestion, but at once repaired to that part of the room where Lady Janet was sitting, surrounded by a select circle, eagerly discussing the very question she had asked to be informed upon.

“I had it from Verthinia,” said Mrs. Malone, with her peculiar, thick enunciation, “Lady Kilgoff’s maid. She said that not a day passes without some such scene between the mother and daughters. Mrs. Kennyfeck had, it seems, forbithen Cashel to call there in her abthence.”

“I must most respectfully interrupt you, madam,” said a large old lady, with blond false hair, and a great deal of rouge, “but the affair was quite different. Miss Olivia, that is the second girl, was detected by her aunt, Miss O’Hara, packing up for an elopement.”

“Fudge!” said Lady Janet; “she’d have helped her, if that were the case! I believe the true version of the matter is yet to come out. My woman, Stubbs, saw the apothecary coming downstairs, after bleeding Livy, and called him into her room; not, indeed, to speak of this matter” – here Lady Janet caused her voice to be heard by Sir Andrew, who sat, in moody sulk, right opposite – “it was to ask, if there should not be two pods of capsicum in every pint of dandelion tea.”

“There may be twa horns o’ the de’il in it,” ejaculated Sir Andrew, “but I ‘ll na pit it to my mouth agen. I hae a throat like the fiery furnace that roasted the three chaps in the Bible.”

“It suits your tongue all the better,” muttered Lady Janet, and turned round to the others. “Stubbs, as I was saying, called the man in, and after some conversation about the dandelion, asked, in a cursory way, you know, ‘How the lady was, upstairs?’ He shook his head, and said nothing.

“‘It will not be tedious, I hope?’ said Stubbs.

“‘These are most uncertain cases,’ said he; ‘sometimes they last a day, sometimes eight or nine.’

“‘I think you ‘re very mysterious, doctor,’ said Stubbs.

“He muttered something about honor, and, seizing his hat went off, as Stubbs says, ‘as if he was shot!’”

“Honor!” cried one of the hearers.

“Honor!” ejaculated another, with an expression of pure horror.

“Did n’t he say, madam,” said the blond old lady, “that it wasn’t his branch of the profession?”

“Oh! oh!” broke in the company together, while the younger ladies held up their fans and giggled behind them.

“I ‘m thorry for the poor mother!” sighed Mrs. Malone, who had seven daughters, each uglier than the other.

“I pity the elder girl,” said Lady Janet; “she had a far better tone about her than the rest.”

“And that dear, kind old creature, the aunt. It is said that but for her care this would have happened long ago,” said Mrs. Malone.

“She was, to my thinking, the best of them,” echoed the blond lady; “so discreet, so quiet, and so unobtrusive.”

“What could come of their pretension?” said a colonel’s widow, with a very large nose and a very small pension; “they attempted a style of living quite unsuited to them! The house always full of young men, too.”

“You would n’t have had them invite old ones, madam,” said Lady Janet, with the air of rebuke the wife of a commander-in-chief can assume to the colonel’s relict.

“It’s a very sad affair, indeed,” summed up Mrs. White, who, if she had n’t quarrelled with Mr. Howie, would have given him the whole narrative for the “Satanist.”

“What a house to be sure! There’s Lady Kilgoff on one side – ”

“What of her, my Lady?” said the blonde.

“You did n’t hear of Lord Kilgoff overtaking her to-day in the wood with Sir Harvey Upton? – hush! or he ‘ll hear us. The poor old man – you know his state of mind – snatched the whip from the coachman, and struck Sir Harvey across the face. They say there’s a great welt over the cheek!”

Mrs. White immediately arose, and, under pretence of looking for a book, made a circuit of the room in that part where Sir Harvey Upton was lounging, with his head on his hand.

“Quite true,” said she, returning to the party. “It is so painful, he can’t keep his hand from the spot.”

“Has any one discovered who the strange-looking man was that was received by Mr. Cashel this morning in his own study?” asked the blonde. “My maid said he was for all the world like a sheriff’s officer. It seems, too, he was very violent in his language; and but for Mr. Kennyfeck, he would not have left the house.”

“Too true, I fear, ma’am,” said Mrs. Malone; “my husband, the Thief,” – this was Mrs. Malone’s mode of abbreviating and pronouncing the words Chief Justice, – “told me it was impothible for Mr. Cashel to continue his extravaganth much longer.”

“It’s shameful – it’s disgraceful,” said Lady Janet; “the kitchen is a scene of waste and recklessness, such as no fortune could stand.”

“Indeed, so the ‘Thief’ said,” resumed Mrs. Malone; “he said that robbery went on, on every thide, and that Mr. Phillith, I think his name is, was the worst of all.”

“Your husband was quite correct, ma’am,” said Lady Janet; “no one should know it better.” And then she whispered in her neighbor’s ear, “If the adage be true, ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’”

The party intrusted with this could not restrain her laughter, and for a space, a species of distrust seemed to pervade the circle.

We are certain that no apology will be required, if we ask of our reader to quit this amiable society, – although seated at a comfortable fire, in the very easiest of chairs, with the softest carpet beneath his feet, – and accompany Roland Cashel, who now, with hasty step, trod the little path that led to Tubber-beg Cottage.

However inhospitable the confession, we are bound to acknowledge Cashel was growing marvellously weary of his character as a host. The hundred little contrarieties which daily arose, and which he knew not how to smooth down or conciliate, made him appear, in his own estimation at least, deficient in worldly tact, and left him open to the belief that others would judge him even less mercifully. The unbridled freedom of his household, besides, stimulated all the selfishness of those who, in a better arranged establishment, had kept “watch and ward” over their egotism; and thus, instead of presenting the features of a society where the elements of agreeability were not deficient, they resembled rather the company in a packet-ship, each bent upon securing his own comfort, and only intent how to make his neighbor subsidiary to himself.

Prosperity, too, was teaching him one of its least gracious lessons, – “Distrust.” The mean and selfish natures by which he was surrounded were gradually unfolding themselves to his view, and he was ever on the verge of that dangerous frontier where scepticism holds sway. One conclusion – and it was not the least wise – he formed was, that he was ill suited to such companionship, and that he had been happier, far happier, on some humble fortune, than as the rich proprietor of a great estate.

It was while thus ruminating, Cashel found himself at the little space which intervened between one front of the cottage and the lake, and was struck by the rapid movement of lights that glanced from window to window, appearing and disappearing at every instant.

The dread that the old man was taken seriously ill at once came over him, and he hastened forward in eager anxiety to learn the tidings. Then, suddenly checking himself, he felt reluctant, almost stranger that he was, to obtrude at such a moment. Fearing to advance, and unwilling to retire, he stood uncertain and hesitating.

As he remained thus, the door of the drawing-room that opened upon the lawn was flung wide, and Tiernay passed hastily out, saying in a loud and excited voice, “I will have my own way. I ‘ll see Cashel at once.” And with these words he issued forth in haste. Scarcely, however, had he gone a dozen paces, than he stopped short, and, clasping his hands firmly together, muttered aloud, “To what end should I seek him? What claim can I pretend, – by what right appeal to him?”

“Every claim and every right,” cried Roland, advancing towards him, “if I can only be of any service to you.”

“What! actually here at this moment!” exclaimed Tiernay. “Come this way with me, sir; we must not go into the house just yet.” And so saying, he passed his arm within Roland’s, and led him onward towards the lake.

“Is he ill?” said Cashel, – “is Mr. Corrigan taken ill?” But although the question was asked eagerly, Tiernay was too deeply sunk in his own thoughts to hear it; while he continued to mutter hurriedly to himself.

“What is the matter?” said Roland at last, losing patience at a preoccupation that could not be broken in upon. “Is Mr. Corrigan ill?”

“He is ruined!” said Tiernay, dropping Cashel’s arm, and letting fall his own as he spoke, with a gesture of despair.

“What do you mean? How?”

“Ruined! utterly ruined!” re-echoed Tiernay; and there was that in his accent and the emotion of his manner that forbade any further questioning.

“It is not at a moment like this,” said the doctor, “that I can tell you a long tale, where treachery and falsehood on one side, and generosity and manliness on the other, played the game as ever it has been, and ever will be played, between such antagonists; – enough, if I say my poor friend became responsible for the debts of a man who, but for his aid, would have had a felon’s fate. This fellow, who possesses one terrible means of vengeance, threatens now to use it, if a demand be not complied with, which Corrigan may leave himself a beggar and yet not satisfy. The threat has been held over him for years, and for years he has struggled on, parting, one by one, with every little requirement of his station, and submitting with noble resignation to any and every thing to stave off the evil day; but it has come at last.”

“And what is the sum demanded?” said Cashel, hastily.

“I cannot tell. There are various bills; some have been renewed again and again, others are yet current. It is a tangled web, and, in our hopelessness, we never sought to unravel it!”

“But the danger is imminent?”

“So imminent that my friend will be arrested to-morrow if bail be not forthcoming. I have not told him this; I dare not tell him so; but I have made up a story to induce him to leave this to-night.”

“Where for?” cried Roland, anxiously.

“God knows! I lose memory as well as judgment in moments like this. I believe I advised Limerick, and thence by ship to some port in England, from which they could reach the Continent.”

“But all this will be unnecessary if I offer myself as security,” said Roland.

“For a sum of which you know nothing!” muttered Tiernay, sorrowfully.

“No matter; it cannot be, in all likelihood, more than I can meet.”

“And for one who can never repay!” echoed the doctor still more sadly.

“Who can tell that?” said Cashel. “There’s many a coinage costlier than ever the mint fashioned; he may requite me thus.”

The doctor started. “You mean – no! – no!” cried he, interrupting himself, “that were too great good fortune. I must tell you, sir,” added he, in a firm voice, “that there is nothing – absolutely nothing – to give you in requital for such aid. My friend’s alternative is a prison, or be your debtor for what he cannot pay.”

“I am content, – perfectly content,” said Roland. “There is no need to say another word on the matter. Do not suffer him to endure any anxiety we can spare him; tell him at once the thing is done.”

“We must think over this a little,” said Tiernay, musing. “Con is a difficult fellow to deal with; there must be something which shall give it the semblance of a loan; he must be made to believe it is only a change of creditors.”

“Could not we arrange it without his knowledge, while you could affect to have made some settlement which has satisfied the others?”

“Too late, – too late, for that; he has seen Hoare himself.”

“Hoare! – the money-lender from Dublin?” said Cashel, blushing at the recollection of his own acquaintance with him.

“Ay, sir, of course you know him! A man cannot enjoy such distinguished friendships as you have without the aid of usurers?”

Cashel smiled good-humoredly, and went on, —

“Where is this gentleman at present.”

“Yonder,” said Tiernay, pointing to the cottage; “but he intends shortly returning to the inn at the village, where perhaps it would be better to meet him than here. If you ‘ll permit me, I ‘ll just step in and say as much, and then we can stroll that way together.”

Cashel consented, and his companion left him to do his errand. It was only as he stood alone, and had time for reflection, that he remembered his conversation with Kennyfeck in the morning, and learned that, with regard to ready money at least, he stood in a very different position from what he supposed. That there would be difficulties and legal obstacles innumerable made by Kennyfeck to any sale of property, he well knew; but he had made up his mind as to his course, and would not be thwarted. He had but space for these reflections, when Tiernay joined him, saying, —

“So far all is well. Hoare will follow us in a few minutes, and, for privacy’ sake, I have made the rendezvous at my house.”

“And Corrigan, – how have you left him?” asked Cashel.

“Like one in a dream. He seems neither to know whether it be misfortune or the opposite which impends him. Were it not for Mary, his poor heart had given way long since. Ay, sir, there is more true heroism in one day of that humble life, than in the boldest deed of bravery even you have ever witnessed.”

Cashel did not speak, but, in the pressure of his arm against Tiernay’s the other felt how the theme had touched him.

“You only know her by the graceful elegance of her manner, and the fascinations that, even to old men like myself, are a kind of sorcery; but I have seen her in every trial, where temper and mind, and heart and pride, are tested, and come through all victorious; draining the very wells of her own hopefulness to feed the exhausted fountain which age and disappointment had dried up; lending to manhood a greater courage than her own; ay, and more, – showing that her temper could resist the jarring influences of misfortune, and, like the bright moon above the storm-lashed clouds, soar on, glorious and lustrous ever. What are men made of?” cried he, energetically; “of what stuff are they formed, when such a girl as this can excite more admiration for her beauty than for traits of character that ennoble humanity?”

“You speak with all a lover’s warmth, doctor,” said Cashel, half smiling, while in reality, the subject interested him deeply.

“And why not, sir? I do love her, and with an affection that only such beings inspire. It is creatures like her that redeem years of disappointment and worldly disgust. It is in watching the single-heartedness of that young girl that I, an old man, hackneyed and hardened as I am, become trustful and hopeful of others. Love her! – to be sure I love her. And so would you, if the poor fopperies amid which you live but left you one moment free to think and feel as your own head and heart would lead you. I hope you take no heed of my rude speech, sir,” said he, hastily; “but it is the fault of my craft to believe that sweet things are only ‘Placebos,’ given but to earn the fee and amuse the patient.”

“I thank you for it,” said Cashel, pressing his hand; “few have ever cared to tell me truths.”

“Say, rather, few have cared to resign their influence over you by showing they knew your weak points. Now, I have too deep an interest in you, and too slight a regard for any profit your acquaintance can render myself, to be swayed by this. You don’t know, you cannot know, what a charm there is to an old fellow like myself – whose humble fortunes limit to a life of mere routine – to think that he has an opportunity of counselling one in your station, – to feel that he has sown the seed of some good principle, that one day or other will bear its fruit. Yes, years hence, when you have forgotten the old village doctor, – or if by chance remember him, only to recall his vulgarity or eccentricity, – I will be an anxious watcher over you, flattering myself to think that I have had some share in instilling the precepts by which you are winning good men’s esteem. These thoughts are poor men’s treasures, but he that feels them would not barter them for gold.”

“I have long wished for such a counsellor,” said Cashel, fervently.

“The advice will not be the less stringent that it comes when you are heart-sick of frivolity,” said Tiernay. “What could your fine company up yonder teach you? Such of them as are above mere folly trade in vice. I have seen them all since they have assembled here, and I am no mean physiognomist, and there is but one among them deserving of better than the poor heartless life they ‘re leading.”

“I can guess whom you mean,” said Roland, half pleased and half fearful.

“Well, she indeed would merit a better lot; and yet I would she were gone.”

“Why so? Do you grudge as even a passing ‘gleam of virtue’s brightness’?”

“She is more dangerous than the veriest coquette that ever lured a man to ruin. It is in such as she, where noble qualities have run to waste, where generous sentiments and pure affections have been blighted by the cold chill of a world that fosters not such gifts, the peril is ever greatest; for her sake and for yours, I would she were gone.”

As they spoke thus, they had reached the wide esplanade in front of the great house, from the windows of which lights were gleaming, while sounds of festivity and pleasure floated on the night air.

Tiernay halted for a second, and then said, “Who could believe that the owner of that princely mansion, filled as it is with pleasure-loving guests, and every adjunct that can promote enjoyment, should leave it, to wander on foot with a poor old village doctor, whose only merit is to utter unpalatable truths!”

“And be happier while doing so, – add that, my worthy friend,” said Cashel, pressing the arm that he held within his own.

“Come along, sir; this dalliance is pleasanter to me than to you. I begin to feel that I may have done you good, and you should be a doctor to know the full ecstasy of that feeling. Let us now move on, or this man will be before us.” And so saying, they moved briskly forward towards the village of Dunkeeran.