Buch lesen: «The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)», Seite 23

“‘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.

“It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own perspicuity in this case,” said she, hastily; “for I was aided in my judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister’s eyes.”

“And what was that?”

“A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, entitled ‘Days of the Historical Society of Trinity College,’ wherein I found Mr. Repton’s name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great principles of the French Revolution.”

“Ah, – yes. I was a boy, – a mere boy, – very rash, – full of hope, – full of enthusiasm,” said Repton, with an embarrassment that increased at every word. “We all took fire from the great blaze beside us just then; but, my dear young lady, the flame has died out, – very fortunately, too; for if it had n’t, it would have burned us up with it. We were wrong, – wrong with Burke, to be sure, —Errare Platone, as one may say, – but still wrong.”

“You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences; wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great champions of liberty you descended to be – modern Whigs!”

“Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!” said Repton, looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.

“I don’t much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment. We shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be done, nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will be as effectual as a ‘Noyade,’ and a Reforming Administration will work as cleanly as a Constituent!”

“But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconstituted pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige of rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?”

“The best evidence. Nobody believes in it, – not one. Society is reconstituted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people – the true people of the Continent – look at the pageantry of a court and a nobility just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the same spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice permit, and then, some fine morning, they ‘ll dash down the whole edifice; and be assured that the fragments of the broken toy will never suggest the sentiment to repair it.”

“You are a Democrat of the first water!” exclaimed Repton, in half amazement.

“I am simply for the assertion of the truth everywhere and in everything, – in religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If the people be the source of power, don’t divert the stream into another channel; and, above all, don’t insist that it should run up-hill! Come abroad, Mr. Repton, – just come over with us to Paris, – and see if what I am telling you be so far from the fact. You ‘ll find, too, that it is not merely the low-born, the ignoble, and the poor who profess these opinions, but the great, the titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen quarterings and ancient lineage; and who, sick to death of a contest with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather start fair in the race again, and win whatever place their prowess or their capacity might giye them. You ‘ll hear very good socialism from the lips of dukes and princesses who swear by Fourier.”

Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually assumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her features a character of boldness and determination such as he had not seen in them before..

“Yes,” resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, “it is your new creations, your ennobled banker, your starred and cordoned agitator of the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the divine right of misrule! The truly noble have other sentiments!”

“There ‘s nothing surprises me so much,” said Repton, at last, “as to hear these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy, and never could have arisen without one, – who has lived that delightful life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms the atmosphere of only one class throughout the whole world. How would you bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?”

“As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may, perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really,” added she, laughing, “this is wandering very far out of the record. I had promised myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to array every feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against me.”

“It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such sentiments as you have just uttered,” said Repton, gravely. “I was young and ardent, – full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after all, the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old, time-hardened lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you suppose that such opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the interval?”

“Come over to Paris, sir,” was her reply.

“And I would ask nothing better,” rejoined he. “Did I ever tell you of what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France, after the peace of ‘15? ‘Now is the time to see the French capital,’ said Mac. ‘I ‘ll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other, and start to-morrow.’ ‘Ay, sir,’ said Parsons, ‘and never change either till you come back again!’”

Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor was Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!

The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea’s French maid; Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar, Mr. Martin’s “gentleman,” – a party which, we are forced to own, seemed to combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the vehicles that preceded them. To their share there were no regrets for leaving home, – no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by long association. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They were escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth into that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its associations more essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single compensation for all its depression to such as these?

“Our noble selves,” said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies’ glasses, and then his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before them, and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the crystal ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. “Mam’selle, it is your favorite tipple, and deliciously cool.”

“Perfection,” replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had been long in England; “and I never enjoyed it more. Au revoir,” added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro’ Martin, just visible above the trees, – “Au revoir!”

“Just so, – till I see you again,” said Mrs. Runt; “and I ‘m sure I ‘ll take good care that day won’t come soon. It seems like a terrible nightmare when I think of the eight long years I passed there.”

“Et moi, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, provisoirement, to come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in Paris, Rome, Naples, —que sais-je? I accept, – I arrive, —et me voici!” And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.

“Hard lines, ma’am,” said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused of an equivoque; “and here am I, that left the best single-handed situation in all England, – Sir Augustus Hawleigh’s, – a young fellow just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here at a salary positively little better than a country curate’s, and live the life of – of – what shall I say? – ”

“No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one glass, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house.”

“I ‘m sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there,” said Peddar, adjusting his cravat; “she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better, though.”

“She has no ambitions, – no what you call them? – no aspirations for le grand monde; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she is.”

“But with a young fellow of ton and fashion, mam’selle, – a fellow who has seen life, – to guide and bring her out, trust me, there are excellent capabilities in that girl.” And as Mr. Peddar enunciated the sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and performed a kind of impromptu toilet.

“She do dress herself bien mal.”

“Disgracefully so,” chimed in Mrs. Runt “I believe, whenever she bought a gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she ‘d done with it.”

“I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something,” said Peddar, affectedly.

“Au contraire, – she like to make the contrast more strong; she always seek to make say, ‘Regardez, mademoiselle, see what a tournure is there!’”

“Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?” asked Mrs. Runt.

“Handsome, yes; but not my style, – not one of what I call my women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?” And he drew his head back, and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.

“Just so. Downright impudent, I’d call it.”

“Not even that,” said Mr. Peddar, pondering; “haughty, rather, – a kind of don’t-think-to-come-it-on-me style of look, eh?”

“Not at all amiable, —point de cela,” exclaimed mam’selle; “but still, I will say, très bon genre. You see at a glance that she has seen la bonne société.”

“Which, after all, is the same all the world over,” said Peddar, dogmatically. “At Vienna we just saw the same people we used to have with us in London; at Rome, the same; so, too, at Naples. I assure you that the last time I dined at Dolgorouki’s, I proposed going in the evening to the Haymarket. I quite forgot we were on the Neva. And when Prince Gladuatoffski’s gentleman said, ‘Where shall I set you down?’ I answered carelessly, ‘At my chambers in the Albany, or anywhere your Highness likes near that.’ Such is life!” exclaimed he, draining the last of the champagne into his glass.

“The place will be pretty dull without us, I fancy,” said Mrs. Runt, looking out at the distant landscape.

“That horrid old Mother Broon won’t say so,” said Peddar, laughing. “By Jove! if it was only to escape that detestable hag, it ‘s worth while getting away.”

“I offer her my hand when I descend the steps, but she refuse froidement, and say, ‘I wish you as much pleasure as you leave behind you.’ Pas mal for such a creature.”

“I did n’t even notice her,” said Mrs. Runt.

“Ma foi! I was good with all the world; I was in such Joy – such spirits – that I forgave all and everything. I felt nous sommes en route, and Paris – dear Paris – before us.”

“My own sentiments to, a T,” said Mr. Peddar. “Let me live on the Boulevards, have my cab, my stall at the Opera, two Naps, per diem for my dinner, and I’d not accept Mary Martin’s hand if she owned Cro’ Martin, and obliged me to live in it.”

The speech was fully and warmly acknowledged, other subjects were started, and so they travelled the same road as their betters, and perhaps with lighter hearts.