CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
About an hour after the occurrence mentioned in our last chapter, the quiet little village of Kilkieran was startled by the sharp clattering sounds of horses’ feet, as Mr. Scanlan’s tandem came slinging along; and after various little dexterities amid stranded boats, disabled anchors, and broken capstans, drew up at the gate of the Osprey’s Nest. When men devise their own equipage, they invariably impart to it a strong infusion of their own idiosyncrasy. The quiet souls who drag through life in chocolate-colored barouches, with horses indifferently matched, give no clew to their special characteristics; but your men of tax-carts and tandems, your Jehus of four-in-hand teams, write their own biographies in every detail of the “turn-out.”
Maurice Scanlan was a sporting attorney, and from the group of game cocks neatly painted on the hind panel, to the wiry, well-bred, and well-looking screws before him, all was indicative of the man. The conveyance was high and red-wheeled; the nags were a chestnut and a gray; he drove them without winkers or bearing-reins, wearing his white hat a very little on ope side, and gracefully tilting his elbow as he admonished the wheeler with the “crop” of his whip. He was a good-looking, showy, vulgar, self-sufficient kind of fellow, with consummate shrewdness in all business transactions, only marred by one solitary weak point, – an intense desire to be received intimately by persons of a station above his own, and to seem, at least, to be the admitted guest of very fashionable society. It was not a very easy matter to know if this Lord-worship of his was real, or merely affected, since, certainly, the profit he derived from the assumption was very considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a variety of secret-service transactions, and private affairs for the nobility, which they would never have dreamed of committing to the hands of their more recognized advisers.
If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one’s difficulties and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement, nor a spavin in your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a kind of intuitive appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect with a rapidity that counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a consummate knowledge of his countrymen. He had emerged from the very humblest class of the people, and he knew them thoroughly; with all their moods of habitual distrust and momentary enthusiasm, – with all their phases of sanguine hopefulness he was familiar; and he could mould and fashion and weld them to his will, as passive subjects as the heated bar under the hammer of the smith.
As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the sphere in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was, besides, an arena in which he was proud of figuring.
For a while he seemed – at least in his own eyes – to stand on a higher eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more prominent and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was only under some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his services were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to have the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.
Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view, and that his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the inexplorable realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say that he was eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his whole career occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.
With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that his engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success. Hitherto, indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal party – as they pleasantly assumed to style themselves – had gone no further in opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language, and an effort – usually a failure – at a street row during the election. So little of either energy or organization had marked their endeavors, that the great leader of the day had stigmatized their town with terms of heavy censure, and even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An emissary, deputed to report upon the political state of the borough, had described the voters as mere dependants on the haughty purse-proud proprietor of Cro’ Martin, who seemed, even without an effort, to nominate the sitting member.
The great measure of the year ‘29 – the Catholic Relief Bill – had now, however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect of a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by “one of their own sort” was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits of the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should be taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an aristocratic domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular with them than the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared to sit in Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events should call him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided political line, but sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to Liberal measures, as though foreshadowing that new school who were to take the field under the middle designation of Conservatives. Some very remote relationship to Lady Dorothea’s family had first introduced him to the Martins’ notice; and partly from this connection, and partly because young Harry Martin was too young to sit in Parliament, they had continued to support him to the present time.
Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared more, he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent, lazy, apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather grateful than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the trouble of a contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest excuse through life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was “unprepared.” He had been in that unhappy state about everything since he was born, and so, apparently, was he destined to continue to the very last. With large resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand for money. When called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked to assist a friend or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite unprepared; and so convinced was he that this was a fatality under which he labored, that no sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally absolved himself from every shadow of reproach that might attach to his luke-warmness.
The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation in which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless theory. There was no one to dispute his will, – none to gainsay his opinions. There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion which is evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping, listless, well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who would have been marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for neglect of his station and its great requirements.
That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him in that morning’s newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but a petty despot, – and to be told that such despotism was already doomed – aroused in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that the sensation was one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose fault was it that such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless, Kilmorris’s. Some stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party move had brought down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with her new-fangled ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and her model-farms. The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her interference; or it might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner had given offence; at all events, he was blameless, and strange to say, either he was not perfectly assured of the fact, or that the assumption was not pleasant, but he seemed very far from being satisfied with the explanation. In the agitated mood these feelings produced, a servant came to inform him that Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.
“Say I ‘m out – I ‘m unwell – I don’t feel quite myself to-day. Call Miss Mary to him.” And with an impatient gesture he motioned the servant away.
“Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir,” said the man, entering the room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before the chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general appearance.
“It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see.”
“I know that, sir, but the Master is n’t well this morning; he told me to send Miss Mary to you.”
“All right,” said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture, and yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice Scanlan; and though the cause involves something like a secret, the reader shall know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the world – that is, of his world. He had mixed with barristers and solicitors, “Silk Gowns,” masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges had he come into contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with certain sporting lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and handicapped with men of fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and ridden hurdle-races against young heirs to good estates, and somehow always found himself not inferior in worldly craft and address to those he came in contact with, – nay, he even fancied that he was occasionally rather a little more wide awake than his opponents; and what with a little blustering here, a little blarney there, a dash of mock frankness to this man, or an air of impulsive generosity to the other, – an accommodating elasticity, in fact, that extended to morals, manners, and principles, – he found that he was, as he himself styled it, “a fair match with equal weights for anything going.” There was but one individual alone in presence of whom he in reality felt his own inferiority deeply and painfully; strange to say, that was Miss Martin! At first sight this would seem almost unintelligible. She was not either a haughty beauty, presuming on the homage bestowed upon her by high and distinguished admirers, nor was she any greatly gifted and cultivated genius dominating over lesser intelligences by the very menace of her acquirements. She was simply a high-spirited, frank, unaffected girl, whose good breeding and good sense seemed alike instinctive, and who read with almost intuition the shallow artifices by which such natures as Scanlan’s impose upon the world. She had seen him easily indolent with her uncle, obsequiously deferential to my Lady, all in the same breath, while the side-look of tyranny he could throw a refractory tenant appeared just as congenial to his nature.
It was some strange consciousness which told him he could not deceive her, that made Scanlan ever abashed in her presence, and by the self-same impulse was it that she was the only one in the world for whose good esteem he would have sacrificed all he possessed.
While he waited for her coming, he took a leisurely survey of the room. The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro’ Martin, was all marked by that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men’s houses. There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the course of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments can secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how was a girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to a man like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a presumption? Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded in twenty things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of. He had dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he once deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where once his highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of curiosity. “Who could say where he might be at last?” Besides this, he knew from his own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune, that her father was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an inheritance behind him, and that her uncle was the last man in the world ever to think of a marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part with. There was, then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him in an admissible form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in the field, and Maurice had seen many a prize won by a “walk over” purely for want of a competitor in the race.
Notwithstanding all these very excellent and reassuring considerations, Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with easy familiarity, said, “I’m quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr. Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle’s message. I find that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can – ”
“I’m sure it’s only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never expected to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very hard for me to think of business, at all, at all.”
“That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of it,” said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some distance from him.
“If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary,” said he, in his most obsequious manner, “there’s nobody equal to yourself; or if it were anything at all but what it is, I know well that you’d see your way out of it; but the present is a matter of politics, – it ‘s about the borough.”
“That weary borough,” said she, sighing; “and are we about to have another election?”
“That ‘s it, Miss Mary; and Lord Kilmorris writes me to say that he ‘ll be over next week, and hopes he ‘ll find all his friends here as well disposed towards him as ever.”
“Has he written to my uncle?” asked Mary, hastily.
“No; and that’s exactly what I came about. There was a kind of coldness, – more my Lady’s, I think, than on Mr. Martin’s part, – and Lord Kilmorris feels a kind of delicacy; in fact, he doesn’t rightly know how he stands at Cro’ Martin.” Here he paused, in hopes that she would help him by even a word; but she was perfectly silent and attentive, and he went on. “So that, feeling himself embarrassed, and at the same time knowing how much he owes to the Martin interest – ”
“Well, go on,” said she, calmly, as he came a second time to a dead stop.
“It isn’t so easy, then, Miss Mary,” said he, with a long sigh, “for there are so many things enter into it, – so much of politics and party and what not, – that I quite despair of making myself intelligible, though, perhaps, if I was to see your uncle, he ‘d make out my meaning.”
“Shall I try and induce him to receive you, then?” said she, quietly.
“Well, then, I don’t like asking it,” said he, doubtfully; “for, after all, there’s nobody can break it to him as well as yourself.”
“Break it to him, Mr. Scanlan?” said she, in astonishment.
“Faith, it ‘s the very word, then,” said he; “for do what one will, say what they may, it will be sure to surprise him, if it does no worse.”
“You alarm me, sir; and yet I feel that if you would speak boldly out your meaning, there is probably no cause for fear.”
“I’ll just do so, then, Miss Mary; but at the same time I ‘d have you to understand that I ‘m taking a responsibility on myself that his Lordship never gave me any warrant for, and that there is not another – ” Mr. Scanlan stopped, but only in time; for, whether it was the fervor in which he uttered these words, or that Miss Martin anticipated what was about to follow, her cheek became scarlet, and a most unmistakable expression of her eyes recalled the worthy practitioner to all his wonted caution. “The matter is this, Miss Martin,” said he, with a degree of deference more marked than before, “Lord Kilmorris is dissatisfied with the way your uncle supported him at the last election. He complains of the hard conditions imposed upon him as to his line of conduct in the House; and, above all, he feels insulted by a letter Lady Dorothea wrote him, full of very harsh expressions and hard insinuations. I never saw it myself, but that’s his account of it, – in fact, he’s very angry.”
“And means to throw up the borough, in short,” broke in Mary.
“I’m afraid not, Miss Mary,” said the other, in a half whisper.
“What then? – what can he purpose doing?”
“He means to try and come in on his own interest,” said Scanlan, who uttered the words with an effort, and seemed to feel relief when they were out.
“Am I to understand that he would contest the borough with us?”
Scanlan nodded an affirmative.
“No, no, Mr. Scanlan, this is some mistake, – some misapprehension on your part. His Lordship may very possibly feel aggrieved, – he may have some cause, for aught I know, – about something in the last election, but this mode of resenting it is quite out of the question, – downright impossible.”
“The best way is to read his own words. Miss Martin. There’s his letter,” said he, handing one towards her, which, however, she made no motion to take.
“If you won’t read it, then, perhaps you will permit me to do so. It’s very short, too, for he says at the end he will write more fully to-morrow.” Mr. Scanlan here muttered over several lines of the epistle, until he came to the following: “I am relieved from any embarrassment I should have felt at breaking with the Martins by reflecting over the altered conditions of party, and the new aspect politics must assume by the operations of the Emancipation Act. The old ways and traditions of the Tories must be abandoned at once and forever; and though Martin in his life of seclusion and solitude will not perceive this necessity, we here all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include justice to both of the contending factions.”
“Admirably argued,” broke in Mary. “He absolves himself from all ties of gratitude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever professed.”
“It’s very like that, indeed, Miss Mary,” said Scanlan, timidly.
“Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too gross if it were not actually laughable;” and as she spoke she arose and paced the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous side of the matter occupied her thoughts. “He will stand for the borough – he means to stand in opposition to us?”
“That’s his intention – at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics.”
“I can’t follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you, frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found it no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being able to argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such sentiments as those which you have just read; but I am a poor country girl, very ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I can do is to represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be.”
“I hope he’ll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he ‘ll acquit me– ”
“Be assured he’ll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I never knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be a fair specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser for his indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be inconvenient for you to remain an hour or so?”
“I’ll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour,” said Scanlan, with an air of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts, might have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.
“I’ll be down at Mrs. Cronan’s till I hear from you, Miss Mary.” And with a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow, Scanlan took his leave, and mounting to his box, assumed the ribbons with a graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to himself at least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the tender passion.
“Begad, she’s a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n’t her equal! and as sharp as a needle, too,” muttered he, as he jogged along the shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting the effect he was producing on the bystanders.