Jack Hinton Part 54

He bowed negligently, muttered something carelessly about the next waltz, and with a familiar nod to me, lounged away. O'Grady's caution about this man's attentions to Julia at once came to my mind, and the easy tone of his manner towards her alarmed me; but I had no time for reflection, as she took my arm and sauntered down the room.

'And so, _mon cher_ cousin, you have been leading a very wild life of it--fighting duels, riding steeplechases, breaking your own bones and ladies' hearts, in a manner exceedingly Irish?' said Julia with a smile, into which not a particle of her habitual raillery entered.

'From your letters I can learn, Julia, that a very strange account of my doings must have reached my friends here. Except from yourself, I have met with scarcely anything but cold looks since my arrival.'

'Oh, never mind that; people will talk, you know. For my part, Jack, I never will believe you anything but what I have always known you. The heaviest charge I have heard against you is that of trifling with a poor girl's affections; and as I know that the people who spread these rumours generally don't know at which side either the trifling or the affection resides, why, I think little about it.'

'And has this been said of me?'

'To be sure it has, and ten times as much. As to your gambling sins, there is no end to their enormity. A certain Mr. Rooney, I think the name is, a noted play-man----'

'How absurd, Julia! Mr. Rooney never played in his life; nor have I, except in the casual way every one does in a drawing-room.'

_'N'importe_--you are a lady-killer and a gambler. Now as to count number three--for being a jockey.'

'My dear Julia, if you had seen my steeplechase you 'd acquit me of that.'

'Indeed, I did hear,' said she roguishly, 'that you acquitted yourself admirably; but still you won. And then we come to the great offence--your quarrelsome habits. We heard, it is true, that you behaved, as it is called, very honourably, etc; but really duelling is so detestable----'

'Come, come, fair cousin, let us talk of something besides my delinquencies. What do you think of my friend O'Grady?'

I said this suddenly, by way of reprisal; but to my utter discomfiture she replied with perfect calmness--

'I rather was amused with him at first. He is very odd, very unlike other people; but Lady Charlotte took him up so, and we had so much of him here, I grew somewhat tired of him. He was, however, very fond of you; and you know that made up for much with us all.'

There was a tone of sweetness and almost of deep interest in these last few words that made my heart thrill, and unconsciously I pressed her arm closer to my side, and felt the touch returned. Just at the instant my father came forward accompanied by another, who I soon perceived was the royal duke that had received me so coldly a few minutes before. His frank, manly face was now all smiles, and his bright eye glanced from my fair cousin to myself with a quick, meaning expression.

'Another time, General, will do quite as well, I say, Mr. Hinton, call on me to-morrow morning about ten, will you? I have something to say to you.'

I bowed deeply in reply, and he pa.s.sed on.

'And let me see you after breakfast,' said Julia, in a half-whisper, as she turned towards De Vere, who now came forward to claim her for the waltz.

My father, too, mixed with the crowd, and I felt myself alone and a stranger in what should have been my home. A kind of cold thrill came over me as I thought how unlike was my welcome to what it would have been in Ireland; for although I felt that in my father's manner towards me there was no want of affection or kindness, yet somehow I missed the exuberant warmth and ready cordiality I had latterly been used to, and soon turned away, sad and disappointed, to seek my own room.

CHAPTER XLVIII. AN UNHAPPY DISCLOSURE

'What!' cried I, as I awoke the next morning, and looked with amazement at the figure which waddled across the room with a hoot in either hand--'what! not Corny Delany, surely?'

'Ugh! that same,' said he, with a cranky croak. 'I don't wonder ye don't know me; hards.h.i.+p's telling on me every day.'

Now really, in vindication of my father's household, in which Sir Corny had been domesticated for the last two months, I must observe that the alteration in his appearance was not exactly such as to justify his remark; on the contrary, he had grown fatter and more ruddy, and looked in far better case than I had ever seen him. His face, however, most perseveringly preserved its habitual sour and crabbed expression, rather increased, than otherwise, by his improved condition.

'So, Corny, you are not comfortable here, I find?'

'Comfortable! The ways of this place would kill the Danes! Nothing but ringing bells from morning till night; carriages drivin' like wind up to the door, and bang, bang away at the rapper; then more ringing to let them out again; and bells for breakfast and for luncheon and the hall dinner; and then the sight of vitals that's wasted--meat and fish and fowl and vegetables without end. Ugh! the Haythins, the Turks! eating and drinking as if the world was all their own.'

'Well, apparently they take good care of you in that respect'

'Devil a bit of care; here it's every man for himself. But I'll give warning on Sat.u.r.day; sorrow one o' me 'll be kilt for the like of them.'

'You prefer Ireland, then, Corny?'

'Who said I did?' said he snappishly; 'isn't it as bad there? Ugh, ugh! the Captain won't rest aisy in his grave after the way he treated me--leaving me here alone and dissolate in this place, amongst strangers!'

'Well, you must confess the country is not so bad.'

'And why would I confess it? What's in it that I don't mislike? Is it the heap of houses and the smoke and the devil's noise that's always going on that I'd like? Why isn't it peaceful and quiet like Dublin?'

And as I conversed further with him, I found that all his dislikes proceeded from the discrepancy he everywhere discovered from what he had been accustomed to in Ireland, and which, without liking, he still preferred to our Saxon observances--the few things he saw worthy of praise being borrowed or stolen from his own side of the Channel And in this his ingenuity was striking, insomuch that the very trees in Woburn Park owed their goodness to the owner having been once a Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, where, as Corny expressed it, 'devil thank him to have fine trees! hadn't he the pick of the Fhaynix?'

I knew that candour formed a most prominent feature in Mr. Delany's character, and consequently had little difficulty in ascertaining his opinion of every member of my family; indeed, to do him justice, no one ever required less of what is called pumping. His judgment on things and people flowed from him without effort or restraint, so that ere half an hour elapsed he had expatiated on my mothers pride and vanity, apostrophised my father's hastiness and determination, and was quite prepared to enter upon a critical examination of my cousin Julia's failings, concerning whom, to my astonishment, he was not half so lenient as I expected.

'Arrah, isn't she like the rest of them, coorting one day with Captain Phil, and another with the young lord there, and then laughing at them both with the ould duke that comes here to dinner! She thinks I don't be minding her; but didn't I see her taking myself off one day on paper--making a drawing of me, as if I was a haste! Mayhe there's worse nor me,' said the little man, looking down upon his crooked s.h.i.+ns and large knee-joints with singular complacency; 'and mayhe she'd get one of them yet.' a harsh cackle, the subst.i.tute for a laugh, closed this speech.

'Breakfast on the table, sir,' said a servant, tapping gently at the door.

'I'll engage it is, and will be till two o'clock, when they'll be calling out for luncheon,' said Corny, turning up the whites of his eyes, as though the profligate waste of the house was a sin he wished to wash his hands of. 'That wasn't the way at his honour the Jidge's; he'd never taste a bit from morning till night; and many a man he 'd send to his long account in the meantime. Ugh! I wish I was back there.'

'I have spent many happy days in Ireland, too,' said I, scarce following him in more than the general meaning of his speech.

A fit of coughing from Corny interrupted his reply, but as he left the room I could hear his muttered meditations, something in this strain: 'Happy days, indeed! A dacent life you led! tramping about the country with a fool, horse-riding and fighting! Ugh!'

I found my cousin in the breakfast-room alone; my father had already gone out; and as Lady Charlotte never left her room before three or four o'clock, I willingly took the opportunity of our _tete-a-tete_ to inquire into the cause of the singular reception I had met with, and to seek an explanation, if so might be, of the viceroy's change towards me since his visit to England.

Julia entered frankly and freely into the whole matter, with the details of which, though evidently not trusting me to the full, she was somehow perfectly conversant.

'My dear John,' said she, 'your whole conduct in Ireland has been much mistaken----'

'Calumniated, apparently, were the better word, Julia,' said I hastily.

'Nay, hear me out. It is so easy, when people have no peculiar reasons to vindicate another, to misconstrue, perhaps condemn. It is so much the way of the world to look at things in their worst light, that I am sure you will see no particular ingenuity was required to make your career in Dublin appear a wild one, and your life in the country still more so.

Now you are growing impatient; you are getting angry; so I shall stop.'

'No, no, Julia; a thousand pardons if a pa.s.sing shade of indignation did show itself in my face. Pray go on.'

'Well then, when a young gentleman, whose exclusive leanings were even a little quizzed here--there, no impatience!--condescends at one spring to frequent third-rate people's houses; falls in love with a niece, or daughter, or a something there; plays high among riotous a.s.sociates; makes rash wagers; and fights with his friends, who endeavour to rescue him----'

'Thank you, Julia--a thousand thanks, sweet cousin! The whole narrative and its author are palpably before me.'

A deep blush covered her cheek as I rose hastily from my chair.

'John, dear John, sit down again,' said she, 'I have only been in jest all this time. You surely do not suppose me silly enough to credit one word of all this?'

'It must have been told you, however,' said I, fixing my eyes on her as I spoke.