The Kellys and the O'Kellys Part 35

Daly turned very red at the insinuation. He was within an ace of seizing Lynch by the collar, and expelling him in a summary way from his premises, a feat which he was able to perform; and willing also, for he was sick of his client; but he thought of it a second time, and restrained himself.

"Mr Lynch," he said, after a moment or two, "that's the second time you've made an observation of that kind to me; and I'll tell you what; if your business was the best in the county, instead of being as bad a case as was ever put into a lawyer's hands, I wouldn't stand it from you. If you think you can let out your pa.s.sion against me, as you do against your own people, you'll find your mistake out very soon; so you'd betther mind what you're saying."

"Why, what the devil did I say?" said Lynch, half abashed.

"I'll not repeat it--and you hadn't betther, either. And now, do you choose to hear my professional advice, and behave to me as you ought and shall do? or will you go out of this and look out for another attorney? To tell you the truth, I'd jist as lieve you'd take your business to some one else."

Barry's brow grew very black, and he looked at Daly as though he would much like to insult him again if he dared. But he did not dare. He had no one else to look to for advice or support; he had utterly estranged from him his father's lawyer; and though he suspected that Daly was not true to him, he felt that he could not break with him. He was obliged, therefore, to swallow his wrath, though it choked him, and to mutter something in the shape of an apology.

It was a mutter: Daly heard something about its being only a joke, and not expecting to be taken up so d---- sharp; and, accepting these sounds as an _amende honorable_ [32], again renewed his functions as attorney.

[FOOTNOTE 32: amende honorable--(French) apology]

"Will you authorise me to see Martin Kelly, and to treat with him?

You'll find it the cheapest thing you can do; and, more than that, it'll be what n.o.body can blame you for."

"How treat with him?--I owe him nothing--I don't see what I've got to treat with him about. Am I to offer him half the property on condition he'll consent to marry my sister? Is that what you mean?"

"No: that's not what I mean; but it'll come to much the same thing in the end. In the first place, you must withdraw all opposition to Miss Lynch's marriage; indeed, you must give it your direct sanction; and, in the next place, you must make an amicable arrangement with Martin about the division of the property."

"What--coolly give him all he has the impudence to ask?--throw up the game altogether, and pitch the whole stakes into his lap?--Why, Daly, you--"

"Well, Mr Lynch, finish your speech," said Daly, looking him full in the face.

Barry had been on the point of again accusing the attorney of playing false to him, but he paused in time; he caught Daly's eye, and did not dare to finish the sentence which he had begun.

"I can't understand you, I mean," said he; "I can't understand what you're after: but go on; may-be you're right, but I can't see, for the life of me. What am I to get by such a plan as that?"

Barry was now cowed and frightened; he had no dram-bottle by him to rea.s.sure him, and he became, comparatively speaking, calm and subdued.

Indeed, before the interview was over he fell into a pitiably lachrymose tone, and claimed sympathy for the many hards.h.i.+ps he had to undergo through the ill-treatment of his family.

"I'll try and explain to you, Mr Lynch, what you'll get by it. As far as I can understand, your father left about eight hundred a-year between the two--that's you and your sisther; and then there's the house and furniture. Nothing on earth can keep her out of her property, or prevent her from marrying whom she plases. Martin Kelly, who is an honest fellow, though sharp enough, has set his eye on her, and before many weeks you'll find he'll make her his wife. Undher these circ.u.mstances, wouldn't he be the best tenant you could find for Dunmore? You're not fond of the place, and will be still less so when he's your brother-in-law. Lave it altogether, Mr Lynch; give him a laise of the whole concern, and if you'll do that now at once, take my word for it you'll get more out of Dunmore than iver you will by staying here, and fighting the matther out."

"But about the debts, Daly?"

"Why, I suppose the fact is, the debts are all your own, eh?"

"Well--suppose they are?"

"Exactly so: personal debts of your own. Why, when you've made some final arrangement about the property, you must make some other arrangement with your creditors. But that's quite a separate affair; you don't expect Martin Kelly to pay your debts, I suppose?"

"But I might get a sum of money for the good-will, mightn't I?"

"I don't think Martin's able to put a large sum down. I'll tell you what I think you might ask; and what I think he would give, to get your good-will and consent to the match, and to prevent any further difficulty. I think he'd become your tenant, for the whole of your share, at a rent of five-hundred a year; and maybe he'd give you three hundred pounds for the furniture and stock, and things about the place.

If so, you should give him a laise of three lives."

There was a good deal in this proposition that was pleasing to Barry's mind: five hundred a-year without any trouble in collecting it; the power of living abroad in the unrestrained indulgence of hotels and billiard rooms; the probable chance of being able to retain his income and bilk his creditors; the prospect of shaking off from himself the consequences of a connection with the Kellys, and being for ever rid of Dunmore enc.u.mbrances. These things all opened before his eyes a vista of future, idle, uncontrolled enjoyment, just suited to his taste, and strongly tempted him at once to close with Daly's offer. But still, he could hardly bring himself to consent to be vanquished by his own sister; it was wormwood to him to think that after all she should be left to the undisturbed enjoyment of her father's legacy. He had been brow-beaten by the widow, insulted by young Kelly, cowed and silenced by the attorney whom he had intended to patronise and convert into a creature of his own: he could however have borne and put up with all this, if he could only have got his will of his sister; but to give up to her, who had been his slave all his life--to own, at last, that he had no power over her, whom he had always looked upon as so abject, so mean a thing; to give in, of his own accord, to the robbery which had been committed on him by his own father; and to do this, while he felt convinced as he still did, that a sufficiently unscrupulous attorney could save him from such cruel disgrace and loss, was a trial to which he could hardly bring himself to submit, crushed and tamed as he was.

He still sat on the edge of the parlour table, and there he remained mute, balancing the pros and cons of Daly's plan. Daly waited a minute or two for his answer, and, finding that he said nothing, left him alone for a time, to make up his mind, telling him that he would return in about a quarter of an hour. Barry never moved from his position; it was an important question he had to settle, and so he felt it, for he gave up to the subject his undivided attention. Since his boyhood he had looked forward to a life of ease, pleasure, and licence, and had longed for his father's death that he might enjoy it. It seemed now within his reach; for his means, though reduced, would still be sufficient for sensual gratification. But, idle, unprincipled, brutal, castaway wretch as Barry was, he still felt the degradation of inaction, when he had such stimulating motives to energy as unsatisfied rapacity and hatred for his sister: ignorant as he was of the meaning of the word right, he tried to persuade himself that it would be wrong in him to yield.

Could he only pluck up sufficient courage to speak his mind to Daly, and frighten him into compliance with his wishes, he still felt that he might be successful--that he might, by some legal tactics, at any rate obtain for himself the management of his sister's property. But this he could not do: he felt that Daly was his master; and though he still thought that he might have triumphed had he come sufficiently prepared, that is, with a considerable quantum of spirits inside him, he knew himself well enough to be aware that he could do nothing without this a.s.sistance; and, alas, he could not obtain it there. He had great reliance in the efficacy of whiskey; he would trust much to a large dose of port wine; but with brandy he considered himself invincible.

He sat biting his lip, trying to think, trying to make up his mind, trying to gain sufficient self-composure to finish his interview with Daly with some appearance of resolution and self-confidence, but it was in vain; when the attorney returned, his face still plainly showed that he was utterly unresolved, utterly unable to resolve on anything.

"Well, Mr Lynch," said Daly, "will you let me spake to Kelly about this, or would you rather sleep on the matther?"

Barry gave a long sigh--"Wouldn't he give six hundred, Daly? he'd still have two hundred clear, and think what that'd be for a fellow like him!"

"You must ask him for it yourself then; I'll not propose to him any such thing. Upon my soul, he'll be a great fool to give the five hundred, because he's no occasion to meddle with you in the matther at all, at all. But still I think he may give it; but as for asking for more--at any rate I won't do it; you can do what you like, yourself."

"And am I to sell the furniture, and everything--horses, cattle, and everything about the place--for three hundred pounds?"

"Not unless you like it, you ain't, Mr Lynch; but I'll tell you this--if you can do so, and do do so, it'll be the best bargain you ever made:--mind, one-half of it all belongs to your sisther."

Barry muttered an oath through his ground teeth; he would have liked to scratch the ashes of his father from their resting-place, and wreak his vengeance on them, whenever this degrading fact was named to him.

"But I want the money, Daly," said he: "I couldn't get afloat unless I had more than that: I couldn't pay your bill, you know, unless I got a higher figure down than that. Come, Daly, you must do something for me; you must do something, you know, to earn the fees," and he tried to look facetious, by giving a wretched ghastly grin.

"My bill won't be a long one, Mr Lynch, and you may be shure I'm trying to make it as short as I can. And as for earning it, whatever you may think, I can a.s.sure you I shall never have got money harder. I've now given you my best advice; if your mind's not yet made up, perhaps you'll have the goodness to let me hear from you when it is?" and Daly walked from the fire towards the door, and placed his hand upon the handle of it.

This was a hint which Barry couldn't misunderstand. "Well, I'll write to you," he said, and pa.s.sed through the door. He felt, however, that it was useless to attempt to trust himself to his own judgment, and he turned back, as Daly pa.s.sed into his office--"Daly," he said, "step out one minute: I won't keep you a second." The attorney unwillingly lifted up the counter, and came out to him. "Manage it your own way," said he; "do whatever you think best; but you must see that I've been badly used--infernally cruelly treated, and you ought to do the best you can for me. Here am I, giving away, as I may say, my own property to a young shopkeeper, and upon my soul you ought to make him pay something for it; upon my soul you ought, for it's only fair!"

"I've tould you, Mr Lynch, what I'll propose to Martin Kelly; if you don't think the terms fair, you can propose any others yourself; or you're at liberty to employ any other agent you please."

Barry sighed again, but he yielded. He felt broken-hearted, and unhappy, and he longed to quit a country so distasteful to him, and relatives and neighbours so ungrateful; he longed in his heart for the sweet, easy haunts of Boulogne, which he had never known, but of which he had heard many a glowing description from congenial spirits whom he knew. He had heard enough of the ways and means of many a leading star in that Elysium, to be aware that, with five hundred a-year, unembarra.s.sed and punctually paid, he might s.h.i.+ne as a prince indeed.

He would go at once to that happy foreign sh.o.r.e, where the memory of no father would follow him, where the presence of no sister would degrade and irritate him, where billiard-tables were rife, and brandy cheap; where virtue was easy, and restraint unnecessary; where no duties would hara.s.s him, no tenants upbraid him, no duns persecute him. There, carefully guarding himself against the schemes of those less fortunate followers of pleasure among whom he would be thrown in his social hours, he would convert every s.h.i.+lling of his income to some purpose of self-enjoyment, and live a life of luxurious abandonment. And he need not be altogether idle, he reflected within himself afterwards, as he was riding home: he felt that he was possessed of sufficient energy and talent to make himself perfectly master of a pack of cards, to be a proficient over a billiard-table, and even to get the upper hand of a box of dice. With such pursuits left to him, he might yet live to be talked of, feared, and wealthy; and Barry's utmost ambition would have carried him no further.

As I said before, he yielded to the attorney, and commissioned him fully to treat with Martin Kelly in the manner proposed by himself.

Martin was to give him five hundred a-year for his share of the property, and three hundred pounds for the furniture, &c.; and Barry was to give his sister his written and unconditional a.s.sent to her marriage; was to sign any doc.u.ment which might be necessary as to her settlement, and was then to leave Dunmore for ever. Daly made him write an authority for making such a proposal, by which he bound himself to the terms, should they be acceded to by the other party.

"But you must bear in mind," added Daly, as his client for the second time turned from the door, "that I don't guarantee that Martin Kelly will accept these terms: it's very likely he may be sharp enough to know that he can manage as well without you as he can with you. You'll remember that, Mr Lynch."

"I will--I will, Daly; but look here--if he bites freely--and I think he will, and if you find you could get as much as a thousand out of him, or even eight hundred, you shall have one hundred clear for yourself."

This was Barry's last piece of diplomacy for that day. Daly vouchsafed him no answer, but returned into his office, and Barry mounted his horse, and returned home not altogether ill-pleased with his prospects, but still regretting that he should have gone about so serious a piece of business, so utterly unprepared.

These regrets rose stronger, when his after-dinner courage returned to him as he sate solitary over his fire. "I should have had him here,"

said he to himself, "and not gone to that confounded cold hole of his. After all, there's no place for a c.o.c.k to fight on like his own dunghill; and there's nothing able to carry a fellow well through a tough bit of jobation [33] with a lawyer like a stiff tumbler of brandy punch. It'd have been worth a couple of hundred to me, to have had him out here--impertinent puppy! Well, devil a halfpenny I'll pay him!"

This thought was consolatory, and he began again to think of Boulogne.

[FOOTNOTE 33: jobation--a tedious session; scolding]

XXI. LORD BALLINDINE AT HOME