Lord Kilgobbin Part 27

On the present occasion, a sharp canter of several miles had reduced Judy to a very quiet and decorous pace, so that Paddy and his mistress sat almost back to back--a combination that only long habit enabled Kate to witness without laughing.

'Are you alone up at the castle, dear?' asked Miss Betty, as she rode along at her side; 'or have you the house full of what the papers call "distinguished company"?'

'We are quite alone, G.o.dmother. My brother is with us, but we have no strangers.'

'I am glad of it. I've come over to "have it out" with your father, and it's pleasant to know we shall be to ourselves.'

Now, as this announcement of having 'it out' conveyed to Kate's mind nothing short of an open declaration of war, a day of reckoning on which Miss O'Shea would come prepared with a full indictment, and a resolution to prosecute to conviction, the poor girl shuddered at a prospect so certain to end in calamity.

'Papa is very far from well, G.o.dmother,' said she, in a mild way.

'So they tell me in the town,' said the other snappishly. 'His brother magistrates said that the day he came in, about that supposed attack--the memorable search for arms--'

'Supposed attack! but, G.o.dmother, pray don't imagine we had invented all that. I think you know me well enough and long enough to know--'

'To know that you would not have had a young scamp of a Castle aide-de-camp on a visit during your father's absence, not to say anything about amusing your English visitor by shooting down your own tenantry.'

'Will you listen to me for five minutes?'

'No, not for three.'

'Two, then--one even--one minute, G.o.dmother, will convince you how you wrong me.'

'I won't give you that. I didn't come over about you nor your affairs. When the father makes a fool of himself, why wouldn't the daughter? The whole country is laughing at him. His lords.h.i.+p indeed! a ruined estate and a tenantry in rags; and the only remedy, as Peter Gill tells me, raising the rents--raising the rents where every one is a pauper.'

'What would you have him do, Miss O'Shea?' said Kate, almost angrily.

'I'll tell you what I'd have him do. I'd have him rise of a morning before nine o'clock, and be out with his labourers at daybreak. I'd have him reform a whole lazy household of blackguards, good for nothing but waste and wickedness. I'd have him apprentice your brother to a decent trade or a light business. I'd have him declare he'd kick the first man that called him "My lord"; and for yourself, well, it's no matter--'

'Yes, but it is, G.o.dmother, a great matter to me at least. What about myself?'

'Well, I don't wish to speak of it, but it just dropped out of my lips by accident; and perhaps, though not pleasant to talk about, it's as well it was said and done with. I meant to tell your father that it must be all over between you and my nephew Gorman; that I won't have him back here on leave as I intended. I know it didn't go far, dear. There was none of what they call love in the case. You would probably have liked one another well enough at last; but I won't have it, and it's better we came to the right understanding at once.'

'Your curb-chain is loose, G.o.dmother,' said the girl, who now, pale as death and trembling all over, advanced to fasten the link.

'I declare to the Lord, he's asleep!' said Miss Betty, as the wearied head of her page dropped heavily on her shoulder. 'Take the curb off, dear, or I may lose it. Put it in your pocket for me, Kate; that is, if you wear a pocket.'

'Of course I do, G.o.dmother. I carry very stout keys in it, too. Look at these.'

'Ay, ay. I liked all that, once on a time, well enough, and used to think you'd be a good thrifty wife for a poor man; but with the viscount your father, and the young princess your first cousin, and the devil knows what of your fine brother, I believe the sooner we part good friends the better.

Not but if you like my plan for you, I'll be just as ready as ever to aid you.'

'I have not heard the plan yet,' said Kate faintly.

'Just a nunnery, then--no more nor less than that. The "Sacred Heart" at Namur, or the Sisters of Mercy here at home in Bagot Street, I believe, if you like better--eh?'

'It is soon to be able to make up one's mind on such a point. I want a little time for this, G.o.dmother.'

'You would not want time if your heart were in a holy work, Kate Kearney.

It's little time you'd be asking if I said, will you have Gorman O'Shea for a husband?'

'There is such a thing as insult, Miss O'Shea, and no amount of long intimacy can license that.'

'I ask your pardon, G.o.dchild. I wish you could know how sorry I feel.'

'Say no more, G.o.dmother, say no more, I beseech you,' cried Kate, and her tears now gushed forth, and relieved her almost bursting heart. 'I'll take this short path through the shrubbery, and be at the door before you,'

cried she, rus.h.i.+ng away; while Miss Betty, with a sharp touch of the spur, provoked such a plunge as effectually awoke Paddy, and apprised him that his duties as groom were soon to be in request.

While earnestly a.s.suring him that some changes in his diet should be speedily adopted against somnolency, Miss Betty rode briskly on, and reached the hall door.

'I told you I should be first, G.o.dmother,' said the girl; and the pleasant ring of her voice showed she had regained her spirits, or at least such self-control as enabled her to suppress her sorrow.

CHAPTER XX

A DOMESTIC DISCUSSION

It is a not infrequent distress in small households, especially when some miles from a market-town, to make adequate preparation for an unexpected guest at dinner; but even this is a very inferior difficulty to that experienced by those who have to order the repast in conformity with certain rigid notions of a guest who will criticise the smallest deviation from the most humble standard, and actually rebuke the slightest pretension to delicacy of food or elegance of table-equipage.

No sooner, then, had Kate learned that Miss O'Shea was to remain for dinner, than she immediately set herself to think over all the possible reductions that might be made in the fare, and all the plainness and simplicity that could be imparted to the service of the meal.

Napkins had not been the sole reform suggested by the Greek cousin. She had introduced flowers on the table, and so artfully had she decked out the board with fruit and ornamental plants, that she had succeeded in effecting by artifice what would have been an egregious failure if more openly attempted--the service of the dishes one by one to the guests without any being placed on the table. These, with finger-gla.s.ses, she had already achieved, nor had she in the recesses of her heart given up the hope of seeing the day that her uncle would rise from the table as she did, give her his arm to the drawing-room, and bow profoundly as he left her. Of the inestimable advantages, social, intellectual, and moral, of this system, she had indeed been cautious to hold forth; for, like a great reformer, she was satisfied to leave her improvements to the slow test of time, 'educating her public,' as a great authority has called it, while she bided the result in patience.

Indeed, as poor Mathew Kearney was not to be indulged with the luxury of whisky-punch during his dinner, it was not easy to reply to his question, 'When am I to have my tumbler?' as though he evidently believed the aforesaid 'tumbler' was an inst.i.tution that could not be abrogated or omitted altogether.

Coffee in the drawing-room was only a half-success so long as the gentlemen sat over their wine; and as for the daily cigarette Nina smoked with it, Kate, in her simplicity, believed it was only done as a sort of protest at being deserted by those unnatural protectors who preferred poteen to ladies.

It was therefore in no small perturbation of mind that Kate rushed to her cousin's room with the awful tidings that Miss Betty had arrived and intended to remain for dinner.

'Do you mean that odious woman with the boy and band-box behind her on horseback?' asked Nina superciliously.

'Yes, she always travels in that fas.h.i.+on; she is odd and eccentric in scores of things, but a fine-hearted, honest woman, generous to the poor, and true to her friends.'

'I don't care for her moral qualities, but I do bargain for a little outward decency, and some respect for the world's opinion.'

'You will like her, Nina, when you know her.'

'I shall profit by the warning. I'll take care not to know her.'

'She is one of the oldest, I believe the oldest, friend our family has in the world.'

'What a sad confession, child; but I have always deplored longevity.'

'Don't be supercilious or sarcastic, Nina, but help me with your own good sense and wise advice. She has not come over in the best of humours. She has, or fancies she has, some difference to settle with papa. They seldom meet without a quarrel, and I fear this occasion is to be no exception; so do aid me to get things over pleasantly, if it be possible.'