My Lords of Strogue Volume I Part 17

All three were guiltily startled by the opening of my lady's bedroom window (which looked upon the courtyard), and the apparition of Queen Bess in a bad temper, summoning Miss Wolfe to her presence.

CHAPTER XI.

STORMY WEATHER.

My lady was walking up and down the tapestry-saloon with hands clasped behind her back, when her niece joined her--a prey evidently to considerable agitation. Doreen marked the deepened wrinkles on her forehead, the tightening of the thin lips, the contraction of the nostrils, and waited with accustomed self-possession to hear her elder's pleasure. The countess was displeased about something. Her fine face was pale, her eyes tinged with red. Her majestic draperies seemed to whisper in their soft rustle that something was seriously disturbing the spirit of the chatelaine. Wheeling round presently, she faced her niece, and, scrutinising her narrowly, spoke.

'Terence has come home to live,' she remarked. 'Mr. Curran cannot bear him any more, and I am not surprised. We must put up with him; he's enough to vex a saint!'

Doreen's cheek flushed with swift anger at his mother's unwarrantable speech.

'Oh, aunt!' she said, 'dare you speak thus of your own child!'

'Ah!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the countess, still frowning at Miss Wolfe, 'let us understand each other at once. I will never allow of any nonsense between you and that boy--do you hear?--NEVER. I presume that he would not dare to marry without my consent. You are capable of anything, I know. I sincerely believe that he, as yet, is one shade less undutiful. He has been showing much independence lately, though.

There's no knowing,' she went on in a low absent manner, 'what he might not do if he knew----'

'Knew what?' asked Doreen.

My lady started and pushed her fingers through her white hair.

'Nothing, nothing! Mind this--_I will never give my consent to a union between you and my second son_. Understand this, once and for all.'

'You need not distress yourself, aunt,' Doreen replied.

'Doreen!' my lady said abruptly, after a pause, 'you were talking about _that woman_ at the kennel gate just now. I could see you were, by Terence's mimicry. What was it about?'

This was the real cause of her aunt's ill-humour: the red rag, Mrs.

Gillin. That foolish idea about Terence was of course only a cloak to conceal unreasonable wrath. It was quite too tyrannical of her, though. They were speaking no ill of their neighbour.

'We were talking of Norah and Shane,' the girl replied, with a touch of hauteur. 'Nothing wonderful in that, for all the world talks about them. I suppose I may be bridesmaid, aunt?'

To her surprise the blood faded slowly from my lady's face, leaving her lips white, while her breast heaved and her fingers tightened. The girl regretted her pert remark, though her aunt speedily recovered herself.

'You could stop this disgrace if you would,' she said in husky tones.

'Last year I thought that you encouraged Shane; then you turned round again. For shame! That Arthur Wolfe's daughter should be a flirt! But it's the other blood that's working in you. Your father was always too weak and too indulgent. You are a sly, artful girl! Yes, it is right that you should hear the truth. You do no credit to your bringing-up.

Is it maidenly to receive letters from a man in secret--to retire, as I have ofttimes seen you do, to a secluded spot in the rosary, there to gloat over them--and that man married, and an outlaw! Fie upon you!

Your father is not aware of this, or it would break his heart; for, G.o.d help him! he loves you beyond your deserts. But there, there! I will not waste my breath in railing; for what else could be expected of your blood and your religion?'

Doreen's cheek, too, had paled. She trembled violently, and was forced to cling to a table ere she could still her anger sufficiently to answer. At length she mastered her voice, which rang out low but clear.

'Lady Glandore,' she said, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, 'it ill becomes one of your years to say cruel things to one of mine, for if you crush out my respect for you as a woman, I choose to remember your white hairs.

However bitter you may allow your tongue to be, I will not lower myself to a retort; but let me beg you to remember that some things spoken intemperately will rankle in the heart for ever. No after-apologies will quite wash them out.'

Oh, naughty damsel, to prate of white hair, and suggest that my lady was an octogenarian! She was no more than five-and-fifty, as her niece knew right well--but, bless my heart! we must not survey feminine weapons too closely.

'I am a disgrace to my bringing-up!' pursued Doreen, warming to the fray. 'Yet she who brought me up condescends to act the spy on me! A flirt, am I? I never, upon my honour, gave the least encouragement to either of your sons. They are not such Admirable Crichtons! Seeing that you are beset by some hallucination on this subject, I have again and again implored my father to take me hence in vain. I hereby swear to you by the Holy Mother and my hopes of salvation, that I will never be Shane's wife--never, never, never! Perhaps now you will leave me at peace. Though I am a Catholic, madam, I decline to brook insult. Here are my cards--face upwards on the table. Show me yours.'

The girl, who was usually so quiet and grave, had lashed her wrath to foam, and was grievously exercised to restrain fast-gathering tears.

She would rather have died, however, than have lowered her standard to my lady. With a violent effort, then, she kept them back, and faced the chatelaine with a front as proud as hers.

This was all very shocking: the ill-mannered allusion to h.o.a.ry locks, the rash oath never to marry Shane, the truculent bearing. Mild Arthur's counsel was wise. My lady generally got the worst of it in conflicts with this girl. It would have been best to have vented her ill-humour upon Terence: who was forbearing towards his mother. But then her victories over him were too easily gained to be worth anything, for he was good-tempered, and respected his mother greatly; and besides, every well-ordered man will always gladly resign to a female antagonist the glory of winning a battle of words.

My lady stalked in silence up and down, retiring behind the entrenchments of her outraged dignity. But Doreen perceived that to make her triumph good she must dare another sortie, and disarm her antagonist; so, after a pause for breath, she repeated:

'I have shown you my cards, Lady Glandore--show me yours. You are bent upon my marrying Shane--the compliment is great--far greater than my poor worth deserves. Though you constantly fling insults at me about my manners, my blood, and my religion, yet you are willing--nay, anxious--condoning these crimes, to accept me as a daughter! Why? The lady of the Little House, who is good and charitable, if innocently vulgar, is a standing bugbear to you. Why? Yet, by a singular contradiction, you allow your paragon to make himself at home with her, and make much of her child, who, to be sure, is a Protestant, but low-born. She is penniless--I am an heiress: hence, of the two, I should be the better prize for him. I see that; but what, in Heaven's name! is to prevent his sallying forth in Dublin, and finding there a fitting partner? Sure there's not a n.o.ble Protestant family in Ireland that wouldn't jump at him! A drunkard, no doubt, and a fire-eater--which some folks are rude enough to translate murderer--what of that? It is the custom of his cloth. A coronet well filled with gold covers a mult.i.tude of sins! No doubt Mrs. Gillin would dearly like such a son-in-law--it's the way of the world, and I do not blame her--but you, I know, would not care for such a daughter as Norah. Are you not afraid that some fine morning holy Church will join them, and that you will come down to breakfast to find them in an edifying position on their knees, claiming mamma's blessing?'

My lady had sunk into a chair, her pale face paler.

'No, no,' she murmured; 'that could not be. He toys with a pretty wench as a young spark will. Why would I gladly have him marry you?

Because I know he has faults--the faults of youth, which time will remedy--and I feel, dear Doreen, that your strong common-sense will be a stay to his weakness. Once united to you, he will change, and you will be very happy together.'

There was something so pitiable in this abject discomfiture--in this refusal to be insulted--that Miss Wolfe's resolution failed her. Yet her curiosity was too thoroughly roused to permit of dropping the subject.

'Then I'm to be the scapegoat?' she said, with a tinge of scorn. 'I'm to lick the whelp into shape--no matter if my heart is broken in the process. Thank you! A vow once sworn need never be repeated. Yet do not forget, aunt, if you please, that it is registered. He refuses to go into highborn society where n.o.ble ladies are, preferring play and duelling-clubs, and you dread his making a _mesalliance_, rather than which you would accept poor me as a _pis-aller_.' (Here the young lady made a curtsey.) 'Many thanks. Is this at all like the truth? Pardon my speaking plainly. It's best to be aboveboard. After this time we will, with your good leave, never return to the hateful subject. That I shall not be poor can surely claim no part in your calculations, for he is thirty times wealthier than I can ever be. Rich!' she repeated, with a harsh laugh. 'A rich Catholic will be a curiosity, _n'est ce pas?_ If this is at all your course of thought, why not prevent his going to the Little House? Speak to Mrs. Gillin as harshly as you began to speak to me to-day, and there will surely be an end of the matter. Or,' pursued the crafty maiden, remembering Tone's last epistle, 'brush Norah from his mind by change of scene. Why not remove for a few months to Ennishowen? It is long since you were there. Your presence would do much to keep disloyal tenants quiet in these disloyal times. Would not that be a capital example? The boys used to love Ennishowen. Shane will forget the objectionable Norah whilst pursuing the shy seal or shooting wild birds round Malin Head. Do you remember the delirious delight of him and Terence when they dragged their first seal into the boat under Glas-aitch-e Cliff, and how you told me not to be afraid of looking over the garden parapet into the green water das.h.i.+ng so far below? Ah, those were days!' the girl pursued, kindling. 'Our only care whether the fish would bite or the shot carry----' then she was stopped by a lump rising in her throat, stirred by the thought of how different those days were from these, when the thunderous cloud was drawing lower, lower--and she--a reserved young lady--was becoming alarmingly familiarised with secret despatches; a political phantasmagoria; a threatened collision between two cla.s.ses, whose hate was bubbling over.

The rebellious tears well-nigh burst their bonds; but a strong will was throned within that shapely head. My lady turned angrily upon her niece; for though discomfited and prepared to run up a flag of truce, it was not to be expected that she should endure this last speech without resenting it. Miss Wolfe's pertness harrowed her proud soul.

She had pretended to look on her aunt as in her dotage--a toothless harridan, with no distinguis.h.i.+ng attribute except white hair, and had presumed to charge her with ridiculous motives; had torn the dazzling glamour of his rank from Shane, exposing to view a skin as s.h.a.ggy as the a.s.s's; even going so far as to stigmatise him to his doting mother as a drunkard and a murderer; and, to cap all, had wound up with patronising advice. An ordinary lady of middle age would resent such treatment; how much more then the stern Countess of Glandore, whose nature was toughened by contact with the fire, who was always regarded with awe-stricken terror when she deigned to honour any of the Castle festivities, and who was quite a terrifying personage even to the wives and daughters of contemporary grandees.

Would the stubborn girl be true to her hasty vow? My lady feared she would, though for the moment she was too angry to consider calmly of it. Fierce wrath darted from under her squared brows; her high nose grew thinner; a network of small meshes twitched about her mouth; her long fingers tightly clutched the gold snuffbox which usually lay within them. Yet Miss Wolfe, having recovered her self-possession, looked sombrely at the frost-crowned volcano without a tremor.

'Doreen,' my lady said, 'if your father knew of you what I know, it would kill him; but I elect to hold my tongue, because I love my brother more than you your father. That you should be insolent to me is what I might expect; so I bear that with equanimity. Thank you for showing me how wrong I was in forming a Utopian scheme for joining my brother's child to Shane. We will say no more about that.' (Doreen heaved a sigh of relief.) 'The indelicacy of your proceedings has shown me that such a thing would be an insult to our name. What! a girl who corresponds clandestinely with a married man; who gallops like a trull about the country, regardless, not only of her own fair fame, but of her family's; who is on terms of familiar intercourse with a parcel of scatter-brained youths who make the capital of notoriety out of the jingle of sedition. Is this a girl to be received in respectable society? You spoke plainly; so do I. If I were to publish what I chance to know of you, no decent family would receive you within their doors. But I must bear with you for many reasons; your base mother's blood among the rest. You must be the skeleton in our cupboard. All I beg is, that you will rattle your bones less publicly.'

Doreen's dark skin was mottled with pallor; her breath laboured; her lips formed words, yet no sound issued thence. At last she panted out:

'Aunt! you do not believe this of me! You must know me better!'

Then she stopped, perceiving Miss Curran's startled visage in the doorway, which my lady could not, having her back turned to it.

'Believe it? Yes, I do,' cried the exasperated countess; 'I believe that you----'

'No! Hold your tongue! If you have no respect for yourself or me, have some for Sara!' Doreen exclaimed, as she hurried to the door.

My lady was filled with remorse, and bit her lips. Her temper had got the better of her prudence; and regret followed swiftly upon angry words.

'Doreen!' she cried, in a sudden desire to make good in some sort the mischief which was done; 'Doreen, at least be careful with your correspondence; see that no one intercepts it; that no one tampers with your letters!'

'My letters are my own,' Doreen retorted over her shoulder, haughtily.

'Don't you ever dare to touch them.' Then pa.s.sing her arm round the waist of trembling Sara, she led her away to enjoy a delightful duet of tears in private.

My lady remained for a long while looking straight before her, bewailing much the unexpected turn which things had taken. It was unwise, considering what lay at the bottom of her heart, to have goaded the damsel as she had done. A high mettled steed resents the curb. Now all that had been said about clandestine correspondence, and so on, was strictly true; was only what it behoved a judicious relative to place in its true light before an impulsive girl, who might come to find her reputation gone before she was aware there was a stain on it. Yet her heart smote the countess when she marked the look of horrified dismay which dawned in her niece's face during the last harangue. It is an ill thing to corrupt a mind which is innocent.

Unhappily this is a wicked world, in which it is necessary for us to note certain sinful details for our own safety's sake. Yet it is not a pleasing job to impart such intelligence for the first time, especially when ill-temper bids us make the worst of it. Lady Glandore knew perfectly well that there could be nothing in the letters from the married man, except treason; and that she had done wrong in suggesting something else. Doreen, she thought, was not a girl to break off the correspondence in consequence of this new light.

Indignant, strong in the purity of her motives, she would only hate her aunt and cling the more persistently to the married man and all the other scatter-brained young persons, and plunge more deeply into danger, through bravado.

As she meditated, examining each thrust that had been made on either side, she regretted bitterly her foolish speeches; and then her heart grew sick within her as she came upon a barb, which, flung without aim, hung from a smarting wound. As the maiden had suggested, what should prevent reckless Shane from marching off to church some day with pretty Norah, and returning to crave a blessing? The very thought of such a fatal proceeding caused my lady to rise from her seat with a bound, and wring her hands in anguish.