My Lords of Strogue Volume I Part 18

'What have I done--what have I done?' she groaned, 'that an earthly purgatory should be my lot? Did I fail in my duty to my lord? Was I not too indulgent a wife, screening his unfaithfulness, enduring insult without end from that dreadful woman?'

Then she reflected how his death had not brought peace to her; how relentless Time had administered secret scourgings, whilst she appeared to be sitting--a n.o.ble, envied widow--between two growing sons. Was her torment to go on increasing, instead of wearing itself out with its own rigour? What would be the end? That early sin which took place so long ago--could any one declare that she was aught but an unwilling agent in it? Might the trace of it never be washed clean?

Was suicide the only means of escape from an agony to which on earth there seemed no term? If, driven by despair, she were to hurry unbidden into the presence of her Maker, might she not hope to be forgiven? If your cross is too heavy for your strength, sure you may be pardoned for casting it aside!

As she writhed, a prey to phantoms of retrospect, she felt that her sin was not a faded one of long ago; that it continued still, and that while she permitted it to roll on unchecked, numbers at compound interest were being chalked to her account. That dreadful secret which had blanched her hair! Years had woven such confusing complications round it, that were she, taking her courage in both hands, to speak out now, it would be only to transfer a burthen, not destroy it. No, no! Ten times no! The time for setting right the wrong was past--past, irretrievably. Instead of moaning over it, it were better to concentrate all attention upon this matter of Shane and Norah. At all hazards, the billing and cooing of that couple must be stopped while there was time. Shane was the late earl's eldest son, and Mrs.

Gillin----! And Norah was sixteen years old, bred a Protestant by my lord's special desire. Could his wife be misled in her suspicions? The conduct of Mrs. Gillin in the matter was most amazing. My lady surveyed it from all points of view. Truly she was racked by many torments. Ate was at work. The orders of the dread G.o.ddess were being carried out by the Eumenides.

CHAPTER XII.

A MOTHER'S WILES.

Having indulged in a soothing torrent of tears, Doreen departed with lightened heart with the other young people for an excursion on the bay. She felt all the better for the pa.s.sage of arms, for her breezy common-sense told her that my lady's charges resulted from momentary pique, and had no foundation in conviction. But, resulting from the quarrel, a vista had risen in her mind for the first time of what she might be sacrificing for her people's sake. Evil tongues will wag.

Women who brave public opinion have always gone to the wall, time out of mind. No. Not always. Scandal had nothing to say against the maid of Domremy; Judith's fair fame was smirched in nowise by that little supper _en tete-a-tete_ with Holofernes. Miss Wolfe failed to consider that the rapid action of that Jewish tragedy, with its pitiless termination in the murder of a helpless sleeper, did much to keep the tongue of scandal quiet. Had she held clandestine interviews with the doughty general, walked with him by moonlight and so forth, it is highly probable that all the geese in Jewry would have cackled, and that the heroine would have been tabooed for a brazen s.l.u.t. Now the young lady whose peculiar position interests us so much at present, while perfectly innocent of wrong-doing, could not but see that her motives might possibly be misinterpreted; that spiteful remarks, similar to her aunt's, would probably go the round of Dublin. Was she prepared to endure opprobrium? was the game worth the candle she was burning for it? was the good she was likely to achieve at all in proportion to the social ruin which would fall upon herself? Like the generous young person that she was, her first romantic feeling was an exultant glow at the distant prospect of martyrdom; her second--due to the practical firmness of her character--a doubt whether she might not be self-deceived by inexperience. Then her father too--the good weak father who cared very much for sublunary fleshpots--what would he say when he came to know how deeply circ.u.mstances were involving his child in matters which he would surely disapprove? She could not help the stirring of an idea (which she strove hard to lull to rest) to the effect that it is not very heroic to drag innocent people into a mess; and a second one moved at the stirring of the first, which whispered that if her own name were to be publicly bandied, her father would certainly get into trouble for not keeping her in check. Her aunt's was the wisdom of the world; there was no doubt about it.

It is all very well to sacrifice yourself, vow that you will never marry, that no woodbine-bonds of family affection shall be permitted to spring up around you--provided that you stand quite alone. If you have a parent who delights in fleshpots, who holds an honourable situation of which your own heroics may deprive him, it is surely a matter of doubt whether your better part would not be the dusting of household furniture, the warming of slippers, the mending of old stockings, instead of the more picturesque operation of donning plume and helm. What, I wonder, did the parents of Joan of Arc think of their daughter when she abandoned the care of sheep to go a-soldiering? Doreen recognised the objections to her proposed course with a pang, but wavered, searching for an excuse such as should render her desires commendable. She would have liked to go down to posterity as a female Moses. The position of the budding lawgiver at Pharaoh's court was somewhat like her own, save in the important point that he had no father who loved fleshpots. If it might only be permitted for Arthur Wolfe's daughter to wean him from them to better things! But that seemed too good a prospect to be hoped for, so with a sigh she put it from her.

As, after the recent skirmish, she reviewed the situation, I grieve to relate she was not sorry for her pertness. My lady had no business to say what she had said, to make rude speeches, and to worry about Shane. The young lady conceived herself bound to speak up boldly in self-defence, to put my lady down on the subject of private liberty, as she often did in the matter of King William. The two ladies started in all things from two opposite poles. That they should clash was inevitable. But she did promise herself to be more prudent in the future for her father's sake; to do what was feasible for the good cause in private, strictly remaining in the background herself, come what might. And this resolution being firmly graven on her mind, she busied herself about fis.h.i.+ng-tackle with the placid calm which pa.s.sed with her for cheerfulness.

Meanwhile my lady sat alone in the tapestry-saloon among the faded effigies of departed Crosbies, looking appealingly at them as though they could help her in an extremity. The guiding spring of her life had been pride, which became firmly grafted by marriage in the glory of her husband's lineage. Pride it was which had supported her fainting heart in many a bitter struggle. Black care had thinned her cheek, had pressed crow's-feet about her restless eyes; yet, save for a querulous manner and the peculiar sudden dilation of the pupil which struck us when first we were introduced to the stately countess in '83, there was but little that was unusual on the surface to tell a new acquaintance that the battle which she fought was never-ceasing.

In the late lord's lifetime she was wretched enough--but with a numbing dulness which is its own anodyne. Moreover, as we discovered on his deathbed, the important secret, if important it were, had been shared between the two. A secret known to even one other person, whose feelings in the matter are similar to our own, is lightened by more than half its weight. He died. His widow was condemned to drag the chain alone--worse than alone, for yet one other person knew of it whose feelings were remote from friendly. The late lord's devil-may-care visage glanced sideways down with an eternal smirk from its frame upon the wall. He was dead. His breast was unburthened. He slept in peace, and there was his smiling counterfeit grinning at his unhappy partner. Did he sleep in peace? Oh! If she could have been sure of that! But no. Possibly he was enduring torments even worse than hers. As he lay choking between the confines of two worlds, perchance he had been allowed to see what was still concealed from her human ken--and then had cried out the warning--'Set right that wrong while you have the opportunity.' How horribly unjust seemed the retribution which pursued her! Her sin had been the negative one of living a long lie. If she had had courage to confess--to abase her stiff-necked pride--the wrong might have been set right with but little serious injury to any but herself. But my lord--the prime sinner--had encouraged this pride, declaring that there was no call for a great sacrifice--until the last moment when his eyes were opened, and he called out in his agony, 'Beware!' By that time the pride so long nurtured was become a second nature.

She could not all of a sudden break through the ramparts of long usage. It was very well for him to cry 'Stand on the pillory,' when he was himself flitting beyond the reach of stone-throwing. It was very well for his odious concubine to cry 'Confess!' who would be no sufferer by the confession. By that improvised death-couch the widow had turned the matter over in all its phases. Then she had not perceived that, with every rising sun, the confession would become more difficult--that (despite the lying proverb) the rolling stone would gather moss till it should move slowly and more slowly, pressing her breath out by degrees ere it ground her to powder under its weight.

Sometimes she tried to forget, and almost fancied that she succeeded, almost believed that her conscience was quite hardened. Then something would take place--a trivial circ.u.mstance--one of Doreen's idle shafts, which set her nerves jarring, and the painful truth forced itself upon her that there are tender spots on the most seared of consciences. She had wild accesses of rage within the secrecy of her own chamber, in that my lord who simpered on the wall should have wrecked her life so utterly. She took refuge in religion, loathing the faith of the surviving partic.i.p.ator in her secret as an outlet for surging hate and bitterness. She tried to take refuge from her own trouble by smoothing that of others, but even in this--the last resource of those who see life through jaundiced spectacles--she found little consolation, for the trouble which she soothed was at least open and laid bare. And so the distinct working of a double consciousness--one for good and one for evil at the same time--(which we all feel within us) became unusually evident in Lady Glandore, urging her at one moment to a rash act for which she was gnawed by deep remorse the next. May this account for the growing dislike which she nourished for her second son, while she fed the poor with soup and wrapped their limbs in flannel? Perhaps it was the singular contradictions of her character which induced Lord Clare to like and to respect her so much, and which permitted him at the same time to make that disgraceful suggestion without fear of exclusion from the Abbey, anent Tone's letter.

For the thousandth time, as she twisted in the great chair, my lady wondered whether it was really too late to humble herself, to grovel in the dust, and make confession. There was an obstacle which rendered a tardy repentance impossible, at least until it was removed. That long-cherished match between Shane and Doreen must be accomplished first; then, perhaps--but surely it could not be so absolutely urgent!

Time, so far, had brought with him only a complication of troubles, more tangled than his usual fardel. Where was his all-comforting finger, about which the poets have raved? Sure he would relent, and spare the countess the supreme sacrifice. Not that so far he showed much sign of relenting. This idea of Doreen's about a secret marriage, which had sent the blood tearing back to her aunt's heart, was an extra knot in the web that was smothering her. Norah must be put away; Shane must be seriously exhorted to observe his cousin's charms. Of course she would never marry Terence; n.o.body wished her to do so. This my lady decided comfortably, on the principle that we easily believe that which we desire. How could Arthur Wolfe be bolstered into showing greater strength of character, and induced to obey his sister? If she were to tell him what she knew of Doreen, to impress on him by this means that a speedy marriage was necessary for her.--No! That would not do. He would be capable of carrying her off in a fright to London, Paris, Rome--anywhere out of temptation's reach.

Then, again, the dowager reflected on the chances of who Norah's father was; and again her agony ascended to a paroxysm. At all hazards so awful a shadow as this hideous new one that loomed must be exorcised. How? Mrs. Gillin was brutish and pitiless, of course. Why did she encourage this terrible flirtation? She could not realise, surely, the sharpness of the tools with which she played. Come what might of it, it was plainly her duty, for everybody's sake (so the chatelaine pondered), to take Madam Gillin to task as to her present conduct.

It is all very well to stick pins in your rival's seat (so she must explain to her), but it is your distinct interest to be quite certain that you yourself may not be called upon to sit on them. Gillin's spite against my lady was doubtless great. She would do much to injure her, but not to the extent of ruining her own daughter, surely? For, somehow or other--probably on the principle that life not being hard enough, we must practise self-torture--my lady had quite made up her mind as to Norah's parentage. Now Gillin must be bidden forthwith to stop this scandal--and my lady was the one person who could venture to broach the subject. Then qualms of pride arose within the latter's breast. The twain had never spoken but once--on the dreadful evening at Daly's club-house. At Castle-b.a.l.l.s they had looked with Medusan gaze right through each other; for the compact was there--no less binding that it was unwritten--that the mistress and the wife should never speak, save on the subject of that secret. Had things not gone crooked, nothing could have been more satisfactory than such a compact. As things were, was not Mrs. Gillin--inflamed to vulgar wrath through her sinful designs being exposed--certain to set her foul tongue clacking, to delve into old sores whose cicatrices were yet soft, to plunge into long-buried matters within hearing, perhaps, of other vulgar wretches, who, in surprised horror, would blab to all the world. Thus did my lady attempt to gloss over her own dread, to veneer the promptings of her pride with plausible reasons for avoiding that which conscience--speaking through unconscious Doreen--had specially declared must be done without delay.

But it was more than a merely human woman might be called upon to do.

In my lord's time people, more sensitive than the herd, marvelled that the countess could bear the insulting presence of her flaunting rival with such stoical equanimity. That much she had bravely borne. But of her own free will to descend from a pedestal occupied with dignity during half a lifetime; to lower herself to an interview with the concubine, who would surely jump upon the rival, voluntarily abased, was more, much more, than might be demanded of a mortal. It was not possible to call upon Mrs. Gillin. The only remaining plan was to take Shane away; to follow Doreen's counsel, and move the household to Ennishowen.

At this point in her self-communing, the limbs of the countess shook with palsy, and her haggard face looked really aged. Since the commencement of her married life, she had carefully eschewed Glas-aitch-e, the wild islet on Lough Sw.i.l.l.y, where the decayed castle of Ennishowen stood, and where _that_ had taken place which was the beginning of her troubles. It would be dreadful to have to revisit that spot; yet to that sacrifice at least she was able to resign herself, hoping that it might be counted as half a penance. But Shane, would he consent to be carried thither? to forego the society of Norah, the allurements of Dublin taverns? And if he did in this much obey his mother, could the match with his cousin be in anywise promoted? My lady's brain grew weary and bewildered as she tried to fit into harmony the pieces of her puzzle.

There was beloved Shane, galloping in, unkempt, from last night's debauch. So soon as he had had time to bathe and dress himself, his mother resolved to summon the dear prodigal to her presence-chamber, and try what her influence could accomplish.

When her favourite son appeared before her, with two pointers gambolling about him, the countess's stern face softened; and well it might, for he was a comely spectacle. Rather low in stature, but elegantly made, with hair brushed backwards and fastened by a diamond clasp, he looked, with his delicate wan face, and eyes rendered the more l.u.s.trous for the dark circles round them, a fit guardian of the honour of Glandore. His air and manner when in his mother's presence (as, indeed, in that of Doll Tearsheet, or any other woman) a.s.sumed an exquisite blandness, such as gave a false first impression of effeminacy, which was corroborated by the tiny dimensions of his hand.

But are not first impressions snares, my brethren, for the deceiving of the unwary? That gazelle-like eye could, on occasion, shoot forth a light of cold ferocity; that finely-modelled little forefinger had many a time sent a hapless boon companion to his last account for an idle jest, with a cool precision and nonchalance which compelled an unwilling sort of admiration, despite its ruffianism. But this morning he was in the best of humours, as Eblana and Aileach danced about him, wagging their tails and tumbling over and over, in their delight at his friendly notice; for his head did not burn, neither was his tongue parched, and he registered a mental resolution to send a yacht forthwith to Douglas for another hogshead or two of that especially pure claret.

Drawing around him the ample folds of his morning-gown (that becoming one of rose-coloured brocade, thickly frogged and ta.s.selled in gold), he kissed his mother lightly, and played with the jewelled watch-chains which dangled from either fob. As her eyes wandered over his neat limbs, which looked their best in tight blue-striped pantaloons that ended midway down the calf in a great bunch of ribbons, her spirits rose, for sure no damsel in her senses could long resist so refined a combination of elegant graces, leaving the l.u.s.tre of the coronet quite out of the question. But the female heart--as my lady might be expected to remember--is p.r.o.ne to erratic courses; to start off down crooked byways, instead of keeping the straight road; to take distracting and inconvenient fancies, and generally to distress its friends.

But Shane was a _parti comme il y en a peu_. If he could only be induced to abandon the Doll Tearsheets, and direct amorous glances at the high-born young ladies of the metropolis, Doreen might be permitted to run her foolish race unchecked, for Shane could be well married without her. Unluckily the male heart is not too justly balanced neither. Shane liked something more highly spiced than an innocent miss, who, he declared, always made him qualmish with a smell of bread and b.u.t.ter. n.o.body could accuse Doreen of anything so vapid, and Shane certainly liked Doreen after a careless fas.h.i.+on, though he never in his life had made love to her. My lady now proposed to rate him on this subject, for the possibility of choosing another bride for him in due time was finally put out of the question by the imminent danger of some catastrophe with Norah. It was clear, all things considered, that there was nothing for it but to remove my lord forthwith to his fastness in the north, and keep him there for a time; and it was quite certain that no high-born damsels with suitable attributes were to be found in the wilds of Donegal, straying about in search of husbands.

'Mother!' Shane said gaily, 'we had such a whimsical accident last night. George Fitzgerald wagered to keep three of the best of us at bay with his single rapier-point, for a whole hour. I saw he was too drunk to stand, so I took the bet at once, and off we marched, borrowing their lanterns from the watchmen as we pa.s.sed, to the ring in Stephen's Green. George steadied himself against the statue, and really made superb play--I could not have done better myself--till somebody in the crowd shouted, "For G.o.d's sake part them!" to which another blackguard hallooed, "Let them have it out, for one will be killed, and the rest hanged for murder, and so we shall be rid of a bunch of pests." Of course this roused us, so we all turned on him, just to show he was wrong; and faix he was wrong, sure enough, for 'twas he that got killed, and none of us are ripe for hanging.'

'But, Shane!' my lady exclaimed, 'who was the man? You are so imprudent.'

'No one of any importance,' responded her son, carelessly. 'An old busybody--a shoemaker, I think, or a baker. Sure it was an accident, for George meant only to pink the spalpeen, and his sword went in too far--a miscalculation. Do you know, mother, that there'll soon be no end to the insolence of these ruffians? There's a report at the Castle that that crazy idiot Tone, to whom you were always much too kind, has succeeded in persuading the French to take up his cudgels. He'll dance the Kilmainham minuet, as the saying is, take my word for it, and serve him right; but Lord Camden really thinks it's serious. He talked with such mystery of plots last evening, of some scheme for attacking Dublin, that I thought his excellency was having a joke with us, till he said if things go on as they are going, there'll be nothing for it but to proclaim martial law.'

My lady meditated for a time, reviewing this intelligence. 'Then these United Irish did not intend to be mere wind-bags?' she thought, and my Lord Camden was beginning to be afraid of them. Her common-sense told her that if, in a tussle, they got even for a moment the upper hand, their vengeance would fall heavily upon the perpetrators of such reckless escapades as that which Shane had just narrated. At any rate, it was not good to give them such food for complaint. My lady's caste prejudices blinded her to the fact that when half-a-dozen youths (even blue-blood ones) set on a single man and slay him, the act is no better than murder, though they are content to deplore it for a minute as an accident. There was no doubt left in her mind that Doreen's advice had been of the very best. She must even go to Ennishowen, however great the pain might be to herself in the revival of unpleasant memories. So, shaking her head, she remarked: 'Dear Shane!

in '45 the Scotch rebels advanced within a hundred miles of London. If 5,000 ragged Highlanders are capable of that, why should not the French army march on Dublin? Lord Clare spoke to me yesterday on the subject of the yeomanry. It seems that the Privy Council expect you to undertake this district.'

'I should like that!' Shane said.

'It would not be wise, though,' returned his mother, quietly. 'The aristocracy will have a difficult game to play if these silly people really aim at violence. The executive will have brought it on themselves, and it's only fair that they should get out of their own difficulties in their own way. In '82, when your father and I both wore the uniform, the case was different. Landlord and tenant were united, as lord and servant of the soil, against a foreigner who had maltreated both. Things have changed since then. The position of the n.o.bles is different. They have become Anglicised. Much of their interest is English. Yet it would be best for them not too openly to join the foreigner in coercing their own tenants--at least, not just now.'

The cunning old lady was saying what she did not quite believe, having in view an object, and Shane looked at her in surprise.

'If riots take place,' the countess proceeded, 'the commander-in-chief will put them down, if he thinks proper, with the English troops who have come over lately; and he and they will bear the odium. The Irish n.o.bles would be placing themselves in a false position by interfering against their own people with too great alacrity. At all events, they will gain a point by waiting.'

'But, mother, the other lords are heading the squireens. If I hold back they will say I am a coward!'

'Not so, my son. Your proceedings every day would give the lie to that. I grant that if you sat here, or roystered on in Dublin, you might be accused of shuffling, which would not do. But if you went away? Not to England, no! That would not do either. Why not go to Ennishowen, under the pretext that here everything is safe under the paternal rule of the executive, whilst in the vast wild northern district, over which you hold sway, it would be politic for the lord to be amongst his tenants? You would be of local service, and at that distance no one could be sure whether or no your future actions were guided by events.'

'You do not believe that this pack of fools will do any harm?'

'Certainly not, or I would not counsel you to go away. Cannot you see that in ign.o.ble squabbles with the sc.u.m it is best to keep clean hands by remaining neutral? They will be put down--of course they will be put down; but, you stupid fellow, we must so manage that you have no hand in it. We will go to Glas-aitch-e. 'Tis long since we were there.'

Shane twirled the satin ear of Eblana round his finger absently. This move of his mother's puzzled him. What would his life be away at wild Glas-aitch-e without his boon companions, among boors who had probably never heard of a h.e.l.lfire Club? In earlier days he used to be madly fond of field-sports, was still devoted to certain branches of the chase. But suddenly to leave the joys of a gay metropolis to bury himself in a hut on practically a desert island, was no pleasant prospect. And dear Norah, too, must she be left behind? Accustomed as he was to bow to his mother's ascendency in political questions as in the management of the estates, the vision of Norah deploring in dishevelled loneliness the absence of his fascinating self was too much for him.

'I cannot go, mother! It would look like flight,' he said with a show of firmness.

My lady was too acute not to read his thoughts; too wise to expect her son to yield without a flutter. She moved with stately sweep to where he sat, and, pressing his face with her two hands, whispered fondly as she knelt down beside him. 'My darling, do you not know that I would cut my heart out for you, that I would walk to the stake to save you one needless pang? Men can never realise the fulness of a mother's love--the sublimity of its unselfishness--the majesty of its devotion.

It is the one ray of the Divine which has been allowed to glimmer forth on our dull earth. Do you suppose I would counsel you to aught that could bring you injury? that I have not anxiously weighed each side of the question before deciding what is best? You know that I love you much better than myself. You know that Heaven has denied you cleverness. You are not clever, my poor child; but we can't help that, can we? And you are not good, I am sorely afraid. Yet as your mother I love you no whit the less. Try to comprehend what a mother's love is like--how large--how grandly blind in that it might see but will not!'

As she spoke, the poor lady who had been so buffeted by worldly troubles was transfigured by the strength of her affection for this one being. The fact of her loving nothing else served but to increase her love. As one, some of whose senses have decayed whilst others are proportionately sensitised, she felt with intensity all which affected her firstborn. It was strange that she could not remember that Terence also was her son--that he had pined for such a display as this all his life in vain--that even now (yawning in the Four-courts) he would have upset the presiding judge and sent all the attorneys to a man into the Liffey, and galloped at breakneck speed to Strogue if his mother would only have given him one of the looks which she was lavis.h.i.+ng on Shane--one of those hand-touches that are in nowise akin to 'paddling,' but which send stronger thrills through us than the most languis.h.i.+ng of eyes.

'Ireland is being involved in complicated difficulties,' she pursued.

'You must be obedient, and allow me to lead you through them safely.

It will only be for a month or two. Then all will be over, and we can come back here again. Say you will do as I wish?'

Shane never could long withstand his mother's coaxing, when she condescended to implore. Is it not always thus? Is it not worth while to be haughty, arrogant, ill-tempered--as the case may be--if only for the fuller appreciation of our benignity when we elect to be benign?

Shane clung to the dowager's last straw, which with artful artlessness she had held out to him. It would only be for a month or two. It would do Norah all the good in life to miss her beloved for a s.p.a.ce; while he was away, she would measure his merits, and fly with rapture to his bosom on his return. It would be rather fun, too, again to visit for a few weeks the haunts he used so to doat upon. But it ill became him as one of the sterner s.e.x to be over-easily persuaded.

'It will be very dull up there, mother,' he objected.

'How civil of you,' the countess said, kissing him, for she saw the point was gained. 'If you are a good boy, I will ask your uncle to let Doreen come too. Her eccentricities will enliven us.'

'You are always talking of Doreen?' complained my lord. 'I can't see why you make so much fuss about her.'

'Then we won't take her,' responded my lady, with prompt and Machiavellian wisdom.