Castle Richmond Part 48

Your cousin, when he hears of this, will of course be anxious to know what his real prospects are."

"Yes, yes. He will be anxious, and determined too."

"And then, when all the world will know it, how is your mother to be kept in the dark? And that which she fears and antic.i.p.ates is as bad, probably, as the actual truth. If my advice be followed nothing will be kept from her."

"We are in your hands, I suppose, Mr. Prendergast?"

"I can only act as my judgment directs me."

"And who is to tell her?" This he asked with a shudder, and almost in a whisper. The very idea of undertaking such a duty seemed almost too much for him. And yet he must undertake a duty almost as terrible; he himself--no one but him--must endure the anguish of repeating this story to Clara Desmond and to the countess. But now the question had reference to his own mother. "And who is to tell her?" he asked.

For a moment or two Mr. Prendergast stood silent. He had not hitherto, in so many words, undertaken this task--this that would be the most dreadful of all. But if he did not undertake it, who would?

"I suppose that I must do it," at last he said, very gently.

"And when?"

"As soon as I have told your cousin. I will go down to him to-morrow after breakfast. Is it probable that I shall find him at home?"

"Yes, if you are there before ten. The hounds meet to-morrow at Cecilstown, within three miles of him, and he will not leave home till near eleven. But it is possible that he may have a house full of men with him."

"At any rate I will try. On such an occasion as this he may surely let his friends go to the hunt without him."

And then between nine and ten this interview came to an end. "Mr.

Fitzgerald," said Mr. Prendergast, as he pressed Herbert's hand, "you have borne all this as a man should do. No loss of fortune can ruin one who is so well able to endure misfortune." But in this Mr.

Prendergast was perhaps mistaken. His knowledge of human nature had not carried him sufficiently far. A man's courage under calamity is only tested when he is left in solitude. The meanest among us can bear up while strange eyes are looking at us. And then Mr.

Prendergast went away, and he was alone.

It had been his habit during the whole of this period of his father's illness to go to Sir Thomas at or before bedtime. These visits had usually been made to the study, the room in which he was now standing; but when his father had gone to his bedroom at an earlier hour, Herbert had always seen him there. Was he to go to him now--now that he had heard all this? And if so, how was he to bear himself there, in his father's presence? He stood still, thinking of this, till the hand of the clock showed him that it was past ten, and then it struck him that his father might be waiting for him. It would not do for him now, at such a moment, to appear wanting in that attention which he had always shown. He was still his father's son, though he had lost the right to bear his father's name. He was nameless now, a man utterly without respect or standing-place in the world, a being whom the law ignored except as the possessor of a mere life; such was he now, instead of one whose rights and privileges, whose property and rank all the statutes of the realm and customs of his country delighted to honour and protect. This he repeated to himself over and over again. It was to such a pa.s.s as this, to this bitter disappointment that his father had brought him. But yet it should not be said of him that he had begun to neglect his father as soon as he had heard the story.

So with a weary step he walked up stairs, and found Sir Thomas in bed, with his mother sitting by the bedside. His mother held out her hand to him, and he took it, leaning against the bedside. "Has Mr.

Prendergast left you?" she asked.

He told her that Mr. Prendergast had left him, and gone to his own room for the night. "And have you been with him all the evening?" she asked. She had no special motive in so asking, but both the father and the son shuddered at the question. "Yes," said Herbert; "I have been with him, and now I have come to wish my father good night; and you too, mother, if you intend to remain here." But Lady Fitzgerald got up, telling Herbert that she would leave him with Sir Thomas; and before either of them could hinder her from departing, the father and the son were alone together.

Sir Thomas, when the door closed, looked furtively up into his son's face. Might it be that he could read there how much had been already told, or how much still remained to be disclosed? That Herbert was to learn it all that evening, he knew; but it might be that Mr.

Prendergast had failed to perform his task. Sir Thomas in his heart trusted that he had failed. He looked up furtively into Herbert's face, but at the moment there was nothing there that he could read.

There was nothing there but black misery; and every face round him for many days past had worn that aspect.

For a minute or two Herbert said nothing, for he had not made up his mind whether or no he would that night disturb his father's rest.

But he could not speak in his ordinary voice, or bid his father good-night as though nothing special to him had happened. "Father,"

said he, after a short pause, "father, I know it all now."

"My boy, my poor boy, my unfortunate boy!"

"Father," said Herbert, "do not be unhappy about me, I can bear it."

And then he thought again of his bride--his bride as she was to have been; but nevertheless he repeated his last words, "I can bear it, father!"

"I have meant it for the best, Herbert," said the poor man, pleading to his child.

"I know that; all of us well know that. But what Mr. Prendergast says is true; it is better that it should be known. That man would have killed you had you kept it longer to yourself."

Sir Thomas hid his face upon the pillow as the remembrance of what he had endured in those meetings came upon him. The blow that had told heaviest was that visit from the son, and the threats which the man had made still rung in his ears--"When that youngster was born Lady F. was Mrs. M., wasn't she? ... My governor could take her away to-morrow, according to the law of the land, couldn't he now?" These words, and more such as these, had nearly killed him at the time, and now, as they recurred to him, he burst out into childish tears. Poor man! the days of his manhood had gone, and nothing but the tears of a second bitter childhood remained to him. The hot iron had entered into his soul, and shrivelled up the very muscles of his mind's strength.

Herbert, without much thought of what he was doing, knelt down by the bedside and put his hand upon that of his father which lay out upon the sheet. There he knelt for one or two minutes, watching and listening to his father's sobs. "You will be better now, father," he said, "for the great weight of this terrible secret will be off your mind." But Sir Thomas did not answer him. With him there could never be any better. All things belonging to him had gone to ruin. All those around him whom he had loved--and he had loved those around him very dearly--were brought to poverty, and sorrow, and disgrace. The power of feeling this was left to him, but the power of enduring this with manhood was gone. The blow had come upon him too late in life.

And Herbert himself, as he knelt there, could hardly forbear from tears. Now, at such a moment as this, he could think of no one but his father, the author of his being, who lay there so grievously afflicted by sorrows which were in nowise selfish. "Father," he said at last, "will you pray with me?" And then when the poor sufferer had turned his face towards him, he poured forth his prayer to his Saviour that they all in that family might be enabled to bear the heavy sorrows which G.o.d in his mercy and wisdom had now thought fit to lay upon them. I will not make his words profane by repeating them here, but one may say confidently that they were not uttered in vain.

"And now, dearest father, good night," he said as he rose from his knees; and stretching over the bed, he kissed his father's forehead.

CHAPTER XXIII.

BEFORE BREAKFAST AT HAP HOUSE.

It may be imagined that Mr. Mollett's drive back to Cork after his last visit to Castle Richmond had not been very pleasant; and indeed it may be said that his present circ.u.mstances altogether were as unpleasant as his worst enemies could desire. I have endeavoured to excite the sympathy of those who are going with me through this story for the sufferings of that family of the Fitzgeralds; but how shall I succeed in exciting their sympathy for this other family of the Molletts? And yet why not? If we are to sympathise only with the good, or worse still, only with the graceful, how little will there be in our character that is better than terrestrial? Those Molletts also were human, and had strings to their hearts, at which the world would now probably pull with sufficient vigour. For myself I can truly say that my strongest feeling is for their wretchedness.

The father and son had more than once boasted among themselves that the game they were now playing was a high one; that they were, in fact, gambling for mighty stakes. And in truth, as long as the money came in to them--flowing in as the result of their own craft in this game--the excitement had about it something that was very pleasurable. There was danger, which makes all games pleasant; there was money in handfuls for daily expenses--those daily wants of the appet.i.te, which are to such men more important by far than the distant necessities of life; there was a possibility of future grandeur, an opening out of magnificent ideas of fortune, which charmed them greatly as they thought about it. What might they not do with forty thousand pounds divided between them, or even with a thousand a year each, settled on them for life? and surely their secret was worth that money! Nay, was it not palpable to the meanest calculation that it was worth much more? Had they not the selling of twelve thousand a year for ever and ever to this family of Fitzgerald?

But for the last fortnight things had begun to go astray with them.

Money easily come by goes easily, and money badly come by goes badly.

Theirs had come easily and badly, and had so gone. What necessity could there be for economy with such a milch-cow as that close to their elbows? So both of them had thought, if not argued; and there had been no economy--no economy in the use of that very costly amus.e.m.e.nt, the dice-box; and now, at the present moment, ready money having failed to be the result of either of the two last visits to Castle Richmond, the family funds were running low.

It may be said that ready money for the moment was the one desire nearest to the heart of Mollett pere, when he took that last journey over the Boggeragh mountains--ready money wherewith to satisfy the pressing claims of Miss O'Dwyer, and bring back civility, or rather servility, to the face and manner of Tom the waiter at the Kanturk Hotel. Very little of that servility can be enjoyed by persons of the Mollett cla.s.s when money ceases to be ready in their hands and pockets, and there is, perhaps, nothing that they enjoy so keenly as servility. Mollett pere had gone down determined that that comfort should at any rate be forthcoming to him, whatever answer might be given to those other grander demands, and we know what success had attended his mission. He had looked to find his tame milch-cow trembling in her accustomed stall, and he had found a resolute bull there in her place--a bull whom he could by no means take by the horns. He had got no money, and before he had reached Cork he had begun to comprehend that it was not probable that he should get more from that source.

During a part of the interview between him and Mr. Prendergast, some spark of mercy towards his victims had glimmered into his heart. When it was explained to him that the game was to be given up, that the family at Castle Richmond was prepared to acknowledge the truth, and that the effort made was with the view of proving that the poor lady up stairs was not ent.i.tled to the name she bore rather than that she was so ent.i.tled, then some slight promptings of a better spirit did for a while tempt him to be merciful. "Oh, what are you about to do?"

he would have said had Mr. Prendergast admitted of speech from him.

"Why make this terrible sacrifice? Matters have not come to that.

There is no need for you to drag to the light this terrible fact. I will not divulge it--no not although you are hard upon me in regard to these terms of mine. I will still keep it to myself, and trust to you,--to you who are all so rich and able to pay, for what consideration you may please to give me." This was the state of his mind when Mrs. Jones's evidence was being slowly evoked from her; but it had undergone a considerable change before he reached Cork.

By that time he had taught himself to understand that there was no longer a chance to him of any consideration whatever. Slowly he had brought it home to himself that these people had resolutely determined to blow up the ground on which they themselves stood. This he perceived was their honesty. He did not understand the nature of a feeling which could induce so fatal a suicide, but he did understand that the feeling was there, and that the suicide would be completed.

And now what was he to do next in the way of earning his bread? Various thoughts ran through his brain, and different resolves--half-formed but still, perhaps, capable of shape--presented themselves to him for the future. It was still on the cards--on the cards, but barely so--that he might make money out of these people; but he must wait perhaps for weeks before he again commenced such an attempt. He might perhaps make money out of them, and be merciful to them at the same time;--not money by thousands and tens of thousands; that golden dream was gone for ever; but still money that might be comfortably luxurious as long as it could be made to last. But then on one special point he made a firm and final resolution,--whatever new scheme he might hatch he alone would manage. Never again would he call into his councils that son of his loins whose rapacious greed had, as he felt sure, brought upon him all this ruin. Had Aby not gone to Castle Richmond, with his cruelty and his greed, frightening to the very death the soul of that poor baronet by the enormity of his demands, Mr. Prendergast would not have been there. Of what further chance of Castle Richmond pickings there might be Aby should know nothing. He and his son would no longer hunt in couples. He would shake him off in that escape which they must both now make from Cork, and he would not care how long it might be before he again saw his countenance.

But then that question of ready money; and that other question, perhaps as interesting, touching a criminal prosecution! How was he to escape if he could not raise the wind? And how could he raise the wind now that his milch-cow had run so dry? He had promised the O'Dwyers money that evening, and had struggled hard to make that promise with an easy face. He now had none to give them. His orders at the inn were treated almost with contempt. For the last three days they had given him what he wanted to eat and drink, but would hardly give him all that he wanted. When he called for brandy they brought him whisky, and it had only been by hard begging, and by oaths as to the promised money, that he had induced them to supply him with the car which had taken him on his fruitless journey to Castle Richmond.

As he was driven up to the door in South Main Street, his heart was very sad on all these subjects.

Aby was again sitting within the bar, but was no longer basking in the suns.h.i.+ne of f.a.n.n.y's smiles. He was sitting there because f.a.n.n.y had not yet mustered courage to turn him out. He was half-drunk, for it had been found impossible to keep spirits from him. And there had been hot words between him and f.a.n.n.y, in which she had twitted him with his unpaid bill, and he had twitted her with her former love.

And things had gone from bad to worse, and she had all but called in Tom for aid in getting quit of him; she had, however, refrained, thinking of the money that might be coming, and waiting also till her father should arrive. f.a.n.n.y's love for Mr. Abraham Mollett had not been long lived.

I will not describe another scene such as those which had of late been frequent in the Kanturk Hotel. The father and the son soon found themselves together in the small room in which they now both slept, at the top of the house; and Aby, tipsy as he was, understood the whole of what had happened at Castle Richmond. When he heard that Mr. Prendergast was seen in that room in lieu of Sir Thomas, he knew at once that the game had been abandoned. "But something may yet be done at 'Appy 'ouse," Aby said to himself, "only one must be deuced quick."

The father and the son of course quarrelled frightfully, like dogs over the memory of a bone which had been arrested from the jaws of both of them. Aby said that his father had lost everything by his pusillanimity, and old Mollett declared that his son had destroyed all by his rashness. But we need not repeat their quarrels, nor repeat all that pa.s.sed between them and Tom before food was forthcoming to satisfy the old man's wants. As he ate he calculated how much he might probably raise upon his watch towards taking him to London, and how best he might get off from Cork without leaving any scent in the nostrils of his son. His clothes he must leave behind him at the inn, at least all that he could not pack upon his person.

Lately he had made himself comfortable in this respect, and he sorrowed over the fine linen which he had worn but once or twice since it had been bought with the last instalment from Sir Thomas.

Nevertheless in this way he did make up his mind for the morrow's campaign.

And Aby also made up his mind. Something at any rate he had learned from f.a.n.n.y O'Dwyer in return for his honeyed words. When Herbert Fitzgerald should cease to be the heir to Castle Richmond, Owen Fitzgerald of Hap House would be the happy man. That knowledge was his own in absolute independence of his father, and there might still be time for him to use it. He knew well the locality of Hap House, and he would be there early on the following morning. These tidings had probably not as yet reached the owner of that blessed abode, and if he could be the first to tell him--! The game there too might be pretty enough, if it were played well, by such a master-hand as his own. Yes; he would be at Hap House early in the morning;--but then, how to get there?