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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-glasses, 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 institution 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 fashion; 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.’

‘She snubbed me the only time I met her. I tried to help her off with her bonnet, and, unfortunately, I displaced, if I did not actually remove, her wig, and she muttered something “about a rope-dancer not being a dexterous lady’s-maid.”’

‘O Nina, surely you do not mean – ’

‘Not that I was exactly a rope-dancer, Kate, but I had on a Greek jacket that morning of blue velvet and gold, and a white skirt, and perhaps these had some memories of the circus for the old lady.’

‘You are only jesting now, Nina.’

‘Don’t you know me well enough to know that I never jest when I think, or even suspect, I am injured?’

‘Injured!’

‘It’s not the word I wanted, but it will do; I used it in its French sense.’

‘You bear no malice, I’m sure?’ said the other caressingly.

‘No!’ replied she, with a shrug that seemed to deprecate even having a thought about her.

‘She will stay for dinner, and we must, as far as possible, receive her in the way she has been used to here, a very homely dinner, served as she has always seen it – no fruit or flowers on the table, no claret-cup, no finger-glasses.’

‘I hope no tablecloth; couldn’t we have a tray on a corner table, and every one help himself as he strolled about the room?’

‘Dear Nina, be reasonable just for this once.’

‘I’ll come down just as I am, or, better still, I’ll take down my hair and cram it into a net; I’d oblige her with dirty hands, if I only knew how to do it.’

‘I see you only say these things in jest; you really do mean to help me through this difficulty.’

‘But why a difficulty? what reason can you offer for all this absurd submission to the whims of a very tiresome old woman? Is she very rich, and do you expect an heritage?’

‘No, no; nothing of the kind.’

‘Does she load you with valuable presents? Is she ever ready to commemorate birthdays and family festivals?’

‘No.’

‘Has she any especial quality or gift beyond riding double and a bad temper? Oh, I was forgetting; she is the aunt of her nephew, isn’t she? – the dashing lancer that was to spend his summer over here?’

‘You were indeed forgetting when you said this,’ said Kate proudly, and her face grew scarlet as she spoke.

‘Tell me that you like him or that he likes you; tell me that there is something, anything, between you, child, and I’ll be discreet and mannerly, too; and more, I’ll behave to the old lady with every regard to one who holds such dear interests in her keeping. But don’t bandage my eyes, and tell me at the same time to look out and see.’

‘I have no confidences to make you,’ said Kate coldly. ‘I came here to ask a favour – a very small favour, after all – and you might have accorded it without question or ridicule.’

‘But which you never need have asked, Kate,’ said the other gravely. ‘You are the mistress here; I am but a very humble guest. Your orders are obeyed, as they ought to be; my suggestions may be adopted now and then – partly in caprice, part compliment – but I know they have no permanence, no more take root here than – than myself.’

‘Do not say that, my dearest Nina,’ said Kate, as she threw herself on her neck and kissed her affectionately again and again. ‘You are one of us, and we are all proud of it. Come along with me, now, and tell me all that you advise. You know what I wish, and you will forgive me even in my stupidity.’

‘Where’s your brother?’ asked Nina hastily.

‘Gone out with his gun. He’ll not be back till he is certain Miss Betty has taken her departure.’

‘Why did he not offer to take me with him?’

‘Over the bog, do you mean?’

‘Anywhere; I’d not cavil about the road. Don’t you know that I have days when “don’t care” masters me – when I’d do anything, go anywhere – ’

‘Marry any one?’ said the other, laughing.

‘Yes, marry any one, as irresponsibly as if I was dealing with the destiny of some other that did not regard me. On these days I do not belong to myself, and this is one of them.’

‘I know nothing of such humours, Nina; nor do I believe it a healthy mind that has them.’

‘I did not boast of my mind’s health, nor tell you to trust to it. Come, let us go down to the dinner-room, and talk that pleasant leg-of-mutton talk you know you are fond of.’

‘And best fitted for, say that,’ said Kate, laughing merrily.

The other did not seem to have heard her words, for she moved slowly away, calling on Kate to follow her.

CHAPTER XXI

A SMALL DINNER-PARTY

It is sad to have to record that all Kate’s persuasions with her cousin, all her own earnest attempts at conciliation, and her ably-planned schemes to escape a difficulty, were only so much labour lost. A stern message from her father commanded her to make no change either in the house or the service of the dinner – an interference with domestic cares so novel on his part as to show that he had prepared himself for hostilities, and was resolved to meet his enemy boldly.

‘It’s no use, all I have been telling you, Nina,’ said Kate, as she re-entered her room, later in the day. ‘Papa orders me to have everything as usual, and won’t even let me give Miss Betty an early dinner, though he knows she has nine miles of a ride to reach home.’

‘That explains somewhat a message he has sent myself,’ replied Nina, ‘to wear my very prettiest toilet and my Greek cap, which he admired so much the other day.’

‘I am almost glad that my wardrobe has nothing attractive,’ said Kate, half sadly. ‘I certainly shall never be rebuked for my becomingness.’

‘And do you mean to say that the old woman would be rude enough to extend her comments to me?’

‘I have known her do things quite as hardy, though I hope on the present occasion the other novelties may shelter you.’

‘Why isn’t your brother here? I should insist on his coming down in discreet black, with a white tie and that look of imposing solemnity young Englishmen assume for dinner.’

‘Dick guessed what was coming, and would not encounter it.’

‘And yet you tell me you submit to all this for no earthly reason. She can leave you no legacy, contribute in no way to your benefit. She has neither family, fortune, nor connections; and, except her atrocious manners and her indomitable temper, there is not a trait of her that claims to be recorded.’

‘Oh yes; she rides capitally to hounds, and hunts her own harriers to perfection.’

‘I am glad she has one quality that deserves your favour.’

‘She has others, too, which I like better than what they call accomplishments. She is very kind to the poor, never deterred by any sickness from visiting them, and has the same stout-hearted courage for every casualty in life.’

‘A commendable gift for a squaw, but what does a gentlewoman want with this same courage?’

‘Look out of the window, Nina, and see where you are living! Throw your eyes over that great expanse of dark bog, vast as one of the great campagnas you have often described to us, and bethink you how mere loneliness – desolation – needs a stout heart to bear it; how the simple fact that for the long hours of a summer’s day, or the longer hours of a winter’s night, a lone woman has to watch and think of all the possible casualties lives of hardship and misery may impel men to. Do you imagine that she does not mark the growing discontent of the people? see their careworn looks, dashed with a sullen determination, and hear in their voices the rising of a hoarse defiance that was never heard before? Does she not well know that every kindness she has bestowed, every merciful act she has ministered, would weigh for nothing in the balance on the day that she will be arraigned as a landowner – the receiver of the poor man’s rent! And will you tell me after this she can dispense with courage?’

‘Bel paese davvero!’ muttered the other.

‘So it is,’ cried Kate; ‘with all its faults I’d not exchange it for the brightest land that ever glittered in a southern sun. But why should I tell you how jarred and disconcerted we are by laws that have no reference to our ways – conferring rights where we were once contented with trustfulness, and teaching men to do everything by contract, and nothing by affection, nothing by good-will.’

‘No, no, tell me none of all these; but tell me, shall I come down in my Suliote jacket of yellow cloth, for I know it becomes me?’

‘And if we women had not courage,’ went on Kate, not heeding the question, ‘what would our men do? Should we see them lead lives of bolder daring than the stoutest wanderer in Africa?’

‘And my jacket and my Theban belt?’

‘Wear them all. Be as beautiful as you like, but don’t be late for dinner.’ And Kate hurried away before the other could speak.

When Miss O’Shea, arrayed in a scarlet poplin and a yellow gauze turban – the month being August – arrived in the drawing-room before dinner, she found no one there – a circumstance that chagrined her so far that she had hurried her toilet and torn one of her gloves in her haste. ‘When they say six for the dinner-hour, they might surely be in the drawing-room by that hour,’ was Miss Betty’s reflection as she turned over some of the magazines and circulating-library books which since Nina’s arrival had found their way to Kilgobbin. The contemptuous manner in which she treated Blackwood and Macmillan, and the indignant dash with which she flung Trollope’s last novel down, showed that she had not been yet corrupted by the light reading of the age. An unopened country newspaper, addressed to the Viscount Kilgobbin, had however absorbed all her attention, and she was more than half disposed to possess herself of the envelope, when Mr. Kearney entered.

His bright blue coat and white waistcoat, a profusion of shirt-frill, and a voluminous cravat proclaimed dinner-dress, and a certain pomposity of manner showed how an unusual costume had imposed on himself, and suggested an important event.

‘I hope I see Miss O’Shea in good health?’ said he, advancing.

‘How are you, Mathew?’ replied she dryly. ‘When I heard that big bell thundering away, I was so afraid to be late that I came down with one bracelet, and I have torn my glove too.’

‘It was only the first bell – the dressing-bell,’ he said.

‘Humph! That’s something new since I was here last,’ said she tartly.

‘You remind me of how long it is since you dined with us, Miss O’Shea.’

‘Well, indeed, Mathew, I meant to be longer, if I must tell the truth. I saw enough the last day I lunched here to show me Kilgobbin was not what it used to be. You were all of you what my poor father – who was always thinking of the dogs – used to call “on your hind-legs,” walking about very stately and very miserable. There were three or four covered dishes on the table that nobody tasted; and an old man in red breeches ran about in half-distraction, and said, “Sherry, my lord, or Madeira?” Many’s the time I laughed over it since.’ And, as though to vouch for the truth of the mirthfulness, she lay back in her chair and shook with hearty laughter.

Before Kearney could reply – for something like a passing apoplexy had arrested his words – the girls entered, and made their salutations.

‘If I had the honour of knowing you longer, Miss Costigan,’ said Miss O’Shea – for it was thus she translated the name Kostalergi – ‘I’d ask you why you couldn’t dress like your cousin Kate. It may be all very well in the house, and it’s safe enough here, there’s no denying it; but my name’s not Betty if you’d walk down Kilbeggan without a crowd yelling after you and calling names too, that a respectable young woman wouldn’t bargain for; eh, Mathew, is that true?’

‘There’s the dinner-bell now,’ said Mathew; ‘may I offer my arm?’

‘It’s thin enough that arm is getting, Mathew Kearney,’ said she, as he walked along at her side. ‘Not but it’s time, too. You were born in the September of 1809, though your mother used to deny it; and you’re now a year older than your father was when he died.’

‘Will you take this place?’ said Kearney, placing her chair for her. ‘We ‘re a small party to-day. I see Dick does not dine with us.’

‘Maybe I hunted him away. The young gentlemen of the present day are frank enough to say what they think of old maids. That’s very elegant, and I’m sure it’s refined,’ said she, pointing to the mass of fruit and flowers so tastefully arranged before her. ‘But I was born in a time when people liked to see what they were going to eat, Mathew Kearney, and as I don’t intend to break my fast on a stockgilly-flower, or make a repast of raisins, I prefer the old way. Fill up my glass whenever it’s empty,’ said she to the servant, ‘and don’t bother me with the name of it. As long as I know the King’s County, and that’s more than fifty years, we’ve been calling Cape Madeira, Sherry!’

‘If we know what we are drinking, Miss O’Shea, I don’t suppose it matters much.’

‘Nothing at all, Mathew. Calling you the Viscount Kilgobbin, as I read a while ago, won’t confuse me about an old neighbour.’

‘Won’t you try a cutlet, godmother?’ asked Kate hurriedly.

‘Indeed I will, my dear. I don’t know why I was sending the man away. I never saw this way of dining before, except at the poorhouse, where each poor creature has his plateful given him, and pockets what he can’t eat.’ And here she laughed long and heartily at the conceit.

Kearney’s good-humour relished the absurdity, and he joined in the laugh, while Nina stared at the old woman as an object of dread and terror.

‘And that boy that wouldn’t dine with us. How is he turning out, Mathew? They tell me he’s a bit of a scamp.’

‘He’s no such thing, godmother. Dick is as good a fellow and as right-minded as ever lived, and you yourself would be the first to say it if you saw him,’ cried Kate angrily.

‘So would the young lady yonder, if I might judge from her blushes,’ said Miss Betty, looking at Nina. ‘Not indeed but it’s only now I’m remembering that you’re not a boy. That little red cap and that thing you wear round your throat deceived me.’

‘It is not the lot of every one to be so fortunate in a head-dress as Miss O’Shea,’ said Nina, very calmly.

‘If it’s my wig you are envying me, my dear,’ replied she quietly, ‘there’s nothing easier than to have the own brother of it. It was made by Crimp, of Nassau Street, and box and all cost four pound twelve.’

‘Upon my life, Miss Betty,’ broke in Kearney, ‘you are tempting me to an extravagance.’ And he passed his hand over his sparsely-covered head as he spoke.

‘And I would not, if I was you, Mathew Kearney,’ said she resolutely. ‘They tell me that in that House of Lords you are going to, more than half of them are bald.’

There was no possible doubt that she meant by this speech to deliver a challenge, and Kate’s look, at once imploring and sorrowful, appealed to her for mercy.

‘No, thank you,’ said Miss Betty to the servant who presented a dish, ‘though, indeed, maybe I’m wrong, for I don’t know what’s coming.’

‘This is the menu,’ said Nina, handing a card to her.

‘The bill of fare, godmother,’ said Kate hastily.

‘Well, indeed, it’s a kindness to tell me, and if there is any more novelties to follow, perhaps you’ll be kind enough to inform me, for I never dined in the Greek fashion before.’

‘The Russian, I believe, madam, not the Greek,’ said Nina.

‘With all my heart, my dear. It’s about the same, for whatever may happen to Mathew Kearney or myself, I don’t suspect either of us will go to live at Moscow.’

‘You’ll not refuse a glass of port with your cheese?’ said Kearney.

‘Indeed I will, then, if there’s any beer in the house, though perhaps it’s too vulgar a liquor to ask for.’

While the beer was being brought, a solemn silence ensued, and a less comfortable party could not easily be imagined.

When the interval had been so far prolonged that Kearney himself saw the necessity to do something, he placed his napkin on the table, leaned forward with a half-motion of rising, and, addressing Miss Betty, said, ‘Shall we adjourn to the drawing-room and take our coffee?’

‘I’d rather stay where I am, Mathew Kearney, and have that glass of port you offered me a while ago, for the beer was flat. Not that I’ll detain the young people, nor keep yourself away from them very long.’

When the two girls withdrew, Nina’s look of insolent triumph at Kate betrayed the tone she was soon to take in treating of the old lady’s good manners.

‘You had a very sorry dinner, Miss Betty, but I can promise you an honest glass of wine,’ said Kearney, filling her glass.

‘It’s very nice,’ said she, sipping it, ‘though, maybe, like myself, it’s just a trifle too old.’

‘A good fault, Miss Betty, a good fault.’

‘For the wine, perhaps,’ said she dryly, ‘but maybe it would taste better if I had not bought it so dearly.’

‘I don’t think I understand you.’

‘I was about to say that I have forfeited that young lady’s esteem by the way I obtained it. She’ll never forgive me, instead of retiring for my coffee, sitting here like a man – and a man of that old hard-drinking school, Mathew, that has brought all the ruin on Ireland.’

‘Here’s to their memory, anyway,’ said Kearney, drinking off his glass.

‘I’ll drink no toasts nor sentiments, Mathew Kearney, and there’s no artifice or roguery will make me forget I’m a woman and an O’Shea.’

‘Faix, you’ll not catch me forgetting either,’ said Mathew, with a droll twinkle of his eye, which it was just as fortunate escaped her notice.

‘I doubted for a long time, Mathew Kearney, whether I’d come over myself, or whether I ‘d write you a letter; not that I’m good at writing, but, somehow, one can put their ideas more clear, and say things in a way that will fix them more in the mind; but at last I determined I’d come, though it’s more than likely it’s the last time Kilgobbin will see me here.’

‘I sincerely trust you are mistaken, so far.’

‘Well, Mathew, I’m not often mistaken! The woman that has managed an estate for more than forty years, been her own land-steward and her own law-agent, doesn’t make a great many blunders; and, as I said before, if Mathew has no friend to tell him the truth among the men of his acquaintance, it’s well that there is a woman to the fore, who has courage and good sense to go up and do it.’

She looked fixedly at him, as though expecting some concurrence in the remark, if not some intimation to proceed; but neither came, and she continued.

‘I suppose you don’t read the Dublin newspapers?’ said she civilly.

‘I do, and every day the post brings them.’

‘You see, therefore, without my telling you, what the world is saying about you. You see how they treat “the search for arms,” as they head it, and “the Maid of Saragossa!” O Mathew Kearney! Mathew Kearney! whatever happened the old stock of the land, they never made themselves ridiculous.’

‘Have you done, Miss Betty?’ asked he, with assumed calm.

‘Done! Why, it’s only beginning I am,’ cried she. ‘Not but I’d bear a deal of blackguarding from the press – as the old woman said when the soldier threatened to run his bayonet through her: “Devil thank you, it’s only your trade.” But when we come to see the head of an old family making ducks and drakes of his family property, threatening the old tenants that have been on the land as long as his own people, raising the rent here, evicting there, distressing the people’s minds when they’ve just as much as they can to bear up with – then it’s time for an old friend and neighbour to give a timely warning, and cry “Stop.’”

‘Have you done, Miss Betty?’ And now his voice was more stern than before.

‘I have not, nor near done, Mathew Kearney. I’ve said nothing of the way you’re bringing up your family – that son, in particular – to make him think himself a young man of fortune, when you know, in your heart, you’ll leave him little more than the mortgages on the estate. I have not told you that it’s one of the jokes of the capital to call him the Honourable Dick Kearney, and to ask him after his father the viscount.’

‘You haven’t done yet, Miss O’Shea?’ said he, now with a thickened voice.

‘No, not yet,’ replied she calmly – ‘not yet; for I’d like to remind you of the way you’re behaving to the best of the whole of you – the only one, indeed, that’s worth much in the family – your daughter Kate.’

‘Well, what have I done to wrong her?’ said he, carried beyond his prudence by so astounding a charge.

‘The very worst you could do, Mathew Kearney; the only mischief it was in your power, maybe. Look at the companion you have given her! Look at the respectable young lady you’ve brought home to live with your decent child!’

‘You’ll not stop?’ cried he, almost choking with passion.

‘Not till I’ve told you why I came here, Mathew Kearney; for I’d beg you to understand it was no interest about yourself or your doings brought me. I came to tell you that I mean to be free about an old contract we once made – that I revoke it all. I was fool enough to believe that an alliance between our families would have made me entirely happy, and my nephew Gorman O’Shea was brought up to think the same. I have lived to know better, Mathew Kearney: I have lived to see that we don’t suit each other at all, and I have come here to declare to you formally that it’s all off. No nephew of mine shall come here for a wife. The heir to Shea’s Barn shan’t bring the mistress of it out of Kilgobbin Castle.’

‘Trust me for that, old lady,’ cried he, forgetting all his good manners in his violent passion.

‘You’ll be all the freer to catch a young aide-de-camp from the Castle,’ said she sneeringly; ‘or maybe, indeed, a young lord – a rank equal to your own.’

‘Haven’t you said enough?’ screamed he, wild with rage.

‘No, nor half, or you wouldn’t be standing there, wringing your hands with passion and your hair bristling like a porcupine. You’d be at my feet, Mathew Kearney – ay, at my feet.’

‘So I would, Miss Betty,’ chimed he in, with a malicious grin, ‘if I was only sure you’d be as cruel as the last time I knelt there. Oh dear! oh dear! and to think that I once wanted to marry that woman!’

‘That you did! You’d have put your hand in the fire to win her.’

‘By my conscience, I’d have put myself altogether there, if I had won her.’

‘You understand now, sir,’ said she haughtily, ‘that there’s no more between us.’

‘Thank God for the same!’ ejaculated he fervently.

‘And that no nephew of mine comes courting a daughter of yours?’

‘For his own sake, he’d better not.’

‘It’s for his own sake I intend it, Mathew Kearney. It’s of himself I’m thinking. And now, thanking you for the pleasant evening I’ve passed, and your charming society, I’ll take my leave.’

‘I hope you’ll not rob us of your company till you take a dish of tea,’ said he, with well-feigned politeness.

‘It’s hard to tear one’s self away, Mr. Kearney; but it’s late already.’

‘Couldn’t we induce you to stop the night, Miss Betty?’ asked he, in a tone of insinuation. ‘Well, at least you’ll let me ring to order your horse?’

‘You may do that if it amuses you, Mathew Kearney; but, meanwhile, I’ll just do what I’ve always done in the same place – I’ll just go look for my own beast and see her saddled myself; and as Peter Gill is leaving you to-morrow, I’ll take him back with me to-night.’

‘Is he going to you?’ cried he passionately.

‘He’s going to me, Mr. Kearney, with your leave, or without it, I don’t know which I like best.’ And with this she swept out of the room, while Kearney closed his eyes and lay back in his chair, stunned and almost stupefied.