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CHAPTER XLI

TWO FAMILIAR EPISTLES

There were a number of bolder achievements Gorman O’Shea would have dared rather than write a note; nor were the cares of the composition the only difficulties of the undertaking. He knew of but one style of correspondence – the report to his commanding officer, and in this he was aided by a formula to be filled up. It was not, then, till after several efforts, he succeeded in the following familiar epistle: —

‘KILGOBBIN CASTLE.

‘DEAR AUNT, – Don’t blow up or make a rumpus, but if I had not taken the mare and come over here this morning, the rascally police with their search-warrant might have been down upon Mr. Kearney without a warning. They were all stiff and cold enough at first: they are nothing to brag of in the way of cordiality even yet – Dick especially – but they have asked me to stay and dine, and, I take it, it is the right thing to do. Send me over some things to dress with – and believe me your affectionate nephew,

‘G. O’SHEA.

‘I send the mare back, and shall walk home to-morrow morning.

‘There’s a great Castle swell here, a Mr. Walpole, but I have not made his acquaintance yet, and can tell nothing about him.’

Towards a late hour of the afternoon a messenger arrived with an ass-cart and several trunks from O’Shea’s Barn, and with the following note: —

‘DEAR NEPHEW GORMAN, – O’Shea’s Barn is not an inn, nor are the horses there at public livery. So much for your information. As you seem fond of “warnings,” let me give you one, which is, To mind your own affairs in preference to the interests of other people. The family at Kilgobbin are perfectly welcome – so far as I am concerned – to the fascinations of your society at dinner to-day, at breakfast to-morrow, and so on, with such regularity and order as the meals succeed. To which end, I have now sent you all the luggage belonging to you here. – I am, very respectfully, your aunt, ELIZABETH O’SHEA.’

The quaint, old-fashioned, rugged writing was marked throughout by a certain distinctness and accuracy that betoken care and attention – there was no evidence whatever of haste or passion – and this expression of a serious determination, duly weighed and resolved on, made itself very painfully felt by the young man as he read.

‘I am turned out – in plain words, turned out!’ said he aloud, as he sat with the letter spread out before him. ‘It must have been no common quarrel – not a mere coldness between the families – when she resents my coming here in this fashion.’ That innumerable differences could separate neighbours in Ireland, even persons with the same interests and the same religion, he well knew, and he solaced himself to think how he could get at the source of this disagreement, and what chance there might be of a reconciliation.

Of one thing he felt certain. Whether his aunt were right or wrong, whether tyrant or victim, he knew in his heart all the submission must come from the others. He had only to remember a few of the occasions in life in which he had to entreat his aunt’s forgiveness for the injustice she had herself inflicted, to anticipate what humble pie Mathew Kearney must partake of in order to conciliate Miss Betty’s favour.

‘Meanwhile,’ he thought, and not only thought, but said too – ‘Meanwhile, I am on the world.’

Up to this, she had allowed him a small yearly income. Father Luke, whose judgment on all things relating to continental life was unimpeachable, had told her that anything like the reputation of being well off or connected with wealthy people would lead a young man into ruin in the Austrian service; that with a sum of 3000 francs per annum – about £120 – he would be in possession of something like the double of his pay, or rather more, and that with this he would be enabled to have all the necessaries and many of the comforts of his station, and still not be a mark for that high play and reckless style of living that certain young Hungarians of family and large fortune affected; and so far the priest was correct, for the young Gorman was wasteful and extravagant from disposition, and his quarter’s allowance disappeared almost when it came. His money out, he fell back at once to the penurious habits of the poorest subaltern about him, and lived on his florin-and-half per diem till his resources came round again. He hoped – of course he hoped – that this momentary fit of temper would not extend to stopping his allowance.

‘She knows as well as any one,’ muttered he, ‘that though the baker’s son from Prague, or the Amtmann’s nephew from a Bavarian Dorf, may manage to “come through” with his pay, the young Englishman cannot. I can neither piece my own overalls, nor forswear stockings, nor can I persuade my stomach that it has had a full meal by tightening my girth-strap three or four holes.

‘I’d go down to the ranks to-morrow rather than live that life of struggle and contrivance that reduces a man to playing a dreary game with himself, by which, while he feels like a pauper, he has to fancy he felt like a gentleman. No, no, I’ll none of this. Scores of better men have served in the ranks. I’ll just change my regiment. By a lucky chance, I don’t know a man in the Walmoden Cuirassiers. I’ll join them, and nobody will ever be the wiser.’

There is a class of men who go through life building very small castles, and are no more discouraged by the frailty of the architecture than is a child with his toy-house. This was Gorman’s case; and now that he had found a solution of his difficulties in the Walmoden Cuirassiers, he really dressed for dinner in very tolerable spirits. ‘It’s droll enough,’ thought he, ‘to go down to dine amongst all these “swells,” and to think that the fellow behind my chair is better off than myself.’ The very uncertainty of his fate supplied excitement to his spirits, for it is amongst the privileges of the young that mere flurry can be pleasurable.

When Gorman reached the drawing-room, he found only one person. This was a young man in a shooting-coat, who, deep in the recess of a comfortable arm-chair, sat with the Times at his feet, and to all appearance as if half dozing.

He looked around, however, as young O’Shea came forward, and said carelessly, ‘I suppose it’s time to go and dress – if I could.’

O’Shea making no reply, the other added, ‘That is, if I have not overslept dinner altogether.’

‘I hope not, sincerely,’ rejoined the other, ‘or I shall be a partner in the misfortune.’

‘Ah, you ‘re the Austrian,’ said Walpole, as he stuck his glass in his eye and surveyed him.

‘Yes; and you are the private secretary of the Governor.’

‘Only we don’t call him Governor. We say Viceroy here.’

‘With all my heart, Viceroy be it.’

There was a pause now – each, as it were, standing on his guard to resent any liberty of the other. At last Walpole said, ‘I don’t think you were in the house when that stupid stipendiary fellow called here this morning?’

‘No; I was strolling across the fields. He came with the police, I suppose?’

‘Yes, he came on the track of some Fenian leader – a droll thought enough anywhere out of Ireland, to search for a rebel under a magistrate’s roof; not but there was something still more Irish in the incident.’

‘How was that?’ asked O’Shea eagerly.

‘I chanced to be out walking with the ladies when the escort came, and as they failed to find the man they were after, they proceeded to make diligent search for his papers and letters. That taste for practical joking, that seems an instinct in this country, suggested to Mr. Kearney to direct the fellows to my room, and what do you think they have done? Carried off bodily all my baggage, and left me with nothing but the clothes I’m wearing!’

‘What a lark!’ cried O’Shea, laughing.

‘Yes, I take it that is the national way to look at these things; but that passion for absurdity and for ludicrous situations has not the same hold on us English.’

‘I know that. You are too well off to be droll.’

‘Not exactly that; but when we want to laugh we go to the Adelphi.’

‘Heaven help you if you have to pay people to make fun for you!’

Before Walpole could make rejoinder, the door opened to admit the ladies, closely followed by Mr. Kearney and Dick.

‘Not mine the fault if I disgrace your dinner-table by such a costume as this,’ cried Walpole.

‘I’d have given twenty pounds if they’d have carried off yourself as the rebel!’ said the old man, shaking with laughter. ‘But there’s the soup on the table. Take my niece, Mr. Walpole; Gorman, give your arm to my daughter. Dick and I will bring up the rear.’

CHAPTER XLII

AN EVENING IN THE DRAWING-ROOM

The fatalism of youth, unlike that of age, is all rose-coloured. That which is coming, and is decreed to come, cannot be very disagreeable. This is the theory of the young, and differs terribly from the experiences of after-life. Gorman O’Shea had gone to dinner with about as heavy a misfortune as could well befall him, so far as his future in life was concerned. All he looked forward to and hoped for was lost to him: the aunt who, for so many years, had stood to him in place of all family, had suddenly thrown him off, and declared that she would see him no more; the allowance she had hitherto given him withdrawn, it was impossible he could continue to hold his place in his regiment. Should he determine not to return, it was desertion – should he go back, it must be to declare that he was a ruined man, and could only serve in the ranks. These were the thoughts he revolved while he dressed for dinner, and dressed, let it be owned, with peculiar care; but when the task had been accomplished, and he descended to the drawing-room, such was the elasticity of his young temperament, every thought of coming evil was merged in the sense of present enjoyment, and the merry laughter which he overheard as he opened the door, obliterated all notion that life had anything before him except what was agreeable and pleasant.

‘We want to know if you play croquet, Mr. O’Shea?’ said Nina as he entered. ‘And we want also to know, are you a captain, or a Rittmeister, or a major? You can scarcely be a colonel.’

‘Your last guess I answer first. I am only a lieutenant, and even that very lately. As to croquet, if it be not your foreign mode of pronouncing cricket, I never even saw it.’

‘It is not my foreign mode of pronouncing cricket, Herr Lieutenant,’ said she pertly, ‘but I guessed already you had never heard of it.’

‘It is an out-of-door affair,’ said Dick indolently, ‘made for the diffusion of worked petticoats and Balmoral boots.’

‘I should say it is the game of billiards brought down to universal suffrage and the million,’ lisped out Walpole.

‘Faith,’ cried old Kearney, ‘I’d say it was just football with a stick.’

‘At all events,’ said Kate, ‘we purpose to have a grand match to-morrow. Mr. Walpole and I are against Nina and Dick, and we are to draw lots for you, Mr. O’Shea.’

‘My position, if I understand it aright, is not a flattering one,’ said he, laughing.

‘We’ll take him,’ cried Nina at once. ‘I’ll give him a private lesson in the morning, and I’ll answer for his performance. These creatures,’ added she, in a whisper, ‘are so drilled in Austria, you can teach them anything.’

Now, as the words were spoken O’Shea caught them, and drawing close to her, said, ‘I do hope I’ll justify that flattering opinion.’ But her only recognition was a look of half-defiant astonishment at his boldness.

A very noisy discussion now ensued as to whether croquet was worthy to be called a game or not, and what were its laws and rules – points which Gorman followed with due attention, but very little profit; all Kate’s good sense and clearness being cruelly dashed by Nina’s ingenious interruptions and Walpole’s attempts to be smart and witty, even where opportunity scarcely offered the chance.

‘Next to looking on at the game,’ cried old Kearney at last, ‘the most tiresome thing I know of is to hear it talked over. Come, Nina, and give me a song.’

‘What shall it be, uncle?’ said she, as she opened the piano.

‘Something Irish, I’d say, if I were to choose for myself. We’ve plenty of old tunes, Mr. Walpole,’ said Kearney, turning to that gentleman, ‘that rebellion, as you call it, has never got hold of. There’s “Cushla Macree” and the “Cailan deas cruidhte na Mbo.”’

‘Very like hard swearing that,’ said Walpole to Nina; but his simper and his soft accent were only met by a cold blank look, as though she had not understood his liberty in addressing her. Indeed, in her distant manner, and even repelling coldness, there was what might have disconcerted any composure less consummate than his own. It was, however, evidently Walpole’s aim to assume that she felt her relation towards him, and not altogether without some cause; while she, on her part, desired to repel the insinuation by a show of utter indifference. She would willingly, in this contingency, have encouraged her cousin, Dick Kearney, and even led him on to little displays of attention; but Dick held aloof, as though not knowing the meaning of this favourable turn towards him. He would not be cheated by coquetry. How many men are of this temper, and who never understand that it is by surrendering ourselves to numberless little voluntary deceptions of this sort, we arrive at intimacies the most real and most truthful.

She next tried Gorman, and here her success was complete. All those womanly prettinesses, which are so many modes of displaying graceful attraction of voice, look, gesture, or attitude, were especially dear to him. Not only they gave beauty its chief charm, but they constituted a sort of game, whose address was quickness of eye, readiness of perception, prompt reply, and that refined tact that can follow out one thought in a conversation just as you follow a melody through a mass of variations.

Perhaps the young soldier did not yield himself the less readily to these captivations that Kate Kearney’s manner towards him was studiously cold and ceremonious.

‘The other girl is more like the old friend,’ muttered he, as he chatted on with her about Rome, and Florence, and Venice, imperceptibly gliding into the language which the names of places suggested.

‘If any had told me that I ever could have talked thus freely and openly with an Austrian soldier, I’d not have believed him,’ said she at length, ‘for all my sympathies in Italy were with the National party.’

‘But we were not the “Barbari” in your recollection, mademoiselle,’ said he. ‘We were out of Italy before you could have any feeling for either party.’

‘The tradition of all your cruelties has survived you, and I am sure, if you were wearing your white coat still, I’d hate you.’

‘You are giving me another reason to ask for a longer leave of absence,’ said he, bowing courteously.

‘And this leave of yours – how long does it last?’

‘I am afraid to own to myself. Wednesday fortnight is the end of it; that is, it gives me four days after that to reach Vienna.’

‘And presenting yourself in humble guise before your colonel, to say, “Ich melde mich gehorsamst.”’

‘Not exactly that – but something like it.’

‘I’ll be the Herr Oberst Lieutenant,’ said she, laughing; ‘so come forward now and clap your heels together, and let us hear how you utter your few syllables in true abject fashion. I’ll sit here, and receive you.’ As she spoke, she threw herself into an arm-chair, and assuming a look of intense hauteur and defiance, affected to stroke an imaginary moustache with one hand, while with the other she waved a haughty gesture of welcome.

‘I have outstayed my leave,’ muttered Gorman, in a tremulous tone. ‘I hope my colonel, with that bland mercy which characterises him, will forgive my fault, and let me ask his pardon.’ And with this, he knelt down on one knee before her, and kissed her hand.

‘What liberties are these, sir?’ cried she, so angrily, that it was not easy to say whether the anger was not real.

‘It is the latest rule introduced into our service,’ said he, with mock humility.

‘Is that a comedy they are acting yonder,’ said Walpole, ‘or is it a proverb?’

‘Whatever the drama,’ replied Kate coldly, ‘I don’t think they want a public.’

‘You may go back to your duty, Herr Lieutenant,’ said Nina proudly, and with a significant glance towards Kate. ‘Indeed, I suspect you have been rather neglecting it of late.’ And with this she sailed majestically away towards the end of the room.

‘I wish I could provoke even that much of jealousy from the other,’ muttered Gorman to himself, as he bit his lip in passion. And certainly, if a look and manner of calm unconcern meant anything, there was little that seemed less likely.

‘I am glad you are going to the piano, Nina,’ said Kate. ‘Mr. Walpole has been asking me by what artifice you could be induced to sing something of Mendelssohn.’

‘I am going to sing an Irish ballad for that Austrian patriot, who, like his national poet, thinks “Ireland a beautiful country to live out of.”’ Though a haughty toss of her head accompanied these words, there was a glance in her eye towards Gorman that plainly invited a renewal of their half-flirting hostilities.

‘When I left it, you had not been here,’ said he, with an obsequious tone, and an air of deference only too marked in its courtesy.

A slight, very faint blush on her cheek showed that she rather resented than accepted the flattery, but she appeared to be occupied in looking through the music-books, and made no rejoinder.

‘We want Mendelssohn, Nina,’ said Kate.

‘Or at least Spohr,’ added Walpole.

‘I never accept dictation about what I sing,’ muttered Nina, only loud enough to be overheard by Gorman. ‘People don’t tell you what theme you are to talk on; they don’t presume to say, “Be serious or be witty.” They don’t tell you to come to the aid of their sluggish natures by passion, or to dispel their dreariness by flights of fancy; and why are they to dare all this to us who speak through song?’

‘Just because you alone can do these things,’ said Gorman, in the same low voice as she had spoken in.

‘Can I help you in your search, dearest?’ said Kate, coming over to the piano.

‘Might I hope to be of use?’ asked Walpole.

‘Mr. O’Shea wants me to sing something for him,’ said Nina coldly. ‘What is it to be?’ asked she of Gorman. With the readiness of one who could respond to any sudden call upon his tact, Gorman at once took up a piece of music from the mass before him, and said, ‘Here is what I have been searching for.’ It was a little Neapolitan ballad, of no peculiar beauty, but one of those simple melodies in which the rapid transition from deep feeling to a wild, almost reckless, gaiety imparts all the character.

‘Yes, I’ll sing that,’ said Nina; and almost in the same breath the notes came floating through the air, slow and sad at first, as though labouring under some heavy sorrow; the very syllables faltered on her lips like a grief struggling for utterance – when, just as a thrilling cadence died slowly away, she burst forth into the wildest and merriest strain, something so impetuous in gaiety, that the singer seemed to lose all control of expression, and floated away in sound with every caprice of enraptured imagination. When in the very whirlwind of this impetuous gladness, as though a memory of a terrible sorrow had suddenly crossed her, she ceased; then, in tones of actual agony, her voice rose to a cry of such utter misery as despair alone could utter. The sounds died slowly away as though lingeringly. Two bold chords followed, and she was silent.

None spoke in the room. Was this real passion, or was it the mere exhibition of an accomplished artist, who could call up expression at will, as easily as a painter could heighten colour? Kate Kearney evidently believed the former, as her heaving chest and her tremulous lip betrayed, while the cold, simpering smile on Walpole’s face, and the ‘brava, bravissima’ in which he broke the silence, vouched how he had interpreted that show of emotion.

‘If that is singing, I wonder what is crying,’ cried old Kearney, while he wiped his eyes, very angry at his own weakness.’ And now will any one tell me what it was all about?’

‘A young girl, sir,’ replied Gorman, ‘who, by a great effort, has rallied herself to dispel her sorrow and be merry, suddenly remembers that her sweetheart may not love her, and the more she dwells on the thought, the more firmly she believes it. That was the cry, “He never loved me,” that went to all our hearts.’

‘Faith, then, if Nina has to say that,’ said the old man, ‘Heaven help the others.’

‘Indeed, uncle, you are more gallant than all these young gentlemen,’ said Nina, rising and approaching him.

‘Why they are not all at your feet this moment is more than I can tell. They’re always telling me the world is changed, and I begin to see it now.’

‘I suspect, sir, it’s pretty much what it used to be,’ lisped out Walpole. ‘We are only less demonstrative than our fathers.’

‘Just as I am less extravagant than mine,’ cried Kilgobbin, ‘because I have not got it to spend.’

‘I hope Mademoiselle Nina judges us more mercifully,’ said Walpole.

‘Is that song a favourite of yours?’ asked she of Gorman, without noticing Walpole’s remark in any way.

‘No,’ said he bluntly; ‘it makes me feel like a fool, and, I am afraid, look like one too, when I hear it.’

‘I’m glad there’s even that much blood in you,’ cried old Kearney, who had caught the words. ‘Oh dear! oh dear! England need never be afraid of the young generation.’

‘That seems to be a very painful thought to you, sir,’ said Walpole.

‘And so it is,’ replied he. ‘The lower we bend, the more you’ll lay on us. It was your language, and what you call your civilisation, broke us down first, and the little spirit that fought against either is fast dying out of us.’

‘Do you want Mr. Walpole to become a Fenian, papa?’ asked Kate.

‘You see, they took him for one to-day,’ broke in Dick, ‘when they came and carried off all his luggage.’

‘By the way,’ interposed Walpole, ‘we must take care that that stupid blunder does not get into the local papers, or we shall have it circulated by the London press.’

‘I have already thought of that,’ said Dick, ‘and I shall go into Moate to-morrow and see about it.’

‘Does that mean to say that you desert croquet?’ said Nina imperiously.

‘You have got Lieutenant O’Shea in my place, and a better player than me already.’

‘I fear I must take my leave to-morrow,’ said Gorman, with a touch of real sorrow, for in secret he knew not whither he was going.

‘Would your aunt not spare you to us for a few days?’ said the old man. ‘I am in no favour with her just now, but she would scarcely refuse what we would all deem a great favour.’

‘My aunt would not think the sacrifice too much for her,’ said Gorman, trying to laugh at the conceit.

‘You shall stay,’ murmured Nina, in a tone only audible to him; and by a slight bow he acknowledged the words as a command.

‘I believe my best way,’ said Gorman gaily, ‘will be to outstay my leave, and take my punishment, whatever it be, when I go back again.’

‘That is military morality,’ said Walpole, in a half-whisper to Kate, but to be overheard by Nina. ‘We poor civilians don’t understand how to keep a debtor and creditor account with conscience.’

‘Could you manage to provoke that man to quarrel with you?’ said Nina secretly to Gorman, while her eyes glanced towards Walpole.

‘I think I might; but what then? He wouldn’t fight, and the rest of England would shun me.’

‘That is true,’ said she slowly. ‘When any is injured here, he tries to make money out of it. I don’t suppose you want money?’

‘Not earned in that fashion, certainly. But I think they are saying good-night.’

‘They’re always boasting about the man that found out the safety-lamp,’ said old Kearney, as he moved away; ‘but give me the fellow that invented a flat candlestick!’