CHAPTER VI. QUEER COMPANIONSHIP
When Harcourt repaired to Glencore’s bedroom, where he still lay, wearied and feverish after a bad night, he was struck by the signs of suffering in the sick man’s face. The cheeks were bloodless and fallen iq, the lips pinched, and in the eyes there shone that unnatural brilliancy which results from an over-wrought and over-excited brain.
“Sit down here, George,” said he, pointing to a chair beside the bed; “I want to talk to you. I thought every day that I could muster courage for what I wish to say; but somehow, when the time arrived, I felt like a criminal who entreats for a few hours more of life, even though it be a life of misery.”
“It strikes me that you were never less equal to the effort than now,” said Harcourt, laying his hand on the other’s pulse.
“Don’t believe my pulse, George,” said Glencore, smiling faintly. “The machine may work badly, but it has wonderful holding out. I ‘ve gone through enough,” added he, gloomily, “to kill most men, and here I am still, breathing and suffering.”
“This place doesn’t suit you, Glencore. There are not above two days in the month you can venture to take the air.”
“And where would you have me go, sir?” he broke in, fiercely. “Would you advise Paris and the Boulevards, or a palace in the Piazza di Spagna at Rome; or perhaps the Chiaja at Naples would be public enough? Is it that I may parade disgrace and infamy through Europe that I should leave this solitude?”
“I want to see you in a better climate, Glencore, – in a place where the sun shines occasionally.”
“This suits me,” said the other, bluntly; “and here I have the security that none can invade, – none molest me. But it is not of myself I wish to speak, – it is of my boy.”
Harcourt made no reply, but sat patiently to listen to what was coming.
“It is time to think of him,” added Glencore, slowly. “The other day, – it seems but the other day, – and he was a mere child; a few years more, – to seem when past like a long dreary night, – and he will be a man.”
“Very true,” said Harcourt; “and Charley is one of those fellows who only make one plunge from the boy into all the responsibilities of manhood. Throw him into a college at Oxford, or the mess of a regiment to-morrow, and this day week you’ll not know him from the rest.”
Glencore was silent; if he had heard, he never noticed Harcourt’s remark.
“Has he ever spoken to you about himself, Harcourt?” asked he, after a pause.
“Never, except when I led the subject in that direction; and even then reluctantly, as though it were a topic he would avoid.”
“Have you discovered any strong inclination in him for a particular kind of life, or any career in preference to another?”
“None; and if I were only to credit what I see of him, I ‘d say that this dull monotony and this dreary uneventful existence is what he likes best of all the world.”
“You really think so?” cried Glencore, with an eagerness that seemed out of proportion to the remark.
“So far as I see,” rejoined Harcourt, guardedly, and not wishing to let his observation carry graver consequences than he might suspect.
“So that you deem him capable of passing a life of a quiet, unambitious tenor, – neither seeking for distinctions nor fretting after honors?”
“How should he know of their existence, Glencore? What has the boy ever heard of life and its struggles? It’s not in Homer or Sallust he ‘d learn the strife of parties and public men.”
“And why need he ever know them?” broke in Glencore, fiercely.
“If he doesn’t know them now, he’s sure to be taught them hereafter. A young fellow who will succeed to a title and a good fortune – ”
“Stop, Harcourt!” cried Glencore, passionately. “Has anything of this kind ever escaped you in intercourse with the boy?”
“Not a word – not a syllable.”
“Has he himself ever, by a hint, or by a chance word, implied that he was aware of – ”
Glencore faltered and hesitated, for the word he sought for did not present itself. Harcourt, however, released him from all embarrassment by saying, —
“With me the boy is rarely anything but a listener; he hears me talk away of tiger-shooting and buffalo-hunting, scarcely ever interrupting me with a question. But I can see in his manner with the country people, when they salute him, and call him ‘my lord’ – ”
“But he is not ‘my lord,’” broke in Glencore.
“Of course he is not; that I am well aware of.”
“He never will – never shall be,” cried Glencore, in a voice to which a long pent-up passion imparted a terrible energy.
“How! – what do you mean, Glencore?” said Harcourt, eagerly. “Has he any malady; is there any deadly taint?”
“That there is, by Heaven!” cried the sick man, grasping the curtain with one hand, while he held the other firmly clenched upon his forehead, – “a taint, the deadliest that can stain a human heart! Talk of station, rank, title – what are they, if they are to be coupled with shame, ignominy, and sorrow? The loud voice of the herald calls his father Sixth Viscount of Glencore, but a still louder voice proclaims his mother a – ”
With a wild burst of hysteric laughter, he threw himself, face downwards, on the bed; and now scream after scream burst from him, till the room was filled by the servants, in the midst of whom appeared Billy, who had only that same day returned from Leenane, whither he had gone to make a formal resignation of his functions as letter-carrier.
“This is nothing but an accessio nervosa,” said Billy; “clear the room, ladies and gentlemen, and lave me with the patient.” And Harcourt gave the signal for obedience by first taking his departure.
Lord Glencore’s attack was more serious than at first it was apprehended, and for three days there was every threat of a relapse of his late fever; but Billy’s skill was once more successful, and on the fourth day he declared that the danger was past. During this period, Harcourt’s attention was for the first time drawn to the strange creature who officiated as the doctor, and who, in despite of all the detracting influences of his humble garb and mean attire, aspired to be treated with the deference due to a great physician.
“If it’s the crown and the sceptre makes the king,” said he, “‘tis the same with the science that makes the doctor; and no man can be despised when he has a rag of ould Galen’s mantle to cover his shoulders.”
“So you’re going to take blood from him?” asked Harcourt, as he met him on the stairs, where he had awaited his coming one night when it was late.
“No, sir; ‘tis more a disturbance of the great nervous centres than any derangement of the heart and arteries,” said Billy, pompously; “that’s what shows a real doctor, – to distinguish between the effects of excitement and inflammation, which is as different as fireworks is from a bombardment.”
“Not a bad simile, Master Billy; come in and drink a glass of brandy-and-water with me,” said Harcourt, right glad at the prospect of such companionship.
Billy Traynor, too, was flattered by the invitation, and seated himself at the fire with an air at once proud and submissive.
“You’ve a difficult patient to treat there,” said Harcourt, when he had furnished his companion with a pipe, and twice filled his glass; “he’s hard to manage, I take it?”
“Yer’ right,” said Billy; “every touch is a blow, every breath of air is a hurricane with him. There ‘s no such thing as traitin’ a man of that timperament; it’s the same with many of them ould families as with our racehorses, – they breed them too fine.”
“Egad! I think you are right,” said Harcourt, pleased with an illustration that suited his own modes of thinking.
“Yes, sir,” said Billy, gaining confidence by the approval; “a man is a ma-chine, and all the parts ought to be balanced, and, as the ancients say, in equilibrio. If preponderance here or there, whether it be brain or spinal marrow, cardiac functions or digestive ones, you disthroy him, and make that dangerous kind of constitution that, like a horse with a hard mouth, or a boat with a weather helm, always runs to one side.”
“That’s well put, well explained,” said Harcourt, who really thought the illustration appropriate.
“Now, my lord there,” continued Billy, “is all out of balance, every bit of him. Bleed him, and he sinks; stimulate him, and he goes ragin’ mad. ‘T is their physical conformation makes their character; and to know how to cure them in sickness, one ought to have some knowledge of them in health.”
“How came you to know all this? You are a very remarkable fellow, Billy.”
“I am, sir; I’m a phenumenon in a small way. And many people thinks, when they see and convarse with me, what a pity it is I hav’ n’t the advantages of edication and instruction; and that’s just where they ‘re wrong, – complately wrong.”
“Well, I confess I don’t perceive that.”
“I’ll show you, then. There’s a kind of janius natural to men like myself, – in Ireland I mean, for I never heerd of it elsewhere, – that’s just like our Irish emerald or Irish diamond, – wonderful if one considers where you find it, astonishin’ if you only think how azy it is to get, but a regular disappointment, a downright take-in, if you intend to have it cut and polished and set. No, sir; with all the care and culture in life, you ‘ll never make a precious stone of it!”
“You’ve not taken the right way to convince me, by using such an illustration, Billy.”
“I ‘ll try another, then,” said Billy. “We are like Willy-the-Whisps, showing plenty of light where there’s no road to travel, but of no manner of use on the highway, or in the dark streets of a village where one has business.”
“Your own services here are the refutation to your argument, Billy,” said Harcourt, filling his glass.
“‘Tis your kindness to say so, sir,” said Billy, with gratified pride; “but the sacrat was, he thrusted me, – that was the whole of it. All the miracles of physic is confidence, just as all the magic of eloquence is conviction.”
“You have reflected profoundly, I see,” said Harcourt.
“I made a great many observations at one time of my life, – the opportunity was favorable.”
“When and how was that?”
“I travelled with a baste caravan for two years, sir; and there’s nothing taches one to know mankind like the study of bastes!”
“Not complimentary to humanity, certainly,” said Harcourt, laughing.
“Yes, but it is, though; for it is by a consideration of the fero naturo that you get at the raal nature of mere animal existence. You see there man in the rough, as a body might say, just as he was turned out of the first workshop, and before he was infiltrated with the divinus afflatus, the ethereal essence, that makes him the first of creation. There ‘s all the qualities, good and bad, – love, hate, vengeance, gratitude, grief, joy, ay, and mirth, – there they are in the brutes; but they ‘re in no subjection, except by fear. Now, it’s out of man’s motives his character is moulded, and fear is only one amongst them. D’ ye apprehend me?”
“Perfectly; fill your pipe.” And he pushed the tobacco towards him.
“I will; and I ‘ll drink the memory of the great and good man that first intro-duced the weed amongst us – Here’s Sir Walter Raleigh! By the same token, I was in his house last week.”
“In his house! where?”
“Down at Greyhall. You Englishmen, savin’ your presence, always forget that many of your celebrities lived years in Ireland; for it was the same long ago as now, – a place of decent banishment for men of janius, a kind of straw-yard where ye turned out your intellectual hunters till the sayson came on at home.”
“I ‘m sorry to see, Billy, that, with all your enlightenment, you have the vulgar prejudice against the Saxon.”
“And that’s the rayson I have it, because it is vulgar,” said Billy, eagerly. “Vulgar means popular, common to many; and what’s the best test of truth in anything but universal belief, or whatever comes nearest to it? I wish I was in Parliament – I just wish I was there the first night one of the nobs calls out ‘That ‘s vulgar;’ and I ‘d just say to him, ‘Is there anything as vulgar as men and women? Show me one good thing in life that is n’t vulgar! Show me an object a painter copies, or a poet describes, that is n’t so!’ Ayeh,” cried he, impatiently, “when they wanted a hard word to fling at us, why didn’t they take the right one?”
“But you are unjust, Billy; the ungenerous tone you speak of is fast disappearing. Gentlemen nowadays use no disparaging epithets to men poorer or less happily circumstanced than themselves.”
“Faix,” said Billy, “it isn’t sitting here at the same table with yourself that I ought to gainsay that remark.”
And Harcourt was so struck by the air of good breeding in which he spoke, that he grasped his hand, and shook it warmly.
“And what is more,” continued Billy, “from this day out I ‘ll never think so.”
He drank off his glass as he spoke, giving to the libation all the ceremony of a solemn vow.
“D’ ye hear that? – them’s oars; there’s a boat coming in.”
“You have sharp hearing, master,” said Harcourt, laughing.
“I got the gift when I was a smuggler,” replied he. “I could put my ear to the ground of a still night, and tell you the tramp of a revenue boot as well as if I seen it. And now I’ll lay sixpence it’s Pat Morissy is at the bow oar there; he rows with a short jerking stroke there ‘s no timing. That’s himself, and it must be something urgent from the post-office that brings him over the lough to-night.”
The words were scarcely spoken when Craggs entered with a letter in his hand.
“This is for you, Colonel,” said he; “it was marked ‘immediate,’ and the post-mistress despatched it by an express.”
The letter was a very brief one; but, in honor to the writer, we shall give it a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER VII. A GREAT DIPLOMATIST
My dear Harcourt, – I arrived here yesterday, and by good fortune caught your letter at F. O., where it was awaiting the departure of the messenger for Germany.
Your account of poor Glencore is most distressing. At the same time, my knowledge of the man and his temper in a measure prepared me for it. You say that he wishes to see me, and intends to write. Now, there is a small business matter between us, which his lawyer seems much disposed to push on to a difficulty, if not to worse. To prevent this, if possible, – at all events to see whether a visit from me might not be serviceable, – I shall cross over to Ireland on Tuesday, and be with you by Friday, or at latest Saturday. Tell him that I am coming, but only for a day. My engagements are such that I must be here again early in the following week. On Thursday I go down to Windsor.
There is wonderfully little stirring here, but I keep that little for our meeting. You are aware, my dear friend, what a poor, shattered, broken-down fellow I am; so that I need not ask you to give me a comfortable quarter for my one night, and some shell-fish, if easily procurable, for my one dinner.
Yours, ever and faithfully,
H. U.
We have already told our reader that the note was a brief one, and yet was it not altogether uncharacteristic. Sir Horace Upton – it will spare us both some repetition if we present him at once – was one of a very composite order of human architecture; a kind of being, in fact, of which many would deny the existence, till they met and knew them, so full of contradictions, real and apparent, was his nature. Chivalrous in sentiment and cunning in action, noble in aspiration and utterly sceptical as regards motives, one half of his temperament was the antidote to the other. Fastidious to a painful extent in matters of taste, he was simplicity itself in all the requirements of his life; and with all a courtier’s love of great people, not only tolerating, but actually preferring the society of men beneath him. In person he was tall, and with that air of distinction in his manner that belongs only to those who unite natural graces with long habits of high society. His features were finely formed, and would have been strikingly handsome, were the expression not spoiled by a look of astuteness, – a something that implied a tendency to overreach, – which marred their repose and injured their uniformity. Not that his manner ever betrayed this weakness; far from it, – his was a most polished courtesy. It was impossible to conceive an address more bland or more conciliating. His very gestures, his voice, languid by a slight habit of indisposition, seemed as though exerted above their strength in the desire to please, and making the object of his attentions to feel himself the mark of peculiar honor. There ran through all his nature, through everything he did or said or thought, a certain haughty humility, which served, while it assigned an humble place to himself, to mark out one still more humble for those about him. There were not many things he could not do; indeed, he had actually done most of those which win honor and distinction in life. He had achieved a very gallant but brief military career in India, made a most brilliant opening in Parliament, where his abilities at once marked him out for office, was suspected to be the writer of the cleverest political satire, and more than suspected to be the author of “the novel” of the day. With all this, he had great social success. He was deep enough for a ministerial dinner, and “fast” enough for a party of young Guardsmen at Greenwich. With women, too, he was especially a favorite; there was a Machiavelian subtlety which he could throw into small things, a mode of making the veriest trifles little Chinese puzzles of ingenuity, that flattered and amused them. In a word, he had great adaptiveness, and it was a quality he indulged less for the gratification of others than for the pleasure it afforded himself.
He had mixed largely in society, not only of his own, but of every country of Europe. He knew every chord of that complex instrument which people call the world, like a master; and although a certain jaded and wearied look, a tone of exhaustion and fatigue, seemed to say that he was tired of it all, that he had found it barren and worthless, the real truth was, he enjoyed life to the full as much as on the first day in which he entered it; and for this simple reason, – that he had started with an humble opinion of mankind, their hopes, fears, and ambitions, and so he continued, not disappointed, to the end.
The most governing notion of his own life was an impression that he had a disease of the chest, some subtle and mysterious affection which had defied the doctors, and would go on to defy them to the last. He had been dangerously wounded in the Burmese war, and attributed the origin of his malady to this cause. Others there were who said that the want of recognition to his services in that campaign was the direst of all the injuries he had received. And true it was, a most brilliant career had met with neither honors nor advancement, and Upton left the service in disgust, carrying away with him only the lingering sufferings of his wound. To suggest to him that his malady had any affinity to any known affection was to outrage him, since the mere supposition would reduce him to a species of equality with some one else, – a thought infinitely worse than any mere physical suffering; and, indeed, to avoid this shocking possibility, he vacillated as to the locality of his disorder, making it now in the lung, now in the heart, at one time in the bronchial tubes, at another in the valves of the aorta. It was his pleasure to consult for this complaint every great physician of Europe, and not alone consult, but commit himself to their direction, and this with a credulity which he could scarcely have summoned in any other cause.
It was difficult to say how far he himself believed in this disorder, – the pressure of any momentous event, the necessity of action, never finding him unequal to any effort, no matter how onerous. Give him a difficulty, – a minister to outwit, a secret scheme to unravel, a false move to profit by, – and he rose above all his pulmonary symptoms, and could exert himself with a degree of power and perseverance that very few men could equal, none surpass. Indeed it seemed as though he kept this malady for the pastime of idle hours, as other men do a novel or a newspaper, but would never permit it to interfere with the graver business of life.
We have, perhaps, been prolix in our description; but we have felt it the more requisite to be thus diffuse, since the studious simplicity which marked all his manner might have deceived our reader, and which the impression of his mere words have failed to convey.
“You will be glad to hear Upton is in England, Glen-core,” said Harcourt, as the sick man was assisted to his seat in the library, “and, what is more, intends to pay you a visit.”
“Upton coming here!” exclaimed Glencore, with an expression of mingled astonishment and confusion; “how do you know that?”
“He writes me from Long’s to say that he ‘ll be with us by Friday, or, if not, by Saturday.”
“What a miserable place to receive him!” exclaimed Glencore. “As for you, Harcourt, you know how to rough it, and have bivouacked too often under the stars to care much for satin curtains. But think of Upton here! How is he to eat, where is he to sleep?”
“By Jove! we ‘ll treat him handsomely. Don’t you fret yourself about his comforts; besides, I ‘ve seen a great deal of Upton, and, with all his fastidiousness and refinement, he’s a thorough good fellow at taking things for the best. Invite him to Chatsworth, and the chances are he’ll find fault with twenty things, – with the place, the cookery, and the servants; but take him down to the Highlands, lodge him in a shieling, with bannocks for breakfast and a Fyne herring for supper, and I ‘ll wager my life you ‘ll not see a ruffle in his temper, nor hear a word of impatience out of his mouth.”
“I know that he is a well-bred gentleman,” said Glencore, half pettishly; “but I have no fancy for putting his good manners to a severe test, particularly at the cost of my own feelings.”
“I tell you again he shall be admirably treated; he shall have my room; and, as for his dinner, Master Billy and I are going to make a raid amongst the lobster-pots. And what with turbot, oysters, grouse-pie, and mountain mutton, I ‘ll make the diplomatist sorrow that he is not accredited to some native sovereign in the Arran islands, instead of some ‘mere German Hertzog.’ He can only stay one day.”
“One day!”
“That’s all; he is over head and ears in business, and he goes down to Windsor on Thursday, so that there is no help for it.”
“I wish I may be strong enough; I hope to Heaven that I may rally – ” Glencore stopped suddenly as he got thus far, but the agitation the words cost him seemed most painful.
“I say again, don’t distress yourself about Upton, – leave the care of entertaining him to me. I ‘ll vouch for it that he leaves us well satisfied with his welcome.”
“It was not of that I was thinking,” said he, impatiently; “I have much to say to him, – things of great importance. It may be that I shall be unequal to the effort; I cannot answer for my strength for a day, – not for an hour. Could you not write to him, and ask him to defer his coming till such time as he can spare me a week, or at least some days?”
“My dear Glencore, you know the man well, and that we are lucky if we can have him on his own terms, not to think of imposing ours; he is sure to have a number of engagements while he is in England.”
“Well, be it so,” said Glencore, sighing, with the air of a man resigning himself to an inevitable necessity.