Volume I Part 18 (1/2)

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XII.

A MOTHER'S WILES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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