Interference

“Dear me, Miss Dopping!” exclaimed her hostess, rising with an effort from the depths of a low seat. “This is indeed an unexpected pleasure. It is ages since I have seen you! Do come near the fire. Ah, I forgot, you are not one of its worshippers, like me. I would rather dispense with my dinner than my fire!”

“You would not say that, if you had tried it,” rejoined Miss Dopping, seating herself bolt upright, and gazing sharply around her.

Mrs. Redmond shook her head from side to side, like a great pendulum, and leant back in her chair, and crossed her arms over her extensive waist. She was a majestic matron, dressed in black, with heavy regular features, little hard yellowish eyes, and a deliberate delivery. Her thick grey hair was covered with a black cap, and her plump hands with a pair of soiled grey kid gloves, minus their finger-tops.

Isabel or Belle—“Belle and the Dragon” were the names by which she and her mother were known in certain profane circles—lounged in an easy attitude in a basket chair, holding an Irish Times between her face and the fire. It was a handsome face, and she did well to protect it. Belle was a young lady of, shall we say, seven and twenty?—at any rate she says so herself, and looks no more, and of course every woman is the age she looks—with a pair of dangerous black eyes, straight black brows, a short upper lip, a pointed chin, and a sufficient supply of wavy dark hair. A small, graceful figure and a slender foot, were not the least of her attractions. But at present, neither figure nor foot are seen to any advantage, for she wears a dilapidated old red tea-gown, with ragged laces and stained front, and a pair of extremely passée slippers. In fact Belle’s toilette must not be too closely scanned.

“Now, don’t look at me! Don’t look at me,” she said, gesticulating with much animation, and playfully holding the newspaper between Miss Dopping and herself. “I know I am an awful object; but in winter, I never adorn myself unless I am going out—there is no one to dress for!”

“No men, you mean,” amended Miss Dopping, severely.

“Yes, I do. There is not a man at this side of Ballingoole, except Major Malone and Dr. Doran.”

“And he is an old woman,” observed Miss Finny tartly—but naturally the daughter of the late practitioner had but scant mercy on her father’s successor.

“You are a great visitor these times, Mrs. Finny,” remarked Miss Dopping, pointedly.

“Well, dear, just once in a way, you know,” returned Mrs. Finny apologetically. “Only just once in a way.”

She was a meek little lady, with a pretty, faded face, and a plaintive whine in her voice, totally different from her tall, masculine-looking daughter, who had hard features, a square jaw, and a mouth like the slit of a letter-box—and in that mouth a renowned and dreaded tongue—Maria Finny was about forty-five years of age, embittered against all mankind, and the implacable enemy of the young and well-favoured of her own sex. Poor Maria! In her life there had been but little sunshine, and not one ray of love, or the shadow of a lover. A long monotonous tale without a plot, without a hero—she had not even a hobby or a pet, she did not read, paint or write; she superintended the scanty ménage, she ruled her mother, and lived meagrely and discontentedly, an aggrieved, soured woman, with an unfulfilled youth, and a bleak, hopeless future; and yet Maria had ten times more capacity for passionate, unselfish love than brilliant Belle Redmond with her enchanting smile and sympathetic eyes. Perhaps, if Maria’s upper lip had been half an inch shorter, if her mouth had been of more reasonable dimensions, it might have made a vast difference in her destiny—who knows?

“We thought we would just look in as we were passing,” she said, continuing her mother’s explanation, “and tell Mrs. Redmond the news.”

“Yes,” broke in Mrs. Redmond, with unusual animation. “There is a stir in town, haven’t you heard?”

“That Peter Brock’s daughter is going to America after all? Of course I know that,” replied Miss Dopping contemptuously.

“Not at all,” said Maria. “Far finer news than about Mary Brock. I met Mrs. Malone driving herself into town in the donkey car; she seemed quite excited, and her face all flushed in patches. She had just had a telegram; her son, Mr. Holroyd, has come home from India on sick leave, and he has not given her any time to think it over, for he arrives to-night.”

“Delightful!” ejaculated Belle, dropping her paper, and clapping her hands softly.

“He has not been at Bridgetstown these five years, and then only for a few days,” remarked Mrs. Finny. “He and the Major don’t get on. Nor stable their horses together.”

“And no wonder,” retorted Maria forcibly. “Young Holroyd is a gentleman, and Major Malone is a gambling, greedy, selfish, old bully, and a nice respectable example for his son, Denis, spending half his time on race-courses, betting away every penny, and leaving his family paupers. It’s no wonder Mrs. Malone’s hair falls out, and she looks so heart-broken! She only keeps three servants now, and sells the vegetables and fruit, and the buttermilk, a penny a can. To my certain knowledge, she has had that brown bonnet this three years, and Cuckoo’s boots are a shame and a disgrace.”

“At any rate, she has only herself to thank,” returned Mrs. Redmond, leaning still further back in her chair, and placing two capacious slippers on the fender, where they had a fairly prominent effect.

Seeing Miss Finny’s eyes fastened on them, she said: “Well, yes, Maria, I am not ashamed of them! My London bootmaker declared that it was a real pleasure to see a foot of a fine natural size! I know you pride yourself on wearing threes, but I call your feet disjointed deformities. However, about Mrs. Malone. Holroyd left her well off, a pretty widow, with one little boy; she might have left well alone, instead of marrying a good-for-nothing half-pay major.”

“But you know, dear, he had a splendid property then,” protested Mrs. Finny, in a piteous tone.

“He has no splendid property now,” said Maria sharply; “there will not be an acre for Denis, and serve him right; an idle young scamp, it’s my belief he will never pass for the medical.”

“He is the apple of his mother’s eye,” drawled Mrs. Redmond. “She slaves for him, and screws for him, and keeps all his scrapes from the Major.”

“And the Major’s scrapes from her son George,” supplemented Maria, with a disagreeable giggle.

“Yes, the Major is a sore trial to all that are about him,” resumed Mrs. Redmond. “No one is to spend but himself. He must have good dinners and cigars and wine——”

“Whisky, you mean,” interrupted Maria with a snort.

“Well, whisky,” impatiently, “and a high dogcart, and curly-brimmed hats and patent-leather boots, but everyone else may live on potatoes and salt, and slave for him like niggers, or he roars like a mad tiger, and no one dare say a word.”

“I believe George Holroyd said a good many words to him, the last time he was here,” replied Maria, expressively.

“Yes, and he took it out of George Holroyd’s mother, as soon as his back was turned,” whined Mrs. Finny—who always spoke as if she was on the verge of tears—“and he has spent every penny of her fortune. I can’t think how they live at all; the poor things!”

“Oh, Mr. Holroyd helps them,” explained Mrs. Redmond. “Jane Bolland, at the Post Office, has often seen his cheques; he has a good private income, besides his pay.”

“Miss Dopping,” said Belle, suddenly addressing the old lady, who sat in grim, observant silence, with her purple gloves, exactly crossed on the Death’s-head handle of her umbrella; “you are the oldest inhabitant, and know everything; do tell us all about Mr. Holroyd.”

“Stuff and nonsense, Isabella! you are taking me for Jane Bolland. Go to her; she will tell you how many shirts he has to his back, how many cigars he smokes, and how much he owes his tailor; only give her time.”

“No, no, I am not thinking of Jane. I want you to tell me—I mean to tell us—what he has a year.”

“How should I know?” snarled Miss Dopping.

“A thousand?” in a coaxing tone.

“Have you a thousand?” very gruffly.

“But indeed, dear, he must have something handsome,” pleaded Mrs. Finny, “for he keeps polo ponies and racing ponies in India, and has been very kind to his mother.”

“Now, Miss Dopping,” urged Belle boldly, “do be nice to me, do tell me all about him. I am dying to see him.”

“I’ll be bound you are!” returned the old lady ferociously.

“How old is he?” continued her undaunted questioner.

“Not much younger than you are yourself,” was the brutal reply, “within a year or so of thirty.”

“Oh, you dear old thing!” cried Belle, with a somewhat dangerous gleam in her eye, but a playful wave of her paper, “you always must have your little joke.”

Miss Dopping detested Belle’s familiarities; she would almost as soon have had her nose pulled as be called “a dear old thing.” She was on the verge of some savage retort, when Mrs. Finny, who was still romantic, exclaimed pathetically: “He is so handsome in his photograph, so dark and soldierly looking—just a darling fellow.”

“Then he does not take after his dear mamma,” sneered Maria. “She is so pale and faded, she always reminds me of a white rat.”

“She has had enough to fade her, poor soul,” said Mrs. Redmond. “She has suffered for her folly. Now I may tell you, without vanity, that in my day, I was a young woman of remarkable personal attractions. I was quite a toast, and I was called the ‘Lily of Lippendale.’” (It required a strong effort of the imagination to suppose that this bulky old lady, with a very sallow complexion, could ever have been the Lily of anywhere.) “I had poems written about me, and people used to wait outside our house to see me pass, and yet, though quite a girlish widow, I would never listen to a second suitor.”

Here Miss Finny sniffed incredulously, and her mother said: “I wonder if Mr. Holroyd will see many changes.”

“To be sure he will,” snapped Maria; “why wouldn’t he? He will see the Major redder and stouter, his mother whiter and thinner, Cuckoo as ugly as one of her own young namesakes, and Denis, an idle ne’er-do-weel, sponging on his family, and playing spoil five in the stables.”

“Don’t you find it very cold over there?” screamed Miss Dopping, suddenly addressing a figure in a distant window.

A girl who was ripping some article of dress by the fading daylight, looked up and glanced interrogatively at Mrs. Redmond.

“Yes, Betty, my darling, I am sure you cannot see any longer; you must be perished; come to the fire.”

In answer to this invitation, Betty approached and stretched a pair of thin red hands towards the blaze. She was tall and slender, and had a low, broad forehead, delicate features, and quantities of bright brown hair. To a superficial observer, she was merely a gaunt, pale, shabby girl, who looked both cold and cross, and not to be named in the same year with our pretty, sparkling Belle, who was toasting her toes so comfortably on the fender. But when the sun lit up the golden tints of her magnificent hair; when the wind gave her white cheeks a wild rose tinge; when a smile illuminated her fathomless grey eyes, Betty, too, had her admirers.

“Mr. Holroyd will be quite a catch,” remarked Mrs. Redmond, rubbing her hands complacently, “and those Wilde girls will be sure to ask him over, although they have not called on his mother for years. He will show a very poor spirit if he goes near them; they never ask anyone inside their house except young men; they are always having ‘friends of their brothers,’ as they call them, to stay at Mantrap Hall, as you have named it, Maria; and a capital name it is.”

“I wonder if he sings?” said Belle meditatively.

“Like his mother,” exclaimed Maria, casting up her eyes to the ceiling.

“I hope not, poor unfortunate woman! her singing reminds me of a dog baying at the moon. She ought to be muzzled at the piano.”

Miss Dopping looked as if she thought some one else might as well be muzzled too!

“Mother,” continued Belle, “we really must have the piano tuned, and must make some smart aprons and caps for Eliza. I shall write to Madame Rosalie by to-night’s post. I have not a single decent dress, neither have you.”

“What a stir, and what a fuss about one very ordinary young man!” growled Miss Dopping. “After all he may be engaged to some girl in India!”

“He may,” agreed Belle, “but, at any rate, he is not ordinary, is he, Maria?” turning a look of tragic appeal on Miss Finny, “you have seen him?”

“Yes, years ago; he was nothing very remarkable; he had nice eyes and a good figure, and looked like a gentleman, which is more than we can say for his step-brother, Denis.”

Maria’s verdict was accepted in solemn affirmative silence, and, after a little desultory conversation on a less absorbing topic than Mr. Holroyd, the Finnys and Miss Dopping departed into the darkness of a chill November afternoon at the thirsty hour of five o’clock.

As they poked their way down the greasy avenue, Maria exclaimed: “What a mean old woman! She had not the heart to offer us a cup of tea. Mark my words, mother, Belle Redmond will do her best to catch George Holroyd.”

“Why? What makes you say that, dearie?”

“Why? a child could tell you, and give you twenty reasons,” said Miss Finny contemptuously. “She hates Noone, and would marry a tinker, to get away from it. She is not as young as she was, and is desperately afraid of being an old maid. She adores officers, and would give ten years of her life to go to India. Mr. Holroyd is in the army; his regiment is in India; he has private means, and is so to speak ‘made to her hand;’ she will do all in her power to marry him. What do you say, Miss Dopping?”

“I say that I hope the Lord will deliver him,” replied the old lady very piously.

“Amen!” responded Maria Finny, with the fervency of a prayer.