“This is Fourteen, Sir; and considered very good,” said the butler, obsequiously; for humble as the guest appeared, his master’s orders were to treat him with every deference and attention.
“Fourteen or fifteen, I don’t care which,” said O’Rorke, not aware to what the date referred; “but the wine pleases me, and I’ll have another bottle of it.”
He prolonged his beatitude till midnight, and though Mr. Fisk came twice to suggest that Mr. Ladarelle would like to see him, O’Rorke’s answer was, each time, “The day for business, the evening for relaxation; them’s my sentiments, young man.”
At last a more peremptory message arrived, that Mr. Ladarelle wanted him at once, and O’Rorke, with a promptitude that astonished the messenger, arose, and cooling his brow and bathing his temples with a wet napkin, seemed in an instant to restore himself to his habitual calm.
“Where is he?” asked he.
“In his dressing-room. I’ll show you the way,” said Fisk. “I don’t think you’ll find him in a pleasant humour, though. You’ve tried his patience a bit.”
“Not so easy to get speech of you, Mr. O’Rorke,” said Ladarelle, when they were alone. “This is about the third or fourth time I have sent to say I wanted you.”
“The port, Sir, the port! It was impossible to leave it. Indeed, I don’t know how I tore myself away at last.”
“It will be your own fault if you haven’t a bin of it in your cellar at home.”
“How so?”
“I mean that as this old place and all belonging to it must one day be mine, it will be no very difficult matter to me to recompense the man who has done me a service.”
“And are you the heir, Sir?” asked O’Rorke, for the first time his voice indicating a tone of deference.
“Yes, it all comes to me; but my old relative is bent on trying my patience. What would you say his age was?”
“He’s not far off eighty.”
“He wants six or seven years of it. Indeed, until the other day he did not look seventy. He broke down all at once.”
“That’s the way they all do,” said O’Rorke, sententiously.
“Yes, but now and then they make a rally, Master O’Rorke, and that’s what I don’t fancy; do you understand me?”
In the piercing look that accompanied these words there seemed no common significance, and O’Rorke, drawing closer to the speaker, dropped his voice to a mere whisper, and said, “Do you want to get rid of him?”
“I’d be much obliged to him if he would die,” said the other, with a laugh.
“Of course—of course—that’s what I mean,” said O’Rorke, who now began to suspect he was going too fast.
“I’ll be frank with you, O’Rorke, because I want you; but, first of all, there’s the letter I had for you.” And he pitched the document across the table.
O’Rorke drew the candle towards him, and perused the paper slowly and carefully..
“Well!” said Ladarelle, when he had finished—“well! what do you say to that?”
“I say two things to it,” said O’Rorke, calmly. “The first is, what am I to do? and the second is, what am I to get for it?”
“What you are to do is this: you are to serve my interests, and help me in every way in your power.”
“Am I to break the law?” burst in O’Rorke.
“No—at least, no very serious breach.”
“Nothing against that old man up there?” And he made a strange and significant gesture, implying violence.
“No, no, nothing of the kind. You don’t think me such a fool as to risk a halter out of mere impatience. I’ll run neither you nor myself into such danger as that. When I said you were to serve me, it was in such ways as a man may help another by zeal, activity, ready-wittedness, and now and then, perhaps, throwing overboard a few scruples, and proving his friendship by straining his conscience.”
“Well, I won’t haggle about that. My conscience is a mighty polite conscience, and never drops in on me without an invitation!”
“The man I want—the very man. Grenfell told me you were,” said
Ladarelle, taking his hand, and shaking it cordially. “Now let me see if you can be as frank with me as I have been with you, O’Rorke. What was this letter that you brought here this evening? Was it from her?”
“It was.”
“From herself—by her own hand?”
“By her own hand!”
“Are you perfectly sure of that?”
“I saw her write it.”
Ladarelle took a turn up and down the room after this without speaking. At last he broke out: “And this is the high spirit and the pride they’ve been cramming me with! This is the girl they affected to say would die of hunger rather than ask forgiveness!”
“And they knew her well that said it. It’s just what she’d do!”
“How can you say that now? Here she is begging to be taken back again!”
“Who says so?”
“Was not that the meaning of the letter?”
“It was not—the devil a bit of it! I know well what was in it, though I didn’t read it. It was to ask Sir Within Wardle to send her some money to pay for the defence of her grandfather, that’s to be tried for murder next Tuesday week. It nearly broke her heart to stoop to it, but I made her do it. She called it a shame and a disgrace, and the tears ran down her face; and, by my soul, it’s not a trifle would make the same young lady cry!”
“After all, the intention is to open a way to come back here?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I suspect, Master O’Rorke, this is rather a pleasanter place to live in than the Arran Islands.”
“So it is; there’s no doubt of that! But she is young, and thinks more about her pride than her profit—not to say that she comes of a stock that’s as haughty in their own wild way as ever a peer in the land.”
“There never was a better bait to catch that old man there than this same pride. She has just hit upon the key to move him. What did he say when he read the letter?”
“He couldn’t speak for a while, but kept wiping his eyes and trembling all over.”
“And then?”
“And then he said, ‘Stop here to-night, Mr. O’Rorke, and I’ll have your answer ready for you in the morning.’”
“And shall I tell you what it will be? It will be to implore her to come back here. She can have her own terms now; she may be My Lady.”
“Do you mean his wife?”
“I do.”
O’Rorke gave a long whistle, and stood a perfect picture of amazement and wonder.
“That was playing for a big stake! May I never! if I thought she was bowld enough for that. That she was. And how she missed it, to this hour I never knew. But whatever happened between them was, one evening, on the strand at a sea-side place abroad. That much I learned from her maid, who was in my pay; and it must have been serious, for she left the house that night, and never returned; and, what is more, never wrote one line to him till this letter that you carried here yesterday.”
So astounded was O’Rorke by what he heard, that for some minutes he scarcely followed what Ladarelle was saying.
“So that,” continued Ladarelle, “it may not be impossible that he had the hardihood to make her some such proposal.”
“Do you mean without marriage?” broke in O’Rorke, suddenly catching the clue. “Do you mean that?”
The other nodded.
“No, by all that’s holy!” cried O’Rorke. “That he never did! You might trick her, you might cheat her—and it wouldn’t be so easy to do it, either—but, take my word for it, the man that would insult her, and get off free, isn’t yet born!”
“What could she do, except go off?” said Ladarelle, scoffingly.
“That’s not the stuff they’re made of where she comes from, young man.”
And, in his eagerness, he for a moment forgot all respect and deference; nor did the other seem to resent the liberty, for he only smiled as he heard it, and then said:
“All I have been telling you now is merely to prepare you for what I want you to do, and mind, if you stand by me faithfully and well, your fortune is made. I ask no man’s help without being ready and willing to pay for it—to pay handsomely, too! Is that intelligible?”
“Quite intelligible.”
“Now, the short and long of the story is this: If this old fool were to marry that girl, he could encumber my estate—for it is mine—with a jointure, and I have no fancy to pay some twelve or fifteen hundred a year—perhaps more—to Biddy somebody, and have, besides, a lawsuit for plate, or pictures, or china, or jewels, that she claimed as matter of gift—and all this, that an old worn-out rake should end his life with an act of absurdity!”
“And he could leave her fifteen hundred a year for ever,” muttered O’Rorke, thoughtfully.
“Nothing of the kind. For her life only; and even that, I believe, we might break by law—at least, Palmer says so.”.
All this Ladarelle said hastily, for he half suspected he had made a grievous blunder in pointing out the wealth to which she would succeed as Sir Within’s widow.
“I see—I see!” muttered O’Rorke, thoughtfully; which simply meant that there was a great deal to be said for each side of the question.
“What are you thinking of?” said Ladarelle at last, losing patience at his prolonged silence.
“I’m just wondering to myself if she ever knew how near she was to being My Lady.”
“How near, or how far off, you mean!”
“No, I don’t! I just mean what I said—how near. You don’t know her as well as I do, that’s clear!” Another long pause followed these words, and each followed out his own train of thought. At length, Ladarelle, not at all satisfied, as it seemed, with his own diplomacy, said, half-impatiently: “My friend Grenfell said, if there was any one who would understand how to deal with this matter, you were the man; and it was with that view he gave me the letter you have just read.”
“Oh! there’s many a way to deal with it,” said O’Rorke, who was not insensible to the flattery. “That is to say, if she was anything else but the girl she is, there would be no trouble at all in it.”
“You want me to believe that she is something very uncommon, and that she knows the world, like a woman of fashion.”
“I know nothing about women of fashion, but I never saw man or woman yet was ‘cuter than Katty O’Hara, or Luttrell, as she calls herself now.”
“She did not play her cards here so cunningly, that’s plain,” said Ladarelle, with a sneer. “Maybe I can guess why.”
“What is your guess, then?”
“Something happened that wounded her pride! If anything did that, she’d forget herself and her advantage—ay, her very life—and she’d think of nothing but being revenged. That’s the blood that’s in her!”
“So that her pride is her weak point?”
“You have it now! That’s it. I think she’d rather have died than write that letter the other morning, and if the answer isn’t what she expects, I don’t think she’ll get over it! Without,” added he, quickly, “it would drive her to some vengeance or other, if she was to see the way to any.”
“I begin to understand her,” said Ladarelle, thoughtfully. “The devil a bit of you! And if you were to think of it for twenty years, you wouldn’t understand her! She beats me, and I don’t suspect that you do.”
This was one of those thrusts it was very hard to bear without wincing, but Ladarelle turned away, and concealed the pain he felt.
“It is evident, then, Mr. O’Rorke, that you don’t feel yourself her match?”
“I didn’t say that; but it would be no disgrace if I did say it,” was the cautious answer.
“Mr. Grenfell assured me, that with a man like yourself to aid me, I need not be afraid of any difficulty. Do you feel as if he said too much for you, or has he promised more than you like to fulfil? You see, by what I have told you, that I should be very sorry to see that girl here again, or know that she was likely to regain any part of her old influence over my relative. Now, though her present letter does not touch either of these points, it opens a correspondence; don’t you perceive that?”
“Go on,” said O’Rorke, half sulkily, for a sort of doubt was creeping over him that possibly his services ought to be retained by the other party.
“And if they once begin writing letters, and if she only be as ready with her pen as you say she is with her tongue, there’s nothing to prevent her being back here this day week, on any terms she pleases.”
“Faix, and there are worse places! May I never! if I’d wonder that she’d like to be mistress of it.”
For the second time had Ladarelle blundered in his negotiation, and he was vexed and angry as he perceived it.
“That’s not all so plain and easy, Mr. O’Rorke, as you imagine. When old men make fools of themselves, the law occasionally takes them at their word, and pronounces them insane. So long as Sir Within’s eccentricities were harmless, we bore them, but I’ll not promise our patience for serious injury.”
If O’Rorke was not convinced by this threat, he was sufficiently staggered by it to become more thoughtful, and at last he said: “And what is it you’d propose to do?”
“I’d rather put that question to you,” said Ladarelle, softly. “You have the case before you, what’s your remedy?”
“If she was any other girl, I’d say give her a couple of hundred pounds, and get her married and out of the way.”
“And why not do so here?”
“Because it would be no use; that’s the why.”
“Is she not a peasant? Are not all belonging to her people in the very humblest station; and not blessed with the best possible reputations?”
“They’re poor enough, if that’s what you mean; and they’re the very sort of men that would make mighty short work of you, if you were to harm one belonging to them.”
“I promise you faithfully I’ll not go to reside in the neighbourhood,” said Ladarelle, with a laugh.
“I’ve known them track a man to America before now.”
“Come, come, Mr. O’Rorke, your countrymen may be as like Red Indians as you please, but they have no terrors for me.”
“So much the better; but I’ve seen just as big men as yourself afraid of them.”
The quiet coolness of this speech sent a far stronger sense of fear through the other’s heart than any words of menace could have done, and it required a great effort on his part to seem collected.
“You say she cannot be bought over, O’Rorke; now, what other line is open to us?”
O’Rorke made no reply, but seemed lost in thought.
“What if she were to believe that Sir Within wouldn’t receive her letter, or read it, and sent back a cold, unfeeling answer?” Still no answer passed his lips. “If,” continued Ladarelle, “you were to return and say you had failed, what would she do then? She’d never write to him again, I suppose?”
“Never, that you may depend upon, but it wouldn’t be so easy to make her believe it.”
“That might be managed. First of all, tell me how she would take the tidings.”
“I don’t know. I could not even guess.”
“At all events, she’d not write to him again?”
“For that I’ll answer. I believe I could take my oath on it.”
“Now, then, the game is easy enough,” said Ladarelle, with a more assured tone. “You are to have Sir Within’s answer to-morrow. When you get it, set out for Wrexham, where I’ll meet you. We’ll open it and read it. If it be a simple acceptance of her note, and a mere compliance with her request, I’ll re-seal it with his crest, and you shall take it on to her; but if, as I suspect, the old man will make an effort to renew their former relations, and throw out any bait to induce her to come back here——”
“Well, what then?” asked O’Rorke, after waiting a few seconds for the other to continue.
“In that case we must lay our heads together, O’Rorke, and see what’s best to be done.”
“And the old man that’s in gaol, and that’s to be tried on the 19th, what’s to be done about him?”
“I’ll think of that.”
“He hasn’t a great chance anyway, but if there’s no defence, it’s all up with him.”
“I’ll think of that.”
“Then there’s myself,” said O’Rorke, drawing his figure up to his full height, as though the subject was one that entailed no painful modesty. “What about me?”
“I have thought of that already. Put that in your pocket, for the present”—and he pressed a note into his hand—“and when to-morrow comes you shall name your own conditions. Only stand by me to the end—mind that.”
O’Rorke opened the bank-note leisurely, and muttered the word “Twenty;” and certainly nothing in the accent showed enthusiastic gratitude.
“I can give you an order on my banker to-morrow,” said Ladarelle, hurriedly, “but I am rather low in cash here, just now; and I repeat it—your own terms, O’Rorke, your own terms.”
“I suppose so,” was the dry rejoinder.
“It’s not everybody would make you the same proposal.”
“It’s not everybody has so much need of me as you have.”
Ladarelle tried to laugh as he wished him good night, but the attempt was a poor one, and all he could say, as they parted, was:
“Wrexham—the Boar’s Head—the inn on the left hand as you enter the town. I’ll be on the look-out for you myself.”
O’Rorke nodded and withdrew.
“Vulgar scoundrel! I wish I had never spoken to him!” said Ladarelle, as soon as the door closed. “This is all Grenfell’s doing; he has just shoved me into the hands of a fellow that will only serve me till he finds a higher bidder. What a fool I have been to open myself to him; and he sees it well! And as for the ready-wittedness and expediency, I wonder where they are! Why, the rascal had not a single suggestion to offer; he kept on harping about the difficulties, and never a word did he drop as to how to meet them.”
And, with a hearty malediction on him, Ladarelle concluded his meditation, and went off to sleep.
CHAPTER LI. THE BOAR’S HEAD
Ladarelle stood at a window of the Boar’s Head which commanded a view of the road into the town, and waited, watch in hand, for O’Rorke’s coming. The morning passed, and noon, and it was late in the day when a wearied horse, over-driven and steaming, drew up at the door, and the long looked-for traveller alighted.
Though burning with impatience to learn his news, Ladarelle saw the necessity of concealing his anxiety, and, opening his writing-desk, he affected to be deeply engaged writing when, conducted by a waiter, O’Rorke appeared.
A single glance as he passed the threshold told Ladarelle that his tidings were important. Already the fellow’s swagger declared it, and in the easy confidence with which he sat down, and in the careless way he rather threw than laid his hat on the table, might be seen that he felt himself “master of the situation.”
“You are later than I expected,” said Ladarelle, carelessly.
“I didn’t leave the place till after twelve. He made me go over the gardens and the forcing-houses, and after that the stables, till at one time I thought I’d not get away till to-morrow.”
“And what do you think of it all?”
“Grand!—grand! It’s the finest place I ever saw, and well kept up, too! There’s eight men in the garden, and the head-gardener told me he might have as many more, if he wanted them.”
“The horses are overfed; they are like prize oxen.”
“They’re fat, to be sure; but it’s fine to see them standing there, with their glossy skins, and their names over them, and their tails hanging down like tassels, and no more call for them to work than if they were lords themselves.”
“I’ll make a grand clearance of all that rubbish one day. I’ll have none of those German elephants, I promise you, when I come to the property.”
“He isn’t going to make room for you yet awhile, he says,” said O’Rorke, with a grin.
“What do you mean?”
“If what he said to me this morning is to be relied on, he means to marry.”
“And haye a family, perhaps?” added Ladarelle, with a laugh.
“He said nothing about that; he talked like a man that hoped to see many years, and happy ones.”
“No one ever lived the longer for wishing it, or else we heirs-expectant would have a bad time of it. But this is not the question. What answer did he give you?”
“There it is!”
And, as he spoke, he drew from his breast-pocket a large square-shaped letter, massively sealed, and after showing the address, “Miss Luttrell,” on the cover, he replaced it in his pocket.
“Do you know what’s in it?” asked Ladarelle, sharply.
“Only that there’s money, that’s all, for he said to me, ‘Any banker will cash it.’”
Ladarelle took a couple of turns of the room without speaking; then, coming directly in front of the other, he said:
“Now, then, Mr. O’Rorke, which horse do you back? Where do you stand to win? I mean, are you going to serve Sir Within or me?”
“He is the bird in the hand, any way!” said O’Rorke, with a grin of malicious meaning.
“Well, if you think so, I have no more to say, only that as shrewd a man as you are might see that an old fellow on the verge of the grave is not likely to be as lasting a friend as a man like myself. In other words, which life would you prefer in your lease?”
O’Rorke made no answer, but seemed sunk in thought.
“I’ll put the case before you in three words. You might help this girl in her plans—you might aid her so far that she could come back here, and remain either as this old man’s wife or mistress—I don’t know that there would be much difference, in fact, as the law stands, between the two—but how long would you be a welcome visitor here after that? You speculate on being able to come, and go, and stay here just as you please; you’d like to have this place as a home you could come to whenever you pleased, and be treated not merely with respect and attention, but with cordiality. Now, I just ask you, from what you have yourself told me of this girl, is that what you would expect when she was the mistress? Is she so staunch to her own people, that she would be true to you?”
For some minutes O’Rorke made no answer, and then, leaning both arms on the table before him, he said, in a slow, measured voice, “What do you offer me yourself?”
“I said last night, and I repeat it now, make your own terms.”
O’Rorke shook his head, and was silent.
“I am willing,” resumed Ladarelle, “to make you my land-steward, give you a house and a plot of ground rent free, and pay you eighty pounds a year. I’ll make it a hundred if I see you stand well to me!”
“I’ve got some debts,” muttered O’Rorke, in a low voice.
“What do they amount to?”
“Oh, they’re heavy enough; but I could settle them for a couple of hundreds.”
“I’ll pay them, then.”
“And, after that, I’d rather go abroad. I’d like to go and settle in Australia.”
“How much money would that require?”
“I want to set up a newspaper, and I couldn’t do it under two thousand pounds.”
“That’s a big sum, Master O’Rorke.”
“The devil a much the old man at the Castle there would think of it, if it helped him to what he wanted.”
“I mean, it’s a big sum to raise at a moment, but I don’t say it would be impossible.”
“Will you give it, then? That’s the short way to put it. Will you give it?”
“First, let me ask for what am I to give it? Is it that you will stand by me in this business to the very end, doing whatever I ask you, flinching at nothing, and taking every risk equally with myself?”
“And no risk that you don’t share yourself?”
“None!”
“It is worth thinking about, anyhow,” said O’Rorke, as he arose and paced the room, with his hands deep in his pockets; “that is, if the money is paid down—down on the nail—for I won’t take a bill, mind.”
“I’m afraid, O’Rorke, your experiences in life have not taught you to be very confiding.”
“I’ll tell you what they’ve taught me; they’ve taught me that wherever there’s money in anything, a man ought not to trust his own mother.”
In a few hurried words, Ladarelle explained that till he came to his estate, all his dealings for ready money were of the most ruinous kind; that to raise two thousand would cost him eventually nearly four; and, as he phrased it, “I’d rather see the difference in the pocket of an honest fellow who stood to me, than a rascally Jew who rogued me.”
“I’ll give you a post obit on Sir Within’s estate for three thousand, and, so far as a hundred pounds goes to pay your voyage, you shall not want it.”
O’Rorke did not at first like the terms. Whenever he ventured his chances in life, things had turned out ill; all his lottery tickets were blanks, and he shook his head doubtingly, and made no reply.
“Five o’clock already! I must be going,” said Ladarelle, suddenly looking at his watch.
“That’s a fine watch!” said O’Rorke, as he gazed at the richly-embossed crest on the case.
“If having my arms on the back is no objection to you, O’Rorke, take it. I make you a present of it.”
O’Rorke peered into his face with an inquisitiveness so full of unbelief as almost to be laughable, but the expression changed to a look of delight as Ladarelle took the chain from off his neck and handed the whole to him.
“May I never!” cried O’Rorke; “if I won’t be your equal. There’s the letter!” And he drew forth Sir Within’s despatch, and placed it in his hands.
Concealing all the delight he felt at this unlooked-for success, Ladarelle retired to the window to read the letter; nor did he at once break the seal. Some scruple—there were not many left him—did still linger amidst the wreck of his nature, and he felt that what he was about to do was a step lower in baseness than he had hitherto encountered. “After all,” muttered he, “if I hesitate about this, how am I to meet what is before me?” And so he broke the seal and tore open the envelope. “The old fool! the infatuated old fool!” broke from him, in an accent of bitter scorn, as he ran over the three lines which a trembling hand had traced. “I knew it would come to this. I said so all long. Here’s an order to pay Miss Luttrell or bearer two hundred pounds!” said he, turning to O’Rorke. “We must not cash this, or we should get into a precious scrape.”
“And what’s in the letter?” asked O’Rorke, carelessly.
“Nothing beyond his readiness to be of use, and all that. He writes with difficulty, he says, and that’s not hard to believe—an infernal scrawl it is—and he promises to send a long letter by the post tomorrow. By the way, how do they get the letters at Arran?”
“They send for them once a week to the mainland; on Saturdays, if I remember aright.”
“We must arrest this correspondence then, or we shall be discovered at once. How can we obtain her letters?”
“Easy enough. I know the boy that comes for them, and he can’t read, though he can tell the number of letters that he should have. I’ll have one ready to substitute for any that should be to her address.”
“Well thought of. I see, O’Rorke, you are the man I wanted; now listen to me attentively, and hear my plan. I must return to the Castle, and pretend that I have pressing business in town. Instead of taking the London mail, however, I shall proceed to Holyhead, where you must wait for me at the inn, the Watkins’ Arms. I hope to be there tomorrow morning early, but it may be evening before I can arrive. Wait, at all events, for my coming.”
“Remember that I promised to be back in Arran, with the answer to her letter, by Saturday.”
“So you shall. It is fully as important for me that you should keep your word.”
“Does he want her back again?” said O’Rorke, not fully satisfied that he had not seen Sir Within’s note.
“No, not exactly; at least, it is evasive, and very short. It is simply to this purport: ‘I conclude you have made a mistake by leaving me, and think you might have humility enough to acknowledge it; meanwhile, I send you a cheque for two hundred. I shall write to-morrow more fully.’”
O’Rorke was thoroughly aware, by the stammering confusion of the other’s manner, that these were not the terms of the note; but it was a matter which interested him very little, and he let it pass unchallenged. His calculation—and he had given a whole night to it—was briefly this: “If I serve Sir Within, I may possibly be well and handsomely rewarded, but I shall obtain no power of pressure upon him; under no circumstances can I extort from him one shilling beyond what he may be disposed to give me. If, on the other hand, I stand by Ladarelle, his whole character is in my hands. He is too unscrupulous not to compromise himself, and though his accomplice, I shall do everything in such a way that one day, if I need it, I may appear to have been his dupe. And such a position as this can be the source of untold money.”
Nor was it a small inducement to him to think that the side he adopted was adverse to Kate. Why he disliked her he knew not—that is, he would not have been well able to say why. Perhaps he might not readily have admitted the fact, though he well knew that to see her great, and prosperous, and high placed, a winner in that great lottery of life where he had failed so egregiously, would be to him the most intense misery, and he would have done much to prevent it.
Along with these thoughts were others, speculating on Ladarelle himself, and whom he was sorely puzzled whether to regard more as knave or fool, or an equal mixture of the two. “He’ll soon see that whatever he does he mustn’t try to cheat Tim O’Rorke,” muttered he; “and when he gets that far, I’ll not trouble myself more about his education.”
CHAPTER LII. THE NIGHT AT SEA
The Saturday—the eventful day on which Kate was to have her answer from Sir Within—came at last. It was a dark, lowering morning, and though there was scarcely an air of wind, the sea rolled heavily in, and broke in great showers of spray over the rocks, sure sign that a storm was raging at a distance.
From an early hour she had been down to the shore to watch if any boat could be seen, but not a sail could be descried, and the fishermen told her that though the wind had a faint sound in it, there were few Westport men would like to venture out in such a sea.
“If you cannot see a boat before noon, Tim Hennesy,” said she to one of the boatmen, “you’ll have to man the yawl, for I mean to go over myself.”
“It will be a hard beat against the wind, Miss,” said the man. “It will take you an hour to get out of the bay here.”
“I suppose we shall reach Westport before morning?”
“It will be no bad job if we get in by this time to-morrow.”
She turned angrily away; she hated opposition in every shape, and even the semblance of anything like discouragement chafed and irritated her.
“No sign of your messenger?” said Luttrell, from the window of the tower, whither he had gone to have a look out over the sea.
“It is early yet, Sir. If they came out on the ebb we should not see them for at least another hour.”
He made no answer, but closed the window and withdrew.
“Get me a loaf of bread, Molly, and some hard eggs and a bottle of, milk,” said Kate, as she entered the house.
“And sure, Miss, it’s not off to the mountains you’ll be going such a day as this. It will be a down-pour of rain before evening, and you have a bad cough on you already.”
“You most lend me your cloak, too, Molly,” said she, not heeding the remonstrance, “it’s much warmer than my own.”
“Ain’t I proud that it would be on your back, the Heavens bless and protect you! But where are you going that you want a cloak?”
“Go and ask my uncle if I may speak to him.”
Molly went, and came back at once to say that Mr. Luttrell was in his room below, and she might come there when she pleased.
“I am thinking of going over to Westport, Sir,” said Kate, as she passed the threshold. “My impatience is fevering me, and I want to do something.”
“Listen to the sea, young woman; it is no day to go out, and those drifting clouds tell that it will be worse by-and-by.”
“All the better if it blows a little, it will take me off thinking of other cares.”
“I’ll not hear of it—there!”
And he waved his hand as though to dismiss her, but she never moved, but stood calm and collected where she was.
“You remember, Sir, to-day is Saturday, and very little time is now left us for preparation. By going over to the mainland, I shall meet O’Rorke, and save his journey here and back again, and the chances are, that, seeing the day rough, he’d not like to leave Westport this morning.”
“I have told you my mind, that is enough,” said he, with an impatient gesture; but she stood still, and never quitted the spot. “I don’t suppose you have heard me, Miss Luttrell,” said he, with a tone of suppressed passion.
“Yes, Sir, I have heard you, but you have not heard me. My poor old grandfather’s case is imminent; whatever measures are to be taken for his defence cannot be deferred much longer. If the plan I adopted should turn out a failure, I must think of another, and that quickly.”
“What is this old peasant to me?” broke out Luttrell, fiercely. “Is this low-lived family to persecute me to my last day? You must not leave me—you shall not—I am not to be deserted for the sake of a felon!—I’ll not hear of it!—Go! Leave me?”
She moved gently towards him, and laid her hand on the back of his chair.
“Dear uncle,” said she, in a low, soft voice, “it would grieve you sorely if aught befel this poor old man—aught, I mean, that we could have prevented. Let me go and see if I cannot be of some use to him.”
“Go?—go where?—do you mean to the gaol?”
“Yes, Sir, I mean to see him.”
“The yery thing I have forbidden! The express compact by which you came here was, no intercourse with this—this—family, and now that the contact has become a stain and a disgrace, now is the moment you take to draw closer to them.”
“I want to show I am worthy to be a Lnttrell, Sir. It was their boast that they never deserted their wounded.”
“They never linked their fortunes to felons and murderers, young woman. I will hear no more of this.”
“I hope to be back here by to-morrow night, uncle,” said she, softly, and she bent down her head over him till the long silky curls of her golden hair grazed his temple.
He brushed them rudely back, and in a stern tone said:
“To such as leave this against my consent there is no road back. Do you hear me?”
“I do,” said she, faintly.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Enough, then. Leave me now, and let me have peace.”
“Uncle—dear uncle,” she began; but he stopped her at once.
“None of this—none of this with me, young woman. You are free to make your choice: you are my adopted daughter, or, you are the grandchild of a man whose claim to be notorious will soon dispute with ours. It is an easy thing to make up your mind upon.”
“I have done so already, Sir.”
“Very well, so much the better. Leave me now. I wish to be alone.”
“Let me say good-by, Sir; let me kiss your hand, and say, for the last time, how grateful I am for all your past kindness.”
He never spoke, but continued to stare at her with an expression of wonderment and surprise.
“Would you leave me, then?—would you leave me, Kate?” muttered he, at last.
“No, Sir, if the door be not closed against me—never!”
“None but yourself can close that door against you.”
“Dear, kind uncle, only hear me. It may be, that I have failed in the scheme I planned; it may be, that some other road must be found to help this poor, forlorn, friendless old man. Let me at least see him; let me give him what comfort a few kind words can give; let him know that he has sympathy in his hour of sadness.”
“Sympathy with the felon—sympathy with the murderer! I have none. I feel shame—bitter, bitter shame, that I cannot disclaim him—disavow him! My own miserable rashness and folly brought me to this! but when I descended to their poverty, I did not descend to their crimes.”
“Well,” said she, haughtily, “I have no such excuses to shelter me. I am of them by blood, as I am in heart. I’ll not desert him.”
“May your choice be fortunate,” said he, with mockery; “but remember, young woman, that when once you pass under the lintel of the gaol, you forfeit every right to enter here again. It is but fair that you know it.”
“I know it, Sir; good-by.” She stooped to take his hand, but he drew it rudely from her, and she raised the skirt of his coat to her lips and kissed it.
“Remember, young woman, if the time comes that you shall tell of this desertion of me—this cold, unfeeling desertion—take care you tell the truth. No harping on Luttrell pride, or Luttrell sternness—no pretending that it was the man of birth could not accept companionship of misery with the plebeian; but the simple fact, than when the hour of a decided allegiance came, you stood by the criminal and abandoned the gentleman. There is the simple fact; deny it if you dare!”
“There is not one will dare to question me, Sir, and your caution is unneeded.”
“Your present conduct is no guarantee for future prudence!”
“Dear uncle—” she began; but he stopped her hastily, and said:
“It is useless to recal our relationship when you have dissolved its ties.”
“Oh, Sir, do not cast me off because I am unhappy.”
“Here is your home, Kate,” said he, coldly. “Whenever you leave it, it is of your own free will, not of mine. Go now, if you wish, but remember, you go at your peril.”
She darted a fierce look at him as he uttered the last word, as though it had pierced her like a dart, and for a moment she seemed as if her temper could no longer be kept under; but with an effort she conquered, and simply saying, “I accept the peril, Sir,” she turned and left the room.
She gave her orders to the crew of the launch to get ready at once, and sent down to the boat her little basket; and then, while Molly Ryan was absent, she packed her trunk with whatever she possessed, and prepared to leave Arran, if it might be, for ever. Her tears ran fast as she bent over her task, and they relieved her overwrought mind, for she was racked and torn by a conflict—a hard conflict—in which different hopes, and fears, and ambitions warred, and struggled for the mastery.
“Here is the hour of destitution—the long dreaded hour come at last, and it finds me less prepared to brave it than I thought for. By this time to-morrow the sun will not shine on one more friendless than myself. I used to fancy with what courage I could meet this fall, and even dare it. Where is all my bravery now?”
“‘Tis blowin’ harder, Miss Kate; and Tim Hennesy says it’s only the beginnin’ of it, and that he’s not easy at all about taking you out in such weather.”
“Tell Tim Hennesy, that if I hear any more of his fears I’ll not take him. Let them carry that trunk down, Molly; I shall be away some days, and those things there are for you.”
“Sure, ain’t you coming back, Miss?” cried the woman, whose cheeks became ashy pale with terror.
“I have told you I am going for a few days; and, Molly, till I do come, be more attentive than ever to my uncle; he may miss me, and he is not well just now, and be sure you look to him. Keep the key, too, of this room of mine, unless my uncle asks for it.”
“Oh, you’re not coming back to us—you’ll never come back!” cried the poor creature, in an agony of sorrow. And she fell at Kate’s feet and grasped her dress, as though to detain her.