The Earl's promise

Decided as to the course she should pursue, Grace quickened her steps, and proceeded at a more rapid pace along the broad, gravelled walk, where the branches of the trees and rare shrubs which abounded at Bayview drooped over the murmuring sea.

In the semi-darkness she could see her home; an oblong substantial house, with its windows opening on two sides to terraces commanding wide and beautiful views over land and water.

Some former owner of Bayview, possessed of that taste for landscape gardening which at one time must have been as distinguishing a trait of Irish character as it now appears to be of English, had lodged Bayview in a perfect bowery of all rare and exquisite shrubs; shrubs that, though they have become common enough since and easy enough of purchase, are still not so generally to be found planted in the grounds surrounding houses of moderate pretensions, owned by gentlemen of modest though sufficient income, as they should. Between the French windows were trained, on trelliswork against the wall, myrtles that grew luxuriantly out-of-doors, and were covered year after year with bud and flower. Peeping here and there through the dark green foliage, and laying their bright cheeks against the white myrtle blossoms, were roses, pink and red. Pyracantha, honeysuckles, magnolias, and a creeper with great leaves, the name of which I never knew, the like of which I have never seen elsewhere, filled up other spaces and covered the bed-room windows with a marvellous amount of varied greenery. A hedge of sweet-briar, along which passionflowers trailed in wild profusion, growing as freely as briony and convolvulus elsewhere, divided the southern terrace and pleasure-grounds from the kitchen-gardens, whilst the western terrace terminated in a flight of stone steps, with heavy stone balustrades, leading on to the avenue.

Beyond the terrace lay the lawns and shrubberies, the former studded with artistically-placed groups of trees and evergreens, the latter a tangled mass of tangled surprises to visitors who found themselves one moment admiring the golden flowers of the common laburnum and the next pausing to look at a magnificent Italian broom; who could scarcely believe the Portuguese laurel could ever bloom with such a lavish wealth of white cones as they beheld rising tier over tier above their heads; who rubbed their fingers gently up the stem of the velvety shumach and ate syringa leaves, that resemble cucumbers in their flavour, and broke buds off the clustering bunches of yellow roses; while young ladies twined sprays of that exquisite little plant known to simple people by no long Latin name, but only as “the bridal wreath,” or permitted long pendants of the lilac laburnum to float in the breeze with their curls.

A chapter would scarce suffice me to catalogue the names of the shrubs and trees for the possession of which Bayview was famous; but Grace knew them all by heart. She knew the dewy mornings and the fine evenings after rain, when the sweet-briar gave forth its sweetest fragrance. She knew where the earliest bouquets of lily of the valley were to be gathered, the sheltered nooks where grew primroses and violets were not hidden from her. From a child she had been acquainted with the haunt of the wood anemone, and the sunny spots where lady’s fingers made soft cushions of yellow and brown and green; and when the little boys and girls, her tiny friends from Kingslough, came out to spend a day at Bayview, who could show them so well as she the exact bend in the shallow stream where “apple-pie” grew sweet and tall amongst reeds and “sagans,” or that piece of undrained ground where the rushes stood thick enough to delight the hearts of those who had come trooping out to make swords and parasols and butterfly cages?

And scarcely a nook, or dell, or upland, or winding walk, or ripple of the stream over the stones but was associated somehow or another with John Riley. Here he had carried her over the stepping-stones when they seemed too wet and slippery for her childish feet; there he held her hand tight while she jumped over a little ravine. She could not help remembering the day when he climbed the pine-tree and shook the firs to obtain cones to fill her basket, which he subsequently carried home. She had dragged him out to bonfires in the fields, and insisted on his roasting potatoes for, and eating them afterwards with, her; which was not a form of entertainment John Riley relished. She remembered the very hour, and day, and minute when he put the strings of a tartan velvet bag, the possession whereof made her exceeding proud, round her neck, and called it her pannier, and how she slapped his face, and how her father, coming up at the moment, was exceeding angry, and how John made all peace between them with a few pleasant words. They had gathered shells together, and collected sea-weeds, and made arbours of fir-branches, and paved them with cockleshells. And now she was a child no longer, no longer a girl, quite a young woman, who but for her exceeding beauty would already have been called an old maid, and the pleasant days were over, and John, having made a mistake in loving Grace Moffat, was in India; and Grace Moffat in Ireland was thinking how, if she loved Bayview so much, John would endure the idea of losing Woodbrook, which was not merely a residence, but an estate, a place any nobleman might have liked to own and beautify!

Of late a word has become fashionable in leaders and novels which appears to me frequently used without just cause; its constant iteration at all events sounds unpleasant in my own ears.

Nevertheless, employed with caution, it is an expressive word, and I must therefore be excused when I say the most dependable sort of pity is that which is cumulative. I mean that in which one layer of compassion is added to another till a compact and dependable whole is erected upon a sufficient foundation.

This pity Grace Moffat now experienced for the Rileys. At first it had rather vexed her to think she should be called upon to sympathize in or interfere with the troubles of people who were so much less than nothing to her, that towards some members of the family at all events she felt almost antagonistic. But a little reflection, and perhaps the warning, sorrowful, sobbing of the waves softened her heart. She thought of Nettie, once so dear to her, who of her own act had alienated all old friends, who would have nothing now to do with old friends, let them beg never so hard for her intimacy. She thought of the Glendares and the Somerfords, whose liking for her had been transient as spring sunshine. She thought of Mrs. Hartley, who, long before, must, like a sensible woman, have formed fresh acquaintances, and taken them (and their English accent) more cordially to her bosom than she had ever done any one of the inhabitants of Kingslough or its vicinity. She thought of Amos Scott, who would have none of her help unless it could be given in his own way. She thought of her pensioners, who, if she died the next day, would, spite of their Presbyterian and predestinarian ideas, say from the mere force of habit contracted by long intercourse with Roman Catholics, “God rest her; it’s herself was a good lady!” and greet a charitable successor with, “God bless her; it’s herself that’s a kind lady!” and then she thought of the love she had once thought of comparatively little account—that of her father. She had him, she had her home, but what had John Riley?

He might have made friends, no doubt, but friends are no enduring possession. He might have formed a fresh attachment, but in India it was unlikely the object of that attachment would be a lady largely endowed with this world’s goods. He might have won golden opinions, but something more than these is needful to make a man prosperous and happy.

He had his family, but supposing the members composing it were reduced to poverty, what should they profit him? At his father’s death, Woodbrook, encumbered, beautiful Woodbrook, must come to him, if it were saved from Mr. Brady; but in either case, what a future presented itself! Woodbrook his, with its mortgages, and burdened by the maintenance of his mothers and sisters; Woodbrook not his, and both parents and his sister to provide for.

Poor John, whom she could remember lighthearted John, it was a hard lot to contemplate! Each generation had remained true to the traditions of the family, and made the Riley position worse, Would John make it worse, even if Mr. Brady did not? Would he marry some girl without a shilling, and perpetuate the poverty that had for generations been as certain an inheritance as Woodbrook?

It all seemed very dark to Grace, very dark and pitiful. Even to those who have tasted of its bitterness, the draught of misfortune does not appear so unendurable a potion to swallow as to those who have had nothing but sweets presented to them.

Grace dreaded poverty, the rich generally do, and as she thought of her own fair home, a great pity for John Riley, a pity different from anything she had ever previously felt for any one, welled up in her heart. It seemed only like yesterday that she had given him his dismissal, and never an honester suitor had asked her hand since then.

She would go straight to her father and tell him what she had heard, and with this intention Grace passed into the house through one of the windows opening on to the terrace.

The room she entered was yet unlighted, and she was about to ring for candles, when, recollecting that she still wore her shawl and bonnet, she crossed the apartment with the intention of changing her dress before summoning a servant.

Though there was nothing unusual in the fact of her rambling about the grounds after dusk, on the present occasion the feeling that she had something to conceal induced her to seek concealment; and she was hastening to her dressing-room, when in the hall the cook, with white, startled face, confronted her,—

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere, Miss Grace. The master—”

Grace laid her hand on the back of a chair to steady herself.

“What is the matter?” she asked; “what has happened? where is my father?”

“He is in his own room, Miss Grace, and the doctors with him. He was took—”

But Grace waited to hear no more, she ran up the staircase, and along the corridor to a room at the extreme end, the door of which stood open.

She could hear a man speaking in a voice hushed yet excited, evidently insisting upon some course antagonistic to his auditor, and as she paused for one second in her progress, that auditor replied in cool, clear tones,—

“We will wait till Miss Moffat comes; she shall decide between us.”

“But I tell you I must do it. Would you have me see the man die before my eyes?”

“I tell you it shall not be done,” the other answered, adding immediately, “Here is Miss Moffat.”

Grace did not greet either of them; she went straight over to the bed where lay her father, apparently lifeless.

His head rested on the pillow, his grey hair fell tangled about his face, his eyes were closed, his arms hung powerless beside his body, and his hands, white, wan, and nerveless, were as the hands of a corpse.

She had courage, there was no question about that; she had received the most fearful shock a human being can sustain, and yet she neither wept, shrieked, nor exclaimed. Had she been alone with him, there is little doubt she would have flung herself beside the bed and sobbed and cried like any other woman; but before the strangers present, strangers at the moment, though they were only Doctor Girvan and Mr. Hanlon, and some of the servants, she could not lay bare her heart; and involuntarily all in the room were silenced for the moment by her silence, calmed by her calmness.

“What is it?” she asked, speaking to Doctor Girvan, but including Mr. Hanlon in her question by a look.

“Apoplexy,” said the Doctor unhesitatingly.

“It is no such thing,” declared Mr. Hanlon stoutly.

“And he should be bled instantly,” continued Dr. Girvan, ignoring his opponent’s remark, and fingering his lancet lovingly.

“Miss Moffat, so certainly as your father is bled he is a dead man,” exclaimed Mr. Hanlon earnestly. “If Dr. Girvan persists in bleeding, I must decline to be associated with him in the treatment of the case.”

“And if I don’t bleed him,” said Dr. Girvan, “there will be no case to treat.”

Grace looked at the motionless figure, then at the old doctor trembling with anger, striving to repress the fury he felt it would be unseemly to show, and again at the handsome confident face of the younger man.

She had known Dr. Girvan since she had known anything; he was their regular attendant; in all her childish ailments he had given her kind words and smiles, and sent her detestable medicines; when in her later years she caught cold and was troubled with cough, sore throat, or any other malady, he and none other had treated her. For well-nigh half a century he had cured or killed the gentry of Kingslough and its neighbourhood, and there was comfort in that reflection. To be sure he knew nothing, and professed to know nothing, of new-fangled ways; but then the fashion of living and dying is one which knows little alteration. Being born, being buried, are matters susceptible of so little change that Grace might well be excused if in her extremity she fastened her gaze more confidently on the old light than on the new. Mr. Hanlon might be very clever, but after all he could not have Dr. Girvan’s experience.

Encouraged by her manifest leaning to his view of the case, the latter said eagerly,—

“Each instant is precious, Miss Grace. Had I alone been summoned, I should have let blood the moment I came.”

“As I objected to your doing so, our patient has still a chance of living,” observed Mr. Hanlon, without the least sign of excitement; “but now, if Miss Moffat wishes, I will at once retire from the room and the case.”

“No—no, pray stay!” she entreated!

“I cannot remain unless I am allowed to pursue my own course of treatment,” said Doctor Girvan.

“I said we would leave it for Miss Moffat to decide,” remarked Mr. Hanlon, with exasperating civility, but with an anxious look in his face nevertheless. “Doctor Girvan says this attack is apoplectic, and should be treated by bleeding. I say it is not apoplectic, and that bleeding may be a fatal error.”

“I tell you I have seen a score of cases of apoplectic seizures for one that can have come across you,” said Doctor Girvan, advancing to the patient. “And I have attended Mr. Moffat and Mr. Moffat’s family—”

“Let his daughter speak,” interrupted Mr. Hanlon, speaking sternly and peremptorily. “Miss Moffat, the decision rests with you.”

“It is cruel of you to force such a responsibility upon me,” said Grace hoarsely. “You understand medicine, I do not; save him,” she added, pointing towards her father, “that is all I can tell you.”

“But, Miss Moffat,” began Mr. Hanlon.

“Ah! stand back, can’t you?” exclaimed Doctor Girvan brusquely; “we’re wasting precious time in child’s talk. And indeed you are right, Miss Grace, and it was cruel to try to lay such a burden on you; but never mind, I’ll take all the responsibility upon myself. Now if you’ll just walk out of the room for a minute or two—”

“A moment,” interrupted Mr. Hanlon. “Miss Moffat, what I am doing may be unprofessional. Nevertheless I remonstrate against Doctor Girvan’s proposed course of treatment, and implore you not to countenance it.”

“To hear you, anybody might think I was not ten years of age,” remarked the Doctor.

“Miss Moffat, speak for mercy’s sake!” implored Mr. Hanlon; “I pledge my reputation this is no apoplectic fit.”

“As if you should know!” muttered Doctor Girvan contemptuously.

“Though I was sent for, I feel I am an intruder here,” continued Mr. Hanlon, unheeding the interruption.

“That is true at any rate. Indeed and you are,” commented Doctor Girvan.

“But I cannot—being here—see a man bled to death without entering my protest against such a proceeding.”

“Will you be quiet?” requested Doctor Girvan; “can’t you see you are wringing his daughter’s heart?”

“Miss Moffat, will you trust your father to me?” asked Mr. Hanlon.

“Sure the doctor must know best,” whispered a housemaid, on whom the new comer’s youth and good looks had made no impression.

“Indeed, and Miss Grace,” ventured the butler, who had always been accustomed to volunteer his advice and opinions, as is the not unpleasing habit of all Irish servants, from the highest to the lowest, the highest perhaps the most frequently. “Indeed, an’ Miss Grace, I think if the masther himself could speak, which send he may soon, he would say, lave it to the docthor, and let him bleed me freely.”

“Miss Moffat, won’t you speak?” said Mr. Hanlon, glancing at the two last speakers looks that went through them, so they subsequently averred, like flashes of lightning.

“We have lost too much time already,” said Dr. Girvan, with an air of busy importance, for he saw Grace, though divided, felt inclined to walk in the old footsteps.

“Mr. Hanlon,” she said, “I do not trust you less because I trust Doctor Girvan more;” then she stooped and kissed brow, and lip, and cheek of the man lying there motionless, and after saying, “Doctor, you would not deceive me, you will save my father,” left the room.

Mr. Hanlon followed her. She did not go downstairs, but stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall. He went into one of the rooms close at hand, and fetched her a chair, then he retreated a few steps, and remained with head bent and hands plunged in his pockets, looking gloomily at the pattern of the carpet.

There was silence for a minute, which he broke by saying,—

“I can do nothing more here, so I will bid you good-night, Miss Moffat. May I send any of the servants up to you?”

She put out her hand, which he took and held. “Do not go; oh, pray, pray stay!”

“But I assure you—”

“Never mind assuring me; stay.”

“Doctor Girvan does not wish it.”

“I wish it.”

It was very hard to hold out, but still Mr. Hanlon made a feint of doing so.

“In my private capacity, Miss Moffat, I would do anything on earth to oblige you, but in my professional—”

“Forget your professional pride for a little while,” she entreated. “You told me to decide; and how could I decide otherwise, when we had known him so long, when my father trusted him so much?”

“I do not see how you could.”

“Then you will stay?”

“If I stay, will you do something for me in return?”

“Tell me what it is?”

“Send to Kilcurragh for Doctor Murney, and to Glenwellan for Doctor Connelley; send without a moment’s delay.”

“You think he is in such danger?”

He turned his face away; he could not bear she should see the answer he knew was written there.

“Do as you like!” she said feebly. “I leave it all to you. I—I must go to him now,” and she rose and walked a step or two towards the room where her father lay, then paused, wavered, and would have fallen, but that Mr. Hanlon, anticipating this result, caught her in his arms.

He carried her into the room whence he had brought the chair, and, laying her on a sofa, left her, without making even an effort to restore her to consciousness, but, hastening downstairs, found the cook, whom he sent to her mistress, saying,—

“She has fainted, but don’t try to bring her to. I shall see her again in a few minutes.”

“Which are the best pair of horses you have in the stables, Mick?” he asked, addressing the groom, who was in the kitchen, waiting to hear if he was likely to be wanted.

“How is the masther, yer honour?”

“Badly enough, and likely to be worse,” was the answer; “but about the horses?”

“Miss Grace’s mare is the fastest, but the bay the masther, preserve him, bought last month, has a power of outcome in him.”

“Who is there here you can trust to take one of them to Glenwellan with a note for Doctor Connelley?”

“Sure and I can ride there myself.”

“No, I want you to go to Kilcurragh and bring back Doctor Murney. You had best take the tax-cart.”

“Save us, Doctor; is he that bad?”

“Yes, quite as bad as that,” Mr. Hanlon answered. “Some of you help Mick with the harness. I will have the notes ready by the time you are.”

Mightily astonished was the mare at having a saddle slipped on her at that time of night; pettishly she champed the bit and struck her off forefoot against the rough pavement of the yard, whilst Mick tightened her girths by the simple expedient of planting his knee in her stomach, pulling at the same time buckles and straps as far home as he could get them.

“Ride like the devil, Jerry,” were Mick’s parting instructions, and, nothing loth to follow such a congenial example, Jerry, after the first mile and a half, which he took “modtherately,” for fear of breaking the mare’s wind, did the rest of the distance at a hard gallop.

“And the beauty niver turned a hair,” said Jerry, when reciting subsequently the marvels of that wild ride. Perhaps if the mare’s story told to her equine companions could have been heard, her account of the state of affairs would have differed slightly from that of her rider.

As for the bay, never before had that animal’s powers of outcome been so severely tested. Up hill and down dale it was all one to Mick. With a whoop and a “now lad” he lifted him into a stretching canter up the inclines, with a tight rein and a cut of the whip he warned him to take no false step whilst spinning down declivities steep enough to appal the understandings of ordinary people.

Horses and men did their best, as Irish horses and Irish men will in moments of excitement and time of need, and that best was, as is ever the case in that land of strange contrasts, something super-excellent; but it was all labour in vain.

Had they flown on the wind, had the horses been birds, had they been able to cleave the air with wings, the help they brought must still have proved too late.

With the first drop of blood, the chances of life began to flutter: when the last was drawn, and Dr. Girvan heaved a sigh of satisfaction, hope, so far as this world was concerned, had fled for Mr. Moffat.

“He will do now,” said Dr. Girvan, complacently addressing Mr. Hanlon.

But that gentleman shook his head,—

“We shall see,” he answered: and they did see.