The Earl's promise

Lord Ardmorne was as good as his word, and better; thereby demonstrating the truth of the frequent assertion, that those who promise little often perform much; while those who promise much usually fail altogether in performing.

Not in the least like the Somerfords was the Marquis of Ardmorne. He was not handsome in person or gracious in manner, or fluent of speech, but he was true; true in his prejudices, which were many; in his political faith, which was becoming obnoxious even in England; in his religion, that generally condemned all men—but was so in the habit of excepting special persons and cases that the damnatory clauses were practically rendered innocuous.

From what stock shall we say such a man sprang. He was not Scotch, or Irish, or English; but he was something which we are accustomed—though as I think, erroneously—to regard as a mixture of all three. He was what the tenants called a hard landlord, and yet his rents were lower than those of the Glendares.

Politically, the Glendares were on the right side to please the people. He was on the wrong; and the “hard bit,” as the tenantry called it, about Lord Ardmorne was that when a man took a farm from him he had the choice of voting as his landlord wished, of thinking as his landlord thought, or of having worldly matters made uncomfortable for him.

To ensure so desirable a state of affairs, Lord Ardmorne granted no fresh leases; but let his lands at a proportionately low rental, so as to be able to rid his farms of recalcitrant tenants as rapidly as might be.

I do not defend the system. Of course amongst a people so highly enlightened as our own—in a state of society which produces such profound thinkers, and renders the views of even the lowest so clear and so just, as that which recommends itself at present—it is most desirable the freedom of action and of conscience should obtain, even if such freedom of action and of conscience produce similar results to those England and Ireland have both had to deplore during the last few years; but still those who took Lord Ardmorne’s farms did so with a perfect knowledge of consequences.

There was no secrecy about the matter. My lord having a certain set of opinions, expected his tenants to acquiesce in those opinions; and they were aware of the fact.

When by reason of death—the resignation of a member, or other causes—an election took place, Lord Ardmorne expected his men to vote for his man. If they refused to do so, my lord turned them out. They rented his land, knowing well the full consequences of contumacy, and if they liked to risk those consequences, it was scarcely fair to grumble (as they did) when the marquis enforced his share of the bargain.

If an Irish farmer of that period could only live a struggling trader for a year in the city of London, in this, he might well pray heaven to deliver him from the men of our time, and to restore him even a hard landlord like the marquis, who expected his tenantry to think as he thought for the sake of an exceptionally low rental and various other indulgences beside.

The Marquis of Ardmorne would have found scant favour at the hands of those gentlemen of the press who, in the present day, are good enough to instruct the nobility in their duties as landlords and landowners. He was in no way romantic. He might have forgiven a tenant a year’s rent, but he could not overlook his venturing to have an opinion of his own.

His manners were not genial; he could not, to reproduce an old Irish phrase, have “charmed a bird off the bush,” even if he had tried to do so. He was one of those who, it is sometimes stated, strive to stop progress. His own party honestly thought they were only the breakwaters that tended to keep the perilous waves of innovation from sweeping over and destroying the land.

The Reform Bill he believed to have been the ruin of the country. Had he lived to see the Irish Church Bill passed, he would have covered his face and turned him to the wall, feeling death had lingered too long. Tenant right stank in his nostrils. Liberty of conscience was a phrase which sounded in his ears like the claptrap expression of a party who were trying to lead the lower orders astray.

The peasantry he regarded as children who, not knowing what was best for them, ought to do as they were told. There could be no mistake as to what Lord Ardmorne considered the first duty of a tenant-farmer; and if the tenant-farmer chanced to entertain a different opinion, why so much the worse for him.

On the other hand, the Ardmorne tenantry enjoyed advantages unknown to those who rented the Somerford lands. The marquis, it is true, did little or nothing in the way of improvements; but he did not prevent the farmers improving their holdings if they pleased to do so. Lime and stone were supplied to them at almost nominal prices. The shore rights, such as the Glendares had let and the lessee sublet again, were practically free to those who, behaving themselves properly, were suffered to cultivate his lordship’s lands and pay rent to his lordship’s agent; and when crops failed or sickness laid low, and the gale days came round, time would often be given to make up that rent for which, as on the Glendare estates, the farmers and their wives, and their sons and daughters, and men-servants and maidservants, worked from morning till night from week’s beginning to week’s end, from the time they were big enough to pick up stones and herd cows till they were carried to their graves.

Nevertheless, the marquis was not liked as Th’ Airl had been. Though his religious opinions were identical with their own; though he reverenced the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of King William; though he had nothing but contempt and hatred for that of James; though he was an Orangeman, and thought “Protestant Boys” the most charming melody ever composed; though his watchword, like theirs, was “No Surrender;” though his feelings towards the Pope were identical with their own sentiments, despite the fact that he uttered his commination services in Parliament in more orthodox and gentlemanly fashion than they shouted out theirs in the streets and highways,—still, his lordship failed to win the hearts of his people.

He had always been a grave quiet man, with stern features and reserved habits; a man with a story in his life which had perhaps made the fulfilment of his age different from the promise of his youth; a man of strong purposes and deep feelings; a man to like few, but to like those few much; a man who would have thought himself no better than a thief, if he had left impoverished acres and a diminished rent-roll to the next heir, albeit that heir was neither son nor nephew, nor aught but a distant relative who held a high position in India.

It was to this relative he had sent out John Riley, and the young man might pecuniarily have done well for himself in his new appointment, had he not commenced sending home all he could spare in order to enable his family to live more comfortably.

He would have done them a greater kindness had he kept his money. To persons who have always been short, the command of a little money is a great snare as well as to those who have never had much experience in spending; so at least it proved with Mrs. Riley.

She had been compelled to do without so many things during the previous part of her life, that now when a few of them were within her reach she tried to compass all; and the result proved that not only was the Indian allowance spent, but the interest on the mortgage fell into arrear.

“When the girls are married, we can soon retrench,” Mrs. Riley observed, but the girls failed to marry. If they had not done so when they lived quietly and dressed plainly, and engaged themselves in those various works of a domestic kind which recommend young ladies to men of a prudent and economical turn of mind, they were certainly likely to remain unwedded when, arrayed in gorgeous attire they were met at parties and balls in Dublin, where it was their new custom to winter.

They never lacked partners, and they never were destitute of attendant swains, who found Woodbrook a pleasant sort of house at which to stay for a week or two in the summer and autumn; but although the hopes of Mrs. Riley were often excited, they always ended in disappointment. Visitors they had in abundance, but suitors none; till at length Lucy captivated a curate, whose addition to the finances of the family proved seventy pounds a year from his rector, twenty-five pounds a year from private sources, and a baronet uncle.

“Who will be certain to present him with a good living,” said Mrs. Riley; though on what foundation she erected this pleasing superstructure was an inscrutable mystery to all her friends.

Things were in this state when Lord Ardmorne through his solicitors ascertained, first, that if Mr. Brady did not actually hold the mortgage he was intimately and pecuniarily associated with those who did, and that it was in his power to pull the strings which prompted the movements of the ostensible actors; second, that the interest was running back; third, that the mortgage-deed contained some unusual and stringent covenants; fourth, that the Woodbrook estates were not returning the amount of money they had once done; and fifth, that owing to failing health, the pressure of anxiety, and the more exciting life he had in the interests of his daughters been leading, the General was becoming daily less and less competent to act as his own agent and to manage his own affairs.

Altogether the family prospects were in as deplorable a state as family prospects could be, when Lord Ardmorne’s solicitor went to confer with General Riley’s legal adviser and General Riley himself.

It was from the latter gentleman that information of the interest having fallen behind was elicited.

Not being pressed for it, he, as frequently happens in such cases, had not mentioned the matter to those who would have advised him to make any sacrifice in order to keep so important an affair within manageable limits.

Piteously he confessed his error, and asked, as people are in the habit of asking when counsel is almost useless, what he was to do.

It had been agreed between Lord Ardmorne and the lawyers that, in consideration of his broken health and other causes, the fact of Mr. Brady having managed to thrust his fingers into the Riley pie should not be mentioned to the General; that if a settlement of the matter could be left until the son’s return, all explanations should be deferred till he came back.

The first thing to be done was clearly to wipe off the arrears of interest; but as not an acre of the Woodbrook estate was free, General Riley’s solicitors said openly that they failed to see where the money was to come from.

Lord Ardmorne, however, having taken up the affair, was not going to let this difficulty stop him on the very threshold of his undertaking, and instructed his lawyer to find the amount necessary.

He did not intend to be harsh to the General, but he did tell the old man some very plain truths concerning the risk he had run of jeopardizing his son’s inheritance; and he made a point of seeing Mrs. Riley, then in Dublin, and explaining to her that the old life of paring and pinching would have to be resumed if she did not wish Woodbrook to pass into the hands of strangers.

“It is all that girl’s doing,” groaned the poor murmuring lady. “But for her we should have been comfortable and happy years and years ago.”

Which remark set the marquis thinking. John was a fine fellow, and, spite his encumbered acres, not an ineligible parti even for Grace Moffat; but he failed to see how the little romance he had planned could be carried out if Mrs. Riley were to be one of the dramatis personæ.

The lapse of years had not improved the General’s wife. Lord Ardmorne could imagine many more desirable things than a close relationship with her, and he left the house thinking matters were complicating a little, and that perhaps he should not be justified in dragging Miss Moffat into the Riley entanglement.

“Perhaps the very best thing the young man could do would be to persuade his father to sell the estate right out and go back to India. That, however, will be a matter for future discussion and consideration. Meantime, we can do nothing but clear off the arrears of interest.”

In this, however, his lordship proved to be mistaken. No sooner was the interest settled than notice was served requiring the repayment of the principal at the extremely short date mentioned in the deed.

Like most of his countrymen, Lord Ardmorne had a passion for acquiring land. A townland for sale, an estate in the market, these things affected him as the news that a rare picture is to be brought to the hammer affects a collector, and Woodbrook was a property he would have felt by no means loth to add to those he already possessed.

But the knowledge of this desire tied his tongue. In the General’s extremity he could not advise him to let the encumbered acres be purchased by some one willing and able to give enough for them to clear off the mortgage and leave a margin beside.

Had he stepped in at this point and counselled the General to do that which really seemed the only rational way of solving the difficulty, he would not have cared to meet the man for whose return he had written.

“I fancy it will have to come to that in the end,” he said to his solicitor in reply to a remark from that gentleman, that the sooner Woodbrook passed into other hands the better it would be for every one, the General included, “but we must leave it for the son to decide.”

“I do not exactly see how the decision is to be left for so long a time,” remarked the lawyer. “There can be no question it is all a planned affair, and how any man’s adviser could permit such a deed to be signed baffles my comprehension.”

“Well, you must remember when a state of mortgage becomes chronic,” said the marquis, “people are apt to overlook symptoms that would strike a person to whom the disease is new. Besides which there was no choice as I imagine in the matter. An old mortgage had to be paid off, and under such circumstances it is not always easy for a man to dictate his own terms.”

To which words of wisdom, coming from a nobleman, the lawyer listened with deference and attention as in duty bound; but he held naturally to his own opinion nevertheless.

Here, then, the Rileys had arrived at a point where two roads met, and written on the finger-post in letters plain enough to those who could read were the words—To Ruin.

Where the other road led was not so clearly indicated. It puzzled Lord Ardmorne himself, though both long and clear-headed, to imagine what the end of it all would be. He could turn them out of the direct route to beggary, and he meant to do so, but whether the second path might not merely prove a round-about-way to the same end he was not prepared to assert.

After all there is nothing on earth so difficult as to manage another man’s affairs for him, even if he be willing to let his neighbour attempt the almost impossible feat.

But about the end, Lord Ardmorne did not mean to trouble himself till John Riley’s return. When that event happened, he proposed to lay the whole difficulty of the position before the younger man, and warn him against attempting to drag an endless chain of debt through yet another generation. Meantime arrangements must be made for paying off the existing mortgage; and when he had done all he could in the matter—and with a solvent nobleman and in Ireland that all was considerable,—Lord Ardmorne found a pecuniary deficiency still existed that, although not large in itself, was still sufficiently great to cause perplexity and difficulty.

Up to this point he had decided not to permit Grace to moil or meddle in the matter, now he decided to leave her to say whether she would help or not.

“I will take care she is no loser,” he said to himself, “and also that she does not appear in the transaction. I certainly will buy the place if the father and son agree to sell; if not I must arrange differently, that is all. So now to see Miss Moffat, and ascertain whether she is still willing to assist in saving an old family from utter worldly ruin.”

Very straightforwardly he put the state of the case before “the woman of John Riley’s life,” told her what he had done, and the precise way in which she could best help, that help being kept a secret between herself, himself, and Mrs. Hartley; and if the subsequent conversation were rendered less connected by reason of the widow’s comments on the folly of Mrs. Riley and the childish weakness of her husband, her remarks tended at least to make it more exciting.

“I should like to be of use to the General or his son,” Grace said with a frankness which caused Mrs. Hartley to shake for the ultimate success of her project; “indeed, I should like to serve any of them. It would be a sad thing if for lack of a friendly hand Mrs. Riley and the girls had to leave Woodbrook.”

“It is clearly Lord Ardmorne’s opinion that the sooner they leave Woodbrook the better for all concerned,” observed Mrs. Hartley. “And in that opinion I entirely agree. If all the poor Irish gentry were compelled to sell their estates, and let people who have money and sense purchase them, it would be a grand thing for the country.”

“English people seem to think there is a necessary connection between money and sense. I must say I fail to see the link myself,” answered Grace.

“I am inclined, however, to think the English capacity to make and to keep money implies a considerable amount of sense,” interposed Lord Ardmorne.

“It is not a pleasant sort of sense,” persisted Grace.

“Perhaps not, but it is useful, my dear,” said Mrs. Hartley. “For instance, had your grandfather squandered the fortune he made instead of leaving it to you, he might have been a more popular old gentleman, but he could scarcely have proved himself so admirable a person in his domestic relations as was the case.”

“I sometimes wish he had never left me a penny,” remarked Grace a little bitterly.

“What a shame for you to make such a remark, Miss Moffat, at a time when your fortune enables you to step forward to the rescue of your old friends,” exclaimed Lord Ardmorne, with an affectation of playful raillery which sat upon him about as gracefully as a cap and bells might have done.

“Yes, it is a shame,” Grace answered quietly; “for about the first time in my life I feel really thankful now that I am as rich as I am.”

“Many other opportunities for thankfulness from the same cause will present themselves in the years to come, believe me,” said their visitor.

“I only hope they may not have to leave Woodbrook,” exclaimed Miss Moffat, a little irrelevantly to the conversation as it seemed.

“Then you ought not to hope anything of the kind,” rebuked Mrs. Hartley. “You should hope that John may have enough resolution and sufficient sense to free himself and his family from the incubus of debt, that must have made existence a daily and hourly torture and humiliation to the whole of them. As I said before, if a law were passed compelling the owners of heavily mortgaged properties to sell them, there might be a chance of Ireland’s regeneration. As matters stand there is none.”

If with prophetic eye Mrs. Hartley had been able to look forward a very little way, how she would have longed for the Encumbered Estates Court, and welcomed the changes every one predicted must be wrought by it.

In those days capital and civilization were the favourite panaceas the English proposed for all Irish troubles. In these the same remedies are indirectly suggested, but the English are now quite content to leave their sister to find both for herself.

And no doubt the present course is the correct one. The curse of all former administrations has been that instead of leaving Ireland’s diseases to be cured by time and nature, each fresh political doctor has thought it necessary to try his own new course of treatment on the patient.

Fortunately the latest and rashest surgeon who has experimented on her so far as to cut away the grievance most bitterly complained of, has discovered there may be a tendency to hysteria in the constitution of a nation as well as of a woman, and that it does not follow because a cry is raised, “The pain is here,” that the arm or leg is to be hacked off with impunity. One man has deprived Ireland of that which kings, nor queens, nor parliament, nor statesman, can ever restore to her again. Nevertheless, he may have done both England and Ireland good service, for it will be some time before the former is tempted to try the result of another such surgical operation, let the latter cry for knife and caustic as loud and as long as she will.