A single exclamation of disappointment broke from Roland, but the moment after all former anger was gone. The old spirit of comrade-affection began to seek its accustomed channels, and he left the spot, happy to think how different had been his feeling than if he were quitting it with the blood of his shipmate on his hands.
Although he now saw that his continuance in the service for the present was inevitable, he had fully made up his mind to leave it, and, with it, habits of life whose low excesses had now become intolerable. So long as the spirit of adventure and daring sustained him, so long the respite of a few months' shore life was a season of pleasure and delight; but as by degrees the real character of his associates became clearer, and he saw in them men who cared for enterprise no further than for its gain, and calculated each hazardous exploit by its profit, he felt that he was now following the career of a bravo who hires out his arm and sells his courage. This revolted every sentiment of his mind, and, come what would, he resolved to abandon it. In these day-dreams of a new existence the memory of two years passed in the Pampas constantly mingled, and he could not help contrasting the happy and healthful contentment of the simple hunter with the voluptuous but cankered pleasures of the wealthy buccaneer. Once more beneath the wooded shades of the tall banana, he thought how free and peaceful his days would glide by, free from the rude conflicts he now witnessed, and the miserable jealousies of these ill-assorted companionships. For some hours he wandered, revolving thoughts like these; and at length turned his steps towards the villa, determined, so long as his captain remained, that he would take up his quarters at Barcelonetta, nor in future accept of the hospitality of Don Rica's house. With this intention he was returning to arrange for the removal of his luggage, when his attention was excited by the loud cracking of whips, and the shrill cries that accompanied the sounds of “The post! the post!”
In a moment every window of the villa was thrown open, and beads, in every species of night-gear, and every stage of sleepy astonishment, thrust out; for the post, be it observed, was but a monthly phenomenon, and the arrival of letters was very often the signal for a total break-up of the whole household.
The long wagon, drawn by four black mules, and driven by a fellow whose wide-tasselled sombrero and long moustaches seemed to savor more of the character of a melodrama than real life, stopped before the chief entrance of the villa, and was immediately surrounded by the guests, whose hurried wardrobe could only be excused in so mild a climate.
“Anything for me, Truxillo?” cried one, holding up a dollar temptingly between finger and thumb.
“Where are my cigarettes?”
“And my mantle?”
“And my gun?”
“And the senhora's embroidered slippers?” cried a maid, as she ransacked every corner where the packages lay.
The driver, however, paid little attention to these various demands, but, loosening the bridles of his beasts, he proceeded to wash their mouths with some water fetched from the fountain, coolly telling the applicants that they might help themselves, only to spare something for the people of Barcelonetta, for he knew there was a letter or two for that place.
“What have we here?” cried one of the guests, as a mass of something enveloped in a horse-sheet lay rolled up in the foot of the calèche, where the driver sat.
“Ah, par Dios!” cried the man, laughing, “I had nearly forgotten that fellow. He is asleep, poor devil! He nearly died of cold in the night!”
“Who is he—what is he?”
“A traveller from beyond San Luis in search of Don Pedro.”
“Of me?” said Don Pedro, whose agitation became, in spite of all his efforts, visible to every one; at the same instant that, pulling back the cloak rudely, he gazed at the sleeping stranger,—“I never saw him before.”
“Come, awake—stir up, senhor!” said the driver, poking the passenger very unceremoniously with his whip. “We are arrived; this is the Villa de las Noches Entretenidas; here is Don Pedro himself!”
“The Lord be praised!” said a short, round-faced little man, who, with a nightcap drawn over his ears, and a huge cravat enveloping his chin, now struggled to look around him. “At last!” sighed he; “I 'm sure I almost gave up all hope of it.” These words were spoken in English; but even that evidence was not necessary to show that the little plump figure in drab gaiters and shorts was not a Spaniard.
“Are you Don Peter, sir,—are you really Don Peter?” said he, rubbing his eyes, and looking hurriedly around to assure himself he was not dreaming.
“What is your business with me—or have you any?” said Rica, in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Have I!—Did I come six thousand miles in search of you? Oh, dear! oh, dear! I can scarcely think it all over, even now. But still there may be nothing done if he isn't here.”
“What do you mean?” said Rica, impatiently.
“Mr. Roland Cashel; Roland Cashel, Esq., I should call him now, sir.”
“That 's my name!” said the youth, forcing his way through the crowd, and standing in front of the traveller.
The little man put his hand into a breast-pocket, and drew out a little book, opening which he began to read, comparing the detail, as he went on, with the object before him:—
“Six foot and an inch in height, at least, olive-brown complexion, dark eyes and hair, straight nose, short upper lip, frowns slightly when he speaks;—just talk a little, will you?”
Cashel could not help smiling at the request; when the other added, “Shows his teeth greatly when he laughs.”
“Am I a runaway negro from New Orleans that you have taken my portrait so accurately, sir?”
“Got that at Demerara,” said the little man, putting up the book, “and must say it was very near indeed!”
“I have been at Demerara,” said Cashel, hoping by the admission to obtain some further insight into the traveller's intentions.
“I know that,” said the little man. “I tracked you thence to St Kitts, then to Antigua. I lost you there, but I got up the scent again in Honduras, but only for a short time, and had to try Demerara again; then I dodged down the coast by Pernambuco, but lost you entirely in June,—some damned Indian expedition, I believe. But I met a fellow at New Orleans who had seen you at St. Louis, and so I tracked away south—”
“And, in one word, having found me, what was the cause of so much solicitude, sir?” said Cashel, who felt by no means comfortable at such a hot and unwearied pursuit.
“This can all be better said in the house,” interposed Don Rica, who, relieved of any uneasiness on his own account, had suddenly resumed his habitual quiet demeanor.
“So I 'm thinking too!” said the traveller; “but let me first land my portmanteau; all the papers are there. I have not lost sight of it since I started.”
The parcels were carefully removed under his own inspection, and, accompanied by Don Pedro Rica and Roland, the little man entered the villa.
There could be no greater contrast than that between the calm and placid bearing Don Pedro had now assumed, and the agitated and anxious appearance which Cashel exhibited. The very last interview he had sustained in that same spot still dwelt upon his mind; and when he declined Don Pedro's polite request to be seated, and stood with folded arms before the table, which the traveller had now covered with his papers, a prisoner awaiting the words of his judgment could not have endured a more intense feeling of anxiety.
“'Roland Cashel, born in York, a. d. 18—, son of Godfrey Cashel and Sarah, his wife,'” read the little man; then murmured to himself, “Certificate of baptism, signed by Joshua Gorgeous, Prebendary of the Cathedral; all right, so far. Now we come to the wanderings. Your father was quartered at Port-au-Prince, in the year 18—, I believe?”
“He was. I was then nine years old,” said Cashel.
“Quite correct; he died there, I understand?”
Cashel assented by a nod.
“Upon which event you joined, or was supposed to join, the 'Brown Peg,' a sloop in the African trade, wrecked off Fernando Po same winter?”
“Yes; she was scuttled by the second mate, in a mutiny. But what has all this secret history of me to mean? Did you come here, sir, to glean particulars to write my life and adventures?”
“I crave your pardon most humbly, Mr. Cashel,” said the little man, in a perfect agony of humiliation. “I was only recapitulating a few collateral circumstances, by way of proof. I was, so to say, testing—that is, I was—”
“Satisfying yourself as to this gentleman's identity,” added Don Pedro.
“Exactly so, sir; the very words upon the tip of my tongue,—satisfying myself that you were the individual alluded to here”—as he spoke, he drew forth a copy of the “Times” newspaper, whose well-worn and much-thumbed edges bespoke frequent reference—“in this advertisement,” said he, handing the paper to Don Pedro, who at once read aloud,—
Cashel's face was one burning surface of scarlet as he heard the words of an advertisement which, in his ideas, at once associated him with runaway negroes and escaped felons; and it was with something like suffocation that he restrained his temper as he asked why, and by whose authority, he was thus described?
The little man looked amazed and confounded at a question which, it would seem, he believed his information had long since anticipated.
“Mr. Cashel wishes to know the object of this inquiry,—who sent you hither, in fact,” said Don Rica, beginning himself to lose patience at the slowness of the stranger's apprehension.
“Mr. Kennyfeck, of Dublin, the law agent, sent me.”
“Upon what grounds,—with what purpose?”
“To tell him that the suit is gained; that he is now the rightful owner of the whole of the Godfrey and Godfrey Browne estates, and lands of Ben Currig, Tulough Callaghan, Knock Swinery, Kildallooran, Tullimeoran, Ballycanderigan, with all the manorial rights, privileges, and perquisites appertaining to,—in a word, sir, for I see your impatience, to something, a mere trifle, under seventeen thousand per annum, not to speak of a sum, at present not exactly known, in bank, besides foreign bonds and securities to a large amount.”
While Mr. Simms recited this, with the practised volubility of one who had often gone over the same catalogue before, Cashel stood amazed, and almost stupefied, unable to grasp in his mind the full extent of his good fortune, but catching, here and there, glimpses of the truth, in the few circumstances of family history alluded to. Not so, Don Rica; neither confusion nor hesitation troubled the free working of his acute faculties, but he sat still, patiently watching the effect of this intelligence on the youth before him. At length, perceiving that he did not speak, he himself turned towards the stranger, and said,—
“You are, doubtless, a man of the world, sir, and need no apologies for my remarking that good news demands a scrutiny not less searching than its opposite. As the friend of Senhor Cashel,”—here he turned a glance beneath his heavy brows at the youth, who, however, seemed not to notice the word,—“as his friend, I repeat, deeply interested in whatever affects him, I may, perhaps, be permitted to ask the details of this very remarkable event.”
“If you mean the trial, sir,—or rather the trials, for there were three at bar, not to mention a suit in equity and a bill of discovery—”
“No, I should be sorry to trespass so far upon you,” interrupted Rica. “What I meant was something in the shape of an assurance,—something like satisfactory proof that this narrative, so agreeable to believe, should have all the foundation we wish it.”
“Nothing easier,” said Mr. Simms, producing an enormous black leather pocket-book from the breast of his coat, and opening it leisurely on the table before him. “Here are, I fancy, documents quite sufficient to answer all your inquiries. This is the memorandum of the verdict taken at Bath, with the note of the Attorney-General, and the point reserved, in which motion for a new trial was made.”
“What is this?” asked Cashel, now speaking for the first time, as he took up a small book of strange shape, and looked curiously at it.
“Check-book of the bank of Fordyce and Grange, Lombard Street,” replied Simms; “and here, the authority by which you are at liberty to draw on the firm for the balance already in their hands, amounting to—let me see “—here he rapidly set down certain figures on the corner of a piece of paper, and with the speed of lightning performed a sum in arithmetic—“the sum of one hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds seven and elevenpence, errors excepted.”
“This sum is mine!” cried Cashel, as his eyes flashed fire, and his dark cheek grew darker with excitement.
“It is only a moiety of your funded property,” said Simms. “Castellan and Biggen, the notaries, certify to a much larger amount in the Three per Cents.”
“And I am at liberty to draw at once for whatever amount I require?”
“Within that sum, certainly. Though, if you desire more, I 'm sure they 'll not refuse your order.”
“Leave us for a moment, sir,” said Cashel, in an accent whose trembling eagerness bespoke the agitation he labored under. “I have something of importance to tell this gentleman.”
“If you will step this way, sir,” said Don Rica, politely. “I have ordered some refreshment in this room, and I believe you will find it awaiting you.”
Mr. Simms gladly accepted the offered hospitality, and retired. The door was not well closed, when Don Rica Advanced with extended hands towards Cashel, and said:
“With all my heart I give you joy; such good fortune as this may, indeed, obliterate every little cloud that has passed between us, and make us once more the friends we have ever been.”
Cashel crossed his arms on his breast, and coldly replied, “I thank you. But a few hours back, and one-half as much kindness would have made a child of me in feeling. Now it serves only to arouse my indignation and my Anger.”
“Are you indeed so unjust, so ungenerous as this!” exclaimed Rica, in a tone whose anguish seemed wrung from the very heart.
“Unjust,—ungenerous! how?” cried Cashel, passionately.
“Both, sir,” said Rica, in a voice of almost commanding severity. “Unjust to suppose that in thwarting your last resolve to leave a service in which you have already won fame and honor, I was not your best and truest friend; that in offering every opposition in my power to such a hot-headed resolution, I was not consulting your best interests; ungenerous to imagine that I could feel any other sentiment than delight at your altered fortunes, I, who gave you all that was dearest and nearest to me on earth, my child,—my Maritaña.”
Had it not been for the passionate emotion of the last few words, Cashel's anger would have suggested a reply not less indignant than his question; but the sight of the hard, the stern, the unflinching Pedro Rica, as he now stood,—his face covered by his hands, while his strong chest heaved and throbbed with convulsive energy,—this was more than he felt prepared to look on. It was then only by a great effort he could say, “You seem to forget, Senhor Rica, how differently you interpreted this same contract but a few hours ago. You told me then—I think I hear the words still ringing in my ears—that you never thought of such an alliance; that your calculation took a less flattering estimate of my relationship.”
“I spoke in anger, Roland,—anger caused by your passionate resolve. Remember, too, that I preferred holding you to your contract, in preference to allowing you to redeem it by paying the penalty.”
“Easy alternative,” said Cashel, with a scornful laugh; “you scarcely expected a beggar, a ruined gambler, could pay seventy thousand doubloons. But times are changed, sir. I am rich now,—rich enough to double the sum you stipulated for. Although I well know the contract is not worth the pen that wrote it, I am willing to recognize it, at least so far as the forfeit is concerned.”
“My poor child, my darling Maritaña,” said Pedro, but in a voice barely audible. The words seemed the feeble utterance of a breaking heart.
“Sorrow not for her, senhor,” said Cashel, hastily. “She has no griefs herself on such a score. It is but a few hours since she told me so.”
Don Pedro was silent; but a mournful shake of the head and a still more mournful smile seemed to intimate his dissent.
“I tell you, sir, that your own scorn of my alliance was inferior to hers!” cried Cashel, in a voice of deep exasperation. “She even went so far as to say that she was a party to the contract only on the condition of its utter worthlessness. Do not, then, let me hear of regrets for her.”
“And you believe this?”
“I believe what I have myself witnessed.”
“What, then, if you be a witness to the very opposite? What if your ears reveal to you the evidence as strongly against, as now you deem it in favor of, your opinion?”
“I do not catch your meaning.”
“I would say, what if from Maritaña's own lips you heard an avowal of her affection, would you conceive yourself at liberty to redeem a contract to which you were only one party, and by mere money—I care not how large you call the sum—to reject the heart you have made your own?”
“No, no, this cannot be,” cried Cashel, struggling in a conflict of uncertainty and fear.
“I know my daughter, sir,” said Pedro, with an air of pride he well knew when and how to assume.
“If I but thought so,” muttered Cashel to himself; and low as the words were, Rica heard them.
“I ask you for nothing short of your own conviction,—the conviction of your own ears and eyes. You shall, if you please, remain concealed in her apartment while I question her on the subject of this attachment. If you ever supposed me base enough to coerce her judgment, you know her too well to believe it to be possible. But I will not insult myself by either supposition. I offer you this test of what I have said: accept it if you will, and with this condition, that you shall then be free to tear this contract, if you like, but never believe that I can barter the acknowledged affection of my child, and take money for her misery.”
Cashel was moved by the truth-like energy of the words he heard; the very aspect of emotion in one he had never seen save calm, cold, and self-possessed, had its influence on him, and he replied, “I consent.” So faintly, however, were the words uttered that he was obliged to repeat them ere they reached Don Pedro's ears.
“I will come for you after supper this evening,” said Rica. “Let me find you in the arbor at the end of the 'hacienda.' Till then, adios.” So saying, he motioned to Cashel to follow the stranger. Roland obeyed the suggestion, and they parted.
When Roland Cashel rejoined Mr. Simms, he found that worthy individual solacing himself for the privations of prairie travel, by such a breakfast as only Don Pedro's larder would produce. Surrounded by various dishes whose appetizing qualities might have suffered some impairment from a more accurate knowledge of their contents,—sucking monkeys and young squirrels among the number,—he tasted and sipped, and sipped again, till between the seductions of sangaree and Curaçoa punch, he had produced that pleasing frame of mind when even a less gorgeous scene than the windows of the villa displayed before him would have appeared delightful. Whether poor Mr. Simms's excess—and such we are compelled to confess it was—could be excused on the score of long fasting, or the consciousness that he had a right to some indulgence in the hour of victory, he assuredly revelled in the fullest enjoyment of this luxurious banquet, and, as Cashel entered the room, had reached the delicious dreamland of misty consciousness, where his late adventures and his former life became most pleasingly commingled, and jaguars, alligators, gambusinos, and rancheros, danced through his brain in company with Barons of the Exchequer and Masters in Chancery.
Elevated by the scenes of danger he had passed through,—some real, the far greater number imaginary,—into the dignity of a hero, he preferred rather to discuss prairie life and scenes in the Havannah, to dwelling on the topics so nearly interesting to Cashel. Nor was Roland a very patient listener to digressions, which, at every moment, left the high-road, and wandered into every absurd by-path of personal history.
“I always thought, sir,” said Simms, “and used to say it everywhere, too, what a splendid change for you this piece of good fortune would be, springing at a bound, as a body might say, from a powder-monkey into the wealth of a peer of the realm; but, egad, when I see the glorious life you lead hereabouts, such grog, such tipple, capital house, magnificent country, and, if I may pronounce from the view beneath my window, no lack of company, too! I begin to feel doubts about it.”
If Cashel was scarcely pleased at the allusions to himself in this speech, he speedily forgave them in his amusement at the commentary Simms passed on life at the villa; but yet would willingly have turned from either theme to that most engrossing one,—the circumstances of his altered fortune. Simms, however, was above such grovelling subjects; and, as he sat, glass in hand, gazing out upon the garden, where strolling parties came and went, and loitering groups lingered in the shade, he really fancied the scene a perfect paradise.
“Very hard to leave this, you'll find it!” exclaimed Simms. “I can well imagine life here must be rare fun. How jolly they do seem down there!” said he, with a half-longing look at the strange figures, who now and then favored him with a salute or a gesture of the hand, as they passed.
“Come, let us join them,” said Cashel, who, despairing of recalling him to the wished-for topic, was fain to consent to indulge the stranger's humor.
“All naval men?” asked Simms, as they issued forth into the lawn.
“Most of them are sailors!” said Cashel, equivocating.
“That's a fine-looking old fellow beneath the beech-tree, with the long Turkish pipe in his mouth. He's captain of a seventy-four, I take it.”
“He's a Greek merchantman,” whispered Cashel; “don't look so hard at him, for he observes you, and is somewhat irascible in temper, if stared at.”
“Indeed! I should n't have thought—”
“No matter, do as I tell you; he stabbed a travelling artist the other day, who fancied he was a fine study, and wished to make a drawing of his head.”
Simms's jaw dropped suddenly, and a sickly faintness stole over him, that even all his late potations could not supply courage enough to hear such a story unmoved.
“And who is he, sir, yonder?” asked he, as a youth, with no other clothing than a shirt and trousers, was fencing against a tree, practising, by bounds and springs, every imaginable species of attack and assault.
“A young Spaniard from the Basque,” said Cashel, coolly; “he has a duel to-morrow with some fellow in Barcelonetta, and he 's getting his wrist into play.” Then calling out, he said, “Ah, José, you mean to let blood, I see!”
“He's only a student,” said the youth, with an insolent toss of his head. “But who have we here?”
“A friend and countryman of mine, Mr. Simms,” said Cashel, introducing the little man, who performed a whole circuit round the young Spaniard in salutations.
“Come to join us?” asked the youth, surveying him with cool impertinence. “What in the devil's name hast thou done that thou shouldst leave the Old World at thy time of life? Virtuous living or hypocrisy ought to have become a habit with thee ere now, old boy, eh?”
“He's only on a visit,” said Cashel, laughing; “he can return to good society, not like all of us here.”
“Would you infer from that, sir—”
“Keep your temper, José,” said Cashel, with an indescribable assumption of insolent superiority; “or, if you cannot, keep your courage for the students, whose broils best suit you.”
“You presume somewhat too far on your skill with the rapier, Senhor Cashel,” said the other, but in a voice far less elevated than before.
“You can test the presumption at any moment,” said Cashel, insolently; “now, if you like it.”
“Oh, Mr. Cashel! oh, Mr. Roland! for mercy's sake, don't!” exclaimed Simms.
“Never fear,” interposed Cashel; “that excellent young man has better principles than you fancy, and never neglects, though he sometimes forgets, himself.”
So saying, he leisurely passed his arm beneath Simms's, and led him forward.
“Good day, Senhor Cashel,” said a tall and well-dressed man, who made his salutations with a certain air of distinction that induced Simms to inquire who and what he was.
“A general in the service of one of the minor States of Germany,” said Cashel; “a man of great professional skill, and, it is said, of great personal bravery.”
“And in what capacity is he here?”
“A refugee. His sentence to be shot was commuted to imprisonment for life. He made his escape from Spandau, and came here.”
“What was his crime?”
“Treachery,—the very basest one can well conceive; he commanded the fort of Bergstein, which the French attacked on their advance in the second Austrian campaign. The assailants had no heavy artillery, nor any material for escalade; but they had money, and gold proved a better battering-train than lead. Plittersdorf—that's the general's name—fired over their heads till he had expended all his ammunition, and then surrendered, with the garrison, as prisoners of war. The French, however, exchanged him afterwards, and he very nearly paid the penalty of his false faith.”
“And now is he shunned,—do people avoid him?”
“How should they? How many here are privileged to look down on a traitor? Is it the runaway merchant, the defaulting bank clerk, the filching commissary, that can say shame to one whose crime stands higher in the scale of offence? The best we can know of any one here is, that his rascality took an aspiring turn; and yet there are some fellows one would not like to think ill of. Here comes one such; and as I have something like business to treat of with him, I 'll ask you to wait for me, on this bench, till I join you.”
Without waiting for any reply, Cashel hastened forward, and taking off his hat, saluted a sallow-looking man of some eight-and-forty or fifty years of age, who, in a loose morning-gown, and with a book in his hand, was strolling along in one of the alleys.
“Ha, lieutenant,” said the other, as, lifting up his eyes, he recognized Cashel,—“making the most of these short hours of pleasure, eh? You 've heard the news, I suppose; we shall be soon afloat again.”
“So I've heard, captain!” replied Cashel; “but I believe we have taken our last cruise together.”
“How so, lad? You look well, and in spirits; and as for myself, I never felt in better humor than to try a bout with our friends on the western coast.”
“You have no friend, captain, can better like to hear you say so; and as for me, the chances of fortune have changed. I have discovered that I need neither risk head nor limbs for gold; a worthy man has arrived here to-day with tidings that I am the owner of a large estate, and more money than I shall well know how to squander, and so—”
“And so you 'll leave us for the land where men have learned that art? Quite right, Cashel. At your age a man can accustom himself to any and everything; at mine—a little later—at mine, for instance, the task is harder. I remember myself, some years ago, fancying that I should enjoy prodigiously that life of voluptuous civilization they possess in the Old World, where men's wants are met ere they are well felt, and hundreds—ay, thousands—are toiling and thinking to minister to the rich man's pleasures. It so chanced that I took a prize a few weeks after; she was a Portuguese barque with specie, broad doubloons and gold bars for the mint at Lisbon, and so I threw up my command and went over to France and to Paris. The first dash was glorious; all was new, glittering, and splendid; every sense steeped in a voluptuous entrancement; thought was out of the question, and one only could wonder at the barbarism that before seemed to represent life, and sorrow for years lost and wasted in grosser enjoyment. Then came a reaction, at first slight, but each day stronger; the headache of the debauch, the doubt of your mistress's fidelity, your friend's truth, your own enduring good fortune,—all these lie in wait together, and spring out on you in some gloomy hour, like Malays boarding a vessel at night, and crowding down from maintop and mizen! There is no withstanding; you must strike or fly. I took the last alternative, and, leaving my splendid quarters one morning at daybreak, hastened to Havre. Not a thought of regret crossed me; so quiet a life seemed to sap my very courage, and prey upon my vitals; that same night I swung once more in a hammock, with the rushing water beside my ear, and never again tried those dissipations that pall from their very excess; for, after all, no pleasure is lasting which is not dashed with the sense of danger.”
While he was yet speaking, a female figure, closely veiled, passed close to where they stood, and, without attracting any notice, slipped into Cashel's hand a slip of paper. Few as the words it contained were, they seemed to excite his very deepest emotion, and it was with a faltering voice he asked the captain by what step he could most speedily obtain his release from the service?
A tiresome statement of official forms was the answer; but Roland's impatience did not hear it out, as he said,—
“And is there no other way,—by gold, for instance?”
A cold shrug of the shoulders met this sally, and the captain said,—
“To corrupt the officials of the Government is called treason by our laws, and is punishable by death, just like desertion.” \
“Therefore is desertion the better course, as it involves none but one,” said Cashel, laughing, as he turned away.
It was about half-past six of an autumn evening, just as the gray twilight was darkening into the gloom that precedes night, that a servant, dressed in the most decorous black, drew down the window-blinds of a large and splendidly furnished drawing-room of a house in Merrion Square, Dublin.
Having arranged certain portly deep-cushioned chairs into the orderly disorder that invites social groupings, and having disposed various other articles of furniture according to those notions of domestic landscape so popular at the present day, he stirred the fire and withdrew,—all these motions being performed with the noiseless decorum of a church.
A glance at the apartment, even by the fitful light of the coal-fire, showed that it was richly, even magnificently, furnished. The looking-glasses were immense in size, and framed with all that the most lavish art of the carver could display. The hangings were costly Lyons silk, the sofas, tables, and cabinets were all exquisite specimens of modern skill and elegance, while the carpet almost rose above the foot in the delicate softness of its velvet pile. A harp, a grand pianoforte, and several richly-bound and gilded volumes strewed about gave evidence of tastes above the mere voluptuous enjoyment of ease, and in one window stood an embroidery-frame, with its unfinished labor, from which the threads depended in that fashion, that showed it had lately occupied the fair hands of the artist.
This very enviable apartment belonged to Mr. Mountjoy Kennyfeck, the leading solicitor of Dublin, a man who, for something more than thirty years, had stood at the head of his walk in the capital, and was reputed to be one of its most respected and richest citizens. Mrs. Mountjoy Kennyfeck—neither for our own nor our reader's convenience dare we omit the “prénom”—was of a western family considerably above that of her liege lord and master in matter of genealogy, but whose quarterings had so far survived the family acres that she was fain to accept the hand of a wealthy attorney, after having for some years been the belle of her county, and the admired beauty of Castle balls and drawing-rooms.
It had been at first, indeed, a very hard struggle for the O'Haras to adopt the style and title of Kennyfeck, and poor Matilda was pitied in all the moods and tenses for exchanging the riotous feudalism of Mayo for the decorous quietude and wealthy insouciance of a Dublin mansion; and the various scions of the house did not scruple to express very unqualified opinions on the subject of her fall; but Time—that heals so much—Time and Mr. Kennyfeck's claret, of which they all drank most liberally during the visits to town, assuaged the rancor of these prejudices, and “Matty,” it was hinted, might have done worse; while some hardy spirit averred that “Kennyfeck, though not one of ourselves, has a great deal of the gentleman about him, notwithstanding.”
A word of Mr. Kennyfeck himself, and even a word will almost suffice. He was a very tall, pompous-looking personage, with a retiring forehead and a large prominent nose; he wore a profusion of powder, and always dressed in the most scrupulous black; he spoke little, and that slowly; he laughed never. It was not that he was melancholy or depressed; it seemed rather that his nature had been fashioned in conformity with the onerous responsibilities of his pursuit, and that he would have deemed any exhibition of mirthful emotion unseemly and unbecoming one who, so to say, was a kind of high priest in the temple of equity. Next to the Chancellor's he venerated the decisions of Mrs. Kennyfeck; after Mrs. Kennyfeck came the Master of the Rolls. This was his brief and simple faith, and it is astonishing in what simple rules of guidance men amass vast fortunes, and obtain the highest suffrages of civic honor and respect!
Mr. Kennyfeck's family consisted of two daughters: the eldest had been a beauty for some years, and, even at the period our tale opens, had lost few of her attractions. She was tall, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, with an air of what in the Irish capital is called “decided fashion” about her, but in less competent circles might have been called almost effrontery. She looked strangers very steadily in the face, spoke with a voice full, firm, and unabashed,—no matter what the subject, or who the audience,—and gave her opinions on people and events with a careless indifference to consequences that many mistook for high genius rebellious against control.
Olivia, three years younger than her sister, had just come out; and whether that her beauty—and she was very handsome—required a different style, or that she saw more clearly “the mistake” in Miss Kennyfeck's manner, but she took a path perfectly her own. She was tenderness itself; a delicacy too susceptible for this work-a-day world pervaded all she said and did,—a retiring sensitiveness that she knew, as she plaintively said, would never “let her be loved,” overlaid her nature, and made her the victim of her own feelings. Her sketches, everlasting Madonnas dissolved in tears; her music, the most mournful of the melodies; her reading, the most disastrously ending of modern poems,—all accorded with this tone, which, after all, scarcely consorted well with a very blooming cheek, bright hazel eyes, and an air and carriage that showed a full consciousness of her captivations, and no small reliance on her capacity to exercise them.
A brief interval after the servant left the room, the door opened, and Mrs. Kennyfeck entered. She was dressed for dinner, and if not exactly attired for the reception of a large company, exhibited, in various details of her costume, unequivocal signs of more than common care. A massive diamond brooch fastened the front of her dark velvet dress, and on her fingers several rings of great value glittered. Miss Kennyfeck, too, who followed her, was, though simply, most becomingly dressed; the light and floating material of her robe contrasting well with the more stately folds of the matronly costume of her mother.
“I am surprised they are not here before this,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, lying back in the deep recess of a luxurious chair, and placing a screen between herself and the fire. “Your father said positively on the 5th, and as the weather has been most favorable, I cannot understand the delay. The packets arrive at four, I think?”
“Yes, at four, and the carriage left this at three to fetch them.”
“Read the note again,—he writes so very briefly always. I 'm sure I wish the dear man would understand that I am not a client, and that a letter is not exactly all it might be, because it can be charged its thirteen-and-fourpence, or six-and-eightpence, whatever it is.”
Miss Kennyfeck took an open note from the chimney, and read:—
Invite Jones and Softly to meet us at dinner.
The clock on the mantelpiece now struck seven; and scarcely had the last chime died away as a carriage drove up to the door.
“Here they come, I suppose,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, with a half-sigh.
“No, mamma; it is a hackney-coach. Mr. Jones, or Mr. Softly, perhaps.”
“Oh, dear! I had forgotten them. How absurd it was to ask these people, and your father not here.”
The door opened, and the servant announced the Rev. Mr. Knox Softly. A very tall, handsome young man entered, and made a most respectful but cordial salutation to the ladies. He was in look and mien the beau idéal of health, strength, and activity, with bright, full blue eyes, and cheeks rosy as the May. His voice, however, was subdued to the dulcet accent of a low whisper, and his step, as he crossed the room, had the stealthy noiselessness of a cat's approach.
“Mr. Kennyfeck quite restored, I hope, from the fatigue of his journey?”
“We 've not seen him yet,” replied his lady, almost tartly. “He ought to have been here at four o'clock, and yet it's past seven.”
“I think I hear a carriage.”
“Another ———,” hackney, Miss Kennyfeck was about to say, when she stopped herself, and, at the instant, Counsellor Clare Jones was announced.
This gentleman was a rising light of the Irish bar, who had the good fortune to attract Mr. Kennyfeck's attention, and was suddenly transferred from the dull duties of civil bills and declarations to business of a more profitable kind. He had been somewhat successful in his college career,—carried off some minor honors; was a noisy member of a debating society; wrote leaders for some provincial papers; and with overbearing powers of impudence, and a good memory, was a very likely candidate for high forensic honor.
Unlike the first arrival, the Counsellor had few, if any, of the forms of good society in his manner or address. His costume, too, was singularly negligent; and as he ran a very dubious hand through a mass of thick and tangled hair on entering, it was easy to see that the greatest part of his toilet was then and there performed. The splashed appearance of his nether garments, and of shoes that might have done honor to snipe-shooting, also showed that the carriage which brought him was a mere ceremonial observance, and, as he would himself say, “the act of conveyance was a surplusage.”
Those who saw him in court pronounced him the most unabashed and cool of men; but there was certainly a somewhat of haste and impetuosity in his drawing-room manner that even a weak observer would have ascribed to awkwardness.
“How do you do, Mrs. Kennyfeck?—how do you do, Miss Kennyfeck?—glad to see you. Ah! Mr. Softly,—well, I hope? Is he come—has he arrived?” A shake of the head replied in the negative. “Very strange; I can't understand it. We have a consultation with the Solicitor-General to-morrow, and a meeting in chambers at four.”
“I should n't wonder if Mr. Cashel detained papa; he is very young, you know, and London must be so new and strange to him, poor lad!”
“Yes; but your father would scarce permit it,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, smartly. “I rather think it must have been some accidental circumstance; coaches are constantly upsetting, and post-horses cannot always be had.”
Mr. Knox Softly smiled benignly, as though to say in these suggestions Mrs. Kennyfeck was displaying a very laudable spirit of uncertainty as to the course of human events.
“Here 's Olivia,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, as her younger daughter entered. “Let us hear her impressions,—full of forebodings, I don't doubt.”
Miss Olivia Kennyfeck performed her salutations to the guests with the most faultless grace, throwing into her courtesy to the curate a certain air of filial reverence very pretty to behold, and only a little objectionable on the score of the gentleman's youth and personal attractions; and then, turning to her mother said,—
“You are not uneasy, mamma, I hope? Though, after all, this is about the period of the equinox.”
“Nonsense, child! packets are never lost nowadays in the Irish Channel. It's merely some sudden freak of gayety,—some London distraction detains them. Will you touch that bell, Mr. Clare Jones? It is better to order dinner.”
There was something peremptory in the lady's tone and manner that rather damped the efforts at small-talk,—never very vigorous or well-sustained at these ante-dinner moments; nor were any of the party very sorry when the servant announced that the soup was served.