WHEN the fishing boats came within half a cable’s length of the cutter, Lord Innisfail gave up the tiller to Brian, who was well qualified to be the organizer of the expedition, having the reputation of being familiar with the haunts and habits of the seals that may be found—by such as know as much about them as Brian—among the great caves that pierce for several miles the steep cliffs of the coast.
The responsibility of steering a boat under the headlands, either North or South, was not sought by Lord Innisfail. For perhaps three hundred and fifty days in every year it would be impossible to approach the cliffs in any craft; but as Brian took the tiller he gave a knowing glance around the coast and assured his lordship that it was a jewel of a day for a seal-hunt, and added that it was well that he had brought only the largest of the fishing boats, for anything smaller would sink with the weight of the catch of seals.
He took in the slack of the main sheet and sent the cutter flying direct to the Northern headland, the luggers following in her wake, though scarcely preserving stations or distances with that rigorous naval precision which occasionally sends an ironclad to the bottom.
The man-of-war may run upon a reef, and the country may be called on to pay half a million for the damage; but it can never be said that she fails to maintain her station prescribed by the etiquette of the Royal Navy in following the flagship, which shows that the British sailor, wearing epaulettes, is as true as the steel that his ship is made of, and a good deal truer than that of some of the guns which he is asked to fire.
In a short time the boats had cleared the headland, and it seemed to some of the cutter’s company as if they were given an opportunity of looking along the whole west coast of Ireland in a moment. Northward and southward, like a study in perspective, the lines of indented cliffs stretched until they dwindled away into the gray sky. The foam line that was curved as it curled around the enormous rocks close at hand, was straightened out in the distance and never quite disappeared.
“Talk of the Great Wall of China,” said Lord Innisfail, pointing proudly to the splendid chain of cliffs. “Talk of the Great Wall of China indeed! What is it compared with that?”
He spoke as proudly as if he owned everything within that line of cliffs, though he thanked heaven every night that he only owned a few thousand acres in Ireland.
“What indeed—what indeed?” said Mr. Durdan.
One of the men thought the moment opportune for airing a theory that he had to the effect that the Great Wall of China was not built by the Chinese to keep the surrounding nations out, but by the surrounding nations to keep the Chinese in.
It was a feasible theory, suggesting that the Chinese immigration question existed among the Thibetans some thousands of years ago, to quite as great an extent as it does in some other directions to-day. But it requires to be a very strong theory to stand the strain of the Atlantic waves and a practically unlimited view of the coast of Ireland. So no discussion arose.
Already upon some of the flat rocks at the entrance to the great caves the black head of a seal might be seen. It did not remain long in view, however. Brian had scarcely pointed it out with a whisper to such persons as were near him, when it disappeared.
“It’s the wary boys they are, to be sure!” he remarked confidentially.
His boldness in steering among the rocks made some persons more than usually thoughtful. Fortunately the majority of those aboard the cutter knew nothing of his display of skill. They remained quite unaware of the jagged rocks that the boat just cleared; and when he brought the craft to the lee of a cliff, which formed a natural breakwater and a harbour of ripples, none of these people seemed surprised.
Lord Innisfail and a few yachtsmen who knew something of sailing, drew long breaths. They knew what they had escaped.
One of the hands got into the punt and took a line to the cliff to moor the yacht when the sails had been lowered, and by the time that the mooring was effected, the other boats had come into the natural harbour—it would have given protection—that is, natural protection, to a couple of ironclads—no power can protect them from their own commanders.
“Now, my lard,” said Brian, who seemed at last to realize his responsibilities, “all we’ve got to do is to grab the craythurs; but that same’s a caution. We’ll be at least an hour-and-a-half in the caves, and as it will be cold work, and maybe wet work, maybe some of their honours wouldn’t mind standing by the cutter.”
The suggestion was heartily approved of by some of the yacht’s company. Lady Innisfail said she was perfectly satisfied with such local colour as was available without leaving the yacht, and it was understood that Miss Avon would remain by her side. Mr. Airey said he thought he could face with cheerfulness a scheme of existence that did not include sitting with varying degrees of uneasiness in a small boat while other men speared an inoffensive seal.
“Such explanations are not for the Atlantic Ocean,” said Harold, getting over the side of the yacht into the punt that Brian had hauled close—Lord Innisfail was already in the bow.
In a short time, by the skilful admiralship of Brian, the other boats, which were brought up from the luggers, were manned, and their stations were assigned to them, one being sent to explore a cave a short distance off, while another was to remain at the entrance to pick up any seals that might escape. The same plan was adopted in regard to the great cave, the entrance to which was close to where the yacht was moored. Brian arranged that his boat should enter the cave, while another, fully manned, should stand by the rocks to capture the refugees.
All the boats then started for their stations—all except the punt with Brian at the yoke lines, Harold and Mr. Durdan in the stern sheets, one of the hands at the paddles, and Lord Innisfail in the bows; for when this craft was about to push off, Brian gave an exclamation of discontent.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Lord Innisfail.
“Plenty’s the matter, my lard,” said Brian. “The sorra a bit of luck we’ll have this day if we leave the ladies behind us.”
“Then we must put up with bad luck,” said Lord Innisfail. “Go down on your knees to her ladyship and ask her to come with us if you think that will do any good.”
“Oh, her ladyship would come without prayers if she meant to,” said Brian. “But it’s Miss Avon that’s open to entreaty. For the love of heaven and the encouragement of sport, step into the boat, Sheila, and you’ll have something to talk about for the rest of your life.”
Beatrice shook her head at the appeal, but that wouldn’t do for Brian. “Look, my lady, look at her eyes, aren’t they just jumping out of her head like young trout in a stream in May?” he cried to Lady Innisfail. “Isn’t she waiting for you to say the word to let her come, an’ not a word does any gentleman in the boat speak on her behalf.”
The gentlemen remained dumb, but Lady Innisfail declared that if Miss Avon was not afraid of a wetting and cared to go in the boat, there was no reason why she should not do so.
In another moment Beatrice had stepped into the punt and it had pushed off with a cheer from Brian. The men in the other boats, now in the distance, hearing the cheer, but without knowing why it arose, sent back an answer that aroused the thousand echoes of the cliffs and the ten thousand sea birds that arose in a cloud from every crevice of the rocks. Thus it was that the approach of the boat to the great cave did not take place in silence.
Harold had not uttered a word. He had not even looked at Edmund Airey’s face to see what expression it wore when Beatrice stepped into the boat.
“Did you ever hear anything like Airey’s roundabout phrase about a scheme of existence?” said Mr. Durdan.
“It is his way of putting a simple matter,” said Harold. “You heard of the man who, in order to soften down the fact that a girl had what are colloquially known as beetle-crushers, wrote that her feet tended to increase the mortality among coleoptera?”
“I’m afraid that the days of the present government are numbered,” said Mr. Durdan, who seemed to think that the remark was in logical sequence with Harold’s story.
Beatrice looked wonderingly at the speaker; it was some moments before she found an echo in the expression on Harold’s face to what she felt.
The man who could think of such things as the breaking up of a government, when floating in thirty fathoms of green sea, beneath the shadow of such cliffs as the boat was approaching, was a mystery to the girl, though she was the daughter of one of the nineteenth century historians, to whom nothing is a mystery.
The boat entered the great cave without a word being spoken by any one aboard, and in a few minutes it was being poled along in semi-darkness. The lapping of the swell from the entrance against the sides of the cave sounded on through the distance of the interior, and from those mysterious depths came strange sounds of splashing water, of dropping stalactites, and now and again a mighty sob of waves choked within a narrow vent.
Silently the boat was forced onward, and soon all light from the entrance was obscured. Through total darkness the little craft crept for nearly half a mile.
Suddenly a blaze of light shot up with startling effect in the bows of the boat. It only came from a candle that Brian had lit: but its gleam was reflected in millions of stalactites into what seemed an interminable distance—millions of stalactites on the roof and the walls, and millions of ripples beneath gave back the gleam, until the boat appeared to be the centre of a vast illumination.
The dark shadows of the men who were using the oars as poles, danced about the brilliant roof and floor of the cave, adding to the fantastic charm of the scene.
“Now,” said Brian, in a whisper, “these craythurs don’t understand anything that’s said to them unless by a human being, so we’ll need to be silent enough. We’ll be at the first ledge soon, and there maybe you’ll wait with the lady, Mr. Wynne—you’re heavier than Mr. Durdan, and every inch of water that the boat draws is worth thinking about. I’ll leave a candle with you, but not a word must you speak.”
“All right,” said Harold. “You’re the manager of the expedition; we must obey you; but I don’t exactly see where my share in the sport comes in.”
“I’d explain it all if I could trust myself to speak,” said Brian. “The craythurs has ears.” The ledge referred to by him was reached in silence. It was perhaps six inches above the water, and in an emergency it might have afforded standing room for three persons. So much Harold saw by the light of the candle that the boatman placed in a niche of rock four feet above the water.
At a sign from Brian, Harold got upon the ledge and helped Beatrice out of the boat.
The light of the candle that was in the bow of the boat gleamed upon the figure of a man naked from the waist up, and wearing a hard round hat with a candle fastened to the brim.
Harold knew that this was the costume of the seal-hunter of the Western caves, for he had had a talk with Brian on the subject, and had learned that only by swimming with a lighted candle on his forehead for a quarter of a mile, the hunter could reach the sealing ground at the termination of the cave.
Without a word being spoken, the boat went on, and its light soon glimmered mysteriously in the distance.
Harold and Beatrice stood side by side on the narrow ledge of rock and watched the dwindling of the light. The candle that was on the niche of rock almost beside them seemed dwindling also. It had become the merest spark. Harold saw that Brian had inadvertently placed it so that the dripping of the water from the roof sent flecks of damp upon the wick.
He stretched out his hand to shift it to another place, but before he could touch it, a large stalactite dropped upon it, and not only extinguished it, but sent it into the water with a splash.
The little cry that came from the girl as the blackness of darkness closed upon them, sounded to his ears as a reproach.
“I had not touched it,” said he. “Something dropped from the roof upon it. You don’t mind the darkness?”
“Oh, no—no,” said she, doubtfully. “But we were commanded to be dumb.”
“That command was given on the assumption that the candle would continue burning—now the conditions are changed,” said he, with a sophistry that would have done credit to a cabinet minister.
“Oh,” said she.
There was a considerable pause before she asked him how long he thought it would be before the boat would return.
He declined to bind himself to any expression of opinion on the subject.
Then there was another pause, filled up only by the splash of something falling from the roof—by the wash of the water against the smooth rock.
“I wonder how it has come about that I am given a chance of speaking to you at last?” said he.
“At last?” said she, repeating his words in the same tone of inquiry.
“I say at last, because I have been waiting for such an opportunity for some time, but it did not come. I don’t suppose I was clever enough to make my opportunity, but now it has come, thank God.”
Again there was silence. He seemed to think that he had said something requiring a reply from her, but she did not speak.
“I wonder if you would believe me when I say that I love you,” he remarked.
“Yes,” she replied, as naturally as though he had asked her what she thought of the weather. “Yes, I think I would believe you. If you did not love me—if I was not sure that you loved me, I should be the most miserable girl in all the world.”
“Great God!” he cried. “You do not mean to say that you love me, Beatrice?”
“If you could only see my face now, you would know it,” said she. “My eyes would tell you all—no, not all—that is in my heart.”
He caught her hands, after first grasping a few handfuls of clammy rock, for the hands of the truest lovers do not meet mechanically.
“I see them,” he whispered—“I see your eyes through the darkness. My love, my love!”
He did not kiss her. His soul revolted from the idea of the commonplace kiss in the friendly secrecy of the darkness.
There are opportunities and opportunities. He believed that if he had kissed her then she would never have forgiven him, and he was right. “What a fool I was!” he cried. “Two nights ago, when I overheard a man tell you, as I had told you long ago—so long ago—more than a week ago—that he did not want you to pass out of his sight—when I heard you make the same promise to him as you had made to me, I felt as if there was nothing left for me in the world. I went out into the darkness, and as I stood at the place when I first saw you, I thought that I should be doing well if I were to throw myself headlong down those rocks into the sea that the rain was beating upon. Beatrice, God only knows if it would be better or worse for you if I had thrown myself down—if I were to leave you standing alone here now.”
“Do not say those words—they are like the words I asked you before not to say. Even then your words meant everything to me. They mean everything to me still.”
He gave a little laugh. Triumph rang through it. He did not seem to think that his laughter might sound incongruous to her.
“This is my hour,” he said. “Whatever fate may have in store for me it cannot make me unlive this hour. And to think that I had got no idea that such an hour should ever come to me—that you should ever come to me, my beloved! But you came to me. You came to me when I had tried to bring myself to feel that there was something worth living for in the world apart from love.”
“And now?”
“And now—and now—now I know that there is nothing but love that is worth living for. What is your thought, Beatrice—tell me all that is in your heart?”
“All—all?” She now gave the same little laugh that he had given. She felt that her turn had come.
She gave just the same laugh when his feeling of triumph had given place to a very different feeling—when he had told her that he was a pauper—that he had no position in the world—that he was dependent upon his father for every penny that he had to spend, with the exception of a few hundred pounds a year, which he inherited from his mother—that it was an act of baseness on his part to tell her that he loved her.
He had plenty of time for telling her all this, and for explaining his position thoroughly, for nearly an hour had passed before a gleam of light and a hail from the furthest recesses of the cave, made them aware of the fact that other interests than theirs existed in the world.
And yet when he had told her all that he had to tell to his disadvantage, she gave that little laugh of triumph. He would have given a good deal to be able to see the expression which he knew was in those wonderful eyes of hers, as that laugh came from her.
Not being able to do so, however, he could only crush her hands against his lips and reply to the boat’s hail.
Brian, on hearing of the mishap to the candle, delivered a torrent of execration against himself. It took Harold some minutes to bring himself up to the point of Lord Innisfail’s enthusiasm on the subject of seal-fishing. Five excellent specimens were in the bottom of the boat, and the men who had swum after them were there also. A strong odour of whiskey was about them; and the general idea that prevailed was that they would not suffer from a chill, though they had been in the water for three quarters of an hour.
As the other boats only succeeded in capturing three seals among them all, Brian had statistics to bear out his contention that the presence of Beatrice had brought luck to his boat.
He pocketed two sovereigns which Harold handed him when the boats returned to the mooring-place, and he was more profuse than ever in his abuse of his own stupidity in placing the candle so as to be affected by the damp from the roof.
His eyes twinkled all the time in a way that made Harold’s cheeks red.
The judge found Miss Avon somewhat distraite after dinner that night. He became pensive in consequence. He wondered if she thought him elderly.
He did not mind in the least growing old, but the idea of being thought elderly was abhorrent to him.
The next day Beatrice and her father returned to their cottage at the other side of the lough.
SOMETHING remarkable had occurred. Lord Fotheringay had been for a fortnight under one roof without disgracing himself.
The charitable people said he was reforming.
The others said he was aging rapidly.
The fact remained the same, however: he had been a fortnight at the Castle and he had not yet disgraced himself.
Mrs. Burgoyne congratulated Lady Innisfail upon this remarkable occurrence, and Lady Innisfail began to hope that it might get talked about. If her autumn party at Castle Innisfail were to be talked about in connection with the reform of Lord Fotheringay, much more interest would be attached to the party and the Castle than would be the result of the publication of the statistics of a gigantic shoot. Gigantic shoots did undoubtedly take place on the Innisfail Irish property, but they invariably took place before the arrival of Lord Innisfail and his guests, and the statistics were, for obvious reasons, not published. They only leaked out now and again.
The most commonplace people might enjoy the reputation attaching to the careful preservation and the indiscriminate slaughter of game; but Lady Innisfail knew that the distinction accruing from a connection with a social scandal of a really high order, or with a great social reform—either as regards a hardened reprobate or an afternoon toilet—was something much greater.
Of course, she understood perfectly well that in England the Divorce Court is the natural and legitimate medium for attaining distinction in the form of a Special Edition and a pen and ink portrait; but she had seen great things accomplished by the rumour of an unfair game of cards, as well as by a very daring skirt dance.
Next to a high-class scandal, the discovery of a new religion was a means of reaching eminence, she knew. With the exact social value attaching to the Reform of a Hardened Reprobate, she was as yet unacquainted, the fact being that she had never had any experience of such an incident—it was certainly very rare in the society in which she moved, so that it is not surprising that she was not prepared to say at a moment how much it would count in the estimation of the world.
But if the Reform of a Reprobate—especially a reprobate with a title—was so rare as to be uncatalogued, so to speak, surely it should be of exceptional value as a social incident. Should it not partake of the prestige which attaches to a rare occurrence?
This was the way that Mrs. Burgoyne put the matter to her friend and hostess, and her friend and hostess was clever enough to appreciate the force of her phrases. She began to perceive that although Lord Fotheringay had come to the Castle on the slenderest of invitations, and simply because it suited his purpose—although she had been greatly annoyed at his sudden appearance at the Castle, still good might come of it.
She did not venture to estimate from the standpoint of the moralist, the advantages accruing to the Reformed Reprobate himself from the incident of his reform, she merely looked at the matter from the standpoint of the woman of society—which is something quite different—desirous of attaining a certain social distinction.
Thus it was that Lady Innisfail took to herself the credit of the Reform of the Reprobate, and petted the reprobate accordingly, giving no attention whatever to the affairs of his son. These affairs, interesting though they had been to her some time before, now became insignificant compared with the Great Reform.
She even went the length of submitting to be confided in by Lord Fotheringay; and she heard, with genuine interest, from his own lips that he considered the world in general to be hollow. He had found it so. He had sounded the depths of its hollowness. He had found that in all grades of society there was much evil. The working classes—he had studied the question of the working man not as a parliamentary candidate, consequently honestly—drank too much beer. They sought happiness through the agency of beer; but all the beer produced by all the brewers in the House of Lords would not bring happiness to the working classes. As for the higher grades of society—the people who were guilty of partaking of unearned increment—well, they were wrong too. He thought it unnecessary to give the particulars of the avenues through which they sought happiness. But they were all wrong. The domestic life—there, and there only, might one find the elements of true happiness. He knew this because he had endeavoured to reach happiness by every other avenue and had failed in his endeavours. He now meant to supply his omission, and he regretted that it had never occurred to him to do so before. Yes, some poet or other had written something or other on the subject of the great charm of a life of domesticity, and Lord Fotheringay assured Lady Innisfail in confidence that that poet was right.
Lady Innisfail sighed and said that the Home—the English Home—with its simple pleasures and innocent mirth, was where the Heart—the English Heart—was born. What happiness was within the reach of all if they would only be content with the Home! Society might be all very well in its way. There were duties to be discharged—every rank in life carried its duties with it; but how sweet it was, after one had discharged one’s social obligations, to find a solace in the retirement of Home.
Lord Fotheringay lifted up his hands and said “Ah—ah,” in different cadences.
Lady Innisfail folded her hands and shook her head with some degree of solemnity. She felt confident that if Lord Fotheringay was in earnest, her autumn party would be talked about with an enthusiasm surpassing that which would attach to the comments on any of the big shoots in Scotland, or in Yorkshire, or in Wales.
But when Lord Fotheringay had an opportunity of conversing alone with Mr. Airey, he did not think it necessary to dwell upon the delights which he had begun to perceive might be found in a life of pure domesticity. He took the liberty of reminding Mr. Airey of the conversation they had on the morning after Miss Avon’s arrival at the Castle.
“Had we a conversation then, Lord Fotheringay?” said Mr. Airey, in a tone that gave Lord Fotheringay to understand that if any contentious point was about to be discussed, it would rest with him to prove everything.
“Yes, we had a conversation,” said Lord Fotheringay. “I was foolish enough to make a confidant of you.”
“If you did so, you certainly were foolish,” said Edmund, quietly.
“I have been keeping my eyes open and my ears open as well, during the past ten days,” said Lord Fotheringay, with a leer that was meant to be significant. Edmund Airey, however, only took it to signify that Lord Fotheringay could easily be put into a very bad temper. He said nothing, but allowed Lord Fotheringay to continue. “Yes, let me tell you that when I keep both eyes and ears open not much escapes me. I have seen and heard a good deal. You are a clever sort of person, friend Airey; but you don’t know the world as I know it.”
“No, no—as you know it—ah, no,” remarked Mr. Airey.
Lord Fotheringay was a trifle put out by the irritating way in which the words were spoken. Still, the pause he made was not of long duration.
“You have your game to play, like other people, I suppose,” he resumed, after the little pause.
“You are at liberty to suppose anything you please, my dear Lord Fotheringay,” said Mr. Airey, with a smile.
“Come,” said Lord Fotheringay, adopting quite another tone. “Come, Airey, speaking as man to man, wasn’t it a confoundedly shabby trick for you to play upon me—getting me to tell you that I meant to marry that young thing—to save her from unhappiness, Airey?”
“Well?” said Airey.
“Well?” said Lord Fotheringay.
“You didn’t complete your sentence. Was the shabby trick accepting your confidence?”
“The shabby trick was trying to win the affection of the young woman after I had declared to you my intention.”
“That was the shabby trick, was it?”
“I have no hesitation in saying that it was.”
“Very well. I hope that you have nothing more to confide in me beside this—your confidences have so far been singularly uninteresting.”
Lord Fotheringay got really angry.
“Let me tell you—” he began, but he was stopped by Airey.
“No, I decline to let you tell me anything,” said he. “You accused me just now of being so foolish as to listen to your confidences. I, perhaps, deserved the reproach. But I should be a fool if I were to give you another chance of levelling the same accusation against me. You will have to force your confidences on someone else in future, unless such as concern your liver. You confided in me that your liver wasn’t quite the thing. How is it to-day?”
“I understand your tactics,” said Lord Fotheringay, with a snap. “And I’ll take good care to make others acquainted with them also,” he added. “Oh, no, Mr. Airey; I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“To that fact every Peerage in the kingdom bears testimony,” said Mr. Airey.
Lord Fotheringay had neglected his cigar. It had gone out. He now took three or four violent puffs at it; he snapped it from between his teeth, looked at the end, and then dropped it on the ground and stamped on it.
“It was your own fault,” said Airey. “Try one of mine, and don’t bother yourself with other matters.”
“I’ll bother myself with what I please,” said Lord Fotheringay with a snarl.
But he took Mr. Airey’s cigar, and smoked it to the end. He knew that Mr. Airey smoked Carolinas.
This little scene took place outside the Castle before lunch on the second day after the departure of Mr. Avon and his daughter; and, after lunch, Lord Fotheringay put on a yachting jacket and cap, and announced his intention of having a stroll along the cliffs. His doctor had long ago assured him, he said, that he did not take sufficient exercise nor did he breathe enough fresh air. He meant in future to put himself on a strict regimen in this respect, and would begin at once.
He was allowed to carry out his intention alone—indeed he did not hint that his medical adviser had suggested company as essential to the success of any scheme of open air exercise.
The day was a breezy one, and the full force of the wind was felt at the summit of the cliff coast; but like many other gentlemen who dread being thought elderly, he was glad to seize every opportunity of showing that he was as athletic as the best of the young fellows; so he strode along, gasping and blowing with quite as much fresh air in his face as the most exacting physician could possibly have prescribed for a single dose.
He made his way to the mooring-place of the boats, and he found Brian in the boat-house engaged in making everything snug.
He was very civil to Brian, and after a transfer of coin, inquired about the weather.
There was a bit of a draught of wind in the lough, Brian said, but it was a fine day for a sail. Would his lardship have a mind for a bit of a sail? The Acushla was cruising, but the Mavourneen, a neat little craft that sailed like a swallow, was at his lardship’s service.
After some little consideration, Lord Fotheringay said that though he had no idea of sailing when he left the Castle, yet he never could resist the temptation of a fine breeze—it was nothing stronger than a breeze that was blowing, was it?
“A draught—just a bit of a draught,” said the man.
“In that case,” said Lord Fotheringay, “I think I may venture. In fact, now that I come to think of it, I should like to visit the opposite shore. There is a Castle or something, is there not, on the opposite shore?”
“Is it a Castle?” said Brian. “Oh, there’s a power of Castles scattered along the other shore, my lard. It’s thrippin’ over them your lardship will be after doin.’”
“Then we’ll not lose a moment in starting,” said Lord Fotheringay.
BRIAN took care that no moment was lost. In the course of a very few minutes Lord Fotheringay was seated on the windward thwarts of the boat, his hands grasping the gunwale to right and left, and his head bowed to mitigate in some measure the force of the shower of sea-water that flashed over the boat as her hows neatly clipped the crest off every wave.
Lord Fotheringay held on grimly. He hated the sea and all connected with it; though he hated the House of Lords to almost as great an extent, yet he had offered the promoter of the Channel Tunnel to attend in the House and lend the moral weight of his name to the support of the scheme. It was only the breadth and spontaneousness of Brian’s assurance that the breeze was no more than a draught, that had induced him to carry out his cherished idea of crossing the lough.
“Didn’t I tell your lardship that the boat could sail with the best of them?” said the man, as he hauled in the sheet a trifle, and brought the boat closer to the wind—a manouvre that did not tend to lessen the cascade that deluged his passenger.
Lord Fotheringay said not a word. He kept his head bowed to every flap of the waves beneath the bows. His attitude would have commended itself to any painter anxious to produce a type of Submission to the Will of Heaven.
He was aging quickly—so much Brian perceived, and dwelt upon—with excellent effect—in his subsequent narrative of the voyage to some of the servants at the Castle. The cosmetic that will withstand the constant application of sea-water has yet to be invented, so that in half an hour Lord Fotheringay would not have been recognized except by his valet. Brian had taken aboard a well-preserved gentleman with a rosy complexion and a moustache almost too black for nature. The person who disembarked at the opposite side of the lough was a stooped old man with lank streaky cheeks and a wisp of gray hair on each side of his upper lip.
“And it’s a fine sailor your lardship is entirely,” remarked the boatman, as he lent his tottering, dazed passenger a helping hand up the beach of pebbles. “And it’s raal enjoyment your lardship will be after having among the Castles of the ould quality, after your lardship’s sail.”
Not a word did Lord Fotheringay utter. He felt utterly broken down in spirit, and it was not until he had got behind a rock and had taken out a pocket-comb and a pocket-glass, and had by these auxiliaries, and the application of a grain or two of roseate powder without which he never ventured a mile from his base of supplies, repaired some of the ravages of his voyage, that he ventured to make his way to the picturesque white cottage, which Miss Avon had once pointed out to him as the temporary residence of her father and herself.
It was a five-roomed cottage that had been built and furnished by an enthusiastic English fisherman for his accommodation during his annual residence in Ireland. One, more glance did Lord Fotheringay give to his pocket-mirror before knocking at the door.
He would have had time to renew his youth, had he had his pigments handy, before the door was opened by an old woman with a shawl over her shoulders and a cap, that had possibly once been white, on her straggling hairs.
She made the stage courtesy of an old woman in front of Lord Fotheringay, and explained that she was a little hard of hearing—she was even obliging enough to give a circumstantial account of the accident that was responsible for her infirmity.
“Miss Avon?” said the old woman, when Lord Fotheringay had repeated his original request in a louder tone. “Miss Avon? no, she’s not here now—not even her father, who was a jewel of a gentleman, though a bit queer. God bless them both now that they have gone back to England, maybe never to return.”
“Back to England. When?” shouted Lord Fotheringay.
“Why, since early in the morning. The Blessed Virgin keep the young lady from harm, for she’s swater than honey, and the Saints preserve her father, for he was—”
Lord Fotheringay did not wait to hear the position of the historian defined by the old woman. He turned away from the door with such words as caused her infirmity to be a blessing in disguise.
When Brian greeted his return with a few well-chosen phrases bearing upon the architecture of the early Celtic nobles, Lord Fotheringay swore at him; but the boatman, who did a little in that way himself when under extreme provocation, only smiled as Lord Fotheringay took his seat in the boat once more, and prepared for the ordeal of his passage.
There was a good deal in Brian’s smile.
The wind had changed most unaccountably, he explained, so that it would, he feared, be absolutely necessary to tack out almost to the entrance of the lough in order to reach the mooring-place. For the next hour he became the exponent of every system of sailing known to modern navigators. After something over an hour of this manoeuvring, he had compassion upon his victim, and ran the boat before the wind—he might have done so at first if Lord Fotheringay had not shown such a poor knowledge of men as to swear at him—to the mooring-place.
“If it’s not making too free with your lardship, I’d offer your lardship a hand up the track,” said Brian. “It’s myself that has to go up to the Castle anyway, with a letter to her ladyship from Miss Avon. Didn’t the young lady give it to me in the morning before she started with his honour her father on the car?”
“And you knew all this time that Miss Avon and her father had left the neighbourhood?” said Lord Fotheringay, through his store teeth.
“Tubbe sure I did,” said Brian. “But Miss Avon didn’t live in one of the Castles of the ould quality that your lardship was so particular ready to explore.”
Lord Fotheringay felt that his knowledge of the world and the dwellers therein had its limits.
It was at Lord Fotheringay’s bedside that Harold said his farewell to his father the next day. Lord Fotheringay’s incipient rheumatism had been acutely developed by his drenching of the previous afternoon, and he thought it prudent to remain in bed.
“You’re going, are you?” snarled the Father.
“Yes, I’m going,” replied the Son. “Lord and Lady Innisfail leave to-morrow.”
“Have you asked Miss Craven to marry you?” inquired the Father.
“No,” said Harold.
“Why not—tell me that?”
“I haven’t made up my mind on the subject of marrying.”
“Then the sooner you make it up the better it will be for yourself. I’ve been watching you pretty closely for some days—I did not fail to notice a certain jaunty indifference to what was going on around you on the night of your return from that tomfoolery in the boats—seal-hunting, I think they called it. I saw the way you looked at Helen Craven that night. Contempt, or something akin to contempt, was in every glance. Now you know that she is to be at Ella’s in October. You have thus six weeks to make up your mind to marry her. If you make up your mind to marry anyone else, you may make up your mind to live upon the three hundred a year that your mother left you. Not a penny you will get from me. I’ve stinted myself hitherto to secure you your allowance. By heavens, I’ll not do so any longer. You will only receive your allowance from me for another year, and then only by signing a declaration at my lawyer’s to the effect that you are not married. I’ve heard of secret marriages before now, but you needn’t think of that little game. That’s all I’ve to say to you.”
“And it is enough,” said Harold. “Good-bye.” He left the room and then he left the Castle, Lady Innisfail only shaking her head and whispering, “You have disappointed me,” as he made his adieux.
The next day all the guests had departed—all, with the exception of Lord Fotheringay, who was still too ill to move. In the course of some days, however, the doctor thought that he might without risk—except, of course, such as was incidental to the conveyance itself—face a drive on an outside car, to the nearest railway-station.
Before leaving him, as she was compelled to do owing to her own engagements, Lady Innisfail had another interesting conversation—it almost amounted to a consultation—with her friend Mrs. Burgoyne on the subject of the Reform of the Hardened Reprobate. And the result of their further consideration of the subject from every standpoint, was to induce them to believe that, with such a powerful incentive to the Higher Life as an acute rheumatic attack, Lord Fotheringay’s reform might safely be counted on. It might, at any rate, be freely discussed during the winter. If, subsequently, he should become a backslider, it would not matter. His reform would have gone the way of all topics.
Helen Craven and Edmund Airey had also a consultation together on the subject upon which they had previously talked more than once.
Each of them showed such an anxiety to give prominence to the circumstance that they were actuated solely for Harold’s benefit in putting into practice the plan which one of them had suggested, it was pretty clear that they had an uneasy feeling that they required some justification for the course which they had thought well to pursue.
Yes, they agreed that Harold should be placed beyond the power of his father. Mr. Airey said he had never met a more contemptible person than Lord Fotheringay, and for the sake of making Harold independent of such a father, he would, he declared, do again all that he had done during the week of Miss Avon’s sojourn at the Castle.
It was, indeed, sad, Miss Craven felt, that Harold should have such a father.
“Perhaps it was because I felt this so strongly that I—I—well, I began to ask myself if there might not be some way of escape for him,” said she, in a pensive tone that was quite different from the tone of the frank communication that she had made to Mr. Airey some time before.
“I can quite understand that,” said Edmund. “Well, though Harold hasn’t shown himself to be wise—that is—”
“We both know what that means,” said she, anticipating his definition of wisdom so far as Harold was concerned.
“We do,” said Edmund. “If he has not shown himself to be wise in this way, he has not shown himself to be a fool in another way.”
“I suppose he has not,” said she, thoughtfully.
“Great heavens! you don’t mean to think that—”
“That he has told Beatrice Avon that he loves her? No, I don’t fancy that he has, still—”
“Still?”
“Well, I thought that, on their return from that awful seal-hunt, I saw a change in both of them. It seemed to me that—that—well, I don’t quite know how I should express it. Haven’t you seen a thirsty look on a man’s face?”
“A thirsty look? I believe I have seen it on a woman’s face.”
“It may be the same. Well, Harold Wynne’s face wore such an expression for days before the seal-hunt—I can’t say that I noticed it on Beatrice Avon’s face at the same time; but so soon as they returned from the boats on that evening, I noticed the change on Harold’s—perhaps it was only fancy.”
“I am inclined to believe that it was fancy. In my belief none of us was quite the same after that wild cruise. I was beside Miss Avon all the time that we were sailing out to the caves, and though she and Harold were in the boat together, yet Lord Innisfail and Durdan were in the same boat also. I can’t see how they could have had any time for an understanding while they were engaged in looking after the seals.”
Miss Craven shook her head doubtfully. It was clear that she was a believer in the making of opportunities in such matters as those which they were discussing.
“Anyhow, we have done all that we could reasonably be expected to do,” said she.
“And perhaps a trifle over,” said he. “If it were not that I like Harold so much—and you, too, my dear”—this seemed an afterthought—“I would not have done all that I have done. It is quite unlikely that Miss Avon and I shall be under the same roof again, but if we should be, I shall, you may be certain, find out from her whether or not an understanding exists between her and Harold. But what understanding could it be?”
Miss Craven smiled. Was this the man who had made such a reputation for cleverness, she asked herself—a man who placed a limit on the opportunities of lovers, and then inquired what possible understanding could be come to between a penniless man and a girl with “a gray eye or so.”
“What understanding?” said she. “Why, he may have unfolded to her a scheme for becoming Lord High Chancellor after two year’s hard work at the bar, with a garden-party now and again; or for being made a Bishop in the same time; and their understanding may be to wait for one another until the arrival of either event. Never mind. We have done our best for him.”
“For them,” said Edmund.
Yes, he tried to bring himself to believe that all that he had done was for the benefit of his friend Harold and for his friend Beatrice—to say nothing of his friend Helen as well. After a time he did almost force himself to believe that there was nothing that was not strictly honourable in the endeavour that he had made, at Helen’s suggestion, to induce Beatrice Avon to perceive the possibility of her obtaining a proposal of marriage from a rich and distinguished man, if she were only to decline to afford the impecunious son of a dissolute peer an opportunity of telling her that he loved her.
Now and again, however, he had an uneasy twinge, as the thought occurred to him that if some man, understanding the exact circumstances of the case, were to be as frank with him as Helen Craven had been (once), that man might perhaps be led to say that he had been making a fool of Beatrice for the sake of gratifying his own vanity.
It was just possible, and he knew it, that that frank friend—assuming that frankness and friendship may exist together—might be disposed to give prominence in this matter to the impulses of vanity, to the exclusion of the impulses of friendship, and a desire to set the crooked straight.
Even the fortnight which he spent in Norway with one of the heads of the Government party—a gentleman who would probably have shortly at his disposal an important Under-Secretaryship—failed quite to abate these little twinges that he had when he reflected upon the direction that might be taken by a frank friend, in considering the question of the responsibility involved in his attitude toward Miss Avon.
It was just a week after Lord Fotheringay had left Castle Innisfail that a stranger appeared in the neighbourhood—a strange gentleman with the darkest hair and the fiercest eyes ever seen, even in that region of dark hair and eyes. He inquired who were the guests at the Castle, and when he learned that the last of them—a distinguished peer named Lord Fotheringay—had gone some time, and that it was extremely unlikely that the Castle would be open for another ten months, his eyes became fiercer than ever. He made use of words in a strange tongue, which Brian declared, if not oaths, would do duty for oaths without anyone being the wiser.
The stranger departed as mysteriously as he had come.