Chapter 20

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XX

'So you couldn't manage to keep him after all, my lady? When did he leave the hotel?'

'Mr. Harding left Dublin last Monday week.'

Alice wondered if her mother hated her; if she didn't, it was difficult to account for her cruel words. And this was the girl's grief, and she feared that hatred would beget hatred, and that she would learn to hate her mother. But Mrs. Barton was a loving and affectionate mother, who would sacrifice herself for one child almost as readily for the other. In each of us there are traits that the chances of life have never revealed; and though she would have sat by the bedside, even if Alice were stricken with typhoid fever, Mrs. Barton recoiled spitefully like a cat before the stern rectitudes of a nature so dissimilar from her own. She had fashioned Olive, who was now but a pale copy of her mother according to her guise: all the affectations had been faithfully reproduced, but the charm of the original had evaporated like a perfume. It would be rash to say that Mrs. Barton did not see that the weapons which had proved so deadly in her hands were ineffectual in her daughter's; but twenty years of elegant harlotry had blunted her finer perceptions, and now the grossest means of pushing Olive and the Marquis morally and physically into each other's arms seemed to her the best. Alice was to her but a plain girl, whose misfortune was that she had ever been born. This idea had grown up with Mrs. Barton, and fifteen years ago she had seen in the child's face the spinster of fifty. But since the appearance of Harding, and the manifest interest he had shown in her daughter, Mrs. Barton's convictions that Alice would never be able to find a husband had been somewhat shaken, and she had almost concluded that it would be as well--for there was no knowing what men's tastes were--to give her a chance. Nor was the dawning fancy dispelled by the fact that Harding had not proposed, and the cutting words she had addressed to the girl were the result of the nervous irritation caused by the marked attention the Marquis was paying Violet Scully.

For, like Alice, Mrs. Barton never lived long in a fool's paradise, and she now saw that the battle was going against her, and would most assuredly be lost unless a determined effort was made. So she delayed not a moment in owning to herself that she had committed a mistake in going to the Shelbourne Hotel. Had she taken a house in Mount Street or Fitzwilliam Place, she could have had all the best men from the barracks continually at her house. But at the hotel she was helpless; there were too many people about, too many beasts of women criticizing her conduct. Mrs. Barton had given two dinner-parties in a private room hired for the occasion; but these dinners could scarcely be called successful. On one occasion they had seven men to dinner, and as some half-dozen more turned in in the evening, it became necessary to send down to the ladies' drawing-room for partners. Bertha Duffy and the girl in red of course responded to the call, but they had rendered everything odious by continuous vulgarity and brogue. Then other mistakes had been made. A charity costume ball had been advertised. It was to be held in the Rotunda. An imposing list of names headed the prospectus, and it was confidently stated that all the lady patronesses would attend. Mrs. Barton fell into the trap, and, to her dismay, found herself and her girls in the company of the rag, tag, and bobtail of Catholic Dublin: Bohemian girls fabricated out of bed-curtains, negro minstrels that an application of grease and burnt cork had brought into a filthy existence. And from the single gallery that encircled this tomb-like building the small tradespeople looked down upon the multicoloured crowd that strove to dance through the mud that a late Land League meeting had left upon the floor; and all the while grey dust fell steadily into the dancers' eyes and into the sloppy tea distributed at counters placed here and there like coffee-stands in the public street.

'I never felt so low in my life,' said the lady who always brought back an A.D.C. from the Castle, and the phrase was cited afterwards as being admirably descriptive of the festival.

When it became known that the Bartons had been present at this ball, that the beauty had been seen dancing with the young Catholic nobodies, their names were struck off the lists, and they were asked to no more private dances at the Castle. Lord Dungory was sent to interview the Chamberlain, but that official could promise nothing. Mrs. Barton's hand was therefore forced. It was obligatory upon her to have some place where she could entertain officers; the Shelbourne did not lend itself to that purpose. She hired a house in Mount Street, and one that possessed a polished floor admirably suited to dancing.

Then she threw off the mask, and pirate-like, regardless of the laws of chaperons, resolved to carry on the war as she thought proper. She'd have done once and for ever with those beasts of women who abused and criticized her. Henceforth she would shut her door against them all, and it would only be open to men--young men for her daughters, elderly men for herself. At four o'clock in the afternoon the entertainment began. Light refreshments, consisting of tea, claret, biscuits, and cigarettes, were laid out in the dining-room. Having partaken, the company, consisting of three colonels and some half-dozen subalterns, went upstairs to the drawing-room. And in recognition of her flirtation with Harding, a young man replaced Alice at the piano, and for half-a-crown an hour supplied the necessary music.

Round and round the girls went, passing in turn out of the arms of an old into those of a young man, and back again. If they stayed their feet for a moment, Mrs. Barton glided across the floor, and, with insinuating gestures and intonations of voice, would beg of them to continue. She declared that it was _la grace et la beaute_, etc. The merriment did not cease until half-past six. Some of the company then left, and some few were detained for dinner. A new pianist and fresh officers arrived about nine o'clock, and dancing was continued until one or two in the morning. To yawning subalterns the house in Mount Street seemed at first like a little paradise. The incessant dancing was considered fatiguing, but there were interludes in which claret was drunk, cigarettes smoked, and loose conversation permitted in the dining-room.

Then the dinners! Mrs. Barton's dinners are worthy of special study. Her circle of acquaintances being limited, the same guests were generally found at her table. Lord Dungory always sat next to her. He displayed his old-fashioned shirt-front, his cravat, his studs, his urbanity, his French epigram. Lord Rosshill sat opposite him; he was thin, melancholy, aristocratic, silent, and boring. There was a captain who, since he had left the army, had grown to the image of a butler, and an ashen-tinted young man who wore his arm in a sling; and an old man, who looked like a dirty and worn-out broom, and who put his arm round the backs of the chairs. These and three A.D.C.'s made up the party. There was very little talking, and what there was was generally confined to asking the young ladies if they had been to the Castle, and if they liked dancing.

The Marquis was a constant, although an unwilling guest at all these entertainments. He would fain have refused Mrs. Barton's hospitalities, but so pressing was she that this seemed impossible. There were times when he started at the postman's knock as at the sound of a Land Leaguer's rifle. Too frequently his worst fears were realized. '_Mon cher Marquis_, it will give us much pleasure if you will dine with us to-morrow night at half-past seven.' 'Dear Mrs. Barton, I regret extremely that I am engaged for to-morrow night.' An hour later, '_Mon cher Marquis_, I am very sorry you cannot come to-morrow night, but Thursday will suit us equally well.' What was to be done? A second excuse would result only in a proposal to fix a day next week; better accept and get it over. He must do this or send a rude message to the effect that he was engaged for every day he intended to dine out that season, and he lacked the moral courage to write such a letter. Mrs. Barton's formula for receiving the Marquis never varied. If he arrived early he found Olive waiting to receive him in the drawing-room. She was always prepared with a buttonhole, which she insisted on arranging and pinning into his coat. Then allusion was made to the forget-me-nots that the bouquet was sure to contain; and laughing vacantly--for laughter with Olive took the place of conversation--she fled through the rooms, encouraging him to pursue her. During dinner attempts were made to exchange a few words, but without much success. Nor was it until Olive pelted him with flowers, and he replied by destroying another bouquet and applying it to the same purpose, that much progress was made towards intimacy. But this little scene was exceptional, and on all other occasions Lord Kilcarney maintained an attitude of reserve.

Mrs. Barton was at her wits' end. Three days ago she had met him walking in Grafton Street with Violet; yesterday she had caught sight of him driving towards Fitzwilliam Place in a four-wheeler. She had fortunately a visit to pay in that neighbourhood, and was rewarded by seeing the Marquis's cab draw up before the Scullys' door. The mere fact that he should use a cab instead of an outside car was a point to consider, but when she noticed that one of the blinds was partially drawn down, her heart sank. Nor did the secret of this suspicious visit long remain her exclusive property. As if revealed by those mysteriously subtle oral and visual faculties observed in savage tribes, by which they divine the approach of their enemies or their prey, two days had not elapsed before the tongue of every chaperon was tipped with the story of the four-wheeler and the half-drawn blind, but it was a distinctly latter-day instinct that had led these ladies to speak of there having been luggage piled upon the roof of this celebrated cab. Henceforth eye, ear, and nostril were open, and in the quivering ardour of the chase they scattered through the covers of Cork Hill and Merrion Square, passing from one to the other, by means of sharp yelps and barkings, every indication of the trail that came across their way. Sometimes hearkening to a voice they had confidence in, they rallied at a single point, and then an old bitch, her nose in the air, her capstrings hanging lugubriously on either side of her weatherbeaten cheeks, would utter a deep and prolonged baying; a little farther on the scent was recovered, and, with sterns wagging and bristles erect, they hunted the quarry vigorously. Every moment he was expected to break--fear was even expressed that he might end by being chopped.

The Shelbourne Hotel was a favourite meet, and in the ladies' drawing-room each fresh piece of news was torn with avidity. The consumption of notepaper was extraordinary. Two, three, four, and even five sheets of paper were often filled with what these scavengeresses could rake out of the gutters of gossip. 'Ah! me arm aches, and the sleeve of me little coat is wore; I am so eager to write it all off to me ant, that I am too impatient to wait to take it off,' was the verbal form in which the girl in red explained her feelings on the subject. Bertha Duffy declared she would write no more; that she was ruining herself in stamps. Nor were the pens of the Brennans silent; and looking over their shoulders, on which the mantles of spinsterhood were fast descending, one read: 'I hear they danced at the Castle three times together last night . . . a friend of mine saw them sitting in Merrion Square the whole of one afternoon. . . . They say that if he marries her, that he'll be ruined. . . . The estates are terribly encumbered . . . his family are in despair about it. . . . Violet is a very nice girl, but we all know her mother sold bacon behind a counter in Galway. . . . He never looks at Olive Barton now; this is a sad end to her beau, and after feeding him up the whole season. . . . He dined there three times a week: Mrs. Barton took the house on purpose to entertain him. . . . It is said that she offered him twenty thousand pounds if he'd marry her daughter. . . . The money that woman spends is immense, and no one knows whence it comes.'

In these matrimonial excitements the amatories of the lady who brought the A.D.C. home from the Castle passed unheeded. The critical gaze of her friends was sorely distracted, and even the night porter forgot to report the visits of her young gentlemen. May, too, profited largely by the present ferment of curiosity; and, unobserved, she kept her trysts with Fred Scully at the corners of this and that street, and in the hotel they passed furtively down this passage and up that pair of stairs; when disturbed they hid behind the doors.

Mrs. Gould lived in ignorance of all this chambering folly, spending her time either writing letters or gossiping about Lord Kilcarney in the drawing-room. And when she picked up a fragment of fresh news she lost not a moment, but put on her bonnet and carried it over to Mount Street. So assiduous was she in this self-imposed duty, that Mrs. Barton was obliged at last to close her door against this obtrusive visitor.

But one day, after a moment of intense reflection, Mrs. Barton concluded that she was losing the battle--that now, in the eleventh hour, it could only be snatched out of defeat by a bold and determined effort. She sat down and penned one of her admirable invitations to dinner. An hour later a note feebly pleaded a 'previous engagement.' Undaunted, she sat down again and wrote: 'Tomorrow will suit us equally well.' The Marquis yielded; and Lord Dungory was ordered, when he found himself alone with him in the dining-room, to lose no opportunity of insisting upon the imminent ruin of all Irish landlords. He was especially enjoined to say that, whatever chance of escape there was for the owners of unencumbered properties, the doom of those who had mortgages to pay had been sounded. Milord executed his task with consummate ability; and when the _grand parti_ entered the drawing-room, his thoughts were racked with horrible forebodings. The domain woods, the pride of centuries, he saw plundered and cut down; lawns, pleasure-grounds, and gardens distributed among peasants, and he, a miserable outcast, starving in a Belgian boarding-house. Mrs. Barton's eyes brightened at the distressed expression of his face. Olive brought in the buttonhole and went to the piano; Milord engaged Alice's attention; and the Marquis was led into the adjoining room.

'The season is now drawing to its close,' Mrs. Barton said; 'we shall be soon returning to Galway. We shall be separating. I know Olive likes you, but if there is no--if it is not to be, I should like to tell her not to think about it any more.'

The Marquis felt the earth gliding. What could have tempted the woman to speak like this to him? What answer was he to make her? He struggled with words and thoughts that gave way, as he strove to formulate a sentence, like water beneath the arms of one drowning.

'Oh, really, Mrs. Barton,' he said, stammering, speaking like one in a dream, 'you take me by surprise. I did not expect this; you certainly are too kind. In proposing this marriage to me, you do me an honour I did not anticipate, but you know it is difficult offhand, for I am bound to say . . . at least I am not prepared to say that I am in love with your daughter. . . . She is, of course, very beautiful, and no one admires her more than I, but--'

'Olive will have twenty thousand pounds paid down on her wedding-day; not promised, you know, but paid down; and in the present times I think this is more than most girls can say. Most Irish properties are embarrassed, mortgaged,' she continued, risking everything to gain everything, 'and twenty thousand pounds would be a material help to most men. At my death she will have more; I--'

'Oh, Mrs. Barton, do not let us speak of that!' cried the little man.

'And why not? Does it prove that because we are practical, we do not care for a person? I quite understand that it would be impossible for you to marry without money, and that Olive will have twenty thousand paid down on her wedding-day will not prevent you from being very fond of her. On the contrary, I should think--'

'Twenty thousand pounds is, of course, a great deal of money,' said the little man, shrinking, terror-stricken, from a suddenly protruding glimpse of the future with which Milord had previously poisoned his mind.

'Yes, indeed it is, and in these times,' urged Mrs. Barton.

The weak grey eyes were cast down, abashed by the daring determination of the brown.

'Of course Olive is a beautiful girl,' he said.

'And she is so fond of you, and so full of affection. . . .'

The situation was now tense with fear, anxiety, apprehension; and with resolute fingers Mrs. Barton tightened the chord until the required note vibrated within the moral consciousness. The poor Marquis felt his strength ebbing away; he was powerless as one lying in the hot chamber of a Turkish bath. Would no one come to help him? The implacable melody of _Dream Faces_, which Olive hammered out on the piano, agonized him. If she would stop for one moment he would find the words to tell her mother that he loved Violet Scully and would marry none other. But bang, bang, bang the left hand pounded the bass into his stunned ears, and the eyes that he feared were fixed upon him. He gasped for words, he felt like a drunkard who clutches the air as he reels over a precipice, and the shades of his ancestors seemed to crowd menacingly around him. He strove against his fears until a thin face with luminous eyes shone through the drifting wrack like a stars.

'But we have seen so little of each other,' he said at last; 'Miss Barton is a great beauty, I know, and nobody appreciates her beauty more than I, but I am not what you call in love with her.'

He deplored the feebleness of his words, and Mrs. Barton swooped upon him again.

'You do not love her because, as you say, you have seen very little of each other. We are going down to Brookfield to-morrow. We shall be very glad if you will come with us, and in the country you will have an opportunity of judging, of knowing her: and she is such an affectionate little thing.'

Affrighted, the Marquis sought again for words, and he glanced at his torturer timidly, like the hare on the ever-nearing hounds. Why did she pursue him, he asked, in this terrible way? Had she gone mad? What was he to say? He had not the courage to answer no to her face. Besides, if Violet would not have him, he might as well save the family estates. If Violet refused him! Then he didn't care what became of him! He sought, and he struggled for words, for words that would save him; and, in this hour of deep tribulation, words came and they saved him.

'I have a great deal of business to attend to to-morrow. I am--that is to say, my solicitor is, raising for me a large sum of money at four per cent. On one large mortgage I am paying six per cent., therefore if I can get the money at four I shall be by some hundreds of pounds a richer man than I am at present. At the end of the week this matter will be settled. I will write to you and say when I shall be able to accept your invitation.'

Mrs. Barton would have preferred to have brought the matter at once to a conclusion, but in the hesitation that ensued, the Marquis, unable to withstand the strain set upon his feelings any longer, moved away from her. And in the next room, to save himself from further persecution, he engaged at once in conversation with Alice. Ten minutes after he said good-night. To get out of the light into the dark, to feel the cool wind upon his cheek, oh! what a relief! 'What could have persuaded that woman to speak to me as she did? She must be mad.' He walked on as if in a dream, the guineas she had promised him chinking dubiously through his brain. Then stopping suddenly, overcome by nerve-excitement, he threw his arms in the air: his features twitched convulsively. The spasm passed; and, unconscious of all save the thoughts that held and tore him--their palpitating prey--he walked onwards. . . . Black ruin on one side, and oh! what sweet white vision of happiness on the other! Why was he thus tortured--why was he thus torn on the rack of such a terrible discussion? He stopped again, and his weak neck swayed plaintively. Then, in the sullen calm that followed, the thought crossed his mind: If he only knew. . . . She might refuse him; if so, he did not care what became of him, and he would accept the other willingly. But would she refuse him? That he must know at once. If she did refuse, he would, at all events, escape the black looks of his relations, and in the cowardice of the thought the weary spirit was healed, assuaged, as tired limbs might be in a bath of cool, clear water. Why lose a moment? It was only half-past ten--an 'outside' would take him in less than two minutes to Fitzwilliam Place. Yes, he would go.

And as the car clattered he feasted on the white thin face and the grey allurements of her eyes. But if she weren't at home.

He was shown upstairs. Mother and daughter were alone, talking over the fire in the drawing-room. Nothing could be more propitious, but his fears returned to him, and when he strove to explain the lateness of his visit his face had again grown suddenly haggard and worn. Violet exchanged glances, and said in looks, if not in words: 'It is clear they have been hunting him pretty closely to-day.'

'I must apologize,' he said, 'for calling on you at such an hour; I really did not think it was so late, but the fact is I was rather anxious to see. . . .'

'But won't you sit down, Lord Kilcarney?' said Violet. 'I assure you we never go to bed before twelve, and sometimes we sit up here until one--don't we, mamma?'

Mrs. Scully smiled jocosely, and the Marquis sat down. In an instant his fate was decided. Overcome by the girl's frail sweetness, by the pellucid gaiety of her grey eyes, he surrendered; and his name and fortune fluttered into her lap, helplessly as a blown leaf. He said:

'I came to see you to-night . . . I took the liberty of calling on you at this late hour, because things had occurred that . . . well, I mean . . . you must have observed that I was attached to you. I don't know if you guessed it, but the fact is that I never cared for anyone as I do for you, and I felt I could bear with uncertainty no longer, and that I must come to-night, and ask you if you will have me.'

Violet raised her eyes.

'Say yes,' murmured the Marquis, and it seemed to him that in the words life had fallen from his lips.

'Yes,' was the answer, and he clasped the thin hand she extended to him.

'Ah, how happy you have made me, I never thought such honours were in store for me,' exclaimed Mrs. Scully. The discipline of years was lost in a moment; and, reverting to her long-buried self, she clasped the Marquis to her agitated bosom. Violet looked annoyed, ashamed; and Mrs. Scully, whom excitement had stripped of all her grand manners, said:

'And now, me dear children, I'll leave you to yerselves.'

The lovers sat side by side. Violet thought of the great love she had inspired, and the Marquis of the long years of happiness that would--that must now be his, of the frail grace that as a bland odour seemed to float about his beloved. And now that she was his, he would have her know that his love of her rose out of his deepest sense of soul; but words were weak: he seemed to be tongue-tied.

'Where did you dine to-night?' she said suddenly.

'With the Bartons.'

He told her everything--of the proposal and the invitation to Brookfield.

'And are you going down to Galway to stay with them?'

'Of course not. How can you ask such a question?'

'And why not--why shouldn't you go? I wish you would,' she added; and the light in her grey eyes was malign.

'You're joking? You surely don't mean what you say. I thought you said you loved me.'

'Yes, my dear Harry, that is the very reason. We love each other, therefore I know I can trust you.'

He pressed the hand--the silken skin, the palm delicately moist--in recognition of her kind words.

'I wouldn't go for anything in the world. I hate those people. 'Pon my word, I don't think anything would tempt me to spend a week with them in the country.'

'Yes; I could.'

The Marquis laughed. 'Yes, you could--you could tempt me to do anything. But why should you want me to go and spend a week with them in Galway?'

'Because, dear, they were rude to me; because,' she added, casting down her eyes--'because they tried to buy you from me. That is why I should like to humiliate them.'

The enchantment of the Marquis was completed, and he said:

'What, a whole week away from you! a whole week with Mrs. Barton! I could not endure it.'

'What, not for my sake?'

'Anything for your sake, darling.' He clasped her in his arms, and then they lapsed into silence that to him was even sweeter than the kiss she had given him. Love's deepest delight is the ineffable consciousness of our own weakness. We drink the sweetened cup in its entirety when, having ceased to will, we abandon ourselves with the lethal languors of the swimmer to the vague depths of dreams. And it was past midnight when the Marquis left Fitzwilliam Place. The ladies accompanied him downstairs; their hands helped him to his hat and coat, and then the lock slipped back sharply, and in the gloom, broken in one spot by the low-burning gas, the women wondered.

'Oh, mamma, mamma, mamma! I am so happy!' the girl exclaimed, and, weeping passionately, she threw herself for rest upon Mrs. Scully's arms.

'Yes, my child; you have been very good, you have made me very happy. You'll be a marchioness. Who would have thought I'd have lived to see all this honour when I served in the little shop at Galway!'

At the mention of the shop Violet recovered her composure, and mother and daughter listened to the receding footfalls.

'I wonder if he is happy,' Violet murmured; 'as happy as I am. For I do like him. He is a good sort.'

'Your happiness is a different happiness,' Mrs. Scully answered.

Like a flowering tree, a luxuriant joy bloomed in the Marquis's heart; in its shade and fragrance his thoughts lay supinely; and, a prey to many floating and fanciful imaginings, he walked onwards through the darkness. In the lowering skies he saw the fair face that had led him to the verge on which he now stood.

'Was anybody as happy as he? And what did his happiness mean?' he asked himself.

Shades flitted across yellow window-panes, and he remembered he had received an invitation for this very ball.

Cats slunk through the area railings; policemen moved from their hiding corners; a lover passed on with his dreams. _

Read next: Chapter 21

Read previous: Chapter 19

Table of content of Muslin


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book