Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)

Miss Kennyfeck saw this, but attributed the agitation to anything but its true cause.

“I ‘m in search of mamma,” said she, and with a very peculiar glance at Olivia, left the room.

Sir Harvey’s visit lasted full twenty minutes longer; and although no record has been preserved of what passed on the occasion, they who met him descending the stairs all agreed in describing his appearance as most gloomy and despondent. As for Olivia, she saw the door close after him with a something very like sorrow. There was no love in the case, nor anything within a day’s journey of it; but he was good-looking, fashionable, well-mannered, and mustachioed. She would have been “my lady,” too; and though this is but a “brevet nobility” after all, it has all “the sound of the true metal.” She thought over all these things; and she thought, besides, how very sad he looked when she said “No;” and, how much sadder, when asked the usual question about “time, and proved devotion, and all that sort of thing,” she said “No,” again; and how, saddest of all, when she made the stereotyped little speech about “sisterly affection, and seeing him happy with another!” Oh dear! oh dear! is it not very wearisome and depressing to think that chess can have some hundred thousand combinations, and love-making but its two or three “gambits,” – the “fool’s-mate” the chief of them? We have said she was sorry for what had occurred; but she consoled herself by remembering it was not her fault that Sir Harvey was not as rich as Cashel, and nephew to a live uncle!

As Sir Harvey’s “lady” – Heaven forgive me, I had almost written “wife” – she would have been the envy of a very large circle of her Dublin acquaintance; and then she knew that these dragoon people have a way of making their money go so much further than civilians; and in all that regards horses, equipage, and outward show, the smartest “mufti” is a seedy affair beside the frogs of the new regulation pelisse! She actually began to feel misgivings about her choice. A high drag at the Howth races, a crowd of whiskered fellows of “ours,” and the band of the regiment in Merrion Square, came home to her “dear Dublin” imagination with irresistible fascination. In her mind’s eye, she had already cut the “bar,” and been coldly distant with the infantry. It was a little revery of small triumphs, but the sum of them mounted up to something considerable.

“Is he gone, Livy?” said Cary, as, entering noiselessly, she stole behind her sister’s chair.

“Yes, dear, he is gone!” said she, sighing slightly.

“My poor forlorn damsel, don’t take his absence so much to heart! You ‘re certain to see him at dinner!”

“He said he’d leave this afternoon,” said she, gravely; “that he could n’t bear to meet me after what had passed.”

“And what has passed, child?”

“You know, of course, Cary; I refused him!”

“Refused him! – refused him! – what possessed you to do so?”

“This!” said Olivia, gasping with terror at the unknown danger; and she caught hold of the fringe of her sister’s scarf. Miss Kennyfeck started, and put her hand to her neck, and, suddenly letting it fall again, she leaned against the wall for support.

“This was a mistake, Livy,” said she, in a voice barely above a whisper; “I was trying on some costumes below stairs, and they tied this round my neck, where I utterly forgot it.”

“And there is nothing – ” She could not go on, but, hanging her head, burst into tears.

“My poor dear Livy, don’t give way so; the fault, I know, was all mine. Let me try if I cannot repair it Have you positively refused him?”

She nodded, but could not speak.

“Did you say that there was no hope, – that your sentiments could never change?”

“I did.”

“Come, that’s not so bad; men never believe that. You did n’t say that your affections were engaged?”

“No!”

“There ‘s a dear child,” said she, kissing her neck; “I knew you ‘d not be guilty of such folly. And how did you part, Livy, – coldly, or in affectionate sorrow?”

“Coldly; we did not shake hands.”

“That’s right; all as it ought to be. It is a sad blunder, but I hope not irreparable. Cheer up, child; depend upon it, my scarf is not so fatal as Aunt Fanny’s blessing.”

“Ah, then, my dear, I don’t see much difference in the end,” said that redoubtable lady herself, who issued from a small conservatory off the drawing-room, where she had lain in wait for the last half hour. “I heard it, my dears, and a nice hash you made of it between you, with your signals and telescopes,” – we believe she meant telegraphs; “you threw out the dirty water, now, in earnest!” And so saying, she proceeded to disentangle herself from a prickly creeper which had a most pertinacious hold of what Linton called her “scalp-lock.”

“Aunt Fanny’s blessing indeed!” said she, for her temper knew no bounds when she saw the enemy silenced. “‘T is little harm that would have done, if ye did n’t take to screaming about it; as if any man could bear that! You drove him away, my dear, just the way your own mother did poor Major Cohlhayne, – with hard crying, – till he said, ‘he ‘d as soon go to a wake as take tay in the house.’ And sure enough, she had to take up with your poor father, after! Just so. I never knew luck come of signals and signs. When the good thing ‘s before you, help yourself. My poor father used to say, ‘Don’t pass “the spirits” because there ‘s claret at the head of the table; who knows if it ‘ll ever come down to you?’ And there you are, now! and glad enough you ‘d be to take that curate I saw in Dublin, with the smooth face, this minute. I don’t blame you as much as your poor foolish mother; she has you as she reared you. Bad luck to you for a plant!” cried she, as the ingenious creeper insinuated itself among the meshes of her Limerick lace collar. “Cary, just take this out for me;” but Cary was gone, and her sister with her. Nor did Aunt Fanny know how long her eloquence had been purely soliloquy.

She looked around her for a moment at the deserted battle-field, and then slowly retired.

CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW IN THE MIRROR

“No” is the feminine of “Yes!”

    Hungarian Proverb.

Bad as the weather is, – and certainly even in Ireland a more drenching, driving-down, pouring rain never fell, – we must ask of our readers to follow Cashel, who at a slapping gallop rode on, over grass and tillage, now careering lightly over the smooth sward, now sweltering along heavily through deep ground, regardless of the pelting storm, and scarcely noticing the strong fences which at every instant tried the stride and strength of his noble horse.

If his speed was headlong, his seat was easy, and his hand as steady as if lounging along some public promenade; his features, however, were flushed, partly from the beating rain, but more from a feverish excitement that showed itself in his flashing eye and closely compressed lip. More than once, in crossing a difficult leap, his horse nearly fell, and although half on the ground, and only recovering by a scramble, he seemed not to heed the accident. At last he arrived at the tall oak paling which fenced the grounds of the cottage, and where it was his wont to halt and fasten his horse. Now, however, he rode fiercely at it, clearing the high leap with a tremendous spring, and alighting on the trimly kept grass-plat before the door.

A slight faint shriek was heard as the horse dashed past the window, and, pale with terror, Mary Leicester stood in the porch.

Cashel had meanwhile dismounted, and given his horse to the old gardener.

“Not hurt, Mr. Cashel?” said she, trying to seem composed, while she trembled in every limb.

“Not in the least. I never intended to have alarmed you, however.”

“Then it was no runaway?” said she, essaying a smile.

“I ‘m ashamed to say I have not that excuse for so rudely trampling over your neat sward. Will Mr. Corrigan forgive me?”

“Of course he will, if he even ever knows that he has anything to forgive; but it so happens that he has gone into the village to-day, – an excursion he has not made for nigh a year. He wished to consult our friend the doctor on some matter of importance, and I half suspect he may have stayed to share his dinner.”

As Miss Leicester continued to make this explanation, they had reached the drawing-room, which, to Cashel’s amazement, exhibited tokens of intended departure. Patches here and there on the walls showed where pictures had stood. The bookshelves were empty, the tables displayed none of those little trifling objects which denote daily life and its occupations, and his eye wandered over the sad-looking scene till it came back to her, as she stood reading his glances, and seeming to re-echo the sentiment they conveyed. “All this would seem to speak of leave-taking,” said Cashel, in a voice that agitation made thick and guttural.

“It is so,” said she, with a sigh; “we are going away.”

“Going away!” Simple as the words are, we have no sadder sounds in our language; they have the sorrowful cadence that bespeaks desertion; they ring through the heart like a knell over long-past happiness; they are the requiem over “friends no more,” and of times that never can come back again.

“Going away!” How dreary does it sound, – as if life had no fixed destination in future, but that we were to drift over its bleak ocean, the “waifs” of what we once had been!

“Going away!” cried Cashel. “But surely you have not heard – ” He stopped himself; another word, and his secret had been revealed, – the secret he had so imperatively enjoined Tiernay to keep; for it was his intention to have left Ireland forever ere Mr. Corrigan should have learned the debt of gratitude he owed him. It is true, indeed, that one night of sleepless reflection had suggested another counsel, but had altered not his desire that the mystery should be preserved.

He was confused, therefore, at the peril he had so narrowly escaped, and for a moment was silent; at length he resumed, in a tone of assumed ease, —

“‘Going away!’ sounds to one like me, who have lived a life of wandering, so like pleasure that I always associate it with new scenes of enjoyment; I think all the sorrow is reserved for those who remain behind, – the deserted.”

“So it may,” said she, “with those who, like yourself, have roamed the world in the excitement of ardent youth, glorying in enterprise, thirsting for adventure; but there are others – ourselves, for instance – whose humble fortunes have linked them with one class of scenes and objects till they have grown part of our very natures; so that we only know the world as it is associated with things familiar to daily use. There are, doubtless, plants of more gorgeous foliage and fairer flowers in other countries, but we shall never learn to look at them as we do upon these that speak to us of home, of spring and summer, when they gladdened us, of autumn and winter, when our culture cared for them. There are sunsets more rich and glowing, but if we see them, it will be to think of that sinking orb which sent its last rays over that wide river, and lit up in a golden glory this little chamber. There ‘s not a charm the fairest clime can own but will have its highest merit in recalling some humble scene that tells of ‘home.’”

“I never could leave a spot so dear to me as this were!” cried Cashel, who watched with ecstasy the impassioned beauty of her features.

“Do not say that,” said she, seriously. “We can all of us do what we ought, however it may try our courage. Yes, I say courage,” said she, smiling, “since I fancy it is a property you have a due respect for. If we leave scenes so dear to us as these, it is because we feel it a duty; and a duty fulfilled is a buckler against most sorrows. But we are wandering into a very sad theme, – at least, to judge from your grave looks. What news have you of your gay company?”

“I see but little of them,” said Cashel, abruptly.

“What a strange host! – and how do they amuse themselves?”