The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago

It would have been a difficult – nay, an almost impossible task, to recall the tone and temper of the party, previous to this unhappy interruption. All Sir Marmaduke’s efforts to resume the conversation had lost their former ease – the O’Donoghue himself was disconcerted; for he was not quite certain what were Sir Marmaduke’s words on the occasion, and how far he should feel called upon to demand a retractation, and Sir Archibald, fretful and annoyed at the impression Mark’s conduct would convey of the habits and temper of the house, felt his task a severe one, to assume an air of serenity and quietude.

Frederic Travers alone seemed happy and delighted. The sudden expression of Kate O’Donoghue’s opinion, so utterly unlike anything he had ever heard before from a young lady’s lips, took him as much by surprise as the spirit pleased him; and he would willingly have engaged to horsewhip a dozen process-servers, for another glance of her flashing eyes, as she delivered the words; while Sybella could not help a sentiment bordering on fear, for one who, young as herself, gifted with every womanly attitude of grace and loveliness, had yet evinced a degree of impetuosity and passion she could not reconcile with such attractions. As for Kate, the sentiment had evoked no stir within her bosom. It was a wish, as naturally expressed as it was felt; and all the surprise the others experienced at her words would have been nothing to her own, to have known of their astonishment.

The visit soon came to a termination, and Sir Marmaduke, having succeeded in a great degree, in restoring the favourable impression he had at first obtained, took his leave of the O’Donoghue, and then, addressing Sir Archy, said —

“You, sir, I rejoice to learn, are not an invalid. May I expect the happiness of seeing you sometimes?”

Sir Archy bowed deeply, and, with a motion of his hand towards Miss Travers, replied —

“I have already made an engagement here, sir.”

“Yes,” said Sybella, to whom this speech seemed half addressed, “Sir Archibald has been kind enough to offer me his guidance up the glen, where there are several points of view finer than any I have seen.”

Emboldened by the success of these advances, Sir Marmaduke, with a courtesy he was perfect master of, requested the party would not delay their kind intentions, but favour him with their company on the following day.

It is doubtful whether Sir Archy might not have declined a more formal invitation; but there seemed something so frank in the abruptness of the present, that he acceded at once; and Kate having also pledged herself to accompany him, their greetings were interchanged, and they parted.

CHAPTER XXIII. SOME OPPOSITE TRAITS OF CHARACTER

It may seem strange and almost paradoxical – but so it was – Kate O’Donoghue’s presence appeared to have wrought a most magical change in the whole household of the O’Donoghue. The efforts they themselves made to ward off the semblance of their fallen estate, induced a happier frame of mind than that which resulted from daily brooding over their misfortunes; the very struggle elicited a courage they had left long in disuse; and the cheerfulness which at first was but assumed, grew gradually more and more natural. To the O’Donoghue, who, for many a day, desired no more than to fend off the evil in his own brief time; who, with the selfishness of an old age passed in continual conflict with poverty, only sought a life interest in their bettered fortunes, she was a boon above all price. Her light step, her lighter laugh, her mirthful tone of conversation, with its many anecdotes and stories of places and people he had not heard of before, were resources against gloom that never failed.

Sir Archy, too, felt a return to the old associations of his youth, in the presence ef a young, beautiful, and accomplished girl, whose gracefulness and elegance threw a halo around her as she went, and made of that old and crumbling tower, dark with neglect, and sad with time, a salon, teeming with its many appliances against depression, where she herself, armed with so many fascinations, dispensed cheerfulness and bliss on all about her. Nor was he selfish in all this. He marked with delight the impression made upon his favourite Herbert, by his cousin’s attractive manners. How insensibly, as it were, the boy was won from ruder pursuits, and coarser pleasures, to sit beside her as she sung, or near her as she read; with what interest he pursued his lessons in French, beneath her tuition, and the ardour with which he followed every plan of study suggested by her. Sir Archibald saw all these things, and calculated on their result with accuracy. He foresaw how Kate’s attractive gifts would throw into the shade the ruder tastes the boy’s condition in life might expose him to adopt, and thus aid him in the great object of his whole existence – to save him, at least, from the wreck of his house.

Mark alone seemed untouched by her presence; save that the wild excesses of high spirit, to which from time to time he ever gave way, were now gone, and in their place, a deep gloom, a moroseness of character succeeded, rendering him usually silent before her, or sunk in his own saddening reflections. Kate would sometimes adventure to disperse the dark clouds from his mind, but ever without success; he either felt annoyed at being the subject of remark, or left the room; so that at last, she abandoned the effort, hoping that time and its changes would effect what the present denied. Perhaps, too, she had reasons for this hope. More than once, with womanly quickness, had she marked how he had stood with his eye fixed upon her, unconscious of being seen; how, when about to leave the room, he would loiter about, as if in search of something, but, in reality, to listen to the song she was singing. Still, she showed no sign of having seen these things; but always, in her air towards him, affected a careless ease of manner, as like his own as possible. For days, sometimes for an entire week, he would absent himself from home; and, as he was never submissive to much questioning, his appearance called forth no other remark than some passing observation of what had occurred in his absence, but which drew from him no interchange of confidence.

These symptoms of Mark’s altered character made a deeper impression on his father than events of greater moment could have done. He watched every movement and expression of his favourite son, to catch some clue to the change; but all in vain. The young man never, by any accident, alluded to himself: nor did he often now advert to the circumstance of the family difficulties; on the contrary, a lethargic carelessness seemed to brood over him, and he went about like one who had lost all zest for life, and all care for its enjoyments.

The O’Donoghue was too well versed in the character of his son to hope for any elucidation of the mystery by a mere inquiry; so that he was left to speculate on the many causes which might have operated the change, and divine, as well as he was able, the secret grief that affected him. In this pursuit, like all who have long suffered the pressure of a particular calamity, he ever felt disposed to ascribe Mark’s suffering to the same cause which produced his own, namely, the fallen fortunes of the house, and the ruin that hung over them. Yet, somehow, of late, matters had taken a turn more favourable. His attorney at Cork had informed him, that from some informality in the proceedings, the ejectment was stopped, at least for the present term. The notices to the tenants not to pay were withdrawn, and the rents came in as before; and the only very pressing evil were the bills, the renewal of which, demanded a considerable sum of ready money. That this one misfortune should occasion a gloom, the accumulated griefs of former days had not done, he could not understand; but, by long musing on the matter, and deep reflection, he at last came to the conviction, that such was the case, and that Mark’s sorrow was the greater, from seeing how near they were to a more favourable issue to their affairs, and yet how fatally debarred from such a consummation by this one disastrous circumstance.

The drowning hand grasps not the straw with more avidity than does the harassed and wearied mind, agitated by doubts, and worn out with conjectures, seize upon some one apparent solution to a difficulty that has long oppressed it, and, for the very moment, convert every passing circumstance into an argument for its truthfulness. The O’Donoghue now saw, or believed he saw, why Mark would never accompany the others in their visits to the “Lodge” – nor be present when any of the Travers family came to the castle; he immediately accounted for his son’s rejection of the proffered civilities, by that wounded pride which made him feel his present position so painfully, and, as the future head of the house, grieve over a state so unbecoming to its former fortunes.

“The poor fellow,” said he, “is too high-spirited to be a guest to those he cannot be a host. Noble boy! the old blood flows strongly in your veins, at least.”

How to combat this evil, now became his sole thought. He mused over it by day – he dreamed of it by night. Hour by hour he endured the harassing tortures of a poverty, whose struggles were all abortive, and whose repulses came without ceasing. Each plan he thought of, was met by obstacles innumerable; and when, worn out with unprofitable schemes, he had resolved on abandoning the subject for ever, the sight of Mark’s wasted cheek and sunken eye rallied him again to an effort, which, each time, he vowed should be the last.

The old, and often successful remedies to rally him from his low spirits, his father possessed no longer – the indulgence of some caprice, some momentary fancy for a horse or a hound – a boat or a fishing-rod.

He felt, besides, that his grief, whatever it was, lay too deep for such surface measures as these, and he pondered long and anxiously over the matter. Nor had he one to share his sorrow, or assist him with advice. Sir Archibald he ever regarded as being prejudiced against Mark, and invariably more disposed to exaggerate, than extenuate his faults. To have opened his heart to him, would be to expose himself to some very plausible, but, as he would deem them, very impracticable remarks, on frugality and order – the necessity of submitting to altered fortunes – and, if need be, of undertaking some humble but honest occupation as a livelihood. These, and such like, had more than once been obtruded upon him; but to seek and court them, to invite their presence, was not to be thought of.

Kerry O’Leary was, then, the only one who remained; and they who know the intimacy to which old servants, long conversant with the fortunes of the family, and deemed faithful, because, from utter inutility, they are attached to the house that shelters them, are admitted in Irish households, will not be surprised at the choice of the confidant. He, I say, was the O’Donoghue’s last resource; and from him he still hoped to gain some clue, at least, to the secret of this mystery. Scarcely had the O’Donoghue retired to his room at night, when Kerry was summoned to his presence, and after a few preliminaries, was asked if he knew where, how, or with whom his young master latterly spent his time.

“Faix, and ‘tis that same does be puzzling myself,” said Kerry, to whom the matter had already been one of considerable curiosity. “Sometimes I think one thing, and then I think another – but it beats me entirely.”

“What were your thoughts, then, Kerry?”

“‘Twas Tuesday last I suspected Joe Lenahan’s daughter – the fair-haired girl, above at the three meadows; then, I took into my head, it might be a badger he was after – for he was for ever going along by the bank of the river; but, twice in the week, I was sure I had him – and faix, I think, maybe I have.”

“How is that, Kerry? Tell me at once, man!”

“It’s a fine brown beast Lanty Lawler has – a strapping four-year-old, as likely a weight-carrier as ever I seen – that’s what he’s after – sorra he in it. I obsarved him, on Friday, taking him over the big fences beyant the whin-field – and I measured his tracks – and, may I never die in sin, if he didn’t stride nineteen feet over the yallow ditch.”

“Do you know what he’s asking for him, Kerry?” cried the old man, eagerly.

“His weight in goold, I heerd say; for the captain, up at ‘the Lodge,’ will give him his own price for any beast will make a charger – and three hundred guineas Lanty expects for the same horse. Ayeh! he’s a play-actor, is Lanty – and knows how to rub the gentlemen down with a damp wisp.”

“And you think that’s it, Kerry?”

“I’ll take the vestment it’s not far off it. I never heerd Master Mark give a cheer out of him going over a fence, that he hadn’t a conceit out of the beast under him. ‘Whoop!’ says he, throwing up his whip hand, ‘this way.’ ‘Your heart’s in him,’ says I, ‘and ‘tis a murther he isn’t your own.’”

“You may leave me, Kerry,” said the old man, sighing heavily, “‘tis getting near twelve o’clock.”

“Good night, sir, and a safe rest to you.”

“Wait a moment – stay a few minutes. Are they in the drawing-room still?”

“Yes, sir; I heerd Miss Kate singing as I came up the stairs.”

“Well, Kerry, I want you to wait till she is leaving the room, and just whisper to her – mind now, for your life, that nobody sees nor hears you – just say that I wish to see her up here for a few seconds to-night. Do you understand me?”

“Never fear, sir, I’ll do it, and sorra one the wiser.”

Kerry left the apartment as he spoke, nor was his master long doomed to suspense, for immediately after a gentle tap at the door announced Kate’s presence there.

“Sit down there, my darling Kate,” cried the O’Donoghue, placing a chair beside his own, “and let me have five minutes’ talk with you.”

The young girl obeyed with a smile, and returned the pressure of her uncle’s hand with warmth.

“Kate, my child,” said he – speaking with evident difficulty and embarrassment, and fixing his eyes, not on her, but towards the fire, as he spoke – “Kate you have come to a sad and cheerless home, with few comforts, with no pleasure for one so young and so lovely as you are.”

“My dear uncle, how can you speak thus to me? Can you separate me in your heart from your other children? Mark and Herbert make no complaint – do you think that I could do so?”

“They are very different from you, my sweet child. The moss rose will not bear the storms of winter, that the wild thorn can brave without danger. To you this dreary house must be a prison. I know it – I feel it.”

“Nay, nay, uncle. If you think thus, it must be my fault – some piece of wilfulness of mine could alone have made you suppose me discontented; but I am not so – far from it. I love dear old Sir Archy and my cousins dearly; yes, and my uncle Miles too, though he seems anxious to get rid of me.”

The old man pressed her fingers to his lips, and turned away his head.

“Come, Kate,” said he, after a brief pause, “it was with no intention of that kind I spoke. We could none of us live without you now. My thoughts had a very different object.”

“And that was – ”

“Simply this” – and here he made a great effort, and spoke rapidly, as if fearing to dwell on the words. “Law-suits and knavish attorneys have wasted three-fourths of my estate: the remainder I scarcely know if I be its master or not; on that portion, however, the old house stands, and the few acres that survive the wreck. At this moment heavy proceedings are pending in the courts, if successful in which, I shall be left in possession of the home of my father, and not turned adrift upon the world, a beggar. There – don’t look so pale, child – the story is an old one now, and has few terrors for us as long as it remains merely anticipated evil. This is a sad tale for your ears. I know it,” said he, wiping away a tear that would come in spite of him.

Both were now silent. The old man paused, uncertain how he should proceed further. Kate spoke not; for as yet she could neither see the drift of the communication, or, if it were in any way addressed to her, what part she was expected to take in the matter.

“Are you aware, my dear,” resumed he, after a considerable delay, “that your father was married to your mother when she was but sixteen?”

“I have often heard she was scarcely more than a child,” said Kate, timidly – for she had no recollection of having seen either of her parents.