Lord Kilgobbin Part 32

'You have, however, some influence over her.'

'No; not much.'

'I did not say much; but enough to induce her to yield to a strong entreaty, as when, for instance, you implored her to spare your brother--that poor fellow about to fall so hopelessly in love--'

'I'm not sure that my request did not come too late after all,' said she, with a laughing malice in her eye.

'Don't be too sure of that,' retorted he, almost fiercely.

'Oh, I never bargained for what you might do in a moment of pa.s.sion or resentment.'

'There is neither one nor the other here. I am perfectly cool, calm, and collected, and I tell you this, that whoever your pretty Greek friend is to make a fool of, it shall not be d.i.c.k Kearney.'

'It might be very nice fooling, all the same, d.i.c.k.'

'I know--that is, I believe I know--what you mean. You have listened to some of those high heroics she ascends to in showing what the exaltation of a great pa.s.sion can make of any man who has a breast capable of the emotion, and you want to see the experiment tried in its least favourable conditions--on a cold, soulless, selfish fellow of my own order; but, take my word for it, Kate, it would prove a sheer loss of time to us both.

Whatever she might make of me, it would not be a _hero_; and whatever I should strive for, it would not be her _love_.'

'I don't think I'd say that if I were a man.'

He made no answer to these words, but arose and walked the room with hasty steps. 'It was not about these things I came here to talk to you, Kitty,'

said he earnestly. 'I had my head full of other things, and now I cannot remember them. Only one occurs to me. Have you got any money? I mean a mere trifle--enough to pay my fare to town?'

'To be sure I have that much, d.i.c.k; but you are surely not going to leave us?'

'Yes. I suddenly remembered I must be up for the last day of term in Trinity. Knocking about here--I'll scarcely say amusing myself--I had forgotten all about it. Atlee used to jog my memory on these things when he was near me, and now, being away, I have contrived to let the whole escape me. You can help me, however, with a few pounds?'

'I have got five of my own, d.i.c.k; but if you want more--'

'No, no; I'll borrow the five of your own, and don't blend it with more, or I may cease to regard it as a debt of honour.'

'And if you should, my poor dear d.i.c.k--'

'I'd be only pretty much what I have ever been, but scarcely wish to be any longer,' and he added the last words in a whisper. 'It's only to be a brief absence, Kitty,' said he, kissing her; 'so say good-bye for me to the others, and that I shall be soon back again.'

'Shall I kiss Nina for you, d.i.c.k?'

'Do; and tell her that I gave you the same commission for Miss O'Shea, and was grieved that both should have been done by deputy!'

And with this he hurried away.

CHAPTER XXIII

A HAPHAZARD VICEROY

When the Government came into office, they were sorely puzzled where to find a Lord-Lieutenant for Ireland. It is, unhappily, a post that the men most fitted for generally refuse, while the Cabinet is besieged by a cla.s.s of applicants whose highest qualification is a taste for mock-royalty combined with an enc.u.mbered estate.

Another great requisite, beside fortune and a certain amount of ability, was at this time looked for. The Premier was about, as newspapers call it, 'to inaugurate a new policy,' and he wanted a man who knew nothing about Ireland! Now, it might be carelessly imagined that here was one of those essentials very easily supplied. Any man frequenting club-life or dining out in town could have safely pledged himself to tell off a score or two of eligible Viceroys, so far as this qualification went. The Minister, however, wanted more than mere ignorance: he wanted that sort of indifference on which a character for impartiality could so easily be constructed. Not alone a man unacquainted with Ireland, but actually incapable of being influenced by an Irish motive or affected by an Irish view of anything.

Good-luck would have it that he met such a man at dinner. He was an amba.s.sador at Constantinople, on leave from his post, and so utterly dead to Irish topics as to be uncertain whether O'Donovan Rossa was a Fenian or a Queen's Counsel, and whether he whom he had read of as the 'Lion of Judah' was the king of beasts or the Archbishop of Tuam!

The Minister was pleased with his new acquaintance, and talked much to him, and long. He talked well, and not the less well that his listener was a fresh audience, who heard everything for the first time, and with all the interest that attaches to a new topic. Lord Danesbury was, indeed, that 'sheet of white paper' the head of the Cabinet had long been searching for, and he hastened to inscribe him with the characters he wished.

'You must go to Ireland for me, my lord,' said the Minister. 'I have met no one as yet so rightly imbued with the necessities of the situation. You must be our Viceroy.'

Now, though a very high post and with great surroundings, Lord Danesbury had no desire to exchange his position as an amba.s.sador, even to become a Lord-Lieutenant. Like most men who have pa.s.sed their lives abroad, he grew to like the ways and habits of the Continent. He liked the easy indulgences in many things, he liked the cosmopolitanism that surrounds existence, and even in its littleness is not devoid of a certain breadth; and best of all he liked the vast interests at stake, the large questions at issue, the fortunes of states, the fate of dynasties! To come down from the great game, as played by kings and kaisers, to the small traffic of a local government wrangling over a road-bill, or disputing over a harbour, seemed too horrible to confront, and he eagerly begged the Minister to allow him to return to his post, and not risk a hard-earned reputation on a new and untried career.

'It is precisely from the fact of its being new and untried I need you,'

was the reply, and his denial was not accepted.

Refusal was impossible; and with all the reluctance a man consents to what his convictions are more opposed to even than his reasons, Lord Danesbury gave in, and accepted the viceroyalty of Ireland.

He was deferential to humility in listening to the great aims and n.o.ble conceptions of the mighty Minister, and pledged himself--as he could safely do--to become as plastic as wax in the powerful hands which were about to remodel Ireland.

He was gazetted in due course, went over to Dublin, made a state entrance, received the usual deputations, complimented every one, from the Provost of Trinity College to the Chief Commissioner of Pipewater; praised the coast, the corporation, and the city; declared that he had at length reached the highest goal of his ambition; entertained the high dignitaries at dinner, and the week after retired to his ancestral seat in North Wales, to recruit after his late fatigue, and throw off the effects of that damp, moist climate which already he fancied had affected him.

He had been sworn in with every solemnity of the occasion; he had sat on the throne of state, named the officers of his household, made a master of the horse, and a state steward, and a grand chamberlain; and, till stopped by hearing that he could not create ladies and maids of honour, he fancied himself every inch a king; but now that he had got over to the tranquil quietude of his mountain home, his thoughts went away to the old channels, and he began to dream of the Russians in the Balkan and the Greeks in Thessaly. Of all the precious schemes that had taken him months to weave, what was to come of them _now_? How and with what would his successor, whoever he should be, oppose the rogueries of Sumayloff or the chicanery of Ignatief? what would any man not trained to the especial watchfulness of this subtle game know of the steps by which men advanced? Who was to watch Bulgaria and see how far Russian gold was embellishing the life of Athens?

There was not a hungry agent that lounged about the Russian emba.s.sy in Greek petticoats and pistols whose photograph the English amba.s.sador did not possess, with a biographical note at the back to tell the fellow's name and birthplace, what he was meant for, and what he cost. Of every interview of his countrymen with the Grand-Vizier he was kept fully informed, and whether a forage magazine was established on the Pruth, or a new frigate laid down at Nickolief, the news reached him by the time it arrived at St.

Petersburg. It is true he was aware how hopeless it was to write home about these things. The amba.s.sador who writes disagreeable despatches is a bore or an old woman. He who dares to shake the security by which we daily boast we are surrounded, is an alarmist, if not worse. Notwithstanding this, he held his cards well 'up' and played them shrewdly. And now he was to turn from this crafty game, with all its excitement, to pore over constabulary reports and snub justices of the peace!

But there was worse than this. There was an Albanian spy who had been much employed by him of late, a clever fellow, with access to society, and great facilities for obtaining information. Seeing that Lord Danesbury should not return to the emba.s.sy, would this fellow go over to the enemy? If so, there were no words for the mischief he might effect. By a subordinate position in a Greek government-office, he had often been selected to convey despatches to Constantinople, and it was in this way his lordship first met him; and as the fellow frankly presented himself with a very momentous piece of news, he at once showed how he trusted to British faith not to betray him. It was not alone the incalculable mischief such a man might do by change of allegiance, but the whole fabric on which Lord Danesbury's reputation rested was in this man's keeping; and of all that wondrous prescience on which he used to pride himself before the world, all the skill with which he baffled an adversary, and all the tact with which he overwhelmed a colleague, this same 'Speridionides' could give the secret and show the trick.

How much more constantly, then, did his lordship's thoughts revert to the Bosporus than the Liffey! all this home news was mean, commonplace, and vulgar. The whole drama--scenery, actors, plot--all were low and ign.o.ble; and as for this 'something that was to be done for Ireland,' it would of course be some slowly germinating policy to take root now, and blossom in another half-century: one of those blessed parliamentary enactments which men who dealt in heroic remedies like himself regarded as the chronic placebo of the political quack.

'I am well aware,' cried he aloud, 'for what they are sending me over. I am to "make a case" in Ireland for a political legislation, and the bill is already drawn and ready; and while I am demonstrating to Irish Churchmen that they will be more pious without a religion, and the landlords richer without rent, the Russians will be mounting guard at the Golden Horn, and the last British squadron steaming down the Levant.'

It was in a temper kindled by these reflections he wrote this note:--

PLMNUDDM CASTLE, NORTH WALES.

'DEAR WALPOLE,--I can make nothing out of the papers you have sent me; nor am I able to discriminate between what you admit to be newspaper slander and the attack on the castle with the unspeakable name. At all events, your account is far too graphic for the Treasury lords, who have less of the pictorial about them than Mr. Mudie's subscribers. If the Irish peasants are so impatient to a.s.sume their rights that they will not wait for the "Hatt-Houmaoun," or Bill in Parliament that is to endow them, I suspect a little further show of energy might save us a debate and a third reading. I am, however, far more eager for news from Therapia. Tolstai has been twice over with despatches; and Boustikoff, pretending to have sprained his ankle, cannot leave Odessa, though I have ascertained that he has laid down new lines of fortification, and walked over twelve miles per day. You may have heard of the great "Speridionides," a scoundrel that supplied me with intelligence. I should like much to get him over here while I am on my leave, confer with him, and, if possible, save him _from the necessity of other engagements_. It is not every one could be trusted to deal with a man of this stamp, nor would the fellow himself easily hold relations with any but a gentleman. Are you sufficiently recovered from your sprained arm to undertake this journey for me? If so, come over at once, that I may give you all necessary indications as to the man and his whereabouts.

'Maude has been "on the sick-list," but is better, and able to ride out to-day. I cannot fill the law-appointments till I go over, nor shall I go over till I cannot help it. The Cabinet is scattered over the Scotch lakes.

C. alone in town, and preparing for the War Ministry by practising the goose-step. Telegraph, if possible, that you are coming, and believe me yours,

DANESBURY.'

CHAPTER XXIV

TWO FRIENDS AT BREAKFAST