Lord Kilgobbin Part 60

'Well, he was yours till you threw him off. No, don't be angry: I am only talking in that careless slang we all use when we mean nothing, just as people employ counters instead of money at cards; but I like him: he has that easy flippancy in talk that asks for no effort to follow, and he says his little nothings nicely, and he is not too eager as to great ones, or too energetic, which you all are here. I like him.'

'I fancied you liked the eager and enthusiastic people, and that you felt a warm interest in Donogan's fate.'

'Yes, I do hope they'll not catch him. It would be too horrid to think of any one we had known being hanged! And then, poor fellow, he was very much in love.'

'Poor fellow!' sighed out Kate.

'Not but it was the only gleam of sunlight in his existence; he could go away and fancy that, with Heaven knows what chances of fortune, he might have won me.'

'Poor fellow!' cried Kate, more sorrowfully than before.

'No, far from it, but very "happy fellow" if he could feed his heart with such a delusion.'

'And you think it fair to let him have this delusion?'

'Of course I do. I'd no more rob him of it than I'd s.n.a.t.c.h a life-buoy from a drowning man. Do you fancy, child, that the swimmer will always go about with the corks that have saved his life?'

'These mock a.n.a.logies are sorry arguments,' said Kate.

'Tell me, does your Austrian sing? I see he understands music, but I hope he can sing.'

'I can tell you next to nothing of my Austrian--if he must be called so. It is five years since we met, and all I know is how little like he seems to what he once was.'

'I'm sure he is vastly improved: a hundred times better mannered; with more ease, more quickness, and more readiness in conversation. I like him.'

'I trust he'll find out his great good-fortune--that is, if it be not a delusion.'

For a few seconds there was a silence--a silence so complete that Gorman could hear the rustle of a dress as Nina moved from her place, and seated herself on the battlement of the terrace. He then could catch the low murmuring sounds of her voice, as she hummed an air to herself, and at length traced it to be the song she had sung that same evening in the drawing-room. The notes came gradually more and more distinct, the tones swelled out into greater fulness, and at last, with one long-sustained cadence of thrilling pa.s.sion, she cried, '_Non mi amava--non mi amava!_'

with an expression of heart-breaking sorrow, the last syllables seeming to linger on the lips as if a hope was deserting them for ever. '_Oh, non mi amava!_' cried she, and her voice trembled as though the avowal of her despair was the last effort of her strength. Slowly and faintly the sounds died away, while Gorman, leaning out to the utmost to catch the dying notes, strained his hearing to drink them in. All was still, and then suddenly, with a wild roulade that sounded at first like the pa.s.sage of a musical scale, she burst out into a fit of laughter, crying '_Non mi amava,_' through the sounds, in a half-frantic mockery. '_No, no, non mi amava,_' laughed she out, as she walked back into the room. The window was now closed with a heavy bang, and all was silent in the house.

'And these are the affections we break our hearts for!' cried Gorman, as he threw himself on his bed, and covered his face with both his hands.

CHAPTER XLIV

THE HEAD CONSTABLE

The Inspector, or, to use the irreverent designation of the neighbourhood, the Head Peeler, who had carried away Walpole's luggage and papers, no sooner discovered the grave mistake he had committed, than he hastened to restore them, and was waiting personally at Kilgobbin Castle to apologise for the blunder, long before any of the family had come downstairs. His indiscretion might cost him his place, and Captain Curtis, who had to maintain a wife and family, three saddle-horses, and a green uniform with more gold on it than a field-marshal's, felt duly anxious and uneasy for what he had done.

'Who is that gone down the road?' asked he, as he stood at the window, while a woman was setting the room in order.

'Sure it's Miss Kate taking the dogs out. Isn't she always the first up of a morning?' Though the captain had little personal acquaintance with Miss Kearney, he knew her well by reputation, and knew therefore that he might safely approach her to ask a favour. He overtook her at once, and in a few words made known the difficulty in which he found himself.

'Is it not after all a mere pa.s.sing mistake, which once apologised for is forgotten altogether?' asked she. 'Mr. Walpole is surely not a person to bear any malice for such an incident?'

'I don't know that, Miss Kearney,' said he doubtingly. 'His papers have been thoroughly ransacked, and old Mr. Flood, the Tory magistrate, has taken copies of several letters and doc.u.ments, all of course under the impression that they formed part of a treasonable correspondence.'

'Was it not very evident that the papers could not have belonged to a Fenian leader? Was not any mistake in the matter easily avoided?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: Nina came forward at that moment]

'Not at once, because there was first of all a sort of account of the insurrectionary movement here, with a number of queries, such as, "Who is M----?" "Are F. Y---- and McCausland the same person?" "What connection exists between the Meath outrages and the late events in Tipperary?"

"How is B---- to explain his conduct sufficiently to be retained in the Commission of the Peace?" In a word, Miss Kearney, all the troublesome details by which a Ministry have to keep their own supporters in decent order, are here hinted at, if not more, and it lies with a batch of red-hot Tories to make a terrible scandal out of this affair.'

'It is graver than I suspected,' said she thoughtfully.

'And I may lose my place,' muttered Curtis, 'unless, indeed, you would condescend to say a word for me to Mr. Walpole.'

'Willingly, if it were of any use, but I think my cousin, Mademoiselle Kostalergi, would be likelier of success, and here she comes.'

Nina came forward at that moment, with that indolent grace of movement with which she swept the greensward of the lawn as though it were the carpet of a saloon. With a brief introduction of Mr. Curtis, her cousin Kate, in a few words, conveyed the embarra.s.sment of his present position, and his hope that a kindly intercession might avert his danger.

'What droll people you must be not to find out that the letters of a Viceroy's secretary could not be the correspondence of a rebel leader,'

said Nina superciliously.

'I have already told Miss Kearney how that fell out,' said he; 'and I a.s.sure you there was enough in those papers to mystify better and clearer heads.'

'But you read the addresses, and saw how the letters began, "My dear Mr.

Walpole," or "Dear Walpole"?'

'And thought they had been purloined. Have I not found "Dear Clarendon"

often enough in the same packet with cross-bones and a coffin.'

'What a country!' said Nina, with a sigh.

'Very like Greece, I suppose,' said Kate tartly; then, suddenly, 'Will you undertake to make this gentleman's peace with Mr. Walpole, and show how the whole was a piece of ill-directed zeal?'

'Indiscreet zeal.'

'Well, indiscreet, if you like it better.'

'And you fancied, then, that all the fine linen and purple you carried away were the properties of a head-centre?'

'We thought so.'

'And the silver objects of the dressing-table, and the ivory inlaid with gold, and the trifles studded with turquoise?'

'They might have been Donogan's. Do you know, mademoiselle, that this same Donogan was a man of fortune, and in all the society of the first men at Oxford when--a mere boy at the time--he became a rebel?'

'How nice of him! What a fine fellow!'

'I'd say what a fool!' continued Curtis. 'He had no need to risk his neck to achieve a station, the thing was done for him. He had a good house and a good estate in Kilkenny; I have caught salmon in the river that washes the foot of his lawn.'

'And what has become of it; does he still own it?'

'Not an acre--not a rood of it; sold every square yard of it to throw the money into the Fenian treasury. Rifled artillery, Colt's revolvers, Remington's, and Parrot guns have walked off with the broad acres.'