My Lords of Strogue Volume Iii Part 9

We soon make up our minds to the inevitable. My lady had made up her mind that Terence was to die. Her pangs of conscience were bitter, but the dreadful thing was settled; no influence of hers could affect the youth's fate now, whatever it might have done in the past. So low was she fallen that she found some poor relief in that. But this new, unexpected freak of Fortune brought all the bitterness of her trouble back again; and with a sigh she roused her distempered faculties from lethargy and bestirred herself--for the dreary battle was, as it seemed, not over yet. The implacable phantom kept whispering in her ear that it was not too late even now to set right the wrong; that there still was time if she would force those stubborn knees to bend and abase her pride.

My lady loathed herself for the thoughts which held possession of her mind. When the chancellor brought his news, she concealed the sudden turbulence within. Strangely enough, the mother's sympathies, even at that moment, were not for Terence--the son who had escaped the halter--but for Shane; and a great fear for him leaped up in her heart, to the crushing out of natural feeling. Terence was s.n.a.t.c.hed from the grave as by a miracle. A foreboding took strong hold of my lady's mind that this was for a purpose--that Heaven, not satisfied with the penance of a lifetime, was determined that she should blab out to the world the secret which, lying on her bosom, had seared her life. Oh! why did she not accept her punishment all those years ago, when the task would not have been so hard? The earth had been no pleasant place of sojourn to my lady. When she thought of all she had borne since the old lord's death--of the utter futility of the penance--she became rebellious, and gnashed her teeth at the simpering portrait of him who had got off so easily. She rebelled against the iron sternness of Heaven. She was to bend her proud knees, was she--and confess? Her whitened hair and ashen cheeks were not to be taken into account? Very well, then. She defied Heaven; religion was a delusion and a snare; the Lord of Heaven unduly just. Tossing her favourite tracts into the fire, she swore she would not be driven to speak, though the ruin of her soul should be the penalty. At the time when it was decided that Terence was to die, she spent the long hours in reverie over the past--in poignant regret that he should have to be thus sacrificed. She reflected that if she had spoken all those years ago he would never have joined the popular side--would never have risked his neck--of that she felt a.s.sured; and so she felt in some sort as though she had herself handed him over to the scrag-boy. It was an awful thought, and it had weighed down her intellect. But now came a revulsion. It was not to be so. He was to live as a reproach.

Heaven was hounding her down, so she stood at bay. If Heaven had accepted the penance of a life without requiring that the original transgression should be cancelled by confessing it she would gladly have borne the penance to the end of a long weary existence. But that the penance should not be accepted in any way as an equivalent, was maddening to her sense of justice. She bestirred herself; sat no longer dreaming the days away. The household whispered that my lady was herself again, that the joy of her son's reprieve was accountable for the happy change. All thought this save Gillin, who knew her secret. That excellent person scratched her untidy head with a comb and pondered. What did the wicked old woman mean to do? There was more mischief brewing--of that she felt quite sure. Well, Terence was saved from the gallows by direct interposition from above. He was not intended to be made a sacrifice, any more than Isaac was when his father's faith was tried. A few months remained to him before he was to be taken to his Scottish prison. If my lady should allow him to go there, without making an effort to prevent it--why then she, Madam Gillin, would open her mouth and speak. Her lips had been closed over-long. Had she not sworn an oath beside that deathbed? It would become her bounden duty to interfere, if the countess lacked courage so to do.

It was touching that in moments of severest trial my lady should always have been engrossed by the interests of her black sheep. She always thought of Shane rather than of herself; and he gave her little satisfaction in return for this great love. Never very white, he was daily growing darker. One evil thought engenders another; one evil deed makes a second necessary: we were all taught that in earliest infancy, and Shane's condition was in accordance with the rule. His prowess in the past as King of Cherokees had brought him little blame in public estimation, for the Glandores had been fire-eaters time out of mind, and the Irish love a spark with mettle in him. But his conduct since he departed for Glas-aitch-e was on many sides disapproved as shady. The Viceroy openly showed his mean opinion of him. His tenants had protested by injuring his cattle and destroying his crops. He was proud, was Shane, as well as naturally reckless, and was fond of notoriety. He resented the Viceroy's treatment, and was furious with the tenants; and became more wrathful still with Terence, to whose ill-advised conduct he imputed his own growing unpopularity.

What was the use of having mixed himself up in the odium of Tone's capture if his brother was to cut the ground from under his feet? It was but too probable that he might whistle both for an English peerage and comforting bits in the way of sinecures; and all because of Terence. Was it not enough to provoke a saint--much more an Irish earl, who considered himself a pauper? Lord Cornwallis was unkind and rude. My Lord Glandore complained of his uncivil treatment to Lord Clare. The chancellor, with an eye to business, soothed his _amour-propre_, and roundly told the Viceroy in private that he must constrain himself to be civil to the peers. Then he broke ground to Shane with reference to the union, explaining that he might put himself quite right if he would work with the executive in this matter. He must promise his vote in the House of Lords and all his influence in the Commons, and then his gracious Majesty would doubtless give substantial proofs of his approval. Shane promised that he would follow this worldly-wise advice. As my Lord Clare so cogently observed, the union was arranged--was to all intents and purposes a _fait accompli_. Lord Glandore's influence could not prevent the end, even if that peer should elect to be disinterested. What a lack of common prudence would he show then, if for a crotchet he should bar himself out of Tom Tiddler's ground! His brother's ruin showed the result of crotchets. There would be fine pickings. The Chancellor gave his word as to that, adding at the same time that the man is a fool who strains at gnats. Shane therefore was as easily talked over as many another of his order. Lord Clare was quite certain about the success of his project, but thought that it would perhaps be well to sound my lady in order that she might not through inadvertence undo his work.

Now, as we know, she had lived the life of a recluse, looking at political events, in most cases, through the chancellor's spectacles, half-awakened now and then by the diatribes of Mr. Curran. But she thought his web was a wicked piece of work when now he displayed its woof to her; and objected strongly to his design of mixing her firstborn in his scheming. It was grievous to her that the dear dark wool of the dusky sheep should be further blackened. My lady got rid of her importunate old friend by saying she would speak to Shane as to the using of his influence; and, left alone, sat wondering what she ought to do. It was a bitter thing to think of the proud name being held up to obloquy. Yet there were reasons why valuable t.i.tbits must not be refused idly by the idol of her heart. If only that old abortive project could be carried out! If only Shane was safely married to his cousin! Was it too late to make another effort? My lady perceived dimly that Shane was repelled by the damsel--and no wonder.

The pa.s.sions of this earth seemed gone, burnt away, consumed, by the action on her mind of past events. Doreen sat on a heap of ashes, enclosed in a rarified atmosphere of her own. But, for all that, another trial must be made; matters were becoming desperate; my lady began to fear that she was not strong enough to fight against Heaven.

She would see Shane, and speak very seriously to him forthwith.

It was no easy matter now to get hold of Shane. Since his return to Dublin he had plunged deeper and deeper into excess--partly from having been mewed up so long, partly to drown the voice of the inner monitor, partly because of the forbidding chilliness of his own fireside and the presence there of his gloomy brother. The Blasters, who during the reign of terror had been busy with the triangles; the Cherokees, who had been dispersed about the country with their regiments, returned now to the capital, to sit for the last time in the Irish Parliament, by order of the chancellor; and glorious were the nights they pa.s.sed together whilst awaiting the decisive moment.

The hounds of Strogue were brought again into requisition. My lord and his boon companions amused themselves with cub-hunting--careering with wild shrieks across the land--past cabins, the shoulders of whose occupants were disfigured with livid weals--past huts whose inmates cursed the cavalcade as it swept by. They rode all day. They drank and fought all night. My lady had to bide her time in order to lay hands upon her son. Verily, it seemed little probable that his infatuated lordship could be induced, even by her entreaties, to pull up in full career for the sake of wooing the cousin who frightened him!

As though in furtherance of the unrelenting measures of Heaven, both sons were received now as guests at the Little House, and equally insulted their parent by making no secret of going there. The sc.r.a.ping of their feet was visible on the wall which divided the two properties. My lady could not but admit that Fate took pleasure in deliberately thwarting her arrangements. Why, when so many Catholics came to ruin in the Hurry, was this horrible woman allowed to escape scot-free? After she had been caught in the act, too, of harbouring traitors! Was it that through her (the only one on earth who had power to do so) the secret she kept so hungrily should be blabbed forth upon the housetops? Sure, a mark of Fate's finger could be detected here.

But my lady was all the more determined to be obstinate. She would go on scheming, and wrestle with all her puny strength, shaking her broken spear-haft till finally put out of misery. If Fate was resolved to kill her, she would die hard, fighting to the very last.

Terence, being free--on parole--moped about the Abbey, never moving beyond its boundaries, save when he went to the Little House to converse with its kind hostess. His life was finished, although he was not destined to wing away at present. The reprieve brought to him no rapture, much as his heart was touched by the devotion of poor Phil.

He was like one who has pa.s.sed through the anguish of drowning; who has subsided into the ecstatic state, made beautiful by coloured lights, which precedes dissolution. Like those who have been at this point plucked from the waters, he returned with reluctance to the world, conscious only of its pain and trouble. After the first short shock of astonishment, which set his head reeling, he experienced nothing but unalloyed regret, although the mere fact of life is intoxicating to the young. His peace was made with his Maker. He had been privileged to look through the Golden Gate, only to be thrust cruelly back again into the darkness of this world. Had he but followed Theobald's example, all would have been over now--he would be walking with his brother patriots in Paradise. He was satisfied that his life would be of no further use. He saw little of his mother--as little as possible, indeed, for on his arrival from Kilmainham she had tendered a frigid hand in a way that brought tears into his eyes. My lady's attempt to appear glad was rendered heart-rending by its ill-success. Was it her fault if her affections were so engrossed by Shane that there was no corner left for Terence? He saw through the little mummery at once, and avoided her without stopping to seek for reasons; and she, on her side, was relieved, for every fibre of energy within her was strung now for the unequal contest with Fate on Shane's behalf, which she perceived with prophetic ken to be inevitable.

Curran and Sara stayed on at the Abbey, to the satisfaction of the inmates, whose skeletons rattled with less deafening jangle in the presence of strangers. Doreen was glad of Sara for a nurse. My lady, who always liked Curran, and who was being crushed into humility by impending Nemesis, was sorry to see how aged he was, and hoped that the quiet of the Abbey might do for him what it might never do for her. He lingered on to see the most of Terence, declaring that, the union pa.s.sed and the prisoners gone, he would turn his back on the land he had loved too well, and crave six feet of earth from the United States. He trotted up and down the alleys of the rosary with his ex-junior, the hearts of both too full for speech. They would part soon, never again to meet in this world. They had been involved in dangers and supreme soul-conflicts, which knit hearts together more closely than a decade of conventional maundering. Both had been sorely tried, and had come out the better for the fire. The tenderness the twain felt one for the other was that of two strong natures, generous and pure--an equable, staunch tenderness, swayed by no violent pa.s.sion, founded on the sure basis of esteem and confidence, such as may never be attained in any love of man for woman.

This was the att.i.tude of the two friends one to the other, in the interval that preceded the day which was to decide the fate of Ireland. Doreen was too ill to see any one. The orders of the doctor were stringent as to the necessity of extreme quiet for her. Sara issued forth now and again with bulletins; then returned to her post.

Madam Gillin bearded the tigress in her lair by sending openly to inquire after the invalid. One morning Sara, neglecting her patient, came tripping forth, well rolled in furs, with unseemly gladness in her face--unseemly levity in her demeanour:

'What _do_ you think, papa?' she said, flinging her arms round Mr.

Curran. 'I've got a letter to say he's coming home!'

'_He?_ To whom do you refer?' demanded her father, who declined to admit that for his child there was but one 'he.'

'Robert, of course!' she replied, with shy reproach. 'Do read!'

Her father read, then handed the note to Terence gloomily. The maid had her gladness to herself. It was not a wise letter; one written evidently by an enthusiastic but rash, person, who, having been absent during the Hurry, could put faith still in the mirage of Irish freedom; who had not laid to heart the awful lesson of the year that was expiring. He spoke with indignation of the way he was duped in London; of the impossibility of getting at his Majesty, who was as inaccessible to him as any potentate of Old j.a.pan. For months he was kept dallying in ante-chambers, he complained. His funds would have failed but for good Lord Moira. But now he was coming back to receive the mantle of Theobald, which intuition told him was to fit his shoulders; to bid farewell to brother Tom ere he departed; then to study the ground with a fresh eye.

Her father looked at Sara, as he pushed the blonde coc.o.o.ns from off her bright young forehead. Blind girl to be so glad; she who before was more wisely jubilant in that her lover should be removed from danger. Her delight, indeed, was infantine and unalloyed; for all day long the patriots were declaring that everything was lost, that all was over. There was no reason, then, why she should look forward to future complications.

'Use all the power you have, my Primrose,' he adjured his daughter, with sad earnestness, 'to keep him away yet awhile. The mantle of Theobald, forsooth! We know that it is red and clammy. The shamrock must be transplanted to another soil. Tell him not to come, I say. So soon as the ship sails for Fort George, you and I will go and meet him in London.'

Sara seemed bewildered, as the smile faded from her face. What could her parent mean? Sure, it was but natural to come and take a last look at a beloved brother ere he went away? Whatever Robert's intentions were, she knew that they were good and n.o.ble. The mantle of Theobald meant love of motherland--no more. Everybody was painfully convinced that the time for armed resistance was gone and past; that England held the reins well in hand, and meant to hold them.

The excitement when the grand day arrived was great in Dublin, while the provinces looked on with unconcern. The brew of my Lords Castlereagh and Clare had cost them sleepless nights. The Viceroy, as head-cook, made believe to supervise, but he held a perfumed kerchief to his august nose; there was no need for special exertion on his part, for his deputies were by this time familiar with the receipt. By the middle of the ensuing year at latest, every detail would be arranged; and then he would be able to depart, his mission accomplished, out of an atmosphere that poisoned him. But my Lords Clare and Castlereagh were only bunglers after all. They had not fathomed the baseness of the senate--the yawning depth of its abyss of greed. Certain members of both Houses turned round at the last minute.

Some said that their consciences smote them; others admitted that their rapacity was not satisfied. After a sitting of twenty-one hours the measure was lost; and my Lords Clare and Castlereagh, baffled where success seemed certain, looked foolish.

Every one was disgusted. Lord Cornwallis apologised for the muddle to the British Cabinet. Odd straitlaced people, he explained, rose all of a sudden to the surface, who, if they had appeared sooner, might have done much to stop the ball. It was like the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah. 'Peradventure three righteous men might be found,' and so on. The affair would have to be postponed for a few months in order that the three righteous men might be tampered with. Of course the three righteous men had their price. My Lord Powerscourt had emerged from his Wicklow mountains to protest from his place against the sinful measure, and a shamefaced knot rallied round him--a nucleus of lords who objected to the bartering of freedom against a cartload of cheap mirrors and bead-necklaces. But retribution fell upon that ill-advised Lord Powerscourt before the setting of the sun that day. A national rabble who sallied forth from the Liberties to wreak vengeance on those who dared to vote for union, by a trifling error attacked Powerscourt House in William Street, and broke its windows and smashed its sculptured ornaments. They did not desist till some one explained that it appertained to a peer who all along had steadfastly set his face against the orgies of his fellows; against bloodshed, murder, and torture; and against Lord Clare. But, arrah!

what was broke could be mended, and it was good for trade. Three cheers for Lord Powerscourt! He must acknowledge the warmth of Pat's nature, and make the best of the mistake.

Terence learned with heartfelt satisfaction, mingled with surprise and contrition in that he had wronged his brother so, that Lord Glandore had not voted with Government. My lady, he knew, was shocked with the entire proceeding. Perchance to her influence was this happy result due? Be that as it might, the heart of the younger was drawn towards his brother. They never cared much for each other--they looked on the world from a different standpoint. Since the Hurry, a marked coldness and spitefulness was evident in Shane's demeanour. But he was not so bad as he seemed, or so selfish, Terence a.s.sured himself. At all events he was repentant--regretted doubtless the part he played with reference to Theobald, though too haughty to admit it. He, Terence, was going away so soon--never, in all probability, to look upon Ireland or his family again--that it behoved him to carry as few regrets as might be to his prison. He must bid adieu to the world with a clear conscience--at enmity with no man, least of all his brother.

He resolved to make the first advance to Shane; to congratulate him on his conduct even at this eleventh hour--to exhort him to resist temptation 'twixt this and the next attempt--to beg him to take care that he, though the measure would of course be carried sooner or later, was in nowise mixed up with the Iscariots. To this laudable end he strove to throw himself upon his elder's path, and met him face to face in the stable-yard on the very next day after the first failure.

Shane tried to avoid the gloomy _trouble-fete_, but finding that impossible, came forward with as _debonair_ a swagger as a racking headache and impaired digestion would permit. His aspect spoke more of claret and its effects than of repentance. The coat of cream-coloured cut velvet that he wore was rent in several places; two of the filigree gold b.u.t.tons had been wrenched away; his satin pantaloons were smirched with dirt; his handsome face was inflamed and bloated.

What a contrast between the brothers now! Their characteristics seemed inverted from those which marked them in former days. Then Terence had shown too much of the florid farmer, too much of the bovine contented animal breadth which men exhibit who live much in the open air and look on cattle. Then nothing could be more refined and elegant than Shane--with his miniature figure, his faultless limbs and tiny hands, his clean-cut features whereon sat the expression of command which marks a man for one to whom authority is an undisputed birthright. Now the pair had changed places. Shane's lineaments were losing their fine lines by reason of sucking at a bottle; the look of command was departing with his self-respect: whilst Terence, in a dress of studied simplicity, as upright and square as usual, had a.s.sumed a carriage of reserved haughtiness. His locks had lost their brilliant colour, so had his cheeks, through care. That silvery sheen from the other world still glittered in his eye. The rollick of exuberant good-humour and enjoyment of life was exchanged for a sober melancholy. His voice even was lowered a semitone. His individuality had slipped into the minor key.

'Shane,' he said, 'I am so very glad, old fellow. I should have felt it sorely if you had espoused this measure. Of course it's not my business to try to direct your opinions; but now that it's all over for the present, I can't help telling you I'm glad.'

Shane pa.s.sed across his throbbing temples a hand which was soiled with the dust of last night's cards, and shrank backward from his brother's advance. 'You are a nice one,' he sneered, 'to direct my opinions.

_You_--who but for an accident would have danced the minuet like a peasant! We've been starting a new club--the Blazers--two days and nights! I'm losing my nerve. This won't do. Too young to be so shaky.

I'll go to bed.'

He endeavoured to escape. His two pet pointers, Eblana and Aileach, came bounding towards him with yelps which woke the echoes of the yard. Terence felt that there was a mistake somewhere. His brother was upon his guard, as though he expected to be reviled.

'Am I wrong, Shane?' he cried, as the blood bubbled to his face. 'You didn't--did you vote with Government yesterday?'

'What if I did, _Croppy?_' was my lord's surly rejoinder.

Terence winced. 'Do not use harsh words,' he implored. 'Remember that where I go my life must be pa.s.sed in retrospect. Pray do not let me carry away any memories of you but kind ones.'

'Why gibe at me then?' said sulky Shane.

'I--gibe? Is it likely I should jest?'

'Yes, gibe?' repeated Shane, his anger kindling, while the cicatrice stood forth purple upon his forehead. 'You know that I've been tricked. I was at the new club among a set of merry dogs, and gave orders to a porter at the house to fetch me when I was wanted. He didn't come; I didn't vote; and when I offered just now to run him through, he pleaded that he was a follower of yours, and could not possibly do that to which you would object. You! And now you come preaching like a parson! Curse you!'

Terence was deeply moved. His own brother, then, was itching for his share of the silver pieces. It was due to accident alone that he had not disgraced himself. Lord Glandore growled out in exasperation: 'The chancellor will not speak to me!' and, raising the toy-whip he held, made as though he would strike his brother, giving at the same moment a kick which sent Eblana howling to the kennels. Terence recoiled from the threatened blow. At the same instant the lattice of my lady's chamber was flung open, and she, in the imperious voice of other days, cried, 'Shane! come here at once!'

Now the first-born whom she adored so fondly was accustomed to yield to her when in an imperious mood. He felt guilty now and out of sorts, knowing that he was desperately in the wrong. In a sneaking manner, therefore, he threw away his switch, and, kicking aside the other hound, entered his mother's presence, clasping his splitting temples with both his palms.

She was sweeping up and down as she used to do, before she took to feeble blinking in the great chair. Emotion of some kind troubled her so much that she could scarcely speak. Half frightened, Shane asked if he should fetch some water.

She shook her head and muttered 'No.' Then, finding voice, she adjured him in jerky sentences which burned her tongue, to treat his brother with kindness during the short time they could be together. 'A time may come,' she said, 'when you will bitterly regret idle taunts. Do not lay up for yourself the fruits of remorse. I have eaten of them all my life, and know what they are like.'

'What nonsense!' Shane exclaimed fretfully. 'You're always blowing bladders into balloons! Don't bother. The Croppy and I will soon part to meet no more. Then perhaps you'll put aside these foolish terrors!

I think your brain is softening.'

'Foolish terrors!' wailed the countess.

After a moment of reflection she turned sharply round as though urged by a power beyond control. 'Shane!' she cried, stretching out her arms lest he should stop her; 'oh! if you only knew what I have endured for your sake! Listen to me----' then, sinking back on the window-seat, she drew up her limbs together, murmuring in a tone of such anguish as fairly alarmed her first-born: 'No, no! I cannot! I _will not!_ It is too much!'

Shane recovered his self-possession. 'The poor thing's head's deranged,' he thought; and feeling that he had been wanting in respect just now, he stooped down and kissed her as she crouched like a bundle on the cushions.

This unusual display of affection seemed to revive his mother. She twined her quivering arms about him, and, dragging him to her side, whispered: 'My darling--for my sake who have gone through sore travail on your account--oh! be kind to Terence--be very, very kind. If you knew all, you would be--but you shall never know. I will bear all myself. My hand shall never pour sorrow on your head!'

The words of mystery perplexed my lord, who, never very bright, was still confused with drink. He was about to ask questions; perceiving which my lady spoke abruptly. 'Shane,' she whispered, stroking his hair with clinging affection, 'do you know what is the fondest wish of your old mother? If I saw you well married I could die content. When you were so infatuated with that horrid girl down yonder, you did not know what pain you gave me.'

'Why?' demanded Shane, the scar on his brow deepening in hue. 'She's a good girl, and I like her still. There's nothing against her that I'm aware of. I hate your bread-and-b.u.t.ter misses!' Had the young man been sober he would not have dared so to speak; but wine gave him courage to say that to which Norah urged him daily. 'I'll marry Norah if I like,' cried her stout champion. 'I know you've got some silly notion about Doreen. Why, I can't think. I don't want to marry her, and she doesn't want to marry me; and I won't do it--that's flat. Is it you or I who would marry her? I suppose I may follow my own wishes on the subject.'

His mother crouched down on the cushions again and moaned, while her first-born stopped short in wonderment. What a pother, to be sure! Her nerves must be the centre of some disease, for he had said naught to warrant such an access of pain! He could not make it out. At length, by way of applying a soothing plaster, he said: 'There, there! don't fret so. Maybe I'll die a bachelor, and the Croppy'll inherit. Will that please you? Come, sit up and smile at me.'