Roland Cashel Volume I Part 65

"It was Mr. Linton, my Lady, who made the arrangement."

"And who is Mr. Linton, sir, who ventures to give orders here?--I ask you, who is Mr. Linton?" As there was something excessively puzzling to Mr. Phillis in this brief interrogatory, and as Lady Janet perceived as much, she repeated the phrase in a still louder and more authoritative tone, till, in the fulness of the accents, they fell upon the ears of him who, if not best able to give the answer, was, at least, most interested in its nature.

He started, and sat up; and although, from the position of his bed in a deep alcove he was himself screened from observation, the others were palpable enough to his eyes.

"Yes," cried Lady Janet, for the third time, "I ask, who is Mr. Linton?"

"Upon my life, your Ladyship has almost made me doubt if there be such a person," said Tom, protruding his head through the curtains.

"I vow he's in the bed yonder!" said Lady Janet, starting back. "Flint, I think you are really too bad; this is all your doing, or yours, sir,"

turning to Phillis with a face of anger.

"Yes, my Leddy, it's a' his meddlin'."

"Eh, Leddy Janet, what's this?" said Sir Andrew, suddenly joining the party, after a very dangerous excursion along dark corridors and back stairs.

"We've strayed into Mr. Linton's room, I find," said she, gathering up various small articles she had on entering thrown on the table. "I must only reserve my apologies for a more fitting time and place, and wish him 'good-night.'"

"I've even dune something o' the same wi' Mrs. Kannyfack," said Sir Andrew. "She was in bed, though, and so I made my retreat undiscovered."

"I regret, Lady Janet," said Linton, politely, "that my present toilet does not permit me to show you to your apartment, but if you will allow Mr. Phillis--"

"Dinna get up, man," broke in Sir Andrew, as he half pushed the invading party out of the door; "we'll find it vara weel, I 've na doubt." And in a confused hubbub of excuses and grumblings they withdrew, leaving Linton once more to court slumber, if he could.

"I beg pardon, sir," said Phillis, popping in his head the minute after, "but Mr. Downie Meek' has taken the rooms you meant for Lady Janet; they've pillaged all the chambers at either side for easy-chairs and cushions to--"

"With all my heart; let them settle the question between them, or leave it to arbitration. Shut the door, pray."

"Mrs. White, too, and a large party are in the library, and I don't know where to show them into."

"Anywhere but here, Phillis. Good-night; there's a good man, good-night."

"They 're all asking for you, sir; just tell me what to say."

"Merely that I have pa.s.sed a shocking night, and request I may not be disturbed till late in the afternoon."

Phillis retired with a groan, and soon a confused hum of many voices could be heard along the corridor, in every accent of irritation and remonstrance. Self-reproaches on the mistaken and abused confidence which had led the visitors to journey so many miles to "such a place;"

mutual condolences over misfortune; abuse of the whole establishment, and "that insufferable puppy the valet" in particular, went round, till at last, like a storm that bad spent its fury, a lull succeeded; one by one the grumblers slipped away, and just as day was breaking, the house was buried in the soundest sleep.

About an hour later, when the fresh-risen son was glistening and glittering among the leaves, lightly tipped with the h.o.a.r-frost of an autumnal morning, a handsomely-appointed travelling-carriage, with four posters, drove rapidly up to the door, and an active-looking figure, springing from the box, applied himself to the bell with a vigorous hand, and the next minute, flinging open the carriage-door, said, "Welcome,--at last, I am able to say,--welcome to Tub-bermore."

A graceful person, wrapped in a large shawl, emerged, and, leaning on his arm, entered the house; but in a moment he returned to a.s.sist another and a far more helpless traveller, an old and feeble man, who suffered himself to be carried, rather than walked, into the hall.

"This is Tubbermore, my Lord," said the lady, bending down, and with a hand slightly touching his shoulder seeming to awake his attention.

"Yes--thank you--perfectly well," said he, in a low soft voice, while a smile of courteous but vacant meaning stole over his sickly features.

"Not over-fatigued, my Lord?" said Roland, kindly.

"No, sir--we saw the 'Lightship' quite near us."

"Still thinking of that dreadful night," said her Ladyship, as she arranged two braids of her fair brown hair more becomingly on her forehead; and then turning to a very comely personage, who performed a series of courtesies, like minute guns, at intervals, added, "If you please, then, we'll retire to our apartment. Your housekeeper, I suppose, Mr. Cashel?"

"I conclude so," said Roland; "but I am equally a stranger here with yourself."

"Mrs. Moss, at your service, sir," said the housekeeper, with another courtesy.

"Mrs. Moss, then," said Roland, in an undertone, "I have only to remark that Lord and Lady Kilgoff must want for nothing here."

"I understand, sir," said Mrs. Moss; and whether the words, or the look that accompanied them, should bear the blame, but they certainly made Cashel look half angry, half ashamed.

"Then good-night--or good-morrow, I believe it should be," said Lady Kilgoff. "I'm sure, in charity, we should not keep you from your bed a minute longer. You had a severe night outside."

"Good-night--good-night, my Lord," said Cashel; and the handsome form of the lady moved proudly on, while the servant a.s.sisted the poor decrepid husband slowly after.

Roland looked after them for an instant, and whether from some curiosity to see the possessions which called him master, or that he felt indisposed to sleep, he pa.s.sed out into the lawn and stood some minutes gazing at the strange and somewhat incongruous pile before him.

Perhaps something of disappointment mingled with his thoughts--perhaps it was only that strange revulsion which succeeds to all long-excited expectation, when the moment of satisfying it has come, and speculation is at an end forever--but he was turning away, in half sadness, when he caught sight of a hand waving to him a salute from one of the windows.

He had just time to answer the gesture, when the shutter was closed.

There was one other saw the motion, and noted well the chamber from whence it came. Linton, awoke by the arrival of the carriage, had watched every step that followed, and now sat, with half-drawn curtains, eagerly marking everything that might minister to his jealous anger.

As for Cashel, he sauntered on into the wood, his mind wandering on themes separated by nearly half the world from where his steps were straying.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII. ROLAND'S INTRODUCTION TO MR. CORRIGAN

And while the scene around them smiled, With pleasant talk the way beguiled.

Haile: Rambles.

As Roland Cashel strolled along alone, he could not divest himself of a certain feeling of disappointment, that, up to the present, at least, all his wealth had so little contributed to realize those illusions he had so often fancied. The plots, the wiles and cunning schemes by which he had been surrounded, were gradually revealing themselves to his senses, and he was rapidly nearing the fatal "bourne" which separates credulity from distrust.

If we have pa.s.sed over the events which succeeded the loss of the yacht with some appearance of scant ceremony to our reader, it is because, though in themselves not totally devoid of interest, they formed a species of episode which only in one respect bore reference to the current of our story. It is not necessary, no more than it would be gratifying, to us to inquire with what precise intentions Lady Kilgoff had sought to distinguish Roland by marks of preference. Enough, if we say that he was neither puppy enough to ascribe the feeling to anything but a caprice, nor was he sufficiently hackneyed in the world's ways to suspect it could mean more.

That he was flattered by the notice, and fascinated by the charms of a very lovely and agreeable woman, whose dependence upon him each day increasing drew closer the ties of intimacy, is neither strange nor uncommon, no more than that she, shrewdly remarking the bounds of respectful deference by which he ever governed his acquaintance, should use greater freedoms and less restricted familiarity with him, than had he been one of those fashionable young men about town with whom the repute of a conquest would be a triumph.

It is very difficult to say on what terms they lived in each other's society. It were easier, perhaps, to describe it by negatives, and say that a.s.suredly if it were not love, the feeling between them was just as little that which subsists between brother and sister. There was an almost unbounded confidence--an unlimited trust--much asking of advice, and, in fact, as many of my readers will say, fully as much peril as need be.

From her, Cashel first learned to see the stratagems and schemes by which his daily life was beset. Too proud to bestow more than a mere pa.s.sing allusion to the Kennyf.e.c.ks, she directed the whole force of her attack upon that far more dangerous group in whose society Roland had lately lived. For a time she abstained altogether from even a chance reference to Linton; but at length, as their intimacy ripened, she avowed her fear of him in all its fulness. When men will build up the edifice of distrust, it is wonderful with what ingenuity they will gather all the scattered materials of doubt, with what skill arrange and combine them! A hundred little circ.u.mstances of a suspicious nature now rushed to Roland's memory, and his own conscience corroborated the history she drew of the possible mode by which Linton acquired an influence over him.

That Linton had been the "evil genius" of many, Cashel had often heard before, but always from the lips of men; and it is astonishing, whether the source be pride, or something less stubborn, but the warning which we reject so cavalierly from our fellows, comes with a wondrous force of conviction from the gentler s.e.x.

For the heavy sums he had lost at play, for all the wasteful outlay of his money, Cashel cared little; but for the humiliating sense of being a "dupe" and a "tool," his outraged pride suffered deeply; and when Lady Kilgoff drew a picture, half real, half imaginary, of the game which his subtle a.s.sociate was playing, Roland could scarce restrain himself from openly declaring a rupture, and, if need be, a quarrel with him.

It needed all her persuasions to oppose this course; and, indeed, if she had not made use of one unanswerable argument, could she have succeeded.

This was the inevitable injury Linton could inflict upon _her_, by ascribing the breach to her influence. It would be easy enough, from such materials as late events suggested, to compose a history that would ruin her. Lord Kilgoff's lamentable imbecility, the result of that fatal night of danger; Cashel's a.s.siduous care of her; her own most natural dependence upon him,--all these, touched on with a woman's tact and delicacy, she urged, and at last obtained his pledge that he would leave to time and opportunity the mode of terminating an intimacy he had begun to think of with abhorrence.