The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 55

But it will not. She is not the fool her mother was; and yet I am not certain that her mother was a fool either. We did not agree; we could not. She always refused to coincide with me almost in everything; and when I wished to teach Lucy the useful lessons of worldly policy, out came her silly maxims of conscience, religion, and such stuff. But yet religious people are the best. I have always found it so. That wretched priest, for instance, would give up his life sooner than violate what he calls--that is, what he thinks--his duty. There must be some fiction, however, to regulate the mult.i.tude; and that fiction must be formed by, and founded on, the necessities of society. That, unquestionably, is the origin of all law and all religion. Only religion uses the stronger and the wiser argument, by threatening us with another world. Well done, religion! You acted upon a fixed principle of nature. The force of the enemy we see not may be magnified and exaggerated; the enemy we see not we fear, especially when described in the most terrible colors by men who are paid for their misrepresentations, although these same impostors have never seen the enemy they speak of themselves. But the enemy we see we can understand and grapple with; ergo, the influence of religion over law; ergo, the influence of the priest, who deals in the imaginary and ideal, over the legislator and the magistrate, who deal only in the tangible and real. Yes, this indeed, is the principle. How we do fear a ghost! What a shiver, what a horror runs through the frame when we think we see one; and how different is this from our terror of a living enemy.

Away, then, with this imposture, I will none of it. Yet hold: what was that I saw looking into the window of the carriage that contained my brother's son? What was it? Why a form created by my own fears. That credulous nurse, old mother Corbet, stuffed me so completely with superst.i.tion when I was young and cowardly, that I cannot, in many instances, shake myself free from it yet. Even the words of that priest alarmed me for a moment. This, however, is merely the weakness of human nature--the effect of unreal phantasms that influence the reason while we are awake, just as that of dreams does the imagination while we are asleep. Away, then, ye idle brood! I will none of you."

He then sat himself down on the sofa, and rang for Gibson, but still the train of thought pursued him.

"As to Lucy, I think it is still possible to force her into the position for which I destined her--quite possible. She reasons like a girl, of course, as I told her. She reasons like a girl who looks upon that silly nonsense called love as the great business of life; and acts accordingly. Little she thinks, however, that love--her love--his love--both their loves--will never meet twelve months after what is termed the honey-moon. No, they will part north and south. And yet the honey-moon has her sharp ends, as well as every other moon. When love pa.s.ses away, she will find that the great business of life is, to make as many as she can feel that she is above them in the estimation of the world; to impress herself upon her equals, until they shall be forced to acknowledge her superiority. And although this may be sometimes done by intellect and principle, yet, in the society in which she must move, it is always done by rank, by high position, and by pride, that jealous vindictive pride which is based upon the hatred of our kind, and at once smiles and scorns. What would I be if I were not a baronet? Sir Thomas Gourlay pa.s.ses where Mr. Gourlay would be spurned. This is the game of life, and we shall play it with the right weapons. Many a cringing scoundrel bows to the baronet who despises the man; and for this reason it is that I have always made myself to be felt to some purpose, and so shall Lucy, if I should die for it. I hate society, because I know that society hates me; and for that reason I shall so far exalt her, that she will have the base compound at her feet, and I shall teach her to scorn and trample upon it. If I thought there were happiness in any particular rank of life, I would not press her; but I know there is not, and for that reason she loses nothing, and gains the privilege--the power--of extorting homage from the proud, the insolent, and the worthless. This is the triumph she shall and must enjoy."

Gibson then entered, and the baronet, on hearing his foot, threw himself into a languid and invalid att.i.tude.

"Gibson," said he, "I am very unwell; I apprehend a serious attack of illness."

"I trust not, sir."

"If any person should call, I am ill, observe, and not in a condition to see them."

"Very well, sir."

"Unless you should suspect, or ascertain, that it is some person on behalf of Miss Gourlay; and even then, mark, I am very ill indeed, and you do not think me able to speak to any one; but will come in and see."

"Yes, sir; certainly sir."

"There, then, that will do."

The priest, on leaving the baronet's residence, was turning his steps toward the hotel in which the stranger had put up, when his messenger to Const.i.tution Hill approaching put his hand to his hat, and respectfully saluted him.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said he, "and I am sorry, now that I know who you are, for the trouble you got into."

"Thank you, my friend," said the priest; "I felt it wouldn't signify, knowing in my conscience that I was no robber. In the meantime, I got one glimpse of your metropolitan life, as they call it, and the Lord knows I never wish to get another. Troth, I was once or twice so confounded with the noise and racket, that I thought I had got into purgatory by mistake."

"Tut, sir, that's nothing," replied Skipton; "we were very calm and peaceable this morning; but with respect to that baronet, he's a n.i.g.g.ardly fellow. Only think of him, never once offering us the slightest compensation for bringing him home his property! There's not another man in Ireland would send us off empty-handed as he did. The thing's always usual on recovering property."

"Speak for yourself, in the singular number, if you plaise; you don't imagine that I wanted compensation."

"No, sir, certainly not; but I'm just thinking," he added, after curiously examining Father M'Mahon's face for some time, "that you and I met before somewhere."

"Is that the memory you have?" said the priest, "when you ought to recollect that we met this morning, much against my will, I must say."

"I don't mean that," said the man; "but I think I saw you once in a lunatic asylum."

"Me, in a lunatic asylum?" exclaimed the good priest, somewhat indignantly. "The thing's a bounce, my good man, before you go farther.

The little sense I've had has been sufficient, thank goodness, to keep me free from such establishments."

"I don't mean that, sir," replied the other, smiling, "but if I don't mistake, you once brought a clergyman of our persuasion to the lunatic asylum in ------."

"Ay, indeed," returned the priest; "poor Quin. His was a case of monomania; he imagined himself a gridiron, on which all heretics were to be roasted. That young man was one of the finest scholars in the three kingdoms. But how do you remember that?"

"Why for good reasons; because I was a servant in the establishment at the time. Well," he added, pausing, "it is curious enough that I should have seen this very morning three persons I saw in that asylum."

"If I had been much longer in that watch-house," replied the other, "I'm not quite certain but I'd soon be qualified to pay a permanent visit to some of them. Who were the three persons you saw there, in the mane time?"

"That messenger of yours was one of them, and that n.i.g.g.ardly baronet was the other; yourself, as I said, making the third."

The priest looked at him seriously; "you mane Corbet," said he, "or Dunphy as he is called?"

"I do. He and the baron brought a slip of a boy there; and, upon my conscience, I think there was bad work between them. At all events, poor Mr. Quin and he were inseparable. The lad promised that he would allow himself to be roasted, the very first man, upon the reverend gridiron;--and! for that reason Quin took him into hand; and gave him an excellent education."

"And no one," replied the priest, "was better qualified to do it. But what bad work do you suspect between Corbet and the baronet?"

"Why, I have my suspicions," replied the man. "It's not a month since I heard that the son of that very baronet's brother, who was heir to the estate and t.i.tles, disappeared, and has never been heard of since. Now, all the water in the sea wouldn't wash the pair of them clear of what I suspect, which is--that both had a hand in removing that boy. The baronet was a young man at the time, but he has a face that no one could ever forget. As for Corbet, I remember him well, as why shouldn't I? he came there often. I'll take my oath it would be a charity to bring the affair to light."

"Do you think the boy is there still?" asked the priest, suppressing all appearance of the interest which he felt.

"No," replied the other, "he escaped about two or three years ago; but, poor lad, when it was discovered that he led too easy a life, and had got educated, his treatment was changed; a straight waistcoat was put on him, and he was placed in solitary confinement. At first he was no more mad than I am; but he did get occasionally mad afterwards. I know he attempted suicide, and nearly cut his throat with a piece of gla.s.s one day that his hands got loose while they were changing his linen. Old Rivet died, and the establishment was purchased by Tickleback, who, to my own knowledge, had him regularly scourged."

"And how did he escape, do you know?" inquired the priest.

"I could tell you that, too, maybe," replied Skipton; "but I think, sir, I have told you enough for the present. If that young man is living, I would swear that he ought to stand in Sir Thomas Gourlay's shoes. And now do you think, sir," he inquired, coming at last to the real object of his communication, "that if his right could be made clear, any one who'd help him to his own mightn't expect to be made comfortable for life?"

"I don't think there's a doubt about it," replied the priest. "The property is large, and he could well afford to be both generous and grateful."

"I know," returned the man, "that he is both one and the other, if he had it in his power."

"Well," said the priest, seriously; "mark my words--this may be the most fortunate day you ever saw. In the mane time, keep a close mouth. The friends of that identical boy are on the search for him this moment.

They had given him up for dead; but it is not long since they discovered that he was living. I will see you again on this subject."

"I am now a constable," said the man, "attached to the office you were in to-day, and I can be heard of any time."

"Very well," replied the priest, "you shall hear either from me or from some person interested in the recovery of the boy that's lost."

CHAPTER XXVII. Lucy calls upon Lady Gourlay, where she meets her Lover

Sir Thomas, who shams Illness, is too sharp for Mrs. Mainwaring, who visits Him--Affecting interview between Lucy and Lady Gourlay

Lucy Gourlay, anxious to relieve her father's mind as much as it was in her power to do, wrote to him the day after the visit of Ensign Roberts and old Sam to Summerfield Cottage. Her letter was affectionate, and even tender, and not written without many tears, as was evident by the blots and blisters which they produced upon the paper. She fully corroborated the stranger's explanation to her father; for although ignorant at the time that an interview had taken place between them, she felt it to be her duty toward all parties to prevent, as far as her testimony could go, the possibility of any misunderstanding upon the subject. This letter was posted in Dublin, from an apprehension lest the local post-office might furnish a clew to her present abode. The truth was, she feared that if her father could trace her out, he would claim her at once, and force her home by outrage and violence. In this, however, she was mistaken; he had fallen upon quite a different and far more successful plan for that purpose. He knew his daughter well, and felt that if ever she might be forced to depart from those strong convictions of the unhappiness that must result from a union between baseness and honor, it must be by an a.s.sumption of tenderness and affection toward her, as well as by a show of submission, and a concession of his own will to hers. This was calculating at once upon her affection and generosity. He had formed this plan before her letter reached him, and on perusing it, he felt still more determined to make this treacherous experiment upon her very virtues--thus most unscrupulously causing them to lay the groundwork of her own permanent misery.

In the meantime, Mrs. Mainwaring, having much confidence in the effect which a knowledge of her disclosure must, as she calculated, necessarily produce on the ambitious baronet, resolved to lose no time in seeing him. On the evening before she went, however, the following brief conversation took place between her and Lucy:

"My dear Lucy," said she, "a thought has just struck me. Your situation, excepting always your residence with us, is one of both pain and difficulty. I am not a woman who has ever been much disposed to rely on my own judgment in matters of importance."

"But there, my dear Mrs. Mainwaring, you do yourself injustice."

"No, my dear child."

"But what is your thought?" asked Lucy, who felt some unaccountable apprehension at what her friend was about to say.

"You tell me that neither you nor your aunt, Lady Gourlay, have ever met."