The Knight Of Gwynne Volume II Part 58

"'The Darcys looking down,' you would add," said the Knight, with a gleam of his habitual humor in his eye.

"And, like the buckets in a well, the full and empty ones meet half-way," added Dempsey, laughing. "I know well, as I said before, we are not the same kind of people, and perhaps this would have deterred me from indulging any thoughts on the subject, but for a chance, a bit of an accident, as a body may call it, that gave me courage."

"This is the very temple of candor, Mr. Dempsey," said the Knight, smiling. "Pray proceed, and let us hear the source of your encouragement; what was it?"

"Say, who was it, rather," interposed Paul.

"Be it so, then. Who was it? You have only made my curiosity stronger."

"Lady Eleanor,--ay, and Miss Helen herself."

A start of anger and a half-spoken exclamation were as quickly interrupted by a fit of laughing; and the Knight leaned back in his chair, and shook with the emotion.

"You doubt it; you think it absurd," said Dempsey, himself laughing, and not exhibiting the slightest irritation. "What if they say it's true,--will that content you?"

"I'm afraid it would not," said Darcy, equivocally; "there's nothing less likely to do so. Still, I a.s.sure you, Mr. Dempsey, if the ladies are of the mind you attribute to them, I shall find it very difficult to disbelieve anything I ever hear hereafter."

"I'm satisfied to stand or fall by their verdict," said Paul, resolutely. "I'm not a fool, exactly; and do you think if I had not something stronger than mere suspicion to guide me, that I'd have gone that same journey to London? Oh, I forgot--I did not tell you about my going to Lord Netherby."

"You went to Lord Netherby, and on this subject?" said Darcy, whose face became suffused with shame, an emotion doubly painful from Forester's presence.

"That I did," rejoined the unabashed Paul, "and a long conversation we had over the matter. He introduced me to his wife too. Lord bless us, but that is a bit of pride!"

"You are aware that the lady is Lord Wallincourt's mother," interposed Darcy, sternly.

"Faith, so that she is n't mine," said the inexorable Paul, "I don't care! There she was, lying in state, with a greyhound with silver bells on his neck at her feet; and when I came into the room, she lifts up her head and gives me a look, as much as to say, 'Oh, that's him.'--'Mr.

Dempsey, of Dempsey's Hole,'--for hole he would call it, in spite of me,--'Mr. Dempsey, my love,' said my Lord, bowing as ceremoniously as if he never saw her before; and so, taking the hint, I began a little course of salutations, when she called out, 'Tell him not to do that, Netherby,--tell him not to do that-'"

This was too much for Mr. Dempsey's hearers, who, however differently minded as to the narrative, now concurred in one outbreak of hearty laughter.

"Well, my Lord," said Darcy, turning to Forester, "you certainly have shown evidence of a most enviable good temper. Had your Lordship--"

"His Lordship!" exclaimed Paul, in amazement. "Is n't that your son,--Captain Darcy?"

"No, indeed, Mr. Dempsey," said the Knight; "I thought, as I came into the drawing-room, that you were acquainted, or I should have presented you to the Earl of Wallincourt."

"Oh, ain't I in for it now!" cried Paul, in an accent of grief most ludicrously natural. "Oh! by the powers, I 'm up to the knees in trouble! And that was your mother! oh dear! oh dear!"

"You see, my worthy friend," said Darcy, smiling, "how easy a thing deception is. Is it not possible that your misconceptions do not end here?"

"I 'll never get over it, I know I'll not!" exclaimed Paul, wringing his hands as he arose from the table. "Bad luck to it for grandeur!"

muttered he between his teeth; "I never had a minute's happiness since I got the taste for it." And with this honest avowal he rushed out of the room.

It was some time before the party in the dining-room adjourned upstairs; but when they did, they found Mr. Dempsey seated at the fire, recounting to the ladies his late unhappy discomfiture,--a narrative which even Lady Eleanor's gravity was not enabled to withstand. A kind audience was always a boon of the first water to honest Paul; and very little pressing was needed to induce him to continue his revelations, for the Knight wisely felt that such pretensions as his could not be buried so satisfactorily as beneath the load of ridicule.

Mr. Dempsey's scruples soon vanished and thawed under the warmth of encouraging voices and smiles, and he began the narrative of his night at "The Corvy," his painful durance in the canoe, his escape, the burning of the law papers, and each step of his progress to the very moment that he stood a listener at Lady Eleanor's door. Then he halted abruptly and said, "Now I'm dumb! racks and thumbscrews wouldn't get more out of me."

"You cannot mean, sir," said Lady Eleanor, calmly but haughtily, "that you overheard the conversation that pa.s.sed between my daughter and myself?"

"Every word of it!" replied Paul, bluntly.

"Oh, really, sir, I can scarcely compliment you on the spirit of your curiosity; for although the theme we talked on, if I remember aright, was the speedy necessity of removing,--the urgency of seeking some place of refuge--"

"If I had n't heard which, I could not have a.s.sisted you in your departure," rejoined the unabashed Paul: "the old Loyola maxim, 'Evil, that Good may come of it.'"

Helen sat pale and terrified all this time; for although Lady Eleanor had forgotten the discussion of any other topic on that night save that of their legal difficulties, she well remembered a theme nearer and dearer to her heart. Whether from the distress of these thoughts, or in the hope of propitiating Mr. Dempsey to silence, so it was, she fixed her eyes upon him with an expression Paul thought he could read, and he gave a look of such conscious intelligence in return as brought the blush to her cheek. "I 'm not going to say one word about it," said he, in a stage whisper that even the Knight himself overheard.

"Then I must myself insist upon Mr. Dempsey's revelations," said Darcy, not at all satisfied with the air of mystery Dempsey threw around his intercourse.

Another look from Helen here met Paul's, and he stood uncertain how to act.

"Really, sir," said Lady Eleanor, "however little the subject we discussed was intended for other ears than our own, I must beg of you now to repeat what you remember of it."

"Well, what can I do?" exclaimed Paul, looking at Helen with an expression of the most helpless misery; "I know you are angry, and I know that when you like it, you can blaze up like a Congreve rocket.

Oh, faith! I don't forget the day I showed you the newspaper about the English officer thrashing O'Halloran!"

Helen grew scarlet, and turned away, but not before Forester had caught her eyes, and read in them more of hope than his heart had known for many a day before.

"These are more mysteries, Mr. Dempsey; and if you continue to scatter riddles as you go, we shall never get to the end of this affair."

"Perhaps," interposed Bicknell, hoping to close the unpleasant discussion,--"perhaps Mr. Dempsey, feeling that he had personally no interest in the conversation between Lady Eleanor and Miss Darcy--"

"Had n't he, then?" exclaimed Paul,--"maybe not. If I hadn't, then, who had?--tell me that. Wasn't it then and there I first heard of the kind intentions towards me?"

"Towards you, sir! Of what are you speaking?"

"Blood alive! will you tell me that I 'm not Paul Dempsey, of Dempsey's Grove?" exclaimed he, driven beyond all patience by what he deemed equivocation. "Will you tell me that your Ladyship didn't allude to the day I brought the letter from Coleraine, and say that you actually began to like me from that hour? Did n't you tell Miss Helen not to lie down-hearted, because there were better days in store for us? Miss Darcy remembers it, I see,--ay, and your Ladyship does now. Did n't you call me rash and headstrong and ambitious? I forgive it all; I believe it is true. And was n't I your bond-slave from that hour? Oh, mercy on me! the pleasant time I had of it at Mother Fum's! Then came the days and nights I was watching over you at Ballintray. Ay, faith, and money was very scarce with me when I gave old Denny Nolan five shillings for the loan of his nankeen jacket to perform the part of waiter at the little inn.

Do you remember a little note, in the shape of a friendly warning? Eh, now, my Lady, I think your memory is something fresher."

If the confusion of Lady Eleanor and her daughter was extreme at this outpouring of Mr. Dempsey's confessions, the amazement of Darcy and the utter stupefaction of Forester were even greater; to throw discredit upon him would be to acknowledge the real bearing of the circ.u.mstances, which would be far worse than all his imputations; so there was no alternative but to lie under every suspicion his narrative might suggest.

Forester felt annoyed as much that such a person should have obtained this a.s.sumed intimacy as by the pretensions he well knew were only absurd, and took an early leave under the pretence of fatigue. Bicknell soon followed; and now the Knight, arresting Dempsey's preparations for departure, led him back towards the fire, and placing a chair for him between Lady Eleanor and himself, obliged him to recount his scattered reminiscences once more, and, what was a far less pleasing duty to him, to listen to Lady Eleanor while she circ.u.mstantially unravelled the web of his delusion, and, in order, explained on what unsubstantial grounds he had built the edifice of his hope. Perhaps honest Paul was not more afflicted at any portion of the disentanglement than that which, in disavowing his pretensions, yet confessed that some other held the favorable place, while that other's name was guarded as a secret. This was, indeed, a sore blow, and he could n't rally from it; and willingly would he have bartered all the grat.i.tude they expressed for his many friendly offices to know his rival's name.

"Well," exclaimed he, as Lady Eleanor concluded, "it's clear I was n't the man. Only think of my precious journey to London, and the interview with that terrible old Countess,--all for nothing! No matter,--it's all past and over. As for the loan, I 've arranged it all; you shall have the money when you like."

"I must decline your generous offer, not without feeling your debtor for it; but I have determined to abandon these proceedings. The Government have promised me some staff appointment, quite sufficient for my wishes and wants; and I will neither burden my friends nor wear out myself by tiresome litigation."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 435]

"That's the worst of all," exclaimed Dempsey; "I thought you would not refuse me this."

"Nor would I, my dear Dempsey, but that I have no occasion for the sum.

To-morrow I set out to witness the last suit I shall ever engage in; and as I believe there is little doubt of the issue, I have nothing of sanguine feeling to suffer by disappointment."

"Well, then, to-morrow I 'll start for Dempsey's Grove," said Paul, sorrowfully. "With very different expectations I quitted it a few days ago. Good-bye, Lady Eleanor; good-bye, Miss Helen. I suppose there 's no use in guessing?"

Mr. Dempsey's leave-taking was far more rueful than his wont, and woe seemed to have absorbed all other feeling; but when he reached the door, he turned round and said,--

"Now I am going,--never like to see him again; do tell me the name."