The Macdermots of Ballycloran Part 7

"Oh, paying you, Captain Ussher; oh, I'll pay you, bring in your bill;"--and she came round to him, and he took her in his arms and kissed her. Then at least he seemed fondly attached to her.

Her lover was evidently in one of his best humours, and Feemy was quite happy. I won't further violate their conversation, as it is not essential to the tale, and was much such as those conversations usually are.

Feemy told her lover of the wedding, and he told her that he had already been invited, and had promised to go; and then she was more happy, for Feemy dearly loved a dance, though it was only a jig at a country wedding; but a dance with her lover would be delightful; she had only danced with him twice. On the first of these occasions she had met him at a grand gala party, at Mrs. Ca.s.sidy's, the wife of Lord Birmingham's agent in Mohill, where first Captain Ussher had made up his mind that Feemy Macdermot was a finer girl than pretty little Mary Ca.s.sidy, though perhaps not so well educated; and once again at a little tea-party at Mrs. McKeon's, which had been got up on purpose by Feemy's friends, to ask her husband as was to be--when first people said it was a settled thing. Oh! that was a happy night to Feemy, for her friends then all thought that her intimacy with Ussher was as good a thing as could be wished for; and when Feemy danced the whole night with him, the Miss McKeons all thought what a happy girl she was;--and that night she was happy. Then he first told her she should be his wife, and swore that he never had loved, and never would love any but her; and oh, how truly she believed him! Why should she not? was not she happy to love him, and why should not he be as much so to love her? If any one had whispered a word of caution to her, how she would have hated the whisperer! But there was no one to whisper caution to Feemy, and she had given all she had--her heart, her love, her obedience, her very soul--to him, without having any guarantee that she really had aught in return.

It was not because she began to doubt her lover that she was now occasionally fretful and uneasy. No; the idea to doubt him never reached her, but nevertheless she felt that things were not quite as they should be.

He seldom talked of marriage though he said enough of love; and when he did, it was with vague promises, saying how happy they would be when she was his wife, how much more comfortable her home would be, how nicely she would receive her friends in Mohill. These, and little jokes about their future _menage_ in a married state, were all he had ever said. She never asked him--indeed, she did not dare to ask; she did not like to press him; and Captain Ussher had a frown about him, which, somehow, Feemy had already learnt to fear.

He treated her too a little cavalierly, and her father and brother not a little. He ridiculed openly all that with her, hitherto, had been most sacred--her priest and her religion. She was not angry at this; she was hardly aware of it; and, in fact, was gradually falling into his way of thinking; but the effect upon her was the same--it made her uncomfortable. A girl should never obey her lover till she is married to him; she may comply with his wishes, but she should not allow herself to be told with authority that this or that should be her line of conduct.

Now Feemy had so given herself up to her lover, that she was obedient to him in all things; to him, even in opposition to her brother or her priest, and consequently she was to a degree humiliated even in his eyes. She did not feel the degradation herself, but there was still a feeling within, which she could not define, which usually destroyed her comfort.

Now, however, Myles was in so good a temper, and seemed so kind to her, that that, and her little prospect of pleasure, did make her happy.

She was sitting in this humour on the old sofa close to him, leaning on his arm, which was round her waist, when she heard her brother's footstep at the hall door.

"Here's Thady, Myles; sit off a bit."

Myles got up and walked to the window, and Thady entered with anything but a gay look; he had just left Father John.

"Well, Thady?" said Feemy.

"How are you, Thady, this morning?" said the Captain, offering his hand, which the other reluctantly took.

"Good morning, Captain Ussher."

"Did you hear, Thady, I caught another of your boys with malt up at Loch Sheen last Monday,--Joe Reynolds, or Tim Reynolds, or something?

He's safe in Carrick."

"I did hear you got a poor boy up there, who was in it by chance, and took him off just for nothing. But he's no tenant of ours, so I have nothing to do with it; his brother Joe lives on our land."

"Do you mean to tell me, Thady, you believe all that d----d nonsense about knowing nothing about it; and he sitting there in the cabin, and the malt hadn't been in it half an hour?"

"I don't know what you call d----d nonsense, Captain Ussher; but I suppose I may believe what I please without going to Carrick Gaol too for it."

"Believe what you please for me, Master Thady. Why you seem to have got out of bed the wrong side this morning; or have you and Keegan been striking up some new tiff about the 'rints?'"

"Mr. Keegan's affairs with me arn't any affairs of yours, Captain Ussher. When I ask you to set them right, then you can talk to me about them."

"Hoity toity, Mr. Macdermot; your affairs, and Mr. Keegan's affairs, and my affairs! Why I suppose you'll be calling me out next for taking up a d----d whining thief of a fellow because his brother is a tenant of your father's, and send me the challenge by Mr. Brady, who invited me to a party at his house just now."

Thady said nothing to this, but stood with his back to the fire, looking as grim as death.

"Oh, Captain Ussher!" said Feemy, "you wouldn't be quarrelling with Thady about nothing? You know he has so much to bother him with the rents and things. Will you come to Mary's wedding to-morrow, Thady?"

"Quarrelling with him! 'Deed then and I will not, but it seems he wants to quarrel with me."

"When I do want to quarrel with you, Captain Ussher,--that is, should I ever want,--you may be quite certain it's not in a round about way I'll be telling you of it."

"No, don't, my boy, for ten to one I shouldn't understand what you'd be after. Didn't you say you'd walk up to Aughermore, Miss Macdermot?"

"I'm sorry to baulk Feemy of her walk, Captain Ussher, if she did say so. It's not very often I ask her to put herself out for me; but this afternoon, I shall feel obliged to her not to go."

Captain Ussher stared, and Feemy opened wide her large bright eyes; for what reason could her brother desire her to stay in doors?

"What can you want me in the house for, Thady, this time of day?"

"Well never mind, Feemy; I do want you, and you'll oblige me by staying."

Feemy still had on the new collar, and she pulled it off and threw it on the table; she evidently imagined that it had something to do with her brother's unusual request. She certainly would not have put it on in that loose way, had she thought he would have seen it; but then he so seldom came in there.

"Well, Captain Ussher," she at last said slowly, "I suppose then I can't go to Aughermore to-day."

Captain Ussher had turned to the window as if not to notice Thady's request, and now came back into the middle of the room, as if Feemy's last sentence had been the first he had heard on the subject.

"Oh! you have changed your mind, then," said he; and his face acquired the look that Feemy dreaded. "Ladies, you know, are at liberty to think twice."

"But, Thady, I did wish to go to Aughermore particularly to-day; wouldn't this evening or to-morrow do?"

"No, Feemy," and Thady looked still blacker than Myles; "this evening won't do, nor to-morrow."

"Well, Captain Ussher, you see we must put it off," and she looked deprecatingly at her lover.

His answering look gave her no comfort; far from it, but he said, "I see no must about it, but that's for you to judge; perhaps you should ask your father's leave to go so far from home."

This was a cruel cut at all the fallen family, the father's incapacity, the sister's helplessness, and the brother's weak authority. Feemy did not feel it so, she felt nothing to be cruel that came from Ussher; but Thady felt it strongly, he was as indignant as if he had lived all his life among those who thought and felt n.o.bly, but, poor fellow, he could not express his indignation as well.

"My sister, Captain Ussher, has long been left her own misthress to go in and out as she plazes, without lave from father, mother, or brother; better perhaps for her that she had not! G.o.d knows I have seldom stopped her wishes, though may be not often able to forward them. If she likes she may go now to Aughermore, but if a brother's love is anything to her, she'll stay this day with me."

Feemy looked from one to the other; she knew well by Myles' look, that he still expected her to go, and strange as it may be, she hardly dared to disobey him; but then her brother looked determined and sadly resolute, and it was so unusual in him to speak in that way.

"Well, Miss Macdermot," said Ussher, seeing he could not prevail without causing an absolute break with Thady, "your brother wants you to count the rent for him. I'm glad he has received so much; it must be that, I presume, for he seldom troubles himself on much else, I believe."

"I do what I have to do, and must do; G.o.d knows its throuble enough.

Do you go and do the same; even that, bad as it is, is better than amusing my sister by laughing at me."

"Oh, Thady, how can you be saying such things! you see I am staying for you, and why can't you be quiet?"

Thady made no reply; the Captain twirled his hat, and ceremoniously bowing to the lady, took his leave.

Thady had screwed his courage to the sticking point while the Captain was the foe with whom he had to contend, and he had carried on the battle manfully while he spoke to Feemy in the Captain's presence; but to tell the truth, when he heard the clatter of his horse's feet he almost wished him back again, or that Feemy was away with him to Aughermore. He was puzzled how to begin; he could not think what he was to say; was he to quarrel with his sister for having a lover without telling him? was he to put it on the ground that her lover was a Protestant? That would have been the easiest line, but then Father John had especially barred that! Was he to scold her because her lover would not marry her at once? That seemed unreasonable. It had never occurred to him, in his indignation, to think of these difficulties, and he now stood with his back to the fire, looking awfully black, but saying nothing.

"Well, Thady, what is it I'll be doing for you, instead of going to Aughermore this morning?" at last said Feemy, the first to begin the disagreeable conversation.

When Thady looked up, thinking what to answer to this plain speech, his eye, luckily for him, fell on the new Mohill collar.

"Where were you getting that collar, Feemy?"