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Title: Interference, Vol. II (of 3)
A novel
Author: B. M. Croker
Release date: November 12, 2023 [eBook #72105]
Language: English
Original publication: London: F. V. White & Co, 1891
Credits: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERFERENCE, VOL. II (OF 3) ***
INTERFERENCE.
A Novel.
BY
B. M. CROKER,
AUTHOR OF
“PROPER PRIDE,” “PRETTY MISS NEVILLE,”
“A BIRD OF PASSAGE,” “DIANA BARRINGTON,”
“TWO MASTERS,” &c.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. II.
London:
F. V. WHITE & CO.,
31, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1891.
PRINTED BY
KELLY & CO., MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES;
AND GATE STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, W.C.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.--“INTERRUPTED” 1
II.--“FOXY JOE TELLS TALES” 34
III.--MRS. MACCABE HAS IT OUT WITH THE MAJOR 58
IV.--THE MAJOR RECEIVES HIS LAST TELEGRAM 79
V.--THE HOUR AND THE MAN 98
VI.--“THINE ONLY” 119
VII.--BELLE _VERSUS_ BETTY 134
VIII.--“YES, COMING” 162
IX.--FOXY JOE TELLS MORE TALES, AND ONE FALSEHOOD 177
X.--“THE BRIDE-ELECT” 190
XI.--“THE UNEXPECTED” 200
XII.--“‘SHE’ UNDERSTANDS ME” 226
INTERFERENCE.
CHAPTER I.
“INTERRUPTED.”
“It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.”
--MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Betty had been unremitting in her attention to Miss Dopping all through
the winter, and her virtue was not to be her sole reward! The old lady
hired a pair of posters, and drove out to Noone in her mother’s green
chariot, and had a long private interview with Mrs. Redmond. She was
going to the Moores of Roskeen for a week, and they had asked her to
bring Betty.--It would be by no means Betty’s first visit to that part
of the world. She and Kathleen Moore were bosom friends; indeed she was
a great favourite with the whole family. But this visit would be a more
solemn occasion; as Miss Dopping represented to Mrs. Redmond, her young
friend was now eighteen, it was manifestly high time she came out; she
might make her _début_ at Lord Enniscorthy’s ball. She might go with
the Moores, and Miss Dopping herself would chaperone her, and provide
her dress! Mrs. Redmond hesitated. Ought not Betty to come out under
_her_ wing?
“Not at all, my good creature,” replied the other promptly. “You have
your own chick to look after” (“and a pretty old chick too,” she
remarked inwardly). “I’ve known Betty long before you ever heard of her
existence. She is my child. I owe her many a pleasant hour, and she
shall owe some pleasant hours to me.”
Miss Dopping was fully determined to carry her point, and when she took
her leave, Mrs. Redmond had given her a promise to “see about it,” and
let her know before post time next day.
Now promising to “see about it,” really meant consulting Belle. What
would she say to Betty’s coming out? Strange to say Belle bore the
news surprisingly well! It was true that she was a little jealous of
her cousin appearing with _éclat_ in the suite of the Moores, for the
Moores were great social magnates, and took but scant notice of Belle
and her mother. (They were strangers in a county where it takes ten
years at least to ingratiate yourself with the old residents.)
It was a triumphant fact that Lady Mary Moore had left cards at Noone,
thanks to Miss Dopping’s good offices, but a slight lowering of the
eyelids was the only salutation she ever vouchsafed to Bel and the
Dragon.
She had seen the former at a fancy ball, clothed in smiles and a little
tulle, and had taken a prejudice against her on the spot--the prejudice
of a prudent mother with two marriageable sons.
“Of course Betty must come out some time or other,” thought Belle as
she carefully considered the situation; and Miss Dopping and Maria
Finny had been making disagreeable speeches about her costumes, and
her occupations. For instance, Maria had said in her most aggressive
manner: “I suppose your mother is making a fine purse for Betty! We all
know she has two hundred a year of her own, and her dress and board
cannot cost thirty; indeed she is as good as two servants--and saves
that much.”
“What a kind interest you take in our concerns!” returned Belle, with
blazing eyes, and a quiver in her voice.
“I do,” replied Maria with fearless frankness, “and it’s your interest
to know that every one in the place is talking of the shabby way that
Betty is dressed; they say she wears your cast-off dresses, but I
cannot believe _that_, for I’ve seen you in things that I daren’t offer
to a beggar woman.”
Belle had made a mental note of this conversation. It would never do
to have people gossiping, or to be supposed to ill-use Betty, who was
a popular favourite--that would be very bad policy; unpleasant hints
might come to George’s ears, and it was essential that he should only
hear complimentary remarks about Noone. Betty, if she went to Roskeen,
would be staying in his neighbourhood; possibly he would be at Roskeen
itself! She would be able to report on his doings, and tell her if
he was flirting with anyone! Unsophisticated Betty should be her spy
in the land. Moreover the ball would be no expense. Miss Dopping had
guaranteed that; her cousin could never be her rival, no matter how she
was dressed. And after revolving all these matters in her mind, she
came to the gracious conclusion that “Betty might go.”
Happy Betty! who had never suspected that her fate was trembling in
the balance, was all gay chatter and high spirits, as she and her
adviser laid their heads together, to choose a gown from patterns, and
Belle (who could be most generous and unselfish at other people’s
expense) selected a most _recherché_ and elegant white ball dress, not
forgetting such important details as shoes, and fan, and gloves. She
even offered to endow her beaming relative with some of her own less
becoming belongings.
“There’s my grey dress would fit you, with very little alteration, and
you can have my red bonnet if you like.”
“No, no,” returned Betty hastily, “I shall do very well; you know the
Moores don’t dress much, and I have my new serge, and my black lace for
the evenings, and you can re-trim my brown hat.”
These two respectable frocks were the immediate result of Maria Finny’s
warning; her conversation (considerably watered down) had been repeated
to Mrs. Redmond, with this insignificant issue.
“They do dress,” repeated Belle, “and there is that little American
heiress there. She is certain to be a swell. I wonder if she will set
her cap at George Holroyd; or Kathleen Moore may take his fancy! Mind
you write and let me know if he makes love to any of the girls over
there. Now _promise_ me this, Betty!” she urged impressively.
“But I am only going for a week,” objected Betty, “and you will see him
at the ball yourself.”
“Well, at any rate promise to write and tell me all the news.”
“I don’t suppose there will be much news, but of course I shall write
you if you wish, though I hate writing letters.”
A few days later, Betty was driving down Ballingoole, seated beside
Miss Dopping in the old green chariot; they were on their way to
Roskeen, a distance of fifteen miles.
Roskeen was a fine country place, kept up in suitable style, thanks to
Lady Mary’s comfortable fortune in the Three per Cents; the shooting
was well preserved, the stables were full, the house luxuriously
furnished in a modern fashion. Soft Persian carpets covered the
floors, velvet portières draped the doors, the walls were lined with
fine paintings, there was a music-room, a billiard-room, a winter
garden, and a French cook! and there was never an instant’s hesitation
in people’s minds about accepting an invitation to Roskeen. Betty
faithfully fulfilled her promise. A few days after her departure, her
anxious cousin received the following letter:--
“MY DEAR BELLE,--We arrived on Monday in time for dinner, and are
the only people staying here, besides Sir James and Lady Lucas, Mr.
Holroyd and Miss Pink, the American girl; she is engaged to a cousin
at home, and is going to be married when she has enough of travelling
and seeing the world. She has been all round the globe once with her
brother, and says she had a perfectly splendid time, and she feels
as if she would like to go again. She is slight, plain, and dark,
and plays and sings beautifully and talks a great deal; her tongue
and fingers are always busy and she has the energy of half-a-dozen.
I like her, so does everyone. We are very busy getting up _tableaux
vivants_. Fred is at home on leave, and more conceited than ever. Miss
Pink has taken him in hand. She told him to his face that she called
him _very_ ugly, and that one of his eyes was certainly larger than
the other! Ghosty is almost quite well, but still wears his arm in a
sling. I think Kathleen is much admired by Mr. Blake of Blakestown, at
any rate he comes here nearly every day on some transparent excuse. We
have had a good deal of rain, but we do not mind, for we play games,
and have music, and billiards, and go for long walks when it clears,
and in the evenings we dance. The ball is, as you know, on Tuesday.
I am looking forward to it with great pleasure. My dress fits like a
glove. I have tried it on, and it looks lovely. Flora Pink says that
it is as well made as her Paris frocks, and she never saw anything so
_cunning_ as the cut of the sleeves! Miss Dopping is enjoying herself
just as much as I am--in her own way. She and Granny Moore discuss old
times for hours together. It seems so queer to hear them calling each
other Sally and Polly. Katie is screaming for me to come and play
hide-and-go-seek, so good-bye for the present.
“Your affectionate cousin,
“ELIZABETH REDMOND.”
“Dancing and games, and hide-and-go-seek!” muttered Belle. “There
is nothing like a few days in a country house for bringing people
together, and promoting intimacy. Three days, above all three _wet_
days, are better than a hundred balls. However there is luckily no one
for George Holroyd to fall in love with. Katie is as good as engaged,
the heiress is disposed of--and there is no one else!”
Strange as it may appear, she never cast a thought to Betty. Her remark
about wet days in a country house was perfectly just. In those wet
days, Betty was the life of Roskeen. She had known the Moores for
years; they all--even Ghosty and Fred--called her by her Christian
name; she was invariably gay, obliging, and good-tempered, ready for
anything, from a game of fox and geese, to a drive on the box seat
of Colonel Moore’s drag. George Holroyd saw her now in a new light!
A favoured guest, among luxurious surroundings, bright and pretty,
and admired (_too_ much admired to please him, for Ghosty followed
her about like her shadow), Katie appealed to her opinion on every
occasion, Lady Mary stroked her hair affectionately, and Flora Pink was
loud in her praises, and said that she “just adored her.”
“I do like you,” said Flora, with a childlike frankness as they sat
over the fire in Betty’s room; “and shall I tell you something--some
one likes you _better_ than _I_ do, and that’s Mr. Holroyd. You see I
know all the signs and tokens, for I have gotten a lover of my own.”
“Nonsense, Flora, how can you be so silly!”
“Yes, I noticed how he looked at you, when you were dressed up in
that splendid old brocade, with your hair powdered, the night of the
tableaux, do you mind? And he is so jealous when you are talking to
Ghosty; he is a perfectly lovely young man--Great Scott! Betty! you
needn’t look so angry. Have some candy.”
* * * * *
The evening of the dance came at last, and as George Holroyd leisurely
descended the stairs, previous to taking his seat in the Moores’
comfortable family omnibus, he noticed a charming figure flitting
down before him--a girl in her ball dress! She paused to take one
last fond look in the great glass on the first landing. It was Betty,
beautified--a fashionable young lady, in a misty, white gown, a pearl
necklace, and long gloves. She carried a bouquet, too; now _who_ had
given her this bouquet? He approached softly on the Turkey carpet, and
looking over her shoulder observed:
“_Most_ satisfactory, is it not?”
“Oh!” blushing and turning round, “how you startled me, and I am quite
nervous enough as it is.”
“Really you must find that an entirely new sensation! Pray allow me to
feel your pulse?”
“No, no, thank you,” with a smile, “I am not quite so bad as that, but
I have never been to any kind of dance--except the school breaking-up
dances, and I have not an idea of what a ball will be like!” and she
looked at him with bright, excited eyes.
“Shall I tell you?” he said, as they reached the great carpeted
hall, with its two generous fireplaces, and seated themselves on a
large Eastern divan. “A native syce, who had the good luck to obtain
a peep of his master in a ball-room, was overheard describing his
performances, something in this way--to a brother syce:
“‘First he gallops her about, then he walks her slowly round to cool
her, then he gives her water, then he gives her gram’--(that is to say,
refreshments)--‘then he goes and gallops some one else.’”
“I don’t think many people will gallop _me_,” said Betty, laughing, “I
know so few! But, at any rate, I shall not do like a friend of Miss
Pink’s. She goes and stays in the ladies’ dressing-room, when she is
not engaged--lest people should see her sitting out!”
“There is no fear that you will be driven to such a desperate
expedient,” returned George with twinkling eyes. “I hope you are going
to give me the first waltz.”
“No, I promised it to Fred a week ago. You _know_ I did.”
“The first dance, then,” he urged, “even if it is a square. I am not
proud.”
She shook her head emphatically as she replied, “Ghosty bespoke that a
year ago.”
“Hang Ghosty! I am sorry I did not leave him at the bottom of that
ditch! At any rate you will give me two waltzes, and the supper dance
to begin with?”
“Yes, to begin with and end with. Miss Dopping says that in _her_ day
it was not correct to dance with any one more than twice.”
“Minuets I presume! and as they took up best part of an hour, I am with
her there. Here comes Fred, chortling to himself as he walks. Look at
his beautiful shoes, and the gold buttons on his waistcoat.”
“Hullo,” he exclaimed, “down first; Betty, you are an early bird--we
will not say anything about the worm,” glancing at George. “What a
ripping bouquet! Now I know what old Ghosty was fuming and fussing
about, he got it over from Covent Garden.”
“From Covent Garden,” echoed the young lady, “when there are lovely
flowers in the hothouses here.”
“Yes, but it’s more swagger to get ’em from town. Remember the first
waltz is ours--we will show them how it _ought_ to be done.”
“Speak for yourself! I know I dance abominably. I only hope that I
shall not make too humbling an exhibition of myself.”
“At least you don’t waltz as if you were going to sit down, nor cling
to a fellow as if you were drowning,” said Fred consolingly. “Here they
come at last. Miss Pink, you are the pink of perfection. I guess you
are going to give me 2, and 5 and 9.”
“No, I expect you will have to guess again,” said Miss Pink drily.
“Of course I know you are engaged. The knowledge has aged me by years.”
“I wonder you ain’t ashamed, Mr. Fred! I truly do. Your jokes throw
a gloom over the whole place--why should you try to damp our little
pleasure?”
By this time the hall was full--Lady Mary, in a blaze of family
diamonds, Colonel Moore in a sad, dejected state of mind, Miss Dopping
in black velvet, with magnificent Mechlin lace--who would suppose this
somewhat stately old lady to be the self-same Sally, who wore a poke
bonnet, short woollen skirts, and was followed in her walks by a train
of hungry beggars, instead of these yards of the finest Genoa pile?
The party from Roskeen drove over to Lord Enniscorthy’s seat, the
scene of the festivity, in a comfortable, well-warmed private omnibus.
Flora Pink, Kathleen, and Fred, kept the ball of conversation rolling,
but Betty was too nervous, and too full of delightful anticipations
to talk much. How her heart beat, as they drove under the grand
entrance porch, and stepped out upon red cloth! Ghosty Moore gave her
his sound arm, and a programme; in another moment she was among the
crowd of strange faces--and presented to Lady Enniscorthy, a stout
elderly woman, with a large nose, who smiled on her graciously, and
then they passed on into the ball-room. She danced the first lancers
with Ghosty, and this gave her time to compose herself, look about
her, and regain her self-possession. Several pairs of eyes were fixed
on her, and people asked: “Who was the pretty, tall girl who had come
with the Moores?” To hear that “she was nobody in particular, only Mrs.
Redmond’s niece,” was rather a disappointment. After the dance, Betty
and her partner walked about and recognised their acquaintances--the
Malones for instance, who seized on Betty as upon a long lost
friend--Mrs. Malone looking flushed and nervous, in a new black
brocade, the Major pompous and talkative, Denis in gloves much too
large, and shoes much too small, holding his nose high in the air, and
affecting to look down upon the whole thing.
Then there were the Finnys, in a retired nook, which commanded a good
view--Mrs. Finny pitifully abject, Maria grim and defiant, hardly
knowing a soul in the room, save by sight.
Here the sensible reader will naturally ask, “Why did they come?”
They came to protest their gentility; their right to be classed among
the “county” gentry, and more particularly, Mrs. Finny came, because
Maria made her--and Maria came, because the scene gave her food for
discourse for the next twelve months. She enjoyed the delights of
sitting in Jane Bolland’s back parlour, and vivisecting the present
gay and unsuspecting company. The Major was in his element, and in
considerable request among luckless elderly spinsters, whom he made
happy by his attentions--by giving them one dance, so that they could
say, “Oh, dear me, yes, it was a capital floor, I danced of course.” He
took starving dowagers into the refreshment room, and quite a convoy
of old ladies (of position) down to supper; whilst Mrs. Malone watched
her son (her eldest son) with proud and eager eyes, and pointed him out
with undisguised triumph to her immediate neighbours: “That’s my son
George, coming this way now with Lady Armine Fitzmaurice,” or “that is
my eldest son, dancing with Betty Redmond.” It was agreed--even by
Maria Finny--that Betty looked well, was one of the prettiest girls in
the room--in short that she was a great credit to Ballingoole. She was
in enviable request, surrounded by would-be partners, and Fred--who
had not been quite certain as to how she would “take”--now pestered
her for half the dances on her programme, and advertised his intimacy
by calling her “Betty” across a set of lancers. George did not mind
_him_, but he was really jealous of Ghosty. An innocent hunting friend
had pointed him out to him, as “Booked for pretty Betty Redmond. It was
true she had next to no fortune, but the Moores all liked her, and it
was a settled thing.” His waltz with Betty came at last; it was only
number five, so the evening was not so very far advanced, but for him,
it was only just about to begin.
“I did not know that the Major danced,” he exclaimed, as he watched his
step-father revolving round the room like a big humming-top.
“Yes--he is very fond of balls,” replied Betty, “and, until lately,
he wore his full dress tunic on every possible occasion, until it
was agony to him, and he said he could not put the tip of his finger
inside his waist-belt; now he is at a loss to know what to do with his
uniform. What can you suggest?”
“He might stuff it, and set it up in his study, as an effigy of
himself,” returned George shortly. “Our next dance is number twelve, is
it not? May I see your card?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You are dancing the next with Denis. What sort of a performer is he?”
“Well,” smiling, “I may tell you in confidence, that Fred Moore says in
a small room he is dangerous, but he will have lots of scope here.”
“Why do you not give him a square?” expostulated his step-brother.
“I offered him a square--I begged of him, almost with tears in my eyes,
but he would not hear of it; as it is, he is offended; ‘out’ with me,
as they say.”
“Although you have agreed to sacrifice yourself,” returned George as he
led her into a passage. “He deserves to be put to death to slow music.”
In this passage they came face to face with Mrs. Redmond and Belle.
Belle, in a yellow gown, was looking quite her best; a slight _soupçon_
of rouge set off her dark eyes--eyes that sparkled with unusual
brilliancy.
“Oh, Betty, so there you are!” accosting her, with much animation.
“And Mr. Holroyd! We have only just arrived; we had Casey’s covered
car, and it _is_ so slow! I know scarcely anyone here, Mr. Holroyd;
so I have put you down for three waltzes and an extra,” holding out
her programme playfully. “Now you must leave Betty to talk to mother,
and to tell her all she has been doing, and _who_ gave her that lovely
bouquet, and take poor me round the rooms.” And before George could
realize the fact, she had walked him away, with her neatly gloved hand
on his arm, leaving Betty in her own place--yes, Belle was undoubtedly
a clever girl. It would have fared ill with Betty, had not Ghosty Moore
(with the eye of love) discovered her--for Mrs. Redmond had towed her
off to the white drawing-room--the haunt of dowagers only--and there
she seated herself on a sofa beside her victim, and proceeded to
cross-examine her, whilst at the same time she endeavoured to “catch
the eye” and recognition of various haughty, high-fed old ladies. As
long as Belle was enjoying herself, what did it matter about Betty? And
_she_ did not choose to sit alone; by and by she hoped to figuratively
harpoon a substantial county magnate, who would take her down to
supper, but she was certainly not going to herd with the Finnys and
Malones! However, her young kinswoman was speedily carried off by an
eligible young man, to take part in the ensuing waltz, and she was left
to the tender mercies of Maria Finny, who had just discovered her--and
who, perceiving that the old lady wished to ignore her acquaintance as
much as possible, attached herself to her like a social “burr”--for
the remainder of the evening!
Betty watched Belle, and her partner, floating round; they were
admirable dancers both. What a pretty figure Belle had, and how
wonderfully long-winded she must be, for her lips were moving
incessantly. She talked as it were into her partner’s ear the whole
time she was dancing, and as she subsequently walked about with him,
in conspicuous companionship, her vivacity, her sparkling dark beauty,
and smart ball dress, made her the cynosure of many eyes. Mr. Holroyd
danced once more with Betty, the dance before supper. He had been, _he_
thought, rather clever about this, as he led her, when it was over,
into a little boudoir; there was no one in it but themselves. Now was
his opportunity! Now he would put his fate in her hands. He stood on
the hearth-rug, and lent his elbow firmly on the chimneypiece--but in
spite of that, his arm shook; whilst she fanned herself slowly with her
new white feather fan, and gazed into the fire.
“I hope you did not mind my leaving you that time,” he began nervously.
“Not at all,” she returned looking up at him; “why should I? Of course
it was quite natural that you should go with Belle.”
“You think it quite natural that I should leave you for her?”
“Yes, of course I do,” she answered with a little nod and smile, but
her pulses were throbbing fast.
“Then you are mistaken, Betty,” he said leaning towards her. “If I had
my own way I would never leave _you_ as long as I----”
“Here she is! the very girl I want!” exclaimed Fred Moore, pushing back
the portière.
George turned and looked at him. At this moment he had never seen
anyone he disliked as much as Fred, with his round fair head, pink
shiny face, comfortable little figure, gold buttons, and grin.
“Come along, Bet, you are engaged to me; come along,” he called
out masterfully. “I am going to take you in to supper. Why,
Betty”--scanning her curiously--“what’s this; you are as red as a rose;
you are actually blushing. I never saw you blush before. Betty, you
have performed a _feat_!”
“I--I--how can you be so silly,” she stammered. “I don’t want any
supper, but if you like I’ll go with you and look on.”
“Nonsense; you need not be showing off before Holroyd. You have as fine
an appetite as any girl I know; Holroyd, you come along too--you _may_.
We will get to a little table by ourselves, and do a good business with
oysters, and truffled boar’s head, and champagne--you could not be in
better hands than mine--and that’s sound.”
Perhaps George would have accepted this invitation to the unpopular
post of “third” party, but for Belle, who entered with a partner at
this moment, and said with an air of playful proprietorship:
“Oh, Mr. Holroyd, this _is_ most fortunate! I know I can depend upon
_you_ to look after poor mamma--here she is--she says she is quite
faint with hunger.”
Mrs. Redmond--who had at last shaken off Maria--was in a bland and
chatty frame of mind, although intensely occupied with various
toothsome comestibles--soup, salmon, ducklings, pâté de foie gras, all
of which received her very best attention. She remained a long time in
the supper-room--with George, so to speak, chained to the stake, and
never noticed how silent and preoccupied he was; how often his eyes
wandered to a little table, at which sat Betty, Miss Pink, and the
brothers Moore, nor how restless he became, after they had risen and
departed. Lady Mary was a fussy chaperon, and by the time Mr. Holroyd
and his charge had returned to the ball-room, she and her young ladies
were nowhere to be seen--they had gone home!
Poor George! He had never wished Mrs. Redmond at Jericho! Never!
CHAPTER II.
“FOXY JOE TELLS TALES.”
“For every inch that is not a fool is a rogue.”
--DRYDEN.
Miss Pink, who was in the highest spirits, followed Betty into her
bed-room, when they arrived home from the ball, and offered to unlace
her dress, if Betty would do the same kind office for her.
“You looked perfectly beautiful,” she exclaimed, kissing her, “and did
you not have a lovely time. Oh, _my_!”
Betty agreed that she had had a lovely time, and when, after an hour’s
thorough discussion of the events of the evening, she had got rid of
her vivacious companion, she wrapped herself in a shawl, and put out
the candles, and went and sat in a deep window seat, to watch for the
dawn, and to think. Never before had Betty’s thoughts kept her out of
bed.
She was not the same gay careless Betty that we had figuratively
handed into the old green chariot a week ago. No, her little simple
heart now beat with delicious dazzling hopes and then fluttered with
dismal dreadful fears. She had made a discovery; she found that she
was continually thinking of George Holroyd, and that she liked him.
Not as she liked Denis Malone, and Fred and Ghosty Moore. No, quite
differently. She had a guilty knowledge that she never was so happy
as when he was talking to her, and that when he was not present she
was continually and secretly watching the door. Alas! poor Betty, this
latter is a truly fatal symptom.
Miss Dopping was a lady who never allowed anything to interfere with
her plans. When she fixed an hour for her arrival or departure, nothing
less than an earthquake could alter her arrangements. At ten o’clock,
the morning after the dance, she and her _protégée_ were trotting
smartly down the Roskeen avenue, behind a pair of posters, _en route_
home. Strange to say, Mr. Holroyd made a pretext for returning to
Ballingoole the following day, although pressed to remain for a most
tempting meet. When he had taken his leave, Fred Moore imparted some of
his ideas to his brother, over a quiet cigar in the smoking-room.
“I tell you what, Ghosty, that chap Holroyd is head over ears in love
with Betty Redmond.”
“Not he,” returned his brother, contemptuously. “It’s Belle you are
thinking of; did you not see him dancing with her, and towing the
mother in to supper? What an old woman she is; she reminds me of a
walrus shuffling about in black satin.”
“Belle asked Holroyd to dance. She has brass enough for anything, and
_she_ told him off to her mother.”
“He is always at Noone,” persisted Ghosty, “and every one says that he
is after Belle; why, Betty is a mere child; it was only the other day
she went into long dresses.”
“Child or not, when I went into the oak room the night of the ball, I
started a fine covey, or I’m greatly mistaken. He was leaning towards
her, speaking as if his life and soul depended on her answer, and her
face was as red as fire. She ate no supper, not even lobster salad, and
strawberry ice! That’s a very bad sign in a girl.”
But to all this his brother Augustus turned a scornful face, and a deaf
ear.
* * * * *
Foxy Joe was no friend to Denis Malone. Denis laughed at him openly,
and made a butt of him at Nolan’s, and Foxy Joe was fully resolved
“to have it in for him,” as he expressed it, “_yet_,” although he
carried his messages meanwhile, and took his money; for that matter he
took every one’s messages, from dainty little pink notes from Noone,
to a couple of pounds of steak for Mrs. Maccabe. She was his most
constant patroness, and he saw a good deal of her, and her niece and
book-keeper, pretty Lizzie, who looked _so_ demure, as she sat behind
a kind of railed-in desk, peering through the bars, with her bright
dark eyes, and shovelling out greasy coppers, with her lady-like white
fingers.
“A good girl,” said her aunt, in confidence to Jane Bolland
(consequently in confidence to the town), “with a great head for
figures, and worth her weight in gold, and though I’m against cousins
marrying, if she and Dan were to set up together, it would not be a
bad thing, and she might drop into _my_ shoes!” Ridiculous idea! as if
coquettish Lizzie, with her smart dresses and high heels, would ever
harangue her customers in a black poke bonnet, much less wield the ox
tail with a vigorous arm, and personally visit the slaughter yard!
No! Lizzie in her heart loathed the business; she was rather romantic,
and there was no poetry about a butcher’s shop, and ribs and briskets.
Yes, Lizzie was decidedly romantic, and it was passing sweet to her,
to meet a young gentleman, by stealth, heir to a good old name and
property (Heaven help your innocence, Lizzie!) and to walk along lonely
lanes, with her head on his shoulder, and his arm round her waist; she
was exceedingly sly, cautious and clever to have kept her secret for a
whole year from lynx-eyed Ballingoole. Poor Ballingoole; that was so
badly in want of some new topic of conversation. She frequently sent
and received notes, placing them under a certain stone, on a certain
wall, that was her private post office. Latterly Lizzie had grown
bolder, and during a visit to Dublin she and Denis had had the audacity
to go to the theatre, and to the circus in company, and to take a
Sunday stroll on Kingstown pier; and so far they were undiscovered.
The evening after Betty had returned home, from ease, and idleness,
and play, to economy, and more economy and work, she went for a long
walk up what was called “the bog road,” to give the dogs a run. This
was their favourite direction; the cabins were few and far between,
and contained a fair supply of active cats and not too many furious,
ferocious lurchers, only too ready to rush out and attack three
peaceable, gentlemanlike little white dogs. On her way home, in a lane
not far from Bridgetstown, Betty saw two figures standing near the
hedge. At first she scarcely noticed them, but on nearer approach she
perceived that they were lovers--a man--a _gentleman_--and a girl; the
girl’s hand was on his shoulder; and she seemed to be speaking to him
eagerly, he replying with expressive nods, and then he suddenly raised
her face by the chin, kissed her hastily, and disappeared through an
adjacent gap.
They were totally unconscious of a spectator, and as the girl turned
back, she came almost face to face with Betty--the girl was Lizzie
Maccabe.
“Good evening, miss,” she said in some confusion.
“Lizzie, who was that you were speaking to?” enquired the young lady,
in a tone of austere displeasure.
“Indeed, Miss Elizabeth, it was just a friend.”
“I could see _that_, but who was it?”
“Well, then, indeed, Miss Elizabeth, I don’t see what right you have to
ask.”
“The same right as I would have to try and put you out, if I saw your
clothes on fire, or to throw you a rope if you were drowning. You were
walking with a gentleman, Lizzie.”
“And if I was, miss?” returned Lizzie, flippantly, “sure the road is
not mine!”
“If you won’t tell _me_, I shall speak to your aunt; she had better
look after you.”
“Oh, she knows I am very well able to take care of myself,” returned
the other pertly, “and since you are so anxious to know, I may as well
tell you, that the gentleman was just Mr. Holroyd.”
“Mr. Holroyd,” gasped Betty, who had been almost certain that she had
recognised Denis.
“Yes,” continued Lizzie, who lied boldly and well, “why not him as well
as another? He means no harm, nor do I; a girl must have a bit of fun,
as well as young ladies.”
“He kissed you, Lizzie,” said Betty tragically.
“Well, miss, and if he did, you need not pick me eyes out! We
tradespeople are not so particular as the quality; he gives me a gold
locket, and I give him a kiss, where’s the harm?”
“There is great harm, Lizzie; you are not the girl I took you for.”
“Maybe then, miss, if you were to look at _home_ you would not be so
shocked at your neighbours. Maybe there’s a worse than _me_--maybe
there’s a young lady as Mr. Holroyd can kiss for the asking.”
“I have known you for years, Lizzie, and you and I were in the same
class in Sunday school; rude as you are, I cannot forget that. Promise
me that you will give up meeting Mr. Holroyd, and I will keep what I
have seen to myself.”
“Well then, miss,” after a moment’s hesitation, and with a curious
smile, “I don’t mind if I do give up meeting Mr. Holroyd, just to
oblige _you_. I am not so dead set upon him as some people, and
Ballingoole is a shocking place for gossip. And as for Jane Bolland, I
wonder the ground does not crack under her! I must be going now, Miss
Elizabeth, and so I will wish you good evening,” and she flounced off,
tossing her head and swinging her parasol as she went.
Betty walked home very, very slowly; she was more unhappy than she had
ever been in all her life; her illusions were dispelled; her little
demi-god had fallen from his pedestal, and lay shattered in the dust.
A man who could court a pert, vulgar girl like Lizzie Maccabe, was not
worth a second thought, nor would he be likely to think of her, but as
an unsophisticated country mouse, with whom he could flirt and amuse
himself.
Her heart was unusually sore, and she was both silent and depressed,
as she took her place at her aunt’s scantily-spread board. Various
sayings of George’s came back to her now, with an entirely new
interpretation! He had once told her that he thought “Elizabeth” the
most beautiful name in the world, and that it exactly suited _her_,
doubtless he thought that it suited Lizzie Maccabe still better!
When Mr. Holroyd came over the next afternoon, ostensibly to talk
about the ball--in reality to steal (if possible) a few moments with
Betty--lo!--she was an ice maiden! His eager greetings, his anxious
efforts to continue where he had left off, were cruelly repudiated, and
silenced. What was the reason of her cold, altered manner?
He could not imagine what had happened to pretty, smiling Betty, within
forty-eight hours. Who was this freezingly polite, this pale, and
rather silent young lady; not Betty surely?
Oh no, this was a member of the family he had never met before; this
was Miss Elizabeth Redmond.
As Lizzie tripped home, giggling at her own cleverness, and at the
recollection of Betty’s stern, shocked face, she little knew that a
Nemesis was on her track, in the shape of Foxy Joe!
Foxy Joe went further afield than most people; he saw a good deal,
he made excellent use of his cunning eyes and capacious ears, and
he did not deserve his name for nothing. Denis had recently placed
figuratively the last straw on the camel’s back, and Joey, screaming
with passion, his face grey with fury, had sworn a frightful oath that
he would pay him out _soon_. And Denis had laughed derisively! Would
Denis laugh if he knew that Joey had witnessed more than one stolen
interview, that he had appropriated more than one note, and that even
now _he_ was sniggering in his sleeve as he followed Lizzie home?
Lizzie halted in the town, and had a long and interesting gossip with
her bosom friend, the dressmaker, whilst Joey slipped down the street,
and walked into Mrs. Maccabe’s establishment. Mrs. Maccabe was reading
the _Freeman’s Journal_ by the light of a lamp in the front shop, and
glowered at Joey and his empty basket, over her horn spectacles.
“Ye left it?” she enquired curtly.
“Be Gob I did.”
“And brought no word about beef for corning?”
“Devil a word,” scratching his head, “I handed in the basket, and
passed no remark.”
“That’s strange! for mostly ye have as much jaw as a sheep’s head,”
sneered his employer. “And what _kept_ you?”
“Faix--I was just watching Miss Lizzie.”
“For what? What was she doing? She went to confession at four o’clock.”
“Confession, how are ye? And did she tell ye _who_ confesses her?” And
he looked under his eyebrows, with an unpleasant expression.
“Father Connell, you unfortunate natural, and who else?”
“No--but Father Denis Malone; I saw him confessing her, and sluthering
and kissing her, in the lane by the horse park, not twenty minutes ago.”
Mrs. Maccabe rose hastily, and felt round for the ox tail. Many a time
it had descended heavily on the dwarf’s shrinking shoulders.
“Joey! I’ll give you a lathering that you’ll remember to your dying
day,” advancing between him and the door. “How _dar_ you tell your
black lies on a respectable girl like Lizzie?”
“Before the mother of God, and all the blessed saints, I swear I saw
her,” howled Joey, holding a chair between himself and the virago, and
trembling in every limb; but the thought of Denis spurred his flagging
courage, and he added, “Sure Miss Betty saw them _too_, and hasn’t it
been going on this year or more!”
“Ye little lying baste!” she screamed, swinging the tail, and bringing
it down with a resounding whack. “Take that, and that, and _that_.”
“Oh! Mrs. Maccabe, ma’am! Oh! holy Moses! Oh! well maybe ye can read
their writing,” and out of a very greasy pocket he unearthed three
letters--one from Denis, and two in the handwriting of the fair
Lizzie, written (were further proof required) on bill paper, with a
little picture of a fat ox surmounted by “Bridget Maccabe and Sons,
Butchers and Salesmen.”
Mrs. Maccabe became yellow (white she could never be), staggered over
to the table, laid her weapon down at her right hand, and slowly
perused the letter, whilst Joey, armed with a shield, in the shape of a
large round basket, watched her narrowly, with his little sly grey eyes.
“If this is _true_, Foxy Joe,” she said at last, removing her horn
spectacles, with shaking fingers, “ye had better take the hatchet and
choppers out of me reach. I don’t want a murder on me soul! for I
believe I could kill her. Her that was a pattern in the convent, and
that talked of a vocation, and of taking the black veil! Her that can
scarcely lift her eyes to a man and that comes of dacent people--her
that no one has ever been able to say a word against, and _me_ that
has always kept myself so distant, and so high, and that has always
been respected. Oh! oh! oh!----” and--sight never seen before! sight
that dilated Joey’s narrow eyes--Mrs. Maccabe threw her blue checked
apron over her head, for once in her life gave way to her feelings, and
lifted up her voice and wept.
This strange paroxysm was of brief duration; she presently dried her
eyes, and retreated into her inner parlour, with the letters and the
lamp, leaving Joey alone in the dark shop.
An instant later, Lizzie came in, pink-cheeked, brisk, and smiling,
and, unaware of her danger, walked straight into the lion’s mouth.
“What’s this I am afther hearing about you, Lizzie Maccabe?” enquired
her aunt in a strangely forced voice.
“I am sure I don’t know!” returned Lizzie, tossing her head, but her
face became the colour of ashes, as her eyes fell upon the letters.
“Is it true?” demanded the elder woman hoarsely.
“What?” stammered the culprit.
“That you write letters to that blackguard, Denis Malone, and meet him
after dark, and kiss him?”
Lizzie glanced appealingly at Joey, who leant against the wall and
nodded his head, and looked at her with a grin of satisfied malice;
there was no hope from Joey!
“Yes, it’s true,” she answered in a whisper.
“Then my house is no place for the likes of you,” said Bridget Maccabe,
rising with an air that would have done credit to Sarah Siddons.
“There’s the door; out you go!”
“Oh, aunt, aunt, you don’t mean it?”
“Come!” taking her roughly by the arm, “I’ll never see your brazen face
again.”
“Oh, Aunt Bridget!” cried the wretched girl, falling on the floor, and
clasping her by the knees. “Don’t be so angry with me. Sure I would
have told you long ago; only he would not let me. Sure we--we are
married.”
“Ye are what? Get up off the floor, ye shameless hussey.”
“Married,” sobbed Lizzie, “married at a registry office in Dublin last
year. Sure haven’t I my ring, and all the papers at the bottom of the
little tin cash-box along with your bank book.”
“Then sit there on that chair, where I can see you, that I may have a
good look at the biggest fool that ever drew the breath of life,” and
Mrs. Maccabe moved back a few steps, and gazed at her weeping niece,
with her arms akimbo.
“Lizzie, you are a wicked, low girl--deceiving them that was good to
ye. What will Father Connell say, and the Reverend Mother, and (as an
afterthought) the Malones?”
“I don’t care what they say,” rejoined Lizzie, plucking up a little
spirit. “I am Mrs. Denis Malone, and as good as the best, and Denis is
the only son and heir.”
“Heir, indeed!” shouted her aunt, “and what are you going to live on,
if I may make bold to ask?”
“The Major----” began Lizzie.
“The Major can’t keep himself--let alone a son and a daughter-in-law.
Why _I’m_ keeping the Major! Well, well, to think of it! First and
foremost you will bring down your marriage lines to Father Connell, and
then we will get you decently married in chapel, and then we will see
how your husband is going to support you; for mind one thing, my good
girl, you won’t live here; it would ill become the wife of the _heir_
of the Malones, to be chopping mate at her aunt’s the butcher. Aye and
maybe cutting off the best loin chops for her lady mother-in-law.”
“Maybe the Malones will take us in.”
“Oh, keep your may bees for honey, and talk sense. I think I see the
Major arming you in to dinner; if he does, maybe you’ll remind him of
my bill. I think I see Mrs. Malone and Miss Betty making free with the
likes of yees----”
“Miss Betty! I saw Miss Betty this evening--she--she--she,” and here
Mrs. Denis Malone, frightened and overwrought, suddenly went off into a
fit of screaming hysterics, that were quite as protracted and alarming
as if she had been born a lady.
CHAPTER III.
MRS. MACCABE HAS IT OUT WITH THE MAJOR.
“He is a fool who thinks, by force or skill,
To turn the current of a woman’s will.”
--S. TUKE.
The following morning, when the first press of business was over, and
when she had taken counsel with her sons, and had locked Lizzie into
her room, Mrs. Maccabe put on her shawl (she always wore her bonnet
except in bed) and stalked up the street, and out to Bridgetstown. She
had never visited it before, and her tall commanding figure in the
doorway, gave Sara, the parlour maid, what she subsequently described
as a “turn.” Doubtless she gave Mrs. Malone a turn also, for she
firmly believed that she had come for the balance of her bill--a large
balance--and tremulously hinted as much.
“Oh no, Mrs. Malone, ma’am; though in course I’ll be thankful to see my
money. I’ve come about something a great deal worse nor that. To make a
long story short, your son Denis has destroyed himself.”
“Denis,” shrieked the wretched woman, staggering back against the turf
basket. “What is it? Tell me the worst at once! Is he dead? Oh! what,
what has happened to him?”
“He has happened to get married to my niece, Lizzie Maccabe, at a
registry office in Dublin last October; _that’s_ what’s happened to
him!”
For a moment Mrs. Malone was speechless; then she went and sat down
very suddenly on the nearest chair, and put both her hands to her head.
“It’s gospel truth,” continued her visitor. “I only found it out last
night. I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for meself: it’s a terrible
disgrace to us both. Such a thing never happened to a Maccabe before. I
am going to get shut of her at wance.”
“Denis must have been mad,” said his mother distractedly. “Are you sure
he is married?”
Mrs. Maccabe’s brow now became clothed in thunder.
“Better be mad nor bad, nor worse than he is! He _is_ married. I have
the lines, and I’ve come up to talk the matter over with the Major, and
to see what he will do for his son’s wife. He must take her out of _my_
house.”
“Oh, Mrs. Maccabe, could you not keep it quiet for a little longer,
till we think it over. I simply dare not tell his father,” said Mrs.
Malone piteously.
“But I dar,” replied this heroic matron, standing squarely before her
meek little customer. “I dar a regiment of the likes of him; and I’ll
tell him within the next five minutes. Where’s the study?”
“Oh, give me time--a little time,” pleaded Mrs. Malone in tears, “till
I consult my eldest son. Oh, there he is! George, come here.”
George, who was equipped for riding, entered, whip in hand, and stared
in amazement at his weeping mother, and the butcher’s widow. A bill of
course.
“It’s something awful about Denis--and Mrs. Maccabe’s niece. He has
married her, and she has been his wife for months,” explained his
mother with streaming eyes.
George could not restrain a low whistle.
“It was only discovered yesterday, and Mrs. Maccabe is going to tell
his father, and don’t _you_ agree with me, that we might wait a little,
and think it over.”
“No, mother, Mrs. Maccabe is right,” returned her son with decision;
“there must be no delay; he should be told at once, and the marriage
openly acknowledged.”
“You are right, sir,” said Mrs. Maccabe approvingly, “and now I’ll not
detain you longer, ma’am, if you will show me the road to the Major’s
study.”
“I’ll go with you,” volunteered George gallantly, resolved that the
butcher’s widow should not bear the brunt of the fray alone and
unprotected. Mrs. Malone was helpless. She stood with her handkerchief
to her mouth, and watched them go into the study, saw them close
the door, and then rushed back, and buried her head among the sofa
cushions, poor coward! The study was next to the drawing-room, and at
first there was the steady humming sound of Mrs. Maccabe’s voice, then
a roar from the Major, then George spoke, then roar upon roar, like a
starving Bengal tiger who sees food.
The Major could not realize the truth at first. He pushed back his
chair, thereby capsizing Boozle, who was sleeping comfortably in the
paper basket on all the unpaid bills. He gasped, his face became the
colour of a boiled beetroot.
“Eh? What? What?” he shouted, and then he rose and figuratively fell
upon Mrs. Maccabe, for “a lying, thieving, scheming old harridan, who
had ruined his innocent son--an infernal old fosthooke, who had made
the match.”
“And what would I get, av you please?” drawing herself up with an air
of superb enquiry. “For why would I marry me niece, a decent girl,
to an idle, drunken scutt, that never earned six-pence, a low-minded
rapscallion, heir to nothing but debt and his father’s bad name? A fine
thing to tell Bridget Maccabe----” and she looked about her, as if in
search of the ox tail.
In vain the Major stormed; here his bellowing and bullying was as water
on a rock. To borrow a word from the intrepid widow, she “bested him,”
as she subsequently boasted--cowed him, silenced him, yea even him.
George was scarcely able to get in one syllable between such a war
of words, and two such champions. It was Greek meeting Greek with a
vengeance. The Major assumed an attitude of ferocious antagonism that
would have struck terror into the heart of a less valiant opponent,
and the battle raged. At last there was a lull; the man was worn down
by the woman’s vigorous eloquence, and Mrs. Maccabe calmly stated her
ultimatum.
“The girl should be decently married, as soon as possible, before the
priest, and before the Rev. Mr. Mahon, too, if they liked, and Denis
Malone should take his wife home. If he passed the medical, he might
get something to do.”
“But he has _not_ passed,” bawled the Major. “I’ve heard by yesterday’s
post he has failed for his final examination, and he is done for.
The most I’ll do for him will be to give him a steerage passage to
Australia, and a five-pound note.”
“Man, that’s all balderdash and nonsense!”--that the Major should live
to be apostrophised as a mere “man”! “Ye can’t turn your only son out
into the world as ye would an ass on a bog, and him with a wife on his
hands--ye bid to provide for him,” responded the widow in a tone of
unshaken resolve.
“Denis might make a good start in Australia,” ventured his
step-brother. “You see he likes a country life: he rides well, and he
knows a little about stock, and if he had a small share in a run, just
a start, he might do very well.”
“Then will _you_ start him?” enquired the Major, turning on him
furiously, forgetting the recent plunge he had made into George’s
pocket.
“I am quite unable to do anything at present.”
“Av _course_ the Major will assist his only son. It’s not your place,
sir,” said Mrs. Maccabe emphatically. “The Major will give at least
five hundred pounds, and their passages and outfit, and do the thing
respectably, when he is about it,” speaking precisely as if the Major
were miles away.
He, with his eyes almost starting out of his head, assured her in
forcible language (that cannot here be quoted) that he would not do
anything of the sort. But this determined woman made him listen to what
she called “reason”; she bargained and chaffered with him, as if she
were buying a young stall-fed bullock, and when she had left the study,
rather hoarse and breathless, she had gained her end.
The Major would give four hundred pounds down on the nail; she herself
(poor woman as she was) would put down two more. This money to be
lodged in the hands of a respectable, honest man in Melbourne, who
would see that Denis did not make ducks and drakes of it, but invest
it prudently. The couple were to be married as soon as possible, and
to take ship to Australia. “She would pay her niece’s passage, second
class, and give her a sensible outfit, and no one could say but that
she had done a handsome thing for a desolate, lorn widow woman, with no
one to earn for her but herself, and hard work, and small returns, and
_bad_ debts. She would not trouble the Major further at present, but
maybe he would spake a word to Mr. Denis and tell him that he was not
to go next or nigh Bridget Maccabe, as she would not be answerable for
herself.”
“Spake a word to Mr. Denis,” but feebly expresses the scene that
awaited that young gentleman, as he strolled into the house in time
for dinner. He had given the governor a wide berth since the fatal
letter had been received the previous day, and had spent his time
most agreeably, in coursing and card playing with some of his boon
companions. He had a phlegmatic nature, and an adjustable conscience:
it was rather a bore that he had not passed, but he hated the
profession, and for the present his mother had assured him that he
could live at home, and they would “think it over.” He was certain
to get something, some agency; he was only twenty-four; there was
lots of time! The Major’s fury would blow itself out like a gale, so
he flattered himself, as he prepared for dinner. A sharp knock at
the door, and enter Cuckoo, pale and excited-looking, and evidently
bursting with some great news.
“Now then,” said Denis, who was belabouring his thick stiff hair with a
brush in either hand, “what’s up?”
“Everything is up!” returned his sister tragically. “I thought I would
just come in and warn you. Mrs. Maccabe was here this morning; they
know you are married to Lizzie.”
Here Denis let fall a hair brush with a clang.
“It’s not true, is it, Denis?--that common girl! I’ve seen her walking
with the Police Sergeant, over and over again--and I am sure she
greases her hair with suet.”
“Who told?” enquired Denis fiercely, “and how did it come out?”
“From all I can hear, it was Foxy Joe that told.”
“Foxy Joe! Then I’ll break every bone in his crooked body.”
“The Major is raging mad, Denis. I never saw him so bad, and mother has
been crying all day. You and Lizzie are to be married in chapel, and to
be packed off to Australia. Mrs. Maccabe will help to send you; that’s
all I could get out of George.”
This programme was acceptable to Denis; he was sick of Bridgetstown; he
would gladly go forth and see the world, and begin a new life. Visions
of a free, novel, thoroughly untrammelled existence, where he could
play cards whenever he pleased, and with whom he pleased, and gallop
over miles of good going, on a well-bred waler, instantly rose before
his mind’s eye (an eye that kept a sharp look out on its own interest).
After all, “Lizzie’s row,” as he called it, was bound to come some day;
best have the two rows together, he said to himself philosophically;
the row about his exam., and the row about his wife: as well be hanged
for a sheep as a lamb; and he descended, with a certain amount of
dogged courage, to face the storm!
A storm indeed! A typhoon, that raged in the latitude of Bridgetstown
for ten whole days. During occasional lulls, Denis was married in
chapel and in church, passages were taken, money paid in, letters
written, outfits procured.
The news of Denis Malone’s match ran through the neighbourhood like
wildfire, and people said that “he would never do a day’s good at home;
he was well out of the country, and that for _once_ the Major showed
some sense.” Here the Major got credit for wisdom that was not his own;
his share of the money he had raised by giving a bill on the furniture
at Bridgetstown, and he was so furious with his son that he actually
thought him a cheap riddance at the price.
But Denis’s mother was heartbroken: she wept, she implored, she even
went on her knees to her husband for her poor dear boy. She abased
herself before Mrs. Maccabe (who was now a connection), and it was all
of no avail; that great woman was inexorable, and the bitterest drop in
all her cup was the knowledge that Denis, her darling, was _glad_ to go.
In intervals of pleading and weeping, she prepared his shirts and
clothes, and packed up some portion of the household linen and (but
this is in strict confidence) some of the Major’s silk socks and
handkerchiefs, his second-best top-coat, a rarely remembered gold
watch, and a dozen silver forks and spoons, also the pink topazes
for Lizzie--or it might be another relative. A few came forward with
presents for the young couple. George gave his brother a saddle and
bridle, and a gun. Mrs. Finny presented him with an old case of
surgical instruments. Maria gave him a piece of her mind. Miss Dopping
gave Lizzie a first-rate sewing machine, and a long lecture, concluding
with this pleasant little prophecy:
“If you come to want, and to earn your bread, Lizzie Malone, as I
honestly believe you will, this machine, if you work it industriously,
will keep you from actual starvation. You will have to support your
husband too--unless you can keep him away from cards, and whisky.”
“I think I’ll be able to do that, ma’am,” returned young Mrs. Malone
confidently; “and if the worst comes to the worst, I can always make my
living as a cashier in a shop. I am very fond of Denis, but I’ll never
earn _his_ bread.”
In which sentiment Lizzie displayed a flash of her aunt’s high spirit.
Betty Redmond presented Lizzie with a warm shawl for the voyage, Belle
gave her her photograph, and Mrs. Redmond, with much pomp, presented
her with a case of needles (marked two shillings). Thus, endowed with
gifts and advice, the young couple set out to seek their fortune in the
new world. Major Malone personally conducted them down to Queenstown,
saw them on board the steamer (in case they should miss it), and
waved them away from the shores of old Ireland with his best red silk
pocket-handkerchief.
The news about Denis Malone fell like a thunderbolt at Noone. Juggy
brought up the intelligence from the gate lodge to the kitchen, and
from the kitchen it flew upstairs. Mrs. Redmond wagged her head, and
cast up her eyes, and said “that, after _that_, nothing would surprise
her.” Belle laughed maliciously: she was glad of a bit of excitement.
She was delighted that Denis was in trouble and going to “get the
sack,” for she knew that he bore her no good will, and might possibly
interfere with her prospects; and Betty, who was deeply relieved, was
both glad and sorry. She had been almost rude to Mr. Holroyd--thanks to
Lizzie’s daring falsehood; and how was she to excuse herself? How could
she explain that she had mistaken him for Denis? She must make amends
for her blunder at the first opportunity; but this opportunity never
occurred. An urgent, nay an angry invitation, summoned him to stay
with his Uncle Godfrey. When he came over to make his adieux at Noone,
he found all the ladies at home. Betty was herself again, and her
bright face was all smiles. But it was now _his_ turn to be cold and
irresponsive. He did not understand nor respect a girl who could change
like a weather-cock. She would be an uncomfortable sort of wife; if she
meant to have accepted him, she must have known what was trembling on
his lips that night at Lord Enniscorthy’s ball, and her manner, when
they next met, had been intended to show him unmistakably that she
did not wish to hear what he had to say--and he would now be for ever
silent. He was glad to go away from her neighbourhood, to where, among
new scenes, he might forget her. He was glad to leave that miserable
home, where a weeping mother, an irascible step-father, an intolerable
brother, had recently made him their confidante, go-between and victim.
“Yes,” in answer to Belle’s pathetic enquiries. “He was coming back,
of course, before his leave was up: he had got an extension: he
did not return to India till July--the end of July.” Belle sighed
a heart-breaking sigh, as she placed her hand timidly in his, and
breathed a fervent inward prayer, that when he returned to the gorgeous
East he would take her with him.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MAJOR RECEIVES HIS LAST TELEGRAM.
“He that dies pays all debts.”
--THE TEMPEST.
The winter waned, spring came in with showers and lambs and primroses,
but brought few changes in Ballingoole. Mrs. Redmond’s health was now
failing perceptibly. She rarely went forth in the bath-chair, and leant
more and more on Betty.
Mrs. Malone complained incessantly of face-ache and looked
proportionately wretched, and was occasionally seen stealing out of
Mrs. Maccabe’s parlour, where she had been “having a read” of one of
Lizzie’s letters, for Denis was a miserable correspondent. The young
people were doing well, and Lizzie proudly informed her aunt that “no
one out there knew her from a real lady,” but this was a mistake on
Lizzie’s part, and ignorance is bliss.
The Major was more from home than formerly, and received more telegrams
and more bills than of yore, was as red in the face as a Christmas
turkey-cock, and was waited on by his household with an even greater
amount of assiduous apologetic attention. Cuckoo and Betty scoured the
country with the dogs, or sat with their heads bent over an atlas or
a French dictionary, and Miss Dopping, a prisoner in the fetters of
rheumatism, occupied her usual seat in the window, and watched passing
events, and delivered powerful and pungent criticisms on men, women,
and things. As for Belle, she read novels and drank tea, and wrote
letters (George Holroyd was frequently favoured), refurbished her
wardrobe against his return, and mentally--oh, happiest moments! made
an extravagant catalogue of her trousseau and Indian outfit.
One evening, as Mrs. Redmond and her two companions were sitting at
tea, the door burst open, and Maria Finny hurried in unannounced. She
wore an old garden hat and shawl, and had evidently come in by the back
way, and kitchen entrance.
“There’s terrible work at Bridgetstown,” she panted, “and I have just
run over to tell you.”
“What, what has happened this time?” enquired Belle, with bright
excited eyes.
“The Major is dead.”
“Dead!” echoed Mrs. Redmond. “Nonsense!”
“Yes, went off in an apoplexy, or a stroke. Mrs. Malone looked into
the study an hour after lunch (indeed it was about Jane Bolland’s
bill), and you know he was always a heavy eater. She saw him lying face
downwards on the table, with a telegram in his hand. She screamed to
Jane, and between them they lifted him up, and he was dead, stone dead,
with the red cat sitting beside him. Mrs. Malone has been from one
faint into another ever since, and I just ran over to tell you,” and
she gasped for breath.
After this announcement there was a profound silence for some seconds,
and then Betty said:
“How dreadful! How sudden! Why I was speaking to him this morning as he
drove past the gate.”
“Well, you will never speak to him again,” returned Maria, emphatically.
“Poor Mrs. Malone,” continued Betty. “Who is with her and Cuckoo?”
“No one, so I just come to fetch you, Betty; you know the ways of the
house; they are used to you, and there must be some one to keep things
together. They say Mrs. Malone is in for some illness from the shock,
and you know what Cuckoo is. She has been screeching and crying ever
since it was found, at three o’clock.”
Yes, the big, burly, loud-voiced Major that had driven past the gate
flourishing his whip a few hours ago was now merely “it,” and had been
laid out on the study sofa, awaiting the county coroner.
“May I go, Aunt Emma?” enquired Betty. “I think I might be of some use.
I can nurse a little, and I know all the keys.”
“To be sure you can go,” returned her cousin promptly, “get ready at
once.”
Betty’s services at such a time would cement the intimacy between the
families, and draw the houses of Noone and Bridgetstown more closely
together; of course George would be coming home. Then, to Maria: “Have
you telegraphed for Mr. Holroyd?”
“No, I never thought of him. I am glad you reminded me.”
“Shall I telegraph?” said Belle eagerly.
“Oh no, just give me his address, and I will send a wire as I pass the
post office. Dr. Moran is up there. He can do no harm to a man once he
is dead, but we shall want some one with some sense. From what I can
gather, affairs are in an awful state. I should not be surprised if the
creditors seized the body; there will be nothing but debts coming in to
the widow.”
“Oh, I hope not, poor woman,” said Mrs. Redmond sympathetically.
“This was the Derby day, you know, and the Major has lost tremendously.
He backed some horse for a great deal, and the telegram in his hand
said: ‘King Canute not placed.’”
“You don’t think he--he made away with himself?” said Mrs. Redmond in a
mysterious manner.
“Oh, no; it was just this bad news on the top of a very heavy lunch
that killed him. Dr. Moran said it was--not that _he_ knows much about
it.”
“Still, I suppose he knows apoplexy from suicide,” said Belle briskly.
Leaving Maria to enlarge on the tragedy and the dismal prospects of
the Malones, Betty hurried away to put on her hat, and to pack a small
hand-bag with necessary articles, and in a very short time she and
Maria were walking over to Bridgetstown in the cool summer night.
At Bridgetstown all was confusion; lights were flitting from window
to window, and crowds of “well-wishers to the family,” pervaded the
kitchen, passages and hall. Luckily Miss Dopping and Mrs. Maccabe had
arrived upon the scene. The former locked the study, and then cleared
the upper passages of sympathetic and excited neighbours, whilst Mrs.
Maccabe made very short work of the lower regions; even Jane Bolland
(who almost represented the local press) was swept out as mercilessly
as Foxy Joe. By twelve o’clock at night, Betty was left alone, and was
the temporal head of that large, silent, disorganised mansion. Cuckoo
had cried herself to sleep, and Mrs. Malone was in a kind of restless
slumber. She went round the house with a candle in one hand, and a
bunch of keys in the other, carefully bolting doors and windows, and
locking up presses and drawers. Next day the inquest was held, and Mrs.
Malone was seriously ill, rambling in her mind, and calling for Denis,
or thanking George in extravagant terms for his great generosity,
pleading with the creditors for time, and with the Major for money,
and showing threatening symptoms of brain fever. On Betty fell all the
responsibility until George’s arrival. She answered notes of enquiry,
saw people, wrote letters, ordered mourning, nursed Mrs. Malone, and
managed the housekeeping. Belle strolled up in the afternoon and looked
over the house, critically examined the old silver wine coolers, and
branch candlesticks, wondered if they were Malone or Holroyd heirlooms?
and then returned to Noone to practise some songs for George, specially
that one of almost deadly significance:
“Si vous n’avez rien à me dire.”
The following morning George arrived, pale, dusty, and haggard from
incessant travelling.
“You here,” he said to Betty, as she met him on the stairs. “How good
of you; I half expected to find you.” He went up immediately, and saw
his mother in her darkened room. She stretched out both her thin,
hard-worked hands, and exclaimed, “_Denis!_ No, it’s George.”
“George, I am thankful you have come. Betty is here too. You and
she must manage everything. Oh, my poor head! Oh, George, wasn’t it
dreadful? I think I am going mad, I am sure I am;” and then she began
to wander and talk about Denis. “Oh, my dear boy, _such_ a bill from
Nolan’s for you. I don’t know what I am to do about it. I can never,
_never_ squeeze it out of the housekeeping money. Last time, you know,
I sold two dozens of the large silver forks and an old teapot, but I am
always in terror lest they should be missed.”
Betty hurried George away, before his mother began to talk about _him_.
He and Belle seemed a good deal on her mind, and she would urge him
imploringly to “have nothing to say to Belle Redmond. She is just a
garrison hack, and very selfish, giddy, and ill-tempered. I wish you
would fall in love with Betty;” it would never do for this constant
appeal to come to George’s ears. Next to Denis’s debts it was ever on
her tongue. “George, you have been _so_ good to me, I wish you had a
nice wife! I wish you would marry Betty Redmond. She may not be as
handsome as Belle; but she is young and pretty, and good; oh, _do_
marry Betty Redmond.”
Betty, who had almost driven him out of his mother’s room, said with
her finger on her lips:
“She must be kept perfectly quiet and know nothing. Her mind has had a
great shock, but if left quite undisturbed she will rally; so Dr. Moran
says. Now if you will come downstairs, I will get you some breakfast. I
daresay you are very hungry.”
Whilst he sat over his meal, Betty gave him a hasty outline of what had
occurred; of what she had done; of what there was to do; and handed him
a truly formidable packet of letters--chiefly bills.
“And now that you have arrived,” she concluded, “I think I shall go
home. I can come up here every day, and stay from morning till evening.”
“No, no, please do not,” he interrupted hastily. “I could never get
along alone. You would not expect me to do the housekeeping. Who is to
nurse my mother, and befriend Cuckoo, and look after the servants? If
you will only stay for a short time, you will be doing us the greatest
kindness. My mother is so fond of you. You said you were her eldest
daughter, and I am sure you would not desert her now.”
And Betty remained. Pale-faced hysterical Cuckoo was her shadow,
helpless but affectionate, following her in and out of the rooms,
and in and out of the house, like a dog. Betty wrote, and sewed,
and nursed, and personally interviewed anxious callers, undertook
all arrangements about the luncheon after the funeral, hemmed black
hat-bands, and made Cuckoo’s frock. At first it seemed strange to
George, that he and Betty should be virtually the head of this large,
disorderly house, sitting opposite to each other at meals, just as
if they were the real master and mistress, and laying their heads
together in many anxious consultations over grave matters. Betty was an
invaluable nurse, so light-footed, cheerful and firm; she spent a good
deal of her time in the invalid’s room, and George passed many weary
hours in the study, endeavouring to evolve some order out of chaos.
Each morning the post-bag was heavy with bills, large, clamouring, and
alarming. There were bills to take up and renew, there were mortgages,
there was every description of angry dun. Major Malone’s creditors had
long passed from the obsequious to the formally polite, the polite to
the freezingly-laconic, from the freezingly-laconic to the threatening
stage.
George’s cheek burnt, as he glanced at some of these effusions, and
his head ached, and his heart sank, as he went over them. Dozen after
dozen. What were company’s accounts or mess accounts in comparison
to these? At length he called in the aid of the family solicitor,
and between them they endeavoured to reach the bottom of affairs.
After groping for several days, among a perfect sea of debts, they
came to the conclusion that Major Malone--who had never known any
personal inconvenience from want of money, who had brow-beaten all his
creditors, and who had the most imposing funeral that had been seen for
years in those parts--had died as much a pauper as if he had breathed
his last in the county workhouse. The place was gone from the Malones
for ever. Also the farms, the stock, the silver, and the furniture.
All that Mrs. Malone could claim or carry from her home was her own
exceedingly shabby wardrobe. She and Cuckoo were literally penniless;
her jointure had been disposed of, and gambled away; she had not a
pound in the world; her very bed was the property of a money-lender;
there was not a scrap of salvage out of the wreck. Loud-voiced angry
men and women, some with hooked noses, pervaded the avenue and grounds,
and the house was almost in a state of siege!
“What was to be done?” George asked himself, as with a burning head he
walked up and down the long garden walk in the cool June evening, after
hours spent in writing letters, and holding interviews. He must get his
mother and Cuckoo away to some quiet suburb near Dublin, where Cuckoo
could be sent to school, and where they could live cheaply. To ensure
their existing at all, he must at once hand over almost the whole of
his own private income; four hundred a year would be little enough for
them to live upon, for his mother was a bad manager, and had caught her
husband’s craze for running up bills. Yes, he saw nothing for it but
to relinquish his own small fortune. This he could contemplate with
equanimity; he could live without it.
But another duty was ten times more difficult. He must give up Betty.
How could he relinquish Betty? How was he to live without _her_?
* * * * *
Betty had long ago made her peace, though she had never breathed a
word of her mistake that evening in the meadow lane. Absence had not
obliterated her image from his mind--quite the reverse. He saw her
now in the fierce light that beats upon people with whom you live in
hourly contact. He saw her devotion to his mother. Her unselfishness
and energy, and cheerfulness, were all made known to him. She was not
merely a very pretty acquaintance, with lovely grey eyes and a merry
laugh, who sat a horse to perfection. She was something more in his
eyes; she was the girl he loved.
He never cast a thought to Belle. Betty had swept her out of his mind,
and, so to speak, closed the door. She came to Noone, almost daily,
and looked into his face with a tender sisterly sympathetic gaze, and
asked for his dear mother, and sighed, and “hoped that Betty was of
some use! She was a good, willing child, and fond of nursing, though,
perhaps, a little brusque and rough. Now I myself,” said Belle, “am
so exquisitely sensitive, that I cannot bear to see grief or pain; it
makes me _ill_, but I have felt for you acutely. I have thought so much
of you, dear Mr. Holroyd, in all your trouble,” and tears actually
trembled on her lashes--theatrical tears.
“Words are cheap,” thought George as he walked with her to the avenue
gate, when she bade him a lingering good-bye. Give him deeds--one night
of watching, against fifty pretty speeches. His eyes were opened widely
now, and he appraised pretty, worldly, selfish, Belle at her true
value.
CHAPTER V.
THE HOUR AND THE MAN.
“Meet me by moonlight alone,
And then I will tell you a tale.”
--J. A. WADE.
It was the very last evening at Bridgetstown, a lovely one, towards
the end of June; never had the place (now passing for ever from
the Malones) looked to greater advantage. The pleasure-ground was
quite a blaze of roses, and all the garden walks were bordered by
fragrant mignonette, wallflower and sweet pea. Mrs. Malone, who was
now convalescent, and able to be downstairs, was holding a melancholy
and final interview with Miss Dopping and the Finnys--she and Mrs.
Finny mingling their tears, whilst Maria and Miss Dopping kept up a
cross fire of would-be consolatory remarks. The Malones were leaving
for Dublin the next morning, and Betty, who had been packing hard for
three days, came out with Cuckoo for a breath of air, and a farewell
round of the pleasure-grounds and garden. But Cuckoo was presently
summoned indoors, and Betty was left alone--she was tired, very tired,
and seating herself on the steps inside the garden gate, with her chin
resting on her hand, looked up at the full silver moon, with a face
almost as white as her dress.
George, who had been solacing himself with a cigar, descried her from
a distance, and hastened to join her; he scarcely ever got a chance
of having a word with her alone now, and here was a long-sought
opportunity. The evening breezes blew across their faces, and brought
with them the scents of thousands of roses, the very spirit of summer
seemed riding on the night, and summoning all people out of doors--to
come and do her homage, but the only two at Bridgetstown who stood
among the moon-lit flowers were George Holroyd and Betty Redmond.
“Well, this is the last night at Bridgetstown!” he said, “and the
old place is looking its best, as if it was determined to haunt our
memories. There is the yellow rose I helped you to nail up--do you
remember? I think I deserve one--as a memento.”
“Then I am sure you may help yourself,” she returned composedly.
“No, I want _you_ to give me one.”
“Very well,” rising and breaking off a heavy-headed yellow rose.
“I shall never see this old tree again,” he said, as he took it from
her. “Nor the house and grounds of Bridgetstown--nor--nor----”
“Nor any one in Ballingoole,” she added, without raising her eyes.
“Do not say that,” he returned gravely; “I hope to see every one, and
above all to see you, Betty. What should we have done without you?”
“It was nothing,” she replied, reseating herself wearily. “I have
always been at home here, long,” looking at him with a somewhat watery
smile, “before you came! When are you going back to India? Soon?”
“As soon as I have settled my mother comfortably in Dublin.”
“Then to-morrow will be good-bye?”
“No, I shall run down again for a day. Betty, I want to ask you
something;” he latterly called her by her Christian name quite
naturally. “You remember when we came back from Roskeen, where we had
always been such good friends--had we not?”
Betty nodded, and stared at an enormous bush of lavender, with a
somewhat fixed expression.
“Afterwards, when I met you at home, you would scarcely speak to me, or
even look at me--will you tell me the reason of this? for I know you
are a girl who always _has_ a reason for her actions.”
“Yes--if you wish it very much--I will,” she answered, drawing a
pattern in the gravel with the toe of her shoe, “but I would much
rather not tell you.”
“And I would so much rather that you did tell me.”
“It--it was only the evening after I came home--I made a mistake--I
was in the meadow lane, and I saw Lizzie Maccabe and a gentleman; he
seemed very fond of her--and she said that it was _you_.”
“I am sure I am excessively obliged to her! And so that was the reason!
Oh, Betty, how could you believe her--surely you know by this time
_who_ it is that I care about.”
Betty’s heart beat fearfully fast, but she managed to control her
voice, and to say quite naturally:
“I thought you were to carry that yellow rose to India--you are picking
it to pieces, and will have nothing left but the stalk.”
George also exercised all his self-command; hot, passionate words,
that came flocking to his lips, were fiercely forced back, by common
sense, honour and reason. He had no right to ask this girl, who had
seen nothing of the world, to share his present poverty. He must first
work for her, and then win her. Nevertheless he could not go without
_one_ word, without some frail hope, were it but a look or a flower,
and his heart sank within him when he thought of Ghosty Moore. Oh, if
he and Betty were but the real master and mistress of that fine old
house behind them, how happy he would be! But what was the good of
wishing--he was going to India. In ten days’ time, the seas would be
rolling between him and Betty.
“I want you to tell me something else,” he said. “I should like to hear
your opinion about a friend of mine. A man I know very well.” His voice
shook a little as he mentioned this. “He is desperately in love with a
girl, but he has lost every penny of his money, and does not think it
honourable to ask her to bind herself to him in any way, until his lot
is more assured. Do you think if _she_ knew this, and supposing that
she cared about him--she would trust in his silence, and wait, say, a
year?”
No answer for quite a long interval--for Betty could not find her
voice. Suddenly she stood up and glanced at his pale, tense face.
“Well--what do you think?” he asked in a low, eager tone.
“I am sure she would.”
“Would _you_, if you were she?” he enquired, and his voice shook.
“Yes,” she responded, almost in a whisper.
Betty looked at him, the veil was drawn between their two souls, and
they knew each other’s hearts.
To George, her eyes seemed to speak all that was sweetest and best
in the world; he took the little hand that still held a rose, and
removing the flower, kissed it reverently and fervently. What a cold,
trembling little hand it was! How quickly it was withdrawn. For at this
supreme moment, the inevitable Cuckoo came running to the gate and
peering eagerly through, called: “Betty, where are you? Bet, come in,
mother wants you immediately!” And Betty hastily snatched her fingers
away, and turned to face Mrs. Malone’s untimely emissary--her future
sister-in-law. George loved her past all doubting, truly; with this
conviction in her heart, she moved to the gate which he held open.
George loved her, that was enough. What was money--what was time, what
was anything? She would wait for him for years--for ever. As she
walked slowly back through the fragrant pleasure-grounds she seemed
to be treading on air, although Cuckoo dragged from her arm, with an
exceedingly earthly weight.
Strange to say, that usually unguarded young lady made no remark beyond
some incoherent suggestions about Boozle and his basket, but for the
remainder of the evening she was amazingly silent--unnaturally solemn,
and followed George with deeply inquisitive and interested eyes--Betty
had returned to her packing.
The scene inside the gate, embowered in roses, handsome George kissing
Betty’s hand, and Betty standing so tall and white, like some young
queen, was photographed on her memory for ever; she was a notoriously
sharp young person, and the picture only ratified what she had long
suspected, that George and Betty were in love with each other.
In a few days, Mrs. Malone and Cuckoo, Crab and Boozle, were installed
in a small, detached house, close to a church, post office and train.
George had done his best for his mother. For her, he had given up
his furlough schemes--his private income, save fifty pounds, and
his present hopes. She wept in gasps upon his shoulder, and sobbed
out “that he was the best of sons, no one was like him, no one,”
urgently suggested that he should apply to his Uncle Godfrey for an
allowance--and in her heart loved Denis! To feel herself the free,
unfettered owner of a small, but comfortable villa; at liberty to come
and go, and spend and cry just as much as she pleased was (but this is
for your private ear) a truly blessed relief! She wore the outward
garb of woe, and used mourning paper, with inch deep black border, and
envelopes so woeful that scarcely room was left for an address, and
publicly bemoaned the late dear Major, and actually imagined that she
was his truly disconsolate widow.
George’s departure was sudden; a telegram gave him forty-eight hours to
embark, and he instantly took the train for Ballingoole, ostensibly to
make some final family arrangements, but in reality to say good-bye to
Betty.
His visit was quite unexpected. Betty was in the garden, picking
strawberries for preserving. Mrs. Redmond was lying down, and Belle
was standing disconsolately in the drawing-room window, staring at the
lawn, the fir trees, and the grey clouds that hung over a distant low
range of hills, betokening either rain or heat.
“Mr. Holroyd,” said the parlour-maid abruptly, and she sprang round,
her whole face transformed from gloom to sunlight in one second.
“Oh, I am so glad to see you,” she cried, holding out both hands, “we
did not know when we were to expect you.”
“I came down to-day only for an hour. I got my orders this morning, and
I’m off to-morrow--sail in the _Malabar_ on Saturday.”
Belle’s nostrils quivered, but for once she restrained herself; she
merely said: “How is your mother?”
“Wonderfully well and cheerful; she has found some old friends already,
and is beginning to feel at home.”
“And Cuckoo?” with very forced composure.
“Cuckoo goes to school, and, strange to say, likes it. I hope Mrs.
Redmond is well.”
“No, she is but poorly to-day. I am afraid she will not be able to come
down and wish you good-bye. How we shall miss you,” then “How _I_ shall
miss you, for you cannot think--you can never know--what your society
has been to me in this hateful, melancholy place! Now it will be ten
times more dreary than ever,” and there were tears in her voice.
Silence--an uncomfortable but golden silence. George looked steadily
at one particular patch in the carpet; Belle always talked in this
exaggerated way; he wished she would not be quite so confoundedly
personal.
“Where is Betty?” he enquired in a would-be cheerful tone.
“Oh, out with the dogs--somewhere about the place. Do you want to see
her?”
(“Did he want to see her? Did he want to see his queen, his star, his
goddess?”) Should he give Belle a hint?--No.
“Yes, I should like to wish her good-bye.”
“She is probably in the garden making herself ill with fruit!” said her
cousin ill-naturedly.
“Oh, you must not go just yet” (seeing that he was about to rise),
biting her lips to retain her composure, “you will not forget us--and
you will write often, will you not?” she added desperately; her eyes
fixed anxiously on his.
“Yes, I shall certainly write; it is very good of you to wish for my
letters.”
“They will be my only happiness,” was her most embarrassing reply; “you
won’t forget me, will you, George?” she whispered. George rose hastily,
this conference was too personal to be pleasant; this pretty little
woman, with the tragic dark eyes, was becoming a nuisance.
“I hate saying good-bye,” holding out his hand as he spoke. “But I must
be making a start, my train goes at five o’clock, and I have not much
time to lose.”
“Oh, you have an hour still; it won’t take you more than half that time
to get to the station,” she pleaded in a strangled voice.
(Yes, quite true, but he had yet to see Betty, and every moment was
priceless.)
“I must really go,” he said firmly, “I have business at Bridgetstown.”
Belle stood up as white as a ghost, and gazed at him despairingly.
It was not alone George Holroyd who was going, it was her life, her
hopes, her future; she felt more than half inclined to throw herself
into his arms, but something in his face arrested her intention, and
she merely gave him her hand, and turning away her face, sank in a heap
upon the sofa, in a storm of hysterical tears--and George escaped.
To look back would have been to emulate Lot’s wife; to linger was
destruction.
As he left the house, he gazed anxiously about him, and then he
descried a welcome trio--three little white dogs trotting along from
the direction of the garden, and presently a tall, girlish figure
carrying on her arm a good-sized basket of strawberries. A lovely
colour came into her face as she recognised him. He seized her hand
eagerly, and said:
“I was afraid I might miss you! I got sudden orders, and I start
to-morrow, so I just ran down to say good-bye to _you_.”
He still retained her hand in his, whilst the dogs sat round, staring
at him affectionately, as if giving the young couple their countenance
and consent; the little group was commanded by the drawing-room
windows, but, luckily for them, Belle’s jealous eyes were buried in the
sofa cushions.
“Will you walk down to the gate?” he asked, releasing her hand, and
taking the basket. “I left the car there--I have still to go up the
town, and my time is very, very short.”
They walked down that miserably short avenue, almost in total
silence; how many things they would think of to say, _afterwards_.
How passionately they would regret this sinful waste of five
minutes--precious, golden minutes--but the truth was, they were
determined to be very brave, and their hearts were too full to speak.
When they came near the gate they halted, for at the gate itself stood
Juggy with the key in her hand. She locked and unlocked the entrance to
Noone as rigorously as if it were a jail, but if people could go in and
out without _her_ help, her occupation and her sixpences would be gone,
and Mrs. Redmond winked at the arrangement--as she gave Juggy no wages.
“Give me one token, Betty, before I go,” he urged in an eager whisper.
“Once you promised me whatever I asked for; give me that little silver
brooch you are wearing.”
Betty unpinned it hastily, and put it in his hand; a shabby little
“Mizpah” brooch! a present from Belle.
“Good-bye, God bless you, Betty!” he said in a husky, unsteady voice.
She raised her eyes to his, they were dim with tears, but love is
easily satisfied, and the farewell look they interchanged, contented
them for many a day. They knew that they could trust each other. In
another moment he was gone, and the shabby iron gate had clanged behind
him. She would catch one last glimpse as he repassed to the train,
and--_No_--_no_, she must not cry yet. Leaving her basket under a bush,
she raced along by the demesne wall, for fully a quarter of a mile, to
where it ended, and gave place to a white paling lined with shrubs, and
overshadowed by trees: here she took her station and waited patiently,
listening with a beating heart for the rattle of the hack car on the
hard, dusty highway. It came at last, nearer and nearer; she would not
discover herself, no, she only wanted one last look. He was on the far
side, but oh, comfort! Oh, happy moment; he turned and gazed back at
Noone, until the car flew round the corner, and carried him finally
out of her sight. Yes, he was really gone. Then Betty crept out from
the bushes, and sat down upon a log, and to the amazement of her three
companions, sobbed aloud. She dared not cry like this indoors, where
walls had ears; here the old beeches were her kind sympathetic friends.
If she were seen at Noone, indulging in such grief, she would be asked
to explain the reason of her tears. But that was her secret, and
George’s.
CHAPTER VI.
“THINE ONLY.”
“Infinite riches in a little room.”
--MARLOWE.
George Holroyd’s departure left an aching void, a desolate blank at
Noone. Belle missed him acutely; here was another disappointment, the
last and worst! Betty shed secret tears, and even Juggy, at the gate,
openly and loudly bemoaned, “that fine open-handed young gentleman.”
Belle was not in love with George, but she liked him, and his
departure, without one word of significance, threw her into a paroxysm
of angry despair. She severely cross-examined Betty as to whether he
had said anything about _her_, when she had met him in the avenue,
also as to whether he looked at all sorry or cut up?
Betty admitted that he had (this with a rather guilty conscience--How
could she tell her fierce questioner that his regrets were for
herself?) and that deeply dissatisfied lady relapsed into low spirits,
a fractious temper, and her old clothes. She wrote to George steadily,
and he in return sent her amusing descriptions of his voyage out, of
his station, of his munshi, and of his dogs, invariably concluding with
some message to Betty--which Belle did not consider it worth while to
repeat. Her only hope now--and that a faint one--was that George would
write to her to join him; and in her letters, she mentioned more than
once how sincerely she _envied_ him living in warm sunny India instead
of rainy, melancholy, dull Ballingoole; and imparted her views and
sentiments with a charming disregard of conventional restraint. He had
always been a most appreciative and attentive acquaintance, but alas!
he had never let fall anything approaching to an offer of marriage. He
had given her songs, books, photographs, but there had never been a
hint of offering himself. “Not as yet,” whispered hope.
She read large extracts of his letters aloud to eager and interested
Betty, and interested and puzzled Maria Finny, and indeed there was
no reason why she might not have read them straight on from--Dear
Miss Redmond to Yours Sincerely, for there was not a line that even
Jane Bolland at the post office could weave into a romance; and she
talked of “her letters from Mr. Holroyd” so constantly, and carried
them about her person so ostentatiously, that Maria began to fear she
was engaged; and even Betty could barely stifle the mutterings of the
green-eyed monster. The summer was a dull one, especially to Belle;
far be it from _her_ to fish or boat on the canal, or to go in quest
of mushrooms or blackberries in high-heeled French boots. There were
hopeless wet days, which drowned the hay and flowers, and subsequently
made the country intensely and patriotically green. There were a few
picnics, a few gatherings, where crowds of pretty girls were expected
to amuse one another, and men were in a deplorable minority, and even
then, stout elderly fathers of families, and married curates. Belle
and Betty partook of some of these festivities; the latter was a girl
who enjoyed herself anywhere, who was happy in the society of young
people of her own age, who played tennis, climbed hills, made salad,
and boiled kettles, with a merry beaming face, and did not care if
there was not one representative of the sterner sex among the company,
since the only man _she_ wished to see, was thousands of miles away at
the other side of the world. But not so Belle. Oh, dear no. Her temper
and her face were the unerring barometer by which you might judge of
the number of the men at a party. If there was a respectable muster,
and one of these had singled her out for special attention, had walked
with her, talked with her, and made love to her, she was all smiles and
sprightliness on her way home. If, on the other hand, she had had no
cavalier, she made herself conspicuously disagreeable; sat aloof and
sulked, refused to sing, refused to play tennis, presently announced an
agonising headache, and withdrew at an early hour, carrying poor Betty
in her train.
“The idea!” she would grumble, as they jolted homeward in a local
cover-car. “I call it an insult for people to ask us to drive nine
miles, and to wear our best dresses, in order to walk round a weedy old
garden, with a pack of giggling girls, and to play tennis in grass that
is nearly up to one’s knees! I shall never go again, _never_!”
This was her frequent threat, but the next invitation was invariably
accepted, and the excitement of looking over her dresses, speculating
on her chances of amusement, and fighting with her mother for the money
for new gloves and the fare of a car, occupied her until the event
(possibly another insult) came off!
Betty had always enjoyed herself, and said so frankly, and stood up for
the company, the hosts, and the garden.
“Of course _you_ think it very fine,” Belle would rejoin scornfully,
“because you know no better--walking arm in arm through cabbages with
Katie Moore is the height of bliss to _you_--you don’t know what
pleasure is!”
Betty had nevertheless a very good idea of what it meant, when her
birthday brought her long letters from Mrs. Malone, and Cuckoo, and the
former despatched a box containing what she said was “a little souvenir
from George, which he hoped she would do him the honour to accept.”
Betty’s heart beat double time, as she carefully removed the wrappings;
he had been gone now for five months, and this was the first token he
had sent her. The wrapping gave place to a morocco leather case, and in
that case was a massive gold Indian bangle on which was inscribed one
word in strange characters that looked like hieroglyphics, or was it
merely a bit of ornament? She could not tell--the letters--if they were
letters--stood out in high relief. At any rate it was a lovely bangle
and she had but little jewellery, but that was not the reason why she
kissed it so tenderly. How good it was of him! and this was not her
only present; there was a gold thimble from Katie Moore, a pin-cushion
from Cuckoo, and a ten-pound note from Miss Dopping, which was enclosed
in a letter delivered by Foxy Joe--a letter bidding her buy something
_for herself_, and please her old friend, Sally Dopping, who could not
find any suitable gift in the shops of Ballingoole. Betty ran down to
breakfast, with a radiant face, and eagerly displayed her presents to
Mrs. Redmond and Belle (who had no gifts to offer her). Belle became
rather red and there was a somewhat awkward silence, as she turned
over, and critically scrutinised, the gold bangle. But when her mother
said, “A very _proper_ attention, Betty, I only wonder that he did not
think of it before. Gratitude is a rare virtue! I was often surprised,
that he made no acknowledgment of all your attention to his mother
after the Major’s death. Better late than never!”
In this manner Betty’s birthday present was explained to Belle’s
complete satisfaction, and she looked upon George’s gift to her cousin
as a sort of indirect compliment to herself.
“Was there a letter?” she asked suspiciously.
“No, not any,” returned Betty with a vivid blush.
“Oh, then there will be no necessity to write and thank him. I will
send a nice message from you when I write next mail.”
Betty made no reply. She thought it would be better to express her
gratitude through George’s mother! She wore the bangle constantly,
for it was a plain, and what Mrs. Redmond termed, “every-day affair.”
Nevertheless, one afternoon, it attracted Dr. Moran’s notice, as she
sat before Miss Dopping’s fire, stroking the old hound, and he smoked a
Trichy cheroot. Miss Dopping’s visitors might smoke (gossips said that
she smoked herself! but this was not true, but I will not deny that now
and then--_only_ now and then--she took a pinch of snuff). Dr. Moran
had been in the army, and had seen service in India, had tended the
wounded after Chillianwallah, and been several times under fire, though
no one would suspect it. He was a very silent, spare, reserved old
bachelor, who had a small private fortune, and lived in Ballingoole,
because he had been born there. He was eccentric like his neighbour
Miss Dopping; wore an apron at home to protect his trousers from the
fire, made his own tea, mended his own shirts, spent a large portion of
his income on literature and tobacco--and was ever haunted by the fear
that _Maria Finny would marry him_.
“What is that thing you have on your wrist?” he enquired. “Let me see
it. It looks like an Indian bangle,” stretching out a bony brown hand.
“And so it is,” replied Betty, removing it and offering it to him as
she spoke.
Dr. Moran slowly put on his glasses, and examined the ornament as
critically as Belle had done.
“Do you know what this writing means, young lady?” he asked presently,
looking keenly over his spectacles.
“No, I was not even sure that it _was_ writing.”
“It is one word in Urdu letters.”
“Can you make it out?”
“Yes--easily enough, and if the bangle was given to you by a young man,
it means a great deal. This word ‘Tumhara,’ interpreted into English,
is simply ‘_Thine_ alone.’”
Miss Dopping--who knew the donor of the bangle--coughed sharply, and
glanced at Betty, with an extraordinary amount of expression in her
little beady eyes.
She even so far forgot herself as to wink, and Betty coloured to the
roots of her hair. She had been a wee bit envious of all those foreign
envelopes with green stamps; not that she did not trust George with all
her heart, and he had said that he would not write. Still, there had
been a curious, uneasy, unsatisfactory sensation, that, if not exactly
jealousy, was jealousy’s first cousin, and now, after all, her precious
gold bangle and its message was worth a thousand of Belle’s letters.
“So that’s the way of it,” exclaimed Miss Dopping after Betty had
left, “and I am glad of it,” for she knew George well, and he was one
of her prime favourites, with his handsome face and pleasant manners.
Many a time she had rapped for him, from her window, and many a visit
he had paid her, and now she came to think of it, he always drew the
conversation round to Betty. “I knew she wouldn’t look at Ghosty
Moore,” she added triumphantly.
“And why not?” said Dr. Moran incredulously. “Holroyd is only a
sub-altern in a marching regiment, with a mother and sister to
support, whilst Ghosty Moore is an eldest son, and heir to a splendid
property--I only hope she may never do worse.”
“Worse--than that poor miserable anatomy of a creature! Did you ever
see him in shooting boots and long stockings?”
“Never.”
“Well then I have--and his legs look for all the world like a pair of
knitting needles, stuck in two sods of turf! Now George Holroyd has a
leg that you might model.”
“And you’d have a girl marry a man for his leg?” he asked with a sneer.
“No, you old owl! No, but for his handsome face and honourable conduct
and kind heart. If Betty Redmond marries _him_, she will be a lucky
girl, and I’ll give her something more than my blessing! And so you
may just keep your gibes to yourself, Paddy Moran.”
CHAPTER VII.
BELLE _VERSUS_ BETTY.
“The last and greatest art, the art to blot.”
--POPE.
Summer had come round once more at Ballingoole, and the little
place and surrounding society was much as it had been twelve months
previously, save for the change at Bridgetstown--(now let to a
dairyman, who churned in the drawing-room, kept ducks in the kitchen,
and calves in the pleasure-ground). Belle had spent two brilliant, but
barren, months at Southsea, with an elderly widow, and returned in the
early autumn to Noone (and to the winter of her discontent). Betty
had also been from home, and paid a visit to Roskeen, whence she had
arrived somewhat unexpectedly--for a reason only known to Ghosty Moore
and herself.
Mrs. Redmond’s health had long been failing; she had entirely
relinquished her airings in the bath-chair; she took but a subordinate
interest in rabbits and fruit, and had signed a truce with Mrs.
Maccabe (who sent an oblation of sweet-breads by Foxy Joe). Latterly
the old lady never rose till mid-day, and Betty brought her breakfast
and letters to her bedside, read aloud the daily paper, and made
suggestions about dinner; whilst Robinson sat in close attendance on
the invalid, and devoured choice morsels of buttered toast--for Mrs.
Redmond’s appetite was now a thing of the past. Belle was never astir
before eleven o’clock, and, with regard to the immortal bird, was
inclined to agree with the man who said, “The more fool the worm for
getting up so early.” One morning she sauntered into her mother’s room,
with an unusually dissatisfied face; it was a wet day. She had had no
letters, and she was suffering from a twinge of toothache.
“How are you, mother, this morning?” she enquired languidly.
“A little better, darling; and how are you?”
“Oh, I’m as usual! wishing I was dead,” walking over and staring out
of the window, down which the rain was streaming in a most depressing
manner--out on the big trees, that looked dim through the mist, out on
the gravel drive, with its little pools of water.
“Belle, my dearest, you must not say that.”
“Why not, when it is true?” enquired Belle with a fierceness
engendered of temper and toothache. “Mother,” she continued, now
walking to the foot of the bed, and clutching the rail in her hands,
and speaking through her set teeth, “_can’t_ you see that this life
is killing me by inches? It’s all very well for Betty, who has never
known any other; she likes the country, and dogs, and horses, and long
walks--she even likes the common people and the rain! She has never had
an admirer. She is not like me--you know what I have been accustomed
to, what my life was, and what _this_ is. If I only had the courage, I
would drown myself in the canal--I swear I would.”
“Belle!” expostulated her mother.
“Could you not give up Noone, and let it, in spite of that brute,
old Brian, and go away and take lodgings for the winter at Brighton
or Southsea; at least, we should see something out of our windows,
instead of this eternal grass and fir-trees? We could live on very
little; we might get a hamper from here every week. Betty could stay
with old Sally.”
Mrs. Redmond shook her head sadly; she knew that she was very ill, that
it was more than doubtful if she would ever pass the gates of Noone
again--save in her coffin.
“If we don’t get away from this hateful hole,” continued Belle, looking
fixedly at her mother, with a white face and gleaming eyes, “I shall do
something desperate--I know I shall, and I warn you that I shall.”
So saying she snatched the _Irish Times_ off the bed, and swept out of
the room.
Mrs. Redmond sank back feebly among her pillows, and a good many
unusual tears trickled down her poor, faded cheeks. What more could
she do for Belle? Had she not always done her best for her imprudent,
impetuous child?
All through that weary, wet day, she was unusually silent and
depressed, and heaved many a long sigh at short intervals. The very
next morning, in sorting out the contents of the post bag, she
discovered a letter from India, addressed to herself, in Mr. Holroyd’s
writing. It was not for Belle! No, there was “Mrs. Redmond” as
plain as pen could write it; her dull eyes brightened, and her face
flushed as she tore it open. Here was a proposal for Belle _at last_!
But--but--what was this?
An enclosure directed to Miss Elizabeth Redmond. The old lady’s hands
shook as she scanned it, and her jaw dropped, and the “rigor mortis”
seemed already visible in the outlines of her once jovial countenance.
She thrust it hastily under the counterpane, as if it stung her, and
slowly unfolded her own letter, which ran as follows:--
“DEAR MRS. REDMOND,--I hope you will not be surprised to receive a
letter from _me_, nor to read the address of the enclosed note, nor
to hear that I have been attached to your niece for some time--(yes,
niece). My prospects when I was at home were so very poor that I did
not feel justified in speaking to you on a subject nearest my heart,
nor in asking her to bind herself to a long engagement. I have been
working very hard this last year, and have passed the Higher Standard
in Hindustani, in hopes of getting some staff appointment and increase
of pay, and now within a week, my fortunes have taken a turn for
the better. My uncle, who has discovered my impoverished state,
has made me an allowance of five hundred a year, and begged that I
will marry. I will gladly carry out his wishes, if you will give me
Betty. No doubt she could marry a wealthier man (here he was thinking
of Ghosty Moore), and make what is called a far better match, but
it would be impossible for any one to love her as much as _I_ do. I
hope you will not be startled to hear that I am asking for Betty at
once. Colonel and Mrs. Calvert, very old friends of mine, are leaving
London for Bombay the end of September; she could come out with them,
and they would be present at our wedding soon after they had landed.
I enclose Colonel Calvert’s address, and if you will write to him he
will make all arrangements about a passage, and is empowered to draw
on my bankers. I am afraid I am giving you very short notice--barely
a month, but the Calverts’ escort is a grand opportunity, and in
India we do everything rapidly and suddenly. We are here to-day, and
a thousand miles away next week. I am sure you will miss Betty, but
if she agrees to come out to me, I know that you will gladly spare
her, for I have often heard you say, that you thought India must be
a paradise for young people. I do not go so far as all that, but I
will do all in my power to make it a happy home for Betty. Excuse this
hurried letter, I have barely time to catch the post. Kindest regards
to Miss Redmond and yourself.
“Yours sincerely,
“GEORGE HOLROYD.”
When Mrs. Redmond had come to the end of this epistle, she felt dizzy
for a moment; a rush of blood seemed to roar in her ears, the writing
appeared to dance before her eyes, she laid it down, and sank back on
her pillows, trembling as if she had been dealt a blow. Suddenly she
heard Betty’s light step, and Betty’s pleasant voice on the landing
outside her door, and had barely time to thrust the letter out of sight
when Betty entered--she was instantly struck by the old lady’s drawn
and ghastly face, and said as she leant over her:
“I am afraid you are not so well this morning. Have you had a bad
night, dear?”
“Yes--a terrible night--such, such awful dreams. I think I will try and
take a little doze now. No, I don’t want my drops, or anything, only
to be quiet,” shrinking from Betty’s clear, sympathetic eyes, “if you
will just draw down the blinds, and don’t let anyone disturb me till I
ring--Where is Belle?”
“She is not up yet; she has toothache, and is feeling rather low. I
think it is something in the weather.”
“Very likely, my dear--do not let anyone come into the room for the
next hour or two, I may get a little sleep; I will rise by and by and
ring if I want Eliza; and oh, about the dinner! There is some cold
mutton that will make a nice hash, and that, with the fresh herrings,
will be ample--you need not mind a pudding,” the ruling passion
thrusting itself forward even under the present circumstances.
Having dispatched her visitor with a feeling of intense relief, the
old lady felt that she had now ensured privacy and leisure in which
to contemplate the position, and to balance the future of the two
girls--which practically lay in her hands.
First of all, she slowly read and re-read George’s letter; next she
examined the envelope of his enclosure.
Oh, Indian gum, for how much you have to answer!
The envelope was scarcely stuck, and came providentially (as she
thought) open in her hand! After a moment’s hesitation, she drew out
the letter, and devoured it greedily. It began thus abruptly:
“I hope and believe that you have understood the reason of my long
silence, my dearest; more than a year has elapsed since that miserable
July afternoon, when you and I said good-bye to one another, and only
good-bye, but it had to be so. _You_ knew better than anyone how
poor were my prospects, and that, with my mother to support, I had
hardly the means of keeping myself, much less a wife, and to ask
a girl to engage herself to a pauper, or to bring her to a life of
grinding poverty in this climate, far away from all her friends, is
in my opinion a very questionable phase of love. I have been working
hard for you, and you alone. I have passed in the language, and am
now qualified for various lucrative billets--which, alas! are, so
far, birds in the bush. Last mail, to my great surprise, I had a
letter from my uncle; he has made me a most generous allowance of five
hundred a year--and with this addition to my pay, I (but I hope it
will be _we_) could get along very comfortably; and the gist of this
is--will you come out and share it? I know you cared for me last year,
but that is fifteen months ago. Can you have changed in that time? A
long time--half a life-time to me. If you have, I don’t know how I
am to bear it. But I trust that your answer will be _yes_. Colonel
and Mrs. Calvert, who are leaving London in the _Nankin_ on the 30th
September, will take charge of my future wife; they will look after
you, as if you were their own sister, and we will be married in Bombay
and spend our honeymoon in Cashmere. You will have a full month to
prepare for your journey, which may seem a very scanty margin, but
I know a girl out here, who was married and went home at a _week’s_
notice. Send me a wire if your answer is what it would have been last
year, and I shall begin housekeeping on the spot. There is a pretty
bungalow here, surrounded by a garden, which I have often ridden
past and looked at, and thought how well it would do for us. In my
day dreams I have seen you walking among the flowers, with a white
umbrella over your head, or making tea in the verandah--which is half
shut in by _yellow_ roses. I shall have a piano and a trap awaiting
you, and I know of a pony that is the very thing to carry you. This
is a quiet station--we have only about fifteen ladies, and there are
but few dances, etc., but you will not mind that; you can get lots of
riding and tennis; bring out a side saddle, and, if you can, a dog. I
am writing in desperate haste to catch the mail, and am not saying the
quarter of what I want to say. How anxiously I shall await your answer
need not be told. I calculate that I ought to get a wire on Tuesday,
the twenty-seventh. Good-bye, my darling Betty.
“Ever Yours,
“GEORGE HOLROYD.”
Betty’s name was only once mentioned in the letter, otherwise it would
do equally well for Belle. In his haste he had not crossed his “t’s,”
and with a little careful manipulation the name could be altered.
To which of the girls should she give it?
Mrs. Redmond closed her eyes, and endeavoured to review the whole
case thoroughly and impartially. She herself was not long for this
world, it was possibly a question of a few months; and then what
would become of Belle, with her restless ways, excitable, uncertain
temper, and miserably inadequate income? She was so pretty--so
dependent--so--so--spoiled. If Betty were to go to India to marry
George Holroyd she would fret to death--she would break her heart;
pending which, she would give way to some of her terrible fits of
passion, the very thought of which made the old lady close her eyes.
Belle was sufficiently discontented _now_, and what would be her state
of mind when she saw Betty--who had always been secondary to her in
every way--depart with many presents, and a handsome trousseau, to
India, to marry George Holroyd--a man upon whom _she_ had set her heart!
Belle’s temper was getting worse year by year; each disappointment
had left its mark; how and where would it end? There was a touch
of insanity in the family! Mrs. Redmond recalled with a shudder
how she had once been taken to see her own aunt--a melancholy
spectacle--creeping along by a wall, with her long, tangled black hair,
hanging like a veil over her face.
Belle would possibly carry out her threat of yesterday and do
something desperate, whereas, as Mr. Holroyd’s wife, in some gay
Indian station, well off, well dressed, and sufficiently amused, and
shifting her home perpetually, she would have everything her soul
longed for--she would be happy--and Belle’s happiness was now the sole
aim of her own nearly worn-out existence.
To know that Belle was in a congenial sphere, and provided with ample
means, and a strong, natural protector, would lift an immense load off
her mind; but Belle, the restless inmate of some cheap boarding house,
discontented, embittered, and in debt, with no one to shield, or soothe
her frenzies, what would be _her_ end?
With Betty it was entirely different. She was clever, bright and young.
She had all her best years before her, she would be Miss Dopping’s
heiress--she would have plenty of lovers and friends wherever she
went--she could marry Ghosty Moore to-morrow if she chose, and even
if the worst came to the worst, she was strong, self-reliant and
sensible--well able to stand alone and bear the knocks of fate. Not
that these knocks could hurt her, for she was a lucky girl, and a
general favourite. But this was Belle’s last chance (Belle, low be it
whispered, was thirty-one). After an hour’s cogitation, and weighing
and planning, Mrs. Redmond made up her mind to give the letter to her
own daughter.
“And what about George and Betty?”
“Well, Betty would never know that her cousin had taken her place; she
might be a little disappointed, all girls had their love trials. Why,
look at Belle, she had had dozens of far worse affairs--and Betty would
get plenty of other offers.”
And as to George Holroyd, she was sending him a much more suitable
bride--a handsome, lively, accomplished girl, who would be a credit
to him anywhere--who could sing, and act, and dress and dance--and
was just cut out for an officer’s wife. She would despatch her with
a first-rate outfit, and once actually _en route_, once landed in
Bombay--George _must_ marry her.
The short notice he had given, and his bare allusion to a name in the
letter, were high trumps in her hand, and she meant to play a very bold
game. Once Belle had started, it would be _après Belle le déluge_;
she did not care what Belle’s bridegroom thought of _her_. She would
write and give him her very distinct reasons for this arrangement.
She would say that she could not spare Betty, who was too young and
inexperienced, and for whom she had other views, and that sooner than
disappoint him altogether, she had despatched her own daughter, who was
far more fitted for society and to shine as his wife; that she wanted
a good husband and a good home for Belle; for she was a dying woman,
and that he must try and forgive her--if not, she would endeavour to do
without his forgiveness as best she could.
“I shall pretend that the letters came by second post,” she said, as
she rose and rang for hot water--and when her toilette was completed,
she nerved herself for the first move in a very difficult, delicate
undertaking. She took a double dose of sal-volatile, and opening her
blotter, she sat down and carefully re-examined Mr. Holroyd’s love
letter, and the word Betty. What was she to do with it? A pen-knife
would show on such thin paper; happy thought! a blot. It would have
one or two companions, for the epistle had apparently been written in
great haste. She raised a well-laden pen, and carefully let fall a
good-sized drop, on the word “Betty.”
Did this hard-hearted old woman suspect that she was blotting out the
poor girl’s happiness at the same moment? When her task was complete,
and the ink looked quite nice and dry, and natural, she nerved herself
for her next move. She took a long sniff at her smelling-salts, and
sent for Belle.
“Belle,” she said, as that young lady strolled indolently into the
room. “I’ve had a letter.”
“Have you?” indifferently. “Not Madame Josephine’s bill?”
“No, no, my dear, quite the contrary, a pleasant letter from
India--from Mr. Holroyd. He has written to me to say that his
prospects are much improved--and that he can afford to marry now.”
Belle, who had been staring incredulously at her mother, with a rigid
white face, twitching lips, and widely dilated black eyes, seized her
arm in a grip of steel and said breathlessly: “To marry whom, mother,
quickly--quickly?”
If Mrs. Redmond had had one lingering qualm of compunction, it was now
dispelled by her daughter’s overpowering agitation.
“Why--why _you_, my darling, who else?”
Belle gave a faint cry, and threw herself into her embrace, and hugged
her fiercely.
“Oh mother! mother, are you quite certain--certain?” she panted
hysterically.
“Here is his letter, enclosed to me (she had destroyed the envelope),
if you will only compose yourself, and read it, my darling.”
Belle took it eagerly, without the smallest suspicion, and sitting
down on the edge of the bed, read it over rapidly; her shaking
fingers scarcely able to steady the page before her eyes. “And to go
in a month--in a month,” she repeated ecstatically, springing up and
beginning to dance about the room, “Oh, I can scarcely believe it, I
scarcely know what I am doing; it’s too good to be true.”
“Yes,” thought the old lady, as she watched her intently. Belle, for
whom she had slaved and intrigued, and schemed, and slandered, and
perilled her very soul, would leave her in four weeks’ time, knowing
that she would never see her again, and would leave her with scarcely
a pang. Anything for change, anything for excitement, anything to get
away from Noone!
“I can hardly realise it, mother, it is such a surprise this dismal
morning. I never was so happy in my life, not even that time when I was
engaged to Major Evans, and we thought he had four thousand a year; he
had a tubby figure and a red nose. You see he invites Mossoo, and I
used to think he did not like him. It’s well he mentioned my treasure,
for I could not have been parted from him. ‘Love me, love my dog.’ And
about my trousseau? You will give me a good one, won’t you, like a dear
old mammy?” she said, confronting her parent with sparkling eyes, “I
can do the millinery myself if I have time. I have so often thought it
over, and made lists in my mind, and I know exactly what I want--for
it has always been the dream of my life to go to India. I shall want a
saddle and habit, at least four ball-dresses, and a ruby velvet dinner
dress, mammy darling, I _must_ have that, and your old rose point, and
sable tails, and the diamond brooch that was your grandmother’s. You
know you won’t be going out, once you have got _me_ off your hands,
and I shall want tea-gowns, and tailor-made dresses, and dozens of
boots and shoes--and only a month!” and she paused in her walk, and
gesticulated with her arms, like a figure in a ballet.
“Yes, only a month,” echoed her mother, sadly.
“He is very nice and very good-looking, isn’t he?” she continued. “I
shall not be ashamed when I am asked to point out my husband.”
“No,” assented her parent, absently.
“I had always an idea that he liked me, although he _was_ so
self-contained. Those are the sort of men who have deepest feelings.
He was terribly cut up the day he went away, but he was very reserved,
and never said anything straight out. He seems in a great hurry _now_,”
and she laughed triumphantly. “Does he not? There’s the telegram,”
glancing at the letter, “I shall send it off sharp, and put the poor
fellow out of his suspense. Oh! isn’t he fond of me? The telegram will
cost a good deal; give me your purse, dear, and I’ll send Betty up the
town. I wonder what Betty will say?”
Yes, indeed, what would Betty say?
“I’ll go this moment and tell her,” she rattled on, with brilliant eyes
and heightened colour, and she quitted the room with a buoyant step,
and ran downstairs, leaving her mother seated in her arm-chair, with a
bowed head, and a heavy heart.
How would Betty bear the blow? And what a pretty creature Belle was,
when in good spirits; how easily elated, or cast down.
If it had been Belle who was to stay behind, and Betty that had been
going? she dared not allow her mind to dwell on that awful alternative.
“Yes, yes,” she muttered, as she rose and straightened her cap at the
glass, and surveyed her own anxious white face. “A mother’s first duty
is to her own flesh and blood, and my conscience tells me that I have
done mine.”
Mrs. Redmond’s conscience!
CHAPTER VIII.
“YES, COMING.”
“To bear is to conquer our fate.”
--CAMPBELL.
Betty had been out in the garden, gathering a harvest of flowers,
whilst her three companions raced one another round the gravel walks,
or rollicked among the cabbages, and she had now returned with an
armful of roses, carnations and geraniums, to where all the empty vases
in the house were paraded on the study table, awaiting her attention.
They were soon filled from the pile of flowers. Betty had dainty,
tasteful fingers, and knew how to apply a bud here and to insert a bit
of fern there. She took up a late yellow rose quite tenderly, and
gave it the honour of a glass to itself, and set it off with one or
two pretty shaded leaves. Had George her rose still? The one she had
pulled from the old Cloth of Gold tree, now so many months ago. He had
said a year, and a year had elapsed; it was a year and two months since
that summer afternoon, when, as she came in from picking strawberries
she found him waiting for her at the end of the long walk. Oh, and her
heart beat quickly at the thought, if she had only seen him standing
there, when she opened the garden gate to-day! Not that she doubted him
for one second; no, she turned her bangle on her arm, and told herself
she would trust him, and wait for him, if she lived for fifty years.
“Betty, Betty, Betty,” screamed Belle, coming dashing through the
drawing-room, like a whirlwind. “Where are you? News, news, and such
news,” embracing her and hugging her till she was almost suffocated.
“Do put down those wretched flowers, and listen to what I am going
to tell you. Something so very nice,” she added with her usual rapid
utterance.
Betty stuck a piece of geranium in a glass, and turned to her cousin
with an expectant smile.
“Mother has had a letter from George Holroyd.”
Here Betty became rather white.
“It came by the second post; his uncle has made him an allowance, and
he can afford to marry _now_. He has friends going to India next month,
and so he has written home for--guess who?” pushing her cousin away
playfully with both hands and looking at her with a pair of brilliant,
excited eyes. Betty gazed back at her with a stare of awful suspense,
and almost held her breath.
“For _me_!” cried Belle, and she broke into a hysterical peal of
laughter. Betty felt as if her heart had stopped. Her senses seemed
to be suddenly benumbed; there was a dimness over her eyes. “Isn’t it
splendid?” continued Belle exultantly, still holding her cousin by
the wrists. “Am I not a lucky girl? Oh, what a change in one’s life a
little bit of paper and a few strokes can make”--(Yes, poor Betty, what
a change indeed!)
“And is it quite certain--are you sure?” she stammered with a curious
catching of her breath.
“As sure as I am standing here, my dear child! Here’s his letter, you
may read it if you like!”
“Oh, no! no!” averting her face with a kind of shuddering sigh. Belle
in her innocence was turning the knife in the wound.
“Why, Bet! What’s this, are you not glad? Bet, don’t be silly, you
won’t miss me so _very_ much, you have plenty of friends, and perhaps,
if you are good, I shall send for you some day to come out and live
with us. Eh--why don’t you speak? I thought you would have been
delighted!”
“It is all so sudden,” faltered the domestic martyr in a strange voice,
“and--and of course,” turning her white face bravely on her cousin, “I
am glad you are so happy,” but she might have been a different girl, so
changed was she.
“Then look glad, my dear! and kiss me, my Queen Elizabeth. My! how icy
cold you are this broiling afternoon, a walk will warm you.”
Belle was far too pre-occupied with her own happiness to take serious
notice of her cousin’s deadly pallor.
“I want you to go into town on an errand for me at once. I have so
much to do, and think of, and so very little time. I feel completely
bewildered. First of all, I must write to those friends of George’s by
this post on account of taking my passage. _He_ pays for it; is he not
generous? And I am to send him a wire. Look here, do you think this
will do?” producing a bit of paper on which was pencilled:
“George Holroyd, Mangobad, India. Yes, coming.”
“Six words at four shillings and six-pence a word, no need to put who
it is from. _He_ knows,” and she laughed triumphantly. “It will come to
one pound seven; here is the family purse; will you send it at once,
and write it on the proper office form?”
“Yes,” responded Betty with an effort, her throat felt so hard and dry.
“Now don’t be so dull and grumpy, Bet! Do you think distance will make
any difference to me? Do you think I shall ever forget you? I shall
miss you frightfully. Who will bring me my tea, spell my notes, and
help me to do up my dresses, and pack my clothes? When you are up the
street you might run into Dooley’s and tell them they are not to do a
stitch of plain work for any one but me for the next month. I will go
in to-morrow and speak to them myself.”
“Very well,” said her listener mechanically.
“Now I must run and write to these Calvert people, and to lots of
others, and give them ample time to forward desirable wedding
presents. To intimate friends I shall send round a list of what I
require. I hope Miss Dopping will give me something good, _you_ might
suggest a handsome dressing bag--fitted, of course.”
“And won’t you write to Mrs. Malone?”
“Not I,” scornfully. “She can wait. No doubt she has had an inkling of
this all along, and that was why she was always so very cool to me.
_You_ are her favourite, Betty; only for supporting her and Cuckoo, and
her good-for-nothing son, poor George would have married me a year ago.
I believe he made them over every penny of his private means; however,
they have seen the last of _our_ money.”
Betty noted the plural, and how glibly it came tripping off the
bride-elect’s lips.
“Well, I must fly, or the post will be going without my despatches. How
wild Annie Carr will be! I shall write to her at once. I shall write to
tell her that I am going to marry a handsome, rich young officer, who
adores me, and is counting the very seconds till I join him in India!
Poor Annie, her day is over. I feel as if my sun were just rising,” and
she passed into the hall singing.
Who can picture Betty--let them picture her, as she stood alone in
the middle of the room, with pale dry lips, and a face like marble.
Suddenly she sat down, and laid her arms on the table, and leant
her throbbing head on them. All she wanted was time to think, to
pull herself together, to try and understand what it meant; no tear
trickled down her face--a face miserable and quivering with anguish.
What did it all mean? What _did_ it mean? It meant that George
Holroyd, “Gentleman George” as Fred Moore said he was called, her
_preux chevalier_, her model of all that was unselfish, and noble, and
manly, had proved to be a very poor specimen of chivalry after all. He
had merely been amusing himself with her, an ignorant, simple-minded
little country chit! It was true that he had not told his love in so
many words, his proposal at the garden gate had been a parable, but
had that bangle no meaning? Nor a little bunch of forget-me-nots on a
Christmas card, nor the kiss he had imprinted on her hand, nor the look
in his eyes when they had parted? Had not irrepressible, chattering
Cuckoo, plainly informed her that she was sure George worshipped the
ground she stood on, and although she had feebly silenced her, Cuckoo
had persisted in declaring that he had removed her photograph from the
Bridgetstown album; and--and--and it all meant _nothing_. She was only
a stupid, silly little country girl, and he had been in love with her
cousin all along. It was to her he wrote constantly, she had evidently
expected this summons to join him. Pretty, fascinating, well-dressed
Belle! and yet how often had he quitted Belle to speak to her? To dwell
on these cherished memories was folly now; he was going to marry Belle,
and she must stifle her feelings and seem _glad_. Her brief dream of
happiness was over, was gone for ever; before her stretched the old
monotonous existence, with nothing but a blank, hopeless future. All
the light had gone out of her life--quenched in a moment by a careless
hand. Suddenly she heard Belle’s step approaching, and what a light
and happy contrast, to her usual dragging heavy gait.
“What!” she cried, “not gone yet! Oh, do hurry and send off the
telegram. George said he would expect it so anxiously, and moments to
_you_ are hours to him! I want you to get me five shillings’ worth of
stamps. How queer and strange you look; certainly such sudden news _is_
stunning. Here is your hat, you will do very well; come, be off.”
And she hastily escorted her to the hall door, and saw her down the
avenue, accompanied by the three delighted dogs (Mossoo preferred the
fire, and the other dogs preferred his room to his company). As Betty
walked along, smiling and nodding to many acquaintances--for it had
been market day--she was by no means a bad imitation of the Spartan boy
and fox. She was suffering her first keen agonising grief, and wore
a white but cheerful countenance. Oh! what would she not give to be
able to run away and hide herself in the woods, and there alone have
it out with this stabbing pain that seemed to be tearing at her very
heart-strings. She wended her way to the post office, and wrote out
Belle’s message on a telegram form. Strange fate! that hers should be
the hand to extinguish her own best hopes!
Miss Bolland, the post-mistress and Ballingoole daily news, of which
Maria Finny was the supplement, observed more than most people, and
noticed how pale Betty was, and how her hand shook as she guided the
pen, and remarked upon it, with her usual uncompromising frankness.
“It’s the change in the weather,” replied the girl mendaciously. “This
close weather is trying, and I am sure there is thunder in the air.”
“Dear me, do you say so! I’m that nervous in a thunderstorm, on account
of the telegraph wires. Well, miss, you do look poorly, I must say.”
“A telegram to _India_,” as Betty handed it to her; “we never sent one
there before.
“‘George Holroyd, Mangobad, India,
Yes, coming.’”
Now reading it aloud with inexpressible unction.
“From _you_, Miss Betty?” with a quick glance.
“Oh no, but it is of no consequence whom it is from. It need not be
wired. _He_ knows.”
“Yes--but I must know, too,” returned Jane Bolland rather sharply,
“otherwise I can’t send it.”
“Miss Redmond sends it,” said Betty quietly.
“Oh, indeed. So I was thinking; yes, coming to Mr. Holroyd. Oh, of
course. It will be one pound seven shillings. Thank you, miss, it
shall be despatched at once. I quite understand its importance. _Good_
evening.”
In less than five minutes, Jane had darted out with a shawl over her
head, to impart the great news to Mrs. Maccabe--who lived next door
but one--and before the shops were closed, all Ballingoole was in
possession of the intelligence, that Miss Redmond was going to India to
be married to Mr. Holroyd--and no one was the least surprised, except
Miss Dopping and Betty.
CHAPTER IX.
“FOXY JOE TELLS MORE TALES, AND ONE FALSEHOOD.”
“These two hated with a hate
Found only on the Stage.”
--BYRON.
“There goes old Sally, hot foot out to Noone to hear the news and to
set them all by the ears!”
In this agreeable manner did Maria Finny notify the fact to her mother;
Maria, who was cautiously peering over the blind, just merely showing
the top of her grey head, and her grey eyebrows--not staring out with a
bold and undaunted gaze, like her opposite neighbour.
“There she goes,” she repeated, “and half the beggars in the town
after her.” For once Miss Finny’s surmise was correct. Miss Dopping
had hardly been able to credit her senses when she was told of Belle’s
engagement. She must have it from the fountain-head, she must hear it
from the bride-elect’s own lips.
With her, impulse meant action, and at the unusual hour of eleven
o’clock in the morning she had put on her bonnet and shawl, and seized
her umbrella, and posted out to cross-examine the Redmonds, root and
branch. On the canal bridge just beyond the town, she encountered
Belle herself--also afoot at an unusually early hour--walking into
Ballingoole with a brisk step and beaming face, to give orders
about her outfit, to post some glowing letters, and to receive the
congratulations of the community. With present contentment in her
heart, re-assured vanity whispering in her ear, and (as she firmly
believed) a delightful future before her, everything seemed _couleur
de rose_; even Ballingoole, hated Ballingoole, looked quite pretty, as
it sloped towards the canal, showing a series of sunny old gardens,
brilliant with gay August flowers, their crumbling grey walls almost
hidden by a wealth of autumn fruit. Even detestable old Sally Dopping,
as she paused on the top of the high “fly” bridge, and leant on her
redoubtable umbrella, looked less like a malevolent old witch, and more
like a generous, good fairy, who would bring a valuable wedding present
in her hand! And as to the Mahons, Finnys, Maccabes, she really felt
quite fond of them--now that she was going to leave them--and she had
not the smallest doubt in her own mind, that they would all sincerely
regret her departure.
But Belle, could she but see herself as others saw her, was not
popular in the neighbourhood.
The Irish are quick to discern character, and are, when they choose,
incisive and severe critics. Belle was judged to be a smart, dashing
young woman, but hot-tempered and stingy, and had never been known to
give a copper to any one--not even the poor “dark” man by the post
office steps. “She is not fit to open the door to Miss Betty. She will
be as fat as her mother yet, and every bit as mane!” Such was the
village verdict.
“Well, Miss Dopping,” she exclaimed, “you are out early. I suppose you
have heard my news?”
“So then it _is_ you!” was the rather ungracious reply.
“Of course,” with a smile of triumphant complacency, “and what do you
say to it?”
“Umph--say to it; I say better late than never!”
“Oh,” with an angry laugh, but determined not to lose her temper, “come
now, Miss Dopping, you would not have said that if it had been Betty!”
“No--how could I? And she only nineteen? Look here, Isabella, you know
I never mince my words, do I? I always thought it _was_ Betty. I say so
plainly to your face, and I suppose I must be dropping into my second
childhood, for I declare I certainly thought by the looks of that
young fellow, that he was desperately in love with her, and it seemed
to me, when I’d seen them riding together side by side, so handsome
and so happy, that the Lord made them for one another! Will you swear
to me here on the top of Ballingoole Bridge, that there has been no
bamboozling about letters, and no trickery of any kind?”
Such an insinuation was more than the expectant bride-elect could
tamely bear--even from rich Miss Dopping.
“I swear to you that there has not,” returned Belle, glaring at her
with her face and eyes in flame, and literally trembling with fury.
“You wicked old woman; you may see his letters if you like? Of course
I know that you are horribly annoyed to find that anyone could prefer
_me_ to Betty; it’s lucky for me that there are not many Miss Doppings
in the world! Thank goodness, I have plenty of friends, and always been
a favourite wherever I have been.”
“Oh, of course,” agreed the old lady drily, “we all know that your
mother reared an angel; but Betty has no mother, and none to put in a
word for her but me. I have asked you a plain question privately, and
you have given me my answer, and there is an end of it.”
“And are you satisfied, because _that_ is so very important?” sneered
Belle, with an expression on her face that rendered it downright ugly.
“Well, I am satisfied that you are telling me the truth,” she returned
evasively; “and since it is so, you are getting a very good match, for
a good son will be a good husband. I wish you joy and I need detain you
no longer. I’ll just go on to Noone, since I _am_ this far.”
Belle, whose feathers had been considerably ruffled by this encounter,
found her good spirits and self-approval return, as she visited in
turn the post office, the Finnys and the Dooleys. She was the heroine
of the hour, and enjoyed her brief triumph. The Dooleys, who kept a
draper’s shop and the dressmakers’ establishment, and who had a keen
eye to future orders, although they had had stormy passages with Belle
(but who had not?) laid on congratulations and flattery, so to speak,
with a trowel, and she was figuratively plastered over with compliments
by the time she arrived at Mrs. Maccabe’s with a small domestic order.
“And so they tell me you’re going to the Indes, miss?” said the widow
as she carefully pared and trimmed four loin chops, operating on them
quite in a fashion after Mrs. Redmond’s own heart. “Ye’ll like that, I
suppose?”
“Yes, I have all my life longed to go to India.”
“I hear them’s very ondacent people out there and wears next to no
clothes! And they don’t ate no mate in them countries, I am told, but
_that_ will suit you finely! You won’t have no butcher’s bill, but will
be living on bread and rice. Faix,” with a wheezy laugh, “you are not
like my cat, that died of an Ash-Wednesday, because he could not face
the Lent! Well, miss, I wish yourself and the gentleman every luck, and
that ye may live long, and die happy.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Maccabe. I think we shall suit one another,” returned
Belle, complacently.
“I’m glad it wasn’t Miss Betty he sent for; we could not spare _her_
just yet, though no doubt she will be going from us some of these days,
too, and it will be a lucky man that takes her. Get out of that,
Joey,” to Foxy Joe; “what are ye waitin’ for? why don’t ye take them
ribs up to the Glebe when ye know they dine at two o’clock.”
“I was just waiting on Miss Redmond to give her joy! You will not
forget poor Joey, miss--will ye?” And he eyed her with an expression of
latent cunning.
Belle glanced at him scornfully, and made no reply.
“You will remember the hand _I_ had in it, won’t ye, miss?” he repeated
in a louder key.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” returned Belle, haughtily,
now preparing to leave the shop, which was filling fast with
respectable customers.
Foxy Joe, who, I am sorry to say, had already been at Nolan’s,
partaking of an early glass, and had imbibed what is generally known
as the “cross drop,” was not to be thus set aside.
“Sure, I am talking of all the love letters I carried for you, miss,”
he answered in an angry scream, “when _he_ was at home. Begorra, ye
were a terrible young lady with the pen! as many as four to his wan,
and I was always to wait for an answer; bedad, _he_ was not in the same
hurry! And ye never give me a copper, not a hate but an old neck-tie,
and promises--Faix!--ye must make it up to me _now_.”
Here a violent clout from Mrs. Maccabe’s ox tail reduced him to a
whimpering silence, and then he roared out:
“And can’t ye let me alone, and what harm am I doing ye--Bridgey
Maccabe?”
“How dar _ye_ spake to your betters like that, ye dirty little
tell-tale whelp?” she demanded furiously. “I’ll have to get shut of
ye, I’m thinking--body--sleeves--_and_ trimmings.”
“Never mind him,” interrupted Belle, whose voice shook with passion.
“Take no notice on _my_ account, Mrs. Maccabe. He’s only a fool; no one
pays any attention to his lies.”
“Lies!” screamed Joey, “lies am I telling? I’m telling lies, am I?
Well, I’ll tell a good one when I go about it--_you’re a lady_!”
At this Mrs. Maccabe laid hold of her foaming, stuttering retainer, and
shook him like a rat, whilst Belle, holding her head very erect, and
carrying the four chops in a small basket, stalked out of the shop with
all the dignity she could muster, and her face in a flame!
Poor Belle! this world is full of disappointments, even when one’s
affairs wear a most smiling aspect; her little triumphal expedition
into town had not been quite as satisfactory as she had anticipated.
CHAPTER X.
“THE BRIDE-ELECT.”
“Was ever maid so used as I?”
--UPTON.
The days that ensued, how busy they were, and how fast they flew.
Mrs. Redmond, with a deadened conscience and an active brain, fired
up into a final blaze of energy and intrigue. She drew out--although
it was as agonising as extracting her teeth--a considerable amount
of her savings, to pay for Belle’s extravagant outfit. It was one of
her few remaining pleasures to see her idol fittingly adorned, and to
superintend dress rehearsals of future social triumphs.
She dashed off dozens of letters to her former friends, announcing her
daughter’s approaching wedding in fitting terms; and as Belle was
apparently making an excellent match, presents followed in thick and
fast. Mrs. Malone endowed her future relative with her own wedding
veil. Cuckoo sent a case of scissors, Miss Dopping a looking-glass
in an antique silver frame, with a bye word to Betty that “it would
remind the bride of what she loved best in the world.” And there were
many other offerings, from a small diamond brooch to a large silver
button-hook, and on the whole Belle considered that she had done
remarkably well. Betty was invaluable at this period. She planned and
sewed, and toiled from morning till night, and was quite feverishly
busy--in constant bodily occupation was her only opiate for mental
anguish. The shock of the first realisation of George’s baseness,
had resolved itself into a continuous ache, that would always stir
and throb as long as his memory might rouse her pride; her lover had
forsaken her, and the bitterness of abandonment was in her heart.
Many people remarked that she was looking thin and out of spirits,
that her eyes were hollow, and her laugh was rare, but attributed
this--including the fair damsel herself--to Belle’s approaching
departure. She accompanied her radiant cousin in wild and hasty raids
on Dublin shops. She folded and unfolded, tried on and altered, many
of the smart gowns that came pouring in by the carrier’s cart. She
“hurried up” the Dooleys, and the hum of her sewing machine might be
heard for hours. But late at night, whilst Belle slept soundly, and
dreamt happy dreams of India, at the other side of the thin partition
wall, Betty, wrapped in a white dressing-gown, and with streaming
hair, was wandering restlessly up and down, and flinging herself on
her knees with clasped and outstretched hands. “He has forgotten,”
she would murmur--“Oh, if _I_ could but forget,” and then she would
sob--repressed strangling sobs, lest the sound should penetrate to her
sleeping cousin. No wonder that she looked pale and haggard, and very
different from the gay and beaming Betty of a year ago!
She worked very hard, whilst restless, excitable Belle found a number
of excellent reasons for doing nothing, and roamed about the house,
singing snatches of songs, and waltzes, and talking incessantly of
India, herself and George. “It’s a curious thing, Betty,” she remarked
one day, as she lolled beside her busy companion, “that, although
George was so desperately fond of me, as _you_ know, he never said
anything, never even hinted at an offer, or committed himself by word
or look; and I am sure I gave him heaps of openings. Do you remember
how I used to sing:
‘Si vous n’avez rien à me dire.’”
And she laughed a shameless laugh.
“I told him over and over again, that it was the dream of my life to
see India, and yet he never said one syllable; he did not think it
honourable to ask a girl to share a life of poverty. No wonder they
call him ‘Gentleman George,’ eh?”
“No wonder!” echoed Betty rather faintly.
“I am so glad he likes _you_, Bet, he often said so, and always sent
you messages in his letters, kind remembrances and that sort of thing.
Some day you must come out and pay us a visit. I am certain you would
marry well out in India, where girls are scarce; you have such lots of
‘go’ in you, and really your eyes and figure are not so bad. I believe
George rather admired you!”
“Tell me one thing, Belle,” said the other, shielding with her hand her
poor quivering face. “Do you love him very much? I know he is not your
first love.”
“Pooh!” interrupted the bride-elect, “nor my twenty-first; I had my
first love at eleven years of age, a delightful school-boy, who ruined
himself in lockets and chocolates for my sake, and now at twenty-nine
(though I don’t look it) I have my last, I suppose! I don’t believe in
frantic love, such as you read of in books, where girls walk about all
night wringing their hands and weeping,”--Betty became scarlet--“and
where men--well, now I come to think of it--the men don’t care! they
swear they will shoot themselves, and they fall in love with the next
pretty face. Love, such as poets rave about, blazes up quickly like
straw, and then goes out, and leaves unpleasant ashes; great emotions
wear people down, and age them frightfully.”
“If you don’t believe in love, what do you believe in?” said Betty,
suddenly laying down her work.
“I believe in a presentable, gentlemanly husband, with good
connections, and a full purse. I believe in gold, incense and freedom.
I believe in a delightful life in India, in lots of amusement and going
about, I----”
“But----” began her listener interrogatively.
“Yes, I know what you are going to say, of course I like George very
much, but not so much as _he_ likes me. That is always the way;
one is saddled and bridled, and the other is booted and spurred--I
infinitely prefer the latter _rôle_! Look at Mrs. Malone! Of course
_she_ was a fool, but what a life she led. Well, she will be a harmless
mother-in-law, that’s one comfort! Only think, Bet, this day week I
shall be on the high seas, and this day month I shall probably be Mrs.
Holroyd, and you will no longer be Miss Betty, but Miss Redmond. I have
promised mother to send a wire, so that it may appear in the papers
at once. I always think it looks so well and so important, to see an
announcement concluding with ‘By Telegram.’”
Mrs. Redmond seemed entirely oblivious of the part she had enacted in
the domestic drama, and treated the engagement as if it were quite a
_bonâ-fide_ affair, and had possibly brought herself to believe that
it was so. She received numerous visitors, to whom she expatiated
eloquently on the ancestors, and the acres, of the Holroyds, and the
great match Belle was making--to which plain-spoken Miss Dopping had
remarked, that it might turn out to be a _Lucifer_ match yet!--and I
am truly concerned to add, was disagreeably exultant to the mothers of
unmarried daughters. Her conscience was now, so to speak, dead. She had
assured it, in its last dying struggles, that she was merely doing evil
that good might come. What was a lie? merely an intellectual evasion of
a difficulty! She had lied to Belle, boldly and successfully, and were
she to confess now, and repair her error, Belle would perhaps end her
days in a madhouse. She had only given destiny a little push, that was
all!
In spite of Dr. Moran’s angry expostulations, Mrs. Redmond made a
great effort, and accompanied her daughter to London, saw her on board
the _Nankin_ in the Victoria Docks, handed her over to the charge of
Colonel and Mrs. Calvert, and then bade her good-bye for ever. Belle
hugged her and kissed her many times, and wept herself to the very
verge of hysterics, but her tears were dry, and she had smoothed her
hair, and changed her hat, and was chatting merrily--long before the
_Nankin_ had passed Gravesend.
Her day, she told herself, was just rising, and she was resolved to
make the most of it, whilst the poor old lady, rumbling back to London
in a four-wheeler, and sobbing as if her heart would break, felt that
her life was over--she had practically done with existence when she
closed the door of Belle’s cabin.
CHAPTER XI.
“THE UNEXPECTED.”
“Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate.”
The _Nankin_ was favoured with splendid weather, and palpitated
eastward at the rate of fifteen knots an hour, between a cobalt blue
sky and a mirror-like sea. The globe-trotting season had set in with
unusual severity, and there were two hundred and fifty passengers on
board, including about seventy ladies, and among these Miss Redmond was
singled out as one of the most fascinating spins! Yes--she was already
tasting the delights for which she had so long languished. Her bright
dark eyes, animated manners, pretty frocks, and pretty figure, met with
general approval, and she anticipated her wedding day by displaying a
goodly portion of her trousseau, and embarked on a series of vivacious
flirtations.
To do her justice, they were above board, and comparatively harmless,
and from the grey-haired captain to a smooth-faced sub-lieutenant
she had many slaves. She changed her cavaliers almost as often as
her toilettes, and yet the ladies bore her no ill-will, nor did they
discourse of her in whispers, as they did of that _other_ siren, who
smoked cigarettes behind the wheel-house--not alone. Belle implored
Mrs. Calvert in eager piteous accents not to divulge the fact that she
was going out to be married to Mr. Holroyd.
“Why not, my dear? I think any girl might be proud to be engaged to
George Holroyd,” protested George’s friend.
“Oh, of course, but I want to enjoy myself, and have a little fun
before my wings are clipped. Look at those two engaged girls in charge
of the Captain! How dreadfully dull and dowdy they are; you would not
wish me to be like _them_?”
But if Belle was not going out to India to change her name, why were
all her boxes and belongings branded I. F. H., and on one tell-tale
trunk was actually painted in bold white letters “Mrs. George Holroyd.”
Her secret was well known (the other girls took care of _that_), and
she was as plainly marked “engaged” as any reserved railway carriage.
She had soon many particular lady friends, and of admirers a great
host; with everything she had ever coveted in her wardrobe, with India
before her, and nothing to do, but talk, and laugh, and dress, and
flirt, Belle was, for once in her life, a thoroughly happy woman. She
had nothing to wish for--no, not even the presence of George! He
might object to her acting with Count Calincourt, and might possibly
misunderstand her friendship with Mr. Beaufort, a rich M.P., who paid
her immense attention, and, when they landed at Malta, had loaded her
with half the contents of Borg’s shop. She had a callous heart, a
faultless digestion, and a torpid conscience. To her eager, volatile
disposition, the act of forgetfulness was second nature, and she never
cast a retrospective glance to her own detested past, and but few to
Noone and its occupants; _En avant_ was her mental war-cry! Her morning
_début_ on deck was a sort of triumphal procession from the companion
ladder to her chair! At least half a dozen swains were in her train.
One carried her pillow, another her book, a third her fan, a fourth
her scent bottle; the ladies, too, were deeply interested in her
arrival; they were on the _qui vive_ to see what new and beautiful
raiment she would wear, and she always looked as trim and smart as if
she had stepped out of a bandbox. It was nothing to this appreciative,
nodding, smiling circle, that she had left the cabin she shared with
Mrs. Calvert, Miss Gay, and another, in a deplorable condition. Her
belongings, such as brushes, combs, shoes, hair-pins, gowns, strewn
broadcast, within very narrow limits. Enough for them, that the effect
of her labours was excellent, and a few pretty apologies and a little
bit of “butter” were ample payment in her opinion for Miss Rose Gay,
who was tidying, folding, and evolving order out of chaos below.
Belle looked so pretty, and chatted so pleasantly, that she was a
general favourite. She was the mainspring of amusement, too; she
taught games, gave riddles, sang delightfully on the moon-lit deck, to
the accompaniment of a guitar, acted admirably, and gave readings; got
up Mrs. Jarley’s waxworks, and was quite a leading spirit on board the
_Nankin_. And if she was a little untidy in the cabin, and now and then
made thoughtless speeches--who is perfect?
Her dog “Mossoo” was not quite so popular, although he also entertained
his fellow-travellers by walking on his head, waltzing and dying. His
mistress made such a fuss about him, insisted on having him to sleep
in her berth, kept up a continual commotion about his food, allowed
him to lie on other people’s chairs, and clipped him with other
people’s scissors. He was not a pleasant poodle and took no pains to
make himself agreeable. He was self-conscious, affected, and vain. He
had a little brown snub nose, round reddish-brown eyes--that seemed
full of wicked thoughts--and a mole on his upper lip, not concealed
by his moustache, which gave him a sneering supercilious expression.
He appeared to be saying: “But _you_ are only human beings, I am an
accomplished French poodle.” Most people like dogs, but “Mossoo” made
no friends. He was despised by the ship cat, detested by the crew, and
was once stigmatised by an angry steward as “a lazy good-for-nothing
brute, who slept all day and ate like a _passenger_.” As the voyage
wore on, Miss Redmond’s popularity became a little threadbare. She
talked too much, and, in her eager desire to cater for listeners, she
sometimes said things that were best omitted, made daring little jokes
at the expense of other ladies, related amusing anecdotes that were for
the benefit of the cabin--not the deck. Some of the men (seasoned old
Indians), who were acquainted with George Holroyd, made polite advances
to his bewitching little black-eyed bride--and were smilingly repulsed
when they spoke of him. She merely laughed, and shrugged her shoulders,
carelessly, and changed the subject; and subsequently they shrugged
_their_ shoulders, and wondered what a smart fellow like Holroyd, such
a popular chap, and good all round, could see in that chattering,
flighty, over-dressed doll.
Mrs. Calvert (Belle’s chaperon) was a slight, refined, rather
worn-looking woman, who had left four young children at home, and
was following her husband’s fortunes, whilst her sister, Miss Gay,
accompanied her--possibly in quest of her own. She was plain, but
so neat and smart that she was almost pretty; clever, bright, and
amiable--and both sisters were unmistakably ladies in every sense of
the word. These two, and another, shared Belle’s cabin. It was not as
if _she_ shared theirs, for the whole of that restricted apartment
was pervaded by her belongings, from gloves and shoes to “Mossoo’s”
coat, collar and bones. In such narrow quarters, one is not long in
discovering the true character of one’s fellow-passenger; there is
no better opportunity for mutual insight, and many a lasting feud or
friendship has been born in a four-berthed cabin! Belle began well:
she was affectionate to Mrs. Calvert and her sister (and agreeable to
Miss Cox--who made up the quartette), insisting on Miss Gay calling
her by her Christian name, and effusive with offers of scent, face
lotions, and various loans of small articles, eager to do every one’s
hair, eager to alter people’s hats--in fact most anxious to ingratiate
herself--and she succeeded. She kissed Mrs. Calvert--in spite of that
lady--and wound her arm round Miss Gay’s waist or leant upon her as
they paced the deck in the twilight. But by and by, capricious Belle
found “other fish to fry.” Her head was a little turned by her unusual
social success; she became less demonstrative in her affection, and
alas! alas! her temper began to be seen! One day it appeared in great
force in the cabin, as they were dressing for dinner, all somewhat hot
and hurried.
“Did you see that horrid Mr. Noakes throwing ‘Mossoo’ out of his
chair,” she said, “as if the poor dog was doing any harm? Mr. Noakes
is a detestable cad! A regular ‘’Arry.’”
“He is a friend of mine,” said Miss Cox stiffly, “and I beg you not to
call him names.”
“Stuff,” exclaimed Belle, with the light of battle on her face, “I
can’t help your having cads for friends, this is a free ship! I shall
say what I please, I shall say _more_--birds of a feather flock
together.”
“You shall not say what you please to _me_,” returned the other, not
knowing with whom she had to cope, nor that it was a fatal mistake to
argue with Miss Redmond; but argue she did, and she had the best of
the dispute, whilst Mrs. Calvert and her sister were the miserable
witnesses to a quarrel that would have disgraced the Kilkenny cats!
Miss Redmond, boiling over with ungovernable fury, gave her too ready
opponent a smart slap on the face with the back of a hair brush, a slap
that left a _mark_--a mark that was shown to the Captain--and after
this, there was a somewhat constrained silence. Belle held her head
high, and pretended that she did not care. Nor did she notice, later in
the evening, how some of the ladies whispered and looked. This scene
was the precursor of several of a similar type; there were hot words,
though no blows, in other places, and she missed her mother desperately
on these occasions--her mother who had always officiated as her buffer
and shield. These cruel people received her hysterical apologies so
very, _very_ coldly. By the time that Bombay lighthouse was in view,
Belle’s evanescent popularity had almost wholly disappeared. What would
she have said, had she peeped over the shoulder of one of her former
admirers, and seen the letter he was writing for the mail.
“We have lots of girls on board, some going out to be married, some on
promotion, some pretty, some plain. A Miss Redmond takes the cake, as
far as looks and frocks go. She plays the guitar and sings and acts
and is coming out for amusement _only_, and means to go far. She has a
truly tropical temper, and has embroiled herself with several of her
sex, and for all her bright eyes and many fascinations, I heartily pity
the poor devil who is to marry her.”
Yes, Belle’s temper had as usual been her social bane, and most
of the ladies who were her fellow-passengers (forgetting all her
pretty time-killing efforts) spoke of her subsequently in their
several circles as “that awful creature we came out with on board the
_Nankin_.” Mrs. Calvert and her sister were silent and circumspect,
and by an immense outlay of tact and forbearance managed to keep
an unbroken peace, but they lived in a state of repressed nervous
excitement, and more than once were appealed to, and almost forced into
a quarrel either with her or Miss Cox. Mrs. Calvert marvelled at what
possessed George Holroyd to marry this shallow, restless, fiery little
person, who rarely named him, and then with as much emotion as if she
were speaking of her washerwoman.
One afternoon, when she and her sister were leaning against the
bulwarks watching the deep green water, and sheets of lace-like foam
that fell away from the steamer’s bows, they began to discuss their
charge with bated breath.
“I cannot imagine what has happened to George Holroyd,” exclaimed Mrs.
Calvert. “How can he call her a simple little country girl?” glancing
across at Belle.
“Yes,” returned her sister, “he must be very blindly in love, if he
supposes her to be but nineteen.”
“She looks quite ten years older--nearly as old as I am,” said Mrs.
Calvert.
“And so she is,” replied Miss Gay. “I heard her talking of being at
Ascot on a Cup day, and some one said, ‘Why _that_ horse ran eleven
years ago.’ She seemed so vexed, and said that she was taken by her
mother when she was quite a little girl in short petticoats.”
“I shall be truly thankful when this voyage is over! We have had fine
weather certainly, but what storms--my nerves, I know, have all gone to
pieces, but sometimes, Rosie, I tremble all over!”
“Now that she and Miss Cox don’t speak it is better,” said her sister
consolingly.
“But Miss Cox’s friends have all cut her, and so have several people.
Oh! I little knew what I was undertaking,” rejoined Mrs. Calvert with a
groan.
“I wonder whether Mr. Holroyd knows what he is undertaking?”
“Poor fellow! I am sure he has no suspicion of her temper--I wish you
had seen the letter he wrote to me about his pretty inexperienced young
bride.”
“Pretty, yes; inexperienced, no; young, no.”
“He has married her for herself alone. She has not a fraction; he
actually paid for her passage. Her face is her sole fortune.”
“If he could but see her in her true colours, I am sure he would
thankfully furnish her with a return ticket,” said Miss Gay
briskly--“and there’s the first bell, let us hurry down and get
dressed before she appears upon the scene, for you know, we won’t get
_near_ the glass!”
The _Nankin_ arrived in Bombay a few hours earlier than she was
expected, and the steam launch which brought off the company’s agent,
various eager husbands, some servants to welcome old masters, and all
the letters--did not bring George Holroyd.
The Calverts and their fair charge had been installed for some hours
at Watson’s Hotel before he made his appearance, and during that time,
although the bride-elect showed no anxiety, Mrs. Calvert was a prey to
many misgivings.
Could he have heard of her quarrels and flirtations? Could he have
changed his mind at the eleventh hour?
Belle, attired in a fresh and becoming toilette, was seated in the big
verandah, surrounded by hopeful hawkers, and the cynosure of many
admiring eyes. Some of her fellow-passengers were also sitting, or
standing about, and there was a whisper among them, that possibly Miss
Redmond’s bridegroom had cried off. They were all rather curious to
see what manner of man he was, and his non-appearance occasioned some
disappointment, and more excitement, now that an element of uncertainty
was imported into the situation. But there was not the shadow of a
cloud in Miss Redmond’s face, as she turned over jewellery and silver
articles with childish delight, and excitedly bargained for rugs and
phool-carries for her future drawing-room. Hearing a sudden exclamation
of joy and relief from Mrs. Calvert, she raised her eyes, and saw
George ascending the stairs, and with a bound across a case of rings,
and three silver sugar-bowls, she fluttered out to meet him.
He was greatly altered, he looked worn, thin, and haggard; and he
seemed to have aged ten years; his neatly-fitting tight suit hung
loosely on him, and his hands were as emaciated as if he had just
recovered from a long illness.
He explained, when the first greetings were over with Belle and the
Calverts, that his train had broken down on the Ghauts, entailing
a delay of twelve hours, and after a short parley, Belle, who was
not the least bashful, placed her arm frankly within his, and led
him away through a staring circle, into the privacy of the ladies’
sitting-room,--which happened to be empty.
“Well, George,” she exclaimed, “here I am you see,” and she put her
hand on his shoulder, and gazed smilingly into his face.
Poor George, he had been nerving himself for this terrible interview
for days, and the reality proved more than the anticipation.
“Yes, here you are, I see,” and he kissed her. “I hope you have had a
good passage?”
“Delightful, but what dreadfully short notice you gave me, and”--as if
it had only just struck her--“how desperately ill you are looking. Were
you afraid that I would not come?”
“I have had a very bad go of fever,” he answered evasively. “And
nothing knocks one over so quickly. I shall soon be all right.”
“And how do you think _I_ am looking?” she enquired coquettishly.
“Prettier than ever,” he replied with promptitude, as he gazed
dispassionately at his future wife--the wife that fate and Mrs. Redmond
had sent him. She was really remarkably handsome, and appeared to
be in the highest spirits, and utterly unconscious of her mother’s
baseness.
“I am charmed with India so far!” she said, “with the funny Parsees
with their coal-scuttle hats, and the brown natives, the warm
atmosphere, the big buildings, the Portuguese waiters, the hotel and
the hawkers, in fact, with everything.”
“I am very glad that India has made a good impression on you at first
sight, and I hope you may never have any occasion to change your mind.
I have got everything ready for you at Mangobad, and I think you will
like your future home.”
“I am certain I shall. Oh, George, you don’t know how pleased I was to
get your letter. How sly you were all along. I never could be _quite_
sure that you cared for me, and I was very miserable; that dreadful
life at Noone was killing me by inches. Here we have plenty of sun, and
life and colour, and society and constant change. How happy we shall
be!”
“I hope so, with all my heart,” he answered gravely.
“But how quiet and silent and solemn you are; what has happened to you?
Has India this effect on people? You look like a death’s head.”
“You must not mind me. I have not yet got over the fever; it takes me
some time to shake off. You must be gay enough for both of us,” with a
rather dreary smile. “And now tell me, how did you leave them all at
home. I mean your mother--and--and--Betty,” turning away so that she
could not see his face.
“Mother saw me off herself, although she has been ailing a good deal,
latterly; she will miss me very much, but she will have Betty.”
“But not for long,” rather sharply.
“Well, I don’t know; if you mean about Ghosty Moore, of course they
like one another, and the Moores are fond of Betty, but nothing is
positively settled as _yet_. I would never have got off without her,
never have been ready in time; you really owe her a debt of gratitude,
she worked almost day and night, and packed my boxes, and altered my
dresses, and thought of every detail down to fans and oranges for the
Red Sea. I shall miss her terribly. If there is any hitch about her
marrying Ghosty Moore, we must have her out on a visit by and by, what
do you think?”
George became very white, and made no reply.
“I know you like her, for you have often said so, and she would not be
with us very long. She would be sure to marry, though of late she has
completely lost her looks, whether it was from a cold, or fretting at
parting with me, or worrying herself about Ghosty, I cannot say, but
she is really growing quite plain. Shall we have her out if the match
does not come off?”
“No. What puts her into your head just now? You have scarcely arrived
in India yourself.”
“‘No,’ George, dear; what are you saying? ‘No,’ to me already?”
“I think married people are best by themselves. You know the saying,
‘Two are company, etc.’”
“How can you be so ridiculous; as if poor Betty would be in the way any
more than she was at Noone!”
“At any rate, your mother could not spare her--even if there was no
other reason.”
“That is true, and I am certain Augustus Moore could not spare her
either. Betty will be old Sally Dopping’s heiress, and a great catch.
Now let us go back to the others, I hate people to suppose that we
are billing and cooing, it’s so stupid. By the way, those two friends
of yours, Mrs. Calvert and her sister, are a pair of detestable cats.
I can’t bear them, and I know they can’t bear _me_. I shall be so
glad when I am formally handed over to _you_. Come along now, they
are making tea in the verandah, let us join the rest of the company,”
to which request George agreed with rather suspicious alacrity. That
interview was over, and he had played his part pretty well. So he
said to himself, as he wiped his pale forehead, and followed his
unsuspecting fiancée out of the room. Sitting opposite to Belle, as she
sipped her tea, and chattered volubly, he realised what a very pretty
woman she was, especially when he contrasted her with various faded
matrons, who were waiting for the next homeward-bound steamer. She had
all the advantages of taste, and dress, and freshness.
She was “handsome, agreeable, and good-tempered,” he assured himself,
and he was doing what was right in his own eyes--and it might have been
worse. Poor George!
CHAPTER XII.
“‘SHE’ UNDERSTANDS ME.”
George Holroyd’s leave to England had borne but faint resemblance to
the plan he had sketched out, as he steamed homewards, with his mind
full of anticipations of sport, and amusement, and his pockets full
of money. It is true that he had had some capital hunting (thanks
to Clancy’s grey, who was now in a racing stable), but his shooting
and fishing projects, his visits to race-courses, his trip on the
Continent, were still so many castles in the air. He was returning
all but penniless, minus new clothes, new saddlery, a new battery of
guns--minus his money, and, above all, minus his heart. What had
he to show for his eight months’ tour to Europe? One badly executed
photograph--a cheap little silver brooch, and a withered flower, but
these he valued beyond all price!
On the passage out, he was a dull enough companion, and took a very
subordinate interest in smoking concerts, whist, or theatricals, and no
interest whatever in various well-favoured young ladies; no, he paced
the deck in solitude, revolving plans that might tend to his getting
his foot upon the ladder that leads to good things and lofty positions,
_i.e._, “the staff.” He must study the language in earnest, and pass
the Higher Standard, so as to be eligible for an appointment that would
give him an increase of pay, and enable him to make a home that would
not be quite unworthy of Betty.
At Port Said he received a cheerful epistle from Belle; she wrote a
good hand, and, like many people who are not brilliantly intellectual,
an excellent letter, if her orthography was not always above suspicion.
She had the knack of giving interesting items of news in a short space,
but among her whole budget there was not a word about her cousin--truly
the play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. After a rough passage
through the south-west monsoon, Mr. Holroyd arrived in Bombay, and set
out for a four days’ railway journey up the country. Once the Ghauts
are crossed, there is but little to enliven the landscape, through the
low scrub jungle of the Central Provinces, through large tracts of
grain, varied by a few mosques and tombs, past fortified mud villages,
herds of lean cattle, and whitewashed railway stations, where the same
bill of fare remains unchanged from year’s end to year’s end--tough
beefsteak and fiery curry!
At last, in the dim light of early morning, George arrived at his
destination, the insignificant cantonment of Mangobad. His brother
officers welcomed him warmly, listened eagerly to all his news, and
enquired about his new guns, and mentioned a couple of smart racing
ponies that they had, so to speak, marked down for him!
“No doubt they would suit me down to the ground if I could afford
them,” he answered in reply to a suggestion that he ought to wire
and secure them at once. “But I can’t afford anything better than a
barrack tat. It’s a fact,” looking frankly round his comrades who were
assembled in the billiard-room, after mess. “I am stone broke; I have
lost a lot of money. I am as poor as Job.”
Captain La Touche, a stout dapper-looking man, his special friend,
paused as he was about to light a cigarette, and exclaimed:
“Now then, young Holroyd, so you would go to Monaco!”
“Not I! I never went near the place. I lost the money in an investment,
in--in short, in--in family--matters.”
“Well, I am truly sorry to hear it,” said his comrade, coming over and
taking a seat beside him, “but you have three nags here and a good
kit, and you can scrape along with very little besides your pay, as
long”--and here he eyed him sharply--“as you don’t think of getting
married.”
“I suppose you know that Jones of the other battalion is going to
commit matrimony,” said George, by way of changing the conversation.
“Going to be married, is he?” growled a grizzled major, “and serves him
right. The Lord be praised, that’s a folly of which I have never been
guilty.”
“Nor I,” added Captain La Touche, who was a bachelor, and proud of his
estate.
“Don’t shout till you are out of the wood,” returned George
impressively.
“Why not?--I am practically out of the wood! There is no fear of
me--why I’ve actually been in action with a would-be father-in-law, and
came out scatheless.”
“How--you never confessed this before?”
“Oh, it was at Southsea some time ago, when I was quite pretty and
slender and active. One night I danced seven or eight times with an
uncommonly nice girl: the next morning her father waited on me--a
blood-thirsty looking old brigand--and demanded my intentions.”
“‘My intentions, sir,’ I said, ‘were to give your daughter a very
pleasant evening’ (he enacted the part), I placed my hand on my
heart, and bowing most profoundly, said, ‘And I flatter myself that I
succeeded.’ I suppose there is no hope for Jones--no choking him off?”
“No,” returned another man, “I know Jones well; you might as well try
to choke a pig with melted butter.”
“He won’t believe that love is the wine of life, and marriage the
headache in the morning,” snarled the Major.
“Jones was always a fool,” remarked a third.
This anti-matrimonial discussion made George rather uncomfortable; he
had been among these ribald scoffers himself, but that was in old
days--and before he knew Betty.
Captain La Touche was senior captain in the Royal Musketeers, and
George’s special chum, and during his absence he had looked after his
quarters, and his stud, but now, to his intense disgust, his friend’s
polo ponies, his tandem cart and harness, and racing saddles, were all
advertised in the _Pioneer_! Only one animal was reserved, and Captain
La Touche noted with considerable trepidation, that “Barkis,” though
not a polo pony, had the reputation of being a capital ladies’ hack.
Cosmo La Touche was a shrewd man, and could put two and two together
better than most people; his friend had his pay, and no debts, and
a small private income; he could easily manage to keep a couple of
ponies and pay his mess bill. Why was he reading so hard with the
regimental monshee? Reading in the muggy, rainy weather, grinding for
the Higher Standard, late and early, whilst he himself dozed peacefully
under the punka with a French novel within reach; and why was George
Holroyd, who was always supposed to be wrapped up in the regiment,
and nothing but the regiment, and who set his face against detachment
duty, the depôt or hill classes, now so desperately eager to get an
appointment _anywhere_, so long as it brought him in rupees.
Of course there was a lady in the case, and he boldly taxed him with
his guilty secret.
To his anger and astonishment, George admitted that such was positively
the fact, admitted it triumphantly.
“And are you engaged?” he demanded sternly.
“No.”
“Oh, come then, it’s not so bad after all!”
“I only wish it was so bad, as you call it.”
“Then why are you not? Won’t she have you?” enquired the other with a
jeer in his eyes.
“Because I have only fifty pounds a year and my pay, as long as my
mother lives, and, out in this climate, poverty and screwing is the
very devil. If I can pass and get some staff appointment we shall
manage all right.”
“Is she pretty? But I need not ask _you_; of course she is an angel,”
said Captain La Touche ferociously.
“She is very pretty. She is more than pretty, she is charming.”
“And supposing some other fellow steps in, and snaps her up whilst you
are stewing over your Hindustani. How will you like _that_?”
George’s face was a study in complacency. “I am not afraid,” he said
quietly.
“You ought to have spoken, and offered yourself at any rate.”
“Of course!” rather bitterly, “with nothing to settle on her but a
sword, and a tailor’s bill.”
“Well, I hope you will come out of it all right. Have you got her
photograph?”
“Yes,” examining it critically, “well, it’s a nice face, but one cannot
judge; she may be marked with small-pox or have weak eyes, or a bad
figure.”
“She has grey eyes, and is as tall and straight as a young fir tree,”
rejoined George indignantly.
“A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, eh? And what is her name?”
“Elizabeth, but they call her Betty. Elizabeth Redmond.”
“Any relation to the Collector here?”
“I don’t know, very probably.”
“And what are your plans, if I may presume to enquire?”
“To pass if I can, and get something that will add to my pay, and then
to write home and ask her to come out and marry me. _She_ understands
me!”
“I am glad to hear it, for it’s more than I do,” rejoined his comrade
angrily. “You must excuse me for not receiving your news with the
enthusiasm it deserves, but you know, George, you always swore that you
would not marry before you were a major, if then.”
“Very likely, but with all these new warrants I began to think I might
_never_ be a major; you won’t say anything about it.”
“Trust me,” he responded with a gesture of impatience; “besides, you
are not engaged, and the worst may not come to the worst: there is many
a slip between the cup and the lip. If you were in any other scrape I
would lend you money, and for as long as you liked and insist on your
taking it, but I’ll never lift a finger to help you to a wife.”
Days and weeks went by slowly enough, but Betty’s photograph now stood
boldly on George’s writing-table, and spurred him to many a tough task.
True, it was chaperoned by portraits of Mrs. Malone and Cuckoo, and by
casual eyes she was supposed to be merely another sister, and Captain
La Touche kept his secret. Parades and regimental work occupied
George’s mornings, and many an evening he never went out till dark, but
worked hard with his monshee, who proclaimed him to be a “wonderfully
clever gentleman,” and secretly felt secure of his own premium as
together they plodded through the _Prem Sagar_ and _Bagh-o-Bahar_.
George was obliged to forego boating, cricket and paperchasing, he took
his name off the polo club, and abjured cigarettes and expensive boots,
and only that in his prosperous days he had always been so open-handed,
there would have been an outcry at his economy. But his friends
believed he had some excellent reason for his self-denial, though
no one but Captain La Touche knew how good that reason was. Captain
La Touche was a man of five-and-thirty, with a considerable private
fortune, and a handsome, pleasant face. His figure was his despair, he
would grow stout, aye, and keep stout; despite of anti-fat, exercise,
and semi-starvation, he still conspicuously filled the eye!
Now he had accepted the situation, ate and drank whatever his rather
fastidious palate dictated, kept a weight-carrying charger, and one
broad-backed, confidential cob, and fell into the rank of a looker-on,
at pig-sticking and polo, and spoke of himself as “a superannuated
butterfly!” He was not what is called “a red-hot soldier,” and never
aspired to command the Royal Musketeers. He looked upon parades and
orderly rooms as vexatious interludes in an otherwise agreeably spent
existence, but he was very much attached to the regiment, as an
excellent travelling club, and was the firm, personal friend of almost
every one of his brother officers; and George Holroyd was Jonathan to
this goodly, popular, and somewhat cynical, David.
He was president of the mess, organised entertainments that were
invariably a success, arranged the daily menus, overawed all the
waiters, and knew how to put a crusty commanding officer through a
course of the most soothing dinner treatment. In fact, he was king of
the mess, by universal acclamation, and to hear that he was to lose his
right hand, his prime favourite, by marriage, was a blow as painful
as it was unexpected. Captain La Touche had some French blood in his
veins, and spoke the language like a native. His manners to ladies
were unapproachable for chivalrous politeness, and yet, like Miss
Dopping, he preferred to associate with the sterner sex; nevertheless
he was a keen observer and took an almost effeminate interest in their
dress. As to his own outward appearance, it was the result of patient
study, and the mirror at which many another man fashioned himself.
For a first-rate opinion on a coat, a dinner, a point of etiquette or
a claret vintage, you could not go to a better person than Captain
Cosmo La Touche; extremes meet; he and his chosen friend were almost
diametrically opposite in mind, body and estate. One was a Sybarite,
the other a sportsman; one was a philosopher, the other a man of
action. One could eat anything that was set before him, the other would
sooner perish!
I am afraid we cannot conceal from ourselves that Captain La Touche
is a _bon vivant_, and is very proud of his delicate palate. Indeed,
he has publicly given out that the woman who aspires to be Mrs. La
Touche--be she never so beautiful--must have taken honours at the
school of cookery! He gave a good many of his thoughts to George’s
affairs, as he lay in a Bombay chair and smoked cigarette after
cigarette, meditating sadly on his friend’s future.
This girl, this Miss Redmond, had a pretty, well-bred face, and looked
as if she had no nonsense about her; she rode well (if George was to
be believed) and played tennis, and was a fair musician, and would
possibly be an acquisition to the station; but what a loss George would
be to the mess! He was a capital rider, could tell a good story, and
sing a good song, and was quite the most brilliant polo player in the
province.
Now all that would be at an end! He would only care for driving
his wife about in a little pony-cart, and subsequently dining
_tête-à-tête_ on a leg of mutton, and custard pudding--_ugh!_ George
would sink into domestic limbo “_avec la fatalité d’une pierre qui
tombe_.”
Mangobad was a typical up country station, sequestered and
self-contained. Besides the Royal Musketeers, there was a native
infantry regiment, a chaplain, a judge, a collector, several doctors,
several engineers, a few indigo planters in from the district, and now
and then a great man encamped in the mango tope, with his imposing
transport of camels, elephants, and carriage horses.
The cantonment was just a comfortable size for a sociable
community--and luckily the community _was_ sociable; it numbered about
fifty men and fifteen ladies, but the latter fluctuated. Sometimes they
numbered as many as thirty, sometimes but three.
The station was situated in the midst of a great flat grain country,
diversified by fine groves or topes of forest trees, and scattered
over with red-roofed villages of immemorial antiquity. Riding along
the well-kept pucka roads, with ripe, yellow corn waving at either
side, the cool November air and the noble timber would deceive
one into believing that they were in the south of Europe, until a
Commissariat elephant lumbering along, or a camel carriage and pair,
or a four-in-hand of hideous water buffaloes, dragging a primitive
wain laden with sugar-cane, dispelled the idea. Besides the level
roads bordered with Neem, Shesum, Sirus, and Teak trees, there were
smooth, green parade grounds and comfortable bungalows, standing in the
midst of luxuriant gardens, where roses, passion-flowers, oranges and
strawberries, mangoes and mignonette grew in sociable abundance.
There was a picturesque church and an excellent station club, where all
the community assembled to read the papers, play tennis, drink tea,
and hear the news; but invariably, by the middle of April, the tennis
courts were deserted, the chairs round the tea-table were vacant, and
the gallop of ponies was no longer heard cutting up the adjacent polo
ground. All those who could command money and leave, had promptly fled
away to various hill stations.
George Holroyd was not among the exodus, he remained to do duty--the
little that is possible with the thermometer at 104--and to sit behind
a “_Khus-khus_” tattie, while the hot west wind came booming through
the mango trees--and fought with the drowsy, stifling hours, and
the weary pages of the _Bagh-o-Bahar_. Captain La Touche had gone to
Simla, where he was a conspicuous member of the clubs, and an esteemed
customer at Peliti’s, and gave _recherché_ little dinners at the
châlet; he had done his utmost to carry his friend with him, and had
used arguments, bribes, and even threats.
“You will go mad, my dear fellow, you will certainly go mad, staying
down here, and grinding your brains away; you will feel the effects
before another week goes over your head. Come up for a couple of months
at least; come and stay with _me_; come, my dear boy, and see Simla.
Come! I’ll mount you at polo, come!”
“Not I--thank you; if I went anywhere I would go into Cashmere. I have
no taste for sticking myself over with patent leather and peacock’s
feathers, and riding beside a woman’s rickshaw.”
“It would depend upon _who_ was in the rickshaw, I suppose. Eh? Well,
if you don’t mind yourself, it’s my opinion that one of these days we
shall be riding after your coffin! Promise me before I go, that if you
feel at all seedy you will send me a wire, and follow it at once.”
As he was very pertinacious, George gave him the required promise,
solely for the sake of peace.
Early in June he went up for his examination, and, whilst he awaited
the result in miserable suspense, he received a letter from his uncle
Godfrey, who, through the family lawyer, had recently discovered the
state of his money affairs. After upbraiding him angrily for keeping
the matter from him, and for allowing himself to be stripped to his
last shilling in order to support Major Malone’s family, he went on
to say that he would make him an allowance of five hundred a year, in
order that he might live like a gentleman, and as became his heir, and
if he would only come home, and settle down, and marry some nice girl,
he would do a great deal more for him.
“And if I settle down, and marry a nice girl out here, I wonder what he
will say to that?” said his nephew to himself, as he tried to realise
his unexpected good fortune. He did not spend much time in reflection,
but galloped over to the Colonel’s bungalow, and asked that amazed
officer “if there was any chance of his getting three months’ leave to
England, and to start at once.”
“Not the smallest,” returned the Colonel firmly, adding a complaint
that he made at least ten times a day--“I have only four subalterns.
You know I am terribly short of officers--Indeed, Holroyd, I wonder
that a man of your sense could be such a fool as to propose such a
thing!”
The same mail that brought Mr. Godfrey Holroyd’s letter brought the
news that Colonel and Mrs. Calvert were coming out in September.
Colonel Calvert was the District Inspector of Police for Mangobad. What
a chance for Betty! She might travel with _them_. He lost no time in
writing, and despatching three letters by the out-going mail, one to
the Calverts, and two to Noone, and anxiously awaited Betty’s telegram.
In due time the answer arrived, and by a strange coincidence, the same
day’s post brought the agreeable intimation that he had passed the
Higher Standard in Hindustani. Surely a lucky omen, if omens stand for
aught. He gave a dinner at the mess to celebrate the event with his
brother officers.
(Also _another_ event of which they were as yet in ignorance.)
Fortune, who had turned her back on him for so long, was now apparently
all smiles, and seemed to be thrusting her favours on him with both
hands.
END OF VOL. II.
PRINTED BY
KELLY & CO., MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES;
AND GATE STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, W.C.
Transcriber’s Notes
Page 131: “Holyroyd is only” changed to “Holroyd is only”
Page 159: “once you have have” changed to “once you have”
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