Kitabı oku: «The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS

“I rather like that young Nelligan,” said Martin, the day after Joseph had made his first appearance at dinner. “He talks pleasantly, and nothing of a pedant, as I half dreaded he might be.”

“I thought his manner respectful, and very proper for his station,” said Lady Dorothea, with an air of dignity.

“He spoke of politics, too, with less of prejudice, less of class bitterness, than I could have expected.”

“Some policy, perhaps, in that,” remarked her Ladyship.

“Possibly!” said Martin, with a careless shrug of the shoulders.

“He was in a measure on his trial amongst us, and felt the importance of making a favorable first impression.”

“It was more trouble than his father would have taken, then,” said Martin, smiling. “Old Dan, as they call him, is not a very conciliating personage.”

“I cannot imagine that the disposition of such a person is a matter of much moment. Does n’t the man deal in tea, candles, and such like?”

“That he does, and in loans, and in mortgages, too; not to add that he exercises a very considerable share of influence in his town of Oughterard.”

“A very shocking feature of the time we live in!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea.

“So it may be; but there it is, – just like the wet weather, and the typhus, and the sheep-rot, and fifty other disagreeable things one can’t help.”

“But at least they can avoid recurring to them in conversation, sir. There is no necessity to open the window when the look-out is a dreary one.”

Martin made no reply, and a pause of some moments ensued.

“What arrangement did you come to with him about his party in the borough?” said she at last.

“I didn’t even allude to the topic,” replied he, half testily. “These things are not to be done in that hasty fashion; they require management, discretion, and a fitting opportunity, too.”

“Why, you talk of your grocer’s boy as if he were a Cabinet Minister, Mr. Martin; you treat him like a great diplomatist!”

“It was not exactly on the first occasion of his being in my house that I could have broached the matter.”

“Which implies that you mean to invite him again.”

“Possibly!” was the abrupt rejoinder.

“And must the odious attorney always be of the party?”

“No, madam, the odious attorney has set out for Dublin; but I shortly expect here one whom your Ladyship will, doubtless, call an odious lawyer, – though he happens to be one of the foremost men of the Irish bar.”

“A class I detest,” said her Ladyship.

“He has one consolation, at least, madam,” said Martin; “he figures in a pretty long category.”

“And why should he not, sir? What have I ever met in the dreary eighteen years and seven months I have passed here, except unmitigated self-conceit, vulgarity, and presumption, – the very type of all three being your Dublin barrister.”

“Their countrymen certainly entertain another estimate of them,” said Martin, laughing, for he had a lazy man’s enjoyment of any passionate excitement of another’s temper.

“And it was,” resumed she, “in some sort the contrast presented to such which pleased me in that young man’s manner yesterday. Not but I feel assured that erelong you and Miss Martin will spoil him.”

“I! aunt?” said Mary, looking up from her work; “how am I to exercise the evil influence you speak of?”

“By the notice – the interest you vouchsafe him, Miss Martin, – the most flattering compliment to one in his station.”

“If he bears collegiate honors so meekly, aunt,” said Mary, quietly, “don’t you think his head might sustain itself under my attentions?”

“Possibly so, young lady, if not accompanied by the accessories of your rank in life,” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily; “and as to college honors,” added she, after a pause, “they are like school distinctions, of no earthly value out of the class-room.”

“Faith, I don’t know that,” said Martin. “At least, in my own experience, I can say, every fellow that has made a figure in life gave indications of high ability in his college years. I could go over the names of at least a dozen.”

“Pray don’t, sir, – spare your memory, and spare us. Miss Martin and I will take it for granted that this young man is destined to be Lord Chancellor, – Ambassador at St. Petersburg, – or anything else you please. I have no doubt that the time is approaching when such things are very possible.”

“It has come already, my Lady,” said Martin; and in the manner he uttered the words there was no saying whether the sentiment was pleasurable or the reverse.

“And yet I trust that there is a little interval still left to us ere that consummation,” said she, with pretentious dignity. “Birth and blood have not lost all their prestige!”

“But they soon would,” said Mary, “if they feared to enter the lists against those less well-born than themselves.”

“Miss Martin!” exclaimed her Ladyship, “what words are these?”

“I hope they are void of offence, aunt. Assuredly I never conceived that I could wound any susceptibilities here by saying that the well-born are ready to meet the plebeian on any ground.”

“There is no necessity for such trials, Miss Martin; the position of each has been so accurately defined by – by – by Providence,” said she, at last, blushing slightly as she uttered the word, “that the contest is almost impossible.”

“The French Revolution reveals another story, aunt, and tells us, besides, how inferior were the nobles of that country in the day of struggle.”

“Upon my word, these are very pretty notions, young lady. Have they been derived from the intelligent columns of the “Galway Monitor,” or are they the teachings of the gifted Mr. Scanlan? Assuredly, Mr. Martin,” said she, turning to him, “papa was right, when he said that the Irish nature was essentially rebellious.”

“Complimentary, certainly,” said Martin, laughing.

“He founded the remark on history. Papa was uncommonly well read, and used to observe that there seemed something in the Celtic nature incompatible with that high-souled, chivalrous loyalty Englishmen exhibit.”

“But how much of the Celt have Mary and myself got in us, if your observation is meant for us? Why, my Lady, what with intermarriage centuries ago, and change of blood ever since, the distinctive element has been utterly lost.”

“And yet we are not English, uncle,” said Mary, with something that smacked of pride. “Confess it: we have our nationality, and that our people have traits of their own.”

“That they have; but I never heard them made matter of boastfulness before,” said Lady Dorothea, sneeringly.

“Well, aunt, it is not too late to hear it now; and I, for one, am proud of my country, – not of its political station, for it is dependent, – not of its wealth, for it is poor, – but of its genial courtesy, its free-hearted hospitality, its manly patience under many a crushing calamity, and not least of all, its gallantry on every field where England has won honor.”

“I have read of all these things; but my own experiences are limited to the rags and restlessness of a semi-barbarous people. Nay, Miss Martin, I’m not going to discuss the matter. I have lived elsewhere, – you have not. I have acquired habits – prejudices, perhaps you ‘d call them – in behalf of twenty things that Irish civilization sees no need of.”

“Would it not be kind, aunt, were you to aid us by the light of these same experiences?” said Mary, with an air of well-assumed humility.

“Certainly not, at the price of intercourse with the natives!” exclaimed her Ladyship, haughtily. “I detest, on principle, the Lady Bountiful character. The whole of the hymn-book, castor-oil, and patent-barley sympathy is shockingly vulgar. Like many things, well done at first, it fell into low hands, and got spoiled.”

The tone of sarcasm in which this was spoken made Mary’s cheeks crimson, and the flush spread itself over her neck. Still she made no reply, but bending down her head, continued to work more assiduously.

“When are we to leave this place, Mr. Martin?” asked her Ladyship, abruptly.

“I believe we are only waiting here till it be your pleasure to quit.”

“And I dying to get away this fortnight past! Some one certainly told me that Cro’ Martin was not ready for us. Was it you, Miss Martin?”

“No, aunt.”

“It ran in my head it was you, then. Well, can we go at once – to-day – this afternoon?”

“To-morrow we might, perhaps,” said Mary.

“Scarcely so,” said Martin, interposing, “seeing that I have asked Repton to come down here and see the place.”

“But you can drive him over from Cro’ Martin. It would be intolerable, the idea of remaining here just for him. So we shall go to-morrow, Miss Martin.” And with this, uttered in the tone of an order, her Ladyship swept proudly out of the room, from which Martin, not overanxious for a tête-à-tête with his niece, stepped noiselessly at the same moment by another door.

Scarcely had the door closed behind Lady Dorothea, when it was reopened to admit Joe Nelligan, who had met her Ladyship in the corridor and been received with such palpable coldness of manner that he entered the room bashful and awkward, and hardly knowing whether to advance or retire.

“I fear I have made my visit at an untimely hour, Miss Martin,” said he, blushing; “but the truth is, I know next to nothing of society and its habits, and if you would only be kind enough to tell me when I am a transgressor – ”

“The notion of learning from me is perfect,” said Mary, interrupting him with a pleasant laugh. “Why, Mr. Nelli-gan, I never could be taught anything, even of the most ordinary rules of ceremonial life! though,” added she, slyly, “I have lived certainly in the midst of great opportunities.”

“But then, I have not,” said Nelligan, gravely, and accepting the speech in all seriousness. “Well, it comes pretty much to the same thing,” said she, smiling, “since I have profited so little by them.”

“I came thus early, however,” said he, earnestly, “because I was impatient to correct an impression which might have remained from something that fell from me last night. You smile, I perceive,” said he, “that I should attach so much importance to my own words!”

“It was not at that I smiled,” said Mary, archly.

“No matter,” continued he. “It is better, at the cost of a little wounded vanity, that I should escape a misconception. When your uncle spoke to me, last night, about the division of parties in the borough – You are smiling again, Miss Martin!”

“Don’t you perceive, sir, that what amuses me is the mistaken estimate you have formed of me, by addressing me on such topics?”

“But I came here expressly to speak to you,” said he, with increased eagerness; “for I have always heard – always understood – that none ever took a deeper interest in all that regarded the country than yourself.”

“If you mean, by the country, the lives and fortunes of those who live in it, – the people by whose toil it is fertilized, by whose traits it is a nation, – I tell you frankly that I yield to none for interest in all that touches them; but if you come to talk of privileges and legislative benefits, I know nothing of them: they form a land of whose very geography I am ignorant.”

“But the subject is the same, and the mind which comprehends one could embrace the other.”

“In the one, however, I can labor usefully and fittingly, without much risk of mistake, – never, indeed, of any mistake that might prove of serious moment. The other involves great questions, and has great hazards, perils, to affright stronger heads than mine!”

“There is much in what you say,” said he, reflectingly.

“There is far more than I am able to express,” said she, warmly. “Just remember, for a moment, that of all the laws you great and wise men are making, over which you rant and wrangle, and assail each other so vindictively, how few ever touch the interests or descend to the fortunes of those for whom you assume to make them, – that the craftiest devices of your legislation never uproot ah old prejudice nor disturb an antiquated superstition; while I, and such as I, – and there need be nothing more humble, – can by a little timely help in trouble – a little care, or even a little counsel – comfort many a failing heart, cheer up many a sinking spirit, and, better still, do good service by teaching the poor man that he is of one family with those better off than himself, and that he is not an outcast because he is lowly!”

As Mary went on, her eyes shone more brilliantly, and her cheeks glowed, till Nelligan forgot even the words she spoke in admiration of the speaker.

“But here comes my uncle,” cried she, hastily, “to rescue you from further amplification of the theme. Come in, uncle,” – for Martin was already about to retire, – “it is Mr. Nelligan, who wants to speak to you.”

“Oh, I was in terror of a regular morning visitor!” said Martin, shaking the young man’s hand cordially. “They didn’t tell me you were here.”

“I came, sir,” said Joseph, hesitatingly, “to rectify what might, perhaps, require correction in an observation I made last night. We were talking about the proper basis of a representation – ”

“My dear boy,” broke in Martin, laughingly, “there’s nothing kills me like asking me to go over the past, either in reading an old letter or recalling an old conversation. And as to calling on me to justify something I once defended in argument, I ‘d give up the cause at once, and say I was all wrong, in preference.”

“Then I need not fear you will hold me responsible – ”

“Not for anything, except your pledge to dine here tomorrow at seven.”

Notwithstanding all the ease and frankness of Martin’s manner – and as manner it was perfect – the young man felt far from satisfied. His want of breeding – that cruel want strong enough to mar the promise of high ability, and even impair the excellence of many a noble nature – seemed to hold him fast bound to the object of his visit. He had come for an explanation, and he couldn’t go away without it. Mary read his difficulty at once, and as she passed him to leave the room, said in a low voice, “To-morrow evening.”

Nelligan started at the words, and his face became scarlet. What could she have meant? Was it that she wished him to come, and had thus condescended to remind him of his promise? or was it to suggest a more fitting moment to return to the late discussion?

“Are you coming to luncheon, Nelligan?” said Martin, rising.

“No, sir; not to-day. I have a call – a visit – some miles off.” And while he was yet stammering out his excuses, Martin waved a familiar good-bye with his hand, and passed into the adjoining room.

“And what can this mean?” said Nelligan to himself. “Is this the cordial treatment of an intimate, or is it contemptuous indifference for an inferior?” And, far more puzzled than he should have been with the knottiest problem of the “Principia,” he quitted the house and strolled homewards.

His way led along the shore, and consequently in front of that straggling row of cottages which formed the village. It chanced to be the last day of the month, and, by the decree of the almanac, the close of the bathing-season. The scene then going forward was one of unusual and not unpicturesque confusion. It was a general break-up of the encampment, and all were preparing to depart to their homes, inland. Had young Nelligan been – what he was not – anything of a humorist, he might have been amused at the variety of equipage and costume around him. Conveyances the most cumbrous and most rickety, drawn by farm horses, or even donkeys, stopped the way before each door, all in process of loading by a strangely attired assemblage, whose Welsh wigs, flannel dressing-gowns, and woollen nightcaps showed how, by a common consent, all had agreed to merge personal vanity in the emergency of the moment. The innumerable little concealments which had sheltered many a narrow household, the various little stratagems that had eked out many a scanty wardrobe, were now abandoned with a noble sincerity; and had there been a cork leg or a glass eye in the company, it would not have shrunk from the gaze of that open-hearted community.

Such of the travellers as had taken their places were already surrounded with the strangest medley of household gods it is possible to conceive. Like trophies, bird-cages, candlesticks, spits, cullenders, fenders, and bread-baskets bristled around them, making one marvel how they ever got in, or, still more, how they were ever to get out again; the croaking of invalids, with crying children, barking terriers, and scolding owners, making a suitable chorus to the confusion.

Still, amidst all the discomforts of the moment, amidst the last wranglings with landlords, and the last squabbles over broken furniture and missing movables, it must be owned that the prevailing temper of the scene was good-humor and jollity. The Irish temperament seems ever to discover something congenial in those incidents of confusion and bustle which to other people are seasons of unmitigated misery, and even out of its own sources of discomfiture can derive matter for that quaint humor with which it can always regard life. In this wise was it that few now dwelt much upon their own inconveniences, so long as they were free to laugh at those of their neighbors.

Before he was well aware of it, young Nelligan found himself in the very midst of this gathering, whose mirthful accents suddenly subsided at his approach, and an air of constraint and reserve seemed to take their place. Never very quick to appreciate such indications, he drew nigh to a very lofty “conveniency” in which, with an air of stately dignity, Mrs. Cronan sat enthroned on a backgammon-table, with a portentous-looking cap-case in her lap.

“My mother will be sorry not to have seen you before you went away, Mrs. Cronan,” said he to that lady, whose demure and frigid demeanor made the speech sound like a bold one.

“I ‘d have left my card and my compliments, sir, if I wasn’t so pressed for time,” responded she, with a haughty gravity.

“With P. P. C. on the corner,” said the Captain from his pony-gig alongside; “which means, pour prendre ‘congo,’ or ‘congee,’ I never knew which.”

“She ‘ll be very lonely now, for the few days we remain,” resumed Joe, conscious of some awkwardness, without knowing where or how.

“Not with the society of your distinguished acquaintances at ‘The Nest,’ sir!” the sarcastic import of which reply was more in the manner than the mere words; while the old Captain murmured, —

“Begad, she gave it to him there, – a regular double-headed shot!”

“We hope to follow you by the end of the week,” said Nelligan, trying to seem at ease.

“If you can tear yourselves away, I suppose,” said Miss Busk, through a double veil of blue gauze; for that lady’s auburn ringlets reposed at the moment in the small mahogany casket beside her.

“There is not much attraction in the spot just now,” said Joseph, smiling.

“Not for the like of us, perhaps, sir,” retorted Mrs. Cronan, – “not for persons in our station; but your fashionable people, I believe, always prefer a place when the vulgar company have left it.”

“Good again, – grape and canister!” chuckled out the Captain, who seemed to derive a high enjoyment from the scene.

“Would you move a little to one side, Mr. Nelligan?” said the doctor; “my pony won’t stand.”

“Oh, he’s mettlesome,” said Joe, good-humoredly, as he stepped out of the way.

“That he is, sir, though he never was leader in a four-in-hand; but, you see, poor creatures of quadrupeds forget themselves down here, just like their betters!”

And the success of this sally was acknowledged by a general laugh from the company. The tone of the speakers, even more than their words, convinced Joseph that, from some cause or other, he was the object of their sarcasms; and although slow to take offence, – even to the verge of what many might have called an unfeeling indifference, – he felt their treatment most acutely. It was, then, in something like a haughty defiance that he wished them a careless good-bye, and continued his way.

“The world seems bent on puzzling me this morning,” muttered he, as he sauntered slowly on. “People treat me as though I were playing some deep game to their detriment, – I, who have no game, almost no future!” added he, despondingly. “For what avails it to attain eminence amidst such as these; and, as for the others, I was not born for them.”

To these moody thoughts succeeded others still gloomier. It had only been within a short time back that the young man had begun to appreciate the difficulties of a position to which his early successes imparted increasing embarrassment; and darkly brooding over these things, he drew near his mother’s cottage. She was already at the door to meet him, with a letter in her hand.

“This is from your father, Joe,” said she. “He wants you in all haste up at the town; and I’ve packed your clothes, and sent off Patsey for Mooney’s car; so come in and eat something at once.”

Joseph took the note from her hand and perused it in silence. It was brief, and ran thus: —

“Dear Joe, – I want you up here as soon as possible, to meet a friend whom you ‘ll be surprised to see. I say no more, but that I expect you by dinner-time. – Yours ever,

“D.N.”

“What does that mean, Joe?” asked his mother.

He only shrugged his shoulders in reply.

“And who can it be?” said she again.

“Some of the townspeople, of course,” said he, carelessly.

“No, no, Joe; it must be a stranger. Maybe it’s Morgan Drake; his aunt expected him back from Jamaica before Christmas. Or it ‘s Corny Dwyer ‘s come home from Africa; you know he went on the deploring expedition – ” “Exploring, mother, – exploring.”

“Well, exploring or deploring, it’s all the same. He went four years ago, and all the tidings they ‘ve had of him was an elephant’s tooth he sent home to his stepfather. I know it’s Corny, for your father always liked him and the funny stories he told.”

“Perhaps so!” replied Joe.

“I wonder, is he grown any bigger? He was little better than a dwarf when he went away, and the same age as yourself. No, indeed, he was older, – fourteen months older. It was Catty Henderson was running in my head. Is n’t she a fine young woman, Joe?”

“Remarkably so,” said he, with more animation in his tone.

“A little bit too haughty-looking and proud, maybe, considering her station in life, and that she has to go to service – ”

“Go to service, mother?”

“To be sure she has. If they can’t get her a place as a governess or a companion, she ‘ll have to take what she can get. Her father’s married again, my dear Joe; and when men do that!” And here Mrs. Nelligan uplifted her hands and eyes most expressively. “Ay, indeed,” continued she, with a heavy sigh, “and if it was once it was fifty times, Catty’s poor mother said to me, ‘Sarah,’ says she, – she never called me Sally, but always Sarah, – ‘Sarah,’ says she, ‘I ‘ve but one comfort, and that is that Catty will never want a mother while you live. You ‘ll be the same to her as myself, – just as fond, and just as forgiving;’ them was her very words!”

“And I hope you have never forgotten them, mother?” said Joe, with emotion.

“Don’t you see I have n’t; an’t I repeating them to you this minute?”

“Yes; but I mean the spirit and the meaning of them,” rejoined he, “and that you feel the obligation they ‘ve laid upon you.”

“To be sure I feel it; don’t I fret over it every time I ‘m alone? for I can’t get it out of my head that maybe she ‘d appear to me – ”

“No, but her mother. Oh, it ‘s nothing to laugh at, Joe. There was Eliza Keane came back every Easter Monday for two-and-twenty years to search for a gravy-spoon. Well, if it’s laughing you are, I won’t say any more; but here ‘s the car now, and it’s late enough we ‘ll be on the road!”

“I’m not thinking of going, mother. I never meant to go,” said Joe, resolutely.

“Never meant to go, after your father’s note to you, Joe?” cried she, in half horror. “Surely it’s all as one as ordering you up there.”

“I know all that,” said he, calmly; “but I see no reason why I should forego the pleasure of a party at the Martins’ for the sake of meeting the convivial celebrities of Oughterard.”

“But what will you say?”

“Say I’m engaged; have accepted another invitation; or, better still, leave you to make my excuses, mother. Come, come, don’t look so terribly shocked and terrified. You know well enough that my father’s four-year-old mutton and his crusted port will compensate the company for heavier inflictions than my absence.”

“They were always fond of you, Joe,” said Mrs. Nelligan, half reproachfully.

“Nothing of the kind, mother; they never cared for me, nor was there any reason why they should. I ‘m sure I never cared for them. We endured one another; that was all.”

“Oh, dear; but I ‘m glad your father is not listening to you,” said she, with a stealthy glance around, as though not perfectly assured of secrecy. “So, then, I suppose, there ‘s nothing for it but to go up myself and make the best of it; and sure it’s all a lottery what temper he ‘s in, and how he ‘ll take it. I remember when they put the new duty on – what was it, Joe? I think it was hides – ”

“Not the least matter, mother; you ‘ve only to say that Mr. Martin has been kind enough to show me some attentions, and that I am silly enough – if you like to say so – to prefer them to the festive pleasures of Oughterard. In another week or so I shall have to go back to college. Let me, at least, enjoy the few days of my vacation in my own fashion.”

Mrs. Nelligan shook her head mournfully over these signs of rebellion, and muttering many a gloomy foreboding, she went off to her room to make her preparations for the journey.