Loe raamatut: «One Of Them», lehekülg 9

CHAPTER XII. A FELLOW-TRAVELLER ON THE COACH

The morning was raw, cold, and ungenial, as Layton took his outside seat on the coach for Dublin. For sake of shelter, being but poorly provided against ill weather, he had taken the seat behind the coachman, the place beside him being reserved for a traveller who was to be taken up outside the town. The individual in question was alluded to more than once by the driver and the guard as “the Captain,” and in the abundance of fresh hay provided for his feet, and the care taken to keep his seat dry, there were signs of a certain importance being attached to his presence. As they gained the foot of a hill, where the road crossed a small bridge, they found the stranger awaiting them, with his carpet-bag; he had no other luggage, but in his own person showed unmistakable evidence of being well prepared for a journey. He was an elderly man, short, square, and thick-set, with a rosy, cheerful countenance, and a bright, merry eye. As he took off his hat, punctiliously returning the coachee’s salute, he showed a round, bald head, fringed around the base by a curly margin of rich brown hair. So much Layton could mark, – all signs, as he read them, of a jovial temperament and a healthy constitution; nor did the few words he uttered detract from the impression: they were frank and cheerful, and their tone rich and pleasing to the ear.

The stranger’s first care on ascending to his place was to share a very comfortable rug with his neighbor, the civility being done in a way that would have made refusal almost impossible; his next move was to inquire if Layton was a smoker, and, even before the answer, came the offer of a most fragrant cigar. The courtesy of the offered snuff-box amongst our grandfathers is now replaced by the polite proffer of a cigar, and, simple as the act of attention is in itself, there are some men who are perfect masters in the performance. The Captain was of this category; and although Layton was a cold, proud, off-standing man, such was the other’s tact, that, before they had journeyed twenty miles in company, an actual intimacy had sprung up between them.

There is no pleasanter companionship to the studious and reading man than that of a man of life and the world, one whose experience, drawn entirely from the actual game of life, is full of incident and adventure. The Captain had travelled a great deal and seen much, and there was about all his observations the stamp of a mind that had learned to judge men and things by broader, wider rules than are the guides of those who live in more narrow spheres.

It was in discoursing on the political condition of Ireland that they reached the little village of Cookstown, about a mile from which, on a slight eminence, a neat cottage was observable, the trim laurel hedge that separated it from the road being remarkable in a country usually deficient in such foliage.

“A pretty spot,” remarked Layton, carelessly, “and, to all seeming, untenanted.”

“Yes, it seems empty,” said the other, in the same easy tone.

“There’s never been any one livin’ there, Captain, since that,” said the coachman, turning round on his seat, and addressing the stranger.

“Since what?” asked Layton, abruptly.

“He is alluding to an old story, – a very old story, now,” rejoined the other. “There were two men – a father and son – named Shehan, taken from that cottage in the year of Emmet’s unhappy rebellion, under a charge of high treason, and hanged.”

“I remember the affair perfectly: Curran defended them. If I remember aright, too, they were convicted on the evidence of a noted informer.”

“The circumstance is painfully impressed on my memory, by the fact that I have the misfortune to bear the same name; and it is by my rank alone that I am able to avoid being mistaken for him. My name is Holmes.”

“To be sure,” cried Layton, “Holmes was the name; Curran rendered it famous on that day.”

The coachman had turned round to listen to this conversation, and at its conclusion touched his hat to the Captain as if in polite acquiescence.

By the time they had reached Castle Blayney, such had been the Captain’s success in ingratiating himself into Layton’s good opinion, that the doctor had accepted his invitation to dinner.

“We shall not dine with the coach travellers,” whispered the stranger, “but at a small house I ‘ll show you just close by. I have already ordered my cutlet there, and there will be enough for us both.”

Never was speech less boastful; a most admirable hot dinner was ready as they entered the little parlor, and such a bottle of port as Layton fancied he had never tasted the equal. By good luck there was ample time to enjoy these excellent things, as the mail was obliged to await at this place for an hour or more the arrival of a cross-post. A second and a third brother of the same racy vintage succeeded; and Layton, warmed by the generous wine, grew open and confidential, not only in speaking of the past, but also to reveal all his hopes for the future, and the object of his journey. Though the Captain was nothing less than a man of science, he could fathom sufficiently the details the other gave to see that the speaker was no ordinary man, and his discovery no small invention.

“Ay,” said the doctor, as, carried away by the excitement of the wine, he grew boastful and vain, “you ‘ll see, sir, that the man who sat shivering beside you on the outside of the mail without a great-coat to cover him, will, one of these days, be recognized as amongst the first of his nation, and along with Hunter and Bell and Brodie will stand the name of Herbert Layton!”

“You had a very distinguished namesake once, a Fellow of Trinity – ”

“Myself, sir, none other. I am the man!” cried he, in a burst of triumphant pride. “I am – that is, I was – the Regius Professor of Medicine; I was Gold Medallist in 18 – ; then Chancellor’s Prizeman; the following year I beat Stack and Naper, – you ‘ve heard of them, I ‘m sure, on the Fellowship bench; I carried away the Verse prize from George Wolffe; and now, this day, – ay, sir, this day, – I don’t think I ‘d have eaten if you had not asked me to dine with you.”

“Come, come,” said the Captain, pushing the decanter towards him, “there are good days coming. Even in a moneyed point of view, your discovery is worth some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.”

“I ‘d not sell it for a million; it shall be within the reach of the humblest peasant in the land the day I have perfected the details. It shall be for Parliament – the two Houses of the nation – to reward me, or I ‘ll never accept a shilling.”

“That’s a very noble and high-spirited resolve. I like you for it; I respect you for it,” said the Captain, warmly.

“I know well what had been my recognition if I had been born a German or a Frenchman. It is in England alone scientific discovery brings neither advancement nor honor. They pension the informer that betrays his confederates, and they leave the man of intellect to die, as Chatterton died, of starvation in a garret. Is n’t that true?”

“Too true, – too true, indeed!” sighed the Captain, mournfully.

“And as to the Ireland of long ago,” said Layton, “how much more wise her present-day rulers are than those who governed her in times past, and whose great difficulty was to deal with a dominant class, and to induce them to abate any of the pretensions which years of tried loyalty would seem to have confirmed into rights! I speak as one who was once a ‘United Irishman,’” said he.

Laying down the glass he was raising to his lips, the Captain leaned across the table and grasped Layton’s hand; and although there was nothing in the gesture which a bystander could have noticed, it seemed to convey a secret signal, for Layton cried out exultingly, —

“A brother in the cause!”

“You may believe how your frank, outspoken nature has won upon me,” said he, “when I have confided to you a secret that would, if revealed, certainly cost me my commission, and might imperil my life; but I will do more, Layton, I will tell you that our fraternity exists in full vigor, – not here, but thousands of miles away, – and England will have to reap in India the wrongs she has sown in Ireland.”

“With this I have no sympathy,” burst in Layton, boldly. “Our association – at least, as I understood it – was to elevate and enfranchise Ireland, not humiliate England. It was well enough for Wolfe Tone and men of his stamp to take this view, but Nielson and myself were differently minded, and we deemed that the empire would be but the greater when all who served it were equals.”

Was it that the moment was propitious, was it that Layton’s persuasive power was at its highest, was it that the earnest zeal of the man had carried conviction with his words? However it happened, the Captain, after listening to a long and well-reasoned statement, leaned his head thoughtfully on his hand, and said, —

“I wish I had known you in earlier days, Layton. You have placed these things before me in a point I have never seen them before, nor do I believe that there are ten men amongst us who have. Grant me a favor,” said he, as if a sudden thought had just crossed him.

“What is it?” asked Layton.

“Come and stay a week or two with me at my little cottage at Glasnevin; I am a bachelor, and live that sort of secluded life that will leave you ample time for your own pursuits.”

“Give me a corner for my glass bottles and a furnace, and I ‘m your man,” said Layton, laughingly.

“You shall make a laboratory of anything but the dinner-room,” cried Holmes, shaking hands on the compact, and thus sealing it.

The guard’s horn soon after summoned them to their places, and they once more were on the road.

The men who have long waged a hand-to-hand combat with fortune, unfriended and uncheered, experience an intense enjoyment when comes the moment in which they can pour out all their sorrows and their selfishness into some confiding ear. It is no ordinary pleasure with them to taste the sympathy of a willing listener. Layton felt all the ecstasy of such a moment, and he told not alone of himself and his plans and his hopes, but of his son Alfred, – what high gifts the youth possessed, and how certain was he, if common justice should be but accorded to him, to win a great place in the world’s estimation.

“The Captain” was an eager listener to all the other said, and never interrupted, save to throw in some passing word of encouragement, some cheering exhortation to bear up bravely and courageously.

Layton’s heart warmed with the words of encouragement, and he confided many a secret source of hope that he had never revealed before. He told how, in the course of his labors, many an unexpected discovery had burst upon him, – now some great fact applicable to the smelting of metals, now some new invention available to agriculture. They were subjects, he owned, he had not pursued to any perfect result, but briefly committed to some rough notes, reserving them for a time of future leisure.

“And if I cannot convince the world,” said he, laughingly, “that they have neglected and ignored a great genius, I hope, at least, to make you a convert to that opinion.”

“You see those tall elms yonder?” said Holmes, as they drew nigh Dublin. “Well, screened beneath their shade lies the little cottage I have told you about. Quiet and obscure enough now, but I ‘m greatly mistaken if it will not one day be remembered as the spot where Herbert Layton lived when he brought his great discovery to completion.”

“Do you really think so?” cried Layton, with a swelling feeling about the heart as though it would burst his side. “Oh, if I could only come to feel that hope myself! How it would repay me for all I have gone through! How it would reconcile me to my own heart!”

CHAPTER XIII. HOW THEY LIVED AT THE VILLA

The Heathcotes had prolonged their stay at Marlia a full month beyond their first intention. It was now November, and yet they felt most unwilling to leave it. To be sure, it was the November of Italy in one of its most favored spots. The trees had scarcely began to shed their leaves, and were only in that stage of golden and purple transition that showed the approach of winter. The grass was as green, and the dog-roses as abundant, as in May; indeed, it was May itself, only wanting the fireflies and the violets. One must have felt the languor of an Italian summer, with its closed-shutter existence, its long days of reclusion, without exercise, without prospect, almost without light, to feel the intense delight a bright month of November can bring, with its pathways dry, its rivulets clear, its skies cloudless and blue, – to be able to be about again, to take a fast canter or a brisk walk, is enjoyment great as the first glow of convalescence after sickness. Never are the olive-trees more silvery; never does the leafy fig, or the dark foliage of the orange, contrast so richly with its golden fruit. To enjoy all these was reason enough why the Heathcotes should linger there; at least, they said that was their reason, and they believed it. Layton, with his pupil, had established himself in the little city of Lucca, a sort of deserted, God-forgotten old place, with tumble-down palaces, with strange iron “grilles” and quaint old armorial shields over them; he said they had gone there to study, and he believed it.

Mr. O’Shea was still a denizen of the Panini Hotel at the Bagni, – from choice, he said, but he did not believe it; the Morgans had gone back to Wales; Mr. Mosely to Bond Street; and Quackinboss was off to “do” his Etruscan cities, the “pottery, and the rest of it;” and so were they all scattered, Mrs. Penthony Morris and Clara being, however, still at the villa, only waiting for letters to set out for Egypt. Her visit had been prolonged by only the very greatest persuasions. “She knew well – too bitterly did she know – what a blank would life become to her when she had quitted the dear villa.” “What a dreary awaking was in store for them.” “What a sad reverse to poor Clara’s bright picture of existence.” “The dear child used to fancy it could be all like this!” “Better meet the misery at once than wait till they could not find strength to tear themselves away.” Such-like were the sentiments uttered, sometimes tearfully, sometimes in a sort of playful sadness, always very gracefully, by the softest of voices, accompanied by the most downcast of long-fringed eyelids.

“I am sure I don’t know how May will manage to live without her,” said Charles, who, be it confessed, was thinking far more of his own sorrows than his cousin’s; while he added, in a tone of well-assumed indifference, “We shall all miss her!”

“Miss her,” broke in Sir William; “by George! her departure would create a blank in the society of a city, not to speak of a narrow circle in a remote country-house.” As for May herself, she was almost heart-broken at the thought of separation. It was not alone the winning graces of her manner, and the numberless captivations she possessed, but that she had really such a “knowledge of the heart,” she had given her such an insight into her own nature, that, but for her, she had never acquired; and poor May would shudder at the thought of the ignorance with which she had been about to commence the voyage of life, until she had fortunately chanced upon this skilful pilot. But for Mrs. Morris it was possible, nay, it was almost certain, she should one day or other have married Charles Heathcote, – united herself to one in every way unsuited to her, “a good-tempered, easy-natured, indolent creature, with no high ambitions, – a man to shoot and fish, and play billiards, and read French novels, but not the soaring intellect, not the high intelligence, the noble ascendancy of mind, that should win such a heart as yours, May.” How strange it was that she should never before have recognized in Charles all the blemishes and shortcomings she now detected in his character! How singular that she had never remarked how selfish he was, how utterly absorbed in his own pursuits, how little deference he had for the ways or wishes of others, and then, how abrupt, almost to rudeness, his manners! To be sure, part of this careless and easy indifference might be ascribed to a certain sense of security; “he knows you are betrothed to him, dearest; he is sure you must one day be his wife, or, very probably, he would be very different, – more of an ardent suitor, more eager and anxious in his addresses. Ah, there it is! men are ever so, and yet they expect that we poor creatures are to accept that half fealty as a full homage, and be content with that small measure of affection they deign to accord us! That absurd Will has done it all, dear child. It is one of those contracts men make on parchment, quite forgetting that there are such things as human affections. You must marry him, and there’s an end of it!”

Now, Charles, on his side, was very fond of his cousin. If he was n’t in love with her, it was because he did n’t very well understand what being in love meant; he had a notion, indeed, that it implied giving up hunting and coursing, having no dogs, not caring for the Derby, or even opening “Punch” or smoking a cigar. Well, he could, he believed, submit to much, perhaps all, of these, but he could n’t, at least he did n’t fancy he could, be “spooney.” He came to Mrs. Morris with confessions of this kind, and she undertook to consider his case.

Lastly, there was Sir William to consult her about his son and his ward. He saw several nice and difficult points in their so-called engagement which would require the delicate hand of a clever woman; and where could he find one more to the purpose than Mrs. Penthony Morris?

With a skill all her own, she contrived to have confidential intercourse almost every day with each of the family. If she wished to see Sir William, it was only to pretend to write a letter, or look for some volume in the library, and she was sure to meet him. May was always in her own drawing-room, or the flower-garden adjoining it; and Charles passed his day rambling listlessly about the stables and the farm-yard, or watching the peasants at their work beneath the olive-trees. To aid her plans, besides, Clara could always be despatched to occupy and engage the attention of some other. Not indeed, that Clara was as she used to be. Far from it. The merry, light-hearted, capricious child, with all her strange and wayward ways, was changed into a thoughtful, pensive girl, loving to be alone and unnoticed. So far from exhibiting her former dislike to study, she was now intensely eager for it, passing whole days and great part of the night at her books. There was about her that purpose-like intentness that showed a firm resolve to learn. Nor was it alone in this desire for acquirement that she was changed, but her whole temper and disposition seemed altered. She had grown more gentle and more obedient. If her love of praise was not less, she accepted it with more graceful modesty, and appeared to feel it rather as a kindness than an acknowledged debt. The whole character of her looks, too, had altered. In place of the elfin sprightliness of her ever-laughing eyes, their expression was soft even to sadness; her voice, that once had the clear ringing of a melodious bell, had grown low, and with a tender sweetness that gave to each word a peculiar grace.

“What is the matter with Clara?” said Sir William, as he found himself, one morning, alone with Mrs. Morris in the library. “She never sings now, and she does not seem the same happy creature she used to be.”

“Can you not detect the cause of this, Sir William?” said her mother, with a strange sparkle in her eyes.

“I protest I cannot. It is not, surely, that she is unhappy here?”

“No, no, very far from that.”

“It cannot be ill health, for she is the very picture of the contrary.”

“No, no,” said her mother again.

“What can it be?”

“Say, rather, who?” broke in Mrs. Morris, “and I ‘ll tell you.”

“Who, then? Tell me by all means.”

“Mr. Layton. Yes, Sir William, this is his doing. I have remarked it many a day back. You are aware, of course, how sedulously he endeavors to make himself acceptable in another quarter?”

“What do you mean? What quarter? Surely you do not allude to my ward?”

“You certainly do not intend me to believe that you have not seen this, Sir William?”

“I declare not only that I have never seen, but never so much as suspected it. And have you seen it, Mrs. Morris?”

“Ah! Sir William, this is our woman’s privilege, though really in the present case it did not put the faculty to any severe test.”

For a moment or two he made no reply, and then said, “And Charles – has Charles remarked it?”

“I really cannot tell you. His manner is usually so easy and indifferent about everything, that, whether it comes of not seeing or never caring, I cannot pretend to guess.”

“I asked the young man here, because he was with Lord Agincourt,” began Sir William, who was most eager to offer some apologies to himself for any supposed indiscretion. “Agincourt’s guardian, Lord Sommerville, and myself have had some unpleasant passages in life, and I wished to show the boy that towards him I bore no memory of the ills I received from his uncle. In fact, I was doubly civil and attentive on that account; but as for Mr. Layton, – isn’t that his name?”

“Yes; Alfred Layton.”

“Layton came as the lad’s tutor, – nothing more. He appeared a pleasing, inoffensive, well-bred young fellow. But surely, Mrs. Morris, my ward has given him no encouragement?”

“Encouragement is a strong word, Sir William,” said she, smiling archly; “I believe it is only widows who give encouragement?”

“Well, well,” said he, hurriedly, and not caring to smile, for he was in no jesting mood, “has she appeared to understand his attentions?”

“Even young ladies make no mistakes on that score,” said she, in the same bantering tone.

“And I never to see it!” exclaimed he, as he walked hurriedly to and fro. “But I ought to have seen it, eh, Mrs. Morris? – I ought to have seen it. I ought, at least, to have suspected that these fellows are always on the lookout for such a chance as this. Now I suppose you ‘ll laugh at me for the confession, but my attention was entirely engaged by watching our Irish friend.”

“The great O’Shea!” exclaimed Mrs. Morris, laughing.

“And to tell you the truth, I never could exactly satisfy myself whether he came here to ogle my ward, or win Charley’s half-crowns at billiards.”

“I imagine, if you asked him, he ‘d say he was in for the ‘double event,’” said she, with a laugh.

“And, then, Mrs. Morris,” added he, with a sly smile, “if I must be candid, I fancied, or thought I fancied, his attentions had another object.”

“Towards me!” said she, calmly, but in an accent as honest, as frank, and as free from all concern as though speaking of a third person. “Oh, that is quite true. Mr. Layton also made his little quiet love to me as college men do it, and I accepted the homage of both, feeling that I was a sort of lightning-conductor that might rescue the rest of the building.”

Sir William laughed as much at the arch quietness of her manner as her words. “How blind I have been all this time!” burst he in, angrily, as he reverted to the subject of his chagrin. “I suppose there’s not another man living would not have seen this but myself.”

“No, no,” said she, gently; “men are never nice observers in these matters.”

“Well, better late than never, eh, Mrs. Morris? Better to know it even now. Forewarned, – as the adage says, – eh?”

In these little broken sentences he sought to comfort himself, while he angled for some consolation from his companion; but she gave him none, – not a word, nor a look, nor a gesture.

“Of course I shall forbid him the house.”

“And make a hero of him from that moment, and a martyr of her,” quietly replied she. “By such a measure as this you would at once convert what may be possibly a passing flirtation into a case of love.”

“So that I am to leave the course free, and give him every opportunity to prosecute his suit?”

“Not exactly. But do not erect barriers just high enough to be surmounted. Let him come here just as usual, and I will try if I cannot entangle him in a little serious flirtation with myself, which certainly, if it succeed, will wound May’s pride, and cure her of any weakness for him.”

Sir William made no reply, but he stared at the speaker with a sort of humorous astonishment, and somehow her cheek flushed under the look.

“These are womanish artifices, which you men hold cheaply, of course; but little weapons suit little wars, Sir William, and such are our campaigns. At all events, count upon my aid till Monday next.”

“And why not after?”

“Because the Peninsular and Oriental packet touches at Malta on Saturday, and Clara and I must be there in time to catch it.”

“Oh no; we cannot spare you. In fact, we are decided on detaining you. May would break up house here and follow you to the Pyramids, – the Upper Cataracts, – anywhere, in short. But leave us you must not.”

She covered her face with her handkerchief, and never spoke, but a slight motion of her shoulders showed that she was sobbing. “I have been so uncandid with you all this time,” said she, in broken accents. “I should have told you all, – everything. I ought to have confided to you the whole sad story of my terrible bereavement and its consequences; but I could not. No, Sir William, I could not endure the thought of darkening the sunshine of all the happiness I saw here by the cloud of my sorrows. When I only saw faces of joy around me, I said to my heart, ‘What right have I, in my selfishness, to obtrude here?’ And then, again, I bethought me, ‘Would they admit me thus freely to their hearth and home if they knew the sad, sad story?’ In a word,” said she, throwing down the handkerchief, and turning towards him with soft and tearful eyes, “I could not risk the chance of losing your affection, for you might have censured, you might have thought me too unforgiving, – too relentless!”

Here she again bent down her head, and was lost in an access of fresh afflictions.

Never was an elderly gentleman more puzzled than Sir William. He felt that he ought to offer consolation, but of what nature or for what calamity he could n’t even guess. It was an awkward case altogether, and he never fancied awkward cases at any time. Then he had that unchivalric sentiment that elderly gentlemen occasionally will have, – a sort of half distrust of “injured women.” This was joined to a sense of shame that it was usually supposed by the world men of his time of life were always the ready victims of such sympathies. In fact, he disliked the situation immensely, and could only muster a few commonplace remarks to extricate himself from it.

“You’ll let me tell you everything; I know you will,” said she, looking bewitchingly soft and tender through her tears.

“Of coarse I will, my dear Mrs. Morris, but not now, – not to-day. You really are not equal to it at this moment.”

“True, I am not!” said she, drying her eyes; “but it is a promise, and you ‘ll not forget it.”

“You only do me honor in the confidence,” said he, kissing her hand.

“A thousand pardons!” cried a rich brogue. And at the same moment the library door was closed, and the sound of retreating steps was heard along the corridor.

“That insufferable O’Shea!” exclaimed she. “What will he not say of us?”