Part 11 (1/2)
My stay at Kerton Manor was drawing to a close. I had lingered there too long already, and letters from neglected relatives and friends came, reproachful, with every post. The day before I went, Guy called me into his study.
”Frank,” he said, ”I am in a great strait of perplexity; my uncle has been attacking me this morning about Isabel and Charley. Bruce puts him up to it, of course.”
”I thought it would come; but why on earth did not Bruce speak to you, if not to Forrester, himself? Perhaps it was from delicacy, though. Let us hope so.”
”How philanthropic we are!” Guy retorted. ”I don't believe any other man would have spoken of delicacy and that rough-hewn log of Scotch-fir in the same breath. My dear boy, the thing is as simple as possible--the man is a coward. He is as careful of that precious person of his as if it were worth preserving, so he shoots his arrows from behind Uncle Henry's Telamonian s.h.i.+eld. Nothing is so acute and right-judging as the instinct of fear. He knows that if he had a fancy for a quarrel, either Charley or I would be too happy to indulge him.”
”He can't be such a dastard,” I said.
”I am sure of it; but he is not the less dangerous for that. Such men are always the most unscrupulous in revenge. I have seen murder in his eyes a score of times in the last fortnight. If our lines had fallen in the pleasant Italian places, he would have invested twenty scudi long ago in hiring a dagger. As it is, civilization and the rural police stand our friends; but I have strongly advised Charley not to trust himself near him in cover. By G--d, I think, for once in his life, he would hold straight!”
”You don't like him, that's evident.”
The pupils of Livingstone's eyes contracted ominously; a lurid flash shot out from under his black, bent brows, and there came on his lip that peculiar smile that we fancy on the face of Homeric heroes--more fell, and cruel, and terrible than even their own frown--just before they leveled the spear. He laid his broad hand, corded across with a net-work of tangled sinews, on the table before him, and the stout oak creaked and trembled.
”If I were to strangle him,” he said, ”as I constantly feel tempted to do, I believe I should deserve well of the state. But, with all that, I don't like plotting against him under my own roof; it strikes me that is a phase of hospitality not strictly Arabian. My mother laments over him already as hardly dealt with. Then Uncle Henry is a great difficulty. He is not in the least one of the light comedy fathers who, during two acts, stamps about with many strange oaths and stormy denials, but in the last yields to fate and _soubrettes_, says 'Bless you, my children!'
and hands out untold gold. There is no more appeal from his decisions than from Major A----'s. He dislikes Bruce, of course; but he would just as soon think of objecting to a partner at whist as to a son-in-law because he happened to be unprepossessing. When the poor little Iphigenia is sacrificed on the shrine of expediency, you will see him, not veiling his face but taking snuff with the calm grace that is peculiar to him. Arguing with such a man is a simple absurdity.”
”I can not advise you,” I answered, sadly; ”but it seems hard on Miss Raymond, too.”
”Of course it is,” Livingstone broke in; ”and the worst of it is, the poor child looks to me to help her. I can't bear to think of what her life would be if she married Bruce. He would be constantly retaliating on her for what he is suffering now--for he does suffer. A pleasant idea that she, who is only meant to be petted, should be set up as a target for his jealousy and ill-humor! She would never be able to stand it, and Charley wouldn't if she could; and then there would be a _denouement_ like that which ruined Ralph Mohun. If there _is_ to be a row, it had better come before than after marriage. It's more moral, and saves an infinity of trouble. I think Charley is better away, too, just now.
Parndon wants us both to stay with him. We'll go; and so my conscience will stand at ease for the present. When we are on neutral ground I can help them, or, at all events, 'let the justice of the king pa.s.s by.'”
”Have you spoken to Forrester yet?”
”No; but he will do as I advise, and temporize, I am sure, though he would hardly give up Bella, even if I asked him. He means business for once, evidently. They will have plenty of time to concert their plans before the summer. Charley wants no help in that. As to carrying them out--we shall see. Well, you will go to-morrow. I am very sorry, for all reasons. I hope you have not been much bored here. Kerton counts on you for next winter.”
I need not give my answer. I felt really loth to go; but, fortunately for my peace of mind, I could not guess at the changes that would be wrought in the hopes, the intentions, the destinies of all of us before I should stand in the fine old manor-house again.
If adieus are painful in reality, they ate intensely stupid on paper--a landscape without a foreground--so I spare you next morning's leave-takings.
Guy had said nothing to his cousin then of the plan he had determined on. I was glad of it. I was glad not to see, at parting, her sweet face so sad as I am sure it became when she heard that she was to struggle against Brace's persecutions and her own antipathies unaided and alone.
I wandered through many counties, and then went to Ireland. During the next few months I saw the faces I had left behind me many times, but only in my dreams.
CHAPTER XVI.
”The only living thing he could not hate Was reft at once--and he deserved his fate, But did not feel it less; the good explore For peace, these realms where guilt can never soar; The proud--the wayward--who have fixed below Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe, Lose in that one their all--perchance a mite-- But who in patience parts with all delight?”
Pleasant days they were when, through the soft spring weather, I wandered round the coasts of Kerry, Clare, and Galway, hooking salmon in broad pools, where the vexed water rests a while from its labors under wooded cliffs, and at the tail of roaring rapids, specked with white foam-clots, or sea-trout in the estuaries where the great rivers hurry down to their stormy meeting with the Atlantic rollers.
Every where I met the frank, cheery welcome that you must cross the Channel to find in its perfection.
It is sad to see how widely over that fair land the abomination of desolation has cast its shadow. Many halls are tenantless besides those of Tara. The ancient owners of the soil--where are they? Not a country in Europe but is conscious of these restless, careless, homeless Zingari. In distant provincial towns of France you hear their enormous blunders in grammar and musical Milesian brogue breaking the uniformity of dull legitimist _soirees_. Hombourg and Baden are irradiated with the glory of their whiskers. You find their blue eyes and open, handsome features diversifying the sameness of wooden-faced Austrian squadrons.
Nay, has it not been whispered that the proudest name in Ireland attained a bad eminence in the Grecian Archipelago as the captain of the wickedest of those long low craft that, in the purple dawn or ivory moonlight, steal silently out from behind the headlands of the Cyclades?
But let us do justice to those who remain behind.