The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)

Notwithstanding her intense astonishment at all she saw, the country girl never uttered a word, nor vouchsafed a single question as to the paintings; she even tried to moderate the eager pleasure they afforded by an endeavor not to admire them. Touched by the native pride of this struggle, – for struggle it was, – the features had assumed a look of haughty composure that well became the character of her beauty, and Kate caught up the expression so rapidly that her sketch was already well-nigh completed when Massing-bred entered.

“My dear Mistress Joan,” cried he, shaking her cordially by both hands, “how glad I am to see you again! It was but this very moment I was inquiring how I could go over and pay you a visit.”

Hurriedly as these words were uttered, and in all the apparent fervor of hearty sincerity, they were accompanied by a short glance at Kate Henderson, who was about to leave the room, that plainly said, “Remain where you are, there is no mystery here.”

“I thank yer honer kindly,” said Joan Landy, “but it’s no good coming, he is n’t there.”

“Not there! – how and why is that?”

“Sure you ought to know better than me,” said she, fixing her large eyes full upon him. “Ye left the house together, and he never came back since.”

“Oh, perhaps I can guess,” said Jack, pausing for a moment to reflect. “He might have deemed it safer to keep out of the way for a day or two.”

“It’s no good deceivin’ me, sir,” said she, rising from her seat; “tell me the whole truth. Where is he?”

“That is really more than I can say, my dear Mistress Joan. We parted in Oughterard.”

“And you never saw him after?”

“Never, I assure you.”

“And you never tried to see him? – you never asked what became of him?”

“I concluded, indeed I was certain, that he returned home,” said Jack, but not without some confusion.

“Ay, that was enough for you,” said she, angrily. “If you were a poor labor in’ man, you ‘d not desert him that had you under his roof and gave you the best he had; but because ye ‘re a gentleman – ”

“It is precisely for that reason I can’t suffer you to think so meanly of me,” cried Jack. “Now just hear me for one moment, and you’ll see how unjust you’ve been.” And, drawing his chair closer to hers, he narrated in a low and whispering voice the few events of their morning at Oughterard, and read for her the short note Magennis had written to him.

“And is that all?” exclaimed Joan, when he concluded.

“All, upon my honor!” said he, solemnly.

“Oh, then, wirra! wirra!” said she, wringing her hands sorrowfully, “why did I come here? – why did n’t I bear it all patient? But sure my heart was bursting, and I could not rest nor sleep, thinking of what happened to him! Oh, yer honer knows well what he is to me!” And she covered her face with her hands.

“You have done nothing wrong in coming here,” said Jack, consolingly.

“Not if he never hears of it,” said she, in a voice tremulous with fear.

“That he need never do,” rejoined Jack; “though I cannot see why he should object to it. But come, Mrs. Joan, don’t let this fret you; here’s a young lady will tell you, as I have, that nobody could possibly blame your natural anxiety.”

“What would a young lady know about a poor creature like me?” exclaimed Joan, dejectedly. “Sure, from the day she’s born, she never felt what it was to be all alone and friendless!”

“You little guess to whom you say that,” said Kate, turning round and gazing on her calmly; “but if the balance were struck this minute, take my word for it, you ‘d have the better share of fortune.”

Jack Massingbred’s cheek quivered slightly as he heard these words, and his eyes were bent upon the speaker with an intense meaning. Kate, however, turned haughtily away from the gaze, and coldly reminded him that Mrs. Joan should have some refreshment after her long walk.

“No, miss, – no, yer honer; many thanks for the same,” said Joan, drawing her cloak around her. “I couldn’t eat a bit; my heart’s heavy inside me. I ‘ll go back now.”

Kate tried to persuade her to take something, or, at least, to rest a little longer; but she was resolute, and eager to return.

“Shall we bear you company part of the way, then?” said Jack, with a look of half entreaty towards Kate.

“I shall be but too happy,” said Kate, while she turned the nearly completed sketch to the wall, but not so rapidly as to prevent Massingbred’s catching a glimpse of it.

“How like!” exclaimed he, but only in a whisper audible to himself. “I didn’t know that this also was one of your accomplishments.”

A little laugh and a saucy motion of her head was all her reply, while she went in search of her bonnet and shawl. She was back again in a moment, and the three now issued forth into the wood.

For all Jack Massingbred’s boasted “tact,” and his assumed power of suiting himself to his company, he felt very ill at ease as he walked along that morning. “His world” was not that of the poor country girl at his side, and he essayed in vain to find some topic to interest her. Not so Kate Henderson. With all a woman’s nice perception, and quite without effort, she talked to Joan about the country and the people, of whose habits she knew sufficient not to betray ignorance; and although Joan felt at times a half-suspicious distrust of her, she grew at length to be pleased with the tone of easy familiarity used towards her, and the absence of anything bordering on superiority.

Joan, whose instincts and sympathies were all with the humble class from which she sprung, described in touching language the suffering condition of the people, the terrible struggle against destitution maintained for years, and daily becoming more difficult and hopeless. It was like a shipwrecked crew reduced to quarter-rations, and now about to relinquish even these!

“And they are patient under all this?” asked Kate, with that peculiar accent so difficult to pronounce its meaning.

“They are, indeed, miss,” was the answer.

“Have they any hope? What do they promise themselves as the remedy for these calamities?”

“Sorrow one of ‘em knows,” said she, with a sigh. “Some goes away to America, some sinks slowly under it, and waits for God’s time to leave the world; and a few – but very few – gets roused to anger, and does something to be transported or put in jail.”

“And Miss Martin, – does she not relieve a good deal of this misery? Is she not of immense benefit by her exertions here?”

“Arrah, what can a young lady do, after all? Sure it’s always them that talks most and best gets over her. Some are ashamed, and some are too proud to tell what they ‘re suffering; and I believe in my heart, for one that ‘s relieved there are twenty more angry at seeing how lucky he was.”

They walked along now for some time in silence, when Joan, stopping short, said, “There’s the house, miss; that’s the place I live in.”

“That house far away on the mountain side?”

“Yes, miss; it’s four miles yet from this.”

“But surely you haven’t to walk all that way?”

“What signifies it? Is n’t my heart lighter than when I came along this morning? And now I won’t let you come any farther, for I’ll take a short cut here across the fields.”

“May I go and see you one of these days?” asked Kate.

Joan grew crimson to the very roots of her hair, and turned a look on Massingbred, as though to say, “You ought to answer this for me.” But Jack was too deep in his own thoughts even to notice the appeal.

“I can scarcely ask you to come to me,” said Kate, quickly perceiving a difficulty, “for I ‘m not even a visitor at Cro’ Martin.”

“I ‘m sure I hope it ‘s not the last time we ‘ll meet, miss; but maybe,” – she faltered, and a heavy tear burst forth, and rolled slowly along her cheek, – “maybe you oughtn’t to come and see me.”

Kate pressed her hand affectionately, without speaking, and they parted.

“Is Joan gone?” asked Massingbred, raising his head from an attitude of deep revery. “When did she leave us?”

“There she goes yonder,” said Kate, pointing. “I fear me her spirits are not as light as her footsteps. Are her people very poor?”

“Her father was a herd, I believe,” said he, carelessly; “but she does n’t live at home.”

“Is she married, then?”

“I ‘m not sure that she is; but at least she believes that she is.”

“Poor thing!” said Kate, calmly, while, folding her arms, she continued to gaze after the departing figure of the country girl. “Poor thing!” repeated she once more, and turned to walk homewards.

Massingbred fixed his eyes upon her keenly as she uttered the words; few and simple as they were, they seemed to reveal to him something of the nature of her who spoke them. A mere exclamation – a syllable – will sometimes convey “whole worlds of secret thought and feeling,” and it was evidently thus that Massingbred interpreted this brief expression. “There was nothing of scorn in that pity,” thought he. “I wish she had uttered even one word more! She is a strange creature!”

And it was thus speaking to himself that he walked along at her side.

“This wild and desolate scene is not very like that of which we talked the other night, – when first we met, – Miss Henderson.”

“You forget that we never met,” said she, calmly.

“True, and yet there was a link between us even in those few flowers thrown at random.”

“Don’t be romantic, Mr. Massingbred; do not, I pray you,” said she, smiling faintly. “You know it’s not your style, while it would be utterly thrown away upon me, I am aware that fine gentlemen of your stamp deem this the fitting tone to assume towards ‘the governess;’ but I ‘m really unworthy of it.”

“What a strange girl you are!” said he, half thinking aloud.

“On the contrary, how very commonplace!” said she, hastily.

“Do you like this country?” asked Massingbred, with an imitation of her own abrupt manner.

“No,” said she, shortly.

“Nor the people?”

“Nor the people!” was the answer.

“And is your life to be passed amongst them?”

“Perhaps,” said she, with a slight gesture of her shoulders. “Don’t you know, Mr. Massingbred,” added she, with more energy, “that a woman has no more power to shape her destiny than a leaf has to choose where it will fall? If I were a man, – you, for instance, – I would think and act differently.”

“I should like to hear what you would do if in my place,” said Jack, with a degree of deep interest in the remark.

“To begin, I’ll tell you what I would not do,” said she, firmly. “I ‘d not waste very good abilities on very small objects; I ‘d neither have small ambitions nor small animosities. You have both.”

“As how?” asked he, frankly, and with no touch of irritation.

“Am I to be candid?”

“Certainly.”

“Even to rudeness?”

“Cut as deeply as you like,” said he, smiling.

“Then here goes: For the ‘small ambition’ I speak of, it was displayed yesterday at dinner, when, in rivalry with that old lawyer, you condescended to play agreeable, to out-talk him, out-quote, and out-anecdote him. It is true you succeeded; but what a poor success it was! how inadequate to the forces that were mustered to effect it!”

“And now for the other count of the indictment,” said he, with a half smile.

“First, do you plead guilty to this one?” asked she.

“Yes; with an ‘extenuating circumstance.’”

“What is that?”

“Why, that you were present,” said Jack, with a glance of more than mere passing gallantry.

“Well,” said she, after a pause, “I did take some of the display to my own share. I saw that you did n’t care to captivate the young lady of the house, and that my Lady bored you.”

“Insufferably!” exclaimed Jack, with energy.

“Your manner showed it,” said she, “even more than such polish ought to have betrayed.”

“But I ‘m sure I never exhibited any signs of my martyrdom,” said he; “I stood my torture well.”

“Not half so heroically as you fancied I noticed your weariness before the dinner was half over, as I detected your splenetic dislike to young Mr. Nelligan – ”

“To young Nelligan? – then he has told you – ”

“Stop, – be cautious,” broke she in, hurriedly; “don’t turn evidence against yourself. He has told me nothing.”

“Then what do you know?”

“Nothing; I only surmise.”

“And what is your surmise?”

“That he and you had met before, – that you had even been intimate, – and now, from some misunderstanding, you had ceased to be friends. Mind, I don’t want confessions; I don’t seek to learn your secrets.”

“But you shall hear this from me,” said Massingbred, with earnestness; “and perhaps you, so ready to blame me for some things, may see reason to think well of me in this.” He then related, briefly, but simply, the history of his acquaintance with Nelligan; he dwelt, not without feeling, upon the passages of their student-life, and at last spoke of his chance visit to Oughterard, and the accident by which he became old Nelligan’s guest. “What can you make of Joseph’s conduct,” cried he; “or how explain his refusal to meet me at his father’s table? One of two reasons there must be. He either discredits me in the character of his friend, or shrinks, with an ignoble shame, from appearing there in his real position, – the son of the country shopkeeper! I scarcely know if I ‘d not prefer he should have been actuated by the former motive; though more offensive to me, in him it were more manly.”

“Why not have asked him which alternative he accepted?” asked Kate.

“Because the opportunity to wound him deeply – incurably – first presented itself. I knew well that nothing would hurt him like the cool assumption of not recognizing him, and I determined not to lose my vengeance.”

“I’m a woman,” said Kate, “and I’d not have stooped to that!”

It was rarely that Massingbred’s emotions gave any evidence of their working; but now his cheek grew crimson, as he said, “A man can only measure a man’s indignation.”

“You are angry without cause,” said she, calmly; “you wish me to pronounce a verdict on an act, and are displeased because I think differently from you. How right I was in my guess that small animosities were amongst your failings! You seek now to quarrel with me!”

Massingbred walked along for some moments without speaking, and then said, “You knew Nelligan formerly?”

“Yes, we were playfellows together as children; lovers, I believe, a little later on – ”

“And now?” broke he in.

“And now very good friends, as the world uses that phrase. At all events,” added she, after a brief pause, “enough his friend to be able to say that you have wronged him by your suspicions. Joe Nelligan – or I’m much mistaken – may feel the inequality of his position as a something to overcome, a barrier to be surmounted; not as a disability to contest the prizes of life even with such as Mr. Massingbred.”

“It is you now would quarrel with me,” said Jack, retorting her own words upon her. “And yet,” he added, in a lower tone, “I would wish to have you my friend.”

“So you can, upon one condition,” replied she, promptly.

“I accept, whatever it be. Name it.”

“That you be your own friend; that you address yourself to the business of life seriously and steadily, resolving to employ your abilities as a means of advancement, not as a mere instrument for amusement; determine, in fact, to be something besides a dilettante and an idler.”

“Is it a bargain, then, if I do this?” asked he, eagerly.

“Yes; I promise you the high and mighty boon of my friendship,” replied she, with mock solemnity.

“And so we seal our contract,” said he, pressing her hand to his lips, but with an air of such respectful gallantry that the action implied nothing bordering on a liberty.

“And now I leave you,” said she, as she opened the wicket-gate of a small flower-garden; “such conferences as ours must not be repeated, or they might be remarked upon. Good-bye.” And without waiting for his reply, she passed on into the garden, while Massingbred stood gazing after her silently and thoughtfully.