CHAPTER V.
THE FITZGERALDS OF CASTLE RICHMOND.
What idea of carrying out his plans may have been prevalent inFitzgerald's mind when he was so defiant of the countess, it may bedifficult to say. Probably he had no idea, but felt at the spur ofthe moment that it would be weak to yield. The consequence was, thatwhen Lady Desmond left Hap House, he was obliged to consider himselfas being at feud with the family.
The young lord he did see once again during the holidays, and evenentertained him at Hap House; but the earl's pride would not give wayan inch.
"Much as I like you, Owen, I cannot do anything but oppose it. Itwould be a bad match for my sister, and so you'd feel if you were inmy place." And then Lord Desmond went back to Eton.
After that they none of them met for many months. During this timelife went on in a very triste manner at Desmond Court. Lady Desmondfelt that she had done her duty by her daughter; but her tendernessto Clara was not increased by the fact that her foolish attachmenthad driven Fitzgerald from the place. As for Clara herself, shenot only kept her word, but rigidly resolved to keep it. Twice shereturned unopened, and without a word of notice, letters which Owenhad caused to be conveyed to her hand. It was not that she had ceasedto love him, but she had high ideas of truth and honour, and wouldnot break her word. Perhaps she was sustained in her misery by theremembrance that heroines are always miserable.
And then the orgies at Hap House became hotter and faster. Hithertothere had perhaps been more smoke than fire, more calumny than sin.And Fitzgerald, when he had intimated that the presence of a youngwife would save him from it all, had not boasted falsely. But nowthat his friends had turned their backs upon him, that he wasbanished from Desmond Court, and twitted with his iniquities atCastle Richmond, he threw off all restraint, and endeavoured to enjoyhimself in his own way. So the orgies became fast and furious; allwhich of course reached the ears of poor Clara Desmond.
During the summer holidays, Lord Desmond was not at home, but OwenFitzgerald was also away. He had gone abroad, perhaps with theconviction that it would be well that he and the Desmonds should notmeet; and he remained abroad till the hunting season again commenced.Then the winter came again, and he and Lord Desmond used to meet inthe field. There they would exchange courtesies, and, to a certaindegree, show that they were intimate. But all the world knew that theold friendship was over. And, indeed, all the world--all the countyCork world--soon knew the reason. And so we are brought down to theperiod at which our story was to begin.
We have hitherto said little or nothing of Castle Richmond and itsinhabitants; but it is now time that we should do so, and we willbegin with the heir of the family. At the period of which we arespeaking, Herbert Fitzgerald had just returned from Oxford, havingcompleted his affairs there in a manner very much to the satisfactionof his father, mother, and sisters; and to the unqualified admirationof his aunt, Miss Letty. I am not aware that the heads of colleges,and supreme synod of Dons had signified by any general expression ofsentiment, that Herbert Fitzgerald had so conducted himself as tobe a standing honour and perpetual glory to the University; but atCastle Richmond it was all the same as though they had done so. Thereare some kindly-hearted, soft-minded parents, in whose estimationnot to have fallen into disgrace shows the highest merit on the partof their children. Herbert had not been rusticated; had not gotinto debt, at least not to an extent that had been offensive tohis father's pocket; he had not been plucked. Indeed, he had takenhonours, in some low unnoticed degree;--unnoticed, that is, atOxford; but noticed at Castle Richmond by an ovation--almost by atriumph.
But Herbert Fitzgerald was a son to gladden a father's heart and amother's eye. He was not handsome, as was his cousin Owen; not talland stalwart and godlike in his proportions, as was the revellerof Hap House; but nevertheless, and perhaps not the less, was hepleasant to look on. He was smaller and darker than his cousin; buthis eyes were bright and full of good humour. He was clean lookingand clean made; pleasant and courteous in all his habits; attachedto books in a moderate, easy way, but no bookworm; he had a gentleaffection for bindings and title-pages; was fond of pictures, ofwhich it might be probable that he would some day know more thanhe did at present; addicted to Gothic architecture, and alreadyproprietor of the germ of what was to be a collection of coins.
Owen Fitzgerald had called him a prig; but Herbert was no prig. Noryet was he a pedant; which word might, perhaps, more nearly haveexpressed his cousin's meaning. He liked little bits of learning,the easy outsides and tags of classical acquirements, which come soeasily within the scope of the memory when a man has passed some tenyears between a public school and a university. But though he didlove to chew the cud of these morsels of Attic grass which he hadcropped, certainly without any great or sustained effort, he had nodesire to be ostentatious in doing so, or to show off more than heknew. Indeed, now that he was away from his college friends, he wasrather ashamed of himself than otherwise when scraps of quotationswould break forth from him in his own despite. Looking at his truecharacter, it was certainly unjust to call him either a prig or apedant.
He was fond of the society of ladies, and was a great favourite withhis sisters, who thought that every girl who saw him must instantlyfall in love with him. He was goodnatured, and, as the only son of arich man, was generally well provided with money. Such a brother isusually a favourite with his sisters. He was a great favourite toowith his aunt, whose heart, however, was daily sinking into her shoesthrough the effect of one great terror which harassed her respectinghim. She feared that he had become a Puseyite. Now that means muchwith some ladies in England; but with most ladies of the Protestantreligion in Ireland, it means, one may almost say, the very Father ofMischief himself. In their minds, the pope, with his lady of Babylon,his college of cardinals, and all his community of pinchbeck saints,holds a sort of second head-quarters of his own at Oxford. And therehis high priest is supposed to be one wicked infamous Pusey, and hisworshippers are wicked infamous Puseyites. Now, Miss Letty Fitzgeraldwas strong on this subject, and little inklings had fallen from hernephew which robbed her of much of her peace of mind.
It is impossible that these volumes should be graced by any hero,for the story does not admit of one. But if there were to be a hero,Herbert Fitzgerald would be the man.
Sir Thomas Fitzgerald at this period was an old man in appearance,though by no means an old man in years, being hardly more than fifty.Why he should have withered away as it were into premature grayness,and loss of the muscle and energy of life, none knew; unless, indeed,his wife did know. But so it was. He had, one may say, all that akind fortune could give him. He had a wife who was devoted to him; hehad a son on whom he doted, and of whom all men said all good things;he had two sweet, happy daughters; he had a pleasant house, a fineestate, position and rank in the world. Had it so pleased him, hemight have sat in Parliament without any of the trouble, and withvery little of the expense, which usually attends aspirants for thathonour. And, as it was, he might hope to see his son in Parliamentwithin a year or two. For among other possessions of the Fitzgeraldfamily was the land on which stands the borough of Kilcommon, aborough to which the old Reform Bill was merciful, as it was to somany others in the south of Ireland.
Why, then, should Sir Thomas Fitzgerald be a silent, melancholy man,confining himself for the last year or two almost entirely to his ownstudy; giving up to his steward the care even of his own demesne andfarm; never going to the houses of his friends, and rarely welcomingthem to his; rarely as it was, and never as it would have been, hadhe been always allowed to have his own way?
People in the surrounding neighbourhood had begun to say that SirThomas's sorrow had sprung from shortness of cash, and that money wasnot so easily to be had at Castle Richmond now-a-days as was the casesome ten years since. If this were so, the dearth of that very usefularticle could not have in any degree arisen from extravagance. Itwas well known that Sir Thomas's estate was large, being of a value,according to that public and well-authenticat
ed rent-roll which theneighbours of a rich man always carry in their heads, amounting totwelve or fourteen thousand a year. Now Sir Thomas had come into theunencumbered possession of this at an early age, and had never beenextravagant himself or in his family. His estates were strictlyentailed, and therefore, as he had only a life interest in them,it of course was necessary that he should save money and insurehis life, to make provision for his daughters. But by a man of hishabits and his property, such a burden as this could hardly have beenaccounted any burden at all. That he did, however, in this mentalprivacy of his carry some heavy burden, was made plain enough to allwho knew him.
And Lady Fitzgerald was in many things a counterpart of her husband,not in health so much as in spirits. She, also, was old for her age,and woebegone, not only in appearance, but also in the inner workingsof her heart. But then it was known of her that she had undergonedeep sorrows in her early youth, which had left their mark upon herbrow, and their trace upon her inmost thoughts. Sir Thomas had notbeen her first husband. When very young, she had been married, orrather, given in marriage, to a man who in a very few weeks afterthat ill-fated union had shown himself to be perfectly unworthy ofher.
Her story, or so much of it as was known to her friends, was this.Her father had been a clergyman in Dorsetshire, burdened with a smallincome, and blessed with a large family. She who afterwards becameLady Fitzgerald was his eldest child; and, as Miss Wainwright--MaryWainwright--had grown up to be the possessor of almost perfect femaleloveliness. While she was yet very young, a widower with an only boy,a man who at that time was considerably less than thirty, had comeinto her father's parish, having rented there a small hunting-box.This gentleman--we will so call him, in lack of some otherterm--immediately became possessed of an establishment, at any rateeminently respectable. He had three hunters, two grooms, and a gig;and on Sundays went to church with a prayer-book in his hand, anda black coat on his back. What more could be desired to prove hisrespectability?
He had not been there a month before he was intimate in the parson'shouse. Before two months had passed he was engaged to the parson'sdaughter. Before the full quarter had flown by, he and the parson'sdaughter were man and wife; and in five months from the time of hisfirst appearance in the Dorsetshire parish, he had flown from hiscreditors, leaving behind him his three horses, his two grooms, hisgig, his wife, and his little boy.
The Dorsetshire neighbours, and especially the Dorsetshire ladies,had at first been loud in their envious exclamations as to MissWainwright's luck. The parson and the parson's wife, and poor MaryWainwright herself, had, according to the sayings of that momentprevalent in the county, used most unjustifiable wiles in trappingthis poor rich stranger. Miss Wainwright, as they all declared, hadnot clothes to her back when she went to him. The matter had been gotup and managed in most indecent hurry, so as to rob the poor fellowof any chance of escape. And thus all manner of evil things weresaid, in which envy of the bride and pity of the bridegroom wereequally commingled.
But when the sudden news came that Mr. Talbot had bolted, and whenafter a week's inquiry no one could tell whither Mr. Talbot had gone,the objurgations of the neighbours were expressed in a differenttone. Then it was declared that Mr. Wainwright had sacrificed hisbeautiful child without making any inquiry as to the character ofthe stranger to whom he had so recklessly given her. The pity of thecounty fell to the share of the poor beautiful girl, whose welfareand happiness were absolutely ruined; and the parson was pulled topieces for his sordid parsimony in having endeavoured to rid himselfin so disgraceful a manner of the charge of one of his children.
It would be beyond the scope of my story to tell here of the anxiousfamily councils which were held in that parsonage parlour, during thetime of that daughter's courtship. There had been misgivings as tothe stability of the wooer; there had been an anxious wish not tolose for the penniless daughter the advantage of a wealthy match;the poor girl herself had been much cross-questioned as to her ownfeelings. But let them have been right, or let them have been wrongat that parsonage, the matter was settled, very speedily as we haveseen; and Mary Wainwright became Mrs. Talbot when she was stillalmost a child.
And then Mr. Talbot bolted; and it became known to the Dorsetshireworld that he had not paid a shilling for rent, or for butcher's meatfor his human family, or for oats for his equine family, during thewhole period of his sojourn at Chevy-chase Lodge. Grand referenceshad been made to a London banker, which had been answered byassurances that Mr. Talbot was as good as the Bank of England. Butit turned out that the assurances were forged, and that the letterof inquiry addressed to the London banker had been intercepted. Inshort, it was all ruin, roguery, and wretchedness.
And very wretched they all were, the old father, the young bride, andall that parsonage household. After much inquiry something at lastwas discovered. The man had a sister whose whereabouts was made out;and she consented to receive the child--on condition that the bairnshould not come to her empty-handed. In order to get rid of thisburden, Mr. Wainwright with great difficulty made up thirty pounds.
And then it was discovered that the man's name was not Talbot.What it was did not become known in Dorsetshire, for the poor wiferesumed her maiden name--with very little right to do so, as her kindneighbours observed--till fortune so kindly gave her the privilege ofbearing another honourably before the world.
And then other inquiries, and almost endless search was made withreference to that miscreant--not quite immediately--for at the momentof the blow such search seemed to be but of little use; but aftersome months, when the first stupor arising from their grief hadpassed away, and when they once more began to find that the fieldswere still green, and the sun warm, and that God's goodness was notat an end.
And the search was made not so much with reference to him as to hisfate, for tidings had reached the parsonage that he was no more. Theperiod was that in which Paris was occupied by the allied forces,when our general, the Duke of Wellington, was paramount in the Frenchcapital, and the Tuileries and Champs Elysees were swarming withEnglishmen.
Report at the time was brought home that the soi-disant Talbot,fighting his battles under the name of Chichester, had been seen andnoted in the gambling-houses of Paris; that he had been forciblyextruded from some such chamber for non-payment of a gambling debt;that he had made one in a violent fracas which had subsequently takenplace in the French streets; and that his body had afterwards beenidentified in the Morgue.
Such was the story which bit by bit reached Mr. Wainwright's ears,and at last induced him to go over to Paris, so that the absolute andproof-sustained truth of the matter might be ascertained, and madeknown to all men. The poor man's search was difficult and weary. Theways of Paris were not then so easy to an Englishman as they havesince become, and Mr. Wainwright could not himself speak a word ofFrench. But nevertheless he did learn much; so much as to justifyhim, as he thought, in instructing his daughter to wear a widow'scap. That Talbot had been kicked out of a gambling-house in the RueRichelieu was absolutely proved. An acquaintance who had been withhim in Dorsetshire on his first arrival there had seen this done;and bore testimony of the fact that the man so treated was the manwho had taken the hunting-lodge in England. This same acquaintancehad been one of the party adverse to Talbot in the row which hadfollowed, and he could not, therefore, be got to say that he hadseen him dead. But other evidence had gone to show that the man whohad been so extruded was the man who had perished; and the Frenchlawyer whom Mr. Wainwright had employed, at last assured the poorbroken-hearted clergyman that he might look upon it as proved. "Hadhe not been dead," said the lawyer, "the inquiry which has beenmade would have traced him out alive." And thus his daughter wasinstructed to put on her widow's cap, and her mother again called herMrs. Talbot.
Indeed, at that time they hardly knew what to call her, or how to actin the wisest and most befitting manner. Among those who had trulyfelt for them in their misfortunes, who had really pitied them andencountered them with loving sympathy, the kinde
st and most valuedfriend had been the vicar of a neighbouring parish. He himself wasa widower without children; but living with him at that time, andreading with him, was a young gentleman whose father was just dead,a baronet of large property, and an Irishman. This was Sir ThomasFitzgerald.
It need not now be told how this young man's sympathies were alsoexcited, or how sympathy had grown into love. In telling our talewe fain would not dwell much on the cradledom of our Meleager. Theyoung widow in her widow's cap grew to be more lovely than shehad ever been before her miscreant husband had seen her. They whoremembered her in those days told wondrous tales of her surprisingloveliness;--how men from London would come down to see her in theparish church; how she was talked of as the Dorsetshire Venus, onlythat unlike Venus she would give a hearing to no man; how sad she wasas well as lovely; and how impossible it was found to win a smilefrom her.
But though she could not smile, she could love; and at last sheaccepted the love of the young baronet. And then the father, who hadso grossly neglected his duty when he gave her in marriage to anunknown rascally adventurer, endeavoured to atone for such neglectby the severest caution with reference to this new suitor. Furtherinquiries were made. Sir Thomas went over to Paris himself with thatother clergyman. Lawyers were employed in England to sift out thetruth; and at last, by the united agreement of some dozen men, allof whom were known to be worthy, it was decided that Talbot was dead,and that his widow was free to choose another mate. Another mate shehad already chosen, and immediately after this she was married to SirThomas Fitzgerald.
Such was the early life-story of Lady Fitzgerald; and as this waswidely known to those who lived around her--for how could such alife-story as that remain untold?--no one wondered why she shouldbe gentle and silent in her life's course. That she had been anexcellent wife, a kind and careful mother, a loving neighbour tothe poor, and courteous neighbour to the rich, all the countyCork admitted. She had lived down envy by her gentleness and softhumility, and every one spoke of her and her retiring habits withsympathy and reverence.
But why should her husband also be so sad--nay, so much sadder?For Lady Fitzgerald, though she was gentle and silent, was nota sorrowful woman--otherwise than she was made so by seeing herhusband's sorrow. She had been to him a loving partner, and no mancould more tenderly have returned a wife's love than he had done.One would say that all had run smoothly at Castle Richmond since thehouse had been made happy, after some years of waiting, by the birthof an eldest child and heir. But, nevertheless, those who knew mostof Sir Thomas saw that there was a peacock on the wall.
It is only necessary to say further a word or two as to the otherladies of the family, and hardly necessary to say that. Mary andEmmeline Fitzgerald were both cheerful girls. I do not mean that theywere boisterous laughers, that in waltzing they would tear round aroom like human steam-engines, that they rode well to hounds as someyoung ladies now-a-days do--and some young ladies do ride very wellto hounds; nor that they affected slang, and decked their personswith odds and ends of masculine costume. In saying that they werecheerful, I by no means wish it to be understood that they were loud.
They were pretty, too, but neither of them lovely, as their motherhad been--hardly, indeed, so lovely as that pale mother was now,even in these latter days. Ah, how very lovely that pale mother was,as she sat still and silent in her own place on the small sofa bythe slight, small table which she used! Her hair was gray, and hereyes sunken, and her lips thin and bloodless; but yet never shall Isee her equal for pure feminine beauty, for form and outline, forpassionless grace, and sweet, gentle, womanly softness. All her sadtale was written upon her brow; all its sadness and all its poetry.One could read there the fearful, all but fatal danger to which herchildhood had been exposed, and the daily thanks with which shepraised her God for having spared and saved her.
But I am running back to the mother in attempting to say a wordabout her children. Of the two, Emmeline, the younger, was the morelike her; but no one who was a judge of outline could imagine thatEmmeline, at her mother's age, would ever have her mother's beauty.Nevertheless, they were fine, handsome girls, more popular in theneighbourhood than any of their neighbours, well educated, sensible,feminine, and useful; fitted to be the wives of good men.
And what shall I say of Miss Letty? She was ten years older than herbrother, and as strong as a horse. She was great at walking, andrecommended that exercise strongly to all young ladies as an antidoteto every ill, from love to chilblains. She was short and dapper inperson; not ugly, excepting that her nose was long, and had a littlebump or excrescence at the end of it. She always wore a bonnet, evenat meal times; and was supposed by those who were not intimatelyacquainted with the mysteries of her toilet, to sleep in it; often,indeed, she did sleep in it, and gave unmusical evidence of her doingso. She was not illnatured; but so strongly prejudiced on many pointsas to be equally disagreeable as though she were so. With her, aswith the world in general, religion was the point on which thoseprejudices were the strongest; and the peculiar bent they took washorror and hatred of popery. As she lived in a country in which theRoman Catholic was the religion of all the poorer classes, and ofvery many persons who were not poor, there was ample scope in whichher horror and hatred could work. She was charitable to a fault, andwould exercise that charity for the good of Papists as willingly asfor the good of Protestants; but in doing so she always rememberedthe good cause. She always clogged the flannel petticoat with someProtestant teaching, or burdened the little coat and trousers withthe pains and penalties of idolatry.
When her brother had married the widow Talbot, her anger with himand her hatred towards her sister-in-law had been extreme. But timeand conviction had worked in her so thorough a change, that she nowalmost worshipped the very spot in which Lady Fitzgerald habituallysat. She had the faculty to know and recognize goodness when she sawit, and she had known and recognized it in her brother's wife.
Him also, her brother himself, she warmly loved and greatlyreverenced. She deeply grieved over his state of body and mind, andwould have given all she ever had, even her very self, to restore himto health and happiness.
The three children of course she loved, and petted, and scolded;and as children bothered them out of all their peace and quietness.To the girls she was still almost as great a torment as in theirchildish days. Nevertheless, they still loved, and sometimes obeyedher. Of Herbert she stood somewhat more in awe. He was the futurehead of the family, and already a Bachelor of Arts. In a very fewyears he would probably assume the higher title of a married man ofarts, she thought; and perhaps the less formidable one of a member ofParliament also. Him, therefore, she treated with deference. But,alas! what if he should become a Puseyite!