CHAPTER XV
The letter (for it was altogether too serious and strange a story to telegraph) which reached Lady Mulgrave, relating the fact that Mary Foley was Joseline Dene, disturbed her to such a degree that she was compelled to plead a shocking headache, and lunch as well as breakfast, in her own apartments.
It took her some time to attempt to realise a stepdaughter, aged twenty-one, Irish, uneducated, vulgar, and tawdry. What could she do with the creature? A social atrocity, a well-born deformity! A girl with the best blood of France and England in her veins, and the ideas, aspirations, and deportment of a kitchen-maid! Oh, she felt as if the foundations of her position, were being upheaved.
If it were only possible to marry the creature, and get her out of the way! But who would care to be the husband of a horror who spoke with a common brogue, probably took sevens in gloves, dressed in emerald green, and had a passion for turf and potatoes?
This discovery was crushing. It seemed to threaten a hopeless state of affairs—a lifelong incubus! Yes, and an incubus who would take the precedence of Tito, and perhaps engage the somewhat flickering attentions of Tito’s cavaliers!—not because of what she was, but of what she would ultimately be—Baroness Marchlyde in her own right, and heiress of many thousands per annum. Apparently there was no mistake about the matter. A sworn information, a legal witness! Alas! there was no escape in that direction. If the girl had been brought up under her father’s roof it would have been a different affair; but twenty-one years in a dirty Irish mud cabin (impossible to dissociate the idea of mud and dirt from anything Irish)—it was too awful to contemplate. The abominable old foster-mother deserved to be hanged; but hanging and capital punishment she had cleverly evaded by death!
There was one small consolation: this new, uneducated person would be easily kept in the background; she resembled the horse and elephant, and was entirely ignorant of her own power, and ignorant she should remain. Lady Mulgrave was a woman who had acquired a special gift for repressing people. In the sweetest and most charming and smiling fashion she could administer the cruellest snubs; her rudeness of speech and manner at times bordered on brutality. To those whom she wished to “put down” or cast out from her circle, to any pushing nouveau riche, or dangerous rival, her affronts were as terrible and as ferocious, in their way, as if she were an East End virago, battering an enemy with a chair or a saucepan.
Lady Mulgrave sent off a charming, sympathetic letter to her husband, declaring that she was longing to welcome the dear child (lies are so easy on paper!), and that in a day or two she would move south and prepare to receive her at Westlands. She wrote the news to intimate friends as a dead secret, and would leave it to them to break it to all their acquaintance. “The old stock plot of a child changed at nurse has actually been flung as a bombshell into our quiet and everyday little family.” (This is how she began her epistle.) “Imagine poor dear Owen, most conventional and practical of men, having a strange grown-up daughter, Irish and uneducated, suddenly thrust into his arms! Of course he has recognised her, claimed her, and brings her to England very shortly; but please, dear, keep this to yourself. We don’t want any talk.” When her ladyship had despatched her correspondence and her lunch, she summoned Miss Tito to her presence. Tito came in with a dishevelled appearance and a flushed face. She had been disturbed in a game of tennis—a match but half decided.
“Well, mum,” she began, “are you better? What is it? Please don’t keep me; I’m having such a ripping game, and they are waiting—Lord Bobby, Mr. Beaufort, Julia Legge, two sets all.”
“I must detain you a few minutes to tell you a piece of family news”—and she took up her husband’s letter, two sheets closely written. “What do you say to a sister?”—and she looked over at Tito.
“A sister!” repeated the girl, with a laugh, “a sister-in-law you mean; I suppose she will be a necessary evil?”
“No, but ‘necessary evil’ is a capital name for the new addition to our family”—and in a few pungent and rapid sentences, Miss Dawson was made acquainted with the facts.
First she opened her eyes, and then her mouth, and stood staring dumbfounded, and totally unable to speak. Next she tore off her hat, flung it on a table, and cast herself into a chair.
“It’s not a joke, is it, mummy?”
“No indeed, but deadly earnest. Could anything be more unexpected, inconvenient and odious? Is not it too awful?”
“Yes; but I cannot get it into my head. What shall you do?”
“Make the best of it, of course.”
“Fancy a common, low, Irish creature! Oh, I hope she won’t expect me to kiss her, or to be seen about with her!”
“You had better be civil to her, Tito, though I grant you it is hard to have an interloper forced on one. She will make us three women—such an uncomfortable number in the carriage and at the opera; and, of course, she takes precedence of you.”
“Well, anyway, she won’t take any pals from me, or any partners. I should think she cannot come out, or be in the least presentable, until she has learnt how to dress and behave herself. I suppose she has never owned a pocket-handkerchief or a tooth-brush. Can she read and write?”
“Of course. Your father is delighted. Well, it is only natural. But——”
“But we are not. And it’s only natural, eh, mum? There! they are calling me. I must fly. Shall I tell them?”
“No-o; only Lady Maxwelton and the girls privately. She is her aunt! It will ooze out presently. There will be the usual nine days’ wonder. We must put up with that.”
Tito picked up her hat and went over to a glass, settled her ruffled hair with both hands, and pinned on the picturesque pink muslin headgear, and stared at herself with a critical expression.
No—although her eyes were good and her dark hair thick, and curly, her nose, as she said herself, was all wrong—she was not pretty, only fascinating and fetching. She had no fear that the coming companion would supplant her. She felt serenely confident that no one would compare her with an awkward, ignorant country girl, even although she was an earl’s daughter.
“I suppose I shall have to sit with my back to the horses in future,” she exclaimed, “and walk behind her ladyship into a room! But I haven’t got to share my allowance, or my maid, or partners. After all, perhaps I may like her very much; there’s nothing bad that might not be worse. Yes,” to a servant who had entered, “I’m coming—coming this moment.”
Meanwhile, Mary—she could not get accustomed to her new name—had left Foley’s farm the evening of Katty’s death, and had been carried off to the “Glenveigh Arms” by her father. Here Miss Usher had been her true and kind friend, and endeavoured to comfort and console her, in what, in the lady’s experience, was an unparalleled situation.
The girl was heart-broken at the death of a woman who was no relation, who had actually stolen her and brought her up in a station different to the one in which she was born; who had robbed her for years of her patrimony and her parent, as well as her position and wealth; yet Mary had no desire to be claimed. She shrank from “his lordship,” as she called him, and earnestly pleaded to be permitted “to live for the rest of her life, according,” as the Prayer-book says, “to its beginning.” Her bewildered father was at his wits’ end. All his newly-found daughter did, when in his society, was to weep, and weep, and weep! She most urgently desired to attend the wake, and passionately protested that if she were not present, people would “talk,” and it would raise a terrible scandal in the county!
But no. Lord Mulgrave, although exceedingly anxious to please her in every way, was firm. It was not befitting that his daughter should be present at a wake. In every possible manner Mrs. Foley’s funeral would be conducted with respect—the Foley family should be benefited; but Mary must endeavour to remember that she had no real connection with them—and was Lady Joseline Dene.
“Lady Joseline Dene!” cried she. “I just hate the likes of her!”—and she got up precipitately! and rushed away to her own room, where she buried her head in the bedclothes.
“There, you see. And what can I do?” he cried, appealing to Miss Usher; and his tone expressed despair.
“Leave her to Mrs. Hogan of the hotel,” replied the lady; “she will talk to her in her own fashion, and by-and-by, when she has had a good rest—you know she has been sitting up nursing Katty for three whole nights—she will be different. At present she is overwrought and out of herself. It is a startling change for a girl—much less one of her impulsive and passionate nature—to lose an identity and a mother, and to find a father, all within the same week. Give her time, a good sleep, and some nourishing food. I should certainly permit her to attend the funeral, and I would arrange for her to have a long interview with Mike Mahon; he has been haunting the hotel. By-and-by he will turn her thoughts to her own mother in a manner, and in speech, we could never emulate.”
“That is an excellent idea. Yes, she must then begin to realise things a little. At present, of course, she is suffering from want of rest, from grief, and from the first sad wrench. At present——”
“At present she is like some newly-caught bird,” continued Miss Usher, “most miserably unhappy.”
“I suppose every bliss has its drawback. This, which has been a supreme joy to me, is agony to her!”
“Leave her to herself for two or three days, and you will see a difference; her own friends will be your strongest allies. They will be so proud of her rank and uplifting that no matter how she desired it, they would never suffer her to return to Foley’s Corner, and live among them as Mary of the gate.”
“Thank you, Miss Usher; you give me wonderful comfort and encouragement, and I will take your advice—do all you say: go with her to the funeral, and allow her to remain here for a time. I had hoped to carry her off to-morrow. Of course, I have a great deal to do, as your brother points out. I must immediately make a new will, and I have to prepare my friends, and——”
“Would you permit me to offer yet another piece of advice?”
“Certainly. I shall be only too glad to accept it.”
“Leave Mary here with me for, say, a fortnight, or even a month, and then return and fetch her. Yes, it may be terribly against the grain, but it will well repay you in the long run.”
“How?” and he looked at her sharply.
“You see, if you take the girl away now, a grief-stricken, reluctant captive, who has not had time to realise herself and her new position, she will fret and pine—she will receive, and give, a wrong impression.”
“But she is beautiful—you admit that?”
“Yes, but she is Mary Foley; she does not know how to dress, or enter a room, or arrange her hair, or even behave at table. She drinks out of a saucer; she uses her own knife for butter and salt.”
“May I ask how you know?”
“I had tea with her once,” replied Miss Usher drily. “Besides this, I would help her to weed the too forcible expressions out of her vocabulary—expressions such as ‘For the love of God,’ ‘The saints protect me,’ ‘Faix,’ ‘Bedad,’ ‘Musha,’ and ‘Begorra.’ Of course, a month is not long enough to supply the necessary instruction, but it will clip off the sharp corners and give her a little polish before she faces the severe ordeal of being presented to Lady Mulgrave and your relations. To leave her for a short time among her old surroundings would be a true kindness to her. She will have by that time become accustomed to her new character, and may have attained a certain amount of self-possession and confidence.”
“All right then, Miss Usher; but the kindness is entirely yours. If you will continue to be her guide, counsellor, and friend, you lay me under a lifelong obligation. I will return home the day after the funeral and will leave you in sole charge. Shall you remain here?”
“Yes, that Mary may presently see herself as others—her old associates—see her.”
“Miss Usher, you are a clever woman.”
“No, no, only sensible. Bence has our brains.”
“Of course you will have a private sitting-room, a carriage, and a maid?”
“Oh, no maid yet,” she protested—“we are not quite ready for that; but we will be glad of this sitting-room and an outside car. And now I’m going to suggest something funny. Please send her a gold watch and chain. I gather that to an Irish peasant—and she is that—a gold watch and a long chain represent the visible sign of a great rise in life. It will come home to her as a most tangible proof that she is a girl of some position. Every time she looks at the watch she will be reminded of this fact. The watch and chain will give her proper pride and consequence.”
“I cannot imagine it; but you know women, and I do not.”
“You see, you must approach your daughter through the Mary Foley side of her character—touch her sensibilities as the peasant girl. There is one thing for which you have to be devoutly thankful.”
“Yes, and what is that?” he asked gravely.
“She has no lover.”
“Good heavens!”—and he grew suddenly white. “What an awful idea!”
“But surely a very commonplace idea. She is the beauty, or, at any rate, the boast of the county. She is twenty-one; she might have been married. Think of that!”
“Oh, I could not entertain such a horrible notion. Yes, I own I have much to be thankful for.”
“Her inherited disposition, the race in her veins, has undoubtedly been her safeguard. She, as old Mike declared, was always for ‘picking and choosing like a born lady.’ Her suitors were beneath her standard; she is too fastidious.”
“Thank God for that!” he exclaimed, with pious emphasis.
The following afternoon, the funeral of Katty Foley took place. It was an immense affair, for not only was the whole neighbourhood represented, but cars, asses’ cars, and even turf cars, came laden for miles and miles—not so much to see the last of Katty Foley as the first of Lady Joseline! And Lady Joseline was present—accompanied by her father. Here she would have her own way, being dressed, or rather draped, in black—yes, and in the crêpe so dear to the heart of the Irish lower classes. Her gown was of heavy material that broiling August afternoon; but then, she had not been obliged to walk; she came in a carriage, it was noted, like the real lady she was—now. All eyes were concentrated on the girl as she stepped out and followed her father into the wild, overgrown graveyard which surrounded an old ruined church. She wore a hat, and a long crêpe veil with a deep border, and a pair of loose black kid gloves. Yes, they were proud of her! She looked a lady, every inch. She was crying too, as any one could see, and not a bit uplifted, for all the neighbours could hear her sobbing and sniffing behind the crêpe fall. His lordship was a fine-looking, upstanding man, grave and erect, as became a lord. It was a terrible pity he wasn’t Irish; but anyhow, his daughter was Irish born, and a credit to him, and the country.
Taking it all in all, he had behaved handsomely to Katty Foley, and the burying, which was of the best—a hearse and plumes, a beautiful coffin, and two coaches—was at his expense.
There was a good deal of whispering and nudging when the ceremony had concluded. Mary threw back the long veil, looked about her, and exhibited to the hundreds of watching eyes, a tear-stained and utterly miserable countenance.
In spite of her father’s overawing presence, she was immediately encompassed by a crowd of friends. They swarmed round her, shook her by the hand, looked hard into her eyes to see if they were proud? No; only very sad, and wet with tears. More fluent than sympathy and regret for Katty, came warm expressions of amazement, and congratulation; but these were somewhat jarring, and found no echo in Mary’s heart. Tom Kelly looked sheepish, and hung back. To think of his having made up to a lady born! When he glanced at his lordship he felt half inclined to run and hide behind one of the tombstones. Old Betty the Brag was present; she was getting on for eighty, but still wonderfully active. “Oh, me own little darlin’ fair creature,” she screeched, in her shrill old voice, “and hadn’t she the great nerve to steal ye, and keep ye out of your own?”
Mike Mahon, the author and originator of the great discovery, remained aloof, gazing with melancholy pride upon her mother’s daughter.
At last the earl, who had been surprisingly long-suffering, made a move to depart, and the crowd wrung Mary by the hand, with every description of English and Irish benediction. Hitherto she had been their own, and now she was leaving them—leaving them in tears. All the same, no bride in the country had ever received such a grand “send off” from her home, as did Mary Foley from the old Clonlara churchyard. The crowd streamed down en masse to the gate and lined the road three deep. “The place was black with them,” as a man subsequently described it; “and such a commotion over a young girl was never, never seen.” There was no thought of the poor corpse who had just been laid to rest. Every interest was centred on the young woman who was about to enter another state of life.
All her friends and acquaintances realised that Mary had taken leave of her former station, when she drove away in the pair-horse brougham, now rapidly passing out of sight.
The occasion was unprecedented. The crowd felt inclined to shout and to cheer, but a glance at the hearse, and the near sound of falling earth, restrained their enthusiasm. Presently, they scattered each to their place, or their own little shebeen, there to marvel, to discourse, and to prophesy, concerning Mary Foley’s future.