CHAPTER XXIX
It was the last day of Lady Mulgrave’s house-party. They were to scatter on the morrow—and the assemblage was to conclude with a brilliant finish: a gathering of neighbours at lunch, skating on the ornamental water, a festive dinner, and a bridge drive—such was the programme. Captain Barre and his cousin were among the guests, and the latter naturally singled out Lady Joseline for his companion when they all set out for the lake. She was accompanied by Rap, who, though he failed to recognise his former owner, accorded a searching investigation, and a civil reception. With her bright colour—the complexion of a true country girl—and her becoming sables, Lady Joseline confirmed the sensation she had created at Mrs. Hampton’s ball. Unfortunately she did not skate, and was left among the dowagers and lookers-on, whilst most of the company took to the ice, figuratively, as young ducks do to water. Here was an opportunity of which Ulick Doran was not slow to avail himself. Together (and attended by Rap) they accompanied a self-conducted party in a brisk walk across the park, explored the frost-bound gardens and the sultry stoves. On the present occasion their talk was confined to the commonplace, and to old times; it never once soared into the region of Romance, for Ulick Doran had taken himself sternly to task, and his inner mind was filled with anxious debate. Years ago he had kept aloof because he had loved the girl too well to drag the poor child into a position which would entail misery—a ceaseless combat with prejudice, with his mother, and the world at large. Now, by a strange stroke of fortune, she was elevated to a position above his own. Did it not seem mean and despicable to ask her to descend to his level? On the other hand, he was well born, he was rich, he had been first in the field; why should he not take his chance? If Joseline was of the same mind as Mary Foley, why should they not both be happy? He honestly believed that he would make her a better husband than that faineant, Dudley Deverell, with his drawl and his dyspepsia.
As they walked in the wake of others he talked of his travels in Asia, Africa, and America, remembering her keen interest in foreign countries. He told her many amusing anecdotes, gave little sketches of people, and one or two sensational experiences. For her part, she described the chief local events (as seen from Foley’s Corner). She also surprised him by her shrewd comments on her new life, intelligent criticism on books she had read, and questions she had heard debated. One moment she was Lady Joseline discussing “Helbeck of Banisdale”; the next, as Mary Foley, she accosted a gardener’s kitten as a “poor angashore” whom she eloquently harangued in Irish.
After dinner the bridge drive was arranged in the great drawing-room; a few repaired to billiards, but most people declared for cards.
“Of course you’ll play, Major Doran?” said Lady Mulgrave. “We will make up six tables.”
“No thanks,” he rejoined. “I am rather out of form, and if you will allow me, I’ll just have a look round the pictures. I’ve heard so much of the Ashstead Romneys.”
“Oh, of course”—and she raised her eyebrows in apparent amusement. “I daresay Joseline will be pleased to introduce you to some of the ancestors. Mr. Baines will take your place—he is very keen.”
It flashed through her mind, what a good thing it would be if this Major Doran, who was Irish and rich, would relieve her for life of “her young girl from over the sea.”
Presently everybody in the drawing-room resolved into silence, and tricks; whilst Joseline and her companion strolled through the empty reception-rooms into the little boudoir. Ulick Doran was turning over in his mind how he would approach the subject, when Joseline herself made an opening.
“To think of all the travelling you have done,” she exclaimed, “and the countries you’ve seen, and your never once coming home!”
“But I did return once, just for a couple of days.”
“Yes, but never to stop. Why was that?”
“Surely you need not ask. You know the reason.”
“I—Mr. Ulick?” she exclaimed, thrown off her guard.
“Don’t call me Mr. Ulick.”
“Well, what will I call ye? Oh, of course—Major.”
“I know what I hope you’ll call me,” he interrupted; “but I daresay you won’t.”
“Ah, what’s that?”
“Ulick.”
“Oh”—colouring—“how could I do that? Oh, no, I really couldn’t—never.”
“Do you really mean—never?”—and his face was serious.
She hesitated for so long, his expectation became intense; at last it was positively painful. “Well”—drawing a quick breath—“any way—not yet.”
“And when?” he persisted.
She made no answer.
“In six months?”
“Ah, sure ye know I’m not fit,” she faltered, and her eyes were filled with tears. “Although I’m dressed up like this”—and she glanced at her dainty gown of white chiffon—“I’m only a common girl, and faix, no one knows that, better than yerself.”
“Once upon a time you were very fond of me, and I have never forgotten you. Mary, I believe you have been constant to that time.”
“In a way, only,” she said, rising suddenly, “I tried my big best to put you out of my mind, and I’ll tell ye no lie, but you would not stir—no, strive as I would, I could not get shut of ye, for three long years. Then I began to think ... I was a fool”—and she paused and put her hand to her long, slim throat—“and if any boy I fancied, had asked me to marry him, I’d have said ‘Yes’; but I never did see one I could like in the same way as you—no one that made my heart ache, and kept me pining and fretting, and wishing I was dead—the same as you did, Mr. Ulick.”
“Ulick!”
“Well, then, Ulick.”
“And I believe people will say it is tremendous presumption to lift my eyes to your father’s daughter. You know I’m only just a major in the service, and he will expect you to make a splendid match.”
“I don’t think he wishes me to marry at all—any way, for a long while. You see, he has only had me for a few months.”
“Yes; it would be hard lines on him—and I will wait, if you will marry me in the end.—Mary, will you?”
“Ye were always terribly set in getting your own way, Mr. Ulick”; and she looked up at him with a tremulous smile. “I remember it with horses, and how once the black hunter stood with ye on the road for five mortal hours—and ye waited, and won the day.”
“I’ll wait on you for five years if necessary. May I speak to your father when he returns?”
“About what?”
“Why, about you, of course. I shall ask him to give you to me.”
“Yes; but not for a good while—I am so awkward, and ignorant, I’d shame ye.”
“No, never. I shall always be proud of you!”
“An’ ye may think it strange, but he is real fond of me.”
“Not as fond of you as I am, Mary”; and he slipped his arm round her waist, and kissed her—this time without the intervening pane of glass.
Five minutes later, and the door was pushed open, and Lord Mulgrave entered, in the act of taking off his muffler.
He started when he saw Major Doran and Joseline standing together by the fire; and, unless he was losing his wits, the fellow’s arm was round her waist. In a flash he recalled a whispered secret one dim evening in the “Shelbourne”—the real gentleman, who was Irish, and had given Mrs. Foley a dog.
Here they were, the very trio—the red terrier, the lover, and the girl.
As Doran was no stranger to him he came forward, with a rather constrained “Hullo, Doran!”
“Oh, father!” cried Joseline, “we did not expect you till to-morrow. How did you come?”
“In a fly from the station, my dear. I got away earlier than usual. Not playing bridge, eh?”—turning to the man.
“No. The fact is, Lady Joseline was good enough to offer to show me the pictures; but we—er”—and as he glanced at his companion, she vanished through the door.
“I see, you had forgotten all about them,” said Lord Mulgrave, hastily finishing the speech.
Well, there was no time like the present moment; here was his opportunity. Lord Mulgrave was not allowed to take off his top-coat, much less to think of his supper, before Ulick Doran was in full career.
In two or three pithy sentences he told his story. For a few vital moments they talked squarely, man to man. Lord Mulgrave knew all about Major Doran—his reputation and his fortune.
When he had divested himself of his great-coat, he said, “I will not part with Joseline yet, and we will take no one into the secret for six months. The girl has seen nothing so far, but Joseline is not like young women of her rank. She has a past of twenty-one years behind her. She loved you in that other life; you belong to it, and, I suppose,—she belongs to you.”
* * * * *
“I say!” said Tito, as she encountered Joseline in a corridor, “what has happened to you? Why this radiant air of ‘I fear no foe in shining armour’?”
Joseline did not wait to be cross-examined, but threw over her shoulder the misleading statement, “The pater is home!”
Lord Mulgrave escorted his daughter to France, and presented her to her mother’s family, who received her with open arms, and were enchanted with l’Irlandaise, their kinswoman. Here the brogue and her occasional solecisms did not matter, since the child had her mother’s face, and her mother’s heart. She spent six months in the valley of the Oise, and returned to Ashstead Park a much improved and polished young woman; for her cousins had found her a ready pupil, and had taught her ease, self-confidence, and fluent French.
* * * * *
Ashstead always looked its best in August. The gardens were perfect, the green sward like rich velvet, the old trees dense, massive, and picturesque, and the surroundings silent and restful. On a certain warm afternoon, the sound of croquet-balls and voices woke the sleepy grounds. A game had just been concluded, and Joseline strolled off towards the shade, followed by her cousin and partner; they had been defeated by one stroke.
“What is the meaning of ‘Bad scran to ye’?” he asked. “I heard you addressing the blue ball in those terms.”
“Oh, it means ‘bother take it!’ and is just one of the old expressions I want to forget. I was so vexed that I lost the game. The words slipped out. I hope Miss Usher did not hear me.”
“What matter if she did? Come and let us find a seat.”
“Tired?” she asked. “Oh, poor cousin Dudley!”
“Tired? Yes, of a good many things.”
“If I am one of them, please don’t hesitate to say so.”
“No, I’m never tired of you, Joseline. On the contrary, I should like to have more of your society.”
She turned, and made him a little curtsey.
“And so Tito is going to marry young Goodrich?” he remarked.
“Yes, father has consented at last.”
“Which means he has given Tito a dot.”
“It means that he likes Tony, and so do I.”
“You will miss Tito, won’t you? You and she pulled together from the first.”
“Yes, I shall miss her, but, of course, they will often run down.”
“By the way, talking of ‘running down,’ you seem to see a good deal of that fellow Doran. How does he get leave?”
“Oh, pending retirement.”
“Ah, so he is going. I wonder what he will do with himself? It’s rather a bore to be a rich man with nothing to do.”
“Like yourself, for instance?”
“Yes.”
“But, cousin Dudley, you have lots to do if you like; you could go about your property, and see things for yourself. You’d really like it after a bit; you would know what to do, and what to give, and what to take away.”
“Yes, yes,” impatiently, “I know. You are always preaching.”
“And you won’t practise!”
“Well, perhaps, your sermons may do me good; but I can’t say there is much jam in the powder! I am aware I’m an absentee landlord, but not a hard one.”
“Pray, how can you tell?” she asked.
“Well, I let fellows off, and I subscribe to things that are necessary.”
“That costs you little!”
“There now, don’t go on rubbing it in,” he said resentfully. “I’ve told you often that Harrowside is a great big black rookery of a place. I can’t stand it! No, I never go near it.”
“It is your duty; you have responsibilities. ‘Noblesse oblige.’”
“Since I’ve been in bad health——”
“That’s an old story,” she interposed. “You are as strong as a horse now.”
“Well, Joseline, you talk of my responsibilities; what would you think of taking charge of them, and me?” He turned his head suddenly and looked at his companion with a complacent, proprietary air. Then he added, in his usual drawl—
“What would you say if we were to get married?”
“Say!”—and she dug her mallet into the turf. “That we would lead a cat-and-dog life!”
“And which”—sitting erect—“would be the cat?”
“I—I suppose a woman is always a cat! You never call a man a cat, or an old cat.”
“No, I’m a dog—the unlucky dog.”
“No, a lazy dog,” she corrected. “There are always puppies, and lap-dogs.”
“Do you infer that I am one of these?”
“Well, you are petted enough. You live in the lap of luxury—I believe you don’t even shave, or open your own letters.”
“What else?” he demanded shortly.
“You won’t take the trouble to, what’s called make love! You say to a girl, ‘Shall we get married?’ and the girl says, No.”
Dudley again turned his head, and looked at her steadily. Was she in earnest? Of course not! She was smiling. To her, everything was a joke; it was one of her silly habits imported from Ireland, and not yet abandoned.
Well, he was in no hurry; he did not wish to settle down at present. Joseline was amazingly improved—a handsome, amusing, much-admired girl, clever in her way; even Lady Mulgrave was reconciled to her.
To suppose that any sane young woman would seriously refuse him, Dudley Deverell, never dawned on his mind. He decided to postpone the question.
“I say, here is your father coming over with that fellow Doran,” he announced. “I hear his brother has married a dairy-maid, who turned his mother out of doors.”
“I’m sure she could not manage that,—from what I knew of her.”
“Do you mean that you knew Mrs. Doran?” he asked, with quickened interest.
“Yes, I was reared on the land.”
“I declare, one would suppose you were talking of a lamb.”
“I am a lamb—sometimes. I sold her eggs.”
“Ah, now I begin to see light,” exclaimed Dudley—“to see—many things.”
“To see further than your nose?”
“Yes”—rising to his feet—“I have it! Lady Mulgrave gave me a hint, but I laughed at her. Is this Doran the son who did not present you with the locket and chain?”
“He is,” and she sat up abruptly.
“And perhaps he would like to offer you something instead; for instance, a ring?”
Joseline coloured, and nodded assent.
“Ah! I understand where I’ve been remiss, and he has been successful. These Irish fellows are tremendous hands at making love!”
He paused, momentarily overwhelmed with the shock of his discovery.
“Well, as to making love,” said Joseline at last; “love should be real—and grow. But it is right that I should tell you, that Ulick has cared for me for seven long years, and that I have loved him—ever since I was in pinafores.”
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PRINTERS