CHAPTER XIX. MR. DEMPSEY BEHIND THE SCENE
No very precise or determined purpose guided Mr. Dempsey's footsteps as he issued from the hall and gained the corridor, from which the various rooms of the cottage opened. Benevolent intentions of the vaguest kind towards Lady Eleanor were commingled with thoughts of his own safety, and perhaps more strongly than either, an intense curiosity to inspect the domestic arrangements of the family, not without the hope of finding something to eat.
He had now been about twenty-four hours without food, and to a man who habitually lived in a boarding-house, and felt it a point of honor to consume as much as he could for his weekly pay, the abstinence was far from agreeable. If then his best inspirations were blended with some selfishness, he was not quite unpardonable. Mr. Dempsey tried each door as he went along, and although they were all unlocked, the interiors responded to none of his anticipations. The apartments were plainly but comfortably furnished; in some books lay about, and an open piano told of recent habitation. In one, which he judged rightly to be the Knight's drawing-room, a table was covered over with letters and law papers,—documents which honest Paul beheld with some feeling akin to Aladdin, when he surveyed the inestimable treasures he had no means of carrying away with him from the mine. A faint gleam of light shone from beneath a door at the end of the corridor, and thither with silent footsteps he now turned. All was still: he listened as he drew near; but except the loud ticking of a clock, nothing was to be heard. Paul tried to reconnoitre by the keyhole, but it was closed. He waited for some time unable to decide on the most fitting course, and at length opened the door, and entered. Stopping short at the threshold, Paul raised the candle, to take a better view of the apartment. Perhaps any one save himself would have returned on discovering it was a bedroom. A large old-fashioned bed, with a deep and massive curtain closely drawn, stood against one wall; beside it, on the table, was a night-lamp, from which the faint glimmer he had first noticed proceeded. Some well-stuffed arm-chairs were disposed here and there, and on the tables lay articles of female dress. Mr. Dempsey stood for a few seconds, and perhaps some secret suspicion crept over him that this visit might be thought intrusive. It might be Lady Eleanor's, or perhaps Miss Darcy's chamber. Who was to say she was not actually that instant in bed asleep? Were the fact even so, Mr. Dempsey only calculated on a momentary shock of surprise at his appearance, well assured that his explanation would be admitted as perfectly satisfactory. Thus wrapped in his good intentions, and shrouding the light with one hand, he drew the curtain with the other. The bed was empty, the coverings were smooth, the pillows unpressed. The occupant, whoever it might be, had not yet taken possession. Mr. Dempsey's fatigue was only second to his hunger, and having failed to discover the larder, it is more than probable he would have contented himself with the gratification of a sleep, had he not just at that instant perceived a light flickering beside and beneath the folds of a heavy curtain which hung over a doorway at the farthest end of the room. His spirit of research once more encouraged, he moved towards it, and drawing it very gently, admitted his eye in the interspace. A glass door intervened between him and a small chamber, but permitted him to see without being heard by those within. Flattening his features on the glass, he stared at the scene; and truly one less inspired by the spirit of inquiry might have felt shocked at being thus placed. Lady Eleanor sat in her dressing-gown on a sofa, while, half kneeling, half lying at her feet, was Helen, her head concealed in her mother's lap, and her long hair loosely flowing over her neck and shoulders. Lady Eleanor was pale as death, and the marks of recent tears were ou her cheeks; but still her features wore the expression of deep tenderness and pity, rather than of selfish sorrow. Helen's face was hidden; but her attitude, and the low sobbing sounds that at intervals broke the stillness, told how her heart was suffering.
“My dear, dear child,” said Lady Eleanor, as she laid her hand upon the young girl's head, “be comforted. Rest assured that in making me the partner in your sorrow, I will be the happier participator in your joy, whenever its day may come. Yes, Helen, and it will come.”
“Had I told you earlier—”
“Had you done so,” interrupted Lady Eleanor, “you had been spared much grief, for I could have assured you, as I now do, that you are not to blame,—that this young man's rashness, however we may deplore it, had no promptings from us.”
Helen replied, but in so low a tone that Mr. Dempsey could not catch the words; he could hear, however, Lady Eleanor uttering at intervals words of comfort and encouragement, and at last she said,—
“Nay, Helen, no half-confidence, my child. Acknowledge it fairly, that your opinion of him is not what it was at first; or if you will not confess it, leave it to my own judgment And why should you not?” added she, in a stronger voice; “wiser heads may reprove his precipitancy, criticise what would be called his folly, but you may be forgiven for thinking that his Quixotism could deserve another and a fonder title. And I, Helen, grown old and chilly-hearted, each day more distrustful of the world, less sanguine in hope, more prone to suspect,—even I feel that devotion like his has a strong claim on your affection. And shall I own to you that on the very day he brought us that letter a kind of vague presentiment that I should one day like him stole across me. What was the noise? Did you not hear something stir?” Helen had heard it, but paid no further attention, for there was no token of any one being near.
Noise, however, there really was, occasioned by Mr. Dempsey, who, in his eagerness to hear, had pushed the door partly open. For some moments back, honest Paul had listened with as much embarrassment as curiosity, sorely puzzled to divine of whom the mother and daughter were speaking. The general tenor of the conversation left the subject no matter of difficulty. The individual was the only doubtful question. Lady Eleanor's allusion to a letter, and her own feelings at the moment, at once reminded him of her altered manner to himself on the evening he brought the epistle from Coleraine, and how she, who up to that time had treated him with unvarying distance and reserve, had as suddenly become all the reverse.
“Blood alive!” said he to himself, “I never as much as suspected it!” His eagerness to hear further was intense; and although he had contrived to keep the door ajar, his curiosity was doomed to disappointment, for it was Helen who spoke, and her words were uttered in a low, faint tone, utterly inaudible where he stood. Whatever pleasure Mr. Dempsey might have at first derived from his contraband curiosity, was more than repaid now by the tortures of anxiety. He suspected that Helen was making a full confession of her feelings towards him, and yet he could not catch a syllable. Lady Eleanor, too, when she spoke again, it was in an accent almost equally faint; and all that Paul could gather was that the mother was using expressions of cheerfulness and hope, ending with the words,—
“His own fortunes look now as darkly as ours; mayhap the same bright morning will dawn for both together, Helen. We have hope to cheer us, for him and for us.”
“Ah! true enough,” muttered Paul; “she's alluding to old Bob Dempsey, and if the Lord would take him, we 'd all come right again.”
Helen now arose, and seated herself beside her mother, with her head leaning ou her shoulder; and Mr. Dempsey might have been pardoned if he thought she never looked more beautiful. The loose folds of her night-dress less concealed than delineated the perfect symmetry of her form; while through the heavy masses of the luxuriant hair that fell upon her neck and shoulders, her skin seemed more than ever delicately fair. If Paul's mind was a perfect whirl of astonishment, delight, and admiration, his doubts were no less puzzling. What was he to do? Should he at once discover himself, throw himself at Helen's feet in a rapture, confessing that he had heard her avowal, and declare that the passion was mutual? This, although with evident advantages on the score of dramatic effect, had also its drawback. Lady Eleanor, who scarcely looked as well in dishabille as her daughter, might feel offended. She might take it ill, also, that he had been a listener. Paul had heard of people who actually deemed eavesdropping unbecoming! Who knows, among her own eccentricities, if this one might not find place? Paul, therefore, resolved on a more cautious advance, and, for his guidance, applied his ear once more to the aperture. This time, however, without success, for they spoke still lower than before; nor, after a long and patient waiting, could he hear more than that the subject was their present embarrassment, and the necessity of immediately removing from “The Corvy,” but where to, and how, they could not determine.
There was no time to ask Bicknell's advice; before an answer could arrive, they would be exposed to all the inconvenience, perhaps insult, which Mr. Nickie's procedure seemed to threaten. The subject appeared one to which all their canvassing had brought no solution, and at last Lady Eleanor said,—
“How thankful I am, Helen, that I never wrote to Lord Netherby; more than once, when our difficulties seemed to thicken, I half made up my mind to address him. How much would it add to my present distress of mind, if I had yielded to the impulse! The very thought is now intolerable.”
“Pride! pride!” muttered Paul.
“And I was so near it,” ejaculated Lady Eleanor.
“Yes,” said Helen, sharply; “our noble cousin's kindness would be a sore aggravation of our troubles.”
“Worse than the mother, by Jove!” exclaimed Paul. “Oh dear! if I had a cousin a lord, maybe he'd not hear of me.”
Lady Eleanor spoke again; but Paul could only catch a stray word here and there, and again she reverted to the necessity of leaving the cottage at once.
“Could we even see this Mr. Dempsey,” said she, “he knows the country well, and might be able to suggest some fitting place for the moment, at least till we could decide on better.”
Paul scarcely breathed, that he might catch every syllable.
“Yes,” said Helen, eagerly, “he would be the very person to assist us; but, poor little man! he has his own troubles, too, at this moment.”
“She's a kind creature,” muttered Paul; “how fond I'm growing of her!”
“It is no time for the indulgence of scruples; otherwise, Helen, I 'd not place much reliance on the gentleman's taste.”
“Proud as Lucifer,” thought Paul.
“His good-nature, mamma, is the quality we stand most in need of, and I have a strong trust that he is not deficient there.”
“What a situation to be placed in!” sighed Lady Eleanor: “that we should turn with a shudder from seeking protection where it is our due, and yet ask counsel and assistance from a man like this!”
“I feel no repugnance whatever to accepting such a favor from Mr. Dempsey, while I should deem it a great humiliation to be suitor to the Earl of Netherby.”
“And yet he is our nearest relative living,—with vast wealth and influence, and I believe not indisposed towards us. I go too fast, perhaps,” said she, scornfully; “his obligations to my own father were too great and too manifold, that I should say so.”
“What a Tartar!” murmured Paul.
“If the proud Earl could forget the services my dear father rendered him, when, a younger son, without fortune or position, he had no other refuge than our house,—if he could wipe away the memory of benefits once received,—he might perhaps be better minded towards us; but obligation is so suggestive of ill-will.”
“Dearest mamma,” said Helen, laughing, “if your hopes depend upon his Lordship's forgetfulness of kindness, I do think we may afford to be sanguine. I am well inclined to think that he is not weighed down by the load of gratitude that makes men enemies. Still,” added she, more seriously, “I am very averse to seeking his aid, or even his counsel; I vote for Mr. Dempsey.”
“How are we to endure the prying impertinence of his curiosity? Have you thought of that, Helen?”
Paul's cheek grew scarlet, and his very fingers' ends tingled.
“Easily enough, mamma. Nay, if our troubles were not so urgent, it would be rather amusing than otherwise; and with all his vulgarity—”
“The little vixen!” exclaimed Paul, so much off his guard that both mother and daughter started.
“Did you hear that, Helen? I surely heard some one speak.”
“I almost thought so,” replied Miss Darcy, taking up a candle from the table, and proceeding towards the door. Mr. Dempsey had but time to retreat behind the curtain of the bed, when she reached the spot where he had been standing. “No, all is quiet in the house,” said she, opening the door into the corridor and listening. “Even our respectable guests would seem to be asleep.” She waited for a few seconds, and then returned to her place on the sofa.
Mr. Dempsey had either heard enough to satisfy the immediate cravings of his curiosity, or, more probably, felt his present position too critical; for when he drew the curtain once more close over the glass door, he slipped noiselessly into the corridor, and entering the first room he could find, opened the window and sprang out.
“You shall not be disappointed in Paul Dempsey, anyhow,” said he, as he buttoned up the collar of his coat, and pressed his hat more firmly on his head. “No, my Lady, he may be vulgar and inquisitive, though I confess it's the first time I ever heard of either; but he is not the man to turn his back on a good-natured action, when it lies full in front of him. What a climate, to be sure! it blows from the four quarters of the globe all at once, and the rain soaks in and deluges one's very heart's blood. Paul, Paul, you 'll have a smart twinge of rheumatism from this night's exploit.”
It may be conjectured that Mr. Dempsey, like many other gifted people, had a habit of compensating for the want of society by holding little dialogues or discourses with himself,—a custom from which he derived no small gratification, for, while it lightened the weariness of a lonely way, it enabled him to say many more flattering and civil things to himself than he usually heard from an ungrateful world.
“They talk of Demerara,” said he; “I back Antrim against the world for a hurricane. The rainy season here lasts all the year round; and if practice makes perfect—There, now I 'm wet through, I can't be worse. Ah! Helen, Helen, if you knew how unfit Paul Dempsey is to play Paris! By the way, who was the fellow that swam the Hellespont for love of a young lady? Not Laertes, no—that's not it-Leander, that's the name—Leander.”
Paul muttered the name several times over, and by a train of thought which we will not attempt to follow or unravel, began humming to himself the well-known Irish ditty of—
“Teddy, ye gander,
Yer like a Highlander.”
He soon came to a stop in the words, but continued to sing the air, till at last he broke out in the following version of his own:—
“Paul Dempsey, ye gander,
You 're like that Leander
Who for somebody's daughter—for somebody's daughter
Did not mind it one pin
To be wet to the skin,
With a dip in salt water—a dip in salt water.
“Were you wiser, 'tis plain,
You 'd be now in Coleraine,
A nightcap on your head—a nightcap on your head,
With a jorum of rum,
Made by old Mother Fum,
At the side of your bed—at the side of your bed.
“For tho' love is divine,
When the weather is fine,
And a season of bliss—a season of bliss,
'Tis a different thing
For a body to sing
On a night such as this—a night such as this.
“Paul Dempsey! remember,
On the ninth of December
You 'll be just forty-six—you 'll be just forty-six,
And the world will say
That at your time o' day
You 're too old for these tricks—you 're too old for these tricks.
“And tho' water may show
One's love, faith,
I know I 'd rather prove mine—I 'd rather prove mine
With my feet on the fender;
'T is then I grow tender,
O'er a bumper of wine—o'er a bumper of wine!
“A bumper of wine!” sighed he. “On my conscience, it would be an ugly toast I 'd refuse to drink this minute, if the liquor was near.
“Ah! when warm and snog,
With my legs on the rug,
By a turf fire red—a turf fire red—
But how can I rhyme it?
With this horrid climate,
Destroying my head—destroying my head?
“With a coat full of holes,
And my shoes without soles,
And my hat like a teapot—my hat like a teapot—
“Oh, murther, murther!” screamed he, aloud, as his shins came in contact with a piece of timber, and he fell full length to the ground, sorely bruised, and perfectly enveloped in snow. It was some minutes before he could rally sufficiently to get up; and although he still shouted for help, seeing a light in a window near, no one came to his assistance, leaving poor Paul to his own devices.
It was some consolation for his sufferings to discover that the object over which he had stumbled was the shaft of a jaunting-car, such a conveyance being at that moment what he most desired to meet with. The driver at last made his appearance, and informed him that he had brought Nickie and his two companions from Larne, and was now only waiting their summons to proceed to Coleraine.
Paul easily persuaded the man that he could earn a fare in the mean time, for that Nickie would probably not leave “The Corvy” till late on the following day, and that by a little exertion he could manage to drive to Coleraine and back before he was stirring. It is but fair to add that poor Mr. Dempsey supported his arguments by lavish promises of reward, to redeem which he speculated on mortgaging his silver watch, and probably his umbrella, when he reached Coleraine.
It was yet a full hour before daybreak, as Lady Eleanor, who had passed the night in her dressing-room, was startled by a sharp tapping noise at her window; Helen lay asleep on the sofa, and too soundly locked in slumber to hear the sounds. Lady Eleanor listened, and while half fearing to disturb the young girl, wearied and exhausted as she was, she drew near to the window. The indistinct shadow of a figure was all that she could detect through the gloom, but she fancied she could hear a weak effort to pronounce her name.
There could be little doubt of the intentions of the visitor; whoever he should prove, the frail barrier of a window could offer no resistance to any one disposed to enter by force, and, reasoning thus, Lady Eleanor unfastened the casement, and cried, “Who is there?”
A strange series of gestures, accompanied by a sound between a sneeze and the crowing of a cock, was all the reply; and when the question was repeated in a louder tone, a thin quivering voice muttered, “Pau-au-l De-de-dempsey, my La-dy.”
“Mr. Dempsey, indeed!” exclaimed Lady Eleanor. “Oh! pray come round to the door at your left hand; it is only a few steps from where you are standing.”
Short as the distance was, Mr. Dempsey's progress was of the slowest, and Lady Eleanor had already time to awaken Helen, ere the half-frozen Paul had crossed the threshold.
“He has passed the night in the snow,” cried Lady Eleanor to her daughter, as she led him towards the fire.
“No, my Lady,” stammered out Paul, “only the last hour and a half; before that I was snug under old Daly's blanket.”
A very significant interchange of looks between mother and daughter seemed to imply that poor Mr. Dempsey's wits were wandering.
“Call Tate; let him bring some wine here at once, Helen.”
“It's all drunk; not a glass in the decanter,” murmured Paul, whose thoughts recurred to the supper-table.
“Poor creature, his mind is quite astray,” whispered Lady Eleanor, her compassion not the less strongly moved, because she attributed his misfortune to the exertions he had made in their behalf. By this time the group was increased by the arrival of old Tate, who, in a flannel nightcap fastened under the chin, and a very ancient dressing-gown of undyed wool, presented a lively contrast to the shivering condition of Mr. Dempsey.
“It's only Mr. Dempsey!” said Lady Eleanor, sharply, as the old butler stood back, crossing himself and staring with sleepy terror at the white figure.
“May I never! But so it is,” exclaimed Tate, in return to an attempt at a bow on Dempsey's part, which he accomplished with a brackling noise like creaking glass.
“Some warm wine at once,” said Helen, while she heaped two or three logs upon the hearth.
“With a little ginger in it, miss,” grinned Paul. But the polite attempt at a smile nearly cut his features, and ended in a most lamentable expression of suffering.
“This is the finest thing in life agin' the cowld,” said Tate, as he threw over the shivering figure a Mexican mantle, all worked and embroidered with quills, that gave the gentle Mr. Dempsey the air of an enormous porcupine. The clothing, the fire, and the wine, of which he partook heartily, soon restored him, and erelong he had recounted to Lady Eleanor the whole narrative of his arrival at “The Corvy,” his concealment in the canoe, the burning of the law papers, and even down to the discovery of the jaunting-car, omitting nothing, save the interview he had witnessed between the mother and daughter.
Lady Eleanor could not disguise her anxiety on the subject of the burned documents, but Paul's arguments were conclusive in reply,—
“Who's to tell of it? Not your Ladyship, not Miss Helen; and as to Paul, meaning myself, my discretion is quite Spanish. Yes, my Lady,” said he, with a tragic gesture that threw back the loose folds of his costume, “there is an impression abroad, which I grieve to say is widespread, that the humble individual who addresses you is one of those unstable, fickle minds that accomplish nothing great; but I deny it, deny it indignantly. Let the occasion but arise, let some worthy object present itself, or herself,”—he gave a most melting look towards Helen, which cost all her efforts to sustain without laughter,—“and then, madam, Don Paulo Dempsey will come out in his true colors.”
“Which I sincerely hope may not be of the snow tint,” said Lady Eleanor, smiling. “But pray, Mr. Dempsey, to return to a theme more selfish. You are sufficiently aware of our unhappy circumstances here at this moment, to see that we must seek some other abode, at least for the present. Can you then say where we can find such?”
“Miss Daly's neighborhood, perhaps,” broke in Helen.
“Never do,-not to be thought of,” interrupted Paul; “there's nothing for it but the Panther—”
“The what, sir?” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, in no small surprise.
“The Panther, my Lady, Mother Fum's! snug, quiet, and respectable; social, if you like,—selfish, if you please it. Solitary or gregarious; just as you fancy.”
“And where, sir, is the Panther?” said Lady Eleanor, who in her innocence supposed this to be the sign of some village inn.
“In the Diamond of Coleraine, my Lady, opposite M'Grotty's, next but one to Kitty Black's hardware, and two doors from the Post-Office; central and interesting. Mail-car from Newtown, Lim.,—takes up passengers, within view of the windows, at two every day. Letters given out at four,—see every one in the town without stirring from your window. Huston's, the apothecary, always full of people at post hour. Gibbin's tobacco-shop assembles all the Radicals at the same time to read the 'Patriot.' Plenty of life and movement.”
“Is there nothing to be found more secluded, less—”
“Less fashionable, your Ladyship would observe. To be sure there is; but there 's objections,—at least I am sure you would dislike the prying, inquisitive spirit—Eh? Did you make an observation, miss?”
“No, Mr. Dempsey,” said Helen, with some difficulty preserving a suitable gravity. “I would only remark that you are perfectly in the right, and that my mother seeks nothing more than a place where we can remain without obtrusiveness or curiosity directed towards us.”
“There will always be the respectful admiration that beauty exacts,” replied Paul, bowing courteously, “but I can answer for the delicacy of Coleraine as for my own.”
If this assurance was not quite as satisfactory to the ladies as Mr. Dempsey might have fancied it ought to be, there was really no alternative; they knew nothing of the country, which side to direct their steps, or whither to seek shelter; besides, until they had communicated with Bicknell, they could not with safety leave the neighborhood to which all their letters were addressed.
It was then soon determined to accept Mr. Dempsey's suggestion and safe-conduct, and leaving Tate for the present to watch over such of their effects as they could not conveniently carry with them, to set out for Coleraine. The arrangements were made as speedily as the resolve, and day had scarcely dawned ere they quitted “The Corvy.”