THE ROMANCE OF A PORTMANTEAU.
“We shall be happy to see you at Rathdangan Castle, sir,” said Sir Geoffry Didcote. “If—aw—you come down on Saturday and—aw—stop till Monday, we shall—aw—be pleased”; stroking his finely-shaven chin at each “aw.”
I accepted with a gratified alacrity. We had won the rubber trick by trick, and, although the honors were against us, I had somehow or other managed to establish a long suit commencing with the king, and had ended by lugging in all the poor relations, including a miserable deuce of diamonds, for which I contrived to secure as good a berth as that held by any member of its illustrious family. Flushed with victory, Sir Geoffry’s hospitality spread forth its arms and enfolded me within its embrace. This was a chance for a briefless barrister during the long vacation. Briefless! Why, I could not even command a nod from an attorney, much less that magic roll of paper whose cabalistic inscriptions are so readily deciphered by—the pocket. The Hall of the Four Courts was a most delightful club-room, where all the news of the day was freely discussed, from Mr. Justice Keogh’s latest witticism to the new street-ballad by Doctor Huttle; from Baron Dowse’s joke to Sergeant Armstrong’s wig. And as for Circuit, it was nothing more or less than a charming country excursion, where the wit and wine of the bar mess amply compensated for any little ennui the hours occupied in doing nothing during the day might have reasonably engendered. In vain I strutted across “The Hall” with a bagful of old French novels, endeavoring to appear as though absorbed in some pending case in which my dormant talent would be strained to the utmost limits of its capacity; in vain I caused myself to be called forth from the library as often as it pleased the porter to summon me for the sum of five shillings, with which I had retained his eminent services; in vain I buttonholed country friends. But why continue? The word “briefless” speaks for itself; and were it not for sundry remittances from a maiden aunt, my sole surviving relative, I should, bon gré mal gré, have been compelled to take the queen’s shilling or to seek employment from the Corporation of Dublin in the capacity of a street scavenger.
As yet I had made but little way in society. I could not talk Wagner or fall foul of Tennyson. I had not brass enough for a ballad or talent for a scena. Too nervous for anecdote, my modesty muffled me even in conversation. I was not a man’s man, nor yet a cavaliere servante. I did not hunt, fish, or shoot. In a word, I was somewhat of a dreary drug in Vanity Fair.
Why Sergeant Frizwig asked me to dinner I cannot determine; and why Sir Geoffry Didcote, after that excellent repast, took it into his head to invite me to Rathdangan Castle is a mystery unto this present hour.
The vulgar question of ways and means stared me in the face and almost out of countenance as I walked homewards. Rathdangan was distant from Dublin at least thirty-five miles, thirty of which could be traversed by rail. The cost of a conveyance from the station might or might not be a “crusher”; and then the tips to the retainers! Luckily, my aunt had forwarded a remittance of five pounds upon that very morning, sixty shillings of which still remained firm and true; and as she invariably impressed upon me, in addition to the necessity of obtaining briefs, the advisability of mixing in the best society only, I naturally calculated on a “tenner” upon receipt of the intelligence of my arrival at the Castle, inscribed upon the Didcote paper. My wardrobe was the next consideration, and this was of the scantiest description. The evening suit might pass muster in candlelight, but once turn a jet of gas upon it, and the whole fabric tumbled to pieces. The grease of countless dinners, the patches beneath the arms, the seams artfully blackened with ink, the frayed linings, would jointly and severally step into the witness-box and turn evidence against me. My shirts were singularly blue, and worn away from constant friction with the horny palms of the washerwoman, whilst the collars resembled those “sierras,” or saw-edged mountains, which the observant traveller recognizes upon entering the dominions of his most Catholic Majesty Alfonso the Twelfth of Spain. My walking-suit was presentable enough, consisting as it did of Thomastown frieze, and my boots, although machine-made, possessed the redeeming influence of novelty.
“I’ll risk it,” thought I. “The investment is a safe one, and the return will amply repay the outlay.” A new and unforeseen difficulty presented itself. The battered portmanteau which usually bore my “fixins,” whilst quite good enough for “the boots” of provincial hotels, was utterly unfit to be handled by the genteel retainers at Rathdangan Castle; and as nothing bespeaks a certain ton more than smart-looking luggage, I found myself under the necessity of investing in a new valise.
“There’s wan fit for Roosia, or Pinsylvania—no less,” exclaimed the proprietor of a description of open-air bazaar situated behind the Bank of Ireland, with whom I was in treaty for the desired article. “Its locks is as sthrong as Newgate, an’ ye might dhrop it from Nelson’s pillar an’ ye wudn’t shake a nail in it.”
This was a large black box strongly resembling a coffin, both in size and shape.
“Mebbe it’s a hair thrunk yer looking for? Here’s wan. There’s brass nails for ye! There’s hair! Begorra, there’s many a man in Merrion Square that hasn’t half as much.”
Informing him that I had no intention of emigrating just at that particular moment, and that I required a small, solid leather portmanteau, Mr. Flynn proved himself equal to the emergency.
“That’s solid enough, anyhow. Shure, ye’d think it was Roman cimint—sorra a less,” he cried, as he administered several resounding whacks to the article in question.
“What are you asking for this?” I demanded.
“What am I axin’ for it?” Here he fixed me with his eye, as the Ancient Mariner fixed the wedding-guest. “It’s worth thirty shillin’s.”
“Say twenty,” said I.
“I couldn’t if ye wor to make me a lord-mayor.”
“I cannot give more.”
“Well, here now: we’ll shplit the differ—say twinty-five.” And he spat upon what he elegantly termed “the heel of his fist.”
“Twenty,” said I.
“Begorra, yer a hard man! I suppose ye must have it.”
My preparations being now completed, five o’clock on the Saturday evening found me on the platform of the Amiens Street terminus.
“Hillo, Dawkins!” exclaimed Mr. Dudley Fribscombe, a brother barrister, whose father (in the bacon trade) allowed him five hundred a year. “Going as special, eh? A hundred guineas—you’re coining, by Jove!”
“No,” I replied with assumed nonchalance, “just running down to Rathdangan Castle to spend a few days with the Didcotes.” I never felt better pleased in my life. This fellow was always sneering at the poverty of his briefless brothers, and as his people happened to reside near Rathdangan, but were of course unvisited, my red-hot shot told with withering effect.
“Oh! indeed,” he muttered. “What an awful swell! Going second?”
“First,” was my sententious reply.
“Let us travel together.”
“All right.”
Now, my intention was to have taken a second-class ticket, but the tone of Fribscombe altered my mind. What a crisis in my destiny as I walked to the booking office! What a pivot in my fate!
Had I travelled second—but I will not anticipate.
“The smoking-carriage is full. Let’s get in here; I'll tip the guard to let nobody else pass,” said Fribscombe, carrying his idea into execution.
We ensconced ourselves snugly in the pet corners, and made a great display of luggage all over the compartment. My companion offered me a cigar, but I preferred my ebon meerschaum, bought of Hans Larsen himself at Lillehammer, and which I had colored with possibly as much delicate assiduity as Mr. Millais, R.A., bestows upon his delightful masterpieces.
We were about to “scratch,” as the last bell had rung, when the door was suddenly unlocked, thrown open, and a bundle of rugs bristling with umbrella-handles, a portmanteau, and a lady attired in the newest and presumably most correct thing in widow’s weeds were flung violently into the compartment. The whistle sounded, the door was banged to, and the train glided out of the station ere we could make any move in the direction of a change of seats.
“What an infernal sell!” muttered Fribscombe.
“Too bad!” I growled.
“That guard is a 'do.’ Half a crown thrown into the Liffy!”
“Would she stand it, Fribscombe?”
“Not she. If the dear departed smoked, it would remind her too forcibly of him; and if he didn’t smoke, she’d scream and call the guard.”
In the meantime the object of our solicitude had shaken out her draperies and snugly wrapped herself in a wolf-skin rug, the head and glass eyes of which reposed in her lap like the sporran of a Highlander. Her figure appeared to very little advantage in the heavy folds of her ribbed-silk, crape-laden cloak; nevertheless, it betrayed a youthful grace and symmetry. She kept her veil down, and from the posture she assumed—her head pressed back against the cushion—it became pretty evident that, if she were not en route to dreamland, she wished to indulge in a profound meditation.
“This train won’t stop till we get to Skerries,” said Fribscombe. “I think,” he added sotto voce, “that she is asleep, and a whiff or two of real Havana will not awaken her.”
“It’s much better to ask her consent, and I’ll do it,” I whispered.
She sat directly opposite to me, facing the engine. I leaned a little forward.
“I beg your pardon, madam; but may I ask if you have any objection to our smoking? If you have the slightest feeling on the subject, I beg to assure you that it will be no deprivation to us to wait until we reach Skerries.”
She raised her veil.
“I have no objection whatever,” she said in a low, sympathetic murmur. “I like the perfume of tobacco.” And, as if smitten by some sorrowful remembrance, she sighed and sank back, but did not lower her veil.
I mumbled some incoherent expression of thanks, scarcely knowing what I said; for my whole soul was focussed in my eyes as I gazed into one of the loveliest faces that I had ever beheld.
“You are not availing yourself of my permission, sir,” she observed, almost laughingly.
“'Pon my conscience! I forgot all about it,” was my reply.
Woman-like she felt the compliment, and woman-like she was grateful for it; she knew it to be genuine.
Somehow or other we drifted into conversation. There are some women who can trot a man’s ideas out for him, walk them gently up and down, canter, and, lastly, gallop them. Any little defects are concealed by the excellent hand which is over him; and were he to come to auction at that particular moment, he would be knocked down to the very highest bidder, be he ever so modest—namely, himself. This young girl—for she could scarcely have passed her teens—possessed this marvellous gift, and, as she deftly passed from subject to subject, I found myself, usually so dull, so reticent, so uninformed, discussing topic after topic—travel, music, the drama, literature, anything, everything—with a feverish facility, and offering decided opinions upon subjects even to approach which would have ordinarily been a matter of no little enterprise, doubt, and difficulty.
So deeply had I become absorbed that when Fribscombe, whose existence I had totally forgotten, suddenly awakening from a cosey slumber, shouted in a very excited tone: “I say, Dawkins, jump out, man! This is your station. We’re moving off,” I could scarcely realize the fact of its proximity, and that two hours had rolled by, compressed into so many minutes.
My first thought was to journey onwards with my fair vis-à-vis—I cared not whither; my second, that Fribscombe would laugh me to death at the “Hall.” With a sense of sorrow—I might almost say of agony—in my heart at the idea of parting from her, I seized upon my portmanteau, and just succeeded in alighting without accident as the train moved rapidly away.
I stood upon the platform like a person just aroused from a deep slumber. I was purposeless. The tide had receded, and the bleak barrenness of my shore life confronted me. The fair enchantress whose wand had conjured up a new order of being within me had departed.
“Ye’ll have for to come inside the station, sir. I’m goin’ for to lock the doore,” observed a porter, as he significantly pointed in the direction of the exit.
“Can I get a car over to Rathdangan Castle?”
“Sorra a wan, sir. Billy Heffernan dhrew two gintlemin over there that come be this thrain.”
“Will he return here?”
“Sorra a fear av him. Ketch him lavin’ a house where there’s such lashins as at the Castle! Ow! ow! sez the fox.”
“How am I to get across?” I asked in some trepidation.
“Shure, it’s only a nice little taste av a walk—nothin’ less.”
“How far is it?”
“Well, now, you might coax it into four mile, but, be the powers! it’ll fight hard for five.”
I could not refrain from laughing at this peculiar form of expression, although there was anything but mirth in my present position. To be late for dinner would be a high crime and misdemeanor, and nothing short of lèse majesté, even were I to accept the porter’s ultimatum and walk. I could scarcely reach the Castle in anything like time.
“Did they expect you, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Troth, thin, they might have sint a yoke for ye. They always does for the quollity.”
This was not complimentary, but, like many a speech of a similar nature, it contained a great deal of truth in it. Could Sir Geoffry have forgotten all about his invitation? It had been given hurriedly as the whist-table was breaking up. He had had his share of wine, if revoking twice might be taken as an index. Yes, the following morning had erased me from the tablets of his memory. What an ass to come all this way to be instructed by a common fellow in a corduroy suit. Served me right! I ought to have known better.
“What time does the next train go up to Dublin, my man?” I asked.
“What time?” he ejaculated.
“Yes, yes, what time?”
“In forty minits, if she’s not late; but she’s shure to be in time if I’m not here, bad cess to her!”
I sat down in the cheerless waiting-room, disgusted with Sir Geoffry Didcote, disgusted with myself, boiling with anger, and writhing with mortification, till the recollection of my fair travelling companion descended like oil upon the troubled waters of my mind, and the desire to discover who she might be became overwhelming. Fool that I was not to have gained even a solitary clue! She might be travelling to Belfast en route for Scotland, or she might have alighted at the next station. The last thought induced me to question the porter.
“Did you see a handsome lady in weeds in the train that I travelled by?” I asked.
“Is it a widdy woman ye mane?”
“Yes.”
“Young?”
“Yes—very.”
“Purty?”
“Beautiful!” I exclaimed.
Here he winked facetiously. “I seen her. Me an’ her is acquainted.”
“Who is she?” I eagerly asked.
“She’s the widdy av a dacent, sober man be the name av O’Hoolahan, that died av the horrors av dhrink.”
“Poor thing!” I muttered half-aloud.
“Poor? Begorra, it’s him that left her warm an’ snug, wud three av the elegantest childer.”
“Three children!” I interposed, somewhat disconcerted. The name O’Hoolahan was bad enough, but three little O’Hoolahans!
“She left this parcel wud me.”
“When?”
“A few minits ago, whin she got out.”
“Got out? Where!”
“Out av the third class, foreninst the doore there.”
Pshaw! We had been talking of the wrong woman, and somehow I felt intensely pleased to think that my fair incognita was not the relict of the defunct O’Hoolahan and the mother of three little O’Hoolahans.
“Whisht!” suddenly exclaimed my communicative friend. “I hear a horse’s feet. He’s tearin’ along like murther—a rale stepper”; then turning to me: “Yer not forgotten. It’s from Rathdangan. Yer sint for. It’s Highflier, an’ Jim Falvey’s dhrivin’ him.”
These surmises proved to be correct.
“I’ve to beg your pardon, sir, for being late,” said Falvey, touching his hat; “but we cast a shoe at Ballinacor, and I done my best to pull up the lost time. Any luggage, sir?”
“This portmanteau.”
“All right, sir. Will you be pleased to jump in? You’ll only get over at the first dinner bell, if you do that same.”
Having tipped the loquacious porter, I sprang into the tax-cart, and the next minute Highflier was dashing at a hand gallop on the road to Rathdangan.
Mr. Falvey informed me that there was the “hoigth” of company at the Castle; that every room was full; Lord Dundrum and Captain Buckdash had arrived by the morning train, and the Bishop of Ballinahoo and his lady had just entered the avenue as he was leaving it; the partridge were plenty, and a covey might be found within “a few perch” of the west wing; Master James (the Didcote heir) was expected with two of his brother officers of the King’s Dragoon Guards; Miss Patricia’s collar-bone was now as good as new, etc. We then talked horses, and he was still hammering away at the pedigree of Highflier when we reached the entrance gate. This was castellated and partly covered with ivy. A stout old lady unlocked the ponderous portals, and, as she admitted us, dropped a courtesy whilst she uttered the cheery words, “Yer welkim, sir.”
Why do people keep gloomy-looking servants, dismal phantoms who reply to your ring with a sigh, answer your query with a sob, and wait upon you with a groan? Their depression is infectious, and although you may, with a naturally lively constitution, baffle the disease for a time, sooner or later you are laid low by it.
According to a time-honored maxim of the road, we kept a trot for the avenue, and just as we whirled up to the grand entrance the sound of a gong reached us.
“Jump out, sir. You’ve only ten minutes; that’s the second bell. There’s some of them in the drawing-room already,” cried Falvey, as he flung my portmanteau to a solemn-looking domestic, who gazed at me as though he were engaged in a deep mental calculation as to the length of my coffin and the exact quantity of linen necessary for the formation of a shroud. Following this grim apparition across a low-ceiled, wainscoted hall, in which a billiard-table of the present contrasted strangely with oaken furniture of the sixteenth century, and up an old oak staircase decorated with battered corselets, deeply-dented morions, halberds, matchlocks, steel gloves, and broadswords, along a wainscoted passage as dark as Erebus, and up a spiral stone staircase the ascent of which took all the breath out of my body, I was finally deposited in a little stone chamber in one of the towers of the Castle.
“Your keys, please, sir,” demanded my janitor.
“Oh! never mind; thanks; I’ll get out my things myself.” I feared the penetrating gaze of this man. I shuddered as I thought of the frayed linings and the inked seams.
“Very good, sir,” uttered like a parting benediction; and with a bow which plainly said, “We shall never meet at this side of the grave again,” the dread apparition vanished. The old saying, “More haste, less speed,” never exemplified itself more unhappily than in my case. With the thoughts of the last gong ringing through my brain, I vainly endeavored to open my portmanteau. My keys had got mixed up, and, as they were nearly all of a size, I had to travel round the entire ring before I could manage to induce one to enter the keyhole. Then, when I came to turn it, it got blocked and wouldn’t move either backwards or forwards. I withdrew it, whistled it, probed it with my breast-pin, tugged and strained until my backbone ached again, but without effect. What was I to do? Break it open. But how? I possessed no implements. Perceiving a bronze figure poised upon one leg on the chimney-piece, I resolved upon utilizing the outstretched limb of the harlequin, and, having inserted it in the ring of the key, I finally, to my unspeakable delight, succeeded in detaching the bolt.
Throwing open the portmanteau, I plunged my hand into the corner where I had deposited my brushes, but found that they must have shifted during the journey. I tried the other corner, with similar success. I then probed and groped in the lower compartment. Here was a pretty go. I must have forgotten to pack them, although I could have sworn not only to their having been packed, but as to the precise spot in which I had deposited them. Mechanically I drew forth my linen and laid it on the bed, in order to mount my studs.
I was somewhat astonished to find that the breast was most elaborately adorned with floriated needlework.
Some mistake of the laundress. I detest worked shirt-fronts, which are only worn by cads and shoddy lords, so I picked out another. If number one was embroidered, number two was done in fresco, and, in addition to the vast tumuli of birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers, an edging of lace played a prominent part. What could this mean? Surely I put up my own time-honored linen myself, and here were bosom decorations fit for a fop of the year 1815. Hastily turning out the contents of the portmanteau upon the floor, in order to realize my own property, what were my sensations in discovering that this pile of snowy drapery did not contain one single article of male apparel!
The truth flashed across me now in all its appalling reality: Heavens and earth! I had taken the young widow’s portmanteau for my own.
I do not know what the exact sensation of fainting comes to, but this I do know: that if I did not faint, I went within a pip of it. A cold perspiration burst out all over me, and I felt as if I was on board the Dover and Calais boat and about to call the steward. How could I appear to the assembled company? With what ridicule would I be overwhelmed when the true state of the case came to light! And then what would she think? She would write me down an ass—a donkey unfit to be allowed to wander from a thistle-grove. Her key would open my leathern “conveniency,” and the ghastly condition of my wardrobe would be laid bare, whilst I had profaned the sanctity of—but it was too dreadful to contemplate. How could I meet her? How could I look into that beautiful face again? How was I to recover my wandering wardrobe? My whole stock of clothes, save those I wore, were now in the possession of another, whilst in exchange I had received a commodity of no value to me whatever. On the contrary, my prize was worse than valueless—it was contraband.
Bang-ang-ang-ang-oong-ang! went the gong.
Let it go! What were its sounds to me? If I were starving, I could not descend in my present costume.
“Sir Geoffry Didcote begs me to say, sir, that he waits on you in order to enter the dining-room,” mournfully announced the dismal servitor.
“Please say to Sir Geoffry that I don’t feel quite well—that I will go down by and by.”
“Thank you, sir.” This was uttered as if he wished to say: “I am glad that you are dying. I knew how it would be—you couldn’t deceive me.”
The man had scarcely time to deliver my message ere Sir Geoffry himself panted and puffed into my apartment.
“My dear sir—aw—I hope—aw—that you are not—aw—ill. It would—aw—grieve me very much”—here he availed himself of my mirror to adjust his spotless white choker—“if—aw—upon your—aw—first visit you—aw—became indisposed.”
Honesty, thought I, is the best policy, and it saves a lot of trouble; so I made a clean breast of it to the pompous baronet.
“How very unfortunate—aw—for the lady! We will dispense—aw—with ceremony under—aw—the peculiar, not to say delicate—aw—circumstances of the case, and Lady Didcote will—aw—receive you in your—aw—present attire. You can telegraph—aw—for reinforcements, which—aw—will arrive on—aw—Monday morning.”
I could not see the force of this. I might easily telegraph for reinforcements, but would they come? Secondly, as my visit was to terminate upon Monday, reinforcements were not necessary, unless they could be brought up at once. I begged to be excused from attending table; but this he would not listen to, and, as he informed me that I was keeping dinner waiting, there was nothing for it but to descend with him.
I have, when a boy, been lugged into the school-room to suffer condign punishment; at a later period I have been forced into the presence of a young lady of whom I was deeply enamored; I have had to march up to the pulpit in Trinity College dining-hall to repeat the long Latin grace amid the muffled gibes of my peers; I have been placed in positions where my bashfulness has been ruthlessly tortured and my retiring modesty tried by fire and water; but never did I experience the pangs of the rack until the full blaze of that drawing-room burst upon my vision. The apartment appeared to swim round, carrying with it the form of a hooked-nosed dowager in a turban, who screwed an eye-glass into the corner of a wicked old eye, to have a good stare at the strange figure her husband had introduced into her salon.
A confused murmur of many voices, in which “Who is he?” “What is he?” “Stole a portmanteau,” “Highway robber,” “Police” smote upon my ear, whilst a general craning of necks in my direction announced the curiosity which my appearance had naturally excited.
I am aware that I bowed to something in blue drapery surmounted by a head, that it placed the tips of its fingers on my arm, that I mechanically followed a crowd of people towards an aperture in the wall which proved to be a door, that I plunged downwards upon a chair, and that then I came slowly to my senses. Having gulped down three glasses of sherry in rapid succession, I found myself seated beside a gaunt young lady of about five-and-thirty, so covered with pearl powder that she was only partially visible to the naked eye. On my right hand sat a portly dowager, who viewed with some alarm my inroads upon the sherry, and she appeared so interested in my movements that I fully expected to receive a temperance tract before the evening was half over. There were about twenty at table, all stiff, solemn, and ceremonious.
“So you have been robbed?” snappishly remarked the young lady in blue.
“Oh! dear, no; merely an exchange of portmanteaus.”
“How stupid!”
Now, whether this applied to me or to the fact, I was not in the position to say, so I merely rejoined:
“Very stupid of me and for me.”
“How so?”
“Why, I was the offending party.” And I endeavored to make myself agreeable by narrating the circumstances exactly as they had occurred.
“And do you mean to say that you opened the lady’s trunk, sir?” demanded my companion with great asperity.
“In mistake, madam, I assure you.”
The waspish lady waited until a portion of the ice which she was engaged in despatching had cleared two very shaky-looking teeth bound in gold.
“There are some mistakes, sir, which no gentleman should make.”
This was quite enough for me. To endeavor to make terms with this foe were worse than folly, explanation weakness, and concession cowardice. She gained nothing, however, by her viciousness; whilst I remained upon the field and prepared to bivouac, surrounded by sturdy sentinels in the shape of port, claret, and Madeira.
“The—aw—guard insisted upon his taking the old lady’s—aw—portmanteau.” And Sir Geoffry was proceeding to retail his version of the story when Lord Dundrum gaily exclaimed:
“Oh! by Jove, we’d better put the witness into the box. Let us cross-examine the lawyer.”
“With all my heart,” said I; “the absurdity of the sensation will redeem itself by its novelty.”
My story flowed joyously along, and peal upon peal of laughter greeted me as I described my sensations upon discovering the strange garments.
“So—aw—the widow was—aw—young?”
“About eighteen, Sir Geoffry.”
“And pretty?” added his lordship.
I devoutly kissed my second finger and thumb, and flung them in the direction of the ceiling.
“I’ll lay five to two he never hears of his portmanteau,” lisped Captain Buckdash.
“Shall I be at liberty to hunt it up?” said Lord Dundrum.
“Certainly. Are you on?”
“In tens?” asked his lordship.
“Ponies, if you but limit the period to one week.”
“Done, Buckdash! I’ll book it.” And the peer, producing a pocket-book, entered the bet, the terms of which he read aloud, and which the gallant captain pronounced eminently satisfactory.
“I’m afraid, my lord, that you’ll lose your money,” I observed to Lord Dundrum as we ascended to the drawing-room.
“I’ll give you the same bet, and that I’ll get your portmanteau, without any interference of yours, in less than a week—say five days.”
“You know the lady?”
“No.”
“You suspect who she is?”
“I have no more idea of who she is, where she came from, or where she is going to, than the man in the moon. Will you evince your sincerity by betting now?”
“The fact is, my lord, I cannot afford to bet.”
“Quite right,” slapping me on the shoulder. “Never do. It’s a doosid bad, pleasant habit.”
“And might I venture to ask how you purpose proceeding towards winning your money?”
“I’ll tell you. I have just ordered round a trap. I’ll drive to Ballynamuckle Station and telegraph along the whole line. If she’s local or a county swell, we’ll have her name and address to-night. If, on the contrary, she is not known along the line, she will have gone on to Belfast. I’ll set the police to work there, and put advertisements in all the papers on Monday morning. If Tuesday tells me nothing, I’ll put the wires in motion north of Belfast, and on Wednesday we’ll have a touch at Scotland. I feel certain, however, that we’ll find her this side of Newry.” And his lordship retired for the purpose of equipping himself for the road.
This bet was a lucky chance for me. Not that I cared much whether my wardrobe ever turned up again or not, but I longed to discover the identity of my fair acquaintance. I would at least enjoy the satisfaction of learning her name, and gain some knowledge of her surroundings, and then—pshaw! bow over my restored baggage and utter Vale, Vale, Vale to my three-hour dream.
In the billiard-room the menkind were assembled for pool. By a series of ghastly flukes I managed to clear the table and divided every pool. Captain Buckdash muttered something in reference to Dawson Lane, and one young fellow, whose lives were sacrificed to my ruthless cue with startling rapidity, offered to back me against some formidable player in the Guards, laying the odds. For the second time in this eventful day did I feel myself fit for the front rank. Lord Dundrum lounged into the room about eleven o’clock. He indicated by a look that he wished to speak to me, and, under cover of “splitting a bottle,” exclaimed in a low tone:
“It’s all right.”
My heart gave a bound.
“The portmanteau is found.”
“Where?”
“At Nobberstown, the next station but one. She evidently discovered your mistake; for she tumbled it out. It’s coming on.”
“And where is she?”
“Oh! hang me if I know or care. My ponies are safe. You can look her up.”
“Did she leave no message, no directions?” I asked eagerly.
“Don’t know,” said his lordship, as he chalked the top of his cue preparatory to joining in the pool.
Lord Dundrum was correct in saying that I should take up the running now. It was my business to make restitution and to deliver the white elephant left on my hands to its rightful owner. This task should be undertaken at once. I scarcely closed my eyes all night, thinking of the modus operandi; and when I came down to breakfast next morning I had resolved upon nothing more definite than a searching cross-examination of the employés at Nobberstown Station.
“I’ll thank you for a check, Buckdash,” said Lord Dundrum, as the gallant warrior entered the breakfast-room.
“For what?” asked the captain.
“For Mr. Dawkins’ portmanteau.”
“Wait till you get it.”
“I have it here.” And as he spoke he lugged my valise from beneath the table, accompanied by a roar of laughter from all assembled.
“A capital joke,” grinned the captain.
“A capital joke, indeed! Hand over the coin.”
Captain Buckdash turned to me.
“Mr. Dawkins, is this your portmanteau?”
“It is indeed,” I replied.
“The one which you left in the railway carriage?”
“Yes.”
“I am quite satisfied, Lord Dundrum. You shall have a check after breakfast; in the meantime will you kindly inform us how you managed to lay hold of it?” And he cracked an egg with a violence that almost crushed in the china cup.
I searched for some note or mark by which to obtain a clue to her identity, but in vain; my leathern “conveniency” was as bald as when I purchased it behind the Bank of Ireland. No message had been forwarded, not a line of instruction. This course appeared singular, inasmuch as it was unlikely that she would make no effort to regain her property; and why lose this most legitimate opportunity? Had she no desire to place herself in communication with me? Ah! there was that in her glance which gave this thought the lie. Heigh-ho! I was in love up to my eyebrows and badly hit. I was obliged to come face to face with myself, to place my hand upon my heart, and to plead guilty. I thought of the elder Mr. Weller, and of his opinion respecting widows, and voted him vulgar. My preconceived ideas upon the subject of relicts underwent a total change, and now a bashful maiden seemed but an insipid nonentity. I longed to quit Rathdangan, and, excusing myself under the plea of an important professional engagement, started for Nobberstown at cockcrow.
This station consisted of simply a “porter and a platform,” one equally intelligent as the other, and of the two the platform was “the better man.”
“Sorra a know I know,” was the invariable reply to almost every query.
“Did the lady alight here?”
“Sorra a know I know.”
“Did she give you no message?”
“Sorra a know I know.”
“No card?”
“Sorra a wan.”
“Who handed you the portmanteau?”
“Sorra a know I know.”
A thought now flashed across my brain: Fribscombe! He was not the man to lose a chance of talking to a pretty woman. He would have told her who I was, and it was through him that she had communicated. How asinine not to have thought of this before!
Chartering a jarvey, I started across the country to the family mansion of the Fribscombes, accompanied by the two portmanteaus.
“I never opened my lips to her. She dried up after you left, and pulled down the shutters.” This gave me a pang of the keenest delight. “I got out at Killoughter, the next station, and she went on.”
On my return to Dublin I caused advertisements to be inserted in several of the leading Irish papers; I also tried the second column of the Times and the Glasgow Herald, but, alas! with no effect.
Six months had glided away, during which she made no sign. The portmanteau maintained possession of a corner of my solitary apartment, and the image of its whilome proprietor defiantly held more than one corner of my heart; indeed, I may as well candidly confess that it was strongly entrenched in all four.
The summer assizes were over, and the briefless ones flitted hither and thither for the long vacation: some to Switzerland, with Mont Blanc in the distance—very much in the distance—others the passes of the Tyrol, sunny Spain, byways in Brittany, or the Highlands of Scotland. Connemara found its true believers, and Killarney its pious pilgrims. As for myself, I was perforce compelled to substitute the Dodder for the Rhine, the Dublin mountains for the Alps, and Sackville Street for the Boulevard des Italiens. My aunt had contributed the ten-pound note upon which I had hung in fond anticipation towards the building of Father Donnelly’s new church at Shinanshone, and the letter which conveyed this intelligence concluded with the following: “I don’t see your name figuring in any of the trials, good, bad, or indifferent. It’s all Macdonogh and Armstrong. What are you about, at all at all? At this rate of going you’ll never see a silk gown, let alone the bench. You might as well be on the Hill of Howth as in the Four Courts, if you don’t stir yourself. Let me see you cheek by jowl with Macdonogh and Armstrong during the coming winter, or I’ll know the reason why, and make my financial arrangements accordingly.”
I was seated one lovely morning in autumn gazing gloomily into the street, which was as empty as my own exchequer. Dreamy visions of the golden glory of ripening corn, of blood-red poppies, of fern-shaded dells, of limpid pools and purple-clad mountains mocked my aching heart. I sighed the sigh of impecuniosity, and railed at the inconsistency of a fortune which gave little Bangs, who hadn’t one idea to rub against another, a thousand per annum, a vulgar cad like Hopkins a bagful of briefs, and which left me high and dry in a front garret in Eccles Street, without a red cent to come into collision with a battered sixpence in my somewhat cavernous pockets. Heigh-ho!
An outside car, driven at a frosty pace, smote upon the drowsy stillness of the street, and my gloom was somewhat speedily dispelled by the sight of my friend Tom Whiffler’s honest and beaming face, and his expressive and expansive signals while yet a considerable distance from the house. Tom is always full of money, full of health, and full of the most boisterous and explosive spirits.
“Aha! you old cat on the tiles,” he shouted, “come down from your coign of vantage. I was afraid you were out of town. Somebody said you were on Circuit.” And standing upon the foot-board of the car, he burst forth with—
“Hail to our barrister back from the Circuit!
Honor and wealth to the curls of his wig!
Long may he live o’er his forehead to jerk it,
Long at a witness look burly and big!”
“Come up, for gracious sake!” I cried, as I perceived heads peeping from behind the partly-closed shutters of an opposite house, inhabited by a genteel family, who wished their little world to imagine them in Italy, France, Spain—anywhere but in Dublin—during the dog-days.
In a few seconds Tom bounded into the apartment. “This is a slice of luck to get you, old man. Come, now, pack up your traps, and we’ll have four days in the County Wicklow. I shall have the car in any case, and our hotel bills will be mere bagatelles which we’ll square up at Tib’s Eve. Lend me a couple of shirts and things; you can bring the baggage—a change for two—and I’ll do the rest. We’ve twenty-five minutes to catch the train.”
Five minutes found Tom upon one side of the car, myself upon the other, and, calmly reposing in the well between us, the neat little portmanteau of the fair unknown. I was compelled to make use of it, as Whiffler had no “leathern conveniency,” and my travelling-valise had been lent to one of “ours,” and was possibly at that particular moment strapped upon the murderous mound of luggage which encumbers the groaning roof of the Alpine diligence, or snugly ensconced on the grape-strewn deck of a Rhine or a Moselle steamer. It gave me more than a pang to remove it from its well-known corner. A chord had been touched which set all my memories vibrating, and I handled it with as much care and anxiety as though it were a new-born infant or a rickety case containing rack-rent or nitro-glycerine.
A glorious moonlight found us driving through the Vale of Clara en route to Glendalough—the sad, stricken valley of the Seven Churches. The hills, quietly entranced, lay gazing upwards at the gentle moon, who enfolded them in her pellucid beams as with a soft, sheeny mantle of light. The Avonmore far, far down in the valley musically murmured while she glided onwards to join the Avonbeg, who joyously awaited her coming in the sweet Vale of Avoca. The honest watch-dog’s bark bayed up the valley, and the perfume-laden air in its holy calm was as sweet as an angel’s whisper.
After “a square meal” of rasher and eggs which would have put the most elaborate chef-d’œuvre of the cuisine out of count, we strutted forth from the hostelry in the direction of St. Kevin’s Bed, and heard the oft-repeated legend of poor Kathleen’s fate from the lips of a very ragged but very amusing guide, whose services we were desirous of engaging for the morrow.
“Troth, thin, but it’s me father’s son that’s sorry not to be wud yez; but shure”—and here he lowered his voice—“it’s in regard to me bein’ in a hobble that I’m out in the moonlight.”
“What scrape have you got yourself into?” asked Tom Whiffler. “Whiskey?”
“Musha, thin, it wasn’t a dhrop o’ sperrits that done it this offer.”
“A colleen?
“Sorra a fear av all the colleens from this to Wicklow Head.”
“Mistaking another man’s sheep for your own?” laughed Tom.
“If ye wor spaikin’ airnest I’d make ye sorry for them words,” said the man in an angry tone; but brightening up, he added: “Av yez wor guessin’ from this to Candlemas ye’d be out every offer. I got into thrubble be raison av a saint, an’ I’ll tell yez how: A lot av ignoraamusses av English comes here in the summer saison, an’ nothin’s too holy but they’ll make a joke on it; but the divvle will have his own wan av these days. Well, sir, last Monday I was engaged for to divart a cupple of English, as bowld as brass, an’ that vulgar that the very cows turned their tails to thim as we thravelled through the fields—sorra a lie in it. I done me best for to earn an honest shillin’, but, on my word, wan av thim, a stout lump av a man, gev me all soarts av impidince, an’ whin I come for to narrate about St. Kavin he up’s an’ insults the holy saint to me very face.
“'There never was no sich man,’ sez he.
“'There was, sir,’ sez I.
“'It’s all humbug,’ sez he; 'an’ as for Kathleen,’ sez he, 'she was no betther nor—'
'“Ye’d betther stop, sir,’ sez I, intherruptin’ him; 'for St. Kavin was a holy man, an’ never done nothin’ but what was good an’ saintly.’ Well, sir, he up’s an’ calls the blessed saint a bad name, so I hot him betune th’ eyes an’ rowled him on the grass, an’ I planted his comrade beside him. An’ now I’m the worst in the world below at the hotel for bating two blackguards that done nothin’ but insult me an’ me holy religion; an’ that’s why I can’t go wud yez to-morrow.”
It was far into the “wee sma’ hours” when we parted with Myles O’Byrne and gained sanctuary in the double-bedded room which had been told off to us. The pale and gentle Luna was surrendering her charge to the pink and rosy Aurora, and we sought our couches in beautiful budding daylight.
“Where’s your portmanteau, Dawkins?” asked Tom Whiffler. “I want to get at my things.”
To my utter dismay, the portmanteau was not in the apartment. To ring the bell at this unseemly hour was but to alarm the entire hotel; so, slipping off my shoes, I descended to the hall in the hope of discovering it in a heap of luggage which lay piled in graceful profusion near the entrance. My search was vain, and, with secret forebodings of another mischance in connection with this unhappy valise, I returned to the room and retired to bed.
“I seen it in yer hand, sir,” observed the waiter the next morning whom I interrogated about the missing article—“a thick lump of a solid leather portmantle. I can take the buke on it, if necessary, sir. Here’s the boots; mebbe he can tell us something. Jim, did ye see a thick lump av a solid leather portmantle lyin’ about?”
“I did,” replied the boots, who was a man of much physique and very few words.
“Ye did?”
“Yis.”
“Where is it, thin?”
“Where it ought to be.”
“Where’s that?”
“Wud th’ owner.”
“It was not left in my room,” I exclaimed.
“It was left in number five.”
“Shure, number five’s gone,” cried the waiter.
“It’s news yer tellin’ us,” observed the boots with a surly grin.
“An’ is the portmantle tuk be number five?”
“Yis.”
“Phew!” whistled the waiter. “Be the mortial the fat’s in the fire now, anyhow.”
Here was a situation! My misgivings realized. My portmanteau gone, perhaps never to return. How could I face the owner? I never gave up the hope of meeting her and of restoring the property.
“Who slept in number five?” I asked.
“Number five is two faymales.”
“When did they leave?”
“They left for Father Rooney’s first Mass beyant at Annamoe.”
“Where were they going to?”
“To Lake Dan and Luggelaw.”
I proceeded to hold a council of war—consisting of the landlord, the waiter, the boots, two or three stable-boys, and the surplus population of the village—when it was determined to send a boy on a fast-trotting pony in pursuit of the fugitive luggage.
I was two inches on a mild Havana after such a breakfast as the tourist alone can dispose of, when the waiter burst into the summer-house situated over the lake, whither we had repaired to enjoy the “witching weed.”
“The portmantle is safe, sir, an’ number five is here with it an’ wants for to see ye, sir.”
“Well, I do not want to see number five, waiter, so just say—”
“I dar’n’t say nothin’, sir; she slipped a half a crown into the heel of me fist an’ towld me to hurry you up,” burst in the waiter, now in a white perspiration.
“I’ll not stir till I finish this cigar, at all events, and there is a good hour’s pull in it yet.”
“Och! murther, an’ she’s in such a hurry—such a dainty little craythur; an’ it was so dacent of her for to journey back the road with it.”
This last thrust failed to pierce my armor. The waiter was conscientiously working out his half-crown.
“She’s quite convaynient in the coffee-room, sir. I’ll show ye a short cut across the bog.”
I listened and puffed, puffed and listened.
“I must get back, sir. May I tell her ye’ll be over in five minutes, sir?”
“Tell her anything you like, my friend, but out of this till I finish my cigar I’ll not stir.”
Why I acted in this manner I was at a loss to determine. My anxiety for the valise almost amounted to pain; and yet here was the cause for worry removed, and I would not even trouble myself to walk a few hundred yards to the hotel to thank the lady for returning with it, which, as a gentleman, I was bound to do at any cost as to personal discomfort.
“Some frouzy old maid,” suggested Whiffler.
“Probably; or a strong-minded female doing Wicklow on a geological survey,” I added.
When I got back to the hotel, which might have been an hour or so subsequently, I found my portmanteau safely deposited in my room.
“Where is this lady, until I—”
“She’s gone, sir,” interrupted the waiter in a reproachful tone, “but she towld me for to give you this bit av’ a note,” handing me a piece of paper folded cocked-hat fashion.
I opened it.
“I have two regrets,” it said—the geologist’s handwriting was exquisitely feminine—“one, that I was inadvertently the cause of inconvenience; and the other, that I was denied the opportunity of claiming the portmanteau, as I imagine that I recognize in it one which I lost about eight months ago during a railway journey to the north.”
I was literally stunned. I gazed from the letter to the now astonished waiter, and back from his vacant countenance to the three-cornered billet, which, alas! told so much and yet so little. It bore no name, no initial, no monogram, no clue.
“Describe this lady’s appearance!” I shouted, clutching the waiter by his greasy collar, and imparting to him no very delicate shake.
“I never seen her; her veil was foreninst her nose the whole time she was spakin’ to me. The boy that attindid her is gone to the fair at Knockatemple.”
“Who saw her?”
“Barrin’ the masther, dickins a wan; for Mary, the chambermaid, started this mornin’ for Fogarty’s, of Glinmaloure. She an’ the misthress had a few words in regard to—but here’s the masther.”
The burly host presented himself; he had not encountered my enslaver, for the bill had been paid by the other lady.
“The red wan,” interposed the waiter.
“Just so, Mick,” said his master approvingly, and turning to me: “They have gone on to Luggelaw, sir, and intend to sleep at Enniskerry to-night.”
I unbosomed myself to Tom Whiffler, who immediately entered into the affair con amore. “We’ll hunt them,” he said; “we must catch them at Latouche’s Cottage. There is no exit from Luggelaw except the one.”
The road from the Seven Churches to Luggelaw is exquisitely picturesque. Behind lies that lake whose gloomy shore skylark never warbles o’er, with Lugnacullagh frowning sternly over its gloomy waters, and the round tower standing like a grim sentinel ready to challenge the approach alike of friend and foe. In front is the little village of Lara, with Castle Kevin perched upon a ledge of rock like an aerie’s nest, and stretching away in the distance the silvern beech-woods of Annamoe, while to the left the purple-crowned crags of Slonaveena seem almost to topple into the placid bosom of Lough Dan. It was a lovely summer day—one of those days that recall past joys, and in which the present is but a voluptuous dream.
At Roundwood we gained intelligence of the objects of our pursuit. The car had passed through about half an hour previously; the ladies had stopped at the hotel while the horse was being baited, and had indulged in that inevitable cup of tea which is at once the dissipation and the solace of the sex. The road to the first gate at Luggelaw is an ascent of three miles, which must of necessity be traversed upon “shanks’ mare,” and it is a blisterer. Not a vestige of tree, and with scarcely as much pasture as will satisfy the cravings of a few stunted sheep, the sun smiles grimly upon the entire roadway and scorches the luckless traveller whom destiny leads to the little lodge perched on the summit of the mountain. We were not spared, and coats, waistcoats, and neckties were cast upon the car, while we retained our pocket-handkerchiefs to mop our glowing faces, which resembled two very full and exceedingly dissipated-looking rosy moons.
Puffing, panting, blowing, mopping, by one supreme effort we gained the table-land which crowns the ascent, and, plunging towards an adjacent thicket of pines, took tremendous headers into the middle of it, where we lay gasping like a pair of stranded fish.
“Blow me,” exclaimed Tom Whiffler, “if I’ll ever climb Luggelaw Hill widow-hunting in July again. I wish you and your portmanteau and widow at Timbuctoo!”
A low, musical laugh quite near us; a rustle of female garments—my heart gave one mighty throb; for right in front of us, not two yards distant, with her large, lustrous gray eyes bent searchingly upon me, stood the owner of the peripatetic portmanteau.
To spring to my feet, to apologize for our déshabille—the car was as yet half a mile down the hill—to mumble some horrible incoherencies, was the impulse and action of half a minute.
She seemed puzzled to know how to act, but her friend, the “red wan,” cut the Gordian knot of the present embarrassment by a fit of loud, hearty, ringing laughter, which, maelstrom-like, sucked us one after another into it, and whirled us into an ocean of mirth before we knew where we were exactly, or what it was all about. There are some contagious laughs in the world, and she of the ruby locks was the fortunate possessor of one.
Two things establish instantaneous and easy communication with strangers—with women a baby, with men a cigar. Throw in a laugh, and, if the situation be a comical one, the laugh beats infant and tobacco. In this case it proved a talisman, and a very few words found us at our ease while I unfolded my tale.
I was i’ the vein and told my story well.
“Why did you not send it after me?” she asked.
“I had no clue,” I replied.
“I flung my card to the porter at the station.”
“It must have gone down the line; for the only reply I could awake in that self-same porter was, 'Sorra a know I know.’” And I devoutly dwelt upon all the bitter anxiety the hopeless efforts at restoration had cost me, to all of which I found a deeply-interested listener.
Before the sun had set on Luggelaw’s deep-wooded vale I learned much that satisfied me as to the past, and a something—inferentially only—that caused the white wings of Hope to flutter against my heart. Lucy Donaldson had been married to Captain George Middlecomb, of the Sixth Dragoon Guards, if not against her will, at least under the pressure of being talked into it. Captain Middlecomb had died within a year of their marriage of delirium tremens.
Need I say that we travelled up to Dublin as a party; that I became a constant visitor at Mrs. Middlecomb’s beautiful residence—Arcachon Villa at Killiney; that—
I suppose I should not divulge it, but, as I have written so far, I may as well finish the chapter. After all, I won’t. Those who have been interested, however, in the portmanteau may be pleased to know that it is now the common property of Lucy and the writer.