Mr. Somers did go once to Hap House, at Herbert's instigation; but very little came of his visit. He had always disliked Owen, regarding him as an unthrift, any close connexion with whom could only bring contamination on the Fitzgerald property; and Owen had returned the feeling tenfold. His pride had been wounded by what he had considered to be the agent's insolence, and he had stigmatised Mr. Somers to his friends as a self-seeking, mercenary prig. Very little, therefore, came of the visit. Mr. Somers, to give him his due, had attempted to do his best; being anxious, for Herbert's sake, to conciliate Owen; perhaps having—and why not?—some eye to the future agency. But Owen was hard, and cold, and uncommunicative,—very unlike what he had before been to Mr. Prendergast. But then Mr. Prendergast had never offended his pride.
"You may tell my cousin Herbert," he said, with some little special emphasis on the word cousin, "that I shall be glad to see him, as soon as he feels himself able to meet me. It will be for the good of us both that we should have some conversation together. Will you tell him, Mr. Somers, that I shall be happy to go to him, or to see him here? Perhaps my going to Castle Richmond, during the present illness of Sir Thomas, may be inconvenient." And this was all that Mr. Somers could get from him.
In a very short time the whole story became known to everybody round the neighbourhood. And what would have been the good of keeping it secret? There are some secrets,—kept as secrets because they cannot well be discussed openly,—which may be allowed to leak out with so much advantage! The day must come, and that apparently at no distant time, when all the world would know the fate of that Fitzgerald family; when Sir Owen must walk into the hall of Castle Richmond, the undoubted owner of the mansion and demesne. Why then keep it secret? Herbert openly declared his wish to Mr. Somers that there should be no secret in the matter. "There is no disgrace," he said, thinking of his mother; "nothing to be ashamed of, let the world say what it will."
Down in the servants' hall the news came to them gradually, whispered about from one to another. They hardly understood what it meant, or how it had come to pass; but they did know that their master's marriage had been no marriage, and that their master's son was no heir. Mrs. Jones said not a word in the matter to any one. Indeed, since that day on which she had been confronted with Mollett, she had not associated with the servants at all, but had kept herself close to her mistress. She understood what it all meant perfectly; and the depth of the tragedy had so cowed her spirit that she hardly dared to speak of it. Who told the servants,—or who does tell servants of such matters, it is impossible to say; but before Mr. Prendergast had been three days out of the house they all knew that the Mr. Owen of Hap House was to be the future master of Castle Richmond.
"An' a sore day it'll be; a sore day, a sore day," said Richard, seated in an arm-chair by the fire, at the end of the servants' hall, shaking his head despondingly.
"Faix, an' you may say that," said Corney, the footman. "That Misther Owen will go tatthering away to the divil, when the old place comes into his hans. No fear he'll make it fly."
"Sorrow seize the ould lawyer for coming down here at all at all," said the cook.
"I never knew no good come of thim dry ould bachelors," said Biddy the housemaid; "specially the Englishers."
"The two of yez are no better nor simpletons," said Richard, magisterially. "'Twarn't he that done it. The likes of him couldn't do the likes o' that."
"And what was it as done it?" said Biddy.