“By the way, who is, or was, Nora?”
“Don’t you remember? I told you about her. My only sister—such a pretty girl; but when she was eighteen, she ran away to America—with the postman.”
“How awful! Has nothing been heard of her?”
“No, not for many years. I used to write to her, and send her money on the sly; my father would never allow her name to be mentioned.”
“He was right, I think; she behaved disgracefully.”
“My father married late in life, and had no sympathy with young people. Nora never had a moment’s freedom, and she was a wild, gay sort of girl—poor Nora! I’ve lost sight of her this twenty years; she was five years younger than I.”
In spite of her husband’s warning, Kilmoran Castle proved a terrible disappointment to the bride. First of all a mean little hump-backed gate lodge, covered with ivy as with a cloak, and a common rusty iron gate, then a winding weedy drive, and finally, the Castle!—merely a square grey keep, against which a two-storeyed white house had propped itself. There were no towers or battlements, there was not even a pillared porch to hide the vulgarity of a grass-green hall door. The garden in front was a dreary wilderness of overgrown box and old fuchsias. In short, the Castle had nothing pretty, noble, or uncommon, to recommend it; it was not even dignified by a curse, or a ghost. Within were several large low sitting-rooms, antique furniture, family pictures, and a smell of soot and dry rot. The bride having ascended to her room, collapsed on the first chair in floods of tears—bitter, angry tears. However, Julia Doran was not the sort of woman to sit and weep, and she soon, to use an American term, “took hold.” She explored the house, and cleverly appraised its mouldy contents, discovered the great stable-yard—capable of holding a troop of cavalry—and the huge garden, remnants of the glories of a former mansion; here, at least, was a sense of comfort and importance. The demesne was pretty, and the views lovely. After all, she was Mrs. Doran of Kilmoran Castle, and matters might be worse. For instance, she might still be Miss Barker—living on her friends, and her wits, in some cheap suburban boarding-house. To all important correspondents she despatched glowing accounts of her home, and on her cards and writing-paper was engraved “Kilmoran Castle” in clear large type; and as far as people in England could tell, it might be Chatsworth itself! Then the new lady (there had not been a Mrs. Doran for more than forty years) began to institute improvements. Trees were cut down, old lumber carted away, rooms were opened and aired; she set up a carriage, and taught the immediate neighbourhood to keep its distance. There was to be no running in and out of the Castle now. Next, she issued an edict, and dismissed several old servants. Dotards and blood-suckers, she termed them, and if they had been forty years at Kilmoran, it was twenty years too long. She set her face sternly against authorised beggars, and all pensioners; and oh, crowning enormity, she sold the skim milk, which for a century and more, had been a free gift. Alas, there was now no picking up of firewood in the plantations, no winking at stray cattle—or even goats; altogether it was a new régime.
Colonel Doran made a gallant struggle to stem the revolution, but found himself powerless. His wife had a strong and ruthless will. Remonstrances merely led to scenes: the lady, with a red face, stormed and scolded; she assured him that he was a fool, living in an old barrack, and being ruined by a pack of greedy parasites, and that she would never stand by and calmly witness such extravagance. So at last, for the sake of a quiet life, the unhappy gentleman succumbed; he was alive to the fact that his marriage had been a terrible mistake, but he bore his sufferings with a patience and resignation that was almost oriental in its character. He busied himself beyond the scope of Julia’s operations, became a justice of the peace, farmed, hunted, and took up the broken links of ancient family friendships.
As far as lay in his power, the Colonel helped his poor dependents: in secret, and out of his own pocket he remitted rents, or bought on the sly a cow or an ass; for Mrs. Doran was a woman of business. Precisely like the model French wife, she kept the keys, the accounts, and all domestic power, in her own hands, and, but for her streak of hard greed, was an admirable manager.
The Dorans had two children, both boys—Barker, the elder, was stout, lumpish, black-eyed,—his mother’s favourite, and a Barker, as she proudly proclaimed. Ulick, the second, was a slender, delicate child, with clear-cut features, and large grey eyes. As he resembled the Dorans, his mother did not care for him; he was strong-willed, undemonstrative, and passionately attached to his father.