Lord Clare was puffed out with self-importance when he strutted into his house and found Madam Gillin ensconced there as though she were its mistress. Taking no heed of his frowns, she wagged her feathers with satisfaction, and straightway unfolded her budget. He was as much astonished as she could possibly desire. Shane then was illegitimate, and Terence the true Lord Glandore! This was the clue to much which had seemed inexplicable in my lady. Poor old friend! how she must have suffered--and she innocent, except in aiding and abetting her husband when it was too late to do anything else. It was evident that, born of the same parents, it was a cruel law which would treat one brother (and the elder one too) as a pariah for lack of a few sentences droned through the nose. It was natural that a mother should feel this strongly, and in a wrong-headed feminine way make difficulties greater in her efforts to gloze them over. But the old lord was right when he spoke the warning. His sons were only boys; they might have stepped into their legal places then without much harm resulting. But now after the long lapse of years, the situation wore another aspect. Shane had grown to manhood--to the prime of life--under the impression that he was true master of wealth and broad acres. His life had taken its permanent shape. It would be a smashing blow to him were his brother to come forward and claim his own. The position of Terence too was a singularly unhappy one. He had been bitterly wronged. Of that there could be no doubt, and his mother must have walked on red-hot ploughshares when she beheld him going straight to ruin. If he had been acknowledged as 'my lord' he would have done, of course, as the majority of lords did--would never have thought of joining the popular party, would not now be preparing to leave his country--a brokenhearted exile. For even the most virtuous in the Upper House were content at this juncture to remain neutral. Poor, poor old friend! What anguish must have been hers when she contemplated all this, as she must have done daily, without having strength to say the words she should have said! Actually she had been doomed to watch her own son drifting into the dark waters, and with her own hands to cut the rope which might have saved him. No wonder if her hair was white--her face of ashen pallor. No wonder if she was haunted by a ghost who never left her side. Mrs. Gillin's story actually took away the breath of the chancellor as his mind wandered through the fields of the past, putting this and that together, fitting pieces of a puzzle into their places which hitherto had defied his skill.
In the first place he was moved with pity for the Countess of Glandore. Sure, her sufferings--dragged out and intensified instead of being healed by Time--would have turned long ago a less steady brain than hers. Poor lady! at this very moment her trials were at their acme. The son who had been so much wronged was about to depart on his sad journey. Would she have the courage to let him go without speaking the truth? And if she spoke the truth, what line would he take? It was a pity he had not been hanged in the ordinary course of events. He would then have gone to his grave in ignorance of the wrong done to him. The knot would have been severed. For, failing Terence, the title would be extinct; and, bastard or not, my lady's conscience would have been at rest with regard to Shane's inheriting. As he turned over the tangled mass he could not decide for which of the three he ought to be most sorry. Their cruel case touched the good portion of his heart--in which there was room for compassion for these three persons, whom he had known intimately for years; two of whom had grown up before his eyes. Shane's case was a most dreadful one. But not more cruel than Terence's. All things considered, it would be best that Terence should never learn the truth, or Shane either. Things had gone so far that nothing but evil could come of their positions being reversed.
This was the verdict of the chancellor, and a worldly-wise one too. For he knew not that my lady's overburthened soul had already vomited forth the truth; that she had confessed to Shane, now, several weeks ago. This was his verdict, and Mrs. Gillin was reluctantly compelled to admit that he was right. But he, on the other hand, fully agreed with her that something must be done forthwith for Terence. The Viceroy must be spoken to, the King even must be interviewed--a pardon gained for the doomed exile without telling him the cause of it. By being deprived of a fortune which was legally his, he had been fearfully wronged. For the sake of others it would be well that he should never know how much. All things considered, his was a case for clemency. His Majesty, who was jealous of the ermine, and loved not to see it dragged through the mud, would appreciate at once the peculiarities with which the case was invested. But to hoodwink suspicion he must be advised to avoid too abrupt a pardon, such as should set the tongues of busybodies clacking. Terence must in a careless way be left behind when the vessel sailed, which was now lying ready in the Liffey. He must be made to promise to conspire no more, and then be given to understand quietly that his misdeeds would be graciously forgotten.
Gillin went away content, and with a light heart. She had fulfilled her promise of protecting the son of her old lover. Shane, it was decided, was still to be Lord Glandore. Norah's mamma might now, with an easy conscience, set about the clinching of that match which she considered would be beneficial to her child. My lady's reluctant consent could be wrung from her by fear of her secret becoming known. She might even be told in plain words that her own evil imagination had conjured up baseless phantoms--that Norah was born two months before her mother made the acquaintance of the late lord, and that she had been brought up a Protestant by his desire simply for the sake of evading certain clauses in the Penal Code, which might jeopardise his legacy to a Catholic.
Madam Gillin had seen through my lady's terrors upon this point all along, and had played on them to revenge herself for the stern chatelaine's contemptuous airs. For the same cause she had first imagined a match between the two young people, which their own inclinations seemed inclined to ratify. It would be rare sport to bring the haughty woman to the dust, and compel her to accept Norah as a daughter! It would be, too, a spectacle of ineffable delight to see Norah make her appearance at a drawing-room by the entrée by virtue of her rank as countess! The fascinating idea took possession of the worthy woman; yet shrank she not from that to which she considered herself bound by oath. She would have kicked over with her own fat foot, if need were, the palace she had built, and have thought no more of Norah as mistress of Strogue Abbey and the possible intimate friend of a lady-lieutenant; but she was none the less charmed to find that duty and delight were not incompatible, that Lord Clare was decided in his opinion that Shane must still wear the coronet.
Lord Clare considered and reconsidered the strange embroglio whilst refreshing his inner man with chicken-pasty for a long business talk with Castlereagh. There were several reasons why Shane must not be ousted now. What with pugnacious waifs and strays from the broken ranks of the United Irishmen; what with the honesty of a small band of senators, and the rapacity of the remainder, there would be a very pretty fight ere this union could be jotted down in history. To make success certain consummate tact would be required, as well as a full purse. Every vote would be of enormous worth; Castlereagh in his latest bulletin had computed the votes of ordinary M.P.'s at £5000 a head. The title of Glandore carried with it parliamentary pressure of many kinds; direct or indirect influence over constituencies, as well as weight in the Upper House. If all this influence were transferred from Shane to Terence, it would be used on the wrong side. He would certainly join Lords Downshire and Powerscourt and other troublesome persons, who dared to flout the King; would sneer at English marquisates and be faithful to the errors which beset an heir-presumptive. It behoved the chancellor to be cunning on this as on other points. There was no telling what might happen next, in so singularly involved a complication as this of the Glandore family. Two points only were quite apparent. Terence, the real earl, must not go into captivity. Shane, the sham earl, must be retained in his position, at least until he had borne his share in securing the success of the Great Measure.
When Castlereagh arrived presently at Ely Place, he disturbed his colleague's complacency by hints of difficulty independent of money or of votes. Not only was the scatter-brained school-lad Robert Emmett back in Ireland (this was no news); but he was showing that he was a cockatrice indeed. All his acts were watched, his intentions known; but he was doing considerable damage already to the cause of Government, and bade fair to make himself still more objectionable. He was actually starting the foolish old plots again which had only been allowed to run their course at all for state reasons, and which were now altogether preposterous and out of date. He prated of tying together the ravelled strands of the confederacy. Major Sirr had intelligence of midnight meetings of the good old kind, with passwords which everybody knew. Had even seen a wonderful green uniform, with a cocked hat like a merry-andrew's at a fair, which was being manufactured for the younger Emmett.
'The boy is an honest boy,' Lord Castlereagh averred. 'He is simply running his head against a wall. It would be well to save him from the effects of his own lunacy, if possible; a strait waistcoat would fit him better than his fancy dress.'
This was annoying news, but it was not all. The state of the country was unsafe, and Lord Cornwallis was of opinion that, unless the measure could speedily be finished off, difficulties might arise which it was the interest of all parties to avoid. Time was when the lash and halter were salutary instruments; but now it was essential that they should be used no more. Agrarian outrages were becoming ominously frequent. Not only property was in danger, but life too. Not merely the life of the low scum, which of course didn't matter, but the precious lives of lords and ladies. Some lords, indeed, the remembrance of whose performances on the triangle made them specially unpopular, had been obliged to surround their mansions with foreign troops, and were delighted to escape from the homes of their forefathers to the safer atmosphere of Dame Street and the Castle. Was not that awkward? Even that was not all! Here was something worse. At the time when the English militia regiments were drafted into Ireland for the protection of the proprietors, it was agreed that their enforced stay should not exceed a certain period, with option of eventually returning home or lingering on as might be deemed convenient. The specified time was up now. In a wild chorus--as eager as the Viceroy's private solo--they all declared that they would not remain on Irish soil a moment longer than they could help. Even the strong influence of Lord Cornwallis, who kept his solo for his private bedchamber when his nightcap was on, could only obtain a month or two's delay. Things were shaky. Another Hurry might be brought about unless those in office were careful and it would be monstrous inconvenient if such a contingency were to take place.
This, according to Lord Castlereagh's account, was in the future. Let us look at the present, which was sad enough.