The Earl's promise

by Mrs. J. H. Riddell

On the whole, public opinion inclined to the belief that Mr. Dillwyn was the person who had opened Lord Ardmorne’s eyes. It was well known that when the new earl succeeded to the title, Mr. Brady had taken a journey in order to malign Mr. Dillwyn, and secure the agency for himself, and so much unpleasantness had in consequence arisen that Mr. Somerford’s stepfather actually did resign, offered on certain conditions to vacate Rosemont, and expressed his opinion of Mr. Brady and the Glendares in language as remarkable for its force as its plainness.

It was only at the earl’s earnest entreaty he continued to act until another agent could be found.

“And that other agent will not be Mr. Daniel Brady in this earl’s time,” said Mr. Dillwyn triumphantly, on his return from foreign travel—which remark clearly proved that the feelings he entertained towards the owner of Maryville were not strictly Christian in their nature.

Society at Kingslough had for so long a time been accustomed to disagreements between the Glendares and their agents, that it had paid comparatively little attention to this last dispute, except to marvel whether Mr. Dillwyn would really go, and if so who would step into his shoes. But now when every one was anxious to know who it was that enlightened Lord Ardmorne, the passage between the agent and Mr. Brady was remembered, and a certain significance attached to it.

In a word, though rumour invented and circulated fifty stories, this was the one to which people, as a rule, inclined. Mr. Brady himself was perhaps the only person who attached no importance to it. As at first, he believed that either his own or his friend’s lawyer, or his friend himself, had proved unfaithful; so at last he believed that one or other of the persons with whom he was most closely connected by ties of interest had—by imprudence or of malice prepense—betrayed his plans.

No one else, he was positive, had the faintest knowledge of them. By intuition Mr. Dillwyn could not have guessed his tactics, and it mattered little who it was that had finally carried the news to Lord Ardmorne, when once the secret escaped from the custody of those who ought to have held it secure.

To discover the person who originally betrayed it, suddenly became the most paramount business of Mr. Brady’s life, and Nettie often wondered to herself whether the best thing she could do might not be to run away to the uttermost ends of the earth, taking the children with her.

“For if he ever finds it out he certainly will kill me,” thought the wretched woman, and she thenceforth lived in a constant agony of fright. After all, no matter how tired a person may be of the business of existence, one would like to have a choice as to the mode of getting rid of the toil and the sorrow; and perhaps the most repulsive way of having the trouble ended seems that of being murdered.

There had been times when Nettie felt tempted to bring matters to a conclusion for herself—and that method of shortening the weary day now seemed luxurious by comparison with any termination which involved the ceremony of un mauvais quart d’heure, with Mr. Brady as an essential preliminary.

So far as affairs at the Castle Farm were concerned, General Riley’s business took precedence of Amos Scott’s. Having quarrelled with his own solicitors, Mr. Brady had to carry the Scott difficulty elsewhere. Out, Mr. Brady was determined the farmer, his wife, and his children should go; but short of pulling the house down about their ears, there seemed no possibility of getting rid of them; and for all his braggart airs, he was not prepared to take a step of that kind if he could avoid doing so.