He was two hours later than he had intended as he rode up the avenue to Lady Desmond\'s gate, and his chief thought at the moment was how he should describe to the countess the scene he had just witnessed. Why describe it at all? That is what we should all say. He had come there to talk about other things—about other things which must be discussed, and which would require all his wits. Let him keep that poor woman on his mind, but not embarrass himself with any mention of her for the present. This, no doubt, would have been wise if only it had been possible; but out of the full heart the mouth speaks.
But Lady Desmond had not witnessed the scene which I have attempted to describe, and her heart, therefore, was not full of it, and was not inclined to be so filled. And so, in answer to Herbert\'s exclamation, "Oh, Lady Desmond, I have seen such a sight!" she gave him but little encouragement to describe it, and by her coldness, reserve, and dignity, soon quelled the expression of his feelings.
The earl was present and shook hands very cordially with Herbert when he entered the room; and he, being more susceptible as being younger, and not having yet become habituated to the famine as his mother was, did express some eager sympathy. He would immediately go down, or send Fahy with the car, and have her brought up and saved; but his mother had other work to do and soon put a stop to all this.
"Mr. Fitzgerald," said she, speaking with a smile upon her face, and with much high-bred dignity of demeanour, "as you and Lady Clara both wish to see each other before you leave the country, and as you have known each other so intimately, and considering all the circumstances, I have not thought it well absolutely to forbid an interview. But I do doubt its expediency; I do, indeed. And Lord Desmond, who feels for your late misfortune as we all do, perfectly agrees with me. He thinks that it would be much wiser for you both to have parted without the pain of a meeting, seeing how impossible it is that you should ever be more to each other than you are now." And then she appealed to her son, who stood by, looking not quite so wise, nor even quite so decided as his mother\'s words would seem to make him.
"Well, yes; upon my word I don\'t see how it\'s to be," said the young earl. "I am deuced sorry for it for one, and I wish I was well off, so that I could give Clara a pot of money, and then I should not care so much about your not being the baronet."
"I am sure you must see, Mr. Fitzgerald, and I know that you do see it because you have very properly said so, that a marriage between you and Lady Clara is now impossible. For her such an engagement would be very bad—very bad indeed; but for you it would be utter ruin. Indeed, it would be ruin for you both. Unencumbered as you will be, and with the good connection which you will have, and with your excellent talents, it will be quite within your reach to win for yourself a high position. But with you, as with other gentlemen who have to work their way, marriage must come late in life, unless you marry an heiress. This I think is thoroughly understood by all people in our position; and I am sure that it is understood by your excellent mother, for whom I always had and still have the most unfeigned respect. As this is so undoubtedly the case, and as I cannot of course consent that Lady Clara should remain hampered by an engagement which would in all human probability hang over the ten best years of her life, I thought it wise that you should not see each other. I have, however, allowed myself to be overruled; and now I must only trust to your honour, forbearance, and prudence to protect my child from what might possibly be the ill effects of her own affectionate feelings. That she is romantic,—enthusiastic to a fault I should perhaps rather call it—I need not tell you. She thinks that your misfortune demands from her a sacrifice of herself; but you, I know, will feel that, even were such a sacrifice available to you, it would not become you to accept it. Because you have fallen, you will not wish to drag her down; more especially as you can rise again—and she could not."
So spoke the countess, with much worldly wisdom, and with considerable tact in adjusting her words to the object which she had in view. Herbert, as he stood before her silent during the period of her oration, did feel that it would be well for him to give up his love, and go away in utter solitude of heart to those dingy studies which Mr. Prendergast was preparing for him. His love, or rather the assurance of Clara\'s love, had been his great consolation. But what right had he, with all the advantages of youth, and health, and friends, and education, to require consolation? And then from moment to moment he thought of the woman whom he had left in the cabin, and confessed that he did not dare to call himself unhappy.
He had listened attentively, although he did thus think of other eloquence besides that of the countess—of the eloquence of that silent, solitary, dying woman; but when she had done he hardly knew what to say for himself. She did make him feel that it would be ungenerous in him to persist in his engagement; but then again, Clara\'s letters and his sister\'s arguments had made him feel that it was impossible to abandon it. They pleaded of heart-feelings so well that he could not resist them; and the countess—she pleaded so well as to world\'s prudence that he could not resist her.
"I would not willingly do anything to injure Lady Clara," he said.
"That\'s what we all knew," said the young earl. "You see, what is a girl to do like her? Love in a cottage is all very well, and all that; and as for riches, I don\'t care about them. It would be a pity if I did, for I shall be about the poorest nobleman in the three kingdoms, I suppose. But a chap when he marries should have something; shouldn\'t he now?"
To tell the truth the earl had been very much divided in his opinions since he had come home, veering round a point or two this way or a point or two that, in obedience to the blast of eloquence to which he might be last subjected. But latterly the idea had grown upon him that Clara might possibly marry Owen Fitzgerald. There was about Owen a strange fascination which all felt who had once loved him. To the world he was rough and haughty, imperious in his commands, and exacting even in his fellowship; but to the few whom he absolutely loved, whom he had taken into his heart\'s core, no man ever was more tender or more gracious. Clara, though she had resolved to banish him from her heart, had found it impossible to do so till Herbert\'s misfortunes had given him a charm in her eyes which was not all his own. Clara\'s mother had loved him—had loved him as she never before had loved; and now she loved him still, though she had so strongly determined that her love should be that of a mother, and not that of a wife. And the young earl, now that Owen\'s name was again rife in his ears, remembered all the pleasantness of former days. He had never again found such a companion as Owen had been. He had met no other friend to whom he could talk of sport and a man\'s outward pleasures when his mind was that way given, and to whom he could also talk of soft inward things,—the heart\'s feelings, and aspirations, and wants. Owen would be as tender with him as a woman, allowing the young lad\'s arm round his body, listening to words which the outer world would have called bosh—and have derided as girlish. So at least thought the young earl to himself. And all boys long to be allowed utterance occasionally for these soft tender things;—as also do all men, unless the devil\'s share in the world has become altogether uppermost with them.
And the young lad\'s heart hankered after his old friend. He had listened to his sister, and for a while had taken her part; but his mother had since whispered to him that Owen would now be the better suitor, the preferable brother-in-law; and that in fact Clara loved Owen the best, though she felt herself bound by honour to his kinsman. And then she reminded her son of Clara\'s former love for Owen—a love which he himself had witnessed; and he thought of the day when with so much regret he had told his friend that he was unsuited to wed with an earl\'s penniless daughter. Of the subsequent pleasantness which had come with Herbert\'s arrival, he had seen little or nothing. He had been told by letter that Herbert Fitzgerald, the prosperous heir of Castle Richmond, was to be his future brother-in-law, and he had been satisfied. But now, if Owen could return—how pleasant it would be!
"But a chap when he marries should have something; shouldn\'t he now?" So spoke the young earl, re-echoing his mother\'s prudence.
Herbert did not quite like this interference on the boy\'s part. Was he to explain to a young lad from Eton what his future intentions were with reference to his mode of living and period of marriage? "Of course," he said, addressing himself to the countess, "I shall not insist on an engagement made under such different circumstances."
"Nor will you allow her to do so through a romantic feeling of generosity," said the countess.
"You should know your own daughter, Lady Desmond, better than I do," he answered; "but I cannot say what I may do at her instance till I shall have seen her."
"Do you mean to say that you will allow a girl of her age to talk you into a proceeding which you know to be wrong?"
"I will allow no one," he said, "to talk me into a proceeding which I know to be wrong; nor will I allow any one to talk me out of a proceeding which I believe to be right." And then, having uttered these somewhat grandiloquent words, he shut himself up as though there were no longer any need for discussing the subject.
"My poor child!" said the countess, in a low tremulous voice, as though she did not intend him to hear them. "My poor unfortunate child!" Herbert as he did hear them thought of the woman in the cabin, and of her misfortunes and of her children. "Come, Patrick," continued the countess, "it is perhaps useless for us to say anything further at present. If you will remain here, Mr. Fitzgerald, for a minute or two, I will send Lady Clara to wait upon you;" and then curtsying with great dignity she withdrew, and the young earl scuffled out after her. "Mamma," he said, as he went, "he is determined that he will have her."
"My poor child!" answered the countess.
"And if I were in his place I should be determined also. You may as well give it up. Not but that I like Owen a thousand times the best."
Herbert did wait there for some five minutes, and then the door was opened very gently, was gently closed again, and Clara Desmond was in the room. He came towards her respectfully, holding out his hand that he might take hers; but before he had thought of how she would act she was in his arms. Hitherto, of all betrothed maidens, she had been the most retiring. Sometimes he had thought her cold when she had left the seat by his side to go and nestle closely by his sister. She had avoided the touch of his hand and the pressure of his arm, and had gone from him speechless, if not with anger then with dismay, when he had carried the warmth of his love beyond the touch of his hand or the pressure of his arm. But now she rushed into his embrace and hid her face upon his shoulder, as though she were over glad to return to the heart from which those around her had endeavoured to banish her. Was he or was he not to speak of his love? That had been the question which he had asked himself when left alone there for those five minutes, with the eloquence of the countess ringing in his ears. Now that question had in truth been answered for him.
"Herbert," she said, "Herbert! I have so sorrowed for you; but I know that you have borne it like a man."
She was thinking of what he had now half forgotten,—the position which he had lost, those hopes which had all been shipwrecked, his title surrendered to another, and his lost estates. She was thinking of them as the loss affected him; but he, he had reconciled himself to all that,—unless all that were to separate him from his promised bride.
"Dearest Clara," he said, with his arm close round her waist, while neither anger nor dismay appeared to disturb the sweetness of that position, "the letter which you wrote me has been my chief comfort." Now if he had any intention of liberating Clara from the bond of her engagement,—if he really had any feeling that it behoved him not to involve her in the worldly losses which had come upon him,—he was taking a very bad way of carrying out his views in that respect. Instead of confessing the comfort which he had received from that letter, and holding her close to his breast while he did confess it, he should have stood away from her—quite as far apart as he had done from the countess; and he should have argued with her, showing her how foolish and imprudent her letter had been, explaining that it behoved her now to repress her feelings, and teaching her that peers\' daughters as well as housemaids should look out for situations which would suit them, guided by prudence and a view to the wages,—not follow the dictates of impulse and of the heart. This is what he should have done, according, I believe, to the views of most men and women. Instead of that he held her there as close as he could hold her, and left her to do the most of the speaking. I think he was right. According to my ideas woman\'s love should be regarded as fair prize of war,—as long as the war has been carried on with due adherence to the recognized law of nations. When it has been fairly won, let it be firmly held. I have no opinion of that theory of giving up.
"You knew that I would not abandon you! Did you not know it? say that you knew it?" said Clara, and then she insisted on having an answer.
"I could hardly dare to think that there was so much happiness left for me," said Herbert.
"Then you were a traitor to your love, sir; a false traitor." But deep as was the offence for which she arraigned him, it was clear to see that the pardon came as quick as the conviction. "And was Emmeline so untrue to me also as to believe that?"
"Emmeline said—" and then he told her what Emmeline had said.
"Dearest, dearest Emmeline! give her a whole heart-load of love from me; now mind you do,—and to Mary, too. And remember this, sir; that I love Emmeline ten times be............