"That"s a chancellor, man; don"t you see the mace? But he"s not a whit more civil-looking than the other; commend me to the shepherdess yonder, in blue satin. But come on, we "re losing time; I hear the flourish of a new dance. I say," said he, in a whisper, "do you see who we"ve got behind us?" And they turned and saw the Knight as he mounted the stairs behind them.
"A friend of the family, sir?" asked the major, in a voice that might bear the equivocal meaning of either impertinence or mere inquiry.
The Knight seemed to prefer taking it in the latter acceptation, as he answered mildly, "I have that honor."
"Ah! indeed; well, we "ve the misfortune to be strangers in these parts; only arrived in the neighborhood last week, and were invited here through our colonel. Would you have any objection to present us?--Major Hopecot of the 5th, Captain Mills, Mr. Dallas, Mr. Fothergill, Mr.
Watkins."
"How the major _is_ going it!" lisped the ensign, while his goggle eyes rolled fearfully, and the others seemed struggling to control their enjoyment of such drollery.
"It will afford me much pleasure, sir, to do your bidding," said the Knight, calmly.
"Take the head of the column, then," resumed the major, making way for him to pa.s.s; and the Knight entered, with the others after him.
"My father--my dearest father!" cried a voice at the moment, and, escaping from her partner, Helen was in a moment in bis arms. The next instant Lionel was also at his side.
"My dear children!--my sweet Helen!--and Lionel, how well you "re looking, boy! Ah! Eleanor, what a pleasant surprise you have managed for me."
"Then perhaps you never got our letter," said Lady Eleanor, as she took his arm and walked forward. "I wrote the moment I heard from Lionel."
"And I, too, wrote you a long letter from London," said Lionel.
"Neither reached me; but the last few days I have been so busy, and so much occupied.--How are you, Conolly? Delighted to see you, Martin.--And Lady Julia, is she here? I must take a tour and see all my friends.
First of all, I have a duty to perform; let me introduce these gentlemen. But where are they? Oh, I see them yonder." And, as he spoke, he led Lady Eleanor across the room to the group of officers, who, overwhelmed with shame at their discovery, stood uncertain whether they should remain or retire.
"Let me introduce Major Hopecot and the officers of the 5th," said he, bowing courteously. "These gentlemen are strangers, Lady Eleanor; will you take care that they find partners."
While the abashed subalterns left their major to make his speeches to Lady Eleanor, the Knight moved round the room with Helen still leaning on his arm. By this time Darcy"s arrival was generally known, and all his old friends came pressing forward to see and speak to him.
"Lord Netherby," whispered Helen in the Knight"s ear, as a tall and very thin old man, with an excessive affectation of youthfulness, tripped forward to meet him.
"My dear Lord," exclaimed Darcy, "what a pleasure, and what an honor to see you here!"
"You would not come to me, Knight, so there was nothing else for it,"
replied the other, laughing, as he shook hands with a great display of cordiality. "And you were quite right," continued he; "I could not have received you like this. There "s not so splendid a place in England, nor has it ever been my fortune to witness so much beauty." A half bow accompanied the last words, as he turned towards Helen.
"Take care, my Lord," said the Knight, smiling; "the flatteries of a courtier are very dangerous things when heard out of the atmosphere that makes them commonplace. We may take you literally, and have our heads turned by them."
At this moment Lionel joined them, to introduce several of his friends and brother officers who accompanied him from England, all of whom were received by the Knight with that winning courtesy of manner of which he was a perfect master; for, not affecting either the vices or frivolities of youth as a claim to the consideration of younger men, the Knight possessed the happy temper that can concede indulgence without asking to partake of it, and, while losing nothing of the relish for wit and humor, chasten both by the fruits of a life"s experience.
"Now, Helen, you must go back to your partner; that young guardsman looks very sulkily at me for having taken you off--yes, I insist on it. Lionel, look to your friends, and I "ll join Lord Netherby"s whist-table, and talk whenever permitted. Where "s poor Tate?" whispered he in Lady Eleanor"s ear, as she just came up.
"Poor fellow! he has been ill for some days back; you know what a superst.i.tious creature he is; and about a week since he got a fright,--some warning of a Banshee, I think; but it shook his nerves greatly, and he has kept his bed almost ever since. Lionel brought over some of these servants with him; but Lord Netherby"s people are Legion, and the servants" hall now numbers something like seventy, I hear."
The Knight heaved a sigh; but, catching himself, tried to conceal it by a cough. Lady Eleanor had heard it, however, and stole a quick glance towards him, to evade which he turned abruptly round and spoke to some one near.
"Seventy, my dear Eleanor!" said he, after a pause, and as if he had been reflecting over his last observation; "and what a Babel, too, it must be! I heard French, German, and Italian in the hall; I think we can promise Irish ourselves."
"Yes," said Lionel, "it is the most amusing scene in the world. They had a ball last night in the lower gallery, where boleros and jigs succeeded each other, while the refreshments ranged from iced lemonade to burnt whiskey."
"And what did our worthy folk think of their visitors?" said Darcy, smiling.
"Not over much. Paddy Lennan looked with great contempt at the men sipping _orgeat_, and when he saw the waltzing, merely remarked, "We"ve a betther way of getting round the girls in Ireland;" while old Pierre Dulange, Netherby"s valet, persists in addressing the native company as "Messieurs les Sauvages.""
"I hope, for the sake of the public peace, they "ve not got an interpreter among them."
"No, no, all"s safe on that score, and freedom of speech has suggested the most perfect code of good manners; for it would seem, as they can indulge themselves in the most liberal reflections on each other, they have no necessity of proceeding to overt acts."
"Now," said the Knight, "let me not interrupt the revelry longer. To your place, Lionel, and leave me to pay my devoirs to my friends and kind neighbors."
The Knight"s presence seemed alone wanting to fill up the measure of enjoyment. Most of those present were his old familiar friends, glad to see once more amongst them the great promoter of kind feeling and hospitality, while from such as were strangers he easily won golden opinions, the charm of courtesy being with him like a well-fitting garment, which graced, but did not impede, the wearer"s motions.
He had a hundred questions to ask and to answer. The news of the capital travelled in those days by slow and easy stages, and the moment was sufficiently eventful to warrant curiosity; and so, as he pa.s.sed from group to group, he gave the current gossip of the time as each in turn asked after this circ.u.mstance or that.
At length he took his place beside Lord Netherby, as he sat engaged at a whist-table, where the gathering crowd that gradually collected soon converted the game into a social circle of eager talkers.
Who could have suspected that easy, unconstrained manner, that winning smile, that ready laugh, the ever-present jest, to cover the working of a heart so nigh to breaking? And yet he talked pleasantly and freely, narrating with all his accustomed humor the chit-chat of the time; and while of course, the great question of the hour occupied every tongue and ear, all Lord Netherby"s practised shrewdness could not enable him to detect the exact part the Knight himself had taken.
"And so they have carried the bill," said Conolly, with a sigh, as he listened to Darcy"s account of the second reading. "Well, though I never was a Parliament man, nor expected to be one, I"m sorry for it. You think that strange, my Lord?"
"By no means, sir. A man may love monarchy without being the heir apparent."
"Quite true," chimed in the Knight. "I would even go further, and say that, without any warm devotion to a king, a man may hate a regicide."
Lord Netherby"s eyes met Darcy"s, and the wily peer smiled with a significance that seemed to say, "I know you _now_."
CHAPTER XXVIIII. THE HUNT-BREAKFAST
The ball lasted till nigh daybreak; and while the greater number of the guests departed, some few remained, by special invitation, at the abbey, to join a hunting party on the following day. For this Lionel had made every possible preparation, desiring to let his English friends witness a favorable specimen of Irish sport and horsemanship. The stud and kennel were both in high condition, the weather favorable, and, as the old huntsman said, ""It would be hard if a fox would n"t be agreeable enough to give the strange gentlemen a run."
In high antic.i.p.ation of the coming morning, and with many a prayer against a frost, they separated for the night. All within the abbey were soon sound asleep,--all save the Knight himself, who, the restraint of an a.s.sumed part withdrawn, threw himself on a sofa in his dressing-room, worn out and exhausted by his struggle. Ruin was inevitable,--that he well knew; but as yet the world knew it not, and for Lionel"s sake he resolved to keep his own secret a few days longer. The visit was to last but eight days; two were already over; for the remaining six, then, he determined--whatever it might cost him--to preserve all the appearances of his former estate, to wear the garb and seeming of prosperity, and do the princely honors of a house that was never again to be his home.
"Poor Lionel!" thought he; ""twould break the boy"s heart if such a disclosure should be made now; the high and daring promptings of his bold spirit would not quail before misfortune, although his courage might not sustain him in the very moment of the reverse. I will not risk the whole fortune of his future happiness in such a trial; he shall know nothing till they are gone; one week of triumphant pleasure he shall have, and then let him brace himself to the struggle, and breast the current manfully."
While endeavoring to persuade himself that Lionel"s lot was uppermost in his mind, his heart would force the truth upon him that Lady Eleanor and Helen"s fate was, in reality, a heavier stroke of fortune. Lionel was a soldier, ardent and daring, fond of his profession, and far more ambitious of distinction than attached to the life of pleasure a court and a great capital suggested; but they who had never known the want of every luxury that can embellish life, whose whole existence had been like some fairy dream of pleasure, how were they to bear up against the dreadful shock? Lady Eleanor"s health was frail and delicate in the extreme; Helen"s attachment to her mother such that any impression on her would invariably recoil upon herself. What might be the consequences of the disclosure to them Darcy could not, dared not, contemplate.
As he revolved all these things in his mind, and thought upon the difficulties that beset him, he was at a loss whether to deplore the necessity of wearing a false face of pleasure a few days longer, or rejoice at the occasion of even this brief reprieve from ruin. Thus pa.s.sed the weary hours that preceded daybreak, and while others slept soundly, or reviewed in their dreams the pleasures of the past night, Darcy"s gloomy thoughts were fixed upon the inevitable calamity of his fate, and the years, few but sad, that in all likelihood were now before him.
The stir and bustle of the servants preparing breakfast for the hunting party broke in upon his dreary revery, and he suddenly bethought him of the part he had a.s.signed himself to play. He dreaded the possibility of an interview with Lady Eleanor, in which she would inevitably advert to Gleeson, and the circ.u.mstances of his flight; this could not be avoided, however, were he to pa.s.s the day at home, and so he resolved to join the hunting-field, where perhaps some lingering trace of his old enthusiasm for the sport might lead him to hope for a momentary relief of mind.
"Lionel, too, will be glad to see me in the saddle--it"s some years since I crossed the sward at a gallop--and I am curious to know if a man"s nerve is stouter when the world looks fair before him, or when the night of calamity is lowering above his head." Muttering these words to himself, he pa.s.sed out into the hall, and crossing which, entered the courtyard, and took his way towards the stables. It was still dark, but many lights were moving to and fro, and the groom population were all about and stirring. Darcy opened the door and looked down the long range of stalls, where above twenty saddle-horses were now standing, the greater number of them highly bred and valuable animals, and all in the highest possible condition. Great was the astonishment of the stablemen as the Knight moved along, throwing a glance as he went at each stall, while a muttered "Welcome home to yer honor" ran from mouth to mouth.
"The bastes is looking finely, sir," said Bob Carney, who, as stud-groom and huntsman, had long presided over his department.
"So they are, Bob, but I don"t know half of them; where did this strong brown horse come from?"