The question appeared to take her somewhat by surprise, if one could judge by the look she bestowed upon him with her dark, flashing eyes.
"In Fate, Mr. Reilly? that is a subject, I fear, too deep for a girl like me. I believe in Providence."
"All this morning I have been thinking of the subject. Should it be Fate that brought me to the rescue of your father last night, I cannot but feel glad of it; but though it be a Fate that has preserved him--and I thank Almighty G.o.d for it--yet it is one that I fear has destroyed my happiness."
"Destroyed your happiness, Mr. Reilly! why, how could the service you rendered papa last night have such an effect?"
"I will be candid, and tell you, Miss Folliard. I know that what I am about to say will offend you--it was by making me acquainted with his daughter, and by bringing me under the influence of beauty which has unmanned--distracted me--beauty which I could not resist--which has overcome me--subdued me--and which, because it is beyond my reach and my deserts, will occasion me an unhappy life--how long soever that life my last."
"Mr. Reilly," exclaimed the _Cooleen Bawn_, "this--this--is--I am quite unprepared for--I mean--to hear that such n.o.ble and generous conduct to my father should end in this. But it cannot be. Nay, I will not pretend to misunderstand you. After the service you have rendered to him and to myself, it would be uncandid in me and unworthy of you to conceal the distress which your words have caused me."
"I am scarcely in a condition to speak reasonably and calmly," replied Reilly, "but I cannot regret that I have unconsciously sacrificed my happiness, when that sacrifice has saved you from distress and grief and sorrow. Now that I know you, I would offer--lay down--my life, if the sacrifice could save yours from one moment"s care. I have often heard of what love--love in its highest and n.o.blest sense--is able to do and to suffer for the good and happiness of its object, but now I know it."
She spoke not, or rather she was unable to speak; but as she pulled out her snow-white handkerchief, Reilly could observe the extraordinary tremor of her hands; the face, too, was deadly pale.
"I am not making love to you, Miss Folliard," he added. "No, my religion, my position in life, a sense of my own unworthiness, would prevent that; but I could not rest unless you knew that there is one heart which, in the midst of unhappiness and despair, can understand, appreciate, and love you. I urge no claim. I am without hope."
The fair girl (_Cooleen Bawn_) could not restrain her tears; but wept--yes, she wept. "I was not prepared for this," she replied. "I did not think that so short an acquaintance could have--Oh, I know not what to say--nor how to act. My father"s prejudices. You are a Catholic."
"And will die one, Miss Folliard."
"But why should you be unhappy? You do not deserve to be so."
"That is precisely what made me ask you just now if you believed in fate."
"Oh, I know not. I cannot answer such a question; but why should you be unhappy, with your brave, generous, and n.o.ble heart? Surely, surely, you do not deserve it."
"I said before that I have no hope, Miss Folliard. I shall carry with me my love of you through life; it is my first, and I feel it will be my last--it will be the melancholy light that will burn in the sepulchre of my heart to show your image there. And now, Miss Folliard, I will bid you farewell. Your father has proffered me hospitality, but I have not strength nor resolution to accept it. You now know my secret--a hopeless pa.s.sion."
"Reilly," she replied, weeping bitterly, "our acquaintance has been short--we have not seen much of each other, yet I will not deny that I believe you to be all that any female heart could--pardon me, I am without experience--I know not much of the world. You have travelled, papa told me last night; I do not wish that you should be unhappy, and, least of all, that I, who owe you so much, should be the occasion of it.
No, you talk of a hopeless pa.s.sion. I know not what I ought to say--but to the preserver of my father"s life, and, probably my own honor, I will say, be not--but why should love be separated from truth?" she said--"No, Reilly, be not hopeless."
"Oh," replied Reilly, who had gone over near her, "but my soul will not be satisfied without a stronger affirmation. This moment is the great crisis of my life and happiness. I love you beyond all the power of language or expression. You tremble, dear Miss Folliard, and you weep; let me wipe those precious tears away. Oh, would to G.o.d that you loved me!"
He caught her hand--it was not withdrawn--he pressed it as he had done the evening before. The pressure was returned--his voice melted into tenderness that was contagious and irresistible: "Say, dearest Helen, star of my life and of my fate, oh, only say that I am not indifferent to you."
They were both standing near the chimney-piece as he spoke--"only say,"
he repeated, "that I am not indifferent to you."
"Well, then," she replied, "you are not indifferent to me."
"One admission more, my dearest life, and I am happy forever. You love me? say it, dearest, say it--or, stay, whisper it, whisper it--you love me!"
"I do," she whispered in a burst of tears.
CHAPTER IV.--His Rival makes his Appearance, and its Consequences
--A Sapient Project for our Hero"s Conversion
We will not attempt to describe the tumult of delight which agitated Reilly"s heart on his way home, after this tender interview with the most celebrated Irish beauty of that period. The term _Cooleen Bawn_, in native Irish, has two meanings, both of which were justly applied to her, and met in her person. It signifies _fair locks_, or, as it may be p.r.o.nounced _fair girl_; and in either sense is peculiarly applicable to a blonde beauty, which she was. The name of _Cooleen Bawn_ was applied to her by the populace, whose talent for finding out and bestowing epithets indicative either of personal beauty or deformity, or of the qualities of the mind or character, be they good or evil, is, in Ireland, singularly felicitous. In the higher ranks, however, she was known as "The Lily of the Plains of Boyne," and as such she was toasted by all parties, not only in her own native county, but throughout Ireland, and at the viceregal entertainments in the Castle of Dublin. At the time of which we write, the penal laws were in operation against the Roman Catholic population of the country, and her father, a good-hearted man by nature, was wordy and violent by prejudice, and yet secretly kind and friendly to many of that unhappy creed, though by no means to all.
It was well known, however, that in every thing that was generous and good in his character, or in the discharge of his public duties as a magistrate, he was chiefly influenced by the benevolent and liberal principles of his daughter, who was a general advocate for the oppressed, and to whom, moreover, he could deny nothing. This accounted for her popularity, as it does for the extraordinary veneration and affection with which her name and misfortunes are mentioned down to the present day. The worst point in her father"s character was that he never could be prevailed on to forgive an injury, or, at least, any act that he conceived to be such, a weakness or a vice which was the means of all his angelic and lovely daughter"s calamities.
Reilly, though full of fervor and enthusiasm, was yet by no means deficient in strong sense. On his way home he began to ask himself in what this overwhelming pa.s.sion for _Cooleen Bawn_ must end. His religion, he was well aware, placed an impa.s.sable gulf between them.
Was it then generous or honorable in him to abuse the confidence and hospitality of her father by engaging the affections of a daughter, on whose welfare his whole happiness was placed, and to whom, moreover, he could not, without committing an act of apostasy that he abhorred, ever be united as a husband? Reason and prudence, moreover, suggested to him the danger of his position, as well as the ungenerous nature of his conduct to the grateful and trusting father. But, away with reason and prudence--away with everything but love. The rapture of his heart triumphed over every argument; and, come weal or woe, he resolved to win the far-famed "Star of Connaught," another epithet which she derived from her wonderful and extraordinary beauty.
On approaching his own house he met a woman named Mary Mahon, whose character of a fortune-teller was extraordinary in the country, and whose predictions, come from what source they might, had gained her a reputation which filled the common mind with awe and fear.
"Well, Mary," said he, "what news from futurity? And, by the way, where is futurity? Because if you don"t know," he proceeded, laughing, "I think I could tell you."
"Well," replied Mary, "let me hear it. Where is it, Mr. Reilly?"
"Why," he replied, "just at the point of your own nose, Mary, and you must admit it is not a very long one; pure Milesian, Mary; a good deal of the saddle in its shape."
The woman stood and looked at him for a few moments.
"My nose may be short," she replied, "but shorter will be the course of your happiness."
"Well, Mary," he said, "I think as regards my happiness that you know as little of it as I do myself. If you tell me any thing that has pa.s.sed, I may give you some credit for the future, but not otherwise."
"Do you wish to have your fortune tould, then," she asked, "upon them terms?"
"Come, then, I don"t care if I do. What has happened me, for instance, within the last forty-eight hours?"
"That has happened you within the last forty-eight hours that will make her you love the pity of the world before her time. I see how it will happen, for the complaint I speak of is in the family. A living death she will have, and you yourself during the same time will have little less."
"But what has happened me, Mary?"
"I needn"t tell you--you know--it. A proud heart, and a joyful heart, and a lovin" heart, you carry now, but it will be a broken heart before long."
"Why, Mary, this is an evil prophecy; have you nothing good to foretell?"
"If it"s a satisfaction to you to know, I will tell you: her love for you is as strong, and stronger, than death itself; and it is the suffering of what is worse than death, w.i.l.l.y Reilly, that will unite you both at last."
Reilly started, and after a pause, in which he took it for granted that Mary spoke merely from one of those shrewd conjectures which practised impostors are so frequently in the habit of hazarding, replied, "That won"t do, Mary; you have told me nothing yet that has happened within the last forty-eight hours. I deny the truth of what you say."
"It won"t be long so, then, Mr. Reilly; you saved the life of the old half-mad squire of Corbo. Yes, you saved his life, and you have taken his daughter"s! for indeed it would be better for her to die at wanst than to suffer what will happen to you and her."
"Why, what is to happen?"
"You"ll know it too soon," she replied, "and there"s no use in making you unhappy. Good-by, Mr. Reilly; if you take a friend"s advice you"ll give her up; think no more of her. It may cost you an aching heart to do so, but by doin" it you may save her from a great deal of sorrow, and both of you from a long and heavy term of suffering."
Reilly, though a young man of strong reason in the ordinary affairs of life, and of a highly cultivated intellect besides, yet felt himself influenced by the gloomy forebodings of this notorious woman. It is true he saw, by the force of his own sagacity, that she had uttered nothing which any person acquainted with the relative position of himself and _Cooleen Bawn_, and the political circ.u.mstances of the country, might not have inferred as a natural and probable consequence. In fact he had, on his way home, arrived at nearly the same conclusion. Marriage, as the laws of the country then stood, was out of the question, and could not be legitimately effected. What, then, must the consequence of this irresistible but ill-fated pa.s.sion be? An elopement to the Continent would not only be difficult but dangerous, if not altogether impossible.
It was obviously evident that Mary Mahon had drawn her predictions from the same circ.u.mstances which led himself to similar conclusions; yet, notwithstanding all this, he felt that her words had thrown a foreshadowing of calamity and sorrow over his spirit, and he pa.s.sed up to his own house in deep gloom and heaviness of heart. It is true he remembered that this same Mary Mahon belonged to a family that had been inimical to his house. She was a woman who had, in her early life, been degraded by crime, the remembrance of which had been by no means forgotten. She was, besides, a paramour to the Red Rapparee, and he attributed much of her dark and ill-boding prophecy to a hostile and malignant spirit.
On the evening of the same day, probably about the same hour, the old squire having recruited himself by sleep, and felt refreshed and invigorated, sent for his daughter to sit with him as was her wont; for indeed, as the reader may now fully understand, his happiness altogether depended upon her society, and those tender attentions to him which const.i.tuted the chief solace of his life.