Charles Lever - Lord Kilgobbin

‘What! and is this the Irish hospitality I have heard so much of – the cordial welcome the stranger may reckon on as a certainty, and make all his plans with the full confidence of meeting?’

‘There is such a thing as discretion, also, to be remembered, Nina,’ said Kate gravely.

‘And then there’s the room where the king slept, and the chair that – no, not Oliver Cromwell, but somebody else sat in at supper, and there’s the great patch painted on the floor where your ancestor knelt to be knighted.’

‘He was created a viscount, not a knight!’ said Kate, blushing. ‘And there is a difference, I assure you.’

‘So there is, dearest, and even my foreign ignorance should know that much, and you have the parchment that attests it – a most curious document, that Walpole would be delighted to see. I almost fancy him examining the curious old seal with his microscope, and hear him unfolding all sorts of details one never so much as suspected.’

‘Papa might not like it,’ said Kate, bridling up. ‘Even were he at home, I am far from certain he would receive these gentlemen. It is little more than a year ago there came here a certain book-writing tourist, and presented himself without introduction. We received him hospitably, and he stayed part of a week here. He was fond of antiquarianism, but more eager still about the condition of the people – what kind of husbandry they practised, what wages they had, and what food. Papa took him over the whole estate, and answered all his questions freely and openly. And this man made a chapter of his book upon us, and headed it, “Rack-renting and riotous living,” distorting all he heard and sneering at all he saw.’

‘These are gentlemen, dearest Kate,’ said Nina, holding out the card. ‘Come now, do tell me that I may say you will be happy to see them?’

‘If you must have it so – if you really insist – ’

‘I do! I do!’ cried she, half wildly. ‘I should go distracted if you denied me. O Kate! I must own it. It will out. I do cling devotedly, terribly, to that old life of the past. I am very happy here, and you are all good, and kind, and loving to me; but that wayward, haphazard existence, with all its trials and miseries, had got little glimpses of such bliss at times that rose to actual ecstasy.’

‘I was afraid of this,’ said Kate, in a low but firm voice. ‘I thought what a change it would be for you from that life of brightness and festivity to this existence of dull and unbroken dreariness.’

‘No, no, no! Don’t say that! Do not fancy that I am not happier than I ever was or ever believed I could be. It was the castle-building of that time that I was regretting. I imagined so many things, I invented such situations, such incidents, which, with this sad-coloured landscape here and that leaden sky, I have no force to conjure up. It is as though the atmosphere is too weighty for fancy to mount in it. You, my dearest Kate,’ said she, drawing her arm round her, and pressing her towards her, ‘do not know these things, nor need ever know them. Your life is assured and safe. You cannot, indeed, be secure from the passing accidents of life, but they will meet you in a spirit able to confront them. As for me, I was always gambling for existence, and gambling without means to pay my losses if Fortune should turn against me. Do you understand me, child?’

‘Only in part, if even that,’ said she slowly.

‘Let us keep this theme, then, for another time. Now for ces messieurs . I am to invite them?’

‘If there was time to ask Miss O’Shea to come over – ’

‘Do you not fancy, Kate, that in your father’s house, surrounded with your father’s servants, you are sufficiently the mistress to do without a chaperon? Only preserve that grand austere look you have listened to me with these last ten minutes, and I should like to see the youthful audacity that could brave it. There, I shall go and write my note. You shall see how discreetly and properly I shall word it.’

Kate walked thoughtfully towards a window and looked out, while Nina skipped gaily down the room, and opened her writing-desk, humming an opera air as she wrote: —

‘KILGOBBIN CASTLE.

‘DEAR MR. WALPOLE, – I can scarcely tell you the pleasure I feel at the prospect of seeing a dear friend, or a friend from dear Italy, whichever be the most proper to say. My uncle is from home, and will not return till the day after to-morrow at dinner; but my cousin, Miss Kearney, charges me to say how happy she will be to receive you and your fellow-traveller at luncheon to-morrow. Pray not to trouble yourself with an answer, but believe me very sincerely yours, ‘NINA KOSTALERGI.’

‘I was right in saying luncheon, Kate, and not dinner – was I not? It is less formal.’

‘I suppose so; that is, if it was right to invite them at all, of which I have very great misgivings.’

‘I wonder what brought Cecil Walpole down here?’ said Nina, glad to turn the discussion into another channel. ‘Could he have heard that I was here? Probably not. It was a mere chance, I suppose. Strange things these same chances are, that do so much more in our lives than all our plottings!’

‘Tell me something of your friend, perhaps I ought to say your admirer, Nina!’

‘Yes, very much my admirer; not seriously, you know, but in that charming sort of adoration we cultivate abroad, that means anything or nothing. He was not titled, and I am afraid he was not rich, and this last misfortune used to make his attention to me somewhat painful – to him I mean, not to me ; for, of course, as to anything serious, I looked much higher than a poor Secretary of Legation.’

‘Did you?’ asked Kate, with an air of quiet simplicity.

‘I should hope I did,’ said she haughtily; and she threw a glance at herself in a large mirror, and smiled proudly at the bright image that confronted her. ‘Yes, darling, say it out,’ cried she, turning to Kate. ‘Your eyes have uttered the words already.’

‘What words?’

‘Something about insufferable vanity and conceit, and I own to both! Oh, why is it that my high spirits have so run away with me this morning that I have forgotten all reserve and all shame? But the truth is, I feel half wild with joy, and joy in my nature is another name for recklessness.’

‘I sincerely hope not,’ said Kate gravely. ‘At any rate, you give me another reason for wishing to have Miss O’Shea here.’

‘I will not have her – no, not for worlds, Kate, that odious old woman, with her stiff and antiquated propriety. Cecil would quiz her.’

‘I am very certain he would not; at least, if he be such a perfect gentleman as you tell me.’

‘Ah, but you’d never know he did it. The fine tact of these consummate men of the world derives a humoristic enjoyment in eccentricity of character, which never shows itself in any outward sign beyond the heightened pleasure they feel in what other folks might call dulness or mere oddity.’

‘I would not suffer an old friend to be made the subject of even such latent amusement.’

‘Nor her nephew, either, perhaps?’

‘The nephew could take care of himself, Nina; but I am not aware that he will be called on to do so. He is not in Ireland, I believe.’

‘He was to arrive this week. You told me so.’

‘Perhaps he did; I had forgotten it!’ and Kate flushed as she spoke, though whether from shame or anger it was not easy to say. As though impatient with herself at any display of temper, she added hurriedly, ‘Was it not a piece of good fortune, Nina? Papa has left us the key of the cellar, a thing he never did before, and only now because you were here!’

‘What an honoured guest I am!’ said the other, smiling.