Castle Richmond Part 42

"I would say nothing at present; nothing to-day."

"And my wife?" he asked, again. Through this interview he studiously called her his wife. "Is--is she to know it?"

"When we are a.s.sured that this man's story is true, Sir Thomas, she must know it. That will probably be very soon,--in a day or two. Till then I think you had better tell her nothing."

"And what shall I say to her?"

"Say nothing. I think it probable that she will not ask any questions. If she does, tell her that the business between you and me is not yet over. I will tell your son that at present he had better not speak to you on the subject of my visit here." And then he again took the hand of the unfortunate gentleman, and having pressed it with more tenderness than seemed to belong to him, he left the room.

He left the room, and hurried into the hall and out of the house; but as he did so he could see that he was watched by Lady Fitzgerald. She was on the alert to go to her husband as soon as she should know that he was alone. Of what then took place between those two we need say nothing, but will wander forth for a while with Mr. Prendergast into the wide-spreading park.

Mr. Prendergast had been used to hard work all his life, but he had never undergone a day of severer toil than that through which he had just past. Nor was it yet over. He had laid it down in a broad way as his opinion that the whole truth in this matter should be declared to the world, let the consequences be what they might; and to this opinion Sir Thomas had acceded without a word of expostulation. But in this was by no means included all that portion of the burden which now fell upon Mr. Prendergast's shoulders. It would be for him to look into the evidence, and then it would be for him also--heavy and worst task of all--to break the matter to Lady Fitzgerald.

As he sauntered out into the park, to wander about for half an hour in the dusk of the evening, his head was throbbing with pain. The family friend in this instance had certainly been severely taxed in the exercise of his friends.h.i.+p. And what was he to do next? How was he to conduct himself that evening in the family circle, knowing, as he so well did, that his coming there was to bring destruction upon them all? "Be tender to him," Aunt Letty had said, little knowing how great a call there would be on his tenderness of heart, and how little scope for any tenderness of purpose.

And was it absolutely necessary that that blow should fall in all its severity? He asked himself this question over and over again, and always had to acknowledge that it was necessary. There could be no possible mitigation. The son must be told that he was no son--no son in the eye of the law; the wife must be told that she was no wife, and the distant relative must be made acquainted with his golden prospects. The position of Herbert and Clara, and of their promised marriage, had been explained to him,--and all that too must be s.h.i.+vered into fragments. How was it possible that the penniless daughter of an earl should give herself in marriage to a youth, who was not only penniless also, but illegitimate and without a profession? Look at it in which way he would, it was all misery and ruin, and it had fallen upon him to p.r.o.nounce the doom!

He could not himself believe that there was any doubt as to the general truth of Mollett's statement. He would of course inquire. He would hear what the man had to say and see what he had to adduce.

He would also examine that old servant, and, if necessary--and if possible also--he would induce Lady Fitzgerald to see the man. But he did feel convinced that on this point there was no doubt. And then he lifted up his hands in astonishment at the folly which had been committed by a marriage under such circ.u.mstances--as wise men will do in the decline of years, when young people in the heyday of youth have not been wise. "If they had waited for a term of years," he said, "and if he then had not presented himself!" A term of years, such as Jacob served for Rachel, seems so light an affair to old bachelors looking back at the loves of their young friends.

And so he walked about in the dusk by no means a happy man, nor in any way satisfied with the work which was still before him. How was he to face Lady Fitzgerald, or tell her of her fate? In what words must he describe to Herbert Fitzgerald the position which in future he must fill? The past had been dreadful to him, and the future would be no less so, in spite of his character as a hard, stern man.

When he returned to the house he met young Fitzgerald in the hall.

"Have you been to your father?" he asked immediately. Herbert, in a low voice, and with a saddened face, said that he had just come from his father's room; but Mr. Prendergast at once knew that nothing of the truth had been told to him. "You found him very weak," said Mr.

Prendergast. "Oh, very weak," said Herbert. "More than weak, utterly prostrate. He was lying on the sofa almost unable to speak. My mother was with him and is still there."

"And she?" He was painfully anxious to know whether Sir Thomas had been weak enough--or strong enough--to tell his wife any of the story which that morning had been told to him.

"She is doing what she can to comfort him," said Herbert; "but it is very hard for her to be left so utterly in the dark."

Mr. Prendergast was pa.s.sing on to his room, but at the foot of the stairs Herbert stopped him again, going up the stairs with him, and almost whispering into his ear--

"I trust, Mr. Prendergast," said he, "that things are not to go on in this way."

"No, no," said Mr. Prendergast.

"Because it is unbearable--unbearable for my mother and for me, and for us all. My mother thinks that some terrible thing has happened to the property; but if so, why should I not be told?"

"Of anything that really has happened, or does happen, you will be told."

"I don't know whether you are aware of it, Mr. Prendergast, but I am engaged to be married. And I have been given to understand--that is, I thought that this might take place very soon. My mother seems to think that your coming here may--may defer it. If so, I think I have a right to expect that something shall be told to me."

"Certainly you have a right, my dear young friend. But Mr.

Fitzgerald, for your own sake, for all our sakes, wait patiently for a few hours."

"I have waited patiently."

"Yes, I know it. You have behaved admirably. But I cannot speak to you now. This time the day after to-morrow, I will tell you everything that I know. But do not speak of this to your mother.

I make this promise only to you." And then he pa.s.sed on into his bed-room.

With this Herbert was obliged to be content. That evening he again saw his father and mother, but he told them nothing of what had pa.s.sed between him and Mr. Prendergast. Lady Fitzgerald remained in the study with Sir Thomas the whole evening, nay, almost the whole night, and the slow hours as they pa.s.sed there were very dreadful.

No one came to table but Aunt Letty, Mr. Prendergast, and Herbert, and between them hardly a word was spoken. The poor girls had found themselves utterly unable to appear. They were dissolved in tears, and crouching over the fire in their own room. And the moment that Aunt Letty left the table Mr. Prendergast arose also. He was suffering, he said, cruelly from headache, and would ask permission to go to his chamber. It would have been impossible for him to have sat there pretending to sip his wine with Herbert Fitzgerald.

After this Herbert again went to his father, and then, in the gloom of the evening, he found Mr. Somers in the office, a little magistrate's room, that was used both by him and by Sir Thomas. But nothing pa.s.sed between them. Herbert had nothing to tell. And then at about nine he also went up to his bedroom. A more melancholy day than that had never shed its gloom upon Castle Richmond.

CHAPTER XX.

TWO WITNESSES.

Mr. Prendergast had given himself two days to do all that was to be done, before he told Herbert Fitzgerald the whole of the family history. He had promised that he would then let him know all that there was to be known; and he had done so advisedly, considering that it would be manifestly unjust to leave him in the dark an hour longer than was absolutely necessary. To expect that Sir Thomas himself should, with his own breath and his own words, make the revelation either to his son or to his wife, was to expect a manifest impossibility. He would, altogether, have sank under such an effort, as he had already sank under the effort of telling it to Mr.

Prendergast; nor could it be left to the judgment of Sir Thomas to say when the story should be told. He had now absolutely abandoned all judgment in the matter. He had placed himself in the hands of a friend, and he now expected that that friend should do all that there was to be done. Mr. Prendergast had therefore felt himself justified in making this promise.

But how was he to set about the necessary intervening work, and how pa.s.s the intervening hours? It had already been decided that Mr.

Abraham Mollett, when he called, should be shown, as usual, into the study, but that he should there find himself confronted, not with Sir Thomas, but with Mr. Prendergast. But there was some doubt whether or no Mr. Mollett would come. It might be that he had means of ascertaining what strangers arrived at Castle Richmond; and it might be, that he would, under the present circ.u.mstances, think it expedient to stay away. This visit, however, was not to take place till the second day after that on which Mr. Prendergast had heard the story; and, in the meantime, he had that examination of Mrs. Jones to arrange and conduct.

The breakfast was again very sad. The girls suggested to their brother that he and Mr. Prendergast should sit together by themselves in a small breakfast parlour, but to this he would not a.s.sent.

Nothing could be more difficult or embarra.s.sing than a conversation between himself and that gentleman, and he moreover was unwilling to let it be thought in the household that affairs were going utterly wrong in the family. On this matter he need hardly have disturbed himself, for the household was fully convinced that things were going very wrong. Maid-servants and men-servants can read the meaning of heavy brows and sad faces, of long meetings and whispered consultations, as well as their betters. The two girls, therefore, and Aunt Letty, appeared at the breakfast-table, but it was as though so many ghosts had a.s.sembled round the urn.

Immediately after breakfast, Mr. Prendergast applied to Aunt Letty.

"Miss Fitzgerald," said he, "I think you have an old servant of the name of Jones living here."

"Yes, sure," said Aunt Letty. "She was living with my sister-in-law before her marriage."

"Exactly,--and ever since too, I believe," said Mr. Prendergast, with a lawyer's instinctive desire to divert suspicion from the true point.

"Oh yes, always; Mrs. Jones is quite one of ourselves."

"Then would you do me the favour to beg Mrs. Jones to oblige me with her company for half an hour or so. There is an excellent fire in my room, and perhaps Mrs. Jones would not object to step there."

Aunt Letty promised that Mrs. Jones should be sent, merely suggesting the breakfast-parlour, instead of the bed-room; and to the breakfast-parlour Mr. Prendergast at once betook himself. "What can she know about the London property, or about the Irish property?"

thought Aunt Letty, to herself; and then it occurred to her that, perhaps, all these troubles arose from some source altogether distinct from the property.

In about a quarter of an hour, a knock came to the breakfast-parlour door, and Mrs. Jones, having been duly summoned, entered the room with a very clean cap and ap.r.o.n, and with a very low curtsey. "Good morning, Mrs. Jones," said Mr. Prendergast; "pray take a seat;" and he pointed to an arm-chair that was comfortably placed near the fire, on the further side of the hearth-rug. Mrs. Jones sat herself down, crossed her hands on her lap, and looked the very personification of meek obedience.

And yet there was something about her which seemed to justify the soubriquet of d.u.c.h.ess, which the girls had given to her. She had a certain grandeur about her cap, and a majestical set about the skirt of her dress, and a rigour in the lines of her mouth, which indicated a habit of command, and a confidence in her own dignity, which might be supposed to be the very clearest attribute of d.u.c.h.essdom.

"You have been in this family a long time, I am told, Mrs. Jones,"

said Mr. Prendergast, using his pleasantest voice.

"A very long time indeed," said Mrs. Jones.

"And in a very confidential situation, too. I am told by Sir Thomas that pretty nearly the whole management of the house is left in your hands?"

"Sir Thomas is very kind, sir; Sir Thomas always was very kind,--poor gentleman!"