Chapter XIV: Next

If the fact of Lady Emmeline being Colonel Vervensoe’s wife, and unattainable, had not enhanced her charms in Maxwell Drewitt’s eyes, the fact of her being Colonel Vervensoe’s widow, and available, rendered her less desirable still.

There had been a time, indeed, as previously mentioned, when the young man hesitated about running away with her, and settled not to do so; but then his future looked dark in the extreme—now it was bright and hopeful.

If only Colonel Vervensoe had remained at Cragantlet, as any other Christian would, instead of dying at such an unlucky crisis!

“It seems as if he had almost done it to spite me,” muttered Maxwell; and the young man cursed his neighbour for having departed this life at all.

In former days Lady Emmeline’s loan to Maxwell had smoothed matters for him; but four years after that loan complicated his difficulties, and made him walk round and round Eversbeg Head, and round Eversbeg Bay, asking himself as he kicked the stones before him, What next—what next?

The financial crisis which troubled Maxwell was this:—

Suppose he did not marry Lady Emmeline—her ladyship would be certain to ask for repayment. He could not mortgage to repay, because his land was mortgaged to its full value already. Suppose he offered to marry her, and that they kept the engagement secret, and that he never fulfilled his promise?

Before he was well out of his difficulties, somebody else would marry Lady Emmeline—she was sure to leave Connemara, because the next heir would require possession of Cragantlet; and if she went to Dublin or London, how long was it probable she would remain a widow? Suppose he did marry her—he would get fortune and position, but then he would also get a wife.

“That is the devil of it!” said Maxwell Drewitt, with that charming frankness which characterized all his mental conversations. “That is the devil of it!” and he hesitated and waited on, while Lady Emmeline grew kinder and kinder; and, free at last to follow the bent of her inclination, absolutely forced money on the man who could have sworn at her for ever having lent him any.

He had his own ideal of a wife, and Lady Emmeline did not come up to it. He had an ideal the reality of which was not unlike Jenny Bourke, if Jenny Bourke had been rich, and well-born, and accomplished.

It is not fair to contrast twenty and forty-four—the bloom of youth and the bloom of rouge—the charms of purity and innocence and the graces of fashion and affectation; but, on the other hand, poverty can bear no comparison with wealth, low birth with long pedigree.

He could not marry Jenny. Were he as rich as Crœsus, as great a man as the Duke of Leinster, Maxwell felt it would be impossible for him to marry Ryan’s sister and remain in Connemara.

There are some things which to some men are impossible, and a low match was one of these to Maxwell Drewitt. No love, no beauty, no truth, no devotion could reconcile him to that.

Though he had lived in a cabin, though he would not have minded working like a common labourer to achieve an object, still Maxwell Drewitt was as proud as Lucifer; and for the blood of his wife, of the mother of his children, not to be of the regulation colour and quality, was a thing terrible to contemplate.

He could not marry Jenny Bourke—poor Jenny! And Maxwell Drewitt’s dark eyes grew darker as he thought of the girl who loved him, who was staying single for his sake, who managed, spite of all her brother’s precautions, sometimes to see him; who had got pale, poor child! pale and thin, because of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick.

He could not marry Jenny, but he could marry Lady Emmeline; and he could have her Connemara property, which lay among the mountains beyond Cragantlet, and her money to improve his own properties.

He could buy, he could drain, he could till; in imagination he saw corn waving where the sheep now browsed. He could be wealthy and independent; he could soon be almost as great a man as the Earl of Popingham. He could pay out everybody who had ever been insolent to him. He could take up the mortgages on his uncle’s estates; he could make Headlands the wonder of Galway, the admiration of strangers, a place to be proud of himself. He could do all this if he married Lady Emmeline; but then, when he had done all, he should not be able to get rid of her: that was the devil of it, that was where the shoe pinched.

“But then,” reflected Maxwell, “hang it! a man cannot have everything in life; and if he gets the best thing he must be content. Isn’t it better to satisfy one’s ambition than one’s love? If we fulfil our ambition, the gratification remains; if we gratify our love, the pleasure is transient. Anyhow, I am not called upon to make a choice, because, though I do love Jenny, I still cannot marry her—could not if there were no Lady Emmeline in existence. Hang marriage! it is like going through life with a halter round one’s neck. It is the most terrible ‘must’ in existence, because we seem to have some choice in it, and have, as a rule, nobody but ourselves to blame if it turn out ill. All experience is against it—all proverbs are against it. ‘Next after single a good wife’s best;’ but the single is better than the good wife. ‘Better marry late or never.’ I don’t think that is true. I fancy it must be better to marry young or never. I wish I had not to decide; and yet, after all, many a man would consider himself a deuced lucky fellow to be standing in my shoes. Success has spoiled me. I would have married her four years ago and welcome. Oh! Jenny, I wish I had never seen you.” And Maxwell Drewitt crossed his arms on the table, and leaning his head on them, thought this problem out—this wonderful problem of not loving a woman well enough to marry her, and yet of loving her so much that it made the idea of marrying another hateful to him.

He could not make up his mind; he grew restless, he became soured; he would ride halfway to Cragantlet, and then turn back again. He was so young to sell himself for money; but yet such a chance might never come in his way again. Lady Emmeline had been thought a catch for Colonel Vervensoe. What would she be therefore for Maxwell Drewitt? It was folly, it was nonsense, it was midsummer madness; and the young man began to visit regularly at Cragantlet, which the courtesy of the next heir had left at Lady Emmeline’s disposal for twelve months till she should form her future plans. Mr. Maxwell Drewitt had his own opinion about this next heir—a distant relative of the late proprietor—which was not favourable. He thought he wanted to marry Lady Emmeline himself, and perhaps so did the widow, for after a time she began playing off Dolf Vervensoe against Max Drewitt. Dolf often came down to see to the management of the estates, and people soon commenced talking (they talk and chatter in Connemara the same as in any country village), and saying that Lady Emmeline would not have to leave Cragantlet at all except to be married.

“She can go to Dublin and buy her trousseau, and get it all over there,” laughed Mrs. Munks, a little bitterly, for Cragantlet was a fine property, and the Honourable Mrs. Munks had daughters.

“But surely,” suggested Mrs. Drewitt, “she would not marry so soon after her husband’s death?”

“He has been dead a year nearly,” was the reply, “and I dare say Mr. Vervensoe would let her keep Cragantlet another for the sake of her fortune; besides, is there any person on earth who could say for certain what Lady Emmeline would or would not do? Louisa, my dear,” went on Mrs. Munks, turning to her second daughter, “do you remember that funny Scotch song Miss Macpherson so amused us with the other evening? Talking of Lady Emmeline puts me in mind of it. Something about a widow; don’t you recollect?”

“Oh, I know,” exclaimed Miss Munks, holding up her riding-habit while she walked across the room, for as usual the mother and daughter had galloped over to Kincorth; “at least, I know the song you mean. I think I can repeat the last two verses, though of course it would be impossible for me to say the words anything like Miss Macpherson.”

“Good gracious! Miss Macpherson! You should hear her talk, Mrs. Drewitt,” exclaimed Mrs. Munks, who spoke with a fine brogue fresh as the day it was imported from the county of Cork.

Mrs. Drewitt vaguely wondered whether Miss Macpherson’s Scotch accent _could_ be any worse than Mrs. Munks’ Irish, while Miss Louisa began:

“‘Tam withered like a sickly flower that frae its stalk does fa’,
And in a twelvemonth after that puir Pate was ta’en awa’;
And as I laid him in his kist and closed his glazèd e’e,
I wonder’t if the yirth contained a lanelier thing than me.

“‘Noo I’m a waefu’ widow left, a’ nicht I sich and grane,
And aften in my musin’ moods when sitting here my lane,
There’s ae thing I’ll confess to you, ‘bout whilk I’m sair perplext,
I aften wonder, Janet, noo, whose lassie I’ll be next.’”

“For my part,” concluded Miss Louisa, “I wonder that while there are more women than men in the world, widows are allowed to marry at all—I do indeed.”

“There was a time when I thought if Colonel Vervensoe died, another person would try for Lady Emmeline, and try successfully; but it appears I was mistaken,” said Mrs. Munks.

“Who was that other person?” asked Mrs. Drewitt, being naturally curious on the subject, for where there are few neighbours, even the quietest woman cannot help being interested in their affairs.

“My dear, you are far too sly,” answered Mrs. Munks. “You know as well as I do;” and when Mrs. Drewitt declared and protested that she did not know, that she had not the faintest idea of whom her visitor was speaking, Mrs. Munks only laughed the more, and declared it would be better for her not to enlighten such pristine innocence.

“Lady Emmeline never did flirt with any one you remember, and consequently there can be no person whom her marrying Mr. Adolphus Vervensoe will disappoint,” went on Lady Emmeline’s friend. “Colonel Vervensoe never did forbid any gentleman the house—never cut any acquaintance of yours when he met him.”

“You surely do not mean Maxwell!” exclaimed Mrs. Drewitt. “Why he is young enough to be her son.”

“Exactly so; and he is not rich either; while Mr. Vervensoe—is forty, though he has Cragantlet. Still I fancy your nephew will be disappointed. We have met him often of late riding in that direction. Have not we, Louisa?”

“Yes, mamma,” answered Louisa, who would have said “yes,” even if her mamma had stated a falsehood. “But if you remember he told us he was looking after some land that was for sale.”

“A man must say something,” remarked Mrs. Munks. “In my opinion, Lady Emmeline will do best to marry Mr. Vervensoe.”

“I think so decidedly,” said Mrs. Drewitt, “if she marry at all. But from what Lady Emmeline dropped the other day about her future plans I should think she meant to remain a widow.”

“Time will show,” was Mrs. Munks’ reply. And time did show, for Maxwell Drewitt proposed that very same evening, was accepted by Lady Emmeline, and rode home to Headlands an engaged man.

The die was cast; the game played out. He had won a wife: he had made his fortune.

In after days it was one of Maxwell Drewitt’s favourite remarks that “a man may get anything he wants in life if he be only willing to pay high enough for it.”

Was he thinking then of the price he had paid for his wealth, of the exchange he had made for position? Who can tell? Who ever knew for certain what pleased or troubled Maxwell Drewitt, until that great sorrow came which clouded with darkness the evening of his life?

One fact was sure, however, viz., that when the young man finally chose to sell himself for money, to follow ambition and eschew love, he flung his last chance of making a better thing of existence away for ever. But he had set out to conquer fortune, and he gained the day. He had decided that such a prize as Lady Emmeline might never cross his path again, and he determined to secure it while within his reach. He would continue to live at Headlands, and he would beautify and improve his property. He would farm Lady Emmeline’s estate, and add acre to acre, and thousand to thousand, till, when Kincorth did come to him, as come it should, Drewitt would be a name worth talking about.

Better than ever the Martins were known, the Drewitts should be remembered. They had not sprung from any trooper of the merciless “Protector;” they had not kept their estates by currying favour with any king. The English papers should tell how a man—poor, disinherited, well-born—worked his way back to fortune, unassisted by his family, unhelped by patronage. Tourists would come and wonder to see, in the midst of that wild region, smiling fields and waving woods, and neat cottages and blooming gardens.

They would go back and speak of what one individual had effected. He should have to give evidence on parliamentary committees: when he grew very, very rich, perhaps he would go up to Parliament himself. He could reclaim mile after mile of barren country. He would drain and cultivate the bogs; he would do away with the loose stone walls which divided the land when any division was attempted into about half-acre plots; he would plant trees up the mountains—there was no reason why trees should not grow among those fastnesses that he could understand; he would change the aspect of Connemara. Did he think of possessing the whole of it? Had he any vision about all Galway one day having but one landlord, and that landlord’s name being Drewitt?

He reduced the 1,566,354 acres Galway contains into hundreds, and after deducting a certain portion for lake and mountain, calculated how long it would take to bring them under cultivation. He thought how useful those lakes would be for watering cattle, for purposes of irrigation; he ran over the best sites for towns and villages; he saw, in fancy, ships putting into each secure harbour; he saw the mines worked, the quarries filled with well-paid labourers, the country prosperous, the people warmly clad and sufficiently fed. He was doubtful whether Mayo ought not to figure in his programme too. As he rode out of Cragantlet gates he gave the rein to his imagination, and bid it conjure up before him fame, wealth, success. He held the bridle loosely in his hand, letting it lie on his horse’s neck, while he reflected on what he had just done, and on what fruit that act might bring forth for him.

“Gold begets gold,” they say; that was what Maxwell hoped it might. “Money makes money” is oftentimes a great truth. Maxwell trusted it would prove a great truth in his case.

The kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof seemed to spread out before Maxwell’s mind when he thought of what he had achieved on little, when he considered what he might effect with much.

The kingdoms of this world were around him—there was land to be cultivated—there were the resources of nature to be developed—there were the hidden riches of the country to be brought to light. There was fuel to be had for the cutting—fish for the catching—cattle for the rearing—corn for the growing—wealth for the hand of industry to gather in. There were barren wastes to clothe with verdure—there were hills to plant with trees—there was granite to build houses—there was a land to be peopled—there was a people to elevate and civilize.

It was all very fine; nay, it was more, it was glorious; and yet, as the moon sailed out from behind a bank of watery clouds and shone over the country this man was traversing, a feeling of loneliness, of desolation, of misery came upon him which he could neither explain nor analyze.

There were the tremendous mountains, there the bare, solitary-looking lakes; far as his eye could see across the valley, nothing met his view but water, and stone, and bog: there were hills lying dark, and silent, and sullen in the distance. Above his head was a cloudy sky, where the moon kept wandering in and out like a troubled spirit. Now his way was dark, now light: now the moon shone clear on the lake, and the road, and the mountains, and then, again, she played fantastic tricks with the stunted bushes—with the huge boulders. She would lay a white trap along the highway and up the mountain-side, at which Maxwell’s horse would shy frightened; she would dance on the ripples of the waters; she would thrust her full face out of window, as it seemed, and stare down at the earth, and then she would plunge behind the fringed curtains of the night, and be invisible for a time again, after which she would come shyly forth and gaze upon the man who rode slowly and alone through that desolate portion of God’s fair earth.

Is it not necessary for a person to be very sensitive or very poetical for a scene like this to produce a profound impression upon him. An individual who has not an amazingly warm heart can yet feel something stir within him when he looks upon a fine picture; and those who have lived in the country all their lives are as susceptible to the influences of nature’s varying moods as though her every change was fresh to their comprehension.

All his life Maxwell Drewitt had loved scenery as he loved his country. All his life the sun, and the wind, and the snow, and the frost, and the sea, and the mountains had talked to him as they oftentimes fail to speak to a better man; and now, as the moon shone with a fitful brightness over the landscape, as her cold light fell on the breast of the lonely waters, as the clouds rolled up and shrouded the mountains in darkness, as the eternal hills returned his eager glance with a hard unsympathising gaze, as they looked with stony eyes down upon him as they had looked on others who had gone under their shadow sighing or singing, laughing or weeping—as he paused and listened to the dash and flow of the waters, as he heard the whistle of the plover and the cry of the curlew, some voice through the still night spoke as clearly and distinctly to Maxwell Drewitt’s soul as the “Preacher,” who tried all things, and pronounced them vanity of vanities, tells the same tale to us.

Most probably Maxwell Drewitt had never read Ecclesiastes. If he had, he would certainly not have recollected any portion of it; and yet it was the same story as that told so many thousand years ago by the great king of Israel, which the night, and the clouds, and the moonlight, and the mountains were whispering prophetically in his ear—

“I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I gathered me also silver and gold, and whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy.

“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and _behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me._”

“It is a desolate place,” thought Maxwell. “It gives a man the blues!” and he struck his heel against his horse’s flank, and the animal sprang forward along the hard road, and the flints flashed fire as the iron hoofs dashed over them. He passed by lonely lakes, round the base of steep rocks, over bridges beneath which the mountain streams brawled noisily among the stones. He passed by silent cabins, by unroofed cottages, by deserted hearthstones gleaming white and bare in the moonlight; by a lonely chapel, by a forsaken-looking graveyard, where the tombs were covered with moss, where the crosses were black with weather, wind, and age.

On, on, he rode, and as he rode he sung, either to encourage his horse or to reassure himself, that cheerful ballad which recounts the loves of King Connor and the fair Kathleen, and the sad fate of the latter:—

“‘The castle portal stood grimly wide,
None welcomed the king from that weary ride,
For dead, in the light of the dawning day,
The pale sweet form of the welcomer lay
Who had yearned for his voice while dying.’

“While dying!” hummed Maxwell, and the words brought him within sight of Eversbeg.

There was the sea, the fair, calm open sea, with the moonlight sleeping in it as peacefully as if he had not seen the same light wandering about the hills and through the valleys he had just left. There was Eversbeg Abbey, where poor Kathie had been lying dead this many a day. There was Eversbeg Head, round which Mrs. Drewitt had walked when she came to speak to him about Susan and Kathie and Lady Vervensoe.

There was the cabin where he had received her, where they had sat beside the turf-fire talking; there were the woods of Kincorth high up on the other side of Duranmore Bay, and there close down by the bay was his own place, which he meant to convert into the garden of Erin. Was he sorrowful when he came in sight of all these things? My reader, no! the dark hour had passed away, and Maxwell Drewitt was a man of the world, in the world, loving the world once more.

He was glad to have done with uncertainty, to have settled his future past recall, to feel no more hesitation, to have laid down a course to which he meant to adhere.

He was glad; he had done well: he should do better. It was a good match. He knew half the county would say what a capital thing he had done for himself. He knew many a man would gnash his teeth with rage when he heard of Drewitt having carried off the prize.

Altogether, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt was a contented man; and yet, as he came along the road that led down towards the bay, he stopped his horse for a moment, and strained his eyes away to a little cottage gleaming white and ghostly in the moonlight.

It was a deserted cottage now, and he had made it so. There was no Jenny waiting for him by the stream or up the ravine. She had long been living with her brother in Duranmore, and many suitors had sought her hand in vain.

“She will marry now,” was the idea that passed through Maxwell’s mind; and then, with a pang of remorse, he added, “Poor Jenny!”