Chapter V: Peacemaking

Doing one’s duty (a charming phrase in the abstract, doubtless) is usually much less agreeable in practice than in theory, seeing that it generally involves annoying oneself, and displeasing other people.

No credit attaches to it, because after all we have only done what we ought to have done; duty goes to bed weary and rises early; duty darns stockings and turns its dresses; duty does needlework, and pricks its fingers in the process; duty tends the sick and humours the fretful; duty gives to the poor, and goes about clad in the garments of humility; and for many and many a long day—perhaps until, there being no more duties to be performed in this world, it betakes itself to the next—duty has the felicity of receiving all the kicks of which society is so liberal, while halfpence and silver and gold are showered upon those who do not go in for duty at all, but simply for pleasure.

There is nothing so hard to discharge, satisfactorily, as our duty; there is nothing for which we get so little thanks. It is like work looked down upon as a vulgar virtue: and yet when the small sums that go to make up life’s great account come to be cast out, duty and work may be found to have borne good interest; though the one has oftentimes seemed to our eyes but as the toil of the ant, and the other but useless labour, but misspent energy.

Shall we say for all this, however, that the weakest among us is right to drift with the stream—to make no effort to stem its torrent? Would it have been better for Mrs. Drewitt to have never attempted to mend the ways of that wretched Irish household?

She never achieved a great deal, but she did something. After all it is not given to many women to accomplish much, and she tried her best; and, as I have said before, in the long run she had her reward.

During the first few weeks of her residence at Kincorth the establishment was in a state of anarchy, for was not the election coming on, and did not an election always upset everything?

Gentlemen from Dublin—gentlemen from England—gentlemen from the remotest parts of the country came to Kincorth the moment Mr. Drewitt’s return was announced, and took up their quarters there.

It was breakfast all the morning—it was luncheon all the day—it was dinner all the night—it was noise and confusion and excitement from one sunrise to another.

Canvassing was about the last work Mrs. Drewitt was fitted for, but out canvassing she had to go, with the Honourable Mrs. Munks and the Countess of Popingham.

There was not a description of bribery she did not see practised.

“I am hungry,” Lady Popingham would say, with her arch Irish face lighted up by a very intelligible smile; and she would go into a baker’s shop in Duranmore and ask for a bun.

“You’re for Pryor?” she would remark—her mouth full of new bread, and her small fingers fiddling with half her purchase—“You’re for Pryor.”

“Well, I am not quite determined, my lady. They were in here the other day, and were bidding uncommon high; but your ladyship understands that I never did sell my vote, and I never will.”

“That is honest and independent, is it not, Mrs. Drewitt?” observed the Countess. “I suppose you will not consider it bribery though to ask you to a ball, Mr. Rorke? There is to be one over at Kincorth to-morrow night, and Mrs. Drewitt will be very glad to see you there.”

And with that Lady Popingham left her unfinished bun on the counter, and the baker said he would come and bring “the wife.”

“And we may count on you, Mr. Rorke,” remarked the Countess, from the doorstep; “you would rather give your vote to us than sell it to Mr. Pryor.” At which observation the man laughed and the lady laughed, and the bread was swept into the till, and the Conservatives could count one more on their side.

It is not in flesh and blood to be near a contested election and not to become interested in it; and before long Mrs. Drewitt found herself doing what she could to secure voters and to please their wives. She danced with the men—she danced with that identical baker—and had for her _vis-à-vis_ Lady Marsden and a Duranmore butcher. She invited a hundred frieze-coated men into the drawing-room and sang for them till she was hoarse. She ordered some thousands of yards of blue ribbon, and paid for it herself; and she and Lady Popingham and Mrs. Munks made it up into rosettes for future use.

Mrs. Drewitt had expected her nieces to assist her in the work; but Susan, for self and fellows, flatly declined to do anything of the kind.

“If we wear anything we shall wear red,” she said. “Our brother is for Mr. Pryor; and we are for Mr. Pryor too.”

At this Mrs. Drewitt drew back astounded.

“Do you mean,” she said, “that Maxwell and Mr. Drewitt are on different sides?”

“Our mother was a Roman Catholic,” explained Miss Drewitt; “and it is only right that Maxwell should remember that, and vote accordingly.”

“If it were not for landlord terrorism,” put in Wilhelmina—she was usually called Willy—“no one who was not for the Catholics would ever be returned in Ireland.”

“The very servants about the house are all for Pryor,” added Susan, “only they would be discharged if they were to say so.”

“And Maxwell was telling us that if you had been wise you would not have taken so active a part in the canvassing, because it will set the poor people against you,” capped Wilhelmina.

“But I only did it to please your uncle, and he is liked by every one.”

“Perhaps so,” answered Miss Drewitt, with a sneer; “but at any rate _he_ is not English.”

“And that makes a difference, you think?”

“That makes all the difference, I know.”

And Miss Susan Drewitt drew up her tall figure and looked down upon her aunt, who was at least half a head shorter, as she made this pleasant remark.

“It’s just beyond me, childer,” said Nannie to them one day, “till understand what delight ye can find in making that craythur’s life a burden till her; she has not a bit the same look in her face she had when she came here first.”

“She had no business to come here at all,” answered Miss Drewitt. “Ireland for the Irish, as Maxwell says: we want no strangers here.”

“But shure and it’s most of all because she is a stranger that ye ought to be good till her, so that she might not always be fretting for the country and the friends she has left behind her. Why can’t ye make it up, young ladies, and live agreeable? See, now, how Miss Kathleen has taken to her.”

“You are an old hypocrite, Nannie,” returned Miss Drewitt. “You and Miss Kathleen both like Mrs. Drewitt for the sake of what she gives you.”

“Now may I niver, Miss Susan! may I niver die in my bed if the mistress—God grant her a long life!—ever give me more than ‘Thank ye, Nannie,’ or ‘If ye plaze.’ Miss Kathleen has I know got many a thing from her; but I mind hearing you, Miss Susan, tell your aunt, when she wanted you to get that illigant blue silk let down and wear it yourself, that your brother would not allow you to wear any person’s cast-off gowns, ye did; and ye knew she had never had that same silk on her back; and she went away to her own room and cried so pitiful! I’d have gone in and told her never to heed what you said, for that nobody did, only I was afraid she might be angry.”

“Well, I tell you what, Nannie,” said Willy, at this juncture; “if you get her to give me that new riding-habit she brought over with her, I’ll be friends, for I am rather sick of war.”

“If you take it you are quits with me,” remarked her sister.

“There is no chance of your giving me a riding-habit, Sue,” retorted the other, “and I do want one so badly; Loo Munks is so proud of hers from Dublin, and it is nothing like such a beauty as Mrs. Drewitt’s. Ask her, Nannie, like a good old soul, which you’re not, and see if she will give it to me.”

“Give it to you! she would cut the hair off her head and give it away if she thought it could pleasure you; but I won’t ask, faith I won’t, for she has only the one, and it’s meself hopes to see her riding with the masther over to Tully Kill whenever the hunting begins again.”

“Then I will ask her,” said Wilhelmina; and she was rushing into the drawing-room to prefer her request, when the sound of angry voices and loud speaking frightened her back.

It was Mr. Drewitt and Maxwell having it out concerning the election—concerning Maxwell’s canvass of Colonel Vervensoe’s tenantry.

“He was over here himself this morning,” said Mr. Drewitt

“It was not likely he would come over as anybody else,” remarked Maxwell.

“Don’t mock me, sir,” shouted out the owner of Kincorth. “Keep your insolence for other people, for d—n me if I’ll stand it. And I won’t stand your interference, either, You shall not tamper with our voters. Vote for Pryor yourself if you like, and be hanged to you; but don’t try to get up a party against me, I advise you.”

“I was not aware you were going to stand,” observed Maxwell, coolly.

“You know I am for Sache, at any rate,” retorted Mr. Drewitt, “and you know you turned round to Pryor without ever telling me your intention, without ever saying a word to put me on my guard. And now listen to this: Colonel Vervensoe swears that if ever he finds you about his house again, he will horsewhip you; and he is a man to keep his promise.”

“He had better not try to horsewhip me,” said Maxwell, slowly, “not if he values his life; for so sure as he attempts it, I’ll break every bone in his body.”

“He is a stronger man than you.”

“Is he?”

“And he declares he will not have his tenantry tampered with, or endure any man dangling after his wife.”

“He must speak to Lady Emmeline about that. If she likes me to canvass with her, I shall certainly do it, and I shall do my best to get Geoffry Pryor returned, if the devil himself tried to stop me.”

“You shall not.”

“I shall;” and Maxwell turned to leave the room, but Mr. Drewitt prevented him.

“Look here, Maxwell,” he said, “it is time you and I came to an understanding.”

“Oh! Archibald,” implored Mrs. Drewitt, “do not say any more while you are angry—do not speak while you are irritated. If Maxwell thinks Mr. Pryor ought to get in, why should he not canvass for him? I am certain you are wrong in this matter, love; I am, indeed.”

“You know nothing about it, Agnes; you are talking on subjects you do not understand,” said her husband; while Maxwell, with a grave bow, thanked her for her interference, but remarked he and his uncle had argued out many a point before, and settled many a dispute, without the help of a third party.

Which speech was intended to cut two ways—to make Mr. Drewitt more angry than he was, and to send Mrs. Drewitt out of the room.

It did neither. Mrs. Drewitt would not go, because she felt her presence was some restraint upon both, and Mr. Drewitt calmed down in a moment, and said, “I see what you are driving at, Maxwell, but you may as well save yourself the trouble, for I will not turn you out of the house.”

“There are more ways of killing a dog than hanging him,” answered Maxwell, “and it is possible to make a place so confoundedly uncomfortable for a man that he may leave it of his own accord. We need not quarrel any more, sir,” he went on, his face hardening and setting as he spoke, “for I shall leave Kincorth without being shown to the door.”

“You shall not leave Kincorth,” said Mr. Drewitt, forgetting his anger in the rush of memories that came swelling up in his heart. “Vote for whom you like, I’ll say nothing more to you about it. I may have been wrong. Don’t go away like this. You shall not go, Maxwell;” and as he spoke, he laid a detaining hand on his nephew’s arm.

Maxwell shook it off scornfully.

“It is not in the power of any man to make another stay in hell,” he answered; “and for many a long day Kincorth has been like hell to me. You have my father’s property, but you shan’t have my father’s son as well;” and with that Maxwell walked past his uncle, and out of the apartment.

“Agnes, stop him, talk to him, don’t let him go,” said Mr. Drewitt; and only too glad of the order, his wife ran up to her nephew’s room, at the door of which she knocked gently.

“Who is there?” asked Maxwell.

“It is I,” she answered; “let me in, Maxwell—let me speak to you. I have something particular to say; I have, indeed.”

“Is my uncle with you?” he inquired.

“No, I am here alone; there is no one with me; let me in, Maxwell, do——”

He unlocked the door, and held it open for her to pass in; then he bolted and locked it, putting the key in his pocket; after which he placed the only chair the apartment boasted for her to sit on, and shutting a box he had just commenced packing, he sat down himself, and waited patiently for her to commence.

All round the room Mrs. Drewitt’s glance wandered. She had often been in it before, and done her best to make it more comfortable for its occupant; but now it seemed to her to look more bare and wretched than ever, and she wondered whether she had done right in letting Maxwell keep his den, instead of insisting on his occupying some of the spare chambers on the first floor.

Those spare chambers had been full of guests almost ever since her own arrival, so that she need scarcely have blamed herself in the matter; but Mrs. Drewitt was one of those women who always magnify their own shortcomings, and she could have burst out crying to think Maxwell was going, and she should never have a chance of doing better for him than that.

He half guessed what she was thinking about, and said:

“You have done as much for it as could be done, but it is not a very first-rate bedchamber. In the winter time the rain comes in there, and there, and there, and the wind blows the candle out, and it is damp, and cold, and wretched. Till you came—well, you know what it was when you came, and I see what it is now. Don’t think I blame my uncle for things like this, though,” he added hastily, “or that I am so effeminate as to care for them. I only regret the years I have wasted here. I only reproach my uncle for having let me live here in idleness when he knew the day must come that I would have to turn out from even this shelter and earn my living as I could.”

“But you will not go,” she pleaded; “your uncle told me to ask you to stay. We will do what we can for you, only remain—only—only—remain.”

And she stretched out her hands imploringly towards Maxwell, who sat with his hands clasped tightly together and his head bent down, for a moment silent after she had ceased speaking. Then he answered:

“Because you ask me, I would remain if I could; but I cannot. Mr. Drewitt thinks that he and I might make up this quarrel; and so, perhaps, we might. But if we healed this sore, it would only break out in a fresh place to-morrow. I am too old now for there to be peace between us,” he went on fiercely. “He ought either never to have undertaken to do anything for us, or he ought to have done it. If he had given me even a chance of earning my living, I would have worked and slaved to make myself and my sisters independent. It could not have been a great expense had he put me through college; but he never could afford to send me to Trinity—could not afford with Kincorth, and Analore, and twenty other nice little properties beside! When he came into this estate he had, if you believe me, Mrs. Drewitt, eight thousand a year clear—I think there was a mortgage on the place, which brought the rent-roll down to eight thousand—but a man may live on eight thousand a year,” finished Maxwell Drewitt, bitterly. “It is a long way off starvation that.”

“If he has been imprudent,” remarked Mrs. Drewitt, “he is sorry for that imprudence; if he has never done anything for you, it is not too late for him to mend his error now. I am not saying, Maxwell, remember, that he has acted rightly—indeed, I am afraid he has been very wrong; but he has done wrong without intending it, and if you stay, he can try to make reparation.”

“He has not the means now,” answered Maxwell; “if he had the will he has not the power. He is mortgaged up to his ears. There is nothing free, excepting Kincorth, and Kincorth will have to be pawned to provide funds to pay for the expenses of this election and a few other extravagances in which he has lately been indulging. I have waited long enough—I have waited and I have hesitated; but now I will take my pack on my back and go to seek my fortune.”

“But you will not go at once,” she said. “You will stay and see—you will not part in anger when you do leave. Your uncle is dreadfully grieved, and, Maxwell, you were insolent! You ought not to have tried his patience as you did.”

“A beggar has only one weapon, and it is hard if he may not use that,” replied the young man. “No,” he continued, “I must either go now or never—”

“Let it be never, then,” she interrupted; but Maxwell shook his head.

“Mrs. Drewitt,” he said, “I put it to your own sense. Can I stay here? Would it be well for me to do so? Would it be wise—would it be manly? Would you like to see any one you cared for, occupying the dependent position I fill? Would you not bid him rather go out and work—earn his bread, rather than have it given to him?”

“Perhaps so,” she assented; “but I would have no one go in anger. Your uncle was saying something about thinking you might like a commission, Maxwell. Should you like it? My father might be able to get you one; or if not, I am positive my brother-in-law could obtain some government appointment for you, in England or the colonies. Should you care for that?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Drewitt,” answered Maxwell; “an officer without private means is only a pauper in uniform; and besides, to be frank,” he went on, “I would rather take no favour from your family.”

“You dislike me so much, I suppose,” she said, a little flush coming up into her face. She had never been disliked before, and it hurt her to think she could only make enemies, let her try her best to gain friends. “You dislike me so much.”

“Not personally,” he replied. “I only dislike you as being Mr. Drewitt’s wife.”

“But what difference can being his wife make?” she asked.

“I cannot tell you that now,” he said, “but perhaps I may some day. What I can tell you at this moment,” he proceeded, suddenly returning to the question at issue, “is, that I wish to leave Kincorth at once, on account of the election. My uncle wants me to stop for a similar reason. He thinks it will damage his canvassing if—”

“If people imagine you and he have quarrelled,” finished Mrs. Drewitt, as he paused and hesitated. “Then, Maxwell, was he right? Were you trying to provoke him to tell you to leave the house?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, but then Maxwell Drewitt said boldly—

“You may as well know me for what I am at once. I was wanting him to turn me out. As he is too wise to do that, I am going to turn myself out. You look shocked. You begin to see that there may be things in heaven and earth undreamed of in your hitherto very limited philosophy; but in the future, when you are thinking what a sinner I am, remember that I have had no opportunity of becoming a saint. Life has not been a bed of roses to me. The teachings I have listened to have not always been such as the regenerate hear in church. As time goes by you will come to understand what kind of a home Kincorth has been to us, and then judge us if you like. You will do what you can for the girls, I know, till I am able to take them from you.”

“Don’t go, Maxwell,” entreated Mrs. Drewitt, and there was a sick, dead feeling about her heart as she spoke. “Don’t go; let us try all together to make a better use of your life; let us live in peace and unity, as such near relations should.”

“Did Esau live at peace with Jacob?” asked Maxwell, who was weary of the discussion. “Was Ishmael suffered to remain after the new heir was born? Do you suppose Lazarus, living on the crumbs that fell from Dives’ table, had a friendly feeling towards the men who fared sumptuously every day? If Solomon had not slain Adonijah, would Adonijah ever have ceased troubling his brother? Can you remember an instance where the disinherited loved the man who inherited? Is it not better for us to live apart in peace, than under the same roof at war?”

“I wish I were a better peacemaker,” she said.

“If an angel came down from heaven, unless indeed he were the angel of death,” said Maxwell, with an emphasis on the latter part of his sentence which was not quite intelligible to his auditor, “he could not keep me in Kincorth now. It will not take me long to pack my clothes, I have not so many of them, and then I mean to go. Tell my uncle I thank him for wanting me to stay all the same, but I would rather travel my own road, and that leads me out of Kincorth.”

Having finished which explicit speech, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt unlocked the door, and held it open for his aunt to pass out, as he had held it open for her to pass in.