"The agency and the niece!" said Ma.s.singbred, with a calm solemnity that this speech had never disconcerted.

"Them 's the conditions!" said Scanlan, reddening over face and forehead.

"You 're a plucky fellow, Scanlan, and by Jove I like you for it!" said Ma.s.singbred. And for once there was a hearty sincerity in the way he spoke. "If a man _is_ to have a fall, let it be at least over a 'rasper,' not be thrown over a furrow in a ploughed field! You fly at high game, but I'm far from saying you'll not succeed." And with a jocular laugh he turned away and left him.

CHAPTER XXIV. A CONSULTATION

Jack Ma.s.singbred was one of those who, in questions of difficulty, resort to the pen in preference to personal interference. It was a fancy of his that he wrote better than he talked. Very probably he thought so because the contrary was the fact. On the present occasion another motive had also its influence. It was Lady Dorothea that he addressed, and he had no especial desire to commit himself to a direct interview.

His object was to convey Mr. Scanlan's propositions,--to place them fully and intelligibly before her Ladyship without a syllable of comment on his own part, or one word which could be construed into advocacy or reprobation of them. In truth, had he been called upon for an opinion, it would have sorely puzzled him what to say. To rescue a large estate from ruin was, to be sure, a very considerable service, but to accept Maurice Scanlan as a near member of one's family seemed a very heavy price even for that. Still, if the young lady liked him, singular as the choice might appear, other objections need not be insurmountable. The Martins were very unlikely ever to make Ireland their residence again, they would see little or nothing of this same Scanlan connection, "and, after all," thought Jack, "if we can only keep the disagreeables of this life away from daily intercourse, only knowing them through the post-office and at rare intervals, the compact is not a bad one."

Ma.s.singbred would have liked much to consult Miss Henderson upon the question itself, and also upon his manner of treating it; but to touch upon the point of a marriage of inequality with her, would have been dangerous ground. It was scarcely possible he could introduce the topic without dropping a word, or letting fall a remark she could not seize hold of. It was the theme, of all others, in which her sensitiveness was extreme; nor could he exactly say whether she sneered at a _mesalliance,_ or at the insolent tone of society regarding it.

Again he bethought him of the ungraciousness of the task he had a.s.sumed, if, as was most probable, Lady Dorothea should feel Mr. Scanlan's pretensions an actual outrage. "She'll never forgive me for stating them, that's certain," said he; "but will she do so if I decline to declare them, or worse still, leave them to the vulgar interpretation Scanlan himself is sure to impart to them?" While he thus hesitated and debated with himself, now altering a phrase here, now changing a word there, Captain Martin entered the room, and threw himself into a chair with a more than ordinary amount of weariness and exhaustion.

"The governor's worse to-day, Ma.s.singbred," said he, with a sigh.

"No serious change, I hope?" said Jack.

"I suspect there is, though," replied the other. "They sent for me from Lescour's last night, where I was winning smartly. Just like _my_ luck always, to be called away when I was 'in vein,' and when I got here, I found Schubart, and a French fellow whom I don't know, had just bled him. It must have been touch and go, for when I saw him he was very ill--very ill indeed--and they call him better."

"It was a distinct attack, then,--a seizure of some sort?" asked Ma.s.singbred.

"Yes, I think they said so," said he, lighting his cigar.

"But he has rallied, has n't he?"

"Well, I don't fancy he has. He lifts his eyes at times, and seems to look about for some one, and moves his lips a little, but you could scarcely say that he was conscious, though my mother insists he is."

"What does Schubart think?"

"Who minds these fellows?" said he, impatiently. "They're only speculating on what will be said of themselves, and so they go on: 'If this does not occur, and the other does not happen, we shall see him better this evening.'"

"This is all very bad," said Ma.s.singbred, gloomily--"It's a deuced deal worse than you know of, old fellow," said Martin, bitterly.

"Perhaps not worse than I suspect," said Ma.s.singbred.

"What do you mean by that?"

Ma.s.singbred did not reply, but sat deep in thought for some time. "Come, Martin," said he, at last, "let us be frank; in a few hours it may be, perhaps, too late for frankness. Is this true?" And he handed to him Merl's pocket-book, open at a particular page.

Martin took it, and as his eyes traced the lines a sickly paleness covered his features, and in a voice scarcely stronger than an infant's, he said, "It is so."

"The whole reversionary right?"

"Every acre--every stick and stone of it--except," added he, with a sickly attempt at a smile, "a beggarly tract, near Kiltimmon, Mary has a charge upon."

"Read that, now," said Jack, handing him his recently written letter.

"I was about to send it without showing it to you; but it is as well you saw it."

While Martin was reading, Ma.s.singbred never took his eyes from him. He watched with all his own practised keenness the varying emotions the letter cost; but he saw that, as he finished, selfishness had triumphed, and that the prospect of safety had blunted every sentiment as to the price.

"Well," said Jack, "what say you to that?"

"I say it's a right good offer, and on no account to be refused. There is some hitch or other--I can't say what, but it exists, I know--which ties us up against selling. Old Repton and the governor, and I think my mother, too, are in the secret; but I never was, so that Scanlan's proposal is exactly what meets the difficulty."

"But do you like his conditions?" asked Jack.

"I can't say I do. But what 's that to the purpose? One must play the hand that is dealt to them; there 's no choice! I know that, as agent over the property, he 'll make a deuced good thing of it for himself. It will not be five nor ten per cent will satisfy Master Maurice."

"Yes; but there is another condition, also," said Jack, quietly.

"About Mary? Well, of course it's not the kind of thing one likes.

The fellow is the lowest of the low; but even that's better, in some respects, than a species of half gentility, for he actually has n't one in the world belonging to him. No one ever heard of his father or mother, and he's not the fellow to go in search of them."

"I confess that _is_ a consideration," said Ma.s.singbred, with a tone that might mean equally raillery or the reverse, "so that you see no great objection on that score?"

"I won't say I 'd choose the connection; but 'with a bad book it's at least a hedge,'--eh, Ma.s.sy, is n't it?"

"Perhaps so," said the other, dryly.

"It does n't strike me," said Martin, as he glanced his eye again over the letter, "that you have advocated Scanlan's plan. You have left it without, apparently, one word of comment. Does that mean that you don't approve of it?"

"I never promised him I would advocate it," said Jack.

"I have no doubt, Ma.s.singbred, you think me a deuced selfish fellow for treating the question in this fashion; but just reflect a little, and see how innocently, as I may say, I was led into all these embarra.s.sments. I never suspected how deep I was getting. Merl used to laugh at me if I asked him how we stood; he always induced me to regard our dealings as trifles, to be arranged to-day, to-morrow, or ten years hence."

"I am not unversed in that sort of thing, unluckily," said Ma.s.singbred, interrupting him. "There is another consideration, however, in the present case, to which I do not think you have given sufficient weight."

"As to Mary, my dear fellow, the matter is simple enough. Our consent is a mere form. If she liked Scanlan, she 'd marry him against all the Martins that ever were born; and if she did n't, she 'd not swerve an inch if the whole family were to go to the stake for it. She 's not one for half measures, I promise you; and then, remember, that though she is one 'of us,' and well born, she has never mingled with the society of her equals; she has always lived that kind of life you saw yourself,--taking a cast with the hounds one day, nursing some old hag with the rheumatism the next. I 've seen her hearing a cla.s.s in the village school, and half an hour after, breaking in a young horse to harness. And what between her habits and her tastes, she is really not fit for what you and I would call the world." As Ma.s.singbred made no reply, Martin ascribed his silence to a part conviction, and went on: "Mind, I 'm not going to say that she is not a deuced deal too good for Maurice Scanlan, who is as vulgar a hound as walks on two legs; but, as I said before, Ma.s.sy, we haven't much choice."

"Will Lady Dorothea be likely to view the matter in this light?" asked Jack, calmly.

"That is a mere matter of chance. She 's equally likely to embrace the proposal with ardor, or tell a footman to kick Scanlan out of the house for his impertinence; and I own the latter is the more probable of the two,--not, mark you, from any exaggerated regard for Mary, but out of consideration to the insult offered to herself."

"Will she not weigh well all the perils that menace the estate?"

"She'll take a short method with them,--she'll not believe them."

"Egad! I must say the whole negotiation is in a very promising state!"

exclaimed Jack, as he arose and walked the room. "There is only one amongst us has much head for a case of difficulty."

"You mean Kate Henderson?" broke in Martin.

"Yes."