The fit of weeping was momentary, April’s, a novelty with her. She accused her silly visions of having softened her. A hasty smoothing to right and left removed the traces; they were unseen; and when she ventured to look at him again there was no sign of fresh drops falling. His eyelids kept shut.

The arrival of her diurnal basket of provisions offered a refreshing intervention of the commonplace. Bright air had sharpened his appetite: he said he had been sure it would, and anticipated cheating the doctor of a part of the sentence which condemned him to lie on his back up to the middle of June, a log. Jane was hungry too, and they feasted together gaily, talking of Kathleen on her journey, her strange impressions and her way of proclaiming them, and of Patrick and where he might be now; ultimately of Captain Con and Mrs. Adister.

‘He has broken faith with her,’ Philip said sternly. ‘She will have the right to tell him so. He never can be anything but a comic politician. Still he was bound to consult his wife previous to stepping before the public. He knows that he married a fortune.’

‘A good fortune,’ said Jane.

Philip acquiesced. ‘She is an excellent woman, a model of uprightness; she has done him all the good in the world, and here is he deceiving her, lying—there is no other word: and one lie leads to another. When he married a fortune he was a successful adventurer. The compact was understood. His duty as a man of honour is to be true to his bond and serve the lady. Falseness to his position won’t wash him clean of the title.’

Jane pleaded for Captain Con. ‘He is chivalrously attentive to her.’

‘You have read his letter,’ Philip replied.

He crushed her charitable apologies with references to the letter.

‘We are not certain that Mrs. Adister will object,’ said she.

‘Do you see her reading a speech of her husband’s?’ he remarked. Presently with something like a moan:

‘And I am her guest!’

‘Oh! pray, do not think Mrs. Adister will ever allow you to feel the lightest shadow…’ said Jane.

‘No; that makes it worse.’

Had this been the burden of his thoughts when those two solitary tears forced their passage?

Hardly: not even in his physical weakness would he consent to weep for such a cause.

‘I forgot to mention that Mrs. Adister has a letter from her husband telling her he has been called over to Ireland on urgent business,’ she said.

Philip answered: ‘He is punctilious.’

‘I wish indeed he had been more candid,’ Jane assented to the sarcasm.

‘In Ireland he is agreeably surprised by the flattering proposal of a vacant seat, and not having an instant to debate on it, assumes the consent of the heavenliest wife in Christendom.’

Philip delivered the speech with a partial imitation of Captain Con addressing his wife on his return as the elected among the pure Irish party. The effort wearied him.

She supposed he was regretting his cousin’s public prominence in the ranks of the malcontents. ‘He will listen to you,’ she said, while she smiled at his unwonted display of mimicry.

‘A bad mentor for him. Antics are harmless, though they get us laughed at,’ said Philip.

‘You may restrain him from excesses.’

‘Were I in that position, you would consider me guilty of greater than any poor Con is likely to commit.’

‘Surely you are not for disunion?’

‘The reverse. I am for union on juster terms, that will hold it fast.’

‘But what are the terms?’

He must have desired to paint himself as black to her as possible. He stated the terms, which were hardly less than the affrighting ones blown across the Irish sea by that fierce party. He held them to be just, simply sensible terms. True, he spoke of the granting them as a sure method to rally all Ireland to an ardent love of the British flag. But he praised names of Irish leaders whom she had heard Mr. Rockney denounce for disloyal insolence: he could find excuses for them and their dupes—poor creatures, verily! And his utterances had a shocking emphasis. Then she was not wrong in her idea of the conspirator’s head, her first impression of him!

She could not quit the theme: doing that would have been to be indifferent: something urged her to it.

‘Are they really your opinions?’

He seemed relieved by declaring that they were.

‘Patrick is quite free of them,’ said she.

‘We will hope that the Irish fever will spare Patrick. He was at a Jesuit college in France when he was wax. Now he’s taking the world.’

‘With so little of the Jesuit in him!’

‘Little of the worst: a good deal of the best.’

‘What is the best?’

‘Their training to study. They train you to concentrate the brain upon the object of study. And they train you to accept service: they fit you for absolute service: they shape you for your duties in the world; and so long as they don’t smelt a man’s private conscience, they are model masters. Happily Patrick has held his own. Not the Jesuits would have a chance of keeping a grasp on Patrick! He’ll always be a natural boy and a thoughtful man.’

Jane’s features implied a gentle shudder.

‘I shake a scarlet cloak to you?’ said Philip.

She was directed by his words to think of the scarlet coat. ‘I reflect a little on the substance of things as well,’ she said. ‘Would not Patrick’s counsels have an influence?’

‘Hitherto our Patrick has never presumed to counsel his elder brother.’

‘But an officer wearing…’

‘The uniform! That would have to be stripped off. There’d be an end to any professional career.’

‘You would not regret it?’

‘No sorrow is like a soldier’s bidding farewell to flag and comrades. Happily politics and I have no business together. If the country favours me with active service I’m satisfied for myself. You asked me for my opinions: I was bound to give them. Generally I let them rest.’

Could she have had the temerity? Jane marvelled at herself.

She doubted that the weighty pair of tears had dropped for the country. Captain Con would have shed them over Erin, and many of them. Captain Philip’s tone was too plain and positive: he would be a most practical unhistrionic rebel.

‘You would countenance a revolt?’ she said, striking at that extreme to elicit the favourable answer her tones angled for. And it was instantly:

‘Not in arms.’ He tried an explanation by likening the dissension to a wrangle in a civilised family over an unjust division of property.

And here, as he was marking the case with some nicety and difficulty, an itinerant barrel-organ crashed its tragic tale of music put to torture at the gate. It yelled of London to Jane, throttled the spirits of the woods, threw a smoke over the country sky, befouled the pure air she loved.

Страница 51 из 53

Назад 1…50 51 52 53 Далее