by George Moore
Alice advised her sister quietly; but she resolved to speak to her mother of Captain Hibbert, and an occasion for so doing presented itself on the following morning. Mr. Barton was passing down the passage to his studio, Olive was racing upstairs to Barnes, Mrs. Barton had her hand on the drawingroom-door; and she looked round surprised when she saw that her daughter was following her.
“I want to speak to you, mamma.”
“Come in, dear.”
Alice shut the door behind her. Already the interview seemed to take an important character, and before the glass Mrs. Barton affected to arrange her hah’ with soft touches of the weak, white hands. The room was warm. The red-satin cushions of the basket-armchairs gleamed in the vivid lights cast by the swiftly-burning peat; and the ferns in the flower-glasses trembled and withered in the grey dimness of an uncertain Irish day.
“How bare and untidy the room looks at this season of the year; really you and Olive ought to go into the conservatory and see if you can’t get some geraniums.”
“Yes, mamma, I will presently; but it was about Olive that I wanted to speak,” said Alice, in a strained and anxious way.
“What a bore that girl is with her serious face,” thought Mrs. Barton; but, as it was her habitual policy to take things pleasantly, she laughed coaxingly, and said —
“And what has my grave-faced daughter to say — the learned keeper of the family wisdom?”
Even more than Olive’s — for they were less sincere — Mrs. Ballon’s trivialities jarred the quiet tone of Alice’s mind; already her ideas had begun to slip from her, and she to fear that she was committing an indiseretion. But at last, feeling keenly the inadequacy of her words, she said:
“Well, mamma, I wanted to ask you if Olive is going to marry Captain Hibbert?”
It was now for Mrs Barton to look embarrassed; she had clearly not anticipated the question.
“Well, really, I don’t know; nothing is arranged — I never thought about the matter. What could have made you think she was going to marry Captain Hibbert? In my opinion they are not at all suited to each other. Why do you ask me?”
“Because I have heard you speak of Lord Kilcarney as a man you would like Olive to many, and, if this be so, I thought I had better tell you about Captain Hibbert. I think she is very much in love with him.”
“Oh! nonsense; it is only to kill time. A girl must amuse herself somehow.”
It was on Alice’s lips to ask her mother if she thought such conduct quite right, but, checking herself, she said:
“I am afraid people are talking about it, and that surely is not desirable.”
The brown, the almond, the Lady Hamilton eyes, now grew for a moment almost stern; but the mask that, independent of real sorrow or gladness, had cajoled for twenty years, did not fall — it only trembled, an effort of will replaced it — and Alice hardly guessed what was passing in her mother’s mind. Mrs. Barton was sorely annoyed. The sight of the tall, puritanic girl, looking at her with her clear grey candid eyes, irritated her; and she struggled with the knowledge that she had acted unwisely.
“But why do you come telling me these stories?” she said.
“Why, mamma,” said Alice, astonished at the question, “because I thought it right to do so.”
The word “right” was unpleasant; but, recovering her temper, which for years before had never failed her, Mrs. Barton returned to her sweet little flattering manners.
“Of course, of course, my dear girl; but you do not understand me. What I mean to say is: have you any definite reason for supposing that Olive is in love with Captain Hibbert, and that people are talking about it?”
“I think so, mamma,” said the girl, deceived by this expression of good-will. “You remember when the Scullys came here? Well, Violet was up in our room, and we were showing her our dresses; the conversation somehow turned on Captain Hibbert, and when Violet said that she had seen him that day, as they came along in the carriage, shooting with the Lawlers, Olive burst out crying and rushed out of the room. It was very awkward. Violet said she was very sorry and all that, but—”
“Yes, yes, dear; but why was Olive angry at hearing that Captain Hibbert went out shooting with the Lawlers?”
“Because, it appears, she had previously forbidden him to go there; you know, on account of Mrs. Lawler.”
“And what happened then?”
“Well, that’s the worst of it. I don’t mean to say it was all Olive’s fault; I think she must have lost her head a little, for she sent Barnes over that evening to the Lawlers’ with a note, telling Captain Hibbert that he must come at once and explain. It was eleven o’clock at night, and they had a long talk through the window.”
Mrs. Barton did not speak for some moments. The peat-fire was falling into masses of white ash, and she thought vaguely of putting on some more turf; then her attention was caught by the withering ferns in the flower-glasses, then by the soaking pasture-lands, then by the spiky branches of the chestnut-trees swinging against the grey dead sky.
“But tell me, Alice,” she at last said, “for of course it is important that I should know — do you think that Olive is really in love with Captain Hibbert?”
“She told me, as we were going to bed the other night, mamma, that she never could care for anyone else; and — and—”
“And what, dear?”
“I don’t like to betray my sister’s confidence,” Alice said earnestly, “but I am sure I had better tell you the truth: she told me that he had kissed her many times, yesterday afternoon, in the conservatory.”
“Indeed! you did very well to let me know of this,” said Mrs. Barton, becoming as earnestly inclined as her daughter Alice. “I am sorry that Olive was so foolish; I must speak to her about it. This must not occur again. I think that if you were to tell her to come down here—”
“Oh! no, mamma, Olive would know at once that I had been speaking about her affairs; you must promise me to make only an indirect use of what I have told you.”
“Of course — of course, my dear Alice; no one shall ever know what has passed between us. You can depend upon me. I will not speak to Olive till I get a favourable opportunity. And now I have to go and see after the servants. Are you going upstairs?”
On Alice, tense with the importance of the explanation, this dismissal fell not a little chillingly; but she was glad that she had been able to induce her mother to consider the matter seriously; and never did she think she had seen Mrs. Barton look so grave. Now her elbow was leaned on the mantel-board, on the hand the head was rested, and, above the gold-tinted hair, branched the blue knotted Dresden candlesticks. The fragile Wedgwood tea-service, the old silver cardcases, the Pompadour fans that filled the sandalwood cabinets hanging between the windows, slept in a twilight as pale as the memory in which the givers lived. The givers had gone as the waves go, leaving only a few shells behind them; but from the further wall, standing on an unassailable crag, on the beach of a stormy sea, milord looked down upon this pleasant oasis.
A few minutes passed dreamily, almost unconsciously, Mrs. Barton threw two sods of turf on the fire, and resumed her thinking. Her first feeling of resentment against her eldest daughter had vanished, and she now thought solely of the difficulty she was in, and how she could best extricate herself from it. “So Olive was foolish enough to allow Captain Hibbert to kiss her in the conservatory!” Mrs. Barton murmured to herself. The morality of the question interested her profoundly. She had never allowed anyone to kiss her before she was married; and she was full of pity and presentiment for the future of a young girl who could thus compromise herself. But in Olive’s love for Captain Hibbert Mrs. Barton was concerned only so far as it affected the labour and time that would have to be expended in persuading her to cease to care for him. That this was the right thing to do Mrs. Barton did not for a moment doubt. Her daughter was a beautiful girl, would probably be the belle of the season; therefore, to allow her at nineteen to marry a five-hundred-a-year captain w
ould be, Mrs. Barton thought, to prove herself incapable, if not criminal, in the performance of the most important duty of her life. Mrs. Barton trembled when she thought of the sending of the letter: if the story were to get wind in Dublin it might wreck her hopes of the marquis. Therefore, to tell Barnes to leave the house would be fatal. Things must be managed easily, gently. Olive must be talked to, how far her heart was engaged in the matter must be found out, and she must be made to see the folly, the madness of risking her chance of winning a coronet for the sake of a beggarly five-hundred-a-year captain. And, good heavens! the chaperons: what would they say of her, Mrs. Barton, were such a thing to occur? Mrs. Barton turned from the thought in horror; and then, out of the soul of the old coquette, arose, full-fledged the chaperon, the satellite whose light and glory is dependent on that of the fixed star around which she invitingly revolves.
At this moment Olive, her hands filled with ferns, bounced into the room.
“Oh! here you are, mamma! Alice told me you wanted a few ferns and flowers to make the room look a little tidy. She sent me out to the greenhouse for them.”
“I hope you haven’t got you feet wet, my dear; if you have, you had better go up at once and change,” said Mrs. Barton.
Olive was now more than ever like her father. Her shoulders had grown wider, and the blonde head and scarlet lips had gained a summer brilliance and beauty.
“No, I am not wet,” she said, looking down at her boots; “it is not raining; but if it were Alice would send me out all the same.”
“Where is she now?”
“Up in her room reading, I suppose; she never stirs out of it. I never saw such a girl in my life. I thought when we came home from school the last time that we would be better friends; but, do you know what I think: Alice is a bit sulky. What do you think, mamma?”
To talk of Alice, to suggest that she was a little jealous, to explain the difficulty of the position she occupied, to commiserate and lavish much pity upon her was, no doubt, a fascinating subject of conversation, it had burned in the brains of mother and daughter for many months; but, too wise to compromise herself with her children, Mrs. Barton resisted the temptation to gratify a vindictiveness that ranked in her heart. She said:
“Alice has not yet found her beau cavalier; we shall see when we are at the Castle if she will remain faithful to her books. I am afraid that Miss Alice will then prefer some gay, dashing young officer to her ‘Marmion’ and her ‘Lara.’”
“I should think so, indeed. She says that the only man she cares to speak to in the county is Dr. Reed, that little frumpy fellow with his medicines. I can’t understand her. I couldn’t care for anyone but an officer.”
This was the chance Mrs. Barton required, and she instantly availed herself of it. “The red-coat fever!” she exclaimed, waving her hands. “There is no one like officers pour faire passer le temps.”
“Yes, ma!” cried Olive, proud of having understood so much French; “doesn’t time pass quickly with them?”
“It flies, my dear, and they fly away, and then we take up with another. They are all nice; their profession makes them that.”
“But some are nicer than others; for instance, I am sure they are not all as nice as Captain Hibbert.”
“Oh! indeed they are,” said Mrs. Barton, laughing; “wait until we get to Dublin; you have no idea what nice men we shall meet there; and then we shall find a lord or an earl, or perhaps a marquis, who will give a coroneted carriage to my beautiful girl to drive in.”
Olive tossed her head, laughed nervously, but said nothing. Her mother looked at her admiringly, and there was love in the sweet brown deceit of the melting eyes; a hard, worldly affection, but a much warmer one than any Mrs. Barton could feel for Alice, in whom she saw nothing but failure, and in the end certain spinsterhood. After a pause she said:
“What a splendid match Lord Kilcarney would be, and where would he find a girl like my Olive to do the honours of his house?”
“Oh! mamma, I never could marry him!”
“And why not, my dear girl?”
“I don’t know, he’s a silly little fool; besides, I like Captain Hibbert.”
“Yes, you like Captain Hibbert, so do I; but a girl like you could not throw herself away on a five-hundred-a-year captain in the army.”
“And why not, mamma?” said Olive, who had already begun to whimper; “Captain Hibbert loves me, I know, very dearly, and I like him; he is of very good family, and he has enough to support me.”
The moment was a supreme one, and Mrs. Barton hesitated to strike and bring the matter to a head. Would it be better, she asked herself, to let things slide and use her influence for the future in one direction? After a brief pause she decided on the former course. She said:
“My dear child, neither your father nor myself could ever consent to see you throw yourself away on Captain Hibbert. I am afraid you have seen too much of him, and have been led away into caring for him. But take my word for it, a girl’s love is only à fleur de peau. When you have been to a few of the Castle balls you’ll soon forget all about him. Remember you are not twenty yet; it would be madness.”
“Oh! mamma, I did not think you were so cruel!” exclaimed Olive — and she rushed out of the room.
Mrs. Barton made no reply, but her resolve was rapidly gaining strength in her mind: Olive’s flirtation was to be brought at once to a close. Captain Hibbert she would admit no more, and the girl was in turn to be wheedled and coerced.
Nor did Mrs. Barton for a moment doubt that she would succeed; she had never tasted failure; and she stayed only a moment to regret, for she was too much a woman of the world to waste time in considering her mistakes. The needs of the moment were ever present to her, and she now devoted herself entirely to the task of consoling her daughter. Barnes, too, was well instructed, and henceforth she spoke only of the earls, dukes, lords, and princes who were waiting for Olive at the Castle.
In the afternoon Mrs. Barton made her come down to the drawing-room, where woman was represented as a triumphant creature walking towards great but undetermined success over the heads and hearts of men. “Le génie de la femme est la beauté,” declared Milord, and again: “Le cœur de l’homme ne peut servir que de piédestal pour l’idole.”
“Oh! milord, milord!” said Mrs. Barton. “So in worshipping us you are idolators. I’m ashamed of you.”
“Pardon, pardon, madam: Levant tin amour faux on est idolâtre, mais à l’autel d’un vrai, on est chrétien.”
And in such lugubrious gaiety the girl grieved. Captain Hibbert had been refused admission; he had written, but his letters had been intercepted; and holding them in her hand Mrs. Barton explained that she could not consent to such a marriage; while she dazzled the girl with visions of the honours that awaited the future Marchioness of Kilcarney. “An engaged girl is not noticed at the Castle. You don’t know what nice fellows you’ll meet there; have your fun out first,” were the arguments most frequently put forward; and, in the excitement of breaking off Olive’s engagement, even the Land League was forgotten. Distracted by girlish love and vanity, Olive hesitated many days, but at length she was persuaded to at least try to captivate the marquis before she honoured the captain with her hand. Then Mrs. Barton lost not a moment in writing to Captain Hibbert, asking him to come and see them the following day, if possible, between eleven and twelve. She wanted to speak to him on a matter which had lately come to her knowledge, and which had occasioned her a good deal of surprise.
The letter was scarcely gone when it transpired that it was on the morrow that Mr. Barton had arranged to meet his tenants. But it was impossible to countermand her appointment, and Mrs. Barton spent the evening talking to Olive of Castle and London seasons, amusement, admiration, successes carried off in the face of many disappointed rivals. Alice, too, was ordered, before she went to sleep, to say something to this effect: that it would be absurd for Olive to waste her beauty on a five-hundred-a-year captain; that she was worthy of
a crowned head.
During breakfast next morning, all — Mr. Barton, perhaps, excepted — felt that momentous events were gradually nearing them. He could think of nothing but the muscles of the strained back of a dying Briton, and a Roman soldier who cut the cords that bound the white captive to the sacrificial oak. He declared that it would be no use returning to the studio until these infernal tenants were settled with, and he loitered about the drawing-room windows looking pale, picturesque, and lymphatic. His presence imitated Mrs. Barton. At times she strove to prompt the arguments that should be used to induce the tenants to accept the proffered abatement, but she could not detach her thoughts from the terrible interview she was about to go through with Captain Hibbert. She expected him to be violent; he would insist on seeing Olive: and could she depend on the girl to refuse him to his face? The question clanged like a bell within her brain: and she watched wearily the rain dripping from the wooden edges of the verandah, and the last patches of snow melting around the roots of the chestnut-trees. At last a car was seen approaching: it was closely followed by another bearing four policemen.
“Here’s your agent,” exclaimed Mrs. Barton, hurriedly, “don’t bring him in here; go out and meet him, and, when you see Captain Hibbert, welcome him as cordially as you can. But don’t speak to him of Olive, and don’t give him time to speak to you: say you are engaged. I don’t want Mr. Scully to know anything about this break-off. It is most unfortunate you did not tell me you were going to meet your tenants to-day. However, it is too late now.”
“Very well, my dear, very well,” said Mr. Barton, trying to find his hat. “I would, I assure you, give twenty pounds to be out of the whole thing. I cannot argue with those fellows about their rents. I think the Government ought to let us fight it out. I should be very glad to take the command of a flying column of landlords, and make a dash into Connemara. I have always thought my military genius more allied to that of Napoleon than to that of Wellington.”
