"The grumpy old fellow with the bald head!" she said shortly afterwards to her bosom friend, not careful that her words should be duly inaudible.

Some idea that all was not yet over with her had come upon her poor heart,—upon Lady Desmond's heart, soon after Owen Fitzgerald had made himself familiar in her old mansion. We have read how that idea was banished, and how she had ultimately resolved that that man whom she could have loved herself should be given up to her own child when she thought that he was no longer poor and of low rank. She could not sympathize with her daughter,—love with her love, and rejoice with her joy; but she could do her duty by her, and according to her lights she endeavoured so to do.

But now again all was turned and changed and altered. Owen of Hap House was once more Owen of Hap House only, but still in her eyes heroic, as it behoved a man to be. He would not creep about the country with moaning voice and melancholy eyes, with draggled dress and outward signs of wretchedness. He might be wretched, but he would still be manly. Could it be possible that to her should yet be given the privilege of soothing that noble, unbending wretchedness? By no means possible, poor, heart-laden countess; thy years are all against thee. Girls whose mouths will water unduly for the flesh-pots of Egypt must in after life undergo such penalties as these. Art thou not a countess?

But not so did she answer herself. Might it not be possible? Ah, might it not be possible? And as the question was even then being asked, perhaps for the ten thousandth time, Owen Fitzgerald stood before her. She had not yet seen him since the new news had gone abroad, and had hardly yet conceived how it might be possible that she should do so. But now as she thought of him there he was. They two were together,—alone together; and the door by which he had entered had closed upon him before she was aware of his presence.

"Owen Fitzgerald!" she said, starting up and giving him both her hands. This she did, not of judgment, nor yet from passion, but of impulse. She had been thinking of him with such kindly thoughts, and now he was there it became natural that her greeting should be kindly. It was more so than it had ever been to any but her son since the wrinkled, gloating earl had come and fetched her.

"Yes, Owen Fitzgerald," said he, taking the two hands that were offered to him, and holding them awhile; not pressing them as a man who loved her, who could have loved her, would have done. "After all that has gone and passed between us, Lady Desmond, I cannot leave the country without saying one word of farewell to you."

"Leave the country!" she exclaimed. "And where are you going?"

As she looked into his face with her hands still in his,—for she did not on the moment withdraw them, she felt that he had never before looked so noble, so handsome, so grand. Leave the country! ah, yes; and why should not she leave it also? What was there to bind her to those odious walls in which she had been immolated during the best half of her life?

"Where are you going?" she asked, looking almost wildly up at him.

"Somewhere very far a-field, Lady Desmond," he said; and then the hands dropped from him.

"You will understand, at any rate, that Hap House will not be a fitting residence for me."

"I hate the whole country," said she, "the whole place hereabouts. I have never been happy here. Happy! I have never been other than unhappy. I have been wretched. What would I not give to leave it also?"

"To you it cannot be intolerable as it will be to me. You have known so thoroughly where all my hopes were garnered, that I need not tell you why I must go from Hap House. I think that I have been wronged, but I do not desire that others should think so. And as for you and me, Lady Desmond, though we have been enemies, we have been friends also."

"Enemies!" said she, "I hope not." And she spoke so softly, so unlike her usual self, in the tones so suited to a loving, clinging woman, that though he did not understand it, he was startled at her tenderness. "I have never felt that you were my enemy, Mr. Fitzgerald; and certainly I never was an enemy to you."

"Well; we were opposed to each other. I thought that you were robbing me of all I valued in life; and you, you thought—"

"I thought that Clara's happiness demanded rank and wealth and position. There; I tell you my sins fairly. You may say that I was mercenary if you will, mercenary for her. I thought that I knew what would be needful for her. Can you be angry with a mother for that?"

"She had given me a promise! But never mind. It is all over now. I did not come to upbraid you, but to tell you that I now know how it must be, and that I am going."

"Had you won her, Owen," said the countess, looking intently into his face, "had you won her, she would not have made you happy."

"As to that it was for me to judge—for me and her. I thought it would, and was willing to peril all in the trial. And so was she—willing at one time. But never mind, it is useless to talk of that."

"Quite useless now."

"I did think—when it was, as they said, in my power to give him back his own,—I did think,—but no, it would have been mean to look for payment. It is all over, and I will say nothing further, not a word. I am not a girl to harp on such a thing day after day, and to grow sick with love. I shall be better away. And therefore I am going, and I have now come to say goodbye, because we were friends in old days, Lady Desmond."

Friends in old days! They were old days to him, but they were no more than the other day to her. It was as yet hardly more than two years since she had first known him, and yet he looked on the acquaintance as one that had run out its time and required to be ended. She would so fain have been able to think that the beginning only had as yet come to them. But there he was, anxious to bid her adieu, and what was she to say to him?

"Yes, we were friends. You have been my only friend here, I think. You will hardly believe with how much true friendship I have thought of you when the feud between us—if it was a feud—was at the strongest. Owen Fitzgerald, I have loved you through it all."

Loved him? She was so handsome as she spoke, so womanly, so graceful, there was still about her so much of the charm of beauty, that he could hardly take the word when coming from her mouth as applicable to ordinary friendship. And yet he did so take it. They had all loved each other—as friends should love-and now that he was going she had chosen to say as much. He felt the blood tingle his cheek at the sound of her words; but he was not vain enough to take it in its usual sense. "Then we will part as friends," said he—tamely enough.

"Yes, we will part," she said. And as she spoke the blood mantled deep on her neck and cheek and forehead, and a spirit came out of her eye, such as never had shone there before in his presence. "Yes, we will part," and she took up his right hand, and held it closely, pressed between both her own. "And as we must part I will tell you all. Owen Fitzgerald, I have loved you with all my heart,—with all the love that a woman has to give. I have loved you, and have never loved any other. Stop, stop," for he was going to interrupt her. "You shall hear me now to the last,—and for the last time. I have loved you with such love—such love as you perhaps felt for her, but as she will never feel. But you shall not say, nay you shall not think that I have been selfish. I would have kept you from her when you were poor as you are now,—not because I loved you. No; you will never think that of me. And when I thought that you were rich, and the head of your family, I did all that I could to bring her back for you. Did I not, Owen?"

"Yes, I think you did," he muttered between his teeth, hardly knowing how to speak.

"Indeed, indeed I did so. Others may say that I was selfish for my child, but you shall not think that I was selfish for myself. I sent for Patrick, and bade him go to you. I strove as mothers do strive for their children. I taught myself,—I strove to teach myself to forget that I had loved you. I swore on my knees that I would love you only as my son,—as my dear, dear son. Nay, Owen, I did; on my knees before my God."

He turned away from her to rub the tears from his eyes, and in doing so he dragged his hand away from her. But she followed him, and again took it. "You will hear me to the end now," she said; "will you not? you will not begrudge me that? And then came these other tidings, and all that scheme was dashed to the ground. It was better so, Owen; you would not have been happy with the property—"

"I should never have taken it."

"And she, she would have clung closer to him as a poor man than ever she had done when he was rich. She is her mother's daughter there. And then—then—But I need not tell you more. You will know it all now. If you had become rich, I would have ceased to love you; but I shall never cease now that you are again poor,—now that you are Owen of Hap House again, as you sent us word yourself that day."

And then she ceased, and bending down her head bathed his hand with her tears. Had any one asked him that morning, he would have said that it was impossible that the Countess of Desmond should weep. And now the tears were streaming from her eyes as though she were a broken-hearted girl. And so she was. Her girlhood had been postponed and marred,—not destroyed and made away with, by the wrinkled earl with the gloating eyes.

She had said all now, and she stood there, still holding his hand in hers, but with her head turned from him. It was his turn to speak now, and how was he to answer her. I know how most men would have answered;—by the pressure of an arm, by a warm kiss, by a promise of love, and by a feeling that such love was possible. And then most men would have gone home, leaving the woman triumphant, and have repented bitterly as they sat moody over their own fires, with their wine-bottles before them. But it was not so with Owen Fitzgerald. His heart was to him a reality. He had loved with all his power and strength, with all the vigour of his soul,—having chosen to love. But he would not now be enticed by pity into a bastard feeling, which would die away when the tenderness of the moment was no longer present to his eye and touch. His love for Clara had been such that he could not even say that he loved another.

"Dear Lady Desmond," he began.

"Ah, Owen; we are to part now, part for ever," she said; "speak to me once in your life as though we were equal friends. Cannot you forget for one minute that I am Countess of Desmond?"

Mary, Countess of Desmond; such was her name and title. But so little familiar had he been with the name by which he had never heard her called, that in his confusion he could not remember it. And had he done so, he could not have brought himself to use it. "Yes," he said; "we must part. It is impossible for me to remain here."

"Doubly impossible now," she replied, half reproaching him.

"Yes; doubly impossible now. Is it not better that the truth should be spoken?"

"Oh yes. I have spoken it—too plainly."

"And so will I speak it plainly. We cannot control our own hearts, Lady Desmond. It is, as you say, doubly impossible now. All the love I have had to give she has had,—and has. Such being so, why should I stay here? or could you wish that I should do so?"

"I do not wish it." That was true enough. The wish would have been to wander away with him.

"I must go, and shall start at once. My very things are packed for my going. I will not be here to have the sound of their marriage bells jangling in my ears. I will not be pointed at as the man who has been duped on every side."

"Ah me, that I was a man too,—that I could go away and make for myself a life!"

"You have Desmond with you."

"No, no. He will go too; of course he will go. He will go, and I shall be utterly alone. What a fool I am,—what an ass, that by this time I have not learned to bear it!"

"They will always be near you at Castle Richmond."

"Ah, Owen, how little you understand! Have we been friends while we lived under the same roof? And now that she is there, do you think that she will heed me? I tell you that you do not know her. She is excellent, good, devoted; but cold as ice. She will live among the poor, and grace his table; and he will have all that he wants. In twelve months, Owen, she would have turned your heart to a stone."

"It is that already, I think," said he. "At any rate, it will be so to all others. Good-bye, Lady Desmond."

"Good-bye, Owen; and God bless you. My secret will be safe with you."

"Safe! yes, it will be safe." And then, as she put her cheek up to him, he kissed it and left her.

He had been very stern. She had laid bare to him her whole heart, and he had answered her love by never a word. He had made no reply in any shape,—given her no thanks for her heart's treasure. He had responded to her affection by no tenderness. He had not even said that this might have been so, had that other not have come to pass. By no word had he alluded to her confession,—but had regarded her delusion as monstrous, a thing of which no word was to be spoken.

So at least said the countess to herself, sitting there all alone where he had left her. "He regards me as old and worn. In his eyes I am wrinkled and ugly." 'Twas thus that her thoughts expressed themselves; and then she walked across the room towards the mirror, but when there she could not look in it: she turned her back upon it without a glance, and returned to her seat by the window. What mattered it now? It was her doom to live there alone for the term of life with which it might still please God to afflict her.

And then looking out from the window her eyes fell upon Owen as he rode slowly down across the park. His horse was walking very slowly, and it seemed as though he himself were unconscious of the pace. As long as he remained in sight she did not take her eyes from his figure, gazing at him painfully as he grew dimmer and more dim in the distance. Then at last he turned behind the bushes near the lodge, and she felt that she was all alone. It was the last that she ever saw of Owen Fitzgerald.

Unfortunate girl, marred in thy childhood by that wrinkled earl with the gloating eyes; or marred rather by thine own vanity! Those flesh-pots of Egypt! Are they not always thus bitter in the eating?



CHAPTER XLIV

CONCLUSION

And now my story is told; and were it not for the fashion of the thing, this last short chapter might be spared. It shall at any rate be very short.

Were it not that I eschew the fashion of double names for a book, thinking that no amount of ingenuity in this respect will make a bad book pass muster, whereas a good book will turn out as such though no such ingenuity be displayed, I might have called this "A Tale of the Famine Year in Ireland." At the period of the year to which the story has brought us—and at which it will leave us—the famine was at its very worst. People were beginning to believe that there would never be a bit more to eat in the land, and that the time for hope and energy was gone. Land was becoming of no value, and the only thing regarded was a sufficiency of food to keep body and soul together. Under such circumstances it was difficult to hope.

But energy without hope is impossible, and therefore was there such an apathy and deadness through the country. It was not that they did not work who were most concerned to work. The amount of conscientious work then done was most praiseworthy. But it was done almost without hope of success, and done chiefly as a matter of conscience. There was a feeling, which was not often expressed but which seemed to prevail everywhere, that ginger would not again be hot in the mouth, and that in very truth the time for cakes and ale in this world was all over. It was this feeling that made a residence in Ireland at that period so very sad.

Ah me! how little do we know what is coming to us! Irish cakes and ale were done and over for this world, we all thought. But in truth the Irish cakes were only then a-baking, and the Irish ale was being brewed. I am not sure that these good things are yet quite fit for the palates of the guest;—not as fit as a little more time will make them. The cake is still too new,—cakes often are; and the ale is not sufficiently mellowed. But of this I am sure, that the cakes and ale are there;—and the ginger, too, very hot in the mouth. Let a committee of Irish landlords say how the rents are paid now, and what amount of arrears was due through the country when the famine came among them. Rents paid to the day: that is the ginger hot in the mouth which best pleases the palate of a country gentleman.

But if one did in truth write a tale of the famine, after that it would behove the author to write a tale of the pestilence; and then another, a tale of the exodus. These three wonderful events, following each other, were the blessings coming from Omniscience and Omnipotence by which the black clouds were driven from the Irish firmament. If one through it all could have dared to hope, and have had from the first that wisdom which has learned to acknowledge that His mercy endureth for ever! And then the same author going on with his series would give in his last set,—Ireland in her prosperity.

Of all those who did true good conscientious work at this time, none exceeded in energy our friend Herbert Fitzgerald after his return to Castle Richmond. It seemed to him as though some thank-offering were due from him for all the good things that Providence had showered upon him, and the best thank-offering that he could give was a devoted attention to the interest of the poor around him. Mr. Somers soon resigned to him the chair at those committee meetings at Berryhill and Gortnaclough, and it was acknowledged that the Castle Richmond arrangements for soup-kitchens, out-door relief, and labour-gangs, might be taken as a model for the south of Ireland. Few other men were able to go to the work with means so ample and with hands so perfectly free. Mr. Carter even, who by this time had become cemented in a warm trilateral friendship with Father Barney and the Rev. Aeneas Townsend, was obliged to own that many a young English country gentleman might take a lesson from Sir Herbert Fitzgerald in the duties peculiar to his position.

His marriage did not take place till full six months after the period to which our story has brought us. Baronets with twelve thousand a-year cannot be married off the hooks, as may be done with ordinary mortals. Settlements of a grandiose nature were required, and were duly concocted. Perhaps Mr. Die had something to say to them, so that the great maxim of the law was brought into play. Perhaps also, though of this Herbert heard no word, it was thought inexpedient to hurry matters while any further inquiry was possible in that affair of the Mollett connection. Mr. Die and Mr. Prendergast were certainly going about, still drawing all coverts far and near, lest their fox might not have been fairly run to his last earth. But, as I have said, no tidings as to this reached Castle Richmond. There, in Ireland, no man troubled himself further with any doubt upon the subject; and Sir Herbert took his title and received his rents, by the hands of Mr. Somers, exactly as though the Molletts, father and son, had never appeared in those parts.

It was six months before the marriage was celebrated, but during a considerable part of that time Clara remained a visitor at Castle Richmond. To Lady Fitzgerald she was now the same as a daughter, and to Aunt Letty the same as a niece. By the girls she had for months been regarded as a sister. So she remained in the house of which she was to be the mistress, learning to know their ways, and ingratiating herself with those who were to be dependent on her.

"But I had rather stay with you, mamma, if you will allow me," Clara had said to her mother when the countess was making some arrangement with her that she should return to Castle Richmond. "I shall be leaving you altogether so soon now!" And she got up close to her mother's side caressingly, and would fain have pressed into her arms and kissed her, and have talked to her of what was coming, as a daughter loves to talk to a loving mother. But Lady Desmond's heart was sore and sad and harsh, and she preferred to be alone.

"You will be better at Castle Richmond, my dear: you will be much happier there, of course. There can be no reason why you should come again into the gloom of this prison."

"But I should be with you, dearest mamma."

"It is better that you should be with the Fitzgeralds now; and as for me—I must learn to live alone. Indeed I have learned it, so you need not mind for me." Clara was rebuffed by the tone rather than the words, but she still looked up into her mother's face wistfully. "Go, my dear," said the countess—"I would sooner be alone at present." And so Clara went. It was hard upon her that even now her mother would not accept her love.

But Lady Desmond could not be cordial with her daughter. She made more than one struggle to do so, but always failed. She could,—she thought that she could, have watched her child's happiness with contentment had Clara married Owen Fitzgerald—Sir Owen, as he would then have been. But now she could only remember that Owen was lost to them both, lost through her child's fault. She did not hate Clara: nay, she would have made any sacrifice for her daughter's welfare; but she could not take her lovingly to her bosom. So she shut herself up alone, in her prison as she called it, and then looked back upon the errors of her life. It was as well for her to look back as to look forward, for what joy was there for which she could dare to hope?

In the days that were coming, however, she did relax something of her sternness. Clara was of course married from Desmond Court, and the very necessity of making some preparations for this festivity was in itself salutary. But indeed it could hardly be called a festivity,—it was so quiet and sombre. Clara had but two bridesmaids, and they were Mary and Emmeline Fitzgerald. The young earl gave away his sister, and Aunt Letty was there, and Mr. Prendergast, who had come over about the settlements; Mr. Somers also attended, and the ceremony was performed by our old friend Mr. Townsend. Beyond these there were no guests at the wedding of Sir Herbert Fitzgerald.

The young earl was there, and at the last the wedding had been postponed a week for his coming. He had left Eton at Midsummer in order that he might travel for a couple of years with Owen Fitzgerald before he went to Oxford. It had been the lad's own request, and had been for a while refused by Owen. But Fitzgerald had at last given way to the earl's love, and they had started together for Norway.

"They want me to be home," he had said one morning to his friend.

"Ah, yes; I suppose so."

"Do you know why?" They had never spoken a word about Clara since they had left England together, and the earl now dreaded to mention her name.

"Know why!" replied Owen; "of course I do. It is to give away your sister. Go home, Desmond, my boy; when you have returned we will talk about her. I shall bear it better when I know that she is his wife."

And so it was with them. For two years Lord Desmond travelled with him, and after that Owen Fitzgerald went on upon his wanderings alone. Many a long year has run by since that, and yet he has never come back to Hap House. Men of the county Cork now talk of him as one whom they knew long since. He who took his house as a stranger is a stranger no longer in the country, and the place that Owen left vacant has been filled. The hounds of Duhallow would not recognize his voice, nor would the steed in the stable follow gently at his heels. But there is yet one left who thinks of him, hoping that she may yet see him before she dies.

THE END