CHAPTER XI. ON HEAVEN AND THE LORD CHANCELLOR.

MR. DURDAN was explaining something—he usually was explaining something. When he had been a member of the late Government his process of explaining something was generally regarded as a fine effort at mystification. In private his explanations were sometimes intelligible. As Harold entered the room where a straggling breakfast was proceeding—everything except dinner had a tendency to be straggling at Castle Innisfail—Mr. Dur dan was explaining how Brian had been bewildered.

It was a profitable theme, especially for a man who fondly believed that he had the power of reproducing what he imagined to be the Irish brogue of the boatman.

Harold gathered that Mr. Durdan had already had a couple of hours of deep-sea fishing in the boat with Brian—the servants were all the morning carrying into the dining-room plates of fish of his catching (audibly sneered at by the fly-fishers, who considered their supreme failures superior to the hugest successes of the deep-sea fishers).

But the fishing was not to the point. What Mr. Durdan believed to be very much to the point were the “begorras,” the “acushlas,” the “arrahs” which he tried to make his auditors believe the boatman had uttered in telling him how he had been awakened early in the night by hearing the cry of the Banshee.

Every phrase supposed to have been employed by the boatman was reproduced by the narrator; and his auditors glanced meaningly at one another. It would have required a great deal of convincing to make them fancy for a moment that the language of Brian consisted of an imaginary Irish exclamation preceding a purely Cockney—occasionally Yorkshire—idiom. But the narrator continued his story, and seemed convinced that his voice was an exact reproduction of Brian’s brogue.

Harold thought that he would try a little of something that was not fish—he scarcely minded what he had, provided it was not fish, he told the servant. And as there was apparently some little-difficulty in procuring such a comestible, Harold drank some coffee and listened to Mr. Durdan’s story—he recommenced it for everyone who entered the breakfast-room.

Yes, Brian had distinctly heard the cry of the Banshee, he said; but a greater marvel had happened, for he found one of his boats that had been made fast on the opposite shore of the lough in the early part of the night, moored at the landing-ledge at the base of the cliffs beneath the Banshee’s Cave. By the aid of many a gratuitous “begorra,” Mr. Durdan indicated the condition of perplexity in which the boatman had been all the time he was baiting the lines. He explained that the man had attributed to “herself”—meaning, of course, the White Lady—the removal of the boat from the one side of the lough to the other. It was plain that the ghost of the Princess was a good oarswoman, too, for a single paddle only was found in the boat. It was so like a ghost, he had confided to Mr. Durdan, to make a cruise in a way that was contrary—the accent on the second syllable—to nature.

“He has put another oar aboard and is now rowing the boat back to its original quarters,” said Mr. Durdan, in conclusion. “But he declares that, be the Powers!”—here the narrator assumed once more the hybrid brogue—“if the boat was meddled with by ‘herself’ again he would call the priest to bless the craft, and where would ‘herself’ be then?”

“Where indeed?” said Lord Innisfail.

Harold said nothing. He was aware that Edmund was looking at him intently. Did he suspect anything, Harold wondered.

He gave no indication of being more interested in the story than anyone present, and no one present seemed struck with it—no one, except perhaps, Miss Craven, who had entered the room late, and was thus fortunate enough to obtain the general drift of what Mr. Durdan was talking about, without having her attention diverted by his loving repetition of the phrases of local colour.

Miss Craven heard the story, laughed, glanced at her plate, and remarked with some slyness that Mr. Durdan was clearly making strides in his acquaintance with the Irish question. She then glanced—confidentially—at Edmund Airey, and finally—rather less confidentially—at Harold.

He was eating of that which was not fish, and giving a good deal of attention to it.

Miss Craven thought he was giving quite too much attention to it. She suspected that he knew more about the boat incident than he cared to express, or why should he be giving so much attention to his plate?

As for Harold himself, he was feeling that it would be something of a gratification to him if a fatal accident were to happen to Brian.

He inwardly called him a meddlesome fool. Why should he take it upon him to row the boat across the lough, when he, Harold, had been looking forward during the sleepless hours of the night, to that exercise? When he had awakened from an early morning slumber, it was with the joyous feeling that nothing could deprive him of that row across the lough.

And yet he had been deprived of it, therefore he felt some regret that, the morning being a calm one, Brian’s chances of disaster when crossing the lough were insignificant.

All the time that the judge was explaining in that lucid style which was the envy of his brethren on the Bench, how impossible it would be for the Son of Porcupine to purge himself of the contempt which was heaped upon him owing to his unseemly behaviour at a recent race meeting—the case of the son of so excellent a father as Porcupine turning out badly was jeopardizing the future of Evolution as a doctrine—Harold was trying to devise some plan that should make him independent of the interference of the boatman. He did not insist on the plan being legitimate or even reasonable; all that he felt was that he must cross the lough.

He thought of the girl whom he had seen in that atmosphere of moonlight; and somehow he came to think of her as responsible for her exquisite surroundings. There was nothing commonplace about her—that was what he felt most strongly as he noticed the excellent appetites of the young women around him. Even Miss Stafford, who hoped to be accepted as an Intellect embodied in a mere film of flesh—she went to the extreme length of cultivating a Brow—tickled her trout with the point of her fork much less tenderly than the fisherman who told her the story—with an impromptu bravura passage or two—of its capture, had done.

But the girl whom he had seen in the moonlight—whom he was yearning to see in the sunlight—was as refined as a star. “As refined as a star,” he actually murmured, when he found himself with an unlighted cigar between his fingers on that part of the terrace which afforded a fine view of the lough—the narrow part as well—his eyes were directed to the narrow part. “As refined as a star—a—”

He turned himself round with a jerk. “A star?”

His father’s letter was still in his pocket. It contained in the course of its operatic clauses some references to a Star—a Star, who, alas! was not refined—who, on the contrary, was expensive.

He struck a match very viciously and lit his cigar.

Miss Craven had just appeared on the terrace.

He dropped his still flaming match on the hard gravel walk and put his foot upon it.

“A star!”

He was very vicious.

“She is not a particularly good talker, but she is a most fascinating listener,” said Edmund Airey, who strolled up.

“I have noticed so much—when you have been the talker,” said Harold. “It is only to the brilliant talker that the fascinating listener appeals. By the way, how does ‘fascinated listener’ sound as a phrase? Haven’t I read somewhere that the speeches of an eminent politician were modelled on the principle of catching birds by night? You flash a lamp upon them and they may be captured by the score. The speeches were compared to the lantern and the public to the birds.”

“Gulls,” said Edmund. “My dear Harold, I did not come out here to exchange opinions with you on the vexed question of vote-catching or gulls—it will be time enough to do so when you have found a constituency.”

“Quite. And meantime I am to think of Miss Craven as a fascinating listener? That’s what you have come to impress upon me.”

“I mean that you should give yourself a fair chance of becoming acquainted with her powers as a listener—I mean that you should talk to her on an interesting topic.”

“Would to heaven that I had your capacity of being interesting on all topics.”

“The dullest man on earth when talking to a woman on love as a topic, is infinitely more interesting to her than the most brilliant man when talking to her on any other topic.”

“You suggest a perilous way to the dull man of becoming momentarily interesting.”

“Of course I know the phrase which, in spite of being the composition of a French philosopher, is not altogether devoid of truth—yes, ‘Qui parle d’amour fait l’amour’’.”

“Only that love is born, not made.”

“Great heavens! have you learned that—that, with your father’s letter next your heart?”

Harold laughed.

“Do you fancy that I have forgotten your conversation in the boat yesterday?” said he. “Heaven on one side and the Lord Chancellor on the other.”

“And you have come to the conclusion that you are on the side of heaven? You are in a perilous way.”

“Your logic is a trifle shaky, friend. Besides, you have no right to assume that I am on the side of heaven.”

“There is a suggestion of indignation in your voice that gives me hope that you are not in so evil a case as I may have suspected. Do you think that another afternoon in the boat—”

“Would make me on the side of the Lord Chancellor? I doubt it. But that is not equivalent to saying that I doubt the excellence of your advice.”

“Yesterday afternoon I flattered myself that I had given you such advice as commended itself to you, and yet now you tell me that love is born, not made. The man who believes that is past being advised. It is, I say, the end of wisdom. What has happened since yesterday afternoon?”

“Nothing has happened to shake my confidence in the soundness of your advice,” said Harold, but not until a pause had occurred—a pause of sufficient duration to tell his observant friend that something had happened.

“If nothing has happened—Miss Craven is going to sketch the Round Tower at noon,” said Edmund—the Round Tower was some distance through the romantic Pass of Lamdhu.

“The Round Tower will not suffer; Miss Craven is not one of the landscape libellers,” remarked Harold.

Just then Miss Innisfail hurried up with a face lined with anxiety.

Miss Innisfail was the sort of girl who always, says, “It is I.”

“Oh, Mr. Airey,” she cried, “I have come to entreat of you to do your best to dissuade mamma from her wild notion—the wildest she has ever had. You may have some restraining influence upon her. She is trying to get up an Irish jig in the hall after dinner—she has set her heart on it.”

“I can promise you that if Lady Innisfail asks me to be one of the performers I shall decline,” said Edmund.

“Oh, she has set her heart on bringing native dancers for the purpose,” cried the girl.

“That sounds serious,” said Edmund. “Native dances are usually very terrible visitations. I saw one at Samoa.”

“I knew it—yes, I suspected as much,” murmured the girl, shaking her head. “Oh, we must put a stop to it. You will help me, Mr. Airey?”

“I am always on the side of law and order,” said Mr. Airey. “A mother is a great responsibility, Miss Innisfail.”

Miss Innisfail smiled sadly, shook her head again, and fled to find another supporter against the latest frivolity of her mother.

When Edmund turned about from watching her, he saw that his friend Harold Wynne had gone off with some of the yachtsmen—for every day a yachting party as well as deep-sea-fishing, and salmon-fishing parties—shooting parties and even archæological parties were in the habit of setting-out from Castle Innisfail.

Was it possible that Harold intended spending the day aboard the cutter, Edmund asked himself.

Harold’s mood of the previous evening had been quite intelligible to him—he had confessed to Miss Craven that he understood and even sympathized with him. He was the man who was putting off the plunge as long as possible, he felt.

But he knew that that attitude, if prolonged, not only becomes ridiculous, but positively verges on the indecent. It is one thing to pause for a minute on the brink of the deep water, and quite another to remain shivering on the rock for half a day.

Harold Wynne wanted money in order to realize a legitimate ambition. But it so happened that he could not obtain that money unless by marrying Miss Craven—that was the situation of the moment. But instead of asking Miss Craven if she would have the goodness to marry him, he was wandering about the coast in an aimless way.

Lady Innisfail was the most finished artist in matchmaking that Edmund had ever met. So finished an artist was she that no one had ever ventured to suggest that she was a match-maker. As a matter of fact, her reputation lay in just the opposite direction. She was generally looked upon as a marrer of matches. This was how she had achieved some of her most brilliant successes. She was herself so fascinating that she attracted the nicest men to her side; but, somehow, instead of making love to her as they meant to do, they found themselves making love to the nice girls with whom she surrounded herself. When running upon the love-making track with her, she switched them on, so to speak, to the nice eligible girls, and they became engaged before they quite knew what had happened.

This was her art, Edmund knew, and he appreciated it as it deserved.

She appreciated him as he deserved, he also acknowledged; for she had never tried to switch him on to any of her girls. By never making love to her he had proved himself to be no fit subject for the exercise of her art.

If a man truly loves a woman he will marry anyone whom she asks him to marry.

This, he knew, was the precept that Lady Innisfail inculcated upon the young men—they were mostly very young men—who assured her that they adored her. It rarely failed to bring them to their senses, she had admitted to Edmund in the course of a confidential lapse.

By bringing them to their senses she meant inducing them to ask the right girls to marry them.

Edmund felt that it was rather a pity that his friend Harold had never adored Lady Innisfail. Harold had always liked her too well to make love to her. This was rather a pity, Edmund felt. It practically disarmed Lady Innisfail, otherwise she would have taken care that he made straightforward love to Miss Craven.

As for Harold, he strolled off with the yachtsmen, giving them to understand that he intended sailing with them. The cutter was at her moorings in the lough about a mile from the Castle, and there was a narrow natural dock between the cliffs into which the dingey ran to carry the party out to the yacht.

It was at this point that Harold separated himself from the yachtsmen—not without some mutterings on their part and the delivery of a few reproaches with a fresh maritime flavour about them.

“What was he up to at all?” they asked of one another.

He could scarcely have told these earnest inquirers what he was up to. But his mood would have been quite intelligible to them had they known that he had, within the past half hour made up his mind to let nothing interfere with his asking Helen Craven if she would be good enough to marry him.