Chapter II: Maxwell’s Little Game

Very leisurely Mr. Maxwell Drewitt lounged along, for it was part of that young man’s creed to work rather with his head than with his body. In that caldron he was eternally brewing something which turned out food for him, and poison for other people.

From childhood he had been plotting and scheming, and by dint of long thought and care and study he had finally reached almost the top step of the ladder of hypocrisy, and was, as Ryan said, “the making of as great a scoundrel as ever lived.”

So he went on his way very slowly, with his hands plunged in his pockets. Kicking the small stones ruthlessly before him, he went along the road leading to Duranmore, where, having posted his letter, he turned aside from the regular thoroughfare and descended to the beach, along which there was a path, though a circuitous one, home.

Sometimes he looked over the bay; but more generally he kept his eyes riveted on the ground.

Written on the sands he saw the story of his future life traced out—riches, prosperity, success; he beheld them all. There were obstacles, but he crushed them; impediments, but he removed them; foes, but he annihilated them.

“Yes, yes,” he cried at last, halting suddenly, and looking away towards the hills that rose to heaven—“Yes, yes, Kincorth, you shall yet be mine—you and many a fair property beside; but you in especial, because I have sworn that neither man nor devil shall keep you from me. And shall a woman? No, before God!”

And the veins came swelling up in his forehead as he stretched out one clenched hand towards Kincorth, and registered his oath.

There lay his home—his home where he lived a dependent—which was his, only so long as his uncle’s charity chose to give him the shelter of its roof.

Look at it, reader, intently as he did, for it was destined to bring agony unto many hearts, to curse many lives, to peril some souls.

Kincorth! there was not a lovelier spot in Ireland; and is not that almost equivalent to saying there was not a lovelier spot in the wide world?

Halfway up a hill stood the house, backed by dark plantations, surrounded by woods and long belts of trees, and verdant fields and trickling streams. It was built of the blue granite for which Galway is noted, and some Drewitt had in other days erected a porch of black marble, around the pillars of which wreathed roses and fuchsias and myrtles.

There was the flower-garden, with its hedges of sweetbriar and evergreens, with its baskets of wickerwork filled with mignonette.

There were rose-trees covered with buds, and little wild Scotch bushes that crept close to the ground, and strewed it with a carpet of white and yellow leaves. There were perfumed syringas, Italian broom, and barberry-trees, and beds of tulips.

There was a fountain in the centre where the supply of water never failed, and creepers and passionflowers and honeysuckles grew about the inclosure at their own sweet will.

Kincorth had also its glen and waterfall, and at the top of the fall there stood a dilapidated summer-house, from which you could see away and away over the sea and the land. The trackless ocean and the distant mountains, the villages and hamlets below, and the dashing water near at hand—all were visible from this place, which was made of fir, and ornamented with shells, and shaded with sycamore and chesnut trees.

Then there was the old entrance, built of the same dark stone as the house, half covered with wild white roses, whilst the lodge looked brilliant in its scarlet deckings of pyracanthus, the blossoms of which mixed among the white buds that were straggling about everywhere, and trying to effect an entrance even at the latticed windows.

There were holes in the roof and breakages in the wall; but trees shaded the one, and wild flowers concealed the other; and Kincorth, with all its dilapidations—with its ruined buildings, and trailing brambles, and unmown grass, and unpruned trees—looked beautiful in the dancing sunshine.

“And it was this place he wanted to settle on her, and secure from me,” muttered Maxwell, as he entered the drive, across which the branches of the dark trees met and formed a sort of cathedral roof; and again he paused, and with arms folded across his chest, with his lips tightly pressed together, and his dark brows bent down looked up at the house once more.

Look at him now, reader. Would you like to be an obstacle in his path? Would you care to be a thing in his way? Cannot you see he would stamp you into the earth as he stamps his heel into the gravel? Would it not be an awful thing to have to plead to that man for mercy?—to hear him answer you with that mocking devil in his eyes, out of those thin, relentless lips?

He is young now: what will he be when he is old? He is just starting on life’s journey: what will he be when the road has been traversed—when the world has hardened him—when experience has matured him? If you come on to the end, you shall see what he is like when the raven hair is gray, and the keen eyes dulled, and the devil within satisfied—you shall see. Meantime he stands with the evening sunbeams making their way through the trees and falling aslant on his figure, and lighting up the green and beautiful sward and the plotting, scheming, wary man whose heart was full of bitterness, whose soul was full of hate.

Kincorth should have been his! If primogeniture were worth anything—if being the eldest son of the eldest son entitled a man to name and land and houses—Maxwell Drewitt ought to have been master of Kincorth, and Archibald should have been eking out existence somewhere else as best he could.

What had George Drewitt done that his father should cut him off? In the natural course George Drewitt would have succeeded Nicholas Drewitt, Maxwell’s grandfather, save for one deadly sin which he committed. He married a nobody, and a Roman Catholic; and though he tried to keep his indiscretion a secret, it came finally to his father’s ears, who cut him off with a shilling on the spot.

“I would as soon you had married the devil, sir!” thundered the old man; and before very long poor Nicholas Drewitt found he might almost as soon have mated with that objectionable personage as with his wife, who, fortunately perhaps for all parties, died in giving birth to her fourth child, leaving George Drewitt at liberty to marry again if he pleased.

But George Drewitt did not please; he lived to get his shilling certainly, and to see his brother Archibald owner of Kincorth; he lived to move himself and his children back as guests to the old place which he had expected to possess; and then he quietly slipped out of this world, leaving Maxwell and his sisters to be provided for by their uncle, a man full of good intentions, who offered to see to them as if they were his own boys and girls.

“I promise you, George, so long as I have sixpence they shall share it. I swear it, and you may die happy,” he said to the dying man; who, whether he died happy or not, accepted the promise and departed, leaving Archibald Drewitt to perform his good intentions if he could.

It is something more than probable that the owner of Kincorth fulfilled his promise strictly to the letter, though his own embarrassments and wretched mismanagement made it impossible for him to carry out the scheme he had proposed to himself in the spirit.

“I will put aside a certain amount,” he determined, “and devote it to Maxwell’s education and to portioning his sisters.” A good resolution, and perhaps only fair, but one which Mr. Drewitt found he could never carry into practice.

He would have done just the same by his own children; he would have planned all manner of good things for their benefit, and then he would have let them grow up as he let his nephews and nieces grow up—uneducated, untrained, unprovided for.

The curse of the Drewitts, improvidence, was on him, and the consequence was that, though Maxwell Drewitt and his sisters had food and shelter out of their grandfather’s property, they had little more.

Maxwell was not sent to college nor the girls to school. Ready money was one of those things which Mr. Drewitt only knew by name; of himself he had no acquaintance with it. That George Drewitt’s family did not grow up idiots was attributable rather to their own natural cleverness than to any advantages of society or education provided for them by their uncle. Kincorth was swamped with debt. Every blade of grass, every ear of corn, was due to some one ere ever it lifted its head above ground; the description given to Ryan by Maxwell of the state of things at his uncle’s was not exaggerated in the slightest, and while duns and bailiffs besieged the old home of the Drewitts, Maxwell looked on, and gnashed his teeth, and thought how, if _he_ had the management, Kincorth should soon be clear of debt and the Drewitts rear their heads in the county once again.

From his mother he had inherited a clear clever head—a head calculated to look closely and warily after the interests of No. 1. His hospitality would not have carried him away; his generosity would never have made him a poorer man; and it was natural perhaps for such a temper to be irritated with the senseless prodigality of his uncle’s _ménage_, and to feel more angry at what Mr. Drewitt had left undone than grateful for that which he had performed.

Above all, Maxwell Drewitt had been brought up a martyr; since boyhood he had thought his uncle a usurper, himself the lawful heir. With that love for the first-born which is so distinguishing a feature of the Irish, his nurse had always regarded him as “wronged,” and had taught him to believe himself so. We read in a very ancient book that when Jacob put his hand on the head of Ephraim, Joseph was displeased, and just so the mass of the poorer population, much as they liked Archibald Drewitt, still considered that the boy had been hardly done by, and that he was the rightful owner of all the broad acres that went sloping to the sea.

With this idea Maxwell grew up: he had been done out of the estate by his grandfather; he was being kept out of it by his uncle, but the day must come when the property would revert to him. He was the heir. Kincorth must eventually return to the only son of the eldest son—and then—

Then all at once came the news that Mr. Drewitt was about to marry.

“And if he marry,” thought Maxwell Drewitt, as he lay awake and tossed about from side to side of his bed; “and if he marry—and if he have sons—where am I?”

That was the question Archibald Drewitt ought to have considered when he adopted the children, but which he had never thought about, first or last.

“What was to become of them?” girls who could never earn enough to buy shoes to their feet? A young man who could ride across country—bring down his bird—dance all night—walk all day—but who knew nothing likely to put a guinea in his pocket—what was to become of him?—“What was to become of them?”

I echo the question which Maxwell Drewitt put to himself as he lay thinking out all manner of disagreeable and evil thoughts in the darkness.

All the stories he had read and scoffed at of self-made men came into his head. “Why should not a gentleman’s son do well too? Why should not a Drewitt and an Irishman make money if he could? What the devil could there be in those English people that made them seem able to turn the very dirt under their feet to gold? Could _he_ do nothing? Was there no El Dorado to which he might turn his steps? If he had Kincorth, could he not make money out of it? And if he tried the same scheme with any other place, might he not do well with that?”

And Maxwell Drewitt sprang out of bed as he thought of this, and looked down over the trees, away and away towards Duranmore, which lay by the sea-shore, looking dark and disconsolate in the first dawn of morning.

He looked beyond Duranmore—at something he saw in his mind’s eye, but which certainly his outward vision could not have presented to him. “I will have that,” he said, and he went back to bed again and fell asleep as calmly and peacefully as a child.

From that night the young man formed his plans. Ready money he, like his uncle, had none, and like his uncle also he was considerably in debt. He had no property save some forty acres of freehold land that came to him through his maternal grandfather, and which, having been let during his minority to a farmer, were now available if Maxwell chose to give him the usual notice. The land, however, was poor and unproductive, and though there was a house on the ground, it had been left to go to rack and ruin for so long a time that it was almost uninhabitable.

So far the future was unpromising enough. Poor and involved, with no profession, with no cash in hand, with no property save a neglected piece of barren land, value certainly not exceeding 25_l._ a-year—how could the man push his way to fortune?

It was not a cheerful prospect for any one, but still Maxwell Drewitt looked out over it bravely, and hour by hour, and day by day, perfected his schemes.

He would be idle no longer—he would work, he would be a rich man, when Archibald Drewitt was a beggar. Kincorth should NOT pass away from him. His uncle should yet be glad to give over the whole place and receive an allowance from his nephew. It would take him, say ten years to compass this end, and then he would paper and paint Kincorth from garret to cellar; he would give every old servant notice; he would keep the gardens and grounds in such order that Kincorth should be the talk of all the county; and when he had got his own again he would marry—he would marry birth, money, and rank, and take his leisure under the shadow of his vine and his fig-tree.

In the middle of this day-dream came Ryan’s announcement of his uncle’s intention to settle Kincorth upon his wife; and it was the thought of the possibility of such a settlement being effected that made Maxwell Drewitt stand still as he entered the drive, and look eagerly, longingly over Kincorth.

There came a day when he looked over it with different eyes, when the netted sunbeams fell aslant on the figure of a bowed and broken man; when, satiated with possession and wearied of all he had struggled and sinned to obtain, Maxwell Drewitt walked feebly under the shadow of those self-same trees, thinking not of this world, wherein he had laid house to house and acre to acre, but with a terrible dread, with a horrible affright, of that other, to which the treasures of earth may not be carried.

But on the summer evening of which I am speaking youth was present and age afar off. He was strong, he knew neither ache nor pain, life was all before him, it was the spring of his year, the time of budding promise, of fearless hope. He had no dread of anything save of Kincorth being placed beyond his reach, and he had but little fear of that, for when he finished his reverie, and walked on towards the house, he muttered—

“I think I have scotched that wheel. Old Turner has too tight a hold over my good uncle to let that cock fight. I would give five pounds to see the old fellow’s face when he reads my letter.” And Maxwell Drewitt laughed aloud as he pictured to himself the Quaker’s consternation on receipt of his communication.

Had Samuel Turner been anything except a “friend” he would have relieved his mind by swearing; as it was he merely said “infamous,” and went straight off to his solicitor.

After a consultation with that gentleman, who comforted him exceedingly, he sent back the following reply to his young correspondent:—

“Ashton-under-Lyne, June —, 18—.

“FRIEND MAXWELL,

“Thee hast done quite right, and acted (an unusual thing for youths of
thine age and country) with sound sense and good feeling. Be satisfied
I shall do the best I can for thee and thy sisters. I grieve that thy
uncle, a sensible man, should think at his time of life of marrying a
young wife, and she a fashionable woman from London.

“Thy sincere friend,
“SAMUEL TURNER.

“If thee should turn thy attention at any time to business, I would
try to advance thy views if in my power.”

Which letter, coming to Mr. Ryan amongst a number of others, was opened by him in mistake, and read right through by intention. He read it once, he read it twice, and then laying it down, he said to himself, “So this is your dodge, Maxwell Drewitt, is it?—this is the first step.” And when Maxwell himself appeared he handed him the epistle, adding, “You are a deal cleverer than I thought you. You will—”

“What the devil, sir, do you mean by opening my letters?” burst forth his visitor, the blood rushing up warm and red even through his dark complexion. “I tell you what it is, Ryan,” he went on, “for many a less thing than this a fellow has had a bullet in his skull.”

“Hold your tongue, my son, and don’t talk like a fool,” interrupted Mr. Ryan. “How the deuce am I to know a letter is not for me till I have read it? On my honour I was half way through the thing before it occurred to me there was any blunder.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Drewitt.

“For less than that many a man has been sent into kingdom-come at twelve paces,” retorted Ryan; “but there is one blessed comfort in the affair, which is, I don’t care whether you believe me or not. There now, boy, sit down, and don’t make such a confounded row about the matter. Honour among thieves, you know; and I am not going to turn informer.”

“You are an unprincipled scoundrel,” Maxwell persisted, “to open another person’s letter.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake! drop the saint,” exclaimed his friend. “Maxwell Drewitt talking about principle, and Satan reproving sin, always seem to me to sail together in the same boat. I tell you I did NOT open the letter of malice afore-thought. Now I have made all the apology I intend to make, and if you do not like to take it you may leave it.”

“When a letter comes to you under cover, you cannot open it by accident.”

“Hang the lad!” exclaimed Ryan, pettishly, “the thing did not come under cover at all. There is the whole cursed concern.” And he flung letter and envelope to their rightful owner, who, turning up the latter, read:

“MAXWELL DREWITT,
“Care of T. Ryan,
“Inchnagawn Cottage,
“near Duranmore, Galway, Ireland.

“What an idiot the old fellow must be. I told him as—”

“I know all you said as well as if I had seen your letter,” interrupted Ryan. “Besides, what does it matter about my knowing you wrote to Turner? Whenever I heard Mrs. Drewitt’s jointure was cut down, I should have been sure you had put your foot in it somehow. Indeed, Max Drewitt, you are a very promising young man, and your uncle has every right to be proud of you.”

“He is proud of nothing just at present, I fancy,” answered the other, recovering his temper at this neatly-turned compliment, and flinging himself into a chair as he spoke. “I left him wishing all Quakers and lawyers in the hottest of hot quarters. We send for our letters, you know, and so get them earlier than you do; and you may depend the opening of the bag made an uncommon fuss at Kincorth this morning.”

“Let the cat out?” suggested Mr. Ryan.

“No, faith. If it had I might have walked. As it was I had nothing but black looks and short answers. Turner has lost no time about the affair though, has he?”

“Trust a Quaker for that,” said Mr. Ryan.

“It seems to me,” remarked Mr. Drewitt, “that a dislike to losing money is common to both churchmen and Quakers; but really you should see my uncle, he is worth travelling from here to Kincorth to get a sight of.”

“What will he do now?” inquired his companion.

“How should I know? write, I suppose, to his father-in-law elect, and tell him unforeseen circumstances, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, prevent his fulfilling his liberal intentions; or he may try to raise money to pay off Turner. He could scarcely do it in the time though,” added Maxwell, reflectively.

“Scarcely,” acquiesced Ryan. “But now, I say, Max, tell me why is this woman marrying your uncle? You declare she is young, pretty, well-born—she can therefore scarcely be in her last wonder yet. What is the attraction?”

“Kincorth,” sneered his visitor, pulling his chair up to the table as he spoke, with a violence which spilt the contents of the lawyer’s tea-cup over his hand.

“You don’t think she loves him, then?” persisted the other, as he wiped the tea off his sleeve and wristband.

“Why, what on earth should she love him for?” asked Mr. Drewitt.

“I cannot tell—perhaps because he is frank, handsome, generous, amiable. Although he is nearly twenty years older than you, Master Maxwell Drewitt, I know if I were a woman, which thank heaven I am not, I should fall in love with him sooner than with you.”

“You cannot tell what you might do if you were a woman,” answered the youth, thus plainly complimented; “but in this case what I tell you is true. The Colonel, her father, is poor as a church-mouse; he has this daughter single, and no sons; his income dies with him. It follows, therefore, that the girls must either marry or starve, and there is Kincorth for the one who is left. A pretty little catch it sounds. Fifteen thousand a year, with no encumbrance that she knows of, is worth looking pretty and pleasant for, eh, Ryan?”

“In theory,” replied Ryan, “but not in fact. If they are playing such a game it is a pity they should lose it; my creed is that whatever people marry for, whether for love or money, or position or birth, they should get it; and they have mistaken the cards over in England if they are reckoning on Kincorth as a trump. Suppose, however, Max, that you are wrong, and that this Miss Dyak is marrying your uncle not for love of Kincorth, but for love of himself.”

“Love of folly!” was the civil answer. “Why, man, you are turning spooney all at once.”

“No I am not,” said Ryan. “Mr. Drewitt is still very handsome; he is a thoroughbred Irish gentleman, just the sort to take a girl’s fancy. Everywhere but at Kincorth he is as lively and talkative as a boy. I do not see why she should not love him; and if she do, God help her!”

“And wherefore?” demanded his visitor, who was employing himself in cramming hot buttered toast down his throat—“and wherefore?”

“Because love is too valuable and scarce a commodity to be wasted,” answered the lawyer, oracularly; “and further, if Miss Dyak be a woman who can love, she will probably feel inclined to do her duty, and if she do her duty, why God help her again, I say.”

“You mean with Sue?” This was interrogative.

“I mean with everything: all is wrong at Kincorth—master, nephew, nieces, servants, labourers, tenants, everything!”

“I’d soon make all right if I had the management,” remarked Maxwell.

“Old maids’ children and bachelors’ wives,” sneered Ryan.

“I keep every soul about the place in order when my uncle is away,” returned the other, hotly. “I should like to see the man that would disobey my orders if I were master. I’d undertake to tame any dog, horse, or woman in a week. But what is the matter with you, Ryan, you are as white as a sheet?”

Mr. Ryan did not answer: he got up and walked to the window; after standing there for a minute he came back and reseated himself at the table.

“What ails you?” persisted his companion, “are you not well?”

“No, I am not,” was the reply. “I feel as weak as a cat at times, and if I were standing in the biggest room at Kincorth I should seem suffocating when the fit takes me. I don’t intend to work at home at all for the future, and I wish you would come and see me at the office, after Monday next, when you want to see me.”

“Upon my soul, you are civil. I like that,” said his visitor. “Why do you want me to call at the office? Why do you not want me to come here?”

“Because I want my house to be my home after this week,” was the reply.

“You are going to be married!” exclaimed Mr. Drewitt. “Saul is among the prophets.”

“I wish I were married,” answered the lawyer, “if only for my poor little sister’s sake. She is coming back to me now her aunt is dead, and I must shift for her as best I can. That is the reason I want you to call at the office. Do you understand?”

“You are afraid I might fall in love with her, I suppose,” laughed Maxwell.

“No; but I am afraid, nothing being impossible, of her falling in love with you, and,” went on Mr. Ryan, speaking rapidly and, I might almost add, fiercely, “as you and I know one another so well that we need not stand on ceremony, I may say that although I do not pretend to be either a very good or a very scrupulous man, I had rather put the child in her grave than give her to you.”

“I do not know what may be the fashion in your rank,” said Maxwell Drewitt, “but in ours we do not consider it the thing to refuse our sisters till they are asked for, and I shall certainly never ask you for yours. It is all very well for me to know you, but Miss Bourke is a different affair altogether. When I take to running in double harness it shall be with something more thoroughbred. Tit for tat is fair play. Never look so cross about being hit back, man. Let us get to business. I am your man throughout the election—at least I think I am; and if you like, whenever my uncle leaves for England, I will go canvassing.”

“How many voters can you insure?” asked Ryan, “because if you can bring nobody but yourself, I don’t know that you will be of much use.”

“Bless my heart, how independent we are all of a sudden!” exclaimed young Drewitt. “Shall I go and tell Pryor’s committee you think me a bird not worth catching? How would it be with Waller’s agency then? What have you got to say to that?”

“Simply what I said before—a single voter is not worth the having, even though he be a Drewitt. How many can you bring with you?” And the pair looked straight into one another’s eyes as Ryan finished.

Two dogs might have looked in the same way before flying, with hungry teeth, each at the throat of his fellow, but the two men drew off. If Drewitt had not changed his tone there would have been a quarrel, but the young man spied danger, and answered quietly enough—

“That depends on the cash. I can bribe where you could not. I can get refractory fellows out of the way. I can do lots of things if you make it worth my while. In short, I will do anything you please, on two conditions.”

“There was only one the other day,” remarked the lawyer.

“There are two now, though,” was the reply. “First, the farm, which I suppose we may call settled; next, I must second Pryor.”

“Why——”

“I have a crow to pluck with Sache, and I can then have it out with him,” answered Mr. Drewitt. “Even you have no idea how much I can help you if I choose. Pitted against me, my uncle has no chance. He is an intruder—a man who has no earthly right to be at Kincorth. He has brought me up as his heir until now, and now he takes a young wife to himself, so as to cut me out for ever. On principle I am opposing him. Contrary to my own interests I am leaving the old ship of the Drewitts. If he would only turn me out of the house it would be the best thing possible for the Liberal party. Would not it be capital for us? Heavens! what fools people are, and what humbug they will swallow!”

Having concluded which complimentary speech relative to the understandings of his fellows, the young man stuffed his hand into his coat pocket, and produced thence a book, which Ryan seized eagerly.

“There are their voters,” remarked his friend, “and a precious job I had to get it. There you have them all—dead, doubtful, and certain. Now how many of our own dead can we personate, and how many of their doubtfuls can we get?”

“That depends greatly on you; but are we not losing time most needlessly? Sache and Munks and Marsden and Tooley and your uncle have been hard at work for days past, and here are we, with all the landed interests against us, doing nothing—literally nothing.”

“True; but when once I do start I won’t let the grass grow under my feet. There has been many an election at Duranmore, but this will cap everything. I hear my uncle is going to bring the new mistress of Kincorth home right away, and there are to be election balls and dinners and Heaven knows what besides, up at the old place. I should have thought the excitement of marrying ought to have been enough for him, without any extra fuss; but Archibald Drewitt is like no other human being on earth.”

“There is not a man in the county much better liked at any rate,” remarked Mr. Ryan, drily. “I wish we had him on our side.”

“Stuff!” exclaimed Maxwell; “can’t you take the book and let us get to business?”

“It is impossible to refuse a request urged with such politeness,” answered the lawyer, moving over to his writing-table, indistinctly catching, as he did so, Maxwell Drewitt’s comment, which was, “Damn your politeness.”