Chapter IV: Coming Home

When a man goes a-wooing, he does not, as a rule, turn the worst side of his affairs out for the inspection of his ladye love and his ladye love’s family. Rather on the contrary: he is apt to throw a little _couleur de rose_ over his prospects, and to insist that all whom the matter may concern shall view the landscape through that medium, instead of by any truer light.

This had been Mr. Drewitt’s policy, at all events. He had kept his advantages in the foreground—his drawbacks well in the rear. He intended to reform Kincorth, so what use could there be in talking about its previous state of wretched mismanagement? He was quite determined to make a radical change with regard to Maxwell and his sisters; so why, when the Drewitts’ soiled linen was all going straight off to the laundress, should he trouble himself to wash it in London, in the sight of the enemy?

“Only let me get this election business over,” thought Mr. Drewitt, “and I will send the two younger girls to school, and try if I cannot buy or beg Maxwell a commission. Susan is my greatest difficulty. I wish to heaven somebody would marry her. I might manage a small portion.”

Alas! and alas! for the good intentions unfulfilled, for the faithful promises broken, for the debt of gratitude that had now become burdensome, for the trust he had broken, for the noble plans he had never carried out.

Is there nothing pitiful to you, my reader, in the picture of this middle-aged man, whose work remained for ever undone, who had planned in youth to reap such abundant harvests, but who stood now, in the very prime and summer of his age, with the spring crops still unsown, with the fields of his life bare and barren, with the broad lands of opportunity still untilled, with his Lord’s talents still unemployed—still bringing in no interest against the day when his accounts would be required of him?

If we miss the seed time, what shall we even think of casting into the ground when our neighbours’ wheat is ripening? Even such poor intentions as Mr. Drewitt now muttered to himself, in lieu of those great honest designs that he had once promised to work out for the benefit of his brother’s children. Half his wealth, all his influence, all his care, had come to a vague commission for Maxwell, a possible school for Wilhelmina and Kathleen, and an uncertain fortune for the _bête noir_ of the establishment, Susan Drewitt.

It was all wrong together—the time had not been redeemed, the seed had not been sown, the talent had not been put out at usury—it was all wrong; and so Archibald Drewitt found when the harvest time arrived, and there was no grain for the gathering.

But in those bright sunshiny days, when he brought home his bride, the summer sun was gladdening the earth, the autumn was afar off; and cursed with that peculiar temperament which always believes that “the future is the time to mend,” Archibald Drewitt made himself happy in the present, and still permitted his wife to view her future prospects through the medium of that stained glass to which I have already referred.

She knew, of course, that Maxwell and his sisters resided at Kincorth; and if there was anything unpleasant to hear about them she would become acquainted with it soon enough, seeing that she was travelling home as fast as a very indifferent pair of post horses could take her.

Maxwell had been right. London is a long distance from Galway now, and in the days of which I am writing it was further still.

It had cost Mr. Drewitt some ready money to get to London at all, and although he was the bridegroom, it had cost him more to get married. Elsewhere the fact has been stated that coin of the realm and Mr. Drewitt were comparative strangers—adding all of which together, the result arrived at is that a bridal tour was beyond his means, that he could only do what he did do, viz., bring home his wife with as little delay as possible.

We read that when Elijah the Tishbite fled from the wrath of Jezebel he journeyed into the wilderness, and travelled thence forty days and forty nights, till he came to that cave in Horeb where his wanderings ended.

In the wilderness, on the mountain, the queen’s anger was impotent to hurt him—towards those fastnesses, the hand of that “cursed woman” was stretched out in vain.

When, in the after-time, Agnes Drewitt heard the story of the prophet recited, she always fancied that from all the haunts of men, from all the towns and cities in which Baal was worshipped, Elijah must have fled to a country like Connemara, where, beside lonely lakes, the plover whistles and the bittern cries, where desolation reigns supreme, where there is a solitude which may be heard, a silence which has a voice.

Under the shadow of those never-ending mountains they travelled on; beside those interminable lakes the road wound in and about. Away to the left were hills without end; to the right the blue conical mountains reared their heads towards heaven. In the valley—which has no end, but runs between chains of mountain, the commencement of which lies so far behind that one forgets when a view of any extent of level land was last obtained—in the valley, I say, the very genius of desolation appeared to Mrs. Drewitt to have taken up his abode.

Here were no smiling fields, no neat farmhouses, no cows luxuriating in pleasant pastures, no gentlemen’s seats, no hedges, no gardens, no homesteads. Mile after mile stretched away the valley; no turn in the road brought with it a change of scene; and often, as the road turned, far as the valley extended, nothing met the eye save lonely lakes and swiftly-flowing streams, thousands of acres of bog land, thousands more of moor, where a few sheep and a few ponies grazed at will among the blocks of granite and the huge boulders, that, becoming detached from the mountain side, had fallen through the centuries, and still lay where they had fallen.

Lakes where water-lilies float, where the tall reeds grow sparingly—lakes, the shores of which are bog and moorland—lakes that for number are well-nigh countless, that are desolate, and solitary beyond all power of description; rivers that wind not between wooded banks, or in deep beds of their own digging, but that crawl on in the summer over stone and granite, and that in winter spread wide as they like over moorland and bog, carrying with them detached fragments of rock, which seem in the arms of the mighty flood to be borne lightly as feathers, away and away! A country without wood, without a house; a country where it seemed out of place, out of keeping, to meet a living being. This was what Agnes Drewitt saw as the post-horses laboured up the hills, or were lashed into a weary canter down them; this was the strange land which she was entering as a pilgrim and a stranger, wherein she was going to try to make her home.

It is all very well to travel through these Irish Highlands. The kingdom of Connemara is a grand kingdom, and the guide-books do not exaggerate when they call its scenery solemn and sublime; but it is one thing to visit a country and another to reside in it. The young Englishwoman looked out with dread and dismay on those over-shadowing mountains, on those endless lakes that looked stern and desolate even with the summer’s sun shining down upon them.

The wilderness Elijah fled through could not have been more lonely than Connemara; the cave at the mouth whereof he stood while the strong wind passed by, and the earthquake shook the hills, and the fire flashed before him, might have been in just such a mountain as any of those that frowned upon her.

Ahab’s wrath was powerless to touch the prophet there; the king’s writ, she had heard, was not worth a halfpenny in the land through which she was travelling; and Mrs. Drewitt was just thinking of this saying, and wondering what such a savage country would be like when winter’s frosts covered the ground, when winter’s rains and snows swelled the torrents,—when suddenly, the road taking a sharp curve, the view changed—the bogs and the lakes and the mountains were left behind, and the sea burst upon her view.

How shall words ever give even the faintest idea of the exquisite beauty and peace of that summer’s evening scene? How can pen and ink ever tell how green looked the grassy knolls that lay down by the shore; how fair were the islands in Duranmore Bay; how soft, and rich, and mellow the golden light that lay on wood and water, that steeped the trees and fell in great patches on the hill sides? With what a glad sound of welcome the “sweet chimes of the waves” sung their low song in the stranger’s ear! “From Newfoundland and from Labrador,” as has been happily said, they had come “to mingle their voice in harmony,” on that sea-beat shore; and Agnes Drewitt fancied she knew what they were telling her, and listened to their melody with an answering music swelling in her breast.

It was like heaven bursting upon her view; it was like light after darkness; it was like liberty after slavery; it was like everything her fancy had painted—her heart desired; it was beautiful—it was perfect; and Agnes Drewitt, young, impressionable, imaginative, basked in the loveliness and the sunshine, and was happy.

On one of the roads through Connemara there is a stone bearing the singular statement that from there it is twenty-one miles to Hell.

Where the Hell referred to may be—whether in this world or the next—I am unable to tell; but I am sure had Mrs. Drewitt been intrusted with the preparation of a table of distances she would have called Duranmore heaven, and given it as the ultimate destination of all tourists in Galway.

That sweet bay! those soft green hills! those grand headlands! seemed beautiful—thrice beautiful, after the bleak desolation, the utter loneliness of the wilderness through which she had passed; and she leaned forward in the carriage and strained her eyes over the landscape, while she said—

“How exquisite! How perfect!”

“That is Kincorth,” said Mr. Drewitt, pointing to the northern side of the bay. “That is Kincorth,” and he sighed as he spoke.

From sea, from hill, from wood, from mountain Agnes Drewitt withdrew her eager gaze, to turn towards her husband and inquire the meaning of that sigh. She was a clinging creature, reader, a woman who could not bear the sight of unhappiness, the sound of woe; she was a loving woman, who could not endure that her husband should have a care or a sorrow hidden from her.

Why did he sigh? Was he tired? Was he ill? Was he unhappy? And the little hand stole out to clasp his, and the sweet eyes turned towards him full of a ready sympathy.

“Unhappy!” he answered, carried away by one of those impulses he was as impotent as a child to control. “Unhappy! I have never been happy before. I never knew the meaning of the word till I saw you. I never felt peace, perfect peace till I sat thus, with your hand clasped in mine. If I sighed it was because I felt at last happy and contented—as one takes a long, deep breath, when sitting down, after a weary journey, to rest. Do you understand me, darling? Life has been that journey, and you are the rest to me.”

She did not understand him then, though she comprehended his meaning perfectly afterwards. She did not know that instead of bringing her home to comfort and bless her, he was bringing her home to comfort and bless him.

A slight, fragile thing she was, yet strong enough for this poor, weak, unstable creature to lean against and feel secure. From that day forth she was to be the crutch and he the cripple; she the rock and he the billow; she the nest and he the bird. Maxwell Drewitt had sketched the outline of her future life to perfection; but he had not been equally accurate in calling her choice mercenary, her marriage an interested one.

She had elected to cast her lot with Archibald Drewitt because she loved him; and loving him, she would have gone through fire and water for his sake.

It is strange that such men are able to secure such wives; but it is not more strange than that the most unselfish of men draw so often viragos out of the matrimonial lottery.

We hear a great deal about the balance of power; is this the balance (matrimonially) of good and evil?

After his little lament about having found life’s paths rough and dreary, Mr. Drewitt became both talkative and cheerful, and discoursed concerning the improvements he purposed effecting, concerning the alterations he intended making.

“Next year,” he said, “I will rebuild the porter’s lodge; and you shall draw me a pretty design for one.”

In her heart Agnes thought that a new lodge ought to be erected at once; but she had sense enough not to say so, and merely remarked that the creepers and climbers which covered the damp walls and the broken roof were extremely picturesque.

Irish picturesqueness, however, could not make up to this stranger from a wealthier land for the absence of all comfort, for the ruined walls, for the unmown grass, for the unrolled gravel, for the unswept walks.

The place, as Maxwell Drewitt in his pride thought he could keep it, would have suited Mrs. Drewitt a vast deal better than Kincorth, as it was.

Within the gates, under the arching trees, the old feeling of loneliness and desolation came upon her once more, and she shivered she scarcely knew why; and Mr. Drewitt wrapped her shawl more closely round her, while he whispered tenderly—

“Welcome home, my darling; welcome home.”

They were on the very threshold of home now; but no one came forth to greet her. The hall door stood wide, but no servant was there—no relation, no living thing to meet the woman who, with that lonely feeling growing stronger every moment, walked into the house which she never left for any other habitation until she passed from under its roof-tree in middle age, with children beside her, with youth behind her, wearing widow’s weeds for the husband of her choice, old before her time, with wrinkles across her forehead, with silver threads sprinkled through her rich dark hair.

When I come to tell you of how she left Kincorth, I would ask you to remember how she entered it—how she stood in the hall while the driver brought in the luggage and her husband fee’d him handsomely with almost the last money in his purse, how she followed Mr. Drewitt as he flung open the door of room after room to find each in succession empty, how she sat down finally in a little breakfast parlour and watched her husband first pull the bell till he broke it, and then go to the kitchens personally, to summon assistance.

In the distance she heard him rating and raging and cursing and swearing as she had never heard any one rate and rage and curse and swear before; and then the tempest lulled as suddenly as it had arisen, and Mr. Drewitt returned, followed by Nannie, who, curtseying reverentially to her new mistress, at once broke the ice with,

“It’s welcome home ye are, ma’am, and shure an’ we did not expec’ ye for a couple of hours yit, Mr. Maxwell said—”

“Show your mistress her room, Nannie,” interrupted Mr. Drewitt, “and I’ll see to the trunks being taken up. And Agnes, my darling,” he murmured, while Nannie, who was “up to the manœuvres of new-married folks,” discreetly left the room, “if the house seems cold to you just at first, don’t be vexed; they did not mean it, they did not know.”

She lifted her sweet face to his, but she did not raise her eyes, for they were full of tears, and she did not want him to see that they were so. It was all mightily unlike the coming home she had so foolishly pictured to herself. No friendly hands stretched out towards her! no warm Irish words of welcome! But she would not let that discourage her: she would be brave, she would be strong, and do her duty.

She made this vow to herself with her husband’s kiss warm on her lips. And she was strong, she did do her duty, and she had her reward.

“An’ shure, ma’am, an’ it’s myself is heartily glad to see a mistress comin’ home till the ould place,” remarked Nannie, as she assisted Mrs. Drewitt to change her dress and unpack her boxes, and put some portion of their contents in order. “The lonely dissolate place this has been, the Lord knows, wantin’ a lady to keep things straight and genteel. An’ ye have come all the way from London, I hear; and it’s a terrible big place, they tells me. I hope ye won’t be feelin’ lonesome here, ma’am; for though it is a fine country—God bless it!—ye’ll know it strange and solitary like at first.”

At that Agnes Drewitt gave way, and she stooped her head for a minute while her tears fell fast as rain. Then she recovered herself and said—

“It is strange and solitary; you are right. You have put what I was feeling into words for me; but it is a fine country, and I will love it for my husband’s sake, and I will love its people too, if they will let me.”

“They would be mighty queer people if they did not love ye back, my lady,” answered Nannie, in all sincerity; “so don’t fret, ma’am, but just give them the pleasant word and the bright smile and they’ll come to like you so well they’ll forget you’re not Irish.”

Having administered which piece of comfort Nannie proceeded with her folding and straightening, and Mrs. Drewitt bathed the traces of tears from her cheeks preparatory to returning to the room where she had left her husband.

Mr. Drewitt was not there, however, when she descended; but she met in his stead a young man who, with his hat on his head, and his hands buried deep in his pockets, was whistling to himself that loveliest of all the Irish airs—Cushla ma cree.

At sight of Mrs. Drewitt he pulled his hands out of his pockets, took his hat off his head, and introduced himself to her as Maxwell Drewitt. “And these are my sisters,” he added, as three girls came trooping into the room.

“And consequently my nieces,” finished Mrs. Drewitt, kissing them all round; an attention the young ladies seemed to regard as altogether superfluous and ill-timed.

“Does she know who we are really?” thought Maxwell Drewitt, as he saw Mrs. Drewitt’s glance resting first on his sisters’ shabby dresses, and then reverting to her own rich attire. “Does she know I ought to be master here—that I am the eldest son of the eldest son? or can she fancy we are pauper dependents on the bounty of her husband? I will take care she does not long remain in a state of blissful ignorance about that matter.”

And he did take care; before three days he had found opportunity to tell her the whole story; before three days he had opened the skeleton-closet at Kincorth, and anatomized its contents for her benefit.

“It is very hard for them, and it is very hard for me,” argued poor Mrs. Drewitt; “but I will try to do my duty by them—and by everybody about the place. I will—I will—I will.”