Roland Cashel, Volume I (of II). Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ of the Rolls. This was his brief and simple faith, and it is astonishing in what simple rules of guidance men amass vast fortunes, and obtain the highest suffrages of civic honor and respect!

      Mr. Kennyfeck’s family consisted of two daughters: the eldest had been a beauty for some years, and, even at the period our tale opens, had lost few of her attractions. She was tall, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, with an air of what in the Irish capital is called “decided fashion” about her, but in less competent circles might have been called almost effrontery. She looked strangers very steadily in the face, spoke with a voice full, firm, and unabashed, – no matter what the subject, or who the audience, – and gave her opinions on people and events with a careless indifference to consequences that many mistook for high genius rebellious against control.

      Olivia, three years younger than her sister, had just come out; and whether that her beauty – and she was very handsome – required a different style, or that she saw more clearly “the mistake” in Miss Kennyfeck’s manner, but she took a path perfectly her own. She was tenderness itself; a delicacy too susceptible for this work-a-day world pervaded all she said and did, – a retiring sensitiveness that she knew, as she plaintively said, would never “let her be loved,” overlaid her nature, and made her the victim of her own feelings. Her sketches, everlasting Madonnas dissolved in tears; her music, the most mournful of the melodies; her reading, the most disastrously ending of modern poems, – all accorded with this tone, which, after all, scarcely consorted well with a very blooming cheek, bright hazel eyes, and an air and carriage that showed a full consciousness of her captivations, and no small reliance on her capacity to exercise them.

      A brief interval after the servant left the room, the door opened, and Mrs. Kennyfeck entered. She was dressed for dinner, and if not exactly attired for the reception of a large company, exhibited, in various details of her costume, unequivocal signs of more than common care. A massive diamond brooch fastened the front of her dark velvet dress, and on her fingers several rings of great value glittered. Miss Kennyfeck, too, who followed her, was, though simply, most becomingly dressed; the light and floating material of her robe contrasting well with the more stately folds of the matronly costume of her mother.

      “I am surprised they are not here before this,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, lying back in the deep recess of a luxurious chair, and placing a screen between herself and the fire. “Your father said positively on the 5th, and as the weather has been most favorable, I cannot understand the delay. The packets arrive at four, I think?”

      “Yes, at four, and the carriage left this at three to fetch them.”

      “Read the note again, – he writes so very briefly always. I ‘m sure I wish the dear man would understand that I am not a client, and that a letter is not exactly all it might be, because it can be charged its thirteen-and-fourpence, or six-and-eightpence, whatever it is.”

      Miss Kennyfeck took an open note from the chimney, and read: —

      Dear Mrs. Kennyfeck, – We have made all the necessary arrangements in London, and shall leave on the 2nd, so as to arrive at Merrion Square by the 5th. Mr. C – would, I believe, rather have remained another day in town; but there was no possibility of doing so, as the “Chancellor” will sit on Tuesday. Love to the girls, and believe me, yours very truly,

      M. Kennyfeck.

      Invite Jones and Softly to meet us at dinner.

      The clock on the mantelpiece now struck seven; and scarcely had the last chime died away as a carriage drove up to the door.

      “Here they come, I suppose,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, with a half-sigh.

      “No, mamma; it is a hackney-coach. Mr. Jones, or Mr. Softly, perhaps.”

      “Oh, dear! I had forgotten them. How absurd it was to ask these people, and your father not here.”

      The door opened, and the servant announced the Rev. Mr. Knox Softly. A very tall, handsome young man entered, and made a most respectful but cordial salutation to the ladies. He was in look and mien the beau idéal of health, strength, and activity, with bright, full blue eyes, and cheeks rosy as the May. His voice, however, was subdued to the dulcet accent of a low whisper, and his step, as he crossed the room, had the stealthy noiselessness of a cat’s approach.

      “Mr. Kennyfeck quite restored, I hope, from the fatigue of his journey?”

      “We ‘ve not seen him yet,” replied his lady, almost tartly. “He ought to have been here at four o’clock, and yet it’s past seven.”

      “I think I hear a carriage.”

      “Another – ,” hackney, Miss Kennyfeck was about to say, when she stopped herself, and, at the instant, Counsellor Clare Jones was announced.

      This gentleman was a rising light of the Irish bar, who had the good fortune to attract Mr. Kennyfeck’s attention, and was suddenly transferred from the dull duties of civil bills and declarations to business of a more profitable kind. He had been somewhat successful in his college career, – carried off some minor honors; was a noisy member of a debating society; wrote leaders for some provincial papers; and with overbearing powers of impudence, and a good memory, was a very likely candidate for high forensic honor.

      Unlike the first arrival, the Counsellor had few, if any, of the forms of good society in his manner or address. His costume, too, was singularly negligent; and as he ran a very dubious hand through a mass of thick and tangled hair on entering, it was easy to see that the greatest part of his toilet was then and there performed. The splashed appearance of his nether garments, and of shoes that might have done honor to snipe-shooting, also showed that the carriage which brought him was a mere ceremonial observance, and, as he would himself say, “the act of conveyance was a surplusage.”

      Those who saw him in court pronounced him the most unabashed and cool of men; but there was certainly a somewhat of haste and impetuosity in his drawing-room manner that even a weak observer would have ascribed to awkwardness.

      “How do you do, Mrs. Kennyfeck? – how do you do, Miss Kennyfeck? – glad to see you. Ah! Mr. Softly, – well, I hope? Is he come – has he arrived?” A shake of the head replied in the negative. “Very strange; I can’t understand it. We have a consultation with the Solicitor-General to-morrow, and a meeting in chambers at four.”

      “I should n’t wonder if Mr. Cashel detained papa; he is very young, you know, and London must be so new and strange to him, poor lad!”

      “Yes; but your father would scarce permit it,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, smartly. “I rather think it must have been some accidental circumstance; coaches are constantly upsetting, and post-horses cannot always be had.”

      Mr. Knox Softly smiled benignly, as though to say in these suggestions Mrs. Kennyfeck was displaying a very laudable spirit of uncertainty as to the course of human events.

      “Here ‘s Olivia,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, as her younger daughter entered. “Let us hear her impressions, – full of forebodings, I don’t doubt.”

      Miss Olivia Kennyfeck performed her salutations to the guests with the most faultless grace, throwing into her courtesy to the curate a certain air of filial reverence very pretty to behold, and only a little objectionable on the score of the gentleman’s youth and personal attractions; and then, turning to her mother said, —

      “You are not uneasy, mamma, I hope? Though, after all, this is about the period of the equinox.”

      “Nonsense, child! packets are never lost nowadays in the Irish Channel. It’s merely СКАЧАТЬ