Celt and Saxon. Complete. George Meredith

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СКАЧАТЬ of his habits, and Patrick ‘would like to hear of the temptation that could keep him from his morning swim.’

      Caroline’s needle-thrust was provoked:

      ‘Would not Arctic weather deter you, Mr. O’Donnell?’ He hummed, and her eyes filled with the sparkle.

      ‘Short of Arctic,’ he had to say. ‘But a gallop, after an Arctic bath, would soon spin the blood-upon an Esquimaux dog, of course,’ he pursued, to anticipate his critic’s remark on the absence of horses, with a bow.

      She smiled, accepting the mental alertness he fastened on her.

      We must perforce be critics of these tear-away wits; which are, moreover, so threadbare to conceal the character! Caroline led him to vaunt his riding and his shooting, and a certain time passed before she perceived that though he responded naturally to her first sly attacks, his gross exaggerations upon them had not been the triumph of absurdity she supposed herself to have evoked.

      Her wish was to divert her uncle. Patrick discerned the intention and aided her.

      ‘As for entertainment,’ he said, in answer to Mr. Adister’s courteous regrets that he would have to be a prisoner in the house until his legal adviser thought proper to appear, ‘I’ll be perfectly happy if Miss Caroline will give me as much of her company as she can spare. It ‘s amusing to be shot at too, by a lady who ‘s a good marksman! And birds and hares are always willing to wait for us; they keep better alive. I forgot to say that I can sing.’

      ‘Then I was in the presence of a connoisseur last night,’ said Caroline. Mr. Adister consulted his watch and the mantelpiece clock for a minute of difference between them, remarking that he was a prisoner indeed, and for the whole day, unless Camminy should decide to come. ‘There is the library,’ he said, ‘if you care for books; the best books on agriculture will be found there. You can make your choice in the stables, if you would like to explore the country. I am detained here by a man who seems to think my business of less importance than his pleasures. And it is not my business; it is very much the reverse but I am compelled to undertake it as my own, when I abhor the business. It is hard for me to speak of it, much more to act a part in it.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ Caroline interposed hurriedly, ‘Mr. O’Donnell would not be unwilling to begin the day with some duets?’

      Patrick eagerly put on his shame-face to accept her invitation, protesting that his boldness was entirely due to his delight in music.

      ‘But I’ve heard,’ said he, ‘that the best fortification for the exercise of the a voice is hearty eating, so I ‘ll pay court again to that game-pie. I’m one with the pigs for truffles.’

      His host thanked him for spreading the contagion of good appetite, and followed his example. Robust habits and heartiness were signs with him of a conscience at peace, and he thought the Jesuits particularly forbearing in the amount of harm they had done to this young man. So they were still at table when Mr. Camminy was announced and ushered in.

      The man of law murmured an excuse or two; he knew his client’s eye, and how to thaw it.

      ‘No, Miss Adister, I have not breakfasted,’ he said, taking the chair placed for him. ‘I was all day yesterday at Windlemont, engaged in assisting to settle the succession. Where estates are not entailed!’

      ‘The expectations of the family are undisciplined and certain not to be satisfied,’ Mr. Adister carried on the broken sentence. ‘That house will fall! However, you have lost no time this morning.—Mr. Patrick O’Donnell.’

      Mr. Camminy bowed busily somewhere in the direction between Patrick and the sideboard.

      ‘Our lawyers have us inside out, like our physicians,’ Mr. Adister resumed, talking to blunt his impatience for a private discussion with his own.

      ‘Surgery’s a little in their practice too, we think in Ireland,’ said Patrick.

      Mr. Camminy assented: ‘No doubt.’ He was hungry, and enjoyed the look of the table, but the look of his client chilled the prospect, considered in its genial appearance as a feast of stages; having luminous extension; so, to ease his client’s mind, he ventured to say: ‘I thought it might be urgent.’

      ‘It is urgent,’ was the answer.

      ‘Ah: foreign? domestic?’

      A frown replied.

      Caroline, in haste to have her duties over, that she might escape the dreaded outburst, pressed another cup of tea on Mr. Camminy and groaned to see him fill his plate. She tried to start a topic with Patrick.

      ‘The princess is well, I hope?’ Mr. Camminy asked in the voice of discretion. ‘It concerns her Highness?’

      ‘It concerns my daughter and her inheritance from her mad grandmother!’ Mr. Adister rejoined loudly; and he continued like a retreating thunder: ‘A princess with a title as empty as a skull! At best a princess of swamps, and swine that fight for acorns, and men that fight for swine!’

      Patrick caught a glance from Caroline, and the pair rose together.

      ‘They did that in our mountains a couple of thousand years ago,’ said Mr. Camminy, ‘and the cause was not so bad, to judge by this ham. Men must fight: the law is only a quieter field for them.’

      ‘And a fatter for the ravens,’ Patrick joined in softly, as if carrying on a song.

      ‘Have at us, Mr. O’Donnell! I’m ashamed of my appetite, Miss Adister, but the morning’s drive must be my excuse, and I’m bounden to you for not forcing me to detain you. Yes, I can finish breakfast at my leisure, and talk of business, which is never particularly interesting to ladies—though,’ Mr. Camminy turned to her uncle, ‘I know Miss Adister has a head for it.’

      Patrick hummed a bar or two of an air, to hint of his being fanatico per la musica, as a pretext for their departure.

      ‘If you’ll deign to give me a lesson,’ said he, as Caroline came away from pressing her lips to her uncle’s forehead.

      ‘I may discover that I am about to receive one,’ said she.

      They quitted the room together.

      Mr. Camminy had seen another Miss Adister duetting with a young Irishman and an O’Donnell, with lamentable results to that union of voices, and he permitted himself to be a little astonished at his respected client’s defective memory or indifference to the admonition of identical circumstances.

      CHAPTER V. AT THE PIANO, CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC

      Barely had the door shut behind them when Patrick let his heart out: ‘The princess?’ He had a famished look, and Caroline glided along swiftly with her head bent, like one musing; his tone alarmed her; she lent him her ear, that she might get some understanding of his excitement, suddenly as it seemed to have come on him; but he was all in his hungry interrogation, and as she reached her piano and raised the lid, she saw it on tiptoe straining for her answer.

      ‘I thought you were aware of my cousin’s marriage.’

      ‘Was I?’ said Patrick, asking it of himself, for his conscience would not acknowledge an absolute ignorance. ‘No: I fought it, I wouldn’t have a blot on her be suspected. She’s married! She’s married to one of their princes!—married for a title!—and changed her religion! And Miss Adister, you’re speaking СКАЧАТЬ