"It's come too late. I no longer care. This should have happened ten years ago, then it might have been worth while." The agent had an irritating manner; he was a fellow called Adams. Johnnie did not know him, and he kept referring to Henry all the time, as though the place had come to him, and not to Johnnie at all. "Yes, Captain Brodrick, your brother, Mr. Henry, ordered those trees to be planted; he was staying here last summer, with the other young gentlemen, when you were abroad." And then, "Mr. Henry suggested that the farm-buildings should be repaired, and he settled the dispute between old Baird and the new man; he decided Baird was really too old for the job, and he engaged the present man, Phillips." And, "Mr. Henry used to go up to the mines fairly frequently. I rather think the letters referring to the business have been going to him."
No doubt, when he was in the regiment, and with his grandfather living in retirement at Lletharrog, Henry had given an eye to the place; but now his grandfather was dead, and Johnnie was the head of the family, Henry could mind his own business.
"In future," he said curtly, "all communications in regard to the estate or to the mines are to be brought direct to me."
The tenants kept asking after Mr. Henry too, looking a little doubtfully at Johnnie, as if he had no business to be there, and was a stranger. Up at the mines it was the same. The former mining captain, old Nicholson, had retired long since, and his place had been taken by a manager, Griffiths, who showed him the accounts willingly enough, and appeared efficient and civil, but who when Johnnie asked some question about machinery, said "that Mr. Henry considered the plant wanted renewing, and perhaps Captain Brodrick would be seeing his brother, and find out what steps he had taken in the matter."
"My brother," said Johnnie, "is particularly busy at the moment getting himself married, and anyway the management of the mines has nothing whatsoever to do with him."
"Of course, now you are home, Captain Brodrick, it is a different matter," said Griffiths hastily. "No doubt you will see to things personally."
And he began talking technicalities, and showing Johnnie figures, none of which meant anything much to Johnnie. But rather than betray his ignorance he nodded his head now and again, and asked questions, and put some sort of bold face on the matter so that the manager would learn his lesson.
"I'm damned if I'm going to be dictated to by Henry or anyone else," thought Johnnie, and on returning to the castle he had all the servants in and cursed them, just to show them that he was not going to stand any nonsense. He was irritated when old Thomas informed him that if the Captain did not require his services he would go and look after Mr.
Henry and Mrs. Henry, in the house they had taken in Slane.
"Go by all means, if you want to," he said.
"I don't want to be served by people who dislike me."
"It's not that, sir," said the old servant, looking uncomfortable;? 'tis only that I know Mr. Henry's ways, and that with your being out of the country so longea" I might not please you."
So Thomas departed to Slane, and so did one or two of the other servants, and Johnnie, in exasperation, sent for the batman who had looked after him in the regiment. He took charge of the house immediately, and shortly afterwards Fanny-Rosa arrived, with three more servants and all her luggage, and two or three dogs, announcing that darling Johnnie could not possibly live at Clonmere all by himself, of course she was going to look after him.
"You know, my darling," said Fanny-Rosa, tucking her arm in her son's, and walking up and down before the houses "what you ought to do is to marry. Some nice quiet, placid creature, who would give you dozens of children, and be about the place if you wanted her, but with no mind of her own to make an irritation.
She would not get in my way or in yours. There must be someone in the country who would answer the purpose.
Good family, of course. None of your upstarts."
"I dislike quiet, placid women,"
Johnnie said, "and so do you; and anyway I'm too much of a ruffian for any woman to marry, so we won't discuss it."
"Henry and his Katherine are ideally happy," said his mother. "It's a pity you can't be the same. A wife would steady you, give you more of a background.
I'm not a fool. I know what I am talking about."
"I've no desire to be steady," said Johnnie, "and if you are going to start lecturing me I shall remind you that this house is mine, and not yours."
Fanny-Rosa glanced at him sideways.
Queer how mention of Henry and Katherine always made him stick out his jaw and smoulder.
"Don't be absurd, darling," she said, "you know I never lecture."
But she made a silent resolve to question this servant of his discreetly sometime as to how much whisky his master was consuming, and where he kept the key of the cellar, and what he did with himself every evening, and whether he received many letters. The great thing at the moment was to keep Johnnie occupied. Fanny-Rosa wrote invitations to every neighbour within thirty miles inviting them to Clonmere to shoot before the season finished. Her brother. Bob Flower, who had married and settled down in Castle Andriff, her cousin, the Earl of Mundy, her other cousins, the Lumleys- everybody who might be induced to make some sort of companionship for Johnnie was pestered with letters and invitations, all claiming that "darling Johnnie was longing to see them," and on accepting the invitations and going to Clonmere the guests would be greeted by their talkative, flamboyant hostess, dressed in every describable colour to clash with her vivid hair. Later, considerably later, in the day, they would be joined by their somewhat flushed and slightly incoherent host, who would be hearty and aggressive in turn, one moment laughing boisterously, the next plunged for no apparent reason in sullen gloom. And the guests would be diffident, embarrassed, uncertain whether they were expected to shoot or to order their carriages and go home. At any rate, when next invited to Clonmere they would find themselves otherwise engaged.
"Extraordinary people are," Fanny-Rosa would say. "Last winter, when Henry and Herbert were here, they had friends over to shoot two or three times a week, inviting themselves. And now the same lot are full of excuses about the roads and the distance."
"It's not extraordinary at all," said Johnnie; "it only means that they liked coming to see Henry and Herbert, and they don't care about coming to see me. For God Almighty's sake stop asking them. I can invite my own friends."
And he would wander around with the keeper, and one or two of the tenants with whom he had struck up a queer familiarity, because there was no one else.
It was on one of these occasions that he came across Jack Donovan, whom he had barely set eyes on since he was a boy, and who brought back vividly the long-forgotten episode in the public-house in Slane. The fellow was little changed, still carroty-haired and impudent, and he stuck out his hand at once to Johnnie and asked after his health, although the gun under his other arm showed only too plainly that he had been poaching.
"Ah, now you've come back to us again, Captain, we shall see some sport," said Donovan. "That's what I was saying down in Doonhaven to the boys; there'll be lively times ahead. Here's the gentleman that will give some entertainment to the countryside."
Johnnie laughed, although at first he had felt like hitting the fellow.
"You'd better join us, Jack," he said, "and find the hares for us."
"I'll find you hares," said the other, with a wink.
"I know the ground like the back of my hand, but I've been obliged to come here quietly, Captain, while you've been from home. It was Doctor Armstrong had the shooting here, and he's no friend to me or my family."
"Never mind Doctor Armstrong," said Johnnie; "you can come and shoot as my guest for a change."
The thought that his godfather disapproved of Jack Donovan was enough to make Johnnie claim the man as a friend at once. Uncle Willie had already made one or two brief appearances at Clonmere, each time adding another pin-prick to Johnnie's mounting irritation. Did Johnnie propose to do this, did he intend to follow his grandfather's example in that, and had he asked his brother Henry's advice about the other? The truth of the matter was his godfather presumed too much on old times' sake. He was over sixty, and past his job, thought his godson, and if he was not very careful Johnnie would have him thrown out of the place and the practice given to a younger man.