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There was no wicked fairy at Lord Castleclare's wedding, distinguished by the black-browed beauty of the three bridesmaids, his daughters; and two years later saw the beacons at the entrance of Ballybawne Harbour, on the West Connemara coast, illuminated by the Castleclare tenants in honour of the arrival of the desired heir, upon whom before his birth so much wealth had been expended by Lord Castleclare in pilgrimages, donations, foundations, and endowments that, some months after it, his lordship conveyed to his three daughters that, in the interests of the Viscount, to whose swollen gums a gold-set pebble enclosing a pious relic of an early Christian martyr was at that moment affording miraculous relief, he, their father, would be obliged by their providing themselves as soon as possible with husbands of suitable rank, corresponding religion, and sufficient means to dispense with the customary marriage portion.
Some twenty-three years previously that devout Irish Catholic nobleman, the Right Honourable James Dominic Bawne, tenth Earl of Castleclare, Baron Kilhail, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and D.L. for West Connemara, not contented with the possession of three very tall, very handsome, very popular daughters the Right Honourable Ladies Bridget-Mary, Alyse, and Alethea Bawne consulted his favourite spiritual director, and, as advised, offered his thin white hand and piously regulated affections to Miss Nancy McIleevy, niece and heiress of McIleevy of McIleevystown, the eminent County Down brewer, so celebrated for his old Irish ales and nourishing bottled porter.
"You are incorrigible, dearest," said the sobbing Dowager-Duchess, as she kissed her, "and Castleclare must use all his influence with the Holy Father to induce the Comtesse de Lutetia to give you the veil. So the Dowager-Duchess melted out of the story, and Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne became a nun.
Adopted daughter, that was it, of an aunt no, a step-sister of Lord Castleclare, that ineffable little prig of twenty-two, who as a Peer and Privy Councillor of Ireland, and a Lord-in-Waiting to boot, was nevertheless a personage to be deferred to. One had heard, hadn't one, ages ago, of the famous beauty, Lady Bridget-Mary Bawne?
"And I regret to hear from Lady Castleclare that Mrs. Saxham gave no encouragement to the suggestion. I confess myself disappointed equally with my wife and my elder step-sister, the Duchess of Broads, to whom the letter was written the letter that you will understand conveys to the family I represent, the last wishes of one whose memory we hold in the most sacred love and reverence "
Therefore, as you, dear Castleclare, with your wife and the boy, who, I am gratified to hear, has cut another, are going to Rome for Holy Week, perhaps you would wish me in your absence to break the ice with Bridget-Mary?"
She was going to spend three days at the Kensington Convent, where the dead nun had taken the vows. She told Saxham now of the arrangement she had made through Lady Castleclare, who was intimate with the Superior. "It will be a little like old times," she said to Saxham, "living in a Convent again. And there are many Sisters there who knew Mother, and loved her " Her eyes swam in sudden tears.
He twiddled the ring nervously as he said: "She has gone into Lenten Retreat at a Convent in Kensington. I arah! I do not think it would be advisable to disturb salutary and seasonable meditations with arah! worldly matters at this present moment." "Fiddle-faddle!" said the Dowager-Duchess sharply. Lord Castleclare lifted his melancholy arched eyebrows. "'Fiddle-faddle, my dear Constantia?"
George's Channel spanned then straight as the crow flies over Wicklow, Queen's County, King's County, taking Galway at the acute angle of the wild mallard's flight; and there would be the chained lakes and winding silver rivers, the grey-green mountains and the beetling cliffs, the dreamy valleys and wild glens of Connemara, with the ancient towers of Castleclare rising from its mossed lawns studded with immemorial oaks.
This lady, being sufficiently youthful, of good education and manners, and of like faith with her elderly wooer, undertook, in return for an ancient name and the title of Countess of Castleclare, to find the widower in conjugal affection for the rest of his mortified life, and to do her best to supply him with the grievously-needed heir.
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