The Absentee

by Maria Edgeworth

  Sir Terence paused, but no applause ensued.

  'Let them talk of Cupids and darts, and the mother of the Loves and Graces. Minerva may sing odes and DYTHAMBRICS, or whatsoever her wisdomship pleases. Let her sing, or let her say she'll never get a husband in this world or the other, without she had a good thumping FORTIN, and then she'd go off like wildfire.'

  'No, no, Terry, there you're out; Minerva has too bad a character for learning to be a favourite with gentlemen,' said Lord Clonbrony.

  'Tut—Don't tell me!—I'd get her off before you could say Jack Robinson, and thank you too, if she had fifty thousand down, or a thousand a year in land. Would you have a man so d-d nice as to balk when house and land is a-going—a-going—a-going!—because of the encumbrance of a little learning? I never heard that Miss Broadhurst was anything of a learned lady.'

  'Miss Broadhurst!' said Grace Nugent; 'how did you get round to Miss Broadhurst?'

  'Oh! by the way of Tipperary,' said Lord Colambre.

  'I beg your pardon, my lord, it was apropos to a good fortune, which, I hope, will not be out of your way, even if you went by Tipperary. She has, besides £100,000 in the funds, a clear landed property of £10,000 per annum. WELL! SOME PEOPLE TALK OF MORALITY, AND SOME OF RELIGION, BUT GIVE ME A LITTLE SNUG PROPERTY. But, my lord, I've a little business to transact this morning, and must not be idling and indulging myself here.' So, bowing to the ladies, he departed.

  'Really, I am glad that man is gone,' said Lady Clonbrony. 'What a relief to one's ears! I am sure I wonder, my lord, how you can bear to carry that strange creature always about with you—so vulgar as he is.'

  'He diverts me,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'while many of your correct-mannered fine ladies or gentlemen put me to sleep. What signifies what accent people speak in that have nothing to say—hey, Colambre?'

  Lord Colambre, from respect to his father, did not express his opinion, but his aversion to Sir Terence O'Fay was stronger even than his mother's; though Lady Clonbrony's detestation of him was much increased by perceiving that his coarse hints about Miss Broadhurst had operated against her favourite scheme.

  The next morning, at breakfast, Lord Clonbrony talked of bringing Sir Terence with him that night to her gala. She absolutely grew pale with horror.

  'Good heavens! Lady Langdale, Mrs. Dareville, Lady Pococke, Lady Chatterton, Lady D—, Lady G—, his Grace of V—; what would they think of him? And Miss Broadhurst to see him going about with my Lord Clonbrony!'—It could not be. No; her ladyship made the most solemn and desperate protestation, that she would sooner give up her gala altogether—tie up the knocker—say she was sick—rather be sick, or be dead, than be obliged to have such a creature as Sir Terence O'Fay at her gala.

  'Have it your own way, my dear, as you have everything else!' cried Lord Clonbrony, taking up his hat, and preparing to decamp; 'but, take notice, if you won't receive him you need not expect me. So a good morning to you, my Lady Clonbrony. You may find a worse friend in need, yet, than that same Sir Terence O'Fay.'

  'I trust I shall never be in need, my lord,' replied her ladyship. 'It would be strange, indeed, if I were, with the fortune I brought.'

  'Oh! that fortune of hers!' cried Lord Clonbrony, stopping both his ears as he ran out of the room; 'shall I never hear the end of that fortune, when I've seen the end of it long ago?'

  During this matrimonial dialogue, Grace Nugent and Lord Colambre never once looked at each other. Grace was very diligently trying the changes that could be made in the positions of a china-mouse, a cat, a dog, a cup, and a Brahmin, on the mantelpiece; Lord Colambre as diligently reading the newspaper.

  'Now, my dear Colambre,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'put down the paper, and listen to me. Let me entreat you not to neglect Miss Broadhurst to-night, as I know that the family come here chiefly on your account.'

  'My dear mother, I never can neglect any deserving young lady, and particularly one of your guests; but I shall be careful not to do more than not to neglect, for I never will pretend what I do not feel.'

  'But, my dear Colambre, Miss Broadhurst is everything you could wish, except being a beauty.'

  'Perhaps, madam,' said Lord Colambre, fixing his eyes on Grace Nugent, 'you think that I can see no farther than a handsome face?'

  The unconscious Grace Nugent now made a warm eulogium of Miss Broadhurst's sense, and wit, and independence of character.

  'I did not know that Miss Broadhurst was a friend of yours, Miss Nugent?'

  'She is, I assure you, a friend of mine; and, as a proof, I will not praise her at this moment. I will go farther still—I will promise that I never will praise her to you till you begin to praise her to me.'

  Lord Colambre smiled, and now listened, as if he wished that Grace should go on speaking, even of Miss Broadhurst.

  'That's my sweet Grace!' cried Lady Clonbrony. 'Oh! she knows how to manage these men—not one of them can resist her!'

  Lord Colambre, for his part, did not deny the truth of this assertion.

  'Grace,' added Lady Clonbrony, 'make him promise to do as we would have him.'

  'No; promises are dangerous things to ask or to give,' said Grace. 'Men and naughty children never make promises, especially promises to be good, without longing to break them the next minute.'

  'Well, at least, child, persuade him, I charge you, to make my gala go off well. That's the first thing we ought to think of now. Ring the bell! And all heads and hands I put in requisition for the gala.'

  Chapter III

  *

  The opening of her gala, the display of her splendid reception-rooms, the Turkish tent, the Alhambra, the pagoda, formed a proud moment to Lady Clonbrony. Much did she enjoy, and much too naturally, notwithstanding all her efforts to be stiff and stately, much too naturally did she show her enjoyment of the surprise excited in some and affected by others on their first entrance.

  One young, very young lady expressed her astonishment so audibly as to attract the notice of all the bystanders. Lady Clonbrony, delighted, seized both her hands, shook them, and laughed heartily; then, as the young lady with her party passed on, her ladyship recovered herself, drew up her head, and said to the company near her—

  'Poor thing! I hope I covered her little NAIVETE properly? How NEW she must be!'

  Then, with well-practised dignity, and half-subdued self-complacency of aspect, her ladyship went gliding about—most importantly busy, introducing my lady THIS to the sphynx candelabra, and my lady THAT to the Trebisond trellice; placing some delightfully for the perspective of the Alhambra; establishing others quite to her satisfaction on seraglio ottomans; and honouring others with a seat under the statira, canopy. Receiving and answering compliments from successive crowds of select friends, imagining herself the mirror of fashion, and the admiration of the whole world, Lady Clonbrony was, for her hour, as happy certainly as ever woman was in similar circumstances.

  Her son looked at her, and wished that this happiness could last. Naturally inclined to sympathy, Lord Colambre reproached himself for not feeling as gay at this instant as the occasion required. But the festive scene, the blazing lights, the 'universal hubbub,' failed to raise his spirits. As a dead weight upon them hung the remembrance of Mordicai's denunciations; and, through the midst of this Eastern magnificence, this unbounded profusion, he thought he saw future domestic misery and ruin to those he loved best in the world.

  The only object present on which his eye rested with pleasure was Grace Nugent. Beautiful—in elegant and dignified simplicity—thoughtless of herself—yet with a look of thought, and with an air of melancholy, which accorded exactly with his own feelings, and which he believed to arise from the same reflections that had passed in his own mind.

  'Miss Broadhurst, Colambre! all the Broadhursts!' said his mother, wakening him, as she passed by, to receive them as they entered. Miss Broadhurst appeared, plainly dressed—plainly, even to singularity—without any diamonds or ornament.

  'Brought Philippa to you, my dear
Lady Clonbrony, this figure, rather than not bring her at all,' said puffing Mrs. Broadhurst; 'and had all the difficulty in the world to get her out at all, and now I've promised she shall stay but half an hour. Sore throat—terrible cold she took in the morning. I'll swear for her, she'd not have come for any one but you.'

  The young lady did not seem inclined to swear, or even to say this for herself; she stood wonderfully unconcerned and passive, with an expression of humour lurking in her eyes, and about the corners of her mouth; whilst Lady Clonbrony was 'shocked,' and 'gratified,' and 'concerned' and 'flattered' and whilst everybody was hoping, and fearing, and busying themselves about her—'Miss Broadhurst, you'd better sit here!'—'Oh, for Heaven's sake! Miss Broadhurst, not there!' 'Miss Broadhurst, if you'll take my opinion;' and 'Miss Broadhurst, if I may advise—'

  'Grace Nugent!' cried Lady Clonbrony—'Miss Broadhurst always listens to you. Do, my dear, persuade Miss Broadhurst to take care of herself, and let us take her to the inner little pagoda, where she can be so warm and so retired—the very thing for an invalid. Colambre! pioneer the way for us, for the crowd's immense.'

  Lady Anne and Lady Catharine H—, Lady Langdale's daughters, were at this time leaning on Miss Nugent's arm, and moved along with this party to the inner pagoda. There was to be cards in one room, music in another, dancing in a third, and, in this little room, there were prints and chess-boards, etc.

  'Here you will be quite to yourselves,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'let me establish you comfortably in this, which I call my sanctuary—my SNUGGERY—Colambre, that little table!—Miss Broadhurst, you play chess? Colambre, you'll play with Miss Broadhurst—'

  'I thank your ladyship,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'but I know nothing of chess, but the moves. Lady Catharine, you will play, and I will look on.'

  Miss Broadhurst drew her seat to the fire; Lady Catharine sat down to play with Lord Colambre; Lady Clonbrony withdrew, again recommending Miss Broadhurst to Grace Nugent's care. After some commonplace conversation, Lady Anne H—, looking at the company in the adjoining apartment, asked her sister how old Miss Somebody was, who passed by. This led to reflections upon the comparative age and youthful appearance of several of their acquaintance, and upon the care with which mothers concealed the age of their daughters. Glances passed between Lady Catharine and Lady Anne.

  'For my part,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'my mother would 'labour that point of secrecy in vain for me; for I am willing to tell my age, even if my face did not tell it for me, to all whom it may concern. I am past three-and-twenty—shall be four-and-twenty the 5th of next July.'

  'Three-and-twenty! Bless me! I thought you were not twenty!' cried Lady Anne.

  'Four-and-twenty next July!—impossible!' cried Lady Catharine.

  'Very possible,' said Miss Broadhurst, quite unconcerned.

  'Now, Lord Colambre, would you believe it? Can you believe it?' asked Lady Catharine.

  'Yes, he can,' said Miss Broadhurst. 'Don't you see that he believes it as firmly as you and I do? Why should you force his lordship to pay a compliment contrary to his better judgment, or to extort a smile from him under false pretences? I am sure he sees that you, ladies, and I trust he perceives that I, do not think the worse of him for this.'

  Lord Colambre smiled now without any false pretence; and, relieved at once from all apprehension of her joining in his mother's views, or of her expecting particular attention from him, he became at ease with Miss Broadhurst, shelved a desire to converse with her, and listened eagerly to what she said. He recollected that Grace Nugent had told him that this young lady had no common character; and, neglecting his move at chess, he looked up at Grace as much as to say, 'DRAW HER OUT, pray.'

  But Grace was too good a friend to comply with that request; she left Miss Broadhurst to unfold her own character.

  'It is your move, my lord,' said Lady Catharine.

  'I beg your ladyship's pardon—'

  'Are not these rooms beautiful, Miss Broadhurst?' said Lady Catharine, determined, if possible, to turn the conversation into a commonplace, safe channel; for she had just felt, what most of Miss Broadhurst's acquaintance had in their turn felt, that she had an odd way of startling people, by setting their own secret little motives suddenly before them, 'Are not these rooms beautiful?'

  'Beautiful!—Certainly.'

  The beauty of the rooms would have answered Lady Catharine's purpose for some time, had not Lady Anne imprudently brought the conversation back again to Miss Broadhurst.

  'Do you know, Miss Broadhurst,' said she, 'that if I had fifty sore throats, I could not have refrained from my diamonds on this GALA night; and such diamonds as you have! Now, really, I could not believe you to be the same person we saw blazing at the opera the other night!'

  'Really! could not you, Lady Anne? That is the very thing that entertains me. I only wish that I could lay aside my fortune sometimes, as well as my diamonds, and see how few people would know me then. Might not I, Grace, by the golden rule, which, next to practice, is the best rule in the world, calculate and answer that question?'

  'I am persuaded,' said Lord Colambre, 'that Miss Broadhurst has friends on whom the experiment would make no difference.'

  'I am convinced of it,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'and that is what makes me tolerably happy, though I have the misfortune to be an heiress.'

  'That is the oddest speech,' said Lady Anne. 'Now I should so like to be a great heiress, and to have, like you, such thousands and thousands at command.'

  'And what can the thousands upon thousands do for me? Hearts, you know, Lady Anne, are to be won only by radiant eyes. Bought hearts your ladyship certainly would not recommend. They're such poor things—no wear at all. Turn them which way you will, you can make nothing of them.'

  'You've tried then, have you?' said Lady Catharine.

  'To my cost. Very nearly taken in by them half a dozen times; for they are brought to me by dozens; and they are so made up for sale, and the people do so swear to you that it's real, real love, and it looks so like it; and, if you stoop to examine it, you hear it pressed upon you by such elegant oaths—By all that's lovely!—By all my hopes of happiness!—By your own charming self! Why, what can one do but look like a fool, and believe; for these men, at the time, all look so like gentlemen, that one cannot bring oneself flatly to tell them that they are cheats and swindlers, that they are perjuring their precious souls. Besides, to call a lover a perjured creature is to encourage him. He would have a right to complain if you went back after that.'

  'Oh dear! what a move was there!' cried Lady Catharine. 'Miss Broadhurst is so entertaining to-night, notwithstanding her sore throat, that one can positively attend to nothing else. And she talks of love and lovers too with such CONNAISSANCE DE FAIT—counts her lovers by dozens, tied up in true-lovers' knots!'

  'Lovers!—no, no! Did I say lovers?—suitors I should have said. There's nothing less like a lover, a true lover, than a suitor, as all the world knows, ever since the days of Penelope. Dozens!—never had a lover in my life! And fear, with much reason, I never shall have one to my mind.'

  'My lord, you've given up the game,' cried Lady Catharine; 'but you make no battle.'

  'It would be so vain to combat against your ladyship,' said Lord Colambre, rising, and bowing politely to Lady Catharine, but turning the next instant to converse with Miss Broadhurst.

  But when I talked of liking to be an heiress,' said Lady Anne, 'I was not thinking of lovers.'

  'Certainly. One is not always thinking of lovers, you know,' added Lady Catharine.

  'Not always,' replied Miss Broadhurst. 'Well, lovers out of the question on all sides, what would your ladyship buy with the thousands upon thousands?'

  'Oh, everything, if I were you,' said Lady Anne.

  'Rank, to begin with,' said Lady Catharine.

  'Still my old objection—bought rank is but a shabby thing.'

  'But there is so little difference made between bought and hereditary rank in these days,' said Lady Cat
harine.

  'I see a great deal still,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'so much, that I would never buy a title.'

  'A title without birth, to be sure,' said Lady Anne, 'would not be so well worth buying; and as birth certainly is not to be bought—'

  'And even birth, were it to be bought, I would not buy,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'unless I could be sure to have with it all the politeness, all the noble sentiments, all the magnanimity—in short, all that should grace and dignify high birth.'

  'Admirable!' said Lord Colambre. Grace Nugent smiled.

  'Lord Colambre, will you have the goodness to put my mother in mind I must go away?'

  'I am bound to obey, but I am very sorry for it,' said his lordship.

  'Are we to have any dancing to-night, I wonder?' said Lady Catharine. 'Miss Nugent, I am afraid we have made Miss Broadhurst talk so much, in spite of her hoarseness, that Lady Clonbrony will be quite angry with us. And here she comes!'

  My Lady Clonbrony came to hope, to beg, that Miss Broadhurst would not think of running away; but Miss Broadhurst could not be prevailed upon to stay. Lady Clonbrony was delighted to see that her son assisted Grace Nugent most carefully in SHAWLING Miss Broadhurst; his lordship conducted her to her carriage, and his mother drew many happy auguries from the gallantry of his manner, and from the young lady's having stayed three-quarters, instead of half an hour—a circumstance which Lady Catharine did not fail to remark.

  The dancing, which, under various pretences, Lady Clonbrony had delayed till Lord Colambre was at liberty, began immediately after Miss Broadhurst's departure; and the chalked mosaic pavement of the Alhambra was, in a few minutes, effaced by the dancers' feet. How transient are all human joys, especially those of vanity! Even on this long meditated, this long desired, this gala night, Lady Clonbrony found her triumph incomplete—inadequate to her expectations. For the first hour all had been compliment, success, and smiles; presently came the BUTS, and the hesitated objections, and the 'damning with faint praise.' All THAT could be borne. Everybody has his taste—and one person's taste is as good as another's; and while she had Mr. Soho to cite, Lady Clonbrony thought she might be well satisfied. But she could not be satisfied with Colonel Heathcock, who, dressed in black, had stretched his 'fashionable length of limb' under the statira canopy upon the snow-white swan-down couch. When, after having monopolised attention, and been the subject of much bad wit, about black swans and rare birds, and swans being geese and geese being swans, the colonel condescended to rise, and, as Mrs. Dareville said, to vacate his couch, that couch was no longer white—the black impression of the colonel remained on the sullied snow.