The Absentee

by Maria Edgeworth

  'My lord, we're at Stephen's Green, when we're at Dublin.' But as he did not choose to hear, she raised her voice to its highest pitch, adding—

  'And where are you, my lord, to be found!—as I have a parcel of Miss Nugent's for you.'

  Lord Colambre instantly turned back, and gave his direction.

  'Cleverly done, faith!' said the major. 'I did not hear her say when Lady Dashfort is to be in town,' said Captain Bowles.

  'What, Bowles! have you a mind to lose more of your guineas to Lady Dashfort, and to be jockied out of another horse by Lady Isabel?'

  'Oh! confound it—no! I'll keep out of the way of that—I have had enough,' said Captain Bowles; 'it is my Lord Colambre's turn now; you hear that Lady Dashfort would be very PROUD to see him. His lordship is in for it, and with such an auxiliary as Mrs. Petito, Lady Dashfort has him for Lady Isabel, as sure as he has a heart or hand.'

  'My compliments to the ladies, but my heart is engaged,' said Lord Colambre; 'and my hand shall go with my heart, or not at all.'

  'Engaged! engaged to a very amiable, charming woman, no doubt,' said Sir James Brooke. 'I have an excellent opinion of your taste; and if you can return the compliment to my judgment, take my advice: don't trust to your heart's being engaged, much less plead that engagement; for it would be Lady Dashfort's sport, and Lady Isabel's joy, to make you break your engagement, and break your mistress's heart; the fairer, the more amiable, the more beloved, the greater the triumph, the greater the delight in giving pain. All the time love would be out of the question; neither mother nor daughter would care if you were hanged, or, as Lady Dashfort would herself have expressed it, if you were d-d.'

  'With such women, I should think a man's heart could be in no great danger,' said Lord Colambre.

  'There you might be mistaken, my lord; there's a way to every man's heart, which no man in his own case is aware of, but which every woman knows right well, and none better than these ladies—by his vanity.'

  'True,' said Captain Bowles.

  'I am not so vain as to think myself without vanity,' said Lord Colambre; 'but love, I should imagine, is a stronger passion than vanity.'

  'You should imagine! Stay till you are tried, my lord. Excuse me,' said Captain Bowles, laughing.

  Lord Colambre felt the good sense of this, and determined to have nothing to do with these dangerous ladies; indeed, though he had talked, he had scarcely yet thought of them; for his imagination was intent upon that packet from Miss Nugent, which Mrs. Petito said she had for him. He heard nothing of it, or of her, for some days. He sent his servant every day to Stephen's Green to inquire if Lady Dashfort had returned to town. Her ladyship at last returned; but Mrs. Petito could not deliver the parcel to any hand but Lord Colambre's own, and she would not stir out, because her lady was indisposed. No longer able to restrain his impatience, Lord Colambre went himself—knocked at Lady Dashfort's door—inquired for Mrs. Petito—was shown into her parlour. The parcel was delivered to him; but to his utter disappointment, it was a parcel FOR, not FROM Miss Nugent. It contained merely an odd volume of some book of Miss Nugent's which Mrs. Petito said she had put up along with her things IN A MISTAKE, and she thought it her duty to return it by the next opportunity of a safe conveyance.

  Whilst Lord Colambre, to comfort himself for his disappointment, was fixing his eyes upon Miss Nugent's name, written by her own hand, in the first leaf of the book, the door opened, and the figure of an interesting-looking woman, in deep mourning, appeared—appeared for one moment, and retired.

  'Only my Lord Colambre, about a parcel I was bringing for him from England, my lady—my Lady Isabel, my lord,' said Mrs. Petito. Whilst Mrs. Petito was saying this, the entrance and retreat had been made, and made with such dignity, grace, and modesty; with such innocence, dove-like eyes had been raised upon him, fixed and withdrawn; with such a gracious bend the Lady Isabel had bowed to him as she retired; with such a smile, and with so soft a voice, had repeated 'Lord Colambre!' that his lordship, though well aware that all this was mere acting, could not help saying to himself as he left the house:

  'It is a pity it is only acting. There is certainly something very engaging in this woman. It is a pity she is an actress. And so young! A much younger woman than I expected. A widow before most women are wives. So young, surely she cannot be such a fiend as they described her to be!' A few nights afterwards Lord Colambre was with some of his acquaintance at the theatre, when Lady Isabel and her mother came into the box, where seats had been reserved for them, and where their appearance instantly made that sensation which is usually created by the entrance of persons of the first notoriety in the fashionable world. Lord Colambre was not a man to be dazzled by fashion, or to mistake notoriety for deference paid to merit, and for the admiration commanded by beauty or talents. Lady Dashfort's coarse person, loud voice, daring manners, and indelicate wit, disgusted him almost past endurance, He saw Sir James Brooke in the box opposite to him; and twice determined to go round to him. His lordship had crossed the benches, and once his hand was upon the lock of the door; but attracted as much by the daughter as repelled by the mother, he could move no farther. The mother's masculine boldness heightened, by contrast, the charms of the daughter's soft sentimentality. The Lady Isabel seemed to shrink from the indelicacy of her mother's manners, and seemed peculiarly distressed by the strange efforts Lady Dashfort made, from time to time, to drag her forward, and to fix upon her the attention of gentlemen. Colonel Heathcock, who, as Mrs. Petito had informed Lord Colambre, had come over with his regiment to Ireland, was beckoned into their box by Lady Dashfort, by her squeezed into a seat next to Lady Isabel; but Lady Isabel seemed to feel sovereign contempt, properly repressed by politeness, for what, in a low whisper to a female friend on the other side of her, she called, 'the self-sufficient inanity of this sad coxcomb.' Other coxcombs, of a more vivacious style, who stationed themselves round her mother, or to whom her mother stretched from box to box to talk, seemed to engage no more of Lady Isabel's attention than just what she was compelled to give by Lady Dashfort's repeated calls of—

  'Isabel! Isabel! Colonel G— Isabel! Lord D— bowing to you, Belie! Belie! Sir Harry B— Isabel, child, with your eyes on the stage? Did you never see a play before? Novice! Major P—waiting to catch your eye this quarter of an hour; and now her eyes gone down to her play-bill! Sir Harry, do take it from her.

  'Were eyes so radiant only made to read?'

  Lady Isabel appeared to suffer so exquisitely and so naturally from this persecution, that Lord Colambre said to himself—

  'If this be acting, it is the best acting I ever saw. If this be art, it deserves to be nature.'

  And with this sentiment he did himself the honour of handing Lady Isabel to her carriage this night, and with this sentiment he awoke next morning; and by the time he had dressed and breakfasted he determined that it was impossible all that he had seen could be acting. 'No woman, no young woman, could have such art. Sir James Brooke had been unwarrantably severe; he would go and tell him so.'

  But Sir James Brooke this day received orders for his regiment to march to quarters in a distant part of Ireland. His head was full of arms, and ammunition, and knapsacks, and billets, and routes; and there was no possibility, even in the present chivalrous disposition of our hero, to enter upon the defence of the Lady Isabel. Indeed, in the regret he felt for the approaching and unexpected departure of his friend, Lord Colambre forgot the fair lady. But just when Sir James had his foot in the stirrup, he stopped.

  'By the bye, my dear lord, I saw you at the play last night. You seemed to be much interested. Don't think me impertinent, if I remind you of our conversation when we were riding home from Tusculum; and if I warn you,' said he, mounting his horse, 'to beware of counterfeits—for such are abroad.' Reining in his impatient steed, Sir James turned again and added, 'DEEDS NOT WORDS, is my motto. Remember, we can judge better by the conduct of people towards others than by their manner towards ourselves.'

 
; Chapter VII

  *

  Our hero was quite convinced of the good sense of his friend's last remark, that it is safer to judge of people by their conduct to others than by their manners towards ourselves; but as yet, he felt scarcely any interest on the subject of Lady Dashfort or Lady Isabel's characters; however, he inquired and listened to all the evidence he could obtain respecting this mother and daughter.

  He heard terrible reports of the mischief they had done in families; the extravagance into which they had led men; the imprudence, to say no worse, into which they had betrayed women. Matches broken off, reputations ruined, husbands alienated from their wives, and wives made jealous of their husbands. But in some of these stories he discovered exaggeration so flagrant as to make him doubt the whole; in others, it could not be positively determined whether the mother or daughter had been the person most to blame.

  Lord Colambre always followed the charitable rule of believing only half what the world says, and here he thought it fair to believe which half he pleased. He further observed, that, though all joined in abusing these ladies in their absence, when present they seemed universally admired. Though everybody cried 'Shame!' and 'shocking!' yet everybody visited them. No parties so crowded as Lady Dashfort's; no party deemed pleasant or fashionable where Lady Dashfort or Lady Isabel was not. The bon-mots of the mother were everywhere repeated; the dress and air of the daughter everywhere imitated. Yet Lord Colambre could not help being surprised at their popularity in Dublin, because, independently of all moral objections, there were causes of a different sort, sufficient, he thought, to prevent Lady Dashfort from being liked by the Irish; indeed by any society. She in general affected to be ill-bred, and inattentive to the feelings and opinions of others; careless whom she offended by her wit or by her decided tone. There are some persons in so high a region of fashion, that they imagine themselves above the thunder of vulgar censure. Lady Dashfort felt herself in this exalted situation, and fancied she might 'hear the innocuous thunder roll below.' Her rank was so high that none could dare to call her vulgar; what would have been gross in any one of meaner note, in her was freedom, or originality, or Lady Dashfort's way. It was Lady Dashfort's pleasure and pride to show her power in perverting the public taste. She often said to those English companions with whom she was intimate, 'Now see what follies I can lead these fools into. Hear the nonsense I can make them repeat as wit.' Upon some occasion, one of her friends VENTURED to fear that something she had said was TOO STRONG. 'Too strong, was it? Well, I like to be strong—woe be to the weak.' On another occasion she was told that certain visitors had seen her ladyship yawning. 'Yawn, did I?—glad of it—the yawn sent them away, or I should have snored;—rude, was I? they won't complain. To say I was rude to them would be to say, that I did not think it worth my while to be otherwise. Barbarians! are not we the civilised English, come to teach them manners and fashions? Whoever does not conform, and swear allegiance too, we shall keep out of the English pale.'

  Lady Dashfort forced her way, and she set the fashion: fashion, which converts the ugliest dress into what is beautiful and charming, governs the public mode in morals and in manners; and thus, when great talents and high rank combine, they can debase or elevate the public taste.

  With Lord Colambre she played more artfully; she drew him out in defence of his beloved country, and gave him opportunities of appearing to advantage; this he could not help feeling, especially when the Lady Isabel was present. Lady Dashfort had dealt long enough with human nature to know, that to make any man pleased with her, she should begin by making him pleased with himself.

  Insensibly the antipathy that Lord Colambre had originally felt to Lady Dashfort wore off; her faults, he began to think, were assumed; he pardoned her defiance of good breeding, when he observed that she could, when she chose it, be most engagingly polite. It was not that she did not know what was right, but that she did not think it always for her interest to practise it.

  The party opposed to Lady Dashfort affirmed that her wit depended merely on unexpectedness; a characteristic which may be applied to any impropriety of speech, manner, or conduct. In some of her ladyship's repartees, however, Lord Colambre now acknowledged there was more than unexpectedness; there was real wit; but it was of a sort utterly unfit for a woman, and he was sorry that Lady Isabel should hear it. In short, exceptionable as it was altogether, Lady Dashfort's conversation had become entertaining to him; and though he could never esteem or feel in the least interested about her, he began to allow that she could be agreeable.

  'Ay, I knew how it would be,' said she, when some of her friends told her this. 'He began by detesting me, and did I not tell you that, if I thought it worth my while to make him like me, he must, sooner or later. I delight in seeing people begin with me as they do with olives, making all manner of horrid faces and silly protestations that they will never touch an olive again as long as they live; but, after a little time, these very folk grow so desperately fond of olives, that there is no dessert without them. Isabel, child, you are in the sweet line—but sweets cloy. You never heard of anybody living on marmalade, did ye?'—Lady Isabel answered by a sweet smile.—'To do you justice, you play Lydia Languish vastly well,' pursued the mother; 'but Lydia, by herself, would soon tire; somebody must keep up the spirit and bustle, and carry on the plot of the piece; and I am that somebody—as you shall see. Is not that our hero's voice, which I hear on the stairs?'

  It was Lord Colambre. His lordship had by this time become a constant visitor at Lady Dashfort's. Not that he had forgotten, or that he meant to disregard his friend Sir James Brooke's parting words. He promised himself faithfully, that if anything should occur to give him reason to suspect designs, such as those to which the warning pointed, he would be on his guard, and would prove his generalship by an able retreat. But to imagine attacks where none were attempted, to suspect ambuscades in the open country, would be ridiculous and cowardly.

  'No,' thought our hero; 'Heaven forfend I should be such a coxcomb as to fancy every woman who speaks to me has designs upon my precious heart, or on my more precious estate!' As he walked from his hotel to Lady Dashfort's house, ingeniously wrong, he came to this conclusion, just as he ascended the stairs, and just as her ladyship had settled her future plan of operations.

  After talking over the nothings of the day, and after having given two or three CUTS at the society of Dublin, with two or three compliments to individuals, who, she knew, were favourites with his lordship, she suddenly turned to him—

  'My lord, I think you told me, or my own sagacity discovered, that you want to see something of Ireland, and that you don't intend, like most travellers, to turn round, see nothing, and go home content.'

  Lord Colambre assured her ladyship that she had judged him rightly, for, that nothing would content him but seeing all that was possible to be seen of his native country. It was for this special purpose he came to Ireland.

  'Ah!—well—very good purpose—can't be better; but now, how to accomplish it. You know the Portuguese proverb says, "You go to hell for the good things you intend to do, and to heaven for those you do." Now let us see what you will do. Dublin, I suppose, you've seen enough of by this time; through and through—round and round this makes me first giddy and then sick. Let me show you the country—not the face of it, but the body of it—the people. Not Castle this, or Newtown that, but their inhabitants. I know them; I have the key, or the picklock to their minds. An Irishman is as different an animal on his guard, and off his guard, as a miss in school from a miss out of school. A fine country for game, I'll show you; and, if you are a good marksman, you may have plenty of shots "at folly as it flies."'

  Lord Colambre smiled. 'As to Isabel,' pursued her lady-ship, 'I shall put her in charge of Heathcock, who is going with us. She won't thank me for that, but you will. Nay, no fibs, man; you know, I know, as who does not that has seen the world, that though a pretty woman is a mighty pretty thing, yet she is confoundedly in one's way, when anyt
hing else is to be seen, heard—or understood.'

  Every objection anticipated and removed, and so far a prospect held out of attaining all the information he desired, with more than all the amusement he could have expected, Lord Colambre seemed much tempted to accept the invitation; but he hesitated, because, as he said, her ladyship might be going to pay visits where he was not acquainted.

  'Bless you! don't let that be a stumbling-block in the way of your tender conscience. I am going to Killpatrickstown, where you'll be as welcome as light. You know them, they know you; at least you shall have a proper letter of invitation from my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick, and all that. And as to the rest, you know a young man is always welcome every-where, a young nobleman kindly welcome,—I won't say such a young man, and such a young nobleman, for that might put you to pour bows or your blushes—but NOBILITAS by itself, nobility is enough in all parties, in all families, where there are girls, and of course balls, as there are always at Killpatrickstown. Don't be alarmed; you shall not be forced to dance, or asked to marry. I'll be your security. You shall be at full liberty; and it is a house where you can do just what you will. Indeed, I go to no others. These Killpatricks are the best creatures in the world; they think nothing good or grand enough for me. If I'd let them, they would lay down cloth of gold over their bogs for me to walk upon.—Good-hearted beings!' added Lady Dashfort, marking a cloud gathering on Lord Colambre's countenance. 'I laugh at them, because I love them. I could not love anything I might not laugh at—your lordship excepted. So you'll come—that's settled.'