The Absentee

by Maria Edgeworth

  'For that very reason, ma'am; and that Lord Colambre was quite right, I am sure you must be sensible, when you recollect, that Grace has no idea that she is not the daughter of Mr. Nugent; she has no suspicion that the breath of blame ever lighted upon her mother. This part of the story cannot be announced to her with too much caution; and, indeed, her mind has been so much harassed and agitated, and she is at present so far from strong, that great delicacy—'

  'True! very true, Lady Berryl,' interrupted Lady Clonbrony; 'and I'll be as delicate as you please about it afterwards; but, in the first and foremost place, I must tell her the best part of the story—that she's an heiress, madam, never killed anybody!' So, darting through all opposition, Lady Clonbrony made her way into the room where Grace was lying—'Yes, get up! get up! my own Grace, and be surprised—well you may!—you are an heiress, after all.'

  'Am I, my dear aunt?' said Grace.

  'True, as I'm Lady Clonbrony—and a very great heiress—and no more Colambre's cousin than Lady Berryl here. So now begin and love him as fast as you please—I give my consent—and here he is.'

  Lady Clonbrony turned to her son, who just appeared at the door.

  'Oh, mother! what have you done?'

  'What have I done?' cried Lady Clonbrony, following her son's eyes:—'Lord bless me!—Grace fainted dead—lady Berryl? Oh, what have I done? My dear Lady Berryl, what shall we do?'

  'There! her colour's coming again,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'come away, my dear Lady Clonbrony, for the present, and so will I—though I long to talk to the darling girl myself; but she is not equal to it yet.'

  When Grace came to herself, she first saw Lady Berryl leaning over her, and, raising herself a little, she said—

  'What has happened?—I don't know yet—I don't know whether I am happy or not.'

  Then seeing Lord Colambre, she sat quite upright. 'You received my letter, cousin, I hope?—Do you go to Ireland with my aunt?'

  'Yes; and with you, I hope, my beloved friend,' said Colambre; 'you once assured me that I had such a share of your esteem and affection, that the idea of my accompanying you to Ireland was not disagreeable to you; you flattered me that I formed part of your agreeable associations with home.'

  'Yes—sit down by me, won't you, my dear Lady Berryl—but then I considered you as my cousin, Lord Colambre, and I thought you felt the same towards me; but now—'

  'But now, my charming Grace,' said Lord Colambre, kneeling beside her, and taking her hand, 'no invincible obstacle opposes my passion—no INVINCIBLE obstacle, did I say? let me hope that I may say no obstacle, but what depends on the change in the nature of your sentiments. You heard my mother's consent; you saw her joy.'

  'I scarcely knew what I heard or saw,' said Grace, blushing deeply, 'or what I now see and hear; but of this I feel secure, before I comprehend the mystery, before you explain to me the causes of your—change of conduct, that you have never been actuated by caprice, but governed by wise and honourable motives. As to my going to Ireland, or remaining with Lady Berryl, she has heard all the circumstances—she is my friend and yours—a better friend cannot be; to her I appeal—she will decide for me what I OUGHT to do; she promised to take me from hence instantly, if I ought to go.'

  'I did; and I would do so without hesitation, if any duty or any prudence required it. But, after having heard all the circumstances, I can only tell you that I willingly resign the pleasure of your company.'

  'But tell her, my dear Lady Berryl,' said Lord Colambre, 'excellent friend as you are—explain to her you can, better than any of us, all that is to be known; let her know my whole conduct, and then let her decide for herself, and I shall submit to her decision. It is difficult, my dear Grace, to restrain the expression of love, of passion, such as I feel; but I have some power over myself—you know it—and this I can promise you, that your affections shall be free as air—that: no wishes of friends, no interference, nothing but your own unbiassed choice will I allow, if my life depended upon it, to operate in my favour. Be assured, my dearest Grace,' added he, smiling as he retired, 'you shall have time to know whether you are happy or not.'

  The moment he had left the room, she threw herself into the arms of her friend, and her heart, oppressed with various feelings, was relieved by tears—a species of relief to which she was not habituated.

  'I am happy,' said she; 'but what was the INVINCIBLE OBSTACLE?—what was the meaning of my aunt's words?—and what was the cause of her joy? Explain all this to me, my dear friend; for I am still as if I were in a dream.'

  With all the delicacy which Lady Clonbrony deemed superfluous Lady Berryl explained. Nothing could surpass the astonishment of Grace, on first learning that Mr. Nugent was not her father. When she was told of the stigma that had been cast on her birth; the suspicions, the disgrace, to which her mother had been subjected for so many years—that mother, whom she had so loved and respected; who had, with such care, instilled into the mind of her daughter the principles of virtue and religion; that mother whom Grace had always seen the example of every virtue she taught; on whom her daughter never suspected that the touch of blame, the breath of scandal, could rest—Grace could express her sensations only by repeating, in tones of astonishment, pathos, indignation—'My mother!—my mother!—my mother!'

  For some time she was incapable of attending to any other idea, or of feeling any other sensations. When her mind was able to admit the thought, her friend soothed her, by recalling the expressions of Lord Colambre's love—the struggle by which he had been agitated, when he fancied a union with her opposed by an invincible obstacle.

  Grace sighed, and acknowledged that, in prudence, it ought to have been an invincible obstacle she admired the firmness of his decision, the honour with which he had acted towards her. One moment she exclaimed, 'Then, if I had been the daughter of a mother who had conducted herself ill, he never would have trusted me!'

  The next moment she recollected, with pleasure, the joy she had just seen in his eyes—the affection, the passion, that spoke in every word and look; then dwelt upon the sober certainty, that all obstacles were removed.

  'And no duty opposes my loving him! And my aunt wishes it! my kind aunt! And I may think of him.—You, my best friend, would not assure me of this if you were not certain of the truth.—Oh, how can I thank you for all your kindness, and for that best of all kindness, sympathy. You see, your calmness, your strength of mind supports and tranquillises me. I would rather have heard all I have just learnt from you than from any other person living. I could not have borne it from any one else. No one else knows my mind so perfectly—yet my aunt is very good,—and my dear uncle! should not I go to him?—But he is not my uncle, she is not my aunt. I cannot bring myself to think that they are not my relations, and that I am nothing to them.'

  'You may be everything to them, my dear Grace,' said Lady Berryl; 'whenever you please, you may be their daughter.'

  Grace blushed, and smiled, and sighed, and was consoled. But then she recollected her new relation Mr. Reynolds, her grandfather, whom she had never seen, who had for years disowned her—treated her mother with injustice. She could scarcely think of him with complaisancy; yet, when his age, his sufferings, his desolate state, were represented, she pitied him; and, faithful to her strong sense of duty, would have gone instantly to offer him every assistance and attention in her power. Lady Berryl assured her that Mr. Reynolds had positively forbidden her going to him; and that he had assured Lord Colambre he would not see her if she went to him. After such rapid and varied emotions, poor Grace desired repose, and her friend took care that it should be secured to her for the remainder of the day.

  In the meantime, Lord Clonbrony had kindly and judiciously employed his lady in a discussion about certain velvet furniture, which Grace had painted for the drawing-room at Clonbrony Castle.

  In Lady Clonbrony's mind, as in some bad paintings, there was no KEEPING; all objects, great and small, were upon the same level.

  The moment her
son entered the room, her ladyship exclaimed—

  'Everything pleasant at once! Here's your father tells me, Grace's velvet furniture's all packed; really, Soho's the best man in the world of his kind, and the cleverest—and so, after all, my dear Colambre, as I always hoped and prophesied, at last you will marry an heiress.'

  'And Terry,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'will win his wager from Mordicai.'

  'Terry!' repeated Lady Clonbrony, 'that odious Terry!—I hope, my lord, that he is not to be one of my comforts in Ireland.'

  'No, my dear mother; he is much better provided for than we could have expected. One of my father's first objects was to prevent him from being any encumbrance to you. We consulted him as to the means of making him happy; and the knight acknowledged that he had long been casting a sheep's eye at a little snug place, that will soon be open, in his native country—the chair of assistant barrister at the sessions. "Assistant barrister!" said my father; "but, my dear Terry, you have all your life been evading the laws, and very frequently breaking the peace; do you think this has qualified you peculiarly for being a guardian of the laws?" Sir Terence replied, "Yes, sure; set a thief to catch a thief is no bad maxim. And did not Mr. Colquhoun, the Scotchman, get himself made a great justice, by his making all the world as wise as himself, about thieves of all sorts, by land and by water, and in the air too, where he detected the mud-larks?—And is not Barrington chief-justice of Botany Bay?"

  'My father now began to be seriously alarmed, lest Sir Terence should insist upon his using his interest to make him an assistant barrister. He was not aware that five years' practice at the bar was a necessary accomplishment for this office; when, fortunately for all parties, my good friend, Count O'Halloran, helped us out of the difficulty, by starting an idea full of practical justice. A literary friend of the count's had been for some time promised a lucrative situation under Government; but, unfortunately, he was a man of so much merit and ability, that they could not find employment for him at home, and they gave him a commission, I should rather say a contract, abroad, for supplying the army with Hungarian horses. Now the gentleman had not the slightest skill in horseflesh; and, as Sir Terence is a complete jockey, the count observed that he would be the best possible deputy for his literary friend. We warranted him to be a thoroughgoing friend; and I do think the coalition will be well for both parties. The count has settled it all, and I left Sir Terence comfortably provided for, out of your way, my dear mother, and as happy as he could be, when parting from my father.'

  Lord Colambre was assiduous in engaging his mother's attention upon any subject which could for the present draw her thoughts away from her young friend; but, at every pause in the conversation, her ladyship repeated, 'So Grace is an heiress, after all—so, after all, they know they are not cousins! Well! I prefer Grace, a thousand times over, to any other heiress in England. No obstacle, no objection. They have my consent. I always prophesied Colambre would marry an heiress; but why not marry directly?'

  Her ardour and impatience to hurry things forward seemed now likely to retard the accomplishment of her own wishes; and Lord Clonbrony, who understood rather more of the passion of love than his lady ever had felt or understood, saw the agony into which she threw her son, and felt for his darling Grace. With a degree of delicacy and address of which few would have supposed Lord Clonbrony capable, his lordship co-operated with his son in endeavours to keep Lady Clonbrony quiet, and to suppress the hourly thanksgivings of Grace's TURNING OUT AN HEIRESS. On one point, however, she vowed she would not be overruled—she would have a splendid wedding at Clonbrony Castle, such as should become an heir and heiress; and the wedding, she hoped, would be immediately on their return to Ireland; she should announce the thing to her friends directly on her arrival at Clonbrony Castle.

  'My dear,' said Lord Clonbrony, 'we must wait, in the first place, the pleasure of old Mr. Reynolds's fit of the gout.'

  'Why, that's true, because of his will,' said her ladyship; 'but a will's soon made, is not it? That can't be much delay.'

  'And then there must be settlements,' said Lord Clonbrony; 'they take time. Lovers, like all the rest of mankind, must submit to the law's delay. In the meantime, my dear, as these Buxton baths agree with you so well, and as Grace does not seem to be over and above strong for travelling a long journey, and as there are many curious and beautiful scenes of nature here in Derbyshire—Matlock, and the wonders of the Peak, and so on—which the young people would be glad to see together, and may not have another opportunity soon—why not rest ourselves a little? For another reason, too,' continued his lordship, bringing together as many arguments as he could—for he had often found, that though Lady Clonbrony was a match for any single argument, her understanding could be easily overpowered by a number, of whatever sort—'besides, my dear, here's Sir Arthur and Lady Berryl come to Buxton on purpose to meet us; and we owe them some compliment, and something more than compliment, I think; so I don't see why we should be in a hurry to leave them, or quit Buxton—a few weeks sooner or later can't signify—and Clonbrony Castle will be getting all the while into better order for us. Burke is gone down there; and if we stay here quietly, there will be time for the velvet furniture to get there before us, and to be unpacked, and up in the drawing-room.'

  'That's true, my lord,' said Lady Clonbrony; 'and there is a great deal of reason in all you say—so I second that motion, as Colambre, I see, subscribes to it.'

  They stayed some time in Derbyshire, and every day Lord Clonbrony proposed some pleasant excursion, and contrived that the young people should be left to themselves, as Mrs. Broadhurst used so strenuously to advise; the recollection of whose authoritative maxims fortunately still operated upon Lady Clonbrony, to the great ease and advantage of the lovers.

  Happy as a lover, a friend, a son; happy in the consciousness of having restored a father to respectability, and persuaded a mother to quit the feverish joys of fashion for the pleasures of domestic life; happy in the hope of winning the whole heart of the woman he loved, and whose esteem, he knew, he possessed and deserved; happy in developing every day, every hour, fresh charm in his destined bride—we leave our hero, returning to his native country.

  And we leave him with the reasonable expectation that he will support through life the promise of his early character; that his patriotic views will extend with his power to carry wishes into action; that his attachment to his warm-hearted countrymen will still increase upon further acquaintance; and that he will long diffuse happiness through the wide circle, which is peculiarly subject to the influence and example of a great resident Irish proprietor.

  LETTER FROM LARRY TO HIS BROTHER, PAT BRADY, AT MR. MORDICAI'S, COACHMAKER, LONDON.

  MY DEAR BROTHER,

  Yours of the 26th, inclosing the five pound note for my father, came safe to hand Monday last; and with his thanks and blessing to you, he commends it to you herewith inclosed back again, on account of his being in no immediate necessity, nor likelihood to want in future, as you shall hear forthwith; but wants you over with all speed, and the note will answer for travelling charges; for we can't enjoy the luck it has pleased God to give us without YEES: put the rest in your pocket, and read it when you've time.

  Old Nick's gone, and St. Dennis along with him, to the place he come from—praise be to God! The ould lord has found him out in his tricks; and I helped him to that, through the young lord that I driv, as I informed you in my last, when he was a Welchman, which was the best turn ever I did, though I did not know it no more than Adam that time. So OULD Nick's turned out of the agency clean and clear; and the day after it was known, there was surprising great joy through the whole country; not surprising either, but just what you might, knowing him, rasonably expect. He (that is, old Nick and St. Dennis) would have been burnt that night—I MANE, in EFFIGY, through the town of Clonbrony, but that the new man, Mr. Burke, come down that day too soon to stop it, and said, 'it was not becoming to trample on the fallen,' or something that way, that put an end to
it; and though it was a great disappointment to many, and to me in particular, I could not but like the jantleman the better for it anyhow. They say, he is a very good jantleman, and as unlike old Nick or the saint as can be; and takes no duty fowl, nor glove, nor sealing-money; nor asks duty work nor duty turf. Well, when I was disappointed of the EFFIGY, I comforted myself by making a bonfire of old Nick's big rick of duty turf, which, by great luck, was out in the road, away from all dwelling-house, or thatch, or yards, to take fire; so no danger in life or objection. And such another blaze! I wished you'd seed it—and all the men, women, and children in the town and country, far and near, gathered round it, shouting and dancing like mad!—and it was light as day quite across the bog, as far as Bartley Finnigan's house. And I heard after, they seen it from all parts of the three counties, and they thought it was St. John's Eve in a mistake—or couldn't make out what it was; but all took it in good part, for a good sign, and were in great joy. As for St. Dennis and OULD Nick, an attorney had his foot upon em, with an habere a latitat, and three executions hanging over 'em; and there's the end of rogues! and a great example in the country. And—no more about it; for I can't be wasting more ink upon them that don't desarve it at my hands, when I want it for them that do, you shall see. So some weeks past, and there was great cleaning at Clonbrony Castle, and in the town of Clonbrony; and the new agent's smart and clever; and he had the glaziers, and the painters, and the slaters up and down in the town wherever wanted; and you wouldn't know it again. Thinks I, this is no bad sign! Now, cock up your ears, Pat! for the great news is coming, and the good. The master's come home—long life to him!—and family come home yesterday, all entirely! The OULD lord and the young lord (ay, there's the man, Paddy!), and my lady, and Miss Nugent. And I driv Miss Nugent's maid, that maid that was, and another; so I had the luck to be in it along WID 'em, and see all, from first to last. And first, I must tell you, my young Lord Colambre remembered and noticed me the minute he lit at our inn, and condescended to beckon at me out of the yard to him, and axed me—'Friend Larry,' says he, 'did you keep your promise?'—'My oath again' the whisky, is it?' says I. 'My lord, I surely did,' said I; which was true, as all the country knows I never tasted a drop since. 'And I'm proud to see your honour, my lord, as good as your word too, and back again among us. So then there was a call for the horses; and no more at that time passed betwix' my young lord and me, but that he pointed me out to the OULD one, as I went off. I noticed and thanked him for it in my heart, though I did not know all the good was to come of it. Well, no more of myself, for the present.