Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 30

Lady Geraldine's air of disdain towards me was resumed. I did not quite understand. Was it pride? was it coquetry? She certainly blushed deeply, and for the first time that I ever saw her blush, when her mother said, "Your time may come, Geraldine."

My week being now at an end, I resolved to take my leave. When I announced this resolution, I was a.s.sailed with the most pressing entreaties to stay a few days longer--one day longer. Lady Ormsby and Sir Harry said every thing that could be said upon the occasion: indeed, it seemed a matter of general interest to all, except to Lady Geraldine.

She appeared wholly indifferent, and I was not even gratified by any apparent affectation of desiring my departure. Curiosity to see whether this would be sustained by her ladys.h.i.+p to the last, gave me resolution sufficient to resist the importunities of Sir Harry; and I departed, rejoicing that my indifference was equal to her ladys.h.i.+p's. As Ta.s.so said of some fair one, whom he met at the carnival of Mantua, _I ran some risk of falling in love._ I had been so far roused from my habitual apathy that I actually made some reflections. As I returned home, I began to perceive that there was some difference between woman and woman, besides the distinctions of rank, fortune, and figure. I think I owe to Lady Geraldine my first relish for wit, and my first idea that a woman might be, if not a reasonable, at least a companionable animal. I compared her ladys.h.i.+p with the mere puppets and parrots of fas.h.i.+on, of whom I had been wearied; and I began to suspect that one might find, in a lady's "lively nonsense," a relief from ennui. These reflections, however, did not prevent me from sleeping the greatest part of the morning on my way home; nor did I dream of any thing that I can remember.

At the porter's lodge I saw Ellinor sitting at her spinning-wheel; and my thoughts took up my domestic affairs just where I had left them the preceding week.

CHAPTER X.

In vain I attempted to interest myself in my domestic affairs; the silence and solitude of my own castle appeared to me intolerably melancholy, after my return from Ormsby Villa. There was a blank in my existence during a week, in which I can remember nothing that I did, said, or thought, except what pa.s.sed during one ride, which Mr. McLeod compelled my politeness to take with him. He came with the same face to see me, and the same set of ideas, as those he had before I went to Ormsby Villa. He began to talk of my schemes for improving my tenantry, and of my wish that he should explain his notions relative to the education of the poor of Ireland, which, he said, as I now seemed to be at leisure, he was ready to do as concisely as possible. _As concisely as possible_ were the only words of his address that I heard with satisfaction; but of course I bowed, said I was much obliged, and I should be happy to have the advantage of Mr. M'Leod's opinions and sentiments. What these were I cannot recollect, for I settled myself in a reverie soon after his voice began to sound upon my ear; but I remember at last he wakened me, by proposing that I should ride with him to see a school-house and some cottages, which he had built on a little estate of his own in my neighbourhood: "for," said he, "'tis better, my lord, to show you what can be done with these people, than to talk of what might be effected."

"Very true," said I, agreeing readily; because I wanted to finish a conversation that wearied me, and to have a refres.h.i.+ng ride. It was a delightful evening; and when we came on M'Leod's estate, I really could not help being pleased and interested. In an unfavourable situation, with all nature, vegetable and animal, against him, he had actually created a paradise amid the wilds. There was nothing wonderful in any thing I saw around me; but there was such an air of neatness and comfort, order and activity, in the people and in their cottages, that I almost thought myself in England; and I could not forbear exclaiming,--"How could all this be brought about in Ireland!"

"Chiefly by not doing and not expecting too much at first," said M'Leod.

"We took time, and had patience. We began by setting them the example of some very slight improvements, and then, lured on by the sight of success, they could make similar trials themselves. My wife and I went among them, and talked to them in their cottages, and took an interest in their concerns, and did not want to have every thing our own way; and when they saw that, they began to consider which way was best; so by degrees we led where we could not have driven; and raised in them, by little and little, a taste for conveniences and comforts. Then the business was done; for the moment the taste and ambition were excited; to work the people went to gratify them; and according as they exerted themselves, we helped them. Perhaps it was best for them and for us, that we were not rich; for we could not do too much at a time, and were never tempted to begin grand schemes that we could not finish. There,"

said McLeod, pointing to a cottage with a pretty porch covered with woodbine, and a neat garden, in which many children were busily at work, "that house and that garden were the means of doing all the rest; that is our school-house. We could not expect to do much with the old, whose habits were fixed; but we tried to give the young children better notions, and it was a long time before we could bring that to bear.

Twenty-six years we have been at this work; and in that time if we have done any thing, it was by beginning with the children: a race of our own training has now grown up, and they go on in the way they were taught, and prosper to our hearts' content, and, what is better still, to their hearts' content."

McLeod, habitually grave and taciturn, seemed quite enlivened and talkative this day; but I verily believe that not the slightest ostentation or vanity inspired him, for I never before or since heard him talk or allude to his own good deeds: I am convinced his motive was to excite me to persevere in my benevolent projects, by showing what had been done by small means. He was so truly in earnest that he never perceived how tired I was; indeed he was so little in the habit of expecting sympathy or applause, that he never missed even the ordinary expressions of concurrent complaisance.

"Religion," continued he, "is the great difficulty in Ireland. We make no difference between Protestants and Catholics; we always have admitted both into our school. The priest comes on Sat.u.r.day morning, and the parish minister on Sat.u.r.day evening, to hear the children belonging to each church their catechisms, and to instruct them in the tenets of their faith. And as we keep to our word, and never attempt making proselytes, nor directly or indirectly interfere with their religious opinions, the priests are glad to let us instruct the catholic children in all other points, which they plainly see must advance their temporal interests."

Mr. McLeod invited me to go in and look at the school. "In a hedge or ditch school," said he, "which I once pa.s.sed on this road, and in which I saw a crowd of idle children, I heard the schoolmaster cry out, 'Rehea.r.s.e! rehea.r.s.e! there's company going by; and instantly all the boys s.n.a.t.c.hed up their books, and began gabbling as fast as ever they could, to give an idea to the pa.s.senger of their diligence in repeating their lessons. But here, my lord," continued M'Leod, "you will not see any exhibitions _got up_ for company. I hate such tricks. Walk in, my lord, if you please."

I walked in; but am ashamed to say, that I observed only that every thing looked as if it had been used for many years, and yet not worn out; and the whole school appeared as if all were in their places, and occupied and intent upon their business: but this general recollection is all I have retained. The enthusiasm for improvement had subsided in my mind; and though I felt a transient pleasure in the present picture of the happiness of these poor people and their healthy children, yet, as I rode home, the images faded away like a dream. I resolved, indeed, at some future period, to surpa.s.s all that Mr. M'Leod had done, or all that with his narrow income he could ever accomplish; and to this resolution I was prompted by jealousy of this man, rather than by benevolence. Before I had arranged, even in imagination, my plans, young Ormsby came one morning, and pressed me to return with him to Ormsby Villa. I yielded to his solicitations and to my own wishes. When I arrived, the ladies were all at their toilettes, except Miss Bland, who was in the book-room with the gentlemen, ready to receive me with her perpetual smile. Wherever Miss Bland went, she was always _l'amie de la maison_, accustomed to share with the lady of the house the labour of entertaining her guests. This _double_ of Lady Ormsby talked to me most courteously of all the nothings of the day, and informed me of the changes which had taken place in the ever-varying succession of company at Ormsby Villa. The two brigadiers and one of the aides-de-camp were gone; but Captain Andrews, another castle aide-de-camp, was come, and my Lord O'Toole had arrived. Then followed a by-conversation between Miss Bland and some of the gentlemen, about the joy and sorrow which his lords.h.i.+p's arrival would create in the hearts of two _certain ladies_; one of whom, as I gathered from the innuendoes, was Lady Hauton, and the other Lady O'Toole. As I knew nothing of Dublin intrigues and scandal, I was little attentive to all this. Miss Bland, persisting in entertaining me, proceeded to inform me, that my Lord O'Toole had brought down with him Mr. Cecil Devereux, who was a wit and a poet, very handsome and gallant, and one of the most fas.h.i.+onable young men in Dublin. I determined not to like him--I always hated a flourish of trumpets; whoever enters, announced in this parading manner, appears to disadvantage. Mr. Cecil Devereux entered just as the flourish ceased.

He was not at all the sort of person I was prepared to see: though handsome, and with the air of a man used to good company, there was nothing of a c.o.xcomb in his manner; on the contrary, there was such an appearance of carelessness about himself, and deference towards others, that, notwithstanding the injudicious praise that had been bestowed on him, and my consequent resolution to dislike him, I was pleased and familiar with him before I had been ten minutes in his company. Lord Kilrush introduced him to me, with great pomposity, as a gentleman of talents, for whom he and his brother O'Toole interested themselves much.

This air of patronage, I saw, disgusted Mr. Devereux; and instead of suffering himself to be _shown off_, he turned the conversation from his own poems to general subjects. He asked me some questions about a curious cavern, or subterraneous way, near Glenthorn Castle, which stretched from the sea-sh.o.r.e to a considerable distance under the rock, and communicated with an old abbey near the castle. Mr. Devereux said that such subterraneous places had been formerly used in Ireland as granaries by the ancient inhabitants; but a gentleman of the neighbourhood who was present observed, that the caverns on this coast had, within his memory, been used as hiding-places by smugglers: on this hint Lord Kilrush began a prosing dissertation upon smugglers and contraband traders, and talked to me a prodigious deal about exports and imports, and bounties, and the balance of trade. Not one word he said did I comprehend, and I question whether his lords.h.i.+p understood the subjects upon which he spoke so dictatorially; but he thought he succeeded in giving me an opinion of his wisdom and information. His brother O'Toole appeared next: he did not look like a man of gallantry, as I had been taught to expect from the hints thrown out respecting Lady Hauton; his lords.h.i.+p's whole soul seemed devoted to ambition, and he talked so much of great men, and state affairs, and court intrigues, and honours and preferments, that I began to fancy I had been buried alive, because I knew little of these things. I was tired of hearing him, yet mortified that I could not speak exactly in the same manner, and with the same air of being the best possible authority. I began to wish that I also had some interest at court. The cares and troubles of the ambitious man, so utterly repugnant to the indolence of my disposition, vanished in this moment of infatuation from my view, and I thought only of the pleasures of power. Such is the infectious nature of ambition!

Mr. Devereux helped me to throw off this dangerous contagion, before it did me any injury. He happened to stay in the room with me a quarter of an hour after the other gentlemen went to dress. Though not often disposed to conversation with a stranger, yet I was won by this gentleman's easy address: he politely talked of the English fas.h.i.+onable world, with which he knew that I was well acquainted; I, with equal politeness, recurred to the Irish great world: we fastened together upon Lord O'Toole, who took us to Dublin Castle; and I began to express my regret that I had not yet been at the Irish court, and that I had not earlier in life made myself of political consequence.

"Ambition," said I, "might help to keep a man awake and alive; all common pleasures have long since ceased to interest me--they really cannot make me stir."

"My lord," said Mr. Devereux, "you would do better to sit or lie still all your life than to toil for such vain objects.

'Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What h.e.l.l it is in sueing long to bide;'

Your lords.h.i.+p may remember Spenser's description of that h.e.l.l?"

"Not exactly," said I, unwilling to lower the good opinion this gentleman seemed to have taken for granted of my literature. He took Spenser's poems out of the book-case, and I actually rose from my seat to read the pa.s.sage; for what trouble will not even the laziest of mortals take to preserve the esteem of one by whom he sees that he is over-valued. I read the following ten lines without yawning!

"Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What h.e.l.l it is in sueing long to bide; To lose good days, that might be better spent, To waste long nights in pensive discontent, To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow, To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares, To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs, To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."

"Very strong, indeed," said I, with a competent air, as if used to judge of poetry.

"And it comes with still greater force, when we consider by whom it was written. A man, you know, my lord, who had been secretary to a lord lieutenant."

I felt my nascent ambition die away within me. I acknowledged it was better to spend an easy life. My determination was confirmed at this instant by the appearance of Lady Geraldine. Ambition and love, it is said, are incompatible pa.s.sions. Neither of them had yet possession of my heart; but love and Lady Geraldine had perhaps a better chance than ambition and Lord O'Toole. Lady Geraldine appeared in high spirits; and, though I was not a vain man, I could not help fancying that my return to Ormsby Villa contributed to her charming vivacity. This gratified me secretly and soberly, as much as it visibly delighted her mother. Miss Bland, to pay her court to Lady Kildangan, observed that Lady Geraldine was in uncommonly fine spirits this evening. Lady Geraldine threw back a haughty frown over her left shoulder: this was the only time I ever saw her notice, in any manner, any thing that fell from her obsequious friend. To avert the fair one's displeasure, I asked for Miss Tracey and Mr. Gabbitt.

"Mr. Gabbitt," said her ladys.h.i.+p, resuming her good-humour instantly; "Mr. Gabbitt is gone off the happiest man in Ireland, with the hopes of surveying my Lord O'Toole's estate; a good job, which I was bound in honour to obtain for him, as a reward for taking a good joke. After mocking him with the bare imagination of a feast, you know the Barmecide in the Arabian Tales gave poor Shakabac a substantial dinner, a full equivalent for the jest."

"And Miss Tracey." said I, "what did your ladys.h.i.+p do for her?"

"I persuaded her mamma that the sweet creature was falling into an atrophy. So she carried the forlorn damsel post haste to the Black Rock for the recovery of her health, or her heart. Clementina, my dear, no reproachful looks; in your secret soul do not you know, that I could not do a young lady a greater favour than to give her a plausible excuse for getting away from home?"

I was afraid that Lady Geraldine would feel the want of her b.u.t.t; however, I found that Miss Tracey's place was supplied by Captain Andrews, one of the Castle's aides-de-camp; and when Captain Andrews was out of the way, Lord Kilrush and his brother O'Toole were _good marks_. High and mighty as these personages thought themselves, and respectfully, nay obsequiously, as they were treated by most others, to this lady their characters appeared only a good _study_; and to laugh at them seemed only a _good practice_.

"Perhaps, my lord," said she to me, "you do not yet know my Lord O'Toole?"

"I have had the honour to be introduced to him."

"That's well; for he thinks that,

'Not to know him, argues yourself unknown.'

But as your lords.h.i.+p is a stranger in this country, you may be pardoned; and I will make you better acquainted with him. I suppose you know there are many Tooles in Ireland; some very ancient, respectable, and useful: this, however, is but a mere political tool, and the worst of all tools, a cat's paw. There's one thing to the credit of these brothers, they agree vastly well; for one delights in being always on the stage, and the other always behind the scenes. These brothers, with Captain Andrews--I hope they are none of them within hearing--form a charming trio, all admirable in their way. My Lord O'Toole is--artifice without art. My Lord Kilrush--importance without power. And Captain Andrews--pliability without ease. Poor Andrews! he's a defenceless animal--safe in impenetrable armour. Give him but time--as a man said, who once showed me a land-tortoise--give him but time to draw his head into his sh.e.l.l, and a broad-wheeled waggon may go over him without hurting him. Lord Glenthorn, did you ever observe Captain Andrews's mode of conversation?"

"No; I never heard him converse."

"Converse! nor I indeed; but you have heard him talk." "I have heard him say--_Very true_--and _Of course_."

"Lord Glenthorn is quite severe this evening," said Mrs. O'Connor.

"But though your lords.h.i.+p," continued Lady Geraldine, "may have observed Captain Andrews's wonderful economy of words, do you know whence it arises? Perhaps you think from his perception of his own want of understanding."

"Not from his perception of the want," said I.

"Again! again!" said Mrs. O'Connor, with an insulting tone of surprise; "Lord Glenthorn's quite witty this evening."

Lady Geraldine looked as if she were fully sensible of the want of politeness in Mrs. O'Connor's mode of praising. "But, my lord," pursued she, "you wrong Captain Andrews, if you attribute his monosyllabic replies either to stupidity or timidity. You have not guessed the reason why he never gives on any subject more than half an opinion."

"It was in the diplomatic school he was taught that art," said Mr.

Devereux.

"You must know," pursued Lady Geraldine, "that Captain Andrews is only an aide-de-camp till a diplomatic situation can be found for him; and to do him justice, he has been so well trained in the diplomatic school, that he will not hazard an a.s.sertion on any subject; he is not certain of any thing, not even of his own ident.i.ty."

"He a.s.suredly wants," said Devereux, "the only proof of existence which Descartes would admit--_I think_, therefore I am."

"He has such a holy horror of committing himself," continued Lady Geraldine, "that if you were to ask him if the sun rose this morning, he would answer, with his sweet smile--_So I am told_--or--_So I am informed_."

"Begging your ladys.h.i.+p's pardon," cried Mr. Devereux, "that is much too affirmative. In the pure diplomatic style, impersonal verbs must ever be used in preference to active or pa.s.sive. So I am told, lays him open to the dangerous questions, Who told you? or, By whom were you informed?

Then he is forced into the imprudence of giving up his authorities; whereas he is safe in the impersonality of _So it is said_, or _So it is reported_."

"How I should like to see a meeting between two perfectly finished diplomatists!" cried Lady Geraldine.

"That is demonstrably impossible," said Mr. Devereux; "for in certain political, as well as in certain geometrical lines, there is a continual effort to approach, without a possibility of meeting."