Tales and Novels Volume VI Part 11

A loud knock at the door announced the arrival of company.

"Think no more of love, but as much as you please of admiration--dress yourself as fast as you can," said Miss Broadhurst. "Dress, dress, is the order of the day."

"Order of the day and order of the night, and all for people I don't care for in the least," said Grace. "So life pa.s.ses!"

"Dear me, Miss Nugent," cried Pet.i.to, Lady Clonbrony's woman, coming in with a face of alarm, "not dressed yet! My lady is gone down, and Mrs. Broadhurst and my Lady Poc.o.c.ke's come, and the Honourable Mrs.

Trembleham; and signor, the Italian singing gentleman, has been walking up and down the apartments there by himself, disconsolate, this half hour. Oh, merciful! Miss Nugent, if you could stand still for one single particle of a second. So then I thought of stepping in to Miss Nugent; for the young ladies are talking so fast, says I to myself, at the door, they will never know how time goes, unless I give 'em a hint. But now my lady is below, there's no need, to be sure, to be nervous, so we may take the thing quietly, without being in a fl.u.s.trum. Dear ladies, is not this now a very sudden motion of our young lord's for Ireland? Lud a mercy! Miss Nugent, I'm sure your motions is sudden enough; and your dress behind is all, I'm sure, I can't tell how."

"Oh, never mind," said the young lady, escaping from her; "it will do very well, thank you, Pet.i.to."

"It will do very well, never mind," repeated Pet.i.to, muttering to herself, as she looked after the ladies, whilst they ran down stairs. "I can't abide to dress any young lady who says never mind, and it will do very well. That, and her never talking to one confi_dan_tially, or trusting one with the least bit of her secrets, is the thing I can't put up with from Miss Nugent; and Miss Broadhurst holding the pins to me, as much as to say, do your business, Pet.i.to, and don't talk.--Now, that's so impertinent, as if one wasn't the same flesh and blood, and had not as good a right to talk of every thing, and hear of every thing, as themselves. And Mrs. Broadhurst, too, cabinet-councilling with my lady, and pursing up her city mouth, when I come in, and turning off the discourse to snuff, forsooth; as if I was an ignoramus, to think they closeted themselves to talk of snuff.

Now, I think a lady of quality's woman has as good a right to be trusted with her lady's secrets as with her jewels; and if my Lady Clonbrony was a real lady of quality, she'd know that, and consider the one as much my paraphernalia as the other. So I shall tell my lady to-night, as I always do when she vexes me, that I never lived in an Irish family before, and don't know the ways of it--then she'll tell me she was born in Hoxfords.h.i.+re--then I shall say, with my saucy look, 'Oh, was you, my lady--I always forget that you was an Englishwoman:'

then may be she'll say, 'Forget! you forget yourself strangely, Pet.i.to.' Then I shall say, with a great deal of dignity, 'If your ladys.h.i.+p thinks so, my lady, I'd better go.' And I'd desire no better than that she would take me at my word; for my Lady Dashfort's is a much better place, I'm told, and she's dying to have me, I know."

And having formed this resolution, Pet.i.to concluded her apparently interminable soliloquy, and went with my lord's gentleman into the antechamber, to hear the concert, and give her judgment on every thing: as she peeped in through the vista of heads into the Apollo saloon--for to-night the Alhambra was transformed into the Apollo saloon--she saw that whilst the company, rank behind rank, in close semicircles, had crowded round the performers to hear a favourite singer, Miss Broadhurst and Lord Colambre were standing in the outer semicircle, talking to one another earnestly. Now would Pet.i.to have given up her reversionary chance of the three nearly new gowns she expected from Lady Clonbrony, in case she stayed; or, in case she went, the reversionary chance of any dress of Lady Dashfort's, except her scarlet velvet, merely to hear what Miss Broadhurst and Lord Colambre were saying. Alas! she could only see their lips move; and of what they were talking, whether of music or love, and whether the match was to be on or off, she could only conjecture. But the diplomatic style having now descended to waiting-maids, Mrs. Pet.i.to talked to her friends in the antechamber with as mysterious and consequential an air and tone as a charge d'affaires, or as the lady of a charge d'affaires, could have a.s.sumed. She spoke of her _private belief_; of _the impression left upon her mind_; and her _confidential_ reasons for thinking as she did; of her "having had it from the _fountain's_ head;" and of "her fear of any _committal_ of her authorities."

Notwithstanding all these authorities, Lord Colambre left London next day, and pursued his way to Ireland, determined that he would see and judge of that country for himself, and decide whether his mother's dislike to residing there was founded on caprice or on reasonable causes.

In the mean time, it was reported in London that his lords.h.i.+p was gone to Ireland to make out the t.i.tle to some estate, which would be necessary for his marriage settlement with the great heiress, Miss Broadhurst. Whether Mrs. Pet.i.to or Sir Terence O'Fay had the greater share in raising and spreading this report, it would be difficult to determine; but it is certain, however or by whomsoever raised, it was most useful to Lord Clonbrony, by keeping his creditors quiet.

CHAPTER VI.

The tide did not permit the packet to reach the Pigeon-house, and the impatient Lord Colambre stepped into a boat, and was rowed across the Bay of Dublin. It was a fine summer morning. The sun shone bright on the Wicklow mountains. He admired, he exulted in the beauty of the prospect; and all the early a.s.sociations of his childhood, and the patriotic hopes of his riper years, swelled his heart as he approached the sh.o.r.es of his native land. But scarcely had he touched his mother earth, when the whole course of his ideas was changed; and if his heart swelled, it swelled no more with pleasurable sensations, for instantly he found himself surrounded and attacked by a swarm of beggars and harpies, with strange figures and stranger tones; some craving his charity, some s.n.a.t.c.hing away his luggage, and at the same time bidding him "never trouble himself," and "never fear." A scramble in the boat and on sh.o.r.e for bags and parcels began, and an amphibious fight betwixt men, who had one foot on sea and one on land, was seen; and long and loud the battle of trunks and portmanteaus raged! The vanquished departed, clinching their empty hands at their opponents, and swearing inextinguishable hatred; while the smiling victors stood at ease, each grasping his booty--bag, basket, parcel, or portmanteau: "And, your honour, where _will_ these go?--Where _will_ we carry 'em all to for your honour?" was now the question. Without waiting for an answer, most of the goods were carried at the discretion of the porters to the custom-house, where, to his lords.h.i.+p's astonishment, after this scene of confusion, he found that he had lost nothing but his patience; all his goods were safe, and a few _tinpennies_ made his officious porters happy men and boys; blessings were showered upon his honour, and he was left in peace at an excellent hotel, in ---- street, Dublin. He rested, refreshed himself, recovered his good-humour, and walked into the coffee-house, where he found several officers, English, Irish, and Scotch. One English officer, a very gentlemanlike, sensible-looking man, of middle age, was sitting reading a little pamphlet, when Lord Colambre entered: he looked up from time to time, and in a few minutes rose and joined the conversation; it turned upon the beauties and defects of the city of Dublin. Sir James Brooke (for that was the name of the gentleman) showed one of his brother officers the book which he had been reading, observing that, in his opinion, it contained one of the best views of Dublin which he had ever seen, evidently drawn by the hand of a master, though in a slight, playful, and ironical style: it was "An intercepted Letter from China." The conversation extended from Dublin to various parts of Ireland, with all which Sir James Brooke showed that he was well acquainted. Observing that this conversation was particularly interesting to Lord Colambre, and quickly perceiving that he was speaking to one not ignorant of books, Sir James spoke of different representations and misrepresentations of Ireland. In answer to Lord Colambre's inquiries, he named the works which had afforded him the most satisfaction; and with discriminative, not superficial celerity, touched on all ancient and modern authors on this subject, from Spenser and Davies to Young and Beaufort. Lord Colambre became anxious to cultivate the acquaintance of a gentleman who appeared so able and willing to afford him information. Sir James Brooke, on his part, was flattered by this eagerness of attention, and pleased by our hero's manners and conversation: so that, to their mutual satisfaction, they spent much of their time together whilst they were at this hotel; and meeting frequently in society in Dublin, their acquaintance every day increased and grew into intimacy; an intimacy which was highly advantageous to Lord Colambre's views of obtaining a just idea of the state of manners in Ireland. Sir James Brooke had at different periods been quartered in various parts of the country--had resided long enough in each to become familiar with the people, and had varied his residence sufficiently to form comparisons between different counties, their habits, and characteristics. Hence he had it in his power to direct the attention of our young observer at once to the points most worthy of his examination, and to save him from the common error of travellers--the deducing general conclusions from a few particular cases, or arguing from exceptions, as if they were rules. Lord Colambre, from his family connexions, had of course immediate introduction into the best society in Dublin, or rather into all the good society of Dublin. In Dublin there is positively good company, and positively bad; but not, as in London, many degrees of comparison: not innumerable luminaries of the polite world, moving in different orbits of fas.h.i.+on; but all the bright planets of note and name move and revolve in the same narrow limits. Lord Colambre did not find that either his father's or his mother's representations of society resembled the reality which he now beheld. Lady Clonbrony had, in terms of detestation, described Dublin such as it appeared to her soon after the Union; Lord Clonbrony had painted it with convivial enthusiasm, such as he saw it long and long before the Union, when _first_ he drank claret at the fas.h.i.+onable clubs. This picture, unchanged in his memory, and unchangeable by his imagination, had remained, and ever would remain, the same. The hospitality of which the father boasted, the son found in all its warmth, but meliorated and refined; less convivial, more social; the fas.h.i.+on of hospitality had improved. To make the stranger eat or drink to excess, to set before him old wine and old plate, was no longer the sum of good breeding. The guest now escaped the pomp of grand entertainments; was allowed to enjoy ease and conversation, and to taste some of that feast of reason and that flow of soul so often talked of, and so seldom enjoyed. Lord Colambre found a spirit of improvement, a desire for knowledge, and a taste for science and literature, in most companies, particularly among gentlemen belonging to the Irish bar: nor did he in Dublin society see any of that confusion of ranks or predominance of vulgarity, of which his mother had complained. Lady Clonbrony had a.s.sured him, that, the last time she had been at the drawing-room at the Castle, a lady, whom she afterwards found to be a grocer's wife, had turned angrily when her ladys.h.i.+p had accidentally trodden on her train, and had exclaimed with a strong brogue, "I'll thank you, ma'am, for the rest of my tail."

Sir James Brooke, to whom Lord Colambre, without _giving up his authority_, mentioned the fact, declared that he had no doubt the thing had happened precisely as it was stated; but that this was one of the extraordinary cases which ought not to pa.s.s into a general rule,--that it was a slight instance of that influence of temporary causes, from which no conclusions, as to national manners, should be drawn.

"I happened," continued Sir James, "to be quartered in Dublin soon after the Union took place; and I remember the great but transient change that appeared from the removal of both houses of parliament: most of the n.o.bility and many of the princ.i.p.al families among the Irish commoners, either hurried in high hopes to London, or retired disgusted and in despair to their houses in the country. Immediately, in Dublin, commerce rose into the vacated seats of rank; wealth rose into the place of birth. New faces and new equipages appeared: people, who had never been heard of before, started into notice, pushed themselves forward, not scrupling to elbow their way even at the castle; and they were presented to my lord-lieutenant and to my lady-lieutenant; for their excellencies might have played their vice-regal parts to empty benches, had they not admitted such persons for the moment to fill their court. Those of former times, of hereditary pretensions and high-bred minds and manners, were scandalized at all this; and they complained with justice, that the whole _tone_ of society was altered; that the decorum, elegance, polish, and charm of society was gone. And I, among the rest," said Sir James, "felt and deplored their change. But, now it's all over, we may acknowledge, that, perhaps, even those things which we felt most disagreeable at the time were productive of eventual benefit.

"Formerly, a few families had set the fas.h.i.+on. From time immemorial every thing had, in Dublin, been submitted to their hereditary authority; and conversation, though it had been rendered polite by their example, was, at the same time, limited within narrow bounds.

Young people, educated upon a more enlarged plan, in time grew up; and, no authority or fas.h.i.+on forbidding it, necessarily rose to their just place, and enjoyed their due influence in society. The want of manners, joined to the want of knowledge, in the _nouveaux riches_, created universal disgust: they were compelled, some by ridicule, some by bankruptcies, to fall back into their former places, from which they could never more emerge. In the mean time, some of the Irish n.o.bility and gentry, who had been living at an unusual expense in London--an expense beyond their incomes--were glad to return home to refit; and they brought with them a new stock of ideas, and some taste for science and literature, which, within these latter years, have become fas.h.i.+onable, indeed indispensable, in London. That part of the Irish aristocracy, who, immediately upon the first incursions of the vulgarians, had fled in despair to their fastnesses in the country, hearing of the improvements which had gradually taken place in society, and a.s.sured of the final expulsion of the barbarians, ventured from their retreats, and returned to their posts in town. So that now," concluded Sir James, "you find a society in Dublin composed of a most agreeable and salutary mixture of birth and education, gentility and knowledge, manner and matter; and you see, pervading the whole, new life and energy, new talent, new ambition, a desire and a determination to improve and be improved--a perception that higher distinction can now be obtained in almost all company, by genius and merit, than by airs and address.... So much for the higher order. Now, among the cla.s.s of tradesmen and shopkeepers, you may amuse yourself, my lord, with marking the difference between them and persons of the same rank in London."

Lord Colambre had several commissions to execute for his English friends, and he made it his amus.e.m.e.nt in every shop to observe the manners and habits of the people. He remarked that there are in Dublin two cla.s.ses of tradespeople: one, who go into business with intent to make it their occupation for life, and as a slow but sure means of providing for themselves and their families; another cla.s.s, who take up trade merely as a temporary resource, to which they condescend for a few years; trusting that they shall, in that time, make a fortune, retire, and commence or re-commence gentlemen. The Irish regular men of business are like all other men of business--punctual, frugal, careful, and so forth; with the addition of more intelligence, invention, and enterprise, than are usually found in Englishmen of the same rank. But the Dublin tradesmen _pro tempore_ are a cla.s.s by themselves: they begin without capital, buy stock upon credit, in hopes of making large profits, and, in the same hopes, sell upon credit.

Now, if the credit they can obtain is longer than that which they are forced to give, they go on and prosper; if not, they break, become bankrupts, and sometimes, as bankrupts, thrive. By such men, of course, every _short cut_ to fortune is followed: whilst every habit, which requires time to prove its advantage, is disregarded; nor, with such views, can a character for _punctuality_ have its just value.

In the head of a man, who intends to be a tradesman to-day, and a gentleman to-morrow, the ideas of the honesty and the duties of a tradesman, and of the honour and the accomplishments of a gentleman, are oddly jumbled together, and the characteristics of both are lost in the compound.

He will _oblige_ you, but he will not obey you; he will do you a favour, but he will not do you _justice_; he will do _anything to serve you_, but the particular thing you order he neglects; he asks your pardon, for he would not, for all the goods in his warehouse, _disoblige_ you; not for the sake of your custom, but he has a particular regard for your family. Economy, in the eyes of such a tradesman, is, if not a mean vice, at least a shabby virtue, of which he is too polite to suspect his customers, and to which he is proud of proving himself superior. Many London tradesmen, after making their thousands and their tens of thousands, feel pride in still continuing to live like plain men of business; but from the moment a Dublin tradesman of this style has made a few hundreds, he sets up his gig, and then his head is in his carriage, and not in his business; and when he has made a few thousands, he buys or builds a country house--and, then, and thenceforward, his head, heart, and soul, are in his country-house, and only his body in the shop with his customers.

Whilst he is making money, his wife, or rather his lady, is spending twice as much out of town as he makes in it. At the word country-house, let no one figure to himself a snug little box like that in which a _warm_ London citizen, after long years of toil, indulges himself, one day out of seven, in repose--enjoying, from his gazabo, the smell of the dust, and the view of pa.s.sing coaches on the London road: no, these Hibernian villas are on a much more magnificent scale; some of them formerly belonged to Irish members of parliament, who were at a distance from their country-seats. After the Union these were bought by citizens and tradesmen, who spoiled, by the mixture of their own fancies, what had originally been designed by men of good taste.

Some time after Lord Colambre's arrival in Dublin, he had an opportunity of seeing one of these villas, which belonged to Mrs.

Raffarty, a grocer's lady, and sister to one of Lord Clonbrony's agents, Mr. Nicholas Garraghty. Lord Colambre was surprised to find that his father's agent resided in Dublin: he had been used to see agents, or stewards, as they are called in England, live in the country, and usually on the estate of which they have the management.

Mr. Nicholas Garraghty, however, had a handsome house in a fas.h.i.+onable part of Dublin. Lord Colambre called several times to see him, but he was out of town, receiving rents for some other gentlemen, as he was agent for more than one property.

Though our hero had not the honour of seeing Mr. Garraghty, he had the pleasure of finding Mrs. Raffarty one day at her brother's house. Just as his lords.h.i.+p came to the door, she was going, on her jaunting-car, to her villa, called Tusculum, situate near Bray. She spoke much of the beauties of the vicinity of Dublin; found his lords.h.i.+p was going with Sir James Brooke, and a party of gentlemen, to see the county of Wicklow; and his lords.h.i.+p and party were entreated to do her the honour of taking in their way a little collation at Tusculum.

Our hero was glad to have an opportunity of seeing more of a species of fine lady with which he was unacquainted.

The invitation was verbally made, and verbally accepted; but the lady afterwards thought it necessary to send a written invitation in due form, and the note she sent directed to the _Most Right Honourable_ the Lord Viscount Colambre. On opening it he perceived that it could not have been intended for him. It ran as follows:

"MY DEAR JULIANA O'LEARY,

"I have got a promise from Colambre, that he will be with us at Tusculum on Friday, the 20th, in his way from the county of Wicklow, for the collation I mentioned; and expect a large party of officers: so pray come early, with your house, or as many as the jaunting-car can bring. And pray, my dear, be _elegant_. You need not let it transpire to Mrs. O'G----; but make my apologies to Miss O'G----, if she says any thing, and tell her I'm quite concerned I can't ask her for that day; because, tell her, I'm so crowded, and am to have none that day but _real quality_.

"Yours ever and ever,

"ANASTASIA RAFFARTY.

"P.S. And I hope to make the gentlemen stop the night with me: so will not have beds. Excuse haste and compliments, &c.

"_Tusculum, Sunday 15._"

After a charming tour in the county of Wicklow, where the beauty of the natural scenery, and the taste with which those natural beauties had been cultivated, far surpa.s.sed the sanguine expectations Lord Colambre had formed, his lords.h.i.+p and his companions arrived at Tusculum, where he found Mrs. Raffarty, and Miss Juliana O'Leary, very elegant, with a large party of the ladies and gentlemen of Bray, a.s.sembled in a drawing-room, fine with bad pictures and gaudy gilding; the windows were all shut, and the company were playing cards with all their might. This was the fas.h.i.+on of the neighbourhood. In compliment to Lord Colambre and the officers, the ladies left the card-tables; and Mrs. Raffarty, observing that his lords.h.i.+p seemed _partial_ to walking, took him out, as she said, "to do the honours of nature and art."

His lords.h.i.+p was much amused by the mixture, which was now exhibited to him, of taste and incongruity, ingenuity and absurdity, genius and blunder; by the contrast between the finery and vulgarity, the affectation and ignorance, of the lady of the villa. We should be obliged to _stop_ too long at Tusculum were we to attempt to detail all the odd circ.u.mstances of this visit; but we may record an example or two, which may give a sufficient idea of the whole.

In the first place, before they left the drawing-room, Miss Juliana O'Leary pointed out to his lords.h.i.+p's attention a picture over the drawing-room chimney-piece. "Is not it a fine piece, my lord?" said she, naming the price Mrs. Raffarty had lately paid for it at an auction. "It has a right to be a fine piece, indeed; for it cost a fine price!" Nevertheless this _fine_ piece was a vile daub; and our hero could only avoid the sin of flattery, or the danger of offending the lady, by protesting that he had no judgment in pictures.

"Indeed! I don't pretend to be a connoisseur or conoscenti myself; but I'm told the style is undeniably modern. And was not I lucky, Juliana, not to let that _Medona_ be knocked down to me? I was just going to bid, when I heard such smart bidding; but, fortunately, the auctioneer let out that it was done by a very old master--a hundred years old.

Oh! your most obedient, thinks I!--if that's the case, it's not for my money: so I bought this, in lieu of the smoke-dried thing, and had it a bargain."

In architecture, Mrs. Raffarty had as good a taste and as much skill as in painting. There had been a handsome portico in front of the house: but this interfering with the lady's desire to have a viranda, which she said could not he dispensed with, she had raised the whole portico to the second story, where it stood, or seemed to stand, upon a tarpaulin roof. But Mrs. Raffarty explained, that the pillars, though they looked so properly substantial, were really hollow and as light as feathers, and were supported with cramps, without _disobliging_ the front wall of the house at all to signify.

Before she showed the company any farther, she said, she must premise to his lords.h.i.+p, that she had been originally stinted in room for her improvements, so that she could not follow her genius liberally; she had been reduced to have some things on a confined scale, and occasionally to consult her pocket-compa.s.s; but she prided herself upon having put as much into a tight pattern as could well be; that had been her whole ambition, study, and problem; for she was determined to have at least the honour of having a little _taste_ of every thing at Tusculum.

So she led the way to a little conservatory, and a little pinery, and a little grapery, and a little aviary, and a little pheasantry, and a little dairy for show, and a little cottage for ditto, with a grotto full of sh.e.l.ls, and a little hermitage full of earwigs, and a little ruin full of looking-gla.s.s, "to enlarge and multiply the effect of the Gothic."--"But you could only put your head in, because it was just fresh painted, and though there had been a fire ordered in the ruin all night, it had only smoked."

In all Mrs. Raffarty's buildings, whether ancient or modern, there was a studied crookedness.

Yes, she said, she hated every thing straight, it was so formal and _unpicturesque_. "Uniformity and conformity," she observed, "had their day; but now, thank the stars of the present day, irregularity and deformity bear the bell, and have the majority."

As they proceeded and walked through the grounds, from which Mrs.

Raffarty, though she had done her best, could not take that which nature had given, she pointed out to my lord "a happy moving termination," consisting of a Chinese bridge, with a fisherman leaning over the rails. On a sudden, the fisherman was seen to tumble over the bridge into the water. The gentlemen ran to extricate the poor fellow, while they heard Mrs. Raffarty bawling to his lords.h.i.+p to beg he would never mind, and not trouble himself.

When they arrived at the bridge, they saw the man hanging from part of the bridge, and apparently struggling in the water; but when they attempted to pull him up, they found it was only a stuffed figure, which had been pulled into the stream by a real fish, which had seized hold of the bait.

Mrs. Raffarty, vexed by the fisherman's fall, and by the laughter it occasioned, did not recover herself sufficiently to be happily ridiculous during the remainder of the walk, nor till dinner was announced, when she apologized for having changed the collation, at first intended, into a dinner, which she hoped would be found no bad subst.i.tute, and which she flattered herself might prevail on my lord and the gentlemen to sleep, as there was no moon.

The dinner had two great faults--profusion and pretension. There was, in fact, ten times more on the table than was necessary; and the entertainment was far above the circ.u.mstances of the person by whom it was given: for instance, the dish of fish at the head of the table had been brought across the island from Sligo, and had cost five guineas; as the lady of the house failed not to make known. But, after all, things were not of a piece; there was a disparity between the entertainment and the attendants; there was no proportion or fitness of things; a painful endeavour at what could not be attained, and a toiling in vain to conceal and repair deficiencies and blunders. Had the mistress of the house been quiet; had she, as Mrs. Broadhurst would say, but let things alone, let things take their course, all would have pa.s.sed off with well-bred people; but she was incessantly apologizing, and fussing, and fretting inwardly and outwardly, and directing and calling to her servants--striving to make a butler who was deaf, and a boy who was harebrained, do the business of five accomplished footmen of _parts and figure_. The mistress of the house called for "plates, clean plates!--plates!"

"But none did come, when she did call."

Mrs. Raffarty called "Lanty! Lanty! My lord's plate, there!--James!

bread to Captain Bowles!--James! port wine to the major!--James! James Kenny! James!"