The Absentee Part 13

'I beg your pardon,' said another officer; 'she will come again to so good a market, to marry her other daughter. I hear she said, or swore, that she will marry the young widow, Lady Isabel, to an Irish n.o.bleman.'

'Whatever she says, she swears, and whatever she swears, she'll do,'

replied Bowles. 'Have a care, my Lord Colambre; if she sets her heart upon you for Lady Isabel, she has you. Nothing can save you. Heart she has none, so there you're safe, my lord,' said the other officer; 'but if Lady Isabel sets her eye upon you, no basilisk's is surer.'

'But if Lady Dashfort had landed I am sure we should have heard of it, for she makes noise enough wherever she goes; especially in Dublin, where all she said and did was echoed and magnified, till one could hear of nothing else. I don't think she has landed.'

'I hope to Heaven they may never land again in Ireland!' cried Sir James Brooke; 'one worthless woman, especially one worthless Englishwoman of rank, does incalculable mischief in a country like this, which looks up to the sister country for fas.h.i.+on. For my own part, as a warm friend to Ireland, I would rather see all the toads and serpents, and venomous reptiles, that St. Patrick carried off in his bag, come back to this island, than these two DASHERS. Why, they would bite half the women and girls in the kingdom with the rage for mischief, before half the husbands and fathers could turn their heads about. And, once bit, there's no cure in nature or art.'

'No horses to this barouche!' cried Captain Bowles.--'Pray, sir, whose carriage is this?' said the captain to a servant who was standing beside it.

'My Lady Dashfort, sir, it belongs to,' answered the servant, in rather a surly English tone; and turning to a boy who was lounging at the door--'Pat, bid them bring out the horses, for my ladies is in a hurry to get home.'

Captain Bowles stopped to make his servant alter the girths of his horse, and to satisfy his curiosity; and the whole party halted. Captain Bowles beckoned to the landlord of the inn, who was standing at his door.

'So, Lady Dashfort is here again?--This is her barouche, is not it?'

'Yes, sir, she is--it is.'

'And has she sold her fine horses?'

'Oh no, sir--this is not her carriage at all--she is not here. That is, she is here, in Ireland; but down in the county of Wicklow, on a visit.

And this is not her own carriage at all;--that is to say, not that which she has with herself, driving; but only just the cast barouche like, as she keeps for the lady's maids.'

'For the lady's maids! that is good! that is new, faith! Sir James, do you hear that?'

'Indeed, then, and it's true, and not a word of a lie!' said the honest landlord. 'And this minute, we've got a directory of five of them abigails, sitting within in our house; as fine ladies, as great dashers, too, every bit as their princ.i.p.als; and kicking up as much dust on the road, every grain!--Think of them, now! The likes of them, that must have four horses, and would not stir a foot with one less!--As the gentleman's gentleman there was telling and boasting to me about now, when the barouche was ordered for them, there at the lady's house, where Lady Dashfort is on a visit--they said they would not get in till they'd get four horses; and their ladies backed them; and so the four horses was got; and they just drove out here, to see the points of view for fas.h.i.+on's sake, like their betters; and up with their gla.s.ses, like their ladies; and then out with their watches, and "Isn't it time to lunch?" So there they have been lunching within on what they brought with them; for nothing in our house could they touch, of course! They brought themselves a PICKNICK lunch, with Madeira and Champagne to wash it down. Why, gentlemen, what do you think, but a set of them, as they were bragging to me, turned out of a boarding-house at Cheltenham, last year, because they had not peach-pies to their lunch!--But here they come! shawls, and veils, and all!--streamers flying! But mum is my cue!--Captain, are these girths to your fancy now?' said the landlord, aloud; then, as he stooped to alter a buckle, he said, in a voice meant to be heard only by Captain Bowles, 'If there's a tongue, male or female, in the three kingdoms, it's in that foremost woman, Mrs.

Pet.i.to.'

'Mrs. Pet.i.to!' repeated Lord Colambre, as the name caught his ear; and, approaching the barouche in which the five abigails were now seated, he saw the identical Mrs. Pet.i.to, who, when he left London, had been in his mother's service.

She recognised his lords.h.i.+p with very gracious intimacy; and, before he had time to ask any questions, she answered all she conceived he was going to ask, and with a volubility which justified the landlord's eulogium of her tongue.

'Yes, my lord! I left my Lady Clonbrony some time back--the day after you left town; and both her ladys.h.i.+p and Miss Nugent was charmingly, and would have sent their loves to your lords.h.i.+p, I'm sure, if they'd any notion I should have met you, my lord, so soon. And I was very sorry to part with them; but the fact was, my lord,' said Mrs. Pet.i.to, laying a detaining hand upon Lord Colambre's whip, one end of which he unwittingly trusted within her reach,--'I and my lady had a little difference, which the best friends, you know, sometimes have; so my Lady Clonbrony was so condescending to give me up to my Lady Dashfort--and I knew no more than the child unborn that her ladys.h.i.+p had it in contemplation to cross the seas. But, to oblige my lady, and as Colonel Heathc.o.c.k, with his regiment of militia, was coming for purtection in the packet at the same time, and we to have the government-yacht, I waived my objections to Ireland. And, indeed, though I was greatly frighted at first, having heard all we've heard, you know, my lord, from Lady Clonbrony, of there being no living in Ireland, and expecting to see no trees nor accommodation, nor anything but bogs all along; yet I declare, I was very agreeably surprised; for, as far as I've seen at Dublin and in the vicinity, the accommodations, and everything of that nature, now is vastly put-up-able with!'--'My lord,' said Sir James Brooke, 'we shall be late.' Lord Colambre, shortly withdrawing his whip from Mrs. Pet.i.to, turned his horse away. She, stretching over the back of the barouche as he rode off, bawled to him--

'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 lords.h.i.+p is in for it, and with such an auxiliary as Mrs. Pet.i.to, 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 pa.s.sion 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. Pet.i.to 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 ladys.h.i.+p at last returned; but Mrs. Pet.i.to 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. Pet.i.to--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. Pet.i.to 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. Pet.i.to. Whilst Mrs. Pet.i.to 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 lords.h.i.+p, 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 fas.h.i.+onable world.

Lord Colambre was not a man to be dazzled by fas.h.i.+on, or to mistake notoriety for deference paid to merit, and for the admiration commanded by beauty or talents. Lady Dashfort's coa.r.s.e 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 Heathc.o.c.k, who, as Mrs. Pet.i.to 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 c.o.xcomb.' Other c.o.xcombs, 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 fas.h.i.+ons? 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 fas.h.i.+on: fas.h.i.+on, 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.