The Absentee (14 page)

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 pass 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
nobility, and many of the principal 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,
for the time being, 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 scandalised 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 is
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 fashion. From time immemorial
everything 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 fashion 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 new set, 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 meantime, some of the Irish nobility 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 fashionable, 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 assured 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 dress.... So much for the higher order. Now,
among the class 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 amusement in every shop to observe the
manners and habits of the people. He remarked that there are in Dublin
two classes 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 class, 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 recommence 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 class 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, turn 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, which he is too polite to suspect his customers
of, and particularly proud to prove himself superior to. 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 passing 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 are 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 fashionable 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 lordship 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 lordship was going with
Sir James Brooke and a party of gentlemen to see the county of Wicklow;
and his lordship and party were entreated to do her the honour of taking
in his 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 anything, 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, etc. 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 surpassed the sanguine expectations Lord Colambre
had formed, his lordship 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, assembled 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 fashion of the neighbourhood. In compliment to Lord Colambre
and the officers, the ladies left the card-tables; and Mrs. Raffarty,
observing that his lordship seemed PARTIAL to walking, took him out, as
she said, 'to do the honours of nature and art.'

His lordship 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
circumstances 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 lordship'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. Rafferty 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 veranda, which she
said could not be 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 lordship, 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-compass; but she prided herself upon having put
as much into a light 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 everything 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 shells, and a little hermitage full of earwigs, and a little
ruin full of looking-glass, '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 everything 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 difformity
bear the bell, and have the majority.'