The Absentee (17 page)

Lord Colambre assured her ladyship that she had judged him rightly, for,
that nothing would content him but seeing all that was possible to be
seen of his native country. It was for this special purpose he came to
Ireland.

'Ah!—well—very good purpose—can't be better; but now, how to
accomplish it. You know the Portuguese proverb says, "You go to hell for
the good things you intend to do, and to heaven for those you do." Now
let us see what you will do. Dublin, I suppose, you've seen enough of
by this time; through and through—round and round this makes me first
giddy and then sick. Let me show you the country—not the face of it,
but the body of it—the people. Not Castle this, or Newtown that, but
their inhabitants. I know them; I have the key, or the picklock to their
minds. An Irishman is as different an animal on his guard, and off his
guard, as a miss in school from a miss out of school. A fine country
for game, I'll show you; and, if you are a good marksman, you may have
plenty of shots "at folly as it flies."'

Lord Colambre smiled. 'As to Isabel,' pursued her lady-ship, 'I shall
put her in charge of Heathcock, who is going with us. She won't thank me
for that, but you will. Nay, no fibs, man; you know, I know, as who
does not that has seen the world, that though a pretty woman is a mighty
pretty thing, yet she is confoundedly in one's way, when anything else
is to be seen, heard—or understood.'

Every objection anticipated and removed, and so far a prospect held
out of attaining all the information he desired, with more than all the
amusement he could have expected, Lord Colambre seemed much tempted
to accept the invitation; but he hesitated, because, as he said, her
ladyship might be going to pay visits where he was not acquainted.

'Bless you! don't let that be a stumbling-block in the way of your
tender conscience. I am going to Killpatrickstown, where you'll be as
welcome as light. You know them, they know you; at least you shall have
a proper letter of invitation from my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick, and
all that. And as to the rest, you know a young man is always welcome
every-where, a young nobleman kindly welcome,—I won't say such a young
man, and such a young nobleman, for that might put you to pour bows
or your blushes—but NOBILITAS by itself, nobility is enough in all
parties, in all families, where there are girls, and of course balls, as
there are always at Killpatrickstown. Don't be alarmed; you shall not be
forced to dance, or asked to marry. I'll be your security. You shall be
at full liberty; and it is a house where you can do just what you will.
Indeed, I go to no others. These Killpatricks are the best creatures in
the world; they think nothing good or grand enough for me. If I'd let
them, they would lay down cloth of gold over their bogs for me to
walk upon.—Good-hearted beings!' added Lady Dashfort, marking a cloud
gathering on Lord Colambre's countenance. 'I laugh at them, because I
love them. I could not love anything I might not laugh at—your lordship
excepted. So you'll come—that's settled.'

And so it was settled. Our hero went to Killpatrickstown.

'Everything here sumptuous and unfinished, you see,' said Lady Dashfort
to Lord Colambre, the day after their arrival. 'All begun as if the
projectors thought they had the command of the mines of Peru, and ended
as if the possessors had not sixpence; DES ARRANGEMENS PROVISATOIRES,
temporary expedients; in plain English, MAKE-SHIFTS. Luxuries, enough
for an English prince of the blood; comforts, not enough for an English
woman. And you may be sure that great repairs and alterations have gone
on to fit this house for our reception, and for our English eyes!—Poor
people!—English visitors, in this point of view, are horribly expensive
to the Irish. Did you ever hear that, in the last century, or in the
century before the last, to put my story far enough back, so that it
shall not touch anybody living; when a certain English nobleman, Lord
Blank A—, sent to let his Irish friend, Lord Blank B—, know that
he and all his train were coming over to pay him a visit; the Irish
nobleman, Blank B—, knowing the deplorable condition of his castle,
sat down fairly to calculate whether it would cost him most to put the
building in good and sufficient repair, fit to receive these English
visitors, or to burn it to the ground. He found the balance to be in
favour of burning, which was wisely accomplished next day. Perhaps
Killpatrick would have done well to follow this example. Resolve me
which is worst, to be burnt out of house and home, or to be eaten out of
house and home. In this house, above and below stairs, including first
and second table, housekeeper's room, lady's maids' room, butler's room,
and gentleman's, one hundred and four people sit down to dinner every
day, as Petito informs me, beside kitchen boys, and what they call
CHAR-women who never sit down, but who do not eat or waste the less
for that; and retainers and friends, friends to the fifth and sixth
generation, who "must get their bit and their sup;" for, "sure, it's
only Biddy," they say,' continued Lady Dashfort, imitating their Irish
brogue, 'find, "sure, 'tis nothing at all, out of all his honour, my
lord, has. How could he FEEL it!
(Feel it: become sensible of it, know
it.)
Long life to him! He's not that way: not a couple in all Ireland,
and that's saying a great dale, looks less after their own, nor is more
off-handeder, or open-hearteder, or greater open-house-keepers, NOR
(than)
my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick." Now there's encouragement for a
lord and a lady to ruin themselves.'

Lady Dashfort imitated the Irish brogue in perfection; boasted that
'she was mistress of fourteen different brogues, and had brogues for
all occasions.' By her mixture of mimickry, sarcasm, exaggeration,
and truth, she succeeded continually in making Lord Colambre laugh at
everything at which she wished to make him laugh; at every THING, but
not every BODY whenever she became personal, he became serious, or
at least endeavoured to become serious; and if he could not instantly
resume the command of his risible muscles, he reproached himself.

'It is shameful to laugh at these people, indeed, Lady Dashfort, in
their own house—these hospitable people, who are entertaining us.'

'Entertaining us! true, and if we are ENTERTAINED, how can we help
laughing?'

All expostulation was thus turned off by a jest, as it was her pride to
make Lord Colambre laugh in spite of his better feelings and principles.
This he saw, and this seemed to him to be her sole object; but there he
was mistaken. OFF-HANDED as she pretended to be, none dealt more in the
IMPROMPTU FAIT A LOISIR; and mentally short-sighted as she affected to
be, none had more LONGANIMITY for their own interest.

It was her settled purpose to make the Irish and Ireland ridiculous and
contemptible to Lord Colambre; to disgust him with his native country;
to make him abandon the wish of residing on his own estate. To confirm
him an absentee was her object previously to her ultimate plan of
marrying him to her daughter. Her daughter was poor, she would therefore
be glad to GET an Irish peer for her; but would be very sorry, she said,
to see Isabel banished to Ireland; and the young widow declared she
could never bring herself to be buried alive in Clonbrony Castle.

In addition to these considerations, Lady Dashfort received certain
hints from Mrs. Petito, which worked all to the same point.

'Why, yes, my lady; I heard a great deal about all that when I was at
Lady Clonbrony's,' said Petito, one day, as she was attending at her
lady's toilette, and encouraged to begin chattering. 'And I own I was
originally under the universal error, that my Lord Colambre was to be
married to the great heiress, Miss Broadhurst; but I have been converted
and reformed on that score, and am at present quite in another way and
style of thinking.'

Petito paused, in hopes that her lady would ask, what was her present
way of thinking? But Lady Dashfort, certain that she would tell her
without being asked, did not take the trouble to speak, particularly as
she did not choose to appear violently interested on the subject.—'My
present way of thinking,' resumed Petito, 'is in consequence of
my having, with my own eyes and ears, witnessed and overheard his
lordship's behaviour and words, the morning he was coming away from
LUNNUN for Ireland; when he was morally certain nobody was up, nor
overhearing, nor overseeing him, there did I notice him, my lady,
stopping in the antechamber, ejaculating over one of Miss Nugent's
gloves, which he had picked up. "Limerick!" said he, quite loud to
himself; for it was a Limerick glove, my lady,—"Limerick!—dear
Ireland! she loves you as well as I do!"—or words to that effect; and
then a sigh, and downstairs and off: So, thinks I, now the cat's out of
the bag. And I wouldn't give much myself for Miss Broadhurst's chance of
that young lord, with all her bank stock, scrip, and OMNUM. Now, I see
how the land lies, and I'm sorry for it; for she's no FORTIN; and
she's so proud, she never said a hint to me of the matter; but my Lord
Colambre is a sweet gentleman; and—'

'Petito! don't run on so; you must not meddle with what you don't
understand: the Miss Killpatricks, to be sure, are sweet girls,
particularly the youngest.'—Her ladyship's toilette was finished; and
she left Petito to go down to my Lady Killpatrick's woman, to tell, as
a very great secret, the schemes that were in contemplation among the
higher powers, in favour of the youngest of the Miss Killpatricks.

'So Ireland is at the bottom of his heart, is it?' repeated Lady
Dashfort to herself; 'it shall not be long so.' From this time forward,
not a day, scarcely an hour passed, but her ladyship did or said
something to depreciate the country, or its inhabitants, in our hero's
estimation. With treacherous ability, she knew and followed all the arts
of misrepresentation; all those injurious arts which his friend, Sir
James Brooke, had, with such honest indignation, reprobated. She
knew how, not only to seize the ridiculous points, to make the most
respectable people ridiculous, but she knew how to select the worst
instances, the worst exceptions; and to produce them as examples, as
precedents, from which to condemn whole classes, and establish general
false conclusions respecting a nation.

In the neighbourhood of Killpatrickstown, Lady Dashfort said, there were
several SQUIREENS, or little squires; a race of men who have succeeded
to the BUCKEENS, described by Young and Crumpe. SQUIREENS are persons
who, with good long leases, or valuable farms, possess incomes from
three to eight hundred a year; who keep a pack of hounds; TAKE OUT
a commission of the peace, sometimes before they can spell (as her
ladyship said), and almost always before they know anything of law
or justice! Busy and loud about small matters; JOBBERS AT ASSIZES,
combining with one another, and trying upon every occasion, public
or private, to push themselves forward, to the annoyance of their
superiors, and the terror of those below them.

In the usual course of things, these men are not often to be found
in the society of gentry; except, perhaps, among those gentlemen or
noblemen who like to see hangers-on at their tables; or who find it
for their convenience to have underling magistrates, to protect their
favourites, or to propose and CARRY jobs for them on grand juries. At
election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance
with all who have views upon the county. Lady Dashfort hinted to
Lord Killpatrick, that her private letters from England spoke of an
approaching dissolution of Parliament; she knew that, upon this hint, a
round of invitations would be sent to the squireens; and she was morally
certain that they would be more disagreeable to Lord Colambre, and give
him a worse idea of the country, than any other people who could be
produced. Day after day some of these personages made their appearance;
and Lady Dashfort took care to draw them out upon the subjects on which
she knew that they would show the most self-sufficient ignorance, and
the most illiberal spirit. This succeeded beyond her most sanguine
expectations. 'Lord Colambre! how I pity you, for being compelled to
these permanent sittings after dinner!' said Lady Isabel to him one
night, when he came late to the ladies from the dining-room. 'Lord
Killpatrick insisted upon my staying to help him to push about that
never-ending, still-beginning electioneering bottle,' said Lord
Colambre. 'Oh! if that were all; if these gentlemen would only
drink;—but their conversation! I don't wonder my mother dreads
returning to Clonbrony Castle, if my father must have such company as
this. But, surely, it cannot be necessary.

'Oh, indispensable! Positively indispensable!' cried Lady Dashfort; 'no
living in Ireland without it. You know, in every country in the world,
you must live with the people of the country, or be torn to pieces; for
my part, I should prefer being torn to pieces.'

Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel knew how to take advantage of the contrast
between their own conversation, and that of the persons by whom Lord
Colambre was so justly disgusted; they happily relieved his fatigue with
wit, satire, poetry, and sentiment; so that he every day became more
exclusively fond of their company; for Lady Killpatrick and the Miss
Killpatricks were mere commonplace people. In the mornings, he rode
or walked with Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel: Lady Dashfort, by way of
fulfilling her promise of showing him the people, used frequently to
take him into the cabins, and talk to their inhabitants. Lord and Lady
Killpatrick, who had lived always for the fashionable world, had taken
little pains to improve the condition of their tenants; the few attempts
they had made were injudicious. They had built ornamented, picturesque
cottages, within view of their demesne; and favourite followers of the
family, people with half a century's habit of indolence and dirt, were
PROMOTED to these fine dwellings. The consequences were such as Lady
Dashfort delighted to point out; everything let to go to ruin for the
want of a moment's care, or pulled to pieces for the sake of the most
trifling surreptitious profit; the people most assisted always appearing
proportionally wretched and discontented. No one could, with more ease
and more knowledge of her ground, than Lady Dashfort, do the DISHONOUR
of a country. In every cabin that she entered, by the first glance of
her eye at the head, kerchiefed in no comely guise, or by the drawn-down
corners of the mouth, or by the bit of a broken pipe, which in Ireland
never characterises STOUT LABOUR, or by the first sound of the
voice, the drawling accent on 'your honour,' or, 'my lady,' she could
distinguish the proper objects of her charitable designs, that is to
say, those of the old uneducated race, whom no one can help, because
they will never help themselves. To these she constantly addressed
herself, making them give, in all their despairing tones, a history
of their complaints and grievances; then asking them questions, aptly
contrived to expose their habits of self-contradiction, their servility
and flattery one moment, and their litigious and encroaching spirit
the next: thus giving Lord Colambre the most unfavourable idea of the
disposition and character of the lower class of the Irish people.