The Absentee (20 page)

Lord Colambre had waited with great impatience for an answer to the
letter of inquiry which he had written about Miss Nugent's mother.
A letter from Lady Clonbrony arrived; he opened it with the greatest
eagerness—passed over 'Rheumatism warm weather—warm bath—Buxton
balls—Miss Broadhurst—your FRIEND, Sir Arthur Berryl, very assiduous!'
The name of Grace Nugent he found at last, and read as follows:

Her mother's maiden name was ST. OMAR; and there was a FAUX PAS,
certainly. She was, I am told (for it was before my time), educated at a
convent abroad; and there was an affair with a Captain Reynolds, a
young officer, which her friends were obliged to hush up. She brought an
infant to England with her, and took the name of Reynolds—but none of
that family would acknowledge her; and she lived in great obscurity,
till your uncle Nugent saw, fell in love with her, and (knowing her
whole history) married her. He adopted the child, gave her his name,
and, after some years, the whole story was forgotten. Nothing could
be more disadvantageous to Grace than to have it revived: this is the
reason we kept it secret.

Lord Colambre tore the letter to bits.

From the perturbation which Lady Dashfort saw in his countenance, she
guessed the nature of the letter which he had been reading, and for the
arrival of which he had been so impatient.

'It has worked!' said she to herself. 'POUR LE COUP PHILIPPE JE TE
TIENS!'

Lord Colambre appeared this day more sensible, than he had ever yet
seemed, to the charms of the fair Isabel.

'Many a tennis-ball, and many a heart is caught at the rebound,' said
Lady Dashfort. 'Isabel! now is your time!'

And so it was—or so, perhaps, it would have been, but for a
circumstance which her ladyship, with all her genius for intrigue, had
never taken into her consideration. Count O'Halloran came to return the
visit which had been paid to him; and, in the course of conversation,
he spoke of the officers who had been introduced to him, and told Lady
Dashfort that he had heard a report which shocked him much—he hoped
it could not be true—that one of these officers had introduced his
mistress as his wife to Lady Oranmore, who lived in the neighbourhood.
This officer, it was said, had let Lady Oranmore send her carriage for
this woman; and that she had dined at Oranmore with her ladyship and her
daughters.
(Fact.)
'But I cannot believe it! I cannot believe it to be
possible, that any gentleman, that any officer, could do such a thing!'
said the count.

'And is this all?' exclaimed Lady Dashfort. 'Is this all the terrible
affair, my good count, which has brought your face to this prodigious
length?'

The count looked at Lady Dashfort with astonishment.

'Such a look of virtuous indignation,' continued she, 'did I never
behold, on or off the stage. Forgive me for laughing, count; but,
believe me, comedy goes through the world better than tragedy, and, take
it all in all, does rather less mischief. As to the thing in question, I
know nothing about it: I dare say, it is not true; but, now, suppose it
was—it is only a silly QUIZ, of a raw young officer, upon a prudish
old dowager. I know nothing about it, for my part; but, after all, what
irreparable mischief has been done? Laugh at the thing, and then it is
a jest—a bad one, perhaps, but still only a jest—and there's an end
of it; but take it seriously, and there is no knowing where it might
end—in half a dozen duels, maybe.'

'Of that, madam,' said the count, 'Lady Oranmore's prudence and presence
of mind have prevented all danger. Her ladyship WOULD not understand the
insult. She said, or she acted as if she said, "JE NE VEUX RIEN
VOIR, RIEN ECOUTER, RIEN SAVOIR." Lady Oranmore is one of the most
respectable—'

'Count, I beg your pardon!' interrupted Lady Dashfort; 'but I must tell
you that your favourite, Lady Oranmore, has behaved very ill to me;
purposely omitted to invite Isabel to her ball; offended and insulted
me:—her praises, therefore, cannot be the most agreeable subject of
conversation you can choose for my amusement; and as to the rest, you,
who have such variety and so much politeness, will, I am sure, have the
goodness to indulge my caprice in this instance.'

I shall obey your ladyship, and be silent, whatever pleasure it might
give me to speak on that subject,' said the count; 'and I trust Lady
Dashfort will reward me by the assurance that, however playfully she may
have just now spoken, she seriously disapproves and is shocked.'

'Oh, shocked! shocked to death! if that will satisfy you, my dear
count.'

The count, obviously, was not satisfied; he had civil, as well as
military courage, and his sense of right and wrong could stand against
the raillery and ridicule of a fine lady.

The conversation ended: Lady Dashfort thought it would have no further
consequences; and she did not regret the loss of a man like Count
O'Halloran, who lived retired in his castle, and who could not have
any influence upon the opinion of the fashionable world. However,
upon turning from the count to Lord Colambre, who she thought had been
occupied with Lady Isabel, and to whom she imagined all this dispute was
uninteresting, she perceived, by his countenance, that she had made a
great mistake. Still she trusted that her power over Lord Colambre
was sufficient easily to efface whatever unfavourable impression this
conversation had made upon his mind. He had no personal interest in the
affair; and she had generally found that people are easily satisfied
about any wrong or insult, public or private, in which they have no
immediate concern. But all the charms of her conversation were now tried
in vain to reclaim him from the reverie into which he had fallen.

His friend Sir James Brooke's parting advice occurred to our hero; his
eyes began to open to Lady Dashfort's character; and he was, from this
moment, freed from her power. Lady Isabel, however, had taken no part
in all this—she was blameless; and, independently of her mother, and
in pretended opposition of sentiment, she might have continued to retain
the influence she had gained over Lord Colambre, but that a slight
accident revealed to him her real disposition.

It happened, on the evening of this day, that Lady Isabel came into the
library with one of the young ladies of the house, talking very eagerly,
without perceiving Lord Colambre, who was sitting in one of the recesses
reading.

'My dear creature, you are quite mistaken,' said Lady Isabel, 'he was
never a favourite of mine; I always detested him; I only flirted with
him to plague his wife. Oh that wife, my dear Elizabeth, I do hate!'
cried she, clasping her hands, and expressing hatred with all her soul
and with all her strength. 'I detest that Lady de Cresey to such a
degree, that, to purchase the pleasure of making her feel the pangs of
jealousy for one hour, look, I would this moment lay down this finger
and let it be cut off.'

The face, the whole figure of Lady Isabel at this moment appeared to
Lord Colambre suddenly metamorphosed; instead of the soft, gentle,
amiable female, all sweet charity and tender sympathy, formed to love
and to be loved, he beheld one possessed and convulsed by an evil
spirit—her beauty, if beauty it could be called, the beauty of a fiend.
Some ejaculation, which he unconsciously uttered, made Lady Isabel
start. She saw him—saw the expression of his countenance, and knew that
all was over.

Lord Colambre, to the utter astonishment and disappointment of Lady
Dashfort, and to the still greater mortification of Lady Isabel,
announced this night that it was necessary he should immediately pursue
his tour in Ireland. We pass over all the castles in the air which the
young ladies of the family had built, and which now fell to the ground.
We pass all the civil speeches of Lord and Lady Killpatrick; all the
vehement remonstrances of Lady Dashfort; and the vain sighs of Lady
Isabel, To the last moment Lady Dashfort said—

'He will not go.'

But he went; and, when he was gone, Lady Dashfort exclaimed, 'That man
has escaped from me.' And after a pause, turning to her daughter, she,
in the most taunting and contemptuous terms, reproached her as the cause
of this failure, concluding by a declaration that she must in future
manage her own affairs, and had best settle her mind to marry Heathcock,
since every one else was too wise to think of her.

Lady Isabel of course retorted. But we leave this amiable mother and
daughter to recriminate in appropriate terms, and we follow our hero,
rejoiced that he has been disentangled from their snares. Those who
have never been in similar peril will wonder much that he did not escape
sooner; those who have ever been in like danger will wonder more that
he escaped at all. Those who are best acquainted with the heart or
imagination of man will be most ready to acknowledge that the combined
charms of wit, beauty, and flattery, may, for a time, suspend the action
of right reason in the mind of the greatest philosopher, or operate
against the resolutions of the greatest of heroes.

Lord Colambre pursued his way to Castle Halloran, desirous, before he
quitted this part of the country, to take leave of the count, who had
shown him much civility, and for whose honourable conduct, and generous
character, he had conceived a high esteem, which no little peculiarities
of antiquated dress or manner could diminish. Indeed, the old-fashioned
politeness of what was formerly called a well-bred gentleman pleased him
better than the indolent or insolent selfishness of modern men of the
ton. Perhaps, notwithstanding our hero's determination to turn his mind
from everything connected with the idea of Miss Nugent, some latent
curiosity about the burial-place of the Nugents might have operated to
make him call upon the count. In this hope he was disappointed; for a
cross miller to whom the abbey-ground was set, on which the burial-place
was found, had taken it into his head to refuse admittance, and none
could enter his ground.

Count O'Halloran was much pleased by Lord Colambre's visit. The very day
of Lord Colambre's arrival at Halloran Castle, the count was going to
Oranmore; he was dressed, and his carriage was waiting; therefore Lord
Colambre begged that he might not detain him, and the count requested
his lordship to accompany him.

'Let me have the honour of introducing you, my lord, to a family,
with whom, I am persuaded, you will be pleased; by whom you will be
appreciated; and at whose house you will have an opportunity of seeing
the best manner of living of the Irish nobility.' Lord Colambre accepted
the invitation, and was introduced at Oranmore. The dignified appearance
and respectable character of Lady Oranmore; the charming unaffected
manners of her daughters; the air of domestic happiness and comfort in
her family; the becoming magnificence, free from ostentation, in her
whole establishment; the respect and affection with which she was
treated by all who approached her, delighted and touched Lord Colambre;
the more, perhaps, because he had heard this family so unjustly abused;
and because he saw Lady Oranmore and her daughter, in immediate contrast
to Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel.'

A little circumstance which occurred during this visit increased his
interest for the family, When Lady de Cresey's little boys came in after
dinner, one of them was playing with a seal, which had just been torn
from a letter. The child showed it to Lord Colambre, and asked him to
read the motto. The motto was,'Deeds, not words'—his friend Sir James
Brooke's motto, and his arms. Lord Colambre eagerly inquired if this
family was acquainted with Sir James, and he soon perceived that they
were not only acquainted with him, but that they were particularly
interested about him.

Lady Oranmore's second daughter, Lady Harriet, appeared particularly
pleased by the manner in which Lord Colambre spoke of Sir James. And the
child, who had now established himself on his lordship's knee, turned
round, and whispered in his ear, "Twas Aunt Harriet gave me the seal;
Sir James is to be married to Aunt Harriet, and then he will be my
uncle.'

Some of the principal gentry of this part of the country happened
to dine at Oranmore one of the days Lord Colambre was there. He
was surprised at the discovery, that there were so many agreeable,
well-informed, and well-bred people, of whom, while he was at
Killpatrickstown, he had seen nothing. He now discerned how far he had
been deceived by Lady Dashfort.

Both the count, and Lord and Lady Oranmore, who were warmly attached to
their country, exhorted him to make himself amends for the time he
had lost, by seeing with his own eyes, and judging with his own
understanding, of the country and its own inhabitants, during the
remainder of the time he was to stay in Ireland. The higher classes, in
most countries, they observed were generally similar; but, in the lower
class, he would find many characteristic differences.

When he first came to Ireland, he had been very eager to go and see
his father's estate, and to judge of the conduct of his agents, and
the condition of his tenantry; but this eagerness had subsided, and the
design had almost faded from his mind, whilst under the influence
of Lady Dashfort's misrepresentations. A mistake, relative to some
remittance from his banker in Dublin, obliged him to delay his journey
a few days, and during that time Lord and Lady Oranmore showed him the
neat cottages, the well-attended schools, in their neighbourhood. They
showed him not only what could be done, but what had been done, by
the influence of great proprietors residing on their own estates, and
encouraging the people by judicious kindness.

He saw, he acknowledged the truth of this; but it did not come home to
his feelings now as it would have done a little while ago. His views
and plans were altered; he looked forward to the idea of marrying and
settling in Ireland, and then everything in the country was interesting
to him; but since he had forbidden himself to think of a union with
Miss Nugent, his mind had lost its object and its spring; he was
not sufficiently calm to think of the public good; his thoughts were
absorbed by his private concern. He knew, and repeated to himself,
that he ought to visit his own and his father's estates, and to see the
condition of his tenantry; he desired to fulfil his duties, but they
ceased to appear to him easy and pleasurable, for hope and love no
longer brightened his prospects.