Charles Lever - Sir Jasper Carew - His Life and Experience

“The Grinder, of course, thought that he had seen the last of you,” said my father, laughing.

“He as much as said so to me when I came back. He even went further,” said Dan, reddening with anger as he spoke: “he proposed to me to go abroad and travel, and that he would pay the cost. But he ‘ll scarcely repeat the insolence.”

“Why, what has come over you all here? I scarcely know you for what I left you some short time back. Dan Mac-Naghten taking to scruples, and Tony Fagan to generosity, seem, indeed, too much for common credulity! And now as to politics, Dan! What are our friends doing? for I own to you I have not opened one of Bagwell’s letters since I left Paris.”

“You ‘re just as wise as if you had. Tom has got into all that Rotundo cant about the ‘Convention,’ and the ‘Town Council,’ and the ‘Sub-Committee of Nine,’ so that you’d not make anything out of the correspondence. I believe the truth is, that the Bishop is mad, and they who follow him are fools. The Government at first thought of buying them over; but they now perceive it’s a cheaper and safer expedient to leave them to themselves and their own-indiscretions. But I detest the subject; and as we ‘ll have nothing else talked of to-day at dinner, I’ll cry truce till then. Let us have a look at the stable, Watty. I want to talk to you about the ‘nags.’” And so saying, MacNaghten arose from table, and, taking my father’s arm, led him away into the garden.

It was not the custom of the day for the lady of the house to present herself at dinner when the party consisted solely of men, so that my mother’s absence from table appeared nothing remarkable. To her, however, it did seem somewhat singular that, although she descended to the drawing-room in all the charming elegance of a most becoming costume, not one of the guests presented himself to pay his respects, or, as she would have said, his dutiful homage. It is possible that my father had forgotten to apprise her that the company of a dinner-party were not usually in that temperate and discreet frame of mind which would make their appearance in a drawing-room desirable. In his various lessons, it is more than likely that this escaped him; and I believe I am not far wrong in wishing that many other of his instructions had shared the same fate. The fact was, that in preparing my mother for the duties and requirements of a novel state of society, he had given her such false and exaggerated notions of the country and the people, she had imbibed a hundred absurd prejudices about them which, had she been left to her own unguided good sense and tact, she would have totally escaped; and while, as he thought, he was storing her mind with a thorough knowledge of Ireland, he was simply presenting her with a terrifying picture of such inconsistency, incongruity, and wrongheadedness that no cleverness on her part could ever succeed in combating.

It is perfectly true that the courtly deference and polished reserve of old French manners, its thousand observances, and its unfailing devotion to ladies, were not the striking features of Irish country-house life; but there was a great deal in common between them, and perhaps no country of Europe in that day could so easily, and with such little sacrifice, have conformed to the French standard of good-breeding as Ireland; and I have little doubt that if left to herself, my mother would have soon discovered the points of contact, without even troubling her head or puzzling her ingenuity over their discrepancies. However that may be, there she sat, in all the attractive beauty of full dress, alone and in silence, save when the door of the distant dinner-room opening bore to her ears the wild and vociferous merriment of a party excited by wine and conviviality.

I know not, I can but fancy, what thoughts of her own dear land were hers at that moment, what memory of delicious evenings spent amidst alleys of orange and lime trees, the rippling fountain mingling its sounds with the more entrancing music of flattery; what visions rose before her of scenes endeared from infancy, of objects that recalled that soft, luxurious dalliance which makes of life a dream. I can but imagine that of this kind were her reveries, as she sat in solitude, or slowly paced up and down the immense room which, but partially lighted up, looked even larger than it was. To cut off every clew to her family, my father had sent back from England the maid who accompanied her, and taken in her place one who knew nothing of my mother’s birth or connections, so that she had not even the solace of so much confidential intercourse, and was utterly, completely alone. While in Wales she had been my father’s companion for the entire day, accompanying him when he walked or rode, and beside him on the river’s bank as he fished; scarcely had they arrived in Ireland, however, when the whole course of life was changed. The various duties of his station took up much of his time, he was frequently occupied all the day, and they met but rarely; hence had she adopted those old habits of her native country, – that self-indulgent system which surrounds itself with few cares, fewer duties, and, alas! no resources.

So fearful was my father that she might take a dislike to the country from the first impressions produced upon her by new acquaintances that he actually avoided every one of his neighbors, hesitating where or with whom to seek companionship for his wife: some were too old, some too vulgar, some were linked with an objectionable “set,” some were of the opposite side in politics. His fastidiousness increased with every day; and while he was assuring her that there was a delightful circle into which she would be received, he was gradually offending every one of his old neighbors and associates. Of the great heap of cards which covered her table, she had not yet seen one of the owners, and already a hundred versions were circulated to account for the seclusion in which she lived.

I have been obliged to burden my reader with these explanations, for whose especial enlightenment they are intended, for I desire that he should have as clear an idea of the circumstances which attended my mother’s position as I am able to convey, and without which he would be probably unjust in his estimate of her character. In all likelihood there is not any one less adapted to solitude than a young, very handsome, and much-flattered Frenchwoman. Neither her education nor her tastes fit her for it; and the very qualities which secure her success in society are precisely those which most contribute to melancholy when alone; wit and brilliancy when isolated from the world being like the gold and silver money which the shipwrecked sailor would willingly have bartered for the commonest and vilest articles of simple utility.

Let the reader, then, bearing all this in his mind, picture to himself my mother, who, as the night wore on, became more and more impatient, starting at every noise, and watching the door, which she momentarily expected to see open.

During all this time, the company of the dinner-room were in the fullest enjoyment of their conviviality, – and let me add, too, of that species of conviviality for which the Ireland of that day was celebrated. It is unhappily too true: those habits of dissipation prevailed to such an extent that a dinner-party meant an orgie; but it is only fair to remember that it was not a mere festival of debauch, but that native cleverness and wit, the able conversationalist, the brilliant talker, and the lively narrator had no small share in the intoxication of the hour. There was a kind of barbaric grandeur in the Irish country gentleman of the time – with his splendid retinue, his observance of the point of honor, his contempt of law, and his generous hospitality – that made him a very picturesque, if not a very profitable, feature of his native country. The exact period to which I refer was remarkable in this respect: the divisions of politics had risen to all the dignity of a great national question, and the rights of Ireland were then on trial.