Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 41

CHAPTER XV.

Vain of showing that he was not in the slightest degree jealous, Connal talked to Ormond in the freest manner imaginable, touching with indifference even on the very subject which Ormond, from feelings of delicacy and honour, had anxiously avoided. Connal seemed to be perfectly aware how matters had stood before his arrival between Dora and our young hero. "It was all very well," he said, "quite natural--in the common course of things--impossible it should have been otherwise. A young woman, who saw no one else, must inevitably fall in love with the first agreeable young man who made love to her, or who did not make love to her--it was quite equal to him which. He had heard wonders from his father-in-law elect on that last topic, and he was willing to oblige him, or any other gentleman or lady, by believing miracles."

Ormond, extremely embarra.s.sed by the want of delicacy and feeling with which this polished c.o.xcomb spoke, had, however, sufficient presence of mind to avoid, either by word or look, making any particular application of what was said.

"You have really prodigious presence of mind, and _discretion_, and _tact_, for a young man who has, I presume, had so little practice in these affairs," said Connal; "but don't constrain yourself longer. I speak frankly to take off all embarra.s.sment on your part--you see there exists none on mine--never, for a moment: no, how can it possibly signify," continued he, "to any man of common sense, who, or what a woman liked before she saw him? You don't think a man, who has seen any thing of the world, would trouble himself to inquire whether he was, or was not, the first love of the woman he is going to marry. To _marry_--observe the emphasis--distinguish--distinguish, and seriously let us calculate."

Ormond gave no interruption to his calculations, and the pet.i.t-maitre, in a tone of philosophic fatuity, asked, "Of the numbers of your English or Irish wives--all excellent--how many, I pray you, do you calculate are now married to the man they first, _fell in love with_, as they call it? My good sir, not five per cent., depend on it. The thing is morally impossible, unless girls are married out of a convent, as with us in France, and very difficult even then; and after all, what are the French husbands the better for it? I understand English husbands think themselves best off. I don't pretend to judge; but they seem to prefer what they call domestic happiness to the French _esprit de societe_.

Still, this may be prejudice of education--of country: each nation has its taste. Every thing is for the best in this world, for people who know how to make the best of it. You would not think, to look at me, I was so philosophic: but even in the midst of my military career I have thought--thought profoundly. Every body in France _thinks_ now," said M.

de Connal, taking a pinch of snuff with a very pensive air.

"_Every body_ in France _thinks_ now!" repeated Ormond.

"Every man of a certain rank, that is to say."

"That is to say, of your rank," said Ormond.

"Nay, I don't give myself as an example; but--you may judge--I own I am surprised to find myself philosophizing here in the Black Islands--but one philosophizes every where." "And you would have more time for it here, I should suppose, than in Paris?"

"Time, my dear sir--no such thing! Time is merely in idea; but _Tais-toi Jean Jacques! Tais-toi Condillac!_ To resume the chain of our reasoning--love and marriage--I say it all comes to much the same thing in France and in these countries--after all. There is more gallantry, perhaps, before marriage in England, more after marriage in France--which has the better bargain? I don't pretend to decide.

Philosophic doubt for me, especially in cases where 'tis not worth while to determine; but I see I astonish you, Mr. Ormond."

"You do, indeed," said Ormond, ingenuously.

"I give you joy--I envy you," said M. de Connal, sighing.

"After a certain age, if one lives in the world, one can't be astonished--that's a lost pleasure."

"To me who have lived out of the world it is a pleasure, or rather a sensation--I am not sure whether I should call it a pleasure--that is not likely to be soon exhausted," said Ormond. "A sensation! and you are not sure whether you should call it a pleasure. Do you know you've a genius for metaphysics?"

"I!" exclaimed Ormond.

"Ah! now I have astonished you again. Good! whether pleasurable or not, trust me, nothing is so improving to a young man as to be well astonished. Astonishment I conceive to be a sort of mental electric shock--electric fire; it opens at once and enlightens the understanding: and really you have an understanding so well worth enlightening--I do a.s.sure you, that your natural acuteness will, whenever and wherever you appear, make you _un homme marquant."_

"Oh! spare me, Mr. Connal," said Ormond. "I am not used to French compliment."

"No, upon my honour, without compliment, in all English _bonhommie_,"

(laying his hand upon his heart)--"upon the honour of a gentleman, your remarks have sometimes perfectly astonished me."

"Really!" said Ormond; "but I thought you had lived so much in the world, you could not be astonished."

"I thought so, I own," said Connal; "but it was reserved for M. Ormond to convince me of my mistake, to revive an old pleasure--more difficult still than to invent a new one! In recompense I hope I give you some new ideas--just throw out opinions for you. Accept--reject--reject now--accept an hour, a year hence, perhaps--just as it strikes--merely materials for thinking, I give you."

"Thank you," said Ormond; "and be a.s.sured they are not lost upon me. You have given me a great deal to think of seriously."

"_Seriously_!--no; that's your fault, your national fault. Permit me: what you want chiefly in conversation--in every thing, is a certain degree of--of--you have no English word--_lightness_."

"_Legerete_, perhaps you mean," said Ormond.

"Precisely. I forgot you understood French so well.

_Legerete_--untranslatable!--You seize my idea."

He left Ormond, as he fancied, in admiration of the man who, in his own opinion, possessed the whole theory and practice of the art of pleasing, and the science of happiness.

M. de Connal's conversation and example might have produced a great effect on the mind of a youth of Ormond's strong pa.s.sions, lively imagination, and total ignorance of the world, if he had met this brilliant officer in different society. Had he seen Connal only as a man s.h.i.+ning in company, or considered him merely as a companion, he must have been dazzled by his fas.h.i.+on, charmed by his gaiety, and _imposed_ upon by his decisive tone.

Had such a vision lighted on the Black Islands, and appeared to our hero suddenly, in any other circ.u.mstances but those in which it did appear, it might have struck and overawed him; and without inquiring "whether from heaven or h.e.l.l," he might have followed wherever it led or pointed the way. But in the form of a triumphant rival--without delicacy, without feeling, neither deserving nor loving the woman he had won--not likely to make Dora happy--almost certain to make her father miserable--there was no danger that Black Connal could ever obtain any ascendancy over Ormond; on the contrary, Connal was useful in forming our hero's character. The electric shock of astonishment did operate in a salutary manner in opening Harry's understanding: the materials for thinking were not thrown away: he _did_ think--even in the Black Islands; and in judging of Connal's character, he made continual progress in forming his own: he had motive for exercising his judgment--he was anxious to study the man's character on Dora's account.

Seeing his unpolished friend, old Corny, and this finished young man of the world, in daily contrast, Ormond had occasion to compare the real and the fact.i.tious, both in matter and manner: he distinguished, and felt often acutely, the difference between that politeness of the heart, which respects and sympathizes with the feelings of others, and that conventional politeness, which is shown merely to gratify the vanity of him by whom it is displayed. In the same way he soon discriminated, in conversation, between Corny's power of original thinking, and M.

de Connal's knack of throwing old thoughts into new words; between the power of answering an argument, and the art of evading it by a repartee.

But it was chiefly in comparing different ideas of happiness and modes of life, that our young hero's mind was enlarged by Connal's conversation--whilst the comparison he secretly made between this polished gentleman's principles and his own, was always more satisfactory to his pride of virtue, than Connal's vanity could have conceived to be possible.

One day some conversation pa.s.sed between Connal and _his father-in-law elect_, as he now always called him, upon his future plans of life.

Good Corny said he did not know how to hope that, during the few years he had to live, Connal would not think of taking his daughter from him to Paris, as, from some words that had dropped from Mademoiselle, he had reason to fear.

"No," Connal said, "he had formed no such cruel intention: the Irish half of Mademoiselle must have blundered on this occasion. He would do his utmost, if he could with honour, to retire from the service; unless the service imperiously called him away, he should settle in Ireland: he should make it a point even, independently of his duty to his own father, not to take Miss O'Shane from her country and her friends."

The father, open-hearted and generous himself, was fond to believe what he wished: and confiding in these promises, the old man forgave all that he did not otherwise approve of in his future son-in-law, and thanked him almost with tears in his eyes; still repeating, as his natural penetration remonstrated against his credulity, "But I could hardly have believed this from such a young man as you, Captain Connal. Indeed, how you could ever bring yourself to think of settling in retirement is wonderful to me; but love does mighty things, brings about great changes."

French commonplaces of sentiment upon love, and compliments on Dora's charms and his own sensibility, were poured out by Connal, and the father left the room satisfied.

Connal then, throwing himself back in his chair, burst out a laughing, and turning to Ormond, the only person in the room, said, "Could you have conceived this?"

"Conceived what, sir?" said Ormond.

"Conceived this King Corny's capacity for belief? What!--believe that I will settle in his Black Islands!--I!--As well believe me to be half marble, half man, like _the unfortunate_ in the Black Islands of the Arabian Tales. Settle in the Black Islands!--No: could you conceive a man on earth could be found so simple as to credit such a thing?"

"Here is another man on earth who was simple enough to believe it," said Ormond, "and to give you credit for it."

"You!" cried Connal--"That's too much!--Impossible!"

"But when you said it--when I heard you promise it to Mr. O'Shane--"

"Oh, mercy!--Don't kill me with laughing!" said he, laughing affectedly: "Oh! that face of yours--there is no standing it. You heard me _promise_--and the accent on _promise_. Why, even women, now-a-days, don't lay such an emphasis on _a promise_."

"That, I suppose, depends on who gives it." said Ormond.

"Rather on who receives it," said Connal: "but look here, you who understand the doctrine of promises, tell me what a poor conscientious man must do who has two pulling him different ways?"

"A conscientious man cannot have given two diametrically opposite promises."

"_Diametrically_!--Thank you for that word--it just saves my lost conscience. Commend me always to an epithet in the last resource for giving one lat.i.tude of conscience in these nice cases--I have not given two diametrically opposite--no, I have only given four that cross one another. One to your King Corny; another to my angel, Dora; another to the dear aunt; and a fourth to my dearer self. First promise to King Corny, to settle in the Black Islands; a gratuitous promise, signifying nothing--read Burlamaqui: second promise to Mademoiselle, to go and live with her at Paris; with _her_--on the face of it absurd! a promise extorted too under fear of my life, of immediate peril of being talked to death--see Vatel on extorted promises--void: third promise to my angel, Dora, to live wherever she pleases; but that's a lover's promise, made to be broken--see Love's Calendar, or, if you prefer the bookmen's authority, I don't doubt that, under the head of promises made when a man is not in his right senses, some of those learned fellows in wigs would bring me off _sain et sauf_: but now for my fourth promise--I am a man of honour--when I make a promise intending to keep it, no man so scrupulous; all promises made to myself come under this head; and I have promised myself to live, and make my wife live, wherever I please, or not to live with her at all. This promise I shall bold sacred. Oblige me with a smile, Mr. Ormond--a smile of approbation."

"Excuse me, Mr. Connal, that is impossible--I am sincere."

"So am I, and sincerely you are too romantic. See things as they are, as a man of the world, I beseech you."