The Absentee Part 38

'I told you,' said Sir James, 'I should be in London almost as soon as you. Have you found old Reynolds!'

'Just come from him.'

'How does your business prosper! I hope as well as mine.'

A history of all that had pa.s.sed up to the present moment was given, and hearty congratulations received.

'Where are you going now, Sir James?--cannot you come with us?' said Lord Colambre and the count.

'Impossible,' replied Sir James;--'but, perhaps, you can come with me--I'm going to Gray's, to give some old family diamonds, either to be new set or exchanged. Count O'Halloran, I know you are a judge of these things; pray, come and give me your opinion.'

'Better consult your bride elect!' said the count.

'No; she knows little of the matter--and cares less,' replied Sir James.

'Not so this bride elect, or I mistake her much,' said the count, as they pa.s.sed by the window and saw Lady Isabel, who, with Lady Dashfort, had been holding consultation deep with the jeweller; and Heathc.o.c.k, playing PERSONNAGE MUET.

Lady Dashfort, who had always, as old Reynolds expressed it, 'her head upon her shoulders'--presence of mind where her interests were concerned--ran to the door before the count and Lord Colambre could enter, giving a hand to each--as if they had all parted the best friends in the world.

'How do? how do?--Give you joy! give me joy! and all that. But mind! not a word,' said she, laying her finger upon her lips--'not a word before Heathc.o.c.k of old Reynolds, or of the best part of the old fool,--his fortune!'

The gentlemen bowed, in sign of submission to her ladys.h.i.+p's commands; and comprehended that she feared Heathc.o.c.k might be OFF, if the best part of his bride (her fortune, or her EXPECTATIONS) were lowered in value or in prospect.

'How low is she reduced,' whispered Lord Colambre, 'when such a husband is thought a prize--and to be secured by a manoeuvre!' He sighed.

'Spare that generous sigh!' said Sir James Brooke; 'it is wasted.'

Lady Isabel, as they approached, turned from a mirror, at which she was trying on a diamond crescent. Her face clouded at sight of Count O'Halloran and Lord Colambre, and grew dark as hatred when she saw Sir James Brooke. She walked away to the farther end of the shop, and asked one of the shopmen the price of a diamond necklace which lay upon the counter.

The man said, 'He really did not know; it belonged to Lady Oranmore; it had just been new set for one of her ladys.h.i.+p's daughters, who is going to be married to Sir James Brooke--one of the gentlemen, my lady, who are just come in.'

Then, calling to his master, he asked him the price of the necklace; he named the value, which was considerable.

'I really thought Lady Oranmore and her daughters were vastly too philosophical to think of diamonds,' said Lady Isabel to her mother, with a sort of sentimental sneer in her voice and countenance. 'But it is some comfort to me to find, in these pattern-women, philosophy and love do not so wholly engross the heart, that they "feel every vanity in fondness lost."'

''Twould be difficult, in some cases,' thought many present.

''Pon honour, di'monds are cursed expensive things, I know!' said Heathc.o.c.k. 'But, be that as it may,' whispered he to the lady, though loud enough to be heard by others, 'I've laid a d.a.m.ned round wager, that no woman's diamonds married this winter, under a countess, in Lon'on, shall eclipse Lady Isabel Heathc.o.c.k's!--and Mr. Gray here's to be judge.'

Lady Isabel paid for this promise one of her sweetest smiles; with one of those smiles which she had formerly bestowed upon Lord Colambre, and which he had once fancied expressed so much sensibility--such discriminative and delicate application. Our hero felt so much contempt, that he never wasted another sigh of pity for her degradation. Lady Dashfort came up to him as he was standing alone; and, whilst the count and Sir James were settling about the diamonds--

'My Lord Colambre,' said she, in a low voice, 'I know your thoughts, and I could moralise as well as you, if I did not prefer laughing--you are right enough; and so am I, and so is Isabel; we are all right. For look here: women have not always the liberty of choice, and therefore they can't be expected to have always the power of refusal.'

The mother, satisfied with her convenient optimism, got into her carriage with her daughter, her daughter's diamonds, and her precious son-in-law, her daughter's companion for life.

'The more I see,' said Count O'Halloran to Lord Colambre, as they left the shop, 'the more I find reason to congratulate you upon your escape, my dear lord.'

'I owe it not to my own wit or wisdom,' said Lord Colambre; 'but much to love, and much to friends.h.i.+p,' added he, turning to Sir James Brooke; 'here was the friend who early warned me against the siren's voice; who, before I knew Lady Isabel, told me what I have since found to be true, that,

'Two pa.s.sions alternately govern her fate-- Her business is love, but her pleasure is hate.'

'That is dreadfully severe, Sir James,' said Count O'Halloran; 'but I am afraid it is just.'

'I am sure it is just, or I would not have said it,' replied Sir James Brooke. 'For the foibles of the s.e.x, I hope, I have as much indulgence as any man, and for the errors of pa.s.sion as much pity; but I cannot repress the indignation, the abhorrence I feel against women, cold and vain, who use their wit and their charms only to make others miserable.'

Lord Colambre recollected at this moment Lady Isabel's look and voice, when she declared that 'she would let her little finger be cut off to purchase the pleasure of inflicting on Lady de Cresey, for one hour, the torture of jealousy.'

'Perhaps,' continued Sir James Brooke, 'now that I am going to marry into an Irish family, I may feel, with peculiar energy, disapprobation of this mother and daughter on another account; but you, Lord Colambre, will do me the justice to recollect that, before I had any personal interest in the country, I expressed, as a general friend to Ireland, antipathy to those who return the hospitality they received from a warm-hearted people, by publicly setting the example of elegant sentimental hypocrisy, or daring disregard of decorum, by privately endeavouring to destroy the domestic peace of families, on which, at last, public as well as private virtue and happiness depend. I do rejoice, my dear Lord Colambre, to hear you say that I had any share in saving you from the siren; and now, I will never speak of these ladies more. I am sorry you cannot stay in town to see--but why should I be sorry--we shall meet again, I trust, and I shall introduce you; and you, I hope, will introduce me to a very different charmer. Farewell!--you have my warm good wishes wherever you go.'

Sir James turned off quickly to the street in which Lady Oranmore lived, and Lord Colambre had not time to tell him that he knew and admired his intended bride. Count O'Halloran promised to do this for him. 'And now,'

said the good count, 'I am to take leave of you; and I a.s.sure you I do it with so much reluctance that nothing less than positive engagements to stay in town would prevent me from setting off with you to-morrow; but I shall be soon, very soon, at liberty to return to Ireland; and Clonbrony Castle, if you will give me leave, I will see before I see Halloran Castle.'

Lord Colambre joyfully thanked his friend for this promise.

'Nay, it is to indulge myself. I long to see you happy--long to behold the choice of such a heart as yours. Pray do not steal a march upon me--let me know in time. I will leave everything--even the siege of--for your wedding. But I trust I shall be in time.'

'a.s.suredly you will, my dear count; if ever that wedding--'

'IF,' repeated the count.

'IF,' repeated Lord Colambre. 'Obstacles which, when we last parted, appeared to me invincible, prevented my having ever even attempted to make an impression on the heart of the woman I love; and if you knew her, count, as well as I do, you would know that her love could "not unsought be won."'

'Of that I cannot doubt, or she would not be your choice; but when her love is sought, we have every reason to hope,' said the count, smiling, 'that it may, because it ought to be won by tried honour and affection.

I only require to be left in hope.'

'Well, I leave you hope,' said Lord Colambre; 'Miss Nugent--Miss Reynolds, I should say, has been in the habit of considering a union with me as impossible; my mother early instilled this idea into her mind. Miss Nugent thought that duty forbad her to think of me; she told me so: I have seen it in all her conduct and manners. The barriers of habit, the ideas of duty, cannot, ought not, to be thrown down or suddenly changed in a well-regulated female mind. And you, I am sure, know enough of the best female hearts, to be aware that time--'

'Well, well, let this dear good charmer take her own time, provided there's none given to affectation, or prudery, or coquetry; and from all these, of course, she must be free; and of course I must be content.

ADIEU AU REVOIR.'

CHAPTER XVII

As Lord Colambre was returning home, he was overtaken by Sir Terence O'Fay.

'Well, my lord,' cried Sir Terence, out of breath, 'you have led me a pretty dance all over the town; here's a letter somewhere down in my safe pocket for you, which has cost me trouble enough. Phoo! where is it now?--it's from Miss Nugent,' said he, holding up the letter. The direction to Grosvenor Square, London, had been scratched out; and it had been re-directed by Sir Terence to the Lord Viscount Colambre, at Sir James Brooke's, Bart., Brookwood, Huntingdons.h.i.+re, or elsewhere, with speed. 'But the more haste the worse speed; for away it went to Brookwood, Huntingdons.h.i.+re, where I knew, if anywhere, you was to be found; but, as fate and the post would have it, there the letter went coursing after you, while you were running round, and back and forwards, and everywhere, I understand, to Toddrington and Wrestham, and where not, through all them English places, where there's no cross-post; so I took it for granted that it found its way to the dead-letter office, or was sticking up across a pane in the d--d postmaster's window at Huntingdon, for the whole town to see, and it a love-letter, and some puppy to claim it, under false pretence; and you all the time without it, and it might breed a coolness betwixt you and Miss Nugent.'

'But, my dear Sir Terence, give me the letter now you have me.'

'Oh, my dear lord, if you knew what a race I have had, missing you here by five minutes, and there by five seconds--but I have you at last, and you have it--and I'm paid this minute for all I liquidated of my substance, by the pleasure I have in seeing you crack the seal and read it. But take care you don't tumble over the orange woman--orange barrows are a great nuisance, when one's studying a letter in the streets of London, or the metropolis. But never heed; stick to my arm, and I'll guide you, like a blind man, safe through the thick of them.'

Miss Nugent's letter, which Lord Colambre read in spite of the jostling of pa.s.sengers, and the incessant talking of Sir Terence, was as follows:--

Let me not be the cause of banis.h.i.+ng you from your home and your country, where you would do so much good, and make so many happy. Let me not be the cause of your breaking your promise to your mother; of your disappointing my dear aunt, so cruelly, who has complied with all our wishes, and who sacrifices, to oblige us, her favourite tastes. How could she ever be happy in Ireland--how could Clonbrony Castle be a home to her, without her son? if you take away all she had of amus.e.m.e.nt and PLEASURE, as it is called, are not you bound to give her, in their stead, that domestic happiness, which she can enjoy only with you, and by your means? If, instead of living with her, you go into the army, she will be in daily, nightly anxiety and alarm about you; and her son will, instead of being a comfort, be a source of torment to her.

I will hope that you will do now, as you have always. .h.i.therto done, on every occasion where I have seen you act, what is right, and just, and kind. Come here on the day you promised my aunt you would; before that time I shall be in Cambridges.h.i.+re, with my friend Lady Berryl; she is so good as to come to Buxton for me--I shall remain with her, instead of returning to Ireland. I have explained my reasons to my dear aunt--Could I have any concealment from her, to whom, from my earliest childhood, I owe everything that kindness and affection could give? She is satisfied--she consents to my living henceforward with Lady Berryl. Let me have the pleasure of seeing, by your conduct, that you approve of mine.--Your affectionate cousin and friend, GRACE NUGENT.