I find I have already filled up many scores of pages, and yet a vast
deal of the most interesting portion of my history remains to be told,
viz. that which describes my sojourn in the kingdoms of England and
Ireland, and the great part I played there; moving among the most
illustrious of the land, myself not the least distinguished of the
brilliant circle. In order to give due justice to this portion of my
Memoirs, then,--which is more important than my foreign adventures can
be (though I could fill volumes with interesting descriptions of the
latter),--I shall cut short the account of my travels in Europe, and of
my success at the Continental Courts, in order to speak of what befell
me at home. Suffice it to say that there is not a capital in Europe,
except the beggarly one of Berlin, where the young Chevalier de Balibari
was not known and admired; and where he has not made the brave, the
high-born, and the beautiful talk of him. I won 80,000 roubles from
Potemkin at the Winter Palace at Petersburg, which the scoundrelly
favourite never paid me; I have had the honour of seeing his Royal
Highness the Chevalier Charles Edward as drunk as any porter at Rome;
my uncle played several matches at billiards against the celebrated Lord
C----at Spa, and I promise you did not come off a loser. In fact, by a
neat stratagem of ours, we raised the laugh against his Lordship, and
something a great deal more substantial. My Lord did not know that the
Chevalier Barry had a useless eye; and when, one day, my uncle playfully
bet him odds at billiards that he would play him with a patch over
one eye, the noble lord, thinking to bite us (he was one of the most
desperate gamblers that ever lived), accepted the bet, and we won a very
considerable amount of him.
Nor need I mention my successes among the fairer portion of the
creation. One of the most accomplished, the tallest, the most athletic,
and the handsomest gentlemen of Europe, as I was then, a young fellow
of my figure could not fail of having advantages, which a person of my
spirit knew very well how to use. But upon these subjects I am dumb.
Charming Schuvaloff, black-eyed Sczotarska, dark Valdez, tender
Hegenheim, brilliant Langeac!--ye gentle hearts that knew how to beat in
old times for the warm young Irish gentleman, where are you now? Though
my hair has grown grey now, and my sight dim, and my heart cold with
years, and ennui, and disappointment, and the treachery of friends,
yet I have but to lean back in my arm-chair and think, and those sweet
figures come rising up before me out of the past, with their smiles, and
their kindnesses, and their bright tender eyes! There are no women like
them now--no manners like theirs! Look you at a bevy of women at the
Prince’s, stitched up in tight white satin sacks, with their waists
under their arms, and compare them to the graceful figures of the old
time! Why, when I danced with Coralie de Langeac at the fetes on the
birth of the first Dauphin at Versailles, her hoop was eighteen feet
in circumference, and the heels of her lovely little mules were three
inches from the ground; the lace of my jabot was worth a thousand
crowns, and the buttons of my amaranth velvet coat alone cost eighty
thousand livres. Look at the difference now! The gentlemen are dressed
like boxers, Quakers, or hackney-coachmen; and the ladies are not
dressed at all. There is no elegance, no refinement; none of the
chivalry of the old world, of which I form a portion. Think of the
fashion of London being led by a Br-mm-l! [Footnote: This manuscript
must have been written at the time when Mr. Brummel was the leader of
the London fashion.] a nobody’s son: a low creature, who can no more
dance a minuet than I can talk Cherokee; who cannot even crack a bottle
like a gentleman; who never showed himself to be a man with his sword in
his hand: as we used to approve ourselves in the good old times, before
that vulgar Corsican upset the gentry of the world! Oh, to see the
Valdez once again, as on that day I met her first driving in state,
with her eight mules and her retinue of gentlemen, by the side of yellow
Mancanares! Oh, for another drive with Hegenheim, in the gilded sledge,
over the Saxon snow! False as Schuvaloff was, ‘twas better to be jilted
by her than to be adored by any other woman. I can’t think of any one
of them without tenderness. I have ringlets of all their hair in my poor
little museum of recollections. Do you keep mine, you dear souls that
survive the turmoils and troubles of near half a hundred years? How
changed its colour is now, since the day Sczotarska wore it round her
neck, after my duel with Count Bjernaski, at Warsaw.
I never kept any beggarly books of accounts in those days. I had no
debts. I paid royally for everything I took; and I took everything
I wanted. My income must have been very large. My entertainments and
equipages were those of a gentleman of the highest distinction; nor let
any scoundrel presume to sneer because I carried off and married my Lady
Lyndon (as you shall presently hear), and call me an adventurer, or say
I was penniless, or the match unequal. Penniless! I had the wealth
of Europe at my command. Adventurer! So is a meritorious lawyer or
a gallant soldier; so is every man who makes his own fortune an
adventurer. My profession was play: in which I was then unrivalled. No
man could play with me through Europe, on the square; and my income was
just as certain (during health and the exercise of my profession) as
that of a man who draws on his Three-per-cents., or any fat squire whose
acres bring him revenue. Harvest is not more certain than the effect of
skill is: a crop is a chance, as much as a game of cards greatly played
by a fine player: there may be a drought, or a frost, or a hail-storm,
and your stake is lost; but one man is just as much an adventurer as
another.
In evoking the recollection of these kind and fair creatures I have
nothing but pleasure. I would I could say as much of the memory of
another lady, who will henceforth play a considerable part in the drama
of my life,--I mean the Countess of Lyndon; whose fatal acquaintance I
made at Spa, very soon after the events described in the last chapter
had caused me to quit Germany.
Honoria, Countess of Lyndon, Viscountess Bullingdon in England, Baroness
Castle Lyndon of the kingdom of Ireland, was so well known to the great
world in her day, that I have little need to enter into her family
history; which is to be had in any peerage that the reader may lay
his hand on. She was, as I need not say, a countess, viscountess, and
baroness in her own right. Her estates in Devon and Cornwall were
among the most extensive in those parts; her Irish possessions not less
magnificent; and they have been alluded to, in a very early part of
these Memoirs, as lying near to my own paternal property in the kingdom
of Ireland: indeed, unjust confiscations in the time of Elizabeth and
her father went to diminish my acres, while they added to the already
vast possessions of the Lyndon family.
The Countess, when I first saw her at the assembly at Spa, was the wife
of her cousin, the Right Honourable Sir Charles Reginald Lyndon, Knight
of the Bath, and Minister to George II. and George III. at several of
the smaller Courts of Europe. Sir Charles Lyndon was celebrated as a wit
and bon vivant: he could write love-verses against Hanbury Williams, and
make jokes with George Selwyn; he was a man of vertu like Harry Walpole,
with whom and Mr. Grey he had made a part of the grand tour; and was
cited, in a word, as one of the most elegant and accomplished men of his
time.
I made this gentleman’s acquaintance as usual at the play-table, of
which he was a constant frequenter. Indeed, one could not but admire the
spirit and gallantry with which he pursued his favourite pastime; for,
though worn out by gout and a myriad of diseases, a cripple wheeled
about in a chair, and suffering pangs of agony, yet you would see him
every morning and every evening at his post behind the delightful green
cloth: and if, as it would often happen, his own hands were too feeble
or inflamed to hold the box, he would call the mains, nevertheless,
and have his valet or a friend to throw for him. I like this courageous
spirit in a man; the greatest successes in life have been won by such
indomitable perseverance.
I was by this time one of the best-known characters in Europe; and the
fame of my exploits, my duels, my courage at play, would bring crowds
around me in any public society where I appeared. I could show reams of
scented paper, to prove that this eagerness to make my acquaintance was
not confined to the gentlemen only; but that I hate boasting, and
only talk of myself in so far as it is necessary to relate myself’s
adventures: the most singular of any man’s in Europe. Well, Sir Charles
Lyndon’s first acquaintance with me originated in the right honourable
knight’s winning 700 pieces of me at picquet (for which he was almost my
match); and I lost them with much good-humour, and paid them: and paid
them, you may be sure, punctually. Indeed, I will say this for myself,
that losing money at play never in the least put me out of good-humour
with the winner, and that wherever I found a superior, I was always
ready to acknowledge and hail him.
Lyndon was very proud of winning from so celebrated a person, and we
contracted a kind of intimacy; which, however, did not for a while go
beyond pump-room attentions, and conversations over the supper-table at
play: but which gradually increased, until I was admitted into his more
private friendship. He was a very free-spoken man (the gentry of those
days were much prouder than at present), and used to say to me in his
haughty easy way, ‘Hang it, Mr. Barry, you have no more manners than a
barber, and I think my black footman has been better educated than you;
but you are a young fellow of originality and pluck, and I like you,
sir, because you seem determined to go to the deuce by a way of your
own.’ I would thank him laughingly for this compliment, and say, that
as he was bound to the next world much sooner than I was, I would be
obliged to him to get comfortable quarters arranged there for me. He
used also to be immensely amused with my stories about the splendour of
my family and the magnificence of Castle Brady: he would never tire of
listening or laughing at those histories.
‘Stick to the trumps, however, my lad,’ he would say, when I told him of
my misfortunes in the conjugal line, and how near I had been winning the
greatest fortune in Germany. ‘Do anything but marry, my artless Irish
rustic’ (he called me by a multiplicity of queer names). ‘Cultivate your
great talents in the gambling line; but mind this, that a woman will
beat you.’
That I denied; mentioning several instances in which I had conquered the
most intractable tempers among the sex.
‘They will beat you in the long run, my Tipperary Alcibiades. As soon
as you are married, take my word of it, you are conquered. Look at me. I
married my cousin, the noblest and greatest heiress in England--married
her in spite of herself almost’ (here a dark shade passed over Sir
Charles Lyndon’s countenance). ‘She is a weak woman. You shall see her,
sir, HOW weak she is; but she is my mistress. She has embittered my
whole life. She is a fool; but she has got the better of one of the best
heads in Christendom. She is enormously rich; but somehow I have never
been so poor as since I married her. I thought to better myself; and
she has made me miserable and killed me. And she will do as much for my
successor, when I am gone.’
‘Has her Ladyship a very large income?’ said I. At which Sir Charles
burst out into a yelling laugh, and made me blush not a little at my
gaucherie; for the fact is, seeing him in the condition in which he was,
I could not help speculating upon the chance a man of spirit might have
with his widow.
‘No, no!’ said he, laughing. ‘Waugh hawk, Mr. Barry; don’t think, if
you value your peace of mind, to stand in my shoes when they are vacant.
Besides, I don’t think my Lady Lyndon would QUITE condescend to marry
a’----
‘Marry a what, sir?’ said I, in a rage.
“Never mind what: but the man who gets her will rue it, take my word
on’t. A plague on her! had it not been for my father’s ambition and mine
(he was her uncle and guardian, and we wouldn’t let such a prize out of
the family), I might have died peaceably, at least; carried my gout down
to my grave in quiet, lived in my modest tenement in Mayfair, had every
house in England open to me; and now, now I have six of my own, and
every one of them is a hell to me. Beware of greatness, Mr. Barry. Take
warning by me. Ever since I have been married and have been rich, I have
been the most miserable wretch in the world. Look at me. I am dying a
worn-out cripple at the age of fifty. Marriage has added forty years to
my life. When I took off Lady Lyndon, there was no man of my years
who looked so young as myself. Fool that I was! I had enough with my
pensions, perfect freedom, the best society in Europe; and I gave up
all these, and married, and was miserable. Take a warning by me, Captain
Barry, and stick to the trumps.”
Though my intimacy with the knight was considerable, for a long time I
never penetrated into any other apartments of his hotel but those which
he himself occupied. His lady lived entirely apart from him; and it
is only curious how they came to travel together at all. She was a
goddaughter of old Mary Wortley Montagu: and, like that famous old woman
of the last century, made considerable pretensions to be a blue-stocking
and a bel esprit. Lady Lyndon wrote poems in English and Italian, which
still may be read by the curious in the pages of the magazines of the
day. She entertained a correspondence with several of the European
savans upon history, science, and ancient languages, and especially
theology. Her pleasure was to dispute controversial points with abbes
and bishops; and her flatterers said she rivalled Madam Dacier in
learning. Every adventurer who had a discovery in chemistry, a new
antique bust, or a plan for discovering the philosopher’s stone, was
sure to find a patroness in her. She had numberless works dedicated to
her, and sonnets without end addressed to her by all the poetasters of
Europe, under the name of Lindonira or Calista. Her rooms were crowded
with hideous China magots, and all sorts of objects of VERTU.
No woman piqued herself more upon her principles, or allowed love to be
made to her more profusely. There was a habit of courtship practised
by the fine gentlemen of those days, which is little understood in our
coarse downright times: and young and old fellows would pour out floods
of compliments in letters and madrigals, such as would make a sober lady
stare were they addressed to her nowadays: so entirely has the gallantry
of the last century disappeared out of our manners.
Lady Lyndon moved about with a little court of her own. She had
half-a-dozen carriages in her progresses. In her own she would travel
with her companion (some shabby lady of quality), her birds, and
poodles, and the favourite savant for the time being. In another would
be her female secretary and her waiting-women; who, in spite of their
care, never could make their mistress look much better than a slattern.
Sir Charles Lyndon had his own chariot, and the domestics of the
establishment would follow in other vehicles.
Also must be mentioned the carriage in which rode her Ladyship’s
chaplain, Mr. Runt, who acted in capacity of governor to her son, the
little Viscount Bullingdon,--a melancholy deserted little boy, about
whom his father was more than indifferent, and whom his mother never
saw, except for two minutes at her levee, when she would put to him a
few questions of history or Latin grammar; after which he was consigned
to his own amusements, or the care of his governor, for the rest of the
day.
The notion of such a Minerva as this, whom I saw in the public places
now and then, surrounded by swarms of needy abbes and schoolmasters,
who flattered her, frightened me for some time, and I had not the
least desire to make her acquaintance. I had no desire to be one of the
beggarly adorers in the great lady’s train,--fellows, half friend, half
lacquey, who made verses, and wrote letters, and ran errands, content to
be paid by a seat in her Ladyship’s box at the comedy, or a cover at her
dinner-table at noon. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Sir Charles Lyndon would
say, whose great subject of conversation and abuse was his lady: ‘my
Lindonira will have nothing to do with you. She likes the Tuscan brogue,
not that of Kerry. She says you smell too much of the stable to be
admitted to ladies’ society; and last Sunday fortnight, when she did me
the honour to speak to me last, said, “I wonder, Sir Charles Lyndon,
a gentleman who has been the King’s ambassador can demean himself by
gambling and boozing with low Irish blacklegs!” Don’t fly in a fury! I’m
a cripple, and it was Lindonira said it, not I.’
This piqued me, and I resolved to become acquainted with Lady Lyndon;
if it were but to show her Ladyship that the descendant of those Barrys,
whose property she unjustly held, was not an unworthy companion for any
lady, were she ever so high. Besides, my friend the knight was dying:
his widow would be the richest prize in the three kingdoms. Why should I
not win her, and, with her, the means of making in the world that figure
which my genius and inclination desired? I felt I was equal in blood
and breeding to any Lyndon in Christendom, and determined to bend this
haughty lady. When I determine, I look upon the thing as done.
My uncle and I talked the matter over, and speedily settled upon a
method for making our approaches upon this stately lady of Castle
Lyndon. Mr. Runt, young Lord Bullingdon’s governor, was fond of
pleasure, of a glass of Rhenish in the garden-houses in the summer
evenings, and of a sly throw of the dice when the occasion offered; and
I took care to make friends with this person, who, being a college tutor
and an Englishman, was ready to go on his knees to any one who resembled
a man of fashion. Seeing me with my retinue of servants, my vis-a-vis
and chariots, my valets, my hussar, and horses, dressed in gold, and
velvet, and sables, saluting the greatest people in Europe as we met
on the course, or at the Spas, Runt was dazzled by my advances, and
was mine by a beckoning of the finger. I shall never forget the poor
wretch’s astonishment when I asked him to dine, with two counts, off
gold plate, at the little room in the casino: he was made happy by
being allowed to win a few pieces of us, became exceedingly tipsy, sang
Cambridge songs, and recreated the company by telling us, in his horrid
Yorkshire French, stories about the gyps, and all the lords that had
ever been in his college. I encouraged him to come and see me oftener,
and bring with him his little viscount; for whom, though the boy always
detested me, I took care to have a good stock of sweetmeats, toys, and
picture-books when he came.
I then began to enter into a controversy with Mr. Runt, and confided to
him some doubts which I had, and a very very earnest leaning towards the
Church of Rome. I made a certain abbe whom I knew write me letters upon
transubstantiation, &c., which the honest tutor was rather puzzled to
answer. I knew that they would be communicated to his lady, as they
were; for, asking leave to attend the English service which was
celebrated in her apartments, and frequented by the best English then
at the Spa, on the second Sunday she condescended to look at me; on the
third she was pleased to reply to my profound bow by a curtsey; the next
day I followed up the acquaintance by another obeisance in the public
walk; and, to make a long story short, her Ladyship and I were in full
correspondence on transubstantiation before six weeks were over. My Lady
came to the aid of her chaplain; and then I began to see the prodigious
weight of his arguments: as was to be expected. The progress of this
harmless little intrigue need not be detailed. I make no doubt every one
of my readers has practised similar stratagems when a fair lady was in
the case.
I shall never forget the astonishment of Sir Charles Lyndon when, on
one summer evening, as he was issuing out to the play-table in his
sedan-chair, according to his wont, her Ladyship’s barouche and four,
with her outriders in the tawny livery of the Lyndon family, came
driving into the courtyard of the house which they inhabited; and in
that carriage, by her Ladyship’s side, sat no other than the ‘vulgar
Irish adventurer,’ as she was pleased to call him: I mean Redmond Barry,
Esquire. He made the most courtly of his bows, and grinned and waved his
hat in as graceful a manner as the gout permitted; and her Ladyship and
I replied to the salutation with the utmost politeness and elegance on
our parts.
I could not go to the play-table for some time afterwards for Lady
Lyndon and I had an argument on transubstantiation, which lasted for
three hours; in which she was, as usual, victorious, and, in which her
companion, the Honourable Miss Flint Skinner, fell asleep; but when, at
last, I joined Sir Charles at the casino, he received me with a yell of
laughter, as his wont was, and introduced me to all the company as Lady
Lyndon’s interesting young convert. This was his way. He laughed and
sneered at everything. He laughed when he was in a paroxysm of pain; he
laughed when he won money, or when he lost it: his laugh was not jovial
or agreeable, but rather painful and sardonic.
‘Gentlemen,’ said he to Punter, Colonel Loder, Count du Carreau, and
several jovial fellows with whom he used to discuss a flask of champagne
and a Rhenish trout or two after play, ‘see this amiable youth! He has
been troubled by religious scruples, and has flown for refuge to my
chaplain, Mr. Runt, who has asked for advice from my wife, Lady Lyndon;
and, between them both, they are confirming my ingenious young friend in
his faith. Did you ever hear of such doctors, and such a disciple?’
‘’Faith, sir,’ said I, ‘if I want to learn good principles, it’s surely
better I should apply for them to your lady and your chaplain than to
you!’
‘He wants to step into my shoes!’ continued the knight.
‘The man would be happy who did so,’ responded I, ‘provided there were
no chalk-stones included!’ At which reply Sir Charles was not very well
pleased, and went on with increased rancour. He was always free-spoken
in his cups; and, to say the truth, he was in his cups many more times
in a week than his doctors allowed.
‘Is it not a pleasure, gentlemen,’ said he, ‘for me, as I am drawing
near the goal, to find my home such a happy one; my wife so fond of me,
that she is even now thinking of appointing a successor? (I don’t mean
you precisely, Mr. Barry; you are only taking your chance with a score
of others whom I could mention.) Isn’t it a comfort to see her, like
a prudent housewife, getting everything ready for her husband’s
departure?’
‘I hope you are not thinking of leaving us soon, knight?’ said I, with
perfect sincerity; for I liked him, as a most amusing companion. ‘Not
so soon, my dear, as you may fancy, perhaps,’ continued he. ‘Why, man,
I have been given over any time these four years; and there was always a
candidate or two waiting to apply for the situation. Who knows how long
I may keep you waiting?’ and he DID keep me waiting some little time
longer than at that period there was any reason to suspect.
As I declared myself pretty openly, according to my usual way, and
authors are accustomed to describe the persons of the ladies with whom
their heroes fall in love; in compliance with this fashion, I perhaps
should say a word or two respecting the charms of my Lady Lyndon. But
though I celebrated them in many copies of verses, of my own and other
persons’ writing; and though I filled reams of paper in the passionate
style of those days with compliments to every one of her beauties and
smiles, in which I compared her to every flower, goddess, or famous
heroine ever heard of,--truth compels me to say that there was nothing
divine about her at all. She was very well; but no more. Her shape was
fine, her hair dark, her eyes good, and exceedingly active; she loved
singing, but performed it as so great a lady should, very much out of
tune. She had a smattering of half-a-dozen modern languages, and, as I
have said before, of many more sciences than I even knew the names of.
She piqued herself on knowing Greek and Latin; but the truth is, that
Mr. Runt, used to supply her with the quotations which she introduced
into her voluminous correspondence. She had as much love of admiration,
as strong, uneasy a vanity, and as little heart, as any woman I ever
knew. Otherwise, when her son, Lord Bullingdon, on account of his
differences with me, ran--but that matter shall be told in its proper
time. Finally, my Lady Lyndon was about a year older than myself;
though, of course, she would take her Bible oath that she was three
years younger.
Few men are so honest as I am; for few will own to their real motives,
and I don’t care a button about confessing mine. What Sir Charles Lyndon
said was perfectly true. I made the acquaintance of Lady Lyndon with
ulterior views. ‘Sir,’ said I to him, when, after the scene described
and the jokes he made upon me, we met alone, ‘let those laugh that win.
You were very pleasant upon me a few nights since, and on my intentions
regarding your lady. Well, if they ARE what you think they are,--if I DO
wish to step into your shoes, what then? I have no other intentions than
you had yourself. I’ll be sworn to muster just as much regard for my
Lady Lyndon as you ever showed her; and if I win her and wear her when
you are dead and gone, corbleu, knight, do you think it will be the fear
of your ghost will deter me?’
Lyndon laughed as usual; but somewhat disconcertedly: indeed I had
clearly the best of him in the argument, and had just as much right to
hunt my fortune as he had.
But one day he said, ‘If you marry such a woman as my Lady Lyndon, mark
my words, you will regret it. You will pine after the liberty you once
enjoyed. By George! Captain Barry,’ he added, with a sigh, ‘the thing
that I regret most in life--perhaps it is because I am old, blase, and
dying--is, that I never had a virtuous attachment.’
‘Ha! ha! a milkmaid’s daughter!’ said I, laughing at the absurdity.
‘Well, why not a milkmaid’s daughter? My good fellow, I WAS in love
in youth, as most gentlemen are, with my tutor’s daughter, Helena, a
bouncing girl; of course older than myself’ (this made me remember my
own little love-passages with Nora Brady in the days of my early life),
‘and do you know, sir, I heartily regret I didn’t marry her? There’s
nothing like having a virtuous drudge at home, sir; depend upon that. It
gives a zest to one’s enjoyments in the world, take my word for it. No
man of sense need restrict himself, or deny himself a single amusement
for his wife’s sake: on the contrary, if he select the animal properly,
he will choose such a one as shall be no bar to his pleasure, but a
comfort in his hours of annoyance. For instance, I have got the gout:
who tends me? A hired valet, who robs me whenever he has the power. My
wife never comes near me. What friend have I? None in the wide world.
Men of the world, as you and I are, don’t make friends; and we are
fools for our pains. Get a friend, sir, and that friend a woman--a
good household drudge, who loves you. THAT is the most precious sort of
friendship; for the expense of it is all on the woman’s side. The man
needn’t contribute anything. If he’s a rogue, she’ll vow he’s an angel;
if he’s a brute, she will like him all the better for his ill-treatment
of her. They like it, sir, these women. They are born to be our greatest
comforts and conveniences; our--our moral bootjacks, as it were; and to
men in your way of life, believe me such a person would be invaluable.
I am only speaking for your bodily and mental comfort’s sake, mind. Why
didn’t I marry poor Helena Flower, the curate’s daughter?’
I thought these speeches the remarks of a weakly disappointed man;
although since, perhaps, I have had reason to find the truth of Sir
Charles Lyndon’s statements. The fact is, in my opinion, that we often
buy money very much too dear. To purchase a few thousands a year at the
expense of an odious wife, is very bad economy for a young fellow of any
talent and spirit; and there have been moments of my life when, in the
midst of my greatest splendour and opulence, with half-a-dozen lords at
my levee, with the finest horses in my stables, the grandest house over
my head, with unlimited credit at my banker’s, and--Lady Lyndon to boot,
I have wished myself back a private of Bulow’s, or anything, so as to
get rid of her. To return, however, to the story. Sir Charles, with his
complication of ills, was dying before us by inches! and I’ve no doubt
it could not have been very pleasant to him to see a young handsome
fellow paying court to his widow before his own face as it were. After
I once got into the house on the transubstantiation dispute, I found a
dozen more occasions to improve my intimacy, and was scarcely ever out
of her Ladyship’s doors. The world talked and blustered; but what cared
I? The men cried fie upon the shameless Irish adventurer; but I have
told my way of silencing such envious people: and my sword had by this
time got such a reputation through Europe, that few people cared to
encounter it. If I can once get my hold of a place, I keep it. Many’s
the house I have been to where I have seen the men avoid me. ‘Faugh! the
low Irishman,’ they would say. ‘Bah! the coarse adventurer!’ ‘Out on the
insufferable blackleg and puppy!’ and so forth. This hatred has been
of no inconsiderable service to me in the world; for when I fasten on a
man, nothing can induce me to release my hold: and I am left to myself,
which is all the better. As I told Lady Lyndon in those days, with
perfect sincerity, ‘Calista’ (I used to call her Calista in my
correspondence)--’ Calista, I swear to thee, by the spotlessness of thy
own soul, by the brilliancy of thy immitigable eyes, by everything pure
and chaste in heaven and in thy own heart, that I will never cease
from following thee! Scorn I can bear, and have borne at thy hands.
Indifference I can surmount; ‘tis a rock which my energy will climb
over, a magnet which attracts the dauntless iron of my soul!’ And it was
true, I wouldn’t have left her--no, though they had kicked me downstairs
every day I presented myself at her door.
That is my way of fascinating women. Let the man who has to make his
fortune in life remember this maxim. ATTACKING is his only secret. Dare,
and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again,
and it will succumb. In those days my spirit was so great, that if I
had set my heart upon marrying a princess of the blood, I would have had
her!
I told Calista my story, and altered very very little of the truth.
My object was to frighten her: to show her that what I wanted, that I
dared; that what I dared, that I won; and there were striking passages
enough in my history to convince her of my iron will and indomitable
courage. ‘Never hope to escape me, madam,’ I would say: ‘offer to
marry another man, and he dies upon this sword, which never yet met its
master. Fly from me, and I will follow you, though it were to the gates
of Hades.’ I promise you this was very different language to that she
had been in the habit of hearing from her Jemmy-Jessamy adorers. You
should have seen how I scared the fellows from her.
When I said in this energetic way that I would follow Lady Lyndon across
the Styx if necessary, of course I meant that I would do so, provided
nothing more suitable presented itself in the interim. If Lyndon would
not die, where was the use of my pursuing the Countess? And somehow,
towards the end of the Spa season, very much to my mortification I do
confess, the knight made another rally: it seemed as if nothing would
kill him. ‘I am sorry for you, Captain Barry,’ he would say, laughing as
usual. ‘I’m grieved to keep you, or any gentleman, waiting. Had you not
better arrange with my doctor, or get the cook to flavour my omelette
with arsenic? What are the odds, gentlemen,’ he would add, ‘that I don’t
live to see Captain Barry hanged yet?’
In fact, the doctors tinkered him up for a year. ‘It’s my usual luck,’
I could not help saying to my uncle, who was my confidential and most
excellent adviser in all matters of the heart. ‘I’ve been wasting the
treasures of my affections upon that flirt of a countess, and here’s
her husband restored to health and likely to live I don’t know how many
years!’ And, as if to add to my mortification, there came just at this
period to Spa an English tallow-chandler’s heiress, with a plum to
her fortune; and Madame Cornu, the widow of a Norman cattle-dealer and
farmer-general, with a dropsy and two hundred thousand livres a year.
‘What’s the use of my following the Lyndons to England,’ says I, ‘if the
knight won’t die?’
‘Don’t follow them, my dear simple child,’ replied my uncle. ‘Stop here
and pay court to the new arrivals.’
‘Yes, and lose Calista for ever, and the greatest estate in all
England.’
‘Pooh, pooh! youths like you easily fire and easily despond. Keep up a
correspondence with Lady Lyndon. You know there’s nothing she likes
so much. There’s the Irish abbe, who will write you the most charming
letters for a crown apiece. Let her go; write to her, and meanwhile look
out for anything else which may turn up. Who knows? you might marry the
Norman widow, bury her, take her money, and be ready for the Countess
against the knight’s death.’
And so, with vows of the most profound respectful attachment, and having
given twenty louis to Lady Lyndon’s waiting-woman for a lock of her
hair (of which fact, of course, the woman informed her mistress), I took
leave of the Countess, when it became necessary for her return to her
estates in England; swearing I would follow her as soon as an affair of
honour I had on my hands could be brought to an end.
I shall pass over the events of the year that ensued before I again
saw her. She wrote to me according to promise; with much regularity at
first, with somewhat less frequency afterwards. My affairs, meanwhile,
at the play-table went on not unprosperously, and I was just on the
point of marrying the widow Cornu (we were at Brussels by this time, and
the poor soul was madly in love with me,) when the London Gazette was
put into my hands, and I read the following announcement:--
‘Died at Castle-Lyndon, in the kingdom of Ireland, the Right Honourable
Sir Charles Lyndon, Knight of the Bath, member of Parliament for Lyndon
in Devonshire, and many years His Majesty’s representative at various
European Courts. He hath left behind him a name which is endeared to all
his friends for his manifold virtues and talents, a reputation justly
acquired in the service of His Majesty, and an inconsolable widow to
deplore his loss. Her Ladyship, the bereaved Countess of Lyndon, was
at the Bath when the horrid intelligence reached her of her husband’s
demise, and hastened to Ireland immediately in order to pay her last sad
duties to his beloved remains.’
That very night I ordered my chariot and posted to Ostend, whence I
freighted a vessel to Dover, and travelling rapidly into the West,
reached Bristol; from which port I embarked for Waterford, and found
myself, after an absence of eleven years, in my native country.