As my uncle’s attainder was not reversed for being out with the
Pretender in 1745, it would have been inconvenient for him to accompany
his nephew to the land of our ancestors; where, if not hanging, at least
a tedious process of imprisonment, and a doubtful pardon, would have
awaited the good old gentleman. In any important crisis of my life, his
advice was always of advantage to me, and I did not fail to seek it at
this juncture, and to implore his counsel as regarded my pursuit of the
widow. I told him the situation of her heart, as I have described it in
the last chapter; of the progress that young Poynings had made in her
affections, and of her forgetfulness of her old admirer; and I got a
letter, in reply, full of excellent suggestions, by which I did not fail
to profit. The kind Chevalier prefaced it by saying, that he was for
the present boarding in the Minorite convent at Brussels; that he had
thoughts of making his salut there, and retiring for ever from the
world, devoting himself to the severest practices of religion. Meanwhile
he wrote with regard to the lovely widow: it was natural that a person
of her vast wealth and not disagreeable person should have many adorers
about her; and that, as in her husband’s lifetime she had shown herself
not at all disinclined to receive my addresses, I must make no manner
of doubt I was not the first person whom she had so favoured; nor was I
likely to be the last.
‘I would, my dear child,’ he added, ‘that the ugly attainder round my
neck, and the resolution I have formed of retiring from a world of sin
and vanity altogether, did not prevent me from coming personally to your
aid in this delicate crisis of your affairs; for, to lead them to a
good end, it requires not only the indomitable courage, swagger, and
audacity, which you possess beyond any young man I have ever known’ (as
for the ‘swagger,’ as the Chevalier calls it, I deny it in toto, being
always most modest in my demeanour); ‘but though you have the vigour to
execute, you have not the ingenuity to suggest plans of conduct for the
following out of a scheme that is likely to be long and difficult of
execution. Would you have ever thought of the brilliant scheme of the
Countess Ida, which so nearly made you the greatest fortune in Europe,
but for the advice and experience of a poor old man, now making up his
accounts with the world, and about to retire from it for good and all?
‘Well, with regard to the Countess of Lyndon, your manner of winning her
is quite en l’air at present to me; nor can I advise day by day, as
I would I could, according to circumstances as they arise. But your
general scheme should be this. If I remember the letters you used to
have from her during the period of the correspondence which the silly
woman entertained you with, much high-flown sentiment passed between
you; and especially was written by her Ladyship herself: she is a
blue-stocking, and fond of writing; she used to make her griefs with her
husband the continual theme of her correspondence (as women will do). I
recollect several passages in her letters bitterly deploring her fate in
being united to one so unworthy of her.
‘Surely, in the mass of billets you possess from her, there must be
enough to compromise her. Look them well over; select passages, and
threaten to do so. Write to her at first in the undoubting tone of a
lover who has every claim upon her. Then, if she is silent, remonstrate,
alluding to former promises from her; producing proofs of her former
regard for you; vowing despair, destruction, revenge, if she prove
unfaithful. Frighten her--astonish her by some daring feat, which will
let her see your indomitable resolution: you are the man to do it. Your
sword has a reputation in Europe, and you have a character for boldness;
which was the first thing that caused my Lady Lyndon to turn her eyes
upon you. Make the people talk about you at Dublin. Be as splendid, and
as brave, and as odd as possible. How I wish I were near you! You have
no imagination to invent such a character as I would make for you--but
why speak; have I not had enough of the world and its vanities?’
There was much practical good sense in this advice; which I quote,
unaccompanied with the lengthened description of his mortifications and
devotions which my uncle indulged in, finishing his letter, as usual,
with earnest prayers for my conversion to the true faith. But he
was constant to his form of worship; and I, as a man of honour and
principle, was resolute to mine; and have no doubt that the one, in this
respect, will be as acceptable as the other.
Under these directions it was, then, I wrote to Lady Lyndon, to ask on
my arrival when the most respectful of her admirers might be permitted
to intrude upon her grief? Then, as her Ladyship was silent, I demanded,
Had she forgotten old times, and one whom she had favoured with her
intimacy at a very happy period? Had Calista forgotten Eugenio? At the
same time I sent down by my servant with this letter a present of a
little sword for Lord Bullingdon, and a private note to his governor;
whose note of hand, by the way, I possessed for a sum--I forget
what--but such as the poor fellow would have been very unwilling to pay.
To this an answer came from her Ladyship’s amanuensis, stating that Lady
Lyndon was too much disturbed by grief at her recent dreadful calamity
to see any one but her own relations; and advices from my friend, the
boy’s governor, stating that my Lord George Poynings was the young
kinsman who was about to console her.
This caused the quarrel between me and the young nobleman; whom I took
care to challenge on his first arrival at Dublin.
When the news of the duel was brought to the widow at Castle Lyndon, my
informant wrote me that Lady Lyndon shrieked and flung down the journal,
and said, ‘The horrible monster! He would not shrink from murder, I
believe;’ and little Lord Bullingdon, drawing his sword--the sword I had
given him, the rascal!--declared he would kill with it the man who had
hurt Cousin George. On Mr. Runt telling him that I was the donor of the
weapon, the little rogue still vowed that he would kill me all the same!
Indeed, in spite of my kindness to him, that boy always seemed to detest
me.
Her Ladyship sent up daily couriers to inquire after the health of Lord
George; and, thinking to myself that she would probably be induced to
come to Dublin if she were to hear that he was in danger, I managed to
have her informed that he was in a precarious state; that he grew worse;
that Redmond Barry had fled in consequence: of this flight I caused the
Mercury newspaper to give notice also, but indeed it did not carry me
beyond the town of Bray, where my poor mother dwelt; and where, under
the difficulties of a duel, I might be sure of having a welcome.
Those readers who have the sentiment of filial duty strong in their
mind, will wonder that I have not yet described my interview with that
kind mother whose sacrifices for me in youth had been so considerable,
and for whom a man of my warm and affectionate nature could not but feel
the most enduring and sincere regard.
But a man, moving in the exalted sphere of society in which I now
stood, has his public duties to perform before he consults his private
affections; and so, upon my first arrival, I despatched a messenger
to Mrs. Barry, stating my arrival, conveying to her my sentiments of
respect and duty, and promising to pay them to her personally so soon as
my business in Dublin would leave me free.
This, I need not say, was very considerable. I had my horses to buy, my
establishment to arrange, my entree into the genteel world to make; and,
having announced my intention to purchase horses and live in a genteel
style, was in a couple of days so pestered by visits of the nobility and
gentry, and so hampered by invitations to dinners and suppers, that
it became exceedingly difficult for me during some days to manage my
anxiously desired visit to Mrs. Barry.
It appears that the good soul provided an entertainment as soon as she
heard of my arrival, and invited all her humble acquaintances of Bray to
be present: but I was engaged subsequently to my Lord Ballyragget on the
day appointed, and was, of course, obliged to break the promise that I
had made to Mrs. Barry to attend her humble festival.
I endeavoured to sweeten the disappointment by sending my mother a
handsome satin sack and velvet robe, which I purchased for her at the
best mercers in Dublin (and indeed told her I had brought from Paris
expressly for her); but the messenger whom I despatched with the
presents brought back the parcels, with the piece of satin torn half
way up the middle: and I did not need his descriptions to be aware that
something had offended the good lady; who came out, he said, and
abused him at the door, and would have boxed his cars, but that she was
restrained by a gentleman in black; who I concluded, with justice, was
her clerical friend Mr. Jowls.
This reception of my presents made me rather dread than hope for an
interview with Mrs. Barry, and delayed my visit to her for some days
further. I wrote her a dutiful and soothing letter, to which there was
no answer returned; although I mentioned that on my way to the capital I
had been at Barryville, and revisited the old haunts of my youth.
I don’t care to own that she is the only human being whom I am afraid
to face. I can recollect her fits of anger as a child, and the
reconciliations, which used to be still more violent and painful: and
so, instead of going myself, I sent my factotum, Ulick Brady, to her;
who rode back, saying that he had met with a reception he would not
again undergo for twenty guineas; that he had been dismissed the house,
with strict injunctions to inform me that my mother disowned me for
ever. This parental anathema, as it were, affected me much, for I was
always the most dutiful of sons; and I determined to go as soon as
possible, and brave what I knew must be an inevitable scene of reproach
and anger, for the sake, as I hoped, of as certain a reconciliation.
I had been giving one night an entertainment to some of the genteelest
company in Dublin, and was showing my Lord Marquess downstairs with a
pair of wax tapers, when I found a woman in a grey coat seated at my
doorsteps: to whom, taking her for a beggar, I tendered a piece of
money, and whom my noble friends, who were rather hot with wine, began
to joke, as my door closed and I bade them all good-night.
I was rather surprised and affected to find afterwards that the hooded
woman was no other than my mother; whose pride had made her vow that she
would not enter my doors, but whose natural maternal yearnings had made
her long to see her son’s face once again, and who had thus planted
herself in disguise at my gate. Indeed, I have found in my experience
that these are the only women who never deceive a man, and whose
affection remains constant through all trials. Think of the hours that
the kind soul must have passed, lonely in the street, listening to the
din and merriment within my apartments, the clinking of the glasses, the
laughing, the choruses, and the cheering.
When my affair with Lord George happened, and it became necessary to me,
for the reasons I have stated, to be out of the way; now, thought I, is
the time to make my peace with my good mother: she will never refuse me
an asylum now that I seem in distress. So sending to her a notice that I
was coming, that I had had a duel which had brought me into trouble, and
required I should go into hiding, I followed my messenger half-an-hour
afterwards: and, I warrant me, there was no want of a good reception,
for presently, being introduced into an empty room by the barefooted
maid who waited upon Mrs. Barry, the door was opened, and the poor
mother flung herself into my arms with a scream, and with transports
of joy which I shall not attempt to describe--they are but to be
comprehended by women who have held in their arms an only child after a
twelve years’ absence from him.
The Reverend Mr. Jowls, my mother’s director, was the only person to
whom the door of her habitation was opened during my sojourn; and he
would take no denial. He mixed for himself a glass of rum-punch, which
he seemed in the habit of drinking at my good mother’s charge, groaned
aloud, and forthwith began reading me a lecture upon the sinfulness of
my past courses, and especially of the last horrible action I had been
committing.
‘Sinful!’ said my mother, bristling up when her son was attacked;
‘sure we’re all sinners; and it’s you, Mr. Jowls, who have given me the
inexpressible blessing to let me know THAT. But how else would you have
had the poor child behave?’
‘I would have had the gentleman avoid the drink, and the quarrel, and
this wicked duel altogether,’ answered the clergyman.
But my mother cut him short, by saying such sort of conduct might be
very well in a person of his cloth and his birth, but it neither became
a Brady nor a Barry. In fact, she was quite delighted with the thought
that I had pinked an English marquis’s son in a duel; and so, to console
her, I told her of a score more in which I had been engaged, and of some
of which I have already informed the reader.
As my late antagonist was in no sort of danger when I spread that report
of his perilous situation, there was no particular call that my hiding
should be very close. But the widow did not know the fact as well as I
did: and caused her house to be barricaded, and Becky, her barefooted
serving-wench, to be a perpetual sentinel to give alarm, lest the
officers should be in search of me.
The only person I expected, however, was my cousin Ulick, who was to
bring me the welcome intelligence of Lady Lyndon’s arrival; and I own,
after two days’ close confinement at Bray, in which I narrated all the
adventures of my life to my mother, and succeeded in making her accept
the dresses she had formerly refused, and a considerable addition to
her income which I was glad to make, I was very glad when I saw that
reprobate Ulick Brady, as my mother called him, ride up to the door in
my carriage with the welcome intelligence for my mother, that the young
lord was out of danger; and for me, that the Countess of Lyndon had
arrived in Dublin.
‘And I wish, Redmond, that the young gentleman had been in danger a
little longer,’ said the widow, her eyes filling with tears, ‘and you’d
have stayed so much the more with your poor old mother.’ But I dried her
tears, embracing her warmly, and promised to see her often; and hinted
I would have, mayhap, a house of my own and a noble daughter to welcome
her.
‘Who is she, Redmond dear?’ said the old lady.
‘One of the noblest and richest women in the empire, mother,’ answered
I. ‘No mere Brady this time,’ I added, laughing: with which hopes I left
Mrs. Barry in the best of tempers.
No man can bear less malice than I do; and, when I have once carried
my point, I am one of the most placable creatures in the world. I was a
week in Dublin before I thought it necessary to quit that capital. I
had become quite reconciled to my rival in that time; made a point of
calling at his lodgings, and speedily became an intimate consoler of his
bed-side. He had a gentleman to whom I did not neglect to be civil, and
towards whom I ordered my people to be particular in their attentions;
for I was naturally anxious to learn what my Lord George’s position with
the lady of Castle Lyndon had really been, whether other suitors were
about the widow, and how she would bear the news of his wound.
The young nobleman himself enlightened me somewhat upon the subjects I
was most desirous to inquire into.
‘Chevalier,’ said he to me one morning when I went to pay him my
compliments, ‘I find you are an old acquaintance with my kinswoman, the
Countess of Lyndon. She writes me a page of abuse of you in a letter
here; and the strange part of the story is this, that one day when there
was talk about you at Castle Lyndon, and the splendid equipage you were
exhibiting in Dublin, the fair widow vowed and protested she never had
heard of you.
‘“Oh yes, mamma,” said the little Bullingdon, “the tall dark man at Spa
with the cast in his eye, who used to make my governor tipsy and sent me
the sword: his name is Mr. Barry.”
‘But my Lady ordered the boy out of the room, and persisted in knowing
nothing about you.’
‘And are you a kinsman and acquaintance of my Lady Lyndon, my Lord?’
said I, in a tone of grave surprise.
‘Yes, indeed,’ answered the young gentleman. ‘I left her house but to
get this ugly wound from you. And it came at a most unlucky time too.’
‘Why more unlucky now than at another moment?’
‘Why, look you, Chevalier, I think the widow was not unpartial to me. I
think I might have induced her to make our connection a little closer:
and faith, though she is older than I am, she is the richest party now
in England.’
‘My Lord George,’ said I, ‘will you let me ask you a frank but an odd
question?--will you show me her letters?’
‘Indeed I’ll do no such thing,’ replied he, in a rage.
‘Nay, don’t be angry. If _I_ show you letters of Lady Lyndon’s to me,
will you let me see hers to you?’
‘What, in Heaven’s name, do you mean, Mr. Barry?’ said the young
gentleman.
‘_I_ mean that I passionately loved Lady Lyndon. I mean that I am
a--that I rather was not indifferent to her. I mean that I love her to
distraction at this present moment, and will die myself, or kill the man
who possesses her before me.’
‘YOU marry the greatest heiress and the noblest blood in England?’ said
Lord George haughtily.
‘There’s no nobler blood in Europe than mine,’ answered I: ‘and I tell
you I don’t know whether to hope or not. But this I know, that there
were days in which, poor as I am, the great heiress did not disdain to
look down upon my poverty: and that any man who marries her passes over
my dead body to do it. It’s lucky for you,’ I added gloomily, ‘that on
the occasion of my engagement with you, I did not know what were your
views regarding my Lady Lyndon. My poor boy, you are a lad of courage
and I love you. Mine is the first sword in Europe, and you would have
been lying in a narrower bed than that you now occupy.’
‘Boy!’ said Lord George: ‘I am not four years younger than you are.’
‘You are forty years younger than I am in experience. I have passed
through every grade of life. With my own skill and daring I have made
my own fortune. I have been in fourteen pitched battles as a private
soldier, and have been twenty-three times on the ground, and never was
touched but once; and that was by the sword of a French maitre-d’armes,
Whom I killed. I started in life at seventeen, a beggar, and am now at
seven-and-twenty, with twenty thousand guineas. Do you suppose a man
of my courage and energy can’t attain anything that he dares, and that
having claims upon the widow, I will not press them?’
This speech was not exactly true to the letter (for I had multiplied my
pitched battles, my duels, and my wealth somewhat); but I saw that it
made the impression I desired to effect upon the young gentleman’s
mind, who listened to my statement with peculiar seriousness, and whom I
presently left to digest it.
A couple of days afterwards I called to see him again, when I brought
with me some of the letters that had passed between me and my Lady
Lyndon. ‘Here,’ said I, ‘look--I show it you in confidence--it is a
lock of her Ladyship’s hair; here are her letters signed Calista, and
addressed to Eugenio. Here is a poem, “When Sol bedecks the mead with
light, And pallid Cynthia sheds her ray,” addressed by her Ladyship to
your humble servant.’
‘Calista! Eugenio! Sol bedecks the mead with light?’ cried the young
lord. ‘Am I dreaming? Why, my dear Barry, the widow has sent me the
very poem herself! “Rejoicing in the sunshine bright, Or musing in the
evening grey.”’
I could not help laughing as he made the quotation. They were, in
fact, the very words MY Calista had addressed to me. And we found, upon
comparing letters, that whole passages of eloquence figured in the
one correspondence which appeared in the other. See what it is to be a
blue-stocking and have a love of letter-writing!
The young man put down the papers in great perturbation. ‘Well, thank
Heaven!’ said he, after a pause of some duration,--‘thank Heaven for
a good riddance! Ah, Mr. Barry, what a woman I MIGHT have married had
these lucky papers not come in my way! I thought my Lady Lyndon had a
heart, sir, I must confess, though not a very warm one; and that, at
least, one could TRUST her. But marry her now! I would as lief send
my servant into the street to get me a wife, as put up with such an
Ephesian matron as that.’
‘My Lord George,’ said I, ‘you little know the world. Remember what a
bad husband Lady Lyndon had, and don’t be astonished that she, on her
side, should be indifferent. Nor has she, I will dare to wager, ever
passed beyond the bounds of harmless gallantry, or sinned beyond the
composing of a sonnet or a billet-doux.’
‘My wife,’ said the little lord, ‘shall write no sonnets or
billets-doux; and I’m heartily glad to think I have obtained, in good
time, a knowledge of the heartless vixen with whom I thought myself for
a moment in love.’
The wounded young nobleman was either, as I have said, very young and
green in matters of the world--for to suppose that a man would give up
forty thousand a year, because, forsooth, the lady connected with it had
written a few sentimental letters to a young fellow, is too absurd--or,
as I am inclined to believe, he was glad of an excuse to quit the field
altogether, being by no means anxious to meet the victorious sword of
Redmond Barry a second time.
When the idea of Poynings’ danger, or the reproaches probably addressed
by him to the widow regarding myself, had brought this exceedingly weak
and feeble woman up to Dublin, as I expected, and my worthy Ulick had
informed me of her arrival, I quitted my good mother, who was quite
reconciled to me (indeed the duel had done that), and found the
disconsolate Calista was in the habit of paying visits to the wounded
swain; much to the annoyance, the servants told me, of that gentleman.
The English are often absurdly high and haughty upon a point of
punctilio; and, after his kinswoman’s conduct, Lord Poynings swore he
would have no more to do with her.
I had this information from his Lordship’s gentleman; with whom, as
I have said, I took particular care to be friends; nor was I denied
admission by his porter, when I chose to call, as before.
Her Ladyship had most likely bribed that person, as I had; for she had
found her way up, though denied admission; and, in fact, I had watched
her from her own house to Lord George Poynings’ lodgings, and seen her
descend from her chair there and enter, before I myself followed her. I
proposed to await her quietly in the ante-room, to make a scene there,
and reproach her with infidelity, if necessary; but matters were, as
it happened, arranged much more conveniently for me; and walking,
unannounced, into the outer room of his Lordship’s apartments, I had the
felicity of hearing in the next chamber, of which the door was partially
open, the voice of my Calista. She was in full cry, appealing to the
poor patient, as he lay confined in his bed, and speaking in the most
passionate manner. ‘What can lead you, George,’ she said, ‘to doubt of
my faith? How can you break my heart by casting me off in this monstrous
manner? Do you wish to drive your poor Calista to the grave? Well, well,
I shall join there the dear departed angel.’
‘Who entered it three months since,’ said Lord George, with a sneer.
‘It’s a wonder you have survived so long.’
‘Don’t treat your poor Calista in this cruel cruel manner, Antonio!’
cried the widow.
‘Bah!’ said Lord George, ‘my wound is bad. My doctors forbid me much
talk. Suppose your Antonio tired, my dear. Can’t you console yourself
with somebody else?’
‘Heavens, Lord George! Antonio!’
‘Console yourself with Eugenio,’ said the young nobleman bitterly, and
began ringing his bell; on which his valet, who was in an inner room,
came out, and he bade him show her Ladyship downstairs.
Lady Lyndon issued from the room in the greatest flurry. She was dressed
in deep weeds, with a veil over her face, and did not recognise the
person waiting in the outer apartment. As she went down the stairs, I
stepped lightly after her, and as her chairman opened her door, sprang
forward, and took her hand to place her in the vehicle. ‘Dearest widow,’
said I, ‘his Lordship spoke correctly. Console yourself with Eugenio!’
She was too frightened even to scream, as her chairman carried her away.
She was set down at her house, and you may be sure that I was at the
chair-door, as before, to help her out.
‘Monstrous man!’ said she, ‘I desire you to leave me.’
‘Madam, it would be against my oath,’ replied I; ‘recollect the vow
Eugenio sent to Calista.’
‘If you do not quit me, I will call for the domestics to turn you from
the door.’
‘What! when I am come with my Calista’s letters in my pocket, to return
them mayhap? You can soothe, madam, but you cannot frighten Redmond
Barry.’
‘What is it you would have of me, sir?’ said the widow, rather agitated.
‘Let me come upstairs, and I will tell you all,’ I replied; and she
condescended to give me her hand, and to permit me to lead her from her
chair to her drawing-room.
When we were alone I opened my mind honourably to her.
‘Dearest madam,’ said I, ‘do not let your cruelty drive a desperate
slave to fatal measures. I adore you. In former days you allowed me to
whisper my passion to you unrestrained; at present you drive me from
your door, leave my letters unanswered, and prefer another to me. My
flesh and blood cannot bear such treatment. Look upon the punishment I
have been obliged to inflict; tremble at that which I may be compelled
to administer to that unfortunate young man: so sure as he marries you,
madam, he dies.’
‘I do not recognise,’ said the widow, ‘the least right you have to give
the law to the Countess of Lyndon: I do not in the least understand
your threats, or heed them. What has passed between me and an Irish
adventurer that should authorise this impertinent intrusion?’
‘THESE have passed, madam,’ said I,--‘Calista’s letters to Eugenio. They
may have been very innocent; but will the world believe it? You may have
only intended to play with the heart of the poor artless Irish gentleman
who adored and confided in you. But who will believe the stories of your
innocence, against the irrefragable testimony of your own handwriting?
Who will believe that you could write these letters in the mere
wantonness of coquetry, and not under the influence of affection?’
‘Villain!’ cried my Lady Lyndon, ‘could you dare to construe out of
those idle letters of mine any other meaning than that which they really
bear?’
‘I will construe anything out of them,’ said I; ‘such is the passion
which animates me towards you. I have sworn it--you must and shall be
mine! Did you ever know me promise to accomplish a thing and fail? Which
will you prefer to have from me--a love such as woman never knew from
man before, or a hatred to which there exists no parallel?’
‘A woman of my rank, sir, can fear nothing from the hatred of an
adventurer like yourself,’ replied the lady, drawing up stately.
‘Look at your Poynings--was HE of your rank? You are the cause of that
young man’s wound, madam; and, but that the instrument of your savage
cruelty relented, would have been the author of his murder--yes, of his
murder; for, if a wife is faithless, does not she arm the husband who
punishes the seducer! And I look upon you, Honoria Lyndon, as my wife.’
‘Husband? wife, sir!’ cried the widow, quite astonished.
‘Yes, wife! husband! I am not one of those poor souls with whom
coquettes can play, and who may afterwards throw them aside. You would
forget what passed between us at Spa: Calista would forget Eugenio; but
I will not let you forget me. You thought to trifle with my heart, did
you? When once moved, Honoria, it is moved for ever. I love you--love as
passionately now as I did when my passion was hopeless; and, now that
I can win you, do you think I will forego you? Cruel cruel Calista! you
little know the power of your own charms if you think their effect is so
easily obliterated--you little know the constancy of this pure and noble
heart if you think that, having once loved, it can ever cease to
adore you. No! I swear by your cruelty that I will revenge it; by your
wonderful beauty that I will win it, and be worthy to win it. Lovely,
fascinating, fickle, cruel woman! you shall be mine--I swear it! Your
wealth may be great; but am I not of a generous nature enough to use it
worthily? Your rank is lofty; but not so lofty as my ambition. You threw
yourself away once on a cold and spiritless debauchee: give yourself
now, Honoria, to a MAN; and one who, however lofty your rank may be,
will enhance it and become it!’
As I poured words to this effect out on the astonished widow, I stood
over her, and fascinated her with the glance of my eye; saw her turn red
and pale with fear and wonder; saw that my praise of her charms and the
exposition of my passion were not unwelcome to her, and witnessed with
triumphant composure the mastery I was gaining over her. Terror, be sure
of that, is not a bad ingredient of love. A man who wills fiercely to
win the heart of a weak and vapourish woman MUST succeed, if he have
opportunity enough.
‘Terrible man!’ said Lady Lyndon, shrinking from me as soon as I had
done speaking (indeed, I was at a loss for words, and thinking of
another speech to make to her)--‘terrible man! leave me.’
I saw that I had made an impression on her, from those very words. ‘If
she lets me into the house to-morrow,’ said I, ‘she is mine.’
As I went downstairs I put ten guineas into the hand of the hall-porter,
who looked quite astonished at such a gift.
‘It is to repay you for the trouble of opening the door to me,’ said I;
‘you will have to do so often.’