THE COUNTESS OF CASHEL IN TROUBLE
After considerable negotiation between the father and the son, the time
was fixed for Lord Kilcullen’s arrival at Grey Abbey. The earl tried
much to accelerate it, and the viscount was equally anxious to stave
off the evil day; but at last it was arranged that, on the 3rd of
April, he was to make his appearance, and that he should commence his
wooing as soon as possible after that day.
When this was absolutely fixed, Lord Cashel paid a visit to his
countess, in her boudoir, to inform her of the circumstance, and
prepare her for the expected guest. He did not, however, say a word of
the purport of his son’s visit. He had, at one time, thought of telling
the old lady all about it, and bespeaking her influence with Fanny for
the furtherance of his plan; but, on reconsideration, he reflected that
his wife was not the person to be trusted with any intrigue. So he
merely told her that Lord Kilcullen would be at Grey Abbey in five
days; that he would probably remain at home a long time; that, as he
was giving up his London vices and extravagances, and going to reside
at Grey Abbey, he wished that the house should be made as pleasant for
him as possible; that a set of friends, relatives, and acquaintances
should be asked to come and stay there; and, in short, that Lord
Kilcullen, having been a truly prodigal son, should have a fatted calf
prepared for his arrival.
All this flurried and rejoiced, terrified and excited my lady
exceedingly. In the first place it was so truly delightful that her son
should turn good and proper, and careful and decorous, just at the
right time of life; so exactly the thing that ought to happen. Of
course young noblemen were extravagant, and wicked, and lascivious,
habitual breakers of the commandments, and self-idolators; it was their
nature. In Lady Cashel’s thoughts on the education of young men, these
evils were ranked with the measles and hooping cough; it was well that
they should be gone through and be done with early in life. She had a
kind of hazy idea that an opera-dancer and a gambling club were
indispensable in fitting a young aristocrat for his future career; and
I doubt whether she would not have agreed to the expediency of
inoculating a son of hers with these ailments in a mild
degree—vaccinating him as it were with dissipation, in order that he
might not catch the disease late in life in a violent and fatal form.
She had not therefore made herself unhappy about her son for a few
years after his first entrance on a life in London, but latterly she
had begun to be a little uneasy. Tidings of the great amount of his
debts reached even her ears; and, moreover, it was nearly time that he
should reform and settle down. During the last twelve months she had
remarked fully twelve times, to Griffiths, that she wondered when
Kilcullen would marry?—and she had even twice asked her husband,
whether he didn’t think that such a circumstance would be advantageous.
She was therefore much rejoiced to hear that her son was coming to live
at home. But then, why was it so sudden? It was quite proper that the
house should be made a little gay for his reception; that he shouldn’t
be expected to spend his evenings with no other society than that of
his father and mother, his sister and his cousin; but how was she to
get the house ready for the people, and the people ready for the house,
at so very short a notice?—What trouble, also, it would be to
her!—Neither she nor Griffiths would know another moment’s rest;
besides—and the thought nearly drove her into hysterics,—where was she
to get a new cook?
However, she promised her husband to do her best. She received from him
a list of people to be invited, and, merely stipulating that she
shouldn’t be required to ask any one except the parson of the parish
under a week, undertook to make the place as bearable as possible to so
fastidious and distinguished a person as her own son.
Her first confidante was, of course, Griffiths; and, with her
assistance, the wool and the worsted, and the knitting-needles, the
unfinished vallances and interminable yards of fringe, were put up and
rolled out of the way; and it was then agreed that a council should be
held, to which her ladyship proposed to invite Lady Selina and Fanny.
Griffiths, however, advanced an opinion that the latter was at present
too lack-a-daisical to be of any use in such a matter, and strengthened
her argument by asserting that Miss Wyndham had of late been quite
mumchance [44]. Lady Cashel was at first rather inclined to insist on
her niece being called to the council, but Griffiths’s eloquence was
too strong, and her judgment too undoubted; so Fanny was left
undisturbed, and Lady Selina alone summoned to join the aged female
senators of Grey Abbey.
“Selina,” said her ladyship, as soon as her daughter was seated on the
sofa opposite to her mother’s easy chair, while Griffiths, having shut
the door, had, according to custom, sat herself down on her own
soft-bottomed chair, on the further side of the little table that
always stood at the countess’s right hand. “Selina, what do you think
your father tells me?”
Lady Selina couldn’t think, and declined guessing; for, as she
remarked, guessing was a loss of time, and she never guessed right.
“Adolphus is coming home on Tuesday.”
“Adolphus! why it’s not a month since he was here.”
“And he’s not coming only for a visit; he’s coming to stay here; from
what your father says, I suppose he’ll stay here the greater part of
the summer.”
“What, stay at Grey Abbey all May and June?” said Lady Selina,
evidently discrediting so unlikely a story, and thinking it all but
impossible that her brother should immure himself at Grey Abbey during
the London season.
“It’s true, my lady,” said Griffiths, oracularly; as if her word were
necessary to place the countess’s statement beyond doubt.
“Yes,” continued Lady Cashel; “and he has given up all his
establishment in London—his horses, and clubs, and the opera, and all
that. He’ll go into Parliament, I dare say, now, for the county; at any
rate he’s coming to live at home here for the summer.”
“And has he sold all his horses?” asked Lady Selina.
“If he’s not done it, he’s doing it,” said the countess. “I declare I’m
delighted with him; it shows such proper feeling. I always knew he
would; I was sure that when the time came for doing it, Adolphus would
not forget what was due to himself and to his family.”
“If what you say is true, mamma, he’s going to be married.”
“That’s just what I was thinking, my lady,” said Griffiths. “When her
ladyship first told me all about it,—how his lordship was coming down
to live regular and decorous among his own people, and that he was
turning his back upon his pleasures and iniquities, thinks I to myself
there’ll be wedding favours coming soon to Grey Abbey.”
“If it is so, Selina, your father didn’t say anything to me about it,”
said the countess, somewhat additionally flustered by the importance of
the last suggestion; “and if he’d even guessed such a thing, I’m sure
he’d have mentioned it.”
“It mightn’t be quite fixed, you know, mamma: but if Adolphus is doing
as you say, you may be sure he’s either engaged, or thinking of
becoming so.”
“Well, my dear, I’m sure I wish it may be so; only I own I’d like to
know, because it makes a difference, as to the people he’d like to
meet, you know. I’m sure nothing would delight me so much as to receive
Adolphus’s wife. Of course she’d always be welcome to lie in
here—indeed it’d be the fittest place. But we should be dreadfully put
about, eh, Griffiths?”
“Why, we should, my lady; but, to my mind, this would be the only most
proper place for my lord’s heir to be born in. If the mother and child
couldn’t have the best of minding here, where could they?”
“Of course, Griffiths; and we wouldn’t mind the trouble, on such an
occasion. I think the south room would be the best, because of the
dressing-room being such a good size, and neither of the fireplaces
smoking, you know.”
“Well, I don’t doubt but it would, my lady; only the blue room is
nearer to your ladyship here, and in course your ladyship would choose
to be in and out.”
And visions of caudle cups, cradles, and monthly nurses, floated over
Lady Cashel’s brain, and gave her a kind of dreamy feel that the world
was going to begin again with her.
“But, mamma, is Adolphus really to be here on Tuesday?” said Lady
Selina, recalling the two old women from their attendance on the
unborn, to the necessities of the present generation.
“Indeed he is, my dear, and that’s what I sent for you for. Your papa
wishes to have a good deal of company here to meet your brother; and
indeed it’s only reasonable, for of course this place would be very
dull for him, if there was nobody here but ourselves—and he’s always
used to see so many people; but the worst is, it’s all to be done at
once, and you know there’ll be so much to be got through before we’ll
be ready for a house full of company,—things to be got from Dublin, and
the people to be asked. And then, Selina,” and her ladyship almost wept
as the latter came to her great final difficulty—“What are we to do
about a cook?—Richards’ll never do; Griffiths says she won’t even do
for ourselves, as it is.”
“Indeed she won’t, my lady; it was only impudence in her coming to such
a place at all.—She’d never be able to send a dinner up for eighteen or
twenty.”
“What are we to do, Griffiths? What can have become of all the
cooks?—I’m sure there used to be cooks enough when I was first
married.”
“Well, my lady, I think they must be all gone to England, those that
are any good; but I don’t know what’s come to the servants altogether;
as your ladyship says, they’re quite altered for the worse since we
were young.”
“But, mamma,” said Lady Selina, “you’re not going to ask people here
just immediately, are you?”
“Directly, my dear; your papa wishes it done at once. We’re to have a
dinner-party this day week—that’ll be Thursday; and we’ll get as many
of the people as we can to stay afterwards; and we’ll get the
O’Joscelyns to come on Wednesday, just to make the table look not quite
so bare, and I want you to write the notes at once. There’ll be a great
many things to be got from Dublin too.”
“It’s very soon after poor Harry Wyndham’s death, to be receiving
company,” said Lady Selina, solemnly. “Really, mamma, I don’t think it
will be treating Fanny well to be asking all these people so soon. The
O’Joscelyns, or the Fitzgeralds, are all very well—just our own near
neighbours; but don’t you think, mamma, it’s rather too soon to be
asking a house-full of strange people?”
“Well, my love, I was thinking so, and I mentioned it to your father;
but he said that poor Harry had been dead a month now—and that’s true,
you know—and that people don’t think so much now about those kind of
things as they used to; and that’s true too, I believe.”
“Indeed you may say that, my lady,” interposed Griffiths. “I remember
when bombazines used to be worn three full months for an uncle or
cousin, and now they’re hardly ever worn at all for the like, except in
cases where the brother or sister of him or her as is dead may be
stopping in the house, and then only for a month: and they were always
worn the full six months for a brother or sister, and sometimes the
twelve months round. Your aunt, Lady Charlotte, my lady, wore hers the
full twelve months, when your uncle, Lord Frederick, was shot by Sir
Patrick O’Donnel; and now they very seldom, never, I may say, wear them
the six months!—Indeed, I think mourning is going out altogether; and
I’m very sorry for it, for it’s a very decent, proper sort of thing; at
least, such was always my humble opinion, my lady.”
“Well; but what I was saying is,” continued the countess, “that what
would be thought strange a few years ago, isn’t thought at all so now;
and though I’m sure, Selina, I wouldn’t like to do anything that looked
unkind to Fanny, I really don’t see how we can help it, as your father
makes such a point of it.”
“I can’t say I think it’s right, mamma, for I don’t. But if you and
papa do, of course I’ve nothing further to say.”
“Well, my love, I don’t know that I do exactly think it’s right; and
I’m sure it’s not my wish to be having people, especially when I don’t
know where on earth to turn for a cook. But what can we do, my dear?
Adolphus wouldn’t stay the third night here, I’m sure, if there was
nobody to amuse him; and you wouldn’t have him turned out of the house,
would you?”
“_I_ have him turned out, mamma? God forbid! I’d sooner he should be
here than anywhere, for here he must be out of harm’s way; but still I
think that if he comes to a house of mourning, he might, for a short
time, submit to put up with its decent tranquillity.”
“Selina,” said the mother, pettishly, “I really thought you’d help me
when I’ve so much to trouble and vex me—and not make any fresh
difficulties. How can I help it?—If your father says the people are to
come, I can’t say I won’t let them in. I hope you won’t make Fanny
think I’m doing it from disrespect to her. I’m sure I wouldn’t have a
soul here for a twelvemonth, on my own account.”
“I’m sure Miss Wyndham won’t think any such thing, my lady,” said
Griffiths; “will she, Lady Selina?—Indeed, I don’t think she’ll matter
it one pin.”
“Indeed, Selina, I don’t think she will,” said the countess; and then
she half whispered to her daughter. “Poor Fanny! it’s not about her
brother she’s grieving; it’s that horrid man, Ballindine. She sent him
away, and now she wants to have him back. I really think a little
company will be the best thing to bring her to herself again.” There
was a little degree of humbug in this whisper, for her ladyship meant
her daughter to understand that she wouldn’t speak aloud about Fanny’s
love-affair before Griffiths; and yet she had spent many a half hour
talking to her factotum on that very subject. Indeed, what subject was
there of any interest to Lady Cashel on which she did not talk to
Griffiths!
“Well, mamma,” said Lady Selina, dutifully, “I’ll not say another word
about it; only let me know what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Who
is it you mean to ask?”
“Why, first of all, there’s the Fitzgeralds: your father thinks that
Lord and Lady George would come for a week or so, and you know the
girls have been long talking of coming to Grey Abbey—these two years I
believe, and more.”
“The girls will come, I dare say, mamma; though I don’t exactly think
they’re the sort of people who will amuse Adolphus; but I don’t think
Lord George or Lady George will sleep away from home. We can ask them,
however; Mountains is only five miles from here, and I’m sure they’ll
go back after dinner.”
“Well, my dear, if they will, they must, and I can’t help it; only I
must say it’ll be very ill-natured of them. I’m sure it’s a long time
since they were asked to stay here.”
“As you say, mamma, at any rate we can ask them. And who comes next?”
“Why your father has put down the Swinburn people next; though I’m sure
I don’t know how they are to come so far.”
“Why, mamma, the colonel is a martyr to the gout!”
“Yes, my lady,” said Griffiths, “and Mrs. Ellison is worse again, with
rheumatics. There would be nothing to do, the whole time, but nurse the
two of them.”
“Never mind, Griffiths; you’ll not have to nurse them, so you needn’t
be so ill-natured.”
“Me, ill-natured, my lady? I’m sure I begs pardon, but I didn’t mean
nothing ill-natured; besides, Mrs. Ellison was always a very nice lady
to me, and I’m sure I’d be happy to nurse her, if she wanted it; only
that, as in duty bound, I’ve your ladyship to look to first, and so
couldn’t spare time very well for nursing any one.”
“Of course you couldn’t, Griffiths; but, Selina, at any rate you must
ask the Ellisons: your papa thinks a great deal about the colonel—he
has so much influence in the county, and Adolphus will very likely
stand, now. Your papa and the colonel were members together for the
county more than forty years since.”
“Well, mamma, I’ll write Mrs. Ellison. Shall I say for a week or ten
days?”
“Say for ten days or a fortnight, and then perhaps they’ll stay a week.
Then there’s the Bishop of Maryborough, and Mrs. Moore. I’m sure
Adolphus will be glad to meet the bishop, for it was he that christened
him.”
“Very well, mamma, I’ll write to Mrs. Moore. I suppose the bishop is in
Dublin at present?”
“Yes, my dear, I believe so. There can’t be anything to prevent their
coming.”
“Only that he’s the managing man on the Education Board, and he’s
giving up his time very much to that at present. I dare say he’ll come,
but he won’t stay long.”
“Well, Selina, if he won’t, I can’t help it; and I’m sure, now I think
about the cook, I don’t see how we’re to expect anybody to stay. What
am I to do, Griffiths, about that horrid woman?”
“I’ll tell you what I was thinking, my lady; only I don’t know whether
your ladyship would like it, either, and if you didn’t you could easily
get rid of him when all these people are gone.”
“Get rid of who?”
“I was going to say, my lady—if your ladyship would consent to have a
man cook for a time, just to try.”
“Then I never will, Griffiths: there’d be no peace in the house with
him!”
“Well, your ladyship knows best, in course; only if you thought well of
trying it, of course you needn’t keep the man; and I know there’s
Murray in Dublin, that was cook so many years to old Lord Galway. I
know he’s to be heard of at the hotel in Grafton Street.”
“I can’t bear the thoughts of a man cook, Griffiths: I’d sooner have
three women cooks, and I’m sure one’s enough to plague anybody.”
“But none’s worse, my lady,” said Griffiths.
“You needn’t tell me that. I wonder, Selina, if I were to write to my
sister, whether she could send me over anything that would answer?”
“What, from London, my lady?” answered Griffiths—“You’d find a London
woman cook sent over in that way twice worse than any man: she’d be all
airs and graces. If your ladyship thought well of thinking about
Murray, Richards would do very well under him: she’s a decent poor
creature, poor woman—only she certainly is not a cook that’d suit for
such a house as this; and it was only impudence her thinking to attempt
it.”
“But, mamma,” said Lady Selina, “do let me know to whom I am to write,
and then you and Griffiths can settle about the cook afterwards; the
time is so very short that I ought not to lose a post.”
The poor countess threw herself back in her easy chair, the picture of
despair. Oh, how much preferable were rolls of worsted and yards of
netting, to the toils and turmoil of preparing for, and entertaining
company! She was already nearly overcome by the former: she didn’t dare
to look forward to the miseries of the latter. She already began to
feel the ill effects of her son’s reformation, and to wish that it had
been postponed just for a month or two, till she was a little more
settled.
“Well, mamma,” said Lady Selina, as undisturbed and calm as ever, and
as resolved to do her duty without flinching, “shall we go on?”
The countess groaned and sighed—“There’s the list there, Selina, which
your father put down in pencil. You know the people as well as I do:
just ask them all—”
“But, mamma, I’m not to ask them all to stay here:—I suppose some are
only to come to dinner?—the O’Joscelyns, and the Parchments?”
“Ask the O’Joscelyns for Wednesday and Thursday: the girls might as
well stay and sleep here. But what’s the good of writing to them?—can’t
you drive over to the Parsonage and settle it all there?—you do nothing
but make difficulties, Selina, and my head’s racking.”
Lady Selina sate silent for a short time, conning the list, and
endeavouring to see her way through the labyrinth of difficulties which
was before her, without further trouble to her mother; while the
countess leaned back, with her eyes closed, and her hands placed on the
arms of her chair, as though she were endeavouring to get some repose,
after the labour she had gone through. Her daughter, however, again
disturbed her.
“Mamma,” she said, trying by the solemnity of her tone to impress her
mother with the absolute necessity she was under of again appealing to
her upon the subject, “what _are_ we to do about young men?”
“About young men, my dear?”
“Yes, mamma: there’ll be a house-full of young ladies—there’s the
Fitzgeralds—and Lady Louisa Pratt—and Miss Ellison—and the three
O’Joscelyns—and not a single young man, except Mr O’Joscelyn’s curate!”
“Well, my dear, I’m sure Mr. Hill’s a very nice young man.”
“So he is, mamma; a very good young man; but he won’t do to amuse such
a quantity of girls. If there were only one or two he’d do very well;
besides, I’m sure Adolphus won’t like it.”
“Why; won’t he talk to the young ladies?—I’m sure he was always fond of
ladies’ society.”
“I tell you, mamma, it won’t do. There’ll be the bishop and two other
clergymen, and old Colonel Ellison, who has always got the gout, and
Lord George, if he comes—and I’m sure he won’t. If you want to make a
pleasant party for Adolphus, you must get some young men; besides, you
can’t ask all those girls, and have nobody to dance with them or talk
to them.”
“I’m sure, my dear, I don’t know what you’re to do. I don’t know any
young men except Mr. Hill; and there’s that young Mr. Grundy, who lives
in Dublin. I promised his aunt to be civil to him: can’t you ask him
down?”
“He was here before, mamma, and I don’t think he liked it. I’m sure we
didn’t. He didn’t speak a word the whole day he was here. He’s not at
all the person to suit Adolphus.”
“Then, my dear, you _must_ go to your papa, and ask him: it’s quite
clear I can’t make young men. I remember, years ago, there always used
to be too many of them, and I don’t know where they’re all gone to. At
any rate, when they do come, there’ll be nothing for them to eat,” and
Lady Cashel again fell back upon her deficiencies in the kitchen
establishment.
Lady Selina saw that nothing more could be obtained from her mother, no
further intelligence as regarded the embryo party. The whole burden was
to lie on her shoulders, and very heavy she felt it. As far as
concerned herself, she had no particular wish for one kind of guest
more than another: it was not for herself that she wanted young men;
she knew that at any rate there were none within reach whom she could
condescend to notice save as her father’s guests; there could be no one
there whose presence could be to her of any interest: the gouty
colonel, and the worthy bishop, would be as agreeable to her as any
other men that would now be likely to visit Grey Abbey. But Lady Selina
felt a real desire that others in the house might be happy while there.
She was no flirt herself, nor had she ever been; it was not in her
nature to be so. But though she herself might be contented to twaddle
with old men, she knew that other girls would not. Yet it was not that
she herself had no inward wish for that admiration which is desired by
nearly every woman, or that she thought a married state was an
unenviable one. No; she could have loved and loved truly, and could
have devoted herself most scrupulously to the duties of a wife; but she
had vainly and foolishly built up for herself a pedestal, and there she
had placed herself; nor would she come down to stand on common earth,
though Apollo had enticed her, unless he came with the coronet of a
peer upon his brow.
She left her mother’s boudoir, went down into the drawing-room, and
there she wrote her notes of invitation, and her orders to the
tradesmen; and then she went to her father, and consulted him on the
difficult subject of young men. She suggested the Newbridge Barracks,
where the dragoons were; and the Curragh, where perhaps some stray
denizen of pleasure might be found, neither too bad for Grey Abbey, nor
too good to be acceptable to Lord Kilcullen; and at last it was decided
that a certain Captain Cokely, and Mat Tierney, should be asked. They
were both acquaintances of Adolphus; and though Mat was not a young
man, he was not very old, and was usually very gay.
So that matter was settled, and the invitations were sent off. The
countess overcame her difficulty by consenting that Murray the man cook
should be hired for a given time, with the distinct understanding that
he was to take himself off with the rest of the guests, and so great
was her ladyship’s sense of the importance of the negotiation, that she
absolutely despatched Griffiths to Dublin to arrange it, though thereby
she was left two whole days in solitary misery at Grey Abbey; and had
to go to bed, and get up, she really hardly knew how, with such
assistance as Lady Selina’s maid could give her.
When these things were all arranged, Selina told her cousin that
Adolphus was coming home, and that a house full of company had been
asked to meet him. She was afraid that Fanny would be annoyed and
offended at being forced to go into company so soon after her brother’s
death, but such was not the case. She felt, herself, that her poor
brother was not the cause of the grief that was near her heart; and she
would not pretend what she didn’t really feel.
“You were quite right, Selina,” she said, smiling, “about the things
you said yesterday I should want from Dublin: now, I shall want them;
and, as I wouldn’t accept of your good-natured offer, I must take the
trouble of writing myself.”
“If you like it, Fanny, I’ll write for you,” said Selina.
“Oh no, I’m not quite so idle as that”—and she also began her
preparations for the expected festivities. Little did either of them
think that she, Fanny Wyndham, was the sole cause of all the trouble
which the household and neighbourhood were to undergo:—the fatigue of
the countess; Griffiths’s journey; the arrival of the dread man cook;
Richards’s indignation at being made subordinate to such authority; the
bishop’s desertion of the Education Board; the colonel’s dangerous and
precipitate consumption of colchicum; the quarrel between Lord and Lady
George as to staying or not staying; the new dresses of the Miss
O’Joscelyns, which their worthy father could so ill afford; and, above
all, the confusion, misery, rage, and astonishment which attended Lord
Kilcullen’s unexpected retreat from London, in the middle of the
summer. And all in vain!
How proud and satisfied Lord Ballindine might have been, had he been
able to see all this, and could he have known how futile was every
effort Lord Cashel could make to drive from Fanny Wyndham’s heart the
love she felt for him.
The invitations, however, were, generally speaking, accepted. The
bishop and his wife would be most happy; the colonel would come if the
gout would possibly allow; Lady George wrote a note to say they would
be very happy to stay a few days, and Lord George wrote another soon
after to say he was sorry, but that they must return the same evening.
The O’Joscelyns would be delighted; Mat Tierney would be very proud;
Captain Cokely would do himself the honour; and, last but not least,
Mr. Murray would preside below stairs—for a serious consideration.
What a pity so much trouble should have been taken! They might all have
stayed at home; for Fanny Wyndham will never become Lady Kilcullen.