LONG before Lady Hester awoke on the following morning every
circumstance of her visit was known to Grounsell. It was the doctor's
custom to see Dalton early each day, and before Sir Stafford was
stirring, and to chat away an hour or so with the invalid, telling
the current news of the time, and cheering his spirits by those little
devices which are not among the worst resources of the Materia Medica.
With all his knowledge of Lady Hester's character, her caprices,
her whims, and her insatiable passion for excitement, he was still
astonished beyond measure at this step: not that the false air of
benevolence or charity deceived him, he was too old a practitioner in
medicine, and had seen far too much of the dark side of human nature,
to be easily gulled, but his surprise arose from the novelty of her
condescending to know, and even propitiate, the good graces of people
whom she usually professed to regard as the least interesting of all
classes of mankind. The “reduced lady or gentleman” had only presented
themselves to Lady Hester's mind by the medium of an occasional
curiously worded advertisement in a morning paper, and were invariably
associated with a subsequent police report, where the object of
charity was sure to be confronted with half a dozen peers or members of
parliament, whose sympathies he had put under contribution, to support a
life of infamy or extravagance. “A begging impostor” rang in her mind
as a phrase whose ingredient words could not be divorced, and she was
thoroughly convinced that imposture and poverty were convertible terms.
The very notion of any one having once been well off, and being now in
embarrassment, was, to her deeming, most satisfactory evidence of past
misconduct and present knavery. Grounsell had beard her hold forth
on this theme more than once, “embroidering the sentiment” with an
occasional sly allusion to himself and his own fortunes, so that he
had often thought over the difficulty of serving the Daltons with Sir
Stafford, by reflecting on the hostility any project would meet with
from “my Lady,” and now accident, or something very like it, had done
what all his ingenuity could not succeed in discovering.
The announcement at first rendered him perfectly mute; he heard it
without power to make the slightest observation; and it was only at the
end of a lengthy description from the two sisters, that he exclaimed, in
a kind of half soliloquy, “By Jove, it is so like her, after all!”
“I 'm sure of it,” said Nelly; “her manner was kindness and gentleness
itself. You should have seen the tender way she took poor Hansells hand
in her own, and how eagerly she asked us to translate for her the few
stray words he uttered.”
“Of course she did. I could swear to it all, now that my eyes are
opened.”
“And with what winning grace she spoke!” cried Kate. “How the least
phrase came from her lips with a fascination that still haunts me!”
“Just so, just so!” muttered Grounsell.
“How such traits of benevolence ennoble high station!” said Nelly.
“How easy to credit all that one hears of the charms of intercourse,
where manner like hers prevails on every side!” cried Kate,
enthusiastically.
“How thoughtful in all her kindness!”
“What elegance in every movement!”
“With what inborn courtesy she accepted the little valueless attentions,
which were all we could render her!”
“How beautiful she looked, in all the disorder of a dress so unlike her
own splendor! I could almost fancy that old straw chair to be a handsome
fauteuil since she sat in it.”
“How delightful it must be to be admitted to the freedom of daily
intercourse with such a person, to live within the atmosphere of such
goodness and such refinement!” And thus they went on ringing the changes
upon every gift and grace, from the genial warmth of her heart, to the
snowy whiteness of her dimpled hands; while Grouusell fidgeted in his
chair, searched for his handkerchief, his spectacles, his snuff-box,
dropped them all in turn, and gathered them up again, in a perfect fever
of embarrassment and indecision.
“And you see her every day, doctor?” said Nelly.
“Yes, every day, madam,” said he, hastily, and not noticing nor thinking
to whom he was replying.
“And is she always as charming, always as fascinating?”
“Pretty much the same, I think,” said he, with a grunt.
“How delightful! And always in the same buoyancy of spirits?”
“Very little changed in that respect,” said he, with another grunt.
“We have often felt for poor Sir Stafford being taken ill away from
his home, and obliged to put up with the miserable resources of a
watering-place in winter; but I own, when I think of the companionship
of Lady Hester, much of my compassion vanishes.”
“He needs it all, then,” said Grounsell, as, thrusting his hands into
the recesses of his pockets, he sat a perfect picture of struggling
embarrassment.
“Are his sufferings so very great?”
Grounsell nodded abruptly, for now he was debating within himself what
course to take; for while, on one side, he deemed it a point of honor
not to divulge to strangers, as were the Daltons, any of the domestic
circumstances of those with whom he lived, he felt, on the other,
reluctant to suffer Lady Hester's blandishments to pass for qualities
more sterling and praiseworthy.
“She asked the girls to go and see her,” said Dalton, now breaking
silence for the first time; for although flattered in the main by what
he heard of the fine lady's manner towards his daughters, he was not
without misgivings that what they interpreted as courtesy might just as
probably be called condescension, against which his Irish pride of birth
and blood most sturdily rebelled. “She asked them to go and see her, and
it was running in my head if she mio'ht not have heard something of the
family connection.”
“Possibly!” asserted Grounsell, too deep in his own calculations to
waste a thought on such a speculation.
“My wife's uncle, Joe Godfrey, married an Englishwoman. The sister
was aunt to some rich city banker; and indeed, to tell the truth, his
friends in Ireland never thought much of the connection but you see
times are changed. They are up now, and we are down, the way of the
world! It 's little I ever thought of claiming relationship with the
like o' them!”
“But if it 's they who seek us, papa?” whispered Kate.
“Ay, that alters the case, my dear; not but I'd as soon excuse the
politeness. Here we are, living in a small way; till matters come round
in Ireland, we can't entertain them, not even give them a dinner-party.”
“Oh, dearest papa,” broke in Nelly, “is not our poverty a blessing if it
save us the humiliation of being absurd? Why should we think of such a
thing? Why should we, with our straitened means and the habits narrow
fortune teaches, presume even to a momentary equality with those so much
above us.”
“Faith, it's true enough!” cried Dalton, his cheek flushed with anger.
“We are changed, there's no doubt of it; or it is not a Dalton would say
the words you 've just said. I never knew before that the best in the
land wasn't proud to come under our roof.”
“When we had a roof,” said Nelly, firmly. “And if these ancestors had
possessed a true and a higher pride, mayhap we might still have one.
Had they felt shame to participate in schemes of extravagance and costly
display, had they withheld encouragement from a ruinous mode of living,
we might still be dwellers in our own home and our own country.”
Dalton seemed thunderstruck at the boldness of a speech so unlike the
gentle character of her who had uttered it. To have attributed any
portion of the family calamities to their own misconduct to have
laid the blame of their downfall to any score save that of English
legislation, acts of parliament, grand-jury laws, failure of the potato
crop, tithes, Terry alts, or smut in the wheat was a heresy he never, in
his gloomiest moments, had imagined, and now he was to hear it from the
lips of his own child.
“Nelly Nelly Dal ton,” said he; “but why do I call you Dalton? Have you
a drop of our blood in your veins at all, or is it the Godfreys you take
after? Extravagance, ruinous living, waste, what 'll you say next?” He
could n't continue, indignation and anger seemed almost to suffocate
him.
“Papa, dearest, kindest papa!” cried Nelly, as the tears burst from her
eyes, “be not angry with me, nor suppose that any ungenerous repining
against our altered lot finds a place in my heart. God knows that I
grieve not for myself; in the humble sphere in which I am placed, I have
found true contentment, greater, perhaps, than higher fortunes would
have given me; for here my duties are better defined, and my sense of
them is clearer. If I feel sorrow, it is for you and my dear sister,
for you, papa, who suffer from many a privation; for her, who might well
adorn a more exalted station. But for me the lame Nelly, as children
used to call me” She was not suffered to finish her speech, for already
her father had clasped his arms around her, and Kate, in a gush of
tears, was sobbing on his shoulder.
“Where's the doctor? what's become of him?” said Dalton, as, recovering
from his emotion, he wished to give a different direction to their
thoughts.
“He went away half an hour ago, papa,” said Kate. “He always goes off
without saying good-bye, whenever there is a word said about family.”
“I noticed that, too, my dear,” said Dalton, “and I would n't wonder
if he came of low people; not but he 's a kind creature, and mighty
good-hearted.”
Nelly could probably have suggested a better reason for the doctor's
conduct, but she prudently forbore from again alluding to a theme
already too painful.
With the reader's permission, we will now follow him as, with a gesture
of impatience, he abruptly left the room on the very first mention by
Dalton of that genealogical tree in whose branches he loved to perch
himself.
“An old fool!” muttered Grounsell, as he passed downstairs, “an old
fool, that no experience will ever make wiser! Well may his native
country be a stumbling-block to legislators, if his countrymen be all
like him, with his family pride and pretension! Confound him! can't
he see that there 's no independence for a man in debt, and no true
self-respect left for him who can't pay his tailor? For himself there's
no help; but the poor girls! he'll be the ruin of them. Kate is already
a willing listener to his nonsensical diatribes about blood and family;
and poor Nelly's spirits will be broken in the hopeless conflict with
his folly! Just so, that will be the end of it; he will turn the head of
one, and break the heart of the other; and yet, all the while, he firmly
believes he is leaving a far better heritage behind him in this empty
pride, than if he could bequeath every acre that once belonged to
them.” Thus soliloquizing, he went on ringing changes over every form of
imprudence, waste, vanity, and absurdity, which, by applying to them the
simple adjective of “Irish,” he fancied were at once intelligible, and
needed no other explanation. In this mood he made his entrance into
Sir Stafford's chamber, and so full of his own thoughts that the worthy
baronet could not fail to notice his preoccupation.
“Eh! Grounsel, what 's the matter, another row with my Lady, eh?” said
he, smiling with his own quiet smile.
“Not to-day. We 've not met this morning, and, consequently, the
armistice of yesterday is still unbroken! The fatigue of last night has,
doubtless, induced her to sleep a little longer, and so I have contrived
to arrive at noon without the risk of an apoplexy.”
“What fatigue do you allude to?”
“Oh, I forgot I have a long story for you. What do you suppose her
Ladyship has been performing now?”
“I 've heard all about it,” said Sir Stafford, pettishly. “George has
given me the whole narrative of that unlucky business. We must take care
of the poor fellow, Grounsell, and see that he wants for nothing.”
“You 're thinking of the pistol-shooting; but that 's not her Ladyship's
last,” said the doctor, with a malicious laugh. “It is as a Lady
Bountiful she has come out, and made her debut last night I am bound
to say with infinite success.” And, without further preface, Grounsell
related the whole adventure of Lady Hester's visit to the dwarf,
omitting nothing of those details we have already laid before
the reader, and dilating with all his own skill upon the possible
consequences of the step. “I have told you already about these
people: of that old fool, the father, with his Irish pride, his Irish
pretensions, his poverty, and his insane notions about family. Well,
his head a poor thing in the best of times is gone clean mad about this
visit. And then the girls! good, dear, affectionate children as they
are, they 're in a kind of paroxysm of ecstasy about her Ladyship's
style, her beauty, her dress, the charm of her amiability, the
fascination of her manner. Their little round of daily duties will
henceforth seem a dreary toil; the very offices of their charity
will lose all the glow of zeal when deprived of that elegance which
refinement can throw over the veriest trifle. Ay! don't smile at it, the
fact is a stubborn one. They 'd barter the deepest devotion they ever
rendered to assuage pain for one trick of that flattery with which my
Lady captivated them. Will all the poetry of poor Nelly's heart shut out
the memory of graces associated with the vanities of fashion? Will all
Kate's dutiful affection exalt those household drudgeries in her esteem,
the performances of which will henceforth serve to separate her more and
more from one her imagination has already enshrined as an idol?”
“You take the matter too seriously to heart, Grounsell,” said Sir
Stafford, smiling.
“Not a bit of it; I 've studied symptoms too long and too carefully not
to be ever on the look-out for results. To Lady Hester, this visit is
a little episode as easily forgotten as any chance incident of the
journey. But what an event is it in the simple story of their lives!”
“Well, well, it cannot be helped now; the thing is done, and there 's
an end of it,” said Sir Stafford, pettishly; “and I confess I cannot see
the matter as you do, for I have been thinking for two days back about
these Daltons, and of some mode of being of service to them, and this
very accident may suggest the way. I have been looking over some old
letters and papers, and I 've no doubt that I have had unintentionally,
of course a share in the poor fellow's ruin. Do you know, Grounsell,
that this is the very same Peter Dalton who once wrote to me the most
insulting letters, and even a defiance to fight a duel, because a
distant relative bequeathed to me a certain estate that more naturally
should have descended to him. At first, I treated the epistles as
unworthy of any serious attention, they were scarcely intelligible,
and not distinguished by anything like a show of reason; but when from
insult the writer proceeded to menace, I mentioned the affair to my
lawyer, and, indeed, gave him permission to take any steps that might be
necessary to rid me of so unpleasant a correspondent. I never heard more
of the matter; but now, on looking over some papers, I see that the case
went hardly with Dalton, for there was a 'rule to show cause,' and an
'attachment,' and I don't know what besides, obtained against him from
the King's Bench, and he was actually imprisoned eight months for this
very business; so that, besides having succeeded to this poor fellow's
property, I have also deprived him of his liberty. Quite enough of
hardship to have suffered at the hands of any one man and that one, not
an enemy.”
“And would you believe it, Onslow, we have talked over you and your
affairs a hundred times together, and yet he has never even alluded to
this? One would think that such an event would make an impression upon
most men; but, assuredly, he is either the most forgetful or the most
generous fellow on earth.”
“How very strange! And so you tell me that he remembers my name, and all
the circumstances of that singular bequest for singular it was from a
man whom I never saw since he was a boy.”
“He remembers it all. It was the last blow fortune dealt him, and,
indeed, he seemed scarcely to require so heavy a stroke to fell
him, for, by his own account, he had been struggling on, in debt and
difficulty, for many a year, putting off creditors by the plausible plea
that a considerable estate must eventually fall in to him. It is quite
certain that he believed this himself, but he also maintained a course
of expenditure that, were he even in possession of the property, it
would have been impossible to keep up. His brother-in-law's parsimony,
too, was a constant source of self-gratulation to him, fancying, as he
did, that a considerable sum in Bank stock would be among the benefits
of this bequest. To find himself cut off, without even a mention of his
name, was, then, to know that he was utterly, irretrievably ruined.”
“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Onslow; “I never suspected the case had been
so hard a one. His letters you shall see them yourself bore all the
evidence of a man more touchy on the score of a point of honor than
mindful of a mere money matter. He seemed desirous of imputing to me
who, as I have told you, never saw Mr. Godfrey for above forty years
something like undue influence, and, in fact, of having prejudiced his
brother-in-law against him. He dated his angry epistles from a park or a
castle I forget which and they bore a seal of armorial pretensions
such as an archduke might acknowledge. All these signs seemed to me so
indicative of fortune and standing, that I set my friend down for a very
bloodthirsty Irishman, but assuredly never imagined that poverty had
contributed its sting to the injury.”
“I can easily conceive all that,” said Grounsell. “At this very moment,
with want staring him on every side, he 'd rather talk of his former
style at confound the barbarous place, I never can remember the name
of it than he 'd listen to any suggestion for the future benefit of his
children.”
“I have been a grievous enemy to him,” said Sir Stafford, musingly.
“He reckons the loss at something like six thousand a year,” said
Grounsell.
“Not the half of it, doctor; the estate, when I succeeded to it, was
in a ruinous condition. A pauper and rebellious tenantry holding their
tenures on nominal rents, and either living in open defiance of all law,
or scheming to evade it by a hundred subterfuges. Matters are somewhat
better; but if so, it has cost me largely to make them so. Disabuse his
mind, I beg you, of this error. His loss was at least not so heavy as he
reckoned.”
“Faith, I'll scarcely venture on so very delicate a theme,” said
Grounsell, dryly. “I 'm not quite so sure how he 'd take it.”
“I see, doctor,” said Onslow, laughing, “that his duelling tastes have
impressed you with a proper degree of respect. Well, let us think of
something more to the purpose than rectifying a mere mistaken opinion.
How can we serve him? What can be done for him?”
“Ruined gentlemen, like second-hand uniforms, are generally sent to the
colonies,” said Grounsell; “but Dalton is scarcely fit for export.”
“What if we could get him appointed a magistrate in one of the West
India Islands?”
“New rum would finish him the first rainy season.”
“Is he fit for a consulship?”
“About as much as for Lord Chancellor. I tell you the man's pride would
revolt at anything to which a duty was annexed. Whatever you decide on
must be untrammelled by any condition of this kind.”
“An annuity, then, some moderate sum sufficient to support them in
respectability,” said Onslow; “that is the only thing I see for it, and
I am quite ready to do my part, which, indeed, is full as much a matter
of honor as generosity.”
“How will you induce him to accept it?”
“We can manage that, I fancy, with a little contrivance. I 'll consult
Prichard; he 's coming here this very day about these renewals, and he
'll find a way of doing it.”
“You'll have need of great caution,” said Grounsell; “without being
naturally suspicious, misfortune has rendered him very sensitive as to
anything like a slight. To this hour he is ignorant that his daughter
sells those little figures; and although he sees, in a hundred
appliances to his comfort, signs of resources of which he knows nothing,
he never troubles his head how the money comes.”
“What a strange character!”
“Strange indeed. True pride and false pride, manly patience, childish
petulance, generosity, selfishness, liberality, meanness, even to the
spirits alternating between boy-like levity and downright despair! The
whole is such a mixture as I never saw before, and yet I can fancy it is
as much the national temperament as that of the individual.”
And now Grounsell, launched upon a sea without compass or chart, hurried
off to lose himself in vague speculation about questions that have
puzzled, and are puzzling, wiser heads than his.