How very seldom it is that a man looks at a letter he has written
some twenty years or so before, and peruses it with any degree of
satisfaction! No matter how pleasurable the theme, or how full of
interest at the time, years have made such changes in circumstances,
have so altered his relations with the world, dispelled illusions here,
created new prospects there, that the chances are he can feel nothing
but astonishment for what once were his opinions, and a strange sense of
misgiving that he ever could have so expressed himself.
Rare as this pleasure is, we left Mr. Dalton in the fullest enjoyment of
it, in our last chapter; and as he read and re-read his autograph, every
feature of his face showed the enjoyment it yielded him.
“My own writing, sure enough! I wish I never put my hand to paper in a
worse cause. Is n't it strange,” he muttered, “how a man's heart will
outlive his fingers? I could n't write now as well as I used then, but
I can feel just the same. There 's the very words I said.” And with this
he read, half aloud, from the paper: “'But if you my consent to send
lawyers and attorneys to the devil, and let the-matter be settled
between us, like two gentlemen, Peter Dalton will meet you when, where,
and how you like, and take the satisfaction as a full release of every
claim and demand he makes on you.' Just so; and a fairer offer never was
made; but I grieve to say it wasn't met in the same spirit.”
“When you wrote that letter, Mr. Dalton,” said Prichard, not looking
up from the papers before him, “you were doubtless suffering under the
impression of a wrong at the hands of Sir Stafford Ouslow.”
“Faith, I believe you. The loss of a fine estate was n't a trifle,
whatever you may think it.”
“The question ought rather to be, what right had you to attribute that
loss to him?”
“What right is it? All the right in the world. Who got the property?
Answer me that. Was n't it he came in as a sole legatee? But what am I
talking about? Sure the thing is done and ended, and what more does he
want?”
“I'm just coming to that very point, sir,” said Prichard. “Sir
Stafford's attention having been accidentally called to this
transaction, he perceives that he has unwittingly done you a great
injustice, and that there is one matter, at least, on which he is bound,
even for his own satisfaction.”
“Satisfaction, is it?” broke in Dalton, catching at the only word that
struck his ear with a distinct signification. “Better late than never;
and it 's proud I am to oblige him. Not but there 's people would tell
you that the time 's gone by, and all that sort of thing; but them was
never my sentiments. 'Never a bad time for a good deed,' my poor father
used to say, and you may tell him that I 'll think the better of his
countrymen to the day of my death, for what he 's going to do now.”
Prichard laid down the paper he was reading, and stared at the speaker
in mute amazement.
“You 're his friend, I perceive,” said Dalton.
“Sir Stafford is kind enough to consider me in that light.”
“Faith, the kindness is all the other way,” rejoined Dalton, laughing,
“at least, in this country; for the seconds are just as guilty as the
principals, and have no fun for their money. But, sure, we can cross
over to Landau; they tell me it's Barbaria there, over the Rhine.”
“Bavaria, perhaps?” interposed the other.
“Yes, that 's what I said. We can be over the frontier in two hours.
There 's every conveniency in life,” said he, rubbing his hands in high
glee.
“Our business, I trust, sir, can be all arranged here, and without much
delay, either.”
“Just as you like; I 'm not fond of moving since my knee was bad, and I
'm agreeable to anything.”
“You seem to contemplate a hostile meeting, sir, if I understand you
aright,” said Prichard, slowly; “but if you had been kind enough to
hear me out, you 'd have seen that nothing was further from my friend's
thoughts or my own.”
“Oh, murther!” groaned Dal ton, as he sank down into a chair.
“We never entertained any such intention.”
“No duel?”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“Sure, I heard you say satisfaction. I 'll take my oath you said
satisfaction.”
“I hope sincerely, sir, that the word may bear a peaceful
signification.”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Dalton, as, clasping his hands on his knees,
he sat, a perfect type of disappointed hope, and totally inattentive to
a very eloquent explanation that Prichard was pouring forth.
“You see, now, sir, I trust,” cried the latter, triumphantly, “that if
my friend's intentions are not precisely what you looked for, they are
not less inspired by an anxious desire to cultivate your friendship and
obtain your good opinion.”
“I wasn't listening to a word you were saying,” said Dalton, with a
sincerity that would have made many men smile; but Mr. Prichard never
laughed, or only when the joke was uttered by a silk gown, or the
initiative given by the bench itself.
“I was endeavoring, sir, to convey,” said he again, and with infinite
patience, “that, by a clause of the late Mr. Godfrey's will, the
suggestion was made to the effect that, if Sir Stafford Onslow should
deem it fitting and suitable, the testator would not be averse to an
annuity of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds per annum
being settled on Mr. Peter Dalton for the term of his life. This clause
has now been brought under Sir Stafford's notice for the first time, as
he never, in fact, saw the will before. The document was lodged in our
hands; and as certain proceedings, of which the letter you have just
acknowledged forms a part, at that period placed you in a peculiar
position of hostility to Sir Stafford, we, as his legal advisers, did
not take any remarkable pains to impress this recommendation on his
memory.”
“Go on; I 'm listening to you,” said Dalton.
“Well, sir, Sir Stafford is now desirous of complying with this
injunction, the terms of which he reads as more obligatory upon him than
his legal friends would be willing to substantiate. In fact, he makes
the matter a question of feeling and not of law; and this, of course, is
a point wherein we have no right to interpose an opinion. Something like
ten years have elapsed since Mr. Godfrey's death, and taking the sum at
two hundred pounds, with interest at five per cent, a balance of above
three thousand two hundred will now be at your disposal, together with
the annuity on your life; and to arrange the payment of these moneys,
and take measures for their future disbursement, I have the honor to
present myself before you. As for these letters, they are your own; and
Sir Stafford, in restoring them, desires to efface all memory of the
transaction they referred to, and to assure you that, when circumstances
enable him to meet you, it may be on terms of perfect cordiality and
friendship.”
“Upon my soul and conscience I don't understand a word of it all!” said
Dalton, whose bewildered looks gave a perfect concurrence to the speech.
“Is it that I have a right to all the money?”
“Exactly, sir; Sir Stafford feels that he is simply carrying out the
wishes of your relative, Mr. Godfrey--”
“But this has nothing to do with the little difference between Sir
Stafford and myself? I mean, it leaves us just where we were before.”
“Sir Stafford hopes that henceforth a better understanding will subsist
between you and himself; and that you, seeing how blameless he has
been in the whole history of your losses, will receive this act as an
evidence of his desire to cultivate your friendship.”
“And this two hundred a year?”
“Is Mr. Godfrey's bequest.”
“But depending on Sir Stafford to pay or not, as he likes.”
“I have already told you, sir, that he conceives he has no option in the
matter; and that the mere expression of a desire on Mr. Godfrey's part
becomes to him a direct injunction.”
“Faith, he was mighty long in finding it out, then,” said Dalton,
laughing.
“I believe I have explained myself on that head,” replied Prichard; “but
I am quite ready to go over the matter again.”
“God forbid! my head is 'moidered' enough already, not to make it
worse. Explanations, as they call them, always puzzle me more; but if
you 'd go over the subject to my daughter Nelly, her brain is as clear
as the Lord Chancellor's. I'll just call her up here; for, to tell you
the truth, I never see my way right in anything till Nelly makes it out
for me.”
Mr. Prichard was probably not grieved at the prospect of a more
intelligent listener, and readily assented to the proposition, in
furtherance of which Dalton left the room to seek his daughter. On
descending to the little chamber where he had left the two girls in
waiting beside the dwarf's sick-bed, he now discovered that they had
gone, and that old Andy had replaced them, a change which, to judge from
Hansel's excited looks and wild utterance, was not by any means to his
taste.
“Was machst du hier?” cried he, sternly, to the old man.
“Whisht! alannah! Take a sleep, acushla!” whined old Andy, as, under
the delusion that it was beside an infant his watch was established, he
tried to rock the settle-bed like a cradle, and then croned away in a
cracked voice one of his own native ditties:
“I saw a man weeping and makin' sad moan,
He was crying and grievin',
For he knew their deceiving
An' rockin' a cradle for a child not his own.”
“Was fur katzen jammer! What for cats' music mak'st thou there?”
“Where 's the girls, Andy?” whispered Daltou in the old man's ear.
“They 're gone,” muttered he.
“Gone where? where did they go?”
“Fort mit ihm. Away with him. Leave him not stay. Mein head is heavy,
and mein brain turn round!” screamed Hansel.
“Will ye tell me where they 're gone, I say?” cried Daiton, angrily.
“Hushoo! husho!” sang out the old man, as he fancied he was composing
his charge to sleep; and then made signs to Dalton to be still and not
awaken him.
With an angry muttering Dalton turned away and left the chamber, totally
regardless of Hanserl's entreaties to take Andy along with him.
“You're just good company for each other!” said he, sulkily, to himself.
“But where 's these girls, I wonder?”
“Oh, papa, I have found you at last!” cried Kate, as, bounding down the
stairs half a dozen steps at a time, she threw her arm round him. “She's
here! she's upstairs with us; and so delightful, and so kind, and so
beautiful. I never believed any one could be so charming.”
“And who is she, when she's at home?” said Dalton, half sulkily.
“Lady Hester, of course, papa. She came while we were sitting with
Hanserl, came quite alone to see him and us; and when she had talked
to him for a while, so kindly and so sweetly, about his wound, and his
fever, and his home in the Tyrol, and his mother, and everything, she
turned to Nelly and said, 'Now, my dears, for a little conversation with
yourselves. Where shall we go to be quite alone and uninterrupted?' We
did n't know what to say, papa; for we knew that you and the strange
gentleman were busy in the sitting-room, and while I was thinking what
excuse to make, Nelly told her that our only room was occupied. 'Oh, I
don't care for that in the least,' said she; 'let us shut ourselves
up in your dressing-room.' Our dressing-room! I could have laughed and
cried at the same moment she said it; but Nelly said that we had none,
and invited her upstairs to her bedroom; and there she is now, papa,
sitting on the little bed, and making Nelly tell her everything about
who we are, and whence we came, and how we chanced to be living here.”
“I wonder Nelly had n't more sense,” said Dalton, angrily; “not as much
as a curtain on the bed, nor a bit of carpet on the floor. What 'll she
think of us all?”
“Oh, papa, you're quite mistaken; she called it a dear little snuggery;
said she envied Nelly so much that lovely view over Eberstein and the
Schloss, and said what would she not give to lead our happy and peaceful
life, away from that great world she despises so heartily. How sad
to think her duties tie her down to a servitude so distasteful and
repulsive!”
“Isn't my Lady the least taste in life of a humbug, Kitty?” whispered
Dalton, as his eyes twinkled with malicious drollery.
“Papa, papa! you cannot mean--”
“No harm if she is, darling. I'm sure the pleasantest, ay, and some of
the worthiest people ever I knew were humbugs, that is, they were always
doing their best to be agreeable to the company; and if they strained
their consciences a bit, small blame to them for that same.”
“Lady Hester is far above such arts, papa; but you shall judge for
yourself. Come in now, for she is so anxious to know you.”
Kate, as she spoke, had opened the door of the little bedroom, and,
drawing her arm within her father's, gently led him forward to where
Lady Hester was seated upon the humble settle.
“It's a nice place they showed you into, my Lady,” said Dalton, after
the ceremony of introduction was gone through; “and there was the
drawing-room, or the library, and the breakfast-parlor, all ready to
receive you.”
“We heard that you were engaged with a gentleman on business, papa.”
“Well, and if I was, Nelly, transacting a small matter about my estates
in Ireland, sure it was in my own study we were.”
“I must be permitted to say that I am very grateful for any accident
which has given me the privilege of an intimate with my dear young
friends,” said Lady Hester, in her very sweetest of manners; “and as to
the dear little room itself, it is positively charming.”
“I wish you 'd see Mount Dalton, my Lady. There '& a window, and it is
n't bigger than that there, and you can see seven baronies out of it
and a part of three counties, Killikelly's flour-mills, and the town of
Drumcoolaghan in the distance; not to speak of the Shannon winding for
miles through as elegant a bog as ever you set eyes upon.”
“Indeed!” smiled her Ladyship, with a glance of deep interest.
“'T is truth, I 'm telling you, my Lady,” continued he; “and, what's
more, 'twas our own, every stick and stone of it. From Crishnamuck
to Ballymodereena on one side, and from the chapel at Dooras down to
Drumcoolaghan, 'twas the Dalton estate.”
“What a princely territory!”
“And why not? Weren't they kings once, or the same as kings? Did n't my
grandfather, Pearce, hold a court for life and death in his own parlor?
Them was the happy and the good times, too,” sighed he, plaintively.
“But I trust your late news from Ireland is favorable?”
“Ah! there isn't much to boast about. The old families is dying out
fast, and the properties changing hands. A set of English rogues and
banker-fellows that made their money in dirty lanes and alleys.”
A sort of imploring, beseeching anxiety from his daughter Kate here
brought Dalton to a dead stop, and he pulled up as suddenly as if on the
brink of a precipice.
“Pray, go on, Mr. Dalton,” said Lady Hester, with a winning smile; “you
cannot think how much you have interested me. You are aware that we
really know nothing about poor dear Ireland; and I am so delighted to
learn from one so competent to teach.”
“I did n't mean any offence, my Lady,” stammered out Dalton, in
confusion. “There 's good and bad everywhere; but I wish to the Lord the
cotton-spinners would n't come among us, and their steam-engines, and
their black chimneys, and their big factories; and they say we are not
far from that now.”
A gentle tap at the door which communicated with the sitting-room was
heard at this moment, and Dalton exclaimed,
“Come in!” but, not suffering the interruption to stop the current of
his discourse, he was about to resume, when Mr. Prichard's well-powdered
head appeared at the door.
“I began to suspect you had forgotten me, Mr. Dalton,” said he; but
suddenly catching a glimpse of Lady Hester, he stopped to ask pardon for
the intrusion.
“Faith, and I just did,” said Dalton, laughing; “couldn't you contrive
to step in in the morning, and we 'll talk that little matter over
again?”
“Yes, Prichard; pray don't interrupt us now,” said Lady Hester, in a
tone of half-peevishness. “I cannot possibly spare you, Mr. Dalton,
at this moment;” and the man of law withdrew, with a most respectful
obeisance.
“You'll forgive me, won't you?” said she, addressing Dalton, with a
glance whose blandishment had often succeeded in a more difficult case.
“And now, papa, we'll adjourn to the drawing-room,” said Kate, who
somehow continued to notice a hundred deficiencies in the furniture of a
little chamber she had often before deemed perfect.
Dalton accordingly offered his arm to Lady Hester, who accepted the
courtesy in all form, and the little party moved into the sitting-room;
Nelly following, with an expression of sadness in her pale features,
very unlike the triumphant glances of her father and sister.
“I 'm certain of your pardon, Mr. Dalton, and of yours, too, my dear
child,” said Lady Hester, turning towards Kate, as she seated herself
on the stiff old sofa, “when I avow that I have come here determined
to pass the evening with you. I 'm not quite so sure that my dear Miss
Dalton's forgiveness will be so readily accorded me. I see that she
already looks gravely at the prospect of listening to my fiddle-faddle
instead of following out her own charming fancies.”
“Oh, how you wrong me, my Lady!” broke in Nelly, eagerly. “If it were
not for my fears of our unfitness our inability,” she stammered in
confusion and shame; and old Dalton broke in,
“Don't mind her, my Lady; we 're as well used to company as any family
in the country; but, you see, we don't generally mix with the people one
meets abroad; and why should we? God knows who they are. There was chaps
here last summer at the tables you would n't let into the servants'
hall. There was one I seen myself, with an elegant pair of horses, as
nice steppers as ever you looked at, and a groom behind with a leather
strap round him,” and here Mr. Dalton performed a pantomime, by
extending the fingers of his open hand at the side of his head, to
represent a cockade “what d' ye call it in his hat; and who was he, did
you think? 'Billy Rogers,' of Muck; his father was in the canal--”
“In the canal!” exclaimed Lady Hester, in affright.
“Yes, my Lady; in the Grand Canal, an inspector at forty pounds a year,
the devil a farthin' more; and if you seen the son here, with two pins
in his cravat, and a gold chain twisting and turning over his waistcoat,
with his hat on one side, and yellow gloves, new every morning, throwing
down the 'Naps' at that thieving game they call 'Red and Black,'
you'd say he was the Duke of Leinster!”
“Was he so like his Grace?” asked Lady Hester, with a delightful
simplicity.
“No; but grander!” replied Dalton, with a wave of his hand.
“It is really, as you remark, very true,” resumed her Ladyship. “It is
quite impossible to venture upon an acquaintance out of England; and I
cordially concur in the caution you practise.”
“So I 'm always telling the girls, 'better no company than trumpery!'
not that I don't like a bit of sociality as well as ever I did, a snug
little party of one's own, people whose mothers and fathers had names,
the real old stock of the land. But to be taken up with every chance
rapscallion you meet on the cross-roads, to be hand and glove with this,
that, and the other, them never was my sentiments.”
It is but justice to confess there was less of hypocrisy in the bland
smile Lady Hester returned to this speech than might be suspected;
for, what between the rapidity of Daiton's utterance, and the peculiar
accentuation he gave to certain words, she did not really comprehend
one syllable of what he said. Meanwhile the two girls sat silent and
motionless. Nelly, in all the suffering of shame at the absurdity of her
father's tone, the vulgarity of an assumption she had fondly hoped years
of poverty might have tamed down, if not obliterated; Kate, in mute
admiration of their lovely visitor, of whose graces she never wearied.
Nor did Lady Hester make any effort to include them in the conversation;
she had come out expressly for one sole object, to captivate Mr. Dalton;
and she would suffer nothing to interfere with her project. To this
end she heard his long and tiresome monologues about Irish misery and
distress, narrated with an adherence to minute and local details that
made the whole incomprehensible; she listened to him with well-feigned
interest, in his narratives of the Daltons of times long past, of their
riotous and extravagant living, their lawlessness, and their daring;
nor did she permit her attention to flag while he recounted scenes and
passages of domestic annals that might almost have filled a page of
savage history.
“How sorry you must have felt to leave a country so dear by all its
associations and habits!” sighed she, as he finished a narrative of
more than ordinary horrors.
“Ain't I breaking my heart over it? Ain't I fretting myself to mere skin
and bone?” said he, with a glance of condolence over his portly figure.
“But what could I do? I was forced to come out here for the education of
the children bother it for education! but it ruins everybody nowadays.
When I was a boy, reading and writing, with a trifle of figures, was
enough for any one. If you could tell what twenty bullocks cost, at two
pounds four-and-sixpence a beast, and what was the price of a score of
hoggets, at fifteen shillings a head, and wrote your name and address
in a good round hand, 'twas seldom you needed more; but now you have to
learn everything, ay, sorrow bit, but it 's learning the way to do what
every one knows by nature; riding, dancing, no, but even walking, I 'm
told, they teach too! Then there's French you must learn for talking!
and Italian to sing! and German, upon my soul, I believe it's to snore
in! and what with music, dancing, and drawing, everybody is brought up
like a play-actor.”
“There is, as you remark, far too much display in modern education, Mr.
Dalton; but you would seem fortunate enough to have avoided the error. A
young lady whose genius can accomplish such a work as this--”
“'Tis one of Nelly's, sure enough,” said he, looking at the group to
which she pointed, but feeling even more shame than pride in the avowal.
The sound of voices a very unusual noise from the door without, now
broke in upon the conversation, and Andy's cracked treble could be
distinctly heard in loud altercation.
“Nelly! Kitty! I say,” cried Dalton, “see what's the matter with that
old devil. There's something come over him to-day, I think, for he won't
be quiet for two minutes together.”
Kate accordingly hastened to discover the cause of a tumult in which now
the sound of laughter mingled.
As we, however, enjoy the prerogative of knowing the facts before they
could reach her, we may as well inform the reader that Andy, whose
intelligence seemed to have been preternaturally awakened by the sight
of an attorney, had been struck by seeing two strangers enter the
house-door and leisurely ascend the stairs. At such a moment, and with
his weak brain filled with its latest impression, the old man at once
set them down as bailiffs come to arrest his master. He hobbled after
them, therefore, as well as he could, and just reached the landing as
Mr. Jekyl, with his friend Onslow, had arrived at the door.
“Mr. Dalton lives here, I believe?” said Jekyl.
“Anan,” muttered Andy, who, although he heard the question, affected not
to have done so, and made this an excuse for inserting himself between
them and the door.
“I was asking if Mr. Dalton lived here!” cried Jekyl, louder, and
staring with some astonishment at the old fellow's manoeuvre.
“Who said he did, eh?” said Andy, with an effort at fierceness.
“Perhaps it 's on the lower story?” asked Onslow.
“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, then!” was the answer.
“We wish to see him, my good man,” said Jekyl; “or, at least, to send a
message to him.”
“Sure! I know well enough what ye want,” said Andy, with a wave of his
hand. “'T is n't the first of yer like I seen!”
“And what may that be?” asked Onslow, not a little amused by the blended
silliness and shrewdness of the old man's face.
“Ay eh! I know yez well,” rejoined he, shaking his head. “Be off, then,
and don't provoke the house! Away wid yez, before the servants sees ye.”
“This is a rare fellow,” said Onslow, who, less interested than his
companion about the visit, was quite satisfied to amuse himself with old
Andy. “So you 'll not even permit us to send our respects, and ask how
your master is?”
“I'm certain you'll be more reasonable,” simpered Jekyl, as he drew a
very weighty-looking purse from his pocket, and, with a considerable
degree of ostentation, seemed preparing to open it.
The notion of bribery, and in such a cause, was too much for Andy's
feelings; and with a sudden jerk of his hand, he dashed the purse out
of Jekyl's fingers, and scattered the contents all over the landing and
stairs. “Ha, ha!” cried he, wildly, “'t is only ha'pence he has, after
all!” And the taunt was so far true that the ground was strewn with
kreutzers and other copper coins of the very smallest value.
As for Onslow, the scene was too ludicrous for him any longer to
restrain his laughter; and although Jekyl laughed too, and seemed to
relish the absurdity of his mistake, as he called it, having put in his
pocket a collection of rare and curious coins, his cheek, as he bent to
gather them up, was suffused with a deeper flush than the mere act of
stooping should occasion. It was precisely at this moment that Kate
Dalton made her appearance.
“What is the matter, Andy?” asked she, turning to the old man, who
appeared, by his air and attitude, as if determined to guard the
doorway.
“Two spalpeens, that want to take the master; that's what it is,” said
he, in a voice of passion.
“Your excellent old servant has much mistaken us, Miss Dalton,” said
Jekyl, with his most deferential of manners. “My friend, Captain
Onslow,” here he moved his hand towards George, who bowed, “and myself,
having planned a day's shooting in the 'Moorg,' have come to request the
pleasure of Mr. Dalton's company.”
“Oh, the thievin' villains!” muttered Andy; “that's the way they 'll
catch him.”
Meanwhile Kate, having promised to convey their polite invitation,
expressed her fears that her father's health might be unequal to the
exertion. Jekyl immediately took issue upon the point, and hoped, and
wondered, and fancied, and “flattered himself” so much, that Kate at
last discovered she had been drawn into a little discussion, when
she simply meant to have returned a brief answer; and while she was
hesitating how to put an end to an interview that had already lasted too
long, Dalton himself appeared.
“Is it with me these gentlemen have their business?” said he, angrily,
while he rudely resisted all Andy's endeavors to hold him back.
“Oh, my dear Mr. Dalton,” said Jekyl, warmly, “it is such a pleasure to
see you quite restored to health again! Here we are Captain Onslow, Mr.
Dalton thinking of a little excursion after the woodcocks down the Moorg
Thai; and I have been indulging the hope that you 'll come along with
us.”
The very hint of an attention, the merest suggestion that bordered on
a civility, struck a chord in old Dalton's nature that moved all his
sympathies. It was at once a recognition of himself and his ancestry for
generations back. It was a rehabilitation of all the Dal tons of Mount
Dalton for centuries past; and as he extended a hand to each, and
invited them to walk in, he half felt himself at home again, doing the
honors of his house, and extending those hospitalities that had brought
him to beggary.
“Are you serious about the shooting-party?” whispered Onslow to Jekyl,
as he walked forward.
“Of course not. It's only a 'Grecian horse,' to get inside the citadel.”
“My daughter, Miss Dalton; Mr. Jekyl Miss Kate Dalton. Your friend's
name, I believe, is--”
“Captain Onslow.”
Lady Hester started at the name, and, rising, at once said,
“Oh, George, I must introduce you to my fair friends. Miss Dalton, this
gentleman calls me 'mamma;' or, at least, if he does not, it is from
politeness. Captain Onslow Mr. Dalton. Now, by what fortunate event came
you here?”
“Ought I not to ask the same question of your Ladyship?” said George,
archly.
“If you like; only that, as I asked first--”
“You shall be answered first. Lady Hester Onslow, allow me to present
Mr. Albert Jekyl.”
“Oh, indeed!” drawled out Lady Hester, as, with her very coldest bow,
she surveyed Mr. Jekyl through her glass, and then turned away to finish
her conversation with Ellen.
Jekyl was not the man to feel a slight repulse as a defeat; but, at
the same time, saw that the present was not the moment to risk an
engagement. He saw, besides, that, by engaging Dalton in conversation,
he should leave Lady Hester and Onslow at liberty to converse with
the two sisters, and, by this act of generosity, entitle himself to
gratitude on all sides. And, after all, among the smaller martyrdoms
of this life, what self-sacrifice exceeds his who, out of pure
philanthropy, devotes himself to the “bore” of the party. Honor to him
who can lead the forlorn hope of this stronghold of weariness. Great be
his praises who can turn from the seductive smiles of beauty, and the
soft voices of youth, and only give eye and ear to the tiresome and
uninteresting. High among the achievements of unobtrusive heroism
should this claim rank; and if you doubt it, my dear reader, if you feel
disposed to hold cheaply such darings, try it, try even for once. Take
your place beside that deaf old lady in the light auburn wig, or draw
your chair near to that elderly gentleman, whose twinkling gray eyes
and tremulous lip bespeak an endless volubility on the score of personal
reminiscences. Do this, too, within earshot of pleasant voices and merry
laughter, of that tinkling ripple that tells of conversation flowing
lightly on, like a summer stream, clear where shallow, and reflective
where deep! Listen to the wearisome bead-roll of family fortunes, the
births, deaths, and marriages of those you never saw, and hoped never
to see, hear the long narratives of past events, garbled, mistaken, and
misstated, with praise and censure ever misapplied, and then, I say, you
will feel that, although such actions are not rewarded with red ribbons
or blue, they yet demand a moral courage and a perseverance that in
wider fields win high distinction.
[Illustration: 166]
Albert Jekyl was a proficient in this great art; indeed, his powers
developed themselves according to the exigency, so that the more
insufferably tiresome his companion, the more seemingly attentive
and interested did he become. His features were, in fact, a kind of
“bore-ometer,” in which, from the liveliness of the expression, you
might calculate the stupidity of the tormentor; and the mercury of his
nature rose, not fell, under pressure. And so you would have said had
you but seen him that evening, as, seated beside Dalton, he heard,
for hours long, how Irish gentlemen were ruined and their fortunes
squandered. What jolly times they were when men resisted the law and
never feared a debt! Not that, while devouring all the “rapparee”
experiences of the father, he had no eye for the daughters, and did not
see what was passing around him. Ay, that did he, and mark well how Lady
Hester attached herself to Kate Dalton, flattered by every sign of her
unbought admiration, and delighted with the wondering homage of the
artless girl. He watched Onslow, too, turn from the inanimate charms
of Nelly's sculptured figures, to gaze upon the long dark lashes and
brilliant complexion of her sister. He saw all the little comedy that
went on around him, even to poor Nelly's confusion, as she assisted Andy
to arrange a tea-table, and, for the first time since their arrival,
proceed to make use of that little service of white and gold which,
placed on a marble table for show, constitutes the invariable decoration
of every humble German drawing-room. He even overheard her, as she left
the room, giving Andy her directions a dozen times over, how he was to
procure the tea, and the sugar, and the milk, extravagances she did not
syllable without a sigh. He saw and heard everything, and rapidly drew
his own inferences, not alone of their poverty, but of their unfitness
to struggle with it.
“And yet, I'd wager these people,” said he to himself, “are revelling in
superfluities; at least, as compared to me! But, so it is, the rock that
one man ties round his neck, another would make a stepping-stone of!”
This satisfactory conclusion gave additional sweetness to the bland
smile with which he took his teacup from Nelly's hand, while he
pronounced the beverage the very best he had ever tasted out of Moscow.
And so we must leave the party.