Man, being reasonable, must dine out;
The best of life is but a dinner-party.
Amphytrion, Canto IV.
It was about half-past six of an autumn evening, just as the gray
twilight was darkening into the gloom that precedes night, that a
servant, dressed in the most decorous black, drew down the window-blinds
of a large and splendidly furnished drawing-room of a house in Merrion
Square, Dublin.
Having arranged certain portly deep-cushioned chairs into the orderly
disorder that invites social groupings, and having disposed various
other articles of furniture according to those notions of domestic
landscape so popular at the present day, he stirred the fire and
withdrew,--all these motions being performed with the noiseless decorum
of a church.
A glance at the apartment, even by the fitful light of the coal-fire,
showed that it was richly, even magnificently, furnished. The
looking-glasses were immense in size, and framed with all that the most
lavish art of the carver could display. The hangings were costly Lyons
silk, the sofas, tables, and cabinets were all exquisite specimens of
modern skill and elegance, while the carpet almost rose above the foot
in the delicate softness of its velvet pile. A harp, a grand pianoforte,
and several richly-bound and gilded volumes strewed about gave evidence
of tastes above the mere voluptuous enjoyment of ease, and in one window
stood an embroidery-frame, with its unfinished labor, from which the
threads depended in that fashion, that showed it had lately occupied the
fair hands of the artist.
This very enviable apartment belonged to Mr. Mountjoy Kennyfeck, the
leading solicitor of Dublin, a man who, for something more than thirty
years, had stood at the head of his walk in the capital, and was reputed
to be one of its most respected and richest citizens. Mrs. Mountjoy
Kennyfeck--neither for our own nor our reader's convenience dare we omit
the “prénom”--was of a western family considerably above that of her
liege lord and master in matter of genealogy, but whose quarterings had
so far survived the family acres that she was fain to accept the hand
of a wealthy attorney, after having for some years been the belle of her
county, and the admired beauty of Castle balls and drawing-rooms.
It had been at first, indeed, a very hard struggle for the O'Haras to
adopt the style and title of Kennyfeck, and poor Matilda was pitied in
all the moods and tenses for exchanging the riotous feudalism of Mayo
for the decorous quietude and wealthy _insouciance_ of a Dublin mansion;
and the various scions of the house did not scruple to express very
unqualified opinions on the subject of her fall; but Time--that heals
so much--Time and Mr. Kennyfeck's claret, of which they all drank
most liberally during the visits to town, assuaged the rancor of these
prejudices, and “Matty,” it was hinted, might have done worse; while
some hardy spirit averred that “Kennyfeck, though not one of ourselves,
has a great deal of the gentleman about him, notwithstanding.”
A word of Mr. Kennyfeck himself, and even a word will almost suffice. He
was a very tall, pompous-looking personage, with a retiring forehead
and a large prominent nose; he wore a profusion of powder, and always
dressed in the most scrupulous black; he spoke little, and that slowly;
he laughed never. It was not that he was melancholy or depressed; it
seemed rather that his nature had been fashioned in conformity with the
onerous responsibilities of his pursuit, and that he would have deemed
any exhibition of mirthful emotion unseemly and unbecoming one who, so
to say, was a kind of high priest in the temple of equity. Next to the
Chancellor's he venerated the decisions of Mrs. Kennyfeck; after Mrs.
Kennyfeck came the Master of the Rolls. This was his brief and simple
faith, and it is astonishing in what simple rules of guidance men amass
vast fortunes, and obtain the highest suffrages of civic honor and
respect!
Mr. Kennyfeck's family consisted of two daughters: the eldest had been a
beauty for some years, and, even at the period our tale opens, had lost
few of her attractions. She was tall, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, with
an air of what in the Irish capital is called “decided fashion” about
her, but in less competent circles might have been called almost
effrontery. She looked strangers very steadily in the face, spoke with a
voice full, firm, and unabashed,--no matter what the subject, or who the
audience,--and gave her opinions on people and events with a careless
indifference to consequences that many mistook for high genius
rebellious against control.
Olivia, three years younger than her sister, had just come out; and
whether that her beauty--and she was very handsome--required a different
style, or that she saw more clearly “the mistake” in Miss Kennyfeck's
manner, but she took a path perfectly her own. She was tenderness
itself; a delicacy too susceptible for this work-a-day world pervaded
all she said and did,--a retiring sensitiveness that she knew, as she
plaintively said, would never “let her be loved,” overlaid her nature,
and made her the victim of her own feelings. Her sketches, everlasting
Madonnas dissolved in tears; her music, the most mournful of the
melodies; her reading, the most disastrously ending of modern
poems,--all accorded with this tone, which, after all, scarcely
consorted well with a very blooming cheek, bright hazel eyes, and an air
and carriage that showed a full consciousness of her captivations, and
no small reliance on her capacity to exercise them.
A brief interval after the servant left the room, the door opened, and
Mrs. Kennyfeck entered. She was dressed for dinner, and if not exactly
attired for the reception of a large company, exhibited, in various
details of her costume, unequivocal signs of more than common care. A
massive diamond brooch fastened the front of her dark velvet dress, and
on her fingers several rings of great value glittered. Miss Kennyfeck,
too, who followed her, was, though simply, most becomingly dressed; the
light and floating material of her robe contrasting well with the more
stately folds of the matronly costume of her mother.
“I am surprised they are not here before this,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck,
lying back in the deep recess of a luxurious chair, and placing a screen
between herself and the fire. “Your father said positively on the 5th,
and as the weather has been most favorable, I cannot understand the
delay. The packets arrive at four, I think?”
“Yes, at four, and the carriage left this at three to fetch them.”
“Read the note again,--he writes so very briefly always. I 'm sure I
wish the dear man would understand that I am not a client, and that a
letter is not exactly all it might be, because it can be charged its
thirteen-and-fourpence, or six-and-eightpence, whatever it is.”
Miss Kennyfeck took an open note from the chimney, and read:--
Dear Mrs. Kennyfeck,--We have made all the necessary
arrangements in London, and shall leave on the 2nd, so as
to arrive at Merrion Square by the 5th. Mr. C---- would,
I believe, rather have remained another day in town; but
there was no possibility of doing so, as the “Chancellor”
will sit on Tuesday. Love to the girls, and believe me,
yours very truly,
M. Kennyfeck.
Invite Jones and Softly to meet us at dinner.
The clock on the mantelpiece now struck seven; and scarcely had the last
chime died away as a carriage drove up to the door.
“Here they come, I suppose,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, with a half-sigh.
“No, mamma; it is a hackney-coach. Mr. Jones, or Mr. Softly, perhaps.”
“Oh, dear! I had forgotten them. How absurd it was to ask these people,
and your father not here.”
The door opened, and the servant announced the Rev. Mr. Knox Softly. A
very tall, handsome young man entered, and made a most respectful but
cordial salutation to the ladies. He was in look and mien the _beau
idéal_ of health, strength, and activity, with bright, full blue eyes,
and cheeks rosy as the May. His voice, however, was subdued to the
dulcet accent of a low whisper, and his step, as he crossed the room,
had the stealthy noiselessness of a cat's approach.
“Mr. Kennyfeck quite restored, I hope, from the fatigue of his journey?”
“We 've not seen him yet,” replied his lady, almost tartly. “He ought to
have been here at four o'clock, and yet it's past seven.”
“I think I hear a carriage.”
“Another ------,” hackney, Miss Kennyfeck was about to say, when she
stopped herself, and, at the instant, Counsellor Clare Jones was
announced.
This gentleman was a rising light of the Irish bar, who had the
good fortune to attract Mr. Kennyfeck's attention, and was suddenly
transferred from the dull duties of civil bills and declarations to
business of a more profitable kind. He had been somewhat successful in
his college career,--carried off some minor honors; was a noisy member
of a debating society; wrote leaders for some provincial papers; and
with overbearing powers of impudence, and a good memory, was a very
likely candidate for high forensic honor.
Unlike the first arrival, the Counsellor had few, if any, of the
forms of good society in his manner or address. His costume, too, was
singularly negligent; and as he ran a very dubious hand through a mass
of thick and tangled hair on entering, it was easy to see that the
greatest part of his toilet was then and there performed. The splashed
appearance of his nether garments, and of shoes that might have done
honor to snipe-shooting, also showed that the carriage which brought him
was a mere ceremonial observance, and, as he would himself say, “the act
of conveyance was a surplusage.”
Those who saw him in court pronounced him the most unabashed and cool of
men; but there was certainly a somewhat of haste and impetuosity in his
drawing-room manner that even a weak observer would have ascribed to
awkwardness.
“How do you do, Mrs. Kennyfeck?--how do you do, Miss Kennyfeck?--glad to
see you. Ah! Mr. Softly,--well, I hope? Is he come--has he arrived?”
A shake of the head replied in the negative. “Very strange; I can't
understand it. We have a consultation with the Solicitor-General
to-morrow, and a meeting in chambers at four.”
“I should n't wonder if Mr. Cashel detained papa; he is very young, you
know, and London must be so new and strange to him, poor lad!”
“Yes; but your father would scarce permit it,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck,
smartly. “I rather think it must have been some accidental circumstance;
coaches are constantly upsetting, and post-horses cannot always be had.”
Mr. Knox Softly smiled benignly, as though to say in these suggestions
Mrs. Kennyfeck was displaying a very laudable spirit of uncertainty as
to the course of human events.
“Here 's Olivia,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, as her younger daughter entered.
“Let us hear her impressions,--full of forebodings, I don't doubt.”
Miss Olivia Kennyfeck performed her salutations to the guests with the
most faultless grace, throwing into her courtesy to the curate a
certain air of filial reverence very pretty to behold, and only a
little objectionable on the score of the gentleman's youth and personal
attractions; and then, turning to her mother said,--
“You are not uneasy, mamma, I hope? Though, after all, this is about the
period of the equinox.”
“Nonsense, child! packets are never lost nowadays in the Irish Channel.
It's merely some sudden freak of gayety,--some London distraction
detains them. Will you touch that bell, Mr. Clare Jones? It is better to
order dinner.”
There was something peremptory in the lady's tone and manner that rather
damped the efforts at small-talk,--never very vigorous or well-sustained
at these ante-dinner moments; nor were any of the party very sorry when
the servant announced that the soup was served.