The Absentee

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THE ABSENTEE

by Maria Edgeworth




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NOTES ON 'THE ABSENTEE'

In August 1811, we are told, she wrote a little play about landlords
and tenants for the children of her sister, Mrs. Beddoes. Mr. Edgeworth
tried to get the play produced on the London boards. Writing to her
aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, Maria says, 'Sheridan has answered as I foresaw he
must, that in the present state of this country the Lord Chamberlain
would not license THE ABSENTEE; besides there would be a difficulty in
finding actors for so many Irish characters.' The little drama was then
turned into a story, by Mr. Edgeworth's advice. Patronage was laid aside
for the moment, and THE ABSENTEE appeared in its place in the second
part of TALES OF FASHIONABLE LIFE. We all know Lord Macaulay's verdict
upon this favourite story of his, the last scene of which he specially
admired and compared to the ODYSSEY. [Lord Macaulay was not the only
notable admirer of THE ABSENTEE. The present writer remembers hearing
Professor Ruskin on one occasion break out in praise and admiration of
the book. 'You can learn more by reading it of Irish politics,' he said,
'than from a thousand columns out of blue-books.'] Mrs. Edgeworth tells
us that much of it was written while Maria was suffering a misery of
toothache.

Miss Edgeworth's own letters all about this time are much more concerned
with sociabilities than with literature. We read of a pleasant dance at
Mrs. Burke's; of philosophers at sport in Connemara; of cribbage, and
company, and country houses, and Lord Longford's merry anecdotes during
her visit to him. Miss Edgeworth, who scarcely mentions her own works,
seems much interested at this time in a book called MARY AND HER CAT,
which she is reading with some of the children.

Little scraps of news (I cannot resist quoting one or two of them) come
in oddly mixed with these personal records of work and family talk.
'There is news of the Empress (Marie Louise), who is liked not at all
by the Parisians; she is too haughty, and sits back in her carriage when
she goes through the streets. 'Of Josephine, who is living very happily,
amusing herself with her gardens and her shrubberies.' This ci-devant
Empress and Kennedy and Co., the seedsmen, are in partnership, says Miss
Edgeworth. And then among the lists of all the grand people Maria meets
in London in 1813 (Madame de Stael is mentioned as expected), she gives
an interesting account of an actual visitor, Peggy Langan, who was
grand-daughter to Thady in CASTLE RACKRENT. Peggy went to England with
Mrs. Beddoes, and was for thirty years in the service of Mrs. Haldimand
we are told, and was own sister to Simple Susan.

The story of THE ABSENTEE is a very simple one, and concerns Irish
landlords living in England, who ignore their natural duties and station
in life, and whose chief ambition is to take their place in the
English fashionable world. The grand English ladies are talking of Lady
Clonbrony.

'"If you knew all she endures to look, speak, move, breathe like an
Englishwoman, you would pity her,"' said Lady Langdale.

'"Yes, and you CAWNT conceive the PEENS she TEEKES to talk of the
TEEBLES and CHEERS, and to thank Q, and, with so much TEESTE, to speak
pure English,"' said Mrs. Dareville.

'"Pure cockney, you mean," said Lady Langdale.'

Lord Colambre, the son of the lady in question, here walks across the
room, not wishing to listen to any more strictures upon his mother.
He is the very most charming of walking gentlemen, and when stung by
conscience he goes off to Ireland, disguised in a big cloak, to visit
his father's tenantry and to judge for himself of the state of affairs,
all our sympathies go with him. On his way he stops at Tusculum,
scarcely less well known than its classical namesake. He is entertained
by Mrs. Raffarty, that esthetical lady who is determined to have a
little 'taste' of everything at Tusculum. She leads the way into a
little conservatory, and a little pinery, and a little grapery, and a
little aviary, and a little pheasantry, and a little dairy for show, and
a little cottage for ditto, with a grotto full of shells, and a little
hermitage full of earwigs, and a little ruin full of looking-glass, to
enlarge and multiply the effect of the Gothic.... But you could only
put your head in, because it was just fresh painted, and though there
had been a fire ordered in the ruin all night, it had only smoked.

'As they proceeded and walked through the grounds, from which Mrs.
Raffarty, though she had done her best, could not take that which nature
had given, she pointed out to my lord "a happy moving termination,"
consisting of a Chinese bridge, with a fisherman leaning over the rails.
On a sudden, the fisherman was seen to tumble over the bridge into the
water. The gentlemen ran to extricate the poor fellow, while they heard
Mrs. Raffarty bawling to his lordship to beg he would never mind, and
not trouble himself.

'When they arrived at the bridge, they saw the man hanging from part
of the bridge, and apparently struggling in the water; but when they
attempted to pull him up, they found it was only a stuffed figure which
had been pulled into the stream by a real fish, which had seized hold of
the bait.'

The dinner-party is too long to quote, but it is written in Miss
Edgeworth's most racy and delightful vein of fun.

One more little fact should not be omitted in any mention of THE
ABSENTEE. One of the heroines is Miss Broadhurst, the heiress. The
Edgeworth family were much interested, soon after the book appeared, to
hear that a real living Miss Broadhurst, an heiress, had appeared upon
the scenes, and was, moreover, engaged to be married to Sneyd Edgeworth,
one of the eldest sons of the family. In the story, says Mrs. Edgeworth,
Miss Broadhurst selects from her lovers one who 'unites worth and wit,'
and then she goes on to quote an old epigram of Mr. Edgeworth's on
himself, which concluded with,'There's an Edge to his wit and there's
worth in his heart.'

Mr. Edgeworth, who was as usual busy building church spires for himself
and other people, abandoned his engineering for a time to criticise his
daughter's story, and he advised that the conclusion of THE ABSENTEE
should be a letter from Larry the postilion. 'He wrote one, she wrote
another,' says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'He much preferred hers, which is the
admirable finale of THE ABSENTEE.' And just about this time Lord Ross is
applied to, to frank the Edgeworth manuscripts.

'I cannot by any form of words express how delighted I am that you are
none of you angry with me,' writes modest Maria to her cousin, Miss
Ruxton, 'and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with what they have read
of THE ABSENTEE. I long to hear whether their favour continues to the
end, and extends to the catastrophe, that dangerous rock upon which poor
authors are wrecked.'





THE ABSENTEE





CHAPTER I

'Are you to be at Lady Clonbrony's gala next week?' said Lady Langdale
to Mrs. Dareville, whilst they were waiting for their carriages in the
crush-room of the opera house.

'Oh yes! everybody's to be there, I hear,' replied Mrs. Dareville. 'Your
ladyship, of course?'

'Why, I don't know--if I possibly can. Lady Clonbrony makes it such a
point with me, that I believe I must look in upon her for a few minutes.
They are going to a prodigious expense on this occasion. Soho tells
me the reception rooms are all to be new furnished, and in the most
magnificent style.'

'At what a famous rate those Clonbronies are dashing on,' said Colonel
Heathcock. 'Up to anything.'

'Who are they?--these Clonbronies, that one hears of so much of late'
said her Grace of Torcaster. 'Irish absentees I know. But how do they
support all this enormous expense?'

'The son WILL have a prodigiously fine estate when some Mr. Quin dies,'
said Mrs. Dareville.

'Yes, everybody who comes from Ireland WILL have a fine estate when
somebody dies,' said her grace. 'But what have they at present?'

'Twenty thousand a year, they say,' replied Mrs. Dareville.

'Ten thousand, I believe,' cried Lady Langdale. 'Make it a rule, you
know, to believe only half the world says.'

'Ten thousand, have they?--possibly,' said her grace. 'I know nothing
about them--have no acquaintance among the Irish. Torcaster knows
something of Lady Clonbrony; she has fastened herself, by some means,
upon him: but I charge him not to COMMIT me. Positively, I could not for
anybody--and much less for that sort of person--extend the circle of my
acquaintance.'

'Now that is so cruel of your grace,' said Mrs. Dareville, laughing,
'when poor Lady Clonbrony works so hard, and pays so high, to get into
certain circles.'

'If you knew all she endures, to look, speak, move, breathe like an
Englishwoman, you would pity her,' said Lady Langdale.

'Yes, and you CAWNT conceive the PEENS she TEEKES to talk of the TEEBLES
and CHEERS, and to thank Q, and, with so much TEESTE, to speak pure
English,' said Mrs. Dareville.

'Pure cockney, you mean,' said Lady Langdale.

'But why does Lady Clonbrony want to pass for English?' said the
duchess.

'Oh! because she is not quite Irish. BRED AND BORN--only bred, not
born,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'And she could not be five minutes in your
grace's company before she would tell you, that she was HENGLISH, born
in HOXFORDSHIRE.'

'She must be a vastly amusing personage. I should like to meet her,
if one could see and hear her incog.,' said the duchess. 'And Lord
Clonbrony, what is he?'

'Nothing, nobody,' said Mrs. Dareville; 'one never even hears of him.'

'A tribe of daughters, too, I suppose?'

'No, no,' said Lady Langdale, 'daughters would be past all endurance.'

'There's a cousin, though, a Grace Nugent,' said Mrs. Dareville, 'that
Lady Clonbrony has with her.'

'Best part of her, too,' said Colonel Heathcock; 'd-d fine girl!--never
saw her look better than at the opera to-night!'

'Fine COMPLEXION! as Lady Clonbrony says, when she means a high colour,'
said Lady Langdale.

'Grace Nugent is not a lady's beauty,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'Has she any
fortune, colonel?'

''Pon honour, don't know,' said the colonel.

'There's a son, somewhere, is not there?' said Lady Langdale.

'Don't know, 'pon honour,' replied the colonel.

'Yes--at Cambridge--not of age yet,' said Mrs. Dareville. 'Bless me!
here is Lady Clonbrony come back. I thought she was gone half an hour
ago!'

'Mamma,' whispered one of Lady Langdale's daughters, leaning between her
mother and Mrs. Dareville, 'who is that gentleman that passed us just
now?'

'Which way?'

'Towards the door. There now, mamma, you can see him. He is speaking to
Lady Clonbrony--to Miss Nugent. Now Lady Clonbrony is introducing him to
Miss Broadhurst.'

'I see him now,' said Lady Langdale, examining him through her glass; 'a
very gentlemanlike-looking young man, indeed.'

'Not an Irishman, I am sure, by his manner,' said her grace.

'Heathcock!' said Lady Langdale, 'who is Miss Broadhurst talking to?'

'Eh! now really--'pon honour--don't know,' replied Heathcock.

'And yet he certainly looks like somebody one certainly should know,'
pursued Lady Langdale, 'though I don't recollect seeing him anywhere
before.'

'Really now!' was all the satisfaction she could gain from the
insensible, immovable colonel. However, her ladyship, after sending a
whisper along the line, gained the desired information, that the
young gentleman was Lord Colambre, son, only son, of Lord and Lady
Clonbrony--that he was just come from Cambridge--that he was not yet of
age--that he would be of age within a year--that he would then, after
the death of somebody, come into possession of a fine estate, by the
mother's side 'and therefore, Cat'rine, my dear,' said she, turning
round to the daughter, who had first pointed him out, 'you understand,
we should never talk about other people's affairs.'

'No, mamma, never. I hope to goodness, mamma, Lord Colambre did not hear
what you and Mrs. Dareville were saying!'

'How could he, child? He was quite at the other end of the world.'

'I beg your pardon, ma'am, he was at my elbow, close behind us; but I
never thought about him till I heard somebody say, "My lord--"'

'Good heavens! I hope he didn't hear.'

'But, for my part, I said nothing,' cried Lady Langdale.

'And for my part, I said nothing but what everybody knows!' cried Mrs.
Dareville.

'And for my part, I am guilty only of hearing,' said the duchess. 'Do,
pray, Colonel Heathcock, have the goodness to see what my people are
about, and what chance we have of getting away to-night.'

'The Duchess of Torcaster's carriage stops the way!'--a joyful sound
to Colonel Heathcock and to her grace, and not less agreeable, at this
instant, to Lady Langdale, who, the moment she was disembarrassed of the
duchess, pressed through the crowd to Lady Clonbrony, and, addressing
her with smiles and complacency, was 'charmed to have a little moment to
speak to her--could NOT sooner get through the crowd--would certainly
do herself the honour to be at her ladyship's gala on Wednesday.' While
Lady Langdale spoke, she never seemed to see or think of anybody but
Lady Clonbrony, though, all the time, she was intent upon every motion
of Lord Colambre, and, whilst she was obliged to listen with a face of
sympathy to a long complaint of Lady Clonbrony's, about Mr. Soho's want
of taste in ottomans, she was vexed to perceive that his lordship showed
no desire to be introduced to her, or to her daughters; but, on the
contrary, was standing talking to Miss Nugent. His mother, at the end
of her speech, looked round for Colambre called him twice before he
heard--introduced him to Lady Langdale, and to Lady Cat'rine, and Lady
Anne--, and to Mrs. Dareville; to all of whom he bowed with an air of
proud coldness, which gave them reason to regret that their remarks upon
his mother and his family had not been made SOTTO VOCE.

'Lady Langdale's carriage stops the way!' Lord Colambre made no offer of
his services, notwithstanding a look from his mother. Incapable of the
meanness of voluntarily listening to a conversation not intended for him
to hear, he had, however, been compelled, by the pressure of the crowd,
to remain a few minutes stationary, where he could not avoid hearing the
remarks of the fashionable friends. Disdaining dissimulation, he made no
attempt to conceal his displeasure. Perhaps his vexation was increased
by his consciousness that there was some mixture of truth in their
sarcasms. He was sensible that his mother, in some points--her manners,
for instance--was obvious to ridicule and satire. In Lady Clonbrony's
address there was a mixture of constraint, affectation, and indecision,
unusual in a person of her birth, rank, and knowledge of the world. A
natural and unnatural manner seemed struggling in all her gestures,
and in every syllable that she articulated--a naturally free, familiar,
good-natured, precipitate, Irish manner, had been schooled, and schooled
late in life, into a sober, cold, still, stiff deportment, which she
mistook for English. A strong, Hibernian accent, she had, with infinite
difficulty, changed into an English tone. Mistaking reverse of wrong for
right, she caricatured the English pronunciation; and the extraordinary
precision of her London phraseology betrayed her not to be a Londoner,
as the man, who strove to pass for an Athenian, was detected by his
Attic dialect. Not aware of her real danger, Lady Clonbrony was, on
the opposite side, in continual apprehension, every time she opened
her lips, lest some treacherous A or E, some strong R, some puzzling
aspirate, or non-aspirate, some unguarded note, interrogative or
expostulatory, should betray her to be an Irishwoman. Mrs. Dareville
had, in her mimickry, perhaps a little exaggerated as to the TEEBLES
and CHEERS, but still the general likeness of the representation of Lady
Clonbrony was strong enough to strike and vex her son. He had now, for
the first time, an opportunity of judging of the estimation in which his
mother and his family were held by certain leaders of the ton, of whom,
in her letters, she had spoken so much, and into whose society, or
rather into whose parties, she had been admitted. He saw that the
renegade cowardice, with which she denied, abjured, and reviled her own
country, gained nothing but ridicule and contempt. He loved his mother;
and, whilst he endeavoured to conceal her faults and foibles as much as
possible from his own heart, he could not endure those who dragged them
to light and ridicule. The next morning the first thing that occurred
to Lord Colambre's remembrance when he awoke was the sound of the
contemptuous emphasis which had been laid on the words IRISH ABSENTEES!
This led to recollections of his native country, to comparisons of past
and present scenes, to future plans of life. Young and careless as he
seemed, Lord Colambre was capable of serious reflection. Of naturally
quick and strong capacity, ardent affections, impetuous temper, the
early years of his childhood passed at his father's castle in Ireland,
where, from the lowest servant to the well-dressed dependant of the
family, everybody had conspired to wait upon, to fondle, to flatter,
to worship, this darling of their lord. Yet he was not spoiled--not
rendered selfish. For, in the midst of this flattery and servility, some
strokes of genuine generous affection had gone home to his little heart;
and, though unqualified submission had increased the natural impetuosity
of his temper, and though visions of his future grandeur had touched his
infant thought, yet, fortunately, before he acquired any fixed habits of
insolence or tyranny, he was carried far away from all that were
bound or willing to submit to his commands, far away from all signs of
hereditary grandeur--plunged into one of our great public schools--into
a new world. Forced to struggle, mind and body, with his equals, his
rivals, the little lord became a spirited schoolboy, and, in time, a
man. Fortunately for him, science and literature happened to be the
fashion among a set of clever young men with whom he was at Cambridge.
His ambition for intellectual superiority was raised, his views were
enlarged, his tastes and his manners formed. The sobriety of English
good sense mixed most advantageously with Irish vivacity; English
prudence governed, but did not extinguish his Irish enthusiasm. But, in
fact, English and Irish had not been invidiously contrasted in his mind:
he had been so long resident in England, and so intimately connected
with Englishmen, that he was not obvious to any of the commonplace
ridicule thrown upon Hibernians; and he had lived with men who were too
well informed and liberal to misjudge or depreciate a sister country. He
had found, from experience, that, however reserved the English may be
in manner, they are warm at heart; that, however averse they may be from
forming new acquaintance, their esteem and confidence once gained, they
make the most solid friends. He had formed friendships in England;
he was fully sensible of the superior comforts, refinement, and
information, of English society; but his own country was endeared to him
by early association, and a sense of duty and patriotism attached him to
Ireland. And shall I too be an absentee? was a question which resulted
from these reflections--a question which he was not yet prepared to
answer decidedly. In the meantime, the first business of the morning was
to execute a commission for a Cambridge friend. Mr. Berryl had bought
from Mr. Mordicai, a famous London coachmaker, a curricle, WARRANTED
SOUND, for which he had paid a sound price, upon express condition that
Mr. Mordicai, BARRING ACCIDENTS, should be answerable for all repairs of
the curricle for six months. In three, both the carriage and body were
found to be good for nothing--the curricle had been returned to Mr.
Mordicai--nothing had since been heard of it, or from him--and Lord
Colambre had undertaken to pay him and it a visit, and to make all
proper inquiries. Accordingly, he went to the coachmaker's, and,
obtaining no satisfaction from the underlings, desired to see the head
of the house. He was answered, that Mr. Mordicai was not at home. His
lordship had never seen Mr. Mordicai; but, just then, he saw, walking
across the yard, a man, who looked something like a Bond Street coxcomb,
but not the least like a gentleman, who called, in the tone of a master,
for 'Mr. Mordicai's barouche!' It appeared; and he was stepping into it
when Lord Colambre took the liberty of stopping him; and, pointing to
the wreck of Mr. Berryl's curricle, now standing in the yard, began a
statement of his friend's grievances, and an appeal to common justice
and conscience, which he, unknowing the nature of the man with whom he
had to deal, imagined must be irresistible. Mr. Mordicai stood without
moving a muscle of his dark wooden face. Indeed, in his face there
appeared to be no muscles, or none which could move; so that, though
he had what are generally called handsome features, there was, all
together, something unnatural and shocking in his countenance. When, at
last, his eyes turned, and his lips opened, this seemed to be done by
machinery, and not by the will of a living creature, or from the impulse
of a rational soul. Lord Colambre was so much struck with this strange
physiognomy, that he actually forgot much he had to say of springs and
wheels. But it was no matter. Whatever he had said, it would have come
to the same thing; and Mordicai would have answered as he now did--

'Sir, it was my partner made that bargain, not myself; and I don't
hold myself bound by it, for he is the sleeping-partner only, and not
empowered to act in the way of business. Had Mr. Berryl bargained with
me, I should have told him that he should have looked to these things
before his carriage went out of our yard.'

The indignation of Lord Colambre kindled at these words--but in vain.
To all that indignation could by word or look urge against Mordicai, he
replied--

'Maybe so, sir; the law is open to your friend--the law is open to all
men who can pay for it.'

Lord Colambre turned in despair from the callous coach-maker, and
listened to one of his more compassionate-looking workmen, who was
reviewing the disabled curricle; and, whilst he was waiting to know the
sum of his friend's misfortune, a fat, jolly, Falstaff looking personage
came into the yard, accosted Mordicai with a degree of familiarity,
which, from a gentleman, appeared to Lord Colambre to be almost
impossible.

'How are you, Mordicai, my good fellow?' cried he, speaking with a
strong Irish accent.

'Who is this?' whispered Lord Colambre to the foreman, who was examining
the curricle.

'Sir Terence O'Fay, sir. There must be entire new wheels.'

'Now tell me, my tight fellow,' continued Sir Terence, holding Mordicai
fast, 'when, in the name of all the saints, good or bad, in the
calendar, do you reckon to let us sport the SUICIDE?'

Mordicai forcibly drew his mouth into what he meant for a smile, and
answered, 'As soon as possible, Sir Terence.'

Sir Terence, in a tone of jocose, wheedling expostulation, entreated him
to have the carriage finished OUT OF HAND. 'Ah, now! Mordy, my precious!
let us have it by the birthday, and come and dine with us o' Monday, at
the Hibernian Hotel--there's a rare one--will you?'

Mordicai accepted the invitation, and promised faithfully that the
SUICIDE should be finished by the birthday. Sir Terence shook hands upon
this promise, and, after telling a good story, which made one of
the workmen in the yard--an Irishman--grin with delight, walked off.
Mordicai, first waiting till the knight was out of hearing, called
aloud--

'You grinning rascal! mind, at your peril, and don't let that there
carriage be touched, d'ye see, till further orders.'

One of Mr. Mordicai's clerks, with a huge long-feathered pen behind his
ear, observed that Mr. Mordicai was right in that caution, for that, to
the best of his comprehension, Sir Terence O'Fay and his principal, too,
were over head and ears in debt.

Mordicai coolly answered that he was well aware of that; but that the
estate could afford to dip further; that, for his part, he was under no
apprehension; he knew how to look sharp, and to bite before he was bit.
That he knew Sir Terence and his principal were leagued together to
give the creditors THE GO BY, but that, clever as they both were at that
work, he trusted he was their match.

'Will you be so good, sir, to finish making out this estimate for me?'
interrupted Lord Colambre.

'Immediately, sir. Sixty-nine pound four, and the perch. Let us see--Mr.
Mordicai, ask him, ask Paddy, about Sir Terence,' said the foreman,
pointing back over his shoulder to the Irish workman, who was at
this moment pretending to be wondrous hard at work. However, when Mr.
Mordicai defied him to tell him anything he did not know, Paddy, parting
with an untasted bit of tobacco, began, and recounted some of Sir
Terence O'Fay's exploits in evading duns, replevying cattle, fighting
sheriffs, bribing SUBS, managing cants, tricking CUSTODEES, in language
so strange, and with a countenance and gestures so full of enjoyment
of the jest, that, whilst Mordicai stood for a moment aghast with
astonishment, Lord Colambre could not help laughing, partly at, and
partly with, his countryman. All the yard were in a roar of laughter,
though they did not understand half of what they heard; but their
risible muscles were acted upon mechanically, or maliciously, merely by
the sound of the Irish brogue.