The Absentee | Page 4

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.'
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THE ABSENTEE
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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