The Absentee | Page 4

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