The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. | Page 6

Bell and her son very much to the good-hearted gentleman, and
he received us both with open arms. Mrs. Barry did not, perhaps wisely, at first make
known to her friends what was her condition; but arriving in a huge gilt coach with
enormous armorial bearings, was taken by her sister- in-law and the rest of the county for
a person of considerable property and distinction. For a time, then, and as was right and
proper, Mrs. Barry gave the law at Castle Brady. She ordered the servants to and fro, and
taught them, what indeed they much wanted, a little London neatness; and 'English
Redmond,' as I was called, was treated like a little lord, and had a maid and a footman to
himself; and honest Mick paid their wages,--which was much more than he was used to
do for his own domestics,--doing all in his power to make his sister decently comfortable
under her afflictions. Mamma, in return, determined that, when her affairs were arranged,
she would make her kind brother a handsome allowance for her son's maintenance and
her own; and promised to have her handsome furniture brought over from Clarges Street
to adorn the somewhat dilapidated rooms of Castle Brady.
But it turned out that the rascally landlord seized upon every chair and table that ought by
rights to have belonged to the widow. The estate to which I was heir was in the hands of
rapacious creditors; and the only means of subsistence remaining to the widow and child
was a rent-charge of L50 upon my Lord Bagwig's property, who had many turf-dealings
with the deceased. And so my dear mother's liberal intentions towards her brother were of
course never fulfilled.

It must be confessed, very much to the discredit of Mrs. Brady of Castle Brady, that when
her sister-in-law's poverty was thus made manifest, she forgot all the respect which she
had been accustomed to pay her, instantly turned my maid and man-servant out of doors,
and told Mrs. Barry that she might follow them as soon as she chose. Mrs. Mick was of a
low family, and a sordid way of thinking; and after about a couple of years (during which
she had saved almost all her little income) the widow complied with Madam Brady's
desire. At the same time, giving way to a just though prudently dissimulated resentment,
she made a vow that she would never enter the gates of Castle Brady while the lady of the
house remained alive within them.
She fitted up her new abode with much economy and considerable taste, and never, for
all her poverty, abated a jot of the dignity which was her due and which all the
neighbourhood awarded to her. How, indeed, could they refuse respect to a lady who had
lived in London, frequented the most fashionable society there, and had been presented
(as she solemnly declared) at Court? These advantages gave her a right which seems to
be pretty unsparingly exercised in Ireland by those natives who have it,--the right of
looking down with scorn upon all persons who have not had the opportunity of quitting
the mother-country and inhabiting England for a while. Thus, whenever Madam Brady
appeared abroad in a new dress, her sister-in-law would say, 'Poor creature! how can it be
expected that she should know anything of the fashion?' And though pleased to be called
the handsome widow, as she was, Mrs. Barry was still better pleased to be called the
English widow.
Mrs. Brady, for her part, was not slow to reply: she used to say that the defunct Barry was
a bankrupt and a beggar; and as for the fashionable society which he saw, he saw it from
my Lord Bagwig's side-table, whose flatterer and hanger-on he was known to be.
Regarding Mrs. Barry, the lady of Castle Brady would make insinuations still more
painful. However, why should we allude to these charges, or rake up private scandal of a
hundred years old? It was in the reign of George II that the above-named personages
lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now;
and do not the Sunday papers and the courts of law supply us every week with more
novel and interesting slander?
At any rate, it must be allowed that Mrs. Barry, after her husband's death and her
retirement, lived in such a way as to defy slander. For whereas Bell Brady had been the
gayest girl in the whole county of Wexford, with half the bachelors at her feet, and plenty
of smiles and encouragement for every one of them, Bell Barry adopted a dignified
reserve that almost amounted to pomposity, and was as starch as any Quakeress. Many a
man renewed his offers to