“Yes—no—I really cannot—but perhaps I must. It is only putting off the evil day. Yes, Lisa, let him come in; but mind that you tell him I am very poorly—that I have had a wretched night, and am quite unfit for any unpleasant news, or, indeed, for anything like what he calls business. Oh dear! oh dear! the very thought of parchment will make me hate sheep to the last hour of my life; and I have come to detest the very sight of my own name, from signing 'Hester Onslow' so often.”
It must be said, there was at least no hypocrisy in her Ladyship's lamentations; if the cause of them was not all-sufficient, the effects were to the full what she averred, and she was, or believed herself to be, the most miserable of women. Sir Stafford's will had bequeathed to her his Irish property, on the condition of her residing upon it at least six months every two years, a clause whose cruelty she—with or without reason we know not—attributed to the suggestion of Dr. Grounsell. To secure eighteen months of unlimited liberty, she was undergoing her captivity in what, it must be acknowledged, was a spirit the reverse of that the testator intended. So far from taking any interest in the country, its people, or its prospects, she only saw in it a dreary imprisonment, saddened by bad weather, bad spirits, and solitude. Nor were her griefs all causeless. Her position was greatly fallen from the possession of a fortune almost without bounds to the changeful vicissitudes of an Irish property. Norwood's dreadful death, wrapped in all the mystery which involved it, shocked her deeply, although, in reality, the event relieved her from a bondage she had long felt to be insupportable; and lastly, the Romanism in which she had, so to say, invested all her “loose capital” of zeal and enthusiasm, had become a terrible disappointment. The gorgeous splendor of Italian Popery found a miserable representative in Irish Catholicism. The meanly built Irish chapel, with its humble congregation, was a sorry exchange for the architectural grandeur and costly assemblage gathered within the Duomo of Florence, or beneath the fretted roof of “St. John of Lateran.”
In all the sublimity of pealing music, of full-toned choirs, of incense floating up into realms of dim distance, there were but the nasal sing-song of a parish priest, and the discordant twang of a dirty acolyte! And what an interval separated their vulgar manners of the village curate from the polished addresses of the Roman cardinal! How unlike the blended pretension and cringing slavery of the one was to the high-bred bearing and courtly urbanity of the other. A visit from “Father John” was an actual infliction. To receive his Eminence was not only an honor but a sincere pleasure. Who, like him, to discuss every topic of the world and its fashionable inhabitants, touching every incident with a suave mellowness of remark that, like the light through a stained-glass window, warmed, while it softened, that which it fell upon? Who could throw over the frailties of fashion such a graceful cloak of meek forgiveness, that it seemed actually worth while to sin to be pardoned with such affection? All the pomp and circumstance of Romanism, as seen in its own capital, associated with rank, splendor, high dignity, and names illustrious in story, form a strong contrast to its vulgar pretensions in Ireland. It is so essentially allied to ceremonial and display, that when these degenerate into poverty and meanness, the effect produced is always bordering on the ludicrous. Such, at least, became the feeling of Lady Hester as she witnessed those travesties of grandeur, the originals of which had left her awe-stricken and amazed.
Shorn of fortune, deprived of all the illusions which her newly adopted creed had thrown around her, uncheered by that crowd of flatterers which used to form her circle, is it any wonder if her spirits and her temper gave way, and that she fancied herself the very type of misery and desertion? The last solace of such minds is in the pity they bestow upon themselves; and here she certainly excelled, and upon no occasion more forcibly than when receiving a visit from Dr. Grounsell.
“Dr. Grounsell, my Lady,” said a servant; and, at the words, that gentleman entered.
A heavy greatcoat, with numerous capes, a low-crowned glazed hat, and a pair of old-fashioned “Hessians,” into which his trousers were tucked, showed that he had not stooped to any artifices of toilet to win favor with her Ladyship. As she bowed slightly to him, she lifted her glass to her eye, and then dropped it suddenly with a gentle simper, as though to say that another glance would have perilled her gravity.
“Winter has set in early, madam,” said he, approaching the fire, “and with unusual severity. The poor are great sufferers this year.”
“I 'm sure I agree with you,” sighed Lady Hester. “I never endured such cold before!”
“I spoke of the 'poor,' madam,” retorted he, abruptly.
“Well, sir, has any one a better right to respond in their name than I have? Look around you, see where I am living, and how, and then answer me!”