CHAPTER XVI.
Ah! si mon cœur osoit encore se renflammer!
Ne sentirai-je plus de charme qui m'arrête?
Ai-je passé le temps d'aimer?
La Fontaine.
When the ladies entered their breakfasting room the morning after their arrival in Dublin, they found it fragrant with the most delightful flowers; and the tables presented specimens of the finest fruits this city could boast of. Adelaide quickly recognized Colonel Desmond's habitual attention to the fair sex; whilst Mrs. Sullivan exclaimed, "A fine bill I'll varrant me for all these here kick-shaws:—I'll ring for the waiter to take them away." Her hand was on the bell, when Cecilia stopped her, by declaring she could eat nothing but fruit. "Who would have dreamt of seeing hot-house fruit in Ireland! Those flowers will keep me from fainting this hot day; don't send them away, mama:—unless I have every agreement you can procure me, I shan't be able to exist in the odious country you have dragged me over to." By this time Adelaide descried a note directed to herself on the breakfast table; the stalk of a rose unique was slipped into it, and on the outside was written in pencil, "Herself a fairer flower." She smiled at the gallant colonel's compliment, and found her note contained a polite congé from Mrs. St. Orme, who much regretted being obliged to leave Dublin at too early an hour to bid her adieu in person; but expressed a flattering wish, that an opportunity might occur for cultivating their further acquaintance. Adelaide, throwing down her note on the table as soon as she had read it, turned to examine the beautiful bouquets that adorned the flower stands; and every individual of the Webberly family took the opportunity of making themselves au fait of its contents. Had they been caught in the fact, they would hardly have felt ashamed, for any thing short of a letter, their code of the laws of honour permitted them to peruse. "A letter they would not read for the world"—when any body was looking at them!
Breakfast was scarcely finished when Mrs. Sullivan's servant entered the room, to know if she was at home to Colonel Desmond and Mr. Donolan? An answer being given in the affirmative, they quickly made their appearance. Mr. Donolan was nephew by marriage to Colonel Desmond's elder brother; but though this connection made them sometimes associate together, they were as completely dissimilar in mind as they were in person. Mr. Donolan was, as Cecilia called him, "a very pretty man." His hand rivalled her own in whiteness; his hair was not less carefully cut, combed, and curled in the most becoming manner; and the fair Cecilia might have worn his delicate pink waistcoat and worked shirt collar, as elegant and suitable accompaniments to her riding-habit, without the most scrutinizing eye discovering they had ever formed a part of male attire. This Hibernian Jessamy was the only child of a wealthy Catholic merchant of Dublin: the youth being too precious to be exposed to the hardships of a school, was nurtured at home by an obsequious tutor and a doting mother, in the most inordinate vanity. That vivacity of mind, with which nature usually endows his countrymen, fell to his lot also; and had it been properly directed, might have procured him well-earned fame; but unfortunately it only served as an impetus to his self-love, in a never-ceasing career of egotism, which made him prefer the casual "succès de société," to the lasting benefit to be derived from solitary study. The reward of scholarship was of too tedious attainment for this impatient genius, who, without ceremony, dubbed himself a "dilettante," a title universally conceded to him by his Irish acquaintance, who took the liberty of quizzing him most unmercifully. Young Donolan did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity the general peace afforded for visiting the continent; he had there acquired a knowledge of the fine arts, which was just sufficient to enable him to interlard his conversation with those technical terms of connoisseurship, which, as "The Diversions of Purley" observe, commonly serve but as a veil to cover the ignorance of those who use them, and to privilege him to treat with sovereign contempt all the 'Aborigines of West Barbary,' as he most patriotically termed such of his countrymen and women, as had not redeemed the original sin of their birth, by at least a six week's visit to England or France. Mr. Donolan's manners corresponded to the double refined tone of his mind, (we are bound to apologize to him for using this term, as it betrays his father's ci-devant trade of sugar-baking): he stood on the threshold of fashion, and finding he could never be admitted into the sanctuary of the bona dea, was content to copy from a distance those more conspicuous embellishments of the object of his adoration, which, being singled from the finer web on which they are originally engrafted by the mystery of art, become deformities when deprived of their connecting, though almost invisible thread; and, thus detached, start forward in unmeaning caricature. But so little was he conscious of his outré travesty "du bel air," that in the plenitude of his folly he had applied to himself Frederic the Great's description of the Prince de Salm: "Il est pétri de grâces; tous ses gestes sont d'une élégance recherchée; ses moindres paroles, des énigmes. Il discute et approfondit les bagatelles avec une dextérité infinie, et posséde la caste de l'empire du tendre, mieux que tous les Scuderi de l'univers[10]."
Mr. Donolan owed his introduction to our travellers to having accidentally met Colonel Desmond that morning at the Commercial Buildings in Dame-street; an elegant establishment, something of the nature of the Adelphi in London; and the place in the Irish capital where the wanderer is most likely to meet his acquaintances. In answer to some of Colonel Desmond's interrogatories, Mr. Donolan mentioned having just received a pressing invitation to visit Bogberry Hall, but that he was afraid it would not be in his power to visit Connaught this summer. "Certainly a journey there is a much more serious undertaking, than crossing the Alps was before we were indebted to Buonaparte for the Simplon road," replied Colonel Desmond laughing; "but you must some time or other be doomed to remain in this limbo for a short time. You had better encounter its apathetic powers now;—I am going to escort Mr. O'Sullivan's English connections to Ballinamoyle: perhaps they may enable you to support your penance with tolerable ease." "Ah ma foi! maintenant c'est toute autre chose, as the French say," replied Mr. Donolan: "I think I will visit my aunt. And you know," continued he, bowing to the exact angle which the upper part of the body of the most fashionable Parisian dancing-master forms with his lower, "more than one specimen of an accomplished gentleman will be necessary to convince the strangers, who have done our country the honour of visiting it, that there are some Irish not deserving the appellation of Goths and Vandals." "Really, my good fellow, you do me too much honour," replied Colonel Desmond; "only your modesty could induce you to place me on a par with yourself." "Point de tout, mon cher, point de tout! You, like me, have had the advantage of travelling; nobody could suspect either of us of being Irish." Provoked by this last observation, Colonel Desmond, as they left the coffee-house, hummed the air of the song which begins thus:—
"When Jacky Bull sets out for France,
The gosling you discover;
When taught to ride, to fence, to dance,
The finish'd goose comes over,
With his tierce and his quarte ça, ça,
And his cotillon so smart, O la!
He charms each female heart, ha! ha!
When Jacky returns from Dover."
Perhaps the satirical expression of his countenance had not entirely passed away, when he introduced Mr. Felix Donolan to the ladies of the Webberly party, as an "amateur and connoisseur of the fine arts, and an adept in chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and craniology." Colonel Desmond begged to know how he might be of use to the travellers, either as regarded their stay in Dublin, or their journey to Ballinamoyle, reminding Mrs. Sullivan of the permission she had granted him the day before, to escort her thither, and requesting her leave to constitute Mr. Donolan another knight-errant in the service of the fair itinerants.