In another point of view, Lord Craiglethorpe afforded her ladyship amusement; as an English traveller, full of English prejudices against Ireland and every thing Irish. Whenever Miss Tracey was out of the room, Lady Geraldine allowed Lord Craiglethorpe to be himself again; but he did not fare the better for this restoration to his honours. Lady Geraldine contrived to make him as ridiculous in his real as in his assumed character. Lord Craiglethorpe was, as Miss Bland had described him, very stiff, cold, and high. His manners were in the extreme of English reserve, and his ill-bred show of contempt for the Irish was sufficient provocation and justification of Lady Geraldine’s ridicule. He was much in awe of his fair and witty cousin: she could easily put him out of countenance, for he was extremely bashful.
His lordship had that sort of bashfulness which makes a man surly and obstinate in his taciturnity; which makes him turn upon all who approach him, as if they were going to assault him; which makes him answer a question as if it were an injury, and repel a compliment as if it were an insult. Once, when he was out of the room, Lady Geraldine exclaimed, “That cousin Craiglethorpe of mine is scarcely an agreeable man: the awkwardness of mauvaise honte might be pitied and pardoned, even in a nobleman,” continued her ladyship, “if it really proceeded from humility; but here, when I know it is connected with secret and inordinate arrogance, ‘tis past all endurance. Even his ways of sitting and standing provoke me, they are so self-sufficient. Have you observed how he stands at the fire? Oh, the caricature of ‘the English fire-side’ outdone! Then, if he sits, we hope that change of posture may afford our eyes transient relief: but worse again; bolstered up, with his back against his chair, his hands in his pockets, and his legs thrown out, in defiance of all passengers and all decorum, there he sits, in magisterial silence, throwing a gloom upon all conversation. As the Frenchman said of the Englishman, for whom even his politeness could not find another compliment, ‘Il faut avouer que ce monsieur a un grand talent pour le silence;’ he holds his tongue, till the people actually believe that he has something to say; a mistake they could never fall into if he would but speak.”
Some of the company attempted to interpose a word or two in favour of Lord Craiglethorpe’s timidity, but the vivacious and merciless lady went on.
“I tell you, my good friends, it is not timidity—it is all pride. I would pardon his dulness, and even his ignorance; for one, as you say, might be the fault of his nature, and the other of his education: but his self-sufficiency is his own fault, and that I will not, and cannot pardon. Somebody says, that nature may make a fool, but a coxcomb is always of his own making. Now, my cousin—(as he is my cousin, I may say what I please of him)—my cousin Craiglethorpe is a solemn coxcomb, who thinks, because his vanity is not talkative and sociable, that it’s not vanity. What a mistake! his silent superciliousness is to me more intolerable than the most garrulous egotism that ever laid itself open to my ridicule.”
Miss Bland and Miss Ormsby both confessed that Lord Craiglethorpe was vastly too silent.
“For the honour of my country,” continued Lady Geraldine, “I am determined to make this man talk, and he shall say all that I know he thinks of us poor Irish savages. If he would but speak, one could answer him: if he would find fault, one might defend: if he would laugh, one might perhaps laugh again: but here he comes to hospitable, open-hearted Ireland; eats as well as he can in his own country; drinks better than he can in his own country; sleeps as well as he can in his own country; accepts all our kindness without a word or a look of thanks, and seems the whole time to think, that, ‘Born for his use, we live but to oblige him.’ There he is at this instant: look at him, walking in the park, with his note-book in his hand, setting down our faults, and conning them by rote. We are even with him. I understand, Lady Kilrush, that my bright cousin Craiglethorpe means to write a book, a great book, upon Ireland.”
Lady Kilrush replied, that she understood Lord Craiglethorpe had it in contemplation to publish a Tour through Ireland, or a View of Ireland, or something of that nature.
“He! with his means of acquiring information!” exclaimed Lady Geraldine. “Posting from one great man’s house to another, what can he see or know of the manners of any rank of people but of the class of gentry, which in England and Ireland is much the same? As to the lower classes, I don’t think he ever speaks to them; or, if he does, what good can it do him? for he can’t understand their modes of expression, nor they his: if he inquire about a matter of fact, I defy him to get the truth out of them, if they don’t wish to tell it; and, for some reason or other, they will, nine times in ten, not wish to tell it to an Englishman. There is not a man, woman, or child, in any cabin in Ireland, who would not have wit and ‘cuteness enough to make my lard believe just what they please. So, after posting from Dublin to Cork, and from the Giants’ Causeway to Killarney; after travelling east, west, north, and south, my wise cousin Craiglethorpe will know just as much of the lower Irish as the cockney who has never been out of London, and who has never, in all his born days, seen an Irishman but on the English stage; where the representations are usually as like the originals, as the Chinese pictures of lions, drawn from description, are to the real animal.”
“Now! now! look at his lordship!” cried Miss Bland; “he has his note-book out again.”
“Mercy on us!” said Miss Callwell, “how he is writing!”