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.’
‘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
Mrs. Dareville.
‘Ten thousand, I believe,’ cried Lady
Langdale. ’Make it a rule, you know, to
believe only half the world says.’
‘Ten thousand, have they?—possibly,’
said her grace. ’I know nothing about them—have
no acquaintance among the Irish. Torcaster knows
something of Lady Clonbrony; she has fastened herself,
by some means, upon him: but I charge him not
to commit me. Positively, I could not for
anybody—and much less for that sort of person—extend
the circle of my acquaintance.’
‘Now that is so cruel of your grace,’
said Mrs. Dareville, laughing, ’when poor Lady
Clonbrony works so hard, and pays so high, to get into
certain circles.’
’If you knew all she endures, to look, speak,
move, breathe like an Englishwoman, you would pity
her,’ said Lady Langdale.
