Handy Andy Volume Ii Part 39

There was a breakfast as usual, and chicken and tongue and wine, which, taken in the morning, are provocative of eloquence; and, of course, the proper quant.i.ty of healths and toasts were executed _selon la reglei,_ it was time for the bride and bridegroom to bow and blush and curtsey out of the room, and make themselves food for a paragraph in the morning papers, under the t.i.tle of the "happy pair,"

who set off in a handsome chariot, &c., &c.

Tom Durfy had engaged a pretty cottage in the neighbourhood of Clontarf to pa.s.s the honeymoon. Tom Loftus knew this, and knew, moreover, that the sitting-room looked out on a small lawn which lay before the house, screened by a hedge from the road, but with a circular sweep leading up to the house, and a gate of ingress and egress at either end of the hedge. In this sitting-room Tom, after lunch, was pressing his lady fair to take a gla.s.s of champagne, when the entrance-gate was thrown open, and a hackney jaunting-car with Tom Loftus and a friend or two upon it, driven by a special ragam.u.f.fin blowing a tin horn, rolled up the skimping avenue, and as it scoured past the windows of the sitting-room, Tom Loftus and the other pa.s.sengers kissed hands to the astonished bride and bridegroom, and shouted, "Wish you joy!"

The thing was so sudden that Durfy and the widow, not seeing Loftus, could hardly comprehend what it meant, and both ran to the window; but just as they reached it, up drove another car, freighted with two or three more wild rascals who followed the lead which had been given them; and as a long train of cars were seen in the distance all driving up to the avenue, the widow, with a timid little scream, threw her handkerchief over her face and ran into a corner. Tom did not know whether to laugh or be angry, but, being a good-humoured fellow, he satisfied himself with a few oaths against the incorrigible Loftus, and when the _cortege_ had pa.s.sed, endeavoured to restore the startled fair one to her serenity.

Squire Egan and party arrived at the appointed hour at their hotel, where d.i.c.k was waiting to receive them, and, of course, his inquiries were immediately directed to the extraordinary circ.u.mstance of Andy's elevation, the details of which he desired to know. These we shall not give in the expanded form in which d.i.c.k heard them, but endeavour to condense, as much as possible, within the limits to which we are prescribed.

The t.i.tle of Scatterbrain had never been inherited directly from father to son; it had descended in a zigzag fashion, most appropriate to the name, nephews and cousins having come in for the coronet and the property for some generations. The late lord had led a _roue_ bachelor life up to the age of sixty, and then thought it not worth while to marry, though many mammas and daughters spread their nets and arrayed their charms to entrap the s.e.xagenarian.

The truth was, he had quaffed the cup of licentious pleasure all his life, after which he thought matrimony would prove insipid. The mere novelty induces some men, under similar circ.u.mstances, to try the holy estate; but matrimony could not offer to Lord Scatterbrain the charms of novelty, for _he had been_ once married, though no one but himself was cognisant of the fact.

The reader will certainly say, "Here's an Irish bull; how could a man be married, without, at least, a woman and a priest being joint possessors of the secret?"

Listen, gentle reader, and you shall hear how none but Lord Scatterbrain knew Lord Scatterbrain was married.

There was nothing at which he ever stopped for the gratification of his pa.s.sions--no wealth he would not squander, no deceit he would not practise, no disguise he would not a.s.sume. Therefore, gold, and falsehood, and masquerading were extensively employed by this reckless _roue_ in the service of Venus, in which service, combined with that of Bacchus, his life was entirely pa.s.sed.

Often he a.s.sumed the guise of a man in humble life, to approximate some object of his desire, whom fine clothes and bribery would have instantly warned and in too many cases his artifices were successful. It was in one of these adventures he cast his eyes upon the woman hitherto known in this story under the name of the Widow Rooney; but all his practices against her virtue were unavailing, and nothing but a marriage could accomplish what he had set his fancy upon but even _this_ would not stop him, _for he married her_.

The Widow Rooney has appeared no very inviting personage through these pages, and the reader may wonder that a man of rank could proceed to such desperate lengths upon such slight temptation; but, gentle reader, she was young and attractive when she was married--never to say _handsome_, but good-looking decidedly, and with that sort of figure which is comprehended in the phrase "a fine girl."

And has that fine girl altered into the Widow Rooney? Ah! poverty and hardship are sore trials to the body as well as to the mind. Too little is it considered, while we gaze on aristocratic beauty, how much good food, soft lying, warm wrapping, ease of mind, have to do with the attractions which command our admiration. Many a hand moulded by nature to give elegance of form to a kid glove, is "stinted of its fair proportion" by grubbing toil. The foot which might have excited the admiration of a ball-room, peeping under a flounce of lace in a satin shoe, and treading the mazy dance, _will_ grow coa.r.s.e and broad by tramping in its native state over toilsome miles, bearing perchance to a market town some few eggs, whose whole produce would not purchase the sandal-tie of my lady's slipper; will grow red and rough by standing in wet trenches, and feeling the winter's frost. The neck on which diamonds might have worthily sparkled, will look less tempting when the biting winter has hung icicles there for gems. Cheeks formed as fresh for dimpling blushes, eyes as well to sparkle, and lips to smile, as those which shed their brightness and their witchery in the tapestried saloon, will grow pale with want, and forget their dimples, when smiles are not there to wake them; lips become compressed and drawn with anxious thought, and eyes the brightest are quenched of their fires by many tears.

Of all these trials poor Widow Rooney had enough. Her husband, after living with her a month, in the character of a steward to some great man in a distant part of the country, left her one day for the purpose of transacting business at a fair, which, he said, would require his absence for some time. At the end of a week, a letter was sent to her, stating that the make-believe steward had robbed his master extensively, and had fled to America, whence he promised to write to her, and send her means to follow him, requesting, in the meantime, her silence, in case any inquiry should be made about him. This villanous trick was played off the more readily, from the fact that a steward had absconded at the time, and the difference in the name the cruel profligate accounted for by saying that, as he was hiding at the moment he married her, he had a.s.sumed another name.

The poor deserted girl, fully believing this trumped-up tale, obeyed with unflinching fidelity the injunctions of her betrayer; and while reports were flying abroad of the absconded steward, she never breathed a word of, what had been confided to her, and accounted for the absence of "Rooney"

in various ways of her own; so that all trace of the profligate was lost, by her remaining inactive in making the smallest inquiry about him, and her very fidelity to her betrayer became the means of her losing all power of procuring his discovery. For months she trusted all was right; but when moon followed moon, and she gave birth to a boy without hearing one word of his father, misgiving came upon her, and the only consolation left her was, that, though she was deserted, and a child left on her hands, still she was _an honest woman_. That child was the hero of our tale. The neighbours pa.s.sed some ill-natured remarks about her, when it began to be suspected that her husband would never let her know more about him; for she had been rather a saucy lady, holding up her nose at poor men, and triumphing in her catching of the "steward," a man well to do in the world; and it may be remembered, that this same spirit existed in her when Andy's rumoured marriage with Matty gave the prospect of her affairs being retrieved, for she displayed her love of pre-eminence to the very first person who gave her the good news. The ill-nature of her neighbours, however, after the birth of her child and the desertion of her husband, inducing her to leave the scene of her unmerited wrongs and annoyances, she suddenly decamped, and, removing to another part of Ireland, the poor woman began a life of hardship, to support herself and rear the offspring of her unfortunate marriage. In this task she was worthily a.s.sisted by one of her brothers, who pitied her condition, and joined her in her retreat. He married in course of time, and his wife died in giving birth to Oonah, who was soon deprived of her other parent by typhus fever, that terrible scourge of the poor; so that the praiseworthy desire of the brother to befriend his sister only involved her, as it happened, in the deeper difficulty of supporting two children instead of one. This she did heroically, and the orphan girl rewarded her, by proving a greater comfort than her own child; for Andy had inherited in all its raciness the blood of the Scatterbrains, and his deeds, as recorded in this history, prove he was no unworthy representative of that ill.u.s.trious t.i.tle. To return to his father--who had done the grievous wrong to the poor peasant girl: he lived his life of profligacy through, and in a foreign country died at last; but on his death-bed the scourge of conscience rendered every helpless hour an age of woe. Bitterest of all was the thought of the wife deceived, deserted, and unacknowledged. To face his last account with such fearful crime upon his head he dared not, and made all the reparation now in his power, by avowing his marriage in his last will and testament, and giving all the information in his power to trace his wife, if living, or his heir, if such existed. He enjoined, by the most sacred injunctions upon him to whom the charge was committed, that neither cost nor trouble should be spared in the search, leaving a large sum in ready money besides, to establish the right, in case his nephew disputed the will. By his own order, his death was kept secret, and secretly his agent set to work to discover any trace of the heir. This, in consequence of the woman changing her place of abode, became more difficult and it was not until after very minute inquiry that some trace was picked up, and a letter written to the parish priest of the district to which she had removed, making certain general inquiries. It was found, on comparing dates some time after, that it was this very letter to Father Blake which Andy had purloined from the post-office, and the Squire had thrown into the fire; so that our hero was very near, by his blundering, destroying his own fortune. Luckily for him, however, an untiring and intelligent agent was engaged in his cause, and a subsequent inquiry, and finally a personal visit to Father Blake, cleared the matter up satisfactorily, and the widow was enabled to produce such proof of her ident.i.ty, and that of her son, that Handy Andy was indisputably Lord Scatterbrain; and the whole affair was managed so secretly, that the death of the late lord, and the claim of t.i.tle and estates in the name of the rightful heir, were announced at the same moment; and the "Honourable Sackville," instead of coming into possession of the peerage and property, and fighting his adversary at the great advantage of possession, could only commence a suit to drive him out, if he sued at all.

Our limits compel us to this brief sketch of the circ.u.mstances through which Handy Andy was ent.i.tled to and became possessed of a property and a t.i.tle, and we must now say something of the effects produced by the intelligence on the parties most concerned.

The Honourable Sackville Scatterbrain, on the advice of high legal authority, did not attempt to dispute a succession of which such satisfactory proofs existed, and, fortunately for himself, had knocked up a watering-place match, while he was yet in the bloom of heirship _presumptive_ to a peerage, with the daughter of an English _millionaire_.

When the Widow Rooney heard the extraordinary turn affairs had taken, her emotions, after the first few hours of pleasurable surprise, partook of regret rather than satisfaction. She looked upon her past life of suffering, and felt as if Fate had cheated her. She, a peeress, had pa.s.sed her life in poverty and suffering, with contempt from those over whom she had superior rights; and the few years of the prosperous future before her offered her poor compensation for the pinching past. But after such selfish considerations, the maternal feeling came to her relief, and she rejoiced that _her son_ was a lord. But then came the terrible thought of his marriage to dash her joy and triumph.

This was a source of grief to Oonah as well. "If he wasn't married," she would say to herself, "I might be _Lady_ Scatterbrain;" and the tears would burst through poor Oonah's fingers as she held them up to her eyes and sobbed heavily, till the poor girl would try to gather consolation from the thought that, maybe, Andy's altered circ.u.mstances would make _her_ disregarded. "There would be plenty to have him now," thought she, "and he wouldn't think of me, maybe--so 't is well as it is."

When Andy heard that he was a lord--a real lord--and, after the first shock of astonishment, could comprehend that wealth and power were in his possession, he, though the most interested person, never thought, as the two women had done, of the desperate strait in which his marriage placed him, but broke out into short peals of laughter, and exclaimed in the intervals, "that it was mighty quare;" and when, after much questioning, any intelligible desire he had could be understood, the first one he clearly expressed was _"to have a goold watch."_

He was made, however, to understand that other things than "goold watches"

were of more importance; and the Squire, with his characteristic good nature, endeavoured to open Andy's comprehension to the nature of his altered situation. This, it may be supposed, was rather a complicated piece of work, and too difficult to be set down in black and white; the most intelligible portions to Andy were his immediate removal from servitude, and a ready-made suit of gentlemanly apparel, which made Andy pay several visits to the looking-gla.s.s. Good-natured as the Squire was, it would have been equally awkward to him as to Andy for the newly fledged lord, though a lord, to have a seat at his table, neither could he remain in an inferior position in his house; so d.i.c.k, who loved fun, volunteered to take Andy under his especial care to London, and let him share his lodgings, as a bachelor may do many things which a man surrounded by his family cannot. Besides, in a place distant from such extraordinary chances and changes as those which befell our hero, the sudden and startling difference of position of the parties not being known renders it possible for a gentleman to do the good-natured thing which d.i.c.k undertook, without compromising himself. In Dublin it would not have done for d.i.c.k Dawson to allow the man who would have held his horse the day before, to share the same board with him merely because Fortune had played one of her frolics and made Andy a lord; but in London the case was different.

To London therefore they proceeded. The incidents of the journey, sea- sickness included, which so astonished the new traveller, we pa.s.s over, as well as the numberless mistakes in the great metropolis, which afforded d.i.c.k plentiful amus.e.m.e.nt, though, in truth, d.i.c.k had better objects in view than laughing at Andy's embarra.s.sments in his new position. He really wished to help him in the difficult path into which the new lord had been thrust, and did this in a merry sort of way more successfully than by serious drilling. It was hard to break Andy of the habit of saying "Misther d.i.c.k," when addressing him, but, at last, "Misther Dawson" was established. Eating with his knife, drinking as loudly as a horse, and other like accomplishments, were not so easily got under, yet it was wonderful how much he improved, as his shyness grew less, and his consciousness of being a lord grew stronger.

But, if the good nature of d.i.c.k had not prompted him to take Andy into training, the newly discovered n.o.bleman would not have long been in want of society. It was wonderful how many persons were eager to show civility to his lordship, and some amongst them even went so far as to discover relationship. Plenty were soon ready to take Lord Scatterbrain here, and escort him there, accompany him to exhibitions and other public places, and charmed all the time with his lordship's remarks--"they were so original"--"quite delightful to meet something so fresh"--"how remarkably clever the Irish were!" Such were among the observations his ignorant blunders produced; and he who, as Handy Andy, had been anathematised all his life as a "stupid rascal," "a blundering thief," "a thick-headed brute," &c., under the t.i.tle of Lord Scatterbrain all of a sudden was voted "vastly amusing--a little eccentric, perhaps, but _so_ droll--in fact, so witty!" This was all very delightful for Andy --so delightful that he quite forgot Bridget _rhua_. But that lady did not leave him long in his happy obliviousness. One day, while d.i.c.k was absent, and Andy rocking on a chair before the fire, twirling the ma.s.sive gold chain of his gold watch round his forefinger, and uncoiling it again, his repose was suddenly disturbed by the appearance of Bridget herself, accompanied by _Shan More_ and a shrimp of a man in rusty black, who turned out to be a shabby attorney who advanced money to convey his lady client and her brother to London, for the purpose of making a dash at the lord at once, and securing a handsome sum by a _coup de main_.

Andy, though taken by surprise, was resolute. Bitter words were exchanged; and as they seemed likely to lead to blows, Andy prudently laid hold of the poker, and, in language not quite suited to a n.o.ble lord, swore he would see what the inside of _Shan More's_ head was made of, if he attempted to advance upon him. Bridget screamed and scolded, while the attorney endeavoured to keep the peace, and, beyond everything, urged Lord Scatterbrain to enter at once into written engagements for a handsome settlement upon his "lady."

"Lady!" exclaimed Andy; "oh!--a pretty _lady_ she is!"

"I'm as good a lady as you are a lord, anyhow," cried Bridget.

"Altercation will do no good, my lord and my lady," said the attorney; "let me suggest the propriety of your writing an engagement at once;" and the little man pushed pen, ink, and paper towards Andy.

"I can't, I tell you!" cried Andy.

"You must!" roared _Shan More_.

"Bad luck to you, how can I when I never larned?"

"Your lordship can make your mark," said the attorney.

"'Faith I can--with a poker," cried Andy; "and you'd better take care, master parchment. Make my mark, indeed!--do you think I'd disgrace the House o' Peers by lettin' on that a lord couldn't write?--Quit the buildin', I tell you!"

In the midst of the row, which now rose to a tremendous pitch, d.i.c.k returned; and after a severe reprimand to the pettifogger for his sinister attempt on Andy, referred him to Lord Scatterbrain's solicitor. It was not such an easy matter to silence Bridget, who extended her claws towards her lord and master in a very menacing manner, calling down bitter imprecations on her own head if she wouldn't have her rights.

Every now and then between the bursts of the storm Andy would exclaim, "Get out!"

"My lord," said d.i.c.k, "remember your dignity."

"Av coorse!" said Andy; "but still she must get out!"

The house was at last cleared of the uproarious party; but though Andy got rid of their presence, they left their sting behind. Lord Scatterbrain felt, for the first time, that a lord can be very unhappy.

d.i.c.k hurried him away at once to the chambers of the law agent, but he, being closeted on some very important business with another client on their arrival, returned an answer to their application for a conference, which they forwarded through the double doors of this sanctum by a hard- looking man with a pen behind his ear, that he could not have the pleasure of seeing them till the next morning. Lord Scatterbrain pa.s.sed a more unhappy night than he had ever done in his life--even than that when he was tied up to the old tree--croaked at by ravens, and the despised of rats.

Negotiations were opened the next day between the pettifogger on Bridget's side and the law agent of the n.o.ble lord, and the arguments, _pro and con.,_ lay thus:

In the first place, the opening declaration was--Lord Scatterbrain never would live with the aforesaid Bridget.

Answered--that nevertheless, as she was his lawful wife, a provision suitable to her rank must be made.

They (the claimants) were asked to name a sum.

The sum was considered exorbitant; it being argued that when her husband had determined never to live with her, he was in a far different condition, therefore it was unfair to seek so large a separate maintenance now.

The pettifogger threatened that Lady Scatterbrain would run in debt, which Lord Scatterbrain must discharge. My Lord's agent suggested that my Lady would be advertised in the public papers, and the public cautioned against giving her credit.

A sum could not be agreed upon, though a fair one was offered on Andy's part; for the greediness of the pettifogger, who was to have a share of the plunder, made him hold out for more, and negotiations were broken off for some days.

Poor Andy was in a wretched state of vexation. It was bad enough that he was married to this abominable woman, without an additional plague of being persecuted by her. To such an amount this rose at last, that she and her big brother dodged him every time he left the house, so that in self- defence he was obliged to become a close prisoner in his own lodgings. All this at last became so intolerable to the captive, that he urged a speedy settlement of the vexatious question, and a larger separate maintenance was granted to the detestable woman than would otherwise have been ceded, the only stipulation of a stringent nature made being, that Lord Scatterbrain should be free from the persecutions of his hateful wife for the future.