Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 39

"I will--but can't now--I am spent for this day--leave out the bottle of claret for Father Jos, and I'll get to bed--I'll see n.o.body, tell Father Jos--I'm gone to my room."

The next morning O'Tara came to breakfast. Every person had a different question to ask him, except Dora, who was silent.

Corny asked what kind of man Black Connal was. Mademoiselle inquired whether he was most French or English; Ormond, whether he was going to be married.

To all these questions O'Tara pleaded ignorance: except with respect to the sports of the field, he had very little curiosity or intelligence.

A ray of hope again darted across the mind of Corny. From his knowledge of the world, he thought it very probable that a young officer in the French brigade would be well contented to be heir to his brother's fortune, without enc.u.mbering himself with an Irish wife, taken from an obscure part of the country. Corny, therefore, eagerly inquired from O'Tara what became of White Connal's property. O'Tara answered, that the common cry of the country was, that all White Connal's profitable farms were leasehold property, and upon his own life. Poor Corny's hopes were thus frustrated: he had nothing left to do for some days but to pity Harry Ormond, to bear with the curiosity and impatience of Mademoiselle, and with the froward sullenness of Dora, till some intelligence should arrive respecting the new claimant to her destined hand.

CHAPTER XIV

A few days afterwards, Sheelah, bursting into Dora's room, exclaimed, "Miss Dora! Miss Dora! for the love of G.o.d, they are coming! They're coming down the avenue, _powdering_ along! Black Connal himself flaming away, with one in a gold hat, this big, galloping after, and all gold over, he is entirely!--Oh! what will become of us, Master Harry, now!

Oh! it took the sight out of my eyes!--And yours as red as ferrets, dear!--Oh! the _cratur_. But come to the window and look out--n.o.body will mind--stretch out the body, and I'll hold ye fast, never fear!--at the turn of the big wood do you see them behind the trees, the fir dales, glittering and flaming? Do you see them at all?"

"Too plainly," said Dora, sighing; "but I did not expect he would come in such a grand style. I wonder--"

"Oh! so do I, greatly--mostly at the carriage. Never saw the like with the Connals, so grand--but the queer thing--"

"Ah! my dear Dore, un cabriolet!" cried Mademoiselle, entering in ecstacy. "Here is Monsieur de Connal for you in a French cabriolet, and a French servant riding on to advertise you and all. Oh! what are you twisting your neck, child? I will have no toss at him now--he is all the gentleman, you shall see: so let me set you all to rights while your father is receive. I would not have him see you such a horrible figure--not presentable! you look--"

"I do not care how I look--the worse the better," said Dora: "I wish to look a horrible figure to him--to Black Connal."

"Oh! put your Black Connals out of your head--that is always in your mouth: I tell you he is call M. de Connal. Now did I not hear him this minute announced by his own valet?--Monsieur de Connal presents his compliments--he beg permission to present himself--and there was I, luckily, to answer for your father in French."

"French! sure Black Connal's Irish born!" said Sheelah: "that much I know, any way."

A servant knocked at the door with King Corny's request that the ladies would come down stairs, to see, as the footman added to his master's message, to see old Mr. Connal and the French gentleman.

"There! French, I told you," said Mademoiselle, "and quite the gentleman, depend upon it, my dear--come your ways."

"No matter what he is," said Dora, "I shall not go down to see him; so you had better go by yourself, aunt."

"Not one step! Oh! that would be the height of impolitesse and disobedience--you could not do that, my dear Dore; consider, he is not a man that n.o.body knows, like your old butor of a White Connal. Not signify how bad you treat him--like the dog; but here is a man of a certain quality, who knows the best people in Paris, who can talk, and tell every where. Oh! in conscience, my dear Dore, I shall not suffer these airs with a man who is somebody, and--"

"If he were the king of France," cried Dora, "if he were Alexander the Great himself, I would not be forced to see the man, or marry him against my will!"

"Marry! Who talk of marry? Not come to that yet; ten to one he has no thought of you, more than politeness require."

"Oh! as to that," said Dora, "aunt, you certainly are mistaken there.

What do you think he comes over to Ireland, what do you think he comes here for?"

"Hark! then," said Sheelah, "don't I hear them out of the window?

Faith! there they are, walking and talking and laughing, as if there was nothing at all in it."

"Just Heavens! What a handsome uniform!" said Miss O'Faley; "and a very proper-looking man," said Sheelah.

"Well, who'd have thought Black Connal, if it's him, would ever have turned out so fine a presence of a man to look at?"

"Very cavalier, indeed, to go out to walk, without waiting to see us,"

said Dora.

"Oh! I will engage it was that dear father of yours hoisted him out."

"Hoisted him out! Well, aunt, you do sometimes speak the oddest English.

But I do think it strange that he should be so very much at his ease. Look at him--hear him--I wonder what he is saying--and Harry Ormond!--Give me my bonnet, Sheelah--behind you, quick. Aunt, let us go out of the garden door, and meet them out walking, by accident--that is the best way--I long to see how _somebody_ will look."

"Very good--now you look all life and spirit--perfectly charming! Look that manner, and I'll engage he will fall in love with you."

"He had better not, I can tell him, unless he has a particular pleasure in being refused," said Dora, with a toss of her head and neck, and at the same time a glance at her looking-gla.s.s, as she pa.s.sed quickly out of the room.

Dora and her aunt walked out, and accidentally met the gentlemen in their walk. As M. de Connal approached, he gave them full leisure to form their opinions as to his personal appearance. He had the air of a foreign officer--easy, fashionable, and upon uncommonly good terms with himself--conscious, but with no vulgar consciousness, of possessing a fine figure and a good face: his was the air of a French c.o.xcomb, who in unconstrained delight, was rather proud to display, than anxious to conceal, his perfect self-satisfaction. Interrupting his conversation only when he came within a few paces of the ladies, he advanced with an air of happy confidence and Parisian gallantry, begging that Mr. O'Shane would do him the honour and pleasure to present him. After a bow, that said nothing, to Dora, he addressed his conversation entirely to her aunt, walking beside Mademoiselle, and neither approaching nor attempting to speak to Dora; he did not advert to her in the least, and seemed scarcely to know she was present. This quite disconcerted the young lady's whole plan of proceedings--no opportunity was afforded her of showing disdain. She withdrew her arm from her aunt's, though Mademoiselle held it as fast as she could--but Dora withdrew it resolutely, and falling back a step or two, took Harry Ormond's arm, and walked with him, talking with as much unconcern, and as loudly as she could, to mark her indifference. But whether she talked or was silent, walked on with Harry Ormond, or stayed behind, whispered or laughed aloud, it seemed to make no impression, no alteration whatever in Monsieur de Connal: he went on conversing with Mademoiselle, and with her father, alternately in French and English. In English he spoke with a native Irish accent, which seemed to have been preserved from childhood; but though the brogue was strong, yet there were no vulgar expressions: he spoke good English, but generally with somewhat of French idiom. Whether this was from habit or affectation it was not easy to decide. It seemed as if the person who was speaking, thought in French, and translated it into English as he went on. The peculiarity of manner and accent--for there was French mixed with the Irish--fixed attention; and besides Dora was really curious to hear what he was saying, for he was very entertaining. Mademoiselle was in raptures while he talked of Paris and Versailles, and various people of consequence and fashion at the court. The Dauphiness!--she was then but just married--de Connal had seen all the fetes and the fireworks--but the beautiful Dauphiness!--In answering a question of Mademoiselle's about the colour of her hair, he for the first time showed that he had taken notice of Dora. "Nearly the colour, I think, of that young lady's hair, as well as one can judge; but powder prevents the possibility of judging accurately."

Dora was vexed to see that she was considered merely _as a young lady_: she exerted herself to take a part in the conversation, but Mr.

Connal never joined in conversation with her--with the most scrupulous deference he stopped short in the middle of his sentence, if she began to speak. He stood aside, shrinking into himself with the utmost care, if she was to pa.s.s; he held the boughs of the shrubs out of her way, but continued his conversation with Mademoiselle all the time. When they came in from their walk, the same sort of thing went on. "It really is very extraordinary," thought she: "he seems as if he was spell-bound--obliged by his notions of politeness to let me pa.s.s incognita."

Mademoiselle was so fully engaged, chattering away, that she did not perceive Dora's mortification. The less notice Connal took of her, the more Dora wished to attract his attention: not that she desired to please him--no, she only longed to have the pleasure of refusing him.

For this purpose the offer must be made--and it was not at all clear that any offer would be made.

When the ladies went to dress before dinner, Mademoiselle, while she was presiding at Dora's toilette, expressed how much she was delighted with M. de Connal, and asked what her niece thought of him? Dora replied that indeed she did not trouble herself to think of him at all--that she thought him a monstrous c.o.xcomb--and that she wondered what could bring so prodigiously fine a gentleman to the Black Islands.

"Ask your own sense what brought him here! or ask your own looking-gla.s.s what shall keep him here!" said Miss O'Faley. "I can tell you he thinks you very handsome already; and when he sees you dress!"

"Really! he does me honour; he did not seem as if he had even seen me, more than any of the trees in the wood, or the chairs in the room."

"Chairs!--Oh, now you fish for _complimens!_ But I shall not tell you how like he thinks you, if you were mise a la Francoise, to la belle Comtesse de Barnac."

"But is not it very extraordinary, he absolutely never spoke to me,"

said Dora: "a very strange manner of paying his court!"

Mademoiselle a.s.sured Dora "that this was owing to M. de Connal's French habits. The young ladies in Paris pa.s.sing for nothing, scarcely ever appearing in society till they are married, the gentlemen have no intercourse with them, and it would be considered as a breach of respect due to a young lady or her mother, to address much conversation to her. And you know, my dear Dore, their marriages are all make up by the father, the mother, the friends--the young people themselves never speak, never know nothing at all about each one another, till the contract is sign: in fact, the young lady is the little round what you call cipher, but has no value in societe at all, till the figure of de husband come to give it the value."

"I have no notion of being a cipher," said Dora: "I am not a French young lady, Monsieur de Connal."

"Ah, but my dear Dore, consider what is de French wife! Ah! then come her great glory; then she reign over all hearts, and is in full liberte to dress, to go, to come, to do what she like, with her own carriage, her own box at de opera, and--You listen well, and I shall draw all that out for you, from M. de Connal."

Dora languidly, sullenly begged her aunt would not give herself the trouble--she had no curiosity. But nevertheless she asked several questions about la Comtesse de Barnac; and all the time saying she did not in the least care what he thought or said of her, she drew from her aunt every syllable that M. de Connal had uttered, and was secretly mortified and surprised to find he had said so little. She could not dress herself to her mind to-day, and protesting she did not care how she looked, she resigned herself into her aunt's hands. Whatever he might think, she should take care to show him at dinner that young ladies in this country were not ciphers.

At dinner, however, as before, all Dora's preconcerted airs of disdain and determination to show that she was somebody, gave way, she did not know how, before M. de Connal's easy a.s.surance and polite indifference.

His knowledge of the world, and his talents for conversation, with the variety of subjects he had flowing in from all parts of the world, gave him advantages with which there was no possibility of contending.

He talked, and carved--all life, and gaiety, and fashion: he spoke of battles, of princes, plays, operas, wine, women, cardinals, religion, politics, poetry, and turkeys stuffed with truffles--and Paris for ever!--Dash on! at every thing!--hit or miss--sure of the applause of Mademoiselle--and, as he thought, secure of the admiration of the whole company of natives, from _le beau-pere_, at the foot of the table, to the boy who waited, or who did not wait, opposite to him, but who stood entranced with wonder at all that M. de Connal said, and all that he did--even to the fashion in which he stowed trusses of salad into his mouth with a fork, and talked--through it all.

And Dora, what did she think?--she thought she was very much mortified that there was room for her to say so little. The question now was not what she thought of M. de Connal, but what he thought of her. After beginning with various little mock defences, avertings of the head, and twists of the neck, of the shoulders and hips, compound motions resolvable into _mauvaise honte_ and pride, as dinner proceeded, and Monsieur de Connal's _success_ was undoubted, she silently gave up her resolution "not to admire."

Before the first course was over, Connal perceived that he had her eye: "Before the second is over," thought he, "I shall have her ear; and by the time we come to the dessert, I shall be in a fair way for the heart."