CHAPTER XIX. CONCLUSION
If the world were not composed of a race of ungrateful scoundrels, whoshare your prosperity while it lasts, and, even when gorged with yourvenison and Burgundy, abuse the generous giver of the feast, I am sure Imerit a good name and a high reputation: in Ireland, at least, wheremy generosity was unbounded, and the splendour of my mansion andentertainments unequalled by any other nobleman of my time. As long asmy magnificence lasted, all the country was free to partake of it; I hadhunters sufficient in my stables to mount a regiment of dragoons, andbutts of wine in my cellar which would have made whole counties drunkfor years. Castle Lyndon became the headquarters of scores of needygentlemen, and I never rode a-hunting but I had a dozen young fellows ofthe best blood of the country riding as my squires and gentlemen ofthe horse. My son, little Castle Lyndon, was a prince; his breeding andmanners, even at his early age, showed him to be worthy of the two noblefamilies from whom he was descended: I don't know what high hopes I hadfor the boy, and indulged in a thousand fond anticipations as to hisfuture success and figure in the world. But stern Fate had determinedthat I should leave none of my race behind me, and ordained that Ishould finish my career, as I see it closing now--poor, lonely, andchildless. I may have had my faults; but no man shall dare to say of methat I was not a good and tender father. I loved that boy passionately;perhaps with a blind partiality: I denied him nothing. Gladly, gladly,I swear, would I have died that his premature doom might have beenaverted. I think there is not a day since I lost him but his bright faceand beautiful smiles look down on me out of heaven, where he is, andthat my heart does not yearn towards him. That sweet child was takenfrom me at the age of nine years, when he was full of beauty andpromise: and so powerful is the hold his memory has of me that I havenever been able to forget him; his little spirit haunts me of nightson my restless solitary pillow; many a time, in the wildest and maddestcompany, as the bottle is going round, and the song and laugh roaringabout, I am thinking of him. I have got a lock of his soft brown hairhanging round my breast now: it will accompany me to the dishonouredpauper's grave; where soon, no doubt, Barry Lyndon's worn-out old boneswill be laid.
My Bryan was a boy of amazing high spirit (indeed how, coming from sucha stock, could he be otherwise?), impatient even of my control, againstwhich the dear little rogue would often rebel gallantly; how much more,then, of his mother's and the women's, whose attempts to direct him hewould laugh to scorn. Even my own mother ('Mrs. Barry of Lyndon' thegood soul now called herself, in compliment to my new family) was quiteunable to check him; and hence you may fancy what a will he had of hisown. If it had not been for that, he might have lived to this day: hemight--but why repine? Is he not in a better place? would the heritageof a beggar do any service to him? It is best as it is--Heaven be goodto us!--Alas! that I, his father, should be left to deplore him.
It was in the month of October I had been to Dublin, in order to see alawyer and a moneyed man who had come over to Ireland to consult with meabout some sales of mine and the cut of Hackton timber; of which, as Ihated the place and was greatly in want of money, I was determined tocut down every stick. There had been some difficulty in the matter. Itwas said I had no right to touch the timber. The brute peasantry aboutthe estate had been roused to such a pitch of hatred against me, thatthe rascals actually refused to lay an axe to the trees; and my agent(that scoundrel Larkins) declared that his life was in danger amongthem if he attempted any further despoilment (as they called it) of theproperty. Every article of the splendid furniture was sold by this time,as I need not say; and as for the plate, I had taken good care to bringit off to Ireland, where it now was in the best of keeping--my banker's,who had advanced six thousand pounds on it: which sum I soon hadoccasion for.
I went to Dublin, then, to meet the English man of business; and sofar succeeded in persuading Mr. Splint, a great shipbuilder andtimber-dealer of Plymouth, of my claim to the Hackton timber, that heagreed to purchase it off-hand at about one-third of its value, andhanded me over five thousand pounds: which, being pressed with debts atthe time, I was fain to accept. HE had no difficulty in getting down thewood, I warrant. He took a regiment of shipwrights and sawyers from hisown and the King's yards at Plymouth, and in two months Hackton Park wasas bare of trees as the Bog of Allen.
I had but ill luck with that accursed expedition and money. I lost thegreater part of it in two nights' play at 'Daly's,' so that my debtsstood just as they were before; and before the vessel sailed forHolyhead, which carried away my old sharper of a timber-merchant, allthat I had left of the money he brought me was a couple of hundredpounds, with which I returned home very disconsolately: and verysuddenly, too, for my Dublin tradesmen were hot upon me, hearing I hadspent the loan, and two of my wine-merchants had writs out against mefor some thousands of pounds.
I bought in Dublin, according to my promise, however--for when I givea promise I will keep it at any sacrifices--a little horse for my dearlittle Bryan; which was to be a present for his tenth birthday, that wasnow coming on: it was a beautiful little animal and stood me in a goodsum. I never regarded money for that dear child. But the horse was verywild. He kicked off one of my horse-boys, who rode him at first, andbroke the lad's leg; and, though I took the animal in hand on thejourney home, it was only my weight and skill that made the brute quiet.
When we got home I sent the horse away with one of my grooms to afarmer's house, to break him thoroughly in, and told Bryan, who was allanxiety to see his little horse, that he would arrive by his birthday,when he should hunt him along with my hounds; and I promised myselfno small pleasure in presenting the dear fellow to the field that day:which I hoped to see him lead some time or other in place of his fondfather. Ah me! never was that gallant boy to ride a fox-chase, or totake the place amongst the gentry of his country which his birth andgenius had pointed out for him!
Though I don't believe in dreams and omens, yet I can't but own thatwhen a great calamity is hanging over a man he has frequently manystrange and awful forebodings of it. I fancy now I had many. LadyLyndon, especially, twice dreamed of her son's death; but, as she wasnow grown uncommonly nervous and vapourish, I treated her fears withscorn, and my own, of course, too. And in an unguarded moment, over thebottle after dinner, I told poor Bryan, who was always questioning meabout the little horse, and when it was to come, that it was arrived;that it was in Doolan's farm, where Mick the groom was breaking him in.'Promise me, Bryan,' screamed his mother, 'that you will not ride thehorse except in company of your father.' But I only said, 'Pooh, madam,you are an ass!' being angry at her silly timidity, which was alwaysshowing itself in a thousand disagreeable ways now; and, turning roundto Bryan, said, 'I promise your Lordship a good flogging if you mounthim without my leave.'
I suppose the poor child did not care about paying this penalty for thepleasure he was to have, or possibly thought a fond father would remitthe punishment altogether; for the next morning, when I rose ratherlate, having sat up drinking the night before, I found the child hadbeen off at daybreak, having slipt through his tutor's room (this wasRedmond Quin, our cousin, whom I had taken to live with me), and I hadno doubt but that he was gone to Doolan's farm.
I took a great horsewhip and galloped off after him in a rage, swearingI would keep my promise. But, Heaven forgive me! I little thought of itwhen at three miles from home I met a sad procession coming towards me:peasants moaning and howling as our Irish do, the black horse led by thehand, and, on a door that some of the folk carried, my poor dear dearlittle boy. There he lay in his little boots and spurs, and his littlecoat of scarlet and gold. His dear face was quite white, and he smiledas he held a hand out to me, and said painfully, 'You won't whip me,will you, papa?' I could only burst out into tears in reply. I have seenmany and many a man dying, and there's a look about the eyes which youcannot mistake. There was a little drummer-boy I was fond of who was hitdown before my company at Kuhnersdorf; when I ran up to give himsome water, he looked exactly like my dear Bryan then did--th
ere's nomistaking that awful look of the eyes. We carried him home and scouredthe country round for doctors to come and look at his hurt.
But what does a doctor avail in a contest with the grim invincibleenemy? Such as came could only confirm our despair by their accountof the poor child's case. He had mounted his horse gallantly, sat himbravely all the time the animal plunged and kicked, and, having overcomehis first spite, ran him at a hedge by the roadside. But there wereloose stones at the top, and the horse's foot caught among them, and heand his brave little rider rolled over together at the other side. Thepeople said they saw the noble little boy spring up after his fall andrun to catch the horse; which had broken away from him, kicking him onthe back, as it would seem, as they lay on the ground. Poor Bryan ran afew yards and then dropped down as if shot. A pallor came over his face,and they thought he was dead. But they poured whisky down his mouth, andthe poor child revived: still he could not move; his spine was injured;the lower half of him was dead when they laid him in bed at home. Therest did not last long, God help me! He remained yet for two days withus; and a sad comfort it was to think he was in no pain.
During this time the dear angel's temper seemed quite to change: heasked his mother and me pardon for any act of disobedience he had beenguilty of towards us; he said often he should like to see his brotherBullingdon. 'Bully was better than you, papa,' he said; 'he used notto swear so, and he told and taught me many good things while you wereaway.' And, taking a hand of his mother and mine in each of his littleclammy ones, he begged us not to quarrel so, but love each other, sothat we might meet again in heaven, where Bully told him quarrelsomepeople never went. His mother was very much affected by theseadmonitions from the poor suffering angel's mouth; and I was so too. Iwish she had enabled me to keep the counsel which the dying boy gave us.
At last, after two days, he died. There he lay, the hope of my family,the pride of my manhood, the link which had kept me and my Lady Lyndontogether. 'Oh, Redmond,' said she, kneeling by the sweet child's body,'do, do let us listen to the truth out of his blessed mouth: and do youamend your life, and treat your poor loving fond wife as her dying childbade you.' And I said I would: but there are promises which it is out ofa man's power to keep; especially with such a woman as her. But wedrew together after that sad event, and were for several months betterfriends.
I won't tell you with what splendour we buried him. Of what avail areundertakers' feathers and heralds' trumpery? I went out and shot thefatal black horse that had killed him, at the door of the vault where welaid my boy. I was so wild, that I could have shot myself too. But forthe crime, it would have been better that I should, perhaps; for whathas my life been since that sweet flower was taken out of my bosom?A succession of miseries, wrongs, disasters, and mental and bodilysufferings which never fell to the lot of any other man in Christendom.
Lady Lyndon, always vapourish and nervous, after our blessed boy'scatastrophe became more agitated than ever, and plunged into devotionwith so much fervour, that you would have fancied her almost distractedat times. She imagined she saw visions. She said an angel from heavenhad told her that Bryan's death was as a punishment to her for herneglect of her first-born. Then she would declare Bullingdon was alive;she had seen him in a dream. Then again she would fall into fits ofsorrow about his death, and grieve for him as violently as if he hadbeen the last of her sons who had died, and not our darling Bryan; who,compared to Bullingdon, was what a diamond is to a vulgar stone. Herfreaks were painful to witness, and difficult to control. It began tobe said in the country that the Countess was going mad. My scoundrellyenemies did not fail to confirm and magnify the rumour, and would addthat I was the cause of her insanity: I had driven her to distraction, Ihad killed Bullingdon, I had murdered my own son; I don't know what elsethey laid to my charge. Even in Ireland their hateful calumnies reachedme: my friends fell away from me. They began to desert my hunt, as theydid in England, and when I went to race or market found sudden reasonsfor getting out of my neighbourhood. I got the name of Wicked Barry,Devil Lyndon, which you please: the country-folk used to make marvellouslegends about me: the priests said I had massacred I don't know howmany German nuns in the Seven Years' War; that the ghost of the murderedBullingdon haunted my house. Once at a fair in a town hard by, when Ihad a mind to buy a waistcoat for one of my people, a fellow standing bysaid, ''Tis a strait-waistcoat he's buying for my Lady Lyndon.' Andfrom this circumstance arose a legend of my cruelty to my wife; and manycircumstantial details were narrated regarding my manner and ingenuityof torturing her.
The loss of my dear boy pressed not only on my heart as a father, butinjured my individual interests in a very considerable degree; for asthere was now no direct heir to the estate, and Lady Lyndon was of aweak health, and supposed to be quite unlikely to leave a family, thenext in succession-that detestable family of Tiptoff--began to exertthemselves in a hundred ways to annoy me, and were at the head ofthe party of enemies who were raising reports to my discredit. Theyinterposed between me and my management of the property in a hundreddifferent ways; making an outcry if I cut a stick, sunk a shaft, sold apicture, or sent a few ounces of plate to be remodelled. They harassedme with ceaseless lawsuits, got injunctions from Chancery, hampered myagents in the execution of their work; so much so that you would havefancied my own was not my own, but theirs, to do as they liked with.What is worse, as I have reason to believe, they had tamperings anddealings with my own domestics under my own roof; for I could not havea word with Lady Lyndon but it somehow got abroad, and I could not bedrunk with my chaplain and friends but some sanctified rascals wouldget hold of the news, and reckon up all the bottles I drank and all theoaths I swore. That these were not few, I acknowledge. I am of the oldschool; was always a free liver and speaker; and, at least, if I did andsaid what I liked, was not so bad as many a canting scoundrel I know ofwho covers his foibles and sins, unsuspected, with a mask of holiness.As I am making a clean breast of it, and am no hypocrite, I may as wellconfess now that I endeavoured to ward off the devices of my enemiesby an artifice which was not, perhaps, strictly justifiable. Everythingdepended on my having an heir to the estate; for if Lady Lyndon, whowas of weakly health, had died, the next day I was a beggar: all mysacrifices of money, &c., on the estate would not have been held in afarthing's account; all the debts would have been left on my shoulders;and my enemies would have triumphed over me: which, to a man of myhonourable spirit, was 'the unkindest cut of all,' as some poet says.
I confess, then, it was my wish to supplant these scoundrels; and, as Icould not do so without an heir to my property, _I_ DETERMINED TO FINDONE. If I had him near at hand, and of my own blood too, though withthe bar sinister, is not here the question. It was then I found out therascally machinations of my enemies; for, having broached this plan toLady Lyndon, whom I made to be, outwardly at least, the most obedientof wives,--although I never let a letter from her or to her go or arrivewithout my inspection,--although I allowed her to see none but thosepersons who I thought, in her delicate health, would be fitting societyfor her; yet the infernal Tiptoffs got wind of my scheme, protestedinstantly against it, not only by letter, but in the shameful libellouspublic prints, and held me up to public odium as a 'child-forger,' asthey called me. Of course I denied the charge--I could do no otherwise,and offered to meet any one of the Tiptoffs on the field of honour, andprove him a scoundrel and a liar: as he was; though, perhaps, notin this instance. But they contented themselves by answering me by alawyer, and declined an invitation which any man of spirit would haveaccepted. My hopes of having an heir were thus blighted completely:indeed, Lady Lyndon (though, as I have said, I take her opposition fornothing) had resisted the proposal with as much energy as a woman of herweakness could manifest; and said she had committed one great crime inconsequence of me, but would rather die than perform another. I couldeasily have brought her Ladyship to her senses, however: but my schemehad taken wind, and it was now in vain to attempt it. We might have hada dozen children in honest wedlock, and p
eople would have said they werefalse.
As for raising money on annuities, I may say I had used her lifeinterest up. There were but few of those assurance societies in my timewhich have since sprung up in the city of London; underwriters didthe business, and my wife's life was as well known among them as, I dobelieve, that of any woman in Christendom. Latterly, when I wanted toget a sum against her life, the rascals had the impudence to say mytreatment of her did not render it worth a year's purchase,--as if myinterest lay in killing her! Had my boy lived, it would have been adifferent thing; he and his mother might have cut off the entail of agood part of the property between them, and my affairs have been put inbetter order. Now they were in a bad condition indeed. All my schemeshad turned out failures; my lands, which I had purchased with borrowedmoney, made me no return, and I was obliged to pay ruinous interest forthe sums with which I had purchased them. My income, though very large,was saddled with hundreds of annuities, and thousands of lawyers'charges; and I felt the net drawing closer and closer round me, and nomeans to extricate myself from its toils.
To add to all my perplexities, two years after my poor child's death, mywife, whose vagaries of temper and wayward follies I had borne with fortwelve years, wanted to leave me, and absolutely made attempts at whatshe called escaping from my tyranny.
My mother, who was the only person that, in my misfortunes, remainedfaithful to me (indeed, she has always spoken of me in my true light, asa martyr to the rascality of others and a victim of my own generous andconfiding temper), found out the first scheme that was going on; andof which those artful and malicious Tiptoffs were, as usual, the mainpromoters. Mrs. Barry, indeed, though her temper was violent and herways singular, was an invaluable person to me in my house; which wouldhave been at rack and ruin long before, but for her spirit of orderand management, and for her excellent economy in the government of mynumerous family. As for my Lady Lyndon, she, poor soul! was much toofine a lady to attend to household matters--passed her days with herdoctor, or her books of piety, and never appeared among us except at mycompulsion; when she and my mother would be sure to have a quarrel.
Mrs. Barry, on the contrary, had a talent for management in all matters.She kept the maids stirring, and the footmen to their duty; had an eyeover the claret in the cellar, and the oats and hay in the stable; sawto the salting and pickling, the potatoes and the turf-stacking, thepig-killing and the poultry, the linen-room and the bakehouse, and theten thousand minutiae of a great establishment. If all Irish housewiveswere like her, I warrant many a hall-fire would be blazing where thecobwebs only grow now, and many a park covered with sheep and fat cattlewhere the thistles are at present the chief occupiers. If anythingcould have saved me from the consequences of villainy in others, and(I confess it, for I am not above owning to my faults) my own too easy,generous, and careless nature, it would have been the admirable prudenceof that worthy creature. She never went to bed until all the house wasquiet and all the candles out; and you may fancy that this was a matterof some difficulty with a man of my habits, who had commonly a dozen ofjovial fellows (artful scoundrels and false friends most of them were!)to drink with me every night, and who seldom, for my part, went to bedsober. Many and many a night, when I was unconscious of her attention,has that good soul pulled my boots off, and seen me laid by my servantssnug in bed, and carried off the candle herself; and been the firstin the morning, too, to bring me my drink of small-beer. Mine were nomilksop times, I can tell you. A gentleman thought no shame of takinghis half-dozen bottles; and, as for your coffee and slops, they wereleft to Lady Lyndon, her doctor, and the other old women. It was mymother's pride that I could drink more than any man in the country,--asmuch, within a pint, as my father before me, she said.
That Lady Lyndon should detest her was quite natural. She is not thefirst of woman or mankind either that has hated a mother-in-law. I setmy mother to keep a sharp watch over the freaks of her Ladyship; andthis, you may be sure, was one of the reasons why the latter dislikedher. I never minded that, however. Mrs. Barry's assistance andsurveillance were invaluable to me; and, if I had paid twenty spiesto watch my Lady, I should not have been half so well served as by thedisinterested care and watchfulness of my excellent mother. She sleptwith the house-keys under her pillow, and had an eye everywhere. Shefollowed all the Countess's movements like a shadow; she managed toknow, from morning to night, everything that my Lady did. If she walkedin the garden, a watchful eye was kept on the wicket; and if she choseto drive out, Mrs. Barry accompanied her, and a couple of fellows in myliveries rode alongside of the carriage to see that she came to no harm.Though she objected, and would have kept her room in sullen silence,I made a point that we should appear together at church in thecoach-and-six every Sunday; and that she should attend the race-ballsin my company, whenever the coast was clear of the rascally bailiffs whobeset me. This gave the lie to any of those maligners who said I wishedto make a prisoner of my wife. The fact is, that, knowing her levity,and seeing the insane dislike to me and mine which had now begun tosupersede what, perhaps, had been an equally insane fondness for me, Iwas bound to be on my guard that she should not give me the slip. Hadshe left me, I was ruined the next day. This (which my mother knew)compelled us to keep a tight watch over her; but as for imprisoning her,I repel the imputation with scorn. Every man imprisons his wife to acertain degree; the world would be in a pretty condition if women wereallowed to quit home and return to it whenever they had a mind. Inwatching over my wife, Lady Lyndon, I did no more than exercise thelegitimate authority which awards honour and obedience to every husband.
Such, however, is female artifice, that, in spite of all my watchfulnessin guarding her, it is probable my Lady would have given me the slip,had I not had quite as acute a person as herself as my ally: for, asthe proverb says that 'the best way to catch one thief is to set anotherafter him,' so the best way to get the better of a woman is to engageone of her own artful sex to guard her. One would have thought that,followed as she was, all her letters read, and all her acquaintancesstrictly watched by me, living in a remote part of Ireland away from herfamily, Lady Lyndon could have had no chance of communicating withher allies, or of making her wrongs, as she was pleased to call them,public; and yet, for a while, she carried on a correspondence under myvery nose, and acutely organised a conspiracy for flying from me; asshall be told.
She always had an inordinate passion for dress, and, as she was neverthwarted in any whimsey she had of this kind (for I spared no money togratify her, and among my debts are milliners' bills to the amount ofmany thousands), boxes used to pass continually to and fro from Dublin,with all sorts of dresses, caps, flounces, and furbelows, as her fancydictated. With these would come letters from her milliner, in answer tonumerous similar injunctions from my Lady; all of which passed throughmy hands, without the least suspicion, for some time. And yet in thesevery papers, by the easy means of sympathetic ink, were contained allher Ladyship's correspondence; and Heaven knows (for it was some time,as I have said, before I discovered the trick) what charges against me.
But clever Mrs. Barry found out that always before my lady-wife chose towrite letters to her milliner, she had need of lemons to make her drink,as she said; this fact, being mentioned to me, set me a-thinking, andso I tried one of the letters before the fire, and the whole schemeof villainy was brought to light. I will give a specimen of one of thehorrid artful letters of this unhappy woman. In a great hand, with widelines, were written a set of directions to her mantua-maker, settingforth the articles of dress for which my Lady had need, the peculiarityof their make, the stuff she selected, &c. She would make out long listsin this way, writing each article in a separate line, so as to have morespace for detailing all my cruelties and her tremendous wrongs. Betweenthese lines she kept the journal of her captivity: it would have madethe fortune of a romance-writer in those days but to have got a copy ofit, and to have published it under the title of the 'Lovely Prisoner,or the Savage Husband,' or by some name equally taking and ab
surd. Thejournal would be as follows:--
*****
'MONDAY.--Yesterday I was made to go to church. My odious, MONSTROUS,VULGAR SHE-DRAGON OF A MOTHER-IN-LAW, in a yellow satin and red ribands,taking the first place in the coach; Mr. L. riding by its side, on thehorse he never paid for to Captain Hurdlestone. The wicked hypocrite ledme to the pew, with hat in hand and a smiling countenance, and kissedmy hand as I entered the coach after service, and patted my Italiangreyhound--all that the few people collected might see. He made mecome downstairs in the evening to make tea for his company; of whomthree-fourths, he himself included, were, as usual, drunk. They paintedthe parson's face black, when his reverence had arrived at his seventhbottle; and at his usual insensible stage, they tied him on the greymare with his face to the tail. The she-dragon read the "Whole Duty ofMan" all the evening till bedtime; when she saw me to my apartments,locked me in, and proceeded to wait upon her abominable son: whom sheadores for his wickedness, I should think, AS STYCORAX DID CALIBAN.'
*****
You should have seen my mother's fury as I read her out this passage!Indeed, I have always had a taste for a joke (that practised on theparson, as described above, is, I confess, a true bill), and usedcarefully to select for Mrs. Barry's hearing all the COMPLIMENTS thatLady Lyndon passed upon her. The dragon was the name by which she wasknown in this precious correspondence: or sometimes she was designatedby the title of the 'Irish Witch.' As for me, I was denominated 'mygaoler,' 'my tyrant,' 'the dark spirit which has obtained the masteryover my being,' and so on; in terms always complimentary to my power,however little they might be so to my amiability. Here is anotherextract from her 'Prison Diary,' by which it will be seen that my Lady,although she pretended to be so indifferent to my goings on, had a sharpwoman's eye, and could be as jealous as another:--
*****
'WEDNESDAY.--This day two years my last hope and pleasure in life wastaken from me, and my dear child was called to heaven. Has he joined hisneglected brother there, whom I suffered to grow up unheeded by my side:and whom the tyranny of the monster to whom I am united drove to exile,and perhaps to death? Or is the child alive, as my fond heart sometimesdeems? Charles Bullingdon! come to the aid of a wretched mother, whoacknowledges her crimes, her coldness towards thee, and now bitterlypays for her error! But no, he cannot live! I am distracted! My onlyhope is in you, my cousin--you whom I had once thought to salute by aSTILL FONDER TITLE, my dear George Poynings! Oh, be my knight and mypreserver, the true chivalric being thou ever wert, and rescue me fromthe thrall of the felon caitiff who holds me captive--rescue me fromhim, and from Stycorax, the vile Irish witch, his mother!'
(Here follow some verses, such as her Ladyship was in the habit ofcomposing by reams, in which she compares herself to Sabra, in the'Seven Champions,' and beseeches her George to rescue her from THEDRAGON, meaning Mrs. Barry. I omit the lines, and proceed:)--
'Even my poor child, who perished untimely on this sad anniversary, thetyrant who governs me had taught to despise and dislike me. 'Twasin disobedience to my orders, my prayers, that he went on the fataljourney. What sufferings, what humiliations have I had to endure sincethen! I am a prisoner in my own halls. I should fear poison, but that Iknow the wretch has a sordid interest in keeping me alive, and that mydeath would be the signal for his ruin. But I dare not stir without myodious, hideous, vulgar gaoler, the horrid Irishwoman, who pursues myevery step. I am locked into my chamber at night, like a felon, andonly suffered to leave it when ORDERED into the presence of my lord (_I_ordered!), to be present at his orgies with his boon companions, andto hear his odious converse as he lapses into the disgusting madness ofintoxication! He has given up even the semblance of constancy--he, whoswore that I alone could attach or charm him! And now he bringshis vulgar mistresses before my very eyes, and would have had meacknowledge, as heir to my own property, his child by another!
'No, I never will submit! Thou, and thou only, my George, my earlyfriend, shalt be heir to the estates of Lyndon. Why did not Fate join meto thee, instead of to the odious man who holds me under his sway, andmake the poor Calista happy?'
*****
So the letters would run on for sheets upon sheets, in the closestcramped handwriting; and I leave any unprejudiced reader to say whetherthe writer of such documents must not have been as silly and vain acreature as ever lived, and whether she did not want being taken careof? I could copy out yards of rhapsody to Lord George Poynings, her oldflame, in which she addressed him by the most affectionate names, andimplored him to find a refuge for her against her oppressors; but theywould fatigue the reader to peruse, as they would me to copy. The factis, that this unlucky lady had the knack of writing a great deal morethan she meant. She was always reading novels and trash; puttingherself into imaginary characters and flying off into heroics andsentimentalities with as little heart as any woman I ever knew; yetshowing the most violent disposition to be in love. She wrote always asif she was in a flame of passion. I have an elegy on her lap-dog, themost tender and pathetic piece she ever wrote; and most tender notesof remonstrance to Betty, her favourite maid; to her housekeeper, onquarrelling with her; to half-a-dozen acquaintances, each of whom sheaddressed as the dearest friend in the world, and forgot the very momentshe took up another fancy. As for her love for her children, the abovepassage will show how much she was capable of true maternal feeling:the very sentence in which she records the death of one child servesto betray her egotisms, and to wreak her spleen against myself; and sheonly wishes to recall another from the grave, in order that he may be ofsome personal advantage to her. If I DID deal severely with this woman,keeping her from her flatterers who would have bred discord between us,and locking her up out of mischief, who shall say that I was wrong? Ifany woman deserved a strait-waistcoat,--it was my Lady Lyndon; and Ihave known people in my time manacled, and with their heads shaved, inthe straw, who had not committed half the follies of that foolish, vain,infatuated creature.
My mother was so enraged by the charges against me and herself whichthese letters contained, that it was with the utmost difficulty I couldkeep her from discovering our knowledge of them to Lady Lyndon; whom itwas, of course, my object to keep in ignorance of our knowledge of herdesigns: for I was anxious to know how far they went, and to what pitchof artifice she would go. The letters increased in interest (as they sayof the novels) as they proceeded. Pictures were drawn of my treatmentof her which would make your heart throb. I don't know of whatmonstrosities she did not accuse me, and what miseries and starvationshe did not profess herself to undergo; all the while she was livingexceedingly fat and contented, to outward appearances, at our house atCastle Lyndon. Novel-reading and vanity had turned her brain. I couldnot say a rough word to her (and she merited many thousands a day, Ican tell you), but she declared I was putting her to the torture; andmy mother could not remonstrate with her but she went off into a fit ofhysterics, of which she would declare the worthy old lady was the cause.
At last she began to threaten to kill herself; and though I by no meanskept the cutlery out of the way, did not stint her in garters, and lefther doctor's shop at her entire service,--knowing her character fullwell, and that there was no woman in Christendom less likely to layhands on her precious life than herself; yet these threats had aneffect, evidently, in the quarter to which they were addressed; for themilliner's packets now began to arrive with great frequency, and thebills sent to her contained assurances of coming aid. The chivalrousLord George Poynings was coming to his cousin's rescue, and did methe compliment to say that he hoped to free his dear cousin from theclutches of the most atrocious villain that ever disgraced humanity; andthat, when she was free, measures should be taken for a divorce, on theground of cruelty and every species of ill-usage on my part.
I had copies of all these precious documents on one side and the othercarefully made, by my beforementioned relative, godson, and secretary,Mr. Redmond Quin at present the WORTHY agent of the Castle Lyndonproperty. This was a son of my old flame Nora, w
hom I had taken from herin a fit of generosity; promising to care for his education at TrinityCollege, and provide for him through life. But after the lad had beenfor a year at the University, the tutors would not admit him to commonsor lectures until his college bills were paid; and, offended by thisinsolent manner of demanding the paltry sum due, I withdrew my patronagefrom the place, and ordered my gentleman to Castle Lyndon; where I madehim useful to me in a hundred ways. In my dear little boy's lifetime,he tutored the poor child as far as his high spirit would let him; butI promise you it was small trouble poor dear Bryan ever gave thebooks. Then he kept Mrs. Barry's accounts; copied my own interminablecorrespondence with my lawyers and the agents of all my variousproperty; took a hand at piquet or backgammon of evenings with me andmy mother; or, being an ingenious lad enough (though of a mean boorishspirit, as became the son of such a father), accompanied my LadyLyndon's spinet with his flageolet; or read French and Italian with her:in both of which languages her Ladyship was a fine scholar, and withwhich he also became conversant. It would make my watchful old mothervery angry to hear them conversing in these languages; for, notunderstanding a word of either of them, Mrs. Barry was furious when theywere spoken, and always said it was some scheming they were after. Itwas Lady Lyndon's constant way of annoying the old lady, when the threewere alone together, to address Quin in one or other of these tongues.
I was perfectly at ease with regard to his fidelity, for I had bred thelad, and loaded him with benefits; and, besides, had had various proofsof his trustworthiness. He it was who brought me three of Lord George'sletters, in reply to some of my Lady's complaints; which were concealedbetween the leather and the boards of a book which was sent from thecirculating library for her Ladyship's perusal. He and my Lady too hadfrequent quarrels. She mimicked his gait in her pleasanter moments;in her haughty moods, she would not sit down to table with a tailor'sgrandson. 'Send me anything for company but that odious Quin,' she wouldsay, when I proposed that he should go and amuse her with his books andhis flute; for, quarrelsome as we were, it must not be supposed we werealways at it: I was occasionally attentive to her. We would be friendsfor a month together, sometimes; then we would quarrel for a fortnight;then she would keep her apartments for a month: all of which domesticcircumstances were noted down, in her Ladyship's peculiar way, in herjournal of captivity, as she called it; and a pretty document it is!Sometimes she writes, 'My monster has been almost kind to-day;' or, 'Myruffian has deigned to smile.' Then she will break out into expressionsof savage hate; but for my poor mother it was ALWAYS hatred. It was,'The she-dragon is sick to-day; I wish to Heaven she would die!' or,'The hideous old Irish basketwoman has been treating me to some of herBillingsgate to-day,' and so forth: all which expressions, read to Mrs.Barry, or translated from the French and Italian, in which many of themwere written, did not fail to keep the old lady in a perpetual furyagainst her charge: and so I had my watch-dog, as I called her, alwayson the alert. In translating these languages, young Quin was of greatservice to me; for I had a smattering of French--and High Dutch, when Iwas in the army, of course, I knew well--but Italian I knew nothing of,and was glad of the services of so faithful and cheap an interpreter.
This cheap and faithful interpreter, this godson and kinsman, on whomand on whose family I had piled up benefits, was actually trying tobetray me; and for several months, at least, was in league with theenemy against me. I believe that the reason why they did not moveearlier was the want of the great mover of all treasons--money: ofwhich, in all parts of my establishment, there was a woful scarcity; butof this they also managed to get a supply through my rascal of a godson,who could come and go quite unsuspected: the whole scheme was arrangedunder our very noses, and the post-chaise ordered, and the means ofescape actually got ready; while I never suspected their design.
A mere accident made me acquainted with their plan. One of my colliershad a pretty daughter; and this pretty lass had for her bachelor, asthey call them in Ireland, a certain lad, who brought the letter-bagfor Castle Lyndon (and many a dunning letter for me was there in it, Godwot!): this letter-boy told his sweetheart how he brought a bag of moneyfrom the town for Master Quin; and how that Tim the post-boy had toldhim that he was to bring a chaise down to the water at a certain hour.Miss Rooney, who had no secrets from me, blurted out the whole story;asked me what scheming I was after, and what poor unlucky girl I wasgoing to carry away with the chaise I had ordered, and bribe with themoney I had got from town?
Then the whole secret flashed upon me, that the man I had cherished inmy bosom was going to betray me. I thought at one time of catching thecouple in the act of escape, half drowning them in the ferry which theyhad to cross to get to their chaise, and of pistolling the young traitorbefore Lady Lyndon's eyes; but, on second thoughts, it was quite clearthat the news of the escape would make a noise through the country, androuse the confounded justice's people about my ears, and bring me nogood in the end. So I was obliged to smother my just indignation, andto content myself by crushing the foul conspiracy, just at the moment itwas about to be hatched.
I went home, and in half-an-hour, and with a few of my terrible looks, Ihad Lady Lyndon on her knees, begging me to forgive her; confessingall and everything; ready to vow and swear she would never make such anattempt again; and declaring that she was fifty times on the point ofowning everything to me, but that she feared my wrath against the pooryoung lad her accomplice: who was indeed the author and inventor ofall the mischief. This--though I knew how entirely false the statementwas--I was fain to pretend to believe; so I begged her to write to hercousin, Lord George, who had supplied her with money, as she admitted,and with whom the plan had been arranged, stating, briefly, that she hadaltered her mind as to the trip to the country proposed; and that, asher dear husband was rather in delicate health, she preferred to stay athome and nurse him. I added a dry postscript, in which I stated that itwould give me great pleasure if his Lordship would come and visit usat Castle Lyndon, and that I longed to renew an acquaintance which informer times gave me so much satisfaction. 'I should seek him out,'I added, 'so soon as ever I was in his neighbourhood, and eagerlyanticipated the pleasure of a meeting with him.' I think he must haveunderstood my meaning perfectly well; which was, that I would run himthrough the body on the very first occasion I could come at him.
Then I had a scene with my perfidious rascal of a nephew; in which theyoung reprobate showed an audacity and a spirit for which I was quiteunprepared. When I taxed him with ingratitude, 'What do I owe you?' saidhe. 'I have toiled for you as no man ever did for another, and workedwithout a penny of wages. It was you yourself who set me against you,by giving me a task against which my soul revolted,--by making me a spyover your unfortunate wife, whose weakness is as pitiable as are hermisfortunes and your rascally treatment of her. Flesh and blood couldnot bear to see the manner in which you used her. I tried to help herto escape from you; and I would do it again, if the opportunity offered,and so I tell you to your teeth!' When I offered to blow his brains outfor his insolence, 'Pooh!' said he,--'kill the man who saved your poorboy's life once, and who was endeavouring to keep him out of theruin and perdition into which a wicked father was leading him, when aMerciful Power interposed, and withdrew him from this house of crime? Iwould have left you months ago, but I hoped for some chance of rescuingthis unhappy lady. I swore I would try, the day I saw you strike her.Kill me, you woman's bully! You would if you dared; but you have not theheart. Your very servants like me better than you. Touch me, and theywill rise and send you to the gallows you merit!'
I interrupted this neat speech by sending a water-bottle at the younggentleman's head, which felled him to the ground; and then I went tomeditate upon what he had said to me. It was true the fellow had savedpoor little Bryan's life, and the boy to his dying day was tenderlyattached to him. 'Be good to Redmond, papa,' were almost the last wordshe spoke; and I promised the poor child, on his death-bed, that I woulddo as he asked. It was also true, that rough usage of him would belitt
le liked by my people, with whom he had managed to become a greatfavourite: for, somehow, though I got drunk with the rascals often, andwas much more familiar with them than a man of my rank commonly is,yet I knew I was by no means liked by them; and the scoundrels weremurmuring against me perpetually.
But I might have spared myself the trouble of debating what his fateshould be, for the young gentleman took the disposal of it out of myhands in the simplest way in the world: viz. by washing and binding uphis head so soon as he came to himself: by taking his horse from thestables; and, as he was quite free to go in and out of the house andpark as he liked, he disappeared without the least let or hindrance;and leaving the horse behind him at the ferry, went off in the verypost-chaise which was waiting for Lady Lyndon. I saw and heard no moreof him for a considerable time; and now that he was out of the house,did not consider him a very troublesome enemy.
But the cunning artifice of woman is such that, I think, in the longrun, no man, were he Machiavel himself, could escape from it; andthough I had ample proofs in the above transaction (in which my wife'sperfidious designs were frustrated by my foresight), and under her ownhandwriting, of the deceitfulness of her character and her hatredfor me, yet she actually managed to deceive me, in spite of all myprecautions and the vigilance of my mother in my behalf. Had I followedthat good lady's advice, who scented the danger from afar off, as itwere, I should never have fallen into the snare prepared for me; andwhich was laid in a way that was as successful as it was simple.
My Lady Lyndon's relation with me was a singular one. Her life waspassed in a crack-brained sort of alternation between love and hatredfor me. If I was in a good-humour with her (as occurred sometimes) therewas nothing she would not do to propitiate me further; and she wouldbe as absurd and violent in her expressions of fondness as, at othermoments, she would be in her demonstrations of hatred. It is not yourfeeble easy husbands who are loved best in the world; according to myexperience of it. I do think the women like a little violence of temper,and think no worse of a husband who exercises his authority prettysmartly. I had got my Lady into such a terror about me, that when Ismiled, it was quite an era of happiness to her; and if I beckoned toher, she would come fawning up to me like a dog. I recollect how, forthe few days I was at school, the cowardly mean-spirited fellows wouldlaugh if ever our schoolmaster made a joke. It was the same inthe regiment whenever the bully of a sergeant was disposed to bejocular--not a recruit but was on the broad grin. Well, a wise anddetermined husband will get his wife into this condition of discipline;and I brought my high-born wife to kiss my hand, to pull off my boots,to fetch and carry for me like a servant, and always to make it aholiday, too, when I was in good-humour. I confided perhaps too muchin the duration of this disciplined obedience, and forgot that the veryhypocrisy which forms a part of it (all timid people are liars in theirhearts) may be exerted in a way that may be far from agreeable, in orderto deceive you.
After the ill-success of her last adventure, which gave me endlessopportunities to banter her, one would have thought I might have been onmy guard as to what her real intentions were; but she managed to misleadme with an art of dissimulation quite admirable, and lulled me into afatal security with regard to her intentions: for, one day, as I wasjoking her, and asking her whether she would take the water again,whether she had found another lover, and so forth, she suddenly burstinto tears, and, seizing hold of my hand, cried passionately out,--
'Ah, Barry, you know well enough that I have never loved but you! Was Iever so wretched that a kind word from you did not make me happy! everso angry, but the least offer of goodwill on your part did not bring meto your side? Did I not give a sufficient proof of my affection foryou, in bestowing one of the first fortunes in England upon you? Have Irepined or rebuked you for the way you have wasted it? No, I loved youtoo much and too fondly; I have always loved you. From the first momentI saw you, I felt irresistibly attracted towards you. I saw your badqualities, and trembled at your violence; but I could not help lovingyou. I married you, though I knew I was sealing my own fate in doing so;and in spite of reason and duty. What sacrifice do you want from me? Iam ready to make any, so you will but love me; or, if not, that at leastyou will gently use me.'
I was in a particularly good humour that day, and we had a sort ofreconciliation: though my mother, when she heard the speech, and saw mesoftening towards her Ladyship, warned me solemnly, and said, 'Dependon it, the artful hussy has some other scheme in her head now.' The oldlady was right; and I swallowed the bait which her Ladyship had preparedto entrap me as simply as any gudgeon takes a hook.
I had been trying to negotiate with a man for some money, for which Ihad pressing occasion; but since our dispute regarding the affair ofthe succession, my Lady had resolutely refused to sign any papers for myadvantage: and without her name, I am sorry to say, my own was of littlevalue in the market, and I could not get a guinea from any money-dealerin London or Dublin. Nor could I get the rascals from the latter placeto visit me at Castle Lyndon: owing to that unlucky affair I had withLawyer Sharp when I made him lend me the money he brought down, andold Salmon the Jew being robbed of the bond I gave him after leaving myhouse, [Footnote: These exploits of Mr. Lyndon are not related in thenarrative. He probably, in the cases above alluded to, took the law intohis own hands.] the people would not trust themselves within my wallsany more. Our rents, too, were in the hands of receivers by this time,and it was as much as I could do to get enough money from the rascals topay my wine-merchants their bills. Our English property, as I havesaid, was equally hampered; and, as often as I applied to my lawyers andagents for money, would come a reply demanding money of me, for debtsand pretended claims which the rapacious rascals said they had on me.
It was, then, with some feelings of pleasure that I got a letter frommy confidential man in Gray's Inn, London, saying (in reply to someninety-ninth demand of mine) that he thought he could get me some money;and inclosing a letter from a respectable firm in the city of London,connected with the mining interest, which offered to redeem theincumbrance in taking a long lease of certain property of ours, whichwas still pretty free, upon the Countess's signature; and provided theycould be assured of her free will in giving it. They said they heardshe lived in terror of her life from me, and meditated a separation, inwhich case she might repudiate any deeds signed by her while in durance,and subject them, at any rate, to a doubtful and expensive litigation;and demanded to be made assured of her Ladyship's perfect free will inthe transaction before they advanced a shilling of their capital.
Their terms were so exorbitant, that I saw at once their offer must besincere; and, as my Lady was in her gracious mood, had no difficulty inpersuading her to write a letter, in her own hand, declaring that theaccounts of our misunderstandings were utter calumnies; that we livedin perfect union, and that she was quite ready to execute any deed whichher husband might desire her to sign.
This proposal was a very timely one, and filled me with great hopes.I have not pestered my readers with many accounts of my debts and lawaffairs; which were by this time so vast and complicated that I neverthoroughly knew them myself, and was rendered half wild by theirurgency. Suffice it to say, my money was gone--my credit was done. I wasliving at Castle Lyndon off my own beef and mutton, and the bread, turf,and potatoes off my own estate: I had to watch Lady Lyndon within, andthe bailiffs without. For the last two years, since I went to Dublinto receive money (which I unluckily lost at play there, to thedisappointment of my creditors), I did not venture to show in that city:and could only appear at our own county town at rare intervals, andbecause I knew the sheriffs: whom I swore I would murder if any illchance happened to me. A chance of a good loan, then, was the mostwelcome prospect possible to me, and I hailed it with all the eagernessimaginable.
In reply to Lady Lyndon's letter, came, in course of time, an answerfrom the confounded London merchants, stating that if her Ladyshipwould confirm by word of mouth, at their counting-house in Birchin Lane,London, the statement
of her letter, they, having surveyed her property,would no doubt come to terms; but they declined incurring the risk ofa visit to Castle Lyndon to negotiate, as they were aware how otherrespectable parties, such as Messrs. Sharp and Salmon of Dublin,had been treated there. This was a hit at me; but there are certainsituations in which people can't dictate their own terms: and, 'faith,I was so pressed now for money, that I could have signed a bond with OldNick himself, if he had come provided with a good round sum.
I resolved to go and take the Countess to London. It was in vain thatmy mother prayed and warned me. 'Depend on it,' says she, 'there is someartifice. When once you get into that wicked town, you are not safe.Here you may live for years and years, in luxury and splendour, barringclaret and all the windows broken; but as soon as they have you inLondon, they'll get the better of my poor innocent lad; and the firstthing I shall hear of you will be, that you are in trouble.'
'Why go, Redmond?' said my wife. 'I am happy here, as long as you arekind to me, as you are now. We can't appear in London as we ought; thelittle money you will get will be spent, like all the rest has been.Let us turn shepherd and shepherdess, and look to our flocks and becontent.' And she took my hand and kissed it; while my mother only said,'Humph! I believe she's at the bottom of it--the wicked SCHAMER!'
I told my wife she was a fool; bade Mrs. Barry not be uneasy, and washot upon going: I would take no denial from either party. How I was toget the money to go was the question; but that was solved by my goodmother, who was always ready to help me on a pinch, and who producedsixty guineas from a stocking. This was all the ready money that BarryLyndon, of Castle Lyndon, and married to a fortune of forty thousand ayear, could command: such had been the havoc made in this fine fortuneby my own extravagance (as I must confess), but chiefly by my misplacedconfidence and the rascality of others.
We did not start in state, you may be sure. We did not let the countryknow we were going, or leave notice of adieu with our neighbours. Thefamous Mr. Barry Lyndon and his noble wife travelled in a hack-chaiseand pair to Waterford, under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and thencetook shipping for Bristol, where we arrived quite without accident. Whena man is going to the deuce, how easy and pleasant the journey is! Thethought of the money quite put me in a good humour, and my wife, as shelay on my shoulder in the post-chaise going to London, said it was thehappiest ride she had taken since our marriage.
One night we stayed at Reading, whence I despatched a note to my agentat Gray's Inn, saying I would be with him during the day, and begginghim to procure me a lodging, and to hasten the preparations for theloan. My Lady and I agreed that we would go to France, and wait therefor better times; and that night, over our supper, formed a score ofplans both for pleasure and retrenchment. You would have thought itwas Darby and Joan together over their supper. O woman! woman! when Irecollect Lady Lyndon's smiles and blandishments--how happy she seemedto be on that night! what an air of innocent confidence appeared inher behaviour, and what affectionate names she called me!--I am lostin wonder at the depth of her hypocrisy. Who can be surprised that anunsuspecting person like myself should have been a victim to such aconsummate deceiver!
We were in London at three o'clock, and half-an-hour before the timeappointed our chaise drove to Gray's Inn. I easily found out Mr.Tapewell's apartments--a gloomy den it was, and in an unlucky hour Ientered it! As we went up the dirty back-stair, lighted by a feeble lampand the dim sky of a dismal London afternoon, my wife seemed agitatedand faint.
'Redmond,' said she, as we got up to the door, 'don't go in: I amsure there is danger. There's time yet; let us go back--toIreland--anywhere!' And she put herself before the door, in one of hertheatrical attitudes, and took my hand.
I just pushed her away to one side. 'Lady Lyndon,' said I, 'you are anold fool!'
'Old fool!' said she; and she jumped at the bell, which was quicklyanswered by a mouldy-looking gentleman in an unpowdered wig, to whom shecried, 'Say Lady Lyndon is here;' and stalked down the passage muttering'Old fool.' It was 'OLD' which was the epithet that touched her. I mightcall her anything but that.
Mr. Tapewell was in his musty room, surrounded by his parchments and tinboxes. He advanced and bowed; begged her Ladyship to be seated; pointedtowards a chair for me, which I took, rather wondering at his insolence;and then retreated to a side-door, saying he would be back in onemoment.
And back he DID come in one moment, bringing with him--whom do youthink? Another lawyer, six constables in red waistcoats with bludgeonsand pistols, my Lord George Poynings, and his aunt Lady Jane Peckover.
When my Lady Lyndon saw her old flame, she flung herself into his armsin an hysterical passion. She called him her saviour, her preserver,her gallant knight; and then, turning round to me, poured out a flood ofinvective which quite astonished me.
'Old fool as I am,' said she, 'I have outwitted the most crafty andtreacherous monster under the sun. Yes, I WAS a fool when I married you,and gave up other and nobler hearts for your sake--yes, I was a foolwhen I forgot my name and lineage to unite myself with a base-bornadventurer--a fool to bear, without repining, the most monstrous tyrannythat ever woman suffered; to allow my property to be squandered; to seewomen, as base and low-born as yourself'--
'For Heaven's sake, be calm!' cries the lawyer; and then bounded backbehind the constables, seeing a threatening look in my eye which therascal did not like. Indeed. I could have torn him to pieces, had hecome near me. Meanwhile, my Lady continued in a strain of incoherentfury; screaming against me, and against my mother especially, upon whomshe heaped abuse worthy of Billingsgate, and always beginning and endingthe sentence with the word fool.
'You don't tell all, my Lady,' says I bitterly; 'I said OLD fool.'
'I have no doubt you said and did, sir, everything that a blackguardcould say or do,' interposed little Poynings. 'This lady is now safeunder the protection of her relations and the law, and need fear yourinfamous persecutions no longer.'
'But YOU are not safe,' roared I; 'and, as sure as I am a man of honour,and have tasted your blood once, I will have your heart's blood now.'
'Take down his words, constables: swear the peace against him!' screamedthe little lawyer, from behind his tipstaffs.
'I would not sully my sword with the blood of such a ruffian,' cried myLord, relying on the same doughty protection. 'If the scoundrel remainsin London another day, he will be seized as a common swindler.' And thisthreat indeed made me wince; for I knew that there were scores of writsout against me in town, and that once in prison my case was hopeless.
'Where's the man will seize me!' shouted I, drawing my sword, andplacing my back to the door. 'Let the scoundrel come. You--you cowardlybraggart, come first, if you have the soul of a man!'
'We're not going to seize you!' said the lawyer; my Ladyship, her aunt,and a division of the bailiffs moving off as he spoke. 'My dear sir, wedon't wish to seize you: we will give you a handsome sum to leave thecountry; only leave her Ladyship in peace!'
'And the country will be well rid of such a villain!' says my Lord,retreating too, and not sorry to get out of my reach: and the scoundrelof a lawyer followed him, leaving me in possession of the apartment, andin company of the bullies from the police-office, who were all armed tothe teeth. I was no longer the man I was at twenty, when I should havecharged the ruffians sword in hand, and have sent at least one of themto his account. I was broken in spirit; regularly caught in the toils:utterly baffled and beaten by that woman. Was she relenting at the door,when she paused and begged me turn back? Had she not a lingering lovefor me still? Her conduct showed it, as I came to reflect on it. It wasmy only chance now left in the world, so I put down my sword upon thelawyer's desk.
'Gentlemen,' said I, 'I shall use no violence; you may tell Mr. TapewellI am quite ready to speak with him when he is at leisure!' and I satdown and folded my arms quite peaceably. What a change from the BarryLyndon of old days! but, as I have read in an old book about Hannibalthe Carthaginian general, when he invaded the Rom
ans, his troops, whichwere the most gallant in the world, and carried all before them, wentinto cantonments in some city where they were so sated with theluxuries and pleasures of life, that they were easily beaten in the nextcampaign. It was so with me now. My strength of mind and body were nolonger those of the brave youth who shot his man at fifteen, and foughta score of battles within six years afterwards. Now, in the FleetPrison, where I write this, there is a small man who is always jeeringme and making game of me; who asks me to fight, and I haven't thecourage to touch him. But I am anticipating the gloomy and wretchedevents of my history of humiliation, and had better proceed in order.
I took a lodging in a coffee-house near Gray's Inn; taking care toinform Mr. Tapewell of my whereabouts, and anxiously expecting a visitfrom him. He came and brought me the terms which Lady Lyndon's friendsproposed-a paltry annuity of L300 a year; to be paid on the condition ofmy remaining abroad out of the three kingdoms, and to be stopped on theinstant of my return. He told me what I very well knew, that my stayin London would infallibly plunge me in gaol; that there were writsinnumerable taken out against me here, and in the West of England; thatmy credit was so blown upon that I could not hope to raise a shilling;and he left me a night to consider of his proposal; saying that, if Irefused it, the family would proceed: if I acceded, a quarter's salaryshould be paid to me at any foreign port I should prefer.
What was the poor, lonely, and broken-hearted man to do? I took theannuity, and was declared outlaw in the course of next week. The rascalQuin had, I found, been, after all, the cause of my undoing. It was hedevised the scheme for bringing me up to London; sealing the attorney'sletter with a seal which had been agreed upon between him and theCountess formerly: indeed he had always been for trying the plan, andhad proposed it at first; but her Ladyship, with her inordinate love ofromance, preferred the project of elopement. Of these points my motherwrote me word in my lonely exile, offering at the same time to come overand share it with me; which proposal I declined. She left Castle Lyndona very short time after I had quitted it; and there was silence in thathall where, under my authority, had been exhibited so much hospitalityand splendour. She thought she would never see me again, and bitterlyreproached me for neglecting her; but she was mistaken in that, and inher estimate of me. She is very old, and is sitting by my side at thismoment in the prison, working: she has a bedroom in Fleet Market overthe way; and, with the fifty-pound annuity, which she has kept witha wise prudence, we manage to eke out a miserable existence, quiteunworthy of the famous and fashionable Barry Lyndon.
Mr. Barry Lyndon's personal narrative finishes here, for the handof death interrupted the ingenious author soon after the period at whichthe Memoir was compiled; after he had lived nineteen years an inmateof the Fleet Prison, where the prison records state he died of deliriumtremens. His mother attained a prodigious old age, and the inhabitantsof the place in her time can record with accuracy the daily disputeswhich used to take place between mother and son; until the latter, fromhabits of intoxication, falling into a state of almost imbecility,was tended by his tough old parent as a baby almost, and would cry ifdeprived of his necessary glass of brandy.
His life on the Continent we have not the means of following accurately;but he appears to have resumed his former profession of a gambler,without his former success.
He returned secretly to England, after some time, and made an abortiveattempt to extort money from Lord George Poynings, under a threat ofpublishing his correspondence with Lady Lyndon, and so preventinghis Lordship's match with Miss Driver, a great heiress, of strictprinciples, and immense property in slaves in the West Indies.Barry narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by the bailiffs who weredespatched after him by his lordship, who would have stopped hispension; but Lady Lyndon would never consent to that act of justice,and, indeed, broke with my Lord George the very moment he married theWest India lady.
The fact is, the old Countess thought her charms were perennial, and wasnever out of love with her husband. She was living at Bath; her propertybeing carefully nursed by her noble relatives the Tiptoffs, who were tosucceed to it in default of direct heirs: and such was the address ofBarry, and the sway he still held over the woman, that he actually hadalmost persuaded her to go and live with him again; when his plan andhers was interrupted by the appearance of a person who had been deemeddead for several years.
This was no other than Viscount Bullingdon, who started up to thesurprise of all; and especially to that of his kinsman of the houseof Tiptoff. This young nobleman made his appearance at Bath, withthe letter from Barry to Lord George in his hand; in which the formerthreatened to expose his connection with Lady Lyndon--a connection,we need not state, which did not reflect the slightest dishonour uponeither party, and only showed that her Ladyship was in the habit ofwriting exceedingly foolish letters; as many ladies, nay gentlemen, havedone ere this. For calling the honour of his mother in question, LordBullingdon assaulted his stepfather (living at Bath under the name ofMr. Jones), and administered to him a tremendous castigation in thePump-Room.
His Lordship's history, since his departure, was a romantic one, whichwe do not feel bound to narrate. He had been wounded in the AmericanWar, reported dead, left prisoner, and escaped. The remittances whichwere promised him were never sent; the thought of the neglect almostbroke the heart of the wild and romantic young man, and he determined toremain dead to the world at least, and to the mother who had deniedhim. It was in the woods of Canada, and three years after the event hadoccurred, that he saw the death of his half-brother chronicled inthe Gentleman's Magazine, under the title of 'Fatal Accident to LordViscount Castle Lyndon;' on which he determined to return to England:where, though he made himself known, it was with very great difficultyindeed that he satisfied Lord Tiptoff of the authenticity of hisclaim. He was about to pay a visit to his lady mother at Bath, whenhe recognised the well-known face of Mr. Barry Lyndon, in spite of themodest disguise which that gentleman wore, and revenged upon his personthe insults of former days.
Lady Lyndon was furious when she heard of the rencounter; declinedto see her son, and was for rushing at once to the arms of her adoredBarry; but that gentleman had been carried off, meanwhile, from gaol togaol, until he was lodged in the hands of Mr. Bendigo, of Chancery Lane,an assistant to the Sheriff of Middlesex; from whose house he went tothe Fleet Prison. The Sheriff and his assistant, the prisoner, nay, theprison itself, are now no more.
As long as Lady Lyndon lived, Barry enjoyed his income, and was perhapsas happy in prison as at any period of his existence; when her Ladyshipdied, her successor sternly cut off the annuity, devoting the sumto charities: which, he said, would make a nobler use of it than thescoundrel who had enjoyed it hitherto. At his Lordship's death, in theSpanish campaign, in the year 1811, his estate fell in to the family ofthe Tiptoffs, and his title merged in their superior rank; but it doesnot appear that the Marquis of Tiptoff (Lord George succeeded to thetitle on the demise of his brother) renewed either the pension of Mr.Barry or the charities which the late lord had endowed. The estate hasvastly improved under his Lordship's careful management. The trees inHackton Park are all about forty years old, and the Irish property isrented in exceedingly small farms to the peasantry; who still entertainthe stranger with stories of the daring and the devilry, and thewickedness and the fall of Barry Lyndon.
THE END
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