CHAPTER LXXXII.
IN WHICH MR. PAUL DANGERFIELD PAYS HIS RESPECTS AND COMPLIMENTS AT
BELMONT; WHERE OTHER VISITORS ALSO PRESENT THEMSELVES.
Before going to town, Mr. Dangerfield, riding over the bridge and up the
Palmerstown-road, dismounted at Belmont door-steps, and asked for the
general. He was out. Then for Miss Rebecca Chattesworth. Yes, she was in
the withdrawing-room. And so, light, white, and wiry, he ascended the
stairs swiftly.
'Mr. Dangerfield,' cried Dominick, throwing open the door; and that
elderly and ill-starred wooer glided in thereat.
'Madam, your most humble servant.'
'Oh! Mr. Dangerfield? You're very welcome, Sir,' said Aunt Becky, with a
grand courtesy, and extending her thin jewelled hand, which he took
gallantly, with another bow, and a smile, and a flash from his
spectacles.
Aunt Becky laid down her volume of Richardson. She was quite alone, except for her little monkey—Goblin—with a silver hoop about his waist, and a chain thereto attached; two King Charles's dogs, whose barking subsided after a while; and one gray parrot on a perch in the bow-window, who happily was not in a very chatty mood just then. So the human animals were able to edge in a sentence easily enough. And Mr. Dangerfield said—
'I'm happy in having found you, Madam; for whatever be my
disappointments else, to Miss Rebecca Chattesworth at least I owe a debt
of gratitude, which, despairing to repay it, I can only acknowledge; and
leaving unacknowledged, I should have departed from Ireland most
unhappily.'
'What a fop! what a fop,' said the parrot.
'You rate my poor wishes too highly, Mr. Dangerfield. I over-estimated, myself, my influence with the young lady; but why speak of your departure, Sir, so soon? A little time may yet work a change.'
'You lie, you dog! you lie, you lie, you lie,' said the parrot.
'Madam,' said he with a shake of his head, 'tis hoping against hope. Time will add to my wrinkles without softening her aversion. I utterly despair. While there remained one spark of hope I should never have dreamed of leaving Chapelizod.'
Here there was a considerable pause, during which the parrot
occasionally repeated, 'You lie, you lie—you dog—you lie.'
'Of course, Sir, if the chance be not worth waiting for, you do well to
be gone wherever your business or your pleasures, Sir, invite you,' said
Aunt Becky, a little loftily.
'What a fop!' said the parrot. 'You lie, you dog!'
'Neither business, Madam, nor pleasures invite me. My situation here has
been most distressing. So long as hope cheered me, I little regarded
what might be said or thought; but I tell you honestly that hope is
extinguished; and it has grown to me intolerable longer to remain in
sight of that treasure for which I cannot cease to wish, and which I
never can possess. I've grown, Madam, to detest the place.'
Aunt Becky, with her head very high, adjusted in silence, the two China
mandarins on the mantelpiece—first, one very carefully, then the other. And there was a pause, during which one of the lap-dogs screamed; and the monkey, who had boxed his ears, jumped, with a ringing of his chain, chattering, on the back of the arm-chair in which the grim suitor sat. Mr. Dangerfield would have given the brute a slap in the face, but that he knew how that would affect Miss Rebecca Chattesworth.
'So, Madam,' said he, standing up abruptly, 'I am here to thank you most
gratefully for the countenance given to my poor suit, which, here and
now, at last and for ever, I forego. I shall leave for England so soon
as my business will allow; and as I made no secret of my suit, so I
shall make none of the reasons of my departure. I'm an outspoken man, Madam; and as the world knew my hopes, I shall offer them no false excuses for my departure; but lift my hat, and bow to fortune—a defeated man.'
Avez-vous diné mon petit coquin? said the parrot.
'Well, Sir, I will not altogether deny you have reason for what you
design; and it may be, 'tis as well to bring the matter to a close, though your resolution has taken me by surprise. She hath shown herself so perverse in this respect, that I allow I see no present likelihood of a change; and indeed I do not quite understand my niece; and, very like, she does not comprehend herself.'