CHAPTER XXV.
IN WHICH THE SUN SETS, AND THE MERRY-MAKING IS KEPT UP BY CANDLE-LIGHT
IN THE KING'S HOUSE, AND LILY RECEIVES A WARNING WHICH SHE DOES NOT
COMPREHEND.
Dr. Toole, without whom no jollification of any sort could occur
satisfactorily in Chapelizod or the country round, was this evening at
the 'King's House,' of course, as usual, with his eyes about him and his
tongue busy; and at this moment he was setting Cluffe right about
Devereux's relation to the title and estates of Athenry. His uncle
Roland Lord Athenry was, as everybody knew, a lunatic—Toole used to
call him Orlando Furioso: and Lewis, his first cousin by his father's
elder brother—the heir presumptive—was very little better, and
reported every winter to be dying. He spends all his time—his spine
being made, it is popularly believed, of gristle—stretched on his back
upon a deal board, cutting out paper figures with a pair of scissors. Toole used to tell them at the club, when alarming letters arrived about the health of the noble uncle and his hopeful nephew—the heir apparent—'That's the gentleman who's back-bone's made of jelly—eh, Puddock? Two letters come, by Jove, announcing that Dick Devereux's benefit is actually fixed for the Christmas holidays, when his cousin undertakes to die for positively the last time, and his uncle will play in the most natural manner conceivable, the last act of "King Lear."' In fact, this family calamity was rather a cheerful subject among Devereux's friends; and certainly Devereux had no reason to love that vicious, selfish old lunatic, Lord Athenry, who in his prodigal and heartless reign, before straw and darkness swallowed him, never gave the boy a kind word or gentle look, and owed him a mortal grudge because he stood near the kingdom, and wrote most damaging reports of him at the end of the holidays, and despatched those letters of Bellerophon by the boy's own hand to the schoolmaster, with the natural results.
When Aunt Rebecca rustled into the ring that was gathered round about
the fiddles and tambourine, she passed Miss Magnolia very near, with a
high countenance, and looking straight before her, and with no more
recognition than the tragedy queen bestows upon the painted statue on
the wing by which she enters. And Miss Mag followed her with a titter
and an angry flash of her eyes. So Aunt Rebecca made up to the little
hillock—little bigger than a good tea-cake—on which the dowager was
perched in a high-backed chair, smiling over the dancers with a splendid
benignity, and beating time with her fat short foot. And Aunt Becky told
Mrs. Colonel Stafford, standing by, she had extemporised a living
Watteau, and indeed it was a very pretty picture, or Aunt Becky would
not have said so; and 'craning' from this eminence she saw her niece
coming leisurely round, not in company of Mervyn.
That interesting stranger, on the contrary, had by this time joined
Lilias and Devereux, who had returned toward the dancers, and was
talking again with Miss Walsingham. Gertrude's beau was little Puddock, who was all radiant and supremely blest. But encountering rather a black look from Aunt Becky as they drew near, he deferentially surrendered the young lady to the care of her natural guardian, who forthwith presented her to the dowager; and Puddock, warned off by another glance, backed away, and fell, unawares, helplessly into the possession of Miss Magnolia, a lady whom he never quite understood, and whom he regarded with a very kind and polite sort of horror.
So the athletic Magnolia instantly impounded the little lieutenant, and
began to rally him, in the sort of slang she delighted in, with plenty
of merriment and malice upon his tendre for Miss Chattesworth, and
made the gallant young gentleman blush and occasionally smile, and bow a
great deal, and take some snuff.