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Extracted from Ormond by Maria Edgeworth, published by Appletree PressOrmond
To go no further than his legitimate loves, he had successively won three wives, who had each, in their turn, been desperately enamoured. The first he loved and married imprudently, for love, at seventeen.—The second he admired, and married prudently, for ambition, at thirty.—The third he hated, but married from necessity, for money, at five and forty. The first wife, Miss Annaly, after ten years martyrdom of the heart, sunk, childless, a victim, it was said, to love and jealousy.— The second wife, Lady Theodosia, struggled stoutly for power, backed by strong and high connexions; having, moreover, the advantage of being a mother, and mother of an only son and heir, the representative of a father in whom ambition had, by this time, become the ruling passion; the Lady Theodosia stood her ground, wrangling and wrestling through a fourteen years wedlock, till at last, to Sir Ulick's great relief, not to say joy, her ladyship was carried off by a bad fever, or a worse apothecary.—His present lady, formerly Mrs. Scraggs, a London widow, of very large fortune, happened to see Sir Ulick when he went to present some address, or settle some point between the English and Irish government:—he was in deep mourning at the time, and the widow pitied him very much. But she was not the sort of woman he would ever have suspected could like him—she was a strict pattern lady, severe on the times, and not unfrequently lecturing youlng men gratis. Now Sir Ulick O'Shane was a sinner, how then could he please a saint? He did, however—but the saint did not please him—though he set to work for the good of his soul, and in her own person relaxed, to please his taste, even to the wearing of rouge and pearl-powder, and false hair, and false eyebrows, and all the falsifications which the setters up could furnish. But after she had purchased all of youth which age can purchase for money, it would not do.—The Widow Scraggs might, with her "lack lustre" eyes, have speculated for ever in vain upon Sir Ulick, but that, lortunately for her passion, at one and the same time the Irish ministry were turned out, and an Irish canal burst—Sir Ulick losing his place by the change of ministry, and one half of his fortune by the canal, in which it had been sunk, and having spent in schemes and splendid living more than the other half, now, in desperate misery, laid hold of the Widow Scraggs.—After a nine days courtship she became a bride—and she and her plum in the stocks—but not her messuage, house and lands, in Kent, became the property of Sir Ulick O'Shane. But "love was then lord of all" with her, she was now to accompany Sir Ulick to Ireland. Late in life she was carried to a new country, and set down among a people whom she had all her previous days been taught to hold in contempt or aversion; she dreaded [rish disturbances much, and Irish dirt more; she was persuaded that nothing could be right, good, or genteel, that was not English. Her habits and tastes were immutably fixed.—Her experience had been confined to London life, and in proportion as her sphere of observation had been contracted, her disposition was intolerant. She made no allowance for the difference of opinion, customs, and situation, much less for the faults or foibles of people who were to her strangers and foreigners—Her ladyship was therefore little likely to please or be pleased in her new situation,—her husband was the only individual, the only thing, animate or inanimate, that she liked in Ireland,—and while she was desperately in love with an Irishman, she disliked Ireland and the Irish:—even the Irish talents and virtues, their wit, humour, generosity of character, and freedom of manner, were lost upon her,—her country neighbours were repelled by her air of taciturn self-sufficiency; and she, for her part, declared, she would have been satisfied to have lived alone at Castle Hermitage with Sir Ulick. But Sir Ulick had no notion of living alone with her, or for anybody. His habits were all social and convivial—he loved show and company: he had been all his life in the habit of entertaining all ranks of people at Castle Hermitage, from his excellency the lord lieutenant and the commander in chief for the time being, to Tim the gauger, and honest Tom Kelly, the stalko. |
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