The Luck of Barry Lyndon, William Makepeace Thackeray [best ereader under 100 .txt] 📗

mine⁠—I swear it! Your wealth may be great; but am I not of a generous nature enough to use it worthily? Your rank is lofty; but not so lofty as my ambition. You threw yourself away once on a cold and spiritless debauchee: give yourself now, Honoria, to a man; and one who, however lofty your rank may be, will enhance it and become it!”

As I poured words to this effect out on the astonished widow, I stood over her, and fascinated her with the glance of my eye; saw her turn red and pale with fear and wonder; saw that my praise of her charms and the exposition of my passion were not unwelcome to her, and witnessed with triumphant composure the mastery I was gaining over her. Terror, be sure of that, is not a bad ingredient of love. A man who wills fiercely to win the heart of a weak and vapourish woman must succeed, if he have opportunity enough.

“Terrible man!” said Lady Lyndon, shrinking from me as soon as I had done speaking (indeed, I was at a loss for words, and thinking of another speech to make to her)⁠—“terrible man! leave me.”

I saw that I had made an impression on her, from those very words. “If she lets me into the house tomorrow,” said I, “she is mine.”

As I went downstairs I put ten guineas into the hand of the hall-porter, who looked quite astonished at such a gift.

“It is to repay you for the trouble of opening the door to me,” said I; “you will have to do so often.”

XVI I Provide Nobly for My Family

The next day when I went back, my fears were realised: the door was refused to me⁠—my Lady was not at home. This I knew to be false: I had watched the door the whole morning from a lodging I took at a house opposite.

“Your lady is not out,” said I: “she has denied me, and I can’t, of course, force my way to her. But listen: you are an Englishman?”

“That I am,” said the fellow, with an air of the utmost superiority. “Your honour could tell that by my haccent.”

I knew he was, and might therefore offer him a bribe. An Irish family servant in rags, and though his wages were never paid him, would probably fling the money in your face.

“Listen, then,” said I. “Your lady’s letters pass through your hands, don’t they? A crown for every one that you bring me to read. There is a whisky-shop in the next street; bring them there when you go to drink, and call for me by the name of Dermot.”

“I recollect your honour at spar,” says the fellow, grinning: “seven’s the main, hey?” and being exceedingly proud of this reminiscence, I bade my inferior adieu.

I do not defend this practice of letter-opening in private life, except in cases of the most urgent necessity: when we must follow the examples of our betters, the statesmen of all Europe, and, for the sake of a great good, infringe a little matter of ceremony. My Lady Lyndon’s letters were none the worse for being opened, and a great deal the better; the knowledge obtained from the perusal of some of her multifarious epistles enabling me to become intimate with her character in a hundred ways, and obtain a power over her by which I was not slow to profit. By the aid of the letters and of my English friend, whom I always regaled with the best of liquor, and satisfied with presents of money still more agreeable (I used to put on a livery in order to meet him, and a red wig, in which it was impossible to know the dashing and elegant Redmond Barry), I got such an insight into the widow’s movements as astonished her. I knew beforehand to what public places she would go; they were, on account of her widowhood, but few: and wherever she appeared, at church or in the park, I was always ready to offer her her book, or to canter on horseback by the side of her chariot.

Many of her Ladyship’s letters were the most whimsical rodomontades that ever bluestocking penned. She was a woman who took up and threw off a greater number of dear friends than anyone I ever knew. To some of these female darlings she began presently to write about my unworthy self, and it was with a sentiment of extreme satisfaction I found at length that the widow was growing dreadfully afraid of me; calling me her bête noire, her dark spirit, her murderous adorer, and a thousand other names indicative of her extreme disquietude and terror. It was: “The wretch has been dogging my chariot through the park,” or, “my fate pursued me at church,” and “my inevitable adorer handed me out of my chair at the mercer’s,” or whatnot. My wish was to increase this sentiment of awe in her bosom, and to make her believe that I was a person from whom escape was impossible.

To this end I bribed a fortune-teller, whom she consulted along with a number of the most foolish and distinguished people of Dublin, in those days; and who, although she went dressed like one of her waiting-women, did not fail to recognise her real rank, and to describe as her future husband her persevering adorer Redmond Barry, Esquire. This incident disturbed her very much. She wrote about it in terms of great wonder and terror to her female correspondents. “Can this monster,” she wrote, “indeed do as he boasts, and bend even Fate to his will?⁠—can he make me marry him though I cordially detest him, and bring me a slave to his feet? The horrid look of his black serpent-like eyes fascinates and frightens me: it seems to follow me everywhere, and even when I close my own eyes, the dreadful gaze penetrates the lids, and is still upon me.”

When a woman