When it rains and we can't go out, we have chemistry at home; but I 'm always in a fright about the combustibles, and I 'm sure one of these days we 'll pay for our curiosity. That man that comes to lecture has n't a bit of eyebrows, and only two fingers on one hand, and half a thumb on the other; not to say that he sat down one day on a pocketful of crackers, and blew himself up in a dreadful manner.
If the weather be fine,—and I was near saying, God grant it may n't—we are to have a course of astronomy every night next week. I can stand everything, however, better than "moral philosophy and economics." As to the first of the two, it's not even common-sense. It was only two evenings ago, they laughed at me for twenty minutes about a remark that's as true as the Bible.
"What relations does Locke say are least regarded?" says the professor to me.
"Faith! I know nothing about Locke," says I; "but I know well that the relations least regarded are poor relations."
As to the economics, if they could enliven it a bit by experiments, as they do the chemistry, I could bear it well enough; but it's awfully dry to be always listening to what you can't understand.
This is the way we live at Bonn; and though it's very elevating, I find it's very depressing to the spirits. But I don't think we'll remain much longer here, for K. I. is beginning to find out that the sciences are just as dear as silks and satins; and, as he remarked the other day, "it would be cheaper to have a dish of asparagus on the table than them dirty weeds that they are gathering only for the sake of their hard names."
Of course, when all is settled about the legacy, I 'll not be obliged to submit to his humors, as I have been up to this. I'll have a voice, Molly, and I'll take care that it is heard too. I suppose it will come to a separation yet between us. I own to you, Molly, the "impossibility" of our tempers will do it at last. Well, when the time comes, I'll be, as Mrs. G. says, equal to the occasion. I can say, "I brought you rank, name, and fortune, Kenny Dodd, and I leave you with my character unvarnished; and maybe both is more than you deserved!"
When I think of where and what I might be, Molly, and see what I am, I fret for a whole livelong day. And now a word about home before I conclude. Don't mention a syllable about the legacy to Mat, or he 'll be expecting a present at Candlemas, and I really can spare nothing. You can say to Father John that Jones McCarthy is dead, but that nobody knows how the estate will go. He'll maybe say some masses for him, in the hope of being paid hereafter by the heir. I'd advise you to keep the wool back, for they say prices will rise in Ireland, by reason of all the people leaving it, just as it's described in the Book of Genesis, Molly, only that Ireland is not Paradise,—that *s the difference.
Mary Anne unites in her affectionate love to you, and I am your attached
Jemima Dodd.
Dearest Catherine,—Forgive me if I substitute for the loved appellation of infancy the more softly sounding epithet which is consecrated to verse in every language of Europe. Yes, thou mayst be Kate of all Kates to the rest of Christendom, but to me thou art Catherine,—"Catrinella mia," as thou wilt.
Here, dearest, as I sit embowered beside the wide and winding Rhine, the day-dream of my childhood is at length realized. I live, I breathe, in the land glorified by genius. Reflected in that stream is the castled crag of Drachenfels, mirrored as in my heart the image of my dearest Catherine. How shall I tell you of our existence here, fascinated by the charms of song and scenery, elevated by the strains of immortal verse? We are living at the Grand Hôtel du Rhin, my sweet child; and having taken the entire first floor, are regarded as something like an imperial family travelling under the name of Dodd.
I told you in my last of our acquaintance with Mrs. Gore Hampton. It has, since then, ripened into friendship. It is now love. I feel the dangerous captivation of speaking of her, even passingly. Her name suggests all that can fascinate the heart and inthrall the imagination. She is perfectly beautiful, and not less gifted than she is lovely. Perhaps I cannot convey to my dearest Catherine a more accurate conception of this charming being than by mentioning some—a few—of the changes wrought by her influence on the habits of our daily life.
Our mornings are scientific,—entirely given up to botany, chemistry, natural history, and geology, with occasional readings in political economy and statistics. We all attend these except papa. Even James has become a most attentive student, and never takes his eyes off Mrs. G. during the lecture. At three we lunch, and then mount our horses for a ride; since, thanks to Lord George's attentive politeness, seven saddle-horses have been sent down from Brussels for our use. Once mounted, we are like a school released from study, so full of gayety, so overflowing with spirits and animation.
Where shall we go? is then the question. Some are for Godesberg, where we dismount to eat ice and stroll through the gardens; others, of whom your Mary Anne is ever one, vote for Rolandseck, that being the very spot whence Roland the bravo—the brave Roland—sat to gaze upon those convent walls that enclosed all that he adored on earth.
And oh! Catherine dearest, is there amongst the very highest of those attributes which deify human nature any one that can compare with fidelity? Does it not comprise nearly all the virtues, heroic as well as humble? For my part, I think it should be the great theme of poets, blending as it does some of the tenderest with some of the grandest traits of the heart. From Petrarch to Paul—I mean Virginia's Paul—there is a fascination in these examples that no other quality ever evokes. My dearest Emily—I call Mrs. G. H. by her Christian name always—joined me the other evening in a discussion on this subject against Lord George James, and several others, our only cavalier being the Ritter von Wolfenschftfer, a young German noble, who is studying here, and a remarkable specimen of his class. He is tall, and what at first seems heavy-browed, but, on nearer acquaintance, displays one of those grand heads which are rarely met with save on the canvas of Titian; he wears a long beard and moustache of a reddish brown, which, accompanied by a certain solemnity of manner and a deep-toned voice, impress you with a kind of awe at first. His family is, I believe, the oldest in Germany, having been Barons of the Black Forest, in some very early century. "The first Hapsburg," he says, was a "knecht," or vassal, of one of his ancestors. His pride is, therefore, something indescribable.
Lord George met him, I fancy, first at some royal table, and they renewed their acquaintance here, shyly at the beginning, but after a while with more cordiality; and now he is here every day singing, sketching, reciting Schiller and Goethe, talking the most delightful rhapsodies, and raving about moonlights on the Brocken, and mysticism in the Hartzwald, till my very brain turns with distraction.
Don't you detest the "positif,"—the dreary, tiresome, tame, sad-colored robe of reality? and do you not adore the prismatic-tinted drapery, that envelops the dream-creatures of imagination? I know, dearest Catherine, that you do. I feel by myself how you shrink from the stern aspect of reality, and love to shroud yourself in the graceful tissues of fancy! How, then, would you long to be here,—to discuss with us themes that have no possible relation to anything actually existing,—to talk of those visionary essences which form the creatures of the unreal world? The "Ritter" is perfectly charming on these subjects; there is a vein of love through his metaphysics, and of metaphysics through his love, that elevates while it subdues. You will say it is a strange transition that makes me flit from these things to thoughts of home and Ireland; but in the wilful wandering of my fancy a vision of the past rises before me, and I must seize it ere it depart. I wish, in fact, to speak to you about a passage in your last letter which has given me equal astonishment and suffering. What, dearest Kitty, do you mean by talking of a certain person's "long-tried and devoted affection,"—"his hopes, and his steadfast reliance on my truthfulness"? Have I ever given any one the right to make such an appeal to me? I do really believe that no one is less exposed to such a reproach than I am! I have the right, if I please, to misconstrue your meaning, and assume a total ignorance as to whom you are referring. But I will not avail myself of the privilege, Kitty,—I will accept your allusion. You mean Dr. Belton. Now, I own that I write this name with considerable reluctance and regret. His many valuable qualities, and the natural goodness of his disposition, have endeared him to all of that humble circle in which his lot is cast, and it would grieve me to write one single word which should pain him to hear. But I ask you, Kitty, what is there in our relative stations in society which should embolden him to offer me attentions? Do we move in the same sphere? have we either thoughts, ideas, or ambitions—have we even acquaintances—in common? I do not want to magnify the position I hold. Heaven knows that the great world is not a sea devoid of rocks and quicksands. No one feels its perils more acutely than myself. But I repeat it: Is there not a wide gulf between us? Could he live, and move, think, act, or plan, in the circle that I associate with? Could I exist, even for a day, in his? No, dearest, impossible,—utterly impossible. The great world has its requirements,—exactions, if you will; they are imperative, often tyrannical: but their sweet recompense comes back in that delicious tranquillity of soul, that bland imperturbability that springs from good breeding,—the calm equanimity that no accident can shake, from which no sudden shock can elicit a vibration. I do not pretend, dearest friend, that I have yet attained to this. I know well that I am still far distant from that great goal; but I am on the road, Kitty,—my progress has commenced, and not for the wealth of worlds would I turn back from it.
With thoughts like these in my heart,—instincts I should perhaps call them.—how unsuited should I be to the humble monotony of a provincial existence! Were I even to sacrifice my own happiness, should I secure his? My heart responds, No, certainly not.
As to what you remark of the past, I feel it is easily replied to. The little chapel at Bruff once struck me as a miracle of architectural beauty. I really fancied that the doorway was in the highest taste of florid Gothic, and that the east window was positively gorgeous in tracery. As to the altar, I can only say that it appeared a mass of gold, silver, and embroidery, such as we read of in the "Arabian Nights." Am I to blame, Kitty, that, after having seen the real splendors of St. Gudule, and the dome of Cologne, I can recant my former belief, and acknowledge that the little edifice at Bruff is poor, mean, and insignificant; its architecture a sham, and its splendor all tinsel? and yet it is precisely what I left it.
You will then retort, that it is I am changed! I own it, Kitty. I am so. But can you make this a matter of reproach?
If so, is not every step in intellectual progress, every stage of development, a stigma? Your theory, if carried out, would soar beyond the limits of this life, and dare to assail the angelic existences of the next!
But you could not intend this; no, Kitty, I acquit you at once of such a notion; even the defence of your friend could not make you so unjust. Dr. Belton must, surely, be in error as to any supposed pledges or promises on my part. I have taxed my memory to the utmost, and cannot recall any such. If, in the volatile gayety of a childish heart,—remember, sweetest, I was only eighteen when I left home,—I may have said some silly speech, surely it is not worth remembering, still less recording, to make me blush for it. Lastly, Kitty, I have learned to know that all real happiness is based upon filial obedience; and whatever sentiments it would be possible for me to entertain for Dr. B. would be diametrically opposed to the wishes of my papa and mamma.
I have now gone over this question in every direction I could think of, because I hope that it may nevermore recur between us. It is a theme which I advert to with sorrow, for really I am unable to acquit of presumption one whose general character is conspicuous for a modest and retiring humility. You will acquaint him with as much of the sentiments I here express as you deem fitting. I leave everything to your excellent delicacy and discretion. I only beg that I may not be again asked for explanations on a matter so excessively disagreeable to discuss, and that I may be spared alluding to those peculiar circumstances which separate us forever. If the time should come when he will take a more reasonable and just view of our respective conditions, nothing will be more agreeable to me than to renew those relations of friendship which we so long cultivated as neighbors; and if, in any future state I may occupy, I can be of the least service to him, I beg you to believe that it will be both a pride and a pleasure to me to know it.
It is needless, after this, to answer the question of your postscript. Of course he must not write to me. Nothing could induce me to read his letter. That he should ever have thought of such a thing is a proof—and no slight one—of his utter ignorance of all the conventional rules which regulate social intercourse. But a truce to a theme so painful.
I answer your brief question of the turn-down of your letter as curtly as it is put. No; I am not in love with Lord George, nor is he with me. We regard each other as brother and sister; we talk in the most unreserved confidence; we say things which, in the narrower prejudices of England, would be infallibly condemned. In fact, Kitty, the sway of a conscientious sense of right, the inward feeling of purity, admit of many liberties here, which are denied to us at home. Here I tell you, in one word, what it is that constitutes the superiority in tone of the Continent over our own country,—I should say it was this very same freedom of thought and action.
The language is full of a thousand graceful courtesies that mean so much or so little. The literature abounding in analysis of emotions,—that secret anatomy of the heart, so fascinating and so instructive; the habits of society so easy and so natural; and then that chivalrous homage paid to the sex,—all contribute to extend the realms of conversational topics, and at the same time to admit of various ways of treating them, such as may suit the temper, the talent, or the caprice of each. How often does it happen from this that one hears the gravest themes of religion and politics debated in a spirit of the most sparkling wit and levity, while subjects of the most trivial kind are discussed with a degree of seriousness and a display of learning actually astounding! This wonderful versatility is very remarkable in another respect; for, strange enough, it is the young people abroad who are the gravest in manner, the most reserved and most saturnine.
The high-spirited, the buoyant, and most daring talkers are the elderly. In a word, Kitty, everything here is the reverse of that at home; and, I am forced to confess, possesses a great superiority over our own notions.
I am dying to tell you more of the Ritter, which, I must explain to you, is the German for "Chevalier." If you want a confession, too, I will make one; and that is that he is desperately in love with a poor friend of yours, who feels herself quite unworthy of the devotion of this scion of thirty-two quarterings.
In a worldly point of view, Kitty, the possibility of such an event would be brilliant beyond conception. His estates are a principality, and his Schloss von Wölfenberg one of the wonders of the Black Forest. Does not your heart swell and bound, dearest, at the thought of a real castle, in a real forest, with a real baron, Kitty?—one of those cruel creatures, perhaps, who lived in feudal times, and always killed a child, to warm their feet in his heart's blood? Not that our Ritter looks this. On the contrary, he is gentle, low-voiced, and dreamy,—a little too dreamy,—if I must say it, and not sufficiently alive to the rattling drolleries of Lord George and James, who torment him unceasingly.
Mamma likes him immensely, though their intercourse is limited to mere bows and greetings; and even papa, whose prejudice against foreigners increases with every day, acknowledges that he is very amiable and good-tempered. Cary appears to me to be greatly taken with him, but he never notices her, nor pays her the slightest attention. I 'm sure I wish he would, and I should be delighted to contribute towards such a conjuncture. Who knows what may happen later, for he has invited us all to the Schloss for the shooting-season,—some time, I believe, in autumn,—and papa has said "Yes."
I now come to another secret, dearest Kitty, depending on all your discretion not to divulge it, at least for the present. Mamma has received a confidential note from Waters, the attorney, informing her that she is to succeed to the McCarthy estates and property of the late Jones M'Carthy, of M'Carthy's Folly. The amount is not yet known to us, and we are surrounded by such difficulties, from our desire to keep the matter secret, that we cannot expect to know the particulars for some time. The estates were considerable; but, like those of all the Irish aristocracy, greatly encumbered. The personal property, mamma thinks, could not have been burdened, so that this alone may turn out handsomely.
By some deed of settlement, or something of the kind, executed at papa's marriage with mamma, he voluntarily abandoned all right over any property that should descend to her, so that she will possess the unlimited control over this bequest. Mr. Waters mentions that the testator desired—I am not certain that he did not require as a condition—that we should take the name of McCarthy. I hope so with all my heart I do not believe that anything could offer such obstacles to us abroad as this terrible and emphatic monosyllable; now, Dodd M'Carthy has a rhythm in it, and a resonance also.
It sounds territorially, too; like the de of French nobility. We should figure in fashionable "Arrivals and Departures" with a certain air of distinction that is denied to us at present; and I really do not see why we should not be "The M'Carthy." You know, dearest, that the Herald's office never interferes about Celtic nobility, inasmuch as its origin utterly defies investigation; and there are, consequently, no pains nor penalties attached to the assumption of a native title. How I should be delighted to hear us announced as "The M'Carthy, family and suite," with an explanatory paragraph about papa being the blue or the black knight. The English are always impressed with these things, and foreigners regard them with immense devotion. There is another incalculable advantage, Kitty, not to be overlooked. All little eccentricities of manner, little peculiarities of accent, voice, and intonation, of which neither pa nor ma are totally exempt, instead of being criticised, as some short-sighted folk might criticise them, as vulgar, low, and commonplace, rise at once to the dignity of a national trait.
They are like Breton French, or certain Provençal expressions in use amongst the ancient "Seigneurie" of the land. They actually dignify station, instead of disgracing it, so that a "brogue" seems to seal the very patent of your nobility, and the mutilations of your parts of speech stand for quarterings on your escutcheon.
It might seem invidious were I to quote the instances which support my theory; but I assure you, seriously, that social success, to be rapid, requires aids like these. There was a time when being a Villiers, a Stanley, or a Seymour gave you a kind of illusory nobility. You were a species of human shot-silk, that turned blue in one light, and brown in another; but now that Burke is read in the national schools, and the "Almanach de Gotha" in the godless colleges, deception on this head is impossible. They take you "to book" at once. You can't be one of the Howards of Ettinham, for Lady Mary died childless; nor one of the Worseley branch, for the present Marquis, who married Lady Alice de Courtenaye, had only two children,—one, British envoy at the Court of Prince of Salms und Schweinigen; the other, &c. In fact, Kitty, you are voted nobody. They will not allow you father nor mother, uncle nor aunt, nor even any good friends. Better be Popkins, or Perkins, Snooks, or even Smith, than this! The Celtic noblesse, however, is a safe refuge against all impertinent curiosity. Tracing the Dodd M'Carthy to his parent stem would be like keeping count of the sheep in Sancho's story. Besides, matters of succession are made matters of faith in the Church, and why shouldn't they be in the M'Carthy family? I don't suppose we want to be more infallible than the Pope?
I have not forgotten what you mentioned about your brother Robert; nor was it at all necessary, my dear Kitty, for you to speak of his talents and acquirements, which I well know are first-rate. I took an opportunity the other day of alluding to the master to Lord George, who has influence in every quarter. I told him pretty much in the words of your letter, that he was equally distinguished in science as in classics, had taken honors in both, and was in all other respects fully qualified to be a tutor. That, being a gentleman by birth, though of small fortune, his desire was to obtain the advantages of foreign travel, and the opportunity of acquiring modern languages, for which he was quite willing to assume all the labor and fatigue of a teacher. He stopped me short here by saying, "I 'm afraid it 's no go. They 've made a farce, and a devilish good one, too, of the 'Irish Tutor;' and I half suspect that Dr. O'Toole, as he is called, has spoiled the trade."
I tried to introduce a word about Robert's attainments, but he broke in with,—"That 's all very well; I 'm quite sure of everything you say. But who takes a 'coach'?"—That's the slang for tutor, Kitty!—"No one takes a 'coach' for his learning nowadays. What's wanted—particularly when travelling—is a sharp, wide-awake fellow, that knows all the dodges of the Continent as well as a courier, can bully the police, quiz the custom-house, and slang the waiters. He ought to be up to the opera and the ballet; be a dead hand at écarté, and a capital judge of cigars. After these, his great requisites are never ceasing good-humor, and a general flow of high spirits, to stand all the bad jokes and vapid fun of young college men; a yielding disposition to go anywhere, with any one, and for anything that may be proposed; and, finally, a ready tact never to suppose himself included in any invitation with his 'Bear,' who, however well he may treat him, will always prefer leaving him at home when he dines at an 'Embassy.'"
This is a rapid sketch of a tutor's life and habits, as practised abroad, Kitty; and I more than suspect Robert would not like it. Should I be in error, however, and that such would suit his views, I'm sure I can reckon on Lord George's kindness to find him an appointment. Meanwhile let him "accustom himself to much smoking and occasional brandy-and-water, lay in a good stock of droll anecdotes, and if he can acquire any conjuring knowledge, or tricks on the cards, it will aid him greatly." These hints are Lord G. 's, and, I am sure, invaluable.
A thunderstorm has just broken over the valley of the Rhine, and the dread artillery of heaven comes pealing down from the "Lurlie" like a chorus of demons in a mod-era opera. Our excursion being impossible, I once more resume my task, and again seat myself to hold communion with my dearest Kitty.
I find, besides, innumerable questions still unanswered in your last dear letter. You ask me if, on the whole, I am happier than I was at Dodsborough? How could you ever have penned such a quaere? The tone of seriousness which you tell me of, in my letters, admits perhaps of a softer epithet May it not be that soul-kindled elevation that comes of daily association with high intelligences? If I were but to tell you the names of the illustrious writers and great thinkers whom we meet here almost every evening, Kitty, you would no longer be amazed at the soaring flight my faculties have taken. Not that they appear to us, my dearest friend, in the mystic robes of science, but in the humble garb of common life, playing "groschen" whist, or a game of tric-trac. Just fancy, if you can, Professor Faraday playing "petits jeux," or Wollaston engaged at "hunt the slipper."
These are the intimacies, this the kind of intercourse, which imperceptibly cultivate the mind, and enlarge the understanding; for, as Mrs. Gore Hampton beautifully observes, "The charm of high-bred manner is not to be acquired by attendance on a 'levee' or a 'drawing-room,' it is imbibed in the atmosphere that pervades a court, in the daily, hourly association with that harmonious elegance that surrounds a sovereign." So, dearest Kitty, from intercourse with great minds is there a perpetual gain to our stock of knowledge. "They are," as Mrs. G. says, "the charged machines from which the electric sparks of genius are eternally disengaging themselves." What a privilege to be the receivers!
There is a wondrous charm, too, in their simplicity, as well as in that habit they have of mystically connecting the most trivial topics with the most astounding speculations. A fairy tale becomes to them a metaphysical allegory. You would scarcely credit what curious doctrines of socialism lie veiled under "Jack the Giant Killer," or that the Marquis of Carabas, in the tale of "Puss in Boots," is meant to illustrate the oppression of the landed aristocracy. Nor is this all, Kitty; but they go further, and they are always speculating on something beyond the actual catastrophe of a story; as, the other evening, I heard a learned argument to show that had Bluebeard not been killed, he would have inevitably formed an alliance with "Sister Anne," just for the sake of supporting the cause of "marriage with a deceased wife's sister." I only mention these as passing instances of that rich Imaginative fertility which is as much their characteristic as is their wonderful power of argumentation.
Lord George and James worry me greatly for my admiration of Germany and the Germans. They talk, in slang, on themes that require a high strain of intelligence to comprehend or even appreciate. No wonder, then, if their frivolity offend and annoy me! The Bitter von Wolfenschäfer is an unspeakable relief to me, after this tiresome quizzing. Shall I own that Cary is their ally in the same ignoble warfare? Indeed, nothing surprises, and at the same time depresses me more than to remark the little benefit derived by Caroline from foreign travel. She would seem to sit down perfectly contented with the information derived from books, as though the really substantial advantages of a residence abroad were not all dependent on direct intercourse with the people. "Why not read Uhland and Tieck at home at Dodsborough?" say I to her. "To what end do you come hundreds of miles away from your country, to do what might so easily have been accomplished at home?" What do you think was her reply? It was this: "That is exactly what I should like to do. Having seen some parts of the Continent, having enjoyed the spectacle of those wonderful things of nature and of art which a tour abroad would display, and having acquired that facility in languages which comes so rapidly by their daily use, I should like to go home again, adding to the pleasures my own country supplies, stores of knowledge and resources from other lands. I neither want to think that Frenchmen and Germans are better bred than my own countrymen, nor that the rigid decorum of English manners is only a flimsy veil of hypocrisy thrown over the coarse vices of a coarse people."
Now, my dear Kitty, be as national and patriotic as one will; play "Rule Britannia" every morning, with variations, on the piano; wear a Paisley shawl and a Dunstable bonnet; make yourself as hideous and absurd as the habits of your native country will admit of,—and that is a wide latitude,—you will be obliged to own the startling fact, the Continent is more civilized than England. Daily life is surrounded with more of elegance and of refinement, for the simple reason that there is more leisure for both. There is none of that vulgarity of incessant occupation so observable with us. Men do not live here to be Poor-law guardians and Quarter Sessions chairmen, directors of railroads, or members of select committees. They choose the nobler ambition of mental cultivation and intellectual polish. They study the arts which adorn social intercourse, and acquire those graceful accomplishments which fascinate in the great world, and, in the phrase of the newspapers, "make home happy."
I have now come to the end of my paper, and perhaps of your patience, but not of my arguments on this theme, nor the wish to impress them upon my dearest Kitty. Adieu! Adieu!
I can understand your astonishment at reading this, Kitty; but is it not another proof that Ireland is far behind the rest of the world in civilization? The systems exploded everywhere are still pursued there, and the unprofitable learning that all other countries have abandoned is precisely the object of hardest study and ambition.
There are twenty other things that I wished to consult my dearest Kitty about, but I must conclude. It is now nigh eleven o'clock, the moon is rising, and we are off on our excursion to the Drachenfels,—for you must know that one of the stereotyped amusements of the Continent is to ascend mountains for the sake of seeing daybreak from the "summit" It is frequently a failure as regards the picturesque; but never so with respect to the pleasure of the trip. Think of a mountain path by moonlight, Kitty; your mule slowly toiling up the steep ascent, while some one near murmurs "Childe Harold" in your ear, the perils of the way permitting a hundred little devotional attentions so suggestive of dependence and protection. I must break off,—they are calling for me; and I have but time to write myself my dearest Kitty's dearest friend,
Mart Anne Dodd.
Dear Misses Shusan,—I thought before this I 'd be back again in Bruff, but I leave it all to Providence, that maybe, all the time, is thinkin' little about me. It's not out of any unpiety I say this, but bekase the longer I live the more I see how sarvants are trated in this world; and the next I 'm towld is much the same.
If the mistress would let me alone, I 'd get used to the ways of the place at last, for there 's some things is n't so bad at all; since we came to this we have four males every day, but, if you mind grace, you might as well have none. They've a puddin' for everything, fish—flesh—fowl—vegebles, it's all alike; but the hardest thing is to eat blackberries with beef, or stewed pork with rasberries; not to spake of a pike with pine-apple, that we had yesterday.
There is always an abundance and a confusion at dinner that's plazing to one's feelin's; for, indeed, in Ireland there is no great variety in the servants' hall, and polatics has a sameness in them that's very tiresome.
We are livin' now at an elegant hotel, where we sit down forty-seven of us every day, at the sound of a big bell at one o'clock. They call it the table doat, and I don't wonder they do, for it's the pleasantest place I ever see. We goes down, linked arm-in-arm, me and Lord George's man, Mister Slipper, and the Frinsh made lan in' on Moun-seer Gregory, the currier; and there's as much bowin' and scrapin', or more, than upstairs in the parlor. Mr. Slipper takes the head of the table, and I am on his rite, and mam-eel on his left, and the dishes all cams to us first, and we tumble the things about, and helps ourselves to the best before the others, and we laff so loud, Shusan, for Mr. Slipper is uncommon drol, and tells a number of stories that makes me cry for laffin'; and he is just as polite, too, for whinever he tells anything wrong he says it in French. And if you only heerd the way masters and mistresses is spoke of, Shu-san, you 'd pity poor sarvants that has to live with them, and put up with their bad 'umors. Mr. Slipper himself is trated like a dog, on eighty pounds a year, and what he calls the spoils,—that's the close that's spoiled. Many the day he never sees the newspaper, for Lord G. sticks it in his pocket, and carries it out with him; and when he went out to tay, the other evenin', there was n't an embroidered shirt of his master's to put on, and he was obleeged to take a plain cambric to make a clane breast of it! "Faix," says he, "there's no sayin' what will happen soon, and maybe the day 'll cum I 'll have to buy my own cigars." He had an iligant place before this one,—Sir Michael Bexley,—but tho' the wagis was high, and the eating first-rate, he could n't stay. "We wore in Vi-enna," says he, "where they dance a grate dale in sosiety, and Sir Michael's hands and feet was smaller than mine, and I could n't wear either his kid gloves or his dress-boots, and goin' out every night the expense was krushin'."
Mamsel is trated just as bad. It's maybe three when she gets to bed; her mistress, Mrs. G., would n't take a flour out of her head herself, but must have the poor crayture waitin' there, like a centry. And maybe it's at that time o' night she 'll take the notion of seein' how it bekomes her to have her hare, this way or that, or to see if she'd look better with more paint on her, or if her eyebrows was blacker.
Sometimes, too, she takes a fit of tryin' ball dresses, five or six, one after another; but mamsel says, she thinks she cured her of that by dropping some lamp oil over a bran new white satin, with Brussels lace, that was never worn at all. As Mr. Slipper says, "Our ingenuity is taxed to a degree that destroys our dispositions;" and I may here observe, Shusan, that all sarvants ever I heerd of get somehow worse trated than Irish. I don't mane in regard to wagis, bekase the Irish cartainly gets laste, but I spake of tratement; and the rayson is this, Shusy, the others do their work as a kind of duty, a thing they 're paid for, and that they ought to do; we, the Irish I mane, do everything as if it was out of oar own goodness, and that we would n't do it if we did not like; and that's the real way to manage a master or a mistress. If he asks for a knife at diner, sure he can't deny it's a knife bekase it's dirty, there would n't be common sense in that. There's two ways of doin' everything, Shusan; but, easy as it is, the Irish is the only people profits by the lesson! It's only ourselves, Shusan dear, knows how to make a master or mistress downright miserable!
It is true we seldom have good wagis, but we take it out in temper. If ye seen the life I sometimes lead the mistress you'd pity her; but why would you after all? wasn't I taken away from my home and country, and put down here in a strange place; and if I did n't spend the day now and then cryin', would she ever think of razing my sperits with a new bonnet, or a pare of shoes, or a ticket for the play? Take them azy, Shusy, and they 'll take you the same. But if you show them they 're in your power, take to your bed, sick, when they 're in a hot hurry, and want you most, be sulky and out of sperits when they 're all full of fun, and go singin' about the house the day they 've got a distressin' letter by the post,—keep to that, and my shure and sartain beleef is, that you 'll break down the sperit of the wickidest master and mistress that ever breathed.
Isn't my mistress, I ask you, as hard to dale with as any? Well, many's the time, when I 'm listenin' at the doore, I beerd her say, "Betty can't bear me in that shawl,—Betty put it somewhere, and I 'm afraid to ask for it,—Betty's in one of her tantrums to-day, so I must not cross her. I wish I knew how to put Betty Cobb in good humor." "Faix, ma'am," says I to myself, "I believe you well, and it would puzzle wiser heads nor you!"
And now, Misses Shusan dear, is it any wonder that our tempers get spoiled? seein' the lives we lade, and the dreadful turns and twists we are obleeged to give our natral dispositions. It's for all the world like play-actin'.
There's many things different betune this and home, and first and foremost religion, Shusan. Religion is n't the same at all. To begin, there's no fastin' at all, or next to none; maybe that's bekase, by the nature of the cookery, nobody could tell what it was he was eatin'. Then, there 's little penance,—and the little there is ye can get off of it by a thrifle. Ye go to confessin' whin ye like, and ye keep any-thing back for another time that ye don't wish to tell just then. In fact, my dear, it comes to this,—it's harder to go to Heaven in Ireland than any place ever I heerd of, and costs more money into the bargain!
The priests has n't half the power they have in Ireland, they 're not as well paid, and they can't curse a congregation, nor do any other good action that isn't set down in their duty. It's the polis, Shusy, that makes ye tremble abroad, and that's the great difference between the two countries.
As to morils, my dear, I 'm afraid we 're not supariar, for it's the women always makes love to the men, which, till you get used to it, has a mighty ugly appearance. I b'l'eve it's the smokin' leads to this, for a German would n't take his pipe out of his mouth for anything; so that courtin' is n't what it is at home.
These is my general remarks on the habits of furriners, which I give you as free as you ask for them. As to the family, nobody knows where the money comes from, but that they're spendin' it in lashins, is true as I'm here. And they 're broke up, Shusy, and not the way they used to be. The master walks out alone, or with Miss Caraline. Miss Mary Anne stays with the mother; and Master James, that's now a grone man, and as bowld as brass besides, is always phelanderin' about with Mrs. G., the lady that lives with us. I mistrust her, Shusan dear, and Mamsel Virginy, her made, too, though she's mighty kind and polite to me, and says she has so many "bounties" for the whole family.
Paddy Byrne is exactly what you suspect. There's nothin' would put the least polish on him. The very way he ates at the table doat disgraces us; whenever he gets a thing he likes, instead of helpin' himself and passin' it on, he takes the whole dish before him, and conshumes it all. As he is always ready to fite, they let him do as he likes, and he is become now the terror of the place. I have towld ye now about everybody but the ould currier, Mounseer Gregory, an invetherate ould Frinsh bla'guard, that never has a dacent word in his month, though he has n't a good tooth in it, and ye'd say 't was at his prayers the ould hardened sinner should be. The very laff he has, and the way his bleery eyes twinkle, is a shame to see! It's nigh to fifty years since he took to the road, so that you may think, Shusan dear, what a dale of inequity he's seen in that time. It's dreadful sometimes to listen to him.
If I was n't ashamed to write them, I 'd tell you two or three of his stories, but I will when we meet; and now with my hearty blessin' and love, I remane yours to command,
Betty Cobb.
What's this I heer about one of the M'Carthys dyin', and levin' his money to the mistress? Get the news right for me, Shusan dear, for I mane to ask for more wagis if it's true, and if Mrs. D. won't decrease them, I'll lave the sarvis. Mamsel Virginy towl me last nite there was a duchés here that wants a confidenshal made to tache her only daughter English, and that's exactly the thing to shoot me; five hundred franks a year is equal to twenty pounds, all eatin' and washin', not to mention the hoith of respect from all the men-ials in the house. I'm takin' Frinsh lessons from ould Gregory every evenin', and he says I 'll be in my "accidents" next week.
You guessed rightly, my dear Bob; my letter to Vickars has turned out confoundedly ill, though I must say, all from his total want of gentlemanlike feeling. To my ineffable horror the other morning, the post arrived with a large packet for the governor, containing my "strictly private and confidential" epistle, which this infernal son of a pen-wiper sends coolly back to be read by my father.
Matters were not going on exactly quite smooth before. We had had a rather stormy sitting of the Cabinet the evening previous on the estimates, which struck the President of the Council as out of all bounds; and yet, all things considered, were reasonable enough. You know, Bob, we are a strongish party. Mrs. G. H., with maid and courier; Lord George and man; the Dodd family five, with two native domestics, and two foreign supernumeraries; occupying the first floor of the first hotel at Bonn, with a capital table, and a considerable quantity of wine, of one kind or other; these—without anything that one can call extravagance—swell up a bill, and at the end of a month give it an actually formidable look.
"What are these?" said the governor, peering through his glasses at a long battalion of figures at the foot of the score,—"what are these? Groschen, eh?"
"Pardon, Monsieur le Comte," said the other, bowing, "dey are Prussian thalers!"
I wish you saw his face when he heard it! George and I were obliged to bolt out of the room, or we should have infallibly exploded.
"You 'd better go back," said George to me after we had our laugh out; "I 'll take a stroll with the womenkind till you smooth him down a bit."
A pleasant office this for me; but there was no help for it, so in I went.
The first shock of his surprise was not over as I entered, for he stood holding the bill in one hand, while he pressed the other on his forehead, with a most distracted expression of face.
"Do you suspect," said he—"have you any notion of what rate we are living at, James?"
"Not the slightest," replied I.
"Do you think it 's of any consequence?" asked he again, in a harsher tone.
"Why, of course, sir, it—is—of some con—"
"I mean," broke he in, "does it signify whether I go to jail, and the rest of you to the workhouse,—if there be a workhouse in this rascally land?"
Seeing that he had totally forgotten the landlord's presence, I now motioned to that functionary to leave the room. The noise of the door shutting roused up the governor again. He looked wildly about him for an instant, and then snatching up the poker he aimed a blow at a large mirror over the chimney. He struck it with such violence that it was smashed in a dozen pieces, four or five of which came clattering down upon the floor.
"I'll be a maniac," cried he. "They shall never say that I ran into this extravagance in my sober senses; I 'll finish my days in a madhouse first." And with these words he made a rush over to a marble table, where a large porcelain vase was standing; by a timely spring I overtook him, and pressed him down on an ottoman, where, I assure you, it required all my force to hold him. After a few minutes, however, there came a reaction; he dropped the poker from his grasp, and said, in a low, faint voice, "There—there—I 'll do nothing now—you may release me."
There 's not a doubt of it, Bob, but he really was insane for a few moments, though, fortunately, it passed away as rapidly as it came.
"That," said he, with a motion towards the looking-glass,—"that will cost twenty or twenty-five pounds, eh?"
"Not so much, perhaps," said I, though I knew I was considerably below the mark.
"Well, I 'm sure it saved me from a fit of illness, anyhow," rejoined he, sighing. "If I hadn't smashed it, I think my head would have burst. Go over that, James, and see what it is in pounds."
I sat down to a table, and after some calculation made out the total to be two hundred and seven pounds sterling.
"And with the looking-glass, about two hundred and thirty," said he, with a sigh. "That's about—taking everything into consideration—five thousand a year."
"You must remember," said I, trying to comfort him, "that these are not our expenses solely. There 's Tiverton and his servant, and Mrs. Gore Hampton and her people also."
"So there is," added he, quickly; "but they had nothing to do with that;" and he pointed to the confounded looking-glass, which somehow or other had taken a fast hold of his imagination. "Eh, James, that was a luxury we had for ourselves!" There was a bitter, sardonic laugh that accompanied these words, indescribably painful to hear.
"Come now," said he, in a more composed and natural voice, "let us see what 's to be done. This is a joint account, James; why not have sent it to Lord George—ay, to the widow also? They may as well frank the Dodd family as we pay for them,—of course, omitting the looking-glass."
I hinted that this was a step requiring some delicacy in its management; that, if not conducted with great tact, it might be the occasion of deep offence. In a word, Bob, I surmised, and conjectured, and hinted a hundred things, just to gain a little time, and turn him, if possible, into another channel.
"Well, what do you advise?" said he, as if wishing to fix me to some tangible project.
For a moment I was bent on adopting the grand parliamentary tactic of stating that there were "three courses open to the House," and then going on to show that one of these was absurd, the second impracticable, and the last utterly impossible; but I saw that the governor could not be so easily put down as the Opposition, and so I said, "Give it till to-morrow morning, and I'll see what can be done."
Here I felt I was on safe ground, for throughout life I have ever remarked that whenever an Irishman is in difficulties, a reprieve is as good as a free pardon to him; for so is it, the land which seems so thoroughly hopeless in its destinies, contains the most hopeful population of Europe!
The delay of a few hours made all the difference in the governor's spirits, and he rallied and came down to supper just as usual, only whispering, as we left the room, with a peculiar low chuckle in his voice, "I would n't wonder if the fire there cracked that chimney-glass."
"Nothing more likely," added I, gravely; and down we went.
It might possibly be out of utter recklessness, or perhaps from some want of a stimulant to cheer him, but he insisted on having two extra bottles of champagne, and he toasted Mrs. Gore Hampton with a zest and fervor that certainly my mother didn't approve of. On the whole, however, all passed off well, and we wished each other goodnight, with the pleasantest anticipations for the morrow.
All was well; and we were at breakfast the next morning, merrily discussing the plans for the day, when the post arrived, with that ominous-looking packet I have already mentioned.
"Shall I guess what that contains?" cried Lord George, pointing to the words, "on her Majesty's service," printed in the corner. "They 've made you Lord-Lieutenant of your county, Dodd! You shake your head. Well, it's something in the colonies they 've given you."
"Perhaps it's the Civil Cross of the Bath," said Mrs. Gore Hampton. "They told me, before I left town, they were going to select some Irishman for that distinction."
"I 'd rather it was a baronetcy," interposed my mother.
"You are all forgetting," broke in my father, "that it's the Tories are in power, and they 'll give me nothing. I was always a moderate politician, and, for the last ten or fifteen years, there was nothing so unprofitable. Violence on either side met its reward, but the quiet men, like myself, were never remembered."
"Then hang me if I should have been quiet!" cried Lord George.
"Well, you see," said my father, breaking his egg slowly with the back of his spoon, "it suited me! I've seen a great deal of Ireland; I 'm old enough to remember the time when the Beresfords governed the country,—if you can call that government that was done with pitched-caps and cat-o'-nine-tails,—and I remember Lord Whitworth's Administration, and Lord Wellesley's, and latterly, Lord Normandy's. But, take my word for it, they were wrong, every one of them, and the reason was this: the English had a notion in their heads that Ireland must always be ruled through the intervention of some leadership or other. One time it was the Protestants, then it was the landlords, then came Dan O'Connell, and, lastly, it was the priests. Now, every one of these failed, because they could n't perform a tithe of what they promised; but still they all had that partial kind of success that saved the Administration a deal of trouble, and imposed upon the English the notion that they were at last learning how to govern Ireland. Meanwhile I 'll tell you what was happening. The Government totally forgot there was such a thing as a people in Ireland, and, what's worse, the people forgot it themselves; and the consequence was, they sank down to the level of a mean party following—a miserable, shabby herd—to shout after an Orange or a Green Demagogue, as the case might be. It was a faction, and not a nation; and England saw that, but she had not the honesty to own it was her own doing made it such. It was seeing all this made me a moderate politician, or, in other words, one who reposed a very moderate confidence in either of the parties that pretended to rule Ireland."
"But you supported your friend, Vickars, notwithstanding," said Lord George, slyly.
"Very true, so I did; but I never put forward any mock patriotism as the reason. What I said was, 'Ye 're all rogues and vagabonds alike, and as I know you 'll do nothing for Ireland, at least do something for the Dodd family;' and now let us see if he has, for I perceive that this address is in his handwriting."
I own to you, Bob, I quaked somewhat as I saw him smash the seal. My mind misgave me in fifty ways. "Vickars," thought I, "has given me some infernal store-keepership in the Gambia, or made me inspector of yellow fever in Chusan." I surmised a dozen different promotions, every one of which was several posts on the road to the next world. Nor were my anticipations much brightened by watching the workings of the governor's face as he perused the epistle; for it grew darker and darker, the angles of the mouth were drawn down, till that expressive feature put on the semblance of a Saxon arch, while his eyes glistened with an expression of fiend-like malice.
"Well, K. I.," said my mother, in whom the Job-like element was not of a high development,—"well, K. I., what does he say? Is it the old story about his list being full, or has he done it at last?"
"Yes, ma'am," said my father, as though echoing her words. "He has done it at last!"
"And what is it to be, papa? Is it something that a gentleman can suitably accept?" cried Mary Anne.
"Done it at last, you may well say!" muttered my father, half aloud.
"Better late than never," cried Lord George, gayly.
"Well, I don't know that, my Lord," said my father, turning upon him with an abruptness little short of offensive; "I am not so sure that I quite coincide with you. If a young fellow enters life totally uneducated and unprovided for, his only certain heritage being the mortgages on his father's property, and perhaps," he added with a sneer,—"and perhaps some of his mother's virtues, I say I am not exactly convinced that he has improved his chances of worldly success by such a production as that!"
And with these words, every one of which he delivered with a terrible distinctness, he handed a letter across the table to Lord George, who slowly perused it in silence.
"As for you, sir," continued my father, turning towards me, "I grieve to inform you that no vacancy at present offers itself in the Guards, nor in the household, where your natural advantages could be remarked and appreciated. It will be, however, a satisfaction to you to know that your high claims are already understood, and well thought of, in the proper quarter. There's Mr. Vickars's letter." And he presented me with the note, which ran thus:—
"Dear Mr. Dodd,—By the enclosed letter, bearing your son's signature, I have discovered how totally below his just expectations would be any of those official appointments which are within the limits of my humble patronage to bestow.
"I have, consequently, cancelled the minute of his nomination to a place in the Treasury, which was yesterday conferred upon him, and having myself no influence in either of those departments to which his wishes incline, I have but to express the regret I feel at my inability to serve him, and the great respect with which I beg to remain,
"Your very faithful servant,
"Haddington Vickars."
Board of Trade, London.
"To Mr. James K. Dodd, Bonn."
I am able to give you the precious document word for word; for, if I went over it once, I did so twenty times.
"Perhaps you might like to refresh your memory by a glance at the enclosure," said my father. "My Lord George will kindly hand it to you."
"It is a devilish good letter, though, I must say," broke in George; who, to do him justice, Bob, never deserts a friend in difficulties. "It's all very fine of this fellow to talk of his inability to do this, that, and t' other. Sure, we all know how they chop and barter their patronage with one another. One says, you may have that thing at Pernambuco, and then another says, 'Very well, there 's an ensigncy in the Fifty-ninth.' And that's only gammon about the appointment made out yesterday; he wants to ride off on that. A sharp fellow your friend Vickars! He 'd look a bit surprised, however, if you were to say that this letter of 'Jem's' was a forgery, and that you most gratefully accept the nomination he alludes to, and which, of course, is not yet filled up."
"Eh, what! how do you mean?" cried my father, eagerly, for he caught at the very shadow of a chance with desperate avidity.
"I was only in jest," said Lord George, who merely wanted, as he afterwards said, "to hustle the governor through the deep ground" of his anger. "I was in jest about them, for 'Jem's' letter is so good, so exceedingly well put, that it would be downright folly to disavow it. You have no idea," continued he, gravely, "what excellent policy it is always to ask for a high thing. They respect you for it, even when they give you nothing; and then, when you do at last receive some appointment, it is so certain to be beneath what you solicited, it establishes a claim for your perpetual discontent. You go on eternally boring about neglect, and so on. You accepted the humble post of Envoy at Stuttgard, for instance, under an implied pledge about Vienna or Constantinople. Besides these advantages, it is also to be remembered that every now and then they actually do take a fellow at his own valuation, and give him what he asks for."
"Lord George is quite right," chimed in Mrs. Gore Hampton; "half of these things are purely accidental. I remember so well my uncle writing to beg that the tutor of his boys might get some small thing in the Church, just at the moment when the bishop of the diocese had died, and the minister, reading the letter carelessly,—my uncle's hand is very hard to decipher,—mistook the object of the request, and appointed him to the bishopric."
"In that case," remarked my father, dryly, "I think Mrs. D. had better indite an epistle to the Home Office."
And, although this was said in a sneer, the laughter that followed went far to restore us all to good-humor, particularly as Lord George took the opportunity of explaining to Mrs. Gore Hampton what had occurred, bespeaking her aid and influence in our behalf.
"It is so absurd," said she, "that one should have any difficulty about these things, but such is the case. The Duchess will be certain to make excuses; she cannot ask for something, because she is 'in waiting,' or she is not in waiting. Lord Harrowcliff is sure to tell me that he has just been refused a request, and cannot subject himself to another humiliation; but I always reply, these are most selfish arguments, and that I really must have what I want; that a refusal always attacks my nerves, and that I will not be ill merely to indulge a caprice of theirs. What is it Mr. James wants?"
There was something so practical in this short question, Bob, something so decisive, that had she been talking the rankest absurdity but the moment before, we should have forgotten it all in an instant.
"A mere nothing," replied Lord George. "You'll smile when you hear what we 're making such a fuss about." As he said these words, he muttered in the governor's ear, "It's all right now; she detests asking a favor, but, if she will stoop to it—" An expressive gesture implied that success was certain.
"Well, you have n't told me what it is," said she again.
Lord George passed round to the back of her chair, and whispered a few words. She replied in the same low tone, and then they both laughed.
"You don't mean to say," cried she, turning to my father, "that you have experienced any difficulty about this trifle?"
The governor blundered out some bashful confession, that he had encountered the most extraordinary obstacles to his wishes.
"I really think," said she, sighing, "they do these things just to provoke people. They wanted Augustus t' other day to go out to the Cape, and I assure you it was as much as Lady Mary could do to have the appointment changed. They said his 'regiment' was there. 'Tant pis for his regiment!' replied she. 'It must be a most disgusting station.' And that is, I must say, the worst of the Horse Guards; they are always so imperative,—so downright cruel. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Dodd?"
"They could n't be worse than the regiment I 've heard my father speak of," replied my mother. "They were called the 'North Britains,' and were the wickedest set of wretches in the rebellion of '98."
This unhappy blunder set my father into a roar of laughter, for latterly it is only on occasions like this that he is moved to any show of merriment. Mrs. Gore Hampton, of course, never noticed the mistake, but saying, "Now for my letters," ordered her writing-desk to be brought: a sign of promptitude that at once diverted all our thoughts into another channel.
"Shall I write to the Duke or to Lady Mary first?" said she, pondering; and her eyes, accidentally falling upon my mother, she thought herself the person addressed, and replied,—
"Indeed, ma'am, if you ask me, I'd say the Duke."
"I'm for Lady Mary," interposed Lord George. "There's nothing like a woman to ferret out news, and find a way to profit by it. The duke will just say, casually, 'I've got a letter somewhere—I hope I have not mislaid it—about a vacancy in the "Coldstreams;" if you hear of anything, just drop me a hint. By the way—is Fox in the Fusiliers still?'—or, 'I hope they'll change that shako, it's monstrous!' Now, my Lady Mary will go another way to work. She'll remember the name of everybody that can be possibly useful. She 'll drive about, and give little dinners, and talk, and flatter, and cajole, and intrigue, and, growing distant here, and jealous there, she'll bring into action a thousand forces that mere men-creatures know nothing of."
"I'm for the Duke still," said my mother; and Mary Anne, by an inclination of her head, showed that she seconded the motion.
It became now an actual debate, Bob, and you would be amazed were I to tell you what strong expressions and angry feelings were evoked by mere partisanship, on a subject whereupon not one of us had the slightest knowledge whatsoever. My father and I were with Tiverton, and as "Caroline walked into the lobby," as George phrased it, we carried the question. Mrs. G., however, declared that, beside the casting voice, she had a right to a vote, and, giving it to my mother's side, we were equal. In this stage of the proceedings a compromise alone could be resorted to, and so it was agreed that she should write to both by the same post; but the discussion had already lost us a day, for the mail went out while my mother was "left speaking."
I have probably been prolix, my dear friend, in all this detail, but it will at least show you how the Dodd family conduct questions of internal policy; and teach you, besides, that Cabinets and Councils of State have no special prerogative for folly and absurdity, since even small and obscure folk like ourselves can contest the palm with them.
Neither could you well believe what small but bitter animosities, what schisms, and what divisions grew out of a matter so insignificant as this. The remainder of the day was passed gloomily enough, for we each of us avoided the other, with that misgiving that belongs to those who have uneasy consciences.
They say that a good harvest often saves a bad administration; certainly a fine day will frequently avert a domestic broil. Had the morning which followed our debate been a favorable one, the chances are we should have been away to the Seven Mountains, or the village of Konigswinter, or some such place; bad luck would have it that the rain came down in torrents from daybreak, heavy clouds gathered over the Rhine, shutting out the opposite bank from view, so that nothing remained to us but home resources, which is but too often a brief expression for row and recrimination.
Breakfast over, each of us, as if dreading a "call of the House," affected some peculiarly pressing duty that he had to perform. The governor retired to pore over his accounts, and tried to make out that the debit against him in his bankbook was a balance in his favor. My mother retreated to her room to hold a grand inspection of her wardrobe; a species of review that always discovers several desertions, and a vast amount of "unserviceables." Leaving her and Mary Anne in court-martial over Betty Cobb, who, as usual, when brought up for sentence, claimed the right to be sent home, I pass on to Lord George, whose wet days are generally devoted to practising some new "hazard off the cushion," or the investigation of that philosopher's stone, a martingale at Rouge-et-Noir, and I arrive at my own case, which invariably resolves itself into a day of gun and pistol cleaning,—an occupation mysteriously linked with gloomy weather, as though one ought to have everything in readiness to blow his brains out, if the mercury continued to fall.
Mrs. G. had a headache, and Caroline was in pursuit of one over the pages of the "Thirty Years' War." Such was the tableau of the Dodd family on this agreeable day. I don't give myself much up to reflection, Bob. I have always thought that as life is a road to be travelled, one step forward is worth any number in the opposite direction; but I vow to you that, on this occasion, I did begin to ponder a little over the past and the present, with a half-glance at the future. What the governor had said the day before was no more than the truth,—we were living at a tremendous rate. If all belonging to us were sold, the capital would scarcely afford six or seven years of such expenditure. These were serious, if not stunning reflections, and I heartily wished they had occupied any other head than my own.
To you—who have always given your brains their own share of work—thinking is no labor. It's like a gallop to a horse in hard bunting condition, and only serves to keep him in wind; but to me, whose faculties are, so to say, fresh from grass, the fatigue of thought is no trifling infliction. Slow men, I take it, suffer more than your clever fellows on these occasions, since their minds are not suggestive of expedients, and they go on plodding over the same ground, till they make a beaten course in their poor brains, like an old race-ground. Something in this fashion must have occurred to me; for by dint of that dreary morning's rumination, I half made up my mind to emigrate somewhere, and if I did n't exactly know where, the fault lies more in my geography than my spirit of enterprise.
The only book I could lay my hands on likely to give me any information was "Cook's Voyages;" and this, I remembered, was in the governor's room. I at once descended the stairs, and had just reached the little conservatory outside of it, when I caught sight of a woman's dress beneath the thick foliage of the orange-trees. I crept noiselessly onward, and after a very devious series of artful dodges, I detected Mrs. D. playing eavesdropper at the governor's door.
I tried to persuade myself that I was mistaken. I did my best to fancy that she was botanizing or "bouquet" gathering; but no, the stubborn fact would not be denied. There she was, bent down, with ear and eye alternately at the keyhole. Neither the act nor the situation were very dignified, and determining that she should not be detected by any other in this predicament, I kicked down a flower-pot, and, before I had well time to replace it, she was gone.
I 'm quite prepared for the laugh you 'll give, Bob, when I own to you that no sooner had I seen her vanish from the horizon than I deliberately took my place exactly where she had been. Of course, my sense of honor and delicacy suggested that I had no other object in view than to ascertain what it was that bad drawn her to the spot. Any curiosity that possessed me was strictly confined to this.
I accordingly bent my ear to the keyhole, and had just time to recognize Mrs. Gore Hampton's voice, when the noise of chairs being drawn back, and the scuffling sounds of feet, showed that the interview had come to an end. Scarcely a moment was left me to shelter myself among the leaves, when the door opened, "discovering," as stage directions would say, Mr. Dodd and Mrs. Gore Hampton in conversation.
There was really a dramatic look in the situation too. The governor's flowered dressing-gown and velvet skullcap, decorated in front by his up-raised spectacles, like a portcullis over his nose, contrasted so well with the graceful morning robe of Mrs. G., all floating and gauzy, and to which her every gesture imparted some new character of vapory lightness.
"Dear Mr. Dodd," said she, pressing his hand with extreme cordiality, "you have been so very, very kind, I really have no words to express what I feel towards you. I have long felt that I owed you this explanation—I have tried to summon courage for it for weeks past—then I sometimes doubted how you might receive it."
"Oh, madam!" interrupted he, gracefully closing his drapery with one hand, while he pressed the other on his heart.
"You kind creature!" cried she, enthusiastically. "I can now wonder at myself that I should ever have admitted a doubt on the question. But if you only knew what sorrows I have seen—if you only knew with what severe lessons mistrust and suspicion have become graven on this heart, young as it is—"
"Ah, madam!" murmured he, as though the last few words had made the deepest impression upon him.
"Well, it's over now," cried she, in her more natural tone of gayety. "The weary load is off me, and I am myself again,—thanks to you, dear, dear kind friend."
Faith, Bob, from the enthusiasm of the utterance of this last speech, I thought that a stage embrace ought to have followed; and I believe that the governor was of my mind too, and only restrained by some real or fancied necessity to keep his toga closed in front of him. Mrs. G., however, as though fearing that he might ultimately forget the "unities," again pressed his hand with both her own, and murmuring, "With you, then, my secret is safe,—to you all is confided," she hurried away, as if overcome by her feelings.
I could not guess what might have reached my mother's ears, but I thought to myself, if she only had heard even this much, and witnessed the fervor with which it was uttered, the governor's life for the next few weeks needs not be envied by any one out of a condemned cell. Not that to me the scene admitted of any interpretation which should warrant her suspicions; but so it is, she takes a jealous turn every now and then, and he can't take a pinch of snuff without her peering over his shoulder to see if he has not got a miniature in the lid of the box. He used to try to reason her out of these notions,—his vindications even took the dangerous length of certain abstract opinions about the sex in general, very far from complimentary; but latterly he has sought refuge in drink, which usually ends in an illness, so that an attack of jealousy was the invariable premonitory symptom of one of gout; and my mother's temper and tincture of colchicum seemed inseparably connected by some unseen link.
From these thoughts I followed on to others about the scene itself, and what possible circumstance could have led Mrs. G. H. to visit the governor in his own room, and what was the prodigious mystery she had just confided to his keeping. Probability, I fear, takes up little space in any speculation about a woman. I am sure that if I were to recount to you one-half of the absurd and extravagant fancies that occurred to me on this occasion, you would infallibly set me down as mad. I 'll not tax your patience with the recital, but frankly confess to you that I have not a clew, even the slightest, to the mystery; nor from the manner in which I have learned its existence, can I venture to ask Lord George to aid me.
The incident had one effect,—it totally banished emigration, clearings, and log huts from my mind, and set my thoughts a rambling upon all the strange people and extraordinary events that travelling abroad introduces one to; and with this reflection I strolled back to my room, and sat brooding over the fire till it was time to dress for dinner. Although you may not have the vaguest notion of what is passing in the minds of certain people, the very fact that they are fully occupied with certain strong feelings is a reason for observing them with an extraordinary interest; and so was it that our party at table that day was full of meaning to me. There was a kind of languid repose about Mrs. Gore Hampton's manner which seemed especially assumed towards the governor, and a certain fidgety consciousness in his, sufficiently noticeable; while my mother, dressed in one of her war turbans, looked unutterably fierce things on every side. It was easy enough to see that all this additional weight upon the safety-valves of her temper threatened a terrible explosion at last, and it required all the tact I could muster to my aid to defer the catastrophe. Lord George gave me, too, his willing aid, and by the help of an old Professor of Oriental Languages, we made up her rubber of whist in the evening.
Alas, Bob! even four by honors couldn't console her for the "odd trick" she suspected the governor was playing her; and she broke up the card-table, and retired with that swelling dignity of manner that is the accompaniment of injured feelings.
It had been our plan to proceed from this place direct to Baden-Baden, which, from everything I can learn, must be a perfect paradise; but now, to my great surprise, I discovered that for some secret reason we should first go to Ems, and remain there a week or two before proceeding further. This arrangement was Mrs. G's, and Lord George seemed to give it his hearty concurrence; alleging, but for the first time, that it was absurd to think of Baden before the middle of July. I could easily perceive that this change of purpose contained some mysterious motive; but, as Tiverton persisted in averring that it was "all on the square," and "no double," I had to accept it as such.
Such is, therefore, our position as I write these lines; and although to-morrow might develop the first movement of the campaign, I cannot keep my letter open to communicate it You will see that we are as divided as a Ministerial Cabinet. Some of us, doubtless, have their honest convictions, and others are, perhaps, plastic enough to receive impressions from without, but how we are to work together, and how, as the great authority said, the "Government is to be carried on," is more than yet appears to