Volume I Part 8 (2/2)
By the way, Morris is a better fellow than I used to think him: a little priggish or so, but good-hearted at bottom, and honest as the sun. I think he has an eye on Mary Anne. Not that at present he 'd have much chance in that quarter. These foreign counts and barons give a false glitter to society that throws into the shade all unt.i.tled gentility; and your mere country gentleman beside them is like your mother's old silver teapot on a table with a show specimen of Elkington's new galvanic plate. Not but if you wanted to raise a trifle of money on either, the choice would be very difficult.
I 'll keep anything more for another letter, and now sign myself
Your old and attached friend,
Kenny I. Dodd. Pet.i.ts Cabmes, Brussels, Tuesday Morning.
LETTER XII. MRS. DODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH
Dear Molly,--The blessed Saints only can tell what sufferings I have gone through the last two days, and it's more than I 'm equal to, to say how it happened! The whole family has been turned topsy and turvy, and there's not one of us is n't upside down; and for one like me, that loves to live in peace and enmity with all mankind, this is a sore trial!
Many 's the time you heard me remark that if it was n't for K. I.'s temper, and the violence of his pa.s.sion, that we 'd be rich and well off this day. Time, they say, cures many an evil; but I 'll tell you one, Molly, that it never improves, and that is a man's wilful nature; on the contrary, they only get more stubborn and cross-grained, and I often think to myself, what a blessed time one of the young creatures must have had of it, married to some patriarch in the Old Testament; and then I reflect on my own condition,--not that Kenny Dodd is like anything in the Bible! And now to tell you, if I 'm able, some of my distresses.
You have heard about poor dear James, and how he was shot; but you don't know that these last six weeks he has never been off his back, with three doctors, and sometimes five-and-thirty leeches on him; and what with the torturing him with new-fas.h.i.+oned instruments, and continued ”repletion,” as they call it,--if it had n't been for strong wine-gruel that I gave him, at times, ”unknownst,”--my sure belief is that he would n't have been spared to us. This has been a terrible blow, Molly; but the ways of Providence is unscrupulous, and we must submit.
Here it is, then. James, like every boy, spent a little more money than he had, and knowing well his father's temper, he went to the Jews to help him. They smarted the poor dear child, who, in his innocent heart, knew nothing of the world and its wicked ways. They made him take all kinds of things instead of cash,--Dutch tiles, paving-stones, an altar-piece, and a set of surveying-tools, amongst the rest; and these he had to sell again to raise a trifle of cash. Some of them he disposed of mighty well,--particularly the altar-piece,--but on others he lost a good deal, and, at the end, was a heavy balance in debt. If it had n't been for the duel, however, he says he 'd have no trouble at all in ”carrying on,”--that's his own word, and I suppose alludes to the business. Be that as it may, his wound was his ruin. n.o.body knew how to manage his affairs but himself. It was the very same way with my grandfather, Maurice Lynch McCarthy; for when he died there wasn't a soul left could make anything of his papers. There was large sums in them,--thousands and thousands of pounds mentioned,--but where they were, and what's become of them, we never discovered.
And so with James. There he was, stretched on his bed, while villains and schemers were working his ruin! The business came into the courts here, which, from all I can learn, Molly, are not a bit better than at home with ourselves. Indeed, I believe, wherever one goes, lawyers is just the same for roguery and rampacity. To be sure, it 's comfort to think that you can have another, to the full as bad as the one against you; and if there is any abuse or bad language going, you can give it as hot as you get it; that's equal justice, Molly, and one of the proudest boasts of the British const.i.tution! And you 'd suppose that K. I., sitting on the bench for nigh four-and-twenty years, would know that as well as anybody. Yet what does he do?--you 'll not believe me when I tell you! Instead of paying one of these creatures to go in and torment the others, to pick holes in all he said, and get fellows to swear against them, he must stand out, forsooth, and be his own lawyer! And a blessed business he made of it! A reasonable man would explain to the judges how it all was,--that James was a child; that it was the other day only he was flying a kite on the lawn at home; that he knew as much about wickedness as K. I. did of paradise; that the villains that led him on ought to be publicly whipped! Faith, I can fancy, Molly, it was a beautiful field for any man to display every commotion of the heart; but what does he do? He gets up on his legs,--I did n't see, but I 'm told it,--he gets up on his legs and begins to ballyrag and blackguard all the courts of justice, and the judges, and the attorneys, down to the criers,--he spares n.o.body! There is nothing too dreadful for him to say, and no words too bad to express it in; till, their patience being all run out, they stop him at last, and give orders to have him taken from the spot, and thrown into a dungeon of the town jail,--a terrible old place, Molly, that goes by the name of the ”Pet.i.t Carme!” and where they say the diet is only a thin sheet of paper above starving.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 152]
And there he is now, Molly; and you may picture to yourself, as the poet says, ”what frame he's in”! The news reached me when we were going to the play. I was under the hands of the hairdresser, and I gave such a screech that he jumped back, and burned himself over the mouth with the curling-irons. Even that was a relief to me, Molly; for Mary Anne and myself laughed till we cried again!
I was for keeping the thing all snug and to ourselves about K. I.; but Mary Anne said we should consult Lord George, that was then in the house, and going with us to the theatre. They are a wonderful people, the great English aristocracy; and if it's anything more than another distinguishes them, 't is the indifference to every kind and description of misfortune. I say this, because, the moment Lord George heard the story, he lay down on the sofa, and laughed and roared till I thought he 'd split his sides. His only regret was that he had n't been there, in the courts, to see it all. As for James's share of the trouble, he said it ”didn't signify a rus.h.!.+”
He made the same remark I did myself,--that James was the same as an infant, and could, consequently, know nothing of the world and its pompous vanities.
”I 'll tell you how to manage it all,” said he, ”and how you 'll not only escape all gossip, but actually refute even the slightest scandal that may get abroad. Say, first of all, that Mr. Dodd is gone over to England--we 'll put it in the 'Galignani'--to attend his Parliamentary duties. The Belgian papers will copy it at once. This being done, issue invitations for an evening at home, 'tea and dance,'--that's the way to do it. Say that the governor hates a ball, and that you are just taking the occasion of his absence to see your friends without disturbing _him_. The people that will come to you won't be too critical about the facts. Believe me, the gay company will be the very last to inquire where is the head of the house. I 'll take care that you 'll have everybody worth having in Brussels, and with Latour's band, and the supper by Dubos, I 'd like to see who 'll have a spare thought for Mr.
Dodd the absent.”
I own to you, Molly, the counsel shocked my feelings at first, and I asked my heart, ”What will the world say, if it ever comes out that we had our house full of company, and the height of gayety going on, when the head of the family was, maybe, in chains in a dungeon?” ”Don't you perceive,” says Lord G., ”that what I 'm advising will just prevent the possibility of all that,--that you are actually rescuing your family, by a master-stroke, from the evil consequences of Mr. D.'s rashness? As to the boldness of the policy,” added he, ”that is the only merit it possesses.” And then he said something about the firing at St. Sebastian above somebody's head, that I didn't quite lightly understand. The upshot was, Molly, I was convinced, not, you may be sure, that I felt any pleasure or gratification in the prospect of a ball under such trying circ.u.mstances, but just as Lord G. said, I felt I was ”rescuing the family.”
When we came home, from the play,--for we went with heavy hearts, I a.s.sure you, though we afterwards laughed a great deal,--we set about writing the invitations for ”Our Evening;” and although James and Mary Anne a.s.sisted Lord G., it was nigh daybreak when we were done. You 'll ask, where was Caroline? And you might well ask; but as long as I live I 'll never forget her unnatural conduct! It is n't that she opposed everything about the ball, but she had the impudence to say to my face ”that hitherto we had been only ridiculous, but that this act would be one of downright shame and disgrace.” Her language to Lord George was even worse, for she told him that his ”counsel was a very sorry requital for the generous hospitality her father had always extended to him.”
Where the hussey got the words so glibly, I can't imagine; but she, that rarely speaks at all, talked away with the fluency of a lawyer. As to helping us to address the notes, she vowed she 'd rather cut her fingers off; and what made this worse was, that she's the only one of them knows the genders in French, and whether a _soire_ is a man or a woman!
You may imagine the trouble of the next day; for in order to have the ball come off before K. I. was out, we were only able to give two days'
notice. Little the people that come to your house to dance or to sup know or think what a deal of trouble--not to say more--it costs to give a ball. Lord George tells me that even the Queen herself always gives it in another house, so she 's not put out of her way with the preparations,--and, to be sure, what is more natural?--and that she would n't like to be exposed to the turmoil of taking down beds, hanging l.u.s.tres, fixing sconces, raising a platform for the music, and settling tables for the supper. I 'm sure and certain, if she only knew what it was to pa.s.s such a day as yesterday was with me, she 'd never have a larger party than that lord that's always in waiting, and the ladies of the bedroom! As for regular meals, Molly, we had none. There was a ham and cold chickens in the lobby, and a veal pie and some sherry on the back stairs; and that's the way we breakfasted, dined, and supped. To be sure, we laughed heartily all the time, and I never saw Mary Anne in such spirits. Lord George was greatly struck with her,--I saw it by his manner,--and I would n't be a bit surprised if something came of it yet!
I have little time to say more now, for I 'm called down to see the flowerpots and orange-trees that's to line the hall and the stairs; but I 'll try and finish this by post hour.
As I see that this cannot be despatched to-day, I 'll keep it over, to give you a ”full and true” account of the ball, which Lord George a.s.sures me will be the greatest _fte_ Brussels has seen this winter; and, indeed, if I am to judge from the preparations, I can well believe him! There are seven men cooks in the kitchen making paste and drinking sherry in a way that's quite incredible, not to speak of an elderly man in my own room that's doing the M'Carthy arms in spun-sugar for a temple that is to represent Dodsborough, in the middle of the table, with K.
I. on the top of it, holding a flag, and crying out something in French that means welcome to the company. Poor K. I., 'tis something else he's thinking of all the time!
Then, the whole stairs and the landing is all one bower of camellias and roses and lilies of the valley, brought all the way from Holland for another ball, but, by Lord George's ingenuity, obtained by us. As for ice, Molly, you 'd think my dressing-room was a Panorama of the North Pole; and there's every beast of that region done in strawberries or lemon, with native creatures, the color of life, in coffee or chocolate.
The music will be the great German Bra.s.s Band, fifty-eight performers, and two Blacks with cymbals. They 're practising now, and the noise is dreadful! Carts are coming in every moment with various kinds of eatables, for I must tell you, Molly, they don't do things here the way we used at Dodsborough. Plenty of cold roast chickens, tongues, and sliced ham, apple-pies, tarts, jelly, and Spanish flummery, with Naples biscuits and a plum-cake, is a fine supper in Ireland; and if you begin with sherry, you can always finish with punch: but here there's nothing that ever was eaten they won't have. Ice when they 're hot, soup when they 're chilly, oyster patties and champagne continually during the dancing, and every delicacy under the sun afterwards on the supper-table.
<script>