Volume I Part 19 (1/2)
”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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sure 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 prompt.i.tude 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 partisans.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s on to Lord George, whose wet days are generally devoted to practising some new ”hazard off the cus.h.i.+on,”