Volume I Part 22 (1/2)
I did n't pa.s.s twenty years with him without learning the natural wickedness of his disposition, but I never thought he 'd go the length of this. Oh, Molly! the shock nearly killed me; and coming as it did after the dreadful disappointment about Jones M'Carthy's affairs, I don't know at all how I bore up against it. I must tell you that James and Mary Anne did n't see it with my eyes. They thought, or they pretended to think, that he was only going as far as Ems, to accompany her, as they call it, on a visit to the Princess,--just as if there was a princess at all, and that the whole story wasn't lies from beginning to end.
Lord George, too, took their side, and wanted to get angry at my unjust suspicions about Mrs. G., but I just said, what would the world think of _me_ if I went away in a chaise and four with _him_ by way of paying a visit to somebody that never existed? He tried to laugh it off, Molly, and made little of it, but I wouldn't let him, in particular before Mary Anne,--for whatever sins they may lay to my charge, I believe that they can't pretend that I did n't bring up the girls with sound principles of virtue and morality,--and just to convince him of that, I turned to and exposed K. I. to James and the two girls till they were well ashamed of him.
It's a heartless bad world we live in, Molly! and I never knew its badness, I may say, till now. You'll scarce believe me, when I tell you that it was n't from my own flesh and blood that I met comfort or sympathy, but from that good-for-nothing creature, Betty Cobb. Mary Anne and Caroline persisted in saying that K. I.'s journey was all innocence and purity,--that he was only gone in a fatherly sort of a way with her; but Betty knew the reverse, and I must own that she seemed to know more about him than I ever suspected.
”Ah, the ould rogue!--the ould villain!” she 'd mutter to herself, in a fas.h.i.+on that showed me the character he had in the servants' hall. If I had only a little command of my temper, I might have found out many a thing of him, Molly, and of his doings at Dodsborough, but how could I at a moment like that?
And that's how I was, Molly, with nothing but enemies about me, in the bosom of my own family! One saying, ”Don't expose us to the world,--don't bring people's eyes on us;” and the other calling out, ”We 'll be ruined entirely if it gets into the papers!” so that, in fact, they wanted to deny me the little bit of sympathy I might have attracted towards my dest.i.tute and forlorn condition.
Had I been at home, in Dodsborough, I'd have made the country ring with his disgrace; but they wouldn't let me utter a word here, and I was obliged to sit down, as the poet says, ”like a worm in the bud,” and consume my grief in solitude.
He went away, too, without leaving a s.h.i.+lling behind him, and the bill of the hotel not even paid! Nothing sustained me, Molly, but the notion of my one day meeting him, and settling these old scores. I even worked myself into a half-fever at the thought of the way I 'd overwhelm him.
Maybe it was well for me that I was obliged to rouse my energies to activity, and provide for the future, which I did by drawing two bills on Waters for a hundred and fifty each, and, with the help of them, we mean to remove from this on Sat.u.r.day, and proceed to Baden, where, according to Lord George, ”there 's no such things as evil speaking, lying, or slandering;” to use his own words, ”It's the most charitable society in Europe, and every one can indulge his vices without note or comment from his neighbors.” And, after all, one must acknowledge the great superiority in the good breeding of the Continent in this; for, as Lord G. remarks, ”If there's anything a man's own, it's his private wickedness, and there's no such indelicacy as in canva.s.sing or discussing it; and what becomes of a conscience,” says he, ”if everybody reviles and abuses you? Sure, doesn't it lead you to take your own part, even when you're in the wrong?”
He has a persuasive way with him, Molly, that often surprises myself how far it goes with me, and indeed, even in the midst of my afflictions and distresses, he made me laugh with his account of Baden, and the strange people that go there. We're to go to the Htel de Russie, the finest in the place, and say that we are expecting some friends to join us; for K.
I. and madam may arrive at any moment. As I write these lines, the girls and Betty are packing up the things, so that long before it reaches you we shall be at our destination.
The worst thing in my present situation is that I must n't mutter a syllable against K. I., or, if I do, I have them all on my back; and as to Betty, her sympathy is far worse than the silence of the others. And there 's the way your poor friend is in.
To be robbed--for I know Waters is robbing me--and cheated and deceived all at the same time, is too much for my unanimity! Don't let on to the neighbors about K. I.; for, as Lord G. says, ”these things should never be mentioned in the world till they 're talked of in the House of Lords;” and I suppose he's right, though I don't see why--but maybe it's one of the prerogatives of the peerage to have the first of an ugly story.
I have done now, Molly, and I wonder how my strength has carried me through it. I 'll write you as soon as I get to Baden, and hope to hear from you about the wool. I 'm always reading in the papers about the improvement of Ireland, and yet I get less and less out of it; but maybe that same is a sign of prosperity; for I remember my poor father was never so stingy as when he saved a little money; and indeed my own conviction is that much of what we used to call Irish hospitality was neither more nor less than downright desperation,--we had so little in the world, it wasn't worth h.o.a.rding.
You may write to me still as Mrs. Dodd, though maybe it will be the last time the name will be borne by your Injured and afflicted friend,
Jemima.
P. S. I 'm sure Paddy Byrne is in K. I.'s secret, for he goes about grinning and snickering in the most offensive manner, for which I am just going to give him warning. Not, indeed, that I'm serious about discharging him, for the journey is terribly expensive, but by way of alarming the little blaguard. If Father Maher would only threaten to curse them, as he used, we'd have peace and comfort once more.
LETTER XXII. KENNY DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF
Eisenach.
My dear Tom,--You will be surprised at the address at the top of this letter, but not a whit more so than I am myself; how, when, and why I came here, being matters which require some explanation, nor am I quite certain of making them very intelligible to you even by that process.
My only chance of success, however, lies in beginning at the very commencement, and so I shall start with my departure from Bonn, which took place eight days ago, on the morning of the 22nd.
My last letter informed you of our having formed a travelling alliance with a very attractive and charming person, Mrs. Gore Hampton. Lord George Tiverton, who introduced us to each other, represented her as being a fas.h.i.+onable of the first water, very highly connected, and very rich,--facts sufficiently apparent by her manners and appearance, as well as by the style in which she was travelling. He omitted, however, all mention of her immediate circ.u.mstances, so that we were profoundly ignorant as to whether she were a widow or had a husband living, and, if so, whether separated from him casually or by a permanent arrangement.
It may sound very strange that we should have formed such a close alliance while in ignorance of these circ.u.mstances, and doubtless in our own country the inquiry would have preceded the ratification of this compact, but the habits of the Continent, my dear Tom, teach very different lessons. All social transactions are carried on upon principles of unlimited credit, and you indorse every bill of pa.s.sing acquaintances.h.i.+p with a most reckless disregard to the day of presentation for payment Some would, perhaps, tell you that your scruples would only prove false terrors. My own notion, however, is less favorable, and my theory is this: you get so accustomed to ”raffish”
intimacies, you lose all taste or desire for discrimination; in fact, there's so much false money in circulation, it would be useless to ”ring a particular rap on the counter.”
Not that I have the very most distant notion of applying my theory to the case in hand. I adhere to all I said of Mrs. G. in my former epistle, and notwithstanding your quizzing about my ”raptures,” &c., I can only repeat everything I there said about her loveliness and fascination.
Perhaps one's heart becomes, like mutton, more tender by being old; but this I must say, I never remember to have met that kind of woman when I was young. Either I must have been a very inaccurate observer, or, what I suspect to be nearer the fact, they were not the peculiar productions of that age.
When the Continent was closed to us by war, there was a home stamp upon all our manufactures; our chairs and tables, our knives, and our candlesticks, were all made after native models, solid and substantial enough, but, I believe, neither very artistic nor graceful. We were used to them, however; and as we had never seen any other, we thought them the very perfection of their kind. The Peace of '15 opened our eyes, and we discovered, to our infinite chagrin and astonishment, that, in matters of elegance and taste, we were little better than barbarians; that shape and symmetry had their claims as well as utility, and that the happy combination of these qualities was a test of civilization.
I don't think we saw this all at once, nor, indeed, for a number of years, because, somehow, it's in the nature of a people to stand up for their shortcomings and deficiencies,--that very spirit being the bone and sinew of all patriotism; but I 'll tell you where we felt this discrepancy most remarkably,--in our women, Tom; the very point, of all others, that we ought never to have experienced it in.