Volume I Part 35 (1/2)
To come back to the point whence I started, ”our Wednesday”--and this, by the way, enables me to answer some of the questions in your last You ask about my admirers; you shall have the catalogue as lately revised and corrected, though I scarcely flatter myself that the names will admit of vocal repet.i.tion. First, then, there is the Neapolitan Prince Sierra d'Aquila Nero, whom I already mentioned to you in one of my letters from Brussels. In my then innocence of the Continent I thought him charming, so impa.s.sioned, so poetical, and so perfumed. Now, Kitty, I find him an intolerable old bore; he is upwards of seventy, but so painted, patched, and plastered as to pa.s.s off panoramically for five-and-forty. He affects all the habits and even the vices of young men. He keeps saddle-horses that he dare not ride, and hires a ”cha.s.se,”
though he never fires a gun; and lastly, issues from his hairdresser's shop, at intervals, with a wig of shortened proportions, coolly alleging that he has just had his hair cut! When he drives out of an evening, the whole Alle reeks of ”Bergamot,” and the flutter of his handkerchief is a tornado in the Spice Islands. Need I say that _his_ chance is at zero?
Count Rastuchewitsky, a Russian Pole, comes next,--at least, in order of seniority; a short, stern-looking man, of about fifty, with a snow-white beard and moustache, with abrupt manners, and an unpleasant voice. I believe that he only pays me any attention because he sees the Prince do so, for he hates all Italians, and tries to thwart them in everything.
The Count's great claim to distinction rests upon his father, or mother, I forget which, having helped to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Emperor Paul,--a piece of chivalry that he dwells on unceasingly.
The Chevalier de Courcelles makes ”No. Three,” and thirty years ago he might have been very presentable; but he belongs to a school even older than his time. He is of the Richelieu order, and seems to be always in a terrible fright about the effect of his own powers of fascination: his constant effort being to show you that he really is not fond of making victims. There is a German Graf von Herren-shausen, a large, yellow-bearded, blear-eyed monster, with a frogged coat and a huge pipe-stick projecting from the hind pock et, who kisses my hand whenever we meet, and leers at me from the whist-table--for, happily, he is past dancing--like a Ghoul in an Eastern tale. There are a vast number of others, one or two of whom I reserve for favorable mention hereafter; but these are the true ”prtendants,” of which number, I believe, I might select the one which pleases me best.
Amongst ”home productions,” as you term them, I may mention the Honorable Sackville Cavendish,--a thin, pale, white-eyebrowed babe of diplomacy, that smallest of Foreign Office infants yclept an ”unpaid attach.” He has just emerged from the ”nursery” at Downing Street, and is really not strong enough to go alone. I have supported him in an occasional polka, and ”hustled him,” as James called it, through a waltz, and have in turn received the meed of his admiration as expressed in the most lackl.u.s.tre eyes that ever glittered out of a doll's head; and, lastly, there is Mister Milo Blake O'Dwyer, who formerly--O'Connell rgnante--represented the town of Tralee in Parliament, and who now, with altered fortunes, performs the duty of Foreign Correspondent to that great news-paper, ”The Sledge Hammer op Freedom.”
Perhaps I 'm not strictly correct in enrolling him amongst the number of my wors.h.i.+ppers; with more rigid justice, I believe he belongs to mamma; at least he's in constant attendance upon her, and continually a.s.sures me, with upturned eyes and a smack of the lip, that she is a ”gorgeous woman,” and ”wonderfully preserved!” This worthy individual is really a curiosity; since being in manner, exterior, knowledge, and fortune totally deficient of all those aids which achieve success in society, he has actually contrived, by the bare force of impudence, to move with, and be received by, persons in the very first ranks. Foreigners, I must tell you, Kitty, conceive the most ridiculous notions of England; one of the most popular of which is that more than one-half of our government is carried on by newspaper writing, the minister contributing his sentiments one day, some individual of the public replying the next.
Now, the ill.u.s.trious Milo takes every opportunity of propping up this fallacy, while he represents himself as the very bone and sinew of all English opinion on the Continent. To believe him, no foreign prince or potentate could raise a sixpence on loan till he subscribes the scheme.
How many an appropriation of territory have his warnings arrested? From what cruelties has he saved the Poles? What a crisis did his pen achieve in the fortunes of Hungary! And then the bushels of diamond snuff-boxes that he has thrown from him with disgust, the heaps of orders that he has rejected with proud scorn! As he says himself, ”Haven't I more power than them all? When I send off my article to the 'Sledge,' don't I see them trembling and shaking for what's coming? Ay, says I to myself, haughty enough you look to-day, but won't I expose your Majesty, won't I lay bare the cruelties of your prisons and the infamy of your spies! And your Eminence, too, how silky you are; but I know you well, and I 've a copy of the last rescript you sent over to Ireland! Don't be afraid, my little darling; never mind the puppies that hissed you at Parma, I 'll make your fortune in London. A word from me to Lumley, and it's as good as five thousand pounds in the bank!”
It really gives me a great notion of the glut of genius that we possess in England, when you see a man whose qualifications are great in war and peace; whose knowledge ranges over the world of politics, religion, literature, fine arts, and the drama; who knows mankind to perfection, and understands statecraft to a miracle, with no higher nor prouder position than that of writing for the ”Sledge.” It is but fair to own that he has been of great service to us here. The hardest thing to find in the world is some person of pus.h.i.+ng habits and impudent address, who will speak of you at all times and in all companies, doing for you, socially, what, in the world of trade, is accomplished by huge advertis.e.m.e.nts and red-lettered placards. Now, one really cannot stick up on the walls great announcements of ”unrivalled attraction,” the ”positively last night but one” of Mrs. Dodd's great _soires_ and so on, but you can come pretty nigh the same result by a little tact and management. A few insignificant commissions about camellias, a change of arrangement about the fiddles, intrusted to him, and Milo was prepared to go forth, trumpet in hand, for us, from day to dark. Woe to the luckless wight that hadn't got a card for our ”Evening”! the obligation Milo would place him under was a bond debt for life. Then he contrived to know everybody; and though he made sad hash of their names, they only smiled at his blunders.
I have heard that a great English minister one day confessed that the only exaction of office he never could thoroughly reconcile himself to, was the nature of those persons he was occasionally obliged to employ as subordinates. I suppose that, without being leader of a cabinet, everybody must have experienced something or other of this kind in life.
I think I hear you ask, ”Where is the Ritter von Wolfensbafer all this time? What has become of _him?_” you say. You really are very tiresome, dearest Kitty, with your little poisonous allusions to ”old loves,”
former attachments, and so on. As to the Ritter, however, I heard from him yesterday; he cannot, it seems, come to Baden; his father is not on terms with the Grand-Duke, and he strictly charges me not to mention their names to any one. His letter repeats the invitation to us all to spend some weeks at the ”Schloss,”--an arrangement which might, very possibly, suit our plans well, since, when the season ends here, it is still too early to go into winter quarters; and one is sorely puzzled what to do with the late autumn, which is as wearisome as the time one pa.s.ses in the drawing-room before dinner. Of course we must await pa's return, to reply to this invitation; and I incline to say we shall accept it. Why will you be so silly as to remind me of the follies of my childhood? Are there no naughtinesses of the nursery you can rake up to record? You know as well, if not better than myself, that the attentions you allude to could never have been seriously meant! nor could Dr. B.
believe them such, if not totally deficient in those qualities of good sense and judgment for which I always have given him credit. I will not say that, in the artless gayety of infancy, I have not amused myself with the mock devotion he proffered; but you might as well reproach me with fickleness for not taking a child's interest any longer in the nursery games that once delighted me, as for not sustaining my share in this absurd illusion!
I plainly perceive one thing, Kitty,--the gentleman in question has very little pride; but even _that_ in your eyes, may be an excellence, for you have discovered innumerable merits in his character under circ.u.mstances which, I am constrained to own, have failed to impress me with a suitable degree of interest. The subject is so very unpleasant, however, that I must beg it may never be reopened between us; and if you really feel for him so acutely as you say, I can only suggest that you should hit upon some plan of consolation perfectly independent of any aid from your attached friend,
Mary Anne.
LETTER x.x.xI. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN
My dearest Kitty,--Another delay, and more ”last words”! I had thought that my poor epistle was already miles on the way towards you, wafted by the sighs of my heaving heart, but I now discover that Mr. Cavendish will not send off his bag to the Foreign Office before Sat.u.r.day, as the Grand-Duke wants to send over some guinea-pigs to the royal children, so that I shall detain this till that day, and perhaps be able to tell you of a great ”picnic” we are planning to the Castle of Eberstein for Thursday next. It is one of the things everybody does here, and of course we must not omit it. James talks of the expense as terrific, which really comes with an ill grace from one who wagers fifty, or even sixty, Napoleons on a card! Besides, a ”picnic” is an a.s.sociation, and the whole cost cannot fall to the share of an individual. The Great Milo begs that we will leave everything to him, and I feel a.s.sured that it is the wisest course we can adopt, not to speak of the advantage of seeing the whole festivity glowingly described in the columns of the ”Sledge.”
The Princess Sloboffsky has just driven to the door, so I must conclude for the present. I come back to say that the picnic is fixed for Thursday, the number to be, by special request of the Princess, limited to forty,--the list to be made out this evening. ”Mammas” to go in open carriages,--young ladies horseback or a.s.s-back,--men indiscriminately; no more at present decided on. I am wild with delight at the pleasure before us. Would you were one of us, dearest Kitty!
Thursday Morning. Oh, Kitty, what a day! It might be December in London.
The rain is swooping down the mountain sides, and the wind howling fearfully. It is now seven o'clock, and my maid, Augustine, has called me to get up and dress. Mamma has had two notes already, which, being in French, she is waiting for me to read and reply to. I 'll hasten to see what they mean.
One of the ”billets” is from the d.u.c.h.esse de Sargance, merely asking the question, ”Que faire?” The other is from the Princess Sloboffsky, who, in consideration ”for all the trouble mamma has been put to,” deems it better to go at all events, and that we can dine at the Grand-Ducal Schloss, instead of on the gra.s.s. This reads ominously in one sense, Kitty, and seems to imply that _we_ are giving the entertainment ourselves; but I must keep this suspicion to myself, or we should have a terrible exposure. When an evil becomes inevitable, patient submission is the true philosophy.
Ten o'clock. What an animated, I might almost call it a stormy, debate we have just had in the drawing-room! The a.s.sembled lieges have been all discussing the proposed excursion,--if that can be called discussion, where everybody screamed out his own opinion, and n.o.body listened to his neighbor. The two parties for and against going divided themselves into the two s.e.xes,--the men being for staying where we are, the ladies as clamorously declaring for the road. Of course the ”Ayes” had it, and we are now putting the whole house in requisition for cloaks, mantles, and mackintoshes. The half-dozen men for whom no place can be made in coach or ”calche” are furious at having to ride. I half suspect that some attachments whose fidelity has. .h.i.therto defied time and years, will yield to-day before the influence of mere water. The truth is, Kitty, foreigners dread it in every shape. They mix a little of it now and then with their wine, and they rather like to see it in fountains and ”jets d'eau,” but there ends all the acquaintance they ever desire to maintain with the pure element.
I must confess that the aspect of the ”outsiders” is suggestive of anything rather than amus.e.m.e.nt. They stand to be m.u.f.fled and waterproofed like men who, having resigned themselves to an inevitable fate, have lost all interest in the preliminaries that conduct to it.
They are, as it were, bound for the scaffold, and they have no care for the shape of the ”hurdle” that is to draw them thither. The others, who have secured inside places, are overwhelmingly civil, and profuse in all the little attentions that cost nothing, nor exact any sacrifice. I have seen no small share of national character this morning, and if I had time could let you into some secrets about it.
The arrangement of the company--that is, who is to go with whom--is our next difficulty. There are such intricacies of family history, such subtle questions of propriety to be solved, we 'd not get away under a year were we to enter upon half of them. As a general rule, however, ladies ought not to be packed up in the same coach with the husbands from whom they have been for years separated, nor people with deadly feuds between them to be placed _vis--vis_. As to the attractive principles, the cohesionary elements, Kitty, are more puzzling still, since none but the parties themselves know where the minds are simulated and where real.
Milo has taken a great part of this arrangement upon his own hands, and, from what I can see, with his accustomed want of success in all matters of tact and delicacy. Of this, however, he is most beautifully unconscious, and goes about in the midst of muttered execrations with the implicit belief of being a benefactor of the human race. I wish you could see the self-satisfied chuckle of his greasy laugh, or could hear his mumbled ”Maybe I don't know what ye 'r after, my old lady. Have n't I put the little Count with the green spectacles next you; don't I understand the cross looks ye 'r giving me? Ah, Mademoiselle, never fear me, I have in my eye for you,--a wink is enough for Milo Blake any day.
Yes, my darling, I 'm looking for him this minute.” These and such-like mutterings will show you the spirit of his ministering; and when I repeat that he makes nothing but blunders, you may picture to yourself the man. He has appointed himself on mamma's staff; and as I go with the Princess and the Count Boldourouki, I shall see no more of him for a while.
It is quite clear, Kitty, that we are the entertainers, though how it came to be so, I cannot even guess. Some blunder, I suspect, of this detestable Milo; and James will do nothing whatever. He is still in bed, and, to all my entreaties to get up, merely says that he'll be with us at dinner. The hampers of proggery will fill two carriages, and a charette with the champagne in ice is already sent forward. Three cooks--for such, I am told, are three gentlemen in black coats and white neckcloths--are to accompany us; and the whole preparations are evidently got up in the ”very first style,” and ”totally regardless of expense.”
Twelve o'clock. Another dilemma. There is only one ”bus” in the town; and as none of the band will sit outside in this terrible weather, what is to be done? Milo proposes billeting them, singly, here and there, through the carriages; but the bare mention has excited a rebellion amongst the equestrians, who will not consent to be treated worse than the fiddlers! The Commissary of Police has just sent to know if we have obtained ”a ministerial permission to a.s.semble in vast numbers and for objects unnamed.” I have got one of the German n.o.bles to settle this difficulty, which, in Milo's hands,--if he only heard of it,--might become formidable.