Volume I Part 40 (2/2)
”I have carried the day, my dearest child,” said she. ”We are to accept the invitation, at all events, and we set out to-morrow.”
I have no time for more, Kitty, for all our preparations for departure have yet to be made. What fate awaits me I know not, nor can I even fancy what may be the future of your ever attached and devoted friend,
Mary Anne Dodd.
LETTER x.x.xVI. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH.
SCHLOSS, WOLFENFELS
My dear Molly,--It is only since we came to the elegant place, the hard name of which I have written at the top of this letter, that my feelings have subsided into the calm seriousness adapted to epistolary correspondence. From the day that K. I. returned, my life has been like the parallax of a fever! The man was never possessed of any refined or exalted sentiments; but the woman, this Mrs. G. H.--I could n't write the name in full if you were to give me twenty pounds for it--made him far worse with self-conceit and vanity. If you knew the way my time is pa.s.sed, ”taking it out of him,” Molly, showing him how ridiculous he is, and why everybody is laughing at him, you 'd pity me. As to grat.i.tude, my dear, he hasn't a notion of it; and he feels no more thankful to me for what I 've gone through than if I was indulging him in all his nefarious propensities. It is a weary task; and the only wonder is how I 'm able to go on with it.
”Have n't you done yet, Mrs. D.?” said he, the other morning. ”Don't you think that you might grant me a little peace now?”
”I wish to the saints I had,” said I; ”it's bringing me to the grave, it is; but I have a duty to perform, and as long as my tongue can wag, I 'll do it! When I 'm gone, K. I.,” said I,--”when I 'm gone, you 'll not have to say, 'It was her fault,--it was all her doing. Jemima never said this; she never told me that.'” I vow and declare to you here, Molly, that there is n't a thing a woman could say to a man, that I haven't said to him; and as I remarked yesterday, ”If I have n't taken the self-conceit out of you now, it is because it's grained in your nature,”--I believe, indeed, I said, ”in your filthy nature.”
When we left Baden, we came to a place called Rastadt, a great fortification that they 're making, as they tell me, to defend the Rhine; but, between ourselves, it's as far from the river as our house at Dodsborough is from Kelly's mills. There we stopped three weeks,--I believe in the confident hope of K. I. that I could n't survive the uproarious tumult. They were drilling or training horses, or firing guns, or flogging recruits under our windows, from sunrise to sunset; and although at first the novelty was, amusing, you grew, at last, so tormented and teased with the noise that your very brain ached from it.
”I wonder,” said I, one night, ”that you never thought of taking furnished apartments in Barrack Street! It ought to be to your taste.”
”It's not unlikely, ma'am, that I may end my days in that neighborhood,”
said he, tartly, ”for I believe it's very convenient to the sheriff's prison.”
”I was alluding to your military tastes,” said I. ”One might suppose you were meant for a great general.”
”I might have claim to the character, ma'am,” said he, ”if being always under fire signified anything,--always exposed to attack.”
”Oh, but,” said I, ”you forget she has retired her forces,”--I meant Mrs. G., Molly; ”she took pity on your poor unprotected situation!”
”Look now, Mrs. D.,” said he, with a blow of his fist on the table, ”if there 's another word--one syllable more on this matter, may I never sign my name K. I. again, if I don't walk you back, every one of you, to Dodsborough! It was an evil hour that saw us leave it, but it would be a joyous one that brings us back again.”
When, he grows so brutal as that, Molly, I never utter a word. 'T is n't to-day nor yesterday that I learned to be a martyr; so that all I did was to wait a minute or two, and then go off in strong hysterics! and, indeed, I don't know anything that provokes him more.
I give you this as a slight sample of the way we lived, with occasional diversions on the subject of expense, the extravagance of James, his idleness, and so forth; pleasant topics, and amusing for a family circle. Indeed, Molly, I'm ashamed to own that my natural spirit was beginning to break down under it. I felt that all the blood of the M'Carthys was weak to resist such inhuman cruelty; and whether it was the climate, or what, I don't know, but crying did n't give me the same relief it used. I suppose the fact is that one exhausts the natural resources of one's const.i.tution; but I think I 'm not so old but that a good hearty cry ought to be a comfort to me.
This is how affairs was, when, about a week ago, came a servant on horseback, with a letter for K. I. I was sitting up at my window, with the blinds down, when I saw the man get off and enter the inn, and the first thought that struck me was that it was Mrs. G. herself sent him.
”I 've caught you,” says I to myself; and throwing on my dressing-gown, I slipped downstairs. It was K. I. and James were together talking, so I just waited a second at the door to listen. ”If I had a voice in the family,”--it was K. I. said this,--”if I had a voice in the family,”
said he, ”I 'd refuse. These kind of things always turn out ill,--people calculate so much upon affection; but the truth is, marrying for love is like buying a pair of Russia-duck trousers to wear through the year.
They 'll do beautifully in summer, and even an odd day in the autumn; but in the cold and rainy reason they 'll be downright ridiculous.”
”Still,” said James, ”the offer sounds like a great one.”
”All glitter, maybe. I distrust them all, James. At any rate, say nothing about it to your mother till I think it over a bit.”
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