Volume Ii Part 3 (2/2)
But does not the very name ”Refuge-house” fill you with thoughts of appalling danger? Do you not instinctively shudder at the perils to which this is the haven of succor?
”I see we are not the first here,” cried Caroline; ”don't you see lights moving yonder?”
She was right, for as we drew up we perceived a group of guides and drivers in the doorway, and saw various conveyances and sledges within the shed at the side of the building.
A dialogue in the wildest shouts was now conducted between our party and the others, by which we came to learn that the travellers were some of those who had left Splugen the night before ourselves, and whose disasters had been even worse than our own. Indeed, as far as I could ascertain, they had gone through much more than we had.
Our first meeting with papa--in the kitchen, as I suppose I must call the lower room of this fearful place--was quite affecting, for he had taken so much of the guide's brandy as an antidote to the supposed poison, that he was really overcome, and, under the delusion that he was at home in his own house, ran about shaking hands with every one, and welcoming them to Dodsborough. Mamma was so convinced that he had lost his reason permanently, that she was taken with violent hysterics. The scene baffles all description, occurring, as it did, in presence of some twenty guides and spade-folk, who drank their ”schnaps,” ate their sausages, smoked, and dried their wet garments all the while, with a most well-bred inattention to our sufferings. Though Cary and I were obliged to do everything ourselves,--for Betty was insensible, owing to her having travelled in the vicinity of the same little cordial flask, and my maid was sulky in not being put under the care of a certain good-looking guide,--we really succeeded wonderfully, and contrived to have papa put to bed in a little chamber with a good mattress, and where a cheerful fire was soon lighted. Mamma also rallied, and Lord George made her a cup of tea in a kettle, and poured her out a cup of it into the shaving-dish of his dressing-box, and we all became as happy as possible.
It appeared that the other arrivals, who occupied a separate quarter, were not ill provided for the emergency, for a servant used to pa.s.s and repa.s.s to their chamber with a very savory odor from the dish he carried, and Lord G. swore that he heard the pop of a champagne cork. We made great efforts to ascertain who they were, but without success. All we could learn was that it was a gentleman and a lady, with their two servants, travelling in their own carriage, which was unmistakably English.
”I 'm determined to run them to earth,” exclaimed Lord G. at last. ”I 'll just mistake my way, and blunder into their apartment.”
We endeavored to dissuade him, but he was determined; and when he is so, Kitty, nothing can swerve him. Off he went, and after a pause of a few seconds we heard a heavy door slammed, then another. After that, both Cary and myself were fully persuaded that we heard a hearty burst of laughter; but though we listened long and painfully, we could detect no more. Unhappily, too, at this time mamma fell asleep, and her deep respirations effectually masked everything but the din of the avalanches. After a while Cary followed ma's example, leaving me alone to sit by the ”watch-fire's light,” and here, in the regions of eternal snow, to commune with her who holds my heart's dearest affections.
It is now nigh three o'clock. The night is of the very blackest, neither moon nor stars to be seen; fearful squalls of wind--gusts strong enough to shake this stronghold to its foundation--tear wildly past, and from the distance comes the booming sound of thundering avalanches. One might fancy, easily, that escape from this was impossible, and that to be cast away here implied a lingering but inevitable fate. No great strain of fancy is needed for such a consummation. We are miles from all human habitation, and three yards beyond the doorway the boldest would not dare to venture! And you, Kitty, at this hour are calmly sleeping to the hum of ”the spreading sycamore;” or, perchance, awake, and thinking of her who now pours out her heart before you; and oh, blame me not if it be a tangled web that I present to you, for such will human hopes and emotions ever make it My poor heart is, indeed, a battleground for warring hopes and fears, high-soaring ambitions, and depressing terrors.
Would that you were here to guide, console, and direct me!
Lord George has not returned. What can his absence mean? All is silent, too, in the dreary building. My anxieties are fearful,--I dread I know not what. I fancy a thousand ills that even possibility would have rejected. The courier is to pa.s.s this at five o'clock, so that I must, perchance, close my letter in the same agony of doubt and uncertainty.
Oh, dearest, only fancy the _mal propos_. Who do you think our neighbors are? Mr. and Mrs. Gore Hampton, on their way to Italy! Can you imagine anything so unfortunate and so distressing? You may remember all our former intimacy,--I may call it friends.h.i.+p,--and by what an unpropitious incident it was broken up. Lord George has just come to tell me the tidings, but, instead of partic.i.p.ating in my distress, he seems to think the affair an admirable joke. I need not tell you that he knows nothing of mamma's temper, nor her manner of acting. What may come of this there is no saying. It seems that there is scarcely a chance of our being able to get on to-day; and here we are all beneath one roof, our mutual pa.s.sions of jealousy, hatred, revenge, and malice, all snowed up on the top of the Splugen Alps!
I have asked of Lord George, almost with tears, what is to be done? but to all seeming he sees no difficulty in the matter, for his reply is always, ”Nothing whatever.” When pressed closely, he says, ”Oh, the Gore Hamptons are such thoroughly well-bred folk, there is never any awkwardness to be apprehended from _them_. Be quite easy in your mind; _they_ have tact enough for any emergency.” What this may mean, Kitty, I cannot even guess; for the ”situation,” as the French would call it, is peculiar. And as to tact, it is, after all, like skill in a game which, however available against a clever adversary, is of little value when opposed to those who neither recognize the rules, nor appreciate the nice points of the encounter.
But I cannot venture to inquire further; it would at once convict me of ignorance, so that I appear to be satisfied with an explanation that explains nothing. And now, Kitty, to conclude; for, though dying to tell you that this knotty question has been fairly solved, I must seal my letter and despatch it by Lord George, who is this moment about to set out for the Toll-house, three miles away. It appears that two of our guides have refused to go farther, and that we must have recourse to the authorities to compel them. This is the object of Lord George's mission; but the dear fellow braves every hards.h.i.+p and every peril for us, and says that he would willingly encounter far more hazardous dangers for one ”kind word, or one kind look,” from your distracted, but ever devoted
Mary Anne.
They begin to fear now that some accident must have befallen the courier with the mails; he should have pa.s.sed through here at midnight. It is now daybreak, and no sign of him! Our anxieties are terrible, and what fate may yet be ours there is no knowing.
LETTER VII. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, PRIEST'S HOUSE, BRUFF.
Colico, Italy.
My dear Molly,--After fatigues and distresses that would have worn out the strength of a rhinocera.s.s, here we are, at length, in Italy. If you only saw the places we came through, the mountains upon mountains of snow, the great ma.s.ses that tumbled down on every side of us, and we lost, as one might call it, in the very midst of eternal dissolution, you 'd naturally exclaim that you had got the last lines ever to be traced by your friend Jemima. Two days of this, no less, my dear, with fifteen degrees below ”Nero,” wherever he is, that's what I call suffering and misery. We were twice given up for lost, and but for Providence and a guide called--I am afraid to write it, but it answers to Barny with us--we 'd have soon gone to our long account; and, oh, Molly! what a reckoning will that be for K. I.! If ever there was a heart jet black with iniquity and baseness, it is his; and he knows it; and he knows I knows it; and more than that, the whole world shall know it I 'll publish him through what the poet calls the ”infamy of s.p.a.ce;”
and, so long as I 'm spared, I 'll be a sting in his flesh, and a thorn in his side.
I can't go over our journey--the very thought of it goes far with me--but if you can imagine three females along with the Arctic voyagers, you may form some vague idea of our perils. Bitter winds, piercing snow-drift, pelting showers of powdered ice, starvation, and danger,--dreadful danger,--them was the enjoyments that cost us something over eighteen pounds! Why?--you naturally say,--why? And well may you ask, Mrs. Gallagher. It is nothing remarkable in your saying that this is singular and almost unintelligible. The answer, however, is easy, and the thing itself no mystery. It's as old as Adam, my dear, and will last as long as his family. The natural baseness and depravity of the human heart! Oh, Molly, what a subject that is! I'm never weary thinking of it; and, strange to say, the more you reflect the more difficult does it become. Father Shea had an elegant remark that I often think over: ”Our bad qualities,” says he, ”are like noxious reptiles.
There 's no good trying to destroy them, for they 're too numerous; nor to reclaim them, for they 're too savage; the best thing is to get out of their way.” There's a deal of fine philosophy in the observation, Molly; and if, instead of irritating and vexing and worrying our infirmities, we just treated them the way we should a shark or a rattlesnake, depend upon it we 'd preserve our unanimity undisturbed, and be happier as well as better. Maybe you 'll ask why I don't try this plan with K. I.? But I did, Molly. I did so for fifteen years. I went on never minding his perfidious behavior; I winked at his frailties, and shut my eyes, as you know yourself, to Shusy Connor; but my leniency only made him bolder in wickedness, till at last we came to that elegant business, last summer, in Germany, that got into all the newspapers, and made us the talk of the whole world.
I thought the lesson he got at that time taught him something. I fondly dreamed that the shame and disgrace would be of service to him; at all events, that it would take the conceit out of him. Vain hopes, Molly dear,--vain and foolish hopes! He isn't a bit better; the bad dross is in him; and my silent tears does no more good than my gentle remonstrances.
It was only the other day we went to see a place called Pfeffers, a dirty, dismal hole as ever you looked at I thought we were going to see a beautiful something like Ems or Baden, with a band and a pump-room, and fine company, and the rest of it Nothing of the kind,--but a gloomy old building in a cleft between two mountains, that looked as if they were going to swallow it up. The people, too, were just fit for the place,--a miserable set of sickly creatures in flannel dresses, either sitting up to their necks in water, or drying themselves on the rocks.
To any one else the scene would be full of serious reflections about the uncertainty of human life, and the certainty of what was to come after it Them was n't K. I.'s sentiments, my dear, for he begins at once what naval men call ”exchanging signals” with one of the patients. ”This is the Bad-house, my dear,” says he. ”I think so, Mr. D.,” said I, with a look that made him tremble. He had just ordered dinner, but I did n't care for that; I told them to bring out the horses at once. ”Come, girls,” said I, ”this is no place for you; your father's proceedings are neither very edifying nor exemplary.”
”What's the matter now?” says he. ”Where are we going before dinner?”
”Out of this, Mr. Dodd,” said I. ”Out of this at any rate.”
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