Volume Ii Part 17 (1/2)

My father, you are well aware, is too good a Churchman to suffer a syllable to escape his lips which might be construed into discredit of the faith; but I can plainly see that he skulks his penances, and s.h.i.+fts off any observance that does not harmonize with his comfort. At the same time he strongly insists that the fastings and other privations enjoined are an admirable system to counteract the effect of that voluptuous life practised in almost every capital of Europe. As he shrewdly remarked, ”This place was like Groeffenberg,--you might not be restored by the water-cure, but you were sure to be benefited by early hours, healthful exercise, and a light diet.” This, you may perceive, is a very modified approval of the miracles.

I have dwelt so long on this theme that I have only left myself what Mary Anne calls the selvage of my paper, for anything else. Nor is it pleasant to me, Bob, to tell you that I am low-spirited and down-hearted. A month ago, life was opening before me with every prospect of happiness and enjoyment. A lovely creature, gifted and graceful, of the very highest rank and fortune, was to have been mine.

She was actually domesticated with us, and only waiting for the day which should unite our destinies forever, when one night--I can scarcely go on--I know not how either to convey to you what is _half_ shrouded in mystery, and should be perhaps _all_ concealed in shame; but somehow my father contrived to talk so of our family affairs--our debts, our difficulties, and what not--that Josephine overheard everything, and shocked possibly more at our duplicity than at our narrow fortune, she hurried away at midnight, leaving a few cold lines of farewell behind her, and has never been seen or heard of since.

I set out after her to Milan; thence to Bologna, where I thought I had traces of her. From that I went to Rimini, and on a false scent down to Ancona. I got into a slight row there with the police, and was obliged to retrace my steps, and arrived at Parma, after three weeks' incessant travelling, heart-broken and defeated.

That I shall ever rally,--that I shall ever take any real interest in life again, is totally out of the question. Such an opportunity of fortune as this rarely occurs to any one once in life; none are lucky enough to meet it a second time. The governor, too, instead of feeling, as he ought, that he has been the cause of my ruin, continues to pester me about the indolent way I spend my life, and inveighs against even the little dissipations that I endeavor to drown my sorrows by indulging in.

It 's all very well to talk about active employment, useful pursuits, and so forth; but a man ought to have his mind at ease, and his heart free from care, for all these, as I told the governor yesterday. When a fellow has got such a ”stunner” as I have had lately, London porter and a weed are his only solace. Even Tiverton's society is distasteful, he has such a confoundedly flippant way of treating one.

I 'm thinking seriously of emigrating, and wish you could give me any useful hints on the subject. Tiverton knows a fellow out there, who was in the same regiment with himself,--a baronet, I believe,--and he's doing a capital stroke of work with a light four-in-hand team that he drives, I think, between San Francisco and Geelong, but don't trust me too far in the geography; he takes the diggers at eight pounds a head, and extra for the ”swag.” Now that is precisely the thing to suit me; I can tool a coach as well as most fellows: and as long as one keeps on the box they don't feel it like coming down in the world!

I half suspect Tiverton would come out too. At least, he seems very sick of England, as everybody must be that has n't ten thousand a year and a good house in Belgravia.

I don't know whither we go from this, and, except in the hope of hearing from you, I could almost add, care as little. The governor has got so much better from the good air and the regimen, that he is now anxious to be off; while my mother, attributing his recovery to the saint's interference, wants another ”Novena.” Mary Anne likes the place too; and Cary, who sketches all day long, seems to enjoy it.

How the decision is to come is therefore not easy to foresee. Meanwhile, whether _here_ or _there_,

Believe me your attached friend,

James Dodd.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 210]

I open this to say that we are ”booked” for another fortnight here.

My mother went to consult the Virgin about going away last night, and she--that is, the saint--gave such a sneeze that my mother fainted, and was carried home insensible. The worst of all this is that Father Giacomo--our guide in spirituals--insists on my mother's publis.h.i.+ng a little tract on her experiences; and the women are now hard at work with pen and ink at a small volume to be called ”St. Agatha of Orsaro,”

by Jemima D------. They have offered half a florin apiece for good miracles, but they are pouring in so fast they 'll have to reduce the tariff. Tiverton recommends them to ask thirteen to the dozen.

The governor is furious at this authors.h.i.+p, which will cost some five-and-twenty pounds at the least!

LETTER XXII. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER

Htel Feder, Genoa.

My dear Molly,--It's little that piety and holy living a.s.sists us in this wicked world, as you 'll allow, when I tell you that after all my penances, my mortifications, and my self-abstainings, instead of enjoyment and pleasure, as I might reasonably look for in this place, I never knew real misery and shame till I came here. I would n't believe anybody that said people was always as bad as they are now! Sure, if they were, why would n't we be prepared for their baseness and iniquity?

Why would we be deceived and cheated at every hand's turn? It's all balderdash to pretend it, Molly. The world must be coming to an end, for this plain reason, that it's morally impossible it can be more corrupt, more false, and more vicious than it is.

I 'm trying these three days to open my heart to you. I 've taken ether, and salts, and neumonia--I think the man called it--by the spoonfuls, just to steady my nerves, and give me strength to tell you my afflictions; and now I 'll just begin, and if my tears does n't blot out the ink, I 'll reveal my sorrows, and open my breast before you.

We left that blessed village of Orsaro two days after I wrote to you by the Earl of Guzeberry, and came on here, by easy stages, as we were obliged to ride mules for more than half the way. Our journey was, of course, fatiguing, but unattended by any other inconvenience than K.

I.'s usual temper about the food, the beds, and the hotel charges as we came along. He would n't fast, nor do a single penance on the road; nor would he join in chanting a Litany with Father James, but threatened to sing ”Nora Chrina,” if we did n't stop. And though Lord George was greatly shocked, James was just as bad as his father. Father Giacomo kept whispering to me from time to time, ”We 'll come to grief for this.

We 'll have to pay for all this impiety, Mrs. D.;” till at last he got my nerves in such a state that I thought we 'd be swept away at every blast of wind from the mountains, or carried down by every torrent that crossed the road. I couldn't pa.s.s a bridge without screeching; and as to fording a stream, it was an attack of hysterics. These, of course, delayed us greatly, and it was a good day when we got over eight miles.

For all that, the girls seemed to like it. Cary had her sketch-book always open; and Mary Anne used to go fis.h.i.+ng with Lord G. and James, and contrived, as she said, to make the time pa.s.s pleasantly enough.

I saw very little of K. I., for I was always at some devotional exercise; and, indeed, I was right glad of it, for his chief amus.e.m.e.nt was getting Father James into an argument, and teasing and insulting him so that I only wondered why he did n't leave us at once and forever. He never ceased, too, gibing and jeering about the miracles of Orsaro; and one night, when he had got quite beyond all bounds, laughing at Father G., he told him, ”Faith,” says he, ”you 're the most credulous man ever I met in my life; for it seems to me that you can believe anything but the Christian religion.”

From that moment Father G. only shook his hands at him, and would n't discourse.