Volume Ii Part 24 (2/2)
My dear Tom,--I had thought to have despatched this prosy epistle without being obliged to inflict you with any personal details of the Dodd family. I was even vaunting to myself that I had kept us all ”out of the indictment,” and now I discover that I have made a signal failure, and the codicil must revoke the whole body of the testament.
How shall I ever get my head clear enough to relate all I want to tell you? I go looking after a stray idea the way I 'd chase a fellow in a crowded fair or market, catching a glimpse of him now--losing him again--here, with my hand almost on him,--and the next minute no sign of him! Try and follow me, however; don't quit me for a moment; and, above all, Tom, whatever vagaries I may fall into, be still a.s.sured that I have a road to go, if I only have the wit to discover it!
First of all about Morris, or Sir Morris, as I ought to call him. I told you in my last how warmly he had taken up Mrs. D.'s cause, and how mainly instrumental was he in her liberation. This being accomplished, however, I could not but perceive that he inclined to resume the cold and distant tone he had of late a.s.sumed towards us, and rather retire from, than incur, any renewal of our intimacy. When I was younger in the world, Tom, I believe I'd have let him follow his humor undisturbed; but with more mature experience of life, I have come to see that one often sacrifices a real friends.h.i.+p in the indulgence of some petty regard to a ceremonial usage, and so I resolved at least to know the why, if I could, of Morris's conduct.
I went frankly to him at his hotel, and asked for an explanation.
He stared at me for a second or two without speaking, and then said something about the shortness of my memory,--a recent circ.u.mstance,--and such like, that I could make nothing of. Seeing my embarra.s.sment, he appeared slightly irritated, and proceeded to unlock a writing-desk on the table before him, saying hurriedly,--
”I shall be able to refresh your recollection, and when you read over--”
He stopped, clasped his hand to his forehead suddenly, and, as if overcome, threw himself down into a seat, deeply agitated. ”Forgive me,”
said he at length, ”if I ask you a question or two. You remember being ill at Genoa, don't you?”
”Perfectly.”
”You can also remember receiving a letter from me at that time?”
”No,--nothing of the kind!”
”No letter?--you received no letter of mine?”
”None!”
”Oh, then, this must really--” He paused, and, overcoming what I saw was a violent burst of indignation, he walked the room up and down for several minutes. ”Mr. Dodd,” said he to me, taking ray hand in both his own, ”I have to entreat your forgiveness for a most mistaken impression on my part influencing me in my relations, and suggesting a degree of coldness and distrust which, owing to your manliness of character alone, has not ended in our estrangement forever. I believed you had been in possession of a letter from me; I thought until this moment that it really had reached you. I now know that I was mistaken, and have only to express my sincere contrition for having acted under a rash credulity.”
He went over this again and again, always, as it seemed to me, as if about to say more, and then suddenly checking himself under what appeared to be a quickly remembered reason for reserve.
I was getting impatient at last. I thought that the explanation explained little, and was really about to say so; but he antic.i.p.ated me by saying, ”Believe me, my dear sir, any suffering, any unhappiness that my error has occasioned, has fallen entirely upon me. _You_ at least have nothing to complain of. The letter which ought to have reached you contained a proposal from me for the hand of your younger daughter; a proposal which I now make to you, happily, in a way that cannot be frustrated by an accident.” He went on to press his suit, Tom, eagerly and warmly; but still with that scrupulous regard to truthfulness I have ever remarked in him. He acknowledged the difference in age, the difference in character, the disparity between Cary's joyous, sunny nature and his own colder mood; but he hoped for happiness, on grounds so solid and so reasonable that showed me much of his own thoughtful habit of mind.
Of his fortune, he simply said that it was very far above all his requirements; that he himself had few, if any, expensive tastes, but was amply able to indulge such in a wife, if she were disposed to cultivate them. He added that he knew my daughter had always been accustomed to habits of luxury and expense, always lived in a style that included every possible gratification, and therefore, if not in possession of ample means, he never would have presumed on his present offer.
I felt for a moment the vulgar pleasure that such flattery confers. I own to you, Tom, I experienced a degree of satisfaction at thinking that even to the observant eyes of Morris himself,--old soldier as he was,--the Dodds had pa.s.sed for brilliant and fas.h.i.+onable folk, in the fullest enjoyment of every gift of fortune; but as quickly a more honest and more manly impulse overcame this thought, and in a few words I told him that he was totally mistaken; that I was a poor, half-ruined Irish gentleman, with an indolent tenantry and an enc.u.mbered estate; that our means afforded no possible pretension to the style in which we lived, nor the society we mixed in; that it would require years of patient economy and privation to repay the extravagance into which our foreign tour had launched us; and that, so convinced was I of the inevitable ruin a continuance of such a life must incur, I had firmly resolved to go back to Ireland at the end of the present month and never leave it again for the rest of my days.
I suppose I spoke warmly, for I felt deeply. The shame many of the avowals might have cost me in calmer mood was forgotten now, in my ardent determination to be honest and above-board. I was resolved, too, to make amends to my own heart for all the petty deceptions I had descended to in a former case, and, even at the cost of the loss of a son-in-law, to secure a little sense of self-esteem.
He would not let me finish, Tom, but, grasping my hand in his with a grip I did n't believe he was capable of, he said,--
”Dodd,”--he forgot the Mr. this time,--”Dodd, you are an honest, true-hearted fellow, and I always thought so. Consent now to my entreaty,--at least do not refuse it,--and I 'd not exchange my condition with that of any man in Europe!”
Egad, I could not have recognized him as he spoke, for his cheek colored up, and his eye flashed, and there was a dash of energy about him I had never detected in his nature. It was just the quality I feared he was deficient in. Ay, Tom, I can't deny it, old Celt that I am, I would n't give a bra.s.s farthing for a fellow whose temperament cannot be warmed up to some burst of momentary enthusiasm!
Of my hearty consent and my good wishes I speedily a.s.sured him, just adding, ”Cary must say the rest.” I told him frankly that I saw it was a great match for my daughter; that both in rank and fortune he was considerably above what she might have looked for; but with all that, if she herself would n't have taken him in his days of humbler destiny, my advice would be, ”don't have him now.”
He left me for a moment to say something to his mother,--I suppose some explanation about this same letter that went astray, and of which I can make nothing,--and then they came back together. The old lady seemed as well pleased as her son, and told me that his choice was her own in every respect. She spoke of Cary with the most hearty affection; but with all her praise of her, she does n't know half her real worth; but even what she did say brought the tears to my eyes,--and I 'm afraid I made a fool of myself!
You may be sure, Tom, that it was a happy day with me, although, for a variety of reasons, I was obliged to keep my secret for my own heart.
Morris proposed that he should be permitted to wait on us the next morning, to pay his respects to Mrs. D. upon her liberation, and thus his visit might be made the means of reopening our acquaintance. You'd think that to these arrangements, so simple and natural, one might look forward with an easy tranquillity. So did I, Tom,--and so was I mistaken. Mr. James, whose conduct latterly seems to have pendulated between monastic severity and the very wildest dissipation, takes it into his wise head that Morris has insulted him. He thinks--no, not thinks, but dreams--that this calm-tempered, quiet gentleman is pursuing an organized system of outrage towards him, and has for a time back made him the mark of his sarcastic pleasantry. Full of this sage conceit, he hurries on to his hotel, to offer him a personal insult. They fortunately do not meet; but James, ordering pen and paper, sits down and indites a letter. I have not seen it; but even his friend considers it to have been ”a step ill-advised and inconsiderate,--in fact, to be deeply regretted.”
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