Kitabı oku: «The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II», sayfa 11

LETTER XIV. JAMES DODD TO LORD GEORGE TIVERTON, M.P

Cour de Vienne, Mantua

My dear George, – I 've only five minutes to give you; for the horses are at the door, and we 're to start at once. I have a great budget for you when we meet; for we've been over the Tyrol and Styria, spent ten days at Venice, and "done" Verona and the rest of them, – John Murray in hand.

We 're now bound for Milan, where I want you to meet us on our arrival, with an invitation from my mother, asking Josephine to the villa. I 've told her that the note is already there awaiting her, and for mercy' sake let there be no disappointment.

This dispensation is a horrible tedious affair; but I hope we shall have it now within the present month. The interval she desires to spend in perfect retirement, so that the villa is exactly the place, and the attention will be well timed.

Of course they ought to receive her as well as possible. Mary Anne, I know, requires no hint; but try and persuade the governor to trim himself up a little, and if you could make away with that old flea-bitten robe be calls his dressing-gown, you 'd do the State some service. Look to the servants, too, and smarten them up; a cold perspiration breaks over me when I think of Betty Cobb!

I rely on you to think of and provide for everything, and am ever your attached friend,

James Dodd.

I changed my last five-hundred-pound note at Venice, so that I must bring the campaign to a close immediately.

LETTER XV. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH

Parma, the "Cour de Parme."

My dear Molly, – When I wrote to you last, we were living, quietly, it is true, and unostensively, but happily, on the Lake of Comus, and there we might have passed the whole autumn, had not K. L, with his usual thoughtfulness for the comfort of his family, got into a row with the police, and had us sent out of the country.

No less, my dear! Over the frontier in twenty-four hours was the word; and when Lord George wanted to see some of the great people about it, or even make a stir in the newspapers, he wouldn't let him. "No," said he, "the world is getting tired of Englishmen that are wronged by foreign governments. They say, naturally enough, that there must be some fault in ourselves, if we are always in trouble, this way; and, besides, I would not take fifty pounds, and have somebody get up in the House and move for all the correspondence in the case of Mr. Dodd, so infamously used by the authorities in Lombardy." Them 's his words, Molly; and when we told him that it was a fine way of getting known and talked about in the world, what was his answer do you think? "I don't want notoriety; and if I did, I 'd write a letter to the 'Times,' and say it was I that defended Hougoumont, in the battle of Waterloo. There seems to be a great dispute about it, and I don't see why I could n't put in my claim."

I suppose after that, Molly, there will be very little doubt that his head isn't quite right, for he was no more at Waterloo than you or me.

It was a great shock to us when we got the order to march; for on that same morning the post brought us a letter from James, or, at least, it came to Lord George, and with news that made me cry with sheer happiness for full two hours after. I was n't far wrong, Molly, when I told you that it 's little need he 'd have of learning or a profession. Launch him out well in life was my words to K. I. Give him ample means to mix in society and make friends, and see if he won't turn it to good account. I know the boy well; and that's what K. I. never did, – never could.

See if I 'm not right, Mary Gallagher. He went down to the baths of – I'm afraid of the name, but it sounds like "Humbug," as well as I can make out – and what does he do but make acquaintance with a beautiful young creature, a widow of nineteen, rolling in wealth, and one of the first families in France!

How he did it, I can't tell; no more than where he got all the money he spent there on horses and carriages and dinners, and elegant things that he ordered for her from Paris. He passed five weeks there, courting her, I suppose; and then away they went, rambling through Germany, and over the mountains, down to Venice. She in her own travelling-carriage, and James driving a team of four beautiful grays of his own; and then meeting when they stopped at a town, but all with as much discretion as if it was only politeness between them. At last he pops the question, Molly; and it turns out that she has no objection in life, only that she must get a dispensation from the Pope, because she was promised and betrothed to the King of Naples, or one of his brothers; and though she married another, she never got what they call a Bull of release.

This is the hardest thing in the world to obtain; and if it was n't that she has a Cardinal an uncle, she might never get it. At all events, it will take time, and meanwhile she ought to live in the strictest retirement. To enable her to do this properly, and also by way of showing her every attention, James wrote to have an invitation ready for her to come down to the villa and stay with us on a visit.

By bad luck, my dear, it was the very morning this letter came, K. I. had got us all ordered away! What was to be done, was now the question; we daren't trust him with the secret till she was in the house, for we knew well he 'd refuse to ask her, – say he could n't afford the expense, and that we were all sworn to ruin him. We left it to Lord George to manage; and he, at last, got K. I. to fix on Parma for a week or two, one of the quietest towns in Italy, and where you never see a coach in the streets, nor even a well-dressed creature oat on Sunday. K. I. was delighted with it all; saving money is the soul of him, and he never thinks of anything but when he can make a hard bargain. What he does with his income, Molly, the saints alone can tell; but I suspect that there's some sinners, too, know a trifle about it; and the day will come when I 'll have the proof! Lord G. sent for the landlord's tariff, and it was reasonable enough. Rooms were to be two zwanzigers – one-and-fourpence – apiece; breakfast, one; dinner, two zwanzigers; tea, half a one; no charge for wine of the place; and if we stayed any time, we were to have the key of a box at the opera.

K. I. was in ecstasy. "If I was to live here five or six years," says he, "and pay nobody, my affairs wouldn't be so much embarrassed as they are now!"

"If you 'd cut off your encumbrances, Mr. Dodd," says I, "that would save something."

"My what?" said he, flaring up, with a face like a turkey-cock.

But I was n't going to dispute with him, Molly; so I swept out of the room, and threw down a little china flowerpot just to stop him.

The same day we started, and arrived here at the hotel, the "Cour de Parme," by midnight; it was a tiresome journey, and K. I. made it worse, for he was fighting with somebody or other the whole time; and Lord George was not with us, for he had gone off to Milan to meet James; and Mr. D. was therefore free to get into as many scrapes as he pleased. I must say, he did n't neglect the opportunity, for he insulted the passport people and the customhouse officers, and the man at the bridge of boats, and the postmasters and postilions everywhere. "I did n't come here to be robbed," said he everywhere; and he got a few Italian words for "thief," "rogue," "villain," and so on; and if I saw one, I saw ten knives drawn on him that blessed day. He would n't let Cary translate for him, but sat on the box himself, and screamed out his directions like a madman. This went on till we came to a place called San Donino, and there – it was the last stage from Parma – they told him he could n't have any horses, though he saw ten of them standing all ready harnessed and saddled in the stable. I suppose they explained to him the reason, and that he did n't understand it, for they all got to words together, and it was soon who 'd scream loudest amongst them.

At last K. I. cried out, "Come down, Paddy, and see if we can't get four of these beasts to the carriage, and we 'll not ask for a postilion."

Down jumps Paddy out of the rumble, and rushes after him into the stable. A terrible uproar followed this, and soon after the stable people, helpers, ostlers, and postboys, were seen running out of the door for their lives, and K. I. and Paddy after them, with two rack-staves they had torn out of the manger. "Leave them to me," says K. I.; "leave them to me, Paddy, and do you go in for the horses; put them to, and get a pair of reins if you can; if not, jump up on one of the leaders, and drive away."

If he was bred and born in the place, he could not have known it better, for he came out the next minute with a pair of horses, that he fastened to the carriage in a trice, and then hurried back for two more, that he quickly brought out and put to also. "There 's no whip to be found," says he, "but this wattle will do for the leaders; and if your honor will stir up the wheelers, here 's a nice little handy stable fork to do it with." With this Paddy sprung into the saddle, K. I. jumped up to the box, and off they set, tearing down the street like mad. It was pitch dark, and of course neither of them knew the road; but K. I. screamed out, "Keep in the middle, Paddy, and don't pull up for any one." We went through the village at a full gallop, the people all yelling and shouting after us; but at the end of the street there were two roads, and Paddy cried out, "Which way now?" "Take the widest, if you can see it," screamed out K. I.; and away he went, at a pace that made the big travelling-carriage bump and swing like a boat at sea.

We soon felt we were going down a dreadful steep, for the carriage was all but on top of the horses, and K. I. kept screaming out, "Keep up the pace, Paddy. Make them go, or we'll all be smashed." Just as he said that I heard a noise, like the sea in a storm, – a terrible sound of rushing, dashing, roaring water; then a frightful yell from Paddy, followed by a plunge. "In a river, by – !" roared out K. I.; and as he said it, the coach gave a swing over to one side, then righted, then swung back again, and with a crash that I thought smashed it to atoms, fell over on one side into the water.

"All right," said K. I.; "I turned the leaders short round and saved us!" and with that he began tearing and dragging us out. I fell into a swoon after this, and know no more of what happened. When I came to myself, I was in a small hut, lying on a bed of chestnut leaves, and the place crowded with peasants and postilions.

"There 's no mischief done, mamma," said Cary. "Paddy swam the leaders across beautifully, for the traces snapped at once, and, except the fright, we 're nothing the worse."

"Where's Mary Anne?" said I.

"Talking to the gentleman who assisted us – outside – some friend of Lord George's, I believe, for he is with him."

Just as she said this, in comes Mary Anne with Lord George and his friend.

"Oh, mamma," says she, in a whisper, "you don't know who it is, – the Prince himself."

"Ah, been and done it, marm," said he, addressing me with his glass in his eye.

"What, sir?" said I.

"Taken a 'header,' they tell me, eh? Glad there's no harm done."

"His Serene Highness hopes you 'll not mind it, mamma," said Mary Anne.

"Oh, is that it?" said I.

"Yes, mamma. Isn't he delightful, – so easy, so familiar, and so truly kind also."

"He has just ordered up two of his own carriages to take us on."

By this time his Serene Highness had lighted his cigar, and, seating himself on a log of wood in the corner of the hut, began smoking. In the intervals of the puffs he said, —

"Old gent took a wrong turning – should have gone left – water very high, besides, from the late rains – regular smash – wish I 'd seen it."

K. I. now joined us, all dripping, and hung round with weeds and water-lilies, – as Lord George said, like an ancient river-god. "In any other part of the globe," said he, "there would have been a warning of some kind or other stuck up here to show there was n't a bridge; but exactly as I said yesterday, these little beggarly States, with their petty governments, are the curse of Europe."

"Hush, papa, for mercy' sake," whispered Mary Anne; "this is the Prince himself; it is his Serene Highness – "

"Oh, the devil!" said he.

"My friend, Mr. Dodd, Prince," said Lord George, presenting him with a sly look, as much as to say, "the same as I told you about."

"Dodd – Dodd – fellow of that name hanged, wasn't there?" said the Prince.

"Yes, your Highness; he was a Dr. Dodd, who committed forgery, and for whom the very greatest public sympathy was felt at the time," said K. I.

"Your father, eh?"

"No, your Highness, no relation whatever,"

"Won't have him at any price, George," said the Prince, with a wink. "Never draw a weed, miss?" said he, turning to Mary Anne.

I don't know what she said, but it must have been smart, for his Serene Highness laughed heartily and said, —

"Egad, I got it there, Tiverton!"

In due time a royal carriage arrived. The Prince himself handed us in, and we drove off with one of the Court servants on the box. To be sure, we forgot that we had left K. I. behind; but Mary Anne said he 'd have no difficulty in finding a conveyance, and the distance was only a few miles.

"I wish his Serene Highness had not taken away Lord George," said Mary Anne; "he insists upon his going with him to Venice."

"For my part," said Cary, "though greatly obliged to the Prince for his opportune kindness to ourselves, I am still more grateful to him for this service."

On that, my dear, we had a dispute that lasted till we got to our journey's end; for though the girls never knew what it was to disagree at home in Dodsborough, here, abroad, Cary's jealousy is such that she cannot control herself, and says at times the most cruel and unfeeling things to her sister.

At last we got to the end of this wearisome day, and found ourselves at the door of the inn. The Court servant said something to the landlord, and immediately the whole household turned out to receive us; and the order was given to prepare the "Ambassador's suite of apartments for us."

"This is the Prince's doing," whispered Mary Anne in my ear. "Did you ever know such a piece of good fortune?"

The rooms were splendid, Molly; though a little gloomy when we first got in, for all the hangings were of purple velvet, and the pictures on the walls were dark and black, so that, though we had two lamps in our saloon and above a dozen caudles, you could not see more than one-half the length of it.

I never saw Mary Anne in such spirits in my life. She walked up and down, admiring everything, praising everything; then she 'd sit down to the piano and play for a few minutes, and then spring up and waltz about the room like a mad thing. As for Cary, I didn't know what became of her till I found that she had been downstairs with the landlord, getting him to send a conveyance back for her father, quite forgetting, as Mary Anne said, that any fuss about the mistake would only serve to expose us. And there, Molly, once for all, is the difference between the two girls! The one has such a knowledge of life and the world, that she never makes a blunder; and the other, with the best intentions, is always doing something wrong!

We waited supper for K. I. till past one o'clock; but, with his usual selfishness and disregard of others, he never came till it was nigh three, and then made such a noise as to wake up the whole house. It appeared, too, that he missed the coach that was sent to meet him, and he and Paddy Byrne came the whole way on foot! Let him do what he will, he has a knack of bringing disgrace on his family! The fatigue and wet feet, and his temper more than either, brought back the gout on him, and he did n't get up till late in the afternoon. We were in the greatest anxiety to tell him about James; but there was no saying what humor he'd be in, and how he'd take it. Indeed, his first appearance did not augur well. He was cross with everything and everybody. He said that sleeping on that grand bed with the satin hangings was like lying in state after death, and that our elegant drawing-room was about as comfortable as a cathedral.

He got into a little better temper when the landlord came up with the bill of fare, and to consult him about the dinner.

"Egad!" said he, "I've ordered fourteen dishes; so I don't think they'll make much out of the two zwanzigers a head!" Out of decency he had to order champagne, and a couple of bottles of Italian wine of a very high quality. "It's like all my economy," says he; "five shillings for a horse, and a pound to get him shod!"

We saw it was best to wait till dinner was over before we spoke to him; and, indeed, we were right, for he dined very heartily, finished the two bottles every glass, and got so happy and comfortable that Mary Anne sat down to the piano to sing for him.

"Thank you, my darling," said he, when she was done. "I 've no doubt that the song is a fine one, and that you sung it well, but I can't follow the words, nor appreciate the air. I like something that touches me either with an old recollection, or by some suggestion for the future; and if you 'd try and remember the 'Meeting of the Waters,' or 'Where's the Slave so lowly' – "

"I 'm afraid, sir, I cannot gratify you," said she; and it was all she could do to get out of the room before he heard her sobbing.

"What's the matter, Jemi," said he, "did I say anything wrong? Is Molly angry with me?"

"Will you tell me," said I, "when you ever said anything right? Or do you do anything from morning till night but hurt the feelings and dance upon the tenderest emotions of your whole family? I've submitted to it so long," said I, "that I have no heart left in me to complain; but now that you drive me to it, I 'll tell you my mind;" and so I did, Molly, till he jumped up at last, put on his hat, and rushed downstairs into the street. After which I went to my room, and cried till bedtime! As poor Mary Anne said to me, "There was a refined cruelty in that request of papa's I can never forget;" nor is it to be expected she should!

The next morning at breakfast he was in a better humor, for the table was covered with delicacies of every kind, fruit and liqueurs besides. "Not dear at eightpence, Jemi," he 'd say, at every time he filled his plate. "Just think the way one is robbed by servants, when you see what can be had for a 'zwanziger;'" and he made Cary take down a list of the things, just to send to the "Times," and show how the English hotels were cheating the public.

We saw that this was a fine opportunity to tell him about James, and so Mary Anne undertook the task. "And so he never went to London at all," he kept repeating all the while. No matter what she said about the Countess, and her fortune, and her great connections; nothing came out of his lips but the same words.

"Don't you perceive," said I, at last, for I could n't bear it any longer, "that he did better, – that the boy took a shorter and surer road in life than a shabby place under the Crown!"

"May be so," said he, with a deep sigh, – "may be so! but I ought to be excused if I don't see at a glance how any man makes his fortune by marriage!"

I knew that he meant that for a provocation, Molly, but I bit my lips and said nothing.

We then explained to him that we had sent off a note to the Countess, asking her to pass a few weeks with us, and were in hourly expectation of her arrival.

He gave another heavy sigh, and drank off a glass of Curaçoa.

Mary Anne went on about our good luck in finding such a capital hotel, so cheap and in such a sweet retired spot, – just the very thing the Countess would like.

"Never went to London at all!" muttered K. I., for he could n't get his thoughts out of the old track. And, indeed, though we were all talking to him for more than an hour afterwards, it was easy to see that he was just standing still on the same spot as before. I don't ever remember passing a day of such anxiety as that, for every distant noise of wheels, every crack of a postilion's whip, brought us to the window to see if they were coming. We delayed dinner till seven o'clock, and put K. I.'s watch back, to persuade him it was only five; we loitered and lingered over it as long as we could, but no sight nor sound was there of their coming.

"Tell Paddy to fetch my slippers, Molly," said K. I., as we got into the drawing-room.

"Oh, papa! impossible," said she; "the Countess may arrive at any moment."

"Think of his never going to London at all," said he, with a groan.

I almost cried with spite, to see a man so lost to every sentiment of proper pride, and even dead to the prospects of his own children!

"Don't you think I might have a cigar?" said he.

"Is it here, papa?" said Mary Anne. "The smell of tobacco would certainly disgust the Countess."

"He thinks it would be more flattering to receive her into all the intimacy of the family," said I, "and see us without any disguise."

"Egad, then," said he, bitterly, "she's come too late for that; she should have made our acquaintance before we began vagabondizing over Europe, and pretending to fifty things we 've no right to!"

"Here she is, – here they are!" screamed Mary Anne at this moment; and, with a loud noise like thunder, the heavy carriage rolled under the arched gateway, while crack – crack – crack went the whips, and the big bell of the ball began ringing away furiously.

"I'm off, at all events," said K. I.; and snatching one of the candles off the table, he rushed out of the room as hard as he could go.

I had n't more than time to put my cap straight on my head, when I heard them on the stairs; and then, with a loud bang of the folding-doors, the landlord himself ushered them into the room. She was leaning on James's arm, but the minute she saw me, she rushed forward and kissed my hand! I never was so ashamed in my life, Molly. It was making me out such a great personage at once, that I thought I 'd have fainted at the very notion. As to Mary Anne, they were in each other's arms in a second, and kissed a dozen times. Cary, however, with a coldness that I'll never forgive her for, just shook hands with her, and then turned to embrace James a second time.

While Mary Anne was taking off her shawl and her bonnet, I saw that she was looking anxiously about the room.

"What is it?" said I to Mary Anne, – "what does she want?" "She's asking where's the Prince; she means papa," whispered Mary Anne to me; and then, in a flash, I saw the way James represented us. "Tell her, my dear," said I, "that the Prince was n't very well, and has gone to bed." But she was too much engaged with us all to ask more about him, and we all sat down to tea, the happiest party ever you looked at. I had time now to look at her; and really, Molly, I must allow, she was the handsomest creature I ever beheld. She was a kind of a Spanish beauty, brown, and with jet-black eyes and hair, but a little vermilion on her cheeks, and eyelashes that threw a shadow over the upper part of her face. As to her teeth, when she smiled, – I thought Mary Anne's good, but they were nothing in comparison. When she caught me looking at her, she seemed to guess what was passing in my mind, for she stooped down and kissed my hand twice or thrice with rapture.

It was a great loss to me, as you may suppose, that I could n't speak to her, nor understand what she said to me; but I saw that Mary Anne was charmed with her, and even Cary – cold and distant as she was at first – seemed very much taken with her afterwards.

When tea was over, James sat down beside me, and told me everything. "If the governor will only behave handsomely for a week or two," said he, – "I ask no more, – that lovely creature and four thousand a year are all my own." He went on to show me that we ought to live in a certain style – not looking too narrowly into the cost of it – while she was with us. "She can't stay after the fourteenth," said he, "for her uncle the Cardinal is to be at Pisa that day, and she must be there to meet him; so that, after all, it's only three weeks I 'm asking for, and a couple of hundred pounds will do it all. As for me," said he, "I'm regularly aground, – haven't a ten-pound note remaining, and had to sell my 'drag' and my four grays at Milan, to get money to come on here."

He then informed me that her saddle-horses would arrive in a day or two, and that we should immediately provide others, to enable him and the girls to ride out with her. "She is used to every imaginable luxury," said he, "and has no conception that want of means could be the impediment to having anything one wished for."

I promised him to do my best with his father, Molly: but you may guess what a task that was; for, say what I could, the only remark I could get out of him was, "It's very strange that he never went to London."

After all, Molly, I might have spared myself all my fatigue and all my labor, if I had only had the common-sense to remember what he was, – what he is, – ay, and what he will be – to the end of the chapter. He was n't well in the room with her the next morning, when I saw the old fool looking as soft and as sheepish at her as if he was making love himself. I own to you, Molly, I think she encouraged it. She had that French way with her, that seems to say, "Look as long as you like, and I don't mind it;" and so he did, – and even after breakfast I caught him peeping under the "Times" at her foot, which, I must say, was beautifully shaped and small; not but that the shoe had a great deal to say to it.

"I hope you 're pleased, Mr. Dodd?" said I, as I passed behind his chair.

"Yes," said he; "the funds is rising."

"I mean with the prospect," said I.

"Yes," said he; "we 'll be all looking up presently."

"Better than looking down," said I, "you old fool!"

I could n't help it, Molly, if it was to have spoiled everything, – the words would come out.

He got very red in the face, Molly, but said nothing, and so I left him to his own reflections. And it is what I'm now going to do with yourself, seeing that I 've come to the end of all my news, and carefully jotted down everything that has occurred here for your benefit. Four days have now passed over, and they don't seem like as many hours, though the place itself has not got many amusements.

The young people ride out every morning on horseback, and rarely come back until time to dress for dinner. Then we all meet; and I must say a more elegant display I never witnessed! The table covered with plate, and beautiful colored glass globes filled with flowers. The girls in full dress, – for the Countess comes down as if she was going to a Court, and wears diamond combs in her head, and a brooch of the same, as large as a cheese-plate. I too do my best to make a suitable appearance, – in crimson velvet and a spangled turban, with a deep fall of gold fringe, – and, except the "Prince," – as we call K. I., – we are all fit to receive the Emperor of Russia. In the evening we have music and a game of cards, except on the opera nights, which we never miss; and then, with a nice warm supper at twelve o'clock, Molly, we close as pleasant a day as you could wish. Of course I can't tell you much more about the Countess, for I 'm unable to talk to her, but she and Mary Anne are never asunder; and, though Cary still plays cold and retired, she can't help calling her a lovely creature.

It seems there is some new difficulty about the dispensation; and the Cardinal requires her to do "some meritorious works," I think they call them, before he 'll ask for it. But if ever there was a saintly young creature, it is herself; and I hear she's up at five o'clock every morning just to attend first mass.

Here they are now, coming up the stairs, and I have n't more than time to seal this, and write myself

Your attached friend,

Jemima Dodd.

Mary Anne begs you will tell Kitty Doolan that she has not been able to write to her, with all the occupation she has lately had, but will take the very first moment to send her at least a few lines. As James's good luck will soon be no secret, you may tell it to Kitty, and I think it won't be thrown away on her, as I suspect she was making eyes at him herself, though she might be his mother!