CORK.
The undress rehearsal of a new piece, with its dirty-booted actors, its
cloaked and hooded actresses _en papillote_, bears about the same relation
to the gala, wax-lit, and bespangled ballet, as the raw young gentleman
of yesterday to the epauletted, belted, and sabretasched dragoon, whose
transformation is due to a few hours of head-quarters, and a few interviews
with the adjutant.
So, at least, I felt it; and it was with a very perfect concurrence in his
Majesty’s taste in a uniform, and a most entire approval of the regimental
tailor, that I strutted down George’s Street a few days after my arrival in
Cork. The transports had not as yet come round; there was a great doubt of
their doing so for a week or so longer; and I found myself as the
dashing cornet, the centre of a thousand polite attentions and most kind
civilities.
The officer under whose orders I was placed for the time was a great friend
of Sir George Dashwood’s, and paid me, in consequence, much attention.
Major Dalrymple had been on the staff from the commencement of his military
career, had served in the commissariat for some time, was much on foreign
stations; but never, by any of the many casualties of his life, had he seen
what could be called service. His ideas of the soldier’s profession were,
therefore, what might almost be as readily picked up by a commission in the
battle-axe guards, as one in his Majesty’s Fiftieth. He was now a species
of district paymaster, employed in a thousand ways, either inspecting
recruits, examining accounts, revising sick certificates, or receiving
contracts for mess beef. Whether the nature of his manifold occupations had
enlarged the sphere of his talents and ambition, or whether the abilities
had suggested the variety of his duties, I know not, but truly the major
was a man of all work. No sooner did a young ensign join his regiment at
Cork, than Major Dalrymple’s card was left at his quarters; the next day
came the major himself; the third brought an invitation to dinner; on the
fourth he was told to drop in, in the evening; and from thenceforward,
he was the _ami de la maison_, in company with numerous others as
newly-fledged and inexperienced as himself.
One singular feature of the society at the house was that although the
major was as well known as the flag on Spike Island, yet somehow, no
officer above the rank of an ensign was ever to be met with there. It
was not that he had not a large acquaintance; in fact, the “How are you,
Major?” “How goes it, Dalrymple?” that kept everlastingly going on as
he walked the streets, proved the reverse; but strange enough, his
predilections leaned towards the newly gazetted, far before the bronzed
and seared campaigners who had seen the world, and knew more about it. The
reasons for this line of conduct were twofold. In the first place, there
was not an article of outfit, from a stock to a sword-belt, that he could
not and did not supply to the young officer,--from the gorget of the
infantry to the shako of the grenadier, all came within his province;
not that he actually kept a _magasin_ of these articles, but he had so
completely interwoven his interests with those of numerous shopkeepers in
Cork that he rarely entered a shop over whose door Dalrymple & Co. might
not have figured on the sign-board. His stables were filled with a perfect
infirmary of superannuated chargers, fattened and conditioned up to a
miracle, and groomed to perfection. He could get you--_only you_--about
three dozen of sherry to take out with you as sea-store; he knew of such a
servant; he chanced upon such a camp-furniture yesterday in his walks; in
fact, why want for anything? His resources were inexhaustible; his kindness
unbounded.
Then money was no object,--hang it, you could pay when you liked; what
signified it? In other words, a bill at thirty-one days, cashed and
discounted by a friend of the major’s, would always do. While such were the
unlimited advantages his acquaintance conferred, the sphere of his benefits
took another range. The major had two daughters; Matilda and Fanny were as
well known in the army as Lord Fitzroy Somerset, or Picton, from the Isle
of Wight to Halifax, from Cape Coast to Chatham, from Belfast to the
Bermudas. Where was the subaltern who had not knelt at the shrine of one
or the other, if not of both, and vowed eternal love until a change of
quarters? In plain words, the major’s solicitude for the service was such,
that, not content with providing the young officer with all the necessary
outfit of his profession, he longed also to supply him with a comforter for
his woes, a charmer for his solitary hours, in the person of one of his
amiable daughters. Unluckily, however, the necessity for a wife is not
enforced by “general orders,” as is the cut of your coat, or the length of
your sabre; consequently, the major’s success in the home department of his
diplomacy was not destined for the same happy results that awaited it when
engaged about drill trousers and camp kettles, and the Misses Dalrymple
remained misses through every clime and every campaign. And yet, why was
it so? It is hard to say. What would men have? Matilda was a dark-haired,
dark-eyed, romantic-looking girl, with a tall figure and a slender waist,
with more poetry in her head than would have turned any ordinary brain;
always unhappy, in need of consolation, never meeting with the kindred
spirit that understood her, destined to walk the world alone, her fair
thoughts smothered in the recesses of her own heart. Devilish hard to stand
this, when you began in a kind of platonic friendship on both sides. More
than one poor fellow nearly succumbed, particularly when she came to quote
Cowley, and told him, with tears in her eyes,--
“There are hearts that live and love alone,” etc.
I’m assured that this _coup-de-grace_ rarely failed in being followed by
a downright avowal of open love, which, somehow, what between the route
coming, what with waiting for leave from home, etc., never got further than
a most tender scene, and exchange of love tokens; and, in fact, such became
so often the termination, that Power swears Matty had to make a firm
resolve about cutting off any more hair, fearing a premature baldness
during the recruiting season.
Now, Fanny had selected another arm of the service. Her hair was fair; her
eyes blue, laughing, languishing,--mischief-loving blue, with long lashes,
and a look in them that was wont to leave its impression rather longer than
you exactly knew of; then, her figure was _petite_, but perfect; her feet
Canova might have copied; and her hand was a study for Titian; her voice,
too, was soft and musical, but full of that _gaiété de coeur_ that never
fails to charm. While her sister’s style was _il penserono_, hers was
_l’allegro_; every imaginable thing, place, or person supplied food for her
mirth, and her sister’s lovers all came in for their share. She hunted
with Smith Barry’s hounds; she yachted with the Cove Club; she coursed,
practised at a mark with a pistol, and played chicken hazard with all
the cavalry,--for, let it be remarked as a physiological fact, Matilda’s
admirers were almost invariably taken from the infantry, while Fanny’s
adorers were as regularly dragoons. Whether the former be the romantic
arm of the service, and the latter be more adapted to dull realities, or
whether the phenomenon had any other explanation, I leave to the curious.
Now, this arrangement, proceeding upon that principle which has wrought
such wonders in Manchester and Sheffield,--the division of labor,--was a
most wise and equitable one, each having her one separate and distinct
field of action, interference was impossible; not but that when, as in the
present instance, cavalry was in the ascendant, Fanny would willingly spare
a dragoon or two to her sister, who likewise would repay the debt when
occasion offered.
The mamma--for it is time I should say something of the head of the
family--was an excessively fat, coarse-looking, dark-skinned personage, of
some fifty years, with a voice like a boatswain in a quinsy. Heaven can
tell, perhaps, why the worthy major allied his fortunes with hers, for she
was evidently of a very inferior rank in society, could never have been
aught than downright ugly, and I never heard that she brought him any
money. “Spoiled five,” the national amusement of her age and sex in Cork,
scandal, the changes in the army list, the failures in speculation of her
luckless husband, the forlorn fortunes of the girls, her daughters, kept
her in occupation, and her days were passed in one perpetual, unceasing
current of dissatisfaction and ill-temper with all around, that formed a
heavy counterpoise to the fascinations of the young ladies. The repeated
jiltings to which they had been subject had blunted any delicacy upon the
score of their marriage; and if the newly-introduced cornet or ensign was
not coming forward, as became him, at the end of the requisite number
of days, he was sure of receiving a very palpable admonition from Mrs.
Dalrymple. Hints, at first dimly shadowed, that Matilda was not in spirits
this morning; that Fanny, poor child, had a headache,--directed especially
at the culprit in question,--grew gradually into those little motherly
fondnesses in mamma, that, like the fascination of the rattlesnake, only
lure on to ruin. The doomed man was pressed to dinner when all others were
permitted to take their leave; he was treated like one of the family, God
help him! After dinner, the major would keep him an hour over his wine,
discussing the misery of an ill-assorted marriage; detailing his own
happiness in marrying a woman like the Tonga Islander I have mentioned;
hinting that girls should be brought up, not only to become companions to
their husbands, but with ideas fitting their station; if his auditor were
a military man, that none but an old officer (like him) could know how to
educate girls (like his); and that feeling he possessed two such treasures,
his whole aim in life was to guard and keep them,--a difficult task, when
proposals of the most flattering kind were coming constantly before him.
Then followed a fresh bottle, during which the major would consult his
young friend upon a very delicate affair,--no less than a proposition for
the hand of Miss Matilda, or Fanny, whichever he was supposed to be soft
upon. This was generally a _coup-de-maître_; should he still resist, he was
handed over to Mrs. Dalrymple, with a strong indictment against him, and
rarely did he escape a heavy sentence. Now, is it not strange that two
really pretty girls, with fully enough of amiable and pleasing qualities
to have excited the attention and won the affections of many a man, should
have gone on for years,--for, alas! they did so in every climate, under
every sun,--to waste their sweetness in this miserable career of intrigue
and man-trap, and yet nothing come of it? But so it was. The first question
a newly-landed regiment was asked, if coming from where they resided, was,
“Well, how are the girls?” “Oh, gloriously. Matty is there.” “Ah, indeed!
poor thing.” “Has Fan sported a new habit?” “Is it the old gray with the
hussar braiding? Confound it, that was seedy when I saw them in Corfu. And
Mother Dal as fat and vulgar as ever?” “Dawson of ours was the last,
and was called up for sentence when we were ordered away; of course,
he bolted,” etc. Such was the invariable style of question and answer
concerning them; and although some few, either from good feeling or
fastidiousness, relished but little the mode in which it had become
habitual to treat them, I grieve to say that, generally, they were
pronounced fair game for every species of flirtation and love-making
without any “intentions” for the future. I should not have trespassed so
far upon my readers’ patience, were I not, in recounting these traits of
my friends above, narrating matters of history. How many are there who may
cast their eyes upon these pages, that will say, “Poor Matilda! I knew her
at Gibraltar. Little Fanny was the life and soul of us all in Quebec.”
“Mr. O’Malley,” said the adjutant, as I presented myself in the afternoon
of my arrival in Cork to a short, punchy, little red-faced gentleman, in a
short jacket and ducks, “you are, I perceive, appointed to the 14th;
you will have the goodness to appear on parade to-morrow morning. The
riding-school hours are----. The morning drill is----; evening drill----.
Mr. Minchin, you are a 14th man, I believe? No, I beg pardon! a carbineer;
but no matter. Mr. O’Malley, Mr. Minchin; Captain Dounie, Mr. O’Malley.
You’ll dine with us to-day, and to-morrow you shall be entered at the
mess.”
“Yours are at Santarem, I believe?” said an old, weather-beaten looking
officer with one arm.
“I’m ashamed to say, I know nothing whatever of them; I received my gazette
unexpectedly enough.”
“Ever in Cork before, Mr. O’Malley?”
“Never,” said I.
“Glorious place,” lisped a white-eyelashed, knocker-kneed ensign; “splendid
_gals_, eh?”
“Ah, Brunton,” said Minchin, “you may boast a little; but we poor devils--”
“Know the Dals?” said the hero of the lisp, addressing me.
“I haven’t that honor,” I replied, scarcely able to guess whether what he
alluded to were objects of the picturesque or a private family.
“Introduce him, then, at once,” said the adjutant; “we’ll all go in the
evening. What will the old squaw think?”
“Not I,” said Minchin. “She wrote to the Duke of York about my helping
Matilda at supper, and not having any honorable intentions afterwards.”
“We dine at ‘The George’ to-day, Mr. O’Malley, sharp seven. Until then--”
So saying, the little man bustled back to his accounts, and I took my leave
with the rest, to stroll about the town till dinner-time.