Cour de Bade, Baden-Baden.
My dear Molly,--It will be five weeks on Tuesday next since we saw K.
I., and except a bit of a note, of which I 'll speak presently, never
any tidings of him has reached us! I suppose, within the memory of
man, wickedness equal to this has not been heard of. To go and disgrace
himself, and, what's more, disgrace _us_, at his time of life, with two
daughters grown up, and a son just going into the world, is a depth of
baseness to which the mind cannot ascend.
They 're away in Germany, my dear,--the happy pair! I wish I was near
him. I 'd only ask to be for five minutes within reach of him. Faith, I
don't think he 'd be so seductive and captivating for a little time to
come. They 're off, I hear, to what they call the "Hearts Forest,"--a
place, I take from the name, to be the favorite resort of loving
couples. From the first day, Molly, I suspected what was coming; for,
though James and Mary Anne persisted in saying that he was only gone
for a day or two, I went to his drawers and saw that he had taken every
stitch of his clothes that was good for anything away with him.
"If he 's only gone for two days," says I, "what does he want with
fourteen shirts and four embroidered fronts for dress, not to speak of
his new black suit and his undress Deputy-Lieutenant's coat?" I tossed
and tumbled over everything, and sure enough there was little left to
look at. So you see, Molly, it was all planned before, and the whole was
arranged with a cold-blooded duplicity that makes me boil to think over.
This wasn't all, either; but he must go and draw a bill on the landlord
for a hundred and twenty pounds; and, without the slightest attention to
all that we owed in the hotel, or even leaving us a sixpence, away goes
my gallant Lutherian, only thinking of love and pleasure!
The half of the McCarthy legacy is gone already to meet these demands
and enable us to come on here; and even with that I could n't have done
it if it had n't been for Lord George's kindness, for he knows so much
about bills, and bankers, and when the exchange is good, and what is
the favorable moment to draw upon London, that, as he says himself, one
learns at last to "make a pound go as far as five."
As to staying any longer at Bonn, it was out of the question. The whole
town was talking of K. I., and everybody used to stop us and ask, with a
mournful voice, if we had n't got any tidings of Mr. Dodd?
And now we're here, I must say it is a charming place; and for real
life and enjoyment, there 's probably not its equal in Europe. And then,
Molly, the great feature is certainly the universal kindness and charity
that prevails. You may do what you like, wear what you like, go where
you like. I was a little bit afraid at first that the story of K. I.
would get abroad and damage us in society; but Lord George said:
"You mistake Baden, my dear Mrs. Dodd. If there 's anything they 're
peculiarly lenient to, it's just _that_. There's no cant, no hypocrisy
here; nobody would endure such for an hour. Everybody knows that the
world is not peopled with angels, and England is the only country where
they affect that delusion. Here all are natural, sincere, and candid."
These were his words, and I assure you they are no more than the
truth; and so far from K. I. 's conduct being regarded in any spirit of
unfairness towards us, I really believe that we have met a great deal of
delicate and refined notice on account of it. As Lord G. remarks, "They
know that you don't belong to that strait-laced set of humbugs that want
to frown down all mankind. They see at once that you have the habits of
the world, and the instincts of good society, and that you come amongst
them neither to criticise nor censure, but to please and be pleased." I
quote his very expressions, Molly, because, with all his wildness, his
sentiments are invariably beautiful; and I must say that an ill-natured
word never comes out of his mouth. If there 's anything he excels in,
too, it's tact. This he showed very remarkably when we arrived here.
"We must do the thing handsomely," said he, "or we shall be sure to
hear that Mr. D.'s absence is owing to pecuniary difficulties." And so,
accordingly, he arranged to purchase a beautiful pair of gray ponies,
and a small park phaeton, belonging to a young Russian, that was just
ruined at the tables. We got the whole equipage for little more
than half what it cost, and a tiger--as they call the little boy in
buttons--goes with it.
We have taken the first apartment in the "Cour de Bade," and have put
Paddy Byrne in a suit of green and gold, that always reminds me of poor
Daniel O'Connell. Lord G. drives me out every day himself, and I hear
all the passers-by say, "It's Tiverton and Mrs. Dodd," in a manner
that shows we 're as well known as the first people in the place. He
is acquainted with every man, woman, and child in the town; and it is a
perpetual "How are ye, Tiverton?"--"How goes it, George?"--"At the old
trade, eh?"--as we drive along, that amuses me greatly. And it isn't
only that he knows them personally, but he is familiar with all their
private histories. It would fill a book--and a nice volume it would
be!--if I were to tell you one-half of the stories he told me yesterday,
going down to Lichtenthal. But the names is so confusing. How he
remembers them all, I can't conceive.
We go to the rooms in the evening, full dressed, and as fine as you
please; and if you saw how the company rises to meet us, and the
gracious manner we are received by all the first people, you 'd think we
were sisters with half the room. For rank, wealth, and beauty, I never
saw its equal; and the "tone," as Lord G. observes, is "so easy." Mary
Anne usually dances all night, but _I_ only stand up for a quadrille,
though Lord George torments me to polka with him. As for James, he never
quits the roulette-table, which is a kind of game where you always win
thirty-six times as much as you put down, though maybe occasionally you
lose your stake, for it 's all chance, Molly, and, like everything else
in this wicked world, in the hands of Fate!
I 'm afraid James does n't understand the game, or forgets to take up
his winnings; for when he joins us at supper, he looks depressed and
careworn, till he has taken two or three glasses of champagne. Caroline,
as you may suppose, stays moping at home. If there's anything distresses
me more than another, it's the way that girl goes on. Here we are,
in the very thick of the fashion, spending money,--as fast as
hops,--ruining ourselves, I may say, with expense; and instead of taking
the benefit of it while "it's going," she sits up in her room reading
her eyes out of her head, and studying things that no woman need
know. As I say to her, "What good is it to you? Will it ever get you a
husband, to know that Sir Humphrey Clinker invented the safety-lamp?
or do you suppose that any man will take a fancy to you for the sake
of your chemistry and eccentricity? Besides," says I, "you could do all
this at home, in Dodsborough, and who knows if we should n't be obliged
to go back and finish our days in Ireland!" And in my heart and soul I
believe it's what she 'd like!
The real affliction in life is to see your children not take after you!
That is the most dreadful calamity of all. You toil and you slave
to bring them up with high notions, to teach them to look down upon
whatever is low and mean, to avoid their poor relations, and whatever
disgraces them, and you find, the whole time, 'tis looking back they
are to their humble origin, and fancying that they were happier, for no
other reason than because they were lower!
It is, maybe, the McCarthy blood in me, but I feel as if the higher
I went the lighter I grew; and so it is, I 'm sure, with Mary Anne.
I know, from her face across the room, whether she's dancing with a
"prince," or only "a gentleman from the United States"! And even in the
matter of looks it makes the greatest difference in her. In the one
case her eyes sparkle, her head is thrown back, her cheek glows with
animation; while in the other she seems half asleep, dances out of time,
and probably answers out of place.
From all these facts, I gather, Molly, that there's nothing so elevating
to the mind as moving in a rank above your own; and I'm sure I don't
forgive myself when I keep company with my equals. I believe James has
less of the Dodd and more of the M'Carthy in him than the girls. He
takes to the aristocracy so naturally,--calls them by their names, and
makes free with them in a way that is really beautiful; and they call
him "Jim," or some of them say "Jeemes," just as familiar as himself.
I suppose it's no use repining, but I often feel, Molly, that if it was
the Lord's will that I was to be left a widow, I 'd see my children high
in the world before long.
This reminds me of K. I., and here's his letter for you. I copy it word
for word, without note or comma:--
"Dear Jemi,--We are waiting here for the Princess, who has not yet
arrived, but is expected to-day or to-morrow at furthest You will be
sorry to hear that I was ill and confined for more than a week to my bed
at Ems." Will I, indeed? "It was a kind of low fever." I read it a love
fever, Molly, when I saw it first "But I am now much better." You never
were worse in your life, you old hypocrite, thinks I. "And am able to
take a little exercise on horseback.
"The expense of this journey, unavoidable as it was! is very
considerable, so that I reckon upon your practising the strictest
economy during my absence." I thought I'd choke, Molly, when I seen
this. Just think of the daring impudence of the man telling me that
while he is lavishing hundreds on his vices and wickedness, the family
is to starve to enable him to bear the expense. "The strictest economy
during my absence." I wish I was near you when you wrote It!
Then comes in some balderdash about the scenery, and the place they
're at, just as coolly described as if it was talking of Bruff or the
neighborhood; the whole winding up with, "Mrs. G. H. desires me to
convey her tender regards"--what she can spare, I suppose, without
robbing him--"to you and the girls. No time for more, from yours
sincerely,
"Kenny James Dodd."
There's an epistle for you! You 'll not find the like of it in the
"Polite Letter-Writer," I 'll wager. The father of a family--and such a
family too!--discoursing as easily about the height of iniquity as if he
was alluding to the state of the weather, or the price of sheep at the
last fair. He flatters himself, maybe, that this free-and-easy way is
the best to bamboozle me, and that by seeming to make nothing of it, I
'll take the same view as himself. Is that all he knows of me yet? Did
he ever succeed in deceiving me during the last seventeen years? Did n't
I find him out in twenty things when he did n't know himself of his own
depravity? I tell you in confidence, Molly, that if coming abroad is an
elegant thing for our sex, it's downright ruin to men of K. I.'s time of
life! When they come to fifty, or thereabouts, in Ireland, they settle
down to something respectable, either on the Bench, or Guardians to the
Union. Their thoughts runs upon green crops and draining, and how to
raise a trifle, by way of loan, from the Board of Works. But not having
these things, abroad, to engage them, they take to smartening themselves
up with polished boots and blackened whiskers, and what between pinching
here, and padding there, they get the notion that they 're just what
they were thirty years ago! Oh dear! oh dear! sure they 've only to go
upstairs a little quick, to stoop to pick up a handkerchief, or button a
boot, to detect the mistake, and if that won't do, let them try a polka
with a young lady just out for her first season!
Of all the old fools, in this fashion, I never met a worse than K.
I.! and what adds to the disgrace, he knows it himself, and he goes on
saying, "Sure I 'm too old for this," or "I'm past that;" and I always
chime in with, "Of course you are; you 'd cut a nice figure;" and so on.
But what's the use of it, Molly? Their vanity and conceit sustains
them against all the snubs in the world, and till they come down to a
Bath-chair, they never believe that they can't dance a hornpipe! I could
say a great deal more on this subject, but I must turn to other things.
You must see Purcell and tell him the way we 're left, without a
fraction of money, nor knowing where to get it Tell him that I wrote to
Waters about a separation, which I would, only that K. I.'s affairs is
in such a state, I 'd have to put up with a mere trifle. Say that I 'm
going to expose him in the newspapers, and there's "no knowing where I
'll stop," for that's exactly the threat Tom Purcell will be frightened
at.
Get him to send me a remittance immediately, and describe our distress
and destitution as touchingly as you can.
Here 's more of it, Molly. James has just come in to say that the
Ministry is out in England, and that the new Government is giving
everything away to the Irish, and that old villain, K. I., not on the
spot to ask for a place! James tells me it's the Brigade is to have the
best things; but I don't remember if K. I. belongs to it, though I know
he's in the Yeomanry. From Lord-Lieutenant down to the letter-carriers,
they must be all Irish now, James says. We 're to have Ireland for
ourselves, and as much of England as we can, for we 'll never rest till
we get perfect equality, and I must say it 's time too!
K. I. is n't fit for much, but maybe he might get something. The
Treasury is where he 'd like to be, but I 'm not certain it would suit
him. At all events, he 's not to the fore, and I don't think they 'll
send to look for him, as they did for Sir Robert Peel! Till we know,
however, whether he has a chance of anything, it would be better to keep
his present conduct a profound secret, for James remarks "that they make
a great fuss about character nowadays;" and it comes well from them,
Molly, if the stories I hear be true!
Ask Purcell what's vacant in K. I.'s line? which, you may say, goes from
Lunatic Asylums to the Court of Chancery. I don't want James to have
an Irish appointment, but he says there's something in Gambia--wherever
that is--that he'd like.
As, of course, K. I. and myself can never live together again, it would
be very convenient if he was to get something that would require him to
stay in Ireland,--either a suspensory magistrate or a place in Newgate
would do. You 'll wonder at my troubling myself about a man that behaved
as he did; and, indeed, I wonder at myself for it; and what I say is,
maybe this might happen, maybe the other, and I 'd be sorry afterwards;
and if he was to be taken away suddenly, I 'd like to be sure to have my
mind easy, and in a happy frame.
Isn't it dreadful to think that it's about these things my letter is
filled, while all the enjoyment in life is going on about me? There's
the band underneath my window playing the Railroad Polka, and the crowd
round them is princesses and duchesses and countesses, all so elegantly
dressed, and looking so sweet and amiable. Every minute the door opens,
with an invitation for this or that, or maybe a nosegay of beautiful
flowers that a prince with a wonderful name has sent to Mary Anne. And
here 's a man with the most tempting jewelry from Vienna, and another
with lace and artificial flowers; and all for nothing, Molly, or next to
nothing,--if one had a trifle to spend on them. And so we might, too, if
K. I. had n't behaved this way.
There's to be a grand ball to-night at the Rooms, and Mary Anne is come
to me about her dress; for one thing here is indispensable,--you must
never appear twice in the same. For the life of me, I don't know what
they do with the old gowns, but Mary Anne and myself has a stock already
that would set up a moderate mantua-maker. As to shoes, and gloves too,
a second night out of them is impossible, though Mary Anne tries to wear
them at small tea-parties. Speaking of this, I must say that girl will
be a treasure to the man that gets her; for she has so many ways of
turning things to account: there 's not an old lace veil, nor a bit of
net, nor even a flower, that she can't find use for, somewhere or other.
As to Caroline, she looks like a poor governess; there's no taste nor
style whatever about her; and as to a bit of ribbon round her throat,
or a cheap brooch, she never wears one! I tell her every day, "You 're a
Dodd, my dear,--a regular Dodd. You have no more of the M'Carthy in you
than if you never saw me." And, indeed, she takes after the father in
everything. She has a dry, sneering way about whatever is genteel or
high-bred, and the same liking for anything low and common; but, after
all, I 'm lucky to have Mary Anne and James what they are! There 's no
position in life that they 're not equal to; and if I 'm not greatly
mistaken, it's in the very highest rank they 'll settle down at last
This opinion of mine, Molly, is the best and shortest answer I can
give to what you ask me in your last letter,--"What's the use of going
abroad?" But, indeed, your question--as Lord George remarked, when I
told him of it--is, "What's the use of civilization? What's the use of
clothes? What's the use of cooked victuals?" You'll say, perhaps, that
you have all these in Ireland; and I'll tell you, just as flatly, You
have not. You stare with surprise, but I repeat to you, You have not.
An old iron shop in Pill Lane, with bits of brass, broken glass, and old
crockery, is just as like Storr and Mortimer's as your Irish habits
and ways are like the real world. Why, Molly, there's no breeding nor
manners at all! You are all twice too familiar, or what you perhaps
would call cordial, with each other; and yet you dare n't, for the life
of you, say what every foreigner would say to a lady the first time he
ever met her. That's your notion of good manners!
As to your clothes, I get red as a turkey-cock with pure shame when I
think of a Dublin bonnet, with a whole botanical garden over it; but,
indeed, when one thinks of the dirty streets and the shocking climate,
they forgive you for keeping all the finery for the head.
The cookery I won't speak of. There's people can eat it, and much good
may it do them; and my heart bleeds when I think of their sufferings.
But maybe Ireland _is_ coming round, after all. What I hear is, that
when everybody is sold out, matters will begin to mend. I suppose it's
just as if the whole country was taking what's called the "Benefit of
the Act," and that they'll start fresh again in the world without owing
sixpence. If that's the meaning of the Cumbered Estates, it's the best
thing ever was done for Ireland, and I only wonder they did n't think
of it earlier; for my sure and certain opinion is that there's nothing
distresses a man like trying to pay off old debts; and it destroys the
spirits besides, for ye 're always saying, "It was n't _me_ that spent
_this_, I had n't any fun for _that_."
James has just come in with the list of the new Ministry, and among all
the Irish appointments I don't see as good a name as K. I.'s; and you
may fancy how respectable they are after that! But the truth is, Molly,
it's the same with politics as with the potatoes: one is satisfied to
put up with anything in a famine. K. I. used to say that when he was
young, his Irish name would have excluded him as much from any chance
of office as if he was a Red Indian; but times is changed now, and I
see two or three in the list that their colleagues will never pronounce
rightly,--and that, at least, is something gained.
And just to think of it, Molly! Who knows, if K. I. wasn't disgracing
himself this minute, that he would n't be high in the Administration? I
remember the time when it was only Lord James this, or Sir Michael that,
got anything; but now you may remark that it's maybe a fellow would rob
the mail is a Lord of the Treasury, and one that would take fright at
his own shadow is made Clerk of the Ordnance. That's a great "step in
the right direction," Molly, and it shows, besides, that we 're daily
living down obscene and antiquated prejudices.
You like a long letter, you say, and I hope you 'll be satisfied with
this, for I 'm four days over it; but, to be sure, half the time is
spent crying over the barbarous treatment I 've met from K. I. That you
may never know what it is to have a like grief, is the prayer of your
affectionate friend,
Jemima Dodd.
P. S. Mary Anne sends her love and regards, and Cary, too, desires to
be remembered to you. She is longing to have old Tib here, as if a black
cat would be anything remarkable on the Continent But that 's the way
with her. All the Dodsborough geese are swans in _her_ estimation.
LETTER XXIV. JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE,
DUBLIN.
Baden-Baden.
My dear Bob,--I copy the following paragraph from the "Galignani"
of yesterday: "Considerable excitement has been caused amongst the
fashionable visitors of Baden by the rumored elopement of the charming
Mrs. G * * * H * * *. * * with an Irish gentleman of large fortune, and
who, though considerably past the prime of life, is evidently not beyond
the age of fascination. Our readers will appreciate the reserve with
which we only allude to a report, the bare mention of which will
doubtless give the deepest distress amongst a wide circle of our very
highest aristocracy." Probably all your conic sections and spherical
trigonometry learning would never enable you to read the riddle aright,
and so I shall save you the profitless effort by saying that the
delinquent so delicately indicated in the above is no other than the
worthy governor himself. Ay, Bob, as the old song says,--
"No age, no profession, nor station is free,
To sovereign beauty mankind bends the knee;"
and how should it be expected that Dodd père could resist the soft
impeachment? To be as intelligible as the circumstances permit, I must
ask of you to call to mind a certain very beautiful fellow-traveller
of ours,--a Mrs. Gore Hampton. She is the Dido of this Æneid. Not
that there is in reality any--even the remotest--shade of truth in the
newspaper paragraph; the entire event being explicable upon far less
romantic and less interesting grounds. Mrs. G. H. having desired the
protection of my father's escort to some small town in Germany, and
not wishing to excite the inevitable hostility of my mother to the
arrangement, determined upon a night march, without beat of drum. In
this way was the fortress evacuated; and when the garrison were mustered
for duty, Dodd père was reported missing.
Tiverton, who was in the secret throughout, explained everything to
me, and I as readily imparted the explanation to the girls; but all our
endeavors to convince my mother were totally fruitless. "She knew him of
old,"--"she guessed many a day since what he was,"--"it was not now that
she had to read his character,"--these and similar intimations, coupled
with others even stronger and less flattering as regarded his time of
life, manners, and personal advantages, were more than enough to drown
all our arguments; and I must confess that she arranged the details of
circumstantial evidence against him with a degree of art and dexterity
that might have reflected credit on a Crown lawyer.
Of course, the first three or four days after the event were not of the
pleasantest; for, not satisfied with the sympathies of a home circle, my
mother empanelled "special juries" of the waiters and chambermaids, and
arraigned the unlucky governor on a series of charges extending to a
period far beyond the "statute of limitations."
Under these circumstances there was nothing for it but to leave this
place at once, and establish our quarters in some new locality. Baden
offered the most advisable sphere, whither we have come, if not to hide
our sorrows, at least to console our griefs. I am perfectly convinced
that if the governor came back to-morrow, and could only obtain a fair
hearing, he could satisfactorily explain why he went, where he was, and
everything else about his absence; but there lies the real difficulty,
Bob. He will be condemned _per contumaciam_, if not actually hooted out
of court with indignation. While this is undeniably true, you will be
astonished to hear how thoroughly public sympathy would be with him,
were he boldly to stand forth and tender his plea of "Guilty." I was
slow to credit this when Tiverton told me so at first, but I now see
it is perfect fact. Good society abroad exacts something in the way of
qualification,--like what certain charitable institutions require at
home,--you must have sinned before you can hope for admittance! It is
not enough that you express profligate opinions,--speak disparagingly
of whatever is right, and praise the wrong,--you are expected to give
a proof, a good, palpable, unmistakable proof of your professions, and
show yourself a man of your word. The oddest thing about all this is
that these evidences are not demanded on any moral or immoral grounds,
but simply as requirements of good breeding,--in other words, you have
no right to mix in society where your purity of character may give
offence; such pretension would be a downright impertinence.
Hence you will perceive that if the governor only knew of it, he might
take brevet rank as a scamp, and actually figure here as one of the
"profligates of the season." Meanwhile, his absence is not without its
inconveniences; and if he remain much longer away, I am sorely afraid,
we shall be reduced to a paper currency, not "convertible" at will.
I have myself been terribly unlucky at "the tables," have lost heavily,
and am deeply in debt. Tiverton, however, tells me never to despair, and
that when pushed to the wall a man can always retrieve himself by a rich
marriage. I confess the remedy is not exactly to my taste,--but what
remedy ever is? If it must be so, it must. There are just now some three
or four great prizes in the wheel matrimonial here, of which I will
speak more fully in my next; my object in the present being rather to
tell you where we are, than to communicate the _res gesto_ of
Your ever attached friend,
James Dodd.
P. S. Don't think of reading for the Fellowship, I beg and entreat of
you. If you will take to "monkery," do it among our own fellows, who
at least enjoy lives of ease and indolence. Besides, it is a downright
absurdity to suppose that any man ever rallies after four years of
hard study and application. As Tiverton says, "You train too fine, and
there's no work in you afterwards."