"Are you less his greatest enemy on earth, sir?" cried he, passionately.
"Now listen to me patiently, my Lord," said I. "I 'll be as brief as I
can, for both our sakes. I don't value it one rush whether I go out with
your friend or not. If you want a proof of what I say, step into the
little garden here and I 'll give it to you. I 'm neither boasting nor
bloodthirsty, when I say that I know how to stand at either end of a
pistol; but there's nothing to fight about between us."
"Oh, if you renew that line of argument," cried he, interrupting me, "It
is totally impossible I can listen."
"And why not?" said I. "Is it a greater satisfaction to your friend to
believe himself injured and dishonored than to know that he is neither
one nor the other?"
"Then why did you come away with her?"
"I can't tell," said I, for my head was quite confused with all the
discussion.
"And why call yourself by _my_ name at Ems?"
"I cannot tell."
"Nor what do you mean by the attitude in which I found you when I
entered the room?"
"I can't tell that, either," cried I, driven to desperation by sheer
embarrassment "It's no use asking me any more. I have been living for
the last five or six weeks like one under a spell of enchantment. I can
no more account for my actions than a patient in Swift's Hospital. I 'm
afraid to commit my scattered thoughts to paper, lest they might convict
me of insanity. I know and feel that I am a responsible being, but
somehow my notions of right and wrong are so confused, I have learned to
look on so many things differently from what I used, that I 'd cut a
sorry figure under cross-examination on any matter of morality. There's
the whole truth of it now. I 'd have kept it to myself if I could; I 'm
heartily ashamed at owning to it--but I can't help it--it would come
out. Therefore, don't bother me with, 'Why did you do this?' 'What made
you do that?' for I can give you no reasons for anything."
"By Jove! this is a very singular affair," said he, leaning over the
back of a chair, and staring me steadfastly in the face. "Your age--your
standing in society--your appearance generally, Mr. Dodd, would, I feel
bound to say, rather--" Here he hesitated and faltered, as if the right
word was not forthcoming; and so I continued for him,--
"Just so, my Lord; would rather refute than fix upon me such an
imputation. I 'm not very like the kind of man that figures usually in
these sort of cases."
"As to _that_," said he, cautiously, "there is no saying. I am now only
speaking my own private sentiments, the result of impressions made upon
myself as an individual. Courts of Law take their own views of these
things; and the House of Lords has also its own way of regarding them."
The words threw me into a cold perspiration from head to foot, Tom!
Courts of Law! and the House of Lords! was n't that a pretty prospect
for an encumbered Irish gentleman? A shot, or even two, at twelve or
fourteen paces, cannot be a very expensive thing, in a pecuniary point,
to any man, and there 's an awkwardness in declining it if others are
anxious to have it, so that you appear ungracious and disobliging. But
Westminster Hall and St. Stephen's, Tom, is mighty different. I won't
speak of the disgrace that attends such a proceeding at my time of life,
nor the hue-and-cry that the Press sets up at you, and follows you with
to your own hearth,--"the place from whence you came," and where now
your wife waits for you--to perform the last sentence of the law. I
won't allude to "Punch" and the "Illustrated News," that live upon
you for three weeks; but I 'll just take the thing in its simplest
form,--financially. Why, racing, railroads, contested elections, are
nothing to it. You go to work exactly as Cobden says France and England
do with their armaments: Chatham launches a seventy-four, and out comes
Cherbourg with a line-of-battle ship,--"Injured Husband," secures Sir
Fitzroy Kelly; "Heartless Seducer," sends his brief to Cock-burn. It's a
game of brag from that moment; and there's as much scheming and plotting
to get a hold of Frank Murphy as if he was the knave of spades! It
matters little or nothing what the upshot of the case may be; you may
sink the enemy, or be compelled to strike your own flag; it does n't
signify, in the least; the damages of the action are fatal to you.
Now, Tom, although I never speculated in all my life as to figuring in
an affair like this, these considerations were often strongly impressed
upon me by reading the newspapers, and I bad come to the conclusion that
a man should never think of defending an action of this kind, no more
than he would a petition against his election, and for the same reason.
Since, although not actually guilty in the one case or the other, you
are certain to have committed so many indiscretions,--written, maybe, so
many ridiculous letters,--and, in fact, exposed yourself so much, that
if you cannot keep out of sight altogether, the next best thing is, let
the judgment go by default. I say this to show you that the moment
my Lord threw out the hint about law I had made up my mind from that
instant.
"I sincerely wish," said he, after some deliberation, "that I could hit
upon any mode of arranging this affair; for although I own you have made
a strongly favorable impression upon me, 'Dodd,'"--he called me Dodd
here, quite like an old friend,--"we cannot expect that Hampton could
concur in this view. The fact is, the whole thing has got so much blazed
abroad,--they are so well known in the fashionable world, both home and
foreign,--she is so very handsome, so much admired, and he is such
a charming fellow,--the case has created a kind of European _éclat_.
Looking at the matter candidly, there may be a good deal in what you
have said, but as a man of the world, I am forced to say that Hampton
must shoot you, or sue for a divorce. I am well aware that whichever
course he adopts many will condemn him. In the clubs there will be
always parties. There may spring up even a kind of _juste milieu_,
who will say, 'Now that poor Dodd is dead, I wonder if he really _was_
guilty?'"
"I protest I feel very grateful to them, my Lord," said I. But he paid
no attention to my remark, and went on,--
"If vengeance be all that a man looks for, probably the law of the
land will do as much for him as the law of honor. You ruin a fellow,
irretrievably ruin him, by an action of this kind. You probably remember
Sir Gaybrook Foster, that ran off with Lady Mudford? Well, he had a
splendid estate, did n't owe a shilling, they said, before that; they
tell me now that some one saw him the other day at Geelong, croupier
to a small 'hell.' Then there was Lackington, whom we used to call the
'Cool of the Evening.'"
"I never knew one of them, my Lord," said I, impatiently, for I did n't
care to hear all the illustrations of his theory.
"Lackington was older than you are," continued he, "when he bolted with
that city man's wife,--what's his confounded name?"
"I am shamefully ill-read, my Lord, in this kind of literature," said
I, "nor has it the same interest for me that it seems to afford your
Lordship. May I take the liberty of recalling your attention to the
matter before us?"
"I am giving to it, sir," said he, gravely, "my best and most careful
consideration. I am endeavoring, by the aid of such information as is
before me, to weigh the difficulties that attach to either course,
and to decide for that one which shall secure to my friend Hampton the
largest share of the world's sympathy and approval. I have seen a
great deal of life, and all that I know of it teaches the one
lesson,--distrust, rather than yield to, first impressions. Awhile ago,
when I entered this room, I would have said to Hampton, 'Shoot him like
a dog, sir.' Now, I own to you, Dodd, this is not the counsel I should
give him. Now, understand me well, I neither acquit nor condemn you;
circumstances are far too strong against you for the one, and I have not
the heart to do the other."
"This talking is dry work, my Lord," said I. "Shall we have a glass of
wine?"
"Willingly," said he, seating himself, and throwing his gloves into his
hat, with the air of a man quite disposed to take his ease comfortably.
Our host produced a flask of his inimitable Steinberger, and another
of a native growth, to which he invited our attention, and left us to
ourselves once more. We filled, touched our glasses, German fashion,
drank, and resumed our converse.
"If any man could have told me, twenty-four hours ago, that I should be
sitting where I now find myself, and with _you_ for my companion, I'd
have told him to his face he was a calumniator and a scoundrel! This
time yesterday, Dodd, I 'd have put a bullet through you, myself."
"You don't say that, my Lord?"
"I do say, and repeat it, I believed you to be the greatest villain the
universe contained. I thought you a monster of the foulest depravity."
"Well, I 'm delighted to have undeceived you, my Lord."
"You _have_ undeceived me!--I own to it. I believe, if I know anything,
it is human nature. I have not been a deep student in other things, but
in the heart of man I have read deeply. I know your whole history
in this affair as well as if I was present at the events. You never
intended seduction here."
"Nothing of the kind, my Lord,--never dreamed of it!"
"I know it; I know it. She got an influence over you,--she fascinated
you,--she held you captive, Dodd. She mingled in your thoughts,--she
became part of all your most secret cogitations. With that warm,
impulsive nature of your country, you made no resistance,--you could
make none. You fell into the net at once,--don't deny it I like you the
better for it,--upon my life I do. Don't suppose that I 'm Archbishop of
Canterbury or Dean of Durham, man."
"I don't suspect, in the least," said I.
"I'm no humbug of that kind," said be, resolutely. "I'm a man of the
world, that just takes life as he finds it, and neither fancies that
human nature is one jot better or worse than it is. Hampton goes and
marries a girl of sixteen; she is very beautiful and very rich. What of
that? She leaves him--and what becomes of the wealth and beauty? She is
ruined,--utterly ruined! He has his action at law, and gets swingeing
damages, of course. What's the use of that? Will twenty thousand--will
forty--would a hundred thousand pounds serve to compensate him for a
lost position in life, and the affection of that charming creature? You
know it would not, sir. Don't affect hesitation nor doubt about it You
know it would not."
"That was n't what I was thinking of at all, my Lord. I was only
speculating on the mighty small chance your friend would have of the
money."
"Do you mean to say, sir, that the jury would n't give it?"
"Theory might, but Kenny Dodd wouldn't," said I.
"The Queen's Bench, sir, or the Court of Exchequer, would take care
of that. They 'd issue a 'Mandamus,'--the strongest weapon of our law;
they'd sell to the last stick of your property; they'd take your wife's
jewels,--the coat off your back--"
"As to the jewels of Mrs. D.," says I, "and my own wardrobe, I 'm afraid
they 'd not go far towards the liquidation."
"They'd attach every acre of your estate."
"Much good it would do them," said I. "We're in the Encumbered Court
already."
"Whatever your income may be derived from, they 're sure to discover
it."
"Faith!" said I, "I 'd be grateful to them for the information, for it's
two months now since I beard from Tom Purcell, and I don't know where
I'm to get a shilling!"
"But what are damages, after all!" said he; "nothing, absolutely
nothing!"
"Nothing indeed!" said I.
"And look at the misery through which a man most wade ere be attain to
them. A public trial, a rule to show cause, a motion,--three or four
thousand gone for that. The case heard at Westminster Hall,--forty-seven
witnesses brought over special from different parts of the Continent, at
from two guineas to ten per diem, and travelling expenses,--what money
could stand it; and see what it comes to: you ruin some poor devil
without benefiting yourself. That 's the folly of it! Believe me,
Dodd, the only people that get any enjoyment out of these cases are the
lawyers!"
"I can believe it well, my Lord."
"I know it,--I know it, sir," said he, fiercely. "I have already told
you that I 'm no humbug. I don't want to pretend to any nonsense about
virtue, and all that. I was once in my life--I was young, it is true--in
the same predicament you now stand in. It won't do to speak of the
parties, but I suspect our cases were very similar. The friend who
acted for the husband happened to be one who knew all my family and
connections. He came frankly to me, and said,--
"'Bruce, this affair will come to a trial,--the damages will be laid at
ten thousand,--the costs will be about three more. Can you meet that?'
"'No,' said I, 'I 'm a younger son,--I 've got my commission in the
Guards, and eight thousand in the "Three-and-a-Half's" to live on, so
that I can't.'
"'What _can_ you pay?' said he.
"'I can stand two thousand,' said I, boldly.
"'Say three,' said he,--'say three.'
"And I said, 'Three be it,' and the affair was settled--an exposure
escaped--a reputation rescued--and a clear saving of something like ten
thousand pounds; and this just because we chanced both of us to be 'men
of the world.' For look at the thing calmly; how should any of us have
been bettered by a three days' publicity at Nisi Prius,--one's little
tendernesses ridiculed by Thesiger, and their soft speeches slanged by
Serjeant Wilkins. Turn it over in your mind how you may, and the same
conclusion always meets you. The husband, it is true, gets less money;
but then he has no obloquy. The wife escapes exposure; and the 'other
party' is only mulct to one-fourth of his liability, and at the same
time is exempt from all the ruffianism of the long robe! A vulgarly
minded fellow might have said, 'What's the woman's reputation to _me?_
I'll defend the action,--I'll prove this, that, and t'other. I'll engage
the first counsel at the bar, and fight the battle out. I don't care a
jot about being blackguarded before a jury, lampooned in the papers, and
caricatured in the windows,' he might say; 'what signifies to _me_ what
character I hold before the world,--I have neither sons nor daughters
to suffer from my disgrace.' I know that all these and similar reasons
might prompt a man of a certain stamp to regret this course, and say,
'Be it so. Let there be a trial!' But neither _you_ nor _I_ Dodd, could
see the matter in this light. There is this peculiarity about a man
of the world, that not alone he sees rightly, but he sees quickly; he
judges passing events with a kind of instinctive appreciation of what
will be the tone of society generally, and he says to himself, 'There
are doubtless elements in this question that I would wish otherwise.
I would, perhaps, say _this_ is not exactly to my taste; I don't like
_that_;' but whoever yet found that he broke his leg exactly in the
right place? What man ever discovered that the toothache ever attacked
the very tooth he wanted! I take it, Dodd, that you are a man who has
seen a good deal of life; now did your heart ever bound with delight
on seeing the outside of a bill of costs? or on hearing the well-known
knock of a better known dun at your hall door? True philosophy consists
in diminishing, so far as may be, the inevitable ills of life. Don't you
agree with me?"
"With the general proposition I do, my Lord; the question here is, how
far the present case may be considered as coming within your theory.
Suppose now, just for argument's sake, I was to observe that there
was no similarity between our situations; that while _you_ openly avow
culpability, _I_ as distinctly deny it."
"You prefer to die innocent, Dodd?" said he, puffing his cigar coolly as
he spoke.
"I prefer, my Lord, to maintain the vantage ground that I feel under my
feet. Had you been patient enough to hear me out, I could have explained
to your perfect satisfaction how I came here, and why. I could have
shown you a reason for everything that may possibly seem strange or
mysterious--"
"As, for instance, the assumption of a name and title that did not
belong to you,--a fortnight's close seclusion to avoid discovery,--the
sudden departure for Ems, and headlong haste of your journey here,--and,
finally, the attitude of more than persuasive eloquence in which I
myself saw you. Of course, to a man of an ingenious and inventive turn,
all these things are capable of at least some approach to explanation.
Lawyers do the thing every day,--some, with tears in their eyes, with
very affecting appeals to Heaven, according to the sums marked on the
outside of the briefs. If your case had been one of murder, I could have
got you a very clever fellow who would have invoked divine vengeance on
his own head in open court if he were not in heart and soul assured of
your spotless innocence! But now please to bear in mind that we are not
in Westminster Hall. We are here talking frankly and honestly, man to
man,--sophistry and special pleading avail nothing; and here I candidly
tell you, that, turn the matter how you will, the advice I have given
is the only feasible and practicable mode of escaping from this
difficulty."
If you think me prolix, my dear Purcell, in narrating so
circumstantially every part of this curious interview, just remember
that I am naturally anxious to bring to bear upon _your_ mind the force
of argument to which _mine_ at last yielded. It is very possible I may
not be able to present these reasonings with all the strength and vigor
with which they appealed to myself. I may--like a man who plays chess
with himself--favor one side a little more than the other, or it is
possible that I may seem weaker in my self-defence than I ought to have
been. However you interpret my conduct on this trying occasion, give me
the benefit of never having for a moment forgotten the fame and fortune
of that lovely creature whose fate was in my hands, and whom I have
rescued at a heavy price.
I do not wish to impose upon you the wearisome task of reading all that
passed between my Lord and myself. The whole correspondence would fill
a blue book, and be about as amusing as such folios usually are. I 'll
spare you, therefore, the steps of the negotiation, and merely give you
the heads of the treaty:--
"Firstly, Mr. G. H., by reason and in virtue of certain compensations
to be hereafter stated, binds himself to consider Mrs. G. H. in all
respects as before her meeting K. I. D., regarding her with the same
feelings of esteem, love, and affection as before that event, and
treating her with the same 'distinguished consideration.'
"Secondly, K. I. D., on his part, agrees to give acceptances for two
thousand pounds sterling, with interest at the rate of five per cent
per annum on same till the time of payment. The dates to be at the
convenience of K. I. D., always provided that the entire payment be
completed within the term of five years from the present day.
"Thirdly, K. I. D. pledges his word of honor never to dispute or contest
his liability to the above debt, by any unworthy subterfuge, such as 'no
value,' 'intimidation used,' or any like artifice, legal or otherwise,
but accepts these conditions in all the frankness of a gentleman."
Here follow the signatures and seals of the high contracting parties,
with those of a host of witnesses on both sides. Brief as the articles
read, they occupied several days in the discussion of them, during which
Hampton retired to a village in the neighborhood, it not being deemed
"etiquette" for us to inhabit the same town until the terms of a treaty
had laid down our respective positions. These were my Lord's ideas,
and you can infer from them the punctilious character of the
whole negotiation. Lord Harvey dined and supped with me every day,
breakfasting at Schweinstock with his principal. I thought, indeed, when
all was finally settled, between us, that G. H. and I might have met and
dined together as friends; but my Lord negatived the notion strongly.
"Come, come, Dodd, you must n't be too hard upon poor Gore; it is not
generous." And although, Tom, I cannot see the force of the observation,
I felt bound to yield to it, rather than appear in any invidious or
unamiable light. I, consequently, never met him during his stay in the
neighborhood.
Lord Harvey left this, about ten days ago, for Dresden. We parted the
very best of friends, for with all his zeal for G. H., I must say that
he behaved handsomely to me throughout; and in the matter of the bills,
he at once yielded to my making the first for £500, at nine months,
though he assured me it would be a great convenience to his friend if I
could have said "six." I should have quitted this to join the family on
the same day; but when I came to pay the hotel bill, I found that the
dinners and champagne during the week of diplomacy had not left me five
dollars remaining, so that I have been detained by sheer necessity;
and partly by my own will, and partly by my host's sense of caution, my
daily life has been gradually despoiled of its little enjoyments, till
I find myself in the narrow circumstances of which this letter makes
mention at the opening.
From beginning to end, it would be difficult to imagine a more unlucky
incident; nor do I believe that any man ever got less for two thousand
pounds since the world began. You cannot say a severe thing to me that I
have not said to myself; you cannot appeal to my age and my habits with
a more sneering insolence than I am daily in the habit of doing; your
very bitterest vituperations would be mild in comparison to one of my
own soliloquies, so that, as a matter of _surplusage,_ spare me all
abuse, and rather devote your loose ingenuities to assisting me out of
my great embarrassments.
I know well, that if we don't discover a gold-mine at Dodsborough, or
fall upon a coal-shaft near Bruff, that I have no possible prospect to
pay these bills; but as the first of them is nine months off, there
is no such pressing emergency. The immediate necessity is, to send me
enough to leave this place, and join Mrs. D. and the family. Write
to me, therefore, at once, with a remittance, and mention where they
are,--if still at Bonn, where I left them.
You had also better write to Mrs. D.; in what strain, and to what
purport, I must leave to your own ingenuity. As for myself, I know no
more how to meet her, nor what mood to assume, than if I wore about to
enter the cage of one of Van Amburgh's lions. Now I fancy that maybe a
contrite, broken-hearted look would be best; and now I rather lean to
the bold, courageous, overbearing tone! Heaven direct me to what is
best, for I never felt myself so much in want of guidance!
When you write to me, be brief; don't worry me with details of home, and
inflict me with one of your national epistles about famine, and fever,
and faction fights. I have no pity for anybody but myself just now, and
I care no more for what's doing in Tipperary than if it was Canton. It
will be time enough when I join the others to speculate upon whither
we shall turn our steps, but my present thoughts tend to going back to
Dodsborough. I wish from my soul that we had never left it, nor
embarked in this infernal crusade after high society, education, and
grandeur,--the vain pursuit of which leaves me to write myself, as I now
do, your most miserable and melancholy friend,
Kenny Dodd.
P. S. I have a gold watch, made by Gaskin of Dublin about fifty years
back; but it's so big and unwieldy that nobody would buy it, except for
a town clock. The case of it alone would n't make a bad-sized covered
dish, and I 'm sure the works are as strong as a French steam-engine;
but what's the use of it all if I can't find a purchaser? I have already
parted with my tortoiseshell snuff-box, that my grandmother swore
belonged to Quintus Curtius; and the only family relic remaining to
me is a bamboo sword-cane, the being possessed of which, if it became
known, would subject me to three months' imprisonment in a fortress,
with hard labor! If I were in Austria, the penalty is death; and maybe
that same would be a mercy in my misfortunes.
The only walk where I don't meet my duns is down by a canal,--a lonely
path, with dwarf willows along it. I almost think I 'd have jumped in
yesterday, if it was n't for the bull-frogs,--the noise they made drove
me away from the place. Depend upon it, Tom, the Humane Society ought to
get the breed for the Serpentine. It's only a most "determined suicide"
could venture into their company! The chorus in "Robert le Diable" is a
love ditty compared to them!