Resolving that our duel should have no witnesses, I turned the girls out of the room, and for the same reason do I preserve a rigid secrecy as to all the details of our engagement; enough when I say that the sun went down upon our wrath, and it was near nightfall when we drew off our forces. Though I fought vigorously, and with the courage of despair, I couldn"t get over the fact that it was my unhappy explosion in French that did all the mischief. I tried hard to make it appear that her sudden departure was rather a boon than otherwise; that our expenses were terrific, and, moreover, that, as I was determined against any fict.i.tious settlement, her flight had only antic.i.p.ated a certain catastrophe; but all these devices availed me little against my real culpability, which no casuistry could get over.
"Well, ma"am," said I, at last, "one thing is quite clear,--the Continent does not suit us. All our experience of foreign life and manners neither guides us in difficulty nor warns us when in danger. Let us go back to where we are, at least, as wise as our neighbors,--where we are familiar with the customs, and where, whatever our shortcomings, we meet with the indulgent judgment that comes of old acquaintance."
"Where "s that?" said she. "I "m curious to know where is this elegant garden of paradise?"
"Bruff, ma"am,--our own neighborhood."
"Where we were always in hot water with every one. Were you ever out of a squabble on the Bench or at the poorhouse? Were n"t you always disputing about land with the tenants, and about water with the miller?
Had n"t you a row at every a.s.sizes, and a skirmish at every road session? Bruff, indeed; it"s a new thing to hear it called the Happy Valley!"
"Faith, I know I "m not Ra.s.selas," said I.
"You"re restless enough," said she, mistaking the word; "but it"s your own temper that does it. No, Mr. D., if you want to go back to Ireland, I won"t be selfish enough to oppose it; but as for myself, I "ll never set a foot in it."
"You are determined on that?" said I.
"I am," said she.
"In that case, ma"am," said I, "I "m only losing valuable time waiting for you to change your mind; so I "ll start at once."
"A pleasant journey to you, Mr. D.," said she, flouncing out of the room, and leaving me the field of battle, but scarcely the victory. Now, Tom, I "ve too much to do and to think about to discuss the point that I know you "re eager for,--which of us was more in the wrong. Such debates are only casuistry from beginning to end. Besides, at all events, _my_ mind is made up. I "ll go back at once. The little there ever was of anything good about me is fast oozing away in this life of empty parade and vanity. Mary Anne and James are both the worse of it; who knows how long Cary will resist its evil influence? I"ll go down to Genoa, and take the Peninsular steamer straight for Southampton. I "m a bad sailor, but it will save me a few pounds, and some patience besides, in escaping the lying and cheating scoundrels I should meet in a land journey.
To any of the neighbors, you may say that I "m coming home for a few weeks to look after the tenants; and to any whom you think would believe it, just hint that the Government has sent for me.
I conclude that I "ll be very short of cash when I reach Genoa, so send me anything you can lay hands on, and believe me,
Ever yours faithfully,
Kenny James Dodd.
P. S. I told you this was a cheap place. The bill has just come up, and it beats the "Clarendon"! It appears that his Serene Highness told them to treat us like princes, and we must pay in the same style. I"m going to settle" part of our debt by parting with our travelling-carriage, which, besides a.s.sisting the exchequer, will be a great shock to Mrs.
D., and a foretaste of what she has to come down to when I "m gone.
It is seldom that a man can combine the double excellence of a great financier and a great moralist!
LETTER XVIII. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OP BALLYDOOLAN
"Cour de Parme," Parma.
Dearest Kitty,--So varied have been my emotions of late, and with such whirlwind rapidity have they succeeded each other in my distracted brain, that I am really at a loss to know where I left off in my last epistle to you, and at what particular crisis in our adventures I closed my narrative. Forgive me, dearest, if I impose on you the tiresome task of listening twice to the same tale, or the almost equally unpleasant duty of trying to follow me through gaps of unexplained events.
Have I told you of the Countess"s departure,--that most mysterious flight, which has thrown poor James into, I fear, a hopeless melancholy, and made shipwreck of his heart forever? I feel as if I had revealed it to my dearest Kitty; my soul whispers to me that she bears her share in my sorrows, and mingles her tears with mine. Yes, dearest, she is gone!
Some indiscreet revelations papa made to mamma in his room would appear to have disclosed more of our private affairs than ought to have obtained publicity, were overheard by her, and she immediately gave orders to her servants to pack up, leaving a very vague note behind her, plainly intimating, however, that papa might, if he pleased, satisfactorily account for the step she had taken. This, and a few almost flippant acknowledgments of our attentions, concluded an epistle that fell in the midst of us like a rocket.
If I feel deeply wounded at the slight thus shown us, and the still heavier injury inflicted on poor dear James, yet am I constrained to confess that Josephine was quite justified in what she did. Born in the very highest cla.s.s, all her habits, her ways, her very instincts aristocratic, the bare thought of an alliance with a family struggling with dubious circ.u.mstances must have been too shocking! I did not ever believe that she returned James"s affection; she liked him, perhaps, well enough,--that is, well enough to marry! She deemed him her equal in rank and fortune, and in that respect regarded the match as a fair one.
To learn that we were neither t.i.tled nor rich, neither great by station nor rolling in wealth, was of course to feel that she had been deceived and imposed upon, and might reasonably warrant even the half-sarcastic spirit of her farewell note.
To tell what misery this has cost us all is quite beyond me; scorned affection,--blasted hopes,--ambitions scattered to the winds,--a glorious future annihilated! Conceive all of these that you can, and then couple them with meaner and more vulgar regrets, as to what enormous extravagance the pursuit has involved us in, the expense of a style of living that even a prince could scarcely have maintained, and all at a little secluded capital where n.o.body comes, n.o.body lives; so that we do not reap even the secondary advantage of that notoriety for which we have to pay so dearly. Mamma and I, who think precisely alike on these subjects, are overwhelmed with misery as we reflect over what the money thus squandered would have done at Rome, Florence, or Vienna!
James is distracted, and papa sits poring all day long over papers and accounts, by way of arranging his affairs before his death. Cary alone maintains her equanimity, for which she may thank the heartlessness of a nature insensible to all feeling.
Imagine a family circle of such ingredients! Think of us as you saw us last, even in all the darkness of Dodsborough, and you will find it difficult to believe we are the same! Yet, dearest, it might all have been different,--how different! But papa--there is no use trying to conceal it--has a talent for ruining the prospects of his family, that no individual advantages, no combination of events, however felicitous, can avail against! An absurd and most preposterous notion of being what he calls "honest and aboveboard" leads him to excesses of every kind, and condemns us to daily sorrows and humiliations. It is in vain that we tell him n.o.body parades his debts no more than his infirmities; that people wear their best faces for the world, and that credit is the same principle in morals as in mercantile affairs. His reply is, "No. I "m tired of all that. I never perform a great part without longing for the time when I shall be Kenny Dodd again!"
This one confession will explain to you the hopelessness of all our efforts to rise in life, and our last resource is in the prospect of his going back to Ireland. Mamma has already proposed to accept a thousand a year for herself and me; while Cary should return with papa to Dodsborough. It is possible that this arrangement might have been concluded ere this, but that papa has got a relapse of his gout, and been laid up for the last eight days. He refuses to see any doctor, saying that they all drive the malady in by depletion, and has taken to drinking port wine all day long, by way of confining the attack to his foot. What is to be the success of this treatment has yet to be seen, but up to this time its only palpable effect has been to make him like a chained tiger. He roars and shouts fearfully, and has smashed all the more portable articles of furniture in the room,--throwing them at the waiters. He insists, besides, on having his bill made up every night, so that instead of one grand engagement once a week, we have now a smart skirmish every evening, which usually lasts till bedtime.
For economy, too, we have gone up to the second story, and come down to a very meagre dinner. No carriage,--no saddle-horses,--no theatre. The courier dismissed, and a strict order at the bar against all "extras."
James lies all day abed; Cary plays nurse to papa; mamma and I sit moping beside a little miserable stove till evening, when we receive our one solitary visitor,--a certain Father M"Grail, an Irish priest, who has been resident here for thirty years, and is known as the Padre Giacomo! He is a spare, thin, pock-marked little man, with a pair of downcast, I was going to say dishonest-looking, eyes, who talks with an accent as rich as though he only left Kilrush yesterday. We have only known him ten days, but he has already got an immense influence over mamma, and induced her to read innumerable little books, and to practise a variety of small penances besides. I suspect he is rather afraid of _me_,--at least we maintain towards each other a kind of armed neutrality; but mamma will not suffer me to breathe a word against him.
It is not unlikely that he owes much of the esteem mamma feels for him to his own deprecatory estimate of papa, whom he p.r.o.nounces to be, in many respects, almost as infamous as a Protestant. Cary he only alludes to by throwing up hands and eyes, and seeming to infer that she is irrecoverably lost.
I own to you, Kitty, I don"t like him,--I scarcely trust him,--but it is, after all, such a resource to have any one to talk to, anything to break the dull monotony of this dreary life, that I hail his coming with pleasure, and am actually working a rochet, or an alb, or a something else for him to wear on Saint Nicolo of Treviso"s "festa,"--an occasion on which the little man desires to appear with extraordinary splendor.
Mamma, too, is making a canopy to hold over his honored head; and I sincerely hope that our _oeuvres mritoires_ will redound to our future advantage! I am half afraid that I have shocked you with an apparent irreverence in speaking of these things, but I must confess to you, dearest Kitty, that I am occasionally provoked beyond all bounds by the degree of influence this small saint exercises in our family, and by no means devoid of apprehension lest his dominion should become absolute.
Even already he has persuaded mamma that papa"s illness will resist all medical skill to the end of time, and will only yield to the intervention of a certain Saint Agatha of Orsaro, a newly discovered miracle-worker, of whose fame you will doubtless hear much erelong.
To my infinite astonishment, papa is quite converted to this opinion, and Cary tells me is most impatient to set out for Orsaro, a little village at the foot of the mountain of that name, and about thirty miles from this. As the only approach is by a bridle-path, we are to travel on mules or a.s.ses; and I look forward to the excursion, if not exactly with pleasure, with some interest. Father Giacomo--I can"t call him anything else--has already written to secure rooms for us at the little inn; and we are meanwhile basely employed in the manufacture of certain pilgrim costumes, which are indispensable to all frequenting the holy shrine.
The dress is far from unbecoming, I a.s.sure you; a loose robe of white stuff--ours are Cashmere--with wide sleeves, and a large hood lined with sky-blue; a cord of the same color round the waist; no shoes or stockings, but light sandals, which show the foot to perfection. An amber rosary is the only ornament permitted; but the whole is charming.
Saint Agatha of Orsaro will unquestionably make a great noise in the world; and it will therefore be interesting to you to know something of her history,--or, what Fra Giacomo more properly calls, her manifestation--which was in this wise: The priest of Orsaro--a very devout and excellent man--had occasion to go into the church late at night on the eve of Saint Agatha"s festival. He was anxious, I believe, to see that all the decorations to do honor to the day were in proper order, and, taking a lamp from the sacristy, he walked down the aisle till he came to the shrine, where the saint"s image stood. He knelt for a moment to address her in prayer, when, with a sudden sneeze, she extinguished his light, and left him fainting and in darkness on the floor of the church. In this fashion was he discovered the following morning, when, after coming to himself, he made the revelation I have just given you. Since that she has been known to sneeze three times, and on each occasion a miracle has followed. The fame of this wonderful occurrence has now traversed Italy, and will doubtless soon extend to the faithful in every part of Europe. Orsaro is becoming crowded with penitents; among whom I am gratified to see the names of many of the English aristocracy; and it has become quite a fashionable thing to pa.s.s a week or ten days there.
Now, dearest Kitty, from you, with whom I have no concealments, I will not disguise the confession that I look forward to this excursion with considerable hope and expectation. You cannot but have perceived latterly how our faith, instead of being, as it once was, the symbol of low birth and ign.o.ble connections, has become the very bond of aristocratic society. The church has become the _salon_ wherein we make our most valued acquaintances; and devout observances are equivalent to letters of introduction. If I wanted a proof of this, I"d give it in the number of those who have become converts to our religion, from the manifest social benefits the change of faith has conferred. How otherwise would third and fourth-rate Protestants obtain access to Princely _soires_ and Ducal receptions? By what other road could they arrive at recognition in the society of Rome and Naples, frequent Cardinals" levees, and be even seen lounging in the ante-chambers of the Vatican!
Hence it is clear that the true faith has its benefits in _this_ world also, and that piety is a pa.s.sport to high places even on earth. I have no doubt, if we manage properly, our sojourn at Orsaro may be made very profitable, and that, even without miracles, the excursion may pay us well.
I have been interrupted by a message to attend mamma in her own room,--a summons I rightly guessed to imply something of importance. Only fancy, Kitty, it was a letter which had arrived addressed to papa,--but of course not given to him to read in his present highly agitated state,--from Captain Morris, with a proposal for Caroline!
He very properly sets out by acknowledging the great difference of age between them, but he might certainly have added something as to the discrepancy between their stations. He talks, too, of his small means, "sufficient for those who can limit their ambitions and wants within a narrow circle,"--I wonder who they are?--and professes a deal of that cold kind of respectful love which all old men affect to think a woman ought to feel flattered by. In fact, the whole reads far more like a law paper than a love-letter, and is rather a rough draft of an Act of Parliament against celibacy than a proposal for a pretty girl!
Mamma had shown the letter to Fra Giacomo before I entered, and I had very little trouble to guess the effect produced by his counsels. The Captain, as a heretic, was at once denounced by him; and the little man grew actually enthusiastic in inveighing against the insulting presumption of the offer. He insisted on a peremptory, flat rejection of the proposal, without any reference whatever to papa. He said that to hesitate in such a question was in itself a sin; and he even hinted that he was n"t quite sure what reception Saint Agatha might vouchsafe us after so much of intercourse with an outcast and a disbeliever.
This last argument was decisive, and I accordingly sat down and wrote, in mamma"s name, a very stiff acknowledgment of the receipt of his letter, and an equally cold refusal of the honor it tendered for our acceptance. We all agreed that Cary should hear nothing whatever of the matter, but, as Fra Giacomo said, "we "d keep the disgrace for our own hearts."
I own to you, Kitty, that if the religious question could be got over, I do not think the thing so inadmissible. Cary is evidently not destined to advance our family interests; had she even the capacity, she lacks the ambition. Her tastes are humble, commonplace, and--shall I say it?--vulgar.
It gives her no pleasure to move in high society, and she esteems the stupid humdrum of domestic life as the very supreme of happiness. With such tastes this old Captain--he is five-and-thirty at least--would perhaps have suited her perfectly, and his intolerable mother been quite a companion. Their small fortune, too, would have consigned them to some cheap, out-of-the-way place, where we should not have met; and, in fact, the arrangement might have combined a very fair share of advantage. Fra G., however, had decided the matter on higher grounds, and there is no more to be said about it.
There is another letter come by this post, too, from Lord George, dearest! He is to arrive to-night, if he can get horses. He is full of some wonderful tournament about to be held at Genoa,--a spectacle to be given by the city to the King, which is to attract all the world thither; and Lord G. writes to say that we have n"t a moment to lose in securing accommodation at the hotel. Little suspecting the frame of mind his communication is to find us in, and that, in place of doughty deeds and chivalrous exploits, our thoughts are turned to fastings, mortifications, and whipcord! Oh, how I shudder at the ridicule with which he will a.s.sail us, and tremble for my own constancy under the raillery he will shower on us! I never dreaded his coming before, and would give worlds now that anything could prevent his arrival.
How reconcile his presence with that of Fra Giacomo? How protect the priest from the overt quizzings of my Lord? and how rescue his Lordship from the secret machinations of the "father?"? are difficulties that I know not how to face. Mamma, besides, is now so totally under priestly guidance that she would sacrifice the whole peerage for a shaving of a saint"s shin-bone! There will not be even time left me to concert measures with Lord G. The moment he enters the house he"ll see the "altered temper of our ways" in a thousand instances. Relics, missals, beads, and rosaries have replaced Gavarni"s etchings,--"Punch," and the "Ill.u.s.tration." Charms and amulets blessed by popes occupy the places of cigar-holders, pipe-sticks, and gutta-percha drolleries. The "Stabat Mater" has usurped the seat of "Casta Diva" on the piano, and a number of other unmistakable signs point to our reformed condition.
I hear post-horses approaching--they come nearer and nearer! Yes, Kitty, it must be--it is he! James has met him--they are already on the stairs--how they laugh! James must be telling him everything. I knew he would. Another burst of that unfeeling laughter! They are at the door.
Good-bye!
Mount Orsaro, "La Pace."
Here we are, dearest, at the end of our pilgrimage. Such a delightful excursion I never remember to have taken. I told you all about my fears of Lord George. Would that I had never written the ungracious lines!--never so foully wronged him! Instead of the levity I apprehended, he is actually reverential,--I might say, devout! The moment he reached Parma, he ordered a dress to be made for him exactly like James"s, and decided immediately on accompanying us. Fra Giacomo, I need scarcely observe, was in ecstasies. The prospect of such a n.o.ble convert would be an immense piece of success, and he did not hesitate to avow, would materially advance his own interests at Rome.