Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas

My next care was to present myself below stairs; and although some may smile at the avowal, I had far more misgivings about how I should pass muster with the underlings than with the head of the department. Is the reader aware that it was a farrier of the Emperor Alexander’s guard who first predicted the destruction of the “grand army” in Russia? A French horseshoe was shown to him, as a curiosity; and he immediately exclaimed, “What! not yet frost-roughed? These fellows don’t know the climate; the snows begin to-morrow!” So is it: ignorance and pretension are infallibly discovered by “routine” people; they look to details, and they at once detect him who mistakes or overlooks them.

Resolving, at all events, to make my “Old World” habits stand my part in every difficulty, and to sneer down everything I did not understand, I put on a bold face, and descended to the lower regions.

Great people, “Ministers” and Secretaries for the “Home” and “Foreign,” little know how great their privilege is that in taking office they are spared all unpleasant meetings with their predecessors. At least, I conclude such to be the case, and that my Lord Palmerston, “stepping in,” does not come abruptly upon Lord Aberdeen “going out,” nor does an angry altercation arise between him who arrives to stay and he who is packing his portmanteau to be off. I say that I opine as much, and that both the entrance and the departure are conducted with due etiquette and propriety; in fact, that Lord A. has called his cab and slipped away before Lord P. has begun to “take up” the “spoons,” – not a bad metaphor, by the way, for an entrance into the Foreign Office.

No such decorous reserve presides over the change of a domestic ministry. The whole warfare of opposition is condensed into one angry moment, and the rival parties are brought face to face in the most ungracious fashion.

Now, my system in life was that so well and popularly known by the name of M. Guizot, “la paix à tout prix;” and I take pride to myself in thinking that I have carried it out with more success. With a firm resolve, therefore, that no temptation should induce me to deviate from a pacific policy, I entered the kitchen, where the “lower house” was then “in committee,” – the “cook in the chair”!

“Here he com, now!” said Blackie; and the assembly grew hushed as I entered.

“Ay, here he comes!” said I, re-echoing the speech; “and let us see if we shall not be merry comrades.”

The address was a happy one; and that evening closed upon me in the very pinnacle of popularity.

I have hesitated for some time whether I should not ask of my reader to enroll himself for a short space as a member of “the establishment,” or even to sojourn one day beneath a roof where so many originals were congregated; to witness the very table itself, set out with its artificial fruits and flowers, its pine-apples in wax, and its peaches of paper, – all the appliances by which Mrs. D., in her ardent zeal, hoped to propagate refinement and abstemiousness; high-breeding and low diet being, in her esteem, inseparably united. To see the company, the poor old faded and crushed flowers of mock gentility, – widows and unmarried daughters of tax-collectors long “gathered;” polite storekeepers, and apothecaries to the “Forces,” cultivating the Graces at the cost of their appetites, and descending, in costumes of twenty years back, in the pleasing delusion of being “dressed” for dinner; while here and there some unhappy skipper, undergoing a course of refinement, looked like a bear in a “ballet,” ashamed of his awkwardness, and even still more ashamed of the company wherein he found himself; and, lastly, some old Seigneur of the Lower Province, – a poor, wasted, wrinkled creature, covered with hair-powder and snuff, but yet, strangely enough, preserving some “taste of his once quality,” and not altogether destitute of the graces of the land he sprung from; – curious and incongruous elements to make up society, and worthy of the presidency of that greater incongruity who ruled them.

Condemned to eat food they did not relish, and discuss themes they did not comprehend, – what a noble zeal was theirs! What sacrifices did they not make to the genius of “gentility”! If they would sneer at a hash, Mrs. D.‘s magic wand charmed it into a “ragout;” when they almost sneezed at the sour wine, Mrs. D. called for another glass of “La Rose.” “Rabbits,” they were assured, were the daily diet of the Duke of Devonshire, and Lady Laddington ate kid every day at dinner. In the same way, potatoes were vulgar things, but “pommes de terre à la maître d’hôtel” were a delicacy for royalty.

To support these delusions of diet, I was everlastingly referred to. “Cregan,” would she say, – placing her glass to her eye, and fixing on some dish, every portion of which her own dainty fingers had compounded, – “Cregan, what is that?”

“Poulet à la George Quatre, madame! “ – she always permitted me to improvise the nomenclature, – “the receipt came from the Bishop of Beldoff’s cook.”

“Ah, prepared with olives, I believe?”

“Exactly, madame,” would I say, presenting the dish, whose success was at once assured.

If a wry face or an unhappy contortion of the mouth from any guest announced disappointment, Mrs. D. at once appealed to me for the explanation. “What is it, Cregan? – Mrs. Blotter, I fear you don’t like that ‘plat’?”

“The truffles were rather old, madame;” or, “the anchovies were too fresh;” or, “there was too little caviar;” or something of the kind, I would unhesitatingly aver: for my head was stocked with a strong catalogue from an old French cookery-book which I used to study each morning. The more abstruse my explanation, the more certain of its being indorsed by the company, – only too happy to be supposed capable of detecting the subtle deficiency; all but the old French Deputy, who on such occasions would give a little shake of his narrow head, and mutter to himself, “Ah, il est mutin, ce gaillard-là!”

Under the influence of great names, they would have eaten a stewed mummy from the Pyramids. What the Marquis of Aeheldown or the Earl of Brockmore invariably ordered, could not without risk be despised by these “small boys” of refinement. It is true, they often mourned in secret over the altered taste of the old country, which preferred kickshaws and trumpery to its hallowed ribs and sirloins; but, like the folk who sit at the Opera while they long for the Haymarket, and who listen to Jenny Lind while their hearts are with Mrs. Keeley, they “took out” in fashion what they lost in amusement, – a very English habit, by the way. To be sure, and to their honor be it spoken, they wished the Queen would be pleased to fancy legs of mutton and loins of veal, just as some others are eager for royalty to enjoy the national drama; but they innocently forgot, the while, that “they” might have the sirloin, and “the others” Shakspeare, even without majesty partaking of either, and that a roast goose and Falstaflf can be relished even without such august precedent. Dear, good souls they were, never deviating from that fine old sturdy spirit of independence which makes us feel ourselves a match for the whole world in arms, as we read the “Times” and hum “Rule Britannia.”

All this devout homage of a class with whom they had nothing in common, and with which they could never come into contact, produced in me a very strange result; and in place of being ready to smile at the imitators, I began to conceive a stupendous idea of the natural greatness of those who could so impress the ranks beneath them. “Con,” said I to myself, “that is the class in life would suit you perfectly. There is no trade like that of a gentleman. He who does nothing is always ready for everything; the little shifts and straits of a handicraft or a profession narrow and confine the natural expansiveness of the intellect, which, like a tide over a flat shore, should swell and spread itself out, free and without effort. See to this, Master Con; take care that you don’t sit down contented with a low round on the ladder of life, but strive ever upwards; depend on it, the view is best from the top, even if it only enable you to look down on your competitors.”

These imaginings, as might be easily imagined, led me to form a very depreciating estimate of my lords and masters of the “establishment.” Not only their little foibles and weaknesses, their small pretensions and their petty attempts at fine life, were all palpable to my eyes, but their humble fortunes and narrow means to support such assumption were equally so; and there is nothing which a vulgar mind – I was vulgar at that period – so unhesitatingly seizes on for sarcasm as the endeavor of a poor man to “do the fine gentleman.”

If no man is a hero to his valet, he who has no valet is never a hero at all, – is nobody. I conceived, then, the most insulting contempt for the company, on whom I practised a hundred petty devices of annoyance. I would drop gravy on a fine satin dress, in which the wearer only made her appearance at festivals, or stain with sauce the “russia ducks” destined to figure through half a week. Sometimes, by an adroit change of decanters during dinner, I would produce a scene of almost irremediable confusion, when the owner of sherry would find himself taking toast-and-water, he of the last beverage having improved the time and finished the racier liquid. Such reciprocities, although strictly in accordance with “free-trade,” invariably led to very warm discussions, that lasted through the remainder of the evening.

Then I removed plates ere the eater was satisfied, and that with an air of such imposing resolve as to silence remonstrance. When a stingy guest passed up his decanter to a friend, in a moment of enthusiastic munificence, I never suffered it to return till it was emptied; while to the elderly ladies I measured out the wine like laudanum. Every now and then, too, I would forget to hand the dish to some one or other of the company, and affect only to discover my error as the last spoonful was disappearing.

Nor did my liberties end here. I was constantly introducing innovations in the order of dinner, that produced most ludicrous scenes of discomfiture, – now insisting on the use of a fork, now of a spoon, under circumstances where no adroitness could compensate for the implement; and one day I actually went so far as to introduce soap with the finger-glasses, averring that “it was always done at Devonshire House on grand occasions.” I thought I should have betrayed myself as I saw the efforts of the party to perform their parts with suitable dignity; all I could do was to restrain a burst of open laughter.

So long as I prosecuted my reforms on the actual staff of the establishment, all went well. Now and then, it is true, I used to overhear in French, of which they believed me to be ignorant, rather sharp comments on the “free-and-easy tone of my manners; how careless I had become,” and so on, – complaints, however, sure to be be met by some assurance that “my manners were quite London;” that what I did was the type of fashionable servitude, – apologies made less to screen me than to exalt those who invented them, as thoroughly conversant with high life in England.

At last, partly from being careless of consequences, for I was getting very weary of this kind of life, – the great amusement of which used to be repeating my performances for the ear of Captain Pike, and he was now removed with his regiment to Kingstown, – and partly wishing for some incidents, of what kind I cared not, that might break the monotony of my existence, I contrived one day to stretch my prerogative too far, or, in the phrase of the Gulf, I “harpooned a bottle-nose,” – the periphrasis for making a gross mistake.

I had been some years at Mrs. Davis’s, – in fact, I felt and thought myself a man, – when the last ball of the season was announced, – an entertainment at which usually a more crowded assemblage used to congregate than at any of the previous ones.

It was the choice occasion for the habitués of the house to invite their grand friends; for Mrs. D. was accustomed to put forth all her strength, and the arrangements were made on a scale of magnificence that invariably occasioned a petty famine for the fortnight beforehand. Soup never appeared, that there might be “bouillon” for the dancers; every one was on a short allowance of milk, eggs, and sugar; meat became almost a tradition; even candles waned and went out, in waiting for the auspicious night when they should blaze like noonday. Nor did the company fail to participate in these preparatory schoolings. What frightful heads in curl-papers would appear at breakfast and dinner! What buttoned-up coats and black cravats refuse all investigation on the score of linen! What mysterious cookings of cosmetics at midnight, with petty thefts of lard and thick cream! What washings of kid gloves, that when washed would never go on again! What inventions of French-polish that refused all persuasions to dry, but continued to stick to and paint everything it came in contact with! Then there were high dresses cut down, like frigates razeed; frock-coats reduced to dress ones; mock lace and false jewelry were at a premium; and all the little patchwork devices of ribbons, bows, and carnations, gimp, gauze, and geraniums, were put into requisition, – petty acts of deception that each saw through in her neighbor, but firmly believed were undetectable in herself.

Then what caballings about the invited; what scrutiny into rank and station, – “what set they were in,” and whom did they visit; with little Star-chamber inquisitions as to character, all breaches of which, it is but fair to state, were most charitably deemed remediable if the party had any pretension to social position; for not only the saint in crape was twice a saint in lawn, but the satin sinner was pardonable where the “washing silk” would have been found guilty without a “recommendation.”

Then there was eternal tuning of the pianoforte, which most perversely insisted on not suiting voices that might have sung duets with a peacock. Quadrilles were practised in empty rooms; and Miss Timmock was actually seen trying to teach Blotter to waltz, – a proceeding, I rejoice to say, that the moral feeling of the household at once suppressed. And then, what a scene of decoration went forward in all the apartments! As in certain benevolent families, whatever is uneatable is always given to the poor, so here, all the artificial flowers unavailable for the toilet were generously bestowed to festoon along the walls, to conceal tin sconces, and to wreathe round rickety chandeliers. Contrivance – that most belauded phenomenon in Nature’s craft – was everywhere. If necessity be the mother of invention, poor gentility is the “stepmother.” Never were made greater efforts, or greater sacrifices incurred, to make Mrs. D. appear like a “West-end” leader of fashion, and to make the establishment itself seem a Holderness House.

As for me, I was the type of a stage servant, – one of those creatures who hand round coffee in the “School for Scandal.” My silk stockings were embroidered with silver, and my showy coat displayed a bouquet that might have filled a vase.

In addition to these personal graces, I had long been head of my department; all the other officials, from the negro knife-cleaner upwards, besides all those begged, borrowed, and, I believe I might add, stolen domestics of other families, being placed under my orders.

Among the many functions committed to me, the drilling of these gentry stood first in difficulty, not only because they were rebellious under control, but because I had actually to invent “the discipline during parade.” One golden rule, however, I had adopted, and never suffered myself to deviate from, viz., to do nothing as it had been done before, – a maxim which relieved me from all the consequences of inexperience. Traditions are fatal things for a radical reformer; and I remembered having heard it remarked how Napoleon himself first sacrificed his dignity by attempting an imitation of the monarchy. By this one precept I ruled and squared all my conduct.

The most refractory of my subordinates was a jackanapes about my own age, who, having once waited on the “young gentlemen” in the cock-pit of a man-of-war, fancied he had acquired very extended views of life. Among other traits of his fashionable experience, he remembered that at a déjeuner given by the officers at Cadiz once, the company, who breakfasted in the gun-room, had all left their hats and cloaks in the midshipman’s berth, receiving each a small piece of card with a number on it, and a similar one being attached to the property, – a process so universal now in our theatres and assemblies that I ask pardon for particularly describing it; but it was a novelty at the time I speak of, and had all the merits of a new discovery.

Smush – this was my deputy’s name – had been so struck with the admirable success of the arrangement that he had actually preserved the pieces of card, and now produced them, black and ragged, from the recesses of his trunk.

“Mr. Cregan” – such was the respectful title by which I was now always addressed – “Mr. Cregan can tell us,” said he, “if this is not the custom at great balls in London.”

“It used to be so, formerly,” said I, with an air of most consummate coolness, as I sat in an arm-chair, regaling myself with a cigar; “the practice you allude to, Smush, did prevail, I admit. But our fashionable laws change; one day it is all ultra-refinement and Sybarite luxury, – the next, they affect a degree of mock simplicity in their manners: anything for novelty! Now, for instance, eating fish with the fingers – ”

“Do they, indeed, go so far?”

“Do they! ay, and fifty things worse. At a race-dinner the same silver cup goes round the table, drunk out of by every one. I have seen strange things in my time.”

“That you must, Mr. Cregan.”

“Latterly,” said I, warming with my subject, and seeing my auditory ready to believe anything, “they began the same system with the soup, and always passed the tureen round, each tasting it as it went. This was an innovation of the Duke of Struttenham’s; but I don’t fancy it will last.”

“And how do they manage about the hats, Mr. Cregan?”

“The last thing, in that way, was what I saw at Lord Mudbrooke’s, at Richmond, where, not to hamper the guests with these foolish bits of card, which they were always losing, the servant in waiting chalked a number on the hat or coat, or whatever it might be, and then marked the same on the gentleman’s back!”

Had it not been for the imposing gravity of my manner, the absurdity of this suggestion had been at once apparent; but I spoke like an oracle, and I impressed my words with the simple gravity of a commonplace truth.

“If you wish to do the very newest thing, Smush, that’s the latest, – quite a fresh touch; and, I ‘ll venture to say, perfectly unknown here. It saves a world of trouble to all parties; and as you brush it off before they leave, it is always another claim for the parting douceur!”

“I’ll do it,” said Smush, eagerly; “they cannot be angry – ”

“Angry! angry at what is done with the very first people in London!” said I, affecting horror at the bare thought. The train was now laid; I had only to wait for its explosion.

At first, I did this with eager impatience for the result; then, as the time drew near, with somewhat of anxiety; and, at last, with downright fear of the consequences. Yet to revoke the order, to confess that I was only hoaxing on so solemn a subject, would have been the downfall of my ascendency forever. What was to be done?

I could imagine but one escape from the difficulty, which was to provide myself with a clothes-brush, and, as my station was at the drawing-room door, to erase the numerals before their wearers entered. In this way I should escape the forfeiture of my credit, and the risk of maintaining it.

I would willingly recall some of the strange incidents of that great occasion, but my mind can only dwell upon one, as, brush in hand, I asked permission to remove some accidental dust, – a leave most graciously accorded, and ascribed to my town-bred habits of attention. At last – it was nigh midnight, and for above an hour the company had received no accession to its ranks; quadrilles had succeeded quadrilles, and the business of the scene went swimmingly on, – all the time-honored events of similar assemblages happening with that rigid regularity which, if evening-parties were managed by steam, and regulated by a fly-wheel, could not proceed with more ordinary routine. “Heads of houses” with bald scalps led out simpering young boarding-school misses, and danced with a noble show of agility, to refute any latent suspicion of coming age. There were the usual number of very old people, who vowed the dancing was only a shuffling walk, not the merry movement they had practised half a century ago; and there were lack-a-daisical young gentlemen, with waistcoats variegated as a hearth-rug, and magnificent breast-pins like miniature pokers, who lounged and lolled about, as though youth were the most embarrassing and wearying infliction mortality was heir to.

There were, besides, all the varieties of the class young lady, as seen in every land where muslin is sold, and white shoes are manufactured. There was the slight young lady, who floated about with her gauzy dress daintily pinched in two; then there was the short and dumpling young lady, who danced with a duck in her gait; and there were a large proportion of the flouncing, flaunting kind, who took the figures of the quadrille by storm, and went at the “right and left” as if they were escaping from a fire; and there was Mrs. Davis herself, in a spangled toque and red shoes, pottering about from place to place, with a terrible eagerness to be agreeable and fashionable at the same time.

It was, I have said, nigh midnight as I stood at the half-open door, watching the animated and amusing scene within, when Mrs. Davis, catching sight of me, and doubtless for the purpose of displaying my specious livery, ordered me to open a window, or close a shutter, or something of like importance. I had scarcely performed the service, when a kind of half titter through the room made me look round, and, to my unspeakable horror, I beheld, in the centre of the room, Town-Major McCan, the most passionate little man in Quebec, making his obeisances to Mrs. Davis, while a circle around were, with handkerchiefs to their mouths, stifling, as they best could, a burst of laughter; since exactly between his shoulders, in marks of about four inches long, stood the numerals “158,” a great flourish underneath proclaiming that the roll had probably concluded, and that this was the “last man.”

Of the major, tradition had already consecrated one exploit; he had once kicked an impertinent tradesman down the great flight of iron stairs which leads from the Upper Town to Diamond Harbor, – a feat, to appreciate which, it is necessary to bear in mind that the stair in question is almost perpendicular, and contains six hundred and forty-eight steps! My very back ached by anticipation as I thought of it; and as I retreated towards the door, it was in a kind of shuffle, feeling like one who had been well thrashed.

“A large party, Mrs. D.; a very brilliant and crowded assembly,” said the major, pulling out his bushy whiskers, and looking importantly around. “Now what number have you here?”

“I cannot even guess, Major; but we have had very few apologies. Could you approximate to our numbers this evening, Mr. Cox?” said she, addressing a spiteful-looking old man who sat eying the company through an opera-glass.

“I have counted one hundred and thirty-four, madam; but the major makes them more numerous still!”

“How do you mean, Cox?” said he, getting fiery red.

“If you’ll look in that glass yonder, which is opposite the mirror, you ‘ll soon see!” wheezed out the old man, maliciously. I did not wait for more; with one spring I descended the first flight; another brought me to the hall; but not before a terrible shout of laughter apprised me that all was discovered. I had just time to open the clock-case and step into it, as Major McCan came thundering downstairs, with his coat on his arm.

A shrill yell from Sambo now told me that one culprit at least was “up” for punishment. “Tell the truth, you d – d piece of carved ebony! who did this?”

“Not me, Massa! not me, Massa! Smush did him!”

Smush was at this instant emerging from the back parlor with a tray of colored fluids for the dancers. With one vigorous kick the major sent the whole flying; and ere the terrified servitor knew what the assault portended, a strong grasp caught him by the throat, and ran him up bang! against the clock-case. Oh, what a terrible moment was that for me! I heard the very gurgling rattle in his throat, like choking, and felt as if when he ceased to breathe that I should expire with him.