The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

These is my general remarks on the habits of furriners, which I give you as free as you ask for them. As to the family, nobody knows where the money comes from, but that they're spendin' it in lashins, is true as I'm here. And they 're broke up, Shusy, and not the way they used to be. The master walks out alone, or with Miss Caraline. Miss Mary Anne stays with the mother; and Master James, that's now a grone man, and as bowld as brass besides, is always phelanderin' about with Mrs. G., the lady that lives with us. I mistrust her, Shusan dear, and Mamsel Virginy, her made, too, though she's mighty kind and polite to me, and says she has so many "bounties" for the whole family.

Paddy Byrne is exactly what you suspect. There's nothin' would put the least polish on him. The very way he ates at the table doat disgraces us; whenever he gets a thing he likes, instead of helpin' himself and passin' it on, he takes the whole dish before him, and conshumes it all. As he is always ready to fite, they let him do as he likes, and he is become now the terror of the place. I have towld ye now about everybody but the ould currier, Mounseer Gregory, an invetherate ould Frinsh bla'guard, that never has a dacent word in his month, though he has n't a good tooth in it, and ye'd say 't was at his prayers the ould hardened sinner should be. The very laff he has, and the way his bleery eyes twinkle, is a shame to see! It's nigh to fifty years since he took to the road, so that you may think, Shusan dear, what a dale of inequity he's seen in that time. It's dreadful sometimes to listen to him.

If I was n't ashamed to write them, I 'd tell you two or three of his stories, but I will when we meet; and now with my hearty blessin' and love, I remane yours to command,

Betty Cobb.

What's this I heer about one of the M'Carthys dyin', and levin' his money to the mistress? Get the news right for me, Shusan dear, for I mane to ask for more wagis if it's true, and if Mrs. D. won't decrease them, I'll lave the sarvis. Mamsel Virginy towl me last nite there was a duchés here that wants a confidenshal made to tache her only daughter English, and that's exactly the thing to shoot me; five hundred franks a year is equal to twenty pounds, all eatin' and washin', not to mention the hoith of respect from all the men-ials in the house. I'm takin' Frinsh lessons from ould Gregory every evenin', and he says I 'll be in my "accidents" next week.

LETTER XX. JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE,

DUBLIN

You guessed rightly, my dear Bob; my letter to Vickars has turned out confoundedly ill, though I must say, all from his total want of gentlemanlike feeling. To my ineffable horror the other morning, the post arrived with a large packet for the governor, containing my "strictly private and confidential" epistle, which this infernal son of a pen-wiper sends coolly back to be read by my father.

Matters were not going on exactly quite smooth before. We had had a rather stormy sitting of the Cabinet the evening previous on the estimates, which struck the President of the Council as out of all bounds; and yet, all things considered, were reasonable enough. You know, Bob, we are a strongish party. Mrs. G. H., with maid and courier; Lord George and man; the Dodd family five, with two native domestics, and two foreign supernumeraries; occupying the first floor of the first hotel at Bonn, with a capital table, and a considerable quantity of wine, of one kind or other; these – without anything that one can call extravagance – swell up a bill, and at the end of a month give it an actually formidable look.

"What are these?" said the governor, peering through his glasses at a long battalion of figures at the foot of the score, – "what are these? Groschen, eh?"

"Pardon, Monsieur le Comte," said the other, bowing, "dey are Prussian thalers!"

I wish you saw his face when he heard it! George and I were obliged to bolt out of the room, or we should have infallibly exploded.

"You 'd better go back," said George to me after we had our laugh out; "I 'll take a stroll with the womenkind till you smooth him down a bit."

A pleasant office this for me; but there was no help for it, so in I went.

The first shock of his surprise was not over as I entered, for he stood holding the bill in one hand, while he pressed the other on his forehead, with a most distracted expression of face.

"Do you suspect," said he – "have you any notion of what rate we are living at, James?"

"Not the slightest," replied I.

"Do you think it 's of any consequence?" asked he again, in a harsher tone.

"Why, of course, sir, it – is – of some con – "

"I mean," broke he in, "does it signify whether I go to jail, and the rest of you to the workhouse, – if there be a workhouse in this rascally land?"

Seeing that he had totally forgotten the landlord's presence, I now motioned to that functionary to leave the room. The noise of the door shutting roused up the governor again. He looked wildly about him for an instant, and then snatching up the poker he aimed a blow at a large mirror over the chimney. He struck it with such violence that it was smashed in a dozen pieces, four or five of which came clattering down upon the floor.

"I'll be a maniac," cried he. "They shall never say that I ran into this extravagance in my sober senses; I 'll finish my days in a madhouse first." And with these words he made a rush over to a marble table, where a large porcelain vase was standing; by a timely spring I overtook him, and pressed him down on an ottoman, where, I assure you, it required all my force to hold him. After a few minutes, however, there came a reaction; he dropped the poker from his grasp, and said, in a low, faint voice, "There – there – I 'll do nothing now – you may release me."

There 's not a doubt of it, Bob, but he really was insane for a few moments, though, fortunately, it passed away as rapidly as it came.

"That," said he, with a motion towards the looking-glass, – "that will cost twenty or twenty-five pounds, eh?"

"Not so much, perhaps," said I, though I knew I was considerably below the mark.

"Well, I 'm sure it saved me from a fit of illness, anyhow," rejoined he, sighing. "If I hadn't smashed it, I think my head would have burst. Go over that, James, and see what it is in pounds."

I sat down to a table, and after some calculation made out the total to be two hundred and seven pounds sterling.

"And with the looking-glass, about two hundred and thirty," said he, with a sigh. "That's about – taking everything into consideration – five thousand a year."

"You must remember," said I, trying to comfort him, "that these are not our expenses solely. There 's Tiverton and his servant, and Mrs. Gore Hampton and her people also."

"So there is," added he, quickly; "but they had nothing to do with that;" and he pointed to the confounded looking-glass, which somehow or other had taken a fast hold of his imagination. "Eh, James, that was a luxury we had for ourselves!" There was a bitter, sardonic laugh that accompanied these words, indescribably painful to hear.

"Come now," said he, in a more composed and natural voice, "let us see what 's to be done. This is a joint account, James; why not have sent it to Lord George – ay, to the widow also? They may as well frank the Dodd family as we pay for them, – of course, omitting the looking-glass."

I hinted that this was a step requiring some delicacy in its management; that, if not conducted with great tact, it might be the occasion of deep offence. In a word, Bob, I surmised, and conjectured, and hinted a hundred things, just to gain a little time, and turn him, if possible, into another channel.

"Well, what do you advise?" said he, as if wishing to fix me to some tangible project.

For a moment I was bent on adopting the grand parliamentary tactic of stating that there were "three courses open to the House," and then going on to show that one of these was absurd, the second impracticable, and the last utterly impossible; but I saw that the governor could not be so easily put down as the Opposition, and so I said, "Give it till to-morrow morning, and I'll see what can be done."

Here I felt I was on safe ground, for throughout life I have ever remarked that whenever an Irishman is in difficulties, a reprieve is as good as a free pardon to him; for so is it, the land which seems so thoroughly hopeless in its destinies, contains the most hopeful population of Europe!

The delay of a few hours made all the difference in the governor's spirits, and he rallied and came down to supper just as usual, only whispering, as we left the room, with a peculiar low chuckle in his voice, "I would n't wonder if the fire there cracked that chimney-glass."

"Nothing more likely," added I, gravely; and down we went.

It might possibly be out of utter recklessness, or perhaps from some want of a stimulant to cheer him, but he insisted on having two extra bottles of champagne, and he toasted Mrs. Gore Hampton with a zest and fervor that certainly my mother didn't approve of. On the whole, however, all passed off well, and we wished each other goodnight, with the pleasantest anticipations for the morrow.

All was well; and we were at breakfast the next morning, merrily discussing the plans for the day, when the post arrived, with that ominous-looking packet I have already mentioned.

"Shall I guess what that contains?" cried Lord George, pointing to the words, "on her Majesty's service," printed in the corner. "They 've made you Lord-Lieutenant of your county, Dodd! You shake your head. Well, it's something in the colonies they 've given you."

"Perhaps it's the Civil Cross of the Bath," said Mrs. Gore Hampton. "They told me, before I left town, they were going to select some Irishman for that distinction."

"I 'd rather it was a baronetcy," interposed my mother.

"You are all forgetting," broke in my father, "that it's the Tories are in power, and they 'll give me nothing. I was always a moderate politician, and, for the last ten or fifteen years, there was nothing so unprofitable. Violence on either side met its reward, but the quiet men, like myself, were never remembered."

"Then hang me if I should have been quiet!" cried Lord George.

"Well, you see," said my father, breaking his egg slowly with the back of his spoon, "it suited me! I've seen a great deal of Ireland; I 'm old enough to remember the time when the Beresfords governed the country, – if you can call that government that was done with pitched-caps and cat-o'-nine-tails, – and I remember Lord Whitworth's Administration, and Lord Wellesley's, and latterly, Lord Normandy's. But, take my word for it, they were wrong, every one of them, and the reason was this: the English had a notion in their heads that Ireland must always be ruled through the intervention of some leadership or other. One time it was the Protestants, then it was the landlords, then came Dan O'Connell, and, lastly, it was the priests. Now, every one of these failed, because they could n't perform a tithe of what they promised; but still they all had that partial kind of success that saved the Administration a deal of trouble, and imposed upon the English the notion that they were at last learning how to govern Ireland. Meanwhile I 'll tell you what was happening. The Government totally forgot there was such a thing as a people in Ireland, and, what's worse, the people forgot it themselves; and the consequence was, they sank down to the level of a mean party following – a miserable, shabby herd – to shout after an Orange or a Green Demagogue, as the case might be. It was a faction, and not a nation; and England saw that, but she had not the honesty to own it was her own doing made it such. It was seeing all this made me a moderate politician, or, in other words, one who reposed a very moderate confidence in either of the parties that pretended to rule Ireland."

"But you supported your friend, Vickars, notwithstanding," said Lord George, slyly.

"Very true, so I did; but I never put forward any mock patriotism as the reason. What I said was, 'Ye 're all rogues and vagabonds alike, and as I know you 'll do nothing for Ireland, at least do something for the Dodd family;' and now let us see if he has, for I perceive that this address is in his handwriting."

I own to you, Bob, I quaked somewhat as I saw him smash the seal. My mind misgave me in fifty ways. "Vickars," thought I, "has given me some infernal store-keepership in the Gambia, or made me inspector of yellow fever in Chusan." I surmised a dozen different promotions, every one of which was several posts on the road to the next world. Nor were my anticipations much brightened by watching the workings of the governor's face as he perused the epistle; for it grew darker and darker, the angles of the mouth were drawn down, till that expressive feature put on the semblance of a Saxon arch, while his eyes glistened with an expression of fiend-like malice.

"Well, K. I.," said my mother, in whom the Job-like element was not of a high development, – "well, K. I., what does he say? Is it the old story about his list being full, or has he done it at last?"

"Yes, ma'am," said my father, as though echoing her words. "He has done it at last!"

"And what is it to be, papa? Is it something that a gentleman can suitably accept?" cried Mary Anne.

"Done it at last, you may well say!" muttered my father, half aloud.

"Better late than never," cried Lord George, gayly.

"Well, I don't know that, my Lord," said my father, turning upon him with an abruptness little short of offensive; "I am not so sure that I quite coincide with you. If a young fellow enters life totally uneducated and unprovided for, his only certain heritage being the mortgages on his father's property, and perhaps," he added with a sneer, – "and perhaps some of his mother's virtues, I say I am not exactly convinced that he has improved his chances of worldly success by such a production as that!"

And with these words, every one of which he delivered with a terrible distinctness, he handed a letter across the table to Lord George, who slowly perused it in silence.

"As for you, sir," continued my father, turning towards me, "I grieve to inform you that no vacancy at present offers itself in the Guards, nor in the household, where your natural advantages could be remarked and appreciated. It will be, however, a satisfaction to you to know that your high claims are already understood, and well thought of, in the proper quarter. There's Mr. Vickars's letter." And he presented me with the note, which ran thus: —

"Dear Mr. Dodd, – By the enclosed letter, bearing your son's signature, I have discovered how totally below his just expectations would be any of those official appointments which are within the limits of my humble patronage to bestow.

"I have, consequently, cancelled the minute of his nomination to a place in the Treasury, which was yesterday conferred upon him, and having myself no influence in either of those departments to which his wishes incline, I have but to express the regret I feel at my inability to serve him, and the great respect with which I beg to remain,

"Your very faithful servant,

"Haddington Vickars."

Board of Trade, London.

"To Mr. James K. Dodd, Bonn."

I am able to give you the precious document word for word; for, if I went over it once, I did so twenty times.

"Perhaps you might like to refresh your memory by a glance at the enclosure," said my father. "My Lord George will kindly hand it to you."

"It is a devilish good letter, though, I must say," broke in George; who, to do him justice, Bob, never deserts a friend in difficulties. "It's all very fine of this fellow to talk of his inability to do this, that, and t' other. Sure, we all know how they chop and barter their patronage with one another. One says, you may have that thing at Pernambuco, and then another says, 'Very well, there 's an ensigncy in the Fifty-ninth.' And that's only gammon about the appointment made out yesterday; he wants to ride off on that. A sharp fellow your friend Vickars! He 'd look a bit surprised, however, if you were to say that this letter of 'Jem's' was a forgery, and that you most gratefully accept the nomination he alludes to, and which, of course, is not yet filled up."

"Eh, what! how do you mean?" cried my father, eagerly, for he caught at the very shadow of a chance with desperate avidity.

"I was only in jest," said Lord George, who merely wanted, as he afterwards said, "to hustle the governor through the deep ground" of his anger. "I was in jest about them, for 'Jem's' letter is so good, so exceedingly well put, that it would be downright folly to disavow it. You have no idea," continued he, gravely, "what excellent policy it is always to ask for a high thing. They respect you for it, even when they give you nothing; and then, when you do at last receive some appointment, it is so certain to be beneath what you solicited, it establishes a claim for your perpetual discontent. You go on eternally boring about neglect, and so on. You accepted the humble post of Envoy at Stuttgard, for instance, under an implied pledge about Vienna or Constantinople. Besides these advantages, it is also to be remembered that every now and then they actually do take a fellow at his own valuation, and give him what he asks for."

"Lord George is quite right," chimed in Mrs. Gore Hampton; "half of these things are purely accidental. I remember so well my uncle writing to beg that the tutor of his boys might get some small thing in the Church, just at the moment when the bishop of the diocese had died, and the minister, reading the letter carelessly, – my uncle's hand is very hard to decipher, – mistook the object of the request, and appointed him to the bishopric."

"In that case," remarked my father, dryly, "I think Mrs. D. had better indite an epistle to the Home Office."

And, although this was said in a sneer, the laughter that followed went far to restore us all to good-humor, particularly as Lord George took the opportunity of explaining to Mrs. Gore Hampton what had occurred, bespeaking her aid and influence in our behalf.

"It is so absurd," said she, "that one should have any difficulty about these things, but such is the case. The Duchess will be certain to make excuses; she cannot ask for something, because she is 'in waiting,' or she is not in waiting. Lord Harrowcliff is sure to tell me that he has just been refused a request, and cannot subject himself to another humiliation; but I always reply, these are most selfish arguments, and that I really must have what I want; that a refusal always attacks my nerves, and that I will not be ill merely to indulge a caprice of theirs. What is it Mr. James wants?"

There was something so practical in this short question, Bob, something so decisive, that had she been talking the rankest absurdity but the moment before, we should have forgotten it all in an instant.

"A mere nothing," replied Lord George. "You'll smile when you hear what we 're making such a fuss about." As he said these words, he muttered in the governor's ear, "It's all right now; she detests asking a favor, but, if she will stoop to it – " An expressive gesture implied that success was certain.

"Well, you have n't told me what it is," said she again.

Lord George passed round to the back of her chair, and whispered a few words. She replied in the same low tone, and then they both laughed.

"You don't mean to say," cried she, turning to my father, "that you have experienced any difficulty about this trifle?"

The governor blundered out some bashful confession, that he had encountered the most extraordinary obstacles to his wishes.

"I really think," said she, sighing, "they do these things just to provoke people. They wanted Augustus t' other day to go out to the Cape, and I assure you it was as much as Lady Mary could do to have the appointment changed. They said his 'regiment' was there. 'Tant pis for his regiment!' replied she. 'It must be a most disgusting station.' And that is, I must say, the worst of the Horse Guards; they are always so imperative, – so downright cruel. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Dodd?"

"They could n't be worse than the regiment I 've heard my father speak of," replied my mother. "They were called the 'North Britains,' and were the wickedest set of wretches in the rebellion of '98."

This unhappy blunder set my father into a roar of laughter, for latterly it is only on occasions like this that he is moved to any show of merriment. Mrs. Gore Hampton, of course, never noticed the mistake, but saying, "Now for my letters," ordered her writing-desk to be brought: a sign of promptitude that at once diverted all our thoughts into another channel.

"Shall I write to the Duke or to Lady Mary first?" said she, pondering; and her eyes, accidentally falling upon my mother, she thought herself the person addressed, and replied, —

"Indeed, ma'am, if you ask me, I'd say the Duke."

"I'm for Lady Mary," interposed Lord George. "There's nothing like a woman to ferret out news, and find a way to profit by it. The duke will just say, casually, 'I've got a letter somewhere – I hope I have not mislaid it – about a vacancy in the "Coldstreams;" if you hear of anything, just drop me a hint. By the way – is Fox in the Fusiliers still?' – or, 'I hope they'll change that shako, it's monstrous!' Now, my Lady Mary will go another way to work. She'll remember the name of everybody that can be possibly useful. She 'll drive about, and give little dinners, and talk, and flatter, and cajole, and intrigue, and, growing distant here, and jealous there, she'll bring into action a thousand forces that mere men-creatures know nothing of."

"I'm for the Duke still," said my mother; and Mary Anne, by an inclination of her head, showed that she seconded the motion.

It became now an actual debate, Bob, and you would be amazed were I to tell you what strong expressions and angry feelings were evoked by mere partisanship, on a subject whereupon not one of us had the slightest knowledge whatsoever. My father and I were with Tiverton, and as "Caroline walked into the lobby," as George phrased it, we carried the question. Mrs. G., however, declared that, beside the casting voice, she had a right to a vote, and, giving it to my mother's side, we were equal. In this stage of the proceedings a compromise alone could be resorted to, and so it was agreed that she should write to both by the same post; but the discussion had already lost us a day, for the mail went out while my mother was "left speaking."

I have probably been prolix, my dear friend, in all this detail, but it will at least show you how the Dodd family conduct questions of internal policy; and teach you, besides, that Cabinets and Councils of State have no special prerogative for folly and absurdity, since even small and obscure folk like ourselves can contest the palm with them.

Neither could you well believe what small but bitter animosities, what schisms, and what divisions grew out of a matter so insignificant as this. The remainder of the day was passed gloomily enough, for we each of us avoided the other, with that misgiving that belongs to those who have uneasy consciences.

They say that a good harvest often saves a bad administration; certainly a fine day will frequently avert a domestic broil. Had the morning which followed our debate been a favorable one, the chances are we should have been away to the Seven Mountains, or the village of Konigswinter, or some such place; bad luck would have it that the rain came down in torrents from daybreak, heavy clouds gathered over the Rhine, shutting out the opposite bank from view, so that nothing remained to us but home resources, which is but too often a brief expression for row and recrimination.

Breakfast over, each of us, as if dreading a "call of the House," affected some peculiarly pressing duty that he had to perform. The governor retired to pore over his accounts, and tried to make out that the debit against him in his bankbook was a balance in his favor. My mother retreated to her room to hold a grand inspection of her wardrobe; a species of review that always discovers several desertions, and a vast amount of "unserviceables." Leaving her and Mary Anne in court-martial over Betty Cobb, who, as usual, when brought up for sentence, claimed the right to be sent home, I pass on to Lord George, whose wet days are generally devoted to practising some new "hazard off the cushion," or the investigation of that philosopher's stone, a martingale at Rouge-et-Noir, and I arrive at my own case, which invariably resolves itself into a day of gun and pistol cleaning, – an occupation mysteriously linked with gloomy weather, as though one ought to have everything in readiness to blow his brains out, if the mercury continued to fall.