The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II

With the explanation, as I have said, I have nothing to do. It is beyond and above me. For the fact alone I am guarantee; and here comes Tiverton in a transport of triumph to say that "Heaven is won," or, in humbler phrase, "Monsieur le Comte de Dragonards prie Phonneur," &c, and that Dodd père and Dodd mère are requested to dine with him on Tuesday, the younger Dodds to assist at a reception in the evening.

Tiverton assures me that by accepting with a good grace the humbler part of a "refresher," I am certain of promotion afterwards to a higher range of character; and in this hope I live for the present.

It is likely I shall not despatch this without being able to tell you more of this great man's house; meanwhile – "majora cantamus" – I am in love, Bob! If I did n't dash into the confession at once, as one springs into the sea of a chilly morning, I'd even put on the clothes of secrecy, and walk off unconfessed. She is lovely, beyond anything I can give you an idea of, – pale as marble; but such a flesh tint! a sunset sleeping upon snow, and with lids fringed over a third of her cheek. You know the tender, languid, longing look that vanquishes me, – that's exactly what she has! A glance of timid surprise, like an affrighted fawn, and then a downcast consciousness, – a kind of self-reproaching sense of her own loveliness, – a sort of a – what the devil kind of enchantment and witchery, Bob? that makes a man feel it's all no use struggling and fighting, – that his doom is there! that the influence which is to rule his destiny is before him, and that, turn him which way he will, his heart has but one road – and will take it!

She was in Box 19, over the orchestra! I caught a glimpse of her shoulder – only her shoulder – at first, as she sat with her face to the stage, and a huge screen shaded her from the garish light of the lustre. How I watched the graceful bend of her neck each time she saluted – I suppose it was a salutation – some new visitor who entered! The drooping leaves and flowers of her hair trembled with a gentle motion, as if to the music of her soft voice. I thought I could hear the very accents echoing within my heart! But oh! my ecstasy when her hand stole forth and hung listlessly over the cushion of the box! True it was gloved, yet still you could mark its symmetry, and, in fancy, picture the rosy-tipped fingers in all their graceful beauty.

Night after night I saw her thus; yet never more than I have told you. I made superhuman efforts to obtain the box directly in front; but it belonged to a Russian princess, and was therefore inaccessible. I bribed the bassoon and seduced the oboe in the orchestra; but nothing was to be seen from their inferno of discordant tunings. I made love to a ballet-dancer, to secure the entrée behind the scenes; and on the night of my success she– my adored one – had changed her place with a friend, and sat with her back to the stage. The adverse fates had taken a spite against me, Bob, and I saw that my passion must prove unhappy!

Somehow it is in love as in hunting, you are never really in earnest so long as the country is open and the fences easy; but once that the ditches are "yawners," and the walls "raspers," you sit down to your work with a resolute heart and a steady eye, determined, at any cost and at any peril, to be in at the death. Would that the penalties were alike also! How gladly would I barter a fractured rib or a smashed collar-bone for the wrecked and cast-away spirit of my lost and broken heart!

If I suffer myself to expand upon my feelings, there will be no end of this, Bob. I already have a kind of consciousness that I could fill three hundred and fifty folio volumes, like "Hansard's," in subtle description and discrimination of sensations that were not exactly "this," but were very like "that;" and of impressions, hopes, fancies, fears, and visions, a thousand times more real than all the actual events of my bona fide existence. And, after all, what balderdash it is to compare the little meaningless incidents of our lives with the soul-stirring passions that rage within us! the thoughts that, so to say, form the very fuel of our natures! These are, indeed, the realities; and what we are in the habit of calling such are the mere mockeries and semblances of fact! I can honestly aver that I suffered – in the true sense of the word – more intense agony from the conflict of my distracted feelings than I ever did when lying under the pangs of a compound fracture; and I may add of a species of pain not to be alleviated by anodynes and soothed by hot flannels.

To be brief, Bob, I felt that, though I had often caught slight attacks of the malady, at length I had contracted it in its deadliest form, – a regular "blue case," as they say, with bad symptoms from the start. Has it ever struck you that a man may go through every stage of a love fever without even so much as speaking to the object of his affections? I can assure you that the thing is true, and I myself suffered nightly every vacillating sense of hope, fear, ecstasy, despair, joy, jealousy, and frantic delight, just by following out the suggestions of my own fancy, and exalting into importance the veriest trifles of the hour.

With what gloomy despondence did I turn homeward of an evening, when she sat back in the box, and perhaps nothing of her but her bouquet was visible for a whole night! – with what transports have I carried away the memory of her profile, seen but for a second! Then the agonies of my jealousy, as I saw her listening, with pleased attention, to some essenced puppy – I could swear it was such – who lounged into her box before the ballet! But at last came the climax of my joy, when I saw her "lorgnette" directed towards me, as I stood in the pit, and actually felt her eyes on me! I can imagine some old astronomer's ecstasy, as, gazing for hours on the sky of night, the star that he has watched and waited for has suddenly shone through the glass of his telescope, and lit up his very heart within him with its radiance. I 'd back myself to have experienced a still more thrilling sense of happiness as the beams of her bright eyes descended on me.

At first, Bob, I thought that the glances might have been meant for another. I turned and looked around me, ready to fasten a deadly quarrel upon him, whom I should have regarded at once as my greatest enemy. But the company amidst which I stood soon reassured me. A few snuffy-looking old counts, with brown wigs and unshaven chins, – a stray Government clerk with a pinchbeck chain and a weak moustache, couldn't be my rivals. I looked again, but she had turned away her bead; and save that the "lorgnette" still rested within her fingers, I'd have thought the whole a vision.

Three nights after this the same thing occurred. I had taken care to resume the very same place each evening, to wear the same dress, to stand in the very same attitude, – a very touching "pose," which I had practised before the glass. I had not been more than two hours at my post, when she turned abruptly round and stared full at me. There could be no mistake, no misconception whatever; for, as if to confirm my wavering doubts, her friend took the glass from her, and looked full and long at me. You may imagine, Bob, somewhat of the preoccupation of my faculties when I tell you that I never so much as recognized her friend. I had thoughts, eyes, ears, and senses for one, – and one only. Judge, then, my astonishment when she saluted me, giving that little gesture with the hand your Florentines are such adepts in, – a species of salutation so full of most expressive meaning.

Short of a crow-quilled billet, neatly endorsed with her name, nothing could have spoken more plainly. It said, in a few words, "Come up here, Jim, we shall be delighted to see you." I accepted the augury, Bob, as we used to say in Virgil, and in less than a minute had forced my passage through the dense crowd of the pit, and was mounting the box stairs, five steps at a spring. "Whose box is No. 19?" said I to an official. "Madame de Goranton," was the reply. Awkward this; never had heard the name before; sounded like French; might be Swiss; possibly Belgian.

No time for debating the point, tapped and entered, – several persons within barring up the passage to the front, – suddenly heard a well-known voice, which accosted me most cordially, and, to my intense surprise, saw before me Mrs. Gore Hampton! You know already all about her, Bob, and I need not recapitulate.

"I fancied you were going to pass your life in distant adoration yonder, Mr. Dodd," said she, laughingly, while she tendered her hand for me to kiss. "Adeline, dearest, let me present to you my friend Mr. Dodd." A very cold – an icy recognition was the reply to this speech; and Adeline opened her fan, and said something behind it to an elderly dandy beside her, who laughed, and said, "Parfaitement, ma foi!"

Registering a secret vow to be the death of the antiquated tiger aforesaid, I entered into conversation with Mrs. G. H., who, notwithstanding some unpleasant passages between our families, expressed unqualified delight at the thought of meeting us all once more; inquired after my mother most affectionately; and asked if the girls were looking well, and whether they rode and danced as beautifully as ever. She made, between times, little efforts to draw her friend into conversation by some allusion to Mary Anne's grace or Cary's accomplishments; but all in vain. Adeline only met the advances with a cold stare, or a little half-smile of most sneering expression. It was not that she was distant and reserved towards me. No, Bob; her manner was downright contemptuous; it was insulting; and yet such was the fascination her beauty had acquired over me that I could have knelt at her feet in adoration of her. I have no doubt that she saw this. I soon perceived that Mrs. Gore Hampton did. There is a wicked consciousness in a woman's look as she sees a man "hooked," there's no mistaking. Her eyes expressed this sentiment now; and, indeed, she did not try to hide it.

She invited me to come home and sup with them. She half tried to make Adeline say a word or two in support of the invitation; but no, she would not even hear it; and when I accepted, she half peevishly declared she had got a bad headache, and would go to bed after the play. I tell you these trivial circumstances, Bob, just that you may fancy how irretrievably lost I was when such palpable signs of dislike could not discourage me. I felt this all – and acutely too; but somehow with no sense of defeat, but a stubborn, resolute determination to conquer them.

I went back to sup with Mrs. G. H., and Adeline kept her word and retired. There were a few men – foreigners of distinction – but I sat beside the hostess, and heard nothing but praises of that "dear angel." These eulogies were mixed up with a certain tender pity that puzzled me sadly, since they always left the impression that either the angel had done something herself, or some one else had done it towards her, that called for all the most compassionate sentiments of the human heart. As to any chance of her history – who she was, whence she came, and so on – it was quite out of the question; you might as well hope for the private life of some aerial spirit that descends in the midst of canvas clouds in a ballet. She was there – to be worshipped, wondered at, and admired, but not to be catechised.

I left Mrs. H.'s house at three in the morning, – a sadder but scarcely a wiser man. She charged me most solemnly not to mention to any one where I had been, – a precaution possibly suggested by the fact that I had lost sixty Napoleons at lansquenet, – a game at which I left herself and her friends deeply occupied when I came away. I was burning with impatience for Tiverton to come back to Florence. He had gone down to the Maremma to shoot snipe. For, although I was precluded by my promise from divulging about the supper, I bethought me of a clever stratagem by which I could obtain all the counsel and guidance without any breach of faith, and this was, to take him with me some evening to the pit, station him opposite to No. 19, and ask all about its occupants; he knows everybody everywhere, so that I should have the whole history of my unknown charmer on the easiest of all terms.

From that day and that hour, I became a changed creature. The gay follies of my fashionable friends gave me no pleasure. I detested balls. I abhorred theatres. She ceased to frequent the opera. In fact, I gave the most unequivocal proof of my devotion to one by a most sweeping detestation of all the rest of mankind. Amidst my other disasters, I could not remember where Mrs. Gore Hampton lived. We had driven to her house after the theatre; it was a long way off, and seemed to take a very circuitous course to reach, but in what direction I had not the very vaguest notion of. The name of it, too, had escaped me, though she repeated it over several times when I was taking my leave of her. Of course, my omitting to call and pay my respects would subject me to every possible construction of rudeness and incivility, and here was, therefore, another source of irritation and annoyance to me.

My misanthropy grew fiercer. I had passed through the sad stage, and now entered upon the combative period of the disease. I felt an intense longing to have a quarrel with somebody. I frequented cafe's, and walked the streets in a battle, murder, and sudden-death humor, – frowning at this man, scowling at that. But, have you never remarked, the caprice of Fortune is in this as in all other things? Be indifferent at play, and you are sure to win; show yourself regardless of a woman, and you are certain to hear she wants to make your acquaintance. Go out of a morning in a mood of universal love and philanthropy, and I'll take the odds that you have a duel on your hands before evening.

There was one man in Florence whom I especially desired to fix a quarrel upon, – this was Morris, or, as he was now called, Sir Morris Penrhyn. A fellow who unquestionably ought to have had very different claims on my regard, but who now, in this perversion of my feelings, struck me as exactly the man to shoot or be shot by. Don't you know that sensation, Bob, in which a man feels that he must select a particular person, quite apart from any misfortune he is suffering under, and make him pay its penalty? It is a species of antipathy that defies all reason, and, indeed, your attempt to argue yourself out of it only serves to strengthen and confirm its hold on you.

Morris and I had ceased to speak when we met; we merely saluted coldly, and with that rigid observance of a courtesy that makes the very easiest prelude to a row, each party standing ready prepared to say "check" whenever the other should chance to make a wrong move. Perhaps I am not justified in saying so much of him, but I know that I do not exaggerate my own intentions. I fancied – what will a man not fancy in one of these eccentric stages of his existence? – that Morris saw my purpose, and evaded me. I argued myself into the notion that he was deficient in personal courage, and constructed upon this idea a whole edifice of absurdity.

I am ashamed, even before you, to acknowledge the extent to which my stupid infatuation blinded me; perhaps the best penalty to pay for it is an open confession.

I overtook our valet one morning with a letter in my governor's hand addressed to Sir Morris Penrhyn, and on inquiring, discovered that he and my father had been in close correspondence for the three days previous. At once I jumped to the conclusion that I was, somehow or other, the subject of these epistles, and in a fit of angry indignation I drove off to Morris's hotel.

When a man gets himself into a thorough passion on account of some supposed injury, which even to himself he is unable to define, his state is far from enviable. When I reached the hotel, I was in the hot stage of my anger, and could scarcely brook the delay of sending in my card. The answer was, "Sir Morris did not receive." I asked for pen and ink to write a note, and scribbled something most indiscreet and offensive. I am glad to say that I cannot now remember a line of it. The reply came that my "note should be attended to," and with this information I issued forth into the street half wild with rage.

I felt that I had given a deadly provocation, and must now look out for some "friend" to see me through the affair. Tiverton was absent, and amongst all my acquaintances I could not pitch upon one to whose keeping I liked to entrust my honor. I turned into several cafés, I strolled into the club, I drove down to the Cascini, but in vain; and at last was walking homeward, when I caught sight of a friendly face from the window of a travelling-carriage that drove rapidly by, and, hurrying after, just came up as it stopped at the door of the Hôtel d'Italie.

You may guess my astonishment as I felt my hand grasped cordially by no other than our old neighbor at Bruff, Dr. Belton, the physician of our county dispensary. Five minutes explained his presence there. He had gone out to Constantinople as the doctor to our Embassy, and by some piece of good luck and his own deservings to boot, had risen to the post of Private Secretary to the Ambassador, and was selected by him to carry home some very important despatches, to the rightful consideration of which his own presence at the Foreign Office was deemed essential.

Great as was the difference between, his former and his present station, it was insignificant in comparison with the change worked in himself. The country doctor, of diffident manners and retiring habits, grateful for the small civilities of small patrons, cautiously veiling his conscious superiority under an affected ignorance, was now become a consummate man of the world, – calm, easy, and self-possessed. His very appearance had undergone an alteration, and he held himself more erect, and looked not only handsomer but taller. These were the first things that struck me; but as we conversed together, I found him the same hearty, generous fellow I had ever known him, neither elated by his good fortune, nor, what is just as common a fault, contemptuously pretending that it was only one-half of his deserts.

One thing alone puzzled me, it was that he evinced no desire to come and see our family, who had been uniformly kind and good-natured to him; in fact, when I proposed it, he seemed so awkward and embarrassed that I never pressed my invitation, but changed the topic. I knew that there bad been, once on a time, some passages between my sister Mary Anne and him, and therefore supposed that possibly there might have been something or other that rendered a meeting embarrassing. At all events, I accepted his half-apology on the ground of great fatigue, and agreed to dine with him.

What a pleasant dinner it was! He related to me all the story of his life, not an eventful one as regarded incident, but full of those traits which make up interest for an individual. You felt as you listened that it was a thoroughly good fellow was talking to you, and that if he were not to prove successful in life, it was just because his were the very qualities rogues trade on for their own benefit. There was, moreover, a manly sense of independence about him, a consciousness of self-reliance that never approached conceit, but served to nerve his courage and support his spirit, which gave him an almost heroism in my eyes, and I own, too, suggested a most humiliating comparison with my own nature.

I opened my heart freely to him about everything, and in particular about Morris; and although I saw plainly enough that he took very opposite views to mine about the whole matter, he agreed to stop in Florence for a day, and act as my friend in the transaction. This being so far arranged, I started for Carrara, which, being beyond the Tuscan frontier, admits of our meeting without any risk of interruption, – for that it must come to such I am fully determined on. The fact is, Bob, my note is a "stunner," and, as I won't retract, Morris has no alternative but to come out.

I have now given you – at full length too – the whole history, up to the catastrophe, – which perhaps may have to be supplied by another hand. I am here, in this little capital of artists and quarry men, patiently waiting for Bel-ton's arrival, or at least some despatch, which may direct my future movements. It has been a comfort to me to have the task of this recital, since, for the time at least, it takes me out of brooding and gloomy thoughts; and though I feel that I have made out a poor case for myself, I know that I am pleading to a friendly Court and a merciful Chief Justice.

They say that in the few seconds of a drowning agony a man calls up every incident of his life, – from infancy to the last moment, – that a whole panorama of his existence is unrolled before him, and that he sees himself – child, boy, youth, and man – vividly and palpably; that all his faults, his short-comings, and his transgressions stand out in strong colors before him, and his character is revealed to him like an inscription. I am half persuaded this may be true, judging from what I have myself experienced within these few hours of solitude here. Shame, sorrow, and regret are ever present with me. I feel utterly disgraced before the bar of my own conscience. Even of the advantages which foreign travel might have conferred, how few have fallen to my share! – in modern languages I have scarcely made any progress, with respect to works of art I am deplorably ignorant, while in everything that concerns the laws and the modes of government of any foreign State I have to confess myself totally uninformed. To be sure, I have acquired some insight into the rogueries of "Rouge-et-Noir," I can slang a courier, and even curse a waiter; but I have some misgivings whether these be gifts either to promote a man's fortune or form his character. In fact, I begin to feel that engrafting Continental slang upon home "snobbery" is a very unrewarding process, and I sorely fear that I have done very little more than this.

I am in a mood to make a clean breast of it, and perhaps say more than I should altogether like to remember hereafter, so will conclude for the present, and with my most sincere affection write myself, as ever, yours,

Jim Dodd.

P. S. It is not impossible that you may have a few lines from me by to-morrow or next day, – at least, if I have anything worth the telling and am "to the fore" to tell it.

LETTER XXIX. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN

Casa Dodd, Florence

Dearest Kitty, – Seventeen long and closely written pages to you – the warm out-gushings of my heart – have I just consigned to the flames. They contained the journal of my life in Florence, – all my thoughts and hopes, my terrors, my anxieties, and my day-dreams. Why, then, will you say, have they met this fate? I will tell you, Kitty. Of the feelings there recorded, of the emotions depicted, of the very events themselves, nothing – absolutely nothing – now remains; and my poor, distracted, forlorn heart no more resembles the buoyant spirit of yesterday than the blackened embers before me are like the carefully inscribed pages I had once destined for your hand. Pity me, dearest Kitty, – pour out every compassionate thought of your kindred heart, and let me feel that, as the wind sweeps over the snowy Apennines, it bears the tender sighs of your affection to one who lives but to be loved! But a week ago, and what a world was opening before me, – a world brilliant in all that makes life a triumph! We were launched upon the sunny sea of high society, our "argosy" a noble and stately ship; and now, Kitty, we lie stranded, shattered, and shipwrecked.

Do not expect from me any detailed account of our disasters. I am unequal to the task. It is not at the moment of being cast away that the mariner can recount the story of his wreck. Enough if these few lines be like the chance words which, enclosed in a bottle, are committed to the waves, to tell at some distant date and in some far-away land the tale of impending ruin.

It is in vain I try to collect my thoughts: feelings too acute to be controlled burst in upon me at each moment and my sobs convulse me as I write. These lines must therefore bear the impress of the emotions that dictate them, and be broken, abrupt, mayhap incoherent!

He is false, Kitty! – false to the heart that he had won, and the affections where he sat enthroned! Yes, by the blackest treason has he requited my loyalty and rewarded my devotion. If ever there was a pure and holy love, it was mine. It was not the offspring of self-interest, for I knew that he was married; nor was I buoyed up by dreams of ambition, for I always knew the great difficulty of obtaining a divorce. But I loved him, as the classic maiden wept, – because it was inconsolable! It is not in my heart to deny the qualities of his gifted nature. No, Kitty, not even now can I depreciate them. How accomplished as a linguist! – how beautifully he drove! – how exquisitely he danced! – what perfection was his dress! – how fascinating his manners! There was – so to say – an idiosyncrasy – an idealism about him; his watchguard was unlike any other, – the very perfume of his pocket-handkerchief was the invention of his own genius.

And then, the soft flattery of his attentions before the world, bestowed with a delicacy that only high breeding ever understands. What wonder if my imagination followed where my heart had gone before, and if the visions of a future blended with the ecstasies of the present!

I cannot bring myself to speak of his treachery. No, Kitty, it would be to arraign myself were I to do so. My heartstrings are breaking, as I ask myself, "Is this, then, the love that I inspired? Are these the proofs of a devotion I fondly fancied eternal?" No more can I speak of our last meeting, the agony of which must endure while life remains. When he left me, I almost dreaded that in his despair he might be driven to suicide. He fled from the house, – it was past midnight, – and never appeared the whole of the following day; another and another passed over, – my terrors increased, my fears rose to madness. I could restrain myself no longer, and hurried away to confide my agonizing sorrows to James's ear. It was early, and he was still sleeping. As I stole across the silent room, I saw an open note upon the table, – I knew the hand and seized it at once. There were but four lines, and they ran thus: —

"Dear Jim, – The birds are wild and not very plenty; but there is some capital boar-shooting, and hares in abundance.

"They tell me Lady George is in Florence; pray see her, and let me know how she 's looking.

"Ever yours,

"George Tiverton.

"MAREMMA."

I tottered to a seat, Kitty, and burst into tears. Yours are now falling for me, – I feel it, – I know it, dearest I can write no more.