The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II

The doctor of the dispensary has written to papa, asking his support at some approaching contest for some situation, – I believe under the Poor-law. Will you kindly explain the reasons for which his letter has remained unreplied to? and if papa should not be able to answer, perhaps you could take upon yourself to give him the assistance he desires, as I know pa always esteemed him a very competent person, and kind to the poor. Of course the suggestion is only thrown out for your own consideration, and in strict confidence besides, for I make it a point never to interfere with any of the small details of pa's property.

LETTER X. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH

My dear Molly, – I received your letter in due course, and if it was n't for crying, I could have laughed heartily over it! I don't know, I'm sure, where you got your elegant description of the Lake of Comus; but I am obliged to tell you it's very unlike the real article; at all events, there 's one thing I 'm sure of, – it's a very different matter living here like Queen Caroline, and being shut up in the same house with K. I.; and therefore no more balderdash about my "queenly existence," and so on, that your last was full of.

Here we are, in what they call the Villa of the Fountains, as if there was n't water enough before the door but they must have it spouting up out of a creature's nose in one corner, another blowing it out of a shell, and three naked figures – females, Molly – dancing in a pond of it in the garden, that kept me out of the place till I had them covered with an old mackintosh of K. I.'s. We have forty-seven rooms, and there's barely furniture, if it was all put together, for four; and there 's a theatre, and a billiard-room, and a chapel; but there 's not a chair would n't give you the lumbago, and the stocks at Bruff is pleasant compared to the grand sofa. The lake comes round three sides of the house, and a mountain shuts in the other one, for there 's no road whatever to it. You think I 'm not in earnest, but it's as true as I 'm here; the only approach is by water, so that everything has to come in boats. Of course, as long as the weather keeps fine, we 'll manage to send into the town; but when there comes – what we 're sure to have in this season – aquenoctial gales, I don't know what 's to become of us. The natives of the place don't care, for they can live on figs and olives, and those great big green pumpkins they call watermelons; but, after K. I.'s experience, I don't think we'll try them. It was at a little place on the way here, called Colico, that he insisted on having a slice of one of these steeped in rum for his supper, because he saw a creature eating it outside the door. Well, my dear, he relished it so much that he ate two, and – you know the man – would n't stop till he finished a whole melon as big as one of the big stones over the gate piers at home.

"Jemi," says he, when he'd done, "is this the place the hand-book says you should n't eat any fruit in, or taste the wines of the country?"

"I don't see that," said I; "but Murray says it's notorious for March miasma, which is most fatal in the fall of the year."

"What's the name of it?" said he.

I could n't say the word before he gave a screech out of him that made the house ring.

"I 'm a dead man," says he; "that's the very place I was warned about."

From that minute the pains begun, and he spent the whole night in torture. Lord George, the kindest creature that ever breathed, got out of his bed and set off to Milan for a doctor, but it was late in the afternoon when he got back. Half an hour later, Molly, and it would have been past saving him. As it was, he bled him as if he was veal: for that's the new system, my dear, and it's the blood that does us all the harm, and works all the wickedness we suffer from. If it's true, K. I. will get up an altered man, for I don't think a horse could bear what he 's gone through. Even now he 's as gentle as an infant, Molly, and you would n't know his voice if you heard it. We only go in one at a time to him, except Cary, that never leaves him, and, indeed, he would n't let her quit the room. Sometimes I fancy that he 'll never be the same again, and from a remark or two of the doctor's, I suspect it's his head they 're afraid of. If it was n't English he raved in, I 'd be dreadfully ashamed of the things he says, and the way he talks of the family.

As it is, he makes cruel mistakes; for he took Lord George the other night for James, and began talking to him, and warning him against his Lordship. "Don't trust him too far, Jemmy," said he. "If he was n't in disgrace with his equals, he 'd never condescend to keep company with us. Depend on 't, boy, he 's not 'all right,' and I wish we were well rid of him."

Lord George tried to make him believe that he did n't understand him, And said something about the Parliament being prorogued, but K. I. went on: "I suppose, then, our noble friend did n't get his Bill through the Lords?"

"His mind is quite astray to-night," said Lord George, in a whisper, and made a sign for us to creep quietly away, and leave him to Caroline. She understands him best of any of us; and, indeed, one sees her to more advantage when there 's trouble and misery in the house than when we 're all well and prosperous.

We came here for economy, because K. I. determined we should go somewhere that money couldn't be spent in. Now, as there is no road, we cannot have horses; and as there are no shops, we cannot make purchases; but, except for the name of the thing, Molly, might n't we as well be at Bruff? I would n't say so to one of the family, but to you, in confidence between ourselves, I own freely I never spent a more dismal three weeks at Dodsborough. Betty Cobb and myself spend our time crying over it the livelong day. Poor creature, she has her own troubles too! That dirty spalpeen she married ran away with all her earnings, and even her clothes; and Mary Anne's maid says that he has two other wives in his own country. She 's made a nice fool of herself, and she sees it now.

How long we're to stay here in this misery, I can't guess, and K. I.'s convalescence may be, the doctor thinks, a matter of months; and even then, Molly, who knows in what state he 'll come out of it! Nobody can tell if we won't be obliged to take what they call a Confession of Lunacy against him, and make him allow that he's mad and unfit to manage his affairs. If it was the will of Providence, I 'd just as soon be a widow at once; for, after all, it's uncertainty that tries the spirits and destroys the constitution worse than any other affliction.

Indeed, till yesterday afternoon, we all thought he was going off in a placid sleep; but he opened one eye a little, and bade Cary draw the window-curtain, that he might look out. He stared for a while at the water coming up to the steps of the door, and almost entirely round the house, and he gave a little smile. "What's he thinking of?" said I, in a whisper; but he heard me at once, and said, "I 'll tell you, Jemi, what it was. I was thinking this was an elegant place against the bailiffs." From that moment I saw that the raving had left him, and he was quite himself again.

Now, my dear Molly, you have a true account of the life we lead, and don't you pity us? If your heart does not bleed for me this minute, I don't know you. Write to me soon, and send me the Limerick papers, that has all the news about the Exhibition in Dublin. By all accounts it's doing wonderfully well, and I often wish I could see it. Cary has just come down to take her half-hour's walk on the terrace, – for K. I. makes her do that every evening, though he never thinks of any of the rest of us, – and I must go and take her place; so I write myself

Yours in haste, but in sorrow,

Jemima Dodd

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

Villa della Fontana, Como

Forget thee! No, dearest Kitty. But how could such cruel words have ever escaped your pen? To cease to retain you in memory would be to avow an oblivion of childhood's joys, and of my youth's fondest recollections; of those first expansions of the heart, when, "fold after fold to the fainting air," the petals of my young existence opened one by one before you; when my shadowy fancies grew into bright realities, and the dream-world assumed all the lights and, alas! all the shadows of the actual. The fact was, dearest, papa was very, very ill; I may, indeed, say so dangerously, that at one time our greatest fears were excited for his state; nor was it till within a few days back that I could really throw off all apprehension and revel in that security enjoyed by the others. He is now up for some hours every day, and able to take light sustenance, and even to participate a little in social intercourse, which of course we are most careful to moderate, with every regard to his weak state; but his convalescence makes progress every hour, and already he begins to talk and laugh, and look somewhat like himself.

So confused is my poor head, and so disturbed by late anxieties, that I quite forget if I have written to you since our arrival here; at all events, I will venture on the risk of repetition so far, and say that we are living in a beautiful villa, in a promontory of the Lake of Como. It was the property of the Prince Belgiasso, who is now in exile from his share in the late struggle for Italian independence, and who, in addition to banishment, is obliged to pay above a million of livres – about forty thousand pounds – to the Austrian Government. Lord George, who knew him intimately in his prosperity, arranged to take the villa for us; and it is confessedly one of the handsomest on the whole lake. Imagine, Kitty, a splendid marble façade, with a Doric portico, so close to the water's edge that the whole stands reflected in the crystal flood; an Alpine mountain at the back; while around and above us the orange and the fig, the vine, the olive, the wild cactus, and the cedar wave their rich foliage, and load the soft air with perfume. It is not alone that Nature unfolds a scene of gorgeous richness and beauty before us; that earth, sky, and water show forth their most beautiful of forms and coloring; but there is, as it were, an atmosphere of voluptuous enjoyment, an inward sense of ecstatic delight, that I never knew nor felt in the colder lands of the north. The very names have a magic in their melody; the song of the passing gondolier; the star-like lamp of the "pescatore," as night steals over the water; the skimming lateen sail, – all breathe of Italy, – glorious, delightful, divine Italy! – land of song, of poetry, and of love!

Oh, how my dearest Kitty would enjoy those delicious nights upon the terrace, where, watching the falling stars, or listening to the far-off sounds of sweet music, we sit for hours long, scarcely speaking! How responsively would her heart beat to the plash of the lake against her rocky seat! and how would her gentle spirit drink in every soothing influence of that fair and beauteous scene! With Lord George it is a passion; and I scarcely know him to be the same being that he was on the other side of the Alps. Young men of fashion in England assume a certain impassive, cold, apathetic air, as though nothing could move them to any sentiment of surprise, admiration, or curiosity about anything; and when by an accident these emotions are excited, the very utmost expression in which their feelings find vent is some piece of town slang, – the turf, the mess-room, the universities, and, I believe, even the House of Commons, are the great nurseries of this valuable gift; and as Lord George has graduated in each of these schools, I take it he was no mean proficient. But how different was the real metal that lay buried under the lacquer of conventionality! Why, dearest Kitty, he is the very soul of passion, – the wildest, most enthusiastic of creatures; he worships Byron, he adores Shelley. He has told me the whole story of his childhood, – one of the most beautiful romances I ever listened to. He passed his youth at Oxford, vacillating between the wildest dissipations and the most brilliant triumphs. After that he went into the Hussars, and then entered the House, moving the Address, as it is called, at one-and-twenty; a career exactly like the great Mr. Pitt's, only that Lord G. really possesses a range of accomplishments and a vast variety of gifts to which the Minister could lay no claim. Amidst all these revelations, poured forth with a frank and almost reckless impetuosity, it was still strange, Kitty, that he never even alluded to the one great and turning misfortune of his life. He did at one time seem approaching it; I thought it was actually on his lips; but he only heaved a deep sigh, and said, "There is yet another episode to tell you, – the darkest, the saddest of all, – but I cannot do it now." I thought he might have heard my heart beating, as he uttered these words; but he was too deeply buried in his own grief. At last he broke the silence that ensued, by pressing my hand fervently to his lips, and saying, "But when the time comes for this, it will also bring the hour for laying myself and my fortunes at your feet, – for calling you by the dearest of all names, – for – "Only fancy, Kitty, – it was just as he got this far that Cary, who really has not a single particle of delicacy in such cases, came up to ask me where she could find some lemons to make a drink for papa! I know I shall never forgive her – I feel that I never can – for her heartless interruption. What really aggravates her conduct, too, was the kind of apology she subsequently made to me in my own room. Just imagine her saying, —

"I was certain it would be a perfect boon to you to get away from that tiresome creature."

If you only saw him, Kitty! if you only heard him! But all I said was, —

"There is certainly the merit of a discovery in your remark, Cary; for I fancy you are the first who has found out Lord George Tiverton to be tiresome!"

"I only meant," said she, "that his eternal egotism grows wearisome at last, and that the most interesting person in the world would benefit by occasionally discussing something besides himself."

"Captain Morris, for instance," said I, sharply.

"Even so," said she, laughing; "only I half suspect the theme is one he 'll not touch upon!" And with this she left the room.

The fact is, Kitty, jealousy of Lord George's rank, his high station, and his aristocratic connections are the real secret of her animosity to him. She feels and sees how small "her poor Captain" appears beside him, and of course the reflection is anything but agreeable. Yet I am sure she might know that I would do everything in my power to diminish the width of that gulf between them, and that I would study to reconcile the discrepancies and assuage the differences of their so very dissimilar stations. She may, it is true, place this beyond my power to effect; but the fault in that case will be purely and solely her own.

You do me no more than justice, Kitty, in saying that you are sure I will feel happy at anything which can conduce to the welfare of Dr. B.; and I unite with you in wishing him every success his new career can bestow. Not but, dearest, I must say that, judging from the knowledge I now possess of life and the world, I should augur more favorably of his prospects had he still remained in that quiet obscurity for which his talents and habits best adapt him than adventure upon the more ambitious but perilous career he has just embarked in. You tell me that, having gone up to Dublin to thank one of his patrons at the late election, he was invited to a dinner, where he made the acquaintance of the Earl of Darewood; and that the noble Lord, now Ambassador at Constantinople, was so struck with his capacity, knowledge, and great modesty that he made him at once an offer of the post of Physician to the Embassy, which with equal promptitude was accepted.

Very flatteringly as this reads, dearest, it is the very climax of improbability; and I have the very strongest conviction that the whole appointment is wholly and solely due to the secret influence of Lord George Tiverton, who is the Earl's nephew. In the first place, Kitty, supposing that the great Earl and the small Dispensary Doctor did really meet at the same dinner-table, – an incident just as unlikely as need be conceived, – how many and what opportunities would there exist for that degree of intercourse of which you speak?

If the noble Lord did speak at all to the Doctor, it would have been in a passing remark, an easily answered question as to the sanitary state of his neighborhood, or a chance allusion to the march of the cholera in the north of Europe, – so at least Lord G. says; and, moreover, that if the Doctor did, by any accident, evidence any of the qualities for which you give him credit, save the modesty, that the Earl would have just as certainly turned away from him, as a very forward, presuming person, quite forgetful of his station, and where he was then standing. You can perceive from this that I have read the paragraph in yours to Lord G.; but I have done more, Kitty: I have positively taxed him with having obtained the appointment in consequence of a chance allusion I had made to Dr. B. a few weeks ago. He denies it, dearest; but how? He says, "Oh, my worthy uncle never reads my letters; he 'd throw them aside after a line or two; he's angry with me, besides, for not going into the 'line,' as they call Diplomacy, and would scarcely do me a favor if I pressed him ever so much."

When urged further, he only laughed, and, lighting his cigar, puffed away for a moment or two; after which he said in his careless way: "After all, it mightn't have been a bad dodge of me to send the Doctor off to Turkey. He was an old admirer, wasn't he?"

After this, Kitty, to allude to the subject was impossible, and here I had to leave it. But who could possibly have insinuated such a scandal concerning me? or how could it have occurred to malignant ingenuity to couple my name with that of a person in his station? I cried the entire evening in my own room as I thought over the disgrace to which the bare allusion exposed me.

Is there not a fatality, then, I ask you, in everything that ties us to Ireland? Are not the chance references to that country full of low and unhappy associations? and yet you can talk to me of "when we come back again."

We are daily becoming more uneasy about James. He is now several weeks gone, and not a line has reached us to say where he is, or what success has attended him. I know his high-spirited nature so well, and how any reverse or disappointment would inevitably drive him to the wildest excesses, that I am in agony about him. A letter in your brother's hand is now here awaiting him, so that I can perceive that even Robert is as ignorant of his fate as we are.

All these cares, dearest, will have doubtless thrown their shadows over this dreary epistle, the reflex of my darkened spirit. Bear with and pity me, dearest Kitty; and even when calmer reason refuses to follow the more headlong impulses of my feeling, still care for, still love Your ever heart-attached and devoted

Mary Anne Dodd.

P. S. The post has just arrived, bringing a letter for Lord G. in James's hand. It was addressed Bregenz, and has been several days on the road. How I long to learn its tidings! But I cannot detain this; so again good-bye.

LETTER XII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF

Lake of Como

My dear Tom, – Though I begin this to-day, it may be it will take me to the end of the week to finish it, for I am still very weak, and my ideas come sometimes too quick and sometimes too slow, and, like an ill-ordered procession, stop the road, and make confusion everywhere. Mary Anne has told you how I have been ill, and for both our sakes, I 'll say little more about it. One remark, however, I will make, and it is this: that of all the good qualities we ascribe to home, there is one unquestionably pre-eminent, – "it is the very best place to be sick in." The monotony and sameness so wearisome in health are boons to the sick man. The old familiar faces are all dear to him; the well-known voices do not disturb him; the little gleam of light that steals in between the curtains checkers some accustomed spot in the room that he has watched on many a former sick-bed. The stray words he catches are of home and homely topics. In a word, he is the centre of a little world, all anxious and eager about him, and even the old watchdog subdues his growl out of deference to his comfort.

Now, though I am all gratitude for the affection and kindness of every one around me, I missed twenty things I could have had at Dodsborough, not one of them worth a brass farthing in reality, but priceless in the estimation of that peevish, fretful habit that grows out of a sick-bed. It was such a comfort to me to know how Miles Dogherty passed the night, and to learn whether he got a little sleep towards morning, as I did, and what the doctor thought of him. Then I liked to hear all the adventures of Joe Barret, when he "went in" for the leeches, how the mare threw him, and left him to scramble home on his feet. Then I revelled in all that petty tyranny illness admits of, but which is only practicable amongst one's own people, refusing this, and insisting on that, just to exercise the little despotism that none rebel against, but which declines into a mixed monarchy on the first day you eat chicken-broth, and from which you are utterly deposed when you can dine at table. In good truth, Tom, I don't wonder at men becoming malades imaginaires, seeing the unnatural importance they attain to by a life of complaining, and days passed in self-commiseration and sorrow.

In place of all this, think of a foreign country and a foreign doctor; fancy yourself interrogated about your feelings in a language of which you scarcely know a word, and are conscious that a wrong tense in your verb may be your death-warrant. Imagine yourself endeavoring, through the flighty visions of a wandering intellect, to find out the subjunctive mood or the past participle, and almost forgetting the torment of your gout in the terrors of your grammar!

This is a tiresome theme, and let us change it. Like all home-grown people, I see you expect me to send you a full account of Italy and the Italians within a month after my crossing the Alps. It is, after all, a pardonable blunder on your part, since the very titles we read to books of travels in the newspapers show that for sketchy books there are always to be found "skipping" readers. Hence that host of surface-description that finds its way into print from men who have the impudence to introduce themselves as writers of "Jottings from my Note-Book," "Loose Leaves from my Log," "Smoke Puffs from Germany," and "A Canter over the Caucasus." Cannot these worthy folk see that the very names of their books are exactly the apologies they should offer for not having written them, had any kind but indiscreet friend urged them into letterpress? "I was only three weeks in Sweden, and therefore I wrote about it," seems to me as ugly a non sequitur as need be. And now, Tom, that I have inveighed against the custom, I am quite ready to follow the example, and if you could only find me a publisher, I am open to an offer for a tight little octavo, to be called "Italy from my Bedroom Window."

Most writers set out by bespeaking your attention on the ground of their greater opportunities, their influential acquaintances, position, and so forth. To this end, therefore, must I tell you that my bedroom window, besides a half-view of the lake, has a full look-out over a very picturesque landscape of undulating surface, dotted with villas and cottages, and backed by a high mountain, which forms the frontier towards Switzerland. At the first glance it seems to be a dense wood, with foliage of various shades of green, but gradually you detect little patches of maize and rice, and occasionally, too, a green crop of wurzel or turnips, which would be creditable even in England; but the vine and the olive surround these so completely, or the great mulberry-trees enshadow them so thoroughly, that at a distance they quite escape view. The soil is intersected everywhere by canals for irrigation, and water is treasured up in tanks, and conveyed in wooden troughs for miles and miles of distance, with a care that shows the just value they ascribe to it. Their husbandry is all spade work, and I must say neatly and efficiently done. Of course, I am here speaking of what falls under my own observation; and it is, besides, a little pet spot of rich proprietors, with tasteful villas, and handsomely laid-out gardens on every side; but as the system is the same generally, I conclude that the results are tolerably alike also. The system is this: that the landlord contributes the soil, and the peasant the labor, the produce being fairly divided afterwards in equal portions between them. It reads simple enough, and it does not sound unreasonable either; while, with certain drawbacks, it unquestionably contains some great advantages. To the landlord it affords a fair and a certain remuneration, subject only to the vicissitudes of seasons and the rate of prices. It attaches him to the soil, and to those who till it, by the very strongest of all interests, and, even on selfish grounds, enforces a degree of regard for the well-being of those beneath him. The peasant, on the other hand, is neither a rack-rented tenant nor a hireling, but an independent man, profiting by every exercise of his own industry, and deriving direct and positive benefit from every hour of his labor. It is not alone his character that is served by the care he bestows on the culture of the land, but every comfort of himself and his family are the consequences of it; and lastly, he is not obliged to convert his produce into money to meet the rent-day. I am no political economist, but it strikes me that it is a great burden on a poor man, that he must buy a certain commodity in the shape of a legal tender, to satisfy the claim of a landlord. Now, here the peasant has no such charge. The day of reckoning divides the produce, and the "state of the currency" never enters into the question. He has neither to hunt fairs nor markets, look out for "dealers" to dispose of his stock, nor solicit a banker to discount his small bill. All these are benefits, Tom, and some of them great ones too. The disadvantages are that the capabilities of the soil are not developed by the skilful employment of capital. The landlord will not lay out money of which he is only to receive one-half the profit. The peasant has the same motive, and has not the money besides. The result is that Italy makes no other progress in agriculture than the skill of an individual husbandman can bestow. Here are no Smiths of Deanstown, – no Sinclairs, – no Mechis. The grape ripens and the olive grows as it did centuries ago; and so will both doubtless continue to do for ages to come. Again, there is another, and in some respects a greater, grievance, since it is one which saps the very essence of all that is good in the system. The contract is rarely a direct one between landlord and tenant, but is made by the intervention of a third party, who employs the laborers, and really occupies the place of oar middlemen at home. The fellow is usually a hard taskmaster to the poor man, and a rogue to the rich one; and it is a common thing, I am told, for a fine estate to find itself at last in the hands of the fattore. This is a sore complication, and very difficult to avoid, for there are so many different modes of culture, and such varied ways of treating the crops on an Italian farm, that the overseer must be sought for in some rank above that of the peasant.

We have a notion in Ireland that the Italian lives on maccaroni; depend upon it, Tom, he seasons it with something better. In the little village beside me, there are three butchers' shops, and as the wealthy of the neighborhood all market at Como, these are the recourse of the poorer classes. Of wine he has abundance; and as to vegetables and fruits, the soil teems with them in a rich luxuriance of which I cannot give you a notion. Great barges pass my window every morning, with melons, cucumbers, and cauliflowers, piled up half-mast high. How a Dutch painter would revel in the picturesque profusion of grapes, peaches, figs, and apricots, heaped up amidst huge pumpkins of bursting ripeness, and those brilliant "love apples," the allusion to which was so costly to Mr. Pickwick. You are smacking your lips already at the bare idea of such an existence. Yes, Tom, you are reproaching Fate for not having "raised" you, as Jonathan says, on the right side of the Alps, and left you to the enjoyments of an easy life, with lax principles, little garments, and a fine climate. But let me tell you, Idleness is only a luxury WHERE OTHER PEOPLE ARE OBLIGED TO WORK; where every one indulges in it, it is worth nothing. I remember, when sitting listlessly on a river's bank, of a sunny day, listening to the hum of the bees, or watching the splash of a trout in the water, I used to hug myself in the notion of all the fellows that were screaming away their lungs in the Law Courts, or sitting upon tall stools in dark counting-houses, or poring over Blue-books in a committee-room, or maybe broiling on the banks of the Ganges; and then bethink me of the easy, careless, happy flow of my own existence. I was quite a philosopher in this way, – I despised riches, and smiled at all ambition.

Now there is no such resources for me here. There are eight or nine fellows that pass the day – and the night also, I believe – under my window, that would beat me hollow in the art of doing nothing, and seem to understand it as a science besides. There they lie – and a nice group they are – on their backs, in the broiling sun; their red nightcaps drawn a little over their faces for shade; their brawny chests and sinewy limbs displayed, as if in derision of their laziness. The very squalor of their rags seems heightened by the tawdry pretension of a scarlet sash round the waist, or a gay flower stuck jauntily in a filthy bonnet. The very knife that stands half buried in the water-melon beside them has its significance, – you have but to glance at the shape to see that, like its owner, its purpose is an evil one. What do these fellows know of labor? Nothing; nor will they, ever, till condemned to it at the galleys. And what a contrast to all around them, – ragged, dirty, and wretched, in the midst of a teeming and glorious abundance; barbarous, in a land that breathes of the very highest civilization, and sunk in brutal ignorance, beside the greatest triumphs of human genius.