The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

I cannot bring my mind to answer your questions about Dodsborough; my poor head is too full of its own troubles. They 've just brought me my breakfast, – prison fare, – for in my indignation I have refused all other. Little I used to think, while tasting the jail diet at home, as one of the visitors, that I'd ever be reduced to eating it on less experimental grounds!

I must reserve all my directions about home affairs for my next; but bestir yourself to raise this money for us. Without some sort of a compromise we cannot leave this; and I am as anxious to "evacuate Flanders" as ever was Uncle Toby! Captain Morris told me, the other day, of a little town in Germany where there are no English, and where everything can be had for a song. The cheapness and the isolation would both be very advisable just now. I 'll get the name of it before I write next.

By the way, Morris is a better fellow than I used to think him: a little priggish or so, but good-hearted at bottom, and honest as the sun. I think he has an eye on Mary Anne. Not that at present he 'd have much chance in that quarter. These foreign counts and barons give a false glitter to society that throws into the shade all untitled gentility; and your mere country gentleman beside them is like your mother's old silver teapot on a table with a show specimen of Elkington's new galvanic plate. Not but if you wanted to raise a trifle of money on either, the choice would be very difficult.

I 'll keep anything more for another letter, and now sign myself

Your old and attached friend,

Kenny I. Dodd. Petits Cabmes, Brussels, Tuesday Morning.

LETTER XII. MRS. DODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH

Dear Molly, – The blessed Saints only can tell what sufferings I have gone through the last two days, and it's more than I 'm equal to, to say how it happened! The whole family has been turned topsy and turvy, and there's not one of us is n't upside down; and for one like me, that loves to live in peace and enmity with all mankind, this is a sore trial!

Many 's the time you heard me remark that if it was n't for K. I.'s temper, and the violence of his passion, that we 'd be rich and well off this day. Time, they say, cures many an evil; but I 'll tell you one, Molly, that it never improves, and that is a man's wilful nature; on the contrary, they only get more stubborn and cross-grained, and I often think to myself, what a blessed time one of the young creatures must have had of it, married to some patriarch in the Old Testament; and then I reflect on my own condition, – not that Kenny Dodd is like anything in the Bible! And now to tell you, if I 'm able, some of my distresses.

You have heard about poor dear James, and how he was shot; but you don't know that these last six weeks he has never been off his back, with three doctors, and sometimes five-and-thirty leeches on him; and what with the torturing him with new-fashioned instruments, and continued "repletion," as they call it, – if it had n't been for strong wine-gruel that I gave him, at times, "unknownst," – my sure belief is that he would n't have been spared to us. This has been a terrible blow, Molly; but the ways of Providence is unscrupulous, and we must submit.

Here it is, then. James, like every boy, spent a little more money than he had, and knowing well his father's temper, he went to the Jews to help him. They smarted the poor dear child, who, in his innocent heart, knew nothing of the world and its wicked ways. They made him take all kinds of things instead of cash, – Dutch tiles, paving-stones, an altar-piece, and a set of surveying-tools, amongst the rest; and these he had to sell again to raise a trifle of cash. Some of them he disposed of mighty well, – particularly the altar-piece, – but on others he lost a good deal, and, at the end, was a heavy balance in debt. If it had n't been for the duel, however, he says he 'd have no trouble at all in "carrying on," – that's his own word, and I suppose alludes to the business. Be that as it may, his wound was his ruin. Nobody knew how to manage his affairs but himself. It was the very same way with my grandfather, Maurice Lynch McCarthy; for when he died there wasn't a soul left could make anything of his papers. There was large sums in them, – thousands and thousands of pounds mentioned, – but where they were, and what's become of them, we never discovered.

And so with James. There he was, stretched on his bed, while villains and schemers were working his ruin! The business came into the courts here, which, from all I can learn, Molly, are not a bit better than at home with ourselves. Indeed, I believe, wherever one goes, lawyers is just the same for roguery and rampacity. To be sure, it 's comfort to think that you can have another, to the full as bad as the one against you; and if there is any abuse or bad language going, you can give it as hot as you get it; that's equal justice, Molly, and one of the proudest boasts of the British constitution! And you 'd suppose that K. I., sitting on the bench for nigh four-and-twenty years, would know that as well as anybody. Yet what does he do? – you 'll not believe me when I tell you! Instead of paying one of these creatures to go in and torment the others, to pick holes in all he said, and get fellows to swear against them, he must stand out, forsooth, and be his own lawyer! And a blessed business he made of it! A reasonable man would explain to the judges how it all was, – that James was a child; that it was the other day only he was flying a kite on the lawn at home; that he knew as much about wickedness as K. I. did of paradise; that the villains that led him on ought to be publicly whipped! Faith, I can fancy, Molly, it was a beautiful field for any man to display every commotion of the heart; but what does he do? He gets up on his legs, – I did n't see, but I 'm told it, – he gets up on his legs and begins to ballyrag and blackguard all the courts of justice, and the judges, and the attorneys, down to the criers, – he spares nobody! There is nothing too dreadful for him to say, and no words too bad to express it in; till, their patience being all run out, they stop him at last, and give orders to have him taken from the spot, and thrown into a dungeon of the town jail, – a terrible old place, Molly, that goes by the name of the "Petit Carême!" and where they say the diet is only a thin sheet of paper above starving.

And there he is now, Molly; and you may picture to yourself, as the poet says, "what frame he's in"! The news reached me when we were going to the play. I was under the hands of the hairdresser, and I gave such a screech that he jumped back, and burned himself over the mouth with the curling-irons. Even that was a relief to me, Molly; for Mary Anne and myself laughed till we cried again!

I was for keeping the thing all snug and to ourselves about K. I.; but Mary Anne said we should consult Lord George, that was then in the house, and going with us to the theatre. They are a wonderful people, the great English aristocracy; and if it's anything more than another distinguishes them, 't is the indifference to every kind and description of misfortune. I say this, because, the moment Lord George heard the story, he lay down on the sofa, and laughed and roared till I thought he 'd split his sides. His only regret was that he had n't been there, in the courts, to see it all. As for James's share of the trouble, he said it "didn't signify a rush!"

He made the same remark I did myself, – that James was the same as an infant, and could, consequently, know nothing of the world and its pompous vanities.

"I 'll tell you how to manage it all," said he, "and how you 'll not only escape all gossip, but actually refute even the slightest scandal that may get abroad. Say, first of all, that Mr. Dodd is gone over to England – we 'll put it in the 'Galignani' – to attend his Parliamentary duties. The Belgian papers will copy it at once. This being done, issue invitations for an evening at home, 'tea and dance,' – that's the way to do it. Say that the governor hates a ball, and that you are just taking the occasion of his absence to see your friends without disturbing him. The people that will come to you won't be too critical about the facts. Believe me, the gay company will be the very last to inquire where is the head of the house. I 'll take care that you 'll have everybody worth having in Brussels, and with Latour's band, and the supper by Dubos, I 'd like to see who 'll have a spare thought for Mr. Dodd the absent."

I own to you, Molly, the counsel shocked my feelings at first, and I asked my heart, "What will the world say, if it ever comes out that we had our house full of company, and the height of gayety going on, when the head of the family was, maybe, in chains in a dungeon?" "Don't you perceive," says Lord G., "that what I 'm advising will just prevent the possibility of all that, – that you are actually rescuing your family, by a master-stroke, from the evil consequences of Mr. D.'s rashness? As to the boldness of the policy," added he, "that is the only merit it possesses." And then he said something about the firing at St. Sebastian above somebody's head, that I didn't quite lightly understand. The upshot was, Molly, I was convinced, not, you may be sure, that I felt any pleasure or gratification in the prospect of a ball under such trying circumstances, but just as Lord G. said, I felt I was "rescuing the family."

When we came home, from the play, – for we went with heavy hearts, I assure you, though we afterwards laughed a great deal, – we set about writing the invitations for "Our Evening;" and although James and Mary Anne assisted Lord G., it was nigh daybreak when we were done. You 'll ask, where was Caroline? And you might well ask; but as long as I live I 'll never forget her unnatural conduct! It is n't that she opposed everything about the ball, but she had the impudence to say to my face "that hitherto we had been only ridiculous, but that this act would be one of downright shame and disgrace." Her language to Lord George was even worse, for she told him that his "counsel was a very sorry requital for the generous hospitality her father had always extended to him." Where the hussey got the words so glibly, I can't imagine; but she, that rarely speaks at all, talked away with the fluency of a lawyer. As to helping us to address the notes, she vowed she 'd rather cut her fingers off; and what made this worse was, that she's the only one of them knows the genders in French, and whether a soirée is a man or a woman!

You may imagine the trouble of the next day; for in order to have the ball come off before K. I. was out, we were only able to give two days' notice. Little the people that come to your house to dance or to sup know or think what a deal of trouble – not to say more – it costs to give a ball. Lord George tells me that even the Queen herself always gives it in another house, so she 's not put out of her way with the preparations, – and, to be sure, what is more natural? – and that she would n't like to be exposed to the turmoil of taking down beds, hanging lustres, fixing sconces, raising a platform for the music, and settling tables for the supper. I 'm sure and certain, if she only knew what it was to pass such a day as yesterday was with me, she 'd never have a larger party than that lord that's always in waiting, and the ladies of the bedroom! As for regular meals, Molly, we had none. There was a ham and cold chickens in the lobby, and a veal pie and some sherry on the back stairs; and that's the way we breakfasted, dined, and supped. To be sure, we laughed heartily all the time, and I never saw Mary Anne in such spirits. Lord George was greatly struck with her, – I saw it by his manner, – and I would n't be a bit surprised if something came of it yet!

I have little time to say more now, for I 'm called down to see the flowerpots and orange-trees that's to line the hall and the stairs; but I 'll try and finish this by post hour.

As I see that this cannot be despatched to-day, I 'll keep it over, to give you a "full and true" account of the ball, which Lord George assures me will be the greatest fête Brussels has seen this winter; and, indeed, if I am to judge from the preparations, I can well believe him! There are seven men cooks in the kitchen making paste and drinking sherry in a way that's quite incredible, not to speak of an elderly man in my own room that's doing the M'Carthy arms in spun-sugar for a temple that is to represent Dodsborough, in the middle of the table, with K. I. on the top of it, holding a flag, and crying out something in French that means welcome to the company. Poor K. I., 'tis something else he's thinking of all the time!

Then, the whole stairs and the landing is all one bower of camellias and roses and lilies of the valley, brought all the way from Holland for another ball, but, by Lord George's ingenuity, obtained by us. As for ice, Molly, you 'd think my dressing-room was a Panorama of the North Pole; and there's every beast of that region done in strawberries or lemon, with native creatures, the color of life, in coffee or chocolate. The music will be the great German Brass Band, fifty-eight performers, and two Blacks with cymbals. They 're practising now, and the noise is dreadful! Carts are coming in every moment with various kinds of eatables, for I must tell you, Molly, they don't do things here the way we used at Dodsborough. Plenty of cold roast chickens, tongues, and sliced ham, apple-pies, tarts, jelly, and Spanish flummery, with Naples biscuits and a plum-cake, is a fine supper in Ireland; and if you begin with sherry, you can always finish with punch: but here there's nothing that ever was eaten they won't have. Ice when they 're hot, soup when they 're chilly, oyster patties and champagne continually during the dancing, and every delicacy under the sun afterwards on the supper-table.

There's nothing distresses me in it all but the Polka, Molly. I can't learn it. I always slide when I ought to hop, and where there 's a hop I duck down in spite of me! And whether it's the native purity of an Irishwoman, or that I never was reared to it, I can't say; but the notion of a man's arm round me keeps me in a flutter, and I 'm always looking about to see how K. I. bears it. I suppose, however, I 'll get through it well enough, for Lord George is to be my partner; and as I know K. I.'s "safe," my mind is more easy.

Perhaps it's the shortness of the invitation, but there's a great many apologies coming in. The English Ambassador won't come. Lord G. says it's all the better, for the Tories are going out, and it will be a great service to K. I. with the Whigs if it's thought he did n't invite him! This may be true, but it's no reason in life for the Austrian, the French, the Prussian, and the Spanish Ministers sending excuses. Lord George, however, thinks it's the terrible state of the Continent explains it all, and the Despotic Powers are so angry with Lord Dudley Stuart and Roebuck that they like to insult the English! If it be so, they haven't common-sense. Kenny James has taken a turn with all their parties, and much good it has done him!

Lord G. and Mary Anne are in high spirits, notwithstanding these disappointments, for "the Margravine" is coming, – at least, so he tells me; but whether the Margravine be a man or woman, Molly, or only something to eat, I don't rightly know, and I 'm ashamed to ask.

I have just been greatly provoked by a visit from Captain Morris, who called twice this morning, and at last insisted on seeing me. He came to entreat me, he says, "if not to abandon, at least to put off, our ball till Mr. Dodd's return." I tried to browbeat him, Molly, for his impertinent interference, but it would n't do; and he showed me that he knew perfectly well where K. I. was, – a piece of information that, of course, he obtained from Caroline. Oh, Molly dear, when one's own flesh and blood turns against them, – when children forget all the lessons you 've been teaching them from infancy, – it's a sore, sore trial! Not but I have reason to be thankful. Mary Anne and James are like part of myself; nothing mean or little-minded about them, but fine, generous, confiding creatures, – happy for to-day, hopeful for to-morrow!

When I mentioned to Lord G. what Morris came about, he only laughed, and said, "It was a clever dodge of the half-pay, – he wanted an invitation;" and I see now that such must have been his object. The more one sees of mankind, the greater appears their meanness; and in my heart I feel how unsuited guileless, simple-hearted creatures like myself are to combat against the stratagems and ambuscades of this wicked world. Not that little Morris will gain much by his morning's work, for Mary Anne says that Lord George will never suffer him to get on full pay as long as he lives. "A friend in need is a friend indeed," Molly, more particularly when he's a lord.

The Margravine is a princess, Molly. I 've just found it out; for James is to receive her at the foot of the stairs, Mary Anne and myself on the lobby. Lord G. says she must have whist at half-"Nap." points, and always play with her own "Gentleman-in-Waiting." She never goes out on any other conditions. But he says, "She 's cheap even at that price, for an occasion like the present;" and maybe he's right.

No more now, for my gown is come to be tried on.

Dear Molly, I'll try and finish this, since, maybe, it's the last lines you 'll ever receive from your attached friend. Three days have elapsed since I put my hand to paper, and three such days, I 'll be bound, no human creature ever passed. Out of one fit of hysterics into another, and taking the strongest stimulants, with no more effect than if they were water! My screeches, I am told, were dreadful, and there 's scarcely one of the family can't show the mark of my nails; and this is what K. I. has brought me to. You know well what I used to suffer from him at Dodsborough, and the terrible scenes we always had when the Christmas bills came in; but it's all nothing, Molly, to what has happened here. But as my Uncle Joe said, no good ever came out of a "mess-alliance."

My moments are few so I 'll be brief. The ball was beautiful, Molly; there never was the like of it for elegance and splendor! For great names, rank, fashion, beauty, and jewels, it was, they tell me, far beyond the Court, because we had a great many people who, from political reasons, refuse to go to Leopold, but who had no prejudices against your humble servant; for, strange enough, they have Orangemen here as well as in Ireland! Princes, dukes, counts, and generals came pouring in, all shining with stars and crosses, blue and red ribbons, and keys worked on their coat-tails, till nearly twelve o'clock. There were, then, nigh seven hundred souls in the house, eating, dancing, drinking, and enjoying themselves; and a beautiful sight it was: everybody happy, and thinking only of pleasure. Mary Anne looked elegant, and many remarked that we must be sisters. Oh dear, if they only saw me now!

There was a mazurka that lasted till half-past one, for it's a dance that everybody must take out each in turn, and you 'd fancy there was no end to it, for, indeed, they never do seem tired of embracing and holding each other round the waist; but Lord George came to say that the Margravine had finished her whist and wanted her supper, so down we must go at once.

James was to take her Supreme Highness, and the Prince of Dammiseisen – a name that always made me laugh – was to take me; but he is a great man in Germany, and had a kingdom of his own till he was "modified" by Bonaparte, which means, as Lord George says, that "he took it out in money." But why do I dwell on these things? Down we went, Molly, – down the narrow stairs, – for the supper was laid out below; and a terrible crush it was, for, strange as it may seem, your grand people are just as anxious to get good places as any; and I saw a duke fighting his way in, just like old Ted Davis at Dodsborough!

When we came to the last flight of stairs, the crowd was awful, and the banisters creaked, and the wood-work groaned, so that I thought it was going to give way; and instead of James moving on in front, he pressed back upon us, and increased the confusion, for we were forced forward by hundreds behind us.

"What's the matter, James?" said I. "Why don't you goon?"

"I 'd rather be excused," said he. "It 's like Donnybrook Fair, down there, – a regular shindy!"

It was no less, Molly; for although the hall was filled with servants, there were two men armed with sticks, laying about them like mad, and fighting their way towards the supper-room.

"Who are those wretches?" cried I; "why don't they turn them out?"

The words weren't well out, my dear Molly, when the door gave way, and the two, trampling down all before them, passed into the room. From that moment it was crash after crash! Lamps, lustres, china, glass, plates, dishes, fruit, and confectionery flying on all sides! In less time than I 'm writing it, the table was cleared, and of the elegant temple there wasn't a bit standing. I just got inside the door to see the McCarthy arms in smithereens! and K. I. – for it was him! – dancing over them, with that little blackguard Paddy Byrne smashing everything round him! I went off into fits, Molly, and never saw more; and, indeed, I wish with all my heart that I never came to again, if what they tell me be only true. K. I., it seems, no sooner demolished the supper than he set to work on the company. He snatched off the Margravine's wig, and beat her with it, kicking Dammiseisen and two other princes into the street. They say that many of the nobility leaped out of the first-pair windows, and one fat old gentleman, a chamberlain to the King of Bavaria, was caught by a lamp iron, and hung there for twenty minutes, with a mob shouting round him!

This all came of the Belgians letting out K. I. at one o'clock, which, according to their reckoning, was the end of his three days.

I 'm getting another attack, so I must conclude. We left Brussels the next morning, and arrived here the same night. I don't know where we are going, and I don't care. K. I. has never had the face to come near me since his infamous conduct, and I hope, for the little time I may be spared on this side of the grave, not to see him again. Mary Anne is in bed, too, and nearly as bad as myself; and as for Caroline, I wouldn't let her into the room! Lord George took James away to his own lodgings till K. I. learns to behave more like a Christian; but when that may be is utterly beyond

Your afflicted and disgraced friend,

Jemima Dodd.

Hôtel d'Angleterre, Liège.

Dear Molly, I open this to say that I have made my will; for, if Divine Providence doesn't befriend me, your poor Jemima will be in paradise before this reaches you! I have left you my black satin with the bugles, and my brown bombazine, which, when it is dyed, will be very nice mourning for common wear. I also bequeath to you the things you 'll find in the oak press in my own room, and ten silver spoons, and a fish-knife marked with the McCarthy arms, which, not to be too particular, I have put down in the will as "plate and linen." I leave you, besides, my book of "Domestic Cookery," "The Complete Housewife," and the "Way to Glory," by St. Francis Xavier. There are marks all through them with my own pen; and be particular to observe the receipt for snow pancakes, and the prayers for a "Plenary" after Candlemas.

It will be a comfort to your feelings to know that I am departing from this life in peace and charity with every one. Tell Mat I forgive him the fleece he stole out of the hayloft; and though he swears still he never laid hand on it, who else was there, Molly? You can give Kitty Hogan the old shoes in the closet, for, though she never wears any, she 'd like to have them for keepsakes! K. I. cared too little for my peace here to suppose that he will think of my repose hereafter, so that Father John can take the yearling calf and the two ewes out in masses! My feelings is overcoming me, Molly, and I can't go on! – breathing my last, as I am, in a far-away land, and sinking under the cruelty of a hard-hearted man!

I think it would only be a decent mark of respect to my family if the M'Carthy arms was hung up over the door, to show I was n't a Dodd. The crest is an angel sheltering a fox, or a beast like a fox, under his wing; but you 'll see it on the spoons. When you sell the piggs – maybe I ought n't to put two g's in them, but my head is wandering – pay old Judy Cobb two-and-sevenpence for the yarn, and say that I won't stop the ninepence out of Betty's wages. Maybe, when I 'm gone, they 'll begin to see what they 've lost, and maybe E. I. will feel it too, when he finds no buttons on his shirts and the strings out of his waistcoat; and what's far worse, nobody to contradict him, and control his wilful nature! That's the very struggle that's killing me now! Nobody knows, nor would believe, the opposition I 've given him for twenty years. But he 'll feel it, Molly, and that before I'm six weeks in the grave.

I don't know my age to a day or a month, but you can put me down at thirty-nine, and maybe the "Blast of Freedom" would say a word or two about my family. I 'd like that far better than to be "deeply regretted," or "to the inexpressible grief of her bereaved relations."

I have made it a last request that my remains are to be sent home, and as I know K. I. won't go to the expense, he'll have to bear all the disgrace of neglecting my dying entreaty. That's my legacy to him, Molly; and if it's not a very profitable one, the "duty" will not be heavy.

Remember me affectionately to everybody, and say that to the last my heart was in my own country; and indeed, Molly, I never did hear so much good about Ireland as since we left it!