The Dodd Family Abroad Volume Ii Part 6

My dear Mr. Purcell,--Poor papa has been so ill since his arrival in Italy, that he could not reply to either of your two last letters, and even now is compelled to employ me as his amanuensis. A misfortune having occurred to our carriage, we were obliged to stop at a small village called Colico, which, as the name implies, was remarkably unhealthy. Here the gout, that had been hovering over him for some days previous, seized him with great violence; no medical aid could be obtained nearer than Milan, a distance of forty miles, and you may imagine the anxiety and terror we all suffered during the interval between despatching the messenger and the arrival of the doctor. As it was, we did not succeed in securing the person we had sent for, he having been that morning sentenced to the galleys for having in his possession some weapon--a surgical instrument, I believe--that was longer or sharper than the law permits; but Dr. Pantuccio came in his stead, and we have every reason to be satisfied with his skill and kindness. He bled papa very largely on Monday, twice on Tuesday, and intends repeating it again to-day, if the strength of the patient allow of it. The debility resulting from all this is, naturally, very great; but papa is able to dictate to me a few particulars in reply to your last. First, as to Crowther's bill of costs: he says, "that he certainly cannot pay it at present," nor does he think he ever will. I do not know how much of this you are to tell Mr. C., but you will be guided by your own discretion in that, as on any other point wherein I may be doubtful.

Harris also must wait for his money--and be thankful when he gets it.

You will make no abatement to Healey, but try and get the farm out of his hands, by any means, before he sublets it and runs away to America.

Tom Dunne's house, at the cross-roads, had better be repaired; and if a proper representation was made to the Castle about the disturbed state of the country, papa thinks it might be made a police-station, and probably bring twenty pounds a year. He does not like to let Dodsborough for a "Union;" he says it's time enough when we go back there to make it a poorhouse. As to Paul Davis, he says, "let him foreclose, if he likes; for there are three other claims before his, and he 'll only burn his fingers,"--whatever that means.

Papa will give nothing to the schoolhouse till he goes back and examines the children himself; but you are to continue his subscription to the dispensary, for he thinks overpopulation is the real ruin of Ireland. I don't exactly understand what he says about allowance for improvements, and he is not in a state to torment him with questions; but it appears to me that you are not to allow anything to anybody till some Bill pa.s.ses, or does not pa.s.s, and after that it is to be arranged differently. I am afraid poor papa's head was wandering here, for he mumbled something about somebody being on a "raft at sea," and hoped he wouldn't go adrift, and I don't know what besides.

Your post-bill arrived quite safe; but the sum is totally insufficient, and below what he expected. I am sure, if you knew how much irritation it cost him, you would take measures to make a more suitable remittance.

I think, on the whole, till papa is perfectly recovered, it would be better to avoid any irritating or unpleasant topics; and if you would talk encouragingly of home prospects, and send him money frequently, it would greatly contribute to his restoration.

I may add, on mamma's part and my own, the a.s.surance of our being ready to submit to any privation, or even misery if necessary, to bring papa's affairs into a healthier condition. Mamma will consent to anything but living in Ireland, which, indeed, I think is more than could be expected from her. As it is, we keep no carriage here, nor have any equipage whatever; our table is simply two courses, and some fruit. We are wearing out all our old-fas.h.i.+oned clothes, and see n.o.body. If you can suggest any additional mode of economizing, mamma begs you will favor us with a line; meanwhile, she desires me to say that any allusion to "returning to Dodsborough," or any plan "for living abroad as we lived at home" will only embitter the intercourse, which, to be satisfactory, should be free from any irritation between us.

Of course, for the present you will write to mamma, as papa is far from being fit for any communication on matters of business, nor does the doctor antic.i.p.ate his being able for such for some weeks to come.

We have not heard from James since he left this, but are anxiously expecting a letter by every post, and even to see his name in the "Gazette." Cary does not forget that she was always your favorite, and desires me to send her very kindest remembrances, with which I beg you to accept those of very truly yours,

Mart Anne Dodd.

P. S. As it is quite uncertain when papa will be equal to any exertion, mamma thinks it would be advisable to make your remittances, for some time, payable to her name.

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 a.s.sistance 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 Lords.h.i.+p. "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 n.o.ble 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! n.o.body 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.sumed 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 repet.i.tion 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 Belgia.s.so, 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 faade, 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sion; and I scarcely know him to be the same being that he was on the other side of the Alps. Young men of fas.h.i.+on in England a.s.sume a certain impa.s.sive, 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 pa.s.sion,--the wildest, most enthusiastic of creatures; he wors.h.i.+ps Byron, he adores Sh.e.l.ley. He has told me the whole story of his childhood,--one of the most beautiful romances I ever listened to. He pa.s.sed 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 a.s.suage 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.ble Lord, now Amba.s.sador 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 Emba.s.sy, which with equal prompt.i.tude 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 n.o.ble Lord did speak at all to the Doctor, it would have been in a pa.s.sing 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,'