Francis Lynde - The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

So that you see, Bob, without De Porquet's Grammar and "Ollendorff's Method," my time is tolerably full. In fact, if the day had forty-eight hours, I have something to fill every one of them.

There would be nothing but pleasure in this life, but for certain drawbacks, the worst of which is that I am not alone here. You have no idea, Bob, to what subterfuges I 'm reduced, to keep my family out of sight of my grand acquaintances. Sometimes I call the governor my guardian; sometimes an uncle, so rich that I am forced to put up with all his whims and caprices. Egad! it went so far, f other day, that I had to listen to a quizzing account of my aunt's costume at a concert, and hear my mother shown up as a précieuse ridicule of the first water. There's no keeping them out of public places, too; and how they know of all the various processions, Te Deums, and the like I cannot even guess. My own metamorphosis is so complete that I have cut them twice dead, in the Park; and no later than last night, I nearly ran over my father in the Allée Verte with my tandem leader, and heard the whole story this morning at breakfast, with the comforting assurance that "he 'd know the puppy again, and will break every bone in his body if he catches him." In consequence of which threat, I have given orders for a new beard and moustache of the Royal Albert hue, instead of black, which I have worn heretofore. I must own, though, it is rather a bore to stand quietly by and see fellows larking your sister; but Mary Anne is perfectly incorrigible, notwithstanding all I have said to her. Cary's safety lies in hating the Continent and all foreigners, and that is just as absurd.

The governor, it seems, is perpetually writing to Vickars, our member, about something for me . Now, I sincerely hope that he may not succeed; for I own to you that I do not anticipate as much pleasure and amusement from either a "snug berth in the Customs" or a colonial situation; and after all, Bob, why should I be reduced to accept of either? Our estate is a good one, and if a little encumbered or so, why, we 're not worse off than our neighbors. If I must do something, I 'd rather go into a Light Cavalry Regiment – such as the Eleventh, or the Seventeenth – than anything else. I say this to you, because your uncle Purcell is bent on his own plans for me, which would be nothing short of utter degradation; and if there's anything low-bred and vulgar on earth, it's what they call a "Profession." You know the old adage about leading a horse to the water; now I frankly declare to you that twenty shall not make me drink any of the springs of this knowledge, whether Law, Medicine, or Divinity lie at the bottom of the well.

It does not require any great tact or foresight to perceive that not a man of my "set" would ever know me again under such circumstances. I have heard their opinions often enough on these matters not to be mistaken; and whatever we may think in Ireland about our doctors and barristers, they are what Yankees call "mighty small potatoes" abroad.

Lord George Tiverton said to me last night, "Why doesn't your governor put you into 'the House'? You'd make a devilish good figure there." And the notion has never left me since. Lord George himself is Member for Hornby, but he never attends the sittings, and only goes into Parliament as a means of getting leave from his regiment. They say he's the "fastest" fellow in the service; he has already run through seventeen thousand a year, and one hundred and twenty thousand of his wife's fortune. They are separated now, and he has something like twelve hundred a year to live on; just enough for cigars and brandy and water, he calls it. He's the best-tempered fellow I ever saw, and laughs and jokes about his own misfortunes as freely as possible. He knows the world – and he's not yet five-and-twenty – perhaps better than any man I ever saw. There is not a bill-discounter, not a betting-man, nor a ballet-dancer, he is not acquainted with; and such amusing stories as he tells of his London life and experiences. When he found that he had run through everything – when all his horses were seized at Ascot, and his house taken in execution in London, he gave a splendid fête at Hornby, and invited upwards of sixty people down there, and half the county to meet them. "I resolved," said he, "on a grand finish; and I assure you that the company did not enjoy themselves the less heartily because every second fellow in my livery was a sheriff's officer, and that all the forks and spoons on the table were under seizure. There was a 'caption,' as they term it, on everything, down to the footmen's bag-wigs and knee-buckles. We went to supper at two o'clock; and I took in the Duchess of Allington, who assuredly never suspected that there was such a close alliance between my drawing-room and the Queen's Bench. The supper was exquisite; poor Marriton had exhausted himself in the devices of his art, and most ingeniously intimated his appreciation of my situation by a plate of ortolans en salmi, sautés à la Fonblanque , – a delicate allusion to the Bankrupt Commissioner. I nearly finished the dish myself, drank off half a bottle of champagne, took out Lady Emily de Maulin for the cotillon, and then, slipping away, threw myself into a post-chaise, arrived at Dover for the morning mail-packet, and landed at Boulogne free as William Tell, or that eagle which he is so enthusiastic in describing as a most remarkable instance of constitutional liberty." These are his own words, Bob; but without you saw his manner, and heard his voice, you could form no notion whatever of the careless, happy self-satisfaction of one who calls himself irretrievably ruined.

From all that I have been jotting down, you may fancy the set I am moving in, and the class with whom I associate. Then there is a German Graf von Blumenkohl, and a Russian Prince Kubitzkoy, two tremendous swells; a young French Marquis de Tregues, whose mother was granddaughter, I believe, of Madame du Barri, and a large margin of inferior dons, Spanish, Italian, and Belgian. That your friend Jemmy Dodd should be a star, even a little one, in such a galaxy, is no small boast; and such, my dear Bob, I am bound to feel it. Each of these fellows has a princely fortune, as well as a princely name, and it is not without many a clever dodge and cunning artifice that, weighted as I am, I can keep pace with them. I hope you'll succeed, with all my heart, for the scholarship or fellowship. Which is it? Don't blame me for the blunder, for I have never, all my life through, been able to distinguish between certain things which I suppose other persons find no resemblance in. Thus I never knew exactly whether the word "people" was spelled "eo" or "oe." I never knew the Derby from the Oaks, nor shall I ever, I'm certain, be able to separate in my mind Moore O'Ferral from Carew O'Dwyer, though I am confidently informed there is not a particle of similarity in the individuals, any more than in the names.

Write to me when your match is over, – I mean your examination, – and say where you 're placed. I 'll take you against the field, at the current odds, in "fives."

And believe me, ever your attached friend,

J. Dodd.

Dear Tom, – Yours did not reach me till yesterday, owing to some confusion at the Post-office. There is another Dodd here, who has been receiving my letters, and I his , for the last week; and I conclude that each of us has learned more than was quite necessary of the other's affairs; for while he was reading of all the moneyed distresses and embarrassments of your humble servant, I opened a letter dated Doctors' Commons, beginning, "Dear sir, we have at last obtained the most satisfactory proofs against Mrs. Dodd, and have no hesitation in now submitting the case to a jury." We met yesterday, and exchanged credentials, with an expression of face that I'm sure "Phiz" would have given a five-pound note to look at. Peachem and Lockit were nothing to it. We agreed that either of us ought to leave this, to prevent similar mistakes in future, although, in my heart, I believe that we now know so much of each other's affairs, that we might depute one of us to conduct both correspondences. In consequence, we tossed up who was to go. He won; so that we take our departure on Wednesday next, if I can settle matters in the mean while. I 'm told Bonn, on the Rhine, is a cheap place, and good for education, – a great matter as regards James, – so that you may direct your next to me there. To tell you the truth, Tom, I'm scarcely sorry to get away, although the process will be anything but a cheap one. First of all, we have taken the rooms for three months, and hired a job-coach for the same time. Moving is also an expensive business, and not over-agreeable at this season; but against these there is the setoff that Mrs. D. and the girls are going to the devil in expense for dress. From breakfast-time till three or four o'clock every day, the house is like a fair with milliners, male and female, hairdressers, perfumers, shoemakers, and trinket-men. I thought we'd done with all this when we left London; but it seems that everything we bought there is perfectly useless, and Mrs. D. comes sailing in every now and then, to make me laugh, as she says, at a bit of English taste by showing me where her waist is too short, or her sleeves too long; and Mary Anne comes down to breakfast in a great stiff watered silk, which for economy she has converted into a house-dress. Caroline, I must say, has not followed the lead, and is quite satisfied to be dressed as she used to be. James I see little of, for he 's working hard at the languages, and, from what the girls say, with great success. Of course, this is all for the best; but it's little use French or even Chinese would be to him in the Customs or the Board of Trade, and it's there I'm trying to get him. Vickars told me last week that his name is down on no less than four lists, and it will be bad luck but we 'll bit upon something. Between ourselves, I'm not over-pleased with Vickars. Whenever I write to him about James, his reply is always what he's doing about the poor laws, or the Jews, or the grant to Maynooth; so that I had to tell him, at last, that I 'd rather hear that my son was in the Revenue, than that every patriarch in Palestine was in Parliament, or every papist in Ireland eating venison and guinea-hens. Patriotism is a fine thing, if you have a fine fortune, and some men we could mention have n't made badly out of it, without a sixpence; but for one like myself, the wrong side of fifty, with an encumbered estate, and no talents for agitation, it's as expensive as horse-racing, or yachting, or any other diversion of the kind. So there's no chance of a tenant for Dodsborough! You ought to put it in the English papers, with a puff about the shooting and the trout-fishing, and the excellent neighborhood, and all that kind of thing. There 's not a doubt but it's too good for any Manchester blackguard of them all! What you say about Tully Brack is quite true. The encumbrances are over eleven thousand; and if we bought in the estate at three or four, there would be so much gain to us. The "Times" little knew the good it was doing us when it was blackguarding the Irish landlords, and depreciating Irish property. There's many a one has been able to buy in his own land for one-fifth of the mortgages on it; and if this is n't repudiation, it's not so far off Pennsylvania, after all.