Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 26

So long as I prosecuted my reforms on the actual staff of the establishment, all went well. Now and then, it is true, I used to overhear in French, of which they believed me to be ignorant, rather sharp comments on the "free-and-easy tone of my manners; how careless I had become," and so on,--complaints, however, sure to be be met by some a.s.surance that "my manners were quite London;" that what I did was the type of fashionable servitude,--apologies made less to screen me than to exalt those who invented them, as thoroughly conversant with high life in England.

At last, partly from being careless of consequences, for I was getting very weary of this kind of life,--the great amus.e.m.e.nt of which used to be repeating my performances for the ear of Captain Pike, and he was now removed with his regiment to Kingstown,--and partly wishing for some incidents, of what kind I cared not, that might break the monotony of my existence, I contrived one day to stretch my prerogative too far, or, in the phrase of the Gulf, I "harpooned a bottle-nose,"--the periphrasis for making a gross mistake.

I had been some years at Mrs. Davis's,--in fact, I felt and thought myself a man,--when the last ball of the season was announced,--an entertainment at which usually a more crowded a.s.semblage used to congregate than at any of the previous ones.

It was the choice occasion for the _habitues_ of the house to invite their grand friends; for Mrs. D. was accustomed to put forth all her strength, and the arrangements were made on a scale of magnificence that invariably occasioned a petty famine for the fortnight beforehand. Soup never appeared, that there might be "bouillon" for the dancers; every one was on a short allowance of milk, eggs, and sugar; meat became almost a tradition; even candles waned and went out, in waiting for the auspicious night when they should blaze like noonday. Nor did the company fail to partic.i.p.ate in these preparatory schoolings. What frightful heads in curl-papers would appear at breakfast and dinner!

What b.u.t.toned-up coats and black cravats refuse all investigation on the score of linen! What mysterious cookings of cosmetics at midnight, with petty thefts of lard and thick cream! What washings of kid gloves, that when washed would never go on again! What inventions of French-polish that refused all persuasions to dry, but continued to stick to and paint everything it came in contact with! Then there were high dresses cut down, like frigates razeed; frock-coats reduced to dress ones; mock lace and false jewelry were at a premium; and all the little patchwork devices of ribbons, bows, and carnations, gimp, gauze, and geraniums, were put into requisition,--petty acts of deception that each saw through in her neighbor, but firmly believed were undetectable in herself.

Then what caballings about the invited; what scrutiny into rank and station,--"what set they were in," and whom did they visit; with little Star-chamber inquisitions as to character, all breaches of which, it is but fair to state, were most charitably deemed remediable if the party had any pretension to social position; for not only the saint in c.r.a.pe was twice a saint in lawn, but the satin sinner was pardonable where the "washing silk" would have been found guilty without a "recommendation."

Then there was eternal tuning of the pianoforte, which most perversely insisted on not suiting voices that might have sung duets with a peac.o.c.k. Quadrilles were practised in empty rooms; and Miss Timmock was actually seen trying to teach Blotter to waltz,--a proceeding, I rejoice to say, that the moral feeling of the household at once suppressed. And then, what a scene of decoration went forward in all the apartments! As in certain benevolent families, whatever is uneatable is always given to the poor, so here, all the artificial flowers unavailable for the toilet were generously bestowed to festoon along the walls, to conceal tin sconces, and to wreathe round rickety chandeliers. Contrivance--that most belauded phenomenon in Nature's craft--was everywhere. If necessity be the mother of invention, poor gentility is the "stepmother." Never were made greater efforts, or greater sacrifices incurred, to make Mrs. D. appear like a "West-end" leader of fashion, and to make the establishment itself seem a Holderness House.

As for me, I was the type of a stage servant,--one of those creatures who hand round coffee in the "School for Scandal." My silk stockings were embroidered with silver, and my showy coat displayed a bouquet that might have filled a vase.

In addition to these personal graces, I had long been head of my department; all the other officials, from the negro knife-cleaner upwards, besides all those begged, borrowed, and, I believe I might add, stolen domestics of other families, being placed under my orders.

Among the many functions committed to me, the drilling of these gentry stood first in difficulty, not only because they were rebellious under control, but because I had actually to invent "the discipline during parade." One golden rule, however, I had adopted, and never suffered myself to deviate from, viz., to do nothing as it had been done before,--a maxim which relieved me from all the consequences of inexperience. Traditions are fatal things for a radical reformer; and I remembered having heard it remarked how Napoleon himself first sacrificed his dignity by attempting an imitation of the monarchy. By this one precept I ruled and squared all my conduct.

The most refractory of my subordinates was a jackanapes about my own age, who, having once waited on the "young gentlemen" in the c.o.c.k-pit of a man-of-war, fancied he had acquired very extended views of life. Among other traits of his fashionable experience, he remembered that at a _dejeuner_ given by the officers at Cadiz once, the company, who breakfasted in the gun-room, had all left their hats and cloaks in the midshipman's berth, receiving each a small piece of card with a number on it, and a similar one being attached to the property,--a process so universal now in our theatres and a.s.semblies that I ask pardon for particularly describing it; but it was a novelty at the time I speak of, and had all the merits of a new discovery.

Smush--this was my deputy's name--had been so struck with the admirable success of the arrangement that he had actually preserved the pieces of card, and now produced them, black and ragged, from the recesses of his trunk.

"Mr. Cregan"--such was the respectful t.i.tle by which I was now always addressed--"Mr. Cregan can tell us," said he, "if this is not the custom at great b.a.l.l.s in London."

"It used to be so, formerly," said I, with an air of most consummate coolness, as I sat in an arm-chair, regaling myself with a cigar; "the practice you allude to, Smush, did prevail, I admit. But our fashionable laws change; one day it is all ultra-refinement and Sybarite luxury,--the next, they affect a degree of mock simplicity in their manners: anything for novelty! Now, for instance, eating fish with the fingers--"

"Do they, indeed, go so far?"

"Do they! ay, and fifty things worse. At a race-dinner the same silver cup goes round the table, drunk out of by every one. I have seen strange things in my time."

"That you must, Mr. Cregan."

"Latterly," said I, warming with my subject, and seeing my auditory ready to believe anything, "they began the same system with the soup, and always pa.s.sed the tureen round, each tasting it as it went. This was an innovation of the Duke of Struttenham's; but I don't fancy it will last."

"And how do they manage about the hats, Mr. Cregan?"

"The last thing, in that way, was what I saw at Lord Mudbrooke's, at Richmond, where, not to hamper the guests with these foolish bits of card, which they were always losing, the servant in waiting chalked a number on the hat or coat, or whatever it might be, and then marked the same on the gentleman's back!"

Had it not been for the imposing gravity of my manner, the absurdity of this suggestion had been at once apparent; but I spoke like an oracle, and I impressed my words with the simple gravity of a commonplace truth.

"If you wish to do the very newest thing, Smush, that's the latest,--quite a fresh touch; and, I 'll venture to say, perfectly unknown here. It saves a world of trouble to all parties; and as you brush it off before they leave, it is always another claim for the parting douceur!"

"I'll do it," said Smush, eagerly; "they cannot be angry--"

"Angry! angry at what is done with the very first people in London!"

said I, affecting horror at the bare thought. The train was now laid; I had only to wait for its explosion.

At first, I did this with eager impatience for the result; then, as the time drew near, with somewhat of anxiety; and, at last, with downright fear of the consequences. Yet to revoke the order, to confess that I was only hoaxing on so solemn a subject, would have been the downfall of my ascendency forever. What was to be done?

I could imagine but one escape from the difficulty, which was to provide myself with a clothes-brush, and, as my station was at the drawing-room door, to erase the numerals before their wearers entered. In this way I should escape the forfeiture of my credit, and the risk of maintaining it.

I would willingly recall some of the strange incidents of that great occasion, but my mind can only dwell upon one, as, brush in hand, I asked permission to remove some accidental dust,--a leave most graciously accorded, and ascribed to my town-bred habits of attention.

At last--it was nigh midnight, and for above an hour the company had received no accession to its ranks; quadrilles had succeeded quadrilles, and the business of the scene went swimmingly on,--all the time-honored events of similar a.s.semblages happening with that rigid regularity which, if evening-parties were managed by steam, and regulated by a fly-wheel, could not proceed with more ordinary routine. "Heads of houses" with bald scalps led out simpering young boarding-school misses, and danced with a n.o.ble show of agility, to refute any latent suspicion of coming age. There were the usual number of very old people, who vowed the dancing was only a shuffling walk, not the merry movement they had practised half a century ago; and there were lack-a-daisical young gentlemen, with waistcoats variegated as a hearth-rug, and magnificent breast-pins like miniature pokers, who lounged and lolled about, as though youth were the most embarra.s.sing and wearying infliction mortality was heir to.

There were, besides, all the varieties of the cla.s.s young lady, as seen in every land where muslin is sold, and white shoes are manufactured.

There was the slight young lady, who floated about with her gauzy dress daintily pinched in two; then there was the short and dumpling young lady, who danced with a duck in her gait; and there were a large proportion of the flouncing, flaunting kind, who took the figures of the quadrille by storm, and went at the "right and left" as if they were escaping from a fire; and there was Mrs. Davis herself, in a spangled toque and red shoes, pottering about from place to place, with a terrible eagerness to be agreeable and fashionable at the same time.

It was, I have said, nigh midnight as I stood at the half-open door, watching the animated and amusing scene within, when Mrs. Davis, catching sight of me, and doubtless for the purpose of displaying my specious livery, ordered me to open a window, or close a shutter, or something of like importance. I had scarcely performed the service, when a kind of half t.i.tter through the room made me look round, and, to my unspeakable horror, I beheld, in the centre of the room, Town-Major McCan, the most pa.s.sionate little man in Quebec, making his obeisances to Mrs. Davis, while a circle around were, with handkerchiefs to their mouths, stifling, as they best could, a burst of laughter; since exactly between his shoulders, in marks of about four inches long, stood the numerals "158," a great flourish underneath proclaiming that the roll had probably concluded, and that this was the "last man."

Of the major, tradition had already consecrated one exploit; he had once kicked an impertinent tradesman down the great flight of iron stairs which leads from the Upper Town to Diamond Harbor,--a feat, to appreciate which, it is necessary to bear in mind that the stair in question is almost perpendicular, and contains six hundred and forty-eight steps! My very back ached by antic.i.p.ation as I thought of it; and as I retreated towards the door, it was in a kind of shuffle, feeling like one who had been well thrashed.

"A large party, Mrs. D.; a very brilliant and crowded a.s.sembly," said the major, pulling out his bushy whiskers, and looking importantly around. "Now what number have you here?"

"I cannot even guess, Major; but we have had very few apologies.

Could you approximate to our numbers this evening, Mr. c.o.x?" said she, addressing a spiteful-looking old man who sat eying the company through an opera-gla.s.s.

"I have counted one hundred and thirty-four, madam; but the major makes them more numerous still!"

"How do you mean, c.o.x?" said he, getting fiery red.

"If you'll look in that gla.s.s yonder, which is opposite the mirror, you 'll soon see!" wheezed out the old man, maliciously. I did not wait for more; with one spring I descended the first flight; another brought me to the hall; but not before a terrible shout of laughter apprised me that all was discovered. I had just time to open the clock-case and step into it, as Major McCan came thundering downstairs, with his coat on his arm.

A shrill yell from Sambo now told me that one culprit at least was "up"

for punishment. "Tell the truth, you d--d piece of carved ebony! who did this?"

"Not me, Ma.s.sa! not me, Ma.s.sa! Smush did him!"

Smush was at this instant emerging from the back parlor with a tray of colored fluids for the dancers. With one vigorous kick the major sent the whole flying; and ere the terrified servitor knew what the a.s.sault portended, a strong grasp caught him by the throat, and ran him up bang!

against the clock-case. Oh, what a terrible moment was that for me! I heard the very gurgling rattle in his throat, like choking, and felt as if when he ceased to breathe that I should expire with him.

"You confess it! you own it, then, you infernal rascal!" said the major, almost hoa.r.s.e with rage.

"Oh, forgive me, sir! oh, forgive me! It was Mr Cregan, sir, the butler, who told me! Oh dear, I'm--" What, he couldn't finish; for the major, in relinquishing his grasp, flung him backwards, and he fell against the stairs.

"So it was Mr.--Cregan,--the--butler,--was it?" said the major, with an emphasis on each word as though he had bitten the syllables. "Well! as sure as my name is Tony McCan, Mr. Cregan shall pay for this! Turn about is fair play; you have marked _me_, and may I be drummer to the Cape Fencibles if I don't mark _you!_" and with this denunciation, uttered in a tone, every accent of which vouched for truth, he took a hat--the first next to him--and issued from the house.

Shivering with terror,--and not without cause,--I waited till Smush had, with Sambo's aid, carried downstairs the broken fragments; and then, the coast being clear, I stepped from my hiding-place, and opening the hall-door, fled,--ay, ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I crossed the gra.s.s terrace in front of the barrack, not heeding the hoa.r.s.e "Who goes there?" of the sentry; and then, dashing along the battery-wall, hastened down the stairs that lead in successive flights to the filthy "Lower Town," in whose dingy recesses I well knew that crime or shame could soon find a sanctuary.

CHAPTER XV. AN EMIGRANTS FIRST STEP ON Sh.o.r.e

If I say that the Lower Town of Quebec is the St. Giles's of the metropolis, I convey but a very faint notion indeed of that terrible locality. I have seen life in some of its least attractive situations. I am not ignorant of the Liberties of Dublin and the Claddagh of Galway; I have pa.s.sed more time than I care to mention in the Isle St. Louis of Paris; while the Leopoldstadt of Vienna and the Ghetto of Rome are tolerably familiar to me; but still, for wickedness in its most unwashed state, I give palm to the Lower Town of Quebec.

The population, originally French, became gradually intermixed with emigrants, most of whom came from Ireland, and who, having expended the little means they could sc.r.a.pe together for the voyage, firmly believing that, once landed in America, gold was a "chimera" not worth troubling one's head about, they were unable to go farther, and either became laborers in the city, or, as the market grew speedily overstocked, sunk down into a state of pauperism, the very counterpart of that they had left on the other side of the ocean. Their turbulence, their drunkenness, the reckless violence of all their habits, at first shocked and then terrified the poor timid Canadians,--of all people the most submissive and yielding,--so that very soon, feeling how impossible it was to maintain co-partnery with such a.s.sociates, they left the neighborhood, and abandoned the field to the new race. Intermarriages had, however, taken place to a great extent; from which, and the daily intercourse with the natives, a species of language came to be spoken which was currently called French, but which might, certainly with equal propriety, be called Cherokee. Of course this new tongue modified itself with the exigencies of those who spoke it; and as the French ingredient declined, the Milesian preponderated, till at length it became far more Irish than French.

Nothing a.s.sists barbarism like a dialect adapted to its own wants.

Slang is infinitely more conducive to the propagation of vice than is generally believed; it is the "paper currency" of iniquity, and each man issues as much as he likes. If I wanted an evidence of this fact, I should "call up" the place I am speaking of, where the very jargon at once defied civilization and ignored the "schoolmaster." The authorities, either regarding the task as too hopeless, or too dangerous, or too troublesome, seemed to slur over the existence of this infamous locality. It is not impossible that they saw with some satisfaction that wickedness had selected its only peculiar and appropriate territory, and that they had left this den of vice, as Yankee farmers are accustomed to leave a spot of tall gra.s.s to attract the snakes, by way of preventing them scattering and spreading over a larger surface.