The Dodd Family Abroad Volume Ii Part 11

I 'm this moment come back, and not quite satisfied with what I 've done. Mrs. D. and Mary Anne approve highly of my choice. They say nothing could be better. Some of us must be mistaken, and I fervently trust that it may not be

Your sincere friend,

Kenny James Dodd.

LETTER XIV. JAMES DODD TO LORD GEORGE TIVERTON, M.P.

Cour de Vienne, Mantua.

My dear George,--I 've only five minutes to give you; for the horses are at the door, and we 're to start at once. I have a great budget for you when we meet; for we've been over the Tyrol and Styria, spent ten days at Venice, and "done" Verona and the rest of them,--John Murray in hand.

We 're now bound for Milan, where I want you to meet us on our arrival, with an invitation from my mother, asking Josephine to the villa. I 've told her that the note is already there awaiting her, and for mercy'

sake let there be no disappointment.

This dispensation is a horrible tedious affair; but I hope we shall have it now within the present month. The interval _she_ desires to spend in perfect retirement, so that the villa is exactly the place, and the attention will be well timed.

Of course they ought to receive her as well as possible. Mary Anne, I know, requires no hint; but try and persuade the governor to trim himself up a little, and if you could make away with that old flea-bitten robe be calls his dressing-gown, you 'd do the State some service. Look to the servants, too, and smarten them up; a cold perspiration breaks over me when I think of Betty Cobb!

I rely on you to think of and provide for everything, and am ever your attached friend,

James Dodd.

I changed my last five-hundred-pound note at Venice, so that I must bring the campaign to a close immediately.

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

Parma, the "Cour de Parme."

My dear Molly,--When I wrote to you last, we were living, quietly, it is true, and unostensively, but happily, on the Lake of Comus, and there we might have pa.s.sed the whole autumn, had not K. L, with his usual thoughtfulness for the comfort of his family, got into a row with the police, and had us sent out of the country.

No less, my dear! Over the frontier in twenty-four hours was the word; and when Lord George wanted to see some of the great people about it, or even make a stir in the newspapers, he wouldn't let him. "No," said he, "the world is getting tired of Englishmen that are wronged by foreign governments. They say, naturally enough, that there must be some fault in ourselves, if we are always in trouble, this way; and, besides, I would not take fifty pounds, and have somebody get up in the House and move for all the correspondence in the case of Mr. Dodd, so infamously used by the authorities in Lombardy." Them 's his words, Molly; and when we told him that it was a fine way of getting known and talked about in the world, what was his answer do you think? "I don't want notoriety; and if I did, I 'd write a letter to the 'Times,' and say it was I that defended Hougoumont, in the battle of Waterloo. There seems to be a great dispute about it, and I don't see why I could n't put in my claim."

I suppose after that, Molly, there will be very little doubt that his head isn't quite right, for he was no more at Waterloo than you or me.

It was a great shock to us when we got the order to march; for on that same morning the post brought us a letter from James, or, at least, it came to Lord George, and with news that made me cry with sheer happiness for full two hours after. I was n't far wrong, Molly, when I told you that it 's little need he 'd have of learning or a profession. Launch him out well in life was my words to K. I. Give him ample means to mix in society and make friends, and see if he won't turn it to good account. I know the boy well; and that's what K. I. never did,--never could.

See if I 'm not right, Mary Gallagher. He went down to the baths of--I'm afraid of the name, but it sounds like "Humbug," as well as I can make out--and what does he do but make acquaintance with a beautiful young creature, a widow of nineteen, rolling in wealth, and one of the first families in France!

How he did it, I can't tell; no more than where he got all the money he spent there on horses and carriages and dinners, and elegant things that he ordered for her from Paris. He pa.s.sed five weeks there, courting her, I suppose; and then away they went, rambling through Germany, and over the mountains, down to Venice. She in her own travelling-carriage, and James driving a team of four beautiful grays of his own; and then meeting when they stopped at a town, but all with as much discretion as if it was only politeness between them. At last he pops the question, Molly; and it turns out that she has no objection in life, only that she must get a dispensation from the Pope, because she was promised and betrothed to the King of Naples, or one of his brothers; and though she married another, she never got what they call a Bull of release.

This is the hardest thing in the world to obtain; and if it was n't that she has a Cardinal an uncle, she might never get it. At all events, it will take time, and meanwhile she ought to live in the strictest retirement. To enable her to do this properly, and also by way of showing her every attention, James wrote to have an invitation ready for her to come down to the villa and stay with us on a visit.

By bad luck, my dear, it was the very morning this letter came, K. I.

had got us all ordered away! What was to be done, was now the question; we daren't trust him with the secret till she was in the house, for we knew well he 'd refuse to ask her,--say he could n't afford the expense, and that we were all sworn to ruin him. We left it to Lord George to manage; and he, at last, got K. I. to fix on Parma for a week or two, one of the quietest towns in Italy, and where you never see a coach in the streets, nor even a well-dressed creature oat on Sunday. K. I. was delighted with it all; saving money is the soul of him, and he never thinks of anything but when he can make a hard bargain. What he does with his income, Molly, the saints alone can tell; but I suspect that there's some sinners, too, know a trifle about it; and the day will come when I 'll have the proof! Lord G. sent for the landlord's tariff, and it was reasonable enough. Rooms were to be two zwanzigers--one-and-fourpence--apiece; breakfast, one; dinner, two zwanzigers; tea, half a one; no charge for wine of the place; and if we stayed any time, we were to have the key of a box at the opera.

K. I. was in ecstasy. "If I was to live here five or six years," says he, "and pay n.o.body, my affairs wouldn't be so much embarra.s.sed as they are now!"

"If you 'd cut off your enc.u.mbrances, Mr. Dodd," says I, "that would save something."

"My what?" said he, flaring up, with a face like a turkey-c.o.c.k.

But I was n't going to dispute with him, Molly; so I swept out of the room, and threw down a little china flowerpot just to stop him.

The same day we started, and arrived here at the hotel, the "Cour de Parme," by midnight; it was a tiresome journey, and K. I. made it worse, for he was fighting with somebody or other the whole time; and Lord George was not with us, for he had gone off to Milan to meet James; and Mr. D. was therefore free to get into as many sc.r.a.pes as he pleased.

I must say, he did n't neglect the opportunity, for he insulted the pa.s.sport people and the customhouse officers, and the man at the bridge of boats, and the postmasters and postilions everywhere. "I did n't come here to be robbed," said he everywhere; and he got a few Italian words for "thief," "rogue," "villain," and so on; and if I saw one, I saw ten knives drawn on him that blessed day. He would n't let Cary translate for him, but sat on the box himself, and screamed out his directions like a madman. This went on till we came to a place called San Donino, and there--it was the last stage from Parma--they told him he could n't have any horses, though he saw ten of them standing all ready harnessed and saddled in the stable. I suppose they explained to him the reason, and that he did n't understand it, for they all got to words together, and it was soon who 'd scream loudest amongst them.

At last K. I. cried out, "Come down, Paddy, and see if we can't get four of these beasts to the carriage, and we 'll not ask for a postilion."

Down jumps Paddy out of the rumble, and rushes after him into the stable. A terrible uproar followed this, and soon after the stable people, helpers, ostlers, and postboys, were seen running out of the door for their lives, and K. I. and Paddy after them, with two rack-staves they had torn out of the manger. "Leave them to me," says K.

I.; "leave them to me, Paddy, and do you go in for the horses; put them to, and get a pair of reins if you can; if not, jump up on one of the leaders, and drive away."

If he was bred and born in the place, he could not have known it better, for he came out the next minute with a pair of horses, that he fastened to the carriage in a trice, and then hurried back for two more, that he quickly brought out and put to also. "There 's no whip to be found,"

says he, "but this wattle will do for the leaders; and if your honor will stir up the wheelers, here 's a nice little handy stable fork to do it with." With this Paddy sprung into the saddle, K. I. jumped up to the box, and off they set, tearing down the street like mad. It was pitch dark, and of course neither of them knew the road; but K. I. screamed out, "Keep in the middle, Paddy, and don't pull up for any one." We went through the village at a full gallop, the people all yelling and shouting after us; but at the end of the street there were two roads, and Paddy cried out, "Which way now?" "Take the widest, if you can see it," screamed out K. I.; and away he went, at a pace that made the big travelling-carriage b.u.mp and swing like a boat at sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 164]

We soon felt we were going down a dreadful steep, for the carriage was all but on top of the horses, and K. I. kept screaming out, "Keep up the pace, Paddy. Make them go, or we'll all be smashed." Just as he said that I heard a noise, like the sea in a storm,--a terrible sound of rushing, dashing, roaring water; then a frightful yell from Paddy, followed by a plunge. "In a river, by ------!" roared out K. I.; and as he said it, the coach gave a swing over to one side, then righted, then swung back again, and with a crash that I thought smashed it to atoms, fell over on one side into the water.

"All right," said K. I.; "I turned the leaders short round and saved us!" and with that he began tearing and dragging us out. I fell into a swoon after this, and know no more of what happened. When I came to myself, I was in a small hut, lying on a bed of chestnut leaves, and the place crowded with peasants and postilions.

"There 's no mischief done, mamma," said Cary. "Paddy swam the leaders across beautifully, for the traces snapped at once, and, except the fright, we 're nothing the worse."

"Where's Mary Anne?" said I.

"Talking to the gentleman who a.s.sisted us--outside--some friend of Lord George's, I believe, for he is with him."

Just as she said this, in comes Mary Anne with Lord George and his friend.

"Oh, mamma," says she, in a whisper, "you don't know who it is,--the Prince himself."

"Ah, been and done it, marm," said he, addressing me with his gla.s.s in his eye.

"What, sir?" said I.

"Taken a 'header,' they tell me, eh? Glad there's no harm done."

"His Serene Highness hopes you 'll not mind it, mamma," said Mary Anne.

"Oh, is _that_ it?" said I.

"Yes, mamma. Isn't he delightful,--so easy, so familiar, and so truly kind also."