The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

I was on "these hospitable thoughts intent," when Lord Harvey Bruce was again announced. He had found out an old sergeant-major of artillery, who for a consideration would undertake the duties of my second, – kindly adding that he and his family, a very large one, would also attend my obsequies.

I interrupted his Lordship to remark that an event bad just occurred to modify the circumstances of the case, and mentioned Mrs. Gore Hampton's departure.

"I really cannot perceive, sir," replied he, "that this in any way affects the matter in hand. Is my friend less injured – is his honor less tarnished because this unhappy woman has at last awoke to a sense of her degraded and pitiable condition?"

I thought of the sandwiches, Tom, but could say nothing.

"Are you less his greatest enemy on earth, sir?" cried he, passionately.

"Now listen to me patiently, my Lord," said I. "I 'll be as brief as I can, for both our sakes. I don't value it one rush whether I go out with your friend or not. If you want a proof of what I say, step into the little garden here and I 'll give it to you. I 'm neither boasting nor bloodthirsty, when I say that I know how to stand at either end of a pistol; but there's nothing to fight about between us."

"Oh, if you renew that line of argument," cried he, interrupting me, "It is totally impossible I can listen."

"And why not?" said I. "Is it a greater satisfaction to your friend to believe himself injured and dishonored than to know that he is neither one nor the other?"

"Then why did you come away with her?"

"I can't tell," said I, for my head was quite confused with all the discussion.

"And why call yourself by my name at Ems?"

"I cannot tell."

"Nor what do you mean by the attitude in which I found you when I entered the room?"

"I can't tell that, either," cried I, driven to desperation by sheer embarrassment "It's no use asking me any more. I have been living for the last five or six weeks like one under a spell of enchantment. I can no more account for my actions than a patient in Swift's Hospital. I 'm afraid to commit my scattered thoughts to paper, lest they might convict me of insanity. I know and feel that I am a responsible being, but somehow my notions of right and wrong are so confused, I have learned to look on so many things differently from what I used, that I 'd cut a sorry figure under cross-examination on any matter of morality. There's the whole truth of it now. I 'd have kept it to myself if I could; I 'm heartily ashamed at owning to it – but I can't help it – it would come out. Therefore, don't bother me with, 'Why did you do this?' 'What made you do that?' for I can give you no reasons for anything."

"By Jove! this is a very singular affair," said he, leaning over the back of a chair, and staring me steadfastly in the face. "Your age – your standing in society – your appearance generally, Mr. Dodd, would, I feel bound to say, rather – " Here he hesitated and faltered, as if the right word was not forthcoming; and so I continued for him, —

"Just so, my Lord; would rather refute than fix upon me such an imputation. I 'm not very like the kind of man that figures usually in these sort of cases."

"As to that," said he, cautiously, "there is no saying. I am now only speaking my own private sentiments, the result of impressions made upon myself as an individual. Courts of Law take their own views of these things; and the House of Lords has also its own way of regarding them."

The words threw me into a cold perspiration from head to foot, Tom! Courts of Law! and the House of Lords! was n't that a pretty prospect for an encumbered Irish gentleman? A shot, or even two, at twelve or fourteen paces, cannot be a very expensive thing, in a pecuniary point, to any man, and there 's an awkwardness in declining it if others are anxious to have it, so that you appear ungracious and disobliging. But Westminster Hall and St. Stephen's, Tom, is mighty different. I won't speak of the disgrace that attends such a proceeding at my time of life, nor the hue-and-cry that the Press sets up at you, and follows you with to your own hearth, – "the place from whence you came," and where now your wife waits for you – to perform the last sentence of the law. I won't allude to "Punch" and the "Illustrated News," that live upon you for three weeks; but I 'll just take the thing in its simplest form, – financially. Why, racing, railroads, contested elections, are nothing to it. You go to work exactly as Cobden says France and England do with their armaments: Chatham launches a seventy-four, and out comes Cherbourg with a line-of-battle ship, – "Injured Husband," secures Sir Fitzroy Kelly; "Heartless Seducer," sends his brief to Cock-burn. It's a game of brag from that moment; and there's as much scheming and plotting to get a hold of Frank Murphy as if he was the knave of spades! It matters little or nothing what the upshot of the case may be; you may sink the enemy, or be compelled to strike your own flag; it does n't signify, in the least; the damages of the action are fatal to you.

Now, Tom, although I never speculated in all my life as to figuring in an affair like this, these considerations were often strongly impressed upon me by reading the newspapers, and I bad come to the conclusion that a man should never think of defending an action of this kind, no more than he would a petition against his election, and for the same reason. Since, although not actually guilty in the one case or the other, you are certain to have committed so many indiscretions, – written, maybe, so many ridiculous letters, – and, in fact, exposed yourself so much, that if you cannot keep out of sight altogether, the next best thing is, let the judgment go by default. I say this to show you that the moment my Lord threw out the hint about law I had made up my mind from that instant.

"I sincerely wish," said he, after some deliberation, "that I could hit upon any mode of arranging this affair; for although I own you have made a strongly favorable impression upon me, 'Dodd,'" – he called me Dodd here, quite like an old friend, – "we cannot expect that Hampton could concur in this view. The fact is, the whole thing has got so much blazed abroad, – they are so well known in the fashionable world, both home and foreign, – she is so very handsome, so much admired, and he is such a charming fellow, – the case has created a kind of European éclat. Looking at the matter candidly, there may be a good deal in what you have said, but as a man of the world, I am forced to say that Hampton must shoot you, or sue for a divorce. I am well aware that whichever course he adopts many will condemn him. In the clubs there will be always parties. There may spring up even a kind of juste milieu, who will say, 'Now that poor Dodd is dead, I wonder if he really was guilty?'"

"I protest I feel very grateful to them, my Lord," said I. But he paid no attention to my remark, and went on, —

"If vengeance be all that a man looks for, probably the law of the land will do as much for him as the law of honor. You ruin a fellow, irretrievably ruin him, by an action of this kind. You probably remember Sir Gaybrook Foster, that ran off with Lady Mudford? Well, he had a splendid estate, did n't owe a shilling, they said, before that; they tell me now that some one saw him the other day at Geelong, croupier to a small 'hell.' Then there was Lackington, whom we used to call the 'Cool of the Evening.'"

"I never knew one of them, my Lord," said I, impatiently, for I did n't care to hear all the illustrations of his theory.

"Lackington was older than you are," continued he, "when he bolted with that city man's wife, – what's his confounded name?"

"I am shamefully ill-read, my Lord, in this kind of literature," said I, "nor has it the same interest for me that it seems to afford your Lordship. May I take the liberty of recalling your attention to the matter before us?"

"I am giving to it, sir," said he, gravely, "my best and most careful consideration. I am endeavoring, by the aid of such information as is before me, to weigh the difficulties that attach to either course, and to decide for that one which shall secure to my friend Hampton the largest share of the world's sympathy and approval. I have seen a great deal of life, and all that I know of it teaches the one lesson, – distrust, rather than yield to, first impressions. Awhile ago, when I entered this room, I would have said to Hampton, 'Shoot him like a dog, sir.' Now, I own to you, Dodd, this is not the counsel I should give him. Now, understand me well, I neither acquit nor condemn you; circumstances are far too strong against you for the one, and I have not the heart to do the other."

"This talking is dry work, my Lord," said I. "Shall we have a glass of wine?"

"Willingly," said he, seating himself, and throwing his gloves into his hat, with the air of a man quite disposed to take his ease comfortably.

Our host produced a flask of his inimitable Steinberger, and another of a native growth, to which he invited our attention, and left us to ourselves once more. We filled, touched our glasses, German fashion, drank, and resumed our converse.

"If any man could have told me, twenty-four hours ago, that I should be sitting where I now find myself, and with you for my companion, I'd have told him to his face he was a calumniator and a scoundrel! This time yesterday, Dodd, I 'd have put a bullet through you, myself."

"You don't say that, my Lord?"

"I do say, and repeat it, I believed you to be the greatest villain the universe contained. I thought you a monster of the foulest depravity."

"Well, I 'm delighted to have undeceived you, my Lord."

"You have undeceived me! – I own to it. I believe, if I know anything, it is human nature. I have not been a deep student in other things, but in the heart of man I have read deeply. I know your whole history in this affair as well as if I was present at the events. You never intended seduction here."

"Nothing of the kind, my Lord, – never dreamed of it!"

"I know it; I know it. She got an influence over you, – she fascinated you, – she held you captive, Dodd. She mingled in your thoughts, – she became part of all your most secret cogitations. With that warm, impulsive nature of your country, you made no resistance, – you could make none. You fell into the net at once, – don't deny it I like you the better for it, – upon my life I do. Don't suppose that I 'm Archbishop of Canterbury or Dean of Durham, man."

"I don't suspect, in the least," said I.

"I'm no humbug of that kind," said be, resolutely. "I'm a man of the world, that just takes life as he finds it, and neither fancies that human nature is one jot better or worse than it is. Hampton goes and marries a girl of sixteen; she is very beautiful and very rich. What of that? She leaves him – and what becomes of the wealth and beauty? She is ruined, – utterly ruined! He has his action at law, and gets swingeing damages, of course. What's the use of that? Will twenty thousand – will forty – would a hundred thousand pounds serve to compensate him for a lost position in life, and the affection of that charming creature? You know it would not, sir. Don't affect hesitation nor doubt about it You know it would not."

"That was n't what I was thinking of at all, my Lord. I was only speculating on the mighty small chance your friend would have of the money."

"Do you mean to say, sir, that the jury would n't give it?"

"Theory might, but Kenny Dodd wouldn't," said I.

"The Queen's Bench, sir, or the Court of Exchequer, would take care of that. They 'd issue a 'Mandamus,' – the strongest weapon of our law; they'd sell to the last stick of your property; they'd take your wife's jewels, – the coat off your back – "

"As to the jewels of Mrs. D.," says I, "and my own wardrobe, I 'm afraid they 'd not go far towards the liquidation."

"They'd attach every acre of your estate."

"Much good it would do them," said I. "We're in the Encumbered Court already."

"Whatever your income may be derived from, they 're sure to discover it."

"Faith!" said I, "I 'd be grateful to them for the information, for it's two months now since I beard from Tom Purcell, and I don't know where I'm to get a shilling!"

"But what are damages, after all!" said he; "nothing, absolutely nothing!"

"Nothing indeed!" said I.

"And look at the misery through which a man most wade ere be attain to them. A public trial, a rule to show cause, a motion, – three or four thousand gone for that. The case heard at Westminster Hall, – forty-seven witnesses brought over special from different parts of the Continent, at from two guineas to ten per diem, and travelling expenses, – what money could stand it; and see what it comes to: you ruin some poor devil without benefiting yourself. That 's the folly of it! Believe me, Dodd, the only people that get any enjoyment out of these cases are the lawyers!"

"I can believe it well, my Lord."

"I know it, – I know it, sir," said he, fiercely. "I have already told you that I 'm no humbug. I don't want to pretend to any nonsense about virtue, and all that. I was once in my life – I was young, it is true – in the same predicament you now stand in. It won't do to speak of the parties, but I suspect our cases were very similar. The friend who acted for the husband happened to be one who knew all my family and connections. He came frankly to me, and said, —

"'Bruce, this affair will come to a trial, – the damages will be laid at ten thousand, – the costs will be about three more. Can you meet that?'

"'No,' said I, 'I 'm a younger son, – I 've got my commission in the Guards, and eight thousand in the "Three-and-a-Half's" to live on, so that I can't.'

"'What can you pay?' said he.

"'I can stand two thousand,' said I, boldly.

"'Say three,' said he, – 'say three.'

"And I said, 'Three be it,' and the affair was settled – an exposure escaped – a reputation rescued – and a clear saving of something like ten thousand pounds; and this just because we chanced both of us to be 'men of the world.' For look at the thing calmly; how should any of us have been bettered by a three days' publicity at Nisi Prius, – one's little tendernesses ridiculed by Thesiger, and their soft speeches slanged by Serjeant Wilkins. Turn it over in your mind how you may, and the same conclusion always meets you. The husband, it is true, gets less money; but then he has no obloquy. The wife escapes exposure; and the 'other party' is only mulct to one-fourth of his liability, and at the same time is exempt from all the ruffianism of the long robe! A vulgarly minded fellow might have said, 'What's the woman's reputation to me? I'll defend the action, – I'll prove this, that, and t'other. I'll engage the first counsel at the bar, and fight the battle out. I don't care a jot about being blackguarded before a jury, lampooned in the papers, and caricatured in the windows,' he might say; 'what signifies to me what character I hold before the world, – I have neither sons nor daughters to suffer from my disgrace.' I know that all these and similar reasons might prompt a man of a certain stamp to regret this course, and say, 'Be it so. Let there be a trial!' But neither you nor I Dodd, could see the matter in this light. There is this peculiarity about a man of the world, that not alone he sees rightly, but he sees quickly; he judges passing events with a kind of instinctive appreciation of what will be the tone of society generally, and he says to himself, 'There are doubtless elements in this question that I would wish otherwise. I would, perhaps, say this is not exactly to my taste; I don't like that;' but whoever yet found that he broke his leg exactly in the right place? What man ever discovered that the toothache ever attacked the very tooth he wanted! I take it, Dodd, that you are a man who has seen a good deal of life; now did your heart ever bound with delight on seeing the outside of a bill of costs? or on hearing the well-known knock of a better known dun at your hall door? True philosophy consists in diminishing, so far as may be, the inevitable ills of life. Don't you agree with me?"

"With the general proposition I do, my Lord; the question here is, how far the present case may be considered as coming within your theory. Suppose now, just for argument's sake, I was to observe that there was no similarity between our situations; that while you openly avow culpability, I as distinctly deny it."

"You prefer to die innocent, Dodd?" said he, puffing his cigar coolly as he spoke.

"I prefer, my Lord, to maintain the vantage ground that I feel under my feet. Had you been patient enough to hear me out, I could have explained to your perfect satisfaction how I came here, and why. I could have shown you a reason for everything that may possibly seem strange or mysterious – "

"As, for instance, the assumption of a name and title that did not belong to you, – a fortnight's close seclusion to avoid discovery, – the sudden departure for Ems, and headlong haste of your journey here, – and, finally, the attitude of more than persuasive eloquence in which I myself saw you. Of course, to a man of an ingenious and inventive turn, all these things are capable of at least some approach to explanation. Lawyers do the thing every day, – some, with tears in their eyes, with very affecting appeals to Heaven, according to the sums marked on the outside of the briefs. If your case had been one of murder, I could have got you a very clever fellow who would have invoked divine vengeance on his own head in open court if he were not in heart and soul assured of your spotless innocence! But now please to bear in mind that we are not in Westminster Hall. We are here talking frankly and honestly, man to man, – sophistry and special pleading avail nothing; and here I candidly tell you, that, turn the matter how you will, the advice I have given is the only feasible and practicable mode of escaping from this difficulty."

If you think me prolix, my dear Purcell, in narrating so circumstantially every part of this curious interview, just remember that I am naturally anxious to bring to bear upon your mind the force of argument to which mine at last yielded. It is very possible I may not be able to present these reasonings with all the strength and vigor with which they appealed to myself. I may – like a man who plays chess with himself – favor one side a little more than the other, or it is possible that I may seem weaker in my self-defence than I ought to have been. However you interpret my conduct on this trying occasion, give me the benefit of never having for a moment forgotten the fame and fortune of that lovely creature whose fate was in my hands, and whom I have rescued at a heavy price.

I do not wish to impose upon you the wearisome task of reading all that passed between my Lord and myself. The whole correspondence would fill a blue book, and be about as amusing as such folios usually are. I 'll spare you, therefore, the steps of the negotiation, and merely give you the heads of the treaty: —

"Firstly, Mr. G. H., by reason and in virtue of certain compensations to be hereafter stated, binds himself to consider Mrs. G. H. in all respects as before her meeting K. I. D., regarding her with the same feelings of esteem, love, and affection as before that event, and treating her with the same 'distinguished consideration.'

"Secondly, K. I. D., on his part, agrees to give acceptances for two thousand pounds sterling, with interest at the rate of five per cent per annum on same till the time of payment. The dates to be at the convenience of K. I. D., always provided that the entire payment be completed within the term of five years from the present day.

"Thirdly, K. I. D. pledges his word of honor never to dispute or contest his liability to the above debt, by any unworthy subterfuge, such as 'no value,' 'intimidation used,' or any like artifice, legal or otherwise, but accepts these conditions in all the frankness of a gentleman."

Here follow the signatures and seals of the high contracting parties, with those of a host of witnesses on both sides. Brief as the articles read, they occupied several days in the discussion of them, during which Hampton retired to a village in the neighborhood, it not being deemed "etiquette" for us to inhabit the same town until the terms of a treaty had laid down our respective positions. These were my Lord's ideas, and you can infer from them the punctilious character of the whole negotiation. Lord Harvey dined and supped with me every day, breakfasting at Schweinstock with his principal. I thought, indeed, when all was finally settled, between us, that G. H. and I might have met and dined together as friends; but my Lord negatived the notion strongly. "Come, come, Dodd, you must n't be too hard upon poor Gore; it is not generous." And although, Tom, I cannot see the force of the observation, I felt bound to yield to it, rather than appear in any invidious or unamiable light. I, consequently, never met him during his stay in the neighborhood.

Lord Harvey left this, about ten days ago, for Dresden. We parted the very best of friends, for with all his zeal for G. H., I must say that he behaved handsomely to me throughout; and in the matter of the bills, he at once yielded to my making the first for £500, at nine months, though he assured me it would be a great convenience to his friend if I could have said "six." I should have quitted this to join the family on the same day; but when I came to pay the hotel bill, I found that the dinners and champagne during the week of diplomacy had not left me five dollars remaining, so that I have been detained by sheer necessity; and partly by my own will, and partly by my host's sense of caution, my daily life has been gradually despoiled of its little enjoyments, till I find myself in the narrow circumstances of which this letter makes mention at the opening.

From beginning to end, it would be difficult to imagine a more unlucky incident; nor do I believe that any man ever got less for two thousand pounds since the world began. You cannot say a severe thing to me that I have not said to myself; you cannot appeal to my age and my habits with a more sneering insolence than I am daily in the habit of doing; your very bitterest vituperations would be mild in comparison to one of my own soliloquies, so that, as a matter of surplusage, spare me all abuse, and rather devote your loose ingenuities to assisting me out of my great embarrassments.

I know well, that if we don't discover a gold-mine at Dodsborough, or fall upon a coal-shaft near Bruff, that I have no possible prospect to pay these bills; but as the first of them is nine months off, there is no such pressing emergency. The immediate necessity is, to send me enough to leave this place, and join Mrs. D. and the family. Write to me, therefore, at once, with a remittance, and mention where they are, – if still at Bonn, where I left them.

You had also better write to Mrs. D.; in what strain, and to what purport, I must leave to your own ingenuity. As for myself, I know no more how to meet her, nor what mood to assume, than if I wore about to enter the cage of one of Van Amburgh's lions. Now I fancy that maybe a contrite, broken-hearted look would be best; and now I rather lean to the bold, courageous, overbearing tone! Heaven direct me to what is best, for I never felt myself so much in want of guidance!

When you write to me, be brief; don't worry me with details of home, and inflict me with one of your national epistles about famine, and fever, and faction fights. I have no pity for anybody but myself just now, and I care no more for what's doing in Tipperary than if it was Canton. It will be time enough when I join the others to speculate upon whither we shall turn our steps, but my present thoughts tend to going back to Dodsborough. I wish from my soul that we had never left it, nor embarked in this infernal crusade after high society, education, and grandeur, – the vain pursuit of which leaves me to write myself, as I now do, your most miserable and melancholy friend,

Kenny Dodd.

P. S. I have a gold watch, made by Gaskin of Dublin about fifty years back; but it's so big and unwieldy that nobody would buy it, except for a town clock. The case of it alone would n't make a bad-sized covered dish, and I 'm sure the works are as strong as a French steam-engine; but what's the use of it all if I can't find a purchaser? I have already parted with my tortoiseshell snuff-box, that my grandmother swore belonged to Quintus Curtius; and the only family relic remaining to me is a bamboo sword-cane, the being possessed of which, if it became known, would subject me to three months' imprisonment in a fortress, with hard labor! If I were in Austria, the penalty is death; and maybe that same would be a mercy in my misfortunes.