She came here on a visit to us while some negotiations were being concluded with the Papal Court, for we were great folk, Tom, let me tell you, and have been performing, so to say, in the same piece with popes, kings, and cardinals for the last month; and I myself, under the style and t.i.tle of the "Prince," have narrowly escaped going mad from the unceasing influences of delusions, shams, and impositions in which we have been living and moving.

Of our extravagant mode of life, I'll only say that I don't think there was anything omitted which could contribute to ruin a moderate income.

Splendid apartments, grand dinners, horses, carriages, servants, opera-boxes, bouquets, were all put in requisition to satisfy the young Countess that she was about to make a suitable alliance, and that any deficiencies observable in either our manners or breeding were fully compensated for by our taste in cookery and our tact in wine. To be plain, Tom, to obtain this young widow with four thousand a year, we had to pretend to be possessed of about four times as much. It was a regular game of "brag" we were playing, and with a very bad hand of cards!

Hope led me on from day to day, trusting that each post would bring us the wished-for consent, and that at least a private marriage would ratify the compact Popes and cardinals, however, are too stately for fast movements, and at the end of five weeks we had n't, so far as I could see, gained an inch of ground!

At one time his Holiness had gone off to Albano to bless somebody's bones, or the bones were coming to bless _him_, I forget which. At another, the King of Naples, fatigued with signing warrants for death and the galleys, desired to enjoy a little repose from public business.

Cardinal Antonelli, hearing that we were Irish, got in a rage, and said that Ireland gave them no peace at all. And so it came to pa.s.s that the old thief--procrastination--was at his usual knavery; and for want of better, set to work to ruin poor Kenny Dodd!

It is only fair to observe that, except Cary and myself, n.o.body manifested any great impatience at this delay; and even she, I believe, merely felt it out of regard to me. The others seemed satisfied to fare sumptuously every day; and a.s.suredly the course of true love ran most smoothly along in rivulets of "mock turtle" and "potages la fiance."

At last, Tom, I brought myself to book with the simple question, "How long can this continue? Will your capital stand it for a month, or even a week?" Before I attempted the answer, I sent for Mrs. D., to give her the honor of solving the riddle if she could.

Our interview took place in a little crib they call my dressing-room, but which, I must remark to you, is a dark corner under a staircase, where the rats hold a parliament every night of the season. Mrs. D. was so shocked with the locality that she proposed our adjourning to her own apartment; and thither we at once repaired to hold our council.

I have too often wearied you with our domestic differences to make any addition to such recitals pleasant to either of us. You know us both thoroughly, besides, and can have no difficulty in filling up the debate which ensued. Enough that I say Mrs. D. was more than usually herself.

She was grandly eloquent on the prospect of the great alliance; contemptuously indifferent about the petty sacrifice it was to cost us; caustically criticised the narrow-mindedness by which I measured such grandeur; winding up all with the stereotyped comparison between Dodds and M'Carthys, with which she usually concludes an engagement, just as they play "G.o.d save the Queen" at Vauxhall to show that the fireworks are over.

"And now," said I, "that we have got over preliminaries, when is this marriage to come off?"

"Ask the Pope when he'll sign the Bull," said she, tartly.

"Do you know," said I, "I think the 'Bull is a mistake'?" but she did n't take the joke, and I went on. "After that, what delays are there?"

"I suppose the settlement will take some time. You 'll have to make suitable provision for James, to give him a handsome allowance out of the estate."

"Egad, Mrs. D.," said I, "it must be _out_ of it with a vengeance, for there's no man living will advance five hundred _upon_ it."

"And who wants them?" said she, angrily. "You know what I mean, well enough!"

"Upon my conscience, ma'am, I do not," said I. "You must just take pity on my stupidity and enlighten me."

"Isn't it clear, Mr. D.," said she, "that when marrying a woman with a large fortune he ought to have something himself?"

"It would be better he had; no doubt of it!"

"And if he has n't? if what should have come to him was squandered and made away with by a life of--No matter, I'll restrain my feelings."

"Don't, then," said I, "for I find that _mine_ would like a little expansion."

It took her five minutes, and a hard struggle besides, before she could resume. She had, so to say, "taken off the gloves," Tom, and it went hard with her not to have a few "rounds" for her pains. By degrees, however, she calmed down to explain that by a settlement on James she never contemplated actual value, but an inconvertible medium, a mere parchmentary figment to represent lands and tenements,--just, in fact, what we had done before, and with such memorable success, in Mary Anne's case.

"No," said I, aloud, and at once,--"no more of that humbug! You got me into that mess before I knew where I was. You involved me in such a maze of embarra.s.sments that I was glad to take any, even a bad road, to get away from them. But you 'll not catch me in the same sc.r.a.pe again; and rather than deliberately sit down to sign, seal, and deliver myself a swindler, James must die a bachelor, that's all!"

If I had told her, Tom, that I was going into holy orders, and intended to be Bishop of Madagascar, she could not have stared at me with more surprise.

"What's come over you?" said she, at last; "what 's the meaning of all these elegant fine sentiments and scruples? Are you going to die, Mr.

D.? Is it making your soul you are?"

"However unmannerly the confession, Mrs. D.," said I, "I 'm afraid I 'm not going to die; but the simple truth is that I can't be a rogue in cold blood; maybe, if I had the luck to be born a M'Carthy, I might have had better ideas on the subject." This was a poke at Morgan James M'Carthy that was transported for altering a will.

She could n't speak with pa.s.sion; she was struck dumb with rage, and so, finding the enemy's artillery spiked, I opened a brisk fire at musket-range; in other words, I told her that all we had been hitherto doing abroad rarely went beyond making ourselves ridiculous, but that, though I liked fun, I could n't push a joke as far as a felony. And, finally, I declared, in a loud and very unmistakable manner, that as I had n't a sixpence to settle on James, I 'd not go through the mockery of engrossing a lie on parchment; that I thought very meanly of the whole farce we were carrying on; and that if I was only sure I could make myself intelligible in my French, I 'd just go straight to the Countess and say,--I 'm afraid to write the words as I spoke them, lest my spelling should be even worse than my p.r.o.nunciation, for they were in French, but the meaning was,--"I 'm no more a Prince than I 'm Primate of Ireland. I 'm a small country gentleman, with an embarra.s.sed estate and a rascally tenantry. I came abroad for economy, and it has almost ruined me. If you like my son, there he is for you; but don't flatter yourself that we possess either n.o.bility or fortune."

"You 've done it now, you old--------." The epithet was lost in a scream, Tom, for she went off in strong hysterics; so I just rang the bell for Mary Anne, and slipped quietly away to my own room. I trust it is a good conscience does it for me, but I find that I can almost always sleep soundly when I go to bed; and it is a great blessing, Tom,--for let me tell you, that after five or six and fifty, one's waking hours have more annoyances than pleasures about them; but the world is just like a man's mistress: he cares most for it when it is least fond of him!

I slept like a humming-top, and, indeed, there 's no saying when I should have awoke, if it had n't been for the knocking they kept up at my door.

It was Cary at last got admittance, and I had only to look in her face to see that a misfortune had befallen us.

"What is it, my dear?" said I.

"All kinds of worry and confusion, pappy," said she, taking my hand in both of hers. "The Countess is gone."

"Gone?--how?--where?"

"Gone. Started this morning,--indeed, before daybreak,--I believe for Genoa; but there 's no knowing, for the people have been evidently bribed to secrecy."

"What for?--with what object?"

"The short of the matter is this, pappy. She appears to have overheard some conversation--evidently intended to be of a private nature--that pa.s.sed between you and mamma last night. How she understood it does not appear, for, of course, you did n't talk French."

"Let that pa.s.s. Proceed."

"Whatever it was that she gathered, or fancied she gathered, one thing is certain: she immediately summoned her maid, and gave orders to pack up; post-horses were also ordered, but all with the greatest secrecy.

Meanwhile she indited a short note to Mary Anne, in which, after apologizing for a very unceremonious departure, she refers her to you and to mamma for the explanation, with a half-sarcastic remark 'that family confidences had much better be conducted in a measured tone of voice, and confined to the vernacular of the speakers.' With a very formal adieu to James, whom she styles 'votre estimable frre,' the letter concludes with an a.s.surance of deep and sincere consideration on the part of Josephine de St. A."

"What does all this mean?" exclaimed I, with a terrible misgiving, Tom, that I knew only too well how the mischief originated.

"That is exactly what I want you to explain, pappy," said she, "for the letter distinctly refers to something within your knowledge."

"I must see the doc.u.ment itself," said I, cautiously; "fetch me the letter."

"James carried it off with him."

"Off with him,--why, is he gone too?"

"Yes, pappy, he started with post-horses after her,--at least, so far as he could make out the road she travelled. Poor fellow! he seemed almost out of his mind when he left this."

"And your mother, how is she?"

Cary shook her head mournfully.

Ah, Tom, I needed but the gesture to show me what was in store for me.

My fertile imagination daguerreotyped a great family picture, in which I was shortly to fill a most lamentable part. My prophetic soul--as a novelist would call it--depicted me once more in the dock, arraigned for the ruin of my children, the wreck of their prospects, and the downfall of the Dodds. I fancied that even Cary would turn against me, and almost thought I could hear her muttering, "Ah, it was papa did it all!"

While I was thus communing with myself, I received a message from Mrs.

D. that she wished to see me. I take shame to myself for the confession, Tom, but I own that I felt it like an order to come up for sentence.

There could be no longer any question of my guilt,--my trial was over; there remained nothing but to hear the last words of the law, which seemed to say, "Kenny Dodd, you have been convicted of a great offence.

By your blundering stupidity--your unbridled temper, and your gratuitous folly--you have destroyed your son's chance of worldly fortune, blasted his affections, and--and lost him four thousand a year. But your iniquity does not end even here. You have also--" As I reached this, the door opened, and Mrs. D., in her "buff coat," as I used to call a certain flannel dressing-gown that she usually donned for battle, slowly entered, followed by Mary Anne, with a whole pharmacopoeia of restoratives,--an "ambulance" that plainly predicted hot work before us.