Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody

We were smoking at the club windows on the Ponte Vecchio; Marmalada, Giovanelli of the Bersaglieri, young Ponto of the K.O.B.’s, and myself – men who never give a thought save to the gold embroidery of their pantoufles or the exquisite ebon laquer of their Russia leather cricket-shoes. Suddenly we heard a clatter in the streets. The riderless chargers of the Bersaglieri were racing down the Santo Croce, and just turning, with a swing and shriek of clattering spurs, into the Maremma. In the midst of the street, under our very window, was a little thing like a butterfly, with yeux de pervenche. You remember, Camarada, Voltaire’s love of the pervenche; we have plucked it, have we not? in his garden of Les Charmettes. Nous n’irons plus aux bois! Basta!

But to return. There she stood, terror-stricken, petrified, like her who of old turned her back on Zoar and beheld the incandescent hurricane of hail smite the City of the Plain! She was dressed in white muslin, joli comme un cœur, with a myriad frills and flounces and knots of pale-coloured ribbon. Open-eyed, open-mouthed, she stared at the tide of foaming steeds, like a maiden martyr gazing at the on-rushing waves of ocean! “Caramba!” said Marmalada, “voilà une jeune fille pas trop bien gardée!” Giovanelli turned pale, and, muttering Corpo di Bacco, quaffed a carafon of green Chartreuse, holding at least a quart, which stood by him in its native pewter. Young Ponto merely muttered, “Egad!” I leaped through the open window and landed at her feet.

The racing steeds were within ten yards of us. Calmly I cast my eye over their points. Far the fleetest, though he did not hold the lead, was Marmalada’s charger, the Atys gelding, by Celerima out of Sac de Nuit. With one wave of my arm I had placed her on his crupper, and, with the same action, swung myself into the saddle. Then, in a flash and thunder of flying horses, we swept like tawny lightning down the Pincian. The last words I heard from the club window, through the heliotrope-scented air, were “Thirty to one on Atys, half only if declared.” They were wagering on our lives; the slang of the paddock was on their lips.

Onward, downward, we sped, the fair stranger lifeless in my arms. Past scarlet cardinals in mufti, past brilliant έτᾶιραὶ like those who swayed the City of the Violet Crown; past pifferari dancing in front of many an albergo; through the Ghetto with its marmorine palaces, over the Fountain of Trevi, across the Cascine, down the streets of the Vatican we flew among yells of “Owner’s up,” “The gelding wins, hard held,” from the excited bourgeoisie. Heaven and earth swam before my eyes as we reached the Pons Sublicia, and heard the tawny waters of Tiber swaying to the sea.

The Pons Sublicia was up!

With an oath of despair, for life is sweet, I rammed my persuaders into Atys, caught him by the head, and sent him straight at the flooded Tiber!

“Va-t-en donc, espèce de type!” said the girl on my saddle-bow, finding her tongue at last. Fear, or girlish modesty, had hitherto kept her silent.

Then Atys rose on his fetlocks! Despite his double burden, the good steed meant to have it. He deemed, perchance, he was with the Quorn or the Baron’s. He rose; he sprang. The deep yellow water, cold in the moon’s rays, with the farthest bank but a chill grey line in the mist, lay beneath us! A moment that seemed an eternity! Then we landed on the far-off further bank, and for the first time I could take a pull at his head. I turned him on the river’s brim, and leaped him back again.

The runaway was now as tame as a driven deer in Richmond Park.

Well, Camarada, the adventure is over. She was grateful, of course. These pervenche eyes were suffused with a dewy radiance.

“You can’t call,” she said, “for you haven’t been introduced, and Mrs. Walker says we must be more exclusive. I’m dying to be exclusive; but I’m very much obliged to you, and so will mother be. Let’s see. I’ll be at the Colosseum to-morrow night, about ten. I’m bound to see the Colosseum, by moonlight. Good-bye;” and she shook her pale parasol at me, and fluttered away.

Ah, Camarada, shall I be there? Que scais-je? Well, ’tis time to go to the dance at the Holy Father’s. Adieu, Carissima. – Tout à vous,

    Cis.

III

Mr. Redmond Barry (better known as Barry Lyndon) tells his uncle the story of a singular encounter at Berlin with Mr. Alan Stuart, called Alan Breck, and well known as the companion of Mr. David Balfour in many adventures. Mr. Barry, at this time, was in the pay of Herr Potzdorff, of his Prussian Majesty’s Police, and was the associate of the Chevalier, his kinsman, in the pursuit of fortune.

    Berlin, April 1, 1748.

Uncle Barry, – I dictate to Pippi, my right hand being wounded, and that by no common accident. Going down the Linden Strasse yesterday, I encountered a mob; and, being curious in Potzdorff’s interest, penetrated to the kernel of it. There I found two men of my old regiment – Kurz and another – at words with a small, dark, nimble fellow, who carried bright and dancing eyes in a pock-marked face. He had his iron drawn, a heavy box-handled cut-and-thrust blade, and seemed ready to fall at once on the pair that had been jeering him for his strange speech.

“Who is this, lads?” I asked.

“Ein Engländer,” answered they.

“No Englishman,” says he, in a curious accent not unlike our brogue, “but a plain gentleman, though he bears a king’s name and hath Alan Breck to his by-name.”

“Come, come,” says I in German, “let the gentleman go his way; he is my own countryman.” This was true enough for them; and you should have seen the Highlander’s eyes flash, and grow dim again.

I took his arm, for Potzdorff will expect me to know all about the stranger, and marched him down to the Drei Könige.

“I am your host, sir; what do you call for, Mr. Stuart of – ?” said I, knowing there is never a Scot but has the name of his kailyard tacked to his own.

“A King’s name is good enough for me; I bear it plain. Mr. – ?” said he, reddening.

“They call me the Chevalier Barry, of Ballybarry.”

“I am in the better company, sir,” quoth he, with a grand bow.

When a bowl of punch was brought he takes off his hat, and drinks, very solemnly, “To the King!”

“Over the water?” I asked.

“Nay, sir, on this side,” he said; and I smoked the Jacobite. But to shorten the story, which amuses my tedium but may beget it in you, I asked him if he knew the cards.

“I’m just daft when I get to the cartes,” he answered in his brogue, and we fell to piquet. Now my Scot wore a very fine coat, and on the same very large smooth silver buttons, well burnished. Therefore, perceiving such an advantage as a skilled player may enjoy, I let him win a little to whet his appetite, but presently used his buttons as a mirror, wherein I readily detected the strength of the cards he held. Before attempting this artifice, I had solemnly turned my chair round thrice.

“You have changed the luck, sir,” says Mr. Breck, or Stuart, presently; and, rising with a mighty grave air, he turned his coat and put it on inside out.

“Sir,” says I, “what am I to understand by this conduct?”

“What for should not I turn my coat, for luck, if you turn your chair?” says he. “But if you are not preceesely satisfied, I will be proud to step outside with you.”

I answered that we were not in a Highland wilderness, and that if no malice were meant no affront was taken. We continued at the game till, though deprived of my mirror, I had won some 500 Fredericks. On this he rose, saying, “Sir, in this purse you will find the exact sum that I am owing you, and I will call for my empty sporran the morn. It was Rob Roy’s before it was mine.” Therewith he laid on the table a sort of goatskin pouch, such as Highlanders gird about their loins, and marched forth.

I set to work at opening his pouch, that was fastened by a spring and button, seeming easy enough of access. But I had scarce pressed the button when lo! a flash, a pistol shot, and my right hand is grazed with a bullet that flew out of the bag. This Highlander of the Devil had some mechanism in his purse that discharged a small steel pistol when unwarily opened. My hand is but slightly wounded, yet I cannot hold my sword, nor hath my search brought me any news of Alan Breck. He has vanished like an emissary of the Devil or the Pretender, as I doubt not he is. But I will have his blood, if he is not one of their Scotch fairies. – Your loving Nephew,

Redmond Barry, of Ballybarry.

P.S. – The Fredericks were in the bag, all told.

IV

From Mrs. Gamp to Mrs. Prig

Mrs. Gamp nurses an old friend who is under a singular delusion.

    Todgers’s.

My precious Betsy, – Which when last we parted it was not as I could wish, but bearing malice in our hearts. But, as often and often Mrs. Harris have said it before me, with the tears in her angel eyes – one of them having a slight cast from an accident with the moderator lamp, Harris being quick in his temper – often and often have she said to me: “Ah, Sairey, the quarrels of friends is affection’s best restorer.” And good reason to know it she have, with a husband as was ever true, and never gave her no cause to form the wish to pizen them as has good looks, but, for I will not deceive you, ready with his hands.

And so, between you and me may it be, Betsy Prig, as was constant partners afore them Chuzzlewidges, and Nadgetts, and Lewsomses, and Tiggses, and Chuffeys got that mixed and that aggerawating that to remember who of them poisoned which or for why in a slime draught, it makes my poor head go round, nor could such be soothing to the temper. So let bygones be bygones between us. For, wanting of my Betsy, I am now in a nice state of confusion, with a patient as was well beknown to me in younger days, when there wasn’t so much of a shadder on this mortial vial, [2 - Can Mrs. Gamp mean ‘dial’?] meaning Mr. Pecksniff. Which you will not forget of him, by reason of his daughter as married that Jonadge, and his collars as mints of money must have gone to the getting them up; but is now at Todgers’s, and confused in his poor mind, thinking hisself Somebody else high in Parliament. And wonder at it I do not, them Chuzzlewidges and Chuffeys being that distracting, and ever proving to be some other pusson in disguise, as would confuge a calkilating boy.

So being applied to for to nightly him, there in that very sick room – for why should I deceive you? – I meets the daily nuss; and, Betsy, I was that overcome to have such a pardner propoged to me as I had to ring and ask the young woman immediate for a small glass of their oldest rum, being what I am not accustomed to but having had a turn. For, will you believe it, she was not a widger woman as has experience in the ways of men, but a huzzy in a bragian cap like them the Nuns wear in “Mariar Monk,” as you may have seen it in the small sweet-shops, at a penny. And her hands as white as her papistry cap, and she a turning up of her nose at what I had took, and a presuming to give me advice about nussing, as St. Pancradge’s Churchyard wouldn’t hold them I’ve seen comfortable to their long homes, and no complaints made but ever the highest satigefaction. So I ups and gives her a bit of my mind; and Mrs. Todgers coming down, “It’s she goes or me,” says I, “for never will Sairey Gamp nuss, sick or monthly, with a pardner as has not confidence in me, nor I in her, but contrary.” Then she says she’ll go and speak to the doctor about it; and out she tramps with her nose in the air, and sneezing most awful, not being accustomed to that which I take, find it strengthening, but as it have been a cause of sorrow and strife let it be nameless between you and me. For to have the name “Snuffey” brought forward it is what the heart can forgive, but never forget in this valley of the shaddock.

I have nussed a many lunacies, Betsy, and in a general way am dispoged to humour them rather than set them right up agin the fire when fractious. But this Pecksniff is the tryingest creature; he having got it in his mind as he is Somebody very high, and talking about the House, and Bills, and clauses, and the “sacred cause of Universal Anarchy,” for such was his Bible language, though meaning to me no more than the babe unborn. Whereby Mrs. Harris she have often said to me, “What do them blessed infants occupy their little minds with afore they are called into that condition where, unless changed at nuss, Providence have appointed them?” And many a time have I said, “Seek not, Mrs. Harris, to diskiver; for we know not wot’s hidden in our own hearts, and the torters of the Imposition should not make me diwulge it.”

But Pecksniff is that aggravating as I can hardly heed the words I now put on the paper.

“Some of my birds have left me,” says he, “for the stranger’s breast, and one have took wing for the Government benches. [3 - 1887.] But I have ever sacrificed my country’s happiness to my own, and I will not begin to regulate my life by other rules of conduct now. I know the purity of my own motives, and while my Merry, my little Sir William, playful warbler, prattles under this patriarchal wing, and my Cherry, my darling Morley, supports the old man’s tottering walk, I can do without my Goschy, my dears, I can do without him.” And wants to borrer my umbreller for them “to rally round,” the bragian idgiot!

A chattering creature he always were, and will be; but, Betsy, I have this wery momink fixed him up with a shoehorn in his mouth, as was lying round providential, and the strings of my bonnet, and the last word as he will say this blessed night was some lunacy about “denouncing the clogeure,” as won’t give much more trouble now.

So having rung for a shilling’s worth of gin-and-water warm, and wishing you was here to take another of the same, I puts my lips to it, and drinks to one as was my frequent pardner in this mortial vale, and am, as in old days, my Betsy’s own

    Sairey Gamp.