The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II

Peter was intensely Irish, and had all the native relish for high company, and it was no mean enjoyment that he felt in seeing royal and serene highnesses at every side of him, and knowing that some of the great names of Europe were waiting for the very dish that was served first in honor to himself. There was a glittering splendor, too, in the gorgeously decorated “Saal,” with its frescos, its mirrors, its lustres, and its bouquets, that captivated him. The very associations which a more refined critic would have cavilled at had their attractions for him, and he gloried in the noise and uproar. The clink of glasses and the crash of plates were to his ears the pleasant harmony of a convivial meeting.

He was in the very height of enjoyment. A few days back he had received a large remittance from Kate. It came in a letter to Nelly, which he had not read, nor cared to read. He only knew that she was at St. Petersburg waiting for Midchekoffs arrival. The money had driven all other thoughts out of his head, and before Nelly had glanced her eye over half the first page, he was already away to negotiate the bills with Abel Kraus, the moneychanger. As for Frank, they had not heard of him for several months back. Nelly, indeed, had received a few lines from Count Stephen, but they did not appear to contain anything very interesting, for she went to her room soon after reading them, and Dalton forgot to ask more on the subject. His was not a mind to conjure up possible misfortunes. Always too ready to believe the best, he took the world ever on its sunniest side, and never would acknowledge a calamity while there was a loophole of escape from it.

“Why wouldn’t she be happy? – What the devil could ail her? – Why oughtn’t he to be well? – Wasn’t he as strong as a bull, and not twenty yet!” Such were the consolations of his philosophy, and he needed no better.

His flatterers, too, used to insinuate little fragments of news about the “Princess” and the “Young Count,” as they styled Frank, which he eagerly devoured, and as well as his memory served him, tried to repeat to Nelly when he returned home of a night. These were enough for him; and the little sigh with which he tossed off his champagne to their health was the extent of sorrow the separation cost him.

Now and then, it is true, he wished they were with him; he’d have liked to show the foreigners “what an Irish girl was;” he would have been pleased, too, that his handsome boy should have been seen amongst “them grinning baboons, with hair all over them.” He desired this the more, that Nelly would never venture into public with him, or, if she did, it was with such evident shame and repugnance that even his selfishness could not exact the sacrifice. “‘T is, maybe, the sight of the dancing grieves her, and-she lame,” was the explanation he gave himself of this strange turn of mind; and whenever honest Peter had hit upon what he thought was a reason for anything, he dismissed all further thought about the matter forever. It was a debt paid, and he felt as if he had the receipt on his file.

On the day we now speak of he was supremely happy. An Irish peer had come into the Saal leaning on his arm, and twice called him “Dalton” across the table. The waiter had apologized to a royal highness for not having better Johannisberg, as the “Schloss” wine had all been reserved for the “Count,” as Peter was styled. He had won four hundred Napoleons at roulette before dinner; and a bracelet, that cost a hundred and twenty, was glittering on a fair wrist beside him, while a murmur of his name in tones of unquestionable adulation, from all parts of the table, seemed to fill up the measure of his delight.

“What’s them places vacant there?” called he out to the waiter, and pointing to five chairs turned back to the table in token of being reserved.

“It was an English family had arrived that morning who bespoke them.”

“Faix! then, they ‘re likely to lose soup and fish,” said Peter; “the ‘coorses’ here wait for no man.” And as he spoke the party made their appearance.

A large elderly lady of imposing mien and stately presence led the way, followed by a younger and slighter figure; after whom walked a very feeble old man, of a spare and stooping form; the end being brought up by a little rosy man, with a twinkling eye and a short jerking limp, that made him seem rather to dance than walk forward.

“They’ve ca-ca-carried off the soup already,” cried the last-mentioned personage, as he arranged his napkin before him, “and – and – and, I fa-fancy, the fish, too.”

“Be quiet, Scroope,” called out the fat lady; “do be quiet.”

“Yes, but we shall have to p-p-pay all the same,” cried Scroope.

“There ‘s good sense in that, anyway,” broke in Dalton; “will you take a glass of champagne with me, sir? you ‘ll find it cool, and not bad of its kind.”

Mr. Purvis acknowledged the courtesy gracefully, and bowed as he drank.

“Take the ortolans to that lady, Fritz,” said Dalton to the waiter; and Mrs. Ricketts smiled her sweetest gratitude.

“We are dreadfully late,” sighed she; “but the dear Princess of Stauffenschwillingen passed all the morning with us, and we could n’t get away.”

“I thought it was the woman about the ro-rope dancing detained you.”

“Hush, Scroope – will you be quiet? Martha, dearest, don’t venture on those truffles. My poor child, they would be the death of you.” And, so saying, she drew her companion’s plate before herself. “A most agreeable, gentlemanlike person,” muttered she, in a whisper, evidently intended for Peter’s ears. “We must find out who he is. I suppose you know the Princess, sir? Don’t you love her?” said she, addressing Dalton.

“Faix! if you mean the old lady covered with snuff that comes here to have her dogs washed at the well, without intending any offence to you, I do not. To tell you the truth, ma’am, when I was in the habit of fallin’ in love, it was a very different kind of creature that did it! Ay, ay, ‘the days is gone when beauty bright my heart’s ease spoilt.’”

“My heart’s chain wove,’” smiled and whispered Mrs. Ricketts.

“Just so. It comes to the same thing. Give me the wine, Fritz. Will you drink a glass of wine with me, sir?”

The invitation was addressed to General Ricketts, who, by dint of several shoves, pokings, and admonitions, was at last made aware of the proposition.

“Your father’s getting a little the worse for wear, miss,” said Dalton to Martha, who blushed at even the small flattery of the observation.

“The General’s services have impaired his constitution,” remarked Mrs. Ricketts, proudly.

“Ay, and to all appearance it was nothing to boast of in the beginning,” replied Peter, as he surveyed with self-satisfaction his own portly form.

“Fourteen years in the Hima-Hima-Hima – ”

“Himalaya, Scroope, – the Himalaya.”

“The highest mountains in the world!” continued Purvis.

“For wet under foot, and a spongy soil that never dries, I’ll back the Galtees against them any day. See, now, you can walk from morning to night, and be over your head at every step you go.”

“Where are they?” inquired Scroope.

“Why, where would they be? In Ireland, to be sure; and here’s prosperity to her, and bad luck to Process-servers, ‘Polis,’ and Poor-Law Commissioners!” Dalton drained his glass with solemn energy to his toast, and looked as though his heart was relieved of a weight by this outburst of indignation.

“You Irish are so patriotic!” exclaimed Mrs. Ricketts, enthusiastically.

“I believe we are,” replied Dalton. “‘T is only we ‘ve an odd way of showing it.”

“I remark that they ne-never live in Ireland when they can li-live out of it,” cackled Purvis.

“Well, and why not? Is it by staying at home in the one place people learns improvements? you might drink whiskey-punch for forty years and never know the taste of champagne. Potatoes wouldn’t teach you the flavor of truffles. There’s nothing like travellin’!”

“Very true,” sighed Mrs. Ricketts; “but, as the poet says, ‘Where’er I go, whatever realms I see – “’

“The devil a one you ‘ll meet as poor as Ireland,” broke in Dalton, who now had thrown himself headlong into a favorite theme. “Other countries get better, but she gets worse.”

“They say it’s the po-po – ” screamed Scroope.

“The Pope, is it?”

“No; the po-potatoes is the cause of everything.”

“They might as well hould their prate, then,” broke in Peter, whose dialect always grew broader when he was excited. “Why don’t they tell me that if I was too poor to buy broadcloth, it would be better for me to go naked than wear corduroy breeches? Not that I’d mind them, miss!” said be, turning to Martha, who already was blushing at his illustration.

“I fear that the evil lies deeper,” sighed Mrs. Ricketts.

“You mean the bogs?” asked Dal ton.

“Not exactly, sir; but I allude to those drearier swamps of superstition and ignorance that overlay the land.”

Peter was puzzled, and scratched his ear like a man at a nonplus.

“My sister means the pr-pr-pr – ”

“The process-servers?”

“No; the pr-priests – the priests,” screamed Purvis.

“Bother!” exclaimed Dalton, with an accent of ineffable disdain. “‘T is much you know about Ireland!”

“You don’t agree with me then?” sighed Mrs. Ricketts.

“Indeed I do not. Would you take away the little bit of education out of a country where there’s nothing but ignorance? Would you extinguish the hopes of heaven amongst them that has nothing but starvation and misery here? Try it, – just try it. I put humanity out of the question; but just try it, for the safety’s sake! Pat is n’t very orderly now, but, faix! you ‘d make a raal devil of him then, entirely!”

“But popery, my dear sir – the confessional – ”

“Bother!” said Dalton, with a wave of his hand. “How much you know about it! ‘T is just as they used to talk long ago about drunkenness. Sure, I remember well when there was all that hue and cry about Irish gentlemen’s habits of dissipation, and the whole time nobody took anything to hurt his constitution. Well, it’s just the same with confession, – everybody uses his discretion about it. You have your peccadilloes, and I have my peccadilloes, and that young lady there has her – Well, I did n’t mean to make you blush, miss, but ‘tis what I’m saying, that nobody, barrin’ a fool, would be too hard upon himself!”

“So that it ain’t con-confession at all,” exclaimed Purvis.

“Who told you that?” said Peter, sternly. “Is it nothing to pay two-and-sixpence in the pound if you were bankrupt to-morrow? Does n’t it show an honest intention, any way?” said he, with a wink.

“Then what are the evils of Ireland?” asked Mrs. Ricketts, with an air of inquiring interest.

“I ‘ll tell you, then,” said Dalton, slowly, as he filled a capacious glass with champagne. “It is n’t the priests, nor it isn’t the potatoes, nor it isn’t the Protestants either, though many respectable people think so; for you see we had always priests and potatoes, and a sprinkling of Protestants besides; but the real evil of Ireland – and there’s no man living knows it better than I do – is quite another thing, and here’s what it is.” And he stooped down and dropped his voice to a whisper. “‘Tis this: ‘tis paying money when you have n’t it!” The grave solemnity of this enunciation did not seem to make it a whit more intelligible to Mrs. Ricketts, who certainly looked the very type of amazement. “That’s what it is,” reiterated Dalton, “paying money when you have n’t it! There’s the ruin of Ireland; and, as I said before, who ought to know better? For you see, when you owe money, and you have n’t it, you must get it how you can. You know what that means; and if you don’t, I ‘ll tell you. It means mortgages and bond debts; rack-renting and renewals; breaking up an elegant establishment; selling your horses at Dycer’s; going to the devil entirely; and not only yourself, but all belonging to you. The tradesmen you dealt with, the country shop where you bought everything, the tithes, the priests’ dues, – not a farthing left for them.”

“But you don’t mean to say that people shouldn’t p-p-pay their debts?” screamed Purvis.

“There’s a time for everything,” replied Dalton. “Shaving oneself is a mighty useful process, but you wouldn’t have a man get up out of his bed at night to do it? I never was for keeping money, – the worst enemy would n’t say that of me. Spend it freely when you have it; but sure it’s not spending to be paying debts due thirty or forty years back, made by your great-grandfather?”

“One should be just before being ge-gen-gene-gene – ”

“Faix! I’d be both,” said Dalton, who with native casuistry only maintained a discussion for the sake of baffling or mystifying an adversary. “I’d be just to myself and generous to my friends, them’s my sentiments; and it ‘s Peter Dalton that says it!”

“Dalton!” repeated Mrs. Ricketts, in a low voice, – “did n’t he say Dalton, Martha?”

“Yea, sister; it was Dalton.”

“Did n’t you say your name was Da-Da-a-a – ”

“No, I didn’t!” cried Peter, laughing. “I said Peter Dalton as plain as a man could speak; and if ever you were in Ireland, you may have heard the name before now.”

“We knew a young lady of that name at Florence.”

“Is it Kate, – my daughter Kate?” cried the old man, in ecstasy.

“Yes, she was called Kate,” replied Mrs. Ricketts, whose strategic sight foresaw a world of consequences from the recognition. “What a lovely creature she was!”

“And you knew Kate?” cried Dalton again, gazing on the group with intense interest. “But was it my Kate? Perhaps it was n’t mine!”

“She was living in the Mazzarini Palace with Lady Hester Onslow.”

“That’s her, – that’s her! Oh, tell me everything you know, – tell me all you can think of her. She was the light of my eyes for many a year! Is the old lady sick?” cried he, suddenly; for Mrs. Ricketts had leaned back in her chair, and covered her face with her handkerchief.

“She ‘s only overcome,” said Martha, as she threw back her own shawl and prepared for active service; while Scroope, in a burst of generous anxiety, seized the first decanter near him and filled out a bumper.

“She and yonr da-daughter were like sisters,” whispered Scroope to Dalton.

“The devil they were!” exclaimed Peter, who thought their looks must have belied the relationship. “Isn’t she getting worse? – she’s trembling all over her.”

Mrs. Ricketts’s state now warranted the most acute sympathy; for she threw her eyes wildly about, and seemed like one gasping for life.

“Is she here, Martha? Is she near me – can I see her – can I touch her?” cried she, in accents almost heartrending.

“Yes, yes; you shall see her; she ‘ll not leave you,” said Martha, as if caressing a child. “We must remove her; we must get her out of this.”

“To be sure; yes, of course!” cried Dalton. “There’s a room here empty. It’s a tender heart she has, any way;” and, so saying, he arose, and with the aid of some half-dozen waiters transported the now unconscious Zoe, chair and all, into a small chamber adjoining the Saal.

“This is her father’s hand,” murmured Mrs. Ricketts, as she pressed Dalton’s in her own, – “her father’s hand.”

“Yes, my dear!” said Dalton, returning the pressure, and feeling a strong desire to blubber, just for sociality’s sake.

“If you knew how they loved each other,” whispered Martha, while she busied herself pinning cap-ribbons out of the way of cold applications, and covering up lace from the damaging influence of restoratives.

“It ‘s wonderful, – it’s wonderful!” exclaimed Peter, whose faculties were actually confounded by such a rush of sensations and emotions.

“Make him go back to his dinner, Martha; make him go back,” sighed the sick lady, in a half-dreamy voice.

“I couldn’t eat a bit; a morsel would choke me this minute,” said Dalton, who could n’t bear to be outdone in the refinements of excited sensibility.

“She must never be contradicted while in this state,” said Martha, confidingly. “All depends on indulgence.”

“It’s wonderful!” exclaimed Dalton, again, – “downright wonderful!”

“Then, pray go back; she’ll be quite well presently,” rejoined Martha, who already, from the contents of a reticule like a carpet-bag, had metamorphosed the fair Zoe’s appearance into all the semblance of a patient.

“It’s wonderful; it beats Banagher!” muttered Peter, as he returned to the Saal, and resumed his place at the table. The company had already taken their departure, and except Purvis and the General, only a few stragglers remained behind.

“Does she often get them?” asked Peter of Purvis.

“Only when her fee-fee-feelings are worked upon; she’s so se-sensitive!”

“Too tender a heart,” sighed Peter, as he filled his glass, and sighed over an infirmity that he thought he well knew all the miseries of. “And her name, if I might make bould?”

“Ricketts, – Mrs. Montague Ricketts. This is Ge-Ge-General Ricketts.” At these words the old man looked op, smiled blandly, and lifted his glass to his lips.

“Your good health, and many happy returns to yoo,” said Peter, in reply to the courtesy. “Ricketts, – Ricketts. Well, I ‘m sure I heard the name before.”

“In the D-D-Duke’s despatches you may have seen it.” “No, no, no. I never read one of them. I heard it here in Baden. Wait, now, and I’ll remember how.” Neither the effort at recollection nor the aid of a bumper seemed satisfactory, for Dalton sat musingly for several minutes together. “Well, I thought I knew the name,” exclaimed he, at last, with a deep sigh of discomfiture; “‘t is runnin’ in my head yet; something about chilblains, – chilblains.”

“But the name is R-R-Ricketts,” screamed Purvis.

“And so it is,” sighed Peter. “My brain is woolgathering. By my conscience, I have it now, though!” cried he, in wild delight. “I knew I ‘d scent it out. It was one Fogles that was here, – a chap with a red wig, and deaf as a door-nail.”

“Foglass, you mean, – Fo-Foglass, – don’t you?”

“I always called him Fogies; and I ‘m sure it’s as good a name as the other, any day.”

“He’s so pl-pleasant,” chimed in Scroope, who, under the influence of Dalton’s champagne, was now growing convivial, – “he’s so agreeable; always in the highest cir-circles, and dining with no-no-no – ”

“With nobs,” suggested Peter. “He might do better, and he might do worse. I ‘ve seen lords that was as great rapscallions as you ‘d meet from this to Kilrush.”

“But Foglass was always so excl-exclusive, and held himself so high.”

“The higher the better,” rejoined Dalton, “even if it was out of one’s reach altogether; for a more tiresome ould crayture I never forgathered with; and such a bag of stories he had, without a bit of drollery or fun in one of them. You may think that kind of fellow good company in England; but, in my poor country, a red herring and a pint of beer would get you one he could n’t howld a candle to. See now, Mister – ”

“P-P-Purvis,” screamed the other.

“Mister Purvis, – if that’s the name, – see, now, ‘t is n’t boasting I am, for the condition we ‘re in would n’t let any man boast, – but it’s what I ‘m saying, the English is a mighty stupid people. They have their London jokes, and, like London porter, mighty heavy they are, and bitter, besides; and they have two or three play-actors that makes them die laughing at the same comicalities every day of the year. They get used to them as they do the smoke and the noise and the Thames water; and nothing would persuade them that, because they ‘re rich, they ‘re not agreeable and social and witty. And may I never leave this, but you ‘d find cuter notions of life, droller stories, and more fun, under a dry arch of the Aqueduct of Stoney Batter than if you had the run of Westminster Hall. Look at the shouts of laughter in the Law Coorts; look at the loud laughter in the House of Commons! Oh dear! oh dear! it makes me quite melancholy just to think of it I won’t talk of the Parliament, because it’s gone; but take an Irish Coort in Dublin or on the Assizes, at any trial, – murder, if you like, – and see the fun that goes on: the judge quizzing the jury, and the counsel quizzing the judge, and the prisoner quizzing all three. There was poor ould Nor-bury, – rest his soul! – I remember well how he could n’t put on the black cap for laughing.”

“And is ju-justice better administered for all that?” cried Purvis.

“To be sure it is. Isn’t the laws made to expose villany, and not let people be imposed upon? Sure it’s not to hang Paddy Blake you want, but to keep others from following his example. And many ‘s the time in Ireland when, what between the blunderin’ of the Crown lawyers, the flaws of the indictment, the conscientious scruples of the jury, – you know what that means, – and the hurry of the judge to be away to Harrogate or Tunbridge, a villain gets off. But, instead of going out with an elegant bran-new character, a bit of a joke – a droll word spoken during the trial – sticks to him all his life after, till it would be just as well for him to be hanged at once as be laughed at, from Pill-Lane to the Lakes of Killarney. Don’t I remember well when one of the Regans – Tim, I think it was – was tried for murder at Tralee; there was a something or other they could n’t convict upon. ‘T was his grandfather’s age was put down wrong, or the color of his stepmother’s hair, or the nails in his shoes wasn’t described right, – whatever it was, it was a flaw, as they called it; and a flaw in a brief, like one in a boiler, leaves everybody in hot water. “Not Guilty,” says the jury, ‘for we can’t agree.’

“‘'Tis a droll verdict,’ says O’Grady, for he was the judge. ‘What d’ ye mean?’

“‘Most of us is for hanging, my Lord; but more of us would let him off.’

“‘What will you do, Mr. Attorney?’ says the judge. ‘Have you any other evidence to bring forward?’ And the Attorney-General stooped down and began whispering with the bench. ‘Very well,’ says the judge, at last, ‘we ‘ll discharge him by proclamation.’

“‘Wait a minute, my Lord,’ says ould Blethers, who got five guineas for the defence, and had n’t yet opened his mouth. ‘Before my respected but injured client leaves that dock, I call to your Lordship, in the name and on behalf of British justice, – I appeal to you, by the eternal principles of our glorious Constitution, that he may go forth into the world with a reputation unstained and a character unblemished.’

“‘Not so fast, Mister Blethers,’ says old Grady, – ‘not so fast I ‘m going over Thieve-na-muck Mountain tonight, and, with the blessing of God, I ‘ll keep your unblemished friend where he is till morning.’ Now you see the meaning of what I was telling you. ‘T is like tying a kettle to a dog’s tail.”

It is not quite clear to us whether Purvis comprehended the story or appreciated the illustration; but he smiled, and smirked, and looked satisfied, for Peter’s wine was admirable, and iced to perfection. Indeed, the worthy Scroope, like his sister, was already calculating how to “improve the occasion,” and further cultivate the esteem of one whose hospitable dispositions were so excellent. It was just at this moment that Martha glided behind Purvis’s chair, and whispered a word in his ear. Whatever the announcement, it required some repetition before it became quite palpable to his faculties, and it was only after about five minutes that his mind seemed to take in all the bearings of the case.

“Oh, I ha-have it!” cried he. “That’s it, eh?” And he winked with a degree of cunning that showed the most timely appreciation of the news.

“Would n’t the young lady sit down and take something?” said Dalton, offering a seat “A glass of sweet wine? They ‘ve elegant Tokay here.”

“Thanks, thanks,” said Scroope, apologizing for the bashful Martha; “but she’s in a bit of a quandary just now. My sister wishes to return home, and we cannot remember the name of the hotel.”

Dalton took a hearty fit of laughing at the absurdity of the dilemma.

“‘T is well,” said he, “You were n’t Irish. By my conscience! they’d call that a bull;” and he shook his sides with merriment. “How did you get here?”

“We walked,” said Martha.

“And which way did you come?”

“Can you remember, Scroope?”

“Yes, I can re-re-member that we crossed a little Plate, with a fountain, and came oyer a wooden bridge, and then down an alley of li-li-linden-trees.”

“To be sure ye did,” broke in Dalton; “and the devil a walk of five minutes ye could take in any direction here without seeing a fountain, a wooden bridge, and a green lane. ‘T is the same whichever way you turn, whether you were going to church or the gambling-house. Would you know the name, if you hear it? Was it the Schwan?” Purvis shook his head. “Nor the Black Eagle? – nor the Cour de Londres? – nor the Russie? – nor the Zaringer? Nor, in fact, any of the cognate hotels of Baden. Was n’t there a great hall when you entered, with orange-trees all round it, and little couriers, in goold-lace jackets, smoking and drinking beer?” Scroope thought he had seen something of that sort “Of course ye did,” said Dalton, with another burst of laughter. “‘Tis the same in every hotel of the town. There ‘s a clock that never goes, too, and a weather-glass always at ‘set fair,’ and pictures round the walls of all the wonderful inns in Germany and Switzerland, with coaches-and-four driving in at full gallop, and ladies on the balconies, and saddle-horses waiting, and every diversion in life going on, while, maybe, all the time, the place is dead as Darmstadt.”