Works of Ellen Wood, page 648
One day in particular it was very sad. They had halted at an inn in a good-sized town, not very far distant from Lyons. While the soup and bouilli were being devoured, the two unfortunates ate a stray radish or two, when up bustled the waiter with a funny-looking dish, its contents wonderfully like what a roast-beef eater might suppose cooked frogs to be, and presented it to Mr. Dundyke.
“What’s this?” inquired Mr. Dundyke, delicately adventuring the tip of a fork towards the suspicious-looking compound, by way of indicating the nature of his question.
“Plait-il, monsieur?”
“This, this,” rapping the edge of the dish with the fork; “what is it made of? what do you call it?”
“Une fricassée de petits pigeons, à l’oseille, monsieur,” replied the discerning waiter.
Poor Mr. Dundyke pushed the dish away from him with a groan. “Une fricassée de petits pigeons, à l’oseille” in French, might be “Stewed frogs” in English.
“What was all that green mess in the dish?” asked his wife.
“The saints know,” groaned the common-councilman. “Perhaps it’s the fashion here to cook frogs in their own rushes.”
Up came the waiter with another dish, that attentive functionary observing that the Monsieur Anglais ate nothing. A solid piece of meat, with little white ends sticking out of it, rising out of another bed of green. “Oseille” is much favoured in these parts of France.
“Whatever’s this?” ejaculated the common-councilman, eyeing the dish with wondering suspicion. “It’s as much like a porkipine as anything I ever saw. What d’ye call it?” rapping the edge of the dish as before.
“Foie-de-veau lardé, à l’oseille, monsieur.”
The common-councilman was as wise as before, and sat staring at it.
“It can’t be frogs, David, this can’t,” suggested Mrs. Dundyke, “it is too large and solid; and I don’t think it’s any foreign animal. It looks to me like veal. Veal, waiter?” she asked, appealingly.
“Oui, madame,” was the answer, at a venture.
“And the green stuff round it is spinach, of course. Veal and spinach, my dear.”
“That’s good, that is, veal and spinach. I’ll try it,” said Mr. Dundyke.
He helped himself plentifully, and, pushing the dish to his wife, voraciously took the first mouthful, for he was fearfully hungry.
It was a rash proceeding. What in the world had he got hold of! Veal and spinach! — Heaven protect him from poison! It was some horrible, soft compound, sharp and sour; it turned him sick at once, and set his teeth on edge. He became very pale, and called faintly for the waiter.
But the garçon had long ago whisked off to other parts of the room, and there was Mr. Dundyke obliged to sit with that nauseous mystery underneath his very nose.
“Waiter!” he roared out at length, with all the outraged dignity of a common-councilman, “I say, waiter! For the love of goodness take this away: it’s only fit for pigs. There’s a dish there, with two little ducks upon it, and some carrots round ’em — French ducks I suppose they are: an Englishman might shut up shop if he placed such on his table. Bring it here.”
“Plait-il, monsieur?”
“Them ducks — there — at the top, by the pickled cowcumbers. I’ll take one.”
The waiter ranged his perplexed eyes round and round the table. “Pardon, monsieur, plait-il?”
“I think you are an idiot, I do!” roared out Mr. Dundyke, unable to keep both his hunger and his temper. “That dish of ducks, I said, and it is being seized upon! They are tearing them to pieces! they are gone! Good Heavens! are we to famish like this?”
The waiter, in despair, laid hold of a slice of melon in one hand and the salt and pepper in the other, and presented them.
“The man is an idiot!” decided the exasperated Englishman. “What does he mean by offering me melon for dinner, and salt and pepper to season it? — that’s like their putting sugar to their peas! I want something that I can eat,” he cried, piteously.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est que je peux vous offrir, monsieur?” asked the agonized garçon.
“Don’t you see we want something to eat,” retorted the gentleman; “this lady and myself? We can’t touch any of the trash on the table. Get us some mutton chops cooked.”
“Pardon, monsieur, plait-il?”
“Some — mut — ton — chops,” repeated the common-councilman, very deliberately, thinking that the slower he spoke, the better he should be understood. “And let ’em look sharp about it.”
The waiter sighed and shrugged, and, after pushing the bread and butter and young onions within reach, moved away, giving up the matter as a hopeless job.
“Let’s peg away at this till the chops come,” cried Mr. Dundyke. And in the fallacious hope that the chops were coming, did the unconscious couple “peg” away till the driver clacked his long whip, and summoned his passengers to resume their seats in the diligence.
“I have had nothing to eat,” screamed Mr. Dundyke. “They are doing me some mutton chops. I can’t go yet.”
“Deux diners, quatre francs, une bouteille de vin, trente sous,” said the waiter in Mr. Dundyke’s ear. “Fait cinq francs, cinquante, monsieur.”
“Fetch my mutton chops,” he implored; “we can’t go without them: we can eat them in the diligence.”
“Allons! dépêchons-nous, messieurs et dames,” interrupted the conductor, looking in, impatiently. “Prenez vos places. Nous sommes en retard.”
“They are swindlers, every soul of them, in this country,” raved the common-councilman, passionately throwing down the money, when he could be made to comprehend its amount, and that there were no chops to come. “How dare you be so dishonest as charge for dinners we don’t eat.”
“I am faint now for the want of something,” bewailed poor Mrs. Dundyke.
“If ever I am caught out of Old England again,” he sobbed, climbing to his place in the diligence, “I’ll give ’em leave to make a Frenchman of me, that’s all.”
CHAPTER III.
A MEETING AT GRENOBLE.
They arrived at Lyons; but here Mr. Dundyke’s total ignorance of the language led him into innumerable misapprehensions and mishaps, not the least of which was his going from Lyons to Grenoble, thinking all the time that he was on the shortest and most direct road to Switzerland. This was in consequence of his rubbing on with “we” and “no.” They had arrived at Lyons late in the evening, and after a night’s rest, Mr. Dundyke found his way to the coach-office, to take places on to Switzerland. There happened to be standing before the office door a huge diligence, with the word “Grenoble” painted on it.
“I want to engage a place in a diligence; two places; direct for Switzerland,” began Mr. Dundyke; “in a diligence like that,” pointing to the great machine.
“You spoke French, von littel, sare?” asked the clerk, who could himself speak a very little imperfect English.
“We,” cried Mr. Dundyke, eagerly, not choosing to betray his ignorance.
Accordingly, the official proceeded to jabber on in French, and Mr. Dundyke answered at intervals of hazard “we” and “no.”
“Vous désirez aller à Grenoble, n’est-ce pas, monsieur?” remarked the clerk.
“We,” cried out Mr. Dundyke at random.
“Combien de places, monsieur?”
“We,” repeated the gentleman again.
“I do demande of the monsieur how few of place?” said the official, suspecting his French was not understood quite so well as it might be.
“Two places for Switzerland,” answered Mr. Dundyke. “I’m going on to Geneva, in a diligence like that.”
“C’est ça. The monsieur desire to go to Gren-haub; et encore jusqu’à Genève — on to Geneva.”
“We,” rapturously responded the common-councilman.
“I do comprends. Two place in the Gren-haub diligence. Vill the monsieur go by dat von?” pointing to the one at the door. “She do go in de half hour.”
“Not that one,” retorted Mr. Dundyke, impatient at the clerk’s obscure English. “I said in one like that, later.”
“Yes, sare, I comprends now. You would partir by anoder von like her, the next one that parts. Vill you dat I retienne two place for Gren-haub?”
“We, we,” responded Mr. Dundyke. “Two places. My wife’s with me, Mrs. D.: I’m a common-councilman, sir, at home. Two places for Gren-haub. Corner ones, mind: in the interior.”
“C’est bien, monsieur. She goes à six of de hours.”
“She! Who?”
“The diligence, I do say.”
“Oh,” said the common-councilman to himself, “they call coaches ‘she’s’ in this country. I wonder what they call women. Six hours you say we shall take going.”
“Oui, monsieur,” answered the clerk, without quite understanding the question, “il faut venir à six heures.”
“And when does it start?”
“What you ask, sare?”
“She — the diligence — at what o’clock does it start for Gren-haub?”
“I do tell de sare at de six of de hours dis evening.”
“We’ll be here a quarter afore it then: never was late for anything in my life. Gren-haub’s a little place, I suppose, sir, as it’s not in my guide-book?”
“Comme ça,” said the clerk, shrugging his shoulders. “She’s not von Lyon.”
“Who’s she?” exclaimed the bewildered Mr. Dundyke; “who’s not a lion?”
“Gren-haub, sare. I thought you did ask about her.”
“The asses that these French make of themselves when they attempt to converse in English!” ejaculated the common-councilman. “Who’s to understand him?”
He turned away, and went back to the hotel in glee, dreadfully unconscious that he had booked himself for Grenoble, and imagining that Gren-haub (as the word Grenoble in the Frenchman’s mouth sounded to his English ears) must be the first town on the Swiss frontiers. “It’s an awkward hour, though, to get in at,” he deliberated: “six hours, that fellow said we should be, going: that will make it twelve at night when we get to the place. Things are absurdly managed in this country.” This was another mistake of his: the anticipated six hours necessary, as he fancied, to convey him from Lyons to “Gren-haub,” would prove at least sixteen.
At the appointed hour Mr. and Mrs. Dundyke took their seats in the diligence, which began its journey and went merrily on; at least as merrily as a French diligence, of the average weight and size, can be expected to go. Mr. Dundyke was merry, too, for him; for he had fortified himself with a famous dinner before starting: none of your frogs and rushes and “oseille,” but rosbif saignant, and pommes de terre au naturel, specially ordered. Both the travellers had done it ample justice, and seasoned it with some hot brandy-and-water; Mr. Dundyke taking two glasses and making his wife take one. Therefore it was not surprising that both should sink, about nine o’clock, into a sound sleep. They had that compartment of the coach, called the intérieur, to themselves, and could recline almost at full length; and so comfortable were they, that all the various changing of horses and clackings of the whip failed to arouse them.
Not until six o’clock in the morning did Mr. Dundyke open his eyes, and then only partially. He was in the midst of the most delicious dream — riding in that coveted coach, all gilt and gingerbread, on a certain 9th of November to come, moving in stately dignity through Cheapside, amidst the plaudits of little boys, the crowding of windows, and the arduous exertions of policemen to preserve order in the admiring mob; sitting with the mace and sword-bearer beside him, his mace and sword-bearer! Mr. Dundyke had been pleased that his sleep, with such a dream, had lasted for ever, and he unwillingly aroused himself to reality.
It was broad daylight; the sun was shining with all the glorious beauty of a summer morning, shining right into the diligence, and roasting the face of the common-councilman. He rubbed his eyes and wondered where he was. Recollection began to whisper that when he had gone to sleep the previous evening it was dusk, and that ere that dusk had well subsided into the darkness of midnight he had expected to be at his destination, “Gren-haub;” whereas — was he asleep still, and dreaming it? — or was it really morning, and he still in the diligence? — or had some unexampled phenomenon of nature caused the sun to shine out at midnight? What was it? In the greatest perturbation he tore his watch from his pocket, and found it was five minutes past six; but he knew that he was rather slower than French time.
A fine hubbub ensued. Mr. Dundyke startled his wife up in such a fright, that he nearly sent her into fits: he roared out to the coachman, he called for the conductor: he shook the doors, he knocked at the windows: he caused the utmost consternation amongst the quiet passengers in the rotonde and banquette, and woke up a deaf old gentleman in the coupé, who all thought he had gone suddenly mad. The diligence was stopped in haste, and out of the door rushed Mr. Dundyke.
“Where were they taking him to? Why had they not left him at Gren-haub? Did they know he was a common-councilman of the great city of London, a brother of the Lord Mayor and aldermen? How dared they run away with him and his wife in that style? Where were they carrying him to? Were they going to smuggle him off to Turkey or any of them heathen places to sell him for a slave? They must turn round forthwith, and drive him back to Gren-haub.”
All this, and a great deal more of it, delivered in the English tongue and interspersed with not a few English expletives, was as Greek to the astonished lookers-on; and when they had sufficiently exercised their curiosity and stared at the enraged speaker, standing there without his hat, stamping his feet in the dust, and gesticulating more like a Frenchman than a stout specimen of John Bull, they all let loose their tongues together, in a jargon equally incomprehensible to the distressed Englishman. In vain did Mr. Dundyke urge their return to “Gren-haub,” now with angry fury, now with tears, now with promises of reward; in vain the other side demanded to know what was the matter, and tried to coax him into the diligence. Not a word could one party understand of the other.
“Montez, monsieur; montez, mon pauvre monsieur. Dieu! qu’est-ce qu’il a? Montez, donc!”
Not a bit of it. Mr. Dundyke would not have mounted till now, save by main force. It took the conductor and three passengers to push and condole him in; and indeed they never would have accomplished it, but for the sudden dread that flashed over his mind of what would become of him if he were left there in the road, hatless, hopeless, and Frenchless, while his wife and his luggage and the diligence went on to unknown regions. Some of those passengers, if you could come across them now, would give you a dolorous history of the pauvre monsieur Anglais who went raving mad one summer’s morning in the diligence.
There was little haste or punctuality in those old days of French posting — driver, conductor, passengers, and horses all liking to take their own leisure; and it was not far off twelve o’clock at noon, six hours after the morning’s incomprehensible scene, and eighteen from the time of departure from Lyons, that the lazy old diligence reached its destination, and Mr. Dundyke discovered that he was in Grenoble. How he would ever have found his way out of it, and on the road to Switzerland, must be a question, had not an Englishman, a young man, apparently in delicate health, who was sojourning in the town, fortunately chanced to be in the diligence yard, and heard Mr. Dundyke’s fruitless exclamations and appeals, as he alighted.
“Can I do anything for you?” asked the stranger, stepping forward. “I perceive we are countrymen.”
Overjoyed at hearing once more his own language, the unhappy traveller seized the Englishman’s hand with a rush of delight, and explained the prolonged torture he had gone through, and the doubt and dilemma he was still in — at least as well as he could explain what was to him still a mystery. “The savages cannot understand me,” he concluded politely, “and of course I cannot be expected to understand them.”
Neither could the stranger understand just at first; but with the conductor’s tale on one side and Mr. Dundyke’s on the other, he made out the difficulty, and set things straight for him, and went with him to the diligence office. No coach started for Chambéry, by which route they must now proceed, till the next morning at nine, so the stranger took two places for them in that.
“I’m under eternal obligations to you, sir,” exclaimed the relieved traveller, “and if ever I should have it in my power to repay you, be sure you count on me. It’s a common-councilman, sir, that you have assisted; that’s what I am at home, and I’m going on to be Lord Mayor. You shall have a card for my inauguration dinner, sir, if you are within fifty miles of me. You will tell me your name, and where you live?”
“My name is Robert Carr,” said the stranger. “I am a clergyman. I am from Holland.”
The name struck on a chord of Mrs. Dundyke’s memory. It took her back to the time when she was Betsey Travice, and on a certain visit at Westerbury. Though not in the habit of putting herself forward when in her husband’s company, she turned impulsively to the stranger now.
“Have you relations at Westerbury, sir? Was your mother’s name Hughes?”
“Yes,” he said, looking very much surprised. “Both my father and mother were from Westerbury. I have a grandfather, I believe, living there still. My mother is dead.”
“How very strange!” she exclaimed. “Can you come in this evening to us at the hotel for half-an-hour?”
“I would, with pleasure, but I leave Grenoble this afternoon,” was the young clergyman’s answer. “Can I do anything for you in London?”
“Nothing,” said Mrs. Dundyke. “But my husband has given you our address; and if you will call and see us when we get home — —”
“And you’ll meet with a hearty welcome, sir,” interrupted the common-councilman, shaking his hand heartily. “I’m more indebted to you this day than I care to speak.”
Mrs. Dundyke watched him out of the yard. He might be about four-and-twenty; and was of middle height and slightly made, and he walked away coughing, with his hand upon his chest.
