Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“Your hour is ten, Miss Kellett.”

“I think so.”

“How is your father, Miss Kellett?” asked the alderman, abruptly, and not sorry to interpose at the juncture.

“He is well, sir, and seems very happy,” said she, gratefully, while her eyes lighted up with pleasure.

“Give him my regards,” said Hawkshaw, good-naturedly, and passed down the stairs; while his wife coldly added, —

“The children are waiting for you,” and disappeared.

With what determined energy did she address herself now to her task, – how resolutely devote her whole mind to her duty. She read and heard and corrected and amended with all the intense anxiety of one eager to discharge her trust honestly and well. She did her very utmost to bring her faculties to bear upon every detail of her task; and it was only when one of the girls asked who was he whose name she had been writing over and over again in her copy-book, that she forgot her self-imposed restraint, and in a fervor of delight at the question, replied, “I ‘ll tell you, Mary, who Savonarola was.”

In all the vigor of true narrative power, the especial gift of those minds where the play of fancy is only the adornment of the reasoning faculty, she gave a rapid sketch of the prophet priest, his zeal, his courage, and his martyrdom; with that captivating fascination which is the firstborn of true enthusiasm, she awakened their interest so deeply that they listened to all she said as to a romance whose hero had won their sympathies, and even dimly followed her as she told them that such men as this stood out from time to time in the world’s history like great beacons blazing on a rocky eminence, to guide and warn their fellow-men. That in their own age characters of this stamp were either undervalued or actually depreciated and condemned, was but the common lot of humanity; their own great destinies raised them very often above the sympathies of ordinary life, and men caught eagerly at the blemishes of those so vastly greater than themselves, – hence all the disesteem they met with from contemporaries.

“And are there none like this now, Miss Bella?” asked one of the girls; “or is it that in our country such are not to be met with?”

“They are of every land and of every age; ay, and of every station! Country, time, birth have no prerogative. At one moment the great light of the earth has been the noblest born in his nation, at another a peasant, – miles apart in all the accidents of fortune, brothers by the stamp which makes genius a tie of family. To-morrow you shall hear of one, the noblest-hearted man in all England, and yet whose daily toil was the vulgar life of an exciseman. This great man’s nature is known to us, teaching men a higher lesson than all that his genius has bequeathed us.”

In the willingness with which they listened to her, Bella found fresh support for her enthusiasm. If, therefore, there was this solace to the irksome nature of her task, it rendered that task itself more and more wearisome and distasteful. Her round of duty led her amongst many who did not care for these things; some heard them with apathy, others with even mockery. How often does it happen in life that feelings which if freely expanded had spread themselves broadly over the objects of the world, become by repression compressed into principles!

This was the case with her; the more opposition thwarted, the more resolutely was she bent on carrying out her notions. All her reading tended to this direction, all her speculation, all her thought.

“There must be men amongst us even now,” said she, “to whom this great prerogative of guidance is given; superior minds who feel the greatness of their mission, and, perhaps, know how necessary it is to veil their very ascendancy, that they may exercise it more safely and more widely. What concession may they not be making to vulgar prejudice, what submission to this or that ordinance of society? How many a devious path must they tread to reach that goal that the world will not let them strive for more directly; and, worse than all, through what a sea of misrepresentation, and even calumny, must they wade? How must they endure the odious imputations of selfishness, of pride, of hard-heartedness, nay, perhaps, of even crime? And all this without the recognition of as much as one who knows their purpose and acknowledges their desert.”

CHAPTER VII. AN ARRIVAL AT MIDNIGHT

Night had just closed in over the Lake of Como; and if the character of the scene in daylight had been such as to suggest ideas of dramatic effect, still more was this the case as darkness wrapped the whole landscape, leaving the great Alps barely traceable against the starry sky, while faintly glimmering lights dotted the dark shores from villa and palace, and soft sounds of music floated lazily on the night air, only broken by the plashing stroke of some gondolier as he stole across the lake.

The Villa d’Este was a-glitter with light. The great saloon which opened on the water blazed with lamps; the terraces were illuminated with many-colored lanterns; solitary candles glimmered from the windows of many a lonely chamber; and even through the dark copses and leafy parterres some lamp twinkled, to show the path to those who preferred the scented night air to the crowded and brilliant assemblage within doors. The votaries of hydropathy are rarely victims of grave malady. They are generally either the exhausted sons and daughters of fashionable dissipation, the worn-out denizens of great cities, or the tired slaves of exciting professions, – the men of politics, of literature, or of law. To such as these, a life of easy indolence, the absence of all constraint, the freedom which comes of mixing with a society where not one face is known to them, are the chief charms; and, with that, the privilege of condescending to amusements and intimacies of which, in their more regular course of life, they had not even stooped to partake. To English people this latter element was no inconsiderable feature of pleasure. Strictly defined as all the ranks of society are in their own country, – marshalled in classes so rigidly that none may move out of the place to which birth has assigned him, – they feel a certain expansion in this novel liberty, perhaps the one sole new sensation of which their natures are susceptible. It was in the enjoyment of this freedom that a considerable party were now assembled in the great saloons of the villa. There were Russians and Austrians of high rank, conspicuous for their quiet and stately courtesy; a noisy Frenchman or two; a few pale, thoughtful-looking Italians, men whose noble foreheads seem to promise so much, but whose actual lives appear to evidence so little; a crowd of Americans, as distinctive and as marked as though theirs had been a nationality stamped with centuries of transmission; and, lastly, there were the English, already presented to our reader in an early chapter, – Lady Lackington and her friend Lady Grace, – having, in a caprice of a moment, descended to see “what the whole thing was like.”

“No presentations, my Lord, none whatever,” said Lady Lackington, as she arranged the folds of her dress, on assuming a very distinguished position in the room. “We have only come for a few minutes, and don’t mean to make acquaintances.”

“Who is the little pale woman with the turquoise ornaments?” asked Lady Grace.

“The Princess Labanoff,” said his Lordship, blandly bowing.

“Not she who was suspected of having poisoned – ”

“The same.”

“I should like to know her. And the man, – who is that tall, dark man, with the high forehead?”

“Glumthal, the great Frankfort millionnaire.”

“Oh, present him, by all means. Let us have him here,” said Lady Lackington, eagerly. “What does that little man mean by smirking in that fashion, – who is he?” asked she, as Mr. O’Reilly passed and repassed before her, making some horrible grimaces that he intended to have represented as fascinations.

“On no account, my Lord,” said Lady Lackington, as though replying to a look of entreaty from his Lordship.

“But you ‘d really be amused,” said he, smiling. “It is about the best bit of low comedy – ”

“I detest low comedy.”

“The father of your fair friends, is it not?” asked Lady Grace, languidly.

“Yes. Twining admires them vastly,” said his Lordship, half maliciously. “If I might venture – ”

“Oh dear, no; not to me,” said Lady Grace, shuddering. “I have little tolerance for what are called characters. You may present your Hebrew friend, if you like.”

“He’s going to dance with the Princess; and there goes Twining, with one of my beauties, I declare,” said Lord Lackington. “I say, Spicer, what is that dark lot, near the door?”

“American trotters, my Lord; just come over.”

“You know them, don’t you?”

“I met them yesterday at dinner, and shall be delighted to introduce your Lordship. Indeed, they asked me if you were not the Lord that was so intimate with the Prince of Wales.”

“How stupid! They might have known, even without the aid of a Peerage, that I was a schoolboy when the Prince was a grown man. The tall girl is good-looking; what’s her name?”

“She’s the daughter of the Honorable Leonidas Shinbone, that’s all I know, – rather a belle at Saratoga, I fancy.”

“Very dreadful!” sighed Lady Grace, fanning herself; “they do make such a mess of what might be very pretty toilette. You could n’t tell her, perhaps, that her front hair is dressed for the back of the head.”

“No, sir; I never play at cards,” said Lord Lackington, stiffly, as an American gentleman offered him a pack to draw from.

“Only a little bluff or a small party of poker,” said the stranger, “for quarter dollars, or milder, if you like it.”

A cold bow of refusal was the reply.

“I told you he was the Lord,” said a friend, in a drawling accent “He looks as if he ‘d ‘mow us all down like grass.’”

Dr. Lanfranchi, the director of the establishment, here interposed, and, by a few words, induced the Americans to retire and leave the others unmolested.

“Thank you, doctor,” said Lady Lackington, in acknowledgment; “your tact is always considerate, – always prompt.”

“These things never happen in the season, my Lady,” said he, with a very slight foreign accentuation of the words. “It is only at times like this that people – very excellent and amiable people, doubtless – ”

“Oh, to be sure they are,” interrupted she, impatiently; “but let us speak of something else. Is that your clairvoyant Princess yonder?”

“Yes, my Lady; she has just revealed to us what was doing at the Crimea. She says that two of the English advanced batteries have slackened their fire for want of ammunition, and that a deserter was telling Todleben of the reason at the moment She is en rapport with her sister, who is now at Sebastopol.”

“And are we to be supposed to credit this?” asked my Lord.

“I can only aver that I believe it, my Lord,” said Lanfranchi, whose massive head and intensely acute features denoted very little intellectual weakness.

“I wish you ‘d ask her why are we lingering so long in this dreary place?” sighed Lady Lackington, peevishly.

“She answered that question yesterday, my Lady,” replied he, quietly.