Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“You can’t make running against the like of him,” said Grog, contemptuously. “He has an eye in his head like a dog-fox. You ‘ve no chance with him. He could n’t double on me, – he ‘d not try it; but he ‘ll play you like a trout in a fish-pond.”

“What if I send him an excuse, then, – shall I do that?”

“No. You must go, if it was only to show that you suspect nothing; but keep your eyes open, watch the ropes, and come over to me when the ‘heat is run.’”

And with this counsel they parted.

CHAPTER XVII. THE “PENSIONNAT GODARDE.”

Let us ask our reader to turn for a brief space from these scenes and these actors, and accompany us to that rich plain which stretches to the northwest of Brussels, and where, on the slope of the gentle hill, beneath the royal palace of Lacken, stands a most picturesque old house, known as the Château of the Three Fountains. The very type of a château of the Low Countries, from its gabled fronts, all covered with festooned rhododendron, to its trim gardens, peopled with leaden deities and ornamented by the three fountains to which it owes its name, nothing was wanting. From the plump little figure who blew his trumpet on the weather-vane, to the gaudily gilded pleasure-boat that peeped from amidst the tall water-lilies of the fish-pond, all proclaimed the peculiar taste of a people who loved to make nature artificial, and see the instincts of their own quaint natures reproduced in every copse and hedgerow around them.

All the little queer contrivances of Dutch ingenuity were there, – mock shrubs, which blossomed as you touched a spring; jets, that spurted out as you trod on a certain spot; wooden figures, worked by mechanisms, lowered the drawbridge to let you pass; nor was the toll-keeper forgotten, who touched his cap in salutation. Who were they who had designed all these pleasant conceits, and what fate had fallen on their descendants, we know not. At the time we speak of, the château was a select Pensionnat for ten young ladies, presided over by Madame Godarde, “of whom all particulars might be learned at Cadel’s Library, Old Bond Street, or by personal application to the Rev. Pierre Faucher, Evangelical Minister, Adam Street, Strand, London.” It was, as we have said, select, – the most select of Pensionnats. The ten young ladies were chosen after investigations the most scrutinizing; the conditions of the admission verged on the impossible. The mistress realized in her person all the rare attributes of an elevated rank and a rigid Protestantism, while the educational programme was little short of a fellowship course. Just as being a guardsman is supposed to confer a certain credit over a man’s outset in life, it was meant that being an élève of Madame Godarde should enter the world with a due and becoming prestige; for while the range of acquirements included something at least from every branch of human science, the real superiority and strength of the establishment lay in the moral culture observed there; and as the female teachers were selected from amongst the models of the sex, the male instructors were warranted as having triumphed over temptations not inferior to St. Anthony’s. The ritual of the establishment well responded to all the difficulties of admission. It was almost conventual in strictness; and even to the uniform dress worn by the pupils there was much that recalled the nunnery. The quiet uniformity of an unbroken existence, the changeless fashion of each day’s life, impressed even young and buoyant hearts, and toned down to seriousness spirits that nature had formed to be light and joyous. One by one, they who had entered there underwent this change; a little longer might be the struggle with some, the end was alike to all; nay, not to all! there was one whose temperament resisted to the last, and who, after three years of the durance, was just as unbroken in spirit, just as high in heart, just as gay, as when she first crossed the threshold. Gifted with one of those elastic natures which rise against every pressure, she accepted every hardship as the occasion for fresh resource, and met each new infliction, whether it were a severe task, or even punishment, with a high-hearted resolve not to be vanquished. There was nothing in her appearance that indicated this hardihood: she was a fair, slight girl, whose features were feminine almost to childishness. The gray-blue eyes, shaded with deep lashes; the beautifully formed mouth, on which a half-saucy smile so often played; a half-timid expression conveyed in the ever-changing color of her cheek, – suggested the expression of a highly impressionable and undecided nature; yet this frail, delicate girl, whose birdlike voice reminded one of childhood, swayed and ruled all her companions. She added to these personal graces abilities of a high order. Skilled in every accomplishment, she danced and sang and drew and played better than her fellows; she spoke several modern languages fluently, and even caught up their local dialects with a quickness quite marvellous. She could warble the Venetian barcarole with all the soft accents of an Adriatic tongue, or sing the Bauerlied of the Tyrol with every cadence of the peasant’s fancy. With a memory so retentive that she could generally repeat what she had once read over attentively, she had powers of mimicry that enabled her to produce at will everything noticeable that crossed her. A vivid fancy, too, threw its glittering light over all these faculties, so that even the commonplace incidents of daily life grouped themselves dramatically in her mind, and events the least striking were made the origin of situation and sentiment, brilliant with wit and poetry.

Great as all these advantages were, they were aided, and not inconsiderably, by other and adventitious ones. She was reputed to be a great heiress. How and when and why this credit attached to her, it were hard to say; assuredly she had never given it any impulse. She spoke, indeed, constantly of her father – her only living relation – as of one who never grudged her any indulgence, and she showed her schoolfellows the handsome presents which from time to time he sent her; these in their costliness – so unlike the gifts common to her age – may possibly have assisted the belief in her great wealth. But however founded, the impression prevailed that she was to be the possessor of millions, and in the course of destiny, to be what her companions called her in jest – a Princess.

Nor did the designation seem ill applied. Of all the traits her nature exhibited, none seemed so conspicuous as that of “birth.” The admixture of timidity and haughtiness, that blended gentleness with an air of command, a certain instinctive acceptance of whatever deference was shown her as a matter of right and due, all spoke of “blood;” and her walk, her voice, her slightest gesture, were in keeping with this impression. Even they who liked her least, and were most jealous of her fascination, never called her Princess in any mockery. No, strange enough, the title was employed with all the significance of respect, and as such did she receive it.

If it were not that, in her capricious moods, Nature has moulded stranger counterfeits than this, we might incur some risk of incredulity from our reader when we say that the Princess was no other than Grog Davis’s daughter!

Davis had been a man of stratagems from his very beginning in life. All his gains had been acquired by dexterity and trick. Whatever he had accomplished was won as at a game where some other paid the loss. His mind, consequently, fashioned itself to the condition in which he lived, and sharpness and shrewdness and over-reaching seemed to him not alone the only elements of success, but the only qualities worth honoring. He had seen honesty and imbecility so often in company that he thought them convertible terms; and yet this man – “leg,” outcast, knave that he was – rose above all the realities of a life of roguery in one aspiration, – to educate his child in purity, to screen her from the contamination of his own set, to bring her up amongst all the refining influences of care and culture, and make her, as he said to himself, “the equal of the best lady in the land!” To place her amongst the well-born and wealthy, to have her where her origin could not be traced, where no clew would connect her with himself, had cost him a greater exercise of ingenuity than the deepest scheme he had ever plotted on the turf. That exchange of references on which Madame Godarde’s exclusiveness so peremptorily insisted was only to be met at heavy cost. The distinguished baronet who stood sponsor to Grog Davis’s respectability received cash for the least promising of promissory notes in return, and the lady who waited on Madame Godarde in her brougham “to make acquaintance with the person who was to have charge of her young relative,” was the distracted mother of a foolish young man who had given bills to Davis for several thousands, and who by this special mission obtained possession of the documents. In addition to these direct, there were many other indirect sacrifices. Grog was obliged for a season to forego all the habits and profits of his daily life, to live in a sort of respectable seclusion, his servants in mourning, and himself in the deepest sable for the loss of a wife who had died twelve years before. In fact, he had to take out a species of moral naturalization, the details of which seemed interminable, and served to convince him that respectability was not the easy, indolent thing he had hitherto imagined it.

If Davis had been called on to furnish a debtor and creditor account of the transaction, the sum spent in the accomplishment of this feat would have astonished his assignee. As he said himself, “Fifteen hundred would n’t see him through it.” It is but fair to say that the amount so represented comprised the very worst of bad debts, but Grog cared little for that; his theory was that there was n’t the difference between a guinea and a pound in the best bill from Baring’s and the worst paper in Holywell Street. “You can always get either your money or your money’s worth,” said he, “and very frequently the last is the better of the two.”

If it was a proud day for the father as he consigned his daughter to Madame Godarde’s care, it was no less a happy one for Lizzy Davis, as she found herself in the midst of companions of her own age, and surrounded with all the occupations and appliances of a life of elegance. Brought up from infancy in a small school in a retired part of Cornwall, she had only known her father during the two or three off months of that probationary course of respectability we have alluded to. With all his affection for his child, and every desire to give it utterance, Davis was so conscious of his own defects in education, and the blemishes which his tone of mind and thought would inevitably exhibit, that he had to preserve a sort of estrangement towards her, and guard himself against whatever might prejudice him in her esteem. If, then, by a thousand acts of kindness and liberality he gained on her affection, there was that in his cold and distant manner that as totally repelled all confidence. To escape from the dull uniformity of that dreary home, where a visitor never entered, nor any intercourse with the world was maintained, to a scene redolent of life, with gay light-hearted associates, all pursuing the same sunny paths, to engage her brilliant faculties in a variety of congenial pursuits, wherein there was only so much of difficulty as inspired zeal, to enter on an existence wherein each day imparted the sense of new acquirement, was a happiness that verged on ecstasy. It needed not all the flatteries that surrounded her to make this seem a paradise; but she had these, too, and in so many ways. Some loved her light-heartedness, and that gay spirit that floated like an atmosphere about her; others praised her gracefulness and her beauty; some preferred to these, those versatile gifts of mind that gave her the mastery over whatever she desired to learn; and there were those who dwelt on the great fortune she was to have, and the great destiny that awaited her.

How often in the sportive levity of happy girlhood had they asked her what life she should choose for herself, – what station, and what land to live in! They questioned her in all sincerity, believing she had but to wish, to have the existence that pleased her. Then what tender caresses followed, – what flattering entreaties that the dear Princess would not forget Josephine or Gertrude or Julia, in the days of her greatness, but would recognize those who had been her loved schoolfellows years before!

“What a touchstone of your tact will it be, Lizzy, when you ‘re a duchess,” said one, “to meet one of us in a watering-place or on a steamboat, and to explain, delicately enough, not to hurt us, to his Grace the Duke that you knew us as girls, and how provoking if you should call me Jane or Clara!”

“And then the charming condescension of your inquiry if we were married, though a half-bashful and an awkward-looking man should be standing by at our interview, waiting to be presented, and afraid to be spoken to. Or worse than that, the long, terrible pauses in conversation, which show how afraid you are lest we should tumble into reminiscences.”

“Oh, Lizzy darling,” cried another, “do be a duchess for a moment, and show how you would treat us all. It would be charming.”

“You seem to be forgetting, mesdames,” said she, haughtily, “what an upstart you are making of me. This wondrous elevation, which is at once to make me forget my friends and myself, does not present to my eyes the same dazzling effect. In fact, I can imagine myself a duchess to-morrow without losing either my self-respect or my memory.”

“Daisy dearest, do not be angry with us,” cried one, addressing her by the pet name which they best loved to call her.

“I am rather angry with myself that I should leave no better impression behind me. Yes,” added she, in a tone of sadness, “I am going away.”

“Oh, darling Lizzy, – oh, Daisy, don’t say so,” broke out so many voices together.

“Too true! dearest friends,” said she, throwing her arms around those nearest to her. “I only learned it this morning. Madame Godarde came to my room to say papa had written for me, and would come over to fetch me in about a fortnight I ought doubtless to be so happy at the prospect of going home; but I have no mother, – I have not either brother or sister; and here, amidst you, I have every tie that can attach the heart. When shall I ever live again amidst such loving hearts? – when shall life be the happy dream I have felt it here?”

“But think of us, Daisy, forlorn and deserted,” cried one, sobbing.

“Yes, Lizzy,” broke in another, “imagine the day-by-day disappointments that will break on us as we discover that this pleasure or that spot owed its charm to you, – that it was your voice made the air melody, your accents gave the words their feeling! Fancy us as we find out – as find out we must – that the affection we bore you bound us into one sisterhood – ”

“Oh,” burst Lizzy in, “do let me carry away some of my heart to him who should have it all, and make not my last moments with you too painful to bear. Remember, too, that it is but a passing separation; we can and we will write to each other. I ‘ll never weary of hearing all about you and this dear spot. There’s not a rosebud opening to the morning air but will bring some fragrance to my heart; and that dear old window! how often shall I sit at it in fancy, and look over the fair plain before us. Bethink you, too, that I am only the first launched into that wide ocean of life where we are all to meet hereafter.”

“And be the dear, dear friends we now are,” cried another. And so they hung upon her neck and kissed her, bathing her soft tresses with their tears, and indulging in all the rapture of that sorrow no ecstasy of joy can equal.

CHAPTER XVIII. SOME DOINGS OF MR. DRISCOLL

“There it is, Bella,” said Kellett, as he entered the cottage at nightfall, and threw a sealed letter on the table. “I hadn’t the courage to open it. A fellow came into the office and said, ‘Is one Kellett here? This is a letter from Mr. Davenport Dunn.’ He was Mister, and I was one Kellett. Wasn’t I low enough when I couldn’t say a word to it? – wasn’t I down-in the world when I had to bear it in silence?”

“Shall I read it for you?” said she, gently.

“Do, darling; but before you begin, give me a glass of whiskey-and-water. I want courage for it, and something tells me, Bella, I’ll need courage too.”

“Come, come, papa, this is not like yourself; this is not the old Albuera spirit you are so justly proud of.”

“Five-and-thirty years’ hard struggling with the world never improved a man’s pluck. There was n’t a fellow in the Buffs had more life in him than Paul Kellett. It was in general orders never to sell my traps or camp furniture when I was reported missing; for, as General Pack said, ‘Kellett is sure to turn up to-morrow or the day after.’ And look at me now!” cried he, bitterly; “and as to selling me out, they don’t show me much mercy, Bella, do they?”

She made no reply, but slowly proceeded to break the seal of the letter.

“What a hurry ye’re in to read bad news!” cried he, peevishly; “can’t you wait till I finish this?” And he pointed to the glass, which he sipped slowly, like one wishing to linger over it.

A half-melancholy smile was all her answer, and he went on, —

“I’m as sure of what’s in that letter there as if I read it. Now, mark my words, and I’ll just tell you the contents of it: Kellett’s Court is sold, the first sale confirmed, and the Master’s report on your poor mother’s charge is unfavorable. There’s not a perch of the old estate left us, and we’re neither more nor less than beggars. There it is for you in plain English.”

“Let us learn the worst at once, then,” said she, resolutely, as she opened the letter.

“Who told you that was the worst?” broke he in, angrily. “The worst isn’t over for the felon in the dock when the judge has finished the sentence; there’s the ‘drop’ to come, after that.”

“Father, father!” cried she, pitifully, “be yourself again. Remember what you said the other night, that if we had poor Jack back again you’d not be afraid to face life in some new world beyond the seas, and care little for hardships or humble fortune if we could only be together.”

“I was dreaming, I suppose,” muttered he, doggedly.

“No; you were speaking out of the fulness of your love and affection; you were showing me how little the accidents of fortune touch the happiness of those resolved to walk humbly, and that, once divested of that repining spirit which was ever recalling the past, we should confront the life before us more light of heart than we have felt for many a year.”

“I wonder what put it in my head,” muttered he, in the same despondent tone.

“Your own stout heart put it there. You were recalling what young Conway was telling us about poor Jack’s plans and projects; and how, when the war was over, he ‘d get the Sultan to grant him a patch of land close to the Bosphorus, where he’d build a little kiosk for us all, and we ‘d grow our own corn and have our own vines and fig-trees, seeking for nothing but what our own industry should give us.”

“Dreams, dreams!” said he, sighing drearily. “You may read the letter now.” And she began, —

“Sir, – By direction of Mr. Davenport Dunn, I have to acquaint you that the Commissioners, having overruled the objections submitted by him, will on Tuesday next proceed to the sale of the lands of Kellett’s Court, Gorestown, and Kilinaganny, free of all charges and encumbrances thereon, whether by marriage settlement – ”

“I told you, – that’s just what I was saying,” burst in Kellett; “there’s not sixpence left us!”

She ran hurriedly over to herself the tiresome intricacies that followed, till she came to the end, where a brief postscript ran, —

“As your name is amongst those to be reduced in consequence of the late Treasury order regarding the Customs, Mr. Dunn hopes you will lose no time in providing yourself with another employment, to which end he will willingly contribute any aid in his power.”

A wild, hysterical burst of laughter broke from Kellett as she ceased.

“Isn’t there any more good news, Bella? Look over it carefully, darling, and you ‘ll surely discover something else.”