Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“The Chancellor!” exclaimed Lady Grace.

“And why not, dear? You remember the old refrain, ‘No age, no station’ – what is it? – and the next line goes – ‘To sovereign beauty mankind bends the knee.’ Julia is rather proud of the triumph herself; she says it is like a victory in China, where the danger is very little and the spoils considerable!”

“Mr. Spicer, my Lady,” said a servant, entering, “wishes to know if your Ladyship will receive him.”

“Not this morning; say I’m engaged at present Tell him – But perhaps you have no objection – shall we have him in?”

“Just as you please. I don’t know him.”

Lady Lackington whispered a word or two, and then added aloud, “And one always finds them ‘useful,’ my dear!”

Mr. Spicer, when denuded of top-coat, cap, and woollen wrapper, as we saw him last, was a slightly made man, middle-sized, and middle-aged, with an air sufficiently gentlemanlike to pass muster in any ordinary assemblage. To borrow an illustration from the pursuits he was versed in, he bore the same relation to a man of fashion that a “weed” does to a “winner of the Derby” – that is to say, to an uneducated eye, there would have seemed some resemblance; and just as the “weed” counterfeits the racer in a certain loose awkwardness of stride and an ungainly show of power, so did he appear to have certain characteristics of a class that he merely mixed with on sufferance, and imitated in some easy “externals.” The language of any profession is, however, a great leveller; and whether the cant be of the “House,” Westminster Hall, the College of Physicians, the Mess Table, or the “Turf,” it is exceedingly difficult at first blush to distinguish the real practitioner from the mere pretender. Now, Spicer was what is called a Gentleman Rider, and he had all the slang of his craft, which is, more or less, the slang of men who move in a very different sphere.

As great landed proprietors of ambitious tendencies will bestow a qualification to sit in Parliament upon some man of towering abilities and small fortune, so did certain celebrities of the Turf confer a similar social qualification on Spicer; and by enabling him to “associate with the world,” empower themselves to utilise his talents and make use of his capabilities. In this great Parliament of the Field, therefore, Spicer sat; and though for a very small and obscure borough, yet he had his place, and was “ready when wanted.”

“How d’ye do, Spicer?” said Lady Lackington, arranging the folds of her dress as he came forward, and intimating by the action that he was not to delude himself into any expectation of touching her hand. “My Lord told me you were here.”

Spicer bowed, and muttered, and looked, as though he were waiting to be formally presented to the other lady in company; but Lady Lackington had not the most remote intention of bestowing on him such a mark of recognition, and merely answered the mute appeal of his features by a dry “Won’t you sit down?”

And Mr. Spicer did sit down, and of a verity his position denoted no excess of ease or enjoyment. It was not that he did not attempt to appear perfectly at home, that he did not assume an attitude of the very calmest self-possession, maybe he even passed somewhat the frontier of the lackadaisical territory he assumed, for he slapped his boot with his whip in a jaunty affectation of indifference.

“Pray, don’t do that!” said Lady Lackington; “it worries one!”

He desisted, and a very awkward silence of some seconds ensued; at length she said, “There was something or other I wanted to ask you about; you can’t help me to it, can you?”

“I’m afraid not, my Lady. Was it anything about sporting matters?”

“No, no; but now that you remind me, all that information you gave me about Glaucus was wrong, he came in ‘a bad third.’ My Lord laughed at me for losing my money on him, and said he was the worst horse of the lot.”

“Very sorry to differ with his Lordship,” said Spicer, deferentially, “but he was the favourite up to Tuesday evening, when Scott declared that he’d win with Big the Market. I then tried to get four to one on Flycatcher, to square your book, but the stable was nobbled.”

“Did you ever hear such jargon, my dear?” said Lady Lackington. “You don’t understand one syllable of it, I’m certain.”

Spicer smirked and made a slight approach to a bow, as though even this reference to him would serve for an introduction; but Lady Grace met the advance with a haughty stare and a look, that said, as plainly as any words, “At your peril, Sir!”

“Well, one thing is certain!” said Lady Lackington, “nothing that you predicted turned out afterwards. Glaucus was beaten, and I lost my three hundred pounds – only fancy, dearest, three hundred pounds, with which one could do so many things! I wanted it in fifty ways, and I never contemplated leaving it with the legs at Newmarket.”

“Not the legs, I assure you, my Lady – not the legs. I made your book with Colonel Stamford and Gore Middleton – ”

“As if I cared who won it!” said she, haughtily.

“I never knew that you tempted fortune in this fashion!” said Lady Grace, languidly.

“I do so very rarely, my dear. I think Mining Shares are better, or Guatemala State Bonds. I realised very handsomely indeed upon them two years ago. To be sure it was Dunn that gave me the hint: he dined with us at the Hôtel de Windsor, and I asked him to pay a small sum for me to Hore’s people, and when I counted the money out to him, he said, ‘Why not buy in some of those Guanaxualo shares; they’ll be up to – ’ I forget what he said – ‘before a month. Let Storr wait, and you’ll pay him in full.’ And he was quite right, aas I told you. I realised about eight hundred pounds on my venture.”

“If Glaucus had won, my Lady – ”

“Don’t tell me what I should have gained,” broke she in. “It only provokes one the more, and above all, Spicer, no more information, I detest ‘information.’ And now, what was it I had to say to you; really your memory would seem to be failing you completely. What could it be?”

“It couldn’t be that roan filly – ”

“Of course it couldn’t. I really must endeavour to persuade you that my thoughts occasionally stray beyond the stable. By the way, you sold those grey carriage-horses for nothing. You always told me they were the handsomest pair in London, and yet you say I’m exceedingly lucky to get one hundred and eighty pounds for them.”

“You forget, my Lady, that Bloomfield was a roarer – ”

“Well, you really are in a tormenting mood this morning, Spicer. Just bethink you, now, if there’s anything more you have to say, disagreeable and unpleasant, and say it at once; you have made lady Grace quite ill – ”

“No, only tired!” sighed her friend, with a melancholy smile.

“Now I remember,” cried Lady Lackington, “it was about that house at Florence. I don’t think we shall pass any time there, but in case we should, I should like that Zapponi palace, with the large terrace on the Arno, and there must be no one on the ground-floor, mind that; and I’ll not give more than I gave formerly – perhaps not so much. But, above all, remember, that if we decide to go on to Rome, that I’m not bound to it in the least, and he must new-carpet that large drawing-room, and I must have the little boudoir hung in blue, with muslin over it, not pink. Pink is odious, except in a dressing-room. You will yourself look to the stables; they require considerable alteration, and there’s something about the dining-room – what was it? – Lord Lackington will remember it. But perhaps I have given you as many directions as your head will bear.”

“I almost think so too, my Lady,” muttered he, with a half-dogged look.

“And be sure, Spicer, that we have that cook – Antoine – if we should want him. Don’t let him take a place till we decide where we shall stop.”

“You are aware that he insists on a hundred and fifty francs a month, and his wine.”

“I should like to know what good you are, if I am to negotiate with these creatures myself!” said she, haughtily. “I must say, Lady Grace will suspect that I have rather overrated your little talents, Spicer.” And Lady Grace gave a smile that might mean any amount of approval or depreciation required. “I shall not want that saddle now, and you must make that man take it back again.”

“But I fear, my Lady – ”

“There, don’t be tiresome! What is that odious bell? Oh, it’s the dinner of these creatures. You dine at the table d’hôte, I think, so pray don’t let us keep you. You can drop in to-morrow. Let me see, about two, or half-past. Good-by – good-by.”

And so Mr. Spicer retired. The bow Lady Grace vouchsafed being in reality addressed rather to one of the figures on her fan than to himself.

“One gets a habit of these kind of people,” said Lady Lackington, as the door closed after him; “but really it is a bad habit.”

“I think so too,” said Lady Grace, languidly.

“To be sure, there are now and then occasions when you can’t employ exactly a servant. There are petty negotiations which require a certain delicacy of treatment, and there, they are useful. Besides,” said she, with a half-sneering laugh, “there’s a fashion in them, and, like Blenheim spaniels, every one must have one, and the smaller the better!”

“Monsignore Clifford my Lady, to know if you receive,” said a servant, entering.

“Oh, certainly. I’m charmed, my dear Grace, to present to you the most agreeable man of all Rome. He is English, but ‘went over,’ as they call it, and is now high in the Pope’s favour.”

These words, hurriedly uttered as they were, had been scarcely spoken when the visitor entered the room. He was a tall, handsome man, of about five-and-thirty, dressed in deep black, and wearing a light blue ribbon across his white neckcloth. He advanced with all the ease of good breeding, and taking Lady Lackington’s hand, he kissed the tips of her fingers with the polished grace of a courtier.

After a formal presentation to Lady Grace, he took a seat between the two ladies.

“I am come on, for me, a sad errand, my Lady,” said he, in a voice of peculiar depth and sweetness, in which the very slightest trace of a foreign accent was detectable – “it is to say good-by!”

“You quite shock me, Monsignore. I always hoped you were here for our own time.”

“I believed and wished it also, my Lady; but I have received a peremptory order to return to Rome. His Holiness desires to see me at once. There is some intention, I understand, of naming me as the Nuncio at Florence. Of course this is a secret as yet.” And he turned to each of the ladies in succession.

“Oh, that would be charming – at least for any one happy enough to fix their residence there, and my friend Lady Grace is one of the fortunate.”

Monsignore bowed in gratitude to the compliment, but contrived, as he bent his head, to throw a covert glance at his future neighbour, with the result of which he did not seem displeased.