Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“Annesley Beecher at one side, and Grog Davis at the other,” said a third, make the case very easy reading. “I ‘ll go round and get presented to her.”

“Let us leave this, Davis,” whispered Beecher, while he trembled from head to foot, – “let us leave this at once. Come down to the crush-room, and I ‘ll find a carriage.”

“Why so – what do you mean?” said Davis; and as suddenly he followed Beecher’s glance towards the pit, whence every eye was turned towards them.

That glance was not to be mistaken. It was the steady and insolent stare the world bestows upon those who have neither champions nor defenders; and Davis returned the gaze with a defiance as insulting.

“For any sake, Davis, let us get away,” whispered Beecher again. “Only think of her, if there should be any exposure!”

“Exposure! – how should there? Who ‘d dare – ”

Before he could finish, the curtain at the back of the box was rudely drawn aside, and a tall, handsome man, with a certain swaggering ease of manner that seemed to assert his right to be there if he pleased, came forward, saying, —

“How goes it, Davis? I just caught a glimpse of that charming – ”

“A word with you, Captain Hamilton,” said Davis, between his teeth, as he pushed the other towards the door.

“As many as you like, old fellow, by and by. For the present, I mean to establish myself here.”

“That you sha’n’t, by Heaven!” cried Davis, as he placed himself in front of him. “Leave this, sir, at once.”

“Why, the fellow is deranged,” said Hamilton, laughing; “or is it jealousy, old boy?”

With a violent push Davis drove him backwards, and ere he could recover, following up the impulse, he thrust him outside the box, hurriedly passing outside, and shutting the door after him.

So rapidly and so secretly had all this occurred, that Lizzy saw nothing of it, all her attention being eagerly fixed on the stage. Not so Beecher. He had marked it all, and now sat listening in terror to the words of high altercation in the lobby. From sounds that boded like insult and outrage, the noise gradually decreased to more measured tones; then came a few words in whisper, and Davis, softly drawing the curtain, stepped gently to his chair at his daughter’s back. A hasty sign to Beecher gave him to understand that all was settled quietly, and the incident was over.

“You ‘ll not think me very churlish if I rob you of one act of the opera, Lizzy?” said Davis, as the curtain fell; “but I have a racking headache, which all this light and heat are only increasing.”

“Let us go at once, dearest papa,” said she, rising. “You should have told me of this before. There, Mr. Beecher, you needn’t leave this – ”

“She’s quite right,” said Davis; “you must remain.”

And the words were uttered with a certain significance that Beecher well understood as a command.

It was past midnight when Annesley Beecher returned to the hotel, and both Davis and his daughter had already gone to their rooms.

“Did your master leave any message for me?” said he to the groom, who acted as Davis’s valet.

“No, sir, not a word.”

“Do you know, would he see me? Could you ask him?” said he.

The man disappeared for a few minutes, and then coming back, said, “Mr. Davis is fast asleep, sir, and I dare not disturb him.”

“Of course not,” said Beecher, and turned away.

“How that fellow can go to bed and sleep, after such a business as that!” muttered Beecher, as he drew his chair towards the fire, and sat ruminating over the late incident. It was in a spirit of triumphant satisfaction that he called to mind the one solitary point in which he was the superior of Davis, – class and condition, – and he revelled in the thought that men like Grog make nothing but blunders when they attempt the habits of those above them. “With all his shrewdness,” said he to himself, half aloud, “he could not perceive that he has been trying an impossibility. She is beyond them all in beauty, her manners are perfect, her breeding unexceptionable; and yet, there she is, Grog Davis’s daughter! Ay, Grog, my boy, you ‘ll see it one of these days. It ‘s all to no use. Enter her for what stakes you like, she ‘ll be always disqualified. There ‘s only one thing carries these attempts through, – if you could give her a pot of money. Yes, Master Davis, there are fellows – and with good blood in their veins – that, for fifty or sixty thousand pounds, would marry even your daughter.” With this last remark he finished all his reflections, and proceeded to prepare for bed.

Sleep, however, would not come; he was restless and uneasy; the incident in the theatre might get abroad, and his own name be mentioned; or it might be that Hamilton, knowing well who and what Davis was, would look to him, Beecher, for satisfaction. There was another pleasant eventuality, – to be drawn into a quarrel and shot for Grog Davis’s daughter! To be the travelling-companion of such a man was bad enough; to risk being seen with him on railroads and steamboats was surely sufficient; but to be paraded in places of public amusement, to be dragged before the well-dressed world, not as his chance associate, but as a member of his domestic circle, chaperoning his daughter to the opera, was downright intolerable! And thus was it that this man, who had been dunned and insulted by creditors, hunted from place to place by sheriff’s officers, browbeaten by bankruptcy practitioners, stigmatized by the press, haunted all the while by a conscience that whispered there was even worse hanging over him, yet did he feel more real terror from the thought of how he would be regarded by his own “order” for this unseemly intimacy, than shame for all his deeper and graver transgressions.

“No,” said he, at last, springing from his bed, and lighting his candle, “I ‘ll be off. I ‘ll cut my lucky, Master Grog; and here goes to write you half a dozen lines to break the fact to you. I ‘ll call it a sudden thought – a notion – that I ought to see Lackington at once. I ‘ll say that I could n’t think of subjecting Miss Davis to the inconvenience of that rapid mode of travelling I feel to be so imminently necessary. I ‘ll tell him that as I left the theatre, I saw one of Fordyce’s clerks, that the fellow knew me and grinned, and that I know I shall be arrested if I stay here. I ‘ll hint that Hamilton, who is highly connected, will have the English Legation at us all. Confound it, he ‘ll believe none of these. I ‘ll just say” – Here he took his pen and wrote, —

“Dear D., – After we parted last night, a sudden caprice seized me that I ‘d start off at once for Italy. Had you been alone, old fellow, I should never have thought of it;

but seeing that I left you in such charming company, with one whose – [‘No, that won’t do – I must strike out that;

and so he murmured over the lines ending in ‘company.’ and then went on.] – I have no misgivings about being either missed or wanted. – [‘Better, perhaps, missed or regretted.‘] We have been too long friends to – [‘No, we are too old pals, that’s better – he does n’t care much for friendship’] – too old pals to make me suspect you will be displeased with this – this unforeseen – [‘That’s a capital word! – unforeseen what? It’s always calamity comes after unforeseen; but I can’t call it calamity’] —

unforeseen ‘bolt over the ropes,’ and believe me as ever, or believe me ‘close as wax,’

“Yours, A. B.”

“A regular diplomatic touch, I call that note,” said he, as he reread it to himself with much complacency. “Lack-ington thinks me a ‘flat;’ then let any one read that, and say if the fellow that wrote it is a fool.” And now he sealed and directed his epistle, having very nearly addressed it to Grog, instead of to Captain Davis. “His temper won’t be angelic when he gets it,” muttered he, “but I’ll be close to Liege by that time.” And with this very reassuring reflection he jumped into bed again, determining to remain awake till daybreak.

Wearied out at last with watching, Annesley Beecher fell off asleep, and so soundly, too, that it was not till twice spoken to he could arouse and awaken.

“Eh, what is it, Rivers?” cried he, as he saw the trim training-groom at his side. “Anything wrong with the horse?”

“No, sir, nothing; he’s all right, anyhow.”

“What is it, then; any one from town looking for us?”

“No, sir, nobody whatever. It’s the Captain himself – ”

“What of him? Is he ill?”

“Sound as a roach, sir; he’s many a mile off by this. Says he to me, ‘Rivers,’ says he, ‘when you gets back to the Tirlemont, give this note to Mr. Beecher; he ‘ll tell you afterwards what’s to be done. Only,’ says he, ‘don’t forget to rub a little of the white oils on that near hock; very weak,’ says he; ‘be sure it’s very weak, so as not to blister him.’ Ain’t he a wonderful man, sir, to be thinking o’ that at such a moment?”

“Draw the curtain, there, – let me have more light,” cried Beecher, eagerly, as he opened the small and crumpled piece of paper. The contents were in pencil, and very brief, —

“I ‘m off through the Ardennes towards Treves; come up to Aix with my daughter, and wait there till you hear from me. There ‘s a vacant ‘troop’ in the Horse Guards Blue this morning. Rivers can tell you all. – Yours, C. D.”

“What has happened, Rivers?” cried he, in intense anxiety. “Tell me at once.”

“Sir, it don’t take long to tell. It did n’t take very long to do. It was three, or maybe half-past, this morning, the Captain comes to my room, and says, ‘Rivers, get up; be lively,’ says he, ‘dress yourself, and go over to Jonesse, that fellow as has the shooting-gallery, give him this note; he ‘ll just read it, and answer it at once; then run over to Burton’s and order a coupé, with two smart horses, to be here at five; after that come back quickly, for I want a few things packed up.’ He made a sign to me that all was to be ‘dark,’ and so away I went, and before three quarters of an hour was back here again. At five to the minute the carriage came to the corner of the park, and we stepped out quietly; and when we reached it, there was Jonesse inside, with a tidy little box on his knee. ‘Oh, is that it?’ said I, for I knowed what that box meant, – ‘is that it?’

“‘Yes,’ says the Captain, ‘that’s it; get up and make him drive briskly to Boitsfort.’ We were a bit late, I think, for the others was there when we got up, and I heard them grumbling something about being behind time. ‘Egad,’ says the Captain, ‘you ‘ll find we ‘ve come early enough before we’ve done with you.’ They were cruel words, sir, now that I think how he tumbled him over stone dead in a moment.”

“Who dead?”

“That fine, handsome young man, with the light-brown beard, – Hamilton, they said his name was, – and a nicer fellow you could n’t wish to see. I ‘ll never forget him as he lay there stretched on the grass, and the small blue hole in his forehead, – you ‘d not believe it was ever half the size of a bullet, – and his glove in his left hand, all so natural as if he was alive. I believe I ‘d have been standing there yet, looking at him, when the Captain called me, and said, ‘Rivers, take these stirrups up a hole,’ – for he had a saddle-horse all ready for him, – ‘and give this note to Mr. Beecher; he ‘ll give you his orders about Klepper,’ says he, ‘but mind you look to that hock.’”

“And Captain Hamilton was killed?” muttered Beecher, while he trembled from head to foot at the terrible tidings.

“Killed – dead – he never moved a finger after he fell!”

“What did his friend do? Did he say anything? – did he speak?”