Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“I must of course, then, send you back those interesting books, which I have only in part read?”

“By no means, my Lady; they are yours, if you will honour me by accepting them. If the subject did not forbid the epithet, I should call them trifles.”

“Monsignore insists on my reading the ‘Controversy,’ dear Lady Grace; but how I am to continue my studies without his guidance – ”

“We can correspond, my Lady,” quickly broke in the other. “You can state to me whatever doubts – difficulties, perhaps, were, the better word – occur to you; I shall be but too happy and too proud to offer you the solution; and if my Lady Grace Twining would condescend to accept me in the same capacity – .”

She bowed blandly, and he went on.

“There is a little tract here, by the Cardinal Balbi – ‘Flowers of St. Joseph’ is the title. The style is simple but touching – ‘the invitation’ scarcely to be resisted.”

“I think you told me I should like the Cardinal personally,” broke in Lady Lackington.

“His Eminence is charming, my Lady – such goodness, such gentleness, and so much of the very highest order of conversational agreeability.”

“Monsignore is so polite as to promise us introductions at Rome,” continued she, addressing Lady Grace, “and amongst those, too, who are never approached by our countrymen.”

“The Alterini, the Fornisari, the Balbetti,” proudly repeated Monsignore.

“All ultra-exclusives, you understand,” whispered Lady Lacking-ton to her friend, “who wouldn’t tolerate the English.”

“How charming!” ejaculated Lady Grace, with a languid enthusiasm.

“The Roman nobility,” continued Lady Lackington, “stands proudly forward, as the only society in Europe to which the travelling English cannot obtain access.”

“They have other prejudices, my Lady – if I may so dare to call sentiments inspired by higher influences – than those which usually sway society. These prejudices are all in favour of such as regard our Church, if not with the devotion of true followers, at least with the respect and veneration that rightfully attach to the first-born of Christianity.”

“Yes,” said Lady Lackington, as, though not knowing very well to what, she gave her assent, and then added, “I own to you I have always experienced a sort of awe – a sense of – what shall I call it?”

“Devotion, my Lady,” blandly murmured Monsignore, while his eyes were turned on her with a paraphrase of the sentiment.

“Just so. I have always felt it on entering one of your churches – the solemn stillness, the gloomy indistinctness, the softened tints, the swelling notes of the organ – you know what I mean.”

“And when such emotions are etherialised, when, rising above material influences, they are associated with thoughts of what is alone thought-worthy, with hopes of what alone dignifies hope, imagine, then, the blessed beatitude, the heavenly ecstasy they inspire.”

Monsignore had now warmed to his work, and very ingeniously sketched out the advantages of a creed that accommodated itself so beautifully to every temperament – that gave so much and yet exacted so little – that poisoned no pleasures – discouraged no indulgences – but left every enjoyment open with its price attached to it, just as objects are ticketed in a bazaar. He had much to say, too, of its soothing consolations – its devices to alleviate sorrow and cheat affliction – while such was its sympathy for poor suffering humanity, that even the very caprices of temper – the mere whims of fancied depression – were not deemed unworthy of its pious care.

It is doubtful whether these ladies would have accorded to a divine of their own persuasion the same degree of favour and attention that they now bestowed on Monsignore Clifford. Perhaps his manner in discussing certain belongings of his Church was more entertaining; perhaps, too – we hint it with deference – that there was something like a forbidden pleasure in thus trespassing into the domain of Rome. His light and playful style was, however, a fascination amply sufficient to account for the interest he excited. If he dwelt but passingly on the dogmas of his Church, he was eloquently diffuse on its millinery. Copes, stoles, and vestments he revelled in; and there was a picturesque splendour in his description of ceremonial that left the best-“effects” of the opera far behind. How gloriously, too, did he expatiate on the beauty of the Madonna, the costliness of her gems, and the brilliancy of her diadem! How incidentally did he display a rapturous veneration for loveliness, and a very pretty taste in dress! In a word, as they both confessed, “he was charming.‘’ There was a downy softness in his enthusiasm, a sense of repose even in his very insistence, peculiarly pleasant to those who like to have their sensations, like their perfumes, as weak and as faint as possible.

“There is a tact and delicacy about these men from which our people might take a lesson,” said Lady Lackington, as the door closed after him.

“Very true,” sighed Lady Grace; “ours are really dreadful.”

CHAPTER III. A FATHER AND A DAUGHTER

A DREARY evening late in October, a cold thin rain falling, and a low wailing wind sighing through the headless branches of the trees in Merrion Square, made Dublin seem as sad-looking and deserted as need be. The principal inhabitants had not yet returned to their homes for the winter, and the houses wore that melancholy look of vacancy and desertion so strikingly depressing. One sound alone woke the echoes in that silence; it was a loud knocking at the door of a large and pretentious mansion in the middle of the north side of the square. Two persons had been standing at the door for a considerable time, and by every effort of knocker and bell endeavoring to obtain admittance. One of these was a tall, erect man of about fifty, whose appearance but too plainly indicated that most painful of all struggles between poverty and a certain pretension. White-seamed and threadbare as was his coat, he wore it buttoned to the top with a sort of military smartness, his shabby hat was set on with a kind of jaunty air, and his bushy whiskers, combed and frizzed out with care, seemed a species of protest against being thought as humble as certain details of dress might bespeak him. At his side stood a young girl, so like him that a mere glance proclaimed her to be his daughter; and although in her appearance, also, narrow means stood confessed, there was an unmistakable something in her calm, quiet features and her patient expression that declared she bore her lot with a noble and high-hearted courage.

“One trial more, Bella, and I ‘ll give it up,” cried he, angrily, as, seizing the knocker, he shook the strong door with the rapping, while he jingled the bell with equal violence. “If they don’t come now, it is because they ‘ve seen who it is, or, maybe – ”

“There, see, papa, there’s a window opening above,” said the girl, stepping out into the rain as she spoke.

“What d’ ye mean, – do ye want to break in the door?” cried a harsh voice, as the wizened, hag-like face of a very dirty old woman appeared from the third story.

“I want to know if Mr. Davenport Dunn is at home,” cried the man.

“He is not; he ‘s abroad, – in France.”

“When is he expected back?” asked he again.

“Maybe in a week, maybe in three weeks.”

“Have any letters come for Mr. Kellett – Captain Kel-lett?” said he, quickly correcting himself.

“No!”

And a bang of the window, as the head was withdrawn, finished the colloquy.

“That’s pretty conclusive, any way, Bella,” said he, with an attempt to laugh. “I suppose there’s no use in staying here longer. Poor child,” added he, as he watched her preparations against the storm, “you ‘ll be wet to the skin! I think we must take a car, – eh, Bella? I will take a car.” And he put an emphasis on the word that sounded like a firm resolve.

“No, no, papa; neither of us ever feared rain.”

“And, by George! it can’t spoil our clothes, Bella,” said he, laughing with a degree of jocularity that sounded astonishing, even to himself; for he quickly added, “But I will have a car; wait a moment here, under the porch, and I ‘ll get one.”

And before she could interpose a word, he was off and away, at a speed that showed the vigor of a younger man.

“It won’t do, Bella,” he said, as he came back again; “there’s only one fellow on the stand, and he ‘ll not go under half a crown. I pushed him hard for one-and-sixpence, but he ‘d not hear of it, and so I thought – that was, I knew well – you would be angry with me.”

“Of course, papa; it would be mere waste of money,” said she, hastily. “An hour’s walk, – at most, an hour and a half, – and there’s an end of it And now let us set out, for it is growing late.”

There were few in the street as they passed along; a stray creature or so, houseless and ragged, shuffled onward; an odd loiterer stood for shelter in an archway, or a chance passer-by, with ample coat and umbrella, seemed to defy the pelting storm, while cold and dripping they plodded along in silence.

“That’s old Barrington’s house, Bella,” said he, as they passed a large and dreary-looking mansion at the corner of the square; “many’s the pleasant evening I spent in it.”

She muttered something, but inaudibly, and they went on as before.

“I wonder what ‘s going on here to-day. It was Sir Dyke Morris used to live here when I knew it” And he stopped at an open door, where a flood of light poured forth into the street “That’s the Bishop of Derry, Bella, that’s just gone in. There’s a dinner-party there to-day,” whispered he, as, half reluctant to go, he still peered into the hall.

She drew him gently forward, and he seemed to have fallen into a revery, as he muttered at intervals, —

“Great times – fine times – plenty of money – and fellows that knew how to spend it!”

Drearily plashing onward through wind and rain, their frail clothes soaked through, they seldom interchanged a word.

“Lord Drogheda lived there, Bella,” said he, stopping short at the door of a splendidly illuminated hotel; “and I remember the time I was as free and welcome in it as in my own house. My head used to be full of the strange things that happened there once. Brown, and Barry Fox, and Tisdall, and the rest of us, were wild chaps! Faith, my darling, it was n’t for Mr. Davenport Dunn I cared in those times, or the like of him. Davenport Dunn, indeed!”

“It is strange that he has not written to us,” said the girl, in a low voice.

“Not a bit strange; it’s small trouble he takes about us. I’ll bet a five-pound note – I mean, I’ll lay sixpence,” said he, correcting himself with some confusion, – “that since he left this he never as much as bestowed a thought on us. When he got me that beggarly place in the Custom House, he thought he ‘d done with me out and out. Sixty pounds a year! God be with the time I gave Peter Harris, the butler, just double the money!”