Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“Are you happy here?” asked he, abruptly.

“Yes, – that is, I have been so up to this – ”

“In short, until I had robbed you of an illusion,” said he, interrupting her. “Ah, how many a pang do these ‘awakenings’ cost us in life!” muttered he, half to himself. “Every one has his ambitions of one sort or other, and fancies his goal the true one; but, his faith once disturbed, how hard it is to address himself earnestly to another creed!”

“If it be duty,” broke she in, “and if we have the consciousness of an honest breast and a right intention – ”

“That is to say, if we gain a verdict in the court where we ourselves sit as judge,” said he, with a suddenness that surprised her. “I, for instance, have my own sense of what is right and just; am I quite sure it is yours? I see certain anomalies in our social condition, great hardships, heavy wrongs; if I address myself to correct them, am I so certain that others will concur with me? The battle of life, like every other conflict, is one in which to sustain the true cause one must do many a cruel thing. It is only at last, when success has crowned all your efforts, that the world condescends to say you have done well.”

“You, of all men, can afford to await this judgment patiently.”

“Why do you say that of me?” asked he, eagerly.

“Because, so long as I can remember, I have seen your name associated with objects of charity and benevolence; and not these alone, but with every great enterprise that might stimulate the efforts and develop the resources of the country.”

“Some might say that personal objects alone influenced me,” said he, in a low voice.

“How poor and narrow-minded would be such a judgment!” replied she, warmly. “There is an earnestness in high purpose no self-seeking could ever counterfeit.”

“That is true, – quite true,” said he; “but are you so certain that the world makes the distinction? Does not the vulgar estimate confound the philanthropist with the speculator? I say this with sorrow.” said he, painfully, “for I myself am the victim of this very injustice.” He paused for a few seconds, and then rising, he said, “Let us stroll along the river-side; we have both worked enough for the day.” She arose at once, and followed him. “It is ever an ungracious theme, – one’s self,” said he, as they walked along; “but, somehow, I am compelled to talk to you, and, if you will allow me, confidentially.” He did not wait for a reply, but went on: “There was, in the time of the French Regency, a man named Law, who, by dint of deep study and much labor, arrived at the discovery of a great financial scheme; so vast, so comprehensive, and so complete was it, that not only was it able to rescue the condition of the State from bankruptcy, but it disseminated through the trading-classes of the nation the sound principles of credit on which alone commerce can be based. Now, this man – a man of unquestionable genius and, if benefits to one’s species gave a just title to the name, a philanthropist – lived to see the great discovery he had made prostituted to the basest arts of scheming speculators. From the Prince, who was his patron, to the humblest agent of the Bourse, he met nothing but duplicity, falsehood, and treachery, and he ended in being driven in shame and ignominy from the land he had succeeded in rescuing from impending rain! You will say that the people and the age explain much of this base ingratitude; but, believe me, nations and eras are wonderfully alike. The good and evil of this world go on repeating themselves in cycles with a marvellous regularity. The fate which befell Law may overtake any who will endeavor to imitate him; there is but one condition which can avert this catastrophe, and that is success. Law had too long deferred to provide for his own security. Too much occupied with his grand problem, he had made himself neither rich nor great, so that when the hour of adversity came no barriers of wealth or power stood between him and his enemies. Had he foreseen this catastrophe, – had he anticipated it, – he might have so dovetailed his own interests with those of the State that attack upon one involved the fate of the other. But Law did nothing of the kind; he made friends of Princes, and with the fortune that attaches to such friendships, he fell!” For some minutes he walked along at her side without speaking, and then resumed: “With all these facts before me, I, too, see that Law’s fate may be my own!”

“But have you – ” When she had gone thus far, Sybella stopped, and blushed deeply, unable to continue.

“Yes,” said he, answering what might have been her words, – “yes, it was my ambition to have been to Ireland what Law was to France, – not what calumny and injustice have pictured him, remember, but the great reformer, the great financier, the great philanthropist, – to make this faction-torn land a great and united nation. To develop the resources of the richest country in Europe was no mean ambition, and he who even aspired to it was worthy of a better recompense than attack and insult.”

“I have seen none of these,” broke she in. “Indeed, so long as I remember, I can call to mind only eulogies of your zeal, praises of your intelligence, and the grandeur of your designs.”

“There are such, however,” said he, gloomily; “they are the first low murmurings, too, of a storm that will come in full force hereafter! Let it come,” muttered he, below his breath. “If I am to fall, it shall be like Samson, and the temple shall fall with me.”

Sybella did not catch his words, but the look of his features as he spoke them made her almost shudder with terror.

“Let us turn back,” said she; “it is growing late.”

Without speaking, Dunn turned his steps towards the cottage, and walked along in deep thought.

“Mr. Hankes has come, sir,” said Dunn’s servant, as he reached the door. And without even a word, Dunn hastened to his own room.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. MR. DAVENPORT DUNN IN MORE MOODS THAN ONE

Although Mr. Hankes performs no very conspicuous part in our story, he makes his appearance at the Hermitage with a degree of pomp and circumstance which demand mention. With our reader’s kind leave, therefore, we mean to devote a very brief chapter to that gentleman and his visit.

As in great theatres there is a class of persons to whose peculiar skill and ability are confided all the details of “spectacle,” all those grand effects of panoramic splendor which in a measure make the action of the drama subordinate to the charms of what, more properly, ought to be mere accessories; so modern speculation has called to its aid its own special machinists and decorators, – a gifted order of men, capable of surrounding the dryest and least promising of enterprises with all the pictorial attractions and attractive graces of the “ballet”

If it be a question of a harbor or dock company, the prospectus is headed with a colored print, wherein tall three-deckers mingle with close-reefed cutters, their gay buntings fluttering in the breeze as the light waves dance around the bows; from the sea beneath to the clouds above, all is motion and activity, – meet emblems of the busy shore where commerce lives and thrives. If it be a building speculation, the architecture is but the background of a brilliant “mall,” where splendid equipages and caracoling riders figure, with gay parasols and sleek poodles intermixed.

One “buys in” to these stocks with feelings far above “five percent.” A sense of the happiness diffused amongst thousands of our fellow-creatures – the “blessings of civilization,” as we like to call the extension of cotton prints – cheer and animate us; and while laying out our money advantageously, we are crediting our hearts with a large balance on the score of philanthropy. To foster this commendable tendency, to feed the tastes of those who love, so to say, to “shoot at Fortune with both barrels,” an order of men arose, cunning in all the devices of advertisement, learned in the skill of capitals, and adroit in illustrations.

Of these was Mr. Hankes. Originally brought up at the feet of George Robins, he was imported into Ireland by Mr. Davenport Dunn as his chief man at business, – the Grand Vizier of Joint Stock Companies and all industrial speculations.

If Dr. Pangloss was a good man for knowing what wickedness was, Mr. Hankes might equally pretend to skill in all enterprises, since he had experienced, for a number of years, every species of failure and defeat The description of his residences would fill half a column of a newspaper. They ranged from Brompton to Boulogne, and took in everything from Wilton Crescent to St John’s Wood. He had done a little of everything, too, from “Chief Commissioner to the Isthmus” – we never heard of what isthmus – to Parliamentary Agent for the friends of Jewish emancipation. With a quickness that rarely deceived him, Dunn saw his capabilities. He regarded him as fighting fortune so bravely with all the odds against him, that he ventured to calculate what such a man might be, if favorably placed in the world. The fellow who could bring down his bird with a battered old flint musket might reasonably enough distinguish himself if armed with an Enfield rifle. The venture was not, however, entirely successful; for though Hankes proved himself a very clever fellow, he was only really great under difficulties. It was with the crash of falling fortunes around him – amidst debt, bankruptcy, executions, writs, and arrests – Hankes rose above his fellows, and displayed all the varied resources of his fertile genius. The Spartan vigor of his mind assorted but badly with prosperity, and Hankes waxed fat and indolent, affected gorgeous waistcoats and chains, and imperceptibly sank down to the level of those decorative arts we have just alluded to.

The change was curious: it was as though Gerard or Gordon Cumming should have given up lion-hunting and taken to teach piping bullfinches!

Every venture of Davenport Dunn was prosperous. All his argosies were borne on favoring winds, and Hankes saw his great defensive armor hung up to rust and to rot. Driven in some measure, therefore, to cut out his path in life, he invented that grand and gorgeous school of enterprise whose rashness and splendor crush into insignificance all the puny attempts of commonplace speculators. He only talked millions; thousands he ignored. He would accept of no names on the direction of his schemes save the very highest in rank. If he crossed the Channel, his haste required a special steamer. If he went by rail, a special train awaited him. The ordinary world, moving along at its tortoise pace, was shocked at the meteor course that every now and then shot across the hemisphere, and felt humiliated in their own hearts by the comparison.

Four smoking posters, harnessed to the neatest and lightest of travelling-carriages, had just deposited Mr. Hankes at the Hermitage; and he now sat in Mr. Dunn’s dressing-room, arranging papers and assorting documents in preparation for his arrival.

It was easy to perceive that as Dunn entered the room he was very far from feeling pleased at his lieutenant’s presence there.

“What was there so very pressing, Mr. Hankes,” said he, “that could not have awaited my return to town?”

“A stormy meeting of the Lough Allen Tin Company yesterday, sir, – a very stormy meeting indeed. Shares down to twenty-seven and an eighth, – unfavorable report on the ore, and a rumor – mere rumor, of course – that the last dividend was paid out of capital.”

“Who says this?” asked Dunn, angrily.

“The ‘True Blue,’ sir, hinted as much in the evening edition, and the suggestion was at once caught up by the Tory Press.”

“Macken – isn’t that the man’s name – edits the ‘True Blue’?”

“Yes, sir; Michael Macken.”

“What answer shall I give him, then?” asked Hankes.

“Tell him – explain to him that the exigencies of party – No, that won’t do. Send down Harte to conduct his election, let him be returned for the borough, and tell Joe Harte to take care to provide a case that will unseat him on a petition; before the petition comes on, we shall have the sale completed. The Colonel shall be taught that our tactics are somewhat sharper than his own.”

Hankes smiled approvingly at this stratagem of his chief, and really for the moment felt proud of serving such a leader. Once more, however, did he turn to his dreary note-book and its inexorable bead-roll of difficulties; but Dunn no longer heard him, for he was deep in his private correspondence, tearing open and reading letter after letter with impatient haste. “What of the Crimea – what did you say, there?” cried Dunn, stopping suddenly, and catching at the sound of that one word.

“That report of the ‘Morning Post’ would require a prompt contradiction.”

“What report?” asked Dunn, quickly.

“Here’s the paragraph.” And the other read from a newspaper before him: “‘Our readers, we feel assured, will learn with satisfaction that the Government is at this moment in negotiation for the services of Mr. Davenport Dunn in the Crimea. To any one who has followed the sad story of our Commissariat blunders and shortcomings, the employment of this – the first administrative mind of our day – will be matter for just gratification. We have only to turn our eyes to the sister country, and see what success has attended his great exertions there, to anticipate what will follow his labors in the still more rugged field of the Crimea.’

“This is from the ‘Examiner’: ‘We are sorry to hear, and upon the authority that assumes to be indisputable, that a grave difficulty has suspended, for the time at least, the negotiation between the Government and Mr. Daren-port Dunn; the insistence on the part of that gentleman of such a recognition for his services as no Administration could dare to promise being the obstacle.’

“‘Punch’ has also his say: ‘Mr. Davenport Dunn’s scheme is now before the cabinet It resolves itself into this: The Anglo-French alliance to be conducted on the principles of a Limited Liability Company. For preference shares, address Count Morny in Paris, or Dowb at Balaklava.’”

“So much for official secrecy and discretion. This morning brings me the offer from the Minister of this appointment; and here is the whole press of England speculating, criticising, and ridiculing it, forty-eight hours before the proposal is made me! What says the great leading journal?” added he, opening a broad sheet before him. “Very brief, and very vague,” muttered he. “‘No one knows better than the accomplished individual alluded to, how little the highest honors in the power of the Crown to bestow could add to the efficiency of that zeal, or the purpose of that guidance he has so strenuously and successfully devoted to the advancement of his country.’ Psha!” cried he, angrily, as he threw down the paper, and walked to the window.

Hankes proceeded to read aloud one of those glowing panegyrics certain popular journals loved to indulge in, on the superior virtue, capacity, and attainments of the middle classes. “Of these,” said the writer, “Mr. Dunn is a good specimen. Sprung from what may be called the very humblest rank – ”

“Who writes that? What paper is it?”

“The ‘Daily Tidings.’”

“You affect to know all these fellows of the press. It is your pride to have been their associate and boon companion. I charge you, then, no matter for the means or the cost, get that man discharged; follow him up too; have an eye upon him wherever he goes, and wherever he obtains employment. He shall learn that a hungry stomach is a sorry recompense for the pleasure of pointing a paragraph. Let me see that you make a note of this, Mr. Hankes, and that you execute it also.”

It was something so new for Hankes to see Dunn manifest any the slightest emotion on the score of the press, whether its comments took the shape of praise or blame, that he actually stared at him with a sort of incredulous astonishment.