Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“To be sure he would. It would be the safest hedge in the world for him. He ‘d square his book by it, and stand to win, no matter what horse came in. Besides, why should they buy me, if I was n’t against them? You don’t nobble the horse in your own stable, – eh, Kellett, old boy?”

“You’re a wonderful fellow, Beecher!” said Kellett, in a most honest admiration of his friend.

“If they’d only give me a chance, Paul, – just one chance!”

It was not very easy to see what blot in the game of life he purposed to himself to “hit” when he used this expression, “if they only give me a chance;” vague and indistinct as it was, still for many a year had it served him as a beacon of hope. A shadow vision of creditors “done,” horses “nobbled,” awkward testimonies “squared,” a millenary period of bills easily discounted, with an indulgent Angel presiding over the Bankrupt Court, – these and like blessings doubtless all flitted before him as the fruits of that same “chance” which destiny held yet in store for him.

Hope is a generous fairy; she deigns to sit beside the humblest firesides, – she will linger even in the damp cell of the prison, or rest her wings on the wave-tossed raft of the shipwrecked, and in such mission is she thrice blessed! But by what strange caprice does she visit the hearts of men like this? Perhaps it is that the very spirit of her ministering is to despair of nothing.

We are by no means sure that our reader will take the same pleasure that Kellett did in Beecher’s society, and therefore we shall spare him the narrative of their walk. They strolled along for hours, now by the shingly shore, on which the waves swept smoothly, now inland, through leafy lanes and narrow roads, freckled with patchy sunlight. The day was calm and still, – one of those solemn autumnal days which lend to scenery a something of sadness in their unvarying quiet. Although so near a great city, the roads were little travelled, and they sauntered for hours scarcely meeting any one.

Wherever the smoke rose above the tall beech-trees, wherever the ornamented porch of some lone cottage peeped through the copse, or the handsome entrance-gate proclaimed the well-to-do owner of some luxurious abode, Kellett would stop to tell who it was lived there, – the wealthy merchant, the affluent banker, the alderman or city dignitary, who had amassed his fortune by this or that pursuit. Through all his stories there ran the vein of depreciation, which the once landed proprietor cherished towards the men who were the “first of their name.” He was sure to remember some trait of their humble beginnings in life, – how this one had come up barefooted to Dublin fifty years before; how that had held horses in the street for hire. It was strange, but scarcely one escaped some commentary of this kind; not that there was a spark of ill-nature in the man, but that he experienced a species of self-consolation in thinking that in all his narrow fortune he had claims of kindred and connection which none of them could compete with. Beecher’s thoughts took, meanwhile, a different course; whenever not awakened to interest by some trait of their sharpness or cunning, to which he listened with avidity, he revelled in the idea of their wealth, as a thing of which they might be despoiled: “Wouldn’t that fellow take shares in some impossible speculation? – Couldn’t the other be induced to buy some thousand pounds’ worth of valueless scrip? – Would this one kindly permit himself to ‘be cleared out’ at hazard? – Might that one be persuaded to lose a round sum at écarté?”

And thus did they view life, with widely different sympathies, it is true, but yet in a spirit that made them companionable to each other. One “grew his facts,” like raw material which the other manufactured into those curious wares by which he amused his fancy. Poverty is a stronger bond than many believe it; when men begin to confess it to each other, they take something very like an oath of fidelity.

“By the way,” said Beecher, as he bade his friend good night, “you told me you knew Dunn – Davenport Dunn?”

“To be sure I do, – know him well.”

“Couldn’t you introduce me to him? That’s a fellow might be able to assist me. I ‘m certain he could give me a chance; eh, Kellett?”

“Well; I expect him back in Ireland every day. I was asking after him no later than yesterday; but he’s still away.”

“When he comes back, however, you can mention me, of course; he’ll know who I am.”

“I’ll do it with pleasure. Good-night, Beecher, – goodnight; and I hope” – this was soliloquy as he turned back towards the door, – “I hope Dunn will do more for you than he ever has for me! or, faith, it’s not worth while to make the acquaintance.”

Bella retired to her room early, and Kellett sat moodily alone by his fire. Like a great many other “embarrassed gentlemen,” he was dragging on life amidst all the expedients of loans, bonds, and mortgages, when the bill for sale of the encumbered estates became the law of the land. What with the legal difficulties of dispossessing him, what with the changeful fortunes of a good harvest, or money a little more plentiful in the market, he might have gone on to the last in this fashion, and ended his days where he began them, in the old house of his fathers, when suddenly this new and unexpected stroke of legislation cut short all his resources at once, and left him actually a beggar on the world.

The panic created at the first moment by a law that seemed little short of confiscation, the large amount of landed property thus suddenly thrown into the market, the prejudice against Irish investment so strongly entertained by the moneyed classes in England, all tended vastly to depreciate the value of those estates which came first for sale; and many were sold at prices scarcely exceeding four or five years of their rental. An accidental disturbance in the neighborhood, some petty outrage in the locality, was enough to depreciate the value; and purchasers actually fancied themselves engaged in speculations so hazardous that nothing short of the most tempting advantages would requite them for their risk.

One of the very first estates for sale was Kellett’s Court. The charges on the property were immense, the accumulated debts of three generations of spendthrifts; the first charge, however, was but comparatively small, and yet even this was not covered by the proceeds of the sale. A house that had cost nearly forty thousand pounds, standing on its own demesne, surrounded by an estate yielding upwards of three thousand a year, was knocked down for fifteen thousand four hundred pounds.

Kellett was advised to appeal against this sale on various grounds: he was in possession of an offer of more than double for the same property in times less prosperous; he could show a variety of grounds – surprise and others – to invalidate the ruinous contract; and it was then that he once again, after a whole life, found himself in contact with Davenport Dunn, the attorney for many parties whose interests were compromised in the sale. By no possible accident could the property be sold at such a price as would leave any surplus to himself; but he hoped, indeed he was told, that he would be favorably considered by those whose interest he was defending; and this last throw for fortune was now the subject of his dreary thoughts.

There was, too, another anxiety, and a nearer one, pressing on his heart. Kellett had a son, – a fine, frank, open-hearted young fellow, who had grown up to manhood, little dreaming that he would ever be called on to labor for his own support. The idle lounging habits of a country life had indisposed him to all study, so that even his effort to enter college was met by a failure, and he was turned back on the very threshold of the University. Jack Kellett went home, vowing he ‘d nevermore trouble his head about Homer and Lucian, and he kept his word; he took to his gun and his pointers with renewed vigor, waiting until such time as he might obtain his gazette to a regiment on service. His father had succeeded in securing a promise of such an appointment, but, unhappily, the reply only arrived on the very week that Kellett’s Court was sold, and an order from the Horse Guards to lodge the purchase-money of his commission came at the very hour when they were irretrievably ruined.

Jack disappeared the next morning, and the day following brought a letter, stating that he had enlisted in the “Rifles,” and was off to the Crimea. Old Kellett concealed the sorrow that smote him for the loss of his boy, by affecting indignation at being thus deserted. So artfully did he dress up this self-deception that Bella was left in doubt as to whether or not some terrible scene had not occurred between the father and son before he left the house. In a tone that she never ventured to dispute, he forbade her to allude to Jack before him; and thus did he treasure up this grief for himself alone and his own lonely hours, cheating his sorrow by the ingenious devices of that constraint he was thus obliged to practise on himself. Like a vast number of men with whom the world has gone hardly, he liked to brood over his misfortunes, and magnify them to himself. In this way he opened a little bank of compassion that answered every draft he drew on it. Over and over to himself – like a miser revelling over his hoarded wealth – did he count all the hardships of his destiny. He loved thus to hug his misery in solitude, while he whispered to his heart, “You are a courageous fellow, Paul Kellett; there are not many who could carry your cheerful face, or walk with a head as high as you do to-day. The man that owned Kellett’s Court, and was one of the first in his county, living in a poor cottage, with sixty pounds a year! – that’s the test of what stuff a man’s made of. Show me another man in Ireland could do it! Show me one that could meet the world as uncomplainingly, and all the while never cease to be what he was born, – a gentleman.” This was the philosophy he practised; this the lesson he taught; this the paean he chanted in his own heart The various extremities to which he might – being anything other than what he was – have been tempted, the excesses he might have fallen into, the low associates he might have kept, the base habits he might have contracted, all the possible and impossible contingencies that might have befallen him, and all his difficulties therein, formed a little fiction world that he gloried to lose himself in contemplating.

It is not often that selfishness can take a form so blameless; nor is it always that self-deception can be so harmless. In this indulgence we now leave him.

CHAPTER V. THE WORLD’S CHANGES

While Mr. Davenport Dunn’s residence was in Merrion Square, his house of business was in Henrietta Street, – one of those roomy old mansions which, before the days of the Union, lodged the aristocracy of Ireland, but which have now fallen into utter neglect and decay. Far more spacious in extent, and more ornate in decoration, than anything modern Dublin can boast, they remain, in their massive doors of dark mahogany, their richly stuccoed ceilings, and their handsome marble chimney-pieces, the last witnesses of a period when Dublin was a real metropolis.

From the spacious dinner-room below to the attics above, all this vast edifice was now converted into offices, and members of Mr. Dunn’s staff were located even in the building at the rear, where the stables once had stood. Nothing can so briefly convey the varied occupations of his life as a glance at some of the inscriptions which figured on the different doors: “Inland Navigation Office,” “Grand Munster Junction Drainage,” “Compressed Fuel Company,” “Reclaimed Lands,” “Encumbered Estates,” “Coast Fishery,” “Copper and Cobalt Mining Association,” “Refuge Harbor Company,” “Slate and Marble Quarries,” “Tyrawley and Erris Bank of Deposit,” “Silver and Lead Mines.” These were but a few of the innumerable “associations,” “companies,” and “industrial speculations” which denoted the cares and employments of that busy head. Indeed, the altered fortunes of that great mansion itself presented no bad type of the changed destinies of the land. Here, once, was the abode of only too splendid hospitality, of all that refined courtesy and polished manners could contribute to make society as fascinating as it was brilliant Here were wit and beauty, and a high, chivalrous tone of manners, blended, it is true, with wildest extravagance and a general levity of thought, that imparted to intercourse the glowing tints of an orgy; and in their stead were now the active signs of industry, all the means by which wealth is amassed and great fortunes acquired, every resource of the country explored, every natural advantage consulted and developed, – the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the sea-coasts, the vast tracts of bog and moss, the various mines and quarries, the products once deemed valueless, the districts formerly abandoned as irreclaimable, all brought out into strong light, and all investigated in a spirit which hitherto had been unknown to Ireland. What a change was here, and what necessities must have been the fate of those who had so altered all their habits and modes of thought as to conform to a system so widely different from all they had hitherto followed! It was like re-colonizing an empire, so subversive were all the innovations of what had preceded them.

“Eh, Barton, we used to trip up these stairs more flippantly once on a time,” said a very handsome old man, whose well-powdered hair and queue were rather novelties in modern appearance, to a feeble figure who, assisted by his servant, was slowly toiling his way upwards.

“How d’ ye do, Glengariff?” said the other, with a weak smile. “So we used; and they were better days in every sense of the word.”

“Not a doubt of it,” said the other. “Is that your destination?” And he pointed to a door inscribed with the title “Encumbered Estates.”

“Ay!” said Barton, sighing.

“It ‘s mine, too, I ‘m sorry to say,” cried Lord Glengariff; “as I suppose, erelong, it will be that of every country gentleman in the land!”

“We might have known it must come to this!” muttered the other, in a weak voice.

“I don’t think so,” broke in his Lordship, quickly. “I see no occasion at all for what amounts to an act of confiscation; why not give us time to settle with our creditors? Why not leave us to deal with our encumbrances in our own way? The whole thing is a regular political swindle, Barton; they wanted a new gentry that could be more easily managed than the old fellows, who had no station, no rank, but right ready to buy both one and the other by supporting – ”

“Can I be of any service to your Lordship?” interrupted a very over-dressed and much-gold-chained man, of about forty, with a great development of chest, set off to advantage by a very pretentious waistcoat.

“Ah, Hankes! is Dunn come back yet?” asked Lord Glengariff.

“No, my Lord; we expect him on Saturday. The telegraph is dated St. Cloud, where he is stopping with the Emperor.”

Glengariff gave Barton a slight pinch in the arm, and a look of intense meaning at the words.

“Nothing has been done in that matter of mine?” said Barton, feebly. “Jonas Barton is the name,” added he, coloring at the necessity of announcing himself.

“Jonas Barton, of Curryglass House?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Sold yesterday, under the Court, sir – for, let me see – ” And he opened a small memorandum-book. “Griffith’s valuation,” muttered he between his teeth, “was rather better than the Commissioner’s, – yes, sir, they got a bargain of that property yesterday; it went for twenty-two thousand six hundred – ”

“Great God, sir; the whole estate?”

“The whole estate; there is a tithe-rent charge – ”

“There, there, don’t you see he does not hear you?” said Lord Glengariff, angrily. “Have you no room where he can sit down for half an hour or so?” And so saying, he assisted the servant to carry the now lifeless form into a small chamber beside them. The sick man rallied soon, and as quickly remembered where he was.

“This is bad news, Glengariff,” said he, with a sickly effort at a smile. “Have you heard who was the buyer?”

“No, no; what does it matter? Take my arm and get out of this place. Where are you stopping in town? Can I set you down?” said the other, in hurry and confusion.

“I’m with my son-in-law at Ely Place; he is to call for me here, so you can leave me, my dear friend, for I see you are impatient to get away.”

Lord Glengariff pressed his hand cordially, and descended the stairs far more rapidly than he had mounted them.

“Lord Glengariff, – one word, my Lord,” cried Mr. Hankes, hastening after him, and just catching him at the door.

“Not now, sir, – not now,” said Lord Glengariff.

“I beg a thousand pardons, my Lord, but Mr. Dunn writes me peremptorily to say that it cannot be effected – ”

“Not raise the money, did you say?” asked he, growing suddenly pale.