Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“Not in the manner he proposed, my Lord. If you will allow me to explain – ”

“Come over to my hotel. I am at Bilton’s,” said Lord Glengariff. “Call on me there in an hour.” And so saying, he got into his carriage and drove off.

In the large drawing-room of the hotel sat a lady working, and occasionally reading a book which lay open before her. She was tall and thin, finely featured, and though now entered upon that period of life when every line and every tint confess the ravage of time, was still handsome. This was Lady Augusta Arden, Lord Glengariff’s only unmarried daughter, the very type of her father in temperament as well as appearance.

“By George! it is confiscation. It is the inauguration of that Communism the French speak of,” cried Lord Glengariff, as he entered the room. “There ‘s poor Barton of Curryglass, one of the oldest names in his county, sold out, and for nothing, – absolutely nothing. No man shall persuade me that this is just or equitable; no man shall tell me that the Legislature shall step in and decide at any moment how I am to deal with my creditors.”

“I never heard of that Burton.”

“I said Barton, – not Burton; a man whose estate used to be called five thousand a year,” said he, angrily. “There he is now, turned out on the world. I verily believe he has n’t a guinea left! And what is all this for? To raise up in the country a set of spurious gentry, – fellows that were never heard of, whose names are only known over shop-boards, – as if the people should be better treated or more kindly dealt with by them than by us, their natural protectors! By George! if Ireland should swarm with Davenport Dunns, I ‘d call it a sorry exchange for the good blood she had lost in exterminating her old gentry.”

“Has he come back?” asked Lady Augusta, as she bent her head more deeply over her work, and her cheeks grew a shade more red.

“No; he’s dining with royalties, and driving about in princely carriages on the Continent Seeing what the pleasures of his intimacy have cost us here at home, I’d say that these great personages ought to look sharp, or, by George! he’ll sell them out, as he has done us.” He laughed a bitter laugh at his jest, but his daughter did not join in the emotion.

“I scarcely think it fair,” said she, at length, “to connect Mr. Dunn with a legislation which he is only called upon to execute.”

“With all my heart. Acquit him as much as you will; but, for my part, I feel very little tenderness for the hand that accomplishes the last functions of the law against me. These fellows have displayed a zeal and an alacrity in their work that shows how they relish the sport. After all,” said he, after a pause, “this Dunn is neither better nor worse than the rest of them, and in one respect he has the advantage over them, – he has not forgotten himself quite so much as the others. To be sure, we knew him in his very humblest fortunes, Augusta; he was meek enough then.”

She stooped to pick up her work, which had fallen, and her neck and face were crimson as she resumed it.

“Wonderful little anticipation had he then of the man he was to become one of these days. Do you know, Augusta, that they say he is actually worth two millions? – two millions!”

She never spoke; and after an interval Lord Glengariff burst out into a strange laugh.

“You ‘d scarcely guess what I was laughing at, Augusta. I was just remembering the wretched hole he used to sleep in. It was a downright shame to put him there over the stable, but the cottage was under repair at the time, and there was no help for it. ‘I can accommodate myself anywhere, my Lord,’ he said. Egad, he has contrived to fulfil the prediction in a very different sense. Just fancy – two millions sterling!”

It was precisely what Lady Augusta was doing at the moment, though, perhaps, not quite in the spirit his Lordship suspected.

“Suppose even one half of it be true, with a million of money at command, what can’t a man have nowadays?”

And so they both fell a-thinking of all that same great amount of riches could buy, – what of power, respect, rank, flattery, political influence, fine acquaintance, fine diamonds, and fine dinners.

“If he play his cards well, he might be a peer,” thought my Lord.

“If he be as ambitious as he ought to be, he might aspire to a peer’s daughter,” was the lady’s reflection.

“He has failed in my negotiation, however,” said Lord Glengariff, peevishly; “at least, Hankes just told me that it can’t be done. I detest that fellow Hankes. It shows great want of tact in Dunn having such a man in his employment, – a vulgar, self-sufficient, over-dressed fellow, who can’t help being familiar out of his own self-satisfaction. Now, Dunn himself knows his place. Don’t you think so?”

She muttered something not very intelligible, but which sounded like concurrence.

“Yes,” he resumed, “Dunn does not forget himself, – at least, with me.” And to judge from the carriage of his head as he spoke, and the air with which he earned the pinch of snuff to his nose, he had not yet despaired of seeing the world come back to the traditions which once had made it worth living in.

“I am willing to give him every credit for his propriety of conduct, Augusta,” added he, in a still more lofty tone; “for we live in times when really wealth and worldly prosperity have more than their rightful supremacy, and such men as Dunn are made the marks of an adulation that is actually an outrage, – an outrage upon us!”

And the last little monosyllable was uttered with an emphasis of intense significance.

Just as his Lordship had rounded his peroration, the servant presented him with a small three-cornered note. He opened it and read, —

“My Lord, – I think the bearer of this, T. Driscoll, might possibly do what you wish for; and I send him, since I am sure that a personal interview with your Lordship would be more efficacious than any negotiation.

“By your Lordship’s most obedient to command,

“Simpson Hankes.”

“Is the person who brought this below?” asked Lord Glengariff.

“Yes, my Lord; he is waiting for the answer.”

“Show him into my dressing-room.”

Mr. Terence Driscoll was accordingly introduced into that sanctum; and while he employs his few spare moments in curious and critical examination of the various gold and silver objects which contribute to his Lordship’s toilet, and wonderingly snuffs at essences and odors of whose existence he had never dreamed, let us take the opportunity of a little examination of himself. He was a short, fat old man, with a very round red face, whose jovial expression was rather heightened than marred by a tremendous squint; for the eyes kept in incessant play and movement, which intimated a restless drollery that his full, capacious mouth well responded to. In dress and general appearance he belonged to the class of the comfortable farmer, and his massive silver watch-chain and huge seal displayed a consciousness of his well-to-do condition in life.

“Are you Mr. Driscoll?” said Lord Glengariff, as he looked at the letter to prompt him to the name. “Pray take a seat!”

“Yes, my Lord, I ‘m that poor creature Terry Driscoll; the neighbors call me Tearin’ Terry, but that ‘s all past and gone, Heaven be praised! It was a fever I had, my Lord, and my rayson wandered, and I did many a thing that desthroyed me entirely; I tore up the lease of my house, I tore up Peter Driscoll’s, my uncle’s, will; ay, and worse than all, I tore up all my front teeth!”

And, in evidence of this feat of dentistry, Mr. Driscoll gave a grin that exposed his bare gums to view.

“Good heavens, how shocking!” exclaimed Lord Glen-gariff, though, not impossibly, the expression was extorted by the sight rather than the history of the calamity.

“Shocking indeed, my Lord, – that’s the name for it!” said Terry, sighing; “but ye see I was n’t compos when I did it. I thought they were a set of blackguards that I could n’t root out of the land, – squatters that would n’t pay sixpence, nor do a day’s work. That was the delusion that was upon me!”

“I hold here a letter from Mr. Hankes,” said his Lordship, pompously, and in a tone that was meant to recall Mr. Driscoll from the personal narrative he had entered upon with such evident self-satisfaction. “He mentions you as one likely – that is to say – one in a position – a person, in fact – ”

“Yes, my Lord, yes,” interrupted Terry, with a grin of unbounded acquiescence.

“And adds,” continued his Lordship, “your desire to communicate personally with myself.” The words were very few and not very remarkable, and yet Lord Glengariff contrived to throw into them an amount of significance really great. They seemed to say, “Bethink thee well, Terry Driscoll, of the good fortune that this day has befallen thee. Thy boldness has been crowned with success, and there thou sittest now, being the poor worm that thou art, in converse with one who wears a coronet.”

And so, indeed, in all abject humility, did Mr. Driscoll appear to feel the situation. He drew his feet closer together, and stole his hands up the wide sleeves of his coat, as though endeavoring to diminish, as far as might be, his corporeal presence.

His Lordship saw that enough had been done for subjection, and blandly added, “And I could have no objection to the interview; none whatever.”

“It’s too good you are, my Lord; too good and too gracious to the like of me,” said Terry, barely raising his eyes to throw a glance of mingled shame and drollery on his Lordship; “but I come by rayson of what Mr. Hankes tould me, that it was a trifle of a loan, – a small matter of money your Lordship was wantin’ just at this moment.”

“I prefer doing these kind of things through my solicitors. I know nothing of business, sir, absolutely nothing,” said his Lordship, haughtily. “The present case, however, might form an exception. The sum I require is, as you justly remark, a mere trifle, and the occasion is not worthy of legal interference.”

“Yes, my Lord,” chimed in Driscoll, who had a most provoking habit of employing the affirmative in all situations.

“I suppose he mentioned to you the amount?” asked his Lordship, quickly.

“No, indeed, my Lord; all he said was, ‘Terry,’ says he, ‘go over to Bilton’s Hotel with this note, and ask for Lord Glengariff. He wants a little ready cash,’ says he, ‘and I tould him you ‘re a likely man to get it for him. It’s too small a matter for us here,’ says he, ‘to be bothered about.’”

“He had n’t the insolence to make use of these words towards me!” said Lord Glengariff, growing almost purple with passion.

“Faix, I ‘m afeard he had, my Lord,” said Terry, looking down; “but I ‘m sure he never meant any harm in it; ‘t was only as much as to say, ‘There, Terry, there ‘s something for you; you ‘re a poor strugglin’ man, and are well plazed to turn a penny in a small way. If you can accommodate my Lord there,’ says he, ‘he ‘ll not forget it to you.’”

The conclusion of this speech was far more satisfactory to his Lordship than its commencement seemed to promise; and Lord Glengariff smiled half graciously as he said, “I ‘m not in the habit of neglecting those who serve me.”