Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“But listen to me, Grog, – just hear me.”

“My name ‘s Davis, sir, – Captain Davis, – let me hear you call me anything else!”

“Well, Davis, old fellow, – the best and truest friend ever fellow had in the world, – now what’s all this about? I ‘ll tell you every syllable that passed between Dunn and myself. I’ll give you my oath, as solemnly as you can dictate it to me, not to conceal one word. He made me swear never to mention it. It was he that imposed the condition on me. What he said was this: ‘It’s a case where you need no counsel, and where any counsel would be dangerous. He who once knows your secret will be in a position to dictate to you. Lord Lackington must be your only adviser, since his peril is the same as your own.’”

“Go on,” said Davis, sternly, as the other seemed to pause too long.

Beecher drew a long breath, and, in a voice faint and broken, continued: “It’s a claimant to the title, – a fellow who pretends he derives from the elder branch, – the Conway Beechers. All stuff and nonsense, – they were extinct two hundred years ago, – but no matter, the claim is there, and so circumstantially got up, and so backed by documents and the rest of it, that Lackington is frightened, – frightened out of his wits. The mere exposure, the very rumor of the thing, would distract him. He’s proud as Lucifer, – and then he’s hard up; besides, he wants a loan, and Dunn tells him there’s no getting it till this affair is disposed of, and that he has hit on the way to do it.”

“As how?” said Davis, dryly.

“Well,” resumed Beecher, whose utterance grew weaker and less audible at every word, “Lackington, you know, has no children. It ‘s very unlikely he ever will now; and Dunn’s advice is that for a life interest in the title and estates I should bind myself not to marry. That fellow then, if he can make good his claim, comes in as next of kin after me; and as to who or what comes after me,” cried he, with more energy, “it matters devilish little. Once ‘toes up’ and Annesley Beecher won’t fret over the next match that comes off, – eh, Grog, old fellow?” And he endeavored by a forced jocularity to encourage his own sinking heart.

“Here’s a shindy!” said Grog, as he mixed himself a fresh tumbler and laid his arms crosswise on the table; “and so it’s no less than the whole stakes is on this match?”

“Title and all,” chimed in Beecher.

“I was n’t thinking of the title,” said Grog, gruffly, as he relapsed into a moody silence. “Now, what does my Lord say to it all?” asked he, after a long pause.

“Lackington? – Lackington says nothing, or next to nothing. You read the passage in his letter where he says, ‘Call on Dunn,’ or ‘Speak to Dunn,’ or something like that, – he did n’t even explain about what; and then you may remember the foolish figure we cut on that morning we waited on Dunn ourselves, not being able to say why or how we were there.”

“I remember nothing about cutting a foolish figure anywhere or any time. It’s not very much my habit. It ain’t my way of business.”

“Well, I can’t say as much,” said Beecher, laughing; “and I own frankly I never felt less at ease in my life.”

“That’s your way of business,” said Grog, nodding gravely at him.

“Every fellow is n’t born as sharp as you, Davis. Samson was a wise man – no, Solomon was a wise man – ”

“Leave Samson and Solomon where they are,” said Grog, puffing his cigar. “What we have to look to here is whether there be a claim at all, and then what it’s worth. The whole affair may be just a cross between this fellow Dunn and one of his own pals. Now, it’s my Lord’s business to see to that. You are only the second horse all this while. If my Lord knows that he can be disqualified, he’s wide awake enough to square the match, he is. But it maybe that Dunn hasn’t put the thing fairly before him. Well, then, you must compare your book with my Lord’s. You’ll have to go over to him, Beecher.” And the last words were uttered with a solemnity that showed they were the result of a deep deliberation.

“It’s all very well, Master Davis, to talk of going over to Italy; but where’s the tin to come from?”

“It must be had somehow,” said Davis, sententiously. “Ain’t there any fellows about would give you a name to a bit of stiff, at thirty-one days’ date?”

“Pumped them all dry long ago!” said Beecher, laughing. “There’s not a man in the garrison would join me to spoil a stamp; and, as to the civilians, I scarcely know one who isn’t a creditor already.”

“You are always talking to me of a fellow called Kellett, – why not have a shy at him?”

“Poor Paul!” cried Beecher, with a hearty laugh. “Why, Paul Kellett’s ruined – cleaned out – sold in the Encumbered what d’ye-call-’ems, and has n’t a cross in the world!”

“I ought to have guessed as much,” growled out Grog, “or he’d not have been on such friendly terms with you.”

“A polite speech that, Grog,” said Beecher, smiling.

“It’s true, and that’s better,” said Davis. “The only fellows that stick close to a man in his poverty are those a little poorer than himself.”

“Not but, if he had it,” said Beecher, following up his own thoughts, – “not but, if he had it, he’s just the fellow to do a right good-natured thing.”

“Well, I suppose he’s got his name, – they have n’t sold that, have they?”

“No, but it’s very much like the estate,” said Beecher. “It’s far too heavily charged ever to pay off the encumbrances.”

“Who minds that, nowadays? A bad bill is a very useful thing sometimes. It’s like a gun warranted to burst, and you can always manage to have it in the right man’s hands when it comes the time for the explosion.”

“You are a rum un, Davis, – you are, indeed,” said Beecher, admiringly; for it was in the delivery of such wise maxims that Davis appeared to him truly great.

“Get him down for fifty, – that ain’t much, – fifty at three months. My Lord says he ‘ll stand fifty himself, in that letter I read. It was to help you to a match, to be sure; but that don’t matter. There can be no question of marrying now. Let me see how this affair is going to turn. Well, I’ll see if I can’t do something myself. I’ve a precious lot of stamped paper there,” – and he pointed to an old secretary, – “if I could hit upon a sharp fellow to work it.”

“You are a trump, Grog!” cried Beecher, delightedly.

“If we had a clear two hundred, we could start to-morrow,” said Grog, laying down his cigar, and staring steadfastly at him.

“Why, would you come, too?” muttered Beecher, who had never so much as imagined the possibility of this companionship on the Continent.

“I expect I would,” said Davis, with a very peculiar grin. “It ain’t likely you’d manage an affair like this without advice.”

“Very true, – very true,” said Beecher, hurriedly. “But remember, Lackington is my brother, – we ‘re both in the same boat.”

“But not with the same skulls,” said Grog. And he grinned a savage grin at the success of his pun.

Beecher, however, so far from appreciating the wit, only understood the remark as a sneer at his intelligence, and half sulkily said, —

“Oh! I’m quite accustomed to that, now, – I don’t mind it.”

“That’s right, – keep your temper,” said Grog, calmly; “that’s the best thing in your book. You ‘re what they call good-tempered. And,” added he, in the moralizing tone, “though the world does take liberties with the good-tempered fellows, it shies them many a stray favor, – many a sly five-pun’-note into the bargain. I’ve known fellows go through life – and make a rare good thing of it, too – with no other stock-in-trade than this same good temper.”

Beecher did not pay his habitual attention to Grog’s words, but sat pondering over all the possible and impossible objections to a tour in such company. There were times and places where men might be seen talking to such a man as Davis. The betting-ring and the weighing-stand have their privileges, just like the green-room or the “flats,” but in neither case are the intimacies of such localities exactly of a kind for parade before the world. Of all the perils of such a course none knew better than Beecher. What society would think, – what clubs would say of it, – he could picture to his mind at once.

Now, there were very few of life’s casualties of which the Honorable Annesley Beecher had not tasted. He knew what it was to have his bills protested, his chattels seized, his person arrested; he had been browbeaten by Bankruptcy Commissioners, and bullied by sheriffs’ officers; tradesmen had refused him credit; tailors abjured his custom; he had “burned his fingers” in one or two not very creditable transactions; but still, with all this, there was yet one depth to which he had not descended, – he was never seen in public with a “wrong man.” He had a jerk of the head, a wink, or a glance for the leg who met him in Piccadilly, as every one else had. If he saw him in the garden of the Star and Garter, or the park at Greenwich, he might even condescend to banter him on “looking jolly,” and ask what new “robbery” he was in for; but as to descending to intimacy or companionship openly before the gaze of the world, he ‘d as soon have thought of playing cad to a ‘bus, or sweep at a crossing.

It was true the Continent was not Hyde Park, – the most strait-laced and well-conducted did fifty things there they had never ventured on at home. Foreign travel had its license, and a passport was a sort of plenary indulgence for many a social transgression; but, with all this, there were a few names – about half a dozen in all Europe – that no man could afford to link his own along with.

As for Grog, he was known everywhere. From Ostend to Odessa his fame extended, and there was scarcely a police prefect in the travelled districts of the Continent that had not a description of his person, and some secret instructions respecting him. From many of the smaller states, whose vigilance is in the ratio of their littleness, he was rigidly excluded; so that in his journeying through Europe, he was often reduced to a zigzag and erratic procedure, not unlike the game known to schoolboys as scotch-hop. In the ten minutes – it was not more – that Beecher passed in recalling these and like facts to his memory, his mind grew more and more perplexed; nor was the embarrassment unperceived by him who caused it. As Davis sipped and smoked, he stole frequent glances at his companion’s face, and strove to read what was passing in his mind. “It may be,” thought Grog, “he does n’t see his way to raising the money. It may be that his credit is lower in the market than I fancied; or” – and now his fiery eyes grew fiercer and his lip more tense – “or it may be that he doesn’t fancy my company. If I was only sure it was that,” muttered he between his teeth; and had Annesley Beecher only chanced to look at him as he said it, the expression of that face would have left a legacy of fear behind it for many a day.

“Help yourself,” said Grog, passing the bottle across the table, – “help yourself, and the gin will help you, for I see you are ‘pounded.’”

“Pounded? No, not a bit; nothing of the kind,” said Beecher, blushing. “I was thinking how Lackington would take all this; what my Lady would say to it; whether they ‘d regard it seriously, or whether they ‘d laugh at my coming out so far about nothing.”

“They’ll not laugh, depend on’t; take my word for it, they won’t laugh,” said Davis, dryly.

“Well, but if it all comes to nothing, – if it be only a plant to extort money?”

“Even that ain’t anything to laugh at,” said Davis. “I ‘ve done a little that way myself, and yet I never saw the fellow who was amused by it.”

“So that you really think I ought to go out and see my brother?”

“I’m sure and certain that we must go,” said Davis, just giving the very faintest emphasis to the “we.”

“But it will cost a pot of money, Grog, even though I should travel in the cheapest way, – I mean, the cheapest way possible for a fellow as well known as I am.”

This was a bold stroke; it was meant to imply far more than the mere words announced. It was intended to express a very complicated argument in a mere innuendo.

“That’s all gammon,” said Grog, rudely. “We don’t live in an age of couriers and extra-post; every man travels by rail nowadays, and nobody cares whether you take a coupé or a horse-box; and as to being known, so am I, and almost as well known as most fellows going.”

This was pretty plain speaking; and Beecher well knew that Davis’s frankness was always on the verge of the only one thing that was worse than frankness.

“After all,” said Beecher, after a pause, “let the journey be ever so necessary, I have n’t got the money.”

“I know you haven’t, neither have I; but we shall get it somehow. You ‘ll have to try Kellett; you ‘ll have to try Dunn himself, perhaps. I don’t see why you should n’t start with him. He knows that you ought to confer with my Lord; and he could scarce refuse your note at three months, if you made it – say fifty.”

“But, Grog,” said Beecher, laying down his cigar, and nerving himself for a great effort of cool courage, “what would suffice fairly enough for one, would be a very sorry allowance for two; and as the whole of my business will be with my own brother, – where of necessity I must be alone with him, – don’t you agree with me that a third person would only embarrass matters rather than advance them?”

“No!” said Grog, sternly, while he puffed his cigar in measured time.

“I ‘m speaking,” said Beecher, in a tone of apology, – “I’m speaking, remember, from my knowledge of Lackington. He’s very high and very proud, – one of those fellows who ‘take on,’ even with their equals; and with myself, he never forgets to let me feel I’m a younger brother.”

“He would n’t take any airs with me,” said Grog, insolently. And Beecher grew actually sick at the bare thought of such a meeting.

“I tell you frankly, Davis,” said he, with the daring of despair, “it wouldn’t do. It would spoil all. First and foremost, Lackington would never forgive me for having confided this secret to any one. He’d say, and not unfairly either, ‘What has Davis to do with this? It’s not the kind of case he is accustomed to deal with; his counsel could n’t possibly be essential here.’ He does n’t know,” added he, rapidly, “your consummate knowledge of the world; he hasn’t seen, as I have, how keenly you read every fellow that comes before you.”

“We start on Monday,” said Grog, abruptly, as he threw the end of his cigar into the fire; “so stir yourself, and see about the bills.”

Beecher arose and walked the room with hurried strides, his brow growing darker and his face more menacing at every moment.

“Look here, Davis,” cried he, turning suddenly round and facing the other, “you assume to treat me as if I was a – schoolboy;” and it was evident that he had intended a stronger word, but had not courage to utter it, for Davis’s wicked eyes were upon him, and a bitter grin of irony was already on Grog’s mouth as he said, —

“Did you ever try a round with me without getting the worst of it? Do you remember any time where you came well out of it? You ‘ve been mauled once or twice somewhat roughly, but with the gloves on, – always with the gloves on. Now, take my advice, and don’t drive me to take them off, – don’t! You never felt my knuckles yet, – and, by the Lord Harry, if you had, you’d not call out ‘Encore.’”

“You just want to bully me,” said Beecher, in a whimpering tone.

“Bully you, – bully you!” said Davis, and his features put on a look of the most intense scorn as he spoke. “Egad!” cried he, with an insolent laugh, “you know very little about either of us.”

“I’d rather you’d do your worst at once than keep threatening me in this fashion.”

“No, you would n’t; no – no – nothing of the kind,” said Davis, with a mockery of gentleness in his voice and manner.

“May I be hanged if I would not!” cried Beecher, passionately.

“It ain’t hanging now, – they ‘ve made it transportation,” said Davis, with a grin; “and them as has tried it says the old way was easiest.” And in the slang style of the last words there was a terrible significance, – it was as though a voice from the felons’ dock was uttering a word of warning. Such was the effect on Beecher that he sank slowly down into a seat, silent and powerless.

“If you had n’t been in this uncommon high style tonight,” said Grog, quietly, “I’d have told you some excellent reasons for what I was advising. I got a letter from Spicer this morning. He, and a foreign fellow he calls Count Lienstahl, – it sounds devilish like ‘lie and steal,’ don’t it? – have got a very pretty plant together, and if they could only chance upon a good second-rate horse, they reckon about eight or ten hundred in stakes alone this coming spring. They offer me a share if I could come out to them, and mean to open the campaign at Brussels. Now, there’s a thing to suit us all, – ‘picking for every one,’ as they say in the oakum-sheds.”

“Cochin China might be had for five hundred; or there’s Spotted Snake, they want to sell him for anything he’ll bring,” said Beecher, with animation.

“They could manage five hundred at least, Spicer says. We ‘re good for about twelve thousand francs, which ought to get us what we’re looking for.”

“There’s Anchovy Paste – ”

“Broke down before and behind.”

“Hop the Twig, own sister to Levanter; ran second for the Colchester Cup – ”

“Mares don’t answer abroad.”

“Well, what do you say to Mumps?”

“There’s the horse for the Continent. A great heavy-headed, thick-jawed beast, with lazy action, and capped hocks. He’s the animal to walk into a foreign jockey club. Oh, if we had him!”

“I know where he is!” exclaimed Beecher, in ecstasy. “There ‘s a Brummagem fellow driving him through Wales, – a bagman, – and he takes him a turn now and then for the county stakes that offer. I ‘ll lay my head on’t we get him for fifty pounds.”

“Come, old fellow,” said Grog, encouragingly, “you have your wits about you, after all. Breakfast here to-morrow, about twelve o’clock, and we ‘ll see if we can’t arrange the whole affair. It’s a sure five hundred apiece, as if we had it here;” and he slapped his pockets as he spoke.

Beecher shook his friend’s hand with a warmth that showed all his wonted cordiality, and with a hearty “Good-night!” they separated.

Grog had managed cleverly. He had done something by terror, and the rest he had accomplished by temptation. They were the two only impulses to sway that strange temperament.

CHAPTER XXI. A DARK DAY

It was the day appointed for the sale of Kellett’s Court, and a considerable crowd was assembled to witness the proceeding. Property was rapidly changing hands; new names were springing up in every county, and old ones were growing obsolete. Had the tide of conquest and confiscation flowed over the land, a greater social revolution could not have resulted; and while many were full of hope and confidence that a new prosperity was about to dawn upon Ireland, there were some who continued to deplore the extinction of the old names, and the exile of the old families, whose traditions were part of the history of the country.

Kellett’s Court was one of those great mansions which the Irish gentlemen of a past age were so given to building, totally forgetting how great the disproportion was between their house and their rent-roll. Irregular, incongruous, and inelegant, it yet, by its very size and extent, possessed a certain air of grandeur. Eighty guests had sat down to table in that oak wainscoted dinner-room; above a hundred had been accommodated with beds beneath that roof; the stables had stalls for every hunting-man that came; and the servants’ hall was a great galleried chamber, like the refectory of a convent, in everything save the moderation of the fare.

Many were curious to know who would purchase an estate burdened by so costly a residence, the very maintenance of which in repair constituted a heavy annual outlay. The gardens, long neglected and forgotten, occupied three acres, and were themselves a source of immense expense; a considerable portion of the demesne was so purely ornamental that it yielded little or no profit; and, as an evidence of the tastes and habits of its former owners, the ruins of a stand-house marked out where races once were held in the park, while hurdle fences and deep drains even yet disfigured the swelling lawn.

Who was to buy such a property was the question none could answer. The house, indeed, might be converted into a “Union,” if its locality suited; it was strong enough for a jail, it was roomy enough for a nunnery. Some averred the Government had decided on purchasing it for a barrack; others pretended that the sisterhood of the Sacred Heart had already made their bargain for it; yet to these and many other assertions not less confidently uttered there were as many demurrers.

While rumors and contradictions were still buzzed about, the Commissioner took his place on the bench, and the clerk of the Court began that tedious recital of the circumstances of the estate with whose details all the interested were already familiar, and the mere curious cared not to listen to. An informality on a former day had interfered with the sale, a fact which the Commissioner alluded to with satisfaction, as property had risen largely in value in the interval, and he now hoped that the estate would not alone clear off all the charges against it, but realize something for its former owner. A confused murmur of conversation followed this announcement. Men talked in knots and groups, consulted maps and rent-rolls, made hasty calculations in pencil, whispered secretly together, muttering frequently the words “Griffith,” “plantation measure,” “drainage,” and “copyhold,” and then, in a half-hurried, half-wearied way, the Court asked, “Is there no bidding after twenty-seven thousand five hundred?”

“Twenty-eight!” said a deep voice near the door.

A long, dreary pause followed, and the sale was over.

“Twenty-eight thousand!” cried Lord Glengariff; “the house alone cost fifty.”

“It’s only the demesne, my Lord,” said some one near; “it’s not the estate is sold.”

“I know it, sir; but the demesne contains eight hundred acres, fully wooded, and enclosed by a wall. – Who is it for, Dunn?” asked he, turning to that gentleman.

“In trust, my Lord,” was the reply.

“Of that I am aware, sir; you have said as much to the Court.”

Dunn bent over, and whispered some words in his ear.

“Indeed!” exclaimed the other, with evident astonishment; “and intending to reside?” added he.

“Eventually, I expect so,” said Dunn, cautiously, as others were now attending to the conversation.

Again Lord Glengariff spoke; but, ere he had finished, a strange movement of confusion in the body of the Court interrupted him, while a voice hoarse with passionate meaning cried out, “Is the robbery over? – is it done?” and a large, powerful man, his face flushed, and his eyes glaring wildly, advanced through the crowd to the railing beneath the bench. His waistcoat was open, and he held his cravat in one hand, having torn it off in the violence of his excitement.

“Who is this man?” asked the Commissioner, sternly.

“I’ll tell you who I am, – Paul Kellett, of Kellett’s Court, the owner of that house and estate you and your rascally miscreants have just stolen from me, – ay, stolen is the word; law or justice have nothing to do with it. Your Parliament made it law, to be sure, to pamper your Manchester upstarts who want to turn gentlemen – ”

“Does any one know him? – has he no friends who will look after him?” said the Commissioner, leaning over and addressing those beneath in a subdued voice.

“Devil a friend in the world! It’s few friends stick to the man whose property comes here. But don’t make me out mad. I ‘m in my full senses, though I had enough to turn fifty men to madness.”

“I know him, my Lord; with the permission of the Court, I ‘ll take charge of him,” said Dunn, in a tone so low as to be audible only to a few. Kellett, however, was one of them, and he immediately cried out, —

“Take charge of me! Ay, that he will. He took charge of my estate, too, and he ‘ll do by me what he did with the property, – give a bargain of me!”