Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

“You could n’t believe – ”

“Yes, but I could, and did too; and many’s the time I said to myself, ‘If Beecher was n’t a top-sawyer, what a trump he ‘d be! He has head for anything, and address for anything.’ And do you know,” – here Grog dropped his-voice to a whisper, and spoke as if under great emotion, – “and do you know that I could n’t be the same man to you myself just because of your rank? That was the reason I used to be so sulky, so suspicious, and so – ay, actually cruel with you, telling you, as I did, what could n’t I do with certain acceptances? Now, look here, Beecher – Light that taper beside you; there’s a match in that box at your elbow.”

Unsteady enough was Beecher’s hand; indeed, it was not wine alone now made him tremble. An intense agitation shook his frame, and he shivered like one in an ague fit. He couldn’t tell what was coming; the theme alone was enough to arrest all process of reasoning on his part. It was like the force of a blow that stunned and stupefied at once.

“There, that will do,” said Grog, as he drew a long pocket-book from his breast-pocket, and searched for some time amongst its contents. “Ay, here they are; two – three – four of them, – insignificant-looking scraps of paper they look; and yet there’s a terrible exposure in open court, a dreary sea-voyage over the ocean, and a whole life of a felon’s suffering in those few lines.”

“For the love of mercy, Davis, if you have a spark of pity in your heart, – if you have a heart at all, – don’t speak in this way to me!” cried Beecher, in a voice almost choked with sobs.

“It is for the last time in my life you’ll ever hear such words,” said Grog, calmly. “Read them over carefully; examine them well. Yes, I wish and require it.”

“Oh, I know them well!” said Beecher, with a heavy sigh. “Many’s the sleepless night the thought of them has cost me.”

“Go over every line of them; satisfy yourself that they ‘re the same, – that the words ‘Johnstone Howard’ are in your own hand.”

Beecher bent over the papers; but, with his dimmed eyes and trembling fingers, it was some time ere he could decipher them. A sigh from the very bottom of his heart was all the reply he could make.

“They’ll never cost you another sleepless night, old fellow!” said Davis, as he held them over the flame of the taper. “There’s the end of ‘em now!”

CHAPTER XII. REFLECTIONS OF ANNESLEY BEECHER

A wiser head than that of Annesley Beecher might have felt some confusion on awaking the morning after the events we have just related. Indeed, his first sensations were those of actual bewilderment as he opened his eyes, and beheld the pine-clad mountains rising in endless succession; the deep glens; the gushing streams, crossed by rude bridges of a single tree; the rustic saw-mills all dripping with spray. And trembling with the force of their own machinery. Where was he? What strange land was this? How came he there? Was this in reality the “new world beyond the seas” Davis had so often described to him? By a slow, laborious process, like filtering, stray memories dropped, one by one, through his clouded faculties; and, at length, he remembered the scene of the preceding night, and all that had passed between Davis and himself. Yet, withal, there was much of doubt and uncertainty mixed up, nor could he, by any effort, satisfy himself how much was fact, how much mere speculation. Was it true that Lackington was to lose his peerage? Was it possible such a dreadful blow was to fall on their house? If so, what portion of the estates would follow the title? Would a great part – would all the property be transferred to the new claimant? What length of time, too, might the suit occupy? – such things often lasted for years upon years. Was it too late for a compromise? Could not some arrangement be come to “some way”? Grog was surely the man to decree a plan for this; at all events, he could protract and spin out proceedings. “It’s not p.p.; the match may never come off,” muttered Beecher, “and I ‘ll back old Grog to ‘square it’ somehow.”

And then the bills, the forged acceptances, – they were actually burned before his face! It was well-nigh incredible; but he had seen them, held them in his own hand, and watched them as the night wind wafted away their blackened embers never more to rise in judgment against him, – never to cost him another night of sleepless terror! Who would have believed Davis capable of such magnanimity? Of all men living, he had deemed him the last to forego any hold over another; and then the act was his own spontaneous doing, without reservation, without condition.

Beecher’s heart swelled proudly as he thought over this trait of his friend. Was it that he felt a sense of joy in believing better of mankind? Was it that it awoke within his breast more hopeful thoughts of his fellow-men? Did it appeal to him like a voice, saying, “Despair of no man; there are touches of kindliness in natures the very roughest, that redeem whole lives of harshness”? No, my good reader, it would be unfair and unjust to you were I to say that such sentiments as these swayed him. Annesley Beecher’s thoughts flowed in another and very different channel. The words he whispered to his heart were somewhat in this wise: “What a wonderful fellow must you be, Beecher, to acquire such influence over a man like Davis; what marvellous gifts must you not be endowed with! Is it any wonder that Grog predicts a brilliant future to him who can curb to his will the most stubborn of natures, and elicit traits of sacrifice out of the most selfish of men? Who but yourself could work this miracle?” Mean and ignoble as such a mode of arguing may seem, take my word for it, most patient reader, it is not unfrequent in this world of ours, nor is Annesley Beecher the only one who has ascribed all his good fortune to his own deservings.

“Shrewd fellow, that Davis! He always saw what stuff was in me; he recognized the real metal, while others were only sneering at the dross, – just as he knows this moment, that if I start fresh without name, fortune, or title, that I ‘m sure to be at the top of the tree at last. Give me his daughter! I should think he would! It’s not all up with Lackington yet, dark as it looks; we ‘re in possession, and there is a ‘good line of country’ between the Honorable Annesley Beecher, next Viscount in succession, and Kit Davis, commonly called Grog of that ilk! Not that the girl isn’t equal to any station, – there’s no denying that! Call her a Greville, a Stanley, or a Seymour, and she’s a match for the finest man in England! Make her a Countess to-morrow, and she ‘ll look it!”

It is but fair to acknowledge that Beecher was not bewildered without some due cause; for if Davis had at one time spoken to him as one who no longer possessed claim to rank and station, but was a mere adventurer like himself, at another moment he had addressed him as the future Viscount, and pictured him as hurling a proud defiance to the world in the choice he had made of his wife. This was no blunder on Grog’s part. That acute individual had, in the course of his legal experiences, remarked that learned counsel are wont to insert pleas which are occasionally even contradictory, alleging at times that “there was no debt,” and then, that “if there had been, it was already paid.” In the same spirit did Davis embrace each contingency of fortune, showing that, whether Peer or Commoner, Annesley Beecher “stood to win” in making Lizzy his wife. “Scratch the pedigree, and she ‘ll be a stunning peeress; and if the suit goes against us, show me the girl like her to meet the world!” This was the sum of the reflections that cost him a whole morning’s intellectual labor, and more of actual mental fatigue than befalls a great parliamentary leader after a stormy debate.

That Davis had no intention to intimidate him was clearly shown by his destroying the acceptances: had he wished to lean on coercion, here was the means. Take your choice between matrimony and a felony, was a short and easy piece of argumentation, such as would well have suited Grog’s summary notions; and yet he had, of his own accord, freely and forever relinquished this vantage ground. Beecher was now free. For the first time for many a long year of life he arose from his bed without a fear of the law and its emissaries. The horrible nightmare that had scared him so often, dashing the wildest moments of dissipation with sudden fear, deepening the depths of despondency with greater gloom, had all fled, and he awoke to feel that there was no terror in a “Beak’s” eye, nothing to daunt him in the shrewd glances of a detective. They who have lived years long of insecurity, tortured by the incessant sense of an impending peril, to befall them to-day, tomorrow, or next day, become at length so imbued with fear that when the hour of their emancipation arrives, they are not able for a considerable time to assure themselves of their safety. The captive dreams of his chains through many a night after he has gained his liberty; the shipwrecked sailor can never forget the raft and the lone ocean on which he tossed; nor was it altogether easy for Beecher to convince himself that he could walk the world with his head high, and bid defiance to Crown prosecutors and juries!

“I ‘m out of your debt, Master Grog,” said he, with a pleasant laugh to himself; “catch me if you can running up another score in your books. Wait till you see me slipping my neck into a noose held by your fingers. You made me feel the curb pretty sharp for many a long day, and might still, if you had n’t taken off the bridle with your own hands; but I ‘m free now, and won’t I show you a fair pair of heels! Who could blame me, I ‘d like to know? When a fellow gets out of jail, does he take lodgings next door to the prison? I never asked him to burn those bills. It was all his own doing. I conclude that a fellow as shrewd as he knew what he was about. Mayhap he said to himself, ‘Beecher’s the downiest cove going. It will be a deuced sight better to have him as my friend and pal than to send him to break stones in Australia. I can stand to win a good thing on him, and why should I send him over seas just out of spite? I’ll come the grand magnanimous dodge over him, – destroy the papers before his face, and say, “Now, old fellow, what do you say to that for a touch of generosity?”’

“‘Well, I’ll tell you what I say, Master Davis,’” said he, drawing himself up, and speaking boldly out. “‘I say that you’re a regular trump, and no mistake; but you ‘re not the sharp fellow I took you for. No, no, old gent, you ‘re no match for A. B.! He’s been running in bandages all this time past; and now that his back sinews are all right, you’ll see if he hasn’t a turn of speed in him.’ And what is more, I ‘d say to him, ‘Look here, Grog, we’ve jogged along these ten or twelve years or so without much profit to either of us, – what say you if we dissolve the partnership and let each do a little business on his own account? If I should turn out anything very brilliant, you ‘ll be proud of me, just as England says she is when a young colony takes a great spring of success, and say, “Ay, he was one of my rearing!”’ Of course all dictation, all that bullying intolerance is at an end now, and time it was! Wasn’t I well weary of it! wasn’t I actually sick of life with it! I couldn’t turn to anything, could n’t think of anything, with that eternal fear before me, always asking myself, ‘Is he going to do it now?’ It is very hard to believe it’s all over.” And he heaved a deep sigh as though disburdening his heart of its last load of sorrow.

“Davis is very wide awake,” continued he; “he ‘ll soon see how to trim his sails to this new wind; he ‘ll know that he can’t bully, can’t terrorize.”

A sharp quick report of a pistol, with a clanging crash, and then a faint tinkle of a bell, cut short his musings, and Beecher hastened to the window and looked out. It was Davis in the vine alley practising with the pistol; he had just sent a ball through the target, the bell giving warning that the shot had pierced the very centre. Beecher watched him as he levelled again; he thought he saw a faint tremor of the hand, a slight unsteadiness of the wrist; vain illusion, – bang went the weapon, and again the little bell gave forth the token of success.

“Give me the word – one – two,” cried out Davis to the man who loaded and handed him the pistols. “One – two,” called out the other; and the same instant rang out the bell, and the ball was true to its mark.

“What a shot, – what a deadly shot!” muttered Beecher, as a cold shudder came over him.

As quickly as he could take the weapons, Davis now fired; four – five – six balls went in succession through the tiny circle, the bell tinkling on and never ceasing, so rapidly did shot follow upon shot, till, as if sated with success, he turned away, saying, “I’ ll try to-morrow blindfold!”

“I’m certain,” muttered Beecher, “no man is bound to go out with a fellow like that. A duel is meant to be a hazard, not a dead certainty! To stand before him at twenty – ay, forty paces, is a suicide, neither more nor less; he must kill you. I’d insist on his fighting across a handkerchief. I ‘d say, ‘Let us stand foot to foot!’” No, Beecher, not a bit of it; you ‘d say nothing of the kind, nor, if you did, would it avail you! Your craven heart could not beat were those stern gray eyes fixed upon you, looking death into you from a yard off. He ‘d shoot you down as pitilessly, too, at one distance as at the other.

Was it in the fulness of a conviction that his faltering lips tried to deny, that he threw himself back upon a chair, while a cold, clammy sweat covered his face and forehead, a sickness like death crept over him, objects grew dim to his eyes, and the room seemed to turn and swim before him? Where was his high daring now? Where the boastful spirit in which he had declared himself free, no more the slave of Grog’s insolent domination, nor basely cowering before his frown? Oh, the ineffable bitterness. Of that thought, coming, too, in revulsion to all his late self-gratulations! Where was the glorious emancipation he had dreamed of, now? He could not throw him into prison, it is true, but he could lay him in a grave.

“But I ‘d not meet him,” whispered he to himself. “One is not bound to meet a man of this sort.”

There is something marvellously accommodating and elastic in the phrase, “One is not bound” to do this, that, and t’ other. As the said bond is a contract between oneself and an imaginary world, its provisions are rarely onerous or exacting. Life is full of things “one is not bound to do.” You are “not bound,” for instance, to pay your father’s debts, though, it might be, they were contracted in your behalf and for your benefit. You are not bound to marry the girl whose affections have been your own for years if you can do better in another quarter, and she has nothing in your handwriting to establish a contract. You are not bound, – good swimmer though you be, – to rescue a man from drowning, lest he should clutch too eagerly and peril your safety. You are not bound to risk the chance of a typhus by visiting a poor friend on his sick-bed. You are not bound to aid charities you but half approve, – to assist people who have been improvident, – to associate with many who are uninteresting to you. But why go on with this expurgatorial catalogue? It is quite clear the only things “one is bound” to do are those the world will enforce at his hands; and let our selfishness be ever so inveterate, and ever so crafty, the majority will beat us, and the Ayes have it at last!

Now, few men had a longer list of the things they were “not bound to do” than Annesley Beecher; in reality, if the balance were to be struck between them and those he acknowledged to be obligatory, it would have been like Falstaff’s sack to the miserable morsel of bread. Men of his stamp fancy themselves very wise in their generation. They are not easy-natured, open, trustful, and free-handed, like that Pharisee! Take my word for it, the system works not so well as it looks, and they pass their existence in a narrow prison-ward of their own selfish instincts, – their fears their fetters, their cowardly natures heavy as any chains!

Beecher reasoned somewhat in this wise. Grog was “not bound” to destroy the acceptances. He might have held them in terrorism over him for a long life, and used them, at last, if occasion served. At all events, they were valuable securities, which it was pure and wanton waste to burn. Still, the act being done, Beecher was “bound” in the heaviest recognizances to his own heart to profit by the motion; and the great question with him was, what was the best and shortest road to that desirable object? Supposing Lackington all right, – no disputed claim to the title, no litigation of the estate, – Beecher’s best course had possibly been to slip his cable, make all sail, and part company with Davis forever. One grave difficulty, however, opposed itself to this scheme. How was it possible for any man walking the earth to get out of reach of Grog Davis? Had there been a planet allotted for the special use of peers, – were there some bright star above to which they could betake themselves and demand admission by showing their patent, and from which all of inferior birth were excluded, Beecher would assuredly have availed himself of his privilege; but, alas! whatever inequalities pervade life, there is but one earth to bear us living, and cover us when dead! Now, the portion of that earth which constitutes the continent of Europe Davis knew like a detective. A more hopeless undertaking could not be imagined than to try to escape him. Great as was his craft, it was nothing to his courage, – a courage that gave him a sort of affinity to a wild animal, so headlong, reckless, and desperate did it seem. Provoke him, he was ever ready for the conflict; outrage him, and only your life’s blood could be the expiation. And what an outrage had it been if Beecher had taken this moment, – the first, perhaps the only one in all his life, in which Davis had accomplished a noble and generous action, – to desert him! How he could picture to his mind Grog, when the tidings were told him! – not overwhelmed by astonishment, not stunned by surprise, not irresolute even for a second, but starting up like a wounded tiger, and eager for pursuit, his fierce eyeballs glaring, and his sinewy hands closed with a convulsive grip. It was clear, therefore, that escape was impossible. What, then, was the alternative that remained? To abide, – sign a lifelong partnership with Grog, and marry Lizzy. “A stiff line of country, – a very stiff line of country, Annesley, my boy,” said he, addressing himself: “many a dangerous rasper, many a smashing fence there, – have you nerve for it?” Now Beecher knew life well enough to see that such an existence was, in reality, little else than a steeple-chase, and he questioned himself gravely whether he possessed head or hand for the effort. Grog, to be sure, was a marvellous trainer, and Lizzy, – what might not Lizzy achieve of success, with her beauty, her gracefulness, and her genius! It was not till after a long course of reflection that her image came up before him; but when once it did come, it was master of the scene. How he recalled all her winning ways, her siren voice, her ready wit, her easy, graceful motion, her playful manner, that gave to her beauty so many new phases of attraction! What a fascination was it that in her company he never remembered a sorrow, – nay, to think of her was the best solace he had ever found against the pain of gloomy reveries. She was never out of humour, never out of spirits, – always brilliant, sparkling, and happy-minded.

What a glorious thing to obtain a share of such a nature, – the very next best thing to having it oneself! “But all this was not Love,” breaks in my impatient reader. Very true; I admit it in all humility. It was not what you, nor perhaps I, would call by that name; but yet it was all that Annesley Beecher had to offer in that regard.

Have you never remarked the strange and curious efforts made by men who have long lived on narrow fortunes to acquit themselves respectably on succeeding to larger means? They know well enough that they need not pinch and screw and squeeze any longer, – that fortune has enlarged her boundaries, and that they can enter into wider, richer, and pleasanter pasturage, – and yet, for the life of them, they cannot make the venture! or if they do, it is with a sort of convulsive, spasmodic effort far more painful than pleasurable. Their old instincts press heavily upon them, and bear down all the promptings of their present prosperity; they really do not want all these bounties of fate, – they are half crashed by the shower of blessings. So is it precisely with your selfish man in his endeavors to expand into affection, and so was it with Beecher when he tried to be a lover.

Some moralists tell us that, even in the best natures, love is essentially a selfish passion. What amount of egotism, then, does it not include in those who are far – very far – from being “the best”? With all this, let us be just to poor Beecher. Whatever there was of heart about him, she had touched; whatever of good or kind or gentle in his neglected being existed, she had found the way to it. If he were capable of being anything better, she alone could have aided the reformation. If he were not to sink still lower and lower, it was to her helping hand his rescue would be owing. And somehow – though I cannot explain how – he felt and knew this to be the case. He could hear generous sentiments from her, and not deem them hypocrisy. He could listen to words of trust and hopefulness, and yet not smile at her credulity. She had gained that amount of ascendancy over his mind which subjugated all his own prejudices to her influence, and, like all weak natures, he was never so happy as in slavery. Last of all, what a prize it would be to be the husband of the most beautiful woman in Europe! There was a notoriety in that, far above the fame of winning “Derbys” or breaking Roulette Banks; and he pictured to himself how they would journey through the Continent, admired, worshipped, and envied, – for already he had invested himself with the qualities of his future wife, and gloried in the triumphs she was so sure to win.

“By Jove! I’ll do it,” cried he, at last, as he slapped his hand on the table. “I don’t care what they’ll say, I will do it; and if there’s any fellow dares to scoff or sneer at it, Grog shall shoot him. I’ll make that bargain with him; and he ‘ll like it, for he loves fighting.” He summed up his resolution by imagining that the judgment of the world would run somehow in this fashion: “Wonderful fellow, that Annesley Beecher! It’s not above a year since his brother lost the title, and there he is now, married to the most splendid woman in all Europe, living like a prince, – denying himself nothing, no matter what it cost, – and all by his own wits! Show me his equal anywhere! Lackington used to call him a ‘flat.’ I wonder what he ‘d say now!”

CHAPTER XIII. A DARK CONFIDENCE

What a wound would it inflict upon our self-love were we occasionally to know that the concessions we have extorted from our own hearts by long effort and persuasion would be deemed matters of very doubtful acceptance by those in whose favor they were made. With what astonishment should we learn that there was nothing so very noble in our forgiveness, nothing so very splendid in our generosity! I have been led to this reflection by thinking over Annesley Beecher’s late resolve, and wondering what effect it might have had on him could he have overheard what passed in the very chamber next his own.

Though Lizzy Davis was dressed and ready to come down to breakfast, she felt so ill and depressed that she lay down again on her bed, telling the maid to close the shutters and leave her to herself.

“What’s this, Lizzy? What’s the matter, girl?” said Davis, entering, and taking a seat at her bedside. “Your hand is on fire.”

“I slept badly, – scarcely at all,” said she, faintly, “and my head feels as if it would split with pain.”

“Poor child!” said he, as he kissed her burning forehead; “I was the cause of all this. Yes, Lizzy, I know it, but I had been staving off this hour for many and many a year. I felt in my heart that you were the only one in all the world who could console or cheer me, and yet I was satisfied to forego it all – to deny myself what I yearned after – just to spare you.”