Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

Goodness, however, will not pack a trunk, nor will moral qualities, however transcendent, fold cravats and dress-coats, and he looked very despondently around him, and thought over what he half fancied was the only thing he could n’t do. So accustomed had he been of late to seek Lizzy Davis’s counsel in every moment of difficulty, that actually, without knowing it, he descended now to the drawing-room, some vague, undefined feeling impelling him to be near her.

She was singing at the piano, all alone, as he entered; the room, as usual, brilliantly lighted up as if to receive company, rare flowers and rich plants grouped tastefully about, and “Daisy” – for she looked that name on this occasion – in one of those charming “toilettes” whose consummate skill it is to make the most costly articles harmonize into something that seems simplicity itself. She wore a fuchsia in her hair, and another – only this last was of coral and gold elaborately and beautifully designed – on the front of her dress, and, except these, nothing more of ornament.

“Tutore mio,” said she, gayly, as he entered, “you have treated me shamefully; for, first of all, you were engaged to drive with me to the Kreutz Berg, and, secondly, to take me to the opera, and now, at half-past nine, you make your appearance. How is this, Monsieur? Expliquez-vous.”

“Shall I tell the truth?” said he.

“By all means, if anything so strange should n’t embarrass you.”

“Well, then, I forgot all about both the drive and the opera. It’s all very well to laugh,” said he, in a tone of half pique; “young ladies, with no weightier cares on their hearts than whether they ought to wear lilac or green, have very little notion of a man’s anxieties. They fancy that life is a thing of white and red roses, soft music and bouquets; but it ain’t.”

“Indeed! are you quite sure?” asked she, with an air of extreme innocence.

“I suspect I am,” said he, confidently; “and there’s not many a man about town knows more of it than I do.”

“And now, what may be the cares, or, rather, for I don’t want to be curious, what sort of cares are they that oppress that dear brain? Have you got any wonderful scheme for the amelioration of mankind to which you see obstacles? Are your views in politics obstructed by ignorance or prejudice? Have you grand notions about art for which the age is not ripe; or are you actually the author of a wonderful poem that nobody has had taste enough to appreciate?”

“And these are your ideas of mighty anxieties, Miss Lizzy?” said he, in a tone of compassionate pity. “By Jove! how I’d like to have nothing heavier on my heart than the whole load of them.”

“I think you have already told me you never were crossed in love?”

“Well, nothing serious, you know. A scratch or so, as one may say, getting through the bushes, but never a cropper, – nothing like a regular smash.”

“It would seem to me, then, that you have enjoyed a singularly fortunate existence, and been just as lucky in life as myself.”

Beecher started at the words. What a strange chaos did they create within him! There is no tracing the thoughts that came and went, and lost themselves in that poor bewildered head. The nearest to anything like, consistency was the astonishment he felt that she – Grog Davis’s daughter – should ever imagine she had drawn a prize in the world’s lottery.

“Yes, Mr. Beecher,” said she, with the ready tact with which she often read his thoughts and answered them, “even so. I do think myself very, very fortunate! And why should I not? I have excellent health, capital spirits, fair abilities, and, bating an occasional outbreak of anger, a reasonably good temper. As regards personal traits, Mr. Annesley Beecher once called me beautiful; Count Lienstahl would say something twice as rapturous; at all events, quite good-looking enough not to raise antipathies against me at first sight; and lastly, but worth all the rest, I have an intense enjoyment in mere existence; the words ‘I live’ are to me, ‘I am happy.’ The alternations of life, its little incidents and adventures, its passing difficulties, are, like the changeful aspects of the seasons, full of interest, full of suggestiveness, calling out qualities of mind and resources of temperament that in the cloudless skies of unbroken prosperity might have lain unused and unknown. And now, sir, no more sneers at my fancied good fortune; for, whatever you may say, I feel it to be real.”

There was that in her manner – a blended energy and grace – which went far deeper into Beecher’s heart than her mere words, and he gazed at her slightly flushed cheek and flashing eyes with something very nearly rapture; and he muttered to himself, “There she is, a half-bred ‘un, and no training, and able to beat them all!”

This time, at all events, she did not read his thoughts; as little, perhaps, did she care to speculate about them. “By the by,” said she, suddenly approaching the chimney and taking up a letter, “this has arrived here, by private hand, since you went out, and it has a half-look of papa’s writing, and is addressed to you.”

Beecher took it eagerly. With a glance he recognized it as from Grog, when that gentleman desired to disguise his hand.

“Am I correct?” asked she, – “am I correct in my guess?”

He was too deep in the letter to make her any reply. Its contents were as follows: —

“Dear B., – They ‘ve kicked up such a row about that affair at Brussels that I have been obliged to lie dark for the last fortnight, and in a confoundedly stupid hole on the right bank of the Rhine. I sent over Spicer to meet the Baron, and take Klepper over to Nimroeguen and Magdeburg, and some other small places in Prussia. They can pick up in this way a few thousand florins, and keep the mill going. I gave him strict orders not to see my daughter, who must know nothing whatever of these or any like doings. The Baron she might see, for he knows life thoroughly, and if he is not a man of high honor, he can assume the part so well that it comes pretty much to the same thing. As to yourself, you will, on receipt of this, call on a certain Lazarus Stein, Juden Gasse, Nov 41 or 42, and give him your acceptance for two thousand gulden, with which settle your hotel bill, and come on to Bonn, where, at the post-office, you will find a note, with my address. Tramp, you see, has won the Cotteswold, as I prophesied, and ‘Leo the Tenth’ nowhere.

Cranberry must have got his soup pretty hot, for he has come abroad, and his wife and the children gone down to Scotland.

As to your own affairs, Ford says you are better out of the way; and if anything is to be done in the way of compromise, it must be while you are abroad. He does not think Strich can get the rule, and you must n’t distress yourself for an extra outlawry or two. There will be some trouble about the jewels, but I think even that matter may be arranged also. I hope you keep from the tables, and I look for a strict reckoning as to your expenses, and a stricter book up as regards your care of my daughter. ‘All square’ is the word between pal and pal, and there never was born the man did n’t find that to be his best policy when he dealt with

“Your friend,

“Christopher Davis.

“To while away the time in this dreary dog-hole, I have been sketching out a little plan of a martingale for the roulette-table. There’s only one zero at Homburg, and we can try it there as we go up. There’s a flaw in it after the twelfth ‘pass,’ but I don’t despair of getting over the difficulty. Old Stein, the money-changer, was upwards of thirty years croupier at the Cursaal, and get him to tell you the average runs, black and red, at rouge-et-noir, and what are the signs of an intermitting game; and also the six longest runs he has ever known. He is a shrewd fellow, and seeing that you come from me will be confidential.

“There has been another fight in the Crimea, and somebody well licked. I had nothing on the match, and don’t care a brass farthing who claimed the stakes.

“Tell Lizey that I ‘m longing to see her, and if I didn’t write it is because I ‘m keeping everything to tell her when we meet. If it was n’t for her picture, I don’t know what would have become of me since last Tuesday, when the rain set in.”

Beecher re-read the letter from the beginning; nor was it an easy matter for him to master at once all the topics it included. Of himself and his own affairs the information was vague and unsatisfactory; but Grog knew how to keep him always in suspense, – to make him ever feel that he was swimming for his life, and he himself the only “spar” he could catch at.

“Bring me to book about my care of his daughter!” muttered he, over and over, “just as if she was n’t the girl to take care of herself. Egad! he seems to know precious little about her. I ‘d give a ‘nap’ to show her this letter, and just hear what she ‘d say of it all. I suppose she ‘d split on me. She ‘d go and tell Davis, ‘Beecher has put me up to the whole “rig;”’ and if she did – What would happen then?” asked he, replying to the low, plaintive whistle which concluded his meditation. “Eh – what! did I say anything?” cried he, in terror.

“Not a syllable. But I could see that you had conjured up some difficulty which you were utterly unable to deal with.”

“Well, here it is,” said he, boldly. “This letter is from your father. It’s all full of private details, of which you know nothing, nor would you care to hear; but there is one passage – just one – that I’d greatly like to have your opinion upon. At the same time I tell you, frankly, I have no warranty from your father to let you see it; nay, the odds are he ‘d pull me up pretty sharp for doing so without his authority.”

“That’s quite enough, Mr. Beecher, about your scruples. Now, mine go a little further still; for they would make me refuse to learn anything which my father’s reserve had kept from me. It is a very easy rule of conscience, and neither hard to remember nor to follow.”

“At all events, he meant this for your own eye,” said Beecher, showing her the last few lines of the letter.

She read them calmly over; a slight trembling of the lip – so slight that it seemed rather like a play of light over her face – was the only sign of emotion visible, and then, carefully folding the letter, she gave it back, saying, “Yes, I had a right to see these lines.”

“He is fond of you, and proud of you, too,” said Beecher. A very slight nod of her head gave an assent to his remark, and she was silent. “We are to leave this at once,” continued he, “and move on to Bonn, where we shall find a letter with your father’s address, somewhere, I take it, in that neighborhood.” He waited, hoping she would say something, but she did not speak. And then he went on:

“And then you will be once more at home, – emancipated from this tiresome guardianship of mine.”

“Why tiresome?” asked she, suddenly.

“Oh, by Jove! I know I’ m very slow sort of fellow as a ladies’ man; have none of the small talents of those foreigners; couldn’t tell Mozart from Verdi; nor, though I can see when a woman is well togged, could I tell you the exact name of any one part of her dress.”

“If you really did know all these, and talked of them, I might have found you very tiresome,” said she, in that half-careless voice she used when seeming to think aloud. “And you,” asked she, suddenly, as she turned her eyes fully upon him, – “and you, are you to be emancipated then, – are you going to leave us?”

“As to that,” replied he, in deep embarrassment, “there ‘a a sort of hitch in it I ought, if I did the right thing, to be on my way to Italy now, to see Lackington, – my brother, I mean. I came abroad for that; but Gr – your father, I should say – induced me to join him, and so, with one thing and the other, here I am, and that’s really all I know about it.”

“What a droll way to go through life!” said she, with one of her low, soft laughs.

“If you mean that I have n’t a will of my own, you ‘re all wrong,” said he, in some irritation. “Put me straight at my fence, and see if I won’t take it. Just say, ‘A. B., there’s the winning-post,’ and mark whether I won’t get my speed up.”

What a strange glance was that which answered this speech! It implied no assent; as little did it mean the reverse. It was rather the look of one who, out of a maze of tangled fancies, suddenly felt recalled to life and its real interests. To poor Beecher’s apprehension it simply seemed a sort of half-compassionate pity, and it made his cheek tingle with wounded pride.

“I know,” muttered he to himself, “that she thinks me a confounded fool; but I ain’t. Many a fellow in the ring made that mistake, and burned his fingers for it after.”

“Well,” said she, after a moment or so of thought, “I am ready; at least, I shall be ready very soon. I ‘ll tell Annette to pack up and prepare for the road.”

“I wish I could get you to have some better opinion of me, Miss Lizzy,” said he, seriously. “I’d give more than I ‘d like to say, that you ‘d – you ‘d – ”

“That I’d what?” asked she, calmly.

“That you ‘d not set me down as a regular flat,” said he, with energy.

“I ‘m not very certain that I know what that means; but I will tell you that I think you very good tempered, very gentle-natured, and very tolerant of fifty-and-one caprices which must be all the more wearisome because unintelligible. And then, you are a very fine gentleman, and – the Honor-Able Annesley Beecher.” And holding out her dress in minuet fashion, she courtesied deeply, and left the room.

“I wish any one would tell me whether I stand to win or not by that book,” exclaimed Beecher, as he stood there alone, nonplussed and confounded. “Would n’t she make a stunning actress! By Jove! Webster would give her a hundred a week, and a free benefit!” And with this he went off into a little mental arithmetic, at the end of which he muttered to himself, “And that does not include starring it in the provinces!”

With the air of a man whose worldly affairs went well, he arranged his hair before the glass, put on his hat, gave himself a familiar nod, and went out.

CHAPTER IV. LAZARUS, STEIN, GELDWECHSLER

The Juden Gasse, in which Beecher was to find out the residence of Lazarus Stein, was a long, straggling street, beginning in the town and ending in the suburb, where it seemed as it were to lose itself. It was not till after a long and patient search that Beecher discovered a small door in an old ivy-covered wall, on which, in irregular letters, faint and almost illegible, stood the words, “Stein, Geldwechsler.”

As he rang stoutly at the bell, the door opened, apparently of itself, and admitted him into a large and handsome garden. The walks were flanked by fruit-trees in espalier, with broad borders of rich flowers at either side; and although the centre spaces were given up to the uses of a kitchen garden, the larger beds, rich in all the colors of the tulip and ranunculus, showed how predominant was the taste for flowers over mere utility. Up one alley, and down another, did Beecher saunter without meeting any one, or seeing what might mean a habitation; when, at length, in a little copse of palm-trees, he caught sight of a smalt diamond-paned window, approaching which, he found himself in front of a cottage whose diminutive size he had never seen equalled, save on the stage. Indeed, in its wooden framework, gaudily painted, its quaint carvings, and its bamboo roof, it was the very type of what one sees in a comic opera. One sash of the little window lay open, and showed Beecher the figure of a very small old man, who, in a long dressing-gown of red-brown stuff, and a fez cap, was seated at a table, writing. A wooden tray in front of him was filled with dollars and gold pieces in long stately columns, and a heap of bank-notes lay pressed under a heavy leaden slab at his side. No sooner had Beecher’s figure darkened the window than the old man looked up and came out to meet him, and, taking off his cap with a deep reverence, invited him to enter. If the size of the chamber, and its curious walls covered over with cabinet pictures, might have attracted Beecher’s attention at another moment, all his wonderment, now, was for the little man himself, whose piercing black eyes, long beard, and hooked nose gave him an air of almost unearthly meaning.

“I suppose I have the honor to speak to Mr. Stein?” said he, in English, “and that he can understand me in my own tongue?”

“Yaas, – go on,” said the old man.

“I was told to call upon you by Captain Davis; he gave me your address.”

“Ah, der Davis – der Davis – a vaary goot man – my vaary dear friend. You are der rich Englander that do travel wit him, – eh?”

“I am travelling with him just now,” said Beecher, laughing slightly; “but as to being rich, – why, we ‘ll not dispute about it.”

“Yaas, here is his letter. He says, Milord will call on you hisself, and so I hold myself – how you say ‘bereit?’ – ready – hold myself ready to see you. I have de honor to make you very mush welcome to my poor house.”

Beecher thanked him courteously, and, producing Davis’s letter, mentioned the amount for which he desired to draw.

The old man examined the writing, the signature, and then the seal, handing the document back when he had finished, muttering to himself, “Ah, der Davis – der Davis!”

“You know my friend very intimately, I believe?” asked Beecher.

“I belief I do, – I belief I do,” said he, with a low chuckle to himself.

“So he mentioned to me and added one or two little matters on which I was to ask you for some information. But first this bill, – you can let me have these two thousand florins?”

“And what do he do now, der Davis?” asked the Jew, not heeding the question.

“Well, I suppose he rubs on pretty much the same as ever,” said Beecher, in some confusion.

“Yaas – yaas – he rub on – and he rub off, too, sometimes – ha! ha! ha!” laughed out the old man, with a fiendish cackle. “Ach, der Davis!”

Without knowing in what sense to take the words, Beecher did not exactly like them; and as little was he pleased with that singular recurrence to “der Davis,” and the little sigh that followed. He was growing impatient, besides, to get his money, and again reverted to the question.

“He look well? I hope he have de goot gesundheit – what you call it?”

“To be sure he does; nothing ever ails him. I never heard him complain of as much as a headache.

“Ach, der Davis, der Davis!” said the old man, shaking his head.

Seeing no chance of success by his direct advances, Beecher thought he ‘d try a little flank attack by inducing a short conversation, and so he said, “I am on my way to Davis, now, with his daughter, whom he left in my charge.”

“Whose daughter?” asked the Jew.

“Davis’s, – a young lady that was educated at Brussels.”

“He have no daughter. Der Davis have no daughter.”

“Has n’t he, though? Just come over to the ‘Four Nations,’ and I ‘ll show her to you. And such a stunning girl too!”

“No, no, I never belief it – never; he did never speak to me of a daughter.”

“Whether he did or not – there she is, that’s all I know.”

The Jew shook his head, and sought refuge in his former muttering of “Ach, der Davis!”

“As far as not telling you about his daughter, I can say he never told me, and I fancy we were about as intimate as most people; but the fact is as I tell you.”

Another sigh was all his answer, and Beecher was fast reaching the limit of his patience.

“Daughter, or no daughter, I want a matter of a couple of thousand florins, – no objection to a trifle more, of course, – and wish to know how you can let me have them.”

“The Margraf was here two week ago, and he say to me, ‘Lazarus,’ say he, – ‘Lazarus, where is your goot friend Davis?’ ‘Highness,’ say I, ‘dat I know not.’ Den he say, ‘I will find him, if I go to Jerusalem;’ and I say, ‘Go to Jerusalem.’”

“What did he want with him?”

“What he want? – what every one want, and what nobody get, except how he no like – ha! ha! ha! Ach, der Davis!”

Beecher rose from his seat, uncertain how to take this continued inattention to his demand. He stood for a moment in hesitation, his eyes wandering over the walls where the pictures were hanging.

“Ah! if you do care for art, now you suit yourself, and all for a noting! I sell all dese, – dat Gerard Dow, dese two Potters, de leetle Cuyp, – a veritable treasure, and de Mieris, – de best he ever painted, and de rest, wit de land-schaft of Both, for eighty tousand seven hundred florins. It is a schenk – a gift away – noting else.”

“You forget, my excellent friend Stein,” said Beecher, with more assurance than he had yet assumed, “that it was to receive and not spend money I came here this morning.”

“You do a leetle of all de two – a leetle of both, so to say,” replied the Jew. “What moneys you want?”

“Come, this is speaking reasonably. Davis’s letter mentions a couple of thousand florins; but if you are inclined to stretch the amount to five, or even four thousand, we ‘ll not fall out about the terms.”

“How you mean – no fall out about de terms?” said the other, sharply.

“I meant that for a stray figure or so, in the way of discount, we should n’t disagree. You may, in fact, make your own bargain.”

“Make my own bargain, and pay myself too,” muttered the Jew. “Ach, der Davis, how he would laugh! – ha! ha! ha!”

“Well, I don’t see much to laugh at, old gent, except it be at my own folly, to stand here so long chaffering about these paltry two thousand florins. And now I say, ‘Yea or nay, will you book up, or not?’”

“Will you buy de Cuyp and de Wouvermans and de Ostade? – dat is the question.”

“Egad, if you furnish the ready, I ‘ll buy the Cathedral and the Cursaal. I ‘m not particular as to the investment when the cash is easily come at.”

“De cash is very easy to come at,” said the Jew, with a strange grin.

“You ‘re a trump, Lazarus!” cried Beecher, in ecstasy at his good fortune. “If I had known you some ten years ago, I ‘d have been another man to-day. I was always looking out for one really fair, honester-hearted fellow to deal with, but I never met with him till now.”

“How you have it, – gold or notes?” said Lazarus.

“Well, a little of both, I think,” said Beecher, his eyes greedily devouring the glittering little columns of gold before him.

“How your title? – how your name?” asked Stein, taking up a pen.

“My name is Annesley Beecher. You may write me the ‘Honorable Annesley Beecher.’”

“Lord of – ”

“I ‘m not Lord of anything. I’m next in succession to a peerage, that’s all.”

“He call you de Viscount – I forget de name.”

“Lackington, perhaps?”

“Yaas, dat is de name; and say, give him de moneys for his bill. Now, here is de acceptance, and here you put your sign, across dis.”

“I ‘ll write Annesley Beecher, with all my heart; but I ‘ll not write myself Lackington.”

“Den you no have de moneys, nor de Cuyp, nor de Ostade,” said the Jew, replacing the pen in the ink-bottle.

“Just let me ask you, old boy, how would it benefit you that I should commit a forgery? Is that the way you like to do business?”

“I do know myself how I like my business to do, and no man teach me.”

“What the devil did Davis mean, then, by sending me on this fool’s errand? He gave me a distinct intimation that you ‘d cash my acceptance – ”

“Am I not ready? You never go and say to der Davis dat I refuse it! Ah, der Davis!” and he sighed as if from the very bottom of his heart.

“I’ll tell him, frankly, that you made it a condition I was to sign a name that does not belong to me, —that I ‘ll tell him.”

“What care he for dat? Der Davis write his own name on it and pay it hisself.”

“Oh! and Davis was also to indorse this bill, was he?” asked Beecher.

“I should tink he do; oderwise I scarce give you de moneys.”

“That, indeed, makes some difference. Not, in reality, that it would n’t be just as much a forgery; but if the bill come back to Grog’s own hands – ”

“Ach, der Grog, – ha! ha! ha! ‘Tis so long dat I no hear de name, – Grog Davis!” and the Jew laughed till his eyes ran over.

“If there’s no other way of getting at this money – ”

“Dere is no oder way,” said Lazarus, in a tone of firmness..

“Then good-morning, friend Lazarus, for you ‘ll not catch me spoiling a stamp at that price. No, no, old fellow. I ‘m up to a thing or two, though you don’t suspect it. I only rise to the natural fly, and no mistake.”