Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

“That I am,” said the man; “for at every jolt of the wagon he used to grip his hat and hold it fast, as if it was for very life, till we came to the last village. It was there he finished off with a flask of Laubthaler that completely overcame him.”

“So, then, he was sober on leaving Neuwied?”

“He was in the so-called ‘bemuzzed’ state!” said the man, with a half-apologetic air.

“Take him down to the inn; throw him into the hay-yard – or the river, if you like,” said Davis, contemptuously, and turned away.

Once in his own room, the candles lighted, the door locked, Davis sat down to the table on which the letters were thrown. Leisurely he took them up one by one and examined their superscriptions.

“Little news in these,” said he, throwing three or four to one side; “the old story, – money-seeking.” And he mumbled out, “‘Your acceptance being duly presented this day at Messrs. Haggitts and Drudge’s, and no provision being made for payment of the same – ’ It’s like the burden of an old song in one’s ears. Who is this from? Oh, Billy Peach, with some Doncaster news. I do wonder will the day ever come that will bring me good tidings by the post; I ‘ve paid many a pound in my life for letters, and I never yet chanced upon one that told me my uncle Peter had just died, leaving me all his estates in Jamaica, or that my aunt Susan bequeathed to me all her Mexican stock and the shares in four tin-mines. This is also from Peach, and marked ‘Immediate;’” and he broke it open. It contained only these lines: “Dark is the word for a week or two still. On Tuesday your name will appear amongst the passengers for New York by the ‘Persia.’ Saucy Sal is a dead break-down, and we net seven hundred safe; Pot did it with a knitting-needle while they were plaiting her. What am I to do about the jewels?”

Davis’s brow darkened as he crushed the paper in his hand, while he muttered, “I wish these infernal fools had not been taught to write! He ought to know that addressing me Captain Christopher never deceived a ‘Detective’ yet. And this is for the Honorable Annesley Beecher,” said he, reading aloud the address, “‘care of Captain Christopher, Coblentz – try Bingen – try Neuwied.’ A responsible-looking document this; it looks like a despatch, with its blue-post paper and massive seal; and what is the name here, in the corner? ‘Davenport Dunn,’ sure enough, – ‘Davenport Dunn.’ And with your leave, sir, we ‘ll see what you have to say,” muttered he, as he broke the seal of the packet. A very brief note first met his eyes; it ran thus: —

“Dear Sir, – While I was just reading a very alarming account of Lord Lackington’s illness in a communication from Messrs.

Harmer and Gore, the post brought me the enclosed letter for yourself, which I perceive to be in her Ladyship’s hand; I forward it at once to Brussels, in the hope that it may reach you there. Should her Ladyship’s tidings be better than I can fain persuade myself to hope, may I presume to suggest that you should lose no time in repairing to Italy.

I cannot exaggerate the peril of his Lordship’s state; in fact, I am hourly expecting news of his death; and, the peculiar circumstances of the case considered, it is highly important you should possess yourself of every information the exigencies of the event may require. I beg to enclose you a bank post-bill for two-hundred pounds, payable at any banker’s on your signature, and have the honor to be, with sincere respect,

“Your humble Servant,

“Davenport Dunn.

“P. S. – I have reason to know that certain claims are now under consideration, and will be preferred erelong, if suitable measures be not adopted to restrain them.”

“From which side do you hold your brief, Master Davenport Dunn? I should like to know that!” said Davis, as he twice over read aloud this postscript. He looked at Lady Lackington’s letter, turned it over, examined the seal and the postmark, and seemed to hesitate about breaking it open. Was it that some scruple of conscience arrested his hand, and some mysterious feeling that it was a sisterly confidence he was about to violate? Who knows! At all events, if there was a struggle it was a brief one, for he now smashed the seal and spread the open letter before him.

With a muttered expression of impatience did he glance over the four closely written pages indited in the very minutest of hands and the faintest possible ink. Like one addressing himself, however, to a severe task, he set steadily to work, and for nigh an hour never rose from the table. We have no right, as little have we the wish, to inflict upon our reader any portion of the labor this process of deciphering cost Davis, so that we will briefly state what formed the substance of the epistle. The letter was evidently begun before Lord Lackington had been taken ill, for it opened with an account of Como and the company at the Villa d’Este, where they had gone to resume the water-cure. Her Ladyship’s strictures upon the visitors, their morals, and their manners, were pleasantly and flippantly thrown off. She possessed what would really seem an especial gift of her class, – the most marvellous use of the perceptive faculties, – and could read not alone rank and condition, but character and individuality, by traits of breeding and manner that would have escaped the notice of hundreds of those the world calls shrewd observers. This fragment, for it was such, was followed, after a fortnight, by a hastily written passage, announcing that Lord Lackington had been seized with an attack resembling apoplexy, and for several hours remained in great danger. She had detained the letter to give the latest tidings before the post closed, and ultimately decided on not despatching it till the next day. The following morning’s communication was a minute account of medical treatment, the bleedings, the blisterings, the watchings, and the anxieties of a sick-bed, with all the vacillating changes that mark the course of malady, concluding with these words: “The doctors are not without hopes, but confess that their confidence is rather based on the great strength and energy of his constitution than upon any success that has attended their treatment, from which I may say that up to this no benefit has accrued. So well as I can interpret his utterance, he seems very anxious to see you, and made an effort to write something to you, which, of course, he could not accomplish. Come out here, therefore, as quickly as possible; the route by Lucerne is, they tell me, the shortest and speediest. If I were to give my own opinion, it would be that he is better and stronger than yesterday; but I do not perceive the doctors disposed to take this view.” After this came a lengthened statement of medical hopes and fears, balanced with all the subtle minuteness known to “the Faculty.” They explained to a nicety how if that poor watch were to stop it could not possibly be from any fault of theirs, but either from some vice in its original construction, or some organic change occasioned by time. They demonstrated, in fact, that great as was their art, it was occasionally baffled; but pointed with a proud humility to the onward progress of science, in the calm assurance that, doubtless, we should one day know all these things, and treat them as successfully as we now do – I am afraid to say what. One thing, however, was sufficiently clear, – Lord Lackington’s case was as bad as possible, his recovery almost hopeless. On the turn-down of the last page was the following, written in evident haste, if not agitation: “In opening the letters which have arrived since his illness, I am astonished to find many referring to some suit, either meditated or actually instituted, against our right to the title. Surely some deep game of treachery is at work here. He never once alluded to such a possibility to myself, nor had I the slightest suspicion that any pretended claim existed. One of these letters is from Mr. Davenport Dunn, who has, I can see from the tone in which he writes, been long conversant with the transaction, and as evidently inclines to give it a real or feigned importance. Indeed, he refers to a ‘compromise’ of some sort or other, and strongly impresses the necessity of not letting the affair proceed further. I am actually distracted by such news coming at such a moment. Surely Lackington could never have been weak enough to yield to mere menace, and have thus encouraged the insolent pretensions of this claim? As you pass through London, call at Fordyce’s, somewhere in Furnival’s Inn, and, just in course of conversation, showing your acquaintance with the subject, learn all you can on the matter. Fordyce has all our papers, and must necessarily know what weight is due to these pretensions. Above all, however, hasten out here; there is no saying what any day – any hour – may produce. I have no one here to give me a word of advice, or even consolation; for, though Lady Grace is with us, she is so wrapped up in her new theological studies – coquetting with Rome as she has been all the summer – that she is perfectly useless.

“Have you any idea who is Terence Driscoll? Some extraordinary notes bearing this signature, ill-written and ill-spelt, have fallen into my hands as I rummaged amongst the papers, and they are all full of this claim. It is but too plain Lackington suffered these people to terrify him, and this Driscoll’s tone is a mixture of the meanest subserviency and outrageous impertinence. It is not unlikely Fordyce may know him. Of course, I need not add one word of caution against your mention of this affair, even to those of your friends with whom you are in closest intimacy. It is really essential not a hint of it should get abroad.

“I have little doubt, now, looking back on the past, that anxiety and care about this matter have had a large share in bringing on Lackington’s attack. He had been sleepless and uneasy for some time back, showing an eagerness, too, about his letters, and the greatest impatience if any accident delayed the post Although all my maturer thoughts – indeed, my convictions – reject attaching any importance to this claim, I will not attempt to conceal from you how unhappy it has made me, nor how severely it has affected my nerves.”

With one more urgent appeal to lose not an hour in hastening over the Alps, the letter concluded; the single word “weaker,” apparently written after the letter was sealed, giving a deep meaning to the whole.

Davis was not satisfied with one perusal of the latter portion of this letter, but read it over carefully a second time; after which, taking a sheet of paper, he wrote down the names of Fordyce and Terence Driscoll. He then opened a Directory, and running his eye down a column, came to “Fordyce and Fraude, 7 Furnivats Inn, solicitors.” Of Terence Driscolls there were seventeen, but all in trade, – tanners, tinmen, last-makers, wharfingers, and so on; not one upon whom Davis could fix the likelihood of the correspondence with the Viscount. He then walked the room, cigar in mouth, for about an hour, after which he sat down and wrote the note to Beecher which we have given in a former chapter, with directions to call upon Stein, the moneylender, and then hasten away from Aix as speedily as possible. This finished, he addressed another and somewhat longer epistle to Lazarus Stein himself, of which latter document this true history has no record.

We, perhaps, owe an apology to our reader for inverting in our narrative the actual order of these events. It might possibly have been more natural to have preceded the account of Beecher’s reception of the letter by the circumstances we have just detailed. We selected the present course, however, to avoid the necessity of that continual change of scene, alike wearisome to him who reads as to him who writes; and as we are about to sojourn in Mr. Davis’s company for some time to come, we have deferred the explanation to a time when it should form part of a regular series of events. Nor are we sorry at the opportunity of asking the reader to turn once again to that brief note, and mark its contents. Though Davis was fully impressed with the conviction that Lord Lackington’s days were numbered; though he felt that, at any moment, some chance rumor, some flying report might inform Beecher what great change was about to come over his fortunes, – yet this note is written in all the seeming carelessness of a gossiping humor: he gives the latest news of the turf, he alludes to Beecher’s new entanglements at home, to, his own newly discovered martingale for the play-table, trusting to the one line about “Benson’s people” to make Beecher hasten away from Aix, and from the chance of hearing that his brother was hopelessly ill. While Grog penned these lines, he would have given – if he had it – ten thousand pounds that Beecher was beside him. Ay, willingly had he given it, and more, too, that Beecher might be where no voice could whisper to him the marvellous change that any moment might cause in his destiny. Oh, ye naturalists, who grow poetical over the grub and the butterfly, what is there, I ask ye, in the transformation at all comparable with that when the younger brother, the man of strait and small fortune, springs into the peer, exchanging a life of daily vicissitudes, cheap dinners and duns, dubious companionships and high discounts, for the assured existence, the stately banquets, the proud friendships, the pomp and circumstance of a lord? In a moment he soars out of the troubled atmosphere of debts and disabilities, and floats into the balmy region whose very sorrows never wear an unbecoming mourning.

Grog’s note was thus a small specimen of what the great Talleyrand used to call the perfection of despatch writing, “not the best thing that could be said on the subject, but simply that which would produce the effect you desired.” Having sent off this to Beecher, he then telegraphed to his man of business, Mr. Peach, to ascertain at Fordyce’s the latest accounts of Lord Lackington’s health, and answer “by wire.”

It was far into the night when Davis betook himself to bed, but not to sleep. The complications of the great game he was playing had for him all the interest of the play-table. The kind of excitement he gloried in was to find himself pitted against others, – wily, subtle, and deep-scheming as himself, – to see some great stake on the board, and to feel that it must be the prize of the best player. With the gambler’s superstition, he kept constantly combining events with dates and eras, recalling what of good or ill-luck had marked certain periods of his life. He asked himself if September had usually been a fortunate month; did the 20th imply anything; what influence might Holy Paul exert over his destiny; was he merely unlucky himself, or did he bring evil fortune upon others? If he suffered himself to dwell upon such “vain auguries” as these, they still exerted little other sway over his mind than to nerve it to greater efforts; in fact, he consulted these signs as a physician might investigate certain symptoms which, if not of moment enough to call for special treatment, were yet indicative of hidden mischief.

His gambling experiences had given him the ready tact, by a mere glance around the table, to recognize those with whom the real struggle should be waged; to detect, in a second, the deep head, the crafty intelligence, that marvellous blending of caution with rashness that make the gamester; and in the same spirit be now turned over in thought each of those with whom he was now about to contend, and muttered the name of Davenport Dunn over and over. “Could we only ‘hit it off’ together, what a game might we not play!” was his last reflection ere he fell off to sleep.

CHAPTER VII. A DISCURSIVE CONVERSATION

Davis was surprised, and something more, as he entered the breakfast-room the next morning to find the Rev. Paul Classon already seated at the table, calmly arranging certain little parallelograms of bread-and-butter and sardines. No signs of discomfiture or shame showed themselves in that calmly benevolent countenance. Indeed, as he arose and extended his hand there was an air of bland protection in the gesture perfectly soothing.

“You came back in a pretty state last night,” said Davis, roughly.

“Overtaken, Kit, – overtaken. It was a piece of good news rather than the grape juice did the mischief. As the poet says, —

“‘Good tidings flowed upon his heartLike a sea o’er a barren shore,And the pleasant waves refreshed the spotSo parched and bleak before.’

“The fact is, Kit, you brought me luck. Just as I reached the Post-Office, I saw a letter addressed to the Rev. Paul Classon, announcing that I had been accepted as Chaplain to the great Hydropathic Institution at Como! and, to commemorate the event, I celebrated in wine the triumphs of water! You got the letters all safely?”

“Little thanks to you if I did; nor am I yet certain how many may have dropped out on the road.”

“Stay, – I have a memorandum here,” said Paul, opening his little note-book. “Four, with London post-marks, to Captain Christopher; two from Brussels for the same; a large packet for the Hon. Annesley Beecher. That’s the whole list.”

“I got these!” said Grog, gruffly; “but why, might I ask, could you not have kept sober till you got back here?”

“He who dashes his enthusiasm with caution, waters the liquor of life. How do we soar above the common ills of existence save by yielding to those glorious impulses of the heart, which say, ‘Be happy!’”

“Keep the sermon for the cripples at the water-cure,” said Davis, savagely. “When are you to be there?”

“By the end of the month. I mentioned the time myself. It would be as soon, I thought, as I could manage to have my divinity library out from England.”

The sly drollery of his eye, as he spoke, almost extorted a half-smile from Davis.

“Let me see,” muttered Grog, as he arose and lighted his cigar, “we are, to-day, the 21st, I believe. No, you can’t be there so early. I shall need you somewhere about the first week in October; it might chance to be earlier. You mustn’t remain here, however, in the interval. You’ll have to find some place in the neighborhood, about fifteen or twenty miles off.”

“There’s Höchst, on the Lahn, a pleasant spot, eighteen miles from this.”

“Höchst be it; but, mark me, no more of last night’s doings.”

“I pledge my word,” said Paul, solemnly. “Need I say, it is as good as my bond?”

“About the same, I suspect; but I ‘ll give you mine too,” said Davis, with a fierce energy. “If by any low dissipation or indiscretion of yours you thwart the plans I am engaged in, I ‘ll leave you to starve out the rest of your life here.”

“‘So swear we all as liegemen true, So swear to live and die!’” cried out Paul, with a most theatrical air in voice and gesture.

“You know a little of everything, I fancy,” said Davis, in a more good-humored tone. “What do you know of law?”

“Of law?” said Paul, as he helped himself to a dish of smoking cutlets, – “if it be the law of debtor and creditor, false arrest, forcible possession, battery, or fraudulent bankruptcy, I am indifferently well skilled. Nor am I ignorant in divorce cases, separate maintenance, and right of guardianship. Equity, I should say, is my weak point.”

“I believe you,” said Davis, with a grin, for he but imperfectly understood the speech. “But it is of another kind of law I ‘m speaking. What do you know about disputed title to a peerage? Have you any experience in such cases?”

“Yes; I have ransacked registries, rummaged out gravestones in my time. I very nearly burned my fingers, too, with a baptismal certificate that turned out to be – what shall I call it? – unauthentic!”

“You forged it!” said Grog, gruffly.

“They disputed its correctness, and, possibly, with some grounds for their opinion. Indeed,” added he, carelessly, “it was the first thing of the kind I had ever done, and it was slovenly – slovenly.”

“It would have been transportation!” said Davis, gravely.

“With hard labor,” added Classon, sipping his tea.

“At all events, you understand something of these sort of cases?”

“Yes; I have been concerned, one way or another, with five. They are interesting when you take to them; there are so many, so to say, surprises; always something turning up you never looked for, – somebody’s father that never had a child, somebody’s mother that never was married. Then people die, – say a hundred and fifty years ago, – and no proof of the death can be made out; or you build wonderfully upon an act of Parliament, and only find out at the last hour that it has been repealed. These traits give a great deal of excitement to the suit. I used to enjoy them much when I was younger.” And Mr. Classon sighed as if he had been calling up memories of cricket-matches, steeple-chases, or the polka, – pleasures that advancing years had rudely robbed him of.

Davis sat deep in thought for some time. Either he had not fully made up his mind to open an unreserved confidence with his reverend friend, or which is perhaps as likely, he was not in possession of such knowledge as might enable him to state his case.

“These suits, or actions, or whatever you call them,” said he, at length, “always drag on for years, – don’t they?”

“Of course they do; the lawyers take care of that. There are trials at bar, commissions, special examinations before the Masters, arguments before the peers, appeals against decisions; in fact, it is a question of the purse of the litigants. Like everything else, however, in this world, they ‘ve got economy-struck. I remember the time – it was the Bancroft case – they gave me five guineas a day and travelling expenses to go out to Ravenna and take the deposition of an old Marchess, half-sister of the Dowager, and now, I suppose, they ‘d say the service was well paid with one half. Indeed, I may say I had as good as accepted a sort of engagement to go out to the Crimea and examine a young fellow whom they fancy has a claim to a peerage, and for a mere trifle, – fifteen shillings a day and expenses. But they had got my passport stopped here, and I could n’t get away.”

“What was the name of the claimant?”

“Here it is,” said he, opening his note-book. “Charles Conway, formerly in the 11th Hussars, supposed to be serving as orderly on the staff of General La Marmora. I have a long letter of instructions Froode forwarded me, and I suspect it is a strong case got up to intimidate.”

“What is the peerage sought for?” asked Davis, with an assumed indifference.

“I can tell you in five minutes if you have any curiosity on the subject,” said Paul, rising. “The papers are all in my writing-desk.”

“Fetch them,” said Davis, as he walked to the window and looked out.

Classon soon re-entered the room with a large open letter in his hand.

“There’s the map of the country!” said he, throwing it down on the table. “What would you call the fair odds in such a case, Kit, – a private soldier’s chance of a peerage that has been undisturbed since Edward the Third?”

“About ten thousand to one, I ‘d call it.”

“I agree with you, particularly since Froode is in it. He only takes up these cases to make a compromise. They ‘re always ‘settled.’ He’s a wonderful fellow to sink the chambers and charge the mine, but he never explodes, – never!”

“So that Froode can always be squared, eh?” asked Davis.

“Always.” Classon now ran his eyes over the letter, and, mumbling the lines half aloud, said, “In which case the Conways of Abergeldy, deriving from the second son, would take precedence of the Beecher branch.’ The case is this,” added he, aloud: “Viscompt Lackington’s peerage was united to the estates by an act of Edward; a motion for a repeal of this was made in Elizabeth’s time, and lost – some aver the reverse; now the claimant, Conway, relies upon the original act, since in pursuit of the estates he invalidates the title. It’s a case to extort money, and a good round sum too. I ‘d say Lord Lack-ington might give twenty thousand to have all papers and documents of the claim surrendered into his hands.”

“A heavy sum, twenty thousand,” muttered Davis, slowly.

“So it is, Kit; but when you come to tot up suits at Nisi Prius, suits in Equity, searches at the Herald’s office, and hearings before the Lords, you ‘ll see it is a downright saving.”

“But could Lackington afford this? What is he worth?”

“They call the English property twelve thousand a year, and he has a small estate in Ireland besides. In fact, it is out of that part of the property the mischief has come. This Conway’s claim was discovered in some old country-house there, and Froode is only partially instructed in it.”