Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“A number of letters have arrived for you, and you will find them in your room, sir,” continued Lanfranchi, as he escorted him towards the stairs. A quiet bow acknowledged this speech, and the doctor went on: “I was charged with a message from Lord Lackington, too, who desired me to say that he hoped to see you as soon as possible after your arrival. May I inform him when you could receive him?”

“Not to-night; some time to-morrow, about twelve o’clock, or half-past, if that will suit him,” said the stranger, coldly. “Is Baron Glumthal here? Well, tell him to come up to me, and let them send me some tea.”

“May I mention your arrival to his Lordship, for I know his great anxiety?”

“Just as you please,” said the other, in the same quiet tone; while he bowed in a fashion to dismiss his visitor.

Having glanced casually at the addresses of a number of letters, he only opened one or two, and looked cursorily over their contents; and then opening a window which looked over the lake, he placed a chair on the balcony and sat down, as if to rest and reflect in the fresh and still night air. It was a calm and quiet atmosphere, – not a leaf stirred, not a ripple moved the glassy surface of the lake; so that, as he sat, he could overhear Dr. Lanfranchi’s voice beneath announcing his arrival to Lord Lackington.

“If he can receive Glumthal, why can’t he see me?” asked the Viscount, testily. “You must go back and tell him that I desire particularly to meet him this evening.”

“If you wish, my Lord – ”

“I do, sir,” repeated he, more peremptorily. “Lady Lackington and myself have been sojourning here the last three weeks, awaiting this arrival, and I am at a loss to see why our patience is to be pushed further. Pray take him my message, therefore.”

The doctor, without speaking, left the room at once.

Lanfranchi was some minutes in the apartment before he discovered where the stranger was sitting, and then approaching him softly he communicated his Lordship’s request.

“I am afraid you must allow me to take my own way. I have contracted an unfortunate habit in that respect,” said the stranger, with a quiet smile. “Give my compliments to his Lordship, and say that at twelve to-morrow I am at his orders; and tell Baron Glumthal that I expect him now.”

Lanfranchi withdrew; and having whispered the message to the Baron, proceeded to make his communication to the Viscount.

“Very well, sir,” said Lord Lackington, haughtily interrupting; “something like an apology. Men of this sort have a business-like standard even for their politeness, and there is no necessity for me to teach them something better;” and then, turning to Twining, he added, “That was Dunn’s arrival we heard awhile ago.”

“Oh, indeed! Very glad, – quite rejoiced on your account more than my own. Dunn – Dunn; remarkable man – very,” said Twining, hurriedly.

“Thank Heaven! we may be able to get away from this place to-morrow or next day,” said Lord Lackington, sighing drearily.

“Yes, of course; very slow for your Lordship – no society – nothing to do.”

“And the weather beginning to break?” said Lord Lackington, peevishly.

“Just so, as your Lordship most justly observes, – the weather beginning to break.”

“Look at that troop of horses,” said the Viscount, as the postilions passed beneath the window in a long file with the cattle just released from the travelling-carriages. “There goes ten – no, but twelve posters. He travels right royally, doesn’t he?”

“Very handsomely, indeed; quite a pleasure to see it,” said Twining, gleefully.

“These fellows have little tact, with all their worldly shrewdness, or they ‘d not make such ostentatious display of their wealth.”

“Quite true, my Lord. It is indiscreet of them.”

“It is so like saying, ‘This is our day! ‘” said the Viscount.

“So it is, my Lord; and a very pleasant day they have of it, I must say; clever men – shrewd men – know the world thoroughly.”

“I ‘m not so very sure of that, Twining,” said his Lordship, smiling half superciliously. “If they really had all the worldly knowledge you attribute to them, they ‘d scarcely venture to shock the feelings of society by assumptions of this sort They would have more patience, Twining, – more patience.”

“So they would, my Lord. Capital thing, – excellent thing, patience; always rewarded in the end; great fun.” And he rubbed his hands and laughed away pleasantly.

“And they’ll defeat themselves, that’s what will come of it, sir,” said Lord Lackington, not heeding the other’s remark.

“I quite agree with your Lordship,” chimed in Twining.

“And shall I tell you why they ‘ll defeat themselves, sir?”

“Like it of all things; take it as a great favor on your Lordship’s part.”

“For this reason, Twining, that they have no ‘prestige,’ – no, Twining, they have no prestige. Now, sir, wealth unassociated with prestige is just like – what shall I say? – it is, as it were, a sort of local rank, – a kind of thing like being brigadier in the Bombay Army, but only a lieutenant when you ‘re at home; so long, therefore, as these fellows are rich, they have their influence. Let them suffer a reverse of fortune, however, and where will they be, sir?”

“Can’t possibly say; but quite certain your Lordship knows, – perfectly sure of it,” rattled out Twining.

“I do, sir. It is a subject on which I have bestowed considerable thought. I may go further, and say, one which I have reduced to a sort of theory. These men are signs of the times, – emblems of our era; just like the cholera, the electric telegraph, or the gold-fields of Australia. We must not accept them as normal, do you perceive? They are the abnormal incidents of our age.”

“Quite true, most just, very like the electric telegraph!” muttered Twining.

“And by that very condition only exercising a passing influence on our society, sir,” said his Lordship, pursuing his own train of thought.

“Perfectly correct, rapid as lightning.”

“And when they do pass away, sir,” continued the Viscount, “they leave no trace of their existence behind them. The bubble buret, the surface of the stream remains without a ripple. I myself may live to see; you, in all probability, will live to see.”

“Your Lordship far more likely, – sincerely trust as much,” said Twining, bowing.

“Well, sir, it matters little which of us is to witness the extinction of this Plutocracy.” And as his Lordship enunciated this last word, he walked off like one who had totally exhausted his subject.

CHAPTER VIII. MR. DUNN

MR. Davenport Dunn sat at breakfast in his spacious chamber overlooking the Lake of Como. In addition to the material appliances of that meal, the table was covered with newly arrived letters, and newspapers, maps, surveys, railroad sections, and Parliamentary blue-books littered about, along with chalk drawings, oil miniatures, some carvings in box and ivory, and a few bronzes of rare beauty and design. Occasionally skimming over the newspapers, now sipping his tea, or now examining some object of art through a magnifier, he dallied over his meal like one who felt the time thus passed a respite from the task of the day. At last he walked out, and, leaning over the balcony, gazed at the glorious landscape at his feet. It was early morning, and the great masses of misty clouds were slowly beginning to move up the Alps, disclosing as they went spots of bright green verdure, dark-sided ravines and cataracts, amid patches of pine forest, or dreary tracts of snow still lying deep in the mountain clefts. Beautiful as was the picture of the lake itself, and the wooded promontories along it, his eyes never turned from the rugged grandeur of the Alpine range, which he continued to gaze at for a long time. So absorbed was he in his contemplation, that he never noticed the approach of another, and Baron Glumthal was already leaning over the balustrade beside him ere he had perceived him.

“Well, is it more assuring now that you have looked at it?” asked the German, in English, of which there was the very slightest trace of a foreign accent.

“I see nothing to deter one from the project,” said Dunn, slowly. “These questions resolve themselves purely into two conditions, – time and money. The grand army was only a corporal’s guard, multiplied by hundreds of thousands.”

“But the difficulties – ”

“Difficulties!” broke in Dunn; “thank Heaven for them, Baron, or you and I would be no better off in this world than the herd about us. Strong heads and stout hearts are the breaching artillery of mankind, – you can find rank and file any day.”

“When I said difficulties, I might have used a stronger word.”

“And yet,” said Dunn, smiling, “I’d rather contract to turn the Alps yonder, than to drive a new idea into the heads of a people. See here, now,” said he, entering the room, and returning with a large plan in his hand, “this is Chiavenna. Well, the levels show that a line drawn from this spot comes out below Andeer, at a place called Mühlen, – the distance something less than twenty-two miles. By Brumall’s contract, you will perceive that if he don’t meet with water – ”

“But in that lies the whole question,” broke in the other.

“I know it, and I am not going to blink it. I mean to take the alternatives in turn.”

“Shall I spare you a deal of trouble, Dunn?” said the German, laying his hand on his arm. “Our house has decided against the enterprise. I have no need to explain the reasons.”

“And can you be swayed by such counsels?” cried Dunn, eagerly. “Is it possible that you will suffer yourselves to be made the dupes of a Russian intrigue?”

“Say, rather, the agents of a great policy,” said Glumthal, “and you will be nearer the mark. My dear friend,” added he, in a lower and more confidential tone, “have I to tell you that your whole late policy in England is a mistake, your Crimean war a mistake, your French alliance a mistake, and your present attempt at a reconciliation with Austria the greatest mistake of all?”

“You would find it a hard task to make the nation believe this,” said Dunn, smiling.

“So I might; but not to convince your statesmen of it. They see it already. They perceive even now some of the perils of the coarse they have adopted.”

“The old story. I have heard it at least a hundred times,” broke in Dunn. “We have been overturning the breakwaters that the ocean may swamp us. But I tell you, Baron, that the more democratic we grow in England, the safer we become. We don’t want these alliances we fancied ourselves once in need of. That family compact redounded but little to our advantage.”

“So it might. But there is another compact now forming, which bodes even less favorably to you. The Church, by her Concordat, is replacing the old Holy Alliance. You ‘ll need the aid of the only power that cannot be drawn into this league, – I mean the only great power, – Russia.”

“If you will wait till we are so minded, Baron,” said Dunn, laughing, “you have plenty of time to help me with my tunnel here.” And he pointed to his plans.

“And where will the world be, – I mean your world and mine, – before the pick of the workman reaches so far?” and he placed his finger on the Splugen Alps, – “answer me that. What will be the Government of France, – I don’t ask who? Where will Naples be? What king will be convoking the Hungarian Diet? Who will be the Russian viceroy on the Danube?”

“Far more to the purpose were it if I could tell you how would the Three per Cents stand,” broke in Dunn.

“I ‘m coming to that,” said the other, dryly. “No, no,” said he, after a pause; “let us see this unhappy war finished, – let us wait till we know who are to be partners in the-great game of European politics. Lanfranchi tells me that the French and Russians who meet here come together on the best of terms; that intimacies, and even friendships. spring up rapidly between them. This fact, if repeated in Downing Street, might be heard with some misgiving.”

Though Dunn affected indifference to this remark, he winced, and walked to the window to hide his irritation.

Immediately beneath where he stood, a trellised vine-walk led down to the lake, where the boats were usually in waiting; and from this alley now a number of voices could be heard, although the speakers were entirely hidden by the foliage. The gay and laughing tones indicated a pleasure-party; and such it was, bent on a picnic to Bellaggio. Some were loud in praises of the morning, and the splendid promise of the day; others discussed how many boats they should want, and how the party was to be divided.

“The Americans with the Russians,” said Twining, slapping his legs and laughing; “great friends – capital allies – what fun! Ourselves and the O’Reillys. – Spicer, look out, and see if they are coming.”

“And do you mean to say you’ll not come?” whispered a very soft voice, after the crowd had passed on.

“Charmante Molly!” said Lord Lackington, in his most dulcet of accents, “I am quite heart-broken at the disappointment; but when I tell you that this man has come some hundreds of miles to meet me here, – that the matter is one of deepest importance – ”

“And who is he? Could you make him come too?”

“Impossible, ma belle. He is quite unsuited to this kind of thing, – a mere creature of parchments. The very sight of him would only suggest thoughts of foreclosing mortgages and renewal fines.”

“How I hate him!”

“Do, dearest, – hate him to your heart’s content, – and for nothing more than the happiness of which he robs me.”

“Well, I ‘m sure, I did think – ” And she stopped, and seemed confused.

“And what, pray, was it that you did think?” said his Lordship, most winningly.

“I thought two things, then, if you must know,” said she, archly: “first, that a great personage like your Lordship would make a very small one like this Mr. Dunn understand it was his duty to await your convenience; and my second thought was – But perhaps you don’t care to hear it?”

“Of all things. Pray go on.”

“Well, then, my second was that if I asked you to come, you’d not refuse me.”

“What an inexorable charmer it is!” cried he, in stage fashion. “Do you fancy you could ever forgive yourself if, yielding to this temptation, I were really to miss this man?”

“You told me yourself, only yesterday,” said she, “ce que femme veut– Besides, you’ll have him all day tomorrow, and the next, and – ”

“Well, so be it. See how I hug my chains!” said he, drawing her arm within his, and moving on towards the boat.

“Were you to be of that party, Baron?” asked Dunn, pointing to the crowd beside the lake.

“So I was. The Princess engaged me last night; they are going to the Plinniana and Bellaggio. Why not join us?”

“Oh, I have a score of letters to write, and double as many to read. In fact, I have kept all my work for a quiet day in this nice tranquil spot I wish I could take a week here.”

“And why not do it? Have n’t you yet learned that it is the world’s duty to wait on us? For my own part, I have always found that one emerges from these secluded places with renewed energy and awakened vigor. I heard Stadeon once say that when anything puzzled him, he went to pass a day at Maria Zell, and he never came away without hitting on the solution. They are beckoning to me; so good-bye!”

“Anything puzzled him!” muttered Dunn, repeating the words of the other’s story. “If he but knew that what puzzles me at this moment is myself!”

The very nature of the correspondence that then littered his table might well warrant what he felt. Who, and what was he, to whom great ministers wrote confidentially, and secretaries of state began, “My dear Dunn”? How had he risen to this eminence? What were the gifts by which he held, and was to maintain it? Most men who have attained to high station from small beginnings, have so conformed to the exigencies of each new change in life as to carry but little of what they started with to their position of eminence; gradually assimilating to the circumstances around them as they went, they flung the past behind them, only occupied with those qualities which should fit them for the future. Not so Davenport Dunn: he was ever present to his own eyes as the son of the very humblest parentage; as the poor boy educated by charity, struggling drearily through years of poverty, – the youth discouraged and slighted, the man repulsed and rejected. Certain incidents of his life never left him; there they were, as if photographed on his heart; and at will he could behold himself as he was turned away ignominiously from Kellett’s house; or a morning scarce less sad, as he learned his rejection for the sizarship; or the day still more bitter that Lord Glengariff put him out of doors, with words of insult and shame. Like avenging spirits, these memories travelled with him wherever he journeyed. They sat beside him as he dined at great men’s tables; they loitered with him in his lonely walks, and whispered into his ear in the dark hours of the night. No high-hearted hope, no elevating self-reliance, had sustained him through these youthful reverses; each new failure, on the contrary, seemed to have impressed him more and more strongly with the conviction that the gifts which win success in life had not been vouchsafed him; that his abilities were of that humble order which never elevate their possessor above mere mediocrity; that if he meant to strive for the great prizes of life, it must be less by addressing himself to great intellectual efforts than by a patient study of men themselves, – of their frailties, their weaknesses, and their follies. Whatever he had seen of the world had shown him how invariably the greatest minds were alloyed with some deteriorating influence, and that passions of one kind or other, ambitions more or less worthy, even the subtlety of flattery, swayed those whose intellects soared loftily among their fellows. “I cannot share in the tilt with these,” said he. “Mine are no gifts of eloquence or imaginative power; I am not versed in the mysteries of science, nor deep-read in the intricacies of law. Let me, however, see if I cannot, by dexterity, accomplish what is denied to my strength. Every man, whatever his station, covets wealth. The noblest and the meanest, the man dignified by exalted aspirations, the true creature of selfish enjoyments, are all alike enlisted in the pursuit. Let me consider how this common tendency may be best turned to account. To enrich others, it is not necessary that I should be wealthy myself. The geographer may safely dictate the route by which the explorer is to journey through a desert he has never travelled himself. The great problems of finance can be worked by suggestions in a garret, though their application may demand millions.” Starting thus from an humble attorney in a country town, he gradually grew to be known as a most capable adviser in all monetary matters. Rich men consulted him about profitable investments and safe employment of their capital; embarrassed men confided to him their difficulties, and sought his aid to meet them; speculators asked his advice as to this or that venture; and even those who gambled on the eventful fortunes of a ministry were fain to be guided by his wise predictions. “Dunn has got me the money on reasonable terms;” “Dunn has managed to let me have five per cent;” “Dunn assures me I may risk this;” “Dunn tells me that they ‘ll carry the bill next session,” – such and such things were the phrases one heard at every turn, till his opinion became a power in the land, and he grew to feel it so.

This first step led to another and higher one. Through the moneyed circumstances of men he came to learn their moral natures: against what temptations this one was proof; to what that other would yield; what were the goals for which each was striving; what the secret doubts and misgivings that beset them. What the doctor was to the world of sickness and infirmity did he become to the world of human passion and desire. Men came to him with the same unreserve; they stripped before him and laid bare the foul spots of their heart’s disease, as though it were but repeating the story to themselves. Terrible and harrowing as are the tales which reach the physician’s ears, the stories revealed to his were more terrible and harrowing still. They came to him with narratives of reckless waste and ruin; with histories of debt that dated a century back; with worse, far worse, – with tales of forgery and fraud. Crimes for which the law would have exacted its last expiation were whispered to him in that dreary confessional, his private office, and the evidences of guilt placed in his hands that he might read and reflect over them. And as the doctor moves through life with the sad knowledge of all the secret suffering around him, – how little that “flush” indicates of health, how faintly beats the heart that seems to swell with happiness, – so did this man walk a world that was a mere hospital ward of moral rottenness. Why should the priest and the physician be the only men to trade upon the infirmities of human nature? Why should they be the sole depositaries of those mysteries by which men’s actions can be swayed and moulded? By what temptations are men so assailable as those that touch their material fortunes, and why not make this moral country an especial study? Such were his theory and his practice.

There is often a remarkable fitness – may we call it a “pre-established harmony”? – between men and the circumstances of their age, and this has led to the opinion that it is by the events themselves the agents are developed; we incline to think differently, as the appearance of both together is rather in obedience to some over-ruling edict of Providence which has alike provided the work and the workmen. It would be a shallow reading of history to imagine Cromwell the child of the Revolution, or Napoleon as the accident of the battle of the sections.

Davenport Dunn sprang into eminence when, by the action of the Encumbered Estates Court, a great change was operated in the condition of Ireland. To grasp at once the immense consequences of a tremendous social revolution – to foresee even some of the results of this sweeping confiscation – required no common knowledge of the country, and no small insight into its habits. The old feudalism that had linked the fate of a starving people with the fortunes of a ruined gentry was to be extinguished at once, and a great experiment tried. Was Ireland to be more governable in prosperity than in adversity? This was a problem which really might not seem to challenge much doubt, and yet was it by no means devoid of difficulty to those minds who had long based their ideas of ruling that land on the principles of fomenting its dissensions and separating its people. Davenport Dunn saw the hesitation of the moment, and offered himself at once to solve the difficulty. The transfer of property might be conducted in such a way as to favor the views of a particular party in the state; the new proprietary might be selected, and the aim of a government consulted in the establishment of this new squirearchy. He thought so, at least, and, what is more, he persuaded a chief secretary to believe him.

Nothing reads more simply than the sale of an encumbered estate: “In the matter of Sir Roger O’Moore, Bart, Brian O’Moore, and Margaret Halliday, owners, and Paul May-bey, petitioner, the Commissioners will, on Friday next, at the hour of noon,” – and so on; and then come the descriptive particulars of Carrickross, Dummaymagan, and Lantygoree, with Griffith’s valuation and the ordnance survey, concluding with a recital of all the penalties, reservations, covenants, clauses, &c., with the modest mention of twenty-odd pounds some shillings tithe-rent charge, for a finish. To dispossess of this a man that never really owned it for the last forty years, and invest it in another, who never saw it, was the easy operation of the auctioneer’s hammer; and with a chief commissioner to ratify the sale, few things seemed easier than the whole process. Still, there are certain aspects in the transaction which suggest reflection. What were the ties, what the relations, between the original owner and the tenantry who held under him? What kind of social system had bound them, – what were the mutual services they rendered each other? For the reverence and respect tendered on one side, and for the thousand little charities and kindnesses bestowed on the other, what was to be the compensation? How was that guidance and direction, more or less inherent in those who are the heads of a neighborhood, to be replaced? Was it quite certain that the incoming proprietor would care to study the habits, the tastes, and the tempers of the peasantry on his estate, learn their ways, or understand their difficulties? And, lastly, what new political complexion would the country wear? Would it become more Conservative or more Whig, more Democratic or more Saxon?