Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 heart

      Like a sea o’er a barren shore,

      And the pleasant waves refreshed the spot

      So 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? СКАЧАТЬ