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

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СКАЧАТЬ said Davis, laughingly.

      “Poor Beecher, no, but happy Beecher, envied by thousands. Not indeed,” added she, with a smile, “that his appearance at this moment suggests any triumphant satisfaction. Oh, papa, you should have seen him when the Russian Prince Ezerboffsky asked me to dance, or when the Archduke Albrecht offered me his horses; or, better still, the evening the Margrave lighted up his conservatory just to let me see it.”

      “Your guardianship had its anxieties, I perceive,” said Davis, dryly.

      “I think it had,” said Beecher, sighing. “There were times I ‘d have given five thousand, if I had it, that she had been safe under your own charge.”

      “My dear fellow, I’d have given fifty,” said Davis, “if I did n’t know she was just in as good hands as my own.” There was a racy heartiness in this speech that thrilled through Beecher’s heart, and he could scarcely credit his ears that it was Grog spoke it. “Ay, Beecher,” added he, as he drew the other’s arm closer to his side, “there was just one man – one single man in Europe – I ‘d have trusted with the charge.”

      “Really, gentlemen,” said Lizzy, with a malicious sparkle of the eye, “I am lost in my conjectures whether I am to regard myself as a sort of human Koh-i-noor – a priceless treasure – or something so very difficult to guard, so perilous to protect, as can scarcely be accounted a flattery. Say, I entreat of you, to which category do I belong?”

      “A little to each, I should say, – eh, Beecher?” cried Grog, laughingly.

      “Oh, don’t appeal to him, papa. He only wants to vaunt his heroism the higher, because the fortress he guarded was so easy of assault!”

      Beecher was ill-fitted to engage in such an encounter, and stammered out some commonplace apology for his own seeming want of gallantry.

      “She’s too much for us, Beecher, – too much for us. It’s a pace we can’t keep up,” muttered Grog in the other’s ear. And Beecher nodded a ready assent to the speech.

      “Well,” said Lizzy, gayly, “now that your anxieties are well over, I do entreat of you to unbend a little, and let us see the lively, light-hearted Mr. Annesley Beecher, of whose pleasant ways I have heard so much.”

      “I used to be light-hearted enough once, eh, Davis?” said Beecher, with a sigh. “When you saw me first at the Derby – of, let me see, I don’t remember the year, but it was when Danby’s mare Petrilla won, – with eighteen to one ‘given and taken’ against her, the day of the race, – Brown Davy, the favorite, coming in a bad third, – he died the same night.”

      “Was he ‘nobbled’?” asked Lizzy, dryly.

      “What do you mean?” cried Grog, gruffly. “Where did you learn that word?”

      “Oh, I’m quite strong in your choice vocabulary,” said she, laughingly; “and you are not to fancy that in the dissipations of Aix I have forgotten the cares of my education. My guardian there set me a task every morning, – a page of Burke’s Peerage and a column of the ‘Racing Calendar;’ and for the ninth Baron of Fitzfoodle, or the fifteenth winner of the Diddlesworth, you may call on me at a moment.”

      The angry shadow on Davis’s brow gradually faded away, and he laughed a real, honest, and good-humored laugh.

      “What do you say to the Count, Lizzy?” asked he next. “There was a fine gentleman, wasn’t he?”

      “There was the ease and the self-possession of good breeding without the manners. He was amusing from his own self-content, and a sort of latent impression that he was taking you in, and when one got tired of that, he became downright stupid.”

      “True as a book, every word of it!” cried Beecher, in hearty gratitude, for he detested the man, and was envious of his small accomplishments.

      “His little caressing ways, too, ceased to be flatteries, when you saw that, like the cheap bonbons scattered at a carnival, they were made for the million.”

      “Hit him again, he has n’t got no friends!” said Beecher, with an assumed slang in his tone.

      “But worst of all was that mockery of good nature, – a false air of kindliness about him. It was a spurious coinage, so cleverly devised that you looked at every good guinea afterwards with distrust.”

      “How she knows him, – how she reads him!” cried Davis, in delight.

      “He was very large print, papa,” said she, smiling.

      “Confound me!” cried Beecher, “if I didn’t think you liked him, you used to receive him so graciously; and I’ll wager he thinks himself a prime favorite with you.”

      “So he may, if it give him any pleasure,” said she, with a careless laugh.

      Davis marked the expression of Beecher’s face as she said these words; he saw how that distrustful nature was alarmed, and he hastened to repair the mischief.

      “I am sure you never affected to feel any regard for him, Lizzy?” said Davis.

      “Regard for him!” said she, haughtily; “I should think not! Such people as he are like the hired horses that every one uses, and only asks that they should serve for the day they have taken them.”

      “There, Beecher,” said Davis, with a laugh. “I sincerely hope she’s not going to discuss your character or mine.”

      “By Jove! I hope not.” And in the tone in which Beecher uttered this there was an earnestness that made the other laugh heartily.

      “Well, here we are. This is your home for the present,” said Davis, as he welcomed them to the little inn, whose household were all marshalled to receive them with fitting deference.

      The arrangements within doors were even better than the picturesque exterior promised; and when Lizzy came down to dinner, she was in raptures about her room, its neatness even to elegance, and the glorious views that opened before the windows.

      “I’m splendidly lodged too,” said Beecher; “and they have given me a dressing-room, with a little winding-stair to the river, and a bath in the natural rock. It is downright luxury, all this.”

      Davis smiled contentedly as he listened. For days past had he been busied with these preparations, determined to make the spot appear in all its most favorable colors. Let us do him justice to own that his cares met a full success. Flowers abounded in all the rooms; and the perfumed air, made to seem tremulous by the sounds of falling water, was inexpressibly calming after the journey. The dinner, too, would have done honor to a more pretentious “hostel;” and the Steinberger, a cabinet wine, that the host would not part with except for “love as well as money,” was perfection. Better than all these, – better than the fresh trout with its gold and azure speckles, – better than the delicate Rehbraten with its luscious sauce, – better than the red partridges in their bed of truffles, and a dessert whose grapes rivalled those of Fontainebleau, – better, I say, than all, was the happy temper of the hour! Never were three people more disposed for enjoyment. To Lizzy, it was the oft dreamed-of home, the quiet repose of a spot surrounded with all the charm of scenery, coming, too, just as the dissipations of gayety had begun to weary and pall upon her. To Beeeher, it was the first moment of all his life in which he tasted peace. Here were neither duns nor bailiffs. It was a Paradise where no writ had ever wandered, nor the word “outlawry” had ever been СКАЧАТЬ