Produced by David Widger
DAVENPORT DUNN
A MAN OF OUR DAY
By Charles Lever,
With Illustrations By “Phiz.”
Volume One of Two
London: Chapman And Hall
1862.
DAVENPORT DUNN, A MAN OF THE DAY.
CHAPTER I. HYDROPATHIC ACQUAINTANCES.
We are at Como, on the lake--that spot so beloved of opera dancers--the
day-dream of prima donnas--the Elysium of retired barytones! And with
what reason should this be the Paradise of all who have lived and
sighed, and warbled and pirouetted, within the charmed circle of the
footlights? The crystal waters mirroring every cliff and crag with
intense distinctness; the vegetation variegated to the very verge of
extravagance; orange-trees overloaded with fruit; arbutus only too
much bespangled with red berries; villas, more coquettish than ever
scene-painter conceived, with vistas of rooms within, all redolent of
luxury; terraces, and statues, and vases, and fountains, and marble
balconies, steeped in a thousand balmy odours, make up a picture
which well may fascinate those whose ideal of beauty is formed of such
gorgeous groupings. There is something of unreality in the brilliant
colouring and variety of the scene suggesting the notion, that at any
moment the tenor may emerge, velvet mantle and all, from the copse
before you; or a prima donna, in all the dishevelment of her back hair,
rush madly to your feet. There is not a portal from which an angry
father may not issue; not a shady walk that might not be trod by an
incensed basso!
The rustic bridges seem made for the tiny feet of short-petticoated
damsels, daintily tripping, with white-napkin covered baskets, to soft
music; and every bench appears but waiting for that wearied old peasant,
in blue stockings, a staff, and a leather belt, that has vented his
tiresomeness in the same spot for the last half century. Who wonders, if
the distracted Princess of “the scene” should love a picture that
recalls the most enthusiastic triumphs of her success? Why should not the
retired “Feri” like to wander at will through a more enchanting garden
than ever she pirouetted in?
Conspicuous amongst the places where these stage-like elements abound
is the Villa d'Este; situated in a little bay, with two jutting
promontories to guard it, the ground offers every possible variety of
surface and elevation. From the very edge of the calm lake, terrace
rises above terrace, clad with all that is rich and beautiful in
vegetation; rocks, and waterfalls, and ruins, and statues abound.
Everything that money could buy, and bad taste suggest, are there heaped
with a profusion that is actually confounding. Every stone stair leads
to some new surprise; every table-land opens some fresh and astonishing
prospect. Incongruous, inharmonious, tea-gardenish as it is, there is
still a charm in the spot which no efforts of the vilest taste seem
able to eradicate. The vines _will_ cluster in graceful groupings; the
oranges _will_ glow in gorgeous contrast to their dark mantle of leaves;
water _will_ leap with its own spontaneous gladness, and fall in diamond
showers over a grassy carpet no emerald ever rivalled; and, more than
all, the beautiful lake itself _will_ reflect the picture, with such
softened effects of light and shadow, that all the perversions of human
ingenuity are totally lost in the transmission.
This same Villa d'Este was once the scene of a sad drama; but it is
not to this era in its history we desire now to direct our reader's
attention, but to a period much later, when no longer the home of
an exiled Princess, or the retreat where shame and sorrow abandoned
themselves to every excess, its changed fortune had converted it into an
establishment for the water cure!
The prevailing zeal of our day is to simplify everything, even to things
which will not admit of simplicity. What with our local athenæums, our
mechanics' institutes, our lecturing lords and discoursing baronets, we
have done a great deal. Science has been popularised, remote geographies
made familiar, complex machinery explained, mysterious inscriptions
rendered intelligible. How could it be expected that in the general
enthusiasm for useful knowledge medicine should escape, or that its
secrets should be exempt from a scrutiny that has spared nothing? Hence
have sprung up those various sects in the curative art which, professing
to treat rationally and openly what hitherto has been shrouded in
mysticism and deception, have multiplied themselves into grape cures,
milk cures, and water cures, and Heaven knows how many other strange
devices “to cheat the ills that flesh is heir to.”
We are not going to quarrel with any of these new religions; we forgive
them much for the simple service they have done, in withdrawing their
followers from the confined air, the laborious life, the dreary toil,
or the drearier dissipation of cities, to the fresh and invigorating
breezes, the cheerful quietude, and the simple pleasures of a country
existence.
We care little for the regimen or the ritual, be it lentils or asses'
milk, Tyrol grapes, or pure water, so that it be administered on the
breezy mountain side, or in the healthful air of some lofty “Plateau”
away from the cares, the ambitions, the strife, and the jar-rings of the
active world, with no seductions of dissipation, neither the prolonged
stimulants, nor the late hours of fashion.
It was a good thought, too, to press the picturesque into the service
of health, and show the world what benefits may flow, even to nerves
and muscles, from elevated thoughts and refined pleasures. All this
is, however, purely digressionary, since we are more concerned with the
social than the medical aspects of Hydropathy, and so we come back at
once to Como. The sun has just risen, on a fresh morning in autumn,
over the tall mountain east of the lake, making the whole western shore,
where the Villa d'Este stands, all a-glitter with his rays. Every rock,
and crag, and promontory are picked out with a sharp distinctness, every
window is a-blaze, and streams of light shoot into many a grove and
copse, as though glad to pierce their way into cool spots where the
noonday sun himself can never enter. On the opposite shore, a dim and
mysterious shadow wraps every object, faint outlines of tower and palace
loom through the darkness, and a strange hazy depth encloses the whole
scene. Such is the stillness, however, that the opening of a casement,
or the plash of a stone in the water, is heard across the lake,
and voices come from the mysterious gloom with an effect almost
preternaturally striking.
On a terrace high up above the lake, sheltered with leafy fig-trees and
prickly pears, there walks a gentleman, sniffing the morning air, and
evidently bent on inhaling health at every pore.
Nothing in his appearance indicates the invalid; every gesture, as he
moves, rather displays a conscious sense of health and vigour. Somewhat
above the middle size, compactly but not heavily built, it is very
difficult to guess his years; for though his hair and the large whiskers
which meet beneath his chin are perfectly white, his clear blue eyes and
regular teeth show no signs of age. Singularly enough, it is his dress
that gives the clue to this mystery. His tightly-fitting frock, his
bell-shaped hat, and his shapely trousers, all tell of a fashion
antecedent to our loosely-hanging vestments and uncared-for garments;
for the Viscount Lackington was a lord in waiting to the “First
Gentleman” in Europe at a time when Paletots were unknown, and Jim Crows
had not been imagined.
Early as was the hour, his dress was perfect in all its details, and the
accurate folds of his immaculate cravat, and the spotless brilliancy
of his boots, would have done credit to Bond-street in days when
Bond-street cherished such glories. Let our modern critics sneer as they
will at the dandyism of that day, the gentleman of the time was a very
distinctive individual, and, in the subdued colour of his habiliments,
their studious simplicity, and, above all, their unvarying uniformity,
utterly defied all the attempts of spurious imitators.
Our story opens only a few years back, and Lord Lackington was then
one of the very few who perpetuated the traditions in costume of that
celebrated period; but he did so with such unerring accuracy, that men
actually wondered where those marvellously shaped hats were made, or how
those creaseless coats were ever fashioned. Even to the perfume of
his handkerchief, the faintest and most evanescent of odours, all were
mysteries that none could penetrate.
As he surveyed the landscape through his double eye-glass, he smiled
graciously and blandly, and gently inclined his head, as though to say,
“Very prettily done, water and mountains. I'm quite satisfied with you,
trees; you please me very much indeed! Trickle away little fountain--the
picture is the better for it.” His Lordship had soon, however, other
objects to engage his attention than the inanimate constituents of the
scene. The spot which he had selected for his point of view was usually
traversed, in their morning walks, by the other residents of the “Cure,”
and this circumstance permitted him to receive the homage of such
early risers as were fain to couple with their pursuit of health the
recognition of a great man.
Like poverty, hydropathy makes us acquainted with strange associates.
The present establishment was too recently formed to have acquired any
very distinctive celebrity, but it was sufficiently crowded. There was a
great number of third-rate Italians from the Lombard towns and cities,
a sprinkling of inferior French, a few English, a stray American or so,
and an Irish family, on their way to Italy, sojourning here rather for
economy than health, and fancying that they were acquiring habits and
manners that would serve them through their winter's campaign.
The first figure which emerged upon the plateau was that of a man
swathed in great-coat, cap, and worsted wrappers, that it was difficult
to guess what he could be. He came forward at a shambling trot, and was
about to pass on without looking aside, when Lord Lackington called out,
“Ah! Spicer, have you got off that eleven pounds yet?” “No, my Lord,
but very near it. I'm seven stone ten, and at seven eight I'm all
right.”
“Push along, then, and don't lose your training,” said his Lordship,
dismissing him with a bland wave of the hand. And the other made an
attempt at a salutation, and passed on.
“Madame la Marquise, your servant. You ascend these mountain steeps like
a chamois!”
This compliment was addressed to a little, very fat old lady, who came
snorting along like a grampus.
“Benedetto Dottore!” cried she. “He will have it that I must go up to
the stone cross yonder every morning before breakfast, and I know I
shall burst a blood-vessel yet in the attempt.”
A chair, with a mass of horse-clothing and furs, surmounted by a little
yellow wizened face, was next borne by, to which Lord Lackington bowed
courteously, saying, “Your Excellency improves at every hour.”
His Excellency gave a brief nod and a little faint smile, swallowed a
mouthful from a silver flask presented by his servant, and disappeared.
“Ah! the fair syren sisters! what a charming vision!” said his Lordship,
as two bright-cheeked, laughing-eyed girls bounced upon the terrace in
all the high-hearted enjoyment of good health and good spirits.
“Molly, for shame!” cried what seemed the elder, a damsel of about
nineteen, as the younger, holding out her dress with both hands,
performed a kind of minuet curtsey to the Viscount, to which he
responded with a bow that might have done credit to Versailles.
“Perfectly done--grace and elegance itself. The foot a little--a very
little more in advance.”
“Just because you want to look at it,” cried she, laughing. “Molly,
Molly!” exclaimed the other, rebukingly. “Let him deny it if he can,
Lucy,” retorted she. “But here's papa.”
And as she spoke, a square-built, short, florid man, fanning his bald
head with a straw hat, puffed his way forward.
“My Lord, I'm your most obaydient!” said he, with a very unmistakably
Irish enunciation. “O'Reilly, I'm delighted to see you. These charming
girls of yours have just put me in good humour with the whole creation.
What a lovely spot this is; how beautiful!”
Though his Lordship's arm and outstretched hand directed attention to
the scenery, his eyes never wandered from the pretty features of the
laughing girl beside him.
[Illustration: 028]
“It's like Banthry!” said Mr. O'Reilly--“it's the very ditto of
Banthry.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed my Lord, still pursuing his scrutiny.
“Only Banthry's bigger and wider. Indeed, I may say finer.”
“Nothing, in _my_ estimation, can exceed this!” said his Lordship, with
a distinctive smile, addressed to the young lady.
“I'm glad you think so,” said she, with a merry laugh. And then, with a
pirouette, she sprang up the steep steps on the rocky path before her,
and disappeared, her sister as quickly following, leaving Mr. O'Reilly
alone with his Lordship.
“What heaps of money she laid out here,” exclaimed O'Reilly, as he
looked at the labyrinth of mad ruins, and rustic bridges, and hanging
gardens on every side of him.
“Large sums--very large indeed!” said my Lord, whose thoughts were
evidently on some other track.
“Pure waste--nothing else; the place never could pay. Vines and
fig-trees, indeed--I'd rather see a crop of oats.”.
“I have a weakness for the picturesque, I must own,” said my Lord, as
his eye still followed the retreating figures of the girls.
“Well, I like a waterfall; and, indeed, I like a summer-house myself,”
said O'Reilly, as though confessing to a similar trait on his own part.
“This is the first time you have been abroad, O'Reilly?” said his
Lordship, to turn the subject of the conversation.
“Yes, my Lord, my first, and, with God's blessing, my last, too! When
I lost Mrs. O'Reilly, two years ago, of a complaint that beat all the
doctors--”
“Ah, yes, you mentioned that to me; very singular indeed!”
“For it wasn't in the heart itself, my Lord, but in the bag that houlds
it.”
“Oh yes, I remember the explanation perfectly; so you thought you'd just
come abroad for a little distraction.”
“Distraction indeed! 'tis the very word for it,” broke in Mr. O'Reilly,
eagerly. “My head is bewildered between the lingo and the money, and
they keep telling me, 'You'll get used to it, papa, darling--you'll be
quite at home yet.' But how is that ever possible?”
“Still, for your charming girls' sake,” said my Lord, caressing
his whiskers and adjusting his neckcloth, as if for immediate
captivation--“or their sake, O'Reilly, you've done perfectly right!”
“Well, I'm glad your Lordship says so. 'Tis nobody ought to know
better!” said he, with a heavy sigh.
“They really deserve every cultivation. All the advantages
that--that--that sort of thing can bestow!”
And his Lordship smiled benignly, as though offering his own aid to the
educational system.
“What they said to me was this,” said O'Reilly, dropping his voice to a
tone of the most confiding secrecy: “'Don't be keeping them down here
in Mary's Abbey, but take them where they'll see life. You can give
them forty thousand pounds between them, Tim O'Reilly, and with that and
their own good looks---'”
“Beauty, O'Reilly---downright loveliness,” broke in my Lord.
“Well, indeed, they are handsome,” said O'Reilly, with an honest
satisfaction, “and that's exactly why I thought the advice was good.
'Take them abroad,' they said; 'take them into Germany and Italy--but
more especially Italy'--for they say there's nothing like Italy for
finishing young ladies.”
“That is certainly the general impression!” said his Lordship with the
barest imaginable motion of his nether lip.
“And here we are, but where we're going afterwards, and what well
do when we're there, that thief of a Courier we have may know, but I
don't.”
“So that you gave up business, O'Reilly, and resigned yourself freely to
a life of ease,” said my Lord, with a smile that seemed to approve the
project.
“Yes, indeed, my Lord; but whether it's to be a life of pleasure, I
don't know. I was in the provision trade thirty-eight years, and do you
know I miss the pigs greatly.”
“Every man has a hankering of that sort. Old cosmopolite as I am, I have
every now and then my longing for that window at Brookes's, and that
snug dinner-room at Boodle's.”
“Yes, my Lord,” said O'Reilly, who hadn't the faintest conception
whether these localities were not situated in China.
“Ah, Twining, never thought to see you here,” called out his Lordship to
a singularly tall man, who came forward with such awkward contortions of
legs and arms, as actually to suggest the notion that he was struggling
against somebody. Mr. O'Reilly modestly stole away while the friends
were shaking hands, and we take the same opportunity to, present the new
arrival to our reader.
Mr. Adderley Twining was a gentleman of good family and very large
fortune, whose especial pleasure it was to pass off to the world for a
gay, light-hearted, careless creature, of small means, and most lavish
liberality. To be, in fact, perpetually struggling between a most
generous temperament and a narrow purse. His cordiality was extreme, his
politeness unbounded; and as he was most profuse in his pledges for
the present and his promises for the future, he attained to a degree of
popularity which to his own estimation was immense. This was, in fact,
the one sole self-deception of his very crafty nature, and the belief
that he was a universal favourite was the solitary mistake of this
shrewd intelligence. Although a married man, there was so constantly
some “difficulty” or other--these were his own words--about Lady Grace,
that they seldom were seen together; but he spoke of her when absent in
terms of the most fervent affection, but whose health, or spirits, or
tastes, or engagements unhappily denied her the happiness of travelling
along with him. Whenever it chanced that they were together, he scarcely
mentioned her.
“And what breeze of fortune has wafted you here, Twining?” said his
Lordship, delighted to chance upon a native of his own world.
“Health, my Lord,--health,” said he, with one of his ready laughs, as
though everything he said or thought had some comic side in it that
amused him, “and a touch of economy too, my Lord.”
“What humbug all that is, Twining. Who the deuce is so well off as
yourself?” said Lord Lackington, with all that peculiar bitterness with
which an embarrassed man listens to the grumblings of a wealthy one.
“Only too happy, my Lord--rejoiced if you were right. Capital news for
me, eh?--excellent news!” And he slapped his lean legs with his long
thin fingers, and laughed immoderately.
“Come, come, we all know that--besides a devilish good thing of your
own--you got the Wrexley estate, and old Poole's Dorsetshire property.
Hang me if I ever open a newspaper without reading that you are
somebody's residuary legatee.”
“I assure you, solemnly, my Lord, I am actually hard up, pressed for
money, downright inconvenienced.” And he laughed again, as though it
were uncommonly droll.
“Stuff--nonsense!” said my Lord, angrily, for he really was losing
temper; and to change the topic he curtly asked, “And where do you mean
to pass the winter?”
“In Florence, my Lord, or Naples. We have a little den in both places.”
The “den” in Florence was a sumptuous palace on the Arno. Its brother at
Naples was a royal villa near Posilippo.
“Why not Rome? Lady Lackington and myself mean to try Rome.”
“Ah, all very well for you, my Lord, but for people of small fortune--”
There was that in the expression of his Lordship's face that told
Twining this vein might be followed too far, and so he stopped in time,
and laughed away pleasantly.
“Spicer tells me,” resumed Lord Lackington, “that Florence is quite
deserted; nothing but a kind of second and third rate set of people go
there. Is that so?”
“Excellent people, capital society, great fun!” said Twining, in a burst
of merriment.
“Spicer calls them 'Snobs,' and he ought to know.”
“So he ought indeed, my Lord--no one better. Admirably observed, and
very just.”
“He's in training again for that race that never comes off,” said his
Lordship. “The first time I ever saw him--it was at Leamington--and he
was performing the same farce, with hot baths and blankets, and jotting
down imaginary bets in a small note-book.”
“How good--capital! Your Lordship has him perfectly--you know him
thoroughly--great fun! Spicer, excellent creature!”
“How those fellows live is a great mystery to me. You chance upon them
everywhere, in Baden or Aix in summer, in Paris or Vienna during the
winter. Now, if they were amusing rogues, like that fellow I met at your
house in Hampshire--”
“Oh, Stockley, my Lord; rare fellow, quite a genius!” laughed Twining.
“Just so--Stockley; one would have them just to help over the boredom of
a country house; but this creature Spicer is as devoid of amusing gifts,
as tiresome, and as worn out, as if he owned ten thousand a year.”
“How good, by Jove!” cried Twining, in ecstasy. And he slapped his gaunt
limbs and threw his long arms wildly about in a transport of delight.
“And who are here, Twining--any of our set?” “Not a soul, my Lord; the
place isn't known yet, that's the reason I came here--so quiet and so
cheap, make your own terms with them.
“Good fun--excellent!”
“_I_ came to meet a man of business,” said his Lordship, with a strong
emphasis on the pronoun. “He couldn't prolong his journey farther south,
and so we agreed to rendezvous here.”
“I have a little affair also to transact--a mere trifle, a nothing,
in fact--with a lawyer, who promises to meet me here by the end of the
month, so that we have just time to take our baths, drink the waters,
and all that sort of thing, while we are waiting.”
And he rubbed his hands, and laughed away again.
“What a boon for my wife to learn that Lady Grace is here! She was
getting so hipped with the place--not so much the place as the odious
people--that I suspect she'd have left me to wait for Dunn all alone.”
“Dunn! Dunn! not Davenport Dunn?” exclaimed Twining.
“The very man--do you know him?”
“To be sure, he's the fellow I'm waiting for. Capital fun, isn't it?”
And he slapped his legs again, while he repeated the name of Dunn over
and over again.
“I want to know something about this same Mr. Dunn,” said Lord
Lackington, confidentially.
“So do I; like it of all things,” cried Twining. “Clever
fellow-wonderful fellow--up to everything--acquainted with everybody.
Great fun!”
“He occupies a very distinguished position in Ireland, I fancy,” said
his Lordship, with such a marked stress on the locality as to show that
such did not constitute an imperial reputation.
“Yes, yes, man of the day there; do what he likes; very
popular--immensely popular!” said Twining, as he laughed on.
“So that you know no more of him than his public repute---no more than I
know myself,” said his Lordship.
“Not so much as your Lordship, I'm certain,” said Twining, as though
it would have been unbecoming in him to do so; “in fact, my business
transactions are such mere nothings, that it's quite a kindness on his
part to undertake them--trifles, no more!”
And Twining almost hugged himself in the ecstasy which his last words
suggested.
“_Mine_,” said Lord Lackington, haughtily, “are of consequence enough
to fetch him hither--a good thousand miles away from England; but he is
pretty certain of its being well worth his while, to come.”
“Quite convinced of that--could swear it,” said Twining, eagerly.
“Here are a mob of insufferable bores,” said his Lordship, testily, as a
number of people were heard approaching, for somehow--it is not easy
to say exactly why--he had got into a train of thought that scorned to
worry him, and was not disposed to meet strangers; and so, with a brief
gesture of good-by to Twining, he turned into a path and disappeared.
Twining looked after him for a second or two, and then slapping his
legs, he muttered, pleasantly, “What fun!” and took the road towards the
house.