A DREARY evening late in October, a cold thin rain falling, and a
low wailing wind sighing through the headless branches of the trees in
Merrion Square, made Dublin seem as sad-looking and deserted as need be.
The principal inhabitants had not yet returned to their homes for
the winter, and the houses wore that melancholy look of vacancy and
desertion so strikingly depressing. One sound alone woke the echoes
in that silence; it was a loud knocking at the door of a large and
pretentious mansion in the middle of the north side of the square. Two
persons had been standing at the door for a considerable time, and by
every effort of knocker and bell endeavoring to obtain admittance. One
of these was a tall, erect man of about fifty, whose appearance but too
plainly indicated that most painful of all struggles between poverty and
a certain pretension. White-seamed and threadbare as was his coat,
he wore it buttoned to the top with a sort of military smartness, his
shabby hat was set on with a kind of jaunty air, and his bushy whiskers,
combed and frizzed out with care, seemed a species of protest against
being thought as humble as certain details of dress might bespeak
him. At his side stood a young girl, so like him that a mere glance
proclaimed her to be his daughter; and although in her appearance, also,
narrow means stood confessed, there was an unmistakable something in her
calm, quiet features and her patient expression that declared she bore
her lot with a noble and high-hearted courage.
“One trial more, Bella, and I 'll give it up,” cried he, angrily, as,
seizing the knocker, he shook the strong door with the rapping, while
he jingled the bell with equal violence. “If they don't come now, it is
because they 've seen who it is, or, maybe----”
“There, see, papa, there's a window opening above,” said the girl,
stepping out into the rain as she spoke.
“What d' ye mean,--do ye want to break in the door?” cried a harsh
voice, as the wizened, hag-like face of a very dirty old woman appeared
from the third story.
“I want to know if Mr. Davenport Dunn is at home,” cried the man.
“He is not; he 's abroad,--in France.”
“When is he expected back?” asked he again.
“Maybe in a week, maybe in three weeks.”
“Have any letters come for Mr. Kellett--Captain Kel-lett?” said he,
quickly correcting himself.
“No!”
And a bang of the window, as the head was withdrawn, finished the
colloquy.
“That's pretty conclusive, any way, Bella,” said he, with an attempt to
laugh. “I suppose there's no use in staying here longer. Poor child,”
added he, as he watched her preparations against the storm, “you 'll be
wet to the skin! I think we must take a car,--eh, Bella? I _will_ take
a car.” And he put an emphasis on the word that sounded like a firm
resolve.
“No, no, papa; neither of us ever feared rain.”
“And, by George! it can't spoil our clothes, Bella,” said he, laughing
with a degree of jocularity that sounded astonishing, even to himself;
for he quickly added, “But I _will_ have a car; wait a moment here,
under the porch, and I 'll get one.”
And before she could interpose a word, he was off and away, at a speed
that showed the vigor of a younger man.
“It won't do, Bella,” he said, as he came back again; “there's only one
fellow on the stand, and he 'll not go under half a crown. I pushed
him hard for one-and-sixpence, but he 'd not hear of it, and so I
thought--that was, I knew well--you would be angry with me.”
“Of course, papa; it would be mere waste of money,” said she, hastily.
“An hour's walk,--at most, an hour and a half,--and there's an end of it
And now let us set out, for it is growing late.”
There were few in the street as they passed along; a stray creature or
so, houseless and ragged, shuffled onward; an odd loiterer stood for
shelter in an archway, or a chance passer-by, with ample coat and
umbrella, seemed to defy the pelting storm, while cold and dripping they
plodded along in silence.
“That's old Barrington's house, Bella,” said he, as they passed a large
and dreary-looking mansion at the corner of the square; “many's the
pleasant evening I spent in it.”
She muttered something, but inaudibly, and they went on as before.
“I wonder what 's going on here to-day. It was Sir Dyke Morris used to
live here when I knew it” And he stopped at an open door, where a flood
of light poured forth into the street “That's the Bishop of Derry,
Bella, that's just gone in. There's a dinner-party there to-day,”
whispered he, as, half reluctant to go, he still peered into the hall.
She drew him gently forward, and he seemed to have fallen into a revery,
as he muttered at intervals,--
“Great times--fine times--plenty of money--and fellows that knew how to
spend it!”
Drearily plashing onward through wind and rain, their frail clothes
soaked through, they seldom interchanged a word.
“Lord Drogheda lived there, Bella,” said he, stopping short at the door
of a splendidly illuminated hotel; “and I remember the time I was as
free and welcome in it as in my own house. My head used to be full of
the strange things that happened there once. Brown, and Barry Fox, and
Tisdall, and the rest of us, were wild chaps! Faith, my darling, it
was n't for Mr. Davenport Dunn I cared in those times, or the like of
him. Davenport Dunn, indeed!”
“It is strange that he has not written to us,” said the girl, in a low
voice.
“Not a bit strange; it's small trouble he takes about us. I'll bet a
five-pound note--I mean, I'll lay sixpence,” said he, correcting himself
with some confusion,--“that since he left this he never as much as
bestowed a thought on us. When he got me that beggarly place in the
Custom House, he thought he 'd done with me out and out. Sixty pounds a
year! God be with the time I gave Peter Harris, the butler, just double
the money!”
As they talked thus, they gained the outskirts of the city, and
gradually left the lamps and the well-lighted shops behind. Their
way now led along a dreary road by the sea-side, towards the little
bathing-village of Clontarf, beyond which, in a sequestered spot called
the Green Lanes, their humble home stood. It was a long and melancholy
walk; the sorrowful sounds of the sea beating on the shingly strand
mingling with the dreary plashing of the rain; while farther out, a
continuous roar as the waves rolled over the “North Bull,” added all the
terrors of storm to the miseries of the night.
“The winter is setting in early,” said Kellett “I think I never saw a
severer night.”
“A sad time for poor fellows out at sea!” said the girl, as she turned
her head towards the dreary waste of cloud and water now commingled into
one.
“'T is exactly like our own life, out there,” cried he: “a little
glimpse of light glimmering every now and then through the gloom,
but yet not enough to cheer the heart and give courage; but all black
darkness on every side.”
“There will come a daybreak at last,” said the girl, assuredly.
“Faith! I sometimes despair about it in our own case,” said he, sighing
drearily. “To think of what I was once, and what I am now! buffeted
about and ill used by a set of scoundrels that I 'd not have suffered to
sit down in my kitchen. Keep that rag of a shawl across your chest; you
'll be destroyed entirely, Bella.”
“We'll soon be within shelter now, and nothing the worse for this
weather, either of us,” replied she, almost gayly. “Over and over
again have you told me what severe seasons you have braved in the
hunting-field; and, after all, papa, one can surely endure as much for
duty as in pursuit of pleasure,--not to say that our little cottage
never looks more homelike than after a night like this.”
“It's snug enough for a thing of the kind,” murmured he, half
reluctantly.
“And Betty will have such a nice fire for us, and we shall be as
comfortable and as happy as though it were a fine house, and we
ourselves fine folk to live in it.”
“The Kelletts of Kellett's Court, and no better blood in Ireland,” said
he, sternly. “It was in the same house my grandfather, Morgan Kellett,
entertained the Duke of Portland, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and
this day, as I stand here, there isn't a chap in the Castle-yard would
touch his hat to me!”
“And what need have we of them, papa? Will not our pride of good blood
teach us other lessons than repining? Can't we show the world that a
gentleman born bears his altered fortunes with dignity?”
“Ye're right, Bella; that's the very thing they must acknowledge. There
is n't a day passes that I don't make the clerks in the 'Long Room' feel
the difference between us. 'No liberties, no familiarities, my lads,' I
say,--'keep your distance; for, though my coat is threadbare, and my
hat none of the best, the man inside there is Paul Kellett of
Kellett's Court.' And if they ask where that is, I say, 'Look at the
Gazetteer,'--it's mighty few of them has their names there: 'Kellett's
Court, the ancient seat of the Kellett family, was originally built by
Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke.'”
“Well, here we are, papa, in a more humble home; but you'll see how
cheery it will be.”
And so saying, she pushed open a little wicket, and, passing through a
small garden, gained the door of a little one-storied cottage, almost
buried in honeysuckle.
“Yes, Betty, wet through!” said she, laughing, as the old woman held
up her hands in horror; “but get papa his slippers and that warm
dressing-gown, and I 'll be back in a minute.”
“Arrah! why didn't you take a car for her?” said the old woman, with
that familiarity which old and tried service warrants. “Sure the child
will get her death from this!”
“She wouldn't let me; she insisted on walking on her feet.”
“Ayeh, ayeh!” mattered the crone, as she placed his slippers on the
fender, “sure ye oughtn't to mind her. She'd get a fever rather than
cost you a shilling. Look at the shoes she's wearin'.”
“By the good day! you'll drive me mad, clean mad!” cried he, savagely.
“Don't you know in your heart that we have n't got it? Devil a rap
farthing; that we're as poor as a church mouse; that if it wasn't for
this beggarly place----”
“Now, Betty,” cried the girl, entering,--“now for our tea, and that
delicious potato-cake that I see browning there before the fire.”
Poorly, even meanly dressed as she was, there was in her that gentle
look, and graceful, quiet bearing that relieved the sombre aspect of a
room which spoke but too plainly of narrow fortune; and as her father
looked at her, the traces of recent displeasure passed from his face,
and her eyes brightened up, while he said,--
“You bring a blessing with the very sound of your voice, darling.” And
he kissed her twice as he spoke.
“It is so comfortable to be here, and so snug,” said she, seating
herself at his side, “and to know that to-morrow is Sunday, and that we
have our holiday, each of us. Come, papa, confess this little room and
its bright fire are very cheery! And I have got a newspaper for you. I
told Mrs. Hawksey there was nothing such a treat to you as a newspaper,
and she gave me one.”
“Ah! the 'Trumpet of Liberty,'” said he, opening it. “We'll have it
after tea, Bella. Is there anything about our own county in it,--Cork, I
mean?”
“I have not looked in it yet; but we 'll go through it honestly, papa,
for I know how conscientious you are not to lose a paragraph.”
“'T is that same makes a man agreeable in society. You know everything
if you read the papers,--accidents and marriages, the rate of the
money-market, the state of the crops, who is dining with the Queen, and
who is skating on the Serpentine, who is ruined at Newmarket, and who
drowned at sea, and then all about the play-houses and the wonderful
panoramas; so that, let conversation turn how it will, you 're ready for
it, and that 's the reason, Bella, you must go through every bit of it.
It's like hunting, and the very field perhaps you don't try is just the
one you 'd find a fox in!”
“Well, you 'll see. I 'll beat every cover for you!” said she, laughing;
“and Mrs. Hawksey desires to have it back, for there is something about
the Alderman having said or done--I don't know what or where.”
“How I hate the very name of an Alderman!” said Kellett, peevishly;
“regular vagabonds, with gilt coaches and red cloaks, running about
prating of taxes and the pipe-water! The devil a thing I feel harder to
bear in my poverty than to think you 're a visiting governess in an
Alderman's family. Paul Kellett's daughter a visiting governess!”
“And very proud am I to be thought equal to the charge,” said she,
resolutely; “not to say how grateful to you for having enabled me to
undertake it.”
“Myself in the Customs is nothing; that I'd put up with. Many a reduced
gentleman did the same. Sam Crozier was a marker at a billiard-table in
Tralee, and Ennis Magrath was an overseer on the very road he used
to drive his four-in-hand. 'Many a time,' says he, 'I cursed that
fresh-broken stone, but I never thought I 'd be measuring it!' 'T is the
Encumbered Court has brought us all down, Bella, and there's no disgrace
in being ruined with thousands of others. Just begin with the sales of
estates, and tell us who is next for sentence. God forgive me, but I
feel a kind of pleasure in hearing that we 're all swamped together.”
The girl smiled as though the remark were merely uttered in levity and
deserved no more serious notice; but a faint sigh, which she could not
repress, betrayed the sorrow with which she had heard it.
She opened the paper and glanced at its contents. They were as varied
and multifarious as are usually to be found in weekly “channels of
information.” What struck her, however, most was the fact that, turn
where she would, the name of Davenport Dunn was ever conspicuous. Sales
of property displayed him as the chief creditor or petitioner; charities
paraded him as the first among the benevolent; Joint-stock companies
exhibited him as their managing director; mines, and railroads, and
telegraph companies, harbor committees, and boards of all kinds, gave
him the honors of large type; while in the fashionable intelligence from
abroad, his arrivals and departures were duly chronicled, and a letter
of our own correspondent from Venice communicated the details of a
farewell dinner given him, with a “Lord” in the chair, by a number of
those who had so frequently partaken of his splendid hospitalities while
he resided in that city.
“Well--well--well!” said Kellett, with a pause between each
exclamation, “this is more than I can bear. Old Jerry Dunn's son,--the
brat of a boy I remember in the Charter' School! He used to be sent at
Christmas time up to Ely Place, when my father was in town, to get five
shillings for a Christmas-box; and I mind well the day he was asked to
stay and dine with my sister Matty and myself, and he taught us a new
game with six little bits of sticks; how we were to do something, I
forget what,--but I know how it ended,--he won every sixpence we had.
Matty had half a guinea in gold and some tenpenny pieces, and I had, I
think, about fifteen shillings, and sorrow a rap he left us; and, worse
still, I mortgaged my school maps, and got a severe thrashing for having
lost them from Old White in Jervas Street; and poor Matty's doll
was confiscated in the same way, and carried off with a debt of
three-and-fourpence on her head. God forgive him, but he gave us a
sorrowful night, for we cried till daybreak.”
“And did you like him as a playfellow?” asked she.
“Now, that's the strangest thing of all,” said Kellett, smiling.
“Neither Matty nor myself liked him; but he got a kind of influence over
us that was downright fascination. No matter what we thought of doing
before he came, when he once set foot in the room everything followed
his dictation. It was n't that he was overbearing or tyrannical in
the least; just as little could you say that he was insinuating or
nattering; but somehow, by a kind of instinct, we fell into his ways,
and worked out all his suggestions just as if we were mere agents of his
will. Resistance or opposition we never dreamed of while he was present;
but after he was gone away, once or twice there came the thought that
there was something very like slavery in all this submission, and we
began to concert how we might throw off the yoke.
“'I won't play toll-bar any more,' said I, resolutely; 'all my
pocket-money is sure to go before it is over.'
“'And I,' said Matty, 'won't have poor “Mopsy” tried for a murder again;
every time she's hanged, some of the wax comes off her neck.'”
“We encouraged each other vigorously in these resolves; but before he
was half an hour in the house 'Mopsy' had undergone the last sentence
of the law, and I was insolvent.”
“What a clever rogue he must have been!” said Bella, laughing.
“Was n't he clever!” exclaimed Kellett. “You could not say how,--nobody
could say how,--but he saw everything the moment he came into a new
place, and marked every one's face, and knew, besides, the impression he
made on them, just as if he was familiar with them for years.”
“Did you continue to associate with him as you grew up?” asked she.
“No; we only knew each other as children. There was a distressing
thing--a very distressing thing--occurred one day; I'm sure to this very
hour I think of it with sorrow and shame, for I can't believe he had
any blame in it. We were playing in a room next my father's study,
and running every now and then into the study; and there was an
old-fashioned penknife--a family relic, with a long bloodstone
handle--lying on the table; and when the play was over, and Davy, as we
called him, had gone home, this was missing. There was a search made
for it high and low, for my father set great value on it. It was his
great-great-grandmother's, I believe; at all events, no one ever set
eyes on it afterwards, and nothing would persuade my father but that
Davy stole it! Of course he never told us that he thought so, but the
servant did, and Matty and myself cried two nights and a day over it,
and got really sick.
“I remember well; I was working by myself in the garden, Matty was
ill and in bed, when I saw a tall old man, dressed like a country
shopkeeper, shown into the back parlor, where my father was sitting.
There was a bit of the window open, and I could hear that high words
were passing between them, and, as I thought, my father getting the
worst of it; for the old fellow kept repeating, 'You 'll rue it, Mister
Kellett,--you 'll rue it yet!' And then my father said, 'Give him a good
horsewhipping, Dunn; take my advice, and you 'll spare yourself some
sorrow, and save him from even worse hereafter.' I 'll never forget the
old fellow's face as he turned to leave the room. 'Davy will live to pay
you off for this,' said he; 'and if _you 're_ not to the fore, it will
be your children, or your children's children, will have to 'quit the
debt!'
“We never saw Davy from that hour; indeed, we were strictly forbidden
ever to utter his name; and it was only when alone together, that Matty
and I would venture to talk of him, and cry over--and many a time we
did--the happy days when we had him for our playfellow. There was a
species of martyrdom now, too, in his fate, that endeared him the more
to our memories; every play he had invented, every spot he was fond of,
every toy he liked, were hallowed to our minds like relics. At last poor
Matty and I could bear it no longer, and we sat down and wrote a long
letter to Davy, assuring him of our fullest confidence in his honor,
and our broken-heartedness at separation from him. We inveighed
stoutly against parental tyranny, and declared ourselves ready for open
rebellion, if he, that was never deficient in a device, could only point
out the road. We bribed a stable-boy, with all our conjoined resources
of pocket-money, to convey the epistle, and it came back next morning
to my father, enclosed in one from Davy himself, stating that he could
never countenance acts of disobedience, or be any party to a system
by which children should deceive their parents. I was sent off to a
boarding-school the same week, and poor Matty committed to the charge of
Miss Morse, a vinegar-faced old maid, that poisoned the eight best years
of her life!”
“And when did you next hear of him?”
“Of Davy? Let me see; the next time I heard of him was when he attempted
to enter college as a sizar, and failed. Somebody or other mentioned
it at Kellett's Court, and said that old Dunn was half out of his mind,
insisting that some injustice was dealt out to his son, and vowing he 'd
get the member for somewhere to bring the matter before Parliament.
Davy was wiser, however; he persuaded his father that, by agitating the
question, they would only give notoriety to what, if left alone, would
speedily be forgotten; and Davy was right I don't think there's three
men now in the kingdom that remember one word about the sizarship, or,
if they do, that would be influenced by it in any dealings they might
have with Mr. Davenport Dunn.”
“What career did he adopt after that?”
“He became a tutor, I think, in Lord Glengariff's family. There was
some scandal about him there,--I forget it now,--and then he went off
to America, and spent some years there, and in Jamaica, where he was
employed as an overseer, I think; but I can't remember it all. My own
knowledge of him next was seeing the name 'D. Dunn, solicitor,' on a
neat brass-plate in Tralee, and hearing that he was a very acute fellow
in election contests, and well up to dealing with the priests.”
“And now he has made a large fortune?”
“I believe you well; he's the richest man in Ireland. There's scarce a
county he has n't got property in. There's not a town, nor a borough,
where he has n't some influence, and in every class, too,--gentry,
clergy, shopkeepers, people: he has them all with him, and nobody seems
to know how he does it.”
“Pretty much, I suppose, as he used to manage Aunt Matty and yourself
long ago,” said she, laughingly.
“Well, indeed, I suppose so,” said he, with a half sigh; “and if it be,
all I can say is, they 'll be puzzled to find out his secret. He's the
deepest fellow I ever heard or read of; for there he stands to-day,
without name, family, blood, or station, higher than those that had them
all,--able to do more than them; and, what's stranger still, thought
more about in England than the best man amongst us.”
“You have given me quite an interest about him, papa; tell me, what is
he like?”
“He's as tall as myself, but not so strongly built; indeed, he's
slightly round-shouldered; he is dark in the complexion, and has the
blackest hair and whiskers I ever saw, and rather good-looking than
otherwise,--a calm, cold, patient-looking face you'd call it; he speaks
very little, but his voice is soft and low and deliberate, just like one
that would n't throw away a word; and he never moves his hands or arms,
but lets them hang down heavily at either side.”
“And his eyes? Tell me of his eyes?”
“They 're big, black, sleepy-looking eyes, seldom looking up, and never
growing a bit brighter by anything that he says or hears about him.
Indeed, any one seeing him for the first time would say, 'There's a man
whose thoughts are many a mile away; he is n't minding what's going on
about him here.' But that is not the case; there is n't a look, a stir,
nor a gesture that he does n't remark. There 's not a chair drawn closer
to another, not a glance interchanged, that he has n't noticed; and I
've heard it said, 'Many would n't open a letter before him, he's so
sure to guess the contents from just reading the countenance.'”
“The world is always prone to exaggerate such gifts,” said she, calmly.
“So it may be, dear, but I don't fancy it could do so here. He's one of
those men that, if he had been born to high station, would be a great
politician or a great general. You see that, somehow, without any effort
on his part, things come up just as he wished them. I believe, after
all,” said he, with a heavy sigh, “it's just luck! Whatever one man puts
his hand to in this world goes on right and smoothly, and another has
every mishap and misfortune that can befall him. He may strive, and
toil, and fret his brains over it, but devil a good it is. If he is born
to ill luck, it will stick to him.”
“It's not a very cheery philosophy!” said she, gently.
“I suppose not, dear; but what is very cheery in this life, when you
come to find it out? Is n't it nothing but disappointment and vexation?”
Partly to rally him out of this vein of depression, and partly from
motives of curiosity, she once more adverted to Dunn, and asked how it
happened that they crossed each other again in life.
“He's what they call 'carrying the sale' of Kellett's Court, my dear.
You know we 're in the Encumbered Estates now; and Dunn represents Lord
Lackington and others that hold the mortgages over us. The property was
up for sale in November, then in May last, and was taken down by Dunn's
order. I never knew why. It was then, however, he got me this thing in
the Revenue,--this beggarly place of sixty-five pounds a year; and told
me, through his man Hanks,--for I never met himself about it,--that
he 'd take care my interests were not overlooked. After that the Courts
closed, and he went abroad; and that's all there's between us, or,
indeed, likely to be between us; for he never wrote me as much as one
line since he went away, nor noticed any one of my letters, though I
sent him four, or, indeed, I believe, five.”
“What a strange man this must be!” said she, musingly. “Is it supposed
that he has formed any close attachments? Are his friends devoted to
him?”
“Attachments,--friendships! faith, I'm inclined to think it's little
time he'd waste on one or the other. Why, child, if what we hear be
true, he goes through the work of ten men every day of his life.”
“Is he married?” asked she, after a pause.
“No; there was some story about a disappointment he met early in life.
When he was at Lord Glengariff's, I think, he fell in love with one of
the daughters, or she with him,--I never knew it rightly,--but it ended
in his being sent away; and they say he never got over it. Just as if
Davenport Dunn was a likely man either to fall in love or cherish
the memory of a first passion! I wish you saw him, Bella,” said he,
laughing, “and the notion would certainly amuse you.”
“But still men of his stamp have felt--ay, and inspired--the strongest
passions. I remember reading once--” “Reading, my darling,--reading is
one thing, seeing or knowing is another. The fellows that write these
things must invent what is n't likely,--what is nigh impossible,--or
nobody would read it What we see of a man or woman in a book is just the
exact reverse of what we 'll ever find in real life.”
The girl could easily have replied to this assertion; indeed, the answer
was almost on her lips, when she restrained herself, and, hanging down
her head, fell into a musing fit.