Mr. Davenport Dunn had a dinner-party,--he entertained the notables
of the capital; and a chief secretary, a couple of judges, a poor-law
commissioner, and some minor deities, soldier and civilian, formed his
company. They were all social, pleasant, and conversational. The country
was growing governable, calendars were light, military duty a mere
pastime, and they chatted agreeably over reminiscences of a time--not
very remote neither--when Rockites were rife, jails crammed, and
the fatigues and perils of a soldier not inferior to those of actual
warfare.
“To our worthy host here!” said the Chief Baron, eying his claret before
the light,--and it was a comet vintage,--“to our worthy host here are we
indebted for most of this happy change.”
“Under Providence,” whispered the oily Dean of the Chapel Royal.
“Of course, so I mean,” said the judge, with that kind of impatience
he would have met a needless suggestion in court. “Great public
works, stupendous enterprises, and immense expenditure of capital have
encountered rebellion by the best of all methods,--prosperity!”
“Is it really extinct,--has Lazarus died, or is he only sleeping?”
interposed a small dark-eyed man, with a certain air of determination
and a look of defiance that seemed to invite discussion.
“I should, at all events, call it a trance that must lead to
perfect recovery,” said the Chief Secretary. “Ireland is no longer a
difficulty.”
“She may soon become something more,” said the dark man; “instead
of embarrassing your counsels, she may go far towards swaying and
controlling them. The energies that were once wasted in factious
struggles at home here, may combine to carry on a greater combat in
England; and it might even happen that your statesmen might look back
with envy to days of orange-and-green memory.”
“She would gladly welcome the change you speak of.” said the Secretary.
“I'm not so sure of that, sir; you have not already shown yourselves
so very tolerant when tried. It is but a few years ago, and your bar
rebelled at the thought of an Irishman being made Master of the Rolls in
England, and that Irishman, Plunkett.”
“I must say,” burst in the Attorney-General, fresh from his first
session in Parliament, and, more still, his first season in town, “this
is but a prejudice,--an unjust prejudice. I can assert for myself that
I never rose in the House without experiencing a degree of attention,--a
deference, in short--”
“Eminently the right of one whose opinions were so valuable,” said the
Secretary, bowing blandly, and smiling.
“You did not lash them too often nor too much, Hutchard,” said the dark
man. “If I remember aright, you rose once in the session, and that was
to move an adjournment.”
“Ah, Lindley,” said the other, good-humoredly, “you are an unforgiving
enemy.” Then, turning to the Chief Secretary, he said: “He cannot pardon
my efforts, successful as they have been, to enable the Fellows of the
University to marry. He obtained his fellowship as a safe retirement,
and now discovers that his immunity is worth nothing.”
“I beg pardon,” said Lindley; “I have forgiven you long ago. It was from
your arguments in its favor the measure was so long resisted. You are
really blameless in the matter!”
The sharp give and take of these sallies--the fruit of those intimacies
which small localities produce--rather astonished the English officials,
and the Secretary and the Commissioner exchanged glances of significant
import; nor was this lost on the Chief Baron, who, to change the topic,
suddenly asked,--
“Who bought that estate--Kellett's Court, I think they call it--was sold
this morning?”
“I purchased it in trust,” said Dunn, “for an English peer.”
“Does he intend ever to reside there?”
“He talks of it, my Lord,” said Dunn, “the way men talk of something
very meritorious that they mean to do--one day or other.”
“It went, I hear, for half its value,” remarked some one.
“A great deal above that, I assure you,” said Dunn. “Indeed, as property
is selling now, I should not call the price a bad one.”
“Evidently Mr. Kellett was not of your mind,” said the former speaker,
laughing.
“I 'm told he burst into court to-day and abused every one, from the
Bench to the crier, called the sale a robbery, and the judge a knave.”
“Not exactly that. He did, it is true, interrupt the order of the Court,
but the sale was already concluded. He used very violent language, and
so far forgot his respect for the Bench as to incur the penalty of a
committal.”
“And was he committed?” asked the Secretary.
“He was; but rather as a measure of precaution than punishment. The
Court suspected him to be insane.” Here Dunn leaned over and whispered
a few words in the Secretary's ear. “Nor was it without difficulty,”
muttered he, in a low tone. “He continued to inveigh in the most violent
tone against us all; declared he 'd never leave the Jail without a
public apology from the Bench; and, in fact, conducted himself so
extravagantly that I half suspected the judge to be right, and that
there was some derangement in the case.”
“I remember Paul Kellett at the head of the grand jury of his county,”
said one.
“He was high sheriff the first year I went that circuit,” said the
judge.
“And how has it ended?--where is he now?” whispered the Secretary.
“I persuaded him to come home here with me, and after a little calming
down he became reasonable and has gone to his own house, but only within
the last hour. It was that my servant whispered me, when he last brought
in the wine.”
“And I suppose, after all,” said the Poor-Law Commissioner, “there was
nothing peculiar in this instance; his case was one of thousands.”
“Quite true, sir,” said Lindley. “Statistical tables can take no note
of such-like applicants for out-door relief; all are classified as
paupers.”
“It must be acknowledged,” said the Secretary, in a tone of half rebuke,
“that the law has worked admirably; there is but one opinion on that
subject in England.”
“I should be greatly surprised were it otherwise,” said Lindley; “I
never heard that the Cornish fishermen disparaged shipwrecks!”
“Who is that gentleman?” whispered the Secretary to Dunn.
“A gentleman very desirous to be Crown Prosecutor at Melbourne,” said
Dunn, with a smile.
“He expresses himself somewhat freely,” whispered the other.
“Only here, sir,--only here, I assure you. He is our stanchest supporter
in the College.”
“Of course we shall take Sebastopol, sir,” said a colonel from the
end of the table. “The Russians are already on half rations, and their
ammunition is nigh exhausted.” And now ensued a lively discussion of
military events, wherein the speakers displayed as much confidence as
skill.
“It strikes me,” said Lindley, “we are at war with the Emperor Nicholas
for practising pretty much the same policy we approve of so strenuously
for ourselves. He wanted to treat Turkey like an encumbered estate.
There was the impoverished proprietor, the beggared tenantry, the
incapacity for improvement,--all the hackneyed arguments, in fact, for
selling out the Sultan that we employ so triumphantly against the Irish
gentleman.”
“Excuse me,” said the Attorney-General, “he wanted to take forcible
possession.”
“Nothing of the kind. He was as ready to offer compensation as we
ourselves are when we superannuate a clerk or suppress an office. His
sole mistake was that he proposed a robbery at the unlucky moment that
the nation had taken its periodical attack of virtue,--we were in the
height of our honest paroxysm when he asked us to be knaves; and hence
all that has followed.”
“You estimate our national morality somewhat cheaply, sir,” said the
Commissioner.
“As to morals, I think we are good political economists. We buy cheaply,
and endeavor, at least, to sell in the dearest markets.”
“No more wine, thank you,” said the Secretary, rising. “A cup of coffee,
with pleasure.”
It was a part of Davenport Dunn's policy to sprinkle his dinner company
with men like Lindley. They were what physicians call a sort of mild
irritants, and occasionally very useful in their way; but, in the
present instance, he rather suspected that the application had been
pushed too far, and he approached the Secretary in the drawing-room with
a kind of half apology for his guest.
“Ireland,” said he, “has always possessed two species of place-hunters:
the one, patiently supporting Government for years, look calmly for the
recognition of their services as a debt to be paid; the other, by an
irritating course of action, seem to indicate how vexatious and annoying
they may prove if not satisfactorily dealt with. Lindley is one of
these, and he ought to be provided for.”
“I declare to you, Dunn,” said the Secretary, as he drew his arm within
the other's, and walked with him into the back drawing-room, “these
kind of men make government very difficult in Ireland. There is no
reserve--no caution about them. They compromise one at every step.
You are the only Irishman I ever met who would seem to understand the
necessity of reserve.”
Dunn bowed twice. It was like the acknowledgment of what he felt to be a
right.
“I go further,” said the other, warming; “you are the only man here
who has given us real and effective support, and yet never asked for
anything.”
“What could I wish for better than to see the country governed as it
is?” said Dunn, courteously.
“All are not inspired so patriotically, Dunn. Personal advantages have
their influence on most men.”
“Of course,--naturally enough. But I stand in no need of aid in this
respect I don't want for means. I could n't, if you offered it, take
office; my hands are too full already, and of work which another
might not be able to carry out. Rank, of course--distinction--” and he
stopped, and seemed confused.
“Well, come, we might meet you there, Dunn,” said the other, coaxingly.
“Be frank with me. What do you wish for?”
“My family is of humble origin, it is true,” said Dunn; “but, without
invidious reflection, I might point to some others--” Again he
hesitated.
“_That_ need not be an obstacle,” said the Secretary.
“Well, then, on the score of fortune, there are some poorer than myself
in--in--” He stopped again.
“Very few as wealthy, I should say, Dunn,--very few, indeed. Let me only
know your wishes. I feel certain how they will be treated.”
“I am aware,” said Dunn, with some energy, “that you incur the risk of
some attack in anything you would do for me. I am necessarily in scant
favor with a large party here. They would _assail you_, they would
_vilify me_; but that would pass over. A few weeks--a few months at
furthest--”
“To be sure,--perfectly correct It would be mere momentary clamor. Sir
Davenport Dunn, Baronet, would survive--”
“I beg pardon,” said Dunn, in a voice tremulous with emotion. “I don't
think I heard you aright; I trust, at least, I did not.”
The Secretary looked quickly in his face, and saw it pale, the lips
slightly quivering, and the brow contracted.
“I was saying,” said he, in a voice broken and uncertain, “that I 'm
sure the Premier would not refuse to recommend you to her Majesty for a
baronetcy.”
“May I make so bold as to ask if you have already held any conversation
with the Minister on this subject?”
“None, whatever. I assure you, most solemnly, that I have no
instructions on the subject, nor have I ever had any conversation with
him on the matter.”
“Then let me beg you to forget what has just passed between us. It is,
after all, mere chit-chat. That's a Susterman's, that portrait you are
looking at,” said he, eager to change the topic. “It is said to be a
likeness of Bianca Capello.”
“A very charming picture, indeed; purchased, I suppose, in your last
visit abroad.”
“Yes; I bought it at Verona. Its companion, yonder, was a present from
the Archduke Stephen, in recognition, as he was gracious enough to call
it, of some counsels I had given the Government engineers about drainage
in Hungary. Despotic governments, as we like to term them, have this
merit, at least,--they confer acts of munificent generosity.”
The Secretary muttered an assent, and looked confused.
“I reaped a perfect harvest of crosses and decorations,” continued Dunn,
“during my tour. I have got cordons from countries I should be puzzled
to point out on the map, and am a noble in almost every land of Europe
but my own.”
“Ours is the solitary one where the distinction is not a mere title,”
said the other, “and, consequently, there are graver considerations
about conferring it than if it were a mere act of courtesy.”
“Where power is already acquired there is often good policy in
legitimatizing it,” said Dunn, gravely. “They say that even the Church
of Rome knows how to affiliate a heresy.--Well, Clowes, what is it?”
asked he of the butler, who stood awaiting a favorable moment to address
him. He now drew nigh, and whispered some words in his ear.
“But you said I was engaged--that I had company with me?” said Dunn, in
reply.
“Yes, sir, but she persisted in saying that if I brought up her name you
would certainly see her, were it but for a moment This is her card.”
“Miss Kellett,” said Dunn to himself. “Very well. Show her into the
study, I will come down.--It is the daughter of that unfortunate
gentleman we were speaking of awhile ago,” said he, showing the card.
“I suppose some new disaster has befallen him. Will you excuse me for a
moment?”
As Dunn slowly descended the stairs, a very strange conflict was at
work within him. From his very boyhood there had possessed him a stern
sentiment of vengeance against the Kellett family. It was the daily
lesson his father repeated to him. It grew with his years, and vague
and unmeaning as it appeared, it had the force of an instinct. His own
memory failed him as to all the circumstances of an early insult, but
enough remained to make him know that he had been ignominiously treated
and expelled from the house. In the great career of his life, with
absorbing cares and high interests around him, he had little time for
such memories, but in moments of solitude or of depression the thought
would come up, and a sense of vindictive pleasure fill him, as he
remembered, in the stern words of his father, where was _he_, and where
were _they?_ In the protection he had that very day assumed to throw
over Kellett in the Court, there was the sentiment of an insolent
triumph; and here was again the daughter of the once proud man
supplicating an interview with him.
These were his thoughts as he entered the room where Sybella Kellett was
standing near the fire. She had taken off her bonnet, and as her long
hair fell down, and her dripping clothes clung to her, the picture of
poverty and destitution her appearance conveyed revolted against the
sentiment which had so lately filled him, and it was in a voice of
gentle meaning he asked her to be seated.
“Can you tell me of my father, sir?” said she, eagerly, and not heeding
his words; “he left home early this morning, and has never returned.”
“I can tell you everything, Miss Kellett,” said he, in a kind voice. “It
will reassure you at once when I say he is well. Before this he is at
home again.”
The young girl clasped her hands closely, and her pale lips murmured
some faint words.
“In a moment of excitement this morning he said something to offend the
Court. It was an emergency to try a calmer temper, perhaps, than his;
indeed, he ought not to have been there; at all events, he was betrayed
into expressions which could not be passed over in mere silence, and he
was committed--”
“To prison?” said she, faintly.
“Yes, he was taken into custody, but only for a few hours. I obtained
his release soon after the Court rose. The difficulty was to make him
accept of his liberation. Far from having calmed down, his passion had
only increased, and it was only after much entreaty that he consented to
leave the jail and come here with me. In fact, it was under the pretence
of drawing up a formal protest against his arrest that he did come, and
he has been employed in this manner till about an hour ago, when one of
my clerks took charge of him to convey him home. A little quietness and
a little rest will restore him perfectly, however, and I have no doubt
to-morrow or next day will leave no trace of this excitement.”
“You have been most kind,” said she, rising, “and I am very grateful for
it. We owe much to you already, and this last but increases the debt.”
Dunn stood silently contemplating her, as she replaced her bonnet and
prepared for the road. At last he said, “Have you come all this way on
foot and alone?”
“On foot, but not alone; a comrade of my brother's--a fellow-soldier of
his--kindly gave me his escort. He is waiting for me now without.”
“Oh, then, the adventure has had its compensation to a certain degree,”
said Dunn, with a smile of raillery.
“Either I do not understand you, or you mistake me,--which is it?” said
she, boldly.
“My dear young lady,” said Dunn, hastily, “do not let me offend you.
There is everything in what you have done this night to secure you
respect and esteem. We live in a time when there is wonderfully little
of personal devotion; and commonplace men like myself may well misjudge
its sacrifices.”
“And yet it is precisely from you I should have expected the reverse. If
great minds are tainted with littleness, where are we to look for high
and noble sentiments?” She moved towards the door as she spoke; and
Dunn, anticipating her, said,--
“Do not go for a moment; let me offer you some refreshment, even a glass
of wine. Well, then, your friend? It is scarcely courteous to leave him
outside in such weather.”
“Pray forgive me not accepting your offer; but I am impatient to be at
home again. My father, too, will be distressed at my absence.”
“But I will send my carriage with you; you shall not walk,” said he,
ringing the bell.
“Do not think me ungrateful, but I had rather return as I came. You have
no idea, sir, how painfully kindness comes to hearts like ours. A sense
of pride sustains us through many a trial; break down this, and we are
helpless.”
“Is it that you will accept nothing at my hands,--even the most
commonplace of attentions? Well, I'll try if I cannot be more fortunate
elsewhere;” and so saying, he hurried at once from the room. Before
Sybella could well reflect on his words, he was back again, followed by
Charles Conway.
“Miss Kellett was disposed to test your Crimean habits again, my good
fellow,” said Dunn, “by keeping you out there under this terrible rain,
and I perceive you have got some rough treatment already;” and he
looked at the armless sleeve of his jacket.
“Yes,” said Conway, laughing, “a piece of Russian politeness!”
Few as were the words, the tone and manner of the speaker struck Dunn
with astonishment, and he said,--
“Have you been long in the service?”
“Some years,” was the short reply.
“It's very strange,” said Dunn, regarding him fixedly, “but your
features are quite familiar to me. You are very like a young officer
who cut such a dash here formerly,--a spendthrift fellow, in a Lancer
regiment.”
“Pray don't involve yourself in any difficulty,” said Conway, “for,
perhaps--indeed, I 'm convinced--you are describing myself.”
“Conway, of the Twelfth?”
“The same, at your service,--at least, in so far as being ruined and
one-armed means the same with the fellow who had a good fortune, and two
hands to scatter it.”
“I must go. I 'm impatient to be away,” said Sybella, eagerly.
“Then there is the carriage at the door,” said Dunn. “This time I have
resolved to have my way;” and he gave her his arm courteously to conduct
her.
“Could you call upon me to-morrow--could you breakfast with me, Mr.
Conway?” said Dunn, as he gave him his hand at parting; “my request is
connected with a subject of great importance to yourself.”
“I 'm your man,” said Conway, as he followed Sybella into the carriage.
And away they drove.