Let us now return to the Hermitage, and the quiet lives of those who
dwelt there. Truly, to the traveller gazing down from some lofty point
of the Glengariff road upon that lowly cottage deep buried in its beech
wood, and only showing rare glimpses of its trellised walls, nothing
could better convey the idea of estrangement from the world and its
ambitions. From the little bay, where the long low waves swept in
measured cadence on the sands, to the purple-clad mountains behind, the
scene was eminently calm and peaceful. The spot was precisely one to
suggest the wisdom of that choice which prefers tranquil obscurity to
the struggle and conflict of the great world. What a happy existence
would you say was theirs, who could drop down the stream of a life
surrounded with objects of such beauty, free to indulge each rising
fancy, and safe from all the collisions of mankind!--how would one be
disposed to envy the unbroken peacefulness that no ambitions ruffled, no
rude disappointments disturbed! And yet such speculations as these are
ever faulty, and wherever the human heart throbs, there will be found
its passions, its hopes and fears. Beneath that quiet roof there dwelt
all the elements that make the battle of life; and high aspirings and
ignoble wishes, and love and fear, and jealousy, and wealth-seeking
lived there, as though the spot were amidst the thundering crash of
crowded streets and the din of passing thousands!
Sybella Kellett had been domesticated there about two months,
and between Lady Augusta and herself there had grown a sort of
intimacy,--short, indeed, of friendship, but in which each recognized
good qualities in the other.
Had Miss Kellett been older, less good-looking, less grace-ful in
manner, or generally less attractive, it is just possible that--we say
it with all doubt and deference--Lady Augusta might have been equally
disposed to feel satisfied. She suspected “Mr. Dunn must have somewhat
mistaken the object of her note,” or “overlooked the requirements they
sought for.” Personal attractions were not amongst the essentials she
had mentioned. “My Lord,” too, was amazed at his recommending a
“mere girl,”--she couldn't be more than “twenty,”--and, consequently,
“totally deficient in the class of knowledge he desired.”
Two months,--no very long period,--however, sufficed to show both father
and daughter that they had been, to some extent, mistaken. Not only had
she addressed herself to the task of an immense correspondence, but
she had drawn out reports, arranged prospectuses, and entered into most
complicated financial details with a degree of clearness that elicited
marked compliment from the different bodies with whom this intercourse
was maintained. The Glengariff Joint Stock Company, with its
half-million capital, figured largely in the public journals. Landscapes
of the place appeared in the various illustrated papers, and cleverly
written magazine articles drew attention to a scheme that promised to
make Ireland a favored portion of the empire. Her interest once excited,
Sybella Kellett's zeal was untiring.
Already she anticipated the time when the population of that poor
village--now barely subsisting in direst poverty--should become thriving
and happy. The coast-fisheries--once a prolific source of wealth--were
to be revived; fishing-craft and tackle and curing-houses were all to
be provided; means of transporting the proceeds to the rich markets
of England procured; she had also discovered traces of lead in the
neighborhood; and Dunn was written to, to send down a competent person
to investigate the matter. In fact, great as was her industry, it seemed
only second to an intelligence that adapted itself to every fresh demand
and every new exigency, without a moment's interruption. To the old Lord
her resources appeared inexhaustible, and gradually he abandoned the
lead and guidance he had formerly given to his plans, and submitted
everything to her will and dictation. It did not, indeed, escape his
shrewdness that her zeal was more warmly engaged by the philanthropy
than by the profit of these projects. It was to the advancement of the
people, the relief of their misery, the education of their children, the
care of their sick, that she looked as the great reward of all that
they proposed. “What a lesson we shall teach the rest of Ireland if we
'succeed'!” was the constant exclamation she uttered. “How we shall be
sought after to explain this and reveal that! What a proud day for us
will it be when Glengariff shall be visited as the model school of the
empire!”
Thus fed and fostered by her hopes, her imagination knew no bounds,
and the day seemed even too short for the duties it exacted. Even Lady
Augusta could not avoid catching some of the enthusiasm that animated
her, only restraining her expectations, however, by the cautious remark,
“I wonder what Mr. Dunn will say. I am curious to know how he will
pronounce upon it all.”
The day at last came when this fact was to be ascertained, and the post
brought the brief but interesting intelligence that Mr. Davenport Dunn
would reach the Hermitage for dinner.
Lord Glengariff would have felt excessively offended could any one have
supposed him anxious or uneasy on the score of Dunn's coming. That a
great personage like himself should be compelled occasionally in life
to descend to the agencies of such people was bad enough, but that he
should have any misgivings about his co-operation or assistance, was
really intolerable; and yet, we blush to confess, these were precisely
the thoughts which troubled his Lordship throughout the whole of that
long day.
“Not that Dunn has ever forgotten himself with _me_,--not that he has
ever shown himself unmindful of our respective stations,--so much I must
say,” were the little scraps of consolation that he repeated over and
over to himself, while grave doubts really oppressed him that we had
fallen upon evil days, when men of that stamp usurped almost all the
influence that swayed society. No easy matter was it, either, to resolve
what precise manner to assume towards him. A cold and dignified bearing
might possibly repel all confidence, and an easy familiarity be just
as dangerous as surrendering the one great superiority his position
conferred. It was true his Lordship had never yet experienced any
difficulty on such a score,--of all men, he possessed a consummate sense
of his own dignity, and suffered none to infringe it; but “this fellow
Dunn had been spoiled.” Great men--greater men than Lord Glengariff
himself--had asked him to dinner. He had passed the thresholds of
certain fine houses in Piccadilly, and well-powdered lackeys in Park
Lane had called “Mr. Dunn's carriage.” Now, the Irishman that has soared
to the realm of whitebait with a minister, or even a Star and Garter
luncheon with a Secretary of State, becomes, to the eyes of his
home-bred countrymen, a very different person from the celebrity of mere
Castle attentions and Phoenix Park civilities. Dunn was this, and more.
He lounged into the Irish Office as into his own lodgings, and he
walked into the most private chambers of Downing Street as if by right.
Consulted or not, he had the reputation of holding the patronage of all
Ireland in his hands; and assuredly they who attained promotion were not
slow in testifying to what quarter they owed their gratitude. Some of
that mysterious grandeur that clung to the old religions of the Greeks
seems to hover round the acts of a great Government, till the Ministers,
like Priests or Augurs, appear less equals and fellow-men than stewards
and dispensers of immense bounties intrusted to their keeping. There was
about Dunn's manner much to foster this illusion. He was a blending of
mystery with the deepest humility, but with a very evident desire that
you should neither believe one nor the other. It was the same conscious
power looming through the affected modesty of his pretensions that
offended Lord Glengariff, and made him irritable in all his intercourse
with him.
Let us take a passing glance at Lady Augusta. And why, may we ask, has
she taken such pains about her toilette to-day? Not that her dress is
unusually rich or costly, but she has evidently made a study of the
“becoming,” and looks positively handsome. She remembered something of a
fuchsia in her hair, long, long ago; and now, by mere caprice of course,
she has interwoven one in those dark clusters, never glossier nor
more silky. Her calm, cold features, too, have caught up a gentler
expression, and her voice is softer and lower. Her maid can make nothing
of it. Lady Augusta has been so gracious and so thoughtful, and asked
about her poor old sick grandmother. Well, these sunlights are meant to
show what the coldest landscapes may become when smiled on by brighter
skies!
And Sybella. Pale and melancholy, and in mourning, she, too, has caught
up a sense of pleasure at the coming visit, and a faint line of color
tinges her white cheek. She is very glad that Mr. Dunn is expected. “She
has to thank him for many kindnesses; his prompt replies to her letters;
his good nature to poor Jack, for whom he has repeatedly written to the
Horse Guards; not to speak of the words of encouragement and hope he has
addressed to herself. Yes, he is, indeed, her friend; perhaps her only
friend in the world.”
And now they are met in the drawing-room, waiting with anxiety for some
sounds that may denote the great man's coming. The three windows open to
the ground; the rich sward, spangled here and there with carnations or
rich-scented stocks, slopes down towards a little river, from the bridge
over which a view is caught of the Glen-gariff road; and to this spot
each as silently loitered, and as listlessly turned back again without a
word.
“We are waiting for Mr. Dunn, Augusta, ain't we?” asked Lord Glengariff,
as if the thought had just suddenly struck him for the first time.
“Yes,” replied she, gravely; “he promised us his company to-day at
dinner.”
“Are you quite sure it was to-day he mentioned?” said he, with an
affected indifference in his tone.
“Miss Kellett can inform us with certainty.”
“He said Thursday, and in time for dinner,” said Sybella, not a little
puzzled by this by-play of assumed forgetfulness.
“The man who makes his own appointments ought to keep them. I am five
minutes beyond the half-hour,” said Lord Glengariff, as he looked at his
watch.
“I suspect you are a little fast,” observed Lady Augusta.
“There!--I think I heard the crack of a postilion's whip,” cried
Sybella, as she went outside the window to listen. Lady Augusta
followed, and was soon at her side.
“You appear anxious for Mr. Dunn's coming. Is he a _very_ intimate
friend of yours, Miss Kellett?” said she, with a keen, quick glance of
her dark eyes.
“He was the kind friend of my father, when he lived, and, since his
death, he has shown himself not less mindful of me. There--I hear the
horses plainly! Can't you hear them now, Lady Augusta?”
“And how was this kindness evidenced,--in your own case I mean?” said
Lady Augusta, not heeding her question.
“By advice, by counsel, by the generous interference which procured for
me my present station here, not to speak of the spirit of his letters to
me.”
“So then you correspond with him?” asked she, reddening suddenly.
“Yes,” said she, turning her eyes fully on the other. And thus they
stood for some seconds, when, with a slight, but very slight, motion of
impatience, Lady Augusta said,--
“I was not aware--I mean, I don't remember your having mentioned this
circumstance to me.”
“I should have done so if I thought it could have had any interest for
you,” said Sybella, calmly. “Oh, there is the carriage coming up the
drive; I knew I was not mistaken.”
Lady Augusta made no reply, but returned hastily to the house. Bella
paused for a few seconds, and followed her.
No sooner was Mr. Dunn's carriage seen approaching the little bridge
over the stream than Lord Glengariff rang to order dinner.
“It will be a rebuke he well merits,” said he, “to find the soup on the
table as he drives up.”
There was something more than a mere movement of irritation in this;
his Lordship regarded it as a fine stroke of policy, by which Dunn's
arrival, tinged with constraint and awkwardness, should place that
gentleman at a disadvantage during the time he stayed, Lord Glengariff's
favorite theory being that “these people were insufferable when at their
ease.”
Ah, my Lord, your memory was picturing the poor tutor of twenty years
before, snubbed and scoffed at for his ungainly ways and ill-made
garments,--the man heavy in gait and awkward in address, sulky when
forgotten, and shy when spoken to,--this was the Davenport Dunn of your
thoughts; there the very door _he_ used to creep through in bashful
confusion, yonder the side-table where he dined in a mockery of
consideration. Little, indeed, were you prepared for him whose assured
voice was already heard outside giving orders to his servant, and who
now entered the drawing-room with all the ease of a man of the world.
“Ah, Dunn, most happy to see you here. No accident, I trust, occurred
to detain you,” said Lord Glengariff, meeting him with a well-assumed
cordiality, and then, not waiting for his reply, went on: “My daughter,
Lady Augusta, an old acquaintance--if you have not forgotten her. Miss
Kellett you are acquainted with.”
Mr. Dunn bowed twice, and deeply, before Lady Augusta, and then, passing
across the room, shook hands warmly with Sybella.
“How did you find the roads, Dunn?” asked his Lordship, still fishing
about for some stray word of apology; “rather heavy, I fear, at this
season.”
“Capital roads, my Lord, and excellent horses. We came along at a rate
which would have astonished the lumbering posts of the Continent.”
“Dinner, my Lord,” said the butler, throwing wide the folding-doors.
“Will you give Lady Augusta your arm, Dunn?” said Lord Glengariff, as he
offered his own to Miss Kellett.
“We have changed our dinner-room, Mr. Dunn,” said Lady Augusta, as they
walked along; thus by a mere word suggesting “bygones and long ago.”
“And with advantage, I should say,” replied he, easily, as he surveyed
the spacious and lofty apartment into which they had just entered. “The
old dinner-room was low-ceilinged and gloomy.”
“Do you really remember it?” asked she, with a pleasant smile.
“An over-good memory has accompanied me through life, Lady Augusta,”
said he. And then, as he remarked the rising color of her cheek,
quickly added, “It is rarely that the faculty treats me to such grateful
recollections as the present.”
Lord Glengariffs table was a good specimen of country-house living. All
the materials were excellent, and the cookery reasonably good; his wine
was exquisite,--the years and epochs connoisseurship loves to dwell
upon; but Mr. Dunn ate sparingly and drank little. He had passed forty
without gourmand tastes, and no man takes to epicurism after that. His
Lordship beheld, not without secret dissatisfaction, his curdiest salmon
declined, his wonderful “south-down” sent away scarcely tasted, and,
horror of horrors! saw water mixed with his 1815 claret as if it were a
“little Bordeaux wine” at a Swiss _table d'hôte_.
“Mr. Dunn has no appetite for our coarse country fare, Augusta,” said
Lord Glengariff; “you must take him over the cliffs, to-morrow, and let
him feel the sharp Glengariff air. There's nothing but hunger for it.”
“Pardon me, my Lord, if I say that I accept with gratitude the proposed
remedy, though I don't acknowledge a just cause for it. I am always a
poor eater.”
“Tell him of Beverley, Augusta, tell him of Beverley,” said my Lord.
“Oh, it was simply a case similar to your own,” said she, hesitatingly,
“and, in all probability, incurred in the same way. The Duke of
Beverley, a very hard-worked man, as you know, always at Downing Street
at ten, and never leaving it till night, came here two years ago, to
pass a few weeks with us, and although hale and stout, to look at, could
eat nothing,--that is, he cared for nothing. It was in vain we put in
requisition all our little culinary devices to tempt him; he sat down
with us, and, like yourself, would fain persuade us that he dined, but
he really touched nothing; and, in utter despair, I determined to try
what a course of open air and exercise would do.”
“She means eight hours a day hard walking, Dunn,” chimed in Lord
Glengariff; “a good grouse-shooter's pace, too, and cross country.”
“Well, confess that my remedy succeeded,” said she, triumphantly.
“That it did. The Duke went back to town fifteen years younger. No one
knew him; the Queen did not know him. And to this day he says, 'Whenever
I'm hipped or out of sorts, I know what a resource I have in the
Glengariff heather.'”
It is possible that Davenport Dunn listened with more of interest to
this little incident because the hero of it was a Duke and a Cabinet
Minister.
Assuredly the minor ills of life, the petty stomachic miseries, and such
like, are borne with a more becoming patience when we know that they are
shared by peers and great folk. Not by _you_, valued reader, nor even by
_me_,--we have no such weaknesses,--but by the Davenport Dunns of this
world, one of whom we are now treating. It was pleasant, too, to feel
that he not only had a ducal ailment, but that he was to be cured like
his Grace! And so he listened eagerly, as Lady Augusta went on to tell
of the various localities, strange and unpronounceable, that they used
to visit, and how his Grace loved to row across such an arm of the lake,
and what delight he took in the ascent of such a mountain. “But you
shall judge for yourself, Mr. Dunn,” said she, smiling, “and I now
engage you for to-morrow, after breakfast.” And with that she rose, and,
accompanied by Sybella, passed into the drawing-room. Dunn was about to
follow, when Lord Glengariff called out, “I'm of the old school, Dunn,
and must have half an hour with my bottle before I join the ladies.”
We do not stop to explain--perhaps we should not succeed to our wishes
if we tried--why it was that Dunn was more genial, better satisfied, and
more at his ease than when the dinner began; but so it was that as he
filled the one glass of claret be meant to indulge in, he felt that he
had been exaggerating to his own mind the disagreeables of this visit,
and that everybody was kinder, pleasanter, and more natural than he had
expected.
“Jesting apart, Dunn,” said his Lordship, “Augusta is right. What you
require is rest,--perfect repose; never to read or write a letter
for three weeks, not look at a newspaper, nor receive a telegraphic
despatch. Let us try if Glengariff cannot set you up. The fact is, we
can't spare you.”
“Your opinion is too flattering by half, my Lord; but really, any
one--I mean any one whose views are honest, and whose intentions are
upright--can complete the work I have begun. There is no secret,--no
mystery in it.”
“Come, come, this is over-modest. We all know that your head alone
could carry on the vast number of these great schemes which are now
in operation amongst us. Could you really tell the exact number of
companies of which you are Director?”
“I 'm afraid to say that I could,” said Dunn, smiling.
“Of course you could n't. It is marvellous, downright marvellous, how
you get through it. You rise early, of course?”
“Yes, my Lord, at five, summer and winter; light my own fire, and
sit down to the desk till eight; by that time I have finished my
correspondence on business topics. I then take a cup of tea and a little
dry toast. This is my preparation for questions of politics, which
usually occupy me till eleven. From that hour till three I receive
deputations,--heads of companies, and such like. I then take my ride,
weather permitting, and usually contrive to call at the Lodge, till nigh
dinner-hour. If alone, my meal is a frugal one, and soon despatched;
and then begins the real work of the day. A short nap of twenty minutes
refreshes me, and I address myself with energy to my task. In these
quiet hours, undisturbed and uninterrupted,--for I admit none, not
one, at such seasons,--my mind is clear and unclouded, and I can work,
without a sense of fatigue, till past midnight; it has even happened
that morning has broke upon me without my being aware of it.”
“No health, no constitution, could stand that, Dunn,” said Lord
Glengariff, with a voice artfully modulated to imply deep interest.
“Men are mere relays on the road of life; when one sinks, wearied
or worn out, a fresh one comes forth ready to take his place in the
traces.”
“That may be--that may be, in the mass of cases; but there are
exceptional men, Dunn,--men who--men, in fact, whose faculties have such
an adaptiveness to the age we live in--do you perceive my meaning?--men
of the situation, as the French say.” Here his Lordship began to feel
that he was getting upon very ticklish ground, and by no means sure how
he was to get safely back again, when, with a violent plunge, he said,
“That fellow Washington was one of those men, Louis Napoleon is another,
and you--I don't hesitate to say it--you are also an instance of what I
mean.”
Dunn's pale face flushed up as he muttered some broken words of
depreciating meaning.
“The circumstances, I am aware, are different. You have not to
revolutionize a country, but you have undertaken just as hard a task: to
remodel its social state,--to construct out of the ruined materials of
a bankrupt people the elements of national wealth and greatness. Let
no man tell me, sir, that this is not a bolder effort than the other.
Horse, foot, and dragoons, as poor Grattan used to say, won't aid
you here. To your own clear head and your own keen intellect must you
trust.”
“My dear Lord,” broke in Dunn, in a voice not devoid of emotion, “you
exaggerate both my labor and my capacity. I saw that the holders of
Irish property were not the owners, and I determined that they should
be so. I saw that the people were improvident, less from choice than
necessity, and I gave them banks. I saw land unproductive for want of
capital, and I established the principle of loans for drainage and other
improvements. I perceived that our soil and our climate favor certain
species of cultivation, and as certainly deny some others. I popularized
this knowledge.”
“And you call this nothing! Why, sir, where's the statesman can point
to such a list of legislative acts? Peel himself has left no such legacy
behind him.”
“Ah, my Lord, this is too flattering,--too flattering by half.” And Dunn
sipped his wine and looked down. “By the way, my Lord,” said he, after
a pause, “how has my recommendation in the person of Miss Kellett
succeeded?”
“A very remarkable young woman,--a singularly gifted person indeed,”
said the old Lord, pompously. “Some of her ideas are tinctured, it
is true, with that canting philanthropy we are just now infected
with,--that tendency to discover all the virtue in rags and all the
vice in purple; but, with this abatement to her utility, I must say she
possesses a very high order of mind. She comes of a good family, doesn't
she?”
“None better. The Kelletts of Kellett's Court were equal to any gentry
in this county.”
“And left totally destitute?”
“A mere wreck of the property remains, and even that is so cumbered with
claims and so involved in law that I scarcely dare to say that they have
an acre they can call their own.”
“Poor girl! A hard case,--a very hard case. We like her much, Dunn. My
daughter finds her very companionable; her services, in a business point
of view, are inestimable. All those reports you have seen are hers, all
those drawings made by her hand.”
“I am aware, my Lord, how much zeal and intelligence she has displayed,”
said Dunn, who had no desire to let the conversation glide into the
great Glengariff scheme, “and I am also aware how gratefully she feels
the kindness she has met with under this roof.”
“That is as it should be, Dunn, and I am rejoiced to hear it. It is in
no spirit of self-praise I say it, but in simple justice,--we do--my
daughter and myself, both of us--do endeavor to make her feel that her
position is less that of dependant than--than--companion.”
“I should have expected nothing less from your Lordship nor Lady
Augusta,” said Dunn, gravely.
“Yes, yes; you knew Augusta formerly; you can appreciate her high-minded
and generous character, though I think she was a mere child when you saw
her first.”
“Very young indeed, my Lord,” said Dunn, coloring faintly.
“She is exactly, however, what she then promised to be,--an Arden, a
genuine Arden, sir; no deceit, no double; frank, outspoken; too much so,
perhaps, for our age of mock courtesy, but a noble-hearted girl, and one
fit to adorn any station.”
There was an honest, earnest sincerity in the old Lord's manner that
made Dunn listen with respect to the sentiments be uttered, though
in his heart the epithet “girl,” as applied to Lady Augusta, seemed
somewhat ill chosen.
“I see you take no wine, so that, if you have no objection, we'll join
the ladies.”
“Your Lordship was good enough to tell me that I was to make myself
perfectly at home here; may I begin at once to avail myself of your
kindness, and say that for this evening I beg to retire early? I have a
number of letters to read, and some to answer.”
“Really, Lady Augusta will feel quite offended if you slight her
tea-table.”
“Nay, my Lord. It is only for this evening, and I am sure you will make
my excuses becomingly.”
“It shall be as you please,” said the old Lord, with a rather stiff
courtesy.
“Thank you, my Lord; thank you. I assure you it is very rarely the
sacrifice to duty costs me so keenly. Goodnight.”