It was past midnight when Davenport Donn reached his own house. His
return was unexpected, and it was some time before he gained admission.
The delay, however, did not excite his impatience; his head was so
deeply occupied with cares and thoughts for the future that he was
scarcely conscious of the time he had been kept waiting.
Mr. Clowes, hurriedly summoned from his bed, came up full of apologies
and excuses.
“We did not expect you till to-morrow, sir, by the late packet,” said
he, in some confusion. Dunn made no answer, and the other went on: “Mr.
Hankes, too, thought it not improbable you would not be here before
Wednesday.”
“When was he here?”
“To-day sir; he left that oak box here this morning, and those letters,
sir.”
While Dunn carelessly turned over the superscriptions, among which he
found none to interest him, Clowes repeatedly pressed his master to take
some supper, or at least a biscuit and a glass of dry sherry.
“Send for Mr. Hankes,” said Dunn, at last, not condescending to notice
the entreaties of his butler. “Let him wait for me here when he comes.”
And so saying, he took a candle and passed upstairs.
Mr. Clowes was too well acquainted with his master's temper to obtrude
unseasonably upon him, so that he glided noiselessly away till such time
as he might be wanted.
When Dunn entered the drawing-room, he lighted the candles of the
candelabra over the chimney and some of those which occupied the
branches along the walls, and then, turning the key in the door, sat
down to contemplate the new and splendid decorations of the apartment.
The task had been confided to skilful hands, and no more attempted than
rooms of moderate size and recent architecture permitted. The walls,
of a very pale green, displayed to advantage a few choice
pictures,--Italian scenes by Turner, a Cuyp or two, and a Mieris,--all
of them of a kind to interest those who had no connoisseurship to
be gratified. A clever statuette of the French Emperor, a present
graciously bestowed by himself, stood on a console of malachite, and
two busts of Whig statesmen occupied brackets at either side of a vast
mirror. Except these, there was little ornament, and the furniture
seemed rather selected for the indulgence of ease and comfort than
for show or display. A few bronzes, some curious carvings in ivory, an
enamelled miniature, and some illuminated missals were scattered about
amongst illustrated books and aquarelles, but in no great profusion; nor
was there that indiscriminate litter which too frequently imparts to
the salon the character of a curiosity-shop. The rooms, in short, were
eminently habitable.
Over the chimney in the back drawing-room was a clever sketch, by
Thorburn, of Lady Augusta Arden. She was in a riding-habit, and standing
with one hand on the mane of an Arab pony,--a beautiful creature
presented to her by Dunn. While he stood admiring the admirable
likeness, and revolving in his mind the strange traits of that
thoughtfulness which had supplied the picture,--for it was all Sybella
Kellett's doing, every detail of the decorations, the color of the
walls, the paintings, even to the places they occupied, had all been
supplied by her,--Dunn started, and a sudden sickness crept over him. On
a little table beside the fireplace stood a small gold salver, carved by
Cellini, and which served to hold a few objects, such as coins and
rings and antique gems. What could it be, then, amidst these century-old
relics, which now overcame and so unmanned him that he actually
grew pale as death, and sank at last, trembling, into a seat, cold
perspiration on his face, and his very lips livid?
Mixed up amid the articles of _virtù_ on that salver was an
old-fashioned penknife with a massive handle of bloodstone, to which
a slip of paper was attached, containing two or three words in Miss
Kellett's hand. Now, the sight of this article in that place so overcame
Dunn that it was some minutes ere he could reach out his hand to take
the knife. When giving to Miss Kellett the charge of several rare and
valuable objects, he had intrusted her with keys to certain drawers,
leaving to her own judgment the task of selection. He had totally
forgotten that this knife was amongst these; but even had he remembered
the circumstance, it would not have caused alarm, naturally supposing
how little worthy of notice such an object would seem amidst others
of price and rarity. And yet there it was, and, by the slip of paper
fastened to it, attesting a special notice.
With an effort almost convulsive he at last seized the knife, and reads
the words. They were simply these: “A penknife, of which Mr. Dunn can
probably supply the history.” He dropped it as he read, and lay back,
with a sense of fainting sickness.
The men of action and energy can face the positive present perils
of life with a far bolder heart than they can summon to confront the
terrors of conscience-stricken imagination. In the one case danger
assumes a shape and a limit; in the other it looms out of distance,
vast, boundless, and full of mystery. She knew, then, the story of his
boyish shame; she had held the tale secretly in her heart through all
their intercourse, reading his nature, mayhap, through the clew of that
incident, and tracing out his path in life by the light it afforded;
doubtless, too, she knew of his last scene with her father,--that
terrible interview, wherein the dying man uttered a prediction that was
almost a curse: she had treasured up these memories, and accepted his
aid with seeming frankness, and yet, all the while that she played the
grateful, trusting dependant, she had been slowly pursuing a vengeance.
If Paul Kellett had confided to her the story of this childish
transgression, he had doubtless revealed to her how heavily it had been
avenged--how, with a persistent, persecuting hate, Dunn had tracked him,
through difficulty and debt, to utter ruin. She had therefore read him
in his real character, and had devoted herself to a revenge deeper than
his own. Ay, he was countermined!
Such was the turn of his thoughts, as he sat there wiping the cold sweat
that broke from his forehead, and cursing the blindness that had so
long deceived him; and he, whose deep craft had carried him triumphant
through all the hardest trials of the world, the man who had encountered
the most subtle intellects, the great adventurer in a whole ocean of
schemes, was to be the dupe and sport of a girl!
And now, amid his self-accusings, there rose up that strange attempt at
compromise the baffled heart so often clings to, that he had, at times,
half suspected this deep and secret treachery,--that she had not been
either so secret or so crafty as she fancied herself. “If my mind,” so
reasoned he, “had not been charged with far weightier themes, I should
have detected her at once; all her pretended gratitude, all her assumed
thankfulness, had never deceived _me_; her insignificance was her
safeguard. And yet withal, I sometimes felt, she is too deeply in our
confidence,--she sees too much of the secret machinery of our plans.
While I exulted over the ignoble dependence she was doomed to,--while
I saw, with a savage joy, how our lots in life were reversed,--was I
self-deceived?”
So impressed was he with the idea of a game in which he had been
defeated, that he went over in his mind every circumstance he could
recall of his intercourse with her. Passages the simplest, words of
little significance, incidents the most trivial, he now charged with
deepest meaning. Amidst these, there was one for which he could find no
solution,--why had she so desired to be the owner of the cottage near
Bantry? It was there that Driscoll had discovered the Conway papers. Was
it possible--the thought flashed like lightning on him--that there was
any concert between the girl and this man? This suspicion no sooner
occurred to him than it took firm hold of his mind. None knew better
than Dunn the stuff Driscoll was made of, and knowing, besides, how he
had, by his own seeming luke-warmness, affronted that crafty schemer, it
was by no means improbable that such an alliance as this existed. And
this last discovery of documents,--how fortunate was it that Hankes had
secured them! The papers might or might not be important; at all events,
the new Lord Lackington might be brought to terms by their means; he
would have come to his peerage so unexpectedly that all the
circumstances of the contested claim would be strange to him. This was a
point to be looked at; and as he reasoned thus, again did he go back to
Sybella Kellett, and what the nature of her game might be, and how it
should first display itself.
A tap at the door startled him. “Mr. Hankes is below, sir,” said Clowes.
“I will be with him in a moment,” replied Dunn; and again relapsed into
his musings.