Kitabı oku: «Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1», sayfa 23

“‘Yes,’ says the Captain, ‘that’s it; get up and make him drive briskly to Boitsfort.’ We were a bit late, I think, for the others was there when we got up, and I heard them grumbling something about being behind time. ‘Egad,’ says the Captain, ‘you ‘ll find we ‘ve come early enough before we’ve done with you.’ They were cruel words, sir, now that I think how he tumbled him over stone dead in a moment.”

“Who dead?”

“That fine, handsome young man, with the light-brown beard, – Hamilton, they said his name was, – and a nicer fellow you could n’t wish to see. I ‘ll never forget him as he lay there stretched on the grass, and the small blue hole in his forehead, – you ‘d not believe it was ever half the size of a bullet, – and his glove in his left hand, all so natural as if he was alive. I believe I ‘d have been standing there yet, looking at him, when the Captain called me, and said, ‘Rivers, take these stirrups up a hole,’ – for he had a saddle-horse all ready for him, – ‘and give this note to Mr. Beecher; he ‘ll give you his orders about Klepper,’ says he, ‘but mind you look to that hock.’”

“And Captain Hamilton was killed?” muttered Beecher, while he trembled from head to foot at the terrible tidings.

“Killed – dead – he never moved a finger after he fell!”

“What did his friend do? Did he say anything? – did he speak?”

“He dropped down on his knees beside him, and caught him by the hand, and cried out, ‘George, my own dear fellow, – George, speak to me;’ but George never spoke another word.”

“And Davis, – Captain Davis, – what did he do?”

“He shook hands with Jones, and said something in French that made him laugh; and then going over to where the body lay, he said, ‘Colonel Humphrey,’ says he, ‘you ‘re a witness that all was fair and honorable, and that if this unhappy affair ever comes to be – ’ and then the Colonel moved his hand for him to be off, and not speak to him. And so the Captain took his advice, and got into the saddle; but I heard him mutter something about ‘teaching the Colonel better manners next time they met.”

“And then he rode away?”

“Yes; he turned into the wood, at a walking pace, for he was lighting his cigar. I saw no more of him, after that, for they called me to help them with the body, and it was all we could do, four of us, to carry him to the road where the carriage was standing.”

“Did you ever hear them mention my name amongst them?” asked Beecher, tremblingly.

“No, sir; nobody spoke of you but my master, when he handed me the note.”

“What a sad business it has all been!” exclaimed Beecher, half aloud.

“I suppose it would go hard with the Captain, sir, if he was caught?” said Rivers, inquiringly.

Again Beecher read over the note, pondering every word as he went “What a sad business!” murmured he, “and all for nothing, or next to nothing!” Then, as if suddenly rousing himself to action, he said, “Rivers, we must get away at once. Take this passport to the police, and then look after a horse-box for the next train to Liege. We shall start at two o’clock.”

“That’s just what the Captain said, sir. ‘Don’t delay in Brussels,’ says he; ‘and don’t you go a-talking about this morning’s work. If they have you up for examination, mind that you saw nothing, you heard nothing, you know nothing.’”

“Send Miss Davis’s maid here,” said Beecher; “and then see about those things I ‘ve mentioned to you.”

Mademoiselle Annette was a French Swiss, who very soon apprehended that a “difficulty” had occurred somewhere, which was to be kept secret from her young mistress; and though she smiled with a peculiar significance at the notion of Miss Davis travelling under Beecher’s protection, she did so with all the decorum of her gifted class.

“You ‘ll explain everything, Annette,” said Beecher, who in his confusion was eager to throw any amount of burden or responsibility upon another; “you’ll tell her whatever you like as to the cause of his going away, and I ‘ll swear to it.”

“Monsieur need not give himself any trouble,” was the ready answer; “all shall be cared for.”

CHAPTER XXXI. EXPLANATIONS

What a sad pity it is that the great faculty of “making things comfortable,” that gifted power which blends the announcement with the explanation of misfortune, should be almost limited to that narrow guild in life to which Mademoiselle Annette belonged! The happy knack of half-informing and all-mystifying would be invaluable on the Treasury benches; and great proficients as some of our public men are in this walk, how immeasurably do they fall short of the dexterity of the “soubrette”!

So neatly and so cleverly had Annette performed her task, that when Miss Davis met Beecher at breakfast, she felt that a species of reserve was necessary as to the reasons of her father’s flight; that, as he had not directly communicated with herself, her duty was simply to accept of the guidance he had dictated to her. Besides this, let it be owned, she had not yet rallied from the overwhelming astonishment of her first meeting with her father, so utterly was he unlike all that her imagination had pictured him! Nothing could be more affectionate, nothing kinder, than his reception; a thoughtful anxiety for her comfort pervaded all he said. The gloomy old Tirlemont even caught up an air of home as she passed the threshold; but still he was neither in look, manner, nor appearance what she fancied. All his self-restraint could not gloss over his vulgarity, nor all his reserve conceal his defects in breeding. His short, dictatorial manner with the servants, – his ever-present readiness to confront nobody saw what peril, – a suspectful insistence upon this or that mark of deference as a right of which he might possibly be defrauded, – all gave to his bearing a tone of insolent defiance that at once terrified and repelled her.

To all her eager questionings as to their future life, where and how it was to be passed, he would only answer vaguely or evasively. He met her inquiries about the families and friends of her schoolfellows in the same way. Of her pleasures and pursuits, her love of music, and her skill in drawing, he could not even speak with those conventionalities that disguise ignorance or indifference. Of the great world – the “swells” he would have called them – he only knew such as were on the turf. Of the opera, he might possibly tell the price of a stall, but not the name of a singer; and as to his own future, what or where it should be, Grog no more knew than who would be first favorite for the Léger a century hence. To “fence off” any attempt “to pump him” in the ring, to dodge a clever cross-examiner in a court of justice, Davis would have proved himself second to none, – these were games of skill, which he could play with the best, – but it was a very different task to thread his way through the geography of a land he had not so much as heard of, and be asked to act as guide through regions whose very names were new to him.

The utmost that Lizzy could glean from that long first evening’s talk was, that her father had few or no political ambitions, rather shunned the great world, cared little for dukes or duchesses, nor set any great store on mere intellectual successes. “Perhaps,” thought she, “he has tried and found the hollowness of them all; perhaps he is weary of public life; perhaps he ‘d like the quiet pleasures of a country house, and that calm existence described as the chateau life of England. Would that he were only more frank with me, and let us know each other better!”

We entreat our readers to forgive us this digression, necessary as it is to show that Lizzy, whatever her real doubts and anxieties, felt bound not to display them, but accept Beecher’s counsel as her father’s will.

“And so we start for Aix-la-Chapelle by two?” said she, calmly.

“Yes; and I represent papa,” said Beecher. “I hope you feel impressed with a due reverence for my authority.”

“Much will depend upon the way you exercise it,” said she; “I could very easily be a rebel if I suspected the justice of the Crown.”

“Come, come,” said he, laughing, “don’t threaten me! my viceroyship will be very short-lived, – he ‘ll perhaps be at Aix before us.”

“And I suppose all my dreams of extravagance here are defeated,” said she. “Annette and I have been plotting and planning such rare devices in ‘toilette,’ not exactly aware where or upon whom the captivations were to be exercised. I actually revelled in the thought of all the smart fineries my Pensionnat life has denied me hitherto.”

There was that blending of levity with seriousness in her tone that totally puzzled Beecher; and so was it through all she said, – there ran the same half-mocking vein that left him quite unable even to fathom her meaning. He muttered out something about “dress” and “smart things” being to be found everywhere, and that most probably they should visit even more pretentious cities than Brussels erelong.

“Which means that you know perfectly well where we are going, but won’t tell it. Well, I resign myself to my interesting part of ‘Captive Princess’ all the more submissively, since every place is new to me, every town an object of interest, every village a surprise.”

“You ‘d like to see the world, – the real, the great world, I mean?” asked Beecher.

“Oh, how much!” cried she, clasping her hands in eagerness, as she arose.

Beecher watched her as she walked up and down the room, every movement of her graceful figure displaying dignity and pride, her small and beautifully shaped head slightly thrown back, while, as her hand held the folds of her dress, her march had something almost stage-like in its sweeping haughtiness. “And how she would become it!” muttered he, below his breath, but yet leaving the murmured sounds half audible.

“What are you saying, sir? Any disparaging sentiment on school-girl conceit or curiosity?”

“Something very like the opposite,” said Beecher. “I was whispering to myself that Grantley House and Rocksley Castle were the proper sphere for you.”

“Are these very splendid?” asked she, calmly.

“The best houses in England. Of their owners, one is a Duke with two hundred thousand a year, the other an Earl with nearly as much.”

“And what do they do with it?”

“Everything; all that money can have – and what is there it cannot? – is there. Gorgeous houses, horses, dress, dinners, pictures, plate, the best people to visit them, the best cook, the best deer-park, the fastest yacht at Cowes, the best hunting-stable at Melton.”

“I should like that; it sounds very fascinating, all of it. How it submerges at once, too, all the petty cares and contrivances, perpetually asking, ‘Can we do this?’ ‘Dare we do that?’ It makes existence the grand, bold, free thing one dreams it ought to be.”

“You ‘re right there; it does make life very jolly.”

“Are you very rich?” asked she, abruptly.

“No, by Jove! poor as a church mouse,” said he, laughing at the strangeness of the question, whose sincere simplicity excluded all notion of impertinence. “I’m what they call a younger son, which means one who arrives in the world when the feast is over. I have a brother with a very tidy fortune, if that were of any use to me.”

“And is it not the same? You share your goods together, I suppose?”

“I should be charmed to share mine with him, on terms of reciprocity,” said Beecher; “but I ‘m afraid he ‘d not like it.”

“So that he is rich, and you poor?”

“Exactly so.”

“And this is called brotherhood? I own I don’t understand it.”

“Well, it has often puzzled me too,” said Beecher, laughingly; “but I believe, if I had been born first, I should have had no difficulty in it whatever.”

“And papa?” asked she, suddenly, – “what was he, – an elder or a younger son?”

It was all that Beecher could do to maintain a decent gravity at this question. To be asked about Grog Davis’s parentage seemed about the drollest of all possible subjects of inquiry; but, with an immense effort of self-restraint, he said, —

“I never exactly knew; I rather suspect, however, he was an only child.”

“Then there is no title in our family?” said she, inquiringly.

“I believe not; but you are aware that this is very largely the case in England. We are not all ‘marquises’ and ‘counts’ and ‘chevaliers,’ like foreigners.”

“I like a title; I like its distinctiveness: the sense of carrying out a destiny, transmitting certain traits of race and kindred, seems a fine and ennobling thing; and this one has not, one cannot have, who has no past. So that,” said she, after a pause, “papa is only what you would call a ‘gentleman.’”

“‘Gentleman’ is a very proud designation, believe me,” said he, evading an answer.

“And how would they address me in England, – am I ‘my Lady’?”

“No, you are Miss Davis.”

“How meanly it sounds, – it might be a governess, a maid.”

“When you are married, you take the rank and title of your husband, – a duchess, if he be a duke.”

“A duchess be it, then,” said she, in that light, volatile tone she was ever best pleased to employ, while, with a rattling gayety, she went on: “How I should love to be one of those great people you have described to me, – soaring away in all that ideal splendor which would come of a life of boundless cost, the actual and the present being only suggestive of a thousand fancied enjoyments! What glorious visions might one conjure up out of the sportiveness of an untrammelled will! Yes, Mr. Beecher, I have made up my mind, – I ‘ll be a duchess!”

“But you might have all these as a marchioness, a countess – ”

“No, I ‘ll be a duchess; you sha’n’t cheat me out of my just claims.”

“Will your Grace please to give orders about packing up, for we must be away soon after one o’clock,” said he, laughing.

“If I were not humility itself, I’d say the train should await my convenience,” said she, as she left the room with a proud and graceful dignity that would have become a queen.

For a few moments Beecher sat silent and thoughtful in his chair, and then burst out into a fit of immoderate laughing, – he laughed till his eyes ran over and his sides ached. “If this ain’t going the pace, I ‘d like to know what speed is!” cried he, aloud. “I wonder what old Grog would say if he heard her; and the best of the joke is, she is serious all the while. She is in the most perfect good faith about it all. And this comes of the absurdity of educating her out of her class. What a strange blunder for so clever a head to make! You might have guessed, Master Grog, that she never could be a ‘plater.’ Let her only enter for a grand match, and she ‘ll be ‘scratched’ from one end of England to the other. Ay, Davis, my boy, you fancy pedigrees are only cared for on the turf; but there is a Racing Calendar, edited by a certain Debrett, that you never heard of.”

Again, he thought of Davis as a peer, – “Viscount Davis!” Baron Grog, as he muttered it, came across him, and he burst out once more into laughter; then suddenly checking himself, he said, “I must take right good care, though, that he never hears of this same conversation; he’s just the fellow to say I led her on to laugh at and ridicule him; he ‘d suspect in a moment that I took her that pleasant gallop, – and if he did – ” A long, wailing whistle finished the sentence for him.

Other and not very agreeable reflections succeeded these. It was this very morning that he himself had determined on “levanting,” and there he was, more securely moored than ever. He looked at his watch, and muttered, “Eleven o’clock; by this time I should have been at Verviers, and on the Rhine before midnight. In four days more, I ‘d have had the Alps between us, and now here I am without the chance of escape; for if I bolted and left his daughter here, he’d follow me through the world to shoot me!”

He sat silent for some minutes, and then, suddenly springing up from his chair, he cried out, —

“Precious hard luck it is! but I can neither get on with this fellow nor without him;” and with this “summing up” he went off to his room to finish his preparations for the road.

CHAPTER XXXII. THE COUPÉ ON THE RAIL

Annesley Beecher felt it “deuced odd” to be the travelling companion and protector of a very beautiful girl of nineteen, to whose fresh youth every common object of the road was a thing of wonderment and curiosity; the country, the people, the scores of passengers arriving or departing, the chance incidents of the way all amused her. She possessed that power of deriving intense enjoyment from the mere aspect of life that characterizes certain minds, and while thus each little incident interested her, her gay and lively sallies animated one who without her companionship had smoked his cigar in half-sulky isolation, voting journey and fellow-travellers “most monstrous bores.” As they traversed that picturesque tract between Chaude Fontaine and Verviers, her delight and enjoyment increased. Those wonderful little landscapes which open at the exit from each tunnel, and where to the darkness and the gloom succeed, as if by magic, those rapid glances at swelling lawns, deep-bosomed woods, and winding rivers, with peaceful homesteads dotting the banks, were so many surprises full of marvellous beauty.

“Ah! Mr. Beecher,” said she, as they emerged upon one of these charming spots, “I’m half relenting about my decision in regard to greatness. I think that in those lovely valleys yonder, where the tall willows are hanging over the river, there might possibly be an existence I should like better than the life of even a duchess.”

“It’s a much easier ambition to gratify,” said he, smiling.

“It was not of that I was thinking,” said she, haughtily, “nor am I so certain you are right there. I take it people can generally be that they have set their heart on being.”

“I should like to be convinced of your theory,” cried he, “for I have been I can’t say how many years wishing for fifty things I have never succeeded in attaining.”

“What else have you done besides wishing?” asked she, abruptly.

“Well, that is a hard question,” said he, in some confusion; “and after all, I don’t see what remained to me to do but wish.”

“If that were all, it is pretty clear you had no right to succeed. When I said that people can have what they set their heart on, I meant what they so longed for that no toil was too great, no sacrifice too painful to deter them; that with eyes upturned to the summit they could breast the mountain, not minding weariness, and even when, footsore and exhausted, they sank down, they arose to the same enterprise, unshaken in courage, unbroken in faith. Have you known this?”

“I can scarcely say I have; but as to the longing and pining after a good turn of fortune, I’ll back myself against any one going.”

“That’s the old story of the child crying for the moon,” said she, laughing. “Now, what was it you longed for so ardently?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“You wanted to marry some one who would not have you, or who was beneath you, or too poor, or too some-thing-or-other for your grand relations?”

“No, not that.”

“You aspired to some great distinction as a politician, or a soldier, or perhaps a sailor?”

“No, by Jove! never dreamed of it,” burst he in, laughing at the very idea.

“You sighed for some advancement in rank, or perhaps it was great wealth?”

“There you have it! Plenty of money – lots of ready – with that all the rest comes easy.”

“It must be very delightful, no doubt, to indulge every passing caprice, without ever counting the cost; but, after a while, what a spoilt-child weariness would come over one from all this cloying enjoyment, – how tiresome would it be to shorten the journey between will and accomplishment, and make of life a mere succession of ‘tableaux’! I ‘d rather strive and struggle and win.”

“Ay, but one does n’t always win,” broke he in.

“I believe one does – if one deserves it; and even when one does not, the battle is a fine thing. How much sympathy, I ask you, have we for those classic heroes who are always helped out of their difficulties by some friendly deity? What do we feel for him who, in the thick of the fight, is sure to be rescued by a goddess in a cloud?”

“I confess I do like a good ‘book,’ ‘hedged’ well all round, and standing to win somewhere. I mean,” added he, in an explanatory tone, “I like to be safe in this world.”

“Stand on the bank of the stream, then, and let bolder hearts push across the river!”

“Well, but I ‘m rather out of patience,” said he, in a tone of half irritation. “I ‘ve had many a venture in life, and too many of them unfortunate ones.”

“How I do wonder,” said she, after a pause, “that you and papa are such great friends; for I have rarely heard of two people who take such widely different notions of life. You seem to me all caution and reserve; he, all daring and energy.”

“That’s the reason, perhaps, we suit each other so well,” said Beecher, laughing.

“It may be so,” said she, thoughtfully; and now there was silence between them.

“Have you got sisters, Mr. Beecher?” said she, at length.

“No; except I may call my brother’s wife one.”

“Tell me of her. Is she young? – is she handsome?”

“She is not young, but she is still a very handsome woman.”

“Dark or fair?”

“Very dark, almost Spanish in complexion; a great deal of haughtiness in her look, but great courtesy when she pleases.”

“Would she like me?”

“Of course she would,” said he, with a smile and a bow; but a flush covered his face at the bare thought of their meeting.

“I ‘m not so certain you are telling the truth there,” said she, laughing; “and yet you know there can be no offence in telling me I should not suit some one I have never seen; do, then, be frank with me, and say what would she think of me.”

“To begin,” said he, laughing, “she ‘d say you were very beautiful – ”

“‘Exquisitely beautiful,’ was the phrase of that old gentleman that got into the next carriage; and I like it better.”

“Well, exquisitely beautiful, – the perfection of gracefulness, – and highly accomplished.”

“She’d not say any such thing; she’d not describe me like a governess; she ‘d probably say I was too demonstrative, – that’s a phrase in vogue just now, – and hint that I was a little vulgar. But I assure you,” added she, seriously, “I’m not so when I speak French. It is a stupid attempt on my part to catch up what I imagine must be English frankness when I talk the language that betrays me into all these outspoken extravagances. Let us talk French now.”

“You ‘ll have the conversation very nearly to yourself then,” said Beecher, “for I’m a most indifferent linguist.”

“Well, then, I must ask you to take my word for it, and believe that I ‘m well bred when I can afford it. But your sister, – do tell me of her.”

“She is ‘très grande dame,’ as you would call it,” said Beecher; “very quiet, very cold, extremely simple in language, dresses splendidly, and never knows wrong people.”

“Who are wrong people?”

“I don’t exactly know how to define them; but they are such as are to be met with in society, not by claim of birth and standing, but because they are very rich, or very clever, in some way or other, – people, in fact, that one has to ask who they are.”

“I understand. But that must apply to a pretty wide circle of this world’s habitants.”

“So it does. A great part of Europe, and all America,” said Beecher, laughing.

“And papa and myself, how should we come through this formidable inquiry?”

“Well,” said he, hesitating, “your father has always lived so much out of the world, – this kind of world, I mean, – so studiously retired, that the chances are that, in short – ”

“In short, they ‘d ask, ‘Who are these Davises?’” She threw into her face, as she spoke, such an admirable mimicry of proud pretension that Beecher laughed immoderately at it “And when they ‘d ask it,” continued she, “I ‘d be very grateful to you to tell me what to reply to them, since I own to you it is a most puzzling question to myself.”

“Well,” said Beecher, in some embarrassment, “it is strange enough; but though your father and I are very old friends, – as intimate as men can possibly be, – yet he has never spoken to me about his family or connections, – nay, so far has he carried his reserve, that, until yesterday, I was not aware he had a daughter.”

“You don’t mean to say he never spoke of me?”

“Never to me, at least; and, as I have told you, I believe no one possesses a larger share of his confidence than myself.”

“That was strange,” said she, in deep reflection. Then, after a few minutes, she resumed: “If I had a story of my life I ‘d tell it you; but there is really none, or next to none. As a child, I was at school in Cornwall. Later on, papa came and fetched me away to a small cottage near Walmer, where I lived with a sort of governess, who treated me with great deference, – in short, observed towards me so much respect that I grew to believe I was something very exalted and distinguished, a sort of ‘Man in the Iron Mask,’ whose pretensions had only to be known to convulse half Europe. Thence I passed over to the Pensionnat at the Three Fountains, where I found, if not the same homage, all the indications of my being regarded as a privileged individual. I had my maid; I enjoyed innumerable little indulgences none others possessed. I ‘m not sure whether the pony I rode at the riding-school was my own or not; I only know that none mounted him but myself. In fact, I was treated like one apart, and all papa’s letters only reiterated the same order, – I was to want for nothing. Of course, these teachings could impress but one lesson, – that I was a person of high rank and great fortune; and of this I never entertained a doubt. Now,” added she, with more energy, “so far as I understand its uses, I do like wealth, and so far as I can fancy its privileges, I love rank; but if the tidings came suddenly upon me that I had neither one nor the other, I feel a sort of self-confidence that tells me I should not be dispirited or discouraged.”

Beecher gazed at her with such admiration that a deep blush rose to her face, as she said, “You may put this heroism of mine to the test at once, by telling me frankly what you know about my station. Am I a Princess in disguise, Mr. Beecher, or am I only an item in the terrible category of what you have just called ‘wrong people’?”

If the dread and terror of Grog Davis had been removed from Annesley Beecher’s mind, there is no saying to what excess of confidence the impulse of the moment might have carried him. He was capable of telling her any and every thing. For a few seconds, indeed, the thought of being her trusted friend so overcame his prudence that he actually took her hand between his own, as the prelude of the revelations he was about to open; when, suddenly, a vision of Davis swept before his mind, – Davis, in one of his moods of wrath, paroxysms of passion as they were, wherein he stopped at nothing. “He ‘d send me to the dock as a felon; he ‘d shoot me down like a dog,” muttered he to himself, as, dropping her hand, he leaned back in the carriage.

She bent over and looked calmly into his face. Her own was now perfectly pale and colorless, and then, with a faint, sad smile, she said, —

“I see that you ‘d like to gratify me. It is through some sense of delicacy and reserve that you hesitate. Be it so. Let us be good friends now, and perhaps, in time, we may trust each other thoroughly.”

Beecher took her hand once more, and, bending down, kissed it fervently. What a strange thrill was that that ran through his heart, and what an odd sense of desolation was it as he relinquished that fair, soft hand, as though it were that by its grasp he held on to life and hope together! “Oh,” muttered he to himself, “why was not she – why was not he himself – twenty things that neither of them were?”

“I wish I could read your thoughts,” said she, smiling gently at him.

“I wish to heaven you could!” cried he, with an honest energy that his nature had not known for many a day.

For the remainder of the way neither spoke, beyond some chance remark upon the country or the people. It was as though the bridge between them was yet too frail to cross, and that they trusted to time to establish that interchange of thought and confidence which each longed for.

“Here we are at the end of our journey!” said he, with a sigh, as they entered Aix.

“And the beginning of our friendship,” said she, with a smile, while she held out her hand to pledge the contract.

So intently was Beecher gazing at her face that he did not notice the action.

“Won’t you have it?” asked she, laughing.

“Which,” cried he, – “the hand or the friendship?”

“I meant the friendship,” said she, quietly.

“Tickets, sir!” said the guard, entering. “We are at the station.”

Annesley Beecher was soon immersed in all those bustling cares which attend the close of a journey; and though Lizzy seemed to enjoy the confusion and turmoil that prevailed, he was far from happy amidst the anxieties about baggage and horse-boxes, the maid and the groom each tormenting him in the interests of their several departments. All was, however, safe; not a cap-case was missing; Klepper “never lost a hair;” and they drove off to the Hotel of the Four Nations in high spirits all.