Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2. Lever Charles James
shed, but it cost an agony.
“And this is the awaking from that glorious dream I have long been lost in? – this the explanation of that life of costly extravagance, where every wish was answered, every taste pampered. This is the reverse of that medal which represented me as noble by birth and high in station!” If these were the first bitter thoughts that crossed her mind, her next were to ask herself why it was that the tidings had not humiliated her more deeply. “How is it that while I see and hear all this,” cried she, “I listen in a spirit of defiance, not defeat? Is it that in my heart I dare to arraign the decrees the world has adopted for its guidance? Do I presume to believe that I can play the rebel successfully against the haughtiest aristocracy of Europe? – There is yet one question, papa,” said she, slowly and deliberately, “that I would wish to ask you. It is the last I will ever put, leaving to your own discretion to answer it or not. Why was it – I mean, with what object did you place me where by habit and education I should contract ideas of life so widely different from those I was born to?”
“Can’t you guess?” said he, rudely.
“Mayhap I do guess the reason,” said she, in a low but unbroken voice. “I remember your saying one night to Mr. Beecher, ‘When a colt has a turn of speed, he ‘s always worth the training.’”
Davis grew crimson; his very ears tingled as the blood mounted to his head. Was it shame, was it anger, was it a strange pride to see the traits of his own heart thus reflected on his child, or was it a blending of all three together? At all events, he never uttered a word, but walked slowly along at her side.
A low faint sigh from Lizzy suddenly aroused him, and he said, “Are you ill, – are you tired, girl?”
“I ‘d like to go back to the house,” said she, calmly but weakly. He turned without a word, and they walked on towards the inn.
“When I proposed this walk, Lizzy, I never meant it to have been so sad a one.”
“Nor yours the fault if it is so,” said she, drearily.
“I could, it is true, have kept you longer in the dark. I might have maintained this deception a week or two longer.”
“Oh, that were useless; the mistake was in not – No matter – it was never a question wherein I could have a voice. Has n’t the night grown colder?”
“No; it’s just what it was when we came out,” said he, gruffly. “Now that you know all this affair,” resumed he, after a lapse of some minutes, “there ‘s another matter I ‘d like to talk over; it touches yourself, too, and we may as well have it now as later. What about Beecher; he has been paying you attentions, hasn’t he?”
“None beyond what I may reasonably expect from one in his position towards me.”
“Yes, but he has, though. I sent over Lienstahl to report to me, and he says that Beecher’s manner implied attachment, and yours showed no repugnance to him. Is this true?”
“It may be, for aught I know,” said she, indifferently. “Mr. Beecher probably knows what he meant. I certainly can answer for myself, and will say that whatever my manner might imply, my heart – if that be the name for it – gave no concurrence to what the Count attributed to me.”
“Do you dislike him?”
“Dislike? No; certainly not; he is too gentle, too obliging, too conciliating in manner, too well bred to create dislike. He is not very brilliant – ”
“He ‘ll be a peer,” broke in Davis.
“I suspect that all his views of life are deeply tinged with prejudice?”
“He’ll be a peer,” continued Davis.
“He has been utterly neglected in education.”
“He don’t want it.”
“I mean that to suit the station he fills – ”
“He has got the station; he’s sure of it; he can’t be stripped of it. In one word, girl, he has, by right and birth, rank and fortune, such as ten generations of men like myself, laboring hard every hour of their lives, could never win. He ‘ll be a peer of England, and I know of no title means so much.”
“But of all his failings,” said Lizzy, who seemed to take little heed of her father’s interruptions, while steadily following out her own thoughts, – “of all his failings, he has none greater or more pernicious than the belief that it is a mark of intelligence to outwit one’s neighbor; that cunning is a high quality, and craft means genius.”
“These might be poor qualities to gain a living with,” said Davis, “but I tell you, once for all, he does n’t need to be brilliant, or witty, or any other nonsense of that kind. He ‘ll have the right to go where all the cleverness of the world couldn’t place him, to live in a set where, if he could Write plays like Shakspeare, build bridges like Brunel, or train a horse like John Scott, it would n’t avail him a brass farthing; and if you only knew, child, what these people think of each other, and what the world thinks of them, you ‘d see it’s the best stake ever was run for.”
Lizzy never replied a word; every syllable of her father’s speech was, as it were, “filtering down” into her mind, and she brooded long over the thoughts thus suggested. Thus, walking along in silence, side by side, they drew nigh the house. They had now gained the little garden before the door, and were standing in the broad full moonlight, face to face, Davis saw that her eyes were red and her cheeks marked by tears; but an impassive calm, and a demeanor subdued even to coldness, seemed to have succeeded to this emotion. “Oh, my poor girl,” broke he out, in a voice of deepest feeling, “if I did n’t know the world so well, – if I did n’t know how little one gains by indulging affection, – if I did n’t know, besides, how you yourself will think of all this some ten or twelve years hence, I could n’t have the heart for it.”
“And – must – it – be?” faltered she out, in a broken accent.
Davis threw his arm around her, and, pressing her to him, sobbed bitterly. “There, there,” cried he, “go in, – go in, child; go to bed, and get some sleep.” And with this he turned quickly away and left her.
CHAPTER X. A RIDE TO NEUWIED
Long before Lizzy had composed herself to sleep – for her heart was torn by a first sorrow, and she lay restless and fevered – her father, mounted on a post-horse, was riding away towards the Rhine. He had desired that the reply to his telegraphic message should be addressed to him at the post-office of Neuwied, and thither he was now bent. It is a strange thing, that when the affections of men of this stamp are deeply moved, – when their sensibilities, long dulled and hardened by the rubs of life, are once evoked, – the feelings excited are less those of gentleness and tenderness than an almost savage desire for some personal conflict. Urging his horse to full speed, Davis spared neither whip nor spur. Alone upon that solitary road, he asked himself aloud if he were less alone in the broad, bleak world? “Is not the ‘field’ against me wherever I go? I never heard of the fellow that had not some ‘moorings’ – some anchorage – except myself.” But a brief hour ago and there was one who loved him with all her heart, – who saw, or fancied she saw, a rich mine of generous qualities in his rough manners and blunt address, – who pictured to her mind what such a nature might have been under happier circumstances and with better culture. “And now,” cried he, aloud, – “now she knows me for what I am, how will she bear this? Will she sink under it, will it crush her, or has she enough of my own blood in her veins to meet it courageously? Oh! if she only knew the world as I do, – what a mean coward it is, how it bullies the weak and truckles to the strong, how it frowns down the timid and simpers to the sturdy! Every man – ay, and every woman – can sell his life dearly; and strange it is, one only learns the value of this secret too late. Let a fellow start with it, and see what it does for him. I went at them single-handed; I went down all alone into the ring, and have they beaten me? I had no honorable or right honorable friends to pick me out of a scrape. It would be hard to find three men, with good hats on them, would bail me to the amount of ten pounds; and