Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1. Lever Charles James
own estimation was immense. This was, in fact, the one sole self-deception of his very crafty nature, and the belief that he was a universal favourite was the solitary mistake of this shrewd intelligence. Although a married man, there was so constantly some “difficulty” or other – these were his own words – about Lady Grace, that they seldom were seen together; but he spoke of her when absent in terms of the most fervent affection, but whose health, or spirits, or tastes, or engagements unhappily denied her the happiness of travelling along with him. Whenever it chanced that they were together, he scarcely mentioned her.
“And what breeze of fortune has wafted you here, Twining?” said his Lordship, delighted to chance upon a native of his own world.
“Health, my Lord, – health,” said he, with one of his ready laughs, as though everything he said or thought had some comic side in it that amused him, “and a touch of economy too, my Lord.”
“What humbug all that is, Twining. Who the deuce is so well off as yourself?” said Lord Lackington, with all that peculiar bitterness with which an embarrassed man listens to the grumblings of a wealthy one.
“Only too happy, my Lord – rejoiced if you were right. Capital news for me, eh? – excellent news!” And he slapped his lean legs with his long thin fingers, and laughed immoderately.
“Come, come, we all know that – besides a devilish good thing of your own – you got the Wrexley estate, and old Poole’s Dorsetshire property. Hang me if I ever open a newspaper without reading that you are somebody’s residuary legatee.”
“I assure you, solemnly, my Lord, I am actually hard up, pressed for money, downright inconvenienced.” And he laughed again, as though it were uncommonly droll.
“Stuff – nonsense!” said my Lord, angrily, for he really was losing temper; and to change the topic he curtly asked, “And where do you mean to pass the winter?”
“In Florence, my Lord, or Naples. We have a little den in both places.”
The “den” in Florence was a sumptuous palace on the Arno. Its brother at Naples was a royal villa near Posilippo.
“Why not Rome? Lady Lackington and myself mean to try Rome.”
“Ah, all very well for you, my Lord, but for people of small fortune – ”
There was that in the expression of his Lordship’s face that told Twining this vein might be followed too far, and so he stopped in time, and laughed away pleasantly.
“Spicer tells me,” resumed Lord Lackington, “that Florence is quite deserted; nothing but a kind of second and third rate set of people go there. Is that so?”
“Excellent people, capital society, great fun!” said Twining, in a burst of merriment.
“Spicer calls them ‘Snobs,’ and he ought to know.”
“So he ought indeed, my Lord – no one better. Admirably observed, and very just.”
“He’s in training again for that race that never comes off,” said his Lordship. “The first time I ever saw him – it was at Leamington – and he was performing the same farce, with hot baths and blankets, and jotting down imaginary bets in a small note-book.”
“How good – capital! Your Lordship has him perfectly – you know him thoroughly – great fun! Spicer, excellent creature!”
“How those fellows live is a great mystery to me. You chance upon them everywhere, in Baden or Aix in summer, in Paris or Vienna during the winter. Now, if they were amusing rogues, like that fellow I met at your house in Hampshire – ”
“Oh, Stockley, my Lord; rare fellow, quite a genius!” laughed Twining.
“Just so – Stockley; one would have them just to help over the boredom of a country house; but this creature Spicer is as devoid of amusing gifts, as tiresome, and as worn out, as if he owned ten thousand a year.”
“How good, by Jove!” cried Twining, in ecstasy. And he slapped his gaunt limbs and threw his long arms wildly about in a transport of delight.
“And who are here, Twining – any of our set?” “Not a soul, my Lord; the place isn’t known yet, that’s the reason I came here – so quiet and so cheap, make your own terms with them.
“Good fun – excellent!”
“I came to meet a man of business,” said his Lordship, with a strong emphasis on the pronoun. “He couldn’t prolong his journey farther south, and so we agreed to rendezvous here.”
“I have a little affair also to transact – a mere trifle, a nothing, in fact – with a lawyer, who promises to meet me here by the end of the month, so that we have just time to take our baths, drink the waters, and all that sort of thing, while we are waiting.”
And he rubbed his hands, and laughed away again.
“What a boon for my wife to learn that Lady Grace is here! She was getting so hipped with the place – not so much the place as the odious people – that I suspect she’d have left me to wait for Dunn all alone.”
“Dunn! Dunn! not Davenport Dunn?” exclaimed Twining.
“The very man – do you know him?”
“To be sure, he’s the fellow I’m waiting for. Capital fun, isn’t it?”
And he slapped his legs again, while he repeated the name of Dunn over and over again.
“I want to know something about this same Mr. Dunn,” said Lord Lackington, confidentially.
“So do I; like it of all things,” cried Twining. “Clever fellow-wonderful fellow – up to everything – acquainted with everybody. Great fun!”
“He occupies a very distinguished position in Ireland, I fancy,” said his Lordship, with such a marked stress on the locality as to show that such did not constitute an imperial reputation.
“Yes, yes, man of the day there; do what he likes; very popular – immensely popular!” said Twining, as he laughed on.
“So that you know no more of him than his public repute – no more than I know myself,” said his Lordship.
“Not so much as your Lordship, I’m certain,” said Twining, as though it would have been unbecoming in him to do so; “in fact, my business transactions are such mere nothings, that it’s quite a kindness on his part to undertake them – trifles, no more!”
And Twining almost hugged himself in the ecstasy which his last words suggested.
“Mine,” said Lord Lackington, haughtily, “are of consequence enough to fetch him hither – a good thousand miles away from England; but he is pretty certain of its being well worth his while, to come.”
“Quite convinced of that – could swear it,” said Twining, eagerly.
“Here are a mob of insufferable bores,” said his Lordship, testily, as a number of people were heard approaching, for somehow – it is not easy to say exactly why – he had got into a train of thought that scorned to worry him, and was not disposed to meet strangers; and so, with a brief gesture of good-by to Twining, he turned into a path and disappeared.
Twining looked after him for a second or two, and then slapping his legs, he muttered, pleasantly, “What fun!” and took the road towards the house.
CHAPTER II. HOW TWO “FINE LADIES” PASS THE MORNING
In a room of moderate size, whose furniture was partly composed of bygone finery and some articles of modern comfort – a kind of compromise between a Royal residence and a Hydropathic establishment – sat two ladies at an open window, which looked out upon a small terrace above the lake. The view before them could scarcely have been surpassed in Europe. Enclosed, as in a frame, between the snow-clad Alps and the wooded mountains of the Brianca, lay the lake, its shores one succession of beautiful villas, whose gardens descended to the very water. Although the sun was high, the great mountains threw the shadows half way across the lake; and in the dim depth