Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1. Lever Charles James
and as faint as possible.
“There is a tact and delicacy about these men from which our people might take a lesson,” said Lady Lackington, as the door closed after him.
“Very true,” sighed Lady Grace; “ours are really dreadful.”
CHAPTER III. A FATHER AND A DAUGHTER
A DREARY evening late in October, a cold thin rain falling, and a low wailing wind sighing through the headless branches of the trees in Merrion Square, made Dublin seem as sad-looking and deserted as need be. The principal inhabitants had not yet returned to their homes for the winter, and the houses wore that melancholy look of vacancy and desertion so strikingly depressing. One sound alone woke the echoes in that silence; it was a loud knocking at the door of a large and pretentious mansion in the middle of the north side of the square. Two persons had been standing at the door for a considerable time, and by every effort of knocker and bell endeavoring to obtain admittance. One of these was a tall, erect man of about fifty, whose appearance but too plainly indicated that most painful of all struggles between poverty and a certain pretension. White-seamed and threadbare as was his coat, he wore it buttoned to the top with a sort of military smartness, his shabby hat was set on with a kind of jaunty air, and his bushy whiskers, combed and frizzed out with care, seemed a species of protest against being thought as humble as certain details of dress might bespeak him. At his side stood a young girl, so like him that a mere glance proclaimed her to be his daughter; and although in her appearance, also, narrow means stood confessed, there was an unmistakable something in her calm, quiet features and her patient expression that declared she bore her lot with a noble and high-hearted courage.
“One trial more, Bella, and I ‘ll give it up,” cried he, angrily, as, seizing the knocker, he shook the strong door with the rapping, while he jingled the bell with equal violence. “If they don’t come now, it is because they ‘ve seen who it is, or, maybe – ”
“There, see, papa, there’s a window opening above,” said the girl, stepping out into the rain as she spoke.
“What d’ ye mean, – do ye want to break in the door?” cried a harsh voice, as the wizened, hag-like face of a very dirty old woman appeared from the third story.
“I want to know if Mr. Davenport Dunn is at home,” cried the man.
“He is not; he ‘s abroad, – in France.”
“When is he expected back?” asked he again.
“Maybe in a week, maybe in three weeks.”
“Have any letters come for Mr. Kellett – Captain Kel-lett?” said he, quickly correcting himself.
“No!”
And a bang of the window, as the head was withdrawn, finished the colloquy.
“That’s pretty conclusive, any way, Bella,” said he, with an attempt to laugh. “I suppose there’s no use in staying here longer. Poor child,” added he, as he watched her preparations against the storm, “you ‘ll be wet to the skin! I think we must take a car, – eh, Bella? I will take a car.” And he put an emphasis on the word that sounded like a firm resolve.
“No, no, papa; neither of us ever feared rain.”
“And, by George! it can’t spoil our clothes, Bella,” said he, laughing with a degree of jocularity that sounded astonishing, even to himself; for he quickly added, “But I will have a car; wait a moment here, under the porch, and I ‘ll get one.”
And before she could interpose a word, he was off and away, at a speed that showed the vigor of a younger man.
“It won’t do, Bella,” he said, as he came back again; “there’s only one fellow on the stand, and he ‘ll not go under half a crown. I pushed him hard for one-and-sixpence, but he ‘d not hear of it, and so I thought – that was, I knew well – you would be angry with me.”
“Of course, papa; it would be mere waste of money,” said she, hastily. “An hour’s walk, – at most, an hour and a half, – and there’s an end of it And now let us set out, for it is growing late.”
There were few in the street as they passed along; a stray creature or so, houseless and ragged, shuffled onward; an odd loiterer stood for shelter in an archway, or a chance passer-by, with ample coat and umbrella, seemed to defy the pelting storm, while cold and dripping they plodded along in silence.
“That’s old Barrington’s house, Bella,” said he, as they passed a large and dreary-looking mansion at the corner of the square; “many’s the pleasant evening I spent in it.”
She muttered something, but inaudibly, and they went on as before.
“I wonder what ‘s going on here to-day. It was Sir Dyke Morris used to live here when I knew it” And he stopped at an open door, where a flood of light poured forth into the street “That’s the Bishop of Derry, Bella, that’s just gone in. There’s a dinner-party there to-day,” whispered he, as, half reluctant to go, he still peered into the hall.
She drew him gently forward, and he seemed to have fallen into a revery, as he muttered at intervals, —
“Great times – fine times – plenty of money – and fellows that knew how to spend it!”
Drearily plashing onward through wind and rain, their frail clothes soaked through, they seldom interchanged a word.
“Lord Drogheda lived there, Bella,” said he, stopping short at the door of a splendidly illuminated hotel; “and I remember the time I was as free and welcome in it as in my own house. My head used to be full of the strange things that happened there once. Brown, and Barry Fox, and Tisdall, and the rest of us, were wild chaps! Faith, my darling, it was n’t for Mr. Davenport Dunn I cared in those times, or the like of him. Davenport Dunn, indeed!”
“It is strange that he has not written to us,” said the girl, in a low voice.
“Not a bit strange; it’s small trouble he takes about us. I’ll bet a five-pound note – I mean, I’ll lay sixpence,” said he, correcting himself with some confusion, – “that since he left this he never as much as bestowed a thought on us. When he got me that beggarly place in the Custom House, he thought he ‘d done with me out and out. Sixty pounds a year! God be with the time I gave Peter Harris, the butler, just double the money!”
As they talked thus, they gained the outskirts of the city, and gradually left the lamps and the well-lighted shops behind. Their way now led along a dreary road by the sea-side, towards the little bathing-village of Clontarf, beyond which, in a sequestered spot called the Green Lanes, their humble home stood. It was a long and melancholy walk; the sorrowful sounds of the sea beating on the shingly strand mingling with the dreary plashing of the rain; while farther out, a continuous roar as the waves rolled over the “North Bull,” added all the terrors of storm to the miseries of the night.
“The winter is setting in early,” said Kellett “I think I never saw a severer night.”
“A sad time for poor fellows out at sea!” said the girl, as she turned her head towards the dreary waste of cloud and water now commingled into one.
“‘T is exactly like our own life, out there,” cried he: “a little glimpse of light glimmering every now and then through the gloom, but yet not enough to cheer the heart and give courage; but all black darkness on every side.”
“There will come a daybreak at last,” said the girl, assuredly.
“Faith! I sometimes despair about it in our own case,” said he, sighing drearily. “To think of what I was once, and what I am now! buffeted about and ill used by a set of scoundrels that I ‘d not have suffered to sit down in my kitchen. Keep that rag of a shawl across your chest; you ‘ll be destroyed entirely, Bella.”
“We’ll soon be within shelter now, and nothing the worse for this weather, either of us,” replied she, almost gayly. “Over and over again have you told me what severe seasons you have braved in the hunting-field; and, after all, papa, one can surely endure as much for duty as in pursuit of pleasure, –