Charles Lever - Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

“No; but occasionally I used to catchy a glance at them in the drawing-room. It was a kind of reading fascinated me intensely, it was so real. But why do you ask me?”

“I don’t know why I asked the question,” muttered he, half moodily, and hung his head down. “Yes, I do,” cried he, after a pause. “I wanted to know if you ever saw my name – our name – in the public prints.”

“Once, – only once, and very long ago, I did, and I asked the governess if the name were common in England, and she said, ‘Yes.’ I remember the paragraph that attracted me to this very hour. It was the case of a young man – I forget the name – who shot himself in despair, after some losses at play, and the narrative was headed, ‘More of Grog Davis!’”

Davis started back, and, in a voice thick and hoarse with passion, cried out, —

“And then? What next?” The words were uttered in a voice so fearfully wild that Lizzy stood in a sort of stupefied terror, and unable to reply. “Don’t you hear me, girl?” cried he. “I asked you what came next.”

“There was an account of an inquest, – some investigation as to how the poor fellow had met his death. I remember little about that. I was only curious to learn who this Grog Davis might be – ”

“And they could n’t tell you, it seems!”

“No; they had never heard of him.”

“Then I ‘ll tell you, girl. Here he stands before you.”

“You! papa – you – dearest pa! Oh, no, no!” cried she, imploringly, as she threw herself on his neck and sobbed bitterly, – “oh no! I ‘ll not believe it.”

“And why not believe it? What was there in that same story that should prejudice me ? There, there, girl, if you give way thus, it will offend me, – ay, Lizzy, offend me.”

She raised her head from his shoulder, dried her eyes, and stood calm and unmoved before him. Her pale face, paler in the bright moonlight, now showed not a trace of passion or emotion.

Davis would have given his right hand at that moment that she had been led into some burst of excitement, some outbreak of passionate feeling, which, in rebuking, might have carried him away from all thoughts about himself; but she was cold and still and silent, like one who has heard some terrible tidings, but yet has summoned up courage for the trial. There was that in her calm, impassive stare that cut him to the very heart; nor could any words have reproached him so bitterly as that steadfast look.

“If you don’t know who we are, you know what we are, girl. Is that not so?” cried he, in a thick and passionate tone. “I meant to have told it you fifty times. There was n’t a week in the last two years that I did n’t, at least, begin a letter to you about it I did more: I cut all the things out of the newspapers and made a collection of them, and intended, some day or other, you should read them. Indeed, it was only because you seemed so happy there that, I spared you. I felt the day must come, though. Know it you must, sooner or later, and better from me than another I mean better for the other; for, by heaven! I ‘d have shot him who told you. Why don’t you speak to me, girl? What’s passing in your mind?”

“I scarcely know,” said she, in a hollow voice. “I don’t quite feel sure I am awake!”

“Yes!” cried he, with a terrible oath, “you are awake; it was the past was the dream! When you were the Princess, and every post brought you some fresh means of extravagance, — that was the dream! The world went well with myself in those days. Luck stood to me in whatever I touched. In all I ventured I was sure to come right, as if I had made my bargain with Fortune. But the jade threw me over at last, that she did. From the hour I went in against Hope’s stables at Rickworth, – that’s two years and eleven days to-day, – I never won a bet! The greenest youngsters from Oxford beat me at my own weapons. I went on selling, – now a farm, now a house, now a brood mare. I sent the money all to you, girl, every guinea of it. What I did myself I did on tick till the September settling at Cottiswoode, and then it was all up. I was ruined!”

“Ruined!” echoed she, while she grasped his arm and drew him closer to her side; “you surely had made friends – ”

“Friends are capital things when the world goes well with you, but friends are fond of a good cook and iced champagne, and they don’t fancy broken boots and a bad hat. Besides, what credit is to the merchant, luck is to one of us. Let the word get abroad luck is against you; let them begin to say, ‘There ‘s that poor devil Davis in for it again; he’s so unlucky!’ – once they say that, you are shunned like a fellow with the plague; none will associate with you, none give you a helping hand or a word of counsel. Why, the grooms wouldn’t gallop if I was on the ground, for fear my bad luck might strain a sinew and slip a ligament! And they were right too! Smile if you like, girl, – I am not a very superstitious fellow, – but nobody shall persuade me there ain’t such a thing as luck. Be that as it may, mine turned, – I was ruined!”

“And were there none to come to your aid? You must surely have lent a helping hand to many – ”

“Look here, girl,” said he; “now that we are on this subject, you may as well understand it aright. If a gentleman born – a fellow like Beecher, there – comes to grief, there’s always plenty of others ready to serve him; some for the sake of his family, some for his name, some because there’s always the chance that he may pay one day or other. Snobs, too, would help him, because he ‘s the Honorable Annesley Beecher; but it’s vastly different when it’s Grog Davis is in case. Every one rejoices when a leg breaks down.”

“A leg is the slang for – for – ”

“For a betting man,” interposed Davis. “When a fellow takes up the turf as a profession, they call him ‘a leg,’ – not that they ‘d exactly say it to his face!” added he, with a smile of intense sarcasm.

“Go on,” said she, faintly, after a slight pause.

“Go on with what?” cried he, rudely. “I’ve told you everything. You wanted to know what I was, and how I made my living. Well, you know it all now. To be sure, the newspapers, if you read them, could give you more precise details; but there’s one thing, girl, they could n’t blink, – there’s not one of them could say that what my head planned overnight my hand was not ready to defend in the morning! I can’t always throw a main, but I ‘ll hit my man, – and at five-and-thirty paces, if he don’t like to stand closer.”

“And what led you to this life, papa? Was it choice?”

“I have told you enough already; too much, mayhap,” said he, doggedly. “Question me no more!”

Had Davis but seen the face of her at his side, what a terrible shock it would have given him, hard and stern as he was! She was pale as marble, – even the lips were colorless; while along her cheeks a heavy tear stole slowly along. It was the only one she 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?”