Charles Lever - Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

Our story opens only a few years back, and Lord Lackington was then one of the very few who perpetuated the traditions in costume of that celebrated period; but he did so with such unerring accuracy, that men actually wondered where those marvellously shaped hats were made, or how those creaseless coats were ever fashioned. Even to the perfume of his handkerchief, the faintest and most evanescent of odours, all were mysteries that none could penetrate.

As he surveyed the landscape through his double eye-glass, he smiled graciously and blandly, and gently inclined his head, as though to say, “Very prettily done, water and mountains. I’m quite satisfied with you, trees; you please me very much indeed! Trickle away little fountain – the picture is the better for it.” His Lordship had soon, however, other objects to engage his attention than the inanimate constituents of the scene. The spot which he had selected for his point of view was usually traversed, in their morning walks, by the other residents of the “Cure,” and this circumstance permitted him to receive the homage of such early risers as were fain to couple with their pursuit of health the recognition of a great man.

Like poverty, hydropathy makes us acquainted with strange associates. The present establishment was too recently formed to have acquired any very distinctive celebrity, but it was sufficiently crowded. There was a great number of third-rate Italians from the Lombard towns and cities, a sprinkling of inferior French, a few English, a stray American or so, and an Irish family, on their way to Italy, sojourning here rather for economy than health, and fancying that they were acquiring habits and manners that would serve them through their winter’s campaign.

The first figure which emerged upon the plateau was that of a man swathed in great-coat, cap, and worsted wrappers, that it was difficult to guess what he could be. He came forward at a shambling trot, and was about to pass on without looking aside, when Lord Lackington called out, “Ah! Spicer, have you got off that eleven pounds yet?” “No, my Lord, but very near it. I’m seven stone ten, and at seven eight I’m all right.”

“Push along, then, and don’t lose your training,’ said his Lordship, dismissing him with a bland wave of the hand. And the other made an attempt at a salutation, and passed on.

“Madame la Marquise, your servant. You ascend these mountain steeps like a chamois!”

This compliment was addressed to a little, very fat old lady, who came snorting along like a grampus.

“Benedetto Dottore!” cried she. “He will have it that I must go up to the stone cross yonder every morning before breakfast, and I know I shall burst a blood-vessel yet in the attempt.”

A chair, with a mass of horse-clothing and furs, surmounted by a little yellow wizened face, was next borne by, to which Lord Lackington bowed courteously, saying, “Your Excellency improves at every hour.”

His Excellency gave a brief nod and a little faint smile, swallowed a mouthful from a silver flask presented by his servant, and disappeared.

“Ah! the fair syren sisters! what a charming vision!” said his Lordship, as two bright-cheeked, laughing-eyed girls bounced upon the terrace in all the high-hearted enjoyment of good health and good spirits.

“Molly, for shame!” cried what seemed the elder, a damsel of about nineteen, as the younger, holding out her dress with both hands, performed a kind of minuet curtsey to the Viscount, to which he responded with a bow that might have done credit to Versailles.

“Perfectly done – grace and elegance itself. The foot a little – a very little more in advance.”

“Just because you want to look at it,” cried she, laughing. “Molly, Molly!” exclaimed the other, rebukingly. “Let him deny it if he can, Lucy,” retorted she. “But here’s papa.”

And as she spoke, a square-built, short, florid man, fanning his bald head with a straw hat, puffed his way forward.

“My Lord, I’m your most obaydient!” said he, with a very unmistakably Irish enunciation. “O’Reilly, I’m delighted to see you. These charming girls of yours have just put me in good humour with the whole creation. What a lovely spot this is; how beautiful!”

Though his Lordship’s arm and outstretched hand directed attention to the scenery, his eyes never wandered from the pretty features of the laughing girl beside him.

“It’s like Banthry!” said Mr. O’Reilly – “it’s the very ditto of Banthry.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed my Lord, still pursuing his scrutiny.

“Only Banthry’s bigger and wider. Indeed, I may say finer.”

“Nothing, in my estimation, can exceed this!” said his Lordship, with a distinctive smile, addressed to the young lady.

“I’m glad you think so,” said she, with a merry laugh. And then, with a pirouette, she sprang up the steep steps on the rocky path before her, and disappeared, her sister as quickly following, leaving Mr. O’Reilly alone with his Lordship.

“What heaps of money she laid out here,” exclaimed O’Reilly, as he looked at the labyrinth of mad ruins, and rustic bridges, and hanging gardens on every side of him.

“Large sums – very large indeed!” said my Lord, whose thoughts were evidently on some other track.

“Pure waste – nothing else; the place never could pay. Vines and fig-trees, indeed – I’d rather see a crop of oats.”.

“I have a weakness for the picturesque, I must own,” said my Lord, as his eye still followed the retreating figures of the girls.

“Well, I like a waterfall; and, indeed, I like a summer-house myself,” said O’Reilly, as though confessing to a similar trait on his own part.

“This is the first time you have been abroad, O’Reilly?” said his Lordship, to turn the subject of the conversation.

“Yes, my Lord, my first, and, with God’s blessing, my last, too! When I lost Mrs. O’Reilly, two years ago, of a complaint that beat all the doctors – ”

“Ah, yes, you mentioned that to me; very singular indeed!”

“For it wasn’t in the heart itself, my Lord, but in the bag that houlds it.”

“Oh yes, I remember the explanation perfectly; so you thought you’d just come abroad for a little distraction.”

“Distraction indeed! ‘tis the very word for it,” broke in Mr. O’Reilly, eagerly. “My head is bewildered between the lingo and the money, and they keep telling me, ‘You’ll get used to it, papa, darling – you’ll be quite at home yet.’ But how is that ever possible?”

“Still, for your charming girls’ sake,” said my Lord, caressing his whiskers and adjusting his neckcloth, as if for immediate captivation – “or their sake, O’Reilly, you’ve done perfectly right!”

“Well, I’m glad your Lordship says so. ‘Tis nobody ought to know better!” said he, with a heavy sigh.

“They really deserve every cultivation. All the advantages that – that – that sort of thing can bestow!”

And his Lordship smiled benignly, as though offering his own aid to the educational system.

“What they said to me was this,” said O’Reilly, dropping his voice to a tone of the most confiding secrecy: “‘Don’t be keeping them down here in Mary’s Abbey, but take them where they’ll see life. You can give them forty thousand pounds between them, Tim O’Reilly, and with that and their own good looks – ’”

“Beauty, O’Reilly – downright loveliness,” broke in my Lord.

“Well, indeed, they are handsome,” said O’Reilly, with an honest satisfaction, “and that’s exactly why I thought the advice was good. ‘Take them abroad,’ they said; ‘take them into Germany and Italy – but more especially Italy’ – for they say there’s nothing like Italy for finishing young ladies.”