CHAPTER XXII. A MASTER AND MAN
“Is she gone?—where to?” cried Dunn, without answering Mr. Hankes's profuse salutations and welcomes.
“Yes, sir; she sailed yesterday.”
“Sailed, and for where?”
“For Malta, sir, in the Euxine steamer. Gone to her brother in the Crimea. One of the people saw her go on board at Southampton.”
“Was she alone?”
“Quite alone, sir. My man was present when she paid the boatman. She had very little luggage, but they demanded half a guinea—”
“What of Driscoll? Have you traced him?” asked Dunn, impatient at the minuteness of this detail.
“He left London for Havre on the 12th of last month, sir, with a passport for Italy. He carried one of Hart-well's circulars for three hundred pounds, and was to have taken a courier at Paris, but did not.”
“And where is he now?” asked Dunn, abruptly.
“I am unable to say, sir,” said Hankes, almost abjectly, for he felt self-rebuked in the acknowledgment. “My last tidings of him came from Como,—a new Hydropathic Institution there.”
“Expecting to find the Viscount Lackington,” said Dunn, with a sardonic laugh. “Death was before you, Master Driscoll; you did not arrive in time for even the funeral. I say, Hankes,” added he, quickly, “what of the new Viscount? Has he answered our letters?”
“Not directly, sir; but there came a short note signed 'C. Christopher,' stating that his Lordship had been very ill, and was detained at Ems, and desiring to have a bank post-bill for two hundred forwarded to him by return.”
“You sent it?”
“Of course, sir; the letter had some details which proved it to be authentic.”
“And the sum a trifle,” broke in Dunn. “She is scarcely at Malta by this, Hankes. What am I thinking of? She 'll not reach it before next Friday or Saturday. Do you remember young Kellett's regiment?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, find it out. I'll write to the Horse Guards tomorrow to have him promoted,—to give him an Ensigncy in some regiment serving in India. Whom do you know at Malta, Hankes?”
“I know several, sir; Edmond Grant, in the Storekeeper's Department; James Hocksley, Second Harbor-Master; Paul Wesley, in the Under-Secretary's Office.”
“Any of them will do. Telegraph to detain her; that her brother is coming home; she must not go to the Crimea.” There was a stern fixity of purpose declared in the way these last words were spoken, which at the same time warned Hankes from asking any explanation of them. “And now for business. What news from Arigua,—any ore?”
“Plenty, sir; the new shaft has turned out admirably. It is yielding upwards of twenty-eight per cent, and Holmes offers thirty pounds a ton for the raw cobalt.”
“I don't care for that, sir. I asked how were shares,” said Dunn, peevishly.
“Not so well as might be expected, sir. The shake at Glengariff was felt widely.”
“What do you mean? The shares fell, but they rose again; they suffered one of those fluctuations that attend on all commercial or industrial enterprises; but they rallied even more quickly than they went down. When I left town yesterday, they were at one hundred and forty-three.”
“I know it, sir. I received your telegram, and I showed it to Bayle and Childers, but they only smiled, and said, 'So much the better for the holders.'”
“I defy any man—I don't care what may be his abilities or what his zeal—to benefit this country!” exclaimed Dunn, passionately. “There is amongst Irishmen, towards each other, such an amount of narrow jealousy—mean, miserable, envious rivalry—as would swamp the best intentions, and destroy the wisest plans that ever were conceived. May my fate prove a warning to whoever is fool enough to follow me!”
Was it that when Dunn thus spoke he hoped to persuade Mr. Hankes that he was a noble-hearted patriot, sorrowing over the errors of an ungrateful country? Did he fancy that his subtle lieutenant, the associate of all his deep intrigues, the confidant of his darkest schemes, was suddenly to see in him nothing but magnanimity of soul and single-hearted devotedness? No, I cannot presume to say that he indulged in any such delusion. He uttered the words just to please himself,—to flatter himself! as some men drink off a cordial to give them Dutch courage. There are others that enunciate grand sentiments, high sounding and magniloquent, the very music and resonance of their words imparting a warm glow within them.
It is a common error to imagine that such “stage thunder” is confined to that after-dinner eloquence in whose benefit the canons of truth-telling are all repealed. Far from it. The practice enters into every hour of every-day life, and the greatest knave that ever rogued never cheated the world half as often as he cheated himself!
As though it had been a glass of brown sherry that he swallowed, Mr. Dunn felt “better” after he had uttered these fine words. He experienced a proud satisfaction in thinking what a generous heart beat within his own waistcoat; and thus reassured, he thought well of the world at large.
“And Ossory, Mr. Hankes,—how is Ossory?”
“A hundred and fourteen, with a look upwards,” responded Mr. Hankes. “Since the day of 'the run' deposits have largely increased. Indeed, I may say we are now the great country gentry bank of the midland. We discount freely, too, and we lend generously.”
“I shall want some ready money soon, Hankes,” said Dunn, as he paced the room with his hands behind his back, and his head bent forward. “You 'll have to sell out some of those Harbor shares.”
“Bantry's, sir? Glumthal's have them as securities!”
“So they have; I forgot. Well, St Columbs, or the Patent Fuel, or that humbug discovery of Patterson's,—the Irish Asphalt There's an American fellow, by the way, wants that.”
“They're very low,—very low, all these, sir,” said Hankes, lugubriously. “They sank so obstinately that I just withdrew our name quietly, so that we can say any day we have long ceased any connection with these enterprises.”
“She 'll scarcely make any delay in Malta, Hankes. Your message ought to be there by Thursday at latest” And then, as if ashamed of showing where his thoughts were straying, he said, “All kinds of things—odds and ends of every sort—are jostling each other in my brain to-night.”
“You want rest, sir; you want nine or ten hours of sound sleep.”
“Do I look fatigued or harassed?” asked Dunn, with an eagerness that almost startled the other.
“A little tired, sir; not more than that,” cautiously answered Hankes.
“But I don't feel tired. I am not conscious of any weariness,” said he, pettishly. “I suspect that you are not a very acute physiognomist, Hankes. I have told you,” added he, hastily, “I shall want some twelve or fifteen thousand pounds soon. Look out, too, for any handsome country-seat—in the South, I should prefer it—that may be in the market I 'll not carry out my intentions about Kellett's Court. It is a tumble-down old concern, and would cost us more in repairs than a handsome house fit to inhabit.”
“Am I to have the honor of offering my felicitations, sir?” said Hankes, obsequiously; “are the reports of the newspapers as to a certain happy event to be relied on?”
“You mean as to my marriage? Yes, perfectly true. I might, in a mere worldly point of view, have looked higher,—not higher, certainly not,—but I might have contracted what many would have called a more advantageous connection; in fact, I might have had any amount of money I could care for, but I determined for what I deemed the wiser course. You are probably not aware that this is a very long attachment. Lady Augusta and myself have been as good as engaged to each other for—for a number of years. She was very young when we met first,—just emerging from early girlhood; but the sentiment of her youthful choice has never varied, and, on my part, the attachment has been as constant.”
“Indeed, sir!” said Hankes, sorely puzzled what to make of this declaration.
“I know,” said Dunn, returning rapidly to the theme, “that nothing will seem less credible to the world at large than a man of my stamp marrying for love! The habit is to represent us as a sort of human monster, a creature of wily, money-getting faculties, shrewd, over-reaching, and successful. They won't give us feelings, Hankes. They won't let us understand the ties of affection and the charms of a home. Well,” said he, after a long pause, “there probably never lived a man more mistaken, more misconceived by the world than myself.”
Hankes heaved a heavy sigh; it was, he felt, the safest thing he could do, for he did not dare to trust himself with a single word. The sigh, however, was a most profound one, and, plainly as words, declared the compassionate contempt he entertained for a world so short-sighted and so meanly minded.
“After all,” resumed Dunn, “it is the penalty every man must pay for eminence. The poor little nibblers at the rind of fortune satisfy their unsuccess when they say, 'Look at him with all his money!'”
Another and deeper sigh here broke from Hankes, who was really losing all clew to the speaker's reflections.
“I'm certain, Hankes, you have heard observations of this kind five hundred times.”
“Ay, have I, sir,” answered he, in hurried confusion,—“five thousand!”
“Well, and what was your reply, sir? How did you meet such remarks?” said Dunn, sternly.
“Put them down, sir,—put them down at once; that is, I acknowledged that there was a sort of fair ground; I agreed in thinking that, everything considered, and looking to what we saw every day around us in life—and Heaven knows it is a strange world, and the more one sees of it the less he knows—”
“I 'm curious to hear,” said Dunn, with a stern fixedness of manner, “in what quarter you heard these comments on my character.”
Hankes trembled from head to foot. He was in the witness-box, and felt that one syllable might place him in the dock.
“You never heard one word of the kind in your life, sir, and you know it,” said Dunn, with a savage energy of tone that made the other sick with fear. “If ever there was a man whose daily life refuted such a calumny, it was myself.”
Dunn's emotions were powerful, and he walked the room from end to end with long and determined strides. Suddenly halting at last, he looked Hankes steadily in the face, and said,—
“It was the Kellett girl dared thus to speak of me, was it not? The truth, sir,—the truth; I will have it out of you!”
“Well, I must own you are right. It was Miss Kellett.”
Heaven forgive you, Mr. Hankes, for the lie, inasmuch as you never intended to tell it till it was suggested to you.
“Can you recall the circumstance which elicited this remark? I mean,” said he, with an affected carelessness of manner, “how did it occur? You were chatting together,—discussing people and events, eh?”
“Yes, sir; just so.”
“And she observed—Do you chance to remember the phrase she used?”
“I give you my word of honor I do not, sir,” said Hankes, with a sincere earnestness.
“People who fancy themselves clever—and Miss Kellett is one of that number—have a trick of eliminating every trait of a man's character from some little bias,—some accidental bend given to his youthful mind. I am almost certain—nay, I feel persuaded—it was by some such light that young lady read me. She had heard I was remarkable as a schoolboy for this, that, or t' other,—I saved my pocket-money, or lent it out at interest. Come, was it not with the aid of an ingenious explanation of this kind she interpreted me?”
Mr. Hankes shook his head, and looked blankly disconsolate.
“Not that I value such people's estimate of me,” said Dunn, angrily. “Calumniate, vilify, depreciate as they will, here I stand, with my foot on the first step of the peerage. Ay, Hankes, I have made my own terms; the first 'Gazette' after the new elections will announce Mr. Davenport Dunn as Lord Castledunn.”
Hankes actually bounded on his chair. Had he been the faithful servant of some learned alchemist, watching patiently for years the wondrous manipulations and subtle combinations of his master, following him from crucible to crucible and from alembic to alembic, till the glorious moment when, out of smoke and vapor, the yellow glow of the long-sought metal gleamed before his eyes, he could not have regarded his chief with a more devoted homage.
Dunn read “worship” in every lineament of the other's face. It was as honest veneration as his nature could compass, and, sooth to say, the great man liked it, and sniffed his incense with the-air of Jove himself.
“I mean to take care of you, Hankes,” said he, with a bland protectiveness. “I do not readily forget the men who have served me faithfully. Of course we must draw out of all our enterprises here. I intend at once to realize—yes, Hankes—to realize a certain comfortable sum and withdraw.”
These were not very explicit nor very determinate expressions, but they were amply intelligible to him who heard them.
“To wind up, sir, in short,” said Hankes, significantly.
“Yes, Hankes, 'to wind up.'”
“A difficult matter,—a very difficult matter, sir.”
“Difficulties have never deterred me from anything, Mr. Hankes. The only real difficulty I acknowledge in life is to choose which of them I will adopt; that done, the rest is matter of mere detail.” Mr. Dunn now seated himself at a table, and in the calm and quiet tone with which he treated every business question, he explained to Hankes his views on each of the great interests he was concerned in. Shares in home speculations were to be first exchanged for foreign scrip, and these afterwards sold. Of the vast securities of private individuals pledged for loans, or given as guarantees, only such were to be redeemed as belonged to persons over whom Dunn had no control. Depositary as he was of family secrets, charged with the mysterious knowledge of facts whose publication would bring ruin and disgrace on many, this knowledge was to have its price and its reward; and as he ran his finger down the list of names so compromised, Hankes could mark the savage exultation of his look while he muttered unintelligibly to himself.
Dunn stopped at the name of the Viscount Lackington, and, leaning his head on his hand, said, “Don't let us forget that message to Malta.”
“A heavy charge that, sir,” said Hankes. “The Ossory has got all his Lordship's titles; and we have set them down, too, for twenty-one thousand seven hundred above their value.”
“Do you know who is the Viscount Lackington?” asked Dunn, with a strange significance.
“No, sir.”
“Neither do I,” said Dunn, hurriedly following him. “Mayhap it may cost some thousands of pounds and some tiresome talk to decide that question; at all events, it will cost you or me nothing.”
“The Earl of Glengariff's claim must, I suppose, be satisfied, sir?”
“Of course, it must, and the very first of all! But I am not going to enter minutely into these things now, Hankes. I need a little of that rest you were just recommending me to take. Be here to-morrow at twelve; do not mention my arrival to any one, but come over with the Ossory statement and the two or three other most important returns.”
Mr. Hankes rose to withdraw; and as he moved towards the door, his eye caught the oaken box, with three large seals placed by his own hand.
“You have scarcely had time to think about these papers, sir; but they will have their importance when that peerage case comes to be discussed. The Lackingtons were Conways—”
“Let me have a look at them,” said Dunn, rapidly.
Hankes broke open the paper bands, and unlocked the box. For some time he searched through the documents as they lay, and then emptying them all upon the table, he went over them more carefully, one by one. “Good heavens!” cried he, “how can this be?”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Dunn; “you do not pretend that they are missing?”
“They are gone,—they are not here!” said the other, almost fainting from agitation.
“But these are the seals you yourself fastened on the box.”
“I know it,—I see it; and I can make nothing of it.”
“Mr. Hankes, Mr. Hankes, this is serious,” said Dunn, as he bent upon the affrighted man a look of heart-searching significance.
“I swear before Heaven—I take my most solemn oath—”
“Never mind swearing; how could they have been extricated? That is the question to be solved.”
Hankes examined the seals minutely; they were his own. He scrutinized the box on every side to see if any other mode of opening it existed; but there was none. He again went through the papers,—opening, shaking, sifting them, one by one; and then, with a low, faint sigh, he sank down upon a chair, the very image of misery and dismay. “Except it was the devil himself—”
“The devil has plenty of far more profitable work on hand, sir,” said Dunn, sternly; and then, in a calmer tone, added, “Is it perfectly certain that you ever saw the documents you allude to? and when?”
“Saw them? Why, I held them in my hands for several minutes. It was I myself replaced them in the box before sealing it.”
“And what interval of time occurred between your reading them and sealing them up?”
“A minute,—half a minute, perhaps; stay,” cried he, suddenly, “I remember now that I left the room to call the landlord. Miss Kellett remained behind.”
With a dreadful imprecation Dunn struck his forehead with his hand, and sank into his seat. “What cursed folly,” cried he, bitterly, “and what misfortune and ruin may it beget!”
“It was then that she took them,—that was the very moment,” muttered Hankes, as he followed on his own dreary thoughts.
“My father was right,” said Dunn, below his breath; “that girl will bring sorrow on us yet.”
“But, after all, what value could they have in her eyes? She knows nothing about the questions they refer to; she could not decipher the very titles of the documents.”
“I ought to have known,—I ought to have foreseen it,” cried Dunn, passionately. “What has my whole life been but a struggle against the blunders, the follies, and the faults of those who should have served me! Other men are fortunate in their agents. It was reserved for me to have nothing but incapables, or worse.”
“If you mean to include me in either of these categories, sir, will you please to say which?” said Hankes, reddening with anger.
“Take your choice,—either, or both!” said Dunn, savagely.
“A man must be very strong in honesty that can afford to speak in this fashion of others,” said Hankes, his voice tremulous with rage. “At all events, the world shall declare whether he be right or not.”
“How do you mean, 'the world shall declare'? Is it that what has passed between us here can be made matter for public notoriety? Would you dare—”
“Oh, I would dare a great deal, sir, if I was pushed to it,” said Hankes, scoffingly. “I would dare, for instance, to let the world we are speaking of into some of the mysteries of modern banking. I have a vast amount of information to give as to the formation of new companies,—how shares are issued, cancelled, and reissued. I could tell some amusing anecdotes about title-deeds of estates that never were transferred—”
Why is it that Mr. Hankes, now in the full flood of his sarcasm, stops so suddenly? What has arrested his progress; and why does he move so hurriedly towards the door, which Dunn has, however, already reached before him and locked? Was it something in the expression of Dunn's features that alarmed him?—truly, there was in his look what might have appalled a stouter heart,—or was it that Dunn had suddenly taken something, he could not discern what, from a drawer, and hastily hidden it in his pocket?
“Merciful heavens!” cried Hankes, trembling all over, “you would not dare—”
“Like yourself, sir, I would dare much if pushed to it,” said Dunn, in a voice that now had recovered all its wonted composure. “But come, Hankes, it is not a hasty word or an ungenerous speech is to break up the ties of a long friendship. I was wrong; I was unjust; I ask your pardon for it. You have served me too faithfully and too well to be requited thus. Give me your hand, and say you forgive me.”
“Indeed, sir, I must own I scarcely expected—that is, I never imagined—”
“Come, come, do not do it grudgingly; tell me, frankly, all is forgiven.”
Hankes took the outstretched hand, and muttered some broken, unintelligible words.
“There, now, sit down and think no more of this folly.” He opened a large pocket-book as he spoke, and searching for some time amongst its contents, at last took forth a small slip of paper. “Ay, here it is,” said he: “'Sale of West Indian estates; resident commissionership; two thousand per annum, with allowance for house,' &c. Sir Hepton Wallis was to have it. Would this suit you, Hankes? The climate agrees with many constitutions.”
“Oh, as to the climate,” said Hankes, trembling with eagerness and delight, “I 'd not fear it.”
“And then with ample leave of absence from time to time, and a retiring allowance, after six years' service, of—if I remember aright—twelve hundred a year. What say you? It must be filled up soon. Shall I write your name instead of Sir Hepton's?”
“Oh, sir, this is, indeed, generosity!”
“No, Hankes, mere justice; nothing more. The only merit I can lay claim to in the matter is the sacrifice I make in separating myself from a well-tried and trusted adherent.”
“These reports shall be ready immediately, sir,” said Hankes. “I 'll not go to bed to-night—”
“We have ample time for everything, Hankes; don't fatigue yourself, and be here at twelve to-morrow.”