“Davis likes him, or, at least, he wants him,” replied Spicer, “and that's enough for us. Depend upon it, Grog makes no mistakes.” The other laughed; but what he replied was lost in the distance?
It was some time ere Beecher could summon resolution to leave the place of his concealment and set out towards the town. Of all the sentiments that swayed and controlled him, none had such a perfect mastery over his nature as distrust. It was, in fact, the solitary lesson his life's experience had taught him. He fancied that he could trace every mistake he had ever made, every failure he had ever incurred, to some unlucky movement of credulity on his own part, and that “believing” was the one great error of his whole life. He had long been of opinion that high station and character had no greater privileges than the power they possessed of imposing a certain trustfulness in their pledges, and that the great “pull” a duke had over a “leg” was that his Grace would be believed in preference. But it also appeared to him that rogues were generally true to each other; now, if this last hope were to be taken away, what was there left in life to cling to? Spicer had said, “Davis wants him.” What did that mean?—what could it mean? Simply that Grog found him, not an associate or colleague, but a convenient tool. What an intolerable insult, that he, the Honorable Annesley Beecher, whose great connections rambled through half Debrett, was to be accounted a mere outpost sentry in the corps of Grog Davis!
His anger increased as he went along. The wound to his self-esteem was in the very tenderest spot of his nature. Had any man ever sacrificed so much to be a sharp fellow as he had? Who had, like him, given up friends, station, career, and prospects? Who had voluntarily surrendered the society of his equals, and gone down to the very dregs of mankind, just to learn that one great secret? And was it to be all in vain? Was all his training and teaching to go for nothing? Was he, after descending to the ranks, to discover that he never could learn the manual exercise? How often, in the gloomiest hours of his disappointment, had he hugged the consolation to his heart, that Grog Davis knew and valued him! “Ask G. D. if I'm a flat,” was the proud rejoinder he would hurl at any attempt to depreciate his shrewdness. What was to become of him, then, if the bank that held all his fortune were to fail? If Beecher deemed a sharp fellow the most enviable of all mortals, so he regarded a dupe as the meanest and most miserable, and the very thought of such a fate was almost maddening. “No, confound me! they sha'n't have it to say that they 'landed' A. B.; they shall never boast they nobbled me,” cried he, warming with the indignation that worked within him. “I 'm off, and this time without beat of drum. Davis may do his worst. I'll lie by snug for a year or two. There must be many a safe spot in Germany or Italy, where a man may defy detection.” And then he ran over in his mind all the successful devices he had seen adopted for disguising a man's appearance. Howard Vane had a wig and whiskers that left him unrecognized by his own mother; Crofton Campbell travelled with Inspector Field in search of himself, all by means of a nose. It was wonderful what science was accomplishing every day for the happiness and welfare of mankind!
The plan of escape was not without its difficulties, however. First of all, he had no money. Davis had given him merely enough to pay railroad fares and the charges incidental to the road, and he was living at the hotel on credit. This was a serious obstacle, but it was also one which had so often before occurred in Beecher's experience that he was not so much dismayed by it as many another might have been. “Money was always to be had somehow,” was a golden rule of his philosophy, the somehow meaning that it resolved itself into a simple question of skill and address of the individual in want of it Aix was a considerable town, much frequented by strangers, and must, doubtless, possess all the civilizing attributes of other cities,—namely, Jews, money-lenders, and discounters. Then, the landlord of the inn; it was always customary to give him the preference in these cases. He 'd surely not refuse an advance of a few hundred francs to a man who came accompanied as he was. Klepper alone was good security for ten times more than he needed. Must it be confessed that he felt elevated in his own esteem when he had resolved upon this scheme? It savored of shrewdness,—that great touchstone of capacity which he revered so highly. “They shall see if I'm a flat, this time,” chuckled he to himself as he went along; and he stepped out briskly in the excitement of self-approval. Then he went over in his mind all the angry commentaries that would be passed upon his flight,—the passionate fury of Grog, the amazement of Spicer, the almost incredulous surprise of the Count,—till at last he came to Lizzy; and then, for the first time in all his calculations, a sense of shame sent the color to his cheek, and he blushed till his face grew crimson. “Ay, by Jove! what will she think!” muttered he, in a voice of honest truthfulness. How he should appear to her—how he should stand in her estimation—after such an ignoble desertion, was a thought not to be encountered by self-praises of his cunning. What would her “pluck” say to his “cowardice,” was a terrible query.
CHAPTER XXXVI. A COUNTRY VISIT
Let us now return to the Hermitage, and the quiet lives of those who dwelt there. Truly, to the traveller gazing down from some lofty point of the Glengariff road upon that lowly cottage deep buried in its beech wood, and only showing rare glimpses of its trellised walls, nothing could better convey the idea of estrangement from the world and its ambitions. From the little bay, where the long low waves swept in measured cadence on the sands, to the purple-clad mountains behind, the scene was eminently calm and peaceful. The spot was precisely one to suggest the wisdom of that choice which prefers tranquil obscurity to the struggle and conflict of the great world. What a happy existence would you say was theirs, who could drop down the stream of a life surrounded with objects of such beauty, free to indulge each rising fancy, and safe from all the collisions of mankind!—how would one be disposed to envy the unbroken peacefulness that no ambitions ruffled, no rude disappointments disturbed! And yet such speculations as these are ever faulty, and wherever the human heart throbs, there will be found its passions, its hopes and fears. Beneath that quiet roof there dwelt all the elements that make the battle of life; and high aspirings and ignoble wishes, and love and fear, and jealousy, and wealth-seeking lived there, as though the spot were amidst the thundering crash of crowded streets and the din of passing thousands!
Sybella Kellett had been domesticated there about two months, and between Lady Augusta and herself there had grown a sort of intimacy,—short, indeed, of friendship, but in which each recognized good qualities in the other.
Had Miss Kellett been older, less good-looking, less grace-ful in manner, or generally less attractive, it is just possible that—we say it with all doubt and deference—Lady Augusta might have been equally disposed to feel satisfied. She suspected “Mr. Dunn must have somewhat mistaken the object of her note,” or “overlooked the requirements they sought for.” Personal attractions were not amongst the essentials she had mentioned. “My Lord,” too, was amazed at his recommending a “mere girl,”—she couldn't be more than “twenty,”—and, consequently, “totally deficient in the class of knowledge he desired.”
Two months,—no very long period,—however, sufficed to show both father and daughter that they had been, to some extent, mistaken. Not only had she addressed herself to the task of an immense correspondence, but she had drawn out reports, arranged prospectuses, and entered into most complicated financial details with a degree of clearness that elicited marked compliment from the different bodies with whom this intercourse was maintained. The Glengariff Joint Stock Company, with its half-million capital, figured largely in the public journals. Landscapes of the place appeared in the various illustrated papers, and cleverly written magazine articles drew attention to a scheme that promised to make Ireland a favored portion of the empire. Her interest once excited, Sybella Kellett's zeal was untiring.