Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE HERMITAGE AT GLENGARIFF

Beside a little arm of the sea, and surrounded by lofty mountains, stood the cottage of Lord Glengariff. It was originally built as a mere fishing-lodge, a resting-place in the bathing-season, or a spot to visit when it was the pleasure of its owners to affect retirement and seclusion. Then would the Earl and his Countess and the Ladies Julia and Jemima come down to the Hermitage with a sort of self-approving humility that seemed to say, “Even we know how to chastise pride, and vanity, and the sinful lusts of the flesh.” Whether it was that these seasons of mortification became more frequent, or that they required more space, we cannot say; but, in course of time, the hermitage extended its limbs, first in one direction, and then in another, till at length it grew to be a very commodious house, with ample rooms and every imaginable comfort, Owing to the character of the architecture, too, it gained in picturesque effect by these successive additions; and in its jutting projections, its deep-shadowed courts, and its irregular line of roof, it presented a very pleasing specimen of that half-Elizabethan cottage so rarely hit upon in any regular plan. As the fortunes of the noble house declined, – the Earl’s ancestors had been amongst the most extravagant of Irish gentry, – the ancient castle of Holt-Glengariff, where they had long resided, was sold, and the family settled down to live at the Hermitage. At first the change was supposed to be merely temporary, – “they were going to live in London or in Brighton; they were about to establish themselves in Paris; her Ladyship was ordered to Italy,” – a variety of rumors, in fact, were afloat to explain that the sunshine of their presence in that lonely glen would be but brief and short-lived. All the alterations that might be made in the cottage or its grounds, all the facilities of approach by land and water, all the beneficial changes in the village itself, were alluded to as projects for the day when they would come back there; for my Lord said he “really liked the place,” – a species of avowal that was accepted by the neighborhood as the proudest encomium man could pronounce upon their “happy valley.”

With all these plans and intentions, it was now eighteen years, and the Earl had never quitted the Hermitage for any longer journey than an occasional trip to Dublin. The Countess had taken a longer road than that over the Alps, and lay at rest in the village churchyard. The Ladies Georgina, Arabella, and Julia had married off, and none remained but Lady Augusta Arden, of whom we have already made brief mention to our readers in a former chapter.

We did but scant justice to Lady Augusta when we said that she had once been handsome: she was so still. She had fine eyes and fine teeth; a profusion of brown hair of the very silkiest; her figure was singularly graceful; and, baring a degree of haughtiness, – a family trait, – her manner was unexceptionably good and pleasing. Both the Earl and his daughter had lived too long amongst those greatly inferior to them in rank and fortune not to conceive a very exaggerated estimate of themselves.

No Pasha was ever more absolute than my Lord in the little village beside him; his will was a sort of firman that none dreamed of disputing; and, indeed, the place men occupied in the esteem of their fellows there, was little else than a reflex of how they were regarded at the Hermitage. We never scruple to bestow a sort of derisive pity upon the savage who, having carved his deity out of a piece of wood, sits down to worship him; and yet, what an unconscious imitation of the red man is all our adulation of great folks! We follow him to the very letter, not only in investing the object of our worship with a hundred qualities that he has not, but we make him the butt of our evil passions, and in the day of our anger and disappointment we turn round and rend him! Not that the villagers ever treated my Lord in this wise, – they were still in the stage “of worship;” they had been at “their offices,” fathers and grandfathers, for many a year, and though some were beginning to complain that their knees were getting sore, none dreamed of getting on their legs! The fact was, that even they who liked the religion least thought it was not worth while abjuring the faith of their fathers, especially when they could not guess what was to replace it; and so my Lord dictated and decided and pronounced for the whole neighborhood; and Lady Augusta doctored and model-schooled and loan-funded them to her heart’s content. Nay, we are wrong! It was all in the disappointed dreariness of an unsatisfied heart that she took to benevolence! Oh, dear! what a sorry search is that after motives, if one only knew how much philanthropy and active charity have come of a breach of promise to marry! Not that Lady Augusta had ever stood in this position, but either that she had looked too high, or was too hard to please, or from some other cause, but she never married.

The man who has no taste for horsemanship consoles himself for the unenjoyed pleasure by reading of the fractured ribs and smashed collar-bones of the hunting-field. Was it in something of this spirit that Lady Augusta took an especial delight in dwelling in her mind and in her letters on all the disagreeables of her sisters’ wedded life? The extravagance of men, their selfishness, their uncomplying habits, the odious tyranny of their tempers, were favorite themes with her, dashed with allusions to every connubial contingency, from alimony to the measles in the nursery! At last, possibly because, by such frequent recurrence to the same subjects, she had no longer anything new to say on them, or perhaps – it is just possible – that the themes themselves had less interest for others than for herself, her sisters seemed to reply less regularly than of old. Their answers were shorter and drier; and they appeared neither to care so much for sympathy and condolence as formerly; and, in fact, as Lady Augusta said to herself, “They were growing inured to ill-treatment!” And if half of us in this world only knew of the miseries we are daily suffering, and which sympathetic friends are crying over, what a deal of delightful affliction might we enjoy that we now are dead to! What oppressive governments do we live under, what cruel taskmasters, what ungrateful publics, not to speak of the more touching sorrows of domestic life, – the undervaluing parents and unsympathizing wives! Well, one thing is a comfort: there are dear kind hearts in mourning over all these for us, anxiously looking for the day we may awaken to a sense of our own misery!

It was of a cheery spring morning, sunlit and breezy, when, in the chirping songs of birds, the rustling leaves, and fast-flowing rivulets, Nature seems to enjoy a more intense vitality, that the Earl sat at breakfast with his daughter. A fairer prospect could hardly be seen than that which lay before the open windows in front of them. The green lawn, dotted with clumps of ancient trees, inclined with many a waving slope to the sea, which in a long narrow arm pierced its way between two jutting headlands, – the one bold, rocky, and precipitous; the other grass-covered and flowery, reflecting its rich tints in the glassy water beneath. The sea was, indeed, calm and still as any lake, and, save when a low, surging sound arose within some rocky cavern, as silent and noiseless. The cattle browsed down to the very water’s edge, and the nets of the fishermen hung to dry over the red-berried foliage of the arbutus. They who looked – when they did, perchance, look on this scene – gazed with almost apathy on it. Their eyes never brightened as the changing sunlight cast new effects upon the scene. Nor was this indifference the result of any unconsciousness of its beauty. A few months back it was the theme of all their praises. Landscape-painters and photographers were invited specially to catch its first morning tints, its last mellow glow at sunset. The old Lord said it was finer than Sorrento, equal to anything in Greece. If the Mediterranean were bluer, where was there such emerald verdure, – where such blended coloring of heaths, purple and blue and violet, – in what land did the fragrance of the white thorn so load the warm atmosphere? Such, and such like, were the encomiums they were wont to utter; and wherefore was it that they uttered them no more? The explanation is a brief one. A commission, or a deputation, or a something as important, had come down to examine Bantry Bay, and investigate its fitness to become a packet station for America. In the course of this examination, a scientific member of the body had strayed down to Glengariff, where, being of a speculative as well as of a scientific turn, he was struck by its immense capabilities. What a gem it was, and what might it not be made! It was Ireland in the tropics, – “the Green Isle” in the Indian Ocean! Only imagine such a spot converted into a watering-place! With a lodge for the Queen on that slope sheltered by the ilex-copse, crescents, and casinos, and yacht stations, and ornamental villas rose on every side by his descriptive powers, and the old Earl – for he was dining with him – saw at one glance how he had suddenly become a benefactor of mankind and a millionnaire. “That little angle of the shore yonder, my Lord, – the space between the pointed rock and the stone-pine trees, – is worth fifty thousand pounds; the crescent that would stand there would leave many an untenanted house at Kemp Town. I ‘ll engage myself to get you a thousand guineas for that small bit of tableland to the right; the Duke of Uxmore is only waiting to hit upon such a spot. Here, too, where we sit, must be the hydropathic establishment. You can’t help it, my Lord, you must comply. This park will bring you in a princely revenue. It is gold, – actual gold, – every foot of it! There ‘s not a Swiss cottage in these woods won’t pay cent per cent!”

Mr. Galbraith – such was his name – was of that pictorially gifted order of which the celebrated George Robins was once chief. He knew how to dress his descriptions with the double attraction of the picturesque and the profitable, so that trees seemed to bend under golden fruit, and the sea-washed rocks looked like “nuggets.”

If there be something very seductive in the prospect of growing immensely rich all at once, there is a terrible compensation in the utter indifference inflicted on us as to all our accustomed pleasures in life. The fate of Midas seems at once our own; there is nothing left to us but that one heavy and shining metal of all created blessedness! Lord Glengariff was wont to enjoy the lonely spot he lived in with an intense appreciation of its beauty. He never wearied of watching the changing effects of season on a scene so full of charm; but now he surveyed it with a sense of fidgety impatience, eager for the time when the sounds of bustle and business should replace the stillness that now reigned around him.

“This is from Dunn,” said he, breaking open a large, heavy-sealed letter which had just arrived. His eyes ran hastily along it, and he exclaimed peevishly, “No prospectus yet; no plan issued; nothing whatever announced. ‘I have seen Galbraith, and had some conversation with him about your harbor.’ My harbor!”

“Go on,” said Lady Augusta, mildly.

“Why, the insolent upstart has not even listened to what was said to him. My harbor! He takes it for granted that we were wanting to make this a packet station for America, and he goes on to say that the place has none of the requisite qualifications, – no depth of water! I wish the fellow were at the bottom of it! Really, this is intolerable. Here is a long lecture to me not to be misled by those ‘speculation-mongers who are amongst the rife products of our age.’ I ask you, if you ever heard of impertinence like that? This fellow – the arch-charlatan of his day, the quack par excellence of his nation – dares to warn me against the perils of his class and kindred! Only listen to this, Gusty,” cried he, bursting into a fit of half-angry laughter: “‘I am disposed to think that, by drawing closer to the present party in power, you could serve your interests much more effectively than by embarking in any schemes of mere material benefit. Allington’ – he actually calls him Allington! – ‘dropped hints to this effect in a confidential conversation we held last evening together, and I am in hopes that, when we meet, you will enter into our views.’ Are the coronets of the nobility to be put up to sale like the acres of the squirearchy? or what is it this fellow is driving at?” cried he, flinging down the letter in a rage, and walking up and down the room. “The rule of O’Connell and his followers was mild and gentle and forbearing, compared with the sway of these fellows. In the one case we had a fair stand-up fight, – opinion met opinion, and the struggle was an open one; but here we have an organized association to investigate the state of our resources, to pry into our private affairs, learning what pressure bears upon us here, what weak spot gives way there. They hold our creditors in leash, to slip them on us at any moment; and the threat of a confiscation – for it is just that, and nothing less – is unceasingly hanging over us!”

He stopped short in his torrent of passion, for the white sail of a small fishing-craft that just showed in the offing suddenly diverted his thoughts to that vision of prosperity he so lately revelled in, – that pleasant dream of a thriving watering-place, bright, sunny, and prosperous, the shore dotted with gayly caparisoned donkeys, and the sea speckled with pleasure-boats. All the elements of that gay Elysium came up before him, – the full tide of fortune setting strongly in, and coming to his feet. Galbraith, who revelled in millions, whose rapid calculations rarely descended to ignoble thousands, had constantly impressed upon him that if Dunn only took it up, the project was already accomplished. “He’ll start you a company, my Lord, in a week; a splendid prospectus and an admirable set of names on the direction, with a paid-up capital, to begin with, of – say £30,000. He knows to a nicety how many Stock Exchange fellows, how many M.P.‘s, how many county gentlemen to have. He ‘ll stick all the plums in the right place too; and he’ll have the shares quoted at a premium before the scrip is well out in the market. Clever fellow, my Lord, – vastly clever fellow, Dunn!” And so the Earl thought, too, till the letter now before him dashed that impression with disappointment.

“I ‘ll tell you what it is, Gusty,” said he, after a pause, – “we must ask him down here. It is only by an actual inspection of the bay that he can form any just conception of the place. You must write to him for me. This gouty knuckle of mine makes penwork impossible. You can say – Just find a sheet of paper, and I ‘ll tell you what to say.” Now, the noble Earl was not as ready at dictation as he had fancied; for when Lady Augusta had opened her writing-desk, arranged her writing-materials, and sat, pen in hand, awaiting his suggestions, he was still pacing up and down the room, muttering to himself in broken and unconnected phrases, quite unsuited to the easy flow of composition. “I suppose, Gusty, – I take it for granted, – you must begin, ‘My dear sir,’ – eh? – or, perhaps, better still, ‘Dear Mr. Dunn.’”

“‘Dear Mr. Dunn,’” said she, not looking up from the paper, but quietly retouching the last letters with her pen.

“But I don’t see why, after all, we should follow this foolish lead,” said he, proudly. “The acceptance he meets from others need not dictate to us, Gusty. I ‘d say, ‘The Earl of Glengariff’ – or, ‘I am requested by Lord Glen-gariff – ‘”

“‘My father, Lord Glengariff,’” interposed she, quietly.

“It sounds more civilly, perhaps. Be it so;” and again he walked up and down, in the same hard conflict of composition. At length he burst forth: “There ‘s nothing on earth more difficult than addressing a man of this sort. You want his intimacy without familiarity. You wish to be able to obtain the benefit of his advice, and yet not incur the infliction of his dictation. In fact, you are perfectly prepared to treat him as a valued guest, provided he never lapses into the delusion that he is your friend. Now, it would take old Metternich to write the sort of note I mean.”