Читать книгу Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2 - Lever Charles James - Страница 7

Davis was surprised, and something more, as he entered the breakfast-room the next morning to find the Rev. Paul Classon already seated at the table, calmly arranging certain little parallelograms of bread-and-butter and sardines. No signs of discomfiture or shame showed themselves in that calmly benevolent countenance. Indeed, as he arose and extended his hand there was an air of bland protection in the gesture perfectly soothing.

“You came back in a pretty state last night,” said Davis, roughly.

“Overtaken, Kit, – overtaken. It was a piece of good news rather than the grape juice did the mischief. As the poet says, —

“The fact is, Kit, you brought me luck. Just as I reached the Post-Office, I saw a letter addressed to the Rev. Paul Classon, announcing that I had been accepted as Chaplain to the great Hydropathic Institution at Como! and, to commemorate the event, I celebrated in wine the triumphs of water! You got the letters all safely?”

“Little thanks to you if I did; nor am I yet certain how many may have dropped out on the road.”

“Stay, – I have a memorandum here,” said Paul, opening his little note-book. “Four, with London post-marks, to Captain Christopher; two from Brussels for the same; a large packet for the Hon. Annesley Beecher. That’s the whole list.”

“I got these!” said Grog, gruffly; “but why, might I ask, could you not have kept sober till you got back here?”

“He who dashes his enthusiasm with caution, waters the liquor of life. How do we soar above the common ills of existence save by yielding to those glorious impulses of the heart, which say, ‘Be happy!’”

“Keep the sermon for the cripples at the water-cure,” said Davis, savagely. “When are you to be there?”

“By the end of the month. I mentioned the time myself. It would be as soon, I thought, as I could manage to have my divinity library out from England.”

The sly drollery of his eye, as he spoke, almost extorted a half-smile from Davis.

“Let me see,” muttered Grog, as he arose and lighted his cigar, “we are, to-day, the 21st, I believe. No, you can’t be there so early. I shall need you somewhere about the first week in October; it might chance to be earlier. You mustn’t remain here, however, in the interval. You’ll have to find some place in the neighborhood, about fifteen or twenty miles off.”

“There’s Höchst, on the Lahn, a pleasant spot, eighteen miles from this.”

“Höchst be it; but, mark me, no more of last night’s doings.”

“I pledge my word,” said Paul, solemnly. “Need I say, it is as good as my bond?”

“About the same, I suspect; but I ‘ll give you mine too,” said Davis, with a fierce energy. “If by any low dissipation or indiscretion of yours you thwart the plans I am engaged in, I ‘ll leave you to starve out the rest of your life here.”

“‘So swear we all as liegemen true, So swear to live and die!’” cried out Paul, with a most theatrical air in voice and gesture.

“You know a little of everything, I fancy,” said Davis, in a more good-humored tone. “What do you know of law?”

“Of law?” said Paul, as he helped himself to a dish of smoking cutlets, – “if it be the law of debtor and creditor, false arrest, forcible possession, battery, or fraudulent bankruptcy, I am indifferently well skilled. Nor am I ignorant in divorce cases, separate maintenance, and right of guardianship. Equity, I should say, is my weak point.”

“I believe you,” said Davis, with a grin, for he but imperfectly understood the speech. “But it is of another kind of law I ‘m speaking. What do you know about disputed title to a peerage? Have you any experience in such cases?”

“Yes; I have ransacked registries, rummaged out gravestones in my time. I very nearly burned my fingers, too, with a baptismal certificate that turned out to be – what shall I call it? – unauthentic!”

“You forged it!” said Grog, gruffly.

“They disputed its correctness, and, possibly, with some grounds for their opinion. Indeed,” added he, carelessly, “it was the first thing of the kind I had ever done, and it was slovenly – slovenly.”

“It would have been transportation!” said Davis, gravely.

“With hard labor,” added Classon, sipping his tea.

“At all events, you understand something of these sort of cases?”

“Yes; I have been concerned, one way or another, with five. They are interesting when you take to them; there are so many, so to say, surprises; always something turning up you never looked for, – somebody’s father that never had a child, somebody’s mother that never was married. Then people die, – say a hundred and fifty years ago, – and no proof of the death can be made out; or you build wonderfully upon an act of Parliament, and only find out at the last hour that it has been repealed. These traits give a great deal of excitement to the suit. I used to enjoy them much when I was younger.” And Mr. Classon sighed as if he had been calling up memories of cricket-matches, steeple-chases, or the polka, – pleasures that advancing years had rudely robbed him of.

Davis sat deep in thought for some time. Either he had not fully made up his mind to open an unreserved confidence with his reverend friend, or which is perhaps as likely, he was not in possession of such knowledge as might enable him to state his case.

“These suits, or actions, or whatever you call them,” said he, at length, “always drag on for years, – don’t they?”

“Of course they do; the lawyers take care of that. There are trials at bar, commissions, special examinations before the Masters, arguments before the peers, appeals against decisions; in fact, it is a question of the purse of the litigants. Like everything else, however, in this world, they ‘ve got economy-struck. I remember the time – it was the Bancroft case – they gave me five guineas a day and travelling expenses to go out to Ravenna and take the deposition of an old Marchess, half-sister of the Dowager, and now, I suppose, they ‘d say the service was well paid with one half. Indeed, I may say I had as good as accepted a sort of engagement to go out to the Crimea and examine a young fellow whom they fancy has a claim to a peerage, and for a mere trifle, – fifteen shillings a day and expenses. But they had got my passport stopped here, and I could n’t get away.”

“What was the name of the claimant?”

“Here it is,” said he, opening his note-book. “Charles Conway, formerly in the 11th Hussars, supposed to be serving as orderly on the staff of General La Marmora. I have a long letter of instructions Froode forwarded me, and I suspect it is a strong case got up to intimidate.”

“What is the peerage sought for?” asked Davis, with an assumed indifference.

“I can tell you in five minutes if you have any curiosity on the subject,” said Paul, rising. “The papers are all in my writing-desk.”

“Fetch them,” said Davis, as he walked to the window and looked out.

Classon soon re-entered the room with a large open letter in his hand.

“There’s the map of the country!” said he, throwing it down on the table. “What would you call the fair odds in such a case, Kit, – a private soldier’s chance of a peerage that has been undisturbed since Edward the Third?”

“About ten thousand to one, I ‘d call it.”

“I agree with you, particularly since Froode is in it. He only takes up these cases to make a compromise. They ‘re always ‘settled.’ He’s a wonderful fellow to sink the chambers and charge the mine, but he never explodes, – never!”

“So that Froode can always be squared, eh?” asked Davis.

“Always.” Classon now ran his eyes over the letter, and, mumbling the lines half aloud, said, “In which case the Conways of Abergeldy, deriving from the second son, would take precedence of the Beecher branch.’ The case is this,” added he, aloud: “Viscompt Lackington’s peerage was united to the estates by an act of Edward; a motion for a repeal of this was made in Elizabeth’s time, and lost – some aver the reverse; now the claimant, Conway, relies upon the original act, since in pursuit of the estates he invalidates the title. It’s a case to extort money, and a good round sum too. I ‘d say Lord Lack-ington might give twenty thousand to have all papers and documents of the claim surrendered into his hands.”

“A heavy sum, twenty thousand,” muttered Davis, slowly.

“So it is, Kit; but when you come to tot up suits at Nisi Prius, suits in Equity, searches at the Herald’s office, and hearings before the Lords, you ‘ll see it is a downright saving.”

“But could Lackington afford this? What is he worth?”

“They call the English property twelve thousand a year, and he has a small estate in Ireland besides. In fact, it is out of that part of the property the mischief has come. This Conway’s claim was discovered in some old country-house there, and Froode is only partially instructed in it.”

“And now, Paul,” said Davis, slowly, “if you got a commission to square this here affair and make all comfortable, how would you go about it?”

“Acting for which party, do you mean?” asked Paul.

“I mean for the Lackingtons.”

“Well, there are two ways. I ‘d send for Froode, and say, ‘What’s the lowest figure for the whole?’ or I’d despatch a trusty fellow to the Crimea to watch Conway, and see what approaches they are making to him. Of course they’ll send a man out there, and it ought n’t to be hard to get hold of him, or, if not himself, of all his papers and instructions.”

“That looks business-like,” said Grog, encouragingly.

“After all, Kit, these things, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, are only snaps of the percussion-cap. There ‘s scarcely a peerage in England is not menaced with an attempt of the kind; but such is the intermarriage – such the close tie of affinity between them – they stand manfully to the fellow in possession. They know in their hearts, if once they let the world begin to pick out a stone here or there, the whole wall may come tumbling down, and so they say, ‘Here ‘s one of us since Henry II.‘s time going to be displaced for some upstart fellow none of us ever heard of.’ What signifies legitimacy that dates seven centuries back, in favor of one probably a shoemaker or a house-painter? They won’t stand that, Kit, and reasonably enough, too. I suppose you’ve heard all about this case from Beecher?”

“Well, I have heard something about it,” said Grog, in confusion, for the suddenness of the question disconcerted him; “but he don’t care about it.”

“Very likely not. If Lackington were to have a son, it would n’t concern him much.”

“Not alone that, but he does n’t attach any importance to the claim; he says it’s all got up to extort money.”

“What of that? When a highwayman stops you with the same errand, does n’t the refusal occasionally provoke him to use force? I know very few things so hard to deal with as menaces to extort money. Life is, after all, very like the game the Americans call ‘Poker,’ where the grand secret is, never to ‘brag’ too far on a bad hand. What was your part in this business, Kit?” asked he, after a brief silence.

“How do you mean by my part?” rejoined Davis, gruffly.

“I mean, how were you interested? Do you hold any of Lackington’s paper? – have you got any claims on the reversion? – in a word, does it in any way concern you which king reigns in Israel?”

“It might, or it might not,” said Grog, dryly. “Now for a question to you. Could you manage to get employed in the affair, – to be sent out after this Conway, – or is it too late?”

“It might, or it might not,” said Classon, with a significant imitation of the other’s tone and manner. Davis understood the sarcasm in a moment, and in a voice of some irritation said, —

“Don’t you try to come the whip-hand over me, Holy Paul. If there be anything to do in this matter, it is I, and not you, will be paymaster; so much for this, so much for that, – there’s the terms!”

“It is such dealings I like best,” said Classon, blandly “Men would have benefited largely in this world had probity been parcelled out as task-work instead of being made daily labor.”

“I suspect that neither you nor I would have had much employment either way,” said Davis, with a bitter laugh. “But come, you must be stirring. You ‘ll have to be off out of this before the afternoon. The Rhine steamer touches at Neuwied at three, and I expect my daughter by this boat. I don’t want her to see you just yet awhile, Paul. You ‘ll start for Höchst, put up at the inn there, and communicate with me at once, so that I may be able to reckon upon you when needed. It were as well, too, that you’d write a line to Froode, and say that on second thoughts that expedition to the Crimea might suit; explore the way, in fact, and let me know the tidings. As to terms,” said Grog, – for the other’s blank look expressed hesitation, – “if I say, ‘Go,’ you shall say ‘For what?’”

“I do love these frank and open dealings,” said Paul, warmly.

“Look here!” said Davis, as the other was about to leave the room; “old Joe Morris, of Mincing Lane, made his fortune by buying up all the forged bills of exchange he could lay hands on, well knowing that the fellows he could hang or transport any day would be trusty allies. Now, I have all my life committed every critical thing to somebody or other that no other living man would trust with a sixpence. They stood to me as I stood to them, and they knew why. Need I tell you that why?”

“No necessity in the world to do so,” said Paul, blandly.

“That ‘s enough,” said Davis. “Come to me when you’re ready, and I’ll have some cash for you.”