Davenant

“ The next second she had slipped between the portières into the hail. He heard her pause there.
It was inevitable that Guion's words should return to him: "Half in love with him—as it is."
"That's rot," he assured himself. He had only to call up the image of Davenant's hulking figure and heavy ways to see what rot it was. He himself was not vain of his appearance; he had too much to his credit to be obliged to descend to that; but he knew he was a distinguished man, and that he looked it. The woman who could choose between him and Davenant would practically have no choice at all. ”

“ Davenant still eyed him pensively. "Do I understand you to be suspicious of my motives?"
"Suspicious might not be the right word. Suppose we said curious."
Davenant reflected. Perhaps it was his mastery of the situation that gave him unconsciously a rock-like air of nonchalance. When he spoke it was with a little smile, which Guion took to be one of condescension. Condescension in the circumstances was synonymous with insolence. ”

“ Davenant grew to understand more fully the innocent but frank and brave nature of the beautiful girl whom her son Stephen had so strangely committed to her charge; grew to understand and to love her, and, bit by bit, her nervousness and timidity wore off in Una’s presence. ”

“ Just as Carmichael will have it that Davenant is a mode of Brotherhood. Like the materialist or the idealist he is stultifying experience for the sake of a formula. Couldn’t one write this up, somehow? Brotherhood, representing Matter, leaves off where Davenant, representing Spirit, begins. Carmichael, representing the modern mind, finds this an excellent reason for supposing that they are really, somehow, the same thing. The materialist sees Brotherhood everywhere, the Idealist sees Davenant everywhere, and consequently neither of them can solve the detective mystery of existence. ”

“ Davenant."
"Davenant? Is that his name? Yes, I believe your papa did tell me so—the boy Tom Davenant fished out of the slums."
With some indignation Olivia told the story of Davenant's birth and adoption. "So you see," she went on, "he has goodness in his blood. There's no reason why that shouldn't be inherited as much as—as insanity—or a taste for alcohol."
"Stuff, dear! The man or the boy, or whatever he is, calculated on getting something better than he gave. We must simply pay him off and get rid of him. Noblesse oblige."
"We may get rid of him, Aunt Vic, but we can never pay him off." ”

“ Davenant flushed nervously.
“I—meant to brush your hair and tie your ribbons—as she does mine; but it does not matter if you would rather not have her.”
“I should not like to trouble her,” said Una.
“And how long have you been up, my dear?”
“Since five,” said Una, quietly.
Mrs. Davenant stared aghast, and Jane nearly dropped the hair-brush.
“Since five! My dear child! Ah! I see, you—you have been used to rising early. I am afraid you will soon lose that good habit. We Londoners don’t rise with the lark.” ”

“ In course of time Mr and Mrs Davenant grew cold-hearted, calculating, and selfish; and as their fortunes flourished, more and more did they exult in their own wisdom, and condemn as foolish and Quixotic everything charitable and disinterested. To the best of their power they brought up their children in the same principles, and they succeeded to admiration with their eldest daughter, who was as shrewd and prudent as they could wish. Mrs Davenant would often express her maternal delight in her Selina: there never was a girl possessing such strong good sense—such wisdom. ”

“ That other—he whose face was always with her, was going there!
“At Hurst Leigh,” repeated Mrs. Davenant. “Do you know it?”
Una shook her head silently. She longed to ask more, to ask if Mrs. Davenant knew the youth who had taken shelter in the cottage, but she simply could not. Love is a wondrous schoolmaster—he had already taught her frank, out-spoken nature the art of concealment.
“It is a grand place,” continued Mrs. Davenant. “A great, huge place,” and she shivered faintly, “and—and if Squire Davenant has left it to Stephen, he will live there.” ”

“ Going up the stairs toward her father's room, the sound of voices reassured her. Davenant was there still. That was so much relief. She was able to collect herself, to put on something like her habitual air of quiet dignity, before she pushed open the door and entered.
Guion was lying on the couch with the rug thrown over him. Davenant stood by the fireplace, endangering with his elbow a dainty Chelsea shepherdess on the mantelpiece. He was smoking one of Guion's cigars, which he threw into an ash-tray as Olivia came in. ”

“ How often am I to tell you, my dear Reeves, that you are dealing with a genius? If Davenant had ordered a sleeper just at that moment, attention might have been directed to him. But ordering a sleeper for Brotherhood would merely strengthen the impression that Brotherhood had disappeared. If that was all—personally I believe the scheme was even more audacious. I believe Davenant did mean to go away, for a time at any rate, and by that very train. He would join it at Crewe, travelling in an ordinary first-class carriage. ”

“ Davenant. “It is by it alone that a future age will understand what ours is. You are entering upon some strange experiences, Miss Rolfe.”
Una started; the name was so unfamiliar to her that she hardly recognized it.
“Please don’t call me that,” she said, laying her hand on Mrs. Davenant’s arm. “My name is Eunice—Una. Call me Una.”
“I will,” said Mrs. Davenant.
“You have promised to love me, you know.”
“A promise easy to keep, my dear,” she said, and her eyes grew moist. “I little thought when my son Stephen telegraphed to meet him that he was taking me to a daughter.” ”

“ Among them would certainly be a blue-eyed ghost with an empty beer-bottle—and blood-covered hair.
Davenant, stiff and aloof, seemed to want loneliness. He had taken the air for a few minutes and gone. He was more unbending than ever of late. Nursing, perhaps, his injury from Williams's tongue. It had been reckless, crazy, of him to turn for even only a short time a man like Davenant to work.
Not because there was anything degrading about the work, but because Davenant was Davenant. Davenant was polite in the way of a man who seems a little startled when there is a call for his attention ”

“ Here he was, swimming in the deep, smooth waters of diplomacy, and suddenly diplomacy seemed a sticky medium. He would [68] have liked Miss Davenant to be a man—a man in green-silk Georgian coat and buckled shoes; himself also gloriously Georgian, in murray-colored cut velvet, with Mechlin at wrists and throat. ”

“ The wind increased in violence; the spray was salt on his mustache, and clung to the nap of his clothing. The radiance that marked Trouville and Honfleur grew dim almost to extinction. Along the quay the cafés began to diminish the number of their lights. The cheerful groups broke up, strolling home to the mansard or to the fo'castle, with bursts of drunken or drowsy song. Davenant continued to sit crouched, huddled, bowed. He ceased to argue, or to follow the conflict between self-interest and duty, or to put up a fight of any kind. He was content to sit still and suffer. ”

“ His hair whitened; he grew leaner—but his mind retained the relentless precision of a strong machine—and D. Davenant and Co. prospered till few competitors dared stand in its shadow.
After a while men began to say jokingly that he would never die—unless, they added, half-believing it, the Devil flew away with him. For even after Frances’ death, he displayed no slightest sign of repentance for what he had done—though, by now, his story, and Frances’, and Dicky Jerome’s, had well nigh taken on the proportions of a legend—and people called him “King David,” under their breath. ”

“ This melancholy event was a severe blow to the hopes of Davenant. He was thereby thrown upon his own resources; and, as frequently happens, misfortune begat success, as it necessitated the attempt to achieve it. Bereft of his patron, without fortune or position, he addressed himself seriously to the business of life, and his predilections pointed to the theatre. In the following year, he presented for representation his “Albovine, King of the Lombards,” a tragedy written in prose, the plot taken from a novel by Bandello. ”

“ He retained the memory of a minute of intense astonishment once upon a time, followed by some weeks, some months perhaps, of angry humiliation; but the years between twenty-four and thirty-three are long and varied, generating in healthy natures plenty of saving common sense. Work, travel, and a widened knowledge of men and manners had so ripened Davenant's mind that he was able to see his proposal now as Miss Guion must have seen it then, as something so incongruous and absurd as not only to need no consideration, but to call for no reply. ”

“ How was she to explain to this frank, beautiful girl the laws of etiquette? “But everyone who speaks of those to whom they are not related say Mr., or Mrs., or Miss.”
“I see,” said Una. “Then Mr. Davenant expects to get his uncle’s money, and then he will be rich. I am very glad. And he does not live in the same house with you?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant—and surely there was something like a tone of relief in her voice—“no; when he is in London he lives in chambers in rooms by himself; but he has been staying at Hurst Leigh.” ”

“ He was no other than the laureate and dramatist Will Davenant, known on the London boards by that name for a good many years before the war, but now Sir William Davenant, knighted by the King in Sept. 1643 for his Army-plotting and his gallant soldiering. He was over forty years of age, and had just turned, or was turning, a Roman Catholic in Paris, or perhaps rather a Roman Catholic Hobbist. Clarendon, with a sneer at Davenant's profession of play-writer, makes merry over the choice of such an agent by the Queen, Jermyn, and Colepepper, and relates the result with some malice. ”

“ By Paphos and its patroness, she went off in a month with a tall captain of fusiliers, and left me to despondency and the new novel.”
“And you longed to be so deceived again,” said Davenant.
“No; it was very fatiguing. Never, while you live, believe in the language of the eyes. But you will, because you were born to be a fool, and you must fulfil your destiny. ”

“ Tell me why you are going to Arkdale?”
“I’m going to Arkdale to take a train to Hurst Leigh to see my uncle, cousin, or whatever he is—Squire Davenant.”
“Is he an old man?”
“Yes, a very old man, and a bad one, too. All our family are a bad lot, excepting my cousin, Stephen Davenant.”
“The one you do not like?”
“The same. He is quite an angel.”
“An angel?”
“One of those men too good to live. He’s the only steady one we’ve got, and we make the most of him. He is Squire Davenant’s heir—at least he will come into his money. The old man is very rich, you know.” ”

“ Davenant, in very early life, gave promise of a taste for literature, and one of his first attempts at composition was "An Ode in Remembrance of Master William Shakespeare." He acquired the rudiments of knowledge at the grammar school of his native parish, then flourishing under the management of Edward Sylvester, and in 1621, he matriculated at Lincoln College, his father being Mayor of the city that year. ”

“ Davenant uttered a little moan.
“And—and have you quite forgotten?”
Una looked at her calmly, but with a faint shadow in her eyes and a touch of pain on her lips.
“Forgotten! No, I shall not forget until I am dead; perhaps not then; who knows?” and the dreamy look came back. “But that cannot matter. He, Stephen, is content; I have told him all, and he is content. He is easily satisfied.” And for the first time a smile of bitterness crossed her lips. “Why should he love me so?” she said, curtly. “Why should he be so anxious to make me his wife? ”

“ Davenant held a knife in his hand. He was examining it, and Williams held the lantern almost against the knife.
“As I said,” Davenant remarked, slowly turning the knife back and forth, “this looks—this is hers. Not that she wouldn't use it—her grandmother came from Sicily.
“This is very queer—very queer. Dula never spoke to the man in her life. I am sure of that. You don't think—” Davenant broke off. ”

“ Davenant had just a trifle hesitancy, naturally. He really had no surety that he would get full service for his money. But he was a man in earnest. Who dices with the devil must fling gold to the table.
At the first meeting Davenant had intimated that he wanted references. Moore told him they were the easiest of things to furnish—that there were plenty of people round about who would write them out, so much per word. ”

“ Davenant began, stammeringly, "if a fellow got something into his head—something that couldn't be wrong, you know—something that would be right—awfully right in its way, but in a way that most people would consider all wrong—or wild, as I said before—you'd advise him—?"
"I shouldn't advise him at all. Some things must be spontaneous, or they're of little use. If a good seed in good ground won't germinate of its own accord, words of counsel can't help it. ”

“ They don't want any of us—not for ourselves. It's the sou!—the sou!—the everlasting sou! Noble or peasant—it makes no difference. But if my niece hadn't abandoned me—"
"Why shouldn't you come home, madame?" Davenant suggested, touched by so much that was tragic. "You wouldn't find any one after the sou there."
"They're all about me," she whispered—"the Melcourt. They're all over the house. They come and settle on me, and I can't shake them off. They suffocate me—waiting for the moment when—But I've made my will, and some'll be disappointed. Oh, I shall leave them Melcourt-le-Danois. ”