Mrs. Davenport

“ Davenport, saying that she had heard from Reggie, to say he was coming back to London, and that he wished to see her; that she had given him his congé once for all and had no intention of seeing him, and that it would save her trouble if Mrs. Davenport would communicate this to him.
It was not a very easy note to write for many [Pg 308] reasons, but the other was even harder; it was to Gertrude Carston, and ran as follows:—
"You will wonder what I, of all women in the world, can have to say to you. ”

“ If the thought ever had occurred to him that the image of Eva was becoming a sort of palimpsest to that of Gertrude, he would have denied the imputation stoutly, perhaps the more stoutly because he was aware that he had not been at pains to find out.
Mrs. Davenport felt, when he had left her, that in a vague way she had expected all this. She had been quite aware that it is not possible for men to continue being boys indefinitely—that there is a time for everyone when they must ask themselves why they do a thing, or why they do not do it; and she knew that, for Reggie, that time had come. ”

“ Davenport.
"It's like this," said Gertrude. "Hitherto I've always felt so entirely at one with Reggie. If I feel a thing, he's always seemed to feel it too, like an echo, and the same with me. But just this once I listened for the echo and it didn't come."
Mrs. Davenport paused a moment.
"Did you ever hear of the man who was out riding with his wife when her horse threw her, and in dismounting to help her he dropped his whip, and while he was picking it up, the horse kicked her and killed her?" she asked. "It seems to me that you are just a little like that man, Gerty. Love is a very big thing ”

“ It had turned Alfred sick while he listened to it. As he heard that self-possessed, aggressive man give evidence, he felt the toils closing round the unhappy woman. Now, in all likelihood, these toils had for ever vanished into air, and Mrs. Davenport was as free from suspicion of complicity in her husband's murder as though the two had never in all their lives met.
He asked his sister if she knew anything about Mrs. Davenport. Madge had an idea that Mrs. Davenport was still staying at Jermyn Street. Young Paulton asked nothing about Blake. He was not concerned about him. ”

“ Davenport's visit to the Black Rock that day had not been one of mere curiosity, although nothing of import to her life was likely to result from it. Her career was over, if, indeed, it might be said ever to have begun.
In her younger days she had been abandoned by the only man she had ever loved, and wed to a man whom she never loved, whom she could not even esteem. ”

“ Pringle, can now add something to where I left off? Mr. Davenport is most anxious to know everything."
Young Pringle had then for the second time to go over the main features of what had taken place since he was at Dulwich last. Of course he was much more reticent than he had been with his father, and repeated nothing of what had passed between Mrs. Davenport and himself. It was Jerry O'Brien who had first introduced Blake's name into the case. Mr. Paulton had told Mr. Davenport all he knew, without adopting the precaution of finding out how the brother of the dead man felt towards the widow. ”

“ I am tired of myself; weary and sick of Murray Davenport. To be a new man, of my own imagining—that would be something;—to begin afresh, with an unencumbered personality of my own choosing; to awake some morning and find that I was not Murray Davenport nor any man now living that I know of, but a different self, formed according to ideals of my own. There would be a liberation!”
“Well,” said Larcher, “if a man can't change to another self, he can at least change his place and his way of life.” ”

“ At that time I was a needy man, and I had borrowed money of him, which I have never repaid. That is so. During the time Mr. Davenport was ill--was suffering from this delusion or suspicion--I was constantly with him. I do not think he disclosed to any one but me the delusions or suspicions he was under. When he recovered he made me swear most solemnly I would never tell a soul. Then he lent me, or, if you prefer it, gave me, more money, and left Florence, and I lost sight of him until I met him in Ireland. ”

“ They all wound up by saying that the inquest would be held next day.
That afternoon Richard Pringle called on chance at the house in Jermyn Street, and found Mrs. Davenport at home. She received him in a dreamy, half-conscious way, and answered listlessly the common-place questions he put to her. Before seeing her he had made up his mind not to refer to the scene which had taken place between them yesterday. He was firmly convinced she would not give him her full confidence, and that to seek to get at the bottom of the affair would be only to court obstruction. ”

“ Davenport that Richard on returning from his walk had still kept his intentions from Ethel. “She does not manage him in the least,” Mrs. Davenport declared to the other ladies, as Ethel and Richard started for an afternoon drive together. “She will not know anything more when she brings him back.” ”

“ Mr. Davenport laid an unfinished cartoon on the desk, representing a chariot race, and laughed when he explained what it would be and mean; and this told me that he enters heartily in whatever he draws, which is requisite to success in art as well as in other things. Then we adjourned to another room and sat about a wood fire.
“Tell me of your beginning,” I said.
“Well, I was born in Oregon, thirty-five years ago, on my father’s farm. As a child, I was perpetually drawing, and to my father I owe much, for it was he who encouraged me, my mother dying when I was very young. ”

“ We may say the same of this brave true woman, she sleeps in the Lord. Her rest has been undisturbed in this quiet spot which she hoped to make a great city.
It seems to be plain that the charge of the affairs of Governor John Winthrop, Jr., in New Haven was wholly in the hands of Mrs. Davenport, the wife of the minister, Rev. John Davenport. Many sentences in her husband’s letters show her cares for her friends’ welfare, the variety of her business [Pg 53] duties, and her performance of them. He wrote thus to the Governor in 1658:—
For your ground ”

“ You don't know how earnestly he wished that.”
“Surely Davenport's wishes can't be endangered through my knowledge of any secret,” Florence replied, with so much sad affection that Turl was again visibly moved. “But for the misunderstanding which kept us apart, he would not have had this secret from me. And to think!—he disappeared the very day Mr. Larcher was to enlighten him. It was cruel! And now you would keep from me the knowledge of what became of him. I have learned too well that fate is pitiless; and I find that men are no less so.” ”

“ One cannot control the inevitable.
"Now that all is known, all my recent life laid bare, who is the richer? Does any one wonder I had no liking to expose what has been told of since I came into this place? You, Mr. Edward Davenport, have, in the moment of her sorest trial, done all you could to injure the character of your brother's wife. You had not the courage to attack her openly when she was a widow, but must shamble and crouch behind a hireling advocate--a creature who would pocket as clean the gold of any one even more leprous than himself." ”

“ Davenport's delicate constitution. She fell into a rapid decline and died. Her husband was seized with a fever the summer after, and died also, leaving two children, Mark and Anna. The blacksmith had six motherless children of his own; but he set out for the West, and brought the orphans home with him. He thenceforth treated them like his own offspring, manifesting a woman's tenderness as well as a father's care for them.
Mark was a comely lad, with the yellow curling hair, the clear blue eyes, and the marked symmetry of features that belonged to his uncle. ”

“ The interruption at the conference had not a little offended Davenport. A pompous and conceited man, any slight to himself, any failure to accord a deference he considered his due, he felt sensibly as an injury; much more, then, an open defiance and direct attack. That Holden or any one should have the hardihood, before an assemblage of his friends and acquaintances, to interrupt him and load him with reproaches, wounded his self love to the quick, and he fancied it would affect his reputation and influence in the community were the offence to be passed over without notice. ”

“ Then was a settled look of anxiety. He seemed older. Beverly was silent. He more nearly understood what his father was doing than did even Katherine. Presently he said: "Hear them sing!"
Mr. Davenport was staring straight before him into space. He turned to listen.
"Happy, careless, thoughtless, unfortunate creatures," he said softly, "and as free as you or I, this minute—as free as you or I—if only they knew it;" then suddenly—"No, not that, either. They can never be that so long as they may not stay here free, even if they want to. ”

“ Davenport, "you threw yourself into my arms, crying, 'Mamma, whip me, but don't send me away.' I knew better than to whip you, but I punished you by not kissing you good-night."
"And I cried myself to sleep," put in Beth, snuggling more closely to her mother. "I thought I must be very naughty not to get my usual good-night kiss. I do try to be good, but it's very hard work sometimes. But I'll get the better of the bad girl, I'll leave her here in New York, so she won't bother you in Florida."——
Just then Mr. Davenport entered the room. He was a tall, dark man with a very kindly face. ”

“ I knew him abroad before I met him in Ireland. It was in Florence that I met him first. I was introduced to him by an American gentleman, a sculptor by profession. I saw a good deal of Mr. Davenport when I was in Florence. I am now speaking of eleven or twelve years ago. While I was on friendly terms with him in that city his mind was affected. He suffered from a delusion that there was a conspiracy to kill and rob him. He usually at that time carried valuable jewels and considerable sums of money on his person. ”

“ And this is what his mind was full of at the time when you, Larcher, were working with him.
“He imagined a man such as would be produced by the happiest conditions; one of those fortunate fellows who seem destined for easy, pleasant paths all their lives. A habitually lucky man, in short, with all the cheerfulness and urbanity that such a man ought to possess. Davenport believed that as such a man he would at least not be handicapped by the name or suspicion of ill-luck. ”

“ If the money goes back to Bagley, I must depend solely upon what I can earn. I made up my mind not to be versatile in my vocations, as Davenport had been; to rely entirely on the one which seemed to promise most. I have to thank you, Larcher, for having caused me to learn what that was, in my former iden—in the person of Murray Davenport. You see how the old and new selves will still overlap; but the confusion doesn't harm my sense of being Francis Turl as much as you might imagine; and the lapses will necessarily be fewer and fewer in time. ”

“ The writer is indebted for an initiation into the mysteries of the Davenport Brothers’ rope-tying to Mr. H. Morgan Robinson (Professor Helmann) , of Washington, D. C., a very clever prestidigitateur.
In the year 1895, after an unbroken silence of nineteen years, Fay, ex-assistant of the Davenports, determined to resume the profession of public medium. [Pg 147] He abandoned his sheep ranch and hunted up Ira Davenport. They gave several performances in Northern towns, and finally landed at the Capital of the Nation, in the spring of 1895, and advertised several séances at Willard’s Hall. ”

“ With Larcher, it went the course of such images; occupied less and less of his thoughts, grew more and more vague. He no longer kept up any pretence of inquiry. He had ceased to call at police headquarters and on Mrs. Haze. That good woman had his address “in case anything turned up.” She had rented Davenport's room to a new lodger; his hired piano had been removed by the owners, and his personal belongings had been packed away unclaimed by heir or creditor. For any trace of him that lingered on the scene of his toils and ponderings, the man might never have lived at all. ”

“ Erle looked more puzzled than ever. “I can not understand it,” he said, in a most perplexed voice. “If she be your cousin, Crystal Ferrers, why does she call herself Crystal Davenport? There can be no question of identity; that is the face of the Miss Davenport I know—the young governess who lives with the Traffords; that is the very ring she wears, too”—with another quick glance at the hand that was holding a sheaf of white lilies. ”

“ Her tours have been very successful, and the woman who was supposed to be merely a charming comedian has shown herself to be possessed of the very highest powers of tragedy. Miss Davenport, as she is known to. the world, has been twice married. Her first husband was Edwin H. Price, an actor, to whom she was married 30th July. 1889. She secured a divorce from him in 1888. She was married in 1889 to Melbourne McDowell, the principal actor in her company. Recently Miss Davenport has given American theater-goers great pleasure in the magnificent staging and dressing of her plays. ”

“ It wouldn't be enough to throw off the burden of my memories, with their clogging effect upon my life and conduct, and take up the burden of some other man's—though I should be the gainer even by that, in a thousand cases I could name.”
“Oh, I don't exactly mean changing with somebody else,” said Larcher. “We all prefer to remain ourselves, with our own tastes, I suppose. But we often wish our lot was like somebody else's.”
Davenport shook his head. “I don't prefer to remain myself, any more than to be some man whom I know or have heard of. ”