If Cattaro was more picturesque and strange-looking than the Bramleighs had expected, it was also far more poverty-stricken and desolate. The little town, escarped out of a lofty mountain, with the sea in front, consisted of little more than one straggling street, which followed every bend and indentation of the shore. It is true, wherever a little plateau offered on the mountain, a house was built; and to these small winding paths led up, through rocks bristling with the cactus, or shaded by oleanders large as olive-trees. Beautiful little bits of old Venetian architecture, in balconies or porticos, peeped out here and there through the dark foliage of oranges and figs; and richly ornamented gates, whose arabesques yet glistened with tarnished gilding, were festooned with many a flowery creeper, and that small banksia-rose, so tasteful in its luxuriance. From the sea it would be impossible to imagine anything more beautiful or more romantic. As you landed, however, the illusion faded, and dirt, misery, and want stared at you at every step. Decay and ruin were on all sides. Palaces, whose marble mouldings and architraves were in the richest style of Byzantine art, were propped up by rude beams of timber that obstructed the footway, while from their windows and balconies hung rags and tattered draperies, the signs of a poverty within great as the ruin without. The streets were lined with a famished, half-clothed population, sitting idly or sleeping. A few here and there affected to be vendors of fruit and vegetables; but the mass were simply loungers reduced to the miserable condition of an apathy which saw nothing better to be done with life than dream it away. While Bramleigh and L'Estrange were full of horror at the wretchedness of the place, their sisters were almost wild with delight at its barbaric beauty, its grand savagery, and its brilliantly picturesque character. The little inn, which probably for years had dispensed no other hospitalities than those of thecafé, that extended from the darkly columned portico to half across the piazza, certainly contributed slightly to allay the grumblings of the travellers. The poorly furnished rooms were ill kept and dirty, the servants lazy, and the fare itself the very humblest imaginable.
Nothing short of the unfailing good temper and good spirits of Julia and Nelly could have rallied the men out of their sulky discontent; that spirit to make the best of everything, to catch at every passing gleam of sunlight on the landscape, and even in moments of discouragement to rally at the first chance of what may cheer and gladden,—this is womanly, essentially womanly. It belongs not to the man's nature; and even if he should have it, he has it in a less discriminative shape and in a coarser fashion.
While Augustus and L'Estrange then sat sulkily smoking their cigars on the sea-wall, contemptuously turning their backs on the mountain variegated with every hue of foliage, and broken in every picturesque form, the girls had found out a beautiful old villa, almost buried in orange-trees in a small cleft of the mountain, through which a small cascade descended and fed a fountain that played in the hall; the perfect stillness, only broken by the splash of the falling water, and the sense of delicious freshness imparted by the crystal circles eddying across the marble fount, so delighted them that they were in ecstasies when they found that the place was to be let, and might be their own for a sum less than a very modest “entresol” would cost in a cognate city.
“Just imagine, Gusty, he will let it to us for three hundred florins a year; and for eighteen hundred we may buy it out and out, forever.” This was Nelly's salutation as she came back, full of all she had seen, and glowing with enthusiasm over the splendid luxuriance of the vegetation and the beauty of the view.
“It is really princely inside, although in terrible dilapidation and ruin. There are over two of the fireplaces the Doge's arms, which shows that a Venetian magnate once lived there.”
“What do you say, George?” cried Bramleigh. “Don't you think you 'd rather invest some hundred florins in a boat to escape from this dreary hole than purchase a prison to live in?”
“You must come and see the 'Fontanella'—so they call it—before you decide,” said Julia. “Meanwhile here is a rough sketch I made from the garden side.”
“Come, that looks very pretty, indeed,” cried George. “Do you mean to say it is like that?”
“That's downright beautiful!” said Bramleigh. “Surely these are not marble,—these columns!”
“It is all marble,—the terrace, the balconies, the stairs, the door-frames; and as to the floors, they are laid down in variegated slabs, with a marvellous instinct as to color and effect. I declare I think it handsomer than Castello,” cried Nelly.
“Have n't I often said,” exclaimed Bramleigh, “there was nothing like being ruined to impart a fresh zest to existence? You seem to start anew in the race, and unweighted, too.”
“As George and I have always been in the condition you speak of,” said Julia, “this charm of novelty is lost to us.”
“Let us put it to the vote,” said Nelly, eagerly. “Shall we buy it?”
“First of all, let us see it,” interposed Bramleigh. “Today I have to make my visit to the authorities. I have to present myself before the great officials, and announce that I have come to be the representative of the last joint of the British lion's tail; but that he, being a great beast of wonderful strength and terrific courage, to touch a hair of him is temerity itself.”
“And they will believe you?” asked Julia.
“Of course, they will. It would be very hard that we should not survive in the memories of people who live in lonely spots, and read no newspapers.”
“Such a place for vegetation I never saw,” cried Nelly. “There are no glass windows in the hall, but through the ornamental ironwork the oranges and limes pierce through and hang in great clusters; the whole covered with the crimson acanthus and the blue japonica, till the very brilliancy of color actually dazzles you.”
“We 'll write a great book up there, George,—'Cattaro under the Doges:' or shall it be a romance?” said Bramleigh.
“I 'm for a diary,” said Julia, “where each of us shall contribute his share of life among the wild-olives.”
“Ju's right,” cried Nelly; “and as I have no gift of authorship, I'll be the public.”
“No, you shall be the editor, dearest,” said Julia. “He is always like the Speaker in the House,—the person who does the least, and endures the most.”
“All this does not lead us to any decision,” said L'Estrange. “Shall I go up there all alone, and report to you this evening what I see and what I think of the place?”
This proposal was at once acceded to; and now they went their several ways, not to meet again till a late dinner.
“How nobly and manfully your brother bears up!” said Julia, as she walked back to the inn with Nelly.
“And there is no display in it,” said Nelly, warmly. “Now that he is beyond the reach of condolence and compassion, he fears nothing. And you will see that when the blow falls, as he says it must, he will not wince nor shrink.”
“If I had been a man I should like to have been of that mould.”
“And it is exactly what you would have been, dear Julia. Gusty said, only yesterday, that you had more courage than us all.”
When L'Estrange returned, he came accompanied by an old man in very tattered clothes, and the worst possible hat, whose linen was far from spotless, as were his hands innocent of soap. He was, however, the owner of the villa, and a Count of the great family of Kreptowicz. If his appearance was not much in his favor, his manners were those of a well-bred person, and his language that of education. He was eager to part with this villa, as he desired to go and live with a married daughter at Ragusa; and he protested that, at the price he asked, it was not a sale, but a present; that to any other than Englishmen he never would part with a property that had been six hundred years in the family, and which contained the bones of his distinguished ancestors, of which, incidentally, he threw in small historic details; and, last of all, he avowed that he desired to confide the small chapel where these precious remains were deposited to the care of men of station and character. This chapel was only used once a year, when a mass for the dead was celebrated, so that the Count insisted no inconvenience could be incurred by the tenant. Indeed, he half hinted that, if that one annual celebration were objected to, his ancestors might be prayed for elsewhere, or even rest satisfied with the long course of devotion to their interests which had been maintained up to the present time. As for the chapel itself, he described it as a gem that even Venice could not rival. There were frescos of marvellous beauty, and some carvings in wood and ivory that were priceless. Some years back he had employed a great artist to restore some of the paintings, and supply the place of others that were beyond restoration; and now it was in a state of perfect condition, as he would be proud to show them.
“You are aware that we are heretics, monsieur?” said Julia.
“We are all sons of Adam, mademoiselle,” said he, with a polite bow; and it was clear that he could postpone spiritual questions to such time as temporal matters might be fully completed.
As the chapel was fully twenty minutes' walk from the villa, and much higher on the mountain side, had it even been frequented by the country people it could not have been any cause of inconvenience to the occupants of the villa; and this matter being settled, and some small conditions as to surrender being agreed to, Bramleigh engaged to take it for three years, with a power to purchase if he desired it.
Long after the contract was signed and completed, the old Count continued, in a half-complaining tone, to dwell on the great sacrifice he had made, what sums of money were to be made of the lemons and oranges, how the figs were celebrated even at Ragusa, and Fontanella melons had actually brought ten kreutzers—three-halfpence—apiece in the market at Zara.
“Who is it,” cried Julia, as the old man took his leave, “who said that the old mercantile spirit never died out in the great Venetian families, and that the descendants of the doges, with all their pride of blood and race, were dealers and traders whenever an occasion of gain presented itself?”
“Our old friend there has not belied the theory,” said Bramleigh; “but I am right glad that we have secured La Fontanella.”
There is a sad significance in the fact that the happiest days of our lives are those most difficult to chronicle; it is as though the very essence of enjoyment was its uneventful nature. Thus was it that the little household at the Fontanels felt their present existence. Its simple pleasures, its peacefulness never palled upon them. There was that amount of general similarity in tastes amongst them that secures concord, and that variety of disposition and temperament which promotes and sustains interest.
Julia was the life of all; for, though seeming to devote herself to the cares of housethrift and management, and in reality carrying on all the details of management, it was she who gave to their daily life its color and flavor, she who suggested occupations and interest to each; and while Augustus was charged to devote his gun and his rod to the replenishment of the larder, George was converted into a gardener; all the decorative department of the household being confided to Nelly, who made the bouquets for the breakfast and dinner tables, arranged the fruit in artistic fashion, and was supreme in exacting dinner-dress and the due observance of all proper etiquette. Julia was inflexible on this point; for, as she said, “though people laugh at deposed princes for their persistence in maintaining a certain state and a certain pageantry in their exile, without these, what becomes of their prestige, and what becomes of themselves? they merge into a new existence, and lose their very identity. We, too, may be 'restored' one of these days, and let it be our care not to have forgotten the habits of our station.” There was in this, as in most she said, a semi-seriousness that made one doubt when she was in earnest; and this half-quizzing manner enabled her to carry out her will and bear down opposition in many cases where a sterner logic would have failed her.
Her greatest art of all, however, was to induce the others to believe that the chief charm of their present existence was its isolation. She well knew that while she herself and Nelly would never complain of the loneliness of their lives, their estrangement from the world and all its pursuits, its pleasures and its interests, the young men would soon discover what monotony marked their days, how uneventful they were, and how uniform. To convert all these into merits, to make them believe that this immunity from the passing accidents of life was the greatest of blessings, to induce them to regard the peace in which they lived as the highest charm that could adorn existence, and at the same time not suffer them to lapse into dreamy inactivity or lethargic indifference, was a great trial of skill, and it was hers to achieve it. As she said, not without a touch of vainglory, one day to Nelly, “How intensely eager I have made them about small things. Your brother was up at daylight to finish his rock-work for the creepers, and George felled that tree for the keel of his new boat before breakfast. Think of that, Nelly; and neither of them as much as asked if the post had brought them letters and newspapers. Don't laugh, dearest. When men forget the post-hour, there is something wonderfully good or bad has befallen them.”
“But it is strange, after all, Ju, how little we have come to care for the outer world. I protest I am glad to think that there are only two mails a week,—a thing that when we came here, I would have pronounced unendurable.”
“To George and myself it matters little,” said Julia; and her tone had a touch of sadness in it, in spite of her attempt to smile. “It would not be easy to find two people whom the world can live without at so little cost. There is something in that, Nelly; though I 'm not sure that it is all gain.”
“Well, you have your recompense, Julia,” said the other, affectionately; “for there is a little 'world' here could not exist without you.”
“Two hares, and something like a black cock—they call it a caper, here,” cried Augustus, from beneath the window. “Come down, and let us have breakfast on the terrace. By the way, I have just got a letter in Cutbill's hand. It has been a fortnight in coming, but I only glanced at the date of it.”
As they gathered around the breakfast-table they were far more eager to learn what had been done in the garden, and what progress was being made with the fish-pond, than to hear Mr. Cutbill's news; and his letter lay open till nigh the end of the meal, on the table, before any one thought of it.
“Who wants to read Cutbill?” said Augustus, indolently.
“Not I, Gusty, if he writes as he talks.”
“Do you know, I thought him very pleasant?” said L'Estrange. “He told me so much that I had never heard of, and made such acute remarks on life and people.”
“Poor dear George was so flattered by Mr. Cutbill's praise of his boiled mutton, that he took quite a liking to the man; and when he declared that some poor little wine we gave him had a flavor of 'muscat' about it, like old Moselle, I really believe he might have borrowed money of us if he had wanted, and if we had had any.”
“I wish you would read him aloud, Julia,” said Augustus.
“With all my heart,” said she, turning over the letter to see its length. “It does seem a long document, but it is a marvel of clear writing. Now for it. 'Naples, Hotel Victoria. My dear Bramleigh.' Of course you are his dear Bramleigh? Lucky, after all, that it's not dear Gusty.”
“That's exactly what makes everything about that man intolerable tome,” said Nelly. “The degree of intimacy between people is not to be measured by the inferior.”
“I will have no discussions, no interruptions,” said Julia. “If there are to be comments, they must be made byme.”
“That's tyranny, I think,” cried Nelly.
“I call it more than arrogance,” said Augustus.
“My dear Bramleigh,” continued Julia, reading aloud, “I followed the old Viscount down here, not in the best of tempers, I assure you; and though not easily outwitted or baffled in such matters, it was not till after a week that I succeeded in getting an audience. There's no denying it, he 's the best actor on or off the boards in Europe. He met me coldly, haughtily. I had treated him badly, forsooth, shamefully; I had not deigned a reply to any of his letters. He had written me three—he was n't sure there were not four letters—to Rome. He had sent me cards for the Pope's chapel—cards for Cardinal Somebody's receptions—cards for a concert at St. Paul's, outside the walls. I don't know what attentions he had not showered on me, nor how many of his high and titled friends had not called at a hotel where I never stopped, or left their names with a porter I never saw. I had to wait till he poured forth all this with a grand eloquence, at once disdainful and damaging; the peroration being in this wise—that such lapses as mine were things unknown in the latitudes inhabited by well-bred people. 'These things are not done, Mr. Cutbill,' said he, arrogantly; 'these things are not done! You may call them trivial omissions, mere trifles, casual forgetful-ness, and such like; but even men who have achieved distinction, who have won fame and honors and reputation, as I am well aware is your case, would do well to observe the small obligations which the discipline of society enforces, and condescend to exchange that small coin of civilities which form the circulating medium of good manners.' When he had delivered himself of this he sat down overpowered; and though I, in very plain language, told him that I did not believe a syllable about the letters, nor accept one word of the lesson, he only fanned himself and bathed his temples with rose-water, no more heeding me or my indignation than if I had been one of the figures on his Japanese screen.
“'You certainly said you were stopping at the “Minerva,”' said he.
“'I certainly told your Lordship I was at Spilman's.'
“He wanted to show me why this could not possibly be the case—how men like himself never made mistakes, and men like me continually did so—that the very essence of great men's lives was to attach importance to those smaller circumstances that inferior people disregarded, and so on; but I simply said, 'Let us leave that question where it is, and go on to a more important one. Have you had time to look over my account?'
“'If you had received the second of those letters you have with such unfeigned candor assured me were never written, you'd have seen that I only desire to know the name of your banker in town, that I may order my agent to remit the money.'
“'Let us make no more mistakes about an address, my Lord,' said I. 'I 'll take a check for the amount now,' and he gave it. He sat down and wrote me an order on Hedges and Holt, Pall Mall, for fifteen hundred pounds.
“I was so overcome by the promptitude and by the grand manner he handed it to me, that I am free to confess I was heartily ashamed of my previous rudeness, and would have given a handsome discount off my check to have been able to obliterate all memory of my insolence.
“'Is there anything more between us, Mr. Cutbill?' said he, politely; 'for I think it would be a mutual benefit if we could settle all our outlying transactions at the present interview.'
“'Well,' said I, 'there 's that two thousand of the parson's, paid in, if you remember, after Portlaw's report to your Lordship that the whole scheme must founder.'
“He tried to browbeat at this. It was a matter in which I had no concern; it was a question which Mr. L'Estrange was at full liberty to bring before the courts of law; my statement about Portlaw was incorrect; dates were against me, law was against me, custom was against me, and at last it was nigh dinner-hour, and time was against me; 'unless,' said he, with a change of voice I never heard equalled off the stage, 'you will stay and eat a very humble dinner with Temple and myself, for my Lady is indisposed.'
“To be almost on fighting terms with a man ten minutes ago, and to accept his invitation to dinner now, seemed to me one of those things perfectly beyond human accomplishment; but the way in which he tendered the invitation, and the altered tone he imparted to his manner, made me feel that not to imitate him was to stamp myself forever as one of those vulgar dogs whom he had just been ridiculing, and I assented.
“I have a perfect recollection of a superb dinner; but beyond that, and that the champagne was decanted, and that there was a large cheese stuffed with truffles, and that there were ortolans in ice, I know nothing. It was one of the pleasantest evenings I ever passed in my life. I sang several songs, and might have sung more if a message had not come from my Lady to beg that the piano might be stopped,—an intimation which closed theseance; and I said good-night. The next morning Temple called to say my Lord was too much engaged to be able to receive me again; and as to that little matter I had mentioned, he had an arrangement to propose which might be satisfactory. And whether it was that my faculties were not the clearer for my previous night's convivialities, or that Temple's explanations were of the most muddled description, or that the noble lord had purposely given him a tangled skein to unravel, I don't know; but all I could make out of the proposed arrangement was that he would n't give any money back,—no, not on any terms: to do so would be something so derogatory to himself, to his rank, to his position in diplomacy, it would amount to a self-accusation of fraud; what would be thought of him by his brother peers, by society, by the world, and by The Office?
“He had, however, the alternate presentation to the living of Oxington in Herts. It was two hundred and forty pounds per annum and a house,—in fact, 'a provision more than ample,' he said, 'for any man not utterly a worldling.' He was not sure whether the next appointment lay with himself or a certain Sir Marcus Cluff,—a retired fishmonger, he thought,—then living at Rome; but as well as I could make out, if it was Lord Culduff's turn he would appoint L'Estrange, and if it was Cluff's we were to cajole, or to bully, or to persuade him out of it; and L'Estrange was to be inducted as soon as the present incumbent, who only wanted a few months of ninety, was promoted to a better place. This may all seem very confused, dim, and unintelligible, but it is a plain ungarbled statement in comparison with what I received from Temple, who, to do him justice, felt all the awkwardness of being sent out to do something he did n't understand by means that he never possessed. He handed me, however, a letter for Cluff from the noble Viscount, which I was to deliver at once; and, in fact, this much was intelligible, that the sooner I took myself away from Naples, in any direction I liked best, the better. There are times when it is as well not to show that you see the enemy is cheating you, when the shrewdest policy is to let him deem you a dupe and wait patiently till he has compromised himself beyond recall. In this sense I agreed to be the bearer of the letter, and started the same night for Rome.
“Cluff was installed at the same hotel where I was stopping, and I saw him the next morning. He was a poor broken-down creature, sitting in a room saturated with some peculiar vapor which seemed to agree with him, but half suffocated me. The Viscount's letter, however, very nearly put us on a level, for it took his breath away, and all but finished him.
“'Do you know, sir,' said he, 'that Lord Culduff talks here of a title to a presentation that I bought with the estate thirty years ago, and that he has no more right in the matter than he has to the manor-house. The vicarage is my sole gift, and though the present incumbent is but two-and-thirty, he means to resign and go out to New Zealand.' He maundered on about Lord Culduff's inexplicable blunder; what course he ought to adopt towards him; if it were actionable, or if a simple apology would be the best solution, and at last said, 'There was no one for whom he had a higher esteem than Mr. L'Estrange, and that if I would give him his address he would like to communicate with him personally in the matter.' This looked at least favorable, and I gave it with great willingness; but I am free to own I have become now so accustomed to be jockeyed at every step I go, that I would n't trust the Pope himself, if he promised me anything beyond his blessing.
“I saw Cluff again to-day, and he said he had half-written his letter to L'Estrange; but being his postfumigation day, when his doctor enjoined complete repose, he could not complete or post the document till Saturday. I have thought it best, however, to apprise you, and L'Estrange through you, that such a letter is on its way to Cattaro, and, I trust, with satisfactory intelligence. And now that I must bring this long narrative to an end, I scarcely know whether I shall repeat a scandal you may have heard already, or, more probably still, not like to hear now; but it is the town-talk here,—that Pracontal, or Count Bramleigh—I don't know which name he is best known by—is to marry Lady Augusta. Some say that the marriage will depend on the verdict of the trial being in his favor; others declare that she has accepted him unconditionally. I was not disposed to believe the story, but Cluff assures me that it is unquestionable, and that he knows a lady to whom Lady Augusta confided this determination. And, as Cluff says, such an opportunity of shocking the world will not occur every day, and it cannot be expected she could resist the temptation.
“I am going back to England at once, and I enclose you my town address in case you want me: '4, Joy Court, Cannon Street' The Culduff mining scheme is now wound up, and the shareholders have signed a consent. Their first dividend of fourpence will be paid in January, future payment will be announced by notice. Tell L'Estrange, however, not to 'come in,' but to wait.
“If I can be of service in any way, make use of me, and if I cannot, don't forget me, but think of me as, what I once overheard L'Estrange's sister call me,—a well-meaning snob, and very faithfully yours,
“T. Cutbill.”
The sun had just sunk below the horizon, and a blaze of blended crimson and gold spread over the Bay of Naples, coloring the rocky island of Ischia till it glowed like a carbuncle. Gradually, however, the rich warm tints began to fade away from the base of the mountains, and a cold blue color stole slowly up their sides, peak after peak surrendering their gorgeous panoply, till at length the whole island assumed a tinge blue as the sea it stood in.
But for the memory of the former glory it would have been difficult to imagine a more beautiful picture. Every cliff and jutting promontory tufted with wild olives and myrtle was reflected in the waveless sea below; and feathery palm-trees and broad-leaved figs trembled in the water, as that gentle wash eddied softly round the rocks, or played on the golden shore.
It was essentially the hour of peace and repose. Along the shores of the bay, in every little village, the angelus was ringing, and kneeling groups were bowed in prayer; and even here, on this rocky islet, where crime and wretchedness were sent to expiate by years of misery their sins against their fellow-men, the poor galley-slaves caught one instant of kindred with the world, and were suffered to taste in peace the beauty of the hour. There they were in little knots and groups—some lying listlessly in the deep grass; some gathered on a little rocky point, watching the fish as they darted to and fro in the limpid water, and doubtless envying their glorious freedom: and others, again, seated under some spreading tree, and seeming, at least, to feel the calm influence of the hour.
The soldiers who formed their guard had piled their arms, leaving here and there merely a sentinel, and had gone down amongst the rocks, to search for limpets, or those rugged “ricci di mare” which humble palates accept as delicacies. A few, too, dashed in for a swim, and their joyous voices and merry laughter were heard amid the plash of the water they disported in.
In a small cleft of a rock overshadowed by an old ilex-tree two men sat moodily gazing on the sea. In dress they were indeed alike, for both wore that terrible red and yellow livery that marks a life-long condemnation, and each carried the heavy chain of the same terrible sentence. They were linked together at the ankle, and thus, for convenience' sake, they sat shoulder to shoulder. One was a thin, spare, but still wiry-looking man, evidently far advanced in life, but with a vigor in his look and a quick intelligence in his eye that showed what energy he must have possessed in youth. He had spent years at the galleys, but neither time nor the degradation of his associations had completely eradicated the traces of something above the common in his appearance; for No. 97—he had no other name as a prisoner—had been condemned for his share in a plot against the life of the king; three of his associates having been beheaded for their greater criminality. What station he might originally have belonged to was no longer easy to determine; but there were yet some signs that indicated that he had been at least in the middle rank of life. His companion was unlike him in every way. He was a young man with fresh complexion and large blue eyes, the very type of frankness and good-nature. Not even prison diet and discipline had yet hollowed his cheek, though it was easy to see that unaccustomed labor and distasteful food were beginning to tell upon his strength, and the bitter smile with which he was gazing on his lank figure and wasted hands showed the weary misery that was consuming him.
“Well, old Nick,” said the young man at length, “this is to be our last evening together; and if ever I should touch land again, is there any way I could help you—is there anything I could do for you?”
“So then you're determined to try it?” said the other, in a low growling tone.
“That I am. I have not spent weeks filing through that confounded chain for nothing: one wrench now and it's smashed.”
“And then?” asked the old man with a grin.
“And then I'll have a swim for it. I know all that—I know it all,” said he, answering a gesture of the other's hand; “but do you think I care to drag out such a life as this?”
“Ido,” was the quiet reply.
“Then why you do is clear and clean beyond me. To me it is worse than fifty deaths.”
“Look here, lad,” said the old man, with a degree of animation he had not shown before. “There are four hundred and eighty of us here: some for ten, some for twenty years, some for life; except yourself alone there is not one has the faintest chance of a pardon. You are English, and your nation takes trouble about its people, and, right or wrong, in the end gets them favorable treatment, and yet you are the only man here would put his life in jeopardy on so poor a chance.”
“I 'll try it, for all that.”
“Did you ever hear of a man that escaped by swimming?”
“If they did n't it was their own fault—at least, they gave themselves no fair chance: they always made for the shore, and generally the nearest shore, and of course they were followed and taken. I'll strike out for the open sea, and when I have cut the cork floats off a fishing-net, I'll be able to float for hours, if I should tire swimming. Once in the open, it will be hard luck if some coasting vessel, some steamer to Palermo or Messina, should not pick me up. Besides, there are numbers of fishing-boats—”
“Any one of which would be right glad to make five ducats by bringing you safe back to the police.”
“I don't believe it—I don't believe there is that much baseness in a human heart.”
“Take my word for it, there are depths a good deal below even that,” said the old man, with a harsh grating laugh.
“No matter, come what will of it, I'll make the venture; and now, as our time is growing short, tell me if there is anything I can do for you, if I live to get free again. Have you any friends who could help you? or is there any one to whom you would wish me to go on your behalf?”
“None—none,” said he, slowly but calmly.
“As yours was a political crime—”
“I have done all of them, and if my life were to be drawn out for eighty years longer it would not suffice for all the sentences against me.”
“Still I 'd not despair of doing something—”
“Look here, lad,” said the other, sharply; “it is my will that all who belong to me should believe me dead. I was shipwrecked twelve years ago, and reported to have gone down with all the crew. My son—”
“Have you a son, then?”
“My son inherits rights that, stained as I am by crime and condemnation, I never could have maintained. Whether he shall make them good or not will depend on whether he has more or less ofmyblood in his veins. It may be, however, he will want money to prosecute his claim. I have none to send him, but I could tell him where he is almost certain to find not only money, but what will serve him more than money, if you could make him out. I have written some of the names he is known by on this paper, and he can be traced through Bolton, the banker at Naples. Tell him to seek out all the places old Giacomo Lami worked at. He never painted his daughter Enrichetta in a fresco, that he didn't hide gold, or jewels, or papers of value somewhere near. Tell him, above all, to find out where Giacomo's last work was executed. You can say that you got this commission from me years ago in Monte Video; and when you tell him it was Niccolo Baldassare gave it, he'll believe you. There. I have written Giacomo Lami on that paper, so that you need not trust to your memory. But why do I waste time with these things? You'll never set foot on shore, lad—never.”
“I am just as certain that I shall. If that son of yours was only as certain of winning his estate, I'd call him a lucky fellow. But see, they are almost dressed. They 'll be soon ready to march us home. Rest your foot next this rock till I smash the link, and when you see them coming roll this heavy stone down into the sea. I 'll make for the south side of the island, and, once night falls, take to the water. Good-bye, old fellow. I 'll not forget you—never, never,” and he wrung the old man's hand in a strong grasp. The chain gave way at the second blow, and he was gone.
Just as the last flickering light was fading from the sky, three cannon shots, in quick succession, announced that a prisoner had made his escape, and patrols issued forth in every direction to scour the island, while boats were manned to search the caves and crevasses along the shore.
The morning's telegram to the Minister of Police ran thus: “No. 11 made his escape last evening, filing his ankle-iron. The prisoner, 97, to whom he was linked, declares that he saw him leap into the sea and sink. This statement is not believed; but up to this, no trace of the missing man has been discovered.”
In the afternoon of the same day, Temple Bramleigh learned the news, and hastened home to the hotel to inform his chief. Lord Culduff was not in the best of tempers. Some independent member below the gangway had given notice of a question he intended to ask the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the leader of a Radical morning paper had thus paraphrased the inquiry: “What Mr. Bechell wishes to ascertain, in fact, amounts to this,—'Could not the case of Samuel Rogers have been treated by our resident envoy at Naples, or was it necessary that the dignity and honor of England should be maintained by an essenced old fop, whose social successes—and we never heard that he had any other—date from the early days of the Regency?'”
Lord Culduff was pacing his room angrily when Temple entered, and, although nothing would have induced him to show the insolent paragraph of the paper, he burst out into a violent abuse of those meddlesome Radicals, whose whole mission in life was to assail men of family and station.
“In the famous revolution of France, sir,” cried he, “they did their work with the guillotine; but our cowardly canaille never rise above defamation. You must write to the papers about this, Temple. You must expose this system of social assassination, or the day will come, if it has not already come, when gentlemen of birth and blood will refuse to serve the Crown.”
“I came back to tell you that our man has made his escape,” said Temple, half trembling at daring to interrupt this flow of indignation.
“And whom do you call our man, sir?” “I mean Rogers—the fellow we have been writing about.”
“How and when has this happened?”
Temple proceeded to repeat what he had learned at the prefecture of the police, and read out the words of the telegram.
“Let us see,” said Lord Culduff, seating himself in a well-cushioned chair. “Let us see what new turn this will give the affair. He may be recaptured, or he may be, most probably is, drowned. We then come in for compensation. They must indemnify. There are few claims so thoroughly chronic in their character as those for an indemnity. You first discuss the right, and you then higgle over the arithmetic. I don't want to go back to town this season. See to it then, Temple, that we reserve this question entirely to ourselves. Let Blagden refer everything to us.”
“They have sent the news home already.”
“Oh! they have. Very sharp practice. Not peculiar for any extreme delicacy either. But I cannot dine with Blagden, for all that. This escape gives a curious turn to the whole affair. Let us look into it a little. I take it the fellow must have gone down—eh?”
“Most probably.”
“Or he might have been picked up by some passing steamer or by a fishing-boat. Suppose him to have got free, he 'll get back to England, and make capital out of the adventure. These fellows understand all that nowadays.”
Temple, seeing a reply was expected, assented.
“So that we must not be precipitate, Temple,” said Lord Culduff, slowly. “It's a case for caution.”
These words, and the keen look that accompanied them, were perfect puzzles to Temple, and he did not dare to speak.
“The thing must be done this wise,” said Lord Culduff. “It must be a 'private and confidential' to the office, and a 'sly and ambiguous' to the public prints. I 'll charge myself with the former; the latter shall be your care, Temple. You are intimate with Flosser, the correspondent of the 'Bell-Weather.' Have him to dinner and be indiscreet. This old Madeira here will explain any amount of expansiveness. Get him to talk of this escape, and let out the secret that it was we who managed it all. Mind, however, that you swear him not to reveal anything. It would be your ruin, you must say, if the affair got wind; but the fact was Lord Culduff saw the Neapolitans were determined not to surrender him, and knowing what an insult it would be to the public feeling of England that an Englishman was held as a prisoner at the galleys, for an act of heroism and gallantry, the only course was to liberate him at any cost and in any way. Flosser will swear secrecy, but hints at this solution as theon ditin certain keen coteries. Such a mode of treating the matter carries more real weight than a sworn affidavit. Men like the problem that they fancy they have unravelled by their own acuteness. And then it muzzles discussion in the House, since even the most blatant Radical sees that it cannot be debated openly; for all Englishmen, as a rule, love compensation, and we can only claim indemnification here on the assumption that we were no parties to the escape. Do you follow me, Temple?”
“I believe I do. I see the drift of it at last.”
“There's no drift, sir. It is a full, palpable, well-delivered blow. We saved Rogers; but we refuse to explain how.”
“And if he turns up one of these days, and refuses to confirm us?”
“Then we denounce him as an impostor; but always, mark you, in the same shadowy way that we allude to our share in his evasion. It must be a sketch in water-colors throughout, Temple,—very faint and very transparent. When I have rough-drafted my despatch you shall see it. Once the original melody is before you, you will see there is nothing to do but invent the variations.”
“My Lady wishes to know, my Lord, if your Lordship will step upstairs to speak to her?” said a servant at this conjuncture.
“Go up, Temple, and see what it is,” whispered Lord Culduff. “If it be about that box at the St. Carlos, you can say our stay here is now most uncertain. If it be a budget question, she must wait till quarter-day.” He smiled maliciously as he spoke, and waved his hand to dismiss him. Within a minute—it seemed scarcely half that time—Lady Culduff entered the room, with an open letter in her hand; her color was high, and her eyes flashing, as she said:—
“Make your mind at ease, my Lord. It is no question of an opera-box, or a milliner's bill, but it is a matter of much importance that I desire, to speak about. Will you do me the favor to read that, and say what answer I shall return to it?”
Lord Culduff took the letter and read it over leisurely, and then, laying it down, said, “Lady Augusta is not a very perspicuous letter-writer, or else she feels her present task too much for her tact, but what she means here is, that you should give M. Pracontal permission to ransack your brother's house for documents, which, if discovered, might deprive him of the title to his estate. The request, at least, has modesty to recommend it.”
“The absurdity is, to my thinking, greater than even the impertinence,” cried Lady Culduff. “She says, that on separating two pages, which by some accident had adhered, of Giacomo Lami's journal,—whoever Giacomo Lami may be,—we—webeing Pracontal and herself—have discovered that it was Giacomo's habit to conceal important papers in the walls where he painted, and in all cases where he introduced his daughter's portrait; and that as in the octagon room at Castello there is a picture of her as Flora, it is believed—confidently believed—such documents will be found there as will throw great light on the present claim—”
“First of all,” said he, interrupting, “is there such a portrait?”
“There is a Flora; I never heard it was a portrait. Who could tell after what the artist copied it?”
“Lady Augusta assumes to believe this story.”
“Lady Augusta is only too glad to believe what everybody else would pronounce incredible; but this is not all, she has the inconceivable impertinence to prefer this request to us, to make us a party to our own detriment,—as if it were matter of perfect indifference who possessed these estates, and who owned Castello.”
“I declare I have heard sentiments from your brother Augustus that would fully warrant this impression. I have a letter of his in my desk wherein he distinctly says, that once satisfied in his own mind—not to the conviction of his lawyer, mark you, nor to the conviction of men well versed in evidence, and accustomed to sift testimony, but simply in his own not very capacious intellect—that the estate belongs to Pracontal, he 'll yield him up the possession without dispute or delay.”
“He's a fool! there is no other name for him,” said she, passionately.
“Yes, and his folly is very mischievous folly, for he is abrogating rights he has no pretension to deal with. It is as well, at all events, that this demand was addressed to us and not to your brother, for I'm certain he'd not have refused his permission.”
“I know it,” said she, fiercely; “and if Lady Augusta only knew his address and how a letter might reach him, she would never have written to us. Time pressed, however; see what she says here. 'The case will come on for trial in November, and if the papers have the value and significance Count Pracontal's lawyers suspect, there will yet be time to make some arrangement,—the Count would be disposed for a generous one,—which might lessen the blow, and diminish the evil consequences of a verdict certain to be adverse to the present possessor.'”
“She dissevers her interests from those of her late husband's family with great magnanimity, I must say.”
“The horrid woman is going to marry Pracontal.”
“They say so, but I doubt it—at least, till he comes out a victor.”
“How she could have dared to write this, how she could have had the shamelessness to ask me,—mewhom she certainly ought to know,—to aid and abet a plot directed against the estates—the very legitimacy of my family—is more than I can conceive.”
“She 's an implicit believer, one must admit, for she says, 'if on examining the part of the wall behind the pedestal of the figure nothing shall be found, she desires no further search.' The spot is indicated with such exactness in the journal that she limits her request distinctly to this.”
“Probably she thought the destruction of a costly fresco might well have been demurred to,” said Lady Culduff, angrily. “Not but, for my part, I 'd equally refuse her leave to touch the moulding in the surbase. I am glad, however, she has addressed this demand to us, for I know well Augustus is weak enough to comply with it, and fancy himself a hero in consequence. There is something piquant in the way she hints that she is asking as a favor what, for all she knows, might be claimed as a right. Imagine a woman saying this!”
“It is like asking me for the key of my writing-desk to see if I have not some paper or letter there, that might, if published, give me grave inconvenience.”
“I have often heard of her eccentricities and absurdities, but on this occasion I believe she has actually outdone herself. I suppose, though this appeal is made to us conjointly, as it is addressed to me, I am the proper person to reply to it.”
“Certainly, my Lady.”
“And I may say—Lord Culduff feels shocked equally with myself at the indelicacy of the step you have just taken; failing to respect the tie which connects you with our family, you might, he opines, have had some regard for the decencies which regulate social intercourse, and while bearing our name, not have ranked yourself with those who declare themselves our enemies. I may say this, I may tell her that her conduct is shameless, an outrage on all feeling, and not only derogatory to her station, but unwomanly?”
“I don't think I 'd say that,” said he, with a faint simper, while he patted his hand with a gold paper-knife. “I opine the better way would be to accept her Ladyship's letter as the most natural thing in lifefrom her; that she had preferred a request, which coming fromher, was all that was right and reasonable. That there was something very noble and very elevated in the way she could rise superior to personal interests, and the ties of kindred, and actually assert the claims of mere justice; but I'd add that the decision could not lie with us—that your brother being the head of the family, was the person to whom the request must be addressed, and that we would, with her permission, charge ourselves with the task. Pray hear me out—first of all, we have a delay while she replies to this, with or without the permission we ask for; in that interval you can inform your brother that a very serious plot is being concerted against him; that your next letter will fully inform him as to the details of the conspiracy—your present advice being simply for warning, and then, when, if she still persist, the matter must be heard, it will be strange if Augustus shall not have come to the conclusion that the part intended for him is a very contemptible one—that of a dupe.”
“Your Lordship's mode may be more diplomatic; mine would be more direct.”
“Which is exactly its demerit, my Lady,” said he, with one of his blandest smiles, “Inmycraft the great secret is never to give a flat refusal to anything. If the French were to ask us for the Isle of Wight, the proper reply would be a polite demand for the reasons that prompted the request—whether 'Osborne' might be reserved—and a courteous assurance that the claim should meet with every consideration and a cordial disposition to make every possible concession that might lead to a closer union with a nation it was our pride and happiness to reckon on as an ally.”
“These fallacies never deceive any one.”
“Nor are they meant to do so, any more than the words 'your most obedient and humble servant' at the foot of a letter; but they serve to keep correspondence within polite limits.”
“And they consume time,” broke she in, impatiently.
“And, as you observe so aptly, they consume time.”
“Let us have done with trifling, my Lord. I mean to answer this letter in my own way.”
“I can have no other objection to make to that, save the unnecessary loss of time I have incurred in listening to the matter.”
“That time so precious to the nation you serve!” said she, sneeringly.
“Your Ladyship admirably expresses my meaning.”
“Then, my Lord, I make you the only amends in my power; I take my leave of you.”
“Your Ladyship's politeness is never at fault,” said he, rising to open the door for her.
“Has Temple told you that the box on the lower tier is now free—the box I spoke of?”
“He has; but our stay here is now uncertain. It may be days; it may be hours—”
“And why was not I told? I have been giving orders to tradespeople—accepting invitations—making engagements, and what not. Am I to be treated like the wife of a subaltern in a marching regiment—to hold myself ready to start when the route comes?”
“How I could envy that subaltern,” said he, with an inimitable mixture of raillery and deference.
She darted on him a look of indignant anger, and swept out of the room.
Lord Culduff rang his bell, and told the servant to beg Mr. Temple Bramleigh would have the kindness to step down to him.
“Write to Filangieri, Temple,” said he, “and say that I desire to have access to the prisoner Rogers. We know nothing of his escape, and the demand will embarrass—There, don't start objections, my dear boy; I never play a card without thinking what the enemy will do after he scores the trick.”
And with this profound encomium on himself he dismissed the secretary, and proceeded to read the morning papers.