In no small perturbation of mind was it that Mrs. Butler passed her threshold. That a word should be breathed against her Tony, was something more than she could endure; that he could have deserved it, was more than she could believe. Tony, of whom for years and years she had listened to nothing but flatteries, how clever and ready-witted he was, how bold and fearless, how kind-hearted, and how truthful,—ay, how truthful! and how is it then, asked she of herself, that he has told me nothing of all this mischance, and what share he has had in bringing misfortune upon poor Dolly?
“Is Master Tony at home, Jenny?” said she, as she entered.
“Yes; he's reading a letter that has just come wi' the post.”
The old lady stopped, with her hand on the handle of the door, to draw a full breath, and regain a calm look; but a merry laugh from Tony, as he sat reading his letter, did more to rally her, though her heart smote her to think how soon she might have to throw a shadow across his sunshine.
“Who's your letter from, Tony?” said she, dryly.
“From Skeffy; he 'll be here to-morrow; he's to arrive at Coleraine by six in the morning, and wants me to meet him there.”
“And what's the other sealed note in your hand?”
“This?—this is from another man,—a fellow you've never heard of; at least, you don't know him.”
“And what may be his name, Tony?” asked she, in a still colder tone.
“He's a stranger to you, mother. Skeffy found the note at my hotel, and forwarded it,—that's all.”
“You were n't wont to have secrets from me, Tony,” said she, tremulously.
“Nor have I, mother; except it may be some trifling annoyance or worry that I don't care to tease you about. If I had anything heavier on my mind, you may trust me, I 'd very soon be out with it.”
“But I 'm not to hear who this man is?” said she, with a strange pertinacity.
“Of course you are, if you want to hear; his name is there, on the corner of his note,—Robt M'Gruder,—and here's the inside of it, though I don't think you 'll be much the wiser when you 've read it.”
“It's for yourself to read your own letter, Tony,” said she, waving back the note. “I merely asked who was your correspondent.”
Tony broke the seal, and ran his eye hastily over the lines. “I 'm as glad as if I got a hundred pounds!” cried he. “Listen to this, mother:—
“'Dear Sir,—When I received your note on Monday—'
“But wait a bit, mother; I must tell you the whole story, or you 'll not know why he wrote this to me. Do you remember my telling you, just at the back of a letter, that I was carried off to a dinner at Richmond?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
“Well, I wish I hadn't gone, that's all. Not that it was n't jolly, and the fellows very pleasant and full of fun, but somehow we all of us took too much wine, or we talked too much, or perhaps both; but we began laying wagers about every imaginable thing, and I made a bet,—I 'll be hanged if I could tell what it was; but it was something about Dolly Stewart. I believe it was that she was handsomer than another girl. I forgot all about her hair being cut off, and her changed looks. At all events, off we set in a body, to M'Gruder's house. It was then about two in the morning, and we all singing, or what we thought was singing, most uproariously. Yes, you may shake your head. I 'm ashamed of it now, too, but it was some strange wine—I think it was called Marcobrunner—that completely upset me; and the first thing that really sobered me was seeing that the other fellows ran away, leaving me all alone in the garden, while a short stout man rushed out of the house with a stick to thrash me. I tried to make him hear me, for I wanted to apologize; but he wouldn't listen, and so I gave him a shake. I didn't strike him; but I shook him off, roughly enough perhaps, for he fell, and then I sprang over the gate, and cut off as fast as I could. When I awoke next morning, I remembered it all, and heartily ashamed I was of myself; and I thought that perhaps I ought to go out in person and beg his pardon; but I had no time for that; I wanted to get away by that day's packet, and so I wrote him a few civil lines. I don't remember them exactly, but they were to say that I was very sorry for it all, and I hoped he 'd see the thing as it was,—a stupid bit of boyish excess, of which I felt much ashamed; and here's his answer:—
“'Dear Sir,—When I received your note on Monday morning,I was having leeches to my eye, and could n't answer it.Yesterday both eyes were closed, and it is only to-day thatI can see to scratch these lines. If I had had a little morepatience on the night I first met you, it would have beenbetter for both of us. As it is, I receive all yourexplanation as frankly as it is given; and you 'll be luckyin life if nobody bears you more ill-will than—Yourstruly,'Robt. M'Gruder.“'If you come up to town again, look in on me at 27 CannonStreet, City. I do not say here, as Mrs. M'G, has not yetforgiven the black eye.'”
“Oh, Tony! my own, dear, dear, true-hearted Tony!” cried his mother, as she flung her arms around him, and hugged him to her heart “I knew my own dear boy was as loyal as his own high-hearted father.”
Tony was exceedingly puzzled to what precise part of his late behavior be owned all this enthusiastic fondness, and was curious also to know if giving black eyes to Scotchmen had been a trait of his father's.
“And this was all of it, Tony?” asked she, eagerly.
“Don't you think it was quite enough? I'm certain Dolly did; for she knew my voice, and cried out, 'Oh, Tony, how could you?' or something like that from the window. And that's a thing, mother, has been weighing heavily on my mind ever since. Has this unlucky freak of mine anything to do with Dolly's coming home?”
“We 'll find that out later on, Tony; leave that to me,” said she, hurriedly; for with all her honesty, she could not bear to throw a cloud over his present happiness, or dash with sorrow the delight he felt at his friend's coming.
“I don't suspect,” continued he, thoughtfully, “that I made a very successful impression on that Mrs. M'Grader the day I called on Dolly; and if she only connected me with this night's exploit, of course it's all up with me.”
“Her husband bears you no grudge for it at all, Tony.”
“That's clear enough; he's a fine fellow; but if it should turn out, mother, that poor Dolly lost her situation,—it was no great thing, to be sure; but she told me herself, it was hard enough to get as good; and if, I say, it was through me she lost it—”
“You mustn't give yourself the habit of coining evil, Tony. There are always enough of hard and solid troubles in life without our conjuring up shadows and spectres to frighten us. As I said before, I 'll have a talk with Dolly herself, and I 'll find out everything.”
“Do so, mother; and try and make her come often over here when I'm gone; she'll be very lonely yonder, and you 'll be such good company for each other, won't you?”
“I 'll do my best, for I love her dearly! She has so many ways, too, that suit an old body like myself. She's so quiet and so gentle, and she 'll sit over her work at the window there, and lay it down on her knee to look out over the sea, never saying a word, but smiling a little quiet smile when our eyes meet, as though to say, 'This is very peaceful and happy, and we have no need to tell each other about it, for we can feel it just as deeply.'”
Oh, if she 'd only let Alice come to see her and sit with her, thought Tony; how shewouldlove her! Alice could be all this, and would, too; and then, what a charm she can throw around her with that winning smile! Was there ever sunshine like it? And her voice—no music ever thrilled throughmeas that voice did. “I say, mother,” cried he, aloud, “don't say No; don't refuse her if she begs to come over now and then with a book or a few flowers; don't deny her merely because she's very rich and much courted and flattered. I pledge you my word the flattery has not spoiled her.”
“Poor Dolly! it's the first time I ever heard that you were either rich or inn after! What 's the boy dreaming of, with his eyes staring in his head?”
“I 'm thinking that I 'll go into Coleraine to-night, so as to be there when the mail arrives at six in the morning,” said Tony, recovering himself, though in considerable confusion. “Skeffy's room is all ready, isn't it?”
“To be sure it is; and very nice and comfortable it looks too;” and as she spoke, she arose and went into the little room, on which she and Jenny had expended any amount of care and trouble. “But, Tony dear,” she cried out, “what's become of Alice Lyle's picture? I put it over the fireplace myself, this morning.”
“And I took it down again, mother. Skeffy never knew Alice,—never saw her.”
“It was n't for that I put it there; it was because she was a handsome lassie, and it's always a pleasant sight to look upon. Just bring it back again; the room looks nothing without it.”
“No, no; leave it in your own room, in which it has always been,” said he, almost sternly. “And now about dinner to-morrow; I suppose we'd better make no change, but just have it at three, as we always do.”
“Your grand friend will think it's luncheon, Tony.”
“He 'll learn his mistake when it comes to tea-time; but I 'll go and see if there 's not a salmon to be had at Carrig-a-Rede before I start; and if I 'm lucky, I 'll bring you a brace of snipe back with me.”
“Do so, Tony; and if Mr. Gregg was to offer you a little seakale, or even some nice fresh celery—Eh, dear, he 's off, and no minding me! He 's a fine true-hearted lad,” muttered she, as she reseated herself at her work; “but I wonder what's become of all his high spirits, and the merry ways that he used to have.”
Tony was not successful in his pursuit of provender. There was a heavy sea on the shore, and the nets had been taken up; and during his whole walk he never saw a bird He ate a hurried dinner when he came back, and, taking one more look at Skeffy's room to see whether it looked as comfortable as he wished it, he set out for Coleraine.
Now, though his mind was very full of his coming guest, in part pleasurably, and in part with a painful consciousness of his inability to receive him handsomely, his thoughts would wander off at every moment to Dolly Stewart, and to her return home, which he felt convinced was still more or less connected with his own freak. The evening service was going on in the meeting-house as he passed, and he could hear the swell of the voices in the last hymn that preceded the final prayer, and he suddenly bethought him that he would take a turn by the Burnside and have a few minutes' talk with Dolly before her father got back from meeting.
“She is such a true-hearted, honest girl,” said he to himself, “she 'll not be able to hide the fact from me; and I will ask her flatly, Is this so? was it not on my account you left the place?”
All was still and quiet at the minister's cottage, and Tony raised the latch and walked through the little passage into the parlor unseen. The parlor, too, was empty. A large old Bible lay open on the table, and beside it a handkerchief—a white one—that he knew to be Dolly's. As he looked at it, he bethought him of one Alice had given him once as a keepsake; he had it still. How different that fragment of gossamer with the frill of rich lace from this homely kerchief! Were they not almost emblems of their owners? and if so, did not his own fortunes rather link him with the humbler than with the higher? With one there might be companionship; with the other, what could it be but dependence?
While he was standing thus thinking, two ice-cold hands were laid over his eyes, and he cried out. “Ay, Dolly, those frozen fingers are yours;” and as he removed her hands, he threw one arm round her waist, and, pressing her closely to him, he kissed her.
“Tony, Tony!” said she, reproachfully, while her eyes swam in two heavy tears, and she turned away.
“Come here and sit beside me, Dolly. I want to ask you a question, and we have n't much time, for the doctor will be here presently, and I am so fretted and worried thinking over it that I have nothing left but to come straight to yourself and ask it.”
“Well, what is it?” said she, calmly.
“But you will be frank with me, Dolly,—frank and honest, as you always were,—won't you?”
“Yes, I think so,” said she, slowly.
“Ay, but you must be sure to be frank, Dolly, for it touches me very closely; and to show you that you may, I will tell you a secret, to begin with. Your father has had a letter from that Mrs. M'Gruder, where you lived.”
“From her?” said Dolly, growing so suddenly pale that she seemed about to faint; “are you sure of this?”
“My mother saw it; she read part of it, and here 's what it implies,—that it was all my fault—at least, the fault of knowing me—that cost you your place. She tells, not very unfairly, all things considered, about that unlucky night when I came under the windows and had that row with her husband; and then she hints at something, and I'll be hanged if I can make out at what; and if my mother knows, which I suspect she does not, she has not told me; but whatever it be, it is in some way mixed up with your going away; and knowing, my dear Dolly, that you and I can talk to one another as few people can in this world,—is it not so? Are you ill, dear,—are you faint?”
“No; those are weak turns that come and go.”
“Put your head down here on my shoulder, my poor Dolly. How pale you are! and your hands so cold. What is it you say, darling? I can't hear.”
Her lips moved, but without a sound, and her eyelids fell lazily over her eyes, as, pale and scarcely seeming to breathe, she leaned heavily towards him, and fell at last in his arms. There stood against the opposite wall of the room a little horse-hair sofa, a hard and narrow bench, to which he carried her, and, with her head supported by his arm, he knelt down beside her, helpless a nurse as ever gazed on sickness.
“There, you are getting better, my dear, dear Dolly,” he said, as a long heavy sigh escaped her. “You will be all right presently, my poor dear.”
“Fetch me a little water,” said she, faintly.
Tony soon found some, and held it to her lips, wondering the while how it was he had never before thought Dolly beautiful, so regular were the features, so calm the brow, so finely traced the mouth, and the well-rounded chin beneath it. How strange it seemed that the bright eye and the rich color of health should have served to hide rather than heighten these traits!
“I think I must have fainted, Tony,” said she, weakly.
“I believe you did, darling,” said he.
“And how was it? Of what were we talking, Tony? Tell me what I was saying to you.”
Tony was afraid to refer to what he feared might have had some share in her late seizure; he dreaded to recur to it.
“I think I remember it,” said she, slowly, and as if struggling with the difficulty of a mental effort. “But stay; is not that the wicket I heard? Father is coming, Tony;” and as she spoke, the heavy foot of the minister was heard on the passage.
“Eh, Tony man, ye here? I'd rather hae seen ye at the evening lecture; but ye 're no fond of our form of worship, I believe. The Colonel, your father, I have heard, was a strong Episcopalian.”
“I was on my way to Coleraine, doctor, and I turned off at the mill to see Dolly, and ask her how she was.”
“Ye winna stay to supper, then?” said the old man, who, hospitable enough on ordinary occasions, had no wish to see the Sabbath evening's meal invaded by the presence of a guest, even of one so well known as Tony.
Tony muttered some not very connected excuses, while his eyes turned to Dolly, who, still pale and sickly-looking, gave him one little brief nod, as though to say it were better he should go; and the old minister himself stood erect in the middle of the floor, calmly and almost coldly waiting the words “Good-bye.”
“Am I to tell mother you 'll come to us to-morrow, doctor,—you and Dolly?” asked Tony, with his band on the door.
“It's no on the Sabbath evening we should turn our thoughts to feastin', Master Tony; and none know that better than your worthy mother. I wish you a good-evening and a pleasant walk.”
“Good-night,” said Tony, shutting the door sharply; “and,” muttered he to himself, “if you catchmecrossing your threshold again, Sabbath or week-day—” He stopped, heaved a deep sigh, and, drawing his hand across his eyes, said, “My poor dear Dolly, hasn't my precious temper done you mischief enough already, that I must let it follow you to your own quiet fireside?”
And he went his way, with many a vow of self-amendment, and many a kind wish, that was almost a prayer, for the minister and his daughter.
All was confusion and dismay at Tilney. Bella Lyle's cold turned out to be scarlatina, and Mark and Alice brought back tidings that old Commodore Graham had been seized with a fit, and was seriously, if not dangerously, ill. Of course, the company scattered like an exploded shell. The Graham girls hastened back to their father, while the other guests sought safety in flight, the great struggle now being who should soonest secure post-horses to get away. Like many old people rich in this world's comforts, Mrs. Maxwell had an especial aversion to illness in any shape. It was a topic she never spoke on; and, if she could, would never have mentioned before her. Her intimates understood this thoroughly, and many were the expressions employed to imply that Mr. Such-a-one had a fever, or Mrs. So-and-so was given over by her doctors. As to the fatal result itself, it was always veiled in a sort of decent mystery, as though it would not be perfectly polite to inquire whither the missing friend had retired to.
“Dr. Reede says it is a very mild case of the malady, and that Bella will be up in a day or two, aunt,” said Alice.
“Of course she will,” replied the old lady, pettishly. “It 's just a cold and sore throat,—they had n't that fine name for it long ago, and people got well all the sooner. Is he gone?”
“No; he's talking with Mark in the library; he'll be telling him, I think, about the Commodore.”
“Well, don't ask him to stop to dinner; we have sorrow enough without seeing a doctor.”
“Oh, here comes Mark! Where is Dr. Reede?”
“He's gone over to see Maitland. Fenton came to say that he wished to see him.”
“Surely he's not ill,” said Alice.
“Oh, dear! what a misfortune that would be!” cried the old lady, with real affliction in her tone; “to think of Mr. Norman Maitland taking ill in one's house.”
“Have n't you been over to ask after him, Mark?”
“No. I was waiting till Reede came back: he's one of those men that can't bear being inquired after; and if it should turn out that he was not ill, he 'd not take the anxiety in good part.”
“How he has contrived to play the tyrant to you all, I can't imagine,” said Alice; “but I can see that every whim and caprice he practises is studied as courtiers study the moods of their masters.”
“To be sure, darling, naturally,” broke in Mrs. Maxwell, who always misunderstood everybody. “Of course, we are only too happy to indulge him in a whim or fancy; and if the doctor thinks turtle would suit him—turtle is so light; I took it for several weeks for luncheon—we can have it at once. Will you touch the bell, Mark, and I'll tell Raikes to telegraph? Who is it he gets it from?”
Mark pulled the bell, but took no notice of her question. “I wish,” muttered he below his breath, “we had never come here. There 's Bella now, laid up, and here 's Maitland. I 'm certain he's going away, for I overheard Fenton ask about the distance to Dundalk.”
“I suppose we might survive even that misfortune,” said she, haughtily.
“And one thing I'll swear to,” said Mark, walking the room with impatience,—“it 's the last Ireland will see of him.”
“Poor Ireland! the failure in the potato-crop was bad enough, but this is more than can be endured.”
“That's all very fine, Alice, but I 'm much mistaken if you are as indifferent as you pretend.”
“Mark! what do you mean?” said she, angrily.
“Here's Raikes now; and will some one tell him what it is we want?” said Mrs. Maxwell; but the others were far too deeply engaged in their own whispered controversy now to mind her.
“Captain Lyle will tell you by and by, Raikes,” said she, gathering up the mass of looseimpedimentawith which she usually moved from one room to the other, and by which, as they fell at every step, her course could always be tracked. “He'll tell you,” added she, moving away. “I think it was caviare, and you are to telegraph for it to Swan and Edgar's—but my head is confused to-day; I'll just go and lie down.”
As Mrs. Maxwell left by one door, Alice passed out by another; while Mark, whose temper evinced itself in a flushed cheek and a contracted brow, stood at a window, fretfully tapping the ground with his foot.
“Have you any orders, sir?” asked Raikes.
“Orders! No—stay a moment Have many gone away this morning?”
“Nearly all, sir. Except your family and Mr. Maitland, there's nobody left but Major Clough, and he 's going, I believe, with Dr. Reede.”
“You 've heard nothing of Mr. Maitland going, have you?”
“Oh, yes, sir! his man sent for post-horses about an hour ago.”
Muttering impatiently below his breath, Mark opened the window and passed out upon the lawn. What an unlucky turn had everything taken! It was but a week ago, and his friend Maitland was in high delight with all around him. The country, the scenery, the people were all charming; indeed, in the intervals between the showers, he had a good word to say for the climate. As for Lyle Abbey, he pronounced it the perfection of a country-house; and Mark actually speculated on the time when these opinions of his distinguished friend would have acquired a certain currency, and the judgment of one that none disputed would be recorded of his father's house. And all these successes were now to be reversed by this stupid old sailor's folly,—insanity he might call it; for what other word could characterize the pretension that could claim Norman Maitland for a son-in-law?—Maitland, that might have married, if the law would have let him, half a score of infantas and archduchesses, and who had but to choose throughout Europe the alliance that would suit him. And Alice—what could Alice mean by this impertinent tone she was taking towards him? Had the great man's patience given way under it all, and was he really going away, wearied and tired out?
While Mark thus doubted and reasoned and questioned, Maitland was seated at his breakfast at one side of the fire, while Dr. Reede confronted him at the other.
Though Maitland had sent a message to say he wished to see the doctor, he only gave him now a divided attention, being deeply engaged, even as he talked, in deciphering a telegram which had just reached him, and which was only intelligible through a key to the cipher.
“So, then, doctor, it is simply the return of an old attack,—a thing to be expected, in fact, at his time of life?”
“Precisely, sir. He had one last autumn twelve month, brought on by a fit of passion. The old Commodore gives way, rather, to temper.”
“Ah! gives way, does he?” muttered Maitland, while he mumbled below his breath, “'seventeen thousand and four D + X, and a gamba,'—a very large blood-letting. By the way, doctor, is not bleeding—bleeding largely—a critical remedy with a man of seventy-six or seven?”
“Very much so, indeed, sir; and, if you observe, I only applied some leeches to thenuchæ. You misapprehended me in thinking I took blood from him freely.”
“Oh, yes, very true,” said Maitland, recovering himself. “I have no doubt you treated him with great judgment. It is a case, too, for much caution. Forty-seven and two G's,” and he hastily turned over the leaves of his little book, muttering continually, “and two G's, forty-six, forty-seven, with two B's, two F's. Ah! here it is. Shivering attacks are dangerous—are they—in these cases?”
“In which cases?” asked the doctor; for his shrewd intelligence at once perceived the double object which Maitland was trying to contemplate.
“In a word, then,” continued Maitland, not heeding the doctor's question, but bending his gaze fixedly on the piece of paper before him, scrawled over and blotted by his own hand,—“in a word, then, a man of seventy, seized with paralysis, and, though partially rallied by bleeding, attacked with shivering, is in a very critical state? But how long might he live in that way?”
“We are not now speaking of Commodore Graham, I apprehend?” asked the doctor, slyly.
“No; I am simply putting a case,—a possible case, Doctors, I know, are not fond of these imagined emergencies; lawyers like them.”
“Doctors dislike them,” broke in Reede, “because they are never given to them in any completeness,—every important sign of pulse and tongue and temperature omitted—”
“Of course you are right,” said Maitland, crumpling up the telegram and the other papers; “and now for the Commodore. You are not apprehensive of anything serious, I hope?”
“It 's an anxious case, sir,—a very anxious case; he 's eighty-four.”
“Eighty-four!” repeated Maitland, to whom the words conveyed a considerable significance.
“Eighty-four!” repeated the other, once more. “No one would suspect it. Why, Sally Graham is the same age as my wife; they were at school together.”
Too polite to push a question which involved a double-shotted answer, Maitland merely said, “Indeed!” and, after a slight pause, added, “You said, I think, that the road to Dundalk led past Commodore Graham's cottage?”
“By the very gate.”
“May I offer you a seat with me? I am going that way. I have received news which calls me suddenly to England.”
“I thank you much, but I have some visits yet to make before I return to Port-Graham. I promised to stop the night there.”
Having charged the doctor to convey to the Commodore's daughters his sincere regret for their father's illness, and his no less sincere hope of a speedy recovery, Maitland endeavored, in recognition of a preliminary question or two about himself, to press the acceptance of a fee; but the doctor, armed with that self-respect and tact his profession so eminently upholds, refused to accept it, and took his leave, perhaps well requited in having seen and spoken with the great Mr. Norman Maitland, of whom half the country round were daily talking.
“Mr. Maitland is not ill, I hope?” said Alice, as she met the doctor on his way through the garden.
“No, Mrs. Trafford; I have been making a friendly call—no more,” said the doctor, rather vain that he could thus designate his visit; and with a few words of advice about her sister, he went his way. Alice, meanwhile, saw that Maitland had observed her from his window, and rightly guessed that he would soon be in search of her.
With that feminine instinct that never deceives in such cases, she determined that whatever was to pass between them should be undisturbed. She selected a most unfrequented path, bordered on one side by the high laurel-hedge, and on the other by a little rivulet, beyond which lay some rich meadows, backed in the distance by a thick plantation.
She had not gone far when she beard a short quick footstep behind her, and in a few minutes Maitland was at her side. “You forgot to liberate me,” said he, “so I had to break my arrest.”
“Signor mio, you must forgive me; we have had such a morning of confusion and trouble: first, Bella ill,—not seriously, but confined to bed; and then this poor old Commodore,—the doctor has told you all about it; and, last of all, Mark storming about the house, and angry with every one for having caught cold or a fever, and so disgusted (the great) Mr. Maitland that he is actually hurrying away, with a vow to heaven nevermore to put foot in Ireland.”
“Be a little serious, and tell me of your mission this morning,” said he, gravely.
“Three words will do it. We reached Port-Graham just as the doctor arrived there. The Commodore, it seemed, got home all safe by about four o'clock in the morning; and instead of going to bed, ordered a fire in his dressing-room, and a bottle of mulled port; with which aids to comfort he sat down to write. It would not appear, however, that he had got far in his correspondence, for at six, when his man entered, he found but two lines, and his master, as he thought, fast asleep; but which proved to be a fit of some kind, for he was perfectly insensible. He rallied, however, and recognized his servant, and asked for the girls. And now Dr. Reede thinks that the danger has in a great measure passed off, and that all will go well.”
“It is most unhappy,—most unhappy,” muttered Mainland. “I am sincerely sorry for it all.”
“Of course you are, though perhaps not really to blame,—at least, not blamable in a high degree.”
“Not in any degree, Mrs. Trafford.”
“That must be a matter of opinion. At all events, your secret is safe, for the old man has totally forgotten all that occurred last night between you; and lest any clew to it should remain, I carried away the beginning of the letter he was writing. Here it is.”
“How thoughtfully done!” said he, as he took the paper and read aloud: “'Dear Triphook, come over and help me to a shot at a rascal'—not civil, certainly—'at a rascal; that because he calls himself—' It was well he got no further,” added he, with a faint smile.
“A good, bold hand it is too for such an old man. I declare, Mr. Maitland, I think your usual luck must have befriended you here. The fingers that held the pen so steadily might have been just as unshaken with the pistol.”
There was something so provocative in her tone that Maitland detected the speech at once, and became curious to trace it to a cause. At this sally, however, he only smiled in silence.
“I tried to persuade Mark to drive over and see Tony Butler,” continued she, “but he would n't consent: in fact, a general impulse to be disobliging would appear to have seized on the world just now. Don't you think so?”
“By the way, I forgot to tell you that your protégé Butler refuses to accept my offer. I got three lines from him, very dry and concise, saying 'no' to me. Of course I trust to your discretion never to disclose the negotiation in any way. I myself shall never speak of it; indeed, I am very little given to doing civil things, and even less accustomed to finding them ill-received, so that my secrecy is insured.”
“He ought not to have refused,” said she, thoughtfully.
“Perhaps not.”
“He ought certainly to have given the matter more consideration. I wish I could have been consulted by him. Is it too late yet?”
“I suspect it is,” said he, dryly. “First of all, as I told you, I am little in the habit of meeting a repulse; and, secondly, there is no time to renew the negotiation. I must leave this to-day.”
“To-day?”
“Within an hour,” added he, looking at his watch; “I must manage to reach Dublin in time to catch the mail-packet to-morrow morning.”
“This is very sudden, this determination.”
“Yes, I am called away by tidings I received awhile ago,—tidings of, to me, the deepest importance.”
“Mark will be extremely sorry,” said she, in a low tone.
“Not sorrier than I am,” said he, despondently.
“We all counted on your coming back with us to the Abbey; and it was only awhile ago Bella begged that we should wait here for a day or two, that we might return together, a family party.”
“What a flattery there is in the phrase!” said he, with deep feeling.
“You don't know,” continued she, “what a favorite you are with my mother. I dare not trust myself to repeat how she speaks of you.”
“Why will you multiply my regrets, Mrs. Trafford? Why will you make my parting so very, very painful?”
“Because I prefer that you should stay; because I speak in the name of a whole house who will be afflicted at your going.”
“You have told me of all save one,” said be, in a voice of deepest feeling; “I want to learn what she thinks.”
“She thinks that if Mr. Maitland's good-nature be only on a par with his other qualities, he would sooner face the tiresomeness of a stupid house than make the owners of it feel that they bored him.”
“She does not think anything of the kind,” said he, with a peculiar smile. “She knows that there is no question of good nature or of boredom in the matter at all; but there is something at stake far more touching than either.” He waited to see if she would speak, but as she was silent he went on: “I will be honest, if you will not. I am not going away of my freewill. I have been called by a telegram this morning to the Continent; the matter is so pressing that—shall I confess it?—if this stupid meeting with the Commodore had been arranged, I should have been a defaulter. Yes, I'd have made I don't well know what explanation to account for my absence. I can imagine what comments would have been passed upon my conduct. I feel very painfully, too, for the part I should have left to such of my friends here as would defend me, and yet have not a fragment to guide their defence. And still, with all these before me, I repeat, I would have gone away, so imminent is the case that calls me, and so much is the matter one that involves the whole future of my life. And now,” said he, while his voice became fuller and bolder, “that I have told you this, I am ready to tell you more, and to say that at one word of yours—one little word—I 'll remain.”
“And what may that word be?” said she, quietly; for while he was speaking she had been preparing herself for some such issue.
“I need not tell you,” said he, gravely.
“Supposing, then, that I guess it,—I am not sure that I do,—but suppose that,—and could it not be just as well said by another,—by Bella, for instance?”
“You know it could not. This is only fencing, for you know it could not.”
“You mean, in fact, that I should say, 'don't go?'”
“I do.”
“Well, I 'm willing enough to say so, if my words are not to convey more than I intend by them.”
“I 'll risk even that,” said he, quickly. “Put your name to the bond, and we 'll let lawyers declare what it is worth after.”
“You frighten me, Mr. Maitland,” said she, and her tone showed that now at least she was sincere.
“Listen to me for one moment, Alice,” said he, taking her hand as he walked beside her. “You are fully as much the mistress of your fate as I am master of mine. You may consult, but you need not obey. Had it been otherwise, I never would have dared on a hardihood that would probably have wrecked my hopes. It is just as likely I never could satisfy the friends about you on the score of my fortune,—my means,—my station, and so on. It is possible, too, that scandal, which makes free with better men, may not have spared me, and that they who would have the right to advise you might say, 'Beware of that dreadful man.' I repeat, this is an ordeal my pride would feel it hard to pass through; and so I come to you, in all frankness, and declare I love you. To you—you alone—I will give every guarantee that a man may give of his honor and honesty. I will tell all my past, and so much as I mean for the future; and in return, I only ask for time,—nothing but time, Alice. I am not asking you for any pledge, simply that you will give me—what you would not have refused a mere acquaintance—the happiness of seeing you daily; and if—if, I say, you yourself should not deem the hand and the love I offer beneath you,—if you should be satisfied with the claims of him who would share his fortune with you,—that then—not till then—others should hear of it. Is this too much for me to ask, or you to give, Alice?”
“Even now I do not know what you ask of me.”
“First of all, that you bid me stay.”
“It is but this moment you have declared to me that what calls you away is of the very last importance to you in life.”
“The last but one, Alice,—the last is here;” and he kissed her hand as he spoke, but still with an air so deferent that she could not resent it.
“I cannot consent that it shall be so,” said she, with energy. “It is true I am my own mistress, and there is but the greater reason why I should be more cautious. We are almost strangers to each other. All the flattery of your professions—and of course, I feel it as flattery—does not blind me to the fact that I scarcely know you at all.”
“Why not consent to know me more?” asked he, almost imploringly.
“I agree, if no pledge is to accompany my consent.”
“Is not this a somewhat hard condition?” said he, with a voice of passionate meaning. “You bid me, in one word, place all that I have of hope on the issue,—not even on that, but simply for leave to play the game. Is this generous, Alice,—is it even just?”
“You bewilder me with all these subtleties, and I might ask if this were either just or generous; but at least, I will be frank. I like you very well. I think it not at all impossible that I might like you better; but even after that, Mr. Mainland, there would be a long stage to travel to that degree of regard which you profess to desire from me. Do I make myself understood?”
“Too well for me and my hopes!” said he, despondingly. “You are able, however, to impose hard conditions.”
“I impose none, sir. Do not mistake me.”
“You leave none others open to me, at least, and I accept them. To give me even that faint chance of success, however, I must leave this to-day. Is it not better I should?”
“I really cannot advise,” said she, with a well-assumed coldness.
“Even contingently, Mrs. Trafford will not involve herself in my fortunes,” said he, half haughtily. “Well, my journey to Ireland, amongst other benefits, has taught me a lesson that all my wanderings never imparted. I have at last learned something of humility. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Maitland,” said she, with calm, but evidently not without effort.
He stooped and kissed her hand, held it for a moment or two in his own, and with a very faint “Good-bye,” turned away and left her. He turned suddenly around after a few paces, and came back. “May I ask one question, Alice, before I go?”
“I don't know whether I shall answer it,” said she, with a faint smile.
“I cannot afford to add jealousy to my other torments. Tell me, then—”
“Take care, sir, take care; your question may cost you more than you think of.”
“Good-bye,—good-bye,” said he, sadly, and departed. “Are the horses ready, Fenton?” asked he, as his servant came to meet him.
“Yes, sir; and Captain Lyle has been looking for you all over the garden.”
“He's going,—he 's off, Bella,” said Alice, as she sat down beside her sister's bed, throwing her bonnet carelessly down at her feet.
“Who is going?—who is off?” asked Bella, eagerly.
“Of course,” continued Alice, following up her own thoughts, “to say 'Stay' means more than I like to be pledged to,—I couldn't do it.”
“Poor Tony!—give him my love, Alice, and tell him I shall often think of him,—as often as ever I think of bygone days and all their happiness.”
“And why must it be Tony that I spoke of?” said Alice, rising, while a deep crimson flush covered her face and brow. “I think Master Tony has shown us latterly that he has forgotten the long ago, and has no wish to connect us with thoughts of the future.”
In one of those low-ceilinged apartments of a Parisianhôtelwhich modern luxury seems peculiarly to affect, decorating the walls with the richest hangings, and gathering together promiscuously objects of art andvirtù, along with what can minister to voluptuous ease, Maitland and Caffarelli were now seated. They had dined, and their coffee stood before them on a table spread with a costly dessert and several bottles, whose length of neck and color indicated choice liquor.
They lounged in the easiest of chairs in the easiest of attitudes, and, as they puffed their havannahs, did not ill-represent in tableau the luxurious self-indulgence of the age we live in. For let us talk as we will of progress and mental activity, be as boastful as we may about the march of science and discovery, in what are we so really conspicuous as in the inventions that multiply ease, and bring the means of indulgence within the reach of even moderate fortune?
As the wood fire crackled and flared on the ample hearth, a heavy plash of hail struck the window, and threatened almost to smash it.
“What a night!” said Maitland, drawing closer to the blaze. “I say,Carlo mio, it's somewhat cosier to sit in this fashion than be toddling over the Mont Cenis in a shabby old sledge, and listening to the discussion whether you are to spend the night in the 'Refuge No. One, or No. Two.'”
“Yes,” said Caffarelli, “it must have been a great relief to you to have got my telegram in Dublin, and to know that you need not cross the Alps.”
“If I could only have been certain that I understood it aright, I 'd have gone straight back to the north from whence I came; but there was a word that puzzled me,—the wordcalamità. Now we have not yet arrived at the excellence of accenting foreign words in our telegraph offices; and as your most amiable and philosophical of all nations has but the same combination of letters to express an attraction and an affliction, I was sorely puzzled to make out whether you wrote with or without an accent on the last syllable. It made all the difference in the world whether you say events are a 'loadstone' or a 'misfortune.' I gave half an hour to the study of the passage, and then came on.”
“Per Bacco!I never thought of that; but what, under any circumstances, would have induced you to go back again?”
“I fell in love!”
Caffarelli pushed the lamp aside to have a better view of his friend, and then laughed long and heartily. “Maso Arretini used often to say, 'Maitland will die a monk;' and I begin now to believe it is quite possible.”
“Maso was a fool for his prediction. Had I meant to be a monk, I 'd have taken to the cowl when I had youth and vigor and dash in me, the qualities a man ought to bring to a new career. Ha! what is there so strange in the fact that I should fall in love?”
“Don't ask as if you were offended with me, and I 'll try and tell you.”
“I am calm; go on.”
“First of all, Maitland, no easy conquest would satisfy your vanity, and you'd never have patience to pursue a difficult one. Again, the objects that really have an attraction for you—such as Ambition and Power—have the same fascination for you that high play has for a gambler. You do not admit nor understand any other; and, last of all,—one is nothing if not frank in these cases,—you 'd never believe any woman was lovely enough, clever enough, or graceful enough to be worthy of Norman Maitland.”
“The candor has been perfect. I 'll try and imitate it,” said Maitland, filling his glass slowly, and slightly wetting his lips. “All you have just said, Carlo, would be unimpeachable if all women were your countrywomen, and if love were what it is understood to be in an Italian city; but there are such things in this dreary land of fog and snow-drift as women who do not believe intrigue to be the chief object of human existence, who have fully as much self-respect as they have coquetry, and who would regard no addresses so offensive as those that would reduce them to the level of a class with which they would not admit companionship.”
“Bastions of virtue that I never ask to lay siege to!” broke out the other, laughing.
“Don't believe it, Carlo. You'd like the campaign well, if you only knew how to conduct it. Why, it's not more than a week ago I quitted a country-house where there were more really pretty women than you could number in the crowd of one of your ball-rooms on either Arno or Tiber.”
“And, in the name of Heaven, why didn't you bring over one of them at least, to strike us with wonderment and devotion?”
“Because I would not bring envy, malice, and jealousy to all south of the Alps; because I would not turn all your heads, or torment your hearts; and lastly, because—she would n't come. No, Carlo, she would n't come.”
“And you really asked her?”
“Yes. At first I made the lamentable blunder of addressing her as I should one of your own dark-skinned damsels, but the repulse I met taught me better. I next tried the serious line, but I failed there also; not hopelessly, however,—at least, not so hopelessly as to deter me from another attempt. Yes, yes; I understand your smile, and I know your theory,—there never was a bunch of grapes yet that was worth going on tiptoe to gather.”
“Not that, but there are scores within reach quite as good as one cares for,” said Caffarelli, laughing. “What are you thinking of?” asked he, after a pause.
“I was thinking what possible hope there was for a nation of twenty millions of men, with temperament like yours,—fellows so ingrained in indolence that the first element they weigh in every enterprise was, how little trouble it was to cost them.”
“I declare,” said the Italian, with more show of energy, “I 'd hold life as cheaply as yourself if I had to live in your country,—breathe only fogs, and inhale nothing pleasanter than coal-smoke.”
“It is true,” said Maitland, gravely, “the English have not got climate,—they have only weather; but who is to say if out of the vicissitudes of our skies we do not derive that rare activity which makes us profit by every favorable emergency?”
“To do every conceivable thing but one.”
“And what is that one?”
“Enjoy yourselves! Oh,caro amico, you do with regard to your pleasures what you do with your music,—you steal a little from the Continent, and always spoil it in the adaptation.”
Maitland sipped his wine in half-sullen silence for some minutes, and then said, “You think then, really, we ought to be at Naples?”
“I am sure of it. Baretti,—do you forget Baretti? he had the wine-shop at the end of the Contrada St. Lucia.”
“I remember him as a Caraorrista.”
“The same; he is here now. He tells me that the Court is so completely in the hands of the Queen that they will not hear of any danger; that they laugh every time Cavour is mentioned; and now that both France and England have withdrawn their envoys, the King says openly, 'It is a pleasure to drive out on the Chiaja when one knows they 'll not meet a French gendarme or an English detective.'”
“And what does Baretti say of popular feeling?”
“He says the people would like to do something, though nobody seems to know what it ought to be. They thought that Milano's attempt t 'other day was clever, and they think it might n't be bad to blow up the Emperor, or perhaps the Pope, or both; but he also says that the Camorra are open to reason, and that Victor Emmanuel and Cavour are as legitimate food for an explosive shell as the others; and, in fact, any convulsion that will smash the shutters and lead to pillage must be good.”
“You think Baretti can be depended on?”
“I know he can. He has been Capo Camorrista eight years in one of the vilest quarters of Naples; and if there were a suspicion of him, he'd have been stabbed long ago.”
“And what is he doing here?”
“He came here to see whether anything could be done about assassinating the Emperor.”
“I'd not have seen him, Carlo. It was most unwise to have spoken with him.”
“What would you have?” said the other, with a shrug of his shoulders. “He came to set this clock to rights,—it plays some half-dozen airs from Mercadante and Verdi,—and he knows how to arrange them. He goes every morning to the Tuileries, to Moquard, the Emperor's secretary: he, too, has an Italian musical clock, and he likes to chat with Baretti.”
“I distrust these fellows greatly.”
“That is so English!” said Caffarelli; “but we Italians have a finer instinct for knavery, just as we have a finer ear for music; and as we detect a false note, so we smell a treachery, where you John Bulls would neither suspect one or the other. Baretti sees the Prince Napoleon, too, almost every day, and with Pietri he is like a brother.”
“But we can have no dealings with a fellow that harbors such designs.”
“Caro amico, don't you know by this time that no Italian of the class of this fellow ever imagines any other disentanglement in a political question than by the stiletto? It is you, or I, or somebody else, must, as they phrase it, 'pay with his skin.' Fortunately for the world, there is more talk than action in all this; but if you were to oppose it, and say, 'None of this,' you 'd only be the first victim. We put the knife in politics just as the Spanish put garlic in cookery: we don't know any other seasoning, and it has always agreed with our digestion.”
“Can Giacomo come in to wind up the clock, Eccellenza?” said Caffarelli's servant, entering at the moment; and as the Count nodded an assent, a fat, large, bright-eyed man of about forty entered, with a mellow frank countenance, and an air of happy joyous contentment that might have sat admirably on a well-to-do farmer.
“Come over and have a glass of wine, Giacomo,” said the Count, filling a large glass to the brim with Burgundy; and the Italian bowed with an air of easy politeness first to the Count and next to Maitland, and then, after slightly tasting the liquor, retired a little distance from the table, glass in hand.
“My friend here,” said the Count, with a motion of his hand towards Maitland, “is one of ourselves, Giacomo, and you may speak freely before him.”
“I have seen the noble signor before,” said Giacomo, bowing respectfully, “at Naples, with His Royal Highness the Count of Syracuse.”
“The fellow never forgets a face; nobody escapes him,” muttered Caffarelli; while he added, aloud, “Well, there are few honester patriots in Italy than the Count of Syracuse.”
Giacomo smiled, and showed a range of white teeth, with a pleasant air of acquiescence.
“And what is stirring?—what news have you for us, Giacomo?” asked Caffarelli.
“Nothing, Eccellenza,—positively nothing. The French seem rather to be growing tired of us Italians, and begin to ask, 'What, in the name of wonder, do we really want?' and even his Majesty the Emperor t' other day said to one of ours, 'Don't be importunate.'”
“And will you tell me that the Emperor would admit to his presence and speak with fellows banded in a plot against his life?” asked Maitland, contemptuously.
“Does the noble signor know that the Emperor was a Carbonaro once, and that he never forgets it? Does the noble signor know that there has not been one plot against his life—not one—of which he has not been duly apprised and warned?”
“If I understand you aright, Master Giacomo, then, it is that these alleged schemes of assassination are simply plots to deliver up to the Emperor the two or three amongst you who may be sincere in their blood thirstiness. Is that so?”
Far from seeming offended at the tone or the tenor of this speech, Giacomo smiled good-naturedly, and said, “I perceive that the noble signor is not well informed either as to our objects or our organization; nor does he appear to know, as your Excellency knows, that all secret societies have a certain common brotherhood.”
“What! does he mean when opposed to each other?”
“He does, and he is right, Maitland. As bankers have their changing-houses, these fellows have their appointed places of meeting; and you might see a Jesuit in talk with a Garibaldian, and a wild revolutionist with one of the Pope's household.”
“The real pressure of these fellows,” whispered the Count, still lower, “is menace! Menace it was brought about the war with Austria, and it remains to be seen if menace cannot undo its consequences. Killing a king is trying an unknown remedy; threatening to kill him is coercing his policy. And what are you about just now, Giacomo?” added he, louder.
“Little jobs here and there, signor, as I get them; but this morning, as I was mending a small organ at the Duc de Broglie's, an agent of the police called to say I had better leave Paris.”
“And when?”
“To-night, sir. I leave by the midnight mail for Lyons, and shall be in Turin by Saturday.”
“And will the authorities take his word, and suffer him to go his road without surveillance?” whispered Maitland.
“Si, signor!” interposed Giacomo, whose quick Italian ear had caught the question. “I won't say that they'll not telegraph down the whole line, and that at every station a due report will not be made of me; but I am prepared for that, and I take good care not even to ask a light for my cigar from any one who does not wear a French uniform.”
“If I had authority here, Master Giacomo,” said Maitland, “it's not you, nor fellows like you, I 'd set at liberty.”
“And the noble signor would make a great mistake, that's all.”
“Why so?”
“It would be like destroying the telegraph wires because one received an unpleasant despatch,” said Giacomo, with a grin.
“The fellow avows, then, that he is a spy, and betrays his fellows,” whispered Maitland.
“I 'd be very sorry to tell him so, or hear you tell him so,” whispered the Count, with a laugh.
“Well, Giacomo,” added he, aloud, “I 'll not detain you longer. We shall probably be on t' other side of the Alps ourselves in a few days, and shall meet again. A pleasant journey and a safe one to you!” He adroitly slipped some napoleons into the man's hand as he spoke. “Tanti salutito all our friends, Giacomo,” said he, waving his hand in adieu; and Giacomo seized it and kissed it twice with an almost rapturous devotion, and withdrew.
“Well,” cried Maitland, with an irritable vibration in his tone, “this is clear and clean beyond me. What can you or I have in common with a fellow of this stamp; or supposing that we could have anything, how should we trust him?”
“Do you imagine that the nobles will ever sustain the monarchy, my dear Maitland; or in what country have you ever found that the highest in class were freest of their blood? It is Giacomo, and the men like him, who defend kings to-day that they may menace them to-morrow. These fellows know well that with what is called a constitutional government and a parliament the king's life signifies next to nothing, and their own trade is worthless. They might as well shoot a President of the Court of Cassation! Besides, if we do not treat with these men, the others will. Take my word for it, our king is wiser than either of us, and he never despised the Caraorra. But I know what you 're afraid of, Maitland,” said he, laughing,—“what you and all your countrymen tremble before,—that precious thing you call public opinion, and your 'Times' newspaper! There's the whole of it. To be arraigned as a regicide, and called the companion of this, that, or t' other creature, who was or ought to have been guillotined, is too great a shock for your Anglican respectability; and really I had fancied you were Italian enough to take a different view of this.”
Maitland leaned his head on his hand, and seemed to muse for some minutes. “Do you know, Carlo,” said he, at last, “I don't think I 'm made for this sort of thing. This fraternizing with scoundrels—for scoundrels they are—is a rude lesson. This waiting for themot d'ordrefrom a set of fellows who work in the dark is not to my humor. I had hoped for a fair stand-up fight, where the best man should win; and what do we see before us? Not the cause of a throne defended by the men who are loyal to their king, but a vast lottery, out of which any adventurer is to draw the prize. So far as I can see it, we are to go into a revolution to secure a monarchy.”
Caffarelli leaned across the table and filled Maitland's glass to the brim, and then replenished his own.
“Caro mio,” said he, coaxingly, “don't brood and despond in this fashion, but tell me about this charming Irish beauty. Is she a brunette?”
“No; fair as a lily, but not like the blond damsels you have so often seen, with a certain timidity of look that tells of weak and uncertain purpose. She might by her air and beauty be a queen.”
“And her name?”
“Alice—Alicia, some call it.”
“Alice is better. And how came she to be a widow so very young? What is her story?”
“I know nothing of it; how should I? I could tell nothing of my own,” said Maitland, sternly.
“Rich as well as beautiful,—what a prize, Maitland! I can scarcely imagine why you hesitate about securing it.”
Maitland gave a scornful laugh, and with a voice of bitterness said: “Certainly my pretensions are great. I have fortune—station— family—name—and rank to offer her. Can you not remind me, Carlo, of some other of my immense advantages?”
“I know this much,” said the other, doggedly, “that I never saw you fail in anything you ever attempted.”
“I had the trick of success once,” said Maitland, sorrowfully, “but I seem to have lost it. But, after all, what would success do for me here, but stamp me as an adventurer?”
“You did not argue in that fashion two years ago, when you were going to marry a Spanish princess, and the half-sister of a queen.”
“Well, I have never regretted that I broke off the match. It estranged me, of course, fromhim; and indeed he has never forgiven me.”
“He might, however, now, if he saw that you could establish your fortunes so favorably,—don't you think so?”
“No, Carlo. It is all for rank and title, not for money, that he cares! His whole game in life was played for the Peerage. He wanted to be 'My Lord;' and though repeatedly led to believe he was to have the title, the Minister put off, and put off, and at last fell from power without keeping his pledge. Now in this Spanish business he bargained that I was to be a Duke,—a Grandee of Spain. The Queen declared it impossible. Mufios himself was refused. The dukedom, however, I could have. With the glitter of that ducal coronet before his eyes, he paid three hundred thousand francs I lost at the Jockey Club in Paris, and he merely said, 'Your luck in love has been somewhat costly,—don't play such high stakes again.'”
“He istrès grand seigneur!” said the Italian, with a voice of intense admiration and respect.
“Yes,” said Maitland; “in every case where mere money enters, he is princely. I never met a man who thought less of his gold. The strange thing is, that it is his ambition which exhibits him so small!”
“Adagio, adagio, caro mio!” cried Caffarelli, laughing. “I see where you are bound for now. You are going to tell me, as you have some score of times, that to all English estimation our foreign titles are sheer nonsense; that our pauper counts and beggarly dukes are laughing matter for even your Manchester folk; and that in your police code baron and blackleg are synonyms. Now spare me all this,caroMaitland, for I know it by heart.”
“If one must say such impertinences, it is well to say them to a cardinal's nephew.”
The slight flush of temper in the Italian's cheek gave way at once, and he asked good-humoredly, as he said, “Better say them to me, certainly, than to my uncle. But, to be practical, if he does attach so much importance to rank and title, why do you not take that countship of Amalfi the King offered you six months ago, and which, to this day, he is in doubt whether you have accepted or refused?”
“How do you know that?” asked Maitland, eagerly.
“I know it in this wise; that when his Majesty mentioned your name t' other day to Filangieri, he said, 'The Chevalier Maitland or Count of Amalfi,—I don't know by which name he likes to call himself.'”
“Are you sure of this?”
“I heard it; I was present when he said it.”
“If I did not accept when it was offered, the reason was this: I thought that the first time I wrote myself Count of Amalfi, old Santarelli would summon me before him to show birth and parentage, and fifty other particulars which I could have no wish to see inquired after; and as the title of Amalfi was one once borne by a cadet of the royal family, he 'd have been all the more exacting in his perquisitions before inscribing my name in that precious volume he calls the 'Libro d'Oro.' If, however, you tell me that the King considers that I have accepted the rank, it gives the matter another aspect.”
“I suspect poor old Santarelli has very little heart for heraldry just now. He has got a notion that the first man the Revolutionists will hang will be himself, representing, as he does, all the privileges of feudalism.”
“There is one way to do it if it could be managed,” said Maitland, pondering. “Three lines in the King's hand, addressing me 'The Chevalier Maitland, Count of Amalfi!' With these I 'd defy all the heralds that ever carried a painted coat in a procession.”
“If that be all, I 'll promise you it. I am writing to Filangieri to-morrow. Let me have some details of what men you have recruited and what services you have rendered, briefly, not formally; and I'll say, 'If our master would vouchsafe in his own hand a line, a word even, to the Count of Amalfi, it would be a recompense he would not exchange for millions.' I 'll say 'that the letter could be sent to Ludolf at Turin, where we shall probably be in a week or two. '”
“And do you think the King will accede?”
“Of course he will. We are not asking for a pension, or leave to shoot at Caserta. The thing is the same as done. Kings like a cheap road out of their indebtedness as well as humbler people. If not, they would never have invented crosses and grand cordons.”
“Now, let us concoct the thing regularly,” said Maitland, pushing the decanters from before him, as though, by a gesture, to show that he had turned from all conviviality to serious considerations. “You,” continued he, “will, first of all, write to Filangieri.”
“Yes. I will say, half incidentally, as it were, Maitland is here with me, as eager as the warmest of us in the cause. He has been eminently successful in his recruitment, of which he will soon send you details—”
“Ay, but how? That fellow M'Caskey, who has all the papers, did not meet me as I ordered him, and I cannot tell where he is.”
“I am to blame for this, Maitland, for I ordered him to come over here, as the most certain of all ways of seeing you.”
“And he is here now?”
“Yes. Arrived last night In the hope of your arrival, I gave him a rendezvous here—any hour from ten to one or two to-night—and we shall soon see him.”
“I must confess, I don't care how brief the interview be: the man is not at all to my liking.”
“You are not likely to be much bored by him here, at least.”
“How do you mean?”
“The police are certain to hear of his arrival, and to give him a friendly hint to arrange his private affairs with all convenient despatch and move off.”
“With what party or section do they connect him?”
“With how many? you might perhaps ask; for I take it he has held office with every shade of opinion, and intrigued for any cause from Henry V. to the reddest republicanism. The authorities, however, always deal with a certain courtesy to a man of this sort. They intimate, simply, We are aware you are here,—we know pretty well for what; and so don't push us to any disagreeable measures, but cross over into Belgium or Switzerland. M'Caskey himself told me he was recognized as he drew up at the hotel, and, in consequence, thinks he shall have to go on in a day or two.”
“Is not the fellow's vanity in some measure a reason for this? Does he not rather plume himself on beingl'homme dangereuxto all Europe?”
“In conversation he would certainly give this idea, but not in fact. He is marvellously adroit in all his dealings with the authorities, and in nothing is he more subtle than in the advantage he takes of his own immense conceit. He invariably makes it appear that vanity is his weak point; or, as he phrases it himself, 'I always show my adversary so much of my hand as will mislead him.'”
“And is he really as deep as all this would imply?”
“Very deep for an Englishman; fully able to cope with the cunningest of his own people, but a child amongst ours, Maitland.”
Maitland laughed scornfully as he said, “For the real work of life all your craft avails little. No man ever cut his way through a wood with a penknife, were it ever so sharp.”
“The Count M'Caskey, Eccellenza, desires to know if you receive?” said Caffarelli's servant, in a low tone.
“Yes, certainly; but do not admit any one else.”