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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7709.txt b/7709.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..75f9026 --- /dev/null +++ b/7709.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3512 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook My Novel, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Vol. 8 +#136 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: My Novel, Volume 8. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7709] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 29, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NOVEL, BY LYTTON, V8 *** + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH. + + +INITIAL CHAPTER. + +THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT. + +There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so prodigious +a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw up our hats, and +cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of that very +spirit of contradiction natural to all rational animals, one is tempted +to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently; LIGHT is noiseless: how +comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile, if it be not +impertinent, pray, where is Enlightenment marching to?" Ask that +question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and I'll +wager tenpence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory +answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment, +insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably free way of +expressing his opinions, will reply, "Enlightenment is marching towards +the seven points of the Charter." Another, with his hair /a la jeune +France/, who has taken a fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather +embarrassed with his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding +towards the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the +annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the air of a man +well-to-do in the middle class, more modest in his hopes, because he +neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his wife +carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take +Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on +the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample +him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged +in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out +of the cave of Trophonius, and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks +Enlightenment is in full career towards the good old days of alchemists +and necromancers. A fifth, whom one might take for a Quaker, asserts +that the march of Enlightenment is a crusade for universal philanthropy, +vegetable diet, and the perpetuation of peace by means of speeches, which +certainly do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of +Demosthenes! The sixth--good fellow without a rag on his back--does not +care a straw where the march goes. He can't be worse off than he is; and +it is quite immaterial to him whether he goes to the dog-star above, or +the bottomless pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march, +while we take it altogether. Whatever happens, one is in good company; +and though I am somewhat indolent by nature, and would rather stay at +home with Locke and Burke (dull dogs though they were) than have my +thoughts set off helter-skelter with those cursed trumpets and drums, +blown and dub-a-dubbed by fellows whom I vow to heaven I would not trust +with a five-pound note,--still, if I must march, I must; and so deuce +take the hindmost! But when it comes to individual marchers upon their +own account,--privateers and condottieri of Enlightenment,--who have +filled their pockets with Lucifer matches, and have a sublime contempt +for their neighbour's barns and hay-ricks, I don't see why I should throw +myself into the seventh heaven of admiration and ecstasy. + +If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial blessings that +are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowledge, and so forth, would +just take their eyes out of their pockets, and look about them, I would +respectfully inquire if they have never met any very knowing and +enlightened gentleman, whose acquaintance is by no means desirable. If +not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge by his own +experience; and the worst rogues I have ever encountered were amazingly +well-informed clever fellows. From dunderheads and dunces we can protect +ourselves, but from your sharpwitted gentleman, all enlightenment and no +prejudice, we have but to cry, "Heaven defend us!" It is true, that the +rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) usually comes to no good himself, +--though not before he has done harm enough to his neighbours. But that +only shows that the world wants something else in those it rewards +besides intelligence per se and in the abstract; and is much too old a +world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its plums for his own personal +gratification. Hence a man of very moderate intelligence, who believes +in God, suffers his heart to beat with human sympathies, and keeps his +eyes off your strongbox, will perhaps gain a vast deal more power than +knowledge ever gives to a rogue. + +Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on the part of the +blockheads, who, strange to say, are the most credulous idolators of +Enlightenment, and if knowledge were power, would rot on a dunghill, yet, +nevertheless, I think all really enlightened men will agree with me, that +when one falls in with detached sharpshooters from the general March of +Enlightenment, it is no reason that we should make ourselves a target, +because Enlightenment has furnished them with a gun. It has, doubtless, +been already remarked by the judicious reader that of the numerous +characters introduced into this work, the larger portion belong to that +species which we call the INTELLECTUAL,--that through them are analyzed +and developed human intellect, in various forms and directions. So that +this History, rightly considered, is a kind of humble familiar Epic, or, +if you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the Varieties of English Life +in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences most prevalent. +And where more ordinary and less refined types of the species round and +complete the survey of our passing generation, they will often suggest, +by contrast, the deficiencies which mere intellectual culture leaves in +the human being. Certainly, I have no spite against intellect and +enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should be such a Goth! I am only the +advocate for common-sense and fair play. I don't think an able man +necessarily an angel; but I think if his heart match his head, and both +proceed in the Great March under the divine Oriflamine, he goes as near +to the angel as humanity will permit: if not, if he has but a penn'orth +of heart to a pound of brains, I say, "/Bon jour, mon ange/! I see not +the starry upward wings, but the grovelling cloven-hoof." I 'd rather be +offuscated by the Squire of Hazeldean than en lightened by Randal Leslie. +Every man to his taste. But intellect itself (not in the philosophical +but the ordinary sense of the term) is rarely, if ever, one completed +harmonious agency; it is not one faculty, but a compound of many, some of +which are often at war with each other, and mar the concord of the whole. +Few of us but have some predominant faculty, in itself a strength; but +which, usurping unseasonably dominion over the rest, shares the lot of +all tyranny, however brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against +disaffection within, and invasion from without. Hence, intellect may be +perverted in a man of evil disposition, and sometimes merely wasted in a +man of excellent impulses, for want of the necessary discipline, or of a +strong ruling motive. I doubt if there be one person in the world who +has obtained a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody much +cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never obtained any +reputation at all! Men like Audley Egerton are constantly seen in the +great positions of life; while men like Harley L'Estrange, who could have +beaten them hollow in anything equally striven for by both, float away +down the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse their dreamy +energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If Hamlet and Polonius +were living now, Polonius would have a much better chance of being a +Cabinet Minister, though Hamlet would unquestionably be a much more +intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet? Heaven knows! +Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a school, that the difference +between one man and another was not mere ability,--it was energy. There +is a great deal of truth in that saying. + +Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration of the sagacious, +I enter on the fresh division of this work, and see already Randal Leslie +gnawing his lips on the background. The German poet observes that the +Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the +milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O +tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! O prostitution of +the grandest desires to the basest uses! Gaze on the goddess, Randal +Leslie, and get ready thy churn and thy scales. Let us see what the +butter will fetch in the market. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +A new Reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the +unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings. +Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast majorities, has barely escaped +defeat--thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his election are +said to have been prodigious. "But who can stand against such wealth as +Egerton's,--no doubt backed, too, by the Treasury purse?" said the +defeated candidate. It is towards the close of October; London is +already full; parliament will meet in less than a fortnight. + +In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which foreigners may +discover what is meant by English comfort, and the price which foreigners +must pay for it, there sat two persons side by side, engaged in close +conversation. The one was a female, in whose pale clear complexion and +raven hair, in whose eyes, vivid with a power of expression rarely +bestowed on the beauties of the North, we recognize Beatrice, Marchesa di +Negra. Undeniably handsome as was the Italian lady, her companion, +though a man, and far advanced into middle age, was yet more remarkable +for personal advantages. There was a strong family likeness between the +two; but there was also a striking contrast in air, manner, and all that +stamps on the physiognomy the idiosyncrasies of character. There was +something of gravity, of earnestness and passion, in Beatrice's +countenance when carefully examined; her smile at times might be false, +but it was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures, though +graceful, were unrestrained and frequent. You could see she was a +daughter of the South. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the +fair, smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle, +something that might have passed, at first glance, for the levity and +thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though +exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his +manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman. +His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce +such marvellous effects of colour; and if here and there a silver thread +gleamed through the locks, it was lost at once amidst their luxuriance. +His eyes were light, and his complexion, though without much colour, was +singularly transparent. His beauty, indeed, would have been rather +womanly than masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a +frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than concealed by an +admirable elegance of proportion. You would never have guessed this man +to be an Italian; more likely you would have supposed him a Parisian. He +conversed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his mode of thought +seemed French. Not that he was like the Frenchman of the present day,-- +an animal, either rude or reserved; but your ideal of the marquis of the +old regime, the roue of the Regency. + +Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in Italian history. +But, as if ashamed of his country and his birth, he affected to be a +citizen of the world. Heaven help the world if it hold only such +citizens! + +"But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, "even +granting that you discover this girl, can you suppose that her father +will ever consent to your alliance? Surely you know too well the nature +of your kinsman?" + +"Tu to trompes, ma soeur," replied Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera, +in French as usual,--"tu to trompes; I knew it before he had gone through +exile and penury. How can I know it now? But comfort yourself, my too +anxious Beatrice, I shall not care for his consent, till I 've made sure +of his daughter's." + +"But how win that in despite of the father?" + +"Eh, mordieu!" interrupted the count, with true French gayety; "what +would become of all the comedies ever written, if marriages were not made +in despite of the father? Look you," he resumed, with a very slight +compression of his lip, and a still slighter movement in his chair,-- +"look you, this is no question of ifs and buts! it is a question of must +and shall,--a question of existence to you and to me. When Danton was +condemned to the guillotine, he said, flinging a pellet of bread at the +nose of his respectable judge, 'Mon individu sera bientot dans le neant.' +My patrimony is there already! I am loaded with debts. I see before me, +on the one side, ruin or suicide; on the other side, wedlock and wealth." + +"But from those vast possessions which you have been permitted to enjoy +so long, have you really saved nothing against the time when they might +be reclaimed at your hands?" + +"My sister," replied the count, "do I look like a man who saved? +Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwilling to raze from his Lombard +domains a name and a House so illustrious as our kinsman's, and desirous, +while punishing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward my adherence, forbore +the peremptory confiscation of those vast possessions at which my mouth +waters while we speak, but, annexing them to the crown during pleasure, +allowed me, as the next of male kin, to retain the revenues of one half +for the same very indefinite period,--had I not every reason to suppose +that before long I could so influence his Imperial Majesty, or his +minister, as to obtain a decree that might transfer the whole, +unconditionally and absolutely, to myself? And methinks I should have +done so, but for this accursed, intermeddling English Milord, who has +never ceased to besiege the court or the minister with alleged +extenuations of our cousin's rebellion, and proofless assertions that I +shared it in order to entangle my kinsman, and betrayed it in order to +profit by his spoils. So that, at last, in return for all my services, +and in answer to all my claims, I received from the minister himself this +cold reply, Count of Peschiera, your aid was important, and your reward +has been large. That reward it would not be for your honour to extend, +and justify the ill opinion of your Italian countrymen by formally +appropriating to yourself all that was forfeited by the treason you +denounced. A name so noble as yours should be dearer to you than fortune +itself.'" + +"Ah Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, changed in its whole +character, "those were words that might make the demon that tempts to +avarice fly from your breast in shame." + +The count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the room, +and said quietly, + +"Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice; talk commonsense. Heroics +sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the tone +of a family conversation." + +Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change in the +expression of her countenance which had seemed to betray susceptibility +to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away. + +"But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one half of those ample +revenues: why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?" + +"I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the +pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his +possessions?" + +"There is a probability, then, of that pardon? When you first employed +me in your researches you only thought there was a possibility." + +"There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I learned +some little time since that the question of such recall had been +suggested by the emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger to the +State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged +abilities,--abilities! bah! and his popular name, deferred any decision +on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must +have embarrassed the minister. But it is a mere question of time. He +cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty already extended to +the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in +power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice on which I +acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your +kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the +person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable +age; that if she were to wed, with the emperor's consent, some one whose +attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a +guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of +so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued my +friend) 'apply to the emperor for his consent to that alliance for +yourself,--you, on whom he can depend; you who, if the daughter should +die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke." + +"You saw the emperor?" + +"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated that +so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against me, +when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would +willingly give me the hand of his child." + +"You did!" cried the marchesa, amazed. + +"And," continued the count, imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless +hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front,--"and that I should thus have +the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty, +the agent for the restoration of his honours, while, in the eyes of the +envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from all suspicion +that I had wronged him." + +"And the emperor consented?" + +"Pardieu, my dear sister, what else could his Majesty do? My proposition +smoothed every obstacle, and reconciled policy with mercy. It remains, +therefore, only to find out what has hitherto baffled all our researches, +the retreat of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself a welcome lover to +the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I own; but--unless +your sex and my glass flatter me overmuch--I am still a, match for many +a gallant of five-and-twenty." + +The count said this with so charming a smile, and looked so pre-eminently +handsome, that he carried off the coxcombry of the words as gracefully as +if they had been spoken by some dazzling hero of the grand old comedy of +Parisian life. + +Then interlacing his fingers and lightly leaning his hands, thus clasped, +upon his sister's shoulder, he looked into her face, and said slowly, +"And now, my sister, for some gentle but deserved reproach. Have you not +sadly failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for my interests? +Is it not some years since you first came to England on the mission of +discovering these worthy relations of ours? Did I not entreat you to +seduce into your toils the man whom I new to be my enemy, and who was +indubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat,--a secret he has +hitherto locked within his bosom? Did you not tell me, that though he +was then in England, you could find no occasion even to meet him, but +that you had obtained the friendship of the statesman to whom I directed +your attention, as his most intimate associate? And yet you, whose +charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from the statesman, as +you see nothing of Milord. Nay, baffled and misled, you actually suppose +that the quarry has taken refuge in France. You go thither, you pretend +to search the capital, the provinces, Switzerland, /que sais je/? All in +vain,--though--/foi de gentilhomme/--your police cost me dearly. You +return to England; the same chase, and the same result. /Palsambleu, ma +soeur/, I do too much credit to your talents not to question your zeal. +In a word, have you been in earnest,--or have you not had some womanly +pleasure in amusing yourself and abusing my trust?" + +"Giulio," answered Beatrice, sadly, "you know the influence you have +exercised over my character and my fate. Your reproaches are not just. +I made such inquiries as were in my power, and I have now cause to +believe that I know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide us +to it." + +"Ah, you do!" exclaimed the count. Beatrice did not heed the +exclamation, and hurried on. + +"But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you imposed on me, would it +not have been natural? When I first came to England, you informed me +that your object in discovering the exiles was one which I could honestly +aid. You naturally wished first to know if the daughter lived; if not, +you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you desired to effect, +through my mediation, some liberal compromise with Alphonso, by which you +would have sought to obtain his restoration, provided he would leave you +for life in possession of the grant you hold from the crown. While these +were your objects, I did my best, ineffectual as it was, to obtain the +information required." + +"And what made me lose so important, though so ineffectual an ally?" +asked the count, still smiling; but a gleam that belied the smile shot +from his eye. + +"What! when you bade me receive and co-operate with the miserable spies-- +the false Italians--whom you sent over, and seek to entangle this poor +exile, when found, in some rash correspondence to be revealed to the +court; when you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count of Peschiera, +the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, into the informer, the +corrupter, and the traitress,--no, Giulio, then I recoiled; and then, +fearful of your own sway over me, I retreated into France. I have +answered you frankly." + +The count removed his hands from the shoulder on which they had reclined +so cordially. + +"And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your gratitude! You, +whose fortunes are bound up in mine; you, who subsist on my bounty; you, +who--" + +"Hold," cried the marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as if +stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of years, +--"hold! Gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother! what, indeed, do I owe +to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you +condemned me to marry against my will, against my heart, against my +prayers,--and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was +pure then, Giulio,--pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin crown. +And now--now--" + +Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before her face. + +"Now you upbraid me," said the count, unruffled by her sudden passion, +"because I gave you in marriage to a man young and noble?" + +"Old in vices, and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had +the right, according to the customs of our country, to dispose of my +hand. But I forgave you not the consolations that you whispered in the +ear of a wretched and insulted wife." + +"Pardon me the remark," replied the count, with a courtly bend of his +head, "but those consolations were also conformable to the customs of our +country, and I was not aware till now that you had wholly disdained them. +And," continued the count," you were not so long a wife that the gall of +the chain should smart still. You were soon left a widow,--free, +childless, young, beautiful." + +"And penniless." + +"True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky; no fault of mine. I +could neither keep the cards from his hands, nor advise him how to play +them." + +"And my own portion? O Giulio, I knew but at his death why you had +condemned me to that renegade Genoese. He owed you money, and, against +honour, and I believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in +discharge of the debt." + +"He had no other way to discharge it; a debt of honour must be paid,--old +stories these. What matters? Since then my purse has been open to you." + +"Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument, your spy! Yes, your purse +has been open--with a niggard hand." + +"/Un peu de conscience, ma chere/,--you are so extravagant. But come, be +plain. What would you?" + +"I would be free from you." + +"That is, you would form some second marriage with one of these rich +island lords. /Ma foi/, I respect your ambition." + +"It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery,--to be placed +beyond dishonourable temptation. I desire," cried Beatrice, with +increased emotion,--"I desire to re-enter the life of woman." + +"Eno'!" said the count, with a visible impatience; "is there anything in +the attainment of your object that should render you indifferent to mine? +You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry as becomes +you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry. Be it so. +I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift clutch of +the Genoese,--the moment that it is mine to bestow, the moment that I am +husband to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice, you imply that my +former notions revolted your conscience; my present plan should content +it, for by this marriage shall our kinsman regain his country, and +repossess, at least, half his lands. And if I am not an excellent +husband to the demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I have sown my wild +oats. /Je suis bon prince/, when I have things a little my own way. It +is my hope and my intention, and certainly it will be my interest, to +become /digne epoux et irreprochable pere de famille/. I speak lightly, +--'t is my way. I mean seriously. The little girl will be very happy +with me, and I shall succeed in soothing all resentment her father may +retain. Will you aid me then, yes or no? Aid me, and you shall indeed +be free. The magician will release the fair spirit he has bound to his +will. Aid me not, /ma chere/, and mark, I do not threaten--I do but +warn--aid me not; grant that I become a beggar, and ask yourself what is +to become of you,--still young, still beautiful, and still penniless? +Nay, worse than penniless; you have done me the honour," and here the +count, looking on the table, drew a letter from a portfolio emblazoned +with his arms and coronet,--"you have done me the honour to consult me as +to your debts." + +"You will restore my fortune?" said the marchesa, irresolutely,--and +averting her head from an odious schedule of figures. + +"When my own, with your aid, is secured." + +"But do you not overrate the value of my aid?" + +"Possibly," said the count, with a caressing suavity--and he kissed his +sister's forehead. "Possibly; but, by my honour, I wish to repair to you +any wrong, real or supposed, I may have done you in past times. I wish +to find again my own dear sister. I may over-value your aid, but not the +affection from which it comes. Let us be friends, /cara Beatrice mia/," +added the count, for the first time employing Italian words. + +The marchesa laid her head on his shoulder, and her tears flowed softly. +Evidently this man had great influence over her,--and evidently, whatever +her cause for complaint, her affection for him was still sisterly and +strong. A nature with fine flashes of generosity, spirit, honour, and +passion was hers; but uncultured, unguided, spoilt by the worst social +examples, easily led into wrong, not always aware where the wrong was, +letting affections good or bad whisper away her conscience or blind her +reason. Such women are often far more dangerous when induced to wrong +than those who are thoroughly abandoned,--such women are the accomplices +men like the Count of Peschiera most desire to obtain. + +"Ah, Giulio," said Beatrice, after a pause, and looking up at him through +her tears, "when you speak to me thus, you know you can do with me what +you will. Fatherless and motherless, whom had my childhood to love and +obey but you?" + +"Dear Beatrice," murmured the count, tenderly, and he again kissed her +forehead. "So," he continued, more carelessly,--"so the reconciliation +is effected, and our interests and our hearts re-allied. Now, alas! to +descend to business. You say that you know some one whom you believe to +be acquainted with the lurking-place of my father-in-law--that is to be!" + +"I think so. You remind me that I have an appointment with him this day: +it is near the hour,--I must leave you." + +"To learn the secret?---Quick, quick. I have no fear of your success, if +it is by his heart that you lead him!" + +"You mistake; on his heart I have no hold. But he has a friend who loves +me, and honourably, and whose cause he pleads. I think here that I have +some means to control or persuade him. If not--ah, he is of a character +that perplexes me in all but his worldly ambition; and how can we +foreigners influence him through THAT?" + +"Is he poor, or is he extravagant?" + +"Not extravagant, and not positively poor, but dependent." + +"Then we have him," said the count, composedly. "If his assistance be +worth buying, we can bid high for it. /Sur mon ame/, I never yet knew +money fail with any man who was both worldly and dependent. I put him +and myself in your hands." + +Thus saying, the count opened the door, and conducted his sister with +formal politeness to her carriage. He then returned, reseated himself, +and mused in silence. As he did so, the muscles of his countenance +relaxed. The levity of the Frenchman fled from his visage, and in his +eye, as it gazed abstractedly into space, there was that steady depth so +remarkable in the old portraits of Florentine diplomatist or Venetian +Oligarch. Thus seen, there was in that face, despite all its beauty, +something that would have awed back even the fond gaze of love,-- +something hard, collected, inscrutable, remorseless. But this change of +countenance did not last long. Evidently thought, though intense for the +moment, was not habitual to the man; evidently he had lived the life +which takes all things lightly,--so he rose with a look of fatigue, shook +and stretched himself, as if to cast off, or grow out of, an unwelcome +and irksome mood. An hour afterwards, the Count of Peschiera was +charming all eyes, and pleasing all ears, in the saloon of a high-born +beauty, whose acquaintance he had made at Vienna, and whose charms, +according to that old and never-truth-speaking oracle, Polite Scandal, +were now said to have attracted to London the brilliant foreigner. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The marehesa regained her house, which was in Curzon Street, and withdrew +to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her countenance +all trace of the tears she had shed. + +Half an hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed and +calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was capable +of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in +that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished elegance which comes +alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose of rank, +you could see but the woman of the world and the great lady. + +A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a +visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance,--a young +man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's, +was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed +that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius, "ought +to wear his whole mind on his forehead." The young visitor would never +have committed so frank an imprudence. His cheek was pale, and in his +step and his movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued nerves +or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the tone of the voice +were those of a mental temperament controlling the bodily,--vigorous and +energetic. For the rest, his general appearance was distinguished by a +refinement alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not +easily forget him; and the reader, no doubt, already recognizes Randal +Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, was that of intimate +familiarity; yet it was given and replied to with that unreserved +openness which denotes the absence of a more tender sentiment. + +Seating himself by the marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse on +the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable that +while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal of the great +world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return. Randal +Leslie had already learned the art not to commit himself, nor to have +quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the eminent. Nothing more +injures the man who would rise beyond the fame of the salons than to be +considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it is always useful," thought +Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles, the small social and private +springs, by which the great are moved. Critical occasions may arise in +which such a knowledge may be power." And hence, perhaps (besides a more +private motive, soon to be perceived), Randal did not consider his time +thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's friendship. For, despite +much that was whispered against her, she had succeeded in dispelling the +coldness with which she had at first been received in the London circles. +Her beauty, her grace, and her high birth had raised her into fashion, +and the homage of men of the first station, while it perhaps injured her +reputation as woman, added to her celebrity as fine lady. So much do we +cold English, prudes though we be, forgive to the foreigner what we +avenge on the native. + +Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and elegant +personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, which Lord this and +the Duke of that had passed on the marchesa's charms, Randal laid his +hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and said, + +"But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for me, +and with a generosity of which no coquette could have been capable) you, +in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else have +ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you +told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of love who +does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes that I +fear are terribly extravagant,'--since thus you allowed me to divine your +natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy has been +founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you excite +amongst these grands seigneurs I have named only serves to defeat your +own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest. +Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they who are not +belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more +than beauty and wit,--namely, connections to strengthen their political +station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title." + +"My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the marchesa,--and a certain sadness might +be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye,--"I have +lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the +falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. +I see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know +that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he +talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which +she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to +youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's,--"ah, I am +less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a +companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low +round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures,--of a heart so new, that +it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen +in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has +filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know +the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home, +I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition." + +"This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not +harmonize with your former answer to me." + +"To you," repeated Beatrice, smiling, and regaining her lighter manner; +"to you,--true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection +for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that you, +with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And +then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave pride in +her air,--"and then, I could not have consented to share my fate with one +whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had +beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought +but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty and debt. Now, +it may be different. Now I may have the dowry that befits my birth. And +now I may be free to choose according to my heart as woman, not according +to my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing." + +"Ah," said Randal, interested, and drawing still closer towards his fair +companion,--"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to +think that you shall be--rich?" + +The marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal +relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and +rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich, +she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had +best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While +thus reflecting, Beatrice answered, + +"Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be +half a million--" + +"Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained himself +from falling at her feet in adoration. "Of francs!" continued the +marchesa. + +"Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from +his sudden enthusiasm, "about L20,000? eight hundred a year at four per +cent. A very handsome portion, certainly (Genteel poverty!" he murmured +to himself. "What an escape I have had! but I see--I see. This will +smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project. +I see),--a very handsome portion," he repeated aloud,--"not for a grand +seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations +worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while +you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a +heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my +thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes +your ideal. Proverbially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are +found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our +rural nobility, our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all +your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I +see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?" + +"Did I blush?" said the marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think +that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I +have been touched by his honest ingenuous love,--so evident, yet rather +looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honours me with the +suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that +your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not +what--" + +"You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish +your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his +shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do not +allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is true, +have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen. He +has not at present--few men have. But what Cimon would not be refined by +so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows belong but to +youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who could see his +sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean." + +The marchesa leaned her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage +was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate +widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her +unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul; so +had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex character +been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed position, the +equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various debasements to +which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her--not without design on +the part of the count, who though grasping, was not miserly, and who by +precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one time, and refusals of +all aid at another, had involved her in debt in order to retain his hold +on her; so utterly painful and humiliating to a woman of her pride and +her birth was the station that she held in the world,--that in marriage +she saw liberty, life, honour, self-redemption; and these thoughts, while +they compelled her to co-operate with the schemes by which the count, on +securing to himself a bride, was to bestow on herself a dower, also +disposed her now to receive with favour Randal Leslie's pleadings on +behalf of his friend. + +The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous +skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study +bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such +representations as were likely to be most effective. With what admirable +tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere individual, and drew him +rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position +might desire, in the safety, peace, and Honour of a home, in the trust +and constancy and honest confiding love of its partner! He did not paint +an elysium,--he described a haven; he did not glowingly delineate a hero +of romance,--he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Respectable +and the Real which a woman turns to when romance begins to seem to her +but delusion. Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of the +person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried +admiringly, "Knowledge is power; and this man, if as able on a larger +field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time." + +Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her as +he spoke,--slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said, + +"Well, well, grant all you say! at least before I can listen to so +honourable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pleasure +that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who wooes me, 'Will you pay +the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of Di Negra?'" + +"Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry." + +"But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon her +companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra extended her +hand to Randal, and said in the most winning accents, "You are, then, +truly and sincerely my friend?" + +"Can you doubt it?" + +"I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance." + +"Mine? How?" + +"Listen; my brother has arrived in London--" + +"I see that arrival announced in the papers." "And he comes, empowered +by the consent of the emperor, to ask the hand of a relation and +countrywoman of his,--an alliance that will heal long family dissensions, +and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My brother, like +myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law he still owes me it +would distress him to pay till this marriage be assured." + +"I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?" + +"By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought +refuge and concealment in England." + +"The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and +was proscribed?" + +"Exactly; and so well has he concealed himself, that he has baffled all +our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his +pardon in cementing this alliance--" + +"Proceed." + +"Ah, Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know that +I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's retreat,-- +sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly knows it--" + +"But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost +bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me +as to you." + +"Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any +secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you +know already that secret which I ask you to share with me." + +"What on earth makes you think so?" + +"When, some weeks ago, you asked me to describe the personal appearance +and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections of my +childhood, partly from the description given to me by others, I could not +but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in spite," said the +marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she spoke,--"in spite of +your habitual self-command. And when I pressed you to own that you had +actually seen some one who tallied with that description, your denial did +not deceive me. Still more, when returning recently, of your own accord, +to the subject, you questioned me so shrewdly as to my motives in +seeking the clew to our refugees, and I did not then answer you +satisfactorily, I could detect--" + +"Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which +occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to +shun a merriment so natural as to be illbred,--"ha, ha, you have the +fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that I +may have seen some Italian exiles (which is likely enough), what could be +more natural than my seeking to compare your description with their +appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst them to be +the man you search for, what more natural also than that I should desire +to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering his 'whereabout'? +For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery,--"ill would it become me +to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one who would hide from +persecution; and even if I did so--for honour itself is a weak safeguard +against your fascinations--such indiscretion might be fatal to my future +career." + +"How?" + +"Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not communicate; +and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an imprudence that committed +himself? My dear friend, I will tell you more. When Audley Egerton +first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he said, with his usual +dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you to discontinue acquaintance +with Madame di Negra, for an acquaintance with women like her forms the +manners, and refines the intellect; but charming women are dangerous, and +Madame di Negra is--a charming woman.'" + +The marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed: "'Your fair acquaintance' +(I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to dis cover the home of a countryman +of hers. She suspects that I know it. She may try to learn it through +you. Accident may possibly give you the information she requires. +Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should judge of your +general character. He from whom a woman can extract a secret will never +be fit for public life.' Therefore, my dear marchesa, even supposing I +possess this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to ask me to +reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For as yet," added Randal, +with a gloomy shade on his brow,--"as yet, I do not stand alone and +erect,--I lean, I am dependent." + +"There may be a way," replied Madame di Negra, persisting, "to +communicate this intelligence without the possibility of Mr. Egerton's +tracing our discovery to yourself; and, though I will not press you +further, I add this,--You urge me to accept your friend's hand; you seem +interested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with a warmth +that shows how much you regard what you suppose is his happiness; I will +never accept his hand till I can do so without blush for my penury,--till +my dowry is secured; and that can only be by my brother's union with the +exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore, think well how you +can aid me in the first step to that alliance. The young lady once +discovered, and my brother has no fear for the success of his suit." + +"And you would marry Frank if the dower was secured?" + +"Your arguments in his favour seem irresistible," replied Beatrice, +looking down. + +A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few moments. + +Then slowly rising, and drawing on his gloves, he said, "Well, at least +you so far reconcile my honour towards aiding your research, that you now +inform me you mean no ill to the exile." + +"Ill!--the restoration to fortune, honours, his native land!" + +"And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you inspire me with +the hope to contribute to the happiness of two friends whom I dearly +love. I will, therefore, diligently try to ascertain if, among the +refugees I have met with, lurk those whom you seek; and if so, I will +thoughtfully consider how to give you the clew. Meanwhile, not one +incautious word to Egerton." + +"Trust me,--I am a woman of the world." + +Randal now had gained the door. He paused, and renewed carelessly,-- + +"This young lady must be heiress to great wealth, to induce a man of your +brother's rank to take so much pains to discover her." + +"Her wealth will be vast," replied the marchesa; "and if anything from +wealth or influence in a foreign State could be permitted to prove my +brother's gratitude--" + +"Ah, fie!" interrupted Randal; and, approaching Madame di Negra, he +lifted her hand to his lips, and said gallantly, "This is reward enough +to your preux chevalier." + +With those words he took his leave. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +With his hands behind him, and his head drooping on his breast, slow, +stealthy, noiseless, Randal Leslie glided along the streets on leaving +the Italian's house. Across the scheme he had before revolved, there +glanced another yet more glittering, for its gain might be more sure and +immediate. If the exile's daughter were heiress to such wealth, might he +himself hope--He stopped short even in his own soliloquy, and his breath +came quick. Now, in his last visit to Hazeldean, he had come in contact +with Riccabocca, and been struck by the beauty of Violante. A vague +suspicion had crossed him that these might be the persons of whom the +marchesa was in search, and the suspicion had been confirmed by +Beatrice's description of the refugee she desired to discover. But as +he had not then learned the reason for her inquiries, nor conceived the +possibility that he could have any personal interest in ascertaining the +truth, he had only classed the secret in question among those the further +research into which might be left to time and occasion. Certainly the +reader will not do the unscrupulous intellect of Randal Leslie the +injustice to suppose that he was deterred from confiding to his fair +friend all that he knew of Riccabocca by the refinement of honour to +which he had so chivalrously alluded. He had correctly stated Audley +Egerton's warning against any indiscreet confidence, though he had +forborne to mention a more recent and direct renewal of the same caution. +His first visit to Hazeldean had been paid without consulting Egerton. +He had been passing some days at his father's house, and had gone over +thence to the squire's. On his return to London, he had, however, +mentioned this visit to Audley, who had seemed annoyed and even +displeased at it, though Randal knew sufficient of Egerton's character +to guess that such feelings could scarce be occasioned merely by his +estrangement from his half-brother. This dissatisfaction had, therefore, +puzzled the young man. But as it was necessary to his views to establish +intimacy with the squire, he did not yield the point with his customary +deference to his patron's whims. Accordingly he observed that he should +be very sorry to do anything displeasing to his benefactor, but that his +father had been naturally anxious that he should not appear positively to +slight the friendly overtures of Mr. Hazeldean. + +"Why naturally?" asked Egerton. + +"Because you know that Mr. Hazeldean is a relation of mine,--that my +grandmother was a Hazeldean." + +"Ah!" said Egerton, who, as it has been before said, knew little and +cared less about the Hazeldean pedigree, "I was either not aware of that +circumstance, or had forgotten it. And your father thinks that the +squire may leave you a legacy?" + +"Oh, sir, my father is not so mercenary,--such an idea never entered his +head. But the squire himself has indeed said, 'Why, if anything happened +to Frank, you would be next heir to my lands, and therefore we ought to +know each other.' But--" + +"Enough," interrupted Egerton. "I am the last man to pretend to the +right of standing between you and a single chance of fortune, or of aid +to it. And whom did you meet at Hazeldean?" + +"There was no one there, sir; not even Frank." + +"Hum. Is the squire not on good terms with his parson? Any quarrel +about tithes?" + +"Oh, no quarrel. I forgot Mr. Dale; I saw him pretty often. He admires +and praises you very much, sir." + +"Me--and why? What did he say of me?" + +"That your heart was as sound as your head; that he had once seen you +about some old parishioners of his, and that he had been much impressed +with the depth of feeling he could not have anticipated in a man of the +world, and a statesman." + +"Oh, that was all; some affair when I was member for Lansmere?" + +"I suppose so." + +Here the conversation had broken off; but the next time Randal was led to +visit the squire he had formally asked Egerton's consent, who, after a +moment's hesitation, had as formally replied, "I have no objection." + +On returning from this visit, Randal mentioned that he had seen +Riccabocca: and Egerton, a little startled at first, said composedly, +"Doubtless one of the political refugees; take care not to set Madame di +Negra on his track. Remember, she is suspected of being a spy of the +Austrian government." + +"Rely on me, sir," said Randal; "but I should think this poor doctor can +scarcely be the person she seeks to discover." + +"That is no affair of ours," answered Egerton: "we are English gentlemen, +and make not a step towards the secrets of another." + +Now, when Randal revolved this rather ambiguous answer, and recalled the +uneasiness with which Egerton had first heard of his visit to Hazeldean, +he thought that he was indeed near the secret which Egerton desired to +conceal from him and from all,--namely, the incognito of the Italian whom +Lord L'Estrange had taken under his protection. + +"My cards," said Randal to himself, as with a deep-drawn sigh he resumed +his soliloquy, "are become difficult to play. On the one hand, to +entangle Frank into marriage with this foreigner, the squire could never +forgive him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him without the +dowry--and that depends on her brother's wedding this countrywoman--and +that countrywoman be, as I surmise, Violante, and Violante be this +heiress, and to be won by me! Tush, tush. Such delicate scruples in a +woman so placed and so constituted as Beatrice di Negra must be easily +talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this alliance to her brother, the +loss of her own dowry, the very pressure of poverty and debt, would +compel her into the sole escape left to her option. I will then follow +up the old plan; I will go down to Hazeldean, and see if there be any +substance in the new one; and then to reconcile both. Aha--the House of +Leslie shall rise yet from its ruin--and--" + +Here he was startled from his revery by a friendly slap on the shoulder, +and an exclamation, "Why, Randal, you are more absent than when you used +to steal away from the cricket-ground, muttering Greek verses, at Eton." + +"My dear Frank," said Randal, "you--you are so brusque, and I was just +thinking of you." + +"Were you? And kindly, then, I am sure," said Frank Hazeldean, his +honest handsome face lighted up with the unsuspecting genial trust of +friendship; "and Heaven knows," he added, with a sadder voice, and a +graver expression on his eye and lip,--"Heaven knows I want all the +kindness you can give me!" + +"I thought," said Randal, "that your father's last supply, of which I was +fortunate enough to be the bearer, would clear off your more pressing +debts. I don't pretend to preach, but really, I must say once more, you +should not be so extravagant." + +FRANK (seriously).--"I have done my best to reform. I have sold off my +horses, and I have not touched dice nor card these six months; I would +not even put into the raffle for the last Derby." This last was said +with the air of a man who doubted the possibility of obtaining belief to +some assertion of preternatural abstinence and virtue. + +RANDAL.--"Is it possible? But with such self-conquest, how is it that +you cannot contrive to live within the bounds of a very liberal +allowance?" + +FRANK (despondingly).--"Why, when a man once gets his head under water, +it is so hard to float back again on the surface. You see, I attribute +all my embarrassments to that first concealment of my debts from my +father, when they could have been so easily met, and when be came up to +town so kindly." + +"I am sorry, then, that I gave you that advice." + +"Oh, you meant it so kindly, I don't reproach you; it was all my own +fault." + +"Why, indeed, I did urge you to pay off that moiety of your debts left +unpaid, with your allowance. Had you done so, all had been well." + +"Yes; but poor Borrowell got into such a scrape at Goodwood, I could not +resist him; a debt of honour,--that must be paid; so when I signed +another bill for him, he could not pay it, poor fellow! Really he would +have shot himself, if I had not renewed it. And now it is swelled to +such an amount with that cursed interest, that he never can pay it; and +one bill, of course, begets another,--and to be renewed every three +months; 't is the devil and all! So little as I ever got for all I have +borrowed," added Frank, with a kind of rueful amaze. "Not L1,500 ready +money; and the interest would cost me almost as much yearly,--if I had +it." "Only L1,500!" + +"Well; besides seven large chests of the worst cigars you ever smoked, +three pipes of wine that no one would drink, and a great bear that had +been imported from Greenland for the sake of its grease." + +"That should, at least, have saved you a bill with your hairdresser." + +"I paid his bill with it," said Frank, "and very good-natured he was to +take the monster off my hands,--it had already hugged two soldiers and +one groom into the shape of a flounder. I tell you what," resumed Frank, +after a short pause, "I have a great mind even now to tell my father +honestly all my embarrassments." + +RANDAL (solemnly).--"Hum!" + +FRANK.--" What? don't you think it would be the best way? I never can +save enough,--never can pay off what I owe; and it rolls like a +snowball." + +RANDAL.--"Judging by the squire's talk, I think that with the first sight +of your affairs you would forfeit his favour forever; and your mother +would be so shocked, especially after supposing that the sum I brought +you so lately sufficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had not +assured her of that it might be different; but she, who so hates an +untruth, and who said to the squire, 'Frank says this will clear him; and +with all his faults, Frank never yet told a lie!'" + +"Oh, my dear mother!--I fancy I hear her!" cried Frank, with deep +emotion. "But I did not tell a lie, Randal; I did not say that that sum +would clear me." + +"You empowered and begged me to say so," replied Randal, with grave +coldness; "and don't blame me if I believed you." + +"No, no! I only said it would clear me for the moment." + +"I misunderstood you, then, sadly; and such mistakes involve my own +honour. Pardon me, Frank; don't ask my aid in future. You see, with the +best intentions, I only compromise myself." + +"If you forsake me, I may as well go and throw myself into the river," +said Frank, in a tone of despair; "and sooner or later, my father must +know my necessities. The Jews threaten to go to him already; and the +longer the delay, the more terrible the explanation." + +"I don't see why your father should ever learn the state of your affairs; +and it seems to me that you could pay off these usurers, and get rid of +these bills, by raising money on comparatively easy terms--" + +"How?" cried Frank, eagerly. + +"Why, the Casino property is entailed on you, and you might obtain a sum +upon that, not to be paid till the property becomes yours." + +"At my poor father's death? Oh, no, no! I cannot bear the idea of this +cold-blooded calculation on a father's death. I know it is not uncommon; +I know other fellows who have done it, but they never had parents so kind +as mine; and even in them it shocked and revolted me. The contemplating +a father's death, and profiting by the contemplation it seems a kind of +parricide: it is not natural, Randal. Besides, don't you remember what +the Governor said,--he actually wept while he said it,--'Never calculate +on my death; I could not bear that.' Oh, Randal, don't speak of it!" + +"I respect your sentiments; but still, all the post-orbits you could +raise could not shorten Mr. Hazeldean's life by a day. However, dismiss +that idea; we must think of some other device. Ha, Frank! you are a +handsome fellow, and your expectations are great--why don't you marry +some woman with money?" + +"Pooh!" exclaimed Frank, colouring. "You know, Randal, that there is but +one woman in the world I can ever think of; and I love her so devotedly, +that, though I was as gay as most men before, I really feel as if the +rest of her sex had lost every charm. I was passing through the street +now--merely to look up at her windows." + +"You speak of Madame di Negra? I have just left her. Certainly, she is +two or three years older than you; but if you can get over that +misfortune, why not marry her?" + +"Marry her!" cried Frank, in amaze, and all his colour fled from his +cheeks. "Marry her! Are you serious?" + +"Why not?" + +"But even if she, who is so accomplished, so admired, even if she would +accept me, she is, you know, poorer than myself. She has told me so +frankly. That woman has such a noble heart,--and--and--my father would +never consent, nor my mother either. I know they would not." + +"Because she is a foreigner?" + +"Yes--partly." + +"Yet the squire suffered his cousin to marry a foreigner." + +"That was different. He had no control over Jemima; and a daughter-in- +law is so different; and my father is so English in his notions; and +Madame di Negra, you see, is altogether so foreign. Her very graces +would be against her in his eyes." + +"I think you do both your parents injustice. A foreigner of low birth-- +an actress or singer, for instance--of course would be highly +objectionable; but a woman like Madame di Negra, of such high birth and +connections--" + +Frank shook his head. "I don't think the Governor would care a straw +about her connections, if she were a king's daughter. He considers all +foreigners pretty much alike. And then, you know" (Frank's voice sank +into a whisper),--"you know that one of the very reasons why she is so +dear to me would be an insuperable objection to the old-fashioned folks +at home." + +"I don't understand you, Frank." + +"I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising his front with a +noble pride, that seemed to speak of his descent from a race of cavaliers +and gentlemen,--"I love her the more because the world has slandered her +name,--because I believe her to be pure and wronged. But would they at +the Hall,--they who do not see with a lover's eyes, they who have all the +stubborn English notions about the indecorum and license of Continental +manners, and will so readily credit the worst? Oh, no! I love, I cannot +help it--but I have no hope." + +"It is very possible that you may be right," exclaimed Randal, as if +struck and half convinced by his companion's argument,--"very possible; +and certainly I think that the homely folks at the Hall would fret and +fume at first, if they heard you were married to Madame di Negra. Yet +still, when your father learned that you had done so, not from passion +alone, but to save him from all pecuniary sacrifice,--to clear yourself +of debt, to--" + +"What do you mean?" exclaimed Frank, impatiently. + +"I have reason to know that Madame di Negra will have as large a portion +as your father could reasonably expect you to receive with any English +wife. And when this is properly stated to the squire, and the high +position and rank of your wife fully established and brought home to +him,--for I must think that these would tell, despite your exaggerated +notions of his prejudices,--and then, when he really sees Madame di +Negra, and can judge of her beauty and rare gifts, upon my word, I think, +Frank, that there would be no cause for fear. After all, too, you are +his only son. He will have no option but to forgive you; and I know how +auxiously both your parents wish to see you settled in life." + +Frank's whole countenance became illuminated. "There is no one who +understands the squire like you, certainly," said he, with lively joy. +"He has the highest opinion of your judgment. And you really believe you +could smooth matters?" + +"I believe so; but I should be sorry to induce you to run any risk; and +if, on cool consideration, you think that risk is incurred, I strongly +advise you to avoid all occasion of seeing the poor marchesa. Ah, you +wince; but I say it for her sake as well as your own. First, you must be +aware, that, unless you have serious thoughts of marriage, your +attentions can but add to the very rumours that, equally groundless, you +so feelingly resent; and, secondly, because I don't think any man has a +right to win the affections of a woman--especially a woman who seems to +me likely to love with her whole heart and soul--merely to gratify his +own vanity." + +"Vanity! Good heavens! can you think so poorly of me? But as to the +marchesa's affections," continued Frank, with a faltering voice, "do you +really and honestly believe that they are to be won by me?" + +"I fear lest they may be half won already," said Randal, with a smile and +a shake of the head; "but she is too proud to let you see any effect you +may produce on her, especially when, as I take it for granted, you have +never hinted at the hope of obtaining her hand." + +"I never till now conceived such a hope. My dear Randal, all my cares +have vanished! I tread upon air! I have a great mind to call on her at +once." + +"Stay, stay," said Randal. "Let me give you a caution. I have just +informed you that Madame di Negra will have, what you suspected not +before, a fortune suitable to her birth. Any abrupt change in your +manner at present might induce her to believe that you were influenced by +that intelligence." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Frank, stopping short, as if wounded to the quick. "And +I feel guilty,--feel as if I was influenced by that intelligence. So I +am, too, when I reflect," he continued, with a naivete that was half +pathetic; "but I hope she will not be very rich; if so, I'll not call." + +"Make your mind easy, it is but a portion of some twenty or thirty +thousand pounds, that would just suffice to discharge all your debts, +clear away all obstacle to your union, and in return for which you could +secure a more than adequate jointure and settlement on the Casino +property. Now I am on that head, I will be yet more communicative. +Madame di Negra has a noble heart, as you say, and told me herself, that, +until her brother on his arrival had assured her of this dowry, she would +never have consented to marry you, never crippled with her own +embarrassments the man she loves. Ah! with what delight she will hail +the thought of assisting you to win back your father's heart! But be +guarded meanwhile. And now, Frank, what say you--would it not be well if +I ran down to Hazeldean to sound your parents? It is rather inconvenient +to me, to be sure, to leave town just at present; but I would do more +than that to render you a smaller service. Yes, I'll go to Rood Hall +to-morrow, and thence to Hazeldean. I am sure your father will press me +to stay, and I shall have ample opportunities to judge of the manner in +which he would be likely to regard your marriage with Madame di Negra,-- +supposing always it were properly put to him. We can then act +accordingly." + +"My dear, dear Randal, how can I thank you? If ever a poor fellow like +me can serve you in return--but that's impossible." + +"Why, certainly, I will never ask you to be security to a bill of mine," +said Randal, laughing. "I practise the economy I preach." + +"Ah!" said Frank, with a groan, "that is because your mind is +cultivated,--you have so many resources; and all my faults have come from +idleness. If I had had anything to do on a rainy day, I should never +have got into these scrapes." + +"Oh, you will have enough to do some day managing your property. We who +have no property must find one in knowledge. Adieu, my dear Frank, I +must go home now. By the way, you have never, by chance, spoken of the +Riccaboccas to Madame di Negra." + +"The Riccaboccas? No. That's well thought of. It may interest her to +know that a relation of mine has married her countryman. Very odd that I +never did mention it; but, to say truth, I really do talk so little to +her: she is so superior, and I feel positively shy with her." + +"Do me the favour, Frank," said Randal, waiting patiently till this reply +ended,--for he was devising all the time what reason to give for his +request,--"never to allude to the Riccaboccas either to her or to her +brother, to whom you are sure to be presented." + +"Why not allude to them?" + +Randal hesitated a moment. His invention was still at fault, and, for a +wonder, he thought it the best policy to go pretty near the truth. + +"Why, I will tell you. The marchesa conceals nothing from her brother, +and he is one of the few Italians who are in high favour with the +Austrian court." + +"Well!" + +"And I suspect that poor Dr. Riccabocca fled his country from some mad +experiment at revolution, and is still hiding from the Austrian police." + +"But they can't hurt him here," said Frank, with an Englishman's dogged +inborn conviction of the sanctity of his native island. "I should like +to see an Austrian pretend to dictate to us whom to receive and whom to +reject." + +"Hum--that's true and constitutional, no doubt; but Riccabocca may have +excellent reasons--and, to speak plainly, I know he has (perhaps as +affecting the safety of friends in Italy)--for preserving his incognito, +and we are bound to respect those reasons without inquiring further." + +"Still I cannot think so meanly of Madame di Negra," persisted Frank +(shrewd here, though credulous elsewhere, and both from his sense of +honour), "as to suppose that she would descend to be a spy, and injure +a poor countryman of her own, who trusts to the same hospitality she +receives herself at our English hands. Oh, if I thought that, I could +not love her!" added Frank, with energy. + +"Certainly you are right. But see in what a false position you would +place both her brother and herself. If they knew Riccabocca's secret, +and proclaimed it to the Austrian Government, as you say, it would be +cruel and mean; but if they knew it and concealed it, it might involve +them both in the most serious consequences. You know the Austrian policy +is proverbially so jealous and tyrannical?" + +"Well, the newspapers say so, certainly." + +"And, in short, your discretion can do no harm, and your indiscretion +may. Therefore, give me your word, Frank. I can't stay to argue now." + +"I'll not allude to the Riccaboccas, upon my honour," answered Frank; +"still, I am sure that they would be as safe with the marchesa as with--" + +"I rely on your honour," interrupted Randal, hastily, and hurried off. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Towards the evening of the following day, Randal Leslie walked slowly +from a village in the main road (about two miles from Rood Hall), at +which he had got out of the coach. He passed through meads and +cornfields, and by the skirts of woods which had formerly belonged to his +ancestors, but had been long since alienated. He was alone amidst the +haunts of his boyhood, the scenes in which he had first invoked the grand +Spirit of Knowledge, to bid the Celestial Still One minister to the +commands of an earthly and turbulent ambi tion. He paused often in his +path, especially when the undulations of the ground gave a glimpse of the +gray church tower, or the gloomy firs that rose above the desolate wastes +of Rood. + +"Here," thought Randal, with a softening eye,--"here, how often, +comparing the fertility of the lands passed away from the inheritance of +my fathers, with the forlorn wilds that are left to their mouldering +Hall,--here how often have I said to myself, 'I will rebuild the fortunes +of my House.' And straightway Toil lost its aspect of drudge, and grew +kingly, and books became as living armies to serve my thought. Again-- +again O thou haughty Past, brace and strengthen me in the battle with the +Future." His pale lips writhed as he soliloquized, for his conscience +spoke to him while he thus addressed his will, and its voice was heard +more audibly in the quiet of the rural landscape, than amidst the turmoil +and din of that armed and sleepless camp which we call a city. + +Doubtless, though Ambition have objects more vast and beneficent than the +restoration of a name, that in itself is high and chivalrous, and appeals +to a strong interest in the human heart. But all emotions and all ends +of a nobler character had seemed to filter themselves free from every +golden grain in passing through the mechanism of Randal's intellect, and +came forth at last into egotism clear and unalloyed. Nevertheless, it is +a strange truth that, to a man of cultivated mind, however perverted and +vicious, there are vouchsafed gleams of brighter sentiments, irregular +perceptions of moral beauty, denied to the brutal unreasoning wickedness +of uneducated villany,--which perhaps ultimately serve as his punishment, +according to the old thought of the satirist, that there is no greater +curse than to perceive virtue yet adopt vice. And as the solitary +schemer walked slowly on, and his childhood--innocent at least indeed-- +came distinct before him through the halo of bygone dreams,--dreams far +purer than those from which he now rose each morning to the active world +of Man,--a profound melancholy crept over him, and suddenly he exclaimed +aloud, "Then I aspired to be renowned and great; now, how is it that, so +advanced in my career, all that seemed lofty in the end has vanished from +me, and the only means that I contemplate are those which my childhood +would have called poor and vile? Ah, is it that I then read but books, +and now my knowledge has passed onward, and men contaminate more than +books? But," he continued, in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, +"if power is only so to be won,--and of what use is knowledge if it be +not power--does not success in life justify all things? And who prizes +the wise man if he fails?" He continued his way, but still the soft +tranquillity around rebuked him, and still his reason was dissatisfied, +as well as his conscience. There are times when Nature, like a bath of +youth, seems to restore to the jaded soul its freshness,--times from +which some men have emerged, as if reborn. The crises of life are very +silent. Suddenly the scene opened on Randal Leslie's eyes,--the bare +desert common, the dilapidated church, the old house, partially seen in +the dank dreary hollow, into which it seemed to Randal to have sunken +deeper and lowlier than when he saw it last. And on the common were some +young men playing at hockey. That old-fashioned game, now very uncommon +in England, except at schools, was still preserved in the primitive +vicinity of Rood by the young yeomen and farmers. Randal stood by the +stile and looked on, for among the players he recognized his brother +Oliver. Presently the ball was struck towards Oliver, and the group +instantly gathered round that young gentleman, and snatched him from +Randal's eye; but the elder brother heard a displeasing din, a derisive +laughter. Oliver had shrunk from the danger of the thick clubbed sticks +that plied around him, and received some stroke across the legs, for his +voice rose whining, and was drowned by shouts of, "Go to your mammy. +That's Noll Leslie all over. Butter shins!" + +Randal's sallow face became scarlet. "The jest of boors--a Leslie!" he +muttered, and ground his teeth. He sprang over the stile, and walked +erect and haughtily across the ground. The players cried out +indignantly. Randal raised his hat, and they recognized him, and stopped +the game. For him at least a certain respect was felt. Oliver turned +round quickly, and ran up to him. Randal caught his arm firmly, and +without saying a word to the rest, drew him away towards the house. +Oliver cast a regretful, lingering look behind him, rubbed his shins, and +then stole a timid glance towards Randal's severe and moody countenance. + +"You are not angry that I was playing at hockey with our neighbours," +said he, deprecatingly, observing that Randal would not break the +silence. + +"No," replied the elder brother; "but in associating with his inferiors, +a gentleman still knows how to maintain his dignity. There is no harm in +playing with inferiors, but it is necessary to a gentleman to play so +that he is not the laughing-stock of clowns." + +Oliver hung his head, and made no answer. They came into the slovenly +precincts of the court, and the pigs stared at them from the palings, as +their progenitors had stared, years before, at Frank Hazeldean. + +Mr. Leslie, senior, in a shabby straw-hat, was engaged in feeding the +chickens before the threshold, and he performed even that occupation with +a maundering lack-a-daisical slothfulness, dropping down the grains +almost one by one from his inert dreamy fingers. + +Randal's sister, her hair still and forever hanging about her ears, was +seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the +parlour window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high +fidget and complaint. + +Somehow or other, as the young heir to all this helpless poverty stood in +the courtyard, with his sharp, refined, intelligent features, and his +strange elegance of dress and aspect, one better comprehended how, left +solely to the egotism of his knowledge and his ambition, in such a +family, and without any of the sweet nameless lessons of Home, he had +grown up into such close and secret solitude of soul,--how the mind had +taken so little nutriment from the heart, and how that affection and +respect which the warm circle of the heart usually calls forth had passed +with him to the graves of dead fathers, growing, as it were, bloodless +and ghoul-like amidst the charnels on which they fed. + +"Ha, Randal, boy," said Mr. Leslie, looking up lazily, "how d' ye do? +Who could have expected you? My dear, my dear," he cried, in a broken +voice, and as if in helpless dismay, "here's Randal, and he'll be wanting +dinner, or supper, or something." But, in the mean while, Randal's +sister Juliet had sprung up and thrown her arms round her brother's neck, +and he had drawn her aside caressingly, for Randal's strongest human +affection was for this sister. + +"You are growing very pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing back her hair; +"why do yourself such injustice,--why not pay more attention to your +appearance, as I have so often begged you to do?" + +"I did not expect you, dear Randal; you always come so suddenly, and +catch us /en dish-a-bill/." + +"Dish-a-bill!" echoed Randal, with a groan. "Dishabille! you ought never +to be so caught!" + +"No one else does so catch us,--nobody else ever comes. Heigho!" and the +young lady sighed very heartily. "Patience, patience; my day is coming, +and then yours, my sister," replied Randal, with genuine pity, as he +gazed upon what a little care could have trained into so fair a flower, +and what now looked so like a weed. + +Here Mrs. Leslie, in a state of intense excitement--having rushed through +the parlour, leaving a fragment of her gown between the yawning brass of +the never-mended Brummagem work-table--tore across the hall, whirled out +of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and left, and clutched +hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. "La, how you do shake my +nerves," she cried, after giving him a most hasty and uncomfortable kiss. +"And you are hungry too, and nothing in the house but cold mutton! +Jenny, Jenny, I say, Jenny! Juliet, have you seen Jenny? Where's Jenny? +Out with the odd man, I'll be bound." + +"I am not hungry, Mother," said Randal; "I wish for nothing but tea." +Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the tea, +and also to "tidy herself." She dearly loved her fine brother, but she +was greatly in awe of him. + +Randal seated himself on the broken pales. "Take care they don't come +down," said Mr. Leslie, with some anxiety. + +"Oh, Sir, I am very light; nothing comes down with me." The pigs stared +up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger. "Mother," said the young man, +detaining Mrs. Leslie, who wanted to set off in chase of Jenny, "Mother, +you should not let Oliver associate with those village boors. It is time +to think of a profession for him." + +"Oh, he eats us out of house and home--such an appetite! But as to a +profession, what is he fit for? He will never be a scholar." + +Randal nodded a moody assent; for, indeed, Oliver had been sent to +Cambridge, and supported there out of Randal's income from his official +pay; and Oliver had been plucked for his Little Go. + +"There is the army," said the elder brother,--" a gentleman's calling. +How handsome Juliet ought to be--but--I left money for masters--and she +pronounces French like a chambermaid." + +"Yet she is fond of her book too. She's always reading, and good for +nothing else." + +"Reading! those trashy novels!" + +"So like you,--you always come to scold, and make things unpleasant," +said Mrs. Leslie, peevishly. "You are grown too fine for us, and I am +sure we suffer affronts enough from others, not to want a little respect +from our own children." + +"I did not mean to affront you," said Randal, sadly. "Pardon me. But +who else has done so?" + +Then Mrs. Leslie went into a minute and most irritating catalogue of all +the mortifications and insults she had received; the grievances of a +petty provincial family, with much pretension and small power,--of all +people, indeed, without the disposition to please--without the ability to +serve--who exaggerate every offence, and are thankful for no kindness. +Farmer Jones had insolently refused to send his wagon twenty miles for +coals. Mr. Giles, the butcher, requesting the payment of his bill, had +stated that the custom at Rood was too small for him to allow credit. +Squire Thornhill, who was the present owner of the fairest slice of the +old Leslie domains, had taken the liberty to ask permission to shoot over +Mr. Leslie's land, since Mr. Leslie did not preserve. Lady Spratt (new +people from the city, who hired a neighbouring country-seat) had taken a +discharged servant of Mrs. Leslie's without applying for the character. +The Lord-Lieutenant had given a ball, and had not invited the Leslies. +Mr. Leslie's tenants had voted against their landlord's wish at the +recent election. More than all, Squire Hazeldean and his Harry had +called at Rood, and though Mrs. Leslie had screamed out to Jenny, "Not at +home," she had been seen at the window, and the squire had actually +forced his way in, and caught the whole family "in a state not fit to be +seen." That was a trifle, but the squire had presumed to instruct Mr. +Leslie how to manage his property, and Mrs. Hazeldean had actually told +Juliet to hold up her head, and tie up her hair, "as if we were her +cottagers!" said Mrs. Leslie, with the pride of a Montfydget. + +All these, and various other annoyances, though Randal was too sensible +not to perceive their insignificance, still galled and mortified the +listening heir of Rood. They showed, at least, even to the well-meant +officiousness of the Hazeldeans, the small account in which the fallen +family was held. As he sat still on the moss-grown pales, gloomy and +taciturn, his mother standing beside him, with her cap awry, Mr. Leslie +shamblingly sauntered up, and said in a pensive, dolorous whine, + +"I wish we had a good sum of money, Randal, boy!" + +To do Mr. Leslie justice, he seldom gave vent to any wish that savoured +of avarice. His mind must be singularly aroused, to wander out of its +normal limits of sluggish, dull content. + +So Randal looked at him in surprise, and said, "Do you, Sir?---why?" + +"The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, and all the lands therein, which my +great-grandfather sold away, are to be sold again when Squire Thornhill's +eldest son comes of age, to cut off the entail. Sir John Spratt talks of +buying them. I should like to have them back again! 'T is a shame to +see the Leslie estates hawked about, and bought by Spratts and people. +I wish I had a great, great sum of ready money." The poor gentleman +extended his helpless fingers as he spoke, and fell into a dejected +revery. + +Randal sprang from the paling, a movement which frightened the +contemplative pigs, and set them off squalling and scampering. "When +does young Thornhill come of age?" + +"He was nineteen last August. I know it, because the day he was born I +picked up my fossil of the sea-horse, just by Dulmansberry church, when +the joy-bells were ringing. My fossil sea-horse! It will be an +heirloom, Randal--" + +"Two years--nearly two years--yet--ah, ah!" said Randal; and his sister +now appearing, to announce that tea was ready, he threw his arm round her +neck and kissed her. Juliet had arranged her hair and trimmed up her +dress. She looked very pretty, and she had now the air of a +gentlewoman,--something of Randal's own refinement in her slender +proportions and well-shaped head. + +"Be patient, patient still, my dear sister," whispered Randal, "and keep +your heart whole for two years longer." The young man was gay and good- +humoured over his simple meal, while his family grouped round him. When +it was over, Mr. Leslie lighted his pipe, and called for his brandy-and- +water. Mrs. Leslie began to question about London and Court, and the new +king and the new queen, and Mr. Audley Egerton, and hoped Mr. Egerton +would leave Randal all his money, and that Randal would marry a rich +woman, and that the king would make him a prime minister one of these +days; and then she should like to see if Farmer Jones would refuse to +send his wagon for coals! And every now and then, as the word "riches" +or "money" caught Mr. Leslie's ears, he shook his head, drew his pipe +from his mouth, "A Spratt should not have what belonged to my great- +great-grandfather. If I had a good sum of ready money! the old family +estates!" Oliver and Juliet sat silent, and on their good behaviour; and +Randal, indulging his own reveries, dreamily heard the words "money," +"Spratt," "great-great-grandfather," "rich wife," "family estates;" and +they sounded to him vague and afar off, like whispers from the world of +romance and legend,--weird prophecies of things to be. + +Such was the hearth which warmed the viper that nestled and gnawed at the +heart of Randal, poisoning all the aspirations that youth should have +rendered pure, ambition lofty, and knowledge beneficent and divine. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +When the rest of the household were in deep sleep, Randal stood long at +his open window, looking over the dreary, comfortless scene,--the moon +gleaming from skies half-autumnal, half-wintry, upon squalid decay, +through the ragged fissures of the firs; and when he lay down to rest, +his sleep was feverish, and troubled by turbulent dreams. + +However, he was up early, and with an unwonted colour in his cheeks, +which his sister ascribed to the country air. After breakfast, he took +his way towards Hazeldean, mounted upon a tolerable, horse, which he +borrowed of a neighbouring farmer who occasionally hunted. Before noon, +the garden and ter race of the Casino came in sight. He reined in his +horse, and by the little fountain at which Leonard had been wont to eat +his radishes and con his book, he saw Riccabocca seated under the shade +of the red umbrella. And by the Italian's side stood a form that a Greek +of old might have deemed the Naiad of the Fount; for in its youthful +beauty there was something so full of poetry, something at once so sweet +and so stately, that it spoke to the imagination while it charmed the +sense. + +Randal dismounted, tied his horse to the gate, and, walking down a +trellised alley, came suddenly to the spot. His dark shadow fell over +the clear mirror of the fountain just as Riccabocca had said, "All here +is so secure from evil!--the waves of the fountain are never troubled +like those of the river!" and Violante had answered in her soft native +tongue, and lifting her dark, spiritual eyes, "But the fountain would be +but a lifeless pool, oh my father, if the spray did not mount towards the +skies!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +RANDAL advanced--"I fear, Signor Riccabocca, that I am guilty of some +want of ceremony." + +"To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a +compliment," replied the urbane Italian, as he recovered from his first +surprise at Randal's sudden address, and extended his hand. + +Violante bowed her graceful head to the young man's respectful +salutation. "I am on my way to Hazeldean," resumed Randal, "and, seeing +you in the garden, could not resist this intrusion." + +RICCOBOCCA.--"YOU come from London? Stirring times for you English, but +I do not ask you the news. No news can affect us." + +RANDAL (softly).--"Perhaps yes." + +RICCABOCCA (startled).--"How?" + +VIOLANTE.--"Surely he speaks of Italy, and news from that country affects +you still, my father." + +RICCABOCCA.--"Nay, nay, nothing affects me like this country; its east +winds might affect a pyramid! Draw your mantle round you, child, and go +in; the air has suddenly grown chill." + +Violante smiled on her father, glanced uneasily towards Randal's grave +brow, and went slowly towards the house. Riccabocca, after waiting some +moments in silence, as if expecting Randal to speak, said, with affected +carelessness, + +"So you think that you have news that might affect me? /Corpo di Bacco/! +I am curious to learn what?" + +"I may be mistaken--that depends on your answer to one question. Do you +know the Count of Peschiera?" + +Riccabocca winced, and turned pale. He could not baffle the watchful eye +of the questioner. + +"Enough," said Randal; "I see that I am right. Believe in my sincerity. +I speak but to warn and to serve you. The count seeks to discover the +retreat of a countryman and kinsman of his own." + +"And for what end?" cried Riccabocca, thrown off his guard, and his +breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye flashed; valour and defiance +broke from habitual caution and self-control. "But--pooh!" he added, +striving to regain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, "it matters not +to me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera; but what has +Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsman of so grand a personage?" + +"Dr. Riccabocca--nothing. But--" here Randal put his lip close to the +Italian's ear, and whispered a brief sentence. Then retreating a step, +but laying his hand on the exile's shoulder, he added, "Need I say that +your secret is safe with me?" + +Riccabocca made no answer. His eyes rested on the ground musingly. + +Randal continued, "And I shall esteem it the highest honour you can +bestow on me, to be permitted to assist you in forestalling danger." + +RICCABOCCA (slowly).--"Sir, I thank you; you have my secret, and I feel +assured it is safe, for I speak to an English gentleman. There may be +family reasons why I should avoid the Count di Peschiera; and, indeed, +he is safest from shoals who steers clearest of his relations." + +The poor Italian regained his caustic smile as he uttered that wise, +villanous Italian maxim. + +RANDAL.--"I know little of the Count of Peschiera save from the current +talk of the world. He is said to hold the estates of a kinsman who took +part in a conspiracy against the Austrian power." + +RICCABOCCA.--"It is true. Let that content him; what more does he +desire? You spoke of forestalling danger; what danger? I am on the soil +of England, and protected by its laws." + +RANDAL.--"Allow me to inquire if, had the kinsman no child, the Count di +Peschiera would be legitimate and natural heir to the estates he holds?" + +RICCABOCCA.--"He would--What then?" + +RANDAL.--"Does that thought suggest no danger to the child of the +kinsman?" + +Riccabocca recoiled, and gasped forth, "The child! You do not mean to +imply that this man, infamous though he be, can contemplate the crime of +an assassin?" + +Randal paused perplexed. His ground was delicate. He knew not what +causes of resentment the exile entertained against the count. He knew +not whether Riccabocca would not assent to an alliance that might restore +him to his country,--and he resolved to feel his way with precaution. + +"I did not," said he, smiling gravely, "mean to insinuate so horrible a +charge against a man whom I have never seen. He seeks you,--that is all +I know. I imagine, from his general character, that in this search he +consults his interest. Perhaps all matters might be conciliated by an +interview!" + +"An interview!" exclaimed Riccabocca; "there is but one way we should +meet,--foot to foot, and hand to hand." + +"Is it so? Then you would not listen to the count if he proposed some +amicable compromise,--if, for instance, he was a candidate for the hand +of your daughter?" + +The poor Italian, so wise and so subtle in his talk, was as rash and +blind when it came to action as if he had been born in Ireland and +nourished on potatoes and Repeal. He bared his whole soul to the +merciless eye of Randal. + +"My daughter!" he exclaimed. "Sir, your very question is an insult." + +Randal's way became clear at once. "Forgive me," he said mildly; "I will +tell you frankly all that I know. I am acquainted with the count's +sister. I have some little influence over her. It was she who informed +me that the count had come here, bent upon discovering your refuge, and +resolved to wed your daughter. This is the danger of which I spoke. And +when I asked your permission to aid in forestalling it, I only intended +to suggest that it might be wise to find some securer home, and that I, +if permitted to know that home, and to visit you, could apprise you from +time to time of the count's plans and movements." + +"Sir, I thank you sincerely," said Riccabocca, with emotion; "but am I +not safe here?" + +"I doubt it. Many people have visited the squire in the shooting season, +who will have heard of you,--perhaps seen you, and who are likely to meet +the count in London. And Frank Hazeldean, too, who knows the count's +sister--" + +"True, true" interrupted Riccabocca. "I see, I see. I will consider, +I will reflect. Meanwhile you are going to Hazel dean. Do not say a +word to the squire. He knows not the secret you have discovered." + +With those words Riccabocca turned slightly away, and Randal took the +hint to depart. + +"At all times command and rely on me," said the young traitor, and he +regained the pale to which he had fastened his horse. + +As he remounted, he cast his eyes towards the place where he had left +Riccabocca. The Italian was still standing there. Presently the form of +Jackeymo was seen emerging from the shrubs. Riccabocca turned hastily +round, recognized his servant, uttered an exclamation loud enough to +reach Randal's ear, and then, catching Jackeymo by the arm, disappeared +with him amidst the deep recesses of the garden. + +"It will be indeed in my favour," thought Randal, as he rode on, "if I +can get them into the neighbourhood of London,--all occasion there to +woo, and if expedient, to win, the heiress." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +"Br the Lord, Harry!" cried the squire, as he stood with his wife in the +park, on a visit of inspection to some first-rate Southdowns just added +to his stock,--"by the Lord, if that is not Randal Leslie trying to get +into the park at the back gate! Hollo, Randal! you must come round by +the lodge, my boy," said he. "You see this gate is locked to keep out +trespassers." + +"A pity," said Randal. "I like short cuts, and you have shut up a very +short one." + +"So the trespassers said," quoth the squire; "but Stirn insisted on it-- +valuable man, Stirn. But ride round to the lodge. Put up your horse, +and you'll join us before we can get to the house." + +Randal nodded and smiled, and rode briskly on. The squire rejoined his +Harry. + +"Ah, William," said she, anxiously, "though certainly Randal Leslie means +well, I always dread his visits." + +"So do I, in one sense," quoth the squire, "for he always carries away a +bank-note for Frank." + +"I hope he is really Frank's friend," said Mrs. Hazeldean. "Who's else +can he be? Not his own, poor fellow, for he will never accept a shilling +from me, though his grandmother was as good a Hazeldean as I am. But, +zounds, I like his pride, and his economy too. As for Frank--" + +"Hush, William!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean, and put her fair hand before the +squire's mouth. The squire was softened, and kissed the fair hand +gallantly,--perhaps he kissed the lips too; at all events, the worthy +pair were walking lovingly arm-in-arm when Randal joined them. + +He did not affect to perceive a certain coldness in the manner of Mrs. +Hazeldean, but began immediately to talk to her about Frank; praise that +young gentleman's appearance; expatiate on his health, his popularity, +and his good gifts, personal and mental,--and this with so much warmth, +that any dim and undeveloped suspicions Mrs. Hazeldean might have formed +soon melted away. + +Randal continued to make himself thus agreeable, until the squire, +persuaded that his young kinsman was a first-rate agriculturalist, +insisted upon carrying him off to the home-farm; and Harry turned towards +the house; to order Randal's room to be got ready: "For," said Randal, +"knowing that you will excuse my morning dress, I venture to invite +myself to dine and sleep at the Hall." + +On approaching the farm-buildings, Randal was seized with the terror of +an impostor; for, despite all the theoretical learning on Bucolics and +Georgics with which he had dazzled the squire, poor Frank, so despised, +would have beat him hollow when it came to the judging of the points of +an ox, or the show of a crop. + +"Ha, ha," cried the squire, chuckling, "I long to see how you'll astonish +Stirn. Why, you'll guess in a moment where we put the top-dressing; and +when you come to handle my short-horns, I dare swear you'll know to a +pound how much oil-cake has gone into their sides." + +"Oh, you do me too much honour,--indeed you do. I only know the general +principles of agriculture; the details are eminently interesting, but I +have not had the opportunity to acquire them." + +"Stuff!" cried the squire. "How can a man know general principles unless +he has first studied the details? You are too modest, my boy. Ho! +there 's Stirn looking out for us!" Randal saw the grim visage of Stirn +peering out of a cattleshed, and felt undone. He made a desperate rush +towards changing the squire's humour. + +"Well, sir, perhaps Frank may soon gratify your wish, and turn farmer +himself." + +"Eh!" quoth the squire, stopping short,--"what now?" + +"Suppose he were to marry?" + +"I'd give him the two best farms on the property rent free. Ha, ha! Has +he seen the girl yet? I'd leave him free to choose; sir, I chose for +myself,--every man should. Not but what Miss Stick-to-rights is an +heiress, and, I hear, a very decent girl, and that would join the two +properties, and put an end to that law-suit about the right of way, which +began in the reign of King Charles the Second, and is likely otherwise to +last till the day of judgment. But never mind her; let Frank choose to +please himself." + +"I'll not fail to tell him so, sir. I did fear you might have some +prejudices. But here we are at the farmyard." + +"Burn the farmyard! How can I think of farmyards when you talk of +Frank's marriage? Come on--this way. What were you saying about +prejudices?" + +"Why, you might wish him to marry an Englishwoman, for instance." + +"English! Good heavens, sir, does he mean to marry a Hindoo?" + +"Nay, I don't know that he means to marry at all; I am only surmising; +but if he did fall in love with a foreigner--" + +"A foreigner! Ah, then Harry was--" The squire stopped short. + +"Who might, perhaps," observed Randal--not truly, if he referred to +Madame di Negra--"who might, perhaps, speak very little English?" + +"Lord ha' mercy!" + +"And a Roman Catholic--" + +"Worshipping idols, and roasting people who don't worship them." + +"Signor Riccabocca is not so bad as that." + +"Rickeybockey! Well, if it was his daughter! But not speak English! +and not go to the parish church! By George, if Frank thought of such a +thing, I'd cut him off with a shilling. Don't talk to me, sir; I would. +I 'm a mild man, and an easy man; but when I say a thing, I say it, Mr. +Leslie. Oh, but it is a jest,--you are laughing at me. There 's no such +painted good-for-nothing creature in Frank's eye, eh?" + +"Indeed, sir, if ever I find there is, I will give you notice in time. +At present, I was only trying to ascertain what you wished for a +daughter-in-law. You said you had no prejudice." + +"No more I have,--not a bit of it." + +"You don't like a foreigner and a Catholic?" + +"Who the devil would?" + +"But if she had rank and title?" + +"Rank and title! Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and +squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title!-- +foreign cabbage and beef!---foreign bubble and foreign squeak!" And the +squire made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust and indignation. + +"You must have an Englishwoman?" + +"Of course." + +"Money?" + +"Don't care, provided she is a tidy, sensible, active lass, with a good +character for her dower." + +"Character--ah, that is indispensable?" + +"I should think so, indeed. A Mrs. Hazeldean of Hazeldean--You frighten +me. He's not going to run off with a divorced woman, or a--" + +The squire stopped, and looked so red in the face that Randal feared he +might be seized with apoplexy before Frank's crimes had made him alter +his will. + +Therefore he hastened to relieve Mr. Hazeldean's mind, and assured him +that he had been only talking at random; that Frank was in the habit, +indeed, of seeing foreign ladies occasionally, as all persons in the +London world were; but that he was sure Frank would never marry without +the full consent and approval of his parents. He ended by repeating his +assurance, that he would warn the squire if ever it became necessary. +Still, however, he left Mr. Hazeldean so disturbed and uneasy that that +gentleman forgot all about the farm, and went moodily on in the opposite +direction, reentering the park at its farther extremity. As soon as they +approached the house, the squire hastened to shut himself with his wife +in full parental consultation; and Randal, seated upon a bench on the +terrace, revolved the mischief he had done, and its chances of success. + +While thus seated, and thus thinking, a footstep approached cautiously, +and a low voice said, in broken English, "Sare, sare, let me speak vid +you." + +Randal turned in surprise, and beheld a swarthy, saturnine face, with +grizzled hair and marked features. He recognized the figure that had +joined Riccabocca in the Italian's garden. "Speak-a-you Italian?" +resumed Jackeymo. + +Randal, who had made himself an excellent linguist, nodded assent; and +Jackeymo, rejoiced, begged him to withdraw into a more private part of +the grounds. + +Randal obeyed, and the two gained the shade of a stately chestnut avenue. + +"Sir," then said Jackeymo, speaking in his native tongue, and expressing +himself with a certain simple pathos, "I am but a poor man; my name is +Giacomo. You have heard of me; servant to the signore whom you saw +to-day,--only a servant; but he honours me with his confidence. We have +known danger together; and of all his friends and followers, I alone came +with him to the stranger's land." + +"Good, faithful fellow," said Randal, examining the man's face, "say on. +Your master confides in you? He has confided that which I told him this +day?" + +"He did. Ah, sir; the padrone was too proud to ask you to explain more, +--too proud to show fear of another. But he does fear, he ought to fear, +he shall fear," continued Jackeymo, working himself up to passion,--"for +the padrone has a daughter, and his enemy is a villain. Oh, sir, tell me +all that you did not tell to the padrone. You hinted that this man might +wish to marry the signora. Marry her!---I could cut his throat at the +altar!" + +"Indeed," said Randal, "I believe that such is his object." + +"But why? He is rich, she is penniless,--no, not quite that, for we +have saved--but penniless, compared to him." + +"My good friend, I know not yet his motives; but I can easily learn them. +If, however, this count be your master's enemy, it is surely well to +guard against him, whatever his designs; and to do so, you should move +into London or its neighbourhood. I fear that, while we speak, the count +may get upon his track." + +"He had better not come here!" cried the servant, menacingly, and putting +his hand where the knife was not. + +"Beware of your own anger, Giacomo. One act of violence, and you would +be transported from England, and your mast'r would lose a friend." + +Jackeymo seemed struck by this caution. + +"And if the padrone were to meet him, do you think the padrone would +meekly say, 'Come sta sa Signoria'? The padrone would strike him dead!" + +"Hush! hush! You speak of what in England is called murder, and is +punished by the gallows. If you really love your master, for Heaven's +sake get him from this place, get him from all chance of such passion and +peril. I go to town to-morrow; I will find him a house, that shall be +safe from all spies, all discovery. And there, too, my friend. I can do +what I cannot at this distance,--watch over him, and keep watch also on +his enemy." + +Jackeymo seized Randal's hand, and lifted it towards his lip; then, +as if struck by a sudden suspicion, dropped the hand, and said bluntly, +"Signore, I think you have seen the padrone twice. Why do you take this +interest in him?" + +"Is it so uncommon to take interest even in a stranger who is menaced by +some peril?" + +Jackeymo, who believed little in general philanthropy, shook his head +sceptically. + +"Besides," continued Randal, suddenly bethinking himself of a more +plausible reason,--"besides, I am a friend and connection of Mr. Egerton; +and Mr. Egerton's most intimate friend is Lord L'Estrange; and I have +heard that Lord L'Estrange--" + +"The good lord! Oh, now I understand," interrupted Jackeymo, and his +brow cleared. "Ah, if he were in England! But you will let us know when +he comes?" + +"Certainly. Now, tell me, Giacomo, is this count really unprincipled and +dangerous? Remember I know him not personally." + +"He has neither heart nor conscience." + +"That defect makes him dangerous to men; perhaps not less so to women. +Could it be possible, if he obtained any interview with the signora, that +he could win her affections?" Jackeymo crossed himself rapidly and made +no answer. + +"I have heard that he is still very handsome." Jackeymo groaned. + +Randal resumed, "Enough; persuade the padrone to come to town." + +"But if the count is in town?" + +"That makes no difference; the safest place is always the largest city. +Everywhere else, a foreigner is in himself an object of attention and +curiosity." + +"True." + +"Let your master, then, come to London, or rather, into its +neighbourhood. He can reside in one of the suburbs most remote from the +count's haunts. In two days I will have found him a lodging and write to +him. You trust to me now?" + +"I do indeed,--I do, Excellency. Ah, if the signorina were married, we +would not care!" + +"Married! But she looks so high!" + +"Alas! not now! not here!" + +Randal sighed heavily. Jackeymo's eyes sparkled. He thought he had +detected a new motive for Randal's interest,--a motive to an Italian the +most natural, the most laudable of all. + +"Find the house, Signore, write to the padrone. He shall come. I'll +talk to him. I can manage him. Holy San Giacomo, bestir thyself now,-- +'t is long since I troubled thee!" + +Jackeymo strode off through the fading trees, smiling and muttering as he +went. + +The first dinner-bell rang, and on entering the drawingroom, Randal found +Parson Dale and his wife, who had been invited in haste to meet the +unexpected visitor. + +The preliminary greetings over, Mr. Dale took the opportunity afforded by +the squire's absence to inquire after the health of Mr. Egerton. + +"He is always well," said Randal. "I believe he is made of iron." + +"His heart is of gold," said the parson. + +"Ah," said Randal, inquisitively, "you told me you had come in contact +with him once, respecting, I think, some of your old parishioners at +Lansmere?" + +The parson nodded, and there was a moment's silence. + +"Do you remember your battle by the stocks, Mr. Leslie?" said Mr. Dale, +with a good-humoured laugh. + +"Indeed, yes. By the way, now you speak of it, I met my old opponent in +London the first year I went up to it." + +"You did! where?" + +"At a literary scamp's,--a cleverish man called Burley." + +"Burley! I have seen some burlesque verses in Greek by a Mr. Burley." + +"No doubt the same person. He has disappeared,--gone to the dogs, I dare +say. Burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present." + +"Well, but Leonard Fairfield--you have seen him since?" + +"No." + +"Nor heard of him?" + +"No; have you?" + +"Strange to say, not for a long time. But I have reason to believe that +he must be doing well." + +"You surprise me! Why?" + +"Because two years ago he sent for his mother. She went to him." + +"Is that all?" + +"It is enough; for he would not have sent for her if he could not +maintain her." + +Here the Hazeldeans entered, arm-in-arm, and the fat butler announced +dinner. + +The squire was unusually taciturn, Mrs. Hazeldean thoughtful, Mrs. Dale +languid and headachy. The parson, who seldom enjoyed the luxury of +converse with a scholar, save when he quarrelled with Dr. Riccaboeca, was +animated by Randal's repute for ability into a great desire for argument. + +"A glass of wine, Mr. Leslie. You were saying, before dinner, that +burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present. Pray, +Sir, what knowledge is in power?" + +RANDAL (laconically).--"Practical knowledge." + +PARSON.--"What of?" + +RANDAL.--"Men." + +PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I suppose that is the most available sort of +knowledge, in a worldly point of view. How does one learn it? Do books +help?" + +RANDAL.--"According as they are read, they help or injure." + +PARSON.--"How should they be read in order to help?" + +RANDAL.--"Read specially to apply to purposes that lead to power." + +PARSON (very much struck with Randal's pithy and Spartan logic).--" Upon +my word, Sir, you express yourself very well. I must own that I began +these questions in the hope of differing from you; for I like an +argument." + +"That he does," growled the squire; "the most contradictory creature!" + +PARSON.---"Argument is the salt of talk. But now I am afraid I must +agree with you, which I was not at all prepared for." + +Randal bowed and answered, "No two men of our education can dispute upon +the application of knowledge." + +PARSON (pricking up his ears).--"Eh?--what to?" + +RANDAL.--"Power, of course." + +PARSON (overjoyed).--"Power!--the vulgarest application of it, or the +loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?" + +RANDAL (in his turn interested and interrogative).--" What do you call +the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?" + +PARSON.--"The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, beneficence." + +Randal suppressed the half-disdainful smile that rose to his lip. + +"You speak, Sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire your sentiment, and +adopt it; but I fear that the knowledge which aims only at beneficence +very rarely in this world gets any power at all." + +SQUIRE (seriously).--"That's true; I never get my own way when I want to +do a kindness, and Stirn always gets his when he insists on something +diabolically brutal and harsh." + +PARSON.--"Pray, Mr. Leslie, what does intellectual power refined to the +utmost, but entirely stripped of beneficence, most resemble?" + +RANDAL.--"Resemble?--I can hardly say. Some very great man--almost any +very great man--who has baffled all his foes, and attained all his ends." + +PARSON.--"I doubt if any man has ever become very great who has not meant +to be beneficent, though he might err in the means. Caesar was naturally +beneficent, and so was Alexander. But intellectual power refined to the +utmost, and wholly void of beneficence, resembles only one being, and +that, sir, is the Principle of Evil." + +RANDAL (startled).--"Do you mean the Devil?" + +PARSON.--"Yes, Sir, the Devil; and even he, Sir, did not succeed! Even +he, Sir, is what your great men would call a most decided failure." + +MRS. DALE.--"My dear, my dear!" + +PARSON.--"Our religion proves it, my love; he was an angel, and he fell." + +There was a solemn pause. Randal was more impressed than he liked to own +to himself. By this time the dinner was over, and the servants had +retired. Harry glanced at Carry. Carry smoothed her gown and rose. + +The gentlemen remained over their wine; and the parson, satisfied with +what he deemed a clencher upon his favourite subject of discussion, +changed the subject to lighter topics, till, happening to fall upon +tithes, the squire struck in, and by dint of loudness of voice, and +truculence of brow, fairly overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to +his own satisfaction that tithes were an unjust and unchristianlike +usurpation on the part of the Church generally, and a most especial and +iniquitous infliction upon the Hazeldean estates in particular. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +On entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two ladies seated close +together, in a position much more appropriate to the familiarity of their +school-days than to the politeness of the friendship now existing between +them. Mrs. Hazeldean's hand hung affectionately over Carry's shoulder, +and both those fair English faces were bent over the same book. It was +pretty to see these sober matrons, so different from each other in +character and aspect, thus unconsciously restored to the intimacy of +happy maiden youth by the golden link of some Magician from the still +land of Truth or Fancy, brought together in heart, as each eye rested on +the same thought; closer and closer, as sympathy, lost in the actual +world, grew out of that world which unites in one bond of feeling the +readers of some gentle book. + +"And what work interests you so much?" asked Randal, pausing by the +table. + +"One you have read, of course," replied Mrs. Dale, putting a book-mark +embroidered by herself into the page, and handing the volume to Randal. +"It has made a great sensation, I believe." + +Randal glanced at the title of the work. "True," said he, "I have heard +much of it in London, but I have not yet had time to read it." + +MRS. DALE.--"I can lend it to you, if you like to look over it to-night, +and you can leave it for me with Mrs. Hazeldean." + +PARSON (approaching).--"Oh, that book!--yes, you must read it. I do not +know a work more instructive." + +RANDAL.--"Instructive! Certainly I will read it then. But I thought it +was a mere work of amusement,--of fancy. It seems so as I look over it." + +PARSON.--"So is the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' yet what book more +instructive?" + +RANDAL.--"I should not have said that of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' A +pretty book enough, though the story is most improbable. But how is it +instructive?" + +PARSON.--"By its results: it leaves us happier and better. What can any +instruction do more? Some works instruct through the head, some through +the heart. The last reach the widest circle, and often produce the most +genial influence on the character. This book belongs to the last. You +will grant my proposition when you have read it." + +Randal smiled and took the volume. + +MRS. DALE.--" Is the author known yet?" + +RANDAL.--"I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but I believe no one +has claimed it." + +PARSON.--"I think it must have been written by my old college friend, +Professor Moss, the naturalist,--its descriptions of scenery are so +accurate." + +MRS. DALE.--"La, Charles dear! that snuffy, tiresome, prosy professor? +How can you talk such nonsense? I am sure the author must be young, +there is so much freshness of feeling." + +MRS. HAZELDEAN (positively).--"Yes, certainly, young." + +PARSON (no less positively).--"I should say just the contrary. Its tone +is too serene, and its style too simple, for a young man. Besides, I +don't know any young man who would send me his book, and this book has +been sent me, very handsomely bound, too, you see. Depend upon it Moss +is the loan--quite his turn of mind." + +MRS. DALE.--"You are too provoking, Charles dear! Mr. Moss is so +remarkably plain, too." + +RANDAL.--"Must an author be handsome?" + +PARSON.--"Ha! ha! Answer that if you can, Carry." Carry remained mute +and disdainful. + +SQUIRE (with great naivete).--" Well, I don't think there's much in the +book, whoever wrote it; for I've read it myself, and understand every +word of it." + +MRS. DALE.--"I don't see why you should suppose it was written by a man +at all. For my part, I think it must be a woman." + +MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Yes, there's a passage about maternal affection, which +only a woman could have written." + +PARSON.--"Pooh! pooh! I should like to see a woman who could have +written that description of an August evening before a thunderstorm; +every wild-flower in the hedgerow exactly the flowers of August, every +sign in the air exactly those of the month. Bless you! a woman would +have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. Nobody else but my +friend Moss could have written that description." + +SQUIRE.--"I don't know; there's a simile about the waste of corn-seed in +hand-sowing, which makes me think he must be a farmer!" + +MRS. DALE (scornfully).--"A farmer! In hobnailed shoes, I suppose! +I say it is a woman." + +MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"A WOMAN, and A MOTHER!" + +PARSON.--"A middle-aged man, and a naturalist." + +SQUIRE.--"No, no, Parson, certainly a young man; for that love-scene puts +me in mind of my own young days, when I would have given my ears to tell +Harry how handsome I thought her; and all I could say was, 'Fine weather +for the crops, Miss.' Yes, a young man and a farmer. I should not +wonder if he had held the plough himself." + +RANDAL (who had been turning over the pages).--"This sketch of Night in +London comes from a man who has lived the life of cities and looked at +wealth with the eyes of poverty. Not bad! I will read the book." + +"Strange," said the parson, smiling, "that this little work should so +have entered into our minds, suggested to all of us different ideas, yet +equally charmed all,--given a new and fresh current to our dull country +life, animated us as with the sight of a world in our breasts we had +never seen before save in dreams: a little work like this by a man we +don't know and never may! Well, that knowledge is power, and a noble +one!" + +"A sort of power, certainly, sir," said Randal, candidly; and that night, +when Randal retired to his own room, he suspended his schemes and +projects, and read, as he rarely did, without an object to gain by the +reading. + +The work surprised him by the pleasure it gave. Its charm lay in the +writer's calm enjoyment of the beautiful. It seemed like some happy soul +sunning itself in the light of its own thoughts. Its power was so +tranquil and even, that it was only a critic who could perceive how much +force and vigour were necessary to sustain the wing that floated aloft +with so imperceptible an effort. There was no one faculty predominating +tyrannically over the others; all seemed proportioned in the felicitous +symmetry of a nature rounded, integral, and complete. And when the work +was closed, it left behind it a tender warmth that played round the heart +of the reader and vivified feelings which seemed unknown before. Randal +laid down the book softly; and for five minutes the ignoble and base +purposes to which his own knowledge was applied stood before him, naked +and unmasked. + +"Tut!" said he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign +influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with +Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such +should be the true use of books to him who has the practical world to +subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise, as they may!" + +And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the intellect from which +the guide of Beneficence was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Randal rose at the sound of the first breakfast-bell, and on the +staircase met Mrs. Haaeldean. He gave her back the book; and as he was +about to speak, she beckoned to him to follow her into a little morning- +room appropriated to herself,--no boudoir of white and gold, with +pictures by Watteau, but lined with large walnut-tree presses, that held +the old heirloom linen, strewed with lavender, stores for the +housekeeper, and medicines for the poor. + +Seating herself on a large chair in this sanctum, Mrs. Hazeldean looked +formidably at home. + +"Pray," said the lady, coming at once to the point, with her usual +straightforward candour, "what is all this you have been saying to my +husband as to the possibility of Frank's marrying a foreigner?" + +RANDAL.--"Would you be as averse to such a notion as Mr. Hazeldean is?" + +MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"You ask me a question, instead of answering mine." + +Randal was greatly put out in his fence by these rude thrusts. For +indeed he had a double purpose to serve,--first, thoroughly to know if +Frank's marriage with a woman like Madame di Negra would irritate the +squire sufficiently to endanger the son's inheritance; and, secondly, to +prevent Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean believing seriously that such a marriage +was to be apprehended, lest they should prematurely address Frank on the +subject, and frustrate the marriage itself. Yet, withal, he must so +express himself, that he could not be afterwards accused by the parents +of disguising matters. In his talk to the squire the preceding day, he +had gone a little too far,--further than he would have done but for his +desire of escaping the cattle-shed and short-horns. While he mused, Mrs. +Hazeldean observed him with her honest sensible eyes, and finally +exclaimed, + +"Out with it, Mr. Leslie!" + +"Out with what, my dear madam? The squire has sadly exaggerated the +importance of what was said mainly in jest. But I will own to you +plainly, that Frank has appeared to me a little smitten with a certain +fair Italian." + +"Italian!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean. "Well, I said so from the first. +Italian!---that's all, is it?" and she smiled. Randal was more and more +perplexed. The pupil of his eye contracted, as it does when we retreat +into ourselves, and think, watch, and keep guard. + +"And perhaps," resumed Mrs. Hazeldean, with a very sunny expression of +countenance, "you have noticed this in Frank since he was here?" + +"It is true," murmured Randal; "but I think his heart or his fancy was +touched even before." + +"Very natural," said Mrs. Hazeldean; "how could he help it?---such a +beautiful creature! Well, I must not ask you to tell Frank's secrets; +but I guess the object of attraction; and though she will have no fortune +to speak of, and it is not such a match as he might form, still she is so +amiable, and has been so well brought up, and is so little like one's +general notions of a Roman Catholic, that I think I could persuade +Hazeldean into giving his consent." + +"Ah," said Randal, drawing a long breath, and beginning, with his +practised acuteness, to detect Mrs. Ilazeldean's error, "I am very much +relieved and rejoiced to hear this; and I may venture to give Frank some +hope, if I find him disheartened and desponding, poor fellow?" + +"I think you may," replied Mrs. Hazeldean, laughing pleasantly. "But you +should not have frightened poor William so, hinting that the lady knew +very little English. She has an accent, to be sure; but she speaks our +tongue very prettily. I always forget that she 's not English born! Ha, +ha, poor William!" + +RANDAL.--"Ha, ha!" + +MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"We had once thought of another match for Frank,--a girl +of good English family." + +RANDAL.--"Miss Sticktorights?" + +MRS. HAZELDEAN.---"No; that's an old whim of Hazeldean's. But I doubt if +the Sticktorights would ever merge their property in ours. Bless you! +it would be all off the moment they came to settlements, and had to give +up the right of way. We thought of a very different match; but there's +no dictating to young hearts, Mr. Leslie." + +RANDAL.--"Indeed no, Mrs. Hazeldean. But since we now understand each +other so well, excuse me if I suggest that you had better leave things to +themselves, and not write to Frank on the subject. Young hearts, you +know, are often stimulated by apparent difficulties, and grow cool when +the obstacle vanishes." + +MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Very possibly; it was not so with Hazeldean and me. +But I shall not write to Frank on the subject for a different reason-- +though I would consent to the match, and so would William; yet we both +would rather, after all, that Frank married an Englishwoman, and a +Protestant. We will not, therefore, do anything to encourage the idea. +But if Frank's happiness becomes really at stake, then we will step in. +In short, we would neither encourage nor oppose. You understand?" + +"Perfectly." + +"And in the mean while, it is quite right that Frank should see the +world, and try to distract his mind, or at least to know it. And I dare +say it has been some thought of that kind which has prevented his coming +here." + +Randal, dreading a further and plainer eclaircissement, now rose, and +saying, "Pardon me, but I must hurry over breakfast, and be back in time +to catch the coach"--offered his arm to his hostess, and led her into the +breakfast-parlour. Devouring his meal, as if in great haste, he then +mounted his horse, and, taking cordial leave of his entertainers, trotted +briskly away. + +All things favoured his project,--even chance had befriended him in Mrs. +Hazeldean's mistake. She had, not unnaturally, supposed Violante to have +captivated Frank on his last visit to the Hall. Thus, while Randal had +certified his own mind that nothing could more exasperate the squire than +an alliance with Madame di Negra, he could yet assure Frank that Mrs. +Hazeldean was all on his side. And when the error was discovered, Mrs. +Hazeldean would only have to blame herself for it. Still more successful +had his diplomacy proved with the Riccaboccas: he had ascertained the +secret he had come to discover; he should induce the Italian to remove to +the neighbourhood of London; and if Violante were the great heiress he +suspected her to prove, whom else of her own age would she see but him? +And the old Leslie domains to be sold in two years--a portion of the +dowry might purchase them! Flushed by the triumph of his craft, all +former vacillations of conscience ceased. In high and fervent spirits he +passed the Casino, the garden of which was solitary and deserted, reached +his home, and, telling Oliver to be studious, and Juliet to be patient, +walked thence to meet the coach and regain the capital. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Violante was seated in her own little room, and looking from the window +on the terrace that stretched below. The day was warm for the time of +year. The orange-trees had been removed under shelter for the approach +of winter; but where they had stood sat Mrs. Riccabocca at work. In the +belvidere, Riccabocca himself was conversing with his favourite servant. +But the casements and the door of the belvidere were open; and where they +sat, both wife and daughter could see the padrone leaning against the +wall, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the floor; while +Jackeymo, with one finger on his master's arm, was talking to him with +visible earnestness. And the daughter from the window and the wife from +her work directed tender, anxious eyes towards the still, thoughtful form +so dear to both. For the last day or two, Riccabocca had been peculiarly +abstracted, even to gloom. Each felt there was something stirring at his +heart,--neither, as yet, knew what. + +Violante's room silently revealed the nature of the education by which +her character had been formed. Save a sketchbook, which lay open on a +desk at hand, and which showed talent exquisitely taught (for in this +Riccabocca had been her teacher), there was nothing that spoke of the +ordinary female accomplishments. No piano stood open, no harp occupied +yon nook, which seemed made for one; no broidery-frame, nor implements of +work, betrayed the usual and graceful resources of a girl; but ranged on +shelves against the wall were the best writers in English, Italian, and +French; and these betokened an extent of reading, that he who wishes for +a companion to his mind in the sweet commune of woman, which softens and +refines all it gives and takes in interchange, will never condemn as +masculine. You had but to look into Violante's face to see how noble was +the intelligence that brought soul to those lovely features. Nothing +hard, nothing dry and stern was there. Even as you detected knowledge, +it was lost in the gentleness of grace. In fact, whatever she gained in +the graver kinds of information became transmuted, through her heart and +her fancy, into spiritual, golden stores. Give her some tedious and arid +history, her imagination seized upon beauties other readers had passed +by, and, like the eye of the artist, detected everywhere the Picturesque. +Something in her mind seemed to reject all that was mean and commonplace, +and to bring out all that was rare and elevated in whatever it received. +Living so apart from all companions of her age, she scarcely belonged to +the present time. She dwelt in the Past, as Sabrina in her crystal well. +Images of chivalry, of the Beautiful and the Heroic,--such as, in reading +the silvery line of Tasso, rise before us, softening force and valour +into love and song,--haunted the reveries of the fair Italian maid. + +Tell us not that the Past, examined by cold Philosophy, was no better and +no loftier than the Present: it is not thus seen by pure and generous +eyes. Let the Past perish, when it ceases to reflect on its magic mirror +the beautiful Romance which is its noblest reality, though perchance but +the shadow of Delusion. + +Yet Violante was not merely the dreamer. In her, life was so puissant +and rich, that action seemed necessary to its glorious development,-- +action, but still in the woman's sphere,--action to bless and to refine +and to exalt all around her, and to pour whatever else of ambition was +left unsatisfied into sympathy with the aspirations of man. Despite her +father's fears of the bleak air of England, in that air she had +strengthened the delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic step, her +eyes full of sweetness and light, her bloom, at once soft and luxuriant, +--all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such exquisite +mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the +passions of the South with the purity and devotion of the North. +Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more bold. Violante was +fearless. When she spoke, her eyes frankly met your own; and she was so +ignorant of evil, that as yet she seemed nearly unacquainted with shame. +From this courage, combined with affluence of idea, came a delightful +flow of happy converse. Though possessing so imperfectly the +accomplishments ordinarily taught to young women, and which may be +cultured to the utmost, and yet leave the thoughts so barren, and the +talk so vapid, she had that accomplishment which most pleases the taste, +and commands the love, of the man of talent; especially if his talent be +not so actively employed as to make him desire only relaxation where he +seeks companionship,--the accomplishment of facility in intellectual +interchange, the charm that clothes in musical words beautiful womanly +ideas. + +"I hear him sigh at this distance," said Violante, softly, as she still +watched her father; "and methinks this is a new grief, and not for his +country. He spoke twice yesterday of that dear English friend, and +wished that he were here." + +As she said this, unconsciously the virgin blushed, her hands drooped on +her knee, and she fell herself into thought as profound as her father's, +but less gloomy. From her arrival in England, Violante had been taught a +grateful interest in the name of Harley L'Estrange. Her father, +preserving a silence that seemed disdain of all his old Italian +intimates, had been pleased to converse with open heart of the Englishman +who had saved where countrymen had betrayed. He spoke of the soldier, +then in the full bloom of youth, who, unconsoled by fame, had nursed the +memory of some hidden sorrow amidst the pine-trees that cast their shadow +over the sunny Italian lake; how Riccabocca, then honoured and happy, had +courted from his seclusion the English signore, then the mourner and the +voluntary exile; how they had grown friends amidst the landscapes in +which her eyes had opened to the day; how Harley had vainly warned him +from the rash schemes in which he had sought to reconstruct in an hour +the ruins of weary ages; how, when abandoned, deserted, proscribed, +pursued, he had fled for life, the infant Violante clasped to his bosom, +the English soldier had given him refuge, baffled the pursuers, armed his +servants, accompanied the fugitive at night towards the defile in the +Apennines, and, when the emissaries of a perfidious enemy, hot in the +chase, came near, had said, "You have your child to save! Fly on! +Another league, and you are beyond the borders. We will delay the foes +with parley; they will not harm us." And not till escape was gained did +the father know that the English friend had delayed the foe, not by +parley, but by the sword, holding the pass against numbers, with a breast +as dauntless as Bayard's on the glorious bridge. + +And since then, the same Englishman had never ceased to vindicate his +name, to urge his cause; and if hope yet remained of restoration to land +and honours, it was in that untiring zeal. + +Hence, naturally and insensibly, this secluded and musing girl had +associated all that she read in tales of romance and chivalry with the +image of the brave and loyal stranger. He it was who animated her +drearhs of the Past, and seemed born to be, in the destined hour, the +deliverer of the Future. Around this image grouped all the charms that +the fancy of virgin woman can raise from the enchanted lore of old Heroic +Fable. Once in her early girlhood, her father (to satisfy her curiosity, +eager for general description) had drawn from memory a sketch of the +features of the Englishman,--drawn Harley, as he was in that first youth, +flattered and idealized, no doubt, by art, and by partial gratitude, but +still resembling him as he was then, while the deep mournfulness of +recent sorrow yet shadowed and concentrated all the varying expressions +of his countenance; and to look on him was to say, "So sad, yet so +young!" Never did Violante pause to remember that the same years which +ripened herself from infancy into woman were passing less gently over +that smooth cheek and dreamy brow,--that the world might be altering the +nature as time the aspect. To her the hero of the Ideal remained +immortal in bloom and youth. Bright illusion, common to us all, where +Poetry once hallows the human form! Who ever thinks of Petrarch as the +old, timeworn man? 'Who does not see him as when he first gazed on +Laura?-- + + "Ogni altra cosa ogni pensier va fore; + E sol ivi con voi rimansi Amore!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +And Violante, thus absorbed in revery, forgot to keep watch on the +belvidere. And the belvidere was now deserted. The wife, who had no +other ideal to distract her thoughts, saw Riccabocca pass into the house. + +The exile entered his daughter's room, and she started to feel his hand +upon her locks and his kiss upon her brow. "My child!" cried Riccabocca, +seating himself, "I have resolved to leave for a time this retreat, and +to seek the neighbourhood of London." + +"Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought? But what can be your +reason? Do not turn away; you know how care fully I have obeyed your +command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me." + +"I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, with emotion. "I leave this place +in the fear lest my enemies discover me. I shall say to others that you +are of an age to require teachers not to be obtained here, but I should +like none to know where we go." + +The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and hanging his +head. He said them in shame. + +"My mother--[so Violante always called Jemima]--my mother--you have +spoken to her?" + +"Not yet. THERE is the difficulty." + +"No difficulty, for she loves you so well," replied Violante, with soft +reproach. "Ah, why not also confide in her? Who so true, so good?" + +"Good--I grant it!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "What then? 'Da cattiva Donna +guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente.'--["From the bad woman, guard +thyself; to the good woman trust nothing."]--And if you must trust," +added the abominable man, "trust her with anything but a secret!" + +"Fie," said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew her father's +humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally,--"fie on +your consistency, Padre Carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to me?" + +"You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the +secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will +stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we +shall leave to-night." Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried +away, and with a firm step strode the terrace, and approached his wife. +"Anima mia," said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising in the tenderest +words the cruellest intentions,--for one of his most cherished Italian +proverbs was to the effect that there is no getting on with a mule or a +woman unless you coax them,--"Anima mia, soul of my being, you have +already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here." + +"She, poor child! Oh, no!" + +"She does, core of my heart,--she does, and is as ignorant of music as I +am of tent-stitch." + +"She sings beautifully." + +"Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut. +Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to +take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We +shall see." + +"All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?" + +"We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,--you--" + +"Ah!" interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands. + +Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted +into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He +put his arm round his wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without a +single proverb at his heart. "Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be +back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss, +and there is so much to see to at home." + +Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arm. She withdrew her +hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes. + +"Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me! What you think good, that +shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because +of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years in +which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your breast,-- +all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do +my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my +heart, and seen there but yourself and your child,--I grieve to think +that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my +side at the altar." + +"Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; "why do +you say 'trust'? In what have I distrusted you? I am sure," he +continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, "that I never doubted +your fidelity, hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never +pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never +heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept +the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs. Riccabocca +refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she +seemed scarcely to hear them. + +"Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its +struggles for relief in sobs,--"can you think that I could have watched +and thought and taxed my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what +might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have +secrets known to your daughter, your servant, not to me? Fear not,--the +secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent +child. Besides, do I not know your nature; and do I not love you because +I know it?--it is for something connected with those secrets that you +leave your home. You think that I should be incautious, imprudent. You +will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your +departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband." Mrs. +Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm. +"O Father, can you resist this? Trust her! trust her!---I am a woman +like her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself,--ever nobler +than all others, my own father." + +"Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca. +"Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I +feared, and would be cautious?" + +"For mine! Oh, then do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of +meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter,--the descendant of men who +never feared?" Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended +she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now +gained. + +"Jemima, wife mine! pardon, pardon," cried the Italian, whose heart had +been yearning to repay such tenderness and devotion,--"come back to my +breast--it has been long closed,--it shall be open to you now and +forever." + +In another moment the wife was in her right place,--on her husband's +bosom; and Violante, beautiful peacemaker, stood smiling awhile at both, +and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven and stole away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +On Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumours in +the streets, and at the clubs, of the probable downfall of the Government +at the approaching session of parliament. These rumours had sprung up +suddenly, as if in an hour. True that, for some time, the sagacious had +shaken their heads and said, "Ministers could not last." True, that +certain changes in policy, a year or two before, had divided the party +on which the Government depended, and strengthened that which opposed it. +But still the more important members of that Government had been so long +identified with official station, and there seemed so little power in the +Opposition to form a Cabinet of names familiar to official ears, that the +general public had anticipated, at most, a few partial changes. Rumour +now went far beyond this. Randal, whose whole prospects at present were +but reflections from the greatness of his patron, was alarmed. He sought +Egerton, but the minister was impenetrable, and seemed calm, confident, +and imperturbed. Somewhat relieved, Randal then set himself to work to +find a safe home for Riccabocca; for the greater need to succeed in +obtaining fortune there, if he failed in getting it through Egerton. +He found a quiet house, detached and secluded, in the neighbourhood of +Norwood. No vicinity more secure from espionage and remark. He wrote to +Riccabocca, and communicated the address, adding fresh assurances of his +own power to be of use. The next morning he was seated in his office, +thinking very little of the details, that he mastered, however, with +mechanical precision, when the minister who presided over that department +of the public service sent for him into his private room, and begged him +to take a letter to Egerton, with whom he wished to consult relative to a +very important point to be decided in the Cabinet that day. "I want you +to take it," said the minister, smiling (the minister was a frank homely +man), "because you are in Mr. Egerton's confidence, and he may give you +some verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is often over +cautious and brief in the litera scripta." + +Randal went first to Egerton's neighbouring office--Egerton had not been +there that day. He then took a cabriolet and drove to Grosvenor Square. +A quiet-looking chariot was at the door. Mr. Egerton was at home; but +the servant said, "Dr. F----- is with him, sir; and perhaps he may not +like to be disturbed." + +"What! is your master ill?" + +"Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But he has looked +poorly the last day or two." + +Randal hesitated a moment; but his commission might be important, and +Egerton was a man who so held the maxim that health and all else must +give way to business, that he resolved to enter; and, unannounced and +unceremoniously, as was his wont, he opened the door of the library. He +started as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back on the sofa, and +the doctor, on his knees before him, was applying the stethoscope to his +breast. Egerton's eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at +the noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. "Who's that? How +dare you?" he exclaimed, in a voice of great anger. Then recognizing +Randal, he changed colour, bit his lip, and muttered dryly, "I beg pardon +for my abruptness; what do you want, Mr. Leslie?" + +"This letter from Lord--; I was told to deliver it immediately into your +own hands. I beg pardon--" + +"There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. "I have had a slight attack +of bronchitis; and as parliament meets so soon, I must take advice from +my doctor, if I would be heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the +table, and be kind enough to wait for my reply." + +Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in that house before, and +it seemed surprising that Egerton should even take a medical opinion upon +a slight attack. While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock at the +street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well dressed, was +shown in, and honoured Randal with an easy and half-familiar bow. Randal +remembered to have met this personage at dinner, and at the house of a +young nobleman of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him, and +did not even know him by name. The visitor was better informed. + +"Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr. Leslie," said he, arranging the +camellia in his button-hole. + +"Our friend Egerton!" It must be a very great man to say "Our friend +Egerton." + +"He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned Randal, glancing his +shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's person. + +"I trust not; my time is almost as precious as his own. I was not so +fortunate as to be presented to you when we met at Lord Spendquick's. +Good fellow, Spendquick; and decidedly clever." + +Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman without three ideas. + +Randal smiled. + +In the mean while the visitor had taken out a card from an embossed +morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, who read thereon, "Baron +Levy, No.--, Bruton St." + +The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name too often on the lips +of men of fashion not to have reached the ears of an habitue of good +society. + +Mr. Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of late years +relinquished his ostensible calling: and not long since, in consequence +of some services towards the negotiation of a loan, had been created a +baron by one of the German kings. The wealth of Mr. Levy was said to be +only equalled by his good-nature to all who were in want of a temporary +loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it some day or other. + +You seldom saw a finer-looking man than Baron Levy, about the same age as +Egerton, but looking younger: so well preserved, such magnificent black +whiskers, such superb teeth! Despite his name and his dark complexion, +he did not, however, resemble a Jew,--at least externally; and, in fact, +he was not a Jew on the father's side, but the natural son of a rich +English grand seigneur, by a Hebrew lady of distinction--in the opera. +After his birth, this lady had married a German trader of her own +persuasion, and her husband had been prevailed upon, for the convenience +of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him his own Hebrew +name. Mr. Levy, senior, was soon left a widower, and then the real +father, though never actually owning the boy, had shown him great +attention,--had him frequently at his house, initiated him betimes into +his own high-born society, for which the boy showed great taste. But +when my Lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to the younger Levy, +who was then about eighteen, that ambiguous person was articled to an +attorney by his putative sire, who shortly afterwards returned to his +native land, and was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be +seen. Young Levy, however, contrived to do very well without him. His +real birth was generally known, and rather advantageous to him in a +social point of view. His legacy enabled him to become a partner where +he had been a clerk, and his practice became great amongst the +fashionable classes of society. Indeed he was so useful, so pleasant, so +much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his clients,--chiefly +young men of rank; was on good terms with both Jew and Christian; and +being neither one nor the other, resembled (to use Sheridan's +incomparable simile) the blank page between the Old and the New +Testament. + +Vulgar some might call Mr. Levy from his assurance, but it was not the +vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coarse society,--rather the +/mauvais ton/ of a person not sure of his own position, but who has +resolved to swagger into the best one he can get. When it is remembered +that he had made his way in the world, and gleaned together an immense +fortune, it is needless to add that he was as sharp as a needle, and as +hard as a flint. No man had had more friends, and no man had stuck by +them more firmly--so long as there was a pound in their pockets! + +Something of this character had Randal heard of the baron, and he now +gazed, first at his card, and then at him with--admiration. + +"I met a friend of yours at Borrowell's the other day," resumed the +baron,--"young Hazeldean. Careful fellow--quite a man of the world." + +As this was the last praise poor Frank deserved, Randal again smiled. + +The baron went on: "I hear, Mr. Leslie, that you have much influence over +this same Hazeldean. His affairs are in a sad state. I should be very +happy to be of use to him, as a relation of my friend Egerton's; but he +understands business so well that he despises my advice." + +"I am sure you do him injustice." + +"Injustice! I honour his caution. I say to every man, 'Don't come to me: +I can get you money on much easier terms than any one else; and what's +the result! You come so often that you ruin yourself; whereas a regular +usurer without conscience frightens you. "Cent percent," you say; "oh, I +must pull in." If you have influence over your friend, tell him to stick +to his bill-brokers, and have nothing to do with Baron Levy." + +Here the minister's bell rung, and Randal, looking through the window, +saw Dr. F----- walking to his carriage, which had made way for Baron +Levy's splendid cabriolet,--a cabriolet in the most perfect taste, +baron's coronet on the dark-brown panels, horse black, with such action! +harness just relieved with plating. The servant now entered, and +requested Randal to step in; and addressing the baron, assured him that +he would not be detained a minute. + +"Leslie," said the minister, sealing a note, "take this back to Lord +------, and say that I shall be with him in an hour." + +"No other message?--he seemed to expect one." + +"I dare say he did. Well, my letter is official, my message is not: beg +him to see Mr. ----- before we meet,--he will understand,--all rests upon +that interview." + +Egerton then, extending the letter, resumed gravely, "Of course you will +not mention to any one that Dr. F----- was with me: the health of public +men is not to be suspected. Hum,--were you in your own room or the ante- +room?" + +"The ante-room, sir." + +Egerton's brow contracted slightly. "And Mr. Levy was there, eh?" + +"Yes--the baron." + +"Baron! true. Come to plague me about the Mexican loan, I suppose. +I will keep you no longer." + +Randal, much meditating, left the house, and re-entered his hack cab. +The baron was admitted to the statesman's presence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position +exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy +entered, there was something singularly different from that stateliness +of port common to the austere legislator. The very tone of his voice was +different. It was as if the statesman, the man of business, had +vanished; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler who, nodding +languidly to his visitor, said, "Levy, what money can I have for a year?" + +"The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, that last +election was the very devil. You cannot go on thus much longer." + +"My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow"! +And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though his +lip curled. + +"I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the +curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile, +bear L5,000 more." + +"A hard pull on it. You had really better sell." + +"I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley +Egerton is done up,--his property is for sale.'" + +"It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may be +yet!" + +"Be yet! How?" + +Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors,--thick and +impervious, as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that, +with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of +three nations, that might give us each a hundred thousand pounds. We +would go shares." + +"Levy," said Egerton, coldly, though a deep blush overspread his face, +"you are a scoundrel; that is your look-out. I interfere with no man's +tastes and conscience. I don't intend to be a scoundrel myself. I have +told you that long ago." + +The usurer's brows darkened, but he dispelled the cloud with an easy +laugh. + +"Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimentary, but you shall +have the money. But yet, would it not be better," added Levy, with +emphasis, "to borrow it without interest, of your friend L'Estrange?" + +Egerton started as if stung. + +"You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed passionately. "I accept +pecuniary favours from Lord L'Estrange!--I!" + +"Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not think so ill now of +that act in your life which--" + +"Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!" + +He stopped, and paced the room, muttering, in broken sentences, "To blush +before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!" + +Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned +abruptly. + +"Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure, "you hate me--why, I +know not." + +"Hate you! How have I shown hatred? Would you ever have lived in this +palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its +ministers, but for my management, my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? +Come, but for me what would you have been,--perhaps a beggar." + +"What shall I be now, if I live? And this fortune which my marriage +brought to me--it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be +patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the +world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that +he has the right to despise me!" + +"Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not +threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to +Lord L'Estrange? Again, dismiss from your mind the absurd thought that I +hate you. True, you snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse +to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still, there is no +man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want the +L5,000?" + +"Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready +when required." + +"Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?" + +"None." + +"I will take my leave, then. By-the-by, what do you suppose the +Hazeldean rental is worth--net?" + +"I don't know, nor care. You have no designs upon that too?" + +"Well, I like keeping up family connections. Mr. Frank seems a liberal +young gentleman." + +Before Egerton could answer, the baron had glided to the door, and, +nodding pleasantly, vanished with that nod. Egerton remained, standing +on his solitary hearth. A drear, single man's room it was, from wall to +wall, despite its fretted ceilings and official pomp of Brahmah +escritoires and red boxes. Drear and cheerless,--no trace of woman's +habitation, no vestige of intruding, happy children. There stood the +austere man alone. And then with a deep sigh he muttered, "Thank Heaven, +not for long,--it will not last long." + +Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed +his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm had shot through it. + +"So--I must shun all emotion!" said he, shaking his head gently. + +In five minutes more Audley Egerton was in the streets, his mien erect, +and his step firm as ever. + +"That man is made of bronze," said a leader of the Opposition to a friend +as they rode past the minister. "What would I not give for his nerves!" + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NOVEL, BY LYTTON, V8 *** + +****** This file should be named 7709.txt or 7709.zip ****** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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