Kitabı oku: «Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel», sayfa 4

She fell upon the ground, and as the mingled sobs and cries rose through the troubled crowd, a boy tore his way through the dense mass, and fighting with all the energy of infuriated strength, gained the open space where she lay. Dropping on his knees, he bent over, and clasping her hand kissed it wildly over and over, crying out in a voice of broken agony, ‘Oh! Marietta, Marietta mia, come back to us – come back, we will love you and cherish you.’

A great roar of laughter – the revulsion to that intensity of feeling so lately diffused among them – now shook the mob. Revenging, as it were, the illusion that had so enthralled themselves, they now turned all their ridicule upon the poor boy.

‘Santissima Virginia! if he isn’t a scholar of the Holy Order!’ shouted one.

‘Ecco! a real Jesuit!’ said another; ‘had he been a little older, though, he ‘d have done it more secretly.’

‘The little priest is offering the consolation of his order,’ cried a third; and there rained upon him, from every side, words of mockery and sarcasm.

‘Don’t you see that he is a mere boy – have you no shame that you can mock a simple-hearted child like this?’ said the burly Fra, as he pushed the crowd right and left, and forced a passage through the mob. ‘Come along, Gerald, come along. They are a cowardly pack, and if they were not fifty to one, they ‘d think twice ere they ‘d insult us.’ This speech he delivered in Italian, with a daring emphasis of look and gesture that made the craven listeners tremble. They opened a little path for the friar and his charge to retire; nor was it until they had nearly gained the corner of the Piazza that they dared to yell forth a cry of insult and derision.

The boy grasped the Fra’s hand as he heard it, and looked up in his face with an expression there was no mistaking, so full was it of wild and daring courage.

‘No, no, Gerald,’ said he, ‘there are too many of them, and what should we get by it after all? See, too, how they have torn your soutane all to pieces. I almost suspect we ought to go back again to the college, my boy. I scarcely like to present you in such a state as this.’

Well indeed might the Fra have come to this doubtful issue, for the youth’s gown hung in ribbons around him, and his cap was flattened to his head.

‘I wish I knew what was best to be done, Gerald,’ said he, wiping the sweat from his brawny face. ‘What do you advise yourself?’

‘I’d say, go on,’ cried the youth. ‘Will a great signor think whether my poor and threadbare frock be torn or whole? – he ‘ll not know if I be in rags or in purple. Tell him, if you like, that we met with rough usage in the streets. Tell him, that in passing through the crowd they left me thus. Say nothing about Marietta, Fra; you need not speak of her.’

The boy’s voice, as he uttered the last words, became little louder than a mere whisper.

‘Come along then; and, with the help of the saints, we ‘ll go through with what we ‘ve begun.’

And with this vigorous resolve the stout friar strode along down the Corso.

CHAPTER VI. THE INTERVIEW

It was full an hour after the time appointed when the friar, accompanied by young Gerald, entered the arched gate of the Altieri Palace.

‘You have been asked for twice, Frate,’ said the porter; ‘and I doubt if you will be admitted now. It is the time his Royal Highness takes his siesta.’

‘I must only hope for the best,’ sighed out the Fra, as he ascended the wide stairs of white marble, with a sinking heart.

‘Let us go a little slower, Fra Luke,’ whispered the boy; ‘I ‘d like to have a look at these statues. See what a fine fellow that is strangling the serpent; and, oh! is she not beautiful, crouching in that large shell?’

‘Heathen vanities, all of them,’ muttered the Fra; ‘what are they compared to the pure face of our blessed Lady?’

The youth felt rebuked, and was silent. While the friar, however, was communicating with the servant in waiting, the boy had time to stroll down the long gallery, admiring as he went the various works of art it contained. Stands of weapons, too, and spoils of the chase abounded, and these he examined with a wistful curiosity, reading from short inscriptions attached to the cases, which told him how this wolf had been killed by his Royal Highness on such a day of such a year, and how that boar had received his death-wound from the Prince’s hand at such another time.

It almost required force from the friar to tear him away from objects so full of interest, nor did he succeed without a promise that he should see them all some other day. Passing through a long suite of rooms, magnificently furnished, but whose splendour was dimmed and faded by years, they reached an octagonal chamber of small but beautiful proportions; and here the friar was told the youth was to wait, while he himself was admitted to the Prince.

Charles Edward had just dined – and, as was his wont, dined freely – when the Fra was announced. ‘You can retire,’ said the Prince to the servants in waiting, but never turning his head toward where the friar was standing. The servants retreated noiselessly, and all was now still in the chamber. The Prince had drawn his chair toward the fire, and sat gazing at the burning logs in deep reverie. Apparently he followed his thoughts so far as to forget that the poor friar was yet in waiting; for it was only as a low, faint sigh escaped him that the Prince suddenly turning his head, cried out, ‘Ah! our Frate. I had half forgotten you. You are somewhat late, are you not?’

In a voice tremulous with fear and deference Fra Luke narrated how they had been delayed by a misadventure in the Piazza, contriving to interweave in his story an apology for the torn dress and ragged habiliments the boy was to appear in. ‘He is not in a state to be seen by your Royal Highness at all. If it wasn’t that your Royal Highness will think little of the shell where the kernel is sound – ’

‘And who is to warrant me that, sir?’ said the Prince angrily. ‘Is it your guarantee I ‘m to take for it?’

The poor friar almost felt as if he were about to faint at the stern speech, nor did he dare to utter a word of reply. So far, this was in his favour, since, when unprovoked by anything like rejoinder, Charles Edward was usually disposed to turn from any unpleasant theme, and address his thoughts elsewhere.

‘I ‘m half relenting, my good friar,’ said he, in a calmer tone, ‘that I should have brought you here on this errand. How am I to burden myself with the care of this boy? I am but a pensioner myself, weighed down already with a mass of followers. So long as hope remained to us we struggled on manfully enough. Present privation was to have had its recompense – at least we thought so.’ He stopped suddenly, and then, as if ashamed of speaking thus confidentially to one he had seen only once before, his voice assumed a harsher, sterner accent as he said: ‘These are not your concerns. What is it you propose I should do? Have you a plan? What is it?’

Had Fra Luke been required to project another scheme of invasion, he could not have been more dumbfounded and confused, and he stood the very picture of hopeless incapacity.

Charles Edward’s temper was in that state when he invariably sought to turn upon others the reproaches his own conscience addressed to him, and he angrily said: ‘It is by this same train of beggarly followers that my fortunes are rendered irretrievable. I am worried and harassed by their importunities; they attach the plague-spot of their poverty to me wherever I go. I should have freed myself from this thraldom many a year ago; and if I had, where and what might I not have been to-day? You, and others of your stamp, look upon me as an almoner, not more nor less.’ His passion had now spent itself, and he sat moodily gazing at the fire.

‘Is the lad here?’ asked he, after a long pause.

‘Yes, your Royal Highness,’ said the friar, while he made a motion toward the door.

Charles Edward stopped him quickly as he said, ‘No matter, there is not any need that I should see him. He and his aunt – she is his aunt, you said – must return to Ireland; this is no place for them. I will see Kelly about it to-morrow, and they shall have something to pay their journey. This arrangement does not please you, Frate, eh? Speak out, man. You think it cold, unnatural, and unkind – is it not so?’

‘If your gracious Highness would just condescend to say a word to him – one word, that he might carry away in his heart for the rest of his days.’

‘Better have no memory of me,’ sighed the Prince drearily. ‘Oh, don’t say so, your Royal Highness; think what pride it will be to him yet, God knows in what far-away country, to remember that he saw you once, that he stood in your presence, and heard you speak to him.’

‘It shall be as you wish, Frate; but I charge you once more to be sure that he may not know with whom he is speaking.’

‘By this holy Book,’ said the Fra, with a gesture implying a vow of secrecy.

‘Go now; send him hither, and wait without till I send for you.’

The door had scarcely closed behind the friar when it opened again to admit the entrance of the youth. The Prince turned his head, and, whether it was the extreme poverty of the lad’s appearance, more striking from the ragged and torn condition of his dress, or that something in Gerald’s air and look impressed him painfully, he passed his hand across his eyes and averted his glance from him.

‘Come forward, my boy,’ said he at last. ‘How are you called?’

‘Gerald Fitzgerald, Signor Conte,’ said he, firmly but respectfully.

‘You are Irish by birth?’ said the Prince, in a voice slightly tremulous.

‘Yes, Signor Conte,’ replied he, while he drew himself up with an air that almost savoured of haughtiness.

‘And your friends have destined you for the priesthood, it seems.’

‘I never knew I had friends,’ said the boy; ‘I thought myself a sort of castaway.’

‘Why, you have just told me of your Irish blood – how knew you of that?’

‘So long as I can remember I have heard that I was a Géraldine, and they call me Irish in the college.’

There was a frank boldness in his manner, totally removed from the slightest trace of rudeness or presumption, that already interested the Prince, who now gazed long and steadily on him.

‘Do I remind you of any one you ever saw or cared for, Signor Conte?’ asked the boy, with an accent of touching gentleness.

‘That you do, child,’ said he, laying his hand on the youth’s shoulder, while he passed the other across his eyes.

‘I hope it was of none who ever gave you sorrow,’ said the boy, who saw the quivering motion of the lip that indicates deep grief.

Charles Edward now removed his hand, and turned away his head for some seconds.

At last he arose suddenly from his chair, and with an effort that seemed to show he was struggling for the mastery over his own emotions, said, ‘Is it your own choice to be a priest, Gerald?’

‘No; far from it. I ‘d rather be a herd on the Campagna! You surely know little of the life of the convent, Signor Conte, or you had not asked me that question.’

Far from taking offence at the boy’s boldness, the Prince smiled good-naturedly at the energy of his reply.

‘Is it the stillness, the seclusion that you dislike?’ asked he, evidently wanting the youth to speak of himself and of his temperament.

‘No, it is not that,’ said Gerald thoughtfully. ‘The quiet, peaceful hours, when we are left to what they call meditation, are the best of it. Then one is free to range where he will, in fancy. I ‘ve had as many adventures, thus, as any fortune-seeker of the Arabian Nights. What lands have I not visited! what bold things have I not achieved! ay, and day after day, taken up the same dream where I had left it last, carrying on its fortunes, till the actual work of life seemed the illusion, and this, the dream-world, the true one.’

‘So that, after all, this same existence has its pleasures, Gerald?’

‘The pleasures are in forgetting it! ignoring that your whole life is a falsehood! They make me kneel at confession to tell my thoughts, while well I know that, for the least blamable of them, I shall be scourged. They oblige me to say that I hate everything that gives a charm to life, and cherish as blessings all that can darken and sadden it. Well, I swear the lie, and they are satisfied! And why are they satisfied? – because out of this corrupt heart, debased by years of treachery and falsehood, they have created the being that they want to serve them.’

‘What has led you to think thus hardly of the priesthood?’

‘One of themselves, Signor Conte. He told me all that I have repeated to you now, and he counselled me, if I had a friend – one friend on earth – to beseech him to rescue me ere it was too late, ere I was like him.’

‘And he – what became of him?’

‘He died, as all die who offend the Order, of a wasting fever. His hair was white as snow, though he was under thirty, and his coffin was light as a child’s. Look here, Signor Conte,’ cried he, as a smile of half incredulity, half pity, curled the Prince’s lip, ‘look here. You are a great man and a rich: you never knew what it was in life to suffer any, the commonest of those privations poor men pass their days in – ’

‘Who can dare to say that of me?’ cried Charles Edward passionately. ‘There’s not a toil I have not tasted, there’s not a peril I have not braved, there’s not a sorrow nor a suffering that have not been my portion; ay, and, God wot, with heavier stake upon the board than ever man played for!’

‘Forgive me, Signor Conte,’ stammered out the boy, as his eyes filled up at the sight of the emotion he had caused, ‘I knew not what I was saying.’

The Prince took little heed of the words, for his aroused thoughts bore him sadly to the mist-clad mountain and the heathery gorges far away; and he strode the room in deep emotion. At last his glance fell upon the youth as, pale and terror-stricken, he stood watching him, and he quickly said: ‘I’m not angry with you, Gerald; do not grieve, my poor boy. You will learn, one of these days, that sorrow has its place at fine tables, just as at humbler boards. It helps the rich man to don his robe of purple, just as it aids the beggar to put on his rags. It’s a stern conscription that calls on all to serve. But to yourself: you will not be a priest, you say? What, then, would you like – what say you to the life of a soldier?’

‘But in what service, Signor Conte?’

‘That of your own country, I suppose.’

‘They tell me that the king is a usurper, who has no right to be king; and shall I swear faith and loyalty to him?’

‘Others have done so, and are doing it every day, boy. It was but yesterday, Lord Blantyre made what they call his submission; and he was the bosom friend of – the Pretender’; and the last words were uttered in a half-scornful laugh.

‘I will not hear him called by that name, Signor Conte. So long as I remember anything, I was taught not to endure it.’

‘Was that your mother’s teaching, Gerald?’ said the Prince tenderly.

‘It was, sir. I was a very little child; but I can never forget the last prayer I made each night before bed: it was for God’s protection to the true Prince; and when I arose I was to say, “Confusion to all who call him the Pretender!”’

‘He is not even that now,’ muttered Charles Edward, as he leaned his head on the mantelpiece.

‘I hope, Signor Conte,’ said the boy timidly, ‘that you never were for the Elector.’

‘I have done little for the cause of the Stuarts,’ said Charles, with a deep sigh.

‘I wish I may live to serve them,’ cried the youth, with energy.

The Prince looked long and steadfastly at the boy, and, in a tone that bespoke deep thought, said:

‘I want to befriend you, Gerald, if I but knew how. It is clear you have no vocation for the church, and we are here in a land where there is little other career. Were we in France something might be done. I have some friends, however, in that country, and I will see about communicating with them. Send the Frate hither.’

The boy left the room, and speedily returned with Fra Luke, whose anxious glances were turned from the Prince to the youth, in eager curiosity to learn how their interview had gone off.

‘Gerald has no ambition to be a monsignore, Frate,’ said the Prince laughingly, ‘and we mustn’t constrain him. They who serve the church should have their hearts in the calling. Do you know of any honest family with whom he might be domesticated for a short time – not in Rome, of course, but in the country; it will only be for a month or two at farthest?’

‘There is a worthy family at Orvieto, if it were not too far – ’

‘Nothing of the kind; Orvieto will suit admirably. Who are these people?’

‘The father is the steward of Cardinal Caraffa; but it is a villa that his eminence never visits, and so they live there as in their own palace; and the mountain air is so wholesome there, sick people used to seek the place; and so Tonino, as they call him, takes a boarder, or even two – ’

‘That is everything we want,’ said the Prince, cutting short what he feared might be a long history. ‘Let the boy go back now to the college, and do you yourself come here on Saturday morning, and Kelly will arrange all with you.’

‘I wish I knew why you are so good to me, Signor Conte,’ said the boy, as his eyes filled up with tears.

‘I was a friend of your family, Gerald,’ said Charles, as he fixed his eyes on the friar, to enforce his former caution.

‘And am I never to see you again, signor,’ cried he eagerly.

‘Yes, to be sure, you shall come here; but I will settle all that another time – on Saturday, Fra; and now, good-bye.

The boy grasped the hand with which the Prince waved his farewell, and kissed it rapturously; and Charles, overcome at length by feelings he had repressed till then, threw his arms around the boy’s neck, and pressed him to his bosom.

Fra Luke, terrified how such a moment might end, hurried the youth from the room, and retired.

CHAPTER VII. THE VILLA AT ORVIETO

If the villa life of Italy might prove a severe trial of temper and spirits to most persons, to young Gerald, trained in all the asceticism of a convent, it was a perfect paradise. The wild and far-spreading landscape imparted a glorious sense of liberty, which grew with each day’s enjoyment of it. It was a land of mountain and forest – those deep, dark woods of chestnut-trees traversed with the clear and rapid rivulets so common in the Roman States, with here and there, at rare intervals, the solitary hut of a charcoal-burner. In these vast solitudes, silent as the great savannahs of the South, he passed his days – now roaming in search of game, now dreamily lying, book in hand, beside a river’s bank, or strolling listlessly along, tasting, in the very waywardness of an untrammelled will, an ecstasy only known to those who have felt captivity.

Though there were several young people in the family of the Intendente, Gerald had no companionship with any of them: the boys were boorish, uneducated, and coarse-minded, and the girls, with one exception, were little better. Ninetta, it is true, was gentler; her voice was soft, and her silky hair and soft, dark eyes had a strange, subduing influence about them; but even she was far from that ideal his imagination had pictured, nor could he, by all his persuasions, induce her to share his raptures for Ariosto, or the still more passionate delight that Petrarch gave him. He was just opening that period of youth when the heart yearns for some object of affection – some centre around which its own hopes and fears, its wishes and aspirations, may revolve. It is wonderful how much imagination contributes in such cases, supplying graces and attractions where nature has been a niggard, and giving to the veriest commonplace character traits of distinctive charm.

Ninetta was quite pretty enough for all this, but she was no more. Without a particle of education, she had never raised her mind beyond the commonest daily cares; and what with the vines, the olives, the chestnuts, the festivals of the church, and little family gatherings, her life had its sphere of duties so full as to leave no time for the love-sick wanderings of an idle boy.

If she was disposed to admire him when, in fits of wild energy, he would pass nights and days in chase of the wild boar, or follow the track of a wolf, with the steadfast tenacity of a hound, she cared little for his intervals of dreamy fancy, nor lent any sympathy to joys or sorrows which had no basis in reality; and when her indifference had gone so far as to offend him, she would gently smile and say, ‘Never mind, Gerald; the Contessina will come one of these days, and she’ll be charmed with all these “moonings.”’ Whether piqued by the tone of this commiseration, or careless as to its meaning, he never thought of asking who the Contessina might be, until one morning a showily-dressed courier arrived at the villa to announce that, ere the end of the week, the Cardinal’s niece and her governante were to arrive, and remain for, probably, several weeks there.

It was two years since her last visit, and great was the commotion to prepare a suitable reception for her. Saloons that had been carefully closed till now were immediately opened, and all the costly furniture uncovered. Within doors and without the work of preparation went briskly on. Troops of labourers were employed in the grounds and the gardens. Fresh parterres of flowers were planted beneath the windows; fountains long dried up were taught to play, and jets of many a fantastic kind threw their sportive showers on the grass.

Gerald took immense interest in all these details, to which his natural taste imparted many a happy suggestion. By his advice the statues were arranged in suitable spots, and a hundred little devices of ingenuity came from his quick intelligence. ‘The Contessina will be delighted with this! How she will love that!’ were exclamations that rewarded him for every fresh exertion; and, doubtless, he had fashioned to his own heart a Contessina, for he never asked a question, nor made one single inquiry about her, the real one. As little was he prepared for the great cortège which preceded her coming – troops of servants, saddle-horses, fourgons of luggage, even furniture kept pouring in, until the villa, so tranquil and deserted in its appearance, became like some vast and popular hotel. There was something almost regal in the state and preparation that went forward; and when, at the close of a long summer day, two mounted couriers dashed up to the door, all heated and dust-covered, quickly followed by two heavy coaches with scarlet panels, Gerald’s curiosity at length got the upper hand, and he stole to a window to watch the descent of her for whom all these cares had been provided. What was his astonishment to see a little girl, apparently younger than himself, spring lightly to the ground, and, after a brief gesture of acknowledgment to the welcome tendered her, pass into the house. He had seen enough, however, to remark that her long and beautiful hair was almost golden in tint, and that her eyes, whatever their colour, were large and lustrous. He would have dwelt with more pleasure on her beauty had he not marked, in the haughty gestures she vouchsafed and the proud carriage of her head, a bearing he, not unfairly, ascribed to a character imperious and exacting – almost insolent, indeed, in its requirement of respect.

Guglia Ridolfi was, however, the greatest heiress in the Roman States: she was the niece of a cardinal, the granddaughter of a grandee of Spain, and, more than all, had been taught to reflect on these facts from the earliest years of her girlhood. It had been for years the policy of the Cardinal to increase the prestige of her position by every means in his power; and they who knew the ambitious nature of the man could easily see how, in the great game he played, his own future aggrandisement was as much included as was her elevation. Left without a father or mother when a mere infant, she had been confided to the care of her uncle. Surrounded with teachers of every kind, she only learned what and when she pleased, her education being, in fact, the result of certain impulses which swayed her from time to time. As she was gifted with great quickness, however, and a remarkable memory, she seemed to make the most astonishing progress, and her fame as a linguist and her reputation for accomplishments were the talk of Rome.

She had all the waywardness, caprice, and instability such a discipline might be supposed to produce, and so completely sated with amusement and pleasure was she that now, as a mere child, or little more, she actually pined away from sheer ennui of life. A momentary change of place afforded her a slight passing satisfaction, and so she had come down to Orvieto to stay some time, and persuade herself, if she could, that she enjoyed it. Strangely enough, nothing in either her general appearance or her gestures betrayed this weariness of the world: her eyes were bright, her look animated, her step active. It was only when watching her closely that one could see how estranged her thoughts were from what seemed to fill them; and how, at times, a low, faint sigh would escape her, even when she was apparently occupied and interested.

It was rumoured that these very traits of her disposition were what had attached her uncle so fondly to her, and that he recognised in them the indications of a blood and a race which had always made their way in life, subjecting others to their rule, and using them as mere tools for their own advancement. One thing was certain: he curbed her in nothing; every wild weed of her heart grew up in all its own luxuriance, and she was the ideal of imperiousness and self-will.

Either from caprice or settled purpose – it were hard to say which – the Cardinal affected to submit his own plans to her, and he consulted her about many things which were clearly beyond the sphere of either her years or her knowledge, but to which her replies gave him the sort of guidance that gamblers are wont to accept for the accidents of play; and often had ‘Da Guglia’s’ counsels decided him when his mind was wavering between two resolves. Whether from perceiving the ascendency she thus obtained over her uncle’s mind, or that really, to her pleasure-sick heart, these sterner themes gave her a gleam of interest, but gradually she turned her thoughts to the great events of the day, and listened with eagerness only to subjects of State craft and intrigue.

Such was she to whose morning levee Gerald was summoned on the day after her arrival, when, in a sort of vassalage, the Intendente, followed by his family and the villagers, were admitted to pay their homage. It was not without a certain compulsion Gerald yielded to this customary act of deference; nor was his compliance more gracefully accorded when he learned that he was supposed to be a member of the steward’s family, as, if he were known to be a stranger, it was almost certain the Contessina would not suffer him to remain there.

It solved much of his difficulty to be told that in all likelihood she would never notice nor remark him. She rarely did more than listen to the few words of routine gratulation the Intendente spoke, and with a slight nod of her head intimate that they might retire. ‘Then, why am I needed at all? Why can’t this ceremony go on without me?’ cried he half peevishly.

‘Because, if she were afterwards to see you about the grounds, she is quite capable of remembering that you had not presented yourself on her arrival. She forgets nothing.’

‘That’s true,’ broke in the Intendente. ‘It was but the last time she came here she remarked that the lace border of my hat was torn, and said to me, “Signor Maurizio, you must have lazy daughters, for I saw that piece of gold braid torn, as it is now, on the last two visits I made here.”’

Gerald turned away in ill-humour, for he was vexed that any act of servitude should be required of him.

There is a strange mystery in that atmosphere of deference which arises from the united submission of many to one whom they would honour and reverence. The most stubborn asserter of equality has not failed to own this, as he has stood among the crowd before a throne. The sentiment of homage is quickly contagious, and few there are who can steel their hearts against the feelings of that homage which fills every breast about him. Gerald experienced this as he found himself moving slowly along in the procession toward the chamber where the Contessina held her court. The splendid suite of rooms, filled with objects of art, the massive candelabra of gilded bronze, the costly tables of malachite and agate, all obtained their full share of admiration from the simple villagers, whose whispered words almost savoured of worship, until, awe-stricken, they found themselves in a magnificent chamber, hung with pictures from floor to ceiling. In a deep window recess, from which a vast view opened over mountain and forest, the Contessina was standing, book in hand, gazing listlessly on the landscape, and never noticing in the slightest that dense throng which now gathered in the lower part of the room.

‘Maurizio and the peasants have come to pay their duty, whispered a thin, elderly lady, who acted as governante to the young countess.

‘Well, be it so,’ said she languidly. And now a very meanly-clad priest, poor and wretched in appearance, came crouchingly forward to kiss her hand. She gave it with averted head, and in a way that indicated little of courtesy, while he bent tremblingly over it, as beseemed one whose lips touched the fingers of a great cardinal’s niece. Maurizio followed, and then the other members of his household. When it came to Gerald’s turn to advance, ‘You must, you must; it is your duty,’ whispered the steward, as, rebel-like, the youth wished to pass on without the act of deference.

‘Is this Tonino?’ asked the Contessina, suddenly turning her head, for her quick ears had caught the words of remonstrance. ‘Is this Tonino?’