Kitabı oku: «Lord Kilgobbin», sayfa 32

‘There are some trinkets, Cecil,’ said she coldly, ‘which I have made into a packet, and you will find them on your dressing-table. And – it may save you some discomfort if I say that you need not give yourself trouble to recover the little ring with an opal I once gave you, for I have it now.’

‘May I dare?’

‘You may not dare. Good-bye.’

And she gave her hand; he bent over it for a moment, scarcely touched it with his lips, and turned away.

CHAPTER LXI

A CHANGE OF FRONT

Of all the discomfitures in life there was one which Cecil Walpole did not believe could possibly befall him. Indeed, if it could have been made a matter of betting, he would have wagered all he had in the world that no woman should ever be able to say she refused his offer of marriage.

He had canvassed the matter very often with himself, and always arrived at the same conclusion – that if a man were not a mere coxcomb, blinded by vanity and self-esteem, he could always know how a woman really felt towards him; and that where the question admitted of a doubt – where, indeed, there was even a flaw in the absolute certainty – no man with a due sense of what was owing to himself would risk his dignity by the possibility of a refusal. It was a part of his peculiar ethics that a man thus rejected was damaged, pretty much as a bill that has been denied acceptance. It was the same wound to credit, the same outrage on character. Considering, therefore, that nothing obliged a man to make an offer of his hand till he had assured himself of success, it was to his thinking a mere gratuitous pursuit of insult to be refused. That no especial delicacy kept these things secret, that women talked of them freely – ay, triumphantly – that they made the staple of conversation at afternoon tea and the club, with all the flippant comments that dear friends know how to contribute as to your vanity and presumption, he was well aware. Indeed, he had been long an eloquent contributor to that scandal literature which amuses the leisure of fashion and helps on the tedium of an ordinary dinner. How Lady Maude would report the late scene in the garden to the Countess of Mecherscroft, who would tell it to her company at her country-house! – How the Lady Georginas would discuss it over luncheon, and the Lord Georges talk of it out shooting! What a host of pleasant anecdotes would be told of his inordinate puppyism and self-esteem! How even the dullest fellows would dare to throw a stone at him! What a target for a while he would be for every marksman at any range to shoot at! All these his quick-witted ingenuity pictured at once before him.

‘I see it all,’ cried he, as he paced his room in self-examination. ‘I have suffered myself to be carried away by a burst of momentary impulse. I brought up all my reserves, and have failed utterly. Nothing can save me now, but a “change of front.” It is the last bit of generalship remaining – a change of front – a change of front!’ And he repeated the words over and over, as though hoping they might light up his ingenuity. ‘I might go and tell her that all I had been saying was mere jest – that I could never have dreamed of asking her to follow me into barbarism: that to go to Guatemala was equivalent to accepting a yellow fever – it was courting disease, perhaps death; that my insistence was a mere mockery, in the worst possible taste; but that I had already agreed with Lord Danesbury, our engagement should be cancelled; that his lordship’s memory of our conversation would corroborate me in saying I had no intention to propose such a sacrifice to her; and indeed I had but provoked her to say the very things, and use the very arguments, I had already employed to myself as a sort of aid to my own heartfelt convictions. Here would be a “change of front” with a vengeance.

‘She will already have written off the whole interview: the despatch is finished,’ cried he, after a moment. ‘It is a change of front the day after the battle. The people will read of my manoeuvre with the bulletin of victory before them.

‘Poor Frank Touchet used to say,’ cried he aloud, ‘“Whenever they refuse my cheques at the Bank, I always transfer my account”; and fortunately the world is big enough for these tactics for several years. That’s a change of front too, if I knew how to adapt it. I must marry another woman – there’s nothing else for it. It is the only escape; and the question is, who shall she be?’ The more he meditated over this change of front the more he saw that his destiny pointed to the Greek. If he could see clearly before him to a high career in diplomacy, the Greek girl, in everything but fortune, would suit him well. Her marvellous beauty, her grace of manner, her social tact and readiness, her skill in languages, were all the very qualities most in request. Such a woman would make the full complement, by her fascinations, of all that her husband could accomplish by his abilities. The little indiscretions of old men – especially old men – with these women, the lapses of confidence they made them, the dropping admissions of this or that intention, made up what Walpole knew to be high diplomacy.

‘Nothing worth hearing is ever got by a man,’ was an adage he treasured as deep wisdom. Why kings resort to that watering-place, and accidentally meet certain Ministers going somewhere else; why kaisers affect to review troops here, that they may be able to talk statecraft there; how princely compacts and contracts of marriage are made at sulphur springs; all these and such like leaked out as small-talk with a young and pretty woman, whose frivolity of manner went bail for the safety of the confidence, and went far to persuade Walpole, that though bank-stock might be a surer investment, there were paying qualities in certain women that in the end promised larger returns than mere money and higher rewards than mere wealth. ‘Yes,’ cried he to himself, ‘this is the real change of front – this has all in its favour.’

Nor yet all. Strong as Walpole’s self-esteem was, and high his estimate of his own capacity, he had – he could not conceal it – a certain misgiving as to whether he really understood that girl or not. ‘I have watched many a bolt from her bow,’ said he, ‘and think I know their range. But now and then she has shot an arrow into the clear sky, and far beyond my sight to follow it.’

That scene in the wood too. Absurd enough that it should obtrude itself at such a moment, but it was the sort of indication that meant much more to a man like Walpole than to men of other experiences. Was she flirting with this young Austrian soldier? No great harm if she were; but still there had been passages between himself and her which should have bound her over to more circumspection. Was there not a shadowy sort of engagement between them? Lawyers deem a mere promise to grant a lease as equivalent to a contract. It would be a curious question in morals to inquire how far the licensed perjuries of courtship are statutory offences. Perhaps a sly consciousness on his own part that he was not playing perfectly fair made him, as it might do, more than usually tenacious that his adversary should be honest. What chance the innocent public would have with two people who were so adroit with each other was his next thought; and he actually laughed aloud as it occurred to him. ‘I only wish my lord would invite us here before we sail. If I could but show her to Maude, half an hour of these women together would be the heaviest vengeance I could ask her! I wonder how could that be managed?’

‘A despatch, sir, his lordship begs you to read,’ said a servant, entering. It was an open envelope, and contained these words on a slip of paper: —

‘W. shall have Guatemala. He must go out by the mail of November 15. Send him here for instructions.’ Some words in cipher followed, and an under-secretary’s initials.

‘Now, then, for the “change of front.” I’ll write to Nina by this post. I’ll ask my lord to let me tear off this portion of the telegram, and I shall inclose it.’

The letter was not so easily written as he thought – at least he made more than one draft – and was at last in great doubt whether a long statement or a few and very decided lines might be better. How he ultimately determined, and what he said, cannot be given here; for, unhappily, the conditions of my narrative require I should ask my reader to accompany me to a very distant spot and other interests which were just then occupying the attention of an almost forgotten acquaintance of ours, the redoubted Joseph Atlee.

CHAPTER LXII

WITH A PASHA

Joseph Atlee had a very busy morning of it on a certain November day at Pera, when the post brought him tidings that Lord Danesbury had resigned the Irish viceroyalty, and had been once more named to his old post as ambassador at Constantinople.

‘My uncle desires me,’ wrote Lady Maude, ‘to impress you with the now all-important necessity of obtaining the papers you know of, and, so far as you are able, to secure that no authorised copies of them are extant. Kulbash Pasha will, my lord says, be very tractable when once assured that our return to Turkey is a certainty; but should you detect signs of hesitation or distrust in the Grand-Vizier’s conduct, you will hint that the investigation as to the issue of the Galatz shares – “preference shares” – may be reopened at any moment, and that the Ottoman Bank agent, Schaffer, has drawn up a memoir which my uncle now holds. I copy my lord’s words for all this, and sincerely hope you will understand it, which, I confess, I do not at all. My lord cautioned me not to occupy your time or attention by any reference to Irish questions, but leave you perfectly free to deal with those larger interests of the East that should now engage you. I forbear, therefore, to do more than mark with a pencil the part in the debates which might interest you especially, and merely add the fact, otherwise, perhaps, not very credible, that Mr. Walpole did write the famous letter imputed to him —did promise the amnesty, or whatever be the name of it, and did pledge the honour of the Government to a transaction with these Fenian leaders. With what success to his own prospects, the Gazette will speak that announces his appointment to Guatemala.

‘I am myself very far from sorry at our change of destination. I prefer the Bosporus to the Bay of Dublin, and like Pera better than the Phoenix. It is not alone that the interests are greater, the questions larger, and the consequences more important to the world at large, but that, as my uncle has just said, you are spared the peddling impertinence of Parliament interfering at every moment, and questioning your conduct, from an invitation to Cardinal Cullen to the dismissal of a chief constable. Happily, the gentlemen at Westminster know nothing about Turkey, and have the prudence not to ventilate their ignorance, except in secret committee. I am sorry to have to tell you that my lord sees great difficulty in what you propose as to yourself. F. O., he says, would not easily consent to your being named even a third secretary without your going through the established grade of attaché. All the unquestionable merits he knows you to possess would count for nothing against an official regulation. The course my lord would suggest is this: To enter now as mere attaché, to continue in this position some three or four months, come over here for the general election in February, get into “the House,” and after some few sessions, one or two, rejoin diplomacy, to which you might be appointed as a secretary of legation. My uncle named to me three, if not four cases of this kind – one, indeed, stepped at once into a mission and became a minister; and though of course the Opposition made a fuss, they failed in their attempt to break the appointment, and the man will probably be soon an ambassador. I accept the little yataghan, but sincerely wish the present had been of less value. There is one enormous emerald in the handle which I am much tempted to transfer to a ring. Perhaps I ought, in decency, to have your permission for the change. The burnous is very beautiful, but I could not accept it – an article of dress is in the category of things impossible. Have you no Irish sisters, or even cousins? Pray give me a destination to address it to in your next.

‘My uncle desires me to say that, all invaluable as your services have become where you are, he needs you greatly here, and would hear with pleasure that you were about to return. He is curious to know who wrote “L’Orient et Lord D.” in the last Revue des Deux Mondes. The savagery of the attack implies a personal rancour. Find out the author, and reply to him in the Edinburgh. My lord suspects he may have had access to the papers he has already alluded to, and is the more eager to repossess them.’

A telegraphic despatch in cipher was put into his hands as he was reading. It was from Lord Danesbury, and said: ‘Come back as soon as you can, but not before making K. Pasha know his fate is in my hands.’

As the Grand-Vizier had already learned from the Ottoman ambassador at London the news that Lord Danesbury was about to resume his former post at Constantinople, his Turkish impassiveness was in no way imperilled by Atlee’s abrupt announcement. It is true he would have been pleased had the English Government sent out some one new to the East and a stranger to all Oriental questions. He would have liked one of those veterans of diplomacy versed in the old-fashioned ways and knaveries of German courts, and whose shrewdest ideas of a subtle policy are centred in a few social spies and a ‘Cabinet Noir.’ The Pasha had no desire to see there a man who knew all the secret machinery of a Turkish administration, what corruption could do, and where to look for the men who could employ it.

The thing was done, however, and with that philosophy of resignation to a fact in which no nation can rival his own, he muttered his polite congratulations on the event, and declared that the dearest wish of his heart was now accomplished.

‘We had half begun to believe you had abandoned us, Mr. Atlee,’ said he. ‘When England commits her interests to inferior men, she usually means to imply that they are worth nothing better. I am rejoiced to see that we are, at last, awakened from this delusion. With his Excellency Lord Danesbury here, we shall be soon once more where we have been.’

‘Your fleet is in effective condition, well armed, and well disciplined?’

‘All, all,’ smiled the Pasha.

‘The army reformed, the artillery supplied with the most efficient guns, and officers of European services encouraged to join your staff?’

‘All.’

‘Wise economies in your financial matters, close supervision in the collection of the revenue, and searching inquiries where abuses exist?’

‘All.’

‘Especial care that the administration of justice should be beyond even the malevolence of distrust, that men of station and influence should be clear-handed and honourable, not a taint of unfairness to attach to them?’

‘Be it all so,’ ejaculated the Pasha blandly.

‘By the way, I am reminded by a line I have just received from his Excellency with reference to Sulina, or was it Galatz?’

The Pasha could not decide, and he went on —

‘I remember, it is Galatz. There is some curious question there of a concession for a line of railroad, which a Servian commissioner had the skill to obtain from the Cabinet here, by a sort of influence which our Stock Exchange people in London scarcely regard as regular.’

The Pasha nodded to imply attention, and smoked on as before.

‘But I weary your Excellency,’ said Atlee, rising, ‘and my real business here is accomplished.’

‘Tell my lord that I await his arrival with impatience, that of all pending questions none shall receive solution till he comes, that I am the very least of his servants.’ And with an air of most dignified sincerity, he bowed him out, and Atlee hastened away to tell his chief that he had ‘squared the Turk,’ and would sail on the morrow.

CHAPTER LXIII

ATLEE ON HIS TRAVELS

On board the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer in which he sailed from Constantinople, Joseph Atlee employed himself in the composition of a small volume purporting to be The Experiences of a Two Years’ Residence in Greece. In an opening chapter of this work he had modestly intimated to the reader how an intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of modern Greece, great opportunities of mixing with every class and condition of the people, a mind well stored with classical acquirements and thoroughly versed in antiquarian lore, a strong poetic temperament and the feeling of an artist for scenery, had all combined to give him a certain fitness for his task; and by the extracts from his diary it would be seen on what terms of freedom he conversed with Ministers and ambassadors, even with royalty itself.

A most pitiless chapter was devoted to the exposure of the mistakes and misrepresentations of a late Quarterly article called ‘Greece and her Protectors,’ whose statements were the more mercilessly handled and ridiculed that the paper in question had been written by himself, and the sarcastic allusions to the sources of the information not the less pungent on that account.

That the writer had been admitted to frequent audiences of the king, that he had discussed with his Majesty the cutting of the Isthmus of Corinth, that the king had seriously confided to him his belief that in the event of his abdication, the Ionian Islands must revert to him as a personal appanage, the terms on which they were annexed to Greece being decided by lawyers to bear this interpretation – all these Atlee denied of his own knowledge, an asked the reader to follow him into the royal cabinet for his reasons.

When, therefore, he heard that from some damage to the machinery the vessel must be detained some days at Syra to refit, Atlee was scarcely sorry that necessity gave him an opportunity to visit Athens.

A little about Ulysses and a good deal about Lord Byron, a smattering of Grote, and a more perfect memory of About, were, as he owned to himself, all his Greece; but he could answer for what three days in the country would do for him, particularly with that spirit of candid inquiry he could now bring to his task, and the genuine fairness with which he desired to judge the people.

‘The two years’ resident’ in Athens must doubtless often have dined with his Minister, and so Atlee sent his card to the Legation.

Mr. Brammell, our ‘present Minister at Athens,’ as the Times continued to designate him, as though to imply that the appointment might not be permanent, was an excellent man, of that stamp of which diplomacy has more – who consider that the Court to which they are accredited concentrates for the time the political interests of the globe. That any one in Europe thought, read, spoke, or listened to anything but what was then happening in Greece, Mr. Brammell could not believe. That France or Prussia, Spain or Italy, could divide attention with this small kingdom; that the great political minds of the Continent were not more eager to know what Comoundouros thought and Bulgaris required, than all about Bismarck and Gortschakoff, he could not be brought to conceive; and in consequence of these convictions, he was an admirable Minister, and fully represented all the interests of his country.

As that admirable public instructor, the Levant Herald, had frequently mentioned Atlee’s name, now as the guest of Kulbash Pasha, now as having attended some public ceremony with other persons of importance, and once as ‘our distinguished countryman, whose wise suggestions and acute observations have been duly accepted by the imperial cabinet,’ Brammell at once knew that this distinguished countryman should be entertained at dinner, and he sent him an invitation. That habit – so popular of late years – to send out some man from England to do something at a foreign Court that the British ambassador or Minister there either has not done, or cannot do, possibly ought never to do, had invested Atlee in Brammell’s eyes with the character of one of those semi-accredited inscrutable people whose function it would seem to be to make us out the most meddlesome people in Europe.

Of course Brammell was not pleased to see him at Athens, and he ran over all the possible contingencies he might have come for. It might be the old Greek loan, which was to be raked up again as a new grievance. It might be the pensions that they would not pay, or the brigands that they would not catch – pretty much for the same reasons – that they could not. It might be that they wanted to hear what Tsousicheff, the new Russian Minister, was doing, and whether the farce of the ‘Grand Idea’ was advertised for repetition. It might be Crete was on the tapis, or it might be the question of the Greek envoy to the Porte that the Sultan refused to receive, and which promised to turn out a very pretty quarrel if only adroitly treated.

The more Brammell thought of it, the more he felt assured this must be the reason of Atlee’s visit, and the more indignant he grew that extra-official means should be employed to investigate what he had written seventeen despatches to explain – seventeen despatches, with nine ‘inclosures,’ and a ‘private and confidential,’ about to appear in a blue-book.

To make the dinner as confidential as might be, the only guests besides Atlee were a couple of yachting Englishmen, a German Professor of Archæology, and the American Minister, who, of course, speaking no language but his own, could always be escaped from by a digression into French, German, or Italian.

Atlee felt, as he entered the drawing-room, that the company was what he irreverently called afterwards, a scratch team; and with an almost equal quickness, he saw that he himself was the ‘personage’ of the entertainment, the ‘man of mark’ of the party.

The same tact which enabled him to perceive all this, made him especially guarded in all he said, so that his host’s efforts to unveil his intentions and learn what he had come for were complete failures. ‘Greece was a charming country – Greece was the parent of any civilisation we boasted. She gave us those ideas of architecture with which we raised that glorious temple at Kensington, and that taste for sculpture which we exhibited near Apsley House. Aristophanes gave us our comic drama, and only the defaults of our language made it difficult to show why the member for Cork did not more often recall Demosthenes.’

As for insolvency, it was a very gentlemanlike failing; while brigandage was only what Sheil used to euphemise as ‘the wild justice’ of noble spirits, too impatient for the sluggard steps of slow redress, and too proud not to be self-reliant.

Thus excusing and extenuating wherein he could not flatter, Atlee talked on the entire evening, till he sent the two Englishmen home heartily sick of a bombastic eulogy on the land where a pilot had run their cutter on a rock, and a revenue officer had seized all their tobacco. The German had retired early, and the Yankee hastened to his lodgings to ‘jot down’ all the fine things he could commit to his next despatch home, and overwhelm Mr. Seward with an array of historic celebrities such as had never been seen at Washington.

‘They’re gone at last,’ said the Minister. ‘Let us have our cigar on the terrace.’

The unbounded frankness, the unlimited trustfulness that now ensued between these two men, was charming. Brammell represented one hard worked and sorely tried in his country’s service – the perfect slave of office, spending nights long at his desk, but not appreciated, not valued at home. It was delightful, therefore, to him, to find a man like Atlee to whom he could tell this – could tell for what an ungrateful country he toiled, what ignorance he sought to enlighten, what actual stupidity he had to counteract. He spoke of the Office – from his tone of horror it might have been the Holy Office – with a sort of tremulous terror and aversion: the absurd instructions they sent him, the impossible things he was to do, the inconceivable lines of policy he was to insist on; how but for him the king would abdicate, and a Russian protectorate be proclaimed; how the revolt at Athens would be proclaimed in Thessaly; how Skulkekoff, the Russian general, was waiting to move into the provinces ‘at the first check my policy shall receive here,’ cried he. ‘I shall show you on this map; and here are the names, armament, and tonnage of a hundred and ninety-four gunboats now ready at Nicholief to move down on Constantinople.’

Was it not strange, was it not worse than strange, after such a show of unbounded confidence as this, Atlee would reveal nothing? Whatever his grievances against the people he served – and who is without them? – he would say nothing, he had no complaint to make. Things he admitted were bad, but they might be worse. The monarchy existed still, and the House of Lords was, for a while at least, tolerated. Ireland was disturbed, but not in open rebellion; and if we had no army to speak of, we still had a navy, and even the present Admiralty only lost about five ships a year!

Till long after midnight did they fence with each other, with buttons on their foils – very harmlessly, no doubt, but very uselessly too: Brammell could make nothing of a man who neither wanted to hear about finance or taxation, court scandal, schools, or public robbery; and though he could not in so many words ask – What have you come for? why are you here? he said this in full fifty different ways for three hours and more.

‘You make some stay amongst us, I trust?’ said the Minister, as his guest rose to take leave. ‘You mean to see something of this interesting country before you leave?’

‘I fear not; when the repairs to the steamer enable her to put to sea, they are to let me know by telegraph, and I shall join her.’

‘Are you so pressed for time that you cannot spare us a week or two?’

‘Totally impossible! Parliament will sit in January next, and I must hasten home.’

This was to imply that he was in the House, or that he expected to be, or that he ought to be, and even if he were not, that his presence in England was all-essential to somebody who was in Parliament, and for whom his information, his explanation, his accusation, or anything else, was all needed, and so Brammell read it and bowed accordingly.

‘By the way,’ said the Minister, as the other was leaving the room, and with that sudden abruptness of a wayward thought, ‘we have been talking of all sorts of things and people, but not a word about what we are so full of here. How is this difficulty about the new Greek envoy to the Porte to end? You know, of course, the Sultan refuses to receive him?’

‘The Pasha told me something of it, but I confess to have paid little attention. I treated the matter as insignificant.’

‘Insignificant! You cannot mean that an affront so openly administered as this, the greatest national offence that could be offered, is insignificant?’ and then with a volubility that smacked very little of want of preparation, he showed that the idea of sending a particular man, long compromised by his complicity in the Cretan revolt, to Constantinople, came from Russia, and that the opposition of the Porte to accept him was also Russian. ‘I got to the bottom of the whole intrigue. I wrote home how Tsousicheff was nursing this new quarrel. I told our people facts of the Muscovite policy that they never got a hint of from their ambassador at St. Petersburg.’

‘It was rare luck that we had you here: good-night, good-night,’ said Atlee as he buttoned his coat.

‘More than that, I said, “If the Cabinet here persist in sending Kostalergi – “’

‘Whom did you say? What name was it you said?’

‘Kostalergi – the Prince. As much a prince as you are. First of all, they have no better; and secondly, this is the most consummate adventurer in the East.’

‘I should like to know him. Is he here – at Athens?’

‘Of course he is. He is waiting till he hears the Sultan will receive him.’

‘I should like to know him,’ said Atlee, more seriously.

‘Nothing easier. He comes here every day. Will you meet him at dinner to-morrow?’

‘Delighted! but then I should like a little conversation with him in the morning. Perhaps you would kindly make me known to him?’

‘With sincere pleasure. I’ll write and ask him to dine – and I’ll say that you will wait on him. I’ll say, “My distinguished friend Mr. Atlee, of whom you have heard, will wait on you about eleven or twelve.” Will that do?’

‘Perfectly. So then I may make my visit on the presumption of being expected?’

‘Certainly. Not that Kostalergi wants much preparation. He plays baccarat all night, but he is at his desk at six.’

‘Is he rich?’

‘Hasn’t a sixpence – but plays all the same. And what people are more surprised at, pays when he loses. If I had not already passed an evening in your company, I should be bold enough to hint to you the need of caution – great caution – in talking with him.’

‘I know – I am aware,’ said Atlee, with a meaning smile.

‘You will not be misled by his cunning, Mr. Atlee, but beware of his candour.’

‘I will be on my guard. Many thanks for the caution. Good-night! – once more, good-night!’