Kitabı oku: «Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)», sayfa 25
CHAPTER XXXII. ON THE TRACK
“And with a sleuth-hound’s scent,
Smells blood afar!”
It was nightfall when Roland Cashel entered Dublin. The stir and movement of the day were over, and that brief interval which separates the life of business from that of pleasure had succeeded. Few were stirring in the streets, and they were hastening to the dinner-parties whose hour had now arrived. It was little more than a year since Cashel had entered that same capital, and what a change had come over him within that period! Then he was buoyant in all the enjoyment of youth, health, and affluence; now, although still young, sorrow and care had worn him into premature age. His native frankness had become distrust; his generous reliance on the world’s good faith had changed into a cold and cautious reserve which made him detestable to himself.
Although he passed several of his former acquaintance without being recognized, he could not persuade himself but that their avoidance of him was intentional, and he thought he saw a purpose-like insolence in the pressing entreaties with which the news-vendors persecuted him to buy “The Full and True Report of the Trial of Roland Cashel for Murder.”
And thus it was that he, whose fastidious modesty had shrunk from everything like the notoriety of fashion, now saw himself exposed to that more terrible ordeal, the notoriety of crime. The consciousness of innocence could not harden him against the poignant suffering the late exposure had inflicted. His whole life laid bare! Not even to gratify the morbid curiosity of gossips; not to amuse the languid listlessness of a world devoured by its own ennui; but far worse! to furnish motives for an imputed crime! to give the clew to a murder! In the bitterness of his torn heart, he asked himself: “Have I deserved all this? Is this the just requital for my conduct towards others? Have the hospitality I have extended, the generous assistance I have proffered – have the thousand extravagances I have committed to gratify others – no other fruits than these?” Alas! the answer of his enlightened intelligence could no longer blind him by its flatteries. He recognized, at last, that to his abuse of fortune were owing all his reverses; that the capricious extravagance of the rich man – his misplaced generosity, his pompous display – can create enemies far more dangerous than all the straits and appliances of rebellious poverty; that the tie of an obligation which can ennoble a generous nature, may, in a bad heart, develop the very darkest elements of iniquity; and that he who refuses to be bound by gratitude is enslaved by hate!
He stopped for an instant before Kennyfeck’s house; the closed shutters and close-drawn blinds bespoke it still the abode of mourning. He passed the residence of the Kilgoffs, and there the grass-grown steps and rusted knocker spoke of absence. They had left the country. He next came to his own mansion, – that spacious building which, at the same hour, was wont to be brilliant with wax-lights and besieged by fast-arriving guests, where the throng of carriages pressed forward in eager haste, and where, as each step descended, some form or figure moved by, great in fame or more illustrious still by beauty. Now, all was dark, gloomy, and deserted. A single gleam of light issued from the kitchen, which was speedily removed as Roland knocked at the door.
The female servant who opened the door nearly dropped the candle as she recognized the features of her master, who, without speaking, passed on, and, without even removing his hat, entered the library. Profuse in apologies for the disorder of the furniture, and excuses for the absence of the other servants, she followed him into the room, and stood, half in shame and half in terror, gazing at the wan and worn countenance of him she remembered the very ideal of health and youth.
“If we only knew your honor was coming home tonight – ”
“I did not know it myself, good woman, at this hour yesterday. Let me have something to eat – well, a crust of bread and a glass of wine – there’s surely so much in the house?”
“I can give your honor some bread, but all the wine is packed up and gone.”
“Gone! whither, and by whose order?” said Roland, calmly.
“Mr. Phillis, sir, sent it off about ten days ago, with the plate, and I hear both are off to America!”
“The bread alone, then, with a glass of water, will do,” said he, without any emotion or the least evidence of surprise in his manner.
“The fare smacks of the prison still,” said Roland, as he sat at his humble meal; “and truly the house itself is almost as gloomy.”
The aspect of everything was sad and depressing; neglect and disorder pervaded wherever he turned his steps. In some of the rooms the remains of past orgies still littered the tables. Smashed vases of rare porcelain, broken mirrors, torn pictures – all the work, in fact, which ruffian intemperance in its most savage mood accomplishes – told who were they who replaced his fashionable society; while, as if to show the unfeeling spirit of the revellers, several of the pasquinades against himself, the libellous calumnies of the low press, the disgusting caricatures of infamous prints, were scattered about amid the wrecks of the debauch.
Roland saw these things with sorrow, but without anger. “I must have fallen low indeed,” muttered he, “when it is by such men I am judged.”
In the room which once had been his study a great pile of unsettled bills covered the table, the greater number of which he remembered to have given the money for; there were no letters, however, nor even one card of an acquaintance, so that, save to his creditors, his very existence seemed to be forgotten.
Wearied of his sad pilgrimage from room to room, he sat down at last in a small boudoir, which it had been his caprice once to adorn with the portraits of “his friends!” sketched by a fashionable artist. There they were, all smiling blandly, as he left them. What a commentary on their desertion of him were the looks so full of benevolence and affection! There was Frobisher, lounging in all the ease of fashionable indifference, but still with a smile upon his languid features; there was Upton, the very picture of straightforward good feeling and frankness; there was Jennings, all beaming with generosity; and Linton, too, occupying the chief place, seemed to stare with the very expression of resolute attachment that so often had imposed on Cashel, and made him think him a most devoted but perhaps an indiscreet friend. Roland’s own portrait had been turned to the wall, while on the reverse was written, in large characters, the words “To be hung, or hanged, elsewhere.” The brutal jest brought the color for an instant to his cheek, but the next moment he was calm and tranquil as before.
Lost in musings, the time stole by; and it was late in the night ere he betook himself to rest His sleep was the heavy slumber of an overworked mind; but he awoke refreshed and with a calm courage to breast the tide of fortune, however it might run.
Life seemed to present to him two objects of paramount interest. One of these was the discovery of Kennyfeck’s murderer; the second was the payment of his debt of vengeance to Linton. Some secret instinct induced him to couple the two together; and although neither reason nor reflection afforded a clew to link them, they came ever in company before his mind, and rose like one fact before him.
Mr. Hammond, the eminent lawyer, to whom he had written a few lines, came punctually at ten o’clock to confer with him. Roland had determined to reveal no more of his secret to the ears of counsel than he had done before the Court, when an accidental circumstance totally changed the course of his proceeding.
“I have sent for you, Mr. Hammond,” said Cashel, as soon as they were seated, “to enlist your skilful services in tracing out the real authors of a crime of which I narrowly escaped the penalty. I will first, however, entreat your attention to another matter, for this may be the last opportunity ever afforded me of personally consulting you.”
“You purpose to live abroad, sir?” asked Hammond.
“I shall return to Mexico,” said Roland, briefly; and then resumed: “Here is a document, sir, of whose tenor and meaning I am ignorant, but of whose importance I cannot entertain a doubt: will you peruse it?”
Hammond opened the parchment, but scarcely had his eyes glanced over it, when he laid it down before him and said, —
“I have seen this before, Mr. Cashel. You are aware that I already gave you my opinion as to its value?”
“I am not aware of that,” said Roland, calmly. “Fray, in whose possession did you see it, and what does it mean?”
Hammond seemed confused for a few seconds; and then, as if overcoming a scruple, said, —
“We must both be explicit here, sir. This document was shown to me by Mr. Linton, at Limerick, he alleging that it was at your desire and by your request. As to its import, it simply means that you hold your present estates without a title; that document being a full pardon, revoking the penalty of confiscation against the heirs of Miles Corrigan, and reinstating them and theirs in their ancient possessions. Now, sir, may I ask, do you hear this for the first time?”
Roland nodded in acquiescence; his heart was too full for utterance, and the sudden revulsion of his feeling had brought a sickly sensation over him.
“Mr. Linton,” resumed Hammond, “in showing me this deed, spoke of a probable alliance between you and the granddaughter of Mr. Corrigan; and I freely concurred in the propriety of a union which might at once settle the difficulty of a very painful litigation. He promised me more full information on the subject, and engaged me to make searches for a registry, if such existed, of the pardon; but I heard nothing more from him, and the matter escaped my memory till this moment.”
“So that all this while I have been dissipating that which was not mine,” said Roland, with a bitterness of voice and manner that bespoke what he suffered.
“You have done what some thousands have done, are doing, and will do hereafter, – enjoyed possession of that which the law gave you, and which a deeper research into the same law may take away.”
“And Linton knew this?”
“He certainly knew my opinion of this document; but am I to suppose that you were ignorant of it up to this moment?”
“You shall hear all,” said Cashel, passing his hand across his brow, which now ached with the torture of intense emotion. “To save myself from all the ignominy of a felon’s death, I did not reveal this before. It was with me as a point of honor, that I would reserve this man for a personal vengeance; but now a glimmering light is breaking on my brain, that darker deeds than all he worked against me lie at his door, and that in following up my revenge I may be but robbing the scaffold of its due. Listen to me attentively.” So saying, Cashel narrated every event of the memorable day of Kennyfeck’s death, detailing his meeting with Enrique in the glen, and his last interview with Linton in his dressing-room.
Hammond heard all with deepest interest, only interrupting at times to ask such questions as might throw light upon the story. The whole body of the circumstantial evidence against Roland not only became easily explicable, but the shrewd perception of the lawyer also saw the consummate skill with which the details had been worked into regular order, and what consistency had been imparted to them. The great difficulty of the case lay in the fact that, supposing Kennyfeck’s death had been planned by others, with the intention of imputing the crime to Cashel, yet all the circumstances, or nearly all, which seemed to imply his guilt, were matters of perfect accident, for which they never could have provided, nor even ever foreseen, – such as his entrance by the window, his torn dress, the wound of his hand, and the blood upon his clothes.
“I see but one clew to this mystery,” said Hammond, thoughtfully; “but the more I reflect upon it, the more likely does it seem. Kennyfeck’s fate was intended for you, – he fell by a mistake.”
Roland started with astonishment, but listened with deep attention as Hammond recapitulated everything which accorded with this assumption.
“But why was one of my own pistols taken for the deed?”
“Perhaps to suggest the notion of suicide.”
“How could my death have been turned to profit? Was I not better as the living dupe than as the dead enemy?”
“Do you not see how your death legalized the deed with a forged signature? Who was to dispute its authenticity? Besides, how know we what ambitions Linton may not have cherished when holding in his hands the only title to the estate. We may go too fast with these suspicions, but let us not reject them as inconsistent Who is this same witness, Keane? What motives had he for the gratitude he evinced on the trial?”
“None whatever; on the contrary, I never showed him any favor; it was even my intention to dismiss him from the gate-lodge!”
“And he was aware of this?”
“Perfectly. He had besought several people to intercede for him, Linton among the rest.”
“So that he was known to Linton? And what has become of him since the trial?”
“That is the strangest of all; my wish was to have done something for the poor fellow. I could not readily forget the feeling he showed, at a moment, too, when none seemed to remember me; so that when I reached Tubbermore, I at once repaired to the lodge, but he was gone.”
“And in what direction?”
“His wife could not tell. The poor creature was distracted at being deserted, and seemed to think, from what cause I know not, that he would not return. He had come back after the trial in company with another, who remained on the roadside while Keane hastily packed up some clothes, after which they departed together.”
“This must be thought of,” said Hammond, gravely, while he wrote some lines in his note-book.
“It is somewhat strange, indeed,” said Cashel, “that the very men to whom my gratitude is most due are those who seem to avoid me. Thus – Jones, who gave me his aid upon the trial – ”
“Do not speak of him, sir,” said Hammond, in a voice of agitation; “he is one who has sullied an order that has hitherto been almost without a stain. There is but too much reason to think that he was bribed to destroy you. His whole line of cross-examination on the trial was artfully devised to develop whatever might injure you; but the treachery turned upon the men who planned it. The Attorney General saw it, and the Court also; it was this saved you.”
Cashel sat powerless and speechless at this disclosure. It seemed to fill up in his mind the cup of iniquity, and he never moved nor uttered a word as he listened.
“Jones you will never see again. The bar of some other land across the sea may receive him, but there is not one here would stoop to be his colleague. But now for others more important. I will this day obtain the judge’s notes of the trial, and give the whole case the deepest consideration. Inquiry shall be set on foot as to Keane, with whom he has gone, and in what direction. Linton, too, must be watched; the report is that he lies dangerously ill at his country house, but that story may be invented to gain time.”
Cashel could scarcely avoid a smile at the rapidity with which the lawyer detailed his plan of operation, and threw out, as he went, the signs of distrust so characteristic of his craft As for himself, he was enjoined to remain in the very strictest privacy, – to see no one, nor even to leave the house, except after nightfall.
“Rely upon it,” said Hammond, “your every movement is watched; and our object will be to ascertain by whom. This will be our first clew; and when we obtain one, others will soon follow.”
It was no privation for Cashel to follow a course so much in accordance with his wishes. Solitude – even that which consigned him to the saddest reveries – was far more pleasurable than any intercourse; so that he never ventured beyond the walls of his house for weeks, nor exchanged a word, except with Hammond, who regularly visited him each day, to report the progress of his investigation.
The mystery did not seem to clear away, even by the skilful contrivances of the lawyer. Of Keane not a trace could be discovered; nor could any clew be obtained as to his companion. All that Hammond knew was that although a doctor’s carriage daily drove to Linton’s house, Linton himself had long since left the country, – it was believed for the Continent.
Disappointed by continual failures, and wearied by a life whose only excitement lay in anxieties and cares, Cashel grew each day sadder and more depressed. The desire for vengeance, too, that first had filled his mind, grew weaker as time rolled on. The wish to reinstate himself fully in the world’s esteem diminished, as he lived apart from all its intercourse, and he sank into a low and gloomy despondency, which soon showed its ravages upon his face and figure.
One object alone remained for him, – this was to seek out Corrigan and place in his hand the document of his ancestor’s pardon; this done, Roland resolved to betake himself to Mexico, and again, among the haunts of his youth, to try and forget that life of civilization which had cost him so dearly.
CHAPTER XXXIII. LA NINETTA
“How sweete and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beautie of thy budding name.”
Some years passed over, and the name of Roland Cashel ceased to be uttered, or his memory even evoked, in that capital where once his wealth, his eccentricities, and his notoriety had been the theme of every tongue. A large neglected-looking house, with closed shutters and grass-grown steps, would attract the attention of some passing stranger to ask whom it belonged to, but the name of Mr. Cashel was almost all that many knew of him, and a vague impression that he was travelling in some remote and faraway land.
Tubbermore, too, fell back into its former condition of ruin and decay. No one seemed to know into whose hands the estate had fallen, but the talismanic word “Chancery” appeared to satisfy every inquiry, and account for a desolation that brooded over the property and all who dwelt on it. The very “Cottage” had yielded to the course of time, and little remained of it save a few damp discolored walls and blackened chimneys; while here and there a rare shrub, or a tree of foreign growth, rose among the rank weeds and thistles, to speak of the culture which once had been the pride of this lovely spot.
Had there been a “curse upon the place” it could not have been more dreary and sad-looking!
Of the gate-lodge, where Keane lived, a few straggling ruins alone remained, in a corner of which a miserable family was herded together, their wan looks and tattered clothing showing that they were dependent for existence on the charity of the very poor. These were Keane’s wife and children, to whom he never again returned. There was a blight over everything. The tenantry themselves, no longer subject to the visits of the agent, the stimulus to all industry withdrawn, would scarcely labor for their own support, but passed their lives in brawls and quarrels, which more than once had led to a felon’s sentence. The land lay untilled; the cattle, untended, strayed at will through the unfenced fields. The villages on the property were crammed by a host of runaway wretches whose crimes had driven them from their homes, till at length the district became the plague-spot of the country, where, even at noonday, few strangers were bold enough to enter, and the word “Tub-bermore” had a terrible significance in the neighborhood round about.
Let us now turn for the last time to him whose fortune had so powerfully influenced his property, and whose dark destiny seemed to throw its shadow over all that once was his. For years Roland Cashel had been a wanderer. He travelled every country of the Old World and the New; his appearance and familiarity with the language enabling him to assume the nationality of a Spaniard, and thus screen him from that painful notoriety to which his story was certain to expose him. Journeying alone, and in the least expensive manner, – for he no longer considered himself entitled to any of the property he once enjoyed, – he made few acquaintances and contracted no friendships. One object alone gave a zest to existence, – to discover Mr. Cor-rigan, and place within his hands the title-deeds of Tubber-more. With this intention he had searched through more than half of Europe, visiting the least frequented towns, and pursuing inquiries in every possible direction; at one moment cheered by some glimmering prospect of success, at another dashed by disappointment and failure. If a thought of Linton did occasionally cross him, he struggled manfully to overcome the temptings of a passion which should thwart the dearest object of his life, and make vengeance predominate over truth and honesty. As time rolled on, the spirit of his hatred became gradually weaker; and if he did not forgive all the ills his treachery had worked, his memory of them was less frequent and less painful.
His was a cheerless, for it was a friendless, existence. Avoiding his own countrymen from the repugnance he felt to sustain his disguise by falsehood, he wandered from land to land and city to city like some penitent in the accomplishment of a vow. The unbroken monotony of this life, the continued pressure of disappointment, at last began to tell upon him, and in his moody abstractions – his fits of absence and melancholy – might be seen the change which had come over him. He might have been a long time ignorant of an alteration which not only impressed his mind, but even his “outward man,” when his attention was drawn to the fact by overhearing the observations of some young Englishmen upon his appearance, as he sat one evening in a café at Naples. Conversing in all that careless freedom of our young countrymen, which never supposes that their language can be understood by others, they criticised his dress, his sombre look, and his manner; and, after an animated discussion as to whether he were a refugee political offender, a courier, or a spy, they wound up by a wager that he was at least forty years of age; one of the party dissenting on the ground that, although he looked it, it was rather from something on the fellow’s mind than years.
“How shall we find out?” cried the proposer of the bet. “I, for one, should n’t like to ask him his age.”
“If I knew Spanish enough, I’d do it at once,” said another.
“It might cost you dearly, Harry, for all that; he looks marvellously like a fellow that wouldn’t brook trifling.”
“He would n’t call it trifling to lose me ten ‘carlines,’ and I ‘m sure I should win my wager; so here goes at him in French.” Rising at the same moment, the young man crossed the room and stood before the table where Cashel sat, with folded arms and bent-down head, listening in utter indifference to all that passed. “Monsieur,” said the youth, bowing.
Cashel looked up, and his dark, heavily browed eyes seemed to abash the other, who stood, blushing, and uncertain what to do.
With faltering accents and downcast look he began to mutter excuses for his intrusion; when Cashel, in a mild and gentle voice, interrupted him, saying in English, “I am your countryman, young gentleman, and my age not six-and-twenty.”
The quiet courtesy of his manner as he spoke, as well as the surprise of his being English, seemed to increase the youth’s shame for the liberty he had taken, and he was profuse in his apologies; but Cashel soon allayed this anxiety by adroitly turning to another part of the subject, and saying, “If I look much older than I am, it is that I have travelled and lived a good deal in southern climates, not to speak of other causes, which give premature age.”
A slight, a very slight touch of melancholy in the latter words gave them a deep interest to the youth, who, with a boyish frankness, far more fascinating than more finished courtesy, asked Roland if he would join their party. Had such a request been made half an hour before, or had it come in more formal fashion, Cashel would inevitably have declined it; but what between the generous candor of the youth’s address, and a desire to show that he did not resent his intrusion, Cashel acceded good-naturedly, and took his seat amongst them.
As Roland listened to the joyous freshness of their boyish talk, – the high-hearted hope, the sanguine trustfulness with which they regarded life, – he remembered what but a few years back he had himself been. He saw in them the selfsame elements which had led him on to every calamity that he suffered, – the passionate pursuit of pleasure, the inexhaustible craving for excitement that makes life the feverish paroxysm of a malady.
They sat to a late hour together; and when they separated, the chance acquaintance had ripened into intimacy. Night after night they met in the same place; and while they were charmed with the gentle seriousness of one in whom they could recognize the most manly daring, he, on his side, was fascinated by the confiding warmth and the generous frankness of their youth.
One evening, as they assembled as usual, Roland remarked a something like unusual excitement amongst them; and learned that from a letter they had received that morning, they were about to leave Naples the next day. There seemed some mystery in the reason, and a kind of reserve in even alluding to it, which made Cashel half suspect that they had been told who he was, and that a dislike to further intercourse had suggested the departure. It was the feeling that never left him by day or night, that dogged his waking and haunted his dreams, – that he was one to be shunned and avoided by his fellow-men. His pride, long dormant, arose under the supposed slight, and he was about to say a cold farewell, when the elder of the party, whose name was Sidney, said, —
“How I wish you were going with us!”
“Whither to?” said Cashel, hurriedly.
“To Venice – say, is this possible?”
“I am free to turn my steps in any direction, – too free, for I have neither course to sail nor harbor to reach.”
“Come with us, then, Roland,” cried they all, “and our journey will be delightful.”
“But why do you start so hurriedly? What is there to draw you from this at the very brightest season of the year?”
“There is rather that which draws us to Venice,” said Sidney, coloring slightly? “but this is our secret, and you shall not hear it till we are on our way.”
Roland’s curiosity was not exacting; he asked no more: nor was it till they had proceeded some days on their journey that Sidney confided to him the sudden cause of their journey, which he did in the few words. —
“La Ninetta is at Venice, – she is at the ‘Fenice.’”
“But who is La Ninetta? You forgot that you are speaking to one who lives out of the world.”
“Not know La Ninetta!” exclaimed he; “never have seen her?”
“Never even heard of her.”
To the pause which the shock of the first astonishment imposed there now succeeded a burst of enthusiastic description, in which the three youths vied with each other who should be most eloquent in praise. Her beauty, her gracefulness, the witching fascination of her movements, the enchanting captivation of her smile, were themes they never wearied of. Nor was it till he had suffered the enthusiasm to take its course that they would listen to his calm question, —
“Is she an actress?”
“She is the first Ballarina of the world,” cried one. “None ever did, nor ever will, dance like her.”
“They say she is a Prima Donna too; but how could such excellence be united in one creature?”
To their wild transports of praise Roland listened patiently, in the hope that he might glean something of her story; but they knew nothing, except that she was reputed to be a Sicilian, of a noble family, whose passion for the stage had excited the darkest enmity of her relatives; insomuch that it was said she was tracked from city to city by hired assassins. She remained two days at Naples; she appeared but once at Rome; in Genoa, though announced, she never came to the theatre. Such were the extravagant tales, heightened by all the color of romantic adventure, – how, at one time, she had escaped from a royal palace by leaping into the sea, – how, at another, she had ridden through a squadron of the Swiss Guard, sabre in hand, and got clean away from Bologna, where a cardinal’s letter had arrested her. Incidents the strangest, the least probable, were recounted of her, – the high proffers of marriage she had rejected; the alliances, even with royal blood, she had refused. There was nothing, where her name figured, that seemed impossible; hers was a destiny above all the rules that guide humbler mortals.
Excellence, of whatever kind it be, has always this attraction, – that it forms a standard by which men measure with each other their capacities of enjoyment and their powers of appreciation. Roland’s curiosity was stimulated, therefore, to behold with his own eyes the wonder which had excited these youthful heroics. He had long since ceased to be sanguine on any subject; and he felt that he could sustain disappointment on graver matters than this.
When they reached Venice, they found that city in a state of enthusiastic excitement fully equal to their own. All the excesses into which admiration for art can carry a people insensible to other emotions than those which minister to the senses, had been committed to welcome “La Regina de la Balla.” Her entrée had been like a triumph; garlands of flowers, bouquets, rich tapestries floating from balconies, gondolas with bands of music; the civic authorities even, in robes of state, met her as she entered; strangers flocked in crowds from the other cities of the north, and even from parts beyond the Alps. The hotels were crammed with visitors all eager to see one of whom every tongue was telling. A guard of honor stood before the palace in which she resided, – as much a measure of necessity to repel the pressure of the anxious crowd as it was a mark of distinction.
